1946-05-17

[Stage Direction]
Second report of sessional committee on railways and shipping owned, operated and controlled by the government-Mr. McCulloch (Pictou).	*

[Stage Direction]
Mr. J. A. BRADETTE (Cochrane) moved that the first report of the standing committee on external affairs be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Acting Prime
Minister): I wish to announce that a Canadian delegation will be attending a special food and agriculture organization conference scheduled to open in Washington, May 20, in order to discuss urgent world food problems. Invitations have been extended by the director-general of the food and agriculture organization to fourteen nations, members of the food and agriculture organization, of which Canada is one.
The Hon. J. G. Gardiner, Minister of Agriculture, will lead the Canadian delegation, the other members of which are as follows: The Hon. H. F. G. Bridges, Minister of Fisheries; Mr. L. B. Pearson, Canadian Ambassador to
the United States; Mr. G. Paterson, Canadian executive officer on the combined food board; Doctor G. S. H. Barton, Deputy Minister of Agriculture; Doctor D. B. Finn, Deputy Minister of Fisheries; Doctor J. G. Bouchard, Assistant Deputy Minister of Agriculture; Doctor J. F. Booth, of the Department of Agriculture; Mr. I. S. McArthur, of the Department of Fisheries; Doctor L. B. Pett, of the Department of National Health and Welfare; Doctor F. C. Wilson,, of the Department of Trade and Commerce; Mr. J. B. Rutherford of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics; Mr. M. G. Glassco, of the Privy Council office.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. PAUL MARTIN (Secretary of State) moved for leave to introduce bill No. 125, to amend the House of Commons Act.
He said: The purpose of the bill is to remove from the existing statutes certain sections which are obsolete and which are now superseded by subsequent revisions of the Consolidated Revenue and Audit Act, 1931.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce) moved for leave to introduce bill No. 126, to amend the Export Credits Insurance Act.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Mr. MacKINNON:: This bill is being presented in order to amplify and clarify the clauses of the act, under part I, of which the Export Credits Insurance Corporation was set up. The necessary changes to part I are being requested as a result of the experience which the corporation has gained during the first six months of its active operation.
The amendments being made to part II of the act, which is under the administration of my colleague the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley), are mainly to enlarge the purposes for which the credits granted to foreign governments or agencies may be used. The amendments will permit a credit to be (a) made available to private importers in the borrowing countries; (b) used to purchase Canadian services; and (c) used to purchase goods from crown companies.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time
Atomic Energy-Control



ATOMIC ENERGY


[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Reconstruction and Supply) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
Resolved, that it is expedient to bring in a measure to make provision for public control and supervision of the development, application and use of atomic energy, and in connection therewith to provide for the incorporation of the atomic energy control board; the creation of corporations to carry out certain powers of the board which may be more conveniently performed by separate corporations; to provide for the appointment of members of the board and its officers and employees, their tenure of office, remuneration and expenses; to provide for the organization, administration and financing of the corporations; also to provide for the superannuation, pension and other rights of the employees of the board and of the corporations; and also that the board may, with the approval of the governor in council acquire or cause to be acquired by purchase, lease, requisition or expropriation, prescribed substances and any mines, deposits or claims of prescribed substances and any works or property for production or preparation for production of, or for research or investigation with respect to atomic energy.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Reconstruction and Supply) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to amend the Research Council Act to provide for the continuance of the Committee of the Privy Council on Industrial and Scientific Research; for the appointment of two vicepresidents to the Research Council, their tenure of office and salaries; for the appointment of an executive committee of the council; for the creation of corporations to carry out certain powers of the council which may be more conveniently performed by a separate corporation, and also to provide for the organization, administration and financing of such corporations; and to provide further for the superannuation, pension and other rights of the employees of the said corporations.
He said:	His Excellency the Governor
General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: I wish to direct a question to the acting Secretary of State for External Affairs, notice of which I sent him this morning. Will the government on behalf of Canada, a member of the united nations, protest the decision of the security council to deny, at its pleasure, access to the record of any private meeting of the security council?
Right Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Acting
Secretary of State for External Affairs):	I
take it that the hon. member's question refers to a report which has appeared in the press to this general effect. We have not yet received the official record of the' security council meeting at which this question seems to have been discussed, and pending receipt of the official documents it would seem to be premature to make any public comment. I may add that we are following very closely the proceedings of the committee of experts *which is drawing up rules of procedure for the council.
Mr. COLD WELL;	When the record is
received, with the rules of procedure, will the government make a statement?
Mr. ST. LAURENT:	The government
will give the report of the security council meeting and the recommendations of the committee of experts very careful consideration, and if they appear to require some action on the part of the government there will be an appropriate declaration in the house before that action is taken.



FISH AND FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. J. BROOKS (Royal):: I should like to direct a question to whoever is acting Minister of Fisheries in the absence of that minister. The question is based on a report that the department has closed certain tributaries of the Saint John river to net fishing. This is the season of the year when people along the river fish for different kinds of fish, and I would ask the minister this question: Has the Department of Fisheries closed the Jemseg river and Raft channel to the Grand lake to all kinds of net fishing? If so, why has this been done? Will the department consider cancelling this order at once?

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Hon. ALPHONSE FOURNIER (for the Minister of Fisheries):: In the absence of the Minister of Fisheries I received notice of the question which the hon. gentleman has asked. The answer to the first question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part of the question the answer is: As the Jemseg river is quite narrow, gill-nets, ostensibly set for the taking of shad, have been taking striped bass. At the request of the provincial authorities and of the New Brunswick fish and game protective association, as well as on the recommendation of the officers of the department, the use of gill-nets was prohibited in the Jemseg river, in order to facilitate the ascent of fish in the river, thereby providing better angling from which the province and the people along the river will derive greater benefit from tourists and anglers.
As to the third question-will the department consider cancelling the order at once- the answer is: no; not before further investigation.



MOTOR VEHICLES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. WILLIAM BRYCE (Selkirk):: May I direct a question to the Minister of Reconstruction or his parliamentary assistant? I have already given them notice of the question. What is the reason the town of Gimli cannot buy a three-ton truck after having complied with all government regulations and obtained the necessary priority?


Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Reconstruction) :: The difficulty is that the controller of motor vehicles, in issuing priority orders, depended on estimates of production which were too optimistic. The situation to-day is that more priority orders are out than can be filled. Action was taken some ten days ago to see that no more priority orders were issued until outstanding orders were filled, but the difficulty to which my hon. friend refers can be solved only as new trucks come from the production line.


William Scottie Bryce: I refer to war assets.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I have no information with regard to second-hand trucks, but I shall be glad to look into the question and see whether any trucks are available in Manitoba. If so, I shall do my best to see what can be done for Gimli through War Assets Corporation.


Mr. HACKETT:: The province of Quebec also could use a few if the minister has them.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: And so can the province of Saskatchewan.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
Science service-
12.	Plant protection, $431,540,
Mr. WRIGHT:: Has the department done any investigational work recently respecting root rot in wheat?


Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) :: Investigations are being carried on continuously,, but I have not heard of any new development.


Mr. McIVOR:: Those of us who were bom on the farm and received our early education there have never lost our interest in the experimental aspect of farm work. We have found that some of the greatest wonders of the world are on the farm. Last fall I witnessed gardeners planting brown bulbs in black earth. The bulbs have been frozen and thawed, and frozen and thawed again. It would do any expert in agriculture good to observe the floral beauty displayed to-day in front of these parliament buildings. It is magnificent. If hon. members taking part in the debate would see those flowers, which are more gorgeously clothed than Solomon in all his glory, they would be a little more appreciative of the work done, not only by the gardeners around this building, but by the Minister of Agriculture.


Mr. SENN:: Now that the war is over I understand there is likely to be a much greater importation of bulbs and plants of all kinds into Canada. What measures are being taken to see that they are free from disease? I understand that in certain sections of Canada the production of bulbs and plants has become an important industry. I am told that in British Columbia the industry has been developed to a considerable extent. Are the products from that province being inspected so that there will be no danger of any plant diseases being spread to other provinces?


James Garfield Gardiner: All regulations which applied prior to the war, and any which were added during the war, are being enforced. We are increasing inspection staffs to see that regulations in connection with the importation of bulbs and other plants into Canada are enforced. During the war the production not only of bulbs but of different kinds of seeds and plant life was developed to a considerable extent in British Columbia. Up to the present time new importations coming into Canada since the war have not affected that industry,

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but attention is being given to the fact that the industry has been developed, and that care should be taken to maintain it.


Mark Cecil Senn: Do I understand that before importations are made they must have a certificate of health? Or are they not inspected until they enter the country, with the result that they may have to be returned or destroyed?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is not always possible to obtain certificates of health. On entering the country they are inspected carefully. Hon. members might be interested if I were to place on record the following regulations with regard to the importation of nursery stock:
Nursery stock includes all plants, or parts thereof, for ornamental purposes, propagation, or cropping.
1.	(a) A permit must be procured by the importer from the secretary, destructive insect and pest act advisory board.
' (b) The importer is required to advise the exporter of the permit number. This number must be marked upon the containers and shipping papers. (In the case of importations by parcel post, a special label is issued.)
(c) The permit must be presented to the customs by the importer when clearing the shipment. The invoice must conform with the permit as to kinds and quantity of plants.
2.	(a) Shipments must be accompanied by a certificate of inspection listing the kind and quantity of plants contained in the shipment and certifying them as apparently free from insect pests or plant diseases.
(b) Importations are subject to re-inspection on arrival in Canada.
3.	(a) Importations may only enter through one of the following ports: Halifax. N.S.: Saint John, N.B.; Montreal. P.Q.: (Quebec. P.Q., subport) ; Ottawa, Ont.; Toronto. Ont. (parcel post only); Niagara Palls, Ont.; Windsor, Ont.; London, Ont.; Winnipeg, Man.; Estevan, Sask.; Vancouver, B.C. (Victoria, B.C. sub-port).
(b) On arrival at a port, a shipment is either inspected immediately or permitted to proceed to destination for inspection on the premises of the importer:	It may not be moved from the
port unless either a "Certificate of inspection" or a "certificate of clearance" has been issued to the customs.


Mark Cecil Senn: Some of the countries from which these importations come were overrun by the enemjq and perhaps the same care has not been taken to see that the plants are in healthy condition, or that plants which are infected are culled out. I do not think the minister answered my question whether bulbs and nursery stock from British Columbia require a certificate of health before shipment from that province.


James Garfield Gardiner: The answer to the last question is yes; they must be inspected out there before shipment.


Mr. HATFIELD:: I understand that small parcels of potatoes are coming here from countries against which there is an embargo. They

are being brought in by people returning from Europe. What is being done to stop this procedure?


James Garfield Gardiner: Anything of that nature brought in by immigrants is subject to inspection. All motorcars crossing the boundary line are treated in the same way. Seeds of any kind which are brought in, whether of potatoes or of anything else, are inspected. Aeroplanes, too, are subject to inspection. Of course I presume some people make an effort to avoid the inspection, but every effort is made to see that they do not.


Mr. PROBE:: I notice an increase of about 400 per cent in the equipment required by the division this year, and an increase in travelling expenses of about 60 per cent. In looking over the public accounts for last year covering this particular division I notice that a number of new cars and used motorcycles were purchased, after deducting an allowance of $300 for one used car. The public accounts show that last year two used cars were turned back at $565. Perhaps the minister could explain these two items, and at the same time indicate what travelling allowances are permitted to members of this and other divisions. I do not think the minister was quite right when he said last night that the car mileage allowance for employees who used their own cars was at the rate of nine cents per mile. I looked up the order in council which was passed last year just before the election, and I found that except for British Columbia the amount allowed for car mileage is nine cents per mile for 4,000 miles. I assume that is what the minister meant last night. After
4,000	miles has been travelled by a car, the rate is eight cents per mile. It seems to me that that is an adequate mileage allowance. Could the minister indicate what equipment is being purchased, particularly cars, and the nature of the discounts allowed? I think we are not getting a sufficient allowance on our used cars, unless they are actually in very bad shape.


James Garfield Gardiner: The provision for paying for the operation of a car is on the basis of nine cents per mile. The rate was seven cents until the beginning of the war and for some time into the war, but it was found impossible to get men to drive their own cars because of the difficulty of getting cars and the extra cost of maintenance; therefore the basic rate was raised to nine cents per mile for the first 4,000 miles, and when a car covered a greater mileage than that, the rate was lowered.

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With regard to looking up the records having to do with car purchases and finding why more was allowed on one car than on another, I may say that our cars are all rather old and badly worn at the moment, because we could not buy any new ones after 1942; at least it was not easy to buy them. Incidentally I might mention that this was one of the most difficult votes to get past the treasury board. The amount to be paid is established in this manner: We call for tenders, usually from three different dealers.


John Oliver Probe: Do you call in the dealers?


James Garfield Gardiner: Suppose it is in Yorkton; they would ask two dealers in Yorkton and one dealer outside of that community to bid, and the best bid would be accepted. A dealer may say, "I will allow you $300 for your old car and charge you so much in addition for the new car." Another dealer may look the car over and say that he will allow a little more. Three bids are required under normal circumstances. During the war period it was not always possible to carry on in that way, and it is not yet, because often a dealer has no cars, or if he has cars, they are covered by permits already in his hands. The practice has not been established definitely for the whole area of transactions, but that is the practice followed to establish the value of the car.


John Oliver Probe: How much equipment is being purchased under this $28,000?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are about twelve cars, and then equipment of other type which will be used in the plants associated with this work.


John Oliver Probe: The department bought four new cars last year and twelve new ones during the current year.


James Garfield Gardiner: We have not got them yet, although we have the money to buy them.	.


Mark Cecil Senn: The hon. member for Lambton West (Mr. Murphy) is not here, but he spoke to me about a matter which I should like to bring to the attention of the minister. It concerns a disease which is affecting the sugar beets in that hon. member's constituency.
.Speaking on this matter last year he explained that certain of the streams running into lake Huron were filling up at their mouths, causing a flooding of certain areas used for the production of sugar beets. The suggestion was made that something should be done by cooperation between the dominion and provincial governments and the municipalities. Has the minister any report to make on this matter?
63260-103J


James Garfield Gardiner: The sugar beet nematode has been present in the sugar beet area of south western Ontario for several years, but the infestation is still confined to a restricted area centering on Blackwell in Lambton county. The crop losses, however, have increased within this area. In 1945 cabbages and cauliflower grown in infested fields were severely damaged by this nematode.
Experiments in soil fumigation to control the sugar beet nematode were repeated in 1945. The results of these experiments indicated that some of the commercial fumigants greatly reduced but did not eliminate the nematodes. However, the results indicated a sufficient control to treble the yield. No satisfactory method of control is known at present and as a result every possible field sanitary precaution is taken to prevent the spread of the nematode. It is also advised that farmers use a rotation which keeps sugar beets or other host plants out of known infested fields for at least five years. Experiments with soil fumigants will be repeated in 1946, using better methods of applying the fumigants over larger acreages.
I understand that a drastic method is adopted to- deal with this disease-sugar beets are not marketable off a field affected by nematode. The cooperation with the province is continuing.


Mark Cecil Senn: Is there any suggestion that the provinces and the municipalities are going to share with the dominion the cost of opening up the mouths of these streams so that they will not flood and carry the fungus into the beet fields?


James Garfield Gardiner: I remember there was some discussion about that last year but I am told that there has been no arrangement made to that end. I assume that means they are not convinced that that is the difficulty. I would imagine if they were convinced that that was the real cause of the spread of this disease, some action of the kind would be taken.


Mark Cecil Senn: I understand that the municipalities are willing to go ahead and that the provincial government would do their share if they could get the consent and cooperation of the federal department.


James Garfield Gardiner: I will look into that. I would imagine that if our people through their experimental work are convinced that that is a solution or at all events a help the matter would be considered; but possibly in carrying on their investigations they do not agree with those who contend that this would be a cure or assist in the cure.
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Mr. QUELCH:: What has been the experience of the department in using sprays to kill weeds in standing crops? What effect have the sprays had in killing the weeds, and what effect have they had on the standing crops? We have all seen display advertisements that these sprays can be used to kill weeds in standing crops without effects detrimental to the crop.


James Garfield Gardiner: I can give more information on that w-hen we reach the item for experimental farms and Doctor Archibald is here.	*


Mr. CHARLTON:: Reference has been
made to cars. In view of the scarcity of cars has the department bought any used cars from War Assets Corporation?


James Garfield Gardiner: We have bought very few. As a matter of fact we prefer to buy new cars, for obvious reasons.


Mr. MARSHALL:: On page 85 of the details there is an item, insignificant in amount, $1,500, for rent and taxes, but a principle is involved which prompts me to ask, what taxes does the dominion government pay?


James Garfield Gardiner: We pay taxes on only one plant, and that is a fumigation plant in the city of Vancouver which belongs to the railway. The court has ruled that we must pay taxes on it. I cannot go into the details, but the court ruled that we had to pay the taxes, and the estimates provide for that.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Experimental farms service-
IS. Experimental farms service administration, $70,755.
Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: I am glad to see an increase in the vote for the experimental farms service. The vote was cut during the war, and while there might be some justification for reducing it in war time, I think now is the time' to increase it. What I am going to say bears generally on the experimental farms service.
If we look over the salary schedules as shown in the details we are struck by the fact that the salaries still remain at a very modest level. Under "Administration" I notice that there are only four salaries over $3,000 a year, and if you look through the entire list of positions in services which I regard as very important, such as prairie reclamation, you will find that the same thing holds good. While we must do all we can to prevent any extravagances in the government service, I feel that generally speaking the salary schedules of our civil service are too low to
attract into the service the people we should attract. I am not derogating in the slightest from the qualifications of those already in the service, because I know from personal experience that some of them have remained in the service in spite of attractive offers to better themselves in private employ.
In the period we are entering a scientific approach to all our problems, including those of agriculture, is essential, and we should do everything we can to encourage young men to come into and remain in the public service and devote their lives to improving, for instance, our agricultural products. When wre look back over the years we begin to realize how great a contribution has been made by science to agriculture. Think of the contribution that one scientist made to western Canada, Doctor Saunders. In some material the other day I discovered that while, he was actually working on marquis wheat he was getting a salary of $100 a month. We have improved a little on that; nevertheless we should encourage the minister to do all he can to make these services-experimental farms, prairie reclamation, branch farms and so forth-sufficiently attractive to induce the best qualified people to enter the service.
The schedules reveal that the salaries are still comparatively low. Seven or eight years ago they may have appeared to be moderately attractive, but many hon. members know the high salaries that are being offered to-day by private industry to attract well-qualified young scientists.
The minister has said on one or two occasions that after all, these men are serving agriculture, that the returns to the man actually working on the land have never been very high, and that.the salaries paid to those in the agriculture service must not be very far out of line with the returns the farmer is getting. While there is some merit in that, I do not think it is really a sound argument. I would say rather that we must so stabilize the prices of agricultural products as to give the farmer reasonable returns upon which much higher salary schedules for agricultural scientists can be based.
I should like to say a word now, if I may, on item 16, as I tnay be called out of the chamber in a few minutes. This item, like many others, contains the phrase "notwithstanding anything contained in the Civil Service Act." I do not know just what that means, but again may I say to the minister that he or somebody else has been keeping many of our younger scientists on the temporary staff when in my opinion they should have been made permanent. I do not know

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just how far that practice has gone. I have not been in close touch with Saskatoon lately, but I do know that a group of young men who were engaged there a year or two ago on the scientific soil surveys were still on the temporary staff at exceedingly low salaries, although it is admitted that- they have done magnificent work for our provinces. The very fact that the new assessment has been largely based on the soil surveys and has proven so satisfactory to the people of the province is a tribute to the value of the work that these young men have done. I am very anxious indeed to see that the civil service is a real civil service, and I should like to see temporary positions occupied by qualified men on a temporary basis made permanent and brought under the Civil Service Act, with appointments, so far as possible, made in the usual way by the civil serivoe commission.
But I rose to suggest that we should endeavour to support the minister in any attempt he may make to attract to our public service, particularly our agricultural service, the very best qualified young agricultural scientists who are coming out of the faculties of agriculture in our Canadian universities.


James Garfield Gardiner: If I might clear up one point just made by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, I have never compared the salaries paid to scientists with the wages or returns in the farming communities.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: I did not quite mean that.


James Garfield Gardiner: No, but I just wanted that made clear. Every time we discuss the experimental farms service the question of labour on the farms comes up. Take for example the one that we both know best- Indian Head. There are people who live in Indian Head and labour on the farm whenever they can get work, some of them all year round, some of them a number of months out of the year.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: I intended to mention that.


James Garfield Gardiner: These men are paid on a basis which has some relationship to farm labour in the surrounding community, because they really do farm work in the fields which is the same as is done by others who are working around, I think the pay is usually higher than that for other farm labour, but not sufficiently high to make everyone want to work there.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: What is the hourly rate there now? It used to be 25 cents.


James Garfield Gardiner: It was around 35 cents, but I understand it has been put up 13 cents, which increases it to around 48 cents.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: That is better.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think that will tend to draw labour to the farm. At the present time,
I imagine, wages just about as high are being paid on farms round about for certain types of work.
On the other question, relating to scientists, a number of considerations enter into the matter of the pay. One, of course, is the ability of the individual, which in a service such as the civil service cannot be given the same consideration as an industrialist would give to it. We are governed by the rulings of the civil service commission, which must be more or less standardized. Industry is not affected by that kind of thing. I have not looked into the subject sufficiently to know whether the United States system of hiring persons is governed as closely by civil service regulations as ours is, but they do not seem to have more leeway in bidding for the services of highly qualified scientists.
This year, as I have said, on one or two occasions we have insisted that, under regulations last year which came into effect on April 1st of last year, these payments should be reviewed throughout the departments. As I said the other night, we are getting along with the job more rapidly than most departments, but we are not satisfied that all the increases which ought to be made have yet been made. We agree that we should pay these men just as much as we can pay them in relation to the costs which are being put against the people generally in order to meet their obligations. Having said that, I think I should add that there are many people who would rather work for the government than for anybody else.


An hon. MEMBER:: No, no.


James Garfield Gardiner: Somebody says, "no, no". I do not happen to be one of these myself.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: You have been doing it a long time.


James Garfield Gardiner: But I find that every time we ask that a position be filled a great many people want the opportunity to fill it. I can understand that. They come under the civil service; they are guaranteed employment, provided they apply themselves to their work, until they are sixty-five, and then they have superannuation. In industry one is very fortunate, in certain lines, if one can stay beyond forty or forty-five. Superannuation allowances or similar compensation may be provided, but after all, people like to work as well as to get money for working. A scientist does. He likes to work, and he would like to be sure that he will work until sixty-five.
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He does not want to stop at forty-five and hang around the rest of his life. I can understand that type of individual wanting to work for the government and being prepared to work, having these guarantees, for a little lower return. Whether we should ask them to accept these salaries or not, there are so many of them ready to do this work and trying to do it that there is more difficulty than one might imagine in raising the salary level when dealing with public funds.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: Regarding this matter of agricultural scientists, when the minister's estimates were up last year I put on the record a chart showing what scientists in similar employments in industry and other services received in Canada, the United States and Great Britain. X am sorry to say that what our men received was considerably less than the pay for analogous positions in the United States and Groat Britain. It may have some relation to what has also been stated here, namely that agricultural producers in Canada receive censiderably less than the producers in either the United States or Great Britain. However, as I said then, and has been said by the Iron, member for Rosetown-Biggar, our farmers can scarcely estimate in dollars and cents what some scientists have done for them in the production of rust-resistant wheats and other things of the kind; and I just want to put in a plug for the minister in getting better remuneration for these agricultural scientists whenever the opportunity presents itself, because occasionally, I am sorry to say, we lose good scientists to these other countries. While they like the work, they are human enough to want to be paid for it, and sometimes they cannot resist the offers of high remuneration which come from other countries. Now and then we lose an outstanding man because we do not pay him sufficient money. I believe anyone who studies this situation at all will be quite satisfied, to see ,this class of civil servants paid the worth of their hire.
Will the minister state what has been done recently in the matter of developing newer types of rust-resistant wheat, both the hard variety and the durum varieties? What are the newest types of wheat and their possibilities, so for as the department can say now?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are only two new varieties of wheat which have been developed recently and are ready for release. One is hard spring Renown, which is a rust-resistant wheat, and the other is the Rescue wheat, which is sawfly resistant. Experiments are being carried on in the developing of Durum,

and of other hard wheats which are rust-resistant, but they are not ready for release -and on the soft wheats, too.


James Arthur Ross: What about the
Carlton? Is it sufficiently recognized as rust-resistant?


James Garfield Gardiner: No, it is not ready for
release. It is being experimented with.


Mr. BRADETTE:: I know I shall be
forgiven if I bring to the attention of the committee a question which has been agitating our section of the country for quite a while. I do not feel very diffident about it, because the minister will realize that ever since I have been in the house this, is the first time I have asked a question on his estimates.
I want to mention a position which is now open, the superintendency of the experimental farm at Kapuskasing. Before proceeding any further I want to pay a tribute, and in doing so I believe I am voicing the opinions of every section of our population, to the retiring superintendent, Mr. Smith Ballantyne, that fine, big, Nova Scotian' who, after living for forty years in our section, has become a real northern Ontarian. He has done real work in his position and he will be greatly missed. Everyone concerned must compliment the Ontario government upon having caught Smith Ballantine on the rebound and giyen him a fine position in northern Ontario in connection with agricultural and colonization operations, for which he is well qualified.
I think that the deputy-minister knows our position well; in fact, that he realizes the situation as well as I do, because he has done us the honour of visiting our section of the country and that particular farm on many occasions. When the La Ferme experimental farm in Quebec, which is adjacent to our own section in nprthem Ontario was closed around 1934, more work was put on the shoulders of the experimental farm in Kapuskasing. That is why in replacing the man who had carried on that work there for many years in a satisfactory manner, certain regional and racial considerations had to be taken into account.
The experimental farm at Kapuskasing is serving an agricultural population of almost three quarters of a million people. In my own section, the Cochrane district, we have had the greatest development in colonization and agriculture in Canada in the last two decades. If you visited northern Quebec in the Abitibi, Pontiac and Chapleau districts you would also see one of the greatest agricultural movements, second only to the one that was experienced in the three western provinces. On its


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own initiative, and without any help from the outside, Quebec is building a great agricultural district that will one day reach as far as the Hudson and James bays. We have also the same thing, but on a smaller scale, in northern Ontario.
For many years the experimental farm at Kapuskasing has rendered excellent service to our colonization and farming populations. If I remember correctly it was in 1916 that the ground began to be cleared, mostly by German prisoners of world war I. It is a marvellous site; it has good soil, but because of climatic conditions they are carrying on a type of work which cannot be carried on even at the experimental farm at Ottawa.
This is a regional question. I am giving a personal viewpoint. The person who replaces Mr. Smith Ballantyne must be bilingual, as I said a few moments ago. I made that statement deliberately because I stand foursquare for fair play to every section of our population. My record as a parliamentarian and in my own district will bear out that statement. May I repeat that at least three-fifths of our farming population covered by the activities of this experimental farm are French speaking only. Because of that the superintendent of the farm must be bilingual if his work would be really effective. We have found the man who is fully qualified, a man who has worked under the leadership and guidance of Smith Ballantyne for a number of years. He graduated to a higher position in Quebec under the federal Department of Agriculture. At some personal sacrifices he is now ready and willing to return to Ontario, which he always loved. He loves our section of the country and its population. I believe he has been in the service in a high official capacity for nearly thirty years. All he wants from the department is to bo raised to a higher grade. I believe he now occupies the position of grade 3 or 4. He wants to have one higher grade, which will mean an increase of $500 a year in his salary. I agree with what the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar and the hon. member for Souris so well said a few moments ago, in the matter of increased salaries for our expert men. I am not acquainted with the inner workings of the department; I have never tried to interfere-I never will; and I know they will bear me out in this. I do not know what their decision should be, but as an outside man of the service who knows something of ability, intelligence, integrity and the necessity of maintaining high standards in the work of experimental farms I believe that the increase should be given to this well-qualified man and men of his qualifications whose
appointment will give satisfaction to the English and French-speaking sections of our population.
I want the committee fully to realize our situation. It is true that the experimental farm at Kapuskasing is located in Ontario and serves a large section of the population there; but it is also true that a larger section of the agriculturists wffio receive benefit from the activities of that farm live in Quebec. Because of that I know the committee will realize the logic of my request. That is all I want to say on this subject. I must say here that I leave it entirely in the hands of the department, which has been fair to the agricultural population of my district so far as departmental activities are concerned. However, I do make a serious request, namely, that the man to whom I have just referred and who is well known to the deputy minister and the minister himself, a man who is well qualified, a man who will be a loss to Quebec if he leaves that position to come to our province, should be given consideration. He would be an acquisition to us. His request is a logical one. I am not giving his name, because I do not think it would be fair to him or to the department. I hope that our population will receive that appointment which they are eagerly looking for in the very near future, as there is much work that should be continued in an accelerated way on that farm.


James Garfield Gardiner: Just to avoid any misunderstanding with regard to one remark made by the hon. member, may I say that I wondered whether this man who is spoken of had left us and gone over to Quebec. I know that was not what the hon. member wished to say. To be perfectly plain, he is still with us, and as has been suggested, he is one of the best men who could be secured for that position, but he is the best man who could be secured for the position he is in at the present time. There is the question whether he could serve the department any better in one place than another. I am sure it is recognized by the people where he is that he is serving them particularly well, as he would serve the Kapuskasing area. The question that comes up in the department is whether changing a man from one place to another to do a similar job at increased pay is going to have any effect on the staff itself, as those moves can do at times; in other words, the question whether it would help to move a man from one place where he is doing good work to another place where he would do equally good work-and he has always done good work. He is one of the best
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men we have. That is the only question that is now being considered, whether he can be moved and given what he desires. He probably would prefer to stay where he is without an increase in pay, and of course we would not insist on his moving and remaining in his present classification. These are matters of internal administration that I do not interfere with. The question has to be left more or less to the persons who are responsible for making the greatest possible success of the administration of the experimental farms.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: May I make one
reference to what the minister has said? I do not know whether I should say this, but I believe I have the right to say it. By doing so I am not hurting the man himself, and this will not be held against him. He is willing and will be ready to come to our section of the country. That is all I want to say at the moment.


James Garfield Gardiner: With increased pay.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: Would the minister tell us what proportion of the total allotment for experimental work the Lethbridge farm is receiving? What is the nature of the work being carried on?
The hon. member for Acadia raised the question of weed control. The idea I have in mind is a little different from his. I should like to know what the experimental farm at Lethbridge is doing in connection with weed control. A serious situation is developing in my constituency. Within the last few years four exceedingly serious weeds have come into that area

They are: the leafy spurge, the field bindweed, the hoary cress and the Russian knapweed. They could be a menace to the whole of western Canada if they ever got completely out of control. If work on the control of these weeds is being carried on, would the minister tell us about it? Would he tell us whether in the judgment of the men responsible there is adequate machinery available to the Lethbridge experimental farm for the carrying on of a study of the control of these weeds? Have they sufficient staff? Is there enough money to give the staff the hired help which they need in order to accomplish the desired results? What is being done in this connection at the Dalroy substation of the Lethbridge experimental farm?


James Garfield Gardiner: Weed control work is done at the substation in question. The amount spent at Lethbridge, out of the votes which are being discussed, is 878.790. There is, I understand, about another 880,000 which comes under item 16, which' has some relationship
["Mr. Gardiner.]
to the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Aot, but the total amount here is 878,790. Weed control also comes under item 16, and I do not know that there is any reason why I should not say, under administration, ini connection with all these votes, that weed control by the methods indicated a few moments ago is being carried out on the different experimental farms. As I have said, work is being done at the substation just mentioned, under the control of' Lethbridge, and there is also work at Indian Head and other experimental stations. The treatment is a very successful one. I said yesterday that I had had the privilege of noting the work which is being done at Indian Head. The road from my farm to Regina leads past that station and I drive by it continuously. I did so last summer and was more than surprised to find how successfully you could spray a field. They sprayed one strip and- left another strip unsprAyed. A field that was infested with mustard was sprayed and the mustard was entirely killed, while in the field which was not sprayed the mustard was there as before. The peculiar thing about it was that the ground seemed to be better after it had been sprayed than the ground which had not been sprayed.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: Is it expensive?


James Garfield Gardiner: About $2.50 an acre. It is apparently a successful mothod of dealing with mustard at least and, I assume, with other weeds such as the stinkweed, what we call the French weed.


John Horne Blackmore: The point of greatest importance to us is that these four weeds are deep-rooted perennials Which have peculiar habits of growth that make it next to impossible to kill them with the devices that kill ordinary weeds such as stinkweed and mustard. The men in my constituency used to think that they had real trouble when they were faced with the Canada thistle and with the perennial sow thistle. They thought they had reached the climax when they had to cope with those weeds, but they decided that, in comparison with their experience with these four new weeds, they did not know what weeds were. I am wondering if any kind of chemical control has been discovered which is effective against these four weeds. If a chemical remedy has not been found, has some method of culture or of crop rotation, been discovered, which has a chance of being successfully applied against these weeds?


James Garfield Gardiner: Experimental work is being done to obtain a chemical which can be used against these four weeds, but it has not progressed sufficiently far for the depart-

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ment to recommend or to guarantee it. They are still working on it, with a view to obtaining a chemical which will accomplish the same thing as the chemical now produced does accomplish in connection with mustard, and the hope is that they will be successful. There are cultural methods of dealing with all kinds of weeds, and they have cultural methods for dealing with these particular varieties. How successful they will be is a matter that depends upon those who. are applying the cultural methods, but the farm at Lethbridge can give those in that community the best information that can be had with regard to the. matter. Unfortunately I do not know whether the experimental farm at Lethbridge is treated by the neighbours in the same manner as some other farms I know of. It seems that those who live closest to a farm pay the least attention to it in many cases. People will drive many miles to go to a farm to look it over, to see what can be done, but those who live in proximity to that farm think it the natural thing to drive by without stopping to investigate. That is what they usually do. However, if people go and make inquiries at Lethbridge with regard to the experimental work being done there they will get the latest information available with respect to the handling of these weeds.


John Horne Blackmore: My chief concern in bringing this matter to the minister's attention is this. We may not realize how serious the situation is and for that reason we may not be giving the Lethbridge farm the amount of money which they require to conduct their experiments against these weeds and to push them to a successful conclusion. Let me indicate how serious the situation is. The leafy spurge has tap roots which often reach from ten to fifteen feet under the ground. Any man who has any agricultural experience will realize that it is impossible to reach the roots of a weed that goes so deep down. The roots run horizontally at from four to eight inches under the ground, and from these creeping roots come up new plants. Anyone knows that if these roots run eight inches under ground they are entirely below the reach of ordinary cultivation. It starts growing so early that smother crops are not effective against it. I am sure that all hon. members from Saskatchewan and Manitoba realize how serious is the threat to their own provinces if such weeds get thoroughly going in Alberta, with west winds blowing over that province.
Then consider the field bindweed. It ha? a root system which is quite extensive and which may penetrate to a depth of twenty feet. Roots of bindweed plants have been
known to spread six feet outward and five feet deep in fourteen weeks after the seed germinates. Before we saw this weed in action in my constituency we would not have believed that any such plant existed, but we know now that it does. Then there is the hoary cress. The roots have been found thirty feet deep. Mature plants send running roots out at different depths beneath the surface, some of which are far below the depth of cultivation. It is exceedingly difficult to eradicate them in slightly alkali lands. Thus it is a menace to our whole area. We have four irrigation projects in our constituency, and wherever there is irrigation there tends to be some alkali development. It is proposed in that region to have a conservation project which wild bring under water 350,000 more acres. Hon. members can see therefore how serious the situation is with weeds like these spreading into those areas. They cannot be eradicated by any method which the farmers so far have discovered.
The Russian knapweed is a perennial, propagated by seeds and by running root stalks, and it is almost impossible for the smother crops to cope with it. One of the reasons why these weeds are so difficult for the smother crops is that they start growing so early in the spring that they fill the ground completely with roots.
I think I have said enough to impress upon the committee the gravity of the problem. It is not a fly by night affair; it is a potential menace to the whole nation. I urge the committee to support the minister in expending whatever money is necessary to cope effectively with this weed problem while it is still in the infant stages. It is only scattered here and there in small patches at the present time. I am told that in some places in the United States this weed has really got a thorough hold on the ground, that in those areas the cost of eradication is as great as the total value of the land, and that it has become impossible to get loans on land infested with it. Certainly no hon. member wants to see anything like that established in Canada.


James Arthur Ross: I support what the hon. member for Lethbridge has said. We already have this weed in Manitoba. The dominion experimental farm, in cooperation with the provincial departments of agriculture, is doing good work in experimentation. In fact they have a chemical they have been using for some years which leads us to the belief that the development of the weed can be controlled. We have not experimented long enough to have direct proof, but good
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work is being done, and certainly I can substantiate everything the hon. member has said about the seriousness of leafy spurge. When I served on a municipal council we found that the cost of keeping it down and preventing its spread was greater than the original value of the land.


Heber Harold Hatfield: For a number of years at the experimental farm at Fredericton experiments have been carried on in connection with a blight-resistant potato. Have any of these potatoes been released for planting? If not, why not? I understand some good varieties have been developed.


James Garfield Gardiner: We have been experimenting with about twenty varieties, but they are not yet ready for release. This means that we are not ready to say that we are certain we have accomplished what we set out to accomplish. However, the experiments do give promise.


Mark Cecil Senn: Recently in Ontario, and I expect in other provinces as well, there has been a revival of what are known as permanent grass mixtures. Experiments are being carried on by the federal experimental farm, by provincial experimental farms and by individuals. Recently Mr. Fraleigh of Lamb-ton, a pioneer in this work, died. He did good work in the development of grass mixtures of different kinds for permanent pastures. What is being done by the central experimental farm and by other federal farms in this connection?
Mr. TOWNLEY-SMITH: Would the minister tell us the present situation in connection with Rescue wheat? This wheat was developed comparatively recently, and has proved more ar less resistant to damage from sawfly. Entomologists and plant breeders have done excellent work in originating and giving to us this new wheat. We learn with some dismay however that it will grade no better than grade 3. That is as high as it can go, owing to some weakness or lack of quality in the wheat itself. We appreciate deeply what these men have done, and we wonder if the minister could tell us why the wheat cannot be developed to a better grade. So far as I can learn, it is saving the western provinces from $15 million to $20 million a year, which they previously suffered from sawfly damage. We should be glad to know more about this wheat.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: We have in the Thunder Bay district an experimental substation second to none. It is developing rapidly, and is helping development in the community. People who pass cannot help stopping to see what is taking place. They are carrying on experiments
[Mr. J. A. Ross.}
in connection with fruits, vegetables, grains, grasses and pasture lands. The exhibition of spraying and killing weeds put on last fall at our field day surely told its own story to those who saw it. At that substation we have an expert equal in ability to the one referred to a few moments ago. He does his own work, and assists in connection with farm improvement throughout the community. He is also giving direction to young men returning from the war. The latest event was when two of those young men, one of whom had been a pilot, purchased two farms and have shown that they can get along well on them.
Last year I referred to our potatoes with a yield of 500 bushels to the acre, and on that occasion the hon. member for Haldimand was able to tell me the average yield. I am sure, however, he cannot equal the yield of one farmer who entered the competition and who, without question, raised 619 bushels to the acre. Some of the farmers in the house who think they know how to grow potatoes will be glad to seek the advice from this expert.


James Garfield Gardiner: May I speak first about the mixed grasses for pasture purposes. As the hon. member for Haldimand knows, the mixtures are not the same in all communities. We are carrying on experimental work, based on the work formerly done by Mr. Fraleigh. That work is being carried on successfully at different experimental farms across the country.
Western members will know that sawfly did not do a great deal of damage for some years in western Canada. Gradually the damage has increased to the point where in some areas it is almost impossible to grow wheat. One might say that that has been the history of growing wheat. Wheat growing, as I recall its history in this country, started down on the little island at the mouth of the St. Croix river. They could grow whealt there, and the growing of it extended across Canada. I can remember that when I was a boy on a farm in Ontario the only kind of spring wheat grown there was Goose wheat. My grandfather and my father used to tell me that they grew nothing but spring wheat when they went there first. There came a time when they could not grow it, because of certain things that had happened in connection with the growing of it. Wheat growing on this continent has moved gradually westward and northward. Wheat, like another plant we mentioned a few minutes ago, is subject to certain diseases and insect attacks. If the growing of it is overdone, if we crop wheat year after year with very little rotation, we

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eventually build up the pests which attack the plant. If this is continued, we may be driven out of wheat in some areas.
Without the experimental work that has been done in connection with rust, probably by this time we would have been almost out of wheat production on the prairies. Our crops were wiped out so many years in succession that we simply had to stop trying to grow wheat at all. Had it not been for the finding of rust-resistant varieties, our corps would have been greatly reduced. We find that when wheat such as Thatcher is grown continuously in one area, the rust-resistant qualities decrease. We thought it was one hundred per cent rust-resistant over great areas when we began growing it, but I think to-day it is rated at about sixty-five per cent. It is just possible that, by being grown over and over again, varieties may get back to a position where they are not resistant to some attacks. Therefore the experimental farms keep working at their job all the time, and continue to develop new varieties which will resist different kinds of rust.
The sawfly is another thing which is being dealt with. This is the insect that cuts off your wheat, and by the time you are ready to harvest it, it has harvested it for you and there is nothing you can do about it. The department has been working on the production of a sawfly resistant wheat and has produced one variety which is able to resist the sawfly fairly successfully. This has been distributed earlier than it otherwise would have been because of the great damage that has been done by the sawfly. It is not a variety which will stand up against grading to produce the top grades. I am not in position to indicate all that it lacks, but baking and other tests which have been made show that it is not capable of being placed in the top grades, and it would not be fair to the consuming public to have it placed in those grades. It must be graded down because it does not produce the results that the higher grades of wheat will produce. This does not mean that we cannot get a wheat which will be sawfly resistant as well as being a top grade variety. The work being done is in an effort to obtain wheat which will be sawfly resistant and rust resistant, give a good yield and grade good quality all the time. When such a wheat is obtained it will be classified along with the others. In the meantime we are carrying on with the investigation and experimentation.


Mr. McKAY:: Are there any means by which the public could obtain the reports submitted to the parent units by the substations?	*


James Garfield Gardiner: Substation reports are furnished annually. When anything of value is accomplished or discovered as a result of work carried on at a substation, it is carefully compiled and every five years a publication is put out containing all the information regarding that work. While I have not anything before me at the moment which would substantiate this, I imagine that if anything of outstanding importance were discovered as a result of experiments carried on at a substation, it would be given publicity immediately.


Eric Bowness McKay: Has that been the practice in the past?


James Garfield Gardiner: The practice in the past has been to compile it as it comes along and publish it every five years.


Mr. MacNICOL:: As a city representative I rise mainly to make a few observations about the experimental farms, a number of which I have visited. I have come to the conclusion that every dollar that this house can vote for experimental farms should be voted in order that the benefit of the work carried on there may be extended, not only to the particular communities but to Canada as a whole. This is one of the best branches of the whole department, and in this connection I should like to say a word or two about four of the experimental farms that I have seen in the last two or three years.
The Indian Head farm is carrying on a wonderful work in the production of shade and other trees for distribution throughout the west. The head of that farm gave me the figures of this distribution, but I have forgotten them. If they were put on Hansard I am sure they would be found to be quite formidable.
I should like to refer to the work being carried on at the Swift Current farm in the development of new machinery. One man there who apparently has a mechanical turn of mind showed me many machines which had been developed at that station and which had demonstrated great value.


James Garfield Gardiner: That would be Mr. Denike.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I understand that the large agricultural machinery companies in Brantford, Toronto and Hamilton have sent men out there to investigate the possibilities of many of these new machines, and then have proceeded to manufacture the equipment. The department should have credit for this work.
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Splendid work is being carried on at the Lethbridge farm, particularly in connection with the irrigation of areas such as those in the constituency of the hon. member for Lethbridge. While the hon. member for Peace River does not represent a similar area, he has considerable knowledge of irrigation. I was glad to hear from the hon. member for Lethbridge that this experimental farm is developing a method to overcome the increase of weeds.
The last farm to which I would refer and about which I should like to have the minister say a word or two is the one at Beaver Lodge, which was organized under the supervision of Mr. Albright. I did not meet Mr. Albright when .1 was there, but I did learn that they had developed a type of apple tree which would grow in that part of the country -I was going to say, in that northern climate, but it is not really so far north. I have learned from the hon. member for Peace River that apple trees are being grown on the north side of that river, notably by Mr. Early, who, I believe, obtained his tree stock from the Beaver Lodge farm. I should like to have the minister tell us something about the development of apple trees at this farm and, if the figures are available, something about the distribution of trees by the Indian Head farm.


James Garfield Gardiner: The distribution of
trees by Indian Head has been going on for many years. There are two forestry farms in Saskatchewan, one at Indian Head and one at Sutherland, near Saskatoon. I have not separate figures for the two farms, but we did distribute from six to ten million trees from the two farms. These trees have been distributed free of cost but they must be planted under regulations set by the farms. The farmers who got those trees have taken great care to follow the instructions. I happen to have a farm where the tree planting was done by the farmer who had the farm before I had it; I bought the farm with this work already done. The former owner had no special knowledge about growing trees but he took instructions from Indian Head and planted the trees as they told him to plant them. The trees now make a very fine windbreak around the buildings. Many of them have been there since near the beginning of the century. Trees have been distributed from that time on, and earlier than that, now all over the western country. The nurseries themselves have brought up the question occasionally and have insisted that the -work be carried on. One might think that the nurseries might object to it, but when the matter was fully dis-

cussed they have always agreed that this distribution of trees induced so many people to want to have shrubs and trees around that it helped the business of the nurseries, because once people had learned to grow a certain type of tree, it led to them purchasing other kinds.
The work carried on in the west with regard to apples started at Morden, which is the centre from which it all radiates. When I first went west in 1901 I was living sixty miles from Morden. Everyone talked about the place. When you went by Morden on the train you would always see a case of apples on the station platform during the apple harvest season. They were a very nice appearing variety of apple, and most people got off the train to look at them. The idea of growing apples in the west has spread from there all across the prairies.
On the map, Beaver Lodge seems to be quite a distance north of Morden, but when I first went up into the area represented by the hon. member for Peace River I was astounded to find them growing there the type of grass crops grown in Ontario. They actually were seeding timothy and clover, which we did not seed in Saskatchewan or in southern Manitoba. If one is familiar with the growth around Morden and then goes up to Beaver Lodge and takes a look at the growth there, one finds much the same crops growing there as at Morden. In other words, the climate of the western country runs along a line which >
parallels the Rocky mountains almost all the way across the prairies. If you draw one line down the height of the mountains and then go fifty miles inland and draw another line paralleling the first, generally speaking the climate follows that line. But there is this variation; the height of the mountains in the north is lower than to the south and the warmer winds get farther in from the Pacific. This warmer climate brings about a growth in the north to the west such as you find in Ontario. Eor that reason the plants first developed at Morden have been transplanted to Beaver Lodge farm. It was first operated by the late Mr. Albright himself on his own farm before we took it over. He had an illustration station and worked on it and developed it himself with the assistance and help of the officials who would call in to advise and help him. Throughout his life he did a great work for agriculture in that area. The farm is now operated by the department; the trees have been transplanted from Morden to Beaver Lodge and sent out to illustration stations over the whole area, and many people are now growing fruit trees, particularly apple' trees, in that area.

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That, generally speaking, is the work that is being done. I think the hon. member for Melfort will agree that much the same conditions obtain in the northern part of his constituency. There are men there who have made a real effort to grow fruit, apples, plums and cherries, and you would be surprised at the results they have achieved. Their orchard is the first thing they take you to see, whether they are growing wheat or raising hogs, of which my hon. friend speaks so often in the house. They are very proud of their orchards, and proud of the results they are getting.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Would the minister say a word about machinery?


James Garfield Gardiner: I had intended to do so. I am quite sure that if the farmers of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta would write to the experimental farm at Stvift Current before they bought farm implements, they would save far more money than they would lose by the 12^ per cent increase in the price of implements. There are many implements purchased in western Canada which the farmer is better off without. An agent persuades him to buy some implement on which very little experimental work has been done. The farmer buys it and uses it one season and then throws it into a fence corner, if he has a fence. That expense could be saved if they would only write to the experimental station when they think of buying any new implement. I have always worked on the principle myself on my own farm that as long as an implement is doing a job all right I do not buy another kind of implement. I was out at the experimental farm at Swift Current two or three years ago and I took a walk down along the end of the plots where they are experimenting with different kinds of equipment. They had all the newest equipment that is put out-combine seeders, combine harvesters, and the rest. But what I was most interested in was the plots which deihonstrated that you got the best results with the old-fashioned plough and the old-fashioned harrow and cultivator and the old-fashioned seed drill. I looked at the plots as I walked along the end, and I saw that it was these old-fashioned implements which produced the best results, I went home quite satisfied that I had not bought many of these new-fangled implements which are put out to save a great deal of money and do so many things for us.
On a number of occasions I have discussed with the director, as he will remember, the advisablity of our putting out publications
saying what we think. There is some danger in that too. We find that when we put out statements saying what we think, the farmers sometimes do just the opposite-even if it has to do with summer-fallowing. You get the best results when the farmers go to the experimental farm and see the results for themselves. Some take advice a little more readily because they feel they had something to do with discovering the truth of it. But if you try to drive them into doing a thing, not only do you meet with opposition from the man who has bought one of these new implements and thinks it is doing a good job, but there are also the implement companies who can send out more agents to tell the opposite story to the one we can tell with the money that is voted to us. So we hesitate to start any controversy. I say again that if every farmer will go to these experimental farms and look at the experiments which are being carried on, he will be able to judge for himself and save himself a great deal of money on his farm.


Mr. FAIR:: We have to have a certain kind of implement suited to a certain kind of soil. Using the old implements on certain kinds of soil did not succeed very well in western Canada. Try using a disc and harrow on sandy soil, and you will get into plenty of trouble. Many farmers in the west had to discard those implements and use some of the new-fangled ones. The tiller to use in spring time brings the best results in my part of the country. You have to pick certain implements to suit your type of soil, in just the same way that you choose certain varieties of wheat and other grains to suit the soil and locality in which you are farming.


Percy Ellis Wright: The minister touched on
an important point just now when he said that probably the best way to spread this information is by people going and seeing for themselves. Before the war, experimental farms held field days to which they invited groups from different parts of the country adjacent to the locations of the farms, to go to the farms and see what was being done there. Now that the war is over and cars and gas are available, these field days should be reinstituted as soon as possible. Business organizations, farm organizations, in fact any organization within fifty miles or so of experimental farms should be invited to spend a day at these farms where the work which is being done may be observed at first hand. It is valuable work, work which will save the farmers a lot of money if they will see and observe it, and if they personally see it
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they are more likely to follow what is being done than by reading about it in a pamphlet or a paper. So I recommend that the experimental farms revive the field days which they had in the past.
One question: is anything being done at Melfort experimental farm in the way of experimentation with permanent grass mixtures for pasture? I am sure that in that northern area-and I speak after some twenty-five years of observation-we must have rotation of crops if we are to maintain our soil fertility, and I suggest that if the experimental farm is not doing something along that line the work should be started at once.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, that experimental work is being carried on at the Melfort farm, particularly with grasses which may be used to prevent erosion.
With regard to the other question, we are organizing this year over three hundred field days. During the war, because of regulations against the use of tires, shortage of gas, and that sort of thing, the organization of these field days was dropped, or discouraged for the time being. They are now being encouraged again, and we hope to get back pretty well to the same level in this respect as we did prior to the war.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: I am looking for a little information. Recently I had a conversation with one of the old country millers, and the story he told me caused me a good deal of worry. He said that the old country small bakers are pretty well passing out of the picture, and that the large mills are building huge bakeries to produce bread on a mass production basis. His claim was that our western wheat, while the very best for the -small baker, rises too fast and is a little too hard to control in these modern bakeries, and they are now asking Canada to produce wheat which is not as fast, wheat which has more gluten and less protein. Has the minister any information on that?


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not know whether it is the same miller or not, but a miller of the Scottish Cooperative was in this country during last winter. I had discussed the matter with him in Glasgow in January, before he came to Canada, and I also discussed it with him later here in Ottawa. The idea which has been mentioned by the hon. member is much as he stated it to me, and I assume that what he says is correct, because he is one of the leading millers of Great Britain. Throughout the years the Scottish Cooperative has used a larger percentage of our wheat in their milling than any other mills in Great

Britain. As a matter of fact, prior to the world war they were using 100 per cent of our wheat in all their best bread. They used other wheats for other purposes, but for bread-making flours they used 100 per cent of our wheat. They were doing that in 1936 when I was over there, and other mills at that time in England were using 30 to 40 per cent. When a miller of that kind, a man who has been associated with a milling organization which prefers to use all our wheat, and advocates doing so even now, calls our attention to the fact that a change is probably taking place in methods of baking in Britain which will require a little different type of wheat, I think we should pay some attention to it, and I am quite sure that the officials of the department will be paying attention to it.


John Horne Blackmore: What information has the department regarding the progress of studies of bacterial wilt in alfalfa? My information is that so rapidly has this pest progressed in the alfalfa fields in my area that numbers of fields are almost completely out of production. I am told that the Lethbridge experimental farm is devoting a good deal of attention to this problem and that if it is not making all the progress which is desired this is probably because it is not receiving enough financial support. Could the minister tell the committee what is being done at the Lethbridge experimental farm to meet this condition, who are the men who are particularly working on the investigation of bacterial wilt in alfalfa, and whether he feels they are adequately paid and equipped?


James Garfield Gardiner: The men who are investigating bacterial wilt in alfalfa are really engaged in a branch that we have just passed, that is the science branch. The work which is being done on experimental farms is associated with trying to evade the results by selecting seed carefully and then by not planting on the same ground too soon after the wilt has appeared there in any year.. In other words, it is being done through rotation of crop and seed selection in so far as the farmers are concerned, and I am informed that in so far as it is necessary to do that work in connection with experimental farms the men are there and the money is available too.
I might say that in a number of these matters hon. members have raised questions about, we have no difficulty in getting the funds which we have in these estimates for those particular purposes. The question which arises each time we come along is, "Well, how much can you efficiently spend during the

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year on that particular work?" That depends upon the help we can get, just as often as it depends upon the money w>e can get. That, again, comes back to the question we were discussing here earlier. You would probably say in answer to that that if we pay enough salary we will-get the men. Maybe we would. I would not be too sure about that. At the moment our main difficulty with all these matters is getting a type of technical staff which can deal with the problems that are there, and as far as we are able to get the men to put on the work we have been able to get the funds to deal with it.


John Horne Blackmore: May I say, in addition to what the minister has said, that while this problem of bacterial wdlt in alfalfa does not of course assume anything like the proportions of the problem I raised a few moments ago with regard to those four kinds of weeds, nevertheless this problem is a serious one in that area, because alfalfa is commonly raised at present as one of the series of crop rotation plants which are used in connection with sugar beet culture. Therefore everything that can possibly be done to discover an effective way of controlling bacterial wilt should be done as soon as possible. I am told that one of the projects they are following is to develop a new type. I understand that Grimm alfalfa is the type commonly used iin the area, but that it is believed by certain alfalfa scientists that an entirely new kind should be developed in a manner similar to that in which have been developed new kinds of wheat, namely, rust-resistant and sawfly resistant wheat.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Experimental farms service-
15. Branch farms and stations and illustration stations, $1,960,886.
Mr. ZAPLITNY:: I understand that the
only stations being operated in Manitoba are at Winnipeg, Mord;en and Brandon. If that is so, would the minister consider the possibility of establishing one farther north in the province. A little while ago the minister said that wheat growing had gradually moved westward and northward in the prairie provinces. That is true of Manitoba as it is of the other provinces. In the northwestern part of Manitoba where my constituency is situated there is good farming country, but there is no experimental or illustration station at Dauphin, which is a good farming centre. I should like to bring to the attention of the minister the possibilities that we have there. Last year the question of the disposition of the airports at Dauphin came up. The No. 7 bombing and gunnery school is located in a
good place for a farming station. It is close to the river and contains fairly good farming soil. The buildings, equipment and facilities there are as good as will be found anywhere. Has the minister or any of his officials given consideration to the possibilities of taking over this No. 7 airport, which I understand has been declared surplus, and establishing an illustration station there? It is a project that would meet with wide approval in the area.


James Garfield Gardiner: There are the three
larger 'experimental activities at Morden, Winnipeg and Brandon. Then there is quite a large sub-station at Melita. We have six other smaller sub-stations and seven illustration stations. Most of the seven illustration stations are in the northern part of Manitoba. There has been some discussion of the possibility of utilizing the airfield at Dauphin. I cannot say that the discussion has gone far enough for one to be warranted, in suggesting that consideration is being given to purchasing it and using it for the purpose. The question as to whether that should be done has been brought to my attention through eorrespondr-ence and I have brought it to the attention of the directorate. Beyond that it has not been considered up to the moment. I will agree that Dauphin is 'a fine agricultural area, and there are reasons for doing work in that district.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I should like to
direct a question to the minister in connection with illustration stations. As the minister knows, my riding grows possibly fifty per cent of the strawberries and raspberries produced in Canada. I had a letter to-day from the largest, organization of berry growers in Canada complaining about the illustration station that we have in British Columbia in connection with small fruits. As I understand it, the man who has been in charge of it has been away for three weeks. This is the season when berries are coming on. I understand that he is to be away for three months. I took this matter up with the minister before. I have every confidence in the experimental farm at Agassiz which has been in operation for over sixty years. I presume it is the best one since it is in the Fraser valley. The only attention given to small fruits is that which is given in the small illustration stations and I do not think much attention is. given to small fruits in it at the present time.
The berry growers in the Fraser valley are endeavouring to make arrangements with the provincial department of agriculture to establish an illustration station, although it is a
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James Garfield Gardiner: The layout in British Columbia is that most of the work which is done by us in relation to fruit is done at Summerland which, of course, is not in the Fraser valley. In the valley itself we have the Agassiz farm which is one of the oldest farms in the dominion and which was established in the first instance, as many others were, to promote the production of live stock and grains of one kind or another. We have a station at Mission which is given up to horticultural work. The suggested station in the lower part of the valley is one to deal largely with potatoes. There is a station up in the north near Prince Rupert and one on the island, which the hon. member for Nanaimo knows a great deal about. It is, as he knows, almost entirely horticultural. We do a considerable amount of work there in connection with diseases in bulbs. The suggestion that we should have two other substations to deal with raspberries, strawberries and fruits of that kind is perhaps a good one and we will give consideration to the representations made. It would be necessary to discuss the whole matter carefully, and have those substations so placed, if we were to establish them, that they would serve the greatest number of people in that area. There is also the one at Kamloops.


Mr. IRVINE:: I wish to remind the minister of a matter I had an opportunity of mentioning briefly some time ago along the same line. In the Lillooet valley they are beginning to grow fruit and vegetables, but they have difficulty getting in touch with the experimental station, which I believe is down in the southern part, in Summerland, I think, which carries out experiments in fruit growing, the raising of vegetables and the like. The climatic conditions and the soil are both different in the Lillooet valley from those that obtain in the section where the experimental station is. It is true there is a visiting director-I do not know what his title is-who occasionally calls there and no doubt renders good service. The people in that section have recently begun to engage in the production of fruit to a greater degree than heretofore. The growth of fruit has been stimulated by the building of a canning factory there, and the people are anxious to obtain information which will enable them to Ho the very best possible. The board of trade has interested itself in the matter and is asking that a man of experience be stationed there, if possible. They are not asking for an experimental farm, but they would like to have an illustration station where information can be given and experiments carried ou t in the growth of fruit and vegetables in that section. I hope

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that when the minister is considering the question raised by the hon. member for Fraser Valley he will keep Lillooet in mind, because I believe there are possibilities in that district.


Mr. LOW:: May I say just a word about Beaver Lodge? During the war the work there was limited owing to the difficulty of getting help. I understand that their activities have been confined to maintenance, seed distribution and some advisory work. I should like, if possible, to get from the minister figures indicating the actual expenditure last year and the proposed expenditure for the coming year so that I may have some idea as to whether or not it is proposed to bring the staff up to strength and to restore activities at the station to the pre-war level. While the minister is getting those figures, I may make this observation. Horticultural work at Beaver Lodge station has been important and fruitful-I do not intend that as a pun-and it should be continued, but it requires assistance and money to do the work. That area is one where small fruits and even apples could be grown to advantage. It has all the advantages of some of the areas in Ontario and I should like to see sufficient money provided for proper work there.


James Garfield Gardiner: The farm at Beaver Lodge did belong to Mr. Albright until 1939 when we took it over. The war came along in the fall of that year. Some of the staff we had engaged prior to that time were younger men and they went into the service and have been away. They are almost all coming back, and that staff is now being reestablished so that the work will be carried on on the same level as we had contemplated before. A great deal of it is experimental work.


Solon Earl Low: Can the minister give me the figures with regard to expenditures?


James Garfield Gardiner: The amount spent last year was $23,000 and the appropriation this year is $30,000.


William Irvine: The minister was interrupted before he could give me some information about the station at Lillooet. I would like him to have an opportunity to give me some assurance about that.


James Garfield Gardiner: I was remarking to the director here, as the hon. gentleman was speaking, that the last time I was in Lillooet I thought they had one of the finest experimental stations I had seen anywhere operated by an individual. I have forgotten his name; I believe it was MacMillan or some such name. He had lived in the area when it was something of a mining district and had made money, and he had come back and was developing a
plot which in the old days produced all the wheat consumed in that area. In the days when the gold rush was on they had their own wheat crops produced through irrigation, and their own mill, which milled the wheat so that they were enabled to provide themselves with the necessities. It was all done with the water from the placer mining. The water that was used to wash the gold, after the washing was used for irrigation.
When I was there a few years ago part of this land was operated under a system of irrigation that had been installed, and some of the finest work was being done in the production of melons, vegetables of different kinds and smaller fruits. It was some of the finest work I have seen carried on by an individual, and I hope it is still going on. I do not know whether we could do any more in there directly than to take advantage of the effort that is being put forward by individuals to select one of them and give him some encouragement, much in the same way as in connection with illustration stations on different farms throughout the country. It might be worth while considering the renting of a few acres from an individual and seeing that he gets returns which will make experimental work possible. There are great opportunities for something of that kind.


Mr. STIRLING:: I listened with considerable interest to the minister's remarks with regard to apple growing in the prairies under the previous vote, and I believe those remarks would have been more pertinent to this item. About twenty-five or perhaps twenty years ago I had several times seen the progress being made with these apple trees grown in the shelter belts at Brooks. There were also some trees at a place to the east of Brooks, the name of which I do not remember. The minister now speaks of their now being far more widely grown than they were at that time. Have they attained commercial production at any point?


James Garfield Gardiner: I think I could answer that by saying no. I doubt very much if they have, although I was astonished the last time I was at Morden to see the production of crabapples, for example. I doubt very much if one could get [DOT] a better yield of crabapples anywhere than they have there. Some of the other varieties give very fine yields.
But the difficulties in connection with growing fruit trees on the prairies-or indeed any kind of trees-are so great that I doubt very much if it could be made a commercial venture. This is something which adds to
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the variety of farm life. People who enjoy that sort of thing take great pleasure out of growing these trees, and from producing fruits and eating their own production. However, it would never become an industry in competition with the Okanagan valley.
Mr. TOWNLEY-SMITH:	Since hon.
members from British Columbia started this epidemic of asking for experimental farms, for the purpose of testing out fruits, I would ask the same for Saskatchewan. While it is true that the experimental farms already established in that province are testing out a certain number of trees, that work is only incidental to their general work. I feel the principal reason so much fruit is now being grown in Saskatchewan is that hardy and early varieties have been discovered. I believe there is room for a great deal of experimental work in connection with trees which ought to be grown in that province.
Therefore I repeat my suggestion to the minister that if arrangements could be made for an experimental farm in the northern part of Saskatchewan on which tests could be made of fruit trees, including apple, orabapple, plum, apricot and small bush fruits, a great deal of valuable work could be done, especially if the station went to the extent of distributing them. Skilled horticulturists couldi be put on the farm. They could do the budding and grafting on hardy stocks and roots, thereby making it possible for the farmers in the province to secure these trees either free of cost or at a very low cost. If this were done, I believe we would see a tremendous improvement in farming conditions and home life, because it is extraordinary when one sees how fruits in a garden or an orchard improve the pleasure of living on Saskatchewan farms.


James Garfield Gardiner: The experimental work done at Morden is utilized by the farmers throughout Saskatchewan. I think it is correct to say that there is very little difficulty in areas from the Qu'Appelle valley north, and down the east side of the province, in growing some fruits. If one is attempting to grow fruit.for the purpose of utilizing it I believe he would be well advised to grow raspberries, gooseberries, currants, and things of that kind, because they can be grown easily. In fact, they grow wild in those areas. Under cultivation they produce in abundance. My experience has been that I produce enough in my own garden, and with veay little labour, to supply my own, requirements and those of my immediate neighbours.

I was surprised by the growth of raspberries. From what I had read my thought had always been that there was some difficulty in .growing raspberries in a garden. However, my great difficulty has been to keep them from covering the whole garden, and taking up the whole room. They produce abundantly, and I have sometimes wondered why more farmers do not grow them.
What has been said by the hon. member for North Battleford is true. One does get a great deal of pleasure from going out into the garden and picking fresh fruits for use. There is no difficulty in growing berries in that area, but most of us do not take the trouble to grow them.


John Alpheus Charlton: I notice an increase of $2,800 in expenditures on telephones, telegrams and postage for branch farms. This would seem a substantial increase. What is it for?


James Garfield Gardiner: It covers thirty-two
stations. The amount last year was $8,965, and the expectation is that we shall be doing more this year, requiring a greater amount. It is not too high when one considers the number of stations involved.


Mr. JAENICKE:: Is it the intention of the government to extend the experimental farms service? The minister will probably remember that last winter he received a brief from one part of my constituency asking for the establishment of an experimental station in the heavy wheat land district around Eston and Snipe Lake. I have, of course, the minister's reply. Bt since other hon. members have asked for experimental stations in their constituencies I would ask the minister to give a statement as to whether it is to be the government's policy to extend that service.
It is a good service and one which should be greatly extended, so that the farmers can see for themselves the developments which take place. At present the farms are too far apart, so that only the farmers in the immediate vicinity can take advantage of the wonderful developments made at those stations. In the future money should be appropriated to extend this service and to establish more experimental stations throughout the country, not only in the west, but in the east.


James Garfield Gardiner: The experimental farms have been established in locations which are supposed to take care of activities in a broad way. We do work in connection with cereals in some places, fruits in another and probably livestock in another. When we go out to deal with soil conditions we establish substations or illustration stations. These we do extend in

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number. We are now investigating the possibility of establishing one at Eston, or in that area. The plan that we follow wherever it becomes necessary to test out the possibilities of certain soil areas is to put in either a substation or an illustration station to do whatever work is thought necessary. When we feel we have accomplished all that can be accomplished in a particular area we close up the station and move on somewhere else. Our desire is to extend this plan as far as the money that is voted will permit. Of course we are limited by the amount of money which is allotted.


John Horne Blackmore: May I on behalf of my constituency express the appreciation of our people for the Lethbridge experimental farm. The minister has indicated that in some instances the people who live around an experimental farm do not appreciate its efforts, but that is not the case with respect to the Lethbridge farm. This farm has taken a leading position for many years in the advancement of agriculture. One important problem with which it had to deal was that of soil drifting, and the device of strip farming, with which the minister is familiar, was developed and introduced by the Lethbridge experimental farm. That has proved to be of great value to the district.
Ever since I can remember, this farm has been under capable management, and it still is. I think it is only fair to the earnest civil servants who have devoted their lives so unselfishly to the welfare of the people that something should be said about their efforts and I take this opportunity of expressing our appreciation.
I urge that this experimental farm be given more and more support as the days go by. As I stated in my previous remarks, this farm is located in an area which offers many problems. It must be prepared to deal with problems arising from the great irrigation projects. There are two sugar beet factories and three outstanding canning factories located in the district. It must deal with such problems as coordinating the activities of the man who raises cattle in what is known as the short-grass cattle country with the activities of the feeders in the beet growing areas and those of the stock raisers up on the Milk river ridge. Men there are raising stock under entirely different conditions from those faced in other parts of the country.
The officials of the Lethbridge experimental farm have never needed to be told about any particular problem; my experience has been that they are always ready to reach out and take a lead.
There are some problems that will still require a good deal of investigation. One is the clutivation of sugar beets. As the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Agriculture both know, it is becoming increasinglj7 difficult to get men to work in the sugar beet areas. Machinery will have to be developed to do this work, and the Lethbridge experimental farm is taking a lead in this connection. I shall not go into detail, but they are developing machinery to handle such operations as loading, planting and cultivating. These machines have been carefully tested and developed and information given out to the farmers, and the farmers have received this gratefully. The Lethbridge experimental farm has cooperated in every way with the officials of the sugar beet factories in the development of this machinery.
There is another problem that exists in the southern part of my riding. It has been found quite feasible to raise certain small fruits and the Lethbridge farm has taken the lead in this connection. They have taken different strains of small fruits and have sought to develop strains that would be suitable for the area.
I have no wish to multiply words by going into too many details, but I want to close by saying that the work of this farm has been deeply appreciated. I commend the minister for the manner in which he has supported this farm. If he will increase the amount of money for this purpose he will have our support.


Mr. BENTLEY:: I agree with what the hon. member for Lethbridge has said, only I would apply his remarks to the Swift Current experimental farm with which I am more familiar. If every department of government could show the energy and initiative displayed by the staffs of the experimental farms, we would be very well served. This farm has developed a wonderful spirit of cooperation among the farmers of the area. I was sorry I was not in the chamber when the minister dealt with Rescue wheat, but suffice it to say that this wheat has proved to be an extremely important factor in the country between the constituency of the hon. member for Lethbridge and my own.
Like the hon. member for Lethbridge I should like to mention the neeed for expanding and developing new branches of work in this particular field. When we come to deal with prairie farm assistance we may find it more appropriate to bring up some of these matters, but I should like to refer to soil surveys which I understand would come under this item. I believe the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Veterans Affairs, and also
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the provincial people, would find it beneficial if there were, an extension in the soil-testing facilities so that there could be a speeding up for the benefit of veteran settlers. Quite a few people have not been able to get settled this year, and if this service was speeded up it would prove of great benefit to our soldier settlers.


Solon Earl Low: I have learned that the founder of the Beaver Lodge station, Mr. Albright, died just recently, and I should like to have on the record my expression of appreciation of the work that he did in founding and developing that station. He will be remembered particularly for the splendid work he did in horticultural fields as well as for other advisory work he carried on. I understand that in recognition of his great services a scholarship fund has been set up to perpetuate his name.


Eric Bowness McKay: Would the minister care to indicate the nature of this prairie farm reclamation work?


James Garfield Gardiner: Prairie farm rehabilitation work does not come under this item but under item 31. This is work which was done during war time at the experimental farms with funds supplied out of the P.F.R.A. vote. I should explain that a considerable amount has been transferred from the P.F.RA. vote back into this department; all told it amounts to $400,000 odd. Most of it is in this vote, which results in a direct increase in the P.F.R.A. vote. The old vote was $2,000,000, and the new one is $3,000,000. In. addition to the vote being increased by $1,000,000, there is $400,000 odd which was charged up to cultural work before and which is back now under this experimental farms vote.


Eric Bowness McKay: I presume this vote has to do with the draining of swamps. Is that included?


James Garfield Gardiner: No; this is cultural work, the sowing of grasses to prevent the blowing of soil and so forth.


Eric Bowness McKay: There are stations in southern Saskatchewan doing that work and that is why I wanted a report on the substation in that area. Has this vote anything to do with that work?


James Garfield Gardiner: This vote has to do with cultural work, for which $27,000 is asked; district experimental farm, horticultural substations and reclamation surveys, $152,000; grass investigations and coverage and rain surveys, $45,000; tree planting, $45,000; soil research and soil surveys of water erosion,

SSI .000; agricultural improvement associations and soil-drifting control, $56,000; cultural work on irrigation projects, $31,000; live stock surveys and sheep development, $12,000.


Solon Earl Low: I would ask the minister if some studies are being carried forward in the Peace River area, particularly of those lighter soils which were cleared years ago and which through continual cropping have since become subject to erosion, water and wind and other forms of erosion. If these studies are being carried forward now, is the department receiving proper cooperation from the provincial department? We find that erosion is becoming a serious problem in certain areas of the Peace River country.


James Garfield Gardiner: We have started some work at Beaver Lodge and two smaller stations we have up there. The work will be carried on and money will be spent there out of this vote for that purpose. As has been suggested, there are certain types of land that are subject to erosion. From what I remember of Beaver Lodge farm, one part is located on the higher land and the other part is down in the flats. Both types of land were secured so that we could experiment with both.


Solon Earl Low: Are you getting good cooperation from the provincial officials in carrying forward this work?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: I understand from the explanation given by the minister of this vote, which is a large vote of almost half a million dollars, that it is exclusively for expenditure on the prairies. I would ask the minister if there is any comparable vote applicable to eastern Canada and the maritime provinces. I should like confirmation from the minister that this vote is exclusively for expenditure in the prairies and the west.


James Garfield Gardiner: There is considerable experimental work being done in connection with erosion at the four experimental farms in the maritimes, but there is no definite sum for the east such as is set out here for doing work in a fairly large way. I am sure that the hon. member has seen the work that is being done by the farm near his home, which has been very successful in giving information to the people in that area, but probably not as much will be done as under this vote.


Percy Chapman Black: Yes, I understand that, but that work comes under the regular vote for the experimental farms in

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the east and in the west. However, the item before us is a special appropriation of $451,340 applicable to special work on the prairies, and I was asking if there was any analogous appropriation for work of this kind or along this line for eastern Canada?


James Garfield Gardiner: Of course the main problem in that area is the dykeland problem, which in a sense is somewhat similar to this. I can discuss the present position in relation to that problem more effectively under the prairie farm rehabilitation vote. I had hopes up until very recently of being able to report to the house that we were hoping to have something done in connection with this problem but I am not so hopeful now. I shall be glad to discuss that when we come to the prairie farm rehabilitation vote.
The particular vote before us is of this size largely because it was work carried on under P.F.R.A. We spent some $400,000 in doing that work, but it had to be done by the staffs of the experimental farm. There was no other way of having it done successfully without building up a second organization which would have overlapped the farm organization itself, so that we decided that it would be best to put this vote in here where the staffs that were utilized partly to carry out the ordinary work associated with the experimental farm vote would be all in the one item. It is work that will have to be carried on separate from irrigation work, which is more properly carried on under P.F.R.A., and everything else associated with water conservation. We have separated the two and put the one in here. If there is to be an act for western Canada similar to the one providing for prairie farm rehabilitation I think we should give consideration to one providing for matters like erosion and that kind of thing for eastern Canada. But I would rather discuss that when we come to the item, because there are some points which I should like to make known to the committee which would give us a better idea of how to proceed.


Percy Chapman Black: I approve the suggestion of the minister, but I would point out that last year there was a vote of $2,000,000 for prairie farm rehabilitation applicable exclusively to the west, and this year there is a vote of $3,000,000, plus $451,340, or a total of $3,451,340 applicable exclusively to the west, subject to any explanation the minister may give us later when dealing with the larger vote. But there is no comparable appropriation to assist agriculture in eastern Canada in any form or for the reclamation of the marshlands. I shall not discuss this further
now but wait until the minister is able to give us detailed information on the further vote.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Production service-
17. Production service administration, $38,865.
Heber Harold Hatfield: I wish to ask if anything is to be done as regards the production of corn and sugar beets in Canada. I understand that we are now importing corn from South America and the United States, and sugar from the West Indies, and that there are large subsidies on these imports. I should like to know why the government does not pass the bonus on to our own farmers and have this corn and sugar beet grown in Canada.


James Garfield Gardiner: The Canadian variety of hybrid developed at Harrow was, of course, developed through the experimental farm branch, who are not doing any considerable amount of experimental work in connection with sugar beets. Any work, or the greater part of it, which has been done in connection with sugar beets has been done in the provinces. We have not been promoting sugar beet production to the same extent as the provinces have.


Heber Harold Hatfield: Why have we not?


William Scottie Bryce: I want to ask the minister if these veterinary surgeons that are referred to on pages 88 and 89 of the main estimates are what we call hog graders.


James Garfield Gardiner: Which item is the hon. member speaking of?


William Scottie Bryce: They are referred to on page 89. The department is going to employ 143 more for the coming year.


James Garfield Gardiner: We have not reached that item. Item 17 deals only with production service administration. If the hon. member will refer to the matter when we reach it I shall have all the necessary information.


William Scottie Bryce: What item does it come under?


James Garfield Gardiner: I take it that it would come under item 18, health of animals.


William Scottie Bryce: If you go to item 18 you go past it.


James Garfield Gardiner: Wait till I understand what the hon. member is talking about. Which part of the vote is it?


William Scottie Bryce: I am asking where the hog graders come in.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hog graders come in under marketing service.
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Mr. McCUAIG:: I have a few remarks to make on item 17, Mr. Chairman. Will you call it six o'clock?


James Garfield Gardiner: We still have five
minutes to go.


Duncan John McCuaig: Because I am very much *concerned about production services now and in the years ahead. I directed a question to the Minister of Agriculture, reported in Hansard, May 14; at page 1497, inquiring if the government had given consideration to retaining feed and seed in country elevators in the west until the present drought spell has let up and the 1946 crop is reasonably assured. The minister's reply in part was:
We shall have plenty of time to deal with that after July.
I do not think the minister gave sufficient consideration to this matter.


James Garfield Gardiner: As a matter of fact, I may say that when I myself read it in Hansard I thought I had not given it sufficient consideration. I did not really understand what was being asked. I thought the hon. member was referring to this year's situation.


Duncan John McCuaig: Yes,, I understand that. The minister's remarks yesterday were very much closer to the matter. He said, as reported in Hansard, at page 1593:
. . . unless the promise of crop conditions changes materially within the next month we are not going to be concerned so much about finding markets for our farm products as we shall be concerned about feeding the live stock we have.
These remarks are becoming truer every day, especially in the district I live in. This matter is of urgent importance right now, taking into account all things in connection with it. For instance, telegraphic crop reports of the dominion bureau of statistics dated May 14 show precipitation since April 1 below normal, Manitoba 38 per cent, Saskatchewan 41 per cent, Alberta 61 per cent. The same crop reports from Swift Current areas indicate that conditions have deteriorated owing to the dry, windy weather. Soil drifting has reduced the stand on isolated fields throughout that area. Many areas report that recent heavy frosts, in some districts as low as twenty-six degrees, have damaged early-sown grain, particularly barley. The full extent of damage cannot be determined owing to the early spring. Pastures showed good growth but are now turning brown in some districts.
My experience is that a week after the grass starts to turn brown it is bad for grain. This is the 17th of May; the season is getting pretty well on; and I think we should not leave it further to chance. Conditions could be much worse this year than they were, even

in 1937. In that event we should be sure that enough seed and feed are kept in the west to take care of requirements for 1947 in the different districts affected. It would be the height of folly to have to ship grain back to those areas that are affected.
The wheat pool summary for the week ended May 10 states that the heavy frosts which were experienced throughout Saskatchewan have resulted in injury to all crops which were appearing above ground and that, because of the continued high winds, which in some areas reached a velocity of fifty miles an hour, damage by soil drifting has, of course, steadily increased, the condition has grown worse, and a period of calmer weather is urgently needed.
Because of the foregoing, seeding has stopped and the acreage is nine per cent, or
1.186.000	acres, lower than the "intentions to plant estimate as at April 30, 1947" issued by the dominion bureau of statistics.
A further report from the Canadian grain statistics, week ended May 2, 1946, shows
12.250.000	bushels of wheat in country elevators in Saskatchewan. Divide this between the 3,500 elevators and it works out to about 3,500 bushels to each elevator, which is very low indeed. And, now that there is a speed-up in shipments in Europe, this amount may be less. I note that the amount of wheat purchased by the farmers in 1937 through the government was over six million bushels. This is more than half the amount of wheat that is in the elevators of Saskatchewan to-day. Again I would urge the government to give this important matter its earliest possible consideration. If wheat has to be held because of crop failure, the government should see-to it that prices will not be higher to the farmer than they are now for other domestic needs.
At six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock. PRIVATE BILLS



SECOND READINGS

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 76, for the relief of Albert Stuart White.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 77, for the relief of Edward Mortin Montgomery.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 78, for the relief of Evelyn Clare Ward Davis Murray.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 79, for the relief of Esthe' Genevieve Johnson Potter.-Mr. Maybank.

Canadian Wheat Board
Bill No. 80, for the relief of Wanita Winifred Ellerton Upton.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 81, for the relief of Joseph Victor Emile Tasse.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 82, to incorporate the Executive Board of the Church of the Nazarene.-Mr. Warren.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, May 10, consideration of the motion of Mr. Fair for the second reading of bill No. 5, to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act, 1935.
Thomas John Bentley: In rising to discuss this bill-


Mr. MACKENZIE:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) was speaking when the debate was adjourned.


James Angus MacKinnon: Last Friday evening, Mr. Speaker, I had time to make only a comment or two on the bill introduced by the hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Fair). I mentioned that I considered it would be unwise to pass this bill in its present form, and that I thought the bill should receive considerably more discussion and attention before being further'dealt with. I also stated that in my opinion the bill went farther than the hon. member actually intended it should go.
I do not wish to take up much of the time of the house this evening, but I should like to review briefly the operations of the Canadian wheat board in relation to the bill now before the house.
In discussing this bill, it may perhaps be advisable if I begin by recalling the circumstances under which the Canadian Wheat Board Act was established in 1935. Canada faced an acute wheat problem in 1935 and the Canadian wheat board act was passed by the Conservative government of that year. The subsection which the hon. member for Battle River now desires to have removed from the wheat board act has been retained without change since the act first was established. In other words, this subsection has been the policy of both the Liberal and Conservative parties.
The subsection of the wheat board act of which the hon. member for Battle River is critical reads as follows:
In selling and disposing of wheat as by this act provided, to utilize and employ without discrimination such marketing agencies, including commission merchants, brokers, elevator-men, exporters and other persons engaged in or operating facilities for the selling and handling of wheat as the board in its discretion may determine.
Instead, the hon. member for Battle River proposes that the board should:
In selling and disposing of wheat as by this act provided, to employ such methods, consistent with the provisions of paragraph (b) of this section, as will not involve the payment, directly or indirectly, of any commission or other remuneration to commission merchants, brokers and other marketing agencies.
May I point out one or two of the basic differences between the new clause and the original provisions contained in the wheat board act. The existing section of the act authorizes the Canadian wheat board to employ the usual marketing agencies, notably the elevator companies and the grain exporting firms. The effect of the new regulation, should it be carried into force, would be to prevent any of these agencies from being employed by the board since it no longer would be possible to have any commission or any other remuneration paid to them.
It should be remembered that the Canadian wheat board has already dispensed with futures brokers under the War Measures Act by P.C. 7942 of October 12, 1943, which closed the wheat futures market.
This suggested new bill would go even further as a matter of permanent policy and do away with the services of the elevator companies and the grain exporters.
Passage of this bill would prevent the Canadian wheat board from having the power to pay any handling charge to the elevator companies, including the three western pool organizations which, I imagine, would be put out of business.
I am quite satisfied that the hon. member for Battle River, in introducing this bill, did not anticipate or did not support any such move. But, actually, the bill as before the house would mean just that.
I would like to suggest that careful consideration should be given to any measure which would have these results.
When the Canadian wheat board, as at present constituted, was being debated in this house in 1935, the importance of wheat to the prosperity of the Canadian people was stressed in all parts of the house. Perhaps I may be allowed at this point to sum up some of the main arguments used in that important debate so that we can have this material as a necessary background to our deliberations.
It was pointed out that Canada is the largest exporter of wheat in the world. In 1935 production was greater in both the United States and Russia. Russia has produced as much as one billion bushels of wheat per year. As a matter of fact, I think that figure is very
Canadian Wheat Board

conservative. I believe Russia has produced up to 1,600 million bushels of wheat in a single year. The United States has produced many average crops in excess of SOQ million bushels. Both these figures are, of course, larger than the annual yield of the Canadian wheat crop. But all the same the fact cannot be denied that Canada is the largest exporter of wheat, and we are, therefore, primarily concerned in suitable markets and the orderly sale of our wheat on the world market. I may point out that these objectives are included among the primary duties of the Canadian wheat board.
During the disturbed economic conditions which prevailed in the 1930's the marketing of Canadian wheat faced many difficult problems. Many European countries which had formerly been good customers of Canada at that time, embarked upon a policy of economic nationalism. They built tariff walls to shut out our wheat and other products, and bonused their agriculture in the vain attempt to grow selfsufficient in foodstuffs, though clear-minded students of the problem were aware that this policy could not be realized except at a heavy cost. Surpluses of wheat were accumulated in Canada during these disturbed years and it was at last clearly apparent that a new departure in policy had to be made.
May I remind the house for a moment that our experience in wheat in the 1920's had been very different from our experience in the 1930's. World conditions were much more satisfactory from Canada's view point in that period as a great exporting nation than they were in the latter period. The 1920's had witnessed the growth of the three western wheat pool organizations which were destined to play such a notable part in the wheat economy of Canada.
The pools had a clearly defined marketing policy in Canada. This policy consisted in paying their patrons an initial advance at the time of delivery and a subsequent payment when the wheat was finally marketed.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not "patrons"-
members.


James Angus MacKinnon: Well, call them patrons or members. I will not quarrel with , the hon. member on that.
When the period in which the pools made their initial advances came to an end, the Conservative government from 1930 to 1935 embarked on a policy of buying wheat and holding it in order to support the market. No useful purpose would now be served by trying to measure the success or failure which attended this controversial policy. All of us can recall the arguments which were used on

both sides during this troubled period. But, in retrospect, this judgment can surely be pronounced, in all fairness, because it is based simply on the record of those times. Despite whatever motives may have inspired the policy of the government, prices for Canadian wheat continued to remain at low levels and the government accumulated wheat stocks which were much larger than it was the normal practice for this country to carry.
The situation became so disturbed that farmer organizations pressed their demands very strongly to have the Canadian government issue a guaranteed minimum advance to wheat producers, and the Canadian wheat board was created in 1935 for this as well as other reasons.
I would like to emphasize that as constituted in 1935, the wheat board was a voluntary organization as far as producers were concerned. Growers had a choice of delivering their wheat to the board and taking the initial advance from the government or of selling their wheat outright on the open market.
On October 12, 1943, the government passed an order in council, P.C. 7942, whereby the Canadian wheat board was changed from a voluntary board to a compulsory board in so far as producers' deliveries were concerned. Consequently, so long as the futures market remains closed, the Canadian wheat board necessarily remains the sole marketing agency for Canadian wheat. The wheat policy, with respect to the fixed initial price as announced by the government on September 27, 1943, and set forth in detail in this order in council, had five main points. First, it involved the discontinuance of trading in wheat futures in the Winnipeg grain exchange. Second, the Canadian wheat board acquired, on behalf of the dominion government, all stocks of unsold cash wheat in Canada on the basis of the closing prices which prevailed on September 27, 1943. Third, the fixed initial price was raised from 90 cents per bushel to $1.25 per bushel No. 1 northern wheat, basis in store Fort William-Port Arthur or Vancouver. Fourth, it involved the closing out of the 1940-41, 1941-42, and 1942-43 wheat board crop accounts, also on the basis of closing market prices as they existed on September 27, 1943. Fifth, it involved the use of government-owned wheat to meet requirements under mutual aid and to provide wheat for subsidized domestic purchasers. It will be evident to the house that the powers vested in the board under this order in council were far-reaching. The Canadian wheat board not only took over all unsold commercial wheat in Canada, but it also became the sole marketing agency to receive wheat from producers.

Canadian Wheat Board
It will be seen at once that the activities of the board have been greatly enlarged by this extension of its duties and responsibilities. A very great strain has been placed upon the whole organization in these war years. This strain has been particularly heavy upon its accounting staff.
I would like at this time to pay tribute to the work of the Canadian wheat board, to its commissioners and to its entire staff, with special reference to the advisory committee of the wheat board. I am in daily touch with the commissioners of the Canadian wheat board and I can testify to the abnormally heavy responsibilities which the board has been called upon to discharge, and I believe it has met these responsibilities with credit to itself and with satisfaction to the wheat producers and the people of Canada.
I am sure what I have said in this respect will receive the hearty endorsation of every hon. member who is at all familiar with the operations of the Canadian wheat board.
During the discussion in this house that followed my statement of September 19, in the last session, when I outlined the government's wheat policy in its main esentials for the next five years, I took occasion to explain that this statement of government policy made no reference to the continuation or non-continuation of the wheat board. I anticipate and the government anticipates that the Canadian wheat board will continue indefinitely.
It will not have escaped the attention of the members of this house that at different periods the Canadian wheat board, in the interests of wheat producers, has followed different policies with respect to marketing. This flexibility is one of the great assets of the system by which the Canadian wheat board conducts its extensive business. It might be a disservice to wheat producers to require the wheat board at the present time to cling to-some arbitrary and inflexible method which would not take into account changing circumstances of the world market together with changing conditions of world supply.
May I emphasize that prior to the war, countries which bought wheat from Canada almost exclusively obtained their wheat supplies through private importers who dealt with the grain exporting firms in Canada. Many believe that it would have been a mistake in policy at that time to confront these importers with a Canadian government monopoly selling agency.
I would like to emphasize once again that it is by no means clear at the present time whether the governments of other countries, which are now employing government purchasing agencies, are pursuing this policy 63260-104
merely as . an immediate aftermath of war conditions, or whether they hope to continue their monopoly import agencies. Until the policies of the import countries become more clearly defined, it may be that it would be a mistake on Canada's part to destroy the private trade in Canada. There are people who believe that a government agency can perform all the required services more cheaply than can private firms.
I know that the people who hold this view hold it very strongly, and that they are able to argue strongly in its favour. I would be the last person to deny the sincerity with which these views are maintained.
May I make it quite clear that I do not now propose to enter into a general debate on the virtues of a government agency versus a private firm. My whole argument has been directed toward the fact that this particular moment provides a very bad time in which to define our future policy with rigidity, without taking into account the buying methods to be followed in the future by importing countries, together with changing world conditions in wheat policy and wheat prices. If we have a free hand, we can then take advantage of changing circumstances and not be tied to a rigid policy which, if defined to-day, would mean that it has been defined in advance of more normal world conditions. I think that in suggesting that this house take this action and not run the risk of any premature decision on a matter of such fundamental policy, I will be urging the house to accept a policy which will commend itself to its good judgment.
Throughout the history of the Canadian wheat board the board has employed the facilities of the country elevator companies as agents for the board in taking delivery of producers' wheat. The board has also employed the grain exporting companies in making export sales of wheat under board authorization and in looking after all the details of getting the grain moved from the terminal elevators at the lake-head to eastern seaport positions for export. I would like to stress the fact that an alternative to the use of the country elevator companies and the grain exporting firms would be the expropriation or purchase of the physical facilities of these companies or the setting up of an expensive alternative service. The cost of their administration would have to be set against any savings in the commissions and handling charges that are now paid. It is, therefore, very difficult to ascertain what actual savings could be effected by this means for the benefit of producers.
I have spoken at this length in order to inform the house of some of the main purposes

Canadian Wheat Board

which the Canadian wheat board has sought to fulfil since it was created to deal with the difficult emergency problem in 1935. The wheat board has shown its ability to cope with our wheat problems in peace as in war. It has now built up a vast and valuable body of actual experience which will serve it in good stead in the years that lie ahead. I believe that the wheat policies of the government are well conceived and will advance the best interests of Canadian wheat producers. We enter a period of reconstruction in a sound position. We are free to shape our policy so that changing conditions in the world market can be quickly met. This freedom is a great asset and it should not be lost by any premature decision now on the use of marketing agencieg, such as must be involved in the bill now before the house.
The main point which I have tried to make in these remarks is that this motion does not relate exclusively to the operation of the futures market, but in reality concerns many questions affecting the welfare of Canadian farmers. These more general questions are very complicated and very important, and can most appropriately be considered by a committee which will be appointed to examine this whole matter in detail.
I move:
That this bill be not now read a second time but that the subject matter thereof be referred to the select standing committee on agriculture for consideration and report.


William Scottie Bryce: I admit that the wheat board is an efficient organization, but I should like to know if it is intended to take over rye and make as good a job of that as has been done with the rest of the grains?


James Angus MacKinnon: I appreciate the reference the hon. member has made to the wheat board and its activities. The hon. member and I have had some brief discussions about rye marketing. I have taken the trouble to go into the matter to a considerable extent and I find that it is not just as simple as possibly the hon. member and I thought it was at one time. The matter of dominion and provincial control enters into the question. I have an open mind in connection with the marketing of rye as far as any connection the Department of Trade and Commerce may have with that matter.


Mr. D. S. HARKNESS (Calgary East):: Mr. Speaker, the minister has given us an interesting history of the more recent operations of the wheat board, and I find myself in general agreement with what he has said. The preamble to this bill reads:
. . . and to free the board to conduct its sale operations without engaging and paying for such unnecessary service.

As the minister has pointed out, rather than freeing the board I think this amendment would have the effect of completely tying the board's hands. The board would have no option as to the procedure it could follow in disposing of wheat. No matter what it might care to do in the way of engaging agents or anything else, it would be prohibited from doing so, and that is why I am against the amendment.
As I understand it, the bill is aimed at doing away with the Winnipeg grain exchange. The Winnipeg grain exchange method of selling grain has been investigated by several commissions. There was the Turgeon commission, and Sir Josiah Stamp was brought over here to investigate the matter. So far as I know, all these commissions recommended that the Winnipeg grain exchange and the method of selling grain through the exchange served a useful purpose at the time the report in each case was made. Nevertheless I do not feel qualified to vote intelligently on this bill as it stands; I feel I do not know enough about the subject to be able to give an intelligent vote. A considerable number of farmers to whom I have talked have attached the Winnipeg grain exchange vigorously. A considerable number of others, including the most successful and prosperous farmer I know, are all in favour of having the grain exchange continued. I think my position is similar to that of a large number, of other members. We do not know enough about the matter to make a good judgment upon it, and therefore I am strongly in favour of the suggestion of the minister-I had jotted down the same suggestion to make myself-that the bill be referred to a committee or some body for further study and recommendations to the house. The situation may have changed since the last reports were made, and we may receive recommendations favouring the abolition of the Winnipeg grain exchange and the sale of grain by that method. On the other hand, recommendations may be the same as we have had from other inquiries in the past.


William Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I am very much in favour of what the sponsor of this bill (Mr. Fair) intends, and that is to close the Winnipeg grain exchange, but I have some doubt whether the bill will achieve that purpose. My judgment, which is not very good in matters of law, says that the bill would not achieve that purpose, and so I am rising in the hope that when the sponsor speaks he will defend that point. I think it would assist some of us in coming to a conclusion whether or not to send this bill to a committee. Personally I believe it would

Canadian Wheat Board
be wise to let the bill go to a committee, where it could be more thoroughly debated. If the bill would achieve the purpose he has in mind-and I should like him to deal with that point-then I certainly would vote for the bill.


James Arthur Ross: Mr. Speaker, I have followed closely the arguments that have been made in this debate. I know the sponsor of the bill very well indeed, and I should like to say that no member of the house has done more on behalf of agriculture than the hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Fair). Yet in my opinion I do not believe that the bill as drafted conveys his real intentions. As has been pointed out in the house by other speakers, in law it does not matter how good your intentions might be, and with that thought in mind I am pleased that the minister has moved that the bill be referred to the agriculture committee. I am doubly pleased because it will be the means of calling the agriculture committee of the House of Commons together. That committee has not sat- in this parliament, despite that this is the second session of this parliament.
In view of other debates that we have had in this house, I should like to have seen the agriculture, committee called together so that we could have before it the heads of farm implement companies and officials of the wartime prices and trade board, who, I think, should have been brought before the committee before decisions were made by the government, for instance, with regard to dropping the subsidy on milk and increasing the price of farm implements.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Any member of the committee on agriculture can convene it.


James Arthur Ross: I am glad that it is to be convened anyway.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: May I ask the hon. member to confine his remarks to the bill before the house.


James Arthur Ross: I wish to compliment the minister upon the tribute he paid to the wheat board officials. They had a great task to perform, and any grievance that I may have had with the wheat board was not concerned with its officials because I know they had to carry out government policy.
The minister has just spoken of the order in council that was passed in 1943. It is strange to recall in that connection that in March of the very same year the hon. member for Qu'Appelle and I moved a resolution similar to the order in council made six months later, asking that the wheat board handle wheat, oats and barley and have that responsibility during the war years. Despite 63260-1044
what my colleague has said, the Turgeon commission in its findings did say that the grain exchange could not render a useful purpose during the war period. It is strange, I say, that the order in council which the government put into effect on September 28, 1943, was the very proposal which the government had- voted down in March of that year when it was moved in a resolution by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle and myself.
The wheat board has, as I say, done good work. But I have one little grievance with the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon). I asked a question last fall, in 1945, about the payment of participation certificates for the 1943 crop year, and the minister's answer then was that the payments would be made in June or July, 1946, but he could not say how much the payments would be per grade because the returns had not yet come in from the milling companies. Yesterday, I again asked a similar question of the minister, and he said he was convinced that the payments would still be made in June but that it was a matter of bookkeeping and that a great deal of statistical work was involved. While that is true, surely if the wheat board had a free hand they could announce to the producers how much the payments per grade would be when made. It is no mere idle curiosity that prompts this question, because I know a great many people in my constituency who borrow money every year to carry on their agricultural operations. They have to pay interest to the bank and meet other obligations; and to enable them to make their financial arrangements for the next few months they desire to know how much these payments will be per bushel on each grade. If that announcement could be made it would be helpful. The farmers know how many bushels they marketed and could then calculate how much they would receive in payment from the wheat board. I ask the minister to make such an announcement.
I support him in his motion to have the bill sent to the committee on agriculture. As I have said, I am in sympathy with the sponsor of the bill and I think in committee we could iron out the difficulties.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: Mr. Speaker, the Mclvor clan is noted for its honesty and efficiency, and the wheat board is headed by another son of the clan.


Mr. G. H. CASTLEDEN (Yorkton):: Mr. Speaker, the motion which has been made by the minister is probably the first announcement of the funeral of the bill. It is going to the limbo of the lost, to a committee where I expect it will die for the rest of the session. I
Canadian Wheat Board

hope, however, that the committee will be called and that what I anticipate will not happen. I hope the bill will come back here. If the bill should die in committee, I trust that the hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Fair) will introduce a similar bill at the first opportunity.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I must object to any hon. member construing in advance the actions of any committee of the house.


George Hugh Castleden: I was merely saying that I hoped this bill would escape the fate which had befallen other bills sent to committees. If the hon. member introduces another bill I hope that it will permit the grain board to use the pools of western Canada in handling and selling all grain. If that happens, any profits which result or any excess charges which the pools make out of such operations, or commissions, will be distributed to the thousands and hundreds of thousands of farmers who form part of these pools and whose efforts produce the grain, instead of the money going into the hands of wealthy commission merchants and gamblers on the grain exchange.
I suppose this motion will pass the house. I will just say that I should like to see it pass with this amendment, that pools shall have that power and that it can be used by the wheat board; and I would express the hope that the hon. member for Battle River, if he brings in a bill to that effect, .will get a great deal of support. I shall be interested to see how hon. members on the other side of the house will vote.


Mark Cecil Senn: I want to ask the minister one question: is it intended that if this motion is carried and the bill goes to a committee, that committee will have the power to call witnesses?


James Angus MacKinnon: That is certainly my understanding.


Robert Fair: I wish to make it clear to-night, as I believe I made it definitely clear on other occasions, that I do not want to be a party to the weakening,of the wheat pools of western Canada, that I am not a supporter of the grain exchange, and that I want the wheat board to operate and handle all kinds of grain, not only wheat. On April 30 and May 7, when this bill was under discussion, I began to wonder whether I was some sort of criminal in view of the way the discussion ran on the other side of the house. I wish to point out that I was in favour of a wheat board for Canada at the end of the first great war, even then realizing that the board was created to hold the price of wheat

down rather than to send it up to inflated levels. I was one of those who supported the move to have the wheat board continued, and when we failed to persuade the government of the day to continue the board I was one of those who began organizing the Alberta wheat pool and helping in the best way I could similar organizations in the other provinces. I was one of the first farmers in my district to sign a wheat pool contract; I signed the first and second series; and since that time I have delivered practically 100 per cent of the grain I have grown to the wheat pool organization. I am still doing that. Perhaps that may clear up any misunderstanding which may exist at the present time as to where I stand in connection with the wheat pools and the wheat board organization. I believe the staff of the wheat board to-day is a very good one. I did not say that the other night; I did not think it was necessary because I felt that my stand was well known and did not require a Philadelphia lawyer to figure it out, as would be necessary to find out just what some other hon. members have been driving at in their speeches since the bill was introduced.
The hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Jutras) spoke in support of the wheat board, and I was very glad to hear him speak as he did, even though he ridiculed to a certain extent the stand I have taken in the framing of the wheat board amendment. Let me say that I am a farmer and proud of it, and that I did not myself try to frame that amendment; I went to a member of the legal profession to have it framed. Let me again make it clear that I have no objection whatever to any amendment of the bill which will bring about the results which I desire to have brought about, namely to put the Winnipeg grain exchange permanently out of operation. In his concluding remarks the hon. member for Provencher had this to say: Hansard, page 1292-I believe it places him definitely against the operation of the grain exchange:
All of which reminds us of the story of the buyer working for a group of millers who came west to watch the wheat markets. After a few days he wired his principals to this effect:
"Some think wheat will go down and some think it will go up. I think so, too. Whatever you do will be wrong. Act at once."
That describes accurately, I believe, the operations of the Winnipeg grain exchange as they affect the farmers of Canada. The little fellows who were and still are compelled to sell their grain during the first three or four months of the new crop year are the ones who suffer and pay the penalty of our keeping in operation the Winnipeg grain exchange.
Later in the debate, on May 7 we had an oration from the hon. member for Rosthern

Canadian Wheat Board
(Mr. Tucker). He discussed this question with much more heat than light, and unless I interpret his remarks incorrectly, his speech was a conglomeration of contradictions. Here we have him getting things mixed up a little bit. First of all he had this to say: Hansard, page 1296:
Before dealing with the terms of the bill I should like to make it clear that as far as I am concerned I am now, and have been ever since I have been in public life, favourable to the policy of the wheat board handling wheat and coarse grains, and doing so exclusively.
A little later on he said:
I would jnuch rather see this grain handled by the cooperative organizations which have been set up to take it from the farmer, to ship it to the east, to handle it in the terminal elevators and to ship it abroad than by any agency of government, no matter how well it is handled. Therefore I have no hesitation in saying that, whenever it is a choice between cooperation and state socialism, I will take cooperation every time.
Some people might interpret that as political. I am not suggesting whether it is or not.
A little further on he had this to say, at page 1298:
The watchword of every man representing a rain farming constituency in this house should e, in the light of the grand record of the wheat board. "Hands off the wheat board; do not interfere with them; give them a chance to carry out the work they have been doing so well in the past and, if they require it, give them even more power to deal with grain that they have no right to deal with exclusively to-day." In other words, add to their rights; do not interfere with them.
That, in my opinion, is a contradiction.


An hon. MEMBER:: A straw man.


Robert Fair: Somebody here says, "a straw man." Well, fhe hon. member for Rosthern seems to be an expert at setting them up and then knocking them down. *


Mr. TUCKER:: Will the hon. gentleman
answer a question?


Robert Fair: The hon. gentleman did not extend to me the courtesy of answering a question I put to him the other day.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Walter Adam Tucker: Will the hon. gentleman
permit a question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Robert Fair: The hon. member would not permit me to ask him a question.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Walter Adam Tucker: I permitted the hon. gentleman to ask me a question.


William Ross Macdonald: Order. The
hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Fair) may not be interrupted without his consent.


Walter Adam Tucker: I permitted the hon. member to ask me a question.


Robert Fair: Mr. Speaker, the other night when the hon. gentleman was saying things he perhaps should not have said I asked for the privilege of asking a question. He refused, and I have no hesitation whatever in extending the same courtesy to the hon. member for Rosthern that he extended to me.


Walter Adam Tucker: Did the hon. member know when he introduced this bill that the effect would be to prohibit the grain and wheat pools from handling grain under the direction of the wheat board? Did he not know this when he introduced the bill?


Robert Fair: Mr. Speaker, I am not taking any notice whatever of the hon. gentleman. He is not knocking me off my track, and he is not for any purpose whatever going to prevent me from introducing this bill year after year, so long as the people send me here, until it is adopted.


Walter Adam Tucker: Why do you not answer the question?


Robert Fair: Here is some more that he had to say:
Among the great marketing agencies operating in western Canada are the grain marketing pools. They are the ones which are handling to a great extent the grain of western Canada. I take it from the bill presented by the hon. member that he would deprive these great cooperative marketing agencies' of the right to handle the grain of the farmers for the wheat board.
In my opinion the bill deals with commissions and the grain exchange and not as suggested by the hon. member for Rosthern.


Mr. JOHNSTON:: He knew it too.


Robert Fair: Farther on the hon. member said:
I would say that if this bill passes it will not eliminate the grain exchange at all. They can still go on dealing in futures and so on. The only thing it would do would be to prevent the various cooperative agencies, such as the wheat pool and other agencies, from handling the grain of the farmer at the behest and under the direction of the wheat board.
I have made my stand clear in this respect. If you do not pay the commission merchants or brokers on the grain exchange any wages, or salaries, or commissions, as we are doing to-day, then I think the grain exchange will fold up very soon; therefore, what I wanted to accomplish by this bill will soon be done indirectly if not directly. I am concerned *with results, not methods.
Canadian Wheat Board

The hon. member then went on to say:
If he wants to do away with the grain exchange let him bring in a bill that would do away with it. Let him be outright and straightforward . . .
I wonder whether anybody in this house has been more fair and straightforward and outright than I have been since I came here ten years ago. I was born Fair and I intend to live up to the name until the end of mv days.


Mr. GIBSON (Comox-Alberni):: Fair and warm.


An hon. MEMBER:: Fair and cool.


Robert Fair: I continue:
Let him be outright and straightforward in his methods instead of striking at the great cooperative marketing agencies . . .
This is said about somebody who has actually helped to organize the great cooperative agency, somebody who has poured practically all the grain he has grown from 1923 up to . the present time into the handling facilities of the Alberta wheat pool. He is now accused here by somebody for purposes best known to himself, of trying to destroy these agencies. It is about time that people who sent him here found out just what their member means by an attitude of this kind.


Walter Adam Tucker: Actions speak louder than words.


Robert Fair: I continue:
Let him be outright and straightforward in his methods instead of striking at the great cooperative marketing' agencies, which we in the west, including myself, are so proud of, and which I was one of the first to join when they started to get going.
Then farther along the hon. member said:
We are being asked to vote for a bill the purpose of which is to deprive the wheat board of the right to employ the marketing agencies which now exist throughout western Canada and other parts of Canada as well.


Walter Adam Tucker: Is that not right?


Robert Fair: No, and the hon. member knows it too.


Walter Adam Tucker: That is the effect of the . bill, and the hon. member cannot deny it.


Robert Fair: Then, again, the hon. member said:
This government in introducing and having passed by this house the Agricultural Prices Support Act has gvien its approval to such a policy. I should like to put on the record section 9, subsection 2 of thut act which was passed in 1944 and which, I take it, is still the policy of the government as enacted by this parliament.
I wish to put another section on record.
Perhaps the hon. gentleman conveniently 
forgot about it when he quoted section 9, subsection 2. Paragraph (a) of subsection 2 of chapter 29 of the statutes of 1944 has this to say:
"Agricultural product" means any natural product of agriculture except wheat-
And I repeat that I was dealing particularly with wheat. The paragraph continues:
-designated by the governor in council, and includes proces^gd meat, dairy and poultry products if so designated.
I return to the hon. member's address where he said:
There is a definite pronouncement of a fair deal for the farmers of this country. As far as I am concerned I hope and believe the government will never waver from its policy of a fair and just deal for the farmer.


Walter Adam Tucker: Is it not a fair and just deal?


Robert Fair: That is exactly what I am trying to get. I am trying to put the speculators, gamblers and everything connected with them out of business, regardless of whether they hate me for it. Then the hon. member went on to say:
The farm leaders of western Canada have upheld the policy of price stabilization and loyally supported it.
The farm organizations and most individual farmers of Canada have also upheld the wheat board and have condemned the operations of the Winnipeg Grain exchange.
Rather than be accused of talking out the bill I shall take my seat.
Amendment (Mr. MacKinnon) agreed to
and bill referred to the committee on agriculture.



PAYMENT ON 1943 PARTICIPATION CERTIFICATES

James Angus MacKinnon: If I may be permitted, the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Ross) asked me a question on Thursday regarding the wheat participation payments on the 1943 crop. With the consent of the house I should like to give an answer. The government through the Minister of Trade and Commerce, under whose department the Canadian wheat board comes, has been urging for a long time for the amount of the payments that will be made under these participation certificates for 1943. We are advised that it is a physical impossibility for the staff to get these cheques out any earlier than they have advised us they could do it. The earliest day they tell us they can get them out is June. We are anxious to get the information the hon. gentleman asks for to the producers of Canada at the earliest possible moment.

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James Arthur Ross: That is not my question ; my question had to do with the amounts.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I rise to a question of order on procedure.


James Arthur Ross: The delay-


William Ross Macdonald: Order. There is nothing before the house. The amendment has carried.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Revert to the ordinary business of the house, sir.

The house resumed in committee of supply, Mr. Golding in the chair.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Production service-
17. Production service administration, $38,865. Mr. CASTLEDEN: I should like to ask a few questions regarding the production of hogs in Canada. A few years ago the government introduced a policy of paying the freight on all feed from western Canada to eastern Canada, and I believe the milling companies took advantage of this. We also paid the freight charges on the brans and ' shorts which they obtained in the milling of the grain into flour and mill feed. At that time it was of tremendous importance to have as much production as possible. The people working on the farms in the east required some assistance, I presume, in getting feeds, down where they could be used to feed hogs. Is the Canadian taxpayer going to continue to be put in the position where he shall have to pay the freight on feed from the west where it is grown to eastern Canada where it is fed, or will the grain be left in the west to be fed where it is grown? It is surely in the interest of economy to feed that grain in the west where it is grown. Does the minister intend to continue the policy that is already in force, or what are the plans with regard to it?


James Garfield Gardiner: The suggestion was
made that the millers took advantage of the policy to do certain things. The policy itself was drafted in such a way that the part of the wheat which enters into the feeding of live stock was provided for along with other feed grain; and whoever may be shipping the feed east from western Canada, if that feed is to be paid for as part of the policy of maintaining prices, then the bran and shorts which are fed to live stock have to be paid for just the same as oats, barley or any other grain.
The policy was based in the first place on the idea that men in eastern Canada, as far east as the maritime provinces, did not get sufficient returns from the production of hogs at prices then obtaining even to pay the cost of production. I think every hon. member from the maritimes will agree that this contention on the part of the maritime farmers was true. I do not know whether every hon. member from the west thinks as I do in regard to these matters, but I think it is just as important that the farmer in the maritime provinces, in Quebec or in Ontario should be able to get his cost of production as it is that a farmer anywhere else should do so. For a long period the farmers of the maritime provinces have not been able to produce enough hogs or beef to feed themselves. Their production does not enter directly, though it may indirectly, into the trade which results in our sending very considerable quantities of beef and pork to Britain; but on balance there is always an importation of our meat products into the maritime provinces to help feed their population. So what we are really doing, and what we were at least asked to do before the war, was to assist in covering the enormous freight charges which must be paid on feed grain going from the western prairies to eastern Canada, particularly to the maritimes.	-
There is another way of accomplishing the same, end, and I must say it was the ^ other way that was advocated for a long period of years; that is, controlling freight rates downward to the point where it would be possible for grain to be shipped east. The position is that we have a lower freight rate on grain going directly through to Britain than on grain going to the maritime provinces. That is a part of our freight structure which is very well understood in this house. It was always contended that we should lower the freight rate to the level imposed on grain going directly overseas. That position I think was placed once or twice before what was then called the railway board, now the board of transport commissioners, and the question was argued out as to whether the freight rates should be reduced in that way. After ^ war broke out, however, we undertook to do it in another way, by paying the freight on the grain from Fort William east, and paying the freight on the grain from Calgary and Edmonton west to British Columbia, in order to make it possible for the prices board to maintain the price ceiling, at the same time making it possible for those on the farms to produce under the price ceiling. That is why the policy was established; and I suggest that the whole principle of controls is involved in what is
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proposed here. To take the freight payments off grain, including bran and shorts, coming to eastern Canada would compel an increase in the prices of the products produced through the feeding of live stock, which in turn would involve increases in wages and everything involved in the price control set-up.
As to what we should do in western Canada, I have not figured it out exactly, but it is often said that we produce enough wheat to feed thirty million people, and we produce enough coarse grains to feed far more live stock than we can ever persuade western farmers to feed for any purposes. Unless we produce far more grain than we can ever persuade western farmers to feed, we can never get the total production of live stock in this country up to where it otherwise would be. After all, I think it is more essential that farmers, whether they live in the east or the west, should cooperate with one another than that we should talk a great deal about others not cooperating with us. If we are to expect cooperation from other sections of the population, then at least we must expect to cooperate among ourselves. I would not join in any criticism of the western farmer for growing feed grain which cannot possibly be grown in eastern Canada, in order to make it possible for eastern farmers to feed more hogs and produce more beef and dairy products. That is one way we are asked to cooperate in order to keep up production and make possible higher returns to the eastern farmers; it is not done to benefit the millers or any others, and I believe the taxpayers of Canada would agree that something should be done along this line. If we cannot persuade the farmers to do something of that kind in order to bring about cooperation and make this possible then I am afraid we are going to lose much of the cash return farmers right across Canada have been obtaining as a result of the policies that have been followed; and I would hope that representatives of rural seats in any part of Canada would not begin to advocate a policy of insisting that in the first place we grow only as much coarse grain as can be fed upon our farms, and in the second place that we should not cooperate fully in making it possible for farmers in other parts of Canada to produce to at least as good advantage as we can produce in the west.


George Hugh Castleden: I do not want the minister to put into my mouth words I did not say. I asked whether it was the intention of the government to continue the policy.


James Garfield Gardiner: If you had just asked me that you would have been given a different answer.


George Hugh Castleden: I was also giving some facts; and the fact is that the farmer of the west will raise more hogs if it pays him to do so. It is a further fact that the production of hogs in western Canada has gone down to a far greater extent than the production of coarse grains has gone down. To-day the farmers of the west are dropping out of hog production to a tremendous extent, but you would get a very heavy production of hogs in the west if you would make it profitable for the farmer to raise them.


Mr. ARGUE:: I have not found the farmers of western Canada opposed to the government paying freight on feed coming east in order that the farmers of eastern Canada may have a chance to feed some live stock. But the farmers of the west feel that if the eastern farmer is allowed the benefit of free freight on grains to be fed to his live stock, the farmer in the west should have the freight paid on his five stock when they are sent east, in order that the price on the Moose Jaw market, for instance, will be exactly the same as the price on the Toronto market. They think that would make it fair for the eastern farmer and make it possible for the western farmer to also produce some live stock. I think the farmer who grows feed grain in western Canada, and who wishes to feed it to his own hogs, should have an additional price paid to him to take care of the difference in the cost of his feed grain, as compared with the cost of a man in western Canada who is a feeder, and who can obtain grain in western Canada at from ten cents to twenty cents a bushel cheaper than can the farmer who has to consider the cost of his grain at the same figure as the elevator price.	*
A resolution was passed last January by the Saskatchewan agricultural society asking that the price of hogs be increased to the farmer who feeds his own grain to his hogs, to the extent of $3 per hog. If these things were done, then I think the farmer in western Canada would have an equal opportunity to [DOT] raise hogs and live stock, and get the same kind of benefit from the government's policy as to-day the eastern farmers are obtaining.


James Garfield Gardiner: ' This question has been under discussion a number of times, and probably this is a good time to say something which may result in our thinking a little more clearly with regard to it than sometimes we appear to do.
I believe if hon. members will examine the record they will find that the western farmer does do better than the eastern farmer. This suggestion so often made that the western farmer does not do as well as the eastern

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farmer is not borne out by the facts. There are more farmers in eastern Canada than there are in western Canada; but if one takes the cash income of the farmers who live in the two sections of Canada he will find that, even in some of the most difficult years we had in western Canada, our returns per farmer were higher than were the returns per farmer in eastern Canada.
They have expenses, the same as we have. I have been operating a family-sized farm in Ontario for some years. I have also been operating one in Saskatchewan. They were both family-sized farms, the one in Saskatchewan being a half-section at that time, and the one in Ontario 150 acres. I took more off the Saskatchewan farm every year than I did off the Ontario farm. I interchanged the stock between the two farms in order to prove to my own satisfaction that it was not just the breed of hogs that I had out west that gave me more money. I produced the same type of hog out there that I did on the farm down east, and made just as much per hog in western Canada throughout the war-time period as I could make in eastern Canada.
I even went through the experience of shipping a carload of grain from western Canada, under these arrangements now being discussed. That carload of grain I grew on the farm out west, shipped it to the farm down east and fed it to live stock. Perhaps I should say I saw it fed, or that sometimes I saw it fed. Plowever, I did see some of it fed. I know, too, that the arrangements made by the government-and I know this from experience -put the farmer in the eastern part of Canada in the same position as if he had grown the grain in western Canada.
The arrangements were supposed to figure out in that way, and they actually worked out in that way, when the actual transaction is carried on of growing the grain on a farm in the west, shipping it to a farm in the east and feeding it to live stock in the east.
It is true that under our arrangement of paying the freight and giving other assistance, as we were doing at the time, one can lay grain down on the eastern farm and feed it there at just about the same cost as though he fed it back on the farm in Saskatchewan. That is what I tried to do, and that is the way it works out.
It was as a result of that that we got the production of live stock in Canada which we did get. The suggestion is made that if you pay a higher price for hogs you' should produce more of them. I would ask hon. members to go around and take a look into 63260-105
farmers' bins in Saskatchewan. You will find that some of them are carrying wheat-and that includes some persons who have been discussing wheat to-night. But you will find, too, that right on those same farms there is not much left in the way of oats and barley. Oats and barley are still being fed to hogs.
I am quite sure the leader of the C.C.F. party would not agree with some of the things said along these lines within the past few minutes, because he was most outspoken in his opinion that we ought to be sending more food to Europe. The only kind of food Europe is asking for at the present time is grain-and grain in greater quantities, particularly wheat.
No one will suggest that at this time, as we did two years ago, we ought to be feeding 90 million bushels of our wheat each year, and that we ought to be sending 150 million or 160 million more bushels of it to the United States to be fed. That was when they wanted meat in Europe.
But to-day they want wheat in Europe. As everyone knows, it takes about five pounds of wheat to produce a pound of pork. A pound of pork will not keep a man alive any longer than a pound of wheat. The result is that we are being asked not to fed wheat to hogs. Rather, we are being asked to send that wheat to Great Britain or to Europe.


George Hugh Castleden: We all agree with that.


James Garfield Gardiner: If you agree with that, then agree with this, that with no wheat to feed, and with very little oats and barley to feed, you cannot have more hogs than before, no matter what the price is.


George Hugh Castleden: They are feeding more in the east.


James Garfield Gardiner: Some of them. But would you suggest that we should have kept our feed out of the east?


George Hugh Castleden: No.


James Garfield Gardiner: Well, then, the fact is that we are just feeding the same number of hogs in the east as we fed on an average before the war. In other words, we are just supplying the market we have always supplied, and we think we shall always be able to supply. We are growing feed grains in western Canada to sell them just as they are grown. If we can produce these goods to sell them, I do not think anyone out west wants to advocate a policy of feeding all coarse grains we grow in western Canada on our own farms. In the first place, we would not do it, so why advocate that policy?

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Mr. TOWNLEY-SMITH: May I say a few words to demonstrate how this policy works out? I hope it will be considered straight thinking. When I grow barley on my farm in Saskatchewan and sell it to an elevator I get in the neighbourhood of fifty cents for the barley and fifteen cents for the bonus, making a total of sixty-five cents a bushel. Obviously, if I feed that barley to pigs on the farm I am feeding 65-cent barley. If, however, I have too much barley and I sell a carload of it to my farm friends in the east, they buy that barley for fifty cents a bushel, not sixty-five cents, because they have the freight paid, and because the bonus is paid to me as the grower, at the elevator, when my carload of barley is shipped.


James Garfield Gardiner: They do not buy it at fifty cents.
Mr. TOWNLEY-SMITH: I am trying to feed pigs on 65-cent barley on my western farm, and I am 2,000 miles away from tidewater. My hog price on the Winnipeg market is about sixteen cents, and I enter into direct competition with my eastern friends who are right on tide-water and who are feeding their pigs on 50-cent barley.


James Garfield Gardiner: No, that is not correct. The ceiling price is 64f cents at Fort William.
Mr. TOWNLEY-SMITH: How does it work out?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is only the freight from Fort William east that is paid. But he pays 64J cents for barley. That is within one quarter of a cent of the figure you gave.
Mr. TOWNLEY-SMITH: Does that sixty-four cents not include freight?


James Garfield Gardiner: 
James Garfield Gardiner: A quarter cent ahead of your figure.
Mr. TOWNLEY-SMITH: The market in which he sells his hogs is a 19-cent market. Someone will correct me if I am wrong, but there is at least a two-cent spread between the price of his hogs and the price of mine, and there is a significant spread between the price of his feed and the price of my feed.


Percy Ellis Wright: I agree with the hon. member who says that there should be some adjustment in the freight rates on feed which

existed before the war. It was an anomaly that we should have a freight rate structure in Canada that forced the farmers of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to pay more for western oats and barley than was paid by feeders in Sweden and Denmark. That freight rate structure certainly created a hardship for feeders in Ontario, Quebec and the maritime provinces. I cannot quite agree with the prqsent policy of paying all the freight east of Fort William. The whole freight rate structure of Canada should be gone into thoroughly so that feeders in eastern Canada can obtain feed grown in western Canada at prices which will permit them to meet the competition of other countries which will be in the market in the very near future.
Three-quarters of Alberta, most of Manitoba and probably one-quarter of Saskatchewan have been trying to diversify their agriculture. The people in these areas felt that growing grain was not good enough. But this diversification is being killed by the present policy of the government. Statistics will show that hog production in Alberta, at least in the part of Saskatchewan that I represent, and in Manitoba has decreased in a much greater proportion than it has in Ontario, Quebec or the maritimes.


James Garfield Gardiner: It went up more.


Percy Ellis Wright: We wanted it to go up
more and it should have stayed up. The minister has defended that policy in this house for years and yet now he has turned around and is killing it.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am still doing it on my farm and I am making money.


Percy Ellis Wright: The general consensus in western Canada is that what the minister states is incorrect. He has had letters; I have had letters and other members from western Canada have had letters to that effect. I ask the minister to consider seriously putting into effect a policy which will maintain diversification in western Canada. It is absolutely necessary that we have a stabilized agriculture in eastern Canada. At the present time the eastern farmer is in a precarious position because the feed he is using is being obtained on a subsidized market. If the government continues to follow the policy which was outlined yesterday of cutting off these subsidies just as quickly as possible, the eastern farmer will find himself in a worse position than we are in in western Canada.

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James Garfield Gardiner: Since we are on thus item I should like to put on the record the very letter which came to me from the same individual.


Percy Ellis Wright: It is not from the same individual.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is the same kind of thing in any event.


Percy Ellis Wright: It sets out what I maintain is in the minds of seventy-five per cent of the farmers in the area.


James Garfield Gardiner: We will read it and see if we cannot learn something about it. This letter comes from a gentleman in Codette in the constituency of the hon. member for Melfort, and he sent it forward to me. It reads:
I am enclosing statement for hogs shipped and would you mind showing same to James Gardiner and ask him if he is shipping any from his farm and if he gets the same kind of a deal. All these hogs were pure bred and from the same sow.
Mine were all pure bred and from the same sow, as I mentioned last night.
I had been getting at least fifty per cent grade A before the price went up. I have sow and eleven young-pigs about three weeks old and I have a notion to knock them all on the head and sell the sow.
That is just about what the other fellow said; they must have got together.
I am feeding them seventy cent barley-
He is getting five cents more than my friend.

those that I am getting ready for market and if a farmer came to get barley from me he gets a rebate of fifteen or twenty cents.
Which he does not.
Why in heck don't those who feed their own barley get the same deal? No more hogs for me, to heck with them.
Fortunately he sent along his statement.
Mr. COLD WELL; How does he spell "heck"?


James Garfield Gardiner: H-e-c-k. He had six hogs. There were no A's; there was one Bl, and five C's, or lights. He got $26 for the Bl, which shows it was not a very good one.
It was really lighter than he needed to feed as a Bl.


Percy Ellis Wright: It was about the weight they are asking for.


James Garfield Gardiner: Not what they are asking for, or he would have got more money. He received $114 for the other five, or about $23 each. As I said last night, I sent ten down and I got my statement just about the same -time as this one came in. Eight of mine were 63260-105J
A's and B's and I averaged $29. Two of them were heavies, and I averaged $32 on those. That is the answer to his question as to whether I sent any down and whether I got the same kind of treatment. Why did I get different treatment from what he got?


An hon. MEMBER:: That is the question.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is the question and it is easily answered. He had six hogs and, if the statement made by the hon. member for Melfort is correct, he is not short of feed grain.


Percy Ellis Wright: It is not the same man.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member said that the farmers in his section of the country were not short of feed grain.


Percy Ellis Wright: That is correct.


James Garfield Gardiner: This is one of them. He is not short of feed grain, but he did not feed these hogs enough grain.


Percy Ellis Wright: Because he was losing money.


James Garfield Gardiner: He lost money because of the manner in which he fed them and sold them. The other man said that if he could get $32 for his hogs he could make money even at the prices which this man says barley is worth, which it is not. Barley is not worth anything like seventy cents a bushel; it is more nearly worth the amount the hon. member was speaking about a few moments ago.


Percy Ellis Wright: It is worth seventy-one cents at the elevator.


James Garfield Gardiner: On his farm it - is not worth seventy cents. It is worth what he would have to pay for it if he went to buy feed.


Percy Ellis Wright: It is worth what he can get for it.


James Garfield Gardiner: You can take it that way to serve your purpose. I know one or two men who were feeding hogs around Melfort. They were buying their feed, and you will find that they are paying just about the price that I am indicating for barley. If the man did not have the barley he could buy it for the price I am indicating and feed the hogs. The fellow who sold the barley got fifteen cents from the government, and the purchaser got the barley at fifteen cents less than the market price. In other words, he could have bought the barley and fed it to these hogs to what they should have been fed before putting them on the market. That kind of farmer in my part of the country is called one of two things. Either he is lazy,
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or he does not know how to take care of the feeding of hogs. I say that without fear of contradiction.
There are people who get out of the feeding of hogs for other reasons. I was talking to a good dairyman in this district in the last three days and he mentioned why he was getting out of feeding hogs. [DOT] He said something like this: "I had thirty hogs last year and I have none this year." As a matter of fact, he had just come in off a tractor at nine o'clock in the evening and he said, "I had the choice of coming in about five and milking the cows and feeding the pigs and then going back to the tractor, or I could stay out with the tractor until nine and then come in and feed the pigs after nine o'clock." He told me that he was making money when he was feeding hogs, but he said, "I just cannot stand that long a day." In other words, you have a combination of two things: first there is a shortage of feed; next there is a shortage of labour, and farmers cannot, no matter what the price is, feed any more hogs than they have been feeding in Canada during the past year. There are two problems in front of us. One is to get more feed grown and the other is to make more labour available to farmers. If we can solve those two problems I am quite sure that we can have more hogs produced even at present prices. But I do not think you can get it in any other way. Even raising the price, and leaving the labour and feed grain situation as it is, would not get you any more hogs.


Solon Earl Low: Would the minister clarify one point, because there seems to be some misapprehension about this thing in certain districts in Alberta. A feeder who obtained a feeder permit book to buy feeds last fall arranged with a producer for his supply over the winter and agreed to pay three cents premium on oats when oats were selling at about fifty cents; that was the market price. When the oats were finally delivered and the price paid to the producer, fifty-three cents, representing a premium of three cents over the market price, who should have to make application for the subsidy?


James Garfield Gardiner: The only man entitled to make application for the payment of ten cents a bushel on oats and fifteen cents on barley is the man who sells it. The man who sells the barley gets that extra ten or fifteen cents a bushel because he sold it. If one farmer sells it to another, it is the man who sells that gets the subsidy, not the man that bought it. The fellow who sells his oats or sells his barley instead of feeding it to hogs, and then delivers his hogs light, gets the
extra fifteen cents on barley, but he has to balance that extra fifteen cents against the lighter hogs.


Solon Earl Low: In this case the producer was paid three cents over the market price.


James Garfield Gardiner: Where did he get it from?	'


Solon Earl Low: The feeder paid him directly. The grain was not sold through the elevator.


James Garfield Gardiner: The farmer can sell his grain to his neighbour, and if he is prepared to pay another three cents he can.


Solon Earl Low: In this particular case that I mention, is the producer entitled to make application for and to receive the subsidy of ten cents?


James Garfield Gardiner: If he sold it over an elevator scale or over a scale that had been recommended to the wheat board and they had designated it as a scale on which it could be weighed and had given a certificate, even if the scale was out in the country on a man's farm, he could draw ten cents on oats and fifteen cents on barley.


Mark Cecil Senn: Some suggestion was made a little while ago that the western hog producer would not get as much for his hogs because he is farther from the seaboard. But is it not a fact that the meat board when shipping to Britain took measures to equalize freight rates as between east and west to the seaboard.


James Garfield Gardiner: There is a lower rate on through freight, whether it be hogs or anything else, intended for export, and whether going east or west. That was the old controversy that was raised every session by the hon. member for New Westminster who used to point out that grain went to China at a cheaper freight rate than the fellow paid who fed chickens on Vancouver island. Through freight for export always carries a lower rate.


Mark Cecil Senn: But I was under the impression that some special measures were taken by the meat board to equalize the freight as between east and west on hog products.


James Garfield Gardiner: When there was a
shortage of meat in Toronto, meat was shipped from Calgary to Toronto and the government paid part of the freight.


James Arthur Ross: Does the producer get that difference?


James Garfield Gardiner: The producer has got it if all the things which are said to be true are true; for instance, that people are paying more on the market for cattle than the ceiling price of beef permits them to pay, and they call it a black market. If a man went out
CMr. Gardiner.]

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and bought cattle to be killed under those conditions he would pay higher for the cattle than if the freight was not going to be'paid and the producer to that extent would get the benefit.


James Arthur Ross: The Live Stock Review of April 11 quotes hogs in Toronto at $19.35 and in Calgary at $17.95. Thai was for grade B hogs, and there is practically the same difference in prices all the way through.


James Garfield Gardiner: I have forgotten the date on which the trade agreement with Britain was announced in the house, and that has something to do with the discussion now going on with regard to beef, namely, that prior to the announcement of the new agreement what they call a black market was operating in eastern Canada. I have never agreed that there was a black market operating, but those who were advocating a certain policy called it a black market. Hogs were selling at a considerably higher level on the Toronto market as compared with Winnipeg, in relation to the price we were obtaining -for bacon and ham from Britain. It was said that there was a black market to the extent of one cent a pound in some areas and one and a half cents a pound on other markets. When we made the agreement with Britain, it made provision for an increase in the price of bacon representing about $2 a hog, and the fellow here who was already paying $1 per hog over the legitimate market price could only raise his price by $1 a hog, whereas back on the other market they went up $2, and we immediately had a controversy about that. The Winnipeg market was never out of line with the ceiling prices on pork. The Toronto market was; the Montreal market was; the market in Nova Scotia was; and the day after the change was made I got letters from all these areas to this effect, "You said hogs were going up $2; they did . not go up $2"; and you will find that the markets at a certain date in the east levelled out with the other and there was not the margin which existed for a few days.


James Arthur Ross: Is the Ontario feeder who buys grain at Fort William allowed the freight down to his feeding point from Fort William?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


James Arthur Ross: Following that up, I have given the figure at Toronto, $19.35. The Calgary producer gets $17.95. That relates to the case of the barley which you have been discussing. I have just got some returns in this morning's mail from barley sold this week from my farm: 71% cents at Melita. The minister said it was 64% cents at Fort
William, so that there is a difference of seven cents a bushel for barley which the Ontario feeder has; he gets his feed seven cents a bushel cheaped than we do on the prairies. Added to that you have the expense of the man-power and all that is involved in transportation east. The minister spoke a while ago about the efficient feeder. I do not care how efficient your feeder is, it will take at least five pounds of grain to make a pound of pork.. Therefore the thing does not, to my mind, make sound economics. You can produce meat much cheaper on the same farm where you grow your feed. I am not advocating that there should not be some basis set up to transoprt feed to Ontario, but as a matter of sound economics I repeat it is cheaper to feed beef or pork on the same farm on which the grain is produced. I might put some letters on Hansard, like the minister and the hon. member for Melfort, but I do not suppose that parliamentary procedure would allow me to insert in Hansard some of the terms used in some of these letters. A man who is a very good live stock producer in my constituency wrote me a lengthy letter on this subject the other day, and I am bound to say that he finds more fault with the Minister of Finance than with the Minister of Agriculture. He gives the quantity of cattle and hogs that he produced year by year throughout the war, and the number of cows that he and his family have milked; but then he says, "We have quit milking the cows; we have quit producing the hogs, and if there is not a radical change in income tax deductions and all of the books we have to keep and the records we have to produce to the inspectors I am going to quit entirely producing live stock on my farm under this set-up."


An hon. MEMBER:: Is that all he said?


James Arthur Ross: No; I said that parliamentary procedure would not allow me, because of the terms he uses, to put the letter on Hansard. He was terribly vexed about this matter. That is only one of several letters which I have received and which indicate that our policy is just a bit out of line. By 1944 Alberta had increased from a very small hog producing area to the largest in Canada. Great strides were made in that province, as were indicated by the figures which I put on Hansard for all the provinces of Canada. But they showed a great decrease in Alberta in 1445, and this year there is a much greater decrease. In Manitoba, to speak particularly of my own constituency, one may go for many miles and, I am sorry to say, on many of these farms you will not find one brood sow alive where farmers were producing from one

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to two hundred pigs during the war. I think we should endeavour in some way to correct that.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think we should get the correct figures on the record and not reason from something which is not official.


James Arthur Ross: What figures is the minister referring to?


James Garfield Gardiner: Hog prices in different places. Here are the weekly hog prices for the week ended May 9: Toronto, $19.60; Montreal, $19.85; Winnipeg, $18.35; Calgary, $18.20; Edmonton, $17.85. The difference between Toronto and Calgary is $1.25. That is for slaughtered hogs. For live hogs that is just about the freight between these points; and that is what it usually is, unless there is some special circumstances for the day which you happen to be quoting. The difference between hogs in Toronto and hogs in Winnipeg is usually the freight, and the difference between hogs in Calgary and hogs in Toronto is the freight on live hogs. Hogs are put alive into ears in Calgary, shipped to Toronto and slaughtered there, and live weight is paid from Winnipeg to Toronto; I think it is around seventy-five cents or eighty-five cents in Toronto.


Douglas Scott Harkness: That is what we have been saying, that the farmer has the freight differential against him.


James Arthur Ross: I am quoting from the Live Stock Market Review of April 11, 1946, issued by the minister's own department. The figures I gave were, for B hogs, $19.35 in Toronto and $17.95 in Calgary; for A hogs, $19.75 in Toronto and $18 at Calgary. I point out that those are figures in a pamphlet put out by the minister's own department.


James Garfield Gardiner: For what week?


James Arthur Ross: April 11. That is what I happen to have before me.


James Garfield Gardiner: For April 11 the figures are: Toronto, $19.35, Montreal, $19.25; Winnipeg, $18.35; Calgary, $18.15; Edmonton, $17.85. The figures on a particular day might vary from that, but that is the average for the week. A suggestion was made a moment ago by the hon. member for Calgary East, who said in a speech which he delivered this evening that he did not know much about wheat-and I shall have to assume that he does not know much more about hogs-that the only thing you need to consider when you look at the differential between western hogs and Ontario hogs is the freight. Anyone who has fed hogs in both eastern and western Canada is, I think, acquainted with this fact, that 
when you grow grain on an eastern farm which has been farmed much longer than western farms, and -which did not have the same ingredients in the soil when they started to farm, and feed grain from an eastern farm to-day, you must have all these supplements which are provided and which come at high cost; those must be fed if you are to produce your hogs in six months. On western farms one scarcely ever thinks of feeding supplements.


Percy Ellis Wright: Oh, oh.


James Garfield Gardiner: Well, if you do you are wasting your time and money, because there are a great many people who are finishing hogs in six months without any supplements at all. It can be done. It is done right along. More than that; any farmer in eastern Canada who feeds grain will tell you, "Give me a carload of western Canadian grain and I can do much better with it than I can with any other grains." That is only because it is better quality grain, and feeds the hogs to better advantage; and the western farmer has other differentials besides the differential in freight. As a matter of fact, I am proud of the section of Canada that I live in; rather than knock it all the time, and say the farmers are all broke, and everybody is having a hard time, and everywhere else in the wrold they are having a good time, I would say that I do not know any place in the world where they are having a better time than in western Canada; and that is where I would rather live.


Percy Ellis Wright: The Minister of Agriculture certainly demonstrated in the statement which he made just now that he has not fed hogs on his own farm in western Canada recently.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am feeding seventy-five right now.


Percy Ellis Wright: I will guarantee that if you are going to market them in six months' time and if you have not got milk, you are feeding supplements.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am feeding mine the supplement which you call peas, and that is a pretty good protein.


Percy Ellis Wright: It is protein.


James Garfield Gardiner: They cannot grow peas in eastern Canada any more.


Percy Ellis Wright: It is as good as any feed
in any part of Canada; I do not care whether they are feeding western or eastern grain-

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James Garfield Gardiner: We may as well finish it right now because this question comes up so often. Every eastern farmer knows that thirty, forty and fifty years ago he was growing and feeding peas on his farm, and every eastern farmer knows that he cannot grow peas to-day. The weevil has put an end to that. We are growing peas in western Canada and feeding them to hogs. We do not have the weevil yet, but we may have him some day. In the days when the eastern farmer had peas to feed he did not have to buy a supplement to the extent that he has to-day. . We have them and we are feeding them. They are grown in considerable quantities up in the area which the hon. member for Melfort represents.


Victor Quelch: I should like to say a word in reference to the part of the country which I represent. The fall in the production of hogs has been caused not so much by the shortage of grain or even the price, but rather by the difficulty in getting labour. Most of the farmers have been carrying on the work themselves. They found it almost impossible to carry on a full day's work in the field and then at night do the chores, milk the cows and so on. In the days when they had a hired man they could do that, but they have found now that when they are able to get labour they have to pay $100 a month. If they had to pay $100 a month the year round there was not very much profit left for them, and therefore they thought it was better to cut down on their hogs and sell the grain. As I have said, the reason for the drop in production was not the shortage of grain. In my part of the country the chief grain grown is wheat. To feed hogs they sell the wheat and buy coarse grains and get the bonus. We found it was more profitable to do that than to try to grow the coarse grains. We did not have any difficulty this fall in shipping in whatever barley we wanted.
There is one point I should like to bring to the minister's attention. It seems to me that we place the veteran under a handicap in regard to the question of feed grain. I ran into quite a few complaints. last winter of veterans coming back, taking up land and desiring to raise hogs. When they made application for a feeder permit they could not get it if the former owner or operator of the farm had sold any oats or barley. They were refused that feeder permit on the ground that the man who owned or operated that farm had already sold oats and barley from it. I cannot see why veterans returning to this country should be penalized in that way. I suggest that, if possible, in the future the veterans
should be allowed the bonus on the coarse grains in spite of the fact that the former owner may have sold coarse grains.


Mr. BURTON:: Sitting here listening to this discussion, I could not help wondering why there were so many farmers who are always wrong and the Minister of Agriculture always right when he speaks. When I think of the farmers whom I know and have met during the past year and heard their complaints I am satisfied that they know as much about feeding hogs and have done more of the actual feeding than the Minister of Agriculture has ever done for a good many years.
I cannot imagine that these men are always wrong. There is something wrong. What the minister has said here this evening gives us a partial indication of what is wrong. When he sets out on a course of action he follows it through thick or thin. That may be a good quality for a person to have, but I suggest to the minister for the sake of agriculture in this country, for the sake of those men whose cause he professes to have at heart, that there are times when he must admit that he is sometimes in the wrong. That is what the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar did so nobly yesterday.
So far as I am concerned, and I believe I speak for all the members of this group, I do not want anyone in this chamber to get the impression that we are opposed to the farmers of Ontario receiving assistance in the way of feed grain coming to this province. I do not want to be insulting to the Ontario farmers, but I would not want to feed hogs or cattle in Ontario; I would rather do it in Saskatchewan. If we can be of any assistance in the matter of co-operation we must try to give it. It is absolutely unfair to these family farms, where the majority of the live stock is produced in the 'west, to penalize the man who is feeding his own feed. That is one of our big troubles ; that is one of the things that has caused a lot of the farmers to question the desirability of feeding hogs and cattle instead of putting the grain in elevators.
What was mentioned earlier this evening, and what has been mentioned many times previously, was the policy of this government. Whether the minister is responsible or not, he must accept a share of the responsibility. I refer to the policy of this government in so far as income tax is concerned. They do not and will not give the farmer's family credit for producing that live stock on the farms.


Douglas Scott Harkness: It seems to me that we have tied ourselves up into this horrible endless argument which always arises when one talks about subsidies, to whom they should be
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paid, what for, how much and so forth. The argument can go on for days. One of my hon. friends to the left, I think it was the hon. member for Wood Mountain, advocated a few moments ago that we should pay a subsidy which would oifset all the effects of geography and make the price to the western hog producer the same as to the eastern. I think the whole thing comes down to the basic question, so long as you have these subsidies you are going to have all this terrific argument about it.
Apart altogether from the subsidies, there is one factor that stands out in spite of all that the Minister of Agriculture has had to say on the matter of there not being enough coarse grains to feed the number of hogs we had a couple of years ago, and therefore we had to cut down the numbers and so on. One thing remains in spite of the subsidies and the quality of grain in eastern Canada as compared with the west-and by the way I could not see the point of introducing it into the argument -namely, that so far as Alberta at any rate is concerned, the number of hogs produced has declined considerably, and it has declined chiefly, almost entirely, because it pays the farmer better to sell his coarse grain than to feed it to hogs. If this government thinks that is a good policy, that it is better to ship the coarse grain to Ontario and have them feed it here rather than have it fed on the farm in Alberta, that is all right. As an Albertan I would be very happy to have them adopt that policy. I hope they adopt it and I hope they broadcast it. Certainly so far as Alberta is concerned we think that it is an advantage to us, we think it is an advantage to Canada as a whole, that as much of the grain as possible should be fed right on the farm where it is produced. You get away from all these extra shipping charges, handling charges and everything else in connection with it. No matter what the minister may say in connection with the shortage of coarse grains, as far as Alberta is concerned we produce far more than we can feed; and the only reason we have quit producing hogs to the extent we have is that, as I have said, it pays better to sell the coarse grains, which I think is bad agriculture and bad political economy.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: 
Mr. CARDIFF:: I have listened with a great deal of interest to the arguments put forward to-night by the minister and by western farmers. I could not but agree with many points in the minister's argument as to the difference between the east and the west. We in eastern Canada could not begin to produce hogs but for the fact that the freight is paid on the grain coming here. Eastern Canada, or I should say Ontario, because I do not know anything about the maritimes, is geared to produce hogs if we can get the feed with which to do so at a price which will permit us to make a reasonable profit. The west is geared to produce grain. Any western farmer to whom I have spoken, including those who come to visit us, will walk around our farm, for instance, and say, "I would not farm here for the world, because you have
too much work to do." I think we are just as intelligent as the farmers of the west; but, after all, when your home is in a certain place and you are earning a livelihood there you have to make the best of it. We are used to working for twelve months in the year but the western farmer does not want to do that. He wants to make a living by working for six months a year and resting the other six months.


James Arthur Ross: There are some
exceptions.


Lewis Elston Cardiff: The exceptions are very few. The average western farmer does not want to work for twelve months a year; he wants to make his living in six months. The Ontario farmer must work for twelve months a year and every day of every month in order to make a livelihood. If the Minister of Agriculture makes it possible for us to get grain, and fixes the price of hogs at a reasonable level so that we can make a profit, we will produce more hogs in Ontario than were ever produced before. But it must be at a profit; we cannot afford to lose money. We have to make our livelihood at it. Ontario produces more hogs and beef than any other province I know of, and it will continue to do so, as long as we can get the assistance we require to do the work and to make a living. Our backs are strong-and no doubt' our minds are just a little weak in that respect. But we will do the job, if we can get the material.


John Horne Blackmore: I trust nothing further will be said which will tend to cause any unhappiness between the east and the west. I believe the rank and file of people in the west are happy about the arrangement to allow eastern farmers to feed grains from the west so that they may produce live stock. I think it is important that we keep at least that much unhappiness out of our situation in Canada.
Just a word with regard to hog production. I am not prepared to pronounce on the cause, but I will say that the condition in my constituency is almost identical with that described by the hon. member for Souris. Whereas two or three years ago there were numbers of hogs on farms all along the road, it is an exception to-day to see a hog.


James Garfield Gardiner: There is no argument about that. The numbers are down-away down.


John Horne Blackmore: Yes. I find considerable disagreement as to the cause, and I am not going to enter into a discussion of that matter.
Rather I should like to speak about another matter which vitally concerns cattle producers
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in the west. Certainly it concerns those in my constituency. I refer to Bangs disease or contagious abortion. Would the minister give us a statement on the policy of his department concerning contagious abortion as it applies in Alberta?


James Garfield Gardiner: I wonder if we might carry item 17, and then proceed to a discussion of item IS.


John Horne Blackmore: I thought we had
completed item 17.


Mr. STEPHENSON:: The minister said a minute ago that one of the great troubles to-day was a shortage of labour on the farms. I believe that is true in my constituency, because farmers are complaining that they cannot get help. The minister said that hog production had dropped off because farmers could not get help on the farms. Is the government doing anything to make farm labour available in order that farmers may continue the production of hogs, and other agricultural food shortages? Surely that is one of the most pressing questions in agriculture to-day.


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not wish to enter into a detailed discussion of that subject, because it will be discussed when the estimates of the Minister of Labour are before the committee. However, I think it will be found, when those estimates are considered, that everything we can conceive of is being done. There may be some other things hon. members could suggest when the items are being discussed, but I know we are attempting in every possible way to get labourers for farmers.


John Horne Blackmore: After what I said a minute ago, it is only fair to say that the falling off of hog production in my constituency is not due to a shortage of labour. The same men are there who were producing hogs in abundance only two or three years ago. They are equipped and ready to produce them again. But for some reason or another they have made up their minds that it does not pay to produce hogs-and I fancy they are the best judge of that. Whether they have failed to discover some technique the Minister of Agriculture has discovered, I cannot say. But I do not think we should lay too much stress upon the shortage of labour. While I admit that there is a shortage of labour, yet nearly every farmer in my constituency realizes that there are times during the year when he could take a number of hogs through. But he is not taking those hogs through, although two or three years ago he did.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

Health of animals-*
18. Administration of Animal Contagious Diseases Act and Meat and Canned Foods Act, $2,103,508.
Mr. GLADSTONE:: Ontario is a typical mixed farming province, and in that province agriculture is an all-year-round operation. The picture on any farm in Ontario is one of costly buildings for the winter housing of all live stock.
Summer operations during the working season on a 100-acre farm would consist, probably, of a ten-acre field of wheat, a ten-acre field of oats or barley, a few acres of ensilage corn, perhaps two acres of roots of some kind, perhaps mangolds. In addition to the normal farm housing, the farmer must have a silo.
There is much work throughout the season taking care of the ensilage corn. There is the operation of cutting it, shredding it, and placing it in the silo, and a great amount of work throughout the winter in the feeding of it.
Then there is the use of wheat straw and oat straw in the bedding down of cattle, whether they be in open sheds or in stables. Taking it all in all, the Ontario farm offers an all-year-round occupation. That is what the farmer in Ontario expects to do. As a result of feeding operations, fertilizer is provided to go back on the land. This is an extremely necessary operation, and the only way in which the productivity of the farm can be maintained.
I have made this brief statement in order that hon. members may have a better understanding of the situation on a typical Ontario farm. It is quite different from that in western Canada where, in common practice, there is no labour in connection with keeping up the fertility of the soil. The land in the west is highly productive in its natural form.
I emphasize these factors as elements requiring the application of a great amount of labour, and involving a high cost of production. On these grounds it is only reasonable that the Ontario farmer should be given some little consideration by way of special rates on the additional quantities of grain he requires to finish his stock, and carry it through the winter.


James Garfield Gardiner: I should like to answer the question asked by the hon. member for Lethbridge.


John Horne Blackmore: Before answering _
would the minister permit me to ask further questions, so that he may answer them at one time? When a stockman finds disease in his herd, what serum is available to him? What serum is available for treating cattle? Whom should he go to in order to get the

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serum? Under what conditions could he obtain the serum? Is there any limit to the number of cattle for which he can get serum? Where does the serum come from; what factory, laboratory or other source? What assistance does the provincial government give the stockman? What assistance is the federal government giving and prepared to give the stockman? Do the federal and Alberta provincial governments cooperate in aiding the stockman in, first, cleaning up his herd and, second, keeping his herd clean? What responsibilities must the stockman assume, first, to get the serum, second, to get provincial assistance, third, to get federal assistance' and, fourth, to have continued assistance over a period of years?
If the minister wou-ld make a statement on the subject of Bang's disease and answer these questions, as well as adding any other information he may care to add which he thinks will enable the stockman in my constituency to know just what to do in clearing up this disease, he will confer a great benefit on the people of southern Alberta.


James Garfield Gardiner: When herds are placed under the government's Bang's disease policy the owners must employ veterinary practitioners to collect blood specimens. The first thing they must do is to employ a veterinarian to go out and take blood samples from the animals that may be afflicted with the disease. The blood tests are conducted free of charge at federal laboratories, of which there is one located at Lethbridge. When a herd passes three tests over a period of a year the department collects blood and conducts check tests. If it is negative the herd is listed for one year. That is, if they show that there is no disease for one year they are given certificates.	-
Licences for the manufacture of brucella abortus vaccine strain 19 are issued to approved Canadian laboratories. Hon. members will probably remember this as calfhood vaccine rather than under the official name. Import permits are issued to Canadian agents of responsible United States manufacturers and permits to purchase and use vaccine are issued to registered veterinarians. *
Adult cattle must not be vaccinated. They would probably remain positive to the agglutination test; consequently their export would be prohibited and they could not enter any clean herd. The use of vaccine during the calf age is supposed to prevent the disease later on, but the vaccine is not to be used on adult animals. When it is injected it causes the animal to be positive under test, and it would
not be permitted to enter the United States nor would any person purchase the animal for breeding purposes.
In the carrying out of export tests the blood is collected by veterinary inspectors and accredited veterinarians only. These tests are conducted at federal laboratories and cooperating laboratories. The co-operating laboratories are as follows:
Dr. Cunningham's laboratory, Summerside, P.E.I.
Provincial laboratory, Charlottetown, P.E.I.
Agricultural college, Truro, N.S.
Department of Agriculture, Fredericton, N.B.
Oka veterinary laboratory, Oka, Quebec.
Macdonald college laboratory, Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec.
Provincial laboratory, Quebec, Quebec.
Ontario veterinary college, Guelph, Ontario.
Queen's university, Kingston, Ontario.
Manitoba agricultural college, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Saskatchewan university, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Alberta university, Edmonton, Alberta.
The department pays the co-operating laboratories ten cents per sample tested.


John Horne Blackmore: That is, the Department of Agriculture at Ottawa pays that?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, and I understand that some of the provinces distribute the vaccine free of charge. I believe Alberta does this. In any event, whether it is free or not, it is always available through druggists; veterinarians can purchase it and use it for this purpose.


John Horne Blackmore: It must be purchased by a veterinarian?
Mr., GARDINER: Yes; it can be used properly only by a veterinarian.


John Horne Blackmore: He can purchase it any time he wishes?


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand there is a supply on hand all the time. It is manufactured in the United States and it is made also at the laboratory at Guelph. We also make it in the laboratory over in Hull but not in sufficient quantities to be sent out.
Under the Bang's disease policy the owners pay their own veterinarian to take blood specimens. Sterile bottles and laboratory service are provided by the department. Veterinary inspectors collect blood samples for check tests for listing and, after listing, all subsequent retests and tests and retests of additions. Listed herds must contain ten or more animals. In the case of export tests, exporters may employ accredited veterinarians at their own expense when salaried veterinary inspectors cannot give prompt service because of other departmental
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duties. When a veterinary inspector is on premises conducting tuberculin tests of additions to herds under any of the tuberculosis policies, he may take blood samples if the herd is also under the Bang's disease policy. When negative on first tests there shall be a retest in ninety days and then annually. When reactors are found there shall be retests at six-week intervals until negative. After a negative test is found there shall be two retests at ninety-day intervals. If still negative, there shall be a retest in six months and, if negative then, yearly. When there are questionable tests, retests shall, be at six-week intervals.
I think that pretty well covers the questions which have been asked. This information can be had in printed form from the department, at any time, and I think the best thing for anyone who is interested to do would be to write in and get this information.


John Horne Blackmore: What is the name of the veterinarian at Lethbridge?


James Garfield Gardiner: Doctor Duffy is at the Lethbridge laboratory and Doctor Allan is at Cardston.


William Scottie Bryce: Is it the intention of the government to pursue the same policy regarding tuberculosis free areas as was pursued prior to the war, or are they going to pursue a more vigorous policy?


James Garfield Gardiner: It will be the same as
before the war, and we hope to get off to at least the same vigorous policy we were following prior to the war. We have not been able to get the men to do the work, although I have in my pocket a letter from an hon. member who says he has a veterinarian they are not using.


William Scottie Bryce: Will the conditions be the same as before?


James Garfield Gardiner: Exactly the same.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: I was going to pursue the matter of personnel for that sort of programme. I am glad to notice that there has been some improvement in the salaries being paid. Since coming here in 1940, I recall hearing that there were two or three veterinarians who were receiving less than $2,000 a year. Is any veteriniarian receiving less than $2,000 at the present time?


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand not.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: What guarantee has the purchaser of canned goods that he will get the same quality of goods according to the grade marked on the can in Ontario as he would in British Columbia? What supervision is there with regard to quality?


James Garfield Gardiner: Can we leave that until we reach the marketing item?
Mr. TOWNLEY-SMITH: The other day, under the heading of "animal pathologists", I drew the attention of the minister to the fact that we are very short of veterinary surgeons, and he suggested that the subject be left over until we reached this item. I would repeat my question now. Will the minister not consider giving more encouragement to students in universities to take up veterinary science by way of offering scholarships and offering veterinary students work after they have. graduated ?	.


James Garfield Gardiner: We have been giving consideration to this question but no policy has yet been worked out.


Mr. MacNAUGHT:: I am in emphatic agreement with what the hon. member for North Battleford has said, and in that connection may I read a paragraph from Maclean's Magazine from its "Cross Country" section. It says:
Prince Edward Island's 100,000 head of cattle have to share one doctor. So the province is scouting all Canada, to induce veterinarians to settle there. Premier J. Walter Jones, himself a farmer, estimated there is room for at least 10 veterinarians on the island.
The situation was forcibly brought to official notice when the milk and meat inspector of the city of Charlottetown died this spring. No veterinarian could be found to take his place. The situation might have been serious had not the provincial veterinarian, whose office and laboratory are in Charlottetown, offered to take the work.
I believe that statement to be essentially correct and, if it is, a serious situation exists. I would urge upon the minister to do everything in his power to alleviate that situation by following the suggestions made by the hon. member for North Battleford to accelerate courses and offer scholarships and inducements to students of veterinary science.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: What are the annual requirements of the department through the retirement or death of veterinarians?
Mr. GiVRDINER: The normal wastage is between twenty-five and thirty a year, and we are not getting that number at present.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I wish to support what other hon. members have urged in this matter. The total number of graduate veterinarians from our colleges last year was at its lowest point, between twenty and twenty-five. It is important that the federal government in cooperation with the provincial government should face up to this problem. The Saskatchewan department of agriculture is offering a few scholarships. Since this is a matter in

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which the federal government are also directly-interested, I think they should go along with the provincial government and match its payments dollar for dollar to see that this gap between the demand and supply is bridged.


Mr. BLAIR:: At the last session of the house I drew the attention of the committee to the widespread prevalence of Bang's disease across Canada and to the fact that many people were becoming affected with undulant fever. The minister said at that time that when the estimates came up this year he would try to do something about the matter.
I again point out that the medical profession have still no cure for undulant fever. We have nothing whatever that will cure it. There is still no cure for Bang's disease, but we have prevention for Bang's disease, and that is calfhood vaccination. There is a list of casualties from undulant fever every year throughout this country, and the only means we have of controlling undulant fever is by calfhood vaccination. Our farmers are experiencing a great many losses of cattle through Bang's disease, and undulant fever is causing many casualties among human beings. The only measure of relief we have, and the only way of controlling undulant fever is by calfhood vaccination. There is no doubt that calfhood vaccination is really an effective remedy, but the trouble in Canada is that there is no unified effort because the regulations vary in each province. I will list the conditions in each province so far as Bang's disease is concerned.
In Ontario the work of controlling the disease has been placed directly under the Ontario agricultural college. An extensive programme of calf vaccination is under way, with strain 19, in an attempt to eradicate the disease from the province.
In Manitoba some funds are provided for vaccination of calves in pure bred herds by qualified veterinarians. -
In Saskatchewan there is calfhood vaccination, with Cotton's strain 19, for herds supplying milk to villages and towns without protection by pasteurization.
Alberta has also had calfhood vaccination since 1944, following a request from the western stock growers' association.
British Columbia has no special legislation.
In Quebec Bang's disease is controlled by the live stock sanitary law, and there are
5,000	listed herds, with 551 herds badly contaminated. For a- small fee owners of herds can have their herds tested under an agreement. The vaccination plan is used for contaminated herds.
Nova Scotia has no protective legislation. Many herd owners are doing their own vaccination.
Prince Edward Island has no legislation.
In New Brunswick there are restricted control areas, but there is a shortage of qualified veterinaries and inspectors to carry out the programme.
In regard to the efficacy of Cotton's strain 19 vaccine, I quote from the report of Doctor Welsh, director of the animal research division of Lederle Laboratories, Pearl River, New York, which is one of the largest laboratories in the United States. This article appeared in the Holstein-Friesian Journal of February of this year:
The recent report by Winter of New York state confirms the findings of others in that some vaccinated animals continue to show a positive blood reaction for many months after being vaccinated.
This should not be taken as a reason why calfhood vaccination should not be carried on, as he shows later. I continue the quotation:
His findings and others indicate that, on the average, calves vaccinated at the age of six months, give the best results. Calves vaccinated at four months of age or under usually do not establish a very high degree of resistance. Calves vaccinated at eight months or above retain their positive blood reaction for a prolonged time. The New York records, reported by Winter, on calfhood vaccination was in herds having 15 to 47 per cent infection. Of the animals vaccinated at six months of age, about 60 per cent were negative on blood tests six months later. At the twelfth month following vaccination, or when the animals were about eighteen months of age, at least 80 per cent of those vaccinated were negative and in some herds as many qs 90 per cent were negative. When these animals reached breeding age, they were bred, regardless of whether they showed a vaccination titer or were negative. Approximately 31 per cent of these animals vaccinated as calves were showing a positive blood reaction at two years of age but they found that the reaction receded during the first lactation period and that less than one per cent still remained positive at the time of the second freshening.
That would indicate that calfhood vaccination is effective. We should use any means at hand to control this disease.
As a physician I am concerned about undulant fever, and I as especially concerned over the apathy and listlessness with which this subject is approached by the department. This is the only cure we have. Something must be done. Therefore I say that calfhood vaccination should be compulsory on the strength of the records of the herds using it and on the strength of the records of the states where calfhood vaccination has been in vogue for some time. I think we can accept these records and particularly the record of the Ontario agricultural college, where Ontario is undertaking a mass programme. But if the different provinces have no set regulation, and it is done in a haphazard way in one province, contamination will be car-
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ried from one province to the other by animals shipped from one province to the other. So tha-t the whole aflair, to be effective, must be dominion-wide, and I suggest to the minister, and repeat, that I am much concerned about the undulant fever, let alone the tremendous loss to the live stock owner, and feel that we must do something about the matter and make calfhood vaccination compulsory.


John Horne Blackmore: I greatly appreciate the contribution which the hon. member who has just taken his seat has made. My suggestion would be that the Minister of Agriculture for the dominion should call together in council the provincial ministers of agriculture; that this matter should be discussed and a definite policy arrived at which would be accepted by all the provinces, and that then there should be an immediate drive, which would produce results. In my opinion this disease has gone altogether too far to be reassuring.


John Alpheus Charlton: Is the minister going to make a statement on this?


James Garfield Gardiner: I should just like to join with the hon. member for Lethbridge in saying that the statement is a valuable one. A similar statement was made a year ago by the hon. member for Lanark, and I expressed my appreciation of it at the time. I quite agree with him that there is only one way by which we shall be able to attack the problem successfully, and that is by a policy somewhat similar to the one we have with regard to tuberculosis. We are not ready to proceed with it this year but it is being given consideration.


John Horne Blackmore: Has the minister
given thought to the possibility of publicizing this matter by radio broadcasts over the dominion, or has something of this sort been done? I doubt whether people in general understand sufficiently the seriousness of this problem.


James Garfield Gardiner: I really think it is understood by those who are raising live stock, or the great majority of them; but, as has been emphasized this evening, it is just, three years ago since we accepted the calfhood vaccine. It has been used in the United States for some time, but our experts here did not officially accept it as a preventive until just three years ago. Since that time information with regard to it has been widely circulated. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons why it was officially accepted was that a great many people in Canada were writing in daily or weekly insisting on its being accepted, 
indicating that they knew something about it. Medical men, such as the hon. member who has just spoken to us, have been urging that something more be done about it than is being done, because, after all, as I understand it, this disease can be transferred to human beings-which is much more serious than the animal itself having the disease.
The same thing was true of tuberculosis. That is why we took such an active part in fighting tuberculosis; but there is an additional feature of it, that when I came here first, the first delegation I had in the department was a group of breeders from Ontario who were objecting strenuously to the e-xtent to which we were trying to regulate Bang's disease. As a matter of fact, they succeeded in having us undo some of what we had been doing. We were compelling any man who had undulant fever in his herd to stamp a big B on the cheek of the animal; but we were compelled by pressure to put the B in the ear, where it was harder to see. That was the attitude of persons who themselves were interested. We refused to make the B off altogether. The situation to-day is a little different. People have been educated up to the seriousness of the disease, just as a few years ago they were educated up to the seriousness of tuberculosis in cattle. I think we are getting nearer to the time when we can do something similar to what has been done with tuberculosis; but, again, it involves these larger staffs of veterinarians in order to put the policy in effect. Just as soon as we can see our way through it, some policy will be developed.


John Alpheus Charlton: I have enjoyed very much the discussion which took place earlier this evening in which western members took part. I can only assure hon. members from the west that I personally was having a good laugh over it and I think most of the eastern farmers are good-natured enough not to have any ill-feeling as a result of some of the remarks which have been made.
Regarding the health of animals branch, I said certain things last fall which included some observations with regard to salaries in the civil service, mainly the health of animals branch, which branch I mentioned specifically.
I am glad to see there have been some changes in this department, not only in respect of salaries but in the reclassification of some of the inspectors. But I am doubtful whether sufficient has yet been done to get men to come into the service, and I am quite worried about the situation. After I talked to several of these boys, some of whom are in grades which have been reclassified, they wonder whether

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it is worth while for them to remain in the minister's department. If they decide that it is not, and we lose more of the veterinarians now working in that branch, the situation will become that much more serious than it is. As matters stand to-day, I understand, according to the estimates, that there are still some men getting less than $2,400 who are working in this service. Is that so?


James Garfield Gardiner: All the men who are now coming in are starting at $2,400.


John Alpheus Charlton: I realize that is so, but I am asking the question, are there any in the service who are still getting less than $2,400?


James Garfield Gardiner: I believe they are all getting not less than $2,400.


John Alpheus Charlton: According to the estimates, there are a few who are still below $2,400. That is why I asked the question. It so happens that a man who joins the service now, starting at $2,400, could easily in four years rise to the same salary as a man who has been in the service for twelve or fourteen years. It would appear unfortunate that that is the case. I realize that ability must count. It is difficult for the civil service commission to get a true picture of what this whole salary schedule should be. But one thing definite in my mind is that men in the field, in charge of districts, who are doing as much and probably have as much responsibility as men in charge of packing plants, are not getting the salary that the man in charge of a packing plant is receiving. Personally I do not see any reason why there could not be some overlapping of the salary set-up which would give a stimulus to the man in the field who is performing this important service, so that he would have something to look forward to. As it is now, I believe the maximum for that particular grade would be $3,300.


James Garfield Gardiner: Just to put the record straight, may I say that I understand the men in the field now do get as much as the men in the packing plants if they are in charge of' a district. That is under the new arrangement. What is being stated was true up until recently.


John Alpheus Charlton: It has been quite recent?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


John Alpheus Charlton: I am glad to hear it. It gives the man in the field an opportunity of going to $3,600.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


John Alpheus Charlton: I am sure the men will appreciate that. I do not know for certain, but I have heard that the number who are
likely to come here from the veterinary college will not be over three or four. If that be the case, we cannot expect much increase in the work done by the health of animals branch for at least another year. In the meantime there are three counties in Ontario which have dropped back from the status of accredited areas. I hope hon. members will not criticize me for using Ontario figures and not the figures of other provinces. It is not that I am trying to differentiate, because I know the same will be true all across Canada. Three counties have lost the accredited area status, and one more county will lose it this year. The counties that have lost it are: Prince Edward, my own county of Brant, and the township of Pittsburg in Frontenac county; and Waterloo county will be out on August 1. The townships of Huntley, Fitzroy and Tor-bolton in Carleton county will be out on October 1. This is a serious situation. It is in tuberculosis alone. The w'ork of the past fifteen or twenty-five years will be put back a great many years if these counties are to be untested for just how long I am not sure. The infected animals will be left there to infect other animals, and this disease spreads quite rapidly. It spreads not only to cattle but also to other live stock, specifically hogs. Quite recently there have been several cases of hogs having to go to the tank because they were infected with T.B. But it is also transmissible to humans. That was mentioned by the hon. member for Lanark.
Bang's disease is probably just as serious as T.B., if not more so. Bang's disease is definitely transmissible to humans as the hon. member for Lanark said. So far the medical profession have found no cure for it. Neither have we a cure for Bang's disease in cattle. But as I mentioned in the house last fall, there is a good block or control for the disease in the form of brucella abortus vaccine, strain 19. Strain 19 is being used in Ontario to good advantage. A moment ago the minister made a statement that vaccine must not be used in adult animals. I ask him why that is so. I believe I proved to the house last fall that there were no ill effects from the vaccination of adult animals as found by the United States authorities with strain 19. It has been proven that even a cow that is near freshening can be vaccinated with strain 19. Probably she would abort, but that foetus can be exposed to any other animal in the herd, and, according to the United States report, those animals will not contract abortion. Therefore I ask the minister why-


James Garfield Gardiner: The only reason I can give is that I must take my officials' advice
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because I am not a veterinarian. My hon. friend is and he probably would disagree with them, but I must agree with my officials or- Mr. CHARLTON: I understand that perfectly. Probably some of the officials are still l^ack in the horse-and-buggy days. Surely we can take the results of the experiments in the United States as true. Surely we are not expected to carry on experiments of our own here and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do the same work they have done. The minister said that there is very little we can do without more help. I made another suggestion last fall with regard to the vaccination of calves to be raised in listed herds. I still make that suggestion. It is very important. I may say that it would take probably only fifteen minutes of the veterinarian's time when he is there testing the herd to try to tell the owner how important it was that he have these calves to be raised vaccinated. It would just be a matter of time; it would not be any extra labour. I venture to say that he would spend fifteen minutes talking to the farmer anyway, and it would be time spent to good advantage in explaining the situation to him.
I also said last fall that the listed herd is probably the most vulnerable of any herd in the country. Personally I would prefer to have the average herd on the back concession than I would the listed herd in so far as Bang's disease is concerned, because there is neither acquired nor natural immunity iSn the listed herd, and the disease can spread rapidly in that herd, much more so than in the average herd on the back concession. I have made two suggestions: first, that all calves to be raised in listed herds could quite easily be vaccinated. The vaccine is free; it does not take very long to inject it, and, as the hon. member for Lanark said, in only one and a half per cent of the cases were they still positive after the second lactation. Even though an animal is positive it affects it only for export. As a matter of fact, you might be a great deal safer to have an all-positive herd than an all-negative herd, if it was negative from the fact that it had not received the vaccine and was not infected. Personally I believe there are two things that could be done. The departmental officials should make themselves more fully acquainted with the system or draw in men from the United States who do know. I would suggest that they either communicate with the inspectors in the field who are doing the work or bring them in to a central point and give them a short course, explain the situation to them. There is one difficulty which should be cleared up in the minds of those who are vaccinating cattle.

Vaccine is not a cure; it was never supposed to be a cure, and the very thing that is probably worrying most veterinarians to-day more than anything else is that in many of these herds that have been vaccinated since 1936 or 1937-I will not say "many," but a few-abortions are occurring.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I am sorry to interrupt my hon. friend, but it is eleven o'clock.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.	-
Monday, May 20, 1946.