1944-02-08

DOMINION ELECTIONS


[Stage Direction]
Mr. SAMUEL FACTOR (Spadina) presented the first report of the special committee on the Dominion Elections Act, 1938, (armed services), and moved that the report be concurred in.
Mr. SPEAKER:: By leave of the house.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: 

SOVIET RUSSIA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Leader of the Opposition):: I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Newspaper dispatches would appear to indicate that each of the sixteen republics comprising the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are now to be free to carry on their own relationships with other powers. Is the Prime Minister in a position to inform the house whether or not this will necessitate any change in connection with our present diplomatic arrangements with Russia?
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING
(Prime Minister): In reply to my hon. friend, I do not anticipate that the change which has been made in the constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will necessitate any change in the existing diplomatic relations between Canada and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
MEAT	-



CONDEMNATION OF 500,000 POUNDS IN GOVERNMENT WAREHOUSE IN QUEBEC CITY

[Stage Direction]
' On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. C. SENN (Haldimand):: 
Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) :: Just as soon as I have a complete report on the matter I shall make a statement to the house. I have not yet received a complete report.



PROCEDURE IN REALIZATION OF PARTICIPATION CERTIFICATES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. VICTOR QUELCH (Acadia):: I should like to address a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Will he make a statement. in regard to the disposal of wheat board certificates by the farmers? Should they be sent to the wheat board, and if so, when?

The Address-Mr. Bruce


Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: The wheat board will make an announcement this month as to the proper method to be followed by the producers in realizing on their participation certificates. Forms will be sent to all elevator agents and to banks for the use of producers, who will use the forms in registering their certificates and will then forward their certificates with the form to the board in Winnipeg. It is very important that the certificate be not forwarded without being listed on the form. The certificates will be checked by the wheat board with the duplicates at head office, and then cheques will issue. Payment on the 1940 certificates will commence in March, and immediately following that, the certificates for 1941 and 1942 will issue.
To anticipate another question, it is impossible at this stage to give any estimate of what the payments on these certificates will be.



EXPROPRIATION OF PROPERTIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. R. ADAMSON (York West):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Munitions and Supply, a copy of which I have already sent to him. The question arises out of a communication made, in New York this morning. Has the government taken any steps to expropriate the properties of the company known as Bear Exploration and Radium, Limited? If not, has the government any intention of so doing, or is it in any way interested in this company?


Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Munitions and Supply):: The answer to the first question is no. The answer to the second question is that the government has no intention of taking action.



GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, February 7, consideration of the motion of Mr. L. D. Tremblay for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Graydon, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Coldwell.
Hon. H. A. BRUCE (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker it was very refreshing to have the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Sinclair), just back from the front, where he did such valiant service, tell the house and the country something about the thoughts and aspirations of the men at the front. May I congratulate and commend him for the contribution he has made and the courage he has shown in not being afraid to point out the defects in the rehabilitation plans at present operating, and express the hope that the government will take early remedial action in regard thereto.
Intimately connected with this subject is the question of housing. I am going to refer to that for a moment because it was mentioned in the speech from the throne.
Of the various acts respecting this subject, one was passed in 1935 called the Dominion Housing Act; in 1937 there was another act, called the Home Improvement Loans Guarantee Act, and in 1938, the National Housing Act. I will deal only with the latter.
I would like to quote first from sessional paper 122T, laid on the table on July 6 last. On page 9 it is stated that:
Part II of the National Housing Act was designed to assist local housing authorities, including limited dividend corporations, to provide decent, safe and sanitary housing to be rented to families of low income which could not afford the "economic rental" for such accommodation. Under section 18, subsection 2, a provision was included that no loans might be made and no contracts entered into after March 31, 1940.
It is claimed that certain objectives, however, were achieved; in particular, progress was made in promoting a better understanding and appreciation of the nature and purpose of low rental housing and in working out some of the problems and details involved in this type of undertaking. I am sorry that the act was allowed to lapse in 1940, because I think it might very well have been continued until the present. I am well aware, of course, that the argument will be adduced that the war was on and we had other things to attend to.
May I for a moment recapitulate the events in connection with this low-cost housing programme. The present government, by order in council on May 13, 1936 appointed the national employment commission with Mr. Arthur B. Purvis as its chairman. Amongst other duties it was asked to "formulate regulations regarding practical measures for increasing employment." I cannot pass without paying a word of tribute to Mr. Arthur
The Address-Mr. Bruce

B. Purvis for the tremendous energy he displayed during the two years he was engaged in this work, giving freely of his great ability and business acumen to a labour of love. Although all his recommendations have not been implemented, his work will stand as a great contribution to our national life. From the interim report of the commission of which he was chairman, I quote as follows, under "Housing Construction," page 11:
The commission recognized the desirability of a rounding out of governmental housing policy, particularly as regards accommodation for those unable themselves to afford an economic rent -often associated with slum clearance. Action in this field was considered necessary both from the viewpoint of eliminating a social sore all too prevalent, especially in the larger cities, and because of its effect in stimulating employment in the construction field.
The commission recommended that the dominion and to a certain extent the provincial contributions should be in the form of direct subsidies, or, alternately, loans at a rate below the commercial rate, leaving to the municipalities contributions largely in the form of direct monetary payments equivalent to but not in the form of tax exemptions.
On September 9, 1936, the dominion government based certain principles upon recommendations made by the national employment commission. These will be found on page 101 of the commission's report issued on January 26, 1938. It was then announced that the principles which should govern that section of this broad housing plan to be devised to meet the requirements of those unable to pay an economic rent often associated with slum clearance, should be as follows: (a) participation by the dominion, by provinces or municipalities in any aid that may be given, whether by subsidy, loan, guarantee, or omission of taxes; (b) encouragement of the participation of private capital.
Then the commission, on February 9, 1937, presented its detailed plan to the minister, feeling that dominion government action was justified at the time for the following reasons: ' (i) As a measure of public health and social advancement, low rental housing projects will have a direct influence in imporving conditions of life for the low wage earner in urban areas and will be a factor in increasing the employability of our workers after a period in -which their employability has been greatly reduced;
(ii)	The field of low rental housing is the only one in which a direct and decisive stimulus can be given to home building without the risk of subsidizing competition to private builders and thus discouraging more building than is stimulated;
(iii)	The employment created by such housing projects will be greater and more widely spread than that afforded by large scale public works.

I have referred to the fact that to encourage building corporations to undertake this form of building under this part II of the National Housing Act, the dominion government was being asked to lend money to limited dividend companies at a lower rate than that prevailing in ordinary commercial loans. Such corporations might very well decide to limit their dividends to a smaller amount, especially if they received such long-term loans at a low interest rate. .
To give in a few words the need for slum clearance in low rental houses, I cannot do better than quote from the report which was madte in 1934 by a committee of which I was chairman. In that report we said:
Bad houses are not only a menace: they are active agents of destruction. The committee is satisfied, from its investigations and inquiries, that they destroy happiness, health and life. They destroy morality and family ties. They destroy the basis of society itself by their destruction of self-respect and their promotion of delinquency and crime.
Until slum clearance and rehousing of slum tenants is undertaken as a national duty and responsibility, to be discharged by national policies put into effect on a national basis, we shall quite unnecessarily be condemned to pass through all those very costly experiences which other nations have already passed through before being confronted by the ultimate inescapable truth that without government assistance there can be no effective slum clearance and rehousing of the lowest wage earners.
I find towards the end of the report that we urged on the dominion government that no public grants are so urgently needed as those for the rehousing of the poorest members of the community, and1 that, in order to make such grants -most effective, a national housing commission should be appointed to assist the-provincial and municipal housing authorities in the formulation of -plans, in the choice of materials, and possibly, if a nation-wide housing scheme can be initiated:, in securing economies by the large-scale purchase of such materials.
I hope the government will revive this portion of the National Housing Act by amendment or otherwise; for I believe the time has arrived when municipalities and limited-dividend housing corporations will be anxious to provide this form of housing by taking advantage of the opportunity to secure dominion loans at less than commercial rates for a period of thirty or forty years.

The Address-Mr. Bruce
I wish now to turn for a few minutes to another subject which was dealt with yesterday very effectively by the hon. member for Hastings-Peterborough (Mr. White), the subject of the rehabilitation of returned men. The national council of veterans' associations of Canada, after making a thorough investigation of the subject, made certain recommendations to the government. Let me refer for a moment to these.
Formerly the clothing allowance of soldiers on discharge wras as low as $17 if granted in the summer, but afterwards it was increased to 135. The council of the veterans' associations recommended that an allowance of $100 , be given to men with, overseas service; secondly that $75 be given to men with more than six months' service in Canada; thirdly that a wardrobe reconditioning allowance of $35 be given those with less than six months' service in Canada; and that the personnel of women's services should be given equal allowances.
The recommendations of the national veterans' councils are a minimum and do not provide for working clothing. Immediately following the presentation of these recommendations the clothing allowance was increased to $65, but I still think that this is inadequate and that the sum of $100, as recommended by the veterans' associations, should be the minimum, because it is quite obvious that $65 would not. do more than purchase a suit of clothes and an overcoat.
The present regulations provide for a grant on discharge of one month's pay and allowances. The national council of the veterans' associations in Canada has recommended to the government that rehabilitation grants of one month's pay and allowances be given for each six months of completed service. This seems to be more equitable. It is fair to assume that the longer the service the more time will be required for readjustment into civilian life. The present scale of dependents' allowances does not permit the accumulation of any surplus by dependents of men on active service, nor has it been generous enough to more than take care of essential living expenses.
Under these circumstances it will be found that on discharge or demobilization money will be required to reestablish families on a prewar basis. Length of service will have a direct relationship to reestablishment cost.
Now a word in regard to the hospital allowances during treatment. Formerly service personnel were discharged during the period of active treatment when they became wards of the Department of Pensions and National Health, with consequent serious impairment
of their financial situation. Now the regulations in part correct this injustice, but they do not go far enough. The national council of veterans' associations in Canada has recommended to the government that in no case should pay and allowances of a former member of the forces in this war, in hospital, be less than those of his rank during active service for the whole of his period of initial continuous treatment. This will ensure equal treatment for all ranks if adopted, and it would seem to be just without being overgenerous. It is advocated that no officer or man be discharged from the services until he is discharged from hospital; in other words that he should be given the moral stimulus of considering himself on the strength as long as he is suffering in hospital from war-time disability.
The present regulations are unfair for the following reasons: First, they discriminate against officers of higher rank than a lieutenant; secondly, they limit the benefit of full pay and allowances to a period of one year, or the length of service of the recipient, whichever is the lesser; third, they do not take into account the cases of men who may be discharged from hospital prematurely and have to return later for further treatment. A point should be made of the necessity of establishing proper regulations with respect to all matters of rehabilitation now, when there is general public sympathy with men on active service. When the war is over they will again be faced with public apathy, and I am afraid indifference, so that it will prove difficult to have regulations revised to correct any half-way measures which may be adopted at the present time.
I should like to say a word in regard to the promise made by the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie) in respect of the Sunnybrook hospital which is to replace Christie street hospital. I understand that progress is being made in the preparation of plans. Early construction of this hospital however will depend upon the energy shown by the minister and his department. If the plans have to be completed to the last detail before tenders are called there will be a long delay in actual construction. May I say to the minister it will be possible to start construction within a month or six weeks if the government is anxious to do so and will allow tenders to be let on a fixed fee basis for profit, established on a reasonable estimate of the ultimate cost. The government should assume responsibility for any fluctuations of price of material or increase in wages of labour during
256	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Johnston (Bow River)
(he period of construction. Priorities for all types of material and equipment should be secured immediately and orders, placed as soon as quantities of specific requirements are determined.
Increasing numbers of seriously wounded men resulting from the operations in Italy and elsewhere will soon be coming back to Canada. Present accommodation is quite inadequate, so that Sunnybrook hospital will be absolutely essential at an early day. May I therefore urge upon the Minister of Pensions and National Health that he do his utmost to expedite the construction of this building at the earliest possible moment.


Mr. C. E. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, I had hoped on reviewing the speech from the throne to find in it some concrete proposals, but I am inclined to be of the opinion of a great many other members in this house that the speech contains just a lot of propaganda material which can be used to great advantage in an election. The more I read it, the more carefully I examine it, the more I am forced to that conclusion. One thing, however, which is outlined in the speech from the throne, and it appears in the first part of the speech, is I think, very commendable. It is that we are to continue to have an all-out war effort; or probably I should more correctly say it is hoped we shall have an all-out war effort. I do not think anyone can honestly say that we have had an all-out war effort up to date; certainly not from the time the war started, because I can well remember speaking in this house of an all-out war effort when the war started. We of the Social Credit New Democracy party were the only ones in this house who took a stand for an all-out war effort. We are still proud of that record, and we are grateful that we have made at least a dent in some of the thick skulls which opposed us at that time when we were talking about an all-out war effort.


Agar Rodney Adamson: An all-worn-out effort.


Charles Edward Johnston: It is an all-worn-out effort; but I am speaking of an all-out war effort. I think that one of the grandest factors which must be considered in ar. all-out war effort is public morale. I listened with a great deal of interest to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) when he spoke at the beginning of this session in regard to the war effort. He condemned those who went about the country preaching that the war was almost over. I think that was the proper stand for the Prime Minister to take. I am not one of those who believe that
	. . [
this war is nearly won. I recall reading the other day in one of our Canadian papers an article reprinted from a United States publication, to the effect that one of the United States generals had said that the German army was stronger to-day in man-power and equipment of all types than it ever was. I think it would be better for us to take that mental attitude than the attitude which might lead us to believe that the war is about over and we should relax our efforts. You can scarcely pick up a newspaper in Canada, even since the Prime Minister spoke, without seeing that some official has said the war is likely to be over this year. I remember reading a statement issued by General Montgomery just a day or two ago to his troops in England saying that he hoped and expected that this war would be over this year. That is in direct opposition to what the Prime Minister is trying to establish. We should begin to censor some of the statements that are made at home, in order to encourage an all-out war effort.
One of the other matters mentioned in the speech from the throne in regard to an all-out war effort is the total use of our resources. I do not think we have begun to use all of our resources in that regard. I recall oil, for instance. In my opinion we have not begun to develop the oil resources that could have been developed in western Canada, and which would have been of great asistance to us in our allout war effort. Another important point in regard to an all-out war effort is to see to it that public morale is kept up to the maximum and that we are using every available man in this country to the best advantage. The department which can perform that function to the greatest extent is the department which has control of the selective service boards. In my opinion the selective service boards are in some instances a disgrace to this country. I do not particularly blame the minister in charge, but I do blame the officials who are administering these boards. I had occasion to visit one of the selective service boards of this country-and I will name it, the one in Calgary-in an endeavour to get a farm boy, who could be spared from the farm for the winter months, a place in an essential war industry. As I entered that selective service office I was not very well impressed with the set-up. It seemed to me that the officials behind the counter were endeavouring to frighten the men who came in to make application. That seemed to be the atmosphere of the whole place.
I want to give the history of this case in order to show how this works out. This boy was given an indefinite postponement for work

The Address-Mr. Johnston (Bow River)
in agriculture; and after he had been partly hailed out last year and had taken off the remainder of his crop, he made arrangements with his father, who lives not far away, to take care of his stock in order that he might accept employment in other essential industry. The government was continually asking farmers to do that very thing. This boy came to see me, and I said I thought that was a very commendable step to take. He had been offered a position in the Kimberley mines of British Columbia, he told me, at a salary of $175 a month, and he asked what he should do. I said, "The first thing you must do is go in and consult the selective service board, who will make the proper arrangements for you." He went in to consult this board and came home and told me the result. Then I went in personally to interview the officials of that board, and I must say that the attitude of those officials was anything but conducive to getting boys on the farms to take employment in essential industries. One official told me that he had informed this young man that he should go to the lumber camps if he wanted to work. The boy told him he did not have any experience in lumber camps and did not want to go there, that he had been offered this other job already. Then this official told me, "These boys must remember that they are in the army, and if they do not go where we tell them to go we will push them back into the army." Such threats should not be permitted. I pointed out that this boy was not in the army in any sense of the word, and that no official of the selective service board had authority to put him into the army. This boy came to me again to see what he should do, and I replied that I did not know. His answer was, "Well, if he thinks I am going up there to work in the woods when I already have a job offered to me, he is wrong." I said I did not blame him, and then he said, "I will go home and sit down, then; I will not do anything." I said I did not think we had quite reached that point, and I sent a wire to the deputy minister, Mr. MacNamara, asking if this was the policy of the government, and stating that I did not think it was. I received a wire in reply saying that they would investigate the case and let me know. That was over three months ago, and I have heard nothing since. I got in touch with one of the district agriculturists of my province, and we talked this matter over. As a result this boy went to British Columbia, regardless of our selective service board; he went to the mine and had his position confirmed, then went to the selective service board, who immediately put him on the job, and he started to work. Why should people be required to get out of 100-17
the province altogether in order to assist our war effort? I am not particularly blaming the minister, but he must take the responsibility because he is in charge of the department.


Mr. MITCHELL:: Frankly I think that young fellow should be in the army.


Charles Edward Johnston: Why?


Humphrey Mitchell: Because I do.


Charles Edward Johnston: This young man has two hundred acres in crop; he has fifty or sixty head of cattle and forty or fifty hogs. Now the minister says he should be taken out of that essential industry and put into the army, though the government and the minister have said time and again that if these boys can possibly get away from the farm for a few months they should get out and assist in essential industry.


Humphrey Mitchell: Yes, but they have to go on the basis of priority; they cannot just go where they like. If that young fellow was in the army he would have to do what he was told; and if he wants to go into some other industry it is not asking too much to let us decide on the priority of that industry.


Charles Edward Johnston: Well, here was a boy who was willing to do that. He went to the selective service board and they threatened to put him into the army if he did not go where he was told. Yet he had a job offered to him at good pay. Well, it is just as I said to the selective service official; this set-up is not a selective service, it is a gestapo. From what the minister tells me now I am more than ever convinced that this is so, and I can tell the Minister of Labour that there are thousands of young fellows who are anxious to get off the farm during the winter months and assist in essential war industries, and who would do so but for the bureaucratic dictatorship administered by the selective service board. If you want an allout war effort you will have to change your attitude. I have run across some funny things this last year, especially in connection with selective service, but the minister thinks it is fine.


Humphrey Mitchell: I think it is the best organization in the united nations; what do you think about that?


Charles Edward Johnston: You just go ahead and stick up for it; you are the only one who does so, as far as I know. I do not mean that the whole selective service organization is carried on like the branch at Calgary, but I do suggest that the Calgary office needs a little housecleaning.

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The Address-Mr. Johnston (Bow River)
When I was down at Drumheller I was speaking to the manager of one of the mines there who asked, "What kind of outfit is this selective service board"? I tried to outline what I thought of some of them-


Mr. HOMUTH:: Could you say it here?


Charles Edward Johnston: Hardly.


Humphrey Mitchell: Go ahead.


Charles Edward Johnston: Somebody says it is the "neglected service," and I think that is a better description. The manager of this mine told me that last year, when they were short of miners, they applied to Ottawa to have some miners sent out, and as a result five men were sent from the east, with their fare paid all the way. Three of them were >
old men, and after working three shifts they were declared physically unfit to do further mine work. Then they were given transportation all the way back to Ottawa. Why could not these men have been properly categorized and given a proper physical examination before sending them three thousand miles across Canada, when our railway trains are supposed to be so overcrowded? At least that would have obviated the necessity of bringing them all the way back east at government expense.


Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: At the taxpayers' expense, you mean.


Charles Edward Johnston: Well, the government are supposed to represent the people.
If we are to have an all-out war effort I think there will have to be some changes in the attitude of the government toward some of the returned men, veterans not only of this war but of the last war and their depen- t dents. The hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch) and the hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Fair) went more fully into this question than I intend to go, but I would like' to draw one particular case to the attention of hon. members of this house. I know that some men who are fighting overseas to . save democracy have dependents in this country who are barely eking out an existence.
I had one particular instance brought to my attention, and concerning which I have communicated with the department. But it is only typical of others I have received. According to the regulations, if a boy happens to be overseas, or in the forces at some other point, and his father or mother are dependent upon him, the mother cannot receive any dependent's allowance unless the father is totally incapacitated from earning a living. When one realizes that the dependents' allowance board has to function under those regulations, he realizes that it is placed in a bad spot, no

matter how desirous it may be of correcting an evil. These old people may be receiving a very small allowance, possibly only $5 a month. The father may be working as janitor in a school, and as such he may be earning $5, $10 or even up to as much as S50 or S60 a month. In any case it is an amount insufficient to provide them with a decent standard of living. Under the regulations, however, the mother is prevented from receiving any dependent's allowance unless her husband is totally incapacitated from earning a living This means he must be an absolute pauper. If he is earning as little as $5 a month they cannot receive the allowance. Surely that is a condition the department should consider and change.
Provision is made in the speech from the throne for the setting up as a subsidiary of the Bank of Canada, of an industrial development bank to provide credit facilities for both fixed and working capital, so that industries may be converted from war-time to peace-time operations. I believe the government is to be commended upon endeavouring to take some action to facilitate the transfer of industry from a war-time to a peace-time *basis. My experience in the war expenditures committee gave me some insight into the tremendous productive capacity of Canada. All the factories we visited had the very best of equipment, and were doing good work. I shall not say anything about the quality of work being turned out, or the extent of production, but the point I make is that we have facilities right at hand, now to put out after the war a production unequalled in our history. It can be done, if we make the proper use of our facilities.
We note that the industrial development bank is to be set up as a subsidiary to the Bank of Canada. This morning I happened to see the Ottawa Citizen of Tuesday, February 8, and I noted particularly a misleading statement. This is what I read: "Bank of Canada cuts rediscount rate; debt-free money and ending fight for markets urged by Lord Sempill." I showed this heading to three men and asked them what it meant. Their reply was, "Oh, the Bank of Canada is cutting the rediscount rate, and they are going to issue debt-free money." Ninety per cent of the people are headline readers and I believe many persons across Canada after reading that headline are going to say, "Well, we are beginning to have some sense. The Bank of Canada is issuing debt-free money." But when one looks through the article he finds that it states something entirely different, and that no great change is intended at all. It states that the rate of discount will be* lowered from 2J to li per cent, on advances to

The Address-Mr. Johnston (Bow River)
chartered or savings banks. This is no great reform. Once the chartered banks get the advance from the Bank of Canada, they can expand their credit from ten to twenty times, and the rate works out to only a fraction of one per cent. It does not in any sense indicate that either the chartered banks or the industrial development banks will be in a position to make loans to industries or agriculture at a lower rate. Unless we have some means of issuing national money for a national eause we are going to fall into the same error as that into which we have fallen many times before. The government seems to take a great deal of pleasure in passing the buck to industry, if I may use that expression.
There is a widespread belief that the onus of taking up the slack in respect of unemployment should fall upon industry. Industry cannot and never will absorb all the unemployed in Canada. We had better understand that right now, because such is not the function of indiustry, nor was it ever intended to be. As I pointed out a while ago, the industries of Canada are well organized, and they are turning out the necessary production. The war has proven their ability to produce goods. I am not saying anything about the profits they are making, nor am I expressing any opinion as to whether they are making too much or too little. That is a matter entirely for control. The function of industry is to produce goodis, and it is doing that. But to expect industry to give back jobs to all the men who have gone overseas, and who before enlistment were employed with those industries, is just pure nonsense. They cannot and they will not do it.
The hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) delivered a good speech the other day, in which he encouraged the development of industries in western Canada. With his views in that respect we from the west entirely agree. He pointed out the potentialities accruing from such a programme. But one must always have in mind the markets to be supplied. There is no use in having industries, and a greater production of goods, unless we have markets in which to sell those goods. Why, even in the years of depression there was no scarcity of goods in the stores. Industry was producing as much as it could sell.
I recall visiting a plant in Canada just before the war, and upon returning to the manager's office I said to him, "Why do you not keep those fellows employed for the full twelve months of the year? Surely your mental make-up is not such, that you would deliberately dismiss a man and place him on relief for six months in the year, with the possibility that he and his family might starve." "Well," 100-174
he said, "no industrialist would take that attitude ; he would be inhuman' if he did." He showed me the great pile of stores in their warehouses, and said to me, "If you will get these goods out of here, I will put the men back to work very quickly-and for twelve months of the year." He was perfectly right.
It is the government's obligation to see that we have markets for these goods. Once we have the markets we shall have no difficulty in securing their production by industry. The assumption that foreign markets are going to solve our problems is, to my mind, quite wrong. True, foreign markets are necessary to a certain extent. We must have them so that we may exchange our surpluses, the goods which cannot possibly be consumed within our own country. The greatest and probably the most important of all our markets is the one at home. But in order to have a home market sufficient to take care of our population, we must have the purchasing power in the hands of the people so that they may buy back the consumer goods produced for them by industry. Unless we do that, we shall find difficulty ahead.
That purchasing power can be made up in several ways. A large portion of it can be supplied through industry, which pays the wages and salaries, but there is never enough paid out by industry in wages and salaries to begin to buy back the products of industry, and so there is always a lag. We have advocated the issue of national dividends to make up that lag. Every other party in the house has criticized and ridiculed this principle of national dividends. In view of that, it is amazing now to see in the speech from the throne mention made of family allowances. I have not heard anybody criticize them. Family allowances are in part a national dividend, but only to a very selected portion of our citizens. I am waiting with a great deal of interest to hear what the rank and file of the Liberals supporting the party which proposed these family allowances have to say about that. The principle of the family allowance is sound. But when you issue a family allowance to only a portion of our citizens, that is discrimination.


Mr. GIBSON:: Who says that it is being issued to only a portion?


Charles Edward Johnston: It is being issued only to the children. Here is what the speech from the throne says, and I am glad to hear the minister take exception to it because evidently he thinks that is wrong. The proposal as contained in the speech from the throne is this:
The family and the home are the foundation of national life. To aid in ensuring a minimum
260	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Johnston (Bow River)
of well-being to the children of the nation and to help gain for them a closer approach to equality of opportunity in the battle of life, you will be asked to approve a measure making provision for family allowances.
I take it that "children" means what it says. It does not mean adults.


Mr. DUPUIS:: Why adults?


Charles Edward Johnston: You answer that.


Vincent Dupuis: You are there to say.


Charles Edward Johnston: 
Mr. R. W. GLADSTONE (Wellington South):: My first word to-day will be to the
men and1 women of our armed! forces; of the navy, the army, and the air force; those who are serving us in all parts of the world, fighting to preserve our freedom; and not overlooking, too, the doctors and the nurses who are rendering such wonderful service. Our casualty lists are heavy, and we fear will continue so. Our

The Address-Mr. Johnston (Bow River)
thoughts go out in deepest sympathy to those at home who have been bereaved of loved' ones. They are examples of the great fortitude which must be the strength of the nation in these serious times. Our sailors have endured the rigours of the ocean in all kinds of weather and under extreme difficulties, never knowing when they might face the submarine or the enemy from the air. We cannot but pay the highest tribute to those heroic men who night after night go out and fight our battles over Germany. Our tribute goes too to the men of the army in these trying days, in the difficult situation, they face ini Italy.
These men and women, who have been training now over several years, are acquiring an entirely new outlook on life. Men from the maritimes have visited as never before our Pacific coast. Men of the Pacific coast have visited, in training, our eastern provinces. Many of them also have found that their training has taken them to distant parts in the neighbouring republic of the United States.
The course of training during this war has been entirely different from that in the previous war. This is a war of science and mechanization. Consequently our men, when they return from this war, will come back with a knowledge of mechanics and, in many respects, of science which they never had before. We must remember that; we must keep pace with them, realizing that their point of view will not be that of the men and women who left us to go into training and into battle. When they come back to Canada they will find different conditions also. They will find a prosperous country. Men and women have been working for good pay and under good conditions. They have had money to spend and have enjoyed a measure of prosperity despite the difficulties of the time. Our war effort has been huge. There may be things we can criticize, but the word that comes from other countries, from great leaders elsewhere, is always that of praise for the magnificent effort that Canada has put forth in this war. The men will find when they return that conditions are not as they were after the last war. They will find that prices have been controlled1 and that the country will not be facing a period of reduction in prices and1 losses of inventories, as was experienced in 1919.
Prosperity makes prosperity, and in the prosperity that has been created in this war we . can see the great value of creating, in the world that is to be, conditions under which our men and women will have continuous employment. We will welcome them back to better conditions, and it will be our problem and responsibility to see that those better conditions are maintained.

Many of the men will come back to join their brides of the early days of the war, or perhaps to bring brides with them from the old land. There is a great responsibility for us in the way of assistance in setting up new homes; for, as has been said here so frequently, the home is the foundation of the nation.
I say therefore that in all our arrangements for the future, and for these men and women as they return, we must take into account the fact that they have a changed point of view, and that they will be determined that in future there shall be no repetition of the disappointments that followed the last war. We owe a great deal to these men. Our men were at Dunkirk, at the fall of France, and they took part in the battle to save the British isles, which no doubt prevented the enemy from reaching our shores.
What I have said, Mr. Speaker, with regard to consideration for these men as they return, and the efforts to rehabilitate them, goes also for our most generous consideration, as the days go by, for the veterans of 1914-18 who even yet may be experiencing difficult conditions. I am not one who is learned in the law but I have had considerable business experience, and so it has been natural, during the eight years or so that I have been in this parliament, that I should think along the lines of business and business procedure. That trend of thought has led me as an observer to be irritated at times perhaps with the methods of parliament and the business approach to the consideration of the expenditure of money, and so on. And so, with this attitude, I was prompted, back I believe in 1937, to introduce into this house a resolution calling for a revision of the rules of the house. I mention this to-day7 because already a committee has been set up to consider means whereby the procedure of parliament may be improved.
It has always seemed strange to me, and I suppose it is the way in politics, that all of one party should vote one way and all of another party should vote another way. That apparently is necessary under our system of government, whereby the defeat of any measure means the defeat of the government. We may not agree with some particular measure, but according to practice it seems that if we oppose that measure in sufficient numbers the government which we support on the sum-total of its efforts may be defeated.
My attitude has been to take an independent view of the questions that come before us, and that will always be my attitude. I feel that I am here to represent all my constituents and not only those who voted for me. It has been my desire therefore to see an improvement in the rules governing procedure in this house

The Address-Mr. Gladstone
which will leave me freedom to vote for the measures I approve and to oppose the measures I cannot approve. In order to make my attitude clearer on many of the questions that are before us to-day I have had it in mind, following the practice of political parties, to set down a number of points that represent my way of thinking on the questions of the day.
My theme in general is this, that with an improvement in procedure, so that members of parliament may consider legislation on its merits, and with provision to make corrections where there may be weaknesses in our methods and weaknesses in legislation, we can draw upon the past to build for a better future.
I do not see the necessity of uprootingvthe past in order to have a prosperous Canada in the future. I think we can rely on the past, with adjustments and corrections, so that there will be opportunity for every man and every woman to make a decent living in this Canada of great resources. Therefore I desire to enumerate briefly a number of points to indicate my way of thinking and the course I would wish to pursue as the member for the riding of Wellington South.
1.	Christianity is our accepted conformity to the divine purpose. Encouragement, in government, to things Christian, and discouragement of things unchristian, is the sure foundation of national worth.
2.	National individuality develops with the lapse of centuries. To-day Canada is a growing force in the British commonwealth of nations. In that sphere we can exert a powerful influence, in association with the United States of America, for peace and good will amongst all peoples.
3.	Unity of purpose of our peoples of many origins can be attained best by a policy that will encourage a blending of the races in an atmosphere of understanding of civil and religious freedom.
4.	Parliament should aim to promote these ideals in our development as a nation. There is need for recovering the confidence of Canadians in their parliament as an institution for safeguarding and promoting equality of rights and equality of opportunity for all.
5.	To this end members of parliament, especially in this time of world crisis, ought to exercise their right to advocate and consider legislation with less regard to party affiliation. Members now have freedom, in theory but not in general practice, of voting according to their judgment. Consequently I advocate that the defeat of a government measure shall not constitute defeat of the government.

6.	Confidence or want of confidence in the government, after non-acceptance of proposed legislation, should be determined by a separate vote. An adverse majority on a confidence vote would then constitute defeat of the government.
7.	Speeches frequently are ill-prepared, irrelevant and wasteful of time. Reduction in the time allotted for speeches, with certain exceptions, should be made.
8.	Procedure in parliament should be revised to minimize general debate. Procedure in committee should be revised to broaden members' opportunity of scrutinizing departmental administration and to give parliament a greater measure of advance control over expenditures. Calling departmental officials before committees would stimulate efficiency and sometimes, perhaps, unearth situations unknown to the ministry.	_
9.	The civil service system should be revised for better recognition of merit and vice versa as to incompetence. There should be flexibility whereby persons with essential qualifications can be sought for special work.
10.	Senate reform is being called for in many quarters. Members of that body might very well take the initiative in organizing, in a non-partisan way, for an enlarged programme of national service during the entire session. Unless the public is assured of greater usefulness the demand will grow for change to an elected senate.
11.	Agriculture is becoming more and more a scientific and mechanized vocation. Our colleges must be financed more generously for the best obtainable facilities and equipment and to attract specialist personnel for skilled service and leadership. Prices to the farmer must be scaled upwards. His profits will flow back into purchases of machinery, better houses and barns, electrification and modern conveniences. These needs will contribute to employment in industry.
12.	Forest reserves in Canada are being depleted by fire, insects and destructive logging methods. Steps must be taken to institute scientific methods and sound business policy to maintain and increase our forests.
13.	Mineral production in Canada has expanded enormously for war purposes due to the diligence and skill of the prospector and the scientist. Canada's northland is a vast prospect largely untouched. We must , give all possible encouragement and support to those who seek out and develop its hidden treasures. Active mining production means increased factory operations.
The Address-Mr. Gladstone

14.	Merchant shipping is a war-created industry of Canada capable of much expansion. Our trained seamen will respond to this new opportunity of sailing Canada's products to the ports of the world and back with much needed cargo. Qur fisheries resources, both salt water and fresh water, are unsurpassed anywhere. Our rivers await harnessing to turn the wheels of industiy.
15.	Air transport is another war-created industry of Canada. We are the link between the world areas of most dense population. Just as our brave airmen have conquered in war, so will they serve in jjeace for all mannei of transport via our Atlantic to Pacific resources of the air.
16.	The tourist trade in our playgrounds of the north is a potential resource of Canada capable of enormous expansion. I suggest that thousands of the temporary war-time houses be reerected along our lakes and rivers in colonies as tourist homes. Under direction we can have these as attractive summer homes for visiting Americans and as comfortable stopping places for our own citizens on vacation. Colonies of tourist homes could be made to give all-year employment to an ex-service man as supervisor, storekeeper, postmaster, et cetera.
17.	Boys and girls, especially in our cities and larger towns, should be given the advantage of physical training for health, deportment, and discipline. For confirmation of the value of such training, see members of any branch of the armed forces. They have a glow in their cheeks. Their shoulders are squared. They walk with evidence of purpose. They know the importance of team work.
_ 18. Our prisons are becoming comfortable -lading places for those who would escape miliary service. These and many delinquent youths should be set to work under guard in lumber camps and mines. Besides board and lodging they should receive modest wages, the same to accrue for assistance to dependents or for themselves by instalments on release to assist them to a new start along better lines.
19.	Warning is given that the public is becoming critical of overstaffing of army and other officers in Canada; likewise at headquarters overseas.
20.	Warning is given that many men who have been in the reserve army for two or three years consider it futile now to spend time at a summer training camp.
21.	Warning is given that after the war our continuing organization for reasonable defence precautions should not be permitted to grow into a costly military aristocracy.

22.	Canada occupies a strong position for industrial development of the aforementioned resources through abundant power, an advantageous world location and a virile people. Persons or corporations must not be permitted to gain monopolistic control. The remedy lies within the power of parliament. Maximum industrial progress can be assured best by encouragement to vision and to the pioneering spirit of our people in association with modem science in a system of due recognition of individual initiative and enterprise.
23.	Finance is a service for exchange of values and should be made to serve that purpose at fair cost to all. Persons or corporations associated with finance must not be permitted, through interlocking directorates and in other ways, to adopt policies detrimental to the maintenance of employment on a balanced keel as opposed to cycles of prosperity and depression. Again the remedy lies within the powers of parliament. Canada should aim to be financially independent of other countries.
24.	Labour, both men and women, merits the praise of the nation for its contribution to the war effort. Canada will be richer with better paid working men supporting, more comfortable homes, better clothed and better fed children and an assurance of security if sickness comes or when they can work no longer. I shall support every fair means possible that our workers may have assurance of the four freedoms.
25.	Government proposals for security are on a huge and unprecedented scale. Before the present war the total annual expenditures of the federal government for all purposes, including pensions and veterans' allowances, was around 8550,000,000. The estimated cost to-day of the far-reaching programme of social security and veterans' rehabilitation as outlined in the speech from the throne approaches $600,000,000. This amount includes, according to forecasts, $300,000,000 for veterans' gratuities, allowances, rehabilitation, et cetera; $150,000,000 for family allowances and $75,000,000 for national health insurance. Additional amounts in various fields will be provided by the provinces. This surely is an answer for those who are wondering if money can be found for needs in peace time as it has been found for war.
26.	There is need for establishing better the supremacy of parliament. Why the methods of careful business administration cannot be employed in parliament is more than I can understand. This criticism is directed towards all governments, past and

The Address-Mr. Burton
present, federal and provincial. Perhaps it is that regimentation of members best serves political ends. I call for commitee scrutiny that will reach into places and situations probably unknown to ministers.
27.	It must be apparent .that I support democracy freed of hidden selfish direction, either from individuals or groups. I take the past, make corrections and build for the future. I stand for fair and equal opportunity for all men to exercise their initiative and their qualities twice beneficially, to themselves and to the nation.


Mr. J. W. BURTON (Humboldt):: Mr Speaker, on this, my first opportunity of speaking in this house, I wish to express my appreciation to you and all other hoa. members on both sides for the very kind welcome that has been extended to me as a new member.
At the very beginning let me frankly state that one of the main reasons I am here is that last year in Saskatchewan a group of men took it upon themselves to deny to the citizens of that province the democratic right of passing judgment upon the stewardship of their elected representatives, by extending their own term of office without the consent of those whom they govern. Why did not this government exercise its powers of disallowance, when the democratic rights of the citizens of the province of Saskatchewan were interfered with, as promptly as it did when the special privileges of certain financial institution? in the province of Alberta were threatened? Speaking on behalf of the people of the constituency of Humboldt-yes, and on behalf of the majority of the people of Saskatchewan-through you, Mr. Speaker, I appeal to the government to disallow that act extending the life of the Saskatchewan legislature, which is one of the darkest blots on the annals of any democratic country. It is the very negation of democracy. Even though it is somewhat late for such action, I contend that the disallowance of this legislation is the least that can be done to remove that blot and to avoid the establishment of a dangerous precedent that might make a farce of our democratic system of government. On Monday, January 31, I was pleased to hear the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) state that he did not approve the idea of parliament extending its own life. I now appeal to him and to his ministers to take the necessary action to restore to the people of Saskatchewan their democratic rights. Some may argue that this government should not interfere in the domestic affairs of any province. In reply I say that the democratic rights of any part of this
dominion should be of greater concern to us than the special privileges enjoyed by financial institutions.
There are other reasons why the electors of Humboldt constituency decided that they could no longer support this government. In the past they were prepared to march down the aisle to the altar of political union with the Liberal party to the strains of "Oh Promise Me", but that day is gone The people of Saskatchewan realize that the Liberal record has been a series of broken promises. While any fair-minded person realizes that in these trying times it is most difficult for any group of men to conduct the affairs of government, yet such fairness ceases to be a virtue if the people would continue to tolerate the inefficiency of this administration. When political expediency takes precedence over the safety of our country; when political patronage supersedes justice, then the people demand a change.
The great majority of the people of Humboldt constituency are farmers, and even most of the residents of the towns and villages depend for their livelihood on the purchasing power of the farmers. The greater part of this territory was settled some forty years ago by people of many races and creeds working together in a neighbourly way to carve out of the wilderness homes for themselves and their children. Scarcely had the sod shacks and log houses been constructed in a community before the neighbourhood got together and built a place of divine worship. They had faith in God; they loved their neighbours, and their desire was to have the opportunity to establish homes and raise their families in peace and seourity. With visions of comfort and security in the years to come, these pioneers cleared and broke large fields and raised enormous crops. Situated on the edge of the park belt, part prairie and part bush land, and dotted with many small lakes, the greater part of this territory never had a complete crop failure. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of new wealth were produced in grain and live stock. These provident, hard-working people did not squander their money. Their homes are very modest; in fact many are quite inadequate to their needs. Very few made trips to California, and fewer still back to the land of their birth. But after all these years of hard toil, do you find these people enjoying the well-earned comfort and security that they are entitled to? Many are still struggling along, doing work far too heavy for their advancing years. Others have been forced to give up the struggle and eke out a drab existence under the so-called old

The Address-Mr. Burton

age pension, while the great majority of them have only a load of debt to pass on to their children.
When an industrious people cooperate with a bountiful Providence with no better results than these, then there is something wrong somewhere. This may give hon. members some idea of what I mean. From the book "Down North" written by the British High Commissioner for Canada, Right Hon. Malcolm MacDonald, I quote:
Such people have made Canada. They love the open spaces and their passion is to produce the fruits of the soil. But they sow the seeds also of greater things. Other people come after them and gather that harvest.
Though the right hon. gentleman wrote those lines in describing one small group of people with whom he had come in contact, they are equally descriptive of practically every farming community in western Canada.
Ever since the west has been, settled the policies of the two old political parties have made it impossible for the farmer in the west to obtain a just return from the fruits of his labour. In spite of glowing promises, Liberals and Conservatives allowed their friends from other parts-yes, from other lands-to reap the harvest. These pioneers and their descendants still have faith in God. To produce the fruits of the earth is still their passion, but they have lost confidence in this administration.
For the information of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) I can assure him that his Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), with all the resources and help at his command, left no stone unturned in trying to convince the electors of Humboldt constituency that the agricultural policy foisted on the west by this government w^s in their best interests. But for once the Minister of Agriculture found himself without a band wagon; so that finally in desperation he climbed on to the water wagon. For years the citizens of the town of Humboldt have been in need of an adequate water supply. Water for domestic use is being hauled to the town by tank wagons. For a number of years both the Canadian National Railways and the town council have made extensive but unsuccessful searches for the source of an adequate water supply. Just two days prior to the by-election last August, supporters of the Liberal party, carrying in honey tins samples of water which were alleged to have come in from some test holes several miles out of town, canvassed the town. Their stock-in-trade argument was that they were prepared to admit that the C.C.F. was going to win the constituency, but that the Minister of Agriculture had promised that if only the town of Humboldt would give the

Liberal party a majority the necessary funds and the priority for pipes would be made available. The town of Humboldt did give my Liberal opponent a majority, although it is quite true that their former majority of 400 or 500 was cut down to around 30 votes. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the town did give the Liberal party a majority. What I wish to know is this: When is the Minister of Agriculture going to fulfil that promise?
While the citizens of the town of Humboldt were being given the water treatment by the Liberal board of strategy, the Minister of Agriculture's henchmen covered the constituency, promising each community according to its local desires. For example, in some sections they tried to lead the people to believe that an all-out war effort could be entrusted only to a Liberal administration and its supporters, while in other places the argument used was that the Liberal candidate was the one who could get their boys out of the army. However the electors refused to be sidetracked from the real issues, and voted want of confidence in the government, on the following grounds:
1.	The failure of the government to protect the democratic rights of our citizens;
2.	The hampering of our war effort by allowing the profit motive to dominate the war industries;
3.	The refusal of the government to place agriculture on an equitable basis with other essential industries;
4.	Failure to solve the man-power problem, and
5.	The hampering of our farmers and small business men by unnecessary and bureaucratic restrictions and control.
On this occasion it is not my intention to deal with all these matters, because other hon. members have already dealt with some of them. But, as a farmer, and as the representative of an agricultural constituency, 1 wish to speak on behalf of the farmers. For a great number of years the farmers, with justification, asked for better grain prices. This was denied them, for one excuse or another. In later years we have been told that we could not have those higher prices because it would break the price ceiling. What the farmers would like to know is why their prices were frozen at less than the cost of production. .On the other hand, spokesmen for the Liberal party urged the people that if they wanted a better deal for the west they should send more Liberal members to parliament.
I have been rather busy in the few days I have been in Ottawa, and have not had

The Address-Mr. Burton
time to count the Liberal members from the prairie provinces. However there seems to be quite a number of them, and I have come to the conclusion that my colleague the 'hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Bryce) and myself have more influence with the ministers than all these back-bench Liberals put together. The ninth of August had a startling effect upon the administration. It suddenly became aware of the fact that the farmers in the west meant business. Practically over night, ninety-cent wheat became dollar-and-a-quarter wheat. Roughly estimating this year's crop at a little less than 300,000,000 bushels, the farmers are about $100,000,000 better off in this one year alone because the electors of Humboldt and Selkirk refused to be kidded any longer.
There is no reason why that increase in price could not have been made five years ago. During that time the farmers producing grain have been penalized to the extent of at least $500,000,000-and, Mr. Speaker, out in my part of the country that is a lot of money. It would have helped to pay off quite a few mortgages. However I wish to warn the Minister of Agriculture that he and his government have not yet redeemed themselves in the eyes of western farmers. The maximum production of bacon has been seriously jeopardized by the hesitating and inadequate action of the government. The bonus for top-grade bacon hogs recently announced by the minister is just another example of too little and too late. We have heard quite a bit about hogs during the course of this debate. It is not my intention to elaborate on that. On the one hand, my colleague, the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Bryce) showed that the producers of hogs were just about being rail-graded out of business supplying the export market. On the other hand, I should like to know about the pork products consumed in this country. Why is the producer of heavy hogs being penalized to the extent that he is? At least, why do not the consumers get the benefit? Do the consumers have the opportunity to buy any of this pork cheaper because it comes from heavy hogs?
Another matter of vital interest to western farmers with which I wish to deal is the unfair allotment of railroad cars for shipping grain. We all realized the urgent necessity during past years of making full use of all available storage space, and we were prepared to cooperate to fill up that space even to the extent of hauling some of our grain to elevators with which we did not want to do business. But having filled that space once, we object most strenuously to being compelled to refill that space time after time and to being denied1 the 100-184
opportunity of delivering our grain to our own elevators. For example, at some points in the west, before this quota and car allotment system came into effect, our elevator handled from seventy-five to eighty per cent of the business, where now, through this unfair car allotment system, our volume has been forced down to forty per cent, and in some cases as low as thirty-five per cent. Someone somewhere, with the blessing of this government, has been playing sugar-daddy at our expense to the very interests that are opposed to our cooperatively owned elevators.
The other day I was pleased to hear the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) announce that we were to have more cars allotted to where we needed them. Following that announcement I received a telegram from a man at Humboldt who had made it his business to find out just what the situation was in two municipalities in which there are ten shipping points, and he reports that of these ten shipping points seven are still without sufficient cars to enable them, to handle their quota. He sent me a covering letter giving all the details, and after I am through with it I shall be pleased to give the details to the minister.


James Angus MacKinnon: I
shall be glad to have them.


Joseph William Burton: Those two municipalities
constitute only a small part of my constituency, and Humboldt constituency is only a very small part of the west. When we have seven out of ten shipping points short of cars to handle the quota in only two municipalities, and we have fifty shipping points in Humboldt constituency, what about all the rest? I have not had an opportunity to make inquiries, but I am going to make it my business to do so, and I am going to take the minister at his word and inform him as to every shipping point that is short of cars.
Another thing that alarms me is that the agricultural policies of this government are forcing the family farm' out of our national economy. More and more are we being forced on to a mass production basis. The only way the farm family can compete with modern mass production is by the use of the unpaid slave labour of the women and children on the farms. If it were only that the family farm was in danger I would not be so much concerned, but the very existence of the farm family is being severely threatened. Remember, the family unit is the very foundation of our nation, and statistics prove that the farm family is the keystone of our national life.
The family allowance forecast in the speech from the throne, if properly put into effect,
26S
The Address-Mr. Burton

will be of some assistance, but in itself, it cannot preserve the farm family. In addition, with the rest of the people of this country, we are entitled to know if this and the other legislation forecast in the speech from the throne is just another dream by the dreamer of twenty-five years ago.
I should like to say something about the man-power problem, but to deal properly with the man-power muddle we are in would take much more time than I have on this occasion, and I shall have to leave most of my remarks on that subject for some future occasion. I want to say this now, that if the government in their wisdom consider it necessary for the safety of our country to have fewer men on the farms and more men in the army, then let them say so, and then the farmers will know what is expected of them. But the government cannot expect us farmers to continue to produce the amount of foodstuffs which we are asked to produce unless provision is made to retain at least our experienced help.
In addition to that there are many farm boys who have already, I believe, spent sufficient time in the training camps, and wdio could now be allowed to return home on extended leave, subject to immediate recall in case of emergency. They would be of greater service to their country helping their folks at home than they are at present, kicking their heels around in these camps, with no place to go.
We have stepped up our production to the very limit of our present farm population, and to do that, the farm families are being driven beyond their endurance. Already there are signs of decreased production. This statement is confirmed in a pamphlet "Canada at War", No. 32, of January, 1944, issued by the wartime information board, on page 51 of which a table is shown giving the agricultural output per male farm worker. The table takes 1939 at 100, as a base, and shows that in 1940 and 1941 we had only eighty-nine per cent of our male workers left on the farms; in 1942 and 1943 we were down to seventy-five per cent. On the production side, again taking 1939 at 100, the table shows than in 1940 we produced 105 per cent; in 1941, 112 per cent, and in 1942, 186 per cent. That is a wonderful achievement. But at what a cost! I venture to say that the last three years have taken more than an extra ten years off the life of the average man and woman on the farm.
Now we come to the 1943 estimated production. With only seventy-five per cent of our workers left on the farms, we still produced

160 per cent of the 1939 basis. But we had an alarming drop of twenty-six per cent in our production from that of the previous year. Speaking in the Saskatchewan provincial legislature a year ago, I told the provincial minister of agriculture, who also acted on various boards for this government, that if they continued to drain our boys from the farms we could not meet the production goals set for us. A deaf ear was turned to my warning. But, Mr. Speaker, this table proves that I was right.
The question is, what are we going to do this year? In my opinion we are facing a still greater drop in production, especially in those lines most needed. I want to give just two examples of many which I could furnish right from my own constituency.
I have in mind one couple, a man and woman seventy years of age. They had no children of their own. They raised a nephew. When the war started that lad wanted to enlist. His uncle told him, "O.K.". The lad enlisted, but before he did so he made arrangements with a younger brother to take his place on his uncle's farm. The younger lad and the man proceeded to operate that farm. Right in the middle of harvest and threshing time that boy got his notice, his call, and he had to go-no ifs or buts about it. The old man told me, "Joe, if God continues to give me good health I shall be able to keep the weeds from running away with the farm, but I certainly cannot do the field work and at the same time do the necessary chores, with all this live stock, all these hogs that I have around. The result is," he said, "that they will have to go." That man carried on. I was seriously afraid that he would break down. Finally, this fall, he realized that he had to do what he said a year ago he would have to do; he had to dispose of his live stock. He used to have a considerable amount of live stock on his place, and now he has no more than he needs for himself and his wife. He is keeping the weeds from running away with the cultivated land; that is all, and more than all, he can do.
Another case: a man, who is now seventy-five years of age, for the past two years has stood on a tractor and operated the tractor and a 15-foot combine alone while his boy took the grain away from the combine. On that farm-again-they used to have live stock, hogs whose value ran into hundreds of dollars value every year. But these people could not carry on the other work which had to be done and at the same time do the necessary chores which live stock entails in our part of the country. What these people needed were, not

The Address-Mr. Jackman
high school boys and university students some of whom would not know a tractor from a combine, not that kind of help, but boys right from their own neighbourhood who would know how to operate and handle machinery, and which end of a cow to sit down to if they wanted a pail of milk.


Mr. PERLEY:: And which side.


Joseph William Burton: I could give you dozens of examples of the same kind. We are going to run shorter and shorter of the very things we need to produce on the farms, because experienced help has been and is continuing to be drained away from us.
People of the Humboldt constituency have always been willing to do their part as citizens of this country. Enlistment records show that descendants of all racial groups in that constituency are serving in the various branches of the armed service while their elders are working and sacrificing to the limit of their ability to help bring about a victorious peace.
Within a short time we shall again be entering that season of the year when we commemorate the sufferings, death and resurrection of the Founder of Christianity. We also think of the sword of sorrow that pierced the heart of the Mother Mary as she stood at the foot of the cross and beheld her Son, the victim of man's wrongdoing, selfishness and greed. To-day for the second time within a quarter of a century the flower of our manhood, the youth of our nation, is being crucified on the cross of world selfishness and greed. What is yet in store for us no one can foretell, but this much is certain, the hardest part is yet to come. Before many months pass, many a mother will stand with her hands clasped to her breast, with a sorrow in her heart that only the mother Mary can understand. In view of this, the least we can do is so to fulfil our duties that these sacrifices and sufferings will not have been in vain.


Mr. H. R. JACKMAN (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, may I first present my compliments to the mover and the seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the throne; and may I particularly compliment the hon. member from Rosthern (Mr. Tucker) whose few remarks in French seemed to my untrained ear to be more understandable French than that of those who learned that language at their mother's knee.
Not a word was said in the speech from the throne, however, about the restoration of the supremacy of parliament over the executive. When the War Measures Act became operative by proclamation at the outbreak of war, it was necessary that the executive be
given the power to legislate on the most vital matters affecting the life and security of our people. But after nearly five years, what a reflection on this government if it has not so organized the fighting forces and the production front at home that legislation by executive order should still be necessary! In the opinion of our people the executive is now an overholding tenant, tenacious and avaricious of dictatorial power. The exigency and need for haste in executive action without discussion among the people's representatives has long since passed. Surely the time has come when there should be some revision of the War Measures Act whereby the sovereignty of the people's representatives should be restored to them and exercised by them and not delegated to a handful of dictators who, in cabinet council, sit behind closed doors and order our people about as if they were no longer free men.
Typifying the methods of dictatorship of this government, which does not even consult its own mechanical Liberal majority, are the confessions of two Liberal members, one of whom said, in regard to order in council P.C. 9384 regulating wartime wages, "The government is run by a bureaucracy. The members are nothing, and I frankly admit it. If the order had gone through this house it would have been better prepared." And again, in answer to the remark that labour was being used as a guinea-pig for bureaucrats to experiment upon, a Liberal member said, "The members of parliament are dead guinea-pigs. I have never been consulted or called in on these measures. I admit there are powers behind the government and I know who they are." Assuming that the executive may still need emergency powers of dictatorship, does that excuse it for such flagrant abuses of such power? What an affront to the people's representatives! What a mockery of parliament! What a throwing of democracy into the discard!
The house leader of the opposition (Mr. Graydon) graphically pictured this bureaucracy by pointing out that since September 1, 1939, statutes passed by parliament have covered 838 pages, while proclamations, orders in council, war orders and regulations have required 5,791 pages-seven times as much legislation by executive order as by parliament. The people no longer run their own country. We are no longer a sovereign parliament. The government is a sovereign executive.
Mr. Speaker, very little has been said about that section of the speech from the throne which was undoubtedly inserted as a result of the speech by Lord Halifax. May I. however, correct an observation made by the hon. mem-
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ber for Dorchester (Mr. Tremblay) in moving the address. From his knowledge of Lord Halifax's speech-which from his deductions I doubt if he has read, but has on the other hand rather relied on press clippings and editorial comments from his local newspapers- he appears to labour under a misconception of the purpose and content of the speech. Wherein would he find justification for his statement that: "The latest edition of these mysterious travellers is attempting, it seems, to refloat the foundered ship of the imperial federation"; and, again, "to shower upon us instructions which we shall term indiscreet to say the least"?
The people of Canada as well as the people of the whole British empire, indeed the people of the whole world, are acutely concerned with the achieving of an enduring peace. If a distinguished representative from another country accepts our invitation to visit us, surely he is entitled to fulfil the purpose for W'hich he was asked to come, namely, to present worth-while thoughts for our consideration in respect of one of the gravest questions facing mankind.
As to the remarks of the member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker), he seems not to have crept out of his colonial shell, which the rest of Canada has long since left behind. He said:
So far as I am personally concerned, I feel that we should continue on our course of moving toward complete sovereignty within the British commonwealth of nations.
Does the hon. member think Canada is anything less than a sovereign power and has been anything less for many years, with power to save its national life or to lose it? Rather let me agree withjhe speech made by the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Gibson) in Hamilton recently, in which he is reported as having said:
Canada is as much the master of her own foreign policy as is any sovereign state in the world of its same size; but neither Canada nor any state in the world can of course stand alone.
I think we shall admit that there are many >'mall states in the world which have full sovereignty; but there are few if any who, for i heir own protection, do not find it necessary to move within the orbit of some larger constellation, if not within the orbit of the whole universe itself. I hope no one in Canada will be so ignorant of our true constitutional position as not to know that Canada is a free and independent country. If membership in that great British commonwealth of nations was thought to be any bar to this view, I have only to point to the peculiar and invidious position of the free state of Eire, whose constitution is so closely modeled on our own. While the future lies ahead, our present autonomous position should be plain to all our fMr. Jackman.]
people. The decision taken at the forthcoming meeting of British commonwealth prime ministers will be far-reaching in its effect, affecting not only the destiny of the British empire but the destiny of the whole world. That decision may result in the strengthening of the forces for peace, or it may result in the beginning of the liquidation of the British empire, the greatest force for peace the world has ever known.
The people of Canada look forward with great1 interest to the amplification of the following statement in the speech from the throne:
You will accordingly be invited to approve of Canadian participation in the establishment of an international organization to further national security through international cooperation.
There is little on the international horizon, with the exception of the declaration of principle contained in the Moscow agreement, to indicate what that international organization is likely to be. The failure of the last effort, a failure due in part to the uncooperative and blind policy of our Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), who was adamant in his refusal to apply sanctions to Italy, just as was the United States at an earlier date to support coercive measures with force when Japan invaded Manchuria, leaves little to inspire one with confidence in a new but similar organization. Do we find our own Prime Minister at the present time taking the lead in building up any international organization such as President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia took after the last war? The end we all seek is plain-peace, prosperity and the right to live our own way of life. But I for one have no intention of grasping at the shadow and losing the substance. Our security and trade lie primarily within the British empire, and old friends are best friends. Our propinquity and close relationship to our cousins in the United States can be strengthened, as can the whole world position, through our membership, first, in the British empire, and secondly, in an international organization.
In that brilliant editorial appearing in the Ottawa Journal this morning the theme was built around the following quotation: "No sight is more pathetic than to watch the perfect impede the good.", Are we to be placed in the position of refusing to give up some aspect of our sovereignty within the British family of nations for our mutual protection and then to be asked, to give up that same aspect of sovereignty to some international organization of strangers? If we cannot live as brothers within the British, family it is unlikely that we can live happily as an international club. Let us not bask in the idle undertakings of the President of the

The Address-Mr. Jackman
United States, who in his Ivy Lea speech before the war undertook to protect Canada from attack when he was unable to protect even his own country. Are we to rely on a big cousin who every time our common liberty is at stake finds himself shot through with the cancer of isolationism? The Royal Navy has always been the protector of the American Atlantic seaboard; and only the constant readiness of that navy-ready, aye, ready- and the unconquerable courage of the Royal Air Force in the battle of Britain have given civilization the chance to preserve itself while the North American continent armed itself for the conflict. Yes, and in those* pre lend-lease and pre-mutual aid days we and our United States cousins sent Britain a bill, to the extent of her ability to pay, for keeping the hun from the shores of North America. What a conception of international morality!
Turning to the domestic sphere we find that family allowances have been proposed in order to ensure a minimum of well-being and a closer approach to equality of opportunity to the children of this country. But one wonders why the government proposes this measure at the present time and if it is the intention of the government to implement that proposal immediately. It appears that in the mind of the government it is money that creates this closer approach- to equality and this minimum of well-being; but unless the treasury of this country is inexhaustible it may well be that there are more necessary reforms which should be given a priority over family allowances. In estimating the cost of those family allowances, Doctor Charlotte Whitton, one of the foremost sociologists in North America, placed the figure at $400,000,000. We do not find, however, in President Roosevelt's bill of rights any mention of family allowances. He gives other matters concerning social legislation first place. Doctor Whitton has made ten suggestions which should be given consideration before we embark on any scheme of family allowances costing $400,000,000 a year. Doctor Whitton recommends:
1.	More adequate protection for children without decent parental guardianship.
2.	Custodial care for feeble-minded children, especially girls and young women.
3.	Strengthening of family welfare and adult education services.
4.	Better housing for rural and urban homes.
5.	Electrical power and appliances for rural homes.
6.	Better nursing care in all homes.
7.	Enlargement of Canadian hospital resources.
8.	Improvement of elementary schools in other than urban centres. This, Mr. Speaker, is one of the crying needs of our great country.
9.	More free diagnostic clinics.
10.	Food subsidies.
Where is the $400,000,000 to pay for family allowances coming from? The people are going to pay for these allowances; for that is the only place where it can come from. The total share of the national income now going to investment income, to those who own government and other bonds, stocks and mortgages, et cetera, is less than ten per cent. If that ten per cent of the national income is where the horn, gentlemen of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation say it is, in great concentrations, then it is obvious to all that with a personal income tax rate which runs up to well over ninety per cent there is practically nothing left after the state gets its take. Since nearly every family holds a government bond or an insurance policy-there are over three million holders of victory bonds in this country-we know that investment income is very widely distributed and it is perhaps not unreasonable to assume that not more than half of it is taken by taxation. Thus, of the ten per cent of the national income going to pay interest or dividtends on the capital savings of the people, only half or five per cent would be left after the tax-gatherer has taken his as net income capable of being spent or reinvested. That does not leave very much for the government still to take. Even if capital were drained to the last drop it would not provide funds for more than a fraction of the social security programme outlined by this government.
If it is not obvious to all that the main burden will rest on the great mass of the people of Canada, then they should be told in no uncertain terms; for it is one thing to be delighted with gifts which other people pay for, but quite another thing to have gifts forced on one and then be sent a bill for the same at the end of the month, if the amount is not deducted from the weekly payroll. Is it any wonder, sir, that the president of the trades and labour congress, as well as the congress itself, inveighs against family allowances. Mr. Percy Bengough, president of the trades and labour congress, said:
The Trades and Labour Congress of Canada lias consistently opposed family allowance legislation. We are astounded that the suggestion is being made that workers' income be based on bare living standards to be increased by subsidies from the government according to the number of children.
They know who is going to pay for these allowances, and their fear is that the money
The Address-Mr. Jackman

will be collected at the source through some tax on industry, which, in the competitive struggle for world markets, will mean that their wage returns will not be as high as they otherwise would. Money, which is a claim on the goods and services of our fellowmen, does not grow on trees but is created by the sweat of the brain and the brow of the workers of this country, and the workers of this country not only are concerned with getting their fair share of the national income but in most cases prefer to spend that share as they best see fit, rather than to have a paternal government, no matter how well-intentioned, spend their own money for them.
At school one used to hear about the iron law of wages-an outworn' economic theory- whereby labour was believed never to receive more than sufficient to maintain itself and to reproduce its kind. Is this government suggesting that that is the best standard of life which it can promise our workers? Labour is entitled to a fair wage, and when I say "fair" I mean that labour is entitled to most of the benefits arising through new ideas and more efficient methods of production. It is sufficient to leave the owners and managers just enough to keep them saving and working their heads off and their hearts out improving the general standard of living. But never let us kill the goose that lays the golden egg; for it is leadership, whether in statecraft, industry or elsewhere, which gives life to the mass. Without leadership we are lost.' With fair wages and adequate unemployment insurance to cover any temporary period of unemployment, surely a worker can be paid enough to maintain himself and his family.
Family allowances undoubtedly have their uses, but unquestionably they have their abuses. Where the balance lies I am not prepared to judge at this moment; but if the people who are going to pay for it do not want this piece of paternalism I see no reason why it should be forced upon them.
The Prime Minister suggested that the speech from the throne divides itself naturally into three sections: first, the winning of the war; second, the transitional period from war to peace, and third, the resolutions for social security, presumably in the post-war period. It is important that we should know when the government plans to make operative a scheme such as family allowances, which at a time like the present is wholly inflationary in all its aspects. If one of the chief purposes of our victory loans is to drain off the surplus spending power which cannot be utilized because civilian goods are not available on which to spend it, then surely the pumping 
back of some hundreds of millions of dollars annually into the hands of the people at this time, through family allowances, will put a pressure on the price ceiling which will blow the lid to kingdom come. Is it any wonder that when the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker), in seconding the address in reply to the speech from the throne, mentioned that the government had found a way of effecting a much needed adjustment in farm income, through various measures for the financial benefit of our farmers, without increasing the danger of inflation, the colour in the face of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) mounted visibly? Perhaps the rosy effusion was for other seasons, but the coincidence was most marked, for no one knows better than the minister the danger of every hand-out to our people, no matter how well justified, is to the price ceiling. Greater than the wrongs which are sought to be remedied is the danger of inflation which may well be brought about by the very means used as a cure for the lesser evil.
When speaking on. the need for social security measures I have always expressed the hope that the Christian spirit of brotherhood among our people would be sufficient for them to be willing to introduce such measures as are necessary not only for the protection of those who are less strong but also for the protection of those who may be strong but who, because of the impingement of world events upon our economy, from time to time may suffer hardship. Some forms of social security measures undoubtedly are necessary because of our dependence upon world trade, as the fourth or fifth trading country in the world, and because we cannot be entirely masters of our own economy, whether that economy be capitalism, socialism, fascism or communism.
Let us look first at our whole social security programme. It must be based upon our postwar plans and outlook, just as the Beveridge plan for social security is based on not more than ten per cent unemployment. Instead of enacting social security measures piecemeal, let us sketch the whole canvas before filling in the detail and throwing the whole picture out of balance. Let the people of this country have a look at the total financial commitments they will have undertaken in regard to social security and other measures before they are asked to rush headlong along any one particular field. Health insurance I should consider an exception to this general rule, because the good health of the people not only reflects adherence to a humanitarian principle but is a sound investment.

The Address-Mr. Jackman
la the consideration of the over-all financial obligations we are about to undertake, let us have an eye to the means whereby they will be paid for. I have already declared that the great mass of our people are the only source left to bear the major part of the burden; but our people are also concerned with the rate of taxation, not only on themselves as individuals but on themselves as employees of business organizations which must be allowed to live if they are to give leadership in supplying the goods which will raise the standard of living and at the same time create jobs. If the government wishes to consider post-war planning it must consider first what kind of economy we are going to have. If enterprise is stifled through taxation burdens which kill incentive, then it is perhaps better that we should at once lose our freedom and become a totalitarian state rather than suffer a slow, lingering and blood-letting death through a policy which stifles all development and all new employment. In a recent speech Wendell Willkie said:
When peace comes taxes must he minimized rather than maximized in order to stimulate the flow of goods, the taking of risks and the creation of millions of jobs. We must solve the post-war tax problem, not by imposing the biggest possible rates on our income, but by creating the biggest possible income on which to impose relatively modest rates.
Let the government declare itself so that both small and large business men may know where they stand, so that they may plan for job creation. During the war there has been no need for new industries for the production of civilian requirements which would give our people a more abundant life. Indeed the demands of war production made it desirable that the dead hand of heavy taxation and priorities should be laid upon new business ventures for civilian consumption. With victory that position will change, and the business man must know where he stands if he is to create employment, a field in which he is particularly qualified to give leadership if he is not interfered with by political agencies whether they be of the national or international variety.
Time will not permit me to discuss socialism, but I point out that while this government makes no profession of state ownership of private industry, through its taxation measures not only has it captured one hundred per cent of all war profits of industry, which is perhaps as it should be, but it has cut itself in, through the minimum taxation on any business, to the extent of forty per cent of the average amount which that business earned in the four pre-war years 1936 to 1939. Thus the government takes not only all new profits, but forty per cent of all prewar profits even if the company is earning less than it did in peace time. And this, Mr. Speaker, goes one better than socialism; for the government bears no risk whatsoever of loss, and at the same time has never put up one cent of the capital which goes into the ownership and creation of those industries. Can business be expected to survive and develop under such conditions as those, under a "heads I win, tails you lose" policy, where there is no reward for the assumption of risk and there is thus no offsetting recovery for the losses which business sustains when the dreams and hard work of businessmen, whether in the field of industry or commerce or in the development of natural resources, go awry and the only dividends are losses?
The reference to the creation of an industrial development bank as a subsidiary to the Bank of Canada in order to provide both fixed and working capital for the conversion of industrial plants has not so far been mentioned in this debate, and I desire to make a few observations before the resolution is brought down or the bill debated. Indeed, while the government often borrows good ideas which are developed by the opposition in the debate on the resolution, it is even better to have suggestions accepted before the administration allows its preconceived notions to crystallize and thus obstruct the acceptance of a major change in principle or organization.
In the post-war period there will undoubtedly be many cases where an intermediate credit bank is both desirable and needed. The reconversion of war industry to peace industry -from production to kill to production to live-will entail many problems and many risks.
Despite the recommendation of the British Macmillan commission of 1931 and the need for such intermediate credit facilities in peace time, no great development ever took place. Being interested in the possibilities of such business in Canada, I called on the managing director of such a company in the city of London in 1937 and came away with the impression that while the idea was theoretically sound, it was practically of little value because of the great amount of time that had to be given to the oversight and operation of the small borrowing companies. In ordinary times it is not likely that the application of more than one borrower in twenty could be accepted. The post-war problem of Canadian industry may well be different and the bank's usefulness to the country in the transitional period 'from war production to peace' production need not be determined solely by the profit motive. The benefit of job
The Address-Mr. Jackman


Mr. MAURICE BOURGET (Levis):: (Translation) Mr. Speaker, before the conclusion of the debate on the address, I should like to make a few brief remarks on some features of the speech from the throne which, in my opinion, are particularly interesting.
I was glad to read that the government recognizes the family and the home as "the foundation of national life" and that "in order to aid in ensuring a minimum of wellbeing to' the children of the nation and to help gain for them a closer approach to equality of opportunity in the battle of life, the members of this house would be asked to approve a measure making provision for family allowances".
That matter was broached long ago and I do hope that the implementing of such a plan will not be indefinitely postponed. For some time, many rumours (which fortunately had no official character) were abroad to the effect that such allowances would be limited to a certain number of children in each family. I have every reason to believe that those rumours are groundless, and that the government will introduce into such a generous, humanitarian and necessary legislation no feature that might bring about a lowering of the birth-rate in this country.
I, for one, will heartily support that measure and I have no doubt that it will apply to all children. Does not that legislation aim at helping the heads of families, and especially those who have many children? At first sight, it is hard to understand any restriction in its application, because the heads of large families are generally those who are most frequently in need of government help.
In some European countries, and especially in England, the authorities having noticed, not so long ago, a steady lowering of the birth-rate and viewing with the greatest concern its direful consequences for the nation, have appointed a commission empowered to

The Address-Mr. Bourget
investigate the causes of such a situation and suggest possible remedies. I have no accurate recollection of the recommendations made by that investigating commission set up in England, but I am sure that a measure like the one providing for family allowances was suggested with a view to improving the situation and increasing the birth-rate. I do believe that were the principle of granting allowances-subject to no restriction, of course -adopted in Canada, we would soon notice the advantages of such a measure.
Another feature of the speech from the throne has particularly impressed me. I refer to "the measure to amend and supplement existing housing legislation".
With the hon. members who have already dealt with that matter-and I wish to single out my colleague and friend the hon. member for St. James (Mr. Durocher)-I wish to emphasize the serious problem that exists especially in centres where war industries are to be found. Such towns are now facing a serious housing problem which becomes more acute as the month of May draws nearer.
I know that many of our towns where dockyards are established have experienced a population increase. The housing problem has reached a point where it has become urgent that the government step in to help these municipalities whose financial resources render it impossible for them to solve this problem brought about by the war.
I have already, on many occasions, in the course of a year or so, discussed1 this deporable condition with some ministers, especially those from the vicinity of the city of Quebec. They are showing some interest in this matter and I hope my efforts will have practical results. Because of the urgency and importance of the conditions obtaining, I wish to call this matter lo the attention of the house.
It seems to me that the government should help these municipalities by granting subsidies that would allow persons who will be without a home next May to start building houses immediately. It may be said that the war will soon be over and that the towns will then have a number of unoccupied houses. I do not hold that view for, in my opinion, many of the people who have moved1 from rural districts during the last four or five years, to work in our cities, will stay in urban centres after the war and it will naturally be necessary to find hygienic and comfortable houses for them.
Another plan that might be considered by the government would be that of granting loans at a small interest, or 2 per cent, for example, in order to make it easier for those
of small means to get the funds necessary for the construction of dwelling houses. It might be advisable to set up an organization that would work and cooperate with the municipalities and individuals concerned.
In view of the urgent need of solving this problem, the government should see that such an organization is set up immediately to ensure that we shall not have to face a serious condition at some future date. Besides fulfilling an urgent need, such a measure would be very commendable from the social point of view, and, what is more, would help to increase the number of small property owners which unfortunately is at too low a figure. I hope the government will soon introduce a bill to remedy this evil or submit to the municipalities concerned some project in this connection.
Another matter on which I wish to dwell particularly, is the labour question, since I have the honour of representing in this house * a constituency, peopled mostly by workers, in fact, it is probably the best labour constituency.
Since the beginning of the war, we have unfortunately witnessed strikes and disputes of all kinds between employer and employee. I do not wish to be unfair to anybody, but, during the last few years, in the course of which I have been more closely associated with both employers and employees, I have been led to believe that the cause of all these misunderstandings do not originate exclusively from faulty legislative measures, but, above all from the lack of cooperation between industrial leaders and workers and mutual mistrust.
I am sorry to have noticed so often that some industrial leaders, trying at all cost to keep the workers in the virtual state of slavery-if I may so express myself-which existed before the war, do not seem ready to abandon this method -and will neither trust the leaders of trade unions nor cooperate with them for the purpose of improving their relations and thereby increasing production in their industries.
I should now like to point out that I do not claim the workers are always right, but I simply wish to mention what struck me during my interviews with company officials and workingmen, ever since I have had the honour of representing the constituency of Levis in this house.
It is quite logical to say that good legislation naturally helps to promote better relations between capital and labour, but I can state confidently that it remains ineffective until these two classes have developed good understanding and mutual trust.
The Address-Mr. Bourget

To my mind, the worker should be reasonable in his claims, and should work to the extent that his employers expect of him; on the other hand, the employers should show greater fairness in dealing with the workers and treat them not as hirelings but rather as collaborators and devoted servants.
I wish to state here that I am in favour of private enterprise. On the other hand, I warn those who are most vitally concerned in the maintenance of this system after the war to change some of the methods which they are using at the present time; otherwise, they will compel our leaders to exercise a more *rigid control over these industries so that better understanding may prevail in our industrial undertakings.
I take this opportunity to call the attention of the government, and especially of the hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) upon the administration of the various laws under his department. I have found that there was a lack of supervision in the administration of these laws. Commercial firms appear to have too much latitude, and they interpret in their own way, and frequently to their advantage, of course, the .various measures passed by the government.
Such methods naturally breed discontent within the labouring classes. Sometimes blatant injustices are committed and the government has no opportunity to intervene. I understand that the Industrial Relations Branch, which comes under the Department of Labour, is doing excellent work in this field. Unfortunately, it is inadequately staffed, and the adjustment of the grievances which are too frequently reported is unduly delayed. I have personally found that certain grievances have remained unsettled for two or three months due to the fact that this particular branch of the Department of Labour was short of inspectors.
I would therefore ask the Minister of Labour to see to it that his staff is increased so that any misunderstandings which may arise may be adjusted with as little delay as possible.
* In "Facts and Figures" published by the wartime information board, I read recently that:
On January 21, 1944, the honourable Minister )f Munitions and Supply and the honourable Minister of Labour released a joint statement announcing the recent establishment by order in council of an industrial cooperation board, entrusted with the duty of assisting and promoting the appointment of labour-employer joint committees in war industries.
Personally I am in favour of the setting-up of such a board. Production committees have already been organized in some industries.
TMr. Bourget.]
Representatives of both employers and employees sit on these committees. Unfortunately-and here again, due to the lack of confidence and good will between employers and employees-these organizations have proven ineffective. The employees, realizing that the suggestions which they were making in order to increase production and reduce costs, were not put into practice, simply discontinued, in some cases, to sit on such production committees.
Under the circumstances, the government's purpose in appointing such a commission is praiseworthy, but I hope that the new body will be able to function properly. Otherwise that new commission will not achieve results such as we might expect from. it.
I wanted to make those few remarks, Mr. Speaker, not for the mere purpose of criticizing private companies, but rather to help in the improvement of the relations between capital and labour.
I should like to say a few words on another matter; I know that we shall have an opportunity to discuss it when the budget is brought down, but, in passing, I request again the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) to remove the tax on the salary paid for overtime.
I sincerely believe that the amount collected by the government in the form, of such a tax is not very large and that the removal of the tax would greatly enhance production. As a matter of fact, everyone realizes that such a tax has the effect of discouraging workers from doing any overtime.
Last year the Minister of Finance had promised that he would look into that matter. I hope that, when the next budget is brought down we shall have the pleasure of learning that such a tax will no longer hinder war production.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, may I say a word about immigration? In my opinion that subject should be dismissed, at least for the time being, because its discussion proves useless.
We have noticed for some time past that some war plants were laying off thousands of employees on account of the lack of work. Therefore, nothing should be done that might increase the unrest and bring us back to the pre-war depression years. Before any immigration plan is considered, all our people who are physically fit should be given an opportunity to obtain work. Once the employment problem is solved, the immigration question can be considered, a wise selection being made as regards those accepted as new citizens of this country.
In that particular, we shall not be influenced by those pilgrims who come here

The Address-Mr. Knowles
every year to deliver speeches and teach us lessons. We are old enough to take care of ourselves, and I hope that authoritative advice along those lines will be imparted to such people.
Such, Mr. Speaker, are the few observations I wanted to make in this debate. Before resuming my seat, I should like to express the opinion that, when this war is over, the new world which will emerge will not be entirely free from poverty, hardship and anxiety. Nevertheless, with the help of the new beneficial legislation which is imperative and which will be administered with equal fairness to all classes of society, I hope we will be able to bring about and maintain a better understanding, which will be all to the good of the country. May this disastrous war soon come to an end, and may the good days of a beautiful and intense family life be restored to all homes which at present stand empty.


Mr. S. H. KNOWLES (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the speech from the throne has been hailed by the section of the press that supports the government as a remarkable document, full of promise for a better day. We of this group welcome its few good points, but we are in duty bound to point out its serious shortcomings. Our criticisms of the speech are in the main two. First of all we are skeptical lest the government fail to reduce the proposals contained in the speech to actual legislation to be enacted before this session ends. Our second criticism is one that, we feel is shared by the entire country, namely, that the suggestions in the speech do not begin to go far enough. They do not even scratch the surface of the tremendous problems facing us at the present time.
To turn for a moment to our first criticism, our scepticism as to "whether anything will be done following the giving of this speech, let me sail attention first of all to the kind of language in which the speech abounds. One paragraph starts something like this, that "in the opinion of my ministers," and so on, "plans .... should be advanced as rapidly as possible." Plans should be advanced! Further, certain things "are contemplated." We suggest, Mr. Speaker, that language of that kind, in the face of the tremendous problems which we had hoped would be dealt with in the speech from the throne, is adequate ground for our scepticism as to whether anything will come of this speech. Surely the phrase, that "a broad programme has already been developed for the k reestablishment of veterans," sounds hollow after the remarks of other members, particularly the speech yesterday by the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Sinclair). I find that another paragraph states that "the maintenance of full employment will require"-and a long list of things is given-but no suggestion is made as to how these requirements are to be met. There is another paragraph, to which attention has already been called from this corner, that states: "When suitable agreements are reached with the provinces, my ministers will be prepared to recommend" measures for social advancement.
Not only are we led to be sceptical by this language in the speech from the throne, but we take that position because of what has happened during the course of this debate. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), who usually speaks at considerable length in this debate and deals in detail with the items in the speech from the throne, surprised us this year by delivering a rather brief speech, by dealing hardly at all with the speech from the throne, and by failing completely to touch upon the paragraphs that suggest social security and other measures of post-war advancement. Not only has the Prime Minister failed to give us any dissertation concerning this glorious document, but not another member of the cabinet has risen in his place to outline for us the glories of the speech or to sell to us the proposals and the promises that are suggested in it.
We are told to-day that it is the desire of the government that the vote be taken on the address to-night. I assume it will be taken to-night or not later than to-morrow, and yet up to this point neither the Prime Minister nor any other member of the government has dealt with the suggestions in the speech from the throne which have excited the interest of the Liberal press throughout the country.
We are quite convinced that the speech, even if its suggestions were to be enacted, does not go far enough, and it is really a bitter disappointment to the people of Canada at this time. Canadians everywhere realize, whether the government does or not, that once victory has been won, there will be required on that day for Canadians almost two million jobs. We suggest therefore, whether that day is soon or even not so soon, that it is high time that some proposals were set forth to deal with that basic requirement of almost two, million jobs for Canadians when victory in the field has been won. It is on the background of that basic need that we feel that the speech is a bitter disappointment.
The times call for a really broad plan that will provide jobs, certainly not just for the sake of jobs, but that will also provide for meeting the post-war needs of our people, for seeing to it that our workers and farmers are given a chance to provide the things that are needed and also a chance to enjoy them when
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they are provided. We suggest that in the fields that are basic, housing, clothing and food, there should be enunciated at this stage plans that will provide for the employment of our people and in turn for the distribution of these things among our people for their enj oyment.
This war has taught us among other things the importance of the market here at home, and the needs and requirements of our own people. We have learned that particularly in the matter of food. We have discovered that whereas before the war we had huge surpluses, while some of us were pointing out that thousands of our people were underfed, now even with our productive resources in food being strained to the limit we are able to make use of all that we are producing1 because our people, in city and country alike, have better incomes and are able to translate their needs into an actual economic market for food. We suggest that, important as international trade is, valuable as it can be to the economic welfare of our country and to the countries with which we trade, the important thing is to see to it that we pay attention to the market to be found in the needs of our own people. It is on that basis that we are highly critical of the speech from the throne brought down in this critical year, at this critical stage of our history, with these tremendous problems facing us, with the experience of the war, in which we have learned what can be done by national organization, yet with no suggestion that the government is prepared to institute economic planning in such a way as to provide jobs for our people and the things that our people need.
_ I should like to say a few words, Mr. Speaker, in connection with social security, to which there are references in the speech from the throne, but no promises of any measure except the measure relating to family allowances. This measure has been brought in along with a restrictive labour policy, P.C. 9384. This governments labour policies have made organized labour wonder whether this otherwise desirable social service is being brought in simply as a substitute for an adequate wage policy. Apart from that one measure, the other references to social security which are found in the speech from the throne are so many pious promises and suggestions as to what should be done, what is contemplated and so on. The fact is that social security can only be provided adequately if we have an economy that is functioning to its maximum capacity. I do not wonder that the ministers have not risen in their places to discuss the speech from the throne. There is nothing 
definite there to discuss along the line of social security and post-war social progress. When they do start to discuss these plans and suggestions for social security they will have to give us some hint or at least answer questions as to how such schemes are to be provided and maintained. The fact of the matter is, if we are prepared to establish economic planning and social ownership of the basic means of production so that we can put our economy on a full-fledged basis, then literally there is nothing in the field of social security that we cannot provide if we have a mind to. The question of how it is to be paid for largely disappears. We of this group have pointed out again and again that social security is not something that is to be had for nothing. It has to be paid for; but the real cost of social security, like anything else that a community has and enjoys, is to be found in the labour that people expend and in the raw materials we use. We have these things in this country, vast labour power, tremendous resources of raw materials. IVe are asking in the name of the better world for which this war is being fought that there now be given us a plan to put these things together so that we may have a full-fledged economy, jobs, homes, food, clothing, and on top of that a social security programme adequately maintained and guaranteed because of a' proper basis in that kind of economy. That is the reason for the amendment moved by the leader of this group, which we are supporting, an amendment which points out that the government has failed to propose the fundamental social changes and economic planning which are necessary if we are to have full employment and if we are to provide and maintain adequate social security. -_ I should like to turn to something else that is along the line of social security. Apart from the fact that the speech from the throne makes only pious references to social security; apart from the fact that no basis has been provided for sustaining an adequate programme of social security, I should like to say to the government that if it wishes the country to think that it means business in the field of social security and) care of our people in time of need, there are certain, steps that the government can take without any further delay. I mention first of all old age pensions. It has already been demonstrated that the government can take action to make changes with respect to old age pensions, even changes with respect to the amount that is paid, by order in council, without seeking amendments to the old age pensions legislation. It has done so by raising the maximum amount payable

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to $25 a month. I urge again that members of the government realize that it is ridiculous, if not criminal, to ask our old people in this day and age, under living conditions as they are to-day, to try to exist on $25 a month. If I were to suggest that the Prime Minister, who will reach the age of seventy this year, should try it, I would be told that that is a ridiculous suggestion. I would be reminded that the Prime Minister has made a tremendous contribution to the well-being of Canada. Granted, but that is exactly the point we. are making. When our old people from coast to coast have reached the age of seventy they, too, have made a contribution to the welfare and to the well-being of this country, a contribution on the basis of which they deserve something better than $25 a month. Not only should the amount be raised to $30 or $40 a month, but the age limit most certainly ought to be lowered. If the government wants to argue that it should not do some of these things without bringing the matter before parliament, my first reply is, bring it before parliament and1 it will receive support without any question, I am sure, from all sides of this house.
But apart from that there are certain other things that the government could do without delay. Let me give a few details. According to the old age pensions legislation as it now stands a pensioner qualifies for his pension either on the day that he becomes seventy years of age or on the day that the old age pension authority in the province has received all of the necessary documents, whichever of those dates is the later. This means that in many a case an old age pensioner who was entitled to draw his pension from the day he was seventy years of age, must wait two or three months because of that technicality. I happen to know that some of the provincial governments have appealed to this government to change that regulation. I suggest that this should be done without delay.
Another point is that the act and the regulations as they now stand say that if a person becomes seventy-let us assume in this case the other qualification about getting all the papers in is in order-on the 1st day of March, he will draw his pension as from, the 1st day of March; but if seventy years ago the stork was two or three minutes late, so that a person becomes seventy on the 2nd day of March he does not draw his pension until as from the 1st day of April. There is no proportioning of the amount at all. I know that many a pensioner becomes utterly disillusioned! when he comes up against this fact, that he loses twenty-seven, twenty-eight or twenty-nine days of his pension, merely because he was not bom on the first day of the month.
There is another thing that bothers these people-and I stress these things, Mr. Speaker, because it seems to me that this is the point of contact of many people with the government, and it is on the basis of this contact that people form their opinions about political democracy and government. I think it is highly important that we refrain from disillusioning and discouraging people in this way. Here is the case of a man who turned seventy in the month of December and became eligible for his pension as from January 1 of this year. Last year, when he was not on pension, despite his years and ill health he picked up $80 by doing odd jobs. This year there is no chance of his earning any money whatever, because of the condition of his health, but because he earned $80 last year the old age pension authority has to rule that he may earn $80 this year, which is $15 more than he is allowed to earn in addition to his pension in the province of Manitoba, so that the $15 or $1.25 a month is subtracted from his pension. Actually this man is not making any money this year, and will not make any; but when the year is over he will have no chance as long as he lives to pick up that meagre $15 that was deducted from his pension.
I might go on with other cases. I stress the point that this sort of thing is disillusioning to many people, and it is on this basis that many people form their opinion of democracy. It is high time that changes were made in the regulations respecting old age pensions.
Other matters that should be dealt with are the regulations concerning the transfer of property, liens on property, and all that sort of thing, which have made old age pensions only pre-death loans. I shall take only a sentence to refer to the blind, the deaf and other handicapped people. I support most heartily the appeal which has been made in this house on several occasions by the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Esling) that Canada do something more for these people.
I wish to say a word also on behalf of the veterans of the last war and their widows. I agree with the appeals that have been made during this debate on behalf of those being discharged from the services at the present time and those who will have to be demobilized when the war is over, but at the same time we must not forget the veterans of the last war and their widows. To my way of thinking the pension legislation, as well as the War Veterans' Allowance Act, needs to be overhauled. I know the story that is told of how generous this legislation is in many cases; but those I run up against appear to have attached to them strings of one kind or another by reason of which the veteran who has
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offered his life for his country finds that, though his later days are ruined as far as health is concerned, he can get nothing but a cold refusal on the ground of some technicality. Therefore I appeal for an overhauling of the Pension Act and the War Veterans' Allowance Act.
Similarly I want to make a further appeal on behalf of the widows of veterans of the last war. These do not form a very large group; politically they are not of special consequence in any particular constituency, but they deserve better treatment than we are giving them. The other day we welcomed the announcement by the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie) of a possible increase in the amount paid to these women. I call attention to the fact, however, that as yet this increase to $30 and a few cents a month has not been made basic for all these widows; the order in Council merely says that they may be paid up to that amount. I hope that order in council will be amended shortly by another that will make this amount, if not more, the basic payment to these widows. When this matter was before the house last year the minister promised or at least told us that while at that time we were only voting an item of money, this year he hoped to bring down legislation to care for these people on a permanent basis. I had hoped there might be some reference to such legislation in the speech from the throne, or by the minister if he took part in this debate, but as yet there has been no reference to it. Another point in connection with widows of veterans of the last war is that when the amount payable to them was increased the other day the ceiling on the total income they might have was not increased, except in the case of those who might have up to $25 a year of unearned income. The widow who in the past may have supplemented her allowance with a little money that she earned by going out and doing odd jobs may do so no longer, because the new regulation provides that she may receive up to $365 a year from the war veterans' allowance board provided she has no other income. In other words, the ceiling, apart from unearned income, is exactly where it was before this increase was made. I appeal as strongly as I can to the Minister of Pensions and National Health and to the government to take these matters under serious advisement.	. .
While on the subject of the widows I would stress also the difficulties we have been running into in connection with the provision that nothing can be given to the widow of a veteran unless that veteran saw service in an actual theatre of war. Does the minister not know that there are scores if not hundreds

of widows whose husbands got to England in the last war, some of whom were injured while on active service in England, but to whom nothing is available because of the definitions contained in the order in council? I appeal for the withdrawing of that line of distinction, which is working out as an unjust discrimination against a large number of these women.	[DOT]
I should like to turn for a moment or two now, Mr. Speaker, to the new wartime wages control order, order in council P.C. 9384. There is no reference to this order in council in the speech from the throne except the oblique reference to the necessity of maintaining wage stabilization. On the second day of this session, when I asked the Prime Minister if he would set aside a period for discussion of this order, he expressed doubt as to my inference that there was wide and active protest against it. I am sure he now knows that there is wide and active protest, for it has been expressed frequently on the floor of this house and the matter has been drawn to his attention in statements by members supporting the government not only in the house but even more bluntly outside the house, within the past few days. The reasons for labour's opposition to this order are well known. First of all there is the failure on the part of the government to consult labour before this order in council was brought down. There is also the fact that labour's representation on the national war labour board has been reduced from one in three to one in six Then there is the fact that the order makes possible the freezing of gross injustices, practically in so many words; for it is provided that nothing can be done about changing wage rates unless there are gross injustices or inequalities, and even then nothing can be done by way of raising those rates if that would increase the price of the product the manufacturer has to sell. The order also gives power to the national war labour board to reduce wages, to order a change from a time rate to a piece rate or, in that very lovely phrase of the order, an incentive rate. Then there are the provisions which are so drastic against labour's last resort, the strike weapon, and the other provisions which run so counter to British justice and which already have been brought to the attention of this house. I refer to the clauses which place the onus of proof of innocence upon the accused employee.
There is just one good thing about this order. It has united labour; it has shown labour the utter inability of a capitalist government to treat labour as a partner even in time of war. One hears rumours of

The Address-Mr. Knowles
various kinds around the halls of these buildings. I have been interested in the rumours that are circulating to the effect that the government may yet rescind this order and replace it with one not quite so drastic. Whether there is anything to these rumours or not, I do not know; but I certainly hope the government will do something in response to the appeals and protests, and that they will do it early, certainly before February 15 which, according to the terms of the order, is the date upon which it comes into full effect.
I should like now to turn to another matter bo which reference was not made in the speech from the throne, but which was introduced into the debate by the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson). I refer to the question of post-war civil aviation. The other day the hon. member roundly condemned the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) for refusing a licence to certain private interests which wanted to operate a service between Halifax and Saint John. I take the opposite view from the hon. member for York-Sunbury, and in this instance I am going to commend the Minister of Munitions and Supply for his action. I say quite frankly that my reason for offering my commendation is that I learned from an editorial in the Montreal Gazette that the private enterprise which sought the licence was none other than the Canadian Pacific Air Lines.
But while I commend the minister for his action in that instance, I am afraid I have no option but to follow my commendation with condemnation of the government for its action, particularly in the north and1 northwest, by means of which it is literally giving away to this privately-owned concern, Canadian Pacific Air Lines, something that is of great value to us-our northern country. Speaking in terms of aviation, the value of our great north country is obvious, as far as international flying is concerned. I should like, too, to stress the fact that there is also in that area great value domestically. There is a tremendous amount of mineral wealth in that great north, country, and possibilities for settlement beyond our dreams. Yet at the present time, the air being practically the only means of communication with that country, we are literally giving it over to this privately-owned enterprise which, incidentally, has a very interesting tie-up with the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company.
Actually, Mr. Speaker, in the matter of aviation there is no such thing as private enterprise. Private enterprise in flying would mean that every individual concern would
build its own airports, would establish its own meteorological services, would set up its own radio beams. What a hodge-podge we would have 1 Under such a set-up where would there be safety for the travelling public in this new means of transport?
Hon. members know what has been done. The people of Canada through their government, and rightly so, have invested huge sums of money-I believe our investment is now at least $200,000,000, if not more-in the building of airports, lighting facilities, radio, meteorological services and the like. Actually, flying is a public service which the public, through government funds, has to make possible. I call as my witness for this view none other than one of the former leaders of the Conservative party in this house, the Right Hon. R. B., now Viscount, Bennett. Hon. members who were in the house in those days or who have studied the debates for 1937 will recall that when the Trans-Canada Air Lines bill was before the house the then Right Hon. Mr. Beqpett appealed to the government not to give away something then held by the people of this country. As a matter of fact it appears that he was able to exert some influence upon the government at that time. I call not only Viscount Bennett as witness, but also the Winnipeg Free Press, which has been quite definite on this point. Although I have not time to quote from it, I have before me an article which appeared in that newspaper on May 12, 1943, entitled "TCA versus CPA". The Free Press points out that so far as flying on main line and international lines is concerned, there is simply no such thing as private enterprise. The people have a basic interest and concern in this matter, which must not be given away.
We should realize that aviation can add tremendously to the wealth of Canada. It is not just a matter of having planes available for the use of a few individuals who need to make a quick trip. Planes, like trains, can add to the wealth of our country and the people in it, even though many of those people may never travel by plane. We must see to it that the wealth which can be added to the life of this country by this new means of transportation and communication is not given away to private enterprise, and I appeal to the Minister of Munitions and Supply, whom I have already commended for his action in one respect, to take this matter under serious advisement, lest we find that we have given away something which should be held for the people of Canada.
If I may add just one further word in this connection, I would mention the international
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field, concerning which I feel the government of the day should take certain steps. This is a matter of great importance to Canada. Frankly, if private monopolies in various countries are able to put over the idea of what is miscalled freedom of the air, so that private companies are free to fly anywhere and everywhere, Canada stands to lose. If we go to the other extreme and build a fence around each country, so that the national lines of various countries can fly only within their own borders, again Canada stands to lose. There is one basis upon which Canada stands to gain. The one basis upon which our geographical position, valuable as it is, will not be circumvented, is in international control of the international air routes of the world.
In that connection I wish to refer to an announcement made by the Australian High Commisisoner to Canada on January 24, in which he drew the attention of this country to an agreement signed on January 21 of this year by representatives of the governments of New Zealand and Australia. Let me quote one or two of the more important paragraphs of this New Zeal and-Australian agreement:
(17)	The two governments agree that the regulation of all air transport services should be subject to the terms of a convention which will supersede the convention relating to the regulation of aerial navigation.
(18)	The two governments declare that the air services using the international air trunk routes should be operated by an international air transport authority.
There are in the agreement other sections of equal importance. I have not time to read them, but I am earnestly hoping that at an early date the government will take a stand similar to that which these two governments have taken, lest Canada find herself, despite our present favoured geographical position, out in the cold.
In closing. I understand the vote may be taken to-night or to-morrow. Our subamendment, coming first, will naturally have the support of this group, to a man, because we believe that it expresses what is basically missing from the speech from the throne. We believe it expresses the view of the people of Canada that the time has come for fundamental social and economic change.
If, perchance, our amendment is defeated, we come then to the Progressive Conservative amendment. We are not satisfied with it; that is why the leader of this group moved a subamendment. However, it states some things which are very obvious. Boiled down, the substance of the Progressive Conservative

amendment states that the government has failed. Well, that is fairly obvious, so that we shall support that amendment as well.
If, perchance, that amendment is likewise defeated, and we are left with the address itself, then we have no option but to accept it, not because we are satisfied with the speech from the throne, by any means, but because we feel that at this stage of the game, surely anything less would be unthinkable. If the proposals which the government has made in the speech from the throne are endorsed by a vote in this house to-night or to-morrow, and if it does not want them to backfire, I suggest that the government not merely be content with pious promises but consider seriously reducing these proposals into legislation to be enacted before this session ends.
I suggest also that the government without any delay rescind the obnoxious order in council, P.C. 9384, and! replace it with a democratic labour policy.
I suggest also that the government do something without further delay on behalf of the groups I have mentioned, the aged, the blind pensioners, the widows of veterans of the last war, the veterans themselves of the last war, those who are being discharged from the services now, and others who would be covered by a social security programme. Even then it would only be scratching the surface. Even then a great deal would be left for succeeding governments to do, and we shall leave it to the people to say what government shall succeed the present one. But if we are to win not only the war but the peace, surely the present government should do nothing less than to meet the requests that we of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation have set forth in this debate.
Mr. ANTHONY HLYNKA (Yegreville):: Mr. Speaker, the speech from the throne rightly emphasizes the fact that the winning of the war remains the first objective of the Canadian people. No government and no Canadian can hold any other view so long as we are engaged in this struggle; for despite the fact that we are now in the fifth year of the war no one seems to be any too certain that the war's end is anywhere in sight. For that reason I heartily concur in the statement made in the speech from the throne concerning the prosecution of the war.
Post-war reconstruction can be divided into three distinct phases. The immediate phase will be the gradual demobilization of the armed forces; the intermediate phase will be the period of reconstruction and rehabilitation, and the third phase will be the long-range planning of our economic development.

The Address-Mr. Hlynka
Before dealing with these three phases I assert, after listening to the numerous speeches which have been delivered in this house during the last few days, that neither will a reactionary philosophy satisfy the needs of the Canadian people in the post-war period nor will the philosophy of the extreme left satisfy those needs. No one would argue that the people of Canada would stand for the reactionary philosophy of pre-war days or that it would be fair and just to our people. On the other hand, no one will tell us that everything that has been built up over centuries of progress must be thrown overboard and something else substituted in its stead, although, of course, the advocates of that philosophy seem to be certain that it would work like a charm..


Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: Social credit?


Anthony Hlynka: Social credit is one philosophy that can solve the problems of this nation, yes.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: And it is not as vicious as some philosophies.


Anthony Hlynka: I repeat, reaction will not satisfy the needs of the Canadian people in the post-war world, nor will the other extreme do it. But we of the Social Credjt group believe that there are many good things which must be preserved, things which have been handed down to us over the ages. On the other hand, we believe that some change is absolutely necessary. We believe that reform is essential. We believe that our proposals with respect to the supply of purchasing power for our people will solve the problems before us.
But, as I said, the immediate post-war problem will be that of demobilization and the transition from war-time to peace-time production. Undoubtedly this will be a period of confusion. Our industries will have to be readjusted and our factory workers and war-time civil servants will have to be assisted in finding profitable occupations. Our returned soldiers must be reestablished in our national life and be guaranteed allowances as well as gratuities. What is more, they must be guaranteed security.
Canadian agriculture must be placed upon such a basis as to guarantee to the farmer a fair standard of living. It must be remembered that one-third of our total population is engaged in agriculture.
Our aged people must also be provided for. No longer must the Canadian people tolerate the conditions which existed in the past and which still exist with respect to our old age pensions. Reference has been made by a number of hon. members to the fact that the amount of the old age pension is inadequate.
A great number of people with whom I come in contact and who have asked my assistance in this matter are in their late sixties, and some of them are in such a state of health that they cannot possibly make their own living. Yet these Canadian pioneers, as the law stands today, are not entitled to receive the old age pension just because they do not happen to be seventy years of age. I feel that that is an extreme injustice to our pioneers. I consider that anyone at the age of sixty or over who is physically incapable of making a living should be granted an old age pension.
Then let me mention our youth. On numerous occasions I have read statements in the newspapers that young people between the ages ' of eighteen and twenty-one should not be granted the right to vote because they are immature, their judgments are immature, and it is best in a democracy to let them grow up to the age of twenty-one before they are given an opportunity to vote. But I would point out that it is these young men who were called upon first to serve this country in time of war. I know that some individuals in certain quarters are afraid that these, young men will be too impulsive, that they may not accept the same old promises in the same spirit as those who carry heavier responsibilities, or something of the like. But I maintain that after this war our young people of the age of eighteen and over should be allowed to vote.
Mention has been made of the condition of the blind and other individuals who through physical incapacity cannot look after themselves. If we are a civilized nation we should so amend the existing legislation as to provide pensions for these unfortunate people, regardless of their age. This is something which we should do immediately.
In my opinion the period of post-war reconstruction will find us unprepared. I believe that the promises which are being made almost daily, and so liberally, will amount to very little and will bring results which will greatly disappoint our people.
I do not intend to deal to-night with the subject of rehabilitation of our fighting men; I hope to have an opportunity to discuss that particular subject on another occasion. But I wish to say something with regard to agriculture.
We have come to a point where every political group in Canada should state its policy clearly to the people. No longer must political parties aim at catching votes in confusion. Every group should take its stand on all important problems, giving the people
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the opportunity democratically to choose that philosophy which they believe will give them the results they desire.
I have touched so far on the first phase of post-war reconstruction. The second phase is the intermediate period of reconstruction and rehabilitation. I know that in the speech from the throne industry is promised considerable assistance. Personally I have nothing against that; I believe that it is a proper stand to take. This is what the speech says:
Suitable peace-time uses for war plants are being sought, and plans are being made for their speedy conversion. To assist in the conversion of war plants and in the development of small and medium-scale industrial enterprises, the provision of additional credit facilities, for both fixed and working capital, will be required. To meet this need, your approval will be sought for the establishment of an industrial development bank as a subsidiary of the Bank of Canada. Expenditures on developmental work, in preparation for the transition of industry from war to peace, will be encouraged by suitable tax modifications.
Now let me read the promise which is given to our farmers. This is all I can find in the entire length of the throne speech:
To ensure economic stability for agriculture, you will be asked to make provision for a price floor for staple farm products.
Nothing else is said about agriculture. Let me emphasize that I have no doubt that the present government will assist industry when it comes to the period of adjustment, the period when concerns will have to change and tune-up for peace-time production. With this policy I agree. But why not give the same consideration to our farmers? Why should the farmers be penalized to the extent that they are actually ignored? The only thing that is promised to them is a floor under agricultural prices-a floor! What that floor will be, no one knows; it may be fair, it may be poor. No mention is made of other problems which face agriculture. Let us see to it that the government offers the farmer something which will make farming a profitable occupation.
If one were to analyse the attitude throughout the years of our federal governments toward agriculture, it would be found that they have failed agriculture in every respect. In my opinion at least five things should be guaranteed to agriculture. I mentioned that one-third of our total population is engaged in this calling; surely they deserve a more sympathetic consideration than is being given them by the government.
The forecast which is made in- the speech from the throne is only a straw in the wind. The farmer should be guaranteed parity prices

which will ensure to him the income he needs to buy the things that are necessary for the maintenance of a decent standard of living. Unless agriculture receives an adequate income, no one can possibly expect the farmer to be able to pay his debts, to educate his children, to carry on efficiently and, in addition to that, to put by the odd cent for a rainy day. Under those conditions that is an utter impossibility. The farmer must have an adequate share of the national income.
In the second place, a definite long-range policy in Tigard to grain and live stock production should be introduced. As it is to-day -and many hon. members have referred to it-the farmer gets by day in and day out, but he does not know what order he may expect from the government.
In the third place, a comprehensive scheme of non-contributory crop insurance is necessary. I say that many farmers in the west have suffered greatly because of the odd bad year, because of frost, hail and other hazards of nature, and it takes the farmer years to get back on his feet again. Surely the government is in a position to give the farmers a non-contributory insurance.
In the fourth place, there should be adequate low cost credit facilities for agriculture. We know that agriculture needs assistance at all times. Every business man who wants to carry on his business effectively needs credit, and the same is true of the farmer. What has happened? We find that in the province of Quebec credit has been supplied to the farmers over a long period of years at six and seven per cent; in Ontario it has been supplied at five per cent. In the prairie provinces, on the other hand, the farmer has had to pay from five to twelve per cent.
I suggest that governments which were in office at the time and permitted financial institutions to bleed the farmer at these rates of interest permitted a racket. It was nothing but a racket 1 They skinned the farmers alive! In the future we must not permit this sort of exploitation in any part of Canada.
Let me give a few figures on agriculture as I find them in the 1941 census. The figures of that census show that there were 732,715 farms operated in Canada. Of this number, 549,972 are operated by owners and others are operated either in part by owners and part by tenants or simply by tenants. In the province of Quebec tenants occupy one farm out of every thirty; in Ontario, one out of every nine; in Manitoba, one out of every five; in Saskatchewan, one out of every four; in Alberta, one out of every six. The census shows further that from 1931 to 1941 the

The Address-Mr. Hlynka
ownership of farms dropped 5-8 per cent and there was an increase of 25-3 per cent in rented farms during the ten-year period. I may explain that the average size of farms in Canada increased from 198 acres in 1921 to 238 acres in 1941. Again, according to the 1941 census, Canadian farmers owed $629,000,000, which amounts to an average of $2,372 per farm, and that does not include debt written off and smaller private debts. Further, forty-eight per cent of all owned farms in Canada are mortgaged.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what future is there ahead for these people when almost every second farmer is in the hands of a mortgage or trust company? Here are the percentages of farms operated by owners and carrying mortgage indebtedness in 1941:
Province	Per cent
Nova Scotia	 13-1
New Brunswick	 19-0
British Columbia	 31-5
Quebec	 39-9
Prince Edward Island	 46-4
Ontario	 50-7
Manitoba	 53-3
Alberta	 61-0
Saskatchewan	 77-6
Let me emphasize this point. In Ontario half of our farmers are mortgaged. In that province only half the farmers have title to their lands and homes, and Ontario is one of the oldest provinces in Canada. Surely the farmers in this province should be better off than that.
Just a few more points before I conclude. May I just refer to credit facilities as they are provided in the United States. In the United States a farmer can be supplied with the necessary amount of credit at 3i to four per cent. In Canada the farmers have had to pay from five to twelve per cent, and if they can obtain credit from the Canadian farm loan board they are advanced money at five per cent interest. What we must do in Canada is to set up an agricultural bank so that the Canadian farmer may be provided with the necessary credit to carry on his farming operations. If industry is to be given assistance, why not give the same assistance to the farmers? We know that industries have been assisted during the war, industries that were in a better position to carry on than were the farmers. We shall see after the war that industries which have made considerable money will be given assistance, while the farmers on the other hand who have not been able to obtain farm help and who have had to pay almost double for everything they bought will receive nothing. There is nothing in the speech from the
throne to indicate that the government is anxious to help agriculture or to place agriculture on a better basis than it has been so far.
I say again that the farmer must get the same treatment that the manufacturer is getting. If he received that, no one from western Canada would have any criticism to offer, because it is only fair that agriculture should get the same treatment. It is only fair, too, that the government should assist industry, agriculture or individuals to enable them to make a living.
Mention has been made of family allowances. I have referred to old age pensions. Several members of the Social Credit group have pointed out that it was not so very long ago that hon. members jested at any idea of someone receiving "something for nothing", as they called it then. Now that very idea has been adopted or assimilated by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and we may now expect family allowances of a sort. Well, it remains to be seen what the government will be able to do along that line. In some instances the government may have some good ideas, but I am going to ask one question. It is all very well to say that we are going to take care of our soldiers when they come back. Oh, yes, we certainly should. After the last war the government of the day did make loans to our soldiers at five per cent extending over a period of twenty years. After this war the present government intends to be more liberal; it will not deal as severely with the soldiers; it is, going to tie a debt around the soldier's neck which will hang there for twenty-five years and at three and one-half per cent interest. Just because they were not bled to death on the battlefield, when they come back the government of this country and the financial interests are going to see to it that they finish them at three and one-half per cent interest, because anyone labouring for years and paying three and one-half per cent on loans which should or could be given to these men free, cannot last.
I should like to emphasize as emphatically as I can one final point, namely, that unless the government declares its policy as to where the money is to come from, all the promises about social legislation, assistance to industries, old age pensions and all the other talk, do not amount to anything at all. I felt that at least one minister would have risen in his place in the course of this debate and explained
2S6
The Address-Mr. Hansell

how the government proposes to finance all these projects. So far, apart from the Prime Minister, no one has said anything.
On another occasion I intend to deal with soldier rehabilitation and the scheme which the government proposes to inaugurate. On this occasion I have made a rough review of some of the things which are staring us in the face. I wish to plead for agriculture that it be given a fair chance to exist.


Mr. E. G. HANSELL (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. LOCKHART:: Mr. Speaker-


Thomas Vien: The hon. member for
Macleodl has the floor.


Ernest George Hansell: I know the house is
very anxious to take the vote to-night.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Ernest George Hansell: Thank you for the applause. I will try not to keep the house too long; but as the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldiwell) sometimes says, something ought to be said. I do not know why he uses that term so often, because it does not seem to make any difference what the opposition says at any time, the government goes ahead and does just exactly what it wants to do anyway. However, I think I have something that ought to be said.
As I look over the motion, and the two amendments I have to make up my mind1 as to which I am. going to support and how I am going to vote. I am particularly concerned with the wording of the amendment to the amendment that strikes out the Conservative amendment and. puts in its place:
We respectfully submit . . . that Your Excellency's advisers^ have failed to propose the fundamental social changes and economic planning which alone can hasten the winning of the war and make possible the establishment of a post-war Canada capable of providing full employment and complete social security.
As a Social Credit member my interpretation of the wording of this is, I am sure, entirely different from the interpretation that would be placed upon it by the Cooperative Commonwealth. Federation group of this house. I often have to ask myselfi why some people cannot say exactly what they mean. This subamendment needs to be clarified. The position it places our group in is that if we vote against it the country will say: "Oh, you are against any fundamental social changes. If we vote for it, part of the country will be able to say that we want the same social changes as the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation wants. Well, that is not so either. I ask myself, why could not the hon. member for Rosetown-[Mr. Hlynka.l
Biggar, who is the national, deader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, have stated- plainly an amendment to this effect so that therewould be no misundlerstanding whatsoever:	.
We respectfully submit to Your Excellency that in the opinion of this house Your Excellency's advisers have failed to propose a fundamental change in the present system to one of a socialistic'state.


Mr. COLDWELL:: That is not what we meant.


Ernest George Hansell: Well, you see what is happening now; there is confusion as to what the thing means.
' Mr. COLDWELL: No confusion.


Ernest George Hansell: There is not in my hon. friend's mind^ but there is in my mind.


Major James William Coldwell: Get a mind that is not confused.


Ernest George Hansell: My hon. friend says for me to get a mind that is not confused. If he is not careful he is going to prompt me to say something else; and I will say it. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar comes into Alberta; he has a convention of his party, and he gets up and says that this group to which I belong is the weakest group in the House of Commons.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Ernest George Hansell: Maybe you all agree with that, I do not know.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Ernest George Hansell: Well, that is better; that makes me smile. I say it does not become the leader of any national party to go into other provinces and make remarks of that kind. I do not know how great a leader the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) may be, but I am certain he would not do that. I do not know how great a man Mr. Bracken is, but certainly he would not say that. Furthermore, I can promise my hon. friends that we will not go into their constituencies and' make remarks of that kind about them. As far as I am concerned the strength or weakness of a group in this house is not to be judged by how they may say a thing. For my part I judge the weakness or strength of any man or any group -on how often he is right in what he says, and bow often he is wrong. When I view the record of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, who is now responsible for the stands taken by our C.C.F. friends, what do I find? Has he been right in everything he has said'? Well, when it comes to financial

The Address-Mr. Hansell
matters I recall that only a few months before the war the then Minister of Finance asked this house to vote the sum of $750,000,000. We moved an amendment to the effect that $200,000,000 of that amount should, be created by the Bank of Canada. What did the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar do? He submitted an amendment to our amendment suggesting that the amount issued by the Bank of Canada should be $100,000,000 instead1 of $200,000,000. I do not know why that was done; I cannot make any sense out of it, because now the hon. member is asking this country to make available five billion dollars for post-war expenditures. That does not add up. If it was wrong to issue $200,000,000, then surely it would be wrong to issue five billion dollars after the war.


Major James William Coldwell: Who suggested it?


Ernest George Hansell: You have suggested that five billion dollars be-


Major James William Coldwell: -appropriated.


Ernest George Hansell: All right. I know what my hon. friend is getting at; he is saying that this five billion dollars would not necessarily be issued by the Bank of Canada. Let me tell him that in the past year nearly a billion dollars of new money has come out of the banking institutions of this country for the war; and the one or two hundred million that my hon. friend was afraid of was supposed to be new money. How can you reconcile those two facts?


Major James William Coldwell: Quite easily.


Ernest George Hansell: All right; my bon. friend can do it some time. The fact of the matter is that a few short years ago my hon. friend did1 not know that you could issue that much money. That is the truth. I simply say that he was wrong there. Then again, did my hon. friend not support the motion to reduce the defence estimates just a few years before the war? I am not going to cast any reflection on his ability to speak; as a matter of fact I think he has a good deal of ability, but that was another case in which the hon. gentleman was wrong. And of course when the war broke out his policy was that not one man should be sent overseas. Suppose we had listened to the hon. member's oratory in those days; what would have happened? The fact is that he was wrong again.
I could go on and tell the house quite a few stories. Later the Prime Minister asked this nation to vote on a plebiscite, and according to propaganda it seemed that the Prime Minister wanted a "yes" vote in order that he might conscript men for service in any
part of the world. Well, my hon. friends galloped up and down this country asking the people to vote "yes". What happened? When they voted "yes" and the Prime Minister brought down his mobilization bill, my hon. friends voted against it.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weybum):: And we told you why.


Ernest George Hansell: Yes, they told us why.


James Lester Douglas: But you could not understand.


Ernest George Hansell: The reason why they voted against the mobilization bill was that it did not contain any provision for the conscription of wealth and industry.


Major James William Coldwell: That is right.


Ernest George Hansell: Well, why did you not go up and down this country telling the people not to vote "yes" until the government had conscripted wealth and industry? Once again your judgment was wrong. Then what happened just the other day? Great publicity was given to the fact that General McNaughton had returned to this country and that he was a perfectly well man. The leader of the opposition (Mr. Graydon) rose and questioned the Prime Minister on the matter. Of course the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar had to jump up and support the leader of the opposition. If I had been in his place, and could have reviewed my stand on the war, I would not have dared to rise; for let me say that if this country had listened to my hon. friend there would have been no General McNaughton over in England in the first place.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I might make a further comment-and I am not blaming my hon. friend for this; perhaps he wanted to get a little publicity, and believe me he got it. I happened to listen in on the radio to two programmes that night. The leader of the opposition was mentioned once in connection with the McNaughton question, and my friend the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar was mentioned twice. Of course, that may not be a very big thing, but I do interject here that much has been said about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation being controlled by the government, and having to do what the government said. Well, my opinion is this, that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation during the past year has given more publicity to the C.C.F. group than to any other. It has given more publicity to them than to the Liberals, Conservatives, and Social Crediters, all rolled into one.
The Address-Mr. Hansell


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: Quite right.


James Lester Douglas: We have news value.


Ernest George Hansell: Yes? I wish the subamendment had been defined, because I like to know what I am voting for. The country wants to know where it is going.
I will tell the house something else-and I am taking the responsibility, myself, for what I say-that there is no danger in publicizing a man who does not know where he is going; because the fact of the matter is that if he ever got into power, not knowing where he was going he would have to ask somebody. Whom is the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar going to ask? He certainly would not ask this group; he would not ask Social Crediters, that is certain. I do not know whether he would ask the Liberals or the Conservatives. I am quite sure he woidd not. He would have to ask advisers. Who are their advisers going to be?


Vincent Dupuis: Tim Buck.


Ernest George Hansell: Well, I do not know; perhaps eventually Tim Buck will be their adviser. Furthermore, I will say this, that I feel incensed a little bit about this, because our group have tried to work with our C.CE. friends in the house.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Ernest George Hansell: There is no "oh, oh" about it at all. We have nothing against these men. We are their friends. Their offices are on the same corridor as ours, and we like to get along with them. But when they gallop into our province and do things like this, it does not tend toward the best possible cooperation and friendship.
Someone has said that maybe Tim Buck will be their adviser. Maybe he will, eventually; I do not know. But I will say this: I am not a socialist; I am not a communist; but if ever I were one I would rather follow Tim Buck than the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar.


Mr. ROWE:: You would at least know where you were going.


Ernest George Hansell: I was about to say that. Tim Buck makes no bones about it. He tells you what he means. He tells what socialism means, and he says, "Vote for me and you will get it; that is all there is to it." On the other hand, we do not know where the C.C.F. are going. They may be on their way, I do not know.
Perhaps I should give some consideration to some of the more weighty matters in the 
speech from the throne. I feel very much concerned in respect of any plans which might be made for post-war reconstruction. In my view, if something is not done soon, the whole matter will be hopeless. I cannot say I have any confidence that the present administration will bring about the changes that the post-war reconstruction period of this country would demand, and I shall give my reasons for saying that. I realize of course that the government will have to take the final responsibility. The fact remains, however, that the advisers the government used in pre-war days are the same advisers it uses to-day. If those advisers could not show us a way out during the depression, how can they show us the way out after the war is over? If the system is the same, if it has not changed, can they advise any differently from what they did in prewar days?
I trust I shall not sound too harsh when I say that the advisers to the government should be asked to appear before the committee on postwar reconstruction, and should be asked this question: "Why were you not able -to advise the government what to do in pre-war days? Why could you not find employment for the people?" We hear a good deal about a programme for full employment. Much as I disagree with some of the principles embodied in that phrase I would ask why it was they could not provide full employment before the war. They should be asked, distinctly, how they hope to do so after the war if they could not do so before. And if they reply, "Oh, well, we hope our national income will be bigger", or "We hope our foreign trade will be larger and that foreign markets will be open to us"-if they say, we hope, we hope, we hope, then the committee should tell them that that is not satisfactory. Let them put their cards on the table and tell us how they are going to advise. If they cannot give a satisfactory answer, then I say they should be dismissed as not being required as advisers for the post-war period.
The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), I think in all sincerity, stated on one occasion, according to press reports, that agricultural production had increased by some forty-eight per cent, while actual consumption in Canada of agricultural products had increased by only six per cent. What was his answer for the post-war period? "We hope that by quality production and by good merchandizing Canada will sell in other lands." He should know it is a little too late to be talking about matters of that kind. Why could that not have been done in pre-war days? Furthermore, he must know that all nations will be clamouring for foreign markets. That kind of musing in respect of the post-war period is not good

The Address-Division
enough at this time. We should know where we are going; we should have plans, and we should know from where the money is coming, and how our plans can be financed. That is one' criticism I have with respect to the postwar reconstruction committee. I cannot discuss that matter now, but I believe that committee must discover how it will finance these projects, and do so without going into debt. It must show how it is going to pay the way, and to raise the standard of living so that we can consume to the very ultimate of our productive capacity; that will give us a high standard of living and give us real social security.
The house divided on the amendment to the amendment (Mr. Coldwell) which was negatived on the following division;
++YEAS
Messrs:
Blackmore Bryce Burton Castleden Coldwell Douglas (Weyburn) Fair Gillis Hansell Hlynka
Johnston (Bow River)
Knowles
Kuhl
Maclnnis
Marshall
Nicholson
Noseworthy
Quelch
Shaw
Wright-20.
++NAYS
Messrs:
Abbott
Adamson
Anderson
Authier
Bence
Bertrand (Laurier) Bertrand (Prescott) Bertrand (Terrebonne) Black (Chateauguay-Huntingdon)
Black (Cumberland) Black (Yukon)
Blair
Blanchette
Bonnier
Boucher
Bourget
Bradette
Casselman, Mrs.
(Edmonton East) Casselman
(Grenville-Dundas)
Chevrier
Choquette
Church
Clark
Cleaver
Corman
Cote
Crerar
Crete
Cruickshank
d'Anjou
Dechene
Denis
Diefenbaker
Donnelly
Dorion
Douglas (Queens) Dubois Dupuis Durocher Edwards Emmerson Esling Eudes Evans Factor Fauteux Ferron Fontaine Fournier (Hull) Fraser (Peterborough West)
Fulford
Furniss
Gardiner
Gershaw
Gibson
Gingues
Gladstone
Golding
Goulet
Graham
Grant
Graydon
Green
Gregory
Hanson (Skeena)
Harris (Danforth)
Hatfield
Healy
Henderson
Hill
Hoblitzell
Homuth
Howden
Howe
Hurtubise
Ilsley
Isnor
Jackman
King, Mackenzie
Kinley
LaCroix (Quebee-Montmorency) Daflamme LaFleche Lafontaine Lalonde Leclerc Leduc Leger Little Lizotte Lockhart McCann McCuaig McCubbin McCulloch MacDiarmid Macdonald
(Brantford City) *Macdonald (Halifax) Macdonald
(Kingston City) McDonald (Pontiac) McGarry McGibbon McGregor Mcllraith Mclvor MacKenzie
(Lambton-Kent)
Mackenzie
(Vancouver Centre) MacKinnon
(Edmonton West) MacKinnon
(Kootenay East) McLarty
MacLean (Cape Breton North-Victoria) McLean (SimcoeEast) Macmillan McNevin
(Victoria, Ont.) McNiven
(Regina City) MaeNicol Martin
Matthews
Maybank
Mayhew
Michaud
Mitchell
Mullins
Mulock
Mutch
Neill
Nielsen, Mrs.
O'Neill
Parent
Perley
Picard
Pinard
Power
Purdy
Ralston
Raymond
Reid
Rennie
Rheaume
Rickard
Roebuck
Rose
Ross (Calgary East) Ross (Hamilton East) Ross (Middlesex East) Ross (Moose Jaw) Ross (St. Paul's)
Ross (Souris)
Rowe
Roy
Ryan
Senn
Sinclair
Sissons
Soper
Stirling
Stokes
Taylor
Thauvette
Tremblay
Tripp
Tucker
Turgeon
Turner
Tustin
Veniot
Ward
Warren
Weir
White
Whitman
Winkler
Wood-173.


Mr. J. S. ROY (Gaspe):: The mover and the seconder of the address having received a great deal of well-deserved praise, I will reserve my thanks for the hon. member for Portneuf (Mr. Gauthier), who spoke the other day in favour of the fishermen of the Gaspe peninsula.
Ever since I have had the honour of representing the county of Gaspe, I have been diligent in representing the interests of my _ constituents and on every occasion I have discharged my duty to them. I have sponsored all their needs and all that I thought was worth while on their behalf in this house. If I have not previously brought up the question dealt with in the order in council regard-

The Address-Mr. Roy

ing the fish trade that was passed by the wartime prices and trade board, it is because I was aware of what was going on in view of a settlement of the matter. I knew that the fish board or the officials of the board had been for some weeks trying to come to an agreement with the united fishermen of Gaspe and were having conferences in Quebec and Montreal with the representatives of the united fishermen and with the deputy minister of the department of fisheries of Quebec, Mr. Labrie, as well as with some other independent fish dealers or processors on the Gaspe coast. I think there should come out of these conferences an agreement that will be acceptable. to all those who are interested. It should be reached in a few days' time if it has not already been decided upon. I know that the motives which have inspired the hon. member for Portneuf were motives of sympathy for our fishermen, and I therefore offer him my thanks.
Before making any comments on the subamendment which I intend to, move, I should' like to say a few words with reference to the speech from the throne.
Although there are quite a few measures, proposed by the government, which I approve in principle, I will not support the address in reply to the speech from the throne, and I withhold that support because of the government's war policy. I am going to support the Conservative amendment because I am in perfect agreement with the reproach which it makes against the government for its policy. At the same time-and I want to emphasize this-my support to the Conservative amendment does not mean that I support the war policy of that group. It is only what is contained in that amendment that I approve.
At the conclusion of my remarks I shall move an amendment to the amendment, and the first paragraph will read as follows, under the letter (e):
Failed to limit Canada's war contribution to the promise of moderate participation made by the leaders of the government in 1939 and to the means of our country.
A great deal has been said by many members on the international policy of the government, and I will not go over all these questions again. I would say this, however. The policy of the Liberal party is one that has brought about so much discontent throughout Canada that the present administration has lost the confidence of all Canadians, evidence of which has" been given by the results of the by-elections which were held last summer.
Of course, there are many causes. In one part of the country it may be one cause, in another part it may be another cause. But the government's war policy is no doubt the
(Mr. Roy.]
principal reason for the general discontent that prevails to-day among the labouring classes throughout Canada, among our farmers, and among other sections of the population. What is going to happen as a result of that policy? When we emerge from this war Canada will be nothing but a ruin and will be thrown into the arms of the extremists. That is what will happen.
Another paragraph of my proposed amendment will read:
Failed to demand Canada's partnership in our allies' conferences on account of her independent status and her important share in the war.
We are told on the one hand that Canada should continue after the war is over-


Thomas Vien: Order. I cannot hear the hon. gentleman because of the conversations that are going on. I would ask hon. members to moderate their voices.


Joseph Sasseville Roy: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We
hear on the one hand that after the war Canada should continue to share in this imperial federation which we have been in for so long a time, and on the other hand we are told, as an encouragement to support the struggle, that after the war there will be a . sort of international body composed of the allied nations, and in which the small nations will be on an equal footing with the larger ones. That would be a very fine thing for Canada as a peace policy and in so far as her international trade and commerce are concerned. That is all very well; but when one considers the opportunities that the government has had up to now to prove its sincerity, and has not taken advantage of any of them, how can we now believe in such statements? Why should a certain class of people start moves to bring Canada within an imperial federation to which most of the Canadian people are opposed?
Since the beginning of the war we have had quite a few interallied conferences. We were told that Canada entered this war as an independent nation under the signature of her own king, and that we were fighting the axis as such. After the war began there was concerted action to impose the conscription of men for overseas service. There was an effort made to get everything possible from Canada in the way of blood, money, or other sacrifices. Let us see now what was going on in the meantime. There was a conference which took place on the Atlantic ocean. At that conference there was drawn up what was called the Atlantic charter which is supposed to be the basis of governing all the democratic countries when the war is over. Was Canada asked to take part in that conference as an independent country? Was the Canadian Prime Minister

The Address-Mr. Roy
invited to that conference? No. As I say, we were told that it was a charter for all the allied countries after the war is over. We had another conference at Washington and yet Canada was not there. We had a conference at Casablanca and we find that it was just like the others. There was no place there for Canada. No attention was paid to Canada at all. We were just a negligible quantity. Since then we have had another conference at Teheran. At this conference China, Russia, the United States and Great Britain were represented. Canada, being the fourth largest power in the war, was not represented by its Prime Minister.	There was no place for
Canada at all, although she is in the war with all her resources. What had then become of our independence? And who was speaking for Canada at those conferences? The British Prime Minister? Before the Teheran conference was called we had a conference which was advertised in the newspapers as a tripartite conference.* It was held in Quebec city. We were very well satisfied with the choice of Quebec city as the site of that conference. We were pleased to receive such distinguished visitors. As I say, this was advertised as a tripartite conference, but, although it was held in Quebec city and although our Prime Minister was there, the resulting decisions of that conference were signed only by the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the President of the United States. Canada was again excluded. Although Canada was excluded, did we hear any protests, or criticism such as we heard for the establishment of conscription and for an all-out war effort? We have not heard any complaint at all from anyone. It is amazing. We have not enough pride to demand our place at these conferences.
The next paragraph will read as follows:
Failed to undertake public works to prevent the already existing unemployment.
I should like to comment on this subject to a certain extent. According to the figures which were published recently in some official publication of the government, and according to a statement which was made not very long ago by the deputy controller of the national selective service commission, we shall have before the month of June some 100,000 workers dismissed from the war industrial plants; therefore, unemployment will prevail again. We have a proof of that in Quebec city, where, according to what I have been told by responsible authorities, nearly 2,000 men are unemployed to-day and there will be about 6,000 or 7,000 unemployed in two months' time. This supports well my point that unemployment has already reappeared in Canada.
For two years we have been told an awful lot about reconstruction works, about post-war plans to give work to everybody in Canada; we have been told that unemployment would not come back, that the government was to prevent the return to a state of things such as existed in the depression years we lived through before the war. As I said a while ago, the government has had many opportunities to show its sincerity but we are already facing unemployment. I say that the government should have undertaken public works to prevent unemployment and to serve other purposes.
This brings me to a project which was investigated last summer by a French writer whose name is well-known throughout Canada, Mr. Robert Rumilly. Mr. Rumilly was asked by some concern to undertake a complete investigation and to inquire as to all the possibilities that could be offered by Gaspe peninsula in view of the post-war reconstruction, and the report of his investigation was published by Le Soleil, a newspaper of Quebec, supporting the government and by La Nouvelliste, a newspaper of Three Rivers, also supporting the government. All his findings were published, and to make a long story short his report suggested the construction of a railroad running through the interior of the Gaspe peninsula, in order to shorten the distance to Gaspe harbour, which should be properly organized as a winter seaport. If these works were undertaken to-day, in the first place they would take care of the unemployment situation perhaps for the whole province of Quebec. In the second place the construction of this railroad would; permit the development of the mineral deposits in the interior of Gaspesia, and I believe the exploitation of the resources of the Gaspe peninsula alone would be enough to justify the construction of this line. That is not all however. It would also offer a shorter road to the Atlantic than the one actually existing between Winnipeg and Halifax, and facilitate the export of our Canadian wheat to the European market.
I have some figures, Mr. Speaker, which I am sure will interest you and especially hon. members from western Canada. I have said that the construction of a railroad and the opening of Gaspe harbour as a winter seaport would solve the question of the export of wheat which has not found its solution yet. Let me prove that statement. The distance from Winnipeg to Halifax is approximately 2,200 miles, while the distance from Winnipeg to Gaspe, if this railroad were built, would be about 1,930 miles. According to the Canadian National Railways the freight rate on wheat
The Address-Mr. Roy

from Winnipeg to Halifax is forty-three cents per hundred pounds, or within a small fraction of twenty-six cents a bushel. If you take off 270 miles from the distance between Winnipeg and Halifax, this would amount to one-eighth of the total distance, and if you carry* that int.o the cost per bushel it would mean a saving of almost exactly three cents. If our total exports of wheat after the war should amount to about 300,000,000 bushels annually, and if half that quantity should be shipped by way of Gaspe, it would mean a saving of some $4,500,000 annually for the western farmers; this would represent interest on a capital investment of $150,000,000, or much more than would be required for the construction of that railroad, which would be 160 miles in length, and the work at the seaport.
I have given the distance and rates from Winnipeg to Halifax over the Canadian National Railways. Perhaps hon. members would be interested in knowing the freight rates on other routes we sometimes use for the shipment of wheat. The rate from Winnipeg to New York via the Canadian National Railways is fifty-three cents per hundred pounds, as compared with forty-three cents to Halifax and thirty-eight cents to Gaspe. The rate from Winnipeg to Albany is fifty-two cents, via the Canadian National, while the rate via the Canadian Pacific from Winnipeg to New York is 50i cents per hundred pounds and to Albany fifty-three cents. So that it is more* expensive to ship wheat via New York and Albany in the winter than by Halifax. Then I might give the distance between New York, Halifax, Gaspe and Liverpool. The distance from Halifax to Liverpool is 2,475 miles, and from New York to Liverpool, 3,119 miles, while from Gaspe to Liverpool it is 2,450 miles via St. John's, Newfoundland, and 2,300 miles via the strait of Belle Isle. These figures would show that Gaspe offers Canada a great opportunity to solve the difficulties of export, and to help the solution of our railroad problem in peace time; they confirm the wisdom of the advice which was given for more than one hundred years by engineers and even by the British admiralty, that the Gaspe seaport is the commercial and military key of Canada. If we would recognize this truth we would be able to organize our transportation system in such a way that the wheat of the west would compete in the international market. Of course the advantages I have mentioned would apply not only to wheat, or to outward traffic, but to all our traffic, inward as well as outward.
The last paragraph of the amendment I intend to move reads as follows:
Failed to grant farmers and fishermen exemption from military service, in order to remove from them the vexatious proceedings resulting? from the narrow application of the national selective service regulations.
The hon. member who preceded me rightly said that everyone would know where he stood after having heard what he had to say. I think my stand on this question is also well known. In 1942 I moved amendments asking for the exemption of farmers, but I received very little support. At the following session there were loud cries heard from all corners of the house about the shortage of manpower for the cutting of fuel wood and also on our farms. I have in my hand sessional paper 135. This contains only a few of the letters sent to the Department of Labour and the Department of Agriculture by municipal councils, county councils and agricultural organizations in Ontario and the western provinces. When the hon. member for Charlevoix-Saguenay (Mr. Dorion) asked for the production of these documents he was requested to go to the department and choose what he wmnted, because there were cabinets containing thousands of these requests from all over Canada, and they were too numerous to be all produced. So we have here requests from Ontario and the western provinces, with only two from Quebec in this lot. These ask for the exemption of farmers, or for a regulation by national selective service with respect to the calling up of draftees, so that the man-power on farms might not be disturbed. Taking into account this general and huge protest, I believe I was quite right in asking for the exemption of farmers. In fact, I am now more convinced when, in the last few days, I have heard from different parts of the house hon. members reproaching the government for keeping more than 60,000 men under arms in Canada, when they are not needed. The government is being asked to dismiss these men. Well, if we do not need them, why do we keep them? Why does national selective service keep calling men every day, if we do not need them. Why do we call them if we have already too many, and if their being called is useless and a bad thing for the country?
In order that I may have time to move my amendment, I shall not speak at greater length this evening but shall complete on another occasion what I had intended to say. I now move, seconded by the hon. member for Charlevoix-Saguenay (Mr. Dorion):
That the following words be added to the amendment:

The Address-Mr. Lalonde
"(e) Failed to limit Canada's war contribution to the promises of a moderate participation made by the leaders of the government in 1939. and, to the means of our country;
(f)	Failed to demand Canada's partnership
in allies conferences on account of her independent status and of her important share in the war;	_
(g)	Failed to undertake public works to prevent the already existing unemployment;
(h)	Failed to grant farmers and fishermen the exemption from military service, in order to remove from them the vexatious proceedings resulting from the narrow application of the national selective service's regulations."


Mr. MAURICE LALONDE (Labelle):: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend this evening to discuss the merits of the amendment, but in my humble view it is out of order. I understand that in our parliamentary code there are no precise and definite rules respecting the form of such an amendment, but I have always felt that, to be legal, it cannot be worded as is this one. We find in it these words:
I have the honour to move, seconded by the hon. member for Charlevoix-Saguenay (Mr. Dorion) that the following words be added to the amendment.
I draw particular attention to the words "that the following words be added to the amendment", and humbly submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member is out of order in asking that something be added to the amendment of the Tory- party. Had the amendment now before the Chair asked that something be stricken out, and that such part be replaced by something else, then we would have before us a proper amendment. But now we have before us only a completion of the amendment offered by the Tory party.


Gordon Graydon: Out of courtesy, if nothing else, would the hon. member refer to us properly as the Progressive Conservative party?


Maurice Lalonde: That is another question which will be debated later.


Gordon Graydon: On a point of order, surely there should be at least courtesy in the House of Commons. The name of the official opposition is the Progressive Conservative party, and I would ask my hon. friend to have the courtesy to Call this party by its proper name.


Maurice Lalonde: It has changed its name so many times we sometimes do not remember it correctly. However, I accept the correction.
May I in this connection quote from May, page 173:
In both Lords and Commons, since the commencement of session 1890-91, the answer to the royal speech has been moved in the form of a
single resolution, expressing their thanks to the sovereign for the most gracious speech addressed to both houses of parliament and amendments to the address are moved by way of addition thereto.
In my humble opinion the phraseology of the amendment means that it is out of order


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Eleven o'clock.
On motion of Mr. Lalonde the debate was adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, February 9, 1944