1943-02-25

LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. L. E. CARDIFF (Huron North):: I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Labour, of which I have given notice. When does he expect to be in a position to make an announcement on government policy respecting a programme designed to meet the shortage of farm labour throughout Canada? In the course of the next few weeks spring seeding will commence, and agricultural sections of Canada should be informed as soon as possible as to the government's programme for providing necessary farm help.


Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: An announcement will be made at an appropriate time.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: Well, that is hardly good enough.



ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. GROTE STIRLING (Yale):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services whether the statement made by Rear-Admiral Brodeur at Quebec a few days ago was made with his consent and, if not, whether it represents the opinion of the government?
Hon. ANGUS L. MACDONALD (Minister of National Defence for Naval Services): As to the first question, the statement attributed to Rear-Admiral Brodeur in the newspapers yesterday afternoon was not made with my knowledge or consent. I believe the second question is answered by the answer I have already given.
The statement purports to represent the opinion of that officer, although he qualifies it somewhat by saying it may be, or it is possible, that the Germans might have a certain number of submarines. However until I have a more definite record of what the rear-admiral did say, I should like to refrain from any further comment upon it.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: In view of Mr. Churchill's statement in the House of Commons that the number of sinkings should not be given out, why should an officer stationed at Washington interfere?
Libel and Slander

I would ask for a board of inquiry in connection with this matter. There should be an admiralty board; the rear-admiral should be dismissed from the service and not sent back to Washington. It is the most mischievous statement ever made and invites invasion. They never had five hundred submarines in the Atlantic at any time.


Mr. MACDONALD (Kingston City):: Perhaps I should say a word on that point. The gentleman in question is a rear-admiral of the Royal Canadian Navy, and the fact that he happens to be stationed at Washington at the moment does not take away from his standing as an officer of the Royal Canadian Navy.
As to the making of statements respecting numbers I would point out that numbers of enemy ships have been conjectured from time to time by men in Great Britain, in Canada and in the United States, some of whom were and others were not in the services. I should prefer that such conjectures be not made. But, as I say, until I see what the rear-admiral really did say, from his own notes, I believe I should refrain from any further comment.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Does not the minister think he should make a statement in regard to that?


Thomas Langton Church: The minister told me, I think it was a year ago yesterday, that there were no submarines lurking around St. Pierre and Miquelon or the St. Lawrence.



TRANSPORTATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. S. WHITE (Hastings-Peterborough):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston), and as he is not here perhaps it can stand as a notice. It refers to an article in the Ottawa Citizen of yesterday which states that restrictions on travel by rail are to be continued. One paragraph reads:
However, a military representative said that there was a probability that rail travel for soldiers, sailors and airmen except those on compassionate or embarkation leave would be definitely curtailed.
The present temporary restriction has caused many complaints among members of the armed forces and I should like to know if the correct interpretation of this order is that the only leave that will be granted to members of the armed forces will be on compassionate grounds or embarkation leave.
(Mr. Church.]


Hon. C. G. POWER (Associate Minister of National Defence):: I shall draw the hon. member's question to the attention of the Minister of National Defence.



LIBEL AND SLANDER


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Langton Church: Mr. Speaker, I rise to point out that while Hansard of Tuesday, page 657, is perfectly correct, in reporting the proceedings the Canadian Press said that I had said that "old religious controversies had been forgotten by many and they wondered why they should be continued." Those words are ascribed to me. They were not mine but were those of Reverend Mr. Toplady, writer of "Rock of Ages." The words of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), as reported on page 664 of Hansard, are perfectly correct. I have been told four times by predecessors of the Minister of Justice, who is also Attorney General of Canada, that an attorney general should not be asked to give a legal opinion to the house. The law quoted by the Prime Minister in connection with libel and slander is correct, except for the qualification that I make, namely that the enforcement of all federal law is for the provincial attorneys general. This is the first time during the many years I have been in the house that I have known an attorney general to give a legal opinion, especially on religion. I do not ask the minister to reply to-day; he can look up the page of Hansard of last year when on his estimates, we were discussing the newspaper bill I had introduced also in 1936, 1937 and 1938. At that time I asked the former minister, Mr. Lapointe, if an attorney general could give a legal opinion, and he said I was correct; that the rule was he should not. He asked me if I knew the reason and I said that I did. The reason is that should an attorney general appear in court as a litigant it might be said, as was said in England, that he should not give a legal opinion because when he appears before a judge, the judge might consider that the case was being prejudged and there might be a mistrial. I ask the attorney general to look up what his predecessors said. No legal opinion should be given to the house by the present minister and I ask him to look up the statement.
Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Minister of Justice): I am sorry, but I have not understood what the hon. member said.

The Address-Mr. Lockhart


Thomas Langton Church: I ask the minister for a reply. The only trouble is that it is sometimes convenient, as it was last Tuesday, to give a legal opinion for propaganda purposes.



GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, February 24, consideration of the motion of Mr. W. E. Harris (Grey-Bruce) for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Graydon.
Mr. NORMAN J. M. LOCKHART (Lincoln) : Mr. Speaker, when the house adjourned last night I gave notice that there were some observations I desired to make arising out of certain events of more recent days. I desire to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Dienfen-baker), particularly his criticism of the explanatory letter which has been sent out by the director of selective service and attested to by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell). I feel definitely that equality of service has not been achieved and I think the crux of the whole situation is that we lack a coordinated war effort in this country.
As I say, events of the last few days necessitate my making a few comments in this house. I want to remind hon. members again of the statement made about a year ago by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) which indicated definitely that all farm labour would be frozen, I think it was as of March 23, 1942. I should like to outline as briefly as I can what has happened since that time. The regional office of the national selective service referred to by the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) is located in my district, and I commend him for the remarks he has made in this connection because I know something about this particular office.
The Prime Minister's statement with respect to farm help was expected to provide some relief for the general situation. But that was a year ago. Farmers' sons are still being called. I received three letters to-day asking me for an explanation of what the Prime Minister's words meant, the statement that he made a year ago. Our farmers have been asked by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) to increase their production programme. Is it any wonder therefore that they are upset about the labour situation which affects the increased production of foodstuffs for which the minister has asked? The urgency has become so great that I am prompted to ask the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) a question, and I shall include also the Minister of Labour. If these men are as important as was indicated twelve months ago by the Prime Minister, and as is indicated now by the Minister of Labour, can the Minister of National Defence state that they are not being accepted at the present time when they go to enlist? When this type of man presents himself for enlistment, is he told to go back where he belongs? I know that he is not.
I have visited some of these lavishly constructed recruiting offices-incidentally I think the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) had better check on the cost of some of these recruiting centres-and I find that they grab any young man they can possibly get their hands on. The recruiting office in Ottawa has been closed up for some time, but in the last day or two the trumpets have been blaring forth again. I ask the Minister of National Defence to check up on that so that the people of this country will know that the urgent need for food is actually being recognized.
Before the Minister of Finance launches his next budget of five billion dollars, which is the amount mentioned in the press I should like to bring to his attention the fact that it is generally felt by the people of this country that there is wasteful expenditure going on under many government departments. Somebody said not very long ago that we *have strange men at Ottawa. Perhaps some will say that includes some in this chamber, but it is not to them I refer. According to the press of February 20 last a gentleman who until recently held a high place at Ottawa in the timber control administration, and is reputed to be one of the greatest authorities on timber and lumber in Canada, addressing the Ontario Retail Lumber Dealers association in the Royal York hotel, Toronto, i® reported to have used these words:
Don't depend upon Ottawa to lead the course in Canada's lumber programme; those in the industry itself must map out the timber policy and vigorously present this to the federal authorities.
Mr. A. S. Nicholson then went on to make reference to his sudden resignation. The report continues:
Prior to Mr. Nicholson's address, a resolution was unanimously passed expressing the continued opposition of the lumbermen toward the efforts that have been made, and are being made, by Wartime Housing Limited to encroach upon the field of permanent dwelling houses. It was claimed that Wartime Housing Limited was building great numbers of permanent dwellings valued at from $4,000 to $6,000 and that "this monopoly" was bankrupting legitimate builders.
He warned the retail lumber men of certain dangers in the second-hand lumber situation,
The Address-Mr. Lockhart
[Stage Direction]
and I shall refer to this a little later. There is one other paragraph in the press report which I should like to quote:
One very high official told me I tried to run the timber board too economically and that I worked too hard.
I wish anyone who has lived in Ottawa for a part of each year during the past few years would tell this house where economy is being practised in any government department in this city.
For a year and more everybody who is engaged in the production or distribution of foodstuffs in this country has been trying to convince the government that the man-power situation is in a muddle, that things are in a state of chaos which must inevitably lead to a situation that will become absolutely beyond control. Members in every part of this house have reechoed these sentiments. One hon. member suggested taking men out of the army temporarily and putting them where there was essential work to do. I think every hon. member has had brought to his attention the plight of farmers who have been deprived of help which was vitally needed, and I think everyone realizes how difficult it is to get a man released from the army once he falls into the clutches of the military authorities. But the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) has asked for increased production of foodstuffs. Last year the hon. member for Glengarry (Mr. MacDiarmid) made an urgent appeal to the government that help be provided for the farmers. By a strange coincidence I was informed only yesterday of three or four farms in his county, large tracts of the best land in that splendid agricultural district where the farmer has been left with no help at all. These are farms which formerly carried from twenty-five to forty or fifty head of cattle and other stock in proportion, yet to-day only the farmer and his wife are left to carry on the work, and the consequence is that the stock must be reduced and implements are lying idle. I can understand, therefore, the urgency of the appeal made a year ago by the hon. member for Glengarry, but I cannot understand why it fell on deaf ears, particularly since he is on the government side of the house. In my own county the same conditions prevail in many districts; good buildings and splendid machinery are not being utilized. Some way must be found in which the minister and the Department of Agriculture can put their increased food production programme into effect.
Somebody may say: It is easy enough to criticize but how is the situation to be corrected? That is a fair question. In reply I

should like to put on Hansard the opinion of a body of men who understand present-day conditions. The Minister of Agriculture may already have seen this resolution, but if not I shall be glad to furnish him with a copy.
Mr. MACDONALD (Brantford City):: He can read it in Hansard.


Mr. LOCKHART:: I would thank the hon. gentleman not to interrupt, because I intend to read this whether he likes it or not. Before doing so, may I pause to remind the house of the number of members of the cabinet who have been to Britain during the past year or two. I am not criticizing them for going, and if I am wrong in any comments I make I ask that I be corrected.
First let me say that I am informed on good authority that many hundreds of thousands of acres-in fact, I was told by one source that it was nearly three million acres-of good tillable soil in Great Britain has been taken over for defence purposes. We will put the amount at three millions in round figures. I am also informed on good authority from over there that an equivalent amount of land, or more, is now under cultivation in Britain in excess of what was under cultivation when the war broke out. It is not important for my purposes whether the figure is three millions or three and a half millions; certainly great areas of land have been put under cultivation. This result, I am told, has been accomplished through the appointing of committees of responsible men in every county or borough, vested with powers to deal with this situation. Over there they do not want irresponsible controllers who are not accountable to parliament. Their committees in the several counties and boroughs have authority to this extent, that if a particular farmer-say, for example, my friend the hon. member for Glengarry-is in need of help, the local board can go to industry-yes, and to the armed forces-and obtain the men necessary to keep production at the peak in that particular area. If the statements I have made are correct, I wonder why the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Labour have not developed a similar system here in view of the fact that the production of so many farms in this country has been seriously depleted.
I have here a resolution presented by my own county council, to which I will ask hon. members to listen, and to which I shall briefly refer. Though I have had no contact with my county council, I know the resolution was presented by two ex-wardens whom I know to be outstanding men. As for their polities, so far as I know they are of opposite political views. However, that makes no difference;

The Address-Mr. Lockhart
they are excellent farmers. Here is the resolution-I will send a copy to the Minister of Agriculture:
Whereas the shortage of man-power is the biggest obstacle in the way of Canadian farmers reaching this years' food production goals, and
Whereas there is no source from which this labour may be secured except by securing the assistance of urban people and by cooperating with each other,
Therefore be it resolved:
1.	That the council of the county of Lincoln recommend to the federal government that a qualified man be appointed for approximately each 20,000 of rural population, which in the county of Lincoln would mean the appointment of two qualified men.
2.	That the clerical work be done in the offices of the provincial agricultural representatives.
May I pause at this point to tell the Minister of Agriculture that I have it on good authority, regarding the operation of the agricultural offices in Great Britain, that there is no increase, or practically none, in staff, and that the work is done out in the field by competent men who have authority to act in this connection.
3.	That the duties of the men so appointed shall be to see that the various phases of agriculture are organized and that these organizations cooperate one with the other for the achievement of the one aim which is the production of more food.
4.	That to aid in the attainment of this goal of production of more food the following suggestions be recommended for consideration of the federal government.
(a)	That city and all urban residents be encouraged to devote some time to farm work by supplying them with extra gasoline to provide transportation to and from the farm, and that the men appointed to carry out the field work, of this war production programme, be given the power, to issue these coupons, when he investigates, and finds that these urban and city people are working on the farm, and driving their own car back and forth to the farm.
(b)	That small groups of farmers cooperate to save much food.
(c)	That sows, gilts, cows and heifers be kept in production instead of being butchered.
(d)	That an increase be encouraged on some farms of extra sows, cows, extra acres of grain, potatoes, tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables and also soy beans.
(e)	That the planting of victory gardens be encouraged and stimulated on farms.
(f)	That we are quite agreed with the present government policy of price control but would suggest that a floor be put under the price of all agricultural products in order to ensure the maintenance of the present production of foodstuffs and further encourage others to do their utmost.
Having received yesterday the resolution which I have read, and having gleaned a good deal of information from the old land as to how these matters are being handled there, I
am moved to ask why some of these most effective methods, of which ministers surely must have knowledge, are not put into effect in Canada.
I want to say a word about egg production, since there is quite a number of small producers in my area. The Minister of Agriculture tells us he wants more eggs. You cannot have eggs unless you have baby chicks. I do not know why this subject was ever referred to the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Gibson), whom I see in his seat. I understand that he heard much about baby chicks when he was in the city of Hamilton-as did the hon. member for Hamilton East (Mr. Ross). Apparently this industry, not only in Hamilton but in other places of which I have heard, is completely robbed of the experienced help which is necessary properly to produce these chicks. Perhaps the Minister of Labour would be good enough to get out another letter and explain the situation; it would be very helpful under the present circumstances.
Small producers in my riding tell me that they have difficulty in getting as much as twenty-eight cents for their present production of eggs, and that distribution facilities are such that it is almost impossible to find any medium whereby they can dispose of their production. In a letter I have here they urge me to find out whether there is any medium by which they can get rid of their surplus eggs, and they ask definitely that a bottom price be put on eggs so that they can get at least the cost of production and a little something to pay them for their labours. I would remind the Minister of Labour that if we do not have chicks we will not have eggs and we will not have hens, and the minister will not get his quota of eggs unless he does something to encourage these people by providing them with experienced help. This applies also to pork and beef, and I could deal further with the situation as it affects many other commodities. It all comes back to the muddled man-power policy we have had for the past three or more years.
I want to say a word to the Minister of Finance in regard to his budget of five billion dollars, which must be raised by taxation and other means during the coming year. I am going to voice the sentiments of a great many people in my own community who are asking one question. The Prime Minister has said that we need a reallocation of manpower and woman-power. The Minister of Labour has attempted to carry out this reallocation by regulation, which regulation has been further explained and clarified. This being so, why is it necessary to keep on adding factory extensions all over the coun-
The Address-Mr. Lockhart

try? This is being done in my own district, and I suppose in other districts as well. I know of one large addition in my own city which has been begun just recently. Then we have contracts for hostels and other buildings. I do urge upon the Minister of Finance that he bring pressure to bear upon the proper authorities to let us have in this house a real picture of the money that is being spent on hostels, staff houses and so on, many of which are not half filled. I have personal knowledge as to that. People are beginning to wonder why this reckless expenditure should continue. I urge upon the minister that he see to it that proper and adequate information is given this house so that when the people are asked to raise five billion dollars next year they may know the money will be properly spent. I am told that a hostel to take care of five hundred persons costs more than a quarter of a million dollars. That is a lot of hard-earned money which must be raised by a good many people, and it is about time we knew how this money is to be spent.
I should like now to refer to the construction of permanent housing units by Wartime Housing Limited, to which reference was made by Mr. Nicholson in his address in Toronto. Is it any wonder that the building contractors and all the various trades associated with the construction of houses, one of the greatest industries in this country, are organizing to protest against the way this is being carried on? I suggest to the Prime Minister that if he is not careful he may have another political group with which to contend. These men are sincere; they have made representations to the government, and I can tell the Prime Minister now that he will not have heard the last from them if he continues to allow Wartime Housing Limited to interfere further with private enterprise in the construction of permanent houses.
While I am on the question of the construction of houses, let me say that before we are asked to vote a five billion dollar budget we should be supplied with full information as to the amount of money that has been spent on war-time housing up to the present. I ask particularly that the expenditures in the city of Hull be laid before this house. A year or so ago we were told that the cost then had reached $3,800 per unit. I have been over there; I have looked into the situation, and I know a little about the construction of houses. We have seven or eight hundred of these war-time houses in my own city, and it is high time we knew where the money is going that is being spent

in the housing programme in Hull. That goes also for war-time housing all over the country. I am not questioning the need for a certain amount of this type of construction. No doubt the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) had a problem on his hands, but surely it is time we knew what money has been spent on this kind of thing and what has been the cost per unit, not only in Hull but all over the dominion. It might be interesting if someone would page the mayor of Hamilton in connection with this "permanent" construction, because I know he has some very strong ideas in connection with it. Perhaps the Minister of National Revenue will see him in that regard, because we were told that a programme was to be developed in Hamilton, though I believe there has been a delay of some kind. I am asking, however, that the fullest possible information be given this house in connection with Wartime Housing Limited, if not before the budget comes down at least a reasonable time before the people have to raise this huge amount of money.
I want to say a word about fuel. Back in the middle of December, 1942, I believe it was the Minister of Finance who told us we were short eight million tons of fuel. What has been done during the present heating season to relieve that situation? Hon. members on the opposite side have told us no provision was made for labour to bring wood out to the highways in order that it might be brought to the people. I remember reading a news item not very long ago stating that the town of Lindsay, in the Haliburton area, had no fuel. Surely if a coordinated plan of any kind is being developed for this season there should be no shortage of wood for fuel in the town of Lindsay or the Haliburton district. What is being done? It would be very helpful to hon. members and to the thousands of people living in *war-time houses in areas where they cannot get wood, because of transportation difficulties, if they were told they need have no fear of not being able to heat their homes next winter; for I know many are suffering this year. This house and these people should be told whether there is a definite programme to relieve the situation. It must be remembered that these war-time houses have only a little fuel box at the back door holding only half a ton of coal. They must depend upon the distributors of fuel to supply them every ten days or two weeks, and the labour situation is such that I know of one firm which is printing signs saying that it has plenty of fuel but that people must get it in their own wheelbarrows. Thus the man-power situation affects our whole economy. Some controller

The Address-Division
not long ago conceived the bright idea of spreading the news that there was bituminous coal in abundance in certain areas, and urging people to burn it. Surely the Minister of Munitions and Supply, knowing the equipment used by these people, must know that they cannot burn that soft, mine-run bituminous coal. A few days afterwards someone got a brain wave-to tell this to the people; and in their desperation they used it. I think it was in a Toronto paper we read that three or four people had died from coal gas poisoning. Within a week after this flood of literature about burning soft coal went over the country these people, who are munition workers-they cannot get a house unless they are-were putting soft coal into small firepots twelve inches in diameter. The result was that away went the lid and the door, and they woke up in the morning to find the place full of coal gas.
The supply of anthracite coal must be distributed where it is needed. Into the northern areas, where there is wood in abundance, no anthracite should go. What we need is a man-power policy to see that wood is got out in proper time so that there shall be no fear of lack of fuel for the winter of 1943-44..
Our man-power muddle is terrible. Here is one thing I wish to call to the attention of the Minister of National Defence. Yesterday morning a young man, a skilled toolmaker and machinist who has been working in an industry in this city for three and a half years, said to me, "I am disgusted." I am not going to tell the whole story, but he told me about production in the plant. He said, "I am going to see if I can enlist." I wonder if it is possible for a young man deliberately to leave an industry after three and a half years' special training, in order to enlist.
It is high time someone told us where we have to go and what we have to do. I have felt this for some time. I ask the government to give us some lead in this respect. From the press all across the country as well as in this House of Commons comes the call for a balanced man-power plan. Surely the Prime Minister and his advisers must be alive to the situation; surely they see that the man-and woman-power of this country must be reallocated at once. In my opinion there is only one solution and it is the enactment of national compulsory selective service legislation covering every part of this country and for every war service. This is the only thing I can see that will give us an all-out total war effort in Canada. Our first job is to win the war.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: I was paired with the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Gingues). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. MARSHALL:: I was paired -with the hon. member for Richmond-Wolfe (Mr. Mullins). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. BLANCHETTE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. FAIR:: I was paired with the hon. member for Durham (Mr. Rickard). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment. 
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): Mr. Speaker, I have explained my position on the address and I shall not be long in making the remarks I wish to make now. I am always brief in addressing the Chair and I shall follow that tradition to-day.
I have been a member of this house since 1924. In the period from 1924 to 1930 I fought for the party. In the period from 1930 to 1935 I fought for my electors and also for the party which understood the work I was doing. Since 1935 I have been fighting for my constituents and also for the party which does not understand that I am working for them. In 1931 I tried to get some information about butter, because butter had been one of the controversial subjects raised by the Conservative party during the election. I got some data about butter and other dairy products. We also had a fight over the Riviere du Loup station and unemployment. In 1932 it was mostly railways, the Post Office Department and unemployment relief. In 1932-33 it was the Ottawa trade agreements. Long speeches were made on those, and we also took up statistics, radio, the Post Office Department, the redistribution bill and unemployment relief.
On page 1949 of Hansard of February 9, 1933, are to be found fifty questions which I put to the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and which have never been answered. It took a long time to draft them, but I undertook that work in order to give an opportunity to the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group to give us some explanation of their policy. The former member for Humboldt was a dear friend of mine and he wrote me last year to ask for a copy of these questions.
In 1934 there was Mr. Sauve's trip to Egypt to attend the Cairo postal congress, the fight on the bureau of translation bill, trade statistics, unemployment and farm relief, and redistribution. At that time the member for Temiscouata prepared a book which was furnished to the house but the Clerk of the House informs me that it has never been used by hon. members. However, it is still kept in the vaults of parliament. This book contains the story of redistribution in the province of Quebec from 1853 to 1933 and it shows how each county was affected by each redistribution. It is there if anyone wants to refer to it. It shows what has happened to the geography of each constituency in the province of Quebec over a long period of time. If it has not been used by any hon. member of parliament since it was tabled, it may be because the redistribution bill has not come

The Address-Mr. Pouliot
before us. However, it was used by the former minister of justice and the former minister of public works when they discussed this matter with two members of the Bennett government, Mr. Duranleau and Sir George Perley.
The point I want to make is that I was not a member of the committee. The one who represented the province of Quebec was a gentleman who made a speech about the Ottawa agreements in which he quoted four pages of a speech which had been made by Mr. Bennett, then prime minister, and four pages of a speech which had been delivered by the chief of the Liberal party-eight pages, really, four on each side-and that was the member's speech. It was so bad that it was struck off the record. He was the one who represented the province of Quebec on the committee, and since he did not do his work, I had to do it. The Liberal federation was paid to do this work. The representative of the province of Quebec on the committee did nothing. I had to do his work myself. Once when I was working on it, a member of the federation came to my office and spoke to me. I said to him, "Give me a chance to do your work. Don't disturb me when I am doing your work." I was doing it to help the members and to prevent the Bennett government from destroying the former constituency.
In 1935 what was discussed mostly was unemployment, external trade, and taxation. At the close of the session I was asked to prepare a tabulation of all taxation which had been imposed by Bennett each year. Not a single one of those taxes was removed1 by the party, although that tabulation was used as propaganda in the election of 1935, being issued as a leaflet. We complained of the sugar tax, but it was left where it was. I made a tabulation of all the taxes, and it served hon. members during that election. We also spoke during that session of tax-free bonds.
Besides that, another thing was done-the preparation of a report on unemployment. That report was carefully made and was well received by the press. A minister, who was not then a member of the house, wrote me a letter dated June 19, 1935, in which he said :
It is the most able analysis of the situation I have seen and will be exceedingly useful to me.
This was done to show that Mr. Bennett's unemployment policy was no good, and that the unemployment problem deserved careful consideration. I was successful in distributing copies to every member of the House of
Commons in 1935. In the following year Hon. Mr. Rogers, who was then minister of labour, had a second edition made of that report and sent to each member of parliament, especially to the new members who had not had an opportunity of securing it before. I was often told by the late Mr. Gordon, when he was minister of labour in the Bennett cabinet, that it was impossible to secure data on the unemployed in Canada. About that time a congress of municipalities was meeting at the Chateau Laurier, and I asked the mayors who were in convention there if they could not supply me with some information on the unemployed. Their first answer was no, but finally I got some information from them. It took a long time. I did that at no cost to the country except for paper and printing, which does not amount to much. I sent telegrams out at my own expense. I made a report which gave a true picture of unemployment, and it showed that Mr. Bennett was not true in the words he put into the mouth of his excellency in each of the speeches from the throne at the opening and closing of the sessions. I had the great honour of hearing Hon. Mr. Rogers, minister of labour at that time, state in the house that that report was the basis of the unemployment policy of the government.
Then I asked for a complete report on the unemployed in my constituency. It was prepared by two very able men:	Mr. Lafortune, a former controller of the city of Ottawa council and a very well-known man, and Mr. Begin, who was one of the appointees of the Minister of National Defence for Air (Mr. Power). These men lived in my county for several months and took the trouble to go into 1.200 homes of unemployed settlers, many of whom had no cattle and no horses, some of whom had six animals (six chickens), another only one animal and it was a dog; while some had an ox or a horse. Some had a cow which was used in place of a horse or ox and also used to provide milk for the children, but the milk was not very good coming from a cow that was used as a beast of burden.
After the session of 1935 the Ottawa Journal wrote an editorial about the member for Temiscouata, from which I read this last paragraph:
So, let's not be too shocked over Mr. Pouliot, Hypocrites that we are, must of us will probably say out loud that the man is an impossible partisan but that will only be because we like to have other people say of us that we're fair and reasonable. Secretly, we have to admit that Jean-Francois has merely had the courage-or
The Address-Mr. Pouliot

perhaps folly-to speak out what most of us think; that he's expressed what most of us are slaves to.
And the thing isn't as bad as it seems. The story of our whole party system, which hasn't worked too badly, tells us that.
Mr. Lafortune and Mr. Begin made their report. It was a thick and very comprehensive report, well got up and showing everything. After the report was made, an agreement was signed by the dominion government with the provincial governments that it would not pay any unemployment relief. Therefore the report was of no use. But I gave it to one of my provincial colleagues, who got in touch with Mr. Godbout and it was one of the reasons why the provincial government of Quebec has been doing much along this line.
In the session of 1936 there was the loan by Mr. Bennett, without consulting his colleagues, of $60,000,000 to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.
Then I had some little difficulty with the Speaker. Although he forgot what was the procedure and practice of the house by asking me to withdraw certain things I had said, although they were innocent words I had used I withdrew them just to show my good will and to save him trouble.
Then there was unemployment and social insurance, which I fought and bitterly complained about. Then there was a piece of legislation to repeal the economic council.
You know, sir, I believe that, when a policy is enunciated by the party, it binds us for a very long time until it is proved that the party has been wrong in submitting it. There was a fight in 1930 about the British tariff. In my humble view the policy of the government was good. At the time the only decrease in our trade was in shipments of grain. The purpose of the new trade agreements was to give a kind of premium or prize to our British customers, and therefore I supported the agreements. When the party came back into power in 1936, as we had been fighting the Ottawa agreements, with the exception of two for which our leaders voted, I thought it proper to ask for the repeal of chapter 2, of 23-24 George V, 1933, and to substitute therefor chapter 13 of 20-21, George V, 1930, the effect of which would have been to replace the Bennett trade agreements with our own. I was very much surprised when the Minister of Finance of the day, Mr. Dunning, rose to a point of order; he contended that my motion was not in order. That was on March 10, 1936. On April 6 following I asked for the ruling of His Honour, the Speaker, but no ruling had been given at the end of the session, not even when we heard the boom of the gun that announced the prorogation speech.

In 1937 it was the Canadian National Railways, unemployment, and national defence. At the time, I voted against some estimates of the Department of National Defence because I wanted some order in the department, and I wanted the bureaucracy which was supreme in the department to be curbed. One reason I took this action was that I was invited to a private reception given by a top "brass hat". By the way, when that "brass hat" was in a theatre of war he was weeping all the time; that was the way he served his country during that war. I do not know whether the glasses were full of tears or of liquor, but the liquor was very good. There was a distribution of champagne at that reception. Oh, it was fine and there was plenty of it. But I wondered whether there was something wrong there at the time.
In 1938 we fought the divorce courts and divorce bills. In that session there was also a civil service committee, to which I referred yesterday, and an unemployment relief bill. At that time I sent to the Liberal party a memorandum on the situation in tne province of Quebec, with particular reference to the padlock law.
In 1939 there was the question of the library of parliament. We fought the central mortgage bank bill, and the bill was dropped; those who were to act under the bill were appointed but they were not given the power to act. The thing was stopped. Therefore we were right on that. We opposed the national defence board, the transfer of the purchasing branch of the Department of National Defence to the Minister of National Defence; and on that also we were right. It was a service to the party, in order that the party should have less trouble. Also we complained about the deputy minister of finance and the governor of the Bank of Canada, because what they were doing was being done behind the back of the House of Commons, with the assistance of the intelligentsia of this country.
At the special session of 1930, when the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett rose in his full glory to state that such unemployment as existed would be cured by high tariffs, the member for Temiscouta, who was sitting on a back bench, was the only one who rose to call for a division. The fact is not reported in the papers of the house but it was recorded by the parliamentary correspondent of Le Devoir, in Montreal.
These are a few things which I wanted to tell the house.
Since the war began I have done my best to do two things-to help the soldiers, and

The Address-Mr. Pouliot
to have a fair application of the man-power regulations. How far we have succeeded wrill no doubt be known in due course. It is very difficult at times to do what we want to do for the soldiers and for the civilian population. The work here is hard. There are only twenty-four hours to a day and every available minute is occupied. Sometimes we are sorry the days are not longer, because we have so much to do.
There are other things we have done-things which have been done in the interests of the party. My contention is that our actions should be in agreement with what is being said in public. Sometimes we are exposed to disagreement and to controversy with this or that hon. member. For instance, I had a controversy with the hon. member for Park-dale (Mr. Bruce), because he had insinuated that the Prime Minister was not well qualified to be the head of the government in war time. I was, I admit, unpleasant to the hon. member for Parkdale. I have nothing against him; he is an eminent member of the medical profession and a prominent citizen of Ontario; but I had to fight him on this issue in order to defend the head of the Liberal party.
More than that, on February 21, 1941, I used strong language with regard to some ministers, but it was because of certain intrigues which were then going on. What I have never said is that, in the forenoon preceding that speech, I telephoned to most of the English-speaking ministers outside the province of Quebec to tell them that there was an intrigue being made for the formation of a union government and that if it was successful they would be thrown overboard. One of the ministers, whom naturally I will not mention, told me that those who were against him were also those who were against me. What touched me very deeply-for I had not expected it, and had not telephoned to the Right Hon. Mr. Lapointe about it, although I had spoken here on the Friday afternoon- was that, while I was at home the following Monday, I heard over the radio that Mr. Lapointe had spoken in the house on exactly the same lines on that Monday, which showed that we saw eye to eye on this matter and that we both were defending the Prime Minister against all intrigues directed against him.
You know, sir, the story of the St. Bernard dog which barked very loudly and tugged at his master's clothes to get him out into the storm. He was kicked, but he was insistent. He was so persistent that finally the master put on his winter clothes, went out, and found one of his men who had been hurt in a fall on the rocks during the storm. So that sometimes, though we do things which are
very unpleasant, they are for a good purpose. It is always easier to listen to those who are close to us, but there are some who, though close to us for a time, leave us afterwards.
I have in mind the case of Mr. Victor Sifton. I remember that one day during the summer, about the end of July, I was going down the plaza here. I saw a long car approaching, and someone put his head out of the window and shouted, "Victor! Victor!" It was the Minister of National Defence who wanted to see Mr. Sifton again before he went back to Winnipeg. There was no harm in that; but since he has been in Winnipeg, Mr. Sifton, who knows more about the Department of National Defence than any other civilian, has complained bitterly about the bad influence of the brass hats.
There is something else which I regret very much; it is based upon information appearing in the press, which I presume is correct. When the bombing crew who dropped bombs on Germany one morning and came to Canada the same day were here in Ottawa, they were photographed with various members of the cabinet. For some reason or other the Minister of National Defence was not at hand, and the Prime Minister said, "Where is Ralston? I want him to be photographed with me." I suppose that is natural, because the Prime Minister relies upon the Minister of National Defence and wants to share his glory with him; but the gentleman who told me about the incident was surprised that the Prime Minister should be so insistent upon having his picture taken with the Minister of National Defence. These are minor things, but centuries ago Plutarch said that it is by small things we judge great men. I do not desire to play the role of Cassandra; speaking about ambitions,
I have none. However, it is perfectly legitimate for the leader of any party to expect to be able to rely upon his close supporters.
At the time of the vote on the plebiscite I was in Montreal, where I met a prominent citizen of Quebec, who asked how things were going here in Ottawa. I told him how they were going, and he said, "The Prime Minister will go, and he will be replaced by so and so," . naming one of his colleagues. A little later I was here in Ottawa, and in one of the corridors of the building I saw another colleague of the Prime Minister who looked like a conspirator. Sometimes it is interesting to watch what is going on. Let me tell the Prime Minister that he can rely upon his humblest friends, even though at times they may differ with him on certain points. It is most difficult to terminate associations we have had for a very long time with colleagues with whom we have been working with a common aim.
The Address-Mr. Pouliot

We have come to know each other; we have tried to help each other, and we have managed to get along pretty well.
There is one further thing I desire to say. I have never said anything against any member of parliament, and I have appreciated the kindness and courtesy of the members of this house. I have been here a long time. The hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres (Mr. Cardin) is the dean of the house in point of years; the Prime Minister is next in line, and I am one of the older members. I appreciate very much the relations I have enjoyed not only with members on this side of the house but with those on the other side as well. But may I say that in my opinion it is wrong for the government to take the opposite view on every suggestion made by a member of parliament. It is always surprising to us when we are told "it is impossible" before we have an opportunity to say what we want done. Sometimes it would be a good thing for them to listen.
I could say many other things; I will say only one. It is that in my humble view the position of Minister of National Defence is a full-time job; I presume you will agree with me on that. He is even supposed to have a parliamentary secretary within a short time. Therefore I cannot conceive how at the same time the Minister of National Defence can be the perpetual acting Minister of Finance, as the Minister of Finance himself stated last year.
Nine years ago, sir, at Windsor, Ontario, the member for Temiscouata delivered a lecture on the anniversary of the death of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. At that time I quoted a few words that Sir Wilfrid Laurier had uttered in concluding a speech before a group of young men at London, Ontario, as follows:
Banish doubt and hate from your life.. Let your souls be ever open to the promptings of faith and the gentle influence of brotherly love. Be adamant against the haughty; be gentle and kind to the weak. Let your aim and purpose, in good report or ill, in victory or defeat, be so to live, so to strive, so to serve as to do your part to ever raise higher the standard of life and living.
In those few words there is a programme for every man in public life. It should not be the programme of the Liberal party only; it should be also the programme of all those who have a desire to see the greatest possible number of their fellow citizens happy and contented, living like brothers. I need not mention the numerous campaigns that have been carried on during general elections and by-elections, the articles that have been written, the editorials that have been published in Liberal newspapers or other articles that have been

mimeographed and sent to the members for distribution during several electoral campaigns. But I have always tried to see all citizens who think alike grouped together for the welfare of this country. I have supported the Prime Minister for a long time; I hope I shall be in a position to do so in the future. I do not know what the future will bring. Everything will depend upon the legislation that will come before us. But now, sir, my concluding word will be this, that this time I shall show good will by abstaining from voting on the address.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Mr. GRAYDON:: On division.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: Carried on
division.


Thomas Vien: I declare the motion
carried.


Mr. ROY:: Five of us are standing, Mr. Speaker, to call for a recorded vote.


Thomas Vien: Only four members were on their feet when the motion was declared carried.
Main motion (Mr. Harris-Grey-Bruce) agreed to on division.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That the address be engrossed and presented to His Excellency the Governor General by such members of this house as are of the honourable the privy council.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
-	SUPPLY

William Lyon Mackenzie King: Under standing order 57 the immediate business of the house, after the address has been agreed to, is to appoint the two committees of the whole house, the committee of supply, which controls the public expenditure, and the committee of ways and means, which provides the public income by way of taxation.
I therefore move:
That this house will to-day resolve itself into a committee to consider of a supply to be granted to His Majesty.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Deputy Speaker
That this house will to-day resolve itself into a committee to consider of the ways and means for raising the supply to be granted to His Majesty.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

William Lyon Mackenzie King: The house will have observed that during the period of the long adjournment of the last session the then Deputy Speaker of the house, the Hon. Thomas Vien, was appointed to the senate, and that Colonel Yien has since been appointed Speaker of that chamber. Colonel Vien's resignation has created a vacancy in the position of Deputy Speaker of this house. I should like to read to the house the rule which governs in respect of the appointment of Deputy Speaker or Chairman of Committees when the house meets at its first session of a new parliament or when a vacancy subsequently occurs. Standing order 56 reads:
(1)	A Chairman of Committees of the house, who shall also be Deputy Speaker of the house shall be elected ... as soon as an address has been agreed on in answer to His Excellency's speech; and the member so elected shall, if in his place in the house, take the chair of all committees of the whole, including the committees of supply and ways and means, in accordance with the rules and usages which regulate the duties of a similar officer, generally designated the chairman of the committees of ways and means, in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
(2)	The member elected to serve as Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees shall be required to possess the full and practical knowledge of the language which is not that of the Speaker for the time being.
(3)	The member so elected Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees shall continue to act in that capacity until the end of the parliament for which he is elected, and in the ease of a vacancy by death, resignation or otherwise, the house shall proceed forthwith to elect a successor.
Hon. members will see from the reading of the order that the office of Chairman of Committees and Deputy Speaker of the house is a very high and honourable office, and requires, in the one to fill it, a member possessing many attainments and qualities, attainments and qualities very similar to those expected of His Honour the Speaker. The hon. member chosen for the position, inasmuch as he has to preside over the committees of the whole house and at times fill the chair of the Speaker, has to be a member who is
familiar with the procedure of the house, possessed of a full knowledge of the rules, of judicial temperment, conciliatory and yet firm, one who has qualities of discernment, judgment and quick decision, also one who, because of his courtesy and fairness, is, as nearly as it is possible to find such a one, generally acceptable to hon. members of the house as a whole. He is required in addition to possess a knowledge of the language other than that which His Honour the Speaker himself possesses. His Honour the Speaker being English-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Scotch.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: -Scotch, which is even better, it is necessary that the choice should fall upon one who is possessed of a knowledge of the French language.
I am happy to say that on our side of the house we have had little difficulty in discovering a gentleman who I believe all members of the house will be prepared to agree is not only a master of the French language but has mastered the English language as well-with a shade of a Scotch accent.
I would affirm, Mr. Speaker, that we have in the person of Mr. Joseph Arthur Bradette, member of parliament for Cochrane, a gentleman who, from the reception just given the mention of his name, certainly is most acceptable to members on both sides of the house. Mr. Bradette has been a member of this House of Commons for seventeen years-or rather is now in his seventeenth year as a member-having been elected to parliament in 1926, and returned at each subsequent general election. I doubt if any other member of parliament in that period of time has been more faithful in his attendance on the proceedings of the house. During the time he has been a member he has frequently been called upon to preside over the committees of the house and has also at different times filled the chair of His Honour the Speaker. We know that at all times he performed these duties in a most creditable manner, a manner which has met with general acceptance on the part of all members of the house.
The hon. member was born in Quebec, and lived in that province for some time. Subsequently he moved to northern Ontario, where he has since resided. He has been an example to all of us in that during his period of residence in Ontario he has so completely mastered the English language that to-day he is able to speak in both French and English with a degree of fluency which few other hon. members in the house possess.
The Deputy Speaker

I have to add only that at an earlier stage of our discussions an hon. member belonging to the party sitting immediately opposite stated that when the government was called upon to make a choice of Deputy Speaker he hoped we might select the hon. member for Cochrane. I was pleased to learn in advance that the choice of the hon. member who had already been decided upon for the position of Deputy Speaker would be so acceptable to the opposition. I believe the choice will be as acceptable to the other groups in the house as it is to all hon. members on this side.
It is therefore with great pleasure, Mr. Speaker, that I move, seconded by my colleague the Minister of Mines and Resources (Mr. Crerar):
That Joseph Arthur Bradette, Esquire, member for the electoral district of Cochrane, be appointed chairman of committees of the whole house.


Gordon Graydon: Mr. Speaker, I am sure we have listened with more than the usual degree of interest to the selection just announced by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) for the important position of Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees of the Whole.
One point which strikes me at once, in connection with the recipient of this very important honour, is that he is one of our Canadian citizens who has come up the hard way of life. It is my belief that if we are going to pay tribute to men in public life we ought not to lose sight of the fact that a great many of our citizens have perhaps commenced their lives under circumstances such as those which surrounded the present recipient of this honour, and we should pay special tribute to those men who have come up the hard way, like the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Bradette), and have made a success of their lives.
I believe those of us who did not have the advantage of being bom with silver spoons in our mouths appreciate more keenly the honour now conferred upon a member who has made his way up by dint of hard work, by industry, by integrity, by honesty, and by a close application to the objectives he had in mind. Not only has the hon. member for Cochrane had a number of occupations but, in addition to that, within the last few years I believe he has been called to the bar in Ontario. That perhaps, in the estimation of many hon. members, is the only thing that could be said against him.
There was a time before I entered the house when the leader who sat opposite my present seat was unmarried. At the same time there was a leader of the opposition who found
[Mr. Mackenzie Kin?. |
himself in much the same plight, and also a leader of one of the third parties who was in that unfortunate position. At the beginning of this session the Prime Minister was good enough to make some reference to the growth of certain customs and practices which he hoped would not continue. I am hopeful that his choice of this bachelor member from Cochrane will not prove to be the beginning of the growth of a custom of which the Prime Minister himself is a devoted follower.
In paying this tribute this afternoon may I congratulate the Prime Minister upon having accepted, when making this appointment, the suggestion of a member in His Majesty's Loyal Opposition. I believe it is the first time since the beginning of the session that he has not made a decision based entirely upon something brought up at the Winnipeg convention. Whether from His Honour the Speaker or from the Deputy Speaker, hon. members in His Majesty's Loyal Opposition ask only for justice, fairness and a square deal. If in a public way in his new post the hon. member for Cochrane carries on in the same way as he has while a private member in the chamber, we have reason to believe that we shall have nothing to fear from this appointment.
I congratulate the hon. member, and also the Prime Minister upon having accepted our selection upon this occasion. I hope this will not be the last occasion upon which he may be prompted to follow that procedure.


Mr. M. J. COLD WELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, there is not much left to be said. I congratulate the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Bradette), and would add that we, too, are pleased with the appointment made this afternoon. .Those of us who have been associated in various ways with the hon. member for Cochrane have grown to like him and to admire his many qualities. I am sure we shall have in our Chairman of Committees one who will follow your own example, if I may say so, and be fair at all times to all members of the house, wherever they may sit. I say to the hon. member that he has our good wishes and our heartiest congratulations.


Mr. J. H. BLAOKMORE (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, our group is well pleased with the selection which the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has made. Since first entering the house I have been impressed by the sincerity of the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Bradette). I have been impressed, too, by his earnestness, his industry and his desire to be fair. In the new position to which he has been appointed I believe he will show all of those qualities. I congratulate him. and

Post-War Reconstruction
extend to him from this group a hearty welcome, as he assumes the new responsibility placed upon him.


Mr. FREDERIC DORION (Charlevoix-Saguenay):: (Translation) Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join the hon. members who have congratulated the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Bradette) on his appointment as Deputy Speaker of this house. My satisfaction is enhanced by the fact that I represent here the native constituency of the hon. member for Cochrane, for I believe he was bom in St. Urbain, county of Charlevoix.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) has with him the estimates for the ensuing fiscal year. Although no item appears on the order paper under which their reference to the committee might be made, if the house is agreeable the minister is prepared to table the estimates now and to have them immediately referred to the committee of supply which has just been constituted.



MAIN ESTIMATES, 1943-44

[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Governor General transmitting estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1944, was presented by Hon. J. L. Ilsley (Minister of Finance), and read by Mr. Speaker to the house.
Mr. ILSLEY moved that the message of His Excellency, together with the estimates presented this day, be referred to the committee of supply.
Gordon Graydon: What is the total of the estimates this year?


Mr. ILSLEY:: I do not know the answer at the moment. They are not at all comparable with those of last year on account of the addition of large sums for interest and payments to the provinces. I think the total is approximately $610,000,000.


Gordon Graydon: Is there any specific increase apart from those two or three items?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Oh, no; decreases.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Hon. IAN MACKENZIE (Minister of Pensions and National Health) moved:: That a select committee of the house be appointed to study and report upon the general problems of reconstruction and reestablishment which may arise at the termination of the present war, and all questions pertaining thereto; with power to such select committee to appoint, from among the members of the committee, such subcommittees as may be deemed advisable or necessary, to deal with specific phases of the problems aforementioned, with power to said select committee and to such subcommittees as may be formed therefrom, to call for persons, papers and records, to examine witnesses under oath, and for such select committee to report from time to time to the house; and that the said committee shall consist of the following members:	Messrs. Authier,
Bertrand (Prescott), Black (Cumberland), Brunelle, Castleden, Dupuis, Eudes, Ferron, Fraser (Northumberland). Gershaw, Gillis, Gray, Harris (Danforth), Hill. Jean, Mackenzie (Vancouver Centre), MacNicol, McDonald (Pontiac), McKinnon (Kenora-Rainy River), McNiven, Marshall, Martin, Matthews, May-bank, Mitchell, Nielsen (Mrs.), Poirier, Purdy, Quelch, Ross (Middlesex East), Sanderson, Stirling, Turgeon, Tustin, White, and that the provisions of standing order 65, limiting the number of members on special committees, be suspended in relation thereto.


Mr. ANGUS MacINNIS (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, outside matters having to do with the carrying on of the war, the appointment of this committee is the most important matter that can come before us at this session of parliament. The business of providing for the war effort itself and the work of preparing plans for the post-war period are simply two parts of the same problem. The committee which sat last year has not, as far as I can learn, made any recommendations to parliament. I believe that was a disappoints ment to the people throughout the country because they expected that the committee would bring in important recommendations which would help us to plan our economic and social life when this war is over. They were looking for something better than we had between the end of the last war and the beginning of this one.
My purpose in speaking this afternoon is not to criticize the minister under whose auspices this motion is made and this work comes; rather it is, if I can, to assist him by impressing upon the members of this house the importance of the work indicated in the motion before us. There are people who believe that all plannings of this kind should be left until the war is over; indeed1 there are two schools of thought in the country in regard to it.
One school is composed of those who say, "Let us get on with the war; let us defeat Hitler; nothing matters now but victory." I have no doubt that many such people have tried to get the ear of the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie). Members of parliament are receiving booklets
Post-War Reconstruction

and pronouncements along this line from many sources. However, there is as I say another school of thought which believes that the preparation of comprehensive plans for postwar problems now would be a help rather than a hindrance to our war effort. Such plans are bound to improve the morale of our people. On the other hand, the absence of such plans is certain to be a damper on the morale of our people. This second school also believes that there are other things besides victory that matter; that is, that a military victory is not enough.
The first school is not large but it is influential. It is composed of those in comfortable positions, those to whom the present system has been kind. Such people look backward, not forward. They are in deathly fear of any change because they believe that any change can be only detrimental to them. They are in mortal fear of social changes, and in a large measure it was this fear of social change that led us unwittingly into the present war. This school is satisfied with things as they are. They think that the proper thing to do when the war is over is to go back to the pre-war status quo as quickly as possible.
The second school of thought includes all forward-looking people, people who realize that the pre-war status quo does not exist, that it would be quite impossible to go back to it even if we wished. They are the people who see in this war something more than a war; they see it as a world-wide social revolution. I believe that in this group can be included the Prime Minister ( Mr. Mackenzie King), if I heard aright the statement he made during his speech on the address. In the same group we can include the President of the United States, who is insistent, that the consideration and preparation of post-war plans should be a part of our work to-day. In his address at the opening of congress this year, President Roosevelt said:
I have been told this is no time to speak of a better America after the war. I am told it is a great error on my part. I dissent. If this becomes a matter of national debate the people will know where I stand.
Nothing, I think, could show clearer than this statement where President Roosevelt stands on post-war planning.
As I said, people who believe that we should start planning now are the people who recognize that a military victory is not enough. They remember that we had a military victory in 1918. They also remember the few years of ruthless exploitation and world-wide speculation that followed the last war, and they also remember the years of hunger, of misery and
fMr. Maclnnis.]
of want. They do not want at the end of the present war to find us as unprepared as we were at the end of the last war. As a matter of fact, they are convinced, as I am convinced, that all that the common people got out of the last war is this war.
I want to tell the minister and hon. members that a great psychological change has taken place in the minds of our people since this war began. I may be asked what has caused that change. I think I can state the reasons as they appear to me very briefly.
First, the people see that money in abundance can be found for war, and they are asking, if money can be found for war, for destruction, why cannot money be found just as easily for the creation of wealth and the creation of health and comfort?
Second, they see that to-day, although we have in the armed forces approximately 700,000 men and women who are not producing at all, and in war industries some 900,000 who are producing but are not producing consumers' goods, not producing wealth, nevertheless the people of Canada are at the present time better fed and better clothed than they were at any time between 1929 and 1939. They are asking why this should be. They are asking why it is that we are fearful of what may happen when peace comes, when to-day, with 1,600,000 men and women taken out of active production, our people are enjoying a better standard of living than perhaps they ever enjoyed before.
Third, the people of Canada have been tremendously impressed, as have the people of the whole world, by the military achievements of the Soviet Union. They had been told by all of the best people that a planned economy could not work. Yet they have seen a practical demonstration of the fact that a planned economy does work. They may not see all its implications, any more than you or I, Mr. Speaker, can see them all; nevertheless the fact remains that a planned economy does work, and our men and women will demand that they do not come back to the anarchy in production that they left when they went into the armed forces. The men and women in the armed forces expect that Canada will have a new deal ready for them when they come back. And not only do the men and women in the armed forces expect that. The workers in our war industries, the workers in our forests, the workers in our mines, the workers in our fisheries, the workers on our farms, expect that Canada will have a new deal, a new plan ready for them when this war is over.
If we do not begin now to prepare those plans, if we do not show the people that we

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are doing something now; if we do not give them tangible evidence of our sincerity in the matter, then there can be only one result. They will grow hopeless; they will become cynical; they will become defeatists; and when people get into that state, their minds become a fertile soil for every sort of screwball idea that may be offered to them.
A few days ago it was said in this chamber that the fall of France was caused by the multiplicity of the political parties which had grown up in that country. But that is a very superficial view of the situation in France in 1940. What caused the multiplicity of political parties? France fell so easily as a result of the greed of a few at the top, and the hopelessness and cynicism, and lack of faith of the masses of the people in their own ability to do anything. What the government of this country must do is not just to prepare plans but to take the people of Canada into its confidence and with their cooperation begin to make plans for the manifold problems which will confront us when this war is over. I suggest to the Minister of Pensions and National Health that he hurry the preparation of such plans with all possible speed.
I quote a short paragraph from a speech made by a great statesman, General Jan Christian Smuts, on June 28, 1919, at the signing of the treaty of Versailles.
Our allied peoples must remember that God gave them overwhelming victory, victory far beyond their greatest dreams, not for small, selfish ends, not for financial or economic advantages, but for the attainment of the great human ideals for which our heroes gave their lives, and which are the real factors in this war of ideals.
We should begin now to prepare plans which will indicate to the men and women in our armed forces that we appreciate the ideals for which they are prepared to give their lives, and that we shall not allow the victory which they will win for us on the military front to be debased to selfish ends.
As I mentioned before, the servants of privilege are already busy planning. Anything which the government of Canada will do will be done openly; everybody will know that we are doing it. But the plans of big business are generally formulated in secret. I have in my hands a page from the Financial Post of December 26, 1942. In it is an article by Horace T. Hunter, President of the Maclean Publishing Company Limited. In regard to post-war planning he has this to say:
The war has given private enterprise what may be its last chance to prove itself.
If private enterprise fails 'when the crisis comes-and that will be after the war-it will be replaced.
Replaced by what? Nobody knows. Bureaucracy, governmental control and ownership, confusion and chaos seem likely answers.
Horace T. Hunter of course assumes that private enterprise has not already failed. If private enterprise did not fail between 1929 and 1939, what was it that failed? He goes on:
Realization that this crisis lies ahead is driving the leading businesses of the United States into a brand new field of economies- postwar planning.
So important do these corporations regard the field of post-war planning that some of them are assigning vice-presidents and other officials to research on this task as a full-time job.
The researchers are faced with stupendous problems. _ They must get business away from its too individualistic past. They must prepare to assume leadership and coordination of effort on major questions. They must see to it that private enterprise has a broader conception of its duty to the community. They know that they cannot dream of returning to the thirty or forty per cent production which pertained in the 193'0's.
Mr. Hunter did not tell us why thirty to forty per cent production obtained in the 'thirties. He stated a fact without giving reasons, but the same reasons will apply in the 'forties, if we are lucky enough to finish the war during that period; it will apply at any time under the present system. Thirty and forty per cent production was inevitable because private enterprise, if you want to call it that-it is not that to-day; it is corporate enterprise-is not interested in industry as the means of producing the largest possible quantity of consumers' goods; it is interested in profit; and production was limited to thirty and forty per cent in order to reduce the amount of goods available and to maintain prices.
An hon. member undertook to tell the house the other day why Roosevelt's new deal policies failed. He said it was because the President, not satisfied with promoting public works and that sort of thing, went into various kinds of private business. But the hon. gentleman who told us that did not tell us that Roosevelt did not take office until March, 1933. He did not tell us that between 1929 and 1933 the whole economy of the United States had come to a standstill and business men were praying for someone to come along and start the wheels of industry going. Oh, yes, if you interfere with business you will destroy confidence! In one October day in 1929 on the New York stock exchange fourteen billion dollars, it is said, were lost. What destroyed confidence then? Private business never had such a free hand. But that is the inevitable result of anarchy.

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I want to bring the house a little nearer home. There came into my hands a few days ago the report of the Canadian Pacific Air Lines on business in the first year of operation. This report appeared in the Montreal Gazette of January 2, and is by L. B. Unwin, President of Canadian Pacific Air Lines. He mentions that in 1942, the first year of operation, Canadian Pacific Air Lines flew approximately six million scheduled aeroplane miles. Air cargo reached, he says, the record total of close to ten million pounds, and consisted largely of military and air defence shipments; in fact, ninety per cent of the total traffic handled by Canadian Pacific Air Lines was in connection with the war effort. Then he says:
In addition to its transport operations the company is the largest single civilian organization connected with the British commonwealth air training plan and operates, on a non-profit basis, six of a total of nine air observer schools, and one elementary flying training school.
This is significant, because for a year _ or more after the beginning of the war Canadian Pacific Air Lines was not in the air travel business at all and was not operating any schools, either observer or flying schools. He goes on.
It also manages five engine overhaul and aircraft repair plants under contract to the Department of Munitions and Supply lor the overhaul and repair of R.C.A.F. equipment. These establishments are spread across Canada and combined with the air transport services, are providing the nation with indispensable &iv facilities so necessary for the prosecution of a successful war effort.
I will now read the last paragraph of this significant report:
While the airplane to-day is an integral part of our war-time mechanism, it should not be overlooked that commercial aviation is destined to play a major role in reshaping a post-war world. In this regard the Canadian Pacific, as a long-established world-wide transport system, will undoubtedly through the extension of its air operations take its natural place in the development of world trade and travel routes to meet the almost unpredictable demands of the coming air age.
Here is a private company that has obtained control of a business that developed solely out of the country's war effort; and after the war we shall have this additional vested interest in our transport system with which to deal, just as we had another vested interest that prevented a solution of our transportation problems previously.
I want to say a few words in regard to this "private enterprise" about which we hear so much. No doubt those people who are so much afraid of government interference will approach the minister and, as I said before, try to get him to go slow with anything in the way
[Mr. Maclnnis.l
of national planning by the federal government. I would advise him not to listen to any blandishments of that kind. If he will read the speech delivered by his leader, Canada's Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), to the American Federation of Labor on October 9, 1941, I think he will find plenty of justification for going ahead with preparations of plans that will prevent chaos at the end of the war. I should like to quote two or three short paragraphs from the Prime Minister's speech. If hon. gentlemen opposite have not read it, I would suggest that they do so. If they have read it already, I would suggest that they read it again. The right hon. gentleman said:
I believe the war is teaching us that the obstacles to full employment were not real obstacles; that a partnership of management, of workers and of the community can make useful work available, in time of peace no less than in time of war, for all who need or want to work.
I should like to call attention to the words, " not real obstacles," and to the statement that the obstacles to full employment were not real. If they were not real obstacles they were phoney obstacles, and by his own words the Prime Minister has convicted himself of allowing phoney obstacles to stand in the way of full employment in this country at least from 1936 up to the beginning of the war. Then he went on:
But the work of repairing and restoring the ravages of war will not be enough. Fortunately, we are also learning that the only limit to our productive capacity is the limit of our resources, and our will and skill to use them to satisfy human need instead of human greed.
I should like to ask hon. members opposite if they think private enterprise, operating to make profits for shareholders, will have in mind "that the only limit to productive capacity is the limit of our resources, and our skill and will to use them to satisfy human need instead of human greed?" If you are going to leave the economy of this country on the old basis, which do you think will come first- human need or private greed? There is no doubt at all about the answer to that question. The answer has always been the same and will continue to be the same.
I have just one other quotation from the Prime Minister's speech. I am going to all this trouble because I am not sure that my hon. friends opposite have read it:
The war has shown us that the way of monopoly, of unrestricted power, is a way that leads to destruction, desolation and death. The only path of prosperity and of peace is, I believe, the path of equality, of cooperation, and of human brotherhood.
Well, do you think you can get equality, cooperation and human brotherhood from the

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people who are using the newspapers so freely to advertise differences between themselves and their employees; from people who vilify persons and groups who attempt to organize the workers; from people who under no circumstances will allow their employees a voice, not in the management of the industry, but even in determining the conditions under which they will sell their labour?
I want to quote a few short paragraphs from one of the most widely reviewed books on economics that has come to my notice for a long time. The book is entitled, " Conditions of Peace," and the author is Edward Hallett Carr, professor of international politics in the university college of Wales. I understand he is also an editorial writer on the London Times. In the two or three quotations that I am going to give he deals with the question of individualism and collectivism. He shows clearly that if ever there was any such thing as private enterprise it no longer exists. On page 71 he says:
The classical economists presupposed a society of independent, fully enlightened and completely mobile individuals, each- acting for himself, possessed of equal bargaining power, and equally interested in the economic system as producers and consumers. This hypothesis was never even approximately realized.
He continues:
The hypothesis of a vast society of equal, independent and mobile individuals was falsified to an ever-increasing extent. The individual counted less and less. The forces which dominated production and distribution and exercised a preponderant influence in the economic "society" were a few highly organized interest-groups, growing ever larger and more powerful. What is commonly referred to "individual enterprise" has been destroyed not, as its advocates sometimes pretend, by "socialism" or by the interference of grandmotherly governments but by the innate trend of competitive capitalism towards monopoly.
What have the advocates of private enterprise to say to that? One more quotation:
The issue miscalled individualism v. collectivism is not really the question whether economic enterprise should be controlled by the federal government or by men like Mr. Ford, but whether it should be controlled by a corporation responsible to the federal government or by some other equally collective, but not responsible, organization such as General Motors, Bethlehem Steel or Southern Utilities. "The choice ... is not between competition and monopoly, but between a monopoly which is irresponsible and private and a monopoly which is responsible and public."
That is the alternative, not only for this government but for every government in every democratic country in the world. So-called private enterprise no longer exists. We have corporate enterprise, which is an altogether different thing, controlling ever larger and 72537-45}
larger aggregates of capital, so that ultimately they control governments. With these facts before us may we not at this time go ahead in earnest to prepare the plans that are necessary to meet those problems which will confront us after the war?
Before taking my seat I should like to quote one more short paragraph from this book. Mr. Carr ends his book with this:
The old world is dead. The future lies with those who can resolutely turn their back on it and face the new world with understanding, courage and imagination.
Now, just a last word to the minister and to those who will be with him on the committee. When this war is over either we shall be ready with a plan, some sort of a planned economy, or we shall have turmoil, planned and unplanned.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. J. R. MacNICOL (Davenport):: Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to follow in the vein of the hon. member (Mr. Maclnnis) who preceded me. During all the days of my working manhood I was associated with that devoted portion of our population known as the working class. I was glad to belong to them. I am happy indeed that after perhaps twenty years as a worker in industry I can say I never in that time came in contact with the type of employer to Which the hon. member referred. The men with whom I came in contact were Christian gentlemen who spent their lives in trying to build up this country. I knew many of them who, year in and year out, did not receive a dollar on the investments they had; and I knew many more who delighted beyond measure in foregoing their profits, so that the companies with which they were associated could increase their size and thereby give more jobs. All my working life I have been one of those who have been firmly devoted to doing what I could to provide men with employment. I am one who believes that God intended that men and women born to this life should, in the days in which they were able to work, have an opportunity to do so, and that they should have that opportunity at a remuneration sufficient not only to take care of themselves and their families but to provide a competence for their older days. I am convinced of that.
So that to-night, while I rise to support the motion of the minister, what I have to say will be in reference to giving jobs. The reso-

all over adjacent land in the county of Kent and right up on to the main streets of Chatham and Thamesville. That occurred in 1937. But mark you, Mr. Speaker, in the flood of 1937 the crests of the floods on the north and south branches of the river did not synchronize. The south branch of the river rose to the colossal flow of 43-03 cubic feet per second per square mile of watershed, and it overflowed the whole course of that branch of the river. Had the crest on the north branch of the river synchronized with the crest on the south branch, the whole of south London might have been wiped out. As it was, the whole of south London was under several feet of water. I do know how many people, if any, were drowned in that flood; but I do know that every farm, every village and every hamlet west of London along the river suffered grievously. Had the crests of the floods on the two branches of the river synchronized, it would have made a flood of 47-033 cubic feet per second flowing through south London, and space is not there to take care of that volume of water. Why should the minister not have his engineers commence making surveys at once and a programme outlined for flood-proofing the Thames river which flows through a very rich and thickly settled country? That is one project which I recommend. Whether the committee will be able to recommend specific projects I do not know. I hope the minister will see that the committee is given the power to make specific concrete recommendations of projects at which men can be put to work. The Thames floodproofing could be done at a cost of $1,600,000 and would provide four months work for three thousand men. That would be a very nice start at least, and would help to take up the slack. That is only one river. There are many others where flood-proofing and improvement work could be done.
I will mention one other little river, the Ganaraska river, in the county of Durham. It has a pretty small watershed of ninety square miles, but a tremendous amount of water can flow over that area. I have seen the Ganaraska overflow right up to the St. Lawrence hotel on the main street in the town of Port Hope, and that is quite a distance. It flowed over the whole lower end of the town of Port Hope and caused a vast amount of damage. The same with the Etobicoke in the riding of my hon. friend the member for Peel (Mr. Graydon). In his riding is the substantial town of Brampton, than which there is no more beautiful town in the whole province. But that fine town stands in jeopardy every day of the spring through the 
possible overflowing of the Etobicoke river. I have seen that river, as my hon. friend has, flow down the main street of Brampton. The overflowing hitherto has been caused by the melting of snow and ice. They have never yet had a cloudburst there. If they had one the damage would be colossal. The watershed north of Brampton has an area of twenty-five square miles that could produce over 160,000,000 cubic feet of water in a flood like that which took place at Fond du Lac,. and there is no place in the river bed at Brampton for that volume of water to pass through.
I will leave with the minister for his consideration the suggestions I have made for a programme of flood-proofing the rivers that flow through our fine towns and cities. It would be a means of providing a large amount of employment, and it would be self-liquidating work. All the figures with respect to the Grand river, for instance, could be readily obtained by the minister through the responsible department, and they could tell at once how many men were employed in improving the Grand watershed.
I want to make another suggestion. I was away up on the Slave river, and at Fort Fitzgerald we were invited to get out of the boat and make a portage of eighteen miles to Fort Smith. Canada has possessed that area ever since 1870. What have we done for it since 1870? As far as I can see, not a single, solitary mortal thing as to improved navigation. There is quite a considerable amount of traffic down that river, up to 50,000 tons during the summer months, and if the river were cleaned out and the traffic speeded up, there is no reason why the tonnage would not increase materially. That is one place where we could build a marine railway. The same applies to the Peace river at Vermilion chutes. The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Sissons) goes there every summer to see his constituents and he is well aware of what I am speaking. From Hudson Hope on the Peace river to Vermilion chutes is about 600 miles, and from there to where the river flows into the Slave river is another 300 miles. There are 900 miles of a magnificent river flowing through the riding of the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Turgeon), the riding of the hon. member for Peace River and on to the Slave. The only obstruction in that whole distance of 900 miles is that little bit of obstruction at Vermilion chutes, which is not over four miles long, counting in the falls and the rapids. Why could men not be sent to canal around that obstruction? It is a job that has waited ever since 1870. If this work were done and a canal on the Slave were constructed, boats could sail from Hudson Hope right down to

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Aklavik, a distance of nearly 3000 miles. Here is a chance to do something which in the end. would cost this country nothing, because it would open up that great country which is filled to overflowing with incomparable resources the like of which is to be found nowhere else in the world.
One further thought and I will close. I said a moment ago that I have been through the riding of my hon. friend the member for Cariboo. I went as far west last summer as Hudson Hope and a little bit further. I hope that he will urge as strongly as he can, and I will support him, that a roadway be built on the north side of the Peace river right through his riding so that traffic can pass on the north side of the Peace river all the way through to connect with the roadway to Prince Rupert. That would require the opening of a road from Fort St. John to Hudson Hope, to Bullhead mountain, where the great coal mine is, and past Goldbar to Manson Creek. I hope the chairman of the committee will be able to persuade the committee to recommend the construction of these and similar projects which will provide work for quite a large number of men and will not cost the country anything because they will be self-liquidating projects. That is only one road.
I do not want to prolong my remarks. But flood proofing, the building of roads, and, perhaps, assistance to navigation can all be done as government works, and all, in my judgment, are self-liquidating. All would require a great deal of labour and would employ men with various kinds of training- engineers, concrete mixers, builders, carpenters, drivers, truck drivers, those who make cement, those who make the steel which enters into construction, etcetera. The ramifications are almost endless. That in my judgment would be a plan to follow.
I have tried to lift the debate a little by presenting something concrete. I am here for only one purpose, to try to help this country, and for nothing else. There is nothing in it for me personally. But while I am here I want to lift my voice at all times on behalf of projects which will provide jobs for the multitude to whom I belong, the forking class. Consideration for them comes first with me, because I have been with them, worked with them, and know them. I have shared their joys and their sorrows; and there are no finer people in the world.
I offer these few thoughts as suggestions to the minister. If he views them favourably I should appreciate it very much if he would instruct the chairman of the committee-and wre have a good chairman-to bring in concrete, definite proposals. That is the only thing in the resolution which I am not sure has been made clear, and if there is any doubt I should like to have it clarified. I want definite directions to the chairman to bring in concrete proposals, so that when the war ceases, plans will be ready to send five hundred men here, a thousand men there, and to notify this contractor and that producer to have this and that ready.


Mr. VICTOR QUELCH (Acadia):: I am glad that the committee on reconstruction and reestablishment has been appointed in the early days of the session, because I am of opinion that our plans for post-war reconstruction should be pushed at this time with the utmost vigour. If the united nations can convince the peoples of occupied Europe of our sincerity as regards a new order and a new world, this may help materially to shorten the war. Our reason for pushing forward plans at this time should be two-fold; first, to reassure the people of Europe that we are sincere when we talk of a new world; and, second, that we may be ready at the end of the war 'to move from a war-time to a peace-time economy as smoothly as possible.
I hope that it may be possible at this session for the committee on reconstruction and reestablishment to come to grips with the real problems which confront us. In the past this committee has dealt with a number of very interesting points. We dealt, for instance, with the question of nutrition, and we were told by Dr. Thomson of McGill university that if the people of this country were given a balanced diet it would be possible greatly to increase the consumption of agricultural products; I think he said we could double the consumption of many of them. An interesting point in that regard is that we were perfectly well aware in the years from 1935 to 1939 that if the Canadian people were to have a balanced diet it would be necessary to increase their consumption of agricultural products. We have the agricultural products, but we did not take steps at that time to make that balanced diet available to the people; and in the committee we did not discuss ways and means by which that balanced diet might be made available, whereby it might be possible for the people of Canada to secure those products. For it is not merely the unemployed who are in that position; there are great numbers of people in this country in the low income brackets who are suffering from a low standard of living.
We also discussed at some length the development of the resources of this country:
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it was a very interesting subject. To me the main point of interest is, what will you do with your increased production resulting from the increased development of your resources? How will you market the increased production from the increased development of those resources? That has been the problem of the past and that, undoubtedly, will be the main problem of the future.
We knew in the past-we knew in the depression years-that Canada possesses great resources which could be developed. We had the unemployed available, but we did not develop those resources. Why? Because we knew very well that, if we did, we would not be able to sell the resulting production.
In my opinion it is nonsense to talk about full employment unless at the same time ways and means are found to market the increased production resulting from that increased employment. No industry can continue to expand its production unless at the same time it can expand its markets. That has been the problem of the past. That was the main problem of all industrialized nations up to the beginning of this war. It was especially the problem of Canada from the last war up to the beginning of the present one, especially from 1930 to 1939. During that period we had industries running at only a small percentage of their capacity. There were hundreds of thousands of unemployed; yet industry could1 not sell its limited production. At the same time over a million people were on relief, and in that million we had a great potential market. They represented a physical demand, but a physical demand cannot absorb goods unless it is backed up by money. In other words, that demand was not an effective demand and therefore industry was not in a position to expand its production.
That problem, I think everyone will agree, was national and internal. Unfortunately the government refused to recognize it as such and tried to internationalize it by dumping it on the doorstep of other nations. I say that for this reason. From 1935 to 1939 this country maintained on an average a favourable balance of payments amounting to $218,000,000 annually, the idea being no doubt that the money paid out in the production of that wealth which was exported abroad and for which we accepted no imports 'in return would help to maintain an effective demand against the production of the country which was left, internally.
My greatest condemnation of a policy of this kind is that there can be no justification for exporting more wealth out of the country than you import at the same time that you 
have hundreds of thousands of people in your country in a state of destitution, as we had from 1935 to 1939, when a million were on relief.
I should like to quote from a statement made by the London chamber of commerce in this regard. I have here a copy of the report put out by the chamber on "General Principles of a Post-War Economy." It is dated May 12, 1942. The London chamber of commerce has a direct membership of nine thousand firms and an approximate affiliated membership of fifty thousand; it is probably the greatest organization of its kind to be found anywhere in the world. This is what they have to say regarding the practice of maintaining a favourable balance of trade in payments. I want to quote sections 19 to 21, which read:
19.	If some nations have "favourable" balances it necessarily follows that others have "unfavourable" ones. The successful nations get others into unpayable debt. The reward of success being power over other nations, and the penalty for failure economic servitude, the struggle for a "favourable" balance has largely obscured, in the eyes of the nations, the real purpose of international trade. It has accordingly degenerated into a desperate financial war.
20.	It is an obvious absurdity that nations should regard it as necessary to export their real wealth, not for the purpose of paying for imports, but in order to solve their domestic unemployment problem by passing it on to other countries. Exports with this end in view are nothing more nor less than an excuse for distributing wages to people who otherwise would be unemployed. This purpose would be equally well served if the goods were to be thrown into the sea or if the people were to be employed to dig holes and to fill them up again.
21.	When, however, it is remembered that even wealthy nations have a large percentage of their population under-fed, ill-clothed and ill-housed, it is clear that these would be the best recipients of this alleged surplus wealth. What is necessary is to improve the technique for the internal provision of money, so as to convert this human demand into effective demand.
That used to be England's policy prior to the last great war, and it was Canada's policy prior to the present war. In the foreword to this report it is interesting to note that consideration that was given to the framework within which the work of reconstruction should be carried on. I think the committee of this house might very well take this matter into consideration also. The foreword reads:
A special committee was appointed by the council of the London chamber of commerce, on the 10th March, 1942, to consider and report on post-war reconstruction. That special committee took the view that it could not usefully consider the many secondary problems which would arise, both in the period of transition from war to peace and in the subsequent period, without first ascertaining the view of the council

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upon. the framework within which the future economic system should be built. The special committee therefore submitted the enclosed preliminary report dealing with these questions of major policy.
The report was received and adopted by the council at its meeting on the 12th May, 1942, and the special committee was congratulated and requested to make a further report on the assumption that the detailed problems which will face the nation at the end of hostilities will call for solution within the framework here envisaged.
Just what is the framework within which our committee will work? For instance, does anyone really believe that this new social order can be built on the foundation of a debt-creating capitalistic" system? If anyone believes there is any possible chance of building a new world on that basis I think it might be well for him to remember the words of the general manager of the bank of Montreal back in 1938. This is what Mr. Spinney said at that time:
Canada's debt burden is gradually lowering the general standard of living.
Since the beginning of the war the rate of growth, of our debt has been greatly accelerated, and by the end of the war our debt will be very much greater than it was at the time Mr. Spinney made that statement. The burden of the debt in 1938 was such as to lower the standard of living of the Canadian people. How much greater will be the danger of our debt lowering the standard of living after the war, when our debt will have reached a far greater figure. The danger will be that at the end of the war expenditures will be restricted to meet debt charges, at the very time when expenditures should be made in order to meet the needs of post-war reconstruction. I was very much interested in a dispatch which appeared in the press to-day concerning a discussion that took place in the House of Lords, where the Beveridge report was being discussed. One of the lords, a former Canadian, opposed the Beveridge report on the ground that at the end of this war England's debt in all probability will have reached the sum of one hundred billion dollars, and that the first charge against the wealth of England would be the interest charged on that debt. That is something which we might well keep in mind in this country, because there will be plenty of people, even right in this house, who will talk about the sacredness of the written contract and will suggest that the first charge against our production at the end of the war must be the interest charged on the debt we are accumulating to-day.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I say that if we are going to build a new world order it must be upon a firmer foundation than a debt-72537-46
creating system such as we have had in the past, which is putting us under a burden of unpayable debt, which in turn will bring forth retorts such as the one I have just mentioned. Consequently I believe, as the London chamber of commerce states, that before you can sit down and give any serious consideration to a problem like post-war reconstruction, you must know the framework within which you are operating. That is why several times in the committee last year I said I felt that we were floundering, that we were travelling a road which went we knew not where, and that we did not know how we were going to travel it. In my opinion, first of all we should decide upon our objective; then we should decide upon the main obstacles to achieving that objective, and finally we should decide upon the ways and means of removing those obstacles. That was the way in which we always dealt with, problems in the army in the last war, and I suppose that is the way in which problems are dealt with in the army in this war, but no doubt that is altogether too direct an approach for this government to take.
What is our objective? Many people say that our objective to-day is full employment; yet the same people will disagree as to the purpose of that full employment. I see the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Wood) is in his seat. I do not doubt for one moment that he would say the purpose of full employment is to put everyone at work and guarantee them a subsistence allowance. Supposing we had a steam shovel, requiring six men to operate it, and in the same vicinity we had another twenty men who were idle. I do not doubt that the hon. member for Brant would advocate that we should set the steam shovel to one side and put the twenty-six men at work with picks and shovels and wheelbarrows in order to give them employment, and pay them a subsistence allowance. I say I do not doubt the hon. member for Brant would agree to that, because that was the attitude he adopted toward the agricultural problem two years ago. He criticized the farmers for operating tractors and said they should go back to horses. We could put everyone at work if we scrapped modem machinery; if they did too much work with shovels we could give them teaspoons instead, and certainly then we could put everyone to work. But I say that is a nonsensical approach and one which must be entirely discredited. Any time you start to put aside the advances of science in the form of great machines, you begin to lower the standard of living of the people. We want to use all the machines we have and all our man-power to run those machines, for the express purpose of giving

everyone an optimum standard of living. Therefore I would say that full employment must be for the purpose of providing an optimum standard of living for the people. If our objective is optimum production rather than full employment then we shall have to use modern machines, and not do as we did during the depression. On many occasions I saw from twenty to forty men cutting down hillsides when steam shovels were available in the vicinity. I have seen men put at digging ditches just in order to put the men to work when a digging machine was there to do the work. That is why I am so bitterly opposed to anyone saying that our objective is to put everyone to work. That is not our objective at all; the objective is to provide everyone in the country with the highest possible standard of living.
What are the main obstacles in the way of achieving that objective? On account of certain practices inherent in the capitalistic system industry does not and cannot maintain an effective demand for its own production, except in times of abnormal capital goods construction such as in war time, such as we have to-day. In proof of that, although I need not give any proof, I quote from a national survey of potential production of the United States, 1934-35, under the Hoover administration, under the chairmanship of Doctor Harold Loeb. He wrote a book entitled "A Chart of Plenty", dealing with this report. At page 71 there appears this statement:
The total national monetary income in 1929 did not equal the total price asked for the goods which could have been produced by the plant then existing. But instead of dropping prices until monetary income was able to command full production (which is the classical answer to this situation), prices were maintained and production was restricted. Consequently, national monetary income did not in 1929, nor does it to-day, command the full production of our industrial plant. Which is another way of saying that the national income was not what . it should have been. In fact, since 1929, the national monetary income has been commanding an ever-decreasing volume of consumer goods and the actual national income has become but a fraction of the possible national income.
Then on page 78 he says:
The whole problem really comes down to the first proposal-in other words, to buying pow'er. At present, production is curtailed to meet a grossly inadequate buying-power. An efficiently managed society would consciously and scientifically adjust its economic mechanisms so that buying power would always command full desirable production.
I do not want to spend much time in dealing with the cause of that situation. In passing, I might say it is quite obvious that since the machine has displaced men the wages that used

to be paid to the men are now being paid to the owners of the machine, and the incomes of the machine owners have become so great that they cannot spend their total incomes. Also the practice of charging profits into prices without distributing the wherewithal to pay it and the practice of paying old debts out of current income-all these things cause lack of purchasing power. I do not want to take time to go into those matters in detail. But I say that as a result of that there has not been maintained in this country or in any of the capitalistic nations an effective demand against the production of the country; and unless you have an effective demand against the production you are bound to curtail production.
I wish to discuss for a few minutes ways and means by which that obstacle can be overcome. If we are prepared to admit that our main objective is optimum production, and that the main obstacle to achieving that objective is tack of effective demand, then obviously the solution is in equating demand to supply instead of, as in the past, trying to reduce supply to demand. Doctor Loeb puts it quite simply on page 161 of his report when he states:
It would seem that a simple and obvious way out, that of giving buying power adequate to procure desired goods and services to the limit of our ability to produce them might well be tried. It is simple in principle but has not been attempted.
The London chamber of commerce in the report to which I have already referred also deals with this problem in sections 24 and 25:
24.	After the last war there was more skilled labour in the world, more capital equipment, and more developed sources of raw material than at the beginning. The w-orld was therefore potentially richer. Instead, however, of equating effective demand with supply-even using it to stimulate supply-capital equipment was scrapped, the output of raw material limited or destroyed, and millions of men were prevented from producing; in some eases they were paid not to produce.
25.	Instead of trying to equate supply with effective demand, the chamber advocates that, in future, effective demand should be equated with supply. There can be no such thing as general over-production, of which complaint was made after the last war, although of course there can be over-production of a particular commodity in relation to others. The real trouble is underconsumption.
With a view to preparing plans for the post-war period a conference was held at Edmonton last December. At that conference the following resolution was passed dealing with the subject to which I have just referred.


Mr. MARTIN:: A conference of what?


Victor Quelch: On post-war reconstruction.

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Paul Joseph James Martin: But who were they?


Victor Quelch: A general meeting was called, everyone being invited to it; people from different classes, farmer and labour organizations etcetera were invited. This is a resolution passed at that conference:
1.	That a complete survey should be made forthwith to ascertain the nature and volume of the products of industry which will be required by the Canadian people following the war to rehabilitate themselves, and to raise their standard of living to the level which our natural resources can consistently maintain.
2.	That a complete survey of Canadian war industries be made to determine the adaptability of each to the production of those peace-time requirements, and to plan and prepare the steps necessary to bring about that conversion in each case at the end of the war.
3.	That a survey be made of the possible foreign markets which may be available at the end of the war, and the part which Canadian industry should play in the rehabilitation of those countries whose industries have been destroyed or disorganized as a result of the war.
I suggest that surveys of that kind should be conducted in a very similar way to the way in which the national survey of the potential product capacity of the United States was conducted under the Hoover administration. Because that survey disclosed two things; it showed not only what the production of the country could be, but also what the consumption of the country would in all probability be if the needs of the people were satisfied. Let me read the reference in that regard. On page 11 it is stated:
By such working back and forth we finally arrive at a close approximation of the quantity of goods and services (the budget) which the people of the United States might expect if production were directed towards the satisfaction of their needs and reasonable desires, and if production were limited only by physical factors and the "product capacity" of the existing plant.
But also, surprising as it may seem, the budget lists with fair accuracy the goods and services which the American people icould consume if their desires were satisfied! In other words, the budget is not only an estimate of possible production but also of possible consumption-excluding the assumption of a radical alteration in habits, such as would result if the practice of aeroplane joy-riding became general or if television sets came into popular, use.
Accordingly I am of opinion that before we can handle this question of post-war reconstruction in a really intelligent manner we should have surveys of that kind, and have that information majie available to us.
The United States in dealing with this took into consideration only physical factors. ' They did not take into consideration any form of financial restriction. One might say that has been the proclaimed policy of this government 72537-481
during this war, namely, that no financial restriction shall be allowed to impede our war effort.
I think the committee on post-war reconstruction should also receive a declaration from the government as to what its financial policy' is in regard to peace. Is the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) prepared to say that no financial restriction of any kind shall be allowed to impede our peace effort? When this sqrvey was made in the United States, that was taken for granted. They took into consideration only physical obstacles, and did not take into account any monetary ones. This is what the committee found could be done in the United States:
After almost a year of research by sixty technicians financed by the federal government, the national survey of potential product capacity has released its findings. The results are briefly stated. If the existing plant and man-power in the United States were fully employed in the production of honest goods and services for the consumer the total output, valued in 1929 dollars would not he less than $135,000,000,000 or an average per family of approximately $1,400.
That was in 1935. Since that time the productive plant of the United States has been considerably increased. Therefore if it w7as possible in 1935 to provide for a family in the United States a standard of living of $4,400, how much greater could the standing of living be after this war? Consequently I would say that at the end of the war our first problem will be to expand production of consumer goods as rapidly as possible, to satisfy the needs of the people, and then after that a definite relationship will have to be maintained between production of capital goods and production of consumer goods, so that the money paid out in capital goods industries is sufficient to make up any deficiency which may occur as between the total prices of the consumer goods and the effective demand against them.
When I refer to capital goods industries I use the expression in its widest term, so as to include various national projects. To-day during the war we have an abnormal expansion of capital goods and, of course, the result is inflationary. From 1930 to 1939 the production of capital goods in Canada was away down below normal and, as we know, during that period we had a deflationary condition. Therefore it is necessary for the government to assume full responsibility at all times for maintaining the correct relationship between the production of capital goods and the production of consumer goods.
In my opinion one of the most essential projects after the war will be a large-scale housing scheme. I do not mean a housing
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scheme such as we have had in the past, because under such schemes the people who were most in need of houses were unable to afford them. I should like to see a nationwide housing scheme which would make possible to people in the lowest income brackets the acquisition of decent housing. A scheme of that kind would have to be financed by the Bank of Canada and, in so far as interest is concerned, it should be at the actual cost of servicing the accounts. Money should be repaid only at the rate of depreciation of the houses. That is to say, if a loan were made to a man to build a house estimated to last thirty years, such loan should be repaid in thirty annual instalments, so that when the house had completely depreciated the loan would be paid off. In this way a person would be able to build a house for much less than he could rent one, because the interest, apart from the actual cost of handling the accounts, would be cut off.
I believe this would be especially desirable at the end of the war. Soldiers needing houses will be returning. Workers will be moving from the cities to the more decentralized portions of the country, and they, too, will be needing houses. Generally speaking, those people will not be in a position to afford houses under housing schemes such as we have had in the past.
Before concluding my remarks I should like to refer to one or two other aspects of postwar reconstruction. For instance, there is the vexed problem of international trade. So long as we maintain an effective demand against our production, international trade will be simply an exchange of goods as between nations. There will be no incentive to maintain a favourable balance, of trade, as we have in the past because, as the London chamber of commerce has pointed out, that has been brought about by a lack of effective demand within the country.
So far as our share of helping to take care of the blitzed areas is concerned, I believe Canada must be prepared to make her contribution along with other nations, and to make that contribution in the form of a gift. Of course to that extent the standard of living of the people would be reduced. But as soon as the nations of the world become rehabilitated and are able to stand on their own feet we must be prepared to trade with them on an even basis, exchanging goods for goods.
I believe the suggestion put forward by the Lbndon chamber of commerce with respect to foreign trade is a good one. We should be willing to exchange our goods for the goods of other countries on an even

basis; and if any nation refuses to accept goods in payment of its exports, then over a period of time its credit should be cancelled. All a debtor nation can do is to offer its goods in payment for its imports. If the creditor nation will not accept those goods, then the only thing to do is to cancel the debt,, rather than to allow the debtor nation to be forced into unpayable debts. Such a programme of course would entail definite control of industry, and in my opinion would necessitate the nationalization of the whole banking system.
On the other hand, of course, if the government is going to insist upon carrying on under the financial policy it has followed before, then I believe that the work of the committee to a great extent will be in vain.


Thomas Langton Church: Mr. Speaker, the committee to be appointed will have before it a great task, and I wish the government of the day and those hon. members on the committee every success in their work. In the first place, the war is still. far from being won. We are at the darkest hour. The allies-they are called the united nations; one seldom hears the name of Britain any more, although she is one of the pioneer nations-are now called the united nations, and they have just begun to take the initiative in Africa. Mr. Churchill says we are at the end of the beginning.
The whole of Europe is still dark. No one knows how long the war will last. Reconstruction and planning are international, national and domestic in scope. It is also linked with the war. The whole matter is inter-related. The first and second resolutions on the order paper are complementary, and might have been dealt with together. As a matter of fact they were considered together in the British House of Commons. Sir William Jowitt, paymaster-general, who has charge of this particular branch of legislation in the British government, presented legislation causing a twelve-day debate on the address in the British House of Commons, before the committee was appointed. They considered the war aspect, the international aspect, the empire [DOT]and domestic sides of the question and empire trade. And what did they show? Well, I am sorry the Prime Minister did not accept my suggestion offered a few days ago, namely, that we should have a separate debate of one day at least to chart out a similar course, because if we had I believe these two resolutions might have been taken together, and we might have saved time.
In the British House of Commons men took part who were home from the front. In the

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list' were admirals, airmen, generals in the army, and men who had a great deal to do with the last war, and now serve at the front in this one. They attempted to chart the course which they thought should be followed. There was a debate in the British House of Commons on reconstruction, rehabilitation and social security. The result was that when the Beveridge report w-as considered it was found to be a little too utopian for the mother country and I doubt if it ever will be adopted over there. It is not a practical report for this country because we have a different system. Our municipalities constitute a branch of government- there are the provincial governments constituting a- duplicate municipal system, and there is also the federal government. Under our constitution the Beveridge report could not be adopted.
One of the main things is to win the war. We can plan until doomsday, but we must first win the war. I think I had probably as much to do with reconstruction after the last war as any hon. member. There were a million and a quarter people in our district, and we provided for reconstruction with little or no aid from the federal government and little or no aid from the provincial authorities. The municipality of Toronto had to handle this work. A total of 58,000 soldiers returned to the district, and for a while the situation was intolerable. However, matters were straightened out through the activities of the local municipality.
The old city of Toronto extended from the waterfront as far as St. Clair avenue. A private company owned the street railway franchise, but the city took that over. They also bought all the radial railways entering the city and in 1921 started the Toronto transportation commission system, and under the so-called clean-up deal which entailed an expenditure of $33,000,000 for the companies power and transportation facilities were provided and power in the clean-up deal from the Niagara district. The harbour improvements and the work along the waterfront were carried out, a new station and viaduct started, and the new city had to be provided with schools, sewers, roadways and municipal institutions of all kinds. The result was that the provision of this reconstruction work aided in preventing a great unemployment disaster from occurring to that city.
There is bound to be a period of dislocation after every war. Neither victory nor any kind of planning can bring about the millen-ium. The same thing happened in the days of the Roman empire and the old Grecian empire. A description of those days will be found in Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire". Great things were to be done for the Roman soldiers, almost similar to what is proposed to-day. But after those wars all they had were circuses and doles and all that kind of thing, and the empire was almost destroyed.
We had the Napoleonic wars, the Crimean war, the South African war, the great war, and then this particular war. In spite of all the planning that was done after the last war this country did not become a land fit for heroes to live in. After the last war the soldiers were forgotten three months after they came home. Apart from the city I have mentioned, notwithstanding all the planning that was done, the soldiers received little or no consideration. The result is that to-day many from the last war are suffering untold hardships.
As Mr. Churchill said about this war, we have just reached the end of the beginning. No one knows how long it is going to last and we do not know to whom the country will belong. The Germans still control the whole of Europe. We have not got inside their defences, and with the exception of part of Russia they are in full control of that continent. I do not object to this planning; I wish the committee good luck, but I think we are putting the cart before the horse. We should first chart out the course we are going to pursue.
For example, what are we going to do about empire trade and about the mother country? I think the government should lay down its policy in this regard. The mother country has been our best customer and she has spent a fortune developing the colonial empire. Britain's colonial empire is, in many ways, an example of world reconstruction. One has only to read the speech of Lord Cranborne to realize what has been done in building up this colonial empire. The word "imperialism" is much misunderstood and much misinterpreted in this house. Our allies Russia and the United States are imperialistic; they may not be imperialistic in the sense of grabbing territory, although that remains to be seen when the peace terms are known. They are imperialistic in that they want a larger share in world affairs and will want to dominate the peace terms.
Our fine ally the United States with their great president will want to have a larger share in world affairs and reconstruction. In considering the reconstruction of the new world we shall have to decide one thing. All the planning in the world will not mean anything unless this is decided. What is to be our relationship with the mother country and

Post-War Reconstruction
the empire in empire trade, food and raw materials? The mother country saved civilization after Dunkirk. Only for her we wbuld have been forced to make peace with the axis. Yesterday I referred to Poland where virtually a million of the population have been taken to abattoirs to be killed by the gestapo. Notwithstanding what has been said elsewhere, I believe that after the war the United States will become an isolationist country. We must consider the international feature of this matter.
We come now to the domestic and national feature of this work. Since the war started, everybody has become a socialist or a planner. While we members of the House of Commons belong to different parties, there has been a fine spirit of sportsmanship shown in this chamber during the debates, and I have found the House of Commons to be a place of much kindness, with the possible exception of one or two cases. But everyone is proposing some sort of planning for the post-war period and the spending of our post-war incomes. I do not know whether we are going to have much in the way of post-war income. As I say, all the planning in the world will not bring about better days. With the billions of dollars that are being spent we may be a desperately poor nation after the war. We have been squandering our resources at a great pace; we have been spending money like water. One thing that must be settled is what is to be done with our soldiers when they come home. Do not forget that five or six hundred thousand soldiers will not, on their return, act merely as viewers of all this planning. We can plan until doomsday, but our soldiers who have gone overseas to fight for us, and have gone over there voluntarily and suffered three or four years of isolation in Britain, doing almost the work of labour battalions, will, on their return, have something to say about all this planning. The able minister is a returned soldier himself and has for years taken a great deal of interest in the soldiers and reconstruction. I submit to him and to the government that there should be a system of national insurance of our soldiers just as there is in the United States. A soldier's bill has passed both houses of congress protecting the soldier and his family and his property for three years after the war, and reestablishing him. It is a national system of insurance, which I have urged here since this war began.
Further, I believe that this committee might well consider many of the resolutions on the order paper dealing with reconstruction and rehabilitation problems. The official opposition and some of my hon. friends to my left have motions of that kind on the order paper, and 
this committee which is to deal with reconstruction might well have these resolutions referred to them. After all is said and done, we wasted almost four months last year on the plebiscite and Bill No. 80, to amend the mobilization act, and we had no time left to consider resolutions of hon. gentlemen to my left and of the official opposition and some good motions by private members on the government side. I suggest that these resolutions be referred to the committee.
One thing I should like to see Canada adopt is a national coal supply. This country is famished for coal at the present time, and conditions will get worse as the war goes on. I urged this policy before the house from 1923 on, for seven or eight years, and you, Mr. Speaker, when you first entered the house, coming as you do from the west and knowing well the conditions in the mining districts and in the municipalities which you have so long and faithfully represented in this house, took a great deal of interest in this policy of a national fuel supply. We have coal in Nova Scotia, Alberta and other parts of this country, and we could develop our resources so that we could provide ourselves with our own fuel.
We should also have a national policy of hydro development, and an oil development policy, involving the construction of pipelines. That policy was before the house in 1923 or 1924. We have a potential water-power supply of 43,000,000 horse-power, of which only one-seventh, or about 7,000,000 horse-power has so far been developed. The last time I was in British Columbia, in 1927, I was surprised that with the great natural resources of that province there was no hydro development. It is the same story on the prairies. My hon. friend the member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) has taken a great interest in the water powers of this country and has visited many potential sites. Of that 7,000,000 horsepower which is developed at the present time, a considerable part is a seasonal development only. There has been an additional development since the war began, and I should like to see a further expansion. I think that is one matter which the committee might well consider.
I come to agriculture. There can be no proper agriculture without proper housing, and we are behind the times in housing. Housing is a suburban, urban and rural matter, and we have done little or nothing to develop a housing policy for Canada. In the Toronto district from which I come there will be no houses for the soldiers when they come back from the v ar unless action is taken. Some soldiers' families are now living in cellars. There is a great scarcity of adequate accommodation, and

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that is a matter which should be looked into by the committee. Urban, suburban and rural housing, reconstruction, and health and education legislation should also be considered.
The provision of raw materials is both a national and an international question. The mother country has to import twenty-five out of twenty-seven raw materials which she needs. She has coal and half her needs in iron, but the rest she has to import. Without an import and an export trade the mother country would become a second-class power. She would become a second Denmark and just an outpost at the edge of Europe for America, I believe in Mr. Churchill's policy which he announced in London, that he is not going to see this empire sold down the river, or go by default, but that Britain is going to hold what she has. It is our duty to work with our best customer, and to help her after the war, for we owe everything to her for having saved our shores from the enemy. Every country of the world has received raw materials from the colonial empire, because that has always been Britain's policy. Millions of dollars have been spent on the development of this colonial empire by Great Britain, and she has never asked for a dollar from them in return. She has made the raw materials of that colonial empire available to the whole world. As a publication of the League of Nations says, the colonial empire has given more in the way of raw materials to foreign countries than to the mother country which was responsible for the development of that empire, and has given the colonial empire preferences in her markets.
There is also the question of the development of civil aviation. In the last war the Royal Air Force had some eighteen thousand young men trained in military aeronautics in the city of Toronto. There was no Royal Canadian Air Force then. Montreal was considered by the government, but Toronto was finally chosen as the headquarters for the development of the Royal Air Force, and there eighteen thousand cadets and air mechanics were trained. Some two thousand United States students were among them. They came from various universities in the United States. After the war what happened? Colonel Barker, V.C., Collishaw, Bishop and others tried to persuade the government and the city of Toronto to take up civil aviation after the last war. But nothing was done. The result was that many of these young men who had been trained in military aeronautics here went to the United States after the war, and there a few of them got a nearly ninety
million dollar contract in California from the Chamberlain government in the early days of rearmament. If Canada and the other dominions are not alert, the development of civil aviation will fall into the hands of other countries after the war.
We hear a great deal these days about reconstruction. But the first thing this government will have to reestablish is private enterprise, as they are doing in England. There a resolution was moved by a former labour representative in the Churchill cabinet. The British parliament has passed an act known as the "Pre-War Trade Practices Act", to put back after the war the retail and wholesale trade where it was before the war. When the troops come home they will not have anybody like Mr. Donald Gordon here dominating them. They will have something to say about these bureaucrats. I have fought against these bureaucrats since the time of their appointment, and I was nearly all alone, except for the support, last session or two, of my hon. friend the former leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson, York-Sunbury). In Great Britain, within six months or a year after the war is over, they will go back to private enterprise and the old way of doing things. If we had had no bureaucrats, there would have been no scarcity of food and no rationing. I believe the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) is quite right. I pointed out .two years ago that we should have a food ministry. The food ministry in Britain under Lord Woolton has done magnificent work. Food supplies have been planned; the food is available to everyone, it is fresh, it is well handled, and there have been practically no complaints. A minister of the British government, Sir William Jowitt, paymaster general, referred to reconstruction plans which have already been prepared with relation to the food problem in the mother country. Britain has been the best customer of our farmers, not least of the grain growers of the prairies. Let us not lose her after the war. I believe that this dominion should immediately, through this committee, work with Mr. Churchill and his government along the lines I have suggested.
Consider the position of the mining industry. I do not believe the men in the mines have received a fair deal-far from it. I referred to this particular matter in 1923 and 1924 on my motion for a national coal supply. I believe in labour and have been a consistent supporter of labour since first entering the city council of Toronto. One of the things I value most highly is that, notwithstanding a life of much stress and strain in many
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spheres of activity, including municipal work, which is closer to the people than any other branch of government, I have always managed to retain the respect and support of the overwhelming majority of labour in the city I represent. With Sir Adam Beck, my former colleague, and Sir James Whitney, I went all over Ontario preaching the gospel of cheap light and power for the urban, suburban and rural workers. In the days before and during the great war we were attacked by some of our own newspapers in Ontario and called amateur anarchists, because we tried to restore the people of the province their heritage of cheap power and light, a policy which you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, supported in the great district of new Ontario. I believe that before the war is over, notwithstanding much of this talk about planning, the larger part of the work will devolve upon the municipalities.
Recently there was a long debate in the British House of Commons on this general subject, when empire trade, international affairs and other great issues were discussed. Here is what Admiral Southby said about post-war planning. He is a sincere friend of labour; he is a man of vision; he has predicted almost everything that has happened in the war:
It seems to me that the people who talk loudest about post-war equality are those who deny the right of anyone who disagrees with them to share in the planning of the new world, but I am certain of one thing, and it gives me great hope and courage. If the little man, who is the embodiment of British common sense and sanity, is capable, as he is, of destroying Hitler and Mussolini and all their works, he is quite capable, when the war is over, of destroying bureaucracy. He says in effect, in the words of Geoffrey Dobb:
We who in the ashes d-well Want no planned and ordered hell;
Fight no war to be policed
When the bombs and fires have ceased.
Life's too precious far to give For any freedom but to live.
That is exactly what the soldiers will want when they come home. The "little man", immortalized by Strube, who saved England, will know, when the war is over, how to plan for the future of the empire and of world trade, in the same way as he did to beat Hitler and Mussolini in the war.
I have almost finished. I will merely add that there was planning as long ago as the aftermath of the Napoleonic war. We all know the condition of the working classes after that great war, that women and children were working in the mines of the mother country in a living tomb below ground. Read the "History of England" by T. H. Green; 
note the condition of the mass of the working people after the war with Napoleon. The state of the workers at that time was disgraceful. Then came the industrial revolution, the union of coal and steel. What did it do? As Lord Perry has said:
The industrial revolution made it possible for any man to work his own way from poverty and illiteracy to a commanding position in both industry and the state. Richard Cobden is an outstanding example-the son of a Sussex farm labourer who became a great Lancashire manufacturer and a great statesman. William Cobbett is another example. In fact, industry and commerce during the nineteenth century produced such men not by the hundreds but by the thousands-careful, frugal men, hard of head and often hard of heart, but notable for two qualities above all others, diligence and selfreliance.
These men were self-trained into habits of clear commercial thinking, quick and bold decisions, personal responsibility and individual initiative. It -was no easy school. Those who lacked the necessary application or the necessary drive had short shrift. The age was kindly only to those who satisfied its needs.
I believe that the first thing to do after the war is to encourage private initiative and free enterprise. True it is that this will have to be brought up to date. I believe that when the soldiers come home they will want the rights that men enjoyed in the days of Macdonald and Laurier, when everybody owned some property-it might be a cow; it might be a small mill, or a country store, or a horse and wagon, but property of some kind. We have been slow to see that, with the right of acquiring private property denied to them, the people of Canada became proletarian. Their liberty passed away; it will have to be restored.
I believe in private initiative. I believe that the right to possess private property is derived from nature and not from man and that the state has no business to abolish it but only to regulate its use. And that, I believe, will be the view of our soldiers when they return.
At present the war is not won, and the war is the main issue to-day; all these other problems are secondary and will have to wait until the victory is ours. I do not object to planning; you can do all you like of it as long as it is not done at the exepnse of the war effort. But I plead with the government and with the committee not to forget that victory is our main purpose, and that without victory all the planning will amount to very little.
I thank the house for having listened so attentively. I have had some experience in matters of reconstruction and planning; it is not confined to my friends on the left, who

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of course are entitled to their views. And from practical experience I tell them that we shall have to go back, as they are doing in England, to supporting by legislation the retail man and the wholesaler. This was done in some degree in the pre-war trade practices act passed there to restore private enterprise. Give these people a chance to do their own business, wholesale and retail, in a businesslike way, and remove the barriers which have been erected in restraint of trade and have made it impossible for them to carry on in the past number of years.


Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Cape Breton South):: I do not intend to inflict another speech on the house, but as a member of the committee last year I have a few remarks to make with respect to the machinery which is being put op for the purpose of working out our reconstruction plans. The reason why I am not going to impose anotl er speech on the house is that the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) made quite a lengthy statement this afternoon and set out fairly clearly the views of this group on reconstruction plans in general, and the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) has just now given us an enlightening discourse on the matter, so that it will not be necessary for me to go into those details.
What I am interested in bringing to the attention of the minister who has been directing the work of this committee is the machinery which is being set up. My conception of the work done last year by the parliamentary committee is that it did all it could with the machinery provided for it, but that it merely scratched the surface and received some reports.
My objection to the whole set-up, and I think I voiced it to some extent last year both in the committee and in the house, is that I see the questions of reconstruction and rehabilitation as one problem, and I believe there are too many committees handling the research and other details without any clear understanding as to which committee will put these plans into final form, bring them back to this house and accept responsibility for them. The committee being set up under this resolution is the responsible committee to which the general public is looking for some comprehensive plans in connection with reconstruction and rehabilitation; and if we are to have any success the numerous committees dealing with the matter will have to have their authority and powers well defined.
For example, last session the canteen committee handled a phase of rehabilitation as applied to the soldier, and in my opinion a
very important phase, but I did not consider it a function of that committee, regardless of the fact that most of the committee members were ex-service men. We are now running into difficulties in connection with the legislation based upon the work of that committee, which was designed to protect the boy who left his job and went into the army by forcing the employer to see to it that the boy on his return was given the employment which he left when he enlisted. I have recently received numerous complaints from men who never had jobs, who are coming back to sections where trade unions that have seniority clauses written into their agreements are functioning. A boy in such a position cannot get a job without great difficulty. If he does succeed in getting one and a lay-off comes along-for there are lay-offs now-because he has no seniority in the plant he loses the job. Therefore we have really not provided, as far as that legislation is concerned, any security for the boys who come back.
Then there was the James committee, which sat for some. fifteen months and which was divided into subcommittees. The chairman of that committee came before the reconstruction committee and presented a fine report, but in my view it was mostly words, with no concrete suggestions as to what should be done in the field of reconstruction. That committee did some very good research work, but it merely brought back a report to the parliamentary committee. Some of the subcommittees of the James committee did not function at all, or at least did not report to the parliamentary committee. For instance, the committee on education and employment, one of the most important subcommittees, which was headed by Mr. Tom Moore, did not make a report. The explanation was that Mr. Moore was ill. That was quite true, but someone should have been appointed to take his place.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: That has been done; Mr. Bengough has been appointed.


Clarence Gillis: That is good. We now find an economic advisory committee being set up, which in my opinion will practically usurp the powers of the James committee. The advisory committee is composed largely of deputy ministers; it is nothing more or less than an interdepartmental committee of the government doing research which in my opinion should be done by independent people reporting directly to the parliamentary committee to enable it to form and bring back to the house an independent report. I understand that in the Department of Pensions and National
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Health there is a departmental committee carrying on research and bringing in certain legislation by order in council with respect to soldiers returning from overseas. Therefore, when the minister makes his statement I think he should clearly state which committee is senior, and which committee will bring a report into the house. Will that committee be privileged to take advantage of all the research being done by the other committees and put it into a final report which will be brought to this house? If the parliamentary committee is to function in that way, then in my opinion it will have to be provided with a secretariat and the necessary machinery to carry on that work. That should be their function, since they are the elected members of the house and the public will look upon them as the responsible committee.
I should like to make just a few observations as to what I think are the basic problems with which we should start now and about which we should do something. Speechmaking will not solve the problem. As a member of the committee last year I think one of the first problems we shall have to tackle is that of the soldier returning from overseas. If the war should end to-morrow I would not want to see our army demobilized with the machinery we have at present for looking after them. When I think of that army overseas I try to place myself in the position of one of the soldiers for a few moments. Large numbers of the boys now in England never had jobs. They have been in the army now for three years, but to date no one in this country has told them that they will have jobs on. their return. We know that the Canadian army will be the spearhead when the time comes to cross the channel, and I do not think any of our men have any illusions as to what that job will rhean. Consequently it is only natural for a boy in that position to stop and think what he is facing certain death for. If we want to build up the morale of that army and of the Canadian people, we must do two things. We must guarantee those boys that if the war should terminate suddenly and they should return to Canada, they will not have to wrestle in the ranks of the unemployed or eke out an existence on $9 a week, as is provided by the regulations at present. They should . be told that the Canadian people are prepared to keep them in uniform on full pay and allowances, to give them vocational training and to route them into some gainful employment with a decent standard of living before they are finally taken off the Canadian payroll. That would guarantee to those boys
[Mr. Gillis.3
that when they came back, whether to-morrow or next year, the Canadian people would be prepared to recognize their responsibility at least to the extent of making sure that they would not have to go into the lines of the unemployed or those on relief. I am sure that would be good for the morale of our boys overseas.
In addition, I think this government should enact the New Zealand old age pension plan. I do not need to elaborate on that, for I am sure the minister is even more familiar with it than I am. Many of our boys overseas have fathers and mothers at home who are too young to qualify under the present regulations for the old age pension, but who are too old to work, who have broken down after years of heavy work and the worry of the last ten years of depression.
The only income in most of those homes is an assignment of pay and allowances granted by the government. Such a boy is in the position that if he goes under, fighting for democracy and freedom, he not only loses his life but throws his father and mother back on the relief rolls. That is no exaggeration; it is an actual fact; I have handled cases of that kind. A large percentage of our people are in that position. And that gesture of keeping him on the payroll, the enactment immediately of an old age pension that guarantees his father and mother means of existence, builds his morale to the point that at least the- war has brought about something, a guarantee that there will be no more relief roll for his father and mother and a recognition by us that he is entitled to something when he comes back and is not taking a chance of going on relief. Those two things should be done by the reconstruction committee as one of its first responsibilities.
Another matter we should immediately consider and make a pronouncement upon is this. There are thousands and thousands of employees in war industries, crown organizations carrying on war work only. If the war were suddenly to terminate, thousands of these people would face the street, and they realize it. If you go around among them you will find that that is what they are discussing. What are we going to do with respect to these crown emanations, these war industry plants, when the war is over? What plans are we making to convert them to peace-time pursuits?
These are three matters about which we should immediately do- something. It would tend to build up the morale of the soldiers overseas and of the Canadian people. These are basic problems of urgent importance and

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matters upon which the committee should make a pronouncement at once. There is no research necessary into these matters, except as to the conversion of war industries. The government is in a position with respect to most of these industries to say something about them; the other questions are merely matters of common, sense and something should be done about them immediately.
One thing we must realize is that we are not in a position similar to that of the last war. We are dealing to-day with a generation that has already gone through a war; that has seen the aftermath of war and that is not going through the same thing again. If our hon. friends on this side and those on the government side are not prepared to bring about changes in a sensible and logical way through the medium of the constitution that we have to-day, those changes will be brought about in some other way, a way we do not like. Let us not make any mistake about that or try to fool ourselves, because we shall be only fooling ourselves if we think in those terms.
I do not want to make a long speech. I wish to leave just those three points with the committee and to ask the minister for a clarification of the machinery we are providing in the field of reconstruction. In my own province thousands of men have left the basic industry there, coal mining. There has been quite a shrinkage in that industry since the outbreak of the war. I have some figures; I shall not bother the house with them now, but will bring them before the reconstruction committee. I know that if the men who have enlisted from that industry came back to-morrow or next. year there is no employment for them as far as I can see. Hundreds of boys left that section of the country who never had a job, and there is now no job for them there. There is only one way to ease the minds of these people. They know it; I receive many letters from overseas; they write to me on that point; they have no illusions about it. Without a pronouncement now that we are making provision for them against their return, until we can reorganize society and turn it back to peace-time pursuits, I would be afraid to see them come back. The reconstruction committee will go into that situation as far as that industry is concerned. The chairman was good enough to allow us to bring that whole situation to the attention of the committee last session. When we get under way again the operators should be summoned to meet that committee, to put their plans on the table face up and to let us know what the future holds with respect
to that industry and potential employment for men returning from overseas.
I merely wanted to bring these matters to the attention of the minister so that he might say something about them when he closes the debate.


Mr. J. G. TURGEON (Cariboo) :: First
I wish to say a word as to the high note that has been sounded to-day in the debate that has so far taken place on the motion of the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie) that this reconstruction and reestablishment committee should be set up. I am not a bit surprised at the high tone of the speeches that have been made, not only because I know the great interest that is in the minds of all hon. members in the subject under discussion, but because, looking back to the conduct of that committee during last session, I am filled with a deep sense of appreciation of the friendliness and courtesy extended to me, who happened to be chairman of that committee, by all its members. We see to-night what the minister has recognized, because he attended faithfully the meetings of that committee during last session, namely, that every member of it is in dead earnest in the work which he has undertaken as a representative of the people.
Several points have been brought out so far in the debate. There is the question of what is generally called full-time employment and there is the question of full production. May I put on Hansard, for although it is on the record of the committee it has not yet been put upon Hansard, a resolution that was moved in that committee on June 30 last and was accepted by the committee. I happened to be the mover. That motion reads:
Whereas the most immediate reconstruction problem confronting Canada to-day is the creation of employment for and the settlement of returned soldiers and workers from war industry, and,
Whereas the proper development of our natural resources can provide both employment and settlement opportunities through irrigation, flood control, reforestation, the development of water power for industrial and other uses, the exploration of mineral and oil deposits, and the provision of transportation where-required by settlers or by industry:
Therefore be it resolved that this committee on reconstruction and reestablishment study the best means to bring about the proper utilization of the natural resources of Canada in such manner as will make it possible for the government of Canada, in cooperation with provinces and municipalities, to avail itself of every opportunity to create employment for, anil arrange the permanent and satisfactory settlement of, men and women discharged from our armed forces and from the merchant navy, and workers released from industry.

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I read that motion not only for the purpose of putting it upon the record of this house, but also because I think it is the foundation for a good deal of the work that must be done by the committee which is being set up. The hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) referred to the fact that following that motion we went into a study of the development of the coal resources in Nova Scotia, and he hopes, as I hope, that when the committee is again at work that particular study will be continued. I believe that if we as a committee study the existing operation and utilization of our natural resources we shall be in a better position to judge the nature of the utilization and development of our natural resources that we as a committee on reconstruction should recommend to this house and through the house to the people of Canada.
I wish also to call attention to the fact that this resolution points out that we do these things, or some of them, in cooperation with the provinces and the municipalities. In a country with so complex a constitution as that of Canada, in a country whose national entity was, after all, created by resolutions of the provinces themselves, it is. absolutely essential that we should convey to the people our desire to work in conjunction with the provinces.
As a matter of fact, following that particular resolution, much work of a highly preparatory nature has been done by some of the provinces. During last session, as chairman of the committee I received many commendations from people in several provinces on the fact that our committee wanted to cooperate with them. If I may be permitted to speak for a moment about my own province of British Columbia I would call attention to the fact that the legislature of that province at its last session set up a post-war rehabilitation council consisting of members of all political parties. And apparently without thought of party advantage, that committee has carried on a positive work of preparation for the days of reconstruction. They have prepared a voluminous report, one which it seems to me is absolutely constructive. I am very happy to-night to pay one word of tribute, because the chairman of that committee, the Hon. Mr. Perry, provincial minister of education, is one of my constituents. The constituency of Fort George which he represents in the legislature is the centre of the federal constituency of Cariboo which I represent in this house. This booklet which I have in my hand happens to be the report, and I can say it is full of good meat, having to do with reconstruction.

Naturally, when one speaks of reconstruction there come to his mind two sets of thoughts, one relating to world structure and international undertakings, and the other to the new structure affecting the people of Canada themselves. It is not my intention to-night to say anything about world-wide structure, except to throw out this thought, that I agree-and I speak as a member of the House of Commons and a member of the reconstruction committee-with the suggestion of Vice-President Wallace of the United States, that when war is over we must have a system of collective security which will guarantee to the people of every nation the same application of the rule of law in international affairs as we now enjoy within our own country in domestic affairs.
Our own continued process of armament and preparation for war and the process followed by each individual nation will to a large extent depend upon the nature and the condition of that collective security which can be given to every people by the combination of nations. So far as the preparation for reconstruction is concerned, I agree and always have agreed with what the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said, namely, that the first great task confronting us as the House of Commons and as a people is the conduct of the war itself. It is not necessary for me to say to any hon. member that it is useless for us to prepare for reconstruction, if in doing so we do not continue to make certain that by every possible means we conduct our war effort properly; because if we lose the war the reconstruction period will be developed not by us but by those nations which defeat us in the war. And if we are not successful; if we do not win the war by a proper invasion of axis countries, by the annihilation of their military strength and by the total subjugation of their military caste, but have to arrange a peace through negotiation, then the terms of reconstruction will not be made by us, because conditions will obtain over which we shall not be masters.
The only real reason, then, for thinking of reconstruction is to think of it in such terms whereby what we are doing and what we are saying will of themselves aid in the prosecution of the war.
I take kindly to the suggestion made tonight, namely, that we as a parliamentary committee should take steps to let our boys and women know overseas what we are trying to do.
Mention was made of what will happen when the offensive takes place, an offensive of which, as has been said before, the Canadian soldier

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will be the spearhead. We cannot blind ourselves to the fact that while the men and women who are there are anxious to play their full part for Canada, they know that a good many of them will not return to their families. It is our duty to let them know that we, the members of the House of Commons, intend by every possible means to see that what takes place after this war will not be in line with what was permitted to take place during the last one.
Here I wish to say a word of commendation respecting the Minister of Pensions and National Health. We can look back over the last two or three years and see things done for enlisted men, men who offered to give everything they have, including their lives. We can see a vast difference in the life being planned for them and that which was permitted to apply to the soldiers and their dependents who survived the last war. I say that in commendation of the present minister.
I leave that phase of the matter with the thought that between the two great wars, in what we were pleased to call the days of peace -and I say this without criticism of any political party or any minister-in those days of fabricated peace we as public men, and those who were then public men, thought more of money and taxation than we did of human values. A government was judged successful, not by the things it did or arranged to do for human welfare, but by the small amount of money it expended, and the manner in which it kept the rate of taxation down. That was the judgment not only of men in public life, but of most people in Canada. We the people of Canada failed in that, just as we failed to prepare for a war that some of us-all of us- should have seen was coming upon us.
Having said that, I wish to say a few words about the northwestern section of Canada. I know I shall be forgiven if it happens that the part of the country to which I intend to refer comes within the constituency of Cariboo. I make this reference not only because my very good friend the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) spoke so eloquently respecting that country and urged the minister to make certain preparations for the future by the development of the natural resources within that great terrain, but because I want to speak of more than the development of natural resources and what they might mean in employment and production. We have to-day the greatest cooperation between two nations that perhaps the history of the world has ever seen. I am speaking of that which exists between Canada and the United States. When Mr. Roosevelt, President of the United States, and the Prime
Minister of Canada met at Ogdensburg in August, 1940, to arrange for the setting up of a joint defence commission, many people thought that would apply only to the defence of North America. But it has developed pace by pace until to-day we see the realization of what has been described lately in this city as the realization of the age-long dream of the northwest passage.
Mention has been made to-night of the air lanes. How many people in Canada realize that the new air lanes now in operation across Canada and fed from the United States which head directly toward Japan-if I may digress for a moment may I say that I hope they will prove to be a channel of offensive action against Japan-mean that the distance from Chicago or Montreal to Tokyo and Shanghai is over 2,000 miles less than the old route through San Francisco which was in operation up to the time of this war. Any distance of over 2,000 miles means a great deal even when one is thinking of aeroplanes and the great speed which they have reached.
There have been expenditures of huge sums of United States money in the Yukon and British Columbia. We have United States soldiers in the Yukon and British Columbia, and there are Canadian soldiers in Alaska. They are all operating together. A joint commission has been appointed to study the proper means of dealing with the facilities which have been created for war purposes in British Columbia, the Yukon and Alaska and the proper joint utilization and development of the natural resources of those lands. I wish I could presume upon the patience of the house to deal at greater length with some of the matters mentioned to-night by the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol). I am tempted to do so because what he said relates so keenly to my own constituency, to that of the hon. member for Athabaska (Mr. Dechene) and to that of the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Sissons). I cannot take the time of the house for this. I want, however, to leave in your mind, Mr. Speaker, the thought that not only have we opened up a northwest passage to Japan, China and the other oriental countries, but we have created a great international cooperative movement between Canada and our great neighbour, the United States.
As was pointed out to-night, in addition to thinking in terms of general reconstruction problems we must also be concrete. The resolution adopted by the committee last session is in itself a concrete foundation upon which a great structure can be built. There is oh the order paper a resolution standing
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in the name of the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Gershaw) which asks this house to pass legislation enlarging the scope of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. Members of the committee will remember that during the hearings last session I asked the committee to sit in camera because I did not want too much press publicity. I then suggested that the committee should study the advisability of recommending to the house that the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act should be extended in its general scope and operation. It deals now only with the three prairie provinces, and in my opinion the committee should recommend that it deal with all Canada and that its general scope be enlarged. The hon. member for Medicine Hat is a member of the committee, and I suggest that he lay this matter before the committee when it meets again. Some means must be suggested by which there can be a proper utilization and development of our natural resources. I believe the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act has been fairly successful on the prairies and I believe its extension to cover all Canada would also be successful.
The hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) referred to the numerous committees on reconstruction which have been in operation, I agree with him that the committee of the house, which is built upon the representation of the people of Canada themselves, is the main committee. But I agree also with the minister that it has been essential for other committees to be at work. The committee which has been described to-night and which has been working under the auspices of the Minister of Pensions and National Health had a secretariat, research advisers and research counsel. These men have been working all the time; they have been able to make studies and possibly are in a position to recommend conclusions to a greater extent than could the House of Commons committee.
We secured from that committee and from the minister some excellent statements covering not only the things that have been done by the government but the matters under study by the committee and by departmental officers. I feel certain that when our committee is ready to start its work again the minister will see to it that we have the benefit of all the studies whch have been made by his departmental officials and by members of that committee. I do not know if I am permitted to say this or not, but I understand that the other house is also setting up a committee on reconstruction. As a member

of our committee I welcome that, and I feel sure that we shall be able to cooperate with each other.
Mention was made this afternoon by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Mac-Innis) to the statement made to the American Federation of Labor convention by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King). I want to extend my congratulations to the hon. member for the nature of the address he gave to this, house. He quoted the Prime Minister as follows:
I believe the war is teaching us that the obstacles to full employment were not real obstacles; that a partnership of management, of workers and of the community can make useful work available, in time of peace no less than in time of war, for all who need or want to work.
I am afraid the hon. member took a wrong meaning from the Prime Minister's statement. As I interpret his speech, he meant what everybody in this house thinks he meant. There is not any question that during the terrible and long years after the war which were known as the depression we let ourselves sink to depths of shame which only the courage, heroism and sacrifices of the men and women who are fighting for us overseas can wipe out. What the Prime Minister was saying to himself as well as to the men and women whom he was actually addressing was that the experiences of the war-and surely we must learn from the experiences of the war-have taught us that we, business men as well as the government, permitted certain things to be obstacles to full employment in the days of peace, when, had we only known it, those things were not real obstacles.
Something was said to-night about the necessity for a declaration. The declaration is there. The obstacle is declared to be an imaginary obstacle, and we realize it now. If there is any man in this house to-day who thinks we can ever have a similar depression in Canada, let me say to him that we have all across Canada a farming population which from its pioneering days has been imbued with courage and with experience. During the last three years of war our industrialists, management and labour, have shown what they can do when there is a real objective before them, and we have a realization to-day that never again will it be necessary for the people of Canada to be in want.


Angus MacInnis: It never was necessary.


James Gray Turgeon: I am not saying that it
was. I am saying that what we allowed to be obstacles were false obstacles.

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Let me say to some who I am afraid are thinking not of the material problems as much as of great principles, and I say this so that every member of the house will know where I stand, that I for my part am a believer in free enterprise. You may call it capitalism, if you like; I am a believer in it. I say as a member of this house and as a member of the committee, but I say this to the industrialists and to the business men and to every man and woman in Canada who are believers in free enterprise, that in my interpretation of systems as well as of terms, free enterprise does not pertain only to those who are in big business. The right of free enterprise pertains to every man and to every woman, to the farmer and to the labourer, to the small business man as well as to the big business man.


Angus MacInnis: Let them exercise it.


James Gray Turgeon: All right. We are talking now of the reconstruction committee, and I say that I approve more than I can say the announcement in the speech from the throne of the setting up of another committee to deal with social security. That is necessary. I agree with many of the provisions of the Beveridge report, but again speaking as a member of parliament I say that that is not enough. I have just pointed out that I am a believer in free enterprise, but I say that in addition to social security measures we must have fundamental changes. Those fundamental changes must be of such a nature as to give to government at least a motivating influence, if not a directive influence. We must have fundamental changes which will permit the farmer and the labouring man to have the benefit of free enterprise, and which will make a connecting link between agriculture and industry, between industry and government, and between government and agriculture. When I speak of industry I do not mean only capital and management; I mean industry as composed of capital and management and labour. I for my part am ready to state that in my opinion it is against sound public policy to permit plants employing large numbers of men to operate without provision for collective bargaining by the employees. That is, I think labour in its organized form must be a substantive part of the industry itself, and from the days of the end of the war onwards, when we speak of industry, we must mean labour in its organized form as well as industry itself. I hope we can have a condition here in Canada where social security as it relates to the men and women who are employed in industry will be taken care of by industry itself, but I do not think we can secure that at the moment. I consider, however, that that is the proper place to begin with social and economic security for the men and women who are employed in industry. But we cannot reach that condition unless we-and by "we" I mean parliament and government, provincial as well as dominion -recognize that organized labour is an actual part of industry itself. We must realize and recognize that the foundation of our whole economy rests with the farmers of the land, because industry, even considered as management and labour, cannot operate properly unless agriculture is on a sound basis. It therefore becomes, in my opinion, the duty of the reconstruction committee to take every possible step, in addition to what I have said about industry and labour, to put farming on a proper basis. If we do that, and if we bring about the developments of which the hon. member for Davenport has spoken so eloquently to-night, we can look forward to the post-war period without fear if, in addition, we let our fighting men who are overseas know what we are trying to do.
I have spoken of the unbearable conditions under which the men who fought in the last war and their dependents were living before this war commenced. We forgot the human values. We realized that as a result of that war Canada had taken a higher place than before in the galaxy of the nations of the world. But we forgot that our place in the world rested upon a foundation of broken hearts, shattered men, and our immortal dead. When this war is over I hope we shall realize that the glory that then will be ours in still greater measure will rest upon the same three things-the broken hearts of the women and children left behind, the shattered lives of the men who come back from the brink of the grave, and the immortal dead in such large numbers who will never see their homes again.
I say, in conclusion, that when this war is over and our men return to us from the graves of Europe or of Asia or of other lands where many of their comrades will lie forever, I hope that with the aid of the returned soldier organizations, the churches of the land, ministers of governments and members of parliament we shall never again be permitted to forget that our national glory will rest upon the sacrifices that have been made by our soldiers.
I want to express through you, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Pensions and National Health, and through him to the government my appreciation as a public man of what has been done in the last two years and of what is to be done in the future, and to express the hope that, when the war is over and we have
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won it properly, our post-war problems will not actually prove to be as acute as now we think they may be.


Mr. A. R. ADAMSON (York West):: It gives me very great pleasure to speak on this resolution to set up this committee which obviously has such general support from all parts of the house.
There is just one suggestion I should like to make to the minister before I proceed, namely, that a considerable amount of work on reconstruction has already been done, and a certain amount of the job necessary to do is now known. I suggest to the minister that before the committee brings down its report he should act on the suggestions which have already been put before him by the James committee and the other committee on reconstruction. In this connection I particularly want to recommend to his attention the findings of the Guelph conference on soil erosion in old Ontario.
Nobody appreciates more than I do the necessity of having blueprints ready before the need to build is apparent. At the Guelph conference the situation existing in Ontario was carefully gone into, but it was brought out by all the experts who spoke and presented papers that very little actual survey work had been done. Only King township and the Ganaraska valley had been at all adequately surveyed; that is, not more than two hundred square miles out of seventy-five thousand which needed to be surveyed. The rest of that territory must be surveyed before any comprehensive plan of soil conservation and reforestation can be undertaken. That is not a job which can be done in a minute; it is a job for expert scientists, for men who are trained to do that work. I realize that at the moment such men are extremely difficult to get, and I would suggest to the minister that as many as possible of these survey parties be sent into the rest of that part of Ontario during the coming summer, not waiting until after the report has been brought down. It is estimated by the Guelph conference, and particularly by Professor Coventry, who was one of the speakers at the conference, that it would require about two hundred survey parties adequately to cover those seventy-five thousand square miles of Ontario and that the survey alone would occupy three years. The necessity of that work is well known. We must do something about it; otherwise that part of Ontario will become a desert. I would suggest with the utmost emphasis that these survey parties be started and put at work this summer season.
There is one other matter as to which, I think, immediate work could be undertaken.

Mind you, Mr. Speaker, I am not saying that this is in any way the total or even a major part of the work of the committee. I consider this committee to be one of the most if not the most important of the committees set up in this house. But there is work which we know already has to be done. In the metropolitan district of Toronto, which includes all of York county and probably the. adjoining counties, the architectural association has estimated that to provide a comprehensive plan of re-housing that area will take as long as two years, and it will cost in the neighbourhood of $100,000. I mention these figures merely to emphasize the size of the job which lies ahead of us.
These are things which I suggest we should be doing. A start-making the blueprints, providing the plans-should be made at once. We cannot risk being unprepared at the end of the war. We cannot take the chance of our army coming back from Europe and our war industries suddenly shutting off and leaving our men in the street. We must have those plans, and in my opinion there is not a moment to lose. I agree with everything that has been said in this chamber concerning the seriousness of the war situation. I realize- nobody, probably, better-what a tough job lies ahead of us to win the war. But because I do that, I also realize what a difficult, long and complicated job the reconstruction committee has in front of it, and it is because I do not wish to see any time wasted that I make these suggestions to the minister.
In the coming years of reconstruction in Canada, I believe we shall discover that the findings in England of the Uthwatt report will affect us far more than the Beveridge report. The way in which in England they have conserved their land, and now-this is the finding of Mr. Justice Uthwatt-are growing between two-thirds and three-quarters of the food necessary for that island, whereas at one time they grew only one-third of their requirements, is an indication of how far we can go in the matter of land through proper land use. Nobody has been more prodigal of the land than we in Canada. One would think in some places we had deliberately set out to destroy the farms and the land. In some places in King township they found that the land had been lumbered, the timber taken off it; that it had been farmed and it had become waste land, within one generation. The first settler within one generation cut the trees, farmed the land, and was so careless of the land that it is now abandoned.
This is one of the most serious things facing Canada to-day. I shall not go into details,

Post-War Reconstruction
but I will say this, that unless we take immediate steps to see to it that forest cover is put back on the land, that erosion is stopped, that streams like the Etobicoke, the Ganaraska and the Grand river do not lose sixty or seventy per cent of their water in a spring freshet of two or three days, we are in very grave danger of having our land turn into a desert. It is because this has been so deeply impressed upon me that I make the plea that the minister waste no time in setting up these extra surveys in order to tackle this one specific job.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I have listened attentively to the discussion on this subject, and I am wondering whether most of the hon. gentlemen who have spoken have not missed the real implications of the resolution now before the house. Much and, in fact, all that has been said has been sound and helpful, but we are not here dealing with a resolution having in view the reconstruction of a county or even a nation. At the conclusion of hostilities we shall face a world that will have been seriously bruised, and the fact is that interdependence will stare us in the face even more intensely after the conflict is over than at any time during the last three decades.
The approach to this problem of reconstruction must be, not in terms of adequate measures of public works, and that sort of thing, but in terms of the kind of world, let alone the kind of country, in which we shall live. That, I think, is the basic consideration in this discussion.
Let me say at the outset that I share the view expressed by those who have thus far spoken, that one need make no apology for this resolution or this debate. It is true that in some quarters it is suggested that this is no time to deal with the post-war period, that all our energies should be concentrated on the one problem of winning the war. With that, of course, we shall all agree; but winning the war will require the use of various instruments. No one now in the light of history will say that when Wilson introduced his fourteen points the programme which he offered did not have a definite relation to the victory which ultimately came about. It was a means of encouraging nations that were seriously disturbed as to whether they should give their support. To-day, if we have an adequate programme, as Mr. Morrison said yesterday when speaking in the United Kingdom, because of that very programme we may save much bloodshed and perhaps shorten the war. For there are many people in various parts of the world, in' Europe and particularly in Asia, who are not
convinced that the united nations offer the best solution in the post-war period. The man who was born and brought up in the east has learned in many respects to suspect the white man and his rule, and there are nations in Europe that feel, perhaps less tensely but none the less surely, a somewhat similar motivation. Therefore, in the prosecution of this war it is up to us at the same time to arrive at some approaches-perhaps they can be no more than approaches-which will convince the conquered nations of Europe and those of the east now dominated by the enemy that because of our history and civilization and because of our programme, we may offer them much more in connection with their personal and national rehabilitation.
I noticed one vein running through the speeches of hon. members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. The other day in the excellent speech of the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) there was expressed the thought that we must clearly define our aims, that otherwise the energy which was being put into the fight might be unavailing. The hon. member seemed to suggest that there was a definite connection between the reasons which brought us into the fight and the sort of world Tvhich many of us would set up afterwards. I suggest that the hon. gentleman is wrong, that in his mind there was a confusion between the provocation of the war and our peace aims. There can be no doubt as to why we engaged in this tremendous struggle. We did so simply because there were in existence certain forces that were prepared to bring to an end our type of civilization; men who were ready to stop at nothing to achieve great power and great expansion in empire at the expense of decency and civilization itself. That is the reason and the only reason why we engaged in this conflict; and to suggest that we did so in order to build a better world is unintentionally to give Hitler an assumption which he does not deserve. Surely we would have gone on with these plans of reform whether or not the war had come. It may be that the war has brought about a more ready realization of their implications, but surely these plans would have been contemplated by people throughout the world whether or not Hitler had risen to power. Therefore we are fighting, not to build a better world, but to rid the world of a force, a cancer, which prevents the realization of these better things.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Would not both our allies and the conquered peoples be greatly encouraged if they knew that when we had rid the world of this force we were going to bring about something better?
Post-War Reconstruction


Paul Joseph James Martin: I quite agree, and that is our justification for considering these problems at this time. The committee on reconstruction of which I have the privilege of being a member has a great job to do, and I must say that several of the suggestions advanced by the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) meet -with my approval. In the first place it seems to me that a committee so important requires assistance which the membership of this house alone cannot give. We have the James committee and other non-parliamentary committees composed of various deputy ministers and the like; we have the group in the Department of External Affairs, who are cooperating with many other official agencies of the United Nations. It seems to me the work of the committee would be greatly assisted by the setting up of some efficient, though not necessarily a large personnel research committee or secretariat which could follow up many of the threads which the members of the committees are not equipped or have not time to deal with. There is, however, one thing I believe the committee must not overlook, and it is this. The broad aspect of this problem will not be solved merely by considering palliatives of the sort we had to consider under the shadows of the New Deal both in this country and in other countries, particularly the United States.
The problem is much deeper and broader than that. There is the whole political aspect of the problem Here we have a United Nations scheme, a machinery of action by which on the political side we are trying to offset the strategy, political and military, of the enemy. I am not satisfied that the United Nations scheme for the purpose of carrying on the war is as strong as I should like. I should prefer to see greater emphasis on the United Nations aspect during the conflict than we now have. I could not help agreeing with many of the things which the hon. 'member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis), speaking in the debate the other day, said when he referred to Casablanca with its advantages, yet with its apparent disadvantages. There was not full expression there of the voice of the United Nations. But if, when the war is over, the machinery of the United Nations is not functioning to the extent that we should like to see it function, think of the dangers we shall fall into at the conclusion, when there will be a tendency towards divergence on the part of the United Nations rather than of convergence. That is extremely important.
This committee therefore will have to consider the political implications of its work.

Mr. Morrison yesterday, quite properly I think, because he is a member of a government, one of the important governments in the United Nations group, nevertheless taking the cue from Mr. Welles and Mr. Hull, spoke of the kind of association that must prevail if at the conclusion of hostilities and during the period of liquidation and demobilization when we shall deal with refugee problems and the like, there is to be some order. Then, dealing with the long term, he spoke of the necessity of providing agencies by which the nations will act in concert and not on a competitive basis. Will our committee ignore this problem? Thus far in the deliberations of our committee we have dealt, quite properly but almost exclusively, with problems which in turn depend for their solution upon the settlement of the bigger problems. Must we not take into account that it comes within our ambit to consider whether the old agencies of collective security shall be maintained, or whether we are to build on the old foundation, whether we shall have regional organizations or whether these regional organizations will be simply economic structures? Those are considerations which I trust this committee will not hesitate to deal with fully.
The hon. member for Vancouver East to-day referred to that well-known book, "Conditions of Peace," by Edward Hallett Carr. That book has been widely circularized, more perhaps than many other books. I want to suggest this to the hon. member- perhaps in making this statement one will be accused of a certain amount of generality, but I make it nevertheless, for the same reason that Mr. Carr makes it; it is the underlying assumption of his book. The hon. member for Vancouver East to-day spoke about the necessity of bringing about economic and social reform. I do not quarrel with him on that. I do not wish to get into a discussion now as to whether I am in favour of a system of free enterprise or one of collectivism. I think in the future these labels will have little value, that we are likely to have a combination of both forms. But what I say and what Mr. Carr says is this:
The essential nature of the crisis through which we are now living is neither military, nor political, nor economic, but moral. A new faith in a new moral purpose is required to reanimate our political and economic system.
It is not simply a question of dollars and cents, it is not simply of economic security, although those things are important; it is a question of a rededication of what democ

racy really means, a rededication of the generally accepted religious conception and

War Appropriation
convictions of civilized1 men that must be at the base of the economic and social system which we are going to set up.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I suggest this. This problem of the kind of world we shall have may engage the philosopher. Our job is simply to realize that we have certain common objectives to attain. First, the immediate job will be to provide that the man who has borne the primary responsibility for carrying on the *war, the man who offered his life on the field of battle, shall be able when he returns to come back to a position where he will be able to compete at least equally with the civilian who was not called upon to bear that kind of sacrifice. I believe that the government, through the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie), has a programme, not perfect, but a programme that should commend itself to this house generally, a programme based upon inquiry and an honest approach on the part of various committees of this house.
I move the adjournment of the debate.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Friday, February 26, 1943