1943-07-13

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Leader of the Opposition):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. A Canadian Press dispatch, under London, England, dateline of July 11, carried the following paragraph:
It once was thought that when the Canadians went into battle they would go as an army, but the term "army" has changed in meaning since the beginning of the North African campaign.
I should be glad if the Minister of National Defence would inform the house if the carrying out of these Mediterranean operations means that the Canadian army has been broken up, and that its units will now be fighting beside properly reinforced and equipped British and American troops who have had previous experience in other theatres of war.


Hon. J. L. RALSTON (Minister of National Defence):: The Mediterranean operations do not mean that the Canadian army has been

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broken up. I would refer the house to a statement which I made on May 13, 1943, as reported at page 2667 of Hansard. There I said:
. . . there seems to be an idea persisting in some quarters that the role of these units and formations in Canada's army is rigid. I wish to say that exactly the contrary is the case. The role of the units and formations in Canada's army is not rigid; their role is flexible. They can be taken apart on the principle of the sectional bookcase. It has always been and still is our policy that the Canadian army in whole or in part is available to be used wherever and for whatever task would best serve the common cause.
The Sicilian operations mean that this policy is being carried out by detailing from the Canadian army a Canadian force to serve in the Mediterranean theatre. The matter of future employment will of course depend upon developments.

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


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
36. Departmental administration, $252,525.
Mr. KNOWLES:: I should like to ask the Prime Minister a question relating to the Norway refinery of Falconbridge Nickel Mines Limited. It is a matter which has been mentioned in the house on previous occasions; in fact the Prime Minister had something to say about it on June 3. For reasons which I shall indicate in a moment, I feel that a further-statement is highly desirable.
This matter was first brought to the attention of the house by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) on May 11. At that time he referred to a statement included in the report to the shareholders which was made by the president of the Falconbridge Nickel Mines Limited, Mr. J. Gordon Hardy. The Prime Minister is well aware of the statement, which was to the effect that he, the president of the company, was glad to get the information that the Norway refinery was still in existence; they had received the information that it was still in operation, though under German control. Some days later, on June 3, as reported in Hansard, page 3282, the Prime Minister made a statement in which he expressed a view which I think is the view of all of us in this house. He said:
We know that the German government is very short of nickel, and it cannot be doubted that it would be to the advantage of the united nations if the Falconbridge refinery in Norway were to be rendered wholly inoperative.
I repeat that with that statement we all agree. The point is however that the statement made by the president of this company
was the very opposite of that which has been expressed by the Prime Minister. He stated in the report as president of the company:
Incidentally, you will be glad to learn-as I was-that through indirect channels it is reported that your Norway refinery is safe so far, and is being maintained. It is in operation by your Norwegian staff, under German control, on the same Norwegian nickel-copper ore production that we formerly handled on toll basis.
I do not wish to convey the impression that I think that Falconbridge Nickel Mines Limited are making any money out of the operations in Norway at the present time. The situation as I understand it, and my view is corroborated by the letter from Mr. Hardy to the Prime Minister under date of May 18, is that the company looks forward to the day, after the war, when it will be possible to regain some of the properties which have been lost because they were in countries that the nazis have overrun, and what the president was doing was to express his pleasure that, although Norway had been overrun, that plant had not been destroyed, it was still in existence; in other words, there was the possibility of the company getting possession of the plant again, intact, after the war. In the letter to which I have just referred under date of May 13 to the Prime Minister, Mr. Hardy endeavoured to say that if the context of the wording quoted by Mr. Coldwell were presented the situation would appear in a better light. However, in that letter Mr. Hardy says:
The loss of that refinery to the enemy in April, 1940, was a severe blow to this company, hence the possibility of regaining it when victory comes, has meant a great deal to this Canadian enterprise, and any news about the refinery has been most important to our shareholders.
I remind the Prime Minister again of the quotation from the report which I have already read. Perhaps a further sentence or two might be given:
In the balance sheet you will have noted an inventory item reading "Matte on hand and in process at cost". This includes the parallel item shown in your auditors' statement of assets and liabilities in Norway in-
I assume he means "in the amount of."
-$1,009.068-which has not been written off as yet, but simply covered by a claim posted with the Canadian custodian of enemy property. As a matter of fact, of course, this has undoubtedly gone into production of refined metals under enemy control, and has disappeared and hence will have to receive some sort of adjustment at the end of the war.
The point is that when your auditors give your "net working capital" at the end of 1942 as $6,238,598, the above item is included with "total current assets and metal inventories".
A reading of the context of the statement which was brought to the attention of this
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house on May 11 only stresses the point that the president of the company took a view directly the opposite of that expressed by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said that it would be to the advantage of the united nations if this plant were rendered wholly inoperative; the president expressed pleasure that the plant was still in existence so that the company would be able to get it again when the war is oyer.
My reason for raising this again and expressing the view that the Prime Minister ought to say something further about it is this. On June 3, when the Prime Minister spoke, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar asked if the government would not take some further steps. The Prime Minister said in reply:	[DOT]
Well, I may say that the statement which I have just made will, I believe, be more effective in its results than any other measure which the government could possibly take.
Some days later, as a matter of fact on June 23, sessional paper No. 405 was brought down in response to a motion made by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar which asked for correspondence between the Prime Minister and Mr. Hardy concerning this statement. The correspondence in the sessional paper consists of only two letters. One is a letter from Mr. Hardy to the Prime Minister, from which I have already quoted, and which endeavours to explain and to justify the statement, and the other is the reply signed by Mr. H. R. L. Henry, private secretary to the Prime Minister, in which he says:
The Prime Minister has directed me to acknowledge your letter of May 13th. regarding remarks by Mr. M. J. Cold-well, M.P., in -the House of Commons, with reference -to Falcon-bridge Nickel Mines, Limited.
Mr. King wishes me to thank you for drawing the enclosures with your letter .to his attention.
The point is that, following the tabling of this document in the house on June 23, considerable publicity was given to it throughout the country. I saw it myself in a number of newspapers from widely separated parts of the country, and, incorrect though it may be, the impression was created by the publication of the news of these letters that Mr. Hardy had made a satisfactory answer both to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar and to the Prime Minister. It is true, of course, that this correspondence took place- -before the Prime Minister made -his statement in the house, but it was tabled later, publicity was given to it later, and I repeat that the general impression is that Mr. Hardy has given a satisfactory answer to the criticisms made by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar and

supported by the Prime Minister. I am sure that if the Prime Minister studies the documents he will agree with me that the answer is not satisfactory, that it should be deprecated in the manner in which he did so on June 3, and I hope he will make a further statement on the matter at this time.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: I fail to see how the impression which my hon. friend says -has got abroad could possibly be the im-pression existing -throughout the country. That is a matter of opinion. The statement I made in this house condemned-perhaps that is not too strong a word to use-the very shortsighted, unwise and, I might add, unpatriotic statement made by Mr. Hardy, and I a-m certain that the public have fully recognized that the government looks upon his statement in that light. The acknowledgement sent by my secretary to Mr. Hardy's letter was a perfunctory acknowledgement. It allowed Mr. Hardy to see quite clearly that the government might make further reference to the matter. This further reference I made in the House of Commons. I do submit that having stated here in the House of Commons, as Prime Minister, that a statement made by the head of a mining corporation in this country was unwise and foolish, and that by implication it was unpatriotic, was making it very clear to the country -that the government had no sympathy whatever with the pronouncement and, on the contrary, condemned-it very strongly.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I would remind the Prime Minister that after he made his statement in the house these documents were made public, and, as I say, this sentence in particular was given wide publicity. It is a long sentence; I need not give the whole of it, because it is the last phrase that is important:
. . . and certainly does not merit the slur contained in Mr. Coldwell's ill-conceived remarks.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Read the whole sentence.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Very well. The sentence reads:
I could add that, in spite of this setback, the Falconbridge effort to do all in its power to produce such essential metals as nickel and copper for the war requirements, is well known to your munitions and supply department, and certainly does not merit the slur contained in Mr. Coldw'ell's ill-conceived remarks.
My point is that this statement, together with the perfunctory acknowledgment by the Prime Minister's secretary, are the last words which have appeared in the press on this

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matter to date. That was my reason for feeling that a further statement, condemning this statement outright, should be made by the Prime Minister.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Well, I will condemn it outright now. I think it should be condemned outright, and if my condemnation on a previous occasion was not sufficient I shall be glad to repeat everything now that I said on that other occasion.


Mr. CHURCH:: Just before eleven o'clock last evening I was discussing the estimates of this department and had called attention to the fact that in this item, which has to do with representation abroad, including salaries of high commissioners and so on, there is an increase of $211,000. With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, I do not see why we should have such an increase. This department has been growing by leaps and bounds. If it contributed to the war effort it would be all right, but I do not see that it does. I should like to see the Prime Minister's estimates, more than those of anyone else, go through as quickly as possible, but the opposition is not to blame for a discussion of these estimates lasting more than a day. Speeches have been made by government supporters, on July 1, on Monday of last week and again even more recently, about matters which I have said should be left until after the war, including a national anthem, a national flag and many other matters. The Prime Minister is a busy man and should receive some special consideration in view of the amount of work he is doing, but all along I have objected to the expansion of this department, to the opening of these legations and the sending abroad of ministers. We have always had trade representatives in these countries as well as other agencies, such as boards of trade and private organizations, looking after this work. It all began with the opening of the legation at Washington, when I first came into this house. I opposed that innovation, because I believed it was dividing Britain's representation.
The hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George stirred up a great deal of opposition to these estimates by the remarks he made in this house the other day. At that time he gave one good reason why he never should have become a parliamentary secretary; for his remarks have caused wide disunity not only in Canada but also in other parts of the empire. His words received extensive pub-. licity all over the United States. He was one of those favoured on the radio. He was also favoured with a visit to the United States, where he told the people, as Mr. Brockington told them, that King George did not declare
war for us but that we declared war for him, and all that sort of separatism in the midst of the greatest war in history. I have a great deal of respect for the Prime Minister; I have always had a great deal of respect and friendship for him, but friendship cannot alter my stand on principles which I have supported in and out of this house, before the war, in endeavouring to avoid the war, and since the war began. I represent in this house, as the former leader of this party, Lord Bennett, said, a very large body of public opinion in this country which believes in the need for the greatest possible cooperation and coordination with the mother country both for the remainder of the war and particularly after the war. If we are not linked with this great empire we shall have little say in regard to the peace terms and will be simply an outcast amongst the great powers of the world at the peace table.
Here we have almost a million dollars being spent in this way, and in addition we have the four or five million dollars we. have spent on the League of Nations, one of the agencies that caused this war. So far as these ambassadors go, they have not had any training for this work; they are just civilians who know nothing about foreign affairs. Our representative in Australia, Mr. Davis, is a very fine gentleman, but he went there and said that Japan, not Germany, was our principal enemy. He caused a great deal of dissatisfaction by those words, even in those dominions, because Germany is our main enemy; she pulled Japan, one of our old allies, into the war at the time of Pearl Harbor. The few mistakes Germany has made, in attacking Russia and in bringing about Pearl Harbor, no doubt will cost her the war sooner or later, but I do object to these amateur statesmen, for that is all they are. You cannot learn to be a diplomat in a day. The best diplomats we ever had in Washington were not the newspaper men we sent there, not the civilians but trained men like Spring-Rice and Lindsay. Then we have another representative, General Odium, a fine citizen and a fine soldier; he visited the city of Toronto and caused some disunity and criticism by the unnecessary aspersions and reflections he cast upon Toronto and Ontario, the empire province of the dominion.
I have wondered why no reference has been made to what was said the other day by Mr. Churchill in his letter to the former premier of northern Ireland, Mr. Andrews. Why has it been necessary to establish embassies in the north of Ireland and not in the south? It is said that southern Ireland is a part of the empire, but it has remained neutral and that step has been very costly to our shipping, our
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I read the address of Sir Keith Murdock delivered in London, England, when he asked for the creation of a war time cabinet, such as we had in the last war. It would not be necessary for the Prime Minister to go to London because someone else could fulfil his functions. But nothing was done and the result is that now on foreign affairs we are just moving from week to week and from month to month nowhere.
What Canada did in the last war was done voluntarily. Eor the last forty years we have helped the mother country when she was attacked, and we will do the same thing tomorrow and go to her help in her hour of peril. We will continue to do what we have always done as a unit in this empire. After all is said and done, we had a previous suggestion which was similar to that made by the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George. On March 31, 1939, a bill was introduced by the Hon. Mr. Thorson which declared to the world that if war came Canada would be neutral; she would have the status of a belligerent. This relying on status is just a pipe dream. We threw away our defences and our friends and the result was that when the war broke out we had to depend upon the mother country as in 1812 for all our defence. If it were not for Mr. Chamberlain and Munich and Dunkirk, long ago Washington and Ottawa would have had to make peace with the axis powers. When this bill was before the house on March 31, 1939, I expressed the same sentiments that I am expressing now. This bill sought to establish the status of Canada in war time. At that time I said:
The hon. member is evidently opposed to the former leader of the Liberal party, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who said that when Britain is at war, Canada is at war. Let me say to my hon. friend that Canada is not going to be talked out of the British empire. If Canada could have been talked out of the British empire, it would have been talked out long ago by some of those who came to Canada a few years ago and are enjoy-lng all the privileges and rights and liberties ot this country, but who refuse to pay tribute to the mother of nations who gave us these liberties .and the freedom and civilization we all enjoy. Everything we enjoy in this dominion to-day we owe to the protection of the British flag and the United Kingdom.
That bill did not pass and it did not come up again that session because within three months war was upon us. I agree with much of what my former leader, the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson), said yesterday about the duty of cooperation and coordination with the mother country until the end of the war and after. Any other remarks I may have to make on this matter I shall make at another time. This talk of our being 
a separate unit and all that kind of thing is just a repetition of what has been said before. The other day we heard Mr. Benes say that he wanted to get back after the war to his own country, Czechoslovakia. There will always be nations; patriotism is the cement that binds nations together. The downtrodden countries will be rebuilt. There is no use looking to somebody else to establish economic units in Europe, because they will never come. As a great author said long before the war, this country does not belong to those who inhabit it to-day; it is an inheritance from the past; it is a possession for the present, a trust for the future. Do not forget that we are only here to-day and away to-morrow. I believe in the British empire, past, present and future, and in the colonial empire and all that it stands for down the ages. One of the most glorious things in the history of the empire is the way the colonial empire policy has been administered, and there will be a further glory after the war in the days that are to come in the new empire.
In my opinion some of the dominions before the war were nothing but a drag on the mother country. Canadians all shouting "status" from the housetops and isolation and separatism and all that sort of thing. The people of this country do not believe in any such policy as that. The policy before the war, in 1936, 1937, 1938, and 1939 was special pleading, no overseas troops, no commitments, and so on. It would be far better if the people of Quebec knew the facts about these obligations that are being assumed by these proposed changes in the British North America Act. That is wrapped up with external affairs and the right to change our constitution from time to time. We are supposed to have separate status, which is wrapped up with the statute of Westminster. They say that they want another anthem and a flag, but the winning of the war should be the primary consideration to-day, not the secondary consideration of such matters.
This is the second time we have sent troops across the seas. This is the second time we have asked for a change in the British North America Act. We are the only dominion that has asked for a domestic change during the war. I want to draw just one other point to the attention of the Prime Minister. This is in connection with the lease-lend act and the state of affairs that will follow when we become linked up with that. It will be remembered that when the United States came into the war they loaned one hundred. General Grant tanks to the British eighth army. I should like to quote what Mr. Denys Smith had to say about this. He said;

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A hundred or so General Grant tanks sent to the British eighth army to aid in the defeat of Rommel were obviously welcome. A hundred or so tanks and also tank crews to man them would have obviously been even more welcome. But the lesser contribution becomes lease-lend aid and a charge against Britain, while the greater contribution would not. The Lease-Lend Act, in brief, has saddled the United Nations with an illogical principle which means that a certain type of the United States military effort is segregated and assumed to be the financial responsibility of others.
It goes on to say:
Nobody can tell what type of American Congress and administration will exist after the war or how it will employ the pressure weapon provided by lease-lend accounting. A great deal has been said about reciprocal lease-lend. It is undoubtedly useful to keep the American public aware of the fact that every nation provides its allies with aid without immediate cash compensation. But the material aid provided to the United States is never likely to be as great as that which the United States provides. It is time more attention was paid to the fundamental fallacy underlying lease-lend accounting or there may be a danger after the war of the world once again being saddled by a stifling blanket of inter-governmental debt.
It goes on to say, referring to Mr. Churchill's remark that he had not become the king's first minister to preside over the liquidation of the British empire.
What a terrible remark to make, these two groups complained. It would have been perfectly all right for the British prime minister to announce that the United Kingdom was fighting to prevent the liquidation of anybody else's territory, but to try and prevent the liquidation of British territory was the acme of selfishness.
I believe that the great masses of the American people have been right with us from the start of this war and before. But we must not forget that the United States is a cosmopolitan country. As the Manchester Guardian said before the war started the United States has quite a large population from Europe, Chicago being the second largest German city in the world. We rejoice in having this great country as our ally.
I appreciate what the Prime Minister has done. I have a great respect for him. He is a man of affairs and has worked hard on our external policy. I do not wish him to take anything that I have said this morning as spoken in a critical but constructive spirit. I am simply pointing out certain dangers to him. One of the members on the government side made a speech which I did not think was in the interest of inter-imperial relations but would tend rather to cause wide divisions among the dominions, and would not make for the good conduct of the war. I have taken a great deal of interest in foreign affairs for a number of years, and I want to say that the Prime Minister has been consistent
from the start on his status policy, while I have opposed it. We never wanted this war and it was not the Prime Minister's fault alone that it came.


Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: Can the Prime Minister tell us what the wartime information board is doing with regard to South America? I understand they are sending a Mr. Ross down there next month.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is an item under the war appropriation bill that relates to the wartime information board. When we reach that item I intend to make a full statement on the board and its work. Perhaps my hon. friend would not mind deferring his question until then.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I
thought we were on that right now.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
37. Representation abroafi-including salaries of high commissioners, ministers plenipotentiary, consuls, secretaries and staff, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Civil Service Act or any of its amendments, $988,990.
Mr. GREEN:: Will the Prime Minister tell us whether there are any negotiations under way for the setting up after the war of an air route from Canada to Australia and New Zealand similar to the air route across the Atlantic in which Canada, Newfoundland, Eire, and Great Britain are to be partners? It is of great importance to those of us who live on the Pacific slope that there should be air connection with Australia and New Zealand and it would be of great interest to know whether any steps have been taken leading to the setting up of such a route, and if not has the government such negotiations in mind?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The whole question of air routes after the war is one of the most important and at the same time one of the largest questions which not only this government but all the governments have to face. For some time past there has been consideration of matters related to the question. of aviation in its different aspects, but I would not wish to describe what has taken place thus far as being in the nature of negotiations. The stage of negotiations has not been reached, but the whole subject is being considered very carefully so that when the time does come to discuss these matters in a final way the government will be fully informed and prepared to make its own decision in respect thereto.

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Howard Charles Green: Is the government giving consideration to a trans-Pacific route as well as a trans-Atlantic route?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think I might say that all possible routes are being considered and their possibilities explored.


Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: I do not think the Prime Minister answered a question I asked the other day in connection with post-war aviation, with particular reference to the convening of a conference that was reported in t'he press in a dispatch from Washington, dated July 8, reading in part as follows:
Discussions among British commonwealth countries on the broad subject of post-war aviation are being proposed by the British government, it was reported here to-day.
The meeting, likely to be held in London, will precede any aviation conference among the united nations.
Is the Prime Minister in a position to advise whether negotiations are at present going on with the British government for the convening of that conference?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend has heard of fishing expeditions. There are members of the press in all countries who are anxious to find out what is going on in other countries. I regard the press report to which reference has been made, as I said in the house the other day, as flying a kite with a view to drawing information from this administration that might be used elsewhere for purposes that might serve certain ends but perhaps not all the ends that we would wish to see served. I prefer to say nothing at this time in reply to the question my hon. friend has asked, but he may be sure that with respect to all of these most important post-war questions careful consideration is being given to the proper steps to be taken as between t'he different governments concerned.


Gordon Graydon: The Prime Minister has covered a wide range in discussing the objectives behind these inquiries in connection with international air routes. When I raised the question he spoke of it as a trial balloon; now it is a fishing expedition, and at another time flying a kite. That covers quite a range.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am saying that it is the press correspondents who are flying the kites and balloons and fishing.


Gordon Graydon: Oh, quite.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
39. Expenses in connection with the negotiation of treaties, $5,000.
Gordon Graydon: I suppose this sum is to cover travelling expenses and so forth in connection with the various negotiations.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Incidental
expenses in connection with negotiations.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
l/l. Grant to the International Red Cross Committee, $25,000.
Gordon Graydon: Will the Prime Minister explain what he means by the International
red cross committee? Is that a special organization outside the Red Cross Society?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is the
committee at Geneva, the work of which on Canada's behalf has been very much increased. In the supplementary estimates we intend to ask for a sum of $15,000 in addition to what is requested here. The committee has been giving a great deal of time and attention to matters relating to the needs of our prisoners of war in internment camps in Europe and Asia.


Gordon Graydon: A good deal of work has been done and excellent service rendered by some body-perhaps this committee, though I am not sure-in the forwarding and transferring of parcels to prisoners of war in various parts of enemy-occupied countries. I rather fancy this committee handles that work, but I am only supposing so.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The International Red Cross is supported by contributions from governments and national Red Cross societies. As the central committee at Geneva has received generous grants from the Swiss government and the Swiss public, little if any of the funds contributed by the belligerent countries is required to support the central organization, and therefore the greater part is spent by the committee in their work on behalf of prisoners of war and interned civilians. Delegates who visit prisoner and internment camps regularly are maintained by the committee in all belligerent countries. These delegates make reports on camp conditions which are duly transmitted by the international committee to the interested governments. They also do a great deal to provide comforts and means of recreation for prisoners of war. The amount of work which the international committee is doing on behalf of Canadian prisoners of war and internees in enemy hands is steadily increasing as the number of Canadian prisoners of war in enemy hands increases. With the outbreak of war in the far east a further responsibility has been placed on the International Red Cross. Three new delegates have been named in

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Japan, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and reports have been and are now being received from them.


Gordon Graydon: Are the relationships with Japan, so far as the International Red Cross is concerned, working out favourably now, and has there been a change for the better in connection with the operations of the prisoners of war situation in that country?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: They are somewhat better, but still far from satisfactory.


Thomas Langton Church: I would ask the Prime Minister to table a copy of the American Red Cross report for 1939 with respect to China. I ask that question for the information of the house. Secondly, has the Prime Minister further information with regard to the continued shackling of Canadian prisoners through the International Red Cross?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I shall have to look into the report first and refresh my memory on its contents before deciding whether it should be tabled.


Gordon Graydon: Does the Japanese government allow representatives of the International Red Cross committee to make investigations and visit prisoners of war in that country as a normal part of their procedure?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


Mr. STIRLING:: Can the Prime Minister give us any information, either from Red Cross sources or from any other, as to the position of the Canadian civilian in Japan? Is he allowed his liberty, is he interned, is he working? The reason I ask the question is that I should like to be in a position to make a comparison between the way in which the Canadian is treated in Japan and the way in which the Japanese are treated in Canada.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The question is a wide one. I am not in a position to give information at the moment, but at some subsequent time perhaps I shall be able to do so.


Howard Charles Green: Last night the Prime Minister said he would try to get the figures on the number of Japanese in Canada who have asked to be repatriated. Can he give those figures to-day?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I will try to have all particulars asked for last night given to the committee this afternoon when we come again to the war appropriation bill. They were asked in that connection and I was holding the information until that time.
72537-297i
The total number of Canadians in the far east at present is approximately 1,000.


Grote Stirling: Civilians?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes. In Europe, 1,120. Of internees, there are in the far east 163 and in Europe 300.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Canada's contributions to maintenance of external organizations.
48. Expenses of the League of Nations for 1943, including secretariat, international labour organization and permanent court of international justice, $125,700.
Thomas Langton Church: I have already expressed my opinion on the League of Nations, but I do not see why there is any reason for the league's useless existence at all at the present time. It is fulfilling no useful function. Secondly, with regard to the permanent international court of justice, I suggest that Russia is not going to wait for the establishment of any court of justice out here in America, which is thousands of miles away from the scenes of slaughter. A million Polish Jews have been taken to the abattoir in Poland and other places, and Russia will deal with the situation on the spot and execute those responsible before any court of justice can sit. As regards the other feature of this whole question, we are still expending money on the League of Nations, and all I can say is that I do not believe in it and never did. I do not believe in this form of collective security. We can see similar ideals of other great empires in the past propounded in the days of such writers as Gibbon and later Bryce, and for my part I have no confidence in them, because I am firmly convinced that nothing will ensure our safety in the future so much as the British navy and British arms. So long as Britain is armed you may be sure that we shall have collective security, and that security is immeasurably strengthened by the fleet. After all, the Monroe doctrine was just the British fleet for a hundred years. It is but an ideal.


Mr. REID:: Are the members of the league meeting just now and what members are meeting? Where are they meeting and why the increase this year?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: 
[Stage Direction]
mendation of the international labour conference held in New York in 1941, that a special grant of 1,000,000 Swiss francs should be provided for the international labour office for the study of .post-war reconstruction.
The international labour office has been proceeding with its programme of study in accordance with this recommendation and the amounts necessary to cover the work done in 1942 and to be achieved this year are both included in the league budget for 1943. Another reason for the current increase has been that certain states under axis control gave, over two years ago, notice of their retirement, and this notice has now become effective, thus reducing the potential contributors to the support of the league institutions. The league is financed by assessing against each member state a certain number of units of contribution based roughly on each state's capacity to pay. Canada has for many years been assessed 35 units. Most of the satellite European states under axis control have ceased to be members of the league and the contributions assessed against the allied European governments whose territories have been overrun by the enemy have been reduced to token figures. Hence the total number of units of contribution has been sharply reduced and the member states in the British commonwealth, Latin America and elsewhere whose territories have not been overrun by the enemy bear a higher proportion of the total budget.
My hon. friend is aware that the international labour office is at present located in Montreal and is carrying on its business there, and has had various meetings. The league assembly and the council are not in being at this time.
Item agreed to.
44. Portion of expenditure of the imperial economic committee, $1,575.
Gordon Graydon: What are the total expenses connected with the imperial economic committee, and who share the balance of the expenses which are incurred? I see that our portion is $1,575. Perhaps the Prime Minister would give the committee some further details as to what the committee exercises its jurisdiction over.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: 
Mr. BLACKMORE:: To what kind of
work does this committee devote its attention?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: At the moment the committee is existing more or less in a skeleton form. In ordinary times its work consists in sharing as between the different parts of the British empire information on important economic matters of mutual interest and concern.


John Horne Blackmore: While I realize the
Prime Minister must answer in general terms, the members of the committee have no possible way of determining what kind of work this committee is doing. Are they, for example, endeavouring to learn how the nations of the empire can trade to better advantage, how they can overcome adverse trade balances, how they can repay international debts -all that sort of thing-or are they devoting their time to finding out where they can be producing sugar, wool or other products? I should like to know what this committee is, what it has done for us, and whether we are justified in supporting it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Here again
may I say to my hon. friend that, where reports are in existence, which contain detailed

Supply-External Affairs
information, it is reasonable to expect that hon. members will consult the reports. The reports of this committee have been tabled, they are in the library, they give the details. In general terms, the work is largely statistical, the gathering of statistical information which will be of service to different parts of the empire on economic questions. I cannot tell my hon. friend from memory what particular statistics are being or have been gathered. But it is one of those organizations which is a helpful reference organization on matters of economic importance and interest to all parts of the British commonwealth.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
J/S. Portion of expenses of international wheat council, $2,775.
Mr. MARSHALL:: This is an entirely new item. Is there any relationship between the former committee, which wras the wheat advisory committee, and this international wheat council, and would the Prime Minister tell us the names of the members of the council and give us any other information he may have?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend is correct in assuming that this council supersedes the old advisory committee. The countries represented are Canada, Australia, Argentina, the United States and the United Kingdom.


James Alexander Marshall: This is not an advisory committee to the wheat board? It has no connection with it whatever?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No. It has been set up under the wheat agreement. It is not a local body.


John Horne Blackmore: Am I correct in
assuming that the object of this committee is to limit production of Canadian wheat? I understand that the object of the international wheat agreement was to limit production.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No; I think my hon. friend is wrong in saying that such was the object of the agreement.


John Horne Blackmore: I am merely suggesting it; I did not say so.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
James Alexander Marshall: There is an item just below that in the next column, "Appropriation not required for 1943-44, SI,955." What does that cover?


The CHAIRMAN:: Hon. members will
please turn to page 30, item 247, Prime Minister's office.


Gordon Graydon: Just a moment, Mr. Chairman. We have not finished the other items on page 8, have we?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The remaining items are statutory appropriations.


James Alexander Marshall: I did not catch what the Prime Minister said.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am sorry; I thought my hon. friend had concluded what he had to say.


James Alexander Marshall: The question I asked the Prime Minister was, on page 8 of the estimates there appears in italics the words, "Appropriation not required for 1943-44, SI.955." What does that refer to?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That was for the old wheat advisory committee. This council, as I have said, supersedes that committee; we are requesting a vote for the council and dropping the vote for the advisory committee.


Mr. QUELCH:: Has the wheat council a central office at some point?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Its headquarters are in Washington.


John Horne Blackmore: Does the dominion
government look upon the recommendations of this wheat council as binding? Is there anything in the working of this council that at all resembles the pernicious thing that was done in 1937, when Canada agreed not to produce more beet sugar, for example?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The body is purely advisory, and all the agreements have been tabled.


@Acting Chair(man)? of Committees of the Whole: (Mr. Golding) : If hon. members will turn to page 30-


Gordon Graydon: Before we do that, Mr. Chairman, there is a point I think perhaps should be raised here in connection with two items which, as the Prime Minister quite properly pointed out, are statutory and cannot be reduced by a vote in committee. Nevertheless I think they must be passed by the committee in order that the amounts provided may be made actually available.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No. Parliament has already appropriated' the money by statute.


Gordon Graydon: Surely that does not prevent a discussion of the items, since they are in the estimates. I think on previous occasions we have always taken the position that even though some statutory provision was made for a certain sum of money to be paid, as long as it actually appeared in the estimates for the current year we were not precluded from discussing such items.
Supply-External Affairs


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have no desire to preclude any discussion, but I thought nay hon. friends' objection was raised to the chairman calling another item. There are no further items to be called under the heading of external affairs, because in connection with the statutory items the necessary supply has already been appropriated by parliament.


Gordon Graydon: If that is the case why do they appear in the estimates at all?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: They help to give the house a picture of the total expenditures, some of which represent appropriations made year by year, while others are appropriations by statute covering once and for all a period of years.


Mr. HARRIS (Danforth):: What the Prime Minister says is quite true in all respects, except that he knows it has been the practice in other years to call these items.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think my hon. friend is quite wrong in making that statement. They are not called, because the money has already been appropriated. However, the leader of the opposition is quite right in saying that if there is any matter pertaining to external affairs it should! be open to the committee to question the government with respect to it at some time in a consideration of the estimates.


Gordon Graydon: I have one or two questions I should like to ask on this general item, if I may, in connection with the annuity payable to Hon. Philippe Roy. Could the Prime Minister tell me when the legislation was passed providing for this annuity, how long it has been paid, and how long it will be paid in future according to the legislation?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The appropriation was made in 1938, when the Hon. Philippe Roy retired from the post of minister to France. The annuity has been paid since that time. How long it will continue to be paid will depend) upon how long Mr. Roy continues to live, which I hope may be for many years.


Gordon Graydon: In other words, it was made payable during his lifetime?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


Gordon Graydon: Is that the general practice in connection with those who retire from the diplomatic service?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In Mr. Roy's case there were exceptional reasons. Mr. Roy had been appointed years ago as eom-

missioner-general. to France, before Canada had any legations. When the legation at Paris was opened Mr. Roy was made the first minister. At the time this annuity was granted to Mr. Roy his long and quite exceptional service to Canada, as our representative in France, was taken into consideration by parliament, and it was thought appropriate to accord that recognition to one who had given so many years of distinguished service. I might say to my hon. friend that the whole question of what in our diplomatic service should be granted in the way of allowances or annuities or pensions on retirement is a very large problem which up to the present we have not faced squarely. At different times the department has tried to work out a scheme that would cover the entire diplomatic service and have it placed on a basis similar to that which exists in Britain with respect to pensions and retiring allowances. One circumstance after another has prevented us from getting ahead with that particular plan. For the last four years, of course, the war has accounted for the fact that we have not brought forward any scheme of pensions to such members of the public service on retirement.


Gordon Graydon: Was Mr. Roy in the
public service for some considerable time prior to accepting his original commission in France?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: For some years Mr. Roy was a senator in this parliament. His original appointment as commissioner-general to France was made as long ago as 1911. From 1911 to 1928, I think it was, he was commissioner; and from 1928-


Gordon Graydon: Was lie still a senator while he was commissioner?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Oh, no; he
resigned from the senate at the time of his appointment.


Gordon Graydon: Has the Prime Minister any details as to his salary as commissioner to France?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not recall what his salary was as commissioner, but as minister his salary was $12,000.


Gordon Graydon: And how long was he minister to France before he retired and accepted this annuity?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As I was about to say, he was minister for ten years. Before that he was commissioner for a number of years, going back to 1911.


Gordon Graydon: I think perhaps I am in a particularly good position to discuss this

Supply-External Affairs
item in an entirely detached way, because I approach it without any knowledge at all of what lies back of it. It is a straight question of principle, in view of the many calls upon the public treasury. I have a full realization of what the Prime Minister has said, that this constitutes a difficult problem for the government; nevertheless I do not not think the item should be passed just as a matter of course without drawing to the attention of the government and of the public generally the suggestion that we cannot be too careful about safeguarding the position in regard to payments of this kind. There are many people to-day who come to the late years of their lives, having perhaps rendered great service to the nation, who still are not safeguarded and protected by statute or by appropriations such as this. I do not want my remarks to be taken as any reflection upon the personality involved in this instance, because I know of no reason why I should place my remarks on that basis, but I believe the Prime Minister and the government will readily recognize the feeling that exists throughout the country with respect to many of these annuities and pensions to men who have given certain service to the country. In cases where low salaries have been paid, where men have worked for the government for many years at such salaries, one can realize that such men would not be able to put very much aside for a rainy day. In previous years, before I became leader of the opposition, I have drawn other instances to the attention of the government to show the possibility of grave misunderstanding and to indicate that there does not exist any equality of treatment in this regard. Perhaps you cannot attempt to establish any real measure of equality right across the country in connection with these matters. Nevertheless it is apt to be misunderstood, regardless of the position of the person affected. I believe the Prime Minister will understand any observations I make with respect to the Hon. Philippe Roy, and that I certainly would not wish to do him any injustice in anything I say. I would point out however that the government must exercise great caution in a matter of this kind, and I raise the matter only as one of principle.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I agree entirely with my hon. friend as to the desirability of safeguarding a principle. But I would point out that the many considerations which prompted the granting of this annuity were carefully considered by parliament at the time it was granted. Some of the circumstances come to mind at the moment. Mr. Roy was our representative in France throughout the whole of the last war. During that time his home was open house-I believe
I may use that expression-to Canadian soldiers and to visitors from Canada. Both Madame Roy and Mr. Roy devoted their time and energy, day in and day out, and also contributed very liberally from their own personal means to furthering the well-being of members of the Canadian forces who from time >to time were in Paris, and in extending hospitality to members of governments, high officials and others who happened to be in Paris. It was apparent that the service Mr. Roy had rendered was a very exceptional one, and one which ought to be recognized by parliament. I would add that I believe the annuity was supported by members in all parts of the house.


John Horne Blackmore: I am not sure that $5,000 is either too much or too little, but I am thoroughly in accord with the principle underlying the granting of annuities to men who have given great service to their country. Perhaps this would be a fitting time to observe that there are many thousands of people in Canada who have rendered great service to the country. Ordinarily we refer to them as old age pensioners, each and every one of whom is entitled to an annuity which will enable him to live in peace and contentment.
I would remind the Prime Minister that there is a considerable agitation throughout the country in favour of reducing to sixty-five years the age at which old age pensions may be received, and for increasing the pension to $30 a month. I believe the Prime Minister would do well to mention these facts to his cabinet, and at the same time to express himself favourably in this connection.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
International Joint Commission-salaries and expenses of the commission, $75,000.
Gordon Graydon: Have all the vacancies on the commission been filled?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is one
vacancy.


Gordon Graydon: Does the Prime Minister recall whose death or removal caused the vacancy?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It was the death of Mr. Kyte, if I am not mistaken.


Gordon Graydon: Who constitute the commission?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hon. Charles Stewart, chairman of the Canadian section, is one of the members, and Mr. J. E. Per-rault, of the province of'Quebec, is another. There is one vacancy. Then, there are three members of the United States section.
Swpply-External Affairs


James Alexander Marshall: How much was expended last year?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have not the information before me, but I shall have it ater in the day.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
248. Privy council office-general administra-ion, $77,925.
Gordon Graydon: Has the Prime Minister my details of this amount?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: They are to be found at page 171 of the estimates.


Gordon Graydon: That is satisfactory.
Item' agreed to.
84. Office of the secretary to the Governor General, including allowance of $2,500 per annum to the secretary to the Governor General, $104,745.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Would there be any objection to carrying this item?


Gordon Graydon: There would be no
objection, except that someone in committee yesterday indicated a desire to speak with "espect to it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We said we would not open another department. This is not another department; however, I am quite prepared to allow it to stand.


Gordon Graydon: I would rather permit it to pass, but in what I have said I am just protecting the Prime Minister.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I understand. The item is the same as we have passed for some years.


John Horne Blackmore: It is still in the same department.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No, this covers the office of the secretary to the Governor General.


John Horne Blackmore: But it comes under the Department of External Affairs?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No. The Prime Minister usually makes himself responsible for estimates in the name of the Governor General's office. I felt I might not happen to be in the house at a time when items were being passed near the close of the session, and that it might be more convenient to pass it now.


John Horne Blackmore: I would favour passing it.


Gordon Graydon: Yes, let it go through. Item agreed to. ,
Progress reported.
'Mr. Mackenzie King.]



WAR APPROPRIATION BILL


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, July 12, consideration in committee of a resolution to grant to his majesty certain sums of money for the carrying out of measures consequent upon the existence of a state of war-Mr. Ilsley-Mr. Golding in the chair.
DEPARTMENT OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS External Affairs, sundry services, $163,000.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Chairman, last night the leader of the opposition asked if I would give a break-down of the item for 1163,000. It is as follows:
Evacuation of staff	 $ 5,000
Evacuation of offices	 30,000
Consular services St. Pierre		5,000
Permanent joint board on defence.	5,000
Joint economic committee	 20,000
Evacuation of Japanese nationals.	25,000
Claims allotment	 50,000
Special war time assistants, Prime Minister's office	 23,000
Total	 $163,000


Gordon Graydon: Have we a consular representative at St. Pierre?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


Gordon Graydon: Has he been there only since the seizure of the island by the de Gaullist forces, or was he there prior to that?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It was subsequent.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Will the Prime Minister answer the question I asked with regard to the wartime information board sending men to South America and Central America?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As that brings up the subject of the wartime information board, I should like to make a statement to precede discussion.


Gordon Graydon: Were we not to take general administration first?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We may do so if hon. members prefer. The item will be found on page 925 of Hansard of March 3, 1943:
Statutory orders and regulations division- general administration, $22,608.


Mr. CLAXTON:: This item covers just one activity of the privy council office, that concerned with the registration and publication of Canadian War Orders and Regulations. In 1942 it was found that there were

War Appropriation-External Affairs
a great number of war orders and regulations, some of which were being published in the Canada Gazette and others by departmental means. It was considered desirable to have the orders of all departments as well as of the governor general in council registered in one place in the privy council office and printed. If they were of general interest they were to be included in a publication to be issued. Since November, 1942, this work has been carried on and this item is to cover the cost.


Gordon Graydon: How is it decided whether they are of general interest?


Brooke Claxton: General instructions were given in the order in council which set up the division of the privy council office. This is P.C. 10793, of which section 4 reads:
4. A registry shall be established in the privy council office, under the supervision of the director, in which shall be filed copies of:
(a)	proclamations relating to the war and all orders of the governor in council, including [DOT]minutes of council and of treasury board, relating to the war, of a legislative character or of an administrative character having general effect or imposing a penalty;
(b)	all orders, rules and regulations, relating to the war, of a legislative character or of an administrative character having general effect or imposing a penalty, made by ministers of the crown;
(e) all orders, rules and regulations, relating to the war, of a legislative character or of an administrative character having general effect or imposing a penalty, made by a government board, agency, controller, administrator or other officer who may have authority to make such enactments.
That section contains the definition of the orders which are registered and which are to be published in this publication.


Gordon Graydon: It is legislation of an administrative character or that which imposes a penalty?


Brooke Claxton: Of a legislative character or of an administrative character having general effect or imposing a penalty.


John George Diefenbaker: This is one thing for which the Prime Minister deserves commendation. Prior to the publication of these orders in council and proclamations month by month it was very difficult to have any conception of what the law was on the matters covered by orders in council without undertaking a great deal of research and unnecessary work. I have a further suggestion to make. Except for one or two returns that have been brought down during the period of this parliament and which set forth various statutes which have been amended, suspended or abrogated in whole or in part, there is no
reference available either to the legal profession as a whole, to business or to members of parliament which would disclose the statutes that have been so amended. I should like to see this present publication continued, as no doubt it will be, but I would suggest that an appendix be added to each issue giving a record of the statutes which have been amended or abrogated, either in whole or in part. It would also be of great benefit to have a list containing all statutes which have been so affected up to date, and also have an addition to the statutes of Canada as they are issued each year giving this information. It is almost impossible to know the position with respect to these matters, even with the assistance of this monthly publication.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am informed by the clerk of the council that he and others have been giving consideration to the very matter referred to by my hon. friend, and they hope to be able to meet the problem he has raised.


Grote Stirling: I should like to see a reproduction of the very useful directory which was published a year and a half ago and which gave information in connection with the various boards and controllers and committees which exist as a consequence of our war activities. This was issued by the predecessors of the wartime information board and it has not been reproduced. It is hard enough when we are in Ottawa to find out who are the members of this board or that committee and where they are located, but when we go to the different parts of Canada it is utterly impossible to get this information.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think the suggestion of my hon. friend is a good one, and I shall make it a point to recommend that the present war information board bring up to date the information which was contained in the original publication.


Thomas Langton Church: Statutory orders are of two classes. First, there are the statutes passed by this parliament, but another innovation has crept in of recent years. Orders of controls and subcontrols and other bodies [DOT] are given the force and effect of statutes. This matter has been criticized in the old land. We have spent only one or two days on foreign affairs, which is one of the most important questions before us, and I suggest that in the recess of parliament the Prime Minister consider issuing white papers on the war to inform us as to what is going on. We should have been told, for instance, about

4704	COMMONS
War Appropriation-External A flairs
North Africa and many other matters. I think it would clear up a lot of misunderstandings and settle a lot of doubts and fears if the Prime Minister would issue white papers from time t'o time. I hope he will consider the suggestion in the recess of parliament.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I shall be glad to give consideration to my hon. friend's suggestion.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I suggest that as there will probably be a discussion of some importance on the wartime information board, we might call it one o'clock.


Gordon Graydon: Does that mean that our general discussion with respect to privy council matters is closed when discussion on the wartime information board begins?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.
The committee resumed at three o'clock.
Wartime information board, $658,000.


Thomas Langton Church: Before we proceed to
the discussion of this item, Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a statement on a question of privilege. Last Friday I ordered one hundred copies of Hansard of Tuesday, July 6, to send out to Toronto for distribution among my constituents. They were put into sealed envelopes and mailed by a messenger. Unknown to me, the copies that arrived for distribution were French copies, and they reached their destination over the week-end of July 12. Prominent Orange leaders and others, including ministers of the gospel, received them. The hoax was on me and I received many good-natured notes from several members this morning. I do not believe that the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services had anything to do with it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Before saying
anything about the work of the wartime information board, a word is, I think, desirable about the purpose of governmental information services in war time.
Information has two sides: one is the provision of information within the country; the other the dissemination in other countries of information about our country and its war effort. I shall first say a word about information within the country.
In modern total war, the whole of the energies and resources of the country, above

those needed to maintain the health and efficiency of the people, must be directed into channels which contribute to the prosecution of the war.
This process involves a transformation of the occupations and the habits of life of a large proportion of the people; and some degree of interference with the ordinary peace-time behaviour of almost everyone in the country.
In a democracy, success in achieving these ends depends on the willing consent and participation of the vast majority. It is not as in dictatorships where despots seek acquiescence by force and delusive propaganda. It is for citizens of a democracy themselves to be convinced of the need for doing what is required of them. To have that conviction they must have the facts clearly put before them. They must know what is required of them and why. They must be told what are the ends that are sought, and how it is proposed to achieve them. They must know the results of the policies with which they are asked to * comply. They must be informed of the progress of the effort of the nation in which they are taking part. They have a right to know everything connected with the war, except where lives would be endangered, or the enemy aided, or where the national interest would be hurt. Indeed if they are to set their minds to the fullest participation in war-time activities they must have the greatest possible knowledge and understanding of these activities.
Of course, all this information does not take the form of government "hand-outs," broadcasts by ministers, or interviews with the press. In this country, I venture to say that parliament itself is the greatest of all the information services. The members come here from all parts of the country; they know what is in the minds of their constituents; they reflect the views, the doubts, the questions, sometimes even the confusion in the public mind, in their speeches in the house, in questions to the government, in conversation with ministers and1 officials and in many other ways I do not need to recall to hon. members. Naturally the information brought out in parliament flows back in turn from hon. members themselves, through the press, the radio, et cetera, to the public.
The press and the radio, films, discussion clubs, service clubs and voluntary organizations throughout the country are all invaluable instruments of war-time information. Their contribution to information and understanding is all the more valuable because it is tempered by criticism, and by all the constructive impulses which are born of freedom.

War Appropriation-External Affairs
With these free agencies operating as effectively as they do, a free country does not need the elaborate information machine of a dictatorship. Nor does it for the further reason that it is not trying to do the thinking for the people as in a dictatorship, or to supply their attitudes ready made. It has been found necessary, however, in all democratic countries in war time to set up information services to aid and supplement the work of the regular free agencies. The magnitude and complexity of national war-time activities are so great that auxiliary facilities are needed. These are provided by information services whose task it is to work inside the government machinery to help collate and bring out the facts, and make them readily available to the voluntary agencies. Thus, by filling a need to help increase the flow of factual material of all kinds to the people, information sendees have a vital part in democracy in war time.
I turn now to the reasons for disseminating information in other countries about the war effort of our own country. I shall say very little on this point because I believe the need is almost unanimously acknowledged both in the house and the country.
Canada is a partner in the company of united nations. The success of the combined efforts of the allied powers depends largely upon mutual good-will. Good-will in turn demands accurate, full and constant information. It is the acknowledged aim of the enemy's propaganda to sow discord among the united nations by spreading lies and halftruths in each of the allied nations about its partners. So important do the nazis consider this warfare of words, or political warfare, that they have spent and continued to spend staggering sums on propaganda. The germs of false propaganda can only do their evil work in the darkness of ignorance. They can be destroyed only with the light of truth. But it is still more satisfactory if accurate information can be supplied before the false propaganda is spread abroad. That is why every free country at war has given so much attention to disseminating information outside its own borders.
Before the present war, Canada had little or no experience of this important side of wartime activity. The government approached it with caution and hesitation. For obvious reasons, it was more important for Canada to see that accurate information was available in the United States than in any other country. Before the United States entered the war that was a matter of extreme delicacy. After the entry of the United States, the technical difficulties were not so great, but the American people became increasingly absorbed in their own war effort, and consequently relatively
less interested in the activities of another country. This situation increased the danger of misunderstandings. There was a growing concern in Canada to find some means of preventing possible misunderstanding by the provision of accurate information in the United States. Several hon. members gave expression to that concern. The concern was fully shared by the government, and it was out of that concern that the wartime information board was established.
In order .to secure the most expert advice as to the appropriate action to meet that problem, the government invited Mr. Charles Vining, one of the leading authorities in the field of public relations, to examine the situation and prepare a report. When Mr. Vining's report was received, no time was lost in con-'sidering its recommendations. They were wholeheartedly accepted by the government and as a measure of our readiness to give full effect to them, Mr. Vining was invited to be chairman of the wartime information board he bad recommended. He was given a completely free hand in organizing the work of the board.
One of Mr. Vining's fundamental recommendations was that external and domestic informational activities should be combined under a single unified administration. Up to that time, domestic war-time information had been administered by the 'bureau of public information in the Department of National War Services. The bureau was well organized and had been- doing good work under the direction of Mr. Herbert Lash and Mr. Claude Melancon. I should like to record the government's appreciation of their faithful service as pioneers in this difficult field of wartime activity.
It was primarily to meet the need for external activities that the wartime information board was established. Mr. Vining supervised the establishment of offices in New York and Washington, and of a headquarters staff in Ottawa which would keep these offices abroad fully and regularly informed of developments in Canada.
To the great regret of the government, Mr. Vining was obliged by continued ill-health to give up his duties as chairman of the board. On his recommendation, an alteration was made in the administrative structure of the board to provide for a general manager to act as chief executive officer. Mr. John Grierson, the government film commissioner, accepted this, post in addition to the one he already occupied with the national film board. This combination of functions has the advantage of effecting a further coordination of war-


Brooke Claxton: Mr. Chairman, the subject of the wartime information board has already received some mention in the house this session. On April 7, and on May 19 and 20 there were references to it, and it is my submission that those references indicated that the house and country need a good deal more information about the information board. During the discussion on those days I think it is fair to say that the general purpose of the board was not under criticism. I do not think anyone said that the working of the board was in any sense faulty. It was however suggested on a number of occasions that the salaries of the board and expenditures by the board had expanded out of all recognition. I hope to show the committee that the facts on which
those assertions were based are simply not accurate. The salaries have not expanded. The number of people on the payroll has not increased, and expenditures on the board, instead of increasing, have actually been decreased as the work has changed, and as emphasis on different parts of it has changed. I hope, as I succeed in showing this, that hon. members of the committee, the press and the public will give the board and those responsible for it the credit I think is due to it for having done an exceedingly good job at a low cost- a cost lower, I submit, in proportion, than that charged to any government of which we have any knowledge. (
Referring first to the work outside of Canada, as the Prime Minister has said, this was only begun with the appointment of the wartime information board, following the receipt of the Vining report. Mr. Vining indicated to the government that there should be nothing in the nature of a publicity campaign, that there should be a minimum of commotion, that the offices of the board should be small and efficient, that they should largely work through the press and other instruments, and not in any way seek to take the place of the press. That object has been achieved, to a really extraordinary degree.
First a word about the offices. We have heard a description in Mr. Givens' letter of the work done in the New York office. The staff consists of eleven persons under Mr. Harry Sedgwick, to whom reference has been made. It is attached closely to the office of the Canadian consul-general, Mr. H. D. Scully, and occupies modest offices at No. 620 Fifth avenue. At Washington there are three on the staff, under the very able direction of Mr. J. H. Campbell, formerly publicity director of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the west. These small staffs, acting as the front for the organization in Canada, and also acting very closely with Canadian newspapers, the Canadian Press and the British United Press -the two Canadian services-have really achieved remarkable results in a very short time.
The committee would be interested to know how this has been done. It has been achieved by personal service. The men in charge of the Washington and New York offices receive an advance upon a stoiy coming through over the Canadian Press or the British United Press from Canada. They at once get into contact with the heads of the American services and the editors of the leading American papers, pointing out that this story is of the type which would interest them. Our representative may say, "There is something in this which you might like" or "Do you wish to have
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any further background material?" or "Do you require any cuts for this story?" In other words, our people render a service. And it is through that personal connection that these extraordinary results are obtained.
I have here tangible evidence of what this means. It is desirable that the committee should have a clear understanding because it is seldom that matters of this kind can be demonstrated physically as here. Usually we are concerned with figures and words. Here we have an interesting contrast in results due to the way news was handled. In June, 1942, Canadians went to help in the defence of the Aleutian islands. This was a news story which would have been considered news anywhere in the United States. It. had dramatic value, that Canadians should be going to implement the joint defence agreement, and it was a feature which would have appealed to United States editors. But owing to an accident-and it was nothing other than that-the release of the story was delayed three days by the military authorities, and when released it took the form of a very short release to the press. This was issued in the United States. It was sent over the wires, and the reception in the United States was very interesting. There was practically no American paper which I have been able to find, after a careful search, which even referred to the story. If it was referred to it was buried as a shirt-tail at the end of some other story about the Aleutian islands. The one exception was the Baltimore Sun. On Thursday, June 18, this paper had an eight column streamer headline across the front page reading "Canadians join United States in Alaska defence." The reason why the Baltimore Sun alone of all the 1,800 daily newspapers in the United States featured this story was that by accident Mr. Vining was in the office the day before. He had received word that this story was coming through and he pointed out its interest to the editor. The editor at once saw its interest and featured the story when it came through. But that was the only paper so far as we know that had the story on the front page or in headlines anywhere else. That single case was the result of personal association, personal interest and advance information, fundamental things in the proper play of any news story.
Now, contrast the handling of that story with the one ten months later. In April, 1943, the wartime information board got word that a similar story about the Canadians assisting in attacks on the Aleutians was coming through. Because of their having got this advance word they were able to warn the editors of the press 
associations and leading papers in New York. The Canadian Press and the British United Press gave the story to their opposite members, the Associated Press and the- United Press in the United States, who were w'ell prepared for it. The story was sent out over the wires to all newspapers. The result of the work of the wartime information board can be seen in the contrast between the treatment given this story in April, 1943, a story which did not have the primary news value of the story which appeared in May, 1942, and the treatment given the earlier story. The results are shown by the clippings in the blotter which I lay on the table here and which hon. members may be interested in seeing. They will find page after page of clippings from United States papers all featuring this Canadian story. Here are some of the headlines:
Canadian air force join Americans in Aleutians.
Canadians join U.S. in blasting Kiska. Canadians join raid on Kiska.
Canadians rejoin Yanks in raid on Kiska.
It goes on for page after page until you find no less than 420 clippings of this single story. Truly a remarkable demonstration of the change in results in the United States, partly as a result of the added services furnished by the wartime information board all along the line. Part of this service was to make our military authorities realize how important it was that stories of this kind should not be too long buried on a censor's desk.


Grote Stirling: Are all the clippings from daily papers?
Mr. CL.AXTON: They are from the daily papers. These are not by any manner of means all that appeared; they are simply all that I got when I was in New York on May 19 and May 20 to look into this thing. That is why I could not join in the debate on that occasion.


John George Diefenbaker: Are they all different, or are they all Associated Press dispatches?


Brooke Claxton: This story could come from two sources only, the Associated Press and the United Press, and the clippings give credit to one or the other. The stories appeared in papers in every state. There is no other way in which they could get a story of that kind except through the Associated Press, the United Press or the International News Service. That is the only way they could get the story unless they happened to have a correspondent in' Washington, New York or Ottawa who was in touch with us,

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and we know they mostly have no correspondents in Ottawa. This is tangible evidence of the changed situation brought about, in part at least, by the institution of offices of the wartime information board at New York and Washington.


Gordon Graydon: Does my hon. friend
attribute the change entirely to the wartime information board?


Brooke Claxton: I said in part, but I do not know to what else it would be due. If anything, it is harder to-day to get news stories across in the United States than it was in June, 1942, when the first story appeared. To-day there is more spot news, more news of events occurring all over the world with which Canadian news must compete. I think in fairness that it must be admitted that the results are largely due to the treatment accorded the news by the wartime information board. It must be remembered that the news went out over the Canadian Press and at every stage it was guided, so to speak, so that it would get the treatment it deserved. That is an illustration of the kind of service rendered by the board.
As hon. members will appreciate, the members of the board have similarly assisted in the preparation of articles, have provided facilities and material for writers and for journalists having to do with the war effort. This generally resulted in an article being written for one of the great United States publications. Radio programmes have been arranged, such as the Jack Benny, Kate Smith and other programmes to be broadcast from Canada to the United States. Contacts have been made with all kinds of associations. Interviews have been arranged for ministers or other prominent Canadians like Doctor Best or Doctor McIntosh when they go to the United States. Such interview's have had widespread coverage through the press and press agencies.
The board replies to inquiries-and they are pouring in all the time-and it furnishes still photographs and other material. In addition to having offices established at Washington and New York, the board has cooperated in the closest possible way and has the friendliest relations with both the British ministry of information officials in the United States and the office of war information of the United States. The latter organization has helped in the dissemination of Canadian news all over the world because of arrangements made by the wartime information board. This has resulted in news about Canada being broadcast on the short
wave radio all over the world from the office of war information broadcasting stations.
When the institution of offices in the United States was suggested and talked about back in 1940, 1941 and 1942, some hon. members and possibly the government were under some apprehension lest the setting up of offices in the United States might create some unfavourable incident or comment. The exact reverse has happened. The only comment received so far in the United States has been favourable; the only comment by press and government agencies and by representatives of other governments has been one of sincere appreciation for services rendered. The words of Mr. Givens are by no means an overstatement about a remarkable job done by Canadians in order to make Canada better known in the United States. They have been able to do this because of this organization. It is modest, it is not aggressive in any improper sense, it has an admirable personnel, and is doing a good job.


Gordon Graydon: My hon. friend mentioned correspondents who had been brought to this country under the aegis of the wartime information board. Is he in position to give the number of correspondents who were brought here, and w'hat papers they represented ?


Brooke Claxton: Those suggested to me
now are the representatives of the Associated Press, the Chicago Sun, the New York Daily News, the NFA service and a good many others. I can give my hon. friend a list of them if he wishes to have it.


Gordon Graydon: I should like to know
how far that went.


Brooke Claxton: My estimate from the
lists I have seen is that in the period under review there would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of fifteen to twenty. Prior to that, under the division of public information, there were two trips organized which included very much larger numbers. Now it is being done on a much more modest scale. People are given every facility to see what they wish to see, when not prevented for military reasons.


Gordon Graydon: Does the wartime information board pay the expenses' of these people when they come over?.


Brooke Claxton: Sometimes it does and
sometimes it does not. I am informed that most of these people come on their own because they are interested, partly through the

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work of the offices in New York and Washington, and I say that this is due in part to the work of the board. I think it is in the minds of hon. members that there was in the United States a virtual vacuum of information about Canada. We are trying to fill that vacuum, and the tremendous results that have been achieved in the short period of ten months are due to the fact that there is a story to be told and the Americans are naturally inclined to be exceptionally friendly towards us.


Gordon Graydon: It seems to be the general idea that Australia made a much better job of publicity in the United States than we did.


Brooke Claxton: It should be remembered that Canada only began to have offices in the United States in October, 1942; we have had offices there for only ten months, while Australia has had offices there since the outbreak of war. I know Mr. Bailey, the head of the Australia office. He has done a remarkably good job. He is a fine journalist and has earned the respect of all with whom he deals. He has been helpful to officials of the board in giving them assistance and advice when they were getting going. A number of Canadian newspaper editors and journalists have been to see the board's office when they were in New York to see what it was doing, not at the suggestion of the board but because they were interested. I have a long list of Canadian journalists and editors who have used the resources of the board in the United States. Some of them have written about it. One of them is the correspondent of the Financial Post. Writing of the work of the board on May 29, 1943, he said:
Results of its work to date are most impressive. Its success and achievement clearly indicate that the New York job of WIB is one that Canadians should now regard as permanent; that its contribution to North American understanding and welfare will be as great in peace as it is in war.
Further on he says this:
Particularly important, the amount of unfavourable or inaccurate information about Canada has been reduced.
It is only right to remind hon. -members that ever since the board has been working in the United States I do not know of any unfavourable publicity that Canada has reserved suth as there was before.


Gordon Graydon: I do not want to interrupt my hon. friend's train of thought, but some suggestion has been made -that the wartime information board may be continued not only in time of war but in time of peace.

Perhaps the bon. gentle-man would enlarge upon that. It is a matter in which the people of this country are extremely interested.


Brooke Claxton: That is a matter of government policy to which the government would naturally wish to give consideration at the time, but I can -tell my hon. friend it is absolutely certain that -the work of -the wartime information board will not go on after the war in its present form. If there are services such as those rendered in connection with Latin America which -the government of the day would wish to 'have continued, they will be continued in some form. Perhaps it may be part of the work of trade commissioners, or some other means may be found. My hon. friend will appreciate that this work is too valuable in some aspects to be allowed to stop at the end- of -the war. But if the work now done by the board is carried on, it will be totally ohanged in character, and certainly changed in name and form.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: And in personnel?


Brooke Claxton: Yes, very largely, because a great number of people who are working for the board will want to return to their peace-time job as soon as the war is over.


Gordon Graydon: I think the general public is anxious there should be no movement made during the war which will lead to bringing about a monopoly of news services in this country in peace time.


Brooke Claxton: I can assure my hon. friend -that there is no such tendency in the board, either now or for the future. The board is not a government monopoly; it is a facilitating agency and nothing more. It is not replacing the work of any journal in Canada or of any press agency in Canada. It aims to be of sendee to them and nothing else. That I think is a very important fact to remember.


Gordon Graydon: Is that the unanimous view of the press?


Brooke Claxton: I would hope it is, because that is the work that is being done by the board, and I think the press is 'becoming increasingly conscious of the value of some parts of the board's work.
I should like to refer to the report of his visit to the board made by Mr. Norman Smith of the Ottawa Journal and appearing in the Ottawa Journal of April 20, 1943. He said:
The weakest thing about our whole publicity scheme in the United States is that there are not offices in Chicago and San Francisco as well.

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The men in New York and Washington are certainly working hard and most people down here believe they are working effectively.
Their salaries, some of them, look big from Ottawa, but with the cost of living as it is here and considering the nature of their work it is probable that most of them should be getting more rather than less.
There is no lack of documentary proof that they are getting good publicity in the papers, the movies, over the radio and the public platform. Nor is there lack of indication where and when they have prevented bad publicity, arrested harmful thought trends or planted helpful ones. The set-up could be improved- what set-up couldn't be improved?


Thomas Reid: I hope they inform the people of the United States that all the snow has gone from here.


Brooke Claxton: A similar article by Mr. Arthur R. Ford, editor in chief of the Free Press, of London, appeared in that paper on May 7, 1943. Mr. Ford is president of the Canadian Press, and in a lengthy article he refers to the work of the board. He says:
Now we come to Canada which was the last country to set up a department of information in Washington. I have been rather doubtful of the value of such a bureau. However, after seeing the Washington bureau in operation I am inclined to change my mind.
So I submit to the committee that the work of the board in the United States has been useful beyond words in giving facts about Canada. There has been no element of propaganda about it from beginning to end. We have nothing to tell the United States except the facts and to see that they are attractively presented. That is the whole purpose of this agency, and it has no other purpose. It has never been under any suspicion of having any other purpose. It could not have any other purpose.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: The hon. gentleman says that there is no element of propaganda in it. Is not the whole thing propoganda, to make the people of the United States understand what Canada is doing?


Brooke Claxton: If my hon. friend uses the word "propaganda" in that sense, which is its true literal sense, I agree with him. But propaganda has in addition certain unfavourable connotations, and I do not use the word for that reason.


Richard Burpee Hanson: When it is tinged politically it becomes objectionable.


Brooke Claxton: If my hon. friend means propaganda in its true literal sense, meaning to propagate information, I am completely in agreement with him.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am glad we agree on something.


Brooke Claxton: In addition, the board has established an office in the United Kingdom-with a staff of four-and one in Canberra. The office in the United Kingdom has cooperated very fully with the public relations officers of the armed services-under the direction of Mr. J. W. G. Clark-who have done such an exceedingly good job in making available to the Canadian public information about the work of our boys overseas and at sea. The hon. member for Peterborough West asked what we were doing in South America.


Gordon Graydon: What is the wartime information board doing toward acquainting the members of our armed forces overseas with general developments so far as our nation here is concerned? I think my hon. friend-


Brooke Claxton: I shall come to that.


Gordon Graydon: I am sorry; I did not know that was on the agenda.


Brooke Claxton: Yes, it is, but I thought I should deal with the other first.


Gordon Graydon: I am sorry I interrupted.	.


Brooke Claxton: I think I should deal with the question asked by the member for Peterborough West, because it brings up an extraordinarily interesting matter which the board has very much in mind. The organization to deal with South America is headed by Mr. Allan Anderson, who for fourteen years was correspondent of the Southam newspapers in South America.
Mr. FPiASER (Peterborough West): He speaks Spanish?


Brooke Claxton: Oh, yes. I am sorry; he was not for fourteen years in South America, but he had just returned from South America where he was correspondent for the Southam press when he assumed responsibility for the board's work there. He speaks Spanish fluently and has a working knowledge of Portuguese. His secretary also speaks Spanish and has a working knowledge of Portuguese.


Gordon Graydon: What is a working
knowledge?


Brooke Claxton: It means that he can read it and make himself understood on social occasions.


Gordon Graydon: Not very fluent.


Brooke Claxton: Not very fluent, but able to get by with it, as a good many hon. members do with the other language in Canada. He has another assistant, born in

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the Argentine, who speaks Spanish and French fluently and has some Italian and Portuguese. Their job is to send out articles and press releases, and they send them in Spanish. They do not send them broadcast. They send them only to newspaper editors with whom they have already established personal contacts.


Gordon Graydon: Where is he located?
Mr. CLAXTO'N: In Ottawa. In parenthesis, I should say that the emphasis of the board has varied since being an agency which at the beginning, and quite rightly, distributed large quantities of material to the public. The present emphasis in the work of the board is to give material to meet a demand that exists and a need that has been expressed, and that policy is followed in connection with the distribution of news material and articles to the South American press.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Are these articles to which the hon. gentleman refers as being sent out in Spanish by Mr. Anderson and his staff prepared by the board, or are they the articles that come through from the press men attached to the different departments?


Brooke Claxton: These articles are
specially prepared by the board, but frequently the work is that of editing other articles from government departments or from other agencies in Canada.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That does not quite coincide with what the hon. gentleman said a little while ago, that these articles were not prepared by the board but that a personal service was performed in New York. I understood that these articles were all canned stuff prepared by the fifty-seven varieties of press agents attached to the different departments. That is what the public thinks anyway.


Brooke Claxton: My hon. friend will forgive me if I say that there is a difference between the material sent out from Canada to South America and the material that is sent from Canada to the United States. Material from Canada to the United States naturally is news which goes out through the ordinary agencies, and the work of the board is to assist the flow of that news; whereas, so far as material going to South America is concerned, it must be remembered it is already serviced by news agencies from the United States and other countries, and anything that we could send would not be news in that sense. So that the articles are more background material giving long-term information.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They are special articles, then?


Brooke Claxton: Yes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Specially prepared by the board?


Brooke Claxton: Yes, or possibly by somebody else for the board, or else material is used obtained from other government departments and services or from other newspapers in Canada.


John George Diefenbaker: What control does the board exercise over writers or authors whose services. it secures for the writing of articles? During the past few months some fourteen authors or writers in this country have written articles for the board. What control does the board exercise over the information contained in those articles?


Brooke Claxton: It would be more convenient if I were allowed to finish one subject at a time. At present I am dealing with South America, and if my hon. friend would forgive me and remind me of that later, in case I forget, I should be glad.


John George Diefenbaker: It fits into the discussion on South America just the same.


Gordon Graydon: He was speaking of
special articles, and so are you.


Brooke Claxton: I was speaking about
Latin America in reply to a question. All articles sent to South America are prepared by the board, as far as I know. They are prepared or edited and the board takes full responsibility for them. They are not broadcast but sent to newspaper editors and publishers with whom Mr. Anderson himself has already established contacts, or to one of the south American editors who visited Canada, or to a Canadian legation for use through the legation, or to a branch of a Canadian bank for use in such ways as they may see fit. But they are not sent to any others.


Gordon Graydon: Is any information sent to South America by means of any shortwave American station?


Brooke Claxton: I understand it has been, but there is not a regular service.


Gordon Graydon: We have no facilities
here, but I thought it might have been done through an American short-wave station.


Brooke Claxton: As part of this work, and in order to establish better associations and more friendly relations with South America, a number of south American editors have visited Canada. The total is fifty-nine, representing ten countries, and I suppose that all

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of them have written, for their own publications as well as others, stories about Canada on their return to their own countries. In addition, several of them broadcast from Canada. I assume that these broadcasts must have been sent at some stage by short wave, but the exact technical operation I cannot describe. I believe that one writer has indicated his intention to write a book about Canada. There will be a special Canadian number of a publication having distribution all over South America. I refer to Norte.
There is another branch of work in South America and that is what may be called background information. This is under the direction of Mr. Malcolm Ross, who has a working knowledge of French, German and Spanish. He has had to do with arranging for broadcasts, and already one thirty-minute programme has been sent to the Argentine, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Peru. Some programmes have been prepared and are broadcast from south American countries. Arrangements are being made for programmes of music and talks to be given in each of the Latin American countries on their day of independence.
Then in the way of films, paid for by the wartime information board and made by the national film board, fourteen commercial films have been exhibited in South America, of which eleven. I think, were of the "World in Action" series. There are eight more in preparation. These are distributed through an agency, United Artists World corporation, and they are available to 4,000 theatres in Latin America. They have Spanish and Portuguese sound tracks. We know that 400 theatres in Mexico have taken those films. The leader of the opposition will appreciate that we are doing a good deal to prepare for the day when the short-wave station which he has had at heart will be in operation; there will be friendly contacts established with numerous South Americans, and there will be in Canada the small nucleus of a staff who can help to prepare the programmes for such a station. The work is well in hand.


Gordon Graydon: I apologize for interrupting my hon. friend so often, but I think it advisable to ask questions when his points arise, one by one. Do I take it that we have no representatives of the wartime information board on the ground in South America? If this is so, apparently the distribution of films for propaganda purposes and the dissemination of information, such as the hon. member has described, must all be done from here. If so, what is the normal channel through which this information goes? Does it go through the trade commissioners in the various
centres in South America, or through the legations which have been set up in various South American republics?


Brooke Claxton: With regard to the films-


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I do not want to interrupt, but the hon. member has spoken for forty minutes. However I take it that the committee will allow him to go on for another forty minutes if necessary.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We are in
committee. As long as anyone intervenes, he may resume.


Gordon Graydon: I believe I have eased
that situation now.


Brooke Claxton: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The films for South America, fourteen so far and eight under preparation, are distributed there, as I have just said, by United Artists World Corporation, which is a commercial agency. These films are commercial films; they are shown in the commercial picture theatres, and it is in the interests of the agency distributing them to see that they get the widest possible distribution. In addition, however, the visits to which I have referred result in contacts being made which are used so that the representatives of the two countries cooperate in pushing their wares in each of their countries; that is the advantage of personal association. Also we 'now have three legations in South America, and each of these is helping very materially in these respects.
I have only one further word to say about the South American scene. A trial set of books about Canada has been put together through the cooperation of the publishers to whom we are grateful for contributing the books free, the National Gallery, who contributed reproductions of pictures free, and the film board, who contributed "stills" about Canada. These have been put together, with a great deal of other material, including posters. One set, I believe, has been sent to Chile. Two other sets are in course of preparation to be sent to the Argentine and Brazil. If the war information board had to pay for all that material the cost would aggregate, I believe, more than a thousand dollars a set. I understand that a good deal of this is contributed, so that expense is not borne by us. It is of the nature of an experiment.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Where will they be placed in Chile?


Brooke Claxton: In the principal libraries, museums and other public centres. They will be exhibited in one place and then move into another, just as exhibitions of pictures



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rotate from place to place. They were asked for by our minister to Chile to meet demands which he had for further information about Canada, and arrangements for their distribution and display will be made through him.
That concludes what I was to say about the work of the wartime information board abroad. Now just a word about its work at home.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The hon. gentleman said that all the news sent to South America is in Spanish; therefore Brazil would not get any of it.


Brooke Claxton: If I said Spanish, I was right, but it is put into Portuguese for distribution in Brazil. It is sent in Spanish to Brazil, and arrangements are made locally for its translation into Portuguese before it is distributed to the Brazilian newspapers and other recipients.


Grote Stirling: Has the board made use of the news item feature in the picture houses, both in the United States and in South America, to introduce Canadian news?


Brooke Claxton: That is done by the
national film board, and my information is that it is made use of extensively, and, as my hon. friend's question suggests, it is an extraordinarily useful means of publicity.


Gordon Graydon: Before the hon. member leaves the work of the board in other parts, may I remind him that, so far as I know, ae has not said anything about how far the board has gone with respect to introducing news features and propaganda generally in Mexico. That country has been before the house more emphatically perhaps during the last few days than hitherto, because of the Prime Minister's statement in regard to exchange of diplomatic representation. Nor has the hon. member mentioned any part of the empire other than the United Kingdom with respect to the work of the wartime information board. Has anything been done with respect to South Africa or Australia or New Zealand?


Brooke Claxton: To answer the third question first, we have, as I think I have mentioned, a representative of the board at Canberra, Australia, and I have seen reports from the Canadian high commissioner there that he is doing extraordinarily useful work.


Gordon Graydon: The Canadian high commissioner does a little work on his own, too.


Brooke Claxton: He certainly does.


Gordon Graydon: Does the wartime information board take full responsibility for his statements?
fMr. C'.axton.]


Brooke Claxton: Not entirely, just credit. With regard to the suggestion that this work may extend to other parts of the world, a good deal of material is sent out either through the office of war information broadcasts or through British ministry of information broadcasts, by cooperation, but it is impossible for the board to have representatives in any other countries without the house granting the board some more money. This costs money.


Gordon Graydon: You might cut down on
some items and extend others.


Brooke Claxton: I think my hon. friend would find it difficult to cut down on any
of the items.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The main thing after all is to develop proper information in the United States; is not that the real purpose of this board?


Brooke Claxton: That is a principal
purpose.


Richard Burpee Hanson: If it were not for that you would not have it at all.


Brooke Claxton: I would not go so far as to say that, but I would say that it is a very large part of the purpose.
With regard to Mexico I did mention that we have shown these films of the national film board, paid for by the wartime information board, to four hundred theatres in Mexico, and the same close relationships of our representatives with newspaper men and publishers exist in Mexico as in other countries. A considerable number of Mexican newspaper men are included in the list that was given to me. Between December 4 and 8 there was a visit to Canada by eight Mexican newspaper men, who travelled extensively throughout the country'.
Now with regard to the home front-


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Before the hon. gentleman leaves that point, do you also send literature to Central America, to San Salvador, Costa Rica, and so on?


Brooke Claxton: Yes; I should have said this included1 Latin America, and I intended to cover that.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: You mentioned South America but did not include Central America.


Brooke Claxton: I should have included it, because the work has been carried on equally there.
With regard to the home front, I have already indicated the change in emphasis from the distribution of material to a concentration on facilitating the flow of news, particularly with relation to the work abroad; but in

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addition a great deal more has been done in Canada. There has been'instituted a reports branch of the wartime information board, the main purpose of which is to find out what the information is, what to say and how it should be said, and to advise other government departments. That work has been extensively carried on in that indirect way. This reports branch also cooperates with the censorship authorities in the reading of publications issued in Canada, including all the foreign language press, for censorship and wartime information purposes, some eight employees being engaged in that work.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What about the activities of the board within Canada in disseminating information, we will say with respect to the buying of victory bonds and that sort of thing.


Brooke Claxton: As I think my hon. friend knows, the national war finance committee handles its own publicity. However, there are coordinating committees, on which the wartime information board is represented, which endeavour to coordinate the activities of all the various publicity agencies working in connection with the war.
My hon. friend asked what was being done to keep the troops informed about news of Canada. Recently there has been issued a publication called "Canadian Affairs," the first number of which was published on May 1 of this year by the wartime information board for the Department of National Defence. The first issue ran to some twenty-five thousand copies; it was printed in England and distributed to the armed forces of Canada overseas. I have a copy of that publication here which hon. members may see if they wish. Following the publication of this first issue General McNaughton sent the board a telegram of congratulation.


Mr. WRIGHT:: How often is it issued?


Brooke Claxton: It is issued fortnightly.


Gordon Graydon: Did my hon. friend say how that pamphlet was distributed?


Brooke Claxton: It is distributed to the armed forces in England and overseas.


Gordon Graydon: Entirely?


Brooke Claxton: Yes.


John George Diefenbaker: It is not a news distribution; it is instructional, for the Canadian armed forces overseas?


Brooke Claxton: Not instructional, informative.


John George Diefenbaker: That was the information I got, that it was instructional for the Canadian armed forces overseas.


Brooke Claxton: I am sorry; that is right, instructional in the informative sense. For example, the first number contained an article headed " Canada in the Fourth Year of War." That and other articles may be used by officers for the purpose of talks to their own men, and in that sense it is instructional.


Grote Stirling: Something like "Canada at War," only for use over there?


Brooke Claxton: Except that the matter in the numbers I have seen is much less limited to information and is devoted more to matters of opinion and to reporting on trends in Canada.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Does it give any information as to the numbers and the activities of the home army?


Brooke Claxton: I have not seen any. Then in addition the board still publishes "Canada at War." This is a work that has been carried on from the previous agencies. Of this publication 93.000 copies are printed in English and 27,000 in French, which are sent out only in answer to requests. The mailing list is cleaned out every five or six months, by sending circulars asking if people want to receive the publication. If they do not, it is not sent to them any longer.


John George Diefenbaker: There is a question I have asked before in regard to "Canada at War" to which I have not yet received an answer. In January and February of this year this publication contained full information in regard to the intake into the armed forces, the operation of the call-up, the number of medical examination notices sent out, the number who answered the call, and general information with regard to the requisition, by military districts, of man-power; the numbers who reported for training and the percentage accepted as per requisition. That was very useful information; it gave a picture of the military situation in Canada; province by province, military district by military district, it gave a picture of the operation of the National Resources Mobilization Act. That has been deleted from the issues of March, April, May and June. I should like to ask the parliamentary secretary why it was deleted, and whether it is intended that this information is to be discontinued. I submit, Mr. Chairman, that this is the only way the people of Canada may know just how well the armed forces are being kept up to strength and how the provisions of the National Resources Mobilization Act are being applied.

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Brooke Claxton: I am informed that the reason for the discontinuance, if it was a discontinuance-because everything that appears in one issue of "Canada at War" does not necessarily appear in the next number, since the information is varied from time to time -is that during this period, when the house has been in session, the information has been given to the house in various other forms.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Not in that form.	*


Brooke Claxton: However, certainly the suggestion of my hon. friend will be considered.


John George Diefenbaker: Was that the reason for ceasing to furnish this information-because the house was in session?


Brooke Claxton: That is my information, because the figures were being given here.


John George Diefenbaker: - But I thought this publication was for the information of the people of Canada, so that they would have in ready form the facts with regard to Canada's war effort. All the other information given in the publication continues to be furnished, with the exception of the information in regard to the man-power situation. I suggest that there must be some other explanation.


Brooke Claxton: I have no other explanation, but I shall make inquiries for my hon. friend.


Gordon Graydon: Then do I understand that "Canada at War" is primarily for the information of members of parliament?


Brooke Claxton: No; but during this period the information has been given in different forms, in frequent statements in the house by the ministers concerned.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Just why was that information cut out-because it is very significant.


Brooke Claxton: For the reason I suggested. That is the only reason I know.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is not a reason at all; it is an excuse. That information was of great importance to members of parliament and to the people of Canada. It has been discontinued because it revealed certain things. I suggest that it was cut out because of the storm which arose as a result of what the figures showed, and we should like to have it put back.


Brooke Claxton: I have no information other than that I have given to the committee.


John George Diefenbaker: Will it be restored after the house ceases to sit?


Brooke Claxton: I cannot assure my hon. friend of that. I ckn only bring his suggestion to the attention of those responsible.


Gordon Graydon: I think the responsibility is right here, not elsewhere.


Brooke Claxton: In addition to these
publications, wartime information board issues a number of smaller publications, but, as I have indicated, the distribution is severely curtailed.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Has there been any criticism of the contents or propaganda of certain of these publications. If so, how did that arise, and will it ever be repeated?	[DOT]


Brooke Claxton: I think the hon. member has reference to the publication Nouvelles Catholiques. There was some criticism in the house of one article which appeared in that publication. It was a short note, probably not more than five or six lines, put in by a subordinate as a filler.


Richard Burpee Hanson: But paid for by public money.


Brooke Claxton: I can assure my hon. friend that that will not be repeated.


Richard Burpee Hanson: All right; let it go.


Brooke Claxton: With regard to films: during this period the wartime information board has paid for a number of films which have been produced by the national film board. Altogether there have been some 74 films, representing a total cost over the period of 8675,348.10. Those films have had an extensive distribution in the United States, Canada and other countries. For example the "Canada Carries On" series has had a nominal distribution in Canada of 2,250.000. It also was distributed to 96 different territories, including South Africa and other countries, and in twelve different languages. Those films had a non-theatrical distribution of over a million. The series "The World in Action" had a distribution of 2,250,000 in Canada. Eight of those films were distributed to 6,000 United States theatres, and three of them went to 500 United Kingdom theatres. In addition the wartime information board facilitated the production of a picture used in the victory loan campaign, of which 274 prints were made. It has produced posters and pamphlets. It has handled the visits of distinguished persons and visiting journalists such as I have indicated. It has cooperated with other government departments, notably with the public relations officers of the armed services, and

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in other ways it has carried on much the same work that had been done by the division of public information in Canada, its predecessor.
A word with regard to staff. The staff today numbers 132. At the end of August, 1942, when the division of public information operated, there was a total staff of 158, including casual workers. So that the staff during this period has decreased by no less than 26. These 132 members of the staff are divided between nineteen abroad, and the remainder at home.


Gordon Graydon: Most of those abroad are in the United States.


Brooke Claxton: Eleven are in New York and three at Washington. The board is continually asked to take on extra work of a direct publicity character. It can do so only with additions to staff and additional money.
I ask hon. members to consider the size of the staff, and for a minute to compare it with the staff of the ministry of information in Great Britain which, as of February 1, 1943, numbered 2.824. At that time there were in other British government departments, staffs totalling 1,038; but to these figures should be added the staff of the ministry of information in the United States, totalling on April 21, 1943, a personnel of 537.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Was that staff sent from Canada, or were they engaged in the United States?


Brooke Claxton: I am referring to the British Ministry of Information. So that if the British staff of 537 in the United States is compared with the Canadian staff of 14, the difference is at once apparent. The British staff in the United States is four times the total Canadian staff in all countries. The total British staffs engaged in this work stand at 3,361 or about 25 times the total staffs engaged in similar work in Canada.
Comparisons with the office of war information in the United States are difficult because of the recent reduction made in the office of war information. The last figures before the reduction showed a total staff of 4,800 of which 1,600 were engaged in domestic work. But to those should be added staffs of 153 government departments, totalling 2,895 full-time workers and 31,618 part-time workers.
The best information we have concerning Australia is that their information service carries a total personnel of 200. In South Africa it is 50. There are special reasons which will be appreciated by hon. members
why the Canadian staff should be larger, rather than smaller as it is, in proportion to other staffs. For one thing, our country is wide in extent. Then, we have two languages. Forty-one members of our staff are Frenchspeaking. In addition, we have to deal with our information needs in a nation of 130,000,000 people living next to us. So that it might have been understandable if the Canadian staff had been higher, in proportion, than the staffs of other countries. The fact is however that it is very much lower, in proportion, than the staff of any other country.
May I say a word with regard to salaries. At the time the wartime information board took over from the division of public information, salaries were approximately 820,000 a month. To-day, since adding the offices at Washington, New York, London and Canberra, with a staff of 19, and at a total cost per month of some $8,500 for overseas services alone, the total salaries roll per month is $22,000. So that despite these additions at New York, London, Canberra and Washington the payroll has increased by only $2,000 per month. In other words this additional service is being rendered at that small additional cost, while the actual cost of the additional officers in the four places I have mentioned is no less than $8,500 a month.


John George Diefenbaker: Perhaps we might clear up these points as we go along, if an interruption would not interfere with the hon. member's line of thought. Mention has been made on more than one occasion of the rather high salaries paid, referring particularly to the staff in Canada. Had the men who were connected with the wartime information board remained with the press, doing the ordinary work of the press, their salaries would have been very considerably lower than the salaries paid to men on the board carrying corresponding responsibility. Who fixed these salaries? In their fixation, why were they not frozen, as the salaries have been of men who have remained with the regular newspapers? We find however that salaries on the board are in many cases considerably higher. It would be interesting to know the basis upon which these salaries were determined.


Brooke Claxton: I was just about to come to that. The salaries are fixed on the same basis as any other salaries, that is that in no case does anyone receive any more than he got before.


Gordon Graydon: Oh, yes, I am quite sure-


Richard Burpee Hanson: Perfect
nonsense.
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Gordon Graydon: I am quite sure my hon. friend would not want to make a misstatement. That is not the information that is generally accepted on that point.


Brooke Claxton: The information that is generally accepted is not accurate, because what I have just said is in accordance with the information I have received.


Gordon Graydon: May I ask my hon. friend a question?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Let the hon. member proceed; let him give his facts.


Brooke Claxton: I am quite prepared to discuss each case at any length my hon. friend desires, but that is the situation. The hon. member for Lake Centre, in two speeches he delivered, one on April 7 and one on May 19, referred to the salaries of nineteen officials of the board. I would point out that in some cases these men were first employed by the division of public information which was taken over by the wartime information board, and others were in the government service at the outbreak of the war.


John George Diefenbaker: To whom is the hon. member referring?


Brooke Claxton: I have five in mind.
They are A. J. McKenna, Leonard Knott, Bruce West, E. G. Smith and N. Morant. There are two who are not officials of the wartime information board at all, Mr. J. W. G. Clark and Mr. Gerald Brown. These gentlemen are employees of the departments of national defence.


John George Diefenbaker: I did not refer to them as belonging to the wartime information board; I referred to them as belonging to other departments.


Brooke Claxton: I do not know how my hon. friend referred to them, but they would not be under the estimates we are considering at the moment. There were four who were appointed by the board to the staff at Ottawa and eight to the staff at Washington, so that there are twelve who were appointed by the wartime information board among those mentioned by the hon. member for Lake Centre. When Mr. Vining was appointed chairman of the wartime information board in September, 1942, he decided to get the best people he could for the job and he did succeed in getting a number of people to work for nothing or for expenses. He has told me, and I believe it to be true, that in every case he worked on the principle that a man should not receive more than he was receiving before. My information is that in every case that is what happened.
fMr. R. B. HaDSon.]


John George Diefenbaker: Does that apply to persons in the United States as well as those in Canada?


Brooke Claxton: That is the information which I have received from Mr. Vining. In his statements to the house on April 7 and May 19, my hon. friend gave the salaries of these various officials in Canadian dollars. Anyone reading those figures would think that the people were in receipt of sums of money which would enable them to buy that many dollars' worth of goods.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That was in the government return.


John George Diefenbaker: I rise to a point of order. The figures I gave were in accordance with the return brought down to the house, and I accepted the figures given by the department.


Brooke Claxton: I do not suggest that the figures were wrong; I am explaining the figures given by my hon. friend and the form in which he gave them. Of course those were the figures which the public of Canada would be charged for these services, but in the case of the eight men working in the United States it must not be thought that they receive that amount of money. Actually they receive payment in United States dollars, and the purchasing power of that dollar is probably thirty per cent less to-day than it is in Canada for persons on an equivalent standard of living. I refer particularly to those in New York and Washington. They were not as well off as they would have been had they been working in Canada for the same salary.


Gordon Graydon: Would they have to pay as much income tax?


Brooke Claxton: That is a difficult point. I believe that all the temporary employees are subject to income tax in the United States, but not at the same rates as would apply in Canada. The permanent employees do not pay income tax in the United States, but there are only one or two in that class. That is taken into account in fixing the salaries. I will be glad to look into this.


Gordon Graydon: Is that not an answer to my hon. friend's argument when he tried to establish a point against the hon. member for Lake Centre? You must t-hke into consideration the cost of living when you are dealing with a matter of this kind. I think my hon. friend had better leave it as it was in the first instance.


Brooke Claxton: I am willing to leave it
that way, provided you take into account the

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cost of living, the rates of pay and the income tax differential. If that is done I think without exception it will be found that these people working in the United States are worse off than if they were working in Canada and in receipt of the same salary.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunfoury):: That is
a matter of calculation.


Brooke Claxton: It is a matter of calculation, of estimation and of the difference in standards of living. But I believe it is true. As I have said, Mr. Vining endeavoured to apply, and I think succeeded in applying, the principle that no one should receive more than he got before. This is borne out by such investigations as I have been able to make.
Just a word in conclusion about the question of expenditures. On May 20, 1943, the hon. member was referring to the expenditures of the board, reported on page 2827 of Hansard as follows:
The situation is this, that in the first year of the war the former war information board, the bureau of public information, expended $202,672; whereas this new body has expended, during a period of a little over six and a half months, the sum of $579,000.
And a little later on he said that there had been a tremendous increase in the expenditures on publicity under this board. That left the impression that there had been a tremendous increase in the expenditures of the board during the time the board had been in existence. The hon. member took the figure $202,672, the expenditures for the first year of the bureau, and contrasted them with the last six months. He might just as well have taken the year before the war and compared it with 1942-43, because in the year before the war there were no expenditures whatever. The board and the war were getting going. It was like comparing the pre-war expenditure of Canada on the war or on munitions and supply or on anything else with the expenditure in the current year. But comparing what is comparable, namely, expenditures in the year preceding the board, my hon. friend will see that in the year 1942-43 the estimates brought down under the war appropriation bill amounted to $1,345,500. The figure my hon. friend got in a return for expenditures during six months, pretty nearly seven months, was $579,000. If he will compare the expenditures of $579,000 with an estimate of $1,345,500, he will see that in the last six months during which the board was operating it was spending at a lower rate than was provided for in the estimates, and at a lower rate than that
at which the division of public information
was spending, which the board succeeded on September 9, 1942.


Gordon Graydon: That may only show that it was a reckless estimate.


Brooke Claxton: My hon. friend has no justification for saying that. It is not borne out by the facts. The estimate was not so reckless, because, despite the increased expenditures on films, the total expenditure for the fiscal year 1942-43 will be in the neighbourhood of $1,400,000 to $1,500,000.
For this year we are setting down in the estimates the figure of $658,000, a substantial decrease from the figure for last year. That decrease is in part effected through the expenditure formerly provided for of $575,000 for films being taken into the estimates of the national film board. It was thought that that was the better way to do it. In addition there have been decreases right from the beginning of the wartime information board on September 9, 1942, and the proportionate part of the expenditure for the fiscal year 1942-43 expended since the institution of the board on September 9, 1942, is less than it should be, taken for the full year. So that my hon. friend's accusation of very high and rapidly increasing expenditures is not borne out, if it is related to the period immediately under review and the period preceding it, as it should be.


John George Diefenbaker: I cannot follow my hon. friend's mathematics at the moment, but I should like information in connection with the expenditure. The total expenditure, as the hon. gentleman mentions, for the first six and a half months, was approximately $579,000.


Brooke Claxton: For the last six and a half months.


John George Diefenbaker: Prior to the first of April.


Brooke Claxton: Yes.


John George Diefenbaker: The details are: salaries, $119,209.26; travelling expenses, $21,194.76; printing of pamphlets, $32,405.54; radio programmes, $11,765.28. Those are the particulars except for what is called possible expenditures, including office stationery and printing, amounting to $391,775. That is the big item, and I think the committee should have a general analysis of that very large figure for miscellaneous expenditures. While I am on my feet theiti is something more.


Brooke Claxton: May I finish? I am nearly through. I shall be glad to put that break-down on Hansard, with the consent of the committee, if my hon. friend wants it.
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The main reason for the difference, of course, is that the return did not ask for information that brought out specific expenditure on motion pictures. The expenditure on motion pictures during that period -was $261,073.03. That will give my hon. friend the information he vrants almost in a sentence, and clear up this very large item to which he refers, which undoubtedly puzzled him.
The budget that is being asked for is $658,000, and if increased demands are made on the board for additional work, I have no doubt" that sum of money will not be found to be sufficient. Additional staff will be required. But that is the figure that seems to be sufficient now. If we compare that figure with the expenditure on the previous year's operations of the combined division of public information and the wartime information board we will see that it represents a considerable decrease, a decrease of between $100,000 and $200,000, in addition to the decrease credited to films alone.
There is no better way of judging the usefulness of expenditures of this kind than by seeing that we get value for the money expended. I submit to this committee, and I think now I can submit to anyone else with confidence, that the value of the work being done by the board abroad and at home shows that this money is well spent. It was spent to meet a need that was felt before, and which would immediately exist again if it had not been met by the board. The events of the last few days indicate how useful has been the cooperation of the press relations officers, the press associations, the correspondents of newspapers overseas, with the wartime information board at various points in the background, in seeing that the people of this continent got early news of the landing in Sicily, and also that the statements which were made have afterwards received early and favourable notice in the United States both, in the press and over the radio.


Gordon Graydon: Is the wartime information board taking credit for all that?


Brooke Claxton: I did not suggest that. I said it had contributed to it by its work in the background, by making arrangements.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The newspapers would have got it if there had been no board.


Brooke Claxton: Honestly I cannot think that. Contrast the treatment that has been given in the United States, for example, to other stories that have broken, and you will see that something has happened.'


Gordon Graydon: If you get a good story the press will see that it is distributed.


Brooke Claxton: There have been good stories before which did not receive the attention they should have. I do not suggest that there is anything miraculous about this, but there has been hard work in the background.
Another method of appreciating the work of the board in addition to the value received, is to compare the work of the board and the expenditure of the board with the work done by other agencies. If my hon. friends would think of the proportionate figure of expenditure on the wartime information board in Canada and on corresponding agencies in Britain and the United States or Australia, and relate them in some way that is fair-I suggest to them the total expenditure on war-they will arrive at some astonishing figures.


John George Diefenbaker: In making that comparison you would have to take into consideration the officials connected wfith information branches in the Department of Finance, the Department of Labour, the Department of Munitions and Supply, the Department of National Defence, the Department of National Defence for Air, and the nineteen press agents connected with the wartime prices and trade board. Has the minister a record of the expenditure being made by press units in these various other departments? That is the only way to get a fair comparison.


Brooke Claxton: I have taken that into consideration very fully, and the hon. member will find that in Canada the number of such outside officers, outside the regular wartime information board, is very much smaller in proportion than the number of outside officers in every other country. The figures I will give exclude those outside officers in all countries. I think that was the right way to do it.
Mr. DIEFENBAIvER: Has the parliamentary assistant a statement with regard to expenditures for information in these other departments?


Brooke Claxton: 
Gordon Graydon: My hon. friend suggested originally that the test was not the amount spent, or the comparable amount in relation to general war expenditures, but the value received. If he is to use one argument on one occasion, he should use it on the other.


Brooke Claxton: The hon. member is a lawyer, and he knows that when it comes to a valuation case and the determination of what is of value the court will look at all the considerations that bear upon it. That is the only way of doing it here. I am advancing this in all fairness for the consideration of the committee, and I suggest that there is another method, which is of course open to objection because we are not in business. If my hon. friend compares the amount spent on advertising by large companies in Canada, he will find that the wartime information board is very modest indeed. There are from eight to ten companies in Canada to-day that spend more than the wartime information board on publicity.
I can only add this. There has been some talk about the quarters at the supreme court building, and if hon. members want to see the quarters occupied by the information board they are welcome there. Nothing has been spent on fitting them up. There is not a rug in the place.


Gordon Graydon: Any chesterfields?


Brooke Claxton: No chesterfields that I have seen. It is one of the most unqomfort-able places to work in that I have ever been in. They work under exceedingly difficult circumstances.
In conclusion, I was asked to make one disclaimer. In the previous debate the Hon. Philippe Brais, vice-chairman of the wartime information board, was taxed with having an interest in some publicity firm or publishing house which, the implication was, dealt with the government.


Gordon Graydon: Who made that charge?
Mr. CLAXTON; One of the hon. members, the member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot). Of course, the hon. member for Temiscouata must be misinformed, because Mr. Brais assures me that he has no interest in any publishing house or publicity house or advertising house or anything of the kind, or anyone else, having such a relationship with the government. Anyone who knows Mr. Brais' distinguished services, as chairman for Quebec of the national
war finance committee, will know that no other word than this is needed to meet a remark that must have been based on totally incorrect information.
Considering the lateness of the session, we have adopted perhaps an unusual course in giving what I hope hon. members will recognize as a very full account of the work of the board. We have done so because it was brought up in discussion before and there has been misinformation about the wartime information board. I hope that in consequence of what has been said it will be recognized that work of real merit is being done by public-spirited servants of the people of Canada who are anxious to serve their country and who are doing a splendid job. I hope that members of the house, the press and the public will not only appreciate that, but support it in every way they can, not merely by helpful and constructive work, but also by their criticisms.


Gordon Graydon: The hon. member has made out at least a prima facie case, or perhaps I should say he has advanced arguments in a rather weak ease, but the way in which he has handled it suggests that perhaps he has made the best of the job and I congratulate him upon that score. Farther than that my congratulations cannot go. This is the first occasion on which he has discharged such duties as a parliamentary assistant, and we do appreciate his courtesy in face of the interruptions, which were rather numerous but which were made because we desire some further information. It is difficult in committe of the whole to get the information that is really required with regard to the wartime information board. To paint a picture such as the hon. member has done is not a very difficult matter, but under some rigorous examination such statements are not always apt to turn out in the way that the parliamentary assistant may expect.
May I ask one or two questions with regard to this matter. The hon. gentleman has made some reference to the desirability of getting the best men for the jobs. Without intending any reflection on the choice made. I think we ought to know the underlying reason for the appointment of Mr. John Grierson as the general manager of the wartime information board. I should like to know what his qualifications are from the point of view of newspaper publicity, for instance. I know something of his qualifications in relation to some of the government departments, but I should like to get that information as well as information with regard to salary and expenses as well as living allowances to which he is entitled and which he will be paid as general manager.
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Brooke Claxton: The Prime Minister in his opening statement referred to Mr. Grierson's general qualifications. Mr. Grierson, as everyone knows, was born in Scotland. That is not against him. He received his education there, supplemented by training at the university of Chicago, and extensive work in the field of public information, particularly as related to the United States. He was engaged in film work on this side, and then he returned to England, where he became one of the pioneers in the field of documentary films and government publicity in general, working for the Postmaster General in England. I daresay there is no man engaged in the business of government publicity anywhere who has been at it longer than Mr. John Grierson. He has spent his whole life in that field since leaving the United States at an early age. In the field of documentary films he has achieved an international reputation, and his work has received the academy award known at Hollywood as an Oscar.


Gordon Graydon: That is quite an award.


Brooke Claxton: Yes, there is nothing higher in the world.


Mr. BRUCE:: The Order of Merit?


Brooke Claxton: In the world of films. Since he has been in Canada Mr. Grierson has made this success with films. As lion, members may have gathered, he is exceedingly interested in the whole subject of public information; he is a specialist in it. When Mr. Vining had to resign on account of ill-health, Mr. Vining himself looked about for a suitable successor and recommended to the government the appointment of Mr. Grierson. Mr. Grierson was persuaded to accept that task, on partial loan from the national film board. He receives no salary from the wartime information board; he receives his salary from the national film board. He receives only actual out-of-pocket travelling expenses from the wartime information board. His work with the national film board is, I think, well known to hon. members.


Gordon Graydon: The salary of the general manager is not included in the estimates of the wartime information board?


Brooke Claxton: No, any more than it was with Mr. Vining, who was giving his services free.


Gordon Graydon: Will that mean that a number of men are attached to the wartime information board whose salaries are in other estimates and would therefore swell the amount of the total expenditures?


Brooke Claxton: I do not understand my hon. friend when he suggests that people who are working for and at no expense to the wartime information board swell the amount of its estimates. There are five people working for the wartime information board who are not paid by it.


Gordon Graydon: Yes, but they are paid out of the same pocket.


Brooke Claxton: Oh, no.


Gordon Graydon: Oh, yes.


Brooke Claxton: There is Mr. Crandall, who has retired as president of British United Press; Mr. A. D. Dunton, editor of the Montreal Standard; Mr. Sedgwick and Mr. Campbell, who are in receipt of a living allowance in New York and Washington, but whose salaries are paid by their companies in the same way as Mr. Dunton's is. I think those are, with Mr. Grierson, the five I had in mind.


Gordon Graydon: The reason why I inquired was that I was under the impression that there were a number in Mr. Grierson's category who were paid by the government in another department, but whose salaries would not appear in this particular estimate. Perhaps that should be cleared up.


Thomas Langton Church: I have been watching this particular department ever since this war started. It has been under several ministers, and I do not see how the parliamentary assistant can succeed with it at nearly the end of the fourth year of the war, after others have failed.
We do not need all this advertising in the United States. Britain tried it for a hundred and forty years, and did she educate them over there? No; they were isolationists for two years after the war began. This work was formerly in charge of the Minister of National War Services, now Mr. Justice J. T. Thorson. The similar organization in England is the most controversial government body in the old country to-day. It is linked up with the BBC, and both are con-tinously under fire in the British House of Commons on the ground that much of the information they disseminate is not information at all.
What have we in connection with this organization? Its spokesman here is the present 'parliamentary assistant, who made an address in the house, of which I have taken note, on May 29, 1942. I am not permitted to read from this address this session, but I can tell you that only last week or this

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present week one of the editors of the Montreal Standard was appointed by the parliamentary assistant to an important position in this branch.
Before this war started, I called the attention of the house, when I was sitting at this end of the chamber, to the need of educating first our own people in Canada and of giving them information before giving it to another country, even our great ally to the south.
The British office of information started in the early days of the war and was in charge of various ministers before being entrusted to Mr. Brendal Bracken by Mr. Churchill. They went to work and scattered over Germany millions of tracts and treatises as war information with the idea of trying to convert the German people. The campaign was so ridiculous that it failed. Then they worked the same thing with the BBC, one of whose heads, Mr. Peterson, had remarked a month or two before the war started that anyone preaching rearmament should be put in gaol and fed on bread and water. Would that Kipling were alive to-day 1 I believe he lived in the United States for over twenty years, and he could give more information about publicity in relation to our own nation and that of our great ally than anybody connected with the wartime information board.
The question is, what is information and what is not information? Who is to judge? Is it to be some member of the government or every member of the government? If its purposes are to dispense information, it should be non-political; it should be concerned wholly with the war. The complaint and the main attack made in the British House of Commons was that the propaganda to supply information and convert the people of the United States was political and was valueless. Money spent on this kind of propaganda is simply wasted.
As I said before the war started, when we were in the tide of the status campaign which began ten or fifteen years ago, Canada was a nation on the front pages of the United States magazines and at five o'clock teas and ten o'clock dinners in Washington, and by status we had got nowhere before the war.
If we want to distribute information, let us start with Canada and supply information to our own people. Ask any citizen of this country whether in the three years before the war and during the war we have not received less information than any other people. After all is said and done, it is the function of the press and not of the government of the day to give to the public this sort of information. The very fact of the establishment of this branch of government shows lack of understanding and appreciation and of confidence
in the function of the press. What do you do? You go to work and summon and appoint editors from all over the country. Some of them come in for a month or two and then resign. You bring them from the coast, the prairies, the east, and other places to gather information. Information as to what? As to the conduct of the war? Take as an illustration the Dieppe raid. Why should all these textbooks be written? Department stores are full of these productions, and parents of boys who fell at Dieppe tell me that they object to the class of information contained in books written by men some of whom were away out in the English channel and not on the shore at all during the engagement.
This kind of thing did not go on in the last war and it should not be encouraged now. When information should be given, the appropriate government officials representing the army, navy and the air force overseas should, under proper regulations, supply it to the proper authorities at the front and let it be sent across the ocean to Canada.
Before the war started we could get no information at all. As I said in this house on March 21, 1939, quoting the words of Prime Minister Chamberlain at that time, if the people are not allowed to know the facts; if they are given only so much as their rulers want them to know, then we are embarked on a course fraught with grave consequences to the people of this country, should war come.
As I have said, I read the recent remarks of the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George. I also read in the Cleveland Plain Dealer an address he made about May last during his visit to the United States. I keep in touch with press reports through the reading room and otherwise; in fact I have looked over five or six hundred newspapers since the war started, and I can tell the minister as regards the money he is spending to convert the people of the United States, that if it is conversion he wants, he is going the wrong way about it. All the money you spend in connection with United States weekly and daily newspapers from coast to coast in regard to this information is wasted. After all is said and done, things are not the same as in the last War. We have failed to understand the commercialization of the press that has occurred in the interval. Often the great dailies in London, New York and other cities sit on the fence and do not take sides because they do not want to be unpopular. We have failed to notice the extent to which the great weeklies of this country, who are the backbone of independent thought here, have been driven to the wall in these days of war economic stress. With regard to most of this
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material that is given out about the war, I would not call it information at all. Would any historian take the views expressed by the parliamentary assistant the other day.
I do not wish to delay the Prime Minister's estimates, but I do not see how the parliamentary assistant can hope to make a success of this branch at this late stage of the war, when three or four other ministers have failed with it, and when the corresponding organizations in England and the United States are continually in hot water. I hope that during the recess of parliament the whole department will be abolished. Let the press do all this work and get its information about the war from the army, the navy and the air force; let it fulfil its function, as it has since time immemorial, in peace and war alike, and transmit the information to the citizens of this country.


Brooke Claxton: Perhaps I should reply to one or two points which have been raised. First, I find that I misinformed the committee in regard to the matter of income tax, which was raised some time ago. The situation is that two members of the staff of fourteen in the United States are residents of that country and pay income tax there. One member of the staff was an employee of the British government when taken over by the board, and for some technical reason he may not be liable to tax in the United States. ' The other eleven members of the staff pay Canadian income tax on salary and allowances, so that a good deal of the discussion we had previously might have been obviated if I could have given the leader of the opposition this information, which of course fortifies my position very greatly in regard to the salaries of the employees in the United States.
The hon. member for Lake Centre asked a question in regard to how some fourteen jobs were ordered by the board and what control was kept over the editorial work done on them. In those cases the work was actually done for the board by people expert in that work; the board assumed full responsibility for it; there was complete control throughout, and a small fee was paid for the services rendered.
In reply to the hon. member for Broadview, I can only say that his understanding of the situation with respect to information in Great Britain is not up to date. By all accounts the present minister is making an extraordinary success of his job. The debates in the House of Commons, which I have followed and which I have in my hand, are full of compliments to a minister who is doing a difficult job and doing it exceedingly

well. Far from the flood of leaflets over Germany being stopped, it has been multiplied almost a thousand-fold, and is known to do exceedingly good work. The work of the ministry of information in England is more appreciated to-day than it has been at any stage of the war.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: May I ask the parliamentary assistant if the wartime information board has in its possession a German motion picture film of Dieppe? I understand that this film is being shown in some of the training camps of the United States, and I wondered if they had a copy of it and if it would be shown here.


Brooke Claxton: I never heard of it; certainly it is not in the possession of the wartime information board. It is possible that the film board may have such a film, and I am sure my hon. friend could obtain that information, or I shall be glad to get it for him, from the film board.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: The Prime Minister stated that the public have a right to know everything	connected	with the	war,	so that	atthis time I purpose making a few remarks arising out of what has happened within the last day or two, though I had no intention of participating in this debate. He also stated that the information brought out in parliament is a contribution to the wartime information board, and that parliament was a free agency for bringing out facts concerning various aspects of the war effort.	Therefore I think	nothing can	bemore	important	than to	give	the publicinformation in	regard to	the	attitude	of
various members of this house in respect to external affairs, and particularly towards the views expressed a few days ago by the parliamentary assistant. It is desirable that the people should have full information as to public opinion in Canada in regard to our war effort and related matters. First I wish to commend the hon. member for Lethbridge for the splendid speech he made yesterday, in which, among other things, he expressed the hope that we would do more than utter fine sounding phrases.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not wish to interrupt the hon. member, but I should like to remind you, Mr. Chairman, that the discussion on external affairs has been completed. During that debate the hon. member had his opportunity to discuss any aspect of external affairs, but if this parliament is going to get through with its business in a reasonable time I submit that we cannot oonclude the estimates of one department and later commence a fresh discussion of those subjects already completed.

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External Affairs


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Golding):: I would call the attention of the hon. member to the fact that we are now discussing the item having to do with the wartime information board. What the Prime Minister has said is absolutely correct, and we must confine our discussion to this item.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: That discussion closed when I was not here, though 'of course that is my fault.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I submit that my hon. friend should abide by the rules of the house.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: I do not wish to delay the proceedings for a moment. I had intended to speak only for about five minutes, but I shall take the opportunity of doing so on some other occasion.


William Henry Golding: We must confine our discussion to this particular item.


Mr. GILLIS:: I am not going to delay the committee for very long, either, but I want to compliment the parliamentary assistant upon his presentation in behalf of the wartime information board1. When the question of appointing assistants to the various ministers was brought up, the members of this group felt that there was absolute necessity for this step being taken, and I think the way in which the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George is handling the matter before the committee this afternoon fully justifies his appointment.
Much could be said on the subject now under consideration. The hon. member for Broadview emphasizes the fact that the dissemination of information to the public is largely the business of the press. My personal observation is that if what we have been getting in the press for the past three or four years is any indication as to their ability to educate the public, then I am all for setting up some other agency which will see to it that the public gets all the facts in respect of any matter requiring publicity. I read all sections of the press. I have heard discussions in the house of matters of which we have intimate knowledge, and one would not recognize those discussions as they are given to the public through the medium of the press. If the press is to retain the confidence of the public and a place in the future of our country, then regard will have to be had to many sections of it, to see that it gives the public frankly and without any reservation the facts disclosed, so that public opinion may be moulded in accordance with actual conditions.
Replying to the hon. member for York-Sunbury, the parliamentary assistant said
that the main function of the wartime information board was to send propaganda to the people of the United States. I believe such an observation would be misleading to the public. To-day the average person associates propaganda with totalitarian countries. Those countries have used the word "propaganda" to the world at large in order to sell something' to the people which actually did not exist. They have tried to build their machines into machines representing freedom and democracy, so that propaganda in the mind of the average man leaves the impression that we are trying to sell him something phony.
In my opinion the main function of the wartime information board is to tell the people of the United States the truth about what is going on in Canada, so that we may be able to get together on a basis of mutual understanding of what is taking place. I believe the wartime information board is and has been performing a useful service in this time of war.
Then, I have kept in close touch with what has been done by the national film board. I believe the chairman of that board, Mr. Grierson, is doing an important job in an important educational field. In my view visual education is the greatest medium of educating the public. I have seen many of the films produced by the film board since the outbreak of war. They have endeavoured to inform all the provinces in Canada of what is actually taking place, in order that Canadians may see each other in their respective provinces and in their various endeavours, so that the economic operations of all might be carried on more effectively. I believe I am speaking on behalf of this group when I compliment the national film board upon the job it is doing.


John George Diefenbaker: I should like to make a few comments following the explanations by the parliamentary assistant. My observations will deal more particularly with my experiences on my recent trip to the United States. I believe what I learned at that time should be brought to the attention of the Prime Minister, with a view to having certain changes made which in my opinion would materially improve our relations with the United States.
The parliamentary assistant made a comparison between expenditures in Canada and those in Great Britain and the United States. I fail to see the significance of such comparisons. In the matter of propaganda, a process which to-day assumes greater proportions than ever before, there are three phases. The first is that of the home front; the second concerns



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friendly or allied nations and, so far as Canada is concerned particularly concerns the United States of America. The third phase is that of operations by way of propaganda directed against the enemy. In other words information may be divided into two groups, one offensive and the other defensive. The operations of the wartime information board in Canada are not of the offensive type, in that they are not primarily directed against the enemy, whereas Great Britain and the United States have to build up a counter-propaganda system against axis nations. We in Canada have not had to do that to any extent, but Great Britain must answer the propaganda of the enemy nations. That accounts in large measure for the difference in the expenditures made by information boards in England and in Canada.
I believe there is no more important branch than the wTartime information board. Recent history has shown that the failure to answer enemy propaganda in allied countries, however implausible that propaganda may be, may result in dangerous divisions taking place. What Canada needs more than ever to-day is direct and truthful propaganda used as an antidote against some of the false propaganda being circulated.
If I remember correctly, the Prime Minister pointed out this afternoon that the United States has not at all times had a full appreciation of Canada's constitutional position. I feel, too, that she does not appreciate the many facets of the war effort of this dominion. There is nothing more important to-day than our relationship with the United States, owing to the fact that she is a great allied nation and our nearest neighbour. Our relations must be based upon an appreciation of what each nation is doing, and to that end the people of the United States should be told what Canada is doing in the war. ,
In Canada we hear every day what is being done in the United States. That information comes to us over the radio, in the newspapers and in the magazines published in the United States. However, in the short time I was there I found there were Americans in public life who had insufficient knowledge of the fact that last year this parliament made provision for a billion-dollar transfer of goods to Great Britain-the so-called gift. What is more, they have little or no knowledge of the billion-dollar mutual aid bill recently passed in the house. While the parliamentary assistant has said much regarding the improvement in conditions in the United States, so far as war-time information is concerned, I say there is plenty of room for a great improvement and for a wider dissemination of

news regarding our war contribution. A moment ago my hon. friend mentioned the number of press references that had been made, I believe it was something like four hundred in the last-


Brooke Claxton: The minister gave those
figures from Mr. Givens' letter. He said it had increased 400 per cent within a very short period.


John George Diefenbaker: There is still room for greater endeavours in the furnishing of information to the United States. A short time ago the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) said that the wartime information board was needed in Canada to disseminate information because the press was not doing its duty. That was the inference to be taken from his remarks. I submit that the press in Canada or the United States does not require the assistance of any board to point out the news that is worthy of dissemination.


Gordon Graydon: They know better than
anybody else.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My recollection is that among the persons who were most interested in having a war information board established, and who pressed most strongly for it, were the editors and publishers of most of the large papers in this country. I know from the pressure that was brought to bear on me by the press it was made clear that the members thought there should be an information board to do the very thing the parliamentary assistant has referred to to-day, namely, to facilitate the press in getting information that it needed.


John George Diefenbaker: That merely bears out my argument. The lack of interest in the United States in what Canada is doing is owing to the fact that we had no general and efficient method of disseminating news until October, 1942.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I know my hon. friend will not mind my interrupting him, because it is only a matter of having the right information. He must recall that until the United States was actually in the war there was in the United States a strong feeling against any attempt on the part of Canada to influence the people in a way which might be held to be political, namely, to make from Canada by way of propaganda an effort to bring the United States into the war. It was held the reactions might be serious. I am justified in saying that I was asked by the highest authority in the United States to see that great care was taken to avoid making

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any move by which it could be said that the government of Canada was trying to influence public opinion in the United States with a view to having the United States brought into the war against its will. All of that had to be carefully considered before Canada was justified in appointing any board for the purpose of distributing information in the United States with regard to the war.


John George Diefenbaker: All that the Prime Minister has said would apply prior to December, 1941, prior to Pearl Harbor, but after that date there was a hiatus until October, 1942, during which period little information was given to the people of the United States. It was only in October, 1942, following the pressure the Prime Minister says he received from editors and, I would submit, from members of this opposition also, that there was an extension of facilities in the United States. While we in Canada have been able to learn what the United States effort is, I repeat that in the United States there is not the knowledge of our war effort that there should be.
I think the limitation upon holding conventions in and tourist traffic in Canada should be removed. The matter of exchange is not so important to-day as it was at the time tourist traffic was almost excluded from this country. The United States and Canada are working together under mutual aid schemes and lend-lease, and the need for the restriction of tourist traffic is not as great as it was previously. There is nothing so beneficial to the relationship between countries, especially countries lying side by side, as the interchange of ideas consequent on the visit of tourists. I submit that something should be done to remove the present almost impregnable wall that exists in Canada against visits of United States tourists.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Give them more gasoline.


John George Diefenbaker: The hon. member for Davenport suggests that consideration should be given to granting an extra allowance of gasoline to tourists. I would suggest also that public speakers from Canada should be permitted and encouraged to go to the United States. At one time there was a speakers' bureau which arranged for the payment, in whole or in part, of expenses of speakers going to the United States. I understand that this has been done away with, but I speak subject to correction. In the recent visit to the United States of some members of this house we found that the people there are anxious to know about Canada and about our war effort. I submit that there would be no better way of doing this than to remove the unnecessary financial regulations in regard to tourist traffic
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and to encourage the holding of conventions in Canada and the arranging for speakers from Canada to go to the United States. I make these suggestions because I believe there is nothing so necessary to-day as the dissemination in the United States of selectve information, truthful information and, finally, the repetition of the information that is being distributed. This must be done in order to refute and combat misinformation which breeds easily and is a productive source of difficulty as between nations.
There are other observations I intended to make, one of which has to do with our soldiers overseas. To-day they are not permitted to receive newspapers. I realize that for a time this was necessary, but I contend that the best way the soldier overseas can be prevented from becoming homesick is to be made aware of what is happening on the home front. There should be a restoration to him of the right to secure Canadian newspapers. If that cannot be done, the wartime information board should establish a weekly or monthly publication which would set out what is happening in Canada. The parliamentary assistant, who has displayed the essence of courtesy in the way in which he has answered questions to-day, has sent me over a copy of "Canadian Affairs". This is a new pamphlet published for the Canadian army overseas by the wartime information board. It is entitled "Canada in the Fourth Year of War", by B. K. Sandwell, and I am going to refer to it.


Brooke Claxton: I wonder if my hon. friend would allow me to supplement the information I gave. I have just learned that the Canadian Press overseas print virtually a newspaper, a digest of the news in Canada, which is cabled over and distributed to the troops overseas and deals with the aspect of things near home. "Canadian Affairs" is intended to deal with a different kind of thing, with background, trends and tendencies. It is material in the nature of magazine material.


John George Diefenbaker: Then the Canadian Press was found sufficient and worthy of the distribution of the news overseas to our soldiers. The information branch apparently is not occupying the position of the Canadian Press in that regard. Now I come to "Canadian Affairs".


Brooke Claxton: The wartime information board does not edit any news. That is not its business. That has been pointed out time and again. Its business is to facilitate the flow of news.


John George Diefenbaker: It either gives news or it does not. A while ago the position taken by the parliamentary assistant was that by

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reason of the activities of our wartime information board in the United States the press of the United States had been made aware of outstanding events that should be given general distribution in that country, and in consequence news of importance to Canada received distribution in the press of the United States. But now he says, no.


Brooke Claxton: I am sorry, but there is no inconsistency whatever. What I said was that the Canadian Press and the United Press, the two agencies in Canada which have correspondents in the United States, send news to the United States. The wartime information board does not originate news. It is not a news agency.


John George Diefenbaker: Does it edit the news?


Brooke Claxton: No, it does not edit it. The news is sent down by the agencies over their wires to their correspondents in the United States, the Associated Press and the United Press, and it gets into the United States newspapers through the news service giving it distribution. The services of the wartime information board are in facilitating the flow of news at every point. It does not have anything to do with the collection of news or the direct distribution of news. It is a service that it is rendering, facilitating the flow of the news.


John George Diefenbaker: Then we are down to this. So far as the wartime information board is concerned, in the United States it runs a service in cooperation with the regular press services by directing the attention of the United States newspapers to available information.


Brooke Claxton: Yes, and making available to them background information, and doing all the other things I have described.


John George Diefenbaker: Then it does not discharge its responsibility in the United States of America to-day.
I have in my hands the pamphlet, "Canadian Affairs", which the parliamentary assistant says is information for the troops. What does the pamphlet itself say? The title on the cover is, "Canada in the Fourth Year of War". And underneath that it says, "Not to be reprinted in whole or in part without permission of the wartime information board of Canada." On the back cover it says:
Articles which appear in "Canadian Affairs" should be regarded as expressing the views of the individual Canadians who write them. These are not necessarily the views of the Department of National Defence, the wartime information board, or any other government authority.
(Mr. Diefonbaker.]
Therefore the information that is given in "Canadian Affairs" for the benefit of soldiers overseas may be propaganda of the worst kind, and I use the word "propaganda" in the sense of political party propaganda.


Mr. MACDONALD (Kingston City):: It might be the reverse!


John George Diefenbaker: It is expressly stated that the views expressed in this pamphlet are not necessarily the views of the wartime information board.
When I look over the pamphlet I find that it tells the story of Canada in the following manner:
I. Things are not the same.
III.	Money Doesn't Talk.
IV.	Union Recognition. With labour thus debarred from using its highly advantageous position for the purpose of getting higher wages, it became necessary to make many important concessions to the wage-earning classes in other directions.
VI. The Balloon Tugs at Its Rope.
VIII.	Exit the Millionaire.
IX.	Higher Taxation Here to Stay.
X.	Where are the Reapers?
XIII. Stay Where You are.
XV. Conflict of Authority.
My submission, Mr. Chairman, is that the information covered by "Canadian Affairs" is not the type of information that should be sent to the men who are overseas.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Would my hon. friend allow me to give the opinion of General McNaughton of the very number from which he has just read? The following message I am informed was received from Lieutenant-General A. G. L. McNaughton by Major-General H. F. G. Letson, Adjutant-General.
I have just seen volume I, number I, of "Canadian Affairs" which I have read from cover to cover with greatest interest. On behalf of army express sincerest thanks to those responsible for production. This issue and the others forecast will meet a need -we have long felt.


John George Diefenbaker: That still does not answer what I say, namely, that the information given in the form in which it is given may operate as nothing but party propaganda. I quote the heading of another article in "Canadian Affairs." It is as follows, " The Home Front in Review," and it deals, among other things, with:
Putting the "Conchies" to work. Another item in the man-power field came when Hon. Humphrey Mitchell, Minister cf Labour, announced plans to put conscientious objectors on farms and into essential industry-if they refuse such employment, they will be sent to "alternative service" camps. Only 3,401 postponements of military training have been granted on grounds of conscientious objection.
That is not objective news, Mr. Chairman; that is news commented upon.

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Brooke Claxton: I have just explained that this was not intended to be news; that news is dealt with in another way. This material is in the nature of magazine material. My hon. friend cannot make anything out of this. There is nothing that has not been explained to him.


John George Diefenbaker: This pamphlet is
not in that position at all. It is given to the officers overseas who are instructed to give talks based on it to their men. It says:
Don't read the pamphlet to your men. They would be bored in three minutes. But quote liberally sections that make stimulating listening.


Brooke Claxton: Has the hon. member any objection to that?


John George Diefenbaker: I am just saying
that in the form in which it is given, what is in this pamphlet may very well amount not to proper information but to actual propaganda for party purposes. That is what I am objecting to.


William Henry Golding: I wonder if hon. members would consider passing this item now so that we might relieve the Prime Minister? Shall the item carry?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Gordon Graydon: In the committee on radio broadcasting, which brought in its report at the end of the last session, some time was taken up in considering the question of the dissemination and perhaps the channelling of news and information from various departments of government. The parliamentary assistant was a member of that committee and took an active part in its work. He will recall, as will other members who took part in the committee, that evidence was adduced there indicating that some change was in the mind of the government looking to a more effective channelling of information coming from various governmental departments to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. What I wish to refer to is not related to press publication but rather to the radio.
There was evidence before the committee on one or two occasions that there was no real coordination in regard to information from various government sources-the wartime prices and trade board, the Department of Trade and Commerce, the Department of Agriculture and other departments-but that
these departments, by a more or less hit-or-miss method, were competing, or at least that there was possibility that they might compete, for time on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation network. Some intimation was also given by those who gave evidence that the government had in mind at that time extending the work of the interdepartmental committee which was set up, I believe, under the chairmanship of the Hon. T. C. Davis, who was later appointed as Australian minister. That interdepartmental committee's workings have been spoken of from time to time in the committee itself, and I was wondering if the hon. gentleman could tell us whether it was working in conjunction with the wartime information board, which had been set up since the radio committee had brought in its findings.
May I quote from the Ottawa Journal of April 3 of this year, from an article under the title, "John Grierson defends work of war information board". At one stage of his observations he states:
Each department of government had its own information service issuing material to the public. WJ.B. is not immediately concerned with these services, but has the duty of seeing to it that, in consultation with the departmental officers concerned, wastage of effort is kept within limits, campaigns are related and contradictions avoided.
That seems to put the matter on all fours with what was discussed in the radio committee at the last session of the house. I was wondering if the parliamentary assistant could give some information concerning the relationship between the wartime information board's activities and those of the interdepartmental committee, or whether the wartime information board has taken over the work of that committee.


Brooke Claxton: The question of coordinating the activities of the various information services is kept constantly in mind. There is one committee, the national campaign committee, under the chairmanship of Brigadier James Mess, which deals with the general subject of national campaigns in the broadest sense. It has representation from the various departments concerned. There is also a publicity coordinating committee, which I think is the committee the hon. member has particularly in mind, which was formerly chaired by the Hon. T. C. Davis, and that committee actually, works on the business of coordinating war-time information, whether it be from the various government departments or from the wartime information board. In addition to that, it would be fair to say that since the report of the broadcasting committee, to which the hon. gentleman has referred, there has been
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a considerable growth of cooperation and coordination at every level. That certainly is striven for, I 'believe, with a considerable degree of success. Therefore my answer is that the question the hon. gentleman has in mind is constantly before those concerned with it, and they are making every effort to see to it that there shall be the most complete coordination and cooperation on the part of the various departments concerned.


Gordon Graydon: What is the relationship between the wartime information board and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation? How closely do they work, and are the functions
of the two bodies interrelated so far as the work of both is concerned?


Brooke Claxton: There is no formal organization directly relating the activities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the wartime information board beyond the two committees and some other committees I might mention, but there is constant communication and cooperation. The opposite numbers in all ranks, from the general manager of the broadcasting corporation and the general manager of wartime information, down, work very closely together.


John George Diefenbaker: I should like to get an answer from the parliamentary assistant in regard to "Canada at War" and the omission of information from the March, April, May and June issues with respect to the call-up and enlistment of men in the various military districts. This afternoon the parliamentary assistant said he would bring the matter to the attention of the board. That is not enough. Parliament has a right to know what should be in that booklet, and an explanation is due. The parliamentary assistant said that the reason why it was omitted was that parliament was in session. I accept that explanation. Then the question was asked whether he would give an assurance that this information would be furnished in issues following the prorogation of parliament, and the answer was that the matter would be brought to the attention of the board. The omission of this item has been the subject of considerable editorial comment and is a matter of interest to people everywhere. It gives them a picture from month to month of what Canada is doing in regard to manpower in all parts of the dominion. It makes for competition between districts and arouses, on the part of those districts which are contributing men, that enthusiasm which enables them to maintain the record of leading Canada in recruiting. During recent months, when a certain military district was ahead, 
the people resident in that district and the newspapers were very proud of the fact that they were leading the dominion. Competition is engendered as a result of furnishing that information, which cannot be secured in any other way. If we want the man-power, this is one way in which districts would vie with one another in a competitive play to head the dominion. I ask for some assurance that this be re-included in "Canada at War". It is not information which by any stretch of the imagination can do any harm to this nation. It was given for months. I ask the parliamentary assistant to place before the people the situation. Let us know w'hy it has been omitted and when it will be restored.


Brooke Claxton: I must say that I am not clear as to the specific table to which the hon. member for Lake Centre has reference. I have looked over the issues of "Canada at War" from January to date, and I see that in the June issue, for example, there is no such table.


John George Diefenbaker: It has been omitted ever since February.


Brooke Claxton: "Man-power distribution" and "Summary of mobilization statistics". The hon. member will notice, and anybody else who chooses to look at the publication will see, that the make-up of the tables varies from month to month. I have in my hand the issue for July, just off the press. It is not yet issued to the public, and it has a table, "man-power distribution" and "summary of mobilization statistics". Probably that gives my hon. friend the information he wants.


John George Diefenbaker: Does it give the oall-up, district by district?


Brooke Claxton: It gives administration divisions, A to N, London to Edmonton, number called for medical examination, number examined, postponements, number requested, number granted, number in effect; military training, number called, number reported, number accepted.


John George Diefenbaker: It is not the same table.


Brooke Claxton: I am sorry, I do not
know what my hon. friend has in mind. If there is an omission, I do not know the reason for it beyond what I have described. The two reasons are, first, that this information is given from time to time in the house; and second, that the make-up of the publication changes from time to time so as to provide information in different forms.

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Richard Burpee Hanson: I wish to ask the parliamentary assistant about the increases of staff of the wartime information board during the last four or five months.
I understand that a substantial number of men have been taken on during that time. How many have been taken on; how many have had newspaper experience, and how many are from university staffs?


Brooke Claxton: When the hon. member for York-Sun'bury puts the question in that vague form, I must say that I am not prepared to answer it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. member has in front of him a gentleman who ought to know.


Brooke Claxton: "The last four or five
months" is a rather vague term, but the salary payrolls which I have here indicate that between September, 1942, and March there was a falling off in the staff, owing to the changeover from the old division of public information to the present wartime information board. In the last month or two there has been an increase, but the increase is only to the figure of 132 to-day as compared with the figure of 158 at the end of August 1942. With regard to personnel of the staff, I have not in mind that there is any serious change in emphasis between members of the press and university workers or any other profession. I do not know that there has been.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Of course the hon. gentleman is just talking all around the subject and saying nothing. Perhaps I can help him. I understand that seventeen men have been taken on in recent weeks, not one of whom has had newspaper experience, and that this group has been taken from various university groups. I should like to know the reason why; who they are; what salaries they are getting; how long their tenure of office is to be, and what is the policy behind the employment of these gentlemen.


Brooke Claxton: I can answer my hon. friend in one way. If he can indicate to the wartime information board at this time two or three newspaper men who would be suitable for work with the board they would be very glad to hear from them. With regard to his question, I do not know that there is any change, except this, that as I have indicated, in the development with the march of events and the passing of time from the original set-up back in 1940 to the present date, there has been a change of emphasis in that the wartime information board is no longer concerned so much with getting out
material which will reach the public direct, as with providing services and facilities which reach the public indirectly. That change of emphasis has resulted in a decrease of staff and perhaps has enabled the board to use fewer newspapermen than it had before-if that is the case; I do not know that it is the case. We have not the whole staff up to date categorized under their previous occupations.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. gentleman's reply would lead me to believe that he does not know anything about it, and that is probably true. My information is that nineteen new men have been taken on this staff within recent weeks and that not one of them is a trained newspaper or publicity man. We ought to have that information; who they are; what the terms of their employment are; what their salaries are; whether it was impossible to get trained newspapermen-I think they are usually available-how long they are going to be there; what they are paid, and what their special duties are. I think we should have that information.


Brooke Claxton: If my hon. friend wants that information I will try to give it to him, but I must say that we had no reason to sort it out in that form, and I shall have to take the time of the committee to sort it out here, because that is not the normal way to record information of this kind.
The first name is Anderson, A. C. As I mentioned this afternoon, he is in charge of south American news. The date of appoints ment is January 16, 1943. He was formerly a newspaperman working with the Southam Press.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is not within three or four months.


Brooke Claxton: My hon. friend has to be fair. Where are we going to begin?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I said, the last three or four months. That is perfectly fair and quite understandable. I believe we have the record up to February 8 on a return. What we want is a supplementary record since this return was brought down.


Brooke Claxton: Now that my hon. friend has given me the date I can begin from it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: All right. I am glad to help the hon. gentleman.


Brooke Claxton: The date is February 8?


Richard Burpee Hanson: February 8.


Brooke Claxton: Mrs. I. M. Arnold, clerk-grade 4, April 1, 1942.

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Richard Burpee Hanson: What experience has she had?


Brooke Claxton: She is a clerk.
Miss S'. Cloutier, clerk grade 3, April 12, 1943.
Mr. C. F. Crandall, February 20, 1943. He was formerly president of the United Press and, before that, managing editor of the Montreal Star and is president of the Dominion News Bureau.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Salary?


Brooke Claxton: He has no salary.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, that is just temporary.


Brooke Claxton: Everyone in this board has a temporary position.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What is he costing the country?


Brooke Claxton: He receives his out-ofpocket expenses. Mr. J. R. Herbin was appointed ou February 12, 1943. He was formerly employed as a copy reader with the Toronto Daily Star.


Richard Burpee Hanson: He was a newspaperman in Fredericton; he is a young man.


Brooke Claxton: I do not know his age. He was a newspaperman, like Mr. Crandall, whom I have just mentioned.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What is his salary?


Brooke Claxton: 



S3,300.

Richard Burpee Hanson: He got $15 a week when he was in Fredericton.


Brooke Claxton: How long ago?


Richard Burpee Hanson: About three or four years.


Brooke Claxton: Well, something has happened since then.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I know
what happened; he got on the government payroll. That is the only thing that happened, as far as I know.


Brooke Claxton: On February 16, 1943,
Miss J. Laroche was appointed as clerk, grade 1.


Richard Burpee Hanson: At S60?


Brooke Claxton: Yes, $60.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, we are not after that.
[Mr. Claxton 1


Brooke Claxton: I should like to know what my hon. friend is asking for. He says nineteen people have been appointed and I am giving him all there are.


Richard Burpee Hanson: How many college professors? Come to that.


Brooke Claxton: Mr. E. L. Morris was
appointed on May 3, 1943, as principal clerk; he was formerly employed' with the Halifax Chronicle.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Salary?


Brooke Claxton: $1,920. On April 5, 1943, Mr. T. F. N. Newton, formerly lecturer in English at McGill university, was appointed at a salary of $4,200, the salary he received at McGill. On April 16, 1943, P. H. Riley was appointed office boy at $420. On April 2, 1943, Mr. C. M. Watson received $400 for a three months' survey of some subject set by the board.


Richard Burpee Hanson: He was
brought in from New York, was he not?


Brooke Claxton: Yes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: He comes from Fredericton, too.


Brooke Claxton: He was an experienced radio man, working with the National Broadcasting company.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Yes, and a very good man.


Brooke Claxton: On April 9, 1943, Mr. B. Foster was appointed as mail porter; SI,020; no journalistic experience. On April 1, 1943, Miss B. V. Carruthers was appointed to the New York staff as a teletype operator; no journalistic experience, as far as I know. On April 1, 1943, Miss B. A. Roberts was appointed to the New York office as a stenographer. Those are all the appointments of which I have note.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Does the hon. gentleman say that is all there are?


Brooke Claxton: Those are all of which I have note.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That does not say that is all, though.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: The mystery is solved.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It is not solved; we have not had the proper answers.


John George Diefenbaker: 
Brooke Claxton: Perhaps I should have explained at greater length how "Canadian Affairs" originated, but I thought I had taken up enough of the time of the committee. There are two publications issued by the British army, "Current Affairs" and "War". They are issued to all officers and, I think, a considerable number of other ranks in the British army as well as in the Canadian forces. They are extraordinarily useful publications, and by General McNaughton and others it was thought desirable that we should supplement these publications with another of our own. Accordingly "Canadian Affairs" was decided upon, as it states, to fill a long-felt want. If my hon. friend is familiar with the other publications he will see that the set-up of this pamphlet is very similar to that of the other two. I think reference to the other
publications will indicate that everything about this pamphlet is similar to them. The other publications are written in part by individuals, in the same way, and the board issuing them disclaims any responsibility for the views expressed. That is in order that they may not become totally colourless, and it indicates that they carry no official sanction. AYith regard to reprinting, the wartime information board has been requested for permission to reprint articles from this publication on at least two occasions, both in Great Britain; once by a newspaper and once by one of the British army publications, and that permission was given instantly. The qualification with regard to reprinting I should think appears on every publication issued for the army. There is no objection to the material being used, provided some control is kept over its use, and that is one reason for putting in that restriction. It is also intended to protect those who are asked to contribute their services for these purposes. The Prime Minister has already read to the committee the appreciation of the first number from General McNaughton. I should think the committee, and everyone else, would be completely satisfied that this was a desirable publication issued in the interests of our soldiers overseas definitely to keep them better informed and properly safeguarded in every way. It was just the kind of thing that General McNaughton wanted, and that he said in his telegram he wanted.


John George Diefenbaker: I know those British publications, and they do not contain any of the political references this booklet contains. I will read one of them, and I would ask the committee whether or not it contains information objectively given for the benefit of the troops overseas. Here is one quotation:
High Taxation Here to Stay
The social effects of this steeply graduated taxation will be incalculable. Only a small fraction of them is now visible, because taxpayers have not yet adjusted their style of living to their new circumstances.
And a little later on:
Any expectation that this rate of taxation can be much lessened after the war is fast disappearing, as it comes to be realized that Canada cannot avoid sharing in the burden of putting Europe and the orient on their feet again, and as political parties vie with one another in their promises of legislation for social betterment at home. It cannot be said that there is any serious resentment about these changes, which are accepted as inevitable and as likely in the long run to be beneficial to the nation; the chief concern of the "successful" classes is to preserve some area of opportunity for private enterprise.
Then he goes on to refer to the purpose of continuing taxation at its present level, as



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against the demands of the socialists for the elimination of the whole profit motive from commerce and industry. There are many such quotations in the book.


Mr. MACKENZIE  ICING@: I think that must have been written by a member of the Progressive Conservative party.


John George Diefenbaker: It is written by Mr. Sandwell.


Richard Burpee Hanson: We ought to have an explanation why political propaganda like that is put out in the guise of objective information to the army.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend knows that it is not political propaganda. What is the sense of trying to create the impression that it is political propaganda? It is nothing of the kind.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Shall the item carry?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Mr. POULIOT:: No. I have listened with great interest this afternoon to the lucid explanations given by the parliamentary assistant to the Prime Minister. One thing which surprised me was his statement that Mr. Grierson had only one salary. I remember the time when Mr. Grierson received only $6,000 from the film board, but it has now jumped to $10,000. Therefore, if he has only one salary, then it is a salary with a big belly, meaning by that that instead of having a salary of only $6,000 a year, he has one of $10,000. Well, I have no objection to that; but the whole story should be told. He is there, and he looks after the film board, a very fine institution. Then, we realize the information board is not such a fine institution, and I think a distinction should be made between them. The information board does not inform people as they should be informed about everything.
In the first place, French-speaking people in this country should be informed about English-speaking people, and vice versa, so that we may come to an understanding. But nothing of that sort is done. What is the use of keeping an information board when there is an information branch in each department? There is one in the Department of Munitions and Supply and also one in the Department of Labour. Why do we have this fifth wheel called the information board? I am not saying that to be critical. I remember distinctly that the matter of information was covered by the Department of National War Services, before that department was entrusted to the hon. member who is now minister of that department. As soon as he was sworn in, it was taken away from that department, and placed
fMr. Diefenbaker.]
under the Prime Minister. Why was such a change made? I wonder if the hon. member who is now parliamentary assistant has explained why the information board has been taken away from the Minister of National War Services, and put into the hands of the Prime Minister. I might speak again to-night as the defender of widows and orphans, but in this respect the orphan is the Minister of National War Services who has been put in charge of a department with nothing in it, except the scissors of censorship. That is the way I take it.
I appreciate that the Minister of National War Services, who has nothing to do in his department except look after Mr. Oliver Mowat Biggar's office, would have much more time to look after information than would the Prime Minister, who is a very busy man. Who would expect the Prime Minister to have the time to read all these publications? I am sure he was grateful to the hon. member for Lake Centre when he read from the publication to the committee to-night. Do you think, Mr. Chairman, that the Prime Minister of Canada, the busiest man in the country, has time to read all these publications? Then, why was it not put under a gentleman of leisure, a minister of leisure, who has very little to do in his department, and would have the time to scrutinize the whole thing? This could be done simply, and in good order.
I have no grudge against anyone. I think Mr. Grierson is a fine fellow. But why should we always go to an outsider when we want something done in Canada? When it came to the film board we took Mr. Grierson, who came from Scotland. And he was not the only Scotsman. For radio we have Doctor Thomson, who comes from Scotland. For reconstruction we have James of McGill, from England. All these outsiders come to this country to teach Canadians what they shall do in the post-war era, and what they should do during the war. Are there not any Canadians who could do it? More than that, these outsiders are taken into the employ of the government because of the deep religious feeling held by His Majesty's Loyal Opposition for all outsiders. It is the impression of the government that so long as they hire the services of outsiders the opposition will accept them and give them their kotows in true Japanese fashion. They will put their noses together in a long embrace. The government goes to these outsiders, people coming from the British isles, and has them take these key positions in Canada so that every time something is done they may say, "Well, it was that Englishman who did it", or that Scotsman who did it, or that Irishman. And then the opposition will make kotows to them.

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That is all very well. But if the opposition *were not so ready to fill these boards with outsiders, it would be better for the country, and we would have Canadians in charge of important matters, matters which at the present time are run by outsiders. I do not object to Grierson as Grierson, but I do object to Grierson as an outsider coming to teach us. I object to Doctor Thomson for the same reason. And I object to James of McGill on the same grounds. I object to the fact that these people come out to teach the bloated colonials in Canada what they have to do.
Then, with regard to the film board, we know a great many pictures have been taken of our Prime Minister. At one time I said that Mr. Grierson had so many pictures of the Prime Minister that I was sure the exposures were as numerous as the sands of the seas and the stars in the sky. How many pictures does he have that are still undeveloped? How many are there in the vaults of the film board? They are fine pictures the country should see and we should like to see, but we have not yet had the privilege of seeing them. It seems to me that for these reasons we should not be excessive in our praise, and we should get some information on the pictorial side of the matter.
I have something else in mind. How much money has been spent for McKenna, for instance? McKenna is the man who was a correspondent of a United States paper in the press gallery. What were the expenditures for trips to New York, trips to everywhere, trips to nowhere? And what about payments to Paul Reading, who wears out I do not know how many pairs of boot soles walking in the corridors of this house. There are Paul Reading and McKenna, and how many others? We see them around the corridors all the time; that is, all the time they are in Ottawa. How much money has been paid to them for travelling expenses? Instead of putting forth the theory about what should be done and what should not be done in the way of propaganda, we should first know what it costs. That is the first question that should be asked by the opposition. Why did the opposition not ask how much Paul Reading had received for travelling expenses, living expenses, and this and that? How much money did McKenna get? How much money did he pass over to other journalists for travelling expenses? These would be good things to know. We should have the dollars and cents. I wonder if the Prime Minister has been informed of all these details.
Why should the wartime information board be treated as a kind of holy of holies about
72537-300i
which we cannot get any information when we ask about the regulations and the censorship? We should be told about the regulations and about the censorship, or at least about the censorship regulations. How is it that these people can publish anything, while other papers have not the same right? What is the use of having a wartime information board if it does not inform the Canadian people? The Canadian people are entitled to the truth; that is the kind of news they should get. There are some journalists who are ready -or Reading-to go along with that kind of thing, but there are others who are honest and who realize that when they represent the press they fulfil a sacred duty to the public. Very often important news has been hidden from the public, news that should1 have been given to the public in order to inspire confidence in the government. Sometimes people lose confidence in the government because of the wrong this has done in connection with supplying news to the Canadian people.
Canadians have a right to expect true and reliable information from the papers to which they have subscribed. This public institution, the wartime information board, is not supported directly by the Canadian people, because there are no subscribers to the board such as there are to newspapers, but on the other hand the expenses come out of the pockets of the Canadian taxpayers and they are entitled to have value for the taxes they pay to support the board. They have a right to know what the expenses of this board are; what expenses are being paid to McKenna, whom I mentioned, and Reading and many others. We see them in the corridors of the house trying to check the news and trying to create false propaganda. I know whereof I speak.
All this is said in the best possible spirit and in order that the wartime information board may serve a definite purpose. There is a man in Canada who has done more to supply the public with information than any government institution. I refer to Emile Vaillancourt of Montreal. He has supplied the press with all sorts of information about all sorts of things. I read to the house the letter which he wrote last year to Winston Churchill, and the Prime Minister said it was a good letter in spite of the protests of the then leader of the opposition who did not listen long enough to see how much to the point it was. How is it that the government has not asked Emile Vaillancourt, not to join the board but to be the head of the board? He is a most gifted man; he knows a great deal more about publicity and Canadian
4738	COMMONS
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history than Philippe Brais. Mr. Brais may know something about the civil code and statutory procedure, enactments and things like that, but he is not at all cultured. But here is a man who is cultured ; here is a man who is public spirited; here is a man who is fully qualified to be the head of this institution and to make a success of it. But he is left aside; he is left in the shade, perhaps because he is too independent. It does not mean that he is not a good Canadian; he is a first-class Canadian. The testimonial that was given to him by the Prime Minister in this chamber is something that cannot be forgotten. Among the best things that have come from the pens of Canadians is this letter to Churchill. But he has done more than that. He has led public discussions over the radio and has had them printed at his own expense and distributed to hon. members. How is it that a man so well gifted, who has done so much at his own expense, is not asked to -lead and to make a success of this board? He would make English-speaking Canadians understand that there are some French-speaking Canadians who can do as well as any men imported into the country.
We are all Canadians. I am not prejudiced; I am not biased, but in this case I think Emile Yaillancourt is the best man we could have had. I am sure that the Prime Minister, his parliamentary assistant and all the members of the committee appreciate the excellent work that has been done by Emile Vaillancourt. During war time there is a need to unite Canada, instead of dividing it for the benefit of a few people and to the detriment of the community at large.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Would the Prime Minister be good enough to place my name on the mailing list for "Canadian Affairs"?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I shall direct the attention of the board to my hon. friend's request.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It is a public document published by the wartime information board.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have not interfered with the board or its work, and I prefer to maintain that attitude. I shall be glad to refer my hon. friend's request to the board, and I am sure they will be happy to meet it.
I should like to say a word in regard to one remark made by the hon. member for Temis-couata. He asked why it was that the information board was placed under the president of the council immediately after the Minister of National War Services (Mr. LaFleche) had been appointed, the implica-

tion being that this was done because the Minister of National War Services happened to be a French Canadian. That is as I understood the impression the hon. gentleman was seeking to leave. He suggested that as soon as the minister had taken over this portfolio, the board was transferred from his responsibility to that of the president of the council. I hope I am not misconstruing what my hon. friend had in mind and intended to convey.
I should like to make clear to the committee the reason why the board was placed under the president of the council. Mr. Yining was asked to prepare a report for the government on the whole question of war information and the best way of facilitating the distribution of information. He recommended that the board should be under the president of the council rather than any other minister in order that interdepartmental cooperation might be more effectively obtained. This was not likely to be the case to the same degree if the board remained under any one other particular minister. That recommendation was made while an English-speaking minister was at the head of the Department of National War Services and before the present minister took office. It is only fair that these facts should be made perfectly clear.


Jean-François Pouliot: I did not want to convey the impression that I was complaining because the wartime information board had been taken from the Department of National War Services at the time of the appointment of the present minister because he was a French Canadian. That was not the question at all. What I said was that as soon as the gentleman was sworn in, the board was turned out. I thank the Prime Minister for his explanation, but I did not mention either the race or religion of the present Minister of National War Services when I made my statement.


Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: Reference has been made to the faot that there are information boards or publicity offices in a number of the ministries and in branches of the armed services. I wonder if we might have information as to just what other ministries maintain offices of this kind, and to what extent the wartime information board serves to coordinate the work done by these other offices, or whether there is no coordination between these separate offices and the wartime information board.


Brooke Claxton: The material required to answer that question has already been given in the return which was brought down to the house some time ago. So far as I know, the situation has not changed since. I will refer the hon. member for York South to the return if I may, on the adjournment.

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Jean-François Pouliot: I should like the parliamentary assistant to be kind enough to tell us how much money was paid for travelling expenses, living allowance, and all that, to Mr. McKenna and Mr. Reading.


Joseph William Noseworthy: May I ask if the return to which the parliamentary assistant referred touched on the question of coordination between the different publicity offices and the wartime information board.


Mr.   OLAXTON@: I am sorry; it just gives factual information about the number of press representatives in the various departments of the government. I have already said something at the beginning of the sitting to-night on the question of coordination. There is every effort made at coordination, and that coordination is very close with the public relations officers of the board. Mr. J. W. G. Clark, director of public relations of the department of defence works closely with the wartime information board, and the same is true of the other departments. In addition, there are, as I mentioned before, a number of provisions which are specially designed to accomplish what my hon. friend has in mind.
In reply to the question of the hon. member for Temiscouata, return No. 176, which was brought down in the house on March 2, 1943, discloses that no expenses were paid to Mt. McKenna and none to Mr. Reading since the organization of the board. I am informed that since that date Mr. McKenna has had one trip to the United States to see people with whom he has to deal there and those in charge of the distribution of foreign news going to the United States, and that Mr. Reading has had no travelling expenses since then whatsoever.


Jean-François Pouliot: How much was paid to Mr. McKenna for his travelling expenses.


Brooke Claxton: I have not that information here.


Jean-François Pouliot: Will the hon. gentleman please give it to me later?


Brooke Claxton: Yes.


Jean-François Pouliot: Thank you.


Mr. HANSELL:: I think there should be some little correction made of an impression which the hon. member for Temiscouata may have left, though I do not know that I am the man to make the correction. The hon. member seemed particularly vociferous in his condemnation of the government for bringing in from outside this country men of expert knowledge. I do not know all the men that he mentioned, but he did mention Doctor Thomson, who to-day is the managing director
of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the impression one might get from the hon. member's remarks is that the government sent over to Scotland for Doctor Thomson, which of course, is not the case. I think with all due respect for Doctor Thomson that should be made perfectly plain. I happened to be a member of the radio committee of last year and I think, if the evidence is examined together with the reports of that committee, it will be found that we were particularly anxious that should there be a change in the managing directorship of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the position should be filled by someone from Canada. I am not attempting to come to the assistance of the government in saying this, but the fact is that Doctor Thomson was released from ithe university of Saskatchewan, I believe at the request of the government, in order that he might assume the duties of managing-director of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for this year. He was not imported for that job.
While I am on my feet I should like 'to say that there is a principle involved that was well stated by the hon. member for Temiscouata. It does seem that very often we import what we may regard as experts, while perhaps many experts in our own midst leave us to work in other countries, particularly in the country to the south, where the fields may appear to be greener. I see no reason why Canada should be one whit behind any other nation in the world in producing experts in every possible field of modern civilization. I have mentioned before, and I think I should mention it again now, that the Prime Minister is in his seat, that we have doctors of philosophy in the various sciences working in our civil service to-day for wages that are less than what is paid to a grade 3 stenographer. That should not be so.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I believe that for some little time I have been remiss in my duty. I allowed the hon. member for Temiscouata to mention persons born outside Canada. That was my mistake, and I shall be compelled from now on to keep speakers to the item before the Chair.


Ernest George Hansell: Very well, Mr. Chairman. I have always regarded you as being fair, and I think you are fair now. Your point is well taken, but I am of the opinion that the hon. member for Temiscouata must not get away with anything more than any other-private member of the house.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I made it very plain that some part of his discussion was out of order, and that it was my mistake in not

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calling him to order. I believe it is the sentiment of ninety-mine per cent of the committee that we should stay within the orbit of the item we are discussing.
Mr. H'ANSELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Now may I get back to the wartime information board. I have no fault to find with the board, but I want to make this observation. The Prime Minister took exception to a remark a little while ago from the official opposition in regard to political propaganda. I do not know that that was precisely the term used. I am not going to say that the wartime information board is used for political propaganda, but I make this observation, that there can hardly be a piece of literature issued by the wartime information board on what is being done in Canada to-day without carrying with it a psychological impression that the Liberal government is doing a good job. "Canada at War" comes out once a month and I like to read it; I get a lot of information from it. But anyone reading that publication is	apt	to saythat it	is	simply a build-up for	the	presentgovernment. And it is. I am not saying that it	is	intentionally so, but	the	fact isthat it	is,	and the result is that	the	department has all the advantage that this publication gives.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: A corrective, so far as that is concerned, if any be needed, is furnished in full measure by what appears in some organs of the press. I rose to comment upon one matter mentioned, namely, with respect to certain persons holding positions in the country, the suggestion made being that such positions are necessarily to be reserved for persons born in Canada. I am as strong a Canadian as anyone in this house, but I should be very sorry if the day ever came when we decided to make it even an indirect condition that a person, in order to hold a high position in Canada, must necessarily have been born in this country. I think of the positions of hon. members in this house. There is no more honourable position in Canada than that of member of parliament. When I look diagonally opposite I see a good many gentlemen who would not be in this House of Commons to-day, if the people had not sent them here, notwithstanding the fact that they were not born in Canada. It is one of the glories of this country that any man may come to Canada and feel that he has a chance to help to serve not only the people of Canada, but if he has the ability, mankind itself, men and women of all classes and creeds and countries. I do not forget that (The Chairman.]
the great leader of the Conservative party, the first Prime Minister of this country, a man whom all of us honour, irrespective of party, wms from the old country; I do not forget either that he was a Scotsman. When you find gentlemen in high positions and you are told at the same time that they come from Scotland, you may feel pretty sure that the appointment is a fairly good one.


Ernest George Hansell: I do not know why the Prime Minister was facing me all the time, because I did not make the charge; it was the hon. member for Temiscouata who made it. I rose to say just about what the Prime Minister has said, in defence of Doctor Thomson, a man already in Canada. However, I do not mind the Prime Minister looking this way once in a while.


Mr. CASTLEDEN:: In regard to the publication "Canadian Affairs", can the parliamentary assistant say how many copies have been distributed?


Brooke Claxton: The last issue was 23,000. They are printed in England by the wartime information- board for the Department of National Defence.


George Hugh Castleden: What is the cost of that issue?


Brooke Claxton: I do not know the cost. It is charged to the Department of National Defence.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Privy Council.
Advisory committee on reconstruction, $47,250.
John Ritchie MacNicol: This is a vote for the advisory committee on reconstruction. Most hon. members are acquainted with what the parliamentary committee on reconstruction and rehabilitation is doing. It has an able chairman and an able vice-chairman, both of whom deserve a good deal of credit. But what is this advisory committee doing? I have been a member of the parliamentary committee and we have had some of the members of the advisory committee before us, but I do not know what they are doing. The war may be over at any time, and I hope it is; but if the war ended to-morrow, just what plans and specifications are ready to give men jobs? We have been talking now for the last four hours about publicity. Publicity is very necessary, I admit, in the conduct of government, but the providing of jobs when the war is over is infinitely more important. We shall get a good deal of

War Appropriation-External Affairs
unfavourable publicity after the war if there are many thouands of men unemployed as there were after the last war.
There is a multitude of opportunities to provide jobs. I know of a multitude myself, but I will not enumerate them. However, let me give one small project as a sample of what can be done, and what I believe should be done, if this advisory committee is the one that is to prepare for the provision of jobs. If it is to submit plans and specifications to provide jobs, it ought to be preparing right now. I do not know that much has been done so far. I have read speeches by members of the committee who are doing good work in their way, but we have to go much farther than that. We have to get together a large number of plans and specifications of jobs to which men can be directed immediately the war is over, or we shall find ourselves in the same boat as we did after the last war.
I was closely associated with business after the last war, and I know that business closed up tight and men did not get jobs. I had so much to do with jobs that perhaps I talk about this subject more than I should, but one cannot overemphasize the importance of providing work, and the men cannot get it by talk but by careful preparation. They cannot be paid for the work they do by talk but by money, and to be paid money they have to render some service in return.
Recently there was an article in the newspapers about the riding represented by my leader, the riding of Peel, where somebody in the towm of Brampton had given to the press a plan for a proposed diversion of a small creek running through the town. It is called Etobicoke river. North of that town the watershed1 of the river is very small, about twenty-five square miles, but to give an indication of what a small watershed like that can do if there should be a cloudburst or a heavy three-day rain, the amount of water that would fall on it could be 160,000,000 cubic feet. That quantity of water rushing through the town would wipe the main street off the map. They have had severe floods there beginning away back in 1878 and down through the years, in 1909, 1929, and last year again, 1942, and the big floods have averaged from $80,000 to $100,000 of damage each time. The whole work on that river to flood-proof it could be done for $100,000. That is one small project. I would ask the Prime Minister courteously to direct this committee, for which this money is being voted, to inform members of parliament and the country what they are doing, and I would ask him to request them in the kindest way to provide plans and specifications for jobs to which many thousands of men could1 be sent to earn an honest dollar when the war ends.


Brooke Claxton: This committee was
appointed by order in council P.C. 609 in January, 1943. It is working with sub-committees, a number of which have made reports. It is hoped that all the reports in the course of preparation will be in, in the month of August or September, and they will be made available as soon as it is in the public interest to give them. There are other committees working on the subject of reconstruction-the committee on rehabilitation and demobilization, the advisory committee on economic policy, the Canadian section of the joint economic board, in addition to the three parliamentary committees. They are all working and are bringing their work to the point where it will be possible for some agency to draw up the plans and specifications to which my hon. friend lias referred.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Are there prepared plans and specifications for a single specific job? Can the hon. member name one solitary job that everything is prepared for?


Brooke Claxton: Yes; a number of specific jobs have been prepared. A great many are under consideration. There is a sub-committee of the advisory committee on reconstruction, on post-war construction projects. The chairman is Mr. K. M. Cameron, chief engineer of the Department of Public Works, and that committee has made an interim report, I understand, and will make a further report at an early date.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Can the hon. member name one job?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: A survey of the whole country.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Yes; but have they named a single place in this country for which blueprints, plans and specifications have been prepared, to which men can be sent immediately the war closes, as soon as material can get on that job?


Brooke Claxton: I do not think they
have gone as far as my hon. friend would want on that, because the war is not over yet, but I think they are at the stage where they have considered in one way or another a very large number of projects plus a whole system of dealing with specific jobs, and I hope the wish of my hon. friend will be met by the progress that is being made.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I hope so.

War Appropriation-External Affairs


John Horne Blackmore: May I ask the Prime Minister or his parliamentary assistant whether or not this committee is devising ways and means of finding money?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I hope it is not.


John Horne Blackmore: Did I understand the right hon. gentleman correctly to say that he hoped it was not?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


John Horne Blackmore: May I submit that
if it is not devising ways and means of finding the money, it is simply not worth five cents to this country.	[DOT]


Brooke Claxton: The point raised by the horn, member for Lethbridge is under constant consideration by the advisory committee on economic policy.


John Horne Blackmore: What we should like to know is whether or not it is getting anywhere or whether it is just "advising."


Gordon Graydon: I wish to ask the Prime Minister or his parliamentary assistant whether this amount of money, $47,250, goes to salaries for those on the advisory committee, or if that is a straight matter of expense; if so, perhaps the assistant would have a break-down of the amount.


Brooke Claxton: Salaries $15,317.28.


Gordon Graydon: To whom does that go?


Brooke Claxton: To employees of the
committee. The members of the committee give their services without remuneration. The next item is cost-of-living bonus, $414.64; unemployment insurance, $28.08; stationery and supplies, $1,500; fees, $10,000; transportation and travel, $20,000. The reason for the relatively large item for transportation and travel is that there are six subcommittees, with geographical representation, and while meetings are cut to the minimum, there is an absolute necessity for members of the committee to get together now and then.


George Hugh Castleden: Can we have the
names of this committee?


Brooke Claxton: Yes. The names of the advisory committee on reconstruction are: chairman, Doctor F. Cyril James, president of McGill university; P. R. Bengough, acting president, Trades and Labour Congress of Canada; Hon. D. G. MacKenzie, chief commissioner, Board of Grain Commissioners for Canada; J. S. McLean, president, Canada Packers; Arthur Surveyer, civil engineer, of Montreal; Doctor R. C. Wallace, principal Queen's university, ex officio and coordinating 
members on the committee on economic policy, the chairman of the Canadian section of the joint economic committees; Mr. K. M. Cameron, chief engineer of the Department of Public Works, vice-chairman of the advisory committee on demobilization and rehabilitation. The research adviser is Doctor L. C. Marsh, who of course is paid, and the secretary is J. E. McKay.


George Hugh Castleden: Do they submit a
report to this house?


Brooke Claxton: They submit a report
to the government.


George Hugh Castleden: To the government
only? Are the reports available to the parliamentary committee on reconstruction?


Brooke Claxton: Some reports have been
made available to the parliamentary committee on reconstruction. Those are the factual reports so far received. Other reports will be made available from time to time as it is possible.


Jean-François Pouliot: Is Professor Marsh of
McGill on that reconstruction committee?


Brooke Claxton: He is an employee of
the committee. He is research adviser.


Jean-François Pouliot: And is there a Mr. Firestone, a professor?


Brooke Claxton: Doctor C. J. Firestone
has been employed by the committee to make special studies for it.


Jean-François Pouliot: Yes; and is that his real name? Did he change his name, or is "Firestone" bis real name?


Brooke Claxton: It is the name we have.


Jean-François Pouliot: No; but I ask you


Brooke Claxton: We have not required
that-


Jean-François Pouliot: I want to know if that is true. I have been told he had been for a time in an internment camp. I wish to know if it is true or not, and I do not want a denial; that is, I want something definite.


Brooke Claxton: I have no knowledge that can support that idea at all.


Jean-François Pouliot: Where does he come from? The committee should know where he is coming from. Is he a manufacturer of tires, Firestone tires, or what is he doing? Where does he come from? If he is to bring us the light, we should know where the light comes from. I am sure the parliamentary assistant will be kind enough to tell us that.

War Appropriation-External Affairs


Brooke Claxton: I have given the hon. member all the information I have. I will be glad to get it for him.


Jean-François Pouliot: Yes; but that is not satisfactory. Here we have an important matter. We must know where they come from, these people who are to guide the people of Israel into the Promised Land. They are supposed to be the stars of the sky, the light to guide us into the Promised Land. Where do they come from? What is their experience? It is time to know who they are.
I remember that a long time ago, about nine years ago, I was campaigning in Ontario-this is by way of comparison-and I was talking with a friend of mine, who by the way is Billy Gordon, now a minister in the Ontario government. I said " Billy, here in Ontario are there people who work on the roads at election time?" He said, " Oh, yes." This was in 1934. I went along the road. The weather was fine; the road was well paved, one of the finest between Wallaceburg and Chatham. At one corner I saw an elevation about one hundred feet from the road. There were people standing there who were clustered as thick as ants. They had shovels and picks in their hands to demolish a little hill, and they were so numerous that they could not wield their shovels or picks for fear of hitting each other. They were too numerous to work. It reminded me of the present situation in Ottawa. What do we want now for reconstruction and planning for the future? We w7ant order at the present time. If we have not order now, what shall we have after the war? We shall have disorder. The only way to have order is to reduce by one half the number of civil servants, and then it will be possible for the others to work. There are so many people in Ottawa that it is almost impossible to walk on the streets; there is a crisis of housing-


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order:	I have been
criticized this evening for not calling to order some hon. members, and clearly the hon. member is out of order in what he is discussing under this item at present. Surely it should be found possible at this stage of the session to stay within the limits of the item before the committee. I know that it is easy for the hon. member for Temiseouata to do so.


Jean-François Pouliot: Surely. But what I say is that we need order now if we are to expect order in the future.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: We need order here, too.


Jean-François Pouliot: In saying that, it seems to me that I am in order. And the only way
to get order is to have space to work, to give the opportunity to all those who are in the civil service to show their ability to do something. If they are so numerous that they cannot move their arms, there is nothing they can do. But I can tell you more than that, sir. I regret very much that two committees have been set up to study post-war problems, especially if we are to have reports like the one that was laid on the table of the house the other day. What is the use of hon. members studying these matters if, when the report comes in, we are given no data or recommendations to come to a decision on the matter, nothing definite on unemployment or anything else, which will be settled by parliament and the government later on? That is the suggestion we received concerning post-war planning; it amounts to nothing at all, and the last report of the committee on reconstruction and reestablishment is empty. I do not see the use of hon. members meeting together and discussing future plans, when the reports they make are as poor as the one that was laid on the table the other day. It is incredible; the only suggestion with regard to post-war recovery was to have an inventory made of our natural resources. Surely we must have such an inventory already in the Department of Mines and Resources. It was also suggested that we should make an inventory of all public works, dominion, provincial and municipal-


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order. The committees to which the hon. gentleman refers are sitting at the present time, and I do not believe it is in order to discuss their activities. We must confine ourselves strictly to the item under consideration.	[DOT]


John Horne Blackmore: I should like to support in part what has been said by the hon. member for Temiseouata. I have been investigating the activities of these various committees on post-war rehabilitation and reconstruction, and I find that invariably there is not the least hint of where the money is to come from to pay for the projects recommended. Just to give one little illustration which comes from my own constituency, let me point out that over twenty years ago the plans were completed for the Lethbridge southeast water conservation project, but nothing was done because there was no money. Last year the plans were revised and brought up to date, but nothing was done because there is no money. So far as I can see, if the mentality which appears to prevail in high places in the government of Canada to-day continues to prevail after the war, there will not be any money for these things, and as a result all

War Appropriation-External Affairs
the efforts put forth by reconstruction and rehabilitation committees will have been wasted.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I believe I should point out to the hon. member for Lethbridge that his remarks should be made to the standing committees instead of to the committee of the whole.


John Horne Blackmore: It is utterly impossible for any hon. member to bring up these matters in those committees, because if he tried to discuss the question of money he would be ruled out of order. I ask: what is the use of having committees like these if no use is to be made of their work? There are hundreds of agencies throughout the country that can tell us plenty of things that ought to be done if the money were forthcoming. There is not a province in this dominion that could not spend a great amount of money on roads, for example, and put thousands of men to work. We do not need high-class committees to plan work for people to do; what we need is to find some way of getting the money to pay for the work.
Just before we leave the Prime Minister's department, I should like to ask if there is any item under which we might discuss the draft agreement for the united nations relief and rehabilitation administration. I had the impression that it might be in order under this item, but I presume it is not. I intended to bring it up previously, but I did not wish to be talking all the time in the committee. Could the Prime Minister give me an idea as to whether or not there is an item remaining under which this matter could be discussed properly? I believe it should be discussed with some care.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have no doubt there is an item somewhere, but I cannot put my finger on it at the moment.


John Horne Blackmore: It might be in order to discuss it on the estimates of the Minister of Finance?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend had better ask the Minister of Finance.
Just before we go on to the next item, there is some information I promised to give the committee. During the discussion of the external affairs estimates this morning -the hon. member for Camrose asked how much had been expended last year by the international joint commission. The expenditures by the international joint commission during the last fiscal year amounted to $32,291.53.
Then the hon. member for Vancouver South asked with regard to applications for repa-

triation to Japan. Applications for repatriation to Japan are made to -the consul general of Spain as the representative of the protecting power for Japanese interests in Canada. The consul general -has not informed this government of the number of applications he has received. It is expected that the Japanese government will ask for the repatriation from Canada of between sixty and one hundred Japanese on the nex-t exchange ship which will take back Japanese nationals resident in the United States and Latin America as well as in Canada. The number of Canadians in Japanese hands is estimated at a thousand. In addition, there are about three hundred persons of British nationality, not being Canadians, whose next of kin live in Canada or who have some special connection with this country.


Howard Charles Green: In connection with that
question -may I ask why the government has not taken some steps to find out how many of these Japanese wish to be repatriated? There have been dispatches in the press stating that certain numbers in certain camps had asked to be repatriated. Would it not be wise for the government itself to find out the number who wish to go back?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I see no reason why that should not be done, but as to its practical value, that at the moment, would depend entirely upon -the ships that might be available to -take them back. The number are exceedingly few. Those who have applied already would exceed the number that can be taken back for some time. However, I think my hon. friend is right in suggesting that we -might seek to ascertain how many would wish to go back, and I shall seek to have that done. The hon. member also asked about the tabling of the documents making up the so-called Lemieux agreement. The under-secretary of state informs me that it will -take a day or so to prepare the papers, but I will undertake to see that -they are tabled very shortly.


Howard Charles Green: Would that include the papers covering the agreement in 1928 or 1929?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My thought was to have everything covered.
Mr. Chairman, this is -the first occasion on which the parliamentary assistant to -the president of the privy council has had occasion to make a presentation to the house in connection with any part of the government's business. I should like to express my warm

War Appropriation-Public Works
appreciation of the excellence of his presentation this afternoon on the functions, the personnel and the services of the wartime information board. Hon. members will agree. I am sure, that from the point of view of giving in a concise and clear manner the fullest possible information on the work of the board, and matters relevant thereto, the parliamentary assistant left nothing to be desired. I also think that the manner in which my colleague has dealt with the estimates generally is an indication of the value to the house of having parliamentary assistants specially qualified to assist the administration in this House of Commons. I should like personally to express my thanks to the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George for the great assistance he has been to me in matters connected with the privy council and the many boards over which it must necessarily exercise supervision.


Gordon Graydon: Does that conclude all the answers the Prime Minister was to give?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think it does.


Grote Stirling: The Prime Minister was good enough to say he would give me some information with regard to Canadians resident in Japan, to enable me to compare the conditions under which they live with the conditions under which Japanese live here. Perhaps that will ;be done on another occasion.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I thought I gave the figures this morning. As for a comparison of the conditions in- the two countries, I should think that might come to be one man's opinion as against another's. Perhaps my hon. friend would be in a better position to suggest how they are living than I would be. However, I shall endeavour to get some statement which will be helpful.


Grote Stirling: I asked my question
because we had been discussing the Red Cross, and the Prime Minister had intimated that they did receive information through the Red Cross from enemy countries. I asked whether through that source or some other source he was able to say to what extent Canadian civilian residents in Japan are at liberty, whether they are interned, or under what conditions they live.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think I shall be able to get some of that information from the reports of representatives of the Red Cross.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Chief architect's branch.
Temporary building No. 8, $10,000.
Gordon Graydon: Where is this building . located, and to what use is it put?


Hon. ALPHONSE FOURNIER (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Chairman, building No. 8 is on Carling Avenue. We have there the records division of the Department of National Defence (Army) which was transferred from the Daly building to this one. The space in the Daly building was used to consolidate the offices of the Department of Pensions and National Health, formerly in the Plaza and Transportation buildings. Ninety thousand square feet in this new building now house the registration divisions in connection with the Department of Labour, formerly in the Rideau winter club, the Confederation building and 193 Sparks street. In addition, postal censorship is in building No. 8. It has 194,000 square feet of office space, and 6,000 square feet of storage space.


Gordon Graydon: What is the $10,000 for?


Alphonse Fournier: For ground work around the building. This work could not be done during the winter when the building was completed, or when it was being erected.


Gordon Graydon: Is this a permanent
building?


Alphonse Fournier: No. There are nine of these temporary buildings built on the same model. They are to be seen on Wellington street.


Gordon Graydon: I was wondering why we were spending $10,000 for ground work around a temporary building in war time.


Alphonse Fournier: The building could not be left without levelling the ground and having it maintained as government buildings are generally maintained in Ottawa. This building cost $760,000, and this amount of $10,000 does not seem unreasonable for the work involved.


Gordon Graydon: What kind of work does this cover?


Alphonse Fournier: It is for levelling and for filling in around the foundation. There is a similar building on Sussex street, built on the same model. What we are spending in this instance is based on what was spent in other instances. This includes levelling the ground, putting down sod, and filling in.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
War Appropriation-Public Works
Chief architect's branch.
Ottawa, hostel for junior female employees in the public service, $5,000.
Mr. BOUCHER:: What is this for?


Alphonse Fournier: The same explanation applies in this as in the former item,, namely for levelling, filling and putting down sod. This hostel has just been completed, and this work could not be done with the estimate provided last year, because it was built during the winter.


George Russell Boucher: Is that Laurentian
terrace?


Alphonse Fournier: Yes.


Victor Quelch: What is the housing
capacity of this building?


Alphonse Fournier: It was built for
360 young women, living in single or double rooms.


Victor Quelch: Have any moved into the building up to the present time, and, if so, how many?


Hon. N. A. McLARTY (Secretary of State):: I was advised yesterday that 196 young ladies are now actually in residence. Allocations have been made to others who have to give notice at their present domiciles. It is expected that within a few days there will be 300. The total capacity is 360.


Victor Quelch: What is the charge for board and lodging in this building?


Norman Alexander McLarty: In a double room it is $8 a week, and in a single room, $9.50. All single rooms have been rented.


Victor Quelch: Has there been any criticism to the effect that the charge is too high?


Norman Alexander McLarty: There might have been some criticism, but nothing serious. Certainly there is no criticism from those who are enjoying the convenience it provides.


James Alexander Marshall: What is the $5,000 for?


Alphonse Fournier: For levelling off the ground, refilling and grading, and sodding.


Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: Was this built by the Department of Public Works?


Alphonse Fournier: Yes.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Have any of these buildings been built for the army, navy or air force?


Alphonse Fournier: Some buildings are built by the army, navy or air force, as the case may be.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

Chief architect's branch.
Repairs, alterations, operation and maintenance of buildings occupied for war purposes, $1,530,000.
Gordon Graydon: Is there a lengthy list of buildings on which repairs, alterations and the like have been made, under this item?


Alphonse Fournier: I have an
estimate, based on previous years' estimates for the same types of maintenance and repairs. It is divided up in this way:
Salaries and wages	 $650,000
Cost of living bonus	 110,000
Alterations	 400,000
Light and power	 160,000
Water and water rates	 30,000
Fuel	 140,000
Supplies for char service	 30,000
Sundries	 10,000


Gordon Graydon: This covers buildings throughout Canada?


Alphonse Fournier: Yes, absolutely.


George Hugh Castleden: Is the cost of living bonus $110,000?


Alphonse Fournier: Yes.


James Alexander Marshall: How much is actually
spent on alterations in these two items?


Alphonse Fournier: It is $400,000. This is the estimate for 1943-44. It compares with the item last year for the same purposes.


Mr. SHAW:: Does this apply to buildings
acquired since the outbreak of war and utilized strictly for war purposes? I have in mind the cases where it is found necessary to enlarge post offices on account of war conditions.


Alphonse Fournier: We have not enlarged any post offices since the beginning of the war.


Frederick Davis Shaw: There is one in my own constituency where extensive alterations were necessary because a military camp had been established there. Would that come out of this vote?


Alphonse Fournier: Could the hon. member give me the name?


Frederick Davis Shaw: Red Deer, Alberta.


Alphonse Fournier: I have not that information here but I shall get it.


Frederick Davis Shaw: When we are considering the
post office estimates we are unable to get the correct picture because alterations, repairs and so forth of buildings are carried out by the Department of Public Works.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: This is an item under the war appropriation measure, and it would

War Appropriation-Public Works
be impossible for the Minister of Public Works to give information pertaining to public buildings and post offices.


Alphonse Fournier: All post offices are under the control of public works. We do the maintaining and repairs and alterations.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Chief architect's branch.
Rental of premises occupied for war purposes. $1,500,000.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Does this cover all
Canada?


Alphonse Fournier: Yes.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: For whom are these different premises rented?


Alphonse Fournier: The details are as follows:
National defence	 $339,355	83
Wartime prices and trade board 550,244 32
Munitions and supply	 176,581	92
Other government departments,
boards and commissions....	386,749	88
United Kingdom payment office 49,801 70
Total	$1,502,733	65


Mr. PERLEY:: Could the minister give the break-down for the three main cities in Saskatchewan, Moose Jaw, Regina and Saskatoon?


Alphonse Fournier: The figures are: National defence Regina
Royal bank building, $3,000.
Royal bank building, $1,920.
Dominion life assurance, $20,000.
Wartime prices and trade board Moose Jaw
Times company, $1,170.
North Battleford
Y. J. Ferguson, $900.
Prince Albert
Masonic temple, $720.
Regina
David Silverman, $8,100.
Rosetown
Doctor E. T. Myers, $840.
Saskatoon
Georgia investment company, $2,160.
Swift Current
Fred C. Hayes, $660.
Weyburn
C. A. McCuaig, $1,020.
Yorkton
Bank of Montreal, $780.
Munitions and supply Regina
<3. Machaelis estate, $3,000.
Other departments Maple Creek H. Gillett, $300.
Regina
McCallum Hill building, $330.
McCallum Hill building, $480. Saskatchewan Motor Company, $1,000. Canadian Legion, $1,770.


Ernest Edward Perley: I believe the air force has
some space in Regina in the Trading company building.


Alphonse Fournier: We would not
pay for that. I have given the complete list.


Percy Ellis Wright: Could we have the same
information, for Alberta?


Alphonse Fournier: It is as follows:
National defence
Calgary	...
N W. Commercial Travellers Association, $6,820.
Arthur McLeod, $2,805.
Edmonton
Edmonton Credit, $6,000.
Bank of Commerce, $780.
Wartime prices and trade board Calgary
Calgary Trust and Guarantee, $3,400. Edmonton
Credit Foncier, $2,948.40.
Credit Foncier, $6,814.80.
Grande Prairie
Imperial bank, $180.
Imperial bank, $240.
Lethbridge
Baalim and McFarland, $600.
Medicine Hat
H. 0. Duggan, $540.
Red Deer
Doctor F. E. Dodds, $720.
Munitions and supply Calgary
Canada Life, $360.
Other government departments	.
Calgary
Calgary Trust and Guarantee, $240.
Bank of Toronto, $3,600.
Edmonton
Tegler Building Limited, $300.
McLeod building, $900.
Saint Joseph's college, $504.
Tegler Building Limited, $2,100.
H. A. Friedman. $10,800.
Imperial bank, $900.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Who is responsible for the valuation of the different properties, and who makes the recommendation that the amount of rental asked is reasonable?


Alphonse Fournier: The resident
architect in each district makes the valuation and reports on the rental and the space.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I understand the Department of National Defence has its own real estate man.


Alphonse Fournier: They look after their own buildings.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: In some cases you build buildings for the navy and army?


Alphonse Fournier: No.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Do you rent buildings for the navy and army?


Alphonse Fournier: Yes.

War Appropriation-Public Works


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Why the distinction?


Alphonse Fournier: We do not interfere with the active services; but if they need office space, say in Calgary or Toronto, they will ask us for it. Then we try to rent space or give them space in one of our public buildings if it is available. We take care of the space, see that it is kept in good repair and provide caretaker service.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Do you rent for Wartime Housing?


Alphonse Fournier: That is a separate corporation.


Thomas Langton Church: A return brought down to the house last June showed the public property which had been turned over by the provinces and the municipalities to the government for war purposes. I should like to know the policy of the government in this connection. I notice that the school board in Toronto has turned over some property, and the exhibition grounds, other public buildings and parts of the university of Toronto have been turned over. Some of the space in this exempt property should be used instead of paying these rentals. Last session the minister said that during the recess he would have a survey or study made to see what economies could be effected. You have a large building for . the post office in Toronto which has been taken over by the ordnance department. The ordnance department should have gone out to the exhibition grounds or they could have used some of the huts erected by the air force in the central part of the harbour improvements. There is considerable wastage there. What are you going to do after the war? Are these temporary leases? After the last war there was considerable trouble between the government and the lessees and the lessors in getting the property back with the accrued rent. There is no reason why public buildings which house three or four departments in time of peace should not be able to house three or four departments in time of war, but all three military' services have separate buildings. Surely there should be some coordination, especially when the municipalities are most generous in offering property for the use of the government. The city of Toronto and the province of Ontario have been most generous in offering buildings to the government for use in the war. The minister stated last session that he would make a study of this matter in the recess, and I should like to hear from him.
Mr, FOURNIER (Hull): I hope it is understood that the three service departments have 
their own buildings, their own engineers and their own staffs. They have more experience in the erection of the particular type of building suitable for their purposes. Of course, if they need office space they apply to the public works department. All departments apply to public works for space, and during the war we try to rent space where we can. Sometimes we purchase a building, but not very often. It is only when we cannot get a suitable building to rent that we erect buildings. The situation in the city of Ottawa has now become stabilized to a certain extent. I know the situation in Toronto about the post office, and we are trying to find suitable space for housing the ordnance department so that the post office will have the use of that building. We cannot, however, have buildings just for one department. We generally house many departments in the same building in order to economize.


Thomas Langton Church: In the city of Toronto there are a great many properties that could be used, on Toronto street, for instance, on the north side of King street, between Toronto and Church streets, and other property back of the post office around Adelaide and Church and Lombard and Victoria streets. Some of that property is not being used at all. There is also the old York chambers at the corner of King and Court streets. You are opening up a big terminal in Montreal to-morrow, costing $29,000,000. Why should it not be used for war purposes? There is a great deal of crown lands which could be put to some useful purpose in war time.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Chief engineer's branch.
Seymour Narrows, B.C.-Removal of ripple rocks and construction of dam, $200,000.
Grote Stirling: Would the minister be good enough to give a report of the progress made in this work and indicate whether it is anticipated that this sum will be sufficient to complete it, and when he expects completion?


Alphonse Fournier: I am informed by my officials that the work should be completed within eight months. It has been a running contract, and the amount that is voted this year is to complete the contract. The contract was modified last year to meet representations that were made on behalf of the United States government. I might read a memorandum I have here:
Representations were made on behalf of the United States government that the safety of their vessels using these waters makes it desirable to provide for a depth of 33-8 feet instead of 30 feet as provided for under the contract. The contractors have agreed to execute the

War Appropriation-War Services
whole work including this additional work requested. at an estimated cost of $473,894 plus a fee of $35,000.
The fee in the first contract was 825,000, but we had to revise the contract because the depth of thirty feet provided for under the original contract was not considered safe for large vessels passing through. The revised contract provides that the fee of $35,000 is to be reduced to $28,500 if the estimate is exceeded. The contractors are to receive an additional ten per cent of net savings affected from the estimate of $473,894 less salvage received for the drill boat.
We asked for tenders in this case and nobody would tender, and this was about the only way in which we could find somebody to do the work on the basis of cost, plus a fixed fee. The amount set out in the estimates this year is to complete the contract.


Grote Stirling: Does the minister mean
another $473,000 on top of this?


Alphonse Fournier: No; that is the total. The first contract was for $300,000. In 1942-43 we expended $158,646.40. The revised estimate of the total cost is $473,000.


Grote Stirling: The minister mentioned
that the work is expected to be completed within eight months. Does he mean it will be finished in the spring, eight months from now?


Alphonse Fournier: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Chief engineer's branch.
Saint John harbour (Courtenay bay), N.B.- Dredging, $100,000.
Mr. O'BRIEN:	Would the minister give
a brief explanation of this item? How is this work progressing?
Alphonse Fournier: We have a contract with the Canadian Dredging and Dock Company, which was authorized in 1941. The amount of the contract is $553,122. This company was the lowest tenderer in answer to public advertisements.
The dredging was requested by the British admiralty technical mission to enable capital ships to use the Saint John dry dock with safety. The -work consisted of widening the outer leg of Courtenay bay channel and deepening a section of Courtenay 'bay turning basin, both to a grade depth of seventeen feet. The original total estimated cost is $559,970. The estimated balance for 1943-44 is $100,000.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Contingencies. $50,000.
James Alexander Marshall: Would the minister
give a break-down of this $50,000?


Alphonse Fournier: We cannot give a break-down, because we would have to foresee everything that would have to be done with this money, but it is based on the former year's estimates, war appropriations. Last year under this item we spent $20,534, and now we are voting the amount asked for. It is to meet any unforeseen need.


John Ritchie MacNicol: You may not use it at all.


Alphonse Fournier: Right.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Ian Alistair Mackenzie: We shall now proceed to the Department of National War Services. Two of the ministers whose items were mentioned last night are unavoidably absent to-night.



DEPARTMENT OP NATIONAL WAR SERVICES

[Stage Direction]
Departmental administration, $91,335.
Hon. L. R. LaFLECHE (Minister of National War Services): As explained by the Minister of Pensions and National Health, I come on with the consent of this honourable house because other gentlemen are not prepared at the moment. May I begin by saying that should we be fortunate enough to get down to censorship, I would not propose going into that matter now because there are some questions from the loyal opposition which I wish to satisfy.
There is a decrease of $9,165 as compared with last year. That is made up of a decrease in salaries of $11,000 odd. What we ask for this year is: salaries, $53,895; travelling expenses remain at $6,000; printing and stationery at $20,000, and miscellaneous at $5,000. These figures remain the same as they were last year. The difference is to be found in a decrease in salaries, with slight increases in some very small items to arrive at $9,165 net decrease.	[DOT]
Stanley Howard Knowles: Most of the other ministers made a general statement as to the work of their departments. Will the minister do likewise?
Mr. LaFLECHE: I had thought of that, and I made inquiries and was advised by friends that it would be better perhaps if I waited until questions came up in connection with each vote. I come prepared as best I can .tonight to do so. I have no general statement to make to-night, but I shall do my best to try to explain each vote as we reach it, as has been done in some of the other departments.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
War Appropriation-War Services
War charities division
General	 $	46,000
Auxiliary services	 7,000,000
Grote Stirling: Has the minister a statement to make with regard to a general national appeal for war charities this year? Will it be continued on the same basis as in previous years? Will the charities included in that appeal be the same as those in other years?
Mr. LaFLECHE: The auxiliary services during the present fiscal year will again be dealt with as they were in the year 1942-43. In regard to a joint appeal, I take it the hon. gentleman refers to the Red Cross?


Grote Stirling: There are six or seven of them.
Mr. LaFLECHE: I think my hon. friend has in mind the Canadian Legion, Knights of Columbus, Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A., the Salvation Army and the Navy League. Those are the six national organizations that have been doing, from very early in the war, what are termed auxiliary services. Fund's were first provided for these purposes by an appeal to the public. A little over a year ago it was decided that these services being necessarily and directly for the members of the armed forces, in the interests of all concerned they should be provided by means of funds voted by this house and paid by the Department of National War Services to each of these six national organizations, and in the current fiscal year the, method adopted last year will be followed again.


Grote Stirling: The same sum of money to each?
Mr. LaFLECHE: We have provided for $500,000 more in the vote now before the committee than last year, because the number of members of the armed forces has increased very considerably, as all hon. members know. I cannot give the figures, but there is a direct ratio between the number of members of the armed forces and the extent, and therefore the expense, of the auxiliary services. One does not know definitely in advance just how much money will be required, for this very good reason. One or more of the six national organizations known as auxiliary services is assigned the duty of carrying on auxiliary services as the need arises in one of the three defence departments, that is, in connection with the navy, the army or the air force. Then there is an interdepartmental committee upon which the representatives of the armed

forces themselves have a majority of votes. In fact, it is the armed forces that really decide whether it shall be this particular organization or another. Finally, the duty and the honour of serving a particular new requirement is assigned to a particular organization, and that is the beginning of what' turns out to be an expense. The organization charged with that particular duty then prepares and submits a budget. It has all the information which the armed forces can furnish. It knows how many members of the service concerned will be stationed at such and such a point. They submit their budget, and it comes before what is known as the national war services advisory board, upon whose recommendation the Minister of National War Services approves or does not approve, as the case may be, and sometimes questions with a view to getting more information. I am trying to explain that there is an increase of $500,000; it is the amount as best can be estimated in advance to be used for requirements which may arise throughout the year.


Grote Stirling: That extra half a million dollars is allocated by the minister to some of the six auxiliary services after receiving the advice of the committee to which the minister refers; is that it?
Mr. LaFLECHE: Precisely. The requirement is first stated, and the job is assigned to one of the six organizations by the armed forces committee already mentioned. The chosen organization submits the budget to the national war services advisory board; that board recommends to the minister; it is upon the minister's approval that the money is made available, and of course each one of these organizations must account to the Department of National War Services for the money paid to it.
For fear that I may not have as good an opportunity later on this evening, I should like to express my admiration of this national war services advisory board. I have been to their meetings, I have watched1 them work;
I have seen men there who are known from one end of Canada to the other for their achievements in the business world and in the spheres of charity and philanthropy, and I should like to say publicly how solicitous they are to see that all established requirements for the boys and girls in the armed forces are attended to, and how careful they are with the country's money. What I am particularly pleased about, and I make bold to say, what every hon. member will be happy to know, is that approval was given nearly

War Appropriation-War Services
two months ago to set aside and make available a sum of $250,000, I believe, so that these national organizations, the auxiliary services, could follow Canadian troops, the navy or the air force when they take the offensive. I was a very proud man when I saw in the newspaper to-day that one of these auxiliary services is now in Sicily with our fighting forces.


Ernest Edward Perley: Could the minister give a break-down showing how much was paid to each one of these six organizations last year, and how much he estimates they will need this year?
Mr. LaFLECHE: With pleasure. The latest figures I have, which I must impress upon hon. members were made up before the final figures were completed for last year, although very nearly correct, I understand, are as follows, representing financing for auxiliary service work:
Canadian Legion	 $1,455,549
Knights of Columbus	 869,951
Salvation Army	 1,080,195
Y.M.C.A	 2.527,154
Y.W.C.A	 335,607
Navy League	 281,119
I might explain that the Y.W.C.A. do not operate on as wide a field as the Y.M.C.A. They are an organization of ladies looking after, particularly, the families of men in camp. They receive them and look after them. I know they were established at Val-cartier camp: my wife went there to see a member of the family, and she told me how nicely these ladies looked after her.
The Navy League, of course, operate in only a few places in Canada. They do a marvellous work for marvellous men-the merchant seamen particularly, as of course, the navy men, and they do not require to be financed in the amounts needed by the other four principal associations.


Grote Stirling: The Red Cross has not come into this arrangement of the auxiliary services. I believe it declined to do so last year, and it is not yet in. Therefore does the minister anticipate that there will be a national Red Cross appeal in the coming year?
Mr. LaFLECHE: I am sure the hon. member for Yale will not mind if I attempt to explain the situation somewhat. The Canadian Red Cross society is not one of the auxiliary services financed from the public treasury, as these other six associations are. There was, I understand, at the time some question of a joint appeal when these associations were raising funds to do auxiliary services work with funds raised by public subscription. I do not
know sufficiently well to say why the Red Cross did not come in, but I have every reason to believe that the Canadian Red Cross society and the other associations are quite happy at the way things are going and quite satisfied with their present status in relation to what I am trying to explain. It is true that this year there was a national campaign for the Red Cross. They set their objective at $10,000,000, and all are glad that they went beyond the mark. We know there is always plenty of good, patriotic work of this kind which can be done if the funds are available. There is rarely too much money either in the church or in charitable or patriotic societies. I would expect, although it is not yet settled, that there will be another public subscription campaign for the Canadian Red Cross society. The dates have not yet been fixed; I am not even sure that they have applied for permission to hold their public campaign, but I take it for granted that they will again request permission to do so. I hope that the Canadian people will as generously support the appeal.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Is it not the fact that the Red Cross cannot receive, by virtue of the Geneva convention or some other provision, grants from government or public funds; that it must be independent?
Mr. LaFLECHE: The hon. member for St. Paul's has correctly stated the attitude and contention of the Canadian Red Cross society. I should like to be able to say definitely whether that contention is in all respects correct. I would rather put it in this way, that it is really a matter which has to do with international relations, if not international law, and I am sure the hon. gentleman will not hold me to an absolutely definite answer one way or the other. The Canadian Red Cross society hold that the fact that they are part of the International Red Cross organization prevents them from being financed by or with government funds. That is the position they take, and I should think there is much to be said for their contention.


Thomas Langton Church: I have had a long connection with this charity business, and in the last war things were done differently. About six weeks ago I asked the finance department to give me a statement in regard to the War Charities Act, which was passed in the fall of 1939, I think about a month after war broke out, laying down certain rules and regulations in regard to all charities and auxiliary services. I find that the act is not being carried out. The figures the minister gave to-night are a little at variance With the information I

War Appropriation-War Services
received about six weeks ago. At that time the figure given me was $6,000,000, while for the coming year the minister says the amount will be about $7,000,000, and he has given a list of the charities which are included. The Minister of National Defence appointed a commission to go to England and look into these war services, to ascertain if there was any duplication between the Red Cross, the Y.M.C.A., the Knights of Columbus, the Navy League and so on; I think the I.O.D.E. were in it originally but withdrew after a meeting with the minister.
No doubt these organizations have done a great deal of good work; I am not here to criticize them at all, but I say there is much duplication. The report made by the late lamented leader of this party, Doctor Manion, was a good report, but it was never tabled in this house. Looking over it, I find that some of these organizations are overlapping in their work in England and elsewhere. The minister says these people are well satisfied. Of course they are satisfied; they are getting from this fund far more than they expected. We understood that there was to be one fund, and that the victory loan was to have precedence over all war charities. At the time the Minister of Agriculture was in charge of this department he had a meeting with these bodies, at which he told the Red Cross that was the last year they would be allowed to run their own campaign for the raising of money. The Red Cross has always done very fine work at home and abroad, in peace and war alike; there is no criticism of it or of any of the other fine war charities, but it is up to the government to find out if there is any overlapping. Some of this work which originally was done exclusively by one organization has now been extended so that six or seven different bodies participate in it, and they all seem to have their ways of raising money. Take the one at the foot of the list, with some $200,000. They go to work and raise funds in the city of Montreal; then in Toronto they have a Navy League compaign; then they come along and have a tag day. When the War Charities Act was passed the minister was given power to make rules and regulations which would have almost the force and effect of law, in order that the activities of these organizations might be controlled; yet these charities are appealing to the public for additional funds. The hon. member for Temiscouata was given an answer about a week ago, which appeared in Hansard, in regard to war charities, and I think the figures he obtained are about the same as those which were given by the minister a few moments ago.
tMr. Church.]
I believe further study should be given this matter. After all, $7,000,000 is a great deal of money to be taken from the taxpayers, especially in view of the fact that almost every day of the week they are asked for some donation or other, and almost every Saturday there is some kind of tag day to raise money for war purposes. In addition, I believe the Y.M.C.A. made a public appeal last spring for about $250,000, with advertising on billboards and so on, which must have cost a good deal of money. I should like to mention one other fund which does not cost the state a cent;
I refer to the Toronto Telegram's fund for British w'ar victims, 'which has been administered without a cent of cost to the people, which is supported by old and young alike and which serves a commendable purpose.
In. the report prepared by Doctor Manion reference was made to private organizations collecting money to provide the forces with sporting goods and equipment, but we find that this work is also done by the Y.M.C.A. and other organizations. During the last war we had a very fine organization in Toronto which carried on this work; I refer to the sportsmen's fund. Yet in spite of what is being done by these organizations we find that provision has been made in the estimates of the armed forces for expenditure of up to $175,000 for equipment of this kind. At the end of the fourth year of the war, with very heavy income taxes, business taxes and sales taxes, with nearly $5,000,000 a day being spent on the war, the public are getting sick and tired of all these funds, and their pockets are being drained. When the taxes are paid; when the orders of the controllers and subcontrollers are obeyed, I do not know anyone who has any money left to subscribe in this way.
The minister says these people are very happy about the whole thing. Of course they are happy; they come to Ottawa and sit down on the chesterfields or comfortable chairs we have heard about, put their feet on the rugs we have read about, and ask for a little something extra this year, raising the estimates sky-high. There should be some public control over these charities. I regret to have to say this, but it is in the public interest. I am sorry I have not my file here to-night; I cannot carry it with me all the time, but from what I have seen of this work in some of the camps and some of the services I know there has been duplication. I believe it was the present minister for air who introduced the War Charities Act just before the war session of 1939 concluded, and at that time he said the act would be strictly enforced,

War Appropriation-War Services
that we would not repeat the mistakes we made in the last war, with local funds, provincial funds and federal funds all mixed up, to the detriment of the victory loans. I do not blame these people for being satisfied; of course they should be satisfied. Take the Y.M.C.A.; they are doing very good work, no dou'bt, as all the charities are doing good work, but I contend that there is duplication and waste in connection with some of these funds; duplication of service and waste in connection with overhead charges.
Some of the equipment that has been supplied has been donated without charge. They ' go around the streets and collect equipment of all kinds. No doubt this is done to effect economy, and no doubt they are doing a good work. I am not here to criticize these funds,, because they are supported by public-spirited citizens who go down in their pockets liberally. But I do say that because of the mistakes at the time of the last war there should be more coordination of the funds of these various organizations. No doubt the work they are doing is excellent, but I cannot see why it is necessary to have separate real estate, separate staffs, separate stenographers, separate advertising on the billboards and in the newspapers and all that kind of thing, for seven different funds, with a vote of $7,000,000. If it goes on for another year or two it will be up to $10,000,000. I urge upon the minister that he bring about more coordination in the interests of economy and efficiency, and to protect the taxpayer who, almost every day, has a hat placed in front of him, and is asked to chip in and to subscribe to many different funds for war purposes.


James Alexander Marshall: Is the minister responsible for the operation and supervision of canteens? If so, under what item might they be discussed?
Mr. LaFLECHE:	Is the hon. member
referring to canteens operated by military units, or those operated by the auxiliary services? If the former, then that is entirely a regimental matter, and under the control of the Department of National Defence. As I recall-and I hope I am right-they have a special canteen committee which looks after these matters. But that particular kind of canteen does not come under this vote, or under my department.


James Alexander Marshall: It is under the Department of National Defence, then?
Mr. LaFLECHE:	If it is a military
canteen, yes.


James Alexander Marshall: What about the Navy-Army-Air Force Institute?
Mr. LaFLECHE:	That is a British
organization.


James Alexander Marshall: But there is a Canadian Branch?
Mr. LaFLECHE: The N.A.A.F.I. is a British organization, although it may have branches in this country. I am not sure about that. Again I must say it is not in my department.
I wish I had the information, but unfortunately I have not.


James Alexander Marshall: Is this $7,000,000 in
addition to moneys which might be raised from drives for funds?
Mr. LaFLECHE: These moneys are given from public funds, in lieu of public subscription. A moment ago the hon. member for Broadview referred to the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire. I might point out that last year of their own accord they preferred to raise funds through public subscription and, of course, their wishes were met. Last year, to the extent of $281,119 the Navy League financed from this vote, for particular wartime purposes. Then they ' went to the public for the funds which they would require in ordinary times, with the possible exception of certain commodities and other things which they require for the men of the sea.


James Alexander Marshall: On what basis are these moneys allocated to the various organizations?
Mr. LaFLECHE:	The moneys are paid
following the assignment to a particular piece of work for the armed forces. The association in question puts it into a budget, which is gone over very carefully. When found correct, it is approved by the Minister of National War Services, and in that way the particular task is financed.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: At
the present time the Department of National War Services appears to be trying to bring the different auxiliary services in the different cities together under what they call a coordinating war services auxiliary or committee. I understand the department expects that committee to look after the entertainment of soldiers, sailors and airmen in the different cities. Does the department supply the money, or do the cities have to raise that amount?
Mr. LaFLECHE: The hon. member for Peterborough West has referred to local coordinating citizens committees. At the moment they are not financed. Some have requested

War Appropiiation-War Services
consideration of their difficulties in finding relatively small sums of money to pay for postage, for clerks or even for the rental of office space, and that matter is under consideration. At the moment, however, these committees which answer local needs, or which are developed because there is a need for work in a particular community, are supposed at the moment to finance themselves. I might say that, generally speaking, they do not have to spend so much money. I will grant, of course, that if a properly ambitious and patriotic local committee does go in for meeting trains bearing members of the armed forces who pass through a town, or who come to a city or town for a week-end, it would run into considerable money. But in many places there are other organizations to do that work. Coordinating committees are rather well described by the word "coordinating". I trust that is the information the hon. member wants?


Gordon Knapman Fraser: In Peterborough we have a recreation centre for the armed forces. This has been carried on by the Kiwanis club, and at least 150,000 men of the armed forces have been entertained in that centre. Other activities in Peterborough are being carried on by other organizations. Do I understand that someone in the Department of National War Services has asked that dances be arranged for the soldiers? Under those circumstances I wonder whether financial arrangements would have to be made locally, or if they would be made by the department. A dance costs a lot of money, if one has to hire an orchestra.
Mr. LaFLECHE: If anyone on behalf of the Department of National War Services has requested that recreational or amusement features be entered into, it is really to answer a need proclaimed by the armed forces themselves. We do many times make known to local communities, through the agency of one organization or another, that at such-and-such a spot the boys are lonesome, and it would be a fine thing if something were done about it. The department does not anticipate organizing dances.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I
placed a question on the order paper in regard to Miss Helen Doherty, and I should like to know if that would come under this item.
Mr. LaFLECHE: Miss Doherty is general assistant in the Department of National War Services.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: That matter would be discussed under the civil estimates.
Mr. LaFLECHE: That is right.
[Mr. LaFlecheJ


Gordon Graydon: Would the women's
volunteer services come under this particular item or under the civil estimates?
Mr. LaFLECHE: That would come under sundry services, not because it is not important but because the treasury board lumped a number of lesser sums together. If the hon. gentleman wishes to discuss the women's volunteer services under this item, I am perfectly happy to have him do so.


Gordon Graydon: I have no desire to alter the sequence at all.
' Mr. HANSELL: We are being asked to vote $7,000,000 for auxiliary services. Have any of the organizations which would come under this vote made a popular appeal for funds during the past year and, if so, what amounts were collected?
Mr. LaFLECHE: I have stated already that last year the Red Cross went to the country and got over $10,000,000. That was their objective and they got it. Among the organizations that I mentioned is the Navy League which did go to the public for some money. However, that was not to carry on any of the work covered by this item.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Salvage division, $396,965.
Percy Ellis Wright: At sidings and railway stations of western Canada are to be found hundreds of tons of scrap iron which were collected by voluntary organizations. Some two and a half years ago the government made an appeal for the collection of scrap and passed a regulation which made it illegal to have more than 300 pounds of scrap on any farm. Voluntary organizations collected this scrap metal but, judging from what one sees when travelling on the train, apparently very little of it has been shipped. The result is that many of the organizations have become discouraged after having expended considerable efforts in collecting this scrap.
Mr. LaFLECHE: I believe the hon. member is referring to small quantities of scrap iron. These have been left where they are until some economic arrangement can be worked out to move this scrap material. Throughout Canada there are piles of salvaged materials of one kind and another which have been collected and which are immediately available. The location and availability of these materials are known to those concerned. These piles are a very necessary reserve. Could the hon. gentleman give me more precise details as to the localities, and then I should be glad to have the matter looked

War Appropriation-War Services
into and to give him full information. If it is a matter of two or three hundred pounds-I think the hon. member mentioned that figure -it would hardly be worth shipping.


Percy Ellis Wright: The three hundred pounds I mentioned had reference to the limit on the amount of scrap which could be left on a farm under the regulations passed by the government. The other scrap I am referring to runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds. These piles of scrap are to be seen at almost every station and on almost every loading platform in western Canada, and the people wonder why it is not being used.
Mr. LaFLECHE: It is these large quantities of scrap which have been gathered together that I had in mind a moment ago. These are reserve piles, and their whereabouts and availability are known. They form part of the inventory of the industry concerned.


James Alexander Marshall: A perusal of the figures covering the operations of this particular branch of the Department of National War Services would seem to indicate that the costs are mounting and that we are building up more or less of a bureaucracy. The auditor general's report for the year ended March 31, 1942, shows expenditures in round figures of $160,000. This year it is proposed to spend more than twice this amount, and I should like to have a break-down of this item into the following divisions:
Salaries.
Travelling expenses.
Publicity.
Printing and stationery.
Telegrams and telegraphs.
Miscellaneous.
Mr. LaFLECHE: The break-down I have does not show telegrams separately, but otherwise I think it gives the information desired by the hon. member. Salaries amount to $79,715, which is an increase of $8,715 over last year. The other figures for last year and this year are as follows:
Cost of living bonus.... $ 3,000 Unemployment insurance 250
Travelling expenses		50,000
Printing and stationery. 4,000
Publicity	 250,000
Miscellaneous	 10,000
Last year $ 2,000 130 34,000 3,750 195,000 7,0(50


James Alexander Marshall: I think it would be interesting to the committee for me to place on Hansard for purposes of comparison the amount actually expended on this work for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1942. These figures are from the auditor general's report and are the only ones available to me.
Mr. LaFLECHE: I have the figures for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1943, if the hon. gentleman would like them.


James Alexander Marshall: Are they authentic, from the auditor general?
Mr. LaFLECHE: They were given to me by the chief treasury officer of my department, and I take them to be correct. May I put them on record?


James Alexander Marshall: If the minister would.
Mr. LaFLECHE: These are the expenditures for the fiscal year to March 31, 1943: salaries, $69,636.83; cost of living bonus, $1,813.96; unemployment insurance, $133.45; travelling expenses, $29,580.34; printing and stationery, $9,454.86; publicity, $149,922.18; miscellaneous, $6,419.40; making a total, as given me, of $266,961.02.


James Alexander Marshall: I think it would still be of interest for me to place on Hansard for purposes of comparison the expenditures for the previous year, when scrap was more difficult to get.
Mr. LaFLECHE: It is more difficult to get it now.


James Alexander Marshall: There is plenty of scrap in the country to-day.
Mr. LaFLECHE: It is more difficult to get it now, and the country needs it so badly.


James Alexander Marshall: The expenditures for last year were: salaries, $15,680.22; travelling expenses, $7,342.34; publicity, $127,349.71; printing and stationery, $2,728.97; telegrams and telephones, $854.65; miscellaneous, $5,262.34; making a total of $159,218.23. To-day the figures are more than double that, and I see no justification for such an increase in the amount that is being asked for this year.
Mr. LaFLECHE : I hope I can explain it to the satisfaction of my hon. friend. It has been necessary to go farther afield for many commodities that can be salvaged. The whole of Canada is now pretty well covered, and a greater variety of goods is being collected. It is more difficult now to get the quantities of materials required by the different industries in Canada for the simple reason that the bulk of the salvage has been taken off; the back yards have been cleaned out to a much greater extent than they were two years ago. Junk has been picked up and turned in. Fate and bones, while not a romantic subject, are extremely important in providing glycerine which is necessary in making explosives. We have to ask and train the whole of Canada into a routine to save fate and bones on account of the necessity of making available to the fighting nations explosives which are derived from some of the ingredients of fats and bones. Scrap metals of all kinds are also wanted, and rubber; we are far from being out of the

War Appropriation-War Services
woods in regard to rubber. The time will come, and the quicker the better, when it will not be necessary to ask all the citizens of Canada for the sake of victory to turn in their rubber tires and other articles made of rubber. I agree with the hon. member for Camrose that it is difficult to become enthusiastic about salvage. But these materials are of vital necessity in the war. At one time during this war I had the honour of wearing the king's uniform and it was not so easy, I assure the committee, to change from one role to the other. Yet I must express my deep admiration to the citizens of this country who are doing their best in this way to help win the war. I would not be a party to an extravagant organization, nor would I appear before this house if I did not think salvage was necessary.
One more thing. At this moment in the history of the world money is not worth anything compared with the blood of our boys in Sicily who maybe are being killed to-night.


James Alexander Marshall: Hear, hear.
Mr. LaFLECHE: Then let us not hear about money against blood.


Ernest George Hansell: I do not want to hold up the item, and it is getting near eleven o'clock. We all agree with what the minister has said about the comparison between blood and money, but I do not really think that enters into the picture at all.
Could the minister give to the committee, perhaps not to-night but some other night, the value of the materials that have been salvaged, because it may be a pretty expensive job if we are spending nearly $400,000 to get these materials? Is a record kept of the value of the salvage at all?
The minister mentioned rubber. The minister perhaps does not travel extensively throughout the country and may not know how much rubber there is lying around this country. I asked the Minister of Munitions and Supply a few weeks ago why this rubber was not being reclaimed, and he said that the reclaiming plants were overstocked now and that we have not enough plants to care for the old rubber we have on hand. I am not overlooking the fact that we may need rubber just the same.
A word about scrap iron. The farmers have hauled in tons and tons of scrap iron to their various communities. They have to do it by the regulations and at their own expense. I am going to suggest to the minister what I suggested to his predecessor, that it would be a magnanimous thing, and yet only what we might expect, if the railway companies

would at least haul that scrap iron free of charge to some central point where it is needed. The few gallons used by the farmer in hauling in the scrap iron means more to him than one carload in a thirty or forty-car train means to the railways. I make that suggestion and I hope the minister will give it consideration. At some future time-I am not asking the minister to do it to-night- I hope he will also tell the committee the value of the salvage that has been collected in this country.
Mr. LaFLECHE: I shall be very happy to put on the record the information desired by the hon. gentleman. I can give a very rough total figure to-night. We have recorded in the books of the department something over 300,000 tons of salvaged material. It is difficult to put a market value on it. I repeat, when you badly need a commodity in war time, if you have the material the cost is of secondary importance. Nevertheless, I shall bring the information down.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, July 14, 1943