1944-03-03

SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO ASSIST MU. SPEAKER IN REVISION OP STANDING ORDERS

Mr. SPEAKER:: I have the honour to
present the first and final report of the special committee appointed to assist Mr. Speaker in revising the standing orders of the house.
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Pensions and National Health): With the consent of the house, I move:
100-70J
That the report of Mr. Speaker for the special committee on the revision of the standing orders be referred to the committee of the whole on Tuesday next.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Has Canada joined in the recognition of the government of Marshal Badoglio and King Victor Emmanuel in Italy? Has the government been consulted in regard to such recognition, or if not, has the government voiced any disapproval of such recognition?


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: My hon. friend gave me a copy of his question and I shall reply. At the time of the surrender of Italy, September 8, 1943, the royal Italian government was recognized by the governments of the united nations as the responsible government to conclude the Italian armistice. It has subsequently been recognized by the allied governments as a co-belligerent. Canada was consulted about the recognition of the Italian government for these purposes, and approved.



NAVAL SERVICES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: I should like to ask the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services a question. I have not often asked him questions this session. As a former chairman of the harbour board of Toronto, I may say that the Toronto members have to-day received a letter from the mayor and the board of control with reference to the construction of naval barracks west of the Toronto baseball grounds on the waterfront. The minister might be able to give information as to what is going on. The city has spent from twelve to fifteen million dollars on western harbour improvements.
Hon. ANGUS L. MACDONALD (Minister of National Defence for Naval Services): I hope to be able to make an announcement on that point by next week. My hon. friend is quite right in saying that the city of Toronto has given a certain very desirable area of land there for the use of the naval services. As I told the mayor in a letter a few days ago, the whole matter is being care-

Conference with Provinces

fully considered, and I hope by the time my estimates are up next week to be able to give a definite answer on the point.



CONFERENCE WITH PROVINCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Leader of the Opposition):: May I ask the Prime Minister a question? I did not give notice of it because I have just come into the house. When does he expect to be able to indicate the date of the dominion-provincial conference?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend has cut into ground which the hon. member for Park-dale (Mr. Bruce) is seeking to hold.


Gordon Graydon: When we have a good thing it is of course well for both to hold it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The hon. member for Parkdale sent me a copy of a question he proposed to ask. It is as follows:
At the first meeting of the social security committee on Wednesday last, when considering the draft bill of the proposed act respecting health insurance, we were informed that before finality could be reached it would be necessary to consult the provinces, especially in respect to the financial provisions of the bill.
Is the Prime Minister in a position to say whether he will be able to hold this conference in Easter week, as contemplated?
Answering both hon. gentlemen, may I say that I am not in a position to state at the moment whether it is going to be possible to hold the dominion provincial conference during Easter week. Certainly with respect to the financial provisions of any bill on health it would not be possible to have the conference take up that measure at Easter. I should say with regard to what my hon. friend from Parkdale (Mr. Bruce) refers to as a draft bill of the proposed act respecting health insurance which he indicates was before the social security committee on Wednesday last, that I understand there were certain departmental proposals respecting health insurance put before the social security committee; but no bill which has been before the social security committee has been even submitted to the government up to the present time. That was made quite clear before the social security committee. What they have been considering are certain departmental proposals respecting health insurance. Those proposals will come before the provincial governments as well as before the federal government before any bill is introduced which may or may not be based upon whatever proposals may be approved.
I Mr. A. L. Macdonnld.]


Gordon Graydon: If I understand the
Prime Minister correctly, should there be a conference at Easter time it will not be possible to deal with the health insurance matter?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I doubt if it would be possible to deal with the financial provisions of it. There may be other aspects of a bill that might be dealt with, but the financial provisions of a health insurance bill would necessarily be considered in relation to financial provisions respecting other measures as well', and that is a very large subject. I doubt if it would be possible to have it considered at Easter time.
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Pensions and National Health):	With further reference to the question asked by the hon. member for Parkdale and the hon. leader of the opposition, and supplementing the reply of the Prime Minister, may I say that the dominion council of health will meet in the next six weeks or two months to discuss as many features as possible of the departmental proposals regarding national health.


Gordon Graydon: The dominion council of health?


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: Yes, with the provincial governments represented.



RADIO BROADCASTING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. DIEFENBAKER (Lake Centre):: On Monday, February 28, I directed certain questions to the Minister of National War Services in regard to the control and censorship of news commentators, and in particular Mr. Philpott in reference to the McNaughton case. The minister undertook to give me a reply. I brought up the matter again a day or so later. Is the minister in a position now to give me an answer to these questions?
Hon. L. R. LaFLECHE (Minister of National War Services): I brought some information to the house this afternoon, but the hon. member for Lake Centre asked this question before I had the opportunity of giving him the information he asked for the other day. I wish to table a copy of Mr. Elmore Philpott's week-end review of February 20, 1944.
In regard to the matter of censorship, I have looked it up and I shall read into the record directive No. 1, to be found in the censorship directives handbook which was tabled in this house on January 28, 1944. It is headed "Onus of Responsibility," and is as follows:
Broadcasters are reminded that the full' onus of responsibility for observance of the defence

National Flag
of Canada regulations, in so far as they affect radio, is vested in them. To this end, every precaution should be taken to safeguard against the broadcast of any information likely to help the enemy, or inimical to the national interest. Irrespective of their position or function, all speakers should be fully familiarized with the censorship restrictions now or hereafter in force.
Broadcasters in all categories should be thoroughly conversant with the censorship requirements in order that all danger of violation may be reduced to an absolute minimum.
Information was sought also on the point of "the limitations short of censorship placed on the commentator." I find nothing explicit in that connection. But I understand that the limitations are those of good taste and good judgment, and, of course, observance of any C.B.C. regulation which may be applicable to any case in point.
I am advised that the script in question was not sent to Ottawa. I surmised that the other day; I now confirm it. I am told that no one in Vancouver read through Mr. Philpott's script before it was broadcast.


Gordon Graydon: Has the department or the CB.C. under consideration any tightening of the regulations which would prevent a recurrence of an incident of this kind?
Mr. LaPLECHE: I cannot speak explicitly; I do not know. But perhaps what has happened in this case will move them to consider the point.


Mr. COLD WELL:: I should like to ask the minister a supplementary question, if I may. Have the regulations regarding the broadcasting of addresses before political organizations over private radio stations been changed?
Mr. LaFLECHE: I think this question had better stand as a notice.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. ANGUS MacINNIS (Vancouver East):: I should like to ask the Minister of Labour if the department has appointed a commissioner to investigate the recent tramway troubles in Montreal, and if so has a report been made to the department?


Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: The Department of Labour did not appoint a commissioner to investigate the tramway troubles in Montreal. What actually happened was the government of Quebec asked that we lend them one of our conciliators to serve with one of theirs to report on the situation in Montreal.



SIXTH VICTORY LOAN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. C. ABBOTT (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Finance):: 

NATIONAL FLAG


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Langton Church: I hope the Prime Minister will pardon me" for not giving him notice of the question I am about to ask. Would he care to clarify the answer he gave to the question regarding the national flag asked by the hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency (Mr. LaCroix) on Monday last? In reading the answer I find that it goes much farther than the answer which was given to the same hon. member last June; and it has been accepted as a declaration by parliament, which it is not. I think the Prime Minister is quite right in saying that these matters should not be brought up during war, but I think he will agree with me when I say that the last reply goes much farther than the previous one. Would he care to look into the question again and clarify it?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have nothing to add to what I have said already. I thought what I said the other day, in addition to what I had previously said, was in the nature of a clarification, and I should not wish at this time to attempt to clarify the clarification.


Thomas Langton Church: There is only one national flag and one national anthem.
Supp ly-A griculture



The house in committee of supply, Mr. Bradette in the chair.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE .	1. Departmental administration, $130,106.


Mr. ROWE:: Mr. Chairman, it is not my purpose to hold up the estimates of the department, or to deal with them in as great detail as has been my practice in other sessions. I observe with interest, of course, that these estimates are substantially larger than they have been in other years. I can recall that not so many years ago the agriculture estimates were little more than a third as large as they are at the present time; and in addition to what has been spent on agricultural services, as was pointed out not long ago in reply to a question asked by the hon. member for Haldimand, in the last two or three years we have spent on Canadian agriculture something approaching a quarter of a billion dollars. It may be said, and with some truth, that much of this money has had to be spent because we have not progressed as far as we might have in connection with scientific agriculture, or indeed because we have never had an over-all national agricultural policy. It has been a more or less haphazard policy, and now we seem to be paying the penalty. Just to what extent bonuses and subsidies will have to be carried on is not known even to those who may feel optimistic of the support that has been given to agriculture during these difficult years.
I notice that included in the estimates is some $50,000 or $75,000 to be spent by the entomological branch for the protection of forests, which I suppose would include the distribution of insecticides to deal with all sorts of forest diseases, and I wish to draw the committee's attention to the relative importance of the forest industry of this country and to indicate what little attention has been given it in this parliament. I think I can say that during the last twenty years the estimates of the Department of Agriculture have been more thoroughly discussed than those of any other department of the government. On many occasions we have discussed wheat; we have dealt with live stock and dairy products, plant diseases and everything else that comes under this department. I believe that in many cases the money spent by this department has been spent wisely, but I do not believe the estimates of any other department have received anything like the attention and discussion that parliament has given the estimates of the Department of Agriculture. On the other hand
*Mr. Mackenzie King.]
we have all the great industries associated with our forest resources, to which we have given no attention in years gone by and on which very little money has been spent. I suggest to the minister that the government should give some consideration to the reorganization of the various services involved, to the end that the great forest industry of this dominion may be given more national attention.
We look at the estimates and find that all the forestry services furnished by the federal treasury cost a total of only about $300,000. This is only thirty per cent of what is spent annually on our national parks. Then we see that $1,875,000 annually is spent in order to provide the services of the fisheries department. I know 'the Minister of Fisheries will not want that amount reduced, nor will the fishermen throughout this dominion, because it is a very valuable resource which I believe produces some $50,000,000 to $70,000,000 annually for that industry. On the other hand the forest resources of Canada return to this country's treasury approximately $79,000,000 in tax revenue alone each year, of which less than one-half of one per cent is spent in the protection and conservation of our great forest wealth.
During the last few weeks we have done a good deal of talking about the post-war period. Indeed, it has seemed to me that we spent a great deal of time talking about post-war rehabilitation problems when we should have been spending more time considering how to win this war, because it is not won yet. With the single exception of agriculture no industry contributes more to the favourable trade balances of this country than does the forest industry; none produces more of the things necessary to carry on the war; none contributes more to the employment of our people. To-day the products of our forests are contained in the parcels that go to the battle fronts, in the waddings used in the hospitals, and in hundreds of new commodities which have been developed during the last five years. Long ago Germany and other countries which are now our enemies planned constructive forestry policies and gave their great forest resources a prominent place in their national considerations. Other countries, such as Sweden, have considered their forest resources-


Mr. GARDINER:: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I have no objection to my hon. friend discussing the expenditures made in connection with entomology so far as our forests are concerned, when we come to that item, but I submit that the discussion he is

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carrying on now should come under the estimates of the Department of Mines and Resources. We in the Department of Agriculture have nothing to do with forestry as such; that is a matter which should be brought up on the estimates of another department.


William Earl Rowe: I would draw the minister's attention to his own report on forest insect investigations and services, which indicates that substantial sums have been spent on this work.


James Garfield Gardiner: On entomology.


William Earl Rowe: On forest insect investigation, carried on by his department. I understand that we had a perfect right under this first item to discuss anything dealt with in these estimates, and I see no particular point of order at the moment. When the minister raised the point of order I* believe I was emphasizing the importance of the industry, and the fact that it is highly indigenous to this country. I submit that I have a perfect right to proceed.


The CHAIRMAN:: I believe the point of order raised by the Minister of Agriculture is well taken. The item under consideration certainly has not much to do with forestry. The minister points out that the estimates of other departments will be before the committee, at which time forestry can be discussed.


Mr. SENN:: I do not often speak on a point of order, but I must point out that page 26 of the report of the Department of Agriculture deals with forest pathology. Reference is made to investigations which have taken place in connection with the decay of poplar, and it is stated that some of the pulp and paper companies have been adversely affected by forest conditions. There is reference to disease in red pine plantations, and so on. Certainly in my judgment the question asked by the hon. member is a proper one. My understanding is that any of the estimates in the Department of Agriculture can be debated when the first item, the item for administration, is called.


James Garfield Gardiner: If we are to follow, the procedure of discussing every item in the estimates on the general administration item, then I am sure we shall have this discussion on another occasion. The rules of the house are intended to prevent just that. There is no reason why questions having to do with the preservation of forests, through expenditures on entomology, and also studies of diseases of trees, should not be discussed under the proper item. But to discuss forestry
under the general item of administration is not, in my submission, in accordance with the rules.


William Earl Rowe: Speaking again to the point of order, it is on the very feature to which the minister has referred-


Mr. McNEVIN:: The chairman has already given his decision. This is all out of order.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: We will hear the discussion, if it is brief.


William Earl Rowe: It is the fact that we have our forest insect service under the item for entomology, in the Department of Agriculture, to which I am directing my remarks. If I am given the time to do so I will suggest to the minister ways and means by which he may be relieved of forest insect investigations. I am endeavouring to do this in a constructive way, not in any spirit of criticism of this or any previous government. This is a neglect which is apparent to many people, and a condition which has been given too little attention in committee. I am not referring particularly to the service which has been given, because, as the minister knows, it would not take us long to discuss that. I have in mind departmental rearrangement. In view of this fact I submit it is proper that we discuss the general set-up of the estimates on the administration item.


Gordon Graydon: May I say one word? I happen to know that the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe has given much research and study to the point involved, and the subject is one of very great importance. Having given some thought to the matter myself it is my view that he might discuss his thesis on this item.


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: He may not be here later.


Gordon Graydon: The hon. member for Moose Jaw enters into this now. I can understand why he would make that remark. It was not a very becoming one, at that-


John Gordon Ross: Is that so?


Gordon Graydon: -having regard to what happened last year when the estimates of the minister were before the committee.
In all fairness I say the minister might very properly allow the hon. member to continue. This is a matter of some importance, the discussion of which could not properly be had under any other item in the estimates. The minister will be the first to agree that wide latitude is given in the discussion on the administration item. I submit this is not one of those detailed matters which would normally fall within any of the actual items.
Supply-Agriculture


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I believe I must repeat my first statement, namely, that item 135 at page 20 of the estimates, providing for an expenditure for dominion forest service, would afford an opportunity for this discussion. It is true that when the first item of any department is called a certain amount of latitude is allowed, but it must be realized that when specific questions are asked, in order to give answers the minister must have officials before him. The hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe was asking some direct questions.


William Earl Rowe: No.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: A question was put to the minister, and the minister has said he is not in a position to answer it. His point of order was well taken. It is now proper to have a general discussion, but I believe hon. members will realize that the minister is not now in a position to answer questions on all the items in his department.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: Speaking to the point of order, I should like to conform to the discussion of the items as they are called. However, we had a discussion with regard to potatoes, in connection with which an emergency had developed, and we were told by the minister that he would prefer to have the discussion under item 26. If the estimates are discussed as they were last year it will be about July 26 when we reach that item. That is not an exaggeration; it is borne out by Hansard of last year. The condition with respect to potatoes is an emergency condition, and I do not want to wait until item 26 is called.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: If the hon. member is stating a point of order, it is my view that the subject should be discussed under item 26; otherwise representations will be made over and over again and there will be repetition. I am in the hands of the committee, and am not attempting to set up rules. I believe there is no doubt however that potatoes might be considered when item 26 is called.


George Alexander Cruickshank: May I speak again to the point of order?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I have given my decision on the point of order.


Mr. LEADER:: Since you have made your ruling, Mr. Chairman, while I do not wish to interrupt the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe, may I take it that if he is out of order I may proceed?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: The hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe had the floor.
[Mr. Graydo*-.


William Earl Rowe: In what I have to say I shall try to keep within the services of the agriculture department. It is not my purpose to hold up the estimates. As I have said, I am not criticizing the administration of the department, although I believe there is room for criticism.


James Garfield Gardiner: May I make it perfectly clear that I am not objecting to anything that has been said so far. I have no objection to what has been said; that is not the point. I do wish to know', however, whether we are going to discuss forestry under my estimates. If we are, then every other hon. member may do the same, and I hesitate to sit here all afternoon and evening discussing the estimates of some other minister's department.


William Earl Rowe: I think I am still in order when I recommend that the Minister of Agriculture take the forest service entirely out of his department. I refer to the surveys with respect to insects carried on by his department. I would suggest, too, that two or three pages of the report of his department referring to that subject could then be deleted. If we cannot discuss this matter under the estimates of this department, then I think there should be a reorganization in order that this problem can be more fully considered. Surely we would be in order as a committee to discuss the advisability of taking out some of the service items that are now in these estimates and placing them, if you will, under the Department of Mines and Resources w'here I think they should be.
The hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) has mentioned that there are emergency problems, but I would point out that this matter is an emergency problem. We must realize the great damage that has been done during the last four or five years. We should endeavour to arouse this committee to arriving at some solution or making a greater effort than the small effort being put forth to-day. I am merely pointing out that the services having to do with this great primary industry should be solidified and consolidated under one department. Something should be done along that line.
As I suggested at the outset, the minister must share at least a part of this responsibility with the Minister of Mines and Resources. Neither department is doing very much, nor has much been done in the past. I am laying this matter on the doorstep of the government, because it is their responsibility; but it must be admitted that for the last seventy years very little has been done for this great primary industry, which has grown to be the most important in this dominion; employs the most

Supply-Agriculture
labour, and produces a greater favourable trade balance than any other industry. It has made to the mother country an important contribution to the war by providing over a billion and a half feet of lumber per year. It has given assistance to our friends in the United States by assisting in their requirements for explosives, for alcohol, for glycerine and many other things made from these products. Yet for seventy years this industry has been allowed, to grow up almost like Topsy so far as national direction is concerned. During the last twenty years problems have arisen which I submit create an emergency now. They should be dealt with before next spring. There is the spruce bark beetle, the bronze birch borer, the budworm, the jack pine sawfly and mountain pine beetle. Hon. members from British Columbia know the damage that these insects are doing. Every part of this dominion is affected. I know it has been said that we cannot deal with these matters because the provinces have autonomy over their own civil and property rights, but I submit that this government should review without delay the possibilities of establishing a national forest policy to cooperate with the provinces.
Some department should be made responsible for preventing the terrific losses we have sustained. From 1878 to 1886 very large quantities of the accessible timber in the state of Maine and the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick were destroyed. The preponderance of balsam since that time has made our forests more vulnerable to the spruce bud-worm. From 1910 to 1920 from forty to sixty per cent of the accessible spruce and balsam in the state of Maine and in large sections of Quebec and New Brunswick was affected by this insect. The present budworm infestation began in the district north of Sudbury in 1935 and 1936. Foresters in that district claim that because of this infestation there was more damage by fire in two days in 1941 than there had been in the previous ten years-the ravages of the budworm making the trees so much more susceptible to fire hazards.
An estimate made by the best forestry authorities in the dominion indicates that this budworm infestation now threatens 45,000 square miles. The area damaged spreads through Ontario, Quebec, and part of New Brunswick, and over 15,000 square miles of forests are already destroyed. Do hon. members realize what that means The minister's report states that 40,000 square miles are seriously affected. This represents the destruction of 50 million cords of wood, or sufficient pulpwood to keep the pulp and paper mills of this country going for thirty-five years. Yet the federal government and this parliament have done practically nothing about it.
As has been stated by the leading entomologists in this country, we are twenty years behind the times in our effort to overcome this devastating budworm menace. Other countries have national policies in connection with their great resources. We talk a lot about rehabilitation, about free money, about giving pensions, about finding places for our men, and very little about conserving and preserving and developing our own resources, which are so fundamental to our great primary industries. It is upon these industries that much, of our national wealth and national employment and national prosperity depend. It is true that something has been done, but it touches only the fringe of the problem. From 1909 to 1920 over 200 million cords of spruce and balsam pulpwood were destroyed in Quebec and the maritime provinces by the spruce budworm.
This problem transcends the borders of the dominion; it affects the United States of America as well. On two or three occasions the state of Maine has suffered great loss. I am glad to note that there is a bill now before congress which will provide large sums for investigation and research work in an effort to arrive at a solution of this problem. Many things have been tried. Because of the nature of the problem, dusting by aeroplane has not proven entirely successful, but there is no doubt that much can be done through proper forest management, protective service and cooperation between the provinces and the dominion.
We have not faced this problem, and we must face it in order to arrive at a solution. We cannot sit idly by and watch what is happening. Every infestation affects millions of cords more than the previous one. We have been warned repeatedly during the last quarter century by the leading entomologists that unless something is done, resources of great value will be lost to the dominion. True, when you look over the map you can see enormous areas of timber still in Canada; but remember, our resources are not inexhaustible. We have excellent yellow birch in the far east, stately firs in British Columbia, and large white pines in this old province, much of which, however, has been exploited, and now we have left in its place a growth of balsam, which is fertile ground for the budworm to do its work.
I submit, Mr. Chairman, that we certainly have not met this problem. There is no industry which gives more employment in Canada to-day or has more capital invested in it than the allied forest industries, and they depend entirely on the raw production from these great forest areas. I believe that there is more hope for employment after the war
1CTISED EDITION
Supply-Agriculture

through new uses of wood products than there is in any other single industry in Canada, but that industry is dependent upon the accessibility of sound timber. After the war we shall have to compete with Sweden and Finland and even Russia, and therefore I think it is fitting under our good neighbour policy that we take this problem up with the United States of America. I ask the government of the day to face this problem and see if we cannot bring about some joint cooperative effort between Canada and the United States to deal with it. It is not only a provincial or a dominion problem, but from its very nature it is as well an international problem. If a great forest fire starts in the Gatineau, we soon know it down here because we smell the smoke. But until we are almost on fire ourselves we do not seem to wake up. Insect infestation can prepare vast areas of our forests, square mile after square mile, in one year for a forest fire. The fallen timber through insect infestation creates a fire hazard and now causes greater annual destruction than all the timber cutting itself in this dominion.
Eemember, the figures I have given are not small figures. Forty thousand square miles is a large territory, and 15,000 square miles is now a fire hazard and a prey for the fungi and insects to which I have referred.
It does seem to me that excuses such as provincial rights should not brush aside this problem. We must grapple with it in a national way, establish surveys and detection services, international in scope, and enlist the joint efforts of the federal bureaux of entomology and plant pathology in an endeavour to solve it. It is true that we have made certain strides forward in the distribution of insecticides and parasites, and there has been more research into control methods. We have a laboratory at Belleville. The Imperial Institute has been moved out from England for the duration, and is doing excellent work. It has been shown, that parasites can be produced in sufficient numbers to be spread over areas in such volume as to prevent this insect infestation, if the work is done in time. But they cannot be spread over 15,000 square miles, and many entomologists are agreed from past experience that this work must be done in time if the forests are to be saved. And so I say, Mr. Chairman, that we must have surveys made and detection services set up. I leave it to this house to say, no matter whether the problem comes under this department or not, whether we are giving the necessary attention to this great national resource, a resource that brought to this country in 1941 alone a production of 1537,000,000 worth

and a favourable trade balance of $350,000,000. It is an industry which directly and indirectly is supporting over half a million of our people.
The question is important from many other angles as well, of which hon. members are no doubt familiar. There is the effect upon our climate and upon soil erosion. We spend a lot of time in the' different provinces in discussing reforestation policies. I can well remember the time, a quarter of a century ago, when reforestation was started by our county councils, and in Simcoe county, where I live, we have been reforesting ever since and now have substantial reforestation areas. But it takes a long time to reforest 15,000 square miles, and mother nature has proven to be the best reforestator we have yet seen. Again I repeat, we have wilfully neglected the great major national resources of this dominion. It seems to me that we, the representatives of the people in this house, should urge upon the government that more time and effort be spent on national research and the development of these resources and on their conservation and wise and scientific utilization. If we spend more time on these vitally important matters and less time on some of the wild dreams some people have of giving people something for nothing, it will open the door to opportunities and restore the confidence necessary not only to industry but especially to the labouring man himself. Nature has blessed us with timber resources in greater abundance than those possessed by any other people. Surely we should not fritter them away. I hope that the history of the next seventy years will not be a repetition of the last seventy, in which we have recklessly neglected an important obligation which rests right on the shoulders of this government-


James Garfield Gardiner: Rests right on the
provincial governments.


William Earl Rowe: There again we come back to the excuse, of provincial rights.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, I must rise to a point of order. We have wasted thirty minutes listening to this discussion, which is entirely on provincial matters having nothing to do with this department. I would respectfully suggest that you enforce your ruling.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I have given my ruling. There is no doubt that the hon. member for Duffcrin-Simcoe has not obeyed my ruling. I cannot see how a discussion of forest resources can be tagged on to a discussion of agriculture estimates. It is the first time I have heard such a discussion on these

Supply-Agriculture
estimates. There will be an opportunity when we reach item 135, for dominion forest service, to discuss the matter the hon. member has been discussing. I rule again that he is absolutely out of order.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: Mr. Chairman-


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I have given my decision on the point of order. Surely the committee must respect the decision of the Chair. If my ruling is disputed, an appeal can be made from it.


James Arthur Ross: I was not going to speak to .the point of order, Mr. Chairman, but wanted to discuss another matter, unless the minister is going to reply.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not going to reply, because the remarks have to do largely with matters not in my department.


James Arthur Ross: Then I should like to discuss-


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I saw the hon. member for Renfrew North (Mr. Warren) first.


Mr. WARREN:: I did not intend to discuss this item Mr. Chairman, but I had the good fortune to listen to an eloquent and fluent speech by the hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Burton) on February 25, which is recorded a-t page 909 of Hansard, and I should like to draw attention to some of the statements he made.
It is true that we Ontario farmers have been brought up in a hard school. We have passed through the dark days when an extra five-dollar bill on a farmer's tax account was a lot of money. Any person who was interested in municipal affairs during those dark days when my hon. friends to the left were running the affairs of the country will know something about the value of even a five-dollar bill. But since coming here we have been asked to vote huge sums of money which have gone to the western provinces under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act and the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, and the hon. member for Humboldt now comes to us as a new member from the province of Saskatchewan with experience, I understand, as a former member of the socialist group in the legislature of that province, so that I presume he speaks with authority and knowledge. He brings us some examples of the way in which the money that we have been voting is being handled in his own riding. I think it is something that should receive attention.
For example, he told us that under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act an inspector comes along to a certain community of an 100-71i
evening and there are six or seven dugouts to be inspected. I had a wonderful regard for these dugouts, from what I was able to leam about them. It is a wonderful thing that you can dig a hole in that western soil, if you get it in the proper location, and it will fill with water in the spring, or during a shower of rain, and will remain clear and sweet and will not go stagnant all summer, so that you can even use it for your own household purposes. If we attempted anything like that: in any part of this province, so far as I am aware we would have to line it with cement, and we would have to line it thoroughly. But even at that the water would not remain cool and sweet during the summer months.
That of course has been big business all over the western provinces. It costs a lot of money, and these dugouts have to be dug in the proper location and dug. properly, and I suppose it is quite necessary that there should be inspectors. There must be quite a staff of inspectors to administer these large sums of money that we have been voting, but here is this fresh voice from the west telling us that this particular inspector had an opportunity of inspecting six or seven of these dugouts in an evening, and instead of doing so he drives back to Humboldt and later .makes six or seven different trips out to inspect the dugouts. If it was possible for him to do it in the evening and he did not do it, we would like to know why. If that condition is general we would like to know why.


Mr. BURTON:: Before the hon. gentleman leaves the question of the inspection of dug-outs, he will have noticed that I said dugout locations. Did he ever notice what an inspector did in connection with the inspection of a dugout location?


Ralph Melville Warren: If it is the inspection of locations, that is a different matter. I can hardly imagine that a man would be able to go into a district and in an evening take tests to find out whether there was gravel beneath or whether the dugout in that particular spot would hold water or not, make a survey, find the proper location, decide the nature of the subsoil, and so on. That would be a big job, and I very much doubt if a man would do six or seven of them in an evening.
The other report was in connection with the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. This man drove along and met the hon. member for Humboldt, who perhaps was not in a good humour. His combine had broken down, his grain was ripe, and I have a good deal of sympathy with him if he was not very civil to an inspector. I can understand if he ga've short answers. Perhaps
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the fellow had more knowledge than he suspected and was only trying to have a little conversation with a farmer along the way. That would be quite natural. In any case, he accuses the man of being absolutely ignorant and not knowing the difference between a twelve-bushel crop and a thirty-bushel crop.
The point is that if I had received reports tike that, and I sometimes get letters from the west, I would have gone to the Department of Agriculture. Judging by my experience, I would say they must have a marvellous filing system, because it would be only a short time before I would get a complete report from some person in the west through the minister's office. A copy of a letter would be sent to me giving full details regarding the matter. But what strikes me more than anything else is that this whole administrative staff is being besmirched by the hon. member for Humboldt iii his accusation against two men, I should think it would be the duty of the hon. member to go further, and if he is not able to give the names of these two particular criminals he should at least give us the year and the approximate month. If he will do so I can assure him that we will get a full report on the activities of these two inspectors and we shall learn something as to whether these men were trying to steal public funds, whether they were falling down on the job, and whether they are still on the job.
In fairness to that staff as a whole-and surely there must be honest men in Saskatchewan who do this kind of work-I think the hon. gentleman should go further and give the Minister of Agriculture a chance to clear the matter up.


Joseph William Burton: I only gave you a start.


Ralph Melville Warren: I noticed that the hon. member said he could regale us until midnight with instances of this kind, but in fairness to the people of Saskatchewan I suggest that when a man gives such an instance he should at least give the minister a chance to investigate the matter and clear it up. I ask the hon. member to give the minister that opportunity of looking into these accusations, on behalf of the staff of honest inspectors, who are administering this money that we comparatively poor Ontario farmers are voting for the assistance of Saskatchewan farmers.
The member for Humboldt also referred to an office he had visited-I expect there is quite a staff-and he described it as a war office. My own experience, in visiting the war offices, is that a war office is quite an efficient spot. If you want service in a war office you get it in a hurry. But that did not seem to be at all

the interpretation of the hon. member. He referred to it as a war office. Let me quote from the remarks of the hon. member as reported at page 910 of Hansard,:
I said, "I was in a war office." They said, "Where is that?" I said, "Down there on a certain street in the city. It is war."
Then he goes on to say:
I remarked that the way these fellows are going about their work we shall have a war before we get the bonus, and things straightened out. There were men running through the province drawing salaries and building up these handsome expense accounts who did not do anything else but make a heap of trouble for the people.
We ought to know something about that office and about the way it is handled. If it is handled in such a way that it is a sort of wild house, as the hon. member for Humboldt indicated, then we ought to know about it, because wre are going to be asked to vote not $10 but millions of dollars to carry out the provisions of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act and the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.
I wish to deal with another point, namely, the hon. member's criticism of the expense account of the Minister of Agriculture. The Minister of Agriculture is the minister of agriculture for Saskatchewan, but I remind my hon. friend that he is also the minister of agriculture for Ontario and for the other seven provinces. The hon. member for Humboldt, complains that the expense account of the Minister of Agriculture is too high, the intimation being that he travels too much. I have watched the Minister of Agriculture during my limited experience here and, speaking for myself, I do not know of any other man in Canada who knows more about farming in its varied angles than the present minister. It is something to know about growing Saskatchewan wheat and raising Saskatchewan hogs, but it is something else to know about milk and all the different milk products. It is something to know about apples in the Annapolis valley and in the Okanagan valley.. It is something to know7 about flax, and the grading of cattle and hogs, and the marketing of them. I do not know of any other man in Canada who is so well qualified to handle the affairs of agriculture all across Canada. How did he get that way? Simply because he had ambition and energy enough to go and develop himself along those lines. Instead of sending ten men to look at the problems and receive ten different views, he just gets up and goes to see for himself. He travels from Nova Scotia to British Columbia if he thinks it is necessary. That kind of travelling is no pleasure jaunt.

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George Alexander Cruickshank: It is, to British Columbia.


Ralph Melville Warren: I remember hearing-I did not hear it from the Minister of Agriculture, because he takes it all as a part of the day's work-that we were going to be asked to vote money to take care of certain portions of Alberta and Saskatchewan under the relief system. The federal government was asked to be responsible for one hundred per cent of the cost of relief in certain portions of Saskatchewan and Alberta. I have not the figures with me and I cannot give the exact numbers but I do know that the Minister of Agriculture took his car, did most of his own driving, took some other men with him and travelled some thousands of miles all around the territory concerned. He ran up a tremendous mileage every day, and did the job himself. He might very well have sat in his office in Ottawa and asked someone else to do the job. It was a big job. It is not any fun; it is hard work; but the minister, because he had been there and had seen the situation for himself, was better qualified to understand it and handle it.
Mr. ROSS (Souris); He wants to do that now, but you are holding him up.


Ralph Melville Warren: That is all right. If the hon. member for Humboldt will give the minister a chance by giving him some data with regard to the accusations he made, then we shall get along.
I should like to say to the hon. member for Humboldt that so far as I am concerned, since I have come to know the minister I have the utmost confidence in his ability. One of the reasons for that confidence is that he goes and sees for himself. I do not know where you would find any man who would have the ambition to make those tiring trips. It is true that he does ask us to vote money for these things. Sometimes when we see the amount we just gasp. For example, when he asked us to vote money to purchase all the surplus apples in the Annapolis valley and in the Okanagan valley, naturally we gasped. But the apples were purchased and processed and put on the market; the apple situation in Ontario was cleared up, and that problem was solved. When there was a surplus of butter we were asked to pass legislation which would remove that surplus off the market.. That succeeded. Many similar problems have been brought to the attention of the Minister of Agriculture, and he found a way of solving them. So far as I am concerned I have no complaints regarding his expense account. And I challenge the hon. member for Humboldt to find any padded accounts in the personal accounts of the Minister of Agriculture.
There is no reason why I should undertake to scold or educate, because I am not capable of it.


Mr. WOOD:: You are too modest.


Ralph Melville Warren: I shall put it this way: there is no reason why I should undertake to advise the hon. member for Humboldt, but I was surprised to hear him refer to swivelnecked politicians.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Let these other fellows on the side turn around.


Ralph Melville Warren: A few days ago the horn member for York East referred to this house as being the greatest hot-air joint that he knew anything about. When I hear expressions of that kind I always remember that when Hitler was striving to bring about a revolution in order to attain office for himself and his body of gangsters, one of his favourite methods was to belittle the public men who were giving their service to his country, to treat them with contempt, to treat their parliamentary system and organizations with contempt. When I hear expressions of that kind applied to our public men and our public servants it gives me a cold chill, because I remember what happened in Germany. After all, if we cannot respect ourselves and our fellow members of parliament and our public servants, how can we expect the rank and file to have respect for us? If fellow members of parliament and public servants are referred to as swivel-necked politicians and as talking hot air, I do not think there is very much chance to get the respect of the rank and filef especially in such critical times as these. I think that is one of the things we ought to be very careful about.


Harry Leader: I should like to take this
opportunity to make a few observations in regard to agriculture. I assure the committee I shall not be long; but if I were to keep quiet, at this time my silence might be construed as a repudiation of the opposition I have expressed to some of the legislation brought down by the government through my esteemed friend the Minister of Agriculture. I shall have some commendation to offer, and perhaps some mild criticism. I want to commend the action of the government in setting a price of SI.25 a bushel for No. 1 northern wheat at Fort William.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is an advance, not a price.
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Harry Leader: 
Mr. EVANS:: We are reaping the benefit
now.


Harry Leader: The minister says we are reaping the benefit now. How can he say that when he is only giving us $1.25 a bushel for wheat which is worth $1.70 on the other side of the line?


James Garfield Gardiner: I did not say anything.


Harry Leader: Well, some hon. member
did.


Charles Robert Evans: I was speaking of the Ontario farmers, who are reaping the benefit in connection with coarse grains now.
1 Mr. LEADER: The Ontario members can defend themselves, but I have always taken the attitude in this house that members from the west as well as members from Ontario should have the best interests of this country -at heart, and there should be no division between east and west. I have never done anything to cause such a division. Canada for Canadians both east and west.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: I do not think the hon. member should class all the Ontario members together; for I believe I stood with him when he asked for a higher price for western wheat.


Harry Leader: Yes, Mr. Chairman; when the hon. member was making a speech in this
'Mr. Gardiner.l
house two or three years ago in which he suggested that the price of wheat should be increased I asked if he would agree to a further increase, I just forget the figure I suggested, and he replied, "We will face that when we come to 'it." I know he did favour an increase, however, and I told my people at home that when we were pleading for the government to give us a price of 80 cents for wheat the Ontario members would have supported a price of $1-not on all our wheat, of course, but on the proportion the government could buy. That has always been my stand in this house.
All these interruptions have sidetracked me on to another theme, so that it may take me a little longer to conclude my remarks. I was going on to say that the demise of the wheat acreage reduction bonus is not regretted, but I wanted to add that before burial is consummated I should like to review the remains. I know that certain hon. members on this side and perhaps some on the other side of the house, have declared substantially that all our farm legislation during the past four years has been infallible. I do not want to take that view, because, as I said at the commencement, it would be a repudiation of my words and actions in this house during that period of time. When I took that stand I said I was speaking not only for myself hut also for my constituents, and if I have to face my constituents again they will have my record before them. I was speaking also for the western wheat pools. Time after time they criticized government legislation in regard to the wheat acreage reduction bonus and offered suggestions which I think should have been accepted. I spoke also for the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. More than once they submitted proposals to the Minister of Agriculture which I think would have been far more beneficial to the people of Canada than the legislation the government put through. I remember that I supported the delegation which came here from the three prairie provinces, headed by John Bracken, when it was intimated that the fixed price would be 60 cents a bushel; I do not know whether that was the announced policy of the government at that time, but it was intimated, and they came down here to defend the price of 80 cents. I, together with five Liberal members of this house, voted against the government on that occasion; and among the five was our dear departed friend, the former Minister of Agriculture. Mr. Motherwell. Then whfen that well-remembered Saskatchewan delegation came to Ottawa to plead for $1 wheat I supported their conten-

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tion; I thought then and still think it was reasonable. So I say that the wheat reduction bonus was wrong in conception and inequitable in administration. It could not be otherwise, because, as I have said before in this house, more than a third of the farmers in the three prairie provinces did not participate m its doubtful benefits. The minister knows that very well; I gave the figures in a previous speech.


James Garfield Gardiner: But 182,000 of them did.


Harry Leader: That is less than two-thirds of the total.


James Garfield Gardiner: Not of the wheat
growers.


Harry Leader: A great many farmers have only a small acreage in wheat; perhaps fifty per cent of them have less than fifty or sixty acres, and those farmers were not protected at the very low prices we were getting and the quota we had to have. I am not quarrelling with the quota, because it was necessary, but one year it was paid on only three bushels to the acre, at 70 cents a bushel. Imagine what a farmer could do with that amount of money in paying his threshing gang, buying twine and so on.
Now I come to what I suggested to the government. I realized that we had a surplus of wheat in Canada and that the price could never go up until we either got rid of that surplus or at least substantially reduced it. At the same time I realized we had not a market for all our wheat, but we had one for a certain portion of it. I argued that if the government would come out boldly and say to the farmers of Canada, "We can sell 280,000,000 bushels of your wheat. We will pay you a fair price for it per bushel, and if you wish to grow more wheat, you can take care of it yourselves," we would have rid ourselves of paying for the storage of millions and millions of bushels, storage charges paid to the elevator companies of this country, including the pools. I know someone will mention the pools. That has been done before, so I will say, "including the pools." I argue that if the government had paid us a fair price, a price which most of us agreed should have been about a dollar a bushel, they would not have needed the wheat reduction bonus. Let me remind the committee that I am criticizing only that one bonus, namely the wheat reduction bonus. Some of the other bonuses, especially those provided under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, command a great deal of respect from me. I believe there are great possibilities in that measure, and it should be continued in operation. And yet there are dangers, may I tell the Minister of Agriculture. I repeat that
there are dangers in that act, because if we persist in paying farmers to grow wheat on land which should be in grass, then we are doing an injury to our country, and injury to the farmers who stay on that kind of land.
Yes, a fair price for the wheat, and we would have got away from that bonus. We could have built our granaries on our farms. Possibly I should have said at the outset that for two years farm storage was paid to the farmers, and was then discontinued. If we had been granted the storage charges paid to the elevator companies, we would have had that money. The farmers could have built their granaries and the government would not have been out one cent. They would have got it all back. But, while that was the policy of the United States, it was not the policy of this government. I shall not go into further detail in that regard.
May I commend the government upon its anti-inflation policy? Certainly it is necessary to hold down the prices of farm products. Where would they go, if we did not have set prices for them? They would rise to the price levels in the United States. I am dealing particularly with wheat and coarse grain. The result was that we had to have some control over prices. By that action undue inflation was prevented. Farmers are just as keen as any other class of people in their desire to prevent inflation, and I now commend the government for its action in that regard.
May I compliment the Minister of Agriculture, too, upon the long-term agreements he is endeavouring to make. I have in mind particularly the four-year hog contract with the old country. Whether the terms have been finally agreed upon, I cannot say; but the endeavour is well worthy of commendation.
May I compliment the government, too, for the inference contained in the speech from the throne with respect to the setting of floor prices on farm products. That is a splendid undertaking. Nothing will give the farmer more confidence than the knowledge that when the war is over he will be able to realize from the sale of his products at least the cost of production-at least, I say, the cost of production. I should add that if he is to continue in business he is entitled to a fair margin of profit above that cost of production. That is a hope which we may carry with us, and we trust that that will be the government's policy. But if those floor prices are not adequate they will be of no use to the farmers. I believe it was the federation of agriculture that suggested that the present ceiling prices on coarse grains should be the floor prices to continue after the war. I shall not argue the
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merits of that suggestion, but I do know that unless the floor prices are adequate we shall have economic disturbances after the war.
Just before coming to Ottawa I attended a meeting in Portage la Prairie, and suggested that the government's action in setting floor prices should be commended. I asked at that time that a resolution of commendation be passed, but that it should be pointed out that unless the floor prices were adequate, such legislation would be insufficient. I had to leave the meeting hurriedly to catch the train, and I do not know whether or not the resolution was ever passed. It was suggested further that the resolution should be sent not only to the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, but also to a certain member from Alberta. I said if they were going to do that I would suggest they should send it to at least every member of parliament from Manitoba, irrespective of party. I pointed out, too, that if they were going to seek out any one or two members they should, by rights, send the resolution to every member of parliament. But as I have said, I do not know whether it was passed. I did not receive a copy of it, and if any other hon. members have, then they have that advantage over me.
There is one other point I would mention. I was in Ottawa in September, when the Liberal convention was held. While we were in session the announcement was made that we would be paid 10 cents a bushel on oats and 15 cents on barley. Mind you, I do not call that a bonus; it is not a bonus at all. It is only the price we would be getting for the grain if we were shipping it to the United States.


James Arthur Ross: It is not that price, either.


Harry Leader: It is just a little higher price.


James Garfield Gardiner: We guaranteed a floor, no matter what it sold for in the United States.


Harry Leader: All members who discussed the matter at that time were pleased that the announcement had been made, but we agreed it was going to upset the equilibrium of the hog industry unless the government gave a bonus to cover the extra 10 cents a bushel on oats and 15 cents on barley. We thought that was a reasonable procedure to take. And, by the way, I had expected the minister to say, "You are getting the bonus." But there is the trouble; there was a delay of three or four months before the announcement came with respect to the extra three dollars on grade A and two dollars on grade B-l. Meantime we heard, although statistics now 
prove differently, that thousands of sows and immature hogs were being sent to the stock yards, because barley and oats were worth more when sold as grain. That was the situation. Is there not some other way of doing business, some way which will not upset the equilibrium?


James Garfield Gardiner: Instead of just listening to that story, I went out and checked on the farms.


Harry Leader: Meantime the hogs were going on the market.


James Garfield Gardiner: But they did not; as the hon. member has said, they did not go.


Harry Leader: I said the figures showed that they did not go. But we cannot go altogether by those figures; more hogs might have remained on the farm and we might have had increased production.


James Garfield Gardiner: And the hon. member cannot go by propaganda put out by interested people, either.


Harry Leader: There is the situation.
Farmers I talked to said, "Why in blazes did they not announce the bonus on hogs when they announced the increased payments on barley and oats?"
That is all I have to say in the matter. The criticism I offer may be regarded as unwarranted. However, I am just handing it out to the minister and the government, and I am showing that that was the sore spot with the hog growers not only of western but of eastern Canada also.


James Arthur Ross: I should like to take up with the minister one or two matters which probably involve two departments, because we have production under the Department of Agriculture and marketing under the Department of Trade and Commerce. I have been receiving letters from farmers in the west during the past few days pointing out that they think the government should guarantee a fair floor price on oats and barley, otherwise they will seed their entire acreage this year to wheat. Some of these farmers will begin seeding operations in a month's time, and they should know what they can expect as a floor price on coarse grains.
I know there is a price now, but I think the floor price should be what it is now plus the bonus referred to by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, although he did not call it a bonus. This would give the farmers a return far below the prices prevailing in the United States. I put some figures on Hansard on February 1 when I was speaking in the debate on the speech from the throne. The

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government should be able to give the producers some assurance as to what they can expect as a floor price on coarse grains. If that is not done our whole programme of production will be disrupted and we shall be disappointed in the acreage sowed to oats and barley in many sections of the west.
The next matter I should like to refer to has to do with flax. The government have announced that they will pay $2.75 per bushel for flax grown this year. In my opinion that price is not satisfactory, and this is borne out by what has been said by many who are more conversant with the matter than I am. The government itself realize that this is the case because in the quarterly review on Canadian coarse grains dated February 14, 1944, they point out in connection with flax:
-a further increase of 500,000 acres took place. A new high was established in 1943 when 2,947,000 acres went into flaxseed.
Maintenance of the 1943 level of acreage in 1944 was the objective presented at the dominion-provincial agricultural conference last December, but a much lower acreage in 1944 was indicated for the west, especially by the representatives from Saskatchewan. It is believed, however, that the figure which emerged from the conference and which showed, a reduction of about 1,000,000 acres from the 1943 level as the probable acreage in 1944 is not acceptable to those charged with the wartime programme affecting fats and oils. Every effort will yet be made to repeat the 1943 flaxseed acreage this year.
The price of No. 1 C.W. flaxseed to the grower (basis Fort William) was raised to $2.50 per bushel as of August 1. 1943, an increase of 25 cents per bushel over the previous fixed price, and unlike wheat and coarse grain, this crop can be marketed without quota restriction.
The statement goes on further, but I shall not burden the committee by quoting it. During the past few days a meeting was held in Winnipeg of the national barley and linseed flax committee, and they recommended to the officials in Ottawa a price of at least $3.25 per bushel for flaxseed, in keeping with need and price relationship to the standard crops. Flaxseed is not an attractive crop to grow and should be worth two and one-half times the price of wheat. Mr. F. H. Lehberg, the technical adviser to the oils and fats administration, wants a supply of flax on hand in order to trade with the United States.
The government have admitted that they do not think they will get this production. I would point out that the guaranteed price in the United States is $3.05 per bushel in their; funds, which means approximately $3.35 in Canadian funds. There is quite a difference. If this production is essential we should have an enhanced price in order to get the desired production. In my part of Manitoba flax is
not grown extensively. Many of those who endeavoured to grow it during the last two or three years do not intend to do so under the present rules and regulations and the prevailing price. If it is essential I hope the government will reconsider the price.
These are important matters. The hon. member who preceded me (Mr. Leader) said that he thought the producers in Canada should receive the same prices as are being paid in the United States. I have advocated on previous occasions that there should be no trade barriers between the united nations. There should be freer access to the markets of the united nations for goods which are essential to our war effort. The other evening it was announced that meat rationing would be abandoned for the time being, but I do not think this will prove a cure-all for the difficulties we are facing in the marketing of cattle. I have wondered why we do not have access to the United States market for our live stock, especially when we are fighting our battles side by side. It has been pointed out before that the margin is not great enough between feeder or stocker cattle and finished beef. Men cannot buy cattle and feed and make a profit with the spread that now exists.
There are also some minor difficulties in connection with hog marketing. I have suggested on previous occasions that because of the great increase in the production of live stock, especially hogs, we should have a live stock commission to look after marketing problems. I still hope the government will consider this matter. I repeat that I hope the government will be able to tell the producers of this country what they may expect as a floor price for the coarse grains they produce in 1944. Something will have to be done to encourage them to increase their flax acreage, and a few weeks hence will be too late for this information to be of any value.


James Garfield Gardiner: So far as flax is concerned just a few days ago the Minister of Trade and Commerce made an announcement that the guaranteed price this year would be S2.75 per bushel. I do not know that there is any intention of changing that announcement. So far as oats and barley are concerned, the guaranteed return is the floor price-on oats it is 45 cents a bushel, and on barley 60 cents a bushel-and in addition there is a further guaranteed return of 10 cents a bushel on oats and 15 cents a bushel on barley.


James Arthur Ross: For 1944?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am speaking of the period up to the end of July, 1944. The actual return is about six and one-half cents
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higher than that on oats, or 51} cents, and on barley it is 64} cents, or approximately five ceDts higher than the floor. Then in addition there is the 10 and 15 cents per bushel which is guaranteed no matter where the price is between the floor and the ceiling. Also in addition there is guaranteed to the farmer the actual return obtained from selling oats and barley in the United States and in Canada, if it is more than the 10 and 15 cents per bushel. The 10 and 15 cents a bushel is simply a guaranteed return, that is, we guarantee the floor price plus the 10 and 15 cents a bushel. No matter what the price is in Canada, or no matter what the price is in the United States, the government will see that that is paid, but if the price goes up to the ceiling in Canada, the producer gets the additional price. If the price of oats and barley sold in the United States is sufficiently high to make further profits, those profits are divided under participation certificates. I do not think there is any possibility of those prices being lowered for the crop being sown in the next two or three months.


John George Diefenbaker: There are several matters in connection with agriculture which I wish to bring to the attention of the minister. I should like to secure from him answers to several questions dealing with particular matters, as well as to some dealing with the situation in general.
With regard to the request of the hon. member for Souris that there should be an increase in the price of flax, apparently the view he expressed represents the views of the members of the legislature of Saskatchewan, for only a few days ago a resolution was introduced there requesting, among other things, that because of the hazards in flax production and the urgent need for oil, the, federal government should give immediate consideration to the desirability of increasing present guaranteed prices for flax and other oil-bearing seeds. I find that there is general support for the request which has been made by the hon. member.
On the question of farm income, farmers generally throughout Canada have had their hopes considerably raised by the government's promise that it intends to bring into effect a floor for farm prices. But legislation setting out farm floor prices will be ineffectual unless the parliament of Canada secures the necessary powers to pass such legislation. The general feeling and demand throughout the west, and throughout Canada, is, I think, that the most effective method of maintaining an increasing farm production through the establishment of price levels would be by 
stabilizing the floor prices at levels sufficient to guarantee to all producers returns comparable with those of persons engaged in other industries, to use the words of the resolution introduced in the Saskatchewan legislature. I should like to hear something from the minister in regard to this matter. The promise of a floor base for farm prices will mean nothing after the war, after the terms of the War Measures Act cease to be operative, unless there is either an amendment to the constitution as it now stands or enabling legislation passed by the provinces. I brought this matter up on one occasion previously'', and the minister in the ccmse of his reply merely touched the subject without going into it in any detail. All of us believe in the necessity of establishing farm floor prices, but a promise not made effective by legislation will remain but a promise, without being implemented.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: Does my hon. friend see any constitutional difficulty in the way of the government establishing floor prices by means of subsidies?


John George Diefenbaker: At the moment I was not dealing with that particular phase, but it does raise an interesting question. What I was going to point out was that if the government in setting floor prices does not secure the support and cooperation of the provinces, then its legislation, while it will offer a promise of assistance to agriculture, will be ineffectual.


James Garfield Gardiner: That will depend on the nature of the legislation. ,


John George Diefenbaker: I am not going to ask the minister to deal with the legislation itself but would ask that he answer one question. Has the government secured the legal opinion of the Department of Justice to the effect that this parliament has the power to bring into effect such a system of basic farm prices effective after the conclusion of the war? If the minister gives that assurance, if he tells the house and the country that the Department of Justice answers that question in the affirmative, then a promise that is so looked forward to by the farmers of Canada may very well be carried into effect. But if that assurance is not given, this promise may be mere window-dressing. In answering, the minister does not have to disclose what the scheme will be or the nature of the legislation to be introduced. All I ask him to do is to bring hope to the Canadian farmer that the legal right, power

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and jurisdiction rest in this parliament to implement a promise which holds out so much hope to the farmers of Canada as a whole.
I pass to another phase, and that is in connection with the plans for the future development of agriculture. I think Canada was greatly honoured in the appointment of the Minister of Agriculture as a member of the united nations food board. I think he has a great contribution to make there. This board met some months ago and made plans for the future, for the interconnection of north American food problems, for Canada's contribution in the production fields. According to the news item I have before me, the importance of Canadian food supplies made it "appropriate and desirable" that Canada be represented directly as a member of the board. This board was set up originally in June, 1942, to coordinate the prosecution of the war effort by obtaining a planned and expeditious utilization of the food resources of the united nations. I think the country has the right to ask for a report from the minister as to the stand Canada is taking on this food board, as to the plans that are being made for the correlation of food production in the United States and Canada. Canada contributed a billion dollars last year to mutual aid. How much of that billion dollars represented agricultural products? To what extent was the future market for Canadian farm products established by the fact that there was delivered under this scheme a large proportion of Canada's food production?
In the United States the farmer has been encouraged in the disposal of agricultural products by the assurance that his surplus production otherwise not disposable will be absorbed by the system of lend-lease. According to the figures I have, in the two years of lend-lease between March, 1941, and February, 1943, the United States expended more than 39,500,000,000 in connection with the administration of that vast and important organization for victory, and of this amount foodstuffs and agricultural products accounted for $1,449,064,000. That is to say, fifteen per cent of the total amount advanced for mutual aid went in the disposal of surplus agricultural products. I should like to secure a statement from the minister, and I think the country has a right to it, as to the policy of the government in the disposal of agricultural prod-its under the system of mutual aid. What proportion of the amount disposed of by mutual aid consisted of agricultural products and the like?
I pass to another matter, which has already been mentioned by the hon. member for
Souris. It is generally agreed now that a substantial surplus of beef will be on hand in Canada. Will the minister place before us something of the representations, if any, that have been made for the export of our surplus beef to the United States, for the removal of any embargo that there is to-day. What is being done in this direction? During the past few days I have had a number of letters from farmers, pointing out that it is difficult for them to market heavy beef at the present time, there being no market in Canada. Surely, when the United States and Canada can cooperate in a great united nations food production board, it should be possible so to correlate production between the two countries that any difficulties in the marketing of our beef might be removed at this time. I would ask the minister to enlighten the committee in this regard.
The hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader) mentioned the wheat acreage reduction policy and its discontinuance in the present year. I do not know what the situation is in Manitoba, but I have received a considerable amount of correspondence from Saskatchewan in regard to this matter, pointing out that, in view of the great need for coarse grains for live stock production and the furtherance of that programme, the wheat acreage reduction policy should be continued during the present year. The minister has already stated that it will not be, and I would appreciate it if he would tell the committee why this policy was so abruptly discontinued after many farmers had done their summer-fallow operations in 1943, believing that it would be in effect in 1944.
Furthermore, and this is something peculiar to my own constituency, under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act there is an area which the minister knows of near Bethune in which over a period of years the farmers have had little or no crop, and yet under the law as it now stands they are unable to get any assistance through that act. I realize that legislation cannot be brought down to cover every possible contingency and to meet individual cases; and while I am very much opposed to orders in council and to order-in-couneil government, there are occasions when orders in council may be utilized to protect the rights of individuals. There are a number of farmers in that area who for several years, while contributing year by year, are in a position where they are denied that payment, separated as they are by a valley from the township in which the prairie farm assistance allowance is paid. I would ask the minister to look into
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the situation to the end that these farmers be given consideration in the payment of this allowance.
There is one other matter that was dealt with by the hon. member for Souris. Some months ago Mr. John Bracken came out in favour of the establishment of a board of live stock commissioners. To-day that is a matter of universal demand without regard to party considerations. We have asked for it in the interests of the live stock producers; my hon. friends in the C.C.F. have asked for it, and in the legislature of Saskatchewan a resolution has been introduced requesting the establishment of such a body with producer representation. That resolution was introduced by two Liberal members in the legislature. Would the minister be prepared to advise the committee as to what attitude the government is taking with respect to the establishment of such a board and whether the matter is now under consideration.
I shall now refer to the matter of releasing wire for hog and poultry fencing. I would point out that the farmers are asked to produce hogs and poultry, and yet no arrangements are made to secure for them a release of the necessary allotment of wire for the purpose. There was for a time an order in effect freezing nails and wire. That order remained in effect while threshing operations were taking place in the west last fall. The farmers could not get the necessary nails to build granaries at the time they required them. Later on, by the time a good portion of the threshing had been completed in many parts of the province, the order was lifted and a general supply of nails was made available. I trust there will not be a repetition of that situation this year, which was most serious in parts of Saskatchewan. The farmers were able to get the necessary lumber, but could not get nails and they found themselves in the position of having to dump the wheat on the ground. The fact that such a condition exists shows that there is not the necessary cooperation between some of these war boards and the Department of Agriculture. There is need even to-day for an increase in the supply of wire, and I would ask the minister to bring to the attention of the board which is in charge in that regard the needs of the farmers and to request from that board a release of further amounts for the purpose.
These are a few of the matters on which I think the committee and the country deserve enlightenment from the minister. They are brought forward, not in a spirit of partisanship but from a desire to direct to the attention of the minister such conditions as, in my

opinion, deserve to be brought to his notice. They should receive serious consideration immediately.


James Garfield Gardiner: As regards floor prices, all I can say at the moment is that the government has on a number of occasions announced its intention of establishing a system whereby floors will be possible under farm commodities after the war as well as during its progress. It has been made through a plan which at present we are operating under the War Measures Act, and that act goes out of existence six months after the war is over, in which event anything done under the act will cease to be done.
The matter of preparing legislation to be brought down this session has been referred to officials of the department and is being considered with the Department of Justice. I am not aware that there is any difficulty whatsoever in setting up a plan under which that policy can be carried out, a plan which will be within the rights and powers of the parliament of Canada.


John George Diefenbaker: Has such an opinion been secured from the Department of Justice?


James Garfield Gardiner: With the assistance of the Department of Justice officials of the Department of Agriculture are proceeding to draft legislation in which it is contemplated we shall do first something which we have done before with the consent and advice of the Department of Justice. That was done even before the war started. I do not think there will be any more difficulty in doing it after the war is over than there was before the war started. That is all I wish to say at the moment, because the matter will be discussed more fully when the legislation comes down. But my opinion is there is no doubt that we can provide legislation which will make it possible for us to establish returns to farmers on a floor basis.


John Horne Blackmore: Does the government scheme for putting floors under agricultural products involve the putting of ceilings on costs entering into the production?


James Garfield Gardiner: I would judge that whoever happens to be minister of agriculture at any time when the legislation is being put into effect will take into consideration the question of costs at the time that any floors are being arranged; but I am not in a position at the moment to say how that matter will be dealt with in each individual case.


John George Diefenbaker: Will the minister permit one further question? What legislation had he in mind as having been in existence before the war?

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James Garfield Gardiner: I am not speaking so much of legislation as of things that we have done.


John George Diefenbaker: What did the minister have in mind?


James Garfield Gardiner: There was nothing
illegal in our going and buying cattle in the western part of Canada during the drought period. There was nothing illegal in our buying one million pounds of butter and giving it away in 1938. There was nothing illegal in a number of things that have been done, and the principle can be applied. It is not a question of there being any legal difficulty; it is a question of whether or not the House of Commons and the people generally will agree with the policy which is proposed under which it is to be done. I repeat I do not think anyone need to fear that it is not possible to carry out the policy which has been announced, and which, I believe, can be carried out. I am quite sure that Mr. Bracken assured himself of that before he adopted the same policy that we announced previously.


Gordon Graydon: The minister had better not be humorous about this.


James Garfield Gardiner: So far as beef is concerned, the suggestion is made that the committee ought to know something about the relationship of Canada's position to that of the United States. Hon. members of the committee know that prior to the war we had a trade agreement with the United States. That trade agreement still exists. It provided for our sending to the United States 193,000 head of beef cattle, weighing seven hundred pounds or more, in any particular year, provided we co.uld deliver that number with quotas divided up into four covering three-month periods throughout the year. Let me repeat, that provision is still in the agreement which we have with the United States, and that agreement has been extended from time to time. But in 1942 we found it impossible to feed our own people on the beef which was coming to market. Because of the limitations which were placed on the consumption of pork we found it impossible to feed our own people and at the same time supply the United States market with the quota which might have been supplied under the agreement. I should like to call this to the attention of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie who is not in his seat at the moment. The policy that he speaks so much in support of is the policy which is largely responsible for what had to be done. It is becoming a habit in the house and outside for people to criticize things that the government has done and then follow this
up with the statement: "I am a very strong supporter of price control". One cannot be a very strong supporter of price control as we have it in the Dominion of Canada and at the same time say that our price levels must be the same as they are in the United States. The price controls in the two countries are not the same. The situations governing the necessity for price control are not the same and therefore, of course, differences must exist.
That was true with regard to beef cattle. We had a price ceiling. We had a wage ceiling. There is a relationship between the wage ceiling and the price ceiling. If you permitted cattle to be sold in the United States on the United States price level of that particular time, then only one thing could happen. Not only would you not have any beef for sending to Great Britain, but you would not have enough beef to eat in the Dominion of Canada if you maintained your price ceiling. Therefore, one of two things had to be done. Either the policy which everyone seemed to be in support of had to be abandoned, or there had to be some Canadian attempt to control the marketing of beef. Accordingly it was determined that cattle would be kept on this side of the line as long as they were required here, and that if there were any surplus to be sent out of Canada, that surplus should be sent to Great Britain. That decision was not reached as a result of a discussion which took place on this side of the line only. It was a decision which resulted from discussions between the government of Canada and representatives of the government of the United States. It was thought inadvisable, for example, that the United States should import cattle from Canada and then lease-lend an equal poundage of beef to Great Britain.
When that statement is made some people say, "What about the arrangement that was made with Mexico?" Well, making an arrangement with Mexico is a little different from making an arrangement with Canada. Mexico is not a part of the British empire, and up to the present Mexico has an entirely different relationship to the war from that of either the United States or Canada. Therefore the United States people might accept an arrangement which is entered into as between Mexico and their own people and at the same time have reason to object to cattle coming from what is a part of the British empire into the United States and they in turn giving it to the British. The natural thing for those who are producing cattle in the United States to say is: if anyone is going to give or provide, under mutual aid to Great Britain, beef which is
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purchased in Canada, then it ought to be the Canadian government and not the United States government that does it. Therefore the position is this. There is a complete understanding between the United States and Canada. There is no possibility of any misunderstanding regarding any relation to the trade agreement which was made before the war, as a result of what has happened up to date. The United States people understand the reason for it. They are in agreement with what is being done. I am not so sure that they might not suggest that it ought to be done if the Canadian government had not considered their position in the matter when the policy was announced.
That brings me down to the time when we found that there was a surplus of certain kinds of beef in Canada. I would remind the committee that since the house was in session last year an arrangement was made, and it was announced in the house. Under the arrangement the meat board of the Department of Agriculture can purchase beef. That arrangement was to the effect that when beef-not cattle-which was being sold on this market reached the floor or came within one-eighth of a cent of the floor, the meat board of the Department of Agriculture could purchase that beef and put it down for freezing in order to send it to Great Britain.
We have been operating under that understanding, I think since May of last year, and there was no necessity to purchase any beef under that arrangement until quite recently. A small amount was purchased before Christmas, I believe, and some has been purchased since that time; but in regard to creating a proper attitude in Great Britain toward the beef which is shipped from Canada the regrettable feature is that none of the higher grades of beef has been materially below the ceiling, in the form of either beef on the market or of cattle being marketed. The only beef that has been down to and below the floor is cow meat, and anyone who is familiar with the meaning of that term knows it is not the kind of meat we want to send to Great Britain in any volume. However, we have purchased some quantities of cow meat and meat from the lower grades of other animals and sent it to Great Britain, but we have not been able to purchase any of the higher grades under the plan which has been in existence.
Under that plan, in spite of all the discussion that has gone on in Canada in regard to people going out of the production of meat, the quantities coming onto the market have been increasing constantly; and it is not the lower grade hogs that have been coming on the market in greater numbers. As a matter
(Mr. Gardiner.]
of fact, the high grade hogs that are coming on the market have kept well up to the average for any period one might wish to take in connection with cur marketing. I think we are still getting upward of 100,000 hogs a week more than we got at the same time last year, and a reasonable proportion of those hogs are of the grades which produce bacon which is sent to Britain, As a result we have considerable stores of bacon. At the same time we have more of the lower grades of beef coming on the market than we can absorb, and we have producers who are concerned as to whether they should place higher grades of cattle on the market, in the fear that they might be called upon to take a lower price than they had anticipated. I do not think it can be shown that any considerable number of persons have had to take lower prices for beef this year than they took in the same period a year ago. There is the occasional individual, of course, who sold high on the market last year and low on the market this year, who can send in a statement showing that he did not get as much this year as he got last year; but the latest averages I have seen indicate that prices across Canada for cattle have been higher this year than a year ago. We know, however, from the figures in regard to storage and marketing that there is. and has been for some time, the danger that so many high-grade cattle will come on the market in the spring of this year as to cause loss to those who have produced them, through the prices for cattle and beef going down to the floor, or through our storages being filled to the point where it is impossible for the plants to handle and process that beef as it must be processed in order to be sent to Britain. So that the action of a few days ago was taken, and I do not wish to go into that in further detail at the moment.
I come back to the point raised a few moments ago by the hon. member for Lake Centre, the question of our relationship to the United States with respect to the particular matter of the marketing of cattle. One has only to read the accounts, of what has taken place in. the United States in order to understand the situation there. On all these matters we are in the closest possible communication with the countries concerned. As a matter of fact, we were in communication not only with the government of the United States but with the government of Great Britain as to what ought to be done or what could be done to best serve the purpose. To understand the situation in the United States it is necessary only to point to the fact that a few hours before we took our action on Tuesday evening of this week, the United States, knowing

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what we were expecting to do, took action themselves which indicated that they are having just as much difficulty in processing the meat that is coming to their plants as we are having in processing the meat that is coming to the plants of this country. In addition, they are having difficulties similar to ours in providing for the movement of meat from this continent to the other side in the quantities which are available here at the moment.
I need only recite these facts in order to make it apparent that it would be foolish for the Canadian government to reverse its policy at the moment in relation to the issue of permits. Up to the present the United States government has done nothing about the matter. The contract is as it was before the war. The understandings have all been maintained right through the picture. The United States understands why we have done what we have done, and our actions have been taken after consultation with them. If. under those circumstances we were to reverse our policy and say that we were not going to require permits for the shipment of cattle into the United States, or that requiring permits we were going to issue them immediately and allow our cattle to be shipped to the United States, at a time when they are experiencing just as great difficulty in connection with processing as we are, I need hardly suggest to the committee how the Americans would be justified in looking upon an action of that kind. It is not our intention to give them any reason to feel that we do not understand the difficulties of their position, just as we understand our own difficulties.
However, we are attempting to work out at the earliest possible date a plan under which we can send high-quality beef to Great Britain. The present intention is to work out a plan somewhat the same as that under which we have been operating in connection with bacon and ham. With a contract of some kind which will assure that shipping will be available to take whatever quantities of meat we feel can be shipped or ought to be shipped to Great Britain under the circumstances, we shall be able to assist in feeding the British population from surpluses we have here. We believe that if we are going to follow a policy of that kind it ought to be applied to the higher, rather than to the lower grades of meat. We were spending a considerable amount of money prior to the war in an effort to convince the British people that we could put a high-class of beef products on the British market. We were selecting some hundreds of cattle from time to time, and shipping them over to Great Britain in the form of baby beef. We were spending
money in order to do that, and in order to demonstrate that we in Canada could produce good beef. Even during a considerable period of time before the war started, we had been selling on the British market in competition with Scottish-fed beef, and competing at even better prices, sometimes, than the Scottish beef was bringing. But the smallness of the movement, and the fact that it was only an experiment rather than a commercial activity, led to the fact that we lost money in sending that beef over. But we were prepared to lose money in order to advertise the fact that good beef of that kind could be secured for any market which might exist in Great Britain.
Now that we have an opportunity during war time of doing two things at one time, namely, doing a patriotic act and supplying beef to Great Britain at a time when she needs it, I believe we should demonstrate to the British people that we can supply good meat, the very best of it; because, when the war is over, if we are producing as many cattle as we are producing to-day-and all of us hope we shall be-we shall be requiring sooner or later a market for about 300,000 head of cattle. If we are not able to find that market on this continent, there is possibly only one other place where we can find a market, and that is in Great Britain. Therefore I say that we should establish the fact that we can produce in Canada beef which will compare favourably with beef secured from elsewhere. That, I think, is a full enough explanation of the government's present position and policy in connection with the marketing of beef. I would repeat that those policies are being followed with the fullest possible understanding between the British and Americans, with regard to the whole position.
Some suggestion was made by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, and I understood, disagreed with by the hon. member for Lake Centre, to the effect that we were not getting rid of wheat acreage reduction payments any too soon. As a matter of fact, I believe the suggestion made was that we should never have had them.


John George Diefenbaker: That was not my suggestion.


James Garfield Gardiner: No, that was not the suggestion of the hon. member for Lake Centre; rather it was that of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie. I believe the hon. member for Lake Centre would disagree with that stand, judging from what was said by him.
The hon. member for Lake Centre called attention to the fact that resolutions are being passed, or that they had been passed by different organizations in western Canada pro-
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testing against the announcement made by myself to the effect that we are going to discontinue in this year the payment of the wheat acreage reduction bonus. I am pleased that these resolutions are being passed, because in the past I have heard in the house very little but criticism of the fact that We wrere paying on account of the wheat acreage reduction. Therefore I am glad that those outside the house who have had an opportunity of benefiting, or otherwise, from these payments, are now passing resolutions to the *effect that it might be a good thing if the reduction payments were maintained.
Hon. members will, however, recall that there cannot be any misunderstanding among members of this committee as to the intention of the government in the first instance with respect to wheat acreage reduction. The main attack made by the official opposition upon me, as the minister introducing the policy, was that I had brought it in by way of regulation, and not by a bill. I gave my reasons at the time for bringing it in by regulation, and not by bill. I pointed out that it was not intended to make this a permanent policy, that it was only a temporary arrangement and, in answer to a question at that time by the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) I stated definitely that my reason for bringing it down by way of regulation was that we did not intend to continue it, and that in all probability it would not continue for more than one year.
At the end of that year, when we found it necessary to continue the measure for another year at least, I yielded to the suggestions of hon. members that it be brought down in the form of legislation. The measure was submitted to the committee on agriculture, if I remember correctly, and was finally recommended to the house and put into effect. Again it was made quite apparent that this could not be a permanent policy.
We have come to the conclusion that this is the time to discontinue the wheat acreage reduction payments. Our reason for that is,
I am sure, apparent to most farmers of western Canada. The contention was, at the time the policy was introduced, that we should not. be making acreage payments, but that we should be increasing the price of wheat-just as was stated a few moments ago by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie. We said at that time what he has already said, namely, that there would be farmers in western Canada producing three or five bushels to the acre, and others producing thirty or forty bushels to the acre; and that if we were to attempt to assist farmers to carry over from (Mr Gardiner.]
one period to another, producing the crop which w'e wanted them to produce, rather than one for which, for the time being, we had no market, we ought to provide that payments be made on an acreage, rather than on a bushelage basis. More particularly was that so when we were asking them not to grow so much wheat, but rather to grow more oats, more barley, more feed crops and to produce more live stock. We felt we should not take that action by raising the price of the commodity we did not want, but rather should say that in lieu of that particular commodity we would prefer to make a certain payment on an acreage basis.
There has been only one condemnation I have ever heard, since the policy has been in effect, and since it has been found that 182,000 farmers took advantage of it. And now it should be recalled that there was never anything in the regulations which compelled anyone to take advantage of it. We simply said to the farmers, "Here is the condition: If you wish to grow wheat, you can grow it. The government will give you an advance. We will pay you an advance upon it if you deliver to the wheat board, and give you a participation certificate. Then, some day we will pay you the earnings from that wheat, if it [DOT]is sold for a higher price. If you can get by for any term of years under a system of that kind, then go ahead and grow all the wheat you like." Some people did that. We said to others, "If you require to have cash coming in week after week and month after month from something you have to sell, there is only one way we can guarantee that, namely; if you feed live stock. If you feed live stock we can sell everything you produce and get you increasing returns from year to year." I repeat that 182,000 farmers who had been producing considerable acreages of wheat took advantage of the suggestion that if they would reduce their wheat acreage and put in something else or put their land to summer-fallow, the government would pay them certain rates per acre. The fact is that the government has paid over $80,000,000 since that policy was brought into effect. That is no sum to be laughed at by anyone anywhere, particularly by those who have been growing wheat in western Canada.


Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: Or by those in the maritime provinces.


James Garfield Gardiner: Or by those in the maritime provinces. We did not forget Ontario and the maritimes. As a matter of fact, some of the highest payments made out of the treasury to farmers since the war started were paid to some of the farmers in the maritimes.


Gordon Graydon: There is no part of the country that needs it more.

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James Garfield Gardiner: I agree. As I say, the fact is that $80,000,000 was paid under the programme. I was surprised to hear the hon. member for Humboldt make the statement he did the other night about inspectors who had gone out, under the acreage payment plan. A considerable part of what was paid out, not only under this plan but under the prairie farm assistance plan, was paid out in the area %hich he represents in this house. I have no doubt that any inspector who called upon him in order to ask his opinion did so in the same way as he called upon others. I am a little surprised to know that a man who has been the reeve of his municipality, a member of the provincial legislature and a farmer over a long period of time could not, while he was driving a combine himself, tell the inspector how much his land was going to yield per acre without driving around the field a few times with the combine. I am sure that if he expected an inspector to walk over, take a look at it and make an estimate without going more than three or four hundred yards from the road, he should have been able to tell the yield fairly closely when he had been growing grain on that field for a number of years.


Joseph William Burton: May I correct the minister and tell him that I never was reeve.


James Garfield Gardiner: Perhaps I was giving the hon. member too much credit.


Joseph William Burton: I do not want more credit than is coming to me. But I still stand by what I said. When that man came there and made that sort of estimation I was not going to waste time talking to him. The minister knows well enough that there were plenty of inspectors running around who were useless.


James Garfield Gardiner: What year was that?


Joseph William Burton: That was the year in which the minister required farmers to report to the elevators and take an affidavit as to the number of bushels they had threshed. I wanted to know why it was necessary to have inspectors running around before the farmers were in a position to do that.


James Garfield Gardiner: Was that in 1941?


Joseph William Burton: 1938.


James Garfield Gardiner: There was no such thing in existence at that time.


Joseph William Burton: It was the- year they had to go to the elevators.


James Garfield Gardiner: 1939, probably.


Joseph William Burton: I would not be definite as to the year. I know it was the only year the farmers were compelled to go to the elevators to make a declaration.


James Garfield Gardiner: As was stated to the house at the time the regulations were brought in, the prairie farm assistance was to be paid on a township basis, on the estimated yield in the township rather than on any individual farm. The reasons for that have been given many times. Inspections were made while crops were growing and again when the crops were being threshed. Certain announcement's were made as to what townships would come under the regulations, and other townships claimed that their land had not been properly inspected. These complaints came in through the municipal councils and the government undertook to make a check of a certain number of townships well scattered over the area in order to determine how close our inspections were to the actual threshings. We found that they were uncannily close to the actual threshings.
There are members of this house who covered their districts to make absolutely certain that those checks were properly made. They did not sit beside their fields and refuse to give information to the inspectors who came around; they helped the inspectors in every way possible and saw to it that the checks were properly made.


Joseph William Burton: I should like to ask the
minister in what way-


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: The rule is that when an hon. member is speaking he must agree to another hon. member asking a question.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is all right.


Joseph William Burton: I took it for granted that with the minister's usual good nature I would be given that privilege. Now that I have that privilege, I would ask the minister in what way he would expect any farmer with a crop as variable as that crop was to give an estimate of what, it would be before he had an opportunity really to see what it was like. I contend that at that time no inspector or no farmer could make a reasonable estimate, and I still say that those inspectors were a waste of money.


James Garfield Gardiner: I have before me what was said the other evening, but I am not going to read it. I do not think there is any doubt that the criticism the other evening was for the purpose of demonstrating to the committee that we had men checking these crops who did not know their business.


Joseph William Burton: I still stand by that statement.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member says that he still stands by that statement. The hon. member has been a farmer for a considerable period of time and has held some fairly
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important positions, even though he has not been reeve of the municipality. Does he want the farmer members of this house to believe that he could not estimate that crop before he started to cut it? Does he want them to believe that he could not estimate, within two or three bushels of the actual yield, a crop which he had grown on his own farm for 'a considerable number of years? I can only say that if he could not do that, then he is a much poorer farmer than I thought he was.
As a matter of fact, he knows and I know that he was in a position to give the inspector information which he could have taken back and which would have assisted in checking that particular municipality or township. At that time there was considerable criticism of the idea of paying prairie farm assistance. People were going around western Canada saying, "It does not matter whether you are below twelve bushels to the acre, you will never be paid." That was heard in every constituency in western Canada at that time. Later on, when they were paid, some of them were the most surprised people in the district, because people who had been looked upon as reliable had said that they never would be paid.
While we were trying to establish the fact that these inspectors had done a good job, we set up an appeal board-there had not been an appeal board previously-and we said to districts which believed they had not been properly treated: "You can make an appeal, and if you do so, we will check with the elevator returns." First, we went out and took a declared statement from each farmer as to how much he threshed and how much he marketed off his crop. Then we checked his statement with the elevators and anyone else we could check it with, and again I repeat, there were not very many townships in the whole of western Canada that were changed as a result of that check from where they had been when these men reported who, my hon. friend says, cannot check a crop and do not know how to check a crop, and who checked it at the time the crop was growing.
I only recite that to emphasize that when we keep on saying a thing often enough we are apt to believe it ourselves, and my hon. friend has been making that statement for a number of years in a house where I do not have the right to reply to him, but I have read in the newspapers what he has been saying. But now he is here and I have an opportuntiy to reply to him in this house, instead of reading at second hand what he said in some other house. I can only repeat that the inspections were properly made.
Then my hon. friend referred to dug-outs. My hon. friend over here who farms near
fMr. Gardiner.]
Pembroke knows more about farming in western Canada apparently than the hon. gentleman who lives out there. The other night the hon. gentleman gave the committee the impression that all these inspectors had to do was to go and look over a certain site and say: "Dig a dug-out there." He also said that they could look at seven in one evening or afternoon, pick the dug-outs, and that was all there was to it.
As a matter of fact, when we took over the prairie farm rehabilitation we took in upwards of 5,000 applications, if I remember correctly, for dug-outs and small dams, and again, if I remember correctly, we have about 15,000 applications now which have not yet been acted upon. What happens under conditions of that kind is this. Many of these outfits are owned by municipalities, and some are owned by individuals, working in different communities. The men who make the inspections and the men who do the testing with regard to these dug-outs must keep that equipment operating. As my hon. friend the member for Souris, who was, I think, the reeve of a municipality, knows, these outfits will dig a dug-out every twenty-four hours. They operated twenty-four hours a day. They dug a dug-out here to-day, and the next morning they were over somewhere else ready to dig another one Of course, there were times when the men who were passing upon whether the dug-out should be dug or not dug had to pass upon one in one community and go over to some other community to keep the outfit going there. They could not waste time by going around and looking at seven in the one community because sometimes to keep the outfits going they had to reach some other community. To have done otherwise would have tied up the equipment doing a $150 job. The inspector, who is costing us a few dollars a day, has to look ahead and keep the operations going and have them passed upon. Of course, anyone who does not know that or does not understand it can make general statements in the house with regard to the construction of these dug-outs and make them sound very bad.
Again, the inspector who comes along and looks over a dug-out in the district, before he passes upon it, must in many instances have information that my hon. friend did not mention at all, but an hon. member for an Ontario constituency mentioned it. The first thing that has to be done is to have lines run to see how much run-off there would be to fill up any dug-out or any dam that might be built. The next thing that has to be done is to put down test-holes to find out whether

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there is a clay subsoil or a gravel subsoil, to determine whether it would be necessary to cement the dug-out to hold water, or whether it would not be necessary to do so. After all that work is done, the location is staked by engineers, just as staking is done on any other construction job. When all that is done, the inspector makes a report that certain findings have been made and that "you can proceed with this particular dug-out" but "you cannot proceed with some other dug-out."


Joseph William Burton: I quite agree with what the minister says as to inspections and testing of dug-outs. That is the course followed. But where I wish to correct him is this. I know of dug-out locations, quite a number of them, where these very same precautionary measures which he says should be taken by the inspectors were not taken. There was just a casual glance over the lay of the land.


James Garfield Gardiner: Again I think that hon. members from eastern Canada would understand why that would be the case. There are certain areas in western Canada-I do not know my hon. friend's constituency well enough to pick out the areas there, but I do know that there are areas in my own constituency-


Joseph William Burton: The minister spent a little time in my constituency.


James Garfield Gardiner: And I shall probably spend more there. There are areas in my constituency and south of Regina, where everyone knows the land over the whole district will hold water; there are no runs of gravel in it, and what has to be found out is the water runs on the surface of the area. By looking at these particular locations one can determine what the results will be. I think I know my hon. friend's constituency well enough to know that by far the greater part of it is not that kind of territory. There is much of it where all the engineering work I have spoken of must be done and where an inspector would be merely wasting time by going around and checking seven or eight of these dug-outs before that preliminary work had been done by the engineers.


Joseph William Burton: Would he lose more time by doing it on seven different days?


James Garfield Gardiner: It would depend when the work was completed on the whole seven, and upon whether there was an outfit waiting somewhere that he had to keep operating, in which event he would come back there and pass upon it later.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. GERSHAW:: I should like to bring to the attention of the minister a few matters regarding southeastern Alberta. That great district has suffered more severely perhaps than any other agricultural district in the last few years. It is true that away back in 1915 and 1916, later in 1928 and again in 1938 and 1942, there were reasonably good crops in the district, but good years come so seldom that they cannot be relied upon. Consequently people who have settled in that district have fallen upon very hard circumstances and have had a difficult struggle. When we know that the average precipitation in that district is around twelve inches a year, and last year as low as nine, whereas in the east the precipitation ranges from twenty-five to forty inches, we can realize what a hard time they have out there to make the land produce enough to provide even the barest necessities of life for the people who live in that locality.
In those dry districts wheat is the grain crop most likely to grow, and therefore seventy-nine per cent of the grain produced there is wheat. Also, as regards ranching and stock raising, the cattle rancher can do a little better than any other producer of live stock. During the years of depression restricted markets brought ruinously low prices. The drought was quite severe, so that even grass and trees could not grow; the soil drifted, and many of the other hazards of farming were so great that it was almost impossible for the people to keep off relief. Consequently many of them had to seek relief during those years.
I wish to appeal to the government at this time to be lenient in the collecting of the seed grain liens which were put on during those years of depression, because, while the principal has not changed, the interest has mounted until it is often more than the principal, and it is very difficult for these people to face that debt at the present time.
. In fact, the district has been called the Canadian desert, for away back in 1874 Colonel Walker, going through the district, said that during his whole life he had never seen a pasture field so lacking in feed as were the prairies at that time. But that district need not be a desert. On an experimental farm which this government started, 2,400 tons of hay were produced off an area which otherwise would not have provided fodder for one animal. This shows that the district can be improved, and the government has done a good deal to improve it by establishing community pastures, stock-watering reservoirs and dug-outs; and by planting trees, by regrassing
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and by improving methods of farming. Thore is still much that needs to be done, however, because cattle and wheat are not the products that the market requires especially, nor are they the products which the health of the people of Canada demand. What is required is more in the line of dairy products, fruits and vegetables and commodities of that kind, and these people are entitled to have comfortable homes where they will have shelter belts, gardens, small fruit trees, flowers and so on, as well as water for poultry and live stock which they could keep around their homes.
So that in addition to the work done by the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, it is essential, if that great desert is to be reclaimed, that the larger irrigation projects be kept in mind. The department has published a little pamphlet, and I observe that the large irrigation scheme at St. Mary and Milk rivers is being considered. That scheme looks to the reclaiming of 345.000 acres at a cost of $45 an acre. In north Saskatchewan the William Pierce scheme looks to the reclaiming of 1,400,000 acres at a cost of S74.S9. There is one other scheme, however, and I cannot see why it should not be mentioned, because $13,000,000 of private capital has already been spent on it. That particular scheme contemplates the reclaiming of 200,000 acres on which government engineers are now employed, and which can be irrigated for about $20 an acre. I hope that the fact that it is not mentioned in the pamphlet does not mean that the government have given up the consideration of that scheme. May I ask the minister whether it does mean that this particular scheme has been considered unfavourably, because in this pamphlet the statement is made that the larger projects at St. Mary and Milk rivers and in north Saskatchewan are the ones being considered.
In view of the great possibilities for good which these large schemes represent, I suggest that, as soon as the war is over and labour and material are available, as a reconstruction project nothing would give more permanent results and bring greater blessings to the people than the reclamation of those desert areas.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am sorry I missed the point of the question toward the end. To what scheme was the hon. gentleman referring?


Frederick William Gershaw: The RedcliS Ronelane in southern Alberta.


James Garfield Gardiner: My understanding of that is that the plan was under consideration, under prairie farm rehabilitation, when the war started. The other two larger schemes
fMr. Gershnw.]
were not under consideration at that time as a development under farm rehabilitation. They have been investigated by our engineers, and some investigational work has been carried on in cooperation between the Department of National Resources and the Alberta government. But it is the two larger ones that we are suggesting may come back for reconsideration under prairie farm rehabilitation after the war. The particular scheme to which reference has been made has been under consideration throughout the period and still is.
I would point out that discussions on this matter can better come under item 29, which has to do with prairie farm rehabilitation and water storage. I would rather we left the discussion until that time.


Mr. WEIR:: Referring back to the minister's remarks with reference to the meat situation in this country and in the United States, I believe we can take from what he said that among the chief difficulties is the question of storage and transportation. Can he say anything with respect to the storage situation in Great Britain and the possibilities of attempting to get a larger quantity of these meat products delivered to the other side to relieve the situation in this country?


James Garfield Gardiner: The matter of storage has always been under consideration on both sides of the ocean, and I think it will be agreed that our position is at least as favourable on this side as it can be in Britain under the circumstances. The fact is that when we get the meat over there it is nearer to the point where it is to be consumed, and we would rather have it there to the extent that it can be stored. I mean that when the meat is over there they can handle very much more than we can in a given time if unlimited supplies are available. The question as to how much is there or what the space is, is something we probably would not get any information about.


William Gilbert Weir: I think that is an important statement for the minister to have made and I am very glad he made it.


Gordon Graydon: I think only under this general item may I raise the point that I desire to make as an inquiry of the minister. This matter came up in a rather casual way in one of the other debates in the house during this session, but since it directly affects the minister and his department I wish to ask whether it is the intention of the government to appoint a parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture? I raise that question for one particular reason.

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Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The inquiring mind.


Gordon Graydon: I can understand that the minister who has now- interrupted would not need a parliamentary assistant.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Yes, he does.


Gordon Graydon: If he does then he is worse than I thought he was. In any event, however, I wish to ask the Minister of Agriculture if the government has given consideration to the whole question of a balance between eastern and western agriculture through the medium of the appointment of a parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture? I think the minister will be the first one to recognize that there are two main divisions, if one may say so, in connection with the agricultural affairs of the dominion. I believe there has been a feeling existing in agricultural circles that a proper balance between the east and the west could be obtained. The minister coming from western Canada, although originally an easterner, would, I fancy, find that the appointment of a parliamentary assistant, if he were an easterner closely identified with the interests of eastern agriculture, would be a popular move. I think that appointment would receive general approval throughout the country.
As I said before in a previous debate, if the principle of parliamentary assistants is a good one; if experience shows that it works out well, and if there is any argument in favour of parliamentary assistants, then that argument should apply more forcibly to the Department of Agriculture than perhaps to any other department of government. For the reasons I have mentioned and not only because it is a heavy department, but because of the balance that must necessarily exist between the east and the west, I raise the point to seek information as to whether the minister has in mind the appointment of some one of the very worthy members of the House of Commons to represent eastern agricultural constituencies at this time.


James Garfield Gardiner: I have no intention of exceeding my prerogative in discussing the question as to whether there should or should not be a parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture. That, of course, is the right of choice of the Prime Minister who invites people into the government or people to take positions in support of those who are in the government.
In answer to the latter part of the statement, I should like to point out that there is a difference as between the Department of Agriculture and some other departments to which parliamentary assistants have been appointed. This difference has not been made
apparent in the remarks of the leader of the opposition. One of the differences is that the Department of Agriculture is only one of ten departments of agriculture in Canada. There is a department of agriculture in each of the Canadian provinces. Of course there is not a minister of defence in each Canadian province; there is not a minister of munitions and supply in each province. There is, of course, a provincial treasurer in each province, but not with the same responsibilities as we place on a minister of finance here. That might be one reason why the situation might be quite different in some of the departments that have been mentioned from what it is in the Department of Agriculture. The activities of agriculture are fairly well divided as between provincial responsibility and federal responsibility. We have the cooperation of all ministers of agriculture across Canada to carry out the activities in relation to agriculture. But I have no argument to put forth on one side or the other of the question as to why there should or should not be a parliamentary assistant.


Mr. BRYCE:: I should like to get some information from the Minister of Agriculture. I have been shipping live stock to the public markets and packing plants for the last twenty-four years. In every statement that I receive there is a deduction of half of one per cent for animal insurance. Can the ministei give me some information as to on what authority the packing company deducts that money from my statement?


James Garfield Gardiner: The arrangement which has just been referred to by the hon. member for Selkirk is one resulting from an agreement which was entered into by producers and packing plants many years ago. It is not an arrangement-


William Scottie Bryce: Excuse me; what year?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have forgotten the year, but it is away back, I think, in 1907. It has been in existence for a long time. It had to do with the fact that animals that were delivered on the market were affected with tuberculosis or some other disease which required their slaughter for uses other than for human consumption. Instead of the person who shipped the one diseased animal taking the whole loss, it was agreed between producers and those who purchased the animal that a deduction would be made from all animals coming in, and then that fund would be utilized for the purposes of paying for any losses that an individual might have to bear. In other words, it is an insurance fund. It is not compulsory. Anyone delivering live stock on the market to-day can say that he does not wish to share in the insurance fund, and
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therefore he does not wish to have the half of one per cent taken off the amount which is due him. If he does so, then any time he ships in cattle or hogs that are diseased, he will have to take any losses which are involved in connection with that shipment. They would not come under the insurance plan.
That fund has been examined from time to time, and it has always been found that the first intention of it is carried into effect in the activities of those who are handling it. The examinations have been made by themselves, not necessarily by the government. We have checked as to what has been found through those examinations, but as far as I understand it we have no authority whatsoever in the matter.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: Can the minister explain who keeps the fund?


William Scottie Bryce: Has it ever been reviewed
since 1907 when that general agreement was 'made between the packers and some other gentlemen or producers in the farming business?


James Garfield Gardiner: I did not get the first part of the question.


William Scottie Bryce: Has the agreement been reviewed since 1907?


James Garfield Gardiner: It has been up for discussion, I have heard of the discussions many times since I became minister. It is up for discussion, I think, at most of the live stock meetings that are held across Canada. The unfortunate fact is that most of them pass resolutions which have very little relationship to the origin of the scheme. They seem to think that there is some responsibility on the government and that the government should do something about it. Of course, the fund was set up as a result of an arrangement between the producers' organizations and the packers' association. As I said a moment ago, no individual needs to be a party to it at all. He can ship his cattle without that fund being made responsible for taking care of any losses; therefore I think it is a matter entirely between those organizations that set it up in the first place.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Would the
minister explain in whose name the fund is in Saskatchewan, whether or not it is audited, and whether any financial statement is presented to any body?
Year	Killed
1940		 3.961,882
1941		 5,884,677
1942		 6.339,311
1943		   6,140,614


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not certain of
that; I doubt it, but again I say it is the responsibility of those who entered into the agreement. If they insisted on an audit being made and a report being sent to them I see no reason why it should not be done.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Most farmers are under the impression that it is compulsory.


James Garfield Gardiner: My information is that it is not, as a matter of fact.


William Scottie Bryce: I should like to draw the
minister's attention to some figures I have, to show the injustice that is being done to farmers to-day through this condemnation insurance. This is the first time I ever heard that it was not compulsory; every statement I have received in twenty-four years has had that condemnation insurance taken off at the stockyard or the packing plant. In 1940, animals slaughtered in Manitoba numbered 1,114,900, of which 4,296 were condemned, but the insurance collected on these animals was sufficient to pay for 5,574. In Saskatchewan in the same year, 285,637 animals were slaughtered and 708 condemned, but the condemnation insurance collected was enough to pay for 1,428. In Alberta in the same year, 1,053,432 animals were slaughtered and 2,639 were condemned, but the condemnation insurance assessed against the farmers was sufficient to pay for 5,267 animals. We have the same story in 1941, 1942 and 1943. Last year in Manitoba, 1,254,014 animals were slaughtered and 2,499 were condemned, but the condemnation insurance collected was sufficient to pay for 6,270. In Saskatchewan we had 685,696 animals slaughtered and 1,442 condemned, but the insurance collected was sufficient to pay for 3,428. In Alberta in the same year, 1943, we had 1,710,558 animals slaughtered and 3,021 condemned, but the condemnation insurance collected would pay for 8,553 animals. The minister told us this evening that this scheme was started in 1906 or 1907, which is thirty-eight years ago. I have checked these figures from his department, and I find that in the beginning it took about one-half of one per cent to carry the scheme. To-day it takes less than one-quarter of one per cent to carry it; yet we are still paying one-half of one per cent..
I have the figures here in regard to hogs that have been slaughtered and the number condemned for the whole of Canada, as follows:
Condemned
carcasses
8.782
13.497
13,695
12,022
Con. ins. collected for 19,809 29,423 31,696 30,703
Percentage
of
one per cent *22.
[DOT]23
[DOT]22
[DOT]19

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This is a serious state of affairs. The value of the live stock sold in the stockyards across Canada in 1943, shipped to public markets and abattoirs, was approximately $323,000,000. The farmers paid condemnation insurance amounting to one-half of one per cent on that amount, which would be about $1,615,000 The figures issued by the government would indicate that only about three-eighths of one per cent of the live stock were condemned; thus under the present set-up the farmers have been compelled to pay to the packing industry approximately $500,000, in 1943 alone, more than the condemned animals were worth. Now that I have brought this matter to the attention of the minister I hope he will look into it.
I should like to ask one further question. Did I understand the minister to say that the quota to the United States was 293,000? I understood that it was 193,000.	.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is correct; it is 193,000.


William Scottie Bryce: Can the minister tell me where the meat board was when the packing industry was buying sheep on the Winnipeg market for seventy cents each?


James Garfield Gardiner: In the first place I have no record that anyone bought a sheep for seventy cents. Perhaps some did, but the meat board had nothing to do with it; they had no authority to buy sheep at that time.


William Scottie Bryce: Why did the meat board not have authority?


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not think there was a meat board at that time. There was a bacon board.


William Scottie Bryce: There was a meat board.
. Mr. GARDINER: In what year?


William Scottie Bryce: Last fall; 1943.


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not know when sheep were sold for seventy cents.


William Scottie Bryce: I can give the minister the
evidence.


James Garfield Gardiner: What kind of sheep; how old?


William Scottie Bryce: The age of the sheep does not matter. The wool on the back of a sheep is worth at least twenty cents a pound, and we are paying three and four dollars a hundredweight for meat meal and things of that kind.


James Garfield Gardiner: Just by way of illustration, about a month ago I sold two cows of abou.t the same weight. I received $99.97
for one from which I had obtained fifteen or sixteen calves; for the other, sent the same day and on the same train, I received $47, and I think I got as much as either one was worth because I know all the facts in regard to them. If the hon. member will tell me all the facts about the sheep probably I shall be able to answer him.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I believe this part of the argument of the hon. member should have come under item 17. I do not wish to curtail discussion, but for three sittings we have had a general discussion and I believe we should come to the items. Hon. members may make general statements now, but they should not refer to specific matters. When it comes to a discussion of the different items, hon. members should wait until the items are called. I believe that is the wish of the committee.


William Scottie Bryce: I accept your ruling, Mr. Chairman; but could I have an answer from the minister as to whether or not he will look into this condemnation insurance?


James Garfield Gardiner: In the first place it is questionable whether the figures produced are of real value. That is, I am not at all sure whether the figures given the committee cover just the animals which were condemned and sent for tankage, or whether it also covers animals only parts of which were sent for tankage. When I say that, I mean one can have an animal condemned for tuberculosis, and when it is examined it may be found that the disease is confined to a gland in the neck. A piece is cut out of the neck, and while that part would go for tankage, the animal may be slaughtered and the rest of it sold for human consumption. Such animals are only partly condemned; the other parts are sold at- whatever price they will bring, and the amount is returned to the individual. It is most difficult to determine from those figures exactly what they mean.
On the other hand, my understanding is that each separate packing plant collects its own insurance premiums and makes its own payments. So that in order to get at the exact results as to what happens one would have to examine the accounts of the different packing plants across Canada.
In addition to that, may I say that we have made investigations. It is not a case of whether we shall make them or not; we have made them very recently. I am not in a position to give a full or final account with regard to the matter; but if the facts which have been presented to us are correct, and I assume they are, then there has not been very much more collected than has been paid
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out in most of the plants. That is all I can say at this time. I would, however, remind the committee that this is a question as between producer organizations and plants, and the agreements into which they have entered. I am sure, if producers can demonstrate that they are paying more than they ought to pay, they can find some other way of insuring that live stock.
It has been suggested that hon. members did not know they had a choice. I have been shipping live stock now for some twenty odd years, as has the hon. member who has just spoken. I did not know until these inquiries came in that I had any choice in the matter. But now that I do know I have a choice in the matter, I certainly would not undertake to have a loss on atty live stock. I would still pay half of one per cent before I would take any chance on that. I believe, too, that is the decision to which most farmers have come. Probably that is the main reason there is not much inquiry made into the matter. However, I see no reason why organizations could not demand an inquiry, and have it, as between themselves and the plant to which they ship their stock.


Mr. CASTLEDEN:: What was the percentage of swine condemnation in Canada for 1943?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have not those figures before me, but I can have them when we reach the live stock item, which, by the way, is the place where questions of this kind should be asked.


George Hugh Castleden: The government's own figure, in their own report, is -19 of one per cent.


Mr. FARQUHAR:: May I say just a word with respect to the marketing of hogs for export. I am informed by the minister's department that only farmers living in the vicinity of packing plants, where there are government inspectors, can take advantage of the bonus paid by the government. I am thinking of many good farming sections in the northern part of Ontario, many of which are in my constituency of Algoma East. At those points farmers have gone in extensively for the raising of select hogs. Farmers in my constituency market their hogs at the packing plants in Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie. I understand there are no government inspectors at either point. Could some arrangements be made whereby farmers in those sections could bring their hogs to some central point where they could be inspected when slaughtered by 
government inspectors, so that advantage could be taken of the bonus paid by the government?


James Garfield Gardiner: The present provision is that wherever there is a slaughterhouse or a butcher killing fifty hogs or more a week, provision is made to see that inspection is provided. Where there is less than that it has not been thought advisable to have inspection. When individuals live in communities adjacent to points where inspection is made, their stock could be taken to such points, and grading would be done there. I do not think the committee would expect that we would have inspectors all across the country, at every small place where half a dozen, twenty or thirty hogs may be killed. We have set the figure at fifty hogs, and we are trying to work it out on that basis.
Again I would say we are getting down to details, and the proper place of their discussion would be under the live stock item.


Mr. QUELCH:: I listened with a good deal of interest to the minister's statement before the evening recess respecting the wheat acreage reduction regulations. I believe those regulations have served a useful purpose in the past and, that purpose having been completed, I believe the government is wise in discounting the operation of the regulations, and in increasing the price of wheat. Any criticism I made in the past respecting those regulations was based upon the administration of certain sections, rather than against the principle of the regulations themselves.
We are assured in the speech from the throne that a floor price is being placed under agricultural products. No doubt the time to discuss that matter will be when the measure is before the house. In passing, however, I would say that when the floor is introduced it should be at a level sufficiently high to stabilize agricultural prices at a level based upon parity. However, a parity price alone would not rehabilitate agriculture on a permanent basis because, more than any other industry, agriculture faces tremendous hazards. Therefore I say it is most desirable that the government should introduce a comprehensive scheme of crop insurance.
The minister may feel that the Prairie Farm Assistance Act is, in fact, a form of crop insurance. In reality, however, I think hon. members will agree it is nothing more or less than a form of drought relief. I am very much in favour of that act, and I am not criticizing it. The constituency I represent has benefited, owing to the fact that the greater portion of the drought area in Alberta is in my constituency.

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Nevertheless the Prairie Farm Assistance Act cannot be considered crop insurance. A man who is farming in the west may suffer total crop failure after having contributed to the scheme for ten years, and then still not be eligible to benefits under the act, in any shape or form. In the house on earlier occasions the minister has taken the stand that a scheme of crop insurance would not be practicable. He has said that, as a-matter of fact, it would encourage inefficient farming.


James Garfield Gardiner: My position has been that it is not within the power of the House of Commons.


Victor Quelch: I cannot see why it would not be. The government has introduced the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, under which it has taken a levy from every farmer, in tribute. If it is possible to pay to cover the cost of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, I cannot see why the government could not introduce a similar measure to take care of crop insurance. The minister may deny that he criticized this on the ground that it encouraged poor farming, but I remember quite well in the past that one of the reasons he gave-


James Garfield Gardiner: I wish to put the hon. member right on that. I have always taken the position that to attempt to put it on an individual farm basis, even the prairie farm assistance as we now have it, would tend to provide to keep people on sub-marginal land or to permit poor farmers getting assistance whether or not the weather had anything to do with their poor crops. That is entirely different from saying that the matter is one which could be brought within the powers of this parliament I am not giving that as my own opinion; that was the opinion I received at the time we brought forward this legislation. It was the opinion we received in all three of the prairie provinces.
In the early part of the century the request was made to bring in hail insurance as a federal measure, but it was stated at that time that the only legislatures having power to bring in hail insurance or any other kind of crop insurance were the provincial legislatures. In each of the provincial houses in western Canada hail insurance measures were brought in. That was a form of crop insurance. That is the position taken to-day.
When this measure was before the committee of the other house the then leader of the Senate, who was a very able lawyer, the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen, asked if I had consulted the Department of Justice as to whether this was ultra vires. I stated that I had and that they had given the opinion that 100-72
it was intra vires. The legal adviser to the committee, Mr. O'Connor, was present. He turned to Mr. O'Connor and asked for his advice. Mr. O'Connor stated that there was some question as to whether the Prairie Farm Assistance Act was not a form of insurance and he went on to indicate that if it were insurance it would be ultra vires. He then offered the further personal opinion that this legislation would be beneficial to western Canada and he thought it was worth while trying it out. I do not think the question whether the present legislation is ultra vires has ever been put to the test. This has been accepted as legislation favourable to those for whom it was provided, and as far as I know all of Canada has accepted the principle that assistance ought to be given. I repeat that the question of'whether we should provide insurance is a provincial matter. My understanding is that in at least one province they have a board or commission set up which is examining into a number of questions, including crop insurance. They realize that this is a provincial responsibility.


Victor Quelch: I think the minister will agree that any comprehensive scheme of crop insurance would be quite a large undertaking and perhaps beyond the means of a province to carry out. I hope that this question will be taken up at the next conference with the provinces. If the three western provinces are ready to agree to come under a scheme of crop insurance to be operated by the federal government, then the question as to whether or not it would be ultra vires would not arise. The scheme in operation in the United States has a great deal of merit. I have before me the annual report of the manager of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, which reads in part as follows:
The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation was created for the purpose of furnishing the wheat growers of the nation a form of protection that is offered by no other agency, governmental or private. In discharging its responsibility the corporation performs a great public service, a service of direct benefit to 1,380,000 wheat growers and, indirectly, to millions of others in rural and urban communities, as well as to the government itself.
I understand that every year the number of farmers taking out this insurance voluntarily has increased. The amount of acreage covered has not increased, but the number of farmers has. The plan of operation is as follows:
Under the wheat crop insurance programme a farmer may insure himself against loss in yield below seventy-five per cent or below fifty per cent, whichever he chooses, of his average yield. An insured farmer is protected against loss due to drought, flood, hail, wind, winter-kill, tornado, insect infestation, plant disease, and
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other unavoidable hazards. No insured farmer is protected against loss due to negligence, malfeasance, poor farming practices, or from causes which he is in a position to prevent.
The last reference is to poor farming. I understand that in the United States committees are set up under the AAA which have the responsibility of seeing that farming methods are carried out on a satisfactory basis. It seems to me that their scheme has considerable merit. It has been extended beyond wheat, and other farm products are to be insured along similar lines.
I think the federal government should make a thorough examination of this scheme so that at the next conference with the provinces they may be able to discuss it and see whether the provinces would be ready to come under such a scheme on a national basvs. A scheme of this kind is beyond the financial ability of the provinces to handle satisfactorily. If such a scheme is put into operation without sufficient financial backing it will fail absolutely.	.


William Gilbert Weir: Could the hon. member tell us the manner of payment and the amount of the premium under the scheme?


Victor Quelch: The payment of the premium is made in wheat. Committees are set up which estimate the average yield of a piece of land over a period of years. The farmer then insures for either seventy-five per cent or fifty per cent of that average yield. Then he may either pay the premium in cash or give a note in payment. The premiums are worked out on an actuarial basis. In the fall any claim for payment may be met in wheat instead of in cash. When the farmer receives wheat he can sell the wheat under his quota and receive cash. The whole thing is done on the basis of grain. The premium may be paid in grain and any return from the insurance may be made in grain. It is up to the farmer to decide whether he wants to keep the grain or whether he wants to sell it.


George Alexander Cruickshank: This item deals entirely with administration and I have a question to ask under that heading. Apparently everything is being discussed, including the hon. member for Peel offering me a position as parliamentary assistant, were I able to curl. I should like to know under what item I would be able to discuss, the recent flooding of Canada with potatoes. It was suggested the other night that I could bring up this matter under item 26, but upon checking what happened last year I find that item 26 was not taken up until the middle of July. This matter concerns, my district at the

present time not in the middle of July. Apparently arrangements have been made for the importation of potatoes into Canada while we still have a surplus in this country. I wish to quote from a report in the Ottawa Citizen of February 23, stating that special arrangements were made by governmental agencies, which I assume refers to the minister's department. Later on the article states:	.
Potatoes, it was explained, were grown in Maine and their shipment to Canada was part of the effort made by United States agricultural officials to clear last season's potatoes before the new crop.
In other words, the state of Maine is being allowed to dump its surplus potatoes in Canada in order to maintain higher prices in that state. We have shipped out from the Fraser Valley this year to different parts of Canada and elsewhere 20,000 tons of potatoes, and yet we have kept ample supplies within the province to supply our whole domestic market. On this same item of administration, the hon. member for New Westminster and I last year asked for a contract for the dehydration of potatoes, and we were informed by the minister in the house and by the deputy minister on several occasions before the agricultural committee that we could not get a contract because we did not have an ample supply of potatoes in British Columbia to supply the domestic market. Both the hon. member for New Westminster and I pointed out, and I have Hansard here to show it, that we had ample supplies of potatoes not only to supply the domestic market but to ship potatoes outside the province as well; yet we could not get a contract without a fight. So far this year we have exported 20,000 tons of potatoes out of the province to other parts of Canada and to the United States, and yet some government official under this item of administration has arranged to allow the state of Maine to dump 150 carloads of potatoes into Canada, while we in Canada have to ship out our potatoes, if we ship at all, and there is a duty of $7.50 a ton imposed by the United States on certified seed potatoes and $12.50 a ton on domestic potatoes. In other words, we cannot export our potatoes to the United States over that prohibitive tariff. I am not now arguing for free trade. There are only three free traders in the House of Commons, two from British Columbia and the Minister of Agriculture. But I believe in free trade working both ways, and I want the minister to explain why his department, under this item of administration, permits the state of Maine or any other state to dump its surplus potatoes into Canada when we have an ample supply of potatoes in this country. We were told last

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year that we could not produce enough potatoes in British Columbia to satisfy our own requirements. Yet we have not only done that but have shipped out of the province 20,000 tons of potatoes this year, and in addition supplied potatoes to an immense army in Canada on the Pacific coast, and a large number of Americans on the Pacific coast. I think that is proof that we have ample supplies of potatoes in Canada.
I wish to speak of another matter, and I bring it up now because in British Columbia we cannot wait until July to get a decision. Therefore under this item-


James Garfield Gardiner: If I might be permitted on a point of order, Mr. Chairman, my hon. friend is not speeding up things by asking these questions on this item because these matters are not under my department at all, and if this department is to be held here while* hon. members discuss matters that do not come under my department we shall never reach the item in the estimates on which his questions might be answered. I am not in a position to answer at any time the questions my hon. friend has asked. They will have to be answered by someone who is speaking for the prices board, and I do not speak for the board. In so far as I can speak for them at all, all I can say at the moment is that I understand that the only potatoes in Canada on which the prices board are paying freight in order that they may be distributed to other parts of Canada are British Columbia potatoes. I think that ought to be said in justice to the board. I understand there is no duty on potatoes coming from the United States into Canada except during a short period when new potatoes are coming in; otherwise potatoes come in free. The peak export of potatoes from this country comprises seed potatoes going from the mari-times to South America and the British West Indies, and, on some occasions to some parts of the United States, and arrangements are made accordingly. But again I say that this is one of those questions in relation to which we all apparently agree that something ought to be done, and we rise one after another and say that we are in favour of price control, and price control requires some of these things to done. All I can say at the moment is that this is not a matter which comes under my department, and if the hon. member wants to get an answer we should at least pass this item of administration and go on to the commodity items.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The minister's
explanation bears out what I fully thought, 100-721
that agriculture is no longer under the Department of Agriculture but under the wartime prices and trade board.
What I am going to bring up now-


James Garfield Gardiner: I wish Mr. Chairman that you would insist on the committee staying in order. What my hon. friend has to say relates more to the item of fruit and vegetables, and certainly not to this item.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I was going to speak of a different matter.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: The point of order is well taken by the minister. We have had a general discussion lasting some days and I understand that it is the wish of the committee to ask direct questions on individual items as they are reached. Again I must ask the committee to remain within the orbit of the item before the Chair. We are on item 1, dealing with administration.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I am particularly interested in item 1, Mr. Chairman, because I have some questions to put to the minister in connection with administration. I assume this item covers all phases of agriculture.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order. The item does not cover all phases of agriculture.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I should like to speak on departmental administration in connection with the administrator of fertilizer.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is provided for under another item farther down.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I think I am entitled to say this, Mr. Chairman. I represent the largest farming riding in British Columbia. I do not say the best but the largest, and we are entirely dissatisfied with agriculture as run by any other department than that of the present competent minister of that department.
Mr. NICHOJjSON : Although the minister is not making very rapid progress with his estimates, I think the general comments that have been made have been of such a nature that one might conclude that the farmers across Canada are not as much dissatisfied with agricultural policies as on former occasions. In my opinion the farmers of this country deserve a great deal of credit for having achieved such records of production in spite of the fact that they were dissatisfied until very recently with government policies relating to agriculture. They felt that there was no good reason why agricultural prices should be kept at such, low levels when the government was buying everything else on a cost-plus basis. But in spite of their dissatisfaction they have surpassed all previous records of production.
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It has been demonstrated that we do not have to have foreign markets in order to produce large quantities of food and to give our people more bread, more milk, more cheese, more butter, and more bacon. It is interesting to note that we were able to ship to Great Britain in 1943 over 5,000,000 hundredweight of pork products as compared with 1,800,000 hundredweight in 1939; 98,000,000 bushels of wheat in 1943 as compared with 61,000,000 bushels in 1939; 868,000 hundredweight of fish as compared with 368,000 hundredweight in 1939; over 1,000,000 pounds of cheese as compared with 811,000 pounds in 1939; 40,000,000 dozen eggs as compared^ with 1,000,000 dozen eggs in 1939. In spite of these very large gifts, and everyone in Canada agreed that these gifts should be made to the people of Great Britain, who were making sacrifices such as we in Canada were not required to make, we were able to consume more milk ourselves, more cheese, beef, pork, chickens, potatoes, eggs, tomatoes and citrus fruits, as well as coffee and cocoa. We were short on butter and refined sugar and tea, but we actually consumed more pounds of these other commodities than we did in the year before the war. I think, therefore, that any administration in the future will find it difficult to satisfy the Canadian people that we cannot produce at least enough food to maintain a healthy nation in this dominion. What I really' wish to discuss-


Mr. REID:: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Chairman. A short time ago you pointed out to the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) that he could not make the remarks he was making, and be in order under administration, and we have been listening to the present speech on everything under agriculture. I do not object to his speech, but I am asking for fair play.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Surely the committee
does not expect me to rise every minute-


Thomas Reid: You are the chairman.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: -and call hon. members to order. Hon. members should realize the importance of observing the rules. I have pointed this out several times to-day, and I suggest that the time has come when hon. members should stick to the item before the chair.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: I said that I was about to conclude my remarks on this particular matter, but I do not see that it is possible for me to say what I have to say on any other single item; and it is unfair for certain members, after they have spoken as long as they pleased, to require that further discussion be shut off. I would like the minister to make a

statement as to the division of jurisdiction between the provincial departments of agriculture and the federal department. I have in mind the provision for the health of animals. The federal government apparently thinks some money should be spent in connection with this important branch of agriculture; but when it comes to providing a comprehensive scheme to see that the policies which any government might wish to be put into effect should be carried to their logical conclusion, the administration does not want to go far enough. For example, we want to inspect the carcasses of animals that are slaughtered in the abattoirs of the country. We want to make sure that cattle slaughtered in Winnipeg and shipped to Toronto or Montreal shall have been inspected sc that the people in these places will not be expected to consume meat that is unfit for human consumption; but there is not a town or village in the province in which I live where we have any organization to supervise the carcasses that are offered for sale.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order. Under item 16 on page 4 of the estimates we find health of animals, administration, et cetera. The present discussion could come under that item.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: But I would not be permitted under that item to discuss the relationship between the federal health of animals branch and the provincial branches.


James Garfield Gardiner: If you have any right to discuss it anywhere, that is where you can discuss it.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: That is a matter of administration that must be discussed now if it is discussed at all. However, I must abide by the Chairman's decision.


James Garfield Gardiner: There is an item of administration in each of the divisions. This is general administration we are now discussing, but there is an item for administration in each one of the divisions of the department and we shall come to them as we go down the estimates.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weybum):: I rise to a point of order. I would point out that the hen. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Nicholson) was not dealing with the health of animals except by way of illustration, to inquire of the minister exactly what is the liaison between the federal department and the provincial departments. The hon. member cannot rise on each item and ask, "What is the liaison between the federal department and the provincial department with respect to this matter?" He is asking a general question con-

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cerning the whole field of administration. He wishes to know how the work is coordinated between the federal department and the respective provincial departments, and that is a perfectly legitimate question which comes within the purview of this item.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: According to standing order 58, speeches in committee of the whole must be strictly relevant to the item under consideration. I ruled a few moments ago that the remarks of the hon. member for Mackenzie should be reserved until we reach item 16. That item affords ample scope for the discussion of the subject he is now bringing up


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: We are not discussing health of animals or contagious diseases except as a matter of illustration.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I have given my decision.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I discussed this matter with the department recently to find out where their jurisdiction starts and where it ends, and the information I was able to get was (hat the federal department was concerned about the health of animals from the point of view of interprovincial trade but was not concerned about it from the point of view of seeing to it that the people in the towns and villages have milk that is produced under proper conditions, so that there will be in every rural community proper tests to find out whether cows are infected or not.


James Garfield Gardiner: The purpose of this particular vote is to provide for expenses of the minister's office, the deputy minister's office and their respective staffs, and also the departmental library. These are the items we are discussing, and I would suggest that while it has been usual to allow considerable latitude in discussing matters having to do with agriculture when considering the general vote on administration, when we get to the point where no one can rise in his place and make a new speech on the item but deals with the details provided in the different votes, then the Chairman is quite within his rights in ruling that we had better go on with those items and get down to a proper discussion of a particular item before the Chair. The present speech would be a good one on the health of animals division; but if we are to have a discussion on health of animals now, and a week from now come back and discuss the same question all over again, then we are breaking every rule that the house has set.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: The hon. member for Swift Current has the floor.


Mr. GRAHAM:: I am bowing to the minister's remarks. I will' wait until I come to the proper item.


Mr. RICKARD:: I rather hesitate to take part in this debate to-night after listening to the remarks made by the chairman and by the minister. What I had in mind was more a discussion of general problems of agriculture and I thought that might come under administration as well as anywhere else. What prompted me, perhaps more than anything else, to say what I am going to say is that on February 18, the hon. member for Yorkton spoke for about forty minutes and he discussed the problems of agriculture, wheat, stock of all kinds and fruit and everything along that line. The hon. member for Yorkton painted what I would consider a very gloomy picture for agriculture. I do not think that is the proper thing to do. I believe that we should paint a picture for agriculture so that the boys we have on the farms to-day and the boys we have overseas fighting our battles will come back to the farms and remain in an industry that is something worth while.
As reported at page 644 of Hansard the hon. member for Yorkton spoke about the policies of the government. He concluded by saying, "It has failed entirely". I take exception to that, because I do not think there has been a government in a good many years that has done as much for agriculture as has this government. I believe the Minister of Agriculture, his officials and the government as well are to be congratulated upon what they have done for the farmers.
The hon. member for Yorkton went on to talk about wheat, the grain exchange and the packing plants. He spoke about the price of cattle and the price of cows. He complained that in the west they could get only 7i cents a pound for cows. I have two cows in my stable and last week I could get eight cents a pound for them. I think that is a good price for cows. I do not think there is any very great complaint about the price of 7J cents for cows at farms in the west. He then w'ent on to speak about fruit and the fruit growers of the Okanagan valley. He said that the price was so low it was not up to the cost of production. Well, I do know something about fruit. I think the apple growers in particular are well satisfied with the policies of this government, and with what this government has done for the fruit industry. We have had good prices this year for all kinds of fruit. The government have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on the fruit industry. They thought it was a
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war casualty, and it was. They have spent thousands of dollars to protect the apple growers and to give them a decent break.
As I said before, I do not like to hear agriculture put on such a low plane. I have been a farmer all my life and I think that to-day there is no better job than farming. During the last five years the farmers have made a wonderful contribution to this war. They have done it with a scarcity of labour, a shortage of machinery and many other things. They are to be congratulated upon what they have done and the government are to be congratulated upon what they have done for agriculture.
The Minister of Agriculture has been criticized all over this dominion. I have not always agreed with him. I have not any particular use for any man who is a yes-man. I think when you have an idea you should express it. Nor have I any more use for a man who is always finding fault, always criticizing. If we have criticisms to offer, we should offer them in a constructive way and try to be of some assistance to the government, especially in time of war.
The Minister- of Agriculture was criticized about the price of hogs at the time of the last agreement with Great Britain, because he suggested that the quota might be lowered and for, I believe, not increasing the price to S20 a hundred. At the time I said that the price should be more than it was. I think everybody agreed with that. But the minister announced the increase by bonuses and that has been of great help to the hog producers. If that had been announced at the time of the agreement it is possible there would not have been as many sows sent to market. However, that is not the only reason why sows were shipped to market. I know in Ontario we had the worst grain crop We have had in a great many years. That is the main reason why hogs were shipped to market in this province. A great many farmers would rather have 830 or $40 from their sows than pay $300 or $400 for grain, because they have not been used to doing that kind of business. ' There is the odd man in the business who does that, but the ordinary farmer in Ontario does not do it. What the government did in regard to freight assistance has been of great help to the eastern farmer. There is no question about that.
I was not too favourable to the coarse grain proposition when the minister brought it in some two or three years ago, but as far as Ontario is concerned it has turned out that we have the grain in years like this. As the

minister said this afternoon, it has cost $80,000,000 of the people's money to put that programme across. It might be money well spent.
The other night I listened to one or two members talking about the price of cattle and the spread that there should be between the price that the stocker would sell at and what one should receive for cattle. I can well remember that when I was a boy my father used to tell me he would need to have a profit of two cents a pound plus the gain on the steer if he was going to make any money. I have not followed that business very closely, but I think it is perhaps about right. However, I cannot see how any government can legislate for people in that business. I think they have to know their business, and not pay too much for their feeder cattle.
Then we heard the subject of wheat debated. Perhaps I am a little out of order now, but not any more out of order than some other hon. members have been. I believe the government is paying $1.23 or $1.25 a bushel for No. 1 western wheat at Fort William, plus participation certificates which may amount to anywhere from sixteen to twenty cents. In Ontario we are getting only SI.10 or $1.12 a bushel for wheat at the barn. I think something should be done. I do not know how many western members are going to rise and support the eastern wheat grower. It is true we do not produce very much wheat, probably twenty million bushels. In order to get participation certificates we have to export our wheat, which we do not do. I think some arrangement should be made whereby Ontario wheat should return $1.50 a bushel at the mill.
Then there is the question of fruit, eggs, cheese, butter and all other farm products. I was amused this afternoon when the hon. member for Souris said he was interested in the United States market. He thought we should still be shipping cattle across to the United States. It is not so very long ago, as I well remember, that we heard our friends of the Conservative party of that time saying, "No truck or trade with the Yankees. We do not want to have anything to do with them."


James Arthur Ross: You never heard that from the hon. member for Souris.
Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre). We heard it from your friend Mr. Stevens.


James Arthur Ross: I never made that statement.


Wilbert Franklin (Frank) Rickard: "No truck or trade with the Yankees." I well remember that statement being made a few years ago. Let me say this to the hon. member-

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Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Is the hon. member for Souris repudiating the statements of his former colleague from Vancouver?


Gordon Graydon: He is not under crossexamination. Sit down.


Wilbert Franklin (Frank) Rickard: I remember when I was getting three cents a pound for hogs, four cents a pound for cattle, twelve cents a dozen for eggs, eleven or twelve cents a pound for butter. I do not think there is any very great argument as far as the Conservative party is concerned about what they have done for the farmers. I believe history will write that story pretty well/


Gordon Graydon: The farmers do not
think much of you fellows.


Wilbert Franklin (Frank) Rickard: Without taking more
time, Mr. Chairman, I want to repeat that in my opinion this government should be congratulated upon what they have done for the farmer. I have no doubt in my mind that the next parliament will still be under a Liberal government, for I do not believe the farmers of this country will support the party led by Mr. Bracken or the C.C.F.


Mr. MARSHALL:: I have quite a number of questions I should like to ask the minister, but I know perfectly well that as soon as I commence my examination I shall be declared out of order. However, there are one or two questions which I am sure are perfectly in order. I think very few people in Canada realize that the Minister of Agriculture is the custodian of the morals of the people when they are at the race tracks, since I understand he is the supervisor of all race track activities. I hope I am in order on this?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, the hon. member
is in order.


James Alexander Marshall: I have been in this
house for a considerable number of years, but I have not yet heard the minister give an account of his stewardship in that regard, and I think it is about time he did so. I understand that race track activities are supervised by the mounted police in certain provinces, while in other provinces they are under the supervision of the civilian authorities. I do not understand why there should be this difference, and I should like the minister to give an explanation. I wish to know also the arrangements with respect to jockeys and horses coming across from the United States, and the arrangement with regard to the payment of prize money, which naturally would go back to the United States. Would the minister care to give the committee a full and
complete explanation of this, for it does seem to me strange that from an activity as great as this the receipts as far as the department is concerned should be only about $7,000 in 1942-43, and $5,000 in the previous year? That seems a very low figure, and I would ask the minister to make a statement with respect to the operation of these race tracks.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think it is true that
the policing in every province with the exception of Quebec is done by the mounted police; in Quebec it is done by civilian appointees. That has been the situation for a very considerable length of time; I am not sure just when it had its origin, but it has not been changed. I do not know of any particular reason why it should be the one way or the other, but apparently the policing is being done satisfactorily, since we have had no complaints with regard to it.


James Alexander Marshall: I also asked with
respect to jockeys and horses coming from the United States and the prize money won by these horses. What arrangements have been made between Canada and the United States with respect to money taken back across the line?


James Garfield Gardiner: That matter is handled by another department; we have nothing to do with it. The arrangements in regard to jockeys coming from the United States to perform in this country are made between the racing associations. As far as the money is concerned, that is a matter for the Department of National Revenue.


James Alexander Marshall: Could the minister say
why civilian authorities do the policing in the province of Quebec?


James Garfield Gardiner: I gave the only explanation I know of; they have always done it, as far as my records go. There has been no complaint; apparently the policing has been absolutely satisfactory, and we have not changed the system.


Gordon Graydon: As the hon. member for Camrose has pointed out,- the supervision of race track betting very properly belongs to the Minister of Agriculture. Bearing in mind the fact that the minister has occupied this position for some eight years now, I would presume that naturally, in carrying out his duties, he would make periodic inspections of the race tracks to see how things were progressing. Could the minister tell the committee how many inspections he has made during that time and what plan he follows in supervising the work which is under his jurisdiction?
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James Garfield Gardiner: I am sorry to have to admit that I have not seen a horse race in eight years. I should very much like to find time to see one.


Mr. GRANT:: I am not going to make a
speech, Mr. Chairman; I wish to say just a few words in order to keep the record straight. The last time the minister's estimates were under consideration the hon. member for Selkirk said, as reported at page 672 of Hansard, that he had sold cattle for $2.65 a hundredweight and hogs for $2.50. At that time I tried to get him to be a little more definite, but he brushed me aside by saying, "You are all tarred with the one brush". I tried to show that he had not sold cattle and hogs at such low prices under this administration. When I went to my room I telephoned the marketing branch of the Department of Agriculture for the prices of hogs and cattle from 1931 to 1943. In 1936, after the Liberals had been in power for only a few months, the general price for cattle was $3.45 a hundredweight, which price increased every year until in 1939 it reached $5.10. The price of hogs in 1936 was $7.95 a hundredweight, and that price also increased each year under Liberal rule until 1939, when it was $9.64. So that the hon. member should not include the last five years of that decade in the depression period. When the hon. member told me we were all tarred with the same brush he received great applause from the Conservative benches, which just goes to show that while hon. gentlemen on that side of the house do not love the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation they always applaud them when they misrepresent this party.


William Scottie Bryce: I can assure the hon. member that I sold hogs in Winnipeg for $2.65 a hundredweight. I sold steers for two and a half cents a pound on the Winnipeg market.


An hon. MEMBER:: When?


An hon. MEMBER:: 1932.


Thomas Vincent Grant: Not since 1935, but they
might have been sold for fox meat.


William Scottie Bryce: It is the system we are living under that caused it, and one is as bad as the other. I do not think the Conservatives would be any better if they were in power; they would not do any better than the present government are doing-and maybe a lot worse. But what led up to the $2.50 hog? A Liberal government led up to it-one government after another. We can go back sixty years, and we find the same thing.


Mr. TUCKER:: What system are you in favour of?
fMr. Graydon.]


James Garfield Gardiner: I think the hon. member was a Liberal at that time.


Walter Adam Tucker: Are you in favour of the recently adopted policy of the C.C.F. in British Columbia, a system of collectivization of farm lands, as in Russia? Are you in favour of that?


William Scottie Bryce: The hon. member surprises me.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Shall the item carry?


James Lester Douglas: No. Two weeks ago I asked the minister one or two questions, but in the general melee of discussion he has not dealt with them. I would ask him now to make a statement, first, as to whether it would be possible for the government to announce coarse grain prices within a short time.


James Garfield Gardiner: I dealt with that this afternoon when the hon. member was out of the house.


James Lester Douglas: With reference to the 1944 crop?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. I dealt with it this afternoon in answer to the hon. member for Souris. I think my hon. friend was out of the house, but he can read it in Hansard to-morrow.


James Lester Douglas: All right. My second point is this: Is the minister prepared to accede to the request by the Canadian federation of agriculture that these subsidies on various prices be included in the floor price, and thereby to adopt the same principle for agriculture that has already been adopted for labour? The minister knows the cost of living bonus is now included in the basic wage, and the suggestion has been made by agricultural organizations, and I think properly so, that subsidies paid to agriculture should be incorporated in the floor price; because, as every hon. member knows, six months after the war these subsidies automatically cease. Floor prices then will be far below what the farmer is now receiving.
Then, would the minister make a statement, either now or when we reach the item respecting wheat acreage reduction, as to whether there will be any compensation, in view of the fact that there is to be this reduction in subsidies to the farmer by the discontinuing of the wheat reduction bonus? I suggested the other evening to the minister that, after all, the wheat acreage reduction bonus was paid to the farmer, not as a subsidy but in compensation for the fact that he was not going to be allowed to sell more than sixty-five per

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cent of his basic acreage. It was not the farmer's fault that the government was not in a position to accept or store all his wheat. The government was asking him to grow less wheat, and in return for the smaller receipts from his wheat crop it agreed to give him this bonus.
I realize this comes under the Department of Trade and Commerce, but I asked the minister if by way of quid pro quo consideration could be given to giving the farmer, in return for the discontinuance of the wheat acreage reduction bonus, some compensation by way of the removal of the wheat quota, or increasing the quota so that the farmer would be allowed to deliver all his basic acreage.
Then, would the minister under 'this item make a report to the committee with respect to UNRRA-United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration?


James Garfield Gardiner: That comes under the Department of External Affairs.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: It is my understanding that the deputy minister of the Department of Agriculture attended a conference at Hot Springs, Virginia, and acted on behalf of the Canadian government.


James Garfield Gardiner: That had nothing to do with UNRRA which was set up much later, and has to do with the Department of External Affairs. We are not represented there.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: But we were represented at the united nations food conference at Hot Springs.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, at the food conference.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Then, either now or at some later time would the minister make a report to the committee with respect to the outcome of that conference? Most hon. members think that conference was a forward step, and we were very glad the Canadian people were so ably represented. I believe the minister ought to take this, or some other early opportunity to tell the country something about the objectives of that conference, and the part Canada is to play in the task of feeding the people of the united nations.
I believe most hon. members have received a copy of the address delivered by H. H. Hannam, president of the Canadian federation of agriculture, who was one of the delegates to the food conference. His address is interesting indeed, because in it he points out that the conference set the united nations the task 100-73
of producing in adequate supplies the right kind of food for all the human family. I believe Canada can play a great and important part in the post-war era, under a scheme such as set out at that conference. Hon. members and the country generally would be interested in any report the minister would make respecting plans which emanated from the conference, the part Canada played in the preparation of those plans, the contribution we shall make with other nations, and the coordination there will be among various nations in supplying food for the post-war world.


James Garfield Gardiner: This afternoon I dealt with all the items mentioned by the hon. member, with the exception of the last one. I spoke to the committee for half an hour or more, and during that time covered the points he has mentioned. I do not think I should be expected to go back over them for the benefit of those who were not in the house at the time.
With respect to the last matter he mentioned I would point out to the committee that the Hot Springs conference was held last summer, and following it a report was made to the house by the Prime Minister. I would hesitate to make a report again, as Minister of Agriculture, when one had been made on behalf of the government by the Prime Minister.
In addition to that, there has been some activity since last summer, and reports have been made with regard to the activities of certain committees. Those have not yet been presented to council, but after they are presented they may be discussed here, either by the Prime Minister or by myself. At some later time, perhaps when the items under the war expenditures measure are being discussed, we might have a discussion.


Mrs. NIELSEN:: I intended to support what has been said by the hon. member for Weyburn. It would be greatly in the interests of Saskatchewan farmers if the Minister of Agriculture could give them greater assurance than they now have as to the possibility of an increase in farm production during the immediate post-war years. I realize, however, that this discussion might be more properly had when the war expenditures estimates with respect to agriculture are before the committee. I believe the minister has made that suggestion.


Mr. PERLEY:: This afternoon there was a general discussion respecting floor prices. Did I understand the minister to say that legislation was being prepared to provide for floor prices, but that prices would be practically the

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same as are paid now; that is, on oats and barley an addition of ten and fifteen cents respectively, and that for wheat the price would be practically the same as is now being paid by the wheat board?


James Garfield Gardiner: When we were discussing coarse grains I was not referring to floor prices. The hon. member for Souris asked me whether the present prices, plus subsidies of ten and fifteen cents, would apply on next year's crop. I stated to him that while this was a matter that really came under the Department of Trade and Commerce I was able to say without any hesitation that I did not think there is any intention that the return would be lowered for the crop to be seeded in 1944. But I did not discuss that in relation to floor prices. The bill with regard to floors which will be brought in will be in general terms. It will give authority to do certain things and those things will be done as the circumstances arise.


Ernest Edward Perley: The minister says he is quite certain they will not be any lower, but what interpretation is he putting on that?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is the interpretation which I gave this afternoon. Add the payment of ten cents a bushel to forty-five cents for oats and that gives fifty-five cents; add the fifteen cents a bushel to sixty cents for barley and you get seventy-five cents; then you take what can be obtained on the market. If you obtain the ceilings you would have 6-1/2 cents for oats and 4-3/4 cents for barley. Therefore, you could say that the prices could be up to seventy-nine cents for barley and about 61-1/2 cents for oats.
In addition there would be profits on sales made in the United States at prices higher than Canadian prices. The farmers would have participation certificates upon which they could draw additional earnings on oats and barley, provided the United States prices are higher and that a sufficient quantity is sold to counteract any sales made in Canada at the ceiling price and still give a profit. That is the present position, and I cannot conceive of there being any lowering of that position in relation to the crop to be seeded in the spring of 1944.


Ernest Edward Perley: Could the minister indicate at what price our barley is being sold in the United States? I understand they are paying SI.27.


James Garfield Gardiner: Our oats and barley
would be sold on the United States market at whatever prices are being paid there. Those grains are being sold on this market at the ceiling prices, and in the accounting the two

amounts received are put into a pool and spread over all the sales of oats and barley, both in Canada and in the United States. If there is anything left over and above the ten cents on oats and the fifteen cents on barley, it is paid to the farmers under participation certificates. Again I may say that we are discussing trade and commerce affairs.


Ernest Edward Perley: Who is doing the exporting, the wheat board or the exporters on the exchange?


James Garfield Gardiner: The grain exporters are doing the exporting, but it is being exported under permits given by the wheat board.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The minister said he had covered my question in the answer he made to the hon. member for Souris. He dealt with coarse grains, and I should like to know if the same principle will apply to other commodities subsidized by the government. Is it the intention to include the subsidy in the floor price?


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not think those would be included in any arrangement for floor prices. I am simply saying that that is a position for next year. The provisions of the bill providing floor prices to be brought down, at which time all these matters may be discussed, will apply six months after the war is over. We are now working under the War Measures Act which will run until six months after the war, and the bill to be brought down will provide for activities following that time. We will then take action based upon the circumstances then existing.


Mr. FAIR:: Since the Saskatchewan combatants have cooled off to some extent, perhaps I shall have a chance to Say a few words without getting into the family squabble. I am not going to discuss any particular phase of agriculture at this time, but I wish to say something about agriculture in general. We have heard a number of armchair farmers state this evening, and it has been said before, that the farmers are prosperous. Even some of our practical farmers have said that agriculture is better off to-day than it has ever been before. I want to show, if possible, that our farmers are not yet receiving anywhere near that to which they are entitled.
I think it is generally agreed that the farming population of Canada comprises about one-third of the total population. If we are to have fair play in Canada, then one-third of the population should receive approximately one-third of the national income. I do not know of any group that works harder or

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longer hours than our farming population. I should like to give the percentage of national income which our farming population has received over a period of years, starting with 1926, one of our good years. The .figures are:
Year	Percent
1926		 17-8
1927		 16-4
1928		 17-6
1929		 14-6
This is the period which some of our economists have used in arriving at parity prices. During that time our farmers received an average of 16'6 per cent of the national income, or approximately one-sixth, when they were entitled to receive one-third. I do not think it is right to attempt to compute parity prices on that basis. Taking wheat as an illustration, if parity prices were in existence to-day we should be receiving not less than $1.41 or S1.42 a bushel. Since we were receiving only one-sixth of the national income at that time, I think the committee will readily agree that a price of $1.41 is much below what it should be if we are given that to which we are entitled.
We are told about the $80,000,000 which has been paid in bonuses. If we look back to the time when we were receiving seventy cents a bushel for No. 1 * northern wheat at Fort William, it would appear that we were losing not less than $200,000,000 on our wheat crop alone in one year. We are told also about the good prices which have prevailed since the present government came into office. My recollection is that in 1935 wheat was selling at 87i cents a bushel, and on one occasion since then it has gone down as low as seventy cents a bushel. Then a bill was brought into the house to pay sixty cents a bushel for No. 1 northern at Fort William. The fact that we are receiving $1.25 a bushel to-day for our wheat is not due entirely to the policies of this government. The war has brought about these present prices, and when we consider the cost in human life, it has been expensive indeed. Going back to the percentages of national income received by agriculture, I quote again:
Year	Percent
1929		 14-6
1930		   9-6
1931		 6-3
1932		 5-0
Our farmers are being criticized because they are in debt, and on occasion they have been charged with dishonesty because they do not pay their debts. If some of these armchair farmers or politicians can tell me how farmers can pa}' their debts when they are receiving
only five per cent of the national income, then I shall learn something very valuable. The figures continue:
Year	Percent
1933		 6-6
1934		 9-1
1935		 9-3
1936		 11-4
1937		 11-5
1938		 10-9
1939		 12-5
1940		 11-0
I am not giving figures beyond 1940, because that is when the war started. If agriculture is to be placed on a sound footing; if Canada is to be placed on a sound footing, then our farming population must receive a different deal. A rise of half a cent or one cent in the price of different commodities will not by any means correct the injustices that are being put over our farmers. I intend to speak of other agricultural matters as we reach other items, but for the time being I make these few remarks on behalf of Canadian farmers east as well as west.


Mr. WRIGHT:: Can the minister give the committee any information as to whether a long-term bacon contract has been negotiated with Great Britain? When the two-year contract was negotiated, quite a bit of publicity was given to the fact that a longer term contract would be negotiated the next time. We have heard nothing of that since, and I was wondering what progress the negotiations had made.


James Garfield Gardiner: I informed the hon. member for Portage la Prairie this afternoon that the contract had not yet been signed. I would prefer to discuss it on the war vote, by which time there is a possibility it may be signed. It has been pretty fully negotiated, but final signatures have not been put to the contract.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
2. Publicity and extension division, $103,248.
George Alexander Cruickshank: Does this cover potatoes?


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I notice by page A-10 of the auditor general's report that expenditures last year for salaries and wages were $70,575.51, and the cost of living bonus, $7,302.23, making approximately $78,000; and the amount spent for printing and stationery was $12,448.24. It struck me as strange that a branch that gets out publicity should spend six and a half times as much on salaries and wages as on printing and stationery, which has to do with the main function of the branch. Would the minister explain?
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James Garfield Gardiner: The preparation of the material is done under this vote, but the expenditure on publications and pamphlets is charged up to each branch concerned, each carrying its own printing costs. All the salaries and wages are charged to this vote.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Then the 812,000 odd would be only for the printing done within the branch, and not for the publicity matter they get out?


James Garfield Gardiner: That is so.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: What publications have they put out over the past year?


James Garfield Gardiner: There have been 1,300,000 publications mailed on personal request; 576,500 publications mailed in bulk for distribution; 1,591,059 copies of market reports mailed on request; 9,991,852 copies of mimeographed and multigraphed publications on market information, news comments, leaflets, et cetera.


James Alexander Marshall: Does this tally with the information found on page 134 of the annual report of the department?


James Garfield Gardiner: The report is for the preceding year, ended March 31, 1943. We are now discussing next year's vote.


James Alexander Marshall: But the list of publications which the minister gave was for the current year?


James Garfield Gardiner: Distributed in the current year, yes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
3. Advisory committee on agricultural services, $2,000.
James Alexander Marshall: How much of this vote was spent last year? I understand that the year before the amount of the expenditure was only $336.19.


James Garfield Gardiner: The vote last year was practically all spent, and there is an increase of $320 provided for this year.


James Alexander Marshall: Last year the expenditure was only $336.19.


James Garfield Gardiner: That was the previous year.


James Alexander Marshall: Was the vote last year all spent, and who are the members of the advisory committee?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are quite a number of committees. The national committee is composed of Doctor H. Barton, deputy minister of agriculture; G. I. Christie, president, Ontario Agricultural College; W. R. Reek,

deputy minister, Ontario Department of Agriculture; G. Morin, acting deputy minister of agriculture for Quebec; E. S. Archibald, director, experimental farm services; J. M. Swaine, director, science services; A. M. Shaw, director, marketing services; R. S. Hamer, director marketing services, Ottawa; L. C. McOuat, general agricultural agent, Canadian Pacific Railway Company; A. E. MacLaurin, acting general secretary, C.S.T.A., Ottawa; W. H. Cook, National Research. Council, Ottawa; H. L. Trueman, assistant director, science services.


James Alexander Marshall: Is that a permanent organization?


James Garfield Gardiner: It carries on from year to year but can be changed.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Was the whole expenditure spent on the national committee?


James Garfield Gardiner: No; there are a number of subcommittees and, as a matter of fact, the money is nearly all spent on the meetings of the subcommittees. The national committee is composed of men working for the federal government or provincial governments who are drawing their regular salaries. There is also on the national committee the agricultural representative of the Canadian Pacific railway. Since they all are drawing their regular salaries, their expenses would be light.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Why is the vote down to 81,680 this year? Is it contemplated to have the committees meet as often as before?


James Garfield Gardiner: The decrease is largely owing to the fact that the war is on and these men are engaged in various war activities, but we hope as we get to the end of the war and out of it we may have more meetings.


James Alexander Marshall: Is the vote not increased?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is increased for next year as compared with this, but there is a decrease as compared with a previous year.


Gordon Graydon: I did not hear how often the advisory committee on agricultural services had met during the last fiscal year. Is the minister prepared to table a report of the advisory committee, as I think he promised to do last year?


James Garfield Gardiner: The advisory committee does not really make a report in the sense of the, reports which are tabled in the house. They are advisory to myself as minister and to the different provincial governments with regard to certain activities in relation to agriculture. There are subcommittees from which reports come.

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Gordon Graydon: The minister omitted to answer one question, and that is the number of meetings held by the advisory committee during the past fiscal year.


James Garfield Gardiner: There was really no general meeting of this committee. There have been meetings of subcommittees set up which were held in the last year. I have not the exact number, but there have been meetings and the fact that this committee has not met this last year is in part the reason why the expenses are down at this time for that purpose. Among the names I have given will be found those of the men who are busiest in the department during the War period, and it is difficult to have meetings.


Gordon Graydon: When the minister mentions subcommittees, is the general advisory committee divided into subcommittees for reasons of convenience and dispatch?


James Garfield Gardiner: They appoint standing committees with different personnel.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Has the
minister the personnel? I do not want a long list, but it would give some idea as to who the men are and what organizations they represent.


James Garfield Gardiner: They could be put on Hansard, though I might read the names of the different chairmen: Agricultural Outlook Committee, Doctor J. F. Booth; Barley and Linseed Flax Committee, T. J. Harrison, of the Dominion Board of Grain Commissioners, Winnipeg; Seed Grain Committee, Doctor L. H. Newman; Regional Committee on Soil Drifting, Doctor E. S. Hopkins; Sheep Committee, James Telfer; Feed Committee, W. R. White; Beef Committee, R. S. Hamer; Weed Committee, Doctor K. W. Neatby; Soil Survey Committee, Doctor A. Leahey. The list can be given.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I hope that provision is made for representation from farm organizations like the pools and the cooperatives.


William Gilbert Weir: These are scientific committees.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Well, even on scientific committees.


William Gilbert Weir: Research.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I know that some are research, but it would be an excellent thing to have someone from the federation of agriculture or from the live stock or poultry or dairy pools sitting on the committees. After all, in the labour organization there has always
been some labour man sitting on the committee, or where there has not been there should have been. The same should be true of agriculture. If the government is to get the best possible cooperation from the farmers across the country it will be obtained by having some farmers on the committee.


James Garfield Gardiner: These committees consist of technical men from the provincial and federal branches, but they do hold meetings
to which representatives of farm organizations are invited. They attend and discuss matters with them. The question whether there should be representation is one that can be given consideration, but up to date, it has not.been considered wise to have such representation on the committees. However, representatives of farm organizations are free at all times to discuss these matters with the committees, and they do make considerable use of that freedom.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: It would be a fine gesture to have on the main committee the president or secretary, or perhaps the president and secretary, of the federation of agriculture, or some other person who would have contact with farmers' organizations. They could bring matters to the attention of the minister's department more readily and the minister would be able to make known his wants so as to get full cooperation from the farmers in any venture undertaken.


James Garfield Gardiner: I shall hand the list to Hansard:
Subcommittees of the National Advisory Committee on Agricultural Services
Agricultural Outlook Committee
Doctor J. F. Booth, Chairman, Marketing Service, Dominion Department of Agriculture, Ottawa.
J. E. Lattimer	E. C. Hope
J. B. Rutherford	F. M. Clement
T. G. Major	W. Y. Longley
Barley and Linseed Flax Committee T. J. Harrison, Chairman, Dominion Board of Grain Commissioners, Winnipeg, Man.
O.	S. Longman L. Hutchinson
P.	F. Bredt J. S. Moffatt P. C. Watt Doctor H. C. Grant G. Bailey
Doctor L. H. New'man Doctor R. Newton Doctor E. W. Crampton
B.	Catton J. M. McCabe R. Whiteman Doctor K. W. Neatby
Seed Grain Committee
Doctor L. H. New'man, Chairman, Dominion Cerealist, Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa.
W. T. G. Wiener J. E. Blakeman P. J. Olsen	S. H. Vigor
0. S. Longman	T. W. L. Burke
F. E. Foulds	N. Young
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Regional Committee on Soil Drifting
Doctor E. S. Hopkins, Chairman, Associate Director, Experimental Farms Service, Ottawa. 0. S. Longman	J. Mitchell
Sheep Committee
James Telfer, Chairman, Production Service, Dominion Department of Agriculture, Ottawa.
E.	S. Archibald
F.	E. Lathe A. Morin R. Newton A. M. Shaw
R. D. Sinclair W. H. J. Tisdale G. W. Muir J. B. Smi.th,
Secretary
Feed Committee
W. R. White, Chairman, Production Service, Dominion Department of Agriculture, Ottawa. R. G. Knox	E. W. Crampton
Beef Committee
R. S. Hamer, Chairman, Director, Production Service, Dominion Department of Agriculture, Ottawa.
J. P. Sackville	C. F. Bailey
R. G. Knox	W. D. Davies
L. B. Thomson	Secretary
Weed Committee
Doctor K. W. Neatby, Chairman, Director, Agricultural Department, North-West Line Elevators Association, Winnipeg, Man.
E.	S. Hopkins	W. H. Wright
Soil Survey Committee
Doctor A. Leahey, Chairman, Central Experimental Farm, Dominion Department of Agriculture.
F.	A. Wyatt	P. C. Stobbe
G.	N. Ruhnke


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
L Contributions to empire bureaux, $36,407.
Gordon Graydon: Perhaps this was put on Hansard last year, but the answer is not fresh in my mind. What is the function of the empire bureaux, and how are the contributions, as far as Canada is concerned, arrived at in the figures shown in the estimates?


James Garfield Gardiner: The amounts paid by each of the different countries contributing are arrived at at conferences held from time to time. The last conference was in 1936, and present contributions have been set as a result of that conference. The different countries within the empire meet together for the discussion of questions that are of mutual interest.


Gordon Graydon: Who are the representatives on the bureaux as far as Canada is concerned?


James Garfield Gardiner: The names of the different bureaux that make up the organization are: soil science bureau; animal health bureau; animal nutrition bureau; animal genetics bureau; two bureaux of plant genetics, one at Cambridge and one in Wales; bureau of fruit

production; and bureau of agriculture parasitology. That is the group. There are special men who are carrying on that kind of work, scientific experts representing all the countries.


Gordon Graydon: Are any of the bureaux located in Canada?


James Garfield Gardiner: : There is one here at the- present time, Famham House. That has been located here during the war, but its home is in Britain.


James Alexander Marshall: There are four: Farnham House laboratory, imperial agricultural bureaux, imperial bureau of entomology; imperial bureau of mycology.-


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


James Alexander Marshall: Are these bureaux the minister has just mentioned subdivisions of the four main organizations mentioned in the auditor general's report?


James Garfield Gardiner: I should have read the additional bureaux organized since 1928. They are: dairy science bureau; the mycological institute, and the institute of entomology. These have been organized since and brought into the bureaux.


James Alexander Marshall: Are they taken care of under the vote?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, all of them.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Science service-
5. Science service administration, $25,005.
Ernest Edward Perley: Under science service there are five or six items that are important. In the minister's report for the year ended March 31, 1943, page 11 refers to science services. In the second paragraph it states that the work of the science service is directed toward a solution of practical problems of agriculture through the application of scientific investigation. I think very important work is being carried on in that connection, and I should like to ask the minister what system is used for distributing the information. I know pamphlets are sent out from time to time by the department and occasionally I get some. Generally, what is the system, and is there real value given for the expenditure and the work carried on? I mean, does the public get the information that this service can give?


James Garfield Gardiner: In connection with that activity every possible means of communication is made use of. We issue pamphlets and publish items in the weekly papers and have announcements made on the radio. As a

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matter of fact, we utilize practically every possible means of getting information related to this particular activity over to the public.


Ernest Edward Perley: What is the response? Do you get any response?


James Garfield Gardiner: Y.es. I understand there is continuous response coming in. We receive applications for further information and for some of the information that is referred to in write-ups in the press and announcements over the radio.


Roy Theodore Graham: 
James Garfield Gardiner: There have been
articles, I think, in Time magazine, the Reader's Digest and some other publications of that kind which have put forth the idea that you could take a sugar beet seed, which is in clusters, break it up into individual parts and thereby sow just one seed where you now sow clusters, and thus reduce the labour in connection with the thinning of the plants. I have some memory of hoeing beets and turnips and a few other things in my younger days, and I hope that this gentleman is right, that they have some kind of machine that will thin out these different vegetables, the seeds of which are sown in large numbers, and thus do away with the manual labour that has been necessary in the past. We have nothing to indicate that any system has been worked out which will get away from at least a greater part of the labour of thinning out these different kinds of plants which must be sown much thicker than you expect to have them finally in order to make sure that you have sufficient of them there to produce what you want to produce. Having sown them in that way by some method, you must go through and thin them. That is all the information we have in the matter, the information we read in these different articles that have been written with regard to it.


James Lester Douglas: I do not know whether the question I am about to ask comes under this item, but last year there was a discussion in the committee with regard to Russian dandelion, and it was said that twenty per cent latex was being derived from them. I believe the minister said that some investigation was being made into it. Has the minister or his department a report of their findings?


James Garfield Gardiner: We are growing the dandelions experimentally. It would be quite proper to discuss it under botany, or plant pathology, or experimental farms. The experiments are being carried out on our farms, and
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the discussion might properly come under botany. Probably we can make greater headway if we discuss it when Doctor Archibald is here because he has more knowledge of it.


John Horne Blackmore: Before we get too far away from the subject which the hon. member for Swift Current raised, the matter of sugar manufactured from sugar beets, I think it would be well to point out to the committee that in 1937 the beet sugar factories located in my constituency sold their sugar at four cents a pound. That sounds almost unbelievable, does it not? Yet in that year they made over $150 an acre for every acre in sugar beets that year. That sum of money was divided between the farmers and the manufacturer. I think that gives the lie to those who have maintained that the production of beet sugar in Canada is uneconomic. Then more recently the process which was mentioned by an hon. member has come into use, and several new types of labour-saving machinery have become available or are on the verge of becoming available, so that I think and in fact I am safe in saying I am sure the production of beet sugar in Canada will become an industry which we simply cannot afford to ignore. It has great possibilities.


James Garfield Gardiner: I presume the $150 were the gross receipts?


John Horne Blackmore: No; I believe those were the net profits; however, I shall get the figures. I had expected to discuss this matter under another item.


James Garfield Gardiner: It really would come under the experimental farm item; but I would suggest that the hon. member get the figures, because if there is a net profit of $150 an acre on land growing sugar beets there is not much of an argument for some of the demands that have been made upon the government.


John Horne Blackmore: I am not prepared to say whether that figure was gross or net, but I shall be prepared to discuss the figures in detail when the suitable item comes up. Canada has been exceedingly unwise in neglecting the beet sugar industry for the last ten years, and the Canadian people are paying the price that the foolish administration of the country has made them pay.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Science service-
6.	Animal and poultry pathology, $174,300.
Mark Cecil Senn: It seems to me this is one of the most important items coming under this branch of the department. The live stock

industry has become perhaps one of the greatest industries in Canada. On a previous occasion and again to-day the minister gave figures to show the rapid increase in poultry production in this country, and I think I am safe in saying that more difficulty is encountered in raising live stock than in any other branch of agriculture. Every year literally millions of dollars are lost to the farmers through different animal diseases. I suppose the minister will say that a large sum of money is provided under the health of animals branch for administration of the Animal Contagious Diseases Act, but it seems to me that more could and should be done for the farmers of Canada from the point of view of research.
A number of animal diseases are prevalent in this country at the present time. First, we have tuberculosis which, however, has been eliminated to a certain extent and is pretty well under control. Then we have Bang's disease, which is causing great loss to our farmers. Unfortunately farmers very often try to hide rather than treat this disease. I understand that serums have been developed and that the policy of the department has been changed to permit the use of such serums, though only two, or three years ago they were not allowed, I suppose for obvious reasons. Even so, however, the manufacture of these serums is largely confined to small areas. I believe the Guelph agricultural college does produce serums for vaccination against Bang's disease, but I think this department might very well undertake the manufacture of such serums or at least see that they are manufactured in plentiful supply. Another bad disease which very much concerns live stock producers in Ontario is what is called shipping fever, or hemorrhagic septicaemia. Farmers buy cattle in the Toronto stockyard, or other places, and take them home for feeding. They must have those animals vaccinated right away, or they may suffer very serious loss, and in some instances that loss is suffered in spite of the vaccination. A farmer brings home a carload of cattle for which he has paid a good price, only to lose one or two from this disease, and I think something should be done to control this disease in the stockyards and in the cars in which these cattle are shipped. Then again we have nutritional diseases in swine; we have poultry diseases; we have parasitic diseases, sheep stomach worms and so on. I feel that I am giving the minister wise advice when I say that a great deal more money should be provided for research purposes along these lines. After all, the loss from these causes amounts to millions of

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dollars, and I would ask the minister what is being done particularly in regard to Bang's disease and hemorrhagic septicaemia.


George Ernest Wood: Before the minister replies I should like to add a word to the observations made by the hon. member for Haldimand, who has brought up a matter of vital importance to the farmers of Ontario. Farming in this country would be made much easier if something could be done about the diseases which have been mentioned by the hon. member, but I should like to add to the list the disease of mastitis, which is causing the dairymen serious loss. I believe there are certain fields that might be investigated in connection with the control of that disease. Some serums have been used for a time and have appeared to be quite successful, but later they have been found to be of very little value. It seems to me one of the greatest hazards with which the farmer has to contend.


Mark Cecil Senn: That is, the dairy farmer.


George Ernest Wood: Yes. Then it seems to me that some research should be done in connection with pullorum, a disease which attacks poultry, and that a serum might be developed which would create immunity to this disease, because we know that certain flocks have become immune to it. The present method of having to blood test every chicken to find out whether its eggs should be retained is laborious work; but if a flock could be made immune it would mean a great deal to the farmer. I believe it to be a fact that pullorum can never be stamped out. Sparrows have it; pigeons have it, and they more or less mix with the farm flock, so that it would seem futile to try to eradicate the disease unless we are prepared to wipe out all the wild birds. I believe, however, that an effort might be made to develop a serum which would give immunity to the disease, and if that could be done it would be a great step in the right direction.
There is another matter to which I think the department should give some attention, namely, the protection of pure bred breeders in connection with a system of breeding which is becoming quite popular in many sections; that is, artificial insemination. This will lend itself to a great deal of fraud if something is not done to give authority to certain men to practise in this particular field. Many farmers assert that they can carry on this work just as well as anyone else. I believe, however, it should be confined to a certain number of people, so that they will have some authority to sign a certificate, thereby ensuring that the mating of those animals has not been done fraudulently, and so that there would be sires of calves which would set up a system of artificial insemination.


Percy Ellis Wright: I should like to add my voice to those of other hon. members who have spoken with respect to the advisability of increasing or supplementing this important vote. To my mind it is a most important one. Our live stock industry has greatly increased, and with that increase there has been an advance in the incidence of disease among live stock. Among hogs in western Canada in the last two years, because of increased production we have found an increased development in disease. That disease may have been in existence before, but we had not had it on our farms. I know many farmers have become discouraged and are going out of hog production because certain diseases have cropped up. I believe that there should be more investigation and that any information the department has should receive wider circulation than it now receives.
In my view the circulation of such information might be done through municipal offices in western Canada. The people in those offices are interested in our farming population, and the information could be distributed through them. I would urge that there be more investigation in connection with hog diseases. There is a loss of from twenty-five per cent to thirty per cent in young pigs, and I believe that half of that might be saved if there were a little more knowledge on the part of people who are in production. It is a matter of being penny wise and pound foolish, if we do not have more work along this line, and have a greater distribution of information.


James Garfield Gardiner: I would first answer the question asked by the hon. member for Haldimand with regard to Bang's disease. This is a matter which has been discussed each year since I have been in the department. The story is simply one of advancement in treatment, and attempting to deal with the attack this disease has made upon cattle in Canada. It has been determined that the vaccination of calves during calf-hood, particularly if they are vaccinated at from four to six months of age, gives a considerable amount of defence against invasion of the causative organism of Bang's disease. This is being made use of in a practical manner in controlling infectious abortion. It can only assist and will never replace sanitary measures.
Along with this comes the question of the possibility of vaccinating mature cattle with strains of low virulence. Since the organisms introduced must be alive, there is the possibility that these may colonize in the animal and produce the disease, and result in abortion
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or permanent infection. Experiments of considerable proportions are under way in regard to this subject, and it is hoped that in the relatively early future this factor in Bang's disease particularly will be clearly understood.
That is the end of the review of what is being done, and the results that have been obtained from the experiments carried on up to date. I may say that the practice of marking animals which have once been found to have Bang's disease was brought into effect the first year I was Minister of Agriculture. They are marked with a "B" in the ear, and anyone who is buying cattle can knew that they have been tested, and that they have shown reaction.


Mark Cecil Senn: Would the minister say that the blood test which is made can be relied upon in all cases?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, we rely upon it in all cases. There may be mistakes occasionally, but it is just as reliable as tests made for tuberculosis.
With regard to mastitis, I may say that experiments are continuing. Our studies with the various chemo-therapeutic agents which have been suggested have not given encouraging results, except when they are used in the very early stages of infection. So far as our studies have advanced they suggest that the control of economic loss from mastitis must be done by sanitary measures, together with chemotherapy in the early infection.
Shipping fever has been given considerable attention in our laboratories. This is a disease which is generally considered as being due to the causative agent of haemorrhagic septicaemia, and appears to have a much wider etiological cause. We suspect, although we have not been able to prove it, that it is associated with a virus. At any rate, we can say that clinically shipping fever is not always due to the causative agent of haemorrhagic septicaemia, and that vaccination with this organism is not a satisfactory method of control. That experience we have had with it up to the present time.


Mark Cecil Senn: But it is the only control there is, is it not?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; it is the only control known at the present time.
The other question, as to the spread of disease among live stock, and particularly among hogs, owing to the fact that more farmers are raising hogs, and raising them in greater numbers, is one which is being taken care of, as far as is possible, through cooperation with the provincial authorities. That is to say, we have our men out working on it, and the provincial

authorities have their men. We cover the different rural districts from time to time, and everything which can be done to assist farmers is being done; that is, everything that can be done with the expenditure of money we are now making.
The question as to whether expenditures should be increased is one which is always involved in building up our estimates. During war time we do not think we can spend any more than we are now spending. I quite realize it may be said in answer that probably we would be doing a great deal more for production of meat, and that kind of thing, by that method than by some other method. But there is the difficulty that we have a shortage of qualified men to act in the outlying districts, largely because for a long period of time it has not paid very well for men to take up the studies of a veterinary. The result is that we have not had as many as we could use, particularly with the number of stock spread across Canada. Probably there is not as much being done as might be done in that regard-


John Horne Blackmore: Would the minister
consent to reverting to item 5? I should like to read a statement of the figures to which I referred a moment ago, so that it may be correct in Hansard. I went to my office to get the figures, and I now read from the submission of the Alberta cooperative sugar beet growers' association to the royal commission on dominion-provincial relations, commonly known as the Rowell-Sirois commission. This is what I find at page 2:
To indicate the value of this industry-
And this is a reference to the sugar beet industry-
-to the agriculture of our district, the community in general and the Dominion of Canada, we submit the following figures relating to the 1937 beet crop:
235,481 tons of beets were produced from 19,829 acres of irrigated land-an average of 11-88 tons per acre.
75,603,700 pounds of sugar were manufactured.
3,813 pounds was the per acre yield of refined sugar.	,
$3,040,000 worth of sugar was manufactured.
$155 was the total gross return per acre.
$77.50 was the gross return to the manufacturer.
$77.50 was the gross return per acre to the farmer.
The farmers' costs approximated $60 per acre which includes $25 per acre paid for hand labour by the farmer. These figures were given in a speech made by T. George Wood, manager, Canadian Sugar Factories Limited, at Lethbridge, Wednesday, March 23, 1938. We believe that this land is producing more food value per acre than any other land in the dominion.

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James Garfield Gardiner: What became of the rest of the $155? The farmers' cost was approximately $60.


John Horne Blackmore: The rest of it Would be income on irrigated land.


James Garfield Gardiner: The cost of operating irrigated lands.


John Horne Blackmore: I shall go into this in greater detail if the minister desires.


James Garfield Gardiner: Those figures show a gross return of $155 an acre and the farmer's costs approximate $60 an acre. Would that be labour?


John Horne Blackmore: The farmer's costs approximate $60 an acre, which includes $25 an acre for hand labour.


James Garfield Gardiner: That other figure of $77.50, was that the profit of the refinery?


John Horne Blackmore: The farmer was getting $77.50 and the refinery was getting $77.50. The farmer's net would be $77.50 less $60 or $17.50.


Robert Fair: Could the minister give us the total value of cattle destroyed on account of Bang's disease since he became minister?


James Garfield Gardiner: If the hon. member would wait until we get to health of animals we shall have those figures. It is eight years since I became minister.


Robert Fair: Is the best treatment for this disease to kill the animal, or can the disease be combated successfully by other means?


James Garfield Gardiner: I stated a few moments ago that if the calf vaccine is used early enough, when the animal is from four to six months old, it is possible to check the disease to a certain extent, but as animals get older it is thought best to kill them.


Robert Fair: Have any other methods of taking care of this disease been discovered?


James Garfield Gardiner: We have a Bang's disease control policy, but I repeat that the general idea is that when once an animal is marked as being afflicted with the disease the best thing to do is to kill it. There are quite a number of herds in Canada which are Bang's disease free. Animals have become marked and the owners simply have got rid of them.


Robert Fair: My experience has shown that even though diseased animals are cleaned out of the herd, other animals continue to get the disease. Has that been the experience all over Canada?


James Garfield Gardiner: The fact that an animal has been afflicted and destroyed is not a guarantee that the rest of the herd will not become infected from some other source. That is possible at all times.


Mark Cecil Senn: The minister has promised to bring down figures showing the losses on account of this disease.


James Garfield Gardiner: The number of animals slaughtered.


Mark Cecil Senn: There is another phase which concerns dairy animals particularly. When such an animal is infected the milk production is affected and there is great loss. Has any computation been made of that loss? The minister has stated that one of the means of controlling Bang's disease and hemorrhagic septicaemia is to adopt sanitary measures. I realize that those measures would be quite effective, but has anything been done to acquaint live stock producers with what sanitary controls are necessary? Is any literature being circulated?
There is another question I should like to ask. What laboratory facilities are available in the department at the present time? Where are these laboratories located and how are they manned? I suppose they are manned by veterinary surgeons, but are these men qualified to do research work? I should like a general statement on the laboratory situation throughout the country.


James Garfield Gardiner: The main laboratory dealing with Bang's disease is just across the river in Hull. Then there is one at Lethbridge and one in British Columbia, just outside Victoria. They met with considerable success in their experiments. The material which I placed on Hansard this evening emphasizes that sanitary control is the important thing. That is true also with diseases that afflict hogs. Many farmers make a practice of not running hogs too long in the same yard. They move them from place to place in order to avoid having them become afflicted. There are pamphlets sent out covering all these things, and they go out by the thousands to farmers all over the country. They show the farmers how to take care of their flocks of sheep, their litters of hogs and their herds of cattle. The farmers are encouraged to write in for these pamphlets.


Mark Cecil Senn: Many farmers who are in trouble with these diseases do not know that these pamphlets are available. Is any advertising done to acquaint the farmers with where they can obtain these pamphlets? The minister has stated that a number of herds are free from Bang's disease. I understand the
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United States accepts the blood tests made on Canadian cattle. The minister also referred to the vaccination of calves at a certain age. As I understand it, this vaccine contains live organisms, and I should like to know if this vaccine remains effective until an animal reaches maturity. I understand that these organisms are never entirely absent from an animal. I think the minister understands what I am getting at.


James Garfield Gardiner: The information I have is that they do not colonize in the calf and that as a result they are not found in the animal when a test is made in later life. They do not carry it on through.


Mark Cecil Senn: Do they establish immunity?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, they establish immunity. There was some question in the minds of officials of this department in the earlier stages in the use of the treatment, but I think they have come to agree that there is considerable merit in it and that it does establish immunity. Of course, one cannot be sure how long that immunity will last.


Mark Cecil Senn: I do not think it is permanent.


Wilbert Franklin (Frank) Rickard: Have these calves been vaccinated when under six months of age? Has the department had experience with the vaccine when the calves are eight months old? Will they be free from Bang's disease after that age, or is it only up to six months?


James Garfield Gardiner: The treatment has been proven in experiments up to eight months, and experiments are being made with older animals. It has been pretty well established that the treatment is effective up to eight months.


Wilbert Franklin (Frank) Rickard: Does it take longer to clear up after eight months?


James Garfield Gardiner: Slightly longer.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I see under this vote that two veterinary inspectors are engaged at $2,520 each. How long have they been with the department and at what salary did they start?


James Garfield Gardiner: They are two officials who are working in the plant at Hull and are classified as veterinary inspectors. They have been on the staff here for quite a few years.


Thomas Miller Bell: Are they qualified veterinary inspectors?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Thomas Miller Bell: I wonder why they do not go into veterinary practice.


James Garfield Gardiner: In the section where I am farming it was difficult until recently for a veterinary to make a living.
[Mr. Senn.l


Major James William Coldwell: Can they live decently on that salary?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is more than the average veterinary out in the country has been making in the last two or three years.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: 
James Garfield Gardiner: The student has to take a five-year course, or just about as long as medicine for human beings, and it is rather an expensive course, but the difficulty is that many farmers do not make use of the veterinary to the extent they should sometimes because prices of animals have been low and they have not considered it worth while to use the veterinary's services.


Major James William Coldwell: But these men are
employed by the government.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, doing inside work.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: How long have they been with the department?


James Garfield Gardiner: One for about twenty years and the other for about fifteen years.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Before the minister
brings down his estimates for next year, some consideration should be given to an increase in salaries, especially after the minister has admitted that the health of animals is so important nowadays. It is disgraceful to require trained technical men to work for fifteen or twenty years at such a low salary range.


James Garfield Gardiner: All of these men right through this list are veterinaries. They are not listed as such, but every man there is a veterinary, right up to the head of the branch, where the pay is $4,320. The salary depends upon the work they are doing. Apparently these two men are prepared to do the work which is required in these particular positions at that salary. I imagine they would appreciate it very much if they got more, but the salaries are standardized by the civil service commission.


Mark Cecil Senn: I do not wish to hold up this item, but I wish to make one more appeal to the minister that more should be expended on this service. The losses to the live stock industry because of diseases are very great, and I think more should be expended on the prevention of diseases of animals, even if it is not expended under this item. I was going to

Privilege-Mr. Coldwell
make a suggestion to the minister that if no other way can be found of increasing the amount, a small tax could be put on the live stock producers, who I am sure would be glad to pay a small amount per head of stock to see this research work enlarged and a much more comprehensive programme of research carried on. It would take very little per head of live stock throughout the country to raise sufficient funds to make this service a real asset to the farmers of the country. I leave that suggestion with the minister, that in any event more money should be expended on this service.


Victor Quelch: Who is responsible for granting permits to United States veterinaries to practise in Canada?


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand that that comes under the provinces.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Would the minister make a statement now, or at some later stage when his estimates are before the committee, with reference to this and the other scientific service branches, dealing with their work for the benefit of those members of the committee who are not farmers. As I understand it, these are research branches seeking to gather information in regard to certain animal diseases. How are the results of their researches made available to the farmers? The minister says that literature is sent out. I should like to know on what basis it is sent out. Does the farmer know where to send for it? Is a mailing list kept? Also with regard to vaccines, are they made available to farmers through the provincial departments of agriculture? Going around last fall, I found the live stock producers experiencing contagious abortion among cattle and erysipelas among hogs. The veterinaries were terribly overworked. In the second place I found that many farmers did not know how to go about dealing with that particular situation because some of them had started to raise live stock only since the war began. How do they go .about getting this information? Would the minister tell the committee so that the farmers will know how the results of this research work can be made available to them.


James Garfield Gardiner: Health, of course,
whether of animals or of human beings, is largely under the control of the provinces, and in most of the provinces they have district representatives who are out covering those areas. That is true in Saskatchewan and elsewhere. These men are very well informed as to all the different treatments that can be given, and then there are, of course, in some districts the veterinarians who are consulted.
Publications are put out in great numbers by the. department in all sections of the country, and there are articles in the local papers which can be read by the farmers, and which give a great deal of information. In the district in which I farm, the best agent is the druggist who handles many of the treatments. He gives more publicity to what can be done and probably gives better service to the farmers than anyone else. He is in the district and keeps track of all treatments that can be used, and he takes the trouble to go among the farmers and indicate what can be done. That, of course, is part of his own business in distributing the things he has to sell. In the different districts it is done in different ways, but most farmers are well informed as to what can be done, where to get information and how to use the different treatments, though, of course, it is like everything else concerning disease; the treatment is not always administered at the right time and is, therefore, not preventive but rather curative.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Does the
federal government supply the vaccine to the farmers?
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie (Vancouver Centre) the house adjourned at 11:05 p.m.
Monday, March 6, 1944