1944-06-13

[Stage Direction]
Hon. ANGUS L. MACDONALD (Minister of National Defence for Naval Services): With, the permission of the house I should like to make a short statement. I have much pleasure in advising the house that men and ships of the-Royal Canadian Navy continue to fare well in the invasion of northern France. Losses in personnel thus far have been almost negligible.
Public Works
[Stage Direction]
Losses in. ships have been confined to a few landing craft. Canada is represented in these operations by more than one hundred Ships and almost ten thousand naval officers and men. Almost every type of fighting ship in our navy is included-destroyers, frigates, corvettes, minesweepers, landing ships, landing craft and motor torpedo boats.
At the same time we have assumed considerably increased responsibilities in respect of trade convoys in the north Atlantic. There, too, we and our allies have not been without success. Loss in allied merchant shipping is now at the lowest point in the whole war. This morning it was announced that one of our frigates, H.M.C.S. Prince Rupert, had shared with British and United States planes and two United States warships in the destruction of a German submarine. This is the fourth enemy submarine the destruction of which I have had the pleasure of announcing within the last ten weeks.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Leader of the 'Opposition):: On May 16, during the debate on the war appropriation resolution, I called to the attention of the Minister of Public Works certain inequalities with respect to salaries and war supplements paid to firemen working under the jurisdiction of the minister's department. At the time he was good enough to indicate that he would inquire into the matter to see if any injustice was being done, and undertook to remedy it if he found that to be the case. The war appropriation bill having been passed, and no answer having so far been made, I should be very glad if the minister would acquaint the house with the result of his inquiry and tell us what he proposes by way of remedy for the situation.


Hon. ALPHONSE FOURNIER (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, the leader
of the opposition was good enough to give me notice of this question. He is right in saying that during the discussion of my war estimates he inquired about the salaries paid to the seasonal firemen employed by the Department of Public Works. I intended giving the information when my civil estimates were before the committee. However I have now before me a report concerning the 118 firemen employed at Ottawa.
The salary range of these employees is from SI,140 to 11,260 a year, plus the cost-of-living bonus and in certain instances a war duties supplement. In the case of firemen it was found that some fourteen employees, due
IMr. A. L. Macdonald.]
to the increased work caused by the war, were now filling positions which under the rating schedule I have mentioned would qualify them for stationary engineer grade 1, and these employees were recommended to receive the minimum of that'class.
In addition, statutory increases not ordinarily accorded to firemen were granted. These were authorized on recommendation of the department by order in council P.C. 144/2200 of March 28, 1944, effective April 1, 1940; and these increases are now in effect and also apply to firemen outside Ottawa.
Of 118 firemen at Ottawa, fourteen received war duties supplements, three received $120 statutory increases and twenty-four received $60 statutory increases. Thirty-two will receive stautory increases in 1944, when they will have served two seasons, and thirty-eight in 1945. Thus there are only seven firemen who have not been benefited, and they were already at the maximum of their class.



CANADIAN FORCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Graydon: Mr. Speaker, I am not certain whether the question I desire to direct to the government comes within the purview of the Department of National Defence or that of the Postmaster General. I fancy it should be brought to the attention of the Department of National Defence.	,
A member of the auxiliary services, recently returned from overseas where he worked among the men of the armed forces, is reported to have stated yesterday before a service club in London, Ontario, that men overseas, including those in hospital, were limited to one officially issued letter form per week. He is reported to have pointed out that there is no limitation on the numbers of letters allowed to go from Canada to the armed forces, and he made a plea that steps should be taken to remove limitations on the letters coming from overseas to Canada. I should be glad to have the minister's comments in the matter, and at the same time, if the situation is as described, I would ask the government to take steps to rectify it.


Hon. J. L. RALSTON (Minister of National Defence):: I received notice of the question only after coming to the house, and I have not any first-hand information about it.

Dominion Elections Act
I believe what is referred to would be the blue air mail letter form. I know when I was in Italy there was a limitation of one per week issued. That was changed about that time, however, to two, if I remember correctly. I had not heard anything about any limitation in the United Kingdom-at least no limitation causing any complaint. I have asked the director of auxiliary services to get me a report in the matter, and I shall endeavour to inform the house as to the situation. Of course I accept the suggestion offered by the leader of the opposition, that if there is any limitation of the kind he has mentioned which can possibly be lessened having regard to existing conditions, I am sure all the services will put forth every possible effort to have it removed or at least to have it reduced.



DOMINION ELECTIONS


[Stage Direction]
Hon. N. A. McLARTY (Secretary of State) moved the third reading of Bill No) 135, to provide regulations enabling Canadian war service electors to exercise their franchise, and Canadian prisoners of war to vote by proxy, at any general election held during the present war, also to provide amendments to the Dominion Elections Act, 1938, consequential to such regulations, or made necessary by the advent of the said war.
Mr. MAXIME RAYMOND (Beauharnois-Laprairie) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, before this bill is read the third time, I wish . . .
(Text):


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Lpuder.


Maxime Raymond: The whips of the various parties have decided to place me in the farthest corner, so that I am sometimes forced to speak louder than others have to speak.
(Translation): I wish to point out certain injustices contained in this bill. Unfortunately, it was moved at the last minute last Friday, and by referring to the record it is found that it was passed almost without discussion and without, I believe, reading each section of the bill. It might be claimed that the bill had been discussed in committee, but I have noticed that this time, as in several other instances, a group which, notwithstanding the small number of its members, represents a large section of the population, has been completely ignored and no member of my group was invited to sit on the committee appointed to examine this bill.
I do not propose to take up the time of the house, but I wish to protest against the discrimination shown to certain classes of soldiers.
Thus I find that the members of the reserve army will not have the right to vote unless they have reached the age of twenty-one, whereas the members of the active army will be entitled to vote if they are British subjects even though they are only eighteen or nineteen years old. I am glad that the right to vote has been granted to all those who are serving in the army, regardless of their age.
Besides, in connection with the debate on the plebiscite, I had moved an amendment to grant the right to vote to persons eighteen years of age, but the amendment was rejected by the house. Why bar the members of the reserve army, who are only eighteen and nineteen years of age, from voting, when they are being called up for military service? Why prevent them from voting when they are being mobilized at eighteen, under a hypocritical legislation, which has been called mobilization act while it is a conscription act, and when they are liable, as the minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston), stated, to be called up for service overseas; indeed, they have been sent to Kiska, Jamaica and Newfoundland. This group of enlisted men are discriminated against and I wish to register my protest before this bill is passed.
Another unfair stipulation is that referring to the appointment of scrutineers. It states that "two of such scrutineers shall be nominated by the Leader of the Government, two by the Leader of the Opposition and two on the joint recommendation of the Leaders of political groups having a recognized membership in the House of Commons of eight or more." I lead a group which, as I stated a moment ago, has not a large membership in this house, but represents a large proportion of the people of this country. A proof of this statement is the fact that, last August, when two by-elections were held in the province of Quebec, the government candidates were badly defeated by representatives of the group of which I am a member.
One of our candidates was elected, and if the other was not successful it was because of the manipulation of lists. In spite of the representations we made to the Secretary of State (Mr. McLarty)-and I must say, by the way, that he is usually most courteous- he did not heed our protests under the circumstances. The lists were prepared in such a way that the names of quite a number of voters from the constituency of Montreal-Cartier were left out. We asked for representatives of our own, but our request was denied under the ' pretext that it had come too late. However, the candidate of the labour-progressive party, which had no member in this house, was allowed to have some
Dominion Elections Act

one watch the preparation of lists on his behalf. I am quite glad that such a privilege was granted to him, but why should not-I would not say the same privilege-but the same right, have been granted to a much more considerable group which has members in this house, a group that expresses the views of a large proportion of the Canadian people? It was claimed that our request was belated; well, I have here some documents and telegrams, showing that some kind of revision was ordered but that a sufficient number of officials could not be found, and they were denied to us so that the revision was a eomedy; thus hundreds of thousands of names were left out of the lists for the special purpose of preventing the election of the candidate representing the group which I have the honour to lead in this house. The same thing will happen again.
Something similar did happen in connection with the proposed revision of the standing orders of the House of Commons. A change was recommended whereby no division could be recorded unless requested by twenty members, instead of five as at present. The purpose of that change was to prevent a minority which represents a very large body of opinion to demand a vote on certain occasions. In the next general election, we shall have a very large number of candidates in the field, and we are not even going to have the right to have some one look after our interests. What happened in Montreal-Cartier in the 1917 election during the Great War, shows the extreme importance, if we are to have a political party, of having such a representative.
It is said in the bill that a person may "act as representative of a political party at the taking of such votes". But what is meant by a political party? Obviously, an endeavour will be made to interpret the expression "political party" in the light of another section which says that a party must, in order to enjoy that right, have at least eight members in the House of Commons. But a political party which has less than eight members in the house may have in the field, in the next election, more than one hundred candidates and that party will not have a single representative to look after its interests. Such is the discrimination made under this bill. Consequently before its third reading, I wish to voice my protest once more. Since it is claimed that we are fighting for freedom and the protection of the rights of minorities, I say that those minorities should be given the rights for which they are called upon to fight elsewhere.

Motion agreed to and bill read the third time.
Mr. ILSLEY moved that the bill do now pass and that the title be as on the order paper.


Maxime Raymond: On division.
Motion agreed to and bill passed.



UNITED NATIONS MUTUAL AID


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Miinster of Finance) moved the second reading of Bill No. 138, to amend the War Appropriation (United Nations Mutual Aid) Act, 1943, and for grants ing to His Majesty aid for the purposes of the said act.
Mr. J. S. ROY (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, on two previous occasions I have given my reasons for opposing the making of gifts to England,, and I should like to put myself on record once more as being against this bill which provides for a gift of $800,000,000 to the united nations. Apparently the government intends to keep on enforcing measures such as this one despite the fact that the people of this country are opposing its stupid policy and are giving warning of their opposition. In the by-elections which were held last summer the people of this country condemned the enforcement of such a policy, but the government does not seem to want to listen to them at all.
It may be that if the results of the Saskatchewan provincial election were known certain people would open their ears and listen to these warnings. Only last summer when a provincial election was held in Ontario the two old parties were nearly wiped off the map. This indicates that the criticism and discontent of the people are coming not only from the province of Quebec but from all over Canada. If the government does not change its policy pretty soon, ultimately we shall have that socialism which makes everyone so frightened. I shall not make any further comments except to say that I strongly oppose this gift to the united nations.


Hon. P. J. ARTHUR CARDIN (Richelieu-Vercheres):: Mr. Speaker I have no intention of delaying for any time the consideration of this bill which has been moved for second reading by the Minister of Finance. On previous occasions I have expressed my personal views as to this method of assistance to people who in my opinion enjoy a better financial position than the people of Canada.

Mutual Aid
I do not need to advance any reasons additional to those I have previously expressed in opposition to a similar measure. I only want to repeat that it seems strange, to my humble judgment, that a small country like Canada, with a population of a little over eleven million, should be called upon to make a contribution or a gift-the name does not matter; the name was changed by the last legislation on this subject but it does not affect the principle at all-of one billion dollars last year and now eight hundred million dollars to a country which is many, many times richer than Canada is or will be for many generations to come. Let us not forget the facts to be considered in these circumstances.
The British empire, which has been directed for many years by highly gifted and talented diplomats and financiers, has developed to a point where it has become one of the greatest empires the world has ever known. Canada is a small country compared with the British empire. Canada is a very small country compared with the British isles. The people of Britain control directly or indirectly almost one-half of the civilized world, and they are in control financially speaking, commercially speaking, economically speaking, of over one-half of the population of the world. Canada is making a gift to that rich country, which for a long time has been the money market of the world, and which has not yet decided to abandon it.
We were told a few days ago, if not yesterday, that the British empire, or England, had been buying for cash to a larger amount than is represented by the gift that we have made in the past and the gift we propose to make under this bill. Is that not an indication that that great country is quite capable of taking care of her obligations and that there is no necessity for a small country like Canada, not a member of the Big Four, to be called upon to make a contribution of $800,000,000? It is said, it is true, that that money goes to other countries as well, but if one looks at the report that has been made by the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe), it will be ascertained that the British empire received of our gift last year three-quarters of a billion dollars. They are capable, financially speaking and economically speaking, of paying, if not at present, at least later, for the purchases they are making in Canada. Why should we be called upon to make such a gift now?
Let us not forget, Mr. Speaker, that at present the cost of the war to the Canadian people is as high as the burden it has imposed upon any of the allied nations of today. The daily cost of the war has risen,
according to a recent government publication, "Canada at War", from three cents per head of the population of Canada to $1.16 per head in 1943. That means about $425 a year for every man, woman and child in Canada today. The burden is heavy enough, and I do not think we should be called upon to make an additional contribution in this form.
Far from my mind is the idea that we should not supply what the allied nations need to carry on the war. We should continue to supply the materials they require, the armaments and the food that we have been supplying up to the present time. But why not at least keep a record of it in our books as an advance made to a country which is ten times, a hundred times, richer than Canada? Why not have an open account in order that when the war is over, when all the difficulties and consequences of the war are to be settled, when advantages are to be divided amongst the nations, Canada will have on the ledger something to offset claims that might be made against her or to justify any claim that Canada might see fit to make when the settlement of debts is being made. What harm would it be for Canada to keep a ledger account showing the advances we are making to Britain, if she is not at present in a position to pay in cash for the goods we are sending her? What objection could there be to having that recorded in a ledger in order that we shall have a clear account of our disbursements for the day of final settlement?
An argument has been made which to my mind has no value. It is said: What is the use of having debts on the books that will never be paid? Mr. Speaker, is it not a reflection on the credit of British institutions and on the credit of Britain to say that she will never be in a position to pay for the materials and goods she needs at present and that we have to make her a gift in order to prevent Britain from finding herself later on in the humiliating position of not being able to pay the price of the goods we have sent her? I think that argument is of no value at all. Suppose the debt is not going to be paid, as is argued. There is no objection to keeping an account of that debt in order that we may be able to show after the war is over what Canada has really done in this war, what her contribution to the war has been. It will be interesting then to have that figure, showing the amount we have advanced to the British empire in order to help the British empire to carry on a war that has been started, we will say, for the sake of saving the liberty of the world.
Mutual Aid

It has been argued, on the other hand, that we should remember that by making these supplies available to the British empire we are providing our workmen with work through the manufacture of the weapons of war and providing our agriculturists with work in supplying foodstuffs. That is a poor argument in my judgment, a very poor argument, Mr. Speaker. If we have that amount of money to spend on manufacturing materials of war and procuring foodstuffs to be given away in the form of gifts, we could very well use that money and that power of production to produce things which are needed in this country and could be consumed here. We could spend this money on articles which would be useful to Canadians, not merely to make goods on the pretext that the purpose is to provide business for our manufacturers and our industrial and agricultural producers. These arguments, in my humble judgment, are no good, and I contend there is no justification in the world for the attitude we have been taking, and are taking at the present time. Without desiring to be unfair or to use unduly severe language, as I was accused of doing last year when I advanced this argument, I would repeat that this is a colonial tribute. Last year it was argued that there was no tribute because our act was voluntary. Well, even if the payment is voluntary, even if these goods are voluntarily given, none the less it is a tribute which we are paying to a country or to a people far richer at this time, and likely to remain so for long after the war is over, than is Canada herself.
The example of the United States may be cited. We may be told that the United States have had for a long time a similar measure on their statute books and that they have been acting under that measure. Surely nobody will seriously make a comparison between Canada and the United States; nobody will compare our wealth, our power of production or our facilities for production with those of the United States. There is no comparison possible either in the economic field, in the matter of population, or in the field of external authority or international authority.
hether we like it or not, we have to recognize that our status sis a country cannot be compared internationally with the status of the United States. The United States is an independent country. I know that some hon. members and some newspaper men will say: Well, is not Canada an independent country? I have no hesitation in saying: No, she is not an independent country. This fact was established with the full approval of the government, when the late Minister of Justice argued in this house that Canada could not

be neutral in this war, that Canada had to go into the war the moment that one part of the British commonwealth was in the war. I conclude from that argument that we are not an independent country. I agree that we went into this war voluntarily, and I am not ashamed of the action I took at that time. But we went into the war because Britain was at war. Justification can be found for this statement even in the recent speeches made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) in London and here in this House of Commons. We went into the war because we were a member of the British commonwealth of nations. This is a society or group of nations, each of which is committed to the defence of the interests of the others; otherwise there could be no such society of nations; there could be ho commonwealth without a responsibility on the part of one of the members of the commonwealth toward the interests of any other member which might be endangered. We are not an independent country. We may, if we choose, make a subtle argument on points of law, on texts of jurisprudence and on statutes, but in reality and in practice we have never acted as an independent country, and from the point of view of responsibility and action we are not independent, far less a sovereign nation capable of disposing of herself.
So that we are not in the same position as the United States. Further, the United States have another reason for having entered into the war as they did, two years after Canada declared war. They were attacked. They are on the defensive. They had been assailed by Japan and they are fighting in this war because, having been attacked by that powerful empire, they have a much greater interest in the war than Canada has.
Our position therefore is not at all comparable with that in which the United States find themselves, and we should not be expected to do everything that has been done in that country with regard to this war. We are doing a mighty effort. Canada deserves the credit and praise of all the nations of the world for what she has been doing, because in reality she is doing more than she was ever expected to do in a conflict like this one. After all, this war, according to an Englishspeaking writer, is a war first of all for power, with liberty and freedom as a result of obtaining power. One has only to go into the library of parliament to find several books by Englishspeaking writers, Canadians and others, indicating that this war is a war for power. I do not object to that. We have to fight force with force. But I contend that Canada has been

Mutual Aid
doing a lot more than she was expected to do, a lot more than it was thought she would be capable of doing.
We are not among the Big Four. What is the use of our boasting and making all the propaganda which is being issued? We are not going to be consulted when the peace terms are drafted; we shall be informed what the decision has been after the four great powers have met, and Canada will have to accept their decisions and the consequences. With that I find no fault, Canada is not one of the great powers of the world. We are a small nation with great aspirations and with very strong hopes for the future, but we have not yet realized our hopes; we have not yet achieved what we think we are capable of achieving by the development of all our resources. We are still a small nation of eleven millions and we should not load ourselves with too many debts, because we do not know what the situation is going to be when peace does come.
I repeat, I am not objecting so much to the fact that we are spending money in the manufacture of armaments and the production of food in order to help the allies, but I want a statement to be kept of what we are giving to the British empire so that when the time does come to divide what there is to be divided, if there is anything to be divided, something will be there to represent in totality what is the share of Canada.
These are my views, which I have expressed as calmly as I could and in all sincerity, though without much hope of making any change in the minds of the hon. members sitting in this house. They are entitled to their own views, their own opinions, as I am entitled to mine. They are as free as I am to express their views openly and to voice their sentiments; otherwise what are we fighting for, if not for the liberty to express our opinions, whether it pleases or not the majority or the minority in Canada? I am under no misapprehension as to the effect of my observations. I feel that they will not convince the supporters of the government; they will not convince the members of the opposition and other members in the house; they will not even shake the conviction of a large section of the representatives of the province of Quebec in this House of Commons. Those members will continue just the same to support the government in this measure, as they have supported the government on other measures. But I thought that I should again speak openly on the subject. This question to my mind is one of the important matters we have to deal with in debating matters relating to the war.
I have the satisfaction at least of having voiced the views and the thoughts of the majority of the citizens of my province. I will go farther than that and say that they are also the views and the thoughts of many citizens living in other provinces.


Mr. S. H. KNOWLES (Winnipeg North Centre):: The views of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation on this important measure have been expressed on previous occasions when comparable bills were before the house, so that it is not necessary for me to speak at any considerable length. However,
I feel that our position should be restated. First of all, we accept the indivisibility of the common cause in which we are all engaged at the present time. Acting from that premise, we agree with those who feel that we should make to the fullest of our capacity whatever contribution we can, whether it be in service on our own behalf or whether it be a contribution to our allies over and above what they purchase from us, as is proposed in this bill.
I know that the government, perhaps I should say members of the party on the opposite side, do not often give us credit for some of the things we do; but I think this should be said, that we in this group, despite the fact that in some quarters there is misunderstanding of this measure, despite the fact that there is some criticism of it, definitely avoid making any political capital out of that criticism. In fact we go to the other extreme and do our best to set aside misunderstanding and to explain just what this bill involves. I know that efforts along that line have been made in particular by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), who leads this group, and I would hope that further efforts might be made by a number of parties in this house, and that still further efforts might be made by the government to allay the misunderstandings that exist in certain quarters. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) has done a pretty good job along that line in some of the statements that he has made in this house. I would suggest to the government that through its propaganda agencies of one sort or another, this is a job that should be undertaken throughout the country, to help our people realize that what we have in this measure is not some mark of colonial subjugation, not some means of bankrupting the country, but rather a means whereby we are enabled to make a contribution of which I feel Canadians generally are proud.
I repeat that, as we see it, this bill-the whole concept of mutual aid legislation-is based on the principle of the absolute indivisibility of the struggle in which we are

Mutual Aid

engaged. I may say at this point that we feel that that principle should be kept in mind for the years that lie ahead. Never again, I hope, shall we think of the world in which we live as one which can be divided up into small sectors. We are engaged in this war as one set of united nations. When the struggle is over, if we are to have peace, it too must be recognized as indivisible, and some of the principles we are seeking to carry out in this bill, such as those involved in UNRRA, we feel, must be carried over and extended in the post-war period.
It warms my heart to talk at times with members of this house from other parties and to find how general, how sincere, how earnest is the desire of members, whatever their political or social philosophy may be, that we may not have to go into another world war some years after this one is over. I earnestly plead that we should recognize, as one principle upon which we must act if we are to avoid another war, the indivisibility of peace and the necessity of being concerned about the lot of our brothers the world over. I hope we shall never forget the principle upon which we have acted in passing these mutual aid bills from year to year.
Another principle which I feel is highlighted by the passing of this bill was stated particularly well by the Minister of Finance on March 3, 1943, at page 931 of Hansard. I should like to quote a sentence which I feel is very significant:
No country goes bankrupt in this way;-
And I emphasize the remainder of the sentence:
-no country goes bankrupt by increasing its production and devoting part or all or more than all of that increase to a supreme cause.
The minister was answering arguments advanced by certain opposition members to the effect that the country was being bankrupted by the huge sums of money being spent on the war. He made certain other comments at that time as well, which I feel might be quoted again, though I do not wish anyone to think I agree with everything said by the Minister of Finance because I am giving these quotations. I quote now from page 930 of Hansard for last year:
We do not pay for the war out of some hoard of money that we have accumulated in the past. ye pay for it out of the taxes and savings that we obtain from the current income of the whole nation. We shall not run short of money.
I emphasize that; the minister said, "We shall not run short of money."
Indeed, our danger is the very reverse of that, namely, that we may pile up too much money in -the pockets and bank accounts of 
Canadians, unless w'e strive with every effort to promote the sale of victory bonds and war savings certificates.
If we are bankrupting the nation, is it not indeed a strange type of -bankruptcy? How can we use such a term to describe the process under which this country has doubled its national income in three years, has wiped out unemployment, has multiplied its production of many things and learned many types of newr skills, has expanded and diversified its production equipment, has multiplied its governmental revenues by more than four times, has enabled millions of its citizens to acquire a nest-egg for the future, has mobilized its -full strength as a producing machine, -and has developed a sense of productive achievement not hitherto known ?
Immediately following that the minister used the words I have quoted already. It seems to me that at that time he laid down a principle which underlies mutual aid, which underlies the mobilizing and organizing of our productive capacity for the war effort, and which should stand before us as a principle to be carried into the post-war period. Many of us are criticized, and some hon. members attempt in their criticism to make us appear ridiculous, when we advocate a much higher standard of living for the Canadian people after the war, when we suggest what at present seem rather high figures for old age pensions, and matters of the kind; yet on that same day the Minister of Finance said:
We can and must make use of that increased capacity after the war. We must develop that potential to the maximum. If we do, we can develop a far higher standard of living for the average Canadian than 'he has ever known before. . . .
My point is that I believe the Minister of Finance is absolutely right when he says we do not bankrupt a country by tremendously increasing our productive capacity and devoting a huge portion of that increase, or more than the increase, to a great cause. That is what we are doing at the present time, and that is what many of us hope we will do after the war. We maintain that we are not advocating something ridiculous, that we are not advocating bankruptcy when we say that following the war the economy of this country should be organized on a basis of full, all-out production to meet a great cause then, just as we are called upon to meet a great cause now. At the present time the great cause is the defeat of nazism and the preservation of our liberties. When the war is over the great cause will be the demands of peace, of a better life for all our people. I am sure the hon. members who preceded me-will agree that this principle should be acted upon in the post-war period, and I had -hoped that perchance this year they might have reached the point where they would have some hope-

Mutual Aid
that this would be done-that after the war we would continue the policy of organizing our production on a high level and devoting a large portion of it to the great cause of peace. My hope was that some of those who have opposed these measures previously might come to understand them in those terms and be prepared to support the measure this year, realizing that the struggle in which we are engaged is a great task, and having the hope and assurance that the same principle would be carried over into the post-war period; for that is our position.
During the past several days references have been made on a number of occasions to getting certain things free. I feel that the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell) perhaps chose the wrong word when he spoke of getting things for nothing, even with respect to mutual aid, for example. Nothing in this world is had for nothing. The world is not getting free the supplies that we make available. We in Canada, as part of the united nations, are contributing the effort, the energy and the work necessary to produce those supplies. But what is involved, if I -may again use the language of the Minister of Finance, is this: that on a national scale, indeed on a united nations scale, we are planning for the greatest production possible. Then, by a national decision, we take a portion of that great production and devote it to a great cause. What we are asking in the post-war period, when we suggest there should be better old age pensions and other forms of social security and a higher standard of living for our people, is not that something be given for nothing, not that something be plucked out of thin air, but that this same principle be carried over; that we organize our production on a national scale on the highest possible basis, and then, by a national decision, take a large portion of that increased production and devote it to a great cause.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: If the hon. member
will permit a question, would he propose to pay for that portion with increased debt in Canada, as we are doing during the war?


Stanley Howard Knowles: The minister, in the passages to which I referred, pointed out although I am afraid he did not really follow it through-that we are paying for this war, not out of some hoard, in other words not out of something that has to be put back, but out of current income, current production. That is our contention-that no matter what the financiers and the bookkeepers may think, the war is being fought to-day, not out of dollars that will be paid out in the future, not out of future production. The planes,
guns, tanks, food and clothing we are using in this war are being provided out of present production.


Mr. HOMUTH:: Who is going to buy the
bonds?	'


Stanley Howard Knowles: We are carrying on the war out of goods that are being produced at the present time.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: We are also committing ourselves to billions of dollars of indebtedness to our people.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We are committing ourselves, unfortunately, to the principle of taxing future production, and of paying a portion of that future production to certain people who are getting control of the debt of the country.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Oh, no. The indebtedness is with the people of the country. That is nonsense.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We have had plenty of statistics tabled in the house to show how debt in this country is divided, where the national debt will be held in the years which lie ahead, and who will benefit mostly from that.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: It is held by insurance companies-and that is the money of the people.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: There were 30,000 people in my constituency who bought victory bonds.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Another point I wish to speak about is that this bill has highlighted the principle that it is undesirable to build up inter-allied debts to be carried over into the post-war period. That is the principle which underlay lend-lease when it was initiated in the United States, and I regard it as one of the principles underlying mutual aid in Canada. I have re-read with interest the debate which took place on this point last year when the Mutual Aid bill was before the house, and I think I know what answers the Minister of Finance might make. But it still seems to me that if the principle is valid that we should not increase our interallied debts because of the war, then that principle should be extended to the point of our endeavouring now to clear the decks of such inter-allied debt as we had before the war.
I feel it should be stated again on behalf of this group that now is the time to be discussing the repatriation of Canadian securities still held in England. We do not feel, and we are not prepared to accept the charge,
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that that is demanding cash on the barrel head. The position we would take is this. We support the bill, and we support the view that this contribution should be made, even if there is a refusal on the part of the United Kingdom government to consider the proposal to repatriate those securities. In other words there is no demand, there is no insistance that there must be cash on the barrel head. But we are suggesting that if it is recognized as a principle that inter-allied debts should not be built up, then it is an equally valid principle that such debts as now exist, which call for the diversion' of a great portion of the wealth of this country to individuals in other countries after the war is over, should be cancelled. I say that now, when we are pooling our resources, thinking of the indivisibility of the common cause, and working together as a partner with the united nations, is a good time to suggest that there should be repatriation of those securities, so that some of the great corporations of Canada, the ownership of which is now to such a large extent outside this country, might come to the people of the country.


Mr. ILSLEY:: If my hon. friend will permit me, when I used the term "inter-allied debts"
I meant inter-governmental debts. So that the hon. member is announcing a new principle. He is not applying my principle when he extends the definition of inter-allied debts beyond inter-governmental debts.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I accept the statement made by the minister as to his position, but it seems to me that debts which have to be paid to people in another country, after the war, out of wealth produced1 in this country, have the same effect on the economy of this country and on the standard of living and welfare of our people. I am quite prepared to accept his statement as to his understanding of the principle involved in the bill. But the principle should be carried farther, as I have suggested.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Does the hon. member not sacrifice the first principle, the indivisibility of the common cause, if he requires payments in securities? The hon. member could only be proceeding on the basis of the supplying of goods being a sale to a nation whose cause was separate from the cause of the supplier of the goods. If the hon. member applies his principle of the indivisibility of the common cause he cannot require payment in cash or securities.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: They have always left off the in ; it has always been " divisibility."


Stanley Howard Knowles: There seems to be a good deal of misunderstanding in many quarters 
around here. I think I made it quite clear a moment ago that we feel that payment in these securities should not be demanded. In fact, it is noit payment we are talking about, but cancelation of debt. My statement was that we support this measure, first and foremost; and we say that this contribution should be made on the basis of the indivisibility of the common cause. And even though the minister is not prepared to go that far with me, we feel that as part of that indivisibility of the common cause it is a good idea to clear the decks of debt as between nations, between governments and between individuals in those various nations. We suggest that now is a good time to discuss that matter, so that when the war is over we shall not find ourselves with these barriers between us; barriers which were there before the war started. During this war we have realized that trade among nations, particularly with respect to war supplies, but also with respect to food and other civilian goods, must be planned. We have developed the concept of bulk purchases. We even had an announcement in the house not long ago from the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) respecting a plan for the sale of bacon to Great Britain over a period which we hope will extend into the post-war years. Our contention is that these principles, which the war has forced us to recognize, aTe good.
Thus I emphasize the indivisibility of the common cause, and the fact that when we devote a large portion of increased production, or more than the increase, to a great cause, we are not bankrupting our people. I suggest also that the principle of clearing the decks of debts which have been barriers between us is a good one, and should be carried over into the post-war period.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: In 1939 and 1940 how were you contributing to the common cause?


Stanley Howard Knowles: It was not my intention, Mr. Speaker, to speak at length, but I have been kept going by the interesting interjections which have been coming from various quarters. However, I was anxious to make clear our position in respect of this measure. We feel that the principles to which I have pointed as being part of this bill should be highlighted, should be remembered and should be acted upon, not only now but after the war. We feel, too, that at the present time this measure should pass.


Mr. E. G. HANSELL (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker, I made some comments on this matter yesterday when it was in the resolution stage. There is not a great deal more that I care to say, but since the bill is up for second reading and some hon. members have

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preceded me, I am prompted to say a few things further. This group was in favour of the principle embodied in this bill as far back as when we first began to give aid to Britain a few years ago, and has consistently favoured it throughout.
On the surface the bill appears to be a magnanimous gesture on the part of Canada toward the united nations, but it may not be so magnanimous when all the details of the intricate financial operations are understood.
I do not claim to understand them all. On the surface it appears that we are producing so much goods and are taking $800,000,000 worth of them and giving them to the united nations. That is the general and broad principle ; that is why it appears to be a magnanimous gesture. When it comes to the financial operations and all the details of how the thing is handled, that is another matter, and one which requires a good deal of study. I do not claim to be a financial expert. As a matter of fact some of us have been studying some of these things for a good many years and even now I must confess that I feel I am only beginning to. touch the fringe of a tremendous and vast subject. That is the thought that strikes me when I begin to go into all the intricacies of the machinery of our financial operations.
However, it does not take a great deal of study or a superabundance of intelligence to understand a few of the outstanding principles embodied in a measure of this kind or even in the general economy of the country or of nations as a whole. I said that on the face of it this bill appears to be a magnanimous gesture to the united nations, and I do not see how one can oppose it on those grounds. I have heard the remarks of one or two speakers this afternoon and it seems to me they might benefit from an imaginative illustration of what the government is doing. Let us suppose I find myself mixed up in a sort of brawl, that I am faced with a parade of rebels coming down the street with torches, sticks, guns, axes and clubs and my neighbours come running to me saying: They are going to burn down your house; they are against us! My friends step out and try to disperse the mob, and in doing so they use my axe, my gun and my pitchfork. After they have dispersed the mob should I turn to them and say: Thank you, gentlemen; that was a wonderful thing, . but you have destroyed my axe, you have broken my pitchfork, and I will have to charge you for them; you have destroyed my land and my garden, and you must pay me so much money?
Of course you would say that would be a foolish thing to do; you would say it would be senseless to do that. But in principle that
is exactly what is happening. I am certain that if it had not been for many circumstances the nazis might have completed their march of the continents. Some things have happened in this war which were considered impossible when it started. When we see that happening which was thought to be impossible, there is no reason to sit back and say: We are far away from the scene; the nazis can never get over here. They might have got over here; we do not know.
For instance, what happened to Great Britain? That country took the greatest possible punishment that any nation could take. The hon. member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Jaques) was in England a few months ago, and he told me the other day that one out of ten people you see on the streets of England is in uniform. We know that England took it. What are we doing now? We are simply saying: We want to share in this; and we take measures such as this to carry out that wish.
However, as I said, it may not be such a wonderful thing when we consider the details of its operation. The minister may correct me if my diagnosis of these operations is not the right one. There are a lot of intricacies about the way this proposal operates. I cannot go into the minister's department and discover this, that or the other thing, although I might be welcomed there. It seems to me that the net result of all this kind of legislation is simply that we are giving Great Britain a credit of $800,000,000. That is reflected in the goods that we ship over there.
I do not know whether the minister will answer this at some future time, but I should like to ask whether it makes any material difference, whether $800,000,000 will go into the Canadian debt structure or $800,000,000 into the British debt structure. The hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres (Mr. Cardin) said, as I understood him, that he wanted to know the goods that went over there, that there should be a sort of inventory made of what was shipped out. To my mind in an operation of this kind it does not make a particle of difference what is shipped out. As a matter of fact I have some doubt whether the government can tell us what goods will actually come under this particular measure. So far as I can see, in the end it only means that Great Britain will not have to pay Canada $800,000,000. In other words, $800,000,000 is lopped off Great Britain's debt to Canada.
There is another aspect of the matter which, while it has not confused me, has given me occasion for some little thought. While this may appear to be a gift to Britain, in reality it is not a gift of goods to the Briitsh people.
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In other words, the British people are not getting their goods for nothing. They have to pay for them just the same. A million sacks of flour, we will say, go over to Great Britain. Suppose there is a label on those sacks of flour, "Gift to Britain" or "Mutual Aid to Britain-milled in Canada." That does not mean for a moment that the people of Britain can go to the retail stores and say: Oh, this is a gift to us; I will take one of those sacks of flour. No, the people of Great Britain when they want to buy that flour must pay, to use the expression of the Minister of Finance, cash on the barrel head, whatever that may be-I do not know why barrel head is brought into it. I would like the minister or some other competent authority to trace that money through. Here are half a million people buying half a million dollars' worth of our goods. The money comes out of their pockets. It passes over the counters. The retailers get the money and pay their debts, and where does the money eventually repose? I ask that question. I have not been able to follow it through. Does it repose in the British treasury, or does it repose in some purchasing board or in the banking institutions of Great Britain? That may be a small matter, but it is something I would like to have made clear. So far as I can see, the only result is that 8800,000,000 of credit is cut off from the debt owed by Great Britain to Canada.
May I put it in this way? We pass this bill, and we send to Great Britain 8800,000,000 worth of goods. Those goods have to be paid for in Canada; the 8800,000,000 to pay for them comes out of either borrowings or taxation, and I think it will be discovered that most of it comes out of borrowings. The people of Canada then owe the greater portion of that 8800,000,000; for it is chalked up as part of the national debt. Personally I do not believe that Canada's debt will ever be paid off; it may be, but I do not think so.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Not with this government.


Ernest George Hansell: I do not think it will be paid off with any government, and when I make that statement let me say emphatically that I am not breaking down any confidence which the people of Canada have in the victory bonds they now hold. They will be paid, certainly. They will be paid through some sort of refunding scheme; we shall continue to refund every so many years and the debt will still remain. This 8800,000,000 will go into our debt structure, and it can remain there, so far as I am concerned, for centuries to come. The burden on the people of Canada is to pay the interest on that
8800,000,000.

Let us transplant our thoughts for a moment to Great Britain. Suppose Great Britain handles her debt as we handle ours, and retires her maturing obligations only by postponing them through a process of refunding. If my premise is right, why cannot the $800,000,000 go into the debt structure of Britain instead of into ours?	That is a
question I should like to have answered if possible.
Some who have spoken this afternoon have referred to the merits of this bill with respect to the post-war period. By this bill a certain principle is established, I agree; and what is the principle? The principle that is established is that it is possible to pay for something, and then after you have paid for it or borrowed to pay for it-I do not care how it is done-it is possible to give it away.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) has stated that what we need in the post-war period is to organize our production on a very high level, perhaps on a higher level than that of to-day. I have no fault to find with that, except that if that is all you do, you do not solve the problem; for the problem that Canada faces now is not the problem of production at all. That problem has been solved. As the Minister of Munitions and Supply said last night, our present productive genius has reached the point where we can produce everything in Canada. The problem now is how to get the goods to the people. You cannot get them to the people through the amount of money that goes into the pockets of the people in wages, salaries, dividends, interest and profits, because there is not enough money coming out of that process to buy back all the goods that can be produced, and so you will always have a surplus of goods. As the surpluses pile up, you are going to put men out of work. The problem is not to find everybody jobs. As a matter of fact in a very high order of civilization the cutting down of the working hours, reducing the number of man-hours, giving people more time to themselves-that is the ideal objective. If by a process of using purchasing power as a free gift to our people, starting with old age pensions if you like, you can buy the surplus goods and get them into the hands of the people who need them, I ask, is there anything wrong with that? Oh, somebody may say, that would be something for nothing. My friend says it does not come out of thin air. Let me change the terminology and say that by the use of free purchasing power the money will come out of the end of a fountain pen; for that is the way the money comes out now, and it stands as a debt.

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If the principle of this bill is right-and evidently it is, for it is working-there is no reason why the principle of the bill cannot be applied in the post-war period. There is no reason why we cannot produce and buy the goods, do the same thing we are doing under this bill, but give them to our .own people instead of to the people of other nations. That is my position.
I agree with the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre that an important principle is involved here, and the charming thing about it is that it is a principle that is working. Let us put it to work inside Canada when peace comes.
We in this group, Mr. Speaker, are in favour of the bill.
Mr. KARL K. HOMUTH (Waterloo South): Before we carry this bill there are one or two remarks I would like to make with respect to it. I listened attentively to the remarks of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), acting leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, this afternoon, and his enunciation of great principles touching what we should do and where Canada should stand. My memory went back to the years 1938, 1939 and 1940, when the principle enunciated by the hon. member's party was that the only attitude Canada should take in the war was, how much profit could we make out of it and how many jobs could be provided in this country by supplying materials for overseas.
The one matter about which I am alarmed is as to what materials are being purchased with the money voted under this and like bills. No one doubts that, regardless of all the resolutions which are passed and all the committees which are set up, when the war is over there will be strong economic competition between countries. In the little yellow book containing the report of the Canadian mutual aid board I note a list, running only to the end of March, 1944, of of some of the things we are purchasing and providing for Russia. That country has always been represented to Canadians by members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party as a land flowing with milk and honey, with an ideal diversity and divisibility of effort, where nothing is wrong, where collective farming and every other activity ordinarily associated with socialism is practised; and in this list I observe that large numbers of machines and quantities of other equipment are being dispatched to Russia under this mutual aid arrangement. If my information is correct, orders from Soviet Russia to the value of millions upon millions of dollars are now being worked on in various factories
of the dominion. I think the people of Canada would like to know whether these products, particularly these machines, are for war purposes. Personally I think they are not, because the orders I have in mind cannot be completed before the end of the war if the war 'should end within the next two or three years. How much of the money allocated to mutual aid is going in payment of these machines? It must be assumed that these machines are to go into the economic set-up of Soviet Russia and will be operating in the economic war which will follow this war; and unless the Russians raise their standards of living to those of Canada-which, however some may criticize them, are the highest of any country in the world-these machines will be operated against the interests of the working men of Canada.
Mr. II.SLEY:	The hon. gentleman is mistaken. No non-war machines are being supplied to Soviet Russia on mutual aid.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: I am willing to take the
minister's word for that, but it does not wholly reassure me. If Russia has money to pay for these millions upon millions of dollars' worth of orders which are being given in Canada for the advantage of their future economy, they should be able to pay for some of the things which come under the mutual aid scheme. I do not know how the matter is worked out. I doubt if the minister knows; I doubt whether anyone knows except Russia herself. It is a serious matter, and we should see to it that whatever money we freely give or whatever equipment is provided without charge is given in such a way that the interests of Canadian working men will not be .jeopardized when the war is over.


Mr. H. R. JACKMAN (Rosedale):: I not only support the administration in the $800 million mutual aid bill, but, as the minister probably knows, I go somewhat farther. I did not have the pleasure this afternoon of hearing the remarks of the hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres (Mr. Cardin) or all the remarks of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles); but knowing the tenor of the remarks of the first-mentioned hon. member I should like to say a few things with regard to what I consider mutual aid to be.
The present resolution calls for an additional $800 million, which is $200 million less than last year. As to the part of the $800 million *which goes to Britain, we know that Great Britain has virtually no Canadian assets with which to pay for the war material which she receives.
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penses. The amount of $2,800,000,000 which we have spent in the past three years represents a debt of $250 per capita upon Canada's 11,600,000 inhabitants.
Apart from Canada, only the United States has given mutual aid, but the wealth and income of that country are far greater than our own. Their present national income amounts to the tremendous sum of $180,000,000,000 per annum, which is about twenty times higher than ours, and their revenue for 1944 will come to $42,578,000,000, that is, about twenty times our figure. According to a preliminary report submitted by the Lend-Lease Board and put on record in the American senate last April, the United States between March 31, 1941, when they adopted the lend-lease bill, and March 31, 1944, delivered, under lend-lease, various goods amounting to $21,794,000,000.
That represents, mind you, only 5 per cent of their national income for the last three years, whereas our gifts equal 12 per cent: that also is only 25 per cent of their federr' income for the same period, as compared with 37 per cent in the case of Canada; in fact, that represents an increase of only 15 per cent in their public debt since 1942, as compared with 50 per cent in the case of Canada. On -the other hand, we have had nothing in return, absolutely nothing. Yet, our war effort is greater than that of any other country; we are making gifts which no other country makes. Here is what the United States receive for the mutual aid it gives in the form of lease-lend loans. It has obtained naval and air bases in British colonies on this side of the Atlantic and industrial and commercial advantages in latin America, Africa and the Far East; for instance, in Australia, lease-lend assistance serves to pay the cost of the maintenance of American troops in the Pacific zone, which reduces to that extent the apparent amount provided in the form of mutual aid. Until now, Canada has not benefited from mutual aid, or at least the government have never disclosed anything in that connection.
Now, is any thought being given to what these sums represent for Canada; is it realized which use this country could have made of the 82,800.000,000 it has distributed outright?
In the first place, a better salary could have been paid to our workers. According to the Marsh report, in 1941 the annual income of about 62 per cent of Canadian wage-earners was under $950; yet, a gift of one billion dollars was made! At this time the annual income of nearly 60 per cent of Canadian 
wage-earners is lower than $1,400 which is the minimum on which a family may enjoy a decent standard of living.
To what other uses could that money have been put? It could have helped to raise the public health standard. The medical examination of draftees shows that about 55 per cent, of these men are unfit for active service. Those gifts could have been used for the elimination of slums in our larger cities. Let it be remembered that to-day in the city of Montreal some families have to live in garages. People were living in shacks where children suffered from cold last winter under conditions that are absolutely unsanitary and where those children are exposed to tuberculosis. That is what could have, but has not, been done. It was deemed preferable to achieve a war effort greater than that of any other country, and to make further gifts, amounting to billions of dollars.
Mr. Chairman, those are some of the reasons why I oppose this new gift of $800,000,000.
(Text):
i Mr. NORMAN JAQUES (Wetaskiwin): Mr. Speaker, since it was my good fortune to spend several months last winter in Great Britain I feel I should pay a humble tribute to the people of that country for the contribution, they have made and are making to, the common cause of winning the war. Mention has been made of Canada's gift to Great Britain and the allied cause, but may I remind some hon. members that those gifts had to be taken by sea and distributed to the various countries. I travelled to Great Britain in a convoy last December and I was two weeks on the Atlantic after leaving Halifax. I talked to the officers and men of the ship I was on, and I learned a lot and heard a lot about the business of convoying which I had not heard before and which I doubt very much the majority of people know to-day.
Unlike battles on the land or naval engagements, the convoys are more or less secret. Losses are not reported. I was unpleasantly surprised to hear that at the time I was crossing sinkings were quite frequent. I do not think there was a man on the ship, and if there was I did not meet him, who had not been torpedoed at least once. The captain had had three ships sunk under him and most of the officers and the crew had experienced more than one sinking. I must confess that I found those two weeks rather trying, not knowing from one minute to the other whether the ship might be suddenly blown up. Mine was a voyage of only two weeks, but the merchant seamen of Great Britain have been undergoing this strain since the beginning of the war nearly five years ago and will continue-

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to undergo it until the end of the war. I do not think any words of mine are capable of conveying the debt that we owe these men.
I should like to say one word about the convoys to Russia. I was told by some of the officers who had been on Russian convoys that losses of thirty per cent were not uncommon and that on one occasion every ship in the convoy was destroyed. The situation became so bad that for a time that route was discontinued and supplies were sent around the cape of Good Hope and through the near east to Russia.
The people of Great Britain are contributing by means of a reduced standard of living. The ship I was on carried 4,000 tons of Canadian bacon. When I got to Bristol I went into a refreshment room in the station and I suppose the Canadian bacon suggested a ham sandwich to me. I asked the girl at the counter for a ham sandwich and she looked at me and said,
" What did you say?" I said, " I just want a ham sandwich." She said, " Here are the sandwiches." I said, "What are they?" She said, " Paste." I said, " What do you mean by paste?" She said, " God knows, it is coloured and flavoured; that is all I can tell you." I do not think she was far wrong.
In all the weeks that I spent in Great Britain I never saw a piece of beef, let alone taste it. Beef was not for the civilian. I was in some of the best clubs in London and the best they could provide was some curried rabbit. There was no beef or steak, none of the things we are accustomed to here. Even the glass of sherry had become unprocurable. [DOT] I had some wine that came from Algiers, but I was advised to put salt in it which might improve the flavour.
Then Great Britain has had her air raids. I saw several air raids and I saw the evidence of former raids in a number of the cities, such as London, Southampton, Bristol, Liverpool and one or two smaller places. In Southampton, for instance, the whole of the central part of the city has gone. It is as though in Ottawa all of Sparks street and Bank street had disappeared. I was told that the situation in other cities was worse, even for instance, in Plymouth, Hull and Coventry. It was bad enough in the cities that I saw.
Then there is the blackout, which we are spared but which they have to endure. The blackout by itself is bad enough, but when you add fog to it you have a situation that is positively alarming. I was caught one night in the blackout and a London fog. I thought I knew what a London fog meant because I had seen plenty of them before I came to Canada. But I had never seen fog combined with the blackout. There I was in the very
centre of London, at six o'clock in the evening, with not a light visible, not a sound to be heard. I was going from the Overseas club in Dean's yard, Westminster, to Victoria station and the only way I could get along was by tapping my stick along the edge of the pavement. I passed a convoy of about eight buses crawling behind a man carrying an oil flare, getting home the best way they could. The people of Britain have had to put up with those conditions for years, which we in Canada fortunately have been spared.
Travelling by train is another hardship. The trains are terribly overcrowded. I remember going from London to Scotland between Christmas and New Year's. I took the precaution to take a first-class ticket and I was in the station an hour and a half before the train started, but that did not help me very much. I should have known better but I had been asked to go and I could not very well refuse. I was caught between two armies at King's Cross. One army was returning to Scotland from Christmas leave and the other army was going to Scotland to celebrate New Year's. I was in between the two armies. The railway officials just threw up their hands and left us to it. I stood there for an hour and a half before the train came in, and I was very lucky to be able to get on board, let alone get a seat. The windows of the train could not be opened because of the blackout; in a very short time the air became difficult to breathe, and I wondered if I was going to survive. I knew I could not stand the whole twelve hours to Edinburgh and I said to myself, "Eventually, so why not now?" And I lay down on the floor and then realized that I had a carpet to lie on at least for the extra first-class fare.
Those are some of the things which, if you look at it in the right way, the people of Great Britain are contributing and have been contributing to the war effort. We have been spared these hardships and inconveniences. Our standard of living is practically as good as it was before the war. There is some inconvenience but not much. You can always with a little trouble get a berth on a train in Canada, but you cannot do so in Britain. You have to stand, and you are lucky if you can get on the train.
Finally, I should like to mention the battle of Britain. In my opinion and in the opinion of most people the war would be over had Britain gone down then. No aid would have been possible to our allies, no invasion of France, no bombing of Germany. Long before this the war would have been over for the greater part of the world. Whether the Germans could have extended their operations
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to the western hemisphere I do not know, but there is no doubt about this, that had it not been for the sacrifices and the achievements of the Royal Air Force Britain would have gone down. With the R.A.F. and the R.C.A.F., of whom Churchill said, "Never was so much owed by so many to so few", I should like to link the Polish air force, which fought superbly in the battle of Britain. I was told over and over again that the Polish air force had played a very great part in winning the battle of Britain, that possibly they turned the scale. I was told that in skill and daring they were not surpassed even by our own air force. I mention that because I have not seen it in print and I think our debt to the Polish air force and to Poland should be acknowledged.
These are just a few remarks, Mr. Speaker, that I thought I should like to make as a personal tribute to the sacrifices which the people of Britain have been making ever since the war started and which I observed in the short time when I was over there. I felt that I should take this opportunity to pay that tribute.


Mr. BROOKE CLAXTON (St. Lawrence-St. George):: Mr. Speaker, our attitude toward this bill depends on one thing and one thing alone, namely, whether or not we regard this war as our war, as Canada's war, a war in which Canada as one of the allies must put forth its utmost effort. On that score the attitude of this house and of the people of Canada since the outbreak of the war leaves no room for doubt whatever. This is Canada's war, and that means, if we are honest with ourselves and regard our responsibilities seriously, that we must do everything we can to assist in winning the war. We have been fortunate in Canada. We have been spared a great deal of what other nations have suffered. We have been fortunate because of geography, because the United Kingdom stood betw'een us and our common enemy, because she had the spirit and the will to resist when the odds were terribly against her. We have also been spared in Canada because of our own contribution, and if we are sometimes told that that contribution made a crucial difference to Britain and the cause for which we are fighting, then we should be happy that we were in a position to make that contribution when we alone were in a position to make it. What we did with our aid to the United Kingdom and what we have done with our aid to the other allies fighting on our side was to put arms into the hands of those who could best use them for us as well as for ourselves, whether they were our soldiers or the soldiers of our allies and of the sister members of the commonwealth.
rMr. Jaques.]
The hon. member for Beauharnois-Laprairie (Mr. Raymond) suggested that we should get machine for machine and dollar for dollar. I would have thought that he would be one of those who would recognize that you cannot measure everything in material terms, that you cannot measure everything in terms of machines and dollars, that there are human and spiritual and moral values, and that we are not only fighting for those values but fighting with those values. We cannot match our contribution in terms of minerals, and metals and munitions and money with the contributions of other nations such as China, Russia and the United Kingdom, that have made such tremendous sacrifices in lives.
In fact that kind of argument leads to comparisons which not only have no validity but actually are definitely harmful to the cause of the united nations. The united nations depend for their success-and they have a long way to go-on their staying united, on their having trust in each other, on their sharing the burdens in proportion to their ability to bear those burdens. We shall not stay united if we begin to compare sacrifices in terms of so many men, so many lives, so many dollars, and try to strike that kind of impossible balance. All that we can do, if we recognize that this is our war, is to do our utmost in every direction.
It so happens that Canada is one of the few nations on the face of the earth which to-day have an exportable surplus of munitions of war. That is because of our natural resources, because of our geographical position, because of the wa3r in which farmers, industry, management and government have combined to make those resources available when they were needed to make the utmost contribution to the allied cause.
But also, Mr. Speaker, it is important in our discussions in the difficult days which lie ahead-they are going to be difficult-that we should not compare the contributions of different classes and groups in the community with those of other classes and groups, any more than we should make comparisons between the contributions of different nations. No one can measure the contribution of Britain in any measurable terms; no one can measure the contribution of Russia in measurable terms; and I suggest that that kind of comparison should be left out of our discussion if we are to stay united. But also we must stay united not only on the international front against the enemy, but, in order to make our utmost effort, we must stay united on the national front at home.
Consequently, I am sure that all hon. members deprecate comparisons between different

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parts of the country and different classes. I am sorry in a way that I was drawn into making such a comparison, or followed someone who did, in the discussion on June 6, when the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) said that industry is just as vital to the war effort as what is being done by the soldiers. Well, it did not seem to me that that particular day, when our soldiers had just landed on the shores of Europe, was a good day to make that remark, and I denied its validity. I think I was right in doing that. But I recognize, of course, as do all hon, members, that it is only by the combined efforts of our farmers, our workers, our soldiers, of all our people, of all our organizations and governments, that we can make not only the effort of which we are capable in the war- and which has won the admiration of the world-but also the effort we should make to win the peace after the war.
Unity at home and unity abroad are two things we need to have above everything else. I most sincerely hope that hon. members and others outside will agree with me that comparisons, except for the purposes of decent emulation, are not only invidious but are likely to divide us and divide our allies and assist the enemy, whether that enemy be Hitler or Japan, or the enemies we shall have to meet after the war in the form of poverty and ill health and the other foes we shall then have to face.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), speaking in London, said:
Canada's fight for freedom will be a fight to the finish. It is clear to our people that this war is all one war: a monstrous conspiracy of the fascist powers to dominate and enslave the world. Having taken up arms of their own free wrill, the Canadian people will not relax until freedom is secure. Canada's effort will be an enduring effort.
We have also sought to look beyond the war; to make our effort a long-range effort. The Canadian people, no less than the people of Britain, whose sacrifices have been so great, need the promise of a brighter future. To sustain us in our endeavours, we all need the vision of a new world order.
By coordinated action, by mutual aid, by continuous cooperation, the united nations are achieving military victory. The widest measure of cooperation will be no less needed in the making and keeping of peace. While our primary aim, like yours, is military victory, our ultimate aim, like yours, is a better future for mankind.
This bill and the great purpose it aims to carry out are part of our work to win the war. It also provides that funds shall be available to pay Canada's contribution to the work of the united nations relief and rehabilitation administration, a work which has captured the imagination of civilized people everywhere
throughout the world. UNRRA, as it is called, is a partnership of the united nations- the first to be formed. Its aim is to form a community chest to help the nations that are liberated from the enemy to help themselves. UNRRA naturally follows mutual aid, and that is why the two are dealt with in one bill. Victory cannot be won only with the defeat of the enemy. The provision of relief to the people of Europe and Asia who are liberated by the arms of our soldiers and our allies is part of the victory for which we are fighting. Their rehabilitation is part of the victory for which we are fighting. These two great objects form one part of the total defeat of our enemies in this war and in the peace- in war our enemies are Germany and Japan; in the peace, the enemies are fear and poverty and want.


Mr. FRED ROSE (Cartier):: Mr. Speaker, the sum of S800 million suggested for the provision of war-time mutual aid may seem to some too large, while others believe that it is not enough. I hold the view that this amount falls far short of what it is Canada's interest at this time to give her allies. In fighting this war we pay for the clothing, the food and the weapons of our soldiers. This is a fact that is obvious to everyone, but what has not yet become clear to many is that we also have to supply these needs to those people who are fighting the common enemy. A Canadian fighting in France to-day, having beside him a British soldier or a Frenchman, would be only too happy to see that man with the finest equipment, to help him in the battle of liberation. That is the way we have to look at the problem of mutual aid.
I appreciate the words of the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George when he spoke of the humanitarian approach rather than the approach of those who give us cold figures to show what we could do with the money. There is one little thing they forget, that there is a war on and that the war has to be fought to the end, to victory; otherwise we shall have very little. War business as usual, I am very happy to see, is not making the grade in this war, and because we refused to allow the old methods of the last war to act as a brake on our war effort we naturally decided on mutual aid. Our population is
11,000,000 in three million square miles and we are short of military man-power for its defence, but we have a very large productive capacity to aid others who are fighting the same enemy. What was physically possible had to be made financially possible and this mutual aid was our answer, a war-time necessity.

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According to the statement made by the. Minister of Finance (Mr. Xlsley), expenditures for war supplies transferred to Britain in the course of last year amounted to $724,000,000 out of a total of $913,000,000. According to the same statement, a further quantity of munitions amounting to $90,000,000 was purchased by Britain through drawing on the funds she had previously paid into the munitions production revolving fund, and another $165,000,000 of equipment was purchased by the British government through selling their interests in Canad.an plants. Thus, we actually sent to various united nations munitions and other materials amounting to a sum away beyond the one billion dollars. The present figure is $800,000,000, allowing $77,000,000 for UNRRA-quite a reduction.
I ask the house, why the reduction at this time? When men of the united nations are involved in the hardest of the battles, why should we at this time decide that this reduction is justifiable? Materials will be expended at a great rate and we should have no illusions. We have still to learn the amount of material that will be needed. We have learned the lesson of Cassino. At Cassino we learned that planes are good but that we need more and more guns and shells; hence we had suddenly to step up production of guns and shells. We learned at Sicily that we need a lot of automotive equipment. We were short of trucks and many other vehicles and we decided to step up production.
It is better to have more than less. We cannot afford to start learning lessons at this time. The nazi war machine has not yet unleashed its full counter attacks. We do not know what it will be, but we expect that it will come; and the Germans, who still have the European production machine at their disposal, must be met with more powerful material. For that reason the reduction is not justifiable.
The report of the minister notes that war supplies transferred to Britain amounted to $724,000,000; to Russia, $23,000,000; to Australia, $21,000,000, and to China, $4,000,000. In view of the enormous scope of the Soviet and Chinese war efforts, what was allocated to the forces of those nations appears remarkably small. It is natural, because of our closer relations with the British and of earlier placements of war orders in this country, that they should receive the largest share of mutual aid. It scarcely seems logical, however, that Canada should continue in the position of debtor to Britain. In the matter of this indebtedness, I want to quote from a statement of the Minister of Finance to this house on March 18, 1942:
[Hr. Rosed
I have not the accurate figures, but there are Canadian dollar securities still owned in the United Kingdom having an approximate value of $700,000,000. Also there are certain sterling securities on or in Canadian property and enterprises which may have a value of something like $300,000,000.
Prior to the billion-dollar gift to Britain which preceded last year's Mutual Aid bill, this country financed British purchases of munitions by repatriating $700,000,000 of Canadian securities. Without stinting anything to the British, I still cannot see why we stopped short there, why we stopped repatriating Canadian securities.
In connection wdth our expenditures on mutual aid, I wish to say a few words about certain isolationist elements in the province of Quebec who are loud in their condemnation of any contribution to help the allies in fighting the common enemy. They cynically call themselves nationalists, although they should be the first ones to know that if the. nazis had won the battle of Europe, even if they had not crossed over here, the situation for all peoples would have been a terrific one, and French Canadians would have been among those to lose all the rights they have at the present time. What is more, I have heard them here on a number of occasions complaining of a few workers having been sent away from a war factory somewhere in a town in Quebec. I do not understand such logic. If you do not want any war orders; if you do not want to give help to anyone, why do you complain when a few people have to be laid off because of curtailment in production or because of certain changes in types of shells in Bouchard or somewhere else? What gives work to some people in Montreal and elsewhere in the province of Quebec? What gives work to aircraft workers at Noorduyn, Vickers and Fairchild?
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Fred Rose: Mr. Speaker, mutual aid has given work to many people in the province of Quebec. The aluminum sent to our allies came from the Arvida area, the guns from Dominion Engineering and Sorel Industries, the shells from the Cherrier and Buochard filling plants, wireless apparatus from Marconi, RCA-Victor and Northern Electric, the tanks from the Angus shops and Montreal Locomotive, and clothing from many of the clothing plants throughout the province. Yes, mutual aid has given work to the people, and they have no

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kick coming in that regard. Are they opposed to the idea of this aid, as some of the isolationists try to make out? I should like to give this house an example to show that the people of Quebec are just as conscious of the need of aiding the allies on behalf of Canada as is anyone else. Some time ago there was a campaign in aid of Russia, during which a collection was taken up at the Angus shops in Montreal, where the greater percentage of the workers are French-Canadians. In the course of a few days they gave, out of their own pockets, some S3,400. They have no complaints about mutual aid.
Unfortunately, however, there is a small but loud group whose hatred, I would say, of the British people and whose love for isolationism blind them to the realities of life. The great patriots of Quebec were not anti-British. I recall the letter sent by the committee of patriots, signed by Louis Joseph Papineau, in which he told the British people that he had no quarrel with them. He differentiated between certain ruling groups and the British people themselves. Unfortunately some people in my province fail to make that distinction at the present time. They claim to be antiimperialists, but they never had any objection to Mussolini's conquests. Less than two years ago Henri Bourassa spoke of Mussolini's Italy as the great Christian nation. Our troops now in that countiy have since found out what poverty and corruption exist there. So that I submit, Mr. Speaker, that these people, these so-called nationalists, are doing the people of Quebec a great injustice when in their name they try to oppose the idea of mutual aid.
There is another aspect of mutual aid this year; that is, the aspect of UNRRA, to which our contribution will be 877,000,000, much of which will be spent in this country in addition to other cash purchases by our allies made with the approval of UNRRA. These purchases should not be limited to wheat but should include clothing and other articles in order that employment may be given to people in the province of Quebec.
We know that mutual aid is necessary for victory, but mutual aid also can become a pattern for the post-war period, a new relationship between nations. In this connection I should like to quote from a radio speech by the United States under-secretary of state, Edward Stettinius, who said:
Lend-lease operations, as we know them, now, will some day draw to a close, but we know already that the principle of mutual aid in mutual self-interest that is embodied in the lend-lease act must live on. To-day there is more unity of purpose and of action among freedom-loving peoples than ever before. In that unity we can find the strength to build the peaceful world in which freedom and opportunity 'will be secure for all.
100-2381	:ur im
It should be remembered that UNRRA does not cover reconstruction of the devastated regions of the world. When this stage is reached our country will be well prepared. We are well equipped to play a leading role, since traditionally we are a great producer of the raw materials necessary for the reconstruction of devastated industrial areas and the tremendous industrial development that is impending in countries such as China. This war has enormously increased our capacity as a builder of capital goods and machine tools. These goods and these tools will be required in vast quantities by China, the Soviet Union and great sections of western Europe. The United States and Great Britain have already obtained some of that business.
In this connection I wish to deal with the idea advanced by the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth). Shades of R. B. Bennett! We will provide our people with employment through tariffs! We will start hollering about dumping! We did it before, in 1930. We will say that we are protecting our workers through tariffs! No; if we cannot find a better relationship, for which the pattern has been provided by mutual aid, we are heading for bankruptcy. However, I am very glad that the vast majority of the Canadian people do not think the way the hon. member has expressed himself. Countries that buy machines from us and become industrialized will become good customers of Canada. In the past our best customers have always been the more developed countries, not the backward ones. By helping to develop these countries we will help the people who will buy from us. The hon. member was afraid that the $23,000,000 spent on mutual aid to Russia might have covered some machinery which might be used to dump goods in Canada. In a country that has fought on a two thousand mile front, that has used vast numbers of tanks, planes and other equipment, our $23,000,000 worth of equipment which could not have included very much machinery, is not going to change the situation to any large extent. If we are fearful of that little, how can we have the correct approach to a better, more united world which will give employment to the people of Canada? In connection with this new pattern I mentioned and the new approach we must have, I should like to quote from the New York Times of May 5, which contained this report:
A soviet trade commission is at present conducting negotiations with British business interests for large post-war deliveries similar to those for which orders totalling two and a half billion, dollars already have been placed
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in the United States.. It is understood, furthermore, that these United States orders are only the beginning of what Russia hopes to do.
Russia's population is so great, the devastation of war has been so vast and the country's supplies are so exhausted that two and a half billion dollars will not even begin to meet her needs. . . .
As to how Russia intends to pay for these purchases, it is understood that the soviet government intends to collaborate fully in the creation of post-war machinery designed to facilitate international trade and monetary payments.
We must take part in this trade and not stand aside. It is not going to wait for us; it will take place just the same. The mutual aid of to-day, but mutual aid to a greater extent, is the path along which we must travel in order to cement relations that will give us a share of such necessary foreign trade. There can be little doubt that when we come to trading, after victory, which I hope is close, we shall be trading with countries in such a state of disorganization that it w'ill be found practicable to deal with governments in stricken countries, rather than with firms. Mutual aid, again, shows the way.
I have dealt with this process of transition, because I sincerely believe that in mutual aid and UNRRA we have that thread which leads on to the next stage-peace-time trade. There are two sides to mutual aid. The allimportant one is that of providing our share in the war against the axis. And, next, it provides one of the most important means of achieving for Canada, and to a considerable degree for other countries, that volume of international trading required for a higher standard of living in the post-war world, a world where Canadians foresee a fuller life than has ever before been theirs. The people of Quebec, with the trades that they have learned and the technique and skills that they have acquired, want to participate to-day through mutual aid, and to-morrow in time of peace in the building of such a world.
I have made these remarks, sincerely believing that we have to find a new' and broader approach. The thinking of the past is obsolete. People who refuse to change will be left far behind by the locomotive of history.
Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Minister of Justice): Mr. Speaker, I venture to suggest that, in spite of some of the speeches we have heard this afternoon on second reading, this bill will not consecrate any new principle. It is my suggestion that the bill is merely one more step in carrying out the policy which has been that of this country since the early days of September, 1939. If I may be permitted to say so, shortly after I became a member of the government I sat in the Speaker's gallery,

and listened to the exposition of the policy of the government with respect to the war effort of this country.
If I may refer to Hansard of those days, I would recall to members what was then enunciated as the policy the government intended to follow. I would first of all direct the attention of hon. members to page 33 of Hansard for January 26, 1942, where the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said:
At the very outset of the war, the Canadian government considered with the British government the broad lines of development and of our war effort. We tried to envisage all the possibilities of a conflict, which we realized might last for years, and which might spread throughout the world.
The Prime Minister then went on to say:
As I have said already, the policy of the government is, and from the outset has been, the achievement of a total national effort for total wrar. I propose, now, to explain exactly what I understand by the total effort of a nation. It involves two fundamentals.
The first of these is the devotion to the prosecution of the war of all the available energies and resources of the nation in excess of those required to maintain the health and efficiency of the people.
And a little further down:
The foundation of the total effort of any country is a correct decision as to the minimum requirements of the civilian population. Once that is determined, production and consumption except for war, must be steadily and progressively cut down to the minimum. Waste must be eliminated; the manufacture of all luxuries and many comforts must cease. The surplus of man-power and resources thus secured must be used to make war.
. . . Indeed, the most difficult task in total war is the decision of the correct balance between different aspects of the war effort.
Then, the Prime Minister went on to enumerate the activities of the armed forces of the country. If I may quote again, from page 34:
The Canadian navy -has a share in this primary responsibility for our territorial defence. . . . We know, too, that the possibility of finally crushing Hitler depends upon keeping open the sea lanes from North America to Britain and Europe. From the outset, the government -has -placed no limit on -the expansion o-f Canada's navy.
Then, dealing with the army:
The army shares with the navy the responsibility for our territorial defence. It shares also with the navy in the defence of Newfoundland and other islands in the Atlantic. Its main task, however, has been its contribution to the defence of Britain. Every Canadian will remember with pride what Mr. Churchill has said on more than one occasion, of the sense of security which the presence of our -troops has given to the government and people of Britain.

Mutual Aid
And a little further down:
While prepared to send overseas as large an army as Canada can support, without failing in other directions, the government is even more anxious to see that every man, every unit, and the army as a whole, will have the greatest possible striking power.
Then with regard to the air force:
The Royal Canadian Air Force, like the navy and the army, has its part in our territorial defence and the defence of Newfoundland. Its responsibilities on the Pacific coast have been increased by the outbreak of war with Japan. But its main task is the administration of the British commonwealth air training plan. The battle of Britain in 1940 completely justified the emphasis which, from the opening days of the w'ar, Britain and Canada alike placed upon the achievement of air superiority. . . .
The safety of Britain, and Britain's capacity to strike back at the enemy, depends alike upon the air strength concentrated in Britain.
Then, going on with the other aspect of the total war effort:
A vital aspect of Canada's war effort is our contribution to the food supply of Great Britain. This contribution has grown steadily in importance. Britain cannot feed herself, and her own great and growing armed forces. Still less can she feed the ever-increasing numbers of men we are sending from Canada.
Then, with respect to the implements of warfare:
It is well to remember that every battle which has been lost in this war has been lost because of the lack of machines; of planes, or tanks, or guns, or ships. The cry we continue to hear from every front is not so much for numbers of men as it is for tanks, for planes and for ships.
In making the machines of war, Canada's productive task has only begun when our own armed forces have been supplied. Except for planes, Canada has been a main source of British supplies, outside Britain herself.
Then, a little further on we find this, at page 35:
While it cannot be said too often that total war demands total effort, it cannot Ire too strongly emphasized that total effort means using men and resources, where each will count for most, not where their employment will fit in with individual wishes or the wishes of those who have failed to see the needs of our effort as a whole.
That was the programme put before the house, before parliament and the country, and on February 19 I had the privilege of making my first bow to you, Mr. Speaker, of taking my seat in the house, and within an hour of voting with those who supported the administration-among them, and then a member of the administration, the hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres (Mr. Cardin)-on the programme which had then been enunciated to the house.
It is my submission that the bill now before the house is merely one further step in implementing that programme of total warfare. It is unnecessary to repeat what has been so well said by other hon. members who have spoken in the debate-notably the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), and the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Jackman).
This bill does not provide for a gift to anyone; it provides for the financing of part of the productive capacity of this country in order that that capacity may be devoted to the making of instruments and implements which will serve our cause in overcoming our enemy. Because it is our enemy. In 1939 Canada went to war; the whole of Canada went to war. The hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres will allow me to refer to as perhaps a3 eloquent words as were uttered at that time about Canada's going to war. I should like to quote from page 895 of Hansard of June 18, 1940, on the occasion of the second reading of the National Resources Mobilization Act, where the hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres is reported as follows:
It has been stated just now that if we are now called upon to vote on a measure of this kind it is because we have made the mistake, in the past year, of taking part in the European conflict. I cannot understand anyone expressing such an opinion and I cannot understand how, when attempting 'to voice the opinion of the province of Quebec, one can so give the lie to the vote given during the recent provincial elections and during the last federal election. . . .
The hon. member went on to say:
The people of my province possessed enough vision, enough intelligence to realize that by restricting their participation to the defence of the Canadian soil only, their participation should prove of no avail, that it would prove fruitless whenever Britain and France were crushed. At such a time, rhetorical, high-sounding speeches and empty words concerning the defence of Canada shall partake only of the theatrical and shall be devoid of any quality of true patriotism to ibe found among men whose main preoccupation is to forestall possible threatening dangers and to prepare, as intelligent men, for the defence of the country.
The hon. member then discussed whether or not the mobilization act provided only for the marshalling of the man-power of the country or of all its resources, and in dealing with objections raised in these words:
. . . with this extravagant war effort on the part of our country, we are going to bankrupt Canada, and to jeopardize our financial stability, we shall run into considerable difficulties and perhaps put ourselves in the position of being unable to provide for the reestablishment of our soldiers after the war.
The hon. member commented as follows:
I have much respect for the hon. member, but I cannot have much respect for such an argument. . . . What will ,be the value of our petty chattels and even of our great assets,
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what will become of our accumulated wealth if Germany succeeds in crushing under her bloodstained boot the combined strength of France and England? What will become of our savings, and of the money deposited in the banks or invested in industrial plants if the military power of France and England is annihilated? Our so-called wealth will be worth as much as that of Poland, of Czechoslovakia, our so-called assets will have just the value that those of Holland, Norway and Belgium have to-day.
That is how the problem should be faced. During the last election I stated many times, in the province of Quebec something which X am not afraid to maintain before the people, before every one of my fellow-citizens: Money is of no importance when the freedom of a nation is at stake.
This afternoon the hon. member said that he found it strange that a little country like ours should be called upon to make gifts to a country much older and*much richer. He described the power and influence of the British empire and asked if that great empire were not capable of taking care of its obligations. I submit that the obligation of that country to mankind and to the cause of humanity has been well taken care of since the days of Dunkirk.
But let us come down to the plane of material things. The hon. member says that possibly that country has expended its dollar credits in the purchase of the things required to make war in the cause of all freedom-loving people, but that later on it might be able to pay. Have we not all learned that the things called dollars or sterling or pounds are merely symbols, that any true payment can be made only in material things which would have to be exported from the British isles to this country if there were a debt to be repaid to us?
Do we as representatives of the Canadian people want to see the stagnation of our own productive capacity in order that we may use things made and provided by countries beyond our borders? During the years of war, in addition to the self-respect of freedom-loving men throughout the world we have acquired a much better knowledge of our own productive capacity and of the things that we can make available for our own people and even for export to others. Would it not be a major disaster if anything should occur after the cessation of hostilities to make it impossible to use the productive capacity, the experience and the skill we have developed during this war to provide those things which can be used to the advantage of our population.
I should like to refer again to the words of the hon. member, as reported on page 897 of Hansard of 1940. Speaking of the purchase and sale of implements of warfare, he said:
I have no use for that kind of patriotism which would limit itself to selling produce, 
materials and arms, in short, to making money without accepting the responsibility of a free and independent people.
Doubtless we can help the cause of liberty and democracy by supplying arms to England and her allies; doubtless we can help them by sending them as much as possible in the way of munitions and foodstuffs; but I ask those who bring forward this argument: Do you not in your heart feel a bit ashamed of thinking only in terms of money while abandoning to your neighbours the protection of your life, of your possessions and of your rights!
Knowing the hon. member as it has been my privilege to know him, knowing what a doughty fighter he has been throughout the whole of his brilliant career, I ask myself whether he would pull his punches in the midst of a critical fight. I do not think so, and I do not think in all sincerity he would ask this country to pull its punches at this time.
The hon. member dealt with some of the arguments which he said had been put forward to support other measures of this kind and said that he could not put much stock in the argument that by making this amount available to the treasury in order to pay for munitions and supplies purchased in this country we were providing markets for our farmers and work for that part of our population which labours in our factories, in our shipyards and in our other war plants. He suggested that this might be done as well by devoting their energy to the production of the things we could use at home. That may be quite true. But would that be making total war? And are we or are we not at this stage going back on the policy which was endorsed by the whole Canadian people, which was for a total war effort?
The hon. member says, where else are measures of this kind being adopted? They are being adopted, of course, in the United States. They had been adopted there even before the American people became engaged in shooting warfare. But where else could they be adopted? Where else were there opportunities for producing more than the armed forces of the country engaged required? To a certain extent that was true of Britain and it is true also of New Zealand and Australia. But is it not, as was suggested by the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Jackman), the privilege of this young nation that it was so placed by Providence that a very effective part of its effort in the war was performed in its forests, on its farms, in its mines and factories and plants? If it be true that this country had pledged to itself as well as to the other united nations a total war effort for the safety and security of its own population, was it not required that everything which was not neces-

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sary for the maintenance of the health and productive capacity of our population be devoted to the common cause?
The hon. member says that we were not attacked, as the United States were, that there was no Pearl Harbor which brought us into the conflict. May I suggest that the actual entry of our neighbours to the south into the war was just as inevitable from, its very outbreak as it appeared to the majority of the people to be after the onslaught of the Japanese on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. It requires no effort of imagination now to understand what the President of the United States had in mind in 1936 when he proclaimed that the United States was a peace-loving nation, that they were at peace with th,eir nieghbours but that they were capable of defending and willing to defend themselves and would defend themselves and their whole neighbourhood; when he repeated the same warning in 1938 and even more pointedly said that if any other foreign country ever attempted to dominate any part of Canadian soil the American people would not stand idly by. Was that not a warning to the whole world that the government of the United States recognized the imminence of possible warfare and was endeavouring to deter the aggressors from their bellicose designs by warning them that no part of this continent could become a prey to their cupidity without their first overthrowing the combined might of the United States and of Canada and of those who might be allied to Canada?
The hon. member says that it was argued by my predecessor in this house that when Great Britain was at war Canada could not remain neutral. It is quite apparent to every Canadian that when the United Kingdom is in the kind of war that this is, self-respecting Canadians cannot remain neutral. But technically is there any difference in the legal position of this dominion and that of the Irish Free State, where those who feel so inclined can remain neutral when the United Kingdom and the rest of the British commonwealth are at war? But I put it to this house, and fearlessly put it to this country, how many in this country prefer the attitude adopted in the Irish Free State to the attitude that has been adopted by the Canadian people?


Mr. MacNICOL:: Not very many.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: The hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres goes on and says that he does not object to the producing of food and the implements of wrarfare, but that he would insist upon accounts being kept. Within the last few days the allied forces have been able to liberate the city of Rome, something which has a very special meaning to a great many of
the citizens of this country, whether they be of my faith or of other Christian faith; the allied forces have now set foot on the western shores of the continent of Europe and we can foresee the liberation from the nazi yoke of the peoples of that continent.
In the same address the hon. member, whose eloquence I would not attempt to approach, spoke of France, in these words:
Allow me to tell him, Mr. Speaker, that France, poor France, is agonizing at the present time.
May I suggest that France is, four years afterwards, "hoping," at the present time.
He went on:
She has always stood, down the course of history, as a shining beacon illuminating the progress of ideas and principles throughout the world, and has spared neither sacrifice nor the life of her sons in the defence of freedom, in protecting the weak and the humble. She has ever been in the forefront of spiritual progress, of intellectual development and of liberty. Poor France, she has suffered down through the ages because of her .principles and of her noble feelings of humanity. She lias just put up such a valiant struggle as to prove even the humblest soldier of her powerful army a hero. One after the other, by the hundreds and by the thousands, they have fallen on the battlefields and have been crushed by the barbarian Hitler's powerful war machine. They have fallen in defence of humanity, in defence of human liberties, yours and mine, my friends.
France is now at the dawn of the day when she will rise again and continue throughout the ages the noble traditions so eloquently spoken of by the hon. member. That I suggest is not the day when accounts should be kept. Has France kept account of the sufferings she has undergone since her Gethsemane of four years ago? All those sufferings and sacrifices of freedom-loving peoples constitute a part of the assets placed in the common pool for the redemption of free mankind, and I suggest that the first lines on page 9 of the report of the Canadian mutual aid board express the true situation in this regard:
The sacrifices of allied soldiers, sailors and airmen transcend any form of material aid. The weighing of lives against munitions cannot *be made in a report. It must be made in the [DOT]heart and conscience of every Canadian.
There is not that unanimous degree of unity throughout this country that all of us here in this house would wish for, but there is a considerable degree of unanimous feeling in that regard, and in my own city of Quebec it was expressed by two eloquent voices immediately after the opening of the invasion on the west coast of France. The newly-appointed Anglican Archbishop of Quebec, His Grace Archbishop Phillip Carrington, said, on June 7:
We have a right to pray to God for a blessing upon the terrible work which we have under-
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taken. Let us pray that it may be done wisely and firmly. Let us pray that it may be done quickly. Let us pray that we may remain true to those ideals for which we have banded ourselves together; let us pray that the evil may be overcome, the oppressed set free, justice and freedom established, peace and prosperity restored.
And the night before, His Eminence Cardinal Villeneuve had broadcast throughout the country and caused to be published this message:
At this moment, as allied forces, after having liberated the Eternal City, are establishing a foothold on French soil preparatory to unburdening the continent of the four-year nazi yoke, I invite all Catholics in Canada to offer their sacrifices and prayers in order that God may inspire our leaders and help our soldiers in this supreme phase of the war. . . .
Let us take confidence in the message of Saint Augustine; may our prayers be heard by He who governs all, for, in time of battle, the gates of heaven are open, and God looks upon the battle-fields, reserving victory for he whose cause is just.
We believed in 1939 that the cause of the allied nations was just. We believed it to the extent of pledging our people to a total war effort until a total victory; and the second reading of this bill is merely designed to implement our continued determination that this country shall make total war until total victory has been achieved.


Mr. JOSEPH ARMAND CHOQUETTE (Stanstead) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, in 1942, this government made to England an outright gift of one billion dollars. In 1943, they gave a further gift of one billion dollars to the United Nations and again this year they are about to give 8800,000,000. If we add to that the loan of 8700,000,000 made to England without interest we have a grand total of
83,500,000,000, or 867,000,000 more than the total debt of this country from confederation to August 31, 1939, when war was declared. What a far cry that is from the 1940 pledges according to which we are to confine ourselves to a moderate war effort. We have been giving billions of dollars since 1942. Well, Mr. Speaker, I say that the government have no right to give away the people's money, they have no mandate to do so, because it was through the promise of a moderate war effort Jiat they were returned in 1940. Now, strangely enough, on May 11 last, our prime minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said in a speech delivered before the Westminster Parliament;
Our objective has been a total effort for total war, and we believe that objective is being attained.
_ Mr. Speaker, I wonder what thoughts such gifts suggest to workers who have large families^ to support, who lack some of the necessaries of life, Who are not properly housed [Mr. St. Laureot.l
and who reflect that a sum of 8800,000,090 represents 870 for each member of their families. And our farmers are no more in a position to make such gifts; they were requesting the government's help during the depression years of 1930-1939, but they always had the same answer: "We have no money." They will be surprised to hear that since 1942 the government have given outright 82,800,000,000, which represents 8240 per capita and 81,920 for a family of eight persons. We believe that such a policy is prejudicial to the interests of Canada and we unequivocally oppose it. No other nation within the British empire votes such appropriations. Our contribution in maintaining our armed forces is quite considerable and Canada has such a large debt that it cannot afford to make such gifts to countries very much wealthier than ours.
Mr. Speaker, the honourable member for Montreal-Car,tier (Mr. Rose) has seen fit to lecture the French-Canadian members from the province of Quebec who are opposed to gifts of 81,000,000,000 and 8800,000,000 to other nations. I for one believe that the province of Quebec has done its duty in the past to preserve Canada for Canadians on each occasion when the country was threatened. The French Canadians are just as patriotic as the other citizens of this country and they will remain so in opposing any policy that is prejudicial to Canada's interests.
Mr. J. EMMANUEL d'ANJOU (Rimouski) (Translation); Mr. Speaker, I shall contribute but a few words to the current debate on the bill under discussion. I have already condemned the tribute we are requested to vote, in my speech on the address, on February 3rd last. I shall quote some of my remarks as recorded on Hansard of that date:
The speech from the throne again hints at the government's intention to authorize, in the course of the present session, the payment of another tribute of a billion dollars to Great Britain. I state right now, Mr. Speaker, that I shall oppose this measure with all my strength, as I have done on two previous occasions.
Instead of paying an annual tribute to England, the government would be far better inspired in endeavouring to relieve the distress which is to be met all over the country.
Once more I state my opposition to the present bill still more forcibly, if that- is possible. I oppose the measure submitted to the house at this moment as I have the last two similar bills. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, I deem it would be wiser on the part of the government to endeavour to assuage the sufferings of our own population than to give, at each session, gifts to England, a country which, at the time we paid our first tribute, was making interest bearing loans to China.

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In my constituency, there are sections where destitution is prevalent. The government would evidence a greater concern for the interests of the country in attempting to alleviate the poverty of these people. When we paid our first tribute to England, I denounced it with the utmost energy; I held the same attitude in connection with the second tribute and I am still of the same mind on this third occasion. Therefore, if we are called upon to vote on this measure, I shall vote against it, as I have done in the past.
I was listening, a while ago, to the speech delivered by the hon. member for Montreal-Cartier (Mr. Rose). He criticized the members from Quebec who oppose war measures and especially the bill now submitted to the approval of the house. The representatives from Quebec who, in this house, show enough courage to fulfil their duty, to discharge their responsibility toward the electors of their constituencies, have no lesson to learn from the hon. member for Montreal-Cartier.
At a time when the country admits Jewish refugees, when families land here 70 or 80 at a time, the hon. member for Montreal-Cartier should not assail the hon. members from Quebec. The hon. member for Montreal-Cartier said: "We must win the war, and if we lose it, it will be the fault of the dissident members of the province of Quebec; if we lose the war, the rights of French Canadians might be imperilled".
I do not think Jewish rights are threatened because under the constitution of Canada, they are guaranteed none. To my mind, it ill behooves the member for Montreal-Cartier in parliament to disparage French Canadians of the province of Quebec when in his own constituency the French-Canadian population is quite numerous, and when a few of our fellow-citizens, probably misguided, voted for him in the last election.
I will add nothing further, Mr. Speaker. As I said before, I am opposing the bill now before the house; I want to be logical, and I believe my constituents will admit that, since 1940, I have maintained a logical stand and have fulfilled the pledges given to the electors of my constituency. The hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. St. Laurent) said a while ago that we had to fight an all-out war. I remember that in 1940, during the last election, the predecessor of the present Minister of Justice, the lamented Mr. Lapointe, told the province of Quebec: "Participation in the war will be free, voluntary, and moderate". In 1940, total war was not advocated in the province of Quebec. It was stated that participation would be free, voluntary and moderate. To-day, we are told that the
country has approved total participation in the war. The people were trustful and they gave their allegiance to the Liberal party believing that party would keep its pledges and promises honourably; but they were odiously deceived. Mr. Speaker, I will add nothing more; once again, I condemn this measure and I will vote against it.
(Text):
Mr. JEAN-FRANQOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata):	I listened with great attention to
the eloquent speech made by the Minister of Justice (Mr. St. Laurent). We must not be under the impression that those who discuss this measure are not in favour of the prosecution of the war and of helping the allied nations. Not at all. The only thing, and it is a legitimate feeling, is that the Canadian taxpayer expects tl\at as soon as the armistice is signed the burden of taxation will be less, that it will not be so heavy; and that is the very reason why Canadians have agreed to bear the heavy burden of taxation which is now imposed upon all of us. It is in the expectation that after the war that taxation will become less. One way to achieve such a result is precisely by discussing this matter with other nations on business terms.
There is no one in this house who refuses to give credit to the allied nations. The only thing that is asked for is an acknowledgment. On June 2, 1941, the hon. member for Temis-couata spoke as follows:
My last remark is that we should not consider taxation as though the war were .being lost. We are all determined to win t'he war, but taxation must be related to our needs. At the [DOT]present time taxation is just the same as though the deluge were coming to-morrow

"after us, the deluge." Taxation should ibe clear, progressive and in accordance with the means of the people.
Now let us see what the Minister of Finance (Mr. Usley) said about the record regarding the past:
. . . when we are proposing to open a new chapter in our financial relations-
With Great Britain and the United States.
*-the record regarding the past should be made quite clear.
That statement of the minister was made on March 18, 1942, when the house was considering for the first time the billion dollar gift, United Kingdom financing. The Minister of Finance said:
To the United Kingdom alone our shipments increased from $331 million in 1939 to $532 million in 1940 and $702 million in 1941. To the rest of the British empire, including Egypt, our shipments rose from $104 million in 1939 to $157 million in 1940 and $300 million in 1941. . . . But notwithstanding some increase in our imports,-

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The minister did not mention what our imports were then. I had to make a calculation and I sent him my mathematical work on the matter.
[DOT]-the empire as a whole had an aggregate merchandised deficit with Canada of $445 million in 1940 and $723 million in 1941.
AVhat was the financial assistance of Canada to the British' empire? The Minister of Finance went on:
Nor does this empire deficit of nearly $1,200 million on trade account in the past two years tell the whole story. In addition, large sums have been required for expenditures not reflected in the trade statistics.
And I have numbered each one.
(1) The most important of these have been the British capital investments in war plants in Canada, amounting at the end of 1941 to $238 million, and (2) British expenditures in connection with air training activities in Canada. (3) In addition, of course, there have been other expenses, such as for freight and (4) storage connected with the movement of goods within Canada.
Without going into exhaustive details, I may inform the house that after making allowance for all the sterling area's receipts of Canadian dollars of a current or ordinary nature-such as (a) the proceeds of exports, (b) interest and (c) dividend receipts, (d) shipping receipts and (e) Canadian governmental expenditures in sterling incurred in connection with the maintenance of our troops in the United Kingdom-* the sterling area's net deficit of Canadian dollars from the outbreak of the war until the end of February. 1942, amounted to approximately $1,770 million.
What was the financing by Canada of the sterling areas net deficit of $1,770 million? Let me quote the Minister of Finance again, but before coming to that I may say that the minister's summary of Canadian expenditures was incomplete because it did not include payments for prisoners of war, et cetera. I quote the minister:
This deficit has been financed in three ways. In increasing order of importance they are: (1) gold payments from the United Kingdom to Canada: (2) redemption or purchase, mainly in advance of maturity, of Canadian security obligations held in the United Kingdom; and (3) the accumulation of sterling finances held by the foreign exchange control board on deposit in London.
Then the minister spoke of the whole of the sterling area deficit having been financed by Ottawa out of its own resources, which is almost incredible. He said:
Gold payments by the United Kingdom have amounted to $250,000,000 over this whole period. As the house is aware, the last payment was received in December, 1940, and since that time the whole of the sterling area deficit has .been financed by Ottawa out of its own resources.
Think of that.
Over the period as a whole gold payments have covered less than fifteen per cent of the sterling area deficit in Canada.

Not only have gold payments by the United Kingdom been kept to relatively modest proportions, but every ounce of gold we obtained from the United Kingdom was promptly converted into United States funds and used to pay for LTnited States goods needed to complete w*ar orders for the United Kingdom.
That is what the minister said; and he went on:
Exact statistics are not available, but there can be no doubt whatever that the amounts we have paid out in United States exchange in connection with British war orders in Canada are very greatly in excess of the amount of hard currency settlement received from the United Kingdom.
It was neither the leader of any opposition group nor any private member who might be accused by the imperialist press of being an isolationist; it was the Minister of Finance who declared that gold payments by the United Kingdom had covered less than fifteen per cent of the sterling area deficit in Canada, and commented that they had been kept to relatively modest proportions. And think of this, sir. Since December, 1940, according to the word of the Minister of Finance, we have taken the whole burden on our shoulders. He said:
Until December, 1940, the United Kingdom shared with us the burden of providing the necessary hard currency. Since then we have taken the whole burden on our own shoulders. The burden has not been a light one.
Those were the words of the Minister of Finance. That date, December, 1940, is of the utmost importance. First, it was the month in which Canada received the last gold payment from the United Kingdom; second, it was when the United Kingdom ceased "to share with us the burden of providing the necessary hard currency," and, third, that was when we "took the whole burden on our shoulders." Then the minister added that the burden had not been a light one. Naturally the burden of financing the whole sterling area could not have been a light one. Here is another important quotation from the speech made by the Minister of Finance on that occasion:
. . . our United States dollar problem and our need of foreign exchange control are in part a direct consequence of our assistance to Great Britain.
Then a most unusual thing occurred; the minister went so far as to express deep concern about the result of the financial policies he had been sponsoring. He said:
I warned the house in introducing the budget last April-
That was 1940.
-that the need for United States exchange conservation had not passed .	.	. and lest
anyone should think that the Hyde Park agree-

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ment has solved our United States dollar exchange problem, I should like to say that our official reserves of gold and United States dollars fell by $142,000,000, United States dollars, in 1941. . . Moreover, although the outlook is far from clear, it must be recognized that, failing remedial action, we appear to be faced with another sizeable loss of reserves this year. . . .
Our United States dollar position is, therefore, still a major cause of concern. . . .
I stress this point because our United States dollar problem and our need of foreign exchange control are in part a direct consequence of our assistance to Great Britain.
At this point the minister made this remark:
When we are proposing to open a new chapter in our financial relations, the record regarding the past should be made quite clear.
It is very important that we understand the statements and the attitude of the Minister of Finance in the matter. The "new chapter in our financial relations" with Great Britain was not "opened", to use the minister's expression, on March 18, 1942, when he made that speech on the United Kingdom financing scheme; it dated back to fifteen months before, to December, 1940, when Great Britain made its last gold payment and when we took "on our own shoulders" the whole burden of financing the sterling area deficit. The minister did not try to escape any responsibility, but he did not make the record regarding the past clear enough. On November 7, 1940, Mr. Purvis was named by the United Kingdom to the new war purchasing mission. The Montreal Gazette of November 8, 1939, carried this item:
Ottawa, November 7-C.P.-Appointment of Arthur B. Purvis, prominent Montreal industrialist, as director general of British war purchases in the United States, was announced here to-night by the British purchasing mission which has been in Ottawa since early September. . . .
It has already been expressed as a matter of British policy that Canada will be looked upon as a first and primary source of supply to the full extent of the manufacturing and industrial capacity of the dominion.
It is believed purchases in the United States will be limited by the amount of foreign exchange available for that purpose, the extent to which Canada can supply British needs in raw and manufactured materials, and of course the length and proportions of the war.
Replaces Previous Board
The war supply board reached its full status last Wednesday when it took over the functions and personnel of the defence purchasing board set up last July under chairmanship of R. C. Vaughan, vice-president in charge of purchases for the Canadian National Railways.
Created under authority of the War Measures Act, the war supply board will have extraordinary powers to mobilize and regulate industry, production and other resources in Canada for a concentrated war effort.
To what extent these powers will be exercised has not yet been indicated, but a statement covering the board's plan of procedure
100-239J
is expected shortly. Not only Canadian purchases but those for the British government will be handled by the board as agent. Presumably the same would be true of any French orders that might be placed in Canada.
If the task of the supply board assumes proportions indicating the necessity for creation of a ministry of munitions and supply the government is empowered, by an act of the special war session of parliament in September, to set- up the extra portfolio with a full-time minister.
The defence purchasing board was set up under the then Minister of Finance in July, 1939, a short time before Mr. Dunning's resignation and departure for London. It was under his successor in that capacity, the present Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) and the perpetual Acting Minister of Finance, when it was replaced by the war supply board, with-
.	.	. extraordinary powers to mobilize and
regulate industry, production and other resources in Canada for a concentrated war effort.
When Mr. Purvis was appointed the news appeared in the press more than eight months before the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) introduced the mobilization act in June, 1940.
On November 15, 1940, the Minister of National Defence, who was then Acting Minister of Finance, left for London. On November 15, 1940, the sixth sitting day of the session, the then Minister of National Defence, and also perpetual Acting Minister of Finance, concluded as follows a lengthy speech on the address:
Let me emphasize again that our plans and preparations are and must be made in conjunction with those of our predominating partner, the United Kingdom, and of the other dominions. Since the front line is on the English channel, it is vital that we maintain the closest contact with that crucial sphere of operations. There must he not only unity of purpose but unity of planning and execution. Our strength multiplies by integration. It is teamwork which wins. For this reason I expect before long to visit the United Kingdom, accompanied by some of the headquarters staff, to consult on many matters of common interest. I want to make sure that our own programme will be developed in closest relation to the needs, and I am sure we all desire that plans and preparations will be such that we will be contributing not only all our strength, but our most effective strength, to help defeat and destroy this menace to freedom and to life itself which hangs over the world. It will be a task of years. May we have the courage, the perseverance and the unshakable resolution to see it through.
He left early in the following week.
In December, 1940, he spent a most useful evening with the late Arthur B. Purvis. This appears in Hansard of June 11, 1941, where the Minister of National Defence, and perpetual Acting Minister of Finance, said:
Mr. Purvis was good enough to give me, in the way he can give it quickly, concisely and
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comprehensively the fullest statement possible with regard to production in the United States and with regard to the needs of Britain with regard to munitions and supplies. I do not know when I spent an evening which was more useful in connection with the work that I was doing, and it gave me an idea of how we could integrate our production with that of the United States, and our needs with the needs of Britain.
He added that he kept that information for his colleague the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe). Neither of them said any more to the house about Mr. Purvis' statement.
The record regarding the past, read in the house by the Minister of Finance on March 18, 1942, makes it clear beyond doubt that the late Mr. Purvis' statement to the Acting-Minister of Finance was the suggestion to finance the whole of the sterling area deficit by Ottawa, out of his own resources. And we may draw the conclusion that it was because it was so promptly accepted by the Acting-Minister of Finance that the Minister of Finance expressed so much concern about it, and went so far as to state that our United States dollar problem and our need of foreign exchange control are, in part, a direct consequence of our financial assistance to Great Britain. He specified that we have taken the whole burden on our shoulders, from December, 1940, the time when the Acting-Minister of Finance spent his most useful evening with the late Mr. Purvis.
Now, sir, this is not the day to speak outside the record. The record is there. I have quoted some of it, and I have more to quote in due course, because I have made a special study of it. There is no one more ready to do anything to assist the united nations in this terrific struggle; but it is a good thing to have an acknowledgment of what is done, because otherwise it will be forgotten. No one is refusing to let the allied nations have all they need from Canada, provided there is acknowledgment of it. I do not find it honest to establish trade balances with gifts made to other countries. Besides that, the government went to all countries both in and outside the British empire, countries whiijh did not need any help of any kind. That help was flatly refused by Bermuda, for instance. Until last year and this year there was no income tax legislation in Bermuda, and the Bermudians were in much better financial condition than we are. They were offered a gift. I wonder how many nations have been offered gifts by this government, nations which do not need it.
There are three kinds of united nations. There are those who need help, and there are those who do not need help or assistance. They are in a class by themselves. The

others need assistance, but some of them have means to pay. If they cannot pay now, they should at least give an acknowledgment. Those who have no means to pay now should also give an acknowledgment for the future. That, I believe, should be the position of all when the rehabilitation of all countries is under consideration. That would apply even to those countries which are occupied by the enemy but which have temporary governments in England at the present time.
We have done a great deal to help Great Britain, and it has been acknowledged in some quarters. I was not a stranger to it, because I missed no opportunity to publicize what has been done by Canada for other countries. Some people, however, have a very strange turn of mind. To-day I happened to see the kind of propaganda issued by the British information services, an agency of the British government with offices at 30 Rockefeller plaza, New York city. This article is headed "The British Commonwealth and Empire," and appears at page 6 in a folder describing the British empire in terms which each member will find insulting. Here is what I find in connection with dominion status.
Thus dominion status is the most advanced stage of ^a process of political evolution or change-like the change from the frog's egg through the tadpole stage to the complete frog. If we had some sixty frogs, tadpoles and frogs' eggs of various ages in a pond, they would change and grow; the eggs .becoming tadpoles; the tadpoles frogs; the frogs growing ibigger and perhaps leaving the pond. At any moment, of course, some would already be changed into frogs; some would still be in the egg, some in the early tadpole stage; and some nearly transformed, but with a rudimentary and fast disappearing tail. Some might be very slow to hatch out of the egg, and others might stay too long in the tadpole stage-but in the end they would all change and grow up. This is a parable of the British commonwealth and empire.
What do you think of it? If we could help the British people, directly, as we have the people of Greece, it would be a very good thing. I have not the least objection to helping those who need help, especially those who are in hunger in occupied Europe. It seems to be the concerted plan of Germany to destroy whole countries. But where a nation is able to pay there should be an acknowledgment. Canada is the only country that is making such gifts, and we have not the means to do so. Taxation is heavy. We are ready to help in the prosecution of the war as far as our means will permit, but now we are doing much more. This legislation is taxing future generations to the limit without any hope of having anything in return. What we want is an

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acknowledgment of what we are doing, and if it is secured Canada will be in a much better position when the nations meet at the peace conference after the war.


James Lorimer Ilsley: 
Mr. POULIOT:: The same as they do with us.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Great Britain does not do that with us and I am inclined to think we should not do it with her. I do not think there is much use in arguing the economics of this matter. It is just a matter of principle; it is the way the people feel. I believe I know how most of the members of this house feel about it and how most of the people of the Dominion of Canada feel about it; I think they believe in the indivisibility of the common cause. They believe that this is not a gift to Great Britain, a gift to (Russia, a gift to Australia or a gift to China. It certainly is not a gift to enrich any of those countries. If it could be regarded in any sense as a gift, it is a gift to enable them to fight a war which is our war just the same as it is their war, and I prefer not to call it a gift at all. I would prefer to consider it a contribution to the common cause. If we believe that in our hearts and minds, there is not very much more to be said on the issue.
I can, I think, dispose fairly quickly of any argument that there would be any economic advantage in taking a lot of sterling from Great Britain or in establishing a huge claim
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on the books against Great Britain after the war. I believe I could establish pretty well that the only way that a huge intergovernmental debt of that kind could ever be paid would be by vastly decreasing our exports or vastly increasing our imports, or both, and that both these would have to be on such a scale that it is something that we cannot envisage because it would so dislocate and destructively impair our economy that no government would undertake it. If I wanted to put it on an economic basis I could make a good case. But even though I am dealing with finance most of the time, which perhaps is not the very highest plane, I want to put this question on the plane on which the Minister of Justice put it, which is the plane on which a good many members have discussed the question this afternoon and this evening. Certainly I do not believe that this nation could remain a self-respecting nation if it took a course very much different from the course it is taking. It is not an argument to come along and say that some of the other British dominions are not doing this and that we should not follow the United States because the United States is so much wealthier than we are. Let us examine the facts.
I was greatly struck in listening to the hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres this afternoon by his tendency to talk about our smallness, our dependence, our insignificance, although he did not use that word, as a nation. He was picturing Canada as so small, dependent on Great Britain, and not able to assume large and important obligations. I do not think of Canada in that- way. I admit that Canada has not a large population. It has a population of eleven or twelve million people. But this country, it must be remembered, is the oldest and largest of the British dominions. It is a country of great potential wealth and great resources. Moreover, it is a country far removed from the scene of conflict. It is a country which has an opportunity of great .production, and certainly it is the duty of this country in time of war to develop that production and contribute it to the common cause.
The other countries have done what they could. The United States of America has, as I said last night, devoted $24 billion to lend-lease up to date, which is a substantial sum. It is not profitable, it is really futile, to compare the per capita expenditure for mutual aid or lend-lease as between countries, because the situation in the different countries varies so greatly that it would be difficult to make an effective comparison. To take just one phase of a country's war expenditures and compare that with what some other country is doing is
[Mr. Hsley.l
not fair. But we do have that very large expenditure for lend-lease in the United States of America.
Then I find from a British white paper which has been issued, called "A Report on Mutual Aid," that the various parts of the British empire have been doing what they could. It would be unreasonable to expect Australia, situated as she is, to make the same per capita contribution as Canada. But let me read paragraph 11 of this British white paper, "A Report on Mutual Aid," presented by the chancellor of the exchequer to parliament by command of His Majesty, November, 1943:
11. His Majesty's government in the United Kingdom are, of course, not responsible for reciprocal aid as between the dominions and the United States. The Australian and New Zealand governments signed reciprocal aid , agreements on the 3rd September, 1942, simultaneously with our own, and have given reciprocal aid at their own expense on a scale which is large in proportion to their resources. The South African government is giving reciprocal aid without any formal agreement; and the same is true of the government of India, who bear the cost of reciprocal aid given to the United States forces in India.
On. the general question of. the pooling of resources I find this in paragraph 4 of this same British white paper:
4. His Majesty's government in the United Kingdom have recognized how greatly mutual aid assists the efficient prosecution of the war and good relations between comrades-in-arms. The principle of the transfer of goods and services without charge or calculation is a necessary part of the efficient planning of the war from the point of view of strategy and the economical use of man-power and shipping. It is, therefore, the policy of His Majesty's government to apply that principle themselves wherever possible, not only to the United States, but also to other allies, and they think it proper to satisfy the public interest in the subject by now reporting to parliament in some detail on the scope of the various arrangements which are in force.
In other words, a great international system of mutual aid has been established in which this country took an early part and an honourable part, to the great credit of this country and to the great benefit of all concerned in the prosecution of this war. No party in this house has ever opposed it. There has been the odd member who has expressed opposition to what we are doing, but I have been struck in this debate by the mildness of the opposition and by the strength of the support which the mutual aid principle has received in the parliament of Canada. I think that is greatly to the credit of the parliament of Canada, just as the support which this principle has received from the Canadian people is greatly to the credit of the Canadian people.

Mutual Aid


Jean-François Pouliot: On March 17, 1942-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


The CHAIRMAN:: Order.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Shame.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order.


Jean-François Pouliot: Do you know, sir-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Jean-François Pouliot: I am not surprised to hear Aeolian harps, because the amount is $800,000,000. It is something to consider, and during the election of 1935 I visited Essex South in the campaign against the late Eccles Gott, who was a staunch supporter of the Bennett government and who interrupted me at times. That trip was a very satisfactory one and I also went into Essex county to the support of the present Secretary of State (Mr. McLarty). I am calm. I have something to say and I will say it. On March 17, 1942, speaking of the billion dollar gift, the Minister of Finance spoke as follows:
All I am asking now-and I am putting all my cards on the table-is this: I am saying that for tremendously important reasons I want interim supply, the supplementary appropriations and the one billion dollar bill passed. If the house will do that, they can take the rest of the time, so far as I am concerned, on this matter before the house.
On March 18, 1942, the Minister of Finance introduced a measure to finance the United Kingdom. Canada's net accumulation of sterling balances in London banks from the outbreak of the war to the end of February, 1942, had amounted to $992,000,000. The Minister of Finance stated that the sterling area's, the whole empire's deficit of Canadian dollars for that period amounted to $1,770,000,000, of which $250,000,000 was "financed" by the United Kingdom and nearly $125,000,000 "was privately financed by discharge of private Canadian debts to the United Kingdom including certain sales in the Canadian market of securities vested by the British treasury." The $250 million gold payments by the United Kingdom to Canada and the $125 million sales of Canadian securities vested by
Mutual Aid

the British treasury formed a total of $375 million to be subtracted from what he described as a $1,770 -million deficit. He adds that $1,400 million had been "directly financed by the dominion government-about $400,000,000 through repatriation of securities and nearly $1,000,000,000 through the accumulation of sterling balances in London".
He repeated twice, but with different figures, the same amount of sterling balances: $992 million as a Canadian asset and $1,000 million as a sterling area liability to Canada. Then he explained that Canada had previously purchased British-held Canadian securities amounting to $400 million. Therefore, at the end of February, 1942, Canada had repatriated $400 million securities "to make Canadian dollars available to the British government for its purchases and other expenditures in Canada." That amount of $400 million should also have been subtracted from the balance of sterling area's deficit, leaving a net balance of $1,000 million, or $992 million, which was credited to Canada by the London banks.
His measure was threefold. It provided, first, for the outright gift of $1,000 million for war purchases in Canada; second, for the acceptance by Canada of a $700 million United Kingdom obligation, without interest until the end of the war "in exchange for an equivalent amount of deposits in pounds sterling held in banks in the United Kingdom; third, for the purchase of unmatured dominion or Canadian National Railway securities held by the government of the United Kingdom. The Canadian government was empowered to borrow $1,000 million to purchase said securities, Was it sensible to raise by way of loan $1,000 million to repatriate those securities? Could it not have been done as a matter of course with the idle Canadian credit of a similar amount in the London banks?
With regard to the $700 million United Kingdom obligation, the Minister of Finance said:
It has also been proposed to the British government, and they have agreed, that the tunds arising from any redemption or repayment during the war of Canadian securities owned in Britain will be applied to the reduction ot the loan.
The dominion government made a distinction between the securities, first held by the British government, and second, those owned in Britain. Why was not a similar policy applied to both kinds of securities? Those held by the British government were bearing a low rate of interest of three and1 four per cent. We repatriated a considerable amount of such investments. Those owned in Britain were C.I.L., rayon companies, Enos Fruit Salts, Red Rose Tea, Hudson Bay Company, Inter-
national Nickel, Lever Brothers Soap, et cetera. They were in the hands of a few financial wizards close to the Bank of England and Barclay's bank. Naturally, the latter were much more profitable than the former. They were not repatriated.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: I rise to a point of order. Is the hon member quoting, or is he -reading a speech?


Jean-François Pouliot: I am referring to my notes and I am reading quotations from past debates, which I have a right to do.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Mr. Chairman, I object. If the hon. member is reading his speech I have an objection. If he is making a quotation, all right. I do not like members rising in this house and reading their speeches.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: On the point of order, there is no doubt that the rules do not permit of any member reading his speech, but a member could read quotations if he wishes to put them before the committee.


Jean-François Pouliot: My hon. friend will be satisfied with what I am reading.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: I am not satisfied with what the hon. member is reading. I do not like it.


Jean-François Pouliot: These are quotations from past Hansards.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: I beg your pardon.


Jean-François Pouliot: I have a perfect right to read them and it is merely to be accurate that I do so; otherwise I could speak easily without notes, following the example of the hon. gentleman on many occasions.
If the repatriation policy was the right one for a certain category of securities, was it not for all of them? South Africa easily secured the approval of the British government for the transfer of ownership of the stock of Diamond Gold Mines, which was paid with the credit which that countiy had in the London banks. But the financiers associated with those banks feared that the Canadian government might follow the South African precedent. They had a flea in their ear. They succeeded in convincing the Canadian government to adopt the following scheme to leave their profitable commercial investments untouched. The dominion government accepted from the United Kingdom a $700 million obligation without interest and payable after the war, to be financed with the sterling credit account of Canada in London, which was to be more than covered with a further credit of $1,000 million.

Mutual Aid
The year before Canada had supplied Great Britain with all the foodstuffs and munitions that we could produce.
The Canadian government long ago advised the British prime minister that the United Kingdom could continue to buy in Canada all essential supplies that could be procured and transported without any fear of the shortage of dollars. ... I believe that all Canadians approved the assurance thus given to the government of the United Kingdom. . . . The continuance of these purchases and expenditures, however, involves a continuance of the huge deficit of the sterling area in its balance of payments with Canada which must be financed (very largely at least, perhaps wholly) by Canada itself.
Those were the words of the Minister of Finance. That high finance deal did not benefit the soldiers, nor the British people nor the British government, which had previously received the same assistance in the matter of food and munitions that they received afterwards, but it gave to a small number of London capitalists the privilege of escaping Canadian taxation on their choice commercial investments. Here is another quotation from the Minister of Finance:
We have realized for some time that the accumulation of sterling balances .	.	. was
appropriate only as an interim or transitory form of assistance. It involved the growing up of what was nominally a demand liability by Britain to Canada, the future of which was bound to involve uncertainties, particularly as the amount grew far beyond anything which could be repaid by Britain in Canadian dollars, except perhaps over a very long period of time.
Then he went on:
The indefinite growth of this obligation, if permitted to continue for years, would have led to the existence after the war of what would be in effect a huge and unmanageable war debt owed by Britain to Canada.
If Britain could not manage a war debt owed to Canada, how could the dominion government manage a huge war debt owed by the Canadian taxpayers? The measure was praised by several parties in the house, and was opposed by some. I was persistent in asking for detailed information, and on May 10 of last year I said:
If we want information it is not only with regard to what has been done in the past; it is for the purpose of having a guarantee for the future. It is the only check we have, now that responsibility is taken out of our hands.
The following day the minister tabled a summary of Canadian dollar requirements of
Britain and the rest of the sterling area and how they were financed, as follows:
(In millions of dollars)
Calendar Fiscal
	year	year
. Canadian dollars required by Britain and the rest of the sterling area for payments to Canada. 1. For purchases of munitions	1942	1942-43in Canada	873	8962. For other exports by	Canada	695	706
Among other things these exports included candy, fox, mink and seal skins.
3.	For war activities in Canada, including air
training, etc	 127	132
4.	For freight payments to
Canada	
113	1135.	For fixed capital expenditures in Canada for the production of munitions...	58	316.	For other capital paymentsto Canada	
5	57.	For interest and dividendpayments	
12	108.	For other services andmiscellaneous	
16	15Total	
1,899	1,908
Then the minister gave a list of commodity exports, with the following totals:
1.	Agricultural and vegetable
food products	 $101,775,618
2.	Tobacco and its products....	3,203,198
3.	Animal and fish products... 158,646,446

That was not even one-half the total of
exports by Canada, other than munitions. The minister also tabled a summary of the sterling area purchases and other payments in Canada during the period of use of the billion dollar contribution. It amounted to $1,659 million, leaving a difference of $240 million and $249 million respectively, with the totals of $1,899 million and $1,908 million of the summary of Canadian dollar requirements of Britain and the rest of the sterling area, and how they were financed. Apparently much more was financed than was purchased or accounted for. He also gave a statement of how those Canadian dollars were obtained by Britain and the rest of the sterling area, which included two "balancing items" of $17 million and $41 million, respectively, and explained that these were "apparent errors and omissions due in part to the use of preliminary figures." I was far from being appeased and said:
Mutual Aid

Once more I challenge the leader of the opposition, the ex-leader of the opposition and everybody to your left-
Mr. Casselman: Challenge your own side.
Mr. Pouliot: -I will ask them why they have not complained of the fact that the Bank of Canada cannot reach a balance in the account-
Some hon. members: Order.
Mr. Pouliot: We are discussing lend-lease legislation. How is it that at page 5 of the statement tabled yesterday by the minister there is $17 million for which it is impossible to render account by reason of the mix-up that exists at the Bank of Canada for the calendar year 1942, and $41 million for the year 1942-43? This is relevant to the bill. How is it that the ex-leader of the opposition with his magnifying glass did not say anything about it, although he rises so easily and is always so full of indignation? Why does he not support me-
Some hon. members: Order.
Then the minister said:
On the point of order, Mr. Chairman, we must either have the rule established or disregard it, that the discussion must be relevant to the item before the committee. The item under discussion is section 2 of the bill, which is an interpretative section defining certain terms. It is quite within the right of any hon. member to object to those definitions or ask questions about them, advocate other definitions or point out undesirable results that would follow from defining those terms in that way. But I submit it is not in order to deal with documents that were placed before the house, not under this item at all but as a matter of accounting for the disposition of last year's billion-dollar gift.
There was some argument, and finally I said that I hoped the discussion would be resumed later. Why should anyone worry? The Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) had informed the house the day before that-
... we maintain a large staff of chartered accountants in England to determine exactly what the costs are.
There was also the united nations mutual aid bill, which was introduced on May 6,1943. The hon. member for Riehelieu-Vercheres, spoke on that occasion, and spoke well. The hon. member for Gaspe also made a good speech. Some members voted for, and others voted against. The hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains moved the six months' hoist. The hon. member for Bellechasse and the financial critic of the New Democracy group made very able speeches on that occasion. The speech of the hon. member for Bellechasse was well reasoned, and he stated in it that Canada had a right to expect something in return for mutual aid.
Now, sir, we have the same thing. We have protested about financing which we believe is wrong. We protest, too, against the wrong interpretation given to our remarks. At the present time we are fighting the cause of the

taxpayer. We do it in all earnestness, and believe the time has come when we must protect ourselves by asking for some security, or at least for some acknowledgment, from countries receiving assistance from Canada. That was the view even of some members who voted for the bill.
Opinions are free. I will stand by the will of the majority; I will respect it. But to say that anyone is a bad Canadian because he does not swallow every piece of legislation brought forward by the financial wizards of the Department of Finance, is going too far. It is not fair for any member to cast aspersions upon or to impute motives to other members who protest against unsound financing.
It is presented in a strange way. I remember that at the time of the election of the Minister of Justice in Quebec East the people were put under the impression that it was a gift, something like that received at Christmas time. They were told that gifts were sent overseas, and that we were not sending money. Reasoning like that is childish. The money comes from the pockets of the Canadian people, and it is a mortgage on the future generation. That is the money with which all those goods are purchased and delivered. In order to be fair to the future generation, in order to alleviate their burdens and to give them an opportunity to start business as most of our fellow Canadians have done before the war, we should have acknowledgments for what Canada has done for other countries.
Apparently it is most unpatriotic to ask for them. Who knows who will be at the head of government in Great Britain after the war? Who knows if shadow governments will still be in office when the war is over and when Europe is liberated? We have seen what has happened in connection with Yugoslavia. That country had a government in Cairo, and then another one was established in Yugoslavia. The government in Cairo, which had the support of the British government for a time, was afterwards denied that support. No one knows with whom we shall be dealing after the war is over, when we have treaties and agreements to sign with other nations in the world. Therefore it is difficult to leave it at that, and to trust those who have assumed the task of forming governments to remember what Canada has done for those countries. I shall not' insist any longer. I have said what I wanted to say. I find the principle of the legislation unsound, although the purpose may be good.

Mutual Aid


Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: In the report of the Canadian mutual aid board of May 20, 1943, to March 31, 1944, I find this:
The following tabulation shows the quantities of the chief types of supplies provided to Britain on mutual aid up to March 31, 1944.
In that list I find 411,373,555 pounds of bacon and meat. If that is a gift to Great Britain, then what do we understand from the statement by the Minister of Agriculture to the effect that we have a contract with Great Britain to supply bacon and meat, and especially bacon. Was that contract in connection with this, or something else? The same applies to butter and cheese. We find in this list 7,048506 pounds of butter and 73,502,482 pounds of cheese. Would the minister say if that is included in the contract mentioned by the Minister of Agriculture?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Some of the bacon is sold, and some of it is delivered under the provisions of the Mutual Aid bill. The settlement with the suppliers is at the same price in both cases.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2-War supplies.
Gordon Knapman Fraser: Is this in addition to the other contract?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: This is part of the contract?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Well, then, this should not be a contract at all, should it?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The contract covers the
amount to be delivered. I am not familiar with its terms, but those contracts say that it shall be not less than a certain amount, or at least a certain amount, or something of that kind. At any rate, a contract is made. Then the question comes up as to how it will be financed. In practice, part of the bacon sent to Great Britain is sold and paid for under that contract, and part of it is paid for by the mutual aid board. It is delivered under the provisions setting up the mutual aid board. However, the amount the suppliers get is the same. They are paid at the contract price.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Has there been any repatriation of Canadian securities since last year?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There has been no repatriation of securities since last year. There have
been some odds and ends of previous repatriations which required cleaning up, but those were very small amounts.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: What is the amount of
securities at present held in England?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It was estimated that at
the end of 1942 and excluding the securities later repatriated by the Canadian government, residents of the United Kingdom held Canadian stocks and bonds to the value of approximately SI,070,000,000. This was composed, as I said last year, of about $590,000,000 in Canadian dollar securities and $480,000,000 in sterling securities. Since that time, slightly over $70,000,000 worth of these securities have been redeemed or sold outside the United Kingdom. Over the same period it was also estimated, from an examination of security prices, that the increase in the market value of the remaining securities would add about an equal amount to the value as estimated at the end of 1942. Consequently, it is still true that residents of the United Kingdom hold Canadian bonds and stocks to the value of approximately $1,070,000,000.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Can the minister tell me if the information given to me is correct, that the United States under lend-lease have repatriated practically all United States securities held in England?


James Lorimer Ilsley: They repatriated nearly all,
but not all. I do not know the amount left unrepatriated, but they did that before they became belligerents. If I am correctly informed, they have repatriated none since they entered the war.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 3 to 6 inclusive agreed to.
Bill reported.
Mr. ILSLEY moved the third reading of the bill.
Maxime Raymond: On division.
Motion agreed to on division and bill read the third time and passed.



QUEBEC SAVINGS BANKS ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance) moved the second reading of bill No. 131, to amend the Quebec Savings Banks Act.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the standing committee on banking and commerce.
Surplus Crown Assets


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, June 12, consideration in committee of bill No. 137, respecting surplus crown assets-Mr. Howe- Mr. Bradette in the chair.
Section 10 agreed to.
On section 11-President, vice president.
Mr. STIRLING:: Should not the quorum be mentioned?


Mr. CHEVRIER:: I think it follows that the decision of the majority of the members of the board attending the meeting would constitute a quorum. If one looks at subsection 2 of section 10 he will find that the corporation is to consist of a board of not less than six directors appointed by the minister with the approval of the governor in council. I am informed by those who have drafted this bill that a quorum will consist of a majority of those who are present.


Grote Stirling: Just what does that mean? Supposing four of the six are present, would that be a quorum?


Lionel Chevrier: As the section reads it is:
A decision of the majority of the directors present and constituting a quorum shall be a decision of the corporation, and in the event of a tie, the president or other director acting as chairman shall have the casting vote.
I am informed that a quorum will consist of a majority.


Grote Stirling: Surely that will not do. Supposing only three of the six were present, would that be a quorum?


Lionel Chevrier: With the chairman
breaking the tie, yes.
Mr. STIRLING. The chairman is one of the six.


Lionel Chevrier: He may vote in case of a tie.


John Ritchie MacNicol: There would still be a tie.


Lionel Chevrier: I am informed that over and above the mention of a quorum in subsection 6 of section 11, there is in the bill another section which provides for the setting up of by-laws by the corporation and those by-laws will provide the number which will constitute a quorum.	[DOT]


Grote Stirling: Would it not be reasonable to refer to the quorum in the bill itself?


Lionel Chevrier: If the hon. member will look at section 13, he will see there that the corporation may provide for the calling of 
meetings of the board or the executive committee and the number of persons who shall constitute a quorum in each case.


Grote Stirling: I think that answers it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: When we broke off the discussion on this bill last night I was calling attention to what I thought was an omission from either section 10 or section 11. I was referring to the fact that in another bill before the house there is a clause providing for independence of the members of the board from the particular industry concerned. I was referring in that case to the bill to amend the Aeronautics Act, and I suggested that in the bill now before us there should be a similar provision so that the members of this board would be independent financially of the industries interested in the work which this board and corporation will carry on.
In the reply which the minister made-it was only a partial answer because the discussion was interrupted to take up another item of business-he referred to the desirability of securing the services of men who have had experience in a particular line. I believe it is well known, Mr. Chairman, that we have never objected to that principle, namely, the securing of the services of men who know the business involved. Throughout the course of the war we have objected to the dollar-a-year-man principle, but we have not objected to calling upon men to do the jobs of which they are capable. We have objected to what we regard as an expensive policy, namely, the employing of men for a dollar a year, with the result that they have to maintain their private business connections. We contend that for the full protection of the interests of the people as a whole, men directing such important works as have had to be directed during the course of the war and the men who will now direct this important task should be independent of the interests of private enterprise and private business. As hon. members know, we have objected for several years now to the dollar-a-year-man policy with respect to the controls and measures by which sections of the war economy have been run. We now object to the carrying over of that principle into the post-war period in so far as the setup of this board is concerned.
I repeat that in my view there should be in this bill, in either section 10 or section 11, a provision for the independence of the board comparable with the position of the board to which I referred last night under the bill to amend the Aeronautics Act.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Once more the acting leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation is raising the question of the honesty of the

Surplus Crown Assets
men who are asked to enter the public service. Never does the acting leader of the C.C.F. or any member of his party rise in this house to criticize a measure without questioning the honesty of people administering it and sneering at people who at least have some idea of the business with which they are dealing. The acting leader of the C.C.F.-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Not acting leader; just whip.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: -has just said that they objected to the dollar a year men because they did not think they could serve honestly; at least that was his implication. Yet if those same men were taken into the government service and paid substantial salaries the acting leader of the C.C.F. and his party would feel that those same men would be honest in the administration of their duties. Does the hon. member, for instance, suggest that some school teacher or college professor or a minister of the gospel, if you will, should be asked to handle the disposal of machinery? Does he suggest that that type of gentleman should be asked to dispose of. war plants?


Gordon Graydon: Sometimes they tamper with political machinery.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: They always throw a
monkey-wrench into it and get ground up.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Wait till Thursday.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: I am not worrying about Thursday. Wait till the general election comes and we will show you where you stand.
I am not being facetious. I am serious about this, because we have hundreds of millions of dollars worth of war assets to dispose of, and I would hate to think that schoolteachers, ministers of the gospel and gentlemen with socialist ideas imported from Russia and other countries with socialist governments are to handle the business of disposing of these war assets. I should not like to see this business placed in the hands of that type of men when the war is over. I know it will not happen because the people of this country are coming to their senses. I was just giving an inkling of that danger.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Have you ever heard of democracy?


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Yes, I have heard of
democracy, and it is so foreign to the C.C.F. that they do not know the meaning of it. Democracy is a system where people have the right to work out their own destinies, while the C.C.F. stands for regimentation, socialization and all the rest of it. I could recite their whole platform if there were time.
What I rose to ask the parliamentary assistant was this-having disposed of the argument of the acting leader of the C.C.F.-what effect will the passing of this bill have on the activities of the salvage disposal board?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Oh.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: My hon. friend says "oh", because I happen to be in business and do some business with that board. I have always found them to work on a strictly competitive basis, and if anybody puts in a bid one-quarter of one percent higher than mine that person gets the business. I do not think there ever was a more honest salvage disposal board in the history of this country than the one we have at this time, and I give them credit for that. Will the salvage disposal board come under the jurisdiction of the War Assets Corporation? To some extent it is a different line of business. There is a line of demarcation between their work and the work of the War Assets Corporation. The War Assets Corporation deals with factories, machinery and equipment that have been paid for or financed by the government. The salvage disposal board deals with things that are no longer of use to the services, such as metal of all descriptions, vehicles of all descriptions, things that might be classed as second-hand or scrap material. Let me repeat that these people have been doing a great job in the air force, the army and the navy, and they have been getting perhaps the highest prices possible. I know they are getting higher prices than would ordinarily be paid for salvage materials, because they are very competent men. I think of Major Stooks, for instance, who is head of the army salvage disposal. He is a man who has had a great deal of experience with the Red Cross, not only purchasing for them but selling a lot of things for them. Would the salvage disposal board pass out of the picture, or would they be incorporated in this organization?


Lionel Chevrier: It is not the intention to have the salvage and disposal board disappear. It will continue to operate as it does, and the Wrar Assets Corporation will use it as an agent to make sales. It has done that already, and with great success. It will continue to do so; and one section of the bill which has already been passed makes provision for the using of that board as agent.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: What I was getting at was, will they continue to act independently, or will they be part and parcel of the War Assets Corporation? Will the corporation take over their activities? For instance, with regard to the disposal of motor vehicles, I
Surplus Crown Assets

can understand the War Assets Corporation saying to them, "As a disposal board you can handle this business." Or would they take them in and say, "This is all one
organization"?


Lionel Chevrier: At the moment it is the intention not to take them over, but to use them as agents. When the problem becomes much more serious and the surplus is much larger than it now is, it may be necessary to take the board and make it an adjunct of the War Assets Corporation. But at the moment that is not the intention.


Gordon Graydon: Will the present personnel of the War Assets Corporation be continued as at present existing under the order in council?	-


Lionel Chevrier: I do not think there is any doubt that it will. However, the statute which will set up the War Assets Corporation will set up an entirely different creature from that which has been set up by order in council. I think the minister indicated in the discussion last evening that it was the intention to carry out the same policy with reference to this corporation set up by statute as with relation to that under the order in council. In other words, what he intended to convey to the committee was that the minister, with the advice of the governor in council, will set the policy. I think I am safe in saying that the same procedure will follow under the statute as under the order in council.


Gordon Graydon: The reason why I raised the question is that I wished to follow it up by asking whether, in the directorship of the War Assets Corporation, labour and agriculture will be represented.


Lionel Chevrier: Labour is already represented in the corporation, and I am sure that it will be under the statute.


Mr. GRAY DON:: Is my hon. friend certain that labour is represented in the corporation?
I know it is represented in the allocation committee, but is it represented in the War Assets Corporation directorate?


Lionel Chevrier: I understand that Mr. J. B. Ward, who is a director of the corporation, represents labour.
Mr. GRA1DON: In what way is he qualified to represent labour? I am only seeking for information.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: He is a very well known railway man.


Gordon Graydon: The railway brotherhood? That is a good brotherhood.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Shall the clause carry?


Mr. GILLIS:: No. This matter we are now liscussing is in my opinion one of the most important matters with which the committee can deal. The personnel of both the war assets allocation committee and the War Assets Corporation are very important as regards the equipment which may be used in the post-war period. The matter is so important that we should have a general understanding. The hon. member for Waterloo South seems very touchy on this point.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: I am not touchy, but I
am honest about it; and I have some faith in my fellow-man.


Clarence Gillis: He tries to create the impression that, while he has great faith in his fellow-man, nobody else has.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Certainly you people have not, if he makes more than a dollar or two a day.


Clarence Gillis: He tried to create the impression that the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre had questioned the honesty of the people who are now being suggested for this work. The fact of the matter is that we do not know who will constitute the personnel of either the war assets allocation committee or the War Assets Corporation.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: "O ye of little faith."


Clarence Gillis: We do not know who they will be.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: He
was talking about the dollar a year men.


Clarence Gillis: As I understand the question we are now discussing, it is that of setting up machinery with authority to dispose of approximately $800 million which the Canadian people have invested in war plant and equipment.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Three or four billion
dollars.


Clarence Gillis: I am talking about the actual war plants and equipment now functioning in this country. Those are the figures the government gives us.


Gordon Graydon: I think your figures are low.


Clarence Gillis: 
John Ritchie MacNicol: But he did a good job.


Clarence Gillis: -and he is heading up the Tory party.


John Ritchie MacNicol: And he will do a good
job there.


Clarence Gillis: He could not have been very much interested in the future when he could slide back into the party of the feudal lords and go to a museum for the solutions of the future.


Gordon Graydon: Do not become a "little Canadian".


Clarence Gillis: I am telling the truth. If
the hon. member cannot take it he can go behind the curtains.


Gordon Graydon: See if I do.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order. I would ask
that the discussion if possible be relevant to the item.


Gordon Graydon: We are entitled to a
little humour, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre); We are not getting it.


Clarence Gillis: I am discussing dollar a year men in relation to the principle of setting up this war assets allocation committee and the AVar Assets Corporation.


Gordon Graydon: Well, leave Charlie
McTague out of it.


Clarence Gillis: You brought in Sir Henry Borden.


Gordon Graydon: Are you standing for titles now?


An hon. MEMBER:: "Coming events-"


Clarence Gillis: Henry Borden of Barclay's
bank, and you made him chief coordinator of controls.


John Ritchie MacNicol: He did a good job too.


Clarence Gillis: You handed over the fuel emergency programme to him and he made a good job of that, so that you are exactly where you started, worse off if anything. Now you have to appoint a royal commission to clean up the job he made a mess of, and when he is finished with that he goes back and slides into the seats of the past. This is the history of that calibre of people. They are not interested in developing this country; they are more interested in something for themselves, individually and personally.


Gordon Graydon: Well, now, Mr. Chairman, surely there is a limit to this type of thing. I rise to a point of order.


Clarence Gillis: Who has the floor?


Gordon Graydon: On a point of order. Normally my hon. friend calmly analyses any situation he discusses, but to-night for some reason or another he has accused the member for AVaterloo South of being touchy and then he proceeds to exhibit the same traits himself. May I ask him to continue to show the same consideration that has always characterized his conduct heretofore.


Clarence Gillis: Is that a point of order?


Gordon Graydon: I would ask him to see to it that, so far as honourable citizens of this country are concerned, he does not take a pail of black paint and start to do a job on them at this time.


Clarence Gillis: Who has the floor?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I must ask hon. members to stick to the clause which is under consideration.
Surplus Crown Assets


Gordon Graydon: Put your black-paint
brush under the seat.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order.


Clarence Gillis: I sat in this house this evening and listened to the discussion and I had no intention of taking part in it. I thought the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre made a very conservative understatement of this matter, but when the member for Waterloo-South rose and started this business of throwing things around-well, we can throw them back, and I have no intention of taking a lecture from the leader of the opposition.


Gordon Graydon: I did not expect you would.


Clarence Gillis: I am quite capable of looking after myself. The thing we are concerned about in the setting up of this committee to dispose of assets created by the war is that the taxpayers of the country by and large should be represented. And when I say taxpayers, I mean your farmers and working people throughout the country who are paying the taxes that have created these assets-


Gordon Graydon: Now you are talking.


Clarence Gillis: -and who will be depending, in the aftermath of the war, on the utilization of the assets they are creating. If we are to look after those who are returning from the War, and approximately a million and a half war workers who will be out of industry, we must make sure this is done. We have a fairly clear picture to-day of where those who pin their faith exclusively on private enterprise in the future stand in this matter. The chamber of commerce, in the presentation to the reconstruction committee, definitely state that this machinery must be taken out of circulation and under no circumstances be utilized in competition with private enterprise. The assets that are now being handed over to this corporation are, I am afraid, already tied up with agreements and understandings that will not conduce to the best interests of the Canadian people. For example, it is some months ago that I received a letter from a soldier of this war routed into a war industry, and under the fuel emergency order he was sent back to a coal mine, to a town where there was no housing. In that town there are barracks that are not being used.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Order. In my opinion the present discussion is not relevant. If the hon. member will read the clause that is under consideration I think he will agree with that.
[The Chairman.]


Clarence Gillis: I am sticking to the setting up of the committee.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: We are on clause 11 and I must.rule that the present discussion is not relevant to that clause.


Clarence Gillis: If it is not relevant to clause 11, then you cannot discuss anything. I am pointing out the necessity of placing on this committee men who are independent, who represent the community at large, and not any particular interest; and if they are to be free and independent, then, as suggested by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, the clause should contain some provision such as is contained in the bill on the aeronautics board that is being set up. This particular clause is wide open and I think that before the committee adopts this clause it should have more information from the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Munitions and Supply as to the entire personnel of both the allocations committee and the War Assets Corporation. We should see to it that they are free and independent, because the asset that they w'ill handle when the war is over is an asset that belongs to the Canadian people as a whole, and the government in power today is the custodian of that property. Not only is it the obligation of the government to the people to see that the committee are free and independent and that their duties and responsibilities are clearly defined in the bill, but the government should also place in the hands of that committee some definite instructions with regard to the utilization of the assets they are to handle in the future economy of the country.
I consider this whole matter a very important part of our whole post-war programme, and before I am prepared, as one member of the committee, to allow the bill to go through I want more definite and specific information on the asset as it now stands and as to what agreements or understandings the government has with the people who own the land where the plant and equipment are now located. I was going to cite the experience of that barracks because definitely that committee will not have any say in the disposing of that particular property, since it has already been disposed of by agreement with the company that own the land. There is a first option, and when it is taken over, the soldier coming back from the war is not permitted any of the lumber or of the building to provide a roof for himself and his family.
Progress reported.


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

Department oj Veterans' Affairs
Wednesday, June 14, 1944