1946-06-11

PRIVILEGE


Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, before the business is proceeded with I wish to rise to a question of privilege, affecting not only myself but I am sure other members of the house as well. Hon. members have been receiving cards purporting to be signed by their constituents, and supplied by the Income Tax Payers' Association, which read:
I respectfully urge:
1.	That the government apply income taxation on exactly the same basis on all forms of commercial enterprise, including cooperatives, crown companies, municipal and governmental undertakings and mutual concerns.
2.	That patronage dividends, and like payments, be disallowed as an expense before arriving at taxable income.
Some of us have acknowledged a number of these cards. We are now getting letters from the persons who were purported to have signed them; and some are returned marked "no such person." I shall just read one to give the house an indication of the type of letter wh are receiving. This reads:
I received your letter this morning and I wish to state that no such card was ever sent by myself or any member of my family. It seems that some one is signing false signatures and sending these cards in, as I have heard others of this district complain of getting letters the^ could not understand.
The letters that hon. members are getting in acknowledgment of the letters written by hon. members indicate that apparently no such cards have been sent by these people.


Mr. SMITH (Calgary West):: On the same question of privilege, I have received 1,270 cards, but I was smarter-I have not answered one of them.


Major James William Coldwell: It is a good thing that somebody answered them so that we may know who is sending them.



PAYMENT ON 1943-44 PARTICIPATION CERTIFICATES

Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I am now in a position to make a brief statement in respect to the payment on 1943-44 wheat participation certificates. The surplus in the

1943-44 board account is approximately 836,000,000, which on deliveries of 293,375,116 bushels will provide an average final payment of about 12 cents per bushel.
In connection with the surplus on the 194344 board account, it is necessary to mention that on sales in the domestic market, the intention is that there shall be no loss or gain as far as the producer is concerned-this wheat is sold at 81.25 per bushel, basis No. 1 northern, in store Fort William/Port Arthur or Vancouver, with the dominion government assuming carrying charges. 1943-44 wheat for export was sold over a period of approximately a' year and a half, commencing in October, 1943.
The actual payment on 1943-44 participation certificates will begin as soon as the barlej? equalization payment and the Ontario wheat flour equalization payments are completed. Requisition forms will be distributed through country elevators within a week or ten days time. These are the forms upon which producers will list their 1943-44 wheat participation certificates for forwarding to the board for payment.
It is expected that the payment on the 1943-44 board account will be much more rapid than the payment in respect to participation certificates for 1940-41, 1941-42 and
1942-	43. In these latter crop years, about five to six million participation certificates were outstanding and approximately twenty per cent had been lost or misplaced, which retarded the rate at which payment could be made. In respect to 1943-44, there will be fewer lost certificates, and the payment should proceed much more rapidly. Approximately 2,500,000 participation certificates are involved in the 1943-44 payment, and it is estimated that about 400,000 cheques will be issued.
Last year some areas in southern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta experienced poor crops, and in some points in Saskatchewan low yields per acre were harvested in 1943 as well. In making payment on 1943-44 participation certificates, the Canadian wheat board will arrange to make payment first in these areas to which I have just referred. The
1943-	44 production was very uniform, and with the exception of a very few grades, the payment per grade will be about twelve cents a bushel in each case.


Mr. BRACKEN:: Could the minister state approximately when the cheques will go out?


James Angus MacKinnon: As far as I know, ir. about ten days' time.

Labour Conditions



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Peel):: May I ask the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs when the next election of member nations to the security council of the united nations will be held, and what member nations are due to retire from the security council prior to such election?
Right Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs): The next election to the security council of the united nations is due to be held at the general assembly of the united nations which is called for September 3, 1946. No member is to retire before that date. But Egypt, Mexico and the Netherlands were elected to the security council for a one-year term ending in January, 1947, and they are due to be rerjlaced by those who will be designated at election to be held at the September meeting of the general assembly of the united nations.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Graydon: May I ask the Minister of Finance whether in his preparation of the forthcoming budget he will give favourable consideration to permitting unmarried persons, widows, widowers, and separated married persons to claim married status in their future income tax returns where such persons maintain a self-contained domestic establishment?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Gordon Graydon: I hope the government is not closing the door to suggestions affecting the welfare of the people-


Right Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, while I received notice of the question I did not really expect my hon. friend to ask it, because it is an attempt to elicit advance information about the budget.
Mr. GRAYrDON: I was not seeking advance information. I was asking the minister to give consideration to my suggestion.


Mr. McCANN:: Favourable consideration.


Gordon Graydon: I would not expect the Minister of Finance to divulge in advance anything about the budget.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Cape Breton South):: May I direct a question to the Minister of Labour arising out of inquiries I am receiving from the steelworkers' union at Sydney, Nova Scotia. Has the Department of Labour been requested by the national steelworkers' union and the minister of labour in the Nova Scotia government to set up a commission to inquire into the wage rates paid in the steel industry? If so, can the minister name the personnel of the commission? If not, is the government considering the appointment of such a commission?


Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, the answer is simple. Most people know, particularly my hon. friend, that we are having our troubles one way or another in many parts of Canada. I have received a wire from the minister of labour for Nova Scotia suggesting that a commissioner be appointed in connection with the dispute that exists in the steel industry. I have no knowledge of having received any request from the steelworkers' union, but it is my intention to appoint a commissioner in the near future. When that is done I shall be glad to acquaint the house.
seamen's strike
On the orders of the day:


Humphrey Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I might just as well mention another big strike in the country, the seamen's strike, because I shall probably be asked a question about it. The parties are closer together to-day than they ever were before. I think that is a fair thing to say. May I add that we are getting all the old tricks of the trade in this dispute. We have the usual gang of overnight revolutionaries, professing to give leadership to the rank and file of the seamen's organization. Only last week the same old communist trick was played: I was billed to address a meeting in Welland, my constituency, along with Mr. Pat Sullivan, a Mr. McLean, and C. S. Jackson of the electrical workers' union, but I had not been consulted. At least somebody did send a wire to me but my office wired back that I could not be there. Those who know the intimate workings of the labour movement appreciate this kind of dodge.
As I have said before, I am prepared as Minister of Labour to support any just cause. I always endeavour to be fair and decent and
Atomic Energy Control

to avoid taking sides except when absolutely necessary. This kind of gag, you understand, does not fool me or further the interests of the working people of this country. I repeat that the communist crowd in this country do not want a settlement of strikes. Let me say this to them: Speaking as an individual, if they want a battle, well, the battle is on.



LUMBER INDUSTRY-STRIKE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. GROTE STIRLING (Yale):: Will the minister deal with the situation in British Columbia?


Humphrey Mitchell: I have not had any further information about British Columbia.



HAROLD LASKI


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. G. HANSELL (Macleod):: May I ask a question of the appropriate minister?- I think it would be the Minister of Justice. I am sorry I did not give notice of the question. What action has the government taken or is it contemplating in regard to a statement made by one Harold Laski, prominent in government circles of another country, smearing the Canadian judiciary, particularly when the spy cases are sub judicel
Right Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Minister of Justice): Mr. Speaker, the Canadian government has taken no action and feels that it can leave it to the good sense of the Canadian public to form its own impressions of the statement made.



DOMINION ELECTIONS ANNIVERSARY OF 1945 ELECTION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. L. A. MUTCH (Winnipeg South):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the Acting Prime Minister. Have any steps been taken to mark this June 11th anniversary of the last federal election as a day of national thanksgiving?



ATOMIC ENERGY


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, June 10, consideration of the motion of Mr. Howe for the second reading of bill No. 165, relating to the development and control of atomic energy.
Mr. H. C. GREEN (Vancouver South) :: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Howe) is not speaking at this stage of the discussion on the motion for second reading of the bill, but I presume that he will be making a statement in concluding the debate.
The atomic energy control bill, unlike most of the bills that come before this house, breaks new ground. It is an attempt to deal with a new problem, that of the control of atomic energy, and to do so at a time when no one can be sure of the potentialities of this new power either for good or for evil, its potentialities for the improvement of the lot of humanity or for the destruction of our civilization.
Canada is directly concerned for several reasons. In the first place, in our country there is one of the main sources of the mineral from which this atomic energy is produced, namely uranium; it is found away off in the northwest territories of Canada. Secondly, Canadian scientists and manufacturers have taken a very big part in discovering the secret of atomic energy and of putting that energy to use. Canada is concerned for a third reason, in that we share with the United States and the United Kingdom many of the secrets of manufacture, and finally, because this nation is a member of the united nations atomic energy commission. Membership of that commission is confined to the eleven nations that have been elected to the security council, with the addition of Canada. So I repeat that we are directly concerned with this question of atomic energy.
Now Canada must devise methods to control and supervise the development and the application and use of atomic energy. I think the situation is very well described in the preamble to the bill we are considering, No. 165:
Whereas it is essential in the national interest to make provision for the control and supervision of the development, application and use of atomic energy, and to enable Canada to participate effectively in measures of international control of atomic energy which may hereafter be agreed upon;
The Progressive Conservative party, for whom I am speaking to-day, agree that it is essential in the national interest that there should be a measure of this type. We are willing to cooperate with the government and with the other parties in working out the best possible methods for the development and control of atomic energy. Any suggestions we make about this bill to-day are made in that spirit, with a desire to be helpful, and I am sure that any other member of this

Atomic Energy Control
house who speaks on this bill, no matter to what party he belongs, will approach the consideration of the measure in exactly the same spirit.
We suggest to the house that it would be wise, after second reading of the bill, to refer it to a special committee for study. We think that the best type of committee would be a joint committee of the senate and of this house. We make this suggestion believing that this is the most important subject for legislation which has been before a Canadian parliament perhaps since confederation, certainly since the turn of the century. We believe that very careful consideration should be given to the bills which have been brought in in the United States and in the United Kingdom, and we do not believe that that can be properly and thoroughly done with the house in committee of the whole.
The minister has been kind enough to lend me a copy of the United Kingdom Act. One cannot get a copy of that act in the parliamentary library. Nor can one get a copy of the bill, known as the McMahon bill, which has just passed the United States senate; I believe the minister has a copy but copies are not available in the library. I have here the Congressional Digest for May 1946, which features what congress is doing to solve the problem of atomic control, (1) domestic, (2) international, and I recommend to any members who are interested in the subject that they look at this copy of the Congressional Digest. It gives a very fine review of the legislation and of the discussions which have taken place in the United States. I think it would be helpful if the minister could have printed in the Votes and Proceedings of the house for to-day a copy of the United Kingdom bill and also a copy of the McMahon bill. If that were done, every member who wished to do so would be in a position to study these bills.
The minister has told me that the United Kingdom bill to which I have referred has been passed by the United Kingdom parliament. I am not sure of this; perhaps he will confirm that to-day. I am unable to find from the records in our library whether or not the bill has actually gone through the House of Commons and the House of Lords. It was presented to the House of Commons on May 1, but the copies of the British Hansard which have come to hand so far do not contain any discussion on the bill, and so far as I can find, although I may be wrong, it has not yet actually become law.
Another reason for our suggestion that this bill be studied by a special committee is that the drafting of atomic energy legislation
is very difficult. The Americans found that. For example, I quote from page 143 of the Congressional Digest this statement:
Just what is the problem in drafting atomic legislation? The chief difficulty is the fact that never before in history has any government attempted to make a law governing the forces of nature. It presents a multitude of technical and legal problems.
At page 139 of the same issue is a statement by Doctor Vannevar Bush. As lion, members know, Doctor Bush was a member of the committee which was appointed by the late President Roosevelt, two and a half months before the atom bomb was used, to consider atomic legislation. Doctor Bush is the chairman of the United States office of scientific research and development. This is what he has to say about the legislative difficulties involved in atomic energy legislation:
No more intricate and exacting problem was ever posed to government than this one. It is inherently complex because 'the science of the atom is complex. . . The fact that the deadly military potentialities^ of the atomic bomb and the beneficent industrial applications of atomic power are inextricably intermixed complicates it further. Preventing war is a long task, which must be done bit by bit, step by step; so also is the development of peaceful atomic power. The two must be related in our thinking, and what we do toward achievement of the one must be weighed in the balance of its effect on the other.
Again, there is an almost complete lack of knowledge of this whole question, not only in this house but, I submit, throughout the country. There have not been discussions on the radio and in open forums across Canada such as those that have taken place in the United States. Our people are not informed on all the facts in connection with atomic energy. It should be fundamental that the people as a whole have some understanding of these problems before legislation is passed in this house; otherwise our democracy is not functioning properly. It cannot function properly if there is not a chance for the people to understand something at least of what is being discussed in the legislatures.
I think it would be most unwise to rush this bill through, to put it through second reading this afternoon and through committee tonight and to-morrow. Instead of doing that, we Should give the bill second reading to-day and send it to a special committee. It can be dealt with again by this house in committee when it comes back from that special committee. But no matter where or how the bill is to be considered, there are many features which should be borne in mind, and this afternoon I propose to deal with eight of them. There will be many more, but I have picked out the eight which in my opinion are of vital importance.
Atomic Energy Control

In the first place, we should compare the controlling authorities which are to be set up in the United States, in the United Kingdom and in Canada. Under this atomic energy control bill we are providing for a board to be called the atomic energy control board. There will be five members on that board. In the United States they have set up a board of five, known as the atomic energy control commission; but in the United States they have in addition three watch-dog committees. I will explain these in greater detail in a minute or two.
In the United Kingdom bill there is no board at all. There, all the responsibility as well as the power is given direct to the minister of supply. He is the one named throughout the bill as the person in charge of development and control of atomic energy, and that of course has one very great advantage. It puts the responsibility right in parliament, because the minister has to stand up in parliament and answer for everything he does under the powers given him by the bill. There is no suggestion there, as I interpret their bill, of having an outside board or commission given these powers.
The powers are the most far-reaching given for many a long year by any parliament. These powers are to be given in Great Britain to the minister of supply, in the United States to t'he atomic energy control commission, and in Canada to the atomic energy control board, and they are tremendous powers. That is the only way in which they can be described. I repeat therefore that the first question that must be carefully considered is what type of controlling authority is to be set up in Canada.
The second consideration should be this. If we are to have a board such as the bill provides, should there or should there not be watch-dog committees? I have pointed out that in the United States legislation, under the McMahon bill, which, by the way, has passed the senate only and may not get through the house of representatives, they have a board of nine civilian advisers serving in an honorary capacity, being paid only a certain amount for their expenses. They get no remuneration. They are appointed by the president. At page 140 of the Congressional Digest there appears the following explanation:
A board of civilian advisers is to be appointed by the president to meet at least four times a year and consult with the commission on scientific and technical matters relating to materials, production, research and development.
In Canada we are making no provision in this bill for any such advisory boards. In the United States there is a second watchdog
[Mr. Green.l
committee which is known as the military liaison committee, and it is described in the following language;
A military liaison committee, appointed by the secretaries of war and navy, is to consult with the commission on all activities relating to the military applications of atomic energy. This provision has been adopted to give the armed forces a proper voice in such matters as development, manufacture, storage, and use of bombs; allocations of fissionable materials for military research; control of information relating to the manufacture and use of atomic weapons. Upon receiving the recommendations of the military liaison committee, the secretaries of war and navy may at their own discretion carry to the president a protest against any of the commission's actions or failures to act in reference to the matters described. In such event, final decisions are made by the president.
The minister may say that in Canada we are not going to be manufacturing atomic bombs, but I submit that some consideration should be given to the setting up of a military liaison committee because of the fact that the mineral from which atomic bombs are made is found in Canada. This brings us to the question of defence. We must accept responsibility for defending these minerals. I suggest therefore that there is a good deal of merit in having some sort of military liaison with the atomic energy control board.
The third watchdog committee in the United States is a permanent joint committee of the congress. It is composed of nine senators and nine representatives. Their job is to make continual studies of the development of atomic energy and to keep congress fully acquainted with such developments. Under the Canadian bill there is no such provision. In the United States there are these three watchdog committees, and I think there is some merit in having committees of that type. Mind you, they are not supreme; at all times the atomic energy control commission is supreme. These committees are merely there to check on its activities and have been appointed because the power given to the atomic energy commission is so tremendous and atomic energy may mean so much both in the civilian life of the nation and in the event of war.
The third question which should be given careful consideration is this; Is there or is there not sufficient control over this new board so far as parliament is concerned? In the explanatory notes to the bill hon. members will find this statement:
Control by parliament is provided for by sections 15 (making the board generally subject to the provisions of the Consolidated Revenue and Audit Act, 1931), 16 (providing that expenses of the board are to be paid out of moneys appropriated by parliament for the purpose except to the extent that the board or a company may receive funds through the conduct of its operations or by gift or other-

Atomic Energy Control
wise), 17 (providing for audit by the auditor general), 18 (declaring that works or undertakings relating to atomic energy are works for the general advantage of Canada) and 21 (providing for an annual report by the board to the committee-
Which means to the committee of the cabinet on scientific and industrial research.

to be laid before parliament and for the making of such other reports as the committee may require.
These provisions are all right as far as they go. I have already pointed out that in the United States they have a permanent joint committee composed of nine senators and nine congressmen. In Great Britain the minister is directly responsible to parliament. That, of course, gives far more control than we can have under the Canadian system. But there is a further control, and a very beneficial one, provided for in the United Kingdom bill. The minister has wide powers to make orders. For example, under section 10 of the United Kingdom bill the minister may by order provide for prohibiting, except under the authority of a licence granted by the minister, the production and use of atomic energy. These are sweeping powers which he can exercise by order, but every order he makes must be laid before parliament and is subject to what is called negative resolution,-by the way a negative resolution not only by the House of Commons but by the House of Lords. Either house can bring in a resolution revoking the order which has been made by the minister. That provision is found in section 15, subsection 1. It reads as follows:
Every order made by the minister under this act, except an order made under section 7 thereof or an order varying or revoking such an order,

Those are orders in connection with expropriating property. They are the ones which are exempt from this provision.
-shall be laid before parliament forthwith after it is made, and if either house of parliament, within a period of forty days beginning with the day on which any such order is laid before it, resolves that the order be annulled, the order shall cease to have effect, but without prejudice to anything previously done thereunder or to the making of a new order.
In reckoning any such period of forty days no account shall be taken of any time during which parliament is dissolved or prorogued or during which both houses are adjourned for more than four days.
That, of course, gives parliament drastic control. No such provision is to be found in the Canadian bill.
The fourth feature which I suggest for consideration is, should the Canadian atomic energy control board be on a full-time or a part-time basis? Should it be advisory or
operative? The United States commission is a full-time body. Five men serve full time. According to the statements made by the minister during the debates of the last few days the Canadian government has not decided on this point. I shall refer hon. members to page 1905 of Hansard of May 27, 1946, where the minister used these words:
The atomic energy control board is primarily a policy board.
A little later on he said:
The operation of the Chalk River plant, however, would be associated with the national research council. The atomic energy commisison would determine policy in the use of the product and in disseminating knowledge of atomic energy as it affects the people as a whole. But the operation of the Chalk River plant would naturally and, I think, necessarily be under the direction of the national research council, from which it would draw practical^- all its scientists.
On June 3 the minister made a further statement which is found at page 2120 of Hansard. He was asked what power the board would have, whether it would be advisory or operative. He said:
It will depend upon the view of the board when it is appointed whether it should be an operating board or simply a policy board. The board will be closely allied with the national research council in any event, and it may be the decision will be that the national research council shall do the actual operating or it may be that the board itself will be the operating body.
On page 2123 the minister made another statement to this effect:
The decision as to whether it will, in fact, be an operative body will be left largely to the board itself. The present intention would be to clothe the board with the duty of actually operating the project.
He was there referring to the Chalk River project. I continue with the statement:
However, no decision has finally been taken, and I should not like to commit myself at this time and say that the board will be an operating body.
Hon. members will notice that in section 4, subsection 2, of the bill, provision is made for salaries, if any; there is that proviso, "if any," showing that there is some question as to whether or not the members of the board are to be on a full-time basis. Provision is made in section 6 that the board must meet at least four times a year. Then there is the fact that the president of the research council is to be a member of the board. Obviously he cannot be a full-time member because he has many other pressing duties. It seems to me that the decision whether the board is to be a full-time one or not is fundamental and should be made by the government or by the house without further delay, because it makes a great difference in the way the controls are to be set up.
Atomic Energy Control

There seems to be a doubt as to the relative positions of the atomic energy control board and the research council. The measures that have been brought in obviously provide for either eventuality. They constitute what one might call double barrelled legislation. Under the legislation either the board or the research council can operate. I repeat that consideration should be given to the question whether we are to have an advisory board or an operative board.
The fifth feature that I should like to bring to the attention of hon. members is that the bill may unduly hamper research. I notice that both in the United States and in the United Kingdom there was great concern lest there should an interference with research work. Apparently scientists are very much afraid that they may not be allowed full scope; they are afraid of being interfered with. The Canadian bill does give power, and I think ample power, for research work by the board itself or by its employees; but what about research by other bodies? It seems to me that the bill should be extended to make it perfectly clear that certain types of research can be carried on by other bodies. They have done that in the United Kingdom. I shall read from paragraph 6 of the explanatory memorandum which accompanies the United Kingdom bill, where we find this statement:
. . . the minister is to ensure, so far as practicable, the availability of materials and plant for research and educational purposes and for commercial purposes not related to atomic energy.
That is set out in section 10, subsection 2 of the United Kingdom bill, in the following terms:
The minister shall secure so far as practicable, by the issue of licences in such cases or classes of cases as he thinks fit, that such minerals, substances and plant as aforesaid are available for purposes of research and education and for commercial purposes not involving the production or use of atomic energy.
The Americans have a similar provision. In the Congressional Digest for May we find this statement at page 141:
In drafting the bill, the committee has been particularly careful to refrain from inserting prohibitions or restrictions of any nature on scientific research (other than) the minimum necessary to protect national security and prevent hazards to public safety and health.
The sixth feature-and hon. members will be glad to learn that there are only two more after this-is what should be done about inventions in the field of atomic energy. The Canadian bill deals with inventions made by the staff, and I think it covers them fairly well. But what about inventions made outside? What about private inventions? Both
[Mr. Green.1
the Americans and the British have dealt with this subject specifically in their legislation. This is a description of the American provision :
In considering the patent implications of these provisions, the committee concluded that private patents can play no role in fields of activity reserved exclusively to the government. The bill provides that inventions and discoveries in these fields shall not be patentable matter. To assure the commission of access to new inventions and to provide inventors with financial inducements in lieu of patent rights, the bill requires that such inventions be reported to the commission and creates a patent compensation board with authority to make awards to inventors.
In the United Kingdom also they have dealt with that subject. I quote now from paragraph 8 of the explanatory memorandum:
Special provisions regarding inventions in relation to atomic energy are contained in clause 12. The comptroller general of patents, designs and trade marks is required to prohibit or restrict the publication of information concerning an application for a patent of this nature, and to notify the minister, serving a copy of the notice on the applicant.
I believe no such provision is in the Canadian bill, nor does it contain power to carry that out.
The minister may inspect the deposited documents; and, if he is satisfied that the invention is not of importance for purposes of defence, the ban on publication will be lifted by the comptroller general. In addition, the clause prohibits, except with the written permission of the comptroller general, the making of applications outside the United Kingdom, by a person resident therein

That is, for a resident of England or Scotland to apply for a patent in France having to do with atomic energy.
-for the grant of patents in respect of such inventions, unless application for a patent for the same invention has already been made in the United Kingdom, and either no ban on publication has been imposed or any such ban has been lifted.
Then it goes on:
The powers of the minister under section 29 of the Patents and Designs Act, 1907, are extended by clause 12 so as to include power to make, use, exercise or vend an invention for purposes relating to atomic energy; and the minister may authorize the use of any drawing, model, plan "or other document or information.
There is no such power in Canada, as I read the statutes. We have a Patent Act, it is true, and under section 19 of that act we find the government may use-and the word is [DOT]"use"

a patented invention. The section reads:
The government of Canada may, at any time, use any patented invention, paying to the patentee such sum as the commissioner reports to be a reasonable compensation for the use thereof, and any decision of the commissioner under this section shall be subject to appeal to the exchequer court.

Atomic Energy Control
The British go much further than that. The government takes not only the power to use but the power to sell any of these private inventions made outside the government service, and I think consideration should be given to the whole question of the treatment of inventions under this bill.
The seventh feature is the power given in the bill to set up crown companies. I am not going to repeat the arguments we have offered against these crown companies which are set up under part I of the Dominion Companies Act. We have no objection to their being set up by special statute, but we do object to this general power being given the national research council, and now the atomic energy control board, to set up one or any number of companies without coming to the house. There is no such provision in the United Kingdom legislation, or in the McMahon bill which has been passed by the United States senate. Just to give hon. members an illustration of how the power given under the Canadian bill might work; if the atomic energy control board is to be merely an advisory board rather than an operative board, then it will be functioning through these crown corporations; that means the real power will be in the hands of the president and officers of the crown company, just that much further removed from any parliamentary control and just that much closer to the dangerous position of allowing private individuals to take control of atomic energy.
I believe that is one danger which must be considered in connection with atomic energy; the possibility of a group of gangsters getting in a position where they control atomic energy. Perhaps some hon. members read the funnies. Judging by what I see around here when the afternoon papers come in, I guess they all do.


Mr. REID:: They fill a useful place in life.


Howard Charles Green: That is right. Those of you who read Little Orphan Annie will remember that two or three years ago Daddy Warbucks was manufacturing "eonite" and what great concern there was lest it should get into the hands of someone who would use it against the best interests of the people of the world. I think there is always this danger in connection with atomic energy, that individuals rather than nations may get control and use it to subjugate their fellow men. In any event I do suggest that this power of setting up crown companies should not be included in the bill.
The final feature which I suggest should be given the most careful consideration is the question of whether or not the atomic energy
control board is to be involved directly in international agreements, whether for the control of atomic energy or for any other purpose. I think the minister said the other day that the board was to be concerned only with the domestic use of atomic energy, but we find in section 9 (1) (/) provision giving the board power to make regulations-
-governing cooperation and the maintenance of contact, through international organizations or otherwise, with scientists in other countries or with other countries with respect to the production, use, application and control of, and research and investigations with respect to, atomic energy-
I suggest to hon. members that the time has not yet come when this board set up by the Canadian parliament should have any power to negotiate with other countries. Anything of that sort should be done by the Canadian government as a whole. They have been very careful on this point in the United States. No similar power is given to the atomic energy control commission there. In fact I find at page 141 of the Congressional Digest these words:
To ensure that provisions of S.1717-
That is the McMahon bill.
-do not interfere with the operation of international control machinery, when established, section 8 expressly provides that to the extent any provision of the bill, or any action of the commission under the bill, conflicts with the provisions of an international agreement hereafter approved by the senate or the congress, the provision is to be considered of no further force or effect.
There is no provision in the British bill similar to the regulation in the Canadian bill to which I referred a moment ago. Certainly the overriding documents as between states should be whatever agreements this parliament passes upon. I do not understand why the power is being given to an atomic energy control board to make regulations having to do with other countries.
Those are the eight features which we ask the house to consider. It will be obvious that they cannot be adequately considered by this house in committee of the whole, particularly in view of the lack of knowledge of the measures that have been brought in in other countries and of the whole question of atomic energy. It may be that the bill in its present form is the best bill that could be drawn; I am not in position to say, and I do not think many hon. members of the house are in position to pass on that question.
I repeat the suggestion made earlier in my remarks. After the bill has been given second reading it should be referred to a special committee of this house or to a joint com-
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mittee of the senate and of this house. I repeat also the statement I made in opening, that the official opposition will be only too glad to cooperate with the government and with the other parties in the house in working out a bill that will be the best that can be enacted in the interests of the Canadian people.


Mr. E. B. McKAY (Weyburn):: Mr. Speaker, the suggestion made by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) that after second reading this bill should be sent to a special committee of the house or a joint committee of the two houses has considerable merit. I am sure that in that way a great deal of information could be revealed to the public at large, and1 certainly to the members of the committee, with regard to atomic energy, information which hitherto has been denied to us.
I should like to speak briefly on the bill as it appears before the house. I feel that the introduction of this bill at this session is of major importance. I doubt if there is any subject more widely discussed by thinking people everywhere in the world than atomic energy and how it is to be controlled. The bill makes provision for the control and supervision of this new and potent force. The supervision of the development, application and use of atomic energy is of utmost importance to every man, woman and child, not only in our own country but in every other part of the world.
It is believed among scientists that atomic energy can provide the answers to many if not all of the power problems of the world within the course of a very few years. Such an important discovery as this new form of energy may prove to be a boon to mankind if it is controlled by the proper authorities; if it is not properly controlled, it may well prove a menace to all. If it is owned or controlled by private enterprise more interested in profit than in humanity's welfare, industrial chaos might well occur. That is what may happen should this powerful energy be thrown into the competitive market. One can visualize coal mines closing down and oil operators ceasing their operations, resulting in millions of people being unemployed, should atomic energy be produced cheaply enough to compete successfully in the commercial field with coal and oil.


Mr. JOHNSTON:: Do you object to that?


Eric Bowness McKay: No, as long as there is some social security for those people. I am referring to the economic chaos that may result if there is not proper control.

There is every possibility of a cheap source of atomic energy being discovered. In the field of research there are tremendous prospects, of which we should take cognizance, of developing cheap sources of this new energy. Indeed these sources may have been already successfully explored. John O'Neil, writing in the Toronto Saturday Night on December 8, 1946, states:
New York:	More powerful sources of atomic
energy are now the goal of the scientists._ If they succeed, they will obtain one thousand times more energy from the new source than is obtained from uranium sources, and the latter source provides 2,500,000 times as much energy as an equal weight of coal, oil or T.N.T.
Uranium, the element used to produce the atomic energy substance plutonium, is among the rarer elements, although it is as plentiful as copper in the earth's crust. The cost of plutonium produced under military control, can be estimated at $25,000 a pound, but this figure may be wrong by a very large factor.
The unquestioned fact is that under any circumstances it would be many times, perhaps many thousands of times, as expensive as coal on a pound basis. It would be, nevertheless, very much cheaper than coal on an energy production basis.
The new substance to which the scientists are looking as the new atomic energy source is the cheapest substance on earth . It is hydrogen, one of the two elements composing water.
Peace-time application of atomic energy properly directed and controlled may do amazing things. Doctor Julian Huxley reveals some astonishing prospects for a peace loving world bent on improving the lot of man. This great scientist paints an amazing picture of the world to be which with the proper application of the scientific knowledge obtained in a study of atomic power may be realized even in our day. Speaking recently in the United States, Professor Huxley referred to atomic energy in the following words:
If turned to beneficent uses, it might in the future do for mankind great and amazing things.
The most spectacular possibilities of the new _ power lie in its use in what we may call atomic dynamite. Dams could be built in a fraction of the time now required because atomic explosions would do the work of cumbersome excavating machinery. Atomic heat might dissolve the ice and snow over the north pole. If this were done the level of the sea would rise over one hundred feet and many Atlantic seaboard cities and towns would be submerged.
If the polar caps were blasted the climate of northern and southern hemispheres would change. Foggy Great Britain would become as pleasant a country as Spain were it not inundated. Regions now uninhabitable for lack of fuel or capacity for growth could be made available for migration.
That is Doctor Huxley speaking. There is no question as to this man's ability to forecast. There are, however, less pleasing prospects than the one set out here. Any apparatus producing atomic energy will also produce

Atomic Energy Control
by-products from which poisonous gases could be made which could kill all living creatures within thousands of square miles. This is quite conceivable should control of this energy be permitted to fall into private hands.
With reference to the possible use of atomic poison gas, may I quote from an article appearing in the Ottawa Citizen-before the strike of course. This appeared on the 29th of May, under the dateline New York, May 28:
One small drop of atomic poison gas, in liquid form, can endanger every person in a great industrial plant, or its equivalent.
A concentration of this so-called gas could kill every person within about one kilometer (six-tenths of a mile) of a central point.
In either case the killing would be done, not by the chemical reactions of true poison gases, but by the radioactive rays from atomic fission products.
These are the basic facts behind the report in Washington, by W. A. Higinbothem, chairman of the Federation of Atomic Scientists, that along with germ warfare, there is another new method of war potentially as dangerous as atomic bombs.
An unscrupulous person or country might collect radioactive materials formed as a byproduct in producing nuclear power and spray them over the countryside, destroying all life thereon. Unless proper control of this new' form of energy, which could well be used with malicious intent is established, it could be a terrible threat to the safety of all mankind.
Atomic energy is a most awesome power. The world is still marvelling and horrified at the instantaneous destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The presence of this potentially dangerous atomic power demands the setting up of a powerful united nations organization to control its use. It wmuld be an almost hopeless outlook for the future of humanity should the united nations organization be incapable of controlling the application of nuclear energy to other than peaceful pursuits.
Without effective control all of us will live in constant fear of sudden and violent death and apprehension will be our lot and that of our children.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that a method must be devised by the security council of the united nations organization to police the laboratories and industries of every nation utilizing atomic energy if satisfactory control of its production is to be effected.
It is my earnest hope, and the hope, I believe, of all humanity, that fear of this new energy may hasten the establishment of a democratic and powerful world government. No other organization can make mankind
secure. An awful and immediate challenge confronts every nation of the world. Man faces the prospect of world destruction or the alternative of uniting all peoples with the common urge of self-preservation.
In the modern atomic world it is essential that we learn the cooperative way of working and living together. Only that society can survive the members of which are prepared to work together in a spirit of cooperation, each man for his neighbour, each nation for the other. We shall either live together, Mr. Speaker, with a common objective, or we shall not live, that is a true statement of fact.
We are dealing with a subject which can well determine the destinies of the world. I am sure the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply is cognizant of this fact and will act accordingly. I feel that we all have a grave responsibility in connection with the future development and control of atomic power. To do other than place it under the control of parliament is inviting trouble. Not only would our economic stability be endangered under private control, but the security of the world would be gravely menaced. The world is looking to Canada for cooperation in establishing a new world order. Let us not be a party to disturbing that trend toward a peaceful and happy world that so many young men laid down their lives to achieve.


Ernest George Hansell: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak on this measure for the control of atomic energy, this will be one occasion for my handing a little compliment to the government in that it has pursued this particular course, although at the same time I do not know that I agree with all the details of the measure.
I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) on giving to us what I believe to be a very sensible treatise on this subject. I liked his idea of watch-dog committees. I would support that idea and carry it further and suggest that annually joint parliamentary committees should be set up for the purpose of doing just what the hon. member signified by that term watch-dog. Such committees in order to accomplish their work effectively must have complete access to all pertinent information. Let me illustrate what I mean by reminding the house that during the war, Canadian scientists, under the supervision or direction of the minister of munitions and supply, contributed greatly toward what is known as the discovery of the atomic bomb; and although that w'ork was
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under the minister of munitions and supplj' this parliament and the people of Canada knew nothing whatsoever about what was happening until the news flashed out of the operations over Hiroshima.. I point that out, not because it would have been wise for us to know, but to indicate how inadequately even in this democratic country we were able to scrutinize all the expenditures of government in wartime.
I do not know how much money was spent in that respect, but I do know that during the war, when we were discussing estimates of the departments of defence and of munitions and supply, the discussion went on week in and week out and the parliamentary session was drawn out into months and months. We were talking about the tiniest things: about soldiers' underwear, whether they should be given new underwear or whether the old might be patched and still used. We attempted to show our wisdom by scrutinizing the exepnditure of every dollar, yet we missed the money which was spent on Canada's share in the discovery of the atomic bomb. So I say that all information in respect to atomic energy for peacetime purposes should be available to such watch-dog committees.
I nave risen in this house on many occasions as a supporter of the principle of private enterprise. I believe in it. I do not, however, believe in private monopoly, and I go so far as to say that in such a matter as the use of peace-time atomic energy we cannot permit that monopoly to go into private hands. - I have here a paper to which I subscribe and from which I might quote a few lines to illustrate and reinforce this particular point. The writer, referring to the time when atomic energy will be available to the public for the uses of peace, states:
When it is done, and it may be soon, the corporation-*
Referring to any private corporation.
-doing it will have a monopoly over a new source of power which will give to that corporation as much economic power as though the TYA, Grand Coulee, Bonneville and Hoover dams, wtih all their electric generating equipment, plus all privately-qwned electric light and power plants and transmission lines in the country, plus all the railroads were dominated by a single monopolistic combine.
That simply means that one private enterprise having all the patent rights and so forth could control the economic destinies of the nation, and that is why I agree that in a case of this kind a measure at least similar to the one we are discussing should be favourably considered. I would not for a moment advocate, nor, I believe, would the most ardent supporter of private enterprise, the private

ownership of war planes, tanks, artillery and battleships. We all know that private ownership of such things would give to private persons power over the lives and livelihood and destinies of our people, and I do not think we could regard that as any more dangerous than to put in the hands of the private corporation such power over the life of the country as would be attained through the control of atomic energy. I go that far.
But now there are one or two other things which I wish to say. I think we can go that far and yet retain within our Canadian life a degree of private enterprise in respect to these matters. What I have in mind is that while the government should be in possession of all patent rights in respect to atomic energy for peace-time purposes, they should not go so far as themselves to set up a great state monopoly for manufacturing all articles producible by the use of that atomic energy. I believe they could very well be the licensing authority, having possession of the patent rights, but giving to private individuals the right to use atomic energy for such manufacturing enterprises as they might choose to enter upon.
I wish to bring one other point to the attention of the house. It came to our notice when the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) interrupted a while ago the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. McKay). We must have some method of giving economic security to the people of Canada when atomic energy finds its real place in the life of our nation. I am particvdarly concerned about this matter because, as I think is recognized by us all, we must consider the possibility of finding ourselves living in a new world, a world of atomic energy which will, perhaps, disrupt our entire present economy. For instance, in my constituency there is a very large coal mining industry. What is going to happen to the coal miners of Macleod constituency or the thousands of coal miners all over Canada if atomic energy in peacetime is put to its greatest use? There are two arguments one can use. One can say:	Well, we cannot let Canada have
the use of this atomic energy if it is going to put these men out of work. Is that a satisfactory answer? Would anyone rise in this chamber and say, "Of course, that is what we shall have to do"? If he did, he would be the enemy of the progress of civilization. Just the same, have the government, parallel with this measure, any ideas as to how to take care of that situation? If they have not, then I think some discussion should be had in that regard, and some statement should

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be forthcoming from the government. Our railroads may be affected in the same way. It is quite obvious to anyone who will face the facts that the day of full employment is gone. Let us recognize that. And yet just a year ago to-day this government was elected to office on at least one great promise, that it was going to put everybody to work-jobs for all.


Charles Edward Johnston: That is why the flag is at half mast to-day.


Ernest George Hansell: I am glad to receive a little applause from my own party here, but it does not come from any place else in the house.


Charles Edward Johnston: Because they are all guilty.


Ernest George Hansell: It is because every party except this one went out with the same idea- jobs for all, and now the atomic energy age is on our doorstep and knocks that argument, that plea, that promise, into a cocked hat. I repeat, the day of full employment is gone; the plea of jobs for all is antiquated and can never be used again-until the next election, as an hon. member says. Perhaps the atomic age will not be in the door far enough by that time.
Let me ask the government this question: What measures are they now taking-because this is certainly a grave national issue in the light of this bill-what measures are they taking to care for a situation of that kind? We must have some method, some plan of giving incomes to our citizens from some source other than the old source of jobs for all. To those who believe in the full employment theory, I say that if the government is still of that opinion, if any other party in this country still believes in the old philosophy of full employment, then neither that government nor any party in office would dare to release the discovereies of atomic energy, in all its fulness, for peace-time purposes. They dare not do it. What have they to say as to what they are prepared to do when the atomic age dawns upon us?-and that may be soon.
This bill is not the first step that has been taken in the world in connection with the use of atomic energy. We all know that the large electrical corporations of the United States have spent millions upon millions of dollars upon the very thing that this bill proposes to do, and those corporations are not going to be retarded in their progress. But there is another matter that is commensurate with this. This atomic age brings about what some people would call the problem of unemployment- though I do not call it a problem, because I think it is one of the greatest blessings of the
day that men can have a little time to themselves. But with the dawn of this new day, what is going to happen to the millions of dollars that are invested in these industries? I might refer again to the coal mining industry. Millions of dollars are invested in that industry in this country. What will happen to that investment? Are we simply going to say, "Oh well, those corporations, those companies, those people, all those shareholders will simply be broke, that is all." We have to be fair all round. The government in office must be far-seeing in this matter and should be willing to bring down to the house legislation which will parallel this bill for the control and development of atomic energy, which will care for the security of our people who are going to be affected by it; and they should at the same time provide some compensation for the financial loss that may be incurred by the many shareholders-and remember there are a good many small shareholders in many of these industries.
This measure is more far-reaching than simply a bill of the kind I have suggested. This bill, if commensurate bills are not introduced along with it, will affect the entire economy of the country. Now are we going to move on to the great and glorious civilization we could have, or are we going to monkey around with things in this rapidly expanding scientific age where we meet one problem after another, only to find ourselves after all only in a morass?
I think the problem can be solved, and Canada with all her natural resources, all her wealth in the form of uranium and what have vou, with all her scientific knowledge, should be able to solve it. I am simply overwhelmed, Mr. Speaker, when I think what a wonderful country we have. I take a trip out west over hundreds of miles of wheat lands; I go into the mountains and see gorgeous scenery, vast areas of timberlands, and I say to myself, "This transcends all". Then I come down here and visit the southern part of Ontario and I see the most beautiful country-more beautiful than anything I have ever seen in my life: dairy lands with fat cattle grazing everywhere, so that the voice of scripture comes across to me, "The cattle upon a thousand hills are mine". I said to the train conductor: "What a country we have! What a country Canada is!" It is a country all the advantages of which are worth making available to the people; and what a glorious civilization we could have here. That is my plea. Let us tackle the problem. Let us not tackle it in any picayune way. Let us look upon it as a problem of civilization; let us build up here a civilization which will be
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a glorious example to the rest of the world. If we do that, we shall not have very much trouble with opposing philosophies of life.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: I wish to compliment the minister on his address of June 3. There should be no politics in an important scientific discovery or in any statement that is made in relation to it. I wish to speak solely from the scientific point of view. I believe it is the privilege, function and duty of a member of parliament to take an unbiased view of a matter like this which concerns the welfare of the country as a whole, and civilization at large. In his statement of the case the minister told us where Canada stood before the war, during the war and since the close of the war. He said that Canada was linked up with the mother country and the United States. He referred to the recent developments in the field of atomic energy and said that they:
Placed Canada in a unique position among the nations of the world, in that Canada is an important source of raw material and, as well, shares with the United States the position of having a plant able to produce the final product from which atomic energy can be released. For that reason it is essential that legislative action be taken by parliament to control both the production of atomic energy and the materials from which this energy is derived.
He referred to the part Canada played in the development of the atomic bomb and the Eldorado mine on Great Bear lake. He also said that it is the second most important deposit of uranium oxide that has been discovered to date. He referred to the expropriation of the mine near Great Bear lake in the northwest territories, together with its refinery located at Port Hope, Ontario. He then said:
Activities in the field of atomic energy have been carried on in close association with the United Kingdom and the United States. In 1942 the Montreal laboratory was established.
He also gave a fair statement of what took place in the pre-war years regarding the work in the United Kingdom and the contribution of the joint British-Canadian laboratory at work in Montreal. He then said:
Prior to the war, Eldorado mine and its refinery at Port Hope had been concerned primarily with the production of radium, with uranium as a less important by-product.
He then went on to describe the plant at Chalk River which was set up for the purpose of exploring one particular process for producing the ultimate material. Then in three or four small sentences he went on and referred to the three-nation declaration on atomic energy, signed at Washington on
[Mr. Hansell.1
November 15, 1945, and which he said was approved in this house on December 17, 1945. He then went on to say:
Much has been said and written about the form of international control that should be initiated. The government is giving earnest study to this immensely complex jiroblem.
Further on, he said:
Until such time as the united nations atomic energy commission has made its recommendations, and has translated these recommendations into action, it remains the responsibility of Canada, as well as that of the United States and the United Kingdom, to establish and maintain conditions under which these recommendations can be made fully effective. Canada and all other nations possessing raw materials, or productive apparatus, or special knowledge with respect to atomic energy, have a very special responsibility to establish and maintain conditions which will ensure the effective carrying out of any recommendations that may be made by the commission to provide for international control of atomic energy.
In the United Kingdom, first reading has already been given to an atomic energy bill which will empower the United Kingdom government to establish control over the production or use of atomic energy. In the United States the McMahon bill has been drafted.
In conclusion, the minister said:
To build up a Canadian source of raw materials the government will carry out its own prospecting and development programme, and will encourage private prospecting, even though all the materials related to the production and use of atomic energy are to be under government control at all stages.
Thus the bill will provide means for continuing the important deevlopments that have placed Canada in the forefront of war-time developments in the field of atomic enei'gy. The bill will provide also an appropriate legislative basis for the domestic control of this highly dangerous substance.
I think that was a fair statement of the case. I refer to it because I wish to give the government some constructive suggestions relating to the history of warfare. From the time of the dark ages it has always been the surprise discovery that has won the battle. That was true of the days of Hannibal down to the great war. It has always been the destructive agencies sprung by surprise in war that have won wars. He who discovers the most surprising weapon wins the war. If it had been possible for one invention automatically to destroy the defensive possibilities of the up-to-date war nation the world would have been destroyed years and years ago, since the dark ages. We would have had the destruction of the world by the very same agency that we are discussing to-day, science. But warfare progresses. The initiation of defensive weapons from the time of the Greeks on has overcome offensive weapons. That has been true of the Greeks, the

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Carthaginians and on down to the two great wars. A great text-book writer and scientist- Isvestia, August 17, 1945-gave the constructive history of warfare. He said:
The war was brought to an end not by sensational miracles but by the powerful joint efforts of all the allies. ... it is ludicrous to believe that the atomic bomb can eliminate ground fighting . . . the sensation of the atomic bomb has blinded some people. . . . They seem to regard science as some wizard's incantation.
According to "Watchman", an English scientist, in the National Review.
There is no doubt that a great deal of sensational public opinion has been worked up.
Again and again some sensational warhappening has shocked and stupefied public opinion. But no one weapon can really revolutionize war; the answer to it is soon found, and in the general balance between attack and defence it will always, all other things being equal, be superior resources which in the long run will dominate and beat down the attack, whatever the means by which it is conducted. That defence will soon be found in any up-to-date nation that has an active defence policy. That was so in the recent war. The atomic bomb was a great discovery and may mark the first stage of a social evolution in economic affairs. But the entry of Russia into the war had rendered the Japanese military position helpless and hopeless. The possession of Manchuria was vital to the Japanese war economy; it was impossible to hold Manchuria against the flood of vastly superior Russian armies; the use of the atomic bomb accelerated at most by a couple of weeks or so a surrender which would have been inevitable. But had it been the Japanese who had led the way with this particular weapon, the effects would scarcely have been of greater military importance than the German use jf flying bombs and rockets in 1944, when it was thought we were going to win the war in the spring of 1944. There would have been but few such bombs available; to have used them the Japanese must have dropped them from aircraft. Attempts to bomb vital Anglo-American bases would have come up against a crushing Anglo-American superiority in fighting aircraft, plus radar, and other means. Manchuria is a land of immense spaces, an atomic bomb dropped here or there would have been of no particular importance. The Russian armies would have continued to flood Manchuria; the Anglo-Americans would have continued to push forward their own plans for invasion; the use of atomic bombs by the Japanese would have been a temporary shock but would scarcely have affected the issue or its outcome.
The very fact that every new means of attack evolves from older means connotes that the older means of defence can be swiftly improved and expanded to meet the new danger. That has been so in every war in history. Whether the new means of defence become available in time depends upon the strength and vigour of the social organism attacked. Once you consider the vast distances of the United States or Russia, the wide distribution of their social and industrial centres, the magnitude of their resources and so on, the assumption that either .state could be knocked out by any sudden atomic bomb attack becomes merely absurd. After making all allowances for developments with the atomic bomb likely in the near future, such bombing would certainly be no more effective than the high explosive bombing of Germany, and the probabilities are that it would be far less effective.
The atomic bomb is merely an extension of the power of the high explosive bomb and the rocket bomb developed in the spring of 1945 by Germany. Views as to its war-preventing or war-shortening or war-cheapening qualities are likely to be just as fallacious as views expressed on the older weapon. The gain with the atomic bomb is that you get from an explosive weighing only eight pounds a destructive effect exceeding that of many tons of high explosives. As against this, however, must be set the cost of producing the eight-pound atomic bomb, which greatly exceeds the equivalent destructive power to be gained by the use of high explosives. Even with the great resources of the United States, just before Japan collapsed the United States was forced to establish factories and workshops on islands very close to Japan in order to place fuses on their new weapons. With their great resources the Americans could spend millions, which no other country could have spent, in the development of this new weapon; but Germany lost the war, as military critics point out, because at the expense of her armies and her air force she went to work and developed the high explosive and rocket bombs beyond the limits of her natural resources. As a result, while Germany had air forces superior to those of the allies on the western front for a time, even when that situation was reversed we had to depend upon our land armies to win the war. On the eastern front Russia had vast armies but an inferior air force; yet in spite of this situation Russia swept all before her.
The Kilgore subcommittee in the United States proved this to be true in an important report to congress and the senate in connection with the allied bombing of Germany.
Atomic Energy Control

When it was all over, Germany still had four million tons of machine tools capable of producing immense quantities of armaments; with minor repairs the iron and steel industry was capable of producing twenty-five million tons yearly, while the dye and chemical industry was virtually untouched. The general damage done to German war output was estimated at only twenty per cent. Bombing on a scale fantastically exceeding the wildest pre-war fantasies of Mr. H. G. Wells and other enthusiasts failed to produce anything like the social chaos predicted. Germany survived this bombing successfully enough but succumbed finally to the impact of allied armies. Lacking overwhelming air support the Russian armies won victories no less important than those of the Anglo-American armies, which had overwhelming air support. World war II lasted six years, as compared with four and a half years for world war I. It cost two or three times as much money; yet the 1935 air experts thought air power, even if it failed to prevent wars altogether, would exercise such destructive power that the side inferior in air power would be reduced to chaos in a few days or weeks.
As I have said already, the atomic bomb is just an extension of the high explosive and rocket bombs; and any cheapening of production which will bring atomic energy into civil use is extremely doubtful. Next to the atomic bomb, dynamite and high explosives are the most destructive agents known to man, but we do not use dynamite or high explosives for driving machines. The cost of producing these destructive agents is far too great, and there is also the difficulty of controlling them. According to scientific writers, it will be a long time before atomic energy becomes harnessed to production in the fashion popularity predicted. One such writer, who signs himself "Watchman" says, in the National Review:
Should this occur, a large proportion of man's energies are going to be directed underground. Tunnelling, the sinking of deep shafts, will be greatly speeded and civilization will become honeycombed with vast subterranean workings. When this time comes, any real menace to mankind from atomic energy will die of itself, the rival processes of atomic bombing or rocketing can go on indefinitely, inflicting on both sides loss and destruction, and leaving neither side one step further to decisive victory. To achieve a decision, one side or other must push forward with an army, the advance of which will be covered either by superior bombing or by other means. After all the confident predictions as to wars won by bombing to the exclusion of fleets and armies, we were forced, in the present war, to fall back upon the old-fashioned process of landing armies which fought decisive battles and won them. The wars of the future are likely to be won by similar means.
{Mr. Church.]
In conclusion, I should like to say that a learned and great writer, philosopher and scientist, the late W. MacNeil Dixon, justifies the stand taken by the minister and the government. This scientist delivered the Gifford lectures at the university of Glasgow, and spoke on science in peace and war alike, as the minister did in his remarks on June 3. Mr. Dixon gave a history of what it was hoped would be achieved by atomic energy for the good of mankind, and went on to say:
And science? However you regard her attitude and aims, deplore her emphasis upon the body rather than the soul, you cannot deny the benefits she has conferred upon humanity. True it is that worldliness has under her regime superseded other-worldliness. Yet so impressive, so far-reaching are her achievements as not merely to silence all criticism but to arouse a noble enthusiasm, and enlist in the cause of humanity legions of recruits, missionaries of her gospel.
He goes on to refer, as the minister did, to modern medicine, which he calls the child of
science, and says:
Plagues and pestilences have been stayed, a multitude of diseases-diphtheria, rabies, smallpox, typhus, yellow fever, Maltese fever, to name only a few-almost exterminated. Great scourge-ridden tracts of the earth's surface rendered habitable, food values understood, vaccines and anti-toxins discovered, antiseptic surgery so established as to open up new fields of remedial agency, ailments of the mind as well as of the body controlled and relieved. This is a record, indeed, to which no previous age in history can produce a parallel. Within a century the expectation of life in all civilized countries has been amazingly increased.
Then he gives the figures for various countries. In conclusion, he states:
A static world it is not, never was and never will be. There have been revolutions in the past, there will be revolutions hereafter, in the world of thought as in the world of events. We must expect the sudden and unpredictable. You may desire a stabilized system, an international agreement to keep things much- as they are in respect of national boundaries, material advantages in wealth, coal, oil, trade facilities. It will not be given you. For all your entreaties the world will not cease to revolve. Nature is no friend of stagnation.
The minister said practically the same thing.
Climates change, economic conditions change, birth rates rise and fall, labour is cheap here and dear there, a new invention, a new commodity is in demand, and cities spring up to meet it. Factories are built, populous districts are deserted. The seats of ancient empires are lost in the desert or in the jungle.
I would not go as far as to predict that the minister or any of us will live long enough to see this new energy developed in peace for the good of mankind, as the minister and the scientists hope it will be developed, but I believe the government will have the unani-

Atomic Energy Control
mous support of all hon. members, free from politics in the development of science along the lines that have been suggested.
I think if the bill were referred to a small committee of the house, as the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) has suggested, that committee could meet privately or publicly as it liked and get the required information. I believe that procedure would meet with unanimous agreement on the part of all sections of the house.
In warfare I do not think this new atomic bomb would last a very long time without a defence, because any civilized nation would soon provide the answer. In addition, the cost would be prohibitive along the lines that I mentioned relating to Japan. I hope the minister will have every success in his work, and the government is to be commended for trying to advance the scientific standards and encourage the future progress of human life.


Mr. R. H. WINTERS (Queens-Lunenburg):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say a very few words about this matter of atomic energy and the control thereof. In the light of recent publicity it seems to be the general opinion that atomic energy is an easy thing to realize and that the greatest problem is how to control it. As I understand it, actually it is one of the most difficult things in the world to split the atom and to release the energy inherent in it.
The splitting of the atom is not a new feat. That phase did not come into effect only at the time of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Scientists have been working on it for years. This development has been carried on by colleges and private undertakings for some considerable time. Recently the approach has been somewhat different by virtue of the fact that certain radioactive materials were discovered. Years ago the method adopted to split the atom was virtually brute force. Generators were set up to develop as much as ten million volts of static electricity and they were used to bombard certain molecules and atoms with such great force that the electrons could be knocked from them, thereby achieving the splitting of the atom. As I say, it is not a new thing.
I point this out simply to show that, although the government has come into the picture and has exerted a great amount of control for the benefit of mankind and for the winning of the war, in time private research would have arrived at the same point. The atom was being split and great progress was being made in the simplification of the process. Therefore I think we must regard the control of the atom not as a "shut-out" prop-63260-151
osition but simply as a means of guiding the energy we now have, along proper channels, and seeing that the use of it, for the time being, does not fall into the wrong hands.
I am sure we all realize that in this respect Canada has no monopoly on scientific brains. It is true that Great Britain, the United States and Canada enjoyed a head start and went farther than anybody else, but the fact remains that private research was making good progress before the government came into the picture. That leaves one with the clear impression that any other nation could start now and in due course could catch up to where we are at present. Therefore we must realize that we cannot shut out the other nations, and probably we cannot shut out private research in our own country. What we must achieve is. the best possible coordination; the best possible cooperation and have the greatest possible freedom from suspicion between nations and between individuals in connection with the manner in which this energy is to be used.
Down through the pages of history we find evidence of many problems of scientific control. For example, electricity opened up fields that had been unheard of before. There is enough electricity being directed around the streets of Ottawa to-day to wreak untold destruction if it were not controlled. The first public demonstration of atomic energy was one of destruction and it left us all pretty well awestricken. We think of atomic energy as being an energy of destruction, whereas the fact is that an energy which can be used for destruction can be used also for constructive purposes. This energy will undoubtedly be used to benefit mankind; to relieve many of the hardships that we now suffer. For the present time we are primarily concerned here with the matter of control and this bill is the best vehicle for asserting the essential control. I think it is an excellent thing; it is all to the good, as hon. members have said.
I should like to refer for a moment to the remarks of the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell). The hon. member was worried about atomic energy possibly causing a great deal of unemployment. That would appear to be a short-term outlook. All down through the centuries we find many cases where new developments caused people to fear that they would be thrown out of work. That was true, for example, of steam, of internal combustion and it was certainly true of electricity. It was true also of radio. I well remember when radio first came into prominence there was a great cry from musicians and manufacturers of phonographs that they would become unem-

Atomic Energy Control

ployed. But the economists pointed out that with the advent of radio people would become conscious of music and would demand phonographs in ever-increasing quantities because they would become familiar with music through the use of the radio and would want to hear over and over again that which they were able just to catch in snatches on the radio. Many people thought that this view was entirely wrong; that if people could just turn a dial and get music when they wanted it from all over the world, they would not buy phonographs. But that has not been the case; the demand for phonographs has increased ever since radio was developed. The discovery of radio has resulted in a demand such as never existed before for music and art of all kinds.
When electricity was developed it was thought that people would be put out of work, but the fact is that it has widened our horizons beyond anything that was ever expected. Every day articles such as clocks and household appliances are now powered by electricity and are manufactured in far greater quantities than ever before. This progress has created a demand for labour which was not thought possible years ago. I feel quite confident that the same will prove to be the case with, atomic energy.
The hon. member for Macleod referred particularly to coal and said that the coal industry might be upset and coal miners put out of work. Certainly there is that possibility. We know that coal is an important source of energy through the development of heat, but we know also that the heat from coal is derived and utilized on a most inefficient basis. Coal is used, in many instances, to generate steam which in turn may be used to generate electricity; but, as I recall, in most power plants the efficiency is not more than thirty per cent, and certainly not more than forty per cent. It may be, now that we can look more closely into the atom and study the nuclear side of the physics of coal, that we shall find a means of releasing more energy from this source. I do not know whether that is as yet the case in fact, nor have I any inside information, but I would say to the hon. member for Macleod that he should not be too pessimistic in thinking that coal is finished as a means of energy.
If our scientific brains are concentrated on the development of atomic energy we are bound to progress. I do not think we can backslide. With the direction scientists are getting; with the attention that is being focused on this problem, I believe these efforts will be used for the welfare of mankind. Certainly the atom is a source of energy that is

far beyond anything we have ever dreamed of. The number of people in the world who are able to come even close to realizing the enormous amount of energy in the atom is exceedingly small indeed. With this source of energy now available to us, we have seen something of what it can do destructively. If we can turn the tables, control this energy, guide it and use it constructively, then I would say we have really something to look forward to.
In concluding these short remarks, Mr. Speaker, I should like to dispel as far as possible any gloom the hon. member for Macleod has regarding the danger that we are likely to create a world of unemployment by progressing in the scientific field. I think that is the wrong deduction. It has been proven to be wrong all down through the ages. So that, in conclusion, I would simply say to him, "be of good cheer."


Mr. G. RUSSELL BOUCHER (Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, as members who have already spoken have said unanimously-it is difficult for any member of the house to foresee the great consequences which the release of atomic energy may have upon the world. I wonder if it is not like other great inventions, which first were used as a weapon of destruction, I think we are not a little inclined to focus our attention too much upon the destructive aspect of this great discovery. Truly we in Canada are in a particularly favoured position not only by having contributed to the production of the atomic bomb but in having seen its use bring a quick termination to the war. Now that the war is over for the time being, in looking upon this great source of energy I think we should, so far as we can, look upon it as a blessing to mankind rather than as a death-dealing weapon. All new inventions when first discovered, have brought apprehensions into the minds of many people. Fear is a very common result of invention. Fear probably deters to a great extent the practical use of inventions.
In discussing atomic energy this afternoon, I think we must all feel that the minister who introduced this bill has gone a considerable way. I do not think there are any who will criticize the best endeavours he has made. I believe that everyone of us is sincere in urging that the best possible be done under, the circumstances.
Atomic energy may be viewed in two aspects, one the international and the other the domestic. So far as its international use is concerned, we fear that a potential enemy may learn our secret. I do not think history will vindicate anybody in the belief that any great invention can be permanently retained

Atomic Energy Control
and restrained from the use of mankind in general. It is a matter, as I see it, of controlling the use of atomic energy internationally only so far as is practicable to delay its use until its domestic uses have been properly developed. Looking at it internationally, we must realize that it is only for a short time that we can keep our secret locked up in our own hearts.
I prefer to look upon atomic energy from the point of view of its domestic use. I believe that atomic energy will be a great blessing in peace time and that, like so many other discoveries, it will completely revolutionize our peace-time mode of living. Atomic energy by virtue of its great potency may be a great deterrent to war because, When all nations have the secret, any and all nations must fear the use of the death-dealing atomic bomb as a menace even to the aggressor. I think we should take that into our primary consideration.
Atomic energy must be kept under rigid surveillance. If I were to use the word "control", I might be misunderstood, for I do not think science is capable of being controlled beyond a limited extent by other than scientists. That being the case, I would, urge the members of the house to look upon atomic energy as something that we want-developed for peace-time use to the greatest possible extent. Having focused our attention in this parliament on atomic energy really for the first time, we should deliberate carefully before we put on the statute book any enactment dealing with atomic energy. For that reason I am heartily in approval of the suggestion made by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) that before this bill is passed parliament should take every possible means of getting the very best possible measure. I think his suggestion was a good one of setting up a joint committee of the House of Commons and the Senate before which scientists, technical experts, businessmen and administrators could be called, so that from a coordination of the viewpoints of the best we have in Canada a measure might be framed that would best serve our purpose. True, any measure we may pass to-day may have to be amended many times before it is perfect, but let us get the firmest possible foundation at the very earliest stage in dealing with atomic energy.
The hon. member for Vancouver South also mentioned the necessity for vigilance in the use of atomic energy and proposed the setting up of what he called watch-dog committees but which I prefer to call vigilance committees. In the last few days we have all 63260-1514
heard a great deal about and have lent our voice to a great expansion of national research. But we must remember that there are people in private life who also contribute greatly to research and invention, and therefore in studying this measure we must take into consideration not only the activities of the research council and the experts employed by the government but also private enterprise and individual scientists or inventors who may also be able to contribute a great deal. History has shown that private scientists 'have, often by accident, discovered great potentialities of further developments. Therefore I say that it is of no use for us to consider the control of atomic energy nationally unless we are vigilant with regard to the developments of its use internationally. We must realize that in addition to the paid civil servants, scientists and agents employed by this government, private individuals will also be exploring into this as yet largely unknown field.
I should like to draw to the attention of the house a number of matters which I consider important in our approach to passing: legislation of this kind. In the first place,, the war has shown us that great secrecy must often be preserved. But the war has also shown us the difficulty of, restraining secret: discoveries from the general use of mankind) and the danger of the secret getting out fa those who might use it to our detriment. Consequently we must regard secrecy in the light of a danger as well as a protection, because if secrecy retains the use of atomic energy in the control of the few, they can make it more dangerous than if it is in the hands of the many, for the few may impede the development of further uses of this power, and one's imagination at present is hardly equal to realizing to what uses it may be put which would be detrimental to mankind. We must look with a vigilant eye upon developments eleswhere than in our own country. Canada is fortunate in containing the second richest deposits of the fundamental substances required for atomic energy, but it is doubtful whether some or all other countries will not be able to prepare the same product from like or similar materials.
As regards control, the reason the three great nations in possession of this secret, namely Britain, United States and Canada, have not shared it with Russia holus-bolus is not that they selfishly desire to use it for their own ends, but that they want to keep somebody else from using it to our detriment. The joint committee that met in Washington agreed that as soon as practically possible, full knowledge of atomic energy should be
Atomic Energy Control

extended to our allies. By the same yardstick, it must be spread out to scientists and to the public for maximum peace-time use. I am a firm believer that the development of atomic energy, like the radio, the telephone and electricity, will arouse the imagination of our youth, our scientists, our merchants and our industrialists, all of whom in their own way will probably undertake some forms of research. These movements should be sponsored. I am glad that the bill to some extent, though I believe insufficiently, sponsors that development.
If one looks upon atomic energy from the viewpoint of the history of inventions of bygone days, one recalls that there was much fear of the printing press and its effects upon mankind; likewise hindrances arose to the *development of applied electricity, the telephone and, above all, the radio; but, despite fears and predictions of possible trouble, the extension and the use of inventions increased rapidly. It is said that the theory of gravitation was discovered by someone who, sitting under a tree, was struck by a falling apple. So, great new uses of atomic energy may be discovered accidentally. Therefore we should be concerned to see that as much atomic knowledge as possible should be made public. While certain developments no doubt should remain secret and be kept under control, I believe that governmental responsibility is such that a member of the cabinet, responsible to parliament, should be included in the atomic committee so that he can bring to parliament all information which can possibly be disclosed, for dissemination by members of the house in our various ridings. So I urge that, in setting up the committee, not only the president of the national research council be an ex-officio member, but so also should a member of the government.
I agree with the hon. member for Vancouver South that this legislation should not be rushed, but that a special committee should be appointed and given full power to call for papers and documents, to examine experts, and to decide whether a better bill than the one before us can be produced. The best possible methods of controlling atomic energy are none too good for us in this day and age. I do not think we are going to gain anything by rushing the matter through. There are some sections of the bill -which the hon. member for Vancouver South has mentioned which may prove to be either helpful or detrimental, but personally I am not convinced that the bill in its present form is the best that can be adopted. In an attempt to guard the

secret, we may be merely impeding progress, and I think more attention should be given to that consideration. The prime concern of members of this parliament should be the extension of the peace-time use of this great force in all possible directions, for power, for light, for medical and medicinal purposes. There are indeed so many potentialities that we should be careful in drafting legislation that the horse we run with is not a horse which will hinder us in the race.


Mr. STANLEY KNOWLES (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the minister and the government are receiving from all sides of the house congratulations upon the presentation of this bill for the control of atomic energy. I want to join in those congratulations, although I feel that some member of the government might well reply that they have done only what they ought to have done and that therefore congratulations are hardly necessary. As a matter of fact I can hardly conceive in this day and age of any government of a democracy not realizing that they should take steps exactly along the lines of those proposed in the bill before us.
As I see it, the matter is a very simple one. Almost all of those who have spoken in the course of this debate have referred to the two aspects of atomic energy. On the one hand, it has terrifying possibilities with respect to war. On the other hand, it holds tremendous potentialities for us in the domestic field. On both counts I suggest that the government is absolutely right in bringing down a measure providing for public control of this new power.
I say that with a view of what has happened in past history. In the matter of armaments I think we are alj aware of the terrible part that has been played in human history by private manufacture. That has -been true with armaments of a much lesser force than that of atomic energy, and I suggest that all our experience adds up to the fact that this tremendous power, so far as war is concerned, must be under public control. I think we are all aware that control must not stop with national control; it must become truly international; but in order to move in that direction, we must make within our own country the beginning which is foreshadowed by the bill now before us.
On the other hand, in domestic matters, as the leader of this group (Mr. Coldwell) pointed out when he spoke at the resolution stage, history gives us a sorry picture of new sources of power getting into private hands with the result that their advantages are not made available to the people as a whole

Atomic Energy Control
but rather are misused, thus bringing misery to thousands and indeed millions of people. That having been the case with sources of power much less in extent than that which has now been disvovered, it seems to me to be of the utmost importance that as we launch upon the atomic age we see to it that this power remain in public hands.
I consider it highly significant that from all sides of the house, although in many debates we divide along party lines, in this debate there has been general approval of the bill now before us. I make that statement because I wish to refer in passing to something that was said by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green); and in replying to something he has had to say, I wish to be perfectly fair and to recognize that he did give support, both on his own behalf and on behalf of his party, to the principle of the bill. I felt, however, that in his remarks there was a certain fear about the bill, because to him it seemed to give to the government or to an agency of the government far-reaching and sweeping powers. In fact, I believe he used words something like these, that in this bill were contained the most far-reaching and sweeping powers ever given to any body of any kind.
I think that is true as far as Canadian history is concerned. Certainly it is true that any person or body or group of people exercising control over atomic energy will have just about the greatest power that any individual or any group ever had. But it is precisely because control over atomic energy is such a tremendous power that I do not want to see it get into private hands. It is for that reason that I support the principle of the bill before us, namely, that atomic energy should without question be brought under public control.


Howard Charles Green: I did not question that.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I recognize that. But in all kindliness may I say-I do not mean that I am not prepared to fight with my hon. friends to the right, but in this debate we are pretty well agreed as to the general principle -hence the manner in which I am dealing with this point. This issue seems- to come up so often-the fear of some of my hon. friends, particularly to the right, of delegating great powers to the government or to agencies of the government-and every time I hear that fear expressed it reminds me of my own greater fear and my own dislike of powers being entrusted to private individuals and corporations especially in view of the results of that policy in the past. So I suggest to the hon. member for Vancouver South and those
associated with him that they think this question through a little farther and realize that there is not a great deal to fear in the course that is being followed. It is far more democratic than leaving great powers in private hands.
I am sure my hon. friend will agree that it is a good day for civilization that something of this importance is to be protected from private exploitation and definitely put under the control of the people of the country and eventually under the control of the people of the world.


Howard Charles Green: I was not advocating private exploitation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I quite agree that my hon. friend was not advocating private exploitation. I have given him full credit for supporting the principle of the bill, but I am trying to assuage the fear he expressed about delegating such tremendous powers as this bill provides.


Howard Charles Green: To a board.


Stanley Howard Knowles: My hon. friend interjects, "to a board." That reminds me of the frequent request which is made, in the name of democracy, that all sorts of details on things that are taken care of by governments should be brought here and discussed in detail on the floor of parliament. I am one of those who will always insist on the overriding authority of this parliament. That is an essential in democracy as we know it, and we must not give in on that point to the extent of one iota. But if we are going to move on- and I believe that we are; history is pushing us, and we have an example of it in this very measure-if we are to move into the atomic age and into economic democracy, parliament will have to become the place where, because we deal with more matters, we learn to lay down basic principles, while delegating details to responsible boards that can act on our behalf. Otherwise, if we insist on every detail regarding all kinds of things that should be publicly controlled, and ask that those details be discussed in parliament, we shall become bogged down and we shall defeat the very purpose of democracy.
Far from having the fears my hon. friend has expressed, I feel quite pleased that the government has brought down this measure, and I trust that when the time for the vote comes it will receive the unanimous support of the house. Having said that, I should now like to support the suggestion made by the hon. member for Vancouver South with regard to referring the matter to a special committee. There is something in me that will
Atomic Energy Control

not allow me to support the suggestion of a joint committee of this house and the other place. My hon. friend is not surprised at my wanting to leave the other place out; but I support the idea of this matter being referred to a special committee of this house, and I suggest to the minister, whatever he may have thought of the suggestion from the hon. member for Vancouver South, that it is coming now from one who supports the bill, supports its principle, and is for it all the way through. My reason for suggesting that it be referred to a committee is by no means to hamper or hinder the progress of the bill through parliament. I feel, however, as expressed by the hon. member for Vancouver South and others, that this matter is of the greatest importance, and we have no idea of what the future may hold as we move into the atomic age, so that the more we know about the matter, the more publicity that can be given it throughout Canada, the better it will be for our understanding of this subject and for the decisions we and the Canadian people may have to make in the days that lie ahead.
If we move into committee of the whole following the second reading, we cannot have before us any scientists or others who might be able to give us all the available information on this subject. We cannot go into the whole matter in the way we could in a select committee in some other part of the building. I think it would be all to the good if that proposal were carried out. It might not result in the change of a single item in the bill; the bill might come back to committee of the whole in exactly its present form, but if in this way publicity can be given to what is involved it will be all to the good. Therefore I hope that the minister will give consideration to the suggestion, and I once again have great pleasure in supporting the bill.


Mr. NORMAN JAQUES (Wetaskiwin):: I should like to say a few words in support of the motion of the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green). In passing, I should like to call the attention of the house to the reasons which have been advanced by the members of the C.C.F. party for public control, which seems to be the purpose of nearly every bill which comes up in the house. The socialist argument that public control makes for peace and security is, I say, denied by all the facts of history. The socialist idea that private enterprise is another word for private exploitation has no truth in it. If we wish to know where real exploitation has been in the last twenty-five years we can look to the example set by the great dictatorships. There you have socialism actually working. It is one thing to

talk about socialism theoretically, but what did they have in Germany if it was not national socialism? What did they have in Italy if it was not guild socialism? What have they in Russia if it is not Marxian socialism? Each one is, or was, a tyranny. I think the Russian is as great as the other two put together. It is those dictatorships, those socialist countries, which have brought about the terrible revolutions and wars of the last thirty years.
You cannot blame private enterprise for tuo ills of the world. All the progress which the world has made up to the present time has been due entirely to private initiative and to the genius of individuals. As the minister well said yesterday afternoon, governments can exploit applied science, but pure science is the result of the efforts of private individuals. He said that one of the necessities of pure science was more leisure for those individuals who have a scientific mind, and that it was the greater amount of leisure formerly enjoyed by people in Europe which had brought about most of the advances in pure science there rather than on this American continent.
In connection with increased leisure, I should like to quote Major Douglas. I do not know of anybody who has expressed this idea as well as he has. The quotation is from "Credit-Power and Democracy", and reads as follows:	'
The more the maintenance of life can be shifted from the backs of men on to the backs of machines, the more important it is to find a creative outlet for the human energy released, and the more certain is it that a considerable portion of this energy will, without compulsion, be devoted to the improvement of the industrial machine. That is to say, if a practical policy based on these considerations be pursued there will he a fall in the man-hours required for routine or operating work, and a consequent rise in the man-hours available for design and research work. The industrial machine is a lever, continuously being lengthened by progress, which enables the burden of Atlas to be lifted with ever-increasing ease. As the number of men required to work the lever decreases, so the number set free to lengthen it increases. It is true that, owing to the defective working of an outworn financial system, the lengthening of the lever has been offset by obstacles to its beneficent employment, but these very obstacles, by raising up a world-wide unrest, will secure a rectification of the means of distribution, which is the first step to a better state of things.
Before we can solve the problem of distribution we must realize that we face a new age of increasing leisure, and that any efforts to distort the economic system into providing more jobs will meet only with failure. There is only one real solution, namely, to admit freely that we face an age of leisure. Provision must be made for that. If we do that, then, as a consequence, we shall have also an age of increasing liberty and freedom.

Atomic Energy Control


John Bracken: I rise to say just one thing,
and to say it briefly. Before I do that may I take the opportunity to compliment all those who have spoken on this measure, from the minister who introduced the resolution in the earlier stages of the measure to those who have spoken since. This is one measure on which every member who has spoken has spoken in a constructive and non-partisan manner. They have approached the problem from its broadest possible point of view.
My reason for speaking at this time is to supplement what has been said by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) and supported by many other hon. members. In view of the importance of this measure, I ask the minister to give careful consideration to referring it to a special committee of this house, or, if it is desired, a committee of this house and of the senate. I do that for no other purpose than that the house be as well informed as possible on this subject and on the plans which the minister has in view for the control of this new form of energy, and to consider if possible how the measure can be improved.
I have no doubt that the minister and his advisers have brought forward a measure which in their judgment they consider satisfactory. But it has been pointed out that in other places several aspects of it have been treated somewhat differently. I am not arguing now in favour of any other plan or of any modification of the present plan, but I think it would be expressing our appreciation of the importance of this measure if we were to give it further consideration. I think the minister would be recognizing the importance of the matter if he would consent to that being done. I need not repeat that atomic energy is a new form of power which may be of tremendous importance to man in the economic field and which also may be a great danger to society. That is recognized by everyone. Let us put our heads together and, with the best technical advice we can get, bring forward a measure which the house will agree unanimously is the best we can draw up at this time. I respectfully urge that this suggestion be favourably considered by the minister and the government.
Mr. SOLON E. LOW (Peace River): Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) this afternoon, and to the other addresses that have been made, particularly to the suggestion that the bill now be sent to a special joint committee of this house and the senate for study and revision. I find
myself in sympathy with that suggestion and would be very, glad to support it and urge the minister by all means to yield to it. I believe that in a committee of that kind much can be done to improve the measure or, if not to improve it, at least to assure everyone that it is the very best measure that can be devised by the government and put into effect in this country. So I strongly urge the minister to give effect to the suggestion.


Major James William Coldwell: If I may say just a word I shall be as brief as was the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low). I too think it would be a good plan to send this bill to a committee, not because I fee! that it should be altered in any fundamental patricular, but because I feel that too few people in our country fully realize the implications of this great new source of energy. We may pass this bill through the house; while we shall get some views here, we discuss it more or less from the point of view of the political set-up in Canada. If we got it before a committee we could call some outstanding scientists and others whose views could be publicized throughout Canada, which I think would be a great advantage both to the government in promoting this bill and to the house in adopting it. By this means we could give our people for the first time some outstanding opinions on the subject which would give them an understanding of just what this great new source of energy means. It is for that reason and none other that I warmly support the view which has been advanced, though I believe this house should appoint the committee. If a joint committee were appointed a recommendation would have to be made and to come back from the other place, and I do not think it would be quite feasible, altogether apart from what we may think of the other place. I think it should be a committee of this house which would report back to the house in the normal way. Then the hon. gentlemen of the other place could pursue a similar course, if they wished.


Howard Charles Green: That would be satisfactory to me.


Mr. G. K. FRASER (Peterborough West):: I am certainly glad that so many hon. member agree -with the suggestion advanced by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green), because I consider that suggestion definitely worth while. As has been said, the people of Canada know practically nothing about atomic energy. If this committee were set up it would be able to bring out the facts, and no doubt hon. members would advance suggestions which would be of value in setting
Atomic Energy Control

up the board. In this connection I should like to quote a paragraph from a news item dated yesterday:
Experts here do not foresee much chance of atomic energy being available for commercial use for about fifteen or twenty years, even though Hon. C. D. Howe, Minister of_ Reconstruction and Supply, expressed the opinion that commercial heat from atomic energy could be looked for in about five years. When one large consumer of coal asked the national research council regarding atomic energy, he was told to proceed with his original plans to use modern heating equipment but to allow for possibility of installing equipment which could use atomic energy some time in the future.
If this committee is set up I think it should ask the board to do everything possible in research and development along the line of the production of heat by atomic energy. The minister has said, and we all know, that we are faced with a fuel famine next winter. There is no doubt of that. In many parts of the country less cordwood has been cut this year than ever before, because it has been impossible to get men to go into the bush. In my own district, though trucks are going down No. 28 highway every day, there is not the quantity of cordwood going to the city that there was last year, and it is almost impossible to buy a load of it. I understand that the same situation exists in the Parry Sound, Muskoka and other northern sections. That is one thing this committee should impress upon the board, namely, the need to develop heat first. I believe that if the research men devoted their attention to the production of heat from uranium some result might be achieved not in fifteen years or five years, but in much less time. The development of the atomic bomb did not require the full six years of war. Some of the research work had been done before that, of course, but it was hurried along, and there is no reason why the production of heat by atomic energy cannot be hurried along in the same way. The explanatory note on page 2 has this to say:
Sections 7, 8 and 9 empower the board to undertake or facilitate research and investigation with respect to atomic energy, and to engage in, facilitate and control as the public interest may require the production and utilization of atomic energy, the dissemination of information with respect thereto and the production and distribution of materials requisite therefor.
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it is six o'clock. THE GOVERNOR GENERAL



ANNOUNCEMENT OP RETURN FROM ENGLAND

Hon. COLIN GIBSON (Minister of National Defence for Air):: It is my privilege to announce that His Excellency the Governor General, accompanied by General Vokes, arrived at Rockcliffe airport this afternoon

from England by R.C.A.F. plane, at five o'clock. I may add with some pride that the estimated time of their arrival at the airport was five o'clock.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 18, for the relief of Juliana Ed-monda Isabella Ferdinanda Baequaert de Beaujeu.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 19, for the relief of Margaret Penelope Brown.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 20, for the relief of Marion Cruick-shank Isaac.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 21, for the relief of Malvina Angelina Seguin Gascon.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 22, for the relief of Nora Kathleen Loury Cheverton.

Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 23, for the relief of Elsie Fisher Armitage.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 24, for the relief of Florence Mabel McIntosh Simpson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 25, for the relief of Francis Gordon Sullivan.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 26, for the relief of Minerva Jane Cory.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 31, for the relief of Esther Irene Lind Booth.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 32, for the relief of Katie Hoffman Pinsky.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 33, for the relief of Dorothy Adams Acer McDougall.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 34, for the relief of Helen Douglas Stewart Rankin.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 35, for the relief of Olive Esther Rose Ewen.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 36, for the relief of Andrew Prem-Das.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 37, for the relief of Marie Evelyn Dormer.-Mr. Boucher.
Bill No. 38, for the relief of Reginald Wesley Titcombe.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 39, for the relief of Hilda Forsey Pearce Johnston.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 40, for the relief of Ann Low Fuller Mitchell.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 41, for the relief of Marguerita St. Catherine McKeigan Guillevin.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 42, for the relief of Bessie Gold-rosen Green.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 43, for the relief of Audrey Helen Jackson Maxham.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 44, for the relief of Frank Russell Yeoman.

Mr. Maybank.

Privite Bills
Bill No. 45, for the relief of Florence Joy McGibbon Lafleur.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 46, for the relief of Isobel Cameron McLaggan Oswald.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 47, for the relief of John Louis Charlebois.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 48, for the relief of Margaret Ruth Weir Allan.-Mr. Boucher.
Bill No. 49, for the relief of Georgina Hylda Swaffield McKenzie.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 50, for the relief of Dorothy Ellen Cope Kimpton.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 51, for the relief of Vera Harriet May Kinghorn Hodgson.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 52, for the relief of Charles Patrick Kavanagh.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 53, for the relief of Irene Gertrude Carry Staley.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 65, for the relief of Ruby Rosina Burnett Walters.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 66, for the relief of Winnifred Violet Unsworth Thomas.

Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 67, for the relief of Helen Louisa Willcox Reid.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 68, for the relief of Richard Carter Eaton.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 69, for the relief of Annie Coyle Frances.-Mr. Stuart (Charlotte).
Bill No. 70, for the relief of Beatrice Irene Moore Hawes.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 71, for the relief of Laura Lillian Butler May.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 72, for the relief of Gladys Ethel Standring Weldon.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 73, for the relief of Elizabeth Maude Foy Gage.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 74, for the relief of George Burley Beresford.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 75, for the relief of Isabella Eleonora Cantlie Angus.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 76, for the relief of Albert Stuart White.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 77, for the relief of Edward Mortin Montgomery.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. *78, for the relief of Evelyn Clare Ward Davis Murray.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 79, for the relief of Esther Genevieve Johnson Potter.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. SO, for the relief of WTanita Winifred Ellerton Upton.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 81, for the relief of Joseph Victor Emile Tasse.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 83, for the relief of Roland Taillon. -Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 84, for the relief of Frederick Albert Johnson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 85, for the relief of Joseph Frangois George Landry.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 86, for the relief of Dorothy Ruth Bennett Macnutt.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 87, for the relief of Anne Levy Marder.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 88, for the relief of David Ritchie McEwen.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 89, for the relief of Marie Jeanne Antoinette Bastien Cadieux.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 90, for the relief of Gwenyth Lorraine Madge Popkin.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 91, for the relief of Louise Jocelyn Wolfrey Black Griffin.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 92, for the relief of James Delmer Thomas Kirton.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 93, for the relief of Helen Sylvia Stacey Thompson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 94, for the relief of Kay Florence Smart Gardiner.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 95, for the relief of Zoita Tehanciuc Moldovan.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 96, for the relief of Ambrose Keble Fred Vernham.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 97, for the relief of Clermont Gendreau.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 98, for the relief of Beatrice Lydia Ogulnik Goldin.-Mr. Boucher.
Bill No. 99, for the relief of Harry Dyce.- Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 100, for the relief of Alastair Tren-liolme Lovat Fraser.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 101, for the relief of Elsie Rachel Silverson Ward.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill	No.	102,	for	the relief	of William
Joseph O'Sullivan.

Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 103, for the relief of Dorothy Mc-Lelland Hamilton.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 104, for the relief of Violet Maude Griffiths Barraclough.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill	No.	105,	for	the relief	of Norman
Peter Gray.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill	No.	106,	for	the relief	of Andrew
Kovacs.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 107, for the relief of Eda Margel Sand.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 108, for the relief of Lucille Eileen Piche Perrier.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 109, for the relief of Bertha Lip-shitz Joslove.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 110, for the relief of Ernest Leslie Maddock Jones.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill	No.	Ill, for	the relief of Marie
Komyati Sznyitar.-Mr. Emmerson.
Bill No. 112, for the relief of Irene Renee Levey Ritchie.-Mr. Emmerson.
Bill No. 113, for the relief of Alexander Marr Meldrum.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill	No.	114,	for	the relief	of Ottocar
Fiedler.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill	No.	115,	for	the relief	of Kathleen
Elizabeth Regan Griffths.-Mr. Maybank.
Privite Bills
[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 116, for the relief of Eliza Ritchie McDerment.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 117, for the relief of Ruby Eileen. Baker Jones.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 118, for the relief of Ralph Samuel Currie.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 119, for the relief of Simone Tar-diff Laverdure.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 120, for the relief of Max Schacter. -Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 121, for the relief of MaryWalker Tiffney.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 122, for the relief of Margaret June Purdy MacKinnon.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 123, for the relief of John Rae.- Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 124, for the relief of Nellie Mugford Brumby.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 128, for the relief of Edith May Hort Search.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 129, for the relief of Alexander Thompson Powell Scott.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 130, for the relief of Frances Eleanor Miller Foster.-Mr. Casselman.
Bill No. 131, for the relief of Mary Kathleen Maloney Rassie.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 132, for the relief of Mildred Florence Rooke Cochrane.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 133, for the relief of Eileene Ruby Aspell Stinson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 134, for the relief of Edna Bookalam Howick.-Mr. Casselman.
Bill No. 135, for the relief of Berthe Alice Cardinal Reid.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 136, for the relief of Elizabeth Jean Warden Leupold.-Mr. Casselman.
Bill No. 142, for the relief of Thomas Bryson Beakes.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 143, for the relief of Lila Edna Page Kennedy.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 144, for the relief of Ernest Crete. -Mr. Stuart (Charlotte).
Bill No. 145, for the relief of Pauline Hellier Kirsch.-Mr. Casselman.
Bill No. 146, for the relief of Wilfred Fields Benlow.-Mr. Emmerson.
Bill No. 147, for the relief of Thomas Allan. -Mr. Emmerson.
Bill No. 148, for the relief of Martta Haavisto Aaltonen.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 149, for the relief of Rhona Gertrude Paikowsky Munn.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 150, for the relief of Arthur Joseph Hubbard.-Mr. Emmerson.
Bill No. 151, for the relief of Eleanor Hibberd Howe.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 152, for the relief of George Graver. -Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 153, for the relief of Malcolm Ernest Bigelow.-Mr. Maybank.

Bill No. 157, for the relief of Mary Epstein Harris.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 158, for the relief of Helen Irene Flewelling Wilson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 159, for the relief of Maitable Horwitz Hollander.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 160, for the relief of Pauline Gisele Guenette Villeneuve.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 161, for the relief of Mary Jaclyn Robinson Jeffrey.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 162, for the relief of Jessie Hope Forbes Hardie.-Mr. Emmerson.
Bill No. 163, for the relief of Robert Yenor. -Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 166, for the relief of Lillian Audrey Atkinson Jackson.-Mr. Casselman.
Bill No. 167, for the relief of Bernard Cook. -Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 168, for the relief of Estelle R. Warhaft Slobod.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 169, for the relief of Alexander Fitz Ormonde Spooner.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 170, for the relief of Eleanor Williams.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 171, for the relief of Joseph Henri Veaudry.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 172, for the relief of Amelia Jezik Pascas.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 173, for the relief of Cyril Maekie. -Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 174, for the relief of Carol Gordon Cass Planche.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 175, for the relief of Eveline Richmond Sykes Lacoe.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 176, for the relief of Miriam Vineberg Perel.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 177, for the relief of Paul Krawchuk. -Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 178, for the relief of Henry Arthur Creates.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 179, for the relief of Stephanie Tymehuk McLean.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 180, for the relief of Annie Spivack Prosterman.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 181, for the relief of Kenneth Edwin Morrison.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 182, for the relief of Almeda Mabel Hartry Ritchie.-Mr. Boucher.
Bill No. 183, for the relief of Margo Ismena Gravdon Heubach.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 184, for the relief of Erika Gossen Tenzer.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 185, for the relief of Isabel Green-shiekls Biggs.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 186, for the relief of Henri Edme Bernard.-Mr. Boucher.
Bill No. 187, for the relief of Nellie Harrison Andersen.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 188, for the relief of Marie Irene Clementine Elizabeth Ash.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 189, for the relief of Alexander Grant.-Mr. Maybank,

Church of The Nazarene
Bill No. 190, for the relief of Thomas Beach.-Mr. Casselman.
Bill No. 191, for the relief of Fanny Miller Astrofsky.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 192, for the relief of Grace Ellen Rafter Munro.-Mr. Maybank.
Third readings of divorce bills agreed to on division.
Bill No. 30, to amend the act incorporating the National Council of Women of Canada.- Mr. Harris (Grey-Bruce).

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on bill No. 82, to incorporate the executive board of the Church of the Nazarene-Mr. Warren-Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City-) in the chair.
Sections 1 to 3 inclusive agreed to.
On sections 4-Objects.
Mr. HACKETT:: We should have some explanation of this legislation. We may feel quite friendly toward it, but at least we are entitled to the courtesy of being provided with some details. I think most of us woidd feel very much embarrassed if we were asked for information concerning this bill and were forced to say that we could not get it.


The CHAIRMAN:: The committee is entled to any information it may desire. Do I understand that the hon. member for Stan-stead has some questions to ask on section 4?


John Thomas Hackett: I have not even a copy of the bill. I suggest that it stand until someone is here who can give us some information about it.


William Ross Macdonald: The sponsor is here, and if any member of the committee would like to ask any questions I am sure the sponsor will be prepared to answer.


John Thomas Hackett: I would ask the sponsor to give us a resume of the purposes of the bill.


Mr. WARREN:: This bill went through
the senate, through the private bills committee of the senate; it received second reading in this house and has been approved by the private bills committee. If I were asked what I know about the denomination known as the Nazarenes I would have to say that I do not know personally a great deal about them, but I do know the man whose name is mentioned in this bill, Mr. Collins, who wrote to me from Red Deer asking if I would be willing to sponsor this bill. I have known Ernest Collins ever since he was a boy and I would be willing to endorse anything that
Ernest Collins would endorse. My more or less limited knowledge of the Nazarenes as an organization is that their doctrine is the old-time Methodist doctrine. I think it was Macauley, the English historian, who said that the Wesleys did more to save England from bloody revolution than all the armies and navies that they could produce. I happen to know one of the leaders of the Nazarenes who practices his calling in the United States, and I know he is one of the finest types of Canadian citizen that one could meet. I also know this man Collins, who has been appointed now as principal of their college at Calgary. So far as I am concerned I have no hesitation in endorsing anything that Ernest Collins belongs to.


Gordon Graydon: May I suggest to the
hon. member that perhaps we can take as read his recommendation of the gentleman who is responsible for this bill, and I think my hon. friend is to be congratulated on his faith in his friend's good judgment. But we are now dealing with section 4, which sets out the objects of the corporation, and I was wondering if my hon. friend could indicate to the committee whether it differs in any material way from the objects of other religious organizations of a similar nature which parliament has incorporated in the past because I think it is well to follow as far as possible precedents that have become established. I think my hon. friend will appreciate the good will that prompts my suggestion.


Mr. MAYBANK:: If the hon. member
who is sponsoring the bill and the hon. member for Peel will permit me, I think I can answer the question. It came up in the private bills committee, and it was pointed out at that time that this bill, compared with other bills of a similar sort, was alike with others as two peas are alike to each other. Practically a standard form of incorporation has become established, and this follows that form slavishly. I think that was the point the hon. gentleman had in mind, was it not?


Gordon Graydon: I had in mind the
thought that in bills of this kind there is usually one set form used with respect to the objects of the corporation, just as there is a general form used in the incorporation of companies. My hon. friend the member for Winnipeg South Centre, who is chairman of the private bills committee, has explained that this is on all fours with similar church incorporations in the past. That was my only point.
2394

Evangelical Churches of Pentecost


Ralph Maybank: Quite so. We have
had several similar bills in the last two years that. I have been chairman of the committee. This is what one might call the stock form.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 5-Management.
Gordon Graydon: May I ask my hon.
friend-either one who may possess superior knowledge of this subject-whether the same remark applies to this section?


Ralph Maybank: Yes. There were certain bills of this kind last year; there is another one to follow this, and they follow the usual form word for word.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 6 and 7 agreed to.
On section 8-Capacity to acquire and hold property.
Gordon Graydon: What; is the membership of the body to be incorporated?


Ralph Melville Warren: I believe about 200,000.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 9 to 17 inclusive agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on bill No. 137, to incorporate Evangelical Churches of Pentecost-Mr. Dechene-.Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.
On section 1-Incorporation.
Mr. COCKERAM:: Would the sponsor give us an explanation of the bill?


Mr. DECHENE:: Mr. Chairman, this bill is one of several bills of this kind that we pass from year to year, providing for the incorporation of religious organizations, particularly when they have grown so large that it becomes difficult for the minister in charge to administer the property. Then, for the protection of the minister himself and of the congregation, it has been the custom to apply for incorporation in order that the organization may operate efficiently. It will be noticed that this bill is practically in the form of a model bill which parliament has adopted for many years, providing for this class of incorporations. The bills are drawn, as I said, from both a spiritual and a temporal point of view to provide for the proper administration of these congregations. It is provided that such bills are subject to some limitation as to

ownership, in order that a church may not speculate, for instance, because the properties are exempt from taxation. There is a section providing that if a parcel of land is held, say for fifteen years and no longer, as a meeting place for the followers of this particular denomination, and is not so used, they shall dispose of it or the property will become taxable, the idea being that only properties actually used for religious purposes shall be exempt from taxation.
This bill came to me from a minister of the gospel who lives in Athabaska and whom I have the honour to know. I am convinced that he is doing valuable work in many parts of the far north. His denomination operates mainly in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan; and I was much flattered, following the belief which I myself hold, that the Rev. Mr. Marshall entrusted me with the introduction of this bill. The bill was first presented to and passed by the senate, who recommended it to us. Yesterday, at a meeting of the committee on miscellaneous and private bills, this bill was gone over section by section and, as the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre has mentioned, it was found by the committee that it conformed to requirements and procedures followed by this house for many years in incorporating religious institutions. As to the kind of gospel preached by these people, I am unable to give any information.


Mr. ADAMSON:: May I ask the hon. member who sponsors this bill whether this Evangelical Churches of Pentecost is what is known as the holy rollers?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Joseph Miville Dechene: I am sorry that my
religious knowledge is not extensive enough to answer that question. I do not know of any religious community called the holy rollers. I do know, however, the minister who conducts this congregation in a district of Athabaska, and I know he is doing a lot of good. He is a Christian, and I have never questioned his methods or the name he goes under. Personally I was pleased to sponsor the bill, because I believe it is a good one.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I entirely agree with the hon. member. I was merely asking for information.


An hon. MEMBER:: The answer is "no".


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2-Directors.
Alan Cockeram: The hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre said that there was great similarity between these bills. I cannot see it.

Evangelical Churches of Pentecost


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 3 and 4 agreed to.
On section 5-Management.
Gordon Graydon: A few moments ago the chairman of the miscellaneous private bills committee was good enough to explain the other bill which, was before us. He then said, regarding the objects of the corporation and the clause relating to management, that it was a stock form, one used generally in the incorporation of church bodies of this kind. I would be the last one to attempt to place any obstacle in the way of passing this bill, but in the interests of the churches concerned we ought to have the bills right so that there will be no difficulty later on from their point of view. The. objects in section 4, relating to management, are so different from those in the bill which we have just passed that perhaps we might have an explanation from the hon. member as to why this departs so far from the stock form which has been used.


Ralph Maybank: When I made that statement before, I made it with reference to that bill, not of course with reference to this bill, but I believe I did say at that time that I was under the impression that the bill which would follow was in many and probably in all respects similar, and if there is that difference which has now been pointed out I was in error in saying that something which would come after was the same as something we then had before us. However, dealing with this bill, I cannot say why there is some difference here from some others. After all, I am not sponsoring it. But those who desired this bill, and those who had their representatives deal with it at first-that is, not the private bills committee of the House of Commons but the corresponding committee of the other place-apparently must have felt that this way of arranging t'he management of the church was preferable from their point of view. That is t'he only explanation I can give. Looking at it from the viewpoint of persons enacting legislation, we on the .private bills committee could see no objection to granting to these persons desiring incorporation the power which they ask, with respect to both management and other matters. We would not feel that it w'as any part of our duty to insist upon a precedent, upon having this follow the form of some other bill. It is true that some little time ago I was under the impression that these bills are very similar, and in a general way I think they are. However, these powers which are granted, in case this becomes law, are natural powers; there is no objection that I can see to them; those
who framed this plan desired it that way; and after all, since it is for their purposes and for those who will join with them, I believe the private bills committee considered that a sufficient reason. I do not know that there is any better explanation I can give.


Gordon Graydon: That is perhaps so. The only thing is that the powers they propose for themselves in this bill seem to be restricted rather than amplified.


Ralph Maybank: Yes.


Gordon Graydon: My hon. friend overlooked that point.


Ralph Maybank: Probably they did not want quite as wide powers. They were satisfied the way it was. I suppose that would be the answer.


Mr. LENNARD:: Are these bodies not asking really for some relief from taxation? I think they should have it, but, to get down to brass tacks, is that not so?


Ralph Maybank: It never so occurred to me. Of course I do not know. I have not the sponsorship of this bill. I would say that when it came before me that did not strike me, and certainly, had I felt that there was a hidden clause-


Frank Exton Lennard: No, not hidden.


Ralph Maybank: -providing for taxation relief improperly I certainly would have looked rather carefully at it. If there is anything in this bill which suggests that I think we ought to consider it carefully, before we attempt to grant any relief from taxation, although I doubt whether we can grant relief from taxation except such taxation as is dominion in its nature. I think I am right in saying that no federal taxation laws would apply to such bodies as churches. The only law that I can think of which would be applicable would be municipal.


Frank Exton Lennard: There is no objection whatever.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 9 agreed to.
On section 10-Application of mortmain laws.
Alan Cockeram: May we have an explanation of this section, especially the statement that "a licence in mortmain shall not be necessary for the exercise of the powers granted by this act."


Ralph Maybank: Does the hon. member ask me to explain it? The answer is, no.


Alan Cockeram: But what does it mean?

Evangelical Churches oj Pentecost


Mr. McMASTER:: The Secretary of State is here and I would ask him to tell us whether the government would object to a longer period than ten years. Both these churches that we have been discussing have branches in Toronto. The other one has a large number of adherents in the United States, and this Pentecostal church has a great many branches in Ontario. Is it because of some policy of the dominion government that the period allowed them is only ten years? That is a very short time in the life of a church.


Mr. GARIEPY:: The section under consideration is word for word the same as the section that we passed in the other bill a moment ago. This bill passed the senate private bills committee; it went before our own committee on private bills and was passed, and there was a report from the law clerks indicating that the bill is not out of the ordinary. Its provisions conform to the standard used in similar religious bills. I have no interest in it except to say that I can see no reason for delaying its adoption.


Alan Cockeram: I want an explanation :and I think the member sponsoring the bill should give us that explanation.


William Alexander McMaster: I would ask the Secretary of State to answer my question. After all, there must be some reason for the ten-year period being there.


Mr. MARTIN:: The Secretary of State, speaking for the government, has no objection to the bill.	[DOT]


William Ross Macdonald: Shall the section carry?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Will the Secretary of State repeat what he has just said.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The Secretary of State thought that his words had penetrated even the uttermost recesses on the other side. Speaking for the government, he has no objection to this bill.
.Mr. McMASTER: But has he any objection to a longer period than ten years?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Again speaking for the government, that is a provision to which I have no objection.


Alan Cockeram: Has the Secretary of State any opinion?


Gordon Graydon: My colleague is suggesting that this church should have wider powers and a longer land tenure. In other words, he is desirous of helping the church by granting it as many rights as possible; and since the ten-year period seems restrictive

he is asking the Secretary of State whether the government has any objection to making that period of tenure longer under this mortmain section.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend is an old parliamentarian. He is a good lawyer, and he knows that this is a private bill and that the applicants have come forward with clauses that are presumably pursuant to their wishes in the matter. Consequent!}' the government is not at all anxious to interfere with what obviously must have been in accordance with the terms of their own application.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Has the government any policy?


Paul Joseph James Martin: The government's policy has been stated already, but the hon. member has been preoccupied and perhaps he did not hear it.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I was preoccupied; that is quite right. But there have been many times in this house when the Secretary of State has been preoccupied, so we can just balance that. I am sorry if I missed the words of wisdom which fell from his lips some time ago, but will he not grant me this much sufferance, now that I ask him the question, and tell me what the government policy on the bill is.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The Secretary of State has three times stated the policy of the government, that it has no objection to the bill.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Thank you, sir.


Alan Cockeram: I come back to the same point. I should like some of the brilliant lawyers across the way to tell me what this provision means with regard to the licence in mortmain not being necessary for the exercise of the powers granted by the act.


Arthur Leroy Smith: There are no brilliant lawyers across the way.


William Ross Macdonald: Shall the clause carry?


Alan Cockeram: No.


William Ross Macdonald: The hon. member for York South has asked a -question and if it has not been answered all I can do is to inquire of the committee whether they are prepared to carry section 10?


Alan Cockeram: No. I still think the member who sponsors the bill, or the chairman of the private bills committee, should be able to tell me what the section means. I should like to know.


William Alexander McMaster: Perhaps the Secretary of State has not read the bill.

Evangelical Churches of Pentecost


Ralph Maybank: I have been asked-I believe the hon. member had me in mind when he put the question-to explain the meaning of the section in question. Some time ago he put the question in this way: Will the hon. member-referring to me-explain this clause? I gave an answer which was in the negative. I simply said, no, and that answer stands. It is no part of my duty to explain the clause, and instead of doing so I suggest to him a course whereby, bright as he is, he can understand it himself. That course is simply to read the clause. He will find in it a sentence made up of nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives, and all he has to do is to study the meanings of those various parts of speech, and when he has read it through that will be the meaning of the clause.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I am sure we know what the verbal harmony of the hon. gentleman who sponsors the bill means, but he does not say anything. He was asked the simple question. "What does this section mean?" May I frankly admit my stupidity-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I appreciate that applause because I know exactly where it came from. It came from over there, the right wing of the Liberal party who now sit on my left.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Mr. ABBOTT:: Where did that applause come from?


Ralph Maybank: Will the hon. gentleman permit an interjection?


Arthur Leroy Smith: Either I have the floor or I have not. Mr. Chairman, have I the floor?


William Ross Macdonald: The hon. member for Calgary West has the floor.


Arthur Leroy Smith: For this relief, sir, much thanks. That is a Shakespearean phrase. I think what the hon. member who sponsors the bill just said was that it means what it says; and "don't be stupid". I wonder if in the kindness of his heart- because he is a big-hearted chap-he will tell us what it means. That is not much to ask of the brilliant lawyer from Winnipeg who once drove an engine of the Canadian Pacific Railway company. He has had a very broad experience; therefore, aside from the literati end of it, will be please tell us what it means.


Ralph Maybank: I just wish to say as a matter of courtesy that I cannot admit that the committee is unanimous with reference to the quality of stupidity of which the hon.
member has just boasted. He may insist that it is so, but I am not going to agree with him on that point. As a matter of courtesy, I say, I am not going to agree with him.
I do not think the hon. member is right when he says that the sponsor of the bill said so-and-so. That is not a fact. The sponsor of the bill did not say what the hon. member has attributed to him. Finally, I should like to make this remark with reference to the bill. If hon. members will be serious for just a moment, may I say that it is something being done for persons who desire to organize themselves in a fashion in which they believe they can better exercise their religion. The bill has been drafted by them and has been found to be unobjectionable. While one may indulge in a certain amount of fun, perhaps at their expense this evening, as the hon. member for one of the Calgarys has been doing-


Arthur Leroy Smith: Would the hon. member please speak so that I can hear him?


Ralph Maybank: I hope the hon. member hears this. He is making a grave mistake in persuading himself that impudence and intelligence are synonymous; they are not. All this heavy fun from just this side of the foothills is a greatly belaboured type of humour. It would be well if he would for a moment imagine that he is grown up and act as an adult.


William Ross Macdonald: Before the hon. member for Calgary West replies, may I suggest that after he has replied the committee confine itself to a discussion of the section now before us. I will allow the hon. member for Calgary West to reply.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I am happy, Mr. Chairman, that you have taken that position. What you have achieved is to prove the stupidity of the remarks made just one moment ago, and I too agree wholeheartedly with you. Let us get on with the business of the committee and not be bothered by the intransigent nonsense which has just been uttered about the hon. member for Calgary West by the hon. member for one of the Winnipegs.


An hon. MEMBER:: Order.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I just heard the word "Order". It was not spoken by the Chairman, but by one of the cheer leaders from the other side of the committee. The word "stupidity" has a particular application. I think it is quite unparliamentary to suggest that an hon. member is stupid, as the hon. member who sponsors this bill, if I may say

Evangelical Churches of Pentecost
that again, has done. He used that expression; therefore I am glad that being the cheer leader of the back-benchers he finds a number of people so ignorant that they support him.


Ralph Maybank: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I did not use the expression which has just been attributed to me; it was used by the hon. gentleman himself with reference to himself. He drew attention to what he said was his stupidity; I did not.


Arthur Leroy Smith: One of us is right and one of us is wrong.


William Ross Macdonald: Order.


Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: Sit down.


Arthur Leroy Smith: You sit down.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Ross Macdonald: Order. The word
"stupidity" has been used quite freely on both sides of the house. Ordinarily the word "stupidity" is unparliamentary; but when it has been used in a jocular manner, as it has this evening, I do not think the Chair should pay too much attention to it. The chairman of the committee must consider the tone of voice which is used with the word. May I now suggest that there has been sufficient discussion on both sides with regard to section 10. Shall section 10 carry?


Arthur Leroy Smith: No. Will not the hon. member withdraw the word "impudence"? He is a youngster and a lawyer. I am an old fellow and also a lawyer. I ask him to withdraw the word "impudence", and I shall meet him back stage and shake hands, and if he is unable to do it, perhaps I shall even find someone who can accommodate him.


Ralph Maybank: Anything that will
advance the business of the committee I shall be only too glad to do. I shall not merely withdraw the words that the hon. member desires that I should withdraw, but in addition to that I shall withdraw all the things I was thinking of saying and have not said.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Mr. Chairman, we have to follow parliamentary practice. The chairman of the committee of the whole should see that unparliamentary words should not be used, and the Speaker should do his duty. The other night I listened with great interest to an able speech delivered by the hon. member for Vancouver South. He made a well-reasoned address, and the Minister of Veterans Affairs rose in his place and said-


William Ross Macdonald: Order. The hon. member for St. Paul's must not refer to a previous debate of the present session on a different subject.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I was only going to say what the hon. member for Vancouver Centre-


William Ross Macdonald: The hon. member for St. Paul's has emphasized the fact that the chairman should see that order is maintained, and I am going to ask him to assist me in performing that duty.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I certainly will assist the chairman in that regard, and I hope that no other hon. member will rise in his place and call anybody stupid on this side of the house.
Section 10 agreed to.
Sections 11-15 inclusive agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.



ATOMIC ENERGY


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Reconstruction and Supply) for the second reading of bill No. 165, relating to the development and control of atomic energy.
Gordon Knapman Fraser: Mr. Speaker, at six o'clock I had just read the explanatory note with regard to sections 7, 8 and 9, which stated that the board to be set up under the bill would have power to produce and distribute the materials requisite for the production of atomic energy. Uranium would be included among those materials. The other day the minister stated that at present Eldorado mines were just breaking even owing to the fact that uranium was being sold at cost. I suggest that the minister see to it that this board, when set up, sells the materials going into the production of atomic energy at a profit when they are exported, because he has to consider the taxpayer as well as the welfare of the people of Canada. The minister should see to that at once. Then, when the board is set up it should see to it that none of these materials are shipped from Canada except to countries authorized by the international atomic energy

Atomic Energy Control
commission set up under UNO. The board should not allow any outside powers to dictate to it as to the price at which the material should be sold.
I feel that this board can do a good job if they forget politics. Men can be chosen in this country who are far above politics, and who will give good service to be country. In many instances the trouble with boards set up by the government has been that they listen to members of parliament and political ward heelers when it comes to making appointments. People should be taken on their merits; that is the way it should be done in this case, because this is something far beyond anything we have ever had in this country before, and the board must be composed of men of the highest integrity.
This afternoon the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) raised a number of points, each of which should be studied by all hon. members. When the minister speaks to close the debate I hope he will deal with the points that have been brought out by the hon. member. The people of Canada, together with people throughout the world, are reading various articles in the daily press expressing opinions by scientists and technicians. Some of these may be correct; without doubt some are wrong. That is another reason why this bill should be referred to a committee of the house. From all sides of the chamber the minister has been pressed to adopt this step after second reading has been given, and I hope he may see his way clear to meet that suggestion.


Mr. E. G. McCULEOCH (Assiniboia):: This afternoon I listened to the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green), and I am quite in agreement with his proposal that this bill should be referred to a committee of this house, or possibly a joint committee of the house and senate. I would also recommend that the scientific workers of this country, those who were instrumental in discovering atomic energy, be given a real and definite part to play in connection with such a committee. To-day we have developed atomic energy and, no matter how we handle it, that problem is with us.
In my first remarks I should like to compliment the government on introducing this legislation. There is no other problem so urgent as far as the Canadian people are concerned, and perhaps as far as the whole family of nations is concerned, as this problem of atomic energy which has been tossed into the laps of governments all over the world. We of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation particularly welcome this bill because it puts under public control in a democratic way the most urgent problem of our day. In the past we have said that our economy in this country is outdated and outworn; that our science and invention have advanced so rapidly and we have become so proficient in producing the things we need that the system under which we have laboured, the capitalist system, is outmoded and leads to such things as unemployment, economic stagnation and finally war. So that we welcome this bill heartily. It is true that private enterprise knows only one law; that is, its legal right under the present system. Private enterprise feels no responsibility for unemployment or any of these other great tragedies which sometimes confront us. So that we say this great problem must and shall be solved.
I should like to refer to a statement which was issued by the association of scientific workers located at Canberra House, 73 High Holborn, London. They refer to the growing fear of destruction in the hearts of people. That is the result which we have to-day. If we are to allow individuals or private enterprise to have control of these things and use them for private profit we shall eventually be led into war. So we must change the situation. Now that atomic energy has heen achieved, it seems to me that the members of all political groups should recognize that this is the one thing which should be brought under control so that we may be able to distribute the things which we produce in this country among ourselves rather than be faced with the terrible possibility of having a potential production on the one hand, and poverty and unemployment on the other.
If we allow this problem to go unanswered we shall eventually create such forces of fear and distrust among the nations that it will not be long before we shall be faced, perhaps not with an armament race like in the last war, but a race to produce atomic bombs or to make other destructive uses of atomic energy. This frankenstein which one of the united nations has been successful in creating will be used against us and we shall be annihilated and blown to atomic fragments by the very machine we have created.
I am in agreement with the hon. member for Vancouver South who contended that this bill should be sent to a special committee of this house or a joint committee of both houses. The scientific workers of this country should have some say in the formation of policy. We have made only a beginning. There are world problems that must be solved. We cannot force other nations to accept our ideas any more than we can force hon. mem-
Atomic Energy Control

bers of this house to accept them. This government must be commended for having made a beginning so that we can show other nations that we have taken under our control this power which can be used for the betterment of man.
Perhaps we have not placed enough emphasis upon what atomic energy can do for the people. There is fear and distrust among races and we live from day to day in fear of what is going on. As long as that feeling exists, there is the possibility that this energy may be used for destructive purposes rather than being developed for peaceful uses. I think it was the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. McKay) who said that we should use this power for industrial purposes. It could be used also for medicinal purposes. Quite often when our scientists have worked to develop certain scientific formulas they find that they are used for diabolical purposes. There are many instances of this. Those men, like the rest of us, are wondering where the world is going.
This is a splendid step in the right direction. Into the lap of the government has been thrown one of the most urgent problems of all time, the problem of atomic energy. I hope that we can meet this challenge; I hope that we can find the solution of this great problem. The matter is of such urgency that members of all groups should be ready to get together.
In conclusion, let me say that this is just the beginning. We know that our scientists will be able to go ahead along the lines they have already adopted. Let us hope that this great discovery will not be used as some inventions of the past have been used. If we can bring that about I feel sure we shall have the collaboration and cooperation of nations all over the world so that eventually, through the united nations or some other organization, we shall be able to have a free exchange of scientific knowledge in order that the peoples of the world will be able to have real peace.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Mr. Speaker, I feel strongly about this bill and I feel strongly about the situation in which we find ourselves, that is, the control of the atomic bomb or fission. This thing means life or death; it means either good or evil. How do we propose to deal with the situation? It can be the greatest thing for good that the world has ever seen. I wonder if the world is capable of receiving it under the present circumstances?
What disturbs me more than anything else is just how we are to choose this board. I know something about the situation in the United States where they have done a pretty good job. The minister knows about that. The hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. 
Green) said something about it this afternoon. How do we propose to choose this board that we are to have in Canada? We cannot have all scientists on the board. We have to have some way of choosing this board.
I have the greatest admiration and the greatest respect for the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Howe). He has done many things very well and he has done other things not so well, but I will forgive him for those. I submit that the presidents of all the universities in Canada should be on this board. That is what should be done to start with. I do not think it would be too big a job for them. Then, to get the thing done they could call in the best brains on this board.


Humphrey Mitchell: Including yourself.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Is that the Minister of Labour speaking?


Humphrey Mitchell: I said, including yourself.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I would bring more brains to bear on it than you would. I know a little about what I am talking about because I had an opportunity of hearing lectures by Sir Ernest Rutherford when I was at McGill university many years ago.


Humphrey Mitchell: What did he tell you about atomic energy then?


Douglas Gooderham Ross: He told us something about it. As a matter of fact he told us that this desk on which I now have my hand has more space than it has matter. He said that this is a system of constellations. I know a little concerning what I am talking about, and if the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) will keep quiet and attend to his own business and settle some of these strikes all across the country he would be helpful. I have a lot of men on strike in my riding. I have a great deal of sympathy for the minister but I have also sympathy for the fellows on strike in my riding. There are also a lot of ships tied up there, and in Toronto we want to know where we are to get coal for next winter. If we do not get coal, where are we to get atomic energy to take care of us next winter?
We have some great presidents of our Canadian universities. We have Sidney Smith of the university of Toronto, and Principal James of McGill, my old university, and there are a great many fine people there. We should have a board consisting of the presidents of the universities. They are capable of choosing the right people. Some may say that Principal James has not chosen quite the

Atomic Energy Control
right people, but that is only a matter of opinion. Some may say that there are some reds in the university of Toronto. Maybe there are at McGill. But I say, Mr. Speaker, that the presidents of our universities can choose the right people, and that they know what they are doing. There are many good scientists that such a board could choose. If you want to get a chief for a medical school you do not just pick out a man yourself but you go to the heads of medical organizations and to the universities and find out whom they would recommend. That is only my suggestion and I give it for what it is worth.
This whole question of atomic energy is a question of life or death so far as this world is concerned. If I did not think so I would not be speaking in this debate to-night. Only in to-day's paper we read what a distinguished scientist said about the atom bomb tests, that an atomic bomb, if exploded under the ocean surface, might crack the earth's shell and there might be no survivors to report on the experiment. So that we certainly do not want to get atomic energy into the hands of the wrong people. I hope hon. members will take what I have said in the spirit in which I have given it to the house. This is an extremely serious question.


Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Reconstruction) :: Mr. Speaker, this has been an interesting debate and I suggest that an unusual amount of unanimity has been shown toward the objectives of the bill. Certain points were raised in the admirable address of the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green), and perhaps I might take up first the eight questions he raised.
His first one was: Should there be a board or should atomic energy be placed under the direct control of a minister? As my hon. friend pointed out, in the United States atomic energy is under a board, and in the United Kingdom it is directly under a minister. I think Canada's proposal of a board under a minister is a good combination of the two. It enables a group of men with diversified knowledge to be placed in charge of administration, under a minister who is chairman of a cabinet committee and who is directly responsible to the House of Com-njons. It seems to me that the plan proposed by this bill gives Canada the best of both arrangements and is consistent with Canadian custom.
Then my hon. friend mentioned watch-dog committees. I dare say that, as developments proceed, it may be desirable to have committees, and perhaps a standing committee of this house on problems of atomic energy may
be warranted; I do not think that is so at the moment. We should obtain more experience in the work of atomic energy before a standing committee is established. But that may very well be a logical development of the future if and when atomic energy takes a more important place in the Canadian economy. There is nothing in the bill that would prevent the establishing of advisory committees or the setting up of a parliamentary. committee, should the future indicate that that is desirable.
My hon. friend also asked: Is there sufficient control by parliament? As was pointed out, the British bill provides for a negative resolution. The Canadian bill provides by section 9(2):
Regulations under this section shall forthwith he published in the Canada Gazette and laid before parliament within fifteen days after they are made if parliament is then sitting, and, if not, then within fifteen days after the commencement of the next ensuing session thereof.
That is not quite equivalent to a provision for a negative resolution, but it does draw the regulations of the board to the attention of parliament, and it would be within the privilege of any member to bring any regulation before the house for discussion. So I think that point is covered.


Howard Charles Green: Is provision made for tabling the regulation in the house?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, that is provided by section 9(2), which I have just read.
Another question asked by the hon. member for Vancouver South was: Should the board be a full-time board? The government has not fully decided that point. The decision hinges on the question whether it shall be a regulatory or an administrative board. Should it be an administrative board, should it actually operate all phases of atomic energy, it should be a full-time board. Should it be merely a supervisory board to publish regulations, leaving the operation to others, then it should be a part-time board. That decision will be made within the next few months and parliament will be able to examine the situation at its next session.
Another question was: Does the bill unduly hamper research? My hon. friend will note that section 9 of the bill provides that the first responsibility of the board will be to make provision for research. It says:
The board may make regulations,-
(a) for encouraging and facilitating research and investigations with respect to atomic energy.
That is an instruction by parliament to the board. There is no doubt that research will be provided for.
Atomic Energy Control

Another question asked by the hon. member for Vancouver South was: What shall be done about inventions? Section 9(1)	(e)
covers that subject. I think that provision is about as broad as the present position of atomic energy makes possible at the moment.
Then my hon. friend mentioned crown companies. I have heard somewhere that he does not like crown companies; I think that has been made clear.


Howard Charles Green: Not the way they are being set up now.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The next point is, should the board make international agreements? The bill does not provide that the board will make international agreements; it provides that the board will keep abreast of developments in other countries. All international agreements will be made by the government through the Department of External Affairs and be subject to ratification by the House of Commons.
My hon. friend has suggested that the bill should go before a committee of the house for further study, and hon. members in other sections of the house have supported that view. I should like to give the arguments against that procedure.
The first is that there is some urgency about having this bill enacted. The atomic energy commission of the united nations commences its sittings to-morrow. Each member of the commission is desirous that he shall have the support of a bill from the country he represents as guidance in the position which he will take in the proceedings of the commission. This government is therefore doing what it can to expedite the study and passage of this bill.


Howard Charles Green: On that point, may I ask the minister if it is not the fact that neither the United States nor the United Kingdom have yet passed bills dealing with this matter?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I am told that the United Kingdom has enacted a bill. The senate of the United States has passed a bill, and it is expected that passage by the house of representatives will be only a matter of a few days.
The second objection to a committee is the secrecy which still surrounds atomic energy. Hon. members who have spoken in the debate have indicated that they would regard the hearings of the committee as a forum for the dissemination of information about atomic energy to the public. I hardly think the position is such that that would be possible. Only a few men in North America or in the world know the whole story of atomic energy.

Some two thousand scientists, engaged over the past three or four years, have taken part in research which culminated in the production of atomic energy.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: May I ask the minister a question?


Clarence Decatur Howe: When I finish my address.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: The minister said that only about two thousand people know about atomic energy. Did the professors in these various universities know who they were?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I do not think the list is
difficult to obtain. But I would point out that the research on atomic energy was carried out in very much the same style that a carpenter would use in building a ladder. A ladder is built rung by rung. Each rung is a separate unit in the ladder, but the whole is the ladder. The research in atomic energy was carried on in very much the same way. A group of scientists would work on one phase, and only one phase, of the atomic energy problem. At the top level was a committee who were able to take these individual efforts and fit them into a comprehensive whole; I suppose there are not twenty scientists in the world who know all phases of the development of atomic energy.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Would the minister permit one question? Among those twenty are there any of those who are under arrest at the present time?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Oh, no.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I am so happy to hear that.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The science of atomic energy has been made known to the world to the extent that the story can be told at this time. A publication called the Smyth report was brought out shortly after atomic bombs were dropped. That report received careful study from the policy committee in charge of the development of atomic energy, and contained all the information as to the science of atomic energy which it was felt could be made public. I may say that, regardless of secrecy, it is a complete report on the subject.
As far as methods of production are concerned, those are still matters of secrecy. I assume that if a committee of the house were appointed the first move would be to ask to visit Chalk River. I would have to tell the committee that such a visit was quite impossible, because Chalk River was built under an agreement that all three partner countries would approve any visitor to that enterprise. The process continues to be a secret process,

Atomic Energy Control
and it would not be possible to bring scientists from Chalk River to explain to a committee of the house, and to the people of Canada, just how we produce atomic energy at Chalk River. I think my hon. friend will appreciate that fact. What could be done usefully wrould be to bring men who have a comprehensive knowledge of the subject before the committee, and ask them w'hether the bill now before parliament is a satisfactory bill, and to ask for their suggestions for its improvement. That has already been done by the government. The government has consulted the eight or ten men in Canada who are best entitled to give an opinion on that subject. This bill has been under study for at least six months. The first draft was made as long ago as that. It has been revised to conform with Canadian opinion; it has been studied in connection writh decisions taken in the United Kingdom and in the United States, and to-day it represents the best opinion of men who are most thoroughly familiar with the subject matter of the bill. Therefore I think there is little probability that the bill could be greatly improved by being submitted to a committee.
There is the further fact that the men best able to advise a committee would be greatly embarrassed by being brought before the committee and subjected to cross-examination by its members. I have been associated with this problem since its inception in North America. I have been in at the top-level discussions. I have heard a good deal which to-day is public knowledge, and I have heard a good deal which to-day is not public knowledge. I would be hesitant about appearing before a committee and being subject to cross-examination, for fear that I would disclose knowledge which I have undertaken not to disclose. The top scientists who would come 'before the committee would be in the same position. If they were asked a question about the science of atomic energy they would need to have a consultant to tell them whether the question fell within the ambit of the Smyth report. If it did they could answer the question; if it did not they could not. They would not be able to answer questions about the method of producing atomic energy; they would be barred absolutely by the agreement which has been entered into between the countries that have pooled their knowledge. Therefore the committee could make no progress through questions along that line.
For these reasons I suggest that the bill should not be sent to a committee. It is a bill that is in parallel with bills being passed in the United Kingdom and in the United States. It is as good a measure as can be drafted at
this time. I daresay that two years hence it will be desirable to amend the bill. At that time the secrecy provisions may be altogether different, and it may then be quite in order to have the bill studied by a committee of the house.
A further objection to sending the bill to a committee at this time is that the subject is being discussed by an international commission; therefore it would be embarrassing to Canada's member on that commission if newspaper reports emanated from this capital giving the opinion of the parliament of Canada on a question being discussed on an international level. For that reason I cannot agree with the suggestion, much as I should like to adopt it. I know it was made in good faith' and it is one that would ordinarily commend itself to me.
I believe that the study of a bill by a small committee is usually helpful, but in this case the circumstances are such that I must ask hon. members not to insist that the bill be referred to a committee for public hearings, but instead that it be studied clause by clause in committee of the whole. I can assure hon. members that I shall take a reasonable view of any suggestions that are proposed in committee of the whole for the improvement of the bill. I hope that the bill will receive early consideration and become law as soon as hon. members can arrange.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: May I ask the minister a question?
Motion agreed to and bill read the second time.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Moved that the house go into committee on the bill.


Howard Charles Green: May I suggest that we do not go into committee to-night but that we have the British bill and the McMahon bill printed in Votes and Proceedings for to-day, so that hon. members may have them available for study to-morrow. We could then go into committee on our bill to-morrow afternoon or on Thursday.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The difficulty is to know what precisely the etiquette of the matter is, whether it is proper to publish in the Canadian parliament a bill that is being discussed in the United States congress. The United States bill has not been enacted into law, and I doubt the propriety of acceding to my hon. friend's request, much as I should like to do so.
Mr. GREEN; Could not the British bill be published and the United States bill be printed and distributed to members instead of being included in any of our formal publications?
Redistribution


Clarence Decatur Howe: If it will meet the wishes of the hon. member I shall have the two bills mimeographed and distributed to the members.


Howard Charles Green: That is sufficient, and would help a great deal.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, on the bill, Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.
On Section 1-Short title.


William Ross Macdonald: Shall section 1 carry?
Progress reported.



REDISTRIBUTION


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, June 6, consideration of the motion of Mr. St. Laurent for an address to His Majesty the King praying that a measure be laid before the parliament of the United Kingdom to effect an amendment to the British North America Act with respect to readjustment of the representation in the House of Commons.
Mr. MAXIME RAYMOND (Beauharnois-Laprairie) (Translation):: Representation in the House of Commons is a matter which, for many years, has given rise to numerous comments, and occasioned rather sharp protests, owing to the fact that some provinces did not have a number of representatives in keeping with their population. The resulting injustice becomes more obvious whenever the redistribution of electoral districts is contemplated, and the government is to be commended for proposing to redress that wrong.
The resolution that is now before us involves our requesting the United Kingdom parliament to amend the provisions of the British North America Act with a view to the establishment, in a clear and precise manner, of the basis of representation in the House of Commons, according to population, and the elimination of the injustice resulting from a legal interpretation opposed to the spirit of the covenant entered into by the provinces at the time of confederation.
Let us first examine this measure on its merits.
No one will deny that in a democracy the principle of parliamentary representation based on population is the fairest and the most equitable.
Now, if we take the figures of the last census and apply that principle, Ontario would have 83 members and Quebec 73, each member representing an average population of 45,578 while through the application of section 51 of the British North America Act,

according to the legal interpretation given thereof by the London courts, Ontario would have 82 members with an average population of 46,190 for each constituency, Quebec having 65 members with an average population of 51,213. Is that fair and equitable?
Yet, the spirit of the federal covenant entered into by the provinces was that the citizens of all provinces were to be placed on an equal footing. Reference to the parliamentary debates that were held on the resolutions which constitute the true covenant shows that such was unmistakably the intention. I shall deal again with this point later.
Can we indefinitely tolerate that the Quebec citizens should be considered as inferior beings, and that they should not be entitled to a representation equal to that enjoyed by the Ontario citizens? That is the question which comes up at this time. If we are to keep on living in the same house, it is time that such a situation be clarified, for otherwise we shall have to consider getting out of it.
It is perhaps proper that I should recall the slogan originated by George Brown, the founder of the Toronto Globe, "Representation by population". That was under the Act of Union which had granted an equal number of representatives to Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec), at a time when the population of Lower Canada was much greater than that of Upper Canada. Indeed, in 1841, Lower Canada, a French province which is to-day called Quebec, had a population of 650,000, as compared with
456,000	in Upper Canada, an English-speaking province which is to-day Ontario. But in time the population of Upper Canada increased to such an extent that it exceeded the population of Lower Canada; and it was at that time that George Brown thought it unfair that Lower Canada with a smaller population than Upper Canada should retain an equal representation. Hence his slogan which has become famous in our political history, "Rep. by pop."-representation by population.
That is the principle which the fathers of confederation w'anted to embody in the pact of 1887, a principle which a legal interpretation by the London court has changed or in some way distorted.
All that is asked in this resolution is that this principle of representation by population should be applied, with the formal exceptions provided in the amendment to the constitution which was agreed to in 1915
The question of national unity is being put forward. We are in favour of national unity, but under fair and reasonable conditions, and not always at the expense of Quebec.

Redistribution
What are the reasons given for opposing this measure? There are a variety of them. I shall discuss a few.
First, the increase in expenditures is mentioned.
The hon. member for Lake Centre has raised that point, and the hon. member for Nanaimo has devoted his whole speech to it. The latter hon. member feels some concern about the ratepayers.
Let us think seriously. Granting to the province of Quebec the representation to which she is entitled would involve an additional expenditure of $60,000. What a huge sum for people who are used to being treated as poor relations. Is that not enough to disturb the conscience of those same hon. members who, hardly one month ago, enthusiastically voted for a gift of $425,000,000 to England, apart from the numerous gratuities we extend to her under various forms: interest-free loan, subsidy to offset the difference between the on-credit sale price of the goods we ship her and the price paid to the producer, all that making up an additional sum of a few hundred million dollars, apart from the gifts of billions of dollars which have already been made.
Indeed, Mr. Speaker, the least that can be said about such an argument is that it is not serious.
The hon. member for Lake Centre and the hon. member for Davenport have, besides, expressed their concern about the rights of minorities for the future, should the resolution be agreed to. I hope I am not reflecting on them when I say that we had not been used to so much solicitude on their part. At least, they have never evidenced in this house any particular sympathy for minorities. Moreover, we have not forgotten the legislation passed under the Anderson government in Saskatchewan, the province where the hon. member for Lake Centre lives. No legislation has ever so brutally spoliated the rights of the French and Catholic minority. And the hon. member belonged to the party of Mr. Anderson, whom he later replaced as leader.
Nor have we forgotten that it was the party with which the hon. member for Davenport is connected that put through in Ontario the famous Rule 17, of woeful memory.
No, this passing regard for minority rights leaves us quite skeptical.
I now come to the more momentous argument of a constitutional character.
It cannot be gainsaid that the province of Quebec has long been subjected to an evergrowing unfairness. Must this unfairness be allowed to subsist or should we attempt to
redress it? Such is the question at issue, and we, of the province of Quebec, are interested in knowing the attitude of this house, as well as that of the other provinces, in order to chart our future course.
The problem, however, is to determine how we should go about it?
In view of the legal construction placed by the Privy Council upon subsection 4 of section 51, it may be wondered if the government could not have attained a similar purpose by using section 52 in connection with subsection 2 of section 51, without tampering with subsection 4 of section 54, nor resorting to some amendment to the constitution.
Under section 37 of the British North America Act, representation at the time of confederation was established in proportion to the population, allowing 81 constituencies to Ontario, 65 to Quebec, 19 to Nova Scotia and 15 to New Brunswick.
Sections 51 and 52 then provide for a revision of representation following each decennial census.
Section 52 states:
The number of members of the House of Commons may be from time to time increased by the parliament of Canada, provided the proportionate representation of the provinces prescribed by this act is not thereby disturbed.
This section therefore enables parliament to increase the number of members of the house without any amendment to the constitution, provided the representation proportionate to the number of population of the provinces be not disturbed, with Quebec serving as a basis in establishing the quotient. Subsection 2 of section 51 states that representation should be proportionate to the number of population in each province.
Of course, subsection 1 of section 51 states that "Quebec shall have 'the fixed number of sixty-five members." But no one will claim that when Parliament was granted the power to increase the number of. members, it was the intention to increase solely the number of members of other provinces, at the prejudice of Quebec, despite its growth of population. It w!ould have been an unspeakable injustice. Besides, this is a point which has already been clarified. Reference to the debates on Confederation, at the 1865 session of the Parliament of the United Province of Canada, will show that the question was brought up as to whether the number of 65 members allotted to Quebec was subject to increase with the growth of population. Now here is the answer, given by Sir Hector Langevin, solicitor
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general, on behalf of the government, as reported on page 391 of the Debates for the year 1865:
The hon. member for Lotbiniere, getting over his fears and predictions and speaking of the sixty-five members from Lower Canada, put the following question-"Suppose the population in Lower Canada should in ten years increase thirty-four per cent, while that of the other provinces increases only thirty per cent, would it not be unjust to Lower Canada that the number of its representatives should remain the same, should still be sity-five, while that of the other provinces will be increased; w'hile in any ease the number of representatives from the other provinces is not to be diminished unless their pouplation should diminish five per cent?" The resolutions do not prevent Lower Canada from having more than sixty-five representatives, if its population should increase faster than that of the other provinces. _ The French translation of these resolutions is erroneous, for it says that "for the purpose of determining the number of representatives from each province at the end of every decennial census. Lower Canada shall never have either more or less than sixty-five representatives," whereas the English version of the resolutions, which is the official version, says: "Lower Canada shall always be assigned sixty-five members." This does not mean that Lower Canada can never have more than sixty-five members, but that it can not have less than sixty-five members. That is, I think, a categorical answer to the hon. member's objection.
It is true that the British North America Act which came back to us from London said under section 51-1: "Quebec shall have the fixed number of sixty-five members" whereas the resolution passed by the various provinces mentioned: "Lower Canada (Quebec) shall always be assigned sixty-five members."
But if this difference in phrasing gave rise to any misunderstanding, we should refer to the official interpretation of the resolution, which really constitutes the pact entered into by the provinces, and which I quoted a minute ago.
It follows from these provisions of the British North America Act, therefore, that parliament has the power to increase representation at the House of Commons, according to the population of the various provinces, without infringing upon section 54-4, which is effective only in the case of a decrease in the representation of a province. Moreover, section 51-1 does not prevent Quebec from having a greater number of members.
Why did the government not raise the number of members to which Quebec is entitled, in view of its population, under these provisions? I do not know, this procedure might have given rise to legal interpretations, such as we have had before, endangering the principle of representation according to population or at least delaying its application.

In any case, since the government wish to resort to a constitutional amendment, I revert to the resolution as introduced.
The resolution, as I have pointed out, calls for an amendment to the British North America Act.
According to the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), the bill calls for the most radical change to our constitution since the passing of the confederation act in 1867.
If the change is as fundamental as he contends, we must conclude that the idea of the agreement was to give Quebec an inferior status to that of the other provinces, and that the party which he represents is resolved to perpetuate that subordinate position. In that case, it is high time to take action and to put an end to this situation.
But such is not, to my mind, the aim of this measure, which, far from violating the spirit of the agreement, tends to restore its proper meaning.
I have shown that the pact was designed to allot the number of representatives from the various provinces to the House of Commons proportionately to their population. This is the principle embodied in the resolution.
How should we proceed to amend the constitution? The British North America Act does not indicate any solution. We should fill in this gap.
The custom followed has been to petition the imperial parliament. Here is another remnant of colonialism which must disappear. It seems illogical that we should be required to amend our own constitution through a foreign country, after our rights as a sovereign nation have been recognized by the Statute of Westminster.
Up till now, in spite of various attempts to put an end to this anomaly, the dominion and the provinces have not yet succeeded in finding a method of procedure acceptable to all parties. Let us hope that this will not be too long delayed. For the time being, I will merely observe that the constitution should not be left simply to the mercy of a parliamentary majority which might alter its spirit.
It has been claimed that the provinces should have been consulted.
In the first place, I must say that I cannot accept the argument propounded by the Minister of Justice to the effect that this matter of representation in the House of Commons concerns the dominion exclusively and affects the provinces in no way whatsoever. To my mind, this problem takes on a dual aspect and has a bearing on both the dominion parliament and the provinces since it is in the interest of the latter to have in the federal sphere

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a fair and equitable representation. I believe the Minister of Justice would have been well advised if he had consulted their delegates at the recent interprovincial conference held at Ottawa or otherwise. The fact that the provinces were not approached, however, should not prevent a member of the dominion parliament from voicing his opinion on the merits of the resolution now before the house.
What is the object of this resolution? It seeks to right the injustice inflicted on the province of Quebec to an increasingly marked degree in violation of an agreement entered into by the provinces relating to representation on the basis of population. We are not concerned with passing legislation to amend the British North America Act; we have neither the right nor the power to do so, nor have the provinces, for that matter, since the B.N.A. Act is an imperial statute which the Imperial Parliament alone may alter. We are concerned only with expressing a recommendation with a view to righting an injustice which springs from the legal interpretation given a clause of the B.N.A. Act and distorting its spirit. This recommendation, according to the practice observed due to the lack of some other recognized procedure, is presented to the United Kingdom Parliament which is alone authorized to amend our constitution and grant our request.
As member for a Quebec riding affected by this situation, I deem it my right and duty to support this resolution. In expressing this attitude, I feel that I am carrying out the spirit set forth in the resolutions passed by the provinces which subscribed to the agreement; these resolutions, of which the B.N.A. Act is but the legal embodiment, intended the provinces to be represented in the Dominion Parliament in proportion to their population. We were to be on an equal footing, but we are not. Let us put things right.
As far as the provinces are concerned, nothing prevents them from voicing their opinion on the merits of this bill.
Those wishing to see this obvious unfairness rectified could express a recommendation identical with the one set forth in the resolution; they might even have done so earlier, since the injustice has been manifest for some thirty years at least. On the other hand, those wishing to perpetuate the injustice inflicted on Quebec could protest against the step taken in this instance by the dominion parliament and express their grievances to the only authority at present entitled to hear them, that is, the imperial parliament which is empowered to amend the text of our constitution and to render a final decree. I hope
all the provinces will voice their opinion so that the people of Quebec may know what guarantee of fairness confederation holds in store for them in the future.
The hon. member for Lake Centre moved his amendment obviously with the intention of defeating the resolution.
The resolution would correct an injustice while the proposed amendment would perpetuate that same injustice. Such, in brief, is the situation.
According to the terms of the amendment, the government would be required to consult with the different provinces and could only proceed with the resolution upon satisfactory conclusion of such consultations. Who shall . decide whether the consultations gave satisfactory results and who would such results have to be satisfactory to? From the stand taken by the Progressive Conservative group, only one solution would be satisfactory to them and that would be to deprive Quebec forever of her right to a fair representation.
In fact, the amendment leads but to the maintenance of a status quo perpetuating an injustice.
Before closing my remarks, I wish to underline certain contradictions in the attitude of hon. members who have put forward the constitutional argument.
In 1943 the government moved an amendment to our constitution which seriously affected Quebec's right to a fair representation. Not only were the provinces not consulted, but the Quebec legislature protested unanimously.
Here is what Bernard K. Sandwell, editor of the Toronto weekly Saturday Night, wrote on August 7] 1943, regarding the consequences of such an amendment. I quote:
The present amendment does very gravely affect the right of the people of Quebec, not as electors of the Quebec legislature, but as electors of the dominion parliament. It considerably curtails the proportion which their representation, as provided by the B.N.A. Aet, bears to the representation of certain other provinces and therefore of the rest of Canada taken as a whole.
Neither the hon. member for Lake Centre nor the hon. member for Davenport tried to uphold the constitution; on the contrary, they both supported the amendment. Quebec was to be treated unfairly, so there was no question of consulting the provinces or of respecting their views; there seemed to be no principle involved and there was no need then to quote so extensively from the utterances of former statesmen.
To-day, three years later, we have before us a bill which would correct an injustice with regard to the representation from the province of Quebec, in accordance with the
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spirit of the confederation pact, and immediately there arises the question of principle. The text of the constitution must not be tampered with, even to give it its true meaning. I find with amazement that those same hon. members are also asking for a postponement of the redistribution until 1952, thus renewing the injustice of 1943-which would necessitate our amending the constitution- without consulting the provinces. Rarely have I witnessed a more glaring example of inconsistency.
As a parting remark, I submit to the consideration of those who so often speak of national unity, the following extract from an article on Quebec's representation, which appeared in the 15th of March edition of Maclean's Magazine. I quote:
Redistribution of parliamentary seats likely will be one task of parliament's new session. It will perhaps do a service to national unity if English-speaking Canadians realize that Quebec is underrepresented in parliament as we stand now, and some of the English-speaking provinces are overrepresented.


Mr. L. PHILIPPE PICARD (Bellechasse) (Text):: Mr. Speaker, there are two principles involved in the resolution before us. First, there is that of the representation in the House of Commons from each province, and then that of the amending of the British North America Act, which latter question leads us to the broader aspect of our whole constitutional set-up. Let us admit at once that the government had no alternative but to bring forward a measure providing for the redistribution of seats at this session or at least before the next general election. It was strange to hear some speakers urging us to follow strictly the provisions of the British North America Act and then immediately afterward suggesting that we should postpone redistribution until after the next census. If it was wise, and in my opinion it was, to postpone such a measure during the war, it is imperative that such a measure be introduced now.
When considering whether or not we approve the new basis of representation, we are faced with a principle that has been the subject of long deliberations since the advent of democratic parliamentary institutions, that is, representation by population. It is not by far the only method in countries where there are minorities, but there, as in more homogenous countries it has been recognized as the most equitable.
Representation by population was not provided in the Union Act of 1840. Article IV provided for the appointment of the legislative council and fixed the number of councillors at twenty or more, to be appointed by

the governor, but did not provide that they should represent any district or section of the united province. Article XII provides:
And be it enacted that in the legislative assembly of the province of Canada, to be constituted as aforesaid, the parts of the said province which now constitute the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada respectively, shall, subject to the provisions hereinafter contained, be represented by an equal number of representatives to be elected for the places and in tne manner hereinafter mentioned.
In 1840 the population of Lower Canada was 716,670 and the papulation of Upper Canada was 432,159. It is to be noted that opinion on this question of representation has varied considerably. You see those who at one moment would have lost seats or proportionate influence by its application objecting strenuously to it, and the same people a few years later claiming loudly that they should get it when the position is reversed and they would benefit by it. As I stated a moment ago, in 1840 the population of Upper Canada was substantially less than that of Lower Canada, so that representation by population was opposed by Upper Canada and, despite the protests of Lower Canada, the representation of each section of the united province was set at an equal number; it was forty-two for each section from 1840 to 1854, when it was raised to sixty-five members for each. That arrangement lasted until confederation.
The census of 1851 showed that Upper Canada had gained considerably and had reached 952,000, while Lower Canada had at that time only 890.000. In 1855 a movement was started in Upper Canada claiming representation by population, and when the census of 1861 revealed that Lower Canada had only 1.100,000, while Upper Canada had 1,400,000, the movement gained momentum and the situation became acute as to the respective representation of the two sections of the united province. By that time Lower Canada also had reversed its stand. It was of the opinion that if equal representation has been considered good by Upper Canada when that section was less populous, it was equally good when the relation between the population- of the two provinces had changed. When Sir John A. Macdonald reviewed the unsatisfactory conditions that marked the last years of the Union he had this to say:
The next mode suggested-
He was speaking of the difficulty of settling conditions as between the two provinces.
The next mode suggested was the granting of representation by population. Now we all know the manner in which that question was and is regarded by Lower Canada; that while in Upper Canada


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Mark these words:
-the desire and cry for it was daily augmenting, the resistance to it in Lower Canada was proportionately increasing in strength. Still, if some such means of relieving us from the sectional jealousies which existed between the two Canadas, if some such solution of the difficulties as confederation had not been found-*
Mark again these words:
-the representation by population must eventually have been carried; no matter though it might have been felt in Lower Canada as being a breach of the Treaty of Union, no matter how much it might have been felt by the Lower Canadians that it would sacrifice their local interests, it is certain that in the progress of events representation by population would have been carried.
The fathers of confederation provided for it in article 17 of the resolutions of Quebec and in article 18 of the London resolutions in the following words:
The basis of representation in the House of Commons shall be population.
This principle was implemented by article 40 of the British North America Act which determined the respective number of members from the four provinces at the first election.
Article 51. as we all know, provides for readjustment and sets the rules that should govern it.
Previous speakers have wondered why Quebec was taken for the pivot province, and some nationalists in my province appear to have seen in that fact some sort of protection or guarantee for them. I would say this, that nowhere can be found in the documents or speeches or letters available on the question anything that would warrant ascribing that motive to those who drafted the resolutions. The idea that Quebec gained by being the pivot province is a myth. The interpretation of article 51(4) has even worked against the pivot province by doing away with true representation by population. The moment that true representation by population exists, every province is in the same relation to the others whether there is a pivot, province or whatever is the device used to determine the representation. The method of amending the act constitutes the only way to prevent any dangers to the rights of any province. I will treat that later in the second part of my remarks.
As to the choice of Quebec as the pivot province, vre have the declaration of Sir John A. Macdonald, made in February, 1865, when he explained to parliament the project of confederation. He said, during the course of his monumental address:
(We chose Quebec) that province being the best suited for the purpose, on account of the comparatively permanent character of its population, and from its having neither the largest nor least number of inhabitants.
That satisfies me as being as good a reason as any I know for choosing Quebec at that time as the pivot province. The method had been chosen to ensure representation by population and yet to avoid what Sir John A. Macdonald called "the danger of an inconvenient increase in the number of representatives on the recurrence of each decennial period." The method, as we know, was to divide the population of the province that had neither the largest nor the lowest number of inhabitants and whose population had a comparatively permanent character, and according to her population determine the representation of the other provinces.
Why the number 65, is another question that has been asked. Of course, as we see in article 40 of the British North America Act, Lower Canada in 1867 was divided into 65 electoral districts. One reason for selecting Quebec might be thus related to the method provided in the present resolution before the house in this respect, that both methods devised to ensure true representation by population had also the added aim of not reducing the existing number of members at the moment of the change. As we have seen Lower and Upper Canada has respectively 65 members. Representation by population would have been just as well ensured by keeping Ontario's members at 65, but then Quebec would have lost 14 members. To many people this would have been much less acceptacle than for them to keep what they had and for Ontario to gain 17 members. What we are doing to-day is the same process in reverse. If we had true representation by population and Quebec's representation were still fixed at 65, Ontario would have only 74 seats. By the method followed in the present measure Ontario not only does not lose but gains one seat, while Quebec gains eight. The present government by following this method shows the same regard for the feelings of Ontario that the fathers of confederation had for the feelings of Lower Canada in 1867. Instead of reverting to true representation by population by reducing the membership of certain provinces, it secures that result by a new device which does not reduce substantially the representation of any province but increases that of three.
An hon. member criticized increasing the membership of this house. May I remind him of Sir John A. Macdonald's words in this regard. But before I do so, let me point out that in the parliament under the Union there were 130 members for Lower and Upper Canada when their joint population was two and a half million. That would mean that we would now have 592 members in this
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house, a ridiculously high number. Taking the representation given in 1867 to Ontario and Quebec, 147 members, we would now have 669 members, which would have been an abnormally high number. But just the same Sir John A. Macdonald did not think the number of members set at the time was high but rather that it was not high enough. I might be permitted to quote him in this regard. He said:
I was in favour of a larger house than 194, but was overruled. I was perhaps singular in the opinion, but I thought it would be well to commence with a larger representation in the lower branch. The arguments against this were that, in the first place, it would cause additional expense-
That is an argument that is being made to-day by his inheritors. He went on:
-in the next place, that in a new country like this, we could not get a sufficient number of qualified men to be representatives. My reply was that the number is rapidly increasing as we increase in education and wealth; that a larger field would be open to political ambition by having a larger body of representatives; that by having numerous and smaller constituencies, more people would be interested in the working of the union, and that there would be a wider field for selection for leaders of governments and leaders of the parties. These are my individual sentiments,-which, perhaps, I have no right to expres here-but I was overruled, and we fixed on the number of one hundred and ninety-four, which no one will say is large or extensive, when it is considered that our present number in Canada. alone is one hundred and thirty. The difference between one hundred and thirty and one hundred and ninety-four is not great, considering the large increase that will be made to our population when confederation is carried into effect.
That so-called "large increase" at the time meant a total population of four millions. Can it be said that, in order to bring a true measure of representation by population, it is extravagant to increase the membership by ten in order to avoid the necessity of reducing it by seven if we followed the old method foreseen by article 51?
Sir John A. Macdonald also stated:
In the formation of the House of Commons the principle of representation by population has been provided for in a manner equally ingenious and simple.
I contend, Mr. Speaker, that the manner provided for in the measure now under study for the restoration of the true representation by population as intended by the fathers of confederation according to their numerous statements is also a manner equally "ingenious and simple", to use Sir John's words, that commends itself to the sense of justice and equity of all those who believe in true representation by population.
[Mr. Picard.1
The fact, Mr. Speaker, that we have no definite provisions for amending our constitution or our so-called constitution is not conducive to a healthy state of affairs. That very lack constitutes a danger in this way, that it leaves open to argument the methods for amending and the conditions which must be followed. On certain amendments of the British North America Act, about certain clauses, any interpretation is as good as another, whether or not the parties to the pact are to be consulted. Previous speakers have enumerated the eight different amendments of the British North America Act since it came into force, and I am not going into that again; but on no occasions have the provinces been consulted, although it might be said that in 1907 the amendment provided for a revision of the scale of subsidies to the provinces, and that came after resolutions passed by the provincial conferences of 1887, 1902 and 1907. Yet on two occasions the question of representation in the Senate, on one occasion the representation in this House of Commons, were involved and the provinces were not consulted, although the measure changed in a sense the balance of sectional power. The act of 1886 authorized the parliament of Canada to make provision for the representation in the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada, or in either of them, of any territories which for the time being form part of the dominion and are not included in any province thereof. The act of 1915, as has already been stated, raised the number of senators to ninety-six and increased the divisions of Canada from three to four, and provided for a different mode of representation for Prince Edward Island. To-day we have a resolution proposing a third amendment affecting the representation.
Having regard to the procedure followed in the past of not consulting the provinces on such a question, I ask myself, has parliament the power to deal with this matter of representation? To this I answer: in default of any definite rules on the matter in the British North America Act, and since the provinces are represented in this parliament, I consider that we have sufficient authority.
My second question is, does the redistribution of seats provide a true way of bringing about a fair measure of representation by population? To this I have already built up my case for the affirmative in the first part of my remarks.
My third question is, are we in this resolution carrying out the wishes of the founders of confederation? My answer is, not only are we doing that, but we are correcting a

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state of affairs which they had surely not foreseen when they enacted subsection 4 of section 51; that is, representation disproportionate to population given to the largest province.
Having thus satisfied my conscience, I shall vote against the amendment and for the resolution.
However, I am not willing to let the case rest with such a conclusion, and I feel that I must pursue farther the aspects of the question having regard to the future. Does this procedure which has been followed in the past, and which now I am about to support by my vote, guarantee a safe element of stability between federal and provincial rights, and is Canada's constitutional position consistent with its status of a sovereign state? These are two broad questions, and I have very little time to do them justice.
The hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) has quoted an impressive list of authorities to uphold the theory that the provinces ought to be consulted in a question of this kind. I have made a review of many of his quotations, and I am quite in agreement with them on one point, that it would be a most unhealthy practice for this house to go on forever assuming the right to press for amendments to the British North America Act without devising some way of obtaining the views of the parties who entered into the contract or the treaty whose terms are the Quebec resolutions. I do not intend to start an argument as to the nature of the agreement which led to the passing of the British North America Act. Surely the latter is not an instrument which should be continually amended at will by the federal parliament alone. I may be wrong, but I feel I am in good company when I say that. .
Parliament appears to have been created by the act of a superior legislative body; yet this is not true, and the appearance results from a situation peculiar to our condition of colonies at the time of confederation, because the pact was the resultant of negotiations and agreements between equals at the time. The Act of Union of 1840 was de jure and de jacto the mere expression of the will of the British parliament about the management of some turbulent colonies to which it was granting its first responsible government. Therefore it could have been amended by the constituting authority without any consultation with the colony. The British North America Act, however, was not imposed on Canada. It came as the result of long negotiations initiated by the colonies and taking place among themselves without the intervention or control of Great Britain. All the correspondence and the documents pertaining to these negotiations
point to the origin from within and not to the imposition from without. They show the desire and anxiety of a group of enlightened men who were far from being geniuses but who were men of good will and courage, who understood that their respective and joint interests would be better served if they united together.
Speeches made at the time of confederation and the interpretations by all constitutional authorities lead to the conclusion that Mac-'donald and Cartier wanted to create a strong central government, while at the same time assigning to the provincial legislatures definite and enumerated powers, We do not have to go over all the reasons which made a federal union the most acceptable scheme to the colonies and the most practicable in the circumstances; but it is evident, not only by the text of the British North America Act but by the speches made by the fathers of confederation, that they wanted a strong Canada with the central government as the predominant factor. On the other hand, we know from Sir John A. Macdonald's own lips that not only Lower Canada but the maritime provinces would not have joined in a legislative union. By what has happened since then, and even very recently, we know that the provinces are jealous of their powers and prerogatives, not only as concerns personal and property rights or minority rights, but also on the other items over which they have been clearly given authority, not to mention those which they are trying to get by broader interpretations of article 92.
Mr. Speaker, hearing some provincial leaders, one might think the Canadian parliament is a foreign institution instead of being made up of representatives of all the provinces.
I am one of those who believe that Canada must emerge out of these differences a bigger and better country with strong national legislative institutions, and I believe that the interests of the nation are not well served by the constant expansion of provincial authority in fields where no civil rights are involved and no minority rights are endangered. Nevertheless, if we have a federal form of government as a result of agreement between different bodies such agreement should not be tampered with in matters of respective powers without some sort of consultation. Instead of arguing repeatedly in academic debates whether this method or the other should be used for amending the act of confederation, we should recognize once and for all that, since it does not contain in itself the necessary provisions for its amend-
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ment, we should take the necessary steps to provide for them by agreement between the dominion and the provinces.
There are three known methods of changing the constitution: First, by growth of convention or custom; second, by progressive judicial interpretation; finally, the method of formal amendments. Speaking before the special committee on the British North America Act sitting in 1935, the late Doctor
O.	D. Skelton, then under-secretary of state for external affairs, had this to say of these methods of changing the constitution which had been advocated as sufficient by the previous witness:
I think that, however useful and necessary these two methods may be, they are not adequate, they are not certain, they are not sufficiently rapid to meet rapidly changing needs. Courts may modify: they cannot replace them. They can revise earlier interpretations as new arguments, new points of view are presented, they can shift the dividing line in marginal cases, but there are barriers they cannot pass, definite assignments of power they cannot reallocate.
Other speakers have wondered why the resolutions of Quebec did not advocate any method or provide any method of amending the provisions therein contained. It may be said that in 1867 Canada was still a colony and the only authorized body to legislate on the shaping of our institutions was the British parliament. It had done so in 1771 and in 1840. Neither act provided for its own amendment. Britain alone could amend the act it had consented to pass at the time, and I suppose that with the mentality of the time it was not considered decent for a colony to tell the mother country how to act. That was the period when Sir John A. Macdonald, despite his strong expressions of Canadian nationalism, yet qualified meekly some of his statements, as follows:
Instead of looking upon us merely as a dependent colony England will have in us a friendly nation, a subordinate people.
And later on he said:
She-
Britain.
-will be able to look to the subordinate nations in alliance with her.
Well, we are no more a subordinate nation and the time has come for us to enact our own constitution. As Doctor Skelton also stated in 1935:
The Canadian constitution, or the British North America Act, which is the backbone of it, is unique in that we alone of all peoples do not know how our constitution is to be amended, are not clear as to what parties are to act in securing amendment, what procedure is to be followed, or what majorities are to be required.
Our sister dominions all have power to amend their constitution. In the case of South Africa, it passed a constitution act in
 "
1935, which modifies the British act of 1909. New Zealand was constituted by an imperial act in 1852, and it had a system, federal only in name, with the power for parliament to alter from time to time any provisions of the act. The constitution of Australia dates from 1900, and provides specifically for amendments.
Referring to the changes between these constitutions and the British North America Act, Doctor Skelton stated:
A generation later, when Australia came to frame its constitution, and nine years later still when the South Africa Act was passed, a marked change in interimperial relations had come about and continued control by the United Kingdom was no longer conceivable. Neither dominion was prepared to leave future amendment to Westminster and definite provision was made for amendment at home. Canada was mainly responsible for the growth in interimperial relations which brought this about but its own constitution remained in form the vestige of an earlier day, while its younger sisters obtained up-to-date models.
We shall always have with us that problem of dominion and provincial powers; we shall always have these recurrent disputes about amending the act of confederation until we tackle the broader problem of enacting for Canada a truly national constitution. Professor F. R. Scott of McGill university stated lately:
The practice of going abroad for such national legislation seems too incongruous to survive for long.
But it is not only the awkw'ardness of the process that concerns us, which should justify a change in our constitutional set-up. Our status as an independent and sovereign state makes it imperative for us to remove once and for all that vestige of colonialism. Instead of sharing the fears of certain timid souls in my province for a truly Canadian constitution which should be amended according to definite rules, I have always believed it could easily be framed so as to protect essential rights.
Professor Angus of the university of British Columbia is of the same opinion when he
states:
It is imperative to make provision for the formal process of constitutional amendment for the sake of protecting provincial governments against the insidious development of constitutional conventions of preserving a federal form of government.
There is another and most serious argument operating in favour of our having a constitution of our own and of our being able to amend it according to definite and sufficiently pliable lines or rules. It is Canada's present position in the field of international affairs. It is Canada's necessity at times to enter into treaties and conventions. More and

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more, the influence of economic conditions throughout the world will have a bearing on the maintenance of peace. More and more, the nations of the world will have to collaborate in economic and social matters. More and more, agreements will have to be negotiated to ensure and implement such collaboration.
At the present moment the social and economic council of the united nations is meeting in New York; its six committees are studying a multitude of problems whose effective solution would demand international collaboration and would demand, afterwards, the implementing of those resolutions by national legislation enacted by all the signatory members. Mr. A. G. B. Fisher, writing recently on "International economic collaboration and the economic and social council," aptly stated:
Talk about cooperation, coordination, or collaboration is rather hollow if we are prepared to participate in international conferences and discussions only with the implicit reservation that we are not to be expected to make any substantial modification of policies which we have already decided to apply.
Canada, because of the position she has secured in international affairs, due to her potentialities, but mainly due to the role she has played in the economic and industrial field during the last war, cannot to-day remain indifferent to world trends in economic and social matters. She cannot shirk the responsibilities and obligations imposed upon her.
How would Canada be able to implement agreements she might enter into under our present constitutional set-up? Professor Angus of the university of British Columbia, in an article entitled, " The Canadian constitution and the united nations charter," states:
The existing policies which me may have to modify may be either federal or provincial, and it will therefore be extremely serious if constitutional impediments continue to obstruct the conclusions or the implementation of agreements on economic and social matters.
In short it is not safe for Canada to leave the constitutional position with respect to the implementation of treaties as it stands under the British North America Act. It is not easy to point to a solution which would maintain the fundamentally federal character of the Canadian constitution. If the process of treatymaking is easy, as it is in Canada, the power to implement any and every treaty would be tantamount to the power to amend the constitution at will and the exclusive legislative powers of the provinces would exist merely on sufferance.
If treaty-making were difficult, as it would be apt to be if the consent of a large proportion of the provinces were required, then the progress of international cooperation would be blocked at the outset. It would, therefore, not meet the difficulty if the Canadian government were to be given full power to enact legislation designed to implement Canadian treaties but were required to secure ratification of these treaties by some process designed to protect the provinces.
Now, Mr. Speaker, we have two objects to attain: first, do our share of the work to bring about better international cooperation in the economic and social field; and, second, do it in such a way as not to affect the rights of the provinces as attributed to them under article 92, or so as to secure an understanding with them on such matters as regards our multilateral international agreements.
The federal government, of course, can enter into a treaty with any foreign power; but, on the other hand, it cannot under the British North America Act do things or pass laws that are within the legislative competence of the provinces.
At the present time we have no machinery devised to enable us to correct this situation. If we assumed these rights by a process similar to the one we are using in the present instance, our form of government would ultimately lose its federal aspect. On the other hand, if we had to secure approval or ratification in each and every case through the medium of dominion-provincial conferences, the processes would be too clumsy and too slow. Such situations could be foreseen in the drafting of a Canadian constitution and the proper machinery provided for amending it.
A constitution is the basic and most important feature of legislation that any country may enact. A constitution is the foundation-stone of a state; it is the compound of general principles that govern the political life of a country'. As Professor Mirkine-Gueteevitch says in his book entitled, "The Constitution of New Europe":
The constitution of each state is always the result of a compromise between existing political traditions and the general principles of constitutional law, and its elaboration and drafting are of the competence of juridical science. Constitutional law is not something immovable; it is modified by the march of ideas and of political events.
The famous Sieyes said at the time of the French revolution:
The positive laws that can emanate only from the will of the nation are the constitutional laws. These are called fundamental, not in the sense that they may become independent of the national will, but because the bodies created by them acting according to them cannot touch them. The constitution is not the work of the constituted but of the constituent power.
What body, then, in Canada should be the constituting authority? I wish to quote here a brief extract of the evidence given by Doctor Beauchesne, K.C., C.M.G., LL.D., before the committee that sat in 1935. Doctor Beauchesne said:
Drafting a constitution is a serious matter, particularly in a federated country like Canada. Suggestions have to be weighed with calm deliberation and reconciled with the needs of the
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nation. Some plan embracing the whole life of the nation has to be accepted. Geography, natural resources, avenues of trade, transportation, social legislation and racial harmony have to be considered. It is idle to think that this can be done in the same formal way as an amendment to a public statute. The new constitution must leave nobody with a grievance. A spirit of conciliation should predominate. For these reasons, the task must be entrusted to an independent body in which all the elements of the country will be represented. I, therefore, beg to suggest an imposing constituent assembly formed of eminent men coming from all parts of Canada. Provincial conferences, attended by a few ministers meeting behind closed doors, would hardly satisfy public opinion. The debate should be public. I submit that a constituent assembly, chosen by the provincial legislatures and by the House of Commons, representing the main political parties and groups in proportion to the votes given at the last general elections, should meet in session and discuss the constitution from all its angles.
Later on, Doctor Beauchesne said:
The number of members representing the dominion and each province would be equal to one-fourth of the membership of all those legislative bodies in Canada.
Then he gave a suggestion that the British North America Act should be transformed into a constitution which would meet the requirements of present conditions but still preserving the minority rights guaranteed by the said act. Then he went on to state that:
Once a constitution has been passed by the constituent assembly, it should be adopted by each province and by the dominion, but before coming into force it should receive the assent of His Majesty.
The British North America Act should be the basis of the new constitution. Some articles which are now spent could be well left out. A method of amendment should be provided, and special clauses should deal with the powers of the federal parliament in relation to the implementing of multilateral international agreements.
May I at this point commend the reading by everyone who is interested in our constitutional problems a book entitled, "Problems of Canadian Sovereignty" by Doctor Maurice Ollivier, K.C., LL.D., which has already been quoted by the hon. member for Lake Centre. It is a most remarkable book. Doctor Ollivier also made a splendid contribution to this subject when he appeared before the special committee of 1935, and his whole evidence is food for thought.
I do not want to enter into the details of the procedure suggested by Doctor Ollivier. The hon. member for Chambly-Rouville (Mr. Pinard) has already touched on one point in the good speech he made last Thursday, namely, the order in which the constitution should cover the different items of the British North America Act. The procedure for

amendment of the different articles of the constitution, would also demand longer time than I have at my disposal, but I should like to quote the following from Doctor Ollivier's book:
The fundamental principle, which is at the basis of social, political and parliamentary institutions of British democracy, is that the state exists to serve the individual and in doing so that it serve the general interest, not only of the nation, but of all nations. The state should take note of the aspirations and rights of its different parts, in the present instance, of the provinces, but the provinces themselves should in their turn be careful not to destroy the unity which the fathers of confederation tried to create.
Here, as in England, political liberty is the goal of the constitution, for rulers are created for the benefit of the people and not people for the benefit of the rulers. We should, therefore, bend our efforts to maintain in this country popular government, individual liberty and social justice as the only means capable of assuring to all, an equal chance to work and to profit from the better life that comes with material progress, in other words, of guaranteeing to all, freedom from want and freedom from fear, remembering that economic and political nationalism has always, in the past, created racial strife and world disasters.
In line with these words, I personally would include in the constitution not only the provisions of the British North America Act but such an act as was suggested sometime ago by the hon. member for Lake Centre, namely, a bill of rights, which should be part of our constitution.
In conclusion, may I say that Canada has reached the adult stage. She has emerged from the war as one of the very few creditor nations. She is now the third largest trader in the world. She has a role to play in the after-war commensurate with her new stature. She has outgrown her outmoded, colonial style constitution, and it is time for her to assert her national will and to take her place among those nations of the world which have elaborated constitutional monuments as their basic law. Canada owes it to herself to nominate a constituent assembly and to draft a new constitution. How fitting it would be if the party which has always been to the forefront in the enactment of forward and emancipated measures and the Prime Minister, (Mr. Mackenzie King), who has attached his name to so many progressive moves and who has for longer than anyone led our country through war and peace with such ability, should initiate the necessary steps to give the people of Canada a long-awaited Canadian constitution.
Mr. JOHN T. HACKETT (Stanstead): Mr. Speaker, the motion which the Minister of Justice (Mr. St. Laurent) has brought before the house entails the consideration of

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at least two questions: that of giving adequate and fair representation to the people of each of the nine provinces, and that of determining if an amendment of the British North America Act is necessary to bring about the desired equality of representation. In the latter hypothesis I am willing to endorse what has been said by the hon. member who immediately preceded me, who reiterated what is known to every hon. member, namely, that unlike the constitution of the United States and those of the other members of the British commonwealth, our constitution is without any specific means of amendment. An attempt to amend a document, especially a constitution, when no specific method is provided for carrying it out, is a perilous undertaking.
At this juncture I should like to say to the hon. member for Beauharnois-Laprairie (Mr. Raymond) that any reluctance on the part of the party to which I owe allegiance to entrust the right to amend the constitution to the whim of a party should not be interpreted as direct opposition to rectifying the inequality of representation at present existing between the different provinces. I can assure the hon. gentleman that if he allows the generosity which guides his steps in so many walks of life to dictate his appraisal of his opponents he will come to the conclusion that there may be sound and salutary reasons for objecting to the present suggested means of amending the constitution, reasons in fact quite other than that of desiring to retard the hour of equality of representation within the dominion of the province of which we are both citizens and devoted sons.
On motion of Mr. Hackett the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. St. Laurent the house adjourned at 10.57 p.m.
Wednesday, June 12, 1946.