1947-12-11

Mr. ALISTAIR STEWART (Winnipeg North):: I have been asked on behalf of 31,496 trade unionists and others to present to parliament this petition on prices. The petition may not be in the traditional form, but its urgency impels me to present it to the house.



FOREIGN EXCHANGE CONSERVATION


[Stage Direction]
Hon. DOUGLAS ABBOTT (Minister of Finance) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 3, respecting emergency measures for the conservation of Canadian foreign exchange resources.
Mr. KNOWLES:: Explain.


Mr. ABBOTT:: This bill will provide for the imposition of the prohibition of certain imports, the placing of certain others under quota, and the placing of still others under special permit.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



TRANSITIONAL MEASURES ACT, 1947 CONTINUATION IN FORCE UNTIL MARCH 31, 1948

Right Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Justice) moved:: That, whereas section seven of The Continuation of Transitional Measures Act, 1947, being chapter sixteen of the statutes of 1947, provides that subject as thereinafter provided, that act shall expire on the thirty-first day of December, one thousand nine hundred and forty-seven, if parliament meets during November or December, one thousand nine hundred and forty-seven, but if parliament does not so meet it shall expire on the sixtieth day after parliament first meets during the year one thousand nine hundred and forty-eight or on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and forty-eight, whichever date is the earlier: Provided that, if at any time while that act is in force, addresses are presented to the Governor General by the Senate and House of Commons respectively, praying that that act should be continued in force for a further period, not in any case exceeding one year, from the time at
which it would otherwise expire and the Governor in Council so orders, that act shall continue in force for that further period.
And whereas it is considered desirable to continue said act in force until the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and forty-eight;	.
The following address be presented to His Excellency the Governor General of Canada;
To His Excellency Field Marshal The Right Hon. Viscount Alexander of Tunis, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Companion of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, Companion of the Distinguished Service Order, upon whom has been conferred the decoration of the Military Cross, one of His Majesty's aides-de-camp, General, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of t'he Dominion of Canada.
May it please Your Excellency:
We, His Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the House of Commons of Canada, in parliament assembled, respectfully approach Your Excellency praying that The Continuation of Transitional Measures Act, 1947, be continued in force until the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and forty-eight.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the resolution you have just read is self-explanatory. It is based upon section 7 of an act which was passed last year and which expires on December 31 of this year, unless it is continued for a further period by addresses of the Senate and the House of Commons respectively.
1 believe hon. members of the House of Commons will agree that during the discussions last year it was fairly generally assumed that some of the orders in council which were given the force of law by the legislation of last year would be required until the end of the present fiscal year, and the date that was used commonly in the discussions here as the date to which these orders in council were extended was March 31, 1948.
This pre-Christmas part of the session is of course called for a specific purpose. There has not been an opportunity to determine just what emergency measures, if any, will be required past the end of the present fiscal year. Those matters, however, will be considered during the early part of that portion of the session which is convened after Christmas. As I think there must be general agreement that under present circumstances some of these powers are still required, and as some of the orders in council could not be terminated at once without many unfortunate consequences
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in the country, I would hope that this short extension to March 31, 1948, for which the government is asking, will be readily granted by the house.
I do not feel it is necessary for me to say much more, because the strength of the case for an extension of these orders for the brief period the government has requested is, in my view, self-evident.


Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, it is clear to hon. members what the situation is with respect to this measure. I wish to observe at the outset that we have now come almost to the middle of this specially called session of parliament, and today for the first time we are faced with *an urgent measure. We may ask ourselves why it is urgent. It is urgent for the simple reason, and no other, that this session was called in December rather than in January.
Before taking my seat I hope I shall have shown the house that this is the only urgent measure the government has brought before us. AH their other plans were conceived and put dnto effect before we came here, and we are asked now to act only as rubber stamps, to approve something that has been done.
What is this measure before us? It is an address to His Excellency the Governor General from the House of Commons asking that the Transitional Measures Act, 1947, be extended from December 31, 1947, to March 31, 1948. What is the Transitional Measures Act, 1947? It is a temporary act conferring very wide powers on the government to control the Canadian economy. When that act was passed, as the minister has said, it was the intention *that it should continue until March 31, or until two months after parliament met, if it met next year. But there is a provision in the act that if parliament met in November or December, 1947, the act would terminate on December 31, 1947. So it is clear that if parliament had met in October, or if it had not opened until January next, this measure would not have been required at all. It has been made necessary now by the fact that we have been called together in December instead of January or February next. It is clear that the resolution before us would never have been necessary if we had met in October, or if we had met at the usual time after the New Year.
We are now asked by this address to cure the situation the government has created by coming here at this time. If we pass this resolution, the condition which was created last May when the act was passed, and which has been undone by the government's calling us here now, would be restored. That is what the minister has said, and that is our understanding.

For a few moments I wish to review the situation in which we find ourselves. The government told us we were being called here to deal with a crisis. Now that we are here we find that the government has already acted, that it has already taken steps to cure the crisis, and that those steps are now in effect. As I have said, we are called here just to approve measures which are already in effect, to approve what has already been done. It is true that what the government has done will have to be approved by legislation, but it was not necessary that that legislation be passed in December. It would have been just as effective if it had been passed in January or February. What then is the reason for our being here in December? The reason for our being here is that the government may spread itself in connection with these Geneva trade agreements and thus distract the attention of the public from the other more objectionable measures that are to be brought forward later.
What are the measures that the government tells us it was important should be dealt with in December; what are the measures that they speak of as being necessary to cure this crisis?
First, they said there are these trade agreements. Then there are the taxation measures. And there are the special emergency measures for the restriction of imports, what I choose to call the totalitarian powers act.
Let us look at these measures and see whether action by parliament at this particular time is necessary.
Let us take the trade agreements first. We have discussed them for some time, but they have been left unfinished. The government says that it does not intend to proceed with them any further at this time. That was clear from the beginning. In the Prime Minister's first address to this house he indicated that they would be brought forward and discussed for a couple of days and then left over to be dealt with later on, because it would take weeks to deal with them. It was quite clear that the government did not intend that they should be finally dealt with at this early part of the session. It is very clear then that they are not an urgent matter to be dealt with at this session. But even if they had been an urgent matter, they could have been dealt with as other agreements of this kind have been dealt with in the past, by order in council under the Customs Act. The law is there providing for that action. That course was followed in the past by the government but it was not followed in this instance. As I said yesterday, they have been brought forward now merely as window-dressing for what is to follow.

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Then we have the excise tax and other measures. These taxes have already been imposed and are now being /collected. In this connection let me refer to the statement made over the air on November 17 by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), who said:
At the coming session of parliament a special bill will be introduced concerning these emergency restrictions. In order to avoid widespread anticipation and evasion of these restrictions in the next few weeks, which would cost us many millions of dollars that we cannot afford,

The minister recognized the fact that delay had cost and would cost us many millions of dollars. He continued:

we will ask parliament to make this new law apply as from midnight tonight, and we will put these restrictions into effect in advance, as we do in the case of budget proposals.
As lion, members know, when the budget is brought down the minister tells us that it contains certain financial provisions which will go into effect that night, but they are not then legally in effect. It is simply a warning to all who may be affected that they will be brought into effect and apply as of the date stated. Then later on they are brought into effect by legislation. That could have been done in this matter just as well in January or February as in December. The minister went on:
This can be done under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange -Control Act. At the time this act was passed the government did not believe that such power was contained in the act but we are now advised by the law officers of the crown that it provides the legal basis for such restrictions as are proposed.
As I said, these measures are in effect. The government brought them into effect, and we say that they brought them into effect illegally and unconstitutionally. But whether or not that is the case, the fact is that they are in effect and they are being carried out. We did not need to meet in December rather than January in order to make them effective. That is the point I am making in connection with these taxation measures and the other measures announced as being urgent.
The proposed emergency measures are already in effect under the Foreign Exchange Control Act. Imports are being restricted by embargoes and quotas. We take the position that for the moment those are phony powers, they are usurped powers. What we are asked to do now is to provide some basis of legality ; that is all. They have been put into effect by a measure which the government itself and the government experts said would never be used for that purpose. However, finding themselves in the situation where they needed to
take action, they used it and now we are asked to provide some respectable legal basis for what has been done.
It is clear, therefore, that these three measures are in effect and that we did not need to be called here in December to do anything more about them. Everything could have been done just as well in January. It may be said that we asked for an early session to deal with the nation's crisis. So we did. We asked for a session to discuss these problems in order to arrive at what should be done. But we now find that the government has taken its own action and all we are asked to do is to approve what has been done and is in effect.
So, as I have said, we come now to the only emergent measure that is before the house, the continuation of the Transitional Measures Act, 1947. This act is to be extended for three months. The Agricultural Products Act is in the same position. As I say, those are (he only measures before us that are urgent. And they have been made urgent by calling us here in December rather than January. This seems to be a session where the government starts everything and finishes nothing, and creates the only urgent problem-
Some lion. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Douglas Charles Abbott: A pause for applause.


John Bracken: -by its own mismanagement.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: I do not wish, to interrupt my hon. friend, but I just want to make sure that he is saying exactly what he means. He refers to this session as though, it were a special session that, was being held this year with another session to be held next year. I wish to point out that he has, repeatedly referred during the course of his remarks-


An hon. MEMBER:: Sit down.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend has repeatedly referred in his remarks to a session called before Christmas and a session after Christmas. There is but the one session.


John Bracken: There is no question but that we are sitting here in December and that the session was called now rather than later on for the purposes of the government and nothing else. What I said was that this was a specially called session, and so it was, and so it was represented by the government itself. Nobody in Canada misunderstands that. And now we are being asked to remedy a situation that results from the government's own
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(mismanagement in this respect. That is what rit amounts to.
What are the facts as to the crisis-the real (crisis, not this temporary crisis? The first is that the government did not perceive the crisis early enough, and when it did perceive ;it, it acted too late; and when it did act it acted improperly and in an ill-conceived manner. Nevertheless its plans are now in [DOT]effect and we are called into session only to [DOT]approve of them. This resolution then is the only urgent problem with which the government has to deal.
Why did the government call us into special session? Only the Almighty and the Prime Minister know, but I think the Canadian people understand that we were called here just in order that they might be confused.
As to the measure itself, we have no time to deal with it adequately. If we did, it would take all the time of this specially called session. The government will pass this measure anyway. It was the law until March 31 next ibut for the government's mismanagement. No doubt there are some things in the measure which will need to be preserved so long as the government's policies result in the severe shortages we have today, but only *under those conditions and no others.
Bringing this measure before us now raises two questions. It raises the question of the principle of controls, the principle of the government's undertaking to run the nation's economy. It raises also the question of the success of the government in administering the controls which it has already had. I wish to touch briefly on these two questions.
In wartime the government asked for wide powers and the nation freely granted them- powers to control prices, powers to control wages, powers to allocate workers to jobs, powers to impose rigid price ceilings, powers to control costs, powers to control profits. Under those conditions a good job was done during the war. But if you remove any one of those controls you create conditions under which you will not get those results. When peacetime came the government came along and said: We want a continuation of those powers. And the government then took some and left out others. But its efforts to control our economy have failed. As I said, unless we have all these controls right through from one end to the other, they must necessarily fail. And to have them all means going to the extreme regimentation and takes us clear into the field of communism and totalitarianism.
We take the position that the government having undertaken to control the economy and

having failed, it is now answerable to the public. The fundamental position is this, that the government has both expanded credit and restricted supplies by controls so that now there is a greater supply of credit than of goods, with the inevitable result of rising prices. And now the government is attempting by the partial use of controls to correct that situation.
Our position is that when you apply one control to correct one condition you raise two problems elsewhere, and when you use controls again to correct those two problems, you have four problems on your hands. We do not believe in the principle of restrictive controls except under very emergent conditions.
Some people have distinguished between controls and subsidies. The government itself has done that. The minister who introduced this bill has done it. In discussing his revaluation plans, as reported in Hansard of July 5, 1946, at page 3181, he had occasion to comment on subsidies, and he said this:
The fourth matter which I wish to mention is that the policy of paying subsidies will remain in effect in order to prevent undue increases in prices of articles of major importance in the consumer's cost of living or in primary producer's costs of production.
That was the position the minister took with respect to subsidies on July 5 of last year.
Now I want to touch on the way in which the government has used the powers given to it under its emergency legislation. I shall give two or three illustrations. First of all, take milk. That was dealt with in this house more than a year ago. and - the majority of this house took the position that the subsidy-should not be removed. But after the house adjourned, the government, following out its own policies, did remove the subsidy and the price of milk went up.
I might also mention what was done in connection with flour, or wheat, or bread. The subsidy for wheat was taken off, the subsidy which the government gave to millers who bought wheat to be made into flour to be consumed as bread in Canada. That subsidy was removed and the price of wheat to millers went up, the price of flour followed, and the price of bread followed that. I just want to point out that while the government had that power, it chose to exercise it at the very worst possible time it could have chosen. Here we have an export commodity, wheat. We sell three times as much of it as we consume in Canada, or nearly so. The price of wheat is dependent upon outside conditions and fluctuates widely. It may be 40 cents or it may be $3.40 a bushel; we have seen as

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wide a fluctuation as that in the past fifteen years. But this parliament in its wisdom has said that to prevent prices getting so low- they once reached 40 cents-we are going to establish price floors. We are not by that legislation going to let it drop like that. Even if it does drop that far outside, we are not going to let it drop that far at home. The legislation provides that we are going to subsidize the producer in order to protect him and in order to protect our economy.
You have the right, which you exercised until a few months ago, with regard to wheat for Canadian use, that when the price was high you would see that for bread it was subsidized. The subsidies which had until then been applied were taken off at a time when wheat prices had reached the highest point in our history. They have gone up a little higher since then. When prices went up the government chose to take off the bread subsidy. What could happen but that the price of bread would rise, jwith a commodity selling at 40 cents at one time and eight times 40 cents at another time? Are we going to protect the producer when the price is low and refuse to protect the consumer when it is high? My criticism is that that was the wrong time to take the subsidy off, and that taking it off then could not help but result in increasing bread prices; and those prices, added to the rising cost of living in other commodities, give rise to unrest among workers, causing threats of strikes and all that kind of thing. My criticism is that that was not the time to take off the subsidy.


An hon. MEMBER:: You asked for it.


John Bracken: I never did ask for it.
I am speaking now of the way in which the government has administered the powers that we gave it.
Let me now touch on another control that you misused. You were giving subsidies and you had a price ceiling on coarse grain. By your control and by your marketing policies you had frozen the prices of the finished products of the farmers. By your contracts with Britain you had frozen farm prices and made them more or less fixed. They were influenced a little by some that was sold outside but they were largely fixed. Then by removing all your controls on costs you let the cost of production go up, with the result that every branch of the livestock industry across this country is now fearful of the future. They feel that under these conditions the possibility to make a profit has gone. They say the government controls are not working out fairly.
But the worst criticism of all is that you chose to do that in the middle of the marketing season. If I remember correctly, up to October 20 these controls were on, and these subsidies were on. The prices received by those who had grain to sell were low. Then you took off these ceilings, and you took off the subsidies, and the next day the prices were 20 cents to 30 cents a bushel higher. You have made one section of the producers of Canada take low prices and have allowed others to get high prices on the same commodity. I say, Mr. Speaker, that there can be no excuse for the government taking that action at the time it did. It should have been done either at the beginning of the marketing season or at the end of it. You have created an inequity in this way, an inequity which you will find no means of correcting short of dipping into the treasury of the dominion in order to do so.
I shall speak now about the administration of another control. It has to do with the question of another cereal; I refer to rye. Rye is a cereal which is actually worth less than wheat, from the point of view of its food value. That commodity was not controlled by the government. The result was that the price went up to $4 or thereabouts a bushel, at a time when this government had sold two-thirds of the wheat crop of the Canadian farmer for $1.55 a bushel, yet here was a cereal worth less than wheat finding a world price of S4. What happened? The price of rye was not so high in the United States. The farmers there were getting about S3 a bushel for their rye. Canadians on this side went over there, bought this rye at around
53	a bushel, paid 9 cents a bushel tariff on it, brought it into Canada and then sold it at
54	a bushel, thus making nearly SI 'a bushel, just by bringing it across th" line.
The point I want to make is this. In order to buy that rye they had to get United States dollars, of which we were short in this country. They were allowed by the government's regulations to get those United States dollars in this country in order to bring in rye from another country, which rye was immediately sold outside of Canada. Our United States dollars were used for that purpose at a time when we were short of United States dollars. Somebody here is surely responsible for that.
You asked for control of our economy in wartime. The nation gladly gave you the powers you asked for. The war is over. You asked for emergency powers in peacetime, and that request too was granted, but with many misgivings. Under your administration, by the powers you have used or failed to use, you
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have failed to solve the problems you wanted to solve, and we are in the situation we are in today, which everybody admits is not good. Under your administration, your use of these controls has failed to correct the conditions you set out to correct. As I said, your attempts to solve certain problems have created others, and you have misused certain powers you have. I do not question the integrity or even the ability of the men who are trying to control the nation's economy, Mr. Speaker, but I do say that this all goes to show that a few people here in Ottawa cannot regulate the nation's economy satisfactorily.
T-he government asked for all these powers; it got the powers it asked for. It has made its own bed; now it is asking for three months in which to lie in it. I want to say to the government that we are willing to grant that reprieve. But if you do not make a better job in the next three months than you did in the last nine, you will not be facing a complacent House of Commons when you come back here again. You will find yourselves facing the wrath of the people, particularly the farmers, the workers and the businessmen. And you will face the indignation of the members who are sent here to represent them, and you will face it not only from this side but from all sides of the house. While we are granting this reprieve for three months, I promise you a critical appraisal of your acts by this party, and I imagine by other parties as well, and certainly by the Canadian people.


Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Big-gar):: I note from the order paper, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) is to move another bill, and there is another resolution-the bill dealing with emergency measures for the conservation of Canadian foreign exchange resources, and the resolution dealing with agricultural products. Therefore I do not expect to follow the example of the leader of the opposition and discuss these two other measures today. I intend as nearly as I can to keep to the problem which is before the house in the resolution which has been moved this afternoon by the Minister of Justice.
First of all, I think that the problem before us is one of the gravest that parliament has had to face for many a long day. I am glad as a matter of fact that parliament was called at this particular time because it gives Parliament an opportunity to discuss the problem that most nearly affects the people of the country, namely, the cost of living. Because of that, apart altogether from the other measures that are to come before us, made 
necessary by various actions of the government, which we can discuss on another occasion, I am glad that we are here today with this opportunity. My only regret is that the resolution now before us does not extend the time of these emergency powers beyond March 31, because I am quite convinced that in the next three or four months the condition we now have will become aggravated on account of the other policies which the government has adopted and which the Minister of Finance announced about three weeks ago.
So I say that it is because of that condition that in my opinion the extension of powers is insufficient to meet the needs of the present situation. To those who do not believe that these powers should be extended, but that they should be discontinued as soon as possible, what are the alternatives? Well, the alternatives that are suggested by what you might call the more or less classical old-fashioned conservative economists of this country, the free-enterprisers of laissez-faire, are really three in number, and they worked very well for some people half a century ago when the world was a different sort of world and the economy under which we operated was a different sort of economy.
In those days they would have suggested immediately that in order to meet a situation such as this there should be an increase in the rates of interest. They would probably have suggested, if the condition had been as we have it now, what some of the people are suggesting today, that is, that we should devalue the dollar. Now the devaluation of the dollar in a country where we depend so largely upon imparts for many of our commodities in manufactured goods, for so many of our supplies in the way of food and other materials-things like raisins and currants from California, grapefruit, oranges and orange juice which we need in this climate, as well as vegetables from the United States, which is a source of fresh vegetables in the depth of winter, and materials such as cotton and so on-the devaluation of the dollar, I say, entering into the cost of these basic articles, would further raise the cost of living for the hard-pressed people of the country. Consequently I have always been in support of the policy which has been followed of resisting all attempts to devalue the Canadian dollar. In my opinion at least it would have benefited only a small group of people, particularly those who own and not those who work; because the workers who work in the gold mines would have found their cost of living mounting and would have suffered with all the rest of the people who work for their living, wherever they may be employed in this country.

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The third suggestion that has been made is one that is being made also by some influential newspapers. Take for example an article which appeared some weeks ago in the London Economist that labour might be compelled to move from one industry to another in Great Britain, and in other countries as well, by creating a pool of unemployment. A pool of unemployed would tend to bring down costs, so these so-called classical economists claim. But compulsory hunger-


An hon. MEMBER:: Is that the Cripps policy?


Mr. COLD  WELL@: No, that is not the Cripps policy.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who said that?


Mr. COLD  WELL@: Cripps said that was one policy that might be followed but the government would not follow it. They preferred another policy.


An hon. MEMBER:: They preferred it but would not apply it.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: They preferred and they applied another policy entirely.


Mr. JACKMAN:: Hunger.


Major James William Coldwell: It was not hunger. The hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Jackman), with his usual kind of interjection, says it was hunger. As a matter of fact everyone with the most elementary knowledge knows-and I am not here to discuss United Kingdom policies, though I am quite willing to do so whenever the question arises, as it is arising at this moment-


Mr. GRAYDON:: There was a time when you would like to do it.


Major James William Coldwell: Anyone who knows anything about United Kingdom policies knows this, as I said in the debate on the address the other afternoon: An attempt has been made in that country to redistribute wealth so that those who were badly underfed might be more nearly fed, and those who were overfed have got to share the austerity with everybody else. But hon. members like the hon. member for Rosedale do not like that kind of policy.
As far as we in this country are concerned, in common with other countries, we are pledged to do certain things, pledged as members of the united nations organization. Chapter 9, setting up the economic and social council of the united nations, article 55a, commits us to the policy of higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development. So the suggestion that is made from
time to time for the creation of a pool of unemployment is one that we could not accept if we wished to remain loyal members of the united nations organization and fulfil its obligations.
The policy now before us for the extension of these controls does to some extent amount to a reversal of the government's position of eight or ten months ago, and indeed more recently than that, when the controls were taken off in September and October. As I said the other afternoon, and I repeat it, we have stood solidly in favour of the continuance of controls as long as they were essential to the welfare of the Canadian people.
My Social Credit friend (Mr. Low) was in his seat a moment ago, and I am sorry he has left the chamber, but he said the other afternoon that I had misinterpreted his remarks regarding the position of the Social Credit, group. Well, I looked up the speech that was made by my hon. friend on March 21 of the current year and while I admit there are a number of what I regard as conflicting statements in the speech, I find this:
On the one hand, the controls-
Dealing with the wartime controls.
-may have been introduced for the purpose of restricting production of certain goods and services, especially those for home consumption,, so that the maximum effort could be diverted' into the production of materials for war. Now-that the war is over it can only be common sense, it seems to me, that the cure for the-shortage of homes is not to continue indefinitely-to control rents. The sensible cure is to embark upon an adequate program of building of dwelling houses which will ensure all Canadian families having homes of their own.
With that statement I cordially agree. I point out, however, that you cannot build enough houses for the Canadian people in the course of a few months; and in the meantime the continuance of rent control is an absolute necessity for the protection of the great masses of the Canadian people.
Similiarly. Mr. Speaker, it seems to me foolish to continue a rigid control of prices which was an emergency measure designed mainly to restrict certain kinds of production. Rather it seems to me that by removing every possible barrier to it-
Which I presume would include controls.
-production should be increased to the utmost, in order that through competition to please customers, the control of prices will be exercised by the people through the things they have to. buy.
I read into that what I think any hon. gentleman would read into it, opposition to the continuance of controls; and if I have done tho hon. gentleman an injustice I cannot help it, for that seems to be the plain interpretation of the words I have just read.
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I want to say something this afternoon, however, about the statement that price controls are necessary because of the great increase in the cost of living, due in part at least to a phenomenal increase in wages. The other afternoon the Minister of Finance, in dealing with this matter, placed before the house some percentage increases. I have taken the trouble to look at these statistics of average hours of work and average weekly earnings from the beginning of 1947. I may say this has a very material bearing on the question of the extension of controls, the subject we are discussing, because I believe these controls are essential in the interests of the great majority of consumers who are wage earners, workers in agriculture, farmers, fishermen and so on throughout this country. Since this one phase was mentioned the other afternoon I just want to take a look at some of these wages, and I am referring to the report of the government's own bureau of statistics, employment statistics branch, under the Department of Trade and Commerce. I have before me the issue of November 10, 1947, and am looking at the moment at page 9, if anyone wishes to check. To be perfectly fair about it I am going to take some of the low, some of the medium, and some of the comparatively high weekly wages. Some may call them comparatively high, but let us see whether they are sufficient to maintain a reasonable standard of living.
First, let us take manufacturing. As at September 1, 1947, the average weekly rate for all manufacturing industries was S34.77. If we look at the workers engaged in animal products, edible, we find that at that date the average weekly rate was S31.95. For dairy products it was $32.08; for meat products, 833.70. Of course since then there has been a strike and the wages are up slightly, but only slightly. . The cost of boots and shoes has gone up considerably, but the average weekly rate of workers in that industry was $24.32. In lumber products it was $31.52; for rough and dressed lumber, 132.74. Then, as I said the other afternoon, the price of canned fruits and vegetables has increased in the last twelve -months by about 100 per cent, according to the newspapers. The average weekly rate in this canning industry was $22.50. In chocolate and cocoa products, which have gone up substantially, it was S23.17. Textile products also are up tremendously; there the average weekly rate was $25.60. In thread, yarn and cloth, it was $27.08; cotton yarn and cloth, $26.37; woollen yarn and cloth. $27.11; silk and artificial silk, $28.21; hosiery and knit goods, $23.34; garments and personal furnishings.

$24.07. In tobacco, which has gone up very considerably, it was $26.02; electrical apparatus, $34.94; primary iron and steel, $44.48; agricultural implements, $38.62; sheet metal work, $34.82; mining, $42.67; highway construction, which is largely common labour, $28.35; personal, including chiefly laundries, $22.82.
These are the average weekly wages, including of course all classes of weekly wages, given by the bureau of statistics. Now if we look at the cost of living we can see how these compare. It is all very w-ell to say that wages have gone up since 1939. Food prices have gone up since 1939, because both the producer of food and the man engaged in common labour or industrial labour were at that time badly under-remunerated, and consequently one would have expected the increases to be considerable on a percentage basis. But if we look at the statement of the Toronto welfare council in 1944, which incidentally is the last I can find, it was estimated that a family of five required $1,864 a year in order to meet their bare living costs.' At that time the cost of living index stood at 119. On September 1 of this year the cost of living index stood at 136-4. This means an increase of 17 per cent since 1944.
On this basis it will be seen that a family needing $1,864 in 1944 would have needed at least $2,181 as of September 1 of this year, or an average weekly wage of $41.94. Compare this with the average weekly wages I have already given as of September 1 of this year, from the official document from which I quoted. For example, the average in the manufacturing industries was $34.77 and in highway construction it was $28.35. If you look at another aspect of the government's price inflationary policies, for such they have been, it will be seen by comparing the increase in the cost of living from April 1, 1945, to September 1, 1947, with the increases in wages in that period. During that time the cost of living rose almost 18 per cent while manufacturing wages rose 13 per cent and mining wages 15 per cent. Highway construction wages rose at the same rate as the cost of living, but the weekly wage on September 1 in that particular field stood at $28.35 according to the government's own statistics.
I said I was opposed to the use of inflation as a means of rectifying our condition. I have here support for that statement in an authoritative textbook that has been in use in local universities, particularly in the economics class at Carleton college. It is called "Introduction to Monetary Theory" by Chandler. If we look at that we see the effect of inflation. He

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quotes from a famous Italian economist dealing with what happened after the last war, and says:
Inflation was always a terrible instrument for the redistribution of wealth. It is not possible to study the influence of the inflation separately from those of other causes which acted at the same time, e.g., the war. But it may be said that on the whole the inflation generally favoured the entrepreneurs and the owners of the material means of production, especially strengthening the positions of industrial capitalists; that it caused a lowering of the real wrages of workmen; that it decimated or destroyed altogether the old middle class of investors, possessors of those securities which now could only, ironically, be said to show a fixed income; and that it created a new middle class of intermediaries, traders, small speculators and the bourse-
Stock exchanges, the grain exchange, in our Canadian terms.
-and small profiteei-s of the monetary depreciation.
Consequently we have stood solidly for beneficial controls. Once again, when we talk of price controls, we are talking of something within the power of this parliament itself.
I notice that the press continues to say: Why not the control of wages? I believe I have given the answer as to why wages do not need to be controlled at this particular time. But the other answer I gave, and will give again, is that the control of wages has been returned to the provinces and that it does not lie within the province of this government.
I notice, for example,' it was stated that in addressing the C.C.F. members yesterday Mr. Pat Conroy, who is seeing members of all parties in the house-I do not know whether lie is seeing them separately or collectively; but I know we suggested it would save our time if he would see us collectively, and that was done yesterday morning. I was about to say that I noticed in this morning's Gazette it reports Mr. Conroy as saying, "Prices, yes; wages, no". That is not what the secretary of the Canadian Congress of Labour said yesterday. I have before me the official release which was given the press gallery, and which I did not see until this afternoon. I should like to put it on record, in fairness to the gentlemen and the lady who sit around me, and to the gentleman who appeared before us yesterday morning, because I believe this is a true statement of what happened. It states:
The position of the Canadian Congress of Labour with respect to re-imposing control of wages was outlined today by Pat Conroy, secretary-treasurer of the congress, at a meeting of C.C.F. members of the House of Commons. Mr. Conroy was accompanied by a delegation
composed of members of C.C.L. unions who are currently interviewing members of parliament on prices.
"The suggestion has been advanced, both by the Minister of Finance and by Progressive Conservative members of the House of Commons, that a return of price control would automatically mean a return of wage controls," Mr. Conroy said.	_	,
"Organized labour recognizes that it is theoretically possible for wages to reach such a point that they would have to be checked if further price increases were to be avoided."
I do not know what that means if it does not mean that theoretically the time might come when a control of wages might have to be exercised, but that stage certainly has not yet been reached in the Canadian economy. The figures I put on record this afternoon indicate that that statement of Mr. Conroy is true. He goes on to say:
First it should be clearly understood that talk of wage control is a fed herring which some people, who are defending the increasing profits of large corporations, are trying to draw across the path of those who are seeking the restoration of prices to reasonable levels.
The dominion government, by the admission of its own finance minister lacks the power to re-impose wage controls. The government which the minister represents has deliberately returned this power to the provinces with a view to getting rid of such troublesome questions. The government has very definitely, however, the power to re-impose price controls.
Labour will certainly not agree to the freezing of wages in their present relationship to prices. In his address to the Commons yesterday, Mr. Abbott said that wages, on an index basis, had kept pace with prices since 1939. The figures which he placed on the record failed entirely to show the dollars and cents position of Canadian workers, both in 1939 and now.
I have placed on record this afternoon the supporting 1947 figures from the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Mr. Conroy goes on to say:
Largest increase reported by Mr. Abbott was in logging. The average weekly wage in that industry in 1939 was only $16.44. In manufacturing it was only $23.24. Coupled with this is the fact that figures of average earnings for salaried and wage earners combined, which Mr. Abbott used, are not a good index of wage earners. In 1939 average weekly earnings of wage earners alone in manufacturing were $20.11, which was $3.13 less than the average for wage and salary earners, combined.
There has obviously been an increase, but the money the average Canadian worker receives today in his pay envelope is far from sufficient to meet the essential requirements of his family at today's prices.
Mr. Abbott quotes the cost of living index at 143-6 to Illustrate increases in living costs. He did not mention that the food index, which is most important to Canadian workers, now stands at 173-6 and the clothing index, another vital factor is at 157.
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The Canadian Congress of Labour believes that price controls should be restored and action should be taken by fully representative public bodies to establish a proper relationship between prices, wages and profits. That condition does not now exist and until it does we shall be faced with economic confusion and unbalance.
That is a summary, incidentally, of what the secretary of the Canadian Congress of Labour said to us yesterday morning, and what I imagine he will be saying to hon. members of other political groupings in the house.
I said a minute ago that since the beginning of the war the cost of living index has risen from 100-8 in August 1939. The index, of course, upon which this is based is an index of prices between 1935 and 1939. So on August 1, 1939, the index was roughly 100. At that time the food index was at the low point of 99-3-and may I say it was far too low.
In 1941 two years later, on October 1, the percentage increase since August 1, 1939 was 14-6. The total index then was 115-5, and the food index 123-2. In 1943 it had risen to 18-3 on October 1, the total index standing at 119-3 and the food index at 132-9.
In 1945-and this is the year to which I direct attention particularly-on October 1 the percentage increase was a little lower than in 1943. It stood at 18-8 as against 18-3. The total index was 119-7 and the food index was 133-3.
Then we come to 1946, a year ago. On October 1 the increase over 1939 was 25-5, with a total index of 126-8 and a food index of 146-5. But when we take the year in which the majority of controls and subsidies were removed we must bear in mind that I cannot give figures beyond November 1 of this year-and that in the last three or four weeks some very sharp increases in prices have occurred, as a result of the announcements made some three weeks ago. On October 1, 1947 the increase was 41-1, with a total index of 142-2 and a food index of 171-3. If you figure that out as of November 1, as I did, and on a percentage basis, you find that the increase over 1939 was 42-8. The total index was 143-6, the food index was 173-6, indicating very clearly the sharp increases that are now occurring month by month due to the removal of controls.
I could put many more figures on the record, but I do not intend to weary the house with them. From July up to November 1, that is for four months, there has been a rise of 7-7 points in the total index. The increase in those four months has been greater than it was in the whole twelve months of 1946. There is certainly no indication that the sharp rise

is decreasing; on the other hand all the indications are that when we get the figures for December-we shall not get them until about the time the house reconvenes-we shall find that the increase has been steeper still in the past few weeks.
May I remind the house of what the government said in January of this year. In the speech from the throne it was stated:
The policy of the government is to maintain only such price and commodity controls as maybe required to protect consumers from a sudden and drastic rise in the cost of living.
While we did not like that proviso, the government announced its policy, in that phraseology, of retaining sufficient controls-to do what? To protect the consumer from a sudden and drastic rise in the cost of living. But the government has not done that. On the contrary, what the government has dione is to permit a sudden and drastic rise in the cost of living by the removal of those controls which according to the throne speech early this year the public of Canada had a right to expect would be maintained.
Of course my hon. friends to my immediate right are in an entirely different position. They have opposed controls throughout. I have a list of the speeches they have made in the house dealing with this control business. This afternoon we heard the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) say that much of this was due to the manner in which controls had been removed. Obviously had the Progressive Conservative party been in power when the war ended, everything would have been thrown into the open arms of free enterprise and we would have had exactly the same price levels as they had in the United States. That would not only have affected the cost of living in our own country to a tremendous degree, it would have seriously affected the cost of commodities to those people overseas who rely on us for food and supplies.
As late as at its national meeting in Ottawa on March 31, 1946 we find a resolution adopted by the Progressive Conservative party which is reported by the Winnipeg Free Press as follows:
We are opposed in principle to continuation of every wartime wage and price ceiling and restrictive controls.
Of course that included rent control. The hon. member for Stanstead, (Mr. Hackett) for whom I have the greatest respect, has stated within the last two months, I think in the Financial Post of early October, that he believed in the policy of the removal of all controls, and he would include in that the removal of rent control. I notice the hon. gentleman nods his head in the affirmative.

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That was an honest statement of the hon. gentleman's position, and I respect him for it. But what I do resent is this business of trying to sit on both sides of the fence whenever political necessities demand it.


Gordon Graydon: There is no one who is a better authority on that than you.


Major James William Coldwell: My hon. friend says that there is no one who is a better authority on that than I am. Yes, I can use my eyes, I can use my ears, and I can exercise my intelligence; I am an authority on the manner in which hon. members to the right have endeavoured, and successfully at times, to straddle the fence on almost every issue that has come before this house. As far as this party is concerned I want to say, I do not think anyone can gainsay this, that we took a great deal of criticism-to some extent it was actually abuse-when we opposed the removal of controls and subsidies from the very beginning. We have been consistent, and wTe have made motions to that effect in this house whenever the opportunity arose. Whatever may be said about inconsistency it cannot be said that we have been inconsistent in connection with the matter which I am now discussing.


Gordon Graydon: You want to centralize everything in Ottawa.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: The hon. gentleman says that we want to centralize everything in Ottawa.


Gordon Graydon: That is the prime objective of all this; it is not the cost of living, you know.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: Just a minute. My hon. friend is trying to divert attention from the accusation he made by making another. I am not proposing to be trapped by that type of lawyer's question. I propose to stick to my business this afternoon, the discussion of the question that I have under my hand.
I am not going to delay the house much longer, although I have a tremendous amount of data here dealing with the manner in which prices have risen and the manner in which ouf farmers have been penalized through the lifting of the ceilings on coarse grains and the removal of the subsidy. It is true that the subsidy was on only for a little while. The handing back of any sector of our agricultural production to the speculative market is I think a backward step, and that is the step taken by the government at this time. It is a backward step, not only in the eyes of the people of this country but, as I indicated yesterday, in the eyes of the world. A day or two ago I quoted from memory a
statement which I had heard the secretary general of UNRRA make before committee No. 2 of the united nations, a committee to which the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) was assigned last year by the Canadian delegation. I remember quite well the almost unanimous and prolonged applause with which that statement was greeted.
I believe, as I think most people believe today, that it is wrong to speculate in the basic needs of the masses of the people. The leader of the opposition urged the other day a partial return to the open market, to the speculative grain exchange, and in the end this would probably mean for a large part of the production. Then in my opinion he gave the best warning that could be given against it when he argued the necessity of putting a floor under wheat. He mentioned forty cents when it is now eight times as high on the speculative Chicago market.


John Bracken: I did not mention forty cents as a floor.


Major James William Coldwell: What did you say?


John Bracken: I said that under normal conditions the price has fluctuated between 40 cents and $3.40.


Major James William Coldwell: And therefore we had to put a floor under it.


Gordon Graydon: But not of 40 cents.


Major James William Coldwell: I only said that the gentleman had used the figure of 40 cents.


John Bracken: I am sure the hon. member does not want to leave a wrong impression. What I stated was that it had fluctuated from that low to that high. Because it goes so low we felt that in the interests of our economy as well as in the interests of the farmers it should not be allowed to go that low.


Major James William Coldwell: That is right, and there is the best confirmation of the argument I am using. When because of the speculative market we had wheat driven at one period down to below 40 cents on the Winnipeg exchange, and that was No. 1 Northern, Fort William-


Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: That was happening everywhere in the world, in socialist-governed countries and everywhere else.


Major James William Coldwell: I am talking about my own country. I know that everywhere the price went down, because at that time the world was dominated by speculative markets. The Chicago grain exchange was open; the Liverpool grain exchange, now closed, was open, and the grain exchange in Winnipeg,

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now partly closed, was open. The Chicago exchange is open now, and, to use the term of the leader of the opposition, the price is now about eight times as high as it was at the period I have mentioned.


John Bracken: Perhaps the hon. member would allow me to make one observation. He has left the impression that I was advocating the opening of the grain exchange. What I said was that if we are to be put in the position of having the government or government boards tie the price of wheat to $1.55 or $2 a bushel when the world price is $3 or $3.40- if we are going to force the farmers into that position, I say that we must give them the opportunity, if they want the choice of some other system, to have it as well.


Major James William Coldwell: That is not what my hon. friend said the other evening.


Gordon Graydon: That is what he said.


John Bracken: That is exactly what I said.


Major James William Coldwell: I will ask my hon. friend a direct question. Is he in favour of the re-opening of the grain exchange?


John Bracken: I am in favour of giving each farmer the opportunity to choose between the system the government has imposed upon the nation and some other system. I am in favour of letting him get a higher price if we can find any way of getting it. I am not in favour of forcing the farmer to take one dollar a bushel less than the world price just in order to let the government run his business.


Major James William Coldwell: Then my hon. friend should have taken the position that we took in this group on August 15, 1946, when we said that in the event of the costs of production going up, compensatory payments should be made to the producers out of the consolidated revenue fund of Canada. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) rose and told us at that time that 8200,000,000 had been set aside in support of agricultural products, which did not include wheat, and he thought that if provision had been made in one instance, provision could be made in another instance. I think that is a statement of fact. My hon. friend spoke the other day of a cheap wheat policy.


Mr. GARDINER:: Might I be permitted to say this, since I have been drawn into the discussion? It was under exactly the system that has been advocated by the leader of the opposition that the wheat price for a whole year averaged 62 cents a bushel.


Gordon Graydon: You are both together again.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: Order. The
hon. member's time has expired, but as he has been interrupted quite frequently-


Gordon Graydon: Let him go on.


Major James William Coldwell: I never like to overstep-my time, Mr. Speaker, so I shall sib down.
Mr. GRAY'DON: Oh, you are doing well. Go on.
Mr. SOLON E. LOW (Peace River): Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to say very much this afternoon, though I know that this group would naturally be expected to say something on the resolution that is before the house. I shall not detain the house long, but in view of some of the things that have been said I believe I should make our position clear once more, and let the minister know exactly where we stand in regard to the request he is making that these emergency controls be continued for a further period of three months.
The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) quoted from a speech which I made in this house on March 21, last spring, and I am afraid I must take exception to the fact that he quoted just one part and failed to-continue the question and give the complete picture.


Major James William Coldwell: I could not read the
whole speech.


Mr. LOW:: I can understand that, but it does look as though he lifted a part out of its context in order to make a point.


An hon. MEMBER:: That improves it.


Solon Earl Low: It would to a totalitarian mind. I should like to make abundantly clear in just a very few minutes exactly what I did say in regard to controls last year, and more especially in regard to the two policies which I then outlined.
Let me say, to begin with, that we recognize always in emergencies such as now face us and such as have faced us for some years, that the government has to have two policies-and oftentimes, Mr. Speaker, they have more than that, some up their sleeve. But in this case I do recognize the necessity of having a long-term policy and a short-range policy. It has always been my judgment that whatever the government was doing with regard to controls was a matter of short-range policy- at least so I interpreted it. I want to make it clear now that every time this government has brought before this house a clear-cut short-range policy dealing with controls to meet emergency, this group has supported it. We have not voted against one single such pro-

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posal that the government has brought before us and which it justified to us. We have asked constantly and consistently that they do justify their requests. With regard to such requests we have spoken our minds freely, and while often we have taken exception to the type of control that was being proposed, we ourselves have proposed a better one which could be instituted as a long-range policy and which in time would make the bureaucratic controls unnecessary. That is the trouble with our friends to my right. They do not listen closely enough, and do not read carefully enough to get the whole picture.
Let me quote further from the same speech of mine from which the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar quoted. I said:
The only effective controls are those which are inherent in a justly scientific economic structure which by its very fairness and justice induces- mind you, Mr. Speaker, I say induces-the full support of all classes of the community and will be freely sustained without compulsion of any kind. That was the position we took.
We further granted at the same time that the government required to exercise a measure of control over price structures, foreign exchange, import and export of goods, rentals, and so on; but we did urge that the government abandon bureaucratic controls as rapidly as possible-
I did not say all at once. I said as rapidly
as possible.
-and concurrently introduce a system of automatic controls that would do a better job without endangering the freedom of individuals in this country.
That is inherent in the Social Credit proposals we have placed before the house time and again. I continued:
We acknowledge the necessity of safeguarding the welfare of the people and of providing them with adequate and effective protection against evil forces that may exploit them. With us it is not a question of the need of controls; it is indeed a question of what kind of controls.
Social Crediters are implacably opposed to planned controls which enhance the power of the state at the expense of the liberties of the individuals of Canada. We vigorously oppose all such controls as vest in hordes of insolent bureaucrats authority over every phase of the lives of the people. Rather do we urge that as rapidly as possible wartime bureaucratic controls be removed, be replaced immediately by a set of effective checks and balances inherent in a revitalized and reformed financial policy, and which automatically safeguard the whole political, economic, and moral welfare of our people.
That, Mr. Speaker, is the position we take.


Mr. MacINNIS:: I wonder if the hon. member would allow me to ask a question. I am interested in what he is saying and I want to
understand it. He has referred to the fact that he was in favour of automatic controls but opposed to planned controls.


Solon Earl Low: I said planned, bureaucratic control.
Mr.- MacINNIS: What is planned, bureaucratic control? I want these terms made clear so that we shall understand them. How can you plan an automatic control if it is going to work without planning, as I understand it does? I am just asking for information.


Solon Earl Low: The answer to the question, Mr. Speaker, is simple. My hon. friends have been exceedingly fond of rolling on their tongues, like connoisseurs do fine wine, these slogans of a planned economy, government at world level and all that sort of thing. I say to you, sir, that it was the planned economy type of control advocated by the socialists and communists of the world against which I was speaking. It is the social credit and free enterprise type of control which I have been advocating.


Major James William Coldwell: How can you have free enterprise and have controls?


Angus MacInnis: Free enterprise means no control.


Solon Earl Low: I shall try to make what I mean abundantly clear before I finish.


Angus MacInnis: Good.


William Ross Macdonald: Order.


Solon Earl Low: In the first place, Mr. Speaker, in the short-term policy to meet an emergency we are still ready to assist the government by supporting this resolution providing for an extension for a further period of three months. We do not intend at this stage to enter into a long and exhaustive discussion of whether it is needed for a longer period than three months. The time will come, when the house re-assembles after the first of the year, when that can be done. But for the present we are quite prepared to give the government another three months. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, we must again insist that the whole of a long-term policy for Canada must be studied with a view to making it unnecessary to impose such controls over any lengthy period of time.
I have pointed out year after year, and I am going to point out again today, that one of the most important factors in the high cost of living is the failure of our country to produce, in the quantity needed by our people, certain of the goods and services which we can produce. While it is true that we have
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had a fairly sizeable over-all production, everybody knows that the controls, restrictions, regimentation and tight-reins imposed by the government have certainly caused a reduction in the amount of production we could have had. There is not any question about that. If you go through the country talking to the people as I have during the past three months, you will soon find out what they think about these restrictions and restraints and what ft has done to the volume of Canadian production. One of the best ways in which to meet the high cost of living is to lay down a set of conditions such as will make the' people free to open for themselves the flood-gates of production of all kinds of wanted goods and services.


An hon. MEMBER:: More slogans.


Solon Earl Low: That is a reality, not a slogan. You cannot fill your stores or you cannot fill your coal bin with slogans such as those my hon. friends have used.


Mr. WRIGHT:: The stores were full in 1939, and you could not get the goods.


An hon. MEMBER:: 
Solon Earl Low: 
An hon. MEMBER:: They voted for it.


Solon Earl Low: Sure, they voted for it. You can bet your life they did. Some of my hon. friends like tc steal the other fellow's thunder and then criticize him for suggesting it. That is their trouble.
If we are successfully to tackle this question of the high cost of living we certainly ought to start out with a mentality of abundance instead of one of scarcity such as the one my hon. friends the socialists, have; they are constantly talking in terms of scarcity and austerity and having to bring everybody down to a starvation level. We ought to be thinking Mr. Speaker, in terms of boosting and lifting everybody to an abundant level; and we can do it. That being the case, why do I not hear my hon. friends talk about some of the restrictions to that desirable high production? For example, let us take taxation. How often do we hear members of the C.C.F. group criticize, on the floor of this house, the taxation measures passed by this government and previous governments. There is not a single one of those taxation measures that they ever opposed. The simple reason for that is that their whole program depends on high taxation.


Major James William Coldwell: No, it depends on high production.


Solon Earl Low: I have already pointed out that high taxation does discourage production, is discouraging production and will continue to discourage production so long as it is maintained.


An hon. MEMBER:: Are you in favour of
taxation?


Solon Earl Low: 
Major James William Coldwell: I wonder where that
was.


Solon Earl Low: I say that was a rough shoe,
and that type of shoe is selling in Canada today at around S3.75.


An hon. MEMBER:: Has the hon. member bought any lately?


Solon Earl Low: Yes, I have. I have boys for
whom I buy shoes. I wonder if the hon. member who interrupted has.
Would you not think, Mr. Speaker, with the mechanization of industry and the introduction of the use of machines that make things faster and better, that we ought to be able to get things cheaper? We would, if we did not have such an absurd financial system.
Recently, I saw a machine, with one human attendant, making shoes at the rate of 1,000 pairs a day. Surely that same type of shoe should be available to people today at less than S2, which the old shoemaker got for them in the old days. Why should we have to pay a great deal more? Is it because of increased profits? My hon. friends over here say, yes, look at the tremendous profits, amounting to 117 per cent. But they carefully give percentages without getting into some of the more reasonable comparisons.


Major James William Coldwell: I gave figures, the dollar figures as well as the percentage of increase.


Solon Earl Low: When one investigates one finds that the high cost is, in the main, because of the numerous taxes which - are imposed upon the manufacture of the shoes, from the time the hide is stripped from the back of the animal until the shoes are on the feet of the person who wishes to wear them. That is a major thing in pushing costs higher and higher all the time.
I have here a statement that was made a few days ago in reference to this matter of costs involved in doing business today, which affects adversely the cost of living. The statement is made by a man who for over forty years was engaged in a certain line of business. He gives a table showing the approximate cost of doing business in 1947 compared with the cost of doing business in 1914 in a field in which, he states, he has had long experience. In 1947 materials cost him $1 and in 1914, fifty cents. Labour in 1947 cost him $4 as compared with
$1.50 in 1914. Overhead cost $1 in 1947, and in 1914 it cost fifty cents, while advertising in 1947 cost $1 as compared with fifty cents in 1914. In 1947 profit was $1 and in 1914, fifty cents. The total of these basic costs in 1947 was $8 as compared with $3.50 in 1914. He goes on. to say that if you add the excise tax of sixty-four cents, which in 1914 did not exist, you have $8.64 in 1947. Then add jobber's profit of twenty per cent, which in 1947 was $1.73 and in 1914, fifty-three cents, and add retailer's profits of fifty per cent which in 1947 was $5.18 as compared with $1.34 in 1914, and you have a total of $15.55 up to that point, in 1947. Then add a luxury tax of twenty-five per cent now imposed on this line-$3.88 of an increase-and the provincial tax of four per cent, making eighty cents, and you have a total of $20.23 in 1947 as compared with $5.37 in 1914.


An hon. MEMBER:: Part of that is profit.


Solon Earl Low: Of course it is. But remember, Mr. Speaker, when you compute the hidden taxes added at the various levels and realize that a man has .to invest his money in the total cost of the article and carry it as inventory sometimes as long as six or seven months to meet the seasonal demands, you cannot blame him for taking a reasonable profit on his whole outlay. What else can you expect? Some people do not know business, nor do they appreciate what businessmen have to put up with in this day. Certainly it ought to be perfectly evident that if we are to tackle successfully the high cost of living and the high cost of doing business, we must be thinking in other terms than check-reins and controls. We have to begin thinking of freeing enterprise from the shackles and manacles that have bound it. When we talk about freeing enterprise that is what we Social Crediters mean. We mean freeing enterprise from the shackles of taxation and the manacles and check-reins imposed by the government. Give business reasonable opportunity, and at the same time see to it that the people themselves have in their hands purchasing power with which to buy. That is the best kind of control I know of.
I do not think I need labour further the point of taxation, but one other point I should like to mention is this. It was not a difficult thing during the war for the government to make an agreement with the milk producers of Canada whereby these producers furnished the consumers with milk at ten cents a quart. The producers were perfectly satisfied. We had no difficulty during the months in which the compensated price was in effect.
Transitional Measures Act


James Lorimer Ilsley: There were tremendous
administrative difficulties.


Solon Earl Low: I understand there were administrative problems to begin with, but they were levelled out, and in the last year you did not have too much difficulty.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes, we had.


Solon Earl Low: That is a matter that has to be shown. I was in the production of milk at the time and I knew something about it. I know how pleased generally the people were with that type of control. It certainly was not a difficult matter. The producers did furnish milk at ten cents a quart, but they themselves obtained thirteen cents for it. The simple method was that at the end of the month when I, for example, had finished my deliveries for that month I took into the local bank a statement of the number of quarts of milk I had distributed during that period. The bank checked this statement, and if it was reasonable in comparison with the one for the previous month, they stamped it as accepted and credited my bank account with two cents. We got another one cent per quart through subsidy. They then made up statements containing all such transactions and sent them back to the department in Ottawa. The statements were checked through and the banks were reimbursed out of the general revenue fund.
That may not be completely, but it is essentially, what took place. The people of the country immediately sensed the importance of that milk subsidy type of price control and they all reacted well to it. There was not a great deal of pressure to take it off; as a matter of fact there was more pressure to keep it on. Furthermore, under the system the people were enabled to buy more milk; andi because they could buy more, the demand increased and more milk was produced. The natural consequence was that during those months neither I nor most other producers could keep up with the demand. We could not get enough cows to do that. However, we did succeed in distributing a great deal more milk than would otherwise have been distributed, and the people did consume a great deal more than they would otherwise have consumed. The cost of administration. and the cost of the subsidy bonus, were certainly justified during those months.
Immediately the bonuses and subsidies were taken off. down went the consumption of milk all over Canada, and it has not. got back, and will not get back for many months, to what it was during the time of the subsidy. Subsidy, coupled with compensated price discount, did control effectively the price of milk to the consumers, and it could be used

with a great many other items just as successfully. The administrative problem in regard thereto is one which it is quite within our ability to cope with.
If you add to the foregoing proposal an approach to a new financial outlook, you may make it possible for the people of the country to save each year about half the amount which the government is taking from them by way of indirect, taxes. Canadians have to pay about $470 million odd a year in interest on the debt. In this you have another very important item in the cost, of living. Year after year, decade after decade, the government. has insisted upon retaining an outmoded financial structure that has to be crutched up and bolstered up periodically by just such things as the government is asking today, that is, emergency controls. We have constantly advocated this: we say if the government can mint and print twelve per cent of the money of this country as it is now doing, and see that it is distributed with no debt attached to it at its source, then it can mint and print and put figures in the books to the extent of 100 per cent of the money we have to use. Thus it would save this country the huge burden of interest that attaches to a system under which the government has to go to the banks and borrow eighty-eight per cent of the money the people use. We think the present is a stupid arrangement. As one means of tackling the cost of living, we have constantly advocated that a debt-free money structure be introduced in this country, which would immediately make possible a reduction of taxes, reflecting itself in the revenues we have to take from the people, of at least twenty-five per cent of the total revenues of this country this year. Surely, if we have to take such huge quantities of money from the people by way of taxes because of a money system that creates debt all along the way, we are bound to cause a serious increase in the cost of living.
So I say to you, Mr. Speaker, introduction of a debt-free money system is one of the proposals which, coupled with the proposals for subsidies, compensated price discounts, reduced taxes, would provide us with a set of automatic controls, as an alternative to the bureaucratic type of controls which we have today and which the C.C.F. has advocated so ardently over the years.
But let me repeat, nothing in this world will do more to meet the high cost of living than to tackle the cost of production right at the point where that cost is being, pressured up; I say that point is high taxation of the indirect type. When we come to understand that, then our best efforts- will be directed

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toward leaving in the hands of the Canadian people more purchasing power, more of the products of their own labour, and. thus we shall increase their incentive to produce; we shall increase the happiness of the people; we shall give them a better weapon with which they themselves can control the cost of living.
Surely, Mr. Speaker, it is not a new idea to advocate that the people themselves are the best controllers; certainly it is not a new idea to advocate that the best way in the world to make it possible for the people themselves to control prices and the cost of living is for them to have in their hands at all times sufficient purchasing power with which to buy all the goods they have produced if they want them. Our present financial system does not do that. Over a long period our industrial system has resulted in the distribution of less purchasing power than the people needed to buy the goods they produced That is one of the principal reasons we had to have such things as are being suggested today; that is why we have had to have the most favoured-nation clauses, and Bretton Woods in trade treaties.


An hon. MEMBER:: And war.


Solon Earl Low: Yes, and war. The simple fact of the matter is, that internal pressure to get rid of goods that are in surplus-not surplus above what the people want and can use but surplus above what the people can buy-is one of the greatest causes for the necessity for these bureaucratic or planned controls.
Now, Mr. Speaker, let us take a positive attitude toward these things and think in terms of abundance. Social Crediters have always been apostles of abundant living, not restricted living. We think that inherent within the whole system we suggest, which is a way or philosophy of life, we have a means by which, if it is introduced into Canada gradually over a period of two or three years, it would become possible for the government gradually also to do away with the type oi controls they use now, and introduce into Canada once more, a free way of living, which would confirm every man in his own rights.
I do not intend to take more time to go into our philosophy, because that is not what this resolution calls for. However, these fellows over here always ask questions about these matters, and drive a person into making explanations. Let me say that there is plenty of material available for them to read. I would suggest that they read the speeches and writings and follow the advice of my good friend the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine) who, a few years ago certainly showed to all and sundry what can be done by way of introducing a system of controls, under the
social credit system, that will get rid of the shackles and the check-reins that have brought people down to a mentality of scarcity.
In closing, let me say once more that we will support the minister and give him another three months. What we will do after that time we do not know; it will depend upon the situation that then exists. But do not let it ever be said in this house or out on the hustings by anybody that we have pressured the government to throw off at once all their controls. That is stupid; it is not right. ' We think controls will be necessary for a time, but we object to the kind of control that is applied.



FOOD SHIPMENTS TO BRITAIN

James Garfield Gardiner: I would ask the house to revert to motions for a moment to permit me to table the answer to a question asked by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) a few days ago. It is a table showing the deliveries for the present year under the British contracts for the different food products. I thought this might be necessary for the information of the house before the next resolution is discussed.


John Bracken: The tabling of the answer to the question I raised the other day brings up another question. We h-aive not reached the orders of the day, so I have not been able to ask it as yet. Perhaps I might ask it now, however, and the minister will answer at his convenience. Is he in a position .to advise the house as to the progress of the negotiations being carried on with Britain in regard to our food products, particularly in view of the announcement this morning that the members of the British mission are preparing to leave Ottawa almost immediately?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have not heard of any intention on the part of the mission to leave Ottawa immediately. The negotiations are still progressing.
(For table referred to above, see appendix, page 220.)



TRANSITIONAL MEASURES ACT, 1947

John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. GILLIS:: Mr. Speaker-


John George Diefenbaker: I think I have the floor.


Clarence Gillis: I gave your leader the floor to let him speak to the Minister of Agriculture.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker-


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Speaker, as you were not in the chair-
Transitional Measures Act


Gordon Graydon: You do not put two C.C.F. speakers together, do you?


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Speaker, before you came into the chamber I had the floor, but I allowed the leader of the opposition to ask a question.


Gordon Graydon: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, surely we cannot have the whole sequence interrupted in this way.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Hon. members will appreciate that I just came into the chamber, and was hot aware of exactly what had happened. After having received some information from the Deputy Speaker, however, I believe it only fair that the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) should have the floor.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: I would not want to go ahead of my hon. friend, but I understood this was the ordinary order, and I rose at the same time as he did. I did not want any argument about it-


Clarence Gillis: I should like to say that I had the floor. The Minister of Agriculture rose and tabled an answer to a question asked yesterday by the leader of the opposition, and the leader of the opposition asked me if I would let him have the floor to reply to the Minister of Agriculture, which I did. For that courtesy I now lose the floor.


Mr. FULTON:: You never had it.


Gordon Graydon: There are no squatter's rights here in parliament.


Mr. MACKENZIE:: On a point of order- and I am not entering into this controversy in the slightest degree-I was informed, when the leader of the Social Credit party was speaking, that the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) was the next speaker.


An hon. MEMBER:: By whom?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Informed by those who assist Mr. Speaker in making arrangements, in a friendly way. However, I am not taking any part at all in it.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Mr. CASSELMAN:: You do not take any part in it, but-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: And I am not accepting any rebukes from my hon. friend either.


Gordon Graydon: Take nothing from the Tories.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Nor from Peel, either.
[Mr Gillis.]


James Horace King: Order. I have always followed the practice that when two members rise at the same time, I should attempt to-give a chance to every party in the house to-speak; one after the other, of course. The practice has always been to give the first chance to the government and then to the official opposition party, then to the C.C.F-and then to the Social Credit party. I understand that a Liberal member has spoken, a Progressive Conservative has spoken, a member of the C.C.F. group has spoken, as has also a member of the Social Credit group. Now we would seem to be starting over again and, since no hon. member in the Liberal' party has risen, I believe the floor should be given to the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker).


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend on this occasion to deal at length with the address to continue the act because the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) has indicated that the three months extension is not going to be opposed in view of the fact that, had this session not been called at the present time, the Transitional Measures Act would have continued in any event to March 31, 1948.
For a moment or two, I shall review something of the background of this act. I have in my hand the original measure which indicates the degree to which in recent years this government has developed a passion for power, which, like greed, has shown that it is not capable of being satisfied.
I believe the people of Canada generally thought that, after the war, so far as possible the abrogation of our rights in wartime would be denied in days of peace. As I view the attitude of the government, I ask myself if it intends that the temporary abrogations of wartime, the paths which were taken in time of war, shall become the permanent highways of peace.
I think no more outrageous deception of a House of Commons was ever perpetrated than in the stand taken by the foreign exchange control board with the knowledge and direction of the government, to use powers given to the government for certain purposes and with the assurance by the government to the House of Commons that those powers would be used only for the purpose indicated, only to find that, in November of 1947 the powers thus secured are utilized, under a pretence, in order to effect the wielding of a power the board was never intended to have.
I have before me some of the speeches delivered in 1934 by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) when he was referring to a

Transitional Measures Act
government taking unto itself certain powers and using them improperly. We who are on this side of the house are now faced by a government which, in its greed for power, and at the expense of the House of Commons, has gone farther than any other government in Canada ever dreamed of going in a time of war or peace, and almost as far, indeed if not actually as far, as the socialist government in Great Britain has gone.
Last vear on April 18, 1947, as reported at page 2190 of Hansard, the minister gave his imprimatur of disapproval to the acquiring of powers by any board and the utilizing of those powers for purposes other than those for which they were intended. On that occasion he said, referring to a board-
They know very well that nothing would be more shortsighted than for them to rely upon arbitrary sections, as a basis for the unwarranted exercise of authority.
Is .that not the situation today? Is that not what this government did on November 17, 1947? It used for another purpose altogether, and for one for which it had denied it would under any circumstances use them, powers which parliament had given to it. That is a serious situation. Instead of its making even a faint apology, all we have from the executive in that regard is a comtemptuous attitude toward the House of Commons. I say, sir, that when a government utilizes powers such as that in a way never contemplated by parliament, we have a right to ask that parliament and the country be given an explanation.
I know what the excuse will be:	Certain
bureaucrats decided they needed power. Certain bureaucrats believed that if they could twist the interpretion of certain sections they would secure that power. And the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) arrogated to himself the right to tax the people of this country, without regard to the House of Commons.
I ask the ministers sitting on the front benches:	Did you ever know that to be done
before? Will the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley), a former Minister of Finance, state whether in his parliamentary experience he has ever known of any democratic government anywhere which imposed taxation by order in council, and without consultation with the House of Commons?
The Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie) is a student of constitutional development


Gordon Graydon: He is a student; period.


John George Diefenbaker: Can he tell me in any country of an occasion where taxation has been imposed by a minister, by order in council?


Gordon Graydon: Think hard, now.


John George Diefenbaker: Sir, the silence gives the answer. And yet-


James Lorimer Ilsley: Does not my friend think his argument would be better placed under the next order, the one introduced by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott)?


John George Diefenbaker: I am inclined to agree with the Minister of Justice, although the question still remains unanswered, as it will be when the next debate comes up. Having regard to the fact that extraordinary powers are being asked for, I think we should have an opportunity of having brought before parliament some of the invisible incognitos who today dominate this government, who give it advice. They were wrong in July, 1946. Is there any reason to believe that they were right in November, 1947? I suggest to the Minister of Justice that in order to bring back to the House of Commons its powers we have brought before a committee of this house Doctor Clark, Mr. Towers, Mr. Rasminsky, and other members of that group.


Mr. ADAMSON:: Mr. Bryce also.


John George Diefenbaker: They should be brought before parliament and examined to ascertain whether they made the recommendation to the government on November 17 or prior thereto or whether it was the government that suggested to them the means whereby they could utilize the Foreign Exchange Control Act for the purposes they had in view. I shall not deal further with that question at this time because of the interruption by the Minister of Justice. I suggest that, having regard to the trend which is being followed by this government, the time has come when this house should ascertain just in what direction this country is going in so far as centralization is concerned.
I should like to mention a few matters which support the view that I hold, that the government is endeavouring deliberately to centralize power here in Ottawa to the detriment of the provinces under our federal system. Every now and then the government produces the doctrine of emergency as its authority. The doctrine of emergency was never intended to be utilized by any government to destroy the set-up of powers under the British North America Act and to deny the jurisdiction of the provinces. As far as this government is concerned, the doctrine of emergency has become a synonym for government incompetencv. Whenever the government is in doubt as to what move it should follow, it invariably adds powers to certain individuals or boards, relying upon the doctrine of emergency as justifying its acts.
Transitional Measures Act

Was it not the government that took the stand a few short months ago that the constitution of our country could be amended by the simple expedient of a majority in the House of Commons and the Senate? Was it not a member of this government, the former Minister of Justice, who stated that the language rights of the people in this country could be taken away by a simple majority in the House of Commons and the Senate? The statement made by the then Minister of Justice that the right to use the French language in this country could be denied by the simple expediency of a majority vote of the House of Commons and the Senate was one of the most dangerous statements that have ever been made in this house.
Let us see what they have done toward centralization. I would point out that they have this in common with my hon. friends of the C.C.F. party'. The C.C.F. party supported them in that because its members realize that they can never bring into being a system of socialism on a national scale until the constitution, in so far as provincial rights are concerned, has been entirely changed and those rights done away with.
It is a continuing process; the government is working in the direction of centralization. They wanted to take away from the provinces certain rights to tax; they wanted to centralize authority; they succeeded. The Premier of Nova Scotia stated that what he had done was done under pressure. The minister of public works of Alberta has stated that while his province consented, she consented only because of the compulsion of a gun held to her head. That is the pathway toward centralization. The doctrine of emergency is being used more and more as an excuse and means whereby provincial jurisdiction can be denied.
My hon. friends of the C.C.F. talk about how easy it is to control prices, and they have admitted that the responsibility for such control rests upon the provincial government under our constitution when and if the transitional powers act is done away with. I ask them, why was chapter 91 of the 1947 statutes of Saskatchewan passed? That is an act to confer certain powers upon the lieutenant governor in council, and the preamble reads:
Whereas, in contemplation of the termination of certain powers conferred upon the governor in council by the National Emergency Transitional Powers Act, 1945, and of certain powers conferred by the governor in council pursuant to that act, it is expedient that the lieutenant governor in council be empowered, upon termination of any of the said powers, to do and authorize the doing of such acts and things and make such orders and regulations within the legislative competence of the province, as he

may deem necessary or advisable with respect to any or all of the matters hereinafter mentioned, namely-
(b)	controlling and regulating the prices at which goods, wares or merchandise or any class or classes thereof shall be purchased or sold by retail within the province or any part or parts of the province for use in the province;
(c)	controlling and regulating rentals of real property and the use and occupation of real property within the province-
Why was that act passed? It was passed because the law officers of thq crown in Saskatchewan realized that under the constitution, when the war was over, responsibility to control prices and the like was within the ambit of the province. I am not saying anything against their commendable efforts to secure reasonable prices in this country because I think all of us are opposed to inflationary tendencies, but I ask them this: When you have it in your power, when you have such an overwhelming majority- in the province, why do you not carry into effect in Saskatchewan the principles that you avow here in the House of Commons?


Percy Ellis Wright: That is what we are doing with lumber.


John George Diefenbaker: Yes, it is being done with lumber and that may be the reason why it is not being done with anything else. The man who works, the man who produces lumber is receiving from $22 to $25 less per thousand feet than the man under private enterprise in the adjoining provinces is receiving.


Percy Ellis Wright: You would remove the means of maintaining the ceilings.


John George Diefenbaker: That remark is
scarcely worthy of so good a member as the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright). What I am saying is this. They have the law, and all that it requires is a proclamation. How they have proclaimed their belief in controlled prices! I ask them when they reply to answer this question: Why do you not do it in Saskatchewan where you have the power to do it, not only under the constitution, but also under the statute passed for the purpose?


Percy Ellis Wright: The act cannot be implemented while the emergency powers act is in operation.


John George Diefenbaker: There is nothing to stop a province from utilizing its powers. We have not come to the state where the transitional powers act has taken away the rights of a province to legislate. The province has legislated, and if you believe that the province of Saskatchewan can control prices, here is your opportunity to carry into effect that

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great philosophic experiment. I am going to help them answer the question because I think the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) this afternoon answered the question himself. Did you notice, Mr. Speaker, how he went over with great speed-I think the word is "elided"-the difference in prices between Canada and the United States? He pointed out by inference how difficult it is for people of this country to maintain a price level lower than the price level that maintains across the boundary, and I presume that would be the situation were the government of Saskatchewan to bring into effect its system of price control.
I say this to the government. I have heard the Prime Minister of this country (Mr. Mackenzie King) in the most lachrymose words point out the evils of combines and exploitation. I remember the words that went over the radio on election night in 1935, when the Prime Minister declared what a great victory it was for those who were opposed to great monopoly privilege. How many prosecutions have there been? How many times have the powers been used against monopolies? If there are corporations in this country that take unfair advantage and exploit the people I say to my friends of the C.C.F. that last year I moved an amendment whereby any man or woman in this country, where there is exploitation or unfairness, could lay an information in the courts of this country. Have they done it?


Alistair McLeod Stewart: Yes.


John George Diefenbaker: One lone sound, and an uncertain one at that. The only prosecution that is even discussed is of the dental manufacturers at a time when so many say that unfair exploitation is sapping the energy of the people of this country. Go into the courts.


Percy Ellis Wright: What will it cost the individual?


John George Diefenbaker: What does it cost? My hon. friend's party have in their midst one of the ablest counsel, the learned and hon. member for Kindersley (Mr. Jaenicke). Ask him. That is where to get the information. My hon. friends to my left used to claim that it was unfair that prosecutions could take place only with the leave of the Attorney General of Canada or the attorneys general of the several provinces and that they were leagued together with great interests who unfairly took advantage of the people. But no longer is that excuse available. When wrong is done, let it be punished. Where exploitation takes place, my hon. friends have it in their power to carry into effect the principles which they publicly avow.
You know, sir, that the first move of a socialist in order to bring in a socialist economy-andi sometimes as I look at the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie)
I wonder how he feels at being an instrument for bringing in socialism in our country-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Very proud of it.


Mr. IRVINE:: If the hon. member for Lake Centre would permit a question, would he tell us how a Tory would bring in anything?


Mr. BROOKS:: What a clever question!


John George Diefenbaker: Sir, the quality of that question answers itself.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: If I may have the privilege of answering the question that my hon. friend asked of me as to how I feel about helping to bring socialism into Canada, I would say that were I in charge tomorrow and had to choose between Socialism and a rigid and unbending Toryism I would prefer socialism.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The minister should have got married twenty years ago.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I have never known so many trying to make one speech. I do say to my right hon. friend that all his life as long as I have known him he has been honourable and never right.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I am glad that my hon. friend did not say that I was right and never honourable.


John George Diefenbaker: That is something I would not say. But I did point out that he had never been right.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: He has never lost an election in thirty years, which is more than my hon. friend can say.


John George Diefenbaker: My right hon.
friend has told us that he does believe in the principles of socialism-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I do very largely.


John George Diefenbaker: -and I thank him for that, because no other government has ever gone so far in the direction of socialism anywhere as the present government, and we now have the admission of the right hon. house leader of his general attitude toward socialism. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will make some allowance in- the time allotted to me because of the general interest that is being shown in my speech.
I now come to the next point. The essence of socialism and bringing it into effect is a denial of the right of appeal of the individual to the courts against the arbitrary acts of bureaucrats.
Transitional Measures Act


Stanley Howard Knowles: Nonsense.


John George Diefenbaker: This government has gone a long way under its powers in the transitional powers act to deny the individual the right of recourse to the courts. A few weeks ago the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Howe) came back from Britain. He spoke in the city of Toronto and in scathing tones condemned the socialist government in Great Britain for placing power in the hands of one man. Now this government is going to ask parliament to'place in the hands of the Minister of Reconstruction, who has never shown a scrupulous regard for parliamentary procedure, power over every individual in this country; the power to say to one industry, "You shall live"; and to another, "You shall die"; to one, "You shall receive"; to another, "You shall be denied." And no one who is affected, whether by way of discrimination or otherwise, is permitted recourse to the courts. Sir, where will freedom be when one individual in this country is given powers the like of which no one has possessed since the days of Oliver Cromwell?


An hon. MEMBER:: What about Cripps?


John George Diefenbaker: I have heard a statement of Cripps' powers. They do not go as far as those which are to repose in the hands of the Minister of Reconstruction.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: He is not such a good man.


John George Diefenbaker: What was that
remark? He is a good man? Somebody said long before anyone of us was here that power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.


An hon. MEMBER:: And how!


John George Diefenbaker: Yes. Place that
power in his hands, place any member in that cabinet in a position where he is above the courts of the land, where he can divide the Canadian people into two groups-those who shall receive and those who shall be denied- be he ever so good, without right of recourse to the courts against unfairness and discrimination, and you deny the basic principles of all the Liberalism for which my right hon friend, the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie) has so often stood and so generally and vocally avowed. It is exactly the same principle that we have today under socialism in the province of Saskatchewan. They interfere with the individual, and in their statutes they place these words:
Every order of the board under this section shall be 'final and without appeal, and no such [DOT]order shall be questioned or reviewed, restrained

or removed by prohibition, injunction, certiorari, or any other process or proceeding in any court.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Compare that with the Marketing Act of the Tory government in 1935.


John George Diefenbaker: Never at any time has any government outside of the socialist government asked to be above the courts of the land. As a matter of fact, the hon. member for Kindersley, for whose constitutional knowledge I have a deep regard, last year introduced in the house a bill to provide for the doing away of appeals to the privy council. That was a move. Will he introduce it again this year? I never heard such silence as an answer.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Frank R. Scott, one of the leaders of the C.C.F., the president of the association-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: He is a good man.


An hon. MEMBER:: And he is a professor.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Scott said why the appeal to the privy council should be retained, in the Canadian Bar Review of June-July, 1947. At the same time as the hon. member for Kindersley was abolishing the appeal, Mr. Scott was giving reason why it should be retained. And do you know what the reason is, sir? It was this. We have a socialist government in England today and it appoints some of the members to the privy council, so we may expect favourable consideration of the policies of socialism if we maintain the appeal to the privy council.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: That is not worthy of the hon. member at all.


Mr. JAENICKE:: May I say, Mr. Speaker, that I shall introduce the bill.


John George Diefenbaker: All right. Here is
what Mr. Scott says:
In recent years a new argument in support of tlie appeal has appeared.
I read this article because it indicates a dangerous principle. Under their legislation there is a denial of recourse to the courts, because the individual has no right of recourse. The article continues:
England has now embarked upon a great socialist experiment, and one which, because it seeks to preserve the democratic process, may have a more profound repercussion upon the world than even the Russian revolution. The judicial committee of the privy council lives, breathes and operates in that social climatP The Canadian supreme court, on the other hand, is engulfed in the tide of post-war reaction which is now running strongly in North America, Canada included. So far from experimenting

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afresh, we are scrapping and undoing the public enterprises and social controls which were necessary to win the war, and which raised our productivity and standard of living to unprecedented heights.
Then he goes on to say:
Which of these two courts is the more likely to render the better service to the democratic cause in these future conflicts?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: May I ask a question of my hon. friend?


John George Diefenbaker: Yes.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Which does my hon. friend favour?


An hon. MEMBER:: He does not know.


John George Diefenbaker: At the moment I am pointing out that the one reason why the appeal to the privy council was to be taken away was to ensure Canadian sovereignty. On the other hand, there is the argument now used by one of the great leaders of the C.C.F. that possibly it would be worth maintaining because the court might, by reason of its proximity to the social changes taking place in Britain, in consequence give a better interpretation than the Supreme Court of Canada. I say, sir, that is a dangerous principle. Afraid of the courts? Today the government of our country too often has been afraid of the courts. Too often, under the legislation passed under the transitional powers act, has the right of the individual who is discriminated against been denied; too often and too long.


Angus MacInnis: I do not think the hon. member mentioned the book from which he was quoting.


John George Diefenbaker: It is the Canadian Bar Review.


Angus MacInnis: What page?


John George Diefenbaker: June-July, 1947.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I should like to ask a question. My recollection was that Mr. Scott came to the conclusion nevertheless that the appeal should be abolished in spite of that.


John George Diefenbaker: I have the whole article here.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I may be wrong.


John George Diefenbaker: Apparently the
Minister of Justice has not read that article with his usual care.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Maybe not. But that is the impression I got.


John George Diefenbaker: I will read the Minister what the article says:
These are weighty questions. The answers given will often depend on the ideological preferences of the individual concerned.
Then, as it is fair to point out, he goes on to say what my hon. friend said:
Yet no such considerations, in my opinion justify the retention of the appeal.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


John George Diefenbaker: I do not make any apology. That is the argument that was
advanced-


An hon. MEMBER:: Go on.


John George Diefenbaker: That was the argument advanced.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is unworthy of a member of parliament.


John George Diefenbaker: -no right of appeal because the rights would be denied to individuals here in Canada under social legislation; and very fairly, as the Minister of Justice points out-and I read it-he went on finally to say that in his opinion-


Angus MacInnis: The hon. member was compelled to read it.


John George Diefenbaker: -the appeal should be done away with. . That indicates a philosophy of suspicion and fear of the courts which underlies the attitude taken by this government in denying the right of appeal to the courts, and I say to you, sir, that these are the trends-centralization, legislative centralization and taxation centralization; then the interference with provincial jurisdiction and the denying of the right of recourse to the courts, which I say cannot be justified. No emergency such as exists today should permit of denial of recourse.
I suggest to the Minister of Justice that when this bill is introduced it should provide for recourse to the courts, and before we proceed we should have the right to bring before the house and the members of this house those who occupy high positions in the bureaucratic service of the country, with a view to having them tell us what justification there ever is for departing from the constitutional principle that taxation shall not be imposed except through the House of Commons, a principle never departed from before. No reason has been given for it, and I ask the government to give the people of the country the assurance that never again will they depart from the promise they made that under no circumstances would they allow the people of this country to be subjected to regulations interpreted differently from the way in which they were interpreted in parliament, but that they will restore to the people the freedom denied them during the period of the war.
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As far as this party is concerned, it believes the time has come to restore the flag of freedom to parliament hill once and for all.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.
GOLD MINING	.



STATEMENT OF MINISTER OF FINANCE WITH RESPECT TO ASSISTANCE TO INDUSTRY

Douglas Charles Abbott: With your permission, Mr. Speaker,
I wish to make a brief statement.
For some time the Canadian government has been considering its proposal to grant assistance to the gold mining industry. Representations have been received from the industry to the effect that the government's proposal, which I announced in my broadcast address on November 17 last, would not serve to prevent continued deterioration of the industry, the closing down of additional mines and consequent hardship to many northern mining communities.
Furthermore, as I stated in that broadcast, Canada has certain obligations under the international monetary fund agreement which have to be taken into account in considering the form in which any assistance is given to the industry. It was for that reason and in order to give an opportunity to discuss the matter with the international monetary fund that our original proposal was announced only in general terms, with the statement that details would not be made known until they were laid before parliament. During the last fortnight the government has been in consultation with the fund. In the course of these discussions it developed that payment of a fixed amount per extra ounce of gold produced had, from the fund's point of view, certain objectionable features in that it might be' represented as constituting an increase in the price paid by the government for gold which would be contrary to the fund agreement. The government has therefore decided to revise the form of its assistance and I wish now to give an outline of our new proposal, which the government hopes will contribute in some degree to the reconstitution of our depleted gold reserves.
Under the new proposal the government will undertake to make through the Department of Mines and Resources a payment to each gold mine designed to assist it in defraying part of its increased costs of production. This
[Mr. DiefenbakerJ
payment will be determined by taking half of the amount by which the mine's current cost of gold production per fine ounce exceeds SIS per ounce and applying this to the amount by which production in the current year exceeds two-thirds of production in .the base year; that is, the twelve months' period ending June 30, 1947. In the case of new mines, the payment as described above will be paid on the entire production in the first year and in the two succeeding years on the amount by which current production exceeds two-thirds of the first year's production. The legislation will include definitions of such terms as cost of production and will limit the assistance to straight gold mines rather than include those metal mines which produce gold as a byproduct. The assistance will be given for a term of three years and will apply to production after December 1, 1947.
I may add that the details of the proposal will be incorporated in legislation to be submitted to the house as soon as practicable.



TRANSITIONAL MEASURES ACT, 1947 CONTINUATION IN FORCE UNTIL MARCH 31, 1948

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Ilsley for an address to His Excellency the Governor General praying that the Continuation of Transitional Measures Act, 1947, be continued in force until the 31st day of March, 1948.
Percy Ellis Wright: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) is not in his seat at the moment because I wish to reply briefly to some of the statements he made this afternoon. I thought the speech he delivered did not display the integrity and quality generally shown in this house by the hon. gentleman. Since he comes from western Canada and has probably absorbed some of the thinking out there-what I might call the advanced thinking-on economics and other questions, I thought he might have expressed a different viewpoint. However, this afternoon in my estimation he exhibited three typical Tory characteristics. First, he spoke for some forty-five minutes- and did not state his position on the matter he was discussing. He did not say whether he was going to vote in favour of the measure or against it. Probably he will do as his party has done on previous occasions; that is, talk consistently against the measure and then vote for it.
Then the hon. member deliberately tried to leave a wrong impression with the house and the country with respect to the opinions of the chairman of the Co-operative Common-

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wealth Federation. I believe that is beneath the dignity and ability the hon. member for Lake Centre usually displays in this house. When he did not succeed in that he tried to leave an entirely wrong impression with regard to certain legislation passed by the Saskatchewan legislature. Then he exhibited the usual Tory fetish for procedure and precedent. I am sure that, had the Tories remained in power in England up to the present time, and carried on as the hon. gentleman did this afternoon, in that country they would probably still be hanging men for stealing sheep.
We are living in a changed world today, in a world dynamic in its ability to destroy and also in its ability to produce. The measure we are discussing here is a measure of control, 'a measure which we consider necessary to secure greater production of the essential things of life. Many people have said in this house and in the country that you can get production only through a completely free economy, in which free enterprise has full control. If we learned anything at all from the war we should have learned that this is false. In 1939, when the war broke out, we had a national production of goods and services in Canada worth approximately $4,250 million. When war came we realized it was absolutely essential that we increase that production. We knew we would have to place from half a million to a million of our young men and women in the armed forces and that we would have to equip them with proper clothing, medical services and all the other things necessary to win a war. To do that, our government realized, thank goodness, that certain controls were essential, and they imposed those controls for the purpose of getting greater production in order to carry on Canada's war effort. And I may say that we can be exceedingly proud of Canada's war effort. We equipped that army with the best equipment in the world; and during the four or more years of the war we were able to give away a billion dollars worth of goods and services each year, all because we had adopted the controls necessary to bring about production in this country of those things that were essential.
Now we say we are going to get rid of these controls. I say the emergency is almost as great today as it was during the war. We have not yet won the peace. Anyone who looks at world conditions must realize that production is almost as essential today as it was during the war years; and the objective of these controls is to obtain the necessary essential production. If we could produce to the extent we did during 1944 and 1945, when 5849 -13J
we produced some $12,000 million worth of goods and services, surely we can continue that production now with 800,000 of our most productive young people back at work producing goods and services for ourselves and for the people of Europe who find themselves unable to produce because of the war.
These are the objectives of controls; this is why they are necessary at the present time. Yet there are people who would throw them out the window. I cannot understand the mentality of such people. It is very true that no government can give its people more than those people produce, but it is equally true that the government of a democratic country should give its people the opportunity to produce, and should see that when they have produced there is an equitable distribution of the goods and services so produced. That is what is needed in Canada today-greater production of certain essential goods and services, goods and services which will give to our veterans returning from overseas decent homes to live in and which will give to our people the goods and services which we can supply in this country.
How did' we get that increased production during the war? We got it because we, for the first time in this country, established a reasonable relationship between wages, the price of agricultural products and the cosits of the things which we had to buy. When that balance was established we got greater production than at any time in Canada's history. We produced more hogs and more milk; we produced more of all those essential things; and we got for the first time a reasonably fair distribution of them. I am not saying it was perfect; nothing is perfect in this world. But, looking back over the past forty years, I think any member in the house will agree with me that during 1944 and 1945 we had probably a better distribution of the goods and services we produce in this country than we had at any time previously. And as a result of that we got -production of all the essential things in life.
Now we find that just as we get rid of those controls we have a decrease in production. What is happening in the agricultural industry today, so far as production is concerned? What is happening with production of bacon, production of dairy products and the production of practically all agricultural products? Once that fair relationship between the cost of production and the price received for farm products is distributed, and where you have that disparity, immediately you get a decrease in production.
This party has never said that you can give people something for nothing. But you can
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give the people an opportunity to produce by maintaining in this country a proper balance between wages and the price of agricultural products, and the things we have to buy. That is all we mean when we speak of a planned economy. We mean an economy in which those relationships are maintained, in which we get the maximum production and thereby give to more people more goods and services.
The minute you return to the speculative system, that balance is destroyed. Today the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) talked about rye. He spoke about the price of rye, but he did not tell the whole story. He did not tell that the processors of rye used for food purposes in this country bought that rye at sixty-six cents a bushel. That was the ceiling price on rye in 1941, and the price paid for rye used for food purposes in this country. There was speculation on the Winnipeg grain exchange. The difference between sixty-six cents and t'he speculative price created by the Winnipeg grain exchange was paid out of the pockets of the taxpayers of Canada. I think I am right in that. Rye used for the production of food in this country was bought at a ceiling price established in 1941. No wonder they could speculate on the Winnipeg grain exchange, when the man who was processing the rye did not care what he paid for it if it was processed for food purposes, because he could pay what he liked for it on the Winnipeg grain exchange and the government paid a subsidy representing the difference between that and sixty-six cents a bushel. That is something which I do not think the people of this country realized. It was subsidized speculation on the Winnipeg grain exchange.
Our hon. friends to the right have stated that 'they 'believe that the two systems could work again, namely the speculative system and the wheat board, or the marketing board. I say they cannot work when you have longterm agreements for the sale of your products. Those long-term agreements cannot be filled wi'th two systems in Canada.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: They can be filled with jne system.


Percy Ellis Wright: They can be filled to the 2xtent that we produce those goods in this 30untry; make no mistake about that. That is why we believe 'that we should have the necessary controls. That is why we believe that the Winnipeg grain exchange should be closed and all speculation on essential food produots should be stopped. If we do not do that there is no doubt in my mind that we diall return again to 'the completely speculative marketing system in this country.

Our hon. friends say that the cause of discontent, if there is discontent in western Canada at the present time with regard to the price received for grain, is the failure of the government to allow grain prices to rise. I say the greater part of the discontent in western Canada today is due to the failure of the government to maintain controls necessary to prevent the rising cost of production in that part of the country.
Immediately controls were taken off binder twine, for instance, it went up to twice the price it had been before. When the subsidy was taken off crude oil the price went up; and the same is true with respect to farm machinery. The western Canadian farmer will receive for his wheat, I believe, over the five-year period of the contract with Great Britain, probably $1.70 or $1.75 a bushel.


Mr. HACKETT:: What would he 'have got if there had been no control?


Percy Ellis Wright: Nobody in the world knows what he might have got if there had been no control; with 160,000,000 bushels additional grain on the world market, nobody can tell what might have happened. But I will tell you this, that if the controls had been maintained over the cost of production the western farmers would have been very well satisfied with SI.70 to $1.75 a bushel; I am convinced of that.
It is with respect to the removal of controls over the western farmer's cost of production that most dissatisfaction is expressed in western Canada. There are people who put the cart before the horse and who turn it the other way around. But I am saying this, that, after all, the western farmer is a pretty sensible person. He knows which side his bread is buttered on, and I have no doubt as to what his reaction will be to this outcry by the Winnipeg grain exchange or the Progressive Conservative party to my right, and certain other interests, who would put him back into the speculative market again, so far as his farm production is concerned.
In respect of agriculture in Canada we want stability so that we can plan our agricultural program, not just for one year, but for four or five years. Every control which has been removed has been a step in the direction of instability-not stability.	That is why I say
that we are getting a decrease in production in Canada, so far as agricultural prices are concerned.
I should like to deal briefly with what has happened in respect of coarse grains. When the Canadian Wheat Board Act was before the house last session we in this house endeavoured at first to have coarse grains placed under that

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act, and have the price of coarse grains placed at a figure in relation to the price of wheat. Anyone who has farmed must know approximately what that relationship should be. If that had been done we would not have found the sorry spectacle which developed in western Canada when these ceilings were removed. It has been said in eastern Canada that they were removed because of the demands of western agriculture. That is not so. It was not because of the demands of western agriculture that these ceilings were removed. Mr. Speaker, you should have been in western Canada and heard the outcry raised out there when that happened. In fact they had to call the Liberal association of Saskatchewan together at a special meeting and the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker), who is parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Veterans Affairs, and another gentleman were sent to Ottawa to interview the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) and the government with regard to it, although the Minister of Agriculture was in western Canada when it happened. I do not know why they felt that they had to send them to Ottawa. They must have more money in their treasury than we of the C.C.F. have!


James Arthur Ross: That is quite a bit.


Percy Ellis Wright: I wish it were more. That is the position. The western farmer had already sold. It was said that we were refusing to sell our grain, but the statistics show that over 50,000,000 bushels of coarse grains had been marketed before the ceiling came off. Those coarse grains had not reached the consumer in eastern Canada; they were still either in the hands of the handling firms and speculators or in transit. Thank goodness we have a pool organization out there and a large portion of those coarse grains was in their hands. The result is that the producers of those grains who are members of the pool will get some return as a result of the increase in the price. We do not know what it will be because we do not know how much had been disposed of before the ceiling came off.
The hon. member for Rosthern returned to western Canada and announced the government policy in the press, or what the government were likely to do with regard to the whole coarse grains business. I do not know when he became the official mouthpiece of the government. He may have just been talking out of turn or expressing his hope as to what they would do. That situation is not satisfactory, either to the western producer or to the eastern farmer who consumes these grains.


An hon. MEMBER:: What did he say?


Percy Ellis Wright: I shall not go into the details of what he said, but he said plenty, perhaps more than he should have said. We want stability in these prices. If these grains had been placed under the wheat board, as we suggested then, for at least the life of the wheat board we would have known where these prices were going. That would have been the situation up until 1950 at least. Then the eastern consumer would have been able to plan a fairly substantial feeding program. But that did not take place and we now have complete disorganization in our whole agricultural livestock production system.
There is another matter to be dealt with, the subsidies on freight rates. Hon. friends to my right do not believe in subsidies. What is going to happen in the latter part of July next year when the subsidies on coarse grains freight rates are taken off? We shall find ourselves back in the position in which we were in 1939 and we shall be exporting our coarse grains to the Scandinavian countries at from five to seven cents a bushel less than the feeders in eastern Canada can buy them for. That was the position in 1939 because of the differential between the export freight rates and the domestic freight rates on grain. If there is an increase of even half what the railroads are asking that differential will be even more than from five to seven cents a bushel. We shall then be supplying the Scandinavian countries with feed grain so that they can compete with us in the British market. We shall be supplying those grains more cheaply than we can sell them in eastern Canada or the maritime provinces.
That is the sort of thing that happens when you refuse to provide necessary returns in order to maintain a balanced economy in the country. That is the ultimate result of the decontrol policy. I ask my Progressive Conservative friends to go out and explain that to their constituents in this province and hear what they have to say. I know enough of the eastern farmer and feeder in Ontario and the maritimes-


Gordon Graydon: They know enough about you.


Percy Ellis Wright: -to know that they want stability. They want to have the opportunity to produce to the maximum. I was in Prince Edward Island a little while ago and I am prepared to gamble that the C.C.F. will make more gains in the coming election than either of the old-line parties. We gained fifty-eight per cent in the popular vote in the two byelections in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick when both the Liberals and Conservatives
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lost. I am sure I shall be pleased with the results in Prince Edward Island when we hear the total vote.


Gordon Graydon: Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.


An hon. MEMBER:: You ought to know.


Percy Ellis Wright: 
Mr. ROBERT FAIR (Battle River):: Mr. Speaker, this is one occasion on which I feel very proud to belong to a peaceful race. I do not have to scrap, as many of those who have spoken this afternoon have done. I intend to speak for only a short time because some of my colleagues will be entering the debate later.
While the people of Britain and Europe continue to face months of slow starvation, the government of Canada continues to enforce its program of restricted production on our farms, even though it has contracted with the British government to supply special specified minimum quantities of wheat, 'beef, pork and other farm products. Although a policy of decreased production has been in effect generally since the early years of the war, the government continues from time to time to bring in measures that have the direct or indirect effect of reducing production. For that reason I feel that the farmers of this country are compelled to cut their production to the bone or, in some cases, work themselves out of business. That situation does not obtain in any other occupational group in this country, and something should be done in the very near future to remedy the situation with respect to our farmers.
Not very long ago the government announced the policy of decontrol of the prices of oats and barley and at the same time, I believe, removed the control from meats. In my opinion this has caused more discontent and unrest among the farmers of western Canada than anything else that has been done for many years.
We know that in the past agriculture has not had a square deal. Time and again we have stated from this corner of the house that you cannot have poverty and prosperity side by side in this country and at the same time have a contented population. We believe, as I have stated on many occasions, that agriculture is the basic industry of Canada and that, until we have a prosperous agriculture, the country as a whole cannot be prosperous. In order to bring this home to the
government, we have from time to time pointed out injustices, which so far have not been remedied.
Agriculture during many years has not received its proper share of the national income. During the war agriculture was asked to produce to the limit and succeeded in doing that very thing. We were told during the early years of the war that if we would be satisfied to accept low prices for our agricultural products we would be compensated when the war was over. The war was concluded in 1945, the shooting part at least, but up to the present time we have not yet fully realized those better times that were promised to agriculture.
Prices of coarse grains were controlled up to October 22, when the controls were removed. The immediate effect was an incease in price of twenty cents on oats and thirty cents on barley. Farmers all over the prairie provinces-and this applied, I think, just as much to eastern Canada and the mari-times-protested against this action of the government. Many farmers during the war years had made preparations for raising hogs on a large scale, but because of the increase in the price of feed many of them have now gone out of business or almost gone out of business and action will have to' be taken immediately if this situation is to be remedied. Perhaps it is even now too late to correct the situation because, during the past weeks, thousands of sows which should be farrowing in the winter months have been sent to the packing houses and many others which should be producing young pigs in the spring months have also gone .to the slaughter house. They cannot be brought back, and for that reason I feel that we are going to have a greatly decreased hog production in Canada next year. We have food contracts with Britain. I understand that the British people are now rationed and allowed only one ounce of bacon a week. If we are to do our share in helping those people we must get busy right away.
At the time the price ceilings on oats and barley were removed another strange thing happened. Those grains were allowed to be sold on the Winnipeg grain exchange. The vast majority of members on all sides of the house have urged the government for many years past to do away with the grain exchange. Some members of the government time and again have insisted that they are not in favour of the exchange. But we know that for years past they have also stated that they were going to reform the other part of this parliament, and we see from time to time that more and more leeway is given in ceitain directions.
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crop year. That would be only fair to the farmers who delivered in accordance with the policy laid down by the government. It is within the rights of the farmers who made early delivery that this action should be taken, and farmers should be assured in the near future that such action will be taken.
Next, I would suggest a transfer from general revenue to the Canadian wheat board of an amount equal to the difference between the amounts realized under the British wheat agreement and the average world price received during each crop year.
Finally, I would suggest that there be provided an increase in the price of cattle and hogs, by subsidy or otherwise, so that the price would bear a fair relationship to the price of feed grains. I am making this statement at the present time on behalf of my group, and we shall have more to say later on.


Mr. F. S. ZAPLITNY (Dauphin):: I believe the people of Canada, from coast to coast, would be surprised if they had been able to attend in this House of Commons during the last two days and see how lightly this question of the cost of living has been treated so far on the government side of the house. Listening to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) speaking the other day on the question of-price control, I was amazed at the most unsatisfactory and disapponiting message he delivered in this house for us to take home with us at Christmas, if we do go home. About all he could tell us, as far as I could see in Hansard, was contained in the statement recorded on page 95, in which he said that this government was watching carefully what the government of the United States was proposing to do about price control. These are his words:
The present intention of the government is, as hon. members know, to ask for an extension of the powers which now exist to impose and maintain price controls for a further period.
And here is the significant part of his statement:
I would hope that during that further period it will be possible for us to get a clearer idea of just what can be done in this field in the interests of the Canadian economy.
There you have a responsible minister of the crown, in whose hands the whole question was left, after all the discussion that has been carried on for the past two sessions, after all the representations that have been made by the people of Canada in between the two sessions, telling us in this parliament, at this stage, that the government is watching the

situation to see what the United States is going to do, and in the interim trying to decide what is best for the Canadian economy.
I suggest that the people who sent us here in all seriousness expect far more than that. I do not believe the people of Canada will be satisfied if we go home to them and report that having come to Ottawa and laid their representations before the government, having pointed out to the government the alarming increase in the cost of living, a minister of the crown has promised that he will watch the situation.
It appears that the official policy of the government is to wait and see. I think the people of Canada are entitled to more than a policy of wait and see.
What is the trend of the thinking of the Minister of Finance? What can we expect in that interim period when he is going to watch the United States government and wait and see? The indication is given on page 94 of Hansard, where we find his point of view on the whole question of controls. There he states:
Any system of over-all price control involves over-all detailed direction of the Canadian economy.
He went on to point out that, so far as he was concerned, he was not prepared to recommend to this house that we adopt such a system. That would leave the impression that if we did not have a system of price controls under the authority of the government, we would not have an over-all system of what he called directed economy.
May I point out to the members of the house something I have pointed out before in this house? It is a fallacy to say that if we remove the system of government price controls, which we have had, and which we have in a small measure now, we shall have a system of free enterprise in this country. I have made the statement before and I make it now, that we have never had a free enterprise system in this country ever since the country began, and there is plenty of evidence to bear that out. All one needs to do is to read the report prepared by the commissioner under the Combines Investigation Act. There he will see plenty of evidence to show that the creation and development of monopolies and cartels in Canada, the United States and other countries, from the very beginning of our Canadian economy have made it absolutely impossible for free enterprise to operate. For example, at page 45 of his report for last year the commissioner said:
The participants in cartels often make use of patent rights to divide the markets of the

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world among themselves by national territories and to establish within a national territory a comprehensive system of marketing control.
What does this mean? It means that the monopolies and cartels which make agreements among themselves supersede and override the decisions of national governments and make the operation of free enterprise and competition absolutely impossible. If that is the situation we face I think this government should do a great deal more than just wait and see as far as prices are concerned.
One matter that has been discussed by a great many hon. members so far is the effect of the removal of subsidies and ceilings on coarse grains which go into the feeding of livestock. I have in my hand a memorandum from the Manitoba Federation of Agriculture, which gives certain information as to the attitude of the farmers of that province. All the farm forums were asked what they thought about the removal of ceilings on coarse grains. The first question was, "What do you think of this action by the government?" One hundred per cent of those who replied were opposed to that action. That is a most unusual development among organized farmers right across the province, where one would expect a difference of opinion. In this case 100 per cent of those who replied to the question said they were opposed to that action. The alternative suggested was that coarse grains should be marketed through the Canadian wheat board, and there again 100 per cent of those who replied agreed to this suggestion. I believe that is something the government should take as a warning sign. Surely, if all the farmers who were sufficiently interested to answer this questionnaire agreed on these things, the government should swallow its pride for once, admit that it made a mistake and do something before it is too late.
The question also was asked, "How will it affect farming operations in your community in regard to grain for feed?" The answer by ninety per cent of those questioned was, "Grain will be sold for cash instead of being fed". The answer of eighty per cent was, "Grain production will be curtailed". Another question was, "How will it affect farm operations in your community in regard to the marketing of livestock?" Ninety per cent of those who answered said, "Animals are being killed or shipped unfinished". Eighty per cent replied, "Livestock production will be cut". Another question asked was, "How will it affect other farm plans?" Eighty per cent answered, "Confusion in respect of farm 5849-14J
operations". With answers of that kind coming from organized farming in one of our best agricultural provinces, the government should be convinced that it has made a very bad mistake.
Here are some typical quotations from the farm groups throughout the province in regard to the action of the government in placing coarse grains on the grain exchange. One was, "This action was a betrayal of our confidence and causes us to lose faith in the government". Another was, "Farmers are forced to cut livestock production, while there is still a shortage of food in Europe". Another was, "Farm plans have been disrupted". Most of them said, "We advocate the abolition of the grain exchange," and all agreed that they want stable markets in coarse grains as we now have in wheat.
Whatever may be said on the question of the wheat contract, there is not the slightest doubt that, as far as the organized farmers of the prairies are concerned, the principle of a guaranteed floor price sufficient to bring at least the cost of production, plus the prospect of an assured market over a period of years, has been definitely accepted; but unfortunately, through the action of the government, that principle has received a serious blow. I have before me a whole stack of resolutions from farm organizations and co-operatives in western Canada protesting the action of the government and asking that something be done immediately, first, to compensate those farmers who sold their coarse grains between the turn of the crop year and when the ceilings were removed, and, second, to do something to stabilize the price of feed grains so that livestock production might go ahead.
Returning to the question of price controls, which I was discussing a moment ago, if it were only the members of the opposition on this side of the house who thought profiteering was going on and that the cost of living was exorbitant, perhaps the government could say, "Well, members of the opposition are inclined to criticize the government for its actions at all times." But I have before me a reprint from the Ottawa Citizen of December 1, 1947, reporting a speech delivered in the city of Quebec by one of the members sitting on the government side of the house. I believe he describes himself as an independent Liberal, but he is a supporter of the present government. Among other things he is reported to have said:
A multitude of citizens are burdened with, exorbitant living costs while a handful of capitalists make exorbitant profits.
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a whole page of advertising by one of the chartered banks, the International Nickel Company, General Motors or some other large corporation, telling in bold print just how wonderful the competitive system is. They start out with a slogan of some sort, something like, "Competition is the life of trade." But they do not tell you that it is the death of the trader. Then they go on to tell you how price levels can be automatically adjusted by giving free play to the competitive forces in our society. It all looks very good on paper, particularly when they use the taxpayers' money to pay for the advertisements. The money which they are using for advertising should go in as excess profits and be taxed, but they make use of the money of the people to put out propaganda in the interests of their own industry.
Then what do they do? They sell the idea of competition to the common man; they tell the working man, the farmer, the schoolteacher, the lawyer, the merchant, that he must compete with his fellow man and snatch bread1 from his hand's in order to live. Then they proceed to form co-operatives among themselves or monopolies or combines. I a.m not talking in any abstract way because I have before me the report of an investigation into dental supplies with which the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) is familiar and in connection with which I understand some action is pending.
There is plenty of evidence that these same gentry who hand out this mulligan stew of competition and say it is good for us; refuse to practice competition because they know that it does not work. They found out long ago that throat-cutting competition does no one any good and so for themselves they form co-operatives or combines or whatever you want to call it. They get together once in a while to set the prices of things they sell. I do not mind people forming a combine or a monopoly if they are honest about it, but I object when they deliberately try to befuddle the public by teaching competition, by teaching them that the only way to become prosperous is by tramping down on your neighbour, that the only thing is the free-for-all system like the elephant dancing with the chickens, which is pretty good for the elephant. Then they pool together to control the prices, if you want to call it that. It is really price control from the top.
Not so long ago we had a report presented in this house showing that the farm implement manufacturers had agreed among themselves upon a system of prices by which they would charge the same price for similar implements. We have had the same situa-

tion in connection with oil, fertilizers and a host of other articles. There is price control by these corporations in their own interests. They know what is best for themselves and it is most unfortunate that the masses of the people in this country can be taken in by the propaganda that is put out and led to believe that fighting each other, struggling against each other, the farmer being set against the labourer, the labour union being set against the professional man, everybody fighting each other, that that is the best system. If that is the best they can offer to humanity, then humanity is in bad shape indeed.
If there is to be a long-range solution of our prices problem it will be necessary to realize that the people of this country should own as much as possible of the means of production, distribution and processing of many commodities. Whether it be through public ownership or the formation of co-opera-lives would not make much difference because it amounts to the same thing in the end. I say in all sincerity that it is necessary for the people to go into public or co-operative ownership of a large sector of the heavy industry of this country. For example, there are the meat packing plants, the farm implement manufacturing and so on. The people should own the means of production and distribution so that the prices charged would be based upon the cost of producing the goods or rendering the service.
Those who know anything about consumer co-operatives realize that at the present time there is no incentive for a co-operative to raise prices. If they do raise prices it is done because it is their policy to have the same price levels as private industry, and then they turn back whatever is over to their members in the form of dividends. They are doing that to save the necks of their good friends the private enterprisers. But in private industry the incentive is to make, as much profit as possible. I am not saying that that is immoral or that that is such a terrible thing. If you are in the water you try to swim and if you operate under this economic system you try to make it work.
One of two things happens. Either you have a deadlock under which all competing forces batter at each other to the point where nobody can win out; you have an epidemic of strikes; you have complete chaos, or you have price dislocation because each sector of the producing and distributing economy is trying to gain its owm advantage.
I am sure that we in Canada have reached the point where we can concentrate on the finer things of life. Surely we have a country
DECEMBER 11, 1<H7
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rich enough; surely our resources are great enough so that the struggle for a mere existence, the struggle for a filled stomach and a clothed back should not be a full-time occupation for our people. Surely we should have more time to devote to cultural and spiritual things. We can have more time, and we shall have more time if we once can solve this economic lunacy which makes us fight each other instead of working together to produce the good things of life.


Mr. H. W. HERRIDGE (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this resolution, but I do so in the same spirit which has been expressed by several previous speakers. I realize that the resolution will have effect for only a short time, but I believe that its principles will have to be continued in legislation for some time to come. Therefore, in my opinion, it is unnecessary at this stage to debate the principles or the philosophy of controls. I think everyone knows where each individual in this house stands on the question, but I wish to make a few brief remarks in order to indicate the views of what I am certain is the majority of the people I have the honour to represent.
I am quite sure that those who have advocated the' retention of controls and the reimposition of other controls represent the people of this country far more truly than do the Progressive Conservatives in their approach to this question. In my opinion the Progressive Conservative attitude is such that I can readily understand and realize why they are being considered more and more by the people of this country, as the maiden aunts of our political life. I am quite certain that if other constituencies in Canada have the same view as the people I represent, a great majority of the Canadian people are ready to support the principle of controls, the reimposition of certain controls and the re-introduction of certain subsidies. I have no doubt that the people whom I represent are in favour of these things being done by this government.
The majority of the people I represent think the government acted too hastily in a world of uncertainty by removing the controls it has. The people I represent believe that the government should have waited and kept the machinery of controls in operation. I think, Mr. Speaker, it is safe to say that on this question the government is wistfully looking backward in directing our economy, although not so far backward as the Progressive Conservatives.
So far as my constituency is concerned, and I think this is true of the whole country, the
results of the decontrol policy to date have been great increases in food prices in the district and a great increase in the cost of building supplies so necessary to build the many houses that are required at the present time. Cement has greatly increased in price, *as well as nails and lumber products. Just before I came to the house, one of my constituents came to me and gave me certain information with regard to the price of shingles. In the southern interior of British Columbia when war broke out shingles sold, on the average, at about $4 a thousand. Before control was taken off, they were selling at $8 a thousand in my constituency generally. Three days after the control was taken off, one dealer was offering them at S16 a thousand.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Free enterprise!


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: That dealer knew that, with winter approaching, there were people who were forced to buy a limited quantity of shingles to complete their building program and he took advantage of his fellow citizens and exercised free enterprise. I could go on at great length giving figures as to increases in costs, but I do not think it is necessary because excellent information in this respect has already been placed on record in this debate.
Support for the principle of controls and the reimposition of controls is widespread. During the recess I had an opportunity to talk to trade unions, co-operative organizations, farmers' organizations, consumers' organizations, women's organizations and various other bodies, and I can say without question that the whole of organized labour in my constituency supports the program of controls. I have in my hand a telegram just received today. It was sent to the Prime Minister, and reads:
_ The following telegram was sent to Prime Minister. Local 480 Mine, Mill and Smelter, representing 3,500 workers urge your government to reimpose price control legislation at present session in accordance with resolution passed at 1947 convention of C.C.L.
That is from the representatives of 3,500 workers in the city of Trail. During the last week since I returned to Ottawa I have received at least a thousand communications from branches of the legion and from veterans and veterans' dependents and a wide crosssection of my constituency urging that an increase be granted in the rate of disability pensions, widows' pensions and the war veterans' allowance. Why? Prior to June, 1946, the classes of people on whose behalf these petitions are being presented were reasonably satisfied. The demand for these increases has, without question, been caused
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by the price increases since June, 1946. That is reflected in the action of the Canadian Legion in British Columbia, which at its last provincial convention passed a strong resolution urging the reimposition of price control. So far as my constituency is concerned, every legion branch in the whole riding supports that program.
I have had an opportunity to talk to farmers' organizations and, without question, all our farmers' organizations, because of their experience since decontrol, are urging the re-imposition of certain controls and subsidies.
I particularly want to mention the plight of the poultry farmer. We have quite an extensive poultry industry in my constituency. In the last month or six weeks, because of the increase in feed prices, thousands of poultry in my riding have been slaughtered. I was talking with a poultry producer who up to this year had been raising, for a number of years, some 3,000 chicks annually. He is going out of business completely. He simply cannot produce eggs that will give him any decent living with prices of feed what they are today. That is going on all over my constituency. Thousands of poultry are being slaughtered because of the increase in the price of feed, and for that reason only.
We have a limited production of hogs and beef cattle. There again, large numbers of people are disposing of their hogs as rapidly as possible, not fattening them to the required weight because of the increase in feed costs, ' and beef cattle sold without finishing on grain.
I have had an opportunity to speak to a number of women's organizations. If you want to realize what the people are thinking you want to listen to what the women's organizations are saying because they are largely representative of the housewives who are faced with the daily problem, with the reality of providing the living for the family. Throughout my whole district, so far as I know, the women's organizations, women's institutes and organizations of that type are supporting the policy that is being advocated from this side of the house. That is true also of a large group of consumer organizations. I judge that this is a very general condition throughout Canada. From the evidence I think it is quite safe to say that the majority of the people of this country want the re-imposition of certain controls and certain subsidies.
Representing the views of a great majority of my constituents I urge the re-imposition of price control on the basic necessities of life, the continuation of rent control and subsidies on milk, butter, bread, feed grains, cotton and wool. In addition, I would ask

the government to keep its promise of January 31, 1946. In that connection I am going to quote from the Ottawa Evening Journal of January 31, 1946. It says:
If costs climb out of line with the general fabric of the price structure both Mr. Ilsley and prices board chairman Donald Gordon promised that the ceilings again would be imposed.
In a letter to hundreds of Canadian manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, Mr. Gordon emphasized that the ceilings were being suspended, not cancelled.
Mr. Ilsley added the admonition that any abuse of this new price freedom would result in re-imposition of the ceilings.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that all of us will agree that there has been a wide-scale abuse of the new price freedom, and I ask the government to keep its promise according to the Ottawa Evening Journal of January 31, 1946, and re-impose necessary controls.
Mr. G. II. CASTLEDEN (Yorkton): Mr. Speaker, the resolution before us calls for a continuation of the transitional powers act from December 31 of this year to March 31 of next year.
We in this group believe that that period is far too short to be of any value. We feel that with the situation in Canada as it is today and as it is developing, this power wall have to be extended for at least one year and probably longer. This act is the very basis upon which the government has operated its control policy of prices and supplies in Canada for a number of years, and it is quite evident that it must be continued if Canada is to avoid a period of inflation.
I see the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) in his seat. We can remember the fight he put up over a number of years while the war was on, to hold these controls and keep prices in check and, if necessary, to ration supplies so that they would be distributed fairly and Canada avoid inflation. Since he has left his post as Minister of Finance-whether he left it voluntarily or not I do not know-the government's policy has been what they call orderly decontrol. It seems to me that it has recently developed into a disorderly rout because of the rate at which the government is taking off subsidies, throwing controls out the window and letting the Winnipeg grain exchange and other bodies take control of prices in this country. Canada is heading very rapidly into a period of inflation which has all the people in every part of Canada alarmed and apprehensive about the future. I think there is plenty of evidence to show that if these controls are discontinued in Canada we shall face a period of inflation similar to what happened in the United States. This

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government cannot claim that they did not know what would happen. They had the experience of what happened in the United States when OPA was discontinued at the end of June, 1946, and the spiral of inflation and high prices there which finally brought action from the United States government.
Our criticism of the government is that they have failed to use these powers sufficiently to stop the inflationary trend in the rise of prices. We believe that, so long as production and trade are below normal, it will be necessary to have these controls and these powers in the hands of the government, whatever government is in power. We do not like to see them giving in to the requests of the official opposition in this house to take these controls off and try to let the whole thing level itself off. They maintain that if you just let these things go, they will adjust themselves. They will not adjust themselves in this period of scarcity. They will not adjust themselves until production is at its proper level, until there are sufficient supplies to go around and until normal trade is returned to the world.
I wish to deal particularly with one act of the government, namely, its decontrol policy on coarse grain, which has been referred to nere previously this evening and its particular affect, not only upon the coarse grain producers ,n the west, but upon the whole Canadian economy. I want to point out, if I can, .vhere we think a serious mistake was made and try to find out, if we can, some justification for the government doing what they did. [f the Canadian people and parliament can be shown that what the government did is justifiable, that there was some reason behind it which made it necessary, I think the Canadian people will accept the government's reasons if they are right and just.
About October 20 the cabinet announced its decision to discontinue the subsidies on coarse grain and to discontinue coarse grain price control. From that date on, the grain exchange in Winnipeg would be the deciding factor with regard to the price of coarse grain. The government cannot plead that they did not know what the effects would be. The farmers who were fortunate enough to have a coarse grain crop in the west have been placed in a precarious position. First of all, when the crop was ripe and ready for the market they were stiill under controlled prices in the west, with sixty-seven cents for barley. They did not know what to do. They did not know whether they should hang on to it or sell it. Would the government, after they had sold it, release tire controls and let the price go up
and the farmer take the loss? Or should they hang on to it? It is interesting to notice that when the grain became available for the market, regulations went out to take all quotas off the delivery of coarse grains, apparently as an incentive to the western farmer to deliver his coarse grain at the old controlled price of sixty-seven cents. However, when the Minister of Agriculture came back from England, he made an announcement to the effect that it was not. the intention of the government to alter their coarse grain policy this year. Last year-I believe about March of 1947-under price control the government permitted an increase of about ten cents in the price of coarse grain. All the farmers who had delivered coarse grain from their 1946 crop prior to that time were then paid an equalization fee. The ten cents was paid out to them, and the farmers had no reason to suspect that the same would not be done this year.


James Garfield Gardiner: May I ask the bon.
member a question? Do I understand him to say that, when I came back from Britain, I announced that there would not be any change in. the coarse grain policy this year?.


Mr. CASTLEDEN:: No. I understood the report in the paper to be that the minister had stated that he did not know of any intention of the government to alter the coarse grain policy. It was a newspaper report. I am not sure whether the minister was reported correctly or not.


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not recall any
such statement as that being made or anything that might be interpreted in that way.


George Hugh Castleden: I know everything was being done to find out what the government's policy was. The farmer was in a particularly difficult quandary. I am not stating that the minister said that. I am stating that it was a press report, as I understood it. At any rate, the fact is that -the farmers of western Canada -that is, the barley growers-delivered some
39.000.000 bushels of grain prior to October 20. Those farmers who did deliver that grain were surprised to learn, when the controls were taken off, that they would suffer a loss of the difference between sixty-seven cents and what it went up to on the Winnipeg grain exchange. In a very short, time it went up to S1.26. I believe it is $1.28 today. Those farmers stood to take a tremendous loss. I do not know how the government can possibly reimburse them for that loss. I do not know how the government intends to do it. I do not see how the government can justify its action of taking coarse grains price controls
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off, letting the grain exchange make that money and then tax the Canadian people to make it up, if the government intends to do that. The minister will probably make a statement as to what he intends to do.
The farmers who now find the price of barley up to SI.28 are wondering what they are going to do about their crops next year. Shall they sow their farms to coarse grain, or shall they sow them to wheat? The relationship between the grains is so much out of line at the present time that they do not know what to do. There is still uncertainty as to what might happen to coarse grain prices next year. As lion, members can see, the farmer is in an unfortunate position. When the farmer of this country goes out to buy anything, whether it is oils, binder twine, grease, farm machinery or anything else he requires, he has to go and ask the other chap how much it costs; because he is the buyer and the other fellow is the seller, he has to pay what the other fellow says. But when he goes to sell anything there has never been a time, except under price control, that anybody ever told him anything but what price he was going to get for his goods; and lie sometimes had to take a very low price. As the farmer says, "Every time I go to buy anything, they keep squeezing the price up. And when I go to sell anything they keep squeezing the price down, and I am squeezed out." Price control, at any rate prevented the squeezing of prices down in spite of the fact there is nothing to prevent the squeezing of prices up.
All the farmer is asking is that the relationship between his cost of production and his selling price be such that he will not be squeezed out. The labourer is in exactly the same position. The labourer has to go out and buy the goods that are required to maintain his family, such as food, clothing and shelter, and he is told what prices he shall pay for them. When he goes to sell the only thing he has to sell, which is the sweat of his brow, somebody is telling him what price he shall get for it. They squeeze the one up and the other down, and he is being squeezed out. All he is asking for is that there be a proper relation between the cost of the things which go to make up his cost of living and the value that he can get for the sweat of his brow, so that he will not be squeezed out. I believe the labourer would be quite willing to agree to the control of labour and the control of wages so long as that proper relationship was left there, so that he would not be squeezed out or could not be squeezed out, in spite of what the hon. member for

Peel (Mr. Graydon) said the other day about our not stating any such policy and using the word "hypocrisy," under protection.
I am thinking of a farmer in my own constituency-a young man starting out on his farm, a veteran of the war-with 3,000 bushels of barley. He did not know what to do. About the first week in October he sold 3,000 bushels of barley. By the end of the month, instead of getting 67 cents, he would have got $1.27, and he is out $1,800. which would have been a substantial payment on his farm. He does not take very kindly to this sort of thing. Then the farmer who feeds-and there are a great many who do-cannot feed hogs with barley at $1.28 and sell those hogs at the prices that prevail today. An unfortunate thing has happened. Along with the minister's statement there was nothing to let the farmer know that relative prices of hogs would be maintained and the result has been the destruction of hogs on a scale that should not have taken place in view of the shortage of food throughout the world at the present time. The fact is that farmers have been selling hogs underweight and killing them off.
The cattle feeders are in the same predicament. The cost of coarse grain feeds to cattle farmers is such that many farmers in eastern Canada are up in arms. They cannot obtain coarse grain feeds at the prices they paid under price control and make a living out of the business, and with the cost of feeds at the figure it has reached today their business is practically wiped out.
The poultry producers are in the same position. A previous speaker has told us what the poultry raisers are doing in his part of the country. They are simply killing off their poultry because it does not pay them to operate.
What will be the result of all this? The result will be a further shortage of food and, with that shortage, higher and higher prices all along the line. We on this side of the house cannot see what justification there is for the government's action. They must be thinking of the consumer, but the consumer is bound to face higher prices and a rising cost of living. The milk producer cannot feed dairy cattle and pay present prices demanded for feeds. He is already getting so much per quart for his milk; but if feeds go up in price, the cost of milk will go up because he cannot take a loss, and therefore the milk producers are asking for higher prices. Butter prices are going to go up and, as I say, the cost of living is rising all along the line.

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The consumers do not liKe this rising cost of living. Indeed, the rise in the cost of living is one of the most rapid trends in inflation that Canada has faced. Well, if it is not the Canadian producer or the Canadian consumer who is getting the benefit, who is it? Surely the amount paid in subsidies, as far as the taxpayer is concerned, does not justify the lifting of the controls. Whoj then, stands to benefit by the action of the government? There is only one group I know of; that is the group that evidently has been pounding away for months and months for the removal of price controls and subsidy on coarse grains, and they want it off wheat. They are the manipulators and speculators on the Winnipeg grain exchange. Apparently they are the ones who are making the millions. As far as I can see, they are the only ones who are making money and the Canadian people are being forced to pay.
The cost of living is going up; you have inflation, and what does the government intend to do to put a stop to it? We shall certainly vote for the extension of these controls, and what the government do to them will be the result of their own policy. They certainly know what the opposition members in this party want, and they know what many of their own members want; that is, the reimposition of controls. They want to see the wartime prices and trade board re-established so far as the essentials of life are concerned, so that proper price control will be maintained to stop the spiral of inflation. The Canadian people will be willing to see subsidies continue so long as it prevents the cost of living from going up and up, as it is doing today. If the Winnipeg grain exchange alone stands to gain, then I think the Canadian people would like to see it closed, and I join with those who have expressed that opinion.
I do not know what the government intend to do in this matter. Perhaps they think there has been too much taxation, and perhaps the Minister of Finance will speak later on and give us his view. But the Canadian taxpayers are looking at the result of the 1947 budget, one of the important clauses of which provided that the Excess Profits Tax Act should be discontinued as of December 31 of this year. Apparently excess profits will be allowed to go untaxed then. '
The government will follow whatever policy it intends for its own good or for the good of the Canadian people; but the people are watching carefully, and if the government does not exercise controls properly so as to stop inflation, it will have to answer, because it is evident that the rate at which we are travelling at the present time is leading us to
inflation and chaos. The government, I say, will be held responsible for what happens.


James Garfield Gardiner: Some of the statements made in this debate ought to be answered at this time. These statements have to do largely with that part of the removal of price controls which was concerned with feed grain. Many statements have been made with regard to it which are not in accordance with the facts as they have been presented from time to time both before and since the removal of the ceilings on coarse grains, and I think it would be unfair, both to members of this house and to the country at large, to leave those statements unanswered.
The fact is that we have had control on feed grains for some considerable time. That control was put on at a time when the price of grain was quite low, back in 1941. The government decided at that time not to put the same kind of control on wheat as had been placed on coarse grains. In other words, wheat was allowed to increase in price from time to time at a rate which was quite considerable as compared with any increases which were permitted in connection with coarse grains.
The reason for that was obvious at the time. The government was attempting to keep down the cost of living; and in an effort to do so, under the system which is being advocated at this time particularly by those who belong to the C.C.F. party in the house, the government established ceiling prices on food. Of course, foods that were produced through the feeding of oats and barley were regulated among others. Not only had the foods themselves to be regulated", but price of the grains that entered into their production had to be regulated, and so we put a ceiling on coarse grains. That ceiling was obviously a low one. It was not very long before the farmers who were producers of feed grain raised objection and properly so. When they did raise objection to the ceilings being held at the levels at which they were first established, the government adjusted the prices upwards, or adjusted the returns upwards, by agreeing to issue permits to sell some of the oats and barley in the United States at higher prices and to permit participation by the farmers in regard to those oats and barley.
This resulted in very little in the way of participation. The amount of grain sold was not as great as had been expected and the price received was not as high as had been anticipated. So at that time the government guaranteed the farmers for the next year an additional ten cents a bushel on oats and
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fifteen cents a bushel on barley. In other words, when the grain was delivered we took out of the treasury of Canada what could have amounted to a subsidy of ten cents on oats and what could have amounted to a subsidy of fifteen cents on barley and paid it to the farmers. A record was kept, and if the government-or the people of Canada, if you like to put it in that way-took a loss on that grain that loss was chalked up to that particular year's experience. If any profit was made by selling that grain in the United States, that profit was passed on- to the farmers by means of participation. In some years, just speaking from memory, I believe that participation amounted to as much as five cents a bushel on barley and a lesser amount on oats over and above the fifteen and ten cents, but in any event the effort was made to increase the return to the producer of oats and barley, and at all times the effort was made to keep oats and barley in proper relationship as far as return was concerned with the return being obtained from wheat. The idea, of course, was that if you allowed wheat to get out of line with oats and barley, that is out of line upwards, you would get more wheat than you desired or, to put it in another way, you would get less feed grain than was necessary to feed the livestock we had on our farms. We followed that policy right through the war.


John Bracken: Would the minister say how many years that subsidy was given?


James Garfield Gardiner: I believe it started in 1942 and continued until last year.


Mr. BURTON:: Just to complete the picture, prior to that you had endeavoured to encourage the increased production of coarse grains by other methods as well?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, one year before; but I will come to that later on in connection with something else. In 1946 there was a great deal of complaint as to the manner in which coarse grains were being handled. I do not think a' considerable portion of that complaint was soundly based; nevertheless it was made. The farmers both east and west were dissatisfied with what was taking place in relation to coarse grains. On March 17 last it was announced in this house that the policy which had been followed up to that time would be dropped and provision was made to reimburse those who had sold their barley early, while provision was made otherwise, through the amount of oats that had been sold in the United States, to take care of the claims of those who had sold oats in the period from August 1 down to March 17.

While that provision was made, the policy which had been followed up to that time was reversed; instead of the producers of coarse grains being paid any amount, either because of sales in the United States or for any other reason, a drawback to the eastern farmer or, to put it in other terms, a subsidy was paid on grain that was purchased and fed on farms east of Fort William. When that announcement was made in the house on March 17, with the policy to come into effect the next day, there was considerable discussion on the floor of the house and also throughout the country as to whether the control [DOT] of prices was to continue beyond August 1, 1947. During last session provision was only made for continuing these drawbacks until August 1, and everyone surmised from this that the controls would probably be taken off on August 1. A few moments ago the hon. member for York-ton (Mr. Castleden) suggested that because no one said anything definite about the matter the farmer had a right to expect that the controls were not going to be taken off at all.
I submit to the house, Mr. Speaker, that it would have been absolutely impossible, in fairness to all the farmers of Canada, for anyone to have made an announcement in advance as to what would be done in regard . to that particular matter.
The reason for saying that is obvious. If we had said the controls would be taken off on August 1, naturally a very considerable amount of grain would not have been delivered at all, or certainly if it had been delivered it would have been held along the way by some person and would not have found its way to the feeders in different parts of Canada. It was only the uncertainty as to whether or not prices would be changed on August 1 that caused the grain to be delivered, together with-the fact that throughout the whole period of control, both before and after the act, farmers had been treated in a way which' those who might desire to do so could justify as being reasonable. So the farmers went on delivering grain. Then, when we reached August 1, it was definitely stated by farm organizations, by farmers, and by those who came to Ottawa to make representations, that it would be a mistake, to remove controls from feed grain until controls were taken off all the products that are produced by feeding grain. Already we had removed the controls from most dairy products, but they were still on meat; and it was suggested that the controls on meat and grain should be taken off at |he same time.
An intimation was given to the people of Canada at that time that, in addition to what had been voted during last session, sufficient

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funds would be provided to take care of any drawbacks for a two months' period; and the statement was also made at that time that the controls ought to be taken off at the same time. The most anyone can say is that the farmers had a right to expect that those controls would be taken off during that period of two months, which brought us down to October
1.	So any real complaint there may be with regard to that situation applies to the period from October 1 to October 21, a period of three weeks. I do not think it is any secret anywhere in Canada, or anything misunderstood by anyone in the country as to why controls were not taken off during these three weeks. About the middle of September there was a packers' strike in Canada and, whether the judgment of the government was good or bad in the matter, it was not considered a fair thing or an action which would be likely to bring the best results to all the people of Canada-producers and consumers alike-to take that action while the strike was on.
There have been some suggestions during the debate in the house, that the decision had something to do with a certain election in Canada. It just so happened that the election date and the date the strike ended were almost the same, and the controls were taken off the last day of the strike, or the day it was announced that the strike was over; nevertheless that was the judgment, and that was the reason, and the only one, why the controls had not been taken off at an earlier day.
The only criticism made in' the debate on that point is that some farmers sold their coarse grains during that period, and sold them at a lower price than they could have obtained after October 21. Some suggestion has been made that the government ought to do something about the matter. As was stated a few minutes ago by one hon. member, I was in Saskatchewan at the time the controls were taken off and addressed half a dozen very large meetings in farming areas in the five or six days following the taking off of those controls. At each of those meetings a number of men asked the question as to what might be done in respect of grain that had been delivered prior to October 21. and more particularly grain delivered after October 1. Some of them said they thought they were justified in going back to September 15, feeling that, in the light of all that had being said prior to that, there might be some justification for saying'that they might have expected controls to be taken off on September 15, and that anything done prior to that date they had done with their eyes open. It was pointed out, however, that anything after that date was done more or less
under pressure by the government and by farmers elsewhere in Canada to have grain delivered, because that grain was required in order to feed livestock elsewhere.
Whatever the feeling might be, the facts are these, that from the time the crop was harvested in western Canada down to October 21, more feed was delivered by the farmers to the elevators than was delivered in the same period of the preceding year. I state that in order to deny the suggestion made to the effect that farmers in western Canada had anything whatsoever to do with keeping grain away from farmers in eastern Canada. The . farmers in western Canada delivered their grain in as great quantities as they had in the preceding year.
There was one other suggestion which was made in the last speech and which I do not think was justified. I do not think it is necessary to be either for or against the grain exchange in order to state the facts. The facts are that about half of this grain was taken in by the pool elevator companies, particularly in Saskatchewan. The other half was taken in by the line elevator companies.
I have made as close inquiry as it is possible to make with regard to the matter, and I am informed that the proportion of the grain which was delivered to both the line elevators and the pool elevators which was sold is almost exactly the same; and that the proportion which was sold, too, bears a reasonable relationship to the proportion sold in other years down to the same time.
In other words, neither the pool elevators nor the line elevators held grain off the market in order to make others pay more for it after October 21. They both took delivery of grain from the farmers and they paid the farmers for it according to the payments provided for. Then they sold the grain to those who were expected to deliver it to farmers elsewhere in Canada in order that it be fed, I think that much ought to be said for both the line elevator companies and the pool elevator companies.	.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: What is the exact
amount handled in each case?


James Garfield Gardiner: I should not like to attempt to give that information because, in the first place, I have not the exact figures here, although I know just about what they were. But in the second place, this matter is under consideration by the different companies, and any information which has been given to me with regard to either the pools or the other companies individually I do not think I should place before the public at the present time, when they are dealing with those matters.
Transitional Measures Act

But what I found was this, that a certain number of bushels-about half-were delivered to the pool elevator companies, particularly in Saskatchewan, and that about the same proportion of the grain delivered to one or the other was sold. That grain moved out at the lower, not at the higher price. But it got into the hands of those who sold feeds in eastern Canada, and some things are alleged to have happened. At one place one thing happened, and at another place a different thing. I am not going to attempt at the present time to lay blame on those who handled the grain for not having allowed it to get into the farmers' hands at a lower price, but to have held it . until a higher price could be obtained for it. But I am informed, on the best information I can get, that it was not the farmers of western Canada, that it was not the pool elevator companies and that it was not the line elevator companies that held this grain off the market.
Having said that, may I add this, that at those meetings where questions were asked statements were made. I could tell a story very similar to the one told by the hon. member for Yorkton and which might be applied to my own district, where a young returned man sold grain the day before the announcement was made, and the next morning rushed to the elevator to find whether they had sold it or not, only to learn that they had already sold it to a milling company in the vicinity. The milling company was already turning it into feed to be sold to the farmers in the surrounding district. So there was nothing he could do about it; it just happened that fast. There were many cases of that kind, and of other kinds, where people felt that they had legitimate claims upon someone.
I said this to them; and I repeat it here, because I think it is something which should go out to the country. I said, "Half the grain has been delivered to the pool elevators". And I have since found out that that is about correct. Half the grain is usually delivered to the line elevator companies and half to the pool elevator companies. I went on to say, "If I know the poo! elevator people I am quite certain that they, themselves, will deal with that question so far as it is possible for them to deal with it," When they asked the question, "Well, what do you think they might do?" at that time I did not have the correct figures; but I said. "Let us assume that so much grain has been delivered to the elevator company and that only 20 per cent of it has been sold"; I can say now that a much larger percentage of it was sold; I went on to say,
"I think what the pooling organization would do would be to set aside grain which was -bought before October 21 and sell it separ-

ately from other grain taken in during this year and pay the money obtained therefrom into a pool. Then, from that pool they would treat all persons alike who had delivered into it,"
I said, "I do not know just what the procedure would be but I assume that that is what they would do. I would assume that if they do that, then the other companies will do a similar thing, or the other companies may do it whether the pools do it or not because they might consider it to be good business. But I would think that would be what would be done by those who have taken delivery of the grain. I have more reason now to think that is what they will do than I had then for thinking that was what they would do, but I thought it was the reasonable thing to be done." Then I went on to say that it would be absolutely impossible for the government to say at that stage what they would do in connection with the matter. Any statement they would make in connection with the matter could be used by those concerned either to make money for themselves or to lose money for someone else. Therefore the only position to take was that these organizations would in due course be in a position to announce what they were going to do and to make representations to the government as to what they thought the government ought to do.
No later than today I found, by making inquiries, that there are still elevator companies which have not yet sold all the grain taken in prior to October 21. Until those sales are cleared up, it will be impossible for the companies to deal with the matter in an intelligent way and, until they make their representations, it certainly will be impossible lor the government to give further consideration to the matter.
The other question raised was in connection with the buying of grain on the open market. I am not going to discuss tonight whether trading in oats and barley should remain on the open market, or whether they should be placed under the control of the wheat board; that is not a matter under discussion at the moment. The fact is that on October 21 and down to the present the government has had no authority to place oats and barley under the control of the wheat board. If price controls were to be taken off on October 21 or at any other time since parliament last prorogued, it would be impossible for the government to have taken that action. Until this house met, it has been impossible to give further consideration to the possibility of doing it.



1C47

[Stage Direction]
Transitional Measures Act
I would point out that we have continued our control on wheat by making a contract with Great Britain and by the selling of the wheat not under contract on the markets of the world. We have established the amount that can be paid to farmers in the way of advance, payments on wheat. Up to the present time the advance payment made has been S1.35 a bushel. The government has stated on a number of occasions that authority would be asked, when the house was in session, to pay an advance higher than $1.35. It will be remembered that an amendment was moved at the last session asking that we pay $1.55 as an' advance instead of S1.35. We stated at that time that the question would be discussed when we were sure that there was sufficient money in the pool to make a payment of that kind.
Some little time ago it was announced tlhat sufficient funds were there to make a payment of at least that amount. No announcement has yet been made as to the amount that is to be paid, but it is pretty generally understood that it will be at least $1.55. Therefore every farmer who has been looking at the question is entitled to believe that he will receive $1.55 a bushel for wheat over the five year period. When he comes to that conclusion he also comes to a conclusion as to what the value of barley and oats will be. The value of feed barley, not malting barley, based upon $1.55 wheat is between $1.15 and $1.25 as conditions have been varying. The value of oats is somewhere between eighty and ninety cents a bushel.
Controls were taken off on October 21 and because of the situation existing, if for no other reason, oats and barley are dealt with on the open market. An examination of the records will show that the ceiling on barley throughout that period has been around $1.25 a bushel, with the floor being around $1.12 or $1.14 a bushel. The price has finally settled at about $1.25. The ceiling on oats has been close to ninety cents, with the floor being around eight-two or eighty-three cents. In other words, with the market operating as it is, the price of feed grains to farmers in eastern Canada and in other parts of Canada has borne about the same relationship to wheat as the government would have been compelled to place upon oats and barley if they had followed the suggestion of ihe organized farmers that we do not take off the controls but raise the ceiling to a level comparable with wheat and put these grains under the wheat board. In other words, the results would have been almost identical.
I repeat that I am not arguing the question as to what should have been done under all the circumstances; I simply am pointing out that 'the fact remains that controls are not off feed grains. The statement has been made over and over again that price controls have been taken off feed grains. The most effective price control is not off feed grains; the most effective control on feed grains is the fact that there is an established value for wheat. Then, in addition, entry into the United States is prevented. Feed grains cannot be exported from this country; they must all be delivered to the farmers of Canada for feed.
If the price of barley goes any higher during any period of time than $1.25 a bushel, farmers all over this country will feed wheat instead of barley. Whenever they start to do that, the price of barley will come down a little. We have had an application to permit the shipment of a whole boatload of barley to the United States because of a lack of buyers for the grain. We said, "No, the boundary is to be kept closed". When you take those two matters together they form just as effective a control upon feed grains and upon the ceiling on feed grains as there has been at any time.
An hon. MEMBER:: And meat.


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend saj-s, "and meat." That brings me to another statement which has been made in reference to this same question on a number of occasions, namely, that the price of meat in the British contract is the ceiling price. The price of meat in the British contract is not. the ceiling price and never has been. The price of meat is the floor price. If one examines the records which I have of the deliveries of meat he will find that we have not been able to secure sufficient meat, offering the floor price for it every day on every market in Canada. At every packing plant in Canada, at every place where we can pick up meat, there has been a floor price, which is the price in the meat contract, offered for that meat, and we have not been able to obtain sufficient meat because someone else is paying more for it. In other words, the price in the contract is not tihe ceiling but the floor price.


Mr. HARKNESS:: How much have you had to pay above the contract price?


James Garfield Gardiner: We have not paid anything over the contract price.


Douglas Scott Harkness: How much under?


James Garfield Gardiner: We have not bought below. We have offered the price in the British contract for both bacon and beef, and we
Transitional Measures Act

have not been able to get beef at those prices to the amount of more than 36,000,000 pounds, when we contracted to deliver 120,000,000 pounds. My hon. friend, if' he knows the business of the ranchers he presumes to represent, will know that the reason we did not get more beef was that somebody else did pay more. It does not matter whether it was only a cent more; somebody paid more and got the beef. In other words, the contract price is not the ceiling price; it is the floor price.


Douglas Scott Harkness: It is essentially that.


Mr. BRYCE:: Why did you not buy the beef on the hoof to protect the farmer?


James Garfield Gardiner: That is another question that my hon. friend and I can argue at some other stage of the session. But the facts are as I have stated them. The prices in the British contracts are the floor prices and not the ceiling.


William Scottie Bryce: No answer, eh?


James Garfield Gardiner: I would be out of order in answering. I am trying to keep myself in order. We can discuss that question at another time.
A further consideration is that the price is under control through the fact that we have controls still on the boundary line. It is under control, too, through the fact that the product is associated with wheat, and it is under further control through the fact that we have an embargo against the shipment of meat or any other farm products, with few exceptions, to the United States. All these things have helped us to keep a decided control upon these particular products down to the present time; and to be stating, as my hon. friends do over and over again in this house, that the controls are off, is stating what is not a fact in relation to these particular products. The most effective kind of control that you can have is the permit system, under which we are not issuing permits for commodities to be sold in the United States, plus the fact that we have contracts with Brit-these commodities can be taken off this market and sent to Britain, and if we take sufficient of these commodities off the market here to place the quantity below demand, the price to the consumer in Canada tends to go up. When there is sufficient left here to satisfy the demand, the price tends to go down.
What I should like to say to my hon. friends opposite is this. You cannot have this thing both ways. One cannot be arguing that the cost of living should not go up as a result of what 'has happened to food prices,

and at the same time argue that the farmer ought to get more. The two things just do not go together. If the farmer is to get more for the products that he has to sell, then the consumer somewhere has to pay more for the food products he consumes. When these two things are considered I would say that it is not sound to be arguing both ways at the same time. We must have either one thing or the other.	.
We feel that the general experience of farmers is that they have not done too badly over the last four or five years at least. When I make that statement I am not trying to say that the farmers are doing as well as they ought to do, because I quite realize, as every member of the house realizes, that there is no one who experiences greater difficulty in getting all that is coming to him than a group of farmers operating as they do in Canada on 750,000 individual farms all across this country. It is difficult for them to get all that is coming to them, and I do not believe that they have ever had all that is coming to them.
Nevertheless, having said that, I should like to point out that both the net income and the gross income of farmers in Canada in the last four years has been almost double what it was in the previous four years, and in those four years it was a little better than it had ever been before except at the end of the first war. When that is true, the situation is not just as bad as it has been painted on the other side of the house. When one can say, too, that the farmers' estimated gross income for this year is just a little more than double what it was in the best year we ever had prior to 1942, again one can see that the situation has not been quite so bad as it has been painted.
I think I heard a whisper over there about the income tax. It has not changed since last year, but I am not going to discuss the income tax because it does not affect the picture very much so far as the farmers across Canada are concerned. That, again, is another indication that the farmer finds it most difficult to get the income to which he is entitled. But having said that, let me repeat that the farmer has been doing better during the last few years than he ever did at any previous time, and I think that is the reason why my hon. friends of the C.C.F. have been arguing so strongly that we ought to continue to do the same thing in the future as we have been doing during these years. They have repeated over and over again that prices have been stabilized and the farmer has done well.


Percy Ellis Wright: Look at what he has to buy-

Transitional Measures Act


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend says, "Look at what he has to buy". I understand that in his district the farmers for the first time have had to buy feed. So now they are beginning to realize that some other people do run out of feed sometimes. At every session of this house down to the present the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright) has been saying there is no feed shortage in Canada.
That brings me back to a question which was asked a few moments ago by the hon. member for Humboldt. What is the position in relation to feed in Canada? Back at the beginning of the war we did start to encourage the farmers to take land out of wheat, as was suggested. We paid them $4 an acre to take land out of wheat, and they reduced their acreage from between 28,000,000 and
29,000,000 acres down to between 17,000,000 and 18,000,000 acres. That was done for the purpose of doing what we were asked to do by the British people earlier in the war. They were switching over 6,000,000 acres of their land from the production of livestock to the production of cereals, and they suggested that we turn over some of our land from the production of cereals to the production of livestock and ship them the products as we were able to do so. We followed that practice down until 1944 and 1945. By then there had started all across the world an agitation to get more cereals to feed people at the end of the war.
I should like to remind the members of this house of another thing that happened at that time. It seems to have been entirely forgotten-


James Horace King: I am sorry to interrupt
the hon. gentleman, but he has exhausted his time.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go ahead.


John Bracken: Continue.


James Horace King: With the consent of the
house.


James Garfield Gardiner: It seems to have been
entirely forgotten that a certain gentleman came to Canada from Great Britain and spoke in farm meetings right across this country. I listened to him speak to the wheat pool at their annual meeting in the city of Regina. In that meeting he made the bold statement that, after the war was over, Britain was going to again trade bicycles for bacon to Denmark. After considering the representations that were made in favour of cereals and after considering what that kind of statement meant, not only the government but the farmers began to shift back.


An hon. MEMBER:: On the advice of the government.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, with the advice
of the government. Up until last year they had put back into wheat 8,000,000 acres of the 10,000.000, and they were utilizing the other 2,000,000 acres in addition to what they had in coarse grains before for the production of feed grains. That was all done, as has been stated, under suggestion, or rather the first part of it was done on more than suggestion, namely, as a result of paying so much an acre to get it done; and the second part of it was accomplished by suggesting that people throughout the world are going to require more wheat.
It will be recalled that in this house ne one did more in that direction than the leader of the official opposition (Mr. Bracken). In this house just two years ago every member of the official opposition was taking the position that we should go even farther in that direction, and that we should put another
3,000,000 acres of land into wheat. True and all as it is that the production of livestock and the production of dairy products have gone down, they would have gone down a great deal more if the farmers had done that.
I am not going to argue the question of whether it should have gone down more. I am going to say this. There are people in the world who still think that we should have put our livestock production down to a lower level than it is now, and that we should be selling cereals in greater quantity than we are doing now. The government was not in agreement with those who took that position. But the official opposition took that position two years ago. If they were right then, there is not any logic whatsoever in their arguing no\s that we ought to have more livestock products in Canada; because we are feeding all the feed grain that we are growing in Canada, and we have had to put an embargo on at the United States boundary line in order to keep enough here to feed what we shall have left after all these little pigs and chickens are slaughtered. We are only going to have enough, after the stock has been further reduced in Canada, to complete the feeding of the livestock we have here. I can understand an argument to the effect that we ought to be producing more cereals in order to help the people who are threatened with starvation somewhere or who may be threatened with it.


Mr. ROBINSON (Bruce):: I want to ask a question of the minister, Mr. Speaker. Am
Transitional Measures Act

I right in saying that we were led to believe last session that there would be as much this year?


James Garfield Gardiner: You were right in thinking we were trying to get as much.


Andrew Ernest Robinson: Am I right in saying that the minister told us in this house that there would be as much wheat coming from the west this year as last year?


James Garfield Gardiner: No. The bon. member is not right in saying that. He is right in saying that the farmers both here' and in the west attempted to do what we asked 'them to do last year. Last year we asked the farmers in the eastern part of Canada to put more land into feed grain. The farmers of eastern Canada laid out their plans to do that, but it mined every day of the seeding season and they were able to put in only sixty per cent of what they had intended to put in. So they just could not grow the other forty per cent. But that is not any fault of the government, and it is not any fault of the farmers. They did everything they could to get that grain. There is the further fact that the western farmer did put 1,200,000 more acres into barley. He lowered his oat acreage somewhat, and that was suggested to him in order to get more barley. But he put that acreage into barley, and then he sat during the last month before harvest and watched his crop disappear because of drought. So he has not as much barley this year in spite of the fact that he did everything he possibly could in order to get it. In other words, the farmers right across this country attempted to do the thing they were asked to do. They did their very best to accomplish it, but they were not able to do so because of the prevailing weather conditions.
Now it has been suggested that the recent conference broke down or that something happened to it, and that suggestion has been made, 'based upon the fact that there is some difficulty in connection with the drawing up of the agreements. I want to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that any discussions that were taking place as between Britain and this government had nothing whatsoever to do with anything that happened in connection with acreages as dealt with at the conference. All the plans and the documents were drawn up; some of them had been submitted to the provinces before any delegation at all was here from the old land. The fact was that what we did say 'to the farmers this year was this. We said, "If you will try again to do what you tried to do last year, that should be

absolutely satisfactory, provided that you are able to accomplish it". So what we have said is, "Go out and sow the same number of acres, if you can. Try again to put in more oats and- barley in the east; try again to put in more 'barley in the west. If you are successful this year, we shall be able to increase our production of livestock next year. But if you are not successful, then, of course, we shall have to carry on very much as we are".
That is the position in relation to feed grains, and I thought it should be placed upon the record tonight in view of the fact that so many other things have been said with regard to that question. I shall leave any discussion with regard to the contracts until the other resolution is before the house.


John George Diefenbaker: I rise to a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. During my absence the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright) made certain statements in regard to myself which I am asking, through you, that he withdraw and retract. I do so under standing order 41, and I read only the pertinent words:
No member shall . . . use offensive words . . . against either house, or against any member thereof.
I particularly refer you to citation 297, which reads as follows:
The imputation of bad motives, or motives different from those acknowledged, misrepresenting the language of another, or accusing him, in his turn, of misrepresentation, charging him with falsehood or deceit; or contemptuous or insulting language of any kind; all these are unparliamentary and call for prompt interference.
That is, on the part of the Speaker. The words spoken by the hon. gentleman-and again I point out that it was done in my absence; when I came in he immediately went on to some other matter-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, Oh.


Percy Ellis Wright: There is an implication there, Mr. Speaker, that I am going to ask the hon. member to withdraw. I did not go on immediately to another matter when he entered the house. He was not here when the house opened. He might have known that, as a result of the type of speech he made, there would be a reply to it.


An hon. MEMBER:: He got what he deserved.


John George Diefenbaker: The statement in question was: "Deliberately tried to leave a wrong impression". The other statement is, "did not display the integrity generally shown in this house". These statements, I submit, are not in keeping with the things that we as gentlemen say of one another, and I am asking for a withdrawal.

Transitional Measures Act


Percy Ellis Wright: The hon. member for Lake Centre is using exactly the same method now that he used in his speech. He did not quote the sentence-


John George Diefenbaker: I quoted the exact words.


Percy Ellis Wright: You quoted certain words out of the sentence, just the same as you quoted certain words out of the statement without reading the whole statement. The sentence was:
I thought the speech he delivered did not display the integrity and quality generally shown in this house by the hon. gentleman.
As regards the other statement, that I thought he deliberately tried to misrepresent- is that the word?


John George Diefenbaker: Left the wrong
impression.


Percy Ellis Wright: That he "deliberately
attempted to leave a wrong impression with the house". As far as the word "'deliberately" is concerned, I have already asked that it be deleted from Hansard, but as far as the wrong impression is concerned, I leave it to a reading of Hansard if my statement was not correct.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: May I suggest, in regard to this incident, that I do not think there is much difference of opinion between the two hon. members. If Your Honour reviews the situation over-night I think the proper corrections will appear to have been made.


John George Diefenbaker: I ask for a withdrawal of it.


An hon. MEMBER:: Such delicacy of feeling!


James Horace King: I understand the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright) has written down what he has said. Will he be kind enough to send it to me? I understand he has written on a piece of paper what he said, and I should like to see it. The hon. member for Melfort had said:
I thought the speech he delivered did not display the integrity and quality generally shown in this house by the hon. gentleman. I
I would call the attention of the house to the word " integrity," and I would call the attention of the hon. member to standing order 41. citation 297, which reads:
The imputation of bad motives, or motives different from those acknowledged, misrepresenting the language of another, or accusing him, in his turn, of misrepresentation, charging him with falsehood or deceit; or contemptuous or insulting language of any kind; all these are unparliamentary and call for prompt interference.
Unfortunately, when the sentences in question were pronounced early tonight, there was so much noise in the chamber that I could not understand them. Knowing very well the hon. member for Melfort, knowing that he is a gentleman, I am sure that he can find a way to amend his sentence without attacking the integrity of the hon. member for Lake Centre and I would ask him to do so.


Percy Ellis Wright: I would be pleased to do that, Mr. Speaker. I think the action was enough to decide whether there was any integrity involved.


John George Diefenbaker: Now, Mr. Speaker, I ask for an absolute withdrawal.


An hon. MEMBER:: You got it.


An hon. MEMBER:: Leave it to the house.


James Horace King: Order. Do I understand that the hon. member will withdraw the word "integrity"? I believe that both members have shown to the house that they are gentlemen, and if exception is taken to the word "integrity" in that connection, and a correction is made, I do not see why any member should object.


James Arthur Ross: I have certainly followed with interest the discourse of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), and his arguments, and I am sure that many of us sympathize with him and his staff in the difficulties in which they find themselves. The public will be somewhat disappointed that he did not give them a lead from now on, and I am sure the nation is waiting for a statement from him in his official capacity to give it that lead for the coming year.
Before taking up his arguments, I wish to deal with some statements made by the leader of the group to my left and by other hon. members, and I wonder if I might call it eleven o'clock and adjourn the debate.
On motion of Mr. Ross (Souris) the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Tomorrow we shall continue and, we hope, conclude the discussion of the present measure which has received the attention of the house during the major portion of this day; that is, the Transitional Measures Act. I am inclined to concur in the observation which I overhear in the far corner of the chamber, that no member of the house has spoken on the measure before the house.
Apart from that, the second measure which will be taken up stands in the name of the Minister of Justice and will be found on page 4 of the order paper of today, dealing in
Food Shipments to Britain

part with the Agricultural Products Act, on which I understand the Minister of Agriculture, with the co-operation of the Minister of Justice, will have something to say.
Third, there will be the second reading of the bill respecting emergency measures, which was mentioned by the Minister of Finance, under routine proceedings, and which I understand is in the possession of hon. members, or will be tomorrow morning. That may take some little debate, so that it will be only prudent to visualize the fact that of the major measures now on the order paper, at least the
essential principles, without the details, will be in the possession of the house by tomorrow night.


John Bracken: Is that the order in which these items will be taken up?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: If there is any change in the order-that is the present intention- I shall get in touch with my hon. friends and the other leaders as early as possible tomorrow and notify them.


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


[Stage Direction]
-
[Stage Direction]
Contract quantity
[Stage Direction]
Purchased to date
[Stage Direction]
Estimated available for balance of 1947
[Stage Direction]
Total
[Stage Direction]
Bacon and Hams (7th Agreement-Jan. 1/47 to Dec. 31/47).
[Stage Direction]
. lbs.
[Stage Direction]
350,000,000
[Stage Direction]
-to Nov. 25th 168,362,854
[Stage Direction]
81,627,146
[Stage Direction]
250,000,000
[Stage Direction]
Pork Off ah (8th Agreement-Jan. 1/47 to Dec. 31/47)..
[Stage Direction]
. lbs.
[Stage Direction]
4,480,000
[Stage Direction]
-to Nov. 16th 1,866,090
[Stage Direction]
200,000
[Stage Direction]
2,066,090
[Stage Direction]
Hog Casings (6th Agreement-Jan. 1/47 to Dec. 31/47)..
[Stage Direction]
.bdles.
[Stage Direction]
330,000
[Stage Direction]
-to Nov. 19th 323,600
[Stage Direction]
51,400
[Stage Direction]
375,000
[Stage Direction]
Beef (3rd Agreement-Jan. 1/47 to Dec. 31/47)..
[Stage Direction]
. lbs.
[Stage Direction]
120,000,000
[Stage Direction]
-to Nov. 16th 6,487,775
[Stage Direction]
30,000,000
[Stage Direction]
36,487,775
[Stage Direction]
Beef Offals (2nd Agreement-Jan. 1/47 to Dee. 31/47).
[Stage Direction]
. lbs.
[Stage Direction]
1,085,000
[Stage Direction]
-to Nov. 16th 83,537
[Stage Direction]
10,000
[Stage Direction]
93,537
[Stage Direction]
Canadian Canned Meat Lunch (1st Agreement-Jan. 1/47 to Dec. 31/47)..
[Stage Direction]
. lbs.
[Stage Direction]
'25,000,000
[Stage Direction]
-to Oct. 24th 8,295,624
[Stage Direction]
9,704,376
[Stage Direction]
18,000,000
[Stage Direction]
Mutton and Lamb (3rd Agreement-Jan 1/47 to Dec 31/47)...
[Stage Direction]
. lbs.
[Stage Direction]
10,000,000
[Stage Direction]
-to Nov. 16th 1,301,073
[Stage Direction]
750,000
[Stage Direction]
2,051,073
[Stage Direction]
Oxtails (3rd Agreement-Jan. 1/47 to Dec. 31/47)..
[Stage Direction]
. lbs.
[Stage Direction]
300,000
[Stage Direction]
-to Nov. 16th 54,435
[Stage Direction]
15,000
[Stage Direction]
69,435
[Stage Direction]
Cheese (8th Agreement-Apr. 1/47 to Mar. 31/48).
[Stage Direction]
. lbs.
[Stage Direction]
125,000,000
[Stage Direction]
-to Nov. 27th 51,271,610
[Stage Direction]
5,813,390
[Stage Direction]
57,084,000
[Stage Direction]
Evaporated Milk (8th Agreement-Apr. 1/47 to Mar. 31/48).
[Stage Direction]
. cases
[Stage Direction]
600,000
[Stage Direction]
-to Dec. 10th 582,902
[Stage Direction]
17,048
[Stage Direction]
600,000
[Stage Direction]
Roller Dried Skim Milk Powder (2nd Agreement-Apr. 1/47 to Mar. 31/48..
[Stage Direction]
. lbs.
[Stage Direction]
8,000,000
[Stage Direction]
- to Aug. 20th 8,000,000
[Stage Direction]
Completed
[Stage Direction]
8,000,000
[Stage Direction]
Eggs (7th Agreement-Feb. 1/47 to Jan. 31/48)..
[Stage Direction]
. doz.
[Stage Direction]
83,000,000
[Stage Direction]
- to Nov. 30th 82,192,000
[Stage Direction]
4,500,000
[Stage Direction]
86,693,000
[Stage Direction]
Friday, December 12, 1947