1944-06-30

Hon. T. A. CRERAR (Minister of Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to move, on behalf of the Prime Minister, seconded by the Minister of National Defence:
That the address of the Right Hon. Peter Fraser, Prime Minister of New Zealand, delivered before the members of the Senate and of the House of Commons of Canada in the chamber of the House of Commons on Friday, June 30, 1944, be included in the House of Commons Debates and form part of the permanent records of this parliament.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
(For text of address of Prime Minister Fraser, with speeches of welcome and thanks, see page 44W-
[Stage Direction]
Department of Veterans Affairs


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 150, for the relief of Eugene Charron.-Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City).
Bill No. 151, for the relief of Lillian Bessie Noall Salmon.-Mr. Hill.
Bill No. 152, for the relief of Joan Helen Gorham Glover.-Mr. Emmerson.
Bill No. 153, for the relief of Elsie Hollingsworth.-Mr. Casselman (Grenville-Dundas).
Bill No. 154, for the relief of Louis Joseph Jules Laurencelle.-Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City).
Bill No. 155, for the relief of Freda Altman Scheien.-Mr. Factor.
Bill No. 156, for the relief of Ivan Walter Moore.-Mr. Mcllraith.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Pensions and National Health) moved the second reading of and concurrence in amendments made by the senate to bill No. 83, to establish a department of veterans affairs.
He said: Mr. Speaker, at this stage I would ask the house to deal with two very slight ainendments made by the other house to bill No. S3. These amendments appear at page 513 of Votes and Proceedings for June 29. The first amendment is purely one of drafting, namely, to leave out the word "such" as it appears at page 2, line 34, of the bill. The amendment is of no consequence with the exception of draftsmanship. The second amendment is a new paragraph to be inserted as recommended by the other house. This too is found at page 513 of Votes and Proceedings. The proposed section reads:
The minister shall annually lay before parliament, within fifteen days after the meeting thereof, a report and statement of the transactions and affairs of the department during the year then next preceding.
This was advocated by several hon. members from the floor of this chamber.
Motion agreed to; amendments read the second time and concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Pensions and National Health) moved the second reading of and concurrence in an amendment made by the senate to bill No. 137, respecting surplus crown assets.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this amendment is found at page 514 of Votes and Proceedings for June 29. The amendment is purely one of wording. It is suggested that at page 4, line 9, of the bill the word "has" should be substituted for " had."
Mr. GRAYDON:: It looks as though the senate is dealing with tenses.
Motion agreed to; amendment read the second time and concurred in.



RECONSTRUCTION


[Stage Direction]
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Pensions and National Health) moved the second reading of and concurrence in amendments made by the senate to bill No. 82, to establish a department of reconstruction.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I ask concurrence in these amendments, because they are non-contentious. Hon. members will find that section 8 as amended would read:
8. Any member of the civil service transferred to the department from some other department shall not forfeit any of the rights and privileges appertaining to a civil servant because of such transfer and, on ceasing to be employed by the department for any reason other than misconduct, shall be eligible, without loss of seniority or pension or other rights, for assignment to a position in the civil service of the class held in the department, or to any other position for which he may have qualified.
That is the new wording of the old section 8, prepared this morning, on the advice of legal counsel in my presence.
The second amendment has reference to-section 10 of the bill dealing with offences. The suggested section reads:
10. (1) No person who obtains, under or by virtue of this act, information in relation to-the business of any other person, shall, without the consent of such person, disclose or allow to be disclosed to anyone not legally entitled thereto, any information so obtained, in such manner as to be identifiable as being in relation to the business of such person.
This is a distinct improvement on the former-phraseology. The purport, however, is exactly the same.
[Mr. Crerar.l

Housing Programme
The next amendment made by the senate affects section 11. It is suggested that after the word "minister" the words "under the provisions of this act" be -added. That limits the effect of the section.
Motion agreed to, amendments read the second time and concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Graydon: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Labour has not the information available to answer the question I am about to ask, perhaps he would accept it as notice. A few days ago the press carried a report to the effect that an order in council passed in 1941, I believe it was, dealing with the freezing of salaries- not wages-was about to be amended, and that some announcement had been made either by the minister or his department to that effect. Has the minister any further information he would care to convey to the house at this time in the matter?


Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: The salary order comes under the jurisdiction of the Minister of National Revenue, and I would ask that the question stand as notice for him. The Department of Labour has no jurisdiction over salaries.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. LIONEL CHEVRIER (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Munitions and Supply):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) has asked me to make the following statement on his behalf.
On May 11, during a discussion on housing, I pointed out briefly that priorities "for small house building are being met in as effective a way as possible having regard to the requirements of war" and that I could not promise that housing construction would be given the same consideration as direct war production. I would like now to amplify that viewpoint and, in addition, give the house some highlights on our present supply position in relation to the building of houses.
This government has always recognized that shifts in population, which are a necessary part of our increase in industrial production and the expansion of our armed services, have overcrowded certain communities and created a definite need1 for additional housing accommodation in those areas. A part of the need
100-276J
for increased housing is, of course, directly connected with the war and will be eased with the termination of the war. This phase of the problem has been largely met by the operations of Wartime Housing Limited, which has built more than 18,000 units during the past three years. The other part of the need for increased housing has its basis in the permanent development of our economy, that is, houses identified with industrial projects which have been created or expanded during the war but which may also have a place in meeting demands for civilian production or export trade, after the war. Here, the changes are expressed not only by the need for additional housing but the desire for improved accommodation. To the extent that the materials could be made available after providing for war requirements this need has been met in a reasonable degree by permitting the erection of private dwellings or conversion of existing builders under licence from the controller of construction. During 1943, 23,575 licences were issued in this way and 12,945 have been similarly issued in 1944 up to May 31.
A few weeks ago in this house my colleague the Minister of Finance outlined some proposed amendments to the present National Housing Act which would assist considerably in financing new housing construction. In his remarks my colleague was careful to emphasize that the improvement in financing arrangements would be immediately effective in providing new housing accommodation only to the extent that materials and man-power could be made available and would not become, "fully operative until the end of the war, or at least until the period of acute material and man-power shortages has ended." Unfortunately there has been a tendency in some quarters to overlook the qualifications that were made and to assume, quite erroneously, that there is a general government policy of encouraging the immediate construction of private housing on a large scale all across Canada. Such is not the case.
During 1944 the housing programme must be limited. It will be limited by our war programme and the resultant shortages of materials and man-power. Of necessity we will not be able to permit the construction of all the houses we would like to authorize. Materials for housing are being produced only to the extent that it does not jeopardize, in any way, the flow of munitions to our troops and allies. The time is not yet here when we can provide unlimited quantities of construction materials.
Furthermore, such materials as we are able to provide must be stretched out in such a way as to allow the greatest possible amount of housing accommodation. Thus it is neces-
Housing Programme

sary to confine the issuance of housing construction licences to projects which are needed to provide homes for those without essential accommodation. Projects which aim merely to provide improved accommodation must be deferred until the period of scarcity is over.
This means that housing construction licences are being issued only in those areas where houses are required and only within the limits set by the expected availability of materials. Our latest survey shows that lumber, bricks, tile, concrete blocks, plumbing fixtures and furnaces are all in short supply in most areas. Those materials which are now available, or will become available in wartime, are not necessarily of the same type ;as in peacetime, and in many instances substitute or alternative materials must be employed. With such materials, buildings of inferior quality may result. This situation underlines the advantage of deferring construction, wherever possible, until the war is over.
It also emphasizes the necessity for careful planning of any construction which may be necessary at this time. I would urge every builder to blueprint his projects in accordance with the type of materials available.
The demand for lumber, particularly packing and crating lumber, required for war purposes in Canada and in the United Kingdom, the United States and empire countries continues to rise. Every effort is being made to increase the quantity available for housing in Canada and exports are being permitted only for direct war uses. In some areas, particularly on the west coast, the supply of lumber determines the number of houses which can be authorized.
In normal times Canada would have in stock at this time of year, 40 to 50 million bricks and 35,000 tons of structural tile. To-day such stocks are negligible. The brick production is now at a rate of only 68 per cent of what it was in 1940 and tile at a rate of 76 per cent. The r^te of output of concrete blocks is even lower. It stands to-day at 37 per cent of the 1940 rate.
It is expected that the number of plumbing fixtures which can be produced in 1944 will not be sufficient to provide for the housing and house-conversion programme and, at the same time, for replacements in existing homes. To attain our goal-the creation of additional housing accommodation-it will be necessary to ensure that the available supplies of fixtures be channeled, as far as possible, into additional housing units rather than into the improvement of existing homes.
The supply of hot air furnaces will not meet by a wide margin our over-all requirements for replacements and new housing. The shortage of steel sheet, and a reduced foundry output, have combined to decrease the produc-

tion of such furnaces. Thus it becomes necessary for the wartime prices and trade board to arrange a controlled distribution system by means of certificates of essentiality for the sale and delivery of hot air furnaces.
My purpose in giving the house this summary of the present supply position, as it relates to housing, is to emphasize that our housing programme is still on a minimum basis and that there can be no relaxation of this policy so long as our armed services and the conduct of the war require the full support of our production resources. Housing will be provided where it is essential and deferred under all other circumstances.
I would also like to point out to the house that these same shortages of bricks, lumber and tile will affect, equally, the construction of industrial or commercial buildings. And there is another shortage of particular concern to such projects. The recent increase in our shell programme has required that production of structural shapes for construction purposes be sharply reduced in order to transfer the maximum quantity of steel over to the shell programme. In fact our present steel rolling schedules call for not more than 3,000 tons per month of structural shapes, a drop of 55 ' per cent from the production in the last calendar quarter of 1943.
The combination of these shortages will make impossible the construction of any industrial or commercial building which is not immediately necessary and I would ask those now in possession of licences for such projects to consider seriously the advisability of postponing their construction until such time as the present period of scarcity is over. Such voluntary curtailment of construction, when coupled with the restrictions now being imposed by the controller of construction, will have the added advantage of building up a backlog of construction activity which will stand us in good stead when the pressure of war has been relieved.


Gordon Graydon: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the parliamentary assistant? I do not want to find fault particularly with his statement, because apparently many of the materials required for housing appear to be in short supply. But it is not many weeks ago- this is my reason for rising to protest-that I heard the Minister of Finance describe in some detail the terms of the proposed new housing legislation that was to be brought before the house. If my memory serves me correctly, and I have not the record here, he said that he was making the statement so that those who intended to build would know what the future held for them with respect to finance

Housing Programme
and need not wait until the legislation was brought down. He then gave some description of the financing of the plan for housing. In view of all this, I intimated in effect that there was little use in talking about a new housing programme unless the question of priorities was first cleared up. There was no satisfactory answer to that. But all across this country people, many of whom I know, believed that the government was now opening new avenues to greater housing accommodation by way of finance. If I may say so, Mr. Speaker, in view of the parliamentary assistant's statement now that there is no desire to encourage housing-his remarks rather indicated that it is to be discouraged-why was not this statement of his made concurrently with the statement made by the Minister of Finance? Patently the two statements should have been made together, because made separately they only confuse the issue and bring about conflicting opinions throughout the country, as well as laying the government open to the charge that their departments are not cooperating in respect to this matter. I ask the parliamentary assistant to clear up that point, if he will.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Perhaps I might answer my
hon. friend.


Gordon Graydon: Is another department
entering into this?


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: There is no
question now before the chair. The discussion is out of order, but I think an answer might be given by the minister to the question asked.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I can satisfy the curiosity
of my hon. friend.


Gordon Graydon: It is not curiosity. It is the situation that is curious.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: If it is not curiosity, his
remark that another department was coming into this was very inept.


Gordon Graydon: Another minister is speaking on the matter.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The hon. gentleman who
leads the opposition endeavoured to score a point from a basis that does not exist.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: That is a
matter of opinion.


Gordon Graydon: It does exist.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The hon. member for York-Sunbury would be well advised to keep quiet until I finish my statement.


Richard Burpee Hanson: You cannot lecture me, or anybody like you.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The first point the leader of the opposition makes is, why was not the statement which the parliamentary assistant made to-day made when the Minister of Finance made his statement.


Gordon Graydon: Right.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: If my hon. friend will read carefully the statement of the Minister of Finance, he will find that there is not a very good foundation for the interpretation that he put upon it to-day.


Gordon Graydon: Has the minister the
statement there?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No, and my hon. friend
has not got it either, and he should have it before he comments on it.


Gordon Graydon: You should have it
before you interpret it.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: In the second place the
situation has changed in the interval since the Minister of Finance made his statement.


Richard Burpee Hanson: In what
respect?	,


Thomas Alexander Crerar: In that there is a greater
demand for lumber going overseas than was anticipated at that time.


Gordon Graydon: We anticipated that when we questioned the government at the time.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Members of the government can scarcely be expected to have the prescience of hon. members opposite.


Gordon Graydon: I do not think anybody accuses them of that.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: I would hope not.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I do not think there is
very much to the point my hon. friend has raised.


Gordon Graydon: Certainly nothing has
been cleared up with respect to it.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order. I cannot allow this discussion to proceed further on the orders of the day.


Mr. A. R. ADAMSON (York West):: In
view of the statement of the parliamentary assistant, may I ask him a question with reference to a conference which I understand was held between wartime housing and the' Soldiers' Dependents Society in Toronto with regard to building one hundred units for soldiers' dependents. Is that to be proceeded with?


Lionel Chevrier: I am not familier with
the conference to which my hon. friend refers-

Housing Programme


Agar Rodney Adamson: Between, the mayor of
Toronto and wartime housing.


Lionel Chevrier: I am not familiar with the conference, but I shall be glad to inquire and give a reply.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I will give my hon. friend the correspondence.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. P. C. BLACK (Cumberland):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Munitions and Supply. Are any steps being taken by the department to facilitate the sale of wartime houses to war workers who are now occupying these houses? I know cases where the occupants are desirous of purchasing the houses. Can such sales be made? I think it will be generally agreed that they should be made as quickly as possible, both in the interests of the occupants and in the interests of the country.


Lionel Chevrier: I did not get notice of the question, but I shall be glad to take cognizance of it and give my hon. friend a reply.


Gordon Graydon: I should like to ask a *question arising out of the one just put "regarding wartime houses. Perhaps the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Munitions and Supply would take the question as a notice and give a reply at the next sitting of the house. One of the mayors at the recent meeting of the heads of municipalities which took place in Quebec made a statement-I have not it with me but I shall be glad to send it to my hon. friend so that he may be in a position to answer- to the effect that in a particular locality so long as the occupant of one of these wartime houses was working in a war plant he was allowed to live in the house, but the moment he enlisted for active service his wife and family were evicted. That occurred, according to the report, at a time when there were in that locality vacant houses in the wartime housing group. I will send the clipping to the parliamentary assistant.


[Stage Direction]
INQUIRY WITH RESPECT TO LEGISLATION TO BE BROUGHT DOWN On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. E. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question {Mr. Chevrier.]	.
to the Minister of Agriculture. On one or two occasions the finance minister has indicated to the house that we might expect a bill establishing floor prices for farm products, and I think he also intimated that the Minister of Agriculture might be the one to introduce the bill. May I ask the minister when we may expect it, and who will introduce it?


Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) :: The bill is in preparation in my department in cooperation with the Department of Justice. It will be brought down in a very short time. I cannot give the exact date, but it will be brought down very shortly.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, June 29, consideration of the motion of Hon. J. L. Ilsley (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and on the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Rowe.
Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster) :: Mr. Speaker, we have just listened to the splendid address delivered by the Right Hon. Mr. Fraser, Prime Minister of New Zealand.' As one who was born in the same country, indeed in the same neighbourhood, may I pay my humble tribute to one of Scotland's sons who has made a name for himself by his public service to New Zealand and thereby to mankind.
In rising on this occasion to take part in the budget debate, my purpose is to discuss one or two matters affecting particularly the people of British Columbia, but before doing so I wish to touch briefly on some of the matters outlined in the budget which have been mentioned by various speakers since the debate began.
The chief critic for the official opposition in has speech accused the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) of bringing down an election budget. While this may or may not be the last budget before an election takes place, the fact that only a few minor changes have been made from the budget presented last year to the house and country makes the accusation to my mind seem ridiculous.
I wish to say a word regarding the criticism that has been levelled against the refundable portion of the tax which has now been eliminated. The members of the war expenditures committee visited various factories throughout the country and discussed with the workmen in them matters pertaining not only to their work but to conditions generally, and their reactions to the various rules and regulations by which

The Budget-Mr. Reid
they were governed, and invariably we were told by many of the workmen, that they complained about the taxes which they paid to the government. When it was explained to them that a part of the taxes they were paying was refundable, this information came in many instances as a surprise to these people. From the information which we obtained, there must have been hundreds and hundreds of letters reaching the Department of Finance, because letters were written to many members protesting against what they felt was heavy taxation levied, while very few of the persons complaining realized that a part of the money taken from them was being held to their credit and would be returned. As a matter of fact, especially in the case of those who were paying income tax for the first time, many could not be made to realize that anything taken from them by the dominion government would ever be returned to them.
Another criticism that was made was with regard to taxation in the lower brackets. While it is true that there may be certain hardships in the imposition of taxation in the lower brackets, on the other hand the fact cannot be overlooked that many hundreds more of our citizens in Canada have money standing to their credit than ever before. I will place some figures on the record to show the improved financial position that many Canadians are in to-day. For instance, in 1939, if we take the savings accounts of the Canadian people, there were at that time 4,161,897 depositors having accounts in our savings banks, and to their credit in the banks there was standing the sum of $1,709,156,774. In 1943 these figures had increased respectively to 4,662,113 depositors and, standing to their credit, a total of $1,961,160,946. There was therefore in the savings accounts in Canada an increase in the number of depositors to a total of over 500,000, while standing to their credit there were increased savings amounting to over $252,000,000.
In regard to current accounts, it is also interesting to note the figures, and I am putting them on the record because many of us hold the opinion that no country to-day is in a better position than this Canada of ours. Regarding current accounts, in 1939 there were 684,119 depositors with a total of $821,717,082 standing to their credit. Let us take 1943 next, and may I observe that I am quoting the month of October, 1939, and the month of October, 1943, the latest date for which I can obtain figures. In 1943 there were 738,333 current accounts, and standing to their credit there was $1,826,837,690, showing an increase in current accounts of 54,214 and1 a total increase of accounts standing to the credit of
these depositors, as against the year 1939, of $1,005,000,000. These figures, I believe, speak for themselves, and they show, notwithstanding the criticism we have heard with regard to men in the lower brackets being affected by the income tax, that, generally speaking, the people of Canada were never in a better financial position than they are at the present time, and that never have we had as many people holding deposits in the savings banks, and that, despite the many billion dollars taken out by the people of Canada in victory bonds and war savings stamps.
I wish to deal next with criticism levelled by certain newspapers and clergymen against those of us from British Columbia who are opposed to the granting of the vote to Japanese and who urge tbeir repatriation. To the clergymen and others who go out of their way to criticize us and to call our attitude unChristian, may I say that I do not doubt their sincerity in the views they hold, but I would point out that many people have held sincere views which nevertheless, in many instances, have been dangerous, and I say without fear of successful contradiction that the views held by those who oppose us are impracticable, however sincerely held they may be, and that those people may in the future regret the stand they are taking.
The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and some of the newspapers in British Columbia, when dealing with this question and our attitude toward it, endeavour to draw a comparison with what Hitler did in Germany with the Jews. To my mind, and I say this as strongly as I can, this is not only an unfair comparison but also an odious one. When those in British Columbia call it a political trick-well, I will say they know something about political tricks. However, as one who has held views on this subject for quite a long time, long before this question arose exactly in this way in parliament, I mean since the war started, I can sincerely say that I have held these views not from any political point of view but from practical considerations, and I am sure that those who are opposing us will yet regret the stand they are taking. The C.C.F., some ministers of the gospel and others have consistently refused to answer two questions which have been propounded not only since 1939 but since the days away back in the early thirties, and which I propound to them again to-day. I put these questions before the House of Commons and I would also ask hon. members from eastern and central provinces to answer them. I challenge those who have criticized us, particularly members of the C.C.F. in this house and in British Columbia, to answer these two questions which I am
The Budget-Mr. Reid

about to put to them. The first is this: Are the Japanese an assimilable race? Can they be properly assimilated, as can members of other races who have come to Canada? The second question, equally important, is this: Can a person, even though bom in Canada, be truly a Canadian citizen if that person owes recorded allegiance to another country? Every person of Japanese origin, whether born in this country or not, is registered as a Japanese citizen and is recognized by the Japanese government as being a citizen of Japan, even though bom in Canada.
May I add this as further proof. It is strange that those in Canada burying all Japanese prior to 1939 were requested by the Japanese government to send not only the birth certificates but the death certificates as well. That request applied to all Japanese, irrespective of where they were born. To put the matter in another form, suppose a Canadian child was bom in a foreign country. The child would naturally be registered, or should be, with the British or Canadian consul. Such registration would make that child a Canadian or British subject. The fact of their being so registered I believe also prevents them from being claimed as a citizen by whatever foreign country they happened to be bom in. Why then, in the case of Japanese bom in this country, should people hold to the view that, although registered in Japan as Japanese citizens, they are still Canadian? That, Mr. Speaker, is the crux of the whole matter.
Let me point out this further fact. So far as I know, no one of Japanese race or origin in Canada has ever renounced his allegiance to Japan. Not even since Pearl Harbor has any Japanese in Canada taken that action.
If the vote is allowed the Japanese that are at present in Canada, the voice of Japan will then be heard in our legislative halls. Since all Japanese are completely under and subservient to the Japanese government, the only ones who could actually be considered as strictly Canadian citizens-if even they can be-are the Japanese babies born since Pearl Harbor because they are unlikely to be registered in Japan. I ask our critics of the C.C.F. party and others to give the people of British Columbia and of all Canada a definite answer to these questions instead of raising bogeys and quoting Hitler. And to those members of the House of Commons from other provinces who have treated the matter lightly and as one belonging simply to British Columbia, I say in all fairness, give some thought to the two questions I have just propounded. I ask them to get out of 
their minds once and for all the idea that this is a British Columbia question. It is now a Canadian question, a federal question. If I know the people of British Columbia at all, and I think I do, they are adamant that the question shall remain as a federal question.
The other matter about which I wish to speak is one affecting our natural resources and which in turn affects the lives and welfare of our people. I refer to the acquisition by monopolistic interests of British Columbia's heritage of timber. For quite a number of years past the MacMillan lumber interests have been gradually acquiring timber limits throughout the various parts of the province, particularly on Vancouver island. The policy adopted by them is one of buying out mills, following which these mills would then be closed down and the timber limits which they own absorbed within the MacMillan interests. It has almost got to the point where practically no one can go into the business or, indeed, operate unless he has the good will of these lumber interests. The point has now been reached where a fight is on for the supremacy over all timber limits and the control of all mills. It has been indicated that the stronghold held now by the MacMillan interests will likely mean that in the end they will prevail. I endeavoured to warn the government and the people regarding this matter a few years ago, but no attention has been paid to the monopolistic control by this great lumber company. I pointed out then, as I do now, that the interests were such powerful timber and lumber operators that many smaller lumbermen were actually afraid even to make any comments, because the MacMillan interests might interfere with their logging business. Actually the position is comparable with that of the barons of old.
Mr. W. E. Fraser of Shawnigan Lake, charged the MacMillan interests have eoralled the timber of Vancouver island. He warned that there would soon be only two mills cutting timber on Vancouver island. He warned also that the independents in the lumber industry would be starved out of business, and that, Mr. Speaker, in the midst of plenty of timber. Mr. Fraser charged also that thirty men who are fighting in Italy and in France at the present time, and who had left the Shawnigan Lake mills, would not be able to return to this mill because it was one of those that had been bought and closed down.
As I said a moment ago, mills have been bought up by the MacMillan interests for the sole purpose of obtaining complete control of the timber and forests of British Columbia.
It may well be that I am staking my political

The Budget-Mr. Church
future in bringing this matter to the attention of the government and out in the open, and urging that the federal government take steps, for the good and welfare of Canada, to investigate this monopoly. I am thinking also of the men overseas, who believe that they are going to come back to this country with an equal opportunity to work and, if desired, to go into business for themselves. If this thing is not stopped and rectified they will never have a chance of becoming mill owners, because these interests control or by that time will have control of the entire timber tracts of British Columbia. Not only has the provincial government maintained silence, but, what is more strange, the C.C.F. in British Columbia have maintained what I call a sinister silence. They have at times come out against the big monopolies,	but neither	the	Winchs	nor	theMacNeills, so far as I know, have come out and named the MacMillan monopoly or its interests. It is my opinion that the MacMillan interests would	rather have	the	Winchs	and	the
MacNeills in power than the Tom Reids. Therefore, as I said a few moments ago, I may be staking my political future in taking the stand that I do this afternoon. I appeal to the federal government, because the provincial government out there have been lukewarm in tackling the large interests of the MacMillan concern. On Vancouver island alone they now own equal to thirty years' timber, and I wish to repeat as emphatically as I can that no one will be able to go into the lumber business or operate a mill unless he has the approval of MacMillan and his henchmen.
Here is what the Vancouver Sun had to say about it:
Billions of -feet of our choice Douglas fir, cedar -and spruce, units of great value in the natural resources of t'he province which heretofore have -been crown-granted or sold away by licence from public ownership, are being used as pawns in a fight for supremacy.
The article then goes on to show how this parent works and the great controls which it has. The article continues:
Now there has been built up a close integration covering the entire business, starting from the ownership of the standing tree right through to the retail lumber yard in London or in some Canadian or United States city.
The sawmill company is the parent. An affiliated company, owned ,by the sawmill, acquires -the timber by licence or purchase; another affiliated company cubs the tree -and hauls the log to a shipping point; still another corporation, owned by the parent sawmill, operates a tugboat company; still another subsidiary charters ocean-going tramp steamers to deliver the cargoes abroad-an extremely remunerative business, by the way. Each one of these subsidiaries is run to make a profit.
Mr. MacMillan has not been idle during his term in Ottawa as a dollar a year man.
He has been able to get more Park steamships under charter than most other concerns. A list of these ships can be obtained from the department by anyone interested in this matter.
As I said, Mr. Speaker, I consider it my duty to bring this situation into the open, and have done so with a view to protecting the heritage and the rights of our people, so that those who wish may have an opportunity to compete in the lumber industry. I urge the dominion government to take steps to carry out an investigation into this monopolistic concern. Since the matter affects the welfare of the people of Canada the government might very well proceed under the War Measures Act. I am quite aware of what may happen as a result of the stand I am taking against these interests. No great protest has been raised in British Columbia, except in the Vancouver Sun; as far as I know very few individuals have dared to come out and make any statements such as I have made to-day with regard to these interests. A moment aga I said that my political future might be at stake. I have no doubt that whoever opposes me in the next election will receive the blessing and help of these interests, because, as I say, they would rather have the Winchs and the MacNeills than the Tom Reids.
I am going to close with these words. This may be my last term, but at least I shall have the satisfaction and peace of mind of knowing that I tried to do my duty by protesting against the strangle-hold of this monster organization, and can say, as King Solomon said in his day, that in all my years of service I have accepted no gift to blind my eyes to justice.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, to-morrow is Dominion day, the seventy-seventh anniversary of confederation, and the fifth year our soldiers have been overseas. We as a people owe a great deal to the fact that the history of courage has been rewritten by the glorious deeds of young Canadians on land, on the sea and in the air. To-morrow will be a day of rejoicing, but also it will be a day of sadness for many people. Canada rejoices that she has produced these magnificent young men who have offered their lives for a better world, but to-morrow in the city from which I -come there will also be a great deal of sorrow. Nine hundred young high school students have made the supreme sacrifice with the air force, and many others have lost their lives while serving with the other branches of the armed forces. We shall rejoice because Canada, as part of the British empire, has done her duty during two wars
The Budget-Mr. Church

In connection with victory loans it is my belief that they have cost too much, one or one and one-half points, and that the expenses were too high. Some of those expenses should be cut out, and more of our war debt should be charged to capital account.
The government seems to have been on a spending spree. It is spending money like water. If you look over the civil estimates and expenditures on the war you find that they total $6 billion. In my opinion a great deal of that is not for war at all. Wars are won by soldiers, sailors and airmen who are at the scene of combat and not at home. Something should be done to send overseas these reserves of 75,000 men which are costing us over $150 million.
In addition there has been a lot of extravagance in the civil estimates. I notice a policy has been adopted of sending shows and revues and all that kind of thing all over the country. The wartime prices and trade board have now adopted this fashion. What are they doing? The conservation supervisor of the consumers' branch at Toronto has announced that next fall she will have a revue take to the road, appearing in the high schools in all the provinces from coast to coast. In war time, what a farce! The same sort of thing is going on in other departments and something should be done to get reasonable economy in this connection.
The budget shows that fifty-six per cent of our income comes from the income tax, and I fail to see where anything has been done to give relief to the taxpayers. Great Britain is still our best customer. We talk about lend-lease and what we have given her, but we should not forget what she has purchased in this country in the way of war supplies. These transactions have been carried on to a very great extent, and this fact was not considered by those from Quebec who have been criticizing this thing in the house during the last few days.
The question of labour has come up in the house many times. I have always been a consistent supporter of labour. I have held many public positions and I have always had the united support of labour. My hon. friends to my left, particularly the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis), should not think they are the only ones looking after the interests of labour. There are others who were in the cause long before there ever was a C.C.F., long before many of these principles were announced.
I have received a number of letters from young soldiers at the front. Some of these boys have marched across the African desert. They are complaining about what they read of happenings at home, about the strikes that

have been going on in many industries. In Cincinnati 12,000 men stopped work and went on strike, and the same sort of thing is happening in many Canadian industries. Leading statesmen have also complained that we are losing the war on the home front. Recently I read an editorial in Life which says:
The home front, speaking generally, seems to have no comprehension of the historic role that it is being called upon to play. Hence, instead of pulling together it is breaking apart. Thus in the last several months every major effort to streamline the home front for war has failed. The farm -bloc has scrambled a subsidy programme for keeping down the cost of living.. In three of the most vital industries-coal, railroads and steel-labour has defied the government and driven wages upward. Efforts to tax the swollen war incomes that the nation is enjoying have wholly failed.
I have been a strong supporter of labour. In the old country, where there are a great many labour unions, they rolled up a total of 2,250,000 votes in favour of carrying the war through to a finish. Strikes over there have been very few indeed. Most of their differences have been settled in an amicable way.
The government of the day are from five -to eight years too late in what they are now proposing in their new deal of socialism. Many years ago the President of the United States announced a "new deal". While this was carried on down to Pearl Harbor day it was not altogether a success. It cost that country a great sum of money, but it was weighed in the balance and most of it was found wanting. After Pearl Harbor that "new deal" was placed before the country in various elections. Later the President of the United 'States dropped the words "new deal'r and adopted the phrase "win the war." That is much more important and that is the present policy of that government.
Much has been said in and out of the house about a better world after the war,, about the utopia that is to come, the world of the common man. But they do not describe what the comman man is; they do not say what collective security is and all that kind of thing. Those who talk about the days prior to 1939 forget some things. We shall have to struggle very hard; the people will have to labour very hard before we can regain our lost liberty, or before we can go back to it as in the days before 1939, before we can hope to have any proper prosperity in the whole world. History shows that after every war policies like this are proposed. This was the policy of the government in Great Britain after the Napoleonic wars. They advanced such a policy in the hope that it would bring about a better world.

The Budget-Mr. Church
We should not forget the glories of the Victorian era and other eras prior to 1939.
I have referred many times to the advances made during those years in industry, trade and commerce, science, medicine and so on. They built up great assets for the future, but we have squandered them in many ways. There can be no new world unless every man and woman in the country seeks to make it so. Every individual must labour to the utmost. Do not forget that Christian ethics teach us that necessity is the mother of invention, that this life is only preparatory for the one in the next world. That is what the Christian churches teach, and if we are to have a better world everybody will have to do his duty all along the line.
The proposals of Lord Halifax contained per se no new doctrines or proposals. I have for many years urged complete unity with the other dominions for defence, migration, security, empire trade and civil aviation on a unit plan. The empire must remain as in the past an economic unit and act as one with the mother country, or go by default and into liquidation. After all who saved the world in this war for the first two and a half years when Britain went in alone except for the spontaneous and voluntary aid of the dominions and the colonies? It was the mother country that saved civilization, and the empire must be a unit carried into peace days or it will break up into several small states, none of which will be able to go it alone. Unless they stand together they will have little to say about the peace terms or in the new world to come.
The alliance with our brave allies, the United States and Russia, must continue into peace for the new world to come. I favoured closer empire ties and imperial preference as well as favoured nation treaties, and said that the mother country would, after this war, also continue to be our best customer as always.
Canada needs a huge building, housing and reconstruction programme immediately to prepare for peace, and an empire civil aviation policy. The latter would be a source of employment for thousands of our airmen after the war and, if properly developed, would, next to agriculture, be one of the most gainful of employments for thousands of returned soldiers and civilians.
I urge a forward migration policy within the empire. We should think first of the mother country. Tens of thousands could be brought out after the war on an assisted plan. Unless we do something soon, Canada will get little or no factory orders from the huge
rebuilding and reconstruction policy of Mr. Churchill, one item of which is 500,000 prefabricated houses. It would mean work here for our industries-private enterprise adapted to the new world to be, and private initiative will, as in the past, do more for employment than the state, which has no money for all the castles in the air of the planners and socialists except what it gets from the taxpayer.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain was quite right when he said that he was not going to preside over the liquidation of the British empire, that he was not going to see the British empire go by default, or to throw away all that we have won just to satisfy a section of the United States press which was predicting the fall of the British empire in the dark days of 1941.
I am very much disappointed in the budget because it contains no reference to retaining our trade preferences within the British empire. As I read clause 7 of the lease-lend treaty which has been signed by Great Britain and the United States, it provides that the trade preferences shall not be interfered with. Clause 4 of the Atlantic charter also provides that these trade preferences between the mother country and the British empire shall not be interfered with without the consent of the dominions. That is a good proviso. There should have been an announcement in the budget as to where we stand on the Ottawa agreements and on the trade preferences within the empire. We have a family of our own in the British empire. The British empire has been our steady, loyal customer. We do fifty-five per cent of all our business with it. It provides a steady market, and I am opposed to throwing away that market for international cooperation. I believe that we should retain our economic freedom and that we should control our own home market and use it as we think fit for the welfare of our own population and the welfare of the commonwealth, of India and of the colonial empire. Britain will do the same thing, and so should the dominions. It is argued by some that if we reserve that freedom for ourselves we shall somehow be acting in restriction of world trade, that we shall be opposing a liberal movement which would otherwise progress. I cannot understand that argument. Sir Edward Grigg has said: "Russia controls a home market of 180,000,000 people. There is no question of her not having the most complete control over the whole of that vast market, and no one has suggested that by keeping control of that vast market, far larger than ours, she is acting in restriction of world trade. Similarly, the United States, which has a population of
The Budget-Mr. Church

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



FISHERIES

[Stage Direction]
72. Development of the deep sea fisheries and the demand for fish, $30,000.
Hon. ERNEST BERTRAND (Minister of Fisheries):: I have not the details of my estimates here, Mr. Chairman, because I understood that my estimates would not be proceeded with until eight o'clock.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Why can we not rest quietly for a few minutes?


Ernest Bertrand: Reading the Hansard report of the discussion when these estimates were last before the house, I find
that there was a question with regard to the reduction of $10,000 and I explained that this had been transferred to another department. Item 70 is accordingly increased by $63,000. Inspection comes under "fisheries inspection including fishery officers and guardians, fisheries patrol and protection services."


Richard Burpee Hanson: Under the item that is now before us I propose to ask the minister, on resuming at eight o'clock, some questions regarding the development of deep sea fisheries and the position of the department with respect to aid to fishermen engaged in these fisheries, so far as the question of bait is concerned. I do not wish to develop the point a.t the moment because my papers are upstairs and I cannot speak without them. However, I notify the minister that at eight o'clock I intend to ask some questions in this connection. Would the minister be good enough to let me know at eight o'clock whether in Quebec the province supplies bait free to deep sea fishermen, having regard to the bay of Chaleur?


Ernest Bertrand: I do not know whether bait is free to the fishermen there.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am asking the minister to get the information and let me know.



THE ROYAL ASSENT

[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by Major A. R. Thompson, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, as follows:	[DOT]
Mr. Speaker, His Honour, the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General, desires the immediate attendance of this honourable house in ,the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, the house went up to the Senate.
And having returned,
Mr. SPEAKER informed the house that the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General had been pleased to give in His Majesty's name the royal assent to the following bills:
An act to amend the Bank Act.
An act to amend the Quebec Savings Banks Act.
An act to establish a Department of Veterans Affairs.
An act respecting Surplus Crown Assets.
An act to establish a Department of Reconstruction.
Mr. SPEAKER:: If the house is agreeable
perhaps we might meet this evening at 8:15 instead of at 8 o'clock.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Golding in the chair.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
Supply-Fisheries

After Recess
The committee resumed at 8.15 p.m.



DEPARTMENT OP FISHERIES

[Stage Direction]
72. Development of the deep sea fisheries and the demand for fish, $30,000.
Richard Burpee Hanson: Mr. Chairman, as I notified the minister before the dinner recess, I desire to review briefly the
situation which has arisen in the bay of Chaleur district, province of New Brunswick, with respect to conditions surrounding the operations of deep sea fishermen at that point. Like those in the Gaspe district, the fishermen on the Caraquet coast are engaged, for the most part, in the catching of prime codfish. In order to do so it is necessary that they should have at all times an adequate supply of bait.
The bait most commonly used is the common herring. The fishermen themselves-or some of them-catch these fish, presumably in nets. Since they have no way of taking care of the bait, except to a very limited degree, and since the best bait comes from the freezers, it is customary for these fishermen to sell the fresh herring to the freezers and1 then, as they Tequire fresh bait, they repurchase the herring.
Some years ago a number of freezing plants were established in the Caraquet district, especially at Shippigan and at Caraquet village. But during the depression, and even before that time, these freezers fell more or less into decay, and were not commercially operated. During the depression the plight of the fishermen on the Caraquet coast, in common with that of their brothers across the bay, was rather desperate. The prices paid for prime cod were so low, owing to the failure of the export trade, that the fishermen could not make a living. The consequence was that gear, fishing vessels and the like went into decay. During the depression these men had an exceedingly difficult time.	-
Between 1935 and 1940, the provincial government of New Brunswick, having decided to ameliorate the condition of these fishemen, induced a very large and wealthy corporation from Gloucester, Massachusetts, to establish a subsidiary corporation in New Brunswick. This corporation, known as Gorton Pew, N.B., Limited, with substantial assistance from the provincial government, and with a grant of a good many thousands of dollars from this federal treasury handed out to them, I think-


Ernest Bertrand: The grant was given by the federal government to the provinces.


Richard Burpee Hanson: My recollection is that it went direct to the company,

although it may have passed through the provincial government. The minister's officials will be fully advised as to the details, and the point does not affect the situation to which I shall refer.
The result was that there was established at Caraquet, in the county of Gloucester, New Brunswick, a large freezing and processing plant which has been in operation more or less continuously ever since. Whether it has fulfilled all the functions for which it was intended, I am not in a position to say; and I do not purpose criticizing that feature of the case. I am going to draw the minister's attention to the fact that the prices paid by this company for fish, having regard to the present high prices received for the processed product, are wholly inadequate.
Before turning to that point, however, may I direct the minister's attention to another circumstance, the one I had in mind chiefly when I rose to speak. I point out to him that the prices paid by this company, which operates under a very large capital subsidy, to the fisherman for the fresh bait, as he brings it in, is exceedingly low. Only two cents a pound is paid for the herring. That herring is brought to. the pier by the fisherman. It is then weighed in by company officials, put in the bins, salted, partly frozen, and there awaits distribution to the fisherman for his purposes in connection with the catching of cod fish. The prices charged by the company, on the other hand, to the fishermen for the same bait is not two cents a pound, but five cents a pound, or 150 per cent higher. I submit to the minister that that is an unwarranted increase in price, having regard to the fact that the only expense the company could have is that connected with the weighing in of the fish, and with salting and semi-freezing in order to preserve it against the time when the fishermen may want bait-which may be in the following week.
I hold in my hands two invoices which I shall be glad to show the minister, although I desire that the name of the fisherman should not be made public. One invoice is for a sale by a fisherman to Gorton Pew, N.B., Limited, of 150 pounds of bait herring at two cents a pound, for a total of $3. The second invoice is for a purchase of 5,400 pounds of herring bait for $27, which works out at exactly five cents a pound.


Mr. KINLEY:: What is the date of each invoice?


Richard Burpee Hanson: One is May and the other is June; they are within recent days.
This is a situation which ought not to obtain.
I do not know whether the minister has any

Supply-Fisheries
remedy for this sort of thing, but the solution which occurs to me is one which I believe the federal government could very well afford to carry out. Before offering that, however, I would ask the minister if he has been able to ascertain whether the fishermen on the Gaspe coast, especially that part of the Gaspe coast fronting on the bay of Chaleur, are provided with free bait by either the federal or the provincial government.


Ernest Bertrand: They are not provided, by either the provincial or the dominion government, with free bait. The provincial government has built along the Gaspe coast thirty-four refrigeration plants, in which the bait is stored. Space is rented by the government; it is not free.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It is not exactly free. Is the minister able to tell me the cost to the individual fisherman for having this bait located in the freezer, and for storing it and handing it out to him?


Ernest Bertrand: I do not know. I know, however, that the rent is rather low.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Very low, yes.


Ernest Bertrand: Yes. And I know that the provincial government has been losing money for a few years on these plants.


Richard Burpee Hanson: In any event the provincial government in its desire to help the fishermen-and I commend the government in this respect-makes a small service charge for such facilities. No such facilities exist in New Brunswick. I am sure the department is sincerely desirous, as we all are, of making the fishing industry as profitable as it can be made-and is, I believe, to a degree, to-day-and with that in mind could extend some assistance in connection with this matter of supplying bait, either by the method adopted by the Quebec government or, if that is not possible, having regard to the capital expenditures required in establishing freezers, by intervening long enough to investigate the operations of the company.
I am not going to criticize the minister's department, but I desire to draw attention to a situation which was represented to me as being unduly hard on the fishermen in that locality, especially when vis-a-vis they see their brothers on the coasts of Bonaventure and Gaspe counties able to store their bait for what is more or less a nominal fee.
In my opinion 150 per cent profit on a transaction of this kind is far too large. I should like to be corrected if my information is wrong; but if this company does receive the bait at its own pier from the fishermen, weighs
it in, carries it up by conveyors to the bins, puts in whatever salt is necessary, freezes and
stores the bait and then hands it out, a profit of 150 per cent is, to say the least, exorbitant.
That is the situation which has developed. It is causing great uneasiness and - annoyance to the fishermen, and they resent it. I am suggesting to the minister that he should have his inspectors visit these plants immediately and, if they have authority, examine the books and check on the information I have. I have even heard of a profit of 400 per cent being charged for this service. That is to say, as much as $8 per 100 pounds has been charged for bait instead of $5, as shown by the invoice I have in front of me.
I suggest that under this item the department should go farther and develop facilities in these fishing districts, not only to stop such things as I have indicated and which I believe are abuses, but also to establish refrigerator plants where they do not now exist. These small plants are not expensive. There is very little service the fishermen get from the federal government. There is very little we can do for them outside of trying to provide markets and what-not. It would be a great service for the men on the Caraquet coast and along the whole eastern shore of New Brunswick. Small freezing plants for bait should be established in cooperation with the provincial government or by the federal government acting on its own.
Bait constitutes an important item in the fisherman's inventory, as well as an important item in his cost of production. Something ought to be done about it. I am going to ask the minister if he will be good enough to have the whole position reviewed, and perhaps not this season-priorities are difficult-


Ernest Bertrand: We are just looking into the matter.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am very glad to hear that, and I am glad to be in the forefront advocating it. If the minister should do anything and I happen to be here in another season I shall be glad to commend him for his efforts. Certainly there is a need, and I think the minister's investigation will show that there is a need. The present need is to investigate the prices charged the fishermen by this one institution which has a monopoly on the whole Caraquet coast because there is not another freezer in that district. Just as a guess I would say that that coast extends for sixty miles, and if you go beyond the extreme eastern tip of Gloucester county in New Brunswick to the gulf coast proper, it will be probably one hundred miles. There is only the one plant where bait can be found.
Supply-Fisheries

Another point to which I desire to call the minister's attention is the price paid by this company for prime green codfish. Because of commitments made by the government dried codfish are in great demand. I was astounded the other day to find out the prices being charged in my town for dried boneless cod. That is a luscious item if you have never tasted it. The cost at a retail store was thirty-seven cents a pound.


Thomas Reid: Is there no price ceiling?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I do not know of any price ceiling. I was simply astounded when the dealer told me that the price was thirty-seven cents a pound. The fisherman gets three and a half cents a pound for the green codfish. I should not like hon. members to think there is no justification for a considerable spread between the cost of the green fish delivered at the pier and the price charged by the retailer for the dried product. There is a tremendous loss in processing, and there is the cost of handling, curing and distribution. The processor has his profit; the wholesaler who distributes, if it is not done by the processor, also has a profit; the retailer has a profit as well. There are thus three profits on the one piece of fish. I cannot conceive why there should be a spread' of about 1,200 per cent; from three and a half cents a pound to thirty-seven cents a pound is a tremendous spread.
Let us say that the loss in processing is one-third. I am just guessing at that, although I have heard the figures. This would bring the cost of the fish up substantially. The other items to which I have referred would each take at least as much as the original price paid to the fisherman. The cost of transportation is an item. Even with the prices paid for dried codfish by the quintal of 112 pounds, either with the bone in or boneless, I cannot conceive that a price of three and a half cents a pound for the green product is adequate.
This is the situation that calls for remedy. I do not suggest a ceiling price, but I do suggest a floor price for the fisherman. He is the man I am talking about at the moment; he is the man who is entitled to a fair return for what, after all, is fairly arduous work. He has to go out in all kinds of weather. While the fishermen do not fish in the wintertime because that area is frozen, fall fishing is a serious and hazardous occupation. The best run of fish is in the fall. The fattest run of cod is always in the fall, and the same for the haddock. The spring haddock are thin and not nearly as edible. During the later part of September when there are many

gales and windstorms and into October when the weather is getting colder, this occupation is carried, on under the most arduous circumstances.
I should like to have from the minister an undertaking that he will look into what these companies are paying to these fishermen who cannot fend for themselves. I hope they are organized in a cooperative, but I am afraid they are not. That is the only cure that I see for the troubles of which I would call the shore-line fishermen. They have no beam trawlers but fish in the old-fashioned fishing vessels. Each man will take a share and a group will get together and go in one small schooner. They sell their catch collectively and divide the proceeds among them after paying the expenses. A fishing trip, cannot be very lucrative to them, selling their fish at 3J cents a pound. Remember these men cannot fish in the winter. Most of them go to the lumber woods and that sort of thing in the winter. But fishing is their principal occupation, and their season is relatively short. I am going to ask the minister if he will institute an investigation into the prices paid by the Gorton Pew company of New Brunswick for green codfish to the fishermen on the Cara-quet coast and see if he cannot alleviate a situation which I think is just too bad at this time when prices for primary products have at least reached a decent basis. They have not reached parity by any means in many cases, but here I suggest that there is no effort to get parity for the fisherman, having regard to what he has to pay for his fishing tackle, his lines and what-not, and what he has to pay for his bait. I think the situation with respect to bait is odious. The fisherman has to pay five cents a pound for cured bait. That seems to be entirely out of line with what he ought to have to pay.


Mr. NEILL:: How much?


Richard Burpee Hanson: Five cents a pound. I have the invoices.


Alan Webster Neill: Dried herring?


Richard Burpee Hanson: Semi-frozen herring. They do not stay in the freezer very long because there is such an active demand. That situation should not be allowed to continue. I am going to ask the minister if he will be good enough, with the authority conferred upon him by this item., to investigate these two problems and see if he cannot find a rectification and a cure. I have outlined them in sufficient detail I think for him to know what I mean. I have not the slightest doubt in the world that he will approach the problems sympathetically. There is a disease there that ought to be cured, and a little wholesome

Supply-Fisheries
government intervention will, I have no doubt, bring about a cure. These fishermen should not be getting less than six cents a pound for prime green codfish at to-day's prices, which is nearly double what the fishermen are getting to-day. The minister may say that that price is out of line. I confess I do not know because I have not had time to get any figures. But his department must have them.
Fish are in great demand to-day. Fresh fish in the United States, where there is no ceiling at all, has gone sky-high, and there is great competition to obtain these fish, in one case for the fresh fish market and in the other for the cured fish market. There is not enough supply to go around to satisfy the demand. This ought to be the time when the fisherman can get in his harvest. He has the opportunity only about once in every five years. I suggest to the minister; I solicit the minister, to make inquiry and to do something about this matter. I think I have laid sufficient basis upon which he can see that there is something radically wrong with respect to the operation of this company. In the United States it is one of the biggest companies there. If they were establishing themselves at this time in New Brunswick they would not want any government intervention. They came in there, of course, at a difficult time, and I never criticized very much the fact that they were given a subsidy although I remember criticizing in this house three or four years ago the magnitude of the subsidy given and the use that was made of it. But that is past history and I am not going to rehash any part of it. May I ask the minister to approach this matter as sympathetically as possible and to do something. That is what I want. Let us see if something cannot be done for these men.


Ernest Bertrand: Mr. Chairman, some time in 1939 a subsidy of half a million dollars was granted to the three maritime provinces, and the New Brunswick government granted a subsidy of $75,000 to [DOT]Gorton Pew. The province was free to do anything reasonable out of the amount of subsidy granted. This government had nothing to do with the grant of this $75,000 to Gorton Pew.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The country's money went to them.


Ernest Bertrand: Yes, but I
understand that the maritimes also put up some money to make up a certain total by which they tried to alleviate the difficulties of the fishermen. On the Gaspe coast the provincial government has 'built thirty-four
refrigeration plants, which at that time was thought to be a very big plan involving a large vote of money. The plants were built during the depression years and the fishermen have benefited from these plants to a large extent, especially during the last few years.
The fishermen are paying, as the hon. member indicates, a nominal amount to have their bait and their fish stored in these refrigeration plants. We have nothing similar in the maritime provinces, except that an order in council authorizes us to advance to a group of fishermen seventy-five per cent of the cost of bait freezer provided that the plant design is approved by the department. The cost of these bait freezers runs between three and four thousand dollars apiece. We have had orre request this year from the Lameque Fishermen's Association and we are granting them $4,000.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is on the island.


Ernest Bertrand: Yes. A few years ago, in 1938, the sum of $36,000 was granted to the Jamieson company at Canso and a refrigeration plant was built there. By virtue of the contract between the Jamieson company and the government a certain amount of space has to be made available in the plant for the fishermen.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Has the Lameque plant been built?


Ernest Bertrand: No; we granted the subsidy only three or four weeks ago.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The plant will not be in operation this year.


Ernest Bertrand: No. Apart from that we have no other plants. We want to benefit from the experience of the Quebec provincial government. At present our engineers in conjunction with the officials of the Nova Scotia fisheries department are looking around and preparing plans for refrigeration plants. We do not intend to make it merely a refrigeration plant as in Gaspe. We would like to have what is called a one-unit fishing plant, including refrigeration, a drying plant, and a smoking plant.


Richard Burpee Hanson: A processing plant.


Ernest Bertrand: Yes, processing in more than one form. It is our policy to do that if it is possible and even to ask for a certain amount in the supplementary estimates, because the engineers' plans might be ready within a very short time and we should like to do it as quickly as possible. We shall build three or four or five of these plants in
Supply-Fisheries

the maritimes at different places not yet chosen. The price paid to the fishermen for dried cod is on an average of 6-6 cents a pound.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is green cod.


Ernest Bertrand: Yes. The ceiling price at 3-5 cents, raw, translated into terms of dried fish for export purposes, means 13-28 cents that we are paying. There is no ceiling price for the domestic product.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is the price to the government for export under its commitments

13-28 cents?


Ernest Bertrand: Yes. I cannot say that the price of 37 cents a pound seems to be very high. However, it is not in my department.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I can give the minister first-class evidence on that point. But what about this question of bait? The minister has not given me any -undertaking at all that he will comply with my request to look into the matter of bait.


Ernest Bertrand: The plants which we wish to build will be for the refrigeration of processed fish and also for bait purposes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I agree with that; but what about the present? I am asking the minister to look into the matter and see to it that the condition which exists to-day shall not continue. While I am on my feet, may I ask him whether the price of 6-6 cents is for the whole fish or the cleaned fish, because there is a marked difference between the two.
Mr. BERTRAND (Laurier). That is for salted fish not boned, 6-6 -cents.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Are the entrails out? They are an important part of the weight of the fish. If they are cleaned fish-


Mr. BERTRAND (York-Sunbury):: Yes, they are cleaned fish.


Richard Burpee Hanson: -then that is not a very high price, because the head and entrails would be at least one-third of the weight, and that is a very low price to-day.


Ernest Bertrand: It is very high in comparison with what was paid in previous years.
Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury 1: But the price in previous years was a distress price.


Ernest Bertrand: I may say to my hon. friend that I have been twice in the

maritimes and the fisheries association were very happy. As regards the price charged by the Gorton Pew company, that is not in my province, but I shall inquire to find out what's what.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The minister says that it is not in his jurisdiction; that is what he is telling us. I will tell him this, if he will allow me, and I am not doing it in any fault-finding spirit, because I want action and I know that if I am to get action I -must not scold the minister. This, however, is a part of the duties of the department in developing the deep sea fisheries. Bait is a very important item in the development of deep sea fishing, and it ought to be the object of the department to get this bait for the fishermen who operate these fisheries and to get it as cheaply as possible. The price that is paid for the bait to the original producers and the price charged by the same company to the same producer to produce cod fish represent too great a spread-150 per cent-and I have been told, although I have no evidence of this, that there has been an advance of even 400 per cent; that is to say, eight cents has been charged for what cost the company two cents, less, of course, the service rendered. The minister, in the course of carrying out the will of parliament in voting this sum of $30,000, which I see has been reduced by $10,000, although I am not quite sure why-


Ernest Bertrand: I explained that the other day.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, I
am not questioning that at the moment. However, the minister could very well conduct an investigation through one of his fisheries officers to find out what the company actually pay, what the charges are when they sell and what the cost of the service rendered would amount to, and arrive at a net figure of what this company's profit is, on what, after all, is a relatively small part of their operations. The minister has the authority to do this. If he has not, at any rate he can soon pass a regulation under the Fisheries Act which would enable him to conduct such an investigation. I ask him to have that done in order to have what-1 regard as an improper situation righted. I have no more to say in that regard, but I have thought of communicating with the wartime prices and trade board- with reference to this matter and the other one. I have made myself such a nuisance to them, however, that I hesitate to call on them again. As a matter of fact, I must confess that I have never been able to accomplish very much with the wartime prices and trade board. They know more about everything than I ever knew about

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anything. That has been my experience with these gentlemen on Sussex and Rideau streets. They treat you with disdain sometimes.


Thomas Reid: You are not alone in that.


Richard Burpee Hanson: My hon. friend the member for Cumberland (Mr. Black) had an experience whch I am not willing to go through myself. He was told in effect, as he indicated to the house on one occasion, that they were sick and tired of hearing from him. Well, they will hear more about it before this election is over.


An hon. MEMBER:: The fish controller is from New Brunswick.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I have
never questioned the ultimate objective of the wartime prices and trade board, but on many occasions I have questioned the methods adopted. Perhaps this is out of order, but I wish to make one observation. I am going to ask this question of the membership of the house: Before the wartime prices and trade board put into effect a ceiling, or made a regulation or an order affecting production in your constituencies, has any member of this house been consulted?


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: No.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Did I hear someone say, " Nor should they be"?


Mr. McLEAN (Simcoe East):: Yes, sir.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, I
disagree with that most profoundly.


Mr. GOLDING:: They would have a tough time if they consulted all the members before they acted.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They might or might not. However, I do noit intend to pursue this question at the moment. Perhaps there will be another opportunity to do so, but they will get an honest opinion from the membership and probably some first-hand evidence which they have not to-day. I am not going to follow that line further, but something will have to be done in connection with the prices paid and received for bait. Something will have o be done to ameliorate the situation with respect to prices paid primary producers for green cod fish. Three and) one-half cents a pound for uncleaned fish and 6-6 cents a pound for gutted and headed fish and salted fish are prices that are not sufficient, having regard to what the prices are to the trade. I am sure the fishermen are being done to a certain extent by the processors, who are making a profit.


Mr. MACDONALD (Halifax):: The item under discussion is a vote of $30,000 for the development of deep sea fisheries and1 the demand for fish, and under this item there is a matter which, I believe, may properly be raised. I think we all agree that it is most essential in post-war rehabilitation for the fishing industry to be put in a position to continue to modernize their equipment and produce the best possible fish at the least possible price, especially since a large percentage of the fish must be exported. In the recent budget proposals farmers were given concessions in the way of farm implements being allowed to come into Canada duty free. I think similar concessions should be given to the fishermen. I would urge the minister to make the strongest representations that he can to his colleague, the Minister of Finance, with a view to making sure that equal treatment is given the fishing industry and that items for use in the catching and processing of fish and fish products be allowed free entry into Canada, whether those items be for new construction, repair or maintenance.
A moment ago the hon. member for York-Sunbury mentioned that a floor should be put under the price of fish. I am in complete agreement with him on that point. I think- and this is a matter that has been brought by other hon. members of the maritime provinces and myself to the attention of the minister-every argument that can be urged for a floor under the price of farm products can be urged with greater force in the case of fish. A comprehensive and well prepared brief was submitted to the Minister of Finance some months ago by the united maritime fishermen. A copy of the brief, outlining the reconstruction programme for the inshore fisheries of the maritime provinces, was sent to me; it was also sent to other hon. members of the maritime provinces. I am not going to go into all the matters that are dealt with in this brief, but there is one paragraph that I should like to read. It sets out with precision and without undue prolixity the position of the united maritime fishermen on this particular point. It reads as follows:
It is the view of our members that if the fishery is to be reconstructed upon a basis which will provide freedom from want -for the fishermen some means must be devised to maintain fish prices on a parity with other commodities. If the price structure in other branches of food production is to be supported by a floor it is equally necessary to make a similar provision for the fishery. It is well known that in the past the discrepancy .between the prices received by the primary producer and general commodity levels have been greater in the fishery, than in any other branch of production. For several years following 1930
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the price of cod in most sections of the mari-times was under one cent .per pound. Even as late as 1939 the Halifax price for market cod ranged from one and a half cents .to one and three-quarter ce; its per pound. Due to the introduction of price controls this situation has become more evenly balanced under war-time conditions; but if measures are not taken to stabilize prices at an equitable point in the post-war period there is nothing to prevent the utter collapse of the price structure and the return of the hopeless conditions which prevailed in the 'pre-war years.
I submit, Mr. Chairman, in the hurried times we are facing there is not much opportunity for hon. members to devote too much time to the local problems of the maritime provinces. But here is one, the question of the price of fish, that should, I think, appeal to every hon. member of this committee and of the government. We are speaking not so much of to-day as of the days that lie ahead when war mavkets will be no longer available. We shall find ourselves back in the same position in which we were before the war unless measures are taken now to deal with conditions that will then arise. I submit these matters for the minister's consideration with the view of his urging on his colleague, the Minister of Finance, the consideration necessary to bring the fishing industry into somewhat the same position that the farming industry now finds itself in.


Mr. McGARRY:: Following the remarks of the hon. junior member for Halifax, I wish to take a few minutes of the committee's time to refer to the matter with which he dealt.
I am not going to deal specifically with any case in my constituency as did the hon. member for York-Sunbury. But in a general way I may say that I cannot understand why the fishermen, who are important producers, are not granted the same security that has been given to other producers. I cannot understand why a floor is not placed under the fisherman's product. The products of the sea are just as essential for the maintenance of the nation at large and for the economy and nutrition of the people as is the product of any other industry of the country. To me it is strange that the budget provides for free entry into Canada of all farm machinery and equipment and that equal treatment is not given to the fishing industry. I congratulate the farmers and am gratified that these concessions have been given to them. Yet at the same time I strongly protest against the apparent discrimination exercised against the fishermen who are just as essential producers. Furthermore, as is well known, the life of the fisherman is one of adventure. There is no other producer in' the country 
who is subject to the same dangers as are the fishermen. Living in my constituency as I do, I know something of what happens in N ova Scotia. In some years the fishermen were selling their fish at fifty cents a hundred pounds and in some cases dumping them overboard because of the lack of a market.. Unless security is afforded to our fishermen in the maritime provinces I fear we shall revert to those same dark and dismal days. If that is allowed while we are professing to render security to the producers of the nation at large, then all the talk about rehabilitation is meaningless. I would urge the minister to use his influence to see that this protection and security is afforded to the best producers in the country and the most substantial supporters of our national economy.


John James Kinley: I have been concerned for some time about this matter of fish prices. Last April I interviewed the economist of the Department of Fisheries, Mr. Stewart Bates, special assistant to the deputy minister, and I believe it would be of interest to the committee if I read the letter he sent met
The combined food board, through its fish committee, began the allocation of salted fish m 1943, as it did with many other commodities. The world supply was divided up among the requiring nations and Canada was given definite allocations to certain markets. Prices of salted codfish and scale fish were also agreed upon internationally, and the supplying countries undertook to control their exports to fulfil the market allocations given them by the board and to ensure that the commodity was sold at the agreed prices. The administration of .this scheme within Canada is under the control of the Minister of Fisheries, with an administrative office in Halifax and in Quebec, and an advisory committee made up of members of the export trade. In 1943 all exporters of salted fish were registered and quotas were given to each exporter on the basis of his exports made to various markets in 1941 and 1942. Readjustments had to be made in these quotas at a later date in order to accommodate exporters who had more fish on hand than they had quotas for. In 1944, the administration will try to increase further the degree of flexibility in this system. It is the intention that exporters who built up market connections abroad should continue to be given some protection in these markets, but in order to accommodate exporters who might have fish, but no quotas, the administration will retain part of the allocations to various markets to distribute among .those exporters whose quotas prove insufficient.
With respect to pickled fish in barrels, the combined food board has no allocation scheme. But in 1943, the department was asked to make allocations of pickled fish in barrels to ensure that sufficient supplies would be sent to the British West Indies and to certain other markets which have to be preserved from' a long-run point of view.


Ernest Bertrand: May I direct attention to the fact that this matter was-

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discussed under the war estimates, and that it does not come under this item.


John James Kinley: This item is for the improvement of deep sea fisheries.


Ernest Bertrand: It is to increase the demand for fish. You can call it for the improvement of deep sea fisheries if you like, but it is the item for increasing the demand for fish in Canada, and the matter my hon. friend is discussing at the moment comes under the war appropriation.


John James Kinley: Does the minister object
to my reading a letter from his own department with regard to prices paid the fishermen, under this item which has to do with the improvement of deep sea fisheries?


Ernest Bertrand: I have no
objection to the discussion under the proper item, but this is not the proper item.


John James Kinley: Does the minister object
to the reading of the letter?


Ernest Bertrand: I object to
this discussion at this time.


John James Kinley: Well, Mr. Chairman, what
is your ruling? This item has to do with the development of deep sea fisheries and the demand for fish. If I know anything about it, the matter I am discussing has to do with the demand for fish. The letter goes on:
On these fish there has been no international price, and so far as the department is concerned, exporters may sell at whatever price the market will bear. But there have been allocations in order to ensure adequacies of supplies for the West Indies. This arrangement is likely to continue in 1944. In other words, there will be allocations of pickled fish in barrels, but no export price control. Here again, however, it is the intention of the administration to try to grant more freedom to registered exporters, within the various allocations laid down, so that any exporter who holds fish will be reasonably sure of finding a ready outlet in some market for his commodity. In 1943, some exporters found that our quota system did not give them enough export permits to take account of their fish on hand, but in 1944 this situation should be less liable to occur. In other words, there ought to be increased competition among exporters for the fish in fishermen's hands in 1944, when these exporters are made aware of the increased degree of freedom that will be permitted them. The department hopes to have in the hands of every registered exporter, by the middle of May at the latest, statements indicating the policy for 1944. As I mentioned on the telephone, there has been no government fixing of fishermen's prices in Canada, although the wartime prices and trade board have put ceilings on processors' prices in many varieties. It is our belief that the greater freedom to be granted to exporters of salted fish in 1944 should do much to increase the competition among
them for fish and thereby to yield the fishermen a reasonable price.
I want to help the minister, and I think this is an important letter. I was concerned because the smaller fishermen came to me and said, "We want access to the export market. We must sell to the middleman, and we think the spread between what we get from him and what he gets from the export market is too great." There may be some argument on that, but the point is that men were permitted to export on a quota based upon certain years. Some of the shore fishermen, especially those whose work is seasonal, would have years when there would be a run of fish and other years when there would be few fish, and they found themselves without quotas. As a result they were unable to ship their fish abroad and get the higher prices. It will be realized that on the south shore of Nova Scotia, where the Boston market is only an overnight trip, where in days gone by men could take their fish to Yarmouth on a truck, put them on a boat and have them on the Boston market the next day, there is a great deal of concern when that market is cut off. I am glad to learn that the department has in mind greater freedom in connection with the export of fish, and that there will be more competition in the sale of fish on the markets so close to Nova Scotia. In the old days they told me that fifty cents was a good profit for a merchant on a barrel of mackerel, and in those days there was competition to buy the fish. Now they believe $3.50 or $3.75 is too much spread, and it seems to me that both the allocation and the setting of prices have been largely in the hands of a board consisting of exporters. While it may be true that they have to get permission from the government to set their price, certainly they have control of the price that is paid the fishermen. Of course the fishermen are doing very well at the present time, but I think all of us who are in business are doing very well. I am not so much concerned about the situation at the moment, but I am concerned about the future.
At the present time the price of fish is controlled largely by the export market, but in most parts of this country the fishermen cannot take advantage of that export market. Therefore there should be control of the price of fish in order to ensure that the fishermen survive in times of adversity, and that they get out of the fish all that the business will stand. I realize that fish is a perishable product, in connection with which the hazards are great as to returns and so on. But when other industries in this country are to receive protection through a floor under prices, so that they may not have to sell their products at
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ruinous rates, I think the same protection should be given the fishermen. I hope the minister will see that in future they will be safeguarded. Mind you, Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that a price floor is a cure-all for either the farmer or the fisherman. He must depend upon the export trade, which practically determines the price of his product. I believe that about sixty per cent of our fish go abroad.	.


Ernest Bertrand: Seventy per cent.


John James Kinley: Well, to-day we are in a war-time economy. For that reason I believe in putting a floor under the family; and by family allowances, which have been proposed in parliament, we are putting a floor under the fisherman's family to see to it that he and his family will not be stricken with poverty in the midst of plenty. Also, if we can guarantee him a fair price for his fish, perhaps we may put him in the place where he should be [DOT] in the economy of the country.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am
greatly obliged to the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg, the hon. junior member for Halifax and the hon. member for Inverness-Richmond for their support in the appeal I have made to-night on behalf of the fishermen in the maritime provinces.
I read this brief some weeks ago, and agreed with many of the recommendations contained in it. There were one or two I did not think were proper. I wonder what the attitude of the minister is toward this brief; has he given any reply?


Ernest Bertrand: The maritime fishermen's association were asked to prepare a brief for me. They came here in a delegation, and presented the brief. I studied it with them, carefully.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I have no doubt that is correct, and I am accepting the minister's statement one hundred per cent. But what I wish to know is this: What is he going to do with the recommendations contained in the brief? I have no doubt he and the officials of his department studied them from A to Z. But that is no good, unless we get action. I am prepared to wait and see what action the government is going to take in the matter.
I wish, however, to draw the attention of the government to another group of fishermen which has not been mentioned to-night. I refer to those fishermen who go down to the sea in the terrific waters of the bay of Fundy, perhaps the most tempestuous tract of water on the Atlantic coast. I wish to talk for a

few moments about the sardine fishermen in the counties of Charlotte and Saint John, and the islands adjacent thereto. For many years prior to prohibition about ninety per cent of the production of sardine fisheries of the Passamaquoddy and bay of Fundy areas went to the factories at Lubec and Eastport in Maine, where they were processed and sold in the markets of the United States. With the advent of prohibition in that country, and the disappearance of the free-luneh counters found in certain institutions, the demand for this fish fell off very suddenly, and the industry was in a bad way in those two Maine towns. The result was that many of the processing and packing companies went bankrupt, and the fisheries languished.
Subsequently, through the enterprise of a citizen of the city of Saint John, and his assbciates, an industry was established in a sound way in New Brunswick. It had been operating in a small way in a plant in the county of Charlotte. New capital was introduced, new methods adopted and the new enterprise proceeded. A very large export trade was developed, not with the United States but with various parts of the British dominions-and especially under the impetus of the Ottawa agreements.
Then came the war. There has been developed a measure of control over the sardine fisheries. I do not know if the minister can tell me why, but the head of this large packing plant in New Brunswick was made fisheries controller.


Ernest Bertrand: He has no more interest in it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am not accusing him at all; wait until I am through.


Ernest Bertrand: I just say that he has no interest in the Black Harbour plant any more.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That will be news to a lot of people in New Brunswick.


John James Kinley: What is that?


Richard Burpee Hanson: That Mr. McLean has no longer any interest in Connor Brothers. That is certainly news to me, and it will be news to a lot of other people. I know his brother is the managing director of the company, and I would assume that his capital is still in. However, I accept the minister^ statement. He should know; I do not.


Ernest Bertrand: He might have some shares left; but what I mean is that he is not managing this firm.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Oh yes, but he is the man behind the gun; we know that.

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John James Kinley: Supposing he is?
Mr. HANSON (York-SunbuoO: Not a thing wrong-and I am not condemning him.


John James Kinley: He is a good man?


Richard Burpee Hanson: He is a good business man, yes. He and his brother built up the industry, and I am not attacking him, at all. I shall come to my point in a moment, and it is this, that as fisheries controller he was vested with certain powers. I wish to be corrected' if I am wrong, but I believe he established a ceiling price in respect of the sardine fisheries. I should like to know, in the first place, if that is correct. I want to know, secondly, if at one time there was a prohibition on the export of these fish to the Maine factories?


Ernest Bertrand: I do not know that, but I would remind my hon. friend, when he asks these questions, that Mr. McLean and Mr. Morrow are both employees of the wartime prices and trade board.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I know that; the minister need not remind me. I am talking about the development of fisheries, and the export trade. I consider this germane to the point. I do not wish to be held down too tightly, because with me that just breeds opposition. I am willing to be quiescent and helpful, and I think my remarks so far have been fair.


Ernest Bertrand: I take what the hon. member says as constructive criticism.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Was a ceiling put on the price of sardines in the Passa-maquoddy and bay of Fundy areas, and is that ceiling price still on? Secondly, was there any period of time during the present fishing season or the past fishing season, when there was a prohibition on the export of these sardine herrings to the United States? My reason for asking the question is this, that if freedom' of export were permitted, the fishermen could get double what they are getting to-day. I have no doubt about that. The demand is so great from both the armed forces of the United States and those of the allied nations, that the man who goes down before daylight to fish and who works hard and long hours-and in some days goes often and catches nothing-is entitled in my opinion to sell those fish where he can get the highest price for them. The season is very short; there is no winter fishing. Most of the plants are closed in the winter season, although I believe some of them do carry on. However, the catch is precarious, and it is a seasonal business.
Has there been to the knowledge of the minister and the officials of his department any 100-277
situation such as I have inquired about? Was there at any time a ceiling on the price the fishermen might receive for their catch, and is that ceiling still on? If so, when was it established? Then, was there at any time a prohibition on the export of these raw fish to the United States; if so, when, and for what period of time? How long did it last? Was it removed or has it been removed, or is it still there? I should like to have the whole story, and I do not know any other item under which I could ask these questions.


Ernest Bertrand: All of these questions are questions which officials of the wartime prices and trade board could answer.
I am not able to answer all the questions.
I may say that there is no restriction on the export of sardines to the United States now. Restrictions that existed were removed about eight months ago. I should like to give some explanation about our trade with the United States. In 1942 it was found that the West Indies were in great need of salt fish. They used to get this fish from Norway but that country could not, of course, export any.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I think the West Indies bought from Nova Scotia.


Ernest Bertrand: They have not bought from Nova Scotia for some time. The united nations combined food board studied the .situation, and the United States agreed to cut its imports of salt fish by fifty per cent in order to allow the exporting nations to send fish to the West Indies. Regulations had to be put into force and import permits were granted by the United States, with export permits being granted by the producing nations. This created a great demand for salt fish and for other fish in the United States because the supply was being cut by fifty per cent. Prices went up. We had to regulate the export of fish to the West Indies by establishing a quota based on 1941. This created a lot of difficulty because exporters wanted to sell their fish where they could get the highest prices. At one time the OPA prices in the United States were as much as seven to eight cents a pound more than ours, although ours were high enough.


Richard Burpee Hanson: There is no ceiling in the United States.


Ernest Bertrand: There was a ceiling then. That ceiling varied according to the season. Since then, prices of fish in the United States have been reduced to about the same level as ours.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They are much higher.

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Ernest Bertrand: Not for salt fish.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Fresh fish is much higher.


Ernest Bertrand: Salt fish was seven or eight cents a pound more, but the price is down now. The hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg has mentioned a floor under the prices of fish products. We are exporting about seventy per cent of our fish, and if we put a floor under the prices we are sure that that floor may not be accepted by the nations taking our fish.
After having discussed the matter with members of the united fishermen's association, we believe that the fisherman must be put in the position where he can produce about twice as much fish. This fish must be sold at a puce that will create a market. The fish must be in good condition and there must be a continuity of supply. Those are the three essential things and we are working along these lines in order to help the fishermen. Subsidies are being granted to fishermen for the construction of draggers and long liners which will allow them to catch more fish per man hour than they do to-day. As I explained to the hon. gentleman a few minutes ago, we are going to design unit fishing plants, encourage oyster and clam farming, and conduct further scientific investigations. Experimental work is being carried on along these lines. We do not think we can serve the fishermen by any other method.
Of course we shall have to find markets, and markets will depend upon price and quality. The western fisheries are another matter, and I intend to explain what we are going to do there when we discuss the appropriation of SI ,000,000 to cover the development of fisheries on the Fraser and Skeena rivers.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The minister is not able to tell me what the sardine situation is on the bay of Fundy?


Ernest Bertrand: No, I cannot.


Percy Chapman Black: I should like to support the hon. member for York-Sunbury, the hon. junior member for Halifax and other hon. members from Nova Scotia who have spoken on behalf of the fishing industry in that province. Those of us who have knowledge of the fishing industry must admit that it has returned to its workers the poorest reward of any industry in Canada. Fishermen have had to operate under the most difficult conditions and have received the smallest returns. They have had to live under the 
lowest standard of living of any class in Canada. I have been at a wharf when they were bringing in a catch and the price paid was only fifty cents per 10C pounds for whole fish. That was during the worst period for the industry. I am glad that the returns are higher to-day, although they are not as high as they should 'be, compared with those of other industries.
I wish to support what the hon. junior member for Halifax said when appealing to the Minister of Fisheries that due consideration be given to this industry. I wonder why the hon. junior member for Halifax does not appeal directly to the minister from Nova Scotia. He might get direct action by appealing through the minister of whom he is the assistant, the Minister of National Defence. In that way this industry might receive the justice and consideration to which it is entitled.
I am particularly interested in the brief that has been referred to, and I am disappointed that the minister has not given a direct answer to the requests made by the United Maritime Fishermen's Association. They have been holding conventions in Amherst in my constituency for some years and I am pleased that the minister was able to attend the last one. They made an appeal to the minister and they have submitted copies of their brief to members from the maritime provinces. The convention was held on November 24 and 25, 1943. I should think in justice to the fishermen of the maritime provinces and to the members of the house the minister, before his estimates pass, should give a statement with respect to the representations made by the United Maritime Fishermens' Association.
Everyone in Nova Scotia is interested in the welfare of the fishermen. I do not represent a constituency directly interested in deep sea fishing, although we are the centre of the lobster industry of the world. As I have said before, the waters between my constituency and that of Prince in Prince Edward Island represented by the Minister of National Defence are the centre of the lobster industry of the world.
In Cumberland the small rivers on the north Cumberland strait have another fishing industry, the smelt industry. There are a number of shallow rivers with winding outlets to the sea. For fifteen or twenty years they were . allowed an earlier fishing season than applies to the other places on Northumberland strait. Because these are shoal rivers with outlets winding through sand banks these rivers fill with ice in early winter and the fishermen are not able to make their catch as fishermen can in deeper waters. Therefore, they were granted an earlier season, and it closed earlier. As a

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matter of fact, it closed automatically because they were not able to fish. Some years they are at a much greater disadvantage than in others, because the winter season sets in earlier, and ice conditions develop and they are not able to fish.
This change of season was made without consultation and without the consent of anybody engaged in fishing in these waters. They had made their plans to do their fishing as in previous years and had made arrangements for marketing their catch, and then the season was changed. I can understand the desire of the department, other things being' equal, to have a uniform season; but in view of the fact that those who had studied the situation for that section had granted an earlier season and that it had been in effect for many years, it seems a great hardship to the smelt fishermen in that area that the earlier season has been denied them in the last few years. They have petitioned the department, and I have communicated with the department with respect to their request asking that the old season be restored. I wish to bring this matter to the attention of the minister again and to ask him to review the situation and see if the department cannot again restore the season for smelt fishing in that section.


Ernest Bertrand: I understand that there has been a controversy for many years as to when the season for smelt should open. If it is opened too soon when the weather is still warm the smelt are not preserved. The date was fixed later than the hon. gentleman would like principally because of that very fact.


Percy Chapman Black: The fishermen themselves should be the best judge of that. They surely would not want to catch fish if they could not preserve their product. It is not a large output, and to a man they want the old season restored.


Alan Webster Neill: I just wish to ask for a little information, and I will not stray away from the item before us, Mr. Chairman. It is for the development of the deep sea fisheries and the demand for fish. On page 82 of the estimates the details are given. It says that there are two demonstrators and lecturers at $2,400 each. I should like to know what they demonstrate what they lecture about, and to whom they lecture and demonstrate, and where. I do not mean the name of each little hamlet or town or village in which they demonstrate or lecture, but do they do it in country places or in the cities, telling housewives how to prepare fish for lunch? Where do they do the demonstrating and in what provinces? Then, underneath that it says that
100-277J
$8,840 is required for temporary. assistance. That is nearly double what the demonstrators and lecturers are getting. Then wages amount to $1,560.


Ernest Bertrand: If my hon. friend will pardon me, there is nothing for temporary assistance this year. The $8,84(1 was for last year.


Alan Webster Neill: I was looking at the wrong book. Apparently there is nothing for temporary assistance this year. But there is $1,560 for wages.


Richard Burpee Hanson: And there is an item for sundries.


Alan Webster Neill: I am coming to that in a moment. The next item is cost of living bonus and other pay-list items, $400. That is something along the same line. Then there is an item of $5,000 for printing and stationery. You can get a lot of printing done for $5,000. May I ask the minister-I am not attacking this item, I am merely asking for information because I wondered what this was for-what is the nature of the printing done and to whom is it distributed? Then there is an item for sundries, $13,780. That has gone up about $3,000 since last year. That amounts to about thirty-two per cent of the total vote. When you ask your wife to keep bookkeeping accounts her biggest entry is under sundries because she does not know how else to make the books balance. This amount of $13,780 does seem large in proportion to the total vote. The minister will no doubt be able to explain it.
One other thing. As I said, this vote is for the development of the deep sea fisheries and the demand for fish. I would call to the attention of my hon, friends to my left and of the minister that the deep sea fisheries of Canada extend to more than one coast. There is a place called the Pacific ocean, where there1 are deep sea fisheries which need extending.. How much of this is to be spent on the Pacific coast? Is any portion of it? If not, why not? If the minister will answer these simple questions I shall at least be satisfied for to-night.


Ernest Bertrand: The main purpose of the demonstrators and lecturers is to demonstrate and supply information and! literature on fisheries, also to provide departmental advertising in magazines and fisheries journals. There are also a number of small miscellaneous services for the development of deep sea fisheries. The demonstrators go almost everywhere in Canada, meeting women's circles and explaining to them how to cook fish properly and make it as palatable as possible.
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Alan Webster Neill: Are they ladies?


Ernest Bertrand: Yes; they are expert dietitians. The sundries item includes departmental advertising in fisheries periodicals and magazines. The item of $5,000 for printing is not very large. There is also provision of $2,000 for establishing an experimental kitchen for demonstrating; subsidies to freezers, $4,100; equipment and supplies for demonstrator, $1,200, and enforcing, $1,480. This amount has been reduced this year by $10,000 because, as I explained the day before yesterday, we have transferred the inspection department to item 70, which has been passed.


Alan Webster Neill: The inspection department?


Ernest Bertrand: Instruction, I should have said. Since the war we have cut this amount considerably because we do not need to develop the demand for fish to too great an extent for the reason that we have not a supply equal to that demand. As to deep sea fisheries development, I do not think the name is a proper one.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I agree entirely; it is a misnomer.


Ernest Bertrand: Hon. members may rest assured that next year it will not be cited in that way, because it raises a good many questions.


Alan Webster Neill: Am I to understand that none >of this has been spent on the Pacific coast?


Ernest Bertrand: There is some in the magazines for advertising, and in the cook books and so forth, but on the Pacific coast the situation is not the same as it is on the eastern coast.


Alan Webster Neill: God forbid.


Ernest Bertrand: I beg your pardon?


Alan Webster Neill: God forbid that it should be.


Ernest Bertrand: According to what the hon. member has heard, perhaps, God forbid that it should be; but the demand for help is not so acute there, or when the help is required it is for an amount much larger than these amounts.


Alan Webster Neill: Well, the minister manages to conceal it pretty well, because it is not in this item. I wonder that members from Nova Scotia do not blush.


Ernest Bertrand: These demonstrators demonstrate how to use western fish in the great centres like Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg, so that the Pacific coast fishermen get some benefit out of it too.
(Mr. E. Bertrand.]


Alan Webster Neill: I will let it drop and I will not say a word to-night about the $160,000 of which they annually rob British Columbia of our share.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Keep your hands off that; that belongs to us.


Percy Chapman Black: I am not satisfied to allow this item to pass without a statement from the minister with reference to the brief submitted by the united marine fishermen. The hon. member for York-Sunbury, the hon. junior member for Halifax, and other members have brought this matter to the minister's attention. This brief arises out of the annual convention of the united maritime fishermen, held at Amherst, Nova Scotia, on November 24 and 25, 1943. I will quote from the covering letter:
The committee prepared a questionnaire containing thirty-four (34) questions dealing with production, equipment, shore facilities, marketing, transportation, finance, organization and education. These questionnaires were sent to all organized groups of fishermen in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as well as to many individual producers. The large number of forms returned is indicative of the interest the fishermen are taking in present day as well as post-war planning for their industry. Information was also obtained from leaders, officials, government statistics and royal commission reports on the inshore fisheries. From this information thus obtained the attached brief was prepared.
I think it is only fair to the members of this house and especially the members from the maritimes that a statement be made by the minister at this time as to what he will do with respect to this brief. Is he approving the representations made in it? If not, why not? If he is approving a part of them, then let him tell us about it. If some of the representations are under consideration and he wants to have more time, then let him tell us. Certainly we are entitled to some statement from him before the item passes.


Ernest Bertrand: We have
studied the brief to see what we can do. The hon. member was speaking about education. We have a vote of $50,000 which will come on later, and out of that there is $37,000 spent in the maritimes, through the St. Francis Xavier extension department. We are paying subsidies in connection with a new kind of boat, $165 per gross ton, and we are having our laboratories in Halifax and St. Andrews by the Sea develop the fishing industry. We are building mechanical driers to replace the old method of drying fish, and generally we are doing all we can to help the fishermen in the maritimes. If the maritime fishermen want to follow the advice of the department I am sure their lot will be far better in the future,

S upply-Fisheries
because we believe that the reason why the fisheries have been lagging in the maritimes is that they were fishing with old boats, not getting enough fish and not landing their fish as fresh as they should have been, so that they could not reach the markets in proper condition. Fish is a product that must not be mediocre; it has to be absolutely right or the consumer will not accept it. We are helping the fishermen in that way. If four or five or six fishermen desire to get together and build a dragger, for instance, I am sure they can land twice as much fish as they have been landing by means of the old boats they have. We have built a long liner which is called the J. J. Coivie. It has made six trips and the results have been very good.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is that a steam trawler?


Ernest Bertrand: Yes, a long liner.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What is the difference between a steam trawler and a long liner?


John James Kinley: It is simply that they do not like the name.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It does not smell very sweet.


Ernest Bertrand: It brings a lot of fish to the wharf.


John James Kinley: How much?


Ernest Bertrand: Six million pounds in one case, but I was talking about the long liner at the present moment. We have built that long liner in accordance with the specifications of boats which are fishing in the Aleutian waters. We have a very good captain from the west who has got a crew together and he is at present on the sea. He is an eastern man with western experience. I have here the figures. The first trip of course, generally speaking, is not as good as when the gear is in proper shape. The first trip was made between April 8 and April 25; they landed 38,465 pounds of fish valued at $2,456, and the members of the crew received $201.58 each. The second trip was from May 3 to May 13 and they landed a value of $1,450.30. The third trip brought 11,834 pounds and they were out for seven days. I may say that this boat is making trials on all banks which are reputed to be good. They are making trials of them all. They are making trial trips.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Exploration of the banks.


Ernest Bertrand: Yes. The
revenue from fish caught between the period
May 21 of this year to June 21 has not been submitted to the department, but up to June 21 the Cowie had caught 81,500 pounds.


John James Kinley: A Lunenburg schooner
would catch that in three days.


Ernest Bertrand: Just a
moment; and 51,400 pounds of halibut. The gross value of the total catch would be approximately $8,158. We know that with this boat the fishermen would be able to fish the year round. They would be able to land a lot more fish than they are landing to-day with the boats they have, and we would have a continuity of supply. If we have a continuity of supply of good fish, better fish than we used to have, in the big centres, there is no doubt that we can increase the amount of fish consumed, which is to-day about ten pounds per person. We could increase that to fifteen pounds. That would bring about $10,000,000 more to the fishermen. These are some of the things we have done and intend to do.
I said a while ago that our engineers are now in the field working with the officials of Nova Scotia trying to make plans to build what we are going to call unit fishing plants. They will be refrigerating plants, and with other ways of processing fish along with the experience gained in the province of Quebec we are going to do something better than has been done there. We shall have an item in the supplementary estimates for that. That is what we are doing, and that is more important than doing small things here and there. With regard to the removal of the duty on nets and so forth, I intend to recommend that to council.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Are they not pretty largely free now?


Ernest Bertrand: Some of them are, but I am going to recommend that.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is all very interesting, but is the minister, now advocating a policy which has been the subject of great debate in Nova Scotia over a long period of time? If I gathered the minister's statement correctly his department is now advocating a return to the mechanical trawler; call it the long-line fisheries or the beam trawler, if you will, but a rose by any other name would smell as sweet to the shore fishermen of Nova Scotia.


Ernest Bertrand: Long-line is different from the trawler or the dragger.


Richard Burpee Hanson: All right; there is no doubt about the impression that the minister has left on my mind at all events
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as to the new departure in policy on the part of the department. I say to him that it has a good many features to commend itself, but I ask him if he would make that statement in Nova Scotia on the eve of an election? Is it the considered policy of the department that the propagation of the beam trawler should have the support and blessing of the department? The establishment of a sample trawler, the J. J. Cowie, owned by the department is itself a new departure in policy on the part of the department. I think we ought to know if the department, without having announced it, is now committed to the policy of the beam trawler. I should like
3.	specific declaration from the minister, because whether he calls it a beam trawler or any other name it means the same thing. Is it now the policy of the fisheries department to advocate the use and operation by (Nova Scotia fishermen of this mechanical type [DOT]of fishing boat in order that there may be more production? That is the ground upon which the minister makes his statement. He referred also to continuity of production. I agree that these are important elements. 1 agree that it is necessary that fish should be landed in a proper condition before transportation because transportation to the central markets of Canada is long. I agree with continuity of supplies so that the dealers in the various centres and the housewives should know with some degree of certainty whether they can rely on an adequate supply of fish from week to week or day to day as the case may be. The minister having made his statement, I think the time has arrived when there must be a statement of government policy on this important matter. I shall continue to press for it until I get an answer affirmatively or negatively before this item passes.


Mr. HILL:: My county is very much interested not in the deep sea fishing but in [DOT]deep sea fish that are caught in inland waters. The minister brought up a point which I think is most important, namely, that these fish should be kept in proper shape for marketing. What plans has the department for [DOT]establishing cold storage plants in which these fresh fish could be kept fresh until it is possible to place them on the Canadian market? At the present time in my county the only possible market for fish is the United States market. They are transported by truck because the nearest cold storage plant is fifty miles away in the city of Saint John. What has the department in the way of plans for cold storage plants along the coast so that the fish caught in the bay of Fundy and New

Brunswick waters can be kept in cold storage until such time as they are marketed?
In addition to that I wish to point out that unless a floor price is put under fish and maintained after the war we shall go back to the same very bad conditions we had during the thirties, when fish dropped as low as forty cents a hundred pounds for the very finest type of fish, haddock, cod and pollock. That is less than half a cent a pound. The price remained there for several years and the condition of fishermen in my county became deplorable. Their boats were absolutely worn out. They did not have sufficient funds on which to live, let alone repair their boats and their gear was entirely gone by the time four or five years of these conditions had gone by. It was not because there was not sufficient market for the fish; it was because the buyers took advantage of the conditions to force the fishermen to sell their fish at a ridiculous price. This low price at which the fish were purchased did not give the fish to the consumer at a lower price, because in the city of Montreal they still had to pay twenty-five or thirty cents a pound for the fresh fish at a time they were selling at half a cent a pound to the producers. The only protection that I know the fishermen can possibly have against exploitation by the buyers is for the government to step in and set a floor price under the fish.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I want a declaration of policy from the minister with respect to the use of mechanical fishing boats. I want to know what he is going to do with this brief of the maritime fishermen's union to which attention was drawn by the hon. junior member for Halifax.


William Henry Golding: Order. I do not believe these matters come under this item.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I suggest that this has to do with deep sea fishing.
Mr. IvINLEY: I agree, Mr. Chairman, but the minister himself introduced the dragger into the discussion, and I want to say something about this matter. We have an item here that has to do with deep sea fisheries. I think that is a misnomer, and the minister agrees. I wanted to say something about these experiments; I thought that would be out of order, but the minister interjected it and it seems to me we shall have to go on with the discussion.


Richard Burpee Hanson: If the ruling is that we cannot go on with the discussion under this item, then I want to know where

Supply-Fisheries
and when, we can go on with it, because I propose to get a declaration of policy from the minister.


Ernest Bertrand: I have no objection whatever to going into the matter now, although I suppose we should have gone into it under the war appropriation.


Richard Burpee Hanson: We did not know about these experiments then.


John James Kinley: I think I know something about it. The long liner was built in my riding. It is a medium size fishing boat built for the purpose of experimenting with long-line fishing, a system which is followed on the Pacific *coast. If successful, it would be an innovation, and might be useful to some of our fishermen. According to the information given by the minister, however, I should say this boat is about half as efficient as the schooners there, but this is a good time to experiment. This boat uses a long line and has machinery for casting the line out and drawing it in. It is a rather expensive boat for a few fishermen to buy, but at the same time I am in favour of this experimentation with the long liners.


Thomas Reid: What do those boats cost?


John James Kinley: About $60,000, I think,
though I am not speaking with full knowledge.


Ernest Bertrand: This boat could be built easily for $35,000 to $40,000.


John James Kinley: In peace time.


Ernest Bertrand: We do not expect that costs are always going to remain what they are to-day. We now have trouble getting boats built. This boat should have been at sea five or six months ago, but it took that much longer to finish it.


John James Kinley: I am not quarreling about the price, but I think that is about what it *cost ready for sea.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The minister should be able to state the cost.


Ernest Bertrand: That boat cost the department a little over $40,000.


John James Kinley: With machinery, fully
equipped and ready for sea?


Ernest Bertrand: Yes.


John James Kinley: Everything?


Ernest Bertrand: Yes.


John James Kinley: Well, I would not dispute that figure; I am glad to get it, because the Impression on the coast is that the cost was $60,000, and some people thought that figure
was excessive. I am glad to hear the minister say that the cost was $40,000, ready for sea.


Thomas Reid: How many men does the boat carry?


John James Kinley: Six or seven, I think; I am not sure.


Ernest Bertrand: Six men.


Mr. GILLIS:: If I am permitted to break into this three-man debate I should like to say that after sitting here for the last two hours listening to this discussion one, would be led to believe that the problem of the fishermen is something new in Canada. The funny thing about it is that practically every hon. member who has spoken on the matter at one time or another has been in a position to remedy the situation. I am not going to agree or disagree with anyone who has spoken. I am in accord with those who have suggested parity prices and a floor under the commodity the fisherman sells. I listened to the minister outline what he considered to be a policy. As far as I am concerned I do not think there is a policy now any more than there has been for the last thirty years. Some experimentation is being carried on because of the war, but the fishermen have been experimented upon and with by private fish buyers across the country for the past fifty years at least. That has been the problem of the fishermen. They are in the hands of the people who market their commodity, who are concerned only with themselves and what they can get out of it. That is the situation.
In the maritime provinces approximately forty thousand men depend upon the fishing industry. To-day many of them are in the service, in either the navy, the army, or somewhere else where they receive a livelihood. In 1939 the average income of a fisherman was around $240 for the year, out of which he had to purchase his nets and all the other necessary equipment. That was not an industry at all; it was a relief measure, and that situation existed throughout the industry in the maritimes, in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The minister says that this boat of which he has spoken cost only $40,000. At $240 a year it would take a fisherman a long time to save enough money to buy that boat.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Or a share in it.


Clarence Gillis: Yes, or a share in it.


Ernest Bertrand: With what he is getting now it would not take so very long.


Clarence Gillis: In my opinion that boat was designed to keep him in the hands of the fish companies, because neither now nor in the
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near future will any fisherman be in a position to undertake to purchase one of these boats. That can be done only by an organized company exploiting the industry, so that there is no solution here to the problem of these fishermen.


Ernest Bertrand: If I may say a word, the orders in council that have been passed, of w'hich I think the hon. gentleman obtained copies, provide that these boats can be built only by a group of fishermen numbering four or more. The subsidy is $165 per gross ton, which is more than half the cost of construction.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What is
the tonnage of this boat?


Ernest Bertrand: It is sixty feet long.


John James Kinley: It is about eighty tons.


Ernest Bertrand: I will give the tonnage in a moment,


Clarence Gillis: I was coming to that. I appreciate what the minister has said, that it would be possible to organize the fishermen on a cooperative basis to take advantage of that offer, and I was leading up to that. But the point on which I should like to focus the attention of the minister is this matter of cold storage facilities. That is one of the big problems of the fishermen in the maritimes. We have perhaps two thousand miles of coastline, in which there are not more than a dozen places where there are facilities for the freezing and handling of fish, or the providing of bait, through cold storage. The facilities in that connection are completely inadequate. What is the solution of this problem of bait? I think the men engaged in the industry should be qualified to speak. One hon. member mentioned the programme for rehabilitating the maritime fisheries in the post-war period. These men are realistic about the matter, but this is one industry in the whole fieldi of reconstruction in connection with which I do not believe any recommendations have been made. Many of the boys who left that industry are coming back from the services, and at page 5 of the brief they have something to say on the matter of cold storage facilities, as follows:
Quite obviously the setting up of a modern freezing and eoldstorage plant is beyond the resources of any ordinary group of fishermen. That being so, we contend that it is the function of the state to provide these facilities for the people and to operate them under a board or commission as a state-owned public utility. The setting up of facilities of this kind which are essential for the proper development of a great industry, and for the welfare of thousands of our best citizens, is as much the responsibility of the state as it is to build and operate

railways, electric power plants and similar projects. The subsidizing of cold storage plants controlled by private enterprise has proved most unsatisfactory in the past and will not serve the purpose in mind. Accordingly we urge that the government formulate a freezer and cold storage policy for the fishery under which a chain of freezers will be established at strategic points and operated as a state-owned public utility. It is suggested that such plants would charge the prevailing freezing and storage rates to those using them, but that service to the fishermen rather than profit be the ultimate objective.


Ernest Bertrand: That is exactly what I said. Our engineers are in the field to-day.


Clarence Gillis: That is the recommendation made. If the minister tells the committee that that is the government's policy, as requested in the brief, then I am quite satisfied. I am glad to hear the minister say that, because in no other way are cold storage facilities going to be made available along that long coastline.
Another recommendation made in the brief should be given consideration. This appears at page 6, and refers to the educational opportunities of those engaged in the industry. This is the paragraph appearing in the brief:
Progress cannot be made in the fishery any more than in any other branch of endeavour unless those engaged in it are intelligent and well informed. Statistics indicate that there is a greater proportion of illiteracy in the fishing areas than in other sections of the country. In one of the fishing counties in Nova Scotia, according to the 1931 census, 14 per cent of the population above school-going age were totally illiterate. The cause of this situation should be removed, an effort made to stimulate a greater interest in the school, and the necessary steps taken to give the youth at least the common school fundamentals.
I would say in that regard that I agree with the statement made in the brief. In connection with rehabilitation, so far as the fishing industry is concerned, I believe there is in the estimates a grant which has been passed in the past few years. Reference was made to that to-night by the minister. I believe there is an amount of $37,000 which goes to the cooperatives in the maritime provinces for educational purposes among fishermen. I believe that grant is filling a greater need in the maritime provinces, among the fishermen, than any other expenditure made by the government.


Ernest Bertrand: I agree.


Clarence Gillis: There is no doubt about that. If in the post-war period there is money available for the purpose of the rehabilitation of the fishing industry, I believe that group of people who went out, on their owp, and undertook the responsibility of educating the

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fishermen as best they could, in groups and study clubs, concerning the processing of fish, and also gave elementary education to some extent, should be used after the war to do this work. They have the interests of the fishermen at heart. They work with them and for them. Right along the shoreline a group has been developed, among the fishermen themselves. This group is most capable, in respect of both marketing and processing, and every endeavour connected with the fisheries. In my view that is the group which will solve the problems of the fishermen of the maritimes in the post-war period.
As has been pointed out in the brief, a great percentage of this good work begins with the children of the fishermen, by giving them the necessary educational opportunities, so that they may know something about their industry when they are ready to play their part in it. In my opinion that grant to the cooperatives in the field of education should be increased a thousandfold in the period of reconstruction after the war.
With respect to the use of trawlers, may I say I am not technically qualified to speak with authority on the subject. This has been a subject of controversy in Canada for some considerable time, as is indicated from a reading of the debates of the last parliament in which the hon. member for Queens-Lunenberg and one of the members from Halifax took part: There was a wide difference of opinion between those two members.
The writers of the brief, however, who should know something about the matter, have made a recommendation. This is what we find at page 7:
The royal commission investigating the fishery of the maritime provinces in 1928, as. well as the Nova Scotia royal commission of economic inquiry, 1934, and the royal commission on price spreads, 1935, were unanimous in their advocacy of cooperative organization among the fishermen. Much progress has been made in the development of cooperative processing and marketing organizations and in the setting up of credit unions. To the extent that these organizations are increasing in numbers and in usefulness there is hope and confidence developing among fishermen. This movement should be encouraged and fostered for it is only by acquiring ownership and control of their own business through cooperative organizations that they can play their full part as good citizens of Canada.
They go on to point out with respect to beam trawlers, after careful inquiry:
Clearly, then, the unrestricted use of trawlers is inimical to the interests of the inshore fishermen, and on behalf of its members this association must continue its opposition to them.
They are definite and emphatic. They preface this statement with many reasons why the trawler should be discouraged.
I am not going to continue the discussion, because I know the minister wishes to have the item passed. I wish, however, to focus attention on the fact that the whole discussion here to-night is merely another indication of the failure of private enterprise in Canada in one of our basic industries. That is the sum and substance of the discussion, as I have heard it. The solution is ownership by the people themselves. That is advocated in this brief, referred to by practically every hon. member who has spoken on the subject to-night. The full utilization of the educational facilities provided by the cooperative workers among the maritime fishermen, along the lines suggested by the brief, is necessary to the problems faced by the fishermen in the maritime provinces. Otherwise, so far as I am concerned, there is no solution.


John James Kinley: Apropos of what the hon. member has said I think I must object to any suggestion that private enterprise in my section of the country has failed, in respect of the fisheries. I do not call it private enterprise;
I call it free enterprise. I might even go farther and say that cooperative enterprise as between capital and labour has been the way the fisheries of Lunenburg have been conducted for the last half century. I say, too, that Lunenburg is the greatest commercial fishing centre in Canada, so far as the deep sea fishing industry is concerned.
These companies are not so bad. I have a statement before me respecting one of the big fish companies of Nova Scotia in Halifax. According to their annual statement last year they had an operating profit of-


Thomas Reid: Prince Rupert is away ahead
as a fishing centre; keep the record straight.


John James Kinley: This is one of the largest
fishing companies in Nova Scotia. Last year they had an operating profit of $671,687.89. They put away for reserves for depreciation on plant and vessels, $54,961.68. After deducting salaries for executive officers and directors' remuneration, they had $616,726.21, and income and excess profits taxes of $526,025.59. It seems to me that when a company contributes over half a million dollars to excess profits and income taxes in war time it would appear to be a successful company.


Clarence Gillis: What did the man who
caught the fish get out of it?


John James Kinley: I will come to that. I
want first to deal with the brief of the united maritime fishermen. With regard to the trawler, they say:
This association is unalterably opposed to unrestricted operation of otter trawlers or draggers. Trawlers and draggers are designed

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solely for the catching of ground fish such as cod, haddock, rosefish and flounders. It is incapable of capturing any other variety. If all our fishermen, or even a substantial portion of them, were deep sea fishermen and interested only in the production of groundfish it is conceivable that the industry could, without much disruption, :be trawlerized. But with eighty-seven per cent of our fishermen engaged in a diversified form of fishing which includes in addition to cod and haddock the production of lobsters, mackerel, herring and a score of other varieties not producible by trawlers this instrument is utterly impracticable.
And again:
Clearly then the unrestricted use of trawlers is inimical to the interests of the inshore fishermen, and on behalf of its members this association must continue its opposition to them.
Lest the charge be made that we are unprogressive, may wre call attention to the fact that in the past fifteen years the fishery of the maritime provinces has been a subject of inquiry of three royal commissions namely the royal commission on fisheries 1028, the royal commission on price spreads 1935, and the royal commission of economic inquiry Nova Scotia 1934. All three commissions recommended against the trawler.
The minister has stated that he is subsidizing draggers by order in council. I first objected to the order in council, because the preamble designates a dragger as a small vessel and then in the body it says that she may be as large as the minister may decide. I objected to that, because we are subsidizing the latest type of trawlers and they are now being built in Nova Scotia.
For years I have been concerned about the employment of our fishermen, and I did not think they could get full employment if we permit trawlers to supplant the fishing schooner and the other boats of the fisheries. Three fishing schooners will catch as much as a trawler and the charge that they will not land the fish in as good condition is unfounded. The whole economy of the fisheries and other allied industries in Nova Scotia has been built up on the use of schooners. They have been the best producers of fish; they have been successful and are paying large amounts to this government in the form of income taxes.
The people in my county are not scared of the trawler, because they have been in the forefront of the fishing business. But they do object to being subsidized out of business. This subsidy is being paid to draggers and long liners, and the fishing schooner, which has been doing this work for twenty, thirty or even fifty years, is to be subsidized out of business by the payment of S165 per ton to another type of vessel.
I object to discrimination. As the member for Lunenburg, as a member representing fisher-

men, I cannot be expected to support anything which would discriminate against the fishing industry in the part of the country I represent. I realize that much of this subsidy money will come to my riding since two of these vessels are to operate there. If we have reached the stage where we must experiment, if we must try out these vessels, let it be done, but let us carry on and let it be a free field without favour. I am going to be fair with the minister and tell the committee that I went to him and said that I would not stand for this. I thought I had his promise of equitable treatment and he did give us depreciation for fishing schooners for one, two or five years. The order in council provides that the subsidy paid will be substracted from the cost when depreciation is received. If we are successful in our fishing the schooner will be in a good position and I thank the minister for that.


Thomas Reid: Does that apply to the other boat?


John James Kinley: That applies to the other boat except that it will get S165 subsidy. While in the long run you are just as weli off with your depreciation as you would be if you got the subsidy, the fact is that when you sell your boat you get the subsidy if it has been paid, whereas in the other case you must adjust the depreciation to the age of the boat according to ordinary depreciation rates. I do not blame the minister because I think he was sympathetic. However, I think he met difficulty. My people have been in the forefront of the fishing industry for nearly a hundred years. The county of Lunenburg did not come to the government for relief during the depression. They carried on their industry successfully, and I strongly object to discrimination being shown against a fishing fleet which has been such a success in producing the wealth and the culture that is to be found in my county. After trying as much as possible to get this matter adjusted, I think the time has come for me to say that I think we have been given only part of what we should have received.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I think we ought to have a statement from the minister.


William Henry Golding: This is all out of order as far as the item is concerned.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The minister agreed to take it up now.


Ernest Bertrand: Perhaps it would be just as well to go on. The hon. member for Cape Breton South has spoken about the brief and I agree completely with a lot of what he said. I am absolutely in favour

Supply-Fisheries
of cooperatives. Year after year the department has been providing certain amounts for the education of adult fishermen and these men have organized cooperatives in many places. I do not want to give the number of cooperatives because I might be wrong, but there is a large number. They have also organized credit unions. It is a very good policy that we intend to follow, and there is no doubt that after the war a larger amount should be granted for the purpose of helping the fishermen in that way.
As to the long liners, it is a boat similar to the boats used in the west for fishing for halibut. There is a long line, 300 fathoms long, which is set mechanically in the water, with hooks on it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: A long
trawl.


Ernest Bertrand: It is a long line. It has not a pocket-net like the dragger.
The schooners which the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg speaks of have been very good boats and1 are still good fishing boats for salt fish at certain times of the year. They carry dories manned by two of the crew, and they are left on the sea fishing, while the mother ship goes elsewhere, perhaps seven to fourteen dories, according to the size of the ship. The hon. member knows very well that to-day it is very difficult to get fishermen for these dories because it is very hard work. The consequence has been that the boats have been diminishing in numbers since long before the war. I have the figures here. In 1920 there were 146 of these schooners, up to forty tons and over; in 1925, ninety-nine; in 1930, eighty-three; in 1935, fifty-three; in 1940, forty-nine; and in 1942, forty-four. Then of vessels between twenty and1 forty tons, and these are also schooners, there were in 1920, eighty-eight, and the numbers varied in the following years from seventy-one to seventy-three, eighty, eighty-five and seventy-seven.
Smaller boats between ten and twenty tons are not considered schooners, and their numbers have increased.
Now as to the' number of fishermen, the number of fishermen, including those on the small boats, was in 1920, 5,568; in 1925, 4,473; in 1930, 3,948; in 1935, 3,526; in 1940, 4,112, and in 1942, 3,757. Those figures include the smaller boats between ten and twenty tons, the number of which rose to 750 in 1942. So that the schooners have been going down in numbers and the men employed have also been going down in numbers.
100-278J
There is another aspect. These vessels have been obliged more and more to use Newfoundlanders.


John James Kinley: What is wrong with that?


Ernest Bertrand: Will you please allow me to answer? There are certain circumstances that the hon. member did not mention. In 1926 the estimated crews numbered 1,840 men; in 1927, 1,660; and then it goes down to 320 in 1943, when sixteen vessels were operating. In that year there were 183 residents of Newfoundland among the fishermen, or fifty-seven per cent. I have here figures of the fish landed at Lunenburg and Halifax by vessels. Take first the Fairmose, which is the best boat according to this return. It landed 3,596,395 pounds of fish at Lunenburg on twenty-eight trips, or an average of 128,448 pounds per trip, and the vessel worked for forty-eight weeks.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is a good record.


Ernest Bertrand: A very good record. I have also figures for the draggers. The Cape Agulhas in 1941 landed1 6,059,400 pounds.


John James Kinley: She is a beam trawler.


Ernest Bertrand: It is the same principle. It landed 6,059,400 pounds in forty-eight trips, or almost double the amount landed by the Fairmose. The average days per trip were 7-6, which means that the vessel was out for almost fifty-two weeks in the year.


John James Kinley: What did that boat cost?


Ernest Bertrand: It carries a smaller crew. There is one more man in the Fairmose. The trawler crew is twenty men and the schooner carries between fourteen and twenty-eight men. The Fairmose is a big boat and would have a crew of about twenty-eight.


John James Kinley: About twenty-seven.


Ernest Bertrand: It might cost more, 'but it has been landing a great amount of fish.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They are all under charter, as a matter of fact, from the other side.


Ernest Bertrand: We are also
granting a certain amount of subsidy for these boats. But we found that in the east nobody was using the subsidy, and the fishermen have accordingly asked us to reduce our requirements as to the size of the boat. We had specified a minimum length of seventy-two feet. Now they ask us to reduce that to fifty-
Supply-Fisheries

five feet to allow groups of fishermen to get together and build a dragger, which works on the same principle as the long liner, to a length of fifty-five feet or more, and that we grant the same subsidy. There are two applications before us now. One boat was started before the order in council was passed. These draggers are well known in the United States. A lot of them go fishing on the Grand Banks, and we feel that we should have our share of the fish caught by this method. They have also draggers on the west coast, where they are very successful, so much so that we shall have to come to an agreement with the United States probably to limit the number of fish caught.
The brief presented to us by the united fishermen says that they do not want the unrestricted use of trawlers, meaning that they *do not want the trawlers to fish anywhere. We are going to see, through the system of granting a licence, that the trawlers fish far away from the shore.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They
never fished inshore.


Ernest Bertrand: They will
have to fish at a certain distance from the shore which has not been defined because we have not yet granted any licences. We feel that these two kinds of boats, the dragger and the long liner, in which the fishermen can work more easily than in the dories, and furnish the purchaser with a continuous supply of fish, are going to be of great importance. That is the view of a good many fishermen. If they do not like the draggers they can go in long liners. The hon. member has been arguing in favour of the schooner, but we know that while the schooner is good, it cannot compete with the others because it cannot fish at any time of the year.


John James Kinley: One fished for forty-ejght weeks.
Mr. BERTRAND (Laurier) r One did fish for forty-eight weeks, but there are thirty here and I see that some of them fished twenty-seven, twenty-four, fifty-one, twenty-four, forty-two, twenty, fifty weeks and three weeks.


John James Kinley: These boats are carrying their own fish to the West Indies and they could not get transportation. Furthermore, they have been induced by the wartime shipping board to carry produce from the United States to the Caribbean sea ports, 60 that they are in other war business at the moment.
TMr. E. Bertrand.]


Ernest Bertrand: But during the winter season, when the weather is rough on the banks, you see trawlers and draggers from the United States which are fishing and you hardly see any schooners, according to our reports.


John James Kinley: Suppose I admit that for the purpose of argument only.


Ernest Bertrand: I am not through; I wish to finish. The'hon. member said that the schooner is a profitable boat and that is true. Everyone knows that the shares are divided into sixty-four, and gentlemen may buy a share at S300 or $500-I do not know-and it brings a very large return to the shareholders. That is true; but it does not bring as large a return to the fishermen as the long liner will bring.


John James Kinley: I hope that what the minister says is true.


Ernest Bertrand: The reason is that the latter will land much more fish so that the fisherman's share will be larger.


John James Kinley: Suppose for the sake of argument we admit that the other is a superior machine-


Ernest Bertrand: Well, let us try it.


John James Kinley: -why then does the minister want to subsidize our people out of business? It seems to me that by giving a subsidy to the long liner and the beam trawler he is admitting that they cannot survive without that assistance. For years I have heard about the efficiency of the beam trawler, and here, when we find fishing at its most profitable in the history of the industry, we have to subsidize with government money the building of beam trawlers. The minister says that the fishermen do not do so well in the fishing schooners. Well, let me tell him that the fishermen in Lunenburg do better in the fishing schooner there than fishermen in any other type of fishing vessels in the maritimes. As regards the beam trawlers, the minister will find that the men on them are not Canadians but many are Icelanders and Newfoundlanders, and they are good men. To argue that our fishing schooners should be out of business by reason of the fact that Newfoundlanders are coming to Nova Scotia to fish does not appeal to my reasoning. Let me tell the minister that many of the Lunenburg fishermen are to-day in the army, the navy, the air force and the merchant navy, the result being that we are denuded of men on the shores of Nova Scotia. The reason

why there is a shortage of labour is that the war-time effort of the people of my county is such that there is bound to be a shortage, and he gives shortage of labour as his reason for the order in council.


Richard Burpee Hanson: We have had an important declaration from the minister, given somewhat reluctantly-


Ernest Bertrand: Given very freely.


Richard Burpee Hanson: -and it is to the effect that it is now the policy of the government to propagate on the Atlantic coast the establishment of mechanical fishing boats and to subsidize them. That never had to be done before. Under the old system the beam trawler was chartered from the other side and put into operation by the fishing companies. It served a useful purpose, but it encouraged the most outstanding opposition on the part of the inshore fishermen that anyone in this house can imagine and that feeling exists to-day. Indeed, the brief referred to by more than one of the members from Nova Scotia, as well as by myself, corroborates entirely the feeling entertained by the fishermen themselves. I am glad to have the minister and the administration on record as having come out into the open-dragged out into the open if you will-with the policy that they are now encouraging the establishment of mechanical trawlers on the Atlantic coast.


Ernest Bertrand: That policy was put into effect long ago.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That will be very interesting reading in the Halifax Herald to-morrow morning, and I hope the press will get it across to the reading public in Nova Scotia. It will be very interesting reading to the inshore fishermen of Nova Scotia who live on the south shore, those who live in the eastern part of Nova Scotia and on the bay of Fundy and on Cape Breton island. I wonder what the hon. member for Invemess-Richmond (Mr. McGarry) is thinking. What thoughts are going through his mind to-night as he hears this declaration? Was he consulted when that policy was put into effect? Was the hon. junior member for Halifax consulted when that policy was put into effect? Was the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth-Clare (Mr. Pottier) consulted when that policy was put into effect? Apparently the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Kinley) knew something about it; he endeavoured to ameliorate the condition of his fishermen, as it was his duty to do, and he made out a case for his fishing schooners-a good case.
Supply-Fisheries


William Chisholm Macdonald: This is part of the war measures adopted to increase the production of fish.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Do not let us sidetrack it with the red herring of the war, a war measure. The fishermen of Nova Scotia know that once the beam trawler and the mechanical fishermen are introduced into the Atlantic fisheries they will be there to stay.


William Chisholm Macdonald: We have had them .for years.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They have been licensed from year to year. There are no more than three to-day. I am not personally condemning the beam trawler, because there are features about it that commend themselves. The minister stated them and I repeated them, but I want to fasten upon the government the declaration of policy made to-night and I will see that it is made public in the province of Nova Scotia. I am satisfied with this night's work.


William Chisholm Macdonald: Would the minister care to comment now on my submission that the same import duty concessions granted in respect of farm implements be-extended so as to include articles designed for fish production, curing and processing plants?'


Ernest Bertrand: I will take the matter into consideration.


Moses Elijah McGarry: While I agree that in this time of war extraordinary provisions and regulations obtain in the matter of production, yet there seems to be something paradoxical about the whole arrangement. In the first place, I consider that the production of the fishermen in Nova Scotia is one of the most essential requirements for the war effort. Now, the paradox, as I see it, about this-incentive to produce, particularly in the matter of fish production, is this. On the one hand they are asked to produce lavishly and generously. On the other hand, when I ask that greater facilities be afforded to them to produce, it does not seem to be a matter of concern to those who are calling out loudly for production. In my constituency we have large cooperative fisheries and individual men who are carrying on the fisheries, but they have to-day no approach to their wharves to land their fish, or any place of security in which to put their boats where they could place them and not be exposed to the hazards of the sea. I have asked the Department of Public Works to make some provision for that. I am protesting against the paradox. A paradox is something that is neutral and negative in its action. In my constituency I have three very important
Supply-Fisheries

places where the cooperative fishermen have no access to their wharves to land their fish and no secure place in which to put their boats. I know the Minister of Fisheries is vitally concerned with the fishing industry of this country. Would he not help me to prevail upon the Department of Public Works-


Ernest Bertrand: I did on two occasions. I would ask the hon. member to get in touch with the Minister of Public Works. I did it on two occasions.


Moses Elijah McGarry: Would the minister
intensify his efforts in behalf of the fishermen of my constituency?


Gordon Graydon: He wants you to do better.


Moses Elijah McGarry: Yes, to do better with regard to the conditions in my constituency. There we have honest, earnest cooperative effort earned on in behalf of war purposes. I ask the minister to do what he can. I wonder if I can incite him to try to impress .upon the Department of Public Works to afford proper facilities for the men to carry on their production on at least a minimum :scale? If he did that he would have my appreciation and I would extend to him everlasting thanks.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I should like to corroborate what the hon. member for Inverness-Riehmond has said. I saw with my own eyes on a Sunday last summer a situation
that I could not believe existed. I am not going to name the place, but the access to the harbour where the fishing boats might lie at safe refuge was absolutely blocked and the wharf was down. While I was there I made inquiry from a prominent resident of the locality, and he told me that although they work in a cooperative society, although they had made representation, I presume through the hon. member, absolutely nothing had been done to reestablish the facilities that were installed there between 1930 and 1935. That situation is intolerable. A very minimum of expense is required to reestablish those facilities. The hon. member is just 100 per cent right when he calls upon the government and the department to recondition the facilities that the fishermen must have if they are to have their boats lie there in safety. The fishermen cannot build those facilities themselves; it must be done by the government as it has always been done. In recent years .the difficulty has been that those facilities have been allowed to run into decay and to become destroyed by the action of the elements. I heartily support what the hon. member for Inverness-Riehmond has said with respect to the absolute neglect of this important public work on the part of the present administration.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order
£Mr. McGarry.]

Address of Right Hon. Peter Fraser


[Stage Direction]
Prime Minister of New Zealand

[Stage Direction]
Friday, June 30, 1944
Mr. Fraser was welcomed by Right Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada, and Mr. Gordon Graydon, Leader of the Opposition, and thanked by Hon. Thomas Vien, Speaker of the Senate, and Hon. James Allison Glen, Speaker of the House of Commons.
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister of Canada):: Your Royal Highness, members of the Senate and of the House of Commons, ladies and gentlemen: We are delighted to have as a guest of Canada to-day the Right Honourable Peter Fraser, the Prime Minister of New Zealand.
I desire, Mr. Fraser, to extend to you the warmest of welcomes on behalf of the people of Canada; and on this occasion more particularly to welcome you on behalf of all the members of both houses of Canada's parliament, members of all political parties, and, perhaps I should add, one or two who for reasons best known to themselves claim they are not members of any party.
I am sure I may also be allowed' to express a word of personal welcome.
During the years of war you and I have shared like responsibilities, and recently have been closely associated in the meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers in London. I have greatly looked forward to the honour of introducing you, as I did quite recently Mr. Curtin, the Prime Minister of Australia, to my fellow parliamentarians. That great pleasure and honour I have to-day.
You will be interested in knowing that Mr. Churchill, who presided1 over our meetings in London, also spoke from this table to members of our parliament on a visit he paid to
Ottawa in December, 1941. Ottawa has also had the honour of a visit from Field Marshal Smuts. That, however, was as long ago as 1930. I regret it has not thus far been possible for the Prime Minister of South Africa to pay us another visit. We shall hope to welcome him at some time in the near future. The welcome will be all the greater should the defeat of our common enemies have been accomplished meanwhile.
This is Mr. Fraser's third visit to Canada during the present war. It is, however, the first time he has been in Ottawa when our parliament was in session. We are delighted that he has consented to address us this afternoon, and I wish to thank him at once for his kindness in so doing. Our interest is redoubled by the knowledge that he has recently visited the battlefront in Italy where fighting men of New Zealand and Canada have been in action side by side.
Before I ask Mr. Fraser to speak to us, I should like to say a few words intended not only for the Prime Minister, but equally for the parliament and people of New Zealand1.
When Mr. Fraser visited Canada in the late summer of 1941, the war might well have seemed to his countrymen remote and distant. In miles, no country was farther from the battlefronts than New Zealand. Yet no country had entered more whole-heartedly into the

Address of Right Hon. Peter Fraser
struggle. Early in the war, naval forces of New Zealand hadi taken a brilliant part in the battle of the River Plate, in which an end was put to the Graf Spee. Soldiers from New Zealand had already covered themselves with honour in the western desert, in Greece, and in Crete. The young airmen of New Zealand, many of whom had been trained in our midst, had already distinguished1 themselves in the unending battles in the skies. I cannot tell you, Mr. Fraser, how favourable is the impres- ' sion which the young airmen from New Zealand have made upon us all in the course of their sojourn in Canada.
It will ever be remembered that New Zealand did not wait for the forces of tyranny to approach her shores; that she recognized that freedom threatened anywhere meant freedom theatened everywhere. From the outset, the young men of New Zealand went forth to uphold freedom wherever it was assailed.
When a year later Mr. Fraser visited us a second time, the war in terms of geography was for New Zealand no longer distant and remote. While to Australia the threat of invasion by Japan was more immediate, to New Zealand it was also periously close. Despite their great anxiety, the people never faltered. The fighting men of New Zealand- those who were not already serving in European and African theatres-took their place beside their comrades from Australia who were resisting the invader. Together they held him at bay until United States forces were also in the firing line. In turning back the Japanese tide the New Zealanders have played a valiant part.
We are indeed proud to-day to recall that armed forces of Canada and armed forces of New Zealand have throughout the war fought side by side in many parts of the globe. I wish this afternoon to give you, Mr. Fraser, the assurance that this comradeship in arms will continue until, in both hemispheres, the defeat of our common enemies is accomplished. Thereafter the comradeship between our peoples at a time of war will become a partnership, closer than ever, in all that pertains to the arts of peace. Meanwhile, as a further evidence of the community of interest which exists between Canada and New Zealand, there will be tabled to-day, in your parliament and in ours, copies of a mutual aid agreement between Canada and New Zealand which was signed at Ottawa on the eve of your arrival in our country.
May I add how pleased we are that on your present visit you are accompanied by Mrs. Fraser and General Puttick, chief of the

general staff, New Zealand forces. To Mrs. Fraser and to General Puttick I would also extend a very cordial welcome. We wish you all, and all of your party, a pleasant sojourn in our capital and a 3afe return to your homeland. We wish your stay in Canada might have been a little longer. We would ask you to take with you to the people of New Zealand an expression of the admiration of the people of Canada for their outstanding contribution to the war effort of the united nations. We would like you to tell them of the pride Canada feels in the deepened friendship of our two countries. And we should be pleased if you would convey to the members of the armed forces and to all the people of New Zealand our best wishes for the success of their great endeavours.
I shall ask Mr. Graydon, the leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition in the House of Commons, to join me in the welcome being extended to-day on behalf of all members of the parliament of Canada to the Prime Minister of New Zealand.


Gordon Graydon: Mr. Prime Minister and hon.
members of the Senate and of the House of Commons, ladies and gentlemen:	I deem it
a high honour to be granted the privilege of making unanimous the courteous and cordial welcome accorded so fittingly to New Zealand's distinguished Prime Minister on this war-time occasion by the Prime Minister of Canada.
Although that small but mighty island member of the British commonwealth is widely separated by distance from this dominion, no people stand higher in Canadian esteem. No people anywhere are closer to Canadian hearts. The exemplary character and conduct of those fine lads of the Royal New Zealand Air Force while here in training during this war have served to unite more firmly than ever the bonds of friendship between us.
New Zealand has strained her last sinew to lay her all on the altar of liberty. More than one out of every ten of her population will be found making their magnificent contribution in the armed services, while major decorations for gallantry awarded to her valiant fighters exceed in numbers those won by the forces of any other nation of like population in this war. Added to this, she had the distinction and honour of being the first of the Commonwealth powers to range herself at Britain's side when the present world-wide conflict came. On the home front too, her workers, her farmers, her industry and her citizens in general have shown the world, by their high level of war-time production and their personal sacrifices, what total war really means.

Address of Right Hon. Peter Fraser
Mr. Fraser, we honour you to-day not only as the war-time leader of the New Zealand people and a power in commonwealth affairs, but for what your life and your example have meant to us all. Truly it can be said, as it has been said of many another Scotsman, that you are one more honour graduate of the school of hard knocks and experience who has made good in the broader field of public affairs. Your preparation for the heavier responsibilities involved in national leadership, gained as it was in the ranks of the workers, in the trade union movement and in the field of journalism, gave you a foundation and furnished an inspiration which cannot fail to be of inestimable value.
We in this parliament and country extend to you and Mrs. Fraser a royal welcome to-day. May you both experience a safe and pleasant journey home; and may I suggest that you carry with you the greetings and best *wishes of the Canadian people, who join with yours in a fervent prayer that God may speed the day when the war drums throb no longer and the battle flags are furled in the parliament of man, the federation of the world.
Mr. Fraser, I join with our Prime Minister to make this nation's welcome unanimous,


Right Hon. PETER FRASER (Prime Minister of New Zealand):: Your Royal Highness, Mr. Speaker of the Senate, Mr. Speaker of the House of Commons, members of both houses of parliament: I wish to thank you most sincerely for the welcome you have extended to me, first of all, as the representative of New Zealand. I wish to thank Mr. Mackenzie King and Mr. Graydon for the all too kind words about myself, and for the friendly and hospitable references to Mrs. Fraser and General Puttick and our other friends who are with me.
I am glad to have this opportunity of speaking under this historic roof, in this home of the representative institutions of the oldest and the largest British dominion. I thank the speakers for their kind references to New Zealand's part in the war effort and the fight for humanity and freedom. But I also know what your country has done. I know its great contribution, and I wish to extend to the government and parliament of Canada my very sincere thanks for their cooperation, and for the help they have invariably extended, when requested by New Zealand, in the form of munitions and other war requirements. We never ask in vain. I echo the sentiments of your Prime Minister when he expressed the hope that this cooperation, trust and good
will may extend far beyond the utmost boundaries of the war period and prevail in the future, contributing to the success as well as the friendship of our two peoples.
I wish to express a word of appreciation of the latest instance of that cooperation, comradeship and assistance. The Prime Minister has announced that during the present week New Zealand and Canada have signed a mutual aid agreement. This gives me an opportunity to express appreciation of the mutual aid principles that have been so carefully worked out by the Canadian government. And I think you will join with me, Mr. King, as all others will, in paying tribute also to a great man, the President of the United States. Of course I step aside from politics, both in the United States and Canada; but irrespective of political parties or leanings, we pay a sincere and heartfelt tribute to President Roosevelt, as a true friend of humanity, as the man who evolved the plan under which a most generous contribution was made by a neutral nation to the cause of those of us who were fighting for freedom. History does not record any more generous action on the part of a non-belligerent country toward countries which they knew, were fighting the battle of humanity.
The principles embodied in the mutual aid agreement just signed between Canada and New Zealand are appreciated greatly, because of the clarity with which they state that mutual aid transactions carry with them no hampering post-war financial liability. The agreement is for mutual aid. I stress "mutual aid," because while Canada with its great industry has made a remarkable contribution to the needs of the united nations, and while the agreement will extend aid to the country of which I am privileged to be Prime Minister, New Zealand in turn, wherever and whenever Canada can be helped by the use of our resources, will gladly make them available. She will be proud to reciprocate within the means at her disposal.
This war requires a common effort in which we are all pledged to join, individually and collectively, to the utmost extent in order to achieve victory for all. In that pledge of unremitting effort we in New Zealand, with you in Canada, hope to carry out to the fullest degree the true spirit of mutual aid.
May I mention another important contribution of this country toward the solidarity of the united nations. I refer to the good neighbour policy which has been in effect for so many years with our friends in the United States. If in the whole world there is one example more striking than another of the benefits of such a policy it is to be found in the St. Lawrence

Address of Right Hon. Peter Fraser
during our conferences. They are these: The United Kingdom and the British dominions are not out for aggrandizement or territory, not out to conquer or dominate anybody whatsoever. They are out to free mankind, and that means the nations that have fought beside us. I would refer particularly to France. There were many Frenchmen who pinned their faith to the cross of Lorraine and did not bow the knee in the house of Mammon. We have had our own New Zealanders escaping from Italy, through Switzerland, and then through France to Spain. French men and women in all walks of life risked their lives cheerfully and willingly to aid them, even against the protests of those whom they were succoring and helping to escape. The people who have shown that spirit will rise triumphant and their country will once more become a great leader among the nations and a great repository of human freedom.
These nations, according to the declarations of the leading united nations, must be fully restored, and their territories must be given back wherever they may be; because unless our word is carried out, the very foundation of faith will shake and fall, and there will be no resting place for honour in the world. France will be restored, as will Poland, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Greece, and their overseas territories.
I pause for a moment to thank the government and the people of Canada for the help they sent to the starving people of Greece and Crete, for the wheat they have sent over there by the thousands of tons, and for the assistance in other respects that they are continuing to give. I would tender my own and my country's appreciation of the splendid offer of assistance that came from here when millions of people in Bengal were sickening to death through the famine. Our friends in Australia also assisted, as we did according to our capacity. These are gestures, deeds, actions that will cement the world and bring us into greater friendship and comradeship to face the problems of the future.
The principles of the Atlantic charter are not platitudes, nor meant to be platitudes. They are principles that must be honoured because thousands have died for them. Your boys, boys of New Zealand, South Africa, India, the United States and all the united nations, have given their lives that the four freedoms-freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear and freedom from want-may be established and the masses of the people given greater opportunities than

ever before. Unless we strive to carry out those principles we shall be undoing in peace what has been won on the battlefield.
I heard it said many years ago that there were two kinds of enemies of progress: those who stood still and looked backward, and those who looked forward and stood still. After the last war, promises were made in various countries-I am not singling out any country or people or government; I am stating a fact-promises were made, and made in good faith. They were made because it was believed, even by those who made them, that they would be carried out. But the years came and the years went, and instead of the promises being fulfilled, we had an overwhelming sense of impossibility, the overpowering feeling that they could not be fulfilled. So, instead of enthusiasm on the part of the masses, particularly on the part of the young people who with their generous hearts, having fought the war, wanted to reach out to a better future, we have had cynicism, disappointment and despair. We must give faith to our young people. We must tell them that as they have fought, and as they will win the war, so must they take their place and help to garner the fruits of victory for all the peoples of the world. If that is not done people will say cynically: "These promises were all right when the war was on, but you cannot do anything about it now." If these promises are not fulfilled, there can be no doubt that the forces of despair will develop into reaction; once more the ground will be ripe for the seeds of nazism and fascism, and democracy's final chance will be gone.
Conferences are being held to help the world towards a better day-conferences on commercial questions, on monetary and financial questions; on production of food, conferences that do credit to the good heart of the democracies; conferences to rehabilitate the nations that have been trampled under foot by Germany, Italy and Japan. These are excellent, and I have no doubt that the requirements, in particular the necessities, of all the respective countries, will be considered and allowance made for them. But unless the mass of the people feel that in return for their efforts on land, on sea and in the air, in the workshops and on the farms, on the docks and in the mines, the vision of a new world is a reality, that the leaders of nations were in earnest when they preached fundamental democracy, not only political democracy but educational, economic and social democracy, then I say there is a 'black outlook for the world.
But there is no reason why the outlook should be black. The British nations are

Address oj Right Hon. Peter Fraser
more solidified to-day, as they are more determined and more enthusiastic for democracy, than ever before. Here is a paradox which the world outside the British commonwealth finds it difficult to understand, the paradox that the freer we become the closer we are together; the more our constitutional bonds are relaxed the more closely we are held in bonds of friendship; the greater the extent to which government sovereignty is extended to the various parts of the British commonwealth and empire the more truly one we are in sentiment, in heart and spirit-one in peace as well as in war.
That is something which the nations do not ' understand. The British peoples-and when I say the British peoples I mean all the races under the British flag-have responded to the principles of self-government and of trust and friendship extended by the mother country, and have raised with their sons, around the mother country, a wall of fire, and have forged bonds as light as air, though as strong as steel, bonds that are stronger now than ever before. A fortnight ago I was with a friend in the north of Scotland. He pointed out to me a certain fort, and said there were one or two of the kind in Scotland. There is no cement, no lime, no concrete in the construction of that fort. It is built of vitrified stones, the residue of a huge bonfire whose heat was so great that it melted the stones and united them into a solid mass. Well, my thoughts turned from that to our commonwealth. In the fires of war, in the trials, the tribulations and the dangers of war, we have been welded together so that we are stronger than ever. We want to.extend that sense of solidarity, that sense of security to the other nations.
I am going to mention only one country. I devoutly hope, from the bottom of my heart, that India will see through all the senses of injury or wrong of the past, through all the mists of prejudice of one kind or another, to the fact that there is no greater freedom can be attained than that of a sovereign state in the British commonwealth. We all should like to welcome India in as one of ourselves, for she also is rendering a great service to humanity.
In conclusion, I would say that at this moment conditions are different from those that prevailed when I visited here in 1941. Then all was black except for the light of faith in the eyes and hearts of the British people, not only in the United Kingdom but everywhere. They are different again from when I came here in 1942, nearly two years ago. For then the United States had come in, and we were just beginning to ascend the ladder of
victory. To-day we have the enemy on the run. He will stand and fight bravely and unscrupulously, and he will make use of all the diabolical weapons that the ingenuity of the human mind can bring into existence. But it will all be in vain. All the powers of hell cannot prevail against those who believe that they are fighting the battle of righteousness, of truth, of justice and of freedom, and are determined that the new world shall be a new world in truth and in deed, as well as in spirit, and that we all shall go forward-you in Canada, we in New Zealand, the people of the motherland, and the people of all the British dominions-marching shoulder to shoulder in war time, prepared to march shoulder to shoulder afterwards toward that new world that will be a new Jerusalem.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I will ask Their Honours the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Commons to express our thanks to the Prime Minister of New Zealand for the deeply moving address to which we have just been privileged to listen.


Honourable Senator THOMAS VIEN (Speaker of the Senate) (Translation):: May it please your Royal Highness, Mr. Prime Minister of New Zealand, I am very happy to offer you in my mother tongue, one of the two official languages of this country, the heartfelt and sincere thanks of the Senate, of the House of Commons and of the people of Canada, whom you have honoured to-day by your presence and by the moving address you have just delivered.
In the Old World, Celts and Gauls take pride in their common ancestry, in their close affinity of mind and temperament. Was there not once a celebrated woman who was at the same time Queen of Scotland and Queen of France?
In Canada, after the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, the Fraser Highlanders Regiment was demobilized and a number of Frasers settled in this country. One of them gave his name to Fraserville, a lovely little town on the shores of the lower St. Lawrence. In British Columbia, the Fraser valley, one of our most fertile plains, is watered by a river which bears your name. All of which illustrates, Mr. Prime Minister, that the name which you have made famous in the south Pacific is known and honoured everywhere in Canada.
In our geography textbooks, we first learned of the two islands which comprise your country and of the tremendous distances separating it from our own. But current history soon taught us that New Zealand, often called the ".Britain of the South Seas," although established barely a century ago, is already re-

Address oj Right Hon. Peter Fraser
nowned throughout the world for the volume of her external trade, for the liberal and progressive character of her social legislation, for the heroism her men have shown on every battlefield during two world wars, and for her magnificent-contribution to the United Nations' effort.
We know also the part you have played personally in these great achievements, and therefore, feel a deep satisfaction in thanking you for having visited our land and inspired us by your eloquent message.
You may tell your people that we are determined to fight by their side to the end, until the triumph of right over might is secured. With you we pray God to bless our armed forces and to grant us promptly a decisive victory and a durable peace.
(Text):


Hon. JAMES ALLISON GLEN (Speaker of the House of Commons):: Your Royal Highness, Mr. Prime Minister, to-day we welcome on the floor of the Canadian House of Commons one of the Prime Ministers of a great fraternity which we call the Commonwealth of British Nations, in the person of the Right Honourable Peter Fraser, Prime Minister of New Zealand.
The bearer of such a name is always assured of a welcome in Canada; for within our land we treasure the Fraser river-discovered probably by one of his ancestors, certainly by one of the clan-whose rugged shores and tumbling waters will remind our guest of the rivers and streams of his own native Ross-shire.
In the incidents of life the course of one's career is directed by powers beyond one's control, and you, sir, might have become a citizen of Canada when you left your native land in 1910. But we do not begrudge your choice, for what we in Canada lost, New Zealand gained, and I think you will agree with me it is well that all countries should have a leaven of Scots in their midst. This little expression of insular pride will, I hope, be forgiven me. Speaking to a brother Scot, at our own fireside, I cannot refrain from a personal touch, and I am sure it will not destroy that self-effacing modesty so characteristic of our race.
Sir, it is one of the glories of the common heritage of New Zealand and Canada that in our House of Commons you can, in expressive language, voice with receptive understanding those ideas and principles which you set forth so clearly in London, the seat of the commonwealth and empire, during the recent conference of the British Prime Ministers. Your position there, as here, and your qualities so universally recognized in New Zealand, have received the acclaim of the empire, and Canada

takes this opportune moment to congratulate you, and through you New Zealand, on the magnificent contribution which your men and women have made in this war.
We have not .had that intimate association with your army we would desire, but we do know of their exploits in every theatre of war, and it must never be forgotten that in that moment of extreme peril to our nations, when the daring and heroic adventure to save Greece was determined upon, New Zealand troops fired the first shot in the conflict-a glorious page in your country's history.
But if we know not your army intimately, we do know your airmen. That they are typical of your countrymen we have no doubt ; and I can say to you, sir, with, I hope, convincing sincerity, that their conduct while in this country and their achievements overseas make us proud to call them kinsmen.
We are delighted to have you with us. We thank you for your address, and I wish you would convey to your country the assurance that Canada's door will always be on the latch to you and all your colleagues and citizens. I urge you, do not stay away too long. In the happier days which we now envisage as being so near, let us in Canada, and you in New Zealand, demonstrate to the world that "though mountains divide us, and the waste of seas", we are bound by ties which nothing can break.
The proceedings were concluded by the singing of God Save the King.
Monday, July 3, 1944