1943-07-08

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Sixth report of standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.-Mr. Donnelly.

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Hon. CYRUS MACMILLAN (Queens) presented the second report of special committee on social security, and moved:
That the second report of the special committee on social security, presented this day, asking for leave to sit while the house is sitting, he concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


Hon. T. A. CRERAR (Minister of Mines and Resources):: I wish to lay on the table the report of the investigations into New Brunswick oil shales which were conducted by the mines and geology branch of the Department of Mines and Resources.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Will a copy of this
report be sent to each member?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The report was made just a short time ago, and I am tabling it.


Mr. GRAYDON:: The hon. member is asking whether copies will be available.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: We have only two or three copies, and it is a voluminous report. I suppose I could have additional copies made. I shall make inquiry and advise my hon. friend.



PRIVATE BILLS


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Bill No. 120. for the relief of Ethel Wend-man Lebenstein.-Mr. Boucher.
Bill No. 121. for the relief of John Preble Macintosh.-Mr. Abbott.
Bill No. 122, for the relief of Sonia Liben-stein Kolber.-Mr. Whitman.
Bill No. 123, for the relief of Gilberte Piche Ouimet.-Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City).
Bill No. 124, for the relief of Irene Maud Pardellian Wright.-Mr. Maclnnis.

Bill No. 125, for the relief of May Gertrude Russell McCarthy.-Mr. Hill.
Bill No. 126, for the relief of Geraldine Charlotte Wrangel.-Mr. Abbott.

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

Mr. MacINNIS:: What was the total production of gold, in ounces, for each year from 1930 to 1942?


Mr. MacKINNON (Edmonton West):: Production of Gold in Canada, 1630-1942
Year	Fine ounces
1930		 2,102,068
1931		 2,693,892
1932		 3,044,387
1933		 2,949,309
1934		 2,972.074
1935		 3,284,890
1936		 3,748,028
1937		 4,096,213
1938		 4,725,117
1939		 5,094,379
1940		 5,311,145
1941		 5,345,179
1942*	 4,829,815
* Subject to revision.


LEAGUE OF NATIONS
Mr. HANSELL:: 1.	Is there a membership fee paid to the league of nations, and if so, what was the fee paid by Canada for each year during which Canada held membership?
2.	What was the total amount paid by Canada for the years 1932 to 1942 on account of the league of nations?
3.	How much of' this was chargeable to the international labour organization?


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: 1.	There is no "membership fee" paid by member states of the League of Nations. The expenses of the league secretariat, the international labour office and the permanent court of international justice as set forth in the annual budget of the League of Nations are allocated between the member states according to an agreed scale. Each member state pays a single contribution to the secretary-general of the League of Nations which includes that portion of the contribution devoted to the international labour office and the permanent court of international justice.

Questions as Orders jor Returns
2.
Year	Total Cost
1919-20 			 $ 87,728 58
1920-21 			 223,730 09
1921-22 			 209,427 07
1922-23 			 223,177 66
1923-24 			 200,356 66
1924-25 			 195,620 30
1925-26 			 195,345 83
1926-27 			 190,268 08
1927-28 			 204,213 77
1928-29 			 216,507 14
1929-30 			 234,808 96
1930-31 			 251,694 46
1931-32 			 311,600 67
1932-33 			 277,936 52
1933-34 			 389,891 97
1934-35 			 404,732 02
1935-36 			 423,572 29
1936-37 			 397,251 37
1937-38 			 328,638 08
1938-39 			 311,318 61
1939-40 			 292,417 23
1940-41 			 258.610 63
1941-42 			 189,920 76
1942-43 			 184,255 74
3. As stated in the answer to No. 1, member states pay a consolidated contribution and are not separately assessed for their contribution to the international labour office. In 1939 the budget of the international labour office made up 26-04 per cent of the total league budget. This proportion increased in 1942 to 32-85 per cent and in 1943 to 40-29 per cent.


CIVIL, SERVICE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Mr. BOUCHER:: 1.	What matters was the committee under the chairmanship of H. J. Coon instructed to investigate?
2.	What was the personnel of the committee, and whom of its members were civil servants or members of the civil service commission?
3.	What changes in the civil service were recommended ?
4.	What recommendations of this committee have been acted upon by the government?
5.	Are further steps being taken to implement the recommendations of this committee? If so, in .what respects are such steps being taken?


Mr. ABBOTT:: 1.	See P.C. 2/584, dated January 23, 1943, sessional paper No. 108-A, tabled in the House of Commons on April 12, 1943.
2.	H. J. Coon, Executive Assistant, head office, Bank of Nova Scotia; C. H. Bland, Chairman, Civil Service Commission; B. J. Roberts, Member, National Harbours Board; A. Thivierge, Civil Service Commissioner; W. C. Ronson, Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance.
3,	4 and 5. As stated in the House of Commons on June 7, 1943, the recommendations of this committee- are considered by the government to be confidential.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	What has been the expenditure to date in connection with the military training of students in course at each of the colleges and universities in Canada?
2.	Do civilian instructors receive payment?
3.	Does the department pay students taking courses in, (a) reserve training units; (b) officers' training courses? If so, how much?


Mr. MACDONALD (Halifax):: Return
tabled.


WINDSOR, N.S., EMBARKATION TRANSIT DEPOT
Mr. PURDY:: 1.	Was preliminary work such as construction of roads, temporary ditching, stream diversion, etc., in connection with embarkation transit depot, Windsor, N.S., carried out by the Department of National Defence, military or civilian personnel?
2.	If so, was Lieutenant James K. Garner (alias Lee), Royal Canadian Engineers, employed to direct and supervise this work?
3.	Did Ralph and Arthur Parsons Company, of Windsor, N.S., have any connection with this work directly or indirectly?
4.	If so. in what capacity?
5.	Was plant machinery or equipment rented from Ralph and Arthur Parsons Company?
6.	If so, what were the total rentals paid this firm for plant machinery and/or equipment?
7.	What was total rental for each unit?
8.	How much was paid this company for supervision?
9.	Was rental of power shovels and other equipment on basis of complete operating cost?
10.	Was the time of defence personnel and defence materials used by Ralph and Arthur Parsons Company covering repairs and overhaul of plant and machinery charged to and paid for by Ralph and Arthur Parsons Company?
11.	If so, what was the amount so charged or paid for this work?



CANADIAN FORCES-PERCENTAGE OF INTAKE TO MALE POPULATION

Mr. PURDY:: As at June 30, and by military districts, what has been the total intake of men into the armed forces since the outbreak of war, and what percentage do these figures bear to the male population in the military age group in each district?



PRESS CENSORSHIP

Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	What has been the annual cost of press censorship since the beginning of the war?
2.	Who are the press censors, (a) in. Ottawa; (b) in Toronto, and what experience have they had for such work?
International Relief

3.	Who appointed them, and what are their salaries, travelling expenses and all other emoluments ?
4.	Have daily Hansards been censored?
5.	If so, by whom, why, and under what law, statute, custom or usage?



IMMIGRATION

Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	How many immigrants came to Canada, by years, since the war began, (a) from Great Britain; (b) from the United States of America; (c) from the British dominions and colonies; (d) from the continent of Europe; (e) from elsewhere?
2.	What is being done to promote immigration from Great Britain, (a) during the balance of the war; (b) after it is over?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Mr. Speaker, I think this question had better be made an order for a return, because the information asked for in the first part of the question will have to be obtained from the statistics branch of the Department of Trade and Commerce, and it may be some considerable time before the return can be brought down because the form in which the question is asked does not correspond with the manner in which the records are kept. A great deal of work is involved in providing the information, but it will be brought down as' soon as possible.


Mr. CHURCH:: We are in the fourth year of the war and some statement should be made to the house on this question.


Gordon Graydon: May I ask if the minister means that we shall not be able to get the return this session?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That depends on when the session closes. I am pointing out that the form in which the first part of the question is asked involves a very considerable amount of work in getting the data together, but it will be proceeded with as rapidly as possible. The second part of the question raises a question of government policy, which policy will be made known in due course.



FARM LABOUR


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On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. A. MacKENZIE (Lambton-ICent):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue. Harvest is now due in Canada and farm help is very difficult to get. Many of these workers will come as volunteers from towns and cities and work part time, perhaps in the afternoon or evening. Will the wages paid to these voluntary farm workers be subject to the income tax, and if so, what part does the farmer play in it?


Hon. C. W. G. GIBSON (Minister of National Revenue):: All wages are subject to income tax, but as to wages paid to temporary help on farms, such as students working in the summer, the farmers are notified that no deductions need be made in such cases where the amount earned during the summer will not come up to the taxable level. That is, the farmers do not have to make deductions in the case of temporary help engaged for short periods during the summer.



INTERNATIONAL RELIEF


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On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister, based on a Canadian Press dispatch from Washington, dated July 6, in which the statement is made that a draft agreement has been submitted by the Big Four to Canada and that the Canadian government reply to the draft agreement has been delivered to the state department at Washington. Will the Prime Minister table a copy of that agreement at an early day, and will he give the house an opportunity to discuss this draft agreement and determine whether or not it is a treaty?


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: My hon. friend sent me a copy of his question, and I have been asking myself ever.since what agreement in particular it has reference to. I assume it is the draft agreement for united nations relief and rehabilitation administration. Is that what my hon. friend had reference to?


John Horne Blackmore: The press dispatch was not very clear, so that I merely asked regarding the draft agreement mentioned in the press dispatch. I presumed that the mention of the press dispatch would identify the agreement.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend's question is not any clearer. If he cannot tell me what draft agreement he wishes to know about, I am afraid I cannot answer him. I imagine that what he has reference to is the draft agreement for united nations relief and rehabilitation administration. If that is so, I tabled that agreement on June 18 and asked that it be printed in Votes and Proceedings of that day. My hon. friend will find it printed there.

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Agriculture


John Horne Blackmore: I was endeavouring to find out whether that was the agreement referred to in the dispatch.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think it is.



GENERAL GIRAUD


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On the orders of the day:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hon. members will have observed that General Giraud is at present in the United States. I might inform the house that about a month ago, when I learned of the possibility of General Giraud's visit to the United States, I had a communication sent to the general through the United Kingdom resident minister at Algiers expressing the hope it would be possible for him to visit Canada at the time he might be on this continent. I received shortly afterwards a reply from General Giraud saying that he would be happy to endeavour to arrange to visit Canada if and when he visited the United States. I have since learned that there is every probability that General Giraud will visit Canada in the course of the next week or ten days.



REQUEST FOR STATEMENT ON RESTRICTION OF DELIVERIES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Langton Church: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a question with respect to the deliveries of coal. Last month the minister announced that he was considering a request which the Canadian Retail Coal Dealers' association had made at a meeting at Toronto, that, in order to conserve supplies, coal deliveries be restricted to 70 per cent of last year's deliveries. I would ask the parliamentary assistant in the absence of the minister if he will be in a position to make a statement to-morrow in regard to this urgent and important matter.


Mr. LIONEL CHEVRIER (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Munitions and Supply):: I believe the minister has already covered that to some extent, on one if not on two occasions. However, I shall bring the matter to his attention to-morrow and see if there is not a possibility of getting an answer for my hon. friend.

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



AGRICULTURE

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Special.
SI. To provide for wheat acreage reduction payments for administration expenses in connection therewith, and for temporary appointments that may be required notwithstanding anything contained in the Civil Service Act, $4,265,000.
Mr. PERLEY:: When we were on item 29, Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act and water storage, I asked the minister if he would table a supplementary report giving the names of the field men and the rod men who were working under the survey in the Qu'Appelle Valley. He said he would.


Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) :: I have a number of statements I wish to make; but, in answer to the question just raised, 1 think the suggestion made by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle that 1 should obtain the post office addresses of men who are employed on the Qu'Appelle Valley projects in connection with surveys, I shall have to get those addresses from the Regina office; I have not got them up to date. The addresses which are given on the return that came through some time ago are their present addresses, wherever they happen to be working from. The local addresses I shall have to get from the offices.
There are two or three statements which I agreed to make the other evening when we were on the war appropriation which do affect somewhat these estimates as well, and one which I have been asked to make as a result of statements in connection with the movement of grain.
A Canadian Press report appeared, following the discussions the other day, in these words:
Hon. J. G. Gardiner, agricultural minister, told the commons last night that due to the lack of transportation facilities less than one hundred million bushels of Canadian wheat have been moved to the United States, although there is a market for two hundred million bushels.
The word there should not be "wheat" but "coarse grains" or "feed grains." The matter under discussion was not wheat, but feed grain.
The dispatch continues:
Replying to questions from M. J. Coldwell, C.C.F. leader-
I do not know, Mr. Chairman, whether you can hear me; I can hardly hear myself.


The CHAIRMAN:: Order.
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Mr. CASTLEDEN:: Does that "feed grain" include wheat?


James Garfield Gardiner: I was talking about oats and barley. To make it absolutely plain, when I spoke of 200 million bushels I was not talking of wheat at all; it was oats and barley.
Replying to questions from M. J. Coldwell, C.C.F. leader, Mr. Gardiner said both Canada and the United States were handicapped by lack of railway cars and lake shipping facilities to take Canadian wheat to American markets.
Some grain ears were made available to Canadian railways to carry wheat to the head of the lakes, whence to be shipped to United States buyers, particularly in Maine and other eastern states.
The point is this, that before completing that statement the other evening I said that the railway companies were doing a particularly good job under all the circumstances. That does not appear in the press report. As a result of this report going out I had communications from both the railways pointing out the job that they had done up to the moment, and I would like to place on the record the substance of that report, so that what has been done will be known:
Grain of all kinds moved from lake head since April 26, 1943, by water to July 5, 1943, 111,838,000 bushels as against 92,408,000 bushels from March 30, 1942, or 19,430,000 bushels more in 1943 than in 1942. That is of all grain, wheat and feed grain as well, they have moved this year 19,430,000 bushels more in the same period of time, that is from the opening of the lakes up to the present time, than they did a year ago.
Then, loaded at head of the lakes for all rail movement to eastern ports, August 1, 1942, to date, 30,000 carloads as against 19,200 carloads in 1941-42.
To-day held unloaded on track, Canadian Pacific, 3,000 cars at lake head, 3,000 cars ' at Winnipeg, 3,500 at other points, making a total of 9,500 cars on track: Canadian National, 2,000 cars at lake head; 1,854 cars at other points, making a total of 3,854.
Then, to American ports, Buffalo, 33,673,000 bushels, and to other points, 19,172,000 bushels, or 52,845.000 bushels have been moved to the United States ports.
The total of 111,838,000 bushels is divided as follows: United States ports, 52,845,000 bushels; Canadian ports, 58,993,000 bushels.
I repeat that that is since April 26, 1943 down to the present. I would like to repeat what I said on the previous occasion, with these facts before the committee, that we consider that a particularly good job has been done by the railways. But the fact still remains that we have 200,000,000 bushels of oats and barley from last year's crop
[The Chairman.]
which ought to be moved out of western Canada and should have been moved by some means if it were at all possible before the new crop came in, and hon. members can see the importance of getting that down between now and the middle of August. As I stated the other day, the problem is obviously a transportation problem, and I am not blaming the railways for that; I am only saying that we have an unusually large amount of feed grain in this country which we should have liked to see moved to the United States and eastern Canada, and so far no one has found it possible to move it.


Ernest Edward Perley: In what part of the provinces is most of this feed grain?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is all over the three prairie provinces. As my hon. friend knows, a very considerable part of it Is still out on the fields, not under cover. What I am trying to do is to overcome some of the things that are being stated. For example, I have here an editorial which appeared in the Financial Post which came to my table just this morning, entitled "He takes credit from heaven". The article goes on to say that I am continuously drumming away about this surplus of feed grain that we have and implying that there is no trouble about feeding the people of Canada next winter, and that it was heaven that gave us this crop and we ought to be more concerned about it. Well, right at the moment I am concerned about getting a place to put the next crop so that it will not be lying out under heaven but will be under a roof some place, and I would like the assistance of the Financial Post and a few other of these periodicals in getting that done rather than saying all the time that we want something else done.


Ernest Edward Perley: The grain exchange are
not worrying very much about it, judging from the way they are boosting the price.


James Garfield Gardiner: The grain exchange can make money only by getting the grain transported from one place to some other place. They cannot get money while it is lying on the farm and not moving, and therefore I presume they are as anxious as anyone else to get that grain moving. Everybody in the west wants to get it moving and we want the help of everyone towards this end.


John Ritchie MacNicol: How many hundred
million bushels are lying there?


James Garfield Gardiner: All the grain we have fed in Canada before amounted to half a billion bushels of oats and barley. Last year

Supply-Agriculture
we produced a billion bushels. In other words, we produced twice as much as we had fed [DOT] before, and we agreed last fall to try to put
200.000.	000 bushels of that into the United States. That would still leave us with
300.000.	000 bushels more than we had the year before to feed all our live stock, and we wanted to keep that as a reserve. To date we have not been able to move half of it and we are within a month of our new crop. I would emphasize that we do want the assistance of all the shipping people, all the railway people and all the newspapers in Canada to try to get that grain moved to the United States where they tell us there is a shortage of feed grain. That is the only way the farmers can get money out of it.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: The United States
could take all of it if it could be transported. The only difficulty is lack of transportation.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, lack of sufficient transportation. We are not criticizing the railways. Somebody is asking the railways to move munitions, guns and other supplies, and in spite of that they are moving more grain than they did before. The problem of the farmers in getting their stock fed involves the moving of that grain out of these piles on the fields to the places where the stock is, and there is only one way of doing that, namely, by railway and boat.


Mr. SENN:: Is there also a demand in eastern Canada which cannot be filled because of lack of transportation?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. There is a demand.
I do not know that there is any great suffering at the moment, but unless we can get a very considerable volume of that grain moved this summer into storages there will be trouble next winter. That trouble will not have anything to do with what heaven does this year with the crop. That grain is there and we wTant it moved to the east and put into storage elevators, and an order in council has already been passed by the government putting up money to cover the extra cost.


Mark Cecil Senn: What cost?


James Garfield Gardiner: Any extra cost to hold the grain between the time it is shipped down and the time it would be shipped under ordinary circumstances.


Mark Cecil Senn: Is there not another difficulty in the financing of the grain to hold it in storage? There is not a sufficiency of funds available, particularly among the farmers, to purchase the grain and keep it in storage until next winter's feeding.


James Garfield Gardiner: An order has already been passed and there is an order now under consideration, which I hope will be passed in some form in due course and which is known to the trade and others who will be handling this business, and that will take care of the problem of providing for grain being moved down. So far as the financing of that kind of thing is concerned, the trade is .prepared to finance it provided the government is nulling to take care of the extra charges that would be involved by reason of shipping it now instead of waiting until next January or February, and we are attempting to provide for that under the arrangements that are being made. I wish to make that clear to the committee before we discuss the other statement I had intended putting on the record.


James Arthur Ross: Is there an abundance of grain available in Fort William to people who need it? I was talking to one dealer a few days ago and he said he had difficulty at that time in getting sufficient oats or barley from Fort William for his customers.


James Garfield Gardiner: There was difficulty last winter, in spite of these figures which indicate that very much more was being moved; notwithstanding the difficult winter we had, the railways moved more grain than they had been accustomed to moving-very much more -owing to the fact that there is much more live stock being fed this year. In addition there is a poor grain crop in the eastern part of Canada; at any rate they anticipate a poor crop because of the late seeding. Because we are afraid of that we have made every possible arrangement and everyone is trying to cooperate in getting that grain put down here. Moreover, we are trying to develop some means of encouraging the farmers to take it from the feeder and put it into their own storage. All that is involved in the orders I spoke of a moment ago, and we believe that a very considerable amount of grain will be moved down before the freeze-up this fall, and put into storage here, to supply the farmers. It is true, as represented to the hon. member for Souris, that there will be different localities in the east that will now have trouble because this grain did not get down in sufficient quantities last winter or the early part of this season.


Mark Cecil Senn: I believe I raised the point the other day about the anticipation of a shortage of feed in Ontario and eastern Canada, and also the question of the price that will be charged to feeders in eastern Canada. If it is brought down and left in the hands of the trade the trade can perhaps
Supply-Agriculture

charge the farmers what they like. There is a ceiling on feed grain, but after it is processed and made into chop for feeding, is any precaution being taken to see that the farmer does not pay a veiy high price for it? That would probably come under the wartime prices and trade board, from the point of view of prices.


James Garfield Gardiner: My understanding is that the grains themselves are all under a ceiling and it is impossible for dealers to collect freight on the grain shipped from Fort William unless they abide absolutely by these regulations. In addition to that, there are ceilings on such things as mill feeds, and I understand that there are ceilings on the other feeds as well. I did not want to be too certain about that, but there are ceilings so far as our activities with them are concerned. They cannot collect freight unless they sell with the price margins as between what they obtain the product for and what it cost to market it. We have to be satisfied on that question, before paying freight which does establish a ceiling.


Mark Cecil Senn: So long as the farmers are protected I do not care. That is all I am worrying about.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is what we are trying to do, and if there are cases where that is not being done I should like to have a report regarding them.


George Hugh Castleden: Would it not'facilitate matters with regard to this whole situation if the grain board handled all this grain instead of letting the grain exchange in Winnipeg operate?


James Garfield Gardiner: Of course if the grain board were going to handle it all they would have to set up agencies all over eastern Canada. I do not want to enter into a discussion of the question whether it is better to have grain handled by a government board or otherwise, but the facilities are all set up in eastern Canada, through feed dealers at every small point throughout the farming area, and we have been utilizing that machinery to distribute this grain. They have had their contacts with different grain companies from which they get their grain, and the business is being done much in the manner in which it was done before the war. But it is being done under regulations, and we are keeping a check on the margins that do exist between the cost of grain and the selling price of the product. We are keeping a check on these margins with the idea of keeping down the cost of producing food in Canada. Our object is to keep down the price of feed to the farmer in eastern 
Canada, and so far as it is necessary to take * care of the western farmer we are allowing him to participate in the price of any grain which is shipped out of Canada, spreading that participation over all those who sell oats or barley in western Canada, whether it is shipped east or to the United States. So that the man who supplies an eastern Canadian farmer, under the ceiling, will eventually get the same price for his grain as the man who supplies the United States market with grain.


George Hugh Castleden: If the grain board does not ship grain out of Canada, how will the farmer participate in that?


James Garfield Gardiner: The grain board issues a permit to anyone who ships grain out, and they have to pay the difference between the Canadian market and the United States market.


George Hugh Castleden: But that does not include the higher grades of wheat.


James Garfield Gardiner: No; the higher grades of wheat are selling in the United States higher than the market price in Canada. As to wheat that has been delivered to the board, the advance is the same whether it is finally sold in the United States or not. If it is sold at a profit in the United States, participation certificates take care of the producer's interests.


George Hugh Castleden: But grain is paying a dollar in the grain exchange at Winnipeg, or, as the minister said the other day, $1.02. If the board is handling it, whatever was received from the United States would go direct to the farmer.


James Garfield Gardiner: One has to remember
that the farmers always deliver their grain to the wheat board as long as the advance paid by the wheat board is higher than the market price. And up until a certain date practically all, if not all the wheat, was delivered to the board. Then at a certain time the price rose above 90 cents. In fact it has gone up to about $1.02. Since that time practically all the grain is being delivered to the trade. That is just a choice that is made by the farmer; it is not made by the government. They must make a choice of one or two things. They can either deliver the wheat to the board and get the ninety cents advance, taking advantage of the participation certificate for collection later, or they can deliver to the trade. They have their reasons for delivering to the trade. I do not wish to discuss them at the moment. But the great majority of them, as soon as the price goes above the advance, deliver to the trade. The trade has been selling that wheat

Supply-Agriculture
as they bought it, and probably some of it is offered by the board on the market. The wheat which is delivered by the board on the market will be getting ten cents a bushel to go toward participation certificates. But the wheat which goes to the line companies will be sold by the line companies at whatever the market is. They will buy at whatever the market is, and they will sell at whatever the market is. To that extent they may make some profit, or they may make some loss, depending on how the trade goes.


George Hugh Castleden: But the farmer gets
nothing out of it.


James Garfield Gardiner: Nothing more than
what he selected when he made his choice. He may have chosen to take that price rather than the ninety cents advance.


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: But to-day he
is getting $1.05 in Fort William.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, I guess it has been as high as that.


John Gordon Ross: It is $1.05 to-day.


Ernest Edward Perley: It is only $1.03.


James Garfield Gardiner: 
Mr. FAIR:: The farmer in the United States is getting a better price than the farmer in Canada.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is admitted by everyone.


Robert Fair: That was the point I was making.


James Garfield Gardiner: The point is that so far as the Canadian dealer in wool is concerned, he can realize more at the present time, under all conditions, with our prices here, than he could on any other market. That was the point I made.


Robert Fair: My point was that a condition should be brought about in Canada, by subsidy, or in some other way, under which we can get a price which would compare with the price in the United States.


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand that. There was another question asked by the hon. member for Melfort. He asked that I place on record the figures which indicated that nearly $100,000,000 had been paid to farmers in subsidies and acreage payments in one year.


Mr. WRIGHT:: The minister said there was a hundred million.


James Garfield Gardiner: I will deal with that too. I made the definite statement that there was nearly-or, I believe I said, pretty nearly-
8100,000,000 in acreage payments and subsidies, and I was asked .to put those figures on record. I have them here. These are the subsidies paid to agriculture in the calendar year 1942-that is, some of these amounts will relate to the 1941 crop, but they were paid in the calendar year 1942:
Prairie farm assistance	 $14,471,060
Prairie farm income	 18,175,114
Wheat acreage reduction	 32,297,670
Cheese quality payments	 1.730.919
Cheese factory subsidies	 203,732
Butter for subsidy	 7,000,933
Fluid and concentrated milk subsidy 3,846.036
Fertilizer subsidy	 975,275
Feed freight assistance	 9,832,004
Feed wheat, 8-cent drawback	 333,720
Egg price subsidy	 918,224
Subsidy on strawberries, by the wartime prices and trade board		42,233
Apple assistance (1)	 2,257,620
Beef cattle purchase, by the wartime prices and trade board (estimated)	 800,000
Fruit and vegetable subsidies to
canners	 741,000
Provincial subsidies on hogs and cheese for 1942 (estimated)		4,500,000
Total of subsidies and acreage payments	 $98,125,540
This figure, I believe the committee will agree, is nearly a hundred million dollars in one year, involved in these transactions alone. What we were discussing, at the time was the amount of money involved. The statement was made that hundreds of millions of dollars were going to industry in order to bring about and utilize to the full the production from factories for war purposes. I said it could be stated as surely that hundreds of millions had also been utilized to make possible the production and proper distribution of food supplies or farm products. Now, the figures with regard to that are round figures. I am not going to go into detail, because I am not allowed to do so in connection with these particular items. The wheat delivered by producers to the
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wheat board involved financing to the extent of 8746,000,000 and carrying charges of one kind and another amounting to $115,000,000, making a total of $861,255,000 on the handling of wheat which passed through the wheat board. If one adds to that the $98,000,000 I have here, and another $150,000,000 which has been spent in direct subsidies through the years-the statement I have put on the record covers only one year-he will find that the total amounts to over a billion dollars. I think these figures substantiate what I said the other night, that in one way or another the assistance provided for the production and distribution of farm products has amounted to several hundreds of millions of dollars.


Robert Fair: I think it would be a good idea if the minister would place on record the fact that in 1942, the year for which he has given figures, the farmers lost, because of not getting parity prices for wheat, something like $140,000,000. It is agreed that the parity price for wheat is $1.40 per bushel.


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not think the time has yet come for me to say that. As I understand it, more than half of the wheat is still on the farms. I think that the best- bank account there is in Canada to-day is a bin of wheat on the farm. What the farmer is going to get out of that wheat is not yet known, so that I am not in position to make that statement.


Robert Fair: I was referring only to the
280,000,000 bushels which have been delivered.


James Garfield Gardiner: Even that is not all delivered; there is a considerable part of it still on the farms. The farmer has not yet lost money on that

I am not saying he will not lose something-so that I am not in position to make a statement as to what his position is with regard to the 1942 crop. I gave good reasons for that when I said that not very much has moved as yet. I want to emphasize what I have emphasized before, that the farmer has within his own hands the privilege of making sure as to whether he has an opportunity to get further returns on that crop. He can get a GO cent advance from the wheat board. If he believes in the pooling of wheat as a method of getting every cent there is to be got out of the wheat, he will put his wheat into the pool. If he believes he can make more money by selling it now, he will sell it now. I do not think that I or anyone else could interfere with his judgment in that matter; he will probably do what he thinks is wise.


Percy Ellis Wright: I should like to point out the difference between the advances made to agriculture and those made to industry. The

minister has stated that hundreds of millions of dollars have been placed at the disposal of agriculture. As has been pointed out by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, the hundreds of millions of dollars which have been placed at the disposal of industry become its property at the end of four or five years through depreciation, but the hundreds of millions of dollars which have been advanced to agriculture will be repayable to the government on the sale of the wheat. The minister mentioned some $98,000,000 which had been paid out as subsidies during 1943, but I would point out that these subsidies were not all for 1942. In many cases they were not paid to the primary producer, the farmer, but rather to the processor.
Another matter I wish to bring to the minister's attention is the question of car allotments to the elevators in western Canada. When Mr. Mclvor, chairman of the wheat board, was before the committee he stated that there had been no complaints as far as the board was concerned by the elevator companies. Since then I have received a number of telegrams and resolutions, and I think the chairman of the agriculture committee has received a number of resolutions, complaining bitterly about the allotment of cars made to the various elevator companies. It appears to me that the pool elevators are being discriminated against and are not receiving the cars they should. The result is that the producers cannot market their grain to their own elevators. I ask that something be done with respect to this.


Mr. WEIR:: I have had representations
made to me in connection with this matter since the meeting of the agriculture committee, and I took what I considered to be the proper course. I referred the representations that came to me to the officers of the Canadian wheat board. I received a reply a few days ago from the chairman of the board in which he stated specifically that until a certain telegram was received, I believe from the secretary of the Saskatchewan -wheat pool under date of June 8, the board had not received any complaints with respect to the distribution of cars. He considered that since no complaints had been received the policy which had been pursued during the past year was working reasonably satisfactorily. He went on to say in his letter that the officers of the Canadian wheat board had met with officers of the three wheat pools, the meeting being held in Winnipeg I think about a week or ten days ago. This matter was discussed for one or two hours, but there had not been evolved or suggested any scheme that was more workable than the one

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in operation. The chairman of the wheat board went on to say that the managers of the three wheat pool organizations in western Canada were meeting officials of the Canadian wheat board to try to see if a more satisfactory system from the administrative point of view could be worked out. I think it is only fair to say that so far as the officers of the Canadian wheat board are concerned, they had not received any complaints with respect to the operation of the policy during the past year. Not having received any complaints, they considered that the policy was working out reasonably well. I repeat that steps are being taken to see whether a more workable scheme can be suggested. If it can be, I am sure that they will take steps to put it into operation. I think this statement is due the officers of the wheat board and the others concerned, because this problem of transportation is a most critical one.


Robert Fair: I should like to support what has been said with respect to subsidies. While I know that arguments are advanced from time to time showing that the farmer is getting everything or almost everything that is coming to him, with the exception of wheat, I must say I cannot agree with them. I have admitted before on several occasions that the cure is in the farmers' hands. If the farmers want to organize as industry and labour have organized, if they want to demand what is coming to them, they can get their just rights. Until that is done they never will get what is coming to them.
In the early days of the wheat pool in my province we had fifty-one per cent of the farmers signed up, but in a short time inducements were placed before them and many of the farmers started to bootleg their grain. They were given an extra grade, but at the same time a certain number of bushels per load were removed by painless extraction. Until the farmers wake up to what they are being done for they will have to be satisfied with receiving less than they are entitled to.
There is one point I should like to bring to the attention of the minister in connection with the storage of the grain we hope to get in the 1943 crop. I believe in a number of cases farmers will be compelled to buy lumber to build bins in which to store their grain. At the present time the approximate cost of a bin twelve by fourteen by seven, with a shingle roof, which will hold about 1,100 bushels of wheat, is $110. But I understand that at the present time a farmer can buy only $200 worth of lumber at one time. If this is correct, as I believe it is, some provision should be made by which a
farmer may obtain enough lumber for more than two bins. In many cases additional storage space for 2,000 bushels will not be sufficient to take care of the crop during the coming year, because of the grain already in storage on the farms.


Ernest Edward Perley: We have had some interesting information this morning; it appears that the Minister of Agriculture has taken over from the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In some parts of western Canada that would be good news; for I believe the minister would make a pretty good job of it. Several questions have been opened up this morning on which I should have liked to say something, but a great deal has been said here and a great deal more was said when we had Mr. Mclvor, the chairman of the board, before the agriculture committee, so that I do not think it is necessary to repeat wffiat has been said by other hon. members.
I should like to say a word in regard to discrimination in the allotment of cars. I believe there has been discrimination; and I believe the Minister of Trade and Commerce, who has just left the chamber, was well aware of it. On June 30 I asked the minister directly if he had received any protests with respect to this alleged discrimination, and he replied that he had not. Later I met him and had a conversation with him, and he informed me that while there was no direct charge of discrimination, he had received many protests from individuals. Again on July 2 I brought the matter to the attention of the minister, and he admitted again that he had received many protests but stated that the board was not going to pay very much attention to them. When I was home at Easter I heard many complaints in our district in this regard, and I think there is no doubt that if the distribution of cars had been handled without discrimination, a great deal more grain would have been moved and many farmers would have had a chance to get a greater portion of their quota off their hands.
Something has been said to-day with respect to the price of wheat. I have just received a note from the hon. member for Moose Jaw in which he offers to bet me that wheat will go much higher. I wish he had given me this information a few days ago. I was given a certain amount of encouragement in listening to the minister this morning, but I delivered my wheat to the board and took a participation certificate, which the minister mentioned a few moments ago. That applies to about half my crop. I could not deliver the full quota before January or the board would have had all the wheat I was allowed
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to deliver. Fortunately or otherwise I could not get off the last four or five bushels of my quota until after Easter, and the price went up. As a matter of fact I held it until about twelve days ago, when wheat hit $1. I have been consistently advocating that the price of wheat should be SI, so that when I was able to get that price for it I thought I had better sell. Yesterday it reached $1.05, so you can see how I feel about it. However, part of it was delivered to the board under a participation certificate, which I hope may be worth another 20 cents before we are through.
Earlier this morning the minister said that the member for Qu'Appelle knew very well there was a great deal of grain in western Canada that should be under cover; and I will agree that if more cars had been made available and transportation facilities had been provided, much of that grain would have been under cover. Only this morning I received another letter from a lumber dealer in my constituency in regard to a matter which I took up with the lumber controller here in Ottawa. This is the second letter I have received from Mr. Rosborough, a pioneer lumber dealer at Grenfell, Saskatchewan. I took the matter up with the lumber controller, as I said before, but did not get very much satisfaction. This gentleman complains that he cannot get lumber to supply the farmers who want to build bins, and in the letter I received this morning he asked me to follow the matter up and see what can be done. No doubt the minister knows of many similar cases, and I suggest that he take it up with the lumber controller to see if they cannot get lumber at some of these local points so that the farmers may do the very thing the minister suggests-build bins and get their grain under cover. If he will undertake to do that it will save me the trouble of taking up the matter again with the lumber controller. In addition to the letters from this gentleman I have received several other protests from boards of trade to the effect that lumber is not available in some of these smaller towns, while in other places plenty of lumber is being supplied. The minister should go into the matter with the lumber controller and have the situation straightened out.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order. We called an item, and while it was perfectly in order for the minister to answer questions which had been asked previously, I would beg of the committee not to go all over the items which have been passed already. I do not say that in any critical way, but I believe it to 
be the general feeling of the committee that we should keep the discussion closely to the item under consideration.


John Gordon Ross: I wonder if the hon. member for Qu'Appelle would be good enough to read the note I sent him, because I do not want any wrong impression to go abroad.


Mr. QUELCH:: In reference to the item under discussion, could the minister tell the committee just what is the situation as between the renter and the landlord? That is to say, if the renter refuses to sign the landlord's application, does the whole amount of the bonus go to the renter, or does he merely receive his share based upon his share of the crop?


James Garfield Gardiner: Under the law as it has existed since early this session, if the renter refuses to sign the statement that the other man is his landlord, the money goes to the renter.


Ernest Edward Perley: Just to keep the record straight, this is the note I received from the hon. member for Moose Jaw: "No. 1 northern yesterday $1.05J. Will bet you ten dollars it will close higher to-day." I think the hon1. member has some advance information on what is going to happen, or I would take him up.


George Hugh Castleden: There was a statement made by the minister which I think should not be allowed to go without someone taking exception to it. He pointed out that the farmer was in a position either to take his 90 cents advance now or to sell on the open market.


James Garfield Gardiner: 
George Hugh Castleden: If the chairman rules that I am not allowed to continue with this matter, I shall comply with his ruling; otherwise I should like to make a short statement.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I am in the hands of the committee, but we have been discussing items which were passed previously, and the minister had to answer some questions which

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were put to him at that time. I do not believe we should go all over the items which have been passed.


George Hugh Castleden: I understand that, but I should like your ruling as to whether or not the statement I wish to make is in order.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I believe the committee would allow the hon. member to make a brief statement. We are on item 31, which provides for wheat acreage reduction payments and administration expenses in connection therewith. If the hon. member wants to make a brief statement in reply to the answer given by the minister, I believe it would be in order.


George Hugh Castleden: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My statement will be brief. The farmer was not in a position either to deliver grain to the board and accept the ninety cents Fort William price, or to sell on the open market and take the SI .02 Fort William.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is the ninety cents advance, not price.


George Hugh Castleden: Yes, the ninety cents advance. Thousands of these farmers were in no position to take a chance on the ninety cents advance because no opportunity was given them to get hold of any cash last fall. They were allowed to deliver only five bushels to the acre, which was the opening quota. Since that time the quota has been raised, and the government have promised to take 280 million bushels of wheat from western Canada, but they have not taken that even yet. The farmer is in debt. He has not been allowed to sell a cash crop. What he sold did not cover the cost of harvesting, taxes and other indebtedness. He has had to sell what he could to get cash, and was forced to take the few cents extra he could get on the open market.


Mr. EVANS:: That is not correct.


George Hugh Castleden: The hon. member can make his statement when I am through. I say that is why the farmer was forced to sell his grain where he could get most cash. I do not know what the grain exchange does except to take the farmer's profit. The grain exchange is allowed to clean up on what might have been the farmer's profits. I believe that if you took the subsidies that have to be paid to agriculture and added them up you would get an amount about equal to the profits made by the grain exchange.


Mr. BENCE:: I should like to have an _ amplification of the statement made by the minister in answer to the hon. member for
Acadia. Do I understand that the owner of a piece of land who rents it cannot get the money to which he is entitled unless the renter is prepared to sign a certain form?


Ernest Edward Perley: That is correct.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Alfred Henry Bence: In my part of the country leases have been in effect for a number of years but because they were drawn up at a time when there was no crop bonus, no clause was put in to cover that. It seems an intolerable state of affairs that a man who rents the land that he owns should not be entitled to his fair share of the proceeds from working that land during the year. He is entitled to one-third share of the crop, and surely the man who owns the land and pays the taxes and looks after its upkeep is entitled to his share. I know cases where tenants, for reasons best known to themselves, have quarrelled with their landlord but have nevertheless stayed on the land, and under the law they can continue to stay there and do comparatively no work and take the proceeds of this wheat acreage bonus. I emphatically protest against that. Why not put ourselves in this position, that where a landlord produces a lease to the officials he shall be entitled to a share of the crop despite the fact that the tenant might be recalcitrant about signing any particular form submitted to him?


James Garfield Gardiner: The only reason we do not do it, so far as the administration is concerned, is that that is what the law says. We passed the law in this house at this session; the whole matter was then discussed, and the law was made as it has been recited. That is why the administration has to do things in this way.


George Hugh Castleden: Has the minister the wheat acreage reduction by provinces for 1943?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are no final
wheat acreage reduction figures for 1943. I have the wheat acreage reduction figures for Alberta for 1942.


George Hugh Castleden: I understood the
minister to say that the approximate reduction for 1943 would be ten million.


James Garfield Gardiner: The figures cannot be completed until the season is much more advanced. The final totals cannot be made up until about a year from now.


George Hugh Castleden: But the minister gave an approximate figure of ten million.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is only an estimate.
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George Hugh Castleden: You have no figure for 1943?


James Garfield Gardiner: No actual final figures.


Alfred Henry Bence: Somebody interjected when
I was speaking a while ago that I was acting for a mortgage company. May I point out that I have personal knowledge of many cases where the land is owned by private individuals, sometimes by widows with children. It does seem to me that consideration should be given to both sides of the case.


Ernest Edward Perley: How many more applications for wheat acreage reduction bonus have there been this year than last year?


James Garfield Gardiner: We have not the figures for this year, but the number would be about the same.


Ernest Edward Perley: I have a clipping here from the Regina Leader Post in which Mr. Gray, the director at Regina, says that there are
14,000	more applications this year, and I was wondering why there are more. Are there new people coming in?


James Garfield Gardiner: That would be new
people coming in. The 14,000 would be in addition, but as members of the committee know, the application for payment is not required to be made until after July 1. While a farmer might have given indication of his intention to apply earlier than that, he might afterwards change his mind and not reduce his acreage at all.


Ernest Edward Perley: This clipping is dated
June 7.


James Garfield Gardiner: The regulations provide that the farmer is not required to make application for payment of the bonus until after July 1. He can make it at any time after that. He might state his intention to apply before the 30th of May, but with conditions as they have been, many people would probably change their intentions. When the applications come in for payment we shall be much more certain as to the number of farmers reducing their acreage than we could be simply by taking their indication of intention.


Percy Ellis Wright: In view of the different
method of determining the wheat acreage reduction this year, can we not expect a reduction in the number of inspectors in western Canada?


James Garfield Gardiner: We have reduced the
number. As a matter of fact, there are no permanent inspectors at all on wheat acreage

reduction or on prairie farm assistance. There is simply a list of individuals whose services have been used from time to time. Some are called in for two or three weeks, some for a month, others for two or three months. This year there are fewer than in 1941.


Robert Fair: To come back to the amendment which was passed this session providing that the tenant must sign an agreement acknowledging his landlord, I remember distinctly that it was passed one evening after the dinner recess, by no means with the unanimous consent of the committee. Very shortly after that amendment was passed I asked the minister when we were in the railway committee room if we could not have an amendment to rectify what I believe is a wrong. I think it is not too late to do that yet. Some people have been taking advantage of this provision in the past, and if we go on with the law as it is now, we are only inviting more trouble. An amendment would make administration easier. But administrative difficulties can be overcome, and I think an amendment should yet be made to rectify the wrong of which we have spoken in this committee.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I do not think that that question is in order. We are dealing with reduction of wheat acreage.


Robert Fair: That is exactly what the question is in connection with-who shall receive the respective shares of the wheat acreage reduction bonus.


Ernest Edward Perley: Would the minister inform the committee why these inspectors are changed around? The department does not allow one of its inspectors, who works only during the summer-fallow and crop season, to remain more than one or two years in the same municipality. We have had, I believe, three different inspectors in the last three years in the Wolseley municipality. I would have thought that when an inspector has become acquainted with the farmers and has got to know the acreage and that sort of thing, he would make a better job than a new man. When any claim is in dispute and a second inspection is required, they have always sent in an outsider-which may be all right.


James Garfield Gardiner: Of course there are
different reasons for moving inspectors. Sometimes one man is left in a community much longer than another man is left in a community. For example, generally speaking, under prairie farm assistance-and both these operations are carried on under the same inspectors-we do not think it is desirable to have a man inspect his own township. There

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are obvious reasons for that. Quite often farmers who live in a township have large families in the same township, or family connections there or somewhere in the vicinity, and we would rather put these men in some other locality than have them accused of being partial to those people with whom they may be closely associated.
That is one reason. Then, we find that one inspector will be particularly efficient in inspecting a certain kind of crop; that is, he may be very efficient at estimating the yield while a crop is standing. That man of course would be used in places where that work is being done. Other men may be particularly efficient along other lines; and if we have to move a man from the place where he was in order to give him work somewhere else in which he is particularly efficient, then we have to move some other person into the area to cover the work he has been doing; the other person may be more competent to do that work than he is. That is, generally speaking, the way in which it works.
In reply to the hon. member for Melfort, it might be well if I put the number of inspectors on record. There were 57 inspectors and 32 supervisors at work in the three provinces on June 30. I believe there are 17 districts in Saskatchewan and one supervisor over each district. Alberta is divided into districts, with one supervisor over each district there, and Manitoba is the same. These 32 men are permanently employed; they work the twelve months through, but the 57 inspectors are men whom we call up to do inspection work when it has to be done, in the summer months, and they are employed only part time. There were 57 of these on June 30.


Percy Ellis Wright: Has the minister information as to the total number employed say in October 1942?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am afraid there may be less in October than now.


Percy Ellis Wright: There are certain seasons of the year when there are more of them?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, there are certain seasons when the number is much higher, but this depends on the year, the type of the year and the extent to which work was done earlier. Somebody said a moment ago that under the act as it now is the procedure is much simpler than it was before, the reason being that now we are only checking on how much land a man took out of wheat and whether he is doing something with the land he took out of wheat. We are not particular about what he is doing; we simply say that as long as he is farming in a reasonable way and as long as he
has taken the land out of wheat, we pay him $2 an acre. It is much simpler to administer that and it takes much less inspection than when we had to determine how many acres of barley and rye and summer-fallow and grass he had as compared with 1940. Now, so long as he can satisfy the administration that he has reduced his wheat acreage as compared with 1940 and is doing something with the land which is essential to the operation of the farm, he gets his $2. It will be seen from this that the figures with regard to inspection in past years would not give us very much information upon which to go this year.


Percy Ellis Wright: Is it the intention of the minister to make an inspection of each farm again this year?


James Garfield Gardiner: On the wheat acreage reduction we are taking the word of municipal secretaries to a greater extent this year than was done last year.


James Arthur Ross: I find that municipal inspectors who commenced their duties other years on August .1 are beginning their inspections this year on July 1. Why would that be?


James Garfield Gardiner: One reason is that in spite of the fact that the law does not require one to make a claim until after the first of July, the administration have been encouraging farmers to make these claims earlier. Many people have put their claims in, and the greater number of claims being in makes it possible to have the inspections at an earlier time, and we hope the payments will be out at an earlier time.


James Arthur Ross: Summer-fallow does not have to be done until the first of August. Might there not be a great deal of repetition in inspections of that kind, or does it apply only in the case of the fall rye which they have to check by the first of July. I would think that in the case of wheat reduction, summer-fallow and so on, it might be necessary for other inspectors to follow up, and that would be a costly procedure.


James Garfield Gardiner: Of course the very fact, as stated a moment ago, that we are relying much more on municipal secretaries for reports of that kind would not necessitate, perhaps, a second inspection. We would get information as to whether that land is still black or whether it is growing a crop. If it is not growing wheat but something else, we pay the S2.


Mark Cecil Senn: Will the minister say whether all last year's vote was taken up, and if it
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was, how is it that the vote this year is so much more? Is there to be a supplementary estimate?


James Garfield Gardiner: There always has to be a supplementary estimate, and that will come in on the supplementaries. This vote, as is known, was made up months ago; it came down very early in the session, and it is only the administrative end of the work plus some demands which we know have to be met. The outside amount this year, we estimate, will run to about $26,000,000. The addition to this will be in the supplementaries.


Mark Cecil Senn: It was all taken up last year?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is about $2,000,000
of a carry-over of what was estimated last year.


George Hugh Castleden: Rather than pay $4,-
265,000	to get farmers to go out of production, it would be a whole lot better to spend this money in fixing a parity price and getting more production of wheat and other food in this country. The United States is encouraging the growth of food. At the Hot Springs food conference, which was held recently, in which forty-four countries participated, it was pointed out that there never was sufficient food in the world for all the people. I think we are going at this in the wrong way. The paying of a bonus in this form is, I think, entirely wrong, and probably in a few years' time we shall be working in the opposite direction. However, seeing this is the policy of the government in power I suppose we have to carry on with it.
There are two complaints under this policy which have come to my attention. One is that many of the farmers who have made applications found that there was no record of their applications having been received. When they stated "I went down and made my application," they were asked "When did you do it?" "Oh, on a certain date." "Well," was the reply, "we have no record in the office here." That farmer gets no redress. Is something being done to see that the farmer when he makes application receives a duplicate of the application form signed by the municipal secretary?
Another point is this. A number of farmers' found that they were too late putting in their application. The)' said they did not know they were supposed to have it in by a certain date. Is something being done to get in contact with the municipal councils in order that the councillors may inform everyone in their division that they must have their application in by the date specified?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are approximately
184.000	farmers paid under wheat acreage reduction, and I believe, speaking from memory, that the number that claimed they had made application or were entitled to make application in the first year, which of course would be the year in which there would be the greatest number of people who would not be informed, was six or seven hundred. There were 600 or 700 in that year who had to be considered afterwards, some of whom were allowed to collect. That is to say, we found that they had actually made application but their letters had either been misplaced or had not reached the proper authority. There are probably between
2.000	and 3,000 in addition to the 184,000 who actually did claim payment on wheat reduction but we did not consider that they properly came under the act, and there would be in addition to that, a few hundred who would come back and say that they did apply and the secretary of the municipality thought he had sent in the application. In those cases we check back and if we find the statement is correct the payment is made. There are cases where we are not satisfied with the man's statement and we say to such people that we have spent thousands of dollars putting this over the radio and in the local press and making statements about it generally so as to get it out to everyone we could possibly get in contact with by these means, and we have therefore to assume that these particular people had the same chance as everyone else. If therefore they did not apply until months afterwards we do not find it advisable to make these payments, and some have not been made. But there are very few compared with the total number.


Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: Are there any exceptions to the rule with regard to those who do not apply on time?


James Garfield Gardiner: No; there are no exceptions, unless they can show that they did apply. There must be someone somewhere to prove that they made application.


Charles Edward Johnston: If it is a matter of negligence on their part-


James Garfield Gardiner: If we are satisfied that it is negligence on their part we do not pay anything.


Victor Quelch: Suppose the farmer claims that application was made and that the application was lost; do you accept his affidavit?


James Garfield Gardiner: It has to be supported by some other person. Someone has to know that he did make application. We do not accept his sworn statement by itself.

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Charles Edward Johnston: I have in mind a case which depends on this very point. This man claims that he did make applies tion but they have no record of it. He claims further that he consulted the secretary of the municipality but the secretary says that he does not recall it. The whole thing boils down to the question whether the department accepts the farmer's word or his sworn affidavit or whether it discards that type of proof.


James Garfield Gardiner: We will discuss the matter with him until we are satisfied one way or the other. I have some recollection of a case brought up by the member for Bow River, and I do not believe it is finally closed. As long as the man has any chance of giving proof that he did apply we will continue to try to find that proof.


Charles Edward Johnston: But this is a brand new case.


James Garfield Gardiner: Oh; if it is a new one he is starting pretty late.


Victor Quelch: The minister says that there must be some independent support. If a neighbour supports the man's declaration and states that he knows he made application, is that accepted?


James Garfield Gardiner: I should not like to make a decision out of court. He will have to appear before someone and prove his statement, and if he proves it to the satisfaction of the officials he wTill be paid. If he does not, he will write to me and I shall have to go to the officials and see whether he made the mistake or they did. I get these letters from time to time.
One point was raised by the member for Yorkton which I cannot allow to pass without comment. He said that we are spending
34,000,000 to reduce production. That is not correct. We are spending 34,000,000 and some odd thousands to get more production of something we want, and that production will give greater returns than the production of wheat will yield. We are asking men to transfer from the production of *wheat, of which we have 650,000,000 bushels in store, to the production of something else which we can sell right away, and to do that we are asking them to transfer certain acreages from wheat over to other grain and grasses. That is not reducing production. That policy so far has resulted in greater returns from the farms than could have been obtained in any other way, both in quantity of food and in return in cash, and for that reason I do not want to allow that statement to pass.


Ernest Edward Perley: I think the minister could save a good deal in this inspection work. In the first place, we have far too many inspectors. The municipalities have to do a great deal of this work. In making applications for this bonus the municipalities take nearly all applications and send them in and they have to get out a lot of information on the matter. They do a good deal of work apart from a certain portion of the actual inspection work. As I say, a good deal could be saved. The minister may not have the information before him at the moment, but will he take this as an order for return, so to speak, and give us the number of inspectors in Saskatchewan, their salaries and expense accounts for the last year, and at the same time the number of those men employed again this year. I should like to have that information on Hansard.
The minister said something about the efficiency of the inspectors. I may point out the efficiency of one or two of them. I was north of Moosomin last year sitting with a farmer in his yard when one of the inspectors drove in, in a car, in a hurry, and stepped out of the car and rapped at the door. He asked whether this farmer was Mr. so and so, and was told that he was. I had never met this man before, but he did not impress me with his manner. He drove in in a blustering sort of way. The farmer asked him if he would like to meet Mr. Perley and he said, "Sure." The farmer said, "This is Mr. Perley." We got into a discussion about inspection work and he told me that he could inspect any field of grain in that municipality on the fly. I questioned him about how careful he was in going through the fields and he said he did not have to do that. If he could not inspect any field of grain, to get the information he required, by just driving past in a car he would not be on that job.


James Garfield Gardiner: That would be right this year on wheat acreage reduction.


Ernest Edward Perley: It did not happen to be right last year. We were looking at that crop from the barn and I was not impressed by that fellow. There were many complaints in that district regarding the manner in which he did his work, and he received a salary for it.


James Garfield Gardiner: A return was brought down on February 20, 1943, giving all the information up to that date. Let me say again that it will be absolutely impossible to give a return right up to date. In the first place I would have to send to the office in Regina, and they would be able to give it
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only up to about a month ago. I could not possibly get that while the session is on, up to date.


Ernest Edward Perley: Could the minister give the number of men on the job this year?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are only 57 on the job, up to date, although last year before the end of the season the number reached about 400 who had been on at some time or another.


James Arthur Ross: There should not be so many required this year.


James Garfield Gardiner: No.


George Hugh Castleden: The statement of the minister was partly true.


James Garfield Gardiner: It was all true.


George Hugh Castleden: I think the records will show, however, that the increased summer-fallow in the last few years has brought about a reduction in the possible production of food. We do not have what we could have had in the way of production. We have taken
10.000.000 acres out of the production of wheat, and only part of that has been put into coarse grains. The minister's own statement was that a few years ago we had too much wheat. Well, if he wishes to get production he will have to give the farmer a parity price. If he does that he will get the production he wants. The farmer does not want the bonus if he can get parity price.


James Garfield Gardiner: We have got more food now than we ever got at any other price.


George Hugh Castleden: Because you also got rain, which you may not get this year. I have a further question: Are duplicate copies of farmers' applications to be given to them this year, so that they will have evidence that they have made application?


James Garfield Gardiner: When I got mine I got three copies, only two of which had to be returned. I was permitted to keep one. I presume every other farmer will get the same.


George Hugh Castleden: Has that been the procedure in the past?
M,r. GARDINER: Yes, that is the procedure.


George Hugh Castleden: Has it been in the past?


James Garfield Gardiner: Not always in the past, perhaps. We did start at some time to do
it, and we are still doing it.


James Arthur Ross: The farmer is entitled to a copy of his application if he wishes to
[Mr. Gardinpr.J
have it. Something has been said about municipal officials doing a great deal of this work. I know in my own province this work is heavy. Many of the farmers look upon their municipal offices as their community centre. They go to the clerk and find out a great many things which otherwise it would be very difficult for the farmer to learn. I suppose the municipal clerk is allowed something for taking these applications. I do not know whether he is allowed enough, but I trust that the minister, so long as this scheme is in operation, will continue to work through the municipal offices in the prairie provinces, because certainly they are of very great assistance to the farmers, generally speaking. Otherwise the farmers would be in a quandary, completely, if they had to write to the head offices, or chase up an inspector. I appreciate the work that has been done by municipal officials in those offices, and I presume the same has been done throughout all the prairie provinces. I trust it may be continued, and that they will receive appropriate remuneration for the work they are doing.


Victor Quelch: I understood the minister's statement to be that the purpose of the wheat acreage reduction bonus is not that of reducing the yield, but rather to increase coarse grain production. As the minister will know, in parts of Alberta, and I believe in some of Saskatchewan, there has been serious drought. In some instances wheat which was sowed never came up. That ground is now being cultivated, and it may possibly be sown to oats. However, if it is not sown to oats it will be summer-fallowed, thereby increasing the production next year. Will there be a wheat acreage reduction bonus on that land?


James Garfield Gardiner: No. It is the action taken, not the weather, which controls the payment under wheat acreage reduction. Under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. if it goes into operation, assistance would be given to persons w*ho are dried out during the season. But so far as this act is concerned, it relates to a man's action. That is why these inspectors are sent out-to find out whether the farmer has done differently. If we find that a man had sown wheat in the spring and ploughed it up in June, he would not be counted for wheat acreage reduction. It may be that some would get awray with it, but that is not the intention.


Victor Quelch: For the good of the country as a whole would it not be better to change that arrangement? If the farmer leaves that grain as it is, and does not touch it, he will have a chance of getting $2 an acre prairie farm assistance bonus, but the country will

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ttot get anything from it. The country is losing production by this procedure. It would be far better for Canada if that farmer were to cultivate that land and put in coarse grains this year. But if he is not going to be eligible for wheat acreage reduction bonus he may think, "Well, if I leave it as it is I can get $2 an acre prairie farm assistance bonus for it, so I will leave it." I think it would be well if the minister were to consider that, and make it possible for the farmer to get the benefit of this provision.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am pleased to see that the hon. member for Acadia is a much better farmer than the hon. member for Yorkton. It would seem that the hon. member for Yorkton thinks that by putting land under summer-fallow we reduce production. Every farmer in the committee must know that during difficult years the farmers were cropping more of their land than they should have been cropping under good farming practice, in the hope of getting a good crop some year to pay off some of their bills. We all know now that we were mistaken in that. And we know it more than for any other reason because of the acreages summer-fallowed under this act. We have grown more grain on the same acreage, even*-with as little rainfall as we have had in other years, in 1942 than we ever grew before. And one of the reasons was the increased summer-fallow. On my own farm I have convinced myself that I am going to summer-fallow more land than I did in the past. I have been convinced that, if I do, I will grow more bushels over any twenty-year period than I ever grew before, and I think most farmers in western Canada have been convinced of the same thing. Increasing summer-fallow until you reach fifty per cent of your land-anywhere between twenty-five per cent and fifty per cent-does not necessarily reduce production.


George Hugh Castleden: Are they doing it this year?


James Garfield Gardiner: They are not anywhere near fifty per cent. They could still increase their summer-fallow and farm to better advantage over a period of years. I am pointing out that it is wrong to say that an increase in summer-fallow cuts down production. The fact is that you are not cutting down production; rather you are increasing it.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: I do not know anything about summer-fallow, when compared with the minister; certainly he knows more about it than I do. But I should like to ask two questions arising out of his controversy with the hon. member for Yorkton. The minister introduced a policy of wheat
acreage reduction, and paid a bonus to western farmers for not growing wheat, on the theory that if the farmer did not grow wheat he would grow coarse grain. He believed that in that way he would have a production of a greater variety of grain. The minister and his officials believed that that would be more beneficial for the country generally. I am inclined to think that the policy had that effect. But what I wish to know, and what the farmers of eastern Canada are asking, is why this policy has not been made available to other parts of Canada, if indeed it is a sound policy.
The second question I would ask is this: why was it not considered good husbandry and good economy for the government to indicate to farmers that they should grow less wheat and more coarse grains, and not pay them for doing it-for doing something which a good farmer ought to do in his own interest? We had the same problem in a very much smaller degree in New Brunswick. The farmers there desired to raise seed potatoes. If they followed their own bent they would all be growing seed potatoes, and some of them would not even have a cow. That has happened in some parts of Maine. But they were all shown in years gone by that that does not pay. Those of us who had an interest in agriculture-and I do not mean that we all got down to the dirt and dug with them-have for many years been trying to preach to the farmers of the Saint John river valley and in the northern part of New Brunswick, that they should not put all their eggs in one basket. But nobody ever suggested that the farmers of New Brunswick- the farmers in Carleton county or Victoria county-should be paid for not raising potatoes. They do not understand why western farmers are paid a bonus for reducing their wheat acreage, while the farmers in New Brunswick get nothing. That is something the minister must explain to the farmers in my part of the country before the next election.


James Garfield Gardiner: I can explain it now.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I wish
the minister would explain why that economy is practised in western Canada, and the rest of Canada has to foot the bill and get nothing out of it. I want to know that.


James Garfield Gardiner: In the first place I
would say that while the hon. member's statement will be looked upon by farmers in other parts of Canada as being very accurate, I do not think it is exactly accurate. For example we induced farmers in western Canada to grow feed grain, not only to feed their own live
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stock but to feed live stock in eastern Canada and in the United States. In order to provide assistance to the eastern farmer, we put a ceiling on the price that he had to pay for this feed grain, though we did not put a ceiling on the price to the American farmer. In addition we paid the freight from Fort William to the destination in the east.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is
the form of bonus the eastern farmer gets.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; we are giving him the grain at the price realized by the western farmer, plus the freight as far as Fort William. Last year the assistance which was given to the eastern farmers on that basis amounted to something like $10,000,000. In the coming year the assistance given to western farmers under war acreage reduction will amount to about $26,000,000. It may be said that the amount paid to do the job in the east is less than half the amount being paid to do the other job in the west, but to the amount expended in the east in this connection must be added the money we have paid for fertilizer, assistance which we are not paying on the prairies. We are assisting with fertilizer to the extent that we can get it, though we have not been paying for it in connection with potatoes. Until a few weeks ago we thought there would be enough potatoes, and that there would not be a market for all of them. Now we find that there will be a market and that we cannot get enough, but whether or not that will be the case next year I cannot say. However, we do try to keep that balance.
The hon. member asked why we should pay the farmer who is a wheat grower. We do so for the same reason that we pay the Nova Scotia apple grower. The wheat grower could not market all his grain after the early stages of the war and therefore would not rave been able to stay on the land if some-hing had not been done for him. So far is the apple grower is concerned, he does not get the full amount of the assistance provided. It works out at the rate of something like $400 or $500 per family that we have had to pay in one year. It is true that there are only between four and five thousand families, but the amount we have paid in order to keep the apple industry going in Nova Scotia, and to a limited extent outside that province, amounts to about the figure I have mentioned per family. We have never paid that much per family in western Canada, but I submit that is no reason why we should not pay the amount we are paying in connection with apples. As I have said, it does not all go to the apple grower; his is a different line

of activity, and you must take into consideration the man who puts in the fertilizer, the man who puts in the spray, the cost of the barrels, and all that sort of thing. However, that is what it is costing us. The total is much smaller because we are dealing only with about four thousand families. When you have to deal with 250,000 or 280,000 families the amount piles up, but the individual farmer does not get any more.
In reply to the last question, the wheat growers have said to us, as the hon. member for Qu'Appelle has just finished saying, "We cannot produce wheat at less than SI a bushel." We have replied, "Well, you cannot produce wheat even at $1 a bushel if, as a result of weather conditions, you do not grow any wheat." So we provided those farmers with prairie farm assistance in order to keep them on the land during periods of that kind in order that they might produce another crop the next year. Then the war came along, and after the fall of France we found that our markets on the continent had gone and there was no possibility of marketing much of our wheat. Every organization in western Canada-and I say this for the benefit of the , hon. member for Yorkton-came here, led by the wheat pools, and asked us to quota the deliveries of wheat. The figure of 280,000,000 bushels is the figure of the delegation of four hundred that came here in the spring of 1942. I pleaded with them over in the hotel to ask for 300,000,000 bushels, but the best I could get out of them was to ask the government for not less than 280,000,000 bushels. If I had been the treasurer I would have done just what the present treasurer did; I would have said, "Since they mention not less than 280,000,000 bushels, why make it more?" I sat right on the platform with all the pool officials and the four hundred delegates, with the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Mines and Resources and the Minister of Trade and Commerce. I said, "I have asked the government to put that figure at
300,000,000 bushels," but even after that when they came in with their recommendation it asked for from 280,000.000 to 300,000,000 bushels.
I just make that statement in order to place the facts before hon. members and to show that the quota was not fixed by the government alone; that this was the reasonable way to deal with it, as worked out by the grain handling companies together with the farm organizations and presented to the government to assure that all farmers would get some return. As a result we have placed the marketing of wheat under quota. I believe every farmer in western Canada will

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say that under the quota he has had the most orderly marketing of wheat in the history of the marketing of grain in western Canada; but because we were not able to take all the wheat and were not able to pay the advance which farmers thought they ought to have we said, "Now, we want you to take some of this land out of wheat. The only cash crop you have in sight is wheat. We are not going to increase the advance beyond ninety cents, but we will give you an acreage payment on the land you take out of wheat and put into some other production, because we want that other production." We gave them the money because we felt that otherwise, not being able to market their full crop of wheat, they would not be able to continue to produce. So wTe gave them acreage payments which one year amounted to almost $35,000,000, which last year came to $21,000,000 and which this year we estimate will amount to $26,000,000. We are giving that assistance to farmers who produced wheat before the war, when they had a market for it, in order that they may remain in the production of wheat to a sufficient extent to be able to swing back into wheat, if they should be required to do so, or to go on producing live stock. We hope the future may be such that we can remain in live stock production without hurting people in other parts of Canada; but if in order to assist agriculture right across t'he country it becomes necessary for 'the west to go back into wheat, to supply some demand somewhere in the world, I*am sure it will be to the advantage of those in the east for us to go back into the production of wheat. At the moment, however, we do not think that should be done.


Mark Cecil Senn: The minister made one statement which I cannot allow to go unchallenged, to the effect that the assistance given in connection with freight, amounting to about $10,000,000, all went to the benefit of the eastern farmer. I cannot agree with that statement, for the reason that if that freight assistance had not been given, the western farmer would have had to take lower prices for his coarse grains; otherwise the eastern farmer could not have used them. The farmer of the east could not pay that additional cost and continue to produce beef, dairy products or hogs. Therefore if this assistance had not been given, that grain would not have been used in the east and the farmers of the west would have been forced to sell at lower prices.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I listened to the minister's explanation, and he certainly made a reasoned argument. At the same
time, after listening to agricultural debates in this house for a good many years, I wonder if the western farmer would not prefer a decent price for his wheat instead of bonuses. I think that is the issue. From an economic standpoint I cannot understand a member of a Liberal government advocating bonuses. I recall a pamphlet I saw in 1935, I think put out by 'the present Minister of Agriculture, which stated, "Dollar wheat will pay your debts. Dollar wheat will pay your taxes." That pamphlet did the trick in Saskatchewan.


James Garfield Gardiner: We got it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I agree; it was a smart trick on the people of Saskatchewan, but they never got dollar wheat.


James Garfield Gardiner: Oh, yes; we got $1.50 wheat after that and have dollar wheat now.


Richard Burpee Hanson: You got the votes, too. However, I did not rise to make a political speech. I should like the minister to answer one further question before one o'clock. Is this to be a permanent policy? Are we to look forward to government bonuses, not only for the duration of the war, when quotas are being set and markets have been lo^t, but as a permanent thing?


James Garfield Gardiner: I think I said the first year wTe hoped it would be only for one year. For that reason we did not put it in the form of legislation. We have now gone into the third year and we certainly hope that it will not be necessary to have this continued after the war, but there are grave doubts of our being able to do other than what we are doing in some form while the war is on unless before the end of the war there is a very decided increase in the market for wheat. I want it to be quite clear the record of the meeting of the 400 farmers who came to Ottawa is there to be read; every word that was said was taken down; there was evidenced a decided determination that the acreage payments we were making should not be an alternative for dollar wheat. The farmers were more prepared to accept 90 cent wheat plus these payments than they were to have dollar wheat without them. They believed that it gave some insurance. During the discussion this definite question was asked: If we get dollar wheat, does it mean the taking away of these acreage payments? I had to get up and say that as long as I was Minister of Agriculture the prairie farm assistance payments were going to stay.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is a permanent government policy; that answers my question.
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James Garfield Gardiner: The prairie farm assistance was in effect before the war and is permanent policy.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That was because of the drought.


James Garfield Gardiner: They wanted the acreage payments as well as whatever advance was made on wheat.


Robert Fair: I think it should be made clear that the statement made by the minister was in connection with the prairie farm assistance bonus but did not refer to wheat acreage reduction bonus.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.
The committee resumed at three o'clock.


John Horne Blackmore: There is one observation that ought to be made before this item carries. It does not bear exactly on the topic under consideration, but inasmuch as the minister told us at the beginning of his remarks that one of his chief concerns now was to find a way of storing the crop that is coming in, I think it would be well to spend a moment or two on this question.
I suggest to the minister that the only really thoroughly satisfactory long-range way of dealing with the storage of grain is to provide for storage on the farm. That will require a reversal of policy to a considerable degree and necessitate a great deal of government credit being advanced to farmers to enable them to build granaries to store the grain. But I believe it will be found to be the correct method of approach in the long run. There are several reasons why.
If the farmers were enabled to store grain in granaries which they themselves built and filled, and were to hold the grain in trust for the Dominion of Canada, having received payment for it and being paid storage regularly on it at very much the same rate as is being paid to the elevators, then in due time the farmers would come to possess the grain, or at least they would possess the granaries. The farmer would be required to keep the grain in good condition, and to show sufficient evidence to satisfy the inspector that he had done so before he would be permitted to market his new quota of grain. I believe this device would render the government secure against the loss of the grain, which would then be held for the government and be just as readily available to the government as though it were stored at a terminal elevator.
There are two or three reasons why this would ultimately lead to a satisfactory state of

affairs. In times of drought, when grain has had to be shipped out to farmers for feed or seed, a good deal of expense has been entailed which would not have been necessary had the grain been stored on the farm and consequently been in the community where it was later to be used.
There is another serious aspect of the question. We may have disorder in this country at some time. We are so accustomed to looking upon our country as being secure from all internal commotion that we are likely to find it impossible to project ourselves into a state of affairs where there might be disorder, and if such occurred in the future it would be greatly to our advantage if we had the grain stored out on the farm where it would be much more readily accessible to the people than if it had to be distributed out from large terminal elevators.
The question will be raised immediately, where will the material be obtained now with which to construct these granaries? It is my settled conviction, from such information as has been given me, that there are a good many places in Canada where lumber of a more or less low grade could be manufactured were it not for the restrictions imposed on the manufacturer as a result of the activities of the timber controller. If the Minister of Agriculture were to take this matter up really seriously with the Minister of Munitions and Supply and the other ministers concerned, I believe a way could be found of rendering available a considerable quantity of lumber which is not now going into the hands of those who could use it.
May I suggest also that there is a good deal of cement which could be used to a considerable extent in the construction of granaries on the farm. Certainly it would be better to store the grain in that way than to allow it to accumulate in great piles on the ground, filling with anxiety the minister and everybody else concerned.
To sum up, may I suggest to the minister that a good deal of care and attention should be given to the matter of enabling us to store our grain on the farm.


Robert Fair: There is one phase of this
question which should be discussed at some time, and that is the question of advances to the farmers on the grain they have stored on their farms. While the committee was sitting this morning, I got a letter in the mail box from a man who had been served thirty days' notice to get off his farm. He has feed and he has a number of brood sows and hogs, but he cannot sell the grain that he has, and he has been asked to get off the place. I

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[DOT]understand that he happens to be in a fairly good financial condition. This is only one *case of which I have knowledge, but I think that some interest should be taken in this phase of the question under discussion.


Victor Quelch: I should like to revert to
the question I asked this morning with respect to paying the bonus on burnt-out land which is now being cultivated. Would these men be eligible for the prairie farm assistance bonus?


James Garfield Gardiner: If they are in a township which comes under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act and they qualify, under the act, they would receive assistance.


Victor Quelch: A few years ago they were told that they would have to leave the land
as it was, as proof that it had been burnt out.


James Garfield Gardiner: There is no regulation
that I know of to that effect. The more a man tries to help himself the more we like to help him.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Special.
32. To provide for assistance to encourage the improvement of cheese and cheese factories, $1,875,000.
Mr. COLDWELL:: Could not some consideration be given by the minister and the department to having cheese tested and graded which is made on some farms? The minister will remember that I had some correspondence with him on the subject last year and again this winter. I have in mind a first-class cheese maker who has put a lot of money into a herd of Jersey cattle. He is a cheese maker from the old country, from a district where they make one of the most famous cheeses, the Yeovil district of Somerset. This man at one time was manager of a cheese plant that made St. Ivel cheese, which is one of the most famous English cheeses. He has been producing a very high grade of cheddar cheese in this country but he cannot qualify under the bonus. He cannot get his product graded. I do not want to enter into a long discussion with the minister, but I would ask that reconsideration be given to meet cases of this sort. There may be others; I do not know of others, but I do know of this one case.


James Garfield Gardiner: All I can say is that
we do pay a premium on cheese. If it grades 93 the premium is one cent; if it grades 94 the premium is two cents. I know of no provision in the legislation or the regulations that
would prevent a man who is producing high-grade cheese in some small plant of his own on his farm from getting the premium if the cheese is of the proper quality.


Major James William Coldwell: His trouble is to get it graded.


James Garfield Gardiner: It has to be cheddar cheese.


Major James William Coldwell: He is making a cheddar cheese, but cannot get it graded.


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not think that that should put him in a position where he cannot get the premium. I think we ought to provide for its being graded. I have not in mind the details of the case. It is somewhere in the northern part of the province, is it not?


Major James William Coldwell: That is right.


James Garfield Gardiner: Then probably there is only one man doing this. Probably the only way we could have a check made would be to get someone at the agricultural college at Saskatoon to go and make the check. I do not think this man should be deprived of his premium because someone is not coming around regularly and checking it up.


Major James William Coldwell: The minister's opinion is different from the opinion I got from the department before.


James Garfield Gardiner: This is the view that I express. I will try to bring my view to bear on the department.


Mark Cecil Senn: I ask the minister to break this item down into two parts. One part I believe is devoted to a premium of one cent and two cents on high grade cheese; the other is for improvements to cheese factories. I should like to know how much money was expended last year under each item, and what is anticipated will be spent this year.


James Garfield Gardiner: The amount has been $350,000 for the construction and $1,600,000 for premiums. There is some difficulty at present in getting priorities for equipment, and we do not estimate that more than about $275,000 will be utilized for equipment; the remainder will be required for premium.


Mark Cecil Senn: I suppose if this amount has been expended from year to year for the last three or four years since the Cheese Factory Improvement Act came into force, by this time most of the factories are properly equipped, though no doubt there are some which are not. However, I did not intend to emphasize that part of it. What improvement

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has been made in cheese production since the bonus has been in existence? Are we getting a larger percentage of our cheese to grade No. 1 and No. 2 than we did formerly, and if so, to what extent? Perhaps the minister also would say something more about our cheese exports to the old country. Is it likely that we shall be able to fill our quota this year? Evidently up to the present our cheese production for this year is far behind what it was last year.


James Garfield Gardiner: As has been stated on a number of occasions, we had a higher production of cheese last year than we have had since very early in the century, and some of that increased production was due to the fact that we encouraged the production of cheese in the winter months. Starting with January and down to April there was a very great increase of the production of cheese as compared with the preceding years. If one takes the whole year into consideration, the quality is down in 1942 as compared with 1941. If one takes just the summer season when the better cheese was being made in all preceding years the position is about the same. Even in spite of the fact that we have had a great increase of production the position is about the same. To give the exact percentage of first-grade cheese to all cheese produced : in 1939 we had 91-72 per cent; 1940, 94-54 per cent; 1941, 95-51 per cent. There was a constant increase up to that time. In 1942, with 93-68 per cent, it is down as compared with 1941, but one has to make allowance for the two things I mentioned, the much greater production, and the fact that we produced so much in the winter months.


Mark Cecil Senn: Do we ship that lower grade cheese to the old1 country?


James Garfield Gardiner: As long as it is No. 1, 2 or 3 it may be shipped to Britain, but if a larger proportion of it in the winter is not in those grades, not so large a portion of it goes to Great Britain. As a matter of fact we did encourage the increase in the winter time in 1942 to supply local markets.


Percy Ellis Wright: Has there been any application for assistance under this item to cheese factories in western Canada, and are there any inspectors there to inspect cheese for the purpose of the bonus?


James Garfield Gardiner: Most of the inspectors, of course, are in Ontario and Quebec, because that is where most of the cheese factories are, but there are some in the other provinces. The numbers of factories, with the amounts

paid, are these: New Brunswick, two, amount paid $113.33; Prince Edward Island, two. $252.75; Quebec, original 143. supplementary 80, total subsidies $189,221.50; Ontario, original 67, supplementary 16; total subsidies $28,922.93; Alberta, two, $2,032.43; British Columbia, one, S9S1.85. There are none today in either Manitoba or Saskatchewan. In those provinces, as I indicated a moment ago, naturally there are no inspectors checking the work, there being no cheese factory.


Percy Ellis Wright: There have been no applications from Manitoba and Saskatchewan?


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not think there were any in 1942, but my recollection is that there was one in Manitoba one or two years earlier. I doubt if there were any from Saskatchewan. We make very little cheese.


Mr. BOUCHER:: Is there any collaboration between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Munitions and Supply as to priorities for cheese makers in respect to gasoline and tires? I have had several complaints from cheese makers about the difficulty of getting priority rating, as farmers do, for new tires. I think the question, although not strictly the minister's responsibility, is of interest.


James Garfield Gardiner: We have a man, Mr. Armstrong, who is working all the time in connection with all these priorities, and he takes up with the officials of the Department of Munitions and Supply any complaints which are brought to our attention. On quite a number of occasions we have secured assistance for the people concerned, but there are many cases for which it is impossible to get priority.


Mr. DUPUIS:: This forenoon we discussed
the question of transportation of grain from the west to the east, and I understood that the reason given why more grain is not transported is lack of railway facilities. I have just had the pleasure of listening to the distinguished president of the Canadian National Railways with his officials. He stated that actually they could carry more grain than is offdred. I thought it well to bring that to the attention of the minister so that the farmers of Quebec may be allowed to have more grain to help them in raising their stock.


James Garfield Gardiner: I cannot let that statement pass without correction. I do not know what the officials said in the committee, but I have sat in committees and tried to arrange with the railways for some considerable time to provide cars. The railways have done

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
their best, but there is no one moving grain in Canada to the extent that we want it moved, neither the railways nor anyone else. We are not blaming anyone for that. We are asking the railways to move other things. But both the Minister of Trade and Commerce and I have sat on committees with representatives of both railways and have pleaded with them to put more cars at the disposal of those shipping grain, and tlhey made representations to the effect not only that they could not do so but that, so far as they could see, they were going to be able to move what grain had to be moved. These discussions go on continuously and so far we have not been able to get a sufficient number of cars after appealing to railways on both sides of the line to move the grain.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: -I hope that tlhe question brought up by the hon. member for Chambly-Rouville will not be taken as affording an opportunity to discuss this subject again, because we passed that item this morning. I believe it is the wish of the committee that all hon. members should remain within the item under consideration.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I happened to be out of the house on a committee when item 29 was carried. I am not going to discuss that item now but I should like to say a word by way of compliment to the minister and his department on having in charge of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act a man who in my judgment was cut out for the job. I refer to Mr. George Spence. He has all the qualifications for the job, he is intensely interested in his work, and I am convinced that he is doing a good job.


Robert Fair: I wish to ask a question not on cheese but on a matter which is closely related to it. It is a hangover from a previous discussion. What price is being paid by the government for any surplus of dairy butter?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is paid under the commodity prices stabilization board, which is under 'the prices board. I am sorry I have not the exact price offered, but that can be obtained when discussions are on with regard to the prices board.


John Horne Blackmore: Unfortunately I
happened to be out of the chamber when the minister made his statement on prices of wool. Would the minister tell the committee what is the average price of wool for 1943? According to the figures I have, the price in 1941 was 24-91, and the price for 1942 was 26-75. What would be the price for 1943 comparable to those?


James Garfield Gardiner: The return for the grade of wool we were talking about is indicated, in the statement I gave, as 34.


John Horne Blackmore: That would be the price to the ordinary wool producer in Alberta, or would he be producing the type of wool the minister had in mind?


James Garfield Gardiner: It would be impossible to go across the country and give the exact price at every point.	I am not certain
whether it is Winnipeg or Toronto, but it is some central point.


John Horne Blackmore: That would be the price which the wool producer would receive, less freight?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, July 7, consideration in committee of a resolution to grant to his majesty certain sums of money for the carrying out of measures consequent upon the existence of a state of war-Mr. Usley-Mr. Bradette in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J.t L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance): I think we had better finish the wartime prices and trade board items. One item has been carried, the wartime prices and trade board proper, but the allied agencies have not been dealt with. I think they should all be dealt with at the same time. The next item is the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation, and then follow two crown companies. It would interrupt the sequence badly if we were to vary that order.
Joseph-Arthur Bradette: What item does the minister wish to have called now?


Mr. ILSLEY:: The Commodity Prices
Stabilization Corporation, $120,000,000.


Mr. DIEFENBAKBR:: I sat in the house all yesterday and I wished to ask a certain question, but the relevant item was passed in my absence. I understood that No. 1 would not be finished. I left at ten minutes to-eleven. There is one matter to which I should like to make reference if I may.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I cannot take any exception to that, because I said last night that there were certain questions unanswered which I thought I could answer on the next item without any undue stretching of the rules.

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization


John George Diefenbaker: What I have to say refers to a matter which I know will receive the approval of hon. members generally. It is something that is being advanced not by way of criticism but from a desire to rivet the attention of the house and the country on the necessity of assuring men who were in business and who come back from overseas of the opportunity of securing a permit to carry on business. I am going to give a concrete example which has just come to hand. It reveals I submit a serious situation when the rehabilitation of the men who have served overseas and who return is being considered. Since November 2, 1942, no new business may be opened up within designated lines of business, and the result is that service men who were formerly engaged in business, say, in a retail store, which is the only training they have had, when they come back are denied the opportunity of carrying on that business. It is the only business they know anything about, and their experience fits them for nothing else. The instance I have in mind is sufficiently definite to be regarded as typical of the result of a strict application of the regulations. This ex-soldier, William W. McIntosh, served overseas twenty-five months. He had been running a hardware store in Vonda in Saskatchewan before he enlisted in September, 1939. He has two sons, and both of those boys are overseas. He left his business under the control of a relative who did [DOT]not operate it any too well, and finally, in August 1941, the relative closed the business, there being a large amount of hardware still on hand. Finally this man returned from overseas. For thirty-five years he and his father before him had operated this hardware store. There had always been two hardware stores in the town. When he was discharged from the army the only place he could go was back to the operation of the business, in respect of which he still had a large amount of stock on hand. On April 27, he wrote the wartime prices and trade board setting out the facts I have given to the house, and also stating that in order to establish himself in civilian life it would be necessary for him to open his store, that being his only means of support. In his letter he stated further:
, There is a good stock on hand, many articles which are unobtainable in the market to-day. It will not be necessary for me to purchase a great deal of stock except for replacement of goods which I may sell from the present stock.
He was discharged in March, and wrote this letter in April. He received no reply, and again on May 20 he wrote the wartime prices and trade board at Saskatoon advising them that on April 27 last he had made an application to the board for a permit to reopen his
(Mr. Ilsley]
business, after being discharged from the Canadian active service army. Then he said in his letter:
I have as yet received no word as to whether or not my application was received or whether it was granted or refused. Surely some decision must have been arrived at after a period of over three weeks.
On May 27 he received a letter from Mr. J. E. Housey, the representative in Saskatoon, acknowledging receipt of the letter of May 20, and stating:
We would also like to know if anyone else has started in this business in the town of Vonda. If so, your store would have to be treated as a new entrant into business.
No store had been opened in the interval, and he so replied, stating further in his letter:
I would say that no one else has started in a hardware business in the town of Vonda since the closing of my store, and my store cannot be considered a new entrant. It is now over a month since I made application for a permit. In view of the fact that my small capital is being depleted for living expenses and I have no other income until I can open my business and reestablish myself in civil life, I would ask you to rush this matter through as quickly as you possibly can.
On May 31 Mr. Housey wrote again, stating:
Owing to the fact that this store has been closed since August, 1941, it will have to be considered as a new entrant into business, as order 184 states that a business not operated or closed for a year prior to November 2, 1942, must be considered a new entrant into business.
Nothing further was done, and on June 15 one of the wartime prices and trade board representatives at Regina, Mrs. May W. Neal, wrote to him as follows:
Will you be good enough to inform us what other stores in your community are handling the same lines of hardware, and if there are no others how close the nearest hardware stores are located to you. We must also know the definite date on which your business was temporarily suspended.
The soldier replied on June 16. In part he wrote:-
When I was discharged from the army I had a limited amount of capital but this is rapidly being used up in living costs while awaiting permit to open my store. It appears to me, that in my case, where I had served three and a half years in the active service army and over two years in England, that my application could have been granted immediately and every assistance given to me to reestablish myself in civilian life without assistance from the government.
As the matter now stands I will very shortly either have to open my business or apply to the government for assistance, as I cannot go on living without some means of supporting myself.

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
He received no reply to that letter. Then he wrote again on June 27 to the wartime prices and trade board, stating:
I cannot understand why it should take two months to deal with my application.
He received no reply to that, and, finally, on July 5, he wrote a letter which is undoubtedly the culmination of over two and a half months of delay. In that letter he said:
It will be ten weeks ago to-morrow since I made my application for a permit from your board. Repeated requests for some action one way or another have had no results and I have been put to considerable expense and monetary loss through this unnecessary and unwarranted delay.
Then he states something which I believe I should place before the committee. These are his words:
I can no longer support myself without some means of subsistence, and if no permit is received from your board by next Monday, July 12, my store will be open for business without a permit.
That part of the letter I do not try to justify. But here was a man who served his country, and whose two sons are overseas. He has engaged in .only one business, namely, the hardware business. I know I will receive the sympathetic cooperation both of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Pensions and National Health, and also that of hon. members generally, when I ask that this rule which prevents the opening of a business be not applied against men returning from overseas. When a man returns from overseas, and wishes to reengage in business in the town in which he formerly operated, he should be given an opportunity to do so in order to rehabilitate himself. Otherwise the observance of the letter of the regulation issued by the wartime prices and trade board means that our men, after they have served their country, are going to be denied the opportunity of rehabilitating themselves. I believe an undertaking along that line would do much to improve the morale of the men who serve.
Practically every able-bodied man in this little town of Vonda is in the army-people of various races, including besides people of British origin, French, Ukrainian and German. When these people see the regulations strictly enforced against a man who returns from overseas, thereby denying him the opportunity of earning a livelihood, it does not make for the type of feeling which should exist. I would ask the minister to alter the letter of the law, so far as the opening of new businesses is concerned, in respect of men who go overseas. When they return, they
ask for and have the right to demand the opportunity to earn a livelihood. I believe all hon. members agree that these men should receive everything the country can give them fairly, and surely they should not be denied the right to earn a livelihood in the business in which they were formerly engaged.


James Lorimer Ilsley: This is the first I have
known of the facts, although I understand my hon. friend communicated them to my parliamentary assistant this morning. On the recital of the facts I cannot, of course, justify the delay in dealing with the case. I do not know if there is any explanation for the delay, but I shall have the case investigated. The hon. gentleman asks me to give an undertaking that a principle will be established that men returning from overseas will be exempt from the provisions of the order preventing the establishment of new businesses.


John George Diefenbaker: If they were previously engaged in business, or if their training in civil life was in business.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I very much doubt if permits are denied now in cases of that kind. There has been delay in the case mentioned, I admit; but I just want to point out that this order preventing persons from going into business is of course a serious interference with the freedom of the individual, perhaps one of the most serious of the interferences that have been set up by the government. It was set up because, as persons in business understand full well, in a great many lines the stocks that are given to one trader are virtually taken away from other traders, and the order was passed for the protection of retailers and persons now engaged in business of that kind. I do not think the hon. gentleman would advocate the rescission of that rule; I do not know whether he would or not.


John George Diefenbaker: I do not argue
the abolition of the rule, but I do argue against its application to discharged soldiers; otherwise you are going to deny men who have served overseas an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves.


James Lorimer Ilsley: My colleague the Minister
of Pensions and National Health has made representations with regard to these men returning from overseas. He has submitted that they should be granted permits; the matter has been fully discussed, and he has just handed me this memorandum: "Gordon said he would make reasonable allowance for men setting up in business after discharge by allowing quotas of rationed goods on special basis. The man's difficulty was that he had no quota," this was a British Columbia case,
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"not having been in business during the basic period." I do not know just what that means, but I know that special consideration is given to cases of returned soldiers. In view of what the hon. gentleman has said; in view of the fact that this man had a store, I should think this would be a case in which special consideration would be given, but there are cases in which men want to buy stores and reestablish themselves in that way.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They want to start new businesses.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. If that were allowed generally-perhaps it is allowed generally; I do not know-or at any rate if it were allowed in every case it would just mean that those in business, including veterans of the last war, it must be remembered, would be deprived of part of the stocks in trade they would1 ibe able to obtain otherwise, because there is quite a scramble now for stocks in trade in these limited lines. So that some sort of reasonable balance has to be fixed. As I say, on the statement of facts given by the hon. gentleman there has been a delay for which there would appear to be no justification, and I shall have that case looked into at once.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What
would be the attitude of the board with respect to a case like this? A well established retailer dies and there is no one in the immediate family to carry on the business. The widow must sell. Would a permit be issued to a purchaser to take over that business? Of course these questions are always based on individual cases, and I understand there was such a case in which a permit was first refused and subsequently granted. I should like to know the practice.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am told that the practice is to grant permits in cases of transfers of ownership.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbuiy):: I think that would be fair.


Major James William Coldwell: I am sorry I was out of the house this morning, on account of the various committees which are sitting, and which I think is unfortunate, but I want to ask the minister something about the purchasing abroad of various commodities in bulk. Perhaps that question was answered earlier.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No. If my hon. friend will permit me, we are trying to finish up the item that was passed last night, and we shall come to the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation in a moment.


Major James William Coldwell: I thought the other item was finished last evening.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It was finished, but on the understanding that I would answer one or two questions that were raised, and I shall do that now.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Has the minister given consideration to the situation which I have brought up in the house on two different occasions, namely the application of the price ceiling along the border of New Brunswick and the absence of a price ceiling in the United States? I would urge the government to deal with that situation. Since I spoke previously in this connection a very difficult situation has arisen with respect to fuel wood along the border; I think I mentioned the matter months ago. Fuel wood is subject to a ceiling in New Brunswick. Fuel wood has no ceiling in the adjacent state of Maine. To-day the spectacle is being witnessed down there of truckload after truckload of fuel wood going across the line, commanding the higher price plus a premium. Last night at McAdam Junction a man who lives at Aroostook Junction told me that it was impossible to buy .fuel wood in New Brunswick as a result of that situation. A controller has been appointed down there. Has a permit system been set up, or what is the position? As the cold weather approaches that situation will become very serious, and of course the pulpwood situation is much more serious.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman brought up the question of pulpwood, the export of which is under permit. Of course in connection with any commodity the price of which is higher in the United States than in Canada, very difficult questions arise because the exporters who are lucky enough to be able to get their exports under the quota permitted receive more money than those who are unlucky and have to sell in Canada.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is not the difficulty. The quota is so large that it will take all our exports; there is no trouble about getting a permit. The difficulty is that the local mills are not going to be able to keep going. All the pulpwood cut on the farmers' lots and in the small freehold sections of the province is going into Maine, while the portion ordinarily available to the provincial mills is not available now because they cannot meet the price. There is no trouble about getting a permit to export.


James Lorimer Ilsley: According to the figures I have, the situation is that Canada agreed to supply to the United States 1,550,000 cords of

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
pulpwood in the calendar year 1943, inasmuch as Canada for many years has been a substantial exporter of pulpwood to that country. Realizing the possibility of a reduction in production, this quantity was arrived at in relation to our exports of both pulpwood and newsprint, and compares with exports in 1942 of 1,920,508 cords and in 1941 of 1,842,234 cords. This reduction in quantity was arranged in order to allow a greater quantity of wood pulp to be available to Canadian consumers. With regard to wood fuel, that comes under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, and I am told that pulpwood comes under his jurisdiction as well.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I think that is correct.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am under the impression that fuel wood has not been placed under export permit.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is right.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Perhaps it should be; I do not know.


Richard Burpee Hanson: From the investigations I have made I think that something in the nature of a permit system could be worked out under which the local controller who is on the ground could see that supplies for local consumers were reserved for them before the surplus was allowed to go out. However, the difficulty is the difference between the selling price in New Brunswick and the very much higher price across the line. The result is that producers just will not sell locally; they will take their chances on holding. I know it is a problem, perhaps due to the failure-I say that for lack of a better word- on the part of the authorities across the line to keep prices down somewhere on a parity with ours. The effect is very bad upon our consuming population, and this problem will have to be tackled.
I do not think the person who prepared that memorandum on pulpwood visualized the true position. It is true that we have always sent a certain amount of pulpwood, but when that was done we were dealing on an equal basis with the Maine mills. However, with the present ceiling price in Canada we just cannot compete with the prices they are willing to pay. No one is willing to sell to the Canadian mills. They know that we are well within the quota and they can ship across the line and get the enhanced price of at least $5 per cord; taking into account the premium, it may be even higher than that. This situation, if not
corrected, will result in at least one mill temporarily suspending operations. I am quite aware that we owe something to our United States friends in the way of supplies of raw materials, but this is the situation that exists.
I think the remedy would be to put a limitation on our price and let our people go out and compete with them on even terms. That may not be possible, but that is my suggestion. Let them take their chances on getting their share of the production. This is what should have been done at the beginning. Give them export permits, but let them compete on an equal basis.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Raise the price.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am not suggesting that; perhaps there should be an increase in the price in New Brunswick, but that would be one more item of increased production costs. The minister talks about the cost of living, but the fact is that it is going up in every line. One item is the increased cost of producing pulpwood.. I am going to send the minister a copy of a letter which I received1 from a Methodist minister in Windsor about the increased cost of living and the price ceiling. It will amuse the minister to read this. I am not going to put it on the record. Say what you will, commend the policy, and I do commend its objectives, the fact remains that this thing is just bursting. I do not know how we are going to hold it without control across the line. It is a terrible problem that is confronting the board having regard to the situation existing in the United States. We are right alongside the border and we are feeling the repercussions.
It is not good enough to say that the cost of living index has not risen beyond what the minister says it has. Every housewife knows differently. If the minister were marketing, as I was on Saturday, and had to pay fifty cents a pound for lamb he would know what the cost of living is.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will read the letter. I ask my hon. friend to read the remarks I made last night about the cost of living index.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I will. I know the minister defended it. He said that it was the best that was available, but that is a change in his attitude. He always said that it was the criterion.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do now.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I do not agree with the minister, and there is no one else in the world who does. It may be the
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War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
best index that is available, but it does not tell the true story of the cost of living. Go into any home you like in this country and you will find that the cost of living has increased by a greater percentage than that given by the minister.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The cost of food has gone up thirty per cent.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The cost of everything else has gone up.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Not at all.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The cost of firewood has gone up twenty-five per cent.


Mr. ABBOTT:: What proportion of your income do you spend on firewood?


Richard Burpee Hanson: In my case it might not be very much, but it would be quite large in the homes of some of the poor. The hon. member for St. Antoine-Westmount would not understand that.


Mr. ROWE:: What basis is used in allotting the percentage to food products?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Could we not finish the wartime prices and trade board item and then go on to the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation? I think when I answer two or three questions which I undertook to answer it should wind up the discussion on that item.
The hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. O'Neill) asked last night whether all the inspected slaughter houses were owned by the big packers. I have made inquiries and I find that there are 54 inspected slaughter houses in Canada, of which eighteen are owned by the big three packers, that is, Canada Packers, Swifts and Burns. The rest are owned by what might be called independents.
The hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) asked the number of permits which had been granted to new entrants in business. In the first few months of the administration of the governing order it was not practicable to tabulate totals of permits issued. The figures could be obtained by a detailed analysis of the files, but this would represent a very large task. From March 16, 1943 on records have been kept which show that from that date to June 30, 689 permits have been issued. A large number of these have been for quite small enterprises; for example, 122 permits for egg grading stations and 31 for coal dealers. Permits issued prior to March 16 were for the most part granted in recognition of commitments made prior to November 2, in accordance with the policy announced when the order was issued. The

tion. member asked for the distribution of permits by provinces. There are four districts, and the distribution was as follows:
Western provinces	 360
Ontario	 178
Quebec	 106
Maritime	provinces	 45
The larger number in the western provinces is due to three factors. One, quite a number of egg grading stations were authorized; two, a large number of people were given the right to mix and sell mixed feed for live stock and poultry, and, three, it was necessary tO' authorize a number of new businesses to take care of the new Alaska project. The records of the director of licensing do not show separate figures for each western province.
The -hon. gentleman also asked for the figures showing the effect upon retail stores. Particulars as to the closures of retail establishments are not available, but the figures for commercial failures, as published by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, diow the following for the trade and service groups:
1938		 776
1939		 861
1940		 792
1941		 671
1942		 522
The corresponding figure for 1931 was 1,357.
These figures, of course, do not tell the whole story, since there are a substantial number of persons retiring from trade otherwise than by failure. Figures for the total number of closures of retail establishments are not available, but the wartime prices and trade board has, on three occasions in the past year, arranged for test surveys to be made of the reasons for closures, examining approximately 150 cases on each occasion.
These surveys were made on recognized sampling techniques, and I have every reason to suppose that they reflect conditions generally. The surveys show conclusively that by far the greatest number of closures are still occasioned by reasons of illness, old age, and bad management, but quite a number are due to transfers into war industry and other civilian employment.
Some closures were reported as being due to curtailment of supplies. This is inevitable during war time, and must follow from the restrictions on manufacture of certain consumers' durable goods.
There has apparently been some increase in the closures occasioned for these reasons; the fact remains, however, that the greatest number of closures are still occasioned by reasons other than war-time controls.

War Appropriation-
-Prices Stabilization
The hon. member for Qu'Appelle wanted a statement of the rental prosecutions for the province of Saskatchewan. From December, 1941 to June, 1942, there were 6; in July, 1942, 2; August, 3; September, 6; October, 12; November, 4; December, 5; January, 1943, 6; February, 3; March, 3; April, 5; May, 3; making a total of 58.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is that for the whole of Canada?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, just for Saskatchewan. I have here the figures for the other provinces, but they were not asked for.
The hon. member for Lake Centre asked for the number of directives that have been issued pursuant to the announced statement of policy on equitable distribution of goods in short supply.
This policy is implemented by all administrators of the wartime prices and trade board, and no centralized record of the directives given by such administrators is maintained, nor would it be practicable to do so. Any person who is of the opinion that he is not receiving his fair share of goods in accordance with the announced policy may apply to the appropriate administrator for relief, and if the administrator is satisfied, appropriate action is taken. Frequently such action is quite informal and an official directive is not necessarily issued.
The hon. member for Saskatoon City (Mr. Bence), suggested that there had been a deteijoration in quality of gasoline without a corresponding reduction in price. The standardization of grades of gasoline is covered by oil controller's order No. 008-A, dated September 26, 1941, which date is prior to the commencement of the over-all price ceiling.


Mr. HARRIS (Danforth):: Perhaps at the proper time the minister would answer a question I am going to put to him now. It seems that it has been necessary since the outbreak of the war to change the wording of the auditor's certificate of accounts, and perhaps with regard to the wartime prices and trade board. How far behind is the audit now? Last year it was considerably behind, but there has been some catch-up. What means are being taken to keep the audit close up to the expenditures?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think that would come under the item for the auditor general.


Joseph Henry Harris: Yes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will try to be prepared with the information when we reach the item.
Mr. O'NEILL: Last night I asked a question with respect to the slaughtering of hogs.
Reading Hansard to-day I am not very sure just what the minister meant. The minister said:
For export houses the quota is fifty per cent of 1940, and for others it is seventy-five per cent of 1941.
Then he goes on to say:
There have been 12,000 slaughter permits issued, and there are about forty-five or fifty inspected houses. I cannot imagine that all of them are controlled or owned by the packing industry.
He concludes by saying:
I shall have to get some information for the hon. gentleman. I shall look into the situation.
My information is that in the city of Vancouver there are three of these packing houses. Two of them are owned by the large packing concerns and the other was an independent concern. There was a mortgage on it, and they were closing out the mortgage. The minister says that a quota is placed on the slaughtering house, so that quite naturally there would be no way for the independent man to get his produce in there.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It would not make any
difference, because the quota is a proportion of the number slaughtered in 1940 or 1941, as the case may be, and the result would be the same whether the quota went by establishments or by companies. The answer I gave was correct, except that I should have said "inspected" houses rather than export houses, but the two terms are used interchangeably in common parlance. What I said was substantially correct. I said forty to fifty, but it should have been fifty-four inspected houses. Eighteen of them are owned by Canada Packers, Swifts or Burns, and the rest by other packers. The quotas for hogs are the quotas I gave last night; the quota is 50 per cent of the 1940 slaughtering for domestic sales by the inspected houses, and for non-inspected houses 75 per cent of the 1941 slaughtering.
Mr. O'NEILL: I understand that exactly the same procedure was adopted with respect to hogs as they had for cattle. But that was changed so that the quota is not divided among the packers on the same basis as it was last year. Instead there is a quota to a district, and all you have to do then is to have your animal slaughtered in an accredited house.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is no quota to a
district.
Mr. O'NEILL: The information I have from the foods administrator is that the quota used to be divided among firms, but that was

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changed and now there is a certain quota for a certain area. It no longer applies to any particular company. But with hogs that does not apply. With hogs it is a quota to a concern or packing house. That is unfair to the small dealer and bad for the producer.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There are no district quotas, I am informed. It is a technical matter, and perhaps the hon. gentleman would take it up with me. It is pretty hard to get much further with it in a discussion such as this. All I can do here is to put it off for the moment, look into it a little more and then come back.
Mr. O'NEILL: I do not want to hold up the minister's estimates, but a quota as between companies who had formerly done business is not, in my opinion, a fair way to have it. If there are a certain number of animals to be slaughtered, the man who will pay the producer the highest price and keep within the ceiling is the man who should be permitted to slaughter these animals. If you are going to operate it on a quota or percentage of what these men slaughtered last year or in 1941, you are going to squeeze out the small producer. There is no doubt about that.


Thomas Langton Church: I want to add a few remarks about the administration. There is a grave danger in the rapid expansion of this wartime prices administration, which went from $55,000 to $161,000, to $10,514,000, and now to $14,300,000 a year. By this rapid expansion in geometrical progression you are creating a mechanism which is not only inflationary in the widest sense but very possibly will not attain the objects for which it was created. It is fraught with great danger to the finances of the country in other ways and to all connected with the system. Just look over the many phases of the problem which has been discussed in the past twenty-four hours with regard to some twelve different forms of business. One cannot expect the Minister of Finance to know everything about this particular organization; it amazes me that he can attend to as much as he does. I do not want to be critical of him; I hope he has not inferred from what I said the other evening that I am critical of him and his department. But in a report made by a very important bank they point out that the more expensive and elaborate an administration becomes, the greater the opportunity for mistakes, and the more costly the mistakes, the greater is the inflationary effect. That is true. Anyone who has had any experience in this connection knows it to be true as subsidies tend to widen and cover more producers cost increase. There 
is a great deal of information on the administrative part of the board's work in a very informative bluebook covering the period September 1939 to March 1943.
From the various references which have been made in this debate one can see how widely this work has expanded. One hon. member has just referred to slaughtering, another has spoken of fluctuations in the cost of living affecting many very important phases of production and distribution. The system has widened out to something we never thought of. What I am fearful of is that we shall go a little too far. There was a return brought down on March 18 last, and I think the minister stated that, so far as the economic administration of this department and the economic life of our country were concerned, this had been turned over entirely to an outside board with such complete control that it was practically a parliament in itself. The head of it could issue rules and regulations having the force of statutes, with the grave dangers which attend such a proceeding. When the board started I asked certain questions of the minister concerning the expansion all along the line of this administration, which now costs $14,300,000. The higher you soar into the clouds of finance the less the likelihood that the money will be well spent. That is a well known economic principle.
On March 18 last I asked this question:
Who is the minister of the crown responsible for the various public utterances of-	[DOT]
The chairman of this board.
[DOT]-and all his staff and controls, sub-controls and other officials in Canada, and are these speeches first submitted to each separate ministry?
2.	What has been the cost of the wartime prices and trade board since its inception, by years?
3.	What are the salaries, living allowances, travelling expenses and other allowances of each headquarters officer or official of the said board since appointment and what was the previous occupation of each?
4.	Who instructs them as to their duties?
There has been a great deal of criticism of one of the branches which deals with rentals. I think the hon. member for Yorkton dealt with this matter the other evening.
5.	What is the number of officers under each control and the total payrolls for the last year of record of the board and its officials?
Here are the answers:	First, as to who is
responsible:
The wartime prices and trade board is responsible to the Minister of Finance. The texts of such speeches and public addresses are not 

vmaljy first submitted to the minister.

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
In other words the chairman of the board can pass orders and rules and regulations having the force of statutes and impose fines up to $5,000 and is himself in absolute control of our whole economic life. That is a very dangerous practice. True it is that there is a war on, but I am sorry to see what is going on in the name of the war. All over the country we find activities alleged to be for the war which are not for the war at all. I am surprised to see that the war is blamed for many expansions in the administration with which it has nothing to do.
To the second question, what has been the cost of the board since its inception, the following answer is returned:
September 3, 1939, to March 31,
1940	 $	55,117 41
Year ending March 31, 1941. . ..	161,309 48
Year ending March 31, 1942... .	1.436,988 61
Information for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1943, not yet available.
The next question is, what are the salaries, living allowances, et cetera, of each official of the board, and what was his previous occupation? From the answer it is clear that a large number of lawyers and others were brought into the department as counsel, solicitors, administrators, assistants in the price division, and deputy administrators. They must have a very large legal busines to judge by the amount of money spent on legal costs. As to the administration of rentals, more than sixty per cent of it is just a farce. The minute the man who got the position is appointed what does he do? He heads for Chicago to address a real estate convention. Then they have a "special assistant to newsprint administrator." Of course they have press officers who, I know, beset the newspaper offices. I know that myself, from the unfair and untrue criticism I have had in the past two or three years from certain of the corporation press in one part of Canada. The secretary of the board is answerable to the chairman, we are told in the return. I do not know anybody who was not answerable to the chairman. I do not think the chairman is answerable to anyone in the heavens above or the earth beneath or the waters under the earth. Is there anything in that important agency, from beginning to end, which the chairman of the board is not over? Then there is the chief of supply. He is loaned from the foreign exchange control board. There are many other administrative officers, but I will not detain the committee by reading a list of them. I find that hardly any of these men know anything at all about what they are trying to administer, or have any practical 72537-2861
experience in it whatever and never had. As I said the other day in connection with the administration of beef and butter, all they know about beef and butter is what they consume themselves. We find doctors of everything, lawyers, clerks, preachers and everybody else brought into the department to handle the business, economic and all else, of this organization. Would anybody here engage a Doctor of Laws to manage -his wholesale business? No. Doctors of Law are all right in their sphere, but certainly this is not their sphere. Go over the whole department and you will find similar occasions for criticism. The chairman, the administrator of this department, with a payroll of $14,000,000 is himself a civil servant. I have never yet said in this chamber anything of a personal nature about a man, and I do not intend to begin now.
They are all gentlemen, as far as I know. There is one very fine man sitting at the table now, and I would probably not have said as much as I did had I been aware of the fact. But the public principle is just the same no matter where these gentlemen sit, whether here in the gallery or behind desks in an office. They are passing orders that affect the liberties of the subject and a lot of what is done is doing little or nothing to win the war. I can say that this sort of thing has been condemned in the British House of Commons and an attempt is being made there to get away as much as possible from it. The other day I referred to what is being done at the present time in Washington. They do not want to have any such elaborate system of controls there. We had an example of it in the new deal idea which was introduced by Professor Moley of Cleveland into the United States some years ago, and this method of erecting artificial barriers and all kinds of barriers in the way of business was condemned in that country before the war. They saw something of what was coming in this war and they are trying now to reduce administrative machinery in the senate there as far as they possibly can instead of expanding it as we are doing here. The more it expands and widens in Canada, the greater the likelihood of the whole system collapsing, because we are simply building on sand and when the rains descend, and the winds come, and the floods rise, woe betide the taxpayer of Canada, the retailer, the wholesaler and all the little business men throughout the country.
The small stores are being closed up right and left. In my own constituency 18 per cent of these small establishments have gone out of business, and I have been told by responsible
4514	COMMONS
War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
persons that this figure will rise to anywhere from 20 to 40 per cent. Going down on the street car on Yonge street I can see buildings in which small stores used to flourish and which are now converted to other housing uses. There was one fish store in Toronto that had been carrying on business for thirty years and now it has been turned by conversion into a three-family apartment. I do not know how people can possibly live in a place from which the smell of fish cannot possibly have been removed after all that time. All these little stores are being put out of business by this board.
The chairman himself was a civil servant, and what does he do? He gets first a skeleton staff, two or three civil servants of the second class, around him and then appoints outsiders. I do not wish to say anything to disparage the civil service. Far from it. I think we have an excellent civil service in this country. From that service some men have gone into business outside and have risen to the top. One such man has made a success of the banking business and is head of a bank to-day. He used to be in the Department of Finance. Our civil service has been a blessing to the taxpayers of Canada. These able men have worked for comparatively small salaries all their lives and have effected a great deal of economy in the country's administration. We have one able man at the table to-day, and there are many in the minister's department. But after selecting a skeleton staff they go to the universities to get their men. One favourite university is that in Hamilton, McMaster, a fine university. I remember when it used to be on Bloor street in Toronto, and I can say that it has turned out some very able men, for example, Mr. Cyrus Eaton of Cleveland, a Canadian, a man of outstanding ability and a credit to this country. But this board gets together a lot of professors, doctors, lawyers and other professional men and marches them into the office before the chairman and he assigns them to duties all over the country.
They have virtually assumed kingly powers over the citizens of Canada and over parliament, and they issue their edicts every day. Municipal officials are constantly writing to me from various parts of Ontario asking me what this or that order in council means, but no Philadelphia lawyer could tell them what the law is. They have drawn for a staff on the genius of a cosmopolitan collection of self-styled patriots, because that is all they are, who have left their chairs in college and their teaching, their offices and their desks in Toronto, Hamilton, and also here, to serve the state, if you please, at
(Mr. Church.]
two or three times the salary that an able civil servant receives. They are disrupting the whole civil service by such favouritism. And added to that, they receive travelling expenses,, hotel bills, and so on. When I travel on the trains I can see the sort of accommodation provided for them compared with what ordinary civilians have to put up with.
It would not be so bad if these gentlemen knew anything at all about 'business, retail or wholesale, or about technical questions which they seek as amateurs to control and which they presume to dispose of. As I read a list of these gentlemen, from beginning to end, I am reluctantly driven to the conclusion that generally speaking they are chosen by the chairman of the board on the principle that they have no knowledge whatever of the work they are asked to undertake. And what do they do? They begin by driving out of business all the small storekeepers and retailers on Bloor street, Yonge street and elsewhere, all the little producers and dealers, and muddle all production and distribution. They are driving all these people to distraction with the number of orders they issue directing experienced men how to run their business. Last night I referred to clothing. Well, these gentlemen are telling people engaged in the retail and wholesale business exactly how to run their affairs, and the result is that to-day we have a sort of tower of Babel.
They issue their orders every day over the radio and in full-page advertisements in the newspapers, and some of the corporation press will not publish one word of criticism of them. Instead of that they write pages of articles eulogizing these many control gentlemen and their sisters and cousins and aunts. And the writers of such articles do not publish their initial names as formerly. A lot of these people have adopted the hyphened compound name. Suppose some gentleman who used to be known as John K. Doorhandle is appointed an administrator; thereafter he becomes John Knob-Doorhandle. In some instances where the state takes over a business from private enterprise, these men step in to control and to direct businesses that have been managed by the same family people for two or three generations. These bureaucrats step in and dictate to the son or the grandson of some man who established a well known business two generations ago, and, let us say, which has been running successfully all these years. The bureaucrats come in and destroy it by their amateur mistakes. The result is that private enterprise is nowhere to-day, because the private business man is not allowed any

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
longer to use his own initiative. He must obey the dictates of this new form of civil service bureaucracy that has sprung up in the country and knows not how to operate a competent business.
I submit that we are allowing this modern bureaucracy too much leeway. The deputy subcontroller has to report to the subcontroller, and the subcontroller to the controller and the controller to somebody else, so that there is no finality about anything. Weeks and months pass before you can get anything done or any finality along any line. The man in private business gets results and he will admit his mistakes when he makes any, but not these gentlemen. I do not believe in this expansion system; we have had too much of it and, as I said last night, I believe there should be some curtailment of it, although a lot of good work has been done so far. This item of administration has now .reached 814,300,000. I do not know what auditing of this amount there can be. For two years I have been trying to find out who has control of the department, whether it is the comptroller of the treasury or the auditor general. These are war appropriation items, and all the comptroller of the treasury has to do is to put his stamp on them, without any investigation at all. The auditor general wrote me a letter last year in which he said, "I have no control over these war appropriation bills." He deals only with civil estimates.
I can tell you we are heading for disaster. I have not made any strenuous objection, because I believe the minister is overburdened with work. I believe, too, that he has done a great deal of good work in the prevention of the inflationary spiral. I am prepared to admit that. May I add that he has the backing of the large majority of the people of this country in what he has done so far to control inflation; but surely the time has come when we should change our policy of dealing with the whole problem. Let us do something to help wholesale and retail business men. I say this because there are many small retail business men in my constituency, and I have been deeply impressed by what I have heard people say.
For instance, I have in mind one business on Eastern avenue which has operated for almost a 'hundred years. But they have now been driven to the wall, and1 have had to close up. There are many poor people in my constituency, because it is very largely a workingman's community. I deeply sympathize with them, when they come to me and tell me that families which never knew what it was to be haled into police courts, families whose records have been clean
for three generations, have now been subjected to that sort of treatment, for some petty infraction.
I did not say what the newspapers reported with respect to prosecutions. I said in the return I read there were 150 in the two years and nine months, 96 of which were from Ontario mostly Toronto. The minister gave the figures correctly when he placed them on Hansard. There were 3,355 prosecutions from December 1, 1941, to May 31, 1943. There were 894 for infractions of the price control regulations, 952 for infractions of the rental regulations, 465 against the rationing regulations, and 225 prosecutions of other kinds. Then, there were 467 prosecutions in connection with the sale of gasoline, 263 in connection with tires, and 65 other prosecutions. Then, if we deduct the figures 150 which I gave for the first two years and nine months we have a figure of 3,205 prosecutions in the last fiscal year.
I do not wish to detain the committee further. I 'have always been opposed to this censorship business. I do not blame the minister for it, or the chairman of the board. But I do know that some of these press officers are going into the newspaper offices to attack those here who dare criticize-at least, I have been told that by newspaper men. I have great respect for the minister and his department, and his fine parliamentary assistant. I exempt them. But I do sympathize with those people who have been driven out of business by drastic controls. Businesses have been operating for two or three generations and they have gone to the wall. Some of their sons are at war. Of course those people hope to hold their business. I attended a funeral the other day of a man whose business had been in the family for three generations. Three of that man's sons are overseas. The father is dead, and when they come back they will not have a business. They will have no business to conduct when they return. I do plead with the minister to put on the brakes on some of these controls that will not aid the war and will lead to inflation. I would ask him to have the board put on the brakes, so that we may have some private initiative, thrift and enterprise, and an opportunity of conducting wholesale and retail business, and small business, not only in Toronto, but in other cities throughout Canada.
Mr. BLACIvMORE: Before the item carries there is one matter we should consider with some care. We hear the word "inflation" used, apparently v ith a wide variety of meanings, by different hon. members who speak in the
4516	COMMONS
War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
house. As I take it, the whole object of this appropriation of 8120,000,000 for the year 194344 is that-


James Lorimer Ilsley: May we regard the item for 814,300,000 as having been passed, so that we may proceed to the item for $120,000,000?


John Horne Blackmore: That is what I wanted to know.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


John Horne Blackmore: That is satisfactory
to me.


Mr. GILLIS:: Well, we are mixing things up.


John Horne Blackmore: Who has the floor?


Clarence Gillis: I am not satisfied to have this item carried, because I want to say something about it. If it is not carried, then the hon. member may have the floor.


The ACTING CHAIRMAN (Mr. Golding):: Is the administration item carried?


Clarence Gillis: No.


Mr. TAYLOR:: It was carried last night.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is just about impossible to keep any sort of order in our procedure. I made the mistake last night of pressing for the passage of the administration item, on the understanding that when the next item was called I would answer certain questions left over from this one. Then the hon. member for Lake Centre said that he had been absent from the house, and asked that we return to the administration item. I said that I would answer a certain question, and that started a new debate on an item already carried. Could not the hon. member ask his questions on the next item?


Clarence Gillis: Yes, certainly. I have no desire to hold it up, but I did not want my observations ruled out of order because they might not apply to the item before the committee.
Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation- subsidies due to application of order placing a ceiling over all prices, $120,000,000.


Major James William Coldwell: How are commodities bought from overseas producers? I am thinking of tea, coffee, spices, vegetable oils and articles of that description. As I understand it the government to-day is controlling the importation of these commodities. Is that done through a government organization, or is it done, as I believe it is, through brokers? If so, what brokers do this kind of work, and on what terms? I should like to have a clear picture of it. I have been asked a question on
[Mr. BIackmore.3
the point, and I am not just clear in my own mind as to how purchases of commodities of that kind are conducted.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The best answer to a question like that would be a reference to the report of the wartime prices and trade board.


Major James William Coldwell: I am sorry I have not read it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is a good foundation for any discussion with respect to these matters. At page 29 I find the following:
The third method by which the government has taken a share of a "squeeze" too heavy to be absorbed by industry and trade has been through purchases by the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation of Canadian requirements of certain imports from abroad. In general the corporation sells such imports at prices appropriate to the retail ceiling. It is selling tea, for example, at a price appropriate to the reduced retail price announced in accordance with the cost of living reduction programme. Coffee has been sold at a price appropriate to the ceiling in spite of cost' increases, although now these cost increases, as well as the 4 cents a pound reduction on retail sales to consumers, have been offset by cancellation of the special war duty. Despite increased costs the selling prices of other bulk purchases, among them cocoa beans, bristles, beeswax, spices, dried fruits, fertilizers, pesticides, oils and fats, and certain types of cotton fabrics, have also been set in appropriate relation to retail ceiling prices. Economies resulting from centralized buying through a single government agency have made it possible to keep trading losses to a minimum. Trading losses incurred by the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation up to February 28, 1943, totalled $2,111,383.28.


Major James William Coldwell: That is not the point in which I am particularly interested. I was wondering just how this business is conducted. Do we buy and sell through brokers, or does the commodity control board have its own organization, or does it designate certain brokers, or just what is done in this regard?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The corporation imports and distributes. They have, managing the bulk purchasing division, the firm of Harrisons and Crosfield (Canada) Limited. They manage the bulk purchasing division on a commission basis.


Major James William Coldwell: They act as sort of brokers?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I would not say they were brokers. I am informed that their position is that of manager of the bulk purchasing division of the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation, but they are paid for those services on a commission basis. That is the correct statement of the position.

War Appropnation-
-Prices Stabilization


Major James William Coldwell: Are any other firms allowed to go into the market outside Canada and buy and import goods?


James Lorimer Ilsley: In the case of some commodities purchases can be made only by a governmental agency; those in control of the foreign source of supply will sell only to a Canadian government agency, and in that event no other importer in Canada would be in the field. In other cases the government buys through the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation and importers are buying as well.


Major James William Coldwell: Was this form of transaction organized in any degree through pressure from overseas sellers? Did they express the preference that rather than have a government organization set up they would prefer to deal through a firm of brokers? The minister does not designate them at the moment as brokers, but from his answer to my first question I would take it that this firm has been in the brokerage business. Am I correct in that?


Douglas Charles Abbott: No; they were large general importers of tea and coffee.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Harrisons and Crosfield are one division of a very great organization.


Major James William Coldwell: Are they part of an English organization?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes; I understand they are part of an English organization, though I do not know very much about them. I believe the question is this: has the English government or have English exporters stipulated that these goods must be bought through Harrisons and Crosfield. Is that it?


Major James William Coldwell: It would amount to
that, practically.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The answer is very definitely, no.


Major James William Coldwell: They did not designate this particular firm?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No.


Major James William Coldwell: Then what about the other firms who were engaged in this kind of business before the war? Are they in any way taken into this set-up and allowed to continue in business, or what has happened to them? What I mean is this: if it has been practically all centred in this one firm, what happens to the other firms?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The bulk purchasing division of the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation tries to distribute through existing channels. I do not like to have it suggested
that this manager is anything other than an employee of the bulk purchasing division of the corporation, because that is the true relationship, even though payment is made on a commission basis. Is the hon. gentleman talking about importations?


Major James William Coldwell: Yes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If we are the only buyers no one else can import; that is all.


Major James William Coldwell: Then it is this firm
that makes the arrangements for the importations, and this firm gets a commission for making those arangements?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is not correct to say that Harrisons and Crosfield Limited import; it is the bulk purchasing division of the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation that does the importing. These people manage it; they organize it; they arrange it for the corporation, and are paid on this basis. Of course the business is not divided up. If you are buying so many raisins, for instance, you do not have a dozen people working for you buying those raisins; you do not have all the ordinary importers of raisins sharing in the buying for the corporation. These persons do the buying.


Major James William Coldwell: Does this management firm designate how the distribution of the articles so imported shall be made? Would it be entirely in their hands to say where these commodities should go?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No; they do not have anything to do with the distribution, which is directed by the administrator of the commodity in question. As the hon. gentleman knows, there are administrators having jurisdiction over practically every commodity.


Major James William Coldwell: The minister said just now they were paid on a commission basis.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


Major James William Coldwell: How is that commission calculated?


James Lorimer Ilsley: A question was asked about this company by the hon. member for St. Jolm+Albert on February 4, 1943, to which an answer was given on March 3, as follows:
1.	Do Harrisons and Crosfield (Canada) Limited act as brokers for Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation?
A. No.
2.	Is this company employed by the corporation in any other capacity?
A. Yes; as the managing agents of the bulk purchasing division of the corporation, their responsibilities being to arrange for procurement of the goods and thereafter take all necessary action to ensure delivery.
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3.	How long has it been employed as broker or in any other capacity with the corporation, and on whose recommendation was it appointed?
A. In the above capacity, since March 1, 1942; directly by the corporation at its own instance.
4.	Is this company the exclusive broker for the corporation, and if not how many other persons or companies are so employed, and what are their names and addresses?
A. No; bulk purchases by the corporation are distributed as far as possible through ordinary trade channels which may include the use of brokers.
5.	What remuneration does this company receive for its services to the corporation, and what service has it rendered the corporation to date, and how much has it been paid in each case?
A. The contract with the corporation provides that Harrisons and Crosfield (Canada) Limited assumes the cost of office, travelling, salaries and other charges (except office space and stenographic assistance at the head office of the corporation), such expenses to be reimbursed to Harrisons and Crosfield out of commissions covered by the following schedule. These commissions are calculated on the f.o.b. port of shipment price, i.e., on the prime cost, exclusive of transportation, duty, insurance and similar charges:
Up to	$ 100,000-2i per cent
Over $ 100.000 but under	250,000-2 per cent
Over 250,000 but under	500,000-1J per cent
Over 500,000 but under 1,000,000-1 per cent Over 1,000,000	- i per cent
Harrisons and Crosfield (Canada) Limited are required to keep separate accounts for expenses incurred exclusively in connection with the corporation's business. To the extent that the net earnings of Harrisons and Crosfield (Canada) Limited, including profits from the contract with the corporation, bring the total profits of the company above the profits subject to income taxes earned in the company's fiscal year ended April 30, 1942, such earnings on the corporation's business will be rebated. Under this general arrangement definite settlement has been made up to September 30, 1942. For the four months which have elapsed since that date advances amounting to a total of $20,000 have been made, subject to final accounting and adjustment which, under the agreement described above, takes place quarterly but is naturally delayed on account of the necessity to prepare statement of profit and loss for each quarter. The agreement came into effect about 1st March, 1942, and the total cost for the seven months ending September 30 was $47,017.42 which, as indicated, includes all salaries, travelling, office and other expenses. This covers a total turnover during the period of approximately $15,000,000. The total cost of the period was therefore less than one-third of one per cent of the turnover, the limiting factor mentioned above having had the effect of reducing the commissions which would otherwise have been payable under the above schedule for this seven months by no less than $96,080.42.
The services rendered the corporation is covered by the answer to question No. 2. It will be seen from the above explanation that the cost of services cannot be apportioned to individual transactions.

6.	What is the total amount this company has been paid to date for services rendered the corporation?
A. Up to September 30, 1942, Harrisons and Crosfield (Canada) Limited have received payments as mentioned above of $47,017.42. For the four months ending January 31, 1943, the company have received advances of $20,000, subject to accounting and adjustment on a quarterly basis, as explained above.
7.	Is this company employed in any other capacity by the government or any board or other corporation set up by the government and if so, by what department, board or other corporation and in what capacity and how much has it received to date for its services?
A. No information.


Mr. COLD WELL:: I notice that they
may employ other brokers and pay brokerage charges; in that event would those charges be added to the price, or would they be paid by the commodity prices corporation?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The answer to question No. 4 is that bulk purchases by the corporation are distributed as far as possible through the ordinary trade channels, which may include the use of brokers. I would imagine that dried fruits or tea or whatever it is would be distributed in the same way as the importer or manufacturer would distribute the product. If it is necessary to use brokers, they would be used.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Harrisons and Crosfield
(Canada) Limited have nothing to do with distribution.


Thomas Miller Bell: I wanted to know to
what * extent brokerage charges would affect the price level, but apparently the brokerage services mentioned there is the type normally used in the trade.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is correct.


Thomas Miller Bell: I do not know, but it
seems to me that to designate one firm might cause a great deal of criticism. I suppose it was chosen because it is equipped to do this particular type of work?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is correct. There has
been some criticism.


Major James William Coldwell: I would rather see a
government organization representative of the various importers, if it were possible to organize it. However, the minister has given what appears to be a good accounting this afternoon.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am informed that this
is a very efficient organization and that the arrangement is quite satisfactory.


Victor Quelch: What part of these subsidies apply to imports?

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization


James Lorimer Ilsley: The import subsidies are
estimated at $64,000,000; domestic subsidies at $40,000,000; trading losses at $15,000,000; expenses at $1,000,000, making a total of $120,000,000. Some of the trading losses would have the same effect as import subsidies.


Victor Quelch: There seems to be a good
deal of fear that the price level in the United States may cause a rise in our price ceiling, but so long as we continue our subsidies it should not materially affect Canada because on balance the exports would gain- by the amount that we lose on our imports. We would not suffer at all provided we carried on our subsidies to maintain the price ceiling.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is quite theoretical,
and I do not know whether I can give an answer. If prices went up very high in the United States, our subsidy bill would be very great. The payment of subsidies is an inflationary influence in itself, nevertheless we feel that it is desirable because it is not nearly as productive of inflation as letting prices go uncontrolled would be.


Victor Quelch: How can the minister say that it is inflationary in view of the fact that it is used for the purpose of reducing prices?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is the spending of government money, it increases the purchasing power and it puts an additional strain upon the ceiling of prices. It is used to hold them there; nevertheless it puts an upward strain on them.


Victor Quelch: But on the other hand you are obtaining a large part of that by taxation, which would have a deflationary effect; it should counterbalance the other.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If we could get everything back by taxation there would be no difficulty; there would be nothing inflationary about the payments being made, but of course we cannot do that. We can get some of it back; we can get a lot of it by borrowing, but it does not work perfectly by any means.


Victor Quelch: In view of the fact that we are having trouble in maintaining a price ceiling, would it not foe a good thing to eliminate the sales tax, which would give relief to the extent of 8 per cent, and then substitute direct taxation for the sales tax?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I would not be in favour of that, because we have so much difficulty with direct taxation. Hon. members are familiar with the problems that income taxation creates. We are told by creditable sources all over Canada that because of the progressive factor of the income tax, higher earnings being charged a greater rate, the working of overtime is discouraged and there is greater absenteeism, with a resultant diminishing production. If we raised our income taxes sufficiently to make up for what we would lose by repealing the sales tax, the undesirable features of the income tax would be accentuated. After all, the sales tax takes purchasing power back from people who I think can now afford to pay.


Victor Quelch: But it falls most heavily upon people who are in the low income brackets, because it takes a greater proportion of their income.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It seems to be regarded as perfectly natural and normal that a man in the lower income brackets will not wish to work if most or a large part of his pay is taken in taxes. But it seems to be considered an abnormal and shocking thing if a man in the high income brackets should act in the same way.


Victor Quelch: It is the amount that is left after the taxation is applied that really counts, and the amount that is left to people in the higher income brackets, even after the heavy taxation is applied to their incomes, is much higher than what is left to the people in the lower income brackets.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Whether we like it or not, you cannot possibly level the standard of living of everybody in the country. The organization of society is such that it is impossible.


Victor Quelch: You can at least make it more equitable in time of war.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is exactly what we have done, and done to a tremendous degree.


Major James William Coldwell: I understood the minister to say that the amount paid to this particular firm in commission averaged one-third of one per cent.


James Lorimer Ilsley: On the turn-over.


Major James William Coldwell: Yes. Then I understood the minister to say-he will correct me if I am wrong-that on $100,000 and up to $250,000 the commission was 2J per cent, and then going to the top, on $1,000,000 the commission was one-half of one per cent. In view of those figures I cannot see how the average could be one-third of one per cent.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is profit control.


Major James William Coldwell: That is where profit control enters?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Major James William Coldwell: That clears it up.
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Clarence Gillis: 
James Lorimer Ilsley: Now, Mr. Chairman, let me correct two or three statements of my hon. friend.
In the first place, the ceiling of thirty-five and thirty-six cents is not the retail ceiling; it is the ceiling on the price which the creamery can charge the jobber or wholesaler or anyone else who buys from the creamery in solid blocks of fifty-six pounds and in carload lots. When we talk about a thirty-five or thirty-six cent ceiling, that is the ceiling. To that must be added the wholesale mark-up, the charges for cutting and wrapping, the retail markup, and transportation.


Clarence Gillis: Is there any control on these points?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The control there is the retail ceiling, and the retail ceiling is the highest price for which that individual retailer sold butter in the period between September 15 and October 11, 1941. There are individual retail ceilings. That is the principle of the price ceiling policy; it varies from place to place; it may vary between stores in the same city; it may be forty-three cents in one store and forty-two cents in another.


Clarence Gillis: And fifty-three cents in another.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The man who charged the fifty-three cents would not stay in business; he would not sell any butter.


George Hugh Castleden: Unless the other fellows were out.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right, if by some miracle some butter seller in Sydney were able to get fifty-three cents in the base period, but I do not believe there is one in Sydney or anywhere else in Canada.


Clarence Gillis: I am not saying that there is, but it is not so long since there was.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If there were, the law would permit him to go up to that retail ceiling, because that is the ceiling. I think I have made that clear about the butter.


Major James William Coldwell: These ceiling prices
apply only to persons who buy in blocks of fifty-six pounds and in carload lots?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Major James William Coldwell: So that a small dealer in butter could not take advantage of this, could he? I mean he could not buy less than a carload and he would have to have the equipment to deal with it by the block.


James Lorimer Ilsley: What happens there is that there are recognized differentials. He would probably pay half a cent more.


George Hugh Castleden: Could the minister give a break-down of this $120,000,000?


James Lorimer Ilsley: YTs. I should, however, like to talk a little longer to my fellow Nova Scotian, the hon. member for Cape Breton South.


Clarence Gillis: You were giving the Minister of Agriculture information that time, not me.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not think so. I think the Minister of Agriculture understands it pretty well.


Clarence Gillis: He was stuck at the thirty-six cents.
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James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, but he was stuck at the creamery too; he was not at the grocery store in Sydney.
My hon.. friend made some rather sweeping statements about these munitions and supply people buying from themselves. That is his theory, but it really is not the situation. He talked about controllers. The controllers do not do any buying at all. That is not what a controller does. He does not buy. The persons who do the buying are those in the purchasing division. My hon. friend may think and may say that officers of the purchasing divisions are buying from themselves. I do not know who constitute the purchasing divisions, but I myself believe that the buyers of the Department of Munitions and Supply are extremely conscientious buyers. That is my conviction.


Clarence Gillis: That is what I am afraid of.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If my hon. friend is afraid of it, let me tell him what he had better do. He can get all the orders in council and he can there get the purchases and the prices. We have to put through a great many orders in council, a thousand or so a month.. Not all have to do with buying; but purchases of over $15,000 have to be passed by the governor in council, and if anybody wants to challenge the prices being paid by the Department of Munitions and Supply, why does he not challenge them head-on and say, "That is too high; that is more than the stock is worth." But do not come at it in this way and accuse these men of breach of trust, because that is what it is, when my hon. friend says that men have got themselves appointed- here to a public position, and act in this way in the discharge of their duties. They are servants of the government. My hon. friend said they were not, but they are servants of the crown and they have positions of trust. He should not accuse these men of violating their trust unless he has some facts to go on. He should not go on just what he thinks they would do or what he thinks somebody might do, because I do not believe they are doing it.


Clarence Gillis: The minister has already made statements to this committee which prove that they are doing it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: What?


Clarence Gillis: Forcing the price ceiling. They are granted privileges which the ordinary citizen of this country is not granted. And second, if I come in here from Canada Packers or International Nickel or Barclays Bank and am on loan to the government of this country for a year or tw-o years, I am 
going back to my former position. That is where my future means of livelihood is. And we are all human.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We are not human in that sense.


Clarence Gillis: I am expressing my opinion. It is still my opinion, and I think it is the opinion of a large percentage of the people of the country.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, no.


Clarence Gillis: Oh, yes. If a corporation outside this house is paying me $25,000 a year and I come here and take a position on this board, my first consideration, is to protect that company I am working for. That is human. Neither the Minister of Finance nor the Minister of Munitions and Supply has any more control -over such a man than I have, because he can walk off the job to-morrow and he is not losing anything. He is not obligated to the government or to the people of the country. As I see the whole set-up, I am not quarrelling with the minister or making accusations, but I am giving my opinion on the basis of what I know of human nature and of the responsibilities of those on the inside to those on the outside. I say that the latitude given munitions and supply is too sweeping. It is too much control in the hands of somebody who has something to sell, who is not responsible to the taxpayers of Canada by virtue of election and the necessity of reporting upon his stewardship. They report to the boards of directors of corporations. T am not making accusations.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, you are.


Clarence Gillis: I am pointing out the;
implications of the machinery.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman has a very low view of human nature. I am really surprised. To begin with, people do not act in that way. Just the odd one does. The average person does not. When he accepts a position with the government of Canada he does not act in that way. I do not know whether they all have to take an oath, but they do in the wartime prices and trade board. Does the hon. member not give them credit for wanting to do something from good motives?


Clarence Gillis: If they take a position with the government, but not otherwise.


James Lorimer Ilsley: But they take a position with the government and are answerable to their deputy minister and their minister and the presumption is that they will do their -duty. If my hon. friend wanted to ascribe

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
a low motive to these men, I would point out that what they do is open to the scrutiny of official after official in a long line, and finally it comes to the government. If a man were of that type and dared to try that sort of thing there, he would be spotted in a day or a week and it would be well known that he was not the kind of man to have in the employ of the government. I say to my hon. friend that instead of propounding his remarkably low views of human nature, and therefrom deducing that men are acting in certain ways, he should tell me what they have done that is wrong. Let him tell the Minister of Munitions and Supply what they did that is wrong and we will face it here. But do not base it on some idea of an essential badness and a disposition toward a breach of duty, a breach of trust, which I am satisfied does not exist in the case of the great majority of persons employed by the government. Most of these people are proud of the job they are doing. The important thing for them is not some crooked back-door favour that they can do their former employers. The important thing for some of them is the prestige they gain by doing a great war-time job. Surely my hon. friend has enough imagination; surely there is enough scope in his understanding of the motives that prompt people, to realize that. Surely he does not think that men come here and take jobs, making great sacrifices in many instances, in order to put their own sordid, mercenary financial motives above these other and higher considerations. As a matter of fact they do not. I am satisfied that they do not, and the rank and file of the people of the country, I think, will agree with me rather than with my hon. friend. The trouble with my hon. friend, and with some others in this house, is that they think, if men are earning more than a small income, there is something crooked about them. They think that is the case. That is not my experience. I have said repeatedly in this house that in the low-income groups, as in the high-income groups, there are good men and bad men, and I have not been able to draw any hard and fast rule such as my hon. friend implies. The idea that because a man has made a success of his life and has accumulated some money, or has obtained a position wherein he makes a substantial income, he is a crook, is entirely false. My hon. friend says: oh, yes; but they pierced the ceiling in some cases. I cannot get the facts very well on this, but there was a time when, in order to get cattle, a year or two ago, they had to pay a good deal to obtain them for the reason that cattle were not coming forward.


Angus MacInnis: They had to pay a lot to get cattle, but it does not follow that the people who provided the cattle got the prices.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Cattle were $12 on the
Toronto market, which was inappropriate to the ceiling, and there were sales to the department that were appropriate to that high price to the farmer.


Angus MacInnis: Let us place this matter
in its proper perspective in relation to other questions. If that price was set and the farmers would not sell at that price, the farmers were on strike. What was said in this house when we were discussing the steel strike? One hon. member rose in his place and said, "I would have uniforms for these men and tell them to get into those uniforms or go to work." There was a great pounding of desks on that side of the house when that statement was made. It is all right, however, for Canada Packers to go on strike, or for Canada Packers to hold up the people of Canada until they got their prices. The department of munitions comes through and pays the price and nothing is said about it. When we were discussing the aluminum deal one after another said, "What could we do? These people have a monopoly of aluminum and if we did not pay their price we could not get aluminum." But when a worker takes the position that he is not getting enough to eat-not that he is not getting enough profit, which is an altogether different thing-after months and sometimes years of negotiations, after jumping over every hurdle which the government by order in council could think of, so that he is compelled as a last resort to go on strike, ministers do not stand up and make excuses for that man. We have to be fair about this. The minister may not believe that people are actuated by these sordid motives, but the leader of the opposition (Mr. Graydon)-and I do not find any opposition to him on that side of the house on this score-suggests that private initiative is the only way by which we can get things done; that there must be an incentive for people to make gains, or people will not work. My hon. friend was on the price spreads and mass buying commission that sat here in 1934 and 1935. Has he forgotten the report of that commission? Has he forgotten what they reported to the house? Yet he rises and says that we can leave this matter to business men and be assured that everything will be fair and aboveboard.
As a matter of fact no explanation has been given by the minister as to why the department of munitions should be allowed to
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pay more than the ceiling price for any commodity. He said there was a scarcity-the scarcity will still be there after the price is raised, because there will not be time to make purchases above the price ceiling, and that price being passed on to the producer. If the present ceiling is not high enough, the proper thing is for the wartime prices and trade board to raise the ceiling and not to allow individuals or departments to go beyond it, because the increased prices do not go to the primary producer.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The instances of paying more than the price ceiling have not been very numerous. There has been a return to the house from the wartime prices and trade board. They have a working arrangement which in effect provides that the price ceiling shall not be exceeded by munitions and supply at least until after there is consultation with the wartime prices and trade board and they have attempted to get supplies for the Department of Munitions and Supply at or below the ceiling. The Department of Munitions and Supply have done, I think I am safe in saying, far more purchasing below the ceiling than they have above the ceiling. But they do have a certain freedom1 which is not permitted in connection with civilian purchases.


Angus MacInnis: There is no law against anyone purchasing below the ceiling.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, but they have a certain freedom. They can pay more; if it is necessary to pay a price higher than the ceiling price to get supplies, they have freedom to do it. I never said you could safely leave everything to business men and trust them always to do the right thing. I never said that at all.


Angus MacInnis: That was the assumption.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No; that was not the assumption at all.


Angus MacInnis: That is the general
assumption.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No; that is not the general assumption, nor was it my assertion. With the system of checks and balances, and the number of officials through whom they have to go, finally reaching the governor in council in respect of purchases of more than $16,000, there is ample protection. The prices that are paid are not the prices known to one man alone, or to one man's company, or to a limited number of people. They are known to a whole lot of people. And the prices, I am satisfied, are not wrong. I should like to hear some talk on prices, instead of talk about people.
I Mr. MacInnis.J


Clarence Gillis: I do not wish the minister to put words in my mouth. He tried to create the impression that I was making individual accusations, and that it was my endeavour to prove that these men were crooks. That word was used by no one but himself. I merely said that I objected to any organization or any group of people in this country having any special privileges under the laws of the country. That is what I objected to. I still contend that if I am drawing $25,000 a year from a company, and I am sent here to Ottawa, and not being paid anything for my work here, my main interest is that company which is employing me. It is their interests I am concerned with.
I also know-and I think the minister knows it too-that the war we are engaged in to-day has a lot to do with the control now set up in Canada, and the future of that control. I know that in Canada and in the United States and in Great Britain there is just as great a struggle going on on the home front to change the order of society to something that will suit those who are responsible for what is going on in Europe to-day. And Canada is not isolated from that struggle. She is not isolated from those who stand for that so-called system of private enterprise and the right to exploit our fellow-men. And those who stand for private enterprise are very carefully watching to see where there is any control that will influence the future of this country in that direction.
I sat in on meetings of the reconstruction committee, and in the last few months I have heard presentations from almost every organization in the country, including chambers of commerce, the legislative mouthpieces of big business who are in on these controls to-day.
I know what they represent and what their opinions are with respect to the future of Canada. I know what their opinions are with respect to democracy. I know the use to Which these controls will be put. I know what their intentions are with respect to crown companies, and the investments of the people to-day in plants and factories.
It is all these things, and the knowledge of what Canada faces in the future, that make me fearful of any control in this country on the part of any group of individuals other than the elected representatives of the people of Canada. I am afraid that in the not far distant future perhaps the Minister of Finance and other ministers may not have the right to sit in and to legislate for the people of Canada. That is what I am afraid of, and that is why I wish to see this parliament supreme in any matter involving the laws

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
of this country. I am interested in seeing that no freedom to go beyond those laws, in any way, is extended to any group of individuals.


Mr. HANSELL:: The minister has said that he would like to hear an attack made upon prices. Perhaps I shall make an attack, but it may be different from what he might expect. I shall not attack the piercing of any price ceiling, but I would say something about prices which, in some parts of the country are regarded as being a little bit too low. I refer to farm prices.
I shall not make a speech, but will simply ask the minister if it is possible for him to inform us why the Canadian farmer must accept less for his wheat and less for many other products he produces than is received by the farmer in the United States? I have not heard an explanation on the point, despite the fact that I asked for one on an earlier occasion, and the subject has been discussed with the Minister of Agriculture. Perhaps the answer may be complicated; I do not know. But I do know that that is a question which has not been satisfactorily answered, so far as the farmers are concerned.
I have read that when speaking in Chicago not long ago the Minister of Agriculture said that the greatest problem which faced the government of Canada was that of explaining to Canadian farmers why they must take a dollar a bushel, or whatever the price of wheat might be, while the United States farmer was privileged to receive a considerably higher price. Then I believe he went on to say the answer was that we were all taking part in a great, united effort to win the war, and that there must be equality of sacrifice.
That is not a satisfactory answer, so far as equality of sacrifice is concerned. Not only does the farmer of western Canada take a lower price for his product than is received by the farmer in the United States, but he must pay more for his farm machinery' and those other necessary commodities he must buy to equip and run his farm. He has to pay much more than the farmer in the United States. This is the picture; the farmer in the United States pays less for his equipment and receives a bigger price for his product, "while the farmer in Canada receives less for his product and has higher operating costs. Yet we are all fighting the same war, and the desire is to have equality of sacrifice.
I do not know whether the minister can give a satisfactory answer, but those are the questions being asked. And, believe me, when Canadian farmers make up their income tax returns they will certainly ask those questions. I am sure they are questions vital to the
minister as well as to farmers, and I should like to know if he would give the committee an answer.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. member has certainly opened up a big question. The question as to the level of farm prices has been discussed time and again, and I had hoped that at this time we might avoid another discussion, because once it is opened it might continue for a long time.
Farm prices in Canada are not as high as prices in the United States. Wages, generally speaking, are not as high in Canada as they are in the United States. Living costs are not nearly as high in Canada as in the United States, either. The United States is in a higher level all along the line than we are in Canada. The hon. member has said that some of the operating costs faced by farmers are lower in the United States than they are in Canada. I do not know whether that is correct or not.


Ernest George Hansell: What about farm machinery?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Probably farm machinery; I do not know about that. But I do not think that is true generally with respect to farm costs in the United States. I am certain also that farm costs have gone up faster and farther in the United States, by far, than they have in Canada since the beginning of the war. We have a different economy here. We cannot tie our economy to that of the United States. If we were to raise farm prices to United States levels, there would immediately have to be widespread wage increases all along the line-I do not mean the international line but all over the country-and if there were wage increases together with increases in the price of farm products, certainly those wage increases would lead to increases in the prices of all industrial products.


John Horne Blackmore: If the minister would permit a question, would it be necessary to raise wage rates if the increases in farm prices were paid by bonus or subsidy?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is a limit to subsidies. I could not reconcile myself to an unlimited laying out of subsidies. The subsidy policy is one which must be operated within limits; otherwise it would break down by the force of public opinion. Even in the United States apparently the senate will not pass a subsidy policy. To keep public opinion behind it a subsidy policy has to be kept within reasonable limits. If it starts soaring to great heights you are pouring out these vast amounts of money all over the country; the taxpayers are paying that money; it is going to farmers
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and others. Theoretically it comes back in the form of income tax from the farmers, but actually it would not.


John Horne Blackmore: But the minister
would agree that, provided increases were met through subsidies, it would not necessarily result in an increase in wages?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not want to answer a question in theory or to make a theoretical answer.


John Horne Blackmore: But the minister is answering in theory. He is talking in theory right now; it is his theory.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am sorry if I am; I was trying to answer the question of the hon. member for Macleod.


Percy Ellis Wright: I should like to know how the minister justifies the removal of the ten per cent war exchange tax on vegetables coming into' Canada, while not- removing that tax from the machinery necessary for the production of those vegetables in this country.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Our business is to keep prices stable, and with the exception of a minor adjustment at the beginning of the priceceiling policy the prices of farm machinery have not risen above the ceiling prices. We have taken great pains to see that this should be so. The price ceiling came in on December 1, 1941; thereafter the highest prices that could be charged were the highest prices of farm machinery during the period from September 15 to October 11, 1941. Certain prices had been raised before that, but one or two of the companies-I cannot remember which companies they were-had announced increases in prices but had not put those increases into effect before October 11, 1941, so that an increase of up to five per cent was permitted those companies in order to bring them into line with the other companies. From that time to this, however, prices of farm machinery have been stabilized, despite what would have been great increases in cost if stabilization measures had not been taken all the way down the line. The prices of farm machinery have been kept at that level.
With regard to fruits and vegetables, I would not say the price level has got out of hand in the United States, but at least it has gone away up in that country, so that, as hon. members know, cabbages, asparagus and all these other imported fruits and vegetables have sold in Canada at very high prices. We thought the time had come when we should do almost anything to bring down the prices of these fruits and vegetables. There was a reason for taking action there which did not apply in the other case.


Percy Ellis Wright: Certainly prices of farm machinery have gone up since the start of the war. The higher exchange in the United States, together with the ten per cent war exchange tax has meant a straight twenty per cent increase in prices of farm machinery since this war started, and I think the government should take into consideration the question of removing that ten per cent tax.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We are not talking about increases since the outbreak of the war; we are talking about the freezing period. If I were to talk about increases since the outbreak of war I could give some amazing figures about the percentage increases in the prices of farm products, but the moment I did that I would be accused of taking increases over a period of low-price levels. Farm prices have increased by forty-three 'per cent since 1939, or, excluding wheat, by fifty per cent, not counting butter fat subsidies. I could give a whole list of articles I have here, but prices of farm machinery have not gone up anything like those percentages since the beginning of the war. However, I do not think we would gain anything by going back to the beginning of the war. We go back to the freezing period between September 15 and October 11, 1941, and we have kept farm machinery prices to that level. We have gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to do that, and therefore there is not the same reason applying in that case as in the case of these fruits and vegetables that have gone sky-high as a result of not being under the ceiling in Canada. So far as I can see, they cannot be brought under the ceiling here, but in any event those higher prices have resulted from higher costs or lack of control or something in the United States.


George Hugh Castleden: How about the cost of farm machinery repairs?
Mr. ILSLEYr: They are under the ceiling.


George Hugh Castleden: Does the minister's statement with regard to the cost of farm machinery apply also to repairs to that machinery?
Mr. ILSLEYr: Y'es; under the ceiling they have not been raised at all; there has been no adjustment upwards. What I said about the one or two companies in regard to farm machinery does not apply to repairs, which are subject to the ceiling.


Gordon Graydon: I do not wish to interfere with the hon. member for Wetaskiwin; if he is going to follow up this discussion I shall yield at once, but I wanted to ask one or two questions on a point already raised.

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Mr. JAQUES:: I have only one further question to ask. Does the minister consider that gold mining has any effect upon prices in Canada? By that I mean that the money distributed through the mining of gold is effective purchasing power, but nothing which the people consume is produced. I take it that the gold is exchanged to the United States for munitions; and since the value of our gold production is in the neighbourhood of $200,000,000 a year, I suppose that represents roughly the purchasing power that is distributed in Canada, in respect of which no consumable goods are produced. Therefore it increases the purchasing power without also increasing the supply of retail goods. I should like to ask the minister whether in his opinion gold mining is not inflation as far as prices go.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know; I would have to give some thought to that. I do not know that I should like to give an opinion on that point offhand; I would have to try to see the real meaning of the question. Is the hon. gentleman suggesting that the production of gold which is exchanged for goods is more inflationary than the production of some other product which is exchanged for goods? Why would that be?


Norman Jaques: In the production of gold something like $200,000,000 of purchasing power is distributed; but gold is a substance which nobody uses and which is exchanged, I understand, to the United States for munitions of war, which of course the people here do not consume. The money distributed because of the production of gold is effective purchasing power, but there is no addition to the amount of retail goods to correspond with the increased purchasing power.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I see what the hon. gentleman means, but gold is no more exchanged for munitions than for fruits and vegetables or other consumer goods that are brought in from the United States. You cannot allocate gold to munitions any more than you can allocate it to farm machinery. I do not see that the production of gold can be put on a different footing from the production of any other commodity. We are not exchanging gold for United States munitions any more than we exchange other products, such as newsprint, that we export to the United States. I am unable to see why it is any more inflationary to produce gold than it is to produce newsprint or coarse grains.


Gordon Graydon: There has been a change
made in the regulations affecting exchange relative to fresh fruits and vegetables coming into Canada. When was this change made? What is
the extent of the exchange relaxation? Has the minister given consideration to the results of this change at this particular time? We are now entering a period when there is a great production in our own country of fresh fruits and vegetables, and I should like to know if the minister has given careful consideration to the results which may arise from this change and the freer entry of fruits and vegetables into Canada?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Prices are so high in the United States that I do not think there will be any effect at all. The timing was not very good. The recommendation was made by the wartime prices and trade board, but I think it was six weeks before it finally went through, because a lot of things had to be straightened out. Final action was not taken until June 22. While that was not too late to do any good, it was getting along toward the period when it would have been too late. We took off the war exchange tax and the special excise duty. The special excise duty of 3 per cent applies only to importations from countries against which the general tariff applies. In practice this will mean Mexico. It has been 10 per cent against the United States and 13 per cent against Mexico.


Mr. STIRLING:: Does it apply to any fruits besides grapefruit?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There are thirteen fruits and
vegetables covered.


Grote Stirling: Are they not nearly all
vegetables?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think there are three or four fruits. I have not the list here.


Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: Has the minister's
department carried on any negotiations with the Department of Munitions and Supply in connection with the bonus on fuel wood. Apparently the policy is to pay the dollar subsidy direct to the dealer. During last week-end I was in a part of the country where wood is the only fuel used, and I had an opportunity of talking to a great many men who make it their business to cut wood. I was informed that the people who actually cut the wood will get no benefit from this subsidy, that it goes to the dealer. This means that the dealer is getting an extra dollar profit on wood which someone else cuts. A number of these men told me that they have been in the habit of cutting wood and delivering it direct to customers. One man told me that he had delivered as many as a thousand cords of wood in a year without having it go through any retailer. He has been unable to get any part
War Appropriation-Labour

of this subsidy. Could not steps be taken to see that this subsidy is paid directly to the men who cut the wood? I do not think it will be possible to get an increase in the production of wood fuel unless some means can be adopted to shunt this dollar into the pockets of the men who actually do the cutting.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That would come under
another department. I do not know very much about it and I am not in position to explain it. I believe the Minister of Munitions and Supply has dealt with the matter on several occasions.


Joseph William Noseworthy: He made it quite clear that it went to the dealer.


James Lorimer Ilsley: And he gave some veiy good reasons why that would bring about the results, if I remember correctly. I do not want to cross wires with him; it is up to him to explain that.


George Hugh Castleden: I asked the minister for a break-down of this amount.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will give that at eight o'clock.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.



DEPARTMENT OP LABOUR

Mr. MITCHELL:: Mr. Chairman, when the estimates for the Department of Labour were before the committee I said that I would reply to a number of questions that had been asked by some hon. gentlemen.
I will deal first with the question asked by the hon. member for St. John-Albert, who asked me for a statement on the information division of the Department of Labour.
This branch was established in December, 1942. Previously, publicity work had been handled by various staffs-by a director of publicity and staff, under the director of national selective service; by a director of publicity for the Department of Labour proper, and by a director of publicity for the unemployment insurance commission. The new information division represented a consolidation of the work.
The duties of the information division consist of the preparation and issue of press releases, preparation of special articles on the work of the department, informational contacts, preparation and placing of paid advertising, and other duties as assigned.

The staff, and annual salaries, are now as follows:
1 director of information at	 $3,500
1 writer-translator at	 3,000
1 advertising specialist at	 2,820
1 principal clerk at	 1,920
1 grade four clerk at	 1,680
1	grade three clerk at	
1,3802	grade two stenographers	at	
1,0801 office boy at	
420
These salaries are augmented by cost of living bonus up to but not including $3,000. At the moment an officer of the industrial relations branch at a salary of $3,120 is temporarily on loan with the information division.
Cost of operating the division since its establishment seven months ago amounts to $9,000, approximately, to June 15, 1943.
My hon. friend the leader of the opposition asked for information with respect to the records kept by the local employment selective service offices.
In the larger offices, a humber of telephone operators are in constant attendance in the order room, where telephone orders are received from the employers and full details noted on an employer's order card.
This card is then sent to the priority section of the office, where by use of the industrial classification manual published by the Department of Labour early in this year the classification number of the industry is placed on the card. I think this manual is a tribute to that section of the Department of Labour. In it will be found a classification of practically all the industrial occupations in Canada. I think this is the first time such a thing has ever been attempted in this country.


Mr. REID:: Will copies of the manual be available to hon. members?


Humphrey Mitchell: I will get the hon. member a copy.


Gordon Graydon: Is it a new publication?


Humphrey Mitchell: It is a recent publication which we have got out for the guidance of selective service officers.


Gordon Graydon: How long has it been out?


Humphrey Mitchell: It was issued early this year. I do not say that I had something to do with its drafting, but I had something to do with the initial steps taken to develop a manual of this description.


Gordon Graydon: Do not be too modest.


Humphrey Mitchell: I am just saying that
I am not responsible for drafting the manual. It will be appreciated by anyone who has any knowledge of the various classifications of

War Appropriation-Labour
industry how a manual of this sort can be of great assistance to people who may wish to consult it from time to time instead of relying on their memory.


Clarence Gillis: Can we secure copies of it?


Humphrey Mitchell: I shall be glad to secure a copy for my hon. friend.


Clarence Gillis: Thank you.


Humphrey Mitchell: From this number, reference is then made to the priority index, prepared by the inter-departmental committee on priorities, and the priority, whether (a) (b) (c) or (d), is marked on the employer's order card.
The card is then forwarded to that section of the office dealing with the particular industry, and there is placed in the live order file. The same procedure is followed in a more restricted form in the small offices.
When an applicant for work or a person directed to report to the office comes in, he is interviewed by a trained officer, and full particulars, such as his name, address, primary occupation, secondary occupation, age, height, weight, physical condition, disabilities, war service, education, specialized training, trade tests, farm experience and the nature of his previous employment experience, are all noted down on a card.
Some may ask why such particulars as height, weight and physical condition are required, but it will be readily understood that when men are wanted for heavy industries, for example, it is necessary to know something of the physical qualifications of those who are to be employed; that is why these particulars are noted on the questionnaire.


Gordon Graydon: I suppose the officers
have to rely on the statement of the man himself as to his physical condition?


Humphrey Mitchell: I would think so.
Under present conditions, when the demand for labour is so heavy, the bulk of the applicants can be immediately directed to an employer who is seeking their services, and for this purpose the national selective service permit form is issued and a notation made on the employer's order card that such and such a person has been referred to him.
It may be that upon the arrival of the applicant at the employer's place of business, the latter is unwilling to employ him. We have not yet reached the stage when we wish to compel an employer to hire a person who is unacceptable. Therefore, we always have on our records a large number-as of June 10 amounting to almost 40,000 persons-who are
what we describe as "unconfirmed referrals."
I would point out that in Great Britain the average number of "unconfirmed referrals" is about 100,000, and I understand the figure is higher in the United States, which probably has not yet reached the stage in the war that we have reached.
We are unable to prove that the person referred has actually been employed until we receive back from the employer the duplicate copy of the NSS permit, or check by telephone. The latter procedure has obvious limitations.
The situation may exist in certain localities where there are more applicants of a particular skill than we have employers' orders for. In this case, the same "application for employment" card is filled out and is filed on a live applicant file. That is what we call the live file. These files are constantly being examined by the officer concerned with that particular group of industries, with their related classes of occupation; and when an employer's order is received, applicants of the desired, qualifications are directed to the employer for interview in the order in which they made application. That is on the basis of seniority, which the hon. member for Vancouver East will understand probably as well as I do.
The persons are selected by means of the data which has already been collected and recorded on the "application for employment" card; and in all cases the applicant must necessarily be got in touch with a second time, in order that his national selective service permit may be made out. That is, he is given a permit to go to the employer. Then we have another check when he is there. A second form is then made out.
At this second interview, if there is any need for a further exhaustive examination into the previously recorded skills, the employment record or the personality of the individual, this is, of course, done at that time, and I make the point that very few jobs are changed on the basis of something which happens to be on a card.
In fact, no persons are being moved to new employment under the compulsory orders without a thorough examination having first been made into their previous experience and present capabilities. I think that will be readily understood. When you are moving men by compulsory order you must do everything that is humanly possible to see that they are suitable to the occupation to which they are being directed. We have had a number of complaints and have traced some of them

i
War Appropriation-Labour
down, and we found that where it seemed on the surface that perhaps some ridiculous action had been taken, after we looked into the matter we found that it was not as described in the press in certain instances.
We maintain in each local office an employer's record form which contains such essentials as name, address, plant unit, employer's number, principal product, name of personnel manager, normal working forces, male and female, agreements with trade unions, special skills utilized, a record of visits to the plant by our own officers, and a record of all transactions with the local office. That follows; the man who is in an insurable trade or calling naturally has his insurance book picked up and placed with the new employer.
The employer's order, form UIC 733, gives such information as the employer's name, address, business division of the firm, the occupations of the persons required, description of their duties, the rates of pay, regular and overtime, how often paid and when, hours of work per day, per week, probable duration of the work, the requirements as to experience, skill, age, et cetera; the tools-I should probably point out that some tradesmen carry all their tools and some carry part of their tools; some tools are provided by the employer-special equipment, permits, licences, certificates of educational standing, et cetera, which are required, the board and living conditions, the transportation arrangements, the person to whom the applicant should apply; and it makes provision on the back for details of the transactions covered under this order.
The priority form gives the division of industry and the number of the industry within that division, all of which is taken from the industrial classification manual published for the use of the employment offices, and also shows on the same card the priority rating, whether (a), (b), (c) or (d), the date at which it was authorized and separate ratings for men and women.
For the applicant's records, we have the form UIC /Oil which contains the details such as name, address, occupation, et cetera, which have already been enumerated; the NSS form 120, which is the separation notice given by the employer, the most recent copy of which is always maintained on the office files, and which contains, of course, written proof of the man's previous employment and his reason for separation.
The NSS form 122 is the permit to seek employment, two copies of which are handed to the applicant-one for his own use, and one, in postcard form, for the employer to return 
to the office as proof that he has employed the applicant-the third copy remaining on the office files.


Gordon Graydon: Is there any difficulty with that part of the machinery?


Humphrey Mitchell: I would not say so.
When you are handling the vast number of human beings that we are handling, I would say it works out reasonably well. Some are bound to slip through the net; I think that is natural, but as you gain more experience with this operation that kind of thing will become less and less.
There are other special forms which may be used from time to time, and special reports covering various industries, but the ones already mentioned are the basic and essential ones on which our employment service is based.
As to statistics, the first form which might be mentioned is form UIC 753A, which is the daily work sheet used by the local office to compile the statistical data required for form UIC 751A.


Gordon Graydon: May I ask the minister why some are UIC and some national selective service?


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not know. I think
it is just as the thing develops. Personally I see no reason why all should not be selective service. I might point this out to my hon. friend: I think I know what is in his mind. The unemployment insurance commission was functioning before we thought of selective service, and1 they retained the name UIC. on the forms which were in use prior to the development of selective service. Personally I see no reason why we should not call them all by the same name, "selective service," except that when you are handling forms people get accustomed to using a particular name for them, and notwithstanding that you might change it, in the office routine they still use the same name.


Gordon Graydon: That would seem to indicate that the offices were still being manned by the original unemployment insurance personnel.


Humphrey Mitchell: Absolutely. As a matter of fact the whole selective service system has been built on the unemployment insurance offices, just as it has been in Great Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and any other country where they had that form of organization for what they call job placement. The selective service has been superimposed upon it. In every country that has been done.

War Appropriation-Labour
Form UIC 751A is a weekly report giving a great deal of information on the vacancies in stated' industries, at the beginning of the week, notified during the period, cancelled during the period, et cetera.
Also prepared1 at the local office is form UIC 757, showing the number of unfilled vacancies by industry priority, divided into approximately 100 separate occupations.
This form also shows the unconfirmed referrals to employers, that is, those applicants sent to employers for whom we have not yet received a confirmation by the receipt of the employer's copy of the NSS. permit, and also the numbers of unreferred applicants in each of these 100 or so occupations.


Joseph Henry Harris: Just at that .point, how does the employer find out what is the priority, whether he is (a), (b), (c) or (d)?


Humphrey Mitchell: He does not find out.


Joseph Henry Harris: Just at that point he does find out. My hon. friend's friend from Waterloo North gave an interview to the press stating that certain industries were in (b) priority. How did fte come to know ?


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not know. Who is "my hon. friend's friend"?'


Joseph Henry Harris: The minister's friend from Waterloo North. He is in the chamber now, behind the curtains; perhaps he can explain how he gave an interview to the press some three or four weeks ago stating that a certain industry had a (b) priority.


Humphrey Mitchell: From these two reports which I have mentioned statistics are compiled for the whole of Canada at Ottawa showing the vacancies and referrals of males by priorities for all industries, in greater or lesser detail, as is required by the department. The same procedure is used for the preparation of reports for females.
All these forms have been amended and improved upon as a result of the greater amount of information required, and the more rigid control of employment which we have instituted.
For years, however, a record of the vacancies and of the placements as reported to us, both by the old provincial employment offices, and since July, 1941, by the offices operated under the jurisdiction of the unemployment insurance commission, has been published in the Labour Gazette.
I should like to lay on the table copies of the following forms:
1.	Employer's record card, form UIC 731.
2.	Employer's order-male, form UIC 733.
3.	The priority form.
4.	Industrial classification manual.
5.	Employee's application for employment, form UIC 701.
6.	Notice of separation from employment, form NSS 120.
7.	Permit to seek or enter employment, form NSS 122.
8.	Daily work sheet, form 753A.
9.	Statistical report on employment operations by industry., form UIC 751A.
10.	Report of applicants and vacancies by occupations-males, form UIC 757.
My hon. friend the leader of the opposition asked for a statement as to the resignations, since the resignation of the former director of selective service, of certain gentlemen employed by selective service.


Gordon Graydon: Some seventeen, I think. The minister is going to read the names?


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes; I will put it all on the record.


Gordon Graydon: Can we have the dates of the resignations?


Humphrey Mitchell: I have not them here, but if my hon. friend wants them I can get them for him. He did not ask for the dates, but there is no reason why I should not give them.
Beattie, Helen; publicity, resigned in order to transfer to wartime prices and trade board.
Campbell, L. S.; consultant, resigned to take a more remunerative position.
Colle, S.; consultant, resigned owing to discontinuance of arrangement to pay living expenses when away from Montreal, in addition to salary.
Daly,, J. C.; selective service officer, resigned because he was not prepared to accept reclassification by civil service commission and consequent lower salary.


Gordon Graydon: Were these the reasons the department give for their resignations?


Humphrey Mitchell: Absolutely. I would say this to my hon. friend. I am not placing any blame; but a good many men were hired without consultation with anyone; when it was necessary to keep the record straight they were gone over by the civil service commission, and certain allowances were dropped and certain classifications established, and some of these gentlemen, naturally, did
War Appropriation-Labour

not agree with their classification, and resigned. The Department of Labour as such had no jurisdiction in the matter. But that was done, and from my own point of view it had to be done; may I say that.
Garside, S. T.: consultant; resigned because of discontinuance of arrangement to pay living expenses when away from Toronto, in addition to salary.
Grabill, E. L.: chief enforcement officer, Montreal, classification out of line with other enforcement positions in the service as approved by treasury board and civil service commission. Resigned on account of reduction in salary.
Harvey, Robert: executive assistant. Returned to Allied War Supplies Limited, from which corporation he had been on loan.
Holland, L.: consultant-was in charge of staff personnel. Resigned, reason not stated.
Melancon, Claude: publicity director. Returned to Canadian National Railways, from the staff of which he had been on loan on the understanding that period of loan would be limited.
Perhaps I might state a personal experience I had when we organized the national war labour board. Sometimes it is necessary to borrow a man for six or nine months, and in one case Mr. E. R. Complin, of Canadian Industries Limited, came as an executive director of the national war labour board, Mr. G. W. Huggett, president and general manager, having very kindly loaned him to the department until we could get over the hump-and get the thing on paper. It was more or less an administrative undertaking and we borrowed him for six months. After that he went back to Canadian Industries Limited.
McGillivray, L.: news and feature writer. Resigned in order to take a position with wartime prices and trade board.
McTaggart, K.: news and feature writer. Resigned to return to newspaper work.
Quinn, Valentine: selective service officer. It was not found possible to assign him to a position at a salary he felt he should receive, and in consequence his services were dispensed with.
There is nothing new about that; you get it in all business and governmental organizations.
Reinke, Carl: assistant to director. Resigned. No reason given.
Roberts, W. R.: consultant. Transferred to a position with the timber controller.
Smith, Goldwyn: consultant. Resigned due to personal dissatisfaction with status on the staff of national selective service, stating he was to return to his former position in the university of Iowa.

Taylor, Robert: news and feature writer. Resigned to return to the press gallery.
Wright, L. A.: assistant director. Resigned to return to Engineering Institute of Canada of which he is secretary.
I think my hon. friend will agree with me that these things happen in every business organization-resignations because salaries are not good enough, and that sort of thing. I am frank to admit that a good deal of publicity has been given the matter. In a well-known national newspaper in this province there appeared a leading article on the resignation of one of the officials of external affairs, who was loaned to us for a short period in the formative stages of the establishment of selective Service. I refer to Mr. John Deutsch. This is the letter written to Mr. MacNamara by Mr. Norman A. Robertson in this connection: Dear Mr. MacNamara:
With reference to our correspondence and conversations about the services of Mr. John Deutsch, I wish to confirm my understanding that Mr. Deutsch will return to the Department of External Affairs on Monday, January 18. I am sorry that I am not in a position to make his services available to your department for a longer period, but the pressure of work on the economic side of this department makes his return impeftitive. I need not add that he and his colleagues in the department on the economic and prisoners of war side of the work will always be ready to help where they can in dealing with aspects of these questions which are of concern to both our departments.
Yours sincerely,
N. A. Robertson.
I know Mr. Deutsch quite well. We borrowed him for two or three months from external affairs until we got over the preliminary work of laying down the administrative policy in connection with selective service, and after that period he went back to where he had come from.


Gordon Graydon: The minister has given the departmental explanation as to why a number of these men have left the staff. Is it not correct to say that, if not all, at least a large number of these men had actually been brought into the department under the supervision and jurisdiction of the former director of national selective service, and that when the blow-up came and Mr. Little resigned, then of course gradually these men one by one left the service. I think the minister ought to be clearer in his explanation, because that is the generally accepted explanation of the situation.


Humphrey Mitchell: That may be generally accepted. Probably some people would like to accept it, but I do not.

War Appropriation-Labour


Richard Burpee Hanson: May I ask the minister if the resignation of these seventeen men, after Mr. Little had resigned and he had had his differences with the minister, was a mere coincidence?


Humphrey Mitchell: In many respects, yes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, the public do not think so.


Humphrey Mitchell: I know the public do not, but some people tried to sell an idea.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What were the reasons given by the men themselves? I would rather have their reasons than the minister's.


Humphrey Mitchell: I have stated the reasons given by the men themselves.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Those were the departmental reasons, I understood.


Humphrey Mitchell: Those are extracted from the correspondence arising from the resignations.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I should like to make my own interpretation.


Humphrey Mitchell: I think I know something about organizations and about the civil service as well as my hon. friend, and I suggest that there should be some measure of responsibility when you hire people, some consultation with those people who understand the conditions under which men are hired through the civil service. I am not being too critical about this-


Gordon Graydon: Was he not trying to cut the red tape?


Humphrey Mitchell: There was no red tape. If my hon. friend were sitting here he would have to do the same as I am doing. You cannot create a condition where you meet men, almost on the street, and hire them and give them salaries that throw your whole salary arrangement out of line in your particular service. There has to be some order in these things, and the first thing I set out to do was to put this in order.


Gordon Graydon: Of course, he was trying to do the job quickly.


Humphrey Mitchell: That is all very well,
but we have seen lots of people try to do jobs quickly. May I say to my hon. friend that I would be in a very different position to-day if I had not stepped in and said, "You cannot do the job too quickly; you have to conform, at least in a measure, to government
policy." I think I know what makes the democratic clock tick. I know something about responsibility to the publi*.


Gordon Graydon: He was perhaps speedier than the government's policy.


Humphrey Mitchell: It is all very well to
say that, but the minister has some responsibility, and I should not like to see develop in this country what I have seen at close hand in other countries. As long as I am Minister of Labour the minister will be responsible and will answer to this parliament. If there is any statement of policy, this is where it will be made, right here while the house is in session. Make no mistake about that.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I have
only to observe that that was not the case with respect to the government's man-power policy in the early stages. Who laid down the policy for the Department of National Defence after the mobilization act was passed? Who was the government's spokesman before the Canadian club at Ottawa but the chief of general staff of this country when the minister did not have the guts to get up and do it himself.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is
what happened.


An hon. MEMBER:: He has more guts than
you have.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I would
take somebody else's judgment besides yours.


Gordon Graydon: There is another question. The minister may have overlooked it. It is a question in connection with the change in the enforcement officer in the department. I am not sure, but I think his name is Wright. I asked that question, but the minister may have overlooked it.


Humphrey Mitchell: He resigned to return
to his former position with the Engineering Institute of Canada.


Gordon Graydon: I think I asked a supplementary question, namely, whether or not someone had taken his place as enforcement officer.


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes, and a very efficient enforcement officer, at that I might say.


Gordon Graydon: He would not be an
exception, of course?


Humphrey Mitchell: No; he is an extremely efficient officer.
4534	COMMONS
War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization



DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE

James Lorimer Ilsley: 
George Hugh Castleden: But they will fall in
line pretty well with the $80,000,000 last year?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know about that.
They will depart to some extent from last year. The estimates are as follows:
Estimates for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 1944
Domestic subsidies
Basket manufacturers	 $	750,000
Butterfat	   3,000,000
Butter stocks	 350,000
Canned goods	 2,000,000
Cereal products	 5,000
Cheese boxes	    40,000
Coal	 1,300,000
Coffee and tea inventories	 400,000
Frozen eggs	 40,000
Fertilizers- (transportation)	 80,000
Glove and garment leather	 1,175,000
Groceries	 2,000,000
Leather footwear	 1,200,000
Lumber	 1,100,000
Milk-production	 1,100,000
Milk-consumers	 20,000,000
Soap and shortening	 1,850,000
Peaches	 15,000
Pit props and mine ties	 20,000
Pit wood	 375,000
Potatoes	 1,500,000
Transportation-foodstuffs	 200,000
Miscellaneous	 1,500,000
Import subsidies
Raw cotton and cotton fabrics	 $24,000,000
Petroleum products	 24,000,000
Wool	 5,000,000
Miscellaneous	 11,000,000
Trading losses
Alcohol (industrial)	 700,000
Beeswax	 20,000
Bindertwine	  240,000
Bristles	   240,000
Butter-dairy	 40,000
Cheese box materials	 60,000
Chemicals (fertilizer)	 2,400,000
Cocoa beans	 500,000
Cotton yarn for bindertwine	 5,600,000
Dried fruit	 1,200,000
Wool yarns and fabrics	 4,000,000
Trading losses will be realized on other commodities, notable examples being cotton yarns and fabrics and oils and fats, but these commodities will also be subject to domestic and/or import subsidies and our estimates under subsidies include anticipated trading losses.
Expenses-administrative

Total estimates


Richard Burpee Hanson: With respect to the $24,000,000 on imports of raw cottons, is the minister in a position to tell the committee what was the total of extra rMr. Mitchell.]
cost of raw cotton imported into Canada, including the $24,000,000, which the government absorbed. In other words, how much did the industry itself absorb? The minister

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
will recall that an one occasion he intimated that he was going to apply the squeeze to the textile industry. He will no doubt recall having said that. I wonder how much was squeezed out of the textile industry in addition to the $24,000,000 the government paid to keep its price level down.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The $24,000,000 I spoke of is for the present year.


Richard Burpee Hanson: How much is the industry supposed to take care of, itself, or has that been calculated, on the basis of production prices?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What was given last year in the shape of subsidies on the importation of raw cotton, and how much did the industry itself take care of?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Import subsidies paid on raw cotton and cotton fabrics for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1943, have been $2,704,631.63.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Has the minister that figure divided between raw cotton and cotton- fabrics?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is practically all fabrics.


Olof Hanson: No subsidy paid on imported raw cotton in the last fiscal year; do I understand that?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Mr. Noble told me the other day there had not been any.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Had not been any subsidy?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Correct.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The cost of raw cotton has greatly increased, has it not?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is to say, the industry itself in the last fiscal year had to absorb the whole increase?


James Lorimer Ilsley: They did an immense amount of forward buying, at the instance of the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They
showed good business judgment.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I contend that the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation should have a large measure of the credit. They took a very strong lead in getting all the cotton companies to buy just as much cotton as they could, and by that action they saved this country at least $15,000,000.


Richard Burpee Hanson: But the companies themselves are entitled to some credit. They put up the money and took all the risk.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, they did; and it might have turned out differently.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They took all the risk.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will put it in this way,, that it was one of the most fortunate moves the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation, or any other government agency, ever took. It saved the taxpayers of Canada an enormous sum of money.
With regard to the squeeze to which the hon. member referred, I would- say that that was applied. The arrangements with the cotton industry are embodied in a number of very carefully drawn and somewhat complicated agreements. They embody the principle of profit control. It would be impossible to go into the matter at length, and do it intelligently, this evening.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I do not ask that. The minister would have to have the documents themselves.


Robert Fair: Shortly before t-he committee rose for the dinner recess the hon. member for Macleod asked the Minister of Finance for an explanation of the system arrived at for the fixing of the payment of subsidies on farm commodities. I was amused but not a little surprised at the way in which the minister skated around the question. He did manage to touch one or two of the small items, but he kept away from the matter itself.
Then, as a main reason possibly for having prices fixed as they are, he said that if prices were raised we would have to have a general increase in wages. If there were an increase in farm wages I think there would not be any complaint, because to-day farm help is lower paid than the help in any other industry in Canada. Farm help also works longer hours, by at least fifty per cent, than any other class of workers in the country.
Then, coming to the period on which prices were based, we find that the period from September 15 to October 11 is the most disadvantageous and most unfortunate that could have been picked- in respect of the fixing of farm prices. Whether they be farmers or not, all hon. members know that at that time of the year harvesting is being done. For that reason there is a heavy marketing of different commodities and prices are forced down to a considerable extent.

4536	COMMONS
War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
For the information of the committee I should like to mention the cost of some items of farm machinery in past years, as well as the prices obtained by the farmer for different grades of grain. I am going to mention only three farm implements, the two-furrow four-
Year	Plough	Drill1914	
$ 92 00	$145 001920	
164	50	249	001926	
160	00	258	001930	
152	00	258	001933	
138	00	245	001939	
153	50	269	001940	
160	50	281	50
I would direct particular attention to the price of wheat in 1930, the first year of the depression, and compare the implement prices with the figures for 1926, when wheat was worth $1.46-3. I would also direct attention to the fact that in 1939 and 1940, when we were receiving only seventy cents a bushel for our wheat, the cost of the binder went up, first to $334 and then to $349.50. Then I would ask the committee to take note of the price of the binder in 1914, which was $175, when wheat was selling at $1.32. It is easy to convert the price of that binder into the number of bushels which would be required to pay for it. Coming to 1940 we find the price of the binder 200 per cent what it was in 1914, while wheat was very little more than fifty per cent of the 1914 figure. I am giving these figures in order that the committee may have some realization of the injustice of the present price-fixing policy and of the attempt which has not been made by the prices board to establish fair and equitable prices on which to base subsidies for farm products.
There are several other matters I could mention, but I hardly think it is necessary, since time after time in this house we have produced evidence which could not be successfully contradicted, indicating that the farmers are not getting just prices as compared with other lines of industry. Take the supplying of credit, for instance. In 1914 I believe the interest rate was eight per cent. Later that was brought down to seven per cent, and it is still seven per cent. I wonder if the minister or the board have investigated the cost of supplying national credit, to see whether it bears any fair relation whatever to the products of agriculture at the present time. I am not going to take more of the time of the committee just now, but I believe the items I have cited will show discrimination and injustice in the fixing of prices of agricultural products.

teen-inch gang plough, the twenty-run seed drill and the eight-foot binder, implements every farmer must use if he is going to harvest any grain. I am going to quote also the prices of No. 1 northern wheat, 2 C.W. oats and 3 C.W. barley, basis top grades at Fort William:
Binder	Wheat	Oats	Barley$175 00	$1 32	$0 574	$0 69-4279 00	1 99-3	544	90-4292 00	1 46-3	58-7	72-6287 00	64-2	29-9	28-4272 00	68-1	33-4	38-8334 00	70	349 50	70


James Lorimer Ilsley: Before six o'clock I was
asked to place on record the fruits and vegetables from which the war exchange tax and the special excise duty were removed. I should say that the date of the order in council was not June 22, as I stated, but June 15. The items were thirteen in number, and included: potatoes, onions, beans, cabbage, carrots, celery, lettuce, green peas, spinach, tomatoes, pineapples, grapefruit and lemons.


Richard Burpee Hanson: There is to be a subsidy of a million and a half dollars on potatoes. How does that arise? I have not the information, and I should like to know. I believe it is on domestic production.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is an estimate for the current year. The price ceiling was set for all potatoes, and some potatoes had to be imported at higher than the ceiling price.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is
the new crop coming in from the south?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. A corresponding subsidy had to be paid on the domestic production of new potatoes, and $1,500,000 is the estimate of that domestic subsidy.


Mr. KNOWLES:: I should like to make one further appeal to the minister along the lines of the appeal I made the other evening; I hope he will give it serious consideration and pass it on to the board. I speak again on the matter of certain fruits for infants. In the break-down the minister gave a while ago I noted that in the section dealing with foods, canned goods came fourth, and there is quite a subsidy set aside in this connection. Also on page 25 of the report of the wartime prices and trade board I noticed this paragraph:
Peaches. A subsidy of $5 per ton was paid on fresh peaches processed in Ontario during the 1942 canning season, to enable processors, who purchased peaches from growers at the higher prices approved by the farm products control board of Ontario for the 1942 crop, to

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
sell the canned fruit under the ceiling. It is payable on all peaches whether grown by the processor himself or purchased by him from another grower.
I want to make it perfectly clear at the outset that I am not putting up any argument that adults should have any special concession in connection with fruit, particularly when these things are needed overseas both for the civilian population of Britain and other countries and for the armed forces. As I pointed out to the minister the other evening, however, in view of the fact that certain of these fruits were prepared and put into tins for the use of children only, I believe it would be possible, if the proper directions were given, to see to it that some of the fruits now being grown, processed and canned are reserved for children and infants.
Peaches are one of the fruits subsidized, and the minister has spoken about arrangements being made to provide sufficient tin with which to make cans for fruits and vegetables. Canned fruits have been mentioned to-night, and my request is that steps be taken to see that they are not canned just in adult sizes which will be grabbed up by the first purchaser, but rather put into the smaller tins and made available for children and infants. I am sure I speak for a great many parents of young children when I say that there is great concern at the present time over not being able to get the fruits which the nutrition experts say are so necessary for young children. I mention .peaches because I find that fruit referred to in the report of the wartime prices and trade board, but I could refer also to apricots, pears and prunes, as well as the matter of corn syrup. If my suggestions are not the best, I hope the minister will be able to devise better ones, but I ask him to see to it that these things are made available to this group of our citizens.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I shall take note of the hon. gentleman's suggestion and bring it to the attention of the wartime prices and trade board.


George Hugh Castleden: Would the minister explain how the milk subsidy of $20,000,000 in the estimates is distributed? I understand that two cents per quart is paid to the distributors, and that there is another subsidy paid to the producers.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is a small amount here for a producers' subsidy. The administration of this subsidy was transferred to the Department of Agriculture, and this amount of $1,100,000 is only to cover what was paid by the board up to, I think, May 1 of this year. The estimated cost of the consumer subsidy is $20,000,000.
72537-287J


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is all consumer?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is the consumer subsidy. That is paid to bring the price of milk down two cents a quart to all consumers in Canada. The hon. gentleman is inquiring about the machinery in connection with that?


George Hugh Castleden: The distribution of the


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is under the Department of Agriculture; that ds not paid by the wartime prices and trade board. For a short time at the beginning of the fiscal year it was paid by the board and then it was transferred to the Department of Agriculture. We administer the consumer subsidy.


Richard Burpee Hanson: There is one aspect of the milk question to which I should like to direct attention. In the Sherbrooke district in the province of Quebec the surplus milk is sent to the Carnation company, who are evaporators. On two different occasions they have reduced the price to the farmers in that area. I took the matter up with an official of the wartime prices and trade board-for the moment I cannot think of his name-and I had hoped that the situation would be rectified. We were told that this would be under the authority of the Quebec dairy commission, but they have not taken any action although they had a meeting with respect to it and other kindred matters. These farmers are having to take cut after cut.


Thomas Reid: It is the same in British
Columbia.


Richard Burpee Hanson: If we are to provide subsidies for the benefit of the consumers of m-ilk, some provision should be made for those who produce milk and have surplus supplies. They should not be lost sight of in all this tangle of subsidies, subventions and that sort of thing. What happened in the days of the depression was nothing less than terrible. Surplus milk was dumped on the market and the dairies paid what they felt like paying. I do not know whether this is under the jurisdiction of the wartime prices and trade board.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is under agriculture now.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am sure the official in the wartime prices and trade board who is in charge of dairy products is familiar with the situation and knows what is going on. Apparently these people have no one to speak for them and they feel that they
4538	COMMONS
War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
are losing money. They feel also that if the farmer got a fair price for his milk there would not be any need for a subsidy. I am not arguing that at the moment because I realize that the minister's efforts are directed toward keeping down the price to the consumer. That is .a good thing because milk is a staple diet which is absolutely necessary, especially for children. I want someone to look into the situation in Quebec to see if it cannot be rectified.


George Hugh Castleden: The other item in which I was interested is the $24,000,000 to be paid on imported petroleum products. What are these products? What quantity of each is imported? How is the amount of subsidy determined, and to whom is it paid?
Mr. ILSIiEY: It is nearly all crude oil; there is some aviation gasoline, but not much. It is really the assumption by the government of this country of the increase in the cost of transportation since the base period.


George Hugh Castleden: On imported petroleum products?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. Considerable crude oil comes by tanker, and after December 7, 1941, there was a sharp increase in the war risk insurance rates and also in freight rates because it was at that time that the submarine sinkings in the western Atlantic became so serious and so many tankers were lost. We were faced with two alternatives: one, to let the price of gasoline go up considerably in this country contrary to price ceiling principles or, two, to assume the increase in these costs. We assumed them, and the manner in which we assumed them was by paying this import subsidy.


George Hugh Castleden: Could the minister give us roughly what that amounts to per gallon?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The high point was about 14 cents a gallon on gasoline. Those who were using gasoline produced from oil which came in by sea, such as residents of the maritime provinces, were at one time subsidized to the extent of 14 cents a gallon.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What is it to-day? I do not care if the minister does not know.


Percy Ellis Wright: Have insurance rates on the western Atlantic been reduced appreciably from the high point?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Oh, yes. The figure would be about half that now.


Mr. MAYHEW:: I should like to refer to an order issued by the wartime prices and trade board, A-794. of June 29, which reads as follows:
1.	For the purposes of this order, "Corporation" means Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation Ltd.
2.	Except as otherwise provided by section 3 hereof, every person in British Columbia who processes and preserves any strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, black currants or apricots in SOz or by heat sterilization or by freezing with or without sugar, shall sell all such products to the Corporation or to any person appointed by the said Corporation to act as its agent for the purposes of this order.
3.	The provisions of section 2 of this order shall not apply to a person who processes and preserves any of the products mentioned therein;
It goes on to say:
4.	The price to be paid by the corporation for any product sold to it pursuant to this order shall be the price for such product from time to time fixed by the administrator of processed fruits and vegetables with the approval of the chairman of the board.
My point is this: How can you expect people to go on processing strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, and black currants without knowing what they are to get for their products when they are canned?
The other point I would bring to the attention of the minister is that this order was issued as late as June 29 of this year. At that time it was very much too late for the British Columbia fruit growers. I think the reason for issuing this order and also the prices to be paid should be made known without delay in order that we may go ahead and process as much as we can.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not think the price would be fixed by order in council; I believe it would be fixed but by agreement between the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation and the processors. I do not know what arrangements they have made about prices, but I presume that there is some arrangement being made.


Robert Wellington Mayhew: This order was issued on the 29th of June, and there have been no prices fixed to date.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The administrator is now in British Columbia, I am informed.


Robert Wellington Mayhew: Has he authority of himself to name the price?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No; it must be with the approval of the chairman of the board, but he would negotiate the matter and then, I suppose, telephone or telegraph to Ottawa and get the matter completed.

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization


Robert Wellington Mayhew: It was not completed to-day. Would the minister look into it as soon as possible?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.	[DOT]


John Horne Blackmore: The object of the
activities of the whole wartime prices and trade board set-up and the object of this proposed expenditure of $120,000,000 is, I take it, to prevent inflation in Canada. Will the minister agree that that is the object?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is part of our programme.


John Horne Blackmore: The object is to prevent inflation. There has been a good deal of misunderstanding of the meaning of the word "inflation" in the house, and there is still a good deal of misunderstanding about it in the country. We have heard members of the house use the word "inflation" with a variety of meanings. I believe it is very important to the progress of this country and the progress of the world that every member of this committee get clearly into his mind that inflation is a rise in price.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Another
lecture.


John Horne Blackmore: The hon. member for York-Sunbury needs ten lectures, and then he would not know.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I feel
flattered at the testimonial just given me by the member for Lethbridge, because I venture to say that ninety per cent of the members of this house are in the same position with me, so that I feel I am in good company.


John Horne Blackmore: It is all the more
reason why we should stop and discuss this matter with some care at this very time, because until we understand what inflation is, it will be impossible for this country to accomplish any of the things we are aiming to accomplish in the peace, and it will be impossible for the world to accomplish the fine things which are envisaged in the Atlantic charter.
The meaning of inflation is fundamental to an understanding of economics. I would like to commend the minister and the wartime prices and trade board for the great amount of activity in which they have been engaged and for the great many discoveries which they have made. They are being more or less forced into making important discoveries. The minister is doing things this year which two and a half years ago he would have considered quite impossible. A few minutes ago he rather wanted to lecture me because
I was going to talk theoretically, but in the last two and a half years the minister has learned a lot of theory he did not know before, and I promise him that if he will keep as alert in the next two years and a half as he has been in the last two and a half he will learn a whole lot more than he possibly imagines now.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Not to-night, though!


John Horne Blackmore: No; I would not
undertake to teach the minister to-night. What I am concerned about is that we understand that inflation is merely a rise in price and that inflation can be prevented by devices similar to those which are being used by the wartime prices and trade board at the present time.
I wish to refer for a moment or two to the question I raised just before the dinner recess as to why it would not be possible to raise the price of agricultural products by subsidies without making it necessary for the labouring man to receive higher wages. The minister expressed considerable anxiety, saying that it would put into circulation a great deal of purchasing power which would have an inflationary tendency.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is another reason,
too, namely, the tremendous administrative difficulties involved in subsidy payments. At the moment we are having so much difficulty with some of the payments that we feel we may have to stop them just for administrative reasons.


John Horne Blackmore: The administrative
difficulties are great, but the minister wall be the first to acknowledge that Canada, with all the administrative difficulties which she has assumed, is in a far healthier condition than the United States where they have refrained from assuming the responsibility of going through such difficulties. It will be discovered by and by, when men know more about money and prices and kindred matters, that there are simple techniques which can be used which avoid many of the administrative difficulties.
But let me go back to the question which the minister raised. He said that if we put a good deal more money into circulation, it would have an inflationary tendency. But it will not matter how much inflationary tendency there is if prices are controlled.
Prices can be controlled in three different ways. One is by definite price fixing; another is by subsidies such as the wartime prices and trade board is using in many directions, and another is by rationing. These three
4540	COMMONS
War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
devices wisely and scientifically used will control inflation. There may be administrative difficulties; we are bound to have. difficulties because we are trying to use an outmoded financial system that we should never be trying to use. We are trying to bolster up a ramshackle thing, and of course we are having all the difficulties that a person would have in trying to run a fifteen year old car in comparison with one who is trying to run a car which has just come out of the factory. That is why the difficulties are so numerous; we are trying to use an outmoded system, an ox-cart system which -we should have discarded long ago. May I repeat that prices of agricultural products could be raised by subsidies and bonuses very much like those which are used to-day, and there would be no necessity for a rise in the price of agricultural products to the general consumer any more than there is for a rise in the price of milk, which rise the minister has taken great care to prevent. Society as a whole has absorbed the rise, so that the consumer does not have to pay. That is the first point that I wish to make.
May I repeat once more that inflation is simply a rise in prices. Now, if inflation is a rise in price, I wonder if it will be worth while to direct the committee's attention-I believe I will-to this fact. If inflation is only a rise in price, and if it can be prevented by subsidies of one sort or another, is there any reason why state-created debt-free money could not be used for the subsidies just as well as the money which is now being used? If there is any reason, it would be a good thing to have it immediately.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No; I have given the reason several times.


John Horne Blackmore: I will challenge the minister to give it now. I will challenge him to give any reason why. I will raise this question for him. If he is going to pay a subsidy on milk, will it make any difference to the price of milk whether he uses money which he borrows from the Bank of Montreal or money which he borrows from the Bank of Canada?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It makes a difference in the price of other products.


John Horne Blackmore: Would it make a difference in the price of milk?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No-other products, though.


John Horne Blackmore: Why? Which would have the greater inflationary tendency, money which came out of the Bank of Montreal or money which came out of the Bank of Canada?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Would I shorten this or lengthen it by answering the question? I am afraid it would lengthen it. I think I will just listen.


John Horne Blackmore: Thank you. I think that is the safest thing for the minister to do. Now, if he used the money out of the Bank of Canada, he would be using money which would be created by the Bank of Canada without a debt; and if the Bank of Canada allowed him to have the money without a debt, he could still use it to subsidize the price of milk and he could keep the price of milk down just as well as he is doing now with the money which he is using now, let that money be .money which he raises by taxation,, or by borrowing from people, or which he gets out of the Bank of Canada., or which he gets from the Bank of Montreal. It will not make a particle of difference to the price of milk.
Once that is understood, we will go one step further. I have said before in this house several times until I have wearied the hon. member for York-Sunbury-bless his soul; men like him we need for ballast-I have said time and again, until many hon. members have grown weary of the thing, that money could be created. I have pointed out that in the last war Canada created $26,000,000 worth of bills. The treasury board did it; they printed the money; there was no debt attached to it at all. If the treasury board had still retained its function,, its ability to print dollar bills, I would challenge the minister to show that the treasury board could not print dollar bills of the amount needed right now, turn it over to the wartime prices and trade board and let them use it as a subsidy to prevent a rise m the price of milk. I challenge him to show why he could not use such money to as good effect as the money which the wartime prices and trade board is now using.
The minute that it is discovered that he could do so, once this is granted-and it is one of the things the minister must learn- once it is realized that the value of a dollar does not depend upon the gold behind it, does not depend upon whether it comes out of the bank, or whether it is taxed from anybody or whether it is borrowed from anybody, but that the value of a dollar depends upon the amount of goods and services which are in the country behind the dollar, for which the dollar can be spent, and the skill with which the dollar is handled after it is created, we shall have taken a great step forward.

War Appropriation-Prices
Stabilization
I want to lay down that principle. If one reads the press carefully and listens to men speaking in the house and outside it; if one reads the reports of speeches being made in various parts of the country, the conclusion cannot be avoided that people are seeking for a new way out of what seems to all an impossible situation. I say that the situation is utterly impossible unless we make this simple discovery, and acknowledge it, that we can keep prices of commodities in a country wherever we want to keep them, with money created by the sovereign power of the state, free of debt, without taxation and without borrowing and without gold backing, and that when we keep the price level where we want it we prevent inflation, absolutely.
I wish to ask the minister to do what he promised to do, although possibly he has forgotten it. The other night I asked him if he would give us a statement concerning the rationing system used in Great Britain.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, I will do that.


John Horne Blackmore: I wanted him to show why the rationing system used in Great Britain would not be just as successful in Canada. As we pointed out, rationing is extremely important because it is one of the devices for preventing inflation.
While the minister is dealing with the question of rationing, I wish he would tell us about point rationing as it is used in Great Britain, and what are the essentials of point rationing, and why it could not be used in Canada as successfully as it is used in Great Britain; also to what extent, if at all, it has been used in Canada.
If the minister forgets some of the things I am asking, I will remind him. First, I should like to have him tell us about the rationing system as it is used in Great Britain and explain why the same system would not work with equal success in Canada.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We are on the wrong item for that. The hon. gentleman is quite right; he asked me for that the other night. I would ask him to let me answer his question of the other night but not ask me to go into the question of point rationing versus the type of rationing we have here, because I am not prepared to do so and it is a very difficult kind of statement to make. If the hon. gentleman had raised that the other night it would have been different, but we are on another matter-subsidies payable by the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation.


John Horne Blackmore: Could the minister tell us under what item he would be pleased to give the statement?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I would not be pleased to give it on any.


John Horne Blackmore: Well, then, on what item he would consent to give it?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am meeting the hon. gentleman half-way by answering the question he asked the other night, which was under the proper item, namely, the administration of the wartime prices and trade board, which covers rationing. He asked whether there was any sufficient reason why wholesale and systematic rationing should be more difficult in Canada than it is in Great Britain.
The essential element in any rationing scheme is effective control of supplies, and in this respect the British rationing authorities, especially in the field of food rationing, are in many instances in a much more advantageous position than is the wartime prices and trade board in Canada.
As examples of some of the major differences between the two countries I would point to the following:
1.	The larger number of producers of foodstuffs in Canada scattered over a much greater physical area.
2.	A large proportion of the United Kingdom's food supplies are imported and the British Ministry of Food is thus enabled to obtain complete control over these supplies to the extent of owning them. In Canada, on the other hand, the board is forced to meet the situation where certain of the important foods to be rationed-for example, meat, butter-are domestically produced by a large number of small producers, with the result that control of supplies is necessarily less effective.
3.	In part because of the smaller size of the country and the less diversified character of its agriculture, the British Ministry of Food has been able to exercise stringent measures of control over farmers which have not been considered practicable for introduction in Canada. This greater measure of control, supplementing the control exercised by government purchase of food imports, is carried to the extent that the Ministry of Food owns the live cattle which are slaughtered. I would point out, for example, that farmers in Britain must give twelve days' notice prior to slaughtering, and animals may be slaughtered only in government-controlled abattoirs, while the number of abattoirs allowed to be operated has been reduced by ninety-five per cent.
4.	Because of the larger physical area of Canada it is impossible to have a standard price structure throughout the country for basic food commodities. The fact that the British Ministry of Food has been able to

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
establish such a standard set of prices for meat has allowed it to ration meat on a value basis, thus freeing it from much of the complication of the points plan which has had to be adopted for Canada.
5.	Consumption habits are more uniform in Britain than in Canada, and coupon rationing whereby everyone is entitled to an equal quantity of the rationed article or articles is, therefore, more suitable in Britain than in Canada. It is necessary in Canada to take account of differences in consumption due to such things as occupation or geography and this is very difficult to achieve under rationing.
That is the answer to the question the hon. gentleman asked the other night. I am not prepared to go further at the moment.
Mr. BLAiCKMORE: I appreciate the care with which the minister has answered the question. There are devices in Canada whereby the government could gain just as effective control over commodities as obtains in Britain. It would require a departure which the government has not made, but it has taken, some steps in this direction. For example, in the Department of Agriculture, as soon as beef falls to a certain point, it undertakes to buy beef. This begins to lay down the principle that the government under certain conditions will purchase all commodities. I believe the minister will find that in Great Britain, to a great extent, it is done by the government, and there are several regulations in Canada which approximate the regulations used in Great Britain. However, I do not know that it would be profitable to go further into the discussion except to point out that we can do more in the way of rationing if we need to in Canada as a means of helping to prevent inflation, and a great deal more in the matter of subsidizing than we have done. I was surprised to find that the minister had estimated only $120,000,000. I should not have been surprised if the figure had been $450,000,000 or $500,000,000, for the important purpose of keeping down the price of foodstuffs, keeping prices stable, keeping the wage rates stable and agricultural price rates stable.
We do not realize it yet-perhaps the minister does not realize it-but there is a tension developing in the minds of labour men to-day on account of the rigid control being exercised over their wages and the incessant plea that is being made not to have an increase in their wages because this would cause inflation. That tension is not building up any good for Canada. Heat is being generated, and the day may come when an explosion will take place, which everyone will regret. The farmers are being seriously injured on the plea

that they must not have better prices because, if they do, it will pierce the ceiling and bring on inflation. In the light of realities, both of these contentions are utter nonsense, and the minister will know that in a year or two if he does not know it now. He did not know two years ago a good many things that he knows now. It is not necessary to keep the labouring man working under conditions which are causing stress and strain. It is not necessary to keep agricultural prices in this country at a level where farmers are unable to live happily and to produce abundantly. We think it is-at least the minister thinks it is-and therefore it is extremely important that the minister should understand the point I have been making, that we can go much further in subsidizing and bonusing without doing harm.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: I am sorry to bring up the matter which I am going to discuss now; but I have been trying for the last three weeks, after having a notice of motion before the committee on agriculture, which was carried unanimously, to have it brought to the attention of the house. The chairman of the committee on agriculture has refused to present it. I do not know on what authority he refuses to do so, nor does anyone else; but apparently he does, and my only recourse, if I am to obtain the information which I desire, is to ask questions on these estimates. I regret having to do so because I have been accused of holding up estimates before now.
About two years ago three of us from the province of British Columbia tried to have loggers included in the unemployment insurance scheme and we were told that we were holding things up. If the committee on agriculture, in their wisdom, under instructions apparently, are afraid to have the wartime prices and trade board answer a few questions, then I want to ask a few. I have several questions to ask. I am not particularly worried if the committee on agriculture, under instructions, are afraid to have the members of the wartime prices and trade board come before them. I have, however, no alternative but to tie up the estimates by asking certain questions and insisting upon answers to them. The first question I have to ask is with reference to berries, such as strawberries, raspberries and small fruits. I want to know what the subsidy is, how it is arrived at and on whose recommendation it is made.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is paid by the Departs
ment of Agriculture. I have no information on it.

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization


George Alexander Cruickshank: I am informed by
the so-called agriculture committee, who are afraid of the wartime prices and trade board, apparently under instructions-


William Gilbert Weir: On a point of order, is the
hon. member in order in referring to matters that have been going on in a committee? At any rate, he is not giving a proper interpretation of the business before the agriculture committee.


The ACTING CHAIRMAN (Mr. Pettier):: As a rule an hon. member may not discuss here matters that come before a standing committee of the house.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I bow to your
ruling, Mr. Chairman, and in doing so I leave it to my hon. friend. I am not referring to anything that has gone on before that committee, because the matter was not permitted to be brought before the committee- under whose instructions, I do not know, but certainly under somebody's instructions.


William Gilbert Weir: The matters before the agriculture committee were directed to the committee by an order of reference which passed this house.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I want to ask the
hon. member who has interrupted me if he brought before the House of Commons a resolution passed unanimously by the committee on agriculture.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


William Gilbert Weir: I doubt if this matter is in
order, Mr. Chairman, but I can say to the hon. member that the chairman of the committee on agriculture brought before this house the order of reference with which the committee on agriculture had to deal.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I am willing to
bow to any ruling of the Chair, but I repeat -and I am entitled to repeat-that a resolution was adopted unanimously by the committee on agriculture, and that it was not brought before this house, in spite of what the hon. member says.


William Gilbert Weir: I should like to say one
further word. The hon. member has referred to a resolution which he says was passed unanimously. He does not also tell the committee that the same resolution was later rescinded, and another order of reference made. Had the officer of the wartime prices and trade board been brought before the committee on agriculture, I doubt very much if the hon. member would have had the right to continue his discussion in this committee.
He has that privilege now, and I am sure he can get all the information he wants with respect to matters pertaining to the wartime prices and trade board.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Mr. Chairman-


Vincent-Joseph Pottier: Order. I must ask the hon. member to put his question, and to stop referring to what happened in the committee on agriculture.


George Alexander Cruickshank: As I understand the rules of the house, I am now entitled to speak to the point of order raised by the hon. member, the chairman of the committee on agriculture. Am I not correct in that? I am willing to bow to the decision of the Chair, but am I not correct? What the hon. member says is correct, with this exception-and I am speaking to the point of order-namely, that the resolution was passed and passed unanimously.


Vincent-Joseph Pottier: Order. I have asked the hon. member to refrain from discussing what took place before the committee on agriculture, and I must ask him to follow that ruling.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Very well, Mr. Chairman. May I ask a question through you, because if I am not to be permitted as a farm representative to have before the committee on agriculture a member of the wartime prices and trade board, I shall have to ask my question in this way. What is the subsidy, if any, and what is the ceiling price paid on soft fruits? Who set it, and who recommended it?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The subsidy is determined by order in council based on the recommendation of the Minister of Agriculture. I have not the particulars before me with respect to the subsidies on soft fruits.
The hon. member's second question was with respect to the ceiling price on soft fruits. That comes within my jurisdiction, and I shall get the information for him.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I appreciate the
minister's answer. My understanding is that whatever the subsidy is on soft fruits, it was set on the recommendation of the Minister of Agriculture. Is that correct?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes; and there is no ceiling price.


George Alexander Cruickshank: And, as I understand it, that price will be tabled, whatever it is?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is no ceiling price on soft fruits.

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George Alexander Cruickshank: Then, through you, Mr. Chairman, I would ask the minister how the wartime prices and trade board arrive at the subsidy, if any, to be paid on milk. There are many questions in this connection I should like to ask, and I shall try to keep them in order so that the minister may have a fair chance of answering them. My information is that a subsidy is paid on fluid milk in certain areas. I am further informed that a subsidy is paid on evaporated milk, or other manufactured dairy products. My first question is this: how is the subsidy arrived at? Is the cost of production taken into consideration in the production of milk? Is the quality of milk taken into consideration? I explained this to the Minister of Agriculture, but for some unknown reason I am not allowed to have a representative of the wartime prices and trade board before me in the committee on agriculture.
We will presume that a farmer has two 10-gallon cans of what is commonly known as 3-5 standard milk. One of those cans goes into fluid milk and reaches the fluid market. For the benefit of the wartime prices and trade board may I explain that that is the milk which goes for city consumption. The second 10-gallon can goes into the manufacture of evaporated milk or cheese. Is there any difference in arriving at the subsidy, in the quality of the milk or in the cost of production of the milk that goes into the cheese or other by-products?


James Lorimer Ilsley: 
George Alexander Cruickshank: I thank the minister. My question is this: Given two 10-gallon

cans of 3r5 milk, does the wartime prices and trade board consider there is any difference in the cost of production of one 10-gallon can delivered to the fluid market and the cost of production of the second 10-gallon can delivered to the evaporated milk or byproducts market?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know what the attitude of the wartime prices and trade board would be, but my opinion would be that if a farmer produced two cans of milk it would be pretty hard to say that it cost any more to produce the first can than it did the second. That would be my offhand opinion.


George Alexander Cruickshank: That is just the point I am tiying to get at. If we had not had the obstruction of the committee on agriculture in this committee, we could have finished it up some time ago. I agree with what the minister has said. That is the contention of the dairy farmers in British Columbia. They say that two cans of milk, one of which goes into evaporated milk and the other into the fluid milk market, cost exactly the same to produce. I was informed by agricultural representatives who appeared before the committee, however, in what they were allowed to say there, that the wartime prices and trade board had set this price, and that is what I am trying to arrive at. As I understand the minister, there is no difference in the cost of milk of equal grade produced for evaporated milk, cheese or butter, or for the fluid milk market.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Produced by the same farmer at the same time.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Exactly.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The milk might come from the same herd, I suppose?


George Alexander Cruickshank: You know, Mr. Chairman, I have had a great deal of experience travelling with the hon. member around the Athabaska district trying to get oil out of the sands there, but perhaps he will leave me alone with milk now. The question I am asking is whether, in setting the subsidies to be paid in connection with milk or dairy products, the cost of production and possibly some margin of profit are taken into consideration.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman means, were those factors taken into consideration last September when the scheme was instituted by the wartime prices and trade board? That is what he means, is it not; was the cost of production taken into account when Mr. Taggart made his recommendation to the board and the'board took action?


George Alexander Cruickshank: Yes.

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know whether it was or not, but I presume some regard was had to that among other factors. I do not think the cost of production was ever ascertained, nor do I think it would be possible to ascertain it. I do not know just where we are getting on this, but perhaps the hon. gentleman is overlooking the fact that fluid milk has always commanded and received a higher price than milk for processing. That has been true in every market for many years.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I am glad the minister has given us the interpretation of the wartime prices and trade board. My argument, if I may put it in that way, is that all milk of equal quality should receive the same subsidy. As I understand the minister's statement, he admits that the cost of production has nothing to do with it; that whether the farmers have to sacrifice their herds has nothing to do with it. Under the wartime prices and trade board a certain price will be paid if the market is able to absorb all the fluid milk; if there is anything left over it can be dumped down the sewer or the cows can be slaughtered, as I understand the minister's statement. I want to point out, as I pointed out in the agriculture committee today, that I did not want to bring this matter up on the floor of the house.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is no harm done.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The minister and I understand each other. However, I was refused the right to bring up the matter in the agriculture committee, which I thought was the proper place for it. I do not know on whose instructions I was refused that right, but I am sure the farmers of Canada and even the farmers of Ontario would like to know on whose instructions I was refused the right to bring up this matter in the agriculture committee. I am satisfied with the minister's explanation in regard to milk, because I think he has been fair about it as he and the board see it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I dissent from the various interpretations the hon. gentleman has placed on my remarks.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Very well, Mr. Chairman; I dissent from many of the remarks made by the minister in his interpretation of what is due the farmer. I stand to be corrected in this statement, but apparently the wartime prices and trade board does not take into consideration the cost of producing milk in arriving at the subsidy to be paid.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No; I did not say that.
72537-288r	[DOT]


George Alexander Cruickshank: Then will the minister say whether or not that was done? This means a great deal in my district. Was the cost of production taken into consideration in arriving at the subsidy?


James Lorimer Ilsley: As I said before, I presume those who went into the matter had some regard to the cost of production though I feel sure they did not ascertain it, because I do not believe it is possible of ascertainment. Certainly they must have had regard to increases in cost, because doubtless those were the basis of the subsidy.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The Minister of Agriculture gave it as his interpretation of the subsidies principle that they were an incentive to production. I submit that there is a difference between an incentive to production and the actual cost of production. The Minister of Finance is the only approach I have to the wartime prices and trade board, and he says that the cost of production has nothing at all to do with it, so that I shall pass on to another matter. I have to bring up these points here because the chairman of the agriculture committee will not permit me to bring them up there.
I come now to potatoes. Is there a subsidy paid on potatoes in British Columbia or any other province in Canada and, if so, on what basis?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is a subsidy on domestically produced new potatoes! The subsidy was announced as payable to persons buying new potatoes direct from the primary producer or his agent for resale. Wholesalers and retailers will be reimbursed to the extent that laid-down costs at their distribution points exceed the lawful maximum prices on sales at wholesale and retail respectively, as set in board order No. 236. The minimum quantity of potatoes subsidizable is seventy-five pounds. No subsidy will be paid on new potatoes purchased from primary producers at prices higher than $3.75 per hundred pounds when shipped before July 31, 1943; $3.50 when shipped between August 1 and August 15. and $3 when shipped between August 16 and August 31. No subsidy will be paid on new potatoes shipped on and after September 1, 1943.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I was not able to get down those dates. I was trying to take them down, but I am afraid the minister has adopted the habit of speaking a little too quickly. In the province of British Columbia we do not speak in terms of bushels or baskets; we speak in terms of hundred pounds or tons. The point I am trying to arrive at is the $3.75 per hundred pounds. In British Columbia, and

WdT Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
I think in most of western Canada, new potatoes cannot be produced on June 20 for $3.75 per hundred pounds. I want to know how they arrived at that. I am sorry to take the time, Mr. Chairman, but I was not allowed to do this in the agriculture committee.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The subsidy to the dealer is the difference between his selling price and the cost, but a cost of greater than $3.75 will not be recognized.


An hon. MEMBER:: Carried.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Never mind this
"carried" stuff. I should like to introduce something that would affect the future incomes of the lawyers of Canada and then you would see an influx of them in here in a minute. They would not be in such a hurry to carry the item. I am sorry, and I apologize again to you, Mr. Chairman. If I had not been denied the right I was entitled to-


William Gilbert Weir: On a point of order. My hon. friend is imputing motives; he is saying that he was denied the right to secure certain information in a certain committee. I do not wish to refer to it any further, but he did secure information in connection with the order of reference to the committee from this house. Most of the items he has been discussing this evening were discussed in the committee and he got a great deal of information. He may not have secured all he wanted, but he got a great deal from the officials administering the different marketing organizations in the Department of Agriculture. It is true they were not officials of the wartime prices and trade board, but they were charged with the responsibility of dealing with these matters in the Department of Agriculture. I do not think the hon. gentleman is entitled to imply in any way that he was denied the right of securing information in the committee.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Mr. Chairman-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I am entitled to speak to the point of order.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


George Alexander Cruickshank: It is all very well for hon" members to say " sit down," but I was sent here by my people and I am not sitting down, with all due deference to you. I accept the explanation given by the chairman of the agriculture committee. I asked for certain information and he may think I got it, but I did not.


Vincent-Joseph Pottier: I refer the hon. gentleman to citation 303, which reads:
Until a committee reports, it is irregular to refer to its proceedings in debate in the house.
I am going to ask the hon. member to refrain from referring to what took place in the committee. I have asked him twice; this is the third time, and I hope it will be the last.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not right.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I have to abide by it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I should like to ask the minister something which was not referred to in any committee. I have not asked this question in any committee because I never had an opportunity of doing so. What is the ceiling price in each district of milk, both fluid and for evaporating purposes, and who made the recommendation in each case?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am told that there would be at least one thousand places where milk prices have been set by local milk boards and concurred in by the wartime prices and trade board. I have not that information here and it would be very bulky, I do not think the hon. member should press for it. He can get it from us officially, but I do not think he should press for it in the house. It would take so long to give because it is so voluminous.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I want to be reasonable. Do I understand that the ceiling price on milk varies in over a thousand districts?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It may not vary, but the officials tell me that there are at least a thousand districts. There is a price for each city, town and so forth all across the country.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I assume the minister is .referring to the retail price of a quart bottle? What is the price according to provinces for manufactured dairy products, fluid milk and so on? There can only be so many provinces.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is no ceiling on the price of milk sold by farmers. If a farmer takes milk and sells it for cheese, for butter, for condensed milk or as fluid milk, there is no ceiling on it. There is a ceiling on what can be charged the consumer by the distributor of milk, and there is a ceiling on what the creamery can charge for butter, or what can be charged for cheese. There must also be a ceiling on condensed milk, but there is no ceiling on what the farmer can get. Of course, that would be regulated by the other ceilings. [DOT]

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization


George Alexander Cruickshank: Is there any ceiling on the price at which a wholesaler sells milk to a retailer?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


George Alexander Cruickshank: What is that ceiling in British Columbia, and why?


An hon. MEMBER:: Oh, oh.


George Alexander Cruickshank: That is a fair question. It concerns seventy-five to eighty per cent of the dairy farmers in British Columbia.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Are there any wholesalers in British Columbia? The officials do not appear to know that offhand.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The officials should know. In the lower mainland of British Columbia, which as the minister knows is the principal milkshed, at least 75 to 80 per cent of the dairy producers belong to one association. We sell to our own wholesalers and in turn retail what we can on the fluid market. That is the point. We retail a certain percentage of our milk, but the remainder we wholesale to various retailers, and the rest we put in evaporated or cheese or butter or by-products. What I want to know is, are we compelled under an order of the board regarding the price at which we as wholesalers, or cooperatives can sell our surplus to these independent distributors?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think I shall have to give that information a little later.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I appreciate the fact that the minister cannot answer that offhand, but it is of vital importance, and I am not allowed to ask it in a certain other committee which I am not permitted to mention. Therefore, will I have the privilege, before this item is closed, of speaking to that again?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think I shall have that information in a very few minutes, and I will give it before the item closes.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Carried?


George Alexander Cruickshank: No, Mr. Chairman, just a minute. I have asked a reasonable question and also asked whether I would be allowed to speak to this again, and the minister said that he would bring me what information he could. I do not think the item should carry until such time as I have the privilege of speaking on it again after his answer is recorded.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We will wait, then, and try to get it.


Mr. ESLING:: At a convenient moment
before the final disposal of these war appropriation estimates will the minister clarify the condition under which the importation of oranges is eligible for subsidy? If he has an application form he will know, first of all, they must be brought in in carload lots; second, that the importer must hold title at the point of production. Manifestly this is unjust to the small importer. A man -may have been a responsible business man and may have carried on an importing business for ten years, but he may not be financially in a position to purchase in carload lots, which means that there is discrimination which puts him out of business, because those who deal with such an importer will naturally go to his competitor and will finish their purchases of products there. If he must purchase in carload lots; if these conditions must be followed, could it not be arranged to modify that so that the wholesale importer could secure a certificate from the jobber across the line to the effect that the oranges which he purchases were brought in from the point of production by the jobber? That seems to me the only way out of it. Manifestly it is unfair to the small man and simply turns the business into these channels of the larger and more influential and substantial importers.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman brought that up the other night. He is asking me to clarify the matter now, is he?


William Kemble Esling: To modify it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Oh, to modify the matter? I will take that up. We have not had much time to do anything since the hon. gentleman brought it up the other night, but I have looked into it. I have before me the name of the firm which apparently imported these oranges by truck. I will go into the matter as soon as we get through these estimates. Perhaps the hon. gentleman could communicate with me or with the board about it.


Thomas Reid: May I ask whether the regulations with regard to the conversion of dwellings for homes come under the wartime prices and trade board?	v


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Thomas Reid: There are some regulations to that effect.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


Thomas Reid: What I have in mind is that complaints have been made that the regulation was set for homes of 87,000 and upwards, and when I was back at Easter serious complaints were made that in Vancouver and
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Westminster it is only the exceptional homes which come in that class; there are few of that kind. The majority of homes, in the province have an average value of from three to four thousand dollars. If the regulation had been changed to permit the conversion of homes of that class or value, more might have been done to provide accommodation. The suggestion was made that perhaps the $7,000 valuation was adopted by taking into account homes in the east which are built of stone or brick, and are probably more substantial and cost more. I wonder if the minister would look into it, because it has been contended that the housing situation in both Vancouver and New Westminster would be helped if the conversion value were reduced to, say $3,500 or $4,000, which would take in about eighty per cent of the homes in both cities.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If the hon. gentleman is thinking about the same thing I am thinking about, he is thinking about big buildings. I am thinking about the housing conversion plan, which is a new plan for converting large houses into apartments. The object is to get as many family units as possible out of one building. It is expected that family units can be obtained at the cost of $1,000 to $1,500. provided enough apartments can be made out of one house. My impression would be that if a house were only worth, to start with $3,000 or $4,000, it would not be an appropriate building to come under the housing conversion plan.


Thomas Reid: It will take only a mpment to read the brief which was presented in the matter. It is very short:
Recently the government appointed a real property administrator, and under the order in council, he was empowered to take over any premises of any nature that might be utilized for war purposes, or for use of those employed in any war enterprise. A short while after this appointment a new regulation was passed which nullified for the duration of the war any local municipality or province acts of regulations, restricting housing occupancy. In so far as Vancouver was concerned this could possibly be implied to nullify the Shaughnessy restriction act, which provides that this area could only be used as a one-family dwelling district. Under this amendment it is now possible for all houses in this district to be used for rooming or boarding houses, or made into multiple dwellings, or made into two or more apartments. The effect of this regulation in regard to the Shaughnessy area, along with the proposal to limit the expense of conversion to $1,500, would virtually change that area into a somewhat slum condition, as the houses are so laid out, and of such a character, that with an expenditure of only $1,500 there would be such a contrast to the original structure and finish that they would become a second or third class accommodation.
[Mr. Reid.3
The intention of the government in restricting the housing conversion to dwellings of a market value of $7,000 or over, is utterly impractical as far as Vancouver is concerned, as the vast majority of these houses are either in Shaugh-nessy, South West Marine, or British Properties on the north shore. The houses most suitable for conversion are in the $3,000 to $6,000 class.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That may be so, but the brief my hon. friend has just read is a pretty good argument for not going into the small house. The writer says that it will cost more than SI,500 to get your units, and the government is interested in getting a cheap unit. We can get them for $1,000 under proper conditions. If you get the right kind of big old house, you can convert it into ten or a dozen apartments. That is a cheap way to get family units. You have to get the right type of house, of course, and make the right kind of bargain with the owner. An order in council was passed authorizing the conversion of, I think, fifty buildings in Vancouver. Mr. Nichols, the director of housing, who is doing the administrative part of the work, went to British Columbia and I thought he was making pretty satisfactory progress but on a limited scale. We cannot go in for it in a wholesale way. It would be expensive, and as the writer says, it might make slums out of good houses if you started in on cheap houses.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I understood the ninister to offer to give me an answer, and I 3laim the right, Mr. Chairman, to have the answer before the item is carried.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is a special order about the Vancouver area. It is order 238 of the wartime prices and trade board. Section 4 reads:
4. The price to be paid to primary producers for milk delivered to a milk dealer's or producer-distributor's plant for sale by the dealer or producer-distributor in the Vancouver area in the form of milk, cream or ice cream shall be as follows, according to quantity and butter fat content:
(a)	for each 100 pounds of milk of 3-5 per cent butter fat content, $2.45;
(b)	for each 100 pounds of milk, the butter fat content of which is greater or less than 3-5 per cent, $2.45 plus or minus 5 cents for each one-tenth of one per cent of butter fat content greater or less, as the case may be, than 3-5 per cent;
(c)	for milk in quantities of less than 100 pounds, a price proportionate according to quantity to the prices stated in clauses (a) and (b) above for the quantity of 100 pounds.
I said a while ago that there was no ceiling on the sale, but there seems to be a special order applicable to the Vancouver area, to ensure a price to producers comparable to that prevailing in similar markets elsewhere in Canada.

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization


George Alexander Cruickshank: I appreciate the answer which the minister has given, and I think Hansard will bear me out in the argument I advanced. This is once, Mr. Chairman, that I wish I followed the practice of some of my friends from Ontario of reading a speech, but I never have and I never will read what I have to say so long as I am in the House of Commons. I will say my speech as I think it.
Approximately seventy-five per cent of the producers of milk in the province of British Columbia are in the Fraser valley. They sell twenty-five per cent of their milk on the fluid market, and anybody who knows the dairy industry knows that that is where the money is. They sell the rest, seventy-five per cent, in manufactured products.
My information is, and I think this is borne out by the minister's statement to-night, representing the wartime prices and trade board which comes under his department, that the price is set to the wholesalers on what we can sell the distributors. As I said, we produce seventy-five per cent of the milk and we sell, in round figures, twenty-five per cent of our milk on the fluid market and the other seventy-five per cent on what is known as the open market, which means the world market, in the form of cheese, butter and byproducts. The other twenty-five per cent of the producers sell 100 per cent of their milk on the fluid market, where the money is, and yet as I understand the minister and the regulations, the wartime prices and trade board say to us who are the wholesalers that we must sell to the distributors at a certain price. For the sake of argument we will say that it is $2.50 per 100 pounds of 3-5 per cent milk. We are not allowed to charge more than that. We are not allowed to pay our own retail outlets more. We who represent seventy-five per cent of the dairy producers in British Columbia are not allowed to pay our producers more than that set price, and we as wholesalers pay that as distributors.
In our own particular case we own both companies. But the price is set by the wartime prices and trade board. We cannot pay our own distributors any more than that. I suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that the reason why the price is fixed in that way is that there is a small minority of independent distributors who must depend upon us as wholesole distributors for the volume of fluid milk for sale, and for that reason and that reason only the price is kept at this minimum. I am using the figure of $2.50 per 100 pounds for the sake of argument. In our particular case we represent seventy-five per cent of the dairy
producers. We own our own wholesale and our own retail outlets. I do not know whether I am making myself clear to the minister, but those are the regulations as I understand them, and as I understood the minister to confirm them to-night. The minister has all the details. My interpretation of the act is that we as wholesalers sell to the independent distributors at a given price and must sell at that price.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The price to the primary
producer, if he delivers the milk to a milk dealer's plant or a producer-distributor's plant, for sale by the dealer or the producer-distributor, in the Vancouver area, in the form of milk, cream or ice cream is set at the figures I have mentioned. That is all I can tell my hon. friend. I put the section on Hansard and I think it is clear enough.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I appreciate what
the minister said in reference to the section, and all that, but I have no recourse but to do what I am now doing, because I am deprived of the right to do it in the committee on agriculture. I want to know who advised that this price was to be set as it is_that we as wholesalers, representing the producers, must sell to the independent distributors at a given price.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The date of this order is
February 16, 1943. It is dated just after Mr. Taggart left the office of foods administrator, and I am informed that he worked out the order. He was very familiar with conditions in British Columbia, I know, because he used to talk about conditions in the Fraser valley, and I believe he sent a man out there to work out this order. I do not know whom he consulted out there. Perhaps he consulted my hon. friend. Did he?


George Alexander Cruickshank: I wish he had. I think the minister knows that I do not want to delay matters. If I were one of those who want to do that, I could rise in my place and spend time as a farm representative telling the Minister of Finance many things. He is the greatest Minister of Finance we have ever had, a man we all look up to and admire. He knows I am not making a personal issue of this. I am speaking as the representative of a section of the people-and do not forget this, that I have never read a speech in this house. I speak without reading, and what I say goes back to the people of my district from myself and not from the maritimes. I think I am entitled to the information I am seeking. In our district we own our own wholesale outfit, which is the largest cooperative dairy organization in Canada and the
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second largest on the north American continent. That is something that can be verified. We also control our own retail outlet. Now I want to be corrected if I am wrong, and that is the minister's job, because I am not allowed to find it out in the committee on agriculture. My information is that our own wholesale outfit, which we own, is not allowed to sell to our own retail outlet except at a certain figure set by the wartime prices and trade board. Is that right?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am afraid I cannot tell my hon. friend that.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Will the minister produce some member of the wartime prices and trade board before me who can answer that question? I want to repeat it. My information is that the price which the associated dairies association can pay to the Fraser valley milk producers' association is set by the wartime prices and trade board. That is my information. Before the item is carried I am entitled to the information in that regard, and so far as I am concerned, before this item is carried I shall know whether the wartime prices and trade board sets the price to the farmer organization owned by the farmers, the price at which they can sell to their own retail organization, about fifty-three per cent of which is owned by the farmers. Is that correct, or is that price which is to be paid by the distributors set by certain independent companies?


James Lorimer Ilsley: How would it do for the hon. gentleman to get in touch with the foods administrator, to-morrow say, and get this information then?


George Alexander Cruickshank: Mr. Chairman, I have been trying for three weeks to do that.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is no difficulty about it.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I know there is no difficulty in getting in touch with them'-and very fine gentlemen they are, too. I have met them. But the minister knows as well as I do that the only place where anything effective can be done for the farmers is in this chamber. I cannot get my point before the committee on agriculture. I have tried for three weeks, and they refuse to hear me.
I ask the minister this straight question: Has a wholesale company or cooperative to conform, on their sale to their own distributors
a price set by the wartime prices and trade board? If so, why?


Mr. LECLERC:: Mr. Chairman, I know something about the milk business, and I think I can answer the hon. member from British Columbia. There are regulations in

his province, the same as in all provinces of Canada. I am not sure whether they have a milk commission in British Columbia, but I know we have in Quebec. These commissions were formed to protect the farmers against themselves. Formerly, when farmers retailed their milk they tried to cut each other's throats. Finally the provincial government appointed a commission to set the price. That price was set after interviewing the different farmer organizations in my province. They are not allowed to pay less than the commission price, and they are obliged to sell at the price stipulated.
I believe the farmers are fairly well satisfied at the present time. I am in direct touch with them every day when I am at home, and I know conditions are far better than they were before the war. Unfortunately for the farmers, prices of butter and cheese are not set according to the cost of production. That is too bad for the farmers, but it has always been that way-and especially so before the war. Now the government is giving a bonus of 8 cents on butter, and about the same thing in proportion for cheese. Only the other day a farmer came to me and said that while he had only a small herd he had received $75 from his creamery, that he had never got that much before and that he was well satisfied. Before the war farmers were obliged to take 18 to 20 cents a pound for butterfat. Now we are paying them 46 or 47 cents, and they are fairly happy about it. Perhaps that is not very high, but certainly it is much better than they got before. There was some difficulty last winter in connection with securing grain, and now they are having some trouble in getting hired help. But had it not been for those two things I think everything would be very satisfactory for the farmers. If my hon. friend wishes to have some other information, I should be glad to give it to him.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the lecture by the hon. member from Quebec, and I am very glad to know the Quebec farmers are satisfied. But I am perfectly entitled to say that the British Columbia farmers are not satisfied. If my hon. friend is satisfied with the treatment given the dairy farmers of Quebec, then it is all right for him to say so, and I have no quarrel with his opinion. But we in British Columbia are not satisfied. I should not have to .tell why we are not. We never will /pay the wages, or have the social security enjoyed by the province of Quebec.
I have asked a question. Might I point out in passing that the Minister of Agriculture himself-and there is no better authority on

War Appropriation-
-Prices Stabilization
agriculture on the north American continent -has admitted that it costs us more in British Columbia to produce than it does in the hon. member's native province of Quebec. Incidentally I might point out, for the benefit of a few, that so far we have done very well for the legal profession, and for the privy council, a few times. But let me ask this: Are we to be allowed to sell our own wholesale milk to our own distributing agency? The hon. member from the Okanagan valley knows about this condition, and other hon. members from British Columbia know the circumstances. Are we to be allowed to sell our own milk from our own wholesale agencies, owned and controlled 100 per cent by the farmers, to our own retail agencies, at a price which we set? Now, mark you, I am not asking to upset the ceiling price of 11 cents a quart or whatever it is. I am talking about our own distributing agencies-and there is a big difference in that. We are not upsetting the retail price to the consumer in Vancouver, Victoria, or wherever it may be, even by one cent. All we are asking in this instance is for the privilege of selling to our own distributing agency or any other distributor at the price we see fit to set. I am asking the minister if we are to be permitted to do that, and I repeat that we are not upsetting the retail price to the consumer one iota. Are we to have the privilege of selling our surplus milk either to our own distributor, which in this instance is known as the Associated Dairies, or to whoever wishes to buy our milk, at our price?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Shall the item carry?


George Alexander Cruickshank: No, no; I object to this carrying stuff. I have asked the minister a question, and I speak for the 4,300 farmers I represent.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have before me an order. I do not know the names or the set-up of the organization in the Fraser valley, As I read this order, it would seem to me that the wholesale organization comes within the definition of a primary producer, and the price which that wholesale organization can charge for milk is fixed! by this order. I should say, after reading this order, that if it is a sale to a dealer or a producer-distributor, it is governed by the provisions of the order. That is, if it is a sale. The hon. member is talking as if it is merely a family arrangement of some kind, and not a sale at all. He may be raising some fine legal point. He is asking me to say what this order does, or what it can do. He is asking what can be done legally. There is no doubt under this order that if it is a sale by a wholesale organization such as he has named-and I do not
know whether the one he has named is an incorporated body or not-but if it is a sale from that wholesaler to a milk dealer or producer-distributor, it is governed by the provisions of this order.
He can find out in ten minutes by asking an official of the wartime prices and trade board. I am informed there are several officials who have been out there and who understand this situation thoroughly. He can find that out by calling them by telephone tomorrow morning. All I can do is cite the order to him. Does he not know about this himself? Has this matter not been discussed since last February? Are the facts not well known? Does he not know that the price that the wholesale organization can charge is fixed? What is the object of this? Is the hon. gentleman asking me for a legal interpretation of the order, or is he asking me to tell him something he already knows, for the purpose of the record?


George Alexander Cruickshank: I do not have to worry about the record at all.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Then why does the hon. gentleman not go to the board to-morrow morning and get his information, instead of taking u>p all this time?


George Alexander Cruickshank: I am not going to be lectured by the minister or anybody else; I came here to represent the farmers of my riding. I first asked for this information in the agriculture committee. I know exactly what the minister has told me, but there is something else I am trying to bring home to him. I will tell him why I am asking these questions. The representatives of the wartime prices and trade board went out to British Columbia, Did they get in touch with the organization that represents at least seventy-five per cent of the dairy farmers of that province? No; they went to the other twenty-five per cent. I am here to do my duty as I see it, and if I do not do it I am quite prepared, if and when the time comes, to resign or to accept the decision of the voters of the constituency of Fraser Valley.
The minister has not yet answered my question. He has admitted that his department is afraid of the majority and is ko-towing to the minority in British Columbia. That was exactly what I said. Our own farmers sell to a wholesale organization known as the Fraser Valley Milk Producers' Association, who in turn sell to an organization known as Associated Dairies. I will admit that the minister has no reason to know all these details, but I want to tell the minister that the officials of the board are afraid to appear

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
before any committee, because as soon as they arrive in British Columbia they go to the minority group, get their instructions and report back to the wartime prices and trade board. His officials are afraid to appear before the committee and answer questions in that regard.
As the regulation stands to-day we have to pay a certain price; that has been admitted by the minister. It does not make a particle of difference to me if the minister shrugs his shoulders; I can shrug mine, too. I represent 4,300 dairymen. Our organization has to sell milk, through a wholesale outfit to our own distributors at a given price. Why? To protect this little minority of distributors who have been the godsend of the legal profession of British Columbia for the last fifteen years.


An hon. MEMBER:: Carried.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Never mind the "carried" stuff. I should like to know if some of those hon. members who call "carried" are satisfied with prices of dairy products in Ontario. Certainly we in British Columbia are not satisfied, and we are not afraid to say so. Will the minister tell me why we cannot set our own price to our own distributors, provided-and I want this to be quite clear-that we keep within the ceiling price to the consumer? I understand the purpose of these regulations is to protect the consumer, and I admire the excellent work the minister has done in that regard. All we are asking is that we be allowed to set our own price to the distributors, always keeping [DOT] within the retail price ceiling to the consumer. Are we or are we not to be allowed that privilege?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Did the hon. member ask why they should not be allowed to do something? What was his question?


George Alexander Cruickshank: My question is: will we be permitted, as wholesalers, to sell to our own distributors at any price we see fit, or to any other distributors, provided the ceiling price to the consumer is not disrupted?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not think you can, under this order.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Well, Mr. Chairman, I imagine I am not making myself very clear. I know we cannot do it under the present order. I am not afraid of being quoted as saying that in this instance I represent seventy-five per cent of the dairymen of Fraser valley.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Who represents the other twenty-five per cent?


George Alexander Cruickshank: I see I shall have to talk until eleven o'clock to get this across, but I am asked who represents the other twenty-five per cent.


Mr. BERTRAND (Laurier):: Nobody questions that.


George Alexander Cruickshank: No? A few years ago we were told that we could not produce enough fish. We put away 1,800 Japanese fishermen and to-day we are producing more fish in British Columbia than we ever produced.


An hon. MEMBER:: Milk is the item.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The Minister of
Fisheries asked for that. I am pointing out that I represent seventy-five per cent of the daiiymen of the Fraser valley, and I think I am putting up a reasonable argument; I believe the hon. member for New Westminster will bear me out. I have not been able to get an answer as yet. Through you, Mr. Chairman, I want to repeat that I was not allowed to bring up this matter in the agriculture committee, where it should be brought up, because they were afraid to face it.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Order, Mr. Chairman.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Never mind the
order; you cannot take it. Representing this percentage of the dairymen, all I am asking is that as wholesalers of milk we be given the right to state to the distributors what the price shall be, as long as it does not disrupt the price ceiling. A moment ago the minister said he could not answer that suggestion. Well, Mr. Chairman, if I cannot approach the matter through the Minister of Finance, who is head of the wartime prices and trade board, through whom in the name of time can I approach it? I cannot approach it through the Minister of Agriculture; he says he has nothing to do with the setting of that price, which I admit. Let me repeat that we do not want to disrupt the ceiling price to the consumer by one iota. We want the privilege of saying what the price from the producer to the distributor shall be. I say to the minister, through you, Mr. Chairman-the hon. member for New Westminster was called to order for not addressing the Chair - that approximately seventy-five per cent of the dairymen of the province cannot produce milk at the present price to the consumer. They want to increase the price to the distributor by five or seven cents per pound butterfat, but by order of the board they are refused that right. I want to repeat under the ruling of the board we are refused the right as wholesalers to increase our price

War Appropriation-Prices Stabilization
to the distributors and keep within the ceiling price to the consumer. Are the rights of democracy, are the rights of the majority to be considered, or are the rights of the minority to be considered? As soon as the board's dairy representative arrived in British Columbia he approached the twenty-five per cent, not the seventy-five per cent. He is afraid to appear before the agriculture committee. I ask the minister again, and I want an answer; if I have to talk for four days I can do so. Can the wholesaler of milk set the price to his own distributor or any distributor, provided the retail price does not exceed the price as set by the wartime prices and trade board?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Why do they wish to lower the price to the distributors?


George Alexander Cruickshank: Lower it?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I know the hon. member for Fraser Valley does not want to prolong the debate unduly. He has always been most fair. I think he realizes that the Minister of Finance and his officials are not backward in answering any questions. I think he realizes that the minister has tried to answer in the best way possible, and I ask the hon. member to take that answer.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I appreciate your generous decision, Mr. Chairman, but the minister has asked me a direct question. I am flattered, because this is the first time I have been asked a question by so eminent a person.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Does the hon. gentleman wish to lower or raise it?


George Alexander Cruickshank: Now who is prolonging the debate? The minister has asked me a direct question. With all due deference to you, Mr. Chairman, I think the next time I shall write out my speech because I am about the only member who does not read what he has to say. We do not want to lower the price; we most decidedly want to raise it. I am asking why we as producers as represented by our own association-I mentioned the approximate figure of seventy-five per cent-and the present attorney general of British Columbia and the former attorney general of British Columbia, who now has the distinguished honour of having a seat in the place known as the other place-


An hon. MEMBER:: Out of order.


George Alexander Cruickshank: It is not out of older. They have taken it to the privy council. We are saying that as the Fraser Valley Milk Producers' Association we have
the right to set the price at which milk is sold to the distributors, provided the cost to the ultimate consumer does not exceed the ceiling price. I am asking the minister if that is possible. I appreciate the fact that he cannot answer offhand.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Why does the hon. gentleman want to raise the price even to his own organization? That is what he has been talking about all evening.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The reason why I want to raise the price is that we sell seventy-five per cent of our milk to distributors.


James Lorimer Ilsley: To your own distributors.


George Alexander Cruickshank: To our own distributors and others.


James Lorimer Ilsley: To your own people. Why do you wish to raise it?


George Alexander Cruickshank: The remainder of our milk, the seventy-five per cent, goes into canned milk or manufactured milk-I am speaking in round figures-and twenty-five per cent goes into fluid milk. But 100 per cent of the milk produced by the other twenty-five per cent, the independent producers, goes into the fluid market. They cannot handle their consumers, so that they have to buy from our wholesalers, and we cannot charge them the price which our own distributing .agents are prepared to pay. This official of the wartime prices and trade board arrived in Vancouver, and he went down to this agency and asked what they could afford to pay.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman is not interested in the price he is charging his own organization; all he is interested in is the price to be charged the independents. He wants to raise the price to the independents. Is that the idea?


George Alexander Cruickshank: No, I do not.


An hon. MEMBER:: Eleven o'clock.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I happen to have the floor. Since I have not been able to make my point clear, I ask you, Mr. Chairman, to call it eleven o'clock.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Shall the item carry?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Shall I report progress?


George Alexander Cruickshank: Is the item carried? I did not agree with that at all.


An hon. MEMBER:: No; it was not carried.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Labour Conditions
[Stage Direction]
Friday, July 9, 1943