1943-03-11

QUESTIONS

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

Mr. BRUNELLE:: Since the inception of the freight assistance scheme on feed grains or coarse grains, (a) what quantity of oats and barley has been shipped from the west to each of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec; (b) what is the amount of the total transportation cost paid by the dominion government to each of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec; (c) can such feed grains be shipped to an individual purchaser, or is it necessary that it be shipped to an agricultural company, association or society; (d) what proportion of the freight does the dominion government pay on feed grains shipped from Fort William to the provinces of Quebec and Ontario?


Mr. GARDINER:: (a)	To February 28, 1943-
Ontario	Quebec
(Bushels)	(Bushels)
Oats	
10.871.840	8.627,913Barley	
7,586,059	6,946,522(b)	Transportation costs on feed grains up to February 28, 1943-Ontario	
$4,292,674 20Quebec	
4,596,590 70(c)	The freight assistance may be applied for by an individual purchaser. If a farmer brings grain from the west and conforms to the regulations, there is a special form provided upon which he makes application for the amount of freight assistance to which he may be entitled.(d)	The amount of freight assistance on grain moving to Ontario and Quebec is based upon $4.50 per ton for points within the Montreal freight rate zone. Where the point of delivery normally takes a rate higher than the Montreal rate, the balance of the through carlot rate as published in the railroad freight tariffs is paid.


REQUIREMENT AS TO TAKING FLOUR WITH PURCHASES OF BRAN AND COARSE MEAL IN QUEBEC
Mr. LACOMBE:: 1.	Is the government aware that for each load of bran and coarse meal sold to the retailer or farmer in Quebec, the vendors of these grains require the purchaser to take at the same time 150 sacks of flour?
2.	If so, do the same conditions prevail in the other provinces?
3.	If not, will the government take steps to put a stop to this condition of affairs in Quebec?


Mr. GARDINER:: 1.	The government is aware that for some years millfeeds have been sold to dealer subject to orders for flour. The practice varies seasonally to some extent depending upon supply and demand for millfeeds. Under present conditions the demand for millfeeds exceeds the supply including millfeeds derived from the milling of wheat into flour for export.
2.	Similar conditions prevail in other provinces.
3.	Answered by number two.


CHARLES S. HENLEY
Mr. CARDIFF:: 1.	Is Charles S. Henley in the employ of the Department of Labour in the province of British Columbia?
Questions

2.	If so, what is his position and what were his qualifications for appointment thereto?
3.	What salary is he paid, and is he entitled, in addition, to a living allowance or expense account, and if so, on what basis?


Mr. MITCHELL:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Special representative for British Columbia on the staff of the director of national selective service. His qualifications for appointment are experience as deputy registrar and chief public representative for Alberta under the Military Services Act during the period 1917-1919.
3.	Salary at the rate of $3,600 per annum and actual living expenses while in Vancouver on departmental duty.


SELECTIVE SERVICE-ORDER IN COUNCIL RECOMMENDED BY E. M. LITTLE
Mr. BENCE:: 1.	How many copies of "Copy of Proposed Order in Council Recommended by Mr. E. M. Little, former director of national selective service" were printed by the government?
2.	How many of such copies were sent out for distribution?
3.	What was the total cost of such printing?
4.	What was the purpose of having these copies printed?


Mr. MITCHELL:: 1.	English copies, 9,500; French copies, 3,500.
2.	English copies, 9,400; French copies, 3,500.
3.	$558.48.
4.	To satisfy the demand in the public press that the text of the proposed order in council should be released. After this was done there came numerous inquiries from individuals and organizations indicating keen interest so it was decided to have copies printed and sent to all members of the House of Commons and the Senate, members of provincial assemblies, labour organizations and business associations.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Has the manning pool, R.C.A.F., Toronto, been placed under quarantine?
2.	If so, for what reason, by whom and for what length of time?
3.	How many are under quarantine?
4.	How many times has this depot been quarantined since the war began, and on what dates?
5.	What action has been taken to improve the health and sanitary conditions at this depot?
[Mr. Cardiff.1


COLONEL JOHN THOMPSON
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Was Colonel John Thompson, (a) a member of the board of pension commissioners, (b) the chairman of that board, (c) the chairman of the Canadian pension commission?
2.	If so, for -what period in each capacity?
3.	What (a) salary, and (b) what amount for travelling expenses were paid to him each year?
4.	Was he also appointed dominion franchise commissioner and for what period? If so, what was his salary per annum and what total amount was paid to him for travelling expenses?
5.	What was the number of his staff and the total amount of the salaries paid to them during the above period mentioned in number 4?
6.	What was the cost of (a) the furniture, and (b) supplies including stationery for the offices of Colonel John Thompson as dominion franchise commissioner and for his staff?
7.	Did he send any reports in such capacity to the Hon. Mr. Speaker of the House of Commons and, if so, how many?
8.	When were they published in the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Commons and how many pages did they cover?
9.	Was he entitled to a pension (a) as a member or chairman of the board of pension commissioners, (b) as the chairman of the Canadian pension commission, (c) as the dominion franchise commissioner? If so, what was the amount in 1919, in 1933, in 1934, and when the position of dominion franchise commissioner was abolished?
10.	Was he awarded a pension of $5,000 per annum? If so, when, why and in virtue of what authority?
11.	What was the total amount paid to Colonel Thompson, (a) for various salaries, (b) for travelling expenditures, and (c) for pensions since 1919?
12.	Was he appointed to another position in 1942 or 1943? If so, what was it?


EXPORTS OF LUMBER TO THE UNITED STATES
Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	How much lumber in quantity and value has been exported to the United States during each month since January, 1942?
2.	Is there at present any order in effect whereby such export is prohibited? If so, when was it made and what is the nature and effect thereof?
3.	Have any exceptions to such order been made so as to permit any corporations or persons to make exports, and if so, give names and addresses of such exporters and the value of the lumber exported by each of them?


WOODEN SHIPS FOR WAR PURPOSES
Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: 1. How many naval ships, merchant ships, landing scows or other craft built of wood have been ordered since the beginning of the war for the account of the British government to be built in Canada?

Military Service
2.	Wliat are the names of the contracting firms, the location of the yards, the number, kind or class, and value of ships, scows, etc., in each order placed?
3.	What were the dates when contracts were placed and the contract date of delivery?
4.	Were tenders called for? If not, in what manner were contracts let?
5.	How many wooden ships, scows or other craft were ordered since the beginning of the war for Canadian account, stating particulars?



MILITARY SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. H. CASTLEDEN (Yorkton):: Is the Minister of Labour aware that many men engaged in agriculture in Saskatchewan are being called for compulsory military service, contrary to the declared intentions of the ministry? Also, will the minister inform the house what steps are being taken to ensure that the government's intentions in this matter are being observed by the selective service boards?


Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: Complaints have been referred to me, by members of parliament, as to men engaged in agriculture being called up for military service. On inquiry' it has been found that in many of the cases the complaints were made before the board had given its decision. All cases brought to the attention of my department have been and will continue to be looked into promptly and carefully, and where there are meritorious circumstances the mobilization boards are asked to review the cases. The associate director of national selective sendee, military division, is now in western Canada conferring with the mobilization boards, and I am sure that as a result of his visit the situation will be clarified and improved.



QUESTION OF APPEALS FROM DECISIONS OF SELECTIVE SERVICE BOARDS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. DIEFENBAKER (Lake Centre):: May I ask whether or not the government has given consideration to the appointment of a supreme court judge to sit by way of an appeal court in order to ensure uniformity of interpretation and enforcement of the regulations throughout the dominion?


Humphrey Mitchell: No.



CALLING UP OF MEN ALREADY ENLISTED

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. R.B. HANSON (York-Sunbury): May I ask the Minister of Labour a question supplementary to that asked by the hon. member for Yorkton? Is the minister aware that there is a continuing recurrence of call-ups of men who have already enlisted voluntarily, in some cases of men who have been enlisted for some time, and in one case that I know of, of a man who had recently become a casualty? I know it is a matter of administration and that the minister himself cannot be held in any way responsible. Perhaps my question will serve as an interrogatory to call attention to a situation that sometimes creates, shall I say, a good deal of sadness.
Humphrey Mitchell: Nobody regrets more than I do that sometimes these things happen. I can say from my own experience in the last war that through some slip-up I was reported blown up on a ship-perhaps some people wished I had been. My hon. friend can rest assured that it is purely a question of mechanics and organization and that every step is being taken by my department to see that so far as it is humanly possible these things shall not occur in the future. It is not always the fault of the government.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: I am not suggesting that.


Humphrey Mitchell: Sometimes it is the fault of the individual himself.



RESOLUTION OF THREE RIVERS TRADES AND LABOUR COUNCIL AS TO RATIONING

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. SASSEVILLE ROY (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask whether the government has taken any measures towards granting the request sent to the Prime Minister by the trades and labour council of Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, asking for a greater ration of butter for those bringing their meals to the plant.


Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance):: That is a matter under the jurisdiction of the wartime prices and trade board. I did not have notice of the question, but I think I can answer it. It is not administratively possible for the board to make any difference in the butter ration as between various persons or
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groups in the country, and any request for larger rations for one group or another have I think been consistently refused, and necessarily so. I might add that the butter ration is being increased this month, as the hon. gentleman knows.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, March 10, consideration of the motion of Hon. J. L. Ilsley (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Blackmore, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Coldwell.
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday afternoon during this debate, which is the only opportunity we have aside from the war approriation bill, I proceeded to say a few words about the conduct of the war. As you know, sir, in the parliament at Westminster ninety-five per cent of the time is taken up with war measures.
I agree with what has been said, that there is no such thing as home defence in this country. Norway found that out; Denmark found it out; Holland, Belgium and France found it out. All their home defence amounted to nothing against these mechanized hordes, and the same is true of all the occupied countries of Europe. We shall find out the same thing if they come here. We shall find that the way to fight our enemy is to fight him on the seven seas wherever we can find him. The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Alexander), referred in London yesterday to the battle of the Atlantic and the submarine peril along the same lines as what I said here yesterday.
I may say that first Germany relied on her air arm in attacking shipping, and on a secret weapon, Hitler's magnetic mine. That continued for the first year and a half of war. It did not prove a success, as was expected, and the enemy then turned to the submarine, which had proved so disastrous to the allies in the last war. Germany accordingly went in for the building of larger and improved submarines in an effort to defeat Britain at sea and starve Britain. That submarine campaign has been a great success so far for Germany, and unless the allies solve this problem the war cannot be won.
Notwithstanding the brilliant advances made by General Montgomery, General Alexander and General Anderson in the Libya campaign,

where the enemy was chased for fourteen or fifteen hundred miles-and that was really our first success in the war-the battle of the Atlantic cannot be won without the allies, especially Britain, the United States and Russia, gaining command at sea. Germany's submarine campaign, under skilful direction, ' is now to attack allied shipping at long range from their advance submarine bases in Norway and the bay of Biscay and we shall have to have more escort ships to protect our convoys in the Atlantic against these attacks. In 1940 we received fifty old destroyers from the United States, which were a great help in our convoy system then, but we need still more escorts to win the battle of the Atlantic. I referred yesterday to 120 escort ships we cannot get back from the North African Armada. The situation is grave, as the First Lord of the Admiralty said. I recall the time when he was a pacifist, just a few years ago. Before the war he was in favour of reducing the number of our capital ships from seventy-five to fifty and was responsible for changing at the Washington conference the definition of a capital ship and for preventing the building of more and rearmament. Sometimes chickens come home to roost, and that applies to the pacifists in the old country as well as to those in the dominions who supported complete disarmament. Some of my friends to my left were wrong. They relied on pacifism and disarmament before the war. That was their blueprint. A few also wanted to reduce the estimates for the armed services to the sum of one dollar. The result was that when the war broke out practically all we had to rely on if attacked, as I said before the war, was the girl guides, the boy scouts and the honorary colonels.
I believe the time has come when we should discard politics. The winning of the war is all that matters. We had politics in this parliament for four months in 1942. We had a long debate on Bill No. 80 and time taken up with a referendum and all that kind of thing, and the war was only secondary. The war situation this year is too serious for that. There are many domestic problems of great magnitude and importance that affect our mode of living, but the war is primary and the rest are secondary, and must await a later day. As General Sir Bernard Montgomery said in January, 1943:
If each one of us, whether front line soldier or officer or man whose duty is performed in some other sphere, puts his whole heart and soul into this next contest, then nothing can stop us. Nothing has stopped us since the battle of Egypt began October 23, nothing can stop us now. We will all be in the hunt eventually:

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on to Tripoli. Our families and friends in the home countries will be proud when they hear we have captured this place.
It wras a 1400-mile British advance in Libya not an Anglo-American advance. Canada did not congratulate those brave generals of our own; another novice ambassador though, has congratulated another allied general on his successes in the east. I contend that we should also congratulate our own people, and give them equality of treatment.
In connection with the budget I wish to say a few -words, I am sorry the minister is not in his place. I cannot agree with the glorious company and the hallelujah chorus and the brass bands and the hip-hip-hurrahs about a five billion dollar budget for this country. The situation is too grave for all these mansions of finance in the sky. The present Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) is one of the pacifists-one of many in all parties-responsible for this gigantic budget. They thought we could make peace pacts, protocols and paper and disarmament agreements and be protected, when they well knew the situation. The minister himself went to the league of nations the year before, to this talk-fest in Geneva; he must have known that a disarmed Britain just meant invasion and insult and in the end extinction. The pacifists in and out of the house must shoulder some of the responsibility for this gigantic expenditure. I doubt if the money is being well spent, these astronomical figures; when you get up in the sky five or six miles the money is less likely to be well spent than a moderate sum would be. When I go back home I see the retailers and wholesalers who pay the taxes, and the working classes of this country, and remember that they have already committed themselves on mortgages and agreements for sale of land and small houses and fire and life insurance. In Toronto the assessment commissioner's report used to show that fifty-five to sixty per cent of the people owned their own homes, because Toronto is a city of the middle classes and the toilers and workers of this country. My friends to my left have not been unmindful of the condition of these people, nor have the Conservatives who sat in this house, because they have been the friends of labour and their policies for many years past have been for the benefit of labour.
Do not forget that Canada is the highest taxed country in the world. The minister talks about the United States and Britain, but in the United States there is no sales tax; here there is a sales tax on almost everything, even coal and on everything used
in the kitchen. I do not care whether the stand I take, that of saying they are taking too much money from the people, is popular or not, but the people back home know more than the people in Ottawa. They are complaining and trying to find ways and means of paying these new forms of taxes. They do not object to paying taxes for the war, but in this budget we find many millions not for the war at all; look at the increase of civilian estimates. What is the use of establishing embassies across all the seven seas in time of war? Are those things necessary? Do they contribute anything to the war or defence on the home front? These novice ambassadors are bad in peace time but more dangerous in war time. You can go over many of the other items in the estimates and find the same sort of thing. Not a man or woman in Canada objects to what is necessary for war purposes; the government can go the limit to win the war, but when you find a lot that is not for war you do complain. Notwithstanding all that was said about the four freedoms and all this kind of thing, we are going to be a desperately poor people after this war.
We have squandered our resources at a great pace. We are spending money like water and wasting our national resources and the products of the sea, the soil, the forest and the mine. I have here a return for four years before the war, showing the quantities of base metals supplied by us to our enemies- copper, platinum, nickel, some sixteen of them. You allowed these people to get all those natural resources from us and by reason of the policy of isolation on the part of our great ally to the south our enemies, the Germans and Italians, built a navy in the Atlantic.
A civil war was fought in England for nearly a hundred years to gain control of the exchequer, but to-day this house has lost that control; with all the controllers and subcontrollers we are the forgotten agency of government. So much is this so that we were in session last year five months to the first week of July and never discussed one item of the estimates, there was so much politics in connection with our discussions in 1942. This budget shows no attempt to put on the brakes. Alexander Mackenzie sat on the strong box and we had an auditor general named McDougall who had power to veto expenditure. That proviso has been taken away now from the auditor general, and the budget from first to last shows the dead hand of the treasury and no authority and absolute failure to check all this expenditure. Too much money altogether is being taken out
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of the taxpayer and too much is charged to income and not enough to capital. This generation is suffering in flesh and blood, and future generations should pay also.
The last war was said to be to make the world safe for democracy. When the troops come home from this war they will find that this war was fought to make the world safe for bureaucrats, Donald Gordon and all his regiments and colonels and lieutenants wearing the epaulettes of this whole control system, part of which is necessary but which is overdone, and some of the people not able to get a bit of beef, butter or sugar. There are pictures in all the papers of this commander-in-chief of the bureaucratic forces waving his ration book, and pictures of his sisters and his cousins and his aunts and all his family and of his inability to get butter at his club while parliament sits here, the forgotten agency.
I have a letter here from the auditor general, a good official, Mr. Watson Sellar. I asked him what power of veto he has over expenditure. He has none. He replied to the extent of two pages, and he points out that under the appropriation bill there is a comptroller of the treasury who has little control, and that there is a two billion dollar war appropriation which he can do nothing about; parliament only authorized it in a few sentences, without any items being given. Why did we authorize it? When parliament passes a blanket appropriation bill we lose all control over it. What have the war expenditure committee ever done? They took a Cook's tour of Canada accompanied by Mr. Togo and they were stuck in some of the fog at the head of the lakes. They divided into subcommittees to investigate technical problems and where is their report? What did they find out? Not a thing to put the brakes on. They have divided themselves into subcommittees to investigate a great many technical problems about which they know no more than the average county councillor, or perhaps not one-tenth as much. If we had in our municipal systems the antiquated federal practice in force here, I believe the tax rate would be a great deal higher in local systems because these municipal councils know how to stop a great many of such unnecessary expenditures. The auditor general might just as well be said to have no control; for every controller is his own auditor and there is no head to the whole thing. We are getting to be a nation of auditors, and we have so many of these controllers that they do not know what they are supposed to control. Take the question of potatoes. We were told over the radio that there was a great shortage of potatoes, but now we are told that the situation is not nearly as bad as we supposed. I had a letter from a 
prominent public man in Toronto the other day in this regard, telling me that his wife heard over the radio that potatoes were scarce and everyone should put some in. I wrote the wartime prices and trade board in this regard and had a letter back from the young gentleman who is now secretary of tile board and who seems to have great influence with the government, since he goes from one federal job to another. Mr. Fowler said that in a letter he had received from a member of the advisory committee for potatoes in Toronto he was given this information:
Let me inform you that preseent short supplies are not as serious as many would declare. Moving along such streets as Bloor street, St. Clair, Jane and Annette streets in Toronto, all stores have potatoes for sale, mostly in ten and fifteen pound packages.
Then he adds that seventy-five pound bags are also available in some stores if desired. This is a conflict of rival people, all contradictory on the matter of potatoes, and small potatoes publicity people.
There is one thing we shall have to do before the soldiers come back. There has been too much bullying of the public in this country by the wartime prices and trade board. It should be called the wartime tower of Babel board, with all the lectures it gives the people and its male and female announcers, or the wartime prices and farce board. What do some of these unpractical, young people know about business practices? One young man was appointed "to simplify practices in small businesses connected with clothing." He ordered the cuffs taken off trousers, narrower collars, and so on. Where was he employed before he undertook to tell the retail storekeepers,. all their life in the retail trade, what to do? He was working in a well known brewery; and there was no scarcity of beer at that time That is the sort of control we have here. Dio Mr. Donald Gordon have any training in any competitive business? He did not. Does he know anything about butter, coffee, tea or beef? All the butter, potatoes, beef and coffee he ever saw were what he consumed himself; yet he is placed in authority over the wholesalers and retailers of this country. It would have been far better to have the control of our food supplies with the food men in the business. I agree with the statement made the other day in a land of plenty by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) that rumours have caused rationing. I think we should have followed England's lead and left these matters under the control of those who have looked after them all their lives, business men who are actually in business, instead of appointing a great many highbrows; because you have to

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be a highbrow to get a job as a controller or subcontroller, while the "real men" are serving at the front. Not long ago when I was going into the union station in Toronto I saw a young fellow in uniform, a soldier, on the right of way tracks, who was shovelling snow for the Canadian National Railways. He had been a teller in a bank. He did not enlist to shovel snow; he enlisted to fight Hitler.
In my opinion the people will stand for whatever is really necessary in the way of regimentation for actual war, but they will not stand for anything they do not feel is absolutely justified and will not help one iota for war purposes. If we do not do something about it the people will do something about us. Why, they have a small standing army of prosecutors, investigators and enforcement officers peeping through keyholes to see whether blackouts are being observed, and all that sort of thing, though in England blackouts have been largely eliminated as the right hon. the Home Secretary said, curtailed and further regulated. I have complained about the matter of the length and frequency of these blackouts in central Canada for two years to the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie), under whose authority these blackouts are held, because that authority is delegated to other people over whom there is no control. The people who are in charge of these blackouts are good, patriotic people; they are law-abiding, patriotic citizens doing a great public service, voluntarily, but I believe it would be far better if they were in the reserve army or getting better results in other form of war work, doing something that would be of more practical value to the people of this country. I appreciate the fact that in my own city many public-spirited men and women have done a great deal of good work in this connection, but I believe they could be given better and more valuable war work to do in these times. You cannot beat Hitler by turning a light on and off. In Norway and Finland everyone was taught to handle a rifle, and I think that should be done here. Then we have all these hundreds of advertisements printed in both languages in an English-speaking province. Why is that necessary in the English-speaking province of Ontario? It is just a waste of money. I ask hon. members from the province of Quebec if they think -money should be wasted in that way. I say it is not necessary, and all this duplication should be stopped.
If it is necessary to ration tea, coffee, sugar and butter, why should there be all this talk about it? No one will object if it is necessary, but when you find one agency saying one thing over the radio and other agencies saying 72537-74
other things in the press and in interviews and speeches, it is a different matter. If we had left the distribution of these commodities to the food industry in Canada who understand it, we would be far better off. No doubt there would have been some difficulties, but I think we would have had greater food reserves if that had been done. As a prominent man, a great economist, in England, Lord Perry, said not long ago:
A completely socialized Britain would mean that all power was vested in the permanent officials. A free-enterprise Britain, such as our fathers and grandfathers knew and upon which our national prosperity rests, means that bureaucratic power is severely limited. Therefore, the further Britain is taken from free enterprise and the nearer she is brought to state ownership, the more complete is the power of the bureaucrat.
Let it be emphasized that whatever new fields of government the bureaucrat commands, he does not add to his responsibility. That is still borne by the political ministers whom he directs, whom he tutors and whom he paralyses. The natural trend, then, of a political minister's professional advisers is toward legislation which gives wide scope to the department which launches it. It is this thirst for power which inspires that type of legislation which Lord Hewart in his "The New Despotism" found so objectionable-legislation which leaves departments free to lay down rules and to impose regulations against which there is no appeal either to the courts of law or to parliament itself.
In this budget there is little comfort for the small retail dealer or wholesaler or toiler who has been put out of business by some of these controls. Then, as I say, I do object to the cost of it, because last year I asked the minister what the cost of this pegging ceiling policy was, and he did not know. At Easter-time of 1942 Mr. Gordon made a speech in Winnipeg in which he said it was $2,000,000. Later the minister made a statement in the house corroborating that figure. At the end of last session, in a return brought down at my request, $50,000,000 was the amount stated for this control. I do object to some of the big-stick bullying tactics used when dealing with the public. They are unnecessary in Canada, because our people are progressive, law-abiding and willing to do anything that is necessary for the winning of the war.
Many poor labouring people have suffered because of a coal famine brought about by a lot of useless orders and failure to see ahead. Credits were curtailed by order No. 225 of the wartime prices and trade board. The result was that these people had to pay the amounts owing by the 25th of the month. The coal dealers were not complaining; we have a fine patriotic lot on the whole in Toronto; they were willing to extend credit

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to their customers, some of whom had bought from the same firms for fifty years. In some instances two generations had dealt with the same coal companies, but the coal dealers could not send coal to a poor customer who might have been out of work and could not pay cash, or to a home in which a soldier's family may have lived. They could not get a ton of coal without paying for it before the 25th of the month, or cash on delivery. This absurd order brought about untold privation and suffering among the poor and was legislation against human nature.
Last session I urged, and I urge again at this session, that there be a fixed date for the presentation of the budget. I ask again that a ways and means committee be set up to deal- with matters contained in the budget. The budget now before us is copied from Washington.
I have in my hand the annual review of the National City Bank of New York, issued in February of this year. It deals with the United States President's address in which he transmitted to congress his hundred billion dollar budget for 1944. From this publication I read the following quotation:
In transmitting to congress the new budget of over $100 billions for the fiscal year 1944 the President referred to the budget presented a year ago as "An instrument for transforming a peace economy to a war economy."
The present budget, he said "presents the maximum programme for waging war."
In the United States they have reached their maximum. What is our objective? We hear it said that it is five billions of dollars. I venture to say there will be a deficit of two billion dollars before this year is over. And with a further deficit on current account and on civilian estimates we do not know where we are going to land. There are practical business men in the house who could serve on a committee. On some of the committees now sitting here the work is being done by able business men, capable of giving sane advise to the ministry instead of a number of teachers, former teachers, former professors and some highbrows. For these reasons I recommend the setting up of a ways and means committee, to go over the budget first.


Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster):: Mr. Speaker, in keeping with many other hon. members who have spoken in this debate I wish first of all to congratulate the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) upon the splendid presentation of the fifth war-time budget. The task of a minister of finance in peace time is heavy, indeed; but the task in war time is much heavier and more onerous. I say

without fear of successful contradiction that the minister wTho has just brought down the fifth war-time budget ranks high in comparison with ministers of finance who have preceded him; and in my opinion his ability in the house as Minister of Finance has not been excelled.
The magnitude of the war is not yet fully realized by many people in Canada. In this connection I am reminded of a sign I noticed when, as a member of the war expenditures committee, we visited the Curtiss aeroplane plant in Buffalo, New York. It read thus:
Never in all human history have so many people known so little about so much.
Before dealing with the matters under my hand I should like to say a word or two respecting the remarks of the hon. member . for Lambton-Kent (Mr. Mackenzie), who spoke in the debate yesterday afternoon. He had many suggestions to make, and made several criticisms respecting what takes place in the house. With much of what he said I agree, but I do take exception to his suggestion that we cut down to twenty minutes the speeches of hon. members, and I take further exception to his deprecating speeches made generally in the house. It is true that we might do without many of the speeches; many of them are perhaps not worth while sending home. But after all, a member of parliament has a duty to perform. His is the only voice in parliament speaking for the people he represents. If he sits on the government side and remains silent, he does more harm, I believe, to our democracy than do members on the opposition side, and some few on the government benches, who make criticisms as well as suggestions. If free speech is ever curtailed in the house it might be, in my opinion, the beginning of the curtailment of free speech outside the house. The right given to every hon. member to speak freely and as often and long as he likes in parliament, distasteful as it may be to some, is still a great safeguard and bulwark of democracy, and grievances must be sometimes aired in the House of Commons.
I compliment the minister upon bringing down the pay-as-you-earn plan. By some it has been called the Ruml plan, and the other evening the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris) described it as the Ilsley plan. To my mind the Minister of Finance need make no apology for the plan he has presented. True, it does not go as far as many had expected, because, as we pointed out in a recent issue of the Ottawa Journal, many people had an idea it would do away with much of our taxes. At least this much can be said about it, that through its minister

The Budget

Mr. Reid
of finance the government has adopted the principle of the Ruml plan. I find it amusing to note that Mr. Ruml is still travelling the length and breadth of this country, lecturing the Canadian people about the Ruml plan, despite the fact, as I learned in the press a short time ago, that the plan as enunciated by him has been definitely turned down by the people of his own country. I am reminded of speeches made up until 1939 about peace in this country when we did not have even a gun to defend ourselves-a fact we have regretted since.
Our views have changed somewhat in the last few years. While the government is not going as far in matters of finance as many of us would like it to go, still the minister should be complimented upon moving forward-some might say to the left. At least in his speech he did leave the impression he was fully aware of what had been proposed by many of us in days, past, and what we still propose, that what is physically possible is financially possible. When he spoke about the $983,000,000 he had had to borrow from the Bank of Canada and the chartered banks I was glad he admitted the dangers in these borrowings. May I point out to him that before the war ends he may well have to consider the issuing of national funds or loans from the Bank of Canada, because we are not yet through with the war. When one realizes that our deficit this year will be $2,899 million, that on top of that- the Canadian banks hold in securities well over two billion dollars, and that our dominion debt is close to eight billion dollars, making a total national debt of eleven and a half billion, one is startled by the figures of debt. One must stop to consider these mounting debts. We wonder where it will end. If the minister cannot obtain all the money from the people of Canada, the problem is indeed a serious one. I for one would like to see him give further consideration to dealing more, in some controlled way if he must, with the Bank of Canada. It is not for lack of savings, because we should realize that over three billion dollars have been contributed by the Canadian people through the purchase of war savings certificates and bonds since the war commenced. The number of bank accounts has increased since 1939, as well as the number of depositors. I was glad to hear the minister comment favourably upon the voluntary work done by the war savings committees and those handling the sale of war bonds. I want to add my meed of commendation to those willing workers who helped put this over. The minister referred also to the thousands of citizens who have been redeeming their
5M37- 74*
bonds. To me that is a serious thing because, as the minister pointed out, the redemption of bonds weakens the home front, and we cannot afford to allow any front to be weak in this war.
The minister spoke also of price control. It is not my purpose this afternoon to deal with the prices board. I have dealt with it before and I shall deal with it at a later stage of the session. But he said that while there had been criticism of the wartime prices board, no one had yet seen fit to suggest its elimination. I may say to him that if no one has seen fit to do that it is because many of our people are afraid that if they did so they might be called unpatriotic. In my travelling back and forth across this country I find that there is a growing storm of protest which has been kept down only by the patriotism of our people. It may well break out at the end of hostilities.
I know there will be those who will contradict what I am going to say now, but it is my opinion that no great trouble was encountered during the last war because prices and wages rose. I am not advocating that there should be no control; I am simply pointing out to the house that it was not until well after the war, when the collapse of the boom had taken place, that any tragedies occurred, if there were tragedies. I think we should have a far-sighted policy. I am just wondering whether the people of this country will be ready to permit the wartime prices and trade board to operate as it has been since its inception, especially when the thought is in the minds of many of our people, particularly our merchants, that large business is consolidating its position during this time, to the detriment of the individual merchant.
In the debate last year I brought up the matter of the position of the Canadian 'and the United States dollar, and asked the Minister of Finance for a statement as to why our dollar should not be at par with the United States dollar. I pointed out to him that the definite statement had been made officially in the United States that the fact that the Canadian dollar was ten per cent under that of the United States was due entirely to the request of the Canadian government. Personally I cannot understand, when we are all allies in this fight, when we are trading under lend-lease and every other kind of trade arrangement, when we are pooling our forces, why we should be called upon to pay ten per cent more for a United States dollar than we should have to pay.
According to the latest trade returns, the premium on United States funds cost Canada $45,000,000 extra for the goods we bought
The Budget-Mr. Reid

in the United States last year; since the wat commenced we have paid more than $150,000,000 extra because our Canadian dollar was at a discount. I am going to ask the minister now, and I shall ask him again when we are in committee, to explain why the Canadian dollar should not be on a par with that of the United States.
The minister told us that there would be tax increases on essential and non-essential goods. Additional taxes have been placed on cigarettes, tobacco, wines and spirits. Some may argue that these are essential goods, and others will argue that they are not. I am not going to take up the time of the house this afternoon by entering into a debate of that kind. But I do ask the government to give some consideration to the motion picture industry of this country.
Let me say at the outset that I realize that motion picture theatres play a big part in our lives. I appreciate also the difficulties faced by many of the smaller theatres in our small towns. It may interest the house to know that there are only some eleven theatres in Canada that charge fifty cents and upwards for admission. The lowest charge is fifteen cents. There has been a considerable increase in the number of admissions. Almost all our citizens are gainfully employed and enormous numbers are working in factories. They have crowded into our cities, and everywhere we see long queues in front of the theatres, especially those in Ottawa. One wonders whether a small tax could not be placed on these theatres. After all, the war must be financed, and I am of the opinion that this tax would not keep one single person from entering a picture theatre. I am sure that no great protest would be raised when the people realized that the money being taken from them by way of tax was for war purposes. I leave this thought with the minister and the government for further consideration.


Mr. TUSTIN:: Does the hon. member not
know that there is a twenty per cent gross tax on theatres?


Thomas Reid: Perhaps there is, but-


George James Tustin: On the small theatres.


Thomas Reid: I said that there might be
some difficulty in connection with the small theatres. I was thinking more of the larger cities where hundreds of thousands of people are working in industry. I do not think there would be one admission less if we put on a little tax. The small theatres would have to be given consideration.


George James Tustin: The hon. member apparently does not realize that at the present time there is a twenty per cent gross tax on theatres.


Thomas Reid: Evidently it has not cut down the admissions. I notice that the receipts from 1939 to 1941, the latest for which I can get them, have increased over $7,000,000, while the attendances have jumped from 138,000,000 to 162,500,000. Even though there may be a twenty per cent tax, I still maintain that the matter could have been considered. I repeat that some consideration might have been given to the smaller theatres.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Could the hon. member give the amount of money exported from- this country to the film producers?


Thomas Reid: I am not sure whether that
information is in this bulletin. Most of the information regarding pictures is given, but I do not think it gives the amount of money sent out of the country. I have read it from one end to the other. I shall endeavour to find out and let my hon. friend know.
Another matter I want to touch upon is one which has been referred to by many hon. members in debate, both this session and last session. I refer to the Old Age Pensions Act. In the estimates this year is an item of $400,000 for pensions for war widows. I am sure this announcement will be well received throughout the country, and I commend the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie) for taking this action. I should like to say a word or two about old age pensioners and the effect that the present low amount of pension is having upon some of them.
Some members from the middle provinces and the east may get a little impatient with our representations in connection with social legislation, especially old age pensions. Let me point out to them that the western provinces have led the way in social legislation. Had it not been for the lead of the western provinces I doubt if old age pensions would now be paid in some of the provinces. I say that without fear of successful contradiction. Some credit therefore is due to the western provinces, especially British Columbia, for giving that lead. The old age pension association, I believe, sent a resolution to the government. I am not going to read the entire text; copies went to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Labour. Amongst other suggestions they asked that the age limit be reduced, and that the amount be increased to $30. They asked

The Budget-Mr. Reid
that the regulations be amended-and something in that respect should be done without delay. They asked that the value of the home should not be taken into consideration unless it is worth more than $3,500. They asked also that the residence clause be amended, and particularly, that the regulations be stripped of all features which tend to reduce the pensioner to a pauper of the state.
I could read to this house many letters which I have received, and no doubt many other hon. members are in the same position, and I shall cite only one case to show how the regulations affect some of our people. It is the case of a man who had two sons in the services and whose cheque was withheld by the department at Ottawa. When eventually it was paid it came too late, for the old age pensioner had died. Not content with that, the department followed the matter up with a request that a deduction of seven days be made on the ground that the man had died two days before Christmas. I think every hon. member will agree that that was going a little too far. That is what often happens with members of the finance control sitting in Ottawa with a blue pencil, looking over accounts which come in. Everyone must be incensed at incidents of this kind of callous treatment. I urge upon the government first of all that the regulations be amended and revised from a more humane point of view; also that until the matter has been dealt with by the committee on social security the government should at least match the allowance of five dollars which is now being paid by the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. As you know, those two provinces are giving five dollars extra to all old age pensioners and calling it a cost-of-living bonus. The cost-of-living bonus given by the dominion government is greater in most instances than the entire amount allowed to old age pensioners. Remember that actions speak louder than words; and when we are speaking of a new era after the war, and thinking of the gallant young men and women who have offered their lives, one wonders how they will regard all this kind of talk if no practical steps are taken, especially in behalf of our aged citizens.
I shall now deal for a few minutes with another matter which has been brought up in the course of this debate; it was mentioned by the Minister of Finance on March 2, when, speaking about tariffs, he said, as reported in Hansard, page 861:
The customs tariff has fallen from the high position it has previously held as an instrument of fiscal and economic policy. Under the circumstances of war, the tariff has little effect except as a producer of revenue.
He said further:
There will again, however, be a time when the tariff will be an important instrument of trade policy and when this country will have to decide whether it will play its part with other countries which are prepared to help in freeing the world's trade, in enlarging markets, and in promoting the full and effective use of the world's resources.
The hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris) also mentioned the subject. He took the stand in his address that nothing should be done now in connection with the tariff, that it should not be disturbed, and that no approach should be made to the United States or any other country until the war is over. I differ entirely from the view held by the hon. member for Danforth, because it is my belief that if we wait until the end of the war and a depression sets in, at least until industry can change over, there will be little hope of ever reducing the tariff protection given to the manufacturers of this country, and there certainly will be no hope that United States manufacturers will be willing even to discuss tariff reductions, let alone change their attitude. Now is the time that the approach should be made looking towards world free trade as referred to in the speech of the Minister of Finance.
The other evening the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson), speaking in the debate on social security, referred to private industry.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Private
enterprise.


Thomas Reid: Private enterprise. I am just wondering what the attitude of private enterprise in this country will be when changes in our tariff structure are suggested. I will place before the house a few figures in support of what I have just been saying.
In the manufacturing concerns of this country are employed at the present time 1,879,845 persons. In the two provinces of Quebec and Ontario there are 1,318,716 in manufacturing concerns. In other words 80 per cent of the workers in our factories and industries are in the two central provinces.
As regards the capital investment, $4 billion has been invested in all industries in Canada, 80 per cent of which is invested in the two provinces I have named. The position of each province as regards capital invested in industry is as follows:
Prince Edward Island
Nova Scotia	
New Brunswick ....
Quebec	
Ontario	
Manitoba	
Saskatchewan	
Alberta	
British Columbia____
less than 1 per cent 2-8 per cent
2-	5 per cent 32-4 per cent 48-3 per cent
3-	3 per cent
1-	0 per cent
2-	0 per cent 7-6 per cent
The Budget-Mr. Reid

I have before me another interesting schedule but which has only been referred to in this house and has never been refuted by anyone. It relates to an investigation held by the government of Nova Scotia, who engaged the late Norman Rogers, then a professor at Queen's university, to investigate economic conditions in this country. He found that the tariff benefited only two provinces, namely Quebec and Ontario. The gain to Quebec was about $32 millions and to Ontario about $52 millions; all the other provinces had a net loss. The tariff policies of this country emanate largely from those two provinces, and the eastern Atlantic provinces, British Columbia and the western provinces have been paying tribute, in the matter of buying goods, to those two provinces. I wonder just what headway this or any other government will make in this respect when the war ends; because everyone knows the powerful lobby these interests can put up, particularly the closer you get to Ottawa.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Will the hon. member tell us what the Liberal party did about it when they got the opportunity to correct the condition which he alleges exists?


Thomas Reid: That is another question.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. member is very quiet about it, though.


Thomas Reid: No, I am not very quiet.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Better
page the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services (Mr. Macdonald). He was the father of that report.


Thomas Reid: The hon. member should be fair. I am criticizing the government right now. I have not heard any of the hon. members who are sitting on that side doing the same thing; and I have sat and watched them from 1930 to 1935.
Regarding British Columbia's position, there are one or two figures I want to place on record. In the last year for which I have figures, British Columbia exported goods worth S160 million and imported to the value of $100 million. British Columbia was compelled to purchase the same year from Quebec and Ontario $63 million worth of goods, but those provinces bought from her only $21 million worth. British Columbia had to sell her products, her fish and lumber and the rest of it, on a world market, to obtain money so as to pay tribute to those two highly industrial provinces. Do you . 
know, Mr. Speaker, that we could not even get a small steel plant for the province of British Columbia during this war?


Richard Burpee Hanson: Shame.


Thomas Reid: From 1935 to 1939 we shipped out something like 130,000 tons of scrap metal. Scrap metal since the war has been going east from British Columbia on a freight charge of $15 per ton, and coming back on a freight charge of $25. Although we pleaded with the government and at one time were actually promised that we would get a small furnace to melt scrap-no, Mr. Speaker, we have not got it yet.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbuiy):: Shame.


Thomas Reid: We talk of the new order 1 If we cannot fix up our own house I wonder just how we are going to lead the world in free trade. Only a few days ago a small aluminum plant in Vancouver was compelled to close down. It employed twenty-five experienced men and could easily use seventy-five. That plant had been going for twenty-five or thirty years. But it was shut down, and all the aluminum we need now comes from the east. The leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation referred to the large aluminum companies; I trust that some improvement will be made in the industrial conditions in British Columbia. One suspects that behind all this there is some hand operating to prevent us from getting what we believe to be fair treatment in the matter of industries. Now is the time that changes should be made.
The hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Isnor) in his address to the house, the other day wondered what was going to happen to his city after the war. I can tell him. British Columbia and Nova Scotia both have a blackout now, and after the war the same thing is going to happen to Nova Scotia as to British Columbia-we are going to have an economic blackout if the matters mentioned are not remedied.
I wish to speak of another matter which has been brought up at every session I have attended when the Ottawa agreement bill, under which the dominion government pays $100,000 to the city of Ottawa, comes up for discussion. I mention particularly the city of Ottawa, but my purpose is to draw the attention of the house and the government to the seriousness of the problem of tax-free crown lands in cities and districts all across this country. The situation is becoming very serious, and Ottawa is just one example. The total assessment of the city of Ottawa is in round figures $162,000,000, and the assessment

The Budget-Mr. Gillis
of tax-free government property is this year
S61,500,000.	The loss in taxes to the city of Ottawa through the government taking over this property will be $2,345,322 in actual cash in 1943. You might think that Ottawa was about the worst case in the dominion, but it will surprise many members to know that it is not. We have districts in British Columbia where the situation is even worse. In Esquimalt eighty per cent of the total assessed property in the municipality is tax-free government or crown property. I have another case where the percentage is ninety, and if I had time I would give the complete figures. In Coquitlam the total assessment is roughly $7,500,000, and the tax-free government property is $6,200,000; in other words ninety per cent of the total assessment is exempt from taxation. Another ten per cent and the government will own the whole municipality! Vancouver's loss in taxes this year through tax-free government property is $1,270,778. Ten per cent of the total assessment is tax-free government property. In my own city of New Westminster the loss in taxation from this same cause is $27,000. One could go on from city to city. I merely cite these instances to bring them to the attention of the government and to ask that something be done about it.
The Alaska highway was mentioned the other evening by the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (Mr. Coldwell) when he was speaking of airfields and highways through Canada to Alaska. First of all I wish to compliment General O'Connor and his staff of United States officers upon having done a splendid job there. But I am going to suggest to the government that even though the United States is putting up the money for the highway, this government should have some say as to the route. The present route connecting the airfields almost by-passes the whole province of British Columbia. Dominion engineers some years ago had made extensive surveys and laid out two routes designated as A and B, which go through country far superior to that traversed by the present route. If any member thinks that the new Alcan highway is going to develop northern British Columbia, he had better investigate a little further. From the information I have, it runs through the poorest kind of country. The country through which the two other routes run is far superior. Moreover, the Alcan highway has grades of twenty per cent, while routes A and B, as laid out by dominion government engineers, have grades of less than one per cent. Canada should take some definite stand in this matter. We should not just let the United States engineers go in there and have all the say as to the route.
We are looking for great developments after this war; we shall require good land on which to settle many of the returned men who may want to go on the land. I ask the government to take note of what is taking place in that part of the country, and I would point out to the United States authorities and their engineers that any future route should be one of the routes which we ourselves have already laid out. The present route will not develop our northern British Columbia country as it should be developed.
My time is up, Mr. Speaker, and I shall have to leave until a later occasion many other matters on which I wished to speak.


Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Cape Breton South):: Mr. Speaker, I join with the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) in paying tribute to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) upon his presentation of the budget to the house. He made a very fine speech, and I have just this further observation to make in connection with it-that it would make one of the best election speeches I have .ever heard. The speech from the throne itself would also make an excellent election manifesto.
I realize the position of the Minister of Finance in working out the budget that he has just presented to the house. He has one of the most difficult jobs in Canada, and he is doing it as well as anyone in the country could do it so long as the rules of the game are what they are. His job during this war is to keep the present capitalist economy in balance, and he has done an excellent job so far, with a lot of assistance, of course, behind the scenes from those who are interested in no other order of society but the one we have. In view of the fact that there is practically no change in the rates of taxation in this budget, it is quite clear that the Minister of Finance and his advisers recognize that they have gone as far as they can with respect to taxation under the present rules of the game. I am afraid that if the war lasts another two or three years, and if we are successfully to carry out our part in it, fundamental changes will have to be made with respect to the bases of society in this country. This budget is a clear indication of that.
The house now has something definite to discuss. The Progressive Conservative party must regard it as satisfactory, in view of the fact that they have not proposed any amendment to it. They are satisfied that it should be our guide or yardstick until the next budget is presented. The Social Credit party has proposed an amendment; the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group have proposed an amendment to the amendment, and
The Budget-Mr. Gillis

I shall try to relate my remarks to the subject matter now being discussed as closely els possible.
The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group decided after scrutinizing the amendment of the Social Credit party that it was necessary to move an amendment to the amendment, because we could not see that the Social Credit amendment proposed any basic changes as far as our economic system is concerned. We believe that if changes are not made along the lines proposed by the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation amendment we shall not be able to weather the storm that we see ahead.
We are fearful of the growth of monopoly in Canada, and it is on that point that I wish to dwell this afternoon. We realize that those who are interested in private enterprise, as they call it, and a smaller concentration of the direction of private enterprise in the hands of a smaller group than has had it during all our lifetime, certainly are not supporting what will build a democratic order of society. What I shall endeavour to show this afternoon is concrete evidence of that development. I do not question the sincerity of members of the government who are bringing in measures and appointing committees with respect to social security, advocating old age pensions and allowances of all kinds and setting up committees to do research and bring in recommendations with respect to social changes after the war. What we are fearful of now is that the group who control are away ahead of the government in their post-war plans. I see to-day in Canada through the manipulation of industry and finance, and the concentration of that manipulation in the hands of fewer and fewer people, the laying of the plans now for what we are going to have in the aftermath of the war. All these committees represent one point of view and one only. All the recommendations are along certain lines. They are building an order of society now that means complete control by themselves after the war. I do not make that statement for the purpose of creating unrest; I believe it is an actual fact.
I know that the boys in the army are fighting for social changes. None of them wants to come back to what we had. I cannot see any of those who have had the administration of affairs by manipulating the economic resources of the country, who have done the job that private enterprise under that particular control has done during the past twenty-five or thirty years, making changes in the social order that prevailed prior to the outbreak of the war. In my opinion they are building a machine that will guarantee control 
by themselves after the war. Through the medium of our war boards you have the heads of the large corporations sitting in and taking advantage of the seriousness of the war situation and the necessity for production. The large corporations are sitting in on the boards now and not only planning the war effort but utilizing the plants created by the government and routing them into the economy of the country so that when the war is over they will own them; also setting them up to their own advantage, as they have certain arrangements with respect to writing off the money put in by the government. The thing is so arranged that when the war is over they will own and control these plants. We have example after example right across the country. The wartime prices and trade board have authority to close out some twenty thousand non-essential industries, and they are doing it step by step in the different provinces. The hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) a moment ago referred to the closing of a war plant, an aluminum plant, in his section. Production is concentrated in some plant in central Canada, centralizing control in the hands of one small group. This is not an isolated instance; it is taking place all across the country.
Another example is the malleable iron works in Oshawa, a plant employing some 125 men. I have had letters in recent weeks concerning it. This plant has been and will be in the future necessary to that community, and its closing will be a loss to that community. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) no doubt will try to find employment for those men elsewhere; nevertheless in taking the plant from that community the men are being scattered across the country and their homes broken up. The significant feature is set out in the following paragraph:
The O.M.I. plant used to do a lot of work for McKinnon Industries, St. Catharines. The orders were pulled out by McKinnon and now McKinnon has a request for men to go to St. Catharines. We were once told by heads of selective service that they would bring the jobs to the men and not the men to the jobs.
McKinnon Industries in St. Catharines is a fairly large organization, and it was handling the work from this smaller plant. Now with its priorities it is in a position to close out the little plant and take the employees to St. Catharines to work for them there. This malleable iron works was on war work, making a definite contribution to the war effort, and it was necessary to that community. The men who worked there will have to leave that section and go elsewhere and their homes will be broken up. I do not think there is any justification for actions of that kind. It is an

The Budget-Mr. GiUis
indication of monopoly control gradually closing the smaller industries out of the picture.
Only last summer I had this experience in Ontario. After speaking at a meeting one night a man came to me and introduced himself as the manager and part owner of a plant in that section. He employed some eight hundred men. He said, "I want to have a talk with you. Could you send over to my plant an organizer from steel workers to organize my plant?" I replied, "Well, that is a peculiar request to come from the owner and manager of a plant. What is the catch?" "There is no catch at all," he said. "We find ourselves in this position: a small industry not linked up with the large corporations who now control the field through the medium of the war boards and the priorities boards. We cannot get priorities on materials, and as a result our business is shrinking so that unless something is done within the next year or so we shall be completely closed up. This business means something to this community; it has been here for many years, and the only way we see to secure redress is by allowing our employees to organize in a union, link themselves up with the legitimate congresses in Canada, and have them make the necessary fight to keep this plant in operation."
That is the situation in these smaller plants, and those are only two examples. That was why we thought it necessary to place this amendment before the house. I do not expect my words to change anyone's vote, but those hon. members who listen and understand the reasons for these things but are not prepared to do anything about them will have to take the responsibility in the aftermath of the war, when the situation I am now describing will be so solidly established that we will not have a chance of changing it. Then with respect to exemption from taxes, we find the Minister of Finance announcing that the lumber industry of British Columbia is to be granted a tax exemption privilege.


Mr. GIBSON:: That does not make them tax exempt.


Clarence Gillis: This is a special exemption. I should like to read something on that point:
For every thousand board feet of timber produced, the operator's taxable income will be reduced by $1; and for every thousand feet in excess of the 1941 cut, another dollar may be deducted. This means that if the 1943 cut equals the 1941 cut, $1.40 per thousand may be deducted on the whole cut which, in 1941, amounted to 1,750,000,000 feet board measurement.
In other words the lumber operators of the Pacific coast are to be allowed to withhold the
income tax on approximately $2,500,000 of income. This measure, in Mr. Ilsley's words, is designed to encourage production of lumber. This is a frank admission that lumber production has been falling, not only because of the shortage of man-power, which is undoubtedly serious, but also because the lumber companies have been deliberately curtailing production.


Richard Burpee Hanson: No, it is the prices.


Clarence Gillis: You can place your own construction upon it. That is not my analysis; it is the analysis of people who are watching these things and analysing them. If that is not correct I think the Minister of Finance should correct it.


Mr. MARTIN:: What is that quotation from?


Clarence Gillis: It is from News Comment, which is written by men who are capable of analysing these matters.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Isn't the situation in the lumber industry the result of the price ceiling?


Clarence Gillis: Not according to this article. This would lead me to believe that they were deliberately curtailing operations, in other words going on a slow-down strike. I thought I should place that on record, because I have listened to the miners being hauled over the coals because they were looking for enough to eat, not to mention any exemption from taxes. My object in mentioning this matter and putting it on record is to show that there is not equality of sacrifice.
There is another matter I think we should thoroughly understand, one in which every hon. member should be interested; for after all, regardless of the party to which we belong, each must satisfy his own mind in regard to these things. We are all Canadian citizens and we represent Canadian citizens, and we shall have to take our full share of the responsibility for the conditions that prevail after the war. These matters should be looked into and efforts made to correct them. I refer now to the system followed by the government with respect to the setting up of new plants, the creation of crown emanations. I hold in my hand the summary of an agreement between the government and Norwegian Canadian Packers Limited under the War Exchange Conservation Act, dated March 4, 1943. This is a new company that has been formed; apparently to-day the name "Norwegian" is popular. I believe this is a fish packing plant which is to be set up in the province of New Brunswick. A special depreciation allowance has been fixed against plant expenditures of $105,000. The plant is located
The Budget-Mr. Gillis

at Cham cook, New Brunswick, and the government has allowed the company a special deduction based on export sales of a maximum of 880,000 which may be written off in the three years 1943, 1944 and 1945. I interested myself in this matter because I believe the government is making very generous provisions in regard to the establishment of this company, and I know that so far as the fishermen of New Brunswick are concerned the greatest efforts that have been put forth looking to their rehabilitation have been made by the extension department of St. Francis Xavier university of Nova Scotia, which went in there for the purpose of organizing and educating the fishermen of that province, to assist them toward a solution of their own problems. I believe this Norwegian Canadian Packers Limited is a combine from some other part of Canada which sees the possibility of the fishermen of New Brunswick being taken out of the hands of the private fish buyers, and as a result the elimination of a great deal of exploitation. I believe the company is cutting in there now, while we are in the process of fighting this war, in order to bring the fishermen of New Brunswick back under the wing of the private fish buyers. If that assumption is not correct I want somebody to correct it when he has had time to check up.
This is a further development of the monopoly which is spreading across Canada from section to section. To-day we find Canada Packers interested in other things than the processing of meat. They are not standing still; they are planning, too, and from coast to coast they are entering other fields than meat packing; chickens, chicken farms, dairies and so on. They are not planning their production or distribution for war purposes; they are cutting in and consolidating their position now in order to be sure of holding the whip hand when the war is over. Only this morning I had a letter from an individual in Nova Scotia who is very much interested in the development of cooperatives. While I am on that point let me say that as far as I am concerned I visualize the future of Canada from the point of view of cooperation. Any economic system in this country must be based upon the principle that the people will have a major say in its development, on the basis set out by the extension movement in Nova Scotia to which I have referred. It seems to me that any economy based on any other principle can only move in the direction of the order of society against which we are fighting to-day overseas. It cannot go anywhere else. This order of society, in the opinion of men who have studied it and who 
are speaking and writing on it, can extend in only one way, the way Hitler represents in Europe, the way he is fighting to foist on the rest of the world. Unless the people themselves get together and organize the economic processes of the country, have a say in the marketing and in all phases necessary to the life of the people, we shall have lost the very objectives for which we are fighting the war.
I said a moment ago that from one end of Canada to the other Canada Packers are moving in, doing their own organizing and laying their own post-war plans. Not only are they laying them, but they are actually putting them into operation. Let me read one paragraph from a letter:
Here in Nova Scotia there are some interesting stories about farmers who through group action, that is cooperation, organize to do their own business. In the Annapolis valley the creameries are nearly all in the hands of private operators-there is only one little cooperative. Last year these creameries paid five cents a pound less for butter fat than the farmers were getting in northwestern Nova Scotia where the great Scotsburn cooperative creamery is the yard-stick for the price. Five cents a pound on butter fat means that a farmer who has ten cows pays a toll to these operators of $12 a month, or $144 a year. It can easily be seen that this extra tax from one hundred farmers is a tidy little sum over and above the regular returns of the business. In other parts of Nova Scotia the private creameries paid last year seven cents a pound less for butter fat than was received by the farmers of the Pietou, Cumberland, and Colchester areas, where the cooperative creamery sets the price.
This paragraph brings to our attention the fact that in that section Canada Packers moved in last summer and endeavoured to buy up the privately-owned creameries. Had it not been for the fact that the cooperatives stuck together and recognized the trend of events, protecting the farmers from taking any action, Canada Packers would have full control of the distribution of milk.
I believe every hon. member should be raising his voice against the lack of representation on boards from the average ordinary citizens of the country. On boards which are now planning I note a complete absence of the rank and file of our people. For instance, in connection with the distribution of food we might have called in representatives from the cooperatives and have given them an opportunity of sitting on boards. Regardless of what anyone's opinion may be about Canada Packers, and with all due respect to the men who have been selected, I say that no man is in a better position to sit on a board set up for the purpose of arranging for the marketing and distribution of foodstuffs than a man who has spent the last twelve or fifteen years working among the people, organizing and per-

The Budget-Mr. Gillis
fecting his organization. Nevertheless we do not see any of those people consulted. They are not represented; they are passed by. I note that on the new fuel control board there have been appointed a lawyer from Halifax, the head of the Bank of Canada, and another king's counsel from Quebec. These are the men who head up the fuel control policy in Canada. I have no doubt that in their own fields these men are experts, but when the government is endeavouring to lay down a fuel control policy for Canada it might select men who have had a closer connection with the problem. There is no doubt that this is a big job, because distribution of any product in Canada is difficult. We know that. I do say, however, that on that board there should be men who, through the medium of their organizations, represent the workers. These are men who for the past twenty-five years have made a road to Ottawa, presenting brief after brief to the government on the question of the development of a national fuel policy. Surely they should be called in and given a place on the board, to attain a solution of the problem-that is, if anyone honestly wants a solution. Sometimes I wonder if the whole machine is not designed to create confusion and chaos, and to keep control within the hands of a certain small group. The average citizen who might get in on these boards might learn too much. That is my honest opinion as to why they are not taken in. They might see too much or find out too much, and they might expose manipulations to the people.
I have heard it stated by many hon. members that we must set up some kind of machinery for the distribution of foodstuffs. Whether it would require the establishment of another ministry is a matter entirely in the hands of the government, but some machinery will have to be perfected to see to it that essential commodities are properly distributed across Canada, so that they may reach the working people who are slaving in the plants and factories in order to make our war effort a success.
I raise this point this afternoon because in the last few weeks I have received many telegrams and letters from Nova Scotia respecting shortages of essential foodstuffs. Let me now pay my respects to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen. I have some respect for the average newspaper editor. I believe many of them have a lot of common sense, and at least they try to keep informed of matters they are writing about. But in this instance the editor of the Ottawa Citizen in his comments was neither fair nor informed respecting the rationing of foodstuffs in Nova Scotia. First he belittles the miners in their
gesture to the government to get the necessary rations, and then he creates the impression that there was only a shortage of butter in the area. He played up the suggestion that there had been a threatened strike because of the butter shortage. He goes on to point out that the miners were looking for rations greater than those of the average citizen in Canada.
A newspaper editor, who is responsible to a great extent for the moulding of public opinion, should check his facts more closely than apparently the editor of the Ottawa Citizen did in this instance. That shortage was not temporary. It was not something which developed overnight. It was not a shortage of butter only. The fact is that it was a shortage of practically every commodity. Seven weeks ago I was on the island of Cape Breton. I know that servicing on the island, so far as food1 is concerned, is done through the medium of cooperative stores in the mining areas. While on the island I visited two or three of the stores and noted that the shelves were practically empty. On a Saturday evening I had a conversation with the manager of one of those stores, which catered to about two thousand people, and he pointed out they had practically no butter, and that there was no meat to be sold-bacon, ham or beef. The only meat which could be had was fowl. One could buy chickens, but he would have to pay a fancy price. That condition had prevailed for some time. There was no substitute for butter. One could not buy jam, syrup, or anything of the kind. In short there was a scarcity of every commodity.
For the benefit of the Ottawa Citizen and its manager, may I point out that the percentage of enlistments both in this war and in the last one from among the miners in that area was the highest of any point in Canada.


Mr. ISNOR:: That applies to the whole of Nova Scotia.


Clarence Gillis: But there is a higher percentage in this particular area than in the rest of Nova Scotia. In the town of Glace Bay hlone over 1,500 ex-servicemen, veterans of the last war, are mining coal to-day and have been for the last twenty years.


Humphrey Mitchell: To be fair to the
miners, is it not so that two of the largest locals repudiated the idea of a strike?


Clarence Gillis: Yes, but the Ottawa Citizen did not. It created the impression throughout central Canada that the miners of Nova Scotia were proposing to go on strike because of a shortage of butter, or because they
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wanted a larger ration of butter than that granted to anyone else in Canada. Such was not the case. I am ready to take the editor of the Ottawa Citizen to Nova Scotia and I will ask him to assume the responsibility of maintaining a family of four children while working as a miner. The editor of the Ottawa Citizen appears to be a great believer in private enterprise and all those things, but I think I am safe in saying that if he sticks out the life of a miner and accepts his obligations for one month, he will come back to Ottawa a communist.
The thought I want to leave with members of the house is that there is no one on the north American continent who works as hard as the coal miner. He must be fed, and fed properly, otherwise he cannot do the work. He gets out of bed at five o'clock in the morning and drops down a shaft a thousand feet deep to go out six miles under the Atlantic ocean. You do not work as the average man works; you must strip yourself to your shoes and overalls. You have to live practically on a can of tea. There is no sunshine and you practically sweat blood. You arrive home at five o'clock in the evening so tired that you cannot even read the newspaper. That is the life the miner is obliged to lead 365 days in the year. These are the conditions that exist at present and have existed practically all of my lifetime. There is nothing to look forward to except the breadline, and the chances are that you have not too long to live. If you stick it out and are an extra good worker you may be able to meet your legitimate obligations at the end of the week. But you must be fed, and well fed.
There is a shortage of every kind of commodity and has been for some considerable time. I think the situation is sufficiently serious to warrant the government's taking hold of it immediately. There is no shortage of foodstuffs in Canada.


Humphrey Mitchell: I think my hon. friend will find that the government did send a committee in there. I know it came before my department.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Wcyburn):: You would not want to eat a committee, would you?


Humphrey Mitchell: Perhaps if my hon. friend were a member of it, they might.


Clarence Gillis: I discussed the matter with the Minister of Finance and was given the assurance that everything possible was being done. That was early this week, but I received a telegram only this afternoon giving a list of the commodities which are short.

If extra rations have been sent in, apparently that fact has not seeped through to these people. Last summer there was a shortage of butter in Toronto. This was sufficiently serious to make the civic authorities talk about setting up their own rationing programme. In my opinion butter was drawn from other sections of the country and sent into that section in order to quiet the holler that was being made. The result was that a shortage was created somewhere else.
Only a couple of weeks ago Toronto was advertising the fact that there was a surplus of butter in that section of the country and they wanted the ration increased. According to the Ottawa Journal of this morning, butter production is up 27-6 per cent in February of this year as compared with February, 1942. There was not a serious shortage of butter in February, 1942, and if production has increased 27-6 per cent, there should be no shortage of butter now. I am not going to read the press clippings from all sections of the country, but I have gathered them together because I am interested in this matter. In different parts of western Canada and Ontario the plea has been made by the farmers that they should be permitted to market their surpluses of butter.
As I said a moment ago, it is a matter of distribution. I do not think a committee going down there to look into the situation, especially when it has been shown that there is a shortage, is going to remedy things. The fact is that the president of the district organization of the united mine workers has given warnings of these shortages from time to time to the wartime prices and trade board, and representations have also been made by the heads of the cooperative societies.
What should have been done was to determine in what sections butter was available and to ration on that basis. There should be sectional organizations to handle the distribution and marketing in the different provinces according to what is available and the requirements of the people. This complaint comes not only from the miners but from people in every class of society in Nova Scotia. Evidently there is a real shortage of foodstuffs. I hope that the government are doing something about it. If they are, apparently the word has not got through yet.
I was glad to hear the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie) make the announcement while the hon. member for Trinity (Mr. Koebuck) was speaking that provision had been made for the payment of pensions under the War Veterans' Allowance Act as recommended by the last parliamen-

The Budget-Mr. Graham*
tary committee on pensions. I got the impression that this matter would be taken care of immediately, but in checking the thing over I find that the present position is that the estimates contain an item of $400,000 to provide for the payment of allowances to the widows of members of the armed forces in the last war. It seems that this cannot be made operative until after the estimates are brought forward. What the minister should have done was to have an order in council passed authorizing the payment of these allowances, pending the estimates being brought forward. I suppose like myself every hon. member has been receiving letters from widows of ex-soldiers pointing out that the minister had made this declaration and asking just when and how the pension was to be paid. In asking around I find that it may be a couple of months before the estimates are brought down.
There are two or three other matters I should like to mention to the minister but I notice that Mr. Speaker is getting restless and I suppose I shall have to defer them to another day. I ask hon. members to consider and check my remarks this afternoon with respect to the development of monopolistic control in Canada. With all due respect to the committees which have been appointed to work out programmes for social change, I am of the belief that those in control, those who have been in control for the past seventy-five years and who hold the purse strings behind the scenes, are not only making their own plans but are putting them into operation and will offset anything we have in mind unless parliament is prepared to accept its full responsibility and protect the people from the developments that are taking place.


Mr. R. T. GRAHAM (Swift Current):: Mr. Speaker, I had intended to devote my time to one subject only, but I cannot resist the impulse to deal with one or two of the items brought up by the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis). Particularly is that so when I notice that other members of the group to which he belongs have raised the same matter and discussed it from the same angle.
I notice that the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group are putting on a determined attack, upon free enterprise-


Mr. WRIGHT:: Monopoly control.


Roy Theodore Graham: -and one of the arguments they advance against that particular type of economy is that monopolies have grown up and continue to be strengthened in this country, and that because that is the situation the only alternative is the replacement of capitalism and free enterprise by socialism or, as I call it, state-ism, or collectivism.


Clarence Gillis: What about cooperation?


Roy Theodore Graham: I will deal with that in a minute. I suggest to the hon. member for Cape Breton South that he could interview every member of this house without finding one who is in favour of monopolistic control in any shape, manner or form-


Clarence Gillis: That is why I appeal to them.


Roy Theodore Graham: -and that is true of a great many generalizations made by members of his particular group, if I may say so. All the people of Canada, with the exception of a few who are profiting thereby, are a unit in opposition to the growth of monopoly. We do not need to argue about that. But I suggest to my hon. friend that we have learned a great deal about the matter of monopoly by incorporated companies. I would recall that the joint stock company as we now know it, a useful adjunct if properly used in the conduct of the nation's business, is of comparatively recent origin. As with all types of new entities, it has taken the democratic process, and particularly our legislative assemblies, some time to discover and realize some of the abuses which may attend the use of that particular entity, the corporate set-up; but I suggest to the hon. member, recalling what has taken place in the United States, Great Britain and our own land, that we now know some of the dangers of abuse through a study of the operations of joint stock companies, and that it is an easy matter, now that we understand them, to correct any evils, not only evils of monopoly but any others which may accompany the growth of what otherwise is a fairly useful instrument in the conduct of the business of this country.
I ask my hon. friend to consider the attitude he takes. What he proposes as a cure for a situation which we all agree must not exist is to remove the paramount authority, namely, the government or a free parliament, which is always there to control all such evils and has the power to do so. If you concentrate those industrial agencies in an organization clothed with all the powers of a government, there is neither a court of appeal nor any other authority above that particular instrument. We would be the unwisest people on earth to give to any group, government or otherwise, complete control of the business agencies of this country, because then we would in very truth be creating a monopoly without any
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power to destroy that monopoly if it functioned against our interest. That is a point we must not forget.
I find, and I say this with deference, a certain fuzziness of mind in the members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group as to what their, policy means. The hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright), a very able representative of the farming community of my province, makes the mistake of thinking that his party is identified with the growth of cooperative enterprise. Let me say to him that I am at least a sincere friend and proponent of cooperative enterprise. In our own province it has shown more growth than in any other province of this dominion or any state of the United States of America. But the truth is that if you adopt socialism, or centre the industry of this country under government control, you do away with the need of cooperative enterprise. Cooperative enterprise knows that; its leaders in this country are well aware of it. The use of the word "cooperative" in the name of the party which the hon. member supports is a misnomer if he wishes to apply it to the type of cooperative enterprise that he and I support.
The hon. member for Cape Breton South, speaking the other day at Hamilton or some other eastern point, suggested that during war time the government now in power has taken unto itself by order in council so much power that it is almost in the position of a totalitarian authority. I think he described it as state-ism.


Clarence Gillis: That is right.


Roy Theodore Graham: Yet it will be noted that those of us who realize the necessity imposed upon us, not by agencies within Canada but by Hitler and Mussolini and the Japanese- outside agencies over which we have no control-sensibly accept the discipline which must go with the conduct of this war, and willingly submit, subject always to parliamentary control, to this method of getting quick action and determination of any matter which demands prompt decision. But that is a wholly different thing from accepting in ordinary times, under the normal conditions of peace, that measure of control which, if my hon. friend will study the history of his own party and the announcements of his colleagues, he will find is suggested by them not only for war time, but to be continued permanently and forever.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: Quote the instances.


Roy Theodore Graham: The hon. member for Cape Breton South-


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I rise to a point of order. The hon. member has no right to put words in the mouth of any member of this house unless he is prepared to quote his authority. Already he has made a great many statements which are not in accordance with the facts. I think he ought to substantiate what he has said.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: On the point of order, I listened very attentively to the hon. member who is speaking at this time. He made no personal references. He was making reference only to the policies of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party. That is the interpretation I gave to his remarks.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: He made
reference to members of this group having made statements.


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: They admitted making them.


Clarence Gillis: Yes, and I will repeat them.


Roy Theodore Graham: Let me quote one particular instance. I refer to the statement of the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis), who, the other day, with the honesty which distinguishes that particular member of that particular group, in his argument in this chamber clearly outlined the real struggle between individual enterprise and collectivism. That is the term he used. No more honest and complete presentation of his case could have been made than that of the hon. member for Vancouver East, and nothing could be clearer than the meaning wdiich all of us read into that term "collectivism". Therefore I suggest that the members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party, who seemingly do not know, as we who live in the province of Saskatchewan claim, at least, to do, the purpose and ultimate objective of the group's policy-I suggest particularly, with deference and with considerable admiration for the hon. member for Cape Breton South, that they and he spend some time in studying the real fundamentals of the party which he supports in this house. I would give like advice to the hon. member for Melfort. They will find I am right when I say that it spells the doom of cooperative enterprise in this country if ever socialism is adopted as a national policy in Canada.


Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: The doom of the Liberal party, you mean.


Roy Theodore Graham: I return to what led me to rise and speak in this debate, and I hope I shall be able to make a more constructive contribution on this subject than on what has

The Budget-Mr. Graham
occupied my time so far. I speak on it because of a certain portion of the budget address of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) and because I attach to it the greatest possible importance. I believe the time has now come when we, as the governing body of this country, in surveying the present and the near future must spend considerable time in appreciating the importance of the fiscal policy which this country proposes to carry through, not only in the days of the war, but in the very difficult post-war days.
We have heard a great deal in this house, and quite properly, about rehabilitation, reconstruction. reestablishment, social security and all those other subjects that are more or less allied to our intention to better the economic position of all the people of Canada. I think one thing all of us will agree we must do, even in approaching these most important social measures, is to see to it that they are needed as little as possible. Some of our young men when they come back from this war may want to adopt the army life as their career; but the vast majority of the young men who come back when victory is won will be farmers, lawyers, working men, merchants and other civilians who have been torn out of their civilian life and called to the country's service in the armed forces; and in discussing measures of reestablishment we must always keep that in mind. I can readily recall, as can every other veteran in the house, that when we came back from France after the last war at least ninety per cent of the men in uniform had one desire and one desire only, and that was to get out of uniform and back into their civilian careers as quickly as possible. It will be a regrettable necessity if we have to pay to large numbers of men now in the navy, the army and the air force their pay and allowances for any extended period after the war, but we may have to do so. While that may satisfy their immediate needs it certainly will not satisfy their mental and spiritual desires. We must make of Canada a country that will absorb their efforts in the vocations they want to follow. In that way, and in that way only, can we find a satisfactory solution of the problems in which we are all so vitally interested and of which we are a unit in attempting to find a worth-while solution.
What truths have been emphasized by this war? One of them is the interdependence of nations one upon the other, and that the welfare of one has a relationship to the welfare of the other. If that is true in the international field, it is also true that the welfare of the people of Saskatchewan is of importance to the people of Ontario, and the
same with regard to every other territorial economic unit in this dominion of ours. Then let us apply the wise principles which we so often quote with regard to charity. Let us apply these wise principles of interdependence to our own country and then extend them to the other countries of the world.
Another truth that has been emphasized by the war is a keener realization of the place of money in our economic life. We now know that the total annual national income is best expressed in the total of the goods and services produced or acquired by all of the people of the country, and that the standard of living of an individual is determined by his securing for himself an equitable and reasonable portion of that total annual national income of goods and services. Obviously, therefore, any fiscal policy, if it is a wise one upon which to lay the foundation upon which we are to build this .better life which we all desire so much, will be one that seeks to create the greatest possible annual national income. Then we must see to it that that largest possible total is distributed so far as is humanly possible equitably and fairly among all the people of this dominion. These should be the general aims of a wise fiscal policy.
The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) pointed out on Tuesday night a very striking truth, namely, that during the war we have spent some twelve and a half billion dollars and that that total equals one-half the total accumulated assets of Canada in 1933. He drew certain conclusions from that. I would draw another. He and his group, as I have understood them in this house, have frequently said that we should in some way take hold of that accumulated wealth, without paying interest or any reward to the persons who accumulated that wealth. We, on our part, have attempted to point out the very great relative importance of our annual production of wealth expressed as I explained in the earlier portion of my remarks. The very statement made by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar illustrates more clearly than I was able to do the relative unimportance of the accumulated wealth of this country as compared with the importance of the annual national income that Canada is capable of producing. Our annual national income is that which we should safeguard, and we should increase and encourage it so that there will be a greater total to distribute among the Canadian people.
Saskatchewan, in the Sirois report, by the late Hon. Norman Rogers, a man most highly respected and honoured in this country, by
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many other economists, and by all hon. members from that province, has been pictured as the orphan in our economic family. We say there is a measure of truth in that. Like the hon. member for Regina City (Mr. McNiven), I regret the stories told in this house of individual cases, because I do not believe their recital by some hon. members properly describes the magnificent people we have in Saskatchewan. You know, Mr. Speaker, how diligently we who come from that province have struggled to get for its people a certain measure of equality in the governmental and departmental policies adopted for the government of this country. But I feel certain that I speak for the vast majority of the people of that province when I say that we would readily surrender all of the bonuses and benefits that we have received by way of compensation from the federal treasury, or what are sometimes described as hand-outs from the federal treasury, if we could secure an equality of opportunity for the people of that province to produce the goods they can, and to find the most advantageous market at reasonable prices for their products, and in turn to buy whatever they require in the cheapest and best markets of the world. That is the gift I would wish the Liberal party to give to the people of my province, because that would put them in the position of that honest dependence on their own efforts which every free British citizen so much desires.
If that is the case, I think, in view of the statement by the Minister of Finance in his budget speech, it is necessary that we get to these fundamentals in the remaking of this country. I wish to repeat his statement; it is not lengthy and on account of its importance I should like it to appear again and again on the records of this house. I should also like to see the same sentiments uttered by members of parliament from the central provinces of this great dominion. The statement to which I refer is as follows:
There will again, however, be a time when the tariff will be an important instrument of trade policy and when this country will have to decide whether it will play its part with other countries which are prepared to help in freeing the world's trade, in enlarging markets, and in promoting the full and effective use of the world's resources.
The government has already, by an exchange of notes with the United States on November 30 last, undertaken to enter into conversations with that country-
If I may interject, I heartily congratulate the government upon that particular step.
-and with other countries, for the purpose of formulating programmes of agreed action directed to the expansion, after the war, of production, employment, and the exchange and
[Mr. Graham.1
consumption of goods, to the elimination of all forms of discriminatory treatment in international commerce and to the reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers.
I am happy indeed to note that the government feels committed to these projects.
Committed to these objects and having in mind particularly the vital concern of this country in access to the selling and buying markets of the world, the government is prepared to discuss with the government of the United States, the government of the United Kingdom, or the governments of other countries with which we trade, reciprocal trade arrangements wider in scope and longer in duration than have hitherto been made, provided always that the advantages of such arrangements shall be open to other countries willing to adhere to the same terms.
We believe that questions of post-war commercial policy must be tackled broadly and boldly; we believe that world trade must have a more liberal and dependable charter than it has had in the past two decades; and that countries, such as Canada, for which world trade is the very blood stream, should be prepared, not merely to accept desirable arrangements but to take the initiative in working out a plan mutually of benefit to ourselves and to other countries. We believe that countries, which have had long experience of friendly relations should associate themselves with that initiative and furnish to others examples of concrete accomplishment in the distribution of the world's products for the mutual welfare of all people.
That, I say again, if it is meant-and I make no suggestion that it is not fully meant by the Minister of Finance or the government of which he forms a very important part- is a very important pronouncement of policy by this government and one to which I hope to give every assistance in carrying to fruition, the fullest fruition possible, because I believe it means the greatest prosperity for this country in which we are all so vitally interested.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A little late,
is it not?


Roy Theodore Graham: Better late than never. I want to deal with that phase of this question. The Liberals of western Canada have been most vociferous, our hon. friends would perhaps say, or, as we say, the most concerned, about the establishment of such a policy in the past years of Canada's history. Why? The answer of course is quite obvious, namely, that on the prairies we grow immense surpluses of foodstuffs and we must find a market for those surpluses. We could legislate here until doomsday, but unless we find markets at reasonable prices for the products of the west no legislation could be enacted that would make those people prosperous and contented. We must fundamentally shape our fiscal policy to encourage the finding of markets for those surpluses. In eastern Canada

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as I met them I found most hon. members who come from rural districts agreed with the classical argument, if you wish to call it that, for free trade; they were fundamentally in favour of free trade, but on account of the industrial centralization in this part of Canada they had to some extent a home market for the farm produce of .this part of Canada. That produce is of course that best suited to Ontario agriculture and their local market, namely, the raising of hogs and other live stock and the production of dairy products. Consequently, we never did get from eastern farm representatives the support to which I always felt the western people were entitled in their struggle to find markets for their products. But I want eastern members to note the tremendous change that has taken place during this war. Until the commencement of the war we in western Canada were concerned chiefly with the production of grain; to-day Alberta leads Ontario in the production of hogs, for example.


John Gordon Ross: So does Manitoba.


Roy Theodore Graham: Yes. I mention that merely to illustrate the fact that western Canada has embarked upon a policy of producing immense quantities of the very things that were formerly left to Ontario and Quebec farmers to raise and market in the central provinces. This fact will have very great impact on I he agricultural situation in this country. I am hoping, therefore, that the farmers of Ontario and Quebec will realize quickly that they, like us, must find foreign markets for the surplus goods that we can so well produce. If we could find in the northwestern United States a market for the hogs, cattle and dairy products of western Canada we would not be in competition in the domestic market with the farmers of eastern Canada. But if you confine us by a protective tariff to attempting to find sale for our products in this small market, the products of Ontario and of the west will inevitably come into disastrous collision, and this will have a serious effect on agriculture in our whole Canadian economy.
Then let us look at the industrialization of Canada. For many years those who most favoured the protective policy were naturally those interested in the building up of manufactures in this country. We have all heard of the "infant industry"; although we do not hear that plan advanced so often now as formerly. But I say again to the industrialists of Canada, the war has shown that their possible production greatly exceeds the requirements of our domestic market. Their plants have been expanded; power facilities have been greatly increased, and the manufacturers of Canada will find themselves in
alignment with the farmers of eastern and western Canada in seeking foreign markets for their surplus products. Therefore I am hoping that at this historical moment the government will take full advantage of the opportunity presented to us now to put into effect some of the policies to which to a large extent the people of Canada have agreed but consider impossible of adoption for various local reasons. I know it takes at least two to make a bargain, even though we have the greatest desire in the world to adopt such a beneficial policy. But I must say that the advisability of adopting that policy would not depend on whether or not other countries did the same thing, though I know the attitude of the other country concerned would greatly influence the attitude of the average person toward such a policy. I think if the Minister of Finance were to study the history of that great country to the south, those 130,000,000 people who border us from the Atlantic to the Pacific, he would find that they, too, have learned many lessons as a result of this war and the last war. Perhaps never before, certainly never in my lifetime, has there been such an opportunity as is presented to this Liberal government to weld these countries together, to their mutual advantage.
To those who suggest that this would not be in complete consonance with our relationship to the mother country let me say in all sincerity that we must remember the position of Britain to-day and what will be her position after this terrible and prolonged war is over. Having in mind what will be Britain's financial position in the world after the war, I think we can best contribute to the British commonwealth of nations by making this Canada of ours as strong, as populous and as contented as we possibly can. Let us open our trade routes by sea, by rail and by air so that not only shall we profit by the exchange of goods that will follow, but we shall also help in the reconstruction of a world which will be sadly in need of the beneficent effects of such a wise policy. My purpose in making this speech to-day is solely in order to strengthen the hand of the government, for I have in mind that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has so capably acted as an intermediary between the United States and the mother country in the past. Let him complete that life work by taking the initiative in this matter as he took the initiative in uniting the war efforts of those countries, and in my opinion his name will be called blessed by the people of this country and particularly by the people of my own province.

The Budget-Mr. Ross (Souris)


Mr. J. A. ROSS (Souris):: Mr. Speaker, first of all may I offer my congratulations to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) upon his budget speech, and to a certain extent sympathize with him in the gigantic task of looking after the finances of this country in these very difficult times. In my opinion he is one of the most conscientious, hard-working members of the government. I should like also to offer my congratulations to my colleague the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris) upon the very able manner in which he presented his criticisms of this budget. He certainly covered a wide field and did it very well.
The budget presented on March 2 calls for the raising of $5,500,000,000, which is certainly a sizable increase over the figure of $3,900,000,000 called for in the 1942 budget. The people of this country are prepared to pay, to work and to save, as they have been asked, provided there is not too much extravagance in the expenditure of public money. But when the government's director of economy is quoted in the press as was the case of March 4, as saying that evasion, subterfuge and outright trickery are being used to nullify the work of his office, then one wonders what is going on. Many people throughout this country are asking themselves questions when they see instances of money being wasted. In my opinion there is evidence of great waste in the expenditure of public money throughout this land, and I intend to deal with this matter at a later date. The rates of income tax in Canada are probably higher than those in any other country in the world; and with the exemptions lowered as they were a year ago, together with the increased demand for foodstuffs, many farmers have been brought into the income tax bracket for the first time. The minister stated that we are reaching the stage when we are producing all we can possibly produce from the resources and manpower at our disposal; and he went on to say that if we had no shortages, no vexatious restrictions, no farm labour problems such as have been debated in this house in recent weeks, then we could be certain that we were falling far short of an all-out war effort. I maintain that there has been an entire lack of coordination between the various departments of government in connection with our man-power problem. Up to the present it has been a case of inefficiency and muddling. If the Minister of Finance has any doubt as to that he might refer to the letter of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) under date of January 16, to the speech by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) in

Saskatoon on January 21, and to the farm labour policy announced by the Minister of Labour on February 26. If these various statements are compared, it is enough to make one wonder whether there is any coordination at all in connection with this matter; and then when one considers the competition offered by industry and the armed forces with regard to man-power, it is no wonder that things are in such a muddle.
I have taken part in every budget debate in this house since 1940, and each time I have asked that the farmer's income should be ' averaged over a period of at least three years. I am pleased to note that the minister has gone at least some distance in that direction. Recently, however, a return was tabled in the house showing the number of farmers who have paid income tax each year since 1930, and it shows that in 1942 there were 1,488 farmers in that class. Many farmers are operating to-day under great difficulties, being very short of help. Where the wife or the teen-age boys and girls are doing the farm work-and in many instances doing it more efficiently than any hired help that might be obtained under the new farm labour set-up-they should be placed upon the farm payroll and their wages allowed as deductions in the income tax return. In the case of new machinery the farmer should be allowed to write it off on the same basis that is granted to industry during the war; that is, over a period of three years. The farmer is allowed to write off twenty per cent the first year and ten per cent thereafter in connection with the purchase of new equipment. The food supply is now second only to military operations in determining the outcome of this war, and it will take first place when it comes to saving the world from anarchy after the war is over. Yet the Minister of Finance or the government of the day has so far refused to allow parity prices for agricultural production in the same manner as is done for industry and organized labour.
Doctor Wallace, principal of Queen's university, and chairman of the subcommittee on natural resources of the dominion, committee on reconstruction, said last night, in the railway committee room of this building, when speaking under the auspices of the dominion command of the Canadian Legion, that the success of the nation would1 depend on the rural life of Canada; that next to equalized remuneration, which to me means parity, rural electrification probably meant more than anything else to the rural people of Canada. I am happy to know that a year ago the government of my native province of Manitoba produced a blueprint for rural farm electrification in this country.

The Budget-Mr. Ross (Souris)
But if we cannot establish during these critical times a parity price for essential goods and services, then the chances for post-war reconstruction and parity prices are, to say the least, not very bright. Great Britain is now producing approximately sixty per cent of her own foodstuffs. In Great Britain during 1939 there were some 12,000,000 acres under cultivation; to-day 18,000,000 acres are under cultivation. There were 53,000 tractors in use there before the commencement of the war. There are now 120,000 tractors, and other power machinery has increased accordingly.
In Canada this year new tractors supplied will number about 5,000. This is less than a third of the number sold last year. And most people will realize that the acreage under cultivation to-day in this country is practically three times that of Great Britain. I believe that the approximate number of tractors in Canada would be in the neighbourhood of 120,000, or the number in use in Great Britain. The latest figuers I have for Canada show that two years ago we had approximately 107,000 tractors.
In more normal times, some years ago, the farmers of western Canada spent about $50,000,000 annually upon farm implements. On account of depreciation, and as a result of lessened purchasing power for a number of years prior to the outbreak of war in 1939, it was estimated at that time by implement manufacturers that it would require approximately $200,000,000 to bring our farm implement equipment up to date.
The point I should like to make there is that, with our farm labour shortage, tractors, and especially combines, should be made available to as great an extent as is reasonably possible, in order to assist in solving our labour problems. I realize that the Minister of Agriculture who, I am glad to see, is in his seat, does not believe in the use of a tractor on a farm. That is his statement made in a recent debate.


James Garfield Gardiner: I did not say that. I
said I did mot use one, but I did not say what the hon. member has just stated.


James Arthur Ross: Well, if there is any
misunderstanding as to what the minister said, I shall quote it. Speaking .on May 21, 1941, as reported at page 3028 of Hansard, the minister said:
I should like to say that I have a farm in western Canada and I have never had a tractor.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, I said that.


James Arthur Ross: And further on-


James Garfield Gardiner: But that is not what you said.


James Arthur Ross: Just a minute. The minister continued:
If I were dependent upon my farm for a living, as I have been at times, I certainly would not use a tractor.
And you can draw whatever inference you like from that.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is on my farm.


James Arthur Ross: After all, the hon. member is Minister of Agriculture, and I think he should be setting an example to agricultural producers in Canada. I have read his opinion in that respect, as expressed in the house, in answer to a question asked about his view as to the use of tractors on farms in these days.


Mr. PERLEY:: Did you ever run one?


James Garfield Gardiner: I can run one.


James Arthur Ross: Not only can one operator accomplish so much more work with a tractor than with horses, but it has been proven to be much more economical. In that respect I should like to quote from a report which was prepared by an official of the minister's department-true, it was nearly ten years ago

to prove the point. I am quoting from a cross-section test on the prairies, conducted by Doctor Hopkins of the federal Department of Agriculture in 1932 with regard to the cost of producing wheat. This information was obtained from certain farmers who had kept records, together with the records of the experimental farms, based on an average yield of eighteen bushels to the acre:
Quarter-section	Per bushel
1 man and 5 horses, threshing hired. $1.02 Half-section
1 man and 7 horses	 0.795
1	man, 15 horse-power tractor and
2 horses	 0.85
One section
2	men and 14 horses	 0.774
1	man, 15 horse-power tractor and
2 horses	 0.712
2	men, 6 horses, 15 horse-power tractor and thresher	 0.778
1 man, 15 horse-power tractor, combine and truck	 0.636
Two sections
4 men, 28 horses, combine.... 0.642
1	man, 20 horse-power tractor, combine and truck	 0.554
Three sections
2	men, 20 horse-power tractor, combine and truck, land ploughed...	0.5422 men, 20 horse-power tractor combine and truck, land one	wayed..	0.511
As I said, that survey was conducted in 1932, when the cost of production was considerably less than it is to-day; and, of course, it was

The Budget-Mr. Ross (Souris)
based on eighteen bushels to the acre. Various other tests have been conducted throughout the country.
Other hon. members have quoted Professor Hope, and I should like now to refer to Professor Hope, who has charge of the department of farm management, university of Saskatchewan. He points out that the average cost, plus interest on debt, throughout Saskatchewan in recent years has been ninety-one cents a bushel, on the basis of an average yield of fourteen bushels to the acre, which is still considerably higher than the average yield throughout Canada. If one takes into account to-day the higher cost of living brought about by the recent budget it will advance those figures to considerably more than a dollar a bushel.
Professor Hope stated, as did Doctor Hopkins in his survey, that the most economic unit to operate in the prairie provinces was a two-section power farm with tractor combine and truck, and that that is the most efficient wheat-producing unit it is possible to set up at this time. But less than one per cent of the farms in the west are as efficiently operated as that unit. I cannot recollect the exact figures, but I know the average farm operated in the west is in the neighbourhood of a halfsection. As a matter of fact, I think it is a little less than a half-section. That is the basis upon which we have to consider the cost of production, as far as the average farmer of western Canada is concerned. And what applies to wheat production is equally true of feed grains.
I have also another article by J. E. Lattimer, professor of agricultural economics at Macdonald college. It deals with crops and wars. He has in this article a chart on which he gives some details as to the acreage of improved farm land per farm worker in the principal countries to date. These are the figures as of October, 1939, the year of the war:
Country	Acres
Canada	 76-9
United States	 50
Great Britain	   30-3
Ireland	 17
Denmark	 14-7
Norway	  14-7
Spain	 12
Sweden	 11-6
Switzerland	 11-2
Prance	   10
Poland	 5-7
Italy	 5-2
Bulgaria	 4'2
Then he goes on to point out the values of land in 1914, and in various periods up to the present. Land in 1914 was S38 an acre, on the

average, while in 1938 it was $24, which is quite a reduction. On the other hand, farm wages, including value for board, during 1914 stood at $323, while in 1938 it was $405, and at the present time it is considerably higher than that. As has been pointed out repeatedly, it is almost impossible to obtain help.
I have before me a short article on distribution costs which was issued by the 20th century committee on distribution. It is pointed out here that approximately 59 cents of the consumer's dollar goes for the services of distribution and only 41 cents for the services of production.
As was pointed out this afternoon by the hon. member for Swift Current (Mr. Graham), we in western Canada have made rapid changes toward diversified farming. I believe he stated that both Alberta and Manitoba now produce more hogs than Ontario. On February 4 when I spoke in the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne I used a chart to show prices in Chicago and Winnipeg as of that date. In the case of hogs, both were quoted at $15.35 per 100 pounds, but that was dressed weight at Winnipeg and live weight at Chicago which meant approximately 25 per cent more for pork in the United States than was being received in Canada. The choice hog in the United States weighs from 190 to 330 pounds, as I then pointed out, while in Canada it runs from 190 to 230 pounds. You can put weight on a hog much cheaper per pound after 200 pounds is reached than you can up to that point.
All producers will realize that to produce the
800,000,000 pounds of pork with hogs of 165 pounds each, dressed weight, will require the raising of approximately five million hogs at 220 pounds live weight, or three and one-third million hogs at 330 pounds live weight. This means that the producer would need to carry only two-thirds the number of brood sows now required to produce the 800,000,000 pounds of pork asked for by the department. I suggest to the Minister of Agriculture and the government that for at least the duration of the war our hogs should be marketed on the same basis as in the United States.


James Garfield Gardiner: Would you suggest the same type of hog?


James Arthur Ross: I do not think it is necessary to have exactly the same type of hog. In the United States they are marketing their hogs and are receiving 25 per cent more money than we are. Since the minister has raised the question, may I ask him if he has discussed with the proper authorities in Great

The Budget-Mr. Ross (Souris)
Britain whether they would be satisfied to have this type of hog for the duration of the war?


James Garfield Gardiner: We did discuss at a conference last fall of representatives of all the provinces of Canada and the farm organizations the question now raised by the hon. member. With the exception of the representative of one province it was agreed that we should abide by the present policy on account of the fact that it has been made known to us at all times that Britain prefers our product. The reason why she is buying our product in present quantities is that she prefers what we are producing.


James Arthur Ross: I understand the
minister to say that the various provincial departments of agriculture agreed that we should maintain the present standard; that is, with the exception of one.


James Garfield Gardiner: I said that at the conference last fall those who represented the different provincial departments and the other organizations all with the exception of one, spoke in favour of abiding by the present policy.


James Arthur Ross: This has not been discussed with the food authorities in Britain?


James Garfield Gardiner: Oh, yes.


James Arthur Ross: Did they complain?


James Garfield Gardiner: I would imagine that if we said we wanted to send that type of hog over they would have to accept it, but Britain prefers what we are sending now.


James Arthur Ross: If there is any chance of a shortage of beef or beef products occurring, either in Canada or among the united nations, I suggest that the slaughtering of beef calves be prohibited for the duration of the war, more especially heifer beef calves. If the government feel that we cannot be granted access to the United States cattle market on the basis prevailing to July 1, 1942, I would then ask for a resumption of operations of the wartime food corporation in line with the operations of that body during the period July 1 to August 18, 1942, so that producers of beef cattle in this country may receive prices for their live stock reasonably related to the prices on the markets in the United States. The cattle producers now bear the entire cost of subsidizing consumers in order to keep down the cost of living in this country.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at 8 o'clock.


James Arthur Ross: I should like to refer for a few moments to the production of flax for linseed oil. It is practically all grown in the prairie provinces-Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The 1942 acreage was:
Manitoba	 227,000
Saskatchewan	 1,056,000
Alberta	 183,000
The total Canadian flax acreage for last year was 1,492,000.
The production of flax seed for oil purposes is now largely required for our war effort. During last summer and fall the farmers of western Canada were planning for a large increase of flax acreage this year. Many of them had bought seed at prices ranging from three dollars to five dollars a bushel. But, following the agricultural conference which was held in Ottawa on December 9, it was announced that the flax acreage for oil production should be increased by one million. The farmers went on making plans for increased production. About the middle of January the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) announced, rather suddenly, that as a result of a conference held in Washington at which he was present it was decided that no additional flax acreage should be put in during 1943, and he asked the farmers to go back to the original plan and produce from the same acreage as in 1942. A few days later there was a press release from the publicity and extension service of the Department of Agriculture at Ottawa, stating:
The United States department of agriculture, according to the latest survey, estimates that the country faces a shortage of close to a billion pounds of fats and oils for food and industrial purposes in 1943. To help overcome this shortage the government of Canada is asking for increased production of oil-producing plants such as flax, soy beans, sunflowers, etc. The objective for flax seed is an acreage increase of 68 per cent.
Following a meeting of the national barley and linseed flax committee at Winnipeg on March 1, Mr. L. H. Lehberg, technical adviser to the federal oils and fats administration, said that supplies of vegetable oils received from the United States had been below expectations and that United States crushers were in the market for Canadian flax in addition to overseas demand.
In addition to the domestic supplies, there were indications that upwards of ten million bushels of flax will be needed by the United States, and a like amount required for export overseas.
Among western farmers there is a feeling of confusion as to where they fit into this general

The Budget-Mr. Ross (Souris)
picture. This is well illustrated by the flax situation. Up to the present, with limited man-power and limited ability to secure the implements of production, of which I spoke this afternoon, they feel, as I stated, rather frustrated. The net marketable crop of flax last year was some 13,230,000 bushels. The total capacity for flax processing in this country was only 6,395,000 bushels, there being in operation nine flax processing plants, with one under construction at present. There are three of these plants in Montreal, two in Toronto, one in Baden, one in Winnipeg, one in St. Boniface, one in Medicine Hat, and one now under construction at Hamilton. It is rather surprising that this plant now being constructed at Hamilton should not have been built adjacent to the raw materials and abundance of cheap power which we have in the prairie provinces.
This afternoon, when the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) was speaking, he pointed out that at present some eighty per cent of the capital in industry in Canada is invested within the two provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and that approximately eighty per cent of the industrial workers are located within these two provinces. As I have already indicated, this situation has been greatly aggravated during this war by the government of the day, by way of capital assistance to industry in Quebec and Ontario. I have placed on Hansard the sums of money which have been advanced, and which run into many hundreds of millions of dollars. Centralization apparently continues. A return of June 1 last shows that since the beginning of the war there had been constructed or were under construction in Ottawa eleven temporary buildings and one annex, at a total cost of $5,411,099.76. At that date, practically three years after the beginning of the war, only half of these buildings had been built. On February 26 there appeared in the press a statement that the government had approved a building programme under the National Housing Act and that in Ottawa and vicinity the sum of $1,000,000 was to be spent on the construction of houses, of which amount a quarter of a million was to be paid by the government.
Yesterday the Ottawa Journal published an editorial article entitled " More 'temporary' buildings," from which I quote the following:
The government announces that an office building for the staff of prices board is to be built on Sussex street, at a cost of about $450,000. Prices board staff now is scattered about several rented premises. The government is to spend also $312,000 for a building for the women's division of the R.C.A.F., and $54,205 for a men's canteen. All of these are to be "temporary" structures.

In the grand total of war expenditures $800,000 does not rank as a major item, and yet we think the people-who pay the bills- would like more assurance than appears on the surface that these buildings are an imperative necessity. That is especially the case as they are still in the plans stage, and if we may judge by the progress of work on the women's hostel the buildings would not be ready for use before next Christmas. The point is, do we really need these costly and elaborate "temporary" buildings when the war will he well within its fifth year?
Further on it says:
A few days ago Mr. Ilsley announced that indefinite extension of government-financed housing would he impossible, because of scarcity of labour and materials, and to relieve the housing shortage, he said, the government would depend upon "private enterprise, rent control and decentralization". Some progress in decentralization already had been made, he added, pointing out that more than a dozen branches of prices board had been moved to Toronto and Montreal; that munitions and supply had established oil control in Toronto, transport control in Montreal.
Obviously, the extent to which the government proposes to pursue this policy of decentralization must he a factor in the case for these new buildings. And at this stage of the war the demand for new office space by any department or agency of the government, or any uniformed service, needs to be viewed with healthy scepticism and an inquiring mind.
As most people know, we have at the head of the wartime prices and trade board Mr. Donald Gordon, a banker, who has not any experience whatever in production, distribution or merchandising within this country. The price of fuel wood in parts of Canada has been increased, by a stroke of the pen, from $9 to $13 a cord. You pay an extra five cents for a cup of tea or coffee for your meal. Yet the agriculturists of Canada are asked to produce foodstuffs for much less remuneration than the agriculturists of any other of the warring nations receive at this particular time. If we are to enforce the principle of price ceilings the price must be on a basis of parity prices for essential goods and services. This is something which to date the government of the day has not recognized. As I have pointed out before, the agriculturists represent thirty-three per cent of our entire population. They received fifteen per cent of the national income in the past year, 1942, and during the years from 1915 to 1919 they received thirty per cent of the national income. Certain large business concerns are now consolidating their position in this country under the present scheme of things.
May I add with respect to the wartime prices and trade board that on June 29 of last year I placed on the order paper a question asking for detailed information as to the

The Budget-Mr. Shaw
board's staff. That question remained unanswered on the order paper until prorogation on January 27 of this year.. I again placed it on the order paper on January 29 of this session, and it was passed as an order for a return on February 8, but to this day the return has not been brought down. A lot of pertinent information should be brought down in that return. I do not want to weary the house by giving the details of this question because it is lengthy, but I would point out, as was pointed out this afternoon by the hon. member for New Westminster, that there is great discontent throughout this country because of the operations of the price control administration under Mr. Donald Gordon, and the only reason why people are not saying more about it is their patriotism in this time of war. I am satisfied, however, that there must be a basis of parity prices for goods and services which are essential to the war effort; otherwise the board cannot continue to operate.


Mr. F. D. SHAW (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, before proceeding to speak on that aspect of the budget which I wish particularly to discuss, I should like to make two or three observations of a general nature. I believe that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) in his recent remarks with respect to financial policy, which of course have their counterpart in economic policy, has served to prove more effectively than he could have done so deliberately the truth of many things which we in this group have been asserting over a period of time.
We believe that time will be the best test of right. We also believe that over a certain period of time certain prejudices which have existed will gradually disappear. We feel, as I said before, that the minister could not have been more successful in attesting the authenticity of many of these things that we have declared to be facts if he had deliberately set out to do so.
A few days ago a member of this house, sitting to the left, Mr. Speaker, expressed the fear that through the enormous financial expansion and through the enormous allocations of real wealth taking place in this country there was a danger we might go bankrupt. In reply to that expression of fear the minister made some significant declarations, and it is about those declarations that I should like to make one or two observations.
The Minister of Finance said that to speak of bankrupting this country simply because of the expenditure of billions of dollars or because of the consumption through war or otherwise of vast quantities of our production was simply to bring forward a bogey. He
asserted that an individual or a group of individuals might go bankrupt in that way, and that even a nation might go bankrupt in that way as far as the supply of foreign exchange was concerned. But he said that as far as the nation itself is concerned it is fantastic to assume that we might become bankrupt in the sense that we shall run out of money. In fact, he said, the danger in war time is just the opposite. If we are going to become bankrupt because of these actions of ours, is it not a strange thing, he asked, that at the same time we are doubling the national income, wiping out unemployment, learning scores of new skills, and that we have expanded and diversified our productive equipment, enabled millions of our people to secure a nest-egg for the future, and developed a sense of productive achievement hitherto unknown in this country? He stated that no country goes bankrupt in that way; no country goes bankrupt through expanding its productive capacity. That, Mr. Speaker, was a significant statement. I know that it has been responsible for a number of very strange expressions which have emanated from certain members sitting on the government side of the house.
In the years of the depression members of this group advocated the stimulation of production through government grants. The Minister of Finance of that day-not the present minister, but he seemed to think along the same lines-threw his hands up in the air and screamed blue ruin. Yet to-day we find the Minister of Finance of the present government asserting that if we spend more money to expand the productive capacity of our country it is utterly impossible for this country as a consequence to go bankrupt. That should make us think. At this time we have about 600,000 of our men and women in uniform. They are not engaged in a productive capacity. We have taken up the slack as far as unemployment is concerned; yet we find that we are producing more than twice as much as we ever produced before. That is enough to make anyone stop and think. As we reflect upon post-war conditions we shall also bear in mind the statements made by the Minister of Finance to the effect that there is no danger of bankrupting your country by putting further quantities of money into circulation and vastly expanding the productive capacity of your country.
I wish to devote my time this evening mainly to the one aspect of war finance. Probably I should clarify my statement by saying that I intend to deal specifically with the war savings aspect of our war finance pro-
The Budget-Mr. Shaw

gramme. I do so because I am afraid that many hon. members are not aware of the situation that has developed in this country with respect to war finance.
The minister stated the other day that the expenditures during 1942-I assume that means until March 31 of this year-will amount to $4,470 million. He stated further, either directly or by implication, that that volume of money in circulation, or at least a large part of that money which will be put into circulation, may, on account of the lesser amount of consumer goods available, create a dangerous condition of inflation. And because of that danger he will have to institute upon a larger scale his war savings campaign in order to tap from the finances in circulation in the country that portion which is likely to cause a condition of inflation.
At this point I should like to make one thing clear. There are many hon. members in this house and people in this country who actually believe that the only purpose of a bond campaign is to secure money with which to purchase ships and shells and guns and tanks. I have stated that one of the major purposes of a bond selling campaign is to drain off the excess purchasing power, and I have been roundly criticized for that statement. In order that my position in that regard may be made quite clear I should like to quote three or four statements which I have before me. First, I have a statement of the financial secretary to the British treasury, speaking in the British House of Commons on April 8, 1941. He said:
What you have to emphasize is not so much the money that you are going to get in but the fact that what you are after is reducing consumption.
Then we have the Royal bank monthly letter of August, 1941, saying:
It is, therefore, vitally important that taxation and borrowing should be considered not merely as devices to raise money but rather as measures to prevent money from being spent for non-essential purposes.
Professor Plumptre is reported in the Financial Post of October 5, 1940, as saying:
It must be remembered primarily and seemingly paradoxically, that the government object is not to get money, but merely to reduce the public's spending. . . . The government can always "get money" because it may as an alternative to borrowing or even to taxation, create the required funds.
Then we have P. M. Richards, financial editor of Saturday Night, saying on March 28, 1942:
The hard truth is that the government didn't itself want our money as much as it wanted to deprive us of it.

Then we have the Minister of Finance himself, speaking in the House of Commons on November 21, 1949, saying:
That the task of finance is not only to provide the funds which are used to pay for the war services but more fundamentally is, by taxing and borrowing, to restrict the civilian demand for economic resources.
My purpose in quoting as I have is to be able to deal with the situation which has developed with respect to the war savings campaign. I shall deal with that a little later. I say the purpose of the bond, war savings certificates and stamp sales is primarily to drain off the surplus purchasing power and thus lessen the danger of an inflationary condition developing.
I stated that I should like to give some information with respect to the trend in connection with bond sales. In the second victory loan, of about a year ago, the government secured about $843 million from the Canadian people. If we forget for the moment the conversions that took place during that time, that sum exceeded the objective by about forty per cent.
Then we come to the third victory loan of last fall which secured, I believe, about $991,500,000 which, if considered less conversions, was approximately thirty-two per cent more than the stated objective. I would point out that not all the money so acquired came from savings; a large part of it came as a consequence of payroll deductions and other payments out of current income. Between February, 1942, and November, 1942, namely, between the second and third victory loans, there was a total of 339,000 conversions. Those conversions were mainly of $50 and $100 bonds. In October, 1942, alone the conversions numbered 78,000, or approximately 3,000 per working day. That is startling. Of the 339,000 conversions to which I have already referred, 268,000 represented bonds of $50 denomination, and 71,000 those of $100 denomination.
I have some figures which are very interesting. They are month by month figures from March to November of 1942, as follows:
Conversions
	$50 bonds	$100 bonds
March 			1,414
April 			4,756
May 			 14,512	5,978
June			7,222
July 			8,449
August			10,682
September	
41,193	11,723October	
65,108	12,792November	
36,812	7,825
The Budget-Mr. Shaw
In the second victory loan I believe we had approximately 1,120,000 subscriptions for $50 bonds and approximately 746,000 subscriptions for S100 bonds. The dollar value of the conversions was not high, but the important thing to bear in mind is this. The minister has stated from time to time that through his bond selling campaigns he has endeavoured to spread the purchases over as broad a base as possible, thus depriving a greater number of those in the moderate income brackets of a part of their purchasing power, because, after all, they comprise the largest single group of all those in receipt of salaries. I believe the number of subscribers to the second victory loan totaled
1,681,000,	while the number who subscribed to the third victory loan was slightly in excess of 2,000,000. Therefore, if the conversion of $50 and $100 bonds is going on now as rapidly as it did prior to November, 1942, I am of opinion that by the middle of next summer we shall have over 400,000 conversions.
I would ask that these figures be kept in mind, because I am leading up to something *which I believe to be of extreme importance. In the second victory loan I understand that something like 800,000 workers participated in the payroll deduction plan, subscribing approximately $65,000,000. In the third victory loan there were about 1,200,000 who subscribed approximately $90,000,000 under the same plan. These were mainly bonds in the $50 and $100 denominations, and I would say it is in those brackets that wTe face the greatest number of conversions. Those conversions were extremely heavy last September, and I believe the reason was that bonds purchased, during the second victory loan matured, if that is a proper word to use, about that time. This leads me to believe that a very large number of those who purchased bonds during the second victory loan campaign cashed them in just as soon as the law permitted them to do so. I think the same applies also to the sales of war savings certificates. I understand that of the $6,000,000 worth of certificates sold between the second and third victory loans, approximately $2,000,000 were handed in for redemption.
This is extremely important, I believe, in the light of what I have to say in a moment or two. It seems to me the results of such a scheme are extremely obvious. On the surface it would appear that the very fine machinery set up by the minister in order to handle the savings aspect of his finance policy is breaking down much more rapidly than many people anticipated; I was going to say more rapidly than the minister expected, but I do not think 72537-75
that would be fair because I believe he appreciates the situation that is developing. Let me give what I think are the reasons for so many conversions in the $50 and $100 brackets. The first is the nature of the campaigns that have been carried on; I believe that is responsible to a certain extent. You cannot withhold from the people the fact that the main reason for pushing the sale of bonds, war savings certificates and stamps is to reduce the public demand for consumer goods. They find it out sooner or later. I know that many persons sacrificed beyond their capacity because they were assured that the only way in which we could produce ships, shells, guns and tanks was for them to deprive themselves in order to purchase war savings stamps, certificates and bonds. As a result, the moment the time arrived when they could legally convert those bonds into cash, they did so.
I should like to develop that point just a little further. If one of the principal reasons-and I dare even go so far as to say the major reason-behind the bond sale campaign of the government is to reduce the public demand for consumer goods, in my opinion it is a serious thing to say in theatres, at public meetings and in various other ways that a certain boy on a certain ship will not have a gun if you do not deprive yourself of some necessity in order to buy a bond. The people find out the real reason sooner or later. For instance, all they had to do was to pick up Maclean's magazine for last October 13 and read the article in which the minister definitely asserted, in reply to a question, that one major purpose behind the campaign was to reduce the public demand for consumer goods. His salesmen go to old age pensioners, for example, and in some instances they have actually made them feel that if they did not subscribe they were subversive. I am not blaming the minister for that; I am blaming some of the salesmen who apparently have not been properly advised with respect to these points. No one is capable of putting up a good argument to the effect that an old age pensioner receiving anywhere from $10 to $25 a month has any surplus purchasing power which will endanger the national economy. The same can be said of a widowed mother, a man in receipt of war veterans' allowance, or even a man in receipt of a veteran's pension. They resent it when somebody comes along and puts pressure on them, compelling them to make sacrifices out of all proportion to what

The Budget-Mr. Shaw

Canadians generally are sacrificing. Consequently the moment they can do so many convert their bonds into cash.
I should like to say a word about payroll deductions. In doing so, I wish to talk about the civil service. All across this country we have thousands upon thousands of people in receipt of incomes far below those to which they are entitled in order to meet the increased costs of living. The government has not set a very good example in this regard, because government offices in Ottawa and across the country are filled with young girls and young men whose incomes are certainly not adequate to meet the costs of living with which they are confronted.
The war savings committee goes to those young girls and young men and makes their contributions almost a condition of employment. No wonder the minute they have an opportunity of converting their purchases into cash, they do so! I made a rather strong statement when I said that even in the civil service contributions are practically made a condition of employment.
In that connection let me quote from something which came to my hand. It is a pamphlet headed "The federal civil service organization", and makes reference to the third victory loan campaign. I would ask hon. members to bear in mind that we are always using the word "voluntary" and emphasizing that all these contributions are voluntary. The pamphlet reads, in part, as follows:
The federal civil service forms part of payroll savings section of the national war finance committee's organization for the purposes of the third victory loan.
The appeal to you-
And I ask hon. members to mark the word "appeal".
-as a Canadian is to share in the subscribing of $750,000,000 for the national war effort. The demand of you-
Note those words:
-as a civil servant is to organize and support the loan in order that the flag may fly high in your locality.
And listen to the next paragraph:
The governor in council has directed that every civil servant invited to serve on a committee organized by or for the national war finance committee shall accept the task as an act of duty.	_
Every civil service victory loan group officially organized for the purposes of the victory loan is subject to such direction and supervision as the national war finance committee, or its provincial or local divisions and units, may deem necessary.
I shall not go beyond that point, but I believe I have read enough to indicate that no government employee, regardless of

whether she or he is receiving S55, $60 or $70 a month dared refuse to subscribe. And I know that some of these young employees who have been drawn from the west to work in Ottawa-because you will not give us industry or war departments to any extent out in the west-try to save their nickels and dimes so that they may go home for two weeks during the summer. No wonder thousands of them have quit! No wonder that when I called for a return showing how many had quit I was told that the government did not have the information!
Those are some of the reasons. Let me emphasize the fact that while these young employees are underpaid, while they are having this pressure put upon them to purchase, it is no wonder that after the great machine is paid to collect they turn around and convert their bonds.
Then, there is another reason, which has to do with our boys and girls in uniform. I contend that when we stop to consider what they are being paid-and I am not complaining about it for the moment, although I certainly think it is inadequate-we must remember that they are prepared to make the supreme sacrifice. Yet I should like to tell the house what happened in connection with this same war savings campaign in the military camps. I know of eight hundred soldiers right in this province who were taking a special course. In the third victory loan campaign they had placed upon their shoulders a quota of $16,000, which meant $20 per soldier. Any soldier who did not subscribe to the extent of $20 was paraded before his commanding officer, and when that happened he had to give good reasons for not having subscribed. I dare say that rather than be paraded before his commanding officer the average man would sacrifice, or would have his family make sacrifices, in order to keep up his head among the other men in his unit. But the minute it became legal or possible to convert those bonds into cash, naturally they would do so.
Then, there is another reason. I wish to refer to the contents of a letter which came to my attention only two days ago. The Minister of Finance is not in his seat at the moment, but I should like to have someone tell him about this, so that he can check it. This letter from my constituency states-and I shall not quote the man's exact words- that the collector for the International Harvester Company in that part of our province stated he had been instructed by his company to secure $3,000,000 in bonds on past due accounts, as well as on new accounts. If that is true-and I am sure the minister would get the significance of it-it certainly should be

The Budget-Mr. Knowles
checked. I am told in the same letter that a certain bond salesman in that town purchased all the bonds he could possibly buy with the spare cash he had on hand, then went out and flourished those bonds under the noses of prospective subscribers, to show them what a patriotic man he was. Very shortly after the campaign closed he went to the bank and had his bonds converted into cash, following which he installed an expensive electric lighting plant in his farm buildings.
Those are practices which are not good. When the people in that community find out that such things took place they will naturally endeavour to dispose of their bonds as quickly as possible. I say that if the minister does not want this great war savings campaign machine to bog down he had better do something about repairing some of the broken parts in it, and apply a little oil; because, as sure as can be, if the rate of conversion continues it will be only a short time until our conversions are almost equal to our purchases, and this very danger about which he has been warning us will be upon us, and upon us before he realizes it.


Mr. S. H. KNOWLES (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, there are a number of features of this year's budget concerning which our people will exercise their right to grumble; but in the main I am satisfied the people will accept the budget, because of their willingness to put everything they have into their endeavour to achieve victory, in the hope and determination that after the war has been won we shall win a people's peace here at home. Perhaps more important than any grumbling on the part of our people, one should state that this is a budget which they will not forget. I am referring not to its severity, but rather to the way in which it turns the searchlight on the importance of the common man. In particular this budget points out that it is impossible to collect in taxes the amount of money that is necessary to wage the war without dipping very heavily into the pockets of those with meagre incomes. The budget also points out that it is impossible to borrow sufficient money to meet the requirements of the war without calling upon the common people, the great mass of workers and farmers, to give of their savings. The budget also points out that in the matter of restricting the demands for domestic goods, again the appeal must be made to the common people. We cannot restrict that demand sufficiently by asking the well-to-do to go without their luxuries; the only way it can be done is 72537-75J
by getting the common people to curtail their purchases of some of the actual necessities of life.
We in this group, and many throughout the country, are not satisfied that this budget goes as far as it should in placing the proper share of the burden upon those in the upper brackets, but we admit that the budget draws attention to the fact that even though heavier burdens are placed on those in the upper brackets, it is still necessary to call upon the great mass of the common people, the workers and the farmers, if we are to find the wherewithal to wage this conflict. In other words, this budget turns the searchlight on the importance of the common people. It is the common people who must fight the war; it is the common people who must produce the munitions of war and the food; and it is the common people who must provide the finances, and refrain from demanding domestic goods so that we can divert the portion that is necessary to war materials. I urge, as I have already stated, that the common man be not forgotten. If he is so important to-day, he will be important to-morrow.
In my view there would be less complaining about the budget if there were a few gestures on the other side to the importance of the common man. In addition to the importance given him through asking him to fight the war, to produce the goods and to provide the finance, his needs should be recognized! to a much greater extent than is the case-as far as this budget is concerned. I wish to-speak specifically about two or three groups-of our citizens for whom it seems to me thia is the time that consideration should be given. I shall refer first to the old age and blind pensioners.
In 1939-40 the total expenditures of this government were 8080,794,000. The budget for this year calls for $5,500,000,000. In other words, this year's budget is $4,819,206,000 greater than the expenditures of 1939-40. Back in 1939 old age pensions were being debated in this house. I find on page 1746 of Hansard of that year that the then Minister of Finance, Mr. Dunning, dealt with this question by pointing out that in order to lower the age at which old age pensions would be paid to sixty-five years-that was the matter being discussed at that particular moment-would cost the dominion alone the sum of $18,859,000. That amount simply could not be found, and therefore no change was made in the Old Age Pensions Act.
I go back to the figures I gave a moment ago. In 1939 it was impossible to find
The Budget-Mr. Knowles

$18,859,000, but the expenditures to be made this year will exceed the total expenditures of 1939-40 by 255 times the increase which could not be found in 1939.
I hold in my hand a copy of a letter written by the attorney general of Manitoba to the president of the old age pensioners society in that province under date of June 18, 1942. In this letter Mr. McLenaghan quotes part of a letter which he had received from the Minister of Finance of this government. The Minister of Finance, referring to the total cost of old age and blind pensions for 1941-42 had this to say:
If the maximum pension had been $300 a year the total cost of pensions would have been increased by approximately $9,870,600.
The writer of the letter then goes on to set out the portion of that amount which the provinces would have been required to contribute, but that portion is included in this total sum of less than ten million dollars. Ten million dollars sounds like a lot of money, but it represents only an additional one-fifth of one cent for every dollar that we shall spend this year. The amount is so small, such a drop in the 'bucket, that it seems to me deplorable, if not disgraceful, that no provision for an increase in the amount to be paid for old age and blind pensioners is being made in this year's budget.
It is rather sad to note that according to the estimates the amount to be voted for old age pensions this year is $126,000 less than was voted last year. I take it there are only two explanations for this. Either the amounts are being cut down by means of the various regulations, or the old people are dying off. One cannot be surprised at that when he thinks of their trying to exist on $20 a month. On the other hand, I note that the estimates provide for an increase of nearly $3,000 in the amount required for pensions to retired judges.
I think the views of the people generally, outside the house, and of the majority of those inside the house, although these views do not often find expression from the government benches, are very well put in the report of a sermon delivered recently by Reverend Father Wood of St. Mary's Cathedral, Winnipeg. I should like to quote from a report in the Winnipeg Tribune of January 26, as follows:
The way we are treating our old pioneers by granting them the magnificent sum of $20 a month each is a disgrace to any civilized country, Rev. F. R. Wood said at St. Mary's cathedral Sunday.
"You know the situation regarding old_ age and blind pensions," he said. "The sum is so small as barely to exclude starvation, especially
.
when the recipient is deprived of almost everything he possesses before even this miserable pittance is granted.
"If two people succeed in building a home and then in their old age lose their income, the authorities seize this last thing and insist on rendering them destitute before granting them $20 a month."
"We are not actually guilty of killing our old people, but we are approaching as close to that state as we dare go without being brought into the courts."
I hope that the day will come when the attitude in this house toward old age pensions, instead of making possible statements such as this I have read from Father Wood, will be that which has been brought to the attention of this house before from a sister dominion. I quote from what was said in the parliament of New Zealand on September 1, 1936:
All social legislation, and especially that providing for pensions, is a recognition by the community of the fact that the recipients of the pension have in a very large measure been responsible for the development of the country and the vast accumulations within it. One of the points to be recognized is that such allowances made by the younger generation to their forebears are by no means a charity but in reality a recognition and a return to them of what they themselves have put into the nation.
A few days ago I asked some questions in the house concerning this matter, whether or not this government had given any hope to the various provinces that some adjustment in the amount of the old age pension might be made; and among the answers that I received, I find that I was referred to a statement made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley), I believe it was in 1941. On looking into that statement I discovered that one of the points which the minister laid down on that occasion was either his belief or the belief of his party that the only way in which we could hope for an increase in the amount of the old age pension was to put it on a contributory basis. I think the answer to that point is very clearly put in the words I have quoted from the New Zealand Hansard, to the effect that our old people have already contributed to the wealth and well-being of the country and, because of the contribution which they have made, if for no other reason, they are entitled to decency and dignity in their old age-which is not possible on the $20 a month we are giving them at the present time.
Not only are there our old people, but there are other groups in the community for whom, it seems to me, this budget should have made better provision. A number of us in the last day or two have had the privilege of meeting with a group of ladies who are in the city at the present time, representing the non-pensioned widows of veterans of

The Budget-Mr. Knowles
the last war. The hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) stated this afternoon that the country would receive well the item of $400,000 which is in the estimates to make some provision for these people. He is perfectly right; this country will receive well the fact that something is being done: but it seems to me that the country will not rest at all easy when it realizes that that provision boils down to $20, or in special cases to $25 as a maximum, a month for these women when they are in necessitous circumstances and when they meet certain other regulations which will be laid down from time to time. It seems to me that this is a disgrace to the memory of the men who gave their lives in, or as a result of, the last war; that it is a disgrace, in the light of the things that are being said about what this war is being fought for, if this is the best we can do for these women. I sincerely hope that hon. members by an overwhelming majority will have so much to say on this matter that a change of policy will be made by the government before this session is over, either that the amount to be granted to these people will be raised, or that the possibility of any means test will be eliminated, or both of these, with other provisions as well. I suggest that if a few gestures of this nature could have been provided for in the budget, it would have eliminated any grumbling about it on the part of our people, and it would have done the thing I suggested1 earlier; it would have made our people, the workers and the farmers, feel that not only were they important when it comes to fighting the war and providing the goods and paying for it, but their needs also are important, and they have the right to participate in the wealth and well-being of this country. I hope that before this session is over, despite the fact that the policy has been announced and the estimates have 'been laid on the table, a revision will be made, recognizing on that side of things the importance of the common people of this dominion.
I turn now to another matter. A very large section of these important common people, these people who fight the war and produce the supplies and pay for it, are working men and women. The attitude of this government toward labour is a matter of great importance to them. Thus far that attitude does not give them a great deal of hope for a better day. I want to refer to what I have in my hand as an example. This document is a copy of a return tabled in the Manitoba legislature on February 22. It sets out certain facts which are public property:	first of all, that in
November, 1941, certain underpayments of
wages on dominion government contracts within the province of Manitoba were discovered. On looking into this matter, I find that the wages paid were in accordance with what this government requires as a minimum but they were underpayments as far as legislation in the province of Manitoba is concerned. The then minister of labour of Manitoba, according to a press report of his remarks in the legislature, said quite definitely that for a period of a great many months his department was given to understand that the dominion government would require the enforcement of Manitoba fair wage legislation on dominion government contracts within the province, even though the wages required there might be higher than those required by the regulations of this government. This document which I have in my hand says further that in March, 1942, a report on these underpayments was made to the Department of Labour of this government. The department of labour of Manitoba asked the permission of the Department of Labour here to collect these alleged underpayments. The federal Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) agreed to this proposal on April 17, 1942. I suggest that the statement in this connection in this return supports the contention made by the former minister of labour of Manitoba, that for a time at least he had the approval of this government for the enforcement in Manitoba of the province's fair wage legislation with respect to dominion government contracts in -that province. But in the course of time- again I am reading from the return which I have in my hand-one of the companies there protested and wrote to Ottawa, referring the matter to the chief of wages branch of the national war labour board; and on October 7, 1942, the chief of that branch wrote to the-then minister of labour of Manitoba advising: him that the matter had been referred to the federal Department of Justice. Matters went on until January 14 of this year when the federal Minister of Labour reported to the regional war labour board of the province of Manitoba the decision of the Department of Justice at Ottawa. I shall read the important clause, clause (c):
The works in question are not subject to the fair wages act, 1916, of Manitoba.
Yesterday when I had before the house a motion asking for the tabling of certain documents passing between this government and the provincial governments, respecting the matter of old age pensions, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) made the reservation that the documents should not be brought
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down to the house until the provincial governments had been consulted. I quote his remarks from page 1129 of Hansard:
The provinces have their own jurisdiction and they are partners in the work of government of the dominion.
In another passage he says that the provinces are sensitive about the federal government stepping in. But when it is a case of provincial wage legislation calling for slightly higher wages than the dominion legislation calls for, this government does not hesitate to step in and, in effect, nullify that higher wage legislation of the province of Manitoba.


Humphrey Mitchell: Do I understand that the correspondence which my hon. friend has read is the subject of a return brought down to this house?


Stanley Howard Knowles: The correspondence I have read is from a return tabled in the Manitoba legislature. When I asked questions concerning this matter in the house a few days ago, the Minister of Labour stated that a commissioner had been appointed to make an investigation. But, Mr. Speaker, this is not a matter for investigation; it is a matter of policy. The companies concerned do not dispute the question of the wages which were paid to their employees or the hours their employees worked, but they dispute the right of the Manitoba government to insist on the payment of Manitoba wages on dominion government work.
What has happened is that there has been a reversal of policy on the part of this government. The policy enunciated by the Minister of Labour on April 17, 1942, was that this government agreed to the right of the Manitoba government to enforce its own wage legislation, but on January 14, 1943, we find that this government changed its policy. I know there is a reference to a ruling from the Department of Justice, and in the minds of some people there is something very sacrosanct about a ruling of the Department of Justice. But after all that is not a ruling of the courts. It is simply a ruling of another department of the government. Undoubtedly there has been a change of policy on the part of the government, a willingness to interfere and actually to nullify the wage legislation that exists in Manitoba. I repeat, that is not a matter for investigation; it is a matter of policy.
This attitude on the part of the Department of Labour of this government does not alleviate the grumbling of our people about the budget. On the other hand I feel that if we 
had a labour policy moving in a progressive direction we would have less complaining about the severity of the budget.
There are one or two other related matters which were given publicity in the press of Winnipeg, following an address in the provincial legislature of Manitoba by the former minister of labour there. About an hour ago some of us had the privilege of sitting down to a delightful dinner as the guests of one of the hon. members from Winnipeg, and because of the nature of the food served we had some very good fish stories. This is a fish story that is not quite so enjoyable.


An hon. MEMBER:: How were the fish?


Stanley Howard Knowles: The fish were lovely. I quote from the press report:
In December, 1941, a complaint was received that a fish company supplying fish on a war contract, was not paying the minimum wage.
That is the Manitoba minimum wage.
An inspector investigated. Attached to the contract was a wage schedule. On inquiry it was found the company owed $67 and gave a cheque for it.
Mr. Farmer told the house his department was asked to send it to Ottawa from where it would be disbursed to the persons entitled to it. Some time after the men asked when they could expect their cheques. In March, 1942-
Note, that was in March, 1942, and yet a month later, on April 17, 1942, the Department of Labour here was still giving authority to the Manitoba department to enforce these wages. I continue the quotation:
In March, 1942, he discovered that the cheque he had collected had been returned to the fish company with the explanation that the contract did not come within what were interpreted as war contracts.
On another occasion, training schools were set up in certain clothing factories and other industries under dominion regulations with respect to the war emergency training programme. As one inducement to get trainees the dominion published a schedule promising wages of 35 cents an hour to those who took the course. During the training period the apprentices were paid by the dominion.
Some employers who took on the trainees, after they had finished the course, employed them at the minimum wage, 25 cents an hour. When attempts were made to collect the 35 cents promised, word came from Ottawa that the whole thing had been a mistake.
There you had on the part of the province of Manitoba a readiness to enforce, to go out diligently to enforce a wage scale slightly better than the wage scale of this government. But this government, which, as I suggested from the Prime Minister's remarks yesterday, at times declares that it does not want to interfere in provincial matters, did not hesitate to step in and nullify the provincial wage

The Budget-Mr. Knowles
legislation. Then they wonder why there are complaints about the labour policy of this government.
Closely related, turning for a moment to the agricultural community, is the concern- and some of us are beginning to get quite a bit of correspondence about it-as to whether cooperative organizations will have to pay taxes on the money which they save by their cooperative endeavours. There are very disquieting rumours. If this should be the case; if there is to be a policy that will ruin the cooperative movement in this country, as well as having an anti-labour policy, I suggest that the people are going to wonder whether there is anything at all to the professions that are frequently made around here about this being a war for a better world when victory is won. If some of the aims of our social legislation which I have suggested, an increase in the old age pension, an increase in the amount set aside for widows of veterans of the last war, and an increase in wages along the lines I have just suggested were granted, I realize that we would be moving slightly in the direction of a better order, slightly in the direction of a greater share by the Canadian people in the wealth they produce. There may be some who do not like that idea. But supposedly that is what this war is all about, and I suggest that if the people of this country are as important as they are when it comes to fighting the war, producing the goods required, and paying for the war, they are important in these other respects as well.
There is another matter which has been of deep concern to the people of Winnipeg. It is perhaps only a small matter taken by itself, but if it is a sample it creates misgivings. Not long ago the government purchased for war needs, I believe by the Department of National Defence for Naval Services, a property in Winnipeg formerly known as the Winnipeg Winter club. I made inquiry both in Winnipeg and here concerning this purchase, and I hold in my hand a copy of sessional paper No. 193. I asked several questions, two being particularly relevant. I endeavoured to ascertain the assessed value of the property and to discover what had been paid for it. According to the sessional paper the assessed value of land and buildings was $129,365. In that connection may I say I have secured similar information from the assessment commissioner of Winnipeg and it tallies with this figure, but I make this comment, that the figures I received from Winnipeg give the amount on which the taxes were paid as $94,090. The assessment commissioner, however, advises me what percentage of the market
value these figures represented, and when you adjust that figure, the $129,365 represents the market value as computed from the assessed valuation. But the price paid for the land, building and equipment was $256,000. I wish to make it perfectly clear that the assessed value did not include the equipment while the purchase price did, but there is a spread there of over $126,000, which is a lot of money for the equipment which could have been in that property.
I find as an explanation of this purchase that the price was arrived at after consultation between a member of the Montreal real estate board - not the board - and members - not the board itself-of the Winnipeg real estate board, and the real estate adviser of the Department of National Defence. And then note this sentence. I suppose it is a defence; I need not comment on it:
A condition of the sale was that the Winnipeg Winter club would invest the total net proceeds in victory bonds-
"the total net proceeds", I wonder what that "net" means.

and would undertake to retain and not to dispose of by sale at least fifty per cent of the said bonds for the duration of the war.
That sort of thing puzzles people who are asked to pay in the way our people are asked to pay, when $256,000 is paid for a piece of property the market value of which, as adjusted from the assessed value, was only $129,365.
Another matter which causes deep concern to our people is the amount of unnecessary advertising which is being circulated in our newspapers and put upon billboards across the country. I hold in my hand a full page advertisement; it does not matter whose it is because a great many firms are doing it. It offers nothing for sale; but apparently the money has to be spent in some way; the newspapers have to be kept going, or perhaps what is more to the point private industry has to be kept in the field until the war is over. Some may say, What is wrong with that? But I insist that that is not what the common people are fighting for, for the maintenance by private industry of a grip on our economy. Our people are concerned about a new economy in which they will have the opportunity, free from the restrictions of private profit, to produce an abundance of wealth and forthwith to share in that wealth.
In closing, let me say that some of us regret very much that into this budget debate there has come the old issue of tariffs and free trade. It has been introduced on the one hand by the Minister of Finance and on the other hand by the first speaker for the official opposition.
The Budget-Mr. Knowles

It causes some of us misgivings to feel that possibly when this war is over, our boys will come home to be handed once again the age-old political battle between these two groups. The point was very well put in a recent broadcast over the C.B.C. in which Mr. J. W. Dafoe, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, took part in which he made a statement something like this-I am paraphrasing it, but I think I have the sense of what he said: The trouble with the planners-and when the Winnipeg Free Press talks about "planners" it is usually talking about the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation-is that they aim at sharing what we have within our country on a subsistence basis. The trouble with the planners is that they do not realize or are not prepared to try to take advantage of the values to be had from foreign trade.
I say that that last charge is not correct; we are deeply concerned about the values to be had by foreign trade; but what we wish to point out to those who think like Mr. Dafoe, is that you can have a trade policy that will result in gains for Canada as a whole, but unless within the country you have some sort of planned economy, the common people will not profit from those gains from foreign trade. In other words, we believe that what is needed is a wise policy as far as foreign trade is concerned so that we shall reap the advantages to be had by an economic division of labour among the various quarters of the earth, and in addition an internal policy on the basis of a planned economy so that our people will share in the benefits to be gained from that foreign trade, as well as from our own production.
We in this group are sometimes accused of not being interested in the matter of trade. We are deeply interested. But we deplore the fact that those who are concerned primarily with tariff matters do not realize the importance of the other side of the picture, namely, the ways and means within our country whereby we can share the wealth we produce or gain by a wise trade policy.
I believe that the subamendment moved by this group expresses very well the views of the people of this country, particularly the workers and the farmers, with respect to the budget: first of all that there should be the nationalization of our banking system. We are able to follow the arguments of the Minister of Finance concerning the necessity of borrowing from the chartered banks, under the set-up that now exists. But we see no reason why this government, since it has supreme control over banking and monetary policy, should not nationalize the banks and 
then see to it that the amount of money we have to borrow to supplement savings and taxation is borrowed from our own banking system without mortgaging the future of this country in terms of heavy interest payments.
Second, our subamendment proposes-and I am sure it represents very clearly the views of our people-that there should have been provided increases in our social services, particularly larger payments to old age and blind pensioners and the other group I have talked about to-night, the widows of veterans of the last war, as well as the veterans themselves, of the last war and the present war.
Finally, with respect to the third part of our subamendment, evidence in support of which has already been given so well by other speakers of this group, we feel that the time has come to reverse the present trend in the direction of monopolistic control. We believe it is time we moved in the direction of more cooperative control, in the direction of the sharing by the people in the control of the economy of this country. In fact in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would say that we shall not have security in this land; we shall not play our part in making possible the century of the common man; we shall not achieve the things for which our people are fighting, until the control of the economy of this country is where it ought to be, in the hands of the common people, so that it may be made to serve their interests.


Hon. W. EARL ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to follow closely the speech delivered by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), but I could not help thinking that his remarks were rather far removed from the facts when he said the people of this country individually were not sharing in the general wealth and prosperity of Canada more than at any other period in our history.
It has been my privilege to sit in this house for many years, but never have I heard a budget speech presented during a period more difficult than that through which we are now passing. As I listen to the socialistic speeches of hon. members to my left, and those of the hon. members to my right who form the right wing of the government of the day, when they speak about the things that are to come after the war and the problems we may have to face when our boys return, I wonder if we sometimes forget that we are a nation at war; that we are struggling with our backs to the wall' to save not only our own country but all civilization and freedom. We talk about the four freedoms that will flourish when peace returns; yet we hesitate and hazard the main freedom that is at stake in time of war. I

The Budget-Mr. Rowe
listened to the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services (Mr. Macdonald) give his side of the controversy with the premier of Quebec or the members of the legislature of that province as to the number of boats sunk in the St. Lawrence.


Mr. MACDONALD (Kingston City):: It was not a controversy with the premier of Quebec.


William Earl Rowe: The hon. gentleman need not rise to interrupt me. The minister did not hesitate to deal with what was said by one who disagrees with him politically, but he was very careful not to repeat what was said by the premier of Quebec, who was absolutely in accord with the statements made in that province.


Angus Lewis Macdonald: I must correct my hon. friend. The premier of Quebec was not in accord with most of the remarks made by Mr. Gagnon.


William Earl Rowe: He may not be in accord with most of the words that were uttered, but he was in accord with the kernel of what was said, that in the province of Quebec and along the St. Lawrence river there were all sorts of trouble of which the people were not aware.


Mr. MACDONALD (Brantford City):: Did lie say so?


William Earl Rowe: Yes, he said so in the Quebec
legislature, as my hon. friend well knows.


William Ross Macdonald: I
do not know that.


William Earl Rowe: I do not want to get into
any controversy, but wre might as well face the facts. We have been playing politics in this country all along the line.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


William Earl Rowe: The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie), who applauds, should know better than anyone else, because no one plays politics more viciously than he does.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: I have the floor, Mr. Speaker. I do not interrupt my hon. friends when they make their political speeches; I do not interrupt the hon. member for Vancouver Centre who, though a minister of the crown, makes political speeches for the sake of the people of Vancouver. I am not trying to emphasize the number of boats that have been sunk in the St. Lawrence. The navy minister knows very well that I have not taken advantage of any information I may have obtained, that I have observed the etiquette which I believe an hon. member should observe in time of war.
I have not been in agreement with all that has been said, nor have I agreed with all the criticism in regard to boats sunk here or boats sunk there. I do not propose to tell Hitler anything if I can avoid doing so; I do not want to say that this boat was sunk at my back-door, or anything like that, but I do not intend to sit idly by and listen to a minister shield those of his own political faith while he tries to place the responsibility for everything upon the shoulders of those who normally are of a different brand of politics.


Angus Lewis Macdonald: I
am sure my hon. friend does not wish to be unfair, but the controversy between the Hon. Mr. Gagnon and myself arose as to the number of sinkings in the St. Lawrence. On that point the premier of Quebec made no statement whatever.


Mr. GRAYDON:: But he did with regard
to spies.


Angus Lewis Macdonald: He did not make any statement as to the number of ships sunk, but the Hon. Mr. Gagnon, a former colleague of my hon. friend1, did, and my hon. friend cannot escape responsibiilty now-


William Earl Rowe: I am not trying to escape
responsibility, nor am I going to let the minister escape responsibility.


Angus Lewis Macdonald: I
am not trying to. If your former colleague has the courage to come forward, we shall place the responsibility where it belongs.


William Earl Rowe: I want to tell the minister
that I have as much courage as he has; that I was here before he was, and that I may be here after he leaves. Knowing the astuteness of those in this house who are so careful of those who support them, I was rather amused at the way in which Mr. Godbout, premier of Quebec, was carefully protected in regard to anything he said concerning German spies being in the province of Quebec, telling the boats where to land and so on, while Mr Gagnon was chastised in this house because he said there were more than thirty boats sunk instead of twenty. I did not intend to mention this matter to-night. I am not saying how many boats were sunk, because I do not know and evidently the minister does not know either.


Angus Lewis Macdonald: Yes, I do.


William Earl Rowe: Perhaps Mr. Gagnon does not know; probably the premier of Quebec does not know. I mention this matter not to cause the minister any embarrassment but in order

The Budget-Mr. Rowe

to emphasize the fact that we are now passing through the most tragic, most difficult and most disastrous days Canada has ever experienced; yet during this debate we have heard hon. members to my left plead the cause of the fiddler at the Chateau Laurier and those to my right plead the cause of those who must have security without work when the war is over. All this time of war our boys are flying through dangerous mist and fog, fighting the battles to preserve our right to sit here. Surely it is time we stopped and looked at the signs which are apparent to us all. We are facing the most crucial days this nation has ever faced. This war has only begun. Why, Mr. Speaker, we have not won the battle of Africa ; we have not concluded the battle of the Mediterranean; we have not started into Europe. We failed to get into Dieppe and we boasted about getting out of Dunkirk.


William Ross Macdonald: We did not boast; we took justifiable pride in getting out.


William Earl Rowe: Oh, my hon. friend may take justifiable pride in being here representing Brantford City.


William Ross Macdonald: I do indeed.


William Earl Rowe: He may take justifiable pride in the fact that we got out of Dunkirk, but let us get down to the task that lies before us, the winning of this war. Let us forget about post-war problems for a moment. Let us win the war before we plan the peace. Let us plan for the boys who are fighting for us, while we are talking about some happy new form of security, something that may be used as a political catchword to appeal to the man on the street, something a little better than anyone has mentioned before.
I listened to the budget address with great interest. I have great admiration for the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley).


An hon. MEMBER:: Why?


William Earl Rowe: "Why?" somebody asks.
Because he is carrying a load my hon. friend may never carry; because he is trying to turn a people who are peace loving into a battling, fighting nation, to save this situation; because he is trying to raise five billions of dollars.


An hon. MEMBER:: Five and a half.


William Earl Rowe: Yes, five and a half billions of dollars. Half a billion does not matter much, when you get into those figures. I remember when I came to this house first, the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett and the Hon.

Hugh Guthrie were trying to carry out their duties, and at that time the Prime. Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), the late Mr. Lapointe and others stormed and fumed and worried when we got up to $400,000,000 in expenditures. But when we spend five and a half billion dollars, most of which is for fighting purposes, to save ourselves when we have our backs to the wall, not so much is said about it. In 1925 we would not have thought it possible.
I say the Minister of Finance has a gigantic problem. To him I give my utmost sympathy, and I give to him, as well, my cooperation; that is all he ever asks me for, and it is not a heavy burden on my part.
But, Mr. Speaker, I am amazed when I listen to the budget and realize the modesty with -which the budget impositions strike the people of Canada, and the tenseness with which news strikes the mothers of the boys who fight overseas. Oh, it is all very well to wipe fifty per cent off your income tax. It is all very well to say, We are not raising your taxes. It is all very well to have a budget which is lighter on the people than the budget of last year, despite the intensity of the war, the obligations which face us, and the task which lies before us greater than it ever was before. I am wondering whether it is the beginning of the end of this government. Surely the government would not plan an election budget in a time like this. If they have, then I want to compliment them upon having planned a very good one. I do not think they would be indulging in any such light gymnastics in a time of crisis. But it would take the cabinet working day and night for some time to think up a finer election budget than we have at the present time.
I will not go into details of it. However, I am rather amazed to find that our expenditures on civil and ordinary accounts are higher than they have ever been before- and at a time when they should have been lower. I realize that probably much of that increase might be correlated with indirect effects of the war. But when the people of Canada are struggling; when our people from the labouring man to the highly paid salary man are paying more income tax than any other people in the world, when we are facing a task such as we never faced before, then surely it is time we curtailed ordinary expenditures. Surely it is time we faced the task which lies before us. That task is the winning of the war.
No wonder our people are restless. No wonder they are discontented. No wonder they are worried whether we shall or whether

The Budget-Mr. Rowe
we shall not have an election. No doubt my hon. friends to my left will worry if we are to have one. Some of them will worry if we are not to have an election, because no doubt they can see the public growing more restless every day. And why are the people growing more restless? They are restless because, as I have said, we have in Canada the greatest national task which was ever placed before a Canadian people-and that greatest national task with the least possible planning. We have no plan. We have no plan for our armed forces. If the hon. member for Brantford City (Mr. Macdonald) wishes to interrupt me I should like him to tell me if the government have sufficient reinforcements for this spearhead that they boast about, which will face the hun in Europe.


William Ross Macdonald: I have no doubt we have sufficient reinforcements, and Canada will have no doubt about it.


William Earl Rowe: All I can say to my hon. friend is that he should be thankful to have such confidence with so little reason. Because surely my hon. friend, as a military man, knows that when there are not more than twelve per cent reinforcements in England for the Canadian corps to reinforce what will be the spearhead-surely there is nothing to boast about. The government have no military plan. They have no plan for production. The government know it, and so does every member of the cabinet. Probably that is why they are all out now, with the exception of one.


William Ross Macdonald: My hon. friend has asked a question and he has answered it himself. He says that we have only twelve per cent reinforcements. All I will say is that he is incorrect, and that our reinforcements are ample, as he will soon learn.


William Earl Rowe: Mr. Speaker, if you will observe, that is a very vague answer. If I were not a farmer, and if I were a lawyer like him, I could make a better answer than that, because he does not give the number. I have found out from the very best military authority I can find, that we have less than ten per cent. I said twelve per cent so that I would not be lower.


Mr. McNIVEN:: Would Hitler not like to know the truth?


William Earl Rowe: V es, and the people want to know that, too.


Donald Alexander McNiven: But Hitler-and I am not going to tell him.	.
72537-76i


William Earl Rowe: This is the type of interjection from people who evidently know less about the matter than I know myself. They are not very impressive in the house, and less impressive to the mothers of the boys over there who will fight this battle.


William Ross Macdonald: Why break down confidence?


William Earl Rowe: I am not breaking down confidence. Why don't you build up confidence? Why don't you build up confidence, to have Canada know what you know as a military man, what is needed in this country, when we are facing the foe.


William Ross Macdonald: They are building it up, in spite of what you are doing.


William Earl Rowe: They are building it up in
spite of what you are doing. You are building it up by the most haphazard, piece-quilted, slap-dash methods any government ever approached a problem. I am asking you: Can you tell me now what your man-power policy is? You cannot say what your agricultural policy is, or your military policy. The world knows it is the most hypocritical expression of Canadian sentiment we have ever known. Your government has started-


William Ross Macdonald: If
my hon. friend is asking me these questions I should be allowed to answer them. I cannot answer unless I am given the opportunity. I can assure him these questions will all be answered, but it will take more than just a sentence to answer them.


William Earl Rowe: My hon. friend wants to answer them by telling me they will be answered in due course by someone who can answer them better than he can. In its war policy and on its war plan the government has started too late. Our farmers produce at less than cost, but our manufacturers of munitions and supply produce at cost plus ten per cent.


Mr. McLARTY:: Not ten per cent.


William Earl Rowe: No. Some of them get
twenty per cent; some get twenty-five per cent and some get more.


Norman Alexander McLarty: Let us keep the record
straight.


William Earl Rowe: If this answer is not any better than I have heard before, I shall have to use my own judgment to see whether it helps the record.


Norman Alexander McLarty: Let us keep the record
straight. My hon. friend does not suggest ten per cent, fifteen per cent, twenty per cent and twenty-five per cent? I know he does not
The Budget-Mr. Rowe

mean to suggest that. The profits on manufactured goods going into the war contracts are much less than that, and he knows it. There is no use in becoming hysterical about them. Let us deal with the facts, and deal with the fair facts. I think he. will agree that his statement is a definite exaggeration.


William Earl Rowe: Well, I do not know that the minister has added a great deal. I assume the minister, realizing that I am a farmer, knows that no farmer in Canada has ten per cent. I was speaking on behalf of the farmers who hare worked longer for less than any other class of people in this country. Nobody knows better than he that friends of his government have received not only ten per cent, but some have received one hundred per cent in the last year or two.


William Ross Macdonald: Name one.


William Earl Rowe: You have not named anything yet to-night, so that you might as well keep your seat.


Norman Alexander McLarty: Just in case silence may be thought to indicate consent, I wish to say that I now contradict that statement that my hon. friend has made.


William Earl Rowe: Go ahead; you have lots of time.


William Ross Macdonald: Go on; let us have your speech.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about Churchill?


William Earl Rowe: I am not speaking for
Churchill, and neither is Churchill speaking for Canada.


Angus Lewis Macdonald: He spoke a word for Canada the other day.


William Earl Rowe: That is the first time I have seen the government setting up Mr. Churchill to speak for them. Talk about the sovereignty and independence of Canada! I want to say that following this war it will not be Churchill who will be held responsible; it will be the minister and the government. They are the people who will be held responsible. After nil, if we are thinking of this great Canada as an independent and sovereign state, we had better speak for ourselves and not rely on the haphazard complimentary laurels of Churchill or the facetiousness of Roosevelt. I realize that the government is quite glad at a time when they are a little doubtful about themselves to have a statement made such as the one Mr. Churchill made the other day. But I suggest that you cannot fight next year's battle with last year's requirements. We are facing the greatest battle that this country has ever faced.
VMr. McLarty.]
My hon. friend talks about how much the people have made in this war. I can take him through the country which he has not had the time to go through; I can take him into parts of my own district, and I think I can take him into parts of his own district and show him farmers who are paying three times as much for their labour to-day as they paid before the war. I can show him farmers who are making less money to-day than they made before the war. I can show him farmers whose little sons of fifteen and sixteen years of age are earning more money, working for men who have war contracts on a cost plus ten per cent basis, than their fathers on 150 acres of land.
Yet we speak of equality of service when there are provinces where thirty-two to thirty-nine per cent of the population have enlisted in the services as compared with nine and five per cent in other districts. Then we pull out the old bogey of national unity. You had better put alongside its old stablemate of equality of service. Let us face the facts. Let us face them as they should be faced by the Canadian people. Have you some mysterious formula by which you can encourage the farmers by patting them on the back, by saying they have been the backbone of Canada since confederation? Are we to tell the farmer, you are the type of man who will fight; you are the type of man who will work; you are the type of man who will toil from the early hours of the morning to the last dark hours of the night; you do not need a profit because of your love of service to the empire; you will do it anyway. Then you go down the line and you find a munitions manufacturer who has been given a cost-plus profit. We tell the farmer that we will select the men who will fix his prices; that we will make sure that none of his representatives is on the board; that we will fix prices so that when cattle are highest he will be encouraged to buy them, and then when we know that they are ready for market we will say they have dropped three and a half cents a pound. We will play to the consumers' market and we will tell them, we will give you a cost-of-living bonus.
This has been the most muddled policy that has ever been used in connection with any problem. What does our agricultural policy consist of? It is simply a conglomeration of ceiling prices and ration cards. It is simply telling the consumer, We are trying to make you buy less; we want you to eat less, and then telling the producer, We want you to produce more even though at less profit. I doubt if there is a member within sound of my voice, even the more socialistic members

The Budget-Mr. Rowe
to my left, who would attempt to condemn too vigorously the price ceiling. There are many who believe that there is some mythical or mysterious way in which we can maintain the solvency of Canada for the years to come.
I have grave doubts whether the panacea or the medical treatment we are being Gordonized with in this country is not worse than the disease itself. I cannot help thinking that the people whom this will help the most are those who will be clipping the most coupons in the years to come. I am not so sure but that the fear of inflation is causing more harm in this country than a degree of inflation itself. I see my hon. friend, the Minister of Agriculture, is here.


James Garfield Gardiner: He has been here all the time.


William Earl Rowe: I knew he was here. I do not know whether he will agree with me. He seldom does-


Mr. DONNELLY:: He is wise.


William Earl Rowe: He is wise, my hon. friend says. I would not like to say what I might say. The minister is an astute politician but a poor agriculturist in times like this. I remember his speech in 1939 when he told us we would have plenty of pork, and now I observe his speeches when he says that there must be rationing. I remember when he said that we would have so much production that we would not know what to do with it, and now we have rationing. I remember when he bonused the farmers of western Canada not to grow wheat, to grow mixed grains instead. I recall also how he bonused the western farmers eight cents a bushel over the farmers of eastern Canada in order to enable them to produce mixed farm products at a profit in competition. Probably in the over-all performance it will serve a good end.
We talk about national unity; yet we practise all sorts of sectional policies. I am holding no brief against the farmers of western Canada because they have not as much as they might have, but I urge the Minister of Agriculture not to forget entirely that there are some farmers in eastern Canada, in Quebec and Ontario. The minister is two years behind with his agricultural policy. I remember saying to him when he was sitting in his own seat-I notice he is moving further back all the time-that this country would be faced with a food crisis before many years. I well recall when he came into this house first he laughed at me and said that western Canada would be the grain basket, the flour basket, or the bread basket of the world for years to come.


James Garfield Gardiner: He is still laughing at you.


William Earl Rowe: Yes; he is still laughing at me, but he who laughs last laughs best. And your particular basket is so full it is running over, and now you have become accustomed to it running over, but you do not know what to do with the surplus wheat. You have produced more wheat, it is true, than we did in those years, but the fiasco of price ceilings as far as agriculture is concerned has been the joke of the North American continent. My hon. friends who sit to my left have talked since 1911 on the theme of dollar market prospects. I remember it coming up in 1911, at the first political meeting I ever attended. I drove a number of people to the meeting for my father, who saw a chance to defeat the Liberal government.


Mr. WOOD:: Just go back to 1932 and tell us about that.


William Earl Rowe: Probably my hon. friend cannot go any further back than that, but I remember the speeches which were made in 1911, and how they pleaded with the farmers of Canada.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: "No truck or trade with the Yankees."


William Earl Rowe: The hon. member for York North (Mr. Mulock) was young at that time, and he is young yet. I remember how they talked at that time about what the farmers-of Canada would be able to do if the great markets of the United States of America were' opened up to them.


Mr. BERTRAND (Laurier):: They were.
Mr. ROWE; They were, and they were closed to you so fast that it made you dizzy. They were closed in 1922, and again in 1928, and in 1929. My hon. friends pictured to the farmers all over this dominion what a great haven of possibilities the United States market would be, how you could sell your fat cattle from western Canada over there.


James J. Donnelly: Hear, hear.
Mr. ROWE; My hon. friend says "hear, hear". Yet you named a corporation recently when you had the market open to you, and under this policy, even though they want our stock, our feeding cattle and fat cattle will sell for three cents a pound less on Canadian markets than in the United States. Rather than let the farmer get that extra price, you establish a stabilization fund and buy the stock yourselves. What is the idea? Is the farmer of Canada the forgotten man?
The Budget-Mr. Rowe


James Garfield Gardiner: A year ago the hon. member was shouting about there being no beef in Toronto.


William Earl Rowe: Yes, I was, and since then there was no beef in Toronto.


James Garfield Gardiner: That was because it was going to the States.


William Earl Rowe: And you sent your representatives to buy beef, and I should like you to tell this house how much money they made on the beef they bought and how much they kept from the farmers of this country.


Richard Burpee Hanson: And what class of beef they bought.


William Earl Rowe: Yes, what type of beef they bought. There are scores of obvious reasons why the farmers of Canada are dissatisfied. There are scores of reasons which lead them to believe they are not only the forgotten men but the persecuted men of this war economy. I have heard a great deal of talk to the effect that farmers' sons are not engaging in this struggle, but I will venture to say that there is as great a percentage of farmers' sons fighting our battle overseas as any other class of the Canadian people.


William Ross Macdonald: Whoever said that farmers' sons were not taking part in the war?


William Earl Rowe: My hon. friend is neither a farmer nor the son of a farmer, and I do not know why I should charge him with making a statement like that. He makes so many other statements which are inconsequential that I would not charge that one to him.
But our man-power planning has been a fiasco. It has been the monument of error of this government. Nobody knows that better than the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) whom I see across the floor. No wonder that Mr, Elliott Little, ex-chief of the selective service of this country, has quit. Who would not quit? I was amazed he stayed on as long as he did. Why should he be expected to stay to direct the man-power of Canada when the government for which he was working had no man-power policy? If they had a man-pow7er policy would they have let ten thousand men go over to the United States to find employment in the same kind of work in which our labour force was thirty per cent short in Canada?


Humphrey Mitchell: I should like to ask the hon. member where those ten thousand men went.


William Earl Rowe: The hon. gentleman knows the answer so well that it would needlessly take

up my time and the time of the house to tell him. He has admitted that 3,500 went over, and he admitted there were others whom he did not know anything about.


Humphrey Mitchell: If all the remarks of my hon. friend are as correct as that, there is not much to be said for his figures.


William Earl Rowe: If my remarks are no better
than the adequacy of the minister's labour policy, the house would be foolish to listen to me very long. The government have no labour policy. They have no man-power policy. There is a policy which says in effect, in one district we will call all the farmers up, but not in another district; if your boys are loyal and courageous enough to enlist and volunteer, we will take them whether the farmer is crippled or not. I have in my mail to-day-there is no use in handing it to the government because they must be swamped with such letters from all over the dominion- a letter from a man seventy years of age, with 200 acres of land. The hon. member for York North (Mr. Mulock) laughs, but I can tell the Postmaster General from what I know of the people of his constituency that he had better get back to York North and talk to the farmers if he expects ever to be returned to this house, because he knows very well that nobody has neglected their interests more than he has. They know that old farmers, tottering almost to the grave, have no other help than that of their wives and daughters. As a farmer wrote to me to-day, "I am seventy years of age; I was in bed for six months; my two sons are overseas; I have got a little girl thirteen years of age and my wife milking fourteen cows. Is there any chance of getting one of these boys back?" If we had a man-power policy; if we were facing this war courageously, facing it as a national problem, do you mean to tell me that we would not be able to let these boys know not only where they could not go but where they should go? I can tell my hon. friends of farmers in my own district who have four sons on 100 acres of land and none of the boys are in the war. What type of haphazard policy is this? How are you going to meet this crisis? We shall meet it if Russia stands for a while, and if old Britain and the United States of America, who have not hesitated, who have not rested on the laurels of a great production of guns and tanks and material things, but who have paid with their lifeblood for our glory, will continue to do so- we shall meet it then. But I shudder to think of what will happen if my right hon. friend the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and my hon. friend the Minister of

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National Defence (Mr. Ralston) are right in telling us that we are about to face the greatest battles which we have ever faced, and that our brave boys in Europe are to be the spearhead of this great and gallant task. If that is so, I say that the responsibility of having these boys assured before they go over the top that we have reinforcements behind them does not rest with the Churchill statement; it rests with the government of Canada; it rests with us, the parliament of Canada. Do not make any mistake about that. If, as the military people tell us, we are going to suffer casualties as high as seventy per cent, we shall hang our heads in shame if we find that we can replace them only to the extent of ten or twelve per cent. The hon. member for Brantford City says he knows the provision is ample, but he will not tell us the percentage.


An hon. MEMBER:: He does not know.


William Earl Rowe: If he says it is more than
ten per cent, I should like him to rise. If he says that it is twenty per cent, I should like him to rise. He will rise and nod his head in doubtful consent, but he does not know, for I have often seen him rise before when he did not know.
We have heard a great deal about all our post-war policies. I do not intend to deal further at this time with our agricultural problems. I should know something about agriculture. I do not know as much about it as I should, but even that is more than the hon. member for Brantford City professes to know except at election time.


William Ross Macdonald: I have never set myself up as an agricultural expert.


William Earl Rowe: I should hope not from now on.
We have listened to a great deal of talk on post-war planning. As I listened, I thought of the farmers in my own district, and the same is true of many other districts in Canada, who are struggling to make a living and paying three times as much in wages as they were paying before the war, who are making no profits and have mortgages still hanging darkly over their heads, whose wives are working on the farm and wrecking their health, who themselves have to work so hard and long that many of them have to go to bed with a heart condition while their sons are fighting overseas. It is difficult for them to understand why the government places a ceiling price on what they have to sell and charges them three times as much for what they have to buy.
We have heard a great deal about post-war planning and a lot of social security dreaming. It is about time that we paused and started to study present-war planning rather than post-war security. It is about time that we hesitated to dream of security at a moment when this nation is on fire. There are plenty of post-war possibilities. Hon. gentlemen to my left say that the old order must go. Perhaps. But many brighter men than they are, thought that long ago. As I read history -I do not get much time to read it-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: Perhaps the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services (Mr. Macdonald) has had more time to read history because he has left a lot of other things undone, but as I read history I recall that in 1782 William Pitt said that he saw nothing but ruin and depression in front of him. A little later on, Wilberforce said that he had met a girl whom he loved and would like to marry, but he never would while the future was so dark and uncertain. I recall that in 1839 Lord Elgin said that everything tended toward revolution and that in 1846 Disraeli saw no hope ahead for industry, commerce or agriculture. I recall that when Wellington was dying in 1852 he said that he was glad he was passing on before the ruin of depression gathered around him.
My hon. friends to my left have new ideas, but let me say to them that if we would only face the task that lies before us the future is not quite so dark. They have new plans. They want security so that those who are healthy will never be sick and those who are sick will be made well again, security for the people whether they want to work or not, security for those who even want to play as well as work. But let me say to them that under our present system of democracy, which is to disappear when their regime comes in-


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Oh, no.


William Earl Rowe: I have read your booklets and I realize that under your plans the whole present system must be changed. I even might expect to be working for some of those fellows in agriculture if their dreams came true. But I say, Mr. Speaker, that under our present system we have not done so badly. Let us look back to 1900. I do not give all the credit for what has happened since, to the Liberal party. After all, in their policies there has been some sense and soundness mingled with a lot of errors. Under our democratic form of government on the North American continent we have made progress
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since 1900, greater progress than has been made anywhere else. In 1900 only one out of a hundred on the North American continent hadi a buggy to drive. When this war started one out of five had an automobile.


An hon. MEMBER:: They haven't now.


William Earl Rowe: In 1900 our people had only eighty-six dollars per capita invested in life insurance; to-day they have $600 per capita, almost eight times as much. Therefore, I say to my hon. friends to the left, set about to improve the old system, or in better words of another, lop the mouldered branch away, before you attempt to cut down the tree that has sheltered you and under which you have prospered enough to be here, happy but discontented.


Mr. PIERRE GAUTHIER (Portneuf):: Mr. Speaker, having just heard a speech in the language of Shakespeare, you will have no objection, I am sure, to my using for a few minutes Racine's idiom and affording thereby some rest to your ears.
Mr. Speaker, I have noticed in the speech from the throne that was read in the house- a speech on which we should have liked a vote to be taken although for one reason or another that has been impossible-that the government have taken election precautions probably to lessen the impact from the budget which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) has recently introduced with such a high degree of courage. We note in the speech from the throne many precautionary measures intended for the electors not only of the dominion but especially of certain provinces, such as the appointment of a committee on post-war reconstruction and reestablishment, a national social security programme, including social insurance and even health insurance, which matters will all be investigated by committees whose work may not have been completed before the end of the session. Just the same, appearances shall have been kept up and if I may borrow a phrase from the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot), a twig from the Christmas tree has even been included, as a scrap of comfort, when the 1938 dish was rehashed and the appointment of parliamentary secretaries was mentioned again. I realize that in order to make us swallow the budget recently introduced some kind of a sop was necessary and I also realize that, in view of the stand of certain provinces with Liberal leanings such as Saskatchewan and Ontario, which will soon have reached the end of the term of office, a chance had to be given to provincial followers, where, should the occasion arise, an election

would probably be held. As regards the province of Quebec, those who have read the speech from the throne know where they stand and in all probability the Liberal party in Quebec will sacrifice itself and will be the first to take the plunge in order to show to the dominion Liberal government how risky it is at this time to face the electors.
Much has been said about farmers' sons since the beginning of this session, and indeed since the outbreak of war. I remember that motions calling for the exemption of farmers' sons have either been ruled out of order or voted down by the majority.
I do not doubt for a moment the sincerity of the hon. members who derived great satisfaction from these motions being declared out of order nor their sincerity in voting against the motion calling for exemption in favour of farmers' sons, nevertheless, one may well -wonder if at the present time, had the government given more consideration to these requests in favour of farmers' sons, we would be facing such distressing problems concerning farm labour in Canada generally. Only last night, I heard the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) showing how the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) made contradictory statements, one to the effect that there need be no fear of any farm labour shortage while the other worried about this same shortage. One thing stands out, however, and that is a lack of cohesion, a lack of cooperation between the departments of government and I recall the speech made on March 24, 1942, in this house by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), which appears on page 1562 of Hansard, which I quote:
The production of food in war time is one of the most essential tasks. To the extent that food is produced for Britain or other allied countries, or for Canada's own fighting men, it is a direct war service. If this aspect of Canada's total effort is not to suffer, the manpower required for food production must be kept available.
And I find on page 1567 that the Prime Minister also stated:
One of the man-power problems with which the country is faced is the growing shortage of agricultural labour.
What must we think, Mr. Speaker, of such statements? Everybody admits that thousands of farmers' sons are still in the army, that thousands of others had to remain there two, three, four and even six months, before being released. And during all that time farm work remained undone; those who did not have the money required for the hiring

The Budget-Mr. Gauthier
of hands had to leave their crops on the fields to spoil under the snow. A certain amount of wheat remained under the snow, as the hon. member for Bow River stated last night. An appropriate policy regarding farmers' sons would have prevented such a shortage of labour. I do not deny, Mr. Speaker, that it is honourable and praiseworthy to show as much courage and intrepidity as the farmers' sons who have enlisted voluntarily for Overseas service. On March 24, 1942, the Right Hon. Prime Minister stated, as reported on Hansard, page 1657:
Voluntary enlistment of farmers and agricultural workers in the army, the navy and air forces will continue to be encouraged. It is felt that the privilege of serving voluntarily in the armed forces should not be completely denied to a whole class of the community, however important may be the service its members are at present performing.
At different times, the government has announced, both in this house and in party newspapers, that farmers' sons would be exempted from military service, and the Prime Minister stated that voluntary enlistment of farmers' sons must be encouraged. I wonder, -and everyone is entitled to wonder-whether the government policy calls for leaving on the farms all the help needed. If agriculture ceases to produce, our soldiers overseas will have to go hungry. It is all very well to say that farmers' sons who have enlisted will be replaced by women, prisoners of war, Japanese or invalids. Even students have been put to work; such was the case last summer and such it will be again. But, Mr. Speaker, the farms need trained hands and nimble brains to accomplish the tasks necessary to produce all we need in a time of war not only for civilian consumers, but for the armed forces as well. In my opinion, the government's farm policy has proven wholly inadequate, completely lacking in both cooperation and coordination.
It may be thought that we too often dwell on this matter. Yet, we have every right to do so, indeed it is our duty to do so, since our repeated warnings to the government both inside and outside this house have ostensibly given them time to consider and adopt an adequate policy with respect to the people and the war effort.
Mr. Speaker, when a member of the Bloc Populaire or of any other opposition group from the province of Quebec rises to address this chamber, I understand how one might become fidgety and hark back to the example of France that owed her tragic fate to the large number of her political parties. I do not claim, neither have I the right to do so under
the rules of this house, that when the Prime Minister referred to the unduly large number of political parties in this country, he was merely trying to advance his own fortunes. I do not claim either that the Prime Minister views with alarm the establishment of opposition parties through which his personal desire to remain at the helm might find its Waterloo. The rules of the house prevent me from saying so. Anyone who asserts, giving France as an example, that the establishing of a large number of parties would be detrimental to the country, seems to be unfamiliar with history. Or could it be that the rise of too great a number of opposition groups from the province of Quebec is particularly irritating in certain quarters?
Anyone familiar with the causes of the downfall of France knows that her fate was not due to the multiplicity of her political parties but' rather to the manifold international interests which weakened her and prevented Germany from paying off the full amount of the reparations due; which allowed the demilitarisation of the Ruhr and subsidized the electoral campaigns of certain French politicians. These, and not the unduly large number of her political parties really brought about the downfall of France. Any comparison between France and Canada must needs be unsatisfactory. I repeat there is a pretense at being unfamiliar with international history.
The hon. member for Gaspe (Mr. Roy) made an inquiry regarding a resolution which came to me from the city of Three Rivers. If I may refer to the subject, without incurring the hon. member's displeasure, the resolution reads as follows:
To the Right Honourable William Lyon
Mackenzie King,
Prime Minister of Canada,
Ottawa, Ontario.
Whereas the present butter ration is wholly inadequate to the war worker who takes his lunch to the factory; and
Whereas such ration, in addition to being inadequate, is calculated to cause serious prejudice to the worker's war effort; and
Whereas so harsh a measure obviously discriminates between those who are in a position to abide by it and others which it too severely affects;
Be it therefore resolved that the dominion government be respectfully requested to do everything in its power to improve the untenable situation in which the Canadian worker now finds himself through the action of the wartime prices and trade board, and to impress upon the board the urgency of giving full priority to the needs of our workers engaged in this country's war production by requesting that they increase the ration of essential commodities granted these men, particularly their butter ration.
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This resolution, Mr. Speaker, is selfexplanatory. And notwithstanding the reply given this afternoon to the hon. member for Gaspe, I cannot understand that the workers, whether employed in our war plants or in our mines, at any rate, all those who must carry their meals with them, who have no time to return to 'their homes either at noon or in the evening, these need a more substantial butter ration than office workers who take their meals at home or in a restaurant.
I hope that the provincial treasurer and the government will reconsider this decision and that employees of all classes will be allowed more butter for their meals.
The sinking of ships in both the river and the gulf of St. Lawrence has been the cause of quite a controversy. It is neither my duty nor my intention to stand in this house for the member for Matane, the hon. Mr. Gagnon nor is it my intention to take the defence of the provincial government; far from it. It does seem to me, however, that this government should have listened to the claims and the warnings, though mild they may have been, that we have expressed in this house and elsewhere since 1937. They should also have devoted their attention primarily to the defence of this country. I admit that different theories have been expounded in this house to the effect that we should go to meet the enemy wherever he may be rather than have him attack our shores. To this I have replied recently that the same principle applies to all countries and not only to Canada. I understand also that the government only acted under pressure from total-war men since the start of the war. I also fully realize that they may have somewhat forgotten to give the St. Lawrence gulf and even the river the appropriate defence they deserved. It was, however, most important that they send soldiers overseas. That was urgent. Food had also to be sent. I have shown, a few moments ago, that not only had they forgotten steps to defend the country and the St. Lawrence shores, but they had ignored agriculture as well. This controversy had originated from statements made by two members of the Quebec legislature which had been referred to in this house. I am not concerned with the number of ships sunk either in the gulf or St. Lawrence river, but one thing is certain-I say it without any intention of giving out information that may be helpful to the enemy-if adequate defence works had been provided, if the government had been interested first of all in the defence of our country, we would not have to- announce sinkings in the gulf and St. Lawrence river.

Indeed, those who are conversant with existing conditions, who know where enemy ships and submarines enter, also know that protection against the entry of these enemy ships would be a relatively easy matter.
Mr. Speaker, while discussing the increase in military appropriations, in 1937-


Mr. DUPUIS:: Has the hon. member voted in favour of these appropriations?


Pierre Gauthier: I have voted in favour of a part of them, but I was the first to propose an amendment, with the support of another hon. member representing a Quebec constituency. We requested that a certain appropriation be decreased. Three other similar amendments were also proposed.


Vincent Dupuis: The hon. member's friends, for their part, cast their votes for the national defence appropriations.


Pierre Gauthier: We have voted in favour of a number of appropriations, while insisting that others be decreased, because, as we stated, the government policy was not merely concerned with the defence of Canada, but with that of the empire at large. In support of our claims we referred to a statement of Hore-Belisha who, at a banquet held in London, at that time had said that a colonial defence policy could not be considered within the empire, but that the defence of the empire should come first. The hon. member must remember this.


Vincent Dupuis: And since that time he has been out of the cabinet.


Pierre Gauthier: It does not matter whether he has left the cabinet or not. There are so many who wish to enter it.


Vincent Dupuis: That is why my hon. friend now sits on the other side of the house.


Pierre Gauthier: I never asked or expected it. I am here because I am not like my hon. friend who has broken his pledges and his word.


Vincent Dupuis: That is impossible!


Pierre Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I hope my hon. friend will keep quiet.
In 1938 and 1939 we have raised the same objections, always urging the government to give particular attention to the defence of our country. We were then against participation in outside wars. On account of that stand, we were well supported by our electors in the by-elections of 1937 and 1938, and we have enjoyed such support for twenty years, as my hon. friend from Chambly-Rouville no doubt remembers. We were not campaigning alone, we had the help of men who were eloquent

The Budget-Mr. Gauthier
speakers, we were helped by outstanding men whose views were similar to our own. Conditions have changed, we were told, when we spoke against participation. We are told, in this house one year after: How can we participate in a war and do it on a moderate scale? That is the only consideration we have received for having believed what we were told. Mr. Speaker, we have to a certain extent accepted participation in outside wars but under the solemn pledge that conscription would never be enforced in this country. However, the government had a conscription act passed last year.


Vincent Dupuis: It has not yet been enforced.


Pierre Gauthier: Let my hon. friend be patient.


Vincent Dupuis: I say that it has not been enforced.


Pierre Gauthier: If my hon. friend were willing to look into the situation he would find that a 25-year-old physician, who is a married man has been called for military service under the National Resources Mobilization Act; the only thing this young physician can do is either to serve as a private within the country under the Mobilization Act or to volunteer, for overseas service. That is a splendid voluntary system. I could mention, as I have already done in this house, some of the means to which- the government have resorted in order to obtain the men they need to bring the army up to strength.
I am glad my honourable friend interrupted me. He has reminded me of something. When I voted for the National Resources Mobilization Act, I thought that the government intended to use it merely to call up men for service within this countiy, but I found out the other day, during the debate on the subamendment moved by the honourable member for Richelieu-Vercheres that the government had another objective and another intention. In reply to the hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres the Prime Minister had this to say in connection with the suspension of the Mobilization Act. I quote from page 558 of Hansard, February 19, 1943:
Those men who are a long distance from home, who are helping to protect this country and to save it from disaster, would be asking themselves: Is this the kind of support we are getting from our country and from our government? Is our parliament going to support that kind of action? Does it mean that while we are fighting here we are not going to get the reinforcements that we had hoped would he ready to come, if they were necessary?
In what manner would suspension of the Mobilization Act hinder reinforcements going
to our active army if that act had applied to service in this country only?


Vincent Dupuis: Will my hon. friend allow me-


Pierre Gauthier: Let my hon. friend not interrupt.


Vincent Dupuis: If my hon. friend will allow me, I will answer him immediately.


Pierre Gauthier: I ask my hon. friend-


Vincent Dupuis: Is the hon. member afraid?


Pierre Gauthier: When the Prime Minister in reply to the hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres (Mr. Cardin) said: "Where will those men get reinforcements if we suspend the operation of the National Resources Mobilization Act?"


Vincent Dupuis: My hon. friend does not wish me to answer?


Pierre Gauthier: One minute. What impatience! How can you say that the Mobilization Act was for service only in this country when it was the intention of the government to reinforce the depleted ranks abroad. A mobilization act for this country, for this country only, and intended to fill the gaps in an army overseas. Such is the measure of voluntary enlistment favoured by the government according to the Prime Minister's own words in this house.


Vincent Dupuis: Draftees allow those who have voluntarily enlisted to go overseas. They take their place. That is the situation.


Pierre Gauthier: Is that all that the hon. member has to offer for an answer?


Vincent Dupuis: Certainly.


Pierre Gauthier: I put a case to the hon. member just now. He made no reply. I will give you another method, besides that of the Mobilization Act as adopted by this house, used for compelling our citizens into overseas service. The heads of families seeking employment in the different departments must obtain a release from the army. Such is the voluntary system. What does the hon. member think when he says: Wait, the measure is not yet in force? My hon. friend comes from Montreal and I see other hon. members who also come from Montreal. I have yet to hear any protest voiced regarding the port of Montreal, but last year that port and the St. Lawrence river were almost empty of ships.
I humbly submit that an adequate coastal defence would have facilitated traffic up the St. Lawrence and the bringing up of supplies to the port of Montreal, whereas part of that
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harbour's business is being carried by rail to eastern ports. I am waiting to hear any protests from the hon. member on this point.


Vincent Dupuis: Had the Bloc Populaire voted for that in 1937, the harbour of Montreal would be better protected.


Pierre Gauthier: Let my hon. friend possess his soul in patience. He will feel the Bloc sooner than he expects.
I enquired the other day, Mr. Speaker, about broadcasts and put the following question to the government:
Is the dominion government responsible for, or author of the sketch "Our Canada" broadcast over the French network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?
And the government replied:
"Our Canada" is a programme of the national war finance committee broadcast over a French network.
While listening to that programme one evening, I realized that the government, as stated in the fourth answer, besides giving a translation of Colin Ross' book, had seized the opportunity to advertise the speeches of the Prime Minister. The sponsor said before the opening of the programme: "It is an absolute truth which we must swallow if we are to be immune from dangerous suggestions, as our Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) stated last week in the House of Commons when he said that he did not think that we can too strongly dwell on the gravity of the present situation and on the effort we shall be called upon to make. He wished to caution the people of Canada and the members of parliament against such a thought, and added that it would be dangerous to believe that the war can be won this year as no attempt had yet been made at invasion of the continent."
And a few minutes later, in the programme "Notre Canada", some noted and talented actors were reporting that the continent had been invaded and that the Germans were having trouble with the people of a certain village.


Vincent Dupuis: My hon. friend is himself making propaganda in favour of the government.


Pierre Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would like hon. members to be a little more polite.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order I Order! If the hon. member for Chambly-Rouville (Mr. Dupuis) wishes to ask questions of the hon. member who has the

floor, he must ask his permission and if that permission is not granted he should let him speak without interruption.


Pierre Gauthier: My hon. friend from Chambly-Rouville is annoying me. Not that his questions are dangerous. Nor is he himself for that matter.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order! I would ask the hon. member for Portneuf to restrain his language.


Pierre Gauthier: Then let him tone down his own.


Vincent Dupuis: The hon. member is making propaganda in favour of the Liberal government.	.


Pierre Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the government to use a little more tact in outlining its policies and to refrain from spending public funds on government propaganda, although I do not mean to object to war propaganda as part of the government's policy.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I again refer to the creation and existence of several political parties in Canada and I know that our people, not only in the province of Quebec but in the whole of Canada will, at the proper time and place, recognize on the one hand those who have been frank, who kept their word, showed themselves honourable men, honourable statesmen and kept their pledges to the taxpayers and, on the other hand, those who miserably and woefully failed to do so.
On motion of Mr. Gray the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie (Vancouver Centre) the house adjourned at 1055 p.m.
Friday, March 12, 1943