1945-11-12

[Stage Direction]
Second and third reports of special committee on veterans affairs.-Mr. Tucker.

Mr. W. H. GOLDING (Huron-Perth):: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege I would like to correct a statement appearing on page 1916 of Hansard of November 7. This statement was made by the hon. member for Park-dale (Mr. Bruce), speaking on a question of privilege in which he took exception to certain words used by the hon. member for Temis-couata (Mr. Pouliot) in a speech made by that hon. gentleman in committee on Tuesday, October 30. The statement reads:
When the words were used by the hon. member foe Temiscouata as applied to me I was not in the chamber, and therefore it was the duty of the Deputy Speaker, who was in the chair, to take the necessary steps to see that the member who used those offensive. words withdrew them. But he did not do so, and therefore, Mr. Speaker, I maintain that there was a dereliction of duty on his part, and I hope that when this committee meets it will revise the rules so as to provide a suitable punishment for such an offence.
In all fairness, Mr. Speaker, I wish to point out that if there is any charge of dereliction of duty or any criticism to be made against the chairman, such charges should be made against myself and not against my good friend the Deputy Speaker, as I happened to be the acting chairman at that particular time.
I might also say that no objection or point of order was raised by any hon. member of the committee, and rightly or wrongly I was under the impression that the words were used against the press report that the hon. member for Temiscouata had been referring to.
I am quite sure that the hon. member for Parkdale will wish me to make this correction, as I am satisfied that he would not willingly

leave the impression that our Deputy Speaker was the one to blame for what happened as far as the Chair is concerned.


Mr. POULIOT:: Nothing happened.



PARLIAMENTARY RESTAURANT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs) moved):
That Messrs. Black (Yukon). Bradshaw, Breithaupt. Cote (Matapedia-Matane), Coyle. Gariepy, Gladstone, Gourd, Isn'or, Jutras, Laurendeau, Leger, Lesage, Marshall. Mayhew, McGregor, Mclvor, Murphy, Rose, Tustin, Wright and Mrs. Strum, be appointed to assist His Honour the Speaker in the direction of the restaurant, as far as the interests of the Commons are concerned, and to act as members of a joint committee of both houses on the restaurant.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the order:
Hon. H. F. G. BRIDGES (Minister of
Fisheries) moved for leave to introduce bill No. 91, to amend the Fish Inspection Act.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Mr. BRIDGES:: The objects of this bill
are threefold: first, to extend the definition of the word "fish" to include shellfish; second, to enable the governor in council to make regulations respecting the processing and marking of fish to be packed in containers, and, third, to provide for seizure as well as for powers of confiscation upon conviction for an offence against the act or-regulations. The last named addition will bring this act in line with the Fisheries Act and the Meat and Canned Foods Act.


Mr. HOMUTH:: What about the ordinary
fish?


Hedley Francis Gregory Bridges: They are on the other side of the house.	.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.	.



PENITENTIARY ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Minister of
Justice) moved for leave to introduce bill No. 92, to amend the Penitentiary Act, 1939.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.

Labour Conditions
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Following the report of the royal commission on penitentiaries, parliament in 1939 adopted a statute called the Penitentiaries Act, 1939, which was to come into force by proclamation when provision had been made for the appointment of commissioners to administer the penitentiaries. War broke out before these appointments were made, and as a consequence the act was never proclaimed. From its text it evidently had been intended to apply during the fiscal year then current, because it included special provisions affecting the appropriations of the Department of Justice for the year ended March 31, 1940.
* During the war it was not deemed proper to do anything further about implementing the substantial recommendations of this commission. Active hostilities having ceased, and it being possible to expect greater ease in finding both materials for construction that would be necessary in implementing the report, and the additional trained man-power to staff the penitentiaries, it is now considered proper to proceed further with the implementing of the recommendations. It was thought necessary for that purpose to provide certain amendments to the statute so that it would be practicable when proclaimed.
The amendments intended to be provided by this bill are first of all to determine that the commissioners, instead of being appointed for a term of ten years, shall, like most other civil servants, be appointed to hold office during pleasure. I am told it was found that that was the objection to getting men who had been approached in the 1939 period to consent to serve as commissioners. The objection was ' that it was an appointment for a period of ten years with no pension provisions, and therefore it was not attractive.
First the amendment provides that the commissioners be appointed to hold office during pleasure; second, that they come under the provisions of the Superannuation Act, and third, that instead of the whole act being proclaimed and the three commisisoners being appointed at once, a part of the act or the whole act may come into force by .proclamation and one or more commissioners be appointed.
I found on examination that there was very much preliminary work to be done before a penitentiary commission could operate on the lines recommended by the penitentiary report, and that it might be found more desirable to appoint one commissioner to do the preparatory work before an attempt was made to implement the -whole of the report.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.
47696-125J



CITY OF OTTAWA AGREEMENT

[Stage Direction]
AUTHORIZATION OF PAYMENT OF $300,000 FOR FIVE YEARS ENDING JULY 1, 1949	[DOT]
Hon. ALPHONSE FOURNIER (Minister of Public Works) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to present a measure to authorize the Minister of Public Works on behalf of His Majesty, to enter into an agreement to pay to the corporation of the city of Ottawa the sum of $300,066 annually for a period of five years from the first day of July, 1944, and for other purposes stated in the agreement.	'
He said:	His Excellency the Administrator,
having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Will- the Acting Prime Minister be good enough to advise the house as to the present situation with respect to the settlement of the strike of the Ford Motor company employees and other workers at Windsor?


Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Acting Prime Minister) :: I have not seen my colleague the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell), although I had some conversations with him by telephone. I prefer not to make a statement until I see him, but I am informed that the conversations to bring about a settlement of the strike are continuing.



CALGARY ROLLING MILLS-POSSIBILITY OF CLOSING OF PLANT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. C. E. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Reconstruction, of which he has already received notice. It has been brought to my attention that the Dominion Bridge company is intending to close down the Calgary rolling mills at an early date. Equipment and other materials are already being sent to their plant at Selkirk, Manitoba, where they have another mill. If this should happen, 225 men will be thrown out of jobs, and this will add to the already increasing number of unemployed. Will the minister
Public Accounts

state whether or not he is prepared to make every effort to see that this Calgary rolling mill is kept in operation in Calgary?


Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Reconstruction) :: The Calgary rolling mill plant was closed in 1932, and reopened in 1941 in order to supply material for the building of ships on the Pacific coast. The plant has not been closed, but employment has dropped somewhat since the peak of war production. The peak employment during the war was 250, and it is now about 160.
This is a privately owned plant, and we have no special information about their plans. The information that I have obtained since I received notice of the question is that no change in the situation in the near future is anticipated by the company. Certain excess rails have been sent to Selkirk, but that is in the ordinary course of business. The company owns plants in both localities. Of course the company is free to make such disposition of its plants, and of its work, as its policy may indicate. That is the privilege of any privately-owned company.



PUBLIC ACCOUNTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders .of the day:
John Bracken: I have one further question to direct to the Acting Prime Minister in his capacity of Minister of Finance. It has to do with the tabling of the public accounts and the auditor general's report. The Consolidated Revenue and Audit Act require that toe accounts and reports of the auditor general be tabled not later than October 31, if the house is sitting. It is now November 9, and the reports have not yet .been tabled. I raise this question because on Wednesday last the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth) moved for a copy of certain correspondence relating to the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation. At the instance of the government thg motion was turned down. Again to-day in the public accounts committee the information was sought, and again refused, the chairman stating that it would not be made available unless the hon. member asking for it referred to certain specific charges.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


John Bracken: In reply to a. question asked by myself some weeks ago-
LMr. Johnston.]


Mr. SPEAKER:: I must call the attention of the hon. member to the fact that he should not refer to what happened in a committee; that is out of order.


John Bracken: Thank you very much, sir. In reply to a question asked some weeks-ago the minister intimated that it might not be possible to have the public accounts and the report of the auditor general tabled by the time specified by statute. He stated he might have to resort to some expedient or take some other measure because of the government's inability to comply with the statute. Can the minister now inform the house what action is to be taken with respect to the tabling of these documents, and when we may expect that action?
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Financed : I have made inquiries about this matter and undoubtedly the statute does say these must be tabled on or before October 31. The material for these accounts was sent to the king's printer beginning in July or earlier, but I think in July. The last of the material was sent by the comptroller of the treasury on October 2, and a very short statement was added, by the deputy minister just after the budget was introduced on October 12.
It has been impossible for the king's printer to get these reports printed, though the Deputy Minister of Finance has been in correspondence with him through the month of October urging that they be printed and tabled in the house. Under these circumstances the only thing I can think of, and I do not know whether or not it is practicable, would be to see if it can be printed piecemeal by printers around the country. I will explore the possibility of doing that. The king's printer is confronted with this situation, that there is a vast volume of printing.' Hansard and a great many other things incidental to the session have to be attended to, and at the same time the king's printer and his staff are working on these accounts. It is for the Secretary of State to speak for the king's printer rather than the Minister of Finance. All I can say is that we thought we started soon enough; we started as soon as we could get that material to the Icing's printer, and we have not been able to get the work done. As I say, the only thing I can suggest is that it be sent around the country and printed in parts, but whether that would be practicable I do not know.


John Bracken: May I ask the minister
if he would give special attention to trying to have the summary statements prepared, which are usually given in the first part of the public accounts?

Sunnybrook Hospital


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, I will consider the possibility of it being tabled piecemeal, too. With regard to the matter mentioned by the leader of the opposition, in regard to the reference of certain items, I do not know whether these would be referred to in the public accounts, but of course the war expenditures committee has complete jurisdiction to deal with the matters that were mentioned by the hon. gentleman. The government has no objection whatever to these being dealt with there, and dealt with immediately.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: In view of certain things
that have taken place in the last couple of days; since the work of the public accounts committee is predicated entirely upon whether or not the auditor general's report is in the hands of hon. members, and since that report is not here because the printers are too busy, does it mean that the people of this country and the members of this house dare not investigate anything until such time as the auditor general's report is tabled?


James Horace King: I am sorry to interrupt
the hon. gentleman, but there is nothing before the house. It is the privilege of an hon. member to ask a question, but the answer is not debatable.



PRIME MINISTER ATTLEE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: I should like to direct a question to the acting Prime Minister; and incidentally may I say we were all glad to see that the Prime Minister himself arrived in New York this morning. May I ask if any arrangements have been made for the Right Hon. Clement Attlee to visit Ottawa and, if so, when may he be expected?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Not as far as I know, and not as far as is known by the Department of External Affairs.


Major James William Coldwell: There was an announcement over the air this morning that he intends to spend two days in Ottawa.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have no official knowledge of it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think I should supplement my answer to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar with information I did not have then regarding the Right Hon. Mr. Attlee. I have learned that the Prime Minister, in telephone
conversation this morning with his office, indicated that Mr. Attlee might bo coming to Ottawa, and that a letter has been written to the Prime Minister to obtain further details.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. R. MacNICOL (Davenport):: If the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) were here to-day, in view of the close approach of Armistice day he would be looking for a progress report from the Minister of Veterans Affairs in regard to the" Sunnybrook hospital, Toronto. In his absence may I ask the minister for this statement, in behalf of the hon. member for Broadview?
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs):	The hon. member for
Broadview sent me notice yesterday, and though he is absent from the house on other duties this afternoon, with the consent of hon. members I should like to make a brief report on this subject.
I have been asked to make a statement about the progress at the new Sunnybrook hospital in Toronto. As hon. members are aware, this institution is being developed1 as a permanent first-class modern hospital to serve the needs of veterans throughout the future years. It is not in the category of the emergency type of hospital accommodation which it was necessary to provide speedily for the care of current casualties.
The utmost care has been exercised in planning and building this institution. In order that there might be no lost time the work has been divided into a series of projects. The first project consisted of three units: (1) a building for up-patients, containing 250 beds; (2) a neuro-psychiatric pavilion of 150 beds; (3) a power house adequate to serve the entire institution. This project is more than two-thirds completed. We are ready to turn on steam in the power plant. The neuropsychiatric pavilion is fairly well completed, and the building for up-patients is well advanced. But as this building contains the kitchen and dining rooms it is obvious that we cannot occupy any part of this first project until those facilities are completely ready for use.
The second project, containing 950 beds, includes the active treatment unit and the out-patients building. The steel structure is now rapidly nearing completion, concrete floors are being poured, and a commencement has been made on the closing in of the ex-
Halifax V-E Day Riots

terior. Corporal Topham, a Toronto soldier who was awarded the Victoria Cross, is laying the cornerstone of this building to-morrow.
A third project, which is now under way, includes a building for prosthetic services, a utility building and a laundry. The foundations for those three units are well advanced.
Still in the planning stage are a chest pavilion of 100 beds; a nurses' home; a gymnasium and auditorium, and one or two minor units of less urgency. The estimated cost of the work commenced to date is in excess of $8,000,000. The additional projects will cost about $3,000,000.
In conformity with a new departmental policy of having each of our hospitals administered by a superintendent, assisted by an administrative official to be known as hospital manager, we have already appointed Colonel Hollis as hospital superintendent for Sunny-brook. The superintendent is now cooperating with the architects and engineers and departmental officers in connection with the lay-out and selection of equipment and furnishings.
Adjacent to the Sunnybrook site, on what is known as the Flanagan estate, we are building four pavilions in connection with a health and occupational centre for advanced convalescents. These will be ready by Christmas, and with the Flanagan home will provide accommodation for 150 beds. The work now being carried on at Scarboro hall, on the eastern outskirts of Toronto, eventually will be transferred to the Flanagan estate, and the permanent health and occupational centre will be transferred to the large property at the rear of Sunnybrook hospital.
The department has received many splendid offers from private citizens, clubs and similar organizations who wish to make contributions toward the furnishings and equipment of Sunnybrook hospital. In order that there may be no overlapping or duplication of effort in this connection, I asked the various voluntary societies to meet and discuss the nature of the contributions they had offered to make. It was clearly stated that, regardless of private subscriptions, the department and the government will completely furnish the hospital with every pomfort and facility that is required. In order that these generous people who wish to make contributions may be given the opportunity they desire, it has been suggested that their gifts should take the form of cash ear-marked for specific purposes. Suitable plaques will be placed on contributed equipment indicating the identity of the donors, whose generosity is deeply appreciated.



HALIFAX V-E DAY RIOTS REMISSION OF SENTENCES OF NAVAL PERSONNEL

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. DIEFENBAKER (Lake Centre):: I should like to ask the Minister of Justice (Mr. St. Laurent) whether he is now in a position to make a statement regarding the release or remission of sentences imposed on naval personnel in connection with the Halifax riots, and particularly the Sullivan and Stronsky cases.
Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Minister of Justice): As of the end of October, all cases in which gaol sentences had been imposed were disposed of. As at that time there remained^ seventeen cases in which there had been sentences of from two to five years in penitentiaries. A certain number of those who received these sentences had, as our investigations disclosed, previous criminal records. They will be dealt with only in accordance with the normal practice in the department. As to the others who had previous excellent records, the situation is of course very much different. They are looked upon as men who, far from planning or deliberately engaging in crime upon V-E day, were apparently unexpectedly thrown into unpremeditated acts of misconduct during the popular demonstration which attended the victory day celebrations. It is felt that that very circumstance lifts their applications out of the ordinary class, and that they should be given special consideration.
I had not intended mentioning the names of the young men, but my hon. friend has done so. What I have said applies particularly to the case of the young man named Sullivan. At the end of October we were able to complete our investigations 'with respect to this matter. I must say that his attitude in court warranted the belief that he was engaged in looting premises that had been broken into, as an accomplice of the principal culprits. That was the charge against him, and the one to which he pleaded guilty. However, subsequent investigations have established very serious doubts as to whether he was really associated with them and there is now much to support his assertion that he arrived on the scene only after the store had been broken into and the looting was already in progress. It may be that he was more a spectator than a participant.
Then there was another contention. There is no doubt that to a considerable degree as a nesult of the celebration he was under the influence of liquor. And of course a condition

Homing Act
of that kind) on, that day might be leas blameworthy than it would be under ordinary circumstances. Taking into account th.e serious doubt as to the degree of his participation, which, despite his plea of guilty, was shown from the investigation we were able to make, it was felt that there should be an immediate recommendation in his case for ticket-of-leave. That was done.
There remain sixteen eases. In nine or ten the sentences are for two years. Investigations are being pursued in the same spirit of trying to take an understanding and sympathetic view of the circumstances in which lad's who had good records found themselves on that dfiy. It is hoped that it will not be very- long before all who can be dealt with on an exceptionally favourable and sympathetic basis will have been dealt with.



NATIONAL HOUSING ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance) moved the second reading of bill No. 23 to incorporate the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
He said: I did not anticipate that I would be expected to make a speech when moving the second reading of this bill, because I spoke at length on the resolution. Perhaps I should say just this, however, that the incorporation of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation is sought mainly for the purpose of placing the administration of the Housing Act of 1944 in the hands of an agency which, we think, will be more satisfactory than the Minister of Finance. The principle of the bill is pretty well summed up in what I have just said.
Later on, amendments will be made to the National Housing Act, and there is a resolution on the order paper under which those amendments can be dealt with. I would hope that in the interests of expediting the transaction of public building this will not be a general debate on housing, but that the debate, if there is to be any, will be directed to the principle of the bill on the second reading and on the sections considered in committee. I shall be in position to explain the sections as they are reached ajid later I will introduce a resolution and bill amending the housing act in important particulars.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of taking up much time, but I have been swamped) by communications from builders and companies connected with the manufacturing or processing of building materials. They fear that for some considerable time yet the building trade is going to be under a large degree of control. One builder pointed out that during the war years the builders were quite prepared to accept gladly the controls imposed by the government. They felt that those controls were put on in order to ensure that the people generally would concentrate their efforts on the prosecuting of the war. But now that the war is over they feel that'as many controls as possible connected with the building trades should be discontinued.
I well remember a housing shortage that took place in 1907, the first one that I became acquainted with. That shortage resulted from the great immigration of that and previous years. Many thousands of people came in from the old country. I for one hope that as soon as normal times come again we shall have many thousands of people coming in from the old country to build up this country. On that occasion the housing shortage was overcome in various ways, one of which I am going to explain. I shall confine my remarks to Toronto because the housing shortage there was worse than anywhere else.
All along the north end of the -city, beginning at the west in what is known as the Runny,mede district and going east to Mount Denis, Fairbanks, Silverthorne and Earlscourt -this is the district-in which I'reside, but at that time it was a suburban district-through to East York, areas were opened up, largely by real estate agencies, of course in association with private owners of land.
In the Earlscourt area at that time there would not be more than two hundred and fifty families living in a district which now comprises a large number of city blocks. A large block of land was taken over by the Goulding company, immediately south of St. Clair avenue, and a large number of lots were offered for sale. The majority of the purchasers of these lots were people from the old country. A man would buy a lot and then on Saturday afternoons during the summer, on holidays or in the evening, you would see that man and a multitude of others going along on their bicycles, or even walking up the hill, carrying lumber or other materials with which to com-

Housing Act

plete their houses. Those people overcame the housing shortage because there were no restrictions. They could go to the mill and buy window frames, door frames or anything else. They would then proceed to their lots and build their houses. This whole area now contains many fine residences, and it was largely built up by the people themselves.
Coming back to the other large area to which I referred, the property taken over by the Goulding company. This was just one company among many. The Green company built a number of houses-if I were to say five hundred, I might be exaggerating, but if I said only one hundred, I know the figure would be too small. Those houses were put up in an incredibly short space of time. These firms overcame the housing shortage bj' means of private enterprise.
I remember a similar housing shortage that occurred in 1920. That was overcome by builders like Green and others who were not circumscribed by regulations of any description. They were able to borrow money from the lending companies and they could go directly to the mills and buy whatever they wanted. I am wondering if the time has not come when the government, through this or some other bill, should place Wartime Housing in the same position as the private builders and not give that company any advantage. I am convinced if we could once more open up the regular channels of trade to the owners of land, the lending companies, the factories producing building materials and private builders; if we could remove restrictions, they would quickly overcome the present housing shortage.
A few days ago I received a communication from the retail lumber dealers' association, three or four paragraphs of which I should like to read because I think they are pertinent to the situation. I think everything should be done to loosen up the controls and place private builders and private individuals on the same basis as Wartime Housing as far as the obtaining of materials is concerned. If that were done I am sure it would go a long way toward relieving the situation. This report reads in part:
The retail lumber-dealers in Ontario and private builders are suffering to-day from a situation which is unnecessary and unfair and which is rapidly assuming the proportions of a catastrophe.
In just a little while I am going to show the catastrophic position in which the people find themselves to-day.
Throughout the war we accepted the situation willingly, so that materials and labour could be

channelled into war production and- the defence effort. With hostilities at an end we claim the government's assistance in putting an end to the disruption of the building industry, of which we are a most important element. This assistance will be by way of making stocks of lumber for building purposes available to us without any priorities being granted to government agencies such as Wartime Housing Limited and the Veterans' Land Act.
That is the crux of the whole thing. A large number of builders, men who have rendered great service in the building trades down through the years, find themselves powerless through being unable to get materials, because, according to their information-and it must be correct-large stocks of these goods are held by Wartime Housing and the private builder cannot get what he wants to proceed with his work. I am not condemning Wartime Housing; I would rather compliment it upon what it is doing to relieve the housing shortage. But if what these men say is the fact, that large blocks of building materials are being held up by Wartime Housing so that the private builder cannot obtain them, it is obvious that the action of Wartime Housing is causing a bottleneck in the building trades.


Mr. GLADSTONE:: If I may interject, I
should like to support the hon. member in the thought that he is expressing, with this one reservation-


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am in the middle of
my speech. The'hon. member will have his opportunity later.


Robert William Gladstone: -and that reservation is that the materials be made available to soldiers and not to millionaires.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Thanks for the interjection, but I would rather the hon. member made it direct himself in the course of his speech, and then he would get full credit for it. He will not get so much credit for it by interjecting it into- the middle of my remarks. I quote further from the same brief:
Tlie most promising single action the government can take to avoid these dangers is to make Wartime Housing Limited just as subject to the shortages of lumber, doors, and other building materials as are the retail dealers and the private builders.	.
That is a strong statement, but I believe it is true. I have heard from so many builders that they cannot obtain the materials they require because Wartime Housing has them stored or otherwise under their control, and Wartime Housing in the meantime cannot use these materials. So why not put the private builder in a position to buy what he needs?

Housing Act
Yesterday I received another communication which I presume every other member of the house received, from the Canadian Lumbermen's association, with headquarters in Ottawa. I should like to quote a paragraph or two, as it may save other members from quoting it:
The board of directors of this association at a regularly called meeting held on October 30, 1945, in Montreal instructed the undersigned by unanimous resolution to formally protest to you-
The letter is addressed to the Minister of Reconstruction:
-as minister of the department responsible for the timber control against the method of requisitioning lumber for Wartime Housing Limited.
This is a large organization, and these men should know. They say they cannot obtain the materials to build the houses they have contracted to build because the materials are held up for Wartime Housing. The government should act and see that Wartime Housing and all other builders are placed on exactly the same plane so that all of them may obtain the materials they require to build houses.
Another paragraph of this letter says that the Canadian Lumbermen's association

wishes to know if the government will assume all responsibility for all damages which may result from breaches of contract or from unlawful disposal of lumber not the lawful property of the mills asked to make such disposal.
I know from this, and many other letters I have received, of many private builders who have undertaken to build blocks of houses- I shall refer to a large block in a moment

and have to complete them within a certain time on pain of penalty. Yet how can they complete their contracts when the materials which they so urgently require are under the priority of Wartime Housing?
I quote one further paragraph from the letter of the Canadian Lumbermen's association:
This association was under the impression that it was government policy to gradually reduce control restrictions with a view to the earliest possible return to free trading consistent with public safety. It submits that this method of purchase for Wartime Housing Limited is not in keeping with such a policy.
I believe they are right. Wartime Housing and private builders should be put on the same plane. Each should have the right to its fair share of the materials it requires to continue to operate. If that be done I am convinced that the private builders and contractors will very quickly make a big hole in the requirements of the public to-day for housing.
I have received this letter from a private firm in Toronto with which I am very well
acquainted, the Gordon S. Lee Lumber corn-47696-126
pany, on Primrose Avenue. They sent me this letter on their own behalf, under date of September 25, 1945 :
Dear Mr. MacNicol:
As you no doubt are aware the retail lumber yards are empty. Our yard to-day has no dimension lumber, flooring, sheathing or siding.
We cannot get delivery of asphalt shingles, wallboards, doors or sash.
On inquiry from manufacturers they are all working on Wartime Housing orders. Now what are we to do? Our overhead still goes on and the builders we have been supplying for years ape in the same way.
I trust you can do something for us.
That puts it very plainly, and shows that not only the builders but the suppliers are also affected by the priorities exercised by Wartime Housing. I hope therefore that the government will take prompt steps to give the same opportunities to all private builders that are now given to Wartime Housing.
On my last visit home I looked over an area where a large number of houses are being built. I talked to some of the men on the job. One of them was an influential plumber and steamfitter, influential in his capacity for doing business, and he told me that he knew of from four to five thousand houses that were built almost to completion but were short of plumbing and heating materials. They cannot get those materials because they are tied up by Wartime Housing. I asked, "Where have they got those materials?" He replied, "When I apply to the wholesaler or the manufacturer I am told:	Wartime Housing has
exercised its rights and tied the material up, and so you cannot have any." If Wartime Housing has plumbing and heating materials tied up, material that is urgently required to complete from four to five thousand houses, and if Wartime -Housing is not in a position to use it, I say that this material should be turned over to the private builders to give them a chance to complete the houses they now have under construction and awaiting these materials. It seems to me that whoever is in charge is failing to make sure that there is an even flow to private builders and Wartime Housing. That surely can be overcome.
There are one or two matters that I would refer to in connection with the bill. One is the purchase of slum areas. Anything that the bill can accomplish to eliminate such districts should be done, because in Montreal, Toronto and many other cities throughout Canada there are slum areas that need to be cleaned up. These areas will be difficult to take over, and the reason is plain. In downtown Toronto there is a large slum area, so called, in which there are hundreds of humble dwellings. They are not satisfactory but they are occupied nevertheless. Why has that area

Housing Act


Mr. STANLEY KNOWLES (Winnipeg North Centre):: I should like to address a few remarks to the principle of the bill which is now before the house. I am reminded of the statement of the minister that what is now before us is not the National Housing Act itself or any potential amendments thereto; rather this is a bill to set up a central housing and mortgage corporation to take the place of the Minister of Finance in the administration of the National Housing Act and in the administration of housing generally so far as the government is in that field.
Before I speak directly to the bill I should like to say a word with respect to the remarks of the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol). Like all hon. members of the house I enjoy very happy relations with the hon. member for Davenport, which I may say have been enhanced this year now that we are sitting a little closer together in the chamber. But it is still true that I find myself disagreeing with him more often than not. I feel that to-day he has been guilty once again of an inconsistency which, if 1 may say so, frequently manifests itself in the house, especially on the part of my Progressive Conservative friends. He pleaded with the government to remove controls and to give a freer hand to private builders; then a few moments later he made a plea that amounted' to a request for the imposition of controls so that certain groups would be sure to get housing. He also made a plea, in which I heartily concur, for slum clearance, playgrounds and recreational centres that would make it possible for children in what are now poor areas to come off the streets. That is certainly a plea for the government, which he wants to take controls off, to go further into the business of housing and into controls in our economy, so that certain people will not get the short end of the stick, as is the case at the present time. The inconsistency is surely obvious.
I agree with the hon, member in his plea that the government should1 take further steps in connection with our housing needs. I do not agree with him in his urging the government to remove controls and to go back to the days of free enterprise such as we had before, To my way of thinking, the steps the government has been talcing are steps in the right direction, but they are too halting. The trouble is that the situation in the field of housing that the government is trying to overtake is travelling faster than the government is moving. My plea to the government is the very opposite of that of the hon. member for Davenport. I urge the government to
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move faster and to go further in the matter of government interest in housing. After all, when we speak of housing we are dealing with one of the most important matters in the country. In fact I should like to put it this way: I see in the housing situation in Canada at the present time perhaps the most serious problem facing us, and yet at the same time I see in it one of the greatest opportunities for joint collective effort on the part of our people that we ever had.
The war demonstrated a good many things. It demonstrated capacity for collective effort, a capacity for production on the part of our Canadian people through our Canadian economy of which I am 'sure none of us dreamed before the war. I am convinced that if we can apply that capacity to this problem of housing we can turn it from the dark and sombre picture that it is at the present time into one of which Canadians can be proud. I hope the day may come when we can lead the world in our respect forHiome life and when we may show that respect not by flag waving, not by sentiment, but by the actual construction for our people of the best houses we can possibly build, laid out in ideal communities for all our people, with all the facilities there should be in an ideal community. I feel that as the member for Winnipeg North Centre I shall not have given my best service to the people of that constituency during the years I hope to be here unless as a result of my efforts the day comes when instead of some of the housing conditions now existing in that area we shall have for the industrial working people whom I represent the best kind of homes that modern architects and engineers can design and build.
I indicated when I rose to my feet that I would try to address myself to the principle of the bill which is before the house. That principle, as the minister has stated, is that a crown company should be set up to act for the government in the matter of housing. The minister could not help but smile at his own modesty when he suggested he was proposing an agency better than the Minister of Finance, but that is not the point. The purpose of this bill is to consolidate the moves the government has made in going into the business of housing, by setting up a crown corporation, as I have already said, to act for the government. In that principle we of this group concur even though we are not satisfied with the powers to be given to the corporation. It seems to me it is more relevant on this bill than on any other.housing measure that may be brought before the house for me to say what powers we feel such a government housing corporation should have. The bill before us gives that corporation authority to act for
TMr. Knmvlr's.l
the Minister of Finance wherever the Minister of Finance is mentioned in the National Housing Act. It also gives the corporation certain powers in the field of assisting in the financing of housing projects, and authority to do research in the field of housing finance. Our contention is that this corporation, the setting up of which is a good idea, should have its powers enlarged so that it will not only do research work in the field of housing finance, but will do work and research in the field of actual housing construction itself.
This immediately raises the question of mone3r. I want to suggest to the minister that instead of the very modest appropriation suggested here of $25,000,000, I wish he had the imagination and would use the same ideas he had during the war, and would propose to this house an appropriation, over a period of four or five years, of at least a billion dollars for housing. That is still a tremendous sum of money, but I suggest it as a way of turning the searchlight .on the idea I am trying to establish. That idea is that the provision of homes for our people is a basic need, terribly underlined by the conditions existing to-day, so that in my own city, for example, people are being housed temporarily in the'immigration building, in air force barracks, in some cases in tents and trailers and so on. It is not just that problem we should somehow seek to alleviate, but it is the further fact that Canadian citizens, Canadian workmen, their wives and children, are entitled in this modern age to live in the very best kind of .homes. I deplore the idea that workers, because they are industrial workers in industrial areas, should be expected for ever to live in a different kind of community-smaller houses, crowded more closely together, on narrower streets, with fewer of the cultural and recreational advantages that are found in other parts of a city. In my view they are entitled to the best, just as much as any other Canadian citizen. These industrial workers in areas such as the one I represent produce by their toil untold wealth; yet, our economy being what it is, they do not get back a sufficient share of the wealth they actually produce to enable them to build, by individual effort, the kinds of houses they would like to have for their families, which means that if we are going to get anywhere with this idea of the best of communities and the best of homes for our people it is going to have to be done on a collective basis. We are going to have to tackle the problem of winning the peace and building a better Canada for our heroic Canadians with the same imagination, the same dispatch and the same determination as those with which our people weW into the war.

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The Minister of Finance knows that one of my favourite quotations from him, which I have read to the house before, was made on March 3, 1943. At that time he was being criticized by certain hon. members of this house, both on his own side and to my right, for what were regarded as huge war expenditures. He was being told that these expenditures would bankrupt the country, and that we simply could not go on. As recorded at page 930 of Hansard for March 3, 1943, the minister said:
We do not pay for the war out of some hoard of money that we have accumulated in the past. We 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. 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 we 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 new skills, has expanded and, diversified the produc-[DOT] tion 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?
Then came this really telling sentence from the Minister of Finance, and I can tell him I have quoted it on the hustings wherever I have gone:
No country goes bankrupt in this way; no country goes, bankrupt by increasing its production and devoting part or all, or more than all of that increase to a supreme cause.
I am not being facetious when I say that was a most significant statement; and all I am asking is that the same principle which was behind the minister's policy during the war with respect to producing munitions and supplies and devoting them to a great cause, the cause of war, should be applied to the greater cause we have now, the cause of peace. I feel I must insist we should think of. the cause of peace, not in vague abstractions but in specific terms. I mention bousing as one of the specific projects to which we should give urgent consideration. May I suggest, in the language of the minister, that if this country under his guidance as Minister of Finance and the minister responsible for housing, will greatly increase its production, would do it in the building of houses, and thus would devote part or all or more than all of that increase to a great cause-the
cause of better homes for our Canadian people -he will not be bankrupting the country now any more than he was then. He will be increasing the standard of living of our people, and will be establishing a living heritage which will stand as a great credit to him as Minister of Finance during this significant period of our history. He knows how fully I disagree with him in many ways but I am giving him this opportunity in the hope he will fulfil it.
Later in the same speech the minister said:
Let those of us who are inclined to fear the economic consequences of our war expenditures remember that these expenditures have developed and brought to light an enormous increase in our Canadian capacity to produce-an increase greater than any of us had ever before suspected.
My plea to the minister is that he launch forth upon a programme of building houses for our Canadian people in the same way as he launched into a programme of producing war goods. If he did so I suggest we would have the same results. Instead1 of bankrupting the nation or leaving us with financial problems we could not carry, such a policy would bring about an enormous increase in our capacity to produce. It would reveal all sorts of associated fields in which people could be employed, and the total result -yvould be a tremendous improvement in the economic position of the entire country and of all our people.
I could continue quoting from the minister's excellent speech made on that occasion. It might be noted that the most excellent portions were in his answers to interruptions made by the then member for York-Sunbury, Mr. Hanson. I congratulate him upon the answers he made, and I call upon him now to translate those same principles into this programme of financing the construction of houses. In other words, I have drawn on the minister himself as my chief witness in arguing for an appropriation, not of just $25,000,000, but of an amount sufficient to assist in the financing of homes. There should be appropriated over a period of four or five years at least a billion dollars to assist in the actual building of houses, in all that is involved in the term "town planning," and to subsidize- because that is what will be involved-the building of homes for Certain sections of our population.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Does not my hon. friend agree that at the present time the construction of houses is in no way limited by financial considerations? Does he not agree that it is limited purely by physical considerations?
19S8
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Stanley Howard Knowles: I am glad to have the
minister ask that question, because he is admitting, although it is not the first time, that in his view financial considerations are not a limiting factor.


James Lorimer Ilsley: They are not limiting the
construction of houses at this time at all. The limitation at the present time is physical, and is found in the present capacity of the country to produce materials.
Mr. KNOWLES1:	Those same limitations
of a physical nature existed during the period of the war when we had to produce materials for the war. But by organization, not only in the financial but in the man-power fields, by gearing our whole national economy to a great purpose, somehow this country was able to overcome those shortages. My feeling is that that sense of urgency and that sense of gearing our nation to a great national purpose is a factor which plays an important part in a matter of this kind. It is that factor that is now lacking.
I think the government has taken the position that our people are sick of being geared to a great national purpose, that they are sick of controls, and that there should be a let-down. There is a certain psychological foundation for that position. On. the other hand if we do permit a let-down and a slipping back into the old ways, the result will be a lowering of our economy, and, if I dare use that awful word, a depression. Certainly we would regret any such action. On the other hand, I feel that our people would respond readily if we were to give a lead in gearing ourselves to a great national purpose, than which there could be none more worthy than that of building houses. And1 when I refer to the building of houses I do not mean just the buildings themselves; I have in mind the building of homes which will develop communities and home life for our Canadian people.
The minister says there are no financial limitations in the' way at. the present time. The legislation before us does not test that assertion, because it does not provide either the financial resources or the governmental machinery required to enter the field of housing.


Mr. MUTCH:: WoTild the hon. member
suggest the type of machinery which might be initiated at the present time?
TVIr. KNOWLES:	Yes; I would suggest
that this crown housing corporation which is being created should first of all be provided with plenty of money. Then it should have

power to do research in. housing and in town planning, as well as in housing financial arrangements. It should have authority to make agreements, perhaps with the provinces but certainly with municipal housing authorities, so that such public housing authorities could be helped in slum clearance, town planning and the actual construction of houses where needed.


Leslie Alexander Mutch: Would what the hon. member suggests provide anything in the immediate future for our immediate and present needs? Is he- not suggesting a long-range policy?


Stanley Howard Knowles: If we sit around and
wait to get started on a long-range policy, we shall never get it started. ' The hon. member is correct when he says that this does not provide houses for the coming winter ini our city of Winnipeg-from which both he and I come, and where they are. making use of temporary shelters. But the very fact that that sort of thing is required in. our city at the present time should prompt parliament not to think that we may do something two or three years from now, or by the time another government takes office, but to face the fact that we must do it now. In passing I might say that even in the constituency of the hon. member who has just interrupted there is a serious lack of housing. In fact, I saw in one of the Winnipeg papers a few days ago a picture of a tent which was located in his constituency'-and it is pretty cold out there now. I am deeply appreciative of the interest the Minister of Finance and hon. members opposite generally have shown in my appeal. I hope they will give consideration to it.
One of the reasons for appropriating a much larger sum of money lies in the need for an element of subsidy. In my view this is necessary, at least in our present economy, if we are to construct houses for the people who really need them. Even at the risk of repetition let me point out that one of the reasons we must have an abundance of money in ahy public housing effort is found in the projects mentioned by the hon. member for Davenport. He referred to slum clearance, and better playgrounds for children, which would have to be supplied by collective effort. These developments are not and cannot be carried out by individual builders who are building their own homes. [DOT]
But even after that is taken care of, there remains the fact that a great many people are in income brackets which do not enable

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them, without undue strain on family budgets, and, in particular, without strain on nutritional standards, to procure the kind of housing they should have. In this connection I should like to remind the minister again of the excellent report which was submitted by the subcommittee on housing which worked under the government's advisory committee on reconstruction. This is popularly known as the Curtis report, because Professor Curtis was chairman of the subcommittee. The report'was tabled on March 24, 1944. As I have said in previous debates on housing, there -is a wealth of material in this report. If its recommendations could be carried out by the government to which the committee made its report, I should be happy indeed. I am going to quote again from the report, but only on one subject, namely, the special need of a large group of our people. On page 9 of the report I find this:
The backlog accumulated from the past-
That is the backlog of housing need.
-.and the programme needed for the future are so great that we cannot afford, to concentrate only on one branch to the exclusion of others.
Get that. But after saying that we cannot afford to concentrate on the one branch to the exclusion of o'thers, the committee goes on to say something which it thereby emphasizes:
It seems indicated, however, that special attention, in the advance preparation of plans, should be given to low-rental housing and farm housing, in which this country has had. little or no experience to date; and also that home and farm improvement should) be made ready the most urgently in advance, because of its immediate applicability to the first period of demobilization.
Then on page 110 of the report, which follows several pages relating to a survey of the incomes of people needing houses, I find this:
The most striking fact is that average family income (from wages) among one-third, of all metropolitan tenants is only a little over $700 (see table 25). In three cities it is substantially higher than this average, but in six cities actually lower. Some allowance should doubtless be made for differences in cosits of living. So far as these vary in the same direction as wages, the regional differences in terms of purchasing power are less unequal than may at first appear. The net showing, however, is clearly that, even if some supplements to. income exist which are not here recorded, the situation which, housing legislation must meet is a serious one.
After skipping a sentence or two I find this:
What is important is that none of these adjustments .are of dimensions sufficient to remove the main problem-that incomes in this sector of the population are too low for even
moderate rents to be paid without some threat to nutritional and other demands on the budget; or, alternatively, that the rentals which must be set for new housing designed for these groups are a challenge to housing finance. In general, it is not fully realized how large a proportion of the people living in our cities are so near the margin, or actually below it. It is obvious that a housing programme which ignores the special conditions of this section will fail to meet the most pressing part of the urban problem.
I turn now to page 120, where I find this further comment on the same phase of the matter:
About fifty per cent-
That is a pretty high proportion.
-of the families living in metropolitan areas throughout the dominion pay a disproportionate rent, and in six cities more than half of the families strain their budgets in some degree by paying an excessive proportion for their housing needs.
I welcomed the interruption by my hon. friend from my own city, the hon. member for Winnipeg South (Mr. Mutch), which drew attention to the immediate problem we have in our city where hundreds of families have had to be housed under temporary conditions.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Are those figures for income, and so on, not 1941 figures? .


Stanley Howard Knowles: I believe they are. The minister will recall that the statement which I quoted from, stated that even with some supplements to income which are not there recorded, the situation which housing legislation must meet is a serious one for this large sector of our population. As I said, I welcomed the interruption of my hon. friend which drew attention to the fact that a serious situation obtains in cities like ours. However, as the minister will probably point out, this is not what is before us just now. What we have before us at the moment is a bill that looks into the future-but not too far, I hope.
The purpose of this bill is to set up a crown corporation in the field of housing. I am glad that is being done. The powers authorized are far too limited, but one of the hopeful things about some of the steps that this government takes, even though they are feeble, is that there is no going back. I am satisfied that we shall never have any less activity by the government in the field of housing than we are having now, or that we shall have after this corporation is in existence. This government is in the first few months of its existence after an election and I imagine it has quite a while to go. I urge that it consider seriously making a tremendous advance in its ideas about housing during the lifetime of this parliament. The particular plea I make is that this corporation be made
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more than just a servant of the lending companies; that it be given, in addition to its powers in the field of housing finance, powers in the field of housing construction, slum clearance and town planning, so that out of the activities of this corporation which will be set up by the passing of this bill we shall see the day when we can begin to build a Canada about which we can not only wax sentimental in the use of fine phrases and in waving the flag, but which will be a country first and foremost in good houses and good homes for its people.
Mr. SOLON E. LOW (Peace River): Mr. Speaker, my socialist friends to my right seem to see in a good many of the measures advocated by the government at least a partial fulfilment of the policies which they advocate. They imply that the C.C.F. party advocates socialism and that the Liberal party immediately busies itself in implementing their recommendations. I am coming to the conclusion that they are right and that the most socialistic people we have in this house are the members of the Liberal government.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The socialists say that we are Social Crediters.


Stanley Howard Knowles: No; we would not call you that.


Mr. LOW:: To that I would simply answer that in the past three or four weeks we' have had several examples of love feasts. I have heard the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) on several occasions in the past three weeks make one of his ponderous speeches commending the government for implementing things that his party had been advocating for so many years.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I like to be fair.


Solon Earl Low: I should say the hon. member does. It always seems to me that when I see the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre rise in his place, it is time for me to be suspicious. What I have to say at this time is not so much about what the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has said; and it is not so much directed toward the principle of governmental assistance in housing projects. I consider that the government has a place to fill in this field; what place they have to fill, of course, is open to debate and very careful analysis. I am sure, however, that there must be in the minds of a good many Canadians to-day this question: What has gone wrong that the government of Canada has to go into the field of building private houses for the Canadian people? I say that, rather than that being a matter for congratulation to the minister, as the hon. member for Winnipeg

North Centre has indicated, it is a matter for deep regret. If private enterprise has become so bogged down and so shackled and manacled- that it cannot fulfil the functions which it did at one time to the satisfaction of the people of this country, it is high time that the government began to take off those shackles and manacles and let private enterprise be free to perform its functions. I am getting a little bit tired of our socialist friends rising in their places and saying that the only way in which we can get things done is by collectivism.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is right.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is how we won the war.


Solon Earl Low: I understand that my hon. friend is a firm believer in collectivism. But we won the war through the magnificient efforts of individuals. One of the freedoms for which Canadians fought the war was the freedom to live their lives as individuals and not as parts of regimented groups. That is what I am fighting for, and if the government would fulfil its proper function of getting purchasing power into the hands of the consumers it would1 not have to bring in a bill to provide for the building of houses, because the people would then do it for themselves and make an extremely good job of it.
But I wish to point out am entirely different principle in this bill. We have before us another attempt, as I see it, to set up by law the "Corporation Money Lenders' Charter". I see in this bill an attempt to reintroduce in different clothes the Central Mortgage Bank Act of 1939, and that is what I take objection to. There are evidences, plenty of them, in the bill, that this is so. Just look at part II, beginning with section 28 and1 including sections 29, 30 and 31, and you will see that the corporation to be set up under this measure is not confined to financing housing loans, but is empowered and authorized to go out into the field and buy up and secure any mortgage in existence in Canada.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is correct; mortgages held by lending institutions. That is a second feature.


Solon Earl Low: That is right. It is to that, that I am now drawing the attention of the house, because it is important that the Canadian people should know just what is being done under this legislation. I recall that when the Central Mortgage Bank Act rvas put through the house in 1939, it came before the house near the end of the session when the government was very busy preparing for

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the coming of their Majesties the King and Queen, and the members were naturally anxious to get home and did not have much time to spend on the bill. But I remember the decided upsurge of feeling there was throughout the whole of Canada against it. That may be the reason why the act was never proclaimed. It has not yet been. And n-ow I see that same proposal being brought back into the house, dressed up in a very innocent-looking, indeed a very worthy dress -housing. I do not think that is the right vray of dealing with a thing of this type. It has yet to be shown that a central mortgage bank is necessary to provide plenty of houses for the Canadian people. When the Minister of Finance has shown that that bank is necessary to provide plenty of houses for the Canadian people I shall be the first one to assist him to get it into operation.
I see in this bill what might be one more attempt to arrogate to the dominion government the powers and rights that were allocated to the provinces under the British North America Act. I see in it one more inroad on the - power of the provinces, the waning power 'of the provinces, over property and civil rights which was given to them under the British North America Act. That was the basis of the opposition of this group to the Central Mortgage Bank bill in 1939, and if I am correct in my assumption that this bill reintroduces many of the provisions of that act, then I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that that still must be our basis of opposition, that it does centralize. We are determinedly set against the centralization and the arroga-tion of provincial rights into dominion hands. This bill undoubtedly, if it goes through and is applied, will result in the further diminishing of provincial authority in the field of property and civil rights.
An lion. MEMBER: Explain.


Solon Earl Low: Yes, I will explain, but first let me give one quotation from Lord Macmillan, with whom most members of the house are familiar. He said:
Provinces are sovereign within their own sphere of jurisdiction. Therefore, the citizen can look only to his provincial government for protection of his property rights. And the question of debt enforcement by depossession is essentially a matter concerning property rights oi the citizen.
Now, in answer to the question just asked, I see in this bill provisions which might take out of the hands of provincial governments the right to arrange debt settlements under certain mortgage agreements relating to homes, farm property or any other property within
the confines of the province. I say that such a possibility is dangerous, and it is on that ground more particularly than anything else that this group stands firm in its opposition to the bill.
There is certain information which I have been trying to get, and which will come along, I am sure, within the next day or two, that will enable me to complete my case. Whether it is the intention of the minister to press for the early passage of this bill I do not know, but if it is I am sure that the minister will indicate it.
Mr. II.SLEY: I certainly want to get it through to-day if I can.


Solon Earl Low: There is certain information that I require to complete my case, and- if I could be assured that the committee stage would not be completed to-day but would be deferred until Monday I would not do what I otherwise must do. If it is the intention of the government to try to finish the whole thing up to-day, I should like to move the adjournment of the debate at this stage.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I would oppose the adjournment of the debate, but if the hon. gentleman can make a case for waiting until Monday I do not think I would be justified in refusing him. I think, however, we had better go ahead and give the bill second reading and then go through the clauses. I should like to hear the hon. gentleman's case, even on the assumption that the information which he expects comes. I have not heard any case yet against the bill.


Solon Earl Low: I need the information to present a comprehensive case. I cannoi do so at the moment because I am not in possession of all the information I have been seeking. For that reason I should like to move the adjournment of the debate.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I shall have to oppose the adjournment of the debate. Would not this be satisfactory to my hon. friend? Let us have the second reading and go into the clauses, dealing with those that are not objectionable to him. He is objecting, as I understand, to clauses 28 and 29 which empower this corporation


Solon Earl Low: And sections 30 and 31.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Well, the group of clauses
which centre round the power given the corporation to buy mortgages.


Solon Earl Low: That is right. [DOT]


James Lorimer Ilsley: We believe that to be a most valuable feature of the bill, and I will give reasons for that belief. The hon. member
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perhaps does not share it. Let us leave those clauses, or one or some of them, until he gets the information he wishes to have for the purpose of making a case against those provisions.


Solon Earl Low: I have no objection whatever to a procedure of that kind so long as I am sure that we shall have a full and complete opportunity for presenting our case and for further questioning of the minister in order that we can leam the whole story. I do not wish to delay the house in this matter; I have not shown that tendency in anything we have done this session. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I shall be prepared to go into the committee, if the rest of the members so desire, and discuss the clauses, if we hold over one or two so that we may resume discussion of them on Monday.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will agree to that.


John Bracken: May I be permitted a question. I have been interested in the discussion between the hon. member for Peace River and the Minister of Finance. We wish to facilitate the work of the house as much as possible, but frankly we had hoped that the minister would not press this' matter to a final decision to-day. Two of our members in particular are interested in it and they are away; they were not aware when they left last night that this measure would come up to-day. I wonder if the minister would be agreeable to leaving it in committee to-day. Pass the second reading, go into committee, and leave it there, dealing with it finally on Monday.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That was what I undertook to do in the remarks I made in reply to the member for Peace River. The leader of the opposition may wish to have certain clauses stand, but can we not deal with some of the clauses in committee?


John Bracken: I do not know what
clauses hon. members would like to have left over, but I am sure the Minister of Finance would not mind holding over until Monday any clauses that hon. members might wisl^ to discuss.


Stanley Howard Knowles: How about these four
clauses and the short title?


James Lorimer Ilsley: All right.


Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster):: I would not mind the house going into committee but if we went into committee at once some members might be debarred from discussing certain phases of the bill1 with which they can deal only on this occasion.

I have just a few remarks to make before you leave the chair, Mr. Speaker, and I shall be as brief as possible.
The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low), the leader of the Social Credit party, stated that the dominion government under this bill was jeopardizing provincial rights. From what I see of provincial governments to-day it is my opinion that they are nothing more or less than glorified municipal councils. As a matter of fact they are not doing as good work in many cases as the municipal councils are. Be that as it may, I would just make this further statement. The hon, member chided the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) and I was very much interested in the statement that hon. gentleman made. He said that he agreed with the bill, but I think the issue as between state-owned and private industry is becoming just a little confused in this house especially on the part of members of the C.C.F., because what we are actually doing now is separating this company from the government and setting up a crown company. I am not opposed to the setting up of a crown company as such, but when it is supported by the people's money I object to giving it powers that are not within the control of this parliament. I will mention what-I have in mind to support that statement.
Under this measure, just as under National Housing, we are guaranteeing the lending institutions, and that is the main fact which no one can dispute. The lending institutions in the past have often been extremely arbitrary, and I have before me a letter which came to me the other day indicating the attitude they sometimes take-and it affects ex-servicemen. This is from the citizens rehabilitation committee of New Westminster. I quote:
At the last meeting of our committee it was brought to dur attention that a veteran who was building a house under the National Housing Act could not occupy it because it had no bath installed. However, in most instances shower connection had been . installed and this was passed by the local health inspector, and we consider that the veteran should be allorved to move into a home of this kind.
The hon.. member for Davenport gave a touching account of the poor homes in northern Ontario and northern Quebec; but from what I see in this bill, and looking back at the past operations of the National Housing Act, I would say that this measure will not help those people about whom he is speaking, if past services are any criterion. We had under the act applications, for instance, from the municipality of Burnaby to the lending institutions, and there were also applications

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from the Surrey municipality, on King George highway, where people wished to build close to the city. Would these lending institutions lend any money there? No. They would not lend a dollar, and when I took the matter up the excuse they gave was that the municipality of Burnaby had; gone into liquidation. The fact was that that municipality was just honest, because it was in a better position than many cities which claim to-day to be doing well. The debt was not as great as the debt of Montreal or many otheT cities; yet the lending institutions were lending freely in those centres. But when it came to Burnaby and other districts where the people had steady jobs the lending institutions took the attitude that they would not advance any money for houses.
I would ask the minister to tell the house just what power is in the bill whereby he can say to the lending institutions, "You shall not discriminate, and that this legislation shall be operative throughout the country."
I am glad the Minister of Veterans Affairs is here because tlmre is another matter which I will mention in his presence. There is nothing in the bill to assist veterans. The veterans rehabilitation committee in New Westminster has gone into the question of how veterans will fare under the National Housing Act, and I am glad the Minister of Veterans Affairs is here because it has been called to his attention. Since it is a matter for the Minister of Einance, however, I am putting this illustration on the record now for his information.
Under the Veterans' Land Act, if a man takes out the full amount of loan of $6,000 it works out in this way. I will give two comparisons to show that the veteran who wants to build a house under the National Housing Act will lose over $2,000 on a $6,000 home compared with the veteran who takes up land under the Veterans' Land Act. This committee has gone into these questions in detail and therefore I am placing these facts before the house. Say the cost of the land and building is $4,800 and the cost of chattels, $1,200. That is a total of $6,000, add the veteran's down payment is $480; two-thirds of $4,800, and with interest at three and a half per cent means a payment of $4,853, or a total payment of $5,333.50. The loss of the veteran's gratuity, or credit, because he does not get gratuity if he comes under the Veterans' Land Act-he cannot have both-he cannot get the credit, so that with the loss of the reestablishment credit the actual cost of the home to the veterans under the Veterans' Land Act works out at $5,833.50.
Take the man who buys a house under the National Housing Act. He decides to get a house at $6,000. If he is in the service he can get a credit of $500. He makes a down payment of $1,000 on a $6,000 home. The interest is four and a half per cent on the balance of $5,000. On the twenty-year plan that works out to a total of $7,564.80. Therefore the house costs him $8,564.80, less his credit of $500, which makes the actual cost to the veteran $8,064.80. The value of the house is . $6,000; therefore his loss is $2,064.80 as against the veteran who takes up a loan under the Veterans' Land Act, costing $5,833.50.
We are dealing with a new housing act, or at least the act will probably be new. We are taking the housing act and placing it under what I call a crown company. I want the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) clearly to understand, in his own mind at least, the difference. This is not a state company; it is a crown company.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Who is going to own it?


Thomas Reid: It is operated entirely apart from the minister. The directors are going to operate it just as they operate the -Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Trans-Canada Air Lines. When the committee was discussing the Trans-Canada Air Lines I asked the president this question, and it is apropos of this argument. I said to him: "Apart from the money provided by parliament is your company operating entirely apart from parliament? Are its operations similar to a private company?" He said: "In its operations it is exactly the same as a private company." And the crown company that we are setting up is going to operate in the same way. Our hon. friends of the C.C.F. rise in their places and try to say that this is what they are advocating. I wish in the name of heaven they, would make it clear just what they are advocating, because sitting here I cannot get it clear at all.
This is not a state company; it is not being operated by the state. It is a crown company. We are giving them the money and in the future we are going to have less control of it. I do not mind a financial institution, which by its efforts and its money, make ^certain rules and regulations, and carry on business in a certain way; but when we, the people of Canada, through the government, set up a crown company and give them money to operate, we should have more control than we are to have under this bill. We should lay down ,more rules and regulations than are contained in the present housing act. .
I bring these matters seriously to the attention of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley).
I refer particularly to instances where National
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Housing has refused to grant the full amount of the mortgage loan. Lending institutions have refused to make that grant in certain districts which are splendid districts and where people want houses. The people to whom I refer can pay for them, but the lending institutions would not lend money in these districts. I ask the minister to put some power in this bill, so that these lending institutions will deal fairly with all parts of Canada, because some of the things they have done up to the present time are callous and unworthy of any corporation.


Mr. RODNEY ADAMSON (York West):: The Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) has requested that a full debate on housing do not take place at this time. I wish to say that very soon there must be a full and complete debate in the house on the problem of housing throughout Canada.
This bill is a financial bill. I appreciate that, but it is so interlocked and interwoven with the whole picture of housing, slum clearance and town planning that it is impossible not to bring in the general picture when discussing this bill.
The hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) has just made a point which I was going to bring up a little later in my remarks, but I think I shall bring it up now because it is fresh in the minds of hon. members. This bill first of all sets up a corporation which is one step removed from the control of parliament, and gives that corporation extremely wide powers. I wish to protest against this type of legislation. The further we get away from responsible control by parliament, the less effective will be the legislation and the carrying out of. the intent of the Canadian people.
There are several points I should like to make with regard to this bill. In itself the bill is considerably at variance with the report of the Curtis committee to the government, and it is with regard to that that I wish to say a few words at this time. In their very first recommendation the Curtis committee said this:
It has been assumed by the committee that the great bulk of housing whether publicly, privately * or cooperatively owned, will be built by private contractors and corporations. Experience has shown that public housing has * been most successful and effective where the design and building of houses has been organized through the usual professional and construction channels.
That is the end of that recommendation of the Curtis committee.
In connection with this recommendation I should like to quote from the editorial of the Journal of Royal Architectural Institute of 
Canada for the month of July of this year concerning this very problem. Incidentally the editor was one of the members of the Curtis committee. He said:
So wrote the subcommittee on housing and community planning reporting to the Prime Minister. It can be read in report No. 4 of the committee on reconstruction. We can remember, as a member of the subcommittee, that the subject came up when a fear was expressed that wartime housing might continue its activities after peace had been declared. That fear has been justified and wartime housing, a crown company, is now responsible for the design and building of a trial batch of 1,000 houses of which 600 go to Toronto, 200 to Ottawa and 200 to Winnipeg, The government programme, or hope, is that this will be but a sample of the thousands of houses that will be built, for sale or rent, with federal assistance in the next few years. The committee had another fear that was set at rest, when a minister of the crown asserted that the government's investment in houses and public works would be protected by absolute insistence on town planning in all areas where a grant for public works was sought. Fifty thousand houses may be built in the next twelve months, and the sketchiest kind of plan of the housing, area itself will have to- suffice. So far as we know, no city in Canada has an official master plan of future growth. In 1940, housing and torvn planning experts saw the seriousness- of the situation; in March, 1944, it was emphasized in report No. 4 of the committee on reconstruction, and figures were given to prove it. To-day we are at the stage of panic, and any new house on any lot will satisfy the authorities in any level of government. We are embarking on an era of slum building, not as they were built at the turn of the century by private speculation, and without knowledge of the fate of unplanned communities, but with all the facts before us, with our eyes open and with government aid.
That is the condition in Canada to-day. The government is in the housing business up to its neck. In my opinion this bill is not going to assist in the construction of decent houses for Canadian people. It will result in the very thing we wish to avoid; that is, in an orgy of speculative building. I wish to quote just two more things from the Curtis report, in which three definite recommendations were made which this bill entirely ignores. The first has to do with town planning:
The committee places in the forefront of all housing projects the matter of town and community planning. Town planning is essentially the matter of using land in its most efficient and socially desirable way.
To continue:
. . . town planning requires the cooperation of all levels of government in the federal system.
. . . It is important to recognize that actual achievement of great numbers of new houses constructed and operated on a sound basis depends upon a reasonable and cooperative division of labour between the three levels of Canadian government. A crucial part of this problem is the distribution of the financial burden With the existing distribution of tax-

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ing powers it is inescapable that a major and possibly total part of public investment in housing should come from the dominion treasury. V/ithin the restrictions of their present tax structure, virtually no local governments are able to assume further social service expenditures. . . .
It goes on to speak about the problems of taxation in the cities. This bill takes absolutely no cognizance of municipal problems; it is merely a bill setting up a financial institution capable of lending money for the construction of houses. As such it is a partial measure, and in my opinion is capable of doing great harm. I will quote one sentence from the Curtis report, because it gives three basic legislative requirements. As appearing at page 15 they are these:
(a)	Effective town planning measures are essential for the success of housing projects, in the small as well as the large cities.
I will just read that much. Then:
(b)	In the interests of efficiency in administration, it is strongly recommended that all dominion legislation relating to housing should t>_ reconstituted and placed in one statute. . . .
Then I will read the last sentence, which is very important:
The government should . . .
tc) . . . take all necessary steps to confer with the provinces on the financial and administrative arrangements involved in a nationwide programme.
This is a purely financial bill, and specifically prohibits a municipality from forming itself into a lending or housing agency. The municipality is the level of government vitally interested in the housing problem, because housing is not merely the construction of houses. On housing depends the very life of the individual citizen, and it is an extremely complicated business. This bill permits the corporation to [DOT] advance money in connection with housing, but it does not take into account at all what is to happen to a municipality when a corporation comes in and builds houses. It does not concern itself with what is to happen to the tax structure; what is to happen in connection with the demand for extra services by the people moving in on the people already living in the community; what is to happen in regard to the extra schools that will be required for the larger population; what is to happen in connection with sewers, paving, lighting and all the other things that are essential parts of the cost of a family house, just as the walls, floors and cellar are. It takes no cognizance of these things at all, and in my opinion we are running ourselves into serious danger, because we are committing the same mistakes that were made after the last war.
I appreciate that ever since the industrial revolution the housing of industrial workers, as well as the housing of all urban dwellers, has been a matter of very great difficulty which has not been satisfactorily solved practically anywhere in the world. Because of the peculiar Canadian economy the government has had to be pushed harder, in order to get housing legislation started, than the government of probably any other northern country, and I refer to European countries and the United States. We have been peculiarly backward in connection with public housing. In Canada we have been probably more backward than any other country, certainly more so than any other British country and more than most European Countries. We have deliberately neglected to take advantage of the modern techniques of building, town planning and so on, and such modern developments as traffic control and other related matters.
My criticism of. the government is that they regard housing in this bill as purely a financial problem. Housing is not purely a financial problem; it is also a physical and sociological problem; and while to-day the financial problem is not considerable, because there is plenty of money, the problems of getting labour and material are acute. But in connection with this purely financial bill I propose to discuss the financial problem. I do so because we shall be committed not to an expenditure of $25,000,000 but to an expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars in connection with housing. That is inescapable; the people will demand it. We must see to it that the Canadian people are properly housed and properly provided with the amenities. That is one of the inevitable conditions of modern mechanical and economic life. It has happened in every other country in the world, and it is bound to happen in Canada. Therefore we must look at the spending of money, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars, in housing; and a great deal of this money must be put up either as grants or as longterm loans to the various agencies who will do the construction. It is therefore of the utmost importance to the country and to the house that the money so spent is properly spent, and that it does not lose its value. In other words, we must build with an eye to safeguarding the investment-and we are not doing so in this bill. With all due respect we are not doing so in the National Housing Act either.
Very briefly I should like to review the faults we made at the end of the last war, when the problem was somewhat similar to that of to-day.
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, Men returned; there were housing shortages; new industries had been built; there was a lot of work; there was a tremendous shortage of houses. The speculator went to the farmer, bought a farm, cut it up into small lots in a haphazard fashion, and sold it to ex-service men, industrial workers-anybody -without any restrictions whatsoever. Houses were built without plan, except that they were in a general rectangular design. No consideration was had for the welfare of the communities in which they were built. They were built at a time when building costs were inflated.
What happened? Just as soon as those lots were built on the people who lived in the houses demanded services from the municipalities. They demanded water; they demanded sewers; they demanded schools; they demanded lights; they demanded roads-and they got them. That was inevitable. The municipalities went into debt, and borrowed money.
What happened then? Just as soon as the' first industrial recession from the war peak took place, the purchasers of those houses found that their equities were practically negligible and they would or could not continue periodic payments. At first they were dispossessed, and then it developed that it was not worth while to dispossess them because the houses were not worth the effort.
Then what happened? Taxes began to be in arrears. Municipalities could not collect taxation. There were tax sales, and there was a most horrible condition of blight throughout industrial Canada.
What happened then? The municipalities were faced with certain alternatives. They tried to up the mill rate and the tax rate, until such time it was said that a man was a fool to own property. Eventually urban and suburban municipalities went bankrupt, one after another and had to be taken over by provincial authorities. In that era we saw the complete destruction of real property values. I submit that because we are not taking cognizance of this excellent Curtis report we are doing just the same thing over again; only this time, instead of having speculative builders going into the business, the government is doing so.
Let us look at the present picture throughout industrial Ontario. Outside the major cities we have hundreds of small houses and cottages being erected, row on row. Most of them are built on 35-foot lots; a fifty-foot lot is considered a big one. They are being built because there is an emergent situation. Any

room is a godsend to anyone; and nobody cares because, in common parlance, we are behind the eight ball so far as housing is concerned. We have to put roofs over men's heads. Any new house will satisfy anybody.
What is to happen to those emergency-built houses? First of all-I do not think this can be denied, because I have the figures to substantiate my contention-the price we are paying for those houses is an inflated one. The second point is that no recognition is taken of the cost of extra services which will be required to serve those houses. Perhaps these are unpleasant facts, but they must be faced and we must face them now. They will be on our doorsteps in the very near future.
You are going to do the same thing you did before; you are going to bankrupt our municipalities. Let us consider the man who buys a house under the National Housing Act, or the general scheme which flows from that act. Several of those projects are found in my constituency. A man may buy a house for $4,500 or $5,500, and a third type at $4,000. If he buys one at $5,500 he will find that the down payment is approximately $1,500. Then, when he comes to the mortgage company it vill say to him, "Oh, yes, but that house is vorth only $4,000." The $1,500 he made as a down payment is the cost of inflated building materials, labour and all the other essentials which go into a house.
Just to show that I am not without support in my statement may I refer to the observations of Mr. J. L. E. Price, a member of the Engineering Institute of Canada and president of the national house builders' association. Lecturing at McGill university Mr. Price demonstrated that a house in Montreal costing $6,500 in 1939 now costs $9,200, or an increase of forty-two per cent.
Perhaps thajt is inevitable. But it is not going to help a man who buys a house on a long-term payment plan, 'as envisioned by the mortgage discount bank, to find out that the money he has put in as a down payment is virtually so much water. That is what he would learn when he came to find out his equity in the house. Those are inevitable facts we must recognize.
Many of the buildings are four-roomed houses. These four-roomed houses of the bungalow type are going up by the hundreds. The payment plan may be for a man to amortize his debt in twenty or twenty-five years. After seven or eight years he may find that because of a growing family, which would be a normal and, I hope, a general thing, the house is too small and he has to move to a six-roomed house. But when he goes to find

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out what his equity is in his first house he finds that it is very little because his payments have been used to meet the carrying charges plus the taxes and insurance. That is obvious because the payments for the first few years do not pay much off capital. That is the whole theoiy of debenture stock. For the first years the capital repayments are low, and the interest is high; during the last years the capital repayment is high and the interest is low. In the natural course of events this man finds that because of the necessity of having to buy a new house his equity in his old house is practically nil. Those are problems that we have to meet and I feel that now is the time to discuss them.


Mr. ISNOR:: Does the hon. member mean that the value of at house in 1945 as compared with 1939 would show a depreciation?


Agar Rodney Adamson: Let us assume that the
cost of building a house' in 1939 was 100 units of money; the cost of building the same house in 1945 would be 142 units of money. Therefore your cost is 142 as against 100.


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: But suppose the house was
built in * 1939, would it have depreciated to that extent by 1945?


Agar Rodney Adamson: I do not think there is
any general rule governing depreciation. Depreciation depends upon the type of construction, the district and many other things. I am talking about the cost of building a house, where you can make a rule. Because of the scarcity of housing and the law of supply and demand it might be quite possible to find a house that was built in 1939 worth a great deal more to-day. That might happen where a house had been built in a good residential district and where it was of proper construction and had not deteriorated.


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: The value would have appreciated rather than depreciated.


Agar Rodney Adamson: But there would have to be the conditions I have been talking about; that is, good town planning, good environment and a community where the tax rate was equitable. I am talking about the small four-roomed cottages that are being built. My point is that they are going, to depreciate at a tremendously fast rate. However, I thank the hon. member for his question because it brings out an important point.
I wish to say one word about construction labour. There is no field in the labour market where workers get so high a per hour wage, but there is no field in the labour market where labour is subjected to such hazards and such long lay-offs. A carpenter or a plumber
may get $1.50 or $1.75 an hour, or perhaps if he is an expert he may get up to $2 an hour, but there will be1 many months during the winter when he may have no work. One of the serious problems of this country is to maintain a year-round construction industry.
Again I do not feel that this bill will help. This corporation will be a lending institution. You can build a house under good weather conditions more cheaply than you can when you have to keep your concrete from freezing and do all the other things that must be done when you are building in the winter. This bill will not help this problem of maintaining a high level of work for the construction industry.
What should be done ought to be done, at this time when there is a tremendous demand for emergency shelter. No housing should be permitted which does not take into account the community and essential things like the providing of services and transportation, the location of schools and the nearness to industry. These are things that can be and should be considered at the present time, but there is no machinery under this bill or under the National Housing Act to look after those matters. Houses are just built anywhere that -there is a vacant field.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not think that is so
under the housing act.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Yes, unfortunately it is.
I have had experience with houses being built in the most unsuitable places.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The location must be approved by the national housing administration, and they take into account the neighbourhood, the desirability of community planning and so on.


Agar Rodney Adamson: That may be in the act, but they do not really do that. They build anywhere they can get the land. That is what is happening at the present time and it creates a definite danger to the future of the whole project. There are two points in the bill that I hope to discuss in committee. The first is occasioned by section 30, subsection I, paragraph (f) of the bill which reads:
(f) exercise or perform any other powers, duties or functions conferred on or required to be performed by the corporation under any other act or order in council.
In other words, you are setting up a mortgage bank and giving it powers to do anything that may be set out in an order in council.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Oh, no.


Agar Rodney Adamson: That is what the section says.
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James Lorimer Ilsley: It does not mean that at all. The order in council must be authorized under legislation.


Agar Rodney Adamson: It does not say that. There is no restrictive language, and I am going to suggest when we come to it .that the clause be amended by adding the words "respecting housing," so that it does not give the corporation a blanket authority.
There are five points which I consider to be bad about this mortgage act. The first point is that housing is being considered as purely a financial problem. The second point is that the bill definitely and specifically omits slum clearance. You cannot have an integrated housing plan without taking into account slum clearance. It must be considered as an integral part of the problem of building houses.
Thirdly, the bill excludes all cooperation between dominion and provincial governments. As I have tried to show, the minute you build ' a house in a municipality you create a liability in that municipality because that house and its occupants will have to be serviced by the municipality. That is a very important factor.
The fourth point, which was brought out by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid)), is that it removes control one step further from parliament. You set up a corporation, and while the minister may have the corporation report to him, nevertheless it is just like the Canadian National Railways and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or any of these other great corporations that are being set up; it is not under the direct control of parliament, and the very broad terms of the bill give an opportunity for the most flagrant abuses.
The fifth point is that there is a lack of coordination between departments of the government which this bill does nothing to overcome. We have the example recently quoted with respect to Wartime Housing, passing through the controller a letter demanding from the lumber industry certain white pine that was already in the mill, no matter to whom it belonged.
My final point is this: If this bill were enabling legislation, if it would recognize the essential problems of housing construction as an integral part of our present economy, I would be all for it. But it does nothing of the kind. It allows the corporation to buy land and impose on the municipality a liability which it might take years to overcome.
The dominion government under the present financial set-up must assume the responsibility for providing or seeing to it that the neces-

sary funds are provided, and here again I question whether $25,000,000 will be of very great assistance.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Let me correct that. This corporation will have access to all the appropriations under the National Housing Act, which are very much greater than that sum.


Agar Rodney Adamson: It does that?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I am glad that the minister cleared up that point. The corporation must therefore be prepared to take the responsibility for the expenditure of very large sums of public money. There is no machinery provided for cooperation between the . provinces and the municipalities, and unless you have cooperation between your municipalities and your provinces and your lending agency the scheme is doomed to failure.
I have tried to discuss this on a financial basis. If we are going to consider the safeguarding of public funds, we must try to raise our sights with regard to housing and not consider housing as merely the construction of the physical house itself. We must take into account the community, the roads, the schools, water, sewage, playgrounds, other essential services and the amenities for decent living, and unless we do that, we are never going to provide the Canadian people with decent houses, but on the other hand' we are going to incur for ourselves a financial liability that will take generations to pay off.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. C. C. I. MERRITT (Vaneouver-Bur-rard):: I hope to be commendably brief, and by offering some constructive suggestions on this bill to excuse my taking up the time of the house at all, because it is not the desire on this side of the house to delay the business. I wish to refer first of all to the speech made by the member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) when the resolution introducing this bill was moved. It will be found on page 1479 of Hansard of October 25 and I might sum up in this sentence what the hon. member said. He gave a picture of lack of effectiveness of the housing acts of the government arising out of lack of coordination of policy on housing. I suggest that it is necessary to put life into this question of housing. The hon. member for Eglinton, at page 1484, also summed up what he would expect to find in

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this bill. He did so in four points which he suggested as a test of the bill. First of all, is there a slum clearance and' a low-rent housing policy? The second question was: Can we combine a mortgage discount business with the housing business? In other words, can we successfully combine a financial function with a social function in this corporation? The third question was: Does the bill remove control of housing further from parliament? And fourth, is there, to use his words, an "emancipation from muddle"?
I propose to examine the bill in the light of these four questions. The minister said to-day that he intends to introduce an amendment to the National Housing Act, I believe at this session. When he introduced the resolution he suggested that there would be no other legislation than this bill and the resolution on the order paper at the present time. I hope, therefore, my remarks can be helpful to him on the question of the new legislation he will bring in, as well as on this bill. But I do not believe, in view of the way that this bill is constituted, we may expect to see in the amendments to the National Housing Act the provisions which I am going to suggest are necessary to clear up the housing question.
I find this bill at best innocuous in that it may do no harm, though there is indeed' some possibility that it might in its present form do harm. I describe it as an administrative and financial measure only, and .probably the minister will agree that that is so. In that respect it can do no harm unless, by changing the manner of administration, it removes the question of housing from the hands of the responsible minister. And as I go along I shall suggest that it does that.
In order to indicate how the coordination of housing policy on the part of the government has failed, I should .like first of all to say what I understand it to be and how I understand housing policy to be administered. First of all, there is the national housing administration under the National Housing Act, which is an administration under the direction of the Minister of Finance. That administration is entirely financial except where it deals with research in housing. The second housing organization of the government is the Wartime Housing Corporation, which is a temporary expedient for the emergency only. That Wartime Housing Corporation is under the Department of Reconstruction, and I suggest that there is not sufficient coordination between that corporation and the Minister of Finance, who is, of course, responsible for housing policy generally.
It occurred to me that one might liken Wartime Housing's experiments in the housing field to the launching of a ship, with which the Minister of Reconstruction had a great deal to do. When the ship goes down the ways there is a great tidal wave as it enters the water, and anything small in the water at the time had better look out lest it be engulfed. We have had many an example of that over this question of priorities in building materials, but I wish to call the attention of the house to another way in which Wartime Housing rushed into the housing field and caused disruption.
In July of this year the city of Vancouver entered into a contract with Wartime Housing Corporation for the building of 1,200 veterans' homes. It was very necessary that those homes be built, because the housing situation there is as bad as it is anywhere in the- country. But when this contract was entered into, both the dominion government and the city of Vancouver were under considerable pressure from citizens to get some housing for the veterans, so that the contract was finally entered into by the city of Vancouver under protest. The city of Vancouver maintained that the contract was placing upon the city and its taxpayers an unfair burden, and I have here a newspaper clipping from a Vancouver paper of about the date of the contract. It reads:
In agreeing to donate 1.290 city lots to Wartime Housing Limited for veterans' low-rental homes, the city council would forego about $900,000 in taxes which it would ordinarily receive in the next ten years if the property had been sold to private builders. A city hall spokesman emphasized1 the situation as an answer to claims that the city has* made no contribution towards the solution of the housing shortage. In the agreement between the city and Wartime Housing, taxes on each $3,000 home will average $27 a year, about $75 less than the regular taxation.
I suggest that- to be a second way in which the uncoordinated activities of Wartime Housing have worked to add to that muddle in the housing situation.
The third organization that tne government has had at its disposal to administer its housing policy is, I understand, an interdepartmental committee which is designed to coordinate the work of various departments in this field. After this bill is passed there will be no change in that situation; we shall still have those two separate authorities coordinated, roughly I suggest, by this interdepartmental committee and we shall really be no further ahead, if in fact, as I contend, the housing shortage is made more difficult by lack of a clear government policy. I ask
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therefore, does this bill give us any hope of emancipation from muddle? I suggest that it does not.
To go on to another question asked by the hon. member for Eglinton, whether or not you could combine the work of a mortgage discount corporation with the work of a housing corporation, I suggest that you cannot do that. First of all, housing is not a financial matter; it is a social matter. It does not require the assistance of a crown corporation so much as it requires the assistance from a minister of the crown of a policy, particularly in relation to slum clearance and low-rental housing. By the setting up of this corporation there will be no coordination with municipalities, or at least the legislation does not provide for any such coordination. That is a serious defect, and it has already been pointed out.
The. second matter with which I wish to deal is this: The dominion government is providing large sums of money for housing. It is clearly up to the government to ensure that the funds we spend on this very necessary project produce the desired result. I suggest that they will not produce the desired result unless, coupled with the granting of moneys, we have community planning coordinated by the responsible minister to ensure that equities in houses built are maintained. I suggest also that we should have a definite slum clearance policy and a definite low-rental housing policy. I fear that under this measure we have set up a channel of communication from this government to the finished houses all over the country, of a crown corporation working with insurance companies and by-passing the provincial and municipal authorities. Therefore there is considerable danger that the result of this cooperation between one financial corporation and another financial corporation, namely, that set up by the insurance companies, will be dictated by financial and not social considerations.
Only the other day I received a letter from someone whom I know in Vancouver who has long been associated with the low-rental housing problem. He suggested that already there were signs that under the low-rental housing provisions of the National Housing Act houses or apartments were to be built in a section in Vancouver, namely, the west end, which was not a low-rental housing section; that in fact the money provided by the government under this section might be used to build, let us say, middle-class or even high-class rental accommodation. That was his opinion; and my informant was a man who, I think, knows his business in this field. Therefore I suggest that this mixture of the mortgage discount corporation and the in-
surance company corporation will emphasize the financial end to the exclusion of the social end of housing. I am not making any charges against them for that, because it would be a rather natural result of their ordinary natural function. I suggest that discount and housing do not really mix.
May I now deal with the question of removal of thq housing policy from the control of parliament? I wish to turn to the bill and to refer, as did the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) to sections 27 and 28, and then to sections 24, 25 and 26 of the National Housing Act of 1944. Those sections of the National Housing Act provide for social research into housing, whereas the sections of the bill provide exclusively for financial research into the question. Yet we find in section 18 of the bill that the corporation assumes all the rights, powers, duties, liabilities and functions of the minister, which would, of course, include the making of policy. I ask the minister if there is not a hiatus there, and if the social research provided for by the National Housing Act has not been left out and should be provided somewhere in the bill in view of the assumption by the corporation, under section 18, of his powers?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The corporation inherits the minister's powers to conduct research into housing, which powers are contained -in the National Housing Act.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: Yes, I understand that entirely; and, of course, the corporation remains, nominally at least, under the minister's control. But I suggest that the officers of this corporation, who will, in the main, be dealing, I presume, with the financial provisions, would be misled by sections 27 and 28 into thinking they had no authority to conduct social research into housing, which is necessary, because sections 27 and 28 expressly provide that the research shall be "into the business of lending money." They do not cover the research of sections 24, 25 and 26 of the housing act.. Perhaps, when we. are in committee, the minister will tell us who will exercise the powers of social research into housing under the National Housing Act.
Again, the removal of control from parliament arises in section 39, where we find the following:
Where under the housing acts any act, matteT or thing to be done by the minister requires the approval of the governor in council or where the governor in council may make any orders or regulations on the recommendation of the minister, the said approval or the said orders or regulations may he made on a recommendation of the minister made at the request of the corporation.

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Unless I misread these words, it would seem to me that the only purpose of this section would be to relieve the minister from any responsibility in respect of these recommendations, except as a channel of communication to the governor in council; because if the section were not in the bill at all it would seem to me that the minister would have the full power to make to the governor in council any recommendation in respect of housing that he wished. Therefore I would suggest to the minister that the whole section might be deleted from the bill without the losing of any power on his part or on the part of the corporation to do the things that are necessary, and at the same time he would retain in his hand the full power to make recommendations to the governor in council and not hand them over in any way to the crown corporation.
Therefore I suggest that by the setting up of this corporation we have control in the matter of housing removed one step further from parliament and even, to some extent at least, removed from the hands of the minister. So that I do not think the bills meets the requirement laid down by the hon. member for Eglinton that it shall not remove control of housing policy further from parliament.
I suggest that for this measure to be really operative, to carry out the things I know the minister wants done, there is need for a minister of housing. So that section 2(g), which provides that the minister concerned shall be the Minister of Finance, is really the crux of the matter. The minister will understand me wrhen I say that. I mean no complaint against him personally. His record as Minister of Finance everyone knows to have been splendid, and I am certain that if he were minister of housing he would give equally good service. But I suggest that his very heavy duties as Minister of Finance do not give him the time adequately to work out a policy of slum clearance and low-rental housing which is so necessary in this country and in respect of which I think we are admittedly behind other countries. I suggest to him, too, that even if he had time, which everyone knows he has not, the two things do not mix. One, as I say, concerns finance; the other concerns a social matter. It would be necessary for the minister to change his whole normal way of thinking in order to tackle the housing problem. Therefore it seems to me it would be wise either to have housing come under the Department of National Health and Welfare or to have an altogether separate ministry of housing set up; and I want to repeat that I am talking now of the offices of Minister of Finance and
minister of housing, and not in any personal way at all. If we had a minister directly responsible for housing, with the duty of producing an active policy to ensure that the money we spend-which will amount to very large sums-is directed into the most useful channels, that we have the best of coordination with the town planning authorities in the municipalities, and that we get after this slum clearance and low-rental housing in a big way, I am sure all the difficulty and all the irritation the people of Canada feel now with respect to this housing question will be overcome. I suggest that a minister who makes this his principal joh could control this corporation, could control the efforts of Wartime Housing and the administration under the National Housing Act, and could coordinate the financial policy of this corporation with the social housing policy which the minister has laid down. At the same time I suggest that such a minister could tackle directly, with much better effect and with greater coordination, the shortage of material of which the Minister of Finance has spoken, and which of course is the main obstacle in our way at the present time. I do not believe the Department of Reconstruction, aided by the interdepartmental committee on housing, can get after shortages of material and relieve the bottlenecks as quickly as could a minister whose job it was to get housing in Canada. Therefore I suggest,, that only by such a ministry can we fulfil the requirements laid down by the hon. member for Eglinton; and only by that ministry can the purposes of this bill, which I know the minister has at heart as much as any man in the house, be carried out.


Mr. MacINNIS:: I wonder if I might ask the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard, a question before he resumes his seat. I understand that this is a bill to provide for lending money for housing. Is it the suggestion of the hon. member that under such a ministry the government should not only lend money but build houses as well?


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: Not necessarily. I suggest that first of all the government decide on a clear-cut slum clearance and low-rental housing policy which will clear slums and give us low'-rent housing. Whether or not that would require the government to enter the field is something for the future. I should think it would be neither necessary nor desirable that the government should enter that field.


Mr. R. M. WARREN (Renfrew North):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened for a good many hours during this session to discussions with
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respect to housing, without very much interest. I think the reason for my lack of interest is partly owing to the fact that the pressure for all these different housing schemes comes from the large cities. We hear of the lack of houses in every city from Halifax to Vancouver. As I see it, that lack of housing is due, at least partly, to the influx from our rural districts into the cities because of war conditions, and undoubtedly that movement will be or ought to be reversed. As far as I am concerned I believe we would have a much healthier, happier and more comfortable country in which to live if we could reverse the present trend and have people move from the cities to our smaller towns, villages and rural communities. The trend of industry has always been to the large centres. If we could have that trend reversed we would have much less difficulty in housing our workers. People who live in the smaller places seem to acquire more initiative and find ways of doing things for themselves to a much greater extent than in the larger centres.
Another reason why I am not particularly enthusiastic about the proposed housing plans is that I can never work up much enthusiasm in regard to buying on the instalment plan. I suppose on occasion it is necessaray for a man to buy in this way, but I think the man who starts in early life with the idea of going to work on a pay-as-you-go policy has a much better chance of eventual success than the man who is always buying on the instalment plan. A lot of things can happen in twenty or twenty-five years. A young man may come home, after saving a few thousand dollars from his army or air force pay, hi9 gratuities and the like. A rosy prospect is offered to him when it is pointed out that he can buy a beautiful home costing only $6,000 at the rate of only $22 a month for twenty-five years. Well, that looks easy to him at that age. But if that young fellow were to use the money to get something he could nearly pay for, and be almost out of debt, he would be in a better position. Perhaps it would not occur to him that in the next twenty or twenty-five years many things can happen in any family.
I remember some years ago being taken to task by the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank). Speaking along these lines, I referred to a young man in my own community, an immigrant boy, who had been living with his wife and1 family in a tent during the summer months. He had put up a little house to store his furniture. With that small house was an acre of land, and1 he finally decided that instead of going into the village and renting a home he would live in that little place for the winter months. The hon. member

for Fraser Valley on that occasion took me to task for advocating shacks. He is not here to-night, but may I point out to hon. members that there was a sequel to that story.
Times improved and that young man got-working on a job where there was an. eight-hour day. Well, eight hours was not a day's work for him. In his overtime he started to dig a cellar, and after he had the cellar completed he built the frame of the house. Within the next year-certainly within the next two years he owned a home. And it was a good home, one which would be suitable for any family. In addition to that, he had his acre of land, and was free from debt. He did not have to look forward to the payment of monthly rent or interest. That, it seems to me, is a good example of private enterprise and initiative.
To-day that young man is overseas. I received a letter from him only a couple of days ago. When he returns home he will return to a home of his own, where a wife and three children are waiting for him and, with his gratuities, he will have no financial worries for the future.
I would draw to the minister's attention the case of the young man with a good deal of private ability and initiative, but who lacks the few hundred dollars which would help him to finish up the building of his house. A case of this kind came to my attention not long ago. The man in question was the father of seven children, five boys and two girls, almost all of whom were of school age. He was in the army and, like the other man I mentioned, he knew how to handle tools.
During his furlough he managed to obtain a building permit. That is how I happened to know about him; I helped to get the permit. May I add, in passing, that the authorities were helpful in hurrying the permit along so that he might get at his house during his two weeks' furlough. That man worked very long hours, and received some help from other young men in the community. The result was that the cellar was dug, the forms were placed, and the cement was run. This took place in a village where there was no running water. ' He put in a cistern. Then, when one goes into the country, or even a village, he does not have to pay such high wages to carpenters. The result was that his expenses for the work of carpenters were not as great as they would have been in a city.
The house was erected. When that house is completed, inside and out, he will have a fine home, bungalow style, with two rooms upstairs, one large enough for two beds, and three rooms downstairs, and he will have it for the price

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of $1,600. When I hear talk of $3,000, $4,000, or $6,000 for a home I am frightened. But this man will have a home suitable for himself and . his family for only $1,600. The lumber cost him $60 a thousand-and I think that is too much money for lumber. However, I am told that for an inferior grade of lumber right in this city of Ottawa one would have to pay as high as $90 a thousand.
That man found himself in the position of wishing to choose a plan which would have cost him $400 more. He required $700 to build the house he wanted to build. After investigating every avenue, however, he found he could not under any housing scheme borrow that amount of money. The result was that from some of his friends he managed to borrow $300, and to build the house according to his means.
No doubt there are many cases, throughout the country where a little help would do much good. It is a different story if a man's credit is good at the bank. But that is not always so; banks are pretty stiff when it comes to extending credit. Some provision ought to be made for a man who is in the position of having his own piece of land and has his house started, but requires help to the extent of a few hundred dollars. Such men are deserving of assistance and encouragement and, when the minister considers housing, I would suggest to him that he keep citizens of that kind in mind.


Mr. J. O. PROBE (Regina City):: 
Thomas Reid: Not with scorn.


John Oliver Probe: Well, with whatever you wish. 1 find by the New Zealand Year Book that rents in New Zealand are exceedingly low, ranging from twenty-four shillings a week, which is about $3.60 in Canadian funds, for a four-roomed cottage, to thirty-three shillings a week, or about $5, for a six-roomed house. Any hon. member who is a stranger in Ottawa and- has tried to get an apartment for his family or a room for himself, can contrast the prices I have just quoted with Ottawa prices.


Thomas Reid: What rate of exchange is my hon. friend using, $3.60 or $4.80 to the pound?


John Oliver Probe: That would be about $3.60 to the pound, and even if it were $4 to the pound, the rent would not be excessive, but I think $3.60 is the approximate bank rate to-dlay.	[DOT]

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The hon. member who spoke from the opposite benches just before me made reference to a plan whereby a certain amount of selfhelp might be used when a man is house building; that is to say, if the materials were furnished to him on some attractive basis .he might do part of the work himself. It might be of interest to hon. members 'to know that in Cape Breton Island the system of building houses under subsidy of the Nova Scotia government makes it possible for the Cape Bretoners who take advantage of that housing scheme to buy their own houses, and fairly ample houses at that, on the basis of under S10 a month.	*
In Sweden what they call the "Magic House" is put up under public authority arrangements through the municipalities. Stockholm is a notable example of providing assistance for the prospective home-owner-I am now digressing from low-rental projects to actual ownership. The city provides the building site and places the materials, in some few cases prefabricated parts, on the building site. It gives to the would-be owner some instruction in house plans, in the mixing of concrete and in the rudimentary principles of house construction. The man and his family or perhaps his neighbours go out to the building lot at week-ends and practically construct this "Magic House" themselves, with fortnightly supervision by the municipal authority building inspectors. I am not advocating that each one of us become a carpenter, but there is an element of merit in what the hon. member opposite suggested a few moments ago in the present physical crisis with respect to building, as the Minister of Finance described it.
The housing programmes of European countries generally are on a public authority or municipally financed basis, with the money coming in the first instance from, funds provided by the central government. The interest rates are sufficiently attractive to enable a man with small capital or a great deal of initiative to build his own home. In Denmark particularly, they have enormous beautifully planned housing projects renting at exceedingly low rates.
We have to get into the low rental business if we are to provide homes for our people, and I would suggest to the Minister of Finance that we could adopt incisive and fairly rapid measures to solve our housing problem.
Long-term planning has already been spoken of by hon. members to my right, but they have overlooked one thing, namely, the training of craftsmen. In order to put up adequate structures we must have a larger supply of craftsmen. We must attract craftsmen to the industry, and to do that we must
assure them of steadier employment or certainly higher rates of pay on an annual basis than they have ever enjoyed in the past. I suggest to the Minister of Finance that his department in its long-range planning could institute, just as readily as it has vocational training plans for returned servicemen, a system whereby craftsmen could act as instructors to apprentices during the off season in the winter months and take some part in making prefabricated sections for municipally or locally owned houses. One of the biggest handicaps to an extensive prefabrication housing programme in this country, and hence one of the biggest problems with respect to reducing the costs of houses, is the objection of the craftsmen themselves, because they fear that they will hereby be put out of a job. That matter could readily be handled by the Department of Finance by having skilled craftsmen train their apprentices during the off season when they cotfld take part in the prefabrication of certain parts of houses, stairs, for example, window and door frames and so on, and then spend the summer months actually on the job on the building site where a larger number of apprentices could be engaged in the actual building. That could be considered as a part of a long-term plan which might be instituted immediately.
I wish to offer a few suggestions for the immediate solution of the physical difficulties which the Minister of Finance mentioned earlier in the day. It is time that we froze the materials in Canada which we have available for building instead of having them leave our country. I wish to quote from the same letter that was referred to by one hon. member to my right earlier in the day; only I quote from a different part of it, This is a letter addressed to the Hon. C. D. Howe, Minister of Munitions and Supply, dated November 2, from the Canadian Lumbermen's Association. The letter states in part:
A letter under date October 27, 1945, from the timber controller requested the underwriting of 900,000 feet of white pine lumber for Wartime Housing.
The rest of this letter figuratively holds up its hands in holy horror at the thought of finding 900,000 board feet of white pine for Wartime Housing. It just was not available. .4 few weeks ago I asked in this house of the Minister of Trade and Commerce certain questions about exports of building materials from this country, and under the heading "Planks and board.-pine" which is the item referred to here for Wartime Housing, for which 900,000 board feet are asked, which will build about ninety houses, I find that in the
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first eight months of this year we exported, not 900,000 feet, but 94,000,000 feet of that single commodity, pine. In other words, we exported 100 times as much pine boards as Wartime Housing asks the Canadian Lumbermen's association to set aside to complete some of these houses which our returning veterans need. And lest someone say, "Well, you are going to interfere with the restoration of devastated Europe by cutting off these exports or freezing materials", may I say that the United States took over seventy times as much lumber, pine alone, as Wartime Housing asked the lumbermen's association to supply. Iceland took more pine; Malta took three times as much pine; the British West Indies took as much pine; Trinidad took fifty per cent more; Barbados took more; British South Africa took 4i times as much pine as Wartime Housing has asked for.
There is a reason why the Lumbermen's association does not wish the government to freeze lumber stocks. My interpretation of the reason is this, and I will give one or two figures which I have hastily worked out. Ceylon bought some pine from us and they paid $200 per thousand board feet if you please. Italy bought pine from us for which they paid $135 per thousand board feet, Alaska bought pine from us for which they paid $151 per thousand. The United States gets the material from us for $58, and the United Kingdom pays $70 per thousand board feet.


Thomas Reid: Do not forget freight.


Mr. GILLIS:: What is the ceiling price in Canada?


John Oliver Probe: I shall have a word to say about freight in connection with building costs, and I will try to make it short from now on. I am giving a slight indication to show why private enterprise is not particularly anxious to have the government freeze supplies. They are doing better on exports than they can possibly do in the home market and come anywhere near the ceiling, if there is one. One hon. member to my right mentioned building costs, which he said had gone up forty-two per cent. My own experience with spruce in western Canada is that it. has gone up ninety-five per cent from the figure that was available to me when I proposed to build in 1938. It has gone up from $36 to $65 per thousand board feet.


Mr. McCANN:: Do not forget that order stands in spite of their protest.


John Oliver Probe: I am willing to concede that. I am not criticizing the government on this. I wish they would do a little more and that we might snap them into doing it.


Mr. GIBSON (Comox-Alberai):: They
would be real socialists if they did any more.


John Oliver Probe: All right. Do it some other way, then, but let us get the thing done. I am going to give some more practical suggestions and I will run through them as quickly as possible so that I may sit down. I hope I have given hon. members opposite a few fair ideas. I may not express them in their language, but those ideas will eventually take shape.


Mr. WRIGHT:: Maybe you are tramping on his toes.


John Oliver Probe: I suggest to the Minister of Finance that he take steps immediately to reduce the tariffs on metal goods, heating equipment, plumbing supplies, and partly fabricated materials, of which he told us there was an exceedingly great shortage in this country. There is a likelihood that our trade commissioners to the south might be able to arrange supplies. I would1 like him to examine our freight rates on heavy commodities, because there is a considerable disparity in delivery costs of materials and equipment to particular areas.


Thomas Reid: There certainly is.


John Oliver Probe: Here I agree with my hon. friend for once. The mileage rate on, lumber, carload lots, per hundredweight on a thousand mile haul from British Columbia is sixty-four cents-they are on the top of the list-the prairie provinces, fifty-one cents; western Ontario, forty-eight cents; southern Ontario and Quebec, 35-J cents; the maritimes, twenty-eight cents. There is no excuse for that disparity as between the British Columbia rate of sixty-four cents per hundred pounds of lumber and the maritime rate of twenty-eight cents. I am not suggesting that the maritime'rate be raised; I think the people in the maritimes have plenty of problems now. But. by all means let us make it possible, either by a form of subsidy to the builder or by a revision of freight rates on building supplies, to bring down the very heavy cost over the rest of the country.
There is one final suggestion I wish to make to the minister, and perhaps this is as important as any. That is that he invoke the Combines Investigation Act in regard to monopoly in the construction and supply industries, with respect to both patent rights and production control. In the Curtis report is stated that a request to the royal commission on price spreads to investigate plumbing and electrical supplies was made in 1936, but on that occasion consideration of time pre-

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vented the commission from acceding to the request. It is time we found out why we have these bottlenecks in a country that has everything. After that investigation we could decide whether the people who seem to control quantities produced and set prices of each purchase at their behest, are superior to the wish of the Canadian people and to the need of our families, servicemen and civilians, for the housing, which as citizens of this country, they have a right to expect.
Mr. LEWIS MiENARY (Wellington North): I should like to say a word on this housing scheme as it affects my riding. I am not interested in it in a big way. I wish to commend the government for trying to lead as far as possible in this housing crisis which is very serious across Canada. I would ask that the restrictions be taken off the retail dealer. These men are an important part of the lumber trade in the rural district. They construct houses on the farms and in the villages, they repair various types of buildings. During the past summer they have found it impossible to get lumber for that purpose. Many of them have spoken to me to see if I could put the matter before the government. These men have large sums of money invested in various buildings, possibly planing mills and lumber yards. Some of them employ three and four men. It is difficult to let these men go and pick them up again in two or three days. They must keep them steadily employed.
I should like to show how this housing situation affects my riding. We have some towns and villages that would range from eight hundred to three thousand inhabitants. Houses are needed in all these places, mostly for returned soldiers. They have found it exceedingly difficult to get a place in which to live. Undler such circumstances the retail dealer is the man to whom they go for help.
In the various towns in our riding we could do with possibly ten to twelve houses in the smaller places of eight hundred to thirty or forty houses in a place with a population of three thousand. Some of these places which contain, a population of three thousand are manufacturing towns. There the housing situation is very bad. I would ask the minister whether the housing act applies to housing conditions in those towns and villages, and if not, why not? The houses that I speak of should not cost more than $4,000 because the occupant would not be able to buy it if it cost more than that.
I also have some suggestions to make to the minister, and I make them in a kindly way. In fact I should like to gjive him a 47696-127
letter which I have here. Last month I had occasion to make a business trip through Springfield in Connecticut, and I was struck with the housing situation there and the large lots thiat appeared to go with every home. The man with whom I visited drove me over to Manchester. The city of Manchester has grown from 23,000 to 34,000 in the war period. I think I saw there the finest housing scheme that anyone would wish to see. After coming home, I wrote to the board of trade and they kindly sent met this letter. They have built these houses and sold them. I must tell the house about these' houses. They are on lots fifty or sixty feet wide. They have a lattice fence between each home, and a lattice fence at the back. There is an excellent garden at the back and a fine lawn at the front and on the side of the house. They are all painted snow-white with the exception of those that are covered with imitation brick. These houses were sold at from $3,900 to $6,000. Those were the better houses. Then they had some built in what they called' the Silver Lane district. These are more of a temporary nature, and1 will be used for some time until the need has passed, and later a more permanent type will be built which will not cause a slum condition.
I do not blame the government of Canada for our housing scheme; I blame all the governments. They do not put enough land with the building. As the houses become older and possibly dilapidated, the tendency is to increase slum conditions. We have one district in Toronto which is really a crime. They have a housing project up above Wilson avenue, between that housing project and Wilson avenue there is a dairy farm of eighty acres. They bought this farm above Mr. Caulfield's and are putting a housing scheme there; but the houses are too close together and there is an abundance of land. They could easily have set those houses on fifty or sixty feet of land and given them a fairly large garden at the back with a good lawn in front. When a young couple get married an ideal home for them is one with flowers, a lawn and a fairly large garden in the back. If they have that they will spend their time there and are not likely to be drawn away in the last of October or the first of November, they can work around the home. I should be pleased if the minister would look at this letter. I should like to ask the minister if he would assist the lumber merchants in my riding to get lumber.
I wish to mention one other thing, which may not come under this bill but which is important to the individual concerned. A farmer

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whom I know lost his bam back in 1944. It was a barn sixty by eighty. It was burnt on the evenings by other amusements, because He lost all his hay, his grain and everything like that. He had to sell his stock. In January, 1945, he let a contract for the construction of a new barn, but they did not get the lumber until well on in July. When I came here the roof was not on, but he had the hay and also most of the grain in the barn. Since we have had dry weather I hope he got everything in. I wish to bring this matter to the attention of the minister. This farmer was not given the subsidy. He is entitled to a subsidy of $273. I know, as the minister knows, that that subsidy was cancelled in July. This farmer ordered his lumber in January. I really think that he should get consideration and that the subsidy should be paid to him. He has had a hard struggle. He lost the use of his cattle last winter and had to buy more this spring to start up again. This man was an asset to the country, because if he had not built the barn it would have become a vacant farm and a menace to the district through the growing of weeds. But he had courage enough to build the barn. I ask the minister to take this matter into consideration.


Clarence Gillis: I have no intention of discussing
housing under this particular legislation, because I do not see how we can relate them. As I understand this bill, it is just another indication of the failure of private enterprise in this field; that is all.


An hon. MEMBER:: Just as simple as that.


Clarence Gillis: Just as simple as that. In
1944 the National Housing Act was passed. At that time the government designated the major insurance companies across this country as the lending agencies and delegated to them the job of building houses in Canada. But they have not built any houses; that is the fact of the matter. I remember reading press reports which stated that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) called representatives of the the insurance companies to Ottawa and told them to get busy and build houses or the government would build the houses itself. That would lead me to believe the minister knew what he was talking about, that it was not just a matter of shortage of material, because material would be just as short for the government as it would be for the insurance companies. So that shortage of material is not the whole problem.
In my opinion the problem was risk in the field of finance. After a good deal more 
deliberation the insurance companies came to the conclusion that they must have a finance organization set up and paid for by the government that would do the jo,b in the research field of finance that otherwise they would have to do. So that we have before us a bill which proposes to set up an organization to be known as the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. That relieves the insurance companies of quite a big job in the field of administration and, as I said in the beginning, is another instance of the quibbling not as to the building of houses but as to who is to take the risk in the field of finance. Who is to take that risk, and who is to do the major portion of* the work? The government. Who is to make the money? The insurance and construction companies.
I do not quarrel at all with the. hon. member for Vaneouver-Burrard (Mr. Merritt); I believe he is absolutely sincere in everything he says, although I think he is just a bit tangled up yet. He made many good suggestions, and I agreed with all of them. He suggested that we shall never get houses built in this country until we get down to the municipalities and build the kind of house that is within the reach of the pocket-book of the average salary or wage earner in this country, because those are the people for whom you have to build houses. When he said that he suggested that the corporation being set up by the government should undertake the building of houses, instead of merely doing the financial research for the major insurance companies across this country. I agree with that suggestion; but as sure as I am standing here I am convinced that neither under the National Housing Act nor under the machinery you are providing in this bill are you going to build houses. I say that very emphatically for this reason. The average income of over eighty per cent of the salary and wage earners in Canada is approximately $1,200 per annum. Under the National Housing Act the income per annum must be at least one-half the total amount of the loan. The people you have to build1 houses for under this legislation cannot qualify from the point of view of income, to start with, and you are not going to build houses for them as the legislation stands at the present time. That is defined in the National Housing Act, where they say what an economic unit is, what the cost is and what your income should be. Look at section 2, subsections 9 and 11, and I think your interpretation will be the same as mine. When, you -make application for a loan t-hat is the basis on which the chap working in the office is going to proceed. What is your income? Well, say your income is $1,200 or

Housing Act
$1,500 a year. You want a $5,000 or $6,000 house; that is the field they are working in. You have not the income, so that you do not qualify. If you examine the applications made by ex-service personnel to build homes under the National Housing Act you will find that about eighty-five per cent were rejected because they were not able to make the first payment and guarantee the monthly payments thereafter.
If we are to build houses we shall have to stop talking about this kind of legislation, because we are only whistling to keep up our courage. We are not going to build houses unless we are prepared to lift the incomes in this country to meet the requirements we are laying down in our legislation. When the housing act was before the house the minister wrote into it a clause under which credit unions across this country would be designated as lending agencies. Let me say here that in every town of the riding I represent, housing is bad, but they have set up town planning committees; they have made a thorough study of this act; they have had aerial photographs made of all these towns, at considerable cost, and so on. They are ready to go ahead and build houses, only to be told by the insurance companies when they make application, Well, we cannot go into the business of building houses in that community until such time as the future of the coal and steel industry is much clearer, and all this kind of stuff. So that we are waiting for a royal commission to determine the economic future of that section of the country, and we are still talking to ourselves. The only institutions that would have gone ahead and built houses were the credit unions; and it must be remembered that in my province alone they have a membership of some 32,000 and perhaps five or six million dollars at their disposal; that is the combined surpluses of the credit unions as handled by their central organization. One particular credit union had fifty-seven applications from its members to build houses, and because of the confusion with regard to the act at that time I told them to write the Minister of Finance, which they did. They received a reply to the effect that he did not think institutions of that kind could perform an adequate service in that field, but that he would take the matter up with his department and advise them later. What later advice they got I do not know.
Here is the difference between the national housing administration and the credit unions. Early in 1944 a member of one of these unions wrote me saying that he wanted to build a house, and asking for some advice on how to go about the matter. I wrote telling him to 47696-1274
make application to the national housing people; that they would send him a form, which he would complete; that then he would visit an agent in the city of Sydney, who would have a. long talk with him and set out a long list of specifications and qualifications he would have to meet. Then I said, "After you have completed all your dealings with the national housing people, go to your credit union and borrow the money necessary to build your house. Probably you will build the house and be living in it before you get a reply from the national housing people; and when you get that reply probably it will be to the effect that you cannot qualify." They wanted $4,500 for the type of house he was going to build. He got himself a piece of land, negotiated with his credit union, borrowed $2,500 and built himself a modern house in every way. Exactly what I told him happened. Six or eight months later, after he was living in the house, he received a letter from the national housing people stating that he could not qualify under the act, although he was living in a house that had cost him $2,500 and that would have cost him $4,500 under the national housing set-up.
What I am trying to tell the Minister of Finance is this, that if we wish to build houses, and really mean to build houses-and not just pass legislation, and argue about it

 then we have to get down among the people who need houses. This particular credit union had fifty-seven applications. They supervise the construction of the building and d,o business with the contractor. When the house is ready and when it is declared satisfactory, the man goes in. He saves money on it.


Thomas Reid: What interest do they charge?


Clarence Gillis: When dealing with the
national housing people,, that would have to be determined between the Department of Finance and those who were interested in building, because this is a new field we are going into. They could have gone ahead with the construction of fifty-seven homes.
The question of lumber comes up. You cannot get lumber from a large lumber dealer. But I know there are many small sawmills in that section of the country where I could go and make a private contract with someone to cut me the lumber which would be required to put up a house. That could be done at a reasonable cost.


John Lambert Gibson: What
about the price ceiling?


Clarence Gillis: It is being done every day
across this country. There are large tracts of
Housing Act

land that are just lying there. There are lots of these small1 mills. A mam may not be making a living in his mill, but he will go into the woods with you, if you like, and you can cut your material, and build your house. Many of these people would go1 ahead like that, and1 we would have -houses built.
I have no illusions about this machinery, for the reason I stated when I began speaking, namely, that the price being charged' for the houses is not within the incomes of the great majority of people across Canada who need homes. And I say that the government is mot going to build homes for those people. What we have bo do here, if we- want to get down to business, is this:	The organization
now being set up should b6 dealing with municipalities on a low-rental basis, a home-ownership basis, one which would- be lower in cost than is now offered-.
All the administrative machinery required to handle the plan through the municipalities is. to. be- found) in the town and city halls. We do not need insurance companies. We do- not need mortgage companies. The municipalities already have the machinery. It is simply a matter of putting it to work, and of negotiations being carried on directly between the government and the municipalities.
Most of the municipalities across Canada have laid their plans; they have done their town planning. If the procedure I suggest is followed, in a way which will be acceptable tp the people in the different, communities, rather than have- someone fly from Toronto to Nova Scotia communities and look at it from a financial point of view, the results will be m-ore satisfactory. We cannot build houses in the manner here suggested,.
I have been much surprised when at times I h-ave heard men talk about the developing trend toward dictatorships. There is only one way to stop that, and that is to- permit the people to have ownership. That is the only way to stop it; and unless we build up that field of ownership, and encourage the people to do things themselves and to break the controls which- do not enable them to create new wealth for themselves, they will have no stake in the country.
I have always contended that until a man gets a piece of ground, puts a home on it, and gets his feet on the soil, he is not a citizen; he is not a part o-f the country.


An hon. MEMBER:: And- a family.


Clarence Gillis: Yes, and a family. Unless we build in that way, there is no other road for us -to follow than the road of gradual centralization and the tying up'of everything under central machinery.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about the Prime Minister.


Clarence Gillis: I am not afraid of the Prime Minister along those lines.


An hon. MEMBER:: He still has a chance.


Clarence Gillis: 
Mr. BERTRAND (Laurier):: They do not count their time. They give their time for nothing.


Clarence Gillis: Well, if they want to do that they save money.


Ernest Bertrand: That is why the prices are so low.


Clarence Gillis: The important thing is that they build the house with their own hands. They own it, and it will take a lot of argument to turn those people into a machine which would be totalitarian. They are part of this country to-day. They know something about it. They own something, and they have built it themselves. They are not so easily pulled around by the nose.
I just wanted to make those few observations, because I consider that any discussion we have on this kind of legislation for the building of houses is just a waste of time. We are not going to build houses; we are simply going to build machinery to put someone on a job, chasing around the country, making reports to the government, stating that they cannot do this, or they cannot do that, because there is no money in it, no profit in it.
I say if we are to keep up that kind of machinery to bolster private enterprise, simply because they are not willing to take the risk that is supposed to entitle them to a profit, then we are simply whistling to keep our courage up.


Mr. VICTOR QUELCH (Acadia):: Mr. Speaker, I had not intended saying anything, but the remarks of the last speaker bring me to my feet. I must disagree with the statement he made at the beginning of his remarks when he said that this is just another example of the failure of private enterprise. I think the argument he then developed simply went to prove that his statement rvas not correct.
If his remarks proved anything at all, certainly they proved that the reason we have had a housing shortage has been owing to the fact that the people in Canada have not had the money with which to build houses. It was not because industry did not have the
lumber or the material necessary to build houses; it was not because contractors were not prepared to build houses, but simply because the people lacked money to pay for them. That is the reason.
When the war began we were suffering from a housing shortage. No one will argue that at that time we did not have the men and material, or the demand for houses, necessary to put on a real housing programme. I believe it was last year that the committee on reconstruction dealt with the question of housing, and recommended to the government that money should be made available for housing at a low rate of interest, and that loans should be repayable over a long period of time. We had in mind before, that repayment should not be at a greater rate than the rate of depreciation of the building.
The housing legislation does carry loans over a fairly reasonable length of time, but on the other hand the government has not carried out the recommendation of the committee and made loans available at low rates of interest. Not only has the government not made money available at low rates of interest, but what the government has actually done by its legislation is to place a floor, of around five per cent under interest rates. The result is that with this legislation it will be practically impossible for a person to build a house and obtain money at an interest rate of less than five per cent; in fact he is bound to pay more.
When the government under this measure puts up twenty-five per cent of the capital at three per cent and the mortgage company seventy-five per cent at five per cent, with the government underwriting losses up to ten per cent of the loan, it is natural that no mortgage company or money-lending concern is going to lend money at less than five per cent outside the limits of this measure. It thus becomes impossible for a private individual to borrow money at less than five per cent so long as we have legislation of this kind in operation. I do not think that is going to help the situation.
Perhaps the minister thinks it is wise to have a floor of five per cent under interest rates. We have floors under certain other things such as agricultural prices, and perhaps the minister thinks it is in the interest of the country to place a floor under interest rates. Let me say to the minister that if the Liberal party in the future intend to try to depend upon foreign trade in order to maintain prosperity in this country, they are certainly not helping our exporters by raising interest rates to around five per cent. We know that
Homing Act

in the United States certain corporations can borrow money at much lower rates of interest than that; I understand that they can borrow for around two per cent. This places business men in Canada in a most unfair position as compared with business men in the United States.
I agree to a large extent with the remarks of the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis). I do not think we can look upon the credit unions as a feasible organization to handle this matter in so far as Canada is concerned. They are better organized in Nova Scotia than in other parts of the country, but interest rates charged by the credit unions in the past have been too high for a scheme of this kind. On the other hand, if the federal government were to assume the responsibility for making capital available at cost by using the Bank of Canada and charging one-half of one per cent, then the interest rates to be charged by the credit unions could be considerably lowered.
I suggest that the logical procedure would be to place responsibility upon the government of each province. Decentralize the whole thing, and let the province estimate the number of houses that might be built in any one year and the cost of building those houses. Then let the provincial government make application to the federal government for the amount of money needed to cover that programme. Let the federal government then make available the necessary money through the Bank of Canada at a rate, say of one-half of one per cent. Then let the provincial government set up the administration, using the municipal council if necessary, in order to put the programme into operation, charging, let us say, a rate of one-half of one per cent, or whatever is necessary to administer the plan.
In that way and in that way alone will it be possible to bring down interest rates to a level where people will be able to afford to pay them and build houses in the low-income group. We are not interested in the people in the high-income brackets. We are not worrying about them. Those people can afford to build houses without any help. But we are worried about the people in the very low income brackets who cannot afford to build houses. I remember a former minister of finance stating that a man should1 not use more than twenty per cent of his income to build) a house. Surely the minister will not suggest that under this scheme people in the low-income brackets, people earning $800 or $900 or $1,000 a year, will be in a position to build decent houses? In otlher words, this legislation is of no value at all in helping people in the low-
TMr. Queleh.]
income brackets to build houses. Not only that; it is actually making it harder for them to build houses because it is putting a floor of five per cent under interest rates. We would be far better off to have no legislation of this kind because it is making it that much harder for people to build houses at a reasonable cost.


Mr. W. A. McMASTER (High Park):: Mr. Speaker, at the outset of my remarks I must say that I was much impressed by the speech of the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis). I believe that in that speech he expressed his own real sentiments. I was greatly impressed by the point he. made with relation to the man building his own house, the man working for himself. As he stated, such a man was able to build for $2,500 a house that would cost $4,50Q. if built in any other way. My Scotch ancestry makes me believe that the cheaper you can produce any article, the greater- benefit it is to the public. I believe that producing an article by the initiative of one man will mean that it can be produced much cheaper than in any other wray, and the public will be benefited thereby to a greater degree.
I was interested in the question which the minister directed1 to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). The minister asked him if it was not a fact that it was a shortage of physical materials that was causing the present housing shortage rather than a lack of money. I noticed1 that the hon. member did not answer. I thought that perhaps he would state that if his party had1 control of things they would produce a tree that would produce a good sized log in a very sihort time. Instead of saying that, he simply went on with his argument about what would happen under another economic set-up.
I think the minister put his finger on the weakness of the present situation when he mentioned shortage of materials. That brings to our mind two questions: first, the case of the private builder, not necessarily the builder mentioned by the hon. member for Cape Breton South, and what can be done to remedy this state of affairs.
When I first came to this house I was called up by a friend of mine in Toronto who said that he was living in an eleven-room house, but that he had a smaller house of from four to five rooms into which he wanted to move because he was ready to retire. However, he could not get a furnace to finish this new house in order fhat he might vacate the larger house which, of course, would accommodate a greater number of people than were then occupying it. We thus see how these orders issued by the government

Housing Act
deranges the economy of the country. They affect the man who is about to finish a house -and there are a great many of them-but who cannot get the necessary materials to finish his house. If he could finish the new house there would be another house vacated. These orders also affect the retail men who had built up good will over the years. They affect builders' employees who are working on houses.	_
How can we overcome these shortages? The government can use their power in a more direct and effective way than they are now employing. Materials are not only scarce; they are high in cost. The government could make some exploration into why plumbing fixtures are scarce. In my own riding of High Park is the Canadian branch of Standard Plumbing company, a large institution which I believe could produce unlimited numbers of plumbing fixtures if they had the men. The men must be available somewhere. If they are not in civilian life, they must be in the army and they could be procured in some way. There is also the Port Hope plant. I am sure that there should not be any shortage of plumbing fixtures.
In that connection I might say that there is a great deal of good plumbing material lying around the country in houses that were built during the war. These plumbing fixtures were of the very best, and I believe they could be reclaimed and used in other houses if there is a plumbing fixture shortage, as I understand there is.
There is also a shortage of lumber. I was very much obliged to the hon. member who read a letter showing the exports from Canada. I think all parties, most of all the C.C.F. party, agree that exports are necessary if we are to live properly and provide for the imports which .are needed as well as create, employment for our working men. If lumber is necessary for ourselves, surely our own needs should receive first consideration, especially when there is such an insistant demand for houses.
Many people think brick is too expensive, and to-day there are substitutes for brick. A great deal has been written in the magazines about new materials to take the place of brick; but, so far as I know, they have never been used. A great deal has also been written in one magazine about treating inferior lumber in such a way as greatly to improve its quality. These things should be investigated by the government. If it is a fact that these discoveries have been made and it is possible for us to take advantage of them, we should do so immediately.
There was a great deal in what was said by the hon. member for Wellington North (Mr. Menary) and the hon. member for York West (Mr. Adamson) as to the location of the houses being built under the present wartime housing scheme. I know the houses spoken of by the hon. member for Wellington North. They are north of the village of Weston. They are not near any considerable settlement. It will mean practically the erection of a new village and the provision of all the utilities and services required. They are a considerable distance away from any real transportation. If that were the only place where they could be built there might be some excuse, but there is land much nearer to the city, open spaces that could be reasonably purchased, on which these buildings could have been erected and where utilities would have been almost immediately available. If it is impossible to build the houses close to Toronto, it would be far better to go to some village a few miles out of Toronto where they already have streets and some community life and build the houses there rather than out in an open field where they have purchased the lowest part of the land and where, I am sure, there will be a great deal of difficulty in keeping the cellars dry.
There is a great deal of force in what all hon. members have said as to the great difficulty of a prospective builder in obtaining a loan even under the best conditions. Just before the house assembled a builder bought a piece of land just outside Toronto. It was not in the better part but in a fair residential district where the houses consist of six-roomed homes, comparatively modern. I suggested to him that he probably would not be able to get a loan. He suggested the names of two companies that are lending money under the act. I wrote to both of them and their answers were almost identical, that this was not the type of property or in the place where they usually lent money. So that the very purpose of the act is being defeated by the reluctance of the lending companies to lend money to people who want to build in a locality where they can put up a moderately priced house.
I have one suggestion to make as to the bill itself, and I make it now because I may not be here when it comes up. I notice that the board created under this bill is to take the place of the crown as grantee or mortgagee in previous deeds and mortgages, and I would suggest a clause in the bill which would vest in the board, as soon as the bill is passed and proclaimed, all the rights and titles of the crown in the right of the Minister of Finance.
Housing Act


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) made a point which I think is a particularly good one, and that is that the National Housing Act does not provide for the low income group. If hon. members' will refer to subsections 9 and 11 of section 2 of the National Housing Act they will find these definitions:
(9) "economic rental of a family housing unit" means a rental at the rate of twelve per centum per annum of the cost of construction of the family housing unit.
The figure my hon. friend used was S5,000, which may be a little high in some parts of the country but would not be high in the western provinces,. particularly in Saskatchewan. Twelve per cent of $5,000 is $600, or a rental of $50 a month. Then subsection 11 reads:
(11) "family of low income" means a family which receives a total family income less than five times the economic rental of a family housing unit required to provide sufficient accommodation for the said family.
Five times fifty dollars is $250 a month, and that is not a low income. If you take the salary and wage figures in this country according to the 1931 census you will find that a very small percentage of the Canadian population earns $3,000 a year or more. I have not the figures before me and I am speaking from memory. As the hon. member for Cape Breton South pointed out, persons with low incomes are not all heads of families, but are merribers of the wage-earning group, and some eighty-three per cent of them at the time of the 1941 census were earning less than $1,500 a year. Again I am speaking from memory. They include all wage-earners of every type, not just heads of families, but it does give something of a picture. I am sure that the number earning $3,000 a year or more is considerably less than ten per cent of the population. That brings out the defect ;n our housing act. The low salaried people who need housing the most are unable to take advantage of the provisions of the act, which is therefore inadequate.
I am in thorough agreement with what the hon. member for Cape Breton South said that a home is something that every family should own. It is personal property. It is not property used to exploit anybody else. It is not one of those things that should be used for the purpose of getting something out of somebody else. It is the kind of personal property, no matter under what political system people might live, that should be guaranteed to the family and to the individual. I know it is popular to say that we, for example, believe that everything should be 
owne4 by the state, which is a ridiculous statement. Even in a communist state .like Soviet Russia the people are encouraged to own a home and the land upon which the home stands. The more of that kind of property there is, property which ministers to the needs of the individual and the family, the deeper are the roots of the people in the country in which they live. Our housing acts so far have not provided for this low-income group, and if I may say so to the Minister of Finance, that is the main criticism of what has been done by the government so far in the matter of housing, that is heard all across this country.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Housing Act

would be the case if we adopted several of the suggestions that have been made to-day.
The reason, and the sole reason, why cheap houses cannot be built under the National Housing Act is that costs of building have increased by forty to fifty per cent since before the war; and I really do not know how to meet the point raised by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) namely, that houses of low cost, of two or three thousand dollars apiece, will not be built under the provisions of the National Housing Act unless we deliberately subsidize those houses by substantial sums in order to get home ownership on the part of the people with low incomes.


Major James William Coldwell: The alternative is rent, which is not good.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman was arguing very strongly for ownership. I gathered he was talking about home ownership.


Major James William Coldwell: I prefer it to renting.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. The time may come when we shall have seriously to consider very large subsidies or small subsidies, but I do not think that time has come now. I know we are building now, whether it is credit unions or private individuals or persons who are availing themselves of the provisions of the National Housing Act, just as many houses as the supply of materials and labour will permit to be built, and no amount of financial assistance or lending in favour of one class instead of another class of building will result in any more shelter. I think that while that condition obtains we should keep out of the subsidy field. When that condition no longer obtains it may be that a policy of subsidization, which has been advocated on every hand here to-night, because that is what the suggestions mean, can possibly be given consideration.


Major James William Coldwell: There is the question of minimum income. We may have to resort to that instead of subsidies.


Mr. BENTLEY:: There is a floor under
interest; why not a floor under income to take care of the So,000 house?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That happens to be a field of very much larger consideration. When the group of clauses objected to by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) is reached, I wish to give the house a full explanation of the need for those clauses. That group of clauses is based upon a principle which is advantageous. It enables this central corporation to buy and sell mortgages. By creating a market for mortgages

that does not exist, I think the inevitable result is to reduce the interest rate on mortgages, because it is the non-liquidity of this particular type of security that results in a higher interest rate on mortgages than on many other forms of investment. To the extent that we can create a mortgage market, more liquidity in this form of security, to that extent can we reduce interest rates. The clauses in the bill providing for financial research, as it has been called, are to enable the corporation to find out what it costs to make mortgage loans in any part of the country, and this is to find out how interest rates can be brought down. They are not clauses inserted for the purpose of enabling the government to do work which otherwise would be done by the insurance companies.
The hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis), while he made an interesting speech, was entirely wrong in that part of his observations. I think, Mr. Speaker, that I shall deal with the other points in committee.


Air. OASTLEDEN:: Does the minister
believe that this legislation will place housing within the reach of the large percentage of Canadian people in the lower income brackets who need it so badly to-day?


James Lorimer Ilsley: This legislation has nothing to do with placing housing either within or without the reach of any particular class in the community. It is an administrative measure. The hon. gentleman's question would be far more appropriate in a discussion of the provisions of the National Housing Act.


John Bracken: Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King). Had I voted I would, very reluctantly, have voted for the motion.


Mr. BLANCHETTE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Wentworth (Mr. Lennard). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: I was paired with the Minister of National Defence for Air (Mr. Gibson). Had I voted I would have voted, reluctantly, for the motion.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I was paired with the hon. member for Gaspe (Mr. Langlois).


Mr. McLURE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Queens (Mr. Douglas). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. SKEY:: I was paired with the hon. member for Simcoe East (Mr. Robinson). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


John Oliver Probe: I was paired with the hon. member for Spadina (Mr. Croll). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. BRYCE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.
47696-128J


Mr. CAMPBELL:: I was paired with the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Cote). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. McKAY:: I was paired with the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi (Mr. Halle). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Golding in the chair.
On section 1-Short title.
James Lorimer Ilsley: I would ask that this clause stand, because this' is the clause upon which some hon. members of the opposition may wish to make general remarks.


Major James William Coldwell: I was just going to say that it is pretty late to go into this bill tonight. I think we should try to improve this bill. We have just voted against second reading, not because we are in opposition to housing legislation,, but because we do not think the government has done sufficient in relation to this matter. The committee should consider this bill clause by clause and try to get the government to agree to some improvements. It is too late to do that tonight.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

[Stage Direction]
Mr. ILSLEY moved the adjournment of the house.
He said:	With regard to the business on
Monday, I expect to ask the house to continue with the measure with which we have been dealing to-day. When that is finished, the following bills will be taken up, but not necessarily in this order:	Second reading of Bill
No. 13, to amend the War Charities Act; second reading of Bill No. 19, to amend the Aeronautics Act; second reading of Bill No. 20, respecting citizenship nationality, naturalization and status of aliens. We shall also take up one or the other or both of the two resolutions standing in the name of the Minister of Munitions and Supply and try to get three departments into civil supply. I should like to make the reservation that this order of 'business may be altered and that we may possibly take up the war appropriations on Monday.
['I think we are entitled\nto that since we saved the life of the government to-night.']
Major James William Coldwell: If the Ford strike is
over.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That possibly may have
something to do with it.


Major James William Coldwell: I hope it will be over.
The Budget-Tariff Rates


John Bracken: Would the war appropriation measure take precedence over all these if we go into it?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It might. It is two or three days from now, and unless the house is inconvenienced by my being so indefinite, I should like to leave it in that way.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I offer the suggestion that the leader of the government indicate to the leaders or the whips of the other parties on Monday morning what will be taken up at three o'clock Monday afternoon?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will agree to that.


John Bracken: I think we are entitled
to that since we saved the life of the government to-night.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and the house adjourned at 10.50 p.m.
Monday, November 12, 1945.
The house, met at three o'clock.

[Stage Direction]
Second report of the standing committee on external affairs.-Mr. Bradet.te.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Mr. Speaker, I think I should present to the House of Commons a report on the results of the ninth victory loan campaign. The results reported up to and including Saturday last, are as follows:
Total purchases $1,808,586,300. These include sales to individuals of $1,031,786,300; sales to" special names $776,800,000. The sales to individuals include $780,063,250, general canvass; and $251,723,050, employees and armed forces canvass. The total number of applications received' up to Saturday, November 10, was 2,546,569. At the same time in the eighth loan the total applications stood at 2,524,861. From the experience of the eighth victory loan we can expect the final return to be between $1,900,000,000 and $2,000,000,000, of which amount sales to individuals may exceed SI.100.000,000.
Features worthy of note are the following:
First, the high average purchase per application in the combined general sales and payroll canvass. The average individual purchase in the ninth victory loan was $406.01. The average individual purchase in the eighth loan was $274.60.
Second, the encouraging response of the armed forces. The total sales to the armed forces in the ninth loan were $71,594,050, including the investment of gratuities and deferred pay. .
Third, the estimated' total purchases made through the deferred payment plan and the monthly savings plan to November 9, in the ninth loan, which amount to $104,070,650. Total purchases made out of income on the comparable date in the eighth loan were $48,577,050.
The figures speak for themselves. They reflect credit on the national war finance committee. The thousands of workers in this organization have shown energy and perseverance in making possible these magnificent results in spite of difficulties occasioned by weather in some sections, by difficult roads and late harvesting, and other circumstances. The figures prove that Canadians fully accept responsibility to discharge all commitments arising from the w'ar. They are unmistakable assurance to the men and women of the forces that we shall help them in every possible way to realize their future hopes and to bring about a world worthy of their efforts. But the most striking and inspiring conclusion to be drawn from the accomplishment of the ninth victory loan, the. conclusion which the world will draw, is that Canadians have great faith in the future of their nation, and have backed that faith in a forthright and practical way.



THE BUDGET


James Lorimer Ilsley: Now, Mr. Speak'er, I should like to make an announcement relating to the budget. The delay in resuming the budget debate and other circumstances to which I shall refer make it desirable that I should make this statement at this time. The budget resolutions proposed certain adjustments in the customs tariff. In referring to them in my budget speech I said most of them were matters of redefinition and administrative convenience, rather than of major importance. Some of these adjustments were increases, some were decreases and some were reclassifications and clarifications of items. As Minister of Finance I believed and I believe there were good and sufficient reasons for these proposed changes.
Certain of these changes which increased duties have been widely interpreted as representing a change in the government's general

Legislation-Expediting Business
approach to commercial policy and to efforts to liberalize and expand world trade. I wish to emphasize that the government had not the slightest thought that a new policy was being adopted or that the action would be interpreted as anything more than what in fact it was, a minor modification of the tariff structure. The government is more concerned about this misinterpretation of its attitude than otherwise it might have been because within the last few days we have been given substantial ground for believing that the prospects of early international action for the reduction of tariffs and other barriers to world trade are considerably improved. The government has repeatedly expressed the view that in the interdependent world of to-day prosperity is indivisible, and that the prosperity of any nation cannot be long maintained without a restoration and expansion of international commerce. We welcome every indication of a movement in the direction of reciprocal action to reduce trade barriers.
I am not yet in a position to make an announcement regarding plans for negotiations with other countries, but once we had solid reasons for believing that substantial reductions in world tariffs might soon be under active discussion we felt that the changes in our tariff structure proposed in the budget should be reviewed. In the case of proposed reductions, it is clear that we might be doing unilaterally what it would be preferable to have done reciprocally. On the other hand, in the case of increases, it was not less apparent that they might prove to be very temporary in their application. It is still more important that no action should be taken which can be interpreted either at home or abroad as showing anything but the strongest support for the principles upon which international negotiations will, w*e hope and expect, soon be based. The government therefore has decided that the present is not the time, by isolated or unilateral action, to change the existing tariff in any particular. Once that decision was reached, I wished to inform the house without delay. As hon. members are aware, the tariff changes proposed in the budget went into effect immediately. As a result of to-day's announcement the old rates will be restored immediately. The Minister of National Revenue will consider and recommend equitable adjustments in the case of transactions which have taken place in the interval on the basis of the budget announcement.



PUBLIC ACCOUNTS


James Lorimer Ilsley: I lay on the table of the house the public accounts of Canada and the report of the auditor general for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1945. For the reasons I gave the other day, they are not printed. However we are tabling them in unprinted form. They take up large bulk. With the consent of the house I would move:
That the public accounts for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1945, be referred to the standing committee on public accounts.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


James Lorimer Ilsley: On Friday the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) asked me to give a statement of further legislation of which notice has not yet been given but which may be anticipated this session. So far as it is now possible to forecast, and subject always to the necessity arising for legislation not now anticipated, the measures still to be introduced are as follows:
A bill to ratify the Bretton Woods agreement.
An amendment to the Export Credits Insurance Act.
An amendment to the Dominion-Provincial Taxation Agreement Act.
The Foreign Exchange Control Act.
A resolution with respect to the extradition treaty and protocol with the United States.
An amendment to the Immigration Act.
An amendment to the Maple Sugar Industry Act.
Possible amendments to the criminal code.
A possible amendment to the Excise Act.
In addition there is the legislation arising out of the report of the parliamentary committee on veterans affairs. At least five bills will be introduced and perhaps more, depending upon the progress of the committee.
I should like to draw attention to a few facts. I have mentioned about a dozen measures still to be introduced, many of them of major importance. On the order paper now are seventeen measures of which notice has been given, some of them extremely important-such as, for example, the emergency powers legislation-without counting the budget resolutions and the various measures which will be based upon those resolutions. There are thirty sitting days until December 22, not counting

Legislation-Expediting Business
Saturdays. The house already has sat for forty-four days, and at the present rate of progress the session certainly will not conclude by the end of 1945. In these circumstances I would appeal for the cooperation of the House of Commons in expediting business, and to hon. members on all sides to exercise some self-restraint when they feel like speaking repeatedly on certain measures. A careful scrutiny of government measures need not involve lengthy, digressive and repetitive speeches.
There is danger that the House of Commons may be losing sight of its real functions, which are to vote supply, t.o control expenditure and to enact legislation. The government has submitted a heavy programme to the house, which demands its full attention. The time of the house is being taken up in many cases with an apparent attempt to govern rather than to legislate. The government has the duty to govern, under the constitution. This distinction is fundamental. I should like to quote what the leader of the opposition said in this house on October 31, 1945, at page 1681 of Hansard:
I placed the motion on the order paper for a definite and very important purpose. It is a vital principle, which no member will dare to challenge, that this House of Commons has the full and inalienable right to a disclosure of all actions of the executive. It has the right and the duty to review and pass upon all such actions. Except in some minor matters where the king's prerogative has not been abridged, the executive or cabinet acts properly only under authority delegated by this parliament. Thus, in order that we may be aware of the actions of the executive, I have placed this motion on the order paper.
Later in the same statement the hon. gentleman said this:
I am determined to ensure, in so far as1 lies within my power, that Canada is governed by this House of Commons. . . .
That statement is not historically or constitutionally correct. The house has not an inalienable right to the disclosure of all actions of the executive. Ministers may refuse to disclose matters if refusal to disclose is in the public interest and is so stated by the ministers.


Mr. GRAYDON:: But they must not abuse it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Authority has been cited in support of that proposition. The house must accept the decision of a minister or withdraw confidence from the government, which it can do at any time. The authority of the government is not delegated by the House of Commons; the authority of the government is received from the crown. The membership of the government is not limited to members
fM r. Ilsley.3
of the house. The true relationship of the House of Commons and the cabinet is a relationship of confidence. The essence of confidence is trust, not minute and detailed supervision of every act and every motive. Government cannot be carried on efficiently if every detail is subject to constant scrutiny.


Gordon Graydon: You are retreating to the middle ages.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It would be much as if the shareholders of a company sat perpetually in shareholder's meetings, reading every letter and every memorandum of the management. Far more information is disclosed by the Canadian government, and has been during the war, and is at present, than by any other government of whose practices we are informed. Any hon. member who cares to compare our procedure in this house with the procedure at Westminster, even in the current sessions, will find that our government is asked and expected to produce, and does in fact produce, far more information than is the case in the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, for example, a vote of credit for two billion pounds was passed in part of one day's session. Compare that with our progress in our war appropriation.
There are two dangers from, the present course.


Gordon Graydon: Was that not an interim
vote?	_


James Lorimer Ilsley: Just listen once in a while "


Gordon Graydon: It is a lecture.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am simply telling the House of Commons that the government is not in default with its programme. It has seventeen measures on the order paper, and is bringing these- along certainly far more rapidly than the house is prepared to deal with them.
As I said, there are two dangers from the present course. First, time wasted at the beginning of the session results in measures being rushed through in the closing days, without proper attention. When that happens, parliament is not doing its own work efficiently. Second, the constant demands which are being made for the production of privileged and confidential papers can only have the effect, either of possibly creating in the minds of the public certain suspicions, or of making the conduct of government impossible.
If I do say so, no one is more anxious than the Minister of Finance to have parliament perform effectively one of its major functions, namely the scrutiny of expenditures, and in a dozen ways we have made it possible for that to be done. I would ask the house to exercise

Legislation-Expediting Business
restraint on its demands so that we may get through the programme we have undertaken at this session.


John Bracken: 
James Lorimer Ilsley: They were not hidden away at all.


John Bracken: The resolutions which
proposed increased protection.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No budget resolutions were
hidden away in the budget speech at all.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: They were not plainly
shown.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The Free Press found
them all right.


John Bracken: The Acting Prime Minister did not take pains to make them apparent here in his budget speech.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have published them.


John Bracken: I wish to congratulate
the government upon its decision to abandon these resolutions. The minister must have been listening to my broadcast on Saturday night, when I predicted that if they proceeded with these tariff increases they would be opposed by members of this side of the hojise from one corner to the other.


Mr. MACKENZIE:: The Tory party, the
no-tariff party 1


John Bracken: It is very apparent that
some over there wanted these increases.
I come now to the Acting Prime Minister's statement with respect to further legislation. He referred in that connection to two things in particular, one of which was the denial of information asked for by hon. members on this side of the house, and he instanced some traditional reasons why information should not be given. Whatever the technical position is, Mr. Speaker, we take the attitude that the representatives of the people of Canada are entitled to know what is going on, and we are going to try to keep on finding out-not because we feel that there is crookedness on the part of the government, but because we are entitled to know, and for no other reason.
The minister referred to the progress made in connection with the voting of supply. What he had to say can be replied to briefly. If we had been in supply for the whole of the present session, assuming that it would end about Christmas-a period of about three months-we would have been asked in supply to vote nearly $100,000,000 a day, if we include the interim vote. I make no apologies for asking about information regarding those expenditures. During the time we have been in committee we have passed what?-I suppose nearly half a million dollars a minute. This is one of the important responsibilities of parliament-to pass upon its expenditures -and I suggest that parliament has not had time to deal adequately with these expenditures, and at the same time to attend -to the big programme of legislation that has been laid before it.


Mr. CLEAVER:: Why do you ask the same questions twenty times?


John Bracken: If we have to do it forty times, in order to get the answers, that is what we will do.


Major James William Coldwell: May I just say that we want to join in the congratulations that have been extended to those who have participated in the splendid results of the victory loan campaign.
I too wish to take issue with the statement of the Acting Prime Minister that the government derives its authority from the crown. Surely that doctrine went by the board years ago.


Gordon Graydon: The middle ages.


Major James William Coldwell: Responsible government surely means that the government is responsible to the elected representatives of the people.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I wholly agree.
Legislation-Expediting Business


Mr. COLD  WELL@: Where is the doctrine that has been so constantly placed before this house by the Prime Minister, who is now absent from the house, that parliament will decide? Parliament will decide, and in the approval of policy, surely it is this House of Commons, elected' by the people of this country, who must give or deny the government support. That is the policy that this House of Commons itself decides upon.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Exactly. What I said was that the authority of government is not delegated by this house ; I said it was delegated by the crown.


Major James William Coldwell: Read the next sentence -"is derived from the crown."


James Lorimer Ilsley: Is not delegated by the house, but received from the crown.


Major James William Coldwell: Exactly.


Gordon Graydon: That is a medieval conception.


Major James William Coldwell: That is going back to the days of the family compact. Constitutional government is answerable to the representatives of the people, not, with all due respect, may I say, to the crown or the crown's representatives.
As regards the speeding up of the business of the house, I am in agreement with the Acting Prime Minister that business should be speeded up. May I say that I think the proper way to speed up the business is to do the same thing that they do at Westminster [DOT]-since Westminster has been mentioned this afternoon-and that is to get the representatives of the parties together, the whips; decide that a certain length of time shall be allotted to a certain piece of business, and then go through with it.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Major James William Coldwell: That I think is the
thing to do. With the programme which has been placed before us this afternoon we shall1 be here until Easter, not Christmas, if we proceed as we have been proceeding. I think an arrangement could be made Whereby a certain length of time could be allotted to a certain piece of legislation, and with the cooperation of the whips and the parties it could be arranged that the other business of the house could be expedited as well. But I do want to protest as strongly as I can against the suggestion that the authority of the government is derived from the crown; I say it is derived from the people, and we are the representatives of the people.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Section 9 of the British
North America Act reads:
The executive government and authority of and over Canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested, in the Queen.
And section 10:
The provisions of this act referring to the governor general extend and apply to the governor general for the time being of Canada

The authority of the government is not delegated by the house. His Majesty's ad^ visers are sworn in as advisers to the crown. The government is responsible to parliament, which I have admitted in every word of my .speech, but that is a different thing from the doctrine that the government is a committee of the House of Commons or that it exercises authority delegated by the House of Commons. That is not so.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Further to the suggestion that was made by the leader of this group, would the Acting Prime Minister give consideration to the idea of calling together soon the leaders and the whips of the various parties to see if we cannot somehow ration our time? It seems to me it would be better to try to arrive at some rationing on a cooperative basis than to argue the matter here.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The answer is in the affirmative; I certainly will.



QUESTIONS

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated- by an asterisk).	*

Mr. COCKERAM:: 1.	What is the contract price of the houses being built under the No. 4 Wartime Housing project?
2.	When did building operations commence?
3.	When will the buildings be ready for occupancy?
4.	Who are the contractors?
5.	From whom was land purchased, what is the acreage and what ivas the cost of same?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	Cost plus a fixed fee per house basis.
2.	Approximately July 15, 1945.
3.	The project is being proceeded with as expeditiously as possible but is subject to the schedule of completion of water and sewer services by the city of Toronto. Some houses should be ready for occupancy during the early part of 1946.
4.	Russell Construction Company Limited, Toronto.
5.	The land was purchased in two parcels as follows:

Questions
1st parcel: purchased from Hilda M. Elmore, comprising 14-90 acres in lot 1, concession 3 from the bay, East York, at .a cost of $21,605.
2nd parcel: purchased from N. H. Schmidt, Edith Mace and H. J. Schmidt, comprising 16-99 acres in lot 1, concession 3 from the bay, East York, at a cost of $20,975.


FARM IMPLEMENTS-IMPORTS OF BALERS
Mr. KNOWLES:: 1.	Since the abolition of duty on imported farm implements have any balers been imported from the United States?
2.	If so, how many?
3.	Were any farmers purchasing the same required to pay duty thereon ?. If so, how much, and why?


Mr. McCANN:: 1.	Yes.
2.	From July 1, 1944 to September 30, 1945, 127.
3.	The department is not aware of any case in which duty has been collected by the crown on hay presses since the 26th June, 1944.


WARTIME HOUSING-EXPENDITURE ON CONSTRUCTION OF OTHER THAN HOUSES
Mr. FLEMING:: 1.	What expenditure (by years) has been made by Wartime Housing Limited on the construction of other than houses to September 15, 1945?
2.	On what have such expenditures been made?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	Expenditures on construction of other than houses to September 30, 1945 (calendar years):
1941	$	463,358 391942	
2,793,716	311943	
7,711,860	921944	
2,585,301	301945	
437,887	00Total	$ 13,992,123 92
This total does not include expenditures for the operation and maintenance of all construction by Wartime Housing Limited.
2.	The individual projects on which the expenditures were made are as follows Kinston halls-women's dormitories; Staff houses -men's dormitories; Bunkhouses, Community halls, Commissaries, Fire halls, Storage buildings, Schools, School additions, Contribution to schools, Administration buildings, Telephone shelters, Fire hose buildings, Manning pools, Port control building, Men's centres,
Hiring halls, Conversion of aircraft plant, Water works systems, Playgrounds, Club houses, McNutt dam-Moncton; Moving of houses, Maintenance sheds, General stores, Post offices, Nurses' residences, Donations to hospitals, Hospitals, Recreation centres, A.R.P. building, Power lines, Accommodation on Rapids Prince for 200 women (Sorel).


WARTIME PRICES AND TRADE BOARD- MEAT RATIONING
Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: 1.	How many retail merchants were circularized by the wartime prices and trade board in regard to meat rationing early in September?
2. What classes of retail trade were they engaged in?
3.	How many retailers in Canada were circularized by the wartime prices and trade-board with a circular headed "Important Message to all Meat Retailers", by the ration administration dated October 19, 1945, with reference to changes in meat coupon values announced as effective on October 11?
4. What classes of retail trade were they engaged in?
5.	In each case what was the total cost of such circularizing to the government of Canada?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	60,868.
2.	In order to ensure that all retailers possibly concerned had been notified, the following retailers were circularized: butchers, grocers, combined butchers and grocers, any other retailer whose application for a license indicated that the licensee dealt in fresh meat or other food product as subsidiary to some other line of business.
3.	61,432.
4.	In order to ensure that all retailers possibly concerned had been notified, the following retailers were circularized: butchers, grocers, combined butchers and grocers, any other retailer whose application for a license indicated that the licensee dealt in fresh meat or other food product as subsidiary to some other line of business.
5.	The figures below show the amount of money expended over and above the normal cost of operating the licensing division of the wartime prices and trade board.
Cost of labour and material for circularizing retail merchants: Early in September, 1945, $14,904.06; October 19, 1945, $8,589.95.


WAR ASSETS CORPORATION-BRITISH COLUMBIA
Thomas Reid: -1. Who is in charge of the War Assets Corporation for British Columbia?
2.	Where is the office for British Columbia located ?
Questions
30MM0NS
3.	How many of a staff are connected with this office in the sale of surplus government property ?
4.	Are the goods and articles for sale under their control advertised with a view of giving the general public fair and ample opportunity to tender for the articles to be disposed of?
5.	Are the general public invited to tender?
6.	What procedure is in effect with the view of seeing to it that residents in New Westminster, Fraser Valley and other sections of British Columbia having an equal opportunity with those in the city of Vancouver to tender on any of the articles or goods for sale?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	Major M. Montgomery. -
2.	404 West Hastings street, Vancouver, B.C.
3.	A branch sales manager and seven salesmen. There are, in addition, office staff and twenty-two personnel in connection with warehousing and clearance duties.
4.	Surplus goods to be sold by auction are so advertised in the public press and the public is therefore invited to attend. In instances when specific commodities are to be disposed of, tenders are invited from the manufacturers, dealers and retailers who would be primarily interested in such commodities. By virtue of the types of such commodities and the advantages to War Assets Corporation of selling in sizable quantities, the general public is not invited to tender. All normal selling is done by the Vancouver branch office salesmen.
5.	See answer to question 4.
6.	When tenders are invited from the general public, advertisements appear in the leading newspapers of British Columbia. However, salesmen from the Vancouver branch are instructed to cover all normal outlets for disposal-that is, manufacturers, dealers and retailers in all of British Columbia.


HOUSING-FAMILIES OF SERVICEMEN
Mr. BRUCE:: What steps, if any, is the government taking to protect the families' of soldiers occupying houses or flats, from eviction, at least during the coming winter months, in cases where no otlier quarters can be found for them?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The following regulations of the wartime prices and trade board affect civilian as well as service personnel and will continue to be in effect during th^ coming winter months.
On July 24, 1945, the wartime prices and trade board issued board order No. 537 re termination of leases for housing accommodation, effective July 25, 1945, which suspended all outstanding notices to vacate given before July 25, 1945, by the landlord of any housing accommodation to the tenant, and stayed every pending proceeding taken and every order or writ of possession issued to enforce

the- vacating of the accommodation by the tenant. (The order, however, permitted the landlord to apply on or before August 31, 1945, to the court through the rentals appraiser for an order removing the suspension or stay on presentation of the relative hardships involved.) This order also suspended the landlord's right under board order No. 294, to give, after July 24, 1945, notice to vacate for personal occupancy by himself or his relative.
By virtue of wartime prices and trade board order No. 428 re termination of leases for shared accommodation, effective July 29, 1944, well-behaved tenants of shared accommodations cannot be required to vacate except by six months' notice. Furthermore, in the case of a monthly or weekly lease, the tenant cannot be required to vacate on a date which falls between September 30 and the following April 30.


PRICE OF SILVER
Mr. BLACK (Yukon):: What action has the government of Canada taken to establish in Canada the same price for silver as that of the United States, namely, 71-11 cents per ounce for imported silver?


James Lorimer Ilsley: None.
pacific COAST MILITIA RANGERS-RIFLES


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: 1.	How many rifles were issued to the Pacific coast militia rangers, (a) 30-30 or sporting rifles; (b) 3006 service rifles?
2.	Are applicants to purchase 3006 service rifles to be permitted to purchase sporting rifles in substitution?
3.	If so, are there enough of these available for the entire corps?
4.	If not, where will they be secured from?


Mr. ABBOTT:: Perhaps I might answer this question verbally. It relates to the Pacific coast militia rangers. The answer to the first question is 6,224 of the sporting type and 3,265 service rifles. The hon. member for Fraser Valley then inquired as to what was to be done with respect to persons who had acquired the service type rifle, whether they would be allowed to acquire the sporting type rifle in substitution. I am glad to be able to say that as a result of his representations, and those of other British Columbia members, the question has now been reconsidered and holders of service type rifles will be able to purchase these as well.


NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Mr. McCULLOUGH (Assiniboia):: What has been the amount expended in maintenance of the national research council in each of the years from 194] tc date ?

Questions


Mr. McILRAITH:: The expenditures incurred on the work of the national research council is as follows: Fiscal Year'	Amount
1941-	42	
$3,385,188	421942-	43	
4,111,210	761943-	44	
6,069,839	411944-	45	
6,535,561	26


TRENTON, ONT., AIR FORCE HOSPITAL
Mr. BRUCE:: 1.	How many patients were in the air force hospital at Trenton, Ontario, on October 31, last?
2.	How many, (a) nurses; (b) medical officers, were attached to the above hospital on October
1,	1945?


Mr. GIBSON (Hamilton West):: 1.	125.
2.	(a) 16; (b) 12.	.


RESEARCH ENTERPRISES
Mr. MEN ARY:: 1.	Has the government sold all or part of the plant of Research Enterprises Limited, Leaside, Ontario?
2.	If so, what was the price received?
3.	Will the present company continue the manufacture of optical glass at this plant?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	Yes, building No. 14 with services as
follows:
Lands:
8-185 acres.
Buildings:
One storey	 182' x 434'
Two storey office	 31' x 125'
Lavatory	 27' x 27'
2. S150.000.
3.	This is a matter that has not yet been determined.


CALGARY NAVAL BARRACKS
Mr. JOHNSTON:: 1.	When was the contract let for the naval barracks in Calgary?
2.	Who was given the contract and where does lie reside?
3.	Were tenders called? If so, who submitted tenders and what was the amount of each tender?
4.	Were any extras allowed on this contract? If so, to what amount?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	March 21, 1944.
2.	W. C. Wells, Wilkie, Sask.
3.	(a) Yes.
(b) Sixteen firms were invited to tender and eight tenders were received.
(c) The lowest tenderer was awarded the contract for $132,474.50. It is the policy of the department to not give the names of unsuccessful tenderers or the amount of their tenders. _
4.	(a) Yes.
(b) $3,095.25.


COLONEL BELCHER HOSPITAL, CALGARY
Mr. JOHNSTON:: 1.	What was the contract price for the clinic at the Colonel Belcher hospital, Calgary?
2.	To whom was it let and on what date?
3.	What was the amount of the highest tender received?
4.	What amount, if any, was spent on extras in connection with this contract?


Mr. FOURNIER (Hull):: 1.	$18,719 for construction of new garage and
nlinip offinps;
2.	(a) W.'C. Wells of Wilkie, Sask.; (b) May 3, 1944.
3.	Shoquist Construction Ltd. of Calgary, $24)258.
4.	$253.50.


Mr. JOHNSTON:: 1.	What was the amount of the contract for the garage at the Colonel Belcher hospital, Calgary ?
2.	To whom was it given, and what w-as the amount of the highest tender?


Mr. FOURNIER (Hull):: 1 and 2. The construction of the new garage and clinic offices was made under one contract. Please see answer to preceding question.


R.C.A.F.-DISCHARGE OF PHOTOGRAPHERS
Mr HODGSON:: 1.	Has the Minister of National Defence for Air received the report mentioned ait page 1793 of Hansard, November 2, on the demobilization of the men in No. 7 photographic wing?
2.	If so, how- many of the photographers who had applied for discharge in order bo return to former employment or their own businesses since September 15, are still on strength?
3.	Of these, how many have senior service to those discharged since September 15?
4.	What action is the government taldng regarding the discharge of photographic personnel ?
5.	Is the same action being taken with regard to the discharge of all air personnel?


Mr. GIBSON (Hamilton West):: 1.	Yes.
2.	The discharges of all photographers in No. 7 photographic wing who applied for release since September 15 in order to return to former employment or their own businesses have all been approved; with the exception of those personnel now going through release procedure at release centres and two
Questions as Orders jor Returns

who are being held pending investigation, all are now off strength.
3.	See question 2.
4.	The discharge of photographic personnel is to take place in accordance with the procedure already announced, that is first in-first out, plus releases on compassionate grounds, through industrial selection and release committees, to return to university, etc.
5.	The same policy is being followed with respect to the discharge of all service personnel.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. MATTHEWS (Kootenay East):: 1.	Have the Aero timber interests on the Queen Charlotte Islands been sold? If so, to whom and. at what price?
2.	How many acres of standing timber were involved in this deal?
3.	What species of timber are represented, and in what proportions?
4.	How much development work has been done on these limits?
5.	Who cruised this stand of timber, and signed the cruise?
6.	On -what elevations does this timber stand?
7.	How far is it from salt water?
8.	What are the harbour facilities of the dumps?
9.	What is the general contour of the ground?
10.	Does the sale include equipment, machinery, wharves, tug-boats, etc.?



UNITED STATES CAPITAL INVESTED IN CANADA

Mr. JAENICKE:: According to the latest figures available-
' 1. What is the total amount of United States capital invested in Canada?
2.	What were the total amounts remitted to recipients in the United States during the years 1939 to 1944 under permits of the foreign exchange control board?
3.	How much of the amounts mentioned in question 2 represent, (a) interest, dividends, rentals, or other income on United States capital invested in Canada; (b) repayment of United States capital; (c) the price of goods and services ?



DRAFT DODGERS AND DESERTERS-PROSECUTIONS

John George Diefenbaker: How many draft dodgers and/or deserters in total and by provinces and/or military districts, who have been prosecuted, have been sentenced to imprisonment?



CANADIAN FORCES OVERSEAS-DETENTIONS

Mr. CHURCH:: .
1. Howr many soldiers of the forces overseas have been sentenced to terms of detention in Headley detention barracks, Hampshire, England?
[Mr. C. W. G. Gibson.1
2.	For what various offences; where are they now confined, and for w'hat terms?
3.	What has been the total deductions of pay and gratuity and other credits imposed there by orders of courts of inquiry?
4.	Have any complaints been received as to the heavy penalties imposed and the loss of pay to families by the fine system of pay deductions?
5.	How many courts-martial were held there and what service at the front had the members of the courts?
6.	Will those sentences for desertion and other-causes be reviewed by the new board of review?
7.	Who are the heads of this barracks and the chief officer there?
8.	Have any of such prisoners been returned to Canada to complete sentences? If so, how many and where are they confined?
9.	Have any reforms been made in the administration of this unit overseas and what inspection is there of this place?
10.	Were there any riots at the above mentioned barracks? If so, by whom; what was the cause, and W'hat damage was done?
11.	Were these courts-martial conducted in public; will the new board of review conduct an inquiry into these cases and others at Aldershot, and report on them?



NATIONAL FILM BOARD

Mr. REID:: 1.	What amount of money was appropriated for the national film board for the fiscal year ending March 31. 1945?
2.	.What w'as the total expenditures made by the national film board for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1945?
3.	What government departments were appro-ached by the minister in charge, or officials of the national film board, seeking work for the said board?
4.	What work was done by the national film * board for each of the departments of the government, and at what cosit to each department?
5.	When was the national film board established?
6.	What has been [DOT] the expenditures of the national film board each year since its inception, up to the end of March, 1945?
7.	How many, were employed by the national film board each year since its- inception, up to the end of March, 1945?
8.	Is the minister under whose jurisdiction the national film board operates consulted before any new type of work or project is undertaken? li so, by whom ?



SUGAR CONTROL-BEET SUGAR

Mr. COLD WELL:: 1.	Has the Canadian government taken any steps to modify its declaration to the international sugar council conference of London, May 6, 1937?
2.	If so, what modifications have been suggested?
3.	Has the government endeavoured to modify the .agreement to enable larger production of beet sugar in Canada?
4.	Did Canada approach any members of the combined food board wfith regard to Canada, obtaining sugar from Brazil or Peru?
5.	If so, what w'ere the replies?

Ford Motor Plant Strike
6.	Has the government any knowledge if any countries represented in the combined food board have diesired to secure sugar from Brazil and/or Peru?
7.	How would Canada's present allotment of sugar be affected by importation of sugar from South America?
8.	Is any individual or firm other than the
sugar controller permitted to import sugar into Canada ?	.
9.	If so, what are the names of the individuals or firms, and what are the quantities that have been so imported?
10.	Is the government aware supplies of sugar are available in Peru and Brazil?
11.	If so, why does Canada regard other countries in central and South America as "deficiency countries"?



MOTION FOR PAPERS


Mr. COLDWELL:: 1.	For a copy of the agreement with the United Kingdom government vhdreby the United Kingdom Ministry of Food through its sugar controller would act as joint purchasing agents for Canada and the United Kingdom.
2.	Copy of the agreement by which sugar control for the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada was vested in the combined .food board.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I am informed by the Department of External Affairs that there is, no agreement as suggested in part 2 of this motion, but there is correspondence which there would be no objection to tabling, provided of course, that it be done only after the consent of other governments concerned is obtained. The Canadian government has no objection to tabling the correspondence, but it will out of courtesy wish to ask for the consent of the other governments concerned.


Major James William Coldwell: As it concerns other governments I am quite agreeable to that courtesy being extended.


James Horace King: Shall the motion carry, subject to the remarks made by the minister?


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
James Lorimer Ilsley: Mr. Speaker, hon. members will be interested in the latest information regarding the possibility of a visit to Ottawa by the Prime Minister of Great Britain. There has been received from Washington the news that Mr. Attlee has accepted the Prime Minister's invitation to visit Canada and to address both houses of parliament. It is not yet possible to fix the day, but it will probably be a week from to-day. The house will be informed of the day as soon as it is fixed.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I returned
late on Saturday from Windsor after spending the previous five days there trying to find some means of settling the difficulties between the Ford Motor Company of Canada Limited and its employees and to end the unfortunate strike which has now lasted since September 12 and has been augmented by a sympathy strike of about thirty other plants in the city and district.
While in Windsor, I had the able assistance of the Hon. Leslie Blackwell, the Ontario attorney general, and at that time the acting minister of labour for the province, and a conciliation officer of the federal Department of Labour, Mr. J. S. McCullagh.
I regret I cannot report to the house at this time that the strike has ended, although there does seem to be in the news from Windsor over the week-end some hope for a settlement.
I believe the visit which was paid to Windsor by Mr. Blackwell and myself brought about one important change and that was the removal of the barricade of an estimated one thousand private cars and buses which the striking Ford employees had placed in the street adjacent to the plant. These cars and buses, of course, had been illegally seized from their owners. It was the first recognition that law and order must prevail.
As to negotiations during the week, the house will be interested to know that before I left Ottawa by air on Monday, I telephoned to Mr. Henry Ford II at Dearborn, Michigan, asking him if I could see him upon my arrival. Mr. Ford was good enough to c,ome to Windsor and I saw him at nine o'clock on Monday evening with officials of the Ford Motor Company of Canada and Mr. John Bugas, director of industrial relations for the United States company.
We had a long discussion on the points at issue particularly upon the demands of the striking workers for union security and the check-off of union dues. There are other points in the dispute which are capable of being ironed out without too much difficulty. Information also was given to me that neither Mr. Ford nor the United States company had control over the Canadian company.
I found the Canadian company officials absolutely adamant against conceding anything to the strikers until the power house which had been closed down was reopened and the
Ford Motor Plant Strike

office staff allowed access to the offices. There was in the minds of these officials continuous fear that colder weather would cause millions of dollars worth of damage to equipment because of non-operation of the power plant and also that there might be an explosion of the large gas tank on the property due to frost. The offices, of course, could not be reopened without light, heat and power.
I must confess that it seemed to me that these conditions were reasonable since if complied with by the union it would lead to an immediate conference on other issues in the strike but not those of union security and check-off.
The reopening of the power plant and offices would not assist the company in any way in the production of new cars.
Mr. Ford was very much interested in the Canadian situation at this meeting and I was hopeful that as a result there would be some change in the attitude of the company which would at least be a step forward towards meeting the requests of the union, local 200, United Automobile Workers, comprising the employees of the Ford plant.
The next day, I addressed a meeting of the workers' joint policy committee in the Windsor city hall. This committee includes members of local 195 of the United Automobile Workers, another Windsor union comprising employees of the Chrysler Corporation and plants making parts and materials for automobiles.
Addresses were also made by the Hon. Mr. Blackwell and Mayor Rheaume and on behalf of the strikers by George Burt, regional director of the united automobile workers. The atmosphere of the meeting was quite encouraging.
Subsequently we met with the negotiating committee of the strikers at which proposals for bringing the strike to an end were discussed. I thought for a time there was an indication on the part of the committee that arbitration would be acceptable.
On Wednesday, I had1 two meetings with the Canadian company officials and again the reply was that there could be no action on the part of the company to discuss terms and settlement of the strike until the power plant and offices were reopened. I had hoped to have something from the officials which I could place before the union's negotiating committee, but there being nothing I had to cancel two scheduled meetings with the union representatives.
Then I telephoned to Mr. Ford and asked him if he could see me the next day. He readily consented, and Hon. Mr. Blackwell and I drove to Dearborn on Thursday morning and were in conference with Mr. Ford and his

director of industrial relations, Mr. Bugas, for more than two hours.
Again we found Mr. Ford very keen to do what he could to end the strike at Windsor. His attitude in the matter was fair and considerate, and I believe I can say far-sighted. While he gave us the understanding that the Canadian company officials were prepared' to sit down with union representatives and bargain in good faith, quite naturally he took the stand that the Canadian company could not capitulate to the demands of the strikers, especially in view of the attitude taken by the leaders in keeping the power plant and offices closed.
I thought we would have had something definite later in the day, either directly or indirectly from Mr. Ford, which would enable us to approach the union negotiation committee again, but I did not hear from him.
On Friday, November 9, I received a call from Mr. Wallace Clark, personnel director of the Ford plant at Windsor, asking if officials of the Canadian company could meet with myself and Mr. Blackwell at three o'clock that afternoon.. That came as a result of our interview with Mr. Ford, I learned. The meeting was held and the company submitted a proposal which would provide: for the immediate reopening of the plant and arbitration of the dispute which would be binding on both sides, by a justice of the Ontario supreme court, excepting on matters coming under the wartime wages control order. In other words, the company proposal would have submitted to arbitration the question of union security and check-off. The text of the proposal is as follows:
In an anxiety to avoid, if possible, the grave danger of bloodshed inherent in the present strike and picketing situation and also with the desire to get into large-scale production of new cars and trucks and afford employment in its Windsor plants at the earliest possible moment, the company submits the following proposal as a solution to the existing difficulties:
(1)	The union immediately to discontinue all picketing of the company's premises and at once to cooperate with the company in putting the power house back in operation.
(2)	The company as quickly as possible to prepare its plants for resumption of work.
(3)	The company to return its employees to work as quickly as possible and without discrimination.
(4)	The company and the union to submit the points in dispute between them concerning a new collective bargaining agreement to an arbitrator to be appointed by the Minister of Labour for Canada from among the judges of the Supreme Count of Ontario, whose decision upon the points in dispute and with respect to the wording in any part of the agreement to be negotiated, to be final and binding upon the company and the union-save that all matters over which the regional war labour

Ford Motor Plant Strike
board for Ontario o-r the national war labour board has jurisdiction shall not be decided by or before said arbitrator.
(5)	Pending the conclusion of the new agreement to be negotiated as above provided, the collective bargaining arrangements pertaining to the company's Windsor plants to be the same as those in effect on the 12th September, 1945.
Which, of course, protects the agreement of the men which is now in existence.
(6)	This proposal shall cease to be. binding upon the company at midnight on Monday the 12th day of November, 1945, unless acceptance thereof by the union is communicated to the company prior thereto.
Ford Motor Company of Canada Limited, D. B. Greig,
Treasurer
I regret that when this offer was submitted to the union's negotiating committee later in the day and then to the joint policy comr-mittee, it was rejected, the union holding out for agreement with the company on union security. The union issued a statement about the same time as the company forecasting this attitude. It is as follows:
The company intimated several days ago that it would accept any reasonable proposal.
It is understood that Mr. Henry Ford II, who is now taking an interest .in the matter, will see to it that the branch of the Ford empire here bargains in good faith with the union.
_ The union would like to know if "bargaining in good faith" means the same in* Canada as in the United States, particularly with respect to union security? When the Ford Motor Company bargained in good faith in the United States it agreed to give union security.
In order that the power house cannot be used as an excuse for refusal to bargain dn good faiith, the negotiating committee is prepared to recommend that, as soon as assurance is given of union security to. the- Ford workers here to the same degree as it is granted to their fellow-workers in the American parent company, the power house be opened and the office workers allowed in.
With respect to other demands, the union is prepared to recommend that negotiations proceed alter the issue of union security is resolved.
We are also disturbed at reports concerning the introduction of compulsory arbitration measures. Labour is opposed to this both in Canada and the United States.
Members of the national C.C.L. Ford committee, who are here to report ,to its affiliates throughout Canada, have been informed and are in accord with this proposal.
George Burt
I then felt that I could do no more in Windsor, and Mr. Blackwell had the same opinion; and we left on Saturday afternoon just after conferring with Mr. Pat Conroy, secretary-treasurer of the Canadian Congress of Labour, who had arrived from Ottawa for a meeting of the national Ford strike committee of the Canadian Congress of Labour.
Over the week-end there was some indication that the Ford company's proposal would
be reconsidered. The Ford company's proposal expires as of midnight, so that the new decision if any on the-part of the strikers will have to be reached by that time. I am still hopeful that good sense will prevail and an unconfirmed report I received at 1.15 p.m. today indicates that the union will agree to the re-opening of the Company's power plant.
Finally I would like to say that in our negotiations both with the officials of the company and the union there was the utmost good will and harmony displayed.


Angus MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, I realize that this is not a matter for debate; but I am quite sure that the house will appreciate the efforts which the Minister of Labour has made in trying to settle this dispute. If my opinion is worth anything to him or to his department I suggest that he return to Windsor and continue his efforts until the strike has been settled. It is' quite possible that had he not gone to Windsor on Monday, November 5, there would have been trouble, and I am sure that his presence there until there is a settlement will help a settlement along.


Humphrey Mitchell: I have here a copy of the correspondence which followed the announcement made in the house on October 29. It consists of my proposals and the replies of the union and the company. With the permission of the house I will have it put in the record, so that we shall be completely informed on the developments to date.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Agreed.


Humphrey Mitchell: The correspondence is as follows: -
Ottawa, October 27, 1945
Dear Mr. Campbell:
It has been intimated to me that an acceptable compromise might be worked out somewhat as follows:
1.	That the union be requested to withdraw its picket line and instruct the power plant employees to return to their duties within forty-eight hours.,
2.	That the company will facilitate the return [DOT] of all its employees in seniority order without discrimination as soon as possible.
3.	Representatives of the company and of the union with the assistance of an umpire appointed by the government undertake forthwith to reach a mutually satisfactory collective agreement, providing, of course, that matters respecting wage adjustments will be dealt with by the appropriate regional war labour board.
4.	Any terms of either party of the collective agreement upon which the parties fail to reach an agreement shall be determined by the umpire, whose decision shall be final and binding.
Ford Motor Plant Strike



CANCELLATION OF WINTERIZATION CONTRACTS FOR NAVAL VESSELS AT SYDNEY, N.S.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Clarence Gillis: May I address a question to the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services? I sent him -notice of it. It arises out of several telegrams received from the marine workers' local No. 15 located at Sydney, Nova Scotia. As the minister is aware, there have been a considerable number of lay-offs because of the cancellation of winterizing contracts of naval vessels in the port at Sydney. There is great anxiety in that city.


James Horace King: Order. May I point out to the hon. member that standing orders state definitely that when an hon. member puts a question he should not give information to the house; he is asking for it.


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Speaker, I am not reading any telegrams; I am merely trying to summarize them. There are about a dozen of them, and they deal with the same specific matter. I was merely trying to base upon them my question to the minister. Has he any statement which he can make to the house as to why contracts for the winterizing of navy vessels in^ the city of Sydney have been cancelled, and why has the de-manning of the naval vessels been taken from that port?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I did not get notice of my hon. friend's question; no doubt that is my fault, not his. I can make the statement he asks. for. A certain number of frigates and corvettes were to be winterized in Sydney. To "winterize", as the house knows, is to put -them in condition so that they will not freeze up du-iag the winter when they are stored. Some of them were sold before winterization had begun, and delivery was taken by the purchaser; others are to be stored in Shelburne, and if winterized in Sydney would have to be towed from Sydney to Shelburne which, as my hon,. friend will know better than I do, is a very difficult and dangerous proceeding, particularly in the winter. Even if the particular ships to which my hon. friend refers-the ones that are there now-were winterized in Sydney, it would mean at most three or four weeks' work for the workers in that area. I have been informed by the engineer admiral that it is not feasible to do any more winterizing of vessels in Sydney than has already been done.



MERCHANTS CONSOLIDATED


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:	_
Mr. ALISTAIR STEWART (Winnipeg North):: Has the attention of the Acting Prime Minister been drawn to the fact that Merchants Consolidated Limited in Winnipeg is suffering under a boycott whereby Canadian Industries Limited refuse to sell them goods which are supplied to the company's competitors, and is the government prepared to maintain freedom of trade within Canada?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It would appear to me that that is a proper question for the order paper.



POTATOES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (Cariboo):: I
should like to ask the Minister of Finance a question about the humble spud. I understand that there is a shortage of potatoes in some parts of Canada, and also that the wartime prices and trade board have refused permits to import potatoes from the United States. Has the minister any information in this regard?
Hon. J. L. ILS'LEY (Minister of Finance): I understand that potatoes are being imported from the United States to meet the shortage.
.	WHEAT



WORLD MARKET PRICES-EXPORT CEILING

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. ROSS THATCHER (Moose Jaw):: May I direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce? In view of the fact
Housing Act

that the world market price of wheat has steadily and considerably increased since order in council P.C. 6122 was passed, has the government given any consideration to raising the export ceiling on Canadian wheat-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


James Horace King: I suggest to the hon. member that he put his question on the order paper.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. K. FRASER (Peterborough West):: When we were in committee on the naval estimates I asked the Minister of National Defence a question-and he said he would consider it-with regard to extending the clothing priorities. Owing to the fact that clothing material is in short supply, men returning from the armed forces have not been able to get suitings quite as readily as they should like.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I do not recall the point. The present so-called priority is good for thirty days, or three months, I am not sure which.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: It is not long enough.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I will give it consideration.



NATIONAL HOUSING ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, November 9, consideration in committee of bill No. 23, to incorporate the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation-Mr. Ilsl-ey-Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.
On section 2-interpretation.
James Lorimer Ilsley: Mr. Chairman, there is an amendment to paragraph (e). The amendment is that section 2 of the bill be amended by striking out paragraph (e) thereof and replacing it by the following:
(e) "Housing Acts" means the National Housing Acit, 1944, the National Housing Act, 1938, -which for the purposes of this act includes item 452 set out in schedule B to the War Appropriation Act, No. 5, 1942; the Home Improvement Loans Guarantee Act. 1937, which for the purposes of this act includes item 453 set out in schedule B to the War Appropriation Act, No. 5, 1942, and the Dominion Housing Act, 1935.
The effect of the amendment is to bring in two items, 452 and 453, which are referred to in the amendment. In the supplementary

estimates of 1942, two items dealing with housing, 452 and 453, were included. Item 452 in effect made an additional appropriation of $1,000,000 for loans to be made under ' the National Housing Act, 1938, to finance the construction of houses of a certain type. Item 453 in effect enabled the Minister of Finance to make guarantees similar to those which he was authorized to make under the Home Improvement Loans Guarantee Act, 1937, the appropriation made under this latteT act having expired. The minister was authorized to make guarantees up to $2,000,000 and to pay losses up to fifteen per cent of this amount. Actually the minister has guaranteed only $113,000 under this authority, hence the amount payable by the minister in respect of these guarantees cannot exceed $17,000. The purpose of making the suggested amendment is to make sure that when we refer to the 1938 housing itct we are also including the appropriation made in 1942, and that when we are referring to the Home Improvement Loans Guarantee Act of 1937 we are including the appropriation made in
1942.	I suggest the amendment now so that the discussion can take place on it.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I so move.


Mr. FLEMING:: I take it that the effect
of the amendment will be to broaden somewhat the scope of the powers to be assigned the new corporation, which are at present exercised by the Minister of Finance.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Slightly. '


Donald Methuen Fleming: That leads me to another observation; and if we are thinking in terms of rationing time it might be useful to make it at this point. During the debate on the resolution prior to the introduction of this bill the question was raised, I think by myself, as to the minister's intention in reference to the amendments to the National Housing Act of 1944 which have been made already by order in council. There were two groups of such amendments. As I recall the answer of the minister, he said it was the intention of the government to include those amendments in his amending bill. I do not find them in the present bill. Would the minister give us some light on that?


James Lorimer Ilsley: They are covered by another resolution on the order paper, the resolution upon which the amendments to the housing act will be based.


The CHAIRMAN:: Shall the clause as
amended carry?


Stanley Howard Knowles: You are dealing just
with the amendment to subclause (e) ?

Housing Act


William Ross Macdonald: Yes. I read the amendment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I wish to move an
amendment to paragraph (f) if you will indicate when I may do so.


William Ross Macdonald: The hon. gentleman
is at liberty to move the amendment now.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The amendment I wish to move to paragraph (f) of section 2 will give expression to the contention held by some of us over here that more definite provision should be made for agreements between this government housing corporation and provincial, municipal or other public housing authorities. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Yorkton, that section 2 (f) be amended by adding thereto the following words: "or provincial, municipal or other public housing authority," at the end of the subsection.


William Ross Macdonald: In order to keep the
record straight shall we first call the amendment to subclause (e) which has been moved by the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Shall subclause (e) as amended carry?
Paragraph (e) of section 2 as amended agreed to.


William Ross Macdonald: Now the hon. member
for Winnipeg North Centre has moved that paragraph (f) be amended by adding thereto the following words: "or provincial, municipal or other public housing authority."


James Lorimer Ilsley: Just a moment. What
would be the effect of that amendment in so far as this act is concerned? Does it not merely enable this corporation to buy mortgages from these bodies?


Stanley Howard Knowles: My understanding of
the effect is that it would enable this corporation, in the name of the Minister of Finance, to do any of the things provided in the National Housing Act, and to do them by way of making arrangements or agreements not only with the lending institutions already indicated but also with provincial, municipal or other public housing authorities. <


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not think that is the
effect of it. I think the hon. gentleman will have to move an amendment to the housing act in order to do that; but presumably he has worked that out himself.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It seems to me it should be done in both acts. It was my intention also to move a similar amendment to the corresponding section of the housing act. The point is that I should like to see this corporation which will be administering housing in the name of the government given power to deal with local public housing authorities.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is entirely inconsistent
with the present scheme and plan of the National Housing Act, which is erected on the basis of the loans being made by the people who are in the business of lending money'. Assistance is given by way of guarantees by the government, with the government advancing part of the money as well. Provinces, municipalities and1 other public bodies are not in the business of lending money for home ownership, are they?


Stanley Howard Knowles: As one of my colleagues says, they might become so if we accede to the principle of municipalities, for instance, going into the business of helping people to build homes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: But there we are dealing with an entirely theoretical situation. I do not know of any municipality, province or other public body that is lending money at the present time to persons to build houses. Some of the provinces may, but certainly not to any considerable extent.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: They have not provincial
power to do so.


John Oliver Probe: The point of the amendment is this. Under the present housing act, and wnth bill No. 23, it is possible for the financial institutions which are engaged in, the business of lending money on real estate to act with the government according to the various provisions of those acts. By accepting the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Winnipeg [DOT] North Centre and including provincial, municipal, or other public housing authorities, we make it possible now or hereafter for these public housing authorities to be designated as proper lending bodies for house construction purposes, as we indicated has been done in so many other countries. In other words we may encourage municipal bousing authorities or other public housing authorities to get into this business of lending on real estate, using the backing of the dominion government.


Solon Earl Low: For the information of the minister and the committee let me say that in Alberta we have put through enabling legislation setting up a corporation similar to that provided in bill No. 23, providing also that agreements may be drawn up between the province and municipalities for the construction of houses in those municipalities. The corporation is to be set up and the money provided by the provincial government, with contributions by the municipalities within the
Housing Act

province. That is in existence, and efforts have 'been made within the last year to implement the terms of that legislation.
Speaking to the amendment, however, I fear that it would not provide machinery for agreements between the federal government and provincial or municipal bodies adequate to meet the need in this country for houses. I believe we require an altogether new approach to the matter of housing.


Stanley Howard Knowles: From time to time the
city of Winnipeg has entered into the building of houses for sale. That has been done in years gone by and was done on a small scale during the war. In this sense a municipality might qualify for this kind of assistance if it were included under the definition.


Donald Methuen Fleming: With all due respect to
the hon. member who has moved the amendment, I think it rests upon a misconception, and I should like to explain that on two grounds. In the first place the amendment proposes to give power to municipalities or provinces. No act of the parliament of Canada can do that. The municipalities derive their powers from the legislatures. The legislatures do not derive any powqrs from this parliament. That is on the constitutional aspect. I do not see how such an amendment can be given effect to by this parliament.
A second ground I should like to put before the committee is this. There is much to be said in favour of empowering municipalities to participate in limited dividend housing corporations. For instance, a year ago the city of Toronto, with the full approval and the endorsation of the Ontario government, asked for permission to establish a limited dividend housing corporation under municipal and provincial auspices. The proposal was summarily rejected by the housing authorities of the Department of Finance. To my mind that was most regrettable. What is involved in the amendment is not that situation at all. I take it that the only point in the amendment is that it would authorize municipalities, if it were lawful to do so, to lend money on mortgages. That is a different situation entirely. It is simply the reverse of allowing municipalities to participate in housing through a limited dividend housing corporation. The amendment would have the effect of putting the municipality in the same position as any financial corporation, any of the lending institutions who have power to take mortgages, and then to discount those mortgages with this central mortgage corporation. With great respect I suggest that the purpose of the amendment has been misconceived.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The only effect of the amendment would be to authorize a corporation to enter into agreements with lending institutions or with municipalities and provinces under sections 28 and 29 of the measure. It would not meet the purposes of the mover. In order for the mover to get to first base with what he has in mind he would have to move an amendment to the National Housing Act, There it would be open to him to contend that our definition of a lending institution is entirely too narrow, and that lending institutions should be extended to include provincial and municipal governments.
I think the most 'that can be said about the proposed amendment to this measure is that it does not do any harm, nor, from the point of view of the hon. member, does it do any good. If the definition of "lending institution" is changed in the National Housing Act, then this measure will apply to the altered definition of lending institution. If the hon. member moves that amendment to the National Housing Act, I shall oppose it. However, I do not wish to take the time now to discuss the matter at any length, because this is not the time to move the amendment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I was hoping it might
be possible not only to move but to have such an amendment carried when the other act is before us; and I felt that when that was done in respect of the National Housing Act it would also have to be done with respect to this measure, because the same terms are defined in both.
Replying to the hon. member for Eglinton may I say that by the amendment proposed we are not conferring powers upon provinces and municipalities. We are conferring a power upon a federal corporation.
Amendment (Mr. Knowles) negatived.
Section as amended agreed to.
On section 3-Corporation established.


Thomas Reid: Is there only one central office, in Ottawa? Are all representations to be made direct to Ottawa, or will there be supervising officers in the various provinces?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There will be several offices. The administration of the National Housing Act will be decentralized to the extent necessary to serve the whole of Canada. That is the intention, and it will be carried out. There are sections later in the measure which authorize the setting up of branch offices.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.

Housing Act
On section. 4-Head office.
Donald Methuen Fleming: This section raises the point mentioned by the hon. member for New Westminster, namely the possibility of the decentralization of administration. Suggestions have been put forward on several occasions from this part of the house respecting the decentralization of some of the administration of the National Housing Act. I believe there is justification for the widespread feeling throughout Canada that the administration of housing legislation has been over-centralized at Ottawa, and that there has not been adequate appreciation of the needs of local municipalities. Reports which come to me indicate that the new housing company set up jointly by the lending institutions of the country and the department, this new $50 million corporation, has declared its intention of building integrated housing principally in the leading cities. Of course the need for new housing In the cities is acute, but it is most imperative that the need for new houses in the smaller centres, and not least of all in rural Canada, should not be overlooked. Unless there is some change in the present policy in connection with the administration of national housing, much of the purpose of the legislation as parliament understands it will be defeated. My understanding is that- officials are to be established in the various provinces. I would urge upon the minister that every effort be made toward decentralization so that those who know the situation in the local communities will have some voice in the administration.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is the intention. I agree with much of what the hon. member has said, and with what, he said the other day respecting the need for decentralization in the administration of the National Housing Act. In saying that I do not wish it to be understood that I am expressing any criticism of the present officials. I think it is simply a matter of organization, for which the minister must take the responsibility. My great hope is that if we can set up this corporation and get the right kind of men to run it, so that the administration of the National Housing Act may be properly organized, we will go ahead pretty fast in the next year in the matter of making loans.
Centralization is brought to my attention by the fact that every night I have to sign a stack of assignments of mortgages, releases of mortgages, releases of insurance policies and other documents in connection with the National Housing Act. Apparently they all come to me; they all have to come to my desk from all parts of Canada. I think there
must be some way around that-at least I hope there is. The intention is to obtain a more businesslike organization of the administration of the National Housing Act than now exists. I do not say this by way of criticism of the administrator or of the officials, but rather to point out that at the present time it is set up on the wrong basis- that is, with the minister running it, and everything coming up through the department from one official to the official above him, and then finally coming to the minister. That is the wrong basis and that is why we are setting up this corporation. We have to spread the benefits of the National Housing Act all through Canada, into the rural communities and into the small places, if we expect it to receive universal support, and that is the intention.


Donald Methuen Fleming: In the selection of the
officials who are to be asked to advise with respect to the location of houses and so on, I suggest that local men in the provinces be chosen. We should not just have people from Ottawa, because those making recommendations with regard to local housing should know the local situation.


Clarence Gillis: We are not dealing with the National Housing Act here; we are dealing with a financial organization which is going to make it. possible to build houses under the National Housing Act.


Donald Methuen Fleming: We hope.


Clarence Gillis: We hope. Offices have been established in most of the centres in connection with the National Housing Act.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I can give you the list.


Clarence Gillis: This is to be a financial organization. In connection with the industrial development bank there are no offices in the maritimes. Anyone who wants to do business with that organization must write to Montreal, the head office. That is as far east as they go. The tendency in connection with these matters, particularly financial matters, has been to centralize things at this end of the country. I should like to know if the head office of this corporation is to be in Ottawa and if it is the intention of the department to have branch offices in each one of the provinces.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The present regional offices are located at Moncton, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver, with branch offices at Quebec, Hamilton, London and Victoria. Instead of operating under the minister, they will operate under this corpora-
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\

tion once this bill has been passed. The number may be increased, but I do not know exactly what will be done.


Thomas John Bentley: What are you going to do about Saskatchewan?


Major James William Coldwell: It is a long stretch between Winnipeg and Edmonton.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know; we have had a little trouble in Saskatchewan.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: What success has'the minister had with the offices he has set up
already, and do the results obtained from those offices justify the change to a new set-up? Apparently this bill envisages a change from the organization he now has; it would seem to indicate that the results obtained under the present scheme were not those expected.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I gave the reasons in the speech I made on the resolution. I indicated why we wished to substitute this type of organization for the present one. I do not know that I can go over that again, but it can be found in Hansard.


Thomas John Bentley: Is the minister really serious when he says that they are going to jump over Saskatchewan because of some past little difficulty?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I really did not mean that.


Thomas John Bentley: I hope not.
Mr. ILSLEYr: The hon. member was commenting upon the fact that there was no branch office in Saskatchewan.


Thomas John Bentley: Yes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know whether there will be a branch office in Saskatchewan or not.


Thomas John Bentley: Why? There are branch offices in the other provinces.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is no branch office in Nova Scotia, or Prince Edward Island. I do not know just why there is none in Saskatchewan.


Major James William Coldwell: Will the minister inquire?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will make careful inquiry.


John Horne Blackmore: In going over the minister's statement, to which he referred, I fail to find any reason why there should be a change in the organization. It seems to me that all that was necessary was an extension of the set-up the minister was working under.


Mr. SINNOTT:: I am inclined to agree with the Acting Prime Minister in this connection. If money and houses are supplied, the same thing might happen as with the seed grain. The very ones who asked for this government assistance were loath to pay for it.


Major James William Coldwell: They did pay for the seed grain.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 5-Agent of crown.
Donald Methuen Fleming: Subsection 2 reads:
The corporation may, on behalf of His Majesty, enter into contracts in the name of His Majesty or in the name of the corporation.
Subsection 3 reads:
Property acquired by the corporation is the property of His Majesty and title thereto may be vested in the name of His Majesty or in the name of the corporation.
I do not know why that alternative should be provided. If there is need for setting up a corporation, and we are to clothe the corporation with power to sue- and be sued, as has already been provided, why should there be this complication? Would it not be much simpler to provide that contracts shall be entered into in the name of the corporation and that property shall be vested in the corporation? I am thinking particularly of litigants who might otherwise be faced with the problem of proceeding against the crown by petition of right.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Contracts will have to be made in the name of His Majesty, but on the other hand there will be contracts that will be entered into by the corporation itself. I am told that there is a possibility of its being desirable for the corporation to take property in its own name.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Would not it be better to have it taken in the name of the corporation? Let the corporation enter into contracts in its own name, rather than confuse the situation by having some entered into in the name of His Majesty and some in the name of the corporation. If the minister has made a case for the corporation, the corporation should be allowed to enter into contracts and take properties in its own name.


Agar Rodney Adamson: There might be cases in which His Majesty could not be sued and the corporation could be sued.


James Lorimer Ilsley: 
George Hugh Castleden: We have found in Saskatchewan that applications under the National Housing Act were not granted. Apparently the lending institution in Winnipeg did not think it was right and proper to lend the money. On your board of directors you ought to have men who have had experience in the housing field, who have been interested in cooperative housing. There should be representation other than from purely financial institutions. There is no arrangement for that in this bill as it stands. I would strongly advocate including on the board some such person with the attitude of the house builders themselves. As it is now, it is left entirely to the governor in council to appoint directors to the board.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, there are five, directors to be appointed by the governor in council, representing the five sections of Canada. But there is nothing to limit the scope of the discretion of the governor in council in the selection of those directors, except the provisions as to nationality-


Major James William Coldwell: In section 9 there is a
limitation, but that is different.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. It is also provided
that those appointed must not be directors or officers of lending institutions or be employed in the service of Canada or the provinces of Canada except under certain conditions, and there is an age limit. But apart from these limitations the governor in council may take the best persons they can find.


George Hugh Castleden: It has seemed to me that in the past the lending institutions were more in sympathy with the security of their money than with the lending of money to persons who wished to build. Applications for loans have been refused in some parts of Canada. If we are to have a real national housing scheme, applicable also to rural housing, there will have to be a change in the attitude of those who have the say whether loans shall be made. That is why I think we should insert something in the bill to provide that there shall be on the board persons with a proper attitude towards the applications that come in. and not merely those who are representative purely of the financial point of view.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I have suggested to the
minister on a previous occasion that when he is giving consideration to the appointment of directors there are several groups who definitely ought to have representation on the board. We shall miss a great opportunity and shall fail to assure the corporation of the best chance of success if there are not on the board
a representative of women, a representative of the veterans, and a representative of the building trades. I do not need to elaborate, because it is obvious that unless we have on the board persons with a definite interest in seeing houses built and with a sympathetic approach to the question, the act will not work as it is the hope of parliament it will. In connection with our housing problems in Toronto we have found that women with their point of view and with their particular knowledge of these problems-and no one knows more about the problems of bousing than the women-have made a great contribution to bodies to which they have been appointed. I do not need to emphasize the interest of the veterans in housing. The present situation bears heavily on them. We should also have on the board a representative of the builders.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I remember the representations which the hon. member made that we should have at least one veteran and one woman on the board. These representations will be kept in mind and given consideration. That is the best I can say.


John Horne Blackmore: What we need above all other things in order to assure the people of Canada that houses will be built is to make it plain that those who need houses will be able to get the money to build them, and get it on sufficiently generous terms, at a sufficiently low interest rate, to enable them to pay for the houses. But I do not see one single thing in this act that seems to have that objective in mind at all. The whole object seems to ;be to enable this corporation to get the deeds to the houses that are built, regardless of whether the people who need to build houses are going to be able to build them or not. That is the chief objection I see to the measure, and unless I can be shown to be in error I feel that I should oppose it by every means at my disposal.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Many lending institutions
have been ready to lend money under the National Housing Act, and I think they will do it in the future. There may be a taint of motive there; it may not be done purely from humanitarianism and the love of social service, but personally I believe in making use of that desire for a little profit once in a while. They have lent money in the past and I think we can count on them to do so in the future. The National Housing Act has been a very successful act, but it is capable of great expansion.


John Horne Blackmore: What the minister
has just said is the very thing that fills me with suspicion regarding the act. I have the
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impression that there has been no difficulty in getting people to build houses under the National Housing Act provided that funds are available to them at a reasonable rate, so why do you need a measure like this to expand an act that was already expanding satisfactorily? If there was money enough in the general housing scheme to encourage investors to-expand, why have an act like this to encourage them to expand? It does not make sense.	_	1


Mr. COLD  WELL@: Is the hon. gentleman
satisfied with the National Housing Act?


John Horne Blackmore: Not at all, but I do
not see that this will improve it.


Major James William Coldwell: No, this is just to
cover the activities. I do not think it is what we want.


William Irvine: What does this thing do?


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 7-First appointment and initial salaries of president and vice-president.
Donald Methuen Fleming: By subsection 1 power
is taken to fix the salaries of the president and vice-president, and their term of office is fixed at seven years. I suggest to the minister, with respect, that if this national housing policy is to be administered as we hope to see it administered, we shall have to seek big men with much experience, I hope there will be a disposition on the part of the governor in council to provide salaries which will be generous enough to attract to the staff of this new corporation men of the calibre required to make it effective. Is the proposed term of seven years not a little too long? I can appreciate that in the selection of the two senior officials, the president and vice-president, great care will have to be taken. There may be a feeling on the part of some who are approached that they would desire a measure of security in their appointment, but at the same time this is a matter of such importance that I do not think the hands of the government should be tied if the officials originally appointed do not prove themselves big enough for the task.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know exactly where the seven years came from, but the governor of the Bank of Canada is appointed for seven years, .if I remember correctly. The government will have to be careful when they select the first president and the first vice-president of this corporation. If there is not some continuity, some reasonable length of term of office assured, you will not be able to get the men. It has worked all right in the Bank of Canada, and I think it will work all right

here. I was glad to hear the hon. member say that we should pay pretty good salaries, because I think so myself.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Surely the minister does not begin to compare the Bank of Canada, a permanent institution which we hope will endure, with something which we hope will not endure very long. Surely it will not be long before this whole business of housing is back in the hands of private builders so that the people will be able to get the houses they want. I sincerely hope that long before seven years the people of Canada will have all the houses they require.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, this is a permanent, institution. It is not intended to be a temporary institution at all. It is not set up primarily to meet a war-time shortage of houses or -anything of the kind. It is to enable the government of Canada to assist in the building of houses and also in the discounting of mortgage securities, and it is to keep right on.
I was going to say that it is to be as permanent as the Bank of Canada; I have no reason for thinking that it will not be. There is no reason why it should not be permanent if it works well.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I cannot see any reason why it should be permanent.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Well, people are always going to be building houses and borrowing money.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Under ordinary conditions do people not borrow from lending institutions? Do we not want to get back to normal times as soon as we can?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is what they are doing; they are borrowing from the lending institutions of the country. Under the housing act the government of Canada is giving a limited guarantee to these institutions, and will participate up to twenty-five per cent of the money, at a low rate of interest, and it is keeping control on the type of buildings. The type of houses that have been built has been improved tremendously as a result of the National Housing Act and of the Dominion Housing Act passed in the thirties. The government comes in to promote community planning and see that the right kind of houses are built and that the money is lent at a reasonable instead of an unreasonable rate of interest. I think that a remarkable case could be made for the reforms which have been effected as a result of passing those housing acts in the thirties, and they are to continue; they ought to continue. There is nothing temporary about this at all.

Housing Act


Angus MacInnis: Sometimes I feel there is not much ground for pessimism with regard to what the people can do when they begin thinking in terms of social progress rather than of merely the profit motive. When I hear the Minister of Finance speak of the advantages of social institutions I feel . there is great justification for optimism. Long before the war began, private enterprise was not providing homes for the people of Canada, and the government had to step in to provide them. Now we have come to the position where so-called free enterprise is neither enterprising nor free. It is not enterprising enough to take the chances of risking its money; it requires a government guarantee for every so-called risk taken, or rather for every venture taken, because there are no longer risks. This sort of legislation is not going to diminish; it will grow and develop in the future.


John Horne Blackmore: It would greatly reassure me if the minister would indicate the interest rate he hopes to attain by the use of this measure. I cannot see why, if the interest rate is to be brought down by this bill, it should not be stipulated in the bill.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: The interest rate is in the housing act.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is 4i per cent. The borrower pays 41 per cent under the housing act.


John Horne Blackmore: How, then, can the act bring the interest rate down, if the interest rate is already brought down in the housing act?


James Lorimer Ilsley: This will continue for the time being, at any rate, at 4J per cent.


John Horne Blackmore: But the minister said a minute or two ago that this was designed to be a permanent measure.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


John Horne Blackmore: Then how can we say it is going to bring down the interest rate and guarantee that it will stay down?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Well, changes may be made in the National Housing Act. The lending rate under the housing act was formerly 5 per cent. It has been brought down to 4J per cent.


John Horne Blackmore: By this bill?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, before this bill.


John Horne Blackmore: Well, then, how can this piece of legislation bring it down and keep it down?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not think I said it was bringing the interest rate down, did I?


John Horne Blackmore: I gathered from the minister's statement on two or three occasions that one of the main purposes of this bill was to bring down the interest rate.


William Irvine: Would not lending institutions be inclined to lend money at a little less if the government assumes responsibility for all possible loans-as I assume this really does; it takes over any mortgage whether it be bad or good.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is not intended that this corporation will stand ready to take over any mortgage whether it be bad or good.


Major James William Coldwell: Only the good ones!


James Lorimer Ilsley: They will exercise some discretion about what mortgage they buy. But the fact that the government gives a limited guarantee against loss to the lending companies undoubtedly has had the effect of making the lending rate lower than it otherwise would be.


William Irvine: When we come to the section which grants additional powers to this company in connection with mortgages we can discuss that. I think it is pretty wide.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
William Ross Macdonald: Before we go into clause 8, may I draw the attention of members of the committee to standing order No. 5S, paragraph 2:
Speeches in committee of the whole house must be strictly relevant to the item or clause under consideration.
I did not interrupt hon. members during the discussion of the previous clauses, but I think that if we are to make progress we should stay as closely as possible with the clause under discussion.
Section 8 agreed to.
On section 9-Persons ineligible to hold office.


Major James William Coldwell: Why use the phraseology in (b): "is not a British subject, ordinarily resident in Canada"? Why not bring it into relationship with the other bill we are considering, and use the words, "is not a Canadian citizen"?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That bill is not passed yet.


Major James William Coldwell: I think that might well be considered.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It may not be reached this session. I thought about it, but I did not know what to do about it. We are still British subjects ordinarily resident in Canada.

Housing Act


Mr. COLD  WELL@: The new bill says a Canadian citizen is a British subject. I thought it could be reworded.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is a matter for rewording next session. This bill must be enacted in the light of the law as it stands at the moment. Suppose the other bill is not enacted this session; it may not be.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: Well, I have no objection, but I thought I should like to draw it to the attention of the minister so that an amendment can be considered when the other bill is passed.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: If the minister intends to consider that, surely it will not be the intention of the government to bar a British subject who is not a Canadian citizen from assisting in housing in this country until he has been here five years, as required under the other act.


Major James William Coldwell: That is pretty well what it does now. "Is not a British subject, ordinarily resident in Canada" means, I take it, domiciled in Canada.	-


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: "Domiciled" and "resident" are two entirely different things; and as a matter of law I would urge that the suggestion of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar be carefully considered before it is adopted. It might be putting a penalty on people coming into this country to work.


Major James William Coldwell: This is a director of
a national corporation. Surely anyone who has not been in the country long enough to understand conditions across the country ought not to be put in a position of this kind. Someone coming in and being here just a year or so would not know conditions in Canada and, I think, is not entitled to an appointment under this measure. It should be British subjects domiciled in Canada, if we are to be sticky about the present law. This discussion more or less arises in relation to a bill which is not yet passed. I am quite content to leave it with the minister, as he said, to be considered when the bill is passed.


James Lorimer Ilsley: With regard to what was
said by the hon. member for Vanoouver-Bur-rard, this applies only to the president, the vice-president and the directors. It seems to me that it would be desirable to limit this to what we ordinarily call "Canadians". That word "Canadians" is not susceptible of exact definition now. The nearest that one can come to it is British subject ordinarily resident in Canada. I think that it is all right.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I like the present
wording.


Agar Rodney Adamson: The words "lending institution" appear in section 2. Would that include the .owner of shares in a chartered bank?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Just a trust company.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right. A lending
institution does not include a chartered bank. The section as worded is not very good, and I have had two amendments drafted. One is to subsection 1 of section 9, which is as follows:
That subsection 1 of section 9 of the bill be amended by striking out paragraph (c) thereof and replacing it by the following:
"(e) is employed in any capacity in the public service of Canada or of any province of Canada or holds any office or position for which any salary is payable out of public moneys but nothing contained in this paragraph shall prohibit the said persons from holding office while performing temporary services for the government of Canada or of any province; or"


Thomas Reid: Is the governor of the Bank
of Canada, to be the president of this company? If so, how will this clause affect him? He is a public servant.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No.


Thomas Reid: And so is the deputy.


James Lorimer Ilsley: He is not to be the first
president; he is to be a director.


Thomas Reid: It would affect him.


James Lorimer Ilsley: He is not employed in the
public service of Canada.


Thomas Reid: He is not?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No. He is employed by a
body corporate, the Bank of Canada, the shares of which are owned by the government.


Thomas Reid: What about the deputy minister of finance and the deputy minister of reconstruction; both are public servants?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I should point out that
this applies only to directors appointed under section 8 of the bill, the five who are appointed representing the various sections of Canada. It does not apply to the first five, the statutory directors. It does not apply to the deputy minister of reconstruction, the deputy minister of finance, the head of the Bank of Canada, and so on.


Thomas Reid: It says: "No person shall
continue to hold any such office. . . .".


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right

Housing Act


Agar Rodney Adamson: In other words, a deputy minister of planning for one of the provinces could still hold office?


James Lorimer Ilsley: As a director?


Agar Rodney Adamson: Yes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No, I do not think so. He is debarred by paragraph (c) even as amended, because he is employed in the public .service of a province of Canada and holds a position or office for which salary is payable out of public moneys. True, he is not debarred if he merely performs temporary services for t'he province; but a deputy minister of a province could certainly not be appointed as a director of this institution.


Agar Rodney Adamson: From time to time some of the provinces set up planning committees which serve very useful purposes, and it would seem to me a mistake to debar them from service in this institution because they are doing temporary service for the provinces.


James Lorimer Ilsley: They may render service without being directors. I do not think we should put provincial civil servants on this institution as directors, or dominion civil servants, except the ones specified. The principle that underlies the appointment of these regional directors is to take representative citizens in the various regions of Canada, not government officials at all.


Humphrey Mitchell: I move 'the amendment.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
James Lorimer Ilsley: I have another amendment which is as follows:
That section 9 of the bill be further amended by adding thereto1 a new subsection 3:
"(3) A person appointed as president or vice president or under section eight of this act as a director who fails to comply with the provisions of subsection two of this section shall thereupon cease to hold office."


[Stage Direction]
Subsection agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
Section 10 agreed to.
On section 11-Board to manage affairs of corporation.
Donald Methuen Fleming: I have an observation to make on - this section which applies also to section 13. It is purely a matter of draftsmanship. I think it is axiomatic that the language of a statute is either imperative or permissive. Here we have the language in the indicative. I ask the committee to look at subsection 2 of section 11, which says:
Each director has one vote in the transaction of the business of the board-
47(>96-129i
It does not say "shall have". The section goes on to say:
-and if the number of votes are equal the president has an additional vote. '
Instead of saying "shall have". It seems to me that the ordinary rides of draftsmanship would call for the ordinary form there, which is "shaH". Similarly in subsection 4 we find, "no by-law is effective"; surely that should read: "no by-law shall be effective"? We have the same form used in section 13, which reads as follows: "The president is the chairman of the board." Obviously that ought to read, "The president shall be chairman of the board."


James Lorimer Ilsley: I would have drafted it the same way as my hon. friend would have drafted it, and in fact the department did draft it that way; but it went to the Department of Justice and they changed it into this wording. It must be a little more modern-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Too modern.


James Lorimer Ilsley: -than the other form of
draftsmanship. The theoiy is that the act always speaks, and one might just as well say: "a director has one vote and the by-law is effective." I had the word "shall" inserted, but the Department of Justice changed 'it. The older, the more traditional and orthodox form of phraseology was submitted to them by the Department of Finance but they changed it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: They did it in several
other sections of the bill. With respect, I think we ought to stick to the ordinary form.


William Irvine: "Shall" is "is" and "is" is
"shall."


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think that is a very accurate statement of it. I would have used "shall" myself, but the Department of Justice says "is,"


George Hugh Castleden: I suggest it might be made clearer by adding the word "only" unless there is in mind .the possibility that he may vote three or four times. Then it would read, "shall have only one vote."


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not think that is
necessary.


George Hugh Castleden: I think it is as necessary as the word "shall."


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 12 to 16 inclusive agreed to.
On section 17-Capital payable, out of C.R.F.
Donald Methuen Fleming: Under this section capital to the extent of $25,000,000 is to be provided for the corporation. I believe it was stated
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by the .minister in moving second reading of the bill on Friday last that the proposed capital was to be devoted entirely to the- mortgage discount branch of the business of this new corporation, and that no part was to be used in connection with housing administration. I am aware that chapter 40 of the statutes of 1939, which proposed to set up the original mortgage discount bank, provided a capital of only $10,000,000 for the work of that corporation. If the capital now provided under section 17 is to be reserved exclusively for use in the mortgage discount business, I am wondering what necessity there is for increasing the capital by 150 per cent over the capital provided in the 1939 act, when I think it is generally admitted that the function of mortgage discount is not as vast as was contemplated at the time the 1939 legislation was introduced.


James Lorimer Ilsley: This corporation starts with
a capital of $25,000,000. About $14,000,000 of the capital will be invested immediately in loans now held by the Minister of Finance under the National Housing Act; and if that money is required for the discount business it will be returned to the corporation iby the minister as and when needed.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I gathered from what the minister said in his remarks last Friday that no part of the $25,000,000 was to be used in connection with housing. If it is the case of a portion of the $25,000,000 being used to take over loans already made under the National Housing Act, that is quite a different matter. The same provision continues to exist under the housing act with respect to loans; the,same amounts are still available there. Actually, if the minister's explanation is followed through it means an increase in the amounts provided for loans under the National Housing Act, and that is not the impression the minister left with the house by his remarks last Friday. It is just a matter of clearing the matter up so that the committee will understand it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: This is arranged in such a way that the discount business may expand until it requires the full $25,000,000. That is the limit of what I would call the working capital for the discount business. To that should be added the reserve, the accumulation of which is provided for. But it does not mean that the full $25,000,000 will be used for the discount business to begin with. Some $14,000,000 is to be used to take over the interest of the Minister of Finance in loans under the National Housing Act, and then provision is made for the return of that money to the corporation as and when it is required for its discount business.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I do not want to labour the point, but I have the reference in the minister's remarks, at page 2015 of Hansard for November 9:	.
As a matter of fact the $25 million of capital is solely for discounting business, the corporation having access to appropriations made by parliament under the National Housing Act, which amount to very large sums.
If there is an error I think it should be cleared up.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is a little inaccurate, I think. If the discount business reaches those dimensions, the whole $25,000,000 will be used for the rediscount business. The point I was attempting to meet there was the suggestion which came from certain hon. members that all this corporation could lend or make available was $25,000,000, and I pointed out that they had access to appropriations voted under the National Housing Act. Apparently I did say that the $25000.000 was for another purpose altogether and wmuld be used solely for that other purpose. That is inaccurate. It will be used solely for that other purpose if that business reaches dimensions requiring $25,000,000; but it may never reach those dimensions; it may reach very much smaller dimensions, in which event part of this capital can be used for taking over the interest of the Minister of Finance in these loans. That will be done at the outset, at any rate, arid I suppose the balance will be invested in government bonds.
Mr. QL'ELCH: I understand this corporation is to take over the assets of the central mortgage bank, and that those assets will be counted as part of this $25,000,000. Can the minister say just what those assets amount to?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The assets of the central mortgage bank have a market value of approximately $250,000. The transfer of those assets to the corporation will be deemed a payment of capital under section 17, up to the market value.


Victor Quelch: Could the minister say
just what business the central mortgage bank has carried on? I thought the act had never been proclaimed. Just what business have they done?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It never started business.
Mr. QL1ELCH:	Then what are the assets?
I cannot understand their having any assets at all.


James Lorimer Ilsley: These assets are government bonds. The act was proclaimed but the bank did not commence operations.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.

Housing Act
On section 18-Transfer of authority from housing acts.
Stanley Howard Knowles: I should like to move an amendment to this section. Again it indicates our desire to give to this corporation, which is virtually taking over the administration of the National Housing Act from the minister, power to do something more in the field of housing than just housing finance. We want to see houses actually built. We feel very strongly-and whether or not the hon. member for Eglinton agrees with us as to details I am glad to note that he agrees in spirit-that there should be greater participation in these matters by municipal authorities. I should like to remind the minister of his statement the other day that we should study the references to housing in the dominion government's proposals to the dominion-provincial conference. Among those proposals I notice a recommendation that provincial governments and municipalities proceed immediately to make plans and preparations with respect to slum clearance projects, so that these projects may be taken in hand as soon as the serious shortages of material and labour are overcome. I note also a further suggestion, which I quote:
The conference will provide an opportunity to discuss the conditions under which a dominion grant may be made and to clarify the respective positions of the dominion, provincial and municipal governments.
Despite the statement of the minister when I moved an amendment earlier this afternoon, that he would oppose any move toward greater, participation of municipalities in the business of housing, the other day in his speech I thought I detected-and certainly I detect it in the government's proposals to the dominion-provincial conference-a little more interest in the possibility of bringing municipalities into this than was apparent a year' ago. I feel very strongly that the time has come when we should begin to make legislative provision in our national housing statutes for rendering assistance to provincial, municipal and other public housing authorities.
And so, without making further comment, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Yorkton (Mr. Castleden):
That section 18 be amended by adding thereto the following words: "The corporation shall have the right to study both urban and rural housing needs and to report thereon to the minister; it shall have the further right to recommend to the minister the making of grants for slum clearance and town or community planning, and also the right to recommend to the minister that agreements respecting the construction of houses be entered into with provincial, municipal or other public bousing authorities.


James Lorimer Ilsley: With respect to the first part of the amendment, "which states that the corporations shall have the right to study both urban and rural housing needs and to report thereon to the minister, may' I point out that it would have that right under section 24 of the National Housing Act, which states:
It shall he the responsibility of the minister to cause investigations to be made into housing conditions and the adequacy of existing housing accommodation in Canada or in any part of Canada and to cause steps to be taken for the distribution of information leading to the construction or provision of more adequate and improved housing accommodation and the understanding and adoption of community plans in Canada.
Then sections 25 and 28 give the minister certain powers, with the approval of the governor in council. Since the responsibilities of the minister may, after the passage of this measure, be exercised by the corporation, such . corporation will have full powers with respect to housing, research and community planning. Therefore I suggest that the first part of the amendment is unnecessary.
Then the second part states that the corporation shall have the further right to recommend to the minister the making of grants for slum clearance. May I point out that section 30 of the bill provides certain ancillary powers, and it states:
The corporation may (f) exercise or perform any other powers, duties or functions conferred on or required to be performed by the corporation under any other act or order in Council.
Possibly that does not cover the point, because it is not referred to in another act or order in council. However, the intention was that this corporation should act as the adviser of the minister in very much the same way as the Bank of Canada acts when it advises the minister on, fiscal matters. I should not think it would be necessary to make any amendments. It is true that, for the reasons I mentioned the other night, they do not administer slum clearance provisions of the National Housing Act. Those are grants by the governor in council; they are not business investments in any sense of the term. But certainly if we were applied to for slum clearance grants we would take the matter up first with this corporation. That is where we find housing talent, experience and knowledge. I do not think this part of the amendment is necessary.
Then, reference is made to a right to recommend. What does that mean? I suggest that it does mot mean very much, because anyone has the right to recommend almost anything to the minister. Certainly the public exercises that right on a broad
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scale. Why do we need to say that this corporation has a right to make a recommendation1, unless it carries with it something which would have the effect of carrying out such recommendation. But the hon. member is not suggesting that. He is saying only that he wants to indicate that the corporation can say, if it wishes, "We think a slum clearance scheme in Toronto would be a good thing." It can do that.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I deal with some of the points the minister has raised? In my study of legislation, and in my experience in serving on committees, I have frequently been met with the insistence that certain things could not be done unless the right to do them was specifically stated. That has been stated to us even in connection with the right of committees of this house to make certain recommendations to the house.
It seems to me that we should protect this corporation against that barrier by specifically setting out the fact that it has the right to study these matters and to make recommendations to those who are superior to it. The minister suggests that, by virtue of the fact that the corporation will exercise the minister's powers under the National Housing Act, it will have power to study all housing needs, as I suggest in my amendment. I would make two comments on that: first, that a corporation or a committee, as I understand it, has not that power unless such power is definitely specified. The other comment I want to make is this: Surely no study of housing needs is complete unless it includes a study of slum conditions and the necessity of slum clearance. My fear is that the wording of section 18 as it stands will be interpreted as preventing this corporation from delving into slum conditions in any way whatsoever. If it is to make any studies under the powers of the National Housing Act with respect to housing needs, at least it should have the power to study slum clearance. I am prepared to accept the minister's word that there is a reason for keeping the actual making of grants for slum clearance in the hands of the minister, but it does seem to me that this corporation should be given the right, in fact should be encouraged to make a study of housing needs in every respect.
I would say that the minister has attempted to have it both ways this afternoon. When I moved my previous amendment asking that provincial, municipal or other public housing authorities be included under a certain definition, he replied, among other things, that it would not do much good because that would relate only to the buying of mortgages. The

implication then was that this (bill has nothing to do with housing, that it has. to do only with financing. Now he has told me the very opposite, namely, that by virtue of the connection between this bill and' the National Housing Act this corporation will have unlimited authority to survey the whole housing field. If I could be assured of that, if I could be assured that this is not just a corporation to deal with housing finance, maybe I would not have moved my amendment.
I listened to what the minister had to say before and such study as I have given to the bill leads me to believe that it is one that will confine the corporation too closely to matters dealing with finance. I am anxious to see the corporation really take seriously the whole business of housing and have a definite right and authority to study the matter thoroughly and at least make recommendations back to the minister. That is the reason I moved my amendment and I hope the minister will give it favourable consideration.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I will consider it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I should like to urge at the start that the minister give consideration to the proposed amendment. I think the first branch of the amendment is unnecessary in view of the provisions of section 24 of the housing act and section 18 of the present bill. But as to the other two branches of the proposed amendment, I urge the minister to accept them. In the first place, it cannot do any possible harm to have them in the bill. Even though it may be the view of the minister that the corporation would have power to make such recommendations without an express provision in the bill to that effect, certainly there can be no harm in inserting those two provisions.
In the second place, some of us have had grave misgivings about the emphasis in our housing legislation. Up to the present time the emphasis has been too much on the financial rather than on the social needs with respect to housing. I suggest to the minister that for the moment he put himself in the position of the members of the corporation. Without the power to make express recommendations which will necessitate studies into the field of slum clearance, is it reasonable to assume that the board of the corporation will undertake such studies or spend money on studies leading to such recommendations. There might be a feeling on the part of the members of that board that they ought not to spend money unless there is a provision in the bill along the lines of the proposed amendment.

Housing Act


James Lorimer Ilsley: I agree that it will not do any harm to grant the power to make recommendations regarding grants for slum clearance, but there is no need to have this first clause about the right to study urban and rural housing needs. I think that is covered by the present housing act. There is a provision for grants for town and community planning in the housing act.


Stanley Howard Knowles: And you are reserving that right to the minister.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Just as to slum clearance, not grants for town and community planning.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is right.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is to be carried on by the corporation itself.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am deliberately putting slum clearance in with town and community planning; they should go hand in hand.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I shall look into that to see if there is any impropriety in providing for reqpmmendations by the corporation for grants for town or community planning. I think I shall find that the corporation has that in charge anyway and that there would be no need of this recommendation. But that is not true of slum clearance. I do not think I can accept the last part of the amendment, that is the right to recommend to the minister that agreements respecting the construction of houses be entered into with provincial, municipal or other public housing authorities. That would mean making a recommendation on government policy. It would not be a recommendation with respect to anything it has the power to do under the legislation. I do not think it would be proper -to amend this bill to empower the corporation to advise the government about how the law is to be changed. Am I not right about that?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I think the minister will have to alter his position if he is to fall in line with the spirit of the government's proposals to the dominion-provincial conference. If a change along this line is necessary, perhaps the change will have to be in the National Housing Act as well. I am badgering him for all I am worth to reconsider his position in the matter of working with provincial, municipal and other public housing authorities.


George Hugh Castleden: In supporting this
amendment I should like to point out that throughout the whole of this bill there is nothing with regard to housing costs. The whole thing is financial. I suggest^ that the basic purpose of the amendment is to get facts with regard to housing needs and housing costs before the corporation. The minister
knows that these facts are before the Canadian people. He knows that with present wage scales, with the prices that must be paid for commodities, under ordinary times it is not permitted to a large number of Canadian people to buy decent housing. The costs of housing are too high. The prices the monopolies charge for lumber, cement, plumbing and heating fixtures, insulation and many other commodities are practically hold-up prices. This amendment would allow this corporation to recommend that opportunity be placed within the reach of municipal and provincial authorities to go into the field of building with assistance from this corporation.
The provincial government of Saskatchewan took over some of the building accommodation at one of the Saskatoon airports and transformed this into accommodation for students attending the university. Many of these students are returned soldiers arid they are thus enabled to live with their families in a community way. This has had a great deal to do with easing the housing situation and the costs were a revelation. This amendment will make it possible for this corporation to make a study of actual costs, so that the people and the government will know something about them. It will allow them to go into the field of reduced housing costs for a large percentage of the population of Canada which at the present time cannot afford decent housing.


William Irvine: I am not sure that the question I wish to put to the minister arises out of this amendment, but probably it would be involved. I have some knowledge that applicants have been refused the right to benefits under the act because they live in the country or in small villages or towns. I do not think there is anything in the act itself that would warrant any such conclusion on the part of those who lend under the act. Yet it has been refused. I should like to know whether there is any provision either in this measure or in the original housing act making for the assurance that the would-be borrower in the country or in a village shall have the same opportunity as the man in the city wherever he may be found.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The act makes provision for loans in rural districts, remote districts and so on, but I think it is true that at the present time lending institutions fight Shy of certain localities for one reason or another. They give a lot of reasons, that they have not the personnel, that the costs are greater, that they do not think the prospects are very good of land values or building values being sustained in that part of the country,

Housing Act
and so on. I do not suppose we shall ever get a system under which you could make people lend money on property which they think is going down in value, but that does not mean that the present coverage cannot be a great deal improved, because I think it can. There are larger guarantees by the government for loans in remote areas, for instance. All I can say is that we are anxious to do the best wfc can. We want the housing act to be a success; we think it will be if we get the most satisfactory type of organization possible, and I think that this one will be.
As to the amendment, I do not know whether it would come under this section. I think it should come under the powers of the corporation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: This section deals with
the powers, but perhaps the minister would prefer the amendment to stand until eight o'clock?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Section 30 deals with the
corporation's ancillary powers. There is a whole collection of powers there. We can let this section stand, and I will see after six o clock whether we cannot add something to this or a later section.


Solon Earl Low: In addition to the powers that are set out in section 18, does the corporation also receive power bo make regulations under the various acts that are there cited?


James Lorimer Ilsley: No. Section 39 says:
Where under the housing acts any act', matter or thing to be done by the minister requires the approval of the governor in council or where the governor in council may make any orders or regulations on the recommendation of the minister, the said approval or the said orders or regulations may be made on a recommendation of the minister made at the request of the corporation.
Some exception was taken to that the other night, but apart altogether from any language at the end of the section it is clear that any regulations which now require the approval of the governor in council will continue to require the approval of the governor in council, and the regulations under the housing act must be made with the approval of the governor in council.
Section stands.
Under this section the money is to be lent by the corporation, and no adequate safeguard is taken for the security of the investment in that the resultant construction from the investment is not - safeguarded with regard to any plan. I mentioned this before, and I have now an amendment to propose. This bill does two things: it empowers the corporation to lend money so that houses may be built, with only the most elementary consideration for the municipality in which these houses are to be built; and it takes practically no consideration for the province in which these houses are to be built. As I pointed out on Friday, under this bill the government is empowering houses to be built which may, unless safeguards are taken, become a liability to the municipality in which they are built. I know that in the present housing shortage any house anywhere is a godsend, but we must look farther than that. I therefore move to amend clause 26 by adding the following as clause A:
Notwithstanding any clause in the National Housing Act, 1944, the corporation shall not be empowered to make loans under this act unless the resultant construction shall conform to a plan approved by the municipality and by the respective provincial government.
This would make the municipality conscious of its responsibilities regarding future building. It would ensure ' that the municipality took some care that the houses to be built under this measure by government assistance would be built according to some safeguarding over-all plan, and that they would not be built, as to-day, merely haphazardly on any piece of land, because of the emergent situation. I believe it is a very important clause. It makes for a municipality conscience, a social conscience if you like, in relation to town planning, and requires the municipality, if it expects to have loans, U>
provide for the future of the communities in that area and to see to it that houses are built with an eye to the future and with regard to all the things I mentioned on Friday, such^ as transportation, schools, lighting, and all the other essential functions of the municipality. If this amendment is carried, the municipality will take much greater care to safeguard the dominion's investment. I move the amendment with these objects in view.
Sections 19 to 25 inclusive agreed to.	Mr. ILSLEY: It is the individual who
On section 26-Total of loans or guarantees	builds the house here; it is not the dominion
not to exceed those under N.H. Act.	government but the individual resident of the


Agar Rodney Adamson: This section is the key	munieipality. He has to comply with the
note to the whole bill. It gives the corporation	by-laws of the municipality before he can
power to lend money. In my opinion this	build that house; so why should we come
bill does not take any cognizance of provincial	along and in our dominion legislation say
rights, particularly property and civil rights.	that we will not lend him money unless he

Housing Act
gets the approval of the municipality? He has to get it anyway. The municipality can stop him from building a house if it wishes to; also the province can stop him; he cannot go ahead, and therefore we would not be lending him any money. Our influence on the situation is always in the -way of more regulation, more planning, more developments, the building of houses to certain standards; but it appears to me a complete surplusage to put in the bill that a house must be built with the approval of the municipality, when the municipality, any time it likes, can stop him now.


Agar Rodney Adamson: My point is, not the construction of the house, which is looked after by the municipality-there are certain building by-laws in every municipality with which, naturally, the builder of the house will have to conform-but there are other things which matter and are beginning to matter very greatly. There are over-all plans in many municipalities. But if the municipality merely says, "We will see to it that a house is fireproof and put up in such and such a way, and has so many cubic feet per person, and conforms with other simple building by-laws", that is not sufficient to guarantee that the houses which are built will not become blighted areas. This is particularly true of municipalities on the perimeter of a major metropolitan area. We are going to build row on row of small houses-exactly what is happening now-and these houses will not be related to an over-all picture of the area. I suggest to the minister some regulation such as this, whereby the municipality is virtually encouraged or almost forced to plan so that the future of that municipality and the houses we are building will not follow the pattern so commonly followed in municipalities, particularly after the last war, and we shall not have row on row of small houses which, because of the very fact that they are built in that fashion, wili have a great depreciation. In my opinion, unless there is some kind of over-all town plan as well as the building regulations, we shall not get _ value for the money which the dominion is investing in these houses. I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that that is an important point in this legislation.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: In this regard, the minister said that the municipalities would have to see how this is done, how these houses will be put up.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: That was not the c?se under Wartime Housing.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Well, this is different.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I know it is different; but they are now putting in plumbing which is not according to municipal regulations and they get away with it, whereas the house right next door has to conform to the bylaws.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It. may be that the houses next door, that is N.H.A. houses, have to do so.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Yes, but Wartime Housing does not.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is different.


William Henry Golding: I think I should read the amendment the hon. member for York West has made to section 26:
That, notwithstanding any clause in the National Housing Act, 1944, the corporation shall not be empowered to make loans under this act unless the resultant construction shall conform to a plan approved by the municipality and by the respective provincial government.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think it would be too restrictive entirely. Hon. members heard the hon. member for Cape Breton South on Friday^ night making a bitter complaint that- we are too restrictive as it is, that a man wants to build a $2,500 house somewhere and that if it is all right for himself there is no use in bothering with the National Housing Act. I do not think it will do to be so restrictive that in a large number of municipalities in Canada there will be no loans made. We can make the loans for a longer term if there is adequate community planning; we are encouraging and doing everything we can to have that done everywhere; but I think it would be going too far to make these loans conditional upon the houses being community planned.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I disagree with the minister there. I think we must have adequate community planning in any scheme such as this. If we do not, we shall run into most serious financial ioss, and we shall not provide for the Canadian people not only a place to live in but all the other amenities. I hold that view very strongly.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the amendment is to make sure that there is an adequate town, community or city plan before any loans are authorized under the National Housing Act. All I can say is that

Housing Act

we have been doing everything we can to encourage town planning; and there is special encouragement in the act proper for the formation of adequate town planning. But if we were to make our loans conditional upon there being a proper town plan in existence it would mean that we would be cutting off a large proportion of our loans, and there would be a great outcry from all parts of Canada at the present time. Therefore I think the only thing -we can do is to work along offering inducements and do everything we can to prevail upon the provinces to enact town planning and community planning legislation and upon- the municipalities to adopt it, and not take so drastic a step as to cut off National Housing Act loans in the absence of a town plan in any instance, which would deprive too many persons of the benefits of the National Housing Act and would not be an advisable step to take, at the present time at least. It is something that we shall have to work for and perhaps achieve eventually before too long; but I am afraid that I cannot accept the amendment at the present time.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I realize that the amendment is in a drastic form; it was meant to be. I moved this amendment for the reason that Toronto, Montreal and, I understand, Hamilton, and maybe other cities of which I do not know, have at one time or another considered and brought into being plans for the future long-time development of the metropolitan area. In Toronto particularly and the suburban areas surrounding it these plans were carefully considered by a large and expert committee which worked on them for two and a half or three years. They received the help of a number of town planners, experts in. traffic density studies, expert engineers and other related technicians, but for some reason best known to the city of Toronto these plans, apparently without being discussed or put to the people of Toronto and surrounding municipalities, were thrown out holus-bolus.
The point in this amendment is to protect federal funds which are being invested in municipalities such as Toronto. If some adequate plan is not adopted and adhered to we are merely _ going to build rows of semidetached buildings and detached houses which will not only become a blight on the municipality in which they are erected, but eventually become a liability to the government itself.
I should like to quote my authority for making that statement. He is the head of the "Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute" of Canada. I shall quote a few sentences of an editorial, because I think it is germane to the issue at the present time:
fMr. Ilsley.]
Back of large-scale planning will be the root cause of most of the evils to come, of blighted suburbs and butchered agricultural land on the periphery of cities, but what of the houses themselves? Crown companies cannot make a success of housing. They can deal with emergencies, and can house people for an emergency They have no experience with permanent living which is a Complex business requiring the united effort of architects and social workers whose specialized training fits them to deal with people of all ages and conditions. It will be said that this wall make confusion worse confounded, but it is not so. It is not too late, if personnel could be released from the services, to tackle the housing problem through those professions and skills that are prepared to meet it. We need, at the present moment, apartments, houses, row houses and semi-detached houses, designed for families of varying sizes, ages and income. Only such housing will take up the shortage, and then, only in a decade. The building of fifty thousand permanent cottages a year for several years may be a home builder's dream, but it is something that no one with any civic pride or feeling for his fellow citizens can contemplate without the gravest misgivings. There is a challenge in the housing crisis to the government of the country. The architects are the chief experts, the planners and the coordinators of large building projects, and they are ready and willing to lend their aid. They, alone, can prevent a waste as staggering as that of war.
I wish to make this point, if I do nothing else. I wish to make it very clear that under the present construction, the unplanned and uncorrelated construction that we are going ahead with to-day, we are building up for ourselves a problem of debt and blight the like of which this country has never seen before. I realize that the minister cannot accept this amendment at the present time because it is too drastic. I ask the minister in all seriousness that before he goes ahead investing huge sums of money-and there will be huge sums invested under this measure-in the housing to be built he sees to it that houses are built in conformity with a proper plan which looks forward to the eventual safeguarding of the investment and the amenities of decent life of the people so housed.


William Irvine: When the hon. member moved his amendment to this section we in this section of the house did not hear one word of it, and we have not the slightest understanding of what it is all about. So that if it should come to a vote it might not be a bad idea to have somebody read it.


William Ross Macdonald: I read the amendment when the committee resumed this evening, but I will read it again. The hon. member for York West moves that an additional subsection be added to section 26, as follows:
That, not-withstanding any clause in the National Housing Act, 1944, the corporation shall not be empowered 11 make loans under

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this act unless the resultant construction shall conform to a plan approved by the municipality and by the respective provincial government.
Amendment negatived on division.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 18-Transfer of authority from housing acts.
James Lorimer Ilsley: Perhaps we might clean up
two of the sections which were allowed to stand this afternoon. An amendment was moved to section 18 by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. My suggestion is that the amendment be moved to section 30 instead; that is the section having to do with the ancillary powers of the corporation. The portion of the amendment I would be prepared to accept is that in regard to recommendations to the minister in reference to the making of grants for slum clearance under section 12 of the National Housing Act, 1944. If it would be agreeable to my hon. friend, when section 30 is reached he might move:
That subsection 1 be amended by adding thereto as paragraph (f) the following:
- "(f) make recommendations to the minister with regard to the making of grants for slum clearance under section 12 of the National Housing Act, 1944."
And that the subsequent paragraphs be relettered. I will be prepared to accept that. The rest of his amendment I do not think is acceptable. The first part is unnecessary; that is with regard to the right to study urban and rural housing, because the corporation takes that over from the minister under the National Housing Act. With regard bo grants for town or community planning, there is probably no authority for such grants in the act at the present time; and this would be merely conferring upon the corporation the right to make recommendations to the government to make grants which it has no legislative authority to make. If I am wrong about that; if there is authority for making grants for town or community planning-and there is some reference in one of the sections to making provision for town and community planning-then the duties to be exercised in that connection with regard to town and community planning are to be exercised by the corporation, which steps into the shoes of the minister. Therefore this amendment is unnecessary. The last part of the amendment, which would confer upon the corporation the right to recommend . to the minister that agreements respecting the construction of houses be entered into with provincial, municipal or other public housing authorities, is not a proper amendment, because it is conferring upon the corporation power to advise the government or the minister to do things he has not power to do. It 47696-130i
is merely conferring upon the corporation power to advise the minister to change the law.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just like parliament.
Mr. ILSLEY; Yes; or to enter upon a new line of policy. So that I think the only part I can accept is the one with respect to recommendations for slum clearance. That is not open to any of these objections, because under the act the minister has power to make grants for slum clearance, and there is no reason why this corporation should not be empowered to make recommendations to him to that end.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I had my reasons for preferring that my amendment be made to section 18 rather than to section 30. I was anxious to have a statement made in section 18 about slum clearance, because that is the section which already makes a reference to that matter. Another reason why I preferred the amendment to be to section 18 rather than to section 30 is that, while section 30 is headed "ancillary powers", it is confined' almost exclusively to financial matters, and I was anxious to have these special rights listed under the general powers of the corporation. However, since the minister has made an offer 'to accept part of my amendment when we get to the other section I will withdraw it at this stage. I may say, Mr. Chairman, it is my intention when we reach section 30 to move the amendment again perhaps in two parts, so that the minister may indicate which of my proposals he is prepared to accept and which he feels he must oppose. For the time being, however, with the consent of my seconder, the hon. member for Yorkton, I withdraw the amendment.
Amendment withdrawn.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 5-Agent of crown.
James Lorimer Ilsley: This section also was allowed to stand. The hon. member for Eglinton asked a question about subsections 2 and 3. These subsections allow the corporation to enter into mortgages or contracts either in its own name or in the name of His Majesty. The reason for this option is as follows. The National Housing Act provides that mortgages to secure His Majesty's share of housing loans and contracts with lending institutions shall be in the name of His Majesty. This practice will continue. Mortgages or contracts will be entered into in the name of His Majesty in any case where the housing act so requires. It is anticipated', however, that other contracts such as those relating to' the discount business or to research employment contracts.
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and so on, will be entered into in the name of the corporation. In these cases the corporation can sue and be sued in its own name without the necessity of a petition of right. It must be borne in mind that the corporation does not take the place of His Majesty; it takes the place of the minister with respect to operations under the National Housing Act, and will enter into contracts of the kinds I have mentioned as a corporation. But in the cases in which the act specifies that His Majesty must be named as the mortgagee, then His Majesty will continue to be named, not the corporation. Therefore the section is drawn in this way, providing .tnat the corporation may, on behalf of His Majesty, enter into contracts in the name of His Majesty or in the name of the corporation; and, under subsection 3 that property acquired by the corporation is the property of His Majesty, and the title thereto may be vested in His Majesty or in the name of the corporation. The corporation is an agency of His Majesty, and the property it acquires even in its own name is the property of His Majesty. As the hon. gentleman will see if he reflects on the situation, it would be the same if the word "minister" were used instead of "corporation." Contracts might be entered into by the minister, but the property passing to the minister under those contracts would be the property of His Majesty, not the personal property of the minister, in spite of the fact that it would be in the name of the minister. So that there will be cases where the name of the corporation will be used, but it will be the property of His Majesty.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I want to thank the minister for his explanation. As time goes on and the corporation has more experience in the working of the legislation, I am sure the minister will have in mind the desirability of the greatest possible measure of simplification in this regard.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 27 and 28 agreed to.
On section 29-Corporation powers under agreement with lending institution.
Solon Earl Low: On Friday evening the minister made some comments with respect to the group of sections beginning with No. 28 and ending with No. 30. At page 2016 of Hansard the minister said:
I wish to give the house a full explanation of the need for those clauses. That group of clauses is based upon a principle which is advantageous. It enables this central corporation to buy and sell mortgages. By creating a market for mortgages that does not exist. I think the inevitable result is to reduce the
[Mr. IJsl**v.l
interest rate on mortgages, because it is the non-liquidity of this particular type of security that results in a higher rate on mortgages than on many other forms of investment.
Would the minister make a statement now, so that we may have a clear picture of the need for that group of clauses?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I shall do so. There are two powers in this section, one being the power to lend money on the security of mortgages pledged with the corporation. That, I suppose, is more properly described as discounting or rediscounting mortgages. The effect of this section will be to enable the corporation to put lending institutions in funds that otherwise might ran out of funds, or be out of funds, and in that way supply money for lending to the public of Canada.
The other power in the section is the power to buy and sell mortgages. The two sets of powers blend into one another; that is, if mortgages were pledged by a lending institution with the central mortgage corporation, and there were a default in repayment of the loan to the central mortgage corporation, then in effect the transaction would result in a transfer absolutely of the mortgage to the central mortgage corporation, which would have the same effect as the effect of a sale. I wish to deal carefully with this departure in our policy-because it is a departure in our policy, and a gogd one.
The reasons for the rediscounting feature in bill No. 23 are: first, to provide a degree of liquidity in mortgages which has been needed for a long time. Such liquidity will make mortgages a more desirable security. Increased desirability in mortgages as a security will tend to reduce the interest rates.
I may pause to explain that undoubtedly one reason -why the rate of interest on mortgages is higher than the rate of interest on the best quality of bonds, or the high quality of bonds, is a difference in the liquidity or the negotiability of the two types of securities. The more liquid you can make mortgages, as an investment, the more likely it will be that lenders will be willing to lend at low rates of interest. They will have some assurance of mortgage funds being available on a national and a local basis.
What I mean by that is that it is desirable so far as possible to have loans made by local lending institutions or trust companies. They might very well ran out of money, if there is a large demand. Their cash resources are limited; but if they had access to a central institution which has the power either to buy mortgages or to discount mortgages, they will be able to do more business and lend more money in that local area within which they are included than they otherwise would.

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It will tend to avoid refusal by companies to renew mortgages because of shortage of cash. The loan and trust companies have never had a central institution to assist in their liquidity position. Loan and trust companies borrow short and re-lend long, which in many cases is the reason why they are not operating under the housing act. Even if rediscount facilities are not used by loan or trust companies, the existence of such facilities will allow them to maintain a lower cash position which will have the effect of making additional moneys available for mortgages.
Loan and trust companies are an important factor in supplying lending facilities throughout the country, and it does not seem reasonable that their activities on a large-scale housing programme should be limited to their present excess liquid position, plus the amount by which they can increase their deposits and debentures.
If we are about to enter into a large housing development in Canada we shall need all our rather limited mortgage facilities, and should not run the risk of lack of funds, which would hamper the activities of a group which now holds something over a third of the corporate mortgage loans. On the assumption (that rediscount facilities are desirable, it might be asked why restrictions and limitations are not placed upon the corporation in its operations in this field. The limitations and restrictions might take three forms:
(1) The amount of funds available for rediscounting. On account of the fact that advances for housing loan business can only be used for that purpose, the activities of the corporation in the rediscounting field are by the bill limited to its capital of $25 million and its reserve which may build up to $5 million.
It will be noted that in section 29, subsection 1, power is given to the corporation for rediscounting out of its capital and reserve fund, or out of such other moneys as may be appropriated by parliament for such purpose. I think an effective limitation on the amount of money available for rediscounting is at present included in the bill, and seems reasonable because (a) no one can tell how extensive the rediscounting operations of the corporation will be and (b), if additional funds are needed at a later date they can be obtained by an appropriation from parliament without any amendment to the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act being necessary.
I	said I would run through the limitations and restrictions, or the forms which any limitations and restrictions might take. I have dealt with, and have argued that nothing further is necessary than what is provided in the legislation.
Then (2) the minimum rate of interest at which the minister may make advances to the corporation for rediscounting purposes: Thjre might be a feeling that the bill should contain a minimum interest rate for advances by the minister to the corporation. In the original instance such limitation is not necessary, because the corporation will be using its own capital for this purpose, and advances by the minister are not involved. If at a later date parliament . appropriates further funds to be advanced to the corporation for rediscounting purposes, such funds are by way of an advance by the minister rather than an increase in the capital of the corporation, and the desirability of a limitation could be considered at that time.
(3) Limitation with respect to the spread between rate of interest charged by members companies on mortgages and the interest rate on moneys made available to the lending institution by the corporation. The difficulty in providing a limitation with respect to spread is that no formula could be found which seems satisfactory. Operating expenses of the particular company, the distribution of their mortgage business, the interest rate on all mortgages owned by them, the uses to which advances are to be put by them, are all factors which vary greatly as between companies. The determination of a reasonable spread for trust or loan companies securing advances seems to be a problem for the management of the corporation rather than for a statutory limitation. A maximum spread is bad because it would indicate that such was the minimum spread contemplated for all discounting operations of the corporation.
It must be remembered that the appropriate spread varies in accordance with the type of mortgage business to be done by a lending institution. For instance, a company which limits its activities to the city of Toronto could not expect to receive a spread of more than three-quarters of one per cent. If, however, a company were operating a mortgage business in rural areas it might be the case that a spread of one and a quarter per cent was appropriate. Indeed, it would give that company less of a profit on its borrowing and re-lending than a company operating in Toronto only.
The corporation will inquire into the type of business of the company and its rediscounting activities and will attempt to keep the mortgage interest rate at a reasonably
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low level and still allow the lending companies sufficient margin within which to operate.


Solon Earl Low: Can the minister say whether the reasonably low rate of interest which he mentions that the corporation would attempt to have prevail throughout Canada would be something in the neighbourhood of the interest rate mentioned in the Central Mortgage Bank Act or would it be something in the neighbourhood of the four and a half per cent rate mentioned in the National Housing Act?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The lending institutions under the National Housing Act get five per cent. The borrower pays four and a half per cent, but because of the government participation the lending institution gets five per cent. Under the provisions of the research section it is intended to do some important research into the cost of doing business by these lending institutions as well as into the cost of doing business in certain areas. Very little is known, by the government at any rate, about these costs. When the central institution gets a little more data and knowledge on this it will be in a far better position to advise the government what would be considered a fair rate of interest in any particular part of Canada.


Solon Earl Low: The minister has given the reasons for this group of clauses. The first reason is that of research, which I think is good. A good purpose can be served by carrying on this research and by the interchange of information between the corporation and the lending institutions. However, there is a second reason which he gave, that of control over the general interest rates for mortgages throughout Canada by giving mortgages more liquidity.
I have in mind some problems that might arise through the government acquiring a considerable number of mortgages which they could do under sections 29 and 30. Might the government not find itself in a most embarrassing position through some unforeseen circumstances arising within a province that might make necessary the adjustment of mortgages which had fallen into arrears through inability of the mortgagors to pay?
Perhaps I should put another question also. Is it not true that the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act was a piece of legislation which has provided some happy experiences to the federal government, the municipalities and the provinces? Under the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act, as I recall it, a good' many millions of dollars were lent by this government on the joint guarantee of the municipalities and the prov-

inces for self-liquidating enterprises within the municipalities. As I understand it, practically every one of these loans has been paid back. This money was lent to the municipalities at two per cent.
Is it not possible that an approach of that kind, by which money is made available to a fund in the corporation by the federal government, and in turn made available on the joint guarantee of the province and the municipality at a low rate of interest-we will say two per cent would do more to control interest rates on general mortgages throughout Canada than any operations that this corporation might carry on under the provisions of sections 29 and 30?
To my mind those two problems are very important, first, with respect to interest rates, is it not possible that a government enterprise, similar to the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act could do more to control interest rates and keep them down to a reasonable level than what is provided in bill No. 23?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I suppose if the dominion government set a rate of two per cent on mortgages, that would bring interest rates down, but it would mean that nobody but the government would lend money, and the government would be lending money at a loss. We do not think two per cent money would be desirable.


Solon Earl Low: I just mentioned two per cent as the existing rate under the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The rate of interest that we pay for twenty-year money under the ninth victory loan is three per cent. There is a cost of operation to be considered if you go into the mortgage field, and I think that cost would be particularly high for the government. If the government went into the business of lending money on mortgages it might operate on a four and a half per cent rate, but otherwise it would be a subsidized rate.
I am doubtful, in fact I am sure that I would not want the government to do that.


Solon Earl Low: The experience under the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act was a happy one; you have not lost any money on that as yet?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The loans are ten or twenty-year loans, and the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act was passed in 1938, if I remember correctly.


Solon Earl Low: The loans ran up to ten years.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Ten and twenty years. I do not think there have been any defaults so far.

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Solon Earl Low: I know there have not been in Alberta.


James Lorimer Ilsley: But you have taken the most favourable period in the history of Canada so far as defaults are concerned.


Solon Earl Low: My judgment is that the reason why there have been so few defaults is the joint guarantee on the part of the municipality and the provincial government. I think that is something which should be investigated. In that case we had government enterprise in a field where it was necessary, and I think much can be done by such enterprises.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman must remember that that was a subsidized rate for the purpose of relieving unemployment. The Municipal Improvements Assistance Act was an unemployment relief measure and the two per cent was a subsidized rate. It was less than money was worth and it was lent at that special low rate for employment reasons.


Solon Earl Low: The federal government did not lose anything on the rate.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I think so. When you take a twenty-year loan and if the average term is ten years, the rate paid by the government for the ten year money is more than two per cent.


Solon Earl Low: At the present time?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It was a lot more than two per cent then because the rate of interest has been going down since, then, so that it was a subsidized rate.


Solon Earl Low: The second point to me is very important. Let us assume that the corporation acquires in a certain section of the country-it does not matter whether it is Saskatchewan. Alberta, Manitoba or any other province-a certain volume of mortgages and then conditions arise which make it impossible for the mortgagors to continue their payments. It is conceivable that some adjustment would have to be made or attempted for otherwise there might be wholesale foreclosures. That brings up a problem which to me is most important. How does the minister expect to get around it?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The corporation has -to take
some little chance in trading in mortgages,
just as the lending institutions have to take
some chance. The lending institutions lend
in Alberta now.
\


Solon Earl Low: Yes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: And in most provinces of Canada, although I am not sure about Saskatchewan. But they lend in Alberta now,
and I suppose theoretically that is a risky piece of business because they might wake up some morning and find that they could not foreclose. But over a long period of time people use pretty good sense about these things, and if people find that by taking a certain course of action they lose their credit they reverse the process and adopt the policy of paying their bills. That is what the central mortgage corporation is banking on. They would bank on that fundamental common-sense in human nature. Not only that, but it is not the plan of the central mortgage corporation to accumulate mortgages so much as it is to trade in mortgages. They will be taking them from some lending institutions and selling them to some others, spreading them where the market is for them.


Solon Earl Low: That brings up the question of dominion-provincial rights, and that is what I am concerned about, as I mentioned the other day. I had occasion to review carefully the terms of the Central Mortgage Bank Act, in which provision is made for debt adjustment. There were a good many of those old mortgages in various provinces across this country. It is quite conceivable that if the corporation under this measure finds itself in possession of a fairly large volume of mortgages at a time conditions are bad, it might have to resort to something like the arrangement made under the Central Mortgage Bank Act of 1939, which was like this: The mortgagors could voluntarily come to the bank and say: I want this mortgage adjusted. The formula according to which the central mortgage bank provided for the adjustment of the mortgage was this. They would forgive all arrears of interest, except two years at the existing rate. Second, they would forgive up to twenty per cent of the outstanding principal. In return for the amount of principal forgiven, the central mortgage bank proposed to grant twenty-year debentures bearing compound interest at three per cent to the lending institutions which had originated the mortgage, and also to give them twenty-year three per cent debentures for the outstanding interest cancelled. That would saddle on the taxpayers of Canada a very heavy debt, which would have to be paid to the mortgage companies. Furthermore, it removed those mortgages from the jurisdiction of the provinces in so far as debt settlement was concerned. I can see the possibility of something like that happening under this bill, and because of the possibility of the corporation coming into conflict with the provinces on the adjustment of outstanding arrears of indebtedness, - constitutional questions might arise which I think we ought to consider very
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carefully. I would like to have the minister's opinion on that. Does he propose under section 30 (1) (f) in future to build up such powers of adjustment under this bill in case of necessity?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is no power of adjustment whatever under this bill. There was under the Central Mortgage Bank Act.


Solon Earl Low: That is true. But does not
paragraph (f) provide that the corporation may:
(f) exercise or perform any other powers, duties or functions conferred on or required to be performed by the corporation under any other act or order in council.
It is conceivable that the government might pass an order in council under some act which would provide for debt settlement under this legislation. That is the point.


James Lorimer Ilsley: "Order in council" there
means an order in council duly authorized. It does not mean any old order in council. That does not confer upon the government power to pass an order in council.


Gordon Graydon: It does not mean those
orders in council which are put away in mothballs?'


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman had
better .make a speech on that.


Gordon Graydon: If the minister would
like me to, I could make a good one on orders in council in moth-balls.


James Lorimer Ilsley: This does not confer any
power on the government to pass an order in council.	.


John Horne Blackmore: Does the government have to have that power given specifically?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Certainly. The government cannot pass an order in council unless authorized so to do by legislation.


Solon Earl Low: I am not 'quite satisfied on the question that I asked the minister with respect to the possibility of having to deal with requests of people in certain sections of the country for some alleviation of their debt accumulation because of their inability to pay. If the corporation finds itself in some time of stress in possession of a fairly substantial volume of mortgages, what would happen? How would the matter be adjusted? Would the corporation merely take possession through foreclosure?


James Lorimer Ilsley: They would have the power to do so.


Solon Earl Low: .But not the power to adjust?
 '


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not think there is any power here to adjust. They would have to use their best efforts to collect.


Thomas John Bentley: Would they-do that over the head of any debt protective legislation the provinces might have?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is a constitutional
question which I would not presume to answer with very much assurance. I think it is a fine point -whether the crown in the right of the dominion is subject to provincial legislation.


Solon Earl Low: That is the point.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I hope it is not subject, but I am not sure whether it is or not.


Solon Earl Low: Does the minister not feel that this is of such importance that he ought to make sure and see that this bill is properly worded so as to prevent any possible collision with the provinces in respect of debt settlement, which is within their constitutional rights? Otherwise I can see that under certain circumstances, conditions, for example, similar to those obtaining in the nineteen-thirties, might conceivably come again, but God forbid; a substantial number of farmers and home owners in the provinces may be asking for some stay of proceedings or some adjustment or rearrangement of debt which has become intolerable. They want to pay their debts if they can; but if the time comes when they cannot, because of low prices and wages being depressed, or something of the kind, I can see that this corporation would get into trouble, and serious trouble. Also I am concerned about the centralization of the mortgage business in the hands of a corporation which is extra-provincial in its jurisdiction. I want to see the matter so arranged that in times of stress something can be done to alleviate the difficulties under which the farmers and home owners in any province may be carrying on, without having to submit to a cold-blooded foreclosure on the part of any group, and so that a province is in a position where it can safeguard property and civil rights, or what is left of them.
I want the minister to understand that the provinces now have only a modicum of authority over property and civil rights. Step by step those rights have been arrogated to the federal government in Various ways of which I do not think many of us are conscious: for example, through the land settlement policies in the days befor^ the transfer of the natural resources to the prairie provinces, particularly Saskatchewan and Alberta. Those settlement policies gave the federal government powers and authorities over property and civil rights which g-eatly diminished

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the authority of the provinces. So did the incidence of the tariff. I could make a long speech on that, but I do not want to talk at length on this matter. So did freight rates; so did a number of other measures result in greatly arrogating to the federal government the power and authority over property and civil rights which the British North America Act definitely vested in the provinces. I am concerned about trying to preserve for the provinces a modicum of their original rights, and perhaps to reverse the whole procedure we have been following for many years and get those rights back into the hands of the provinces. There is a way by which this can be done. Instead of putting through a bill of this kind, which is a further measure of centralization, I believe it would be wise for the government to consider an alternative whereby funds might be set up to enable the various provinces and the farmer population in particular to refund their existing mortgages at a lower rate of interest.


James Lorimer Ilsley: By mortgages to the
dominion?


Solon Earl Low: Not necessarily; to a corporation like that proposed in bill No. 23, if the minister wishes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: To whom, then?


Solon Earl Low: To this corporation. It is not necessary to work through mortgage companies; it could be done through the existing machinery, through the provincial and municipal governments and the Bank of Canada; and we ought to be giving consideration to that sort of thing, rather than to approve what I think is a corporation money-lenders' charter. I do not like to see this bill passed; I am very much concerned about it. I should like to have the assurance of the minister that he will give this matter very serious consideration and see to it that some provision is made to keep out of conflict with the provinces on this question of property and civil rights.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know what position my hon. friend is taking. Let us assume that he is thinking about the interests of one province; say, for the sake of argument, his own province of Alberta. Would he prefer, if he could say yes or no, looking at the matter strictly from the point of view of the interests of Alberta, to have that province excluded from this legislation?


Solon Earl Low: No. That is not the point at all. I am not arguing for Alberta. I can make a case equally strong for Saskatchewan, Manitoba or British Columbia; yes, or Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, any one of them.
It does not make any difference what province it is. But if the federal government are going on year after year and step by step to take from the provinces their powers over property and civil rights, I say that it is high time to stop. We are destroying the spirit of the British North America Act by the forceful re-allocation of these powers as between the provinces and the dominion. All I am asking is that the minister give careful consideration to some provision in this bill which will remove the possibility of the corporation, which means the crown, coming into conflict with the provinces over this question of debt adjustment, which will arise just as surely as they go into the mortgage trading field. That is all I want.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I should like to have-a concrete suggestion. The fear of the hon. gentleman is that some mortgages in the hands of this corporation which will be the property of His Majesty will have to'be foreclosed some time, and will be foreclosed, despite the fact that there is debt adjustment legislation in one of the provinces which would not permit them to be foreclosed if the mortgages were held by a private lender.


Solon Earl Low: And with one other consideration, if the minister does not mind-


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes?


Solon Earl Low: -and that is, provided a set of circumstances arises which makes it impossible for those mortgagors to pay. That is another consideration.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Which is preferable-for the crown to keep out of there with its money, or to go in and have some assurance that it will be able to collect if it is necessary to do so? Which is preferable from Alberta's point of view? I wish the hon. gentleman would tell me.


Solon Earl Low: I do not think it is a question of choosing between the two. There are other alternatives. That is what I am trying to place before the minister. There must be other alternatives. Surely he can see, when he puts to me a question "whether you will give up some of your rights or forego the advantage of having these moneys", that that puts a person into a difficult position. That is the way these things have been handled over a great many years in the past. That is one of the chief reasons why the provinces have lost their powers. The point I should like to get over is this, that I do not believe it is necessary to choose one alternative or the other. I contend that the minister will have to make a wholly new approach to this housing problem. Would it be possible to
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hold over one of these clauses, say either section 29 or section 30? I believe that something could be worked in there which would give protection. I would be happy to try to work out something with the minister.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Last Friday the hon. gentleman did not want it proceeded with and asked that it be left until Monday. I do not think we can continue to delay things in this way. The hon. member has given the matter a lot of thought, and he is not in a position to make a concrete suggestion. Tt must be borne in mind that we are not disturbing property and civil rights of the provinces in any way by this legislation. We cannot do so; they are guaranteed in the constitution.


Solon Earl Low: Oh, yes!


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is true that we are providing a market for mortgages which holders of mortgages in the province of Alberta will have hereafter. Is that not desirable from the point of view of the province of Alberta? I can remember the great efforts which the government of Alberta made, their visits here and the interviews they had, to try to get us to see that the National Housing Act was applied to Alberta and that loans would be made in that province. Is this not going to assist? Is this not going to make the money more available to people there? It seems to me that the hon. gentleman must elect what position he wishes to take. Does he want that? Does he think that is a good thing for Alberta or not? I do not want anyone to think we are going to buy up all the mortgages in Alberta for the sake of getting ahead of the debt adjustments board, or something like that. There is no idea of anything of that kind. There is a relatively limited amount of capital here-* $25 million-and the intention would be to rediscount some mortgages and buy some mortgages and sell some mortgages. The total holding of Alberta mortgages would be very small indeed. But if it became necessary to enforce those mortgages at any time the corporation would be free to do so. I do not know what the constitutional position is, but our contention has been that in a case of that kind we are not bound by debt adjustment legislation of the provinces. I have said to the provinces that we think the thing operates almost automatically; that I cannot take the taxpayers' money and put it in a province where I know it is going to be lost, or may be lost by reason of provincial legislation. I have to stay out of that province; and that is exactly the way other people look at it. Recently the province of Alberta has

taken a very sane and reasonable view, comparatively speaking, at any rate, about this, as compared with former years. Lending institutions, governments and others are lending with more confidence in Alberta; and I assume that there would be some rediscounting business done in that province. I do not think I could agree to put a clause in this bill which would mean that the crown' in the right of the dominion undertakes to be bound by provincial legislation.


Solon Earl Low: I am not going to say very
much more about this at this time, but I shall try once more to make my point clear. Of course everyone knows that the only safe loan is the loan you do not make. The minister knows full well that under the National Housing Act of 1944, the federal government stands to lose some money. I think he admitted on Friday that they had already lost some money.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Under what?


Solon Earl Low: Under the national housing
loans.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No.


Solon Earl Low: I cannot refer to the exact page now, but I think he mentioned it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We have not lost any
money.


Solon Earl Low: I cannot turn to the page at
the moment but it runs in my mind that that is so. Anyhow, the minister knows that under the housing act the loans which have been made are not at all 100 per cent secure; that there is a possibility of loss. The lending institutions have been guaranteed ninety per cent of the amount of the loan, have they not? The government has guaranteed them against loss up to ten per cent.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is a complicated formula. It is not true to say that we have guaranteed them up to ten per cent of the loss, no. There is some- pooling arrangement which would take a long time to explain. There is a limited guarantee. We have lost no money. We have lost under $1,000; I think it is $900 or something of that sort.


Solon Earl Low: Is it not conceivable that as
conditions run along and time and experience are gained, there is a possibility of loss?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


Solon Earl Low: There is no question about
that. That would be true under any arrangement; but the alternative which I have suggested will alleviate the possibility of substantial losses, and at the same time I am

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satisfied would keep the dominion out of trouble with the provinces and secure the provinces in their property and civil rights.


James Lorimer Ilsley: What is the hon. member's
alternative?


Solon Earl Low: The alternative I suggested
was, instead of passing a measure that will secure the lending institutions, make Use of the machinery we have, just as you make use of it under the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act, including the two per cent rate.


James Lorimer Ilsley: We lent the money ourselves there.


Solon Earl Low: All right; lend the money again. We have the Bank of Canada and the Bank of Canada can provide unlimited money.


James Lorimer Ilsley: How does that absolve us from the risk of loss?
'Mr. LOW: I did not say that would absolve us from the risk of loss; I say that we do not stand to lose any more under that arrangement than we do under the National Housing Act, especially if we_ work with the existing machinery under a joint guarantee with the provincial governments and the municipal governments as we did under the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act. I contend that if that alternative is followed it will keep the federal government and the corporation out of trouble with the provinces, and we will not at any time run into the question of the constitutional powers for debt adjustment and rearrangement.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, we would. We would be sure to run into it then because then we would be the lenders. For instance, if the province of Alberta and the crown in the right of the dominion were the holders of one of the mortgages under the plan proposed by my hon. friend we would certainly contend then as we contend now that we are not subject to provincial legislation, and look at the clash. The hon. gentleman has been afraid of a clash between the dominion and the provinces on this matter of debt adjustment. It would be the same problem exactly in that case, because in that case the crown would be the owner of the mortgage, would be the mortgagee then as is the case now with a very limited number of mortgages. The only difference then would be that we would be the holder of a very large number of mortgages.


Solon Earl Low: Jointly guarantors with the province and municipalities.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Under the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act it is not a joint mortgage
of the provinces and the dominion; it is a mortgage of the dominion guaranteed by the provinces.


Solon Earl Low: Joint guarantors.


James Lorimer Ilsley: But one mortgagee, and that is the dominion.


Solon Earl Low: True.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If you institute a system of government lending you supplant the business of the lending institutions throughout Canada; the dominion government comes into the business of lending money from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and1 all these loans are free from the trammels of debt adjustment legislation, provincial legislation generally. How would we meet the problem put forward by my hon. friend, the problem of a clash between the dominion and provinces? We would accentuate it a hundredfold1.


Solon Earl Low: I am quite sure that the minister has not yet grasped the point. May I refer to Saskatchewan? They certainly did not get away with anything in Saskatchewan under the seed grain arrangement.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is a settlement.


Solon Earl Low: Certainly; you had trouble, but you were able finally to get your money. During times of stress there is no question about the necessity of some debt adjustment, stay of proceedings, or in the alternative, foreclosing and turning people out on the street. I want to know where we get off in these things, when you centralize and move control farther and farther away from the people and from the jurisdiction of the courts and boards in the provinces. I can see far more difficulty than if you left it with them and exacted your payments as conditions warrant. The minister is arguing against himself because he recognized a few moments ago that there was a time when difficulties abounded in Alberta. Well, they have come around to better times, and they are meeting their obligations fairly and squarely. I am sure that is a Canadian principle and a Canadian desire. I do not see that we have any trouble over that, but the minister will have plenty of troubles if he proceeds with this centralization.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. gentleman talks as though the provinces were the only people who ever adjust debts. The dominion always recognizes the problem, and it is a real problem, as they did under the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act. If the problem became a real problem again with regard to" those mortgages we would have to face it again.


Solon Earl Low: That is exactly what I want to assure myself.
Housing Act


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is a matter on which I cannot give any' assurance or undertaking at all. That is something we hope will never happen and may never happen and is certain not to happen for quite a long time.


George Hugh Castleden: What are the names
of the lending institutions now operating under the National Housing Act in each of the eight centres across Canada?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There are forty-eight lending institutions. These were, given in an answer to a question asked by the hon. member for Eglinton. The answer was tabled on October 5. Does the bon. gentleman want me to give the list?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Put- it on Hansard.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It has been laid on the table already. There are forty-eight of them.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It is a sessional paper, but it is not yet on Hansard.


George Hugh Castleden: Put them on the record.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Very well; they are as follows:
Approved Lending Institutions under the
National Housing Act, 1944-Head Offices.
Nova Scotia Savings Loan & Building Society, Halifax, N.S.
The Eastern Canada Savings & Loan Company, Halifax, N.S.
General Trust and Executor Corporation, Halifax, N.S.
Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, Montreal, Que.
La Caisse Populaire de Beauceville, Beauce-ville, Que.
Les Prevoyants du Canada, Quebec, Que.
Le- Credit Foncier Franco-Canadien, Montreal, Que.
La Caisse Populaire de la Cite de Shawinigan, Shawinigan Falls, Que.
Industrial Life Insurance Company, Quebec, Que.
Montreal Life Insurance Company. Montreal, Que.
La Soeiete Nationale de Fiducie, Montreal, Que.
La Caisse Populaire de Cabano, Cabano, Que.
Caisse Nationale d'Economie, Montreal, Que.
Sherbrooke Trust Company, Sherbrooke, Que.
La Caisse Populaire du Christ-Roi, Levis, Que.
La Caisse d'Habitaitions Desjardins, Quebec, Que.
The Empire Life Insurance Company, Kingston, Ont.
The National Life Assurance Company of Canada, Toronto, Ont.
The Toronto General Trusts Corporation, Toronto, Ont.
Premier Trust Company, Toronto, Ont.
Victoria Trust and Savings Company, Lindsay, Ont.
The Grey & Bruce Trust & Savings Company, Owen Sound, Ont.

Toronto Mutual	Life	Insurance	Company,
Toronto, Ont.
Chartered Trust & Executor Company, Toronto, Ont.
Crown Life Insurance Company, Toronto, Onit.
The Lambton Loan & Investment Company, Sarnia, Ont.
Guelph & Ontario Investment & Savings Society, Guelph, Ont.
Trusts & Guarantee Company Limited, Toronto, Ont.
The	London &	Western Trusts	Company
Limited, London, Ont.
The Sterling Trusts Corporation, Toronto, Ont. ^ The Waterloo Trust & Savings Company, Kitchener, Ont.
The Ontario Loan & Debenture Company, London, Ont.
British Mortgage & Trust Corporation of Ontario, Stratford, Ont.
The	Dominion	Life	Assurance	Company,
Waterloo, Ont.
The	T. Eaton	Life	Assurance	Company,
Toronto, Ont.
The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, Toronto, Ont.
The Equitable Life Insurance Company of Canada, Waterloo, Ont.
Confederation Life Association, Toronto, Out.
The Canada Life Assura'nce Company, Toronto, Ont.
The Northern Life Assurance Company of Canada, London, Ont.
The Mutual Life Assurance Company of Canada, Waterloo, Ont.
North American Life Assurance Company, Toronto, Ont.
The London Life Insurance Company, London, Ont.
The Great-West Life Assurance Company, Winnipeg, Man.
The Sovereign Life Assurance Company of Canada, Winnipeg, Man.
Investors' Syndicate of Canada Limited, Winnipeg, Man.
Fidelity Life Assurance Company, Regina, Sask.
The Prudential Insurance Company of America, Newark, N.J.	.


George Hugh Castleden: Have we a record of the number of losses that have taken place to date under the National Housing Act?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is under 11,000.


George Hugh Castleden: Section 29 (1) (b) provides that out of the federal government capital of $25,000,000 or reserves the corporation may make loans to any of the lending institutions under terms or conditions which the board may determine, upon the security of any assignment or agreement to assign mortgages held by the company. Does that not place the government in the position of being the holder of mortgages under this legislation?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.

Housing Act


George Hugh Castleden: Then probably it will be taking over more mortgages from the lending institutions?
Mr. IL8LEY: Not if we can avoid doing so.


George Hugh Castleden: But in fact it does act as a sort of cushion for the lending institutions?


James Lorimer Ilsley: It gives them a chance to sell or discount their mortgages and get more money to lend the public.


George Hugh Castleden: To the extent of
another $25,000,000?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes.


George Hugh Castleden: That is, to the extent of the lending powers of the government?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is right.


George Hugh Castleden: But it could act as a sort of cushioning organization for those companies. Suppose these lending institutions were to sell to the corporation their poorer mort-, gages; then the corporation would stand to take the loss?


James Lorimer Ilsley: How do you think this corporation will be run? It will not be run by fools, if I have anything to do with it.


George Hugh Castleden: I hope not, but I am afraid it will be run largely by people who will be protecting those lending institutions.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is just the hon. gentleman's suspicious mind. This is not a plan to bail out mortgage institutions at all; it is to make more money available to the public.


George Hugh Castleden: Then why should it not be made available directly, if it is to be made available to the public and the government corporation is to stand as the holder of assigned mortgages?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am not prepared just yet to become the sole or main mortgagee in the Dominion of Canada. I think we would be in endless trouble. I do not believe we are in a position to do so. I think it would be an expensive way of doing it. I believe there would be all kinds of pressure on us to do things we should not do. I believe the cost, the spread, would be greater than the spread at the present time, and I do not see any reason for trying to monopolize that field. I know it may be a matter of political philosophy or economic ideology or something of that kind; nevertheless that is my view.


George Hugh Castleden: I was just pointing out that under this bill it is possible that this corporation may function merely as cushioning for the lending institutions.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not understand the word "cushioning."


George Hugh Castleden: Well, the cushion is this. A company gets hold of a poor mortgage. I know they do not make many bad loans, but if a company did have a bunch of them it would be possible for this government corporation to take them over and the company would be guaranteed against loss, through this institution.
Mr. ILSL'EY: My experience with these government institutions, the Bank of Canada and so on, is that they like- to make a pretty good showing. They do not like to have a bad record in these matters, and I do not have any idea that this institution would do anything of the kind suggested by my hon. friend. If my hon. friend is thinking they would act in bad faith, I cannot admit they would at all. I know very well they would not, and I do not think they would be either incompetent or lacking in integrity in the way they carried on this business. I should think they would carry it on competently. It is a very much easier business to carry on, a very much simpler business, than direct lending to hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of Canadians.


George Hugh Castleden: If you took the loans through agencies in each province, rather than through the lending institutions who are doing it at the present time; but I am willing to take the minister's word for it, and we will see how it operates.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 30-Corporation ancillary powers.
Mr. .KNOWLES: Arising out of our discussion when we were dealing with section 18, at which time I moved an amendment which I later withdrew, I now rise to offer . an amendment to this section. I may say that after this first amendment carries-and the committee will note the confidence I have in offering it-I should like to move still another amendment to this section. My reason for putting my proposal in the form of two amendments is that the minister has indicated already that he is favourably inclined to one part of what I should like to suggest. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Yorkton:
That subsection 1 of section 30 be amended by adding thereto as paragraph (f) the following:
"(f) make recommendations to the minister with regard to the making of grants for slum clearance under section 12 of the National Housing Act, 1944."
And that the subsequent paragraphs be relettered.
Housing Act
James Lorimer Ilsley: I accept that.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Stanley Howard Knowles: I wish to move another amendment, which gives expression to the other part of the amendment I withdrew a short time ago. My further amendment, which I move, seconded by the hon. member for Yorkton, is:
That subsection 1 of section 30 be amended by adding thereto as paragraph (g) the following:
"(g) make recommendations to the minister with regard to the making of agreements with provincial, municipal or other public housing authorities respecting the construction of houses under the provisions of the National Housing Act, 1944."
And that the subsequent paragraphs be relettered.
This afternoon when I was making the same proposition in the form of an amendment to section 18 one of the objections raised by the minister was that this would be introducing a new principle into this government's housing legislation. I recognize that, and recognize also that a similar amendment probably would have to be made to the National Housing Act. But I submit it is a new principle that needs to be introduced into the government's housing statutes. We have had the comment made a.number of times during this debate, even though the minister has taken objection to it, that in certain ways this legislation seems to favour the lending institutions. That is putting it mildly. I have noted with interest the reports in the press, particularly before this session of parliament was called, in regard to the position taken by the insurance companies that they were not able to go ahead and do what the minister wanted done under the National Housing Act, without some further legislation. In other words, there is a feeling, which I can say to the minister is held not only by supporters of this party but in a good many quarters, that this legislation is not primarily what the people of Canada want, namely legislation to get houses built-for the Canadian people, but rather that it is legislation to help the insurance companies.
I feel that if that situation is to be corrected, the time has come for the government to cease having these dealings primarily with insurance companies and lending institutions, and at least have an equal amount of dealings with bodies which, like this government, are public authorities responsible to the people. It is time that the principle of dealing in the matter of housing with provincial, municipal, or other public housing authorities
fMr. Knowles.]
should be established. Therefore I press upon the committee this amendment to subsection 1 of section 30.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If passed, this amendment would give the corporation power to make recommendations to the minister to do things he has no power to do. The hon. member meets that by saying that when the housing act comes along he will propose an amendment which would give the minister power to enter into agreements with the provinces and municipalities. But as the legislation exists at the present time there is no power on the part of the minister to make agreements with provincial. municipal or other public housing authorities respecting the construction of houses. If by "authorities" is meant provincial governments and municipal governments, it is possible that if the minister were to approve that limited dividend corporations should be formed and owned by provinces and municipalities, the situation would be different. But as the hon. member is talking about municipal and provincial governments, there is no power under the housing act to enter into agreements with them. Therefore this amendment would give the corporation power to make recommendations which could not be carried out, and therefore I cannot accept it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I think the amendment should be put.
Amendment (Mr. Knowles) negatived: yeas, 26; nays, 74.


William Ross Macdonald: I declare the amendment lost.


John Bracken: May I say a word? We had no expectation that there would be a recorded vote on the amendment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: This is not recorded.


John Bracken: I may say in the matter that, with respect to the purpose of the amendment, we are in favour of it. But when the minister states that the passage of the amendment would have no practical effect, then we could see no virtue in it. Therefore members of this group were against it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It would have laid down a principle.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I should like to call the attention of the minister to a word in subsection 2 of section 30. This subsection as it stands purports to empower the corporation to pay taxes to municipal or other taxing authorities in the amount equivalent to the taxes which would be levied in respect of the property, if it had been in private hands. The language of the subsection is purely permissive;

Housing Act
I suggest that it ought to be mandatory, and that the word "may" in line 9 should be changed to the word "shall".
Many municipalities have suffered considerable hardship by reason of the fact that they have been unable to tax land and buildings occupied by His Majesty, or any agency of the crown. During the time of war, when so many buildings were taken over by government agencies, the loss in revenue to some municipalities reached tremendous proportions. In those municipalities where the government has been most active in establishing either corporations or agencies, the loss has been particularly heavy. The farther we extend the operations of the government into the field of land ownership, the more vigilant we ought to become to see to it that the government submits to taxation by municipal authorities, in the same way as other owners or occupants of real property.
I take it that the principle is, acknowledged in this section of the bill. It would seem to be Recognized that there is equity behind the demand of the municipalities in this respect. Why stop there? If it is right that the corporation should be empowered to make payments equivalent to the taxes it would pay if it were a purely private organization, then why should it not submit entirely to such taxation? I strongly urge this upon the minister, and move:
That the word "may" be stricken out, and the word "shall" substituted therefor.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know that I am giving all the reasons for the use of this language, but I would assume that the word "may" is used because this property is the property of His Majesty the King, even though it is in the name of the corporation. I think it is usual to use the word "may" rather than the word "shall" when attempting to bind His Majesty. As a matter of practice, as a matter of getting along with the municipalities, these taxes will be paid. I suppose there is some discretion left under the section, and maybe a little is necessary because municipal bodies have been known to be a little harder on His Majesty than on their own citizens. The intention here is to pay taxes that would be paid if the property were owmed by a resident of the municipality.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I should like to offer a
brief comment upon two of the points the minister has made. It is quite true the necessity for this section arises out of the fact that His Majesty has title to the land, but I wish to point out that this is the section which empowers the corporation to make certain payments. Therefore I do not see why the
section should not be mandatory in its terms because it applies only to the corporation. The second point is that I think the danger is no less serious that the municipalities will seek to overtax than that the corporation may seek to submit to less than the full amount it ought in fairness to pay.


James Lorimer Ilsley: My colleague, the Minister of Justice, points out that section 125 of the British North America Act reads:
No lands or property belonging to Canada or any province shall be liable to taxation.
Therefore it would be unconstitutional to make the corporation liable for this taxation. The best that can'be done is to give them the power to pay an amount equivalent to the taxation that would be levied on the corporation if it were not an agent of His Majesty.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I will not press the amendment. On the constitutional aspect I see no difference between the permissive and mandatory terms.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The one purports to make
the crown liable, which the British North America Act says it cannot be. The British North America Act says it shall not be liable, but this section empowers the corporation to make a payment.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Paragraph (f), which I
mentioned the other night, reads as follows:
(f) exercise or perform any other powers, duties or functions conferred on or required to be performed by the corporation under any other act or order in council.
I suggest that after the words "order in council" there be added the words "respecting housing." It seems to me that the present wording of this paragraph gives practically blanket powers to the corporation with regard to financing, buying and selling of properties or any other function.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It would have to be "any
other act respecting housing or any order in council respecting housing."


Agar Rodney Adamson: "Any other act or order in council respecting housing."


James Lorimer Ilsley: Does the hon. gentleman intend that those words shall qualify-


Agar Rodney Adamson: I think they should be
added after the words "order in council" and before the word "and."


James Lorimer Ilsley: Is it, the hon. gentleman's
intention that the words shall qualify "order in council" alone or "order in council" and "act"?

Housing Act


Agar Rodney Adamson: I think they both should be qualified, yes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know what acts
there are or what orders in council there may be respecting housing.


Agar Rodney Adamson: An order in council could be passed.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: I do not want to
repeat, but unfortunately the Minister of Finance and the hon. member for York West have been having a little private conversation. We would like to hear what is going on. I just . had a wire from my district-


Mr. JACKMAN:: Move over to our side.


George Alexander Cruickshank: If I am ever on
that side it will be a sorry day for Canada, but it will be a sorrier day for Canada if you people are ever on this side. I want to ask the Minister of Finance, when he is through with his little conversation with the hon. member over there, about two naval stations, an airport and an army camp in my riding. I see no reason why the farmers in my district, including myself, should have to pay taxes to build a road for the benefit of the dominion government, because, as I understand from the minister's private conversation, that is what it means. I wish to know if the minister is saying that the federal government, because of some ruling made in 1876 or some other time, is not going to pay taxes when facilities are provided by the municipality?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The crown is not .liable for taxes according to the provisions of the British North America Act. I read the section a few minutes ago but perhaps the hon. gentleman did not hear it.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The Acting Prime Minister is quite correct; I did not hear it because he was talking privately to some one over there. I wish to know if this government is in favour of a municipality providing facilities for the dominion government and not being able to collect taxation.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is a great deal to be said on both sides of that controversy, and it has all been said many times during the last three or four years, I can assure my hon. friend. Our experience during the war was that we had delegations repeatedly demanding airports or other dominion government developments in their respective municipalities. Great pressure was put on to get them, and at that time the municipalities apparently were not the least bit worried over the fact that they would not be getting any taxation on those properties. But after a while other delegations came to Ottawa wanting the
	.
dominion government to pay taxes which we were not liable to pay under the British North America Act. .


George Alexander Cruickshank: Not from my riding.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Generally the citizens are sufficiently compensated for the fact that they have to pay some taxes to provide facilities for properties upon which the dominion government does not pay taxes. There may be( some exaggerated or extreme cases in various parts of Canada, and apparently my hon. friend has one in mind. However, I think we may be getting a little far afield from the bill before the committee.


An hon. MEMBER:: We cannot hear.


George Alexander Cruickshank: You will hear me. Will the minister tell the committee this: If the federal government takes over a piece of property, say for an airport, and then later leases it to a private individual, will that lessee be liable to taxation?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know whether the lessee would be liable to taxation. I suppose it. would depend upon the local statute.


George Alexander Cruickshank: That is not a good enough answer. I just received a wire from a municipality in my riding Stating that the federal government had taken over a certain piece of property for an airport. My information is that they have since subleased that property to a private individual, and my information is also tfaa't when they sublease to a private individual, the property is liable to municipal taxation. Is that correct or not?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am unable to answer the question because I am not familiar with the provisions of the British Columbia statutes.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Well, Mr. Chairman, British Columbia is responsible for an awful lot, but it is not responsible for federal legislation. This came to me from the muni-' cipality of Sumas, which is one of the most responsible in the Dominion of Canada, and they do not waste their time on frivolous answers from anybody. If a piece of property is subleased by the crown-and with all the subcfficials here surely somebody can give me an answer-if a piece of property owned by the federal government is subleased to Mr. Ernest Butterfield, is he liable for taxation?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Once again it depends upon the provisions of the British Columbia statute.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Nonsense.


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is nothing to prevent British Columbia from authorizing a muni-

War Charities Act
cipality to tax a lessee or sub-lessee, but they cannot authorize a municipality to tax the crown in the right of the dominion.


William Ross Macdonald: The words "frivolous" and "nonsense" as used by the hon. member are improper, and I would request the hon. member to use more restraint.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I withdraw them, Mr. Chairman. I understand from the Acting Prime Minister that he has given the province of British Columbia full authority to tax through the municipality any land so leased. Is that correct? That is a straight question and I would like an answer.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I was not conscious of giving any authority to anyone.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Will the minister consider adding these qualifying words to paragraph (f) "respecting housing"?


James Lorimer Ilsley: This bill relates to more than housing. This section is an empowering section. It confers upon the corporation the power to exercise or perform any other powers, duties or functions conferred on or required to be performed by the corporation under any other act or order in council. It is the sort of clause, it seems to me, that is to be found in the charter of a company.


Agar Rodney Adamson: But it gives the corporation such tremendously wide powers that it could do virtually anything.


James Lorimer Ilsley: It is not intended to. If there is an act saying that the corporation shall do certain things, this simply says that they shall have the power to do that; that is all. I really do not know why it is there; I do not know what is the need of it. If by another Act the corporation is required to perform a certain act I would have thought the corporation had power to do it, but there is apparently some provision of corporation law which says that you have to put the power to carry out duties in the list of powers. That is the reason it is there. It does not give any powers that are not already conferred by some other act.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 31 to 38 inclusive agreed to.
On section 39-Approval of governor in council on recommendation of minister.
Agar Rodney Adamson: Will the minister give some explanation of this clause? A debate took place on it the other day and the minister said that he could not see any reason for the clause.


James Lorimer Ilsley: This clause was put in to make it clear that the corporation has not the power to make recommendations' to council. Exception was taken to the wording of the section by the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard, and I thought his point was well taken. So that I am prepared to have it moved that section 39 be amended by striking out the words "made at the request of the corporation" in line 12 on page 12 of the said bill.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I move accordingly, Mr. Chairman.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
Sections 40 and 41 agreed to.
On section 42-Assets of central mortgage bank transferred to corporation.
George Hugh Castleden: What are those assets?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Government bonds worth $250,000.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 43-Coming into force.
Donald Methuen Fleming: When does the minister propose to bring part II of this act into force by proclamation?


James Lorimer Ilsley: We are aiming at the first of January.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Section 1 agreed to.
Bill reported.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, November 7, consideration of the motion of Hon. Mr. McCann for the second reading of Bill No. 13, to amend the War Charities Act.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.
On section 1-War charity fund.
John Ritchie MacNicol: I want first to see if I am correct in interpreting the principle of the bill which the minister announced the other evening, that all the war memorials are to come under the War Charities Act.


James Joseph McCann: It will include, we expect, all war memorials. Section 1 has to do with
War Chanties Act

definitions, and the definition of "war charity fund" has been extended by the addition of the words:
and includes a fund having far its object, or among its objects the erection, construction, acquisition, development or maintenance of a war memorial.
Of course that definition gives a very wide latitude, and it can include hospitals, monuments, memorial parks, playgrounds, all such things as that. The purpose, of course, in enlarging the definition is that these funds may come under the supervision of the government and under the War Charities Act; and with a view to protecting the public in the securing of the funds, organizations that propose to have a war memorial fund will register under the act and the funds which they collect will be under the supervision of directors, just as they have been under the war charity fund.
The war charity fund as defined in the bill neans:
any fund having for its object or among its objects any purpose, charitable or otherwise arising out of or connected with the war.
The way the registration has been carried on, and it would apply in the case of war memorials, is to require each applicant-which may be a municipality or a club or the legion or some like body-to submit to tihe department an application in writing signed by at least three members of the organization, whose signatures must be duly witnessed, setting out in complete detail the name of the organization, the number of its branches if any, the name of the bank in which the money is to be credited, the amount of money it expects to collect, the manner in which such moneys are to be collected, the object upon which such moneys are to be spent, and the estimated cost of the operation. All that will be given in detail when application is made to the department for a permit to proceed with the erection of a war memorial.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Would it include the erection of cenotaphs or memorial crosses in cemeteries?


James Joseph McCann: I think so. I might add that in order to protect the public each registered fund must submit a yearly audited statement as of December 31 covering the total receipts and disbursements accruing to the fund during the calendar year immediately preceding the report. Such statement must be accompanied by a certificate from a professional practising accountant.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The other evening the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar in the course of his remarks referred to the purchasing of
CMr. McCann.]
land for war memorial parks and so forth, and with that part of his speech I was heartily in accord. He mentioned the children of the cities, and, in particular, Ottawa. I should like to know if this bill would cover the purchase of land for such a purpose as the hon. member mentioned. All around our cities- I am familiar with Ottawa but I have more particularly in mind the neighbourhood of Toronto-there are many beautiful ravines of natural origin, belonging to farms but not worked as farm land because they are probably too rough for that purpose. Usually a small creek runs through such a ravine. For a long time I have wondered1 why we cannot do in Canada what is done in the old land. Adjacent to London and other British cities are a great number of such sites which have been taken over and are maintained for the use of the citizens. To these places on Sundays and on holidays, or indeed on any day, women and children can go and enjoy the country for the good of their health. Such parks, if opened up in this country under this bill, could be called memorial parks. Up to the present we have nothing like that in Canada. Children in Toronto must go out either along the lake shore or to some one of the city parks. If this bill covers the purchase of memorial parks I believe that in-the township of York, where there are a number of spendid ravines, those ravines could be taken over and used as memorial parks to which the children of deceased soldiers or of living soldiers could go for a day's recreation. Would the bill cover any such project as that?


James Joseph McCann: Yes, it certainly would. It is included within the definitions, more particularly paragraph (c), which states:
"war memorial" includes any building or other structure erected, constructed, acquired, developed or maintained or any real property acquired to commemorate the war or to preserve the memory of those who served in the war that has been either before or after erection, construction, acquisition, development or the commencement of the maintenance, designated by regulation as a. war memorial or is of a class that has been designated by regulation as a class of war memorials.
And the cases outlined by my hon. friend would certainly came within the purview of the definition,


John Ritchie MacNicol: Would it also include
something like we have in front of the city hall in Toronto, a cenotaph? I am sure the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar who spoke a few days ago did not mean that he was opposed to any such monuments. Perhaps he had in mind something for children and I agree with that. The hon. member for Macleod suggested monuments, and I believe what they

War Charities Act
both advocated should be supported. I know that on Saturday night there was a patriotic demonstration before the cenotaph in Toronto that showed the heart and soul which are behind th-e people of this empire and which have made them invincible in war. People must have something behind them to be invincible. I believe the order-I think they call themselves the Crusaders of St. John of Jerusalem -changed the guard in front of the cenotaph in front of the city hall on Saturday night, and it was as inspiring a spectacle as one could wish to see. Any memorial of that kind that this department could encourage to be erected, would do a lot toward inculcating in our people, particularly our young people, a spirit of loyalty to tradition. I do not know of any other place that they could get it more effectively. I know that yesterday in Earlscourt park, Toronto, where some 3,567-I am speaking from memory-soldiers of the great war are buried around the cross of sacrifice there was a spectacle that should be encouraged everywhere. It is not much wonder that Toronto has given such a demonstration of loyalty during the war to that cause when all over the city there are parks, cenotaphs and memorial! crosses where people can go on a day like yesterday and hear those old inspiring hymns or verses of patriotism such as were sung in Earlscourt park yesterday at the Earlscourt veterans' armistice sun rise service, lit was one of the greatest demonstrations I have been in for a long time.
I am happy to support the bill and the minister's avowed objectives, whiifii are the providing of memorial parks, cenotaphs, memorial crosses and so forth. The .minister speaks about bringing all contributions, made for memorials of one kind or another, under his department where the contributions will. be protected and the chiseler and the racketeer wiped out. When the hon. member for High Park was speaking he suggested that that should be in tlhe bill. In his early remarks the minister said:
I may say that retrain influential bodies throughout the country have made representations to the department that in their judgment it would be advisable if the war charities administration included the supervision of funds for war memorials.
He then explained the reasons why. Then the hon. member for High Park asked the question if the folks donating to war memorials Vvould be able to deduct something from their income tax returns, and the minister made a statement which-I am sure will be of great encouragement to the people donating. He said that there would be another advantage to having war memorial funds come within the jurisdiction of the War Charities Act.
It would mean that certain charitable organizations which would be approved by the department would automatically be accepted by the income tax division for the purposes of the income tax act. I should like the minister to elaborate on that when he replies to .me.
I have just a few more remarks to make in order to ascertain a little information. In the county of Lanark in 1827, a county adjacent to the minister's county which" was at that time I believe part of the jurisdiction that radiated out from the town of Perth, there was established the first rural library in Ontario. St. Andrew's hall was erected in 1827. There has been established this year in Dalhousie township a committee consisting of Mr. Lome Gemmill as chairman, Mr. Lloyd Craig as treasurer and others to collect money to rebuild or restore St. Andrew's hall. The old building has long since vanished. It lasted from 1827 to 1900, and then fell into decay. The books and the treasures of the building are now preserved in an old hall in Watson's Corners. They are collecting funds to build a hall there. I do not know whether that- building will be called a memorial hall or not. Would a hall of that kind, or a memorial library be classed as a war memorial, and would the donors to the funds for such a building be permitted to deduct the amount from their income tax returns?


James Joseph McCann: 
William Irvine: I do not wish to appear to be in opposition to this bill. I am quite aware that people must have symbols, cenotaphs and memorial buildings as a means of expressing their emotions; but I wish to say that there is not anything in this section of the bill which describes the kind of memorial
War Chanties Act

that I think would be fitting for the sacrifices which have been made by the Canadian people and by the Canadian youth in this great war. I should like to see a memorial which would place upon this parliament and this government the responsibility of guaranteeing social security for all the people of Canada as a real war memorial; of guaranteeing that every Canadian would have sufficient food to make health possible, remembering that one-third of the Canadian people to-day are undernourished, according to the report of. Doctor Pett, a government official. I should like also to see a war memorial which would guarantee to every family in the Dominion of Canada a comfortable and beautiful home in which to live. I should like to see a war memorial which would guarantee to the children of dead soldiers, as to all the children of Canada to come, the very best attention that medical science can provide. I should like to see equality of opportunity in education for all the children of Canada as a war memorial, an equality which would say that the children of loggers, miners and farmers would have just as good an opportunity in high schools and colleges as the children of millionaires now have. I do not think anything short of that would be a memorial worthy of the sacrifices made by Canadian soldiers in this war.


Mr. HANSELL:: I wish to ask the minister a question in regard to the words "developed or maintained" in paragraph (c). Does that make provision for any services that might be involved in the upkeep or administration of any particular war memorial? I have something else in mind which I might mention; then the minister will be able to 'get the picture. Just in passing, may I say I am entirely in accord with what the hon. member for Cariboo has said. There is no question that the people of Canada should be given security; that the children of those who fought and died should have just as much'security as the children of millionaires, and I do not think the hon. memb'er intended to convey any false impression. I trust that he did not have in mind that if we have money for war memorials, therefore we will not have money for security.


William Irvine: Not at all.


Ernest George Hansell: That is the point. I do not think we should embark upon a wrong philosophy. Just because we spend money on war memorials, to my mind should not mean we shall have any less money to spend on the security of the people.
While I am on my feet I should like to make one or two observations and then come back to my question. If we are to have war TMr. Irvine.]
memorials I believe we should have the best. I have noticed some agitation on the part of artists, or should I say artisans, to confine the work in connection with these memorials to Canadian artists. I am not entirely in sjmn-pathy with that view. I believe we should use all the Canadian talent we have, and I think we possess a great deal of it in Canada. I believe also we have a good deal of potential talent that many of our young sons and daughters have not yet had a chance to bring out. But all the artistry that is required may not be found within our own borders; and if in order to have the best we must obtain the advice of outstanding world artists and sculps tors, then I say nothing is too good for a war memorial. On a number of occasions I have been in our own memorial chamber in the peace tower with visitors. I have not travelled around the world, but I have been in most of the large cities of the United States. I did take a smattering of art in my younger days, and while I do not claim to have a superabundance of appreciation for art, I will say that I do not believe I have seen anywhere any greater portrayal of art and thought than has been shown by those who designed the memorial chamber in this building. That chamber is really a work of art, and the amount of thought that is behind it is tremendous. I find something new every time I go there. Nothing seems to have been forgotten. I do not know how many hon. members are aware that outside the entrance to the chamber there are even sculptured! in stone the forms of mice, rats and pigeons. I do not know how often these are brought to the attention of the public, but if you ask the reason for them you will find that these were used for war purposes. I certainly appreciate the thought that has been put into that memorial chamber. Around the altar where the Book of Remembrance is kept we have perhaps one of the finest inscriptions ever to come from the pen of man, apart from sacred scripture:
My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a wit ness for me that I have fought His battles who will now be my re warder. So he passed over and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.


Gordon Graydon: That is not scripture.


Ernest George Hansell: I know. I said to my mind it was one of the greatest expressions apart from scripture. It comes from Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress". I am only stating that I find a tremendous amount of thought has been put into that war memorial. The reason I asked about maintenance is this. I do not believe there is any particular ceremony at eleven o'clock each day when one page of

War Charities Act
that memorial book is turned over. I know this borders on the emotional and sentimental side a bit, but I have often thought that these things go to make up life. I know that two of the constables are delegated each day to turn over that one page. I thought this: Would it not be appropriate if some mother, chosen from some point in. Canada, could be given the task of turning over that page, perhaps bowing for a few moments of silent prayer while doing so. This could be a mother who had given her sons, or perhaps a husband, in world war I. I believe this would add dignity to the ceremony. Of course such a task would have to be paid for, and I am wondering if this measure would cover anything of that kind.
War memorials are for the remembrance of those who have died in battle. It is all very well for us to talk about what we have to do for the living; but the dead must be honoured.


James Joseph McCann: If the hon. member will read the definition section he will see that by regulation certain things may be classed as war memorials. There will be no attempt on the part of those who are administering the War Charities Act to have any standardization of memorials. As a matter of fact, if it were under my administration I would welcome Originality in memorials.
The hon. member has drawn attention to maintenance. Might I point out that a war memorial might be a ward in a hospital which would be maintained throughout the years by an organization as a memorial to those who had given their lives in a war. As I say, I think there will be broad interpretation of originality in design. I have no doubt that the definition of the term "war memorial" will be sufficiently broad to meet the wishes of almost any person or any group of persons interested in having a memorial in a community in honour of those who have given their lives during a war.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Perhaps the hon. member for Maeleod may not know-probably he does-that a great deal of the symbolism of this building was placed there by a Canadian who possibly is not so well known to the present generation. I refer to the very well known and greatly honoured gentleman who at one time was crown attorney of this county. I refer to "Dick" Ritchie, a man who had a great deal to do with the symbolism found in our peace tower. He was a man, essentially a Canadian, and one who was even more a citizen of Canada than a citizen of Ottawa. I do not know that any appreciation has been given to him, or made
on his behalf-he died some years ago-for the work he did in connection with the symbolism in these parliament buildings.
The architect of these buildings was John Pearson, another gentleman who, again, was peculiarly a Canadian. He came from Toronto, rather than Otthwa, and was recognized both on this continent and in Europe as one of the great architects of his time.
The last time this bill was debated I noticed that some reference was made to the plan to make Ottawa a national war memorial or a national shrine, and to the proposal to bring Mr. Greber to this city to carry out that plan. I take exception to this. It is not that I object to Mr. Greber, or to the fact that he is not a Canadian, but rather that I do not think the development of our national capital should be in the hands of any but a group of Canadians. I would be content to have opinions from abroad. Possibly the good Mr. Greber has done such work in the capital that he should be consulted. But to leave the whole thing in his hands is, to my mind, first of all a negation of Canadian citizenship and, second, something that amounts almost to a slap in the face of our Canadian architects and artists.
I feel that when this comes up for actual wprk a committee of Canadians should be appointed to assist Mr. Greber in the work of making this a great capital city. In this I am following two opinions, one of which is from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada which, in an editorial in their Journal states:
The highlight in the architectural news, this month, is a further indication of the government's or the Prime Minister's unwillingness to recognize Canadian professional ability. The Prime Minister has asked General de Gaulle, as a favour, to allow Mr. Greber to come to Ottawa for a further scheme of beautification. If town planning were involved for the complete reconstruction of Ottawa, we would be the first to approve the appointment, through competition or other means, of the best men available, from whatever country. He might be Mr. Patrick Abercrombie, Mr. Bar.tholemew or he might be a Canadian. It is unlikely that he would be Mr. Greber. That, of course, is the job that should be done for a capital city that is occupying an increasingly important position in world affairs. Actually the job proposed is a napoleonic one of window dressing in which buildings will be knocked down and squares formed, gardens will be laid out and trees planted. The poor will remain where they are, or wil. be squeezed more tightly, and the overall planning of the city will be made more difficult for the town planners who must inevitably be appointed in the present decade.
If that is the programme, there is no need to ask favours of General de Gaulle. We have no very high opinion of what has already been done in Ottawa. We speak, of course, as a Torontonian, but one who has seen Times square,
War Charities Act

the Brandenburg gate and the Etoile, and we know of no place that is such a hazard to life and limb, whether on foot or in a vehicle, than Confederation square in Ottawa. There are Canadians who would have done a better job, and there are Canadians who could handle practically and with greater dignity the programme that is, at present, contemplated.
This is a fair and a professional opinion from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, which points out some of the grave difficulties which will be in our way if we leave this planning in the hands of Mr. Greber alone.
I have one further opinion, that, of the head of the School of Seven. Perhaps it can be said that we in Canada have developed painting as an art. possibly to a higher degree than any other. Our painters have become world renowned. There are Canadian painters who are known and whose paintings have been hung in most European galleries. A particu-ularly interesting group, known as the group of seven, brought about a new concept of art, particularly Canadian art. I should like to read a short paragraph or two from Mr. Harris' letter. He says:
A master plan for this country's capital using the Canadian people's money is strictly a Canadian venture and demands the use of Canadian talent and competence. Not to use the talent of Canada, trained and highly efficient in tfe type of planning best suited to Canada, is a betrayal of its creative spirit.
Does the Prime Minister realize that he is denying his own people the use of their best creative minds ip planning what may be this country's most important national project? Does he realize that in so doing he is starving a need of the Canadian people as basic to pride and well-being on the creative level as food is on the physical level? Does he realize that a people establishes its symbols through its own creative life and work in the arts, translates thus its feeling for its country into clear and potent expression, clarifies its aspirations and so helps to shape its individuality? Does he realize that his own people cannot hope to rise to a decent and relf-reliant nationhood unless they create their own public works in their own terms before the world?
This Ottawa that we hope to see rise as the capital of a great Canadian nation must foe a Canadian city. It must not only be a Canadian city; it must be a city of government and be planned as such. Any city that is a city of government must be a peculiar city. It must have amenities for the machinery of government. It cannot be merely a planned town or a group of vistas; it must be able to house the various government structures and take care of the various government functions. It must be a show place to attract the people of the world. More than that, this city of ours should reflect Canada. I do not say that in any narrow provincial or nationalistic way. We 
must develop this capital of ours as a Canadian city. The predominant feeling behind this city and1 this memorial must be Canadian.
Therefore, in these few words I wish to protest against the destruction of Canadian creative ability by the appointment of someone outside Canada, irrespective of the work he has done before, to plan our national memorial. I believe he should be part of the plan, but he should have a group of Canadian artists, Canadian sculptors and Canadian architects helping him in this truly national and what we hope will be a magnificent endeavour.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I am very much interested in war charities, because in Peterborough we had one man,.Fred Mann, who organized the war charities fund during the war. Through his efforts he raised about $100,000, as the department well knows, all of which was sent to the Lord Mayor of London. That man worked morning, afternoon and night without any remuneration and he did an excellent job. I do not think his praises have been sung any place outside Peterborough and I think they should be. Peterborough has raised over $300,000 for a war memorial for her men who were lost in this war. It is intended to put up a building for recreational purposes and this will be one of the finest in Canada.
The minister mentioned the income tax exemption. I do not know whether I am right but I understand the purpose of this bill is not only to protect the Canadian people against fraud but also to give the department a chance to check on these war charities for income tax purposes. If a war memorial is built and fees are charged and the building makes a profit, does the department say that those profits are to be put back into the fund again so that no individual will get a profit out of it?


James Joseph McCann: If it does not become a
commercial proposition they keep it for maintenance purposes.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: It must not be used for
commercial purposes?


James Joseph McCann: No.


Mr. DESMOND:: According to letters I
have received, the public do not seem to understand this'bill to amend the War Charities Act, 1939. There seems to be the impression that some provision is being made whereby the department will subscribe to war memorials which may be built in the different municipalities. I have not the 1939 act before me and possibly the minister can enlighten me.


James Joseph McCann: I do not just get the
question.

C.PJI.-Pension Rights for Strikers


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Is the government to be a contributor?


James Joseph McCann: A group of citizens in a
community may - take it upon themselves to inaugurate a scheme to raise money to build some type of war memorial. The whole purpose of defining a war memorial is to give the bona fide appeal a 'better chance of receiving public support. We feel this will result if these appeals are under the same regulations that obtained with reference to war charities. The section under review has to do entirely with the definition of "war memorial."
In answer to t'h-e hon. member for York West I may say that at the present -time it is not a matter of the completion of any particular memorial. His observations with reference -to making Ottawa a national war memorial perhaps should be made when the Minister of Public Works is before the committee. The hon. member has referred to Mr. Greber, and for his information I can say that Mr. Greber intends, and has so stated, to use the services of Canadian architects in carrying out the work he has in hand. He is to act in an advisory and supervisory capacity. As he stated in the railway committee room aJbout a week ago, he intends to use -the services of Canadian architects who perhaps will be in a better position to carry out the details of his suggestions than he is himself. They will know more about the local conditions than he does.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2-Regulations.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Would- the minister consider what might be a suitable type of programme at t'he ceremonies that are held around war memorials such as the cenotaph or the Cross of Sacrifice? I have seen quite a number of these ceremonies -and some have been most impressive, while others were not so much so. Yesterday I saw one that impressed me greatly. One part in particular was most impressive, and that was the sounding of the Last Post, and the firing of the salute. Four bars of "Nearer My God to Thee" were played before the rifles were fired, and another four bars between each blast of the rifles, or sixteen bars altogether before the three blasts had been fired. It was soul-stirring and inspiring, and if the minister has not given consideration to such programmes it might be worth while doing so. Many beautiful old-time hymns and sacred songs that have come down to us through the ages could be incorporated in such a programme, such as "Lead Kindly Light," "Abide With Me," "O Valiant Hearts" and others equally soul-inspiring. Has the minister considered anything along that line?


James Joseph McCann: I can give only my personal opinion. I would not be in favour of any standardization of the type of memorial service that should be held. I think that should be left entirely to the wishes of the local community. There should be the utmost autonomy in that matter. In Nova Scotia they might want a service in'Gaelic, and that would- not be understood in British Columbia. The service is a reflection of the spirit of the people in the community in which it is held, and I think it should be left to the good judgment of the people in the community so long as the main purpose is to pay some form of tribute at the memorial to the people for whom it was erected.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs). moved that the house go into committee of supply.
Stanley Howard Knowles: Before Your Honour leaves the chair I should like to speak for a few minutes on an important matter. It is not my intention to prevent the house from going into supply, but this may be my last opportunity during the present session to raise this matter. It is one which I have brought to the attention of the government on a number of occasions and in which I am deeply concerned. I regret that neither the Acting Prime Minister (Mr. Usley) nor the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) is present at the moment, but perhaps if my remarks are noted, one of these ministers might give me an answer on the orders of the day to-morrow.
I have in mind the question of the pension rights of certain employees of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company in Winnipeg whose rights have been interfered with because of the 1919 strike. The remarks I need to make on this occasion can be brief. Following repeated representations which I made on the matter in -the house together with representations made by the unions to which these men belong, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) finally, on April 12, 1945, during the last parliament, indicated to me that the government would give consideration to the establishing of a royal commission to investigate this matter. That intimation given by the Prime Minister was received with a great deal of hope by these men. They knew

C.P.R.-Pension Rights jor Strikers
of the efforts that the Prime Minister had made in connection with a similar situation a good many years ago and of the success that he had achieved on that occasion, and they and I have dared to believe that this matter might be dealt with expeditiously. However, the course followed by the government was to ask an employee in the Department of Labour to make a preliminary investigation to determine whether or not an investigation should be made by a royal commission. That information is not secret; it is known to all of us who are interested in the matter.
Early in this session, on September 10, as recorded at page 24 of Hansard, I asked the Prime Minister what progress had been made in connection with this preliminary investigation the purpose of which was to determine whether an investigation should be made by a royal commission. The Prime Minister's reply was to the effect that the Department of Labour official was at work on the matter and that he had indicated that he wished to proceed further with his investigation before submitting his final report.
Entirely apart from the long years that have elapsed since 1919, it is the feeling of the . men for whom I am speaking and my own feeling that there has been more delay than is necessary since the Prime Minister's intimation on April 12 ofthis year that consideration would be given to the appointment of a royal commission, and I hope that the Minister of Labour perhaps to-morrow will make a statement indicating whether or not the official of his department has yet made a report and whether something cannot soon be done to come to a decision whether or not a royal commission is to be set up. The case, Mr. Speaker, is one in which -I am not only deeply concerned, but I feel that if ever I were pleadiDg a just cause it is the cause of these men. That is the reason I have taken this opportunity, on what may be one of the last supply motions while I am here this session to raise this matter, because .1 regard it as extremely important. I hope that what I have said will be noted by the Minister of Labour and perhaps by the Prime Minister when he comes back, and that before I return from the trip on which I am being sent a decision will be made and this royal commission established, so that it can commence its work, in the hope that a decision favourable to the men involved might soon be made.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I can assure my hon. friend that his remarks will be brought to the attention of the Minister of Labour to-morrow morning.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Thank you.

Motion agreed to and the house went into committee of supply, Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: We are going to call just three items in the civil estimates.



DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL REVENUE

[Stage Direction]
Customs and excise divisions-
221. General administration, and notwithstanding the provisions of the Customs Act and the Excise Act, to authorize the fund as described in, and to be administered in accordance with, the provisions of P.C. 233/1601 of August 22, 1929, as amended, $996,175.
Item stands.

[Stage Direction]
231. Departmental administration, $811,425.
Item stands.

[Stage Direction]
21/7. Departmental administration, $196,195.
Item stands.
Progress reported.
John Ritchie MacNicol: How many departments .have been called?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: There are now eight departments in supply, and about eight to be put into supply.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie the house adjourned at 10.55 p.m.
Tuesday, November 13, 1945.