1946-05-21

DAIRY PRODUCTS


Right Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Acting Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) a few days ago announced the changes in the subsidy policy concerning fluid milk, he said that it was necessary to give further consideration to the subsidies on milk entering into cheese and into processed milk.

Dairy Products
I am now in a position to state that the subsidy on milk entering into the production of cheese will be increased by ten cents per hundred pounds, that is from 20 cents to 30 cents per hundred pounds, and that the subsidy on milk entering into the production of concentrated milk products and the production of milk sugar will be increased by eight cents per hundred pounds, that is from 15 cents to 23 cents.
These increases are effective as from May 1, 1946. The subsidy on milk entering into the production of cheese will continue for the full year, that is until April 30, 1947, unless in the meantime it is absorbed in the price. The subsidy on milk entering into processed milk will continue until September 30, 1946. With regard to what is done about milk entering into processed milk for the period after that, further consideration will have to be given to the matter.


Mr. HACKETT:: Will the minister say
whether the expression "absorbed in the price" means absorbed into the ceiling price?


James Lorimer Ilsley: What I meant was added to the price.


John Thomas Hackett: The minister means it
would be added to the price.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes; if before the end of the full year the subsidy is withdrawn, it would be added to the price.


John Thomas Hackett: Does that mean to the fixed price?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The ceiling price.


John Thomas Hackett: Is that all within the
control price?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Most of the cheese goes
to the United Kingdom, and it would have to be added to that. Presumably it would have to be added at the same time to the price in Canada.


Mr. SENN:: The minister mentioned processed milk. Did he include powdered milk?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am sorry, but I cannot answer all these questions, because they are within the knowledge of the Minister of Agriculture to a much greater extent than they are within mine. But the term used in the order in council is "milk entering into the production of concentrated .milk products and the production of milk sugar."


Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Perhaps the Acting Prime Minister cannot answer this question either, but it appeared to me that the removal of the subsidy on fluid milk and the provision of a 63260-I09J
subsidy on milk used for other purposes will have the effect of discouraging the production of milk for fluid purposes and increasing the production for milk-manufactured products to be sent overseas. I gather that that is the effect of it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I feel incompetent to answer that question. The returns on fluid milk are considerably higher than the returns on milk for other purposes.


John Bracken: May I have a copy of that statement.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, but it was partly oral.



COST OF ASSISTANCE IN CONNECTION WITH FLUID MILK

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. A. McMASTER (High Park):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. According to a statement in this morning's papers Donald Gordon is reported to have said that the cost of assistance given in connection with fluid milk is $20,000,000. whereas a return made a few days ago by the Minister of Agriculture gives this amount as $12,671,000. Would the Minister of Finance find out whether something is being withheld by the department?


James Lorimer Ilsley: There is no discrepancy in fact. The reference in the newspaper article was to the consumer milk subsidy while the reference in the return made by the Minister of Agriculture was to the producer milk subsidy.



REDISTRIBUTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Bracken: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In order to facilitate the consideration of redistribution would the minister make available to each member of the house a copy of bulletin No. A-10. published under his authority, which contains essential statistics of population, constituency by constituency and municipality by municipality, as well as other data essential for the discussion of redistribution? We have found it difficult to get copies of this bulletin and perhaps the minister can assure us that it will be made available.


Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I am grateful to the leader of the opposition for giving me notice of this question. I got in touch immediately with
Labour Conditions

this branch and was advised that bulletin No. A-10 is a 1941 publication and that only a limited number of copies are available, not sufficient to supply all members of the house. As is evidenced by the question asked by the leader of the opposition, I felt that this publication was of sufficient importance to warrant my asking that additional copies be printed for members of the house, and I expect that these will be available within four or five days.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster):: I Should like to ask the Minister of Labour if he has any information he can give the house regarding the strike in the lumber industry in Biitish Columbia which has reached serious proportions.


Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: I have directed the reappointment of Chief Justice Sloan in an endeavour to bring the parties together, that is, on the question of working conditions and wages. It should be clearly understood that the final decision will have to be approved by the regional war labour board of British Columbia. I am hopeful that good sense will prevail and that the dispute will be brought to a speedy conclusion.



USE OP PRISONERS OP WAR IN SUGAR BEET PRODUCING AREAS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. C. E. DESMOND (Kent, Ont.):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour in connection with the prisoner of war situation in the sugar beet producing areas of western Ontario. In view of the fact that there has been a substantial increase in production amounting to 26,500 acres-


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order. The hon. member is not supposed to make a statement or give information to the house. He should simply state his question.


Clayton Earl Desmond: Are prisoners of war to be made available in sufficient numbers to justify, the increased acreage?


Humphrey Mitchell: We have heard a great deal in this day and age about the unemployment situation in Canada, and now a request is being made that prisoners of war be retained in Canada to harvest an important crop.


Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: Others will not take on the job.
TMr. Mackinnon.]


Humphrey Mitchell: If I had the power of direction that I had twelve months ago perhaps the hon. member for Lake Centre would be harvesting beets to-day.


John George Diefenbaker: There is no danger of that in any of these regulations.


Humphrey Mitchell: My hon. friend is quite anxious about a bill of rights; he is anxious about the lifting of price ceilings and the freedom of the individual. If he were as definite about those as I am, probably con-* ditions would be a little different in Canada to-day.


Mr. SMITH (Calgary West):: That is true enough.


Humphrey Mitchell: My good Conservative friends are anxious to push the working people around.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Humphrey Mitchell: It is all right when the boot is on the other foot. It does not matter whose ox is being gored so long as it is not yours.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Humphrey Mitchell: A similar question was to be asked by the hon. member for Lake Centre. I should like to say that it is not correct that the number of prisoners of war to be available this year for the sugar beet industry in Ontario is to be reduced as compared with last year. Actually we are increasing the number. Last year we had 861 employed in the fields in the sugar beet area of western Ontario; this year we will place 872 in this work. We are also trying to increase the number by another 200 and to make a similar increase in the number alloted to the Manitoba sugar beet industry.
Another point which I think will impress hon. members is that we are arranging to place prisoners of war individually with sugar beet farmers. By so doing we think we will increase the labour productivity, because instead of being moved to and from the hostels each day the men will be living at the homes of the farmers and be able to start work earlier. There will also be a personal interest on the part of the farmer, which will lead to more work being done. The matter of increasing the number both in Ontario and in Manitoba is under consideration.



DAY NURSERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. DONALD M. FLEMING (Eglinton):
I should like to ask the Minister of Labour if the government has received a request that

Canadian Army
it resume the payment of fifty per cent of the cost of operating day nurseries and, if so, what action it proposes to take.
Humphrey Mitchell: We have received a request from the city of Toronto that the fifty per cent assistance to the maintenance of day nurseries be continued, but no decision has been reached at the moment. The contribution by the dominion government toward the cost of operating day nurseries was undertaken as a war measure. Due notice was given to the local authorities some months ago that the contributions would be discontinued, and I doubt very much whether that decision will be reversed.



BARBED WIRE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (Cariboo):: I
should like to direct a question to the appropriate member of the government, which I presume would be the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply. As he is absent, perhaps my question may stand as notice for tomorrow. Have the government any information as to the great shortage of barbed wire for fencing and, if so, what -are they doing abqut it?



USE OF BIENFAIT MINES TO ASSIST IN MEETING SHORTAGE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. G. McCULLOUGH (Assiniboia):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply, to whom I have already sent notice. In view of the desperate fuel shortage and consequent danger of industrial tie-ups, would the minister consider plans to make full -use of the Bienfait coal mines in a coordinated plan with other Canadian mines to meet this emergency?


Mr. G. J. McILRAITH (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply):: It is expected that the minister will be making a further statement in th-e next few days on the coal shortage, and I would prefer that the question asked be allowed to stand so that it may be dealt with ' in that statement.



RADIO BROADCASTING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Arthur Leroy Smith: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of
Transport (Mr. Chevrier). I observe that he is not here, but I am sure that in his absence the Minister of National Revenue will be glad to answer. Has the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation applied to the Minister of Transport to take over the wave length of CFRB operating in Toronto?


Hon. J. J. McCANN (Minister of National Revenue):: I do not know.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Perhaps the minister can get somebody to assist him in finding out.


James Joseph McCann: I would say to the hon. member for Calgary West that that is a question which might properly be directed to the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Howe).


Arthur Leroy Smith: Why not
pick out some one who is here? He is not here either.



CANADIAN ARMY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. A. KIDD (Kingston City):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. Could the discharge of the junior permanent force officers in the army be deferred or held up until such time as appointments in the service can be assured in their branch or some other branch of the service? This question is urgent, Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that several junior permanent force officers in the army are being asked this week to relinquish their appointments, and-


James Horace King: I am pleased to learn from the hon. member that his question is urgent, but I must call his attention to the fact that he is not supposed to make any statement when asking a question on the orders of the day. I would ask him to observe the rule.


Hon. DOUGLAS ABBOTT (Minister of National Defence):: My hon. friend did not have an opportunity, I presume, to send me notice of his question. I will take it as a notice and give him an answer at some future day.



SPECIAL DECORATION FOR HONG KONG EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. A. ROSS (Souris):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. On September 11, 1945, the minister was asked whether he would consider granting the Pacific Star or having some
Veterans Affairs

special decoration struck for the Hong Kong expeditionary force. The minister replied that he would give the question consideration. Has the minister arrived at a decision, and if so may I ask what it is?


James Horace King: I would ask the hon. member to put his question on the order paper.



STANDARDIZATION OF EQUIPMENT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. C. C. I. MERRITT (Vancouver-Bur-rard):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. In view of press reports in the last two days with reference to the standardization of equipment in the Canadian and United States armies, would the minister make a statement to the house on the question?


Douglas Charles Abbott: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether I have seen all the press reports to which my hon. friend refers, but there will be an opportunity for me to give him any information he requires when my estimates are under consideration.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: If I may ask a supplementary question, when is it proposed to move the resolution on the order paper with regard to the Canadian Army?
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs): That depends upon the arrangement of government business.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. CHESTER S. McLURE (Queens): Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Are veterans who own or purchase their own farms entitled to priority in purchasing farm machinery, and do they receive the ten per cent special discount?
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs): I was given no notice of the question, and I have pleasure in taking it as a notice.
Mr. McLURE:: Mr. Speaker, I have another question. This is just a simple one.


Mr. MACKENZIE:: A refreshing change.


James Horace King: I would ask hon. members to look at the rules of the house, by which they will see that they have every opportunity within the rules to get all the information they desire. If they want a question to be answered orally, it is a simple matter to have

it marked with an asterisk on the order paper. But until the rules of the house are changed the Speaker has no choice but to ask hon. members to refrain from asking questions on the orders of the day that are not urgent; and further, no statement should be made in putting a question on the orders of the day. It is the duty of the Speaker to see that the rules of the house are observed.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: Mr. Speaker, I wish-
Mr.	SPEAKER:	Order.	I am	sorry to
interrupt the hon. gentleman, but it is not the practice to question a ruling or the advice of the Speaker. It is the well-established practice of the house that questions which are not urgent should be put on the order paper instead of being asked on the orders of the day.
Mr.	McLURE:	Mr. Speaker,	I have
received a telegram-
Mr.	SPEAKER:	I have	asked	the hon.
member to put his question on the order paper.



JOINT DEFENCE BOARD

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. L. W. SKEY (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of National Defence?	Will he	tell the house
whether the joint defence proposals now under discussion by Canada and the United States include-


James Horace King: Order. I would ask the hon. member to put his question on the order paper.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: May I put my question, Mr. Speaker, before you rule on its urgency? The reason I ask for this indulgence-	'


An hon. MEMBER:: Put the question.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: Will the Minister of National Defence tell the house whether the joint defence proposals now under discussion-


James Horace King: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. gentleman but I see no urgency in the question. It must be put on the order paper.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: I would respectfully submit, Mr. Speaker, that the defence proposals under discussion at the present time are urgent.


James Horace King: Order. Hon. members who insist in asking on the orders of the day questions which are not urgent are not helping the Speaker to uphold the dignity and decorum of the house. The hon. member knows the rules, or should know them, and I

Price Ceiling-Farm Products
would ask for the cooperation of all hon. members in upholding the dignity and decorum of our proceedings.'



PRICE CEILING POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO FARM PRODUCTS

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, May 20, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mackenzie that the house go into committee of supply, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Bracken, and the amendment to the amendment of Mrs. Strum.
Mr. D. F. BROWN (Essex West):: Mr. Speaker, when this debate was adjourned last night I was discussing the amendment and the subamendment, particularly the subamendment which suggests that the workers would not benefit by legislation of this government. I had shown in part what this Liberal government has done in the past for the workers, who may confidently expect similar treatment in the future.
Since the accession of the Liberal party to office in December 1922, labour has been given representation on the board of directors of the Canadian National Railways, Mr. Tom Moore having been appointed a member of the board in that year. The order issued by Mr. D. B. Hanna in 1920 prohibiting employees of the Canadian National Railways from standing as political candidates was withdrawn by Sir Henry Thornton in 1923.
The Civil Service Superannuation Act was passed in 1924. Dominion government policemen and firemen were accorded a weekly rest day in 1924 and 1925 respectively. Persons working for the dominion government on hourly rates were brought within the Public Service Retirement Act in 1922. The Government Employees Workmen's Compensation Act was amended in 1925 to require the payment of the cost of medical aid and hospital expenses to government employees to whom compensation for accident or disease was payable. A further amendment in 1927 provided for dominion government railway employees in Prince Edward Island.
Fishing boats were declared exempt from pilotage dues in 1922. In 1924 children under fourteen were prohibited from being employed, and boys under eighteen forbidden to be employed as trimmers or stokers, on seagoing ships. Provision was made for a compulsory examination of young persons on ships and for unemployment indemnity in case of loss of ships. These amendments to the Canada Shipping Act were based on draft conventions of the international labour conference.
On motion of the Prime Minister in 1924, a standing committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider the subject of industrial and international relations.
The protection of trade union labels has long been desired by organized labour, since the presence of a union label on articles is considered as a guarantee that the article was manufactured under working conditions governed by an agreement between the employer and the trade union concerned. A bill to give to union labels the same protection as is accorded by the Trade Mark and Design Act to other trade marks was introduced in parliament by the minister of labour and enacted in 1927.
The fair wages policy, adopted in 1900, was made more effective by orders in council passed in 1907, 1922 and 1924. The terms of the labour provisions to be incorporated in government contracts were laid down, making the purpose of the fair wages policy clearer and more definite. Contractors for all government works and supplies are required to pay the rates of wages prevailing in the district in which the work is performed, to post the wages schedule in a conspicuous place, and to keep a record of wage payments available for inspection by the fair wage officers of the Department of Labour. Government departments are required to furnish monthly to the Department of Labour reports giving information as to contracts entered into during the preceding month. This information is published in the Labour Gazette. The fair wages policy of the dominion government for the protection of workers engaged in the execution of federal contracts has been copied in most of the provinces, and by many municipal authorities and other public bodies in Canada. Experience shows that this policy has been of great value to labour in ensuring standard conditions of wages and hours on public works and supplies. In 1929, an order in council required the application of the fair wages order to works in connection with waterpower development in the prairie provinces.
This policy was given statutory effect and extended to provide for an eight-hour day on May 30, 1930, in the Fair Wages and Eight-Hour Day Act. This statute provided that all persons employed by a contractor on government construction works should be paid such wages as are generally accepted as current for competent workmen in the district, provided they are fair and reasonable, and daily hours of work shall not exceed eight except in special cases provided for'by the government or in cases of emergency approved by the minister. Persons employed directly by the government on such work and who are not
Price Ceiling-Farm Products

under the Civil Service Act are to have similar conditions to those laid down for persons employed by contractors. The 1930 act was repealed in 1935 by the Bennett government but was reenacted with the additional restriction of hours to forty-four a week and an extension of its application to works to which the government gives financial assistance.
On March 27, 1930, an order in council stipulated that, except where work is intermittent or the application of the order in council is not practicable, the hours of work of any dominion government employee who at that date was working more than eight hours a day should be reduced to eight with a half holiday on Saturday. In October, 1941, the administration of the fair wages policy was transferred to the national war labour board, but in December, 1943, it was again made the responsibility of the Department of Labour.
The Technical Education Act was enacted-in 1919 under the Conservative regime. Its provisions were based on the recommendations of the royal commission on technical education appointed in 1910 by the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The act provided for financial assistance to the provinces in promoting technical education for a period of ten years in order to enable them to lay the foundations of a system of technical education.
In 1924, a special committee of the House of Commons was appointed, on the motion of the Prime Minister, to make an inquiry into the need for old age. pensions in Canada. At the legislative session of 1925, after correspondence with the provinces, the committee recommended the adoption of a system of old age pensions, the cost of which should be borne equally by the dominion and the provinces entering into agreements for that purpose.
A piece of legislation which for years was bitterly opposed by labour organizations was section 98 of the criminal code, which was enacted in 1919 following the hysteria of the Winnipeg strike. Its major purpose was to define and deal with "unlawful associations", but labour generally regarded it "as a threat to the civil liberty which Canadians have inherited as their birthright", and also looked upon it as "a curtailment of freedom of speech and assembly". Following representations made by labour bodies, the Liberal government, during the session of 1936, repealed this obnoxious legislation.
In 1937 the Old Age Pensions Act was amended to permit pensions to be., paid to blind persons over forty years of age. The act makes provision for pensions not to exceed $240 a year to British subjects, or widows who
were British subjects before their marriage, who are at least seventy years of age, who have resided in Canada for the twenty years immediately preceding, and in the province concerned for five years preceding, the date on which it is proposed to commence the pension payments, and who are not in receipt of annual income of as much as $365. This legislation has contributed considerably to the lessening of the fear of persons who were blind of becoming destitute, and so helps to assure their future well-being.
The Government Annuities Act enacted in 1908 is administered by the Minister of Labour. An annuity may be purchased by any person resident in Canada. The amount of yearly income may be as low as $10 or as high as $1,200. The cost of the annuity varies with the age of the applicant at the time of purchase and at the time the annuity is to begin, the amount of annuity desired, and whether it is to be payable for a fixed number of years or for life. These government annuities have been purchased by people who are thrifty, hard-working and conscientious. I wonder what the effect would be if we in Canada evolved some inflationary method whereby the value of these annuities, earned with so much hard work, would be reduced-how far these yearly incomes would go.


Mr. BURTON:: That is why we do not want the price of machinery increased.


Donald Ferguson Brown: Well, my hon. friend got that in last night. I think if he is as conscientious about the price of machinery as he is about interrupting, he can readily find the answer to that difficulty.
The Home Improvement Loans Guarantee Act, 1927, permitted the government to guarantee against loss, lending institutions which are approved by the government and which make loans up to a maximum of $2,000 on a single property or $1,000 for each family where more than one family lives on the property, plus $1,000. The government's liability is limited to fifteen per cent of the total amount of loans made by the institution, and may not exceed in all $7,500,000. The Home Improvement Loans Guarantee Act has contributed in my own constituency to the assistance of labour, by providing work and income for a large number of tradesmen.
In 1938 the Shop Cards Registration Act was passed to protect union "shop cards" as union labels were protected by the Trade Mark and Design Act of 1927.
Another enactment of 1938 was the National Housing Act.

Price Ceiling-Farm Products
In 1939 the criminal -code was amended by the insertion of section 502A, which makes it a criminal offence for an employer to dismiss or refuse to employ a worker for the sole reason he is a member of a trade union or to seek by intimidation or otherwise to prevent an employee from belonging to a trade union. Another enactment of 1939 was the Youth Training Act, which was in effect until March 31, 1943, and under which the dominion government assisted the provinces in carrying out approved schemes for the training of unemployed young persons. The war emergency training programme grew out of the youth training programme.
The Unemployment Insurance Act was passed in 1940, after the British North America Act had been amended to give the dominion parliament jurisdiction in this field. In 1943 the act was amended, the most important change being the removal of the income limit or insurability for persons paid by the piece, hour, day or week, and its extension from $2,000 to $2,400 per year in the case of other employed persons. The possibility of extending the act to various excepted employments is at present under consideration.
In 1942 the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act was passed, replacing an order in council of June, 1941. The Vocational Training Coordination Act was also passed in 1942, to provide for the continuance and development of training already being carried on under the war emergency training and youth training programmes, and also for the training of persons discharged from the armed forces and persons whom the unemployment insurance commission has directed to attend a course of training as provided by the Unemployment Insurance Act.
In 1943, in addition to the amendments I have mentioned in the Unemployment Insurance Act, the National Physical Fitness Act was passed, and an order in council was passed providing a special war supplement for old age and blind pensioners.
In addition to the foregoing, there were statutes for the relief of unemployment, the National Employment Commission Act, 1936, the Youth Training Act, 1939, the National Housing Act, 1938, and the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940.
An act of 1939 to amend the Canadian National-Canadian Pacific Act, 1933, provided for compensation to employees deprived of employment or required to take lower-paid employment by reason of cooperative measures by the two railways to effect economy. In 1942 were passed the Vocational Training Coordination Act and the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act.
The first action by the government to provide for as little interruption as possible in war industries as a result of labour disputes was to extend the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, November 7, 1939, to war industries, including industries producing goods essential to the community. A formal declaration of principles for the avoidance of industrial unrest was made by order in council in June, 1940. This "government labour policy" declared the right to freedom of association and urged the making of collective agreements by employers and employed as well as the observance of reasonable wages and hours.
To speed up the settlement of disputes, which were unusually numerous owing to the particular stage which labour organization had reached in Canada, an order in council of June 6. 1941 (P.C. 4020) provided that before a board was appointed under the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, an industrial disputes inquiry commission could be appointed to try to settle the difference and, if not successful, to report whether it was desirable to set up a board.
On September 16, 1941, by P.C. 7307, a strike which would hinder the efficient prosecution of the war was made illegal after a board, under the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, had reported, until a vote by the employees concerned was taken under the supervision of the Department of Labour and a majority had voted in favour of a strike. Special provision was made to permit the employees of crown companies to join trade unions and to enter into collective agreements with their employers. These orders in council will be suspended, so far as they are inconsistent with the new war-time labour relations regulations, by those regulations.
When the Ontario high court upheld the conviction of a picket under the defence of Canada regulations prohibiting loitering near protected premises, an amendment was made in the regulations to safeguard the right to picket. Labour-management committees, formed to increase production by joint effort, have been encouraged, first by an interdepartmental committee set up a year ago, and now by the industrial production cooperation board, established in January, 1944.
Wages control policy is administered by the national and regional war labour boards, on which employers and labour are represented equally. The cost of living bonus was payable from the time the policy was introduced -October 1941-until the end of 1943, and was designed to protect the basic standard of living. Under the wages control order,
Price Ceiling-Farm Products

1943, the bonus is to be incorporated in the wage rates but: (a) the Prime Minister has given an undertaking that if the index rises by more than three per cent and remains at that level for more than two consecutive months, the entire stabilization programme will be reconsidered; (b) what was formerly a bonus subject to decrease with a fall in the cost of living is now a ten cent increase in basic rates; (c) the increase in basic rates will be reflected in an increase in overtime rates. As a result of awards of the board,
600,000	workers now receive holidays with pay who did not receive them before the stabilization policy was introduced. Average earnings in the eight leading Canadian industries increased from $26.37 in October, 1941, the month in which the wage control was introduced, to $31.59 in December, 1943-an increase of $5.22 or almost twenty per cent, as compared with an increase of slightly more than three per cent in the cost of living during the same period.
In May, 1941, the minimum rates payable for work on government contracts for the manufacture of supplies were raised from 20 cents per hour for women and 30 cents for men to 25 cents and 35 cents.


James Horace King: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. gentleman, but he has already spoken for forty minutes.


Mr. G. S. W HITE (Hastings-Peterborough):: In rising to support the amendment of my leader I wish to bring to your attention, Mr. Speaker, certain matters and conditions which affect the farmer in the part of Ontario in which I reside. The county of Hastings and the county of Peterborough are two very fine agricultural districts. They are ideally suited for mixed farming. Hastings county not only produces more cheese than any other county in the province, but also produces the finest cheese. These factories are located at many points throughout the county, and in addition there are many creameries, a large number of cattle and hogs are produced, as well as a fair number of sheep, poultry and large quantities [DOT] of honey and maple syrup, small fruits and vegetables being also produced and sold.
During the war years the farmers in these two counties made a wonderful contribution to our war effort. The farm supplied a very large number of young men for the armed forces of Canada, and this immediately created *a shortage of farm labour. In these counties, as in all other rural counties, many young men and women left the farm to work in industry, which further complicated the labour situation. Yet, despite this great shortage of labour on 
the farm, the farmers of these counties, in many instances with the assistance of only their wives and children of school age, were able to increase greatly the production of farm products which were so essential during the war years. These farmers carried on without the proper help. In many cases they were unable to replace worn-out machinery. Often it was almost impossible to obtain the necessary farm machinery, repairs. Such aids as tractors, milking machines and other mechanized machinery used on the farm, which would greatly assist where there was a shortage of labour, were not available.
It is true that during the war years there were some slight increases in 'the price of farm products. This was due largely to the payment of- subsidies, just as the Acting Prime Minister (Mr. Ilsley) announced1 a few moments ago that there will be a further subsidy on certain classes of milk. Yet while farm products increased slightly, everything that the farmer had to buy in order to operate his farm or live has increased enormously in price. No one can deny to-day that the cost of living has increased from fifty to a hundred per cent, in spite of what the bureau of statistics may say. All one has to do is to ask any mother who had to feed and clothe a family during the war years; none of them will agree that the increase in the cost of living is as shown by the bureau of statistics.
The farmer was obliged to pay greatly increased labour costs. The price of gasoline was higher. The feed which practically every farmer has to buy at some time or other costs him much more, and any material he bought, such as lumber, shingles or hardware, to take care of the necessary repairs or additions, was much higher in price. The cost of skilled labour was at least double. If he had to hire a tractor, a threshing outfit or anything of that nature he had to pay the increased price. A et, as I said before, despite all the hardships and handicaps the farmer and his wife-and in many cases she was his only help -did a splendid job in producing the required food for the men in the armed forces and the civilian population.
We find that to-day conditions have not changed or improved very much. Skilled labour is still scarce, and the wages are still high. It is quite true that it is now easier to purchase farm machinery. Por the first time 'farmers are able to' take delivery of farm machinery; yet the increase of per cent does not help the farmer much. If, as pointed out by the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance, the farm machineiy companies were entitled to this increase, surely he should

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have gone a little farther and made out a case to show that the farmer was entitled to an increase in the return for his products.
It appears to me that one of the real causes of the low price of farm products to-day is that when the price ceiling was set in 1941 during the so-called^ basic period, the price of all farm products was very low, which was most unfair to the farmer.
In my county and district the production of cheese in 1945 and 1946 will be away down from previous years. The production of butter is also much less. The hog population has been most seriously reduced. One of the reasons for this is that the farmer is simply reducing his herd of live stock to the point where he can operate the farm alone; for he is no longer able to pay the high wages demanded by farm labourers, if the farm labour were available.
In the matter of income tax we find that in the rural districts the farmer is hounded and worried by the district income tax inspector. During the war in industry a wife who was employed in war work was allowed an extra $660, thereby making a total exemption of $1,860 for a married man. This did not apply to the farmer, whose wife and children were often the only help that he had available. I submit that the time is long past when some change should have been made in the income tax allowances to the end that the individual farmer might be given some extra allowances for the work performed on the farm by his wife and children.
I should like to point out that on the return filed by the farmer there is a heading under the list of receipts which reads:
Miscellaneous sales: . . . cordwood and pulp-wood; posts and lumber; trees, saplings, et cetera; sand, gravel and stone; soil . . .
I cannot understand how anyone, even an income tax official, could take the view that the sale of cordwood, pulpwood, posts, lumber, trees, saplings, sand, gravel, stone and soil can be regarded as income. Surely the sale of these articles from the farm should be regarded as capital. Surely in the lifetime of the average farmer he is not going to get a second crop. If he sells his cordwood and his lumber he is depreciating the value of his farm property or the woodlot by the amount he receives for it. If he sells the soil, the sand, the gravel and the stone, he will never have another crop. I believe that even an income tax official would have to admit that any gravel or sandpit will become exhausted in time.
Another item which appears on the farmers income tax return is: "Produce raised on farm and consumed in the farm home." This item
has always been a contentious one with the farmer, because, as eyeryone will realize, the amount of produce raised and consumed on the farm to-day is much less than it was in years gone by. Yet when they come to deal with the district income tax inspector they find that following his usual autocratic procedure he places this figure at an arbitrary amount for each member of the family, and the farmers pay accordingly. I would point out further that so far as the income tax return of the farmer is concerned he is not allowed any depreciation whatever at the present time for breeding stock.
The small number of returned veterans who are taking advantage of the Veterans Land Act shows that to-day farming has email attraction for them. The number taking up farms is small when compared with the number of veterans who are taking small holdings. While we are on this subject I should like to say to the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie) that many veterans complain most bitterly about the long delay and the endless red tape in the district offices in regard to applications under the Veterans Land Act. I have some personal knowledge of that, because I have a number of them in my office, and it certainly takes a very long time to get anywhere with them.
In Ontario the provincial hydro electric system is being extended into many new rural areas, so that for the first time the farmer and his wife will have the benefits of cheap hydro electric power. While the farmer has his buildings, including his house, wired for electricity,, he finds that he has to pay the most excessive costs for every type of electrical equipment. Let us, for example, look at the price of an electric stove, which is undoubtedly a necessity, not a luxury. After all, an electric stove is only a few pieces of cheap metal covered with enamel and equipped with elements. Yet when the farmer buys one of those stoves he finds that at the very minimuiti the price is from $250 to $350. The same ratio applies in respect of practically every other type of electrical equipment the farmer has to purchase.
There is one further point I should like to bring out. It seems to me that the activities of the wartime prices and trade board, which operates through its inspectors a type of gestapo throughout the country, checking up on the activities of every small butcher, and producers of every kind, are not doing anything to increase the production of food. In my section of the country we have inspectors from local offices, inspectors from the head office at Brockville, and on very special occasions we are favoured by the
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presence of inspectors from Ottawa. Not only do they check the stores, but they check the coupons when they go to the banks. Many people have told me recently that they have received letters from the head office at Brock-ville asking for information about the sale of a gallon of syruip, a pail of honey, or perhaps a small quantity of butter. I say in all frankness that the activities of these men, whom I can describe only as gestapo agents, are not relished by the people in the rural districts. They serve only to drive the people into the black market. Certainly they are not such as to encourage the people to cooperate, or to accept willingly these idiotic regulations.
For a number of months in the village of Madoc, in which I reside, we had only one slaughtering permit, owing to the fact that the wartime prices and trade board permit had to be sent to the Belleville office. For a period of more than two months there was no slaughtering permit in that village, with the result that with the exception of some small amounts of pork in the form of bacon and tenderloin received from the packing plants, there was no pork for sale. Despite the fact that the local butcher every second or third day was in touch with the wartime prices and trade board by telephone, or even held interviews with them, nothing could be done.
One unfortunate farmer who sold a pig to the local butcher was dragged down by the gestapo and, with the butcher, landed in court. Only yesterday in that same village the wartime prices and trade board conducted five prosecutions. One of them was against a man who conducts a butcher and grocery business. During the war that man and his wife struggled in every way to hold the business together for their two sons who were serving in the armed forces. But yesterday that man appeared in the police court, charged by the gestapo agents of the wartime prices and trade board because his coupons did not balance. I doubt if anyone conducting a retail business can make his meat, butter, or sugar coupons balance. And it is of special interest that the solicitor who appeared in court yesterday as special prosecutor for the wartime prices and trade board was one of those gutless individuals who obtained exemption from military service in the first great war because of his being a conscientious objector. The sooner the officials who operate the wartime prices and trade board realize they are only antagonizing the public and driving people into the black market, the better it will be for everyone concerned.

It is interesting to note how these officials operate when they descend upon a small village. Generally they move in groups of two or three, depending upon the kind of business they are about to investigate. Then, as in the army, before they descend upon the victim they synchronize their watches and, at a given moment, inspectors walk into each of the butcher shops, or whatever they are investigating, treating the people as they would treat criminals.
These inspectors are running all over the country at the public expense. Unfortunately their activities generally end in the laying of charges. Returns made in this chamber will show the cost of legal fees in connection with the prosecutions, and it is clear that those fees eat up practically the whole of the fines imposed.
It seems unreasonable that the farmer should be asked to continue to bear more than his fair share of the government's stabilization policy. He did so cheerfully during the war, but to-day he simply refuses to continue. After all, the average farmer who spends a lifetime on his farm leaves very little at the time of his death. After practising law for about twenty-five years in the country I have first-hand knowledge as to what the average farmer leaves. In many instances, where farmers and their families have struggled throughout their lives, it is pitiful to see the small amounts in their estates left for their widows.
In conclusion may I say that I intend to support the amendment moved by my leader


Mr. W. D. WYLIE (Medicine Hat):: Mr. Speaker, such a variety of subjects has been discussed in the debate that one would think there might be nothing left to discuss, and that therefore one must necessarily cover the same ground. However, coming from an agricultural constituency, I find I must say a few words.
There is general dissatisfaction among most of the farmers out west-at least that is the way I find it in my own constituency. They want stabilized prices to compare favourably with the prices of the articles they must buy. The greatest trouble to-day is that the prices of the commodities the farmers have to sell are almost stationary, while those of commodities they must buy are advancing almost every day. We had a good illustration of that recently in the increase of 12J per cent in the price of farm machinery, coming at a time when most of the farmers are in the market for new machinery. During the war they were unable to buy the machinery they required, and had the old ones patched up.

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Quantities of hay-wire the farmers had accumulated in the bad years were used for that purpose.
Along with the increased machinery prices went an increase in the price of gasoline. I think I am right when I say that the price of everything the farmers have to buy is going up, including machinery, fuel oil, and lumber. Besides, the lumber is of inferior quality; it is wet and hardly fit for use. The farmer must pay increased prices for his clothing and most of the groceries he has to buy. Naturally in view of these conditions there are many complaints.
We have heard a good deal about the production of grains and live stock going down. This is true of my area. In 1942 we had an average yield of fourteen bushels to the acre, which is a good average for the drought areas of southern Alberta. If they had that yield in the northern part of the province they would consider it more or less of a failure, but we are not used to high yields in the south. The fall of 1942 was quite wet and a considerable amount of grain spoiled. It was combined when it was damp; the farmers, not being able to dispose of the grain under the wheat quota system, had to put it in bins, and some of it was partly heated. Of course that could be used only to feed live stock, and therefore the farmers went into the production of hogs. Many farmers in my area who had never had a "hog on their farms went quite heavily into hog raising, many of them having as many as two hundred hogs. As soon as the 1942 crop had been fed or disposed of, they entered again into the dry years. 1943 and 1944 were poor years, but 1945 was poorer still, and the farmers found themselves with no feed. I think this accounts largely for the reduction in the production of hogs in my area. We know that in other areas where feed was available the farmers have gone out of the production of hogs because of the increased prices brought about by the subsidies on barley and oats, there being very little wheat fed to hogs. The 1945 production of grains and all live stock, both hogs and cattle, was down. I should like to read a newspaper clipping under date of November 1, 1945, in which the Minister of Agriculture is reported as follows:
Agriculture minister Gardiner announced yesterday that under provisions of the Prairie Barm Assistance Act the 1945 crop year has been declared an emergency year and assistance will be given farmers whose crops have suffered from drouth and other causes.
He said more than 3,000 townships in the eastern half of Alberta and the western half of Saskatchewan had suffered from the severest drouth since 1937. Without' aid under the
P.F.A. "thousands of farmers otherwise would be unable to carry on" until the next crop was harvested.
Since the act was passed in 1939 the only crop year which has not been declared an emergency year was that of 1942-43.
Assistance payments under this act derived from a fund to which each farmer contributes one per cent of' the amount he receives on grain sales each year. These contributions to date have constituted more than one-third of the assistance payments made since the act came into force and the remainder was provided by funds from the treasury of Canada.
This shows that production was down over a very wide area. In those 3,000 or more townships the average yield of wheat was less than four bushels per acre. When the yield is below four bushels there is not much to cut, but the farmers go out with their combines to save what they can. Many farmers got only enough for seed.
What I have said makes it clear that we should press for irrigation in this area. In comparison with the low production in these areas during the last three years I would refer hon. members to what happened on a tract of land 250 acres in extent along the South Saskatchewan river which has been under the control of the dominion government for about three years. A press report reads:
The dominion government will profit this year by about $39,000 through the Golden Valley farm, a 250-acre tract near Medicine Hat, operated by the Medicine Hat internment camp. German prisoners of war interned at the camp provide all the labour for the farm. Products from the vegetable farm-the largest in Alberta -go to military establishments in the province through the district supply office of military district No. 13.
This shows what can be done when water is pumped on the land or there is an irrigation system. That farm was operated with the help of German prisoners of war, and it is really worth seeing. The same applies to the Lethbridge area, where sugar beets and other crops are raised. I often think that the farmers around Medicine Hat have more courage than anyone else, because they will continue to put in a crop year after year and pray for rain which never comes. It is a "next year" country. Every spring they go out and put in a crop which usually comes up nice and green. But quite often, as occurred this spring, we have dust storms almost every other day and thousands of acres of grain'are ruined. But the farmers always hope that they will have a crop, until along about the first part of July the hot chinook winds come along and the temperature will run to about one hundred in the shade for a number of weeks without cooling off at nights. Then the farmers must sit back and watch their crops wither and dry up.

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When you get into the irrigated areas it is entirely different. Last year in the Taber-Lethbridge area they harvested 362,000 tons of sugar beets from which the farmers received a good income. I should like to read another press report published in Lethbridge on April 10, 1946, as follows:
A second subsequent sugar beet payment, amounting to nearly $100,000 now is in the mails for more than 1,300 farmers who raised sugar beets in southern Alberta last year. The payment represents 25 cents a ton on the 1945 production of 362,000 tons, and brings returns to growers on their 1945 beets to $8.80 so far. The growers received an initial payment of $8 and a first subsequent payment of 55 cents a ton late last year.
The farmers in that area are prosperous. When they sow a crop they have something to harvest.
The cattle producers in my area are more or less dissatisfied. There is a price ceiling, of course, in the butcher shops, but the farmer
who takes in his stock may receive 12 dollars one day and 11 dollars the next day. These fluctuations are bad for the farmers. I want to read a letter that I received from a large rancher in my district. He runs about 1,500 head of cattle. He grows very little grain- only enough for feed. This is what he says in his letter:	.
It is hard to convince those fellows down there that there is anything important west of the great lakes.
There is no doubt we are headed for real trouble in the cattle business. I can never understand the big fluctuations in the price of live cattle when there is a definite ceiling and floor on the beef. The consumer never gets it any cheaper, whatever the price of live cattle might be.
Another very interesting sidelight on the markets this year, at least to me. was the prices paid for ranch cattle. Most of the ranch steers I know of sold from 11-50 to 12 dollars weighed at the ranch. This means 50 to 75 cents a hundred more than on the market as it costs about that to put them on the market. My own steers sold for 11-75 at home. At that time choice steers in Winnipeg were quoted at 11 dollars. While I was very pleased to get $1.50 over the market I couldn't see any reason for it, unless the packers wanted to keep us quiet as we are the only organized producers that seem to object very strongly to the way the market is handled.
He belongs to the Western Stockgrowers association and to the Short Grass association, so in that way they are organized. The ranchers, of course, received a better price for - their cattle. That may be due to the fact that they raise larger numbers, and on the average they may have a better class of cattle. The writer of this letter has 1,500 head of well-bred Hereford cattle; every one of them is whitefaced. We have other large ranchers in that country, one running 3,500 head of cattle and another about 4,000, These cattlemen will tell
you that they have made money during the war, but they suffered plenty in the bad years before the war from low prices.
It was amusing to me the other night to hear the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Sinnott) discussing the prices paid under different governments. He quoted the prices paid in 1929 when the Liberal government was in power and the prices paid in the nineteen thirties when the Conservative government was in power, but he failed to mention what the present government paid for cattle in the fall of 1937 in their dominion cattle-buying scheme. One cent a pound is what was paid for cattle at that time, when the present government was in power. The price of hogs was down too; everything was down. I was out on that scheme along with dominion buyers, and I know what it was. I spent about a month with them going from one town to another organizing the buying days and taking applications from farmers to sell cattle. So, after all, the present government's record in the matter of prices is not good. I know it is the habit for a member to praise or condemn the government according to which side he supports, and he does not present the whole case.
I also heard the hon. member for Maple Creek (Mr. McCuaig) mention the price of wheat in the spring of 1938. He was speaking of the price of seed wheat supplied by the wheat board to the farmers in the drought area. I had a large part in that work as provincial inspector in the area from which I come. I issued 52,000 bushels of seed wheat on relief at 11.48 a bushel to farmers in that area. That fall, when the farmers went to sell their wheat, it wa$ down to 50 cents a bushel. That is why farmers want stabilized prices. They have had all they want of a speculative market. The farmers have paid back these seed grain accounts, and that says a lot for the farmers. I had the pleasure of collecting most of that money, and the farmers had the pleasure of being able to pay it back. It is true that many objections were made to having to pay back at the rate of three bushels for every one bushel they received, but that is the nature of the farmers in that drought area.
We hear a lot of complaints from farmers about the income tax. While it is true that a large number of farmers in that area have not a large enough income to pay income tax, there are many others who do pay income tax, and they feel that the exemptions are not high enough, and rightly so; I agree with them on that. We should do what we can to. raise the income tax exemptions not only for the farmers but for the workers as well. The man

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who has been really hard hit by the income tax is the man on straight salary, as I was myself when I was working for the provincial government. We had no opportunity of chiselling, if I might use the word. We received our cheques every month with ninety per cent of the tax deducted, and if the tax had not been deducted at the source I am sure it would have been impossible for many of us to pay the income tax at the end of the year. The farmers are in exactly the same plight. They want the income tax exemptions raised, and they should be raised.
Prairie farm assistance has been a big help to many of those farmers. It has been their main means of livelihood in the last three years. If it had not been for that, many of them would have been forced on relief. So when they come out and fight for stabilized prices I feel they are fighting for something they should have. Stabilized prices must bear some relation to what the farmer has to pay for the things he buys.


Mr. LIGUORI LACOMBE (Laval-Two Mountains):: Mr. Speaker, I want to say a few words concerning the question now under debate. In recompense for the period of sacrifice through which they lived during the war, the farmers are entitled to enjoy all possible protection and assistance from the government. Prices of agricultural products must be maintained at a reasonable level, and the cost of farm implements must not be increased in the most difficult times which are experienced by the farming community and, indeed, by every class of the Canadian people. If you increase the price of farm implements you necessarily raise the cost of production, and the fullest agricultural production is essential to the salvation of the world at this decisive moment. By every possible means, and particularly by expanding production and extending markets, the government must help the farmer. I wish to point out that it is quite impossible for the average farmer to make out income tax reports, and at the last session I asked the government to appoint accountants to help him. This would be in the public interest, as well as in the interest of the government.
(Translation): Mr. Chairman, I know my people's needs and am against the maintenance, in peace-time, of a dictatorship established during the war. The duly elected representatives of the people have been supplanted, in Canada, by a bureaucracy. Such a dictatorship paralyses activities in every sphere of our national life.
We are resorting to the very totalitarian methods which Canada has fought to the
limit of her resources. A parliament elected to serve rather than enslave the people has had to yield its supremacy to commissions enjoying unrestricted power, although not responsible to the people. State paternalism is being established permanently and forever within the intricate machinery of government. Canada, with its planned economy, is progressing towards socialism. Our government is continually resorting to controls. Free enterprise and trade are being jeopardized by the anti-social attitude of a powerful clique of bureaucrats, while our civilian population greatly lacks life's very essentials. Farmers cannot secure agricultural implements without which they are unable to cultivate their land. The government has just abolished the consumers' milk subsidy, and yet milk is surely not considered a luxury. It is indispensable to every child's growth and health. The very shortage of food and other goods would seem to justify controls. And yet controls are the best means of increasing the scarcity of foodstuffs and industrial products. Due to a controlled and misdirected economy almost four hundred thousand persons are now unemployed in Canada. And in this upheaval of this country's social and economic security, the government seems to ignore the prerogatives and the jurisdiction of the provinces.
I alluded a moment ago to the increase in the prices of farm machinery. It would be interesting to recall .the words uttered in this House on May 2, 1938, by the Hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), which are found on page 2429 of Hansard:
Agriculture, which is the greatest primary industry in Canada, refuses to be bled any longer by half a dozen manufacturing plants which give as their only real reason the fact that they are employing 4,159 men.
We as a farming population have thousands upon thousands from Halifax to Vancouver and Victoria, and those thousands upon thousands should not be called upon to pay enhanced prices for farm machinery.
Why this sudden about-face, at a time when agricultural production should be intensified everywhere? European and Asiatic countries are in the throes of famine. They beg America to come to their assistance. The increase in farming implement prices will intensify the severe food shortage affecting the whole universe. This crisis, attributable to a policy lacking in foresight, will not be abated by discussions in conference. Canada and the world are dying of conferences and inaction. The producing countries, whether of America, Europe or Asia, should stop deliberating and start acting and launching a complete programme of agricultural production. Controls work to the advantage of black
t
i732
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market racketeers. Consider what has happened in Canada and abroad. The people are shamefully exploited by a band of crooks, who are the shady agents of business and industry. Our countrymen must pay the highest prices for the necessities of life. One might claim that there are no farming implements. I say that is untrue. Ask those who have them how they endeavoured to secure them. Is increasing the price of implements of production a reasonable method of solving the food problem? We know that the most powerful nations are waging a tremendous battle for securing the agricultural and industrial markets of the world. There is much more petty interest than international charity in the background of the discussions of those sociology, trade, industry and diplomacy experts. Canada also has her experts. There was a time when she had famous ones. Not long ago, those agricultural geniuses prevailed upon the government to pay to the western farmers four dollars per acre provided they did not produce wheat. We need a comprehensive programme of agricultural and industrial production. The controls which bear heavily on the farmers and workers should be abolished. The time has come when normal life should be resumed and the administration of this country should be taken away from bureaucracy. Foreign countries which waste their energies in civil wars should at last think of tilling the soil in order to feed themselves. Is it reasonable that peace-loving countries should continue to be providers of food for those who spend their time killing one another immediately after the most frightful war the world has ever seen? The time has come for the united nations to put a stop to a situation that is both tragic and ridiculous. They have the necessary authority to deal once for all with such a situation, which the advocates of false doctrines and subversive ideas are interested in perpetuating. In conclusion, I wish to sum up my opinion as follows: Let us proclaim peace; let us resume a normal life and set in motion the machinery of Canada's agricultural, industrial and economic life.
(Text):
Mr. J. 0. PROBE (Regina City): I believe that to most hon. members in this house the subject in debate this afternoon is a good deal more important than whether some machinery cartel is to get an extra 12% per cent from its customers as a result of the government's action of some five or six weeks ago. There is no question that, as far as the Liberal side of the house is concerned, the defeat of the amendment and the subamendment is an acceptance of the government's action in the whole field of price structure

and is, in other words, a motion of confidence in the track along which the government is now guiding the people of Canada.
To the Conservatives to my right, if we accept the amendment of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) it will mean that we are prepared to extend the high-priced patches that have developed here and there in the Canadian economic structure. Finally, of course, within a very short time we shall let the flood-gates of inflation open wide, and we shall in the economic field return to the law of the jungle which, after the last war, proved so successful for the people who had the materials to take advantage of the power given them.
To the members in this group, Mr. Speaker, the acceptance of the subamendment as proposed by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle means that the government is prepared to withstand firmly all attacks on our domestic price structure and that, while it is withstanding the attempts of interested groups to inflate prices, it will at the same time do something to repair, more or less scientifically, I hope, the haphazard weaknesses that have already developed in that price structure.
I simply wish to remind the house of the subamendment as it stands:
This house is of the opinion that the government's policies of permitting recent unjustifiable increases in the prices of farm machinery and of steel have resulted in imposing on food producers and workers of Canada an unfair share of the burden of maintaining the government's price stabilization policies.
The effect of the Tory amendment, as I said, was to demand the removal of all price ceilings, whether on lumber, farm products, labour, milk, machinery and through the whole list and this is in keeping with their concept of free enterprise and the theory that economic might is right. I do not think there is any equivocation about that position.
The leader of the opposition did argue, and he advocated, that this amendment would for the moment give a price benefit to the farmer who still has some produce to sell; but in the race that would take place, of rising prices for the manufacturer, the farmer would lag behind, as he did under the Tory spiral following the first world war, and the organized worker and the professional groups would come along a miserable third in any race of that sort, while the pensioners and those who have small fixed incomes would, as always, be carried along on a stretcher.
Under free enterprise unfettered, the economic spoils always go to the man who has the strength to take advantage and to be ruthless in exploiting the advantage that he has. The

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C.C.F. group reaffirm a consistent belief-and I think it is shared by other corners of the house, though rarely expressed, unfortunately -that the lion's share of the national income under capitalism can go only to those in the strongly entrenched positions, and that price controls must be retained, strengthened and readjusted scientifically from time to time so that the primary producer, the secondary producer, the worker, whether in office, field or factory, the pensioner and the helpless may all share on more equal terms the fruit of the national effort.
The duty of a civilized government, as I see it, is so to legislate by majority decision that the acts of its parliament serve the best interests of all its citizens and protect those members of the state who are unable to protect themselves. Any act of government is fundamentally wrong if it puts any individual or group in a position less fortunate than that of any other individual or group. For a short time, and only by pressure of war needs and in a few imperfect aspects, the government of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) caught this moral value that I speak of, of planning in accord with the social philosophy of the C.C.F. It did institute a system of war-time price and wage controls, but because the Liberals do not believe sincerely in the fundamental or lasting value of such a system the policy was only a partial approach to the problem.
To the Liberal government the price control system is good only in the crisis of war when national survival is at stake, but it is useless in every-day crises where the existence of a decent livelihood for the Canadian family is at stake. The profit-first idea is clearly exemplified in the statement made by the Minister of Finance on April 15, as reported in Hansard at page 853, when he told this house why he had to agree with the 12i per cent price rise on farm machinery. Apparently he consulted only with the machine companies. He accepted their figures and arguments. I could not imagine the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) accepting without additional check such a submission on the part of the workingman in whose interests he says he acts so impartially.
The Minister of Finance accepted the machine companies' statement that the labour cost of making machinery has risen by 28J per cent since 1941, that materials have risen by 20 per cent and general overhead by 23 per cent. The parliamentary assistant did make what I think is a superficial report to the house on the increased costs on May 15. At any rate it is reported at page 1552 of Hansard. In the main the parliamentary
assistant's declaration to this house is based on the interested company's evidence before the wartime prices and trade board. In the words of the Minister of Finance the increase was not given on the score that it would keep the poor companies from bankruptcy. No; in their present strong financial position they would have had a job to argue to a government who first thought the proper way to aid production last fall was to throw off the 20 per cent excess profits tax burden that crushed that initiative which private enterprise was credited with having. No such argument was needed. The argument, in the words of the minister, was that the machine companies deemed it desirable to regain their 1941 profit percentage margin, and that a mere 12J per cent price rise meant a serious profit squeeze for industry.
History has a habit of repeating itself. In April, 1937, the agriculture committee, appointed by th^ Liberal government to report on high machine prices, found that the machine companies had too high a mark-up on their wares, and that their pressure for price increases was unwarranted, and that since the profits on replacement parts were excessive the price of these to the consumer should be reduced. At about the same time the Saskatchewan government, also Liberal, made substantially the same report as did the committee at Ottawa. Yet despite these public recommendations the machine cartel in recent years has kept jacking up its sales price until the following figures now apply. In 1936 there was a price increase of 4-4 per cent on machinery. In 1937 there was a further increase of 7-8 per cent. Some time between 1937 and 1941 there must apparently have been an additional increase if the figures stated in this house by the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance on May 15 were correct.
I wish to put on Hansard a list of prices for four or five of the implements mentioned by the hon. member for Victoria, British Columbia (Mr. Mayhew) the other day, with the figures for 1936. The retail prices in the southern part of my province, and the prices without the freight added for 1941 and 1946, according to the hon. member for Victoria, British Columbia, are as follows: On an eight-foot binder the Assiniboia price in 1936 was $290. This figure is taken from a little volume which was compiled in 1937 by the agricultural farm implement prices committee. In 1941, according to the parliamentary assistant to the minister, the same binder, or approximately the same binder, without freight from the factory to the prairies had risen to $340.50.
Price Ceiling-Farm Products


James Lorimer Ilsley: No. I made it clear that the board did not let them regain anything like their 1941 percentage. I made it clear that the board did not accept the application of the companies. They were cut away down.


Mr. PROBE:: As I remember the minister's statement, he told the house at that time that the companies wanted an increase of 30 per cent in their price structure in order that they might break even on a 1941 profit level. Then the minister proceeded to explain that he had sternly held them down to a mere 12^ per cent, so that they are not quite going to make their 1941 profit margin.


James Lorimer Ilsley: They are going to fall far short of it.


John Oliver Probe: I will try to indicate what I think they are getting. Of course I may be all wet in what I am about to say, but at least I am using statistics furnished in the house and out of it by official groups. However, I shall come to that point a little later.
Last session when I heard the minister argue that the government could not allow farmers' wives to be considered as employees, for income tax purposes, and when he rejected the plea from this group to use $1,000 and $2,000 as the exempted amount for salaried income tax payers, I was sure-and I still think it privately-that the minister was a hard-hearted gatherer of revenue.
When the government rejected the plea of the Saskatchewan farmers to have the seed grain advance from Ottawa in 1938 written down as a partial gift from Canada to tide those of us in the prairie provinces pver a series of catastrophes that only the prairie breed can take-drought, grasshoppers, low prices, hail and rust-


An hon. MEMBER:: And Liberals.


John Oliver Probe: Yes, and Liberals, .for years.


Mr. JOHNSTON:: The hon. member is naming the pests.


John Oliver Probe: -and when almost three years after the war began the cabinet rejected the prairie plea for dollar wheat made by a delegation of 400 farmers on parliament hill; when

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now federal funds are so low that the Minister of Finance is prepared to take the milk bottles out of the mouths of workmen's and veterans' babies rather than maintain the two-cent per quart subsidy; when labour pressure to get a greater share of the national income is grudgingly accepted by the war labour boards after strategic delays running into months and years, for we are told that inflation always comes when industry must pay the man who toils a few miserable cents more, but never to be blamed on less production; when the government cannot match provincial grants toward old age pensions; when the Liberals are happy to let the grain farmer carry the whole load of selling cheap wheat to starving millions and to the Canadian public as well-when I see all these evidences of an iron will in the Department of Finance, if I were not a socialist and, by virtue of that fact, too expert in the ways of capitalistic economics, I should rest assured that the Minister of Finance would put up a pretty stiff fight against any inroads upon price ceilings. I should be naive enough to believe that the minister would not accept as gospel any representations of a capitalist group whose interests lie in wrecking a controlled price structure by any means.
But even though the Liberals behind the Minister of Finance must have felt uncomfortable when he accepted the price increase on what I consider flimsy data at this time, to capitalists, including my hon. friends to the right, his actions would appear much more logical. The Tories must have shouted with glee, because it made their amendment for complete price control removal a natural sequence, which even the Liberals, if they wish to be consistent, must support.
The hon. member for Halton (Mr. Cleaver) delivered a most excellent speech the other evening dealing with the subject matter of price control.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Does the hon. member take the position that from now on and for a considerable period there should never be any lifting of price ceilings whatsoever?


John Oliver Probe: Those of us in this group believe in a stabilized price structure, and we believe that when changes are made they should be made after some scientific perusal of the entire economic structure of the country.


James Lorimer Ilsley: So they are.


John Oliver Probe: So that if that is so, there must be something wrong with-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Your thinking.


John Oliver Probe: -the statistics on which the Minister of Finance operates.
I was going to state that the other evening the hon. member for Halton referred to certain figures with which I cannot agree. He remarked that the incomes of farmers had increased to a relatively high point in the period 1939-46, and made the further statement that there were 1,717,000 employees receiving an average weekly wage of $29.85. The hon. member implied, in a sense, that these workers were receiving fairly generous treatment, as were the farmers. But then the hon. member stopped in his argument, right where he should have started, because right in this country we have more than farmers and more than labourers. We find in Canada all the economic groups which must be considered in any discussion of price structure. That is the quarrel I have with the stand taken by the Liberal government.
I wrote a letter to the bureau of statistics asking for the number of people gainfully employed in mining, forestry, fishing, agriculture, manufacturing, construction and so on, running through the list of industrial activities in the country. I also tried to get the value of the production under each of these various headings, so that I might have some way of satisfying myself with respect to the relative incomes of the various groups, according to numerical relationships. If the Minister of Finance did something like that, and then proceeded to examine these figures and rearrange the price structure so as to give some increase to the group which is obviously suffering from economic deficiency, then I could agree wholeheartedly with him in that scientific approach.
But, to begin with, the bureau of statistics could not give me relative figures because, as they pointed out, they had not yet been able to break down the national income series into industrial groups. To be scientific in this matter, I believe the minister should have that information. Let it be understood that I wish to give him credit for sincerity. But if this statement is correct, he has not sufficient statistical information at his command; or, if he has it, certainly we cannot get it when we wish to make comparisons with respect to the job he is doing.


James Lorimer Ilsley: What is the scientific principle the hon. member is advocating. Is it the equalization of income of all Canadians?


John Oliver Probe: No. I would not suggest
that the Minister of Finance for his enormous efforts should receive the same salary that I, a humble C.C.F. member on the opposition benches, should receive. I did not mean that.
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[ mean that if there is a group in a preferred position so far as income is concerned-from the dividend statements I am sure the machine companies are-and that .group comes to the Minister of Finance and asks him so to regulate the wartime prices and trade board that they can jack up their prices another 12J per cent, the minister should be in a position by the use of those figures to say, 'No, in the national interest we cannot accede to your request." If a group of laundresses present a plea that there be some relaxation in their prices the minister, by an examination of the facts, should be able to decide whether they are entitled to some price adjustment.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Is the economic standing of the applicant material if the question arises as to whether he has to produce at a loss or not? Does the hon. gentleman, take the position that the board should require people to produce at a loss if they are wealthy enough ?


John Oliver Probe: If I were the Minister of Finance the first thing I would say to Massey-Harris and the Case company is, "Get those factories producing first, and then we will take up the question of your price structure and the allowances to which you claim you are entitled."


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am not entitled to answers to my questions, so I shall not press them.


John Oliver Probe: Before the Minister of
Finance got me sidetracked temporarily I was going to say that the hon. member for Halton had given a partial analysis of the improved position of the farmer and labour, but I think he fell short by not giving the improved positions of other industrial and occupational groups in this country. I do not think he could have done that because of the manner in which our statistical information is set up. Some change should be made in the statistical summaries so that we can get that readily. I should like to quote what the hon. member said as reported at page 1564 of Hansard:	[DOT]
I concede ... it is possible that considerations were extended to some small groups of labour which were too generous . , .
In other words, they are being too well paid. Further down on the same page he said:
I think that, compared with the total national income and with the taxes of all the groups in Canada to-day, agriculture is getting a proper proportionate share of the total as far as it is possible for any human being to bring this about.

That is the way in which one sincere member on the other side of the house talks about price control-it is not possible. As I said, the Minister of Finance should give the house some figures of the net incomes of various groups in this country. He should also give the numbers in each group that are gainfully occupied, so that we could see if there is any justification for the suspicion in the minds of hon. members on this side that the machine companies are getting more than fair treatment. We would then have an opportunity to revise our estimate of their place in the economic picture or be publicly castigated by the government for the position we have taken.
It is time that there was brought out into the open the net income of labour and professional men. Fishermen were mentioned yesterday by the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Winters), who suggested that the C.C.F. amendment did not refer specifically to fishermen as food producers. I take exception to that. There is no suggestion that fishermen are producing anything but food, except those fishermen in the house who are producing red herrings. We should have more information as to the income of distributors as well as the returns on invested money as compared with the returns received by others. While I do not believe in the omnipotence of money, we still must use money as a yardstick. I realize that the Tories have been sick so long that they are like the lion who has come to full maturity, -who is old and mangy but who still roars every once in a while, believing that by virtue of that roar he still has mastery over all other creatures.
Before I conclude I should like to give the minister one small set of figures. Based upon the 1936 cost of farm machinery, which is the only official figure I can get, the labour cost of a binder selling in Saskatchewan for $280 was $13.50. Accepting the plea of the machine companies to the minister that they have had to increase wages by 28J per cent and allowing that increase in full, the labour cost would be only $17.28.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That is just the direct labour cost. The other materials are filled with labour costs and factory overhead is filled with labour costs.


John Oliver Probe: I have those figures. The material cost of that binder was given as $89.52, and if this cost is increased by 20 per cent, which was suggested by the machine companies as the increase required, the present 1946 cost would be $107.42. The overhead cost was given as $25.27, and allowing a 20

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per cent increase there would make it $31.03. In other words, the factory cost in 1936 was $12829, but on the basis of the figures I have given it would now be $155.73.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Surely the hon. member should not compare the 1936 figures with those for 1946. The increases that I gave were from 1941 to 1946.


John Oliver Probe: That is hedging on the part of the government, because in 1937 those prices were considered to be too high. They were raised 44 per cent; they were raised 7J per cent; then there was another increase which I could not determine exactly because I had only the figures given by the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance. At any rate, the western price had gone up. from $280 with freight to Regina, to $383.05 without freight. That is an increase of $100 plus whatever the freight is from the factory to the prairie in those ten years.


James Horace King: I am sorry to have to inform the hon. gentleman that he has spoken for more than forty minutes.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go ahead.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Time.


John Oliver Probe: I thought I would take only five minutes more but the Minister of Finance has taken about fifteen minutes of my time.


James Horace King: If the hon. member has unanimous consent.


John Oliver Probe: I will try to be brief.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go ahead.


John Oliver Probe: The Minister of Finance agrees with us that there was no great increase in the wage structure between 1936 and 1941. From then on there was an upward adjustment of 28 per cent in the price of labour and an increase in overhead of 23 per cent, which should be offset against a reduction in selling costs of 40 per cent, which was admitted by the parliamentary assistant; and there should be a further offset of 20 per cent because of the excess profits tax allowed to these companies. A bogey is being made of increased labour costs, and I am trying to show by the statistics of the government itself that the labour costs on this $383 machine are $17 odd. Any figures that you can produce- and I have gathered a lot of them-never show labour costs on farm machinery at any stage as amounting to more than 8 per cent of the ultimate cost. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mrs. Strum) gave to this house the other day the highest figure I have heard of labour costs in the manufacture of a binder, as compared with the official figures in the
United States and Canada, which are roughly fi\ e per cent. When wages go up we have inflation. But when machine prices go up we have a price adjustment. That is the philosophy on the other side of the house, and that is the philosophy to which I take violent exception.


Mr. R. N. JUTRAS (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to what the hon. member for Regina City (Mr. Probe) had to say. I was pleased to hear his first statement, that the question before the house to-day is a very broad one indeed and takes in a lot more than just the motion before the house and the amendment. He stated specifically that anybody who voted against the motion or against the amendment voted against the principle of controls as they are applied to-day. So that the motion before the house is distinctly a motion of nonconfidence in the present administration. It is in that aspect that I view the amendment moved by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken).
As I said, this question is a very broad one. It did not start last week. It is a storm that has been growing over a long time. There has been constant pressure on the government to remove the controls. There came to my mind, when considering this question, a speech that I had read some time ago by Mr. Burton, president of the Robert Simpson Company Limited, who I think was the first responsible man to start the ball rolling. In a famous speech which attracted a great deal of attention in this country he specifically and clearly stated:
Row that the war is over, controls over wages and prices are no longer needed nor are they in the public interest.
The ball started from there more or less. Later on, many of the larger companies in this country followed suit. I have here a circular letter of the Searle Grain Company Limited on price regulation in which it is clearly stated:
When commodities become scarce, prices rise, and so curtail consumption and tend to induce greater production, which is what is needed to restore the balance or equilibrium. When commodities become too plentiful or in excess of demand, then prices fall and so tend to induce greater consumption, which in turn automatically tends to clear away surpluses, and to reduce production, all of which helps to restore a better balance between supply and demand. Freely moving prices, therefore, as registered on open commodity markets, tend to regulate the economic activities of man in quite a successful way on the average, and in a manner that tends to ensure the proper quantity of production of any commodity needed by the people, and that amount of consumption required to clear away surpluses. No governmental method of planning, or of "fixed" price, has ever been able for long to accomplish these important functions.
Price Ceiling-Farm Products

I have given these quotations to show the pressure that has been put on the government lately to remove controls. Later on, the Progressive Conservative party in convention ratified that principle. Shortly afterwards the leader of the opposition made a speech in which he announced that he was fully behind the removal of price control and now finally we have this motion of non-confidence in the government, which is the first shot fired to blow away the ceiling in this country. The position, therefore, of the government and of the official opposition in this house is quite clear, and cannot be mistaken. I know that hon. gentlemen opposite are sincere in their belief. They do not believe in controls.
I must admit that the removal of controls frightens me dreadfully, because I still have in mind the dreadful consequences of the period of inflation that followed the first great war. If we were to remove the ceilings on all farm products it would not be long before we would have no controls at all in Canada. I think everybody realizes that if we were to remove controls on the primary products of agriculture, the major industry of this country, all ceilings and all controls would go sooner or later. So that if the decision has to be made, it must be made now. Coming from Manitoba as I do, I am quite satisfied that if the controls were removed to-day the small progress which our farmers have been able to make in the last decade would certainly be lost, and they would slide back to where they were in the inflationary period after the last war. Surely we have not forgotten the experience of the past. I have here an editorial from the Winnipeg Free Press, by Grant Dexter, dated April 19, 1941, which reviews the picture so far as prices after the first great war are concerned. I quote:
Cash wheat prices on May 11 and 12, 1917 (No. 1 northern) stood at $3 a bushel. Control came Sept. 12, and $2.12 was paid for the 1917 crop, $2,294 on 1918 crop, and $2.63 on 1919 crop. After control was lifted, cash wheat went to $2.85 before the crash in prices began. Barley-reached $1.68; oats, 93 cents, flax seed, $4.80 (It had been $6), hay, $40 per ton, cattle, 16 cents on the hoof, hogs, $23.74 per hundredweight. Butter was selling at 75 cents per pound; eggs topped $1.25 per dozen; sugar, 30 cents per pound; potatoes, $2.60 per bag; fresh ham, 46 cents per pound; fresh bacon, 474 cents; cured ham, 504 cents; cured bacon, 584 cents.
Returned soldiers found that the bonus paid on their discharge from the army did little more than buy them a civilian outfit.
Food prices might seem good for the farmers. But on the contrary, the farmers declared that the prices they were receiving -were ruinously low. Middlemen, they said, were reaping fortunes. Their costs of production had risen enormously.
The wave of industrial unrest reached heights never equalled before or since .... The One Big Union movement flared up rapidly. The

Winnipeg strike made many people think the country was ripe for revolution. The inflation ran its course to the inevitable and equally disastrous collapse.
This is the story as it stood after the last war; and surely we cannot close our eyes to the realities of the present time. There is nothing that can lead us to believe that the situation is any different this time. The worst of the inflation after the last war did- not come, nor did the necessity for control come actually during the period of the war, but in the period immediately following the war. So I maintain that it is definitely the responsibility of this government to face the storm and put up a fight to maintain stability in this country.
As far as I am concerned, there is no question of doubt as to where I stand on this issue, and I think I am right in assuming that it is pretty well the position of all western members, at least on this side of the house. This attitude of the west is quite clearly defined, at least in my province, in the newspapers. I think I may quote again from the Winnipeg Free Press, because there is an editorial here which puts the picture of controls quite well. I quote from the issue of that newspaper of May 17 an editorial entitled, "The need for controls":
If there is one thing very clear, it is that the government is moving as well as it can toward the abolition of controls. It is also clear that certainly the particular set of bureaucrats involved in this problem are all very eager to wind up their jobs. Meanwhile, however, they have to hang on. . .
Too great haste in taking off the controls would inevitably result in the defeat of the major objective sought by the price and wage policy of the government. We have emerged from the war stronger and more stable^ in our economic structure than any other major belligerent. We have kept so well on balance that, if we can but exercise continued skill and patience, we will be able to escape many of the ills and dangers that beset us on all sides.
The wartime prices and trade board is effecting what might be called a fighting retreat, holding each line up to the point where the rising flood of supplies makes further control unnecessary. In attempting this difficult manoeuvre it is obvious that mistakes will be made and that injustices will arise. This is inevitable.
But the over-all gain to Canada of maintaining the controls is far greater than any of the vexatious mishaps which take place from time to time. The pressure to remove the controls is very great. It comes, to too great an extent, from pofiticiains who seek an easy platform success, by wanton utterance. They appeal to the narrow interests of the group they happen to be addressing and thereby neglect the national interest. In war time, greatly to the nation's credit, such appeals were ignored. They are far more dangerous to-day when the inspiration and- discipline of war have vanished or grown stale. A further effort is needed.

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Some might say that this is the opinion of a newspaper which, is on the whole, considered favourable to the government. But I have here another clipping, from the editorial page of the Winnipeg Tribune, and the stand of that newspaper on this issue is also quite clear. I quote from the Tribune of May 7, 1946:
Perhaps Canadian efforts toward holding down living costs are best appreciated when compared with those made in the United States. Price control was introduced in that country later than in the dominion. Moreover, the office of price administration, the United States equivalent of the wartime prices and trade board, has not met with the same measure of government or public support accorded the wartime prices and trade board in Canada. In fact,
O.P.A's very existence was threatened recently in congress.
The following table compiled by the Windsor Star and quoted in an editorial by the Edmonton Journal is indicative. Windsor and Detroit, just across the river from each other, offer an excellent opportunity for comparison of the two countries' successes or failures in battling rising living costs. Here is the table of comparisons of current costs of every-day items in the two centres:
Soft drinks: Windsor, 7 cents; Detroit, 10-15 cents.
Hamburgers, hot dogs: Windsor, 10 cents; Detroit, 21 cents.
Telephone, two-party full service: Windsor, $2.85 per month; Detroit, $5-$6 per month.
Electricity, average for family of four: Windsor, $5-$6 for two months; Detroit, $16-$24 for two months.
Haircuts: Windsor, 50 cents; Detroit, 75 cents to $1.
Shave:	Windsor, 25 cents; Detroit, 50-60
cents.
Downtown movie:	Windsor, 45-85 cents;
Detroit, 85 cents.
Two persons on evening out (one drink each, dinner, movie, coffee, doughnuts, bus fare): Windsor, $3.47; Detroit, $9.10.
Butter:	Windsor, 42 cents to 44 cents; Detroit, 56 cents to 60 cents.
And so on.
The difference in prices in the two cities should not lead to complacency on the part of Canadians. Greater pressures than ever before are threatening to break our price ceilings. Indeed, the greatest threat lies in the fact that the Canadian economy is bound up with that of the United States. It will be only with the greatest difficulty that our price structure is kept from going hog wild if American prices advance much more.
Price control is still a full-time job for Canadians.
To complete the record I will read from the Winnipeg News, which reflects, I believe, the labour side of the story, because this release is entitled "Winnipeg News on labour view of prices board policy." It reports resolutions adopted by 1,600 labour liaison representatives, representing approximately 600,000 trade unionists across Canada. Here is the report:
General approval of wartime prices and trade board policies and suggestions that the board should only remove controls from articles in
good supply and that the present standards division of the board be continued as a permanent part of government organization was voiced in a five-point resolution passed by over thirty labour liaison officers to the board's consumer branch, at a conference held Wednesday night in the board offices.
Included in the five-point resolution are these statements:
1.	The wartime prices and trade board has done a creditable job in controlling prices, rationing and other phases of its work.
2.	The W.P.T.B. has been the medium which has saved citizens of Canada, particularly labour men and women, millions of dollars by preventing inflation.
I will not take the time of the house to read the other items of the resolution, but I may say that they are along the same line, and prove that these liaison officers of the labour movement certainly recognize the great benefits of the wartime prices and trade board to this country, and more specifically, I would say, in its application to western Canada, because I hold that we are much more vulnerable from this point of view.
I do not think there is any question as to the stand of the western people at the present time. Everyone remembers quite well the heavy burden left on the shoulders of the people of the prairies by the inflation that took place after the last war, and such inflation is probably more damaging in connection with farm land in the prairies. I am thinking now of ail the young people and middle-aged persons as well who left the prairies during the war to go and work in the factories in the east as well as on the coast. Statistics prove that there was an exodus from the prairie provinces during the war, and it is my contention that those people will come back to the prairies. Surely, therefore, if any more inflation js allowed at the present time, they will not have a ghost of a chance of settling in the prairies, and even if they did try to buy land at any higher prices than those charged at the present time they would have no chance of succeeding. Therefore, in the interests of the economy of the west, it is absolutely essential, I would say, that controls remain clamped on.
Another factor to be considered is the Veterans Land Act. No doubt a large number of young veterans will settle on land in the prairies. Statistics reveal that so far there have not been very many, but we must remember that the war ended not long ago, and as a matter of fact I know that the applications have been far too many for what the department has been able to cope with. I am quite satisfied that there are a good many veterans who are getting an education which they could not afford in the thirties, and as
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soon as their knowledge has improved and they have obtained education they will try to settle on the land in greater numbers. We should not do anything to make it impossible for them to settle on the land; we should at least leave the opportunity open.
When we mention the land settlement act,
I perforce am compelled to think of the success or otherwise of the soldier settlement board-because it is wise to look back. Of course the two cannot be compared, since one is a great improvement on the other; but though that act may not have been all that it should have been, the main reason why the Soldier Settlement Act did fail-and certainly -it failed in my constituency and province- was that prices were inflated when those veterans tried to settle on the land. The picture of this enterprise is certainly far from being a bright one. In fact, it is very gloomy, more particularly, for one reason, or another, in Manitoba.	.
Even to-day, however, in spite of the fact that prosperity in the west is quite relative, there is a marked tendency for land to go up in price. I am not going to quote figures, although I have them for the various provinces, comparing 1939 with 1944 and 1945. They are most conservative, and they show an increase in Canada, from 1939 to 1945, of 20 per cent. In its interpretation of the figures, however, the bureau of statistics say that they are very conservative and that it seems likely that these estimates understate the gains that-have actually occurred in Canada.
I remember an article which appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press and in the Tribune putting the rise in the cost of land up to 50 per cent. So that if we take the middle course between the two, there is no question that there has been an increase in price in farm land in the west; and that if controls were removed, land would undoubtedly soar in price, and this would not be to the advantage of the people living in the west or of those who wish to become reestablished in the prairies.
At this stage I wish to commend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) and I also wish to give all the encouragement I can to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) to hold the line down, whatever the cost. I commend the Minister of Agriculture for embarking a few years ago on the policy of giving, not exceedingly high prices but stabilized prices, even to the point of sacrificing high prices for stability. The farmers and all other people in the west are one class, because everyone depends upon the main industry of agriculture, and everyone to-day sees the wisdom of having stabilized agriculture in the prairies. I am sure we got that impression in this house when
(Mr. Jutras.J
bill No. 5 was being discussed. It was apparent from those who spoke on that bill-those members from the west-that they did not want to be left to the speculation of a few but wanted the income of the farmer put on a stablized basis even to the point of being controlled, whether in connection with the wheat board or the wartime prices and trade board.
There is an absolute necessity to enforce these controls if we wish to have a stabilized economy in the west. It is the only way, because we have tried other means. Apparently it is the only way by which we can be relatively prosperous in the country.
When I speak of controls, I do not mean that we must maintain controls indefinitely, because that has not been the policy of the government, and as time goes on they can be relaxed when possible. Of course I am not in a position to judge exactly the time or the item. That is the responsibility of the Minister of Finance. He is a capable man and he has shown that he can do a good job. I am satisfied to leave the responsibility to him, be' cause I know he will look after the interests of the Canadian people, and that includes my people.
After all, in this world we have to put our confidence in somebody or something and I am content to put my confidence in the efforts of the Minister of Finance. The Prime Minister, in explaining the policy of the government on price and wage control, on January 31, 1946, made the position of the government quite clear. I quote two short passages so that the government's attitude may appear on the record.
In moving toward the period when price control is no longer necessary, the government believes that subsidy payments should continue to be kept to a minimum and eliminated as promptly as is feasible. Thei'e is a great deal of difference between a gradual and planned policy of adjustment to post-war conditions, which may involve some modest increase in prices, and a policy of rapid removal of anti-inflation controls. The objective of the government's policy is to continue to protect the people of Canada from a sharp upswing in prices and living costs, and from the inevitable aftermath of deflation, unemployment and distress. Its purpose is to protect the value of wages and war-time savings. It is aimed to help to open larger markets both at home and abroad, and thus hasten progress toward the high level of peacetime production and employment which is our leading economic objective. With the intelligent support of the Canadian people Canada's anti-inflation programme will achieve its aim. It will bring our country through the most destructive war in history and its aftermath without the economic and social disruption which have been the sorry heritage of past conflicts.
The duty of the government is quite clear. If one looks back at what the government has done so far he will see that it is just a

Private Bills
bare and simple implementing of what it said it would do. I realize that controls in themselves are not popular. Somebody has to take the responsibility of maintaining them. I repeat, it is the responsibility of the government, and I hope that they will have the courage to stand by it.
I should like to give a brief picture of the position of agriculture in the three western provinces, and try to indicate how they appear under a controlled economy such as we have had in the last-few years. I hold in my hand a report issued by the dominion mortgage and investment association. This association is made up of thirty of the large mortgage and investment companies in Canada. It comprises most of the sum total of the mortgages which are held by the farmers of the three western provinces. I shall quote the first part which gives a picture of the conditions existing in the last year. This is the report for 1946 and reads as follows:
Farmers in tile three prairie provinces reduced their mortgage and agreement for sale debts by 26 per cent in 1945. This estimate is based on the experience of thirty life insurance, trust and loan companies which have a substantial investment in farm mortgages and agreements for sale in the prairie provinces. The farms which are security for these mortgages are located in all sections of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Thus the experience of these companies can be taken as representative of that of all farm mortgage investors in western Canada.
As was to be expected, .payments of mortgage principal and interest by farmers in the prairie provinces were lower in 1945 than in 1944. This would have been the case even if farm cash income had not declined since the total amount owing at the beginning of 1945 was substantially less than at the beginning of 1944.
In view of the reduction which occurred in farm cash income, payments of principal and interest were maintained at a high level. Farm cash income for the three prairie provinces dropped from $1,033 million in 1944 to $847 million in 1945, a reduction of $186 million, or 18 per cent. Principal and interest payments as a percentage of the total amount owing were greater in 1945 than in any previous year with the exception of 1944.
The total amount owing to the thirty companies by farmers in the three prairie provinces on farm mortgages and agreements for sale declined 26-1 per cent in 1945. The reduction in the amount owing by Manitoba farmers was 25'4 per cent; by Saskatchewan farmers, 25-6 per cent; and by Alberta farmers, 28 per cent. The reduction in the amount owing since the end of 1937 is remarkable. It is doubtful if any other group in Canada has been as successful in reducing their liabilities during the past eight years as have the farmers of the prairie provinces. The total amount owing on mortgages and agreements for sale by farmers in the prairie provinces is now considerably less than half what it was at the end of 1937-the percentage reduction being 60 per cent. In Manitoba, the decrease since the end of 1937 is 67 per cent; in Saskatchewan, 57 per cent, and in Alberta 65 per cent.
These large decreases have been achieved bv thousands of farmers reducing substantially the amount they owe by way of farm mortgages and agreements for sale and by thousands of others paying off their mortgages entirely. During the past eight years the number of farmers in the prairie provinces who own their farms entirely free of debt has increased very materially.
At the end of 1945 there were 6,339 fewer farmers in debt to these thirty companies by way of mortgages and agreements for sale than at the end of 1944. As compared with the end of 1937, the reduction in the number of farmers in debt to these thirty companies is 27,671, or more than fifty per cent.
The annual report of this association for 1943 made reference to the estimate of total farm debt in the three prairie provinces made by Professor W. J. Waines of the university of Manitoba for the royal commission on dominion-provincial relations. He estimated total farm debt in Manitoba at $108-7 million, $432-5 million in Saskatchewan, and $265-1 million in Alberta, a total of $806-3 million. Since it is a well established fact that farmers use increased income to liciuidate current indebtedness before applying it to long-term indebtedness such as mortgage debt, it is a reasonable assumption that total farm debt in the prairie provinces has declined just as fast as mortgage debt. It would appear, therefore, that total farm debt in the prairie provinces has declined by more than $450 million in the past eight years.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 59, to incorporate Canadian. Acceptance Company.-Mr. Harris (Grey-Bruce).
Bill No. 60, respecting Rupert's Land Trading Company.-Mr. Maybank.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 83, for the relief of Roland Taillon. [DOT]-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 84, for the relief of Frederick Albert Johnson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 85, for the relief of Joseph Francois Georges 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.
[Stage Direction]
Private Bills
[Stage Direction]
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 Tehanciue 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 Trenholme 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 McClelland 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.	[DOT]
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. I'll, 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 Griffiths.-Mr. Maybank.
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 Tardif Laverdure.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 120, for the relief of Max Schacter. -Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 121, for the relief' of Mary Walker Tiffney.-Mr. Maybank.
fMr. Jutras.]
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 Mug-ford Brumby.-Mr. Maybank.

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mackenzie that the house go into committee of supply, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Bracken, and the amendment to the amendment of Mrs. Strum.
René Jutras: Mr. Speaker, before six
o'clock I had just dealt with the report of the various loan companies in the west, showing what had been accomplished in western Canada over the last seven years, I want to say immediately that hon. members should not jump to conclusions. While it is true that I did mention that the picture was much brighter in the west than it was before, I merely pointed out that farmers had paid 50 per cent of their indebtedness over the last seven years. That implies that they are still 50 per cent in debt. They are in the process of digging themselves out of the hole at the present time. But we must remember that agriculture has gone through a period of debt and disaster. I.hasten to point out that this achievement of the last seven years has not been accomplished by taking trips to California, or by playing bridge, or even by reading Hansard during the winter months on the prairies, as was suggested by some hon. members. It has been accomplished through toil and sweat, by their own hands, while their sons and daughters were fighting the war overseas.
It does not mean, either, that they are making large profits at the present time. As a matter of fact they are making very small profits. But it is mostly the fact that there is a small profit in all the various aspects of agriculture which accounts for the picture I have drawn. To my mind it is a' case of a little here and a little there.
In my view it is time the Canadian people revised their thinking so far as agriculture is concerned. There are too many city people who think of prices of agricultural products in terms of prices during the depression. At the present time, because it has been said that the price of milk will be twelve cents in the city, a wave of protest has arisen in some cities. I suggest that the people of Canada are getting the very best of food, and. so far as milk is concerned they are getting a much

Price Ceiling-Farm Products
improved product. I do not consider twelve cents a quart is too much or too high a price to pay for such a good product. Too many - people forget that to-day milk has to be pasteurized and homogenized. It must be delivered in sterilized containers; it must come from T.B-tested cows. It must be subjected to quick cooling after milking, because of the factor of acidity. Then there is a deduction made from the price if it does not reach 3'5 per cent butterfat. It must be delivered to the door-and delivered before breakfast, in the wee, small hours of the morning. So that when one compares milk with soft drinks, with tea and coffee or with fruit juices, or with any of the various food products, including luxury beverages, I do not think the price of milk is too high.
While I am not offering this as a case in point, I must maintain that too many people in the cities are thinking in terms of prices they paid in the years of depression. At that time farmers were generous enough to give away their product because they could not keep it and could not sell it. So they just made a gift of it to the people. Those conditions are, we hope, gone. Had I the time I would deal with this matter more fully. However, I trust I shall have another opportunity to do so.
At the present time I wish to deal briefly with the C.C.F. amendment. I know that in that party there are a few competent farmer members who are sincere in their convictions. However, it would appear from the amendment presented to the house that in that group they are but a small minority. I wish to give full credit to the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mrs. Strum), who moved the amendment to the amendment, for her sincerity in doing so. I admit the sincerity of the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis), who seconded the motion, but I would point out that the diversion of opinion between the two differs just as greatly as the diversion of opinion between any of the parties in this house. No doubt the hon. member for Cape Breton South appealed to the motherly instincts of the hon. member for Qu'Appelle in order to have her add the word "workers" and gather under the protection of her wing all the people of Canada. But be it as it may, it would appear that the hon. member for Qu'Appelle in wording her amendment in that way serves one purpose only, that is, to confuse the issue. I ask: What burden does an increase in prices of farm implements impose upon the workers of Canada? It is just a case of, "he is getting it, we want it too." It is simply a demonstration that within the ranks of the C.C.F., labour is the dominating factor.
63260-110J
Just before the six o'clock recess the hon. member for Regina City (Mr. Probe) was pointing out that the C.C.F. party were unanimous about the question of controls. I should like to refer briefly to what the seconder had to say about the great concern he had over controls.
In connection with the cost of living he said, as reported at page 1557 of Hansard'.
There is also a difference in the cost of living; I realize that, but it is not equal to the differential in the income of the workers. I do not care how high the cost of living goes.
Here is what he had to say about inflation, a matter about which I feel very deeply:
There is a whole lot of the bogey man in this business of inflation. I am not very much afraid of it.


James Horace King: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. gentleman but he has spoken for forty minutes.


Mr. COLDWELL:: Let him finish.


René Jutras: I shall take only a few minutes.
-.Mr. SPEAKER: Has the hon. member unanimous consent?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Agreed.


René Jutras: Here is what the hon. member had to say about controls:
This business of waving that flag of inflation is overdone. A little inflation is good, if it does not get away from you. If you mean your price controls, when you get the thing where you want it and control it forever I do not think you will have any difficulty. But I do not believe you are controlling anything to-day; that is my opinion. \
Then to show his concern over the increase in farm prices, he said this:
Do not forget that about eighty or eighty-five per cent of the cash handled by the average small-salaried man or wage-earner in this country is spent on food, clothing and shelter, particularly on food. That does not include any luxuries. When you put the increase on a pound of butter and a pound of bacon, and on clothing, you are hitting him one hundred per cent.
And he continued:
Flour is up twenty-four per cent; sugar is up thirty-two per cent; potatoes are up fifty per cent; tea and coffee are up thirty-one per cent. In fact everything is up but wages.
I am wondering whether he was asking for more wages or for a higher return for the farmer. He continues to speak on price controls as follows:
The point I was going to make is this. As I said a moment ago, President Truman ordered an upward trend in wages in order that the people might have purchasing power, because if they cannot buy we are going to have unemployment. The trend in Canada is the reverse.

Price Ceiling-Farm Products
That shows the confidence the hon. member has in price controls. Then he goes on to say:
The farmer asks for increased prices. Fine; I agree with that. I believe those prices have to be stepped up. But when we increase the price of farm products we automatically increase the cost of living.
The hon. member had said just previously that he did not mind the cost of living going up, and he then goes on to refer to the industrial worker:
And that comes back to the industrial worker. If farm prices are going up, then in proportion to those increases in farm prices we have to increase the wage structure if we are to keep on an even keel. Unless this is done, the effect will be that of dumping an additional load on the shoulders of the small salaried worker.
I am sure that is not what the hon. member for Qu'Appelle had in mind in her amendment. Let me say in conclusion that if that represents the unanimous opinion of the C.C.F. towards agriculture, it is a pretty poor show indeed.


Hon. W. EARL ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened carefully to the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Jutras) and I want to compliment him upon the excellent speech he has made. I noticed that he was careful not to get too close to the issue and further confuse the house. I observed that he mentioned chiefly the doughnuts that were served in Windsor and the cocktails that were served in Detroit, as well as many of the things that are not even produced in Provencher. Generally speaking, his remarks were in keeping with the policy of the government of the day.
This issue concerns more lives in the Dominion of Canada and throughout the world than perhaps any other issue that has been presented to this house this session. Everyone within sound of my voice as well as everyone in Canada knows that there is nothing more vital to maintaining the peace that we have achieved at such a great cost. When we realize the malnutrition that exists among the children of Europe to-day, when we realize the lack of housing for the boys who fought the battles overseas; when we realize the demand for consumer goods and the failure in production, then we know that we are face to face with a crisis in the affairs of this dominion, a crisis more concerned with production than any other crisis in our history.
I make no apology for speaking on this issue. You, Mr. Speaker, have been in this house almost as long as I, although you are many years younger. I think you will have observed how consistently I have supported a policy of greater production. I think you will recall as will the erstwhile leader of the party

. opposite, that some years ago I urged the government to stop its policy of non-production and get ready for the days of peace. You will recall, and I certainly recall having said that food would win the war and food would save the peace. That cry, which was uttered by many others on this side, fell on deaf ears.
I speak as a member of the party that is recognized in Canada to-day as being the farmers' party. We have not a farmer as our leader simply because he is a farmer; we have him as our leader because we represent the farmer's viewpoint in Canada. Food production is necessary in times of war. but it is no less vital in times of peace. Anyone who knows of the starving millions in the world to-day realizes that food is vital. We are receiving white cheese instead of butter; on Tuesdays and Fridays we cannot have meat; yet this is a great agricultural country. We begin to wonder what is wrong when we are told by former President Hoover and many others that millions will starve this coming winter. To my mind all other issues should be washed aside if we really live in an age when we believe in humanitarian principles. Should the unproven threat of inflation deter us in our efforts to meet this humanitarian need?


John Oliver Probe: Tell that to Massey-Harris.


William Earl Rowe: If I knew as little about Massey-Harris as the hon. member does I would not be saying much about it. I followed the remarks of my hon. friend this afternoon very carefully. He followed the negative motion of the hon. member for Qu'Appelle. He wants to cut down the wages that the labouring man receives rather than increase his earnings so that we can have a higher standard of living among working men.
Everyone knows that there is a food shortage in this dominion. Everyone knows that there are millions starving. It is common gossip in the barber shop, in the blacksmith shop, in garages, in the country store and on the street comer. What did Mr. Bevin, the British foreign minister, say the other day, and by the way he represents a government not quite as socialistic as my hon. friends to my left, but one that wants to assist labour? Mr. Bevin said: "Nazism, socialism and communism will be wiped out if we can feed the world." He went on to say that farm prices may be low for a year or two, but remember that food is so essential that we had better let farm prices rise and let wages rise so that labour can buy its products. That was Mr. Bevin. It was not the Tories speaking, but that is what we believe in too. Mr. Bevin was followed by the Right Hon. Mr. Amery who, speaking before the United States chamber of

Price Ceiling-Farm Products
commerce, said that we must have more agricultural production to supply the world food shortage at the present time and keep millions from starving. He said that Britain must produce more food, and that that increased production must be achieved despite competitive prices from outside Britain. So that I say to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) that price is a secondary matter. With millions starving in Europe, with little children suffering malnutrition, surely if we are living in a new age let us wake up, and do what the world is looking to us to do.
President Truman of the United States is also pleading for more production and as a sane American businessman how does he say that it can be achieved? By work, work, and more work. That was stated in yesterday's press. How are you going to get more work? I suggest to the Minister of Finance that if we are still living under the democratic principle of free enterprise we must give greater incentives to work and production. There is no other way unless we are going to revert to dictatorship and controls, and tell the people What they shall do and what they shall get for it.
Why have we so many strikes among labour to-day? Why are men not at work? Because they want more money. I am not disturbed by the jibes of those to my left or by the cackles of those farther down when they speak of our friendship for labour. I take second place to no man in my friendship for labour. Ask any man who works for me, and he will answer. The only way to get more work is to pay the workingman more money. We shall have more production when the workers can get a reasonable recompense for their efforts in whatever line of work they may follow.
We now come to the issue why are people starving overseas. Will the government tell me why the total bacon exports of this dominion have fallen over 30 per cent during the past year? Will the erstwhile leader of the government, who never produced anything in his life, tell me why our bacon exports have fallen? Will the Minister of Finance tell me? They both know the answer. Every man who has watched the developments knows the answer. Why were 250 million pounds less of live stock produced this year as compared with last year? I have farmed all my life. I belong to a family that has been farming for four generations, and maybe more, but I do not want to go too far back.	.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Better not.


William Earl Rowe: WThy is our sheep production down in Canada by 13 per cent? Why is our
poultry production down by 13 per cent? Is it because some controller here in Ottawa has said: We will raise prices to the farmer by 10 per cent, even though his costs of production have increased by 28 per cent? That is the reason, and nobody knows it better than the Minister of Finance.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Your figures are wrong.


William Earl Rowe: Your figures are often not correct. But the figures I just gave were taken from your department. Will the minister tell me why in the first two months of this year the retail distribution of commodities has increased by 13 per cent and the wholesale distribution of commodities by 30 per cent when farm production has been falling? There must be something wrong with our economy when that is happening. It is all very well for the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) to tell us that the farmers are so happy, but he said the other evening that the farmers were not satisfied because they were carrying the greater part of the burden of this new-fangled economy. Everyone knows that, and no one knows it better than the farmers themselves.
What has been the Liberal policy over the years with respect to agriculture, and what is their policy to-day? Nobody knows better than the Minister of Finance, who just interrupted me. I have watched him very closely in the House of Commons, and he is a fine, honourable gentleman, but I remember that on October 13, 1945, when bringing down his budget-and this proves that the farmer is the forgotten man by this government, that the farmers have been made the guinea-pig of a new experiment-the Minister of Finance . said:
The house will note that the sales tax is being removed from machinery and apparatus used in the manufacture or production of goods but not those used in distribution or in the rendering ot services. The principle which we are endeavouring to follow is to remove the sales tax from the costs of those industries which bear sales tax on their products, including also those whose products have been deliberately exempted as in the case of food products. The sale tax will be imposed still on machinery and apparatus used in the distribution and in service industries on which no sales tax is levied.
The interpretation of the Department of National Revenue is based almost completely on two phases in the above speech, namely "directly in the manufacture or production of goods", and "not those used in distribution or in the rendering of services". Their ruling is that generating station equipment and step-up *and step-down transformer stations are exempt, but that any material or equipment used in either transmission or distribu-
Price Ceiling-Farm Products

tion line construction must be classified as not used for manufacture or production, but for transportation or distribution.
What effect has that on the farmer? The Department of National Revenue has ruled that sales tax must apply on all materials used in the construction of power transmission, and distribution lines, such as poles, towers, insulators, conductors, cable and/or wire, hardware and fittings, are not regarded as machinery, apparatus or complete parts thereof and are therefore subject to sales tax. In Ontario the province contributes 50 per cent of the cost of rural lines, as a grant in aid to agriculture. Yet there are many members of the party opposite who claim that the government of Ontario and the party I represent are not favourable to agriculture. How do they reconcile that with the fact that the government gives 50 per cent of the cost of rural lines as a grant in aid to agriculture? The approximate cost per mile for these materials is 11,200, on which the dominion tax is $96. On the 1946 programme, calling for a construction of two thousand miles, approximately $200,000 will be required to pay the dominion sales tax, of which the province must pay half. This sales tax of $100 per mile of new line represents about a year's revenue from three average farms to pay the dominion levy on this service to the farmers. Remember, the Massey-Harris company does not have to pay that; these other manufacturers do not pay that; yet the dominion government collects $100 per mile as a levy against the farmers of Ontario, while the dominion government is contributing $1,200-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


William Earl Rowe: -I should saj', while the Ontario government is contributing $1,200 per mile as a grant in aid.to agriculture.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Your friends cheered the wrong thing.	.


William Earl Rowe: I don't think you have anything to cheer about. If you have, I should like to hear you cheer.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I won't cheer you.


William Earl Rowe: No, you don't very often. But what your government does very often is to collect heavy taxes-half a million dollars- from Ontario farmers; because it is the farmers who are the largest contributors in the rural districts to this federal taxation. It is to this government, which pretends to be the true champion of the farmers' cause, that the farmers of Ontario have to pay not only sales tax on all the equipment which is necessary 
to get energy to the farms, but sales tax on appliances purchased through the dealers, and war revenue tax on the' energy used. Why does the farmer who uses energy for his chopper, his cutting box, his pump, and all along the line, including lights in his barn while he is working hours far longer than those which industrial workers have to work, also have to pay revenue on this energy and equipment when the manufacturer of his implements pays no revenue on transmission? ' It is clear-cut evidence of the fact that as far as the dominion government is concerned the farmer is the forgotten man; and he has been, for the last quarter of a century, as I shall proceed to show. It seems to me that the farmer deserves consideration and should be considered as a manufacturer of food products, to-day, when food products are so much more important than many other products which you cannot buy without a card from the wartime prices and trade board. I have watched [DOT]with interest the record of this government. I have sat here in this house and listened for many years, for I have been here for some time-	[DOT]


An hon. MEMBER:: Too long.


William Earl Rowe: My hon. friend says, "too long", but I was here before he was and I may be here after he is gone. Be that as it may, Mr. Speaker, I have' closely observed this government. They say they have fixed prices at what they thought was fair. There is not an hon. member sitting opposite to me who does not know that when they fixed the selling price of agricultural products, those prices were below parity. Will the Minister of Finance rise in his place and tell me that they were not below parity in 1941?
Mr. IL8LEY: Tell me what parity is.


William Earl Rowe: Well, I observe from past records that the minister does not know, so that I do not think I should try to tell him now. I know he always fixed them as at 1926-heaven only knows why. That is why I ask him to rise now and tell us what they are.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: You should answer the question.


William Earl Rowe: Taking the government at their word that 1926 prices represent parity, let me point out that they fixed the ceiling price in 1941 on agricultural products at 80 per cent of what other prices were. If the minister does not know that let him ask some of those wise-eyed statisticians and economists he has in his department.


James Lorimer Ilsley: You are wrong again. But go on.

Price Ceiling-Farm Products


William Earl Rowe: Well, you have been wrong often. If I am wrong I will sit down and let you correct me. Mr. Speaker I suppose silence gives consent. Evidently the Minister of Finance and I stand on common ground. But the farmers' share of the national income is a fair example of government policies. Will the Minister of Finance, or my congenial friend, the leader of the house for a while-in fact,
I wish he were leading it all the time, for it would not be any worse led; it is' only half-led, anyway


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: It is never mis-led from this side.


William Earl Rowe: -will either of these hon. gentlemen rise and tell me to-night that farmers' costs between 1914 and 1918 were higher than they are now?


Mr. WARREN:: Would the hon. member permit a question?


William Earl Rowe: Certainly.


Ralph Melville Warren: Would the hon. member tell us about the prices of farm products between 1930 and 1935?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: Oh, yes, I am coming to that. I am not going to be disturbed by the gibes of back-benchers who do not take much interest in the party along the front that control the country. The hon. member's question has no bearing on the matter in issue, but I shall deal with it in a few minutes, and I hope he will follow me. I will show him the record of his party.


An hon. MEMBER:: You were here.


William Earl Rowe: Yes, I was here; you were
not. There is not an hon. member who does not know how farm costs stood between 1914 and 1918. The hon. member who interrupted me when I was speaking of the costs of agricultural implements, and the Minister of Finance, who also interrupted me a couple of times, will not deny, what everyone who has bought farm implements knows, that they were lower between 1914 and 1918, and I know very well that farm costs were not as high in those years as they have been since. But during those years the party which I have the honour to" represent w'as in power, the Union government.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: What name?


William Earl Rowe: It had the best of your party.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: What name?


William Earl Rowe: It was called the Union government; it took the best of your party and left the rest over there. It did a good job; it won the war; it had the courage to go to the country on war issues and decide them as war issues.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: And it has changed its name six times since.


William Earl Rowe: A fool never changes; a wise man sometimes does. But in those years, between 1914 and 1918, the Canadian farmer received $1,534 million for the wheat he produced. Twenty-five years afterwards, while my hon. friends are boasting about how much was obtained by industrial production, while they boasted about the growth of the country -and in twenty-five years one would expect some growth in a young country-we find that agriculture has all along been left in the lurch. Even after a quarter of a centuty, while industrial production has multiplied many times, and standards of living should have been increased, what did the farmer receive in the first four years of this war? He received $1,125 million, or more than $400 million less than the Canadian farmers received from 1914 to 1918, when the world was not as short of food as it is to-day. In those years he received for wheat exported a total of $1,059 million; from 1939 to 1943 he received only $818 million. For a quarter of a century we have had these gibes about inflation and the high prices of years gone by; yet we find that twenty-five years ago, under the party to which I belong, the farmers received $400,000,000 more for what they produced while the country received $200,000,000 more for what was exported, and the world was not then crying for food as it is to-day. I said $200,000,000; actually it was $240,000,000. I make that correction so that the Minister of Finance will not have to correct me. He thought the $200,000,000 was wrong, but I can tell him that the $240,000,000 is right.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am not going to try to check you.


William Earl Rowe: I know you will not bother checking it, but look at it to-morrow in Hansard, with your statisticians. I am not disturbed by the smiles of the Minister of Finance; in fact there is no man in the House of Commons I would rather see smile. Would anyone suggest that the farmers' costs were not lower during the first four years of the first war than during the first four years of the last war? Where were these champions of the interests of the farmers? The other night some hon. members opposite lectured those on this side of the house who, they said, were
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not farmers. Even the Minister of Agriculture wanted to know why so many people talked so much about agriculture when they knew so little about it. Well, he should know.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: He is a good farmer.


William Earl Rowe: Well, Mr. Speaker, I want to go back a few years, and let you and me reminisce about the records of the two great parties. As far as I am concerned, I did not begin to support this party just recently. 1 am not a Progressive Conservative only; I was a Conservative. We are growing more progressive all the time, and I have no apology to - offer for the name "progressive" because the late Right Hon. Sir John A. Macdonald -said that this party must be progressive if it was going to be anything. Some hon. gentlemen across the way have been here for only a short time; others have been here longer, but I have been here longer than anyone I see in the front row to-night. I say I have no apology to offer for the past. This afternoon I was amused when I listened to the remarks of my young and honourable friend the member for Pro-vencher (Mr. Jutras). He made a very nice speech; in fact when I was his age I likely made more foolish ones, but I am not going to be disturbed for this moment. The hon. member for Provencher knows very well- or if he does not know his elders will tell him-that back over those years the Conservative party has not very much for which it needs to apologize.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: I hear the cackles of many who were not here then. My hon. friend across the way was not here; he was not thought of at that time, and he is lucky to be here now. Indeed, he may not be back. When the party now sitting to your right came into power in 1921, the first war had been over for three years. To listen now to the gibes of the backbenchers, to the noise of the front-benchers and to the applause of all government supporters, one would think this country had gone to the dogs between 1918 and 1921.


Mr. GRANT:: No; between 1930 and 1935.


William Earl Rowe: I shall come to that. You were not here then either, and you are not too sure about what is going on now, let alone then. Why, Mr. Speaker, the Liberal party has been the party of wheat. I remember I pleaded with the Liberal party time and again, over a quarter century, to think of something other than wheat alone. My hon. friends will remember that I pleaded for a balanced agriculture. Even the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) is too honest to

deny that; and I think he is about as honest as anyone left over there. But hon. members will try to lead people to believe that this party had overlooked agriculture. Wheat and wheat flour were practically the specialties of Liberalism; in fact many times you would not think anything was produced, even in Ontario and Quebec, except wheat. When you were in the political realm, Mr. Speaker, how in caucuses you must have listened for years to a discussion of wheat alone. In 1921, the year hon. gentlemen to your right came to power, we exported $377,000,000 worth of wheat and wheat flour to the markets of the world. That was the legacy which was left to the party sitting to your right. What happened in 1930, the year they went out of power? Our exports to the world in these commodities totalled $138,000,000. In other words, those exports dropped from $377,000,000 to $138,000,000.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: Even the Minister of Finance laughs. Everyone laughs at that, when they remember the speeches which have been made lately. I want to relate a little history for the benefit of some of the members who seem to forget so many things as far as the policies of their party are concerned. Hon. members opposite who sit on the back-benches and who follow this new form of Liberalism should remember that when it started in this country ' Liberalism believed in free trade, in buying where you paid the least. They were the champions of markets for the farmers throughout the world. They were the ones in this country who pleaded for markets in the United States. They were the boys-and your fathers were the men-who championed commercial union with the United States in order to find markets for the agricultural products of Canada. You are the descendants of greater men who in 1911 said, "We want reciprocity with the United States." Why? It was not to help manufacturers of Toronto or Winnipeg or Montreal. No; it was to help the farmer find markets for his produce. Those were the champions of the farmer. But in 1921, when the Liberal party came into power, our exports to the world of all farm products totalled $610,000,000. In 1930, the year the Liberal party went out of power, our exports amounted to $428,000,000. Those are the facts, and I challenge the Minister of Finance to deny them. I pause for a moment; if he does not agree with my statement let him deny it. Silence gives consent, for he knows those figures are correct. I also remember when I was not in this house, though I was still in public life-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: In Ontario.

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William Earl Rowe: I was too young, as the minister perhaps suggests. But I have a reasonably good memory, and I remember that in 1921 the party opposite campaigned throughout the ridings of Ontario saying, "Elect us. We will find markets for your agricultural products. We will lower the tariff. We will lower the cost of production."


An hon. MEMBER:: Were they successful?


William Earl Rowe: No, and I will tell you about it. You were not old enough to vote then, but others will tell you that our markets failed and we lost them to the extent of $100,000,000 of exports to the United States alone. The Fordney-McCumber tariff came in, and what was the policy of this government? Nobody knows what it is to-day, but in those days it was economic appeasement. We were told that we must not provoke the United States, but within eight months after the Liberal party came into power in 1921 the Fordney-McCumber tariff was introduced in the United States and we lost a great market in that country. In that period of time we sold less than $15,000,000 worth of agricultural commodities there. It is true that was not the fault of the government, but their economic appeasement and their policy of "must not provoke" did not work, because, regardless of that, the United States brought in their Fordney-McCumber tariff. Then for ten years the party to your right, Mr. Speaker, who were the champions of agricultural products, were in power. What happened in the export markets? We had exported to the world $75 million worth of meat in 1921. In 1930 we were not producing enough bacon to feed our own people. We were importing New Zealand cheese.


Mr. McIVOR:: Butter.


William Earl Rowe: The hon. member for Fort William says it was New Zealand butter; the hon. member is right. Thanks for the correction. I am glad he has observed the record of his party, but I am surprised at his following it. In 1931, one year after this party came into power, we exported seven million pounds of beef to the United States, instead of 22 million pounds the year before. We exported one and three-quarter million gallons of cream and butter instead of four and three quarter million, as we had the year before. Why? Because of the Hawley-Smoot tariff? What is the government policy to-day?


Mr. CLAXTON:: Does the hon. member know how much we exported to the United Kingdom in those years?


William Earl Rowe: Yes. In 1921 the United
Kingdom imported from us 255 million pounds 63260-111
of bacon, and they imported six or seven million pounds from Denmark. But by 1930 the minister's party lost that market and they imported 600 million pounds from Denmark. We imported bacon to feed our own people.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, and I wish the rules of the house would permit you to give us the information, because- nobody else does, what is the government policy to-day? What is this government's policy? Nobody knows what the agricultural policy of this dominion is. It is the greatest gunshot prescription that this country has ever heard of. Why, Mr. Speaker? The other night the Minister of Finance said that the reason we are producing so much is that a high acreage plan has been decided on. The Minister of Agriculture has been planning a low acreage system for three or four years. There seems to be a conflict of policy in the cabinet. The Minister of Agriculture tells us in one year that our increased production is due to summer-fallow. The next year he tells us that the loss of production is due to the weather. Is there any wonder that the minister does not deny that the farmers are carrying a heavy burden in this new planned economy? One minister bonuses the farmer to grow wheat, and another minister bonuses by exemption in income tax to market wheat the following year. One minister says we must not empty our bins; we must stock for the future. Another minister says we must export every available bushel by August 1. Is it any wonder that neither the farmers, the exporters nor anyone else knows what our policy is?
The other night the Minister of Agriculture said that we should not raise the price of wheat because, if we do, the farmers may probably have to take seventy-five cents a bushel in two years. What an empty garden variety threat that is. Why, Mr. Speaker, every hon. member and every farmer in this country know that is not a fact. No wonder the government's spokesman saw the revelation of this policy, and stated that it was not encouraging the young farmers to go on the farms.


Ralph Melville Warren: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Ralph Melville Warren: Before the hon. member leaves the ' question of foreign markets, would he mind telling us the transformation and gradual improvement that took place after this government entered into an agreement with the United States after the terrible-

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Arthur Leroy Smith: Put it on the order paper.


Ralph Melville Warren: -conditions this countty passed through under the rule of the Bennett-Rowe government.


Mr. FERGUSON:: He is telling you, not educating you.


William Earl Rowe: I do not know that that is worthy of an answer. The hon. member ought to have that information himself.


Ralph Melville Warren: I have.


William Earl Rowe: I hope the hon. member has. The hon. member then knows that in the United States the farmers are getting 30 per cent more for their cattle, 25 per cent more for their dairy products, and pretty nearly SI a bushel more for their wheat. The old champions of the United States markets for Canadian farmers ought to be a little ashamed when we cannot even sell our own products there now.
Not long ago the Minister of Agriculture said that one-third of all the cultivated areas of western Canada should have been in wheat, one-third in grass and one-third in summer-fallow. I am glad that the farmers did not listen to that shotgun prescription because they knew that would mean we would not produce any more wheat than we had produced twenty-five years ago. The government wished to establish a restricted policy, reverting back almost a quarter of a century, that would not meet the demands for world requirements at a time when the government has made commitments to Britain. The minister knows that it cannot fill those commitments. Every phase of agricultural production is falling down to-day. I am sorry the Minister of Agriculture is not here to-night. No wonder the Minister of Agriculture himself has admitted twice over the radio that this country was probably coming rapidly to a production drought; "a development drought" were the words he used. Why is it a development drought? He has had a lot to say about agricultural prices. What has he had to say about farm implement prices? At eleven o'clock on April 12 the wartime prices and trade board announced that prices of agricultural implements would be raised 12^ per cent. I sometimes wonder what parliament is for. Some of my hon. friends have chided me for not being here that day. In view of what we see happening many of you are here too much. Ninety per cent of you as government supporters are just rubber-stamps to controllership and dictatorship done behind the closed doors of cabinet council, and the other ten per cent of you that form the cabinet

council evidently take advice from the controllers and the boards of dictatorship which have been established, but not elected.
How long is this country to go on like that? We hear more spectacular news when we get the evening papers than we hear in parliament. I have listened to arguments here and I at time have heard very little-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The same is true to-night.


William Earl Rowe: Well, nobody knows but the hon. member that he is here. But, Mr. Speaker-


James Horace King: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. gentleman, but he has spoken for forty minutes.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Continue.


William Earl Rowe: If hon. members across the way will permit me to go on I shall do so.
Some hon. .MEMBERS: Continue.


William Earl Rowe: My hon. friend said something about 1932. I am not going to chide the Minister of Agriculture regarding agricultural implement prices because 'I understand he said that he heard it first over the radio. If he did, then he is in the same position as the rest of us, because nobody else heard it before. I am glad that he said in Melfort, Saskatchewan, if the price of farm implements was raised, farm prices should be raised. I am in agreement with him on that.
The Minister of Finance is worried about inflation. I recall that I suggested we should have compulsory savings twelve months before he adopted the policy. If the minister is so worried about inflation in connection with farm prices may I ask him why he suspended compulsory savings and1 threw into' the consumer market purchasing power of $250 million and added another $250 million in family bonuses, thereby adding half a billion dollars to purchasing power at a time when we were trying to keep the purchasing power down. This was all done at a time when we were paying over half a billion dollars in subsidies. Where is this money bo come from? Are we to sell our wheat at seventy-five cents less than what the world would1 pay for it? Are we to sell our bacon and beef for thirty per cent less than the United States would pay for it? Are we then going to ask the labour man, the white-collar worker, the industrialist who will employ the veterans, to pay this money? That is why I am opposed to the motion of the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mrs. Strum). It is a negative motion. It says to labour, we will not give you any more; it encourages increases on farm implements. This party

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stands for the removal of the ceiling on farm products so that the farm implement workers who make our products may get a reasonable standard of living. That is what we stand for. We believe in a reasonable standard of living for those who fought for victory. But where are these new fantastic economists who are pulling the golden rabbits out of the hat, going to find these billions of dollars?
When we have inflation, who will be the most responsible for it? The Minister of Finance has been most conscientious in trying to carry out this checkered shotgun policy of this government. But he knows very well that it will take ten times more revenue to carry this country under the policy of this government. When I came to this house first it took only one-tenth of what it does now to carry the expenditures of this country. The leading economists tell us we shall have to increase our national income, that we Shall have to increase it by 50 per cent if we are to maintain these new types of fantastic Liberal policies.
If we are going to increase our income by 50 per cent, and if it takes ten times as much more to run the country, why cannot the farmers at least get parity for their produce? I will not. support the subamendment, as 1 said, because it is a negative. I do not think the government will support it. But I believe that upon reconsideration-well, perhaps I should not say I believe it, because there are none so blind as those who will not see what these controls mean-so I will say that upon reconsideration they may not support our amendment.
In conclusion, I would ask what these controls mean. They mean that the consumers and the starving millions in Europe have the satisfaction of knowing about price ceilings in Canada, but they have no assurance that food products are being produced at a maximum.
Controls in wartime for the purpose of increasing production may be necessary. But the necessary powers granted to the executive in wartime are now being used to satisfy a lust for power in time of peace.
It may seem ridiculous, but I walked down a street in this fair city last Christmas, and I saw in the window an advertisement urging me to buy pyjamas for a dog. I walked into another store to buy a Christmas shirt for my son, but I could not get one. That is what happens under this type of controls. While national controls may be necessary in time of war. individual freedom is just as vital in peace. I know, as you know, Mr. Speaker, that if the farmers of Canada are prosperous the returned men will be employed and the 63260-1 Hi
farmers will be employed, and will be able to pay fair wages to the men who are employed, so that they can work and receive fair remuneration.
There has been misrepresentation by hon. members to your right, Mr. Speaker. . A few may cling to the methods of war time, to methods of dictatorship, but many will prefer the ways of peace.
Competition, reasonable pay for services, recompense for individual effort, choice of vocation-all these things are influenced by the. law of supply and demand. These are the main-springs of free enterprise. They are the corner-stones of democracy and of freedom. These are the bulwarks of democracy itself. That is our way of life. That is the freedom and the liberty described as victory.
The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of government control, not its increase.
I urge upon the government once more, in closing, that they give the farmers parity with other producers in Canada, so that we may feed the starving millions of Europe, and that other business may be assisted, and peace secured.
I urge upon the government to rescind some of these controls, and get rid of some of the controllers. After all, you know, many of them never milked a cow in their lives. We look forward to the day when these controls may be eliminated. This party stands for the elimination of price ceilings on agricultural production and wage controls, and in due course for the elimination of other price ceilings. I plead for the majority of the Canadian people, for the 600,000 or 700,000 farmers of Canada, and the 400,000 or 500,000 labourers, to help them to get proper returns, and in the end to obtain freedom and reasonable recompense for individual endeavour.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: May I ask a question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: I wish to ask a question. If I am not permitted to do that, I shall have to rise to a question of privilege. The hon. member said that we were 90 per cent rubber-stamps. I should like to know if he includes me.


William Earl Rowe: I will ansrver that. When I saw the h.on. member sitting in the front row I knew I could say that he was not a rubber-stamp. Because he sits pretty close to the cabinet, he is better than some that are in it, so that I would include him in the other ten per cent.


Mr. F. D. SHAW (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, we have heard the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) lodge perhaps
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grain rate structure between eastern Canada and western Canada, and particularly as it detracts from Alberta's geographical advantage of using the province of British Columbia as a consuming market.
These matters are being discussed almost daily out there, and when the farmer reads that the railroads are likely to ask for permission to increase their freight rates, naturally he becomes extremely incensed because he knows that these applications for increased rates have been granted before and he concludes that they will be granted again.
We have a condenser in my constituency. Milk canned at that point and shipped to Vancouver pays a higher rate than that on the same quantity of milk canned in Ontario, say at Tillsonburg, and shipped to Vancouver. That is a most disturbing thing because, if we take into consideration the higher freight rate costs, the industry in Alberta cannot pay to the producer a comparable price to that paid in districts adjacent to Tillsonburg in Ontario.
We feel-I am speaking of the farmers- that we in that part of Canada are forced to absorb the shock from both east and west and on both exports and imports. I am pleased to know that the governments of the three prairie provinces have been able to get together with a view to prevail upon or assist, whichever you choose to call it, the Dominion of Canada in bringing about a more equitable freight rate structure in this country. I cannot see for a moment how you can grant justice to the farmers if that is not dpne.
Reference has been made here-and I constantly hear farmers referring to it-to marketing facilities. They insist upon adequate marketing facilities free from manipulation and monopoly control. They make particular reference to the live stock industry, and here the packers enter into the picture. A farmer handed me a clipping which he had evidently cut from a copy of the evidence given before the royal commission on price spreads in 1935. He showed me a statement which he said appeared between pages 59 and 60 of the price spreads report which was made by the president of Canada Packers Limited before that commission. It was this:
The total live stock is sold for the total sum, whatever it is; from that sum is deducted the packer's expense and the packer's profit and the farmer gets the balance.
Can one be surprised at our live stock producers being greatly agitated when they read a statement of that kind emanating from the then president of Canada Packers Limited? The evidence went on to point out that between 1929 and 1934, when the live stock industry, which is one branch of agriculture,

was taking such a terrible beating in western Canada, the profits [DOT] of the packing industry increased threefold.
The farmers say this to me repeatedly : We realize that the packers are in business to make a profit; we have no complaint against their making a legitimate profit because we ask the same opportunity for ourselves, and we realize too that the packing industry performs a useful function in the country. But they do not agree that a system should be permitted which enables those in the packing industry, which in effect is a monopoly, to thrive during a period when the primary producer does not receive a sufficient return to make it worth while for him to take his live stock to market. The profits of the packing industry increased between 1929 and 1934 by about 300 per cent. I should have mentioned that they wrote off repair charges and depreciation iii a scandalous fashion, and the price spreads commission reported accordingly, saying that if the repair charges and depreciation had been fair-I -will not say honest-the profits during that period would have been considerably greater. As the president of Canada Packers at that time said:
The total live stock is sold for the total sum, whatever it is; from that sum is deducted the packer's expense and the packer's profit and the farmer gets the balance.
Another matter to which we must pay h'eed if we- want stability in agriculture is the tariff. The farmers are discussing these matters much more frequently and much more intelligently than probably they did a few years ago, and this seems to be their general view with respect to tariffs. The farmers in my area believe that the tariff impoverishes the nation' by an amount much greater than the value of any non-material national purpose it may achieve, and I am personally in agreement with that view. They believe that tariffs should be reduced on commodities entering into the every-day cost of living. It is most essential that that be done so far as our western farmers are concerned. Moreover, they certainly believe that there should be a proper division of the national economic burden of tariffs, bearing in mind), of course, provincial populations. In the past, as shown by statistics presented during this debate, the farmers of the west have borne a tremendous load in connection with machine costs simply because of tariff barriers and embargoes designed', I say, to profit the industrialists of central Canada. They remember vividly out there, with respect to tariffs, the extent of the absolute burden during the depression. If I were to indicate four incidents with respect to tariffs which made it much more difficult

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for the farmers during the depression years, I would refer to the enormous expansion of the number of items which were added from year to year to the tariff list, the increased import duties, the application of anti-dtanping legislation, and fixed values for duty purposes. Farmers certainly feel that the whole matter of tariffs will have to be carefully scrutinized, and that we must bring in a realistic policy if we are to have a flourishing, sound agriculture during these post-war years.
We cannot forget that in 1931 we in Alberta paid $8,211,148 in tariff subsidies to protected manufacturers. If I remember correctly, the Manitoba brief to the dominion-provincial conference estimated that the cost amounted to $110.38 per western farmer. Canadian farmers on that basis paid $32 million in the year 1931'because of tariff protection given to the manufacturers of central Canada. So that I think, when some people talk about the "poor relation in the west", the western farmer, they should bear in mind certain of the burdens which have been borne by those farmers because of protection granted to industries in central Canada.
As I stated early in my remarks, it is my firm belief that if we are to have a stable agriculture we must, as was indicated in his concluding remarks by the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe, have parity prices established. I cannot see how we can avoid it. There is a great deal of argument as to exactly what "parity" means. There is a great deal of disagreement as to exactly how it should be established. I do not profess to be any expert, I do not presume to indicate how it could be established, but I say with certainty that we have in this country people capable of establishing it. In the second place, we must have during future years a long-range crop and live stock production programme in this country, not one just for this week or next month. I would say too, having in mind the various natural afflictions from which we suffer in the agricultural areas of the west, that we must establish a general crop insurance scheme. I would even go so far as to say that I personally feel it should be established on a noncontributory basis. We must arrange adequate low-cost credits for our western agriculturists. We must have equitable debt adjustment. The hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Jutras) indicated that farmers had paid approximately 50 per cent of their indebtedness. That is a tribute to the character of our farmers; it proves one thing, that they are willing to meet their obligations when they can, but it also proves that they still have on their shoulders 50 per cent of their burden. Moreover, I have known many farmers-hundreds
of farmers-who were completely out of debt but who, when prices went to rock bottom, soon found themselves hopelessly mired in debt again. With no control over the general price structure that may be the inevitable result. We must remove from our marketing facilities any manipulation which may exist and, certainly, monopoly control of the industry. Then, as I stated, we must also have adjustments in our freight rates structure and in our whole tariff set-up.
Let me emphasize also that one of the things which is bothering the farmer tremendously to-day is this question of taxation. He calls the tax collectors "predators"; some of them call them "pre-daters". I think all hon. members will agree that when a farmer, faced by conditions over which he has no control and which threaten to take from him everything he has accumulated over the years suddenly finds himself with an income which, though not large, is much better than he has ever had before, it is natural that upon being pounced on for taxes, even upon an income of only $1,200, and having part of it taken away, he chafes because he realizes that in all those years when he had next to nothing the dominion government was extremely reluctant and tardy in coming along and granting him the assistance which alone would make it possible for him to carry on. I think it is quite reasonable to suggest that the unmarried farmer should nqt be taxed on the first $1,200, or the married farmer on the first $2,000, of his income. I think also that, in bombarding us as the farmers have with requests for action in this regard, they are making a legitimate request. Let me assure the house that we over here took that stand long before we were bombarded with cards requesting that this course of action be taken.
I do not wish to take more of the time of the house, but let me emphasize, what I believe all hon. members know, that we cannot have a stable economy in Canada without having stability in our basic industry, namely agriculture.


Thomas Reid: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in the debate I want to deal particularly with the statements made in the motion of want of confidence moved by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken). First of all, however, may I say that I am sorry that the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) has now left the chamber. Though he was gibing at some members on this side for being new members and as not knowing what had occurred in the past in this house, I can speak as a member who has been here from 1930. I well remember sitting over there just about where the
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leader of the opposition is sitting for the -moment, and during all the years from 1930 to 1935 I never heard the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn) or the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe have much to say about the farmers. There was a silence over here regarding the farmer that could almost be felt. It went through my mind also that in the great campaign of 1930 his party slid in to office on butter. In 1930 they went through the province of Quebec and spoke about "fifty cents for butter"; and then I thought of the years 1930 to 1935 when butter was so cheap they were greasing axle wheels with it; cows were being sold for five to ten dollars, and eggs for seven to nine cents a dozen. I realize however, that to go back to those days and dwell on them now serves no really good purpose, but I mention it because I listened attentively to the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe, and his party is to be congratulated because about three times a year that kind of show is put on by the Progressive party.
I intended to deal particularly with the want of confidence motion of the leader of the opposition, and I am coming to that now. I believe that motion can be briefly stated in four sentences: A lessing production owing to the inequitable position of agriculture. Production down; dairy products, poultry and hogs. Canadian wheat should be the same price as in the United States, and the agricultural contribution, if so, amounts to about 3200 million. Finally, no justification in holding the price down.
To take the wheat statement first, everyone knows that wheat is the king-pin of our national economy, and I was surprised at what I term a loose statement made by the leader of the opposition, that he would take wheat, the king-pin of agriculture, remove the ceiling, and let it rise to the same price as in the United States. May I point out to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the house that the farmers of the United States are not any better off or as well off as the farmers of Canada. I just came across a press clipping which states that 2,000 farmers intend to leave what is called the good old United States where all these prices are received and come to northern Alberta and British Columbia, to God's country, the best country on earth. I am wondering if the leader of the opposition has considered what might happen and, in fact, what would happen if we were to follow the United States in regard to the price of wheat. I am surprised that when he spoke of the price of wheat he did not go farther and take in all other articles, for I think it can be said without fear of contradiction that if you lift the lid off wheat and all farm products 
you had better be prepared to lift the lid off everything. If that is the policy being enunciated by the leader of the opposition he should come out and tell this house-and the country that that is exactly what he means.
Let us see-ior a moment just what would happen in this country. If the price of wheat were raised to over 12 a bushel the first thing we would have to do would be to call in all the agreements we have with Great Britain and make a readjustment in regard to prices. We would have to say, "Well, when we settled these agreements with you and the prices were fixed, we agreed to give you wheat at the present set price. Now it has gone up to over 32"-and it would have to go to that price to equal the price in the United States-"we will have to raise prices and have new agreements." Just how that would work out no one can predict, but I am wondering if hon. members of the Progressive Conservative party have thought how the people of British Columbia would be affected if such a thing were to take place. As far as farming is concerned we in British Columbia go in principally for poultry, eggs and dairying, and we are a wheat purchasing province. We look to the prairies for our wheat, our barley and our oats, and the price there definitely affects the produce we have to sell. It is well known that were it not for the large subsidies paid at the present time by the government we could not carry on and make ends meet.
A few nights ago, when we were discussing the removal of the two-cent subsidy on milk, a thought entered my mind. I wondered if hon. members realized that the people of this country were paying the full price for milk anyway. If you look at the figures you will find that from 1939 to January of this year some $23,888,666 has been paid by the people of Canada in that two-cent subsidy on milk. So that when we speak of the price of milk being increased, let us not overlook the fact that the people have been paying this two cents right along. But it is well known that the nicest way to tax people is not to let them know they are being taxed at all, as we collect the sales tax and so on, by taking it from them indirectly. But when the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) brings down his budget and we come to discuss the income tax no doubt we shall hear a cry for increased subsidies and lower taxation. Just how those will be reconciled I do not know, and I doubt if even the minister will be able to reconcile them. But what about the other commodities if our wheat prices follow those of the United States? Wheat is but one thing. Lift that lid and the ceiling is off as regards everything else.

Price Ceiling-Farm Products.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: Why?


Thomas Reid: I do not think I need waste a great deal of time saying why. In the first place, wheat is the king-pin, and if you removed the ceiling on wheat every other commodity would demand the same treatment. Do you think for a moment that labour and the manufacturers would remain quiet if you permitted the price ceiling to go where it liked? But I am going to leave this thought with hon. gentlemen opposite, and with the leader of the opposition. Are we going now to adopt the policy that in times like the present, when prices a little better than those guaranteed may be obtained, shall allow the prairie farmers to be free agents and go into the world markets to obtain those prices; and then when wheat drops to away below a dollar have them turn around and say it is up to the state to assist or protect them?
Personally I do not think you can have it both way. If the state is to take an interest in the farmer when the price is low, in my opinion the state should take an interest when the price is likely to go out of sight. To my mind, the policy suggested by the Progressive Conservative party is extremely short-sighted, and I shall give my reasons for making that statement.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: If I may ask a question, have this government given the farmers any assurance that they will set a floor price when the price of wheat drops?


Mr. WEIR:: They have already done that.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: Have they given that
assurance to the farmer?


William Gilbert Weir: Yes.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: They have assured the farmers of Canada that, irrespective of the actual price, they are going to get a floor price continuously, year in and year out.


Thomas Reid: My information is that the present government have guaranteed the farmers that at no time within the next five years will that price drop below $1 a bushel. They have put a floor under wheat.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: For five years!


Thomas Reid: At least. That will do for the present, and that answers my hon. friend's question. For the next five years at least the price will never go below that figure. The farmer is assured of SI.55 at the present time, because he gets SI.25, less the freight to Vancouver or Fort William, and then he participates in sales of wheat abroad at whatever price is obtained. That is the picture as I get it from the Department of Agriculture, and generally speaking, I think that
is a correct statement. Surely the guarantee to the farmer is worth something. Surely it is of some advantage to be guaranteed a definite minimum return. In a moment or two I am going to dispute, and try to prove my point with figures, that price has not been the principal reason if there has been any drop in agriculture. I am going to take the statements made by the leader of the opposition, and I am going to give the authority for any figures I quote. I believe that when figures are quoted in this house the source of the figures should be definitely stated, so that one hon. member is not quoting from one source and another from some other source. I have gone to the bureau of statistics for the figures I am going to quote, and I am sure no one will accuse the bureau of statistics of being a partisan body. I have kept away from the Department of Agriculture and any other department. To-night I am sticking to the figures of the bureau of statistics.
Before I deal with that, may I say that it is a well-known fact that farmers are not satisfied. I know of no group of individuals in this country who are satisfied. Even members of parliament are not satisfied. I have met members of parliament who have received an increase of $2,000 and some of them are not satisfied. I know that some have attended the sittings fewer times since they received the increase than formerly. I say that as one who has been present at every sitting. No group in Canada is satisfied. No one seems to be satisfied. And so the farmers are not the only class of people who are not satisfied.
The leader of the opposition said that the production of dairy products is down. He mentioned poultry and hogs. From the figures I received from the bureau I find that the statement made by the leader of the opposition is not correct in so far as dairy products and poultry are concerned. I hold in my hand the years and the millions of pounds of production of meat in Canada as given by the dominion bureau of statistics. I find that more beef has been produced up to 1945, which is the highest year since 1935. More veal was produced. There was more mutton and lamb produced in 1945. There was a greater production of turkey and chicken in 1945 than in 1943' and 1944, or the average between 1935 and 1939. Therefore the statement made by the leader of the opposition should be corrected. I am endeavouring to correct it to-night and put on the record the exact figures given to me rather than just make a general statement. It is all very well to make a general statement and say that production is down. I am placing these figures on Hansard
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to-night, so that any hon. member may check them later and refute them later if he cares to do so.
If one goes over the list of products of agriculture he will find that, on the average, the production is not down from 1935 to 1945 except in some few instances. Here again the leader of the opposition has not mentioned the effect the weather has, and it is a fact that the weather influences our crops.
The leader of the opposition dealt particularly with wheat. I looked over the figures for wheat, oats, barley, hay and clover, and I found that in 1940 there were 54-1 million acres in all sown; in 1945 there were 55-4 million acres sown; in other words, there were T3 million acres more. Regarding wheat, with almost the same acreage as in 1945, the production of wheat was 129-6 million bushels greater in 1944. The same thing applies to barley. With the same acreage in barley the crop in 1944 -was 36-9 million bushels greater than in 1945. Oats with the same acreage produced 118 million bushels more in 1944 than in 1945. Hay and clover were a little less. In fact, in 1941, with two million acres less, on the average the wheat crop in that year was greater by nine million bushels. Why? Because of weather conditions. But the leader of the opposition tried to leave the impression and I believe he partly succeeded in certain quarters, that the production of agriculture was the result of the policies of this government and the prices that are being paid. I claim that that is somewhat of an indictment of the farmers, because with nearly 400,000 fewer people on the farm they have, since 1939, been producing more year after year. The production in 1945 shows an increase in most instances. It certainly shows an increase in dairy products and in poultry. It is true that hogs dropped down a little. Milk production is about the same level in 1945 as in 1944.
There is one element that enters into the fact that our people are not keen to go on the land, which was not mentioned by the leader of the opposition, namely, the attitude of labour to-day. With fewer men on the farm, with more machinery, farmers are producing generally more than they did in 1939 or 1940. When young men read of the proposals of certain labour organizations, some of which are asking for a six-day week, $25 a week minimum pay, time and a half for overtime after thirty-six hours, double time for Sundays and statutory holidays, and the payment of at least $25 per week for the full period of unemployment, is it any wonder that many men cannot be induced to stay on or go back to the farm? I do not know whether Your
Honour has farmed, but farming is one of the occupations where you just cannot put it over old mother nature. You have to work on the farm. You get up early in the morning and you work long hours, or you do not stay long on the farm. With the trends that are taking place and the way things are going, is -it any wonder that many young men are thinking as they are and drifting into the cities by the thousands?	.
If the leader of the opposition had been covering the whole gamut of our life it is a wonder he did not suggest the following for the farmers: For cleaning the stables and hauling the manure the farmer should have at least as much as the garbage collector; for eighty per cent of the time that he is working as a scientific agriculturist he should have an hourly rate of pay equal to that of the skilled mechanic; for working as a business manager he should be paid as much as a business man with similar investments; for the money he has invested he should have returns comparable with the earnings on money invested at comparable risks. He should have all this income but he has never had half of it. Farming, of course, cannot be put on a dollar-and-cents basis, because farming is not altogether a business; it is a means of living, a mode of life, and those of us who live on the farm do so because we love that kind of life or occupation.
I come back again to what the leader of the opposition dealt with in his endeavour to leave the impression that the drop in agricultural production was due to the policy of this government. I say that it was an irresponsible statement made by a responsible public man, because I believe it is contrary to the facts, as can be seen if one analyses all the facts carefully.
Speaking about labour conditions, I say it is one of the greatest indictments of our country that we have to keep here something like seventeen thousand German prisoners of war to work in pulp camps and sugar beet districts. If they stay here much longer I would be surprised if some champions on their behalf will not later rise and say these men saved agriculture in the years 1945 and 1946. I repeat, it seems almost an indictment of our people that these men are remaining. Personally I should have like to see them taken out of this country just as soon after the defeat of Germany as possible, because these men have been bred in nazism and should not be left any longer in Canada.
I heard the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) speak about being friendly to labour. I am sorry he is not in his place

Price Ceiling-Farm Products
at the moment because I was going to deal particularly with German labour in so far as he was concerned. If I never got a man to work for me I certainly would never take a nazi. I submit that these men should have been sent back long ago. But if you are going to lift the ceiling on wheat and provide the same price as they receive in the United States, then let us go all the way. If that is what the leader of the opposition wants, why does he not say so? It is all very well for him to advocate a wheat policy, but if inflation overtakes us who will be held responsible by the Canadian people? This government will be held responsible, and that is where the difference lies. This government is responsible for the welfare of the people of this country. But when one is in opposition these statements can be made, because if anything disastrous happened-and I claim it would happen if the ceilings were taken off-the entire blame would then rest with the present government. What would happen in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada if there were no ceiling price on lumber? I know some people in British Columbia who are so eager to get lumber that they would gladly pay $100 for a thousand feet of it. We are thankful for the fact that there is a ceiling price on it. But that is only but one example.
We produce enough lumber for our own people, but there are other factors which enter into the sale and disposal of Canadian lumber. There is the matter of shipping our lumber to Great Britain and keeping our trade both with Britain and the United States open, and let us not forget that the United States supply us with 50 per cent of our coal. One might ask why we do not produce all the coal here, and why we have to depend upon the United States.
In the past year more lumber was produced in Canada than in any other year in our history. But, as everyone knows, we are supplying Great Britain and a certain percentage is going to the United States. Those are markets which must be maintained. The lumber manufacturers have said thus far, without contradiction, that if all the lumber in this country were sold in Canada the price would jump from $15 to $25 a thousand immediately, due to labour costs and the price of logs which they purchased in the open market. That statement has never been refuted.
Let us again look at prices in the United States. All our fishermen who catch fish in Canadian waters, on both the Atlantic and the Pacific, would have to get the same price as they get in the United States. Workers would have to receive the same pay. Where would it all end? The whole thing comes down to
this that the people in the United States are not in as good position as we are in Canada, where price ceilings have been kept down by the present government.
My chief reason for rising this evening was to deal with the statements made by the leader of the opposition. My analysis and my reading of the figures presented by the bureau of statistics certainly do not bear out what he said. The only conclusion one can draw from his statement is that the price of wheat in this country should follow the United States price. He and his party evidently are in favour of lifting the lid off price ceilings. I say to the people of this country, God help us if that happens.


Mr. H. R. ARGUE (Wood Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I was glad to hear the hon. member for Dufferin-S'imcoe (Mr. Rowe) make clear to the house the policy of the Progressive Conservative party. The party for which he was speaking this evening wants controls lifted from everything. I think reasonable people in Canada everywhere know that this would mean inflation. And when the spiral of inflation comes, the workers, farmers, small business people and professional people are caught in that spiral and suffer tremendously.
It has been suggested by many hon. members that the workers and farmers do not see eye-to-eye on the policy of price increases. May I point out that recently in Saskatchewan the United Farmers of Canada, Saskatchewan section, the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, the Canadian Congress of Labour and the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation set up the Saskatchewan occupational group council and issued a joint statement respecting their policy-on ceiling prices.
First of all, they pointed out that as a solution of the spiralling of prices we request the reestablishment of price ceilings as legally in force in August, 1944. Further they said:
We agree with the principles of parity prices, and we suggest it be placed upon the basis of $1.55 per bushel for wheat, with a royal commission appointed to set all items and wages in comparison thereto.
That organization representing farmers, labourers and professional people went on record as supporting parity prices, and saying that $1.55 a bushel for wheat Was something close to parity price. They also asked that the government provide equal representation of all occupational groups, on the wartime prices and trade board, or on any other price control board. This agrees with the policy of the C.C.F. as enunciated many times, in that any board having to do with the making of policy affecting the people of Canada in an economic
Price Ceiling-Farm Products

way should have on it representatives of the farmers, the industrial workers, small business and the professional people in Canada.
The council further stated that if any logical reason were given by the government why the requests for a return to the price ceilings of 1944, with certain exceptions, were not followed, then they supported the stand of the United Farmers for a 20 per cent increase in the prices of grain. They, too, were supporting a policy of parity prices, because they said that if the cost of things the farmer has to buy goes up then prices of commodities the farmer has to sell should also go up.
The leader of the Progressive Conservative party (Mr. Bracken), speaking on his amendment, made certain that he did not criticize the government in any respect for having allowed the 12% per cent increase in the price of farm implements. He did not say that the implement companies were not deserving of it. One can see, if he reads the speeches of members of the Progressive Conservative party, that they are supporting big business from one end of Canada to the other-and I shall be the first to admit that they are doing a fine job of it.
Much has been said in the debate about the reduction in the selling costs of farm implements. It is true that there has been a considerable reduction. I do not think the precise nature of that reduction in selling costs has been pointed out to the house. When we understand how the reduction has taken place we shall see that it is permanent, and1 that in some respects it has ifot been brought about in the most admirable way.
Ten years ago, if a man in a small town were in the implement business, he was an implement agent. He had little to invest by way of capital. That man was simply the contact man for the implement companies. He talked to farmer customers and drew up a slate of prospects for various implements. He sent that slate of prospects to the implement companies, and they in turn sent a salesman to the town. The agent would get into the salesman's car and they would go out to the farmer's home. Then, if a sale took place, and payment were to be made on time basis, the company would take the responsibility of making collections. The agent would receive his commission, and he had nothing to lose as long as the sale went through.
Then, too, the companies used to stock repairs for implement agents. Every once in a while the auditor would come around and check the stock of repair parts, and the agent would be asked to pay for the repair parts

he had sold. The point is that the implement agents were not forced to take any credit risks and were not asked to put a great deal of their money into the business.


James Arthur Ross: That is not true.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is true. I happen to have had direct association with the implement business in Saskatchewan, and those are the facts. I venture to say that to-day 80 per cent of the people who were implement agents have now nothing to do with the selling of farm implements. Perhaps twenty per cent of those people are now dealers and they are in a much different position from what they were in when they were agents. A dealer must put in a complete machine repair and service shop. He must hire mechanics and supply tools. He must carry his own stock of repair parts. He must buy the machines from the company and sell them to the farmers.' If we get back to time sales in the future, should any loss occur the implement dealer will absorb it and the implement company will lose nothing because, as soon as a machine leaves their hands, it is completely paid for. I want to point out the growing monopolization in the implement distribution field. The small business man no longer has a chance of making a living; instead he is asked to put thousands of dollars of his own money into a very risky business. When the squeeze, comes he is the one who will be squeezed^ out. In presenting his statement to the house after the increase had taken place, the minister said as reported at page 853 of Hansard:
In their submissions the companies disclosed increased costs since the basic period of 1941 averaging, roughly, materials and components twenty per cent, labour twenty-eight and a half per cent, and general overhead twenty-three per cent.
I think it would have been fairer to the people of Canada generally and to hon. members if we had been given an opportunity to hear the submissions made by the implement companies, to conduct a thorough investigation into those submissions and then attempt to find out if increases were necessary and, if so, how much they should be. According to the implement companies, material costs have increased twenty per cent. I wonder what part of that increase was due to the increase of $5 a ton in the price of steel allowed some time previously. When steel was increased $5 a ton it meant that in each process in which steel was used there was a pyramiding of the S5 a ton increase. If any of the increase in the cost of materials was

Price Ceiling-Farm Products
due to the increase in the price of steel, then this government is responsible for the increased cost of materials.
We were told by the implement companies that the cost of labour has increased 28J per cent. I do not know if that is true and I am not going to pass judgment on that statement, but we should have been given sufficient evidence to know whether or not it was true. On looking at the report of the parliamentary committee which sat in 1937 to consider farm implement prices, I find that of the labour costs of producing a machine, 51 per cent was indirect labour. Of that indirect labour, one-quarter was for the payment of foremen and foremen's assistants and one-third was for the wages of factory executives and clerical workers. I should like to know if any large part of that 28J per cent increase in the cost of labour is due to large increases in the wages paid to foremen and factory executives.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No.


Hazen Robert Argue: The minister assures me that that is not so. I hope he is correct, but I should like to see evidence of it. Surely the people of Canada will say that if part of that increased labour cost has been given to the foremen and factory executives they do not want to pay that additional cost. The company said that the overhead had increased 23 per cent. We do not know whether their depreciation calculations were reasonable. We do not know whether the fixed payments on capital were reasonable. But we do know that in 1944 the Massey-Harris Company made
SI,800,000	profit, which was 80 per cent more than they made prior to the war. The Cock-shutt Plow Company doubled their profits from 1937 to 1944. These figures show that these companies have been doing quite well. We should know whether the trend toward increased profits has changed; we should know whether these companies could have gone on increasing their profits with the old retail prices. I suggest that these questions have not been fully answered.


James Lorimer Ilsley: They were answered by the hon. member for Victoria, B.C.


Hazen Robert Argue: I shall deal with him in a minute. The minister went on to state, as reported at page 852 of Hansard:
I should add that the analysis of costs conducted by the prices board indicated that a price increase' of upwards of 30 per cent above 1941 levels would have been required to regain 1941 profit percentage margins for the farm implement industry. Consequently, the price advance of only 12| per cent means, admittedly, a serious profit squeeze upon the industry.
I am going ahead to prove that that statement is not in accordance with the evidence as we have it in this house, nor is it in accordance with the statistics to which we have access. The increase of 30 per cent refers to factory costs, and the parliamentary assistant stated that. What we want to know is what the 12i per cent increase in the retail price means when it is applied to the factory cost. I have before me the proceedings of the special committee on farm implement prices, and on page 138 is a table setting out the total costs and sales realizations of typical implements manufactured in Canada. This table gives the cost of the various items going into a ,machine. The retail price is taken as 100, and over a long period of years the cost of materials is shown to be 27-01 per cent of the retail price. We are told that the material cost increased 20 per cent. If that is so, then a 5-4 per cent increase in the retail price would take care of the increase in the material cost.
It is stated in this table that the labour cost is equal to 8-64 per cent of the retail selling price. We were told by the Minister of Finance that the labour cost had increased 284 per cent. In order completely to cover the increased cost of labour the retail selling price needed to be increased only 2-46 per cent. We should not be told any more that prices are going up because labour is getting more. I have shown by these statistics that the claimed increase in labour costs amounts to only 2-46 per cent of the retail selling price. We are told by the implement companies that the burden cost increased 23 per cent. The parliamentary committee found that the burden cost was 13-89 per cent of the retail price. That cost has gone up 23 per cent, so that an increase of 3-19 per cent in the retail cost of farm machines would have fully compensated the companies for the increased burden which they claim took place. Instead, the government gave the implement companies a 124 per cent increase on all implements. The total increase in the retail selling price that would have been necessary to cover all the increased material costs, labour costs and burden costs claimed by the companies is 11-05 per cent. So that the claim by the government that they drove a hard bargain cannot be substantiated by the facts. After they came out of the conference with the implement companies, they gave the companies 11 per cent more in a retail price increase than would have covered all the increases in all the costs which the companies claimed had taken place.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not want any misapprehensions to get abroad. The items in the cost
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of implements are not only those the hon. member mentioned. There is the item of direct materials, which constituted 38-6 per cent in 1941, and in 1946 it constituted 55 per cent of the cost of this particular implement, which is a 20-run double disc drill. Then labour, direct, in 1946 constituted 11 per cent of the cost, and labour, indirect (70 per cent of factory overhead) 17-2 per cent; other factory overhead, 7-3 per cent; engineering, development, warehousing, shipping, general and administrative, 13-4 per cent; selling expense 17-3 per cent. Then there was factory profit or loss, which was nil without the increase granted. I can give, and I will if I have time, the increases that took place in the various items of cost, between 1941 and 1946 as regards that particular implement. Those increased costs showed a factory loss of $53.08 on that implement. My hon. friend cannot pick out iust two or three items of cost but must take the whole lot if he is going to present a correct picture.


Hazen Robert Argue: I assure the minister that I did take the whole lot as presented to the parliamentary committee, which constituted the picture for Ontario and for Regina. Those facts are substantiated, and for the minister to bring into the house at this time figures on one particular implement as the minister has done is merely to shift the whole basis of his argument.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I have similar figures for a number of other implements.


Hazen Robert Argue: We would like to have them. We have not yet been given a decent explanation. The parliamentary assistant had this to say:
The Minister of Finance has already informed the house that such cost increases were in excess of twenty per cent over this period and such cost increases could not be offset entirely by a reduction in general expenses.
But all the increased costs that the parliamentary assistant referred to have to do with factory costs, material costs, labour costs, general overhead costs.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I want to correct that. The figures given by the hon. member for Victoria, British Columbia, were after crediting the saving in selling expenses. The saving in selling expenses between 1941 and 1946 was 20 per cent, and between 1936 and 1939, 40 per cent. But making a comparison between 1941 and 1946 the figures given by the hon. member for Victoria, British Columbia, were after giving credit for the saving in selling expenses. If the selling expenses had not been deducted the amount of increase that would have been 
required to save the companies from an absolute loss would have been considerably greater than the increase which was actually given.


Hazen Robert Argue: 
Joseph William Burton: What a lovely squeeze!


Hazen Robert Argue: I submit, in conclusion, that this house has not been given adequate proof that increased costs did occur, or, if they did occur, that they were justified; that the 124 per cent retail price increase more than covers the claimed increased costs which the companies say have taken place; and on top of that, thrown in along with that, the 40 per cent savings which the companies have made will mean that they will now be able to make a much higher profit.
I suggest that the government would be following a sound and logical policy if they withdrew the 124 per cent increase and if they made an adequate inquiry into the costs of producing farm implements in 1946. We know that large profits have been made by the implement companies in the past. The house has no assurance that these large profits have not been made in the last two or three years; more than that, we have substantial evidence to show that these profits have been maintained and, in some instances, increased; and I submit that, on all the statistical evidence and the authentic evidence which is available to members of parliament, we cannot arrive at any other conclusion than that the implement companies in the future and this year are going to be able to make far larger profits than they have ever made in the past.
I support the subamendment because these price increases certainly have been unjustifiable.


Mr. A. W. STUART (Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, I know I am speaking for a great majority of the people in the constituency I represent when I say that it would be disastrous to have price ceilings removed at the present time. It might be of benefit to the few, but generally, I feel, it would be responsible for making the rich richer and the poor poorer.
I personally am much more interested in having fair prices permanently placed on products of the farms and the sea than I am in having ceiling prices removed. There is an old saying that a burned child dreads the fire. I believe it would apply in this case, because many of us should remember that period during the first great war and the years following when millionaires were made overnight and less fortunate people with small incomes were unable to have more than the bare necessities of life.
As to price ceilings discouraging the production of needed food, I feel this has to a great extent been responsible for increasing production, because the primary producer
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could plan with some guarantee of security, knowing he would not be obliged to sell his product below the cost of production.
This security would have been greatly appreciated in the constituency I represent prior to the war and, I am sure, will be in future years if sustained by this government. Production will never fall on account of price ceilings. The same cooperation as was exemplified during the war, under difficulties relative to the shortage of man-power, will, I am sure, continue and be further increased if these people are given a chance to produce. With world conditions as we find them to-day, these men that I speak of will not let us down. Production may fall during this year. If it does, it w'ill not be owing to any lack of the energy or will to produce, but to matters beyond the control of the producer.
It is true that a small percentage of the farmers in Charlotte depend on farming alone for their livelihood. The great proportion depend to a great extent on the products of the forests, the pulpwood, lumber, firewood and boxwood which they usually cut in the winter time. Prices paid for these commodities during the war have been encouraging. If one compares prices being paid1 for these commodities to-day with those paid in 1940 he will find that they compare favourably with price increases in labour or manufactured products.	(
The argument in favour of this movement would seem to be relative to the agricultural industry. I realize the important part this industry plays in the general welfare of this country, and I feel it warrants great consideration, because it would affect every province and ,a great proportion of bur population. Might I remark, this industry is well represented in this house, not only by an able minister; but, from my obesrvations since I have been here, I would say that three-fourths of the members of this house represent agricultural communities, and I would also say that three-fourths of the time of this house 'have been taken up in discussing matters pertaining to agriculture. ,
It would appear that too few people realize that there are other primary producers in Canada than farmers, and that their problems might be quite as important to them as to the problem now under discussion is to the farmers. I wish to make my position clear; I do not want to give the impression in any way that 1 consider the farming industry unimportant. It is one of our greatest industries, and certainly I regard it as such. In the past, prices of farm products have fluctuated greatly, but I should like to point

out certain advantages which this industry has always had as compared with the products of the sea. The fisherman has an extremely perishable products, which must be sold immediately it is taken from the sea. It cannot be held indefinitely awaiting better market conditions. Therefore the producer is always at the mercy of the canner and exporter and must accept whatever they have to offer. That is why I am very much interested in floor prices. I feel that it would be a selfish attitude for any primary producer to take to ask for floor prices without also having ceiling prices. From past experience- and this is my own experience-I would say that the fishermen of the constituency I represent certainly would support floor prices.
During the war years the price of sardines was set by international agreement between canners in Canada and the state of Maine. This was necessary since a great part of the sardines caught in Charlotte county are exported to Maine in the fresh state. I feel that I am speaking for every sardine fisherman in Charlotte when I say that nothing would please them more or give them a greater feeling of security than to know definitely that the prices now set would be continued during the next five years or longer; and fishermen in other branches of the industry would be of the same. opinion. Since prices during the past five years have been fair, their prosperity has been based solely upon their ability to produce.
The increase in the prices of farm implements has been debated and criticized by a great many hon. members. In most instances it was urged that the farmer should have an increase in the prices paid for his products or that the government should absorb the increase by way of subsidies. No doubt there would be some justification for this argument, and under certain conditions I feel that from time to time adjustments will be necessary. But might I point out that since the ceiling price on sardines was established materials used in the construction of sardine weirs-and I want hon. members to listen very carefully- have increased in price by 300 per cent. Unlike farm machinery, the greater part o.f this material has to be replaced each year, costing each sardine fisherman hundreds and, in some instances thousands of dollars annually.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: Could the hon. gentleman give us two or three examples of such equipment?


Andrew Wesley Stuart: 
Andrew Wesley Stuart: I realize that, This equipment would be wood and nets. Today a man may have $5,000 worth of equipment in the water. To-night a bad storm may come up and he is swept off the map. Another great disadvantage is that it is utterly impossible to insure any part of that equipment. The fisherman has to put it in the water and take his chance. If he loses it he is licked. There is no insurance. The price of boats has gone up in the same proportion. A boat worth 1500 in 1940 is worth $2,000 to-day, and that is no exaggeration.	[DOT]


John Horne Blackmore: Could the hon.
member give the relative prices of the nets?


Andrew Wesley Stuart: Government
control has kept the price of nets practically . where it was in 1940. I should say that in 75 per cent of the cases the materials used are supplied by the farmers of Charlotte county. That is one great benefit I know they are receiving to-day, because I am helping to pay it. I can assure hon. members that not one of these fishermen who are paying these increased costs has ever asked for a subsidy, and J can assure the house that as long as they can they will stand on their own feet.


John Horne Blackmore: Does the hon. member believe they can stand on their own feet, with such increased costs?


Andrew Wesley Stuart: They are
standing on their own feet and not asking for help. They will not ask for help as long as they can make a living, and they are ready to work for it. Another thing I might mention is that 1 have heard a great deal of talk in this house about the hours the farmer puts in and the way he works. I spent twenty-one years on the water, and I think in that time I did as much work as any farmer in the House of Commons. I feel that I have put in longer hours than any farmer in this house in order to make a living. In the winter time I have been twenty miles off shore, taking sardines on board a boat, and I should like to see some of the farmers in this house
to-night in the same position, so that they would appreciate that the fisherman works for what he gets.


John Horne Blackmore: The hon. member does not suppose the farmers are antagonistic toward the fishermen?


Andrew Wesley Stuart: No. The only thing I suggest is that 75 per cent of the time of this house is taken up in discussing the problems of the farmer.


John Horne Blackmore: We are interested in your problems, too.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: I feel that this agitation for the removal of controls has a tendency to encourage manufacturers and others in Canada to hold materials off the market at the present time, in the hope that they may be materially benefited. I really believe that to be true. I have one solution to offer. I should like to see this government remove the duty from all materials that are in short supply, to permit them to come in from the United States duty free for a period of thirty, sixty or ninety days, or for an indefinite period. I believe that would clear out some of this material which might be in storage awaiting the removal of price control.
In conclusion, I should like to quote from an article which appeared in the Montreal Daily Star of May 11, 1946. Hon. members will realize that this is not a Liberal newspaper, but from my short experience here my impression is that many of the discussions which arise in this house are promoted entirely for political reasons. To support that view, I should like to read part of this article, which is headed, "Party politics in foreground." It states:
The element of party politics seems consistently in evidence. It arises in connection with the agitation for the removal of price controls, with farm production very conspicuous just now and it is likewise displayed in the sustained attack upon the spy case procedure. Some methods followed at the time are admitted to have been unusual. The question is whether a distinction may properly be drawn between an ordinary criminal case and one in which the safety of the state is involved. In this instance, the whole case of the crown, it is urged, might have been frustrated had the alleged conspirators been allowed to get together personally, or through counsel.
The political factor is also apparent in the dominion-provincial conference affair and the collaboration there of Mr. Drew and Mr. Du-plessis. Prime Minister King has declined to be drawn out but what he did say on Thursday confirmed the forecast in the Star that the government's position will be revealed in the budget and not before. Quite likely, it will be delivered by the end of May.
Price Ceiling-Farm. Products


Mr. J. M. MACDONNELL (Mu'skoka-Ontario):: In the very few minutes that remain, I should like to make a few remarks on an aspect of price control. I do so especially because I wish to refer to some remarks made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) in this house in December last. I hope I realize the difficulties that face those who are dealing with price controls. I do not speak at all lightly of this subject. There are certain necessities, particularly things like rent, where I think price control has been justified and, so far as my opinion goes, is still justified. But it seems to me that what we entirely lack is any indication of principle, and, indeed, any indication of practice to give one an idea as to the directions in which the mind of the government is moving. I should like to read briefly some remarks made by the Minister of Finance on December 18 last, and then refer to him an instance which has come to my own attention quite recently. I do this in the hope that quite possibly it may be of some interest to him; and it might even lead to certain reconsiderations of what was done, not so much in this case, because it has been taken care of in another way, but a reconsideration of the principle which guided the department in this case. The remarks of the minister that I wish to read are based upon a question that I asked him in December last. I said, granted we need controls on necessaries, does that apply to luxuries and does that apply in particular to a thing like jewellery? Here is what the minister said, as reported at page 3738 of Hansard:
I have discussed the" matter with the officials and I have put the question to them: Why can you not take the price ceiling off jewellery and a long list of other things? We have gone into that question very fully, and it is extraordinarily difficult to do it unless you see the end of price control in sight, because you cannot pick out any class of things that do not enter in some form into the cost of other things. As I say, I have no time to enter into it in detail, but it is most difficult. The policy now is an over-all price ceiling, with an increasing tendency toward increases on certain articles.
Having referred to that, I wish to bring to the attention of the minister and of the house a small incident that came to my attention a week or two ago. I was communicated with by two friends of mine who were blacksmiths in Huntsville. They told me that they had applied for an increase in their schedule, and had been turned down. I got in touch with wartime prices and trade board and explained the difficulty to them. They were sympathetic, and I am bound to say that I used the expression that I thought controls on small things like this are fantastic. I could not really believe they entered importantly into the

question of inflation. I thought the official to whom I talked was sympathetic to what I said. In fact, what he said to me was this; he asked me to let the matter stand for a week. From the way he talked I got the impression-and I think I was entitled to get it-that he hoped within a week the ceiling might be taken off. I called him up a week later, and he said to me that it had not been possible to take the ceiling off but that they were dealing with the matter in another way by giving it an increase of rate. They did give the increase of rate, and I think the particular problem of my friends is dealt with for the moment.
The reason I raise this point-and I am glad the minister is in the house to-night- is that I submit to him and to this house that surely we are getting doctrinaire views on patterns-I think that was the word the minister used; that it all fits into a pattern. Surely that does take us on extraordinary lengths into the matter of doctrinaire views. Here is a man shoeing horses in Huntsville. Incidentally, I believe the price that he asked was perfectly agreeable to the people who were asked to pay it. His present schedule was clamped down at a time when prices had been going on unchanged for many years. This price is clamped down on him, and his costs have gone up in the interval. He and his friends were perfectly agreeable to reaching an agreement among themselves, but they could not do that because of the pattern. That is my story. It is a simple thing, but I submit to the minister that at the present time what people are groping for is something in the way of a principle. It is hard for me to believe that any principle of orderly and .common-sense release of controls is in practice when a small thing of that kind can take place and be given effect to. I was saying to the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) this evening that one of the few Latin tags I could still remember from my time as a law student was, de minimis non curat lex which means, "the law does not concern itself with little things". I suggest that should also apply to the wartime prices and trade board.
Finally, I would say that if I am right in my attitude toward this particular case, and if I am right in assuming, as I did assume, that it is symptomatic of a great many others, then it seems to me that there is a great deal of room for ordinary common sense to be introduced into the subject of controls, difficult as I admit it to be.
On motion of Mr. Bryce the debate was adjourned.

Privilege-Mr. St. Laurent



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

James Lorimer Ilsley: I move that the house do now adjourn. With regard to to-morrow, this debate will be continued and, I devoutly hope, will be concluded. If it is, we should like to call at least three departments in committee of supply. The departments would be labour, post office' and veterans affairs, and. also having priority I should say over calling these departments even would be the matter of interim supply. We have run out of money and we need some more. I have to get interim supply to-morrow some way or another, or the carrying on of the public business will be seriously prejudiced.


John Bracken: If I may comment on the minister's remarks I should like to say that there will be no objection from this party to putting more departments into supply, and we shall be glad to facilitate the voting of interim supply. I may say that the minister spoke to me about this a day ago. I complained, and I think with justice, that this particular motion had been held up for three weeks. I take some responsibility for suggesting to the minister that it ought to be dealt with, I said it was not fair to this section of the house to have the motion standing day after day and not dealt with. The minister has been good enough to bring on the debate. There will be no disposition on the part of this party to extend the debate at all, but I feel that it should be dealt with. Once it has been disposed of, we shall facilitate in every way the granting of interim supply. There may be some questions on detail. The minister has already had two months' interim supply and he now wants two months more. In addition to that, he wants something extra for some departments which require more funds in the earlier part of the year than in the latter part of the year. I should think that the house would be disposed to meet any reasonable request that the minister makes with respect to the granting of interim supply.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I wish to thank the leader of the opposition for his offer of cooperation in the matter of interim supply.
With regard to the holding up of this debate, I felt that we were proceeding as fast as we could, with one exception, and that was the absence of myself from Ottawa for two days. That was unavoidable, and it brought about the chief delay in proceeding with the debate, I believe those days were Monday and Tuesday of last week.
Immediately upon my return we proceeded with the debate. However, be that as it may, we hope to conclude this debate to-morrow
and get into supply. If we should finish interim supply, and get those three departments in, we' shall be free to take up any other bills or resolutions on the order paper. But I doubt whether there will be much time for that, it being Wednesday.


John Horne Blackmore: It is not clear to me why there should be three departments brought in.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Only five departments are in at the present time, and to facilitate the work of the house we thought we should have three more. There are twenty or more departments to come, and that will give ample opportunity for motions on going into supply to make known grievances. What I am suggesting is, I feel sure, in accordance with the practice of former years.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 11.05 p.m.
Wednesday, May 22, 1946.