1947-03-20

Hon. PAUL MARTIN (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to announce the personnel of the
House of Commons-Questions

Canadian delegation to the next meeting of the interim commission of the world health organization which will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 28. The delegation is as follows: Doctor G. D. W. Cameron, deputy minister of national health, Doctor T. C. Routley, executive secretary of the Canadian Medical Association as alternate delegate, and Doctor J. A. Melanson, chief medical officer for New Brunswick, who will act as technical adviser.


Mr. GRAYDON:: Will there be any delegates from Russia?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I can only say that that country is represented on the interim commission.



PRIVILEGE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. DIEFENBAKER (Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege and in fairness to the house, yesterday afternoon at page 1535 of Hansard I made this statement:
When his government came into power the first thing they did was to attack that act and appoint lawyers to argue that it was not within the powers of parliament,
I was referring to the Natural Products Marketing Act. My statement continued:
These lawyers represented the dominion government.
Mr. Ilsley:	Is that so?
Mr. Diefenbaker:	Yes; I have it here for
those who want to read.
Sir, I was in error in that statement. I was misled by the nature of the question that was asked of the privy council, which was:
Is the Natural Products Marketing Act, 1934, as amended by the Natural Products Marketing Act Amendment Act, 1935, or any of the provisions thereof and in what particular or particulars or to what extent, ultra vires of the parliament of Canada?
Then I read from the argument that was advanced by counsel for the appellant, which were counsel for the province of British Columbia. So the statement I made yesterday was in error, and in fairness I wish to state that.



QUESTIONS ON ORDER PAPER-FORM AND PROCEDURE

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Before questions are called perhaps hon. members will allow me to say just a word about questions as this is a matter which affects all of us, as respects both time and expense. I am sure hon. members

have felt, as I have sometimes, a little bit annoyed at questions being called and then being allowed to stand, this continuing from week to week and occasionally from month to month. This has been due to the fact that some questions require a great deal of research before they can be answered. Many are standing on the order paper which might well be made orders for returns.
It is obvious that the question of time is important in getting into the business of the afternoon. If the time required for questions could be abbreviated it would be to the advantage of everyone.
There is also the question of the expense involved in preparing answers to some of the questions. It may surprise hon. members to know that that expenditure runs into very considerable figures, particularly in the preparation of returns. The house has from time to time drawn attention to the desirability of limiting rather than increasing the number of civil servants, but to answer many of these questions and to prepare returns involves bringing on additional staffs. That is one of the considerations which should be taken account of by members in preparing questions and notices of motion for which they wish to have returns.
I thought it desirable to ask the Clerk of the House, who is an authority on these matters, to give me a memorandum which I could read to hon. members so that they will not mistake the intention or purpose of the ministry where in answer to questions ministers may feel obliged to say that they have such-and-such information but cannot give more. Because a minister has not answered all that is asked for in a question is no reason why the question should stand. We have to take the responsibility for the answers we give. They may not be satisfactory, and exception may be taken to that fact, but the government itself must decide what answer it shall give to different questions.


Mr. FRASER:: Before the Prime Minister reads the memorandum may I be permitted a question? Does he not think that some of the questions on the order paper save the taxpayers of Canada a great deal of money?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have not as yet come across any of that kind that my hon. friend has asked.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Thousands of dollars have been saved by these questions. Take "George's Wife," for instance.

House of Commons-Questions


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I did not hear my hon. friend's remark, but I did see him nodding his head vigorously and I take it he was agreeing with me.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: A question I did ask last year saved the country a great many dollars.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Both the hon. member and the government are to be commended for that.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The government would not have saved the dollars if I had not asked the question.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, may I now read this memorandum which I have received from the Clerk of the House, who is an authority on the rules and procedure of the house. The memorandum is as follows:
Members of the House of Commons are entitled under standing order 44 to place questions on the order paper seeking information from the ministers of the crown relating to public affairs. The rule does not compel ministers to answer but it says that in replying no facts are to be stated except so far as may be necessary. The rule also provides that no debate is allowed on the answer to a question.
It is a mistake to believe that any kind of question dealing with government business may be asked on the floor of the house. All the authorities such as Hatsell, May, Redlich, Cushing, Todd and Bourinot agree that unless certain rules are observed considerable time can be wasted in putting and answering injudicious questions.
The practice now followed with regard to questions in the house does not conform with parliamentary procedure as observed in other British parliaments. It has been decided in the United Kingdom house that a question cannot be placed on the order paper if it seeks information set forth in documents equally accessible to questioner, as statutes, published reports, et cetera. When questions seeking information published in public documents are placed on the order paper in the United Kingdom, the minister concerned replies by giving the title of the document or blue book in which this information can be found. All printed government reports are distributed free of charge to members of the house.
A rule on which the United Kingdom house is very firm is that questions are inadmissible when they deal with matters referred to a parliamentary committee. This rule does not deprive the member of his rights or privileges; it merely places him in the right channel for procuring proper information.
Public interest at large should be the guiding principle in publishing information on government matters. It seems unfair to the taxpayers of the country that thousands of dollars be spent in the preparation of answers on matters that have only a local interest.
In many cases a letter to a minister or deputy minister would be sufficient for the member to get all the facts required. The purpose of a question, as "May" says, is to obtain information or press for action, and it should not be in effect a short speech or 'limited to giving information or framed as to convey a particular point of view. The rules of the house are so framed as to allow every member to use his right of being informed as to management of public affairs, but it must be understood that in a house of 245 members it is desirable that certain rules be observed lest parliamentary procedure degenerate in confusion and chaos.
That is the end of the memorandum. I place it on Hansard in order that hon. members may not feel that when a minister considers it necessary to answer a question briefly or to draw attention to the fact that certain expenditures will be involved in answering the question, it may not be the thought that the government is seeking to do other than to meet the wishes of hon. gentlemen opposite. All we are seeking to do is to save time and to save expense.
May I add this further word, and this applies to notices of motion for the production of papers. The government should not be expected to be in the position of a reference library to gather together information for members which they are in a position to gather for themselves.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: If the Prime Minister will permit a supplementary question on the statement he has just read, the authorities cited are nearly all British authorities, and I would ask whether they apply equally to this parliament, since our method of question and answer is fundamentally different from theirs. Members of the British parliament may put a question and then two supplementaries are permitted. It is much the same with research. The members here have few facilities for research, and the purpose of many of the questions is to seek information that would require a great deal of research on the part of a private member. I have often wondered whether facilities should not be granted to private members to get some research work done for them.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As my hon. friend knows, where there is no specific rule
House of Commons-Questions

to the contrary we follow the practice of the United Kingdom parliament. The memorandum which I have just read, in pointing out that the United Kingdom parliament follows a certain procedure upon which authorities are agreed was meant only as a general guide to the house. I am not stating that that is the precise rule we should follow, but that wTe seek to follow their practice in so far as it is advantageous for us so to do. In the British house, as I recollect, questions are put on the order paper which are answered in the same manner as our questions placed on the order paper are answered. The only questions that are allowed in addition to questions on the order paper when they have been answered are questions arising out of those answers. No new questions at all except by special arrangement with the Speaker in advance are allowed as is frequently done here. Further questions, as my hon. friend has said, are limited to supplementary questions.
As to the matter of research, I think the government would be only too ready to provide facilities where it is obviously desirable and possible that those facilities should be granted. But there can be a great abuse of the advantage of using the public service to gather information where that information is intended for local rather than national purposes. I am just suggesting that all hon. members take these factors into consideration.


Gordon Graydon: May I ask the Prime Minister if we might not adopt in some modified form, to meet the conditions of this parliament, the system which is followed in the old land? Actually what the Prime Minister says is partly true, but I think he might go a little farther. As I recall it, what happens in Britain is this. The question is first put on the order paper. This opens the avenue for further questions. The question which is first put on the order paper is not the main question at all; it is simply a lead, and then supplementary questions which are the real kernel of the nut are asked afterwards. It seems to me that something of the kind might be done to help us here; because whether by design or by accident this government has fewer questions directed to it than are directed to most governments under similar circumstances.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not think the hon. member is quite right in saying that questions put on the order paper in the United Kingdom are put there with the intention of opening the avenue to supplementary ques-

tions. They are put there to get an answer to those questions specifically. If the answer given is satisfactory there will be no supplementary questions at all. The important point is this: the purpose of having questions put on the order paper in the first instance is that the ministry may prepare itself for any additional questions that may be asked. In other words the ministry will not have to answer offhand any questions which may be asked on the orders of the day but will have an opportunity to become in advance fully informed in the event of any supplementary questions being asked in regal'd to any questions on the order paper.


Gordon Graydon: Urgent questions do not have to go on the order paper.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. FRASER:: 1.	What was the cost to the dominion government for property, equipment, tools, etc., of Can-adair Limited?
2.	What was the total cost from the time of purchase of property by the dominion government until sold to a private firm recently?
3.	What was the total of (a) materials; (b) maintenance; (c) wages; (d) other costs, during the time the dominion government owned and operated this plant?
4.	What was the total amount of sales of planes, or other materials?
5.	What was the sales price of the government-owned Canadair Limited which was sold or leased this year?


Mr. JACKMAN:: 1.	At what price was Canadair, Ltd., sold to Electric Boat, Ltd.?
2.	Were any bids for Canadair, Ltd., received from Canadian industrialists or firms?
3.	Who owned Canadair, Ltd.?
4.	What was the cost?
5.	What was the operating profit of Canadair in 1946? In 1945?
6.	How much, if any, depreciation had been charged to operations in 1946? What was the total depreciation charged to operations since the inception of Canadair, Ltd.?
7.	How many were employed by Canadair, Ltd., as at December 31, 1946?


Mr. HOWE:: These questions have not been answered until now because to answer them without giving the background of the transaction might well be misleading. There is the further reason that announcement of a new long-range transport plane travels around the world, and it did not seem desirable to give any information about a new

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plane until all the information was complete. I shall now ask the indulgence of the house to make a statement on the entire transaction which will, I think, answer all the questions relating to the matter which are on the order paper.
The aircraft plant at Cartierville, P.Q., was constructed by the dominion government in 1942, for the production of P.B.Y. (Catalina) and P.B.Y. (Canso "A") types of amphibian aircraft, in response to an urgent demand for aircraft of this type from the R.C.A.F. and from the air services of the United States, it being represented that important operational assignments made the procurement of these planes imperative. A total of 340 P.B.Y. aircraft were produced at the plant between September, 1943, and March, 1945, and in addition, 29 P.B.Y. aircraft were assembled, at St. Hubert, from parts built at Cartierville. A further 119 hulls and 172 centre sections were built at Cartierville and shipped as components to the United States. The first aircraft were delivered within nine months of the start of production. This was a remarkable feat for a group of working men and women who had little or no experience in aircraft manufacture. It will be seen from the production schedule, which I will ask to have printed in Hansard, that the aircraft were produced at a satisfactory rate, and that substantially more than half of the production was purchased iby the United States government.
The total cost of the facilities at Cartierville, including land, buildings, plant, machinery and tooling, amounts to $21,825,777.33.
Early in 1944, it became apparent that additional orders for P.B.Y. types would not be forthcoming. It was imperative that plans be made either for closing the plant and laying off some 8,000 skilled workers then in employment, or alternatively that another type of aeroplane should be undertaken. Requirements for fighter planes for the R.C.A.F. were well in hand, but both R.C.A.F. and Trans-Canada Air Lines had substantial requirements for long range transport planes. The stated requirement of R.C.A.F. for long range transport was then a minimum of 50 aircraft, and for TCA, a minimum of twenty-five aircraft. At that time, practically all four-engine long range transport planes were being built in the United States, and, of course, the Douglas C-54 was generally considered to be the best. An extensive study was made by Canadian engineers, in collaboration with Douglas and Rolls Royce, to determine the type of plane best suited to Canadian requirements. The conclusion was that the commercial adaptation of the Douglas C-54, known as the DC-4, powered 83166-99
with Rolls Royce engines, would be the aircraft peculiarly well adapted to Canadian service and commercial air line requirements.
The government therefore negotiated with the Douglas Aircraft Company, and secured a licence agreement under which Douglas undertook to furnish plans of its DC-4 type, as well as its DC-6 type then being designed, and to assist in the development, redesign and construction in Canada of an aircraft based on Douglas designs and fitted with Rolls Royce power plants. In this arrangement,'the Rolls Royce Company cooperated fully. The negotiations were completed in the fall of
1944.
The Cartierville plant had been built and managed for the crown, under a management agreement, by Canadian Vickers Limited, who had additional aircraft facilities at St. Hubert. Later, in 1944, the Canadian Vickers Company was engaged in an extensive shipbuilding programme for the allied navies and the merchant service, which involved heavy financial commitments. It was considered advisable to ask Canadian Vickers to divest itself of its management responsibilities related to the Cartierville plant, and to devote its full resources to shipbuilding. The government then entered into a management contract with a group of men who were at that time in charge, for Canadian Vickers, of the management of the Cartierville plant. These men formed a corporation, under the name of Canadair Limited, as a privately-owned management company, charged with the exclusive duty of operating the Cartierville plant as agents of the crown for the production of transport aircraft, as well as to carry out further commitments such as subcontracts for the United States navy for the production of P.B.Y. hulls and centre sections. These latter orders engaged the facilities at Cartierville until March, 1945. During the same period, engineering and tooling for the Canadian transport plane was advanced as rapidly as possible, having regard to the fact that Canadair, Douglas, and Rolls Royce were then filling important war commitments.
After the end of the European war in May
1945,	United States subcontracts were terminated. Employment at Cartierville was then maintained by accepting contracts from commercial air lines in Canada, the United States, South America, and Europe to meet a desperate peacetime need for transport equipment. Engineering and tooling for our four-engine plane had not reached the point where facilities at the plant could be fully employed, and therefore orders were accepted from more

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than 16 commercial operators for the conversion of United States Army Dakota type transports to the commercial DC-3 type. The work involved stripping down army planes and practically rebuilding them into transport types, almost the equivalent of building a new aeroplane. This work commenced in the early summer of 1945 and is still in progress. Up to the middle of September 1946, 87 DC-3 aircraft had been delivered, and this work is still continuing. The integration of these various programmes enabled a high level of employment to be maintained at Cartierville, and also enabled the plant to retain the services of trained personnel for the production, in due course, of a programme of four-engine transport planes.
The first four-engine transport plane, named the North Star, left the assembly line in June, 1946, less than two years after the programme was initiated. This prototype has performed satisfactorily, and has fulfilled the expectations of the group that planned the new plane. A total of seveD finished aircraft have been produced to date, and it is expected that TCA will operate six of these planes in its regular transatlantic service on or about April 1st, 1947.
Out of several long range transport planes planned by manufacturers in the United States and the United Kingdom at about the same time, some of them earlier, only one is in operation to date, namely the Lockheed Constellation. Operational experience with that plane has not been altogether satisfactory, resulting in its being grounded for periods on two occasions. The Canadian plane being the second postr-war transport plane, it was felt that exhaustive tests under all conditions of weather should be made before the plane was put in operation. These have been conducted during the winter months, and minor modifications have resulted. It is worthy of note that ours is the second post-war plane to go into operation. Not a bad record for Canada.
Total value of all production at the Cartierville plant up to September 14th, 1946, which is the date of transfer of the management
to Electric Boat Company, was as follows: U.S. government contracts and subcontracts	$ 54,780.000
R.C.A.F. contracts for P.B.Y.'s....	27,340,000
Trans-Canada Air Lines for DC-3
conversions	 2,730,000
Foreign customers for DC-3 conversions	 10,480,000
Inventory on hand at September 14,
1946	 9,750,000
Total	$105,080,000
Employees at Canadair Limited at December 31, 1946, totalled 7,383 persons.

During 1946, the Electric Boat Company, a substantial American corporation, became interested in the Cartierville project. This company, with large financial resources, had examined carefully into Canadian economic conditions, and became convinced that it could wisely and profitably engage some of its liquid capital in Canada. After extensive negotiations, Electric Boat Company acquired substantially all of the stock of Canadair Limited, and has entered into an agreement with the Canadian government, effective as of September- 14, 1946, covering the crown facilities, contracts, etc., at Cartierville. The main features of the agreement are as follows:
(a)	Electric Boat Company to provide Canadair Limited with 82,000,000 working capital forthwith;
(b)	Canadair Limited to waive all claim or right to fees or profits from the beginning of its operations to and including September 14, 1946;
(c)	Canadair Limited to buy at book value the assets of the project, as at September 14, 1946, exclusive of plant, tools and automotive equipment, and to assume the liabilities as set out on the balance sheet of the project prepared as of that date;
(d)	Canadair Limited to buy such automotive equipment as it might require, at prices to be agreed upon with War Assets Corporation;
(e)	Canadair Limited and the government to enter into a fifteen-year lease-option agreement covering the plant facilities and tools, under which the company will pay a fixed annual rental of 8200,000, and will have an option to acquire all of the facilities, including the tools, at an inclusive price ranging from $4,000,000 in the first year to $2,511,961 in the 15th year;
(f)	Of the assets to be purchased by the company, a balance of $3,886,821.10 to be paid for in equal quarterly instalments from June 30, 1947 to December 31, 1948, with interest on the unpaid balance at the rate of 3J per cent per annum;
(g)	The government to assign to Canadair Limited its licence agreement with the Douglas Aircraft Company;
(h)	Canadair to agree to sell to the government and Trans-Canada Air Lines 24 R.C.A.F. type and 20 T.C.A. type aircraft at negotiated fixed prices of $630,000 and $660,000 each respectively, sales tax extra.
Before entering into this agreement, the Department of Reconstruction and Supply satisfied itself that this company is able to provide capable and experienced management for the plant. Mr. W. Oliver West, an early officer of T.C.A., who had since become manager of operations of the Boeing plant at

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Seattle, and had been in responsible charge of the gigantic war production of Boeing, was designated as president of Canadair. The government is satisfied that the present Canadair Company is providing expert and experienced management for the Cartierville property.
Shortly after the war ended, requirements of both the R.C.A.F. and T.C.A. were revised downward. The present requirement of R.C.A.F. is for 24 aeroplanes and for T.C.A., 20 aeroplanes. This reduction in requirements has of course added to the cost of each individual plane, although the cost of the planes is still well below the cost of purchasing and importing into Canada planes of competitive type.
I will now table a statement showing aeroplanes produced each month from the Cartierville plant, together with a list of purchasers of DC-3 conversions. I would ask that these tables be printed in Hansard.
I believe that this statement answers all questions regarding this matter now standing on the order paper.
Summary of Aircraft and Major Components built, converted, and overhauled and repaired at Cartierville Crown Plant from January, 1943 (commencement) to 14 September, 1946
Conversion and Overhaul of North Douglas C-47
P.B.Y.	P.B.Y.	Star	and
Date	Aircraft Hulls Centre Section Aircraft DC-53 Aircraft
September	
3	..	..	..	..October	
9	..	..	..	..November	
13	..	..	..	..December	
11	..	..	..	[DOT] [DOT]January	
16	..	..	..	..February	
16	..	..	..	..March	
25	..	..	..	..April	
26	..	..	..	..May	
27	..	..	..	. -June	
16	..	..	..	..July	
25	..	..	..	..August	
22	..	..	..	..September	
1	..	..	..	..October	
20	..	..	..	..November	
26	..	..	..	..December	
30	6	6	..	..J anuary	
30	1	1	..	..February	
22	4	16	..	..March	
2	12	28	..	..April	
15	26	..	..May	
21	22	..	..J une	
24	32	..	1July	
20	24	..	4August	16	18	..	2September	[DOT] [DOT]	[DOT] [DOT]	5October	..	..	6November	..	..	5December	..	..	7January	
..	..	..	2February	..	..	5March	..	..	8April	..	..	7May	..	6June	..	..	8July	1	10August	..	..	5September	..	..	6
(lst-14th)
340	119	172	1	87
N.B. During the period February to August. 1943. an additional 29 P.BY. aircraft were produced at Cartierville for final assembly at St. Hubert.
83166-99J
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Summary of Conversion Jobs by Purchasers June, 1945 (commencement) to 14 September, 1946
Purchaser
A.B. Aerotransport (Sweden)	
Aviquipo-Mozambique	
Aviquipo-Portugal	
Aviquipo-Spain	
Colonial Airlines Inc., U.S.A	
Eldorado Mining & Smelting (1944) Ltd.
Doris-Yellowknife	
Eastern Airlines, Inc., U.S.A	
French Air Mission	
Linea Aeropostal Venezolana	
*Netherlands Purchasing Commission ....
Norseman Air Transport U.S.A	
Northeast Airlines Inc., U.S.A	
Royal Norwegian Purchasing Commission
SABENA Belgium	
T.C.A	
US CAN Engineering Ltd., Canada	
ZONA Argentina	
Nature of Job	Quantity
C-47 to DC-3	 3
C-47 to DC-3	 3
C-53 to DC-3	 4
C-53 Special	 1
C-47 to DC-3	 3
C-47 Special	 1
C-47 Special	 1
C-53 to DC-3	 15
C-53 to DC-3	 5
C-47 to DC-3	 3
C-47 Overhaul	 12
C-47 Special	 1
C-47 Overhaul	 d
C-53 and C-47 to DC-3	 5
C-49 and C-47 to DC-3	 7
C-47 to DC-3	 20
C-47 Special	 1
C-47 to DC-3	 1
Total	 87


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Is the minister tabling the financial statement?


Clarence Decatur Howe: After my hon. friend has examined this statement, if he has any supplementary questions we shall be glad to consider them.


WAR ASSETS-OFFICE EQUIPMENT
Mr. BROOKS:: 1.	How many (a) typewriters; (b) adding machines; e) calculating machines; (d) mimeograph or duplicating machines, have been disposed of since January 1, 1945, through War Assets Corporation?
2.	How many of each such type of machine have been sold back to their original manufacturers ?


Mr. FRASER:: 1.	Since January 1, 1946, what is the total number and cost of all new office equipment purchased by the government, classified in accordance with the type of equipment, for example: desks, chairs, filing cabinets, tables, etc. ?
2.	Since January 1, 1946, what is the total number and value of all office equipment, classified as above, disposed of by the government through War Assets Corporation or other means?


Mr. FRASER:: 1.	To what firms, or individuals, did the War Assets Corporation sell office equipment?
2.	What quantity was sold to each individual, or firm?
3.	What price was paid by each individual, or firm for same?
4.	What was the original price of this office equipment?


Mr. McILRAITH:: On February 17, in answer to the two questions standing in the name of the member for Peterborough West
[Mr. Howe.|
and the one in the name of the hon. member for Royal, the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply made a lengthy statement. I do not propose to repeat that statement now, but it was pointed out that the answers to the questions as asked would be incomplete and that they would involve an expenditure of about $5,000. It was left to the hon. members whether in the circumstances they desired to have the answers provided, and since that time nothing more has been said about the matter. The questions have continued to stand on the order paper. I suggest, in the light of the circumstances, that unless hon. members otherwise desire, the statement be taken as an answer, without prejudice to their right to redraft their questions and put them back on the order paper in a form in which they can be answered, having regard to the difficulties I have mentioned.


Mr. BROOKS:: I suggest that they be either answered or dropped. The cost about two weeks ago was $3,500 and now it is $5,000; if they remain on much longer, dear know's how much more the cost will be.


Mr. KNOWLES:: It will go up, like the cost of living.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Dropped.


George James McIlraith: So that the record will be straight, I want to read an excerpt from the minister's statement as reported at page 476 of Hansard of February 17:
I trust that under the circumstances hon. members will decide for themselves whether the three questions are worth $5,000 to the recipients. I suggest that in the meantime, if

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hon. members are not willing to allow them to drop, the questions stand for further consideration.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: There is another item somewhere else.


Gordon Graydon: Mr. Speaker, this looks like concerted action by the government to throw up a smokescreen on the question of expense.


Mr. MACKENZIE:: The official lecturer of the opposition.


James Horace King: Dropped.


I. G. FARBENINDUSTRIE
Mr. McCULLOUGH (Assiniboia):: 1.	Is the I. G. Farben company or any subsidiary of such company operating in Canada?
2.	If so, what is the nature of produce of these companies and what are their affiliations with other companies?


Mr. GIBSON (Hamilton West):: 1.	No; investigations are still proceeding with the view of ascertaining any relations which the I. G. Farbenindustrie may have had with Canadian enterprises through affiliated or subsidiary enterprises or companies in allied or neutral countries.
2.	Answered by No. 1.


HOUSING-SHOQUIST CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
Mr. JOHNSTON:: 1.	How many houses has the Shoquist Construction Company contracted to build and/or has built for the Department of Reconstruction and Supply, and/or the Central Housing and Mortgage Corporation?
2.	Where are these houses located?
3.	How many types of houses are there being built and/or have been built by this company?
4.	(a) What is the total amount of money paid to this company to date? (b) what is the total amount of money yet payable under the contract?
5.	What is the contract price for each type of house?
6.	What provision is made in each type of contract for the payment of fair wages to employees?
7.	What provision is made in each type of contract for the payment of fair wages to subcontractors' employees?
8.	What provision is made in each type of contract for the payment of fair wages in the case of piece work by (a) contractor; (b) subcontractor?
9.	Does the contract specify that outside painting be done by brush or by spray gun or both?
Mr. MelLRAITH:
1.	300 houses for Wartime Housing Limited.
2.	In Calgary, Alberta.
3.	Three types.
4.	(a) At February 10, 1947, $398,073.31; (b) at date, $334,377.21.
5.	H.5/6-4 room (asbestos shingle siding), $1,900.41; (wood siding), $1,942.41.
H.15/16-6 room (asbestos shingle siding), $2,443.56; (wood siding), $2,491.56.
H.	45/46-5 room (asbestos shingle siding), $2,307.13; (wood siding), $2,355.13.
The above contract calls for sheet rock, masonite, asphalt shingles, asbestos shingles, rough lumber, hardwood flooring, mineral wool insulation and paper and felts being supplied by Wartime Housing Limited.
6,	7 and 8. In all cases, the main contract specifies that wages and working conditions shall conform to the requirements of provincial legislation and to current practice for the trades in the area. Subcontractors are bound by the labour requirements of the main contracts.
9.	Contract specified first coat-brush; other two may be sprayed.


BARBED WIRE AND NAILS
Mr. WHITE (Middlesex East):: I.	How many tons of steel have been used each year in the manufacture of barbed wire since the inception of the wartime regulations on barbed wire?
2.	What was the estimated saving in steel each year due to these regulations?
3.	What has been the production, in tons, of nails in the years from 1938 to 1946, inclusive?
Mr. MelLRAITH:
1. Production of barbed wire from the outbreak of world war No. 2:		
Year	Production N.T.	Steel Required N.T.1939 	.. 12,449	16,6001910 	.. 13.509	18.0121941 	.. 14,105	18,806Average ...	.. 13,354	17,8061942 	... 10,085	13,4471943 	.. 9.802	13,0681944 	.. 12,556	16,7411945 	.. 11,680	15,573Totals	(1942-45)	.. 44,122	58,829Note: Restrictive order re	production of
barbed wire first issued June 30, 1942.
2.	Based on the 1939 to 1941 average, the consumption of steel for the years 1942 to 1945 inclusive would have amounted to 71,224 net tons. Actually 58,829 net tons were used during this period for the production of barbed
Questions

wire, therefore,	a total of 12,395 net tons were	
made available	for more	essential products.
3. Production of nails:		N.T.
1936 				 59,342
1937 				 62,399
1938 				.-. 57.806
1939 				 66.493
1940 				 73.287
1941 				 82,632
1942 				 74.378
1943 				 73,563
1944 				 64,923
1945 				 70,021
1946 only	58,831 net	tons produced
due to steel strike.


WARTIME HOUSING-ARVIDA
Mr. GAGNON:: 1.	How many houses in the city of Arvida, county of Chicoutimi, Quebec, are owned by wartime housing?
2.	Has wartime housing decided to sell these houses to the Aluminum Company of Canada, Arvida? If so, on what terms?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	334.
2.	Negotiations are pending, but no final agreement has been reached as yet.


WAR ASSETS1-CAMP BORDEN FURNITURE AND FIXTURES
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	What firm of auctioneers have been engaged to auction off the furniture and fixtures at Camp Borden military camp?
2.	Who are the members of this firm?
3.	What experience has this firm had; on what basis are they paid and on whose recommendation were they appointed?
4.	What is the name of the auctioneer of this company who is conducting the sales and what experience has he had?
5.	Will a cost price be given of each article sold and an estimate of the selling price published before each sale?
6.	What other work, if any, has been given this firm by the government since the beginning of the recent war?
7.	Does this firm conform to civic and municipal by-laws applying to all auctioneers and warehousemen ?


Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.	No government owned property under the control of national defence was disposed of by public auction. Equipment purchased from regimental funds and not required by permanent or reserve army units was disposed of by public auction by Ward-Price Limited, auctioneers, Toronto.
2.	Information not available.
3.	Information regarding experience' not available. The firm was engaged on the recom-

mendation of the district officer commanding approved by command headquarters and paid on a commission basis from1 proceeds of sales.
4.	Mr. Jack Miller. Information regarding experience other than through sales conducted for army units not available.
5.	No.
6.	None by the Department of National Defence. Employed by army units at Petawawa and in the Toronto area for sales by public auction of unit owned equipment.
7.	The department has every reason to believe that the district officer commanding was satisfied that the firm operates under proper authority.


GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL RAILWAY HOTELS
Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	In what hotels has the government or the C.N.R. an investment and what is the amount in each hotel?
2.	What has been the net profit of each such hotels annually during the past ten years?
3.	Has the government made any studies as to the desirability from an economic point of view of a new railway hotel for the city of Montreal ?
4.	If so, what is the estimated cost of such an hotel?
5.	How much money has been appropriated by the government or the C.N.R. for this construction?
6.	Have any architects, engineers or designers been employed by the government or the C.N.R. to prepare preliminary or other plans and specifications for a hotel in Montreal?
7.	If so, who are they and what is the amount of fees or other compensation paid or payable to each of them?


Mr. CHEVRIER:: I can only repeat what I said yesterday with respect to this question. Perhaps my hon. friend will now be willing to drop it.


James Horace King: Dropped.


LONGUEUIL, QUE., MILITARY CAMP
Mr. POULIOT:: X. Is there still any barbed wire surrounding the site of the military camp at Longueuil? If so, what is the length of such wire?
2.	Is it the intention of the government to have same removed?
3.	If so, when will the work be done?


Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.	Yes. 2880 linear feet of four-barbed, six inch space, double strand barbed wire on top of a ten foot high wooden fence and 1500 linear feet concertina wire also on the fence.
2.	Yes.
3.	After. 1 May, 1947.

Questions


RADIO BROADCASTING-FREQUENCY 540 K.C.
Mr. LENNARD:: 1.	Is frequency No. 540 k.c. a frequency that was allotted to Canada?
2.	If so, what station in Canada has been granted the privilege of licence to operate over it?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	The frequency of 540 kcs. is outside the standard broadcast band, 550-1600 kcs. Under the provisions of a special bilateral agreement with the United States the frequency of 540 kcs. may be used in Canada for broadcasting purposes in the province of Saskatchewan only.
2.	CBK, Watrous, Saskatchewan, which is licensed to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
war contracts


Mr. STEWART (Winnipeg North):: 1.	How many corporations in Canada with capital subscribed of (a) $1,000,000 and over; (b) $500,000-$1,000,000; (c) $100,000-$500,000; received war contracts between 1st September, 1939 and V-J day?
2.	What was the value of contracts received by each of the above groups?
3.	What was the total value of war contracts awarded between 1st September, 1939 and Y-J day?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Perhaps I could answer this orally. The government has no information as to what private corporations have capital subscribed of $1,000,000 or $500,000. I am afraid that it will be difficult to answer the question in its present form. Perhaps my hon. friend will agree to its being dropped and reworded.


Mr. STEWART (Winnipeg North):: I
shall be glad to do that.


James Horace King: Dropped.


INCOME TAX-VARIOUS CATEGORIES
Mr. MacINNIS:: 1.	What was the aggregate number of persons paying income tax for the calendar years 1938. 1942, 1944 in the following categories: (a) employees, clerical and professional; (b) employees, manual workers; (c) professional and small businesses; (d) farmers; (e) agricultural workers; (f) others?
2.	What was the aggregate income taxes paid by persons in the following categories for the calendar years 1938, 1942, 1944: (a) employees, clerical and professional; (b) employees, manual workers; (c) professional and small businesses; (d) farmers; (e) agricultural workers; (f) others?


Mr. McCANN:: Completed records are
available only for the calendar years 1941 and 1942. Statistics for earlier years were maintained on a fiscal year assessed basis and contained a mixture of figures for several calendar years. Records for calendar years subsequent to 1942 are still being compiled.
The occupational classifications used in compiling income tax statistics are not identical with those outlined in the questions; in particular, employees consist of a single large group and are not subdivided into manual, clerical or agricultural as asked for. Subject to these limitations the information requested is contained in the following schedule.
1939-40 Fiscal Year
(Pertaining mainly to taxpayers filing for the 1938 calendar year)
	Number of taxpayers	Tax
Occupation	assessed	assessedFarmers 	1,721	$ 151,549Professional 	11.838	3,226,989Employees 	227,261 .	19,502,030Merchants-retail ..	13,817	2,194,306Merchants- wholesale 	1.867	649,895Manufacturers 	1,705	529,253Natural resources ...	314	67,300Financial 	18,188	14,314,183Personal corporations	919	5,362,903All others 	15,467	5,473,101Total 	293,097	S 51,471,5091942 calendar year	Number of taxpayers	TaxOccupation	assessed	assessedFarmers 	21,158	$ 3,271,190Professional 	19,382	14,041,362Employees 	1,573,189	230,713,052Salesmen 	11,039	4,225,488Business proprietors.	92,437	35,560,380Armed services	12,215	3,940,579Financial 	37.892	33,855,541Estates 	3,014	3,567,388All others 	10,918	6,516,215Total 	1,781,244	$335,691,195
1944 calendar year Information not yet tabulated.


TREASURY BOARD
Mr. McCUAIG:: 1.	How many persons are on the treasury
board?
2.	What are their names?
3.	Who appointed them?
4.	What remuneration does each such person receive?
Questions


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: 1.	Six.
2.	The Minister of Finance (the Hon. D. C. Abbott), the Right Hon. J. L. Ilsley, the Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner, the Hon. J. A. MacKinnon, the Right Hon. Louis S. St. Laurent, the Hon. J. J. McCann.
3.	The Minister of Finance is a member of the treasury board and chairman thereof by virtue of sections 8 and 11 of the Department of Finance and Treasury Board Act. The other members are appointed by the governor in council.
4.	None.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS

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national film boaed

[Stage Direction]
Mr. McMASTER;
1.	What amount of accelerated depreciation has been allowed to individuals or firms for the purpose of (a) erecting or extending or improving buildings; (b) other purposes?
2.	What were the amounts of the ten largest allowances for (a) buildings; (b) other purposes?

Mr. FLEMING:: 1.	What changes, if any, have been made in the appointments of officers and directors of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation since July 1, 1946?
2.	Where do all the officers and directors of the Corporation respectively reside?
3.	What is the remuneration of each officer and director?
4.	How many meetings of the Corporation have been held, and on what dates, and who were present at each?
5.	How many meetings has the Board of Directors held, and on what dates, and who were present at each?
6.	How many meetings has the Executive Committee held, and on what dates, and who were present at each?

7.	How many employees has the Corporation?
8.	(a) How many offices has the Corporation; (b) where are they located; (c) how many persons are employed in each?
9.	(a) What scale of salaries and wages and pension or superannuation benefits has been established for officers and employees; (b) what is now the monthly payroll; (e) does the board of directors contemplate further extension of staff and payroll?
10.	What expenditures have been made by the Corporation, and for what purposes?
11.	What steps have been taken and expenditures made by the Corporation on research, and on what types of research?


George James McIlraith: Return tabled.


AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT COMPANIES- DEPRECIATION ALLOWANCES
Mr. KNOWLES:: 1.	What special depreciation allowances and/or accelerated depreciation allowances were granted to (a) the Massey-Harris Company, Limited; (b) the Cockshutt Plow Company, Limited, for each of the following years: 1939, 1940, 4941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946?
2.	In respect of what plant or plants of each of these companies were any such allowances made?
3.	Who is the present owner of each of such plants?
4.	What use is now being made of each such plant?


MERCURY
Mr. KNIGHT:: 1.	Has the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company ceased to produce mercury?
2.	Is the Canadian government presently purchasing mercury?
3.	How much mercury, and at what price, was purchased by the Canadian government during the years 1940-4946?
4.	Did Canada purchase any of the mercury from a cartel in Spain previous to the last war?
5.	Did the Spanish interests refuse to supply Canada with mercury after the outbreak of war?
6.	Did they export their mercury to Germany?
7.	Is Canada again purchasing mercury from Spain?
8.	What is the market price of mercury at the present time being paid to Spanish interests?
9.	Are the owners of the Pinchi Lake mine in Canada, now closed down, prepared to sell the accumulated stock at that price?
10.	What is the main peacetime use of mercury?
11.	Is all the mercury now entering Canada from the United States produced in the United States?
12.	If not, where is such mercury produced?
13.	Have any Canadians or Canadian corporations any interest in the Spanish cartel which sells mercury to Canada?
14.	How many men were customarily employed during the war at Pinchi Lake mine in the production of mercury?

Questions


MOTOR VEHICLE MANUFACTURERS-SPECIAL OR ACCELERATED DEPRECIATION
Mr. COLDWELL:: 1.	Has any special or accelerated depreciation been granted to Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited, Chrysler Corporation of Canada, Limited or General Motors of Canada, Limited, between January 1, 1939, and December 31, 1946?
2.	If so, what are the amounts granted to each of these companies during this period?


SALMO, B.C., EMERALD MINE
Mr. HERRIDGE:: 1.	Was the Emerald mine at Salmo, B.C., purchased by an agency of the federal government?
2.	If so, when, from whom and at what price?
3.	What wTas the total expenditure on development, buildings, machinery, equipment, etc.?
4.	What was the total value of production shipped from the mine during period of operation ?
5.	When were operations discontinued and for what reason?
6.	Was inventory taken of machinery, tools and equipment on site 'when operations discontinued? If so, what was the value of same?
7.	Has the Emerald mine been sold? If so, to whom and at what price?
8.	Was an inventory taken of machinery, tools and camp equipment on site just prior to sale? If so, what was the value of the same?
9.	What were the total expenses incurred in taking such inventory?
10.	On what dates was inventory taken and what are the names of the employees who took said inventory?


HUDSON BAY RAILWAY
Mr. KNIGHT:: 1.	Are the cattle pens at Churchill in a state of good repair?
2.	Was any of the material of these yards disposed of to the American forces during the war?
3.	If so, upon what terms?
4.	Is the Hudson Bay railroad officially listed as being a railroad under construction?
5.	Has the Canadian board of transport commissioners jurisdiction over freight rates on the Hudson Bay railroad?
6.	If not, for what reason?
7.	Does the general manager of the Hudson Bay railroad spend his full working time on this road?
8.	How many trains a week run between The Pas and Churchill?
9.	Has the government received requests that a royal commission be set up to enquire into the whole matter of the road and port?
10.	If so, what action was taken as a result of such requests?


DEPRECIATION ALLOWANCES
Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: What amounts of special and accelerated depreciation were allowed to Canadian industries between January 1, 1939 and December 31, 1946?


AMMONIUM NITRATE
Mr. McCULLOUGH (Assiniboia):: 1.	Does the Canadian government hold patent rights on picrite? If not, who holds these patent rights and on what conditions did the Canadian government dispose of these patent rights?
2.	Is the production of picrite carried on at the present time in the Welland plant? If not, for what period was it produced?
3.	Did the terms of agreement of sale of the Welland plant to the North American Cyanamid Company provide for any definite production either as to kind of material, amount thereof, or employment of wartime workers in said plant?
4.	At what date and for how long, while under government control, did the Welland plant produce ammonium nitrate?
5.	What did the ammonium nitrate produced at this plant sell for during this period (a) in Canada; (b) in the United States?
6.	Is the North American Cyanamid Company now producing ammonium nitrate? If so, what is the cost f.o.b. factory?
7.	Is the North American Cyanamid Company the parent company and/or an affiliate of any other Canadian company? If so, what are these companies?


METEGHAN WHARF, CLARE, N.S.
Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: 1.	Did the government expropriate or purchase the area known as the "Reserve" at Meteghan wharf, in the township of Clare, Nova Scotia?
2.	If so, from whom and what compensation or expenses were paid and to whom?
3.	To whom did the government sell or lease the property and at what prices or rental charges?
4.	Is the land still necessary for the purposes for which it was acquired, if not, will it be retained by the crown and made available for the use of the previous owners or occupants?
WARTIME PRICES AND TRADE BOARD-PROSECUTIONS, WELLAND AND LyiCOLN COUNTIES, ONTARIO


Mr. LOCKHART:: 1.	How many prosecutions have been instituted by wartime prices and trade board in the counties of Welland and Lincoln during (a) the year 1945; (b) the year 1946; (e) the year 1947 to date?
2.	In how many instances were convictions registered (a) in Welland county; (b) in Lincoln county?
3.	What was the total amount of fines collected in (a) Welland county; (b) Lincoln county?
4.	What -was the total cost during (a) the year 1945; (b) the year 1946; (c) the year 1947 to date, for (1) legal fees; (2) travelling expenses, giving the name to whom paid in each case?
5.	What amounts were paid to investigators as travelling expenses in (a) 1945; (b) 1946;
Questions

(c) 1947 to date, in connection with the convictions registered in (a )Welland county; (b) Lincoln county, giving the name of the person to whom payment was made?


Mr. MAYHEW:: Return tabled.


UNITED STATES CITIZENS IN CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
[Stage Direction]
Mr. FRASER;
1.	Are there any citizens of the United States of America holding commissions in the Canadian permanent force, navy, army or air force?
2.	If so (a) in what branch of service; (b) what are their names; (c) what is the rank of each; (d) length of service?
3.	Have these Americans made application for Canadian citizenship?
4.	If not, is it required that they do so to remain in the service?

Mr. BENTLEY:: 1.	What was the total amount of loans to veterans of the first great war, 1914-18, by the soldier settlement board?
2.	Of this indebtedness (a) how much has been repaid to the board; (b) how much has been written off; (c) how much is still owing?
3.	How much of the soldier settlement board's capital investment has been (a.) repaid; (b) the cost of administration; (c) the cost of collection?
4.	At the end of the government's fiscal year 1945-46: (a) what percentage of these veterans, and the number, were still on their soldier settlement farms; (b) of these, how many had fully repaid their loans; (c) how many were still in debt to the board; (d) what was the amount of the remaining indebtedness; (e) how many of such settlers had (i) exceptionally good land; (ii) been free from disasters such as hail, drouth, frost, etc.; (iii) some outside source of revenue, such as inheritances?


TRANSLATORS-LADISLAUS BIBEROVICH
Mr. WINKLER:: 1.	How many translators of foreign languages are there in the employ of the government?
2.	Was Ladislaus Biberovich so employed since 1939? If so, when?


OLD AGE PENSIONS
Mr. NICHOLSON:: 1.	How many persons, including old age pensioners received pensions paid by the dominion government in the last year for which statistics are available (a) in excess of $10,000 per annum; (b) $5,000 to $10,000 per annum; (c) $2,000 to $5,000 per annum; (d) $500 to $2,000 per annum; (e) less than $500 per annum?
2.	What were the totals paid in each of the above brackets?


VETERANS AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. O. PROBE (Regina City):: I wish
to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. Has he received a telegram from the Regina branch of the Disabled Veterans' Association protesting the displacement of veterans and pensioners, including amputation cases, at National Defence building, 16 R.O.D. Regina, in favour of nonveterans, and informing him that veterans are apparently being told that a condition of continuing employment at this building was that they join the army for a period of three years?


Hon. BROOKE CLAXTON (Minister of National Defence):: I have not received such a telegram, but today I received a letter referring to such a telegram. I have not been able to look into the question yet but I will do so. From what I know of the way in which the army works, I am certain that the facts are not as related.


Mr. E. G. McCULLOUGH (Assiniboia):: I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Are veterans employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs being let out while others with no overseas veterans' preference are being maintained on the staff? If so, what is the exact policy of the government in this regard?
Right Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs):	I do not
believe that statement is generally true. It might apply in specialized cases. I shall be very glad to look into my hon. friend's question further and give him an answer later.


OLD AGE PENSIONS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Will the government consider introducing at an early day as an emergency measure its proposed amendments to the Old Age Pensions Act?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I made a statement of the government's intentions with respect to old age pensions at the beginning of the session. My

Inquiries of the Ministry
lion, friend will find the reference in Hansard. The answer today would be the same as he will find there.


Stanley Howard Knowles: My question relates to the urgency of the matter. It is quite clear that it is to be done this session, but the months are going by.


James Horace King: Order.


CANADAIR LIMITED
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. L. W. SKEY (Trinity):: I should -like to direct a question to the Minister of Reconstruction on the statement which he has just made. Did the dominion government, in making a contract with the Electric Boat Company for the purchase of Canadair Limited, provide in any way for experimental work with jet engines in so far as the North Star is concerned? I ask this question because I understand that jet transport aircraft are now a commercial proposition and will make obsolete conventional types at present in production.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The government is conducting development work, both on design of jet engines and on the development of aircraft to be operated by jet engines, but that work is being carried out at Malton. There is no jet development involved in the work at Cartierville.


INCOME TAX
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. ANGUS MacINNIS (Vancouver East):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. About two weeks ago I asked him if he would take into consideration the payment of compulsory savings before the due date. Is he now prepared to make a report on that?


Hon. DOUGLAS ABBOTT (Minister of Finance):: I am not in a position to make any statement on it. The matter has already been considered and is being given further consideration, but I would not want to hold out any hope that it will be possible to do that. There are a great many difficulties in the way. The payments which fall due by March 31, 1948, which are the compulsory savings
portion of the 1942 taxes, will be made within that period. That involves a substantial number of cheques and a substantial amount of clerical work. I cannot add anything to that, other than to say that the whole question is receiving consideration.


INDIVIDUALS AND CORPORATIONS-ARREARS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
James Joseph McCann: I wish to make a statement with reference to a question asked by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), on Monday last. It had to do with the amount of income tax, interest and penalties thereon owing in each district office for income tax for each of the years 1939 to 1945 inclusive, in respect of individuals and corporations. That question was modified to the extent that he did not require the amount of interest and penalties. It is not possible to answer the question in the form in which it was asked, as it would entail a detailed analysis of over three million taxpayers' ledger cards. I may say that we do not do business, perhaps, according to the method that is ordinarily followed in accounting in industrial or mercantile firms. There is a ledger sheet and card set up for each individual taxpayer. And whatever credits there are to his account- for instance, if he pays in quarterly payments -are put to his credit. When the assessment is made, he is then debited with the amount of that assessment.
I might say to the hon. member that we will give such information as is available at the present time. I shall place on Hansard an analysis of the figures for March 31, 1946. Perhaps I should add that this is a consolidation of district office figures, according to the provinces in which the offices are situated. It so happens that there is a defect, from the standpoint of its being a provincial summary, in that some of the districts stretch into adjacent parts of other provinces. For instance, the district of Ottawa not only takes in certain counties in Ontario, but also extends up to districts such as Abitibi in Quebec. However, we will put this information on the record today. Although it shows the amounts outstanding, I might add that those outstanding amounts for the whole of the country amount to only three per cent of the actual collections made during the year ended March 31, 1946. While we have no breakdown as to former years, instructions have been sent out to district offices calling
Inquiries of the Ministry

for this data as of March, 1947. It will take about two months before the information is available.
Department of National Revenue- Taxation Division
Recapitulation of Outstanding Taxes- March 31, 1946
(Including Income tax, Excess Profits tax, and Succession Duty)
District
	Number of	Amount
	Taxpayers	Outstanding
Charlottetown	
368	$ 130,537Halifax 	
23,628	1,707,297Saint John ...	
9,492	829,327Quebec 	
16,191	3,261,465Montreal 	
95,216	14,809,162Ottawa 	
23,036	2,518,473Kingston 	
2,646	596,251Belleville 	
2,081	204,337Toronto 	
50,096	7,465,940Hamilton 	
16,064	1,488,288London 	
16,197	2,474,920Fort William .	
7,767	711,737Winnipeg 	
13,120	2,223,308Regina 	
3,999	1,660,017Saskatoon ....	
2,496	328,797Calgary 	
5,876	997,730Edmonton 	
6,007	752,656Vancouver ....	
34,008	3,267,777Total 	
328,288	$45,428,019Province	Number of	AmountTaxpayers	OutstandingPrince Edward	Island 368	130,537Nova Scotia ..	
23,628	1,707,297New Brunswick	
9,492	829,327Quebec 	
111,407	18,070,627Ontario 	
117,887	15,459,946Manitoba ....	
13,120	2,223,308Saskatchewan .	
6,495	1,988,814Alberta 	
11,883	1,750,386British Columbi	a	
34,008	3,267,777Total 	
328,288	$45,428,019
The figures for Ottawa district include those taxpayers who reside in the counties of Abitibi, Hull, Papineau, Labelle, Temiskaming, and Pontiac in the province of Quebec. Separate figures for the taxpayers residing in these counties are not available.
The figures for the district of Dawson are not available.
In addition to the district office totals, accounts of 36,297 taxpayers amounting to a total of $2,633,435 have been transferred to head office. These are accounts of untraceable taxpayers, deceased no estate, and uncollectible accounts.


CIVIL SERVICE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Secretary of State. Is he in a position to make any comment on the statement which appeared in the press yesterday, which was attributed to the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Mcllraith), that civil service salary adjustments are being considered by the treasury board?


Hon. COLIN GIBSON (Secretary of State):: I am not in a position to make a statement on that.


AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, March 19, consideration in committee of Bill No. 25, to provide for the sale and export of agricultural products-Mr. Gardiner-Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.
The CHAIRMAN:: Before proceeding may I point out that when the committee rose last night it was considering section 3. May I remind the committee of standing order 58(2) which states:
Speeches in committee of the whole house must be strictly relevant to the item or clause under consideration.
It has occurred to me that considerable latitude has been allowed hon. members in the committee up to the present time. From now on, however, I believe we should hold strictly to the rules of relevancy.


Jean-François Pouliot: Would the minister be kind enough to answer the questions I put to him yesterday regarding actual commitments for exports to other countries?


Right Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture):: I have all the answers, although one is still to be sent down to me. I understood however that the Minister of Justice desired to answer some of the questions asked by the hon. member for Lake Centre. When we have the legal side out of the way, I shall immediately give answers to the questions asked yesterday.


Jean-François Pouliot: The minister will be good enough to give the answers this afternoon?

Agricultural Products Act


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, as soon as the Minister of Justice has spoken.


Mr. ILSLEY:: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for La'ke Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) requested that an opinion be obtained from the law officers of the crown regarding the constitutionality of the measure before the house. I suppose it is in order to read that opinion while this section is before the committee, because it is this section which confers powers upon the minister, and the validity of which has been questioned.


Jean-François Pouliot: How is it that the minister's opinion is not enough?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I am told it is not the practice for the Minister of Justice to give legal advice to the House of Commons. When legal advice is given to the house, he merely passes on what the law officers of the crown have decided, instead of giving his own opinion. I am told that is the practice in parliament. However, I shall add my own opinion. I think on most occasions it will oe the same as that of the deputy minister.
The memorandum of the deputy minister, as furnished to me, is as follows:
Ottawa, March 20, 1947.
Memorandum for Minister of Justice Re Bill 25
You asked for an opinion as to the constitutional validity of the proposed agricultural products act now under consideration by the House of Commons.
Clauses 3 and 4 of the bill merely authorize the Minister of Agriculture, pursuant to agreements between Canada and the governments of other countries for the sale or export of food supplies, to enter into contractual transactions relating to the purchasing, storing, processing, selling and exporting of agricultural products, and in this connection to require any person to give information respecting his facilities for storing or processing of the same. These clauses contemplate a system of voluntary trading and appear to be clearly within the jurisdiction of parliament.
Clause 5, in effect, authorizes the minister, acting pursuant to regulations of the governor in council, to requisition supplies for the fulfilment of the contracts already referred to, and to determine the prices to be paid for such supplies. It is this power to requisition and fix prices that is called in question.
The decision of the privy council given in 1937, holding the Natural Products Marketing Act, 1934, to be invalid, has been mentioned as relevant to the question This act provided for the establishment of a dominion marketing board with power to regulate the time and place at which products should be marketed, and the manner of distribution, and the quantity and grade of the same, and to prohibit marketing of any products. It was held to be unconstitutional because, in effect, it purr
ported to regulate transactions completed within a province and having no connection with interprovincial or export trade; that is to say, the purpose of the act was to regulate the conduct of business including business confined to a single province.
The present bill has no such regulative purpose but is merely designed to enable the government to fulfil its international obligations to continue to sell and export food supplies to distressed countries in order to maintain economic stability and to insure an orderly transition from war to peace. These national obligations arise directly out of the war. The power to requisition supplies by the government for such a purpose would seem to me to be in no way analogous to the powers to regulate trading given by the Natural Products Marketing Act, 1934.
There is, however, to my mind, a very definite analogy between Bill 25 and the act of parliament relating to paper control enacted in 1919 and held by the Privy Council to be valid in the case of Fort Frances Pulp and Power Company Limited and Manitoba Free Press Company Limited. The purpose of that legislation was not only to control prices of paper but also to control the supply of paper itself during the abnormal conditions following the war of 1914-1918.
Reference is made in the preamble to the bill to an existing national emergency as establishing the need for the proposed legislation and it has been suggested that the validity of the statute depends on the existence^ of such a national emergency. In this connection the view has been put forward that as a result of the decision of the Privy Council in the recent case of Attorney General of Ontario et al v. Canada Temperance et al the existence of such an emergency is no longer a valid basis for an act of parliament which affects property and civil rights in the provinces. I do not read the Canada Temperance Act case as having this result but on the contrary it seems to me to be abundantly clear that it holds that an emergency may not be necessary to validate federal legislation which in another aspect touches upon matters specially reserved to the provincial legislatures. The true test, according to this decision, is whether the real subject matter of the act goes beyond local or provincial concern and must from its inherent nature be the concern of the dominion as a whole. Such an act is within the competence of parliament though it may in another aspect touch upon matters specially reserved to the provinces. I should think that Bill 25 satisfies this test.
In the most recent pronouncement upon the subject of the emergency legislative power of parliament, viz., in the Japanese reference, the privy council said that very clear evidence that an emergency has not arisen or that the emergency no longer exists is required to justify the judiciary in overruling the decision of the parliament of the dominion that exceptional measures were required and were still required.
For the reasons given it is my opinion that the bill is within the competence 'of parliament to enact.
I do not think it is necessary to add anything to that opinion. Yesterday the hon. member for Lake Centre put forward the view, not dogmatically but for the considera-
Agricultural Products Act

tion of the government-, that the doctrine of emergency no longer was valid as a basis for dominion jurisdiction. He cited in support of that position the Canada Temperance Act case, and stated that that position had been taken by the editor of the Fortnightly Law Journal, and perhaps by others. Bearing in mind what I said in reply to the hon. member for Temiscouata, I am not going to venture into an opinion on the matter. However, I have read the Canada Temperance Act case and the subsequent case, that of the Japanese reference, and it appears to me that the true effect of the decision in the Canada Temperance Act case is that there does not have to be an emergency to found jurisdiction on the part of the dominion; that the dominion may have the power even when there is no emergency to legislate for the peace, order and good government of Canada, even though its legislation touches upon matters ordinarily regarded as solely within provincial jurisdiction. In other words, the judgment of the judicial committee of the privy council as given by Lord Simon extends rather than narrows the powers of the dominion as they had therefore been conceived. It must be remembered- that the Canada Temperance Act decision was not against the dominion; it was in favour of the dominion. It held the Canada Temperance Act to be a valid exercise of dominion constitutional powers. I do not think that in any sense that judgment can be taken as a decision narrowing the powers of the dominion to legislate in a national emergency.
Even in that judgment it was said that an emergency may be the occasion of legislation which under the general powers of peace, order and good government is valid. The subsequent case, that of the Japanese reference, founded the powers of the dominion pretty solidly upon national emergency. If the hon. gentleman has read the headnote in the Dominion Law Reports report of the case he will see the vexation of the headnote writer at what he considered to be the inconsistency of the judicial committee of the privy council. But I do not think there is any real inconsistency there. In this case, the case of the Agricultural Products Marketing Act, if I were asked to describe the nature of the emergency referred to in the preamble, I would describe it, perhaps not in legal or court language but in practical language, as being something like this: Great national interests are at stake in the sense that as an aftermath of the war the economic stability of the greatest national

customer that this country has had in the past is endangered and it is in the national interest that food should continue to flow to the people of Great Britain in order that they may be in a position to produce goods and exchange them for our goods in the future and continue to be the great market that they have been in the past.
If a condition arises under which that position is imperilled as a result of war and during the war and for a reasonable time after the war, there is an emergent and extraordinary situation which puts in danger great national interests and justifies legislation by this parliament under the heading of peace, order and good government. As I say, these may not be the only aspects of the emergency but these aspects are, I submit, sufficient to occasion a valid exercise of the powers under the peace, order and good government clause.
To sum up:	We do not need, under the
Canada Temperance Act case, to establish a national emergency. Under that case a national emergency may be the occasion for passing legislation which is valid under the peace, order and good government clause. If there is a national emergency, that in itself may be the foundation of our jurisdiction, under the Japanese reference case and under the Fort Frances case. The emergent or extraordinary circumstances in this post-war situation, are, I believe, sufficient to form the basis of a valid exercise of the dominion's constitutional powers in the manner set out in the bill before the house. In that opinion I am supported by the Deputy Minister of Justice.


John George Diefenbaker: I thank my right
hon. friend for the detail in which he has answered the question I raised yesterday as to the constitutionality of this measure and of others that are before the house whose constitutionality must be dependent upon grounds other than that they come exclusively within the powers of the dominion parliament. I am not entering into any argument with the minister on this question because, as the minister said, no one can be dogmatic on matters such as this. After all it is not what one's opinion may be that ultimately determines the question; the final determinant will be the courts of the land. Equally strong opinions were given in 1934 as to the constitutionality of the Natural Products Marketing Act and the other measures of reform legislation which were so necessary to the welfare of the people but which, by reason of the distribution of powers as between

Agricultural Products Act
the dominion and the provinces the courts determined were not within the legislative ambit of the dominion parliament.
I shall do no more than place before the committee the supporting evidence to which I made reference yesterday. I referred to Mr. Chitty, K.C. and his opinion given in the Fortnightly Law Journal of June 1, 1946, shortly after the opinion of the privy council had been handed down. Without going into detail, the conclusion to which he came was that the privy council had exploded the emergency doctrine.
As I listened to the minister today I was impressed by this fact, that there must be a line of demarcation when the federal parliament may no longer contend that the powers are exercised not because they come under section	91 but	being	under section	92	areavailable because they arise under the peace, order and good government clause. As I understood the minister's justification of this legislation it was that the economic stability of the	United	Kingdom, our	greatest	customer,	was in	grave	danger;	that	it	was
necessary in the interests of our own ecoriomic survival to preserve that economic unit, and for that reason the dominion must be presumed to have the power to entrench upon property and civil rights within the provinces. The arguments of those holding that view were dealt with in this article by Mr. Chitty in these words:
Much therefore as our constitutional theorist friends	would like to	see the	Fort	Frances
case-
To which the Minister of Justice made reference:
[DOT]-as a precedent for an all-powerful dominion that could create emergencies at its whim and arrogate to itself overriding powers to legislate in any sphere without regard to the views of the provinces, we are afraid that even the Fort Frances case is a broken reed. That case never went further, as a sound precedent, than to decide that the emergency upon the existence of which the right to resort to government by order in council under the War Measures Act depended might continue to exist even after the war had officially come to an end.
The great danger with legislation such as this, commendable as it may be, is that a government may centralize power in Ottawa to the detriment of the provinces under the excuse of an emergency by the simple expedient by setting forth in the preamble that an emergency exists. There is danger to the set-up of confere elation in emergency legislation or in legislation passed under the general powers relating to peace, order and good government; for surely there must come some point where
the dominion cannot use such an excuse of an emergency to secure for itself the power to interfere with the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces over property and civil rights.
More than that I am not going to say. I have raised the point and the law officers have given their opinion. But in regard to this legislation and also the wheat board legislation which requires compulsory powers it is interesting to note that away back in 1922 an opinion was given by the then deputy minister of justice denying the right of parliament to pass legislation compulsorily controlling the distribution or sale of farm products.


James Lorimer Ilsley: In 1922?


John George Diefenbaker: Yes.


James Lorimer Ilsley: That was quite a long time after the war was over.


John George Diefenbaker: The war ended officially in 1921, did it not?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not know when the treaty of peace was signed.


Mr. HAZEN:: In 1921.


John George Diefenbaker: In 1921, and the question arose as to the continuance of the wheat board that was in existence during the first world war and in particular as to the power of the dominion parliament to pass legislation compulsorily dealing with wheat. The then prime minister, Mr. Mackenzie King, at page 940 of Hansard of April 19, 1922, read the opinion of Mr. Newcombe, an outstanding lawyer, then deputy minister of justice, and subsequently a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada. I am not going to read it in detail. The Prime Minister on that occasion said this:
With reference to the fourth report of the select standing committee on agriculture and colonization, in which the house concurred on the eleventh instant, I may say that the government has obtained the written opinion of the law officers of the crown upon the question thereby suggested as to the constitutionality of the reconstruction of the Canadian wheat board, and that opinion is now submitted for the information of the house.
There were many who believed that the Canadian wheat board should be continued, but it was discontinued in 1921. The Prime Minister at that time gave the opinion of the law officers of the crown, and this is the essence of that opinion. It will be found at page 942 of Hansard of 1922:
It is Clear that so long as a subject matter of legislation finds place within the enumerations of provincial powers it does not belong to the dominion under its general authority to make laws for the peace, order and good government
Agricultural Products Act

of Canada. It ia certain that the essential compulsory powers of the wheat board are prima facie included in the provincial enumeration of property and civil rights or local matters in the provinces. In my opinion these powers do not lie within the field which may be occupied by the execution of the dominion power to regulate trade and commerce, as that power has been expounded in successive decisions by the ultimate tribunal of appeal; and I think it may be affirmed without uncertainty that the necessary reconstructive powers are not comprehended in any other of the dominion enumerations. While I do not suggest a doubt that conditions of export from the dominion and foreign trade relations may be regulated by parliament, I am impressed with the view that these powers cannot be made a cover for legislation which denies the freedom of contract, capacity to buy and sell and the maintenance and exercise of proprietary rights which exist under the provincial laws. The powers of criminal legislation which belong exclusively to the dominion are in their application to this case of an ancillary character and cannot as such be invoked to afford a sanction for measures in themselves ultra vires. Consequently it is my opinion that the reconstruction of the wheat board in the present circumstances with the powers conferred thereon by the orders in council is a project constitutionally incompetent to the parliament of Canada.
The opinion of the then deputy minister of justice, Mr Newcombe, was concurred in by the minister of justice, Sir Lomer Gouin, and by Mr. D. D. McKenzie, who was leader of the Liberal party in 1917 and until the present Prime Minister became the leader. The essence of the opinion was that the compulsory features that were part and parcel of the Wheat Board Act were ultra vires. You will remember, sir, that after the first great war there was a serious economic condition. We have heard it repeated on a number of occasions in this chamber that prices were up and that subsequently there was deflation. These deflationary conditions were to a large extent in existence in 1921 and continued in 1922; yet at that time, even though it would have been of great benefit to the farmers to have the wheat board continued-and the western farmers demanded the continuation of the wheat board because of the then existing economic conditions-the opinion of the Department of Justice was that the granting of compulsory powers to control the direction, the diversion or distribution of wheat was not within the power of parliament.
I present this argument, sir, for the purpose of placing before the committee the other side of the question and the opinions given by another deputy minister of justice during a time of serious economic emergency.
I want to thank the minister for the opinion he has given. I have discharged my responsibility in asking for it.


James Garfield Gardiner: I agreed to put on the record some information with regard to the questioning which was done the other evening. A question was asked as to the number of cattle that were being shipped to the United States, and I gave a round figure of 70,000. There was some discussion as to what that represented, and I finally said that it would be better to get the figures correct and bring them here, or refer to the figures which had already been placed on Hansard. The figures are as follows; For dairy cattle, 69,539; purebred cattle, all kinds, 33,675, which makes a total export of 103,219.
A question was asked as to what was the highest year's export of eggs to Great Britain under our contract. The highest year's shipment to Britain was 1945 with approximately ninety million dozen delivered. A question was asked as to the proportion of exports to domestic consumption of farm products during the war. I am informed that the figures are not compiled and therefore not available beyond 1943. I have the figures for each year from 1939 to 1943 and they are as follows:
Exports, Imports and Domestic Disappearance of Agricultural Products as Percentages of Production, Canada, 1939-43
Domestic
disappear-
Exports Imports ance1
Year	per cent per cent per cent
1939	
22-03	4-34	68-421940	
22-71	5-38	67-511941	
26-03	5-41	81-781942	
22-29	3-93	68-251943	
44-30	5-01	87-92'Note:	Domestic disappearance, plus exports,
minus imports, does not equal 100 per cent of production because of the influence of year-to-year changes in stocks.
Source:	Quarterly bulletin of Agricultural
Statistics, Vol. 38, No. 1, Dominion Bureau of Statistics.
I hold in my hand another sheet which does contain information which the hon. member for Temiscouata desired. I am sure the committee would not wish me to read it. The statement is a return which was made to the house in the session of 1946.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Put it on Hansard.


James Garfield Gardiner: I can have it put on Hansard with one more year added to it, if that will be suitable to Hansard. The question asked was for everything up to date. This statement is not up to date but it covers what was required. It has to do with the

Agricultural Products Act
quantity of each food product sent by Canada each year from 1940 to 1945 inclusive to the various European countries, and what amount to each country. That information down to the end of 1946 was asked for last evening.
The information for the year 1946 had not been compiled when I came into the house today but it will be completed and if the committee will permit I will have it all put on Hansard.
Agricultural Exports to European Countries, 1940-1946
1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	1946Beef, Fresh-	lb.	lb.	lb.	lb. 385,600	lb. 98,080,000 1,135,600 692,326,400 692,310,300	lb. 184,377,700 7,357,900 446.509.300 446.069.300 440,000	lb. 123,787,400 10,324,300 286.029.100 286.029.100Mutton and Lamb-	Bacon, Hams, Shoulders-	344,148,900 344,147,100	460.800.200 460.800.200	524.951.900 524.951.900	560,319,800 560,309,300	
10,500	16,100		
	1,800 6,096,250 6,096,152						
Canned Meats (N.O.P.)-		171.237 171.237	5.681.112 5.681.112	10,726,038 10,726,03S	35,217,941 33,837,826	94,861,848 16,044,062 329,586	138,089,012 3,329,032
							
							
							9,093,092 12,728,784 13,559.905 14,253,872 97,942 48,636 13,559,107 147,608
						18,933,991 8,140,800 18,747,412 9,952,984 604,680 917,899	
							
	98				22,464 156		
							
							
					1,298,779		
							
						8,268,168 9,814,424 4,132,998 8,974,844	
							40,630,275 18,500,140 12,136,872 3,807
							
							
					58,716		
Pork, Dry Salted-						1.931.800 1.822.800 109,000 4,500 10.318.600 10.318.600	
							
							
Pork, Pickled-	3,S00 8,848,100 8,785,000 63,100 26.900 26.900	400 11.315.200 11.315.200	Edible Animal Entrails (N.O.P.)-	10.643.000 10.643.000	9.068.500 9.068.500	14.230.000 14.230.000	4,810,600
Meats (N.O.P.)-		36.000 36.000	113.200 113.200		40,800 [DOT] 40,800	617,900 603,700 14,200	5,451,100 199,500 5,172,900 58,700 20,000
							
							
							
							
Pork, Fresh-	121,100			14,912,400	10,375,100		
							
	359,245,050	472,323,037	541,389,212	595,412,338	851,405,841	745,979,548	568,491,512
Seeds-							
			222,120	1,710,285	6,199,895 1,127,865	4,304,496 3,196,549 13,309,060 6,534,276 2,450,800 474,890 805,840 1,029,932 1,100,000 1,175,020 40,050 7,100,040 619,980	1,686,358
U S.S.R 	 "							
							
					746,180 858,281		
							
							
							
							
					2,137,390 590,575		
							
							
Poland 	 "					1,905,070		
							
						269,125 10,924,560	
					4,356,700		1
							
Agricultural Products Act

Agricultural Exports to European Countries, 1940-1946-Cone.
-	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	1946Fruits and Vegetables- To United Kingdom- Canned Apples	cases	lb. 702,511 3,136,350 931,106	lb.	lb.	lb.	lb.	lb.	lb. 202,994 80,0005,807,350 2,104,334 111,044 1,199,990 3,982	6,727,050	3,360,000	5,328,700	Dried Apple Pomace	
"	160,968$ 199,998	166,842 524,988	25,130$ 719,126	642,581 2,218,661
Concentrated Apple Juice, bbl.							
				49,780 55,738 1,000	443,170		124,910
Canned Diced Carrots... cases Canned Com	 "							
					1,000 1,600,200		
Fruit in SO2	 lb.	2,535,270	6,691,879	1,186,640				
						410,000	747,840
		800,000					
						2,688,400	4,681,875 202,900
Canned Tomatoes	cases	300,000	Tomato Pulp	
"	51,779 28,798 2.386,980	Tomato Puree	
cans	Dehydrated Vegetables.. lb. Dried Peas	
"	10,152,524$	12,752,375	3,297,478	317,002Certified Seed Potatoes- To France- Sacks containing 190 lb	167,400	To Holland- Bushels, packed in 100 lb. bags..	749 1,352,985 17,916,685	Shell Eggs- _	355,910	511,220	137,782 11,690,868	1,790,311 7,419,872Powdered Eggs-	11,774,9S3 7,088,506	27,575,763	Dairy Products- Butter-	Greece	100	6,200 126,687,236	Cheese-	93,0S1,238 60,500	115,392,071	142,092,573	116,200,000	123,138,058	92,104,624Belgium	95,300 500 33,770,001 168,000 2,838,800	
Evaporated Milk-	34,038,200	30,895,632	32,083,296	14,439,744	14,500,832		29,324,352
Czechoslovakia								
France						222,000		
Gibraltar		28,800						
Greece							48.000 474.000 8,856,900 168.000 96.000	
Italy						5,671,000		
Netherlands								
Poland								
Yugoslavia								
Skim Milk Powder- United Kingdom								6,006,982
						2,033,100 50,000 3,844,800 400.000 150.000 4,224,720 249,900 199,800 160.000 48,000 300	
Czechoslovakia								
France								
Italy								
Poland								
Whole Milk Powder- . United Kingdom								
Belgium								749,980 999,984
France						4,000		
Italy								
Netherlands								
Portugal				100	200			
							
Dressed Poultry- To United Kingdom		688,368	6,600		258,335	1,973,089		7,600,000
							
Mr. Gardiner.]

Agricultural Products Act
Later:


James Garfield Gardiner: May I have the permission of the house to place two sets of figures upon Hansard? I promised to do this this afternoon but I neglected to do it.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Agreed.
1942-	43
" N.S. . .$2,639,236 76 B.C. ..	261,627 75

Total $2,900,864 51
1943-	44
N.S. ..$1,868,548 61 B.C. ..	6,971 75

Total $1,875,520 36


James Garfield Gardiner: The statements are as follows:
Statement Showing Price Paid for Agricultural Products Purchased by Dairy Products, Special Products and Meat Boards of the Department of Agriculture
Meat and Meat Products
1944-	45
N.S. ..$1,110,495 54 B.C. ..	84,045 30

Total $1,194,590 84
1945-	46


N.S. ..$ 354,340 64
[Stage Direction]
1946-	47

[Stage Direction]
1939- 40	 $ 7,617,556 75
1940-	41	
65,314,181	751941-	42	
87,914,954	271942-	43	
109,787,214	971943-	44	
175,024,054	961944-	45	
186,636,510	301945-	46	
160,097,092	871946-	47	
110,295,153	11
To Feb. 28/47
[Stage Direction]
Dairy Products (Cheese and Concentrated Milk)
1939- 40	
$	..1940-	41	
15,243,958	48,1941-42	
19,558,281 971942-	43	
31,559,179	661943-	44	
27,926,641	841944-	45	
30,803,681	321945-	46	
33,026,356	381946-	47	
23,978,411	32
To Feb. 28/47
[Stage Direction]
Special Products (Eggs, Fruit and Vegetables, Flax and Seeds)
1939- 40	 $	..
1940- 41	
1941-	42	
9,011,735	261942-	43	
16,461,321	371943-	44	
26.241,999	881944-	45	
55,267,817	641945-	46	
54.853,076	151946-	47	
52,885,823	44
To Feb. 28/47
[Stage Direction]
Breakdown of Apple Subsidy Figures 1939-1947
1939-	40

[Stage Direction]
1940-	41
N.S. ..$3,518,350 35 B.C. ..	708,698 39
Ont. ..	4,097 82
[Stage Direction]
Total $4,231,146 56
1941-	42
N.S. ..$1,763,084 33 B.C. ..	496,859 82
[Stage Direction]
Total $2,259,944 15
Mr. ROSS (Souris):: I should like to make a suggestion to the minister on this section. As has been pointed out by various ministers, this is to fulfil contracts with Britain, and one of the most important items cited has been the bacon contracts with Britain, in which we have fallen short in the last few years. Coupled with this matter, the minister on March 17 made an announcement as to prices to be paid for oats and barley for the feeding of animals for meat products for those contracts, setting a floor price of 90 cents for barley, and pointing out that there would be a drawback or payment of 25 cents a bushel for that barley to those who did not grow barley and feed animals; and coupled with that, that there' would be free freight from Fort William to eastern points and from Calgary and Edmonton to the west. That means that the people who produce the grain are certainly not going to feed hogs in the prairie provinces. It gets away entirely from the theory that we have always been led to believe in, that industry should be established close or adjacent to raw materials and power.
I do not think anyone will deny that if we are to have a sound economic system there is some truth in that theory, and therefore much the soundest economy would be to feed the animals on the same farm where the feed is grown for them. It would avoid dislocation in man-power and get rid of transportation difficulties.
When your feeders in the east buy grain at Fort William and are allowed a rebate of 25 cents a bushel on barley, it means in round figures that they will have an advantage of approximately $5 per hog over the man who grows feed on the same farm where he has produced the hogs in the west. That is quite a little item right there. The point I want to make is this. We have had a wide variation in the marketing of hogs in different parts of Canada, and it has been stated repeatedly that people in the United States obtain anywhere from 50 to 100 per cent
Agricultural Products Act

more for their meat products in the Chicago market than we are getting in Canada today.
Apart from that, according to the live stock market review of February 8, put out by the Department of Agriculture. A dressed hog sold in Edmonton for $19.90 per hundredweight; in Winnipeg $20.55; in Toronto $21.75; in Montreal $22.25. That is a difference per hundred pounds dressed pork, as between Edmonton and Montreal, of $2.35 per hundredweight. I am not objecting to this freight assistance on feed grain. I am in favour of freight assistance to feeders in other parts of Canada. But when you consider that these feeders are receiving that freight assistance, and subsidies to the extent of $5 per hog on the feed for their animals, which I think comes out of the federal treasury, then if we are bound to have this system of subsidies, there should be some equalization of transportation costs to the eastern seaboard under the bacon arrangement.
I think the western producer is entitled to consideration there to balance up all that has been done for feeders in other parts of Canada. That $5 per hog is quite a distinct advantage. It is more than a 25 per cent difference in the cost to the feeder in his feed alone. The difference in freight between Edmonton and Montreal is, in round figures, considerably over ten per cent. When it is all added together, it represents a great disparity to the producers of bacon products in various parts of Canada.
I noticed in one of the newspapers today that leading authorities in the west have said that this policy will not get the desired increase in bacon production in Canada, and I fully agree with those who have made that statement as reported in the press in the last few days. I hope that the minister will give serious consideration to these points that I have raised and endeavour to establish a basis of equalization in transportation costs throughout the country in relation to the eastern seaboard, at least for the fulfilment of these bacon contracts. That could be readily done if we must have a system of subsidies for the fulfilment of these contracts. I would rather get along without anything of the sort, but if _we are to have it there should be more fairness in the system.


James Garfield Gardiner: One or two things I would like to say with regard to that, largely for the purpose of attempting to get the plan into the minds of our farmers particularly, in the light that we had hoped to.
In the first place, I am not going to attempt to answer the suggestion or propose a remedy for the suggested difficulty relating to the fact that freight is paid on grain coming east but
Mr. Gardiner.]
freight is not paid on hogs. I will not attempt to meet that suggestion but will leave it for what it is worth and proceed to deal largely with the feed grain position.
The paragraph which appears in the announcement I made the other day, as reported at page 1408 of Hansard, perhaps does not explain the intention as fully as it might:
Feeders, on the other hand, will he protected against any important increase in costs of the oats and barley they buy by appropriate subsidies, until the release of the products they sell from ceiling price controls. It will be observed that under this plan buyers and sellers may trade with each other without the intervention of the board, within the limits of the new floors and ceilings.
In other words, that paragraph anticipates that some time or other there will be a removal of ceilings not on grain alone but on other products and therefore some adjustments may require to be made. But what it is important to bear in mind at the moment is this. When the farm organizations and provincial representatives were here in December they made a proposal to the government. That proposal was that we pay $5 an acre on barley, and it was conditional upon the view held at that time that in all probability ceilings would not come off many of these products until the end of the crop year 1947-48.
We have already taken the ceiling off eggs, and probably ceilings will be coming off some other products as we proceed. With that condition existing, it was not thought that it would be possible to proceed along the proposed line of paying subsidies on an acreage basis, and I think that was fairly well agreed by all those who discussed it in December- that if the inclination was in that direction it would be possible to proceed that way. At the same time it was suggested that if we could not proceed that way then we should consider raising the prices of the feed grain to those who produce it in order to encourage the production of it. At that time I raised the question myself, as a representative there of the dominion government as to what the position would be in relation to the prices of hogs themselves if the price of grain were allowed to advance in Canada. Of course it was obvious at once that there would have to be some increase in the prices, or at least the producer of hogs contended that there should be some increases in the prices obtained. Immediately following that meeting, the British did propose an increase in the floor price of hogs; that is the floor price being continued as a result of the contract which we made on bacon and ham with Britain. There was a suggested increase of $4 a hundred on

Agricultural Products Act
bacon, to begin in October. We discussed with them the possibility of advancing that amount and of paying $2 of it immediately. We sent Mr. Pearsall over to Britain along with Mr. Jones to discuss this with the British government, and it was agreed to. I am just stating this in order to indicate that the advance in price for hogs, which has been made as a result of the increased price on bacon, ought to be taken into consideration when gauging the relationship which now exists or will exist from September 1 on as between whatever the price of grain is then and the price of the product.
In addition to that, we should consider at the same time the fact that at some time-
I do not know whether it will be in 1947 or will run on into 1948-ceilings will probably ' come off all meat and other products, and the adjustments which are then made with regard to grain prices will be made accordingly.
I presume if the ceiling is off everything which is to be fed, then the ceiling may be off the grain too. But if it is not, there will have to be some adjustment of some kind to carry us along for a time.


Mr. MILLER:: Would that be after the termination of existing contracts? No ceilings would come off until existing contracts had expired?


James Garfield Gardiner: It would all depend on when a condition develops which will develop sooner or later. I do not know when it will develop, and I do not think, anyone in the house can help me in that regard. I think we all believe, however, that sooner or later there will be a reduction in prices on the United States side of the line. If nothing else brings that about, greater production there of pork and other products will tend to do so. It has already been happening in connection with some dairy products. That being the case, there may come a time during this year or next when that balance may be reached- and it may be reached also with regard to grain-and when, by taking off ceilings, the whole thing would reach its own level and there would be no necessity for any further controls in order to obtain sufficient meat to fill the British contract, except to maintain the floor price in proper relationship to the domestic price. If the ceilings are taken off meats, dairy products, eggs and other things, then probably the ceilings can be taken off grain too, and the whole position may find its proper level at that time. But I repeat that does not deal with the question which is raised as to whether freight should be paid on hogs-and cattle too, I presume-being
shipped east because grain is being shipped east at the expense of the government to feed live stock.


James Arthur Ross: The minister will admit that this policy must tend to have bacon and beef produced only in certain sections of Canada. Most people are human and are after a profit. This policy certainly does tend to have the people in certain sections of Canada do the feeding. They purchase their grain such as barley at twenty-five cents a bushel, and it takes about twenty bushels to feed a hog. That is a $5 per hog advantage over the other people of Canada. So it does tend to have production just in certain sections of the country.


James Garfield Gardiner: I would agree that from now until August 1, not knowing what the condition will be after that the inducement is to produce hogs in the areas outside those in which the grain was produced. That is probably the normal thing to do at this time. The hogs and cattle which will be fed in the early part of this year will be fed with grain already grown. The hogs and cattle fed in the latter part of the year will be fed with grain produced under this policy. So that the encouragement down to the first of August will probably not throw things out of balance to any degree. But there is an influence in the policy put out the other day which will tend to have the hogs produced in the east rather than in the west. There is not any doubt about that: But I cannot conceive of any policy, apart from an acreage bonus policy, which could have the opposite result. However, the acreage bonus policy would have been most difficult to apply along with an increase in the price of grain and an increase in the price of other products. You would be paying both ways if you had both things happen. We could not find any real way of doing the job other than in the way in which it is now being done.


Mr. McMASTER:: The minister a few minutes ago purported to give an answer to a question asked by the hon. member for Temiscouata yesterday.


James Garfield Gardiner: Which question is that?


William Alexander McMaster: The question which the hon. member for Temiscouata asked was this:
My last question is this. Will the minister he kind enough to put on record on Hansard a list of the commitments actually in force regarding the shipments of agricultural products to other countries, by class or category of commodity.
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It struck me that we are dealing with an act, and some of us perhaps do not know to what extent we are committed.


James Garfield Gardiner: The question which is referred to there is the one to give the quantities for each one of the contracts and the prices at which they are to be delivered.


William Alexander McMaster: It did not say the price, but the price would I think, be important. What the minister read out was the proportion of each commodity that was shipped every week.


James Garfield Gardiner: I did not read out this long one which gives much more information, but it is not exactly the information the hon. member is suggesting. This table which I could have referred to is in the Economic Annalist that we get out, dealing with all these matters, and the information is all given in tables. Unfortunately these tables are not as completely up to date as one would hope to find them. As I said to the hon. member for Temiscouata when he raised the question, there was one question about which I did not yet have full information. I hoped it would be here this afternoon, but probably I had better put on record what I have in case the complete information may not come in. Bacon, for the calendar year 1947, 350,000,000 pounds; for 1948, 400,000,000 pounds. In the agreement for 1947 the price of bacon was $25, but it was increased-and that figure does not show here -by $2 at the beginning of the year, and now it is to be increased by another $2 in September. That will make it $29. Unless something happens this year which changes the whole situation and requires further negotiations, that would continue on during the following year. The figure for beef, for 1947, is 120.000,000 pounds at $21 per hundred. For 1948 the effect of the way it is written into the contract is that it is 120,000,000 pounds. But the understanding is that they will take, and that they expect to be prepared to take whatever we can provide for them.


An hon. MEMBER:: At the same price?


James Garfield Gardiner: I would not want to be definite about that. I believe it is a higher price than is stated here, but I would not want to be too definite without having the full figures before me.
With respect to mutton and lamb, the period covered is again 1948, although no figures are given for that year. The figure for 1947 is 10,000,000 pounds. There is no price given in these tables.

With respect to eggs, there is provision for 83,000,000 dozen each year. The prices are not stated for the last two years. The price is stated for the year that has gone by. Then, they have gone up half a cent, following the announcement I made the other day, and there may be some further adjustment in that respect.
Cheese has been twenty cents throughout, since one of the very early years in the war. It is still twenty cents with the equivalent of the subsidy added, and for a number of years the quantity has been 125,000,000 pounds. While that amount has always been stated in the agreement that it shall not be less than 125,000,000 pounds, Britain has had a definite understanding from us during the last season that we would not be able to reach that figure. This has been left as an indication to our farmers that if they reach it, or even go by it, Britain is most anxious to have the cheese. However she has had that understanding from us in the last year, and it extends into the year ahead of us, namely that in all probability we shall not be able to produce that quantity.


Mr. KIDD:: Is it the intention to continue the subsidy of two cents for 94 and one cent for 93?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, but that has no relationship with the agreement, at all. We started that in 1939, before the war, and it has continued right along. There is legislation on the statute books making provision for it, and unless it is taken off, it will continue.
Then, the figure for evaporated milk is 600,000 cases. We have undertaken to ship that quantity in both 1947 and 1948. The price is $4.95 per case.


Mr. FERGUSON:: If we ship next year approximately 103,000 head of dairy cattle to the United States, have we any hope of reaching an amount sufficient to fill these contracts?


James Garfield Gardiner: The number of dairy cattle was 69,000; but that does not change the meaning of the question. I believe the exact number of dairy cattle shipped last year was 69,539. It has been going up during the war, each year.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: They were all for dairy purposes?


James Garfield Gardiner: These are dairy cattle, although some of them may have been killed.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: They may have been killed, but they were shipped out of here as dairy cattle.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. But I will just repeat what I have said before, that I think

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that is a good thing for the dairy farmer of this country, within certain limits. I do not say that to sell all his dairy cattle would be a good thing for him. But up until last year he has been increasing his number every year, without cutting down on the number of cows being milked. Last year the farmers did cut down slightly on the number of cows milked, and we began to get somew'hat concerned about it. We would like to have the number stay up where it was in preceding years. But again the question of feed is involved, as well as the inducement which is given to the farmer to sell, because of the prices he can get. I would say that up until the year we have just come through the number of dairy cows the farmer could sell to the United States has been a help to him, rather than a hindrance.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: In view of the price
for which the farmer can sell his dairy cattle in the United States, as compared with the lower price he would receive in Canada, is it a greater advantage for the farmer to get rid of his cattle rather than to retain them and receive a higher price for his product? It must be a distinct advantage for the farmer to ship his cattle to the United States and get rid of them. In the minister's opinion is it owing to the fact that the price the farmer is receiving for his products is not high enough to induce him to keep the cattle?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is no doubt that the prices of dairy products, the price of cattle and the price of everything of that kind is higher on the United States side of the boundary line. If we were to open up the boundary on everything, the same as we do with respect to breeding stock, and include dairy cattle, then of course all our food products would go to the United States. There can be no doubt about that, under present conditions.
But that, again, is all part and parcel of the price control policy we have followed in Canada, a policy which most of us think has done a better job for Canada than would have been done by allowing such slipshod activities as have been going on in the United States. Most of us here believe that. And if we believe that, then of course there is only one thing to do. If we think the dairy farmer in Canada is being hurt, then the thing to do is to do the same in connection with dairy cows as we have done in connection with all other products. We do not allow other products to go to the United States. We just say they cannot go.
I do not believe, and I did not believe during the war that it would be a good thing
for the dairy industry of this country to close the boundary line with respect to the shipment of dairy cows out of this country into the United States. Indeed, I think it would be a bad thing for the dairy farmer, and I think most dairy farmers believe that.


Calvert Charlton Miller: I should like to ask the
minister two questions, which do not relate to each other particularly. In the first place, I am not clear as to the minister's answer to the question asked regarding the lifting of price ceilings. During the term of the British bacon contract, is it true that the ceiling might be taken off hogs, before the price on the open market, or the world market, became equal to or less than the British contract price? That is my first question.
Is the minister of a mind to consider the suggestion made by the hon. member for Souris, a suggestion which appears to be one of the most constructive for the assistance of hog production in western Canada which I have heard in the house during the short time I have been a member of it? It seems to me that something will have to be done to encourage the production of hogs. The suggestion offered by the hon. member for Souris is one which would tend to equalize the disparity which now exists between eastern and western producers. The hon. member's suggestion would have a tendency to equalize, and I should like to know whether the minister intends to consider it or whether he intended to state to the committee that he would give no consideration to it.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member's suggestion is not a new one. As the hon. member for Souris knows, it has been put forward by farmer organizations for the last two or three years. About a year after we began paying the freight, that began to be a matter of agitation in western Canada. Down to the present, the answer we have always given was that this arose out of a case which had been presented by the maritime provinces, to the old railway board, asking for an adjustment of freight rates just as an adjustment upward is now being asked by the railroads. They had made an application to have adjustments made, and British Columbia made a similar application in connection with shipments of grain westward. They wanted to change the local rates as related to local as compared with export rates on feed grain. We were just in the midst of a discussion of that when the war opened. A decision had been given to the effect that that could not be done.
The maritime provinces then changed their request for an increase in freight rates to one for assistance from the government to pay the
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freight. Prior to the war, that had not been done. After we got into the war, it was found that we had to send some bacon and other live stock products which were needed particularly in Europe to the maritime provinces in order to feed the people of the maritimes. Everyone became anxious to increase the production of bacon, beef, eggs and dairy products in the maritimes. It was thought that would be a good thing, not only for the prosecution of the war but for the country as a whole. We started out, first, by paying part of the freight from Fort William, and then, later, we paid it all.
The discussion is now as to when or how much of it we ought to take back. We were discussing this whole situation last week, and we decided to announce that the freight will not be taken off in so far as the maritimes and the eastern provinces and British Columbia are concerned until at least July 31, 1948. That is as far as we have gone. I do not think the government would want to become involved in any discussion as to whether we are to start to do the same thing on hogs and cattle at least until we have settled the other matter. I would submit to the committee that if we are to embark upon that plan it will not make much difference what the freight rates in Canada are in so far as the farmers are concerned, because the taxpayers of Canada will be paying them all before we are through.
I realize that the hon. member for Souris has said that he is not objecting to this being done for the eastern farmer. I would answer by suggesting you have to balance everything that is being done in the west against everything that is being done in the east in order to arrive at a conclusion as to whether one is being treated the same as the other. I have stated before that I fed hogs in both western Canada and eastern Canada, or at least up until a few months ago.


An hon. MEMBER:: Which did you quit?


James Garfield Gardiner: I did not quit either. I turned one of them over to another member of the family because I could not look after that end of it. As nearly as I can figure-and I try to figure very closely on my own operations-you could make -more money during the war feeding hogs in western Canada than you could in eastern Canada. There are all kinds of reasons for that, quite apart from freight rates. In other words, I prefer to farm out west.


James Arthur Ross: You have a $9 per hog advantage in eastern Canada.


Calvert Charlton Miller: What about the question I


James Garfield Gardiner: I really cannot give any information that -would be helpful to the committee as to how and -when ceilings are to come off. That would be a most difficult thing to do. I think they will come off eventually, but as to how they will come off or what the conditions will be or whether they will come off a little before prices come down to world levels, I cannot say at the present. I only know that we have placed on the statute books a measure called the Agricultural Prices Support Act, which is supposed to take over when conditions develop which make it impossible for us to maintain reasonable floors under this legislation.


The ACTING CHAIRMAN (Mr. Golding):: I would call the attention of hon. members to the fact that we are dealing with section 3, and speeches in committee must be relevant to the section before the committee.


Mr. FULTON:: I should like to ask the minister a question with regard to the power to requisition given to him under section 3. Would he be willing to accept any limitation? Perhaps he would be willing to introduce an amendment himself which would have the effect of putting certain limitations upon his power to requisition.


James Garfield Gardiner: That would come under section 5.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I think it would properly come under section 3, which reads:
. . . the minister may . . .
(a) . . . make such arrangements to sell or export agricultural products ... as he considers necessary or desirable.


James Garfield Gardiner: That has reference only to agreements.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Then section 5 states that the governor in council may make regulations for carrying any of the provisions of this act into effect. I think it is under section 3 that the power is really given.


James Garfield Gardiner: The power is given by section 5, but I am ready to let the hon. member discuss it now.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I do not think it can be done as well under section 5.


James Garfield Gardiner: The proper place to discuss it would be under section 5, but we will not block you if you want to carry on with regard to requisitioning. However I cannot discuss it even though you do raise it now because I am not going to break the rules.

Agricultural Products Act


Edmund Davie Fulton: I do not think that is a reasonable statement because so far no argument has been advanced to support it. If the power is to be limited, then the amendment limiting the power would properly be made under section 3. It certainly would be a great deal easier to do it along the lines I have in mind than under section 5.


James Garfield Gardiner: Is the hon. member discussing requisitioning?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Yes.


James Garfield Gardiner: Section 5 reads:
The governor in council may make regulations for carrying any of the purposes or provisions of this act into effect and, in particular, but without limiting the generality of the foregoing, may make regulations requiring the shipment or delivery to or to the order of the minister or the storing for future delivery to the minister . . .


Edmund Davie Fulton: That is not the section which gives you the power to requisition; that section merely sets forth in specific detail that you have that power.


James Garfield Gardiner: Section 3 is the section which gives me the power to make agreements.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It gives you the power to sell or export agricultural products.


James Garfield Gardiner: That would be an
agreement.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It gives the power "to make arrangements for the purchase, sale or export of agricultural products." That would be arrangements with regard to obtaining the commodities.


James Garfield Gardiner: Why do you desire to discuss it under this section when it can be fully discussed under the other without being out of order?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I have endeavoured to give my reason. I want to ask the minister if he would not be willing to accept an amendment, or perhaps introduce an amendment to section 3. If section 3 is carried there would not be any opportunity of coming back to it. I can bring it up under section 5 if the minister will agree that at that time he will take under consideration my request for an amendment to section 3.


James Garfield Gardiner: If it has to do with requisitioning, an amendment could be moved to section 5 but not to section 3.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Perhaps the Chairman would interpret that section, because I maintain that the power to make arrangements for the sale 83166-100
or export of agricultural products includes the power to requisition them, and the power to make regulations relating thereto is specifically mentioned in section 5.


William Henry Golding: If I were pressed for an opinion I would say that the amendment should be moved to section 5.


Mr. SENN:: On Monday the minister made a statement that the price of oats and barley was to be raised, and he said, as reported at page 1408 of Hansard:
Feeders, on the other hand, will be protected against any important increase in costs of the oats and barley they buy by appropriate subsidies.
I instance the case of a farmer out west who could sell his oats and barley at these increased prices but preferred to feed it to hogs. Will he be entitled to the subsidy? If not, why not?


James Garfield Gardiner: If he feeds it to hogs on his own farm?


Mark Cecil Senn: Yes.


James Garfield Gardiner: He would not be entitled to anything if he fed it to hogs on his own farm.


Mark Cecil Senn: Why not?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have gone over that every year. I do not know how you could do it. I do not know how I could tell on my own farm how much grain was fed to hogs unless I put every bit of grain I fed on the scale. If we could figure out a way in which it could be done, so that a farmer would be in a position to prove to an auditor the exact amount he had fed, that might be one way; but the way farms are run I cannot conceive of any farmer being in a position to make a declaration as to the exact amount of grain he had fed, in order to get a subsidy.


Mark Cecil Senn: I think it would be a good thing for the farmer himself to know exactly what amount he was feeding. Too many of them do not know how much grain it takes to produce a pound of pork. If he cannot get a subsidy on the grain he feeds on his own farm that will make it all the more necessary for him to sell his grain.


James Garfield Gardiner: This has been going on for years and it is only to continue to August, so that I do not think we should change it now.


Mr. WRIGHT:: How does the government intend to differentiate between feed being fed to poultry, cattle and hogs, because a subsidy is being paid on feed for the latter purpose?

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James Garfield Gardiner: I am afraid that we are getting a little away from the bill. We are discussing the announcement made the other day with regard to feed grain. I think it would be better to leave that discussion until some other time.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: Is the minister aware that, as a result of the slipshod manner of handling food commodities in the United States, the consumer in that country can buy bacon, for instance, cheaper than the consumer in Canada?


James Garfield Gardiner: I was not speaking of the slipshod manner of handling foodstuffs in the United States but was referring to their controls.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: Taking off price controls in the United States has resulted in food commodities being cheaper to the consumer in the United States than in Canada.


James Garfield Gardiner: I suggested that in all probability prices would find their level within the next year or two. Dried milk, for instance, is selling cheaper in the United States than in Canada.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: And bacon.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not sure about bacon.


Mr. TUSTIN:: Yesterday the minister said that all these products to fill the British contracts were being bought at the floor price, and at the end of his statement he said:
If the products can be sold at a better price for consumption in Canada they are sold for consumption in Canada, but somewhere under the ceilings which have been put on.
At that point I interjected, "Does that apply to cheese?" The minister answered in this way:
That applies to all these products, cheese and everything. We bought the cheese at twenty cents a pound. There has been more compulsion in connection with cheese than with other products.
For a number of years the government of Canada has been buying all the cheese manufactured in Quebec and Ontario, from April 1 to November 1 in some years, and last year from May 1 to November 1. Cheese producers are not allowed to sell their cheese anywhere else. It must go to the government to be shipped to the United Kingdom and government regulations are laid down that the cheese must be white in colour, of a certain weight, unwaxed, and comply with other conditions laid down. The minister now tells the committee that if the products can be sold for consumption in Canada at a better price

they are sold in Canada. Therefore I am asking the minister again why the farmers of Ontario and Quebec are placed in the position where the government requisitions at least eighty-five to ninety per cent of their cheese production, which is bought by the government at the floor price. Why is it not bought at the ceiling price? If the present policy is to be continued I protest strongly on behalf of the farmers in my county.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 4-Commodity boards.
James Garfield Gardiner: Last night on the spur of the moment I accepted an amendment which made subsection 1 of section 4 read:
The governor in council shall establish one or more commodity boards with adequate producer representation.
That is how it reads with the two amendments which were made. The hon. member for Dauphin called my attention at the time to the fact that was exactly the effect of the amendment which he had proposed and which I had rejected and that I had given him the reasons why it should be rejected. I looked at the bill again last night and I see the reasons quite clearly. I pointed out to him that one of the authorities which I or the boards set up under me have is to enter into contracts for the storing or processing of agricultural products. In the shipment of bacon we have to require that the product shall be taken possession of much earlier than the date on which it is to be shipped. We must take possession at the time it is being put into the brine to be cured, so that at times the order has to be given without much opportunity for delay. I suggest that, in order to deal with a situation of that kind, after the word "and" in line 25, there be inserted the words "the minister". Then it will read:
The governor in council shall establish one or more commodity boards with adequate producer representation and the minister may authorize and require a commodity board to exercise and perform all or any of the powers . . .
And so forth.
That will make it possible, if the board comes to me on a certain day and says that there is some bacon at some particular plant where they may not be conforming with the wishes of the other forty-three plants-I think there are about forty-four delivering-then the Wiltshire sides at that one ought to be ordered into the brine as well. Under these circumstances, there is no time to get an order in council or to call council together. That action must be taken on whatever the facts are at the time. I would suggest that the words "the minister" be put in there.

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William Henry Golding: In view of the explanation given by the minister, is the amendment acceptable to the committee?


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
On section 5-Regulations.
James Garfield Gardiner: May I be permitted to put in the amendment so that the committee will have the whole thing before it? The amendment was proposed on second reading of the bill. I submitted copies of the amendment to the leaders of the different opposition groups, and I have copies here. I shall ask my colleague to move it.


Mr. FOURNIER (Hull):: I move that:
Subsection 5 (1) to be repealed and the following to be substituted therefor:
5.	(1) The governor in council may make regulations for carrying any of the purposes or provisions of this act into effect and, in particular, but without limiting the generality of the foregoing, may make regulations
(a)	Requiring the shipment or delivery to or to the order of the minister or the storing for future delivery to the minister of such agricultural products as the governor in council considers necessary, for the fulfilment of any contract for the sale or export by His Majesty of the said agricultural products to the government of any other country or any agency thereof and determining the prices to be paid for or in respect of any of the said products so shipped, delivered or stored, which prices shall be based on the appropriate contract price and shall bear a proper and reasonable relationship thereto.
(b)	For the purpose of regulating the movement of apples from one province to another and requiring that any such movement be made only by or under the authority of a provincial marketing board.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I should like to discuss first the power of requisition. With deference to the minister and to your previous ruling, Mr. Chairman, it is difficult to discuss the power under this section because it gives only the authority to make regulations for carrying out the power already conferred. It is merely specified here, so that there will be no question that that power exists and that regulations may be made for the purpose of enforcing that power. It would have been more appropriate to discuss it earlier, and that is why I am under some difficulty in discussing it now.
In view of the fact that the minister has said that he would not oppose latitude of discussion on this section, perhaps I can put forward the views I have. What I wish to ask is whether the minister would be willing to accept an amendment which would limit his powers to requisition. The effort which has been made by the official opposition in regard 83166-100i
to this bill was mainly to get a complete marketing act, so that there would be no question that the producers who are affected would have a say as to the quantities and the prices of commodities mentioned in these international agreements, and the regulations and terms upon which they were marketed and exported. If that had been done, then the objection that I am about to make would no longer apply. Since that has not been done, we are in the position where the minister alone sets the prices under an international agreement and indicates the quantity which shall be delivered.
We have been able to get only a limited assurance that he must discuss the matter with the producers boards before he does that. Therefore we are in the position, as was established, I think, with some degree of conclusiveness in the wheat agreement and the position which seems to prevail in the cheese and egg agreement, where the producers feel that their produce is being sold at a price which hardly pays them the cost of production. That is adopted as a matter of government policy in order to assist in the reconstruction of Great Britain particularly and of the continent of Europe. With that policy there is no disagreement, but with the administration of the policy there is a large degree of disagreement because we feel that the farmer should not be expected to bear the burden of the policy alone.
Briefly to recapitulate, we feel that if the farmer through his producer boards were able to set the price and the quantity there would be no danger of his having to bear the burden of what might be a disadvantageous agreement. Since that is not the case the minister can make further contracts which may be bad ones from the point of view of business and which may involve the farmer in heavy financial losses when compared with what he might be obtaining were his produce not being sold exclusively subject to the terms of the agreement. The position is this:	if the minister,
since he is now in exclusive charge of making these contracts, sets the prices, he may make a food agreement, and he can then step in and requisition all the agricultural produce he needs in order to fulfil the agreement. If he did not have the power of requisitioning, the only way he could fulfil his agreement would be by buying on the market at the current price which presumably, under normal circumstances would be a price which would repay the farmer his cost of production and give him some profit. Therefore I wish to suggest, first, that by taking this power to requisition everything the minister is in a 
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position where he may be able to enforce the terms of a bad agreement and make the farmer bear the whole of the burden instead of distributing it across the country. The minister has said that in some instances it is necessary to have the power to requisition, and he referred specifically to bacon. It is agreed that if we make contracts the minister must have reasonable power to carry them out. I do not think anyone would question that; but we should like to preserve this principle, that the cost of carrying it out must be borne by the country as a whole and not by the agricultural producer alone. I ask specifically whether the minister will limit his power to requisition to that necessary to fulfil the bacon agreement? At the moment I cannot conceive of any other agreement where he needs the power to requisition and where the circumstances would be the same as that which affects the bacon agreement.
As I say, the only time he would need the power to requisition is where he sold large quantities of produce at a low price which would make the farmers unwilling to part with their produce, which would necessitate his stepping in and requisitioning.
Although we may have the assurance of the minister that it is not intended to make bad agreements and then step in and requisition to enforce these agreements, I do not think it is a proper principle for the house, and for the opposition in particular, to accept this assurance, for the reasons which were put forward by the Minister of Justice in the argument which he made in 1934 and to which I have referred. He did not think it was proper for parliament to grant powers the exercise of which it did not approve. That is the position in which we find ourselves at the present time.
Just today I came across an argument used on March 3 in the British House of Commons, which puts the position so clearly that I should like to read it. I put this argument forward to the minister in all sincerity; I am not even suggesting specific amendment myself; but I am asking him if he will, to meet these views, see fit to find a way of limiting his powers of requisition so that they cover only the bacon contracts. The particular thought I have in mind in making this suggestion was used in an argument by Sir Arthur Salter in the British House of Commons on March 3, when he referred to a number of bills which, he maintained, granted excessive power. In these bills, he said:
. . . clauses have been drafted so widely, that it has been easy for us to demonstrate that quite fantastic abusive action could be taken
IMr. Fulton.l
within the powers of the bill. When this has been demonstrated, the minister has always said:	"That is not what I intend to do. I
intend to do so and so. I have quite a reasonable policy." We may agree that the minister is sincere and that his policy is reasonable, but we cannot properly accept such assurances as alternatives to drafting the law in such a way as to define his powers. Otherwise, we abdicate from our position as legislators. We are concerned in this house, as legislators, with the legal intention which is to be inferred from the words of a bill, and not with ministerial intentions or assurances which do not bind even their successors of the same government and still less their successors in another government, while the measure itself, with all the powers which were given originally, still survives.
That is exactly the feeling I have with regard to this bill and particularly sections 3 and 5, which give the minister complete power to walk on to every farm in Canada and requisition such produce at such prices as he wishes. I am quite certain that he himself will agree that he does not intend to exercise that power and that he does not need to have all that power for carrying into effect the agreements he has made, and which he may contemplate making. I put these views before him and before the house, coupled with a request that he himself introduce an amendment imposing upon his power of requisition such limitations as will confine it to those things which he absolutely must do in order to carry out the specific agreements he has in mind.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: May I ask the
minister a question, seeing that I could not hear clearly what the hon. member said? Am I correct in assuming that the reason for the amendment in connection with apples was to enable the government or the department to fulfil the contracts with Great Britain and to take care of our apples?


James Garfield Gardiner: The reason for the
amendment with regard to apples is to make it absolutely clear that we have the power to make an agreement with Great Britain. There is no agreement on apples similar to what we have on bacon, but in past years we did make an arrangement under which apples were sent to Britain on certain understandings. The idea is to get an agreement similar to the one, spread over a period, which we have on bacon, but there is no such agreement, and there was no separate order in council other than that having to do with the special products board which authorized us to deal with that situation.
I was informed, after we had presented this bill to the house the first time, that we did not have the authority to direct what should be done as between provinces. That is not required in any of the other contracts but

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would be required in this one in order to carry it out as the producers want it to be carried out.


George Alexander Cruickshank: It was my assumption that this was considered necessary if we require, as we do, a market, and I should like to have it made clear why two hon. members from British Columbia are opposing the principle that we should have the right to enter into these agreements with Great Britain to dispose of our apples. I cannot understand why two members from British Columbia are opposing that right.


Edmund Davie Fulton: What two members?


George Alexander Cruickshank: The hon. member
for Kamloops and the hon. member for Yale.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Perhaps the hon. member will quote some passage in Hansard where he finds us opposed to that being done.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Perhaps the member for Fraser Valley can state that neither of the two hon. members voted in favour of the , bill.


Mark Cecil Senn: I am sorry that the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling) is indisposed and is unable to be here. He asked me to bring to the attention of the minister the word "apples" and to suggest that, if possible, that word be changed to fruit, because there are a number of small fruits that are traded between the provinces, and he thinks it would help substantially if "fruit", which would include apples, were used instead of the word "apples". He also asks that, if possible, it apply to trade from one province to another as well as to export trade. He gives the names of a number of countries to which the British Columbia fruit board have been selling apples in past years: South American countries, Newfoundland, the Scandinavian countries, Egypt, Australia and so on. I give that to the minister for his consideration. I know the hon. member for Yale feels strongly about it, and I should like to hear what the minister has to say.


James Garfield Gardiner: On the last suggestion, I would say that the intention of this bill is not to give us authority to interfere in interprovincial trade in a manner which I think is suggested here. We have arrangements with Britain, under which we send certain fruits to that country. We go into different provinces and arrange for the purchase of it. That, to my mind, has much the same effect as the hon. member for Yale has in mind. If there are berries in British Columbia that are in surplus and they are not able to handle them,
we have during the war been making arrangements to take such surpluses and ship them to Britain. We make that arrangement with the British government. That has met all difficulties and, I think, will meet all difficulties, as long as the situation created by this act exists. I understand that what the hon. member has in mind is that when this situation does not exist there may develop something similar to what we had before the war, the difficulty in interprovincial trade. But this was not intended to take care of that situation, but to meet the situation in relation to apples. There are producers' organizations across the country and they are in a position to enter into interprovincial arrangements. There is nothing particularly legal about it, in the sense that the suggested organization in Ontario is not legalized under provincial statute in the same way as some of the others may be.


Mark Cecil Senn: Does the provincial statute give the board power to deal interprovincially without corresponding legislation here?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have some doubts about that. I should not like to offer a legal opinion upon it. The position in relation to apples is this. They are able to come to understandings, and if by those understandings they are able to carry out an agreement that we may make with Britain, they have come to us and asked us to try to make that agreement. They said that, in order to guarantee carrying it out, we would require to exercise some authority in connection with interprovincial trade in apples. We have taken the authority to exercise certain authority. We do not know that we would do all that we are asked to do, but we have the authority to do it.


Mark Cecil Senn: What about the other countries to which apples and other fruit have been shipped by the board? Does this board negotiate agreements, or how are the shipments made?


James Garfield Gardiner: I presume that where they have agreements which they consider reasonable, agreements with commercial organizations somewhere else, probably we shall not have much to do with that. But when they have a considerable surplus which they are not able to sell under ordinary commercial transactions and they say they would like this sold in Britain, as I said the other night, they would ask that we talk to Britain about exchange and the need of other foods. Under those circumstances we go to the British and say maybe we can make some adjustment that will be satisfactory to both of us, probably our people could use more of some other
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commodity. The suggestion has been made that we took too much cheese from this market. We can go to the British and say, "It will suit our people much better if we leave cheese on this market, or a considerable part of it, and we should like you to take apples." Things of that kind can be negotiated by the government, which would not be understood as between individual organizations in Canada. The apple producers would not feel like talking against the cheese producer, or the British would not pay any attention to them if they did. But when the government goes to the British and says that it would suit Canada better if you take our surplus apples, our people will eat cheese up to a certain level, then we can get an arrangement made with them. That is the kind of thing we will be doing. On the apples, we hope to sell this fifty per cent or whatever it is they generally trade in with Britain, to the British. We are not concerned about who makes the deal, as long as it can be made. But the apple growers wish us to have the authority to make it, and that is what this gives.
On the other question of requisitioning, I am afraid that I cannot say very much more than the government said in Great Britain. I would presume that they obtained their authority from the House of Commons in Great Britain or from the parliament in Great Britain.


Edmund Davie Fulton: They were discussing a different matter.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is exactly the same principle, and I think it applies to almost every piece of legislation we pass in this house about giving greater authority to somebody, than that somebody, whoever it is, ever hopes that he will have to use. He uses it only in very extreme cases.
In relation to these contracts, the only kind of circumstances under which we would use requisitioning is this. We are the lowest per capita cheese eaters in any country in the world for which any records are kept. We eat fewer pounds per head of population than any other country. The British are the largest per capita cheese eaters in the world. According to the last records I saw, they ate sixteen pounds per head of population prior to the war. We ate three. On top of that the market for sixty per cent of our cheese prior to the war was in Britain, and it has been during the war.
It has been my experience that the cheese producers themselves have agreed to our taking cheese and sending it to Great Britain as a part of the policy that was being followed of attempting to help feed Britain with the kind of food they could best get from Canada during
fMr. Gardiner.]
the period. We would not take the suggested action. I am sure our friends opposite would give us credit for having more political sense than to take cheese off the market in Canada, and send it over to Britain at a lower price than could be obtained for it in Canada, just to carry out an agreement. We would not do it for that purpose at all.
On the general question of requisitioning to do a thing like that, we would deal with the cheese boards in Canada and find out their attitude. We would discuss the matter with them. We could not carry it out without their cooperation, because cheese will keep over a very long period of time if you put it away in the proper storage, and you must keep it for ninety days. So these people could put their cheese away and keep it if we did not have that cooperation. But they cooperated with us 100 per cent, because we discussed our intentions with them and had their agreement before acting. The reason why they want us to act is that ninety per cent of them say, "It should be done," and there is no hesitation about it. But there is another small percentage who will not cooperate unless compelled. The. others say, "We should like to do this and will if you say that they should do it." - It is really the same principle as that contained in the legislation which my hon. friends voted for the other night, that the producer should be in a position to sav to the minority, "under the circumstances, you must do this."


Mark Cecil Senn: You are following that practice.


James Garfield Gardiner: We are following that practice, and I admit it quite frankly, in this bill. We have been doing it over a period during the war and we are still doing it.
Let us consider the packers. After all, there is not a great deal of difference in human nature whether it is packers, farmers or others. Some forty packers have inspected plants and we must get all our bacon and ham from those plants. Suppose the forty of them are absolutely agreed to do the thing which is required to be done. They have sat in and discussed it. Everybody has discussed it. The advisers we have from the farm organizations have discussed it, and we have sometimes brought them together and had it discussed. Then they say, "All right, that is the thing to be done. Let us go ahead and do it." Two weeks after we get doing that, there are two packing plants somewhere who say, "I am not going to do that. I can make more money doing something else." The others wish us to have the authority to say to those fellows, "Well, the government can really requisition your product." Up to date I do not think we have

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had to do much requisitioning under it. We just simply make the suggestion. An inspector goes out, looks over the situation and says "Well, we have the authority to compel you to do it, and the other companies are all doing it. Why don't you do it?" That is about all that ever happens. But if we did not have the authority there is the very small percentage of those with whom we are dealing who would just say, "You do what you like; I am going to do as I like." That is the principle which is behind the requisitioning.
There is no intention of going out and grabbing off large amounts in order to try to fill contracts. It may be thought that these contracts have not been good ones, but every time they have been made we have sat down wfith the British; and if it is a bacon contract, we have sat dowm with the packers. We have sent out the best investigators we could find to ascertain how many hogs were going to be produced within the year. Then we have made the best investigations possible to find out how much will be consumed in Canada. We balance it all up and say what we can do. Last year we said, "We can give you only 267,000,000 pounds of bacon and ham." Prior to that we.had been giving as much as 700,000,000 pounds, but last year we said that we could give only 267,000,000 pounds. We hope to reach levels after we have stated them, and we have to do a little of what is called requisitioning in order to get up to that reasonable level. But we are intending to do what was suggested in this case. We have no intention of utilizing it to do any unreasonable thing. I do not think the house would expect that even a Liberal government would intentionally be so foolish. We do want to do the things which are reasonable. We want to have the power to do reasonable things, and nothing more than that. But we must have the power if we are to be able to take limited amounts here and there, or go into a plant and say, "So far as your production is concerned, a certain percentage ought to go to the British contract." But as far as going out and saying that we will take it wholesale, that is not the intention.


Mr. CASE:: I am more or less seeking information with respect to this clause which seems to give the minister very wide powers. As I listened to him, I understood him to say that there is no thought of interfering with interprovincial trade. The question in my mind is this: How could the farmer or anyone else make commitments on a contract unless there is a saving clause in the contract to state "subject to the goods being requisitioned by the governor in council or by the minister"?
That is, how could I sell one thousand barrels of apples, so many thousand bushels of grain or so many pounds of live stock in interprovincial trade, and contract in advance, if these wide powers are provided for the governor general or the minister? In other words, there would be no means which I could employ to guarantee that I could make delivery of the goods unless that saving clause is in my contract. Since the minister says there is no thought of interfering with interprovincial trade, I should like to know from him how we are to carry on interprovincial trade should it suddenly be determined that these things are required for the purposes for which this bill is being passed.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am now speaking as a lawyer, although I am not a lawyer; but what I said w'as that I do not think authority is given in the bill for us to interfere with interprovincial trade, in the sense indicated by the hon. member. It is for that reason it is definitely stated in the bill that, with regard to apples, we have authority which we have not in respect of some other things.
On the other hand, if w7e have the authority to go into a province or into a plant and make arrangements to take or to buy a product for money, take it out of the province and send it into international trade-the deputy attorney general said, we had that authority in interprovincial trade-to that extent we have that authority, but not because it is in this act at all. We can go into Ontario and buy a product and take it into Quebec now.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: You can requisition it.


James Garfield Gardiner: We can buy it. We can go in and say, "We will pay a certain price for that," and get it.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: And the farmer must accept that.


James Garfield Gardiner: The position in relation to those products is that, in most instances, they are in surplus supply before we take them. There may be some exceptions to that; but in most instances they are in surplus supply, and the farmer wishes to sell them. Assuming that the United States boundary is closed-and I am assuming it is going to be closed, so long as this arrangement lasts or until United States prices come down-then there is only one place the farmer can sell his surplus of these commodities about which we have been talking, and that is in Britain. He cannot sell them here. He is producing twenty per cent or twenty-five per cent, or, in some cases, seventy per cent more of the product than wre can consume in Canada. We say, because of the different level in prices
Agricultural Products Act

between this country and the United States, the boundary is closed into the United States for the time being. There is only one place where the farmer can sell them, and that is Great Britain. Under the circumstances we come to him and we say, "This is the arrangement; we are paying the floor price. We will give you this price for all your surplus"; and we take that surplus, and ship it.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: You definitely promise to take the surplus?


James Garfield Gardiner: Under these agreements we undertake definitely to take all the surplus. In fact, our difficulty will be to get enough surplus to send them what they want. There will be no trouble about that, while this agreement lasts. Of course I do not know how long it will last, but I hope it will last forever, so far as my time is concerned. However it may not.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: Supposing a cheese factory has a contract to ship so much cheese to British Columbia or to the maritimes; will the owner be protected if his output is requisitioned?


James Garfield Gardiner: Again, he sends a small percentage, perhaps only thirty per cent, to the Canadian market, while he sends seventy per cent, or wishes to send seventy per cent somewhere else. I can imagine some difficulties in certain relationships. There would be difficulty right now if the United States boundary were open, because, as the hon. member says, the product can be sold in the United States at a much higher price. But that will eventually right itself, and we shall find ourselves in a different position.
While we are in the position in which we are placed today, we go to them and say, "Here is seventy per cent of your cheese. That cheese would be left on this market, with the United States boundary closed; and, if it is, your price will not be a good price." He realizes that. He realizes that this is an arrangement under which we are trying to stabilize the market for a considerable time, and therefore he will go along with it.
I should have said earlier that we do not deal with the individual farmer in respect of these commodities. Rather, we deal with the cheese boards. In a certain sense they are cooperatives of farmers. They work through cheese plants or cheese factories. In connection with bacon, we deal with the packing plants in Canada; that is the only place where we can get it. We do not go down to the farmer and attempt to take his hogs out of the pen, or anything like that. We deal with the bacon when it is in the plant, and when the farmer has been paid what he is to be paid.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: You will not take their surplus of apples?


James Garfield Gardiner: From what has happened, I would judge that in Ontario we will not do anything. We will depend upon the board's having made arrangements with the apple producers in Ontario which are satisfactory to all of them. I do not imagine we are going into Ontario and taking apples to ship to Great Britain under any circumstances. We have not done it during the war; we avoided that.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I had intended to ask a question, but since it is almost six o'clock perhaps I might leave it until after recess. Therefore I would ask the hon. member for Brant to go ahead with what he had intended to ask.


Mr. CHARLTON:: In how many instances has Canada actually fulfilled the contracts which have been made?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have some figures
before me which I shall look at before the evening sitting, and which I will place on the record after the dinner recess. These are figures which I was asked for but which I did not have earlier. However, speaking from memory, I would say that until the end of 1944 we more than filled all our bacon contracts. We filled all of them with respect of cheese down to, I believe it was 1943; that was the last year. I think we went off one year; then came back for a year, and then have gone down again.
In connection with eggs, we have fulfilled most, if not all of our contracts. I believe those are the chief products with which we have dealt. I might add that every year we have more than filled our beef contract.


John Alpheus Charlton: The quantities in contracts have gone down, both in respect of bacon and cheese. Yet we cannot fill them.


James Garfield Gardiner: There is a reason for that.


William Alexander McMaster: Before asking my question, let me say that if the minister had taken up law he would have been most successful, because he is so optimistic of results of cases to come up.
I thought we had decided yesterday that the word "already" should be placed in section 4. That is, we were to deal only with contracts already made. I believe that suggestion was made twice. The act permits dealing with any other contract, whether already made or to be made in the future; is that right?


James Garfield Gardiner: I believe I was the only one who mentioned that, I suggested, if it

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was the desire of the committee to prevent my making any new contracts, that should be done. When I referred to any new contracts I had in mind any contract on new commodities. I do not think anyone ever suggested we should not be at liberty to increase the price if the British were prepared to pay it. That type of contracting was never objected to. But there was a suggestion that we should not be allowed to enter into any new contract. 1 said that, so far as I was concerned personally, I was prepared to accept that, and I thought the government was. But we had been trying to arrange for a contract in connection with apples; I think hon. members on the other side of the house agreed that that was right. If the word "already" was put in, we could not do that. It has been left out. It would have effected apples and beef particularly.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


William Henry Golding: Before the committee rose for the dinner recess, the Minister of Public Works had moved an amendment to section 5, and that amendment is now before the committee.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Just before six o'clock the minister dealt with a request which I had made that he introduce an amendment to limit the powers to requisition under this bill. He made a statement, and during the dinner recess I have tried to do some research on that statement. He said that it was customary in bills of this sort to ask for wider powers than were absolutely necessary to carry out the purposes contemplated in the legislation. I have not been able to find any-


James Garfield Gardiner: Not than were contemplated; that were likely to be utilized generally under the bill.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Wider than were likely to be used. I have not been able to find anything to substantiate that as a principle, and I certainly would not like to accept that or to say that I am satisfied with the whole answer given on the basis that that principle is correct. I do not wish to set up my opinion as being superior to that of the minister with regard to whether the principle exists, but I cannot accept his statement of it as a basis upon which we should be satisfied that the powers asked for are not too wide.
In dealing with the particular argument that I had put forward, the minister said that the 83166-101
boards always cooperate in making their produce available in order to discharge these contracts. That being the case, it is difficult to understand why he will not accept the request made by the official opposition, ever since the bill was introduced, that this bill be made into a real marketing act and that the powers be given to the boards. If the boards have in the past cooperated and carried out his wishes with regard to marketing, then I see no reason why that should not be done. If that were done, then we would not have to ask the minister to limit his powers. I repeat the request that he see if he cannot find some way to limit the powers he is asking for under this bill to just those which he intends to exercise under the normal agreement.
The hon. member for Fraser Valley put forward a view with regard to the attitude taken by the hon. member for Yale and myself which, I think, involves the whole question of our attitude toward this bill. I thought we had made it clear. I represent an area that grows a large amount of fruit. Since apparently the hon. member does not seem to have understood our attitude, perhaps I may be forgiven for trying to make it clear again as I intended to do when I spoke this afternoon.
The position is that we agree that there should be marketing legislation, but we do not see any attempt to confine the purposes of the bill to marketing. There are introduced into this bill a number of things which we are not able to accept. Personally I did not oppose the bill on second reading because I said that I hoped when we were in committee we would be able to cut out those features which we found undesirable. So far those attempts have not been successful, and I find myself wondering whether I can accept a bill which, under the guise of seeking to do something which is desirable, introduces many undesirable features. Personally I find that on balance the bill is undesirable and unacceptable. I do not see how that can be interpreted to mean that we are opposed to long-range marketing or to making agreements to market our apples.
I should like to ask the minister if he would have any objection to adding the words "or in export trade" after the word "another" in the second line of paragraph (b) of the amendment he introduced. That would make the section applicable to export trade as well as to interprovincial trade, and I think it would cover the position which I understand the British Columbia board has taken.


James Garfield Gardiner: The position is that export trade is already dealt with. One thing that was not dealt with was interprovincial trade, and the apple growers thought we should

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deal with the interprovincial situation. Paragraph (b) is to deal with interprovincial trade, while export trade is dealt with in another section. It is dealt with in general terms; we do not say "apples", but it covers everything including apples.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Am I correct in saying that the earlier section does not specifically give the board any powers with regard to export trade?


James Garfield Gardiner: Authority is given in subsection 3 of section 4 to appoint boards to deal with the matter, both interprovincially and for export. That authority being there, this gives us authority to deal with apples interprovincially. We can appoint boards to do both under the other.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I was not able to follow the minister's argument just before six o'clock. I was under the impression that he was dealing with the desirability of including small fruits in this amendment. If he has dealt with that, I shall read what he has said; but, if he has not, I should like to ask him if there would be any objection to including the words "and fruit" after the word "apples" in paragraph (b). The board would then be given power to deal with all types of fruit in interprovincial trade, not just apples.


James Garfield Gardiner: What I was trying to say before six o'clock-and I do not think I said it very clearly-was that in the years during the war that have gone by we found no difficulty in making individual arrangements with the British authorities to take berries in certain forms, usually in the form of mash to be utilized for making jam and that kind of thing. As I say, we have had no difficulty in making arrangements with them but we have had no long-time agreement. We make the arrangements for special products of this kind through the special products board without having a continuous agreement.
These fruits are not in the same class as apples where fifty per cent must go to Britain or somewhere else. It may be that only five per cent or a much smaller quantity than that has to be arranged for. There may be a local market which takes these commodities, and then they depend upon our special products board to make a direct deal with the British to take care of them.


Edmund Davie Fulton: But, as I understand it,
this amendment covers only interprovincial trade.


James Garfield Gardiner: I was trying to point
out, in connection with the interprovincial feature of it, that in most of these cases we have been able to take surpluses which other-

wise might have gone into interprovincial trade, and created difficulty. We have been able to take surpluses and send them to Great Britain. While we are doing that, the interprovincial difficulty does not arise. For instance, in connection with berries in British Columbia, instead of trying to sell them at a low price in the prairie provinces, where their greatest market would naturally be-[DOT] and that market has probably been filled- instead of trying to do it on a low floor price in the prairie provinces, they have come to us and have said, "Can you get the British to take it? Do the British need it?" In all those cases, up to the present time we have been able to take that commodity, and therefore there is no further problem. And we take enough off so that the floor is established.


George Alexander Cruickshank: May I say a word, because my name was mentioned. I do not believe I said one word before recess about marketing legislation. What I did say was that the hon. member for Kamloops did not vote for the second reading of this bill. He is now apologizing for his action in not doing so.


Edmund Davie Fulton: No.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I accept his
apology.


Edmund Davie Fulton: No. I am a good friend
of the hon. member for Fraser Valley, and in order to save the necessity of taking a more formal step, I would ask him to withdraw the word "apologizing," because I have no apology to make for my action in connection with the second reading of the bill.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I shall be glad
to withdraw. I know he regrets the action he took.


William Henry Golding: Shall section 5 as amended carry?


Mr. HERRIDGE:: I have been trying to
get an apportunity to speak for some time. As a member representing a fruit-growing riding, I wish to make a few remarks. First of all, while we would like to have seen accepted the bill recommended by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the government has not seen fit to bring in a bill of that kind, but has brought in this bill.
Representing a large number of fruit growers, I support the bill, and for this reason:	While it is not all we would wish,
we realize that the bill does give the fruit growers an opportunity of marketing their fruit in the coming year with at least some

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reasonable measure of security. We are concerned with seeing our fruit marketed, and this bill does make some provision for that.
I must say I was surprised to note that the hon. member for Kamloops did not see fit to support the bill on second reading. I wonder what the fruit growers of British Columbia would say if this bill were not now accepted by this house?	.


Mr. REID:: They would have plenty to
say; and so would the poultrymen.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I wish to deal briefly with the criticisms the hon. member for Kamloops has made in connection with the power given in this bill to the minister to requisition agricultural commodities. Personally I think the hon. member made a mountain out of a molehill, and his criticism was academic and hair-splitting. I say that for two reasons. I speak with some knowledge, as a grower, and as a member of a fruit organization. I say that experience in the past would indicate that the tree fruit board in British Columbia -and that is the board of which I am speaking-had satisfactory relations with the Minister of Agriculture when it came to making agreements for the marketing of fruit from British Columbia. I understand that also applies to the Nova Scotia board.
I know, and I am sure other hon. members know, and will substantiate me in what I say, that in the past the minister has not taken any action without full consultation and cooperation with the marketing boards concerned.
Because of that fact, and because this bill will be in effect for only one year, I say again that I think the criticism of the hon. member for Kamloops was hair-splitting and academic, and was made without a full knowledge of the facts surrounding the situation.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Would the hon. member permit a question? He is entitled to his opinion as to my argument ; but would he not prefer to see the board empowered to make an agreement, rather than the minister exclusively?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Yes.


Edmund Davie Fulton: That was the only point I was making.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I should like to see it
different in some respects. Indeed, I should have liked to see accepted the bill suggested by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. But I accept this, as being brought forward by the government for the advantage of the fruit growers of British Columbia and other 83166-101J
producers, and I am not going to do anything which would jeopardize the passage of the bill at this time.
Before concluding, I would point out to the minister and the committee one suggestion in connection with the suggested amendment to section 5(1) paragraph (b) of which reads:
For the purpose of regulating the movement of apples from one province to another and requiring that any such movement be made only by or under the authority of a provincial marketing board.
By using only the word "apples" it would appear that there will not be interprovincial control of marketing of pears, cherries, peaches, apricots and plums, all of which are of great importance to the fruit-growing section of British Columbia. Would the minister consider an amendment which would delete the word "apples" and substitute the words "tree fruits." Would he give an explanation why "tree fruits" has not been used instead of "apples"?


James Garfield Gardiner: That same question was brought up by the hon. member for Haldimand at six o'clock, and since six o'clock it has been discussed in another form by the hon. member for Kamloops. I explained at that time that apples are one product for which we had . a difficulty in finding a market outside Canada during the period of the war. In respect of most other commodities, including berries and the other fruits mentioned, we have been able to find a market in Great Britain for those quantities which could not be marketed at reasonable returns in Canada. This has been done by making special arrangements. There have been no long-time agreements with regard to them.
This measure has to do largely with longtime agreements. But by cooperation with the tree-fruit board, and the fruit board of Nova Scotia, we have been able to get in touch with the British when there was any difficulty in connection with other fruits. I believe the hon. member for Fraser Valley will agree with me in that. He will recall that on a number of occasions he and a number of others brought the matter of surpluses of berries of one kind and another to our attention. We took the matter up with the British government and had arrangements made for the marketing of those surpluses in Great Britain.
What I have pointed out was that this section is put in at the request of the apple producers to deal with the marketing of about fifty per cent of their commodity. It has not been urged upon us that there was any necessity for doing more than we have been doing; and I am afraid it would require a number of amendments to the bill if it were to be made
Agricultural Products Act

to cover all the other products which have been referred to, if we want to get into interprovincial marketing generally. I do not think there is any need for it at the present time. I do not think we shall have difficulty, because there are methods of dealing with surpluses which arise, and arranging for their marketing at a reasonable return.
For that reason I hesitate to start in to amend this bill so as to have it cover more than it now covers, after having given a lot of thought to it.


Mark Cecil Senn: May I ask the minister a question for my own information? Does he think that under the provincial legislation which sets up this fruit board in British Columbia they have sufficient power to deal interprovincially without further power being given here?


James Garfield Gardiner: The main difficulty is where you run into trouble in marketing the whole of a product. So long as there is a reasonable market for the surpluses of the product they do not experience very much difficulty as between, say British Columbia and the prairie provinces. The prairie provinces do not grow any of these fruits; therefore there is a market for them there. The only time they have much difficulty with the situation is when there is somewhat of a surplus, and some care has to be taken in putting the surplus on the market regularly and all that kind of thing. They want this government to be able to say under these circumstances that we shall take the control and do the regulating. When we have the bill that is now before the committee on the statute books as an act I do not think that kind of difficulty will arise, because what they do under these circumstances is- to go directly to the government and say, We have a surplus for which there is no reasonable market on the prairies, let us say; we would like you to take that off our hands if you can make arrangements to take it, and that will settle the difficulty and put us in a position where our product can be marketed at the price at which we want it marketed.


Mark Cecil Senn: That applies to other fruits as well?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; it applies to everything. We did it during the war and we can continue to do it during the next twelve months this bill lasts, at any rate.


William Alexander McMaster: Notwithstanding the fact that I may be referred to as the junior counsel for the minister, I wish to assist in the passing of this bill. I wish to say at the outset that I can see no reason why power should not be {Mr. Gardiner.]
given to the minister to help the apple growers of British Columbia. The title of this bill is: "An act to provide for the sale and export of agricultural products." The preamble also speaks about the sale and export of products to other countries. It has nothing to do with interprovincial trade. I do not particularly object to the minister having that power, but I would suggest that he is pinning his faith on the Agricultural Prices Support Act, 1944, because it is referred to in this bill. The minister has taken the power that is given in the said act to appoint a commodity board to function under the present act, and under the Agricultural Prices Support Act he may effectively deal with the sale of apples between different provinces and will not require this amendment.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Subsection 1 as amended agreed to.
On subsection 2-To be laid before parliament.
Mr. BURTON:: Section 5 (2) reads:
Evers* regulation made under this act shall be laid before parliament within fifteen days after it is made or, if parliament is not then in session, within fifteen days after tile commencement of the next ensuing session thereof.
I should like to point out to the minister- and no doubt he fully realizes it-that in all probability there will be quite a number of orders and, regulations made under this act which covers so wide a territory. Consequently the matter of laying them before parliament is, in our opinion, not quite sufficient. Therefore I move, seconded by the bon. member for Swift Current:
That subsection 2 of section 5 be amended by inserting after the word "be" in the first line the following: "Published in the next ensuing issue of the Canada Gazette and shall be . . ."
The subsection would then read:
Every regulation made under this act shall be published in the next ensuing issue of the Canada Gazette and shall be laid before parliament within fifteen days after it is made or, if parliament is not then in session, within fifteen days after the commencement of the next ensuing session thereof.


James Garfield Gardiner: I shall be pleased to accept that amendment.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Subsection as amended agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
Section 6 agreed to.
On section 7-Officers, clerks and employees.
Mr. BOUCHER:: Section 7 is another illustration of something that we have met several times during this session which, to my mind,

Agricultural Products Act
is a definite attempt, or, if not an attempt, an indication of the government's continuing to employ people working for the government or for corporations or commissions of the government without reference to the Civil Service Act. I believe that that is an ignoring of one of the greatest supports and safeguards we have for the public servants of this dominion. Here we have a board set up with power to use their absolute discretion to hire, fire or employ those whom they wish under such terms as they like, irrespective of the services or the Civil Service Act.
The Civil Service Act as it now stands gives a great deal of protection to those loyal people in Canada who have worked for the government and have given brilliant service. There are privileges connected with it; they know their rights; they know their tenure of office is governed by an act of parliament. They know they are not subject to the whim or fancy of some individual employee on a temporary day-to-day basis with personal likes and dislikes interfering with the natural employment of the civil servant.
I can see no reason whatever why employees, clerks and many professional, technical and other officers should be hired by this board in a different way from permanent civil servants. I see no reason why this board should want so to hire them. If one reads the Gordon report on civil service matters he will find that that commission has within the confines of its directives recommended certain improvements in the Civil Service Act. One of the most important of those recommendations suggested a more expeditious and more efficient way of employing highly trained technical and professional men. This bill goes a long way beyond that.
The Gordon report recommended that the Civil Service Act should, in effect, be the procurement branch for those people whom the government wants to employ. This bill ignores that. As I understand it, the Gordon report recommended that the civil service commission ought to be the employment agency for those men whose services are sought by government, boards or commissions, I cannot see why the government wants to ignore the operation of the Civil Service Act, wants to put it in the limbo of forgotten memories rather than use it and improve it.
If these boards cannot get satisfactory employees through the civil service commission, why do the government not say, we do not want the Civil Service Act? Why do they try to make as many employment agencies as they possibly can, outside the confines of the Civil Service Act? It does interfere with our public service. As I have said before, hon.
members should bear in mind that we cannot very well hire three or four different sets of employees without having them compare each other, without having some jealousy, bitterness and antagonism arise with respect to the rights and privileges granted each one. I think we are introducing a dangerous doctrine by having the government bring before us a bill setting up boards, commissions and crown companies and having the employees of these bodies removed from governmental responsibility and from parliament itself. It amounts to a dictatorial privilege of hiring, firing, employing and granting privileges beyond the Civil Service Act. The civil servants of Canada have had a long tradition of rights and privileges and of stability of employment. They know what they get under the Civil Service Act. I do not know what they will get under this bill or what their term of employment will be. Many factors enter into the matter, and I think the minister might very well give it further consideration, particularly in relation to officers, employees and clerks. There may be some excuse for having highly trained, technical men put on some special ground, because they are few in number and are specialists in their field, but there is no excuse for having ordinary employees and clerks, with no better qualifications, no different abilities, and in no different situations, hired by a board of this kind on a basis different from that on which the permanent civil service operates. Would the minister not take that suggestion into consideration and allow the section to stand until he sees whether he can bring in a provision that will have all these people within the scope of the Civil Service Act?


James Garfield Gardiner: A question was asked the other day in connection with this matter. I am not quite sure whether it has been answered. I rather think it was submitted in the form of an order for return. The question asked was -whether employees of such boards, commissions, corporations and controlled industries are on the civil service list and, if not, what are the names of the boards, commissions, corporations and controlled industries whose employees are not on the civil service list? I have the figures given here showing the agricultural food board, exempt, one; agricultural supplies board, exempt, four; meat board, exempt, one; special products board, one; agricultural prices support board, eight. That was at September 1, 1946, and it goes on down the line: Agriculture food board, January 1, 1947, one; agricultural supplies board, four; meat board, one; agricultural prices support board, eight.
Agricultural Products Act

These are the boards we are talking about and I wish to say this with respect to them. In spite of the fact that these figures are so small, I cannot recall any people who come in contact with myself who are not civil servants. These boards that we have are different from some other boards that hon. members will have in mind. It is one of the reasons why there has been criticism that the boards have not farm representation on them. The fact is, they are mostly civil servants. The members of the boards are practically all civil servants, though there are a few' taken in from outside, such as those mentioned in connection with the meat board the other day. There are a few on the cheese board who are men in the trade itself. There are a few persons of that kind on the board. The food board consists of men who are in the inside service. The persons who are doing clerical work are stenographers and clerks who are in the civil service in their own offices, and that has been the case all through the war. We have had very few persons employed to assist in this kind of work, perhaps to a lesser extent than any other department of government during the war period.
We did not appoint dollar a year men; we did not appoint persons outside to take charge of this work. We said that the men who had been trained in it prior to the war, civil servants who had grown up in the service, in the handling of these products, were the kind of people we wanted to have handle these products. So w'e have Mr. Taggart, w'ho is one of the high-ranking employees in the department itself, at the head of two boards, and Mr. Pearsall, wffio has handled the meat business for Canada practically ever since the end of the last war as manager of the wheat board.
These are the type of men who are handling the business. They have their own staffs in their own offices doing the job, and they have done it largely without increased staffs. It is true that we occasionally require short-time employees, probably in Montreal or in Winnipeg, probably somewhere else, to take charge of some work which will only be temporary. This bill is for only one year, and even during the war, when we made these agreements, it was anticipated that, within a reasonable time after the war was over, this work would cease. The persons taken on were competent officials, competent secretaries or stenographers who were asked to assist with the work, some of them only on part time and some with expenses paid when they came to Ottawa. As far as the members of the board were concerned, we may have employed for them in some cases one or two individuals

to do the work that has to be done around their office. These are not civil servants and there is no reason why they should be.
If the figures quoted are the right ones, but whether, they are the figures or not, there will not be any considerable number of them at all, and I suggest that the civil service commission itself would say that it would be more or less ridiculous to ask them to put persons through examinations and everything else necessary in order to obtain the services of these few individuals who will not be civil servants. As I have said, practically the whole staff of these organizations is comprised in the civil service. There may not be any of the types mentioned, technical persons or persons of that kind, and certainly few who will be employed in connection with this. We have these technical persons on our staff now.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: I rise to support the hon. member for Carleton, but I am glad to hear the statement made by the minister. I have always felt that this particular clause in so many of our acts was something that we should endeavour to change so that there would be no misunderstanding as to what was being done. In spite of the fact that the statement made by the minister is satisfactory, I believe that the hon. member for Carleton, in raising this matter, has done something which it was proper to do, because we must drive home to the government, when these opportunities arise, that it is the opinion of the house and, I believe, generally, that in all cases, as far as it is possible to do so, appointments should be out of the hands of the minister and in the hands of the civil service commission which we have established for the purpose.
The minister's statement was a good one and I was glad to hear it, but I wish to endorse what the hon. member for Carleton has said. In spite of the fact that the statement w'as a good one, I think the more frequently we drive this home to the government, the more likely it will be that the kind of policy which the minister says is being carried out in connection with these boards will be pursued in the future.


George Russell Boucher: I cannot go as far as the leader of the C.C.F. has gone in this respect.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: I am taking the face value of what the minister has said.


George Russell Boucher: What the minister has said shows amply that there is no necessity whatever for this section in the bill. If it is the fact that all or nearly all employees appointed by him by virtue of this act are

Agricultural Products Act
civil servants, why not leave them under the Civil Service Act? Why put this section in the bill? Is it put there in case there might in future be somebody not the minister administering the act? Today the country is faced with a difficult problem, and the government itself appreciates the difficulty it is having in cutting down administrative costs and in releasing from the civil service a great many people who have given valiant service to the government during the war and who are now let out because there is no longer any necessity for the functions they have been performing. I submit that they are the people who, having served the government faithfully,. having shown their value to the government, should be continued on under the Civil Service Act and be given preferential appointments under these boards. The same with returned soldiers who have veterans preference. A man with veterans preference *who had served the government for four or five years in a certain department now finds that his work is diminishing and he is consequently being released. The civil service commission could very well assist such people, who have done excellent work for the government, by maintaining them in the service through transference from some department in which they are not needed to these boards. As to getting a few temporaries, they can always be obtained through the civil service commission. The minister has not shown any reason why this section should be in the bill and I would ask him to reconsider it in the light of what has been said.


James Garfield Gardiner: If we want technical men, is it suggested that a man needed for a week's job or even a month's job should come through the civil service commission? Is it suggested that we should take that to the civil service commission?


Thomas Reid: You would not get it through in a year.


James Garfield Gardiner: They are the kind of persons employed in this kind of work. There is not a permanent staff employed in this work. There cannot be any permanent staff employed under a bill that lasts for only a year.


George Russell Boucher: I think the minister will recall that yesterday he said that some of this legislation which was being brought in for a year must inevitably be continued. This is probably one which is to be continued on. If the minister tries to let us feel that we are dealing with something that is for only a short period, I think he is entirely misrepresenting the situation, even in his own mind,
to members of the house. I feel that we should carefully guard against such a provision in this act, because I do not think he has shown any justification for having it in. Would the minister give us some further justification than he has already given for having this section in this bill?


Mr. McIVOR:: Who will ask the civil service for these officers or these technical advisers?


John Ritchie MacNicol: Use the same method as is in operation now.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I wish to endorse what has been said by the hon. member for Carleton. I have nothing in particular to add except this. It seems to me that this is more or less an evasion of the veterans preference. The more of these acts that we have under which the minister has power to make selection, the more it means that the veterans preference is being done away with.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Not necessarily.


George Russell Boucher: Substantially.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: In effect, the veterans
preference is done away with. There is no protection there. I know that with the Minister of Veterans Affairs who, according to his own statement is a great champion of the veterans, we might possibly feel safe. But he might not be there all the time.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I am grateful for the cynical remarks made by my hon. friend.


Mr. GREEN:: You asked for it.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: The minister ought to be able to recognize cynical remarks because I have not heard any more cynical ones than some made by him. Apart from that altogether, I do not think it is treating the returned soldiers preference in the manner in which it should be treated. The Minister of Agriculture belittles the matter. He says, "Well we appoint all civil servants anyway, except perhaps somebody who was appointed for a month or something of that kind."


James Garfield Gardiner: I made it broader than that.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I ask the minister this question. In the appointment of his temporary employees, will he give the returned soldier the preference?


James Garfield Gardiner: I think I have as much reason as anyone else in the house for giving the returned soldiers the preference, and I believe I have given them the preference as
Agricultural Products Act

much as anyone else in the house. I do not think I require to give any undertaking, and the department knows it.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: That is just another evasion, and not a direct answer.


James Garfield Gardiner: I will make it just as direct as you want it. The answer is, "yes."


Alfred Johnson Brooks: That is all right.


George Alexander Cruickshank: May I ask a simple question? If the appointments are made by the civil service, will they be made, as usual, on Conservative recommendation?
The	ACTING	CHAIRMAN	(Mr.	Golding) : Shall section 7 carry? Carried.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
The	ACTING	CHAIRMAN	(Mr.	Golding) : Shall section 8 carry?
Mr.	GREEN: Before this section carries-
The	ACTING	CHAIRMAN	(Mr.	Golding) : It is carried.
Howard Charles Green: Do not be in a hurry, Mr. Chairman.
The	ACTING	CHAIRMAN	(Mr.	Golding) : Order.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: It must be carried four times now, Mr. Chairman.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: You are lucky it does not require a greater number.
The	ACTING	CHAIRMAN	(Mr.	Golding) : There is an orderly way of conducting the business of the house. We called section 7 and it was carried.


Mr. HATFIELD:: Section 6 has not been carried yet.


James Garfield Gardiner: You were asleep.


William Henry Golding: Section 7 is carried. Then I called section 8.


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Chairman, there was a certain amount of cross-fire in the chamber, and while that was going on you may have said, "Is the section carried?"


William Henry Golding: Is the hon. member questioning that statement?


Howard Charles Green: Yes, I am, very much.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The section was carried.


Howard Charles Green: I do not think section 7 should be considered as carried.


James Garfield Gardiner: May I just make a suggestion, Mr. Chairman? There is not any doubt that it was carried. But the usual practice in this committee is to ask that we revert to a section, if it is so desired. If the hon. member asks that the committee revert to section 7, and there is no objection to doing so, we shall probably revert to it. Why have an argument about it?


Howard Charles Green: I am not admitting for a moment that it was carried.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Yes, it was.


Howard Charles Green: However I suggest that we revert to section 7.


William Henry Golding: In other words, you do not take the Chairman's statement about that? You do not accept the Chairman's statement? Is that your position?


Howard Charles Green: I say that we did not hear you say "carried", and I do not think it should be put through in that way.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Yes, it was carried.


William Henry Golding: Order. I want to state again, and state emphatically, that section 7 was carried. Then I called section 8.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Yes.


William Henry Golding: As the Minister of Agriculture has said, if the committee wishes to revert to section 7, it is perfectly in order for it to do so, by consent of the committee.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Unanimous consent.


William Henry Golding: But not by decision of the Chairman.


Howard Charles Green: There is a serious point of procedure involved here, Mr. Chairman. We shall be dealing with many sections of various bills during this session. I have never seen anything like this attempted before. Where a chairman says that a section is carried, and there is some misunderstanding about it, or members do not hear that that has been said, it has always been taken that we should go on with your discussion, and that there would be no such thing as cutting off discussion.


William Henry Golding: Order. There is a proper procedure for the hon. member to follow, and it is not to question the statement made by the Chair. He should ask the committee if it will revert to section 7.


Howard Charles Green: I will ask that the committee revert to section 7.

Agricultural Products Act


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


William Henry Golding: Is that the wish of the committee?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.
The committee having reverted to section 7.


Howard Charles Green: I suggest that this question
of how the employees of the dominion government are to be hired is an important one. Some of the members will remember sitting before the war, on a special committee which dealt with the Civil Service Act. We went thoroughly into the whole question of the merit system. In the last two or three sessions we have seen bill after bill brought in containing the provision that the minister concerned did not need to go to the civil service commission; in other words, bypassing the commission. I would ask hon. members to consider this fact:	In effect,
we are throwing the merit system overboard. It will take just a few more bills of this type completely to ruin the merit system in the Canadian civil service, and that is something which should not be done. I know there are some members of the house, perhaps some in every party, who do not care about the merit system. They would be quite glad to see it thrown out. But if the merit system goes out, we have nothing left but patronage; and surely we have gone far past the stage when dominion employees are engaged on a patronage basis. In this particular case the minister is given the power to hire technical and scientific personnel. He has already admitted that he has technically and scientifically trained men and women on his staff, and they must go through the civil service commission. They have to go through the civil service commission. Why should he now want power to hire people with these qualifications outside the commission? As for the other officers and employees, surely they can be obtained through the commission. I suggest that we should not put a provision like this in this bill. No harm will be done if the employees are engaged through the commission. Therefore I would ask the minister to drop subsection 1 of section 7. The result would be, of course, that the personnel would have to be engaged by the civil service commission.


Angus MacInnis: Ever since I came into
this house I have advocated the employment of the staff of the civil service through the civil service commission. When we had another bill before us a week or so ago an amendment was moved, I think by the hon. member for Haldimand, to have the staff covered by that bill recruited through the
civil service commission, and I supported that point of view. On that occasion the minister concerned said it could not be done, and the hon. member withdrew his amendment. There was far more reason at that time for insisting on having the staff engaged through the civil service commission than there is under this bill. If you turn to section 11 you will find that this is a temporary measure; and personally, though I favour the principle that everyone who is to be a permanent civil servant should be employed through the civil service commission, if this is merely a temporary measure I do not think there is a very good case for insisting that the staff be engaged in that way. We have to be consistent in this matter, and certainly I am not going to press for that change at this time. If this legislation should be continued; if we could make it a permanent measure, as we tried to do, as far as I am concerned and, I believe, as far as this group is concerned we would insist that the staff be recruited through the civil service commission.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Like the hon. member for Vancouver East, ever since I have been in this house bills have been brought in and passed containing the same provision that appears in this bill. Let me read it:
The minister may, with the approval of the governor in council, employ such professional, technical or other officers, clerks and employees as are necessary . . .
That provision has gone through many times in many bills during the seventeen or eighteen years I have been here, not only under this government but under the previous government. I am now asking myself, how many employees now working for the government have been appointed other than through the civil service commission? I agree with all that has been said, that surely the time has come when the civil service commission should be competent to engage the staff required by the government, or that should be done in some other way. I call the hon. member for Carleton the watchdog of the civil service, because he is always on his feet in their defence, and I agree with what he has said. Having in mind what was said by the minister, however, that this is a temporary measure, that may be some justification, but the minister said that this measure may be extended for two, three or four years; or it may become permanent. In that case those employed in a temporary capacity would be taken on as permanent employees, and that would not be fair to the civil service commission. I think we have gone altogether too
Privilege-Mr. Bryce

far in many of these bills in taking the employment of personnel for the government service out of the hands of the commission and leaving it to the ministers of the various departments, and I suggest that the time has come to call a halt.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Joseph William Burton: I am sorry to be bothering you, Mr. Chairman, but I should like permission to revert to section 6 for a short time.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Joseph William Burton: This will not take long, if I have permission.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That section was not discussed at all.


William Henry Golding: The hon. gentleman wishes the committee to revert to section 6.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


William Henry Golding: Go ahead.
On section 6-Advisory committees.


Joseph William Burton: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Section G reads:
The minister may from time to time establish *advisory committees to advise and assist him in the administration of this act.
That deals in part with something we discussed previously, and the minister agreed to make a slight change.


James Garfield Gardiner: I know what you are going to move; so go ahead and move it, without taking too much time.


Joseph William Burton: I am very happy to find the minister so cooperative tonight, and I thank him. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Selkirk:
That section 6 be amended by striking out the words "may from time to time" where they appear in the first line, and substituting therefor the word "shall."
, And the said section be further amended by inserting after the word "committee" where it appears in the second line the following: "with adequate producer representation."


James Garfield Gardiner: Accepted.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
Sections 8 to 11 inclusive agreed to.
Preamble agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
James Horace King: When shall the bill be read a third time?


James Garfield Gardiner: Now, with the permission of the house.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Next sitting.


James Horace King: Next sitting of the house. PRIVILEGE


MB. BRYCE-CABLE FROM SIR WALDRON SMITHERS
Mr. WILLIAM BRYCE (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, with your permission I rise to a question of privilege. I have received from you a cable regarding a statement I made in this house on Monday evening concerning Sir Waldron Smithers, M.P. The cable reads: Speaker,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, Canada.
Please tell William Bryce his criticism of me due to misunderstanding. Hansard reports when I was there in Canada dollar wheat showed good profit to consumer. That was thirty-five years ago. Please ask Bryce give equal publicity. Respectful good wishes.
Waldron Smithers,
Commons, London.
If Sir Waldron Smithers had been well enough informed about Canadian affairs to be justified in making any statement as to what would constitute a fair price for wheat, he should know as much about conditions in Canada today as we know about conditions in Britain. If he had possessed that knowledge he never would have made the statement which he was reported to have made, and which his cable appears to confirm. I still think the knight owes this country an apology for a statement which is the reverse of the fact.
Let me repeat this statement again: If we had done what he alleges we did, we would have demanded the market price, at least for the wheat, and that would be around S3 a bushel instead of the $1.55 Britain pays today. And let me say, I do not begrudge this bargain to Britain because it affords an opportunity for us to assist Britain in her present difficulties, which we are proud and glad to do. In the second place, it lays a base for the establishment of stabilized prices for our products. I personally, along with many Canadian farmers, resent being insulted by one who is a beneficiary of our favourable agreement.


EMERGENCY POWERS
[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Justice) moved that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the continuation of certain orders and regulations of the governor in council for

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a limited period during the national emergency arising out of the war and to provide therein that the governor in council may appoint and fix the compensation of the officers, clerks and employees necessary for the administration of any order or regulation continued in force by the act and further to provide that certain officers, clerks and employees may continue to perform the duties for which they were previously appointed.
He said:	The object of the bill which will
be based upon this resolution is to continue in force for a period not exceeding one year from March 31 next a specified group of orders and regulations of the governor in council which were passed under the War Measures Act or the National Emergency Transitional Powers Act, 1945. In the speech from the throne Ilis Excellency stated the intention of the government in the following terms:
The policy of the government is to maintain only such price and commodity controls as may be required to protect consumers from a sudden and drastic rise in the cost of living, and to ensure the fair distribution of essential goods and services which are in short supply. You will be invited to consider what measures may be necessary to continue this policy after the expiry of the National Emergency Transitional Powers Act. Where it may appear advisable to continue these or other transitional measures, the required legislation will be submitted for your approval at the earliest possible date.
The proposed bill will set forth all the measures of an emergency nature which the government considers it is necessary or expedient to retain subsequent to the expiry of the National Emergency Transitional Powers Act, 1945. The government does not recommend that parliament confer upon the governor in council any general powers to make orders and regulations with respect to general subject matters. Rather it is considered that the stage in progress of this country from war to peace has been reached where it is possible to carry out the policies of translation and decontrol upon the basis of powers which are contained in orders and regulations of the governor in council now in existence.
Hon. members will recall that upon the outbreak of the war in 1939 the War Measures Act came into force upon a proclamation of the governor in council declaring that a state of war existed. That statute conferred upon the governor in council the widest possible powers. Only the extreme nature of the emergency with which the country was faced justified the vesting of such powers in the executive, but this crisis made it imperative that wide powers should be exercisable in a speedy and flexible manner.
With the cessation of hostilities in 1945 it became apparent that, while the emergency created by the war had not by any means come to an end, the extensive powers necessary to meet the day to day exigencies involved in the active prosecution of the war were no longer necessary. Parliament was accordingly advised that the situation no longer called for the continued use of the powers conferred by the War Measures Act, but that powers of a less extensive nature would be sufficient. Parliament accordingly, being of the opinion that the national emergency arising out of the war continued to exist, conferred upon the governor in council power to make regulations for the purpose of (a) providing for and maintaining the armed forces of Canada during the occupation of enemy territory and demobilization and providing for the rehabilitation of members thereof; (b) facilitating the readjustment of industry and commerce to the requirements of the community in time of peace; (c) maintaining, controlling and regulating supplies and services, prices, transportation, use and occupation of property, rentals, employment, salaries and wages to ensure economic stability and an orderly transition to conditions of peace; (d) assisting the relief of suffering and the restoration and distribution of essential supplies and services in any part of His Majesty's dominions or in foreign countries that are in grave distress as the result of the war, or (e) continuing or discontinuing in an orderly manner, as the emergency permits, measures adopted during and by reason of the war.
The National Emergency Transitional Powers Act, 1945, as amended by chapter 60 of the statutes of 1946, expires on March 29 next. The government, however, must advise the house that the national emergency arising out of the war cannot yet be said to have come to an end and that the time has not yet come when emergency measures can be wholly discontinued. In particular, let me emphasize that the time is not appropriate for the complete removal of emergency economic controls for reasons which I shall give later. The government, therefore, while prepared to recommend that the National Emergency Transitional Powers Act be allowed to expire according to its terms, is nevertheless of opinion that certain transitional measures should be continued for the time being.
These measures, of which office consolidations have been printed and circulated to hon. members of the house, fall into three classes which may be described in very general terms as regulative, administrative and legislative. Examples of regulative orders are those auth-
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[Stage Direction]
orizing the continuance of price control, rent control, eviction control, the control of distribution and supply, including rationing. Examples of administrative orders are those relating to members and former members of the armed forces and merchant seamen, the disposition of claims against the crown arising overseas out of the war and the administration of property of the Japanese in Canada. The orders which I have called legislative are the orders relating to old age pensions, veterans preference in the civil service and labour relations. The reason I put those in a special category is that they will be replaced later this session by acts of parliament.
As the house was informed last August, a committee of officers of the Department of Justice and the other departments concerned under the direction of the Solicitor General has since the latter part of 1945 kept under continuous examination and review the orders in council passed as emergency measures. Recommendations for revocation of orders have been made from time to time, and the committee has reported that all but the measures appearing in the office consolidations to which I referred can be allowed to expire with the expiry of (he National Emergency Transitional Powers Act, 1945.
However I should state that there will be a supplement to the office consolidations which will be distributed and which will contain two other orders relating to the control of atomic energy. For reasons which have appeared since the office consolidations were printed, it has appeared that these are orders which it is believed should be continued under the authority of this legislation.
Howard Charles Green: When will they be available?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Tomorrow, it is expected. They will be printed in the appendix to the bill which will be circulated when it receives first reading. At least reference to that will be printed in the appendix to the bill. But the orders themselves will be circulated at once. They are at the printers now, and I was told today they will likely be available tomorrow.
When the bill comes before the house, there will, of course be an opportunity, if the house so desires, of discussing any or all of the orders in council to be continued by the bill; and the ministers of the several departments concerned will be prepared to answer questions in committee relating to their respective orders in council. I think, however, I should say something at this stage regarding the orders relating to the control of prices, rentals and supplies, and especially to the operations of the wartime prices and trade board.
[Mr. Ilsley.l
As I said earlier in my remarks, the time is not appropriate for the complete removal of these important emergency economic controls. While much progress has been made in expanding our peacetime production, and while the flow of output is gathering increasing momentum, production in a number of important fields has not yet overtaken the high level of demand which in some cases, like that of housing, has been accumulating for years.
Moreover, the consequences of the war are still very apparent in external markets. Worldwide shortages of basic materials and foodstuffs limit the supplies of a number of goods available in Canada. On the one hand, they mean extraordinarily large and urgent demands for Canadian foodstuffs, raw materials and other goods, and on the other hand, they limit the supplies of such imported1 basic commodities as sugar, vegetable oils, tin and steel. High and fluctuating prices in world markets give us some idea of the sort of market conditions which would be reflected in Canada if all controls, including export controls, were dropped at this time. While the government has been moving as promptly as conditions warranted in removing controls, there can be little doubt that an immediate removal of all remaining controls would have very serious and undesirable consequences.
In some cases, the consequences are quite obvious. For example, I do not think there can be much question as to what would happen if the controls over rentals and evictions were removed in present circumstances. In the face of the continuing shortage of housing accommodation, it is clear enough that rents would rise sharply and that evictions would be counted in the tens of thousands.
Some hon. MEMBEBS: Oh, oh.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Absolutely true; and anyone wrho denies it is just living apart from the facts.
The results of a sudden removal of price and other controls over such commodities as sugar and vegetable oils, where external prices are high and supplies difficult to obtain, must be equally apparent. Prices would not only rise sharply, but distribution would be uneven and disorderly, and the needs of many citizens could not be met. In the face of the international conditions in the economic sphere and of the gaps which, though narrowing, still persist between domestic supplies and demands, there can be no doubt that prices of foods, textiles, fuels and, of course, rentals would rise suddenly and substantially. The same thing would be true of many basic materials, with consequent additional pressure on the

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prices of many manufactured goods. And not only would prices and living costs advance suddenly and sharply, but we would also be plunged into a condition of disorderly markets, and perhaps soon after would be faced with widespread price declines with their inevitable restrictive effects on production and employment.
I do not suggest that we would be faced with uncontrollable inflation on the central European or Chinese pattern. That obviously is not the case. Production in this country has increased too much for that sort of thing, and we did not, during the war, suffer disorganization and destruction in our domestic economy.
I do say, however, that we would have a sudden and marked increase in our price level, and in the cost of living, which would rapidly carry us toward the notably higher level of prices prevailing in the United States.
One can readily imagine how an abrupt and substantial rise in living costs would contribute to an unsettled state of industrial relations and to delays and interruptions in the production of goods which are so eagerly demanded. It is not difficult to appreciate the hardship and the reduction in living standards that would result for the many families whose incomes are relatively fixed-wage-earners, school teachers, white-collar workers, pensioners and so on. That there would be profiteering and speculation in the necessities of life can be taken for granted. And it is an absolute certainty that many prices, after rising suddenly, would fluctuate widely, and later on decline perhaps as abruptly as they went up. To remove all controls now would be to ask for a sudden and disruptive jump in our prices and living costs at the very time when we can begin to see ahead of us the completion of the job of orderly readjustment. We would be throwing away many of the advantages of the policy which Canada has successfully followed when, with a little more persistence and a little more patience we could pilot ourselves through the difficult period of readjustment without the dislocation and economic disorder which usually follows war.
If we are to achieve an orderly readjustment it will be necessary to continue a number of controls for the time being. I cannot subscribe in any way to the opinion that immediate decontrol would be more conducive to more orderly conditions than the policy of gradual and planned decontrol which the government is following. We have before us the experience of the United States where all
price controls except those over rents and two specified commodities were removed not long ago.


Howard Charles Green: Which two?


James Lorimer Ilsley: That experience gives a very fair idea of what could have been expected in this country had we followed a similar course. What did happen in the United States can be described in its broad outlines quite briefly. In the seven months following June 30, 1948, when O.P.A.'s powers first expired, the official cost of living index rose 20 points, from 33 per cent over the pre-war level to 53 per cent over that level. The food component of the cost of living index rose by 38 points during the same seven months. The general level of wholesale prices in the United States, which was 40 per cent over the prewar level in June, 1946, was 76 per cent over that level in January 1947, and has not declined since.
Not only have prices risen sharply in the United States, but those of a number of important commodities have fluctuated widely and in a manner which it would be very difficult to describe as orderly. To take two very important examples, prices of beef and pork in the United States have been showing remarkable gyrations. The wholesale price of beef in New York jumped from its former ceiling at the end of June of somewhat over $20 per hundredweight, to S55 early in July. It then came down to around 836 and a ceiling of around S25 was reimposed in September. When that ceiling came off the price soared to $62 and then it fell again and the latest quotation is around $40. We can see the same sort of story in pork, in lard and in butter. Whatever else it may be, it is not a picture of orderly conditions. There are, of course, many other prices that have gone up and have not come down. The prices of cotton fabrics rose in line with the rise in the price of raw cotton which was not under price control until the time when controls over textile prices were dropped. Since then the price of raw cotton has shown some decline, but the prices of fabrics have risen very substantially. While no one would suggest that Canadian consumers like the price increase that it has been necessary to authorize in this country, it must surely be clear that the immediate removal of the economic purchasing controls would involve much greater price increases, widely fluctuating markets and opportunities for speculation and exploitation which ought to be apparent to anyone who takes the trouble to examine the actual background of our present position.
15S6
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sold at prices that are higher than is reasonable or just. It would have no power to use other measures which might be necessary even if price control for the commodity concerned was no longer required.
The system which we have had to date has worked and the administration has been efficient and reasonable. Though there are some people who have made quite unjustified insinuations about the wartime bureaucrats, the record of the prices board in efficiency, fairness, and honest administration speaks for itself. I would ask hon. members to consider whether there is any reasonable possibility of abuse of these powers in the light of the record during the war and during the more recent period of gradual decontrol. For myself, I am convinced that there is none. I am convinced that to finish this job effectively we must and we can safely rely on the prices board under the direction of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) to use its powers in a fair and proper manner and in the spirit and tradition which this house would demand.
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the discussion in this house of the proposed measure take place as far as possible on the second reading of the bill rather than on this resolution. The house will then have before it the bill with its appended schedule of orders in council, and after the second reading takes place, will have full opportunity to discuss in committee of the whole not only the orders appended to the bill but the individual provisions of these orders if it is thought fit to have a detailed discussion on these provisions. As I indicated earlier in the session, there will be an opportunity for members to propose amendments to the orders in council in question if they desire to do so, but I am not inviting any such amendments and I hope that none will be necessary.


Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) has suggested that the main debate on this matter take place on the second reading of the bill which will later be introduced rather than that we debate it at this time. With that suggestion we in this party are in entire agreement.
I wish to take but a moment now to outline the position as I see it. The motion before us is to go into committee of the whole to consider the expedience of introducing a measure providing for the temporary extension of certain transitional measures beyond March 29, measures which would ordinarily terminate at that time unless provision is now made for extending them.

The proposed bill, from the statements made by the minister at an earlier time, will deal with about fifty-five different orders in council. The main principle is the extension of the powers granted in all these orders in council. But these orders in council are of varying degrees of importance and they differ widely from one another. I think the idea now of going into committee of the whole, where we may ask the minister questions and then, later on, debate the main principles in the bill, is a good suggestion.
Speaking for this party, I may say we are agreeable to passing this motion at this stage, asking for certain further information in committee, and then, with the bill before us, and at a later time, as the minister suggests, going ahead with the debate.
We propose to reserve the right either to support or to oppose the different sections of the bill in committee of the whole, and to debate the whole general question on second reading. Under those circumstances we are agreeable to the passage of this motion at this time.
Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar) [DOT] Usually when a suggestion of this kind is made by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) or any other minister of the government we try to fall in line with it, but on this occasion I think one must say something more than a few cursory words regarding the motion now before us. I say this, Mr. Speaker, because, as will be seen from the remarks I shall make, we wish to place ourselves on record regarding the whole policy of controls and the policy of the government in regard to decontrols.
If it were necessary tonight to make out a case against decontrols to a greater extent than I am inclined to make it just now, I think that has been done in large measure by the minister himself. His defence of the controls that have been in effect, his statement regarding the situation which developed in the great country to the south last July and again last October, is, I think, a sufficient vindication of the main controls that have been put into effect in Canada and a vindication of those of us who believe that, instead of entering upon a policy of rapid decontrol, even on a planned basis, we should, in the interests of the Canadian people, not only maintain useful controls but, in some instances, even reimpose controls that have been lifted.
The resolution to be considered precedes the introduction of a measure-what for?- to provide for the continuation of certain orders and regulations for a limited period

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during the national emergency arising out of the war; in short, by an act of this parliament to authorize the continuance of certain controls for a certain limited but unspecified period. I wish to say on behalf of this party that we shall seek to amend this motion in order to provide for consideration by the government and by this house of a different policy, the policy of maintaining beneficial controls and indeed, where necessary, of instituting comprehensive controls in order to protect the interests of the Canadian people.
I know perfectly well that in doing this we run counter to a great deal of propaganda in this country, propaganda that has gone on ever since, before the war ended. The amazing thing about this propaganda is that, while it has had some effect in, shall I say, political circles, it has had hardly any effect upon the general public. The recent Gallup polls indicate that conclusively. In the Gallup poll of Canadian public opinion, published in a number of Canadian newspapers on January 18 of this year, sixty-six per cent, or two-thirds of the persons interviewed at that time, answered "no" to the following question:	"There has
been talk of taking price controls off everything but rents after Christmas. Would you approve?" Sixty-six per cent answered, "no"; only twenty-seven per cent answered, "yes", and the remaining seven per cent apparently had no opinion to express. Since then, a number of labour and agricultural conferences have taken place: the United Farmers of Alberta, affiliates of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture in various places, the Canadian Congress of Labour and other organizations. All of them, by resolution, have urged the maintenance of controls in the interests of the Canadian producer and of the Canadian consumer.
Last night I listened to an interesting and, I may add, an excellent radio address by the hon. gentleman who is parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance, the hon. member for Victoria (B.C.) (Mr. Mayhew). But the tenor of that address was how beneficial the controls which had been instituted and maintained had been for the Canadian people. The minister himself tonight made a somewhat similar case on behalf of the controls. Yet controls are being discontinued, even while this parliament sits, I think in the face of public opinion in this country.
The voice of the executive council of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, heard from the city of Toronto on January 28, and demanding the removal of controls as soon as possible, has been, more effective, I believe and heard more distinctly, shall I put it, in

this chamber than the voices of the masses of the Canadian people. What is forgotten is that the demand from private interests is a demand for the ending of public controls instituted in the public interest, for the ending of public controls now under the authority of this parliament, that is, by authority of the elected representatives of the people. I say to this house that the question we should be considering is a different one. We should be concerned, not with the elimination of controls by public bodies, but with the elimination of controls by private corporations, the elimination of controls by private monopolies; and in many respects this is a monopoly-ridden country. It is not a question of controls. It is a question of what kind of controls, by whom, and for whose benefit?
I say that the job of this house is to protect the public and to see that beneficial controls in the public interest are maintained, and as I said a little earlier, extended, if needs be, in the interests of the people and under the supervision of the elected representatives of the people. I know that such controls may embody new techniques of decentralization and democracy, which will enlarge the economic freedom and the social well-being of the people, which surely are the fundamentals of democratic progress.
At the moment we as a party are interested in preventing the removal of price ceilings and price controls, so that the cost of production and the standards of living shall not be affected adversely by price increases. The time will come of course, on the other hand, when the welfare of the Canadian people may be affected by quite the opposite thing; that is, by deflation. When that time comes the people of Canada will again demand the use of controls to prevent impoverishment of great masses of the people from an entirely different cause. As the minister has shown us tonight, our experience during the war when severe shortages of consumer goods existed, as well as in this immediate post-war period, has proved conclusively to the people of this country that public controls and subsidies can be used for the common good. But, as the minister has done tonight, the government on numerous occasions has made it clear that its aim is to dispense with controls in an orderly fashion and as rapidly as the situation will permit.
I wish to put our position in this way. On the other hand, we believe that the world situation and our own domestic situation demand the retention of public controls so that we may eventually stabilize our economy and proceed to expand and improve our own
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standard of living. May I say that, in discussing this problem, we cannot overlook the world situation. The clock cannot be turned back. There is no going back again to the conditions that we knew, I was going to say, in the years before the war. I hope we may never see the conditions we saw in the nineteen-thirties. But what I wish to say is that we shall not see the world return to the kind of economic conditions it knew either before the first great war or between the two great wars.
The improvement of the standards of living for the people should be the aim and obligation of public economic policy; but this requires-and I want to say this emphatically -intelligent planning, and there can be no planning without measures of control. Some of my hon. friends object to planning; they object to controls; yet time and again these same objectors in this house rise in their places and demand the setting of parity prices for farm products, or the elimination of the grain exchange, or the marketing of wheat through a public agency such as the wheat board, and support plans for import and export boards. I wish to say that every one of these policies demands economic planning, and they all demand large measures of control. To secure and maintain proper relationship between the farmer's products and the things he must buy to produce them, and to live decently, requires the planning and control of a very wide area of our economic activity. The trouble is that some people want it both ways, and we cannot have it both ways. We cannot one day demand parity and orderly marketing, and the next day denounce public planning and controls as steps toward regimentation and slavery, as my hon. friend the leader of the Social Credit party (Mr. Low) did in this house during the debate on the address.
Now I wish to say this because we want io put our position clearly before this house, because we believe in social planning and social security-


Mr. LOW:: Planning by whom?


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: By the people of this country, through the democratic institution of parliament.


Solon Earl Low: There is no such thing as public planning.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: There is no such thing as a democratic institution? I believe my hon. friend believes just that.


Solon Earl Low: There is no such thing as public planning.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: Because we believe in social planning and social security, and in the maintenance of intelligent and essential public controls, and because we want to put our position as clearly as possible before this house, I desire to move an amendment to the resolution now before us. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis):
That Mr. Speaker do not now leave the chair but that it be resolved that in the opinion of this house the headlong decontrol policy of the government has depressed the standard of living of the people, threatens the country with economic chaos, and is surrendering the future of Canada to profiteering and monopoly;
And be it further resolved that in the opinion of this house the government should give immediate consideration to the introduction of a system of orderly and democratic controls so as to provide stable price levels and equitable price relationships in order to eliminate the injustices which now exist and to arrest the rapidly rising cost of living.
I have said that in the kind of economy in which we live, an economy still largely unaffected by the world trend toward social ownership, public controls may and will also involve the payment of subsidies. Again, subsidies involve quite comprehensive planning. Last August, for example, this house agreed that subsidies are desirable. It voted by a substantial majority, for example, for the continuation of the milk subsidy, a decision which the decontrol policy being followed forced the government to disobey. The wartime subsidy policj' proved a beneficial phase of our economic planning. In a broadcast over the CBC network on November 8 of last year Mr. Donald Gordon, chairman of the wartime prices and trade board, said:
The subsidy system under price control is aimed to keep down the cost of raw materials at the earliest stage of manufacture. This, in turn, prevents one rising price from feeding upwards to another, as it would otherwise do, because each manufacturer or wholesaler or retailer who handles the goods adds a percentage of the cost to him, as his profits.
Consequently, the higher the price the higher the profit mark-up which is based on a percentage of cost and so the higher the final price to you. That is why the collective saving made by all you consumers far exceeds the amount of the subsidy which is, of course, paid by you collectively as taxpayers.
And a government official, as was mentioned in this house some time ago, stated that for every dollar spent on price control the Canadian consumer had saved at least 855. In commenting on that statement when it was brought to his attention, on February 21 the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) said he did not vouch for the accuracy of the $55, but he could say he was sure the money spent on price controls had saved the Canadian con-

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sumer substantial sums. Yet now the government and the minister are abandoning one control after another. Prices rise and the cost of living goes up. No wonder farmers are worried about their costs of production and farm prices and labour is anxious about current wage levels. Just a year ago the day before yesterday, March 18, 1946, gasoline prices were allowed to go up two cents a gallon. A month later, on April 15, farm machinery was permitted to advance by 12J per cent. Both these increases were criticized by my hon. friends of the Progressive Conservative party and the Social Credit group as well 3-3 by ourselves. Yet they wanted then, as they want now, the speedy removal of all controls; and let me remind them that was before the spectacular increase in prices of farm products in the United States.
Then the budget removed the twenty-five ter cent excise tax on a wide range of articles, out prices of those articles to the consumers, which included the excise tax, were not reduced by the amount of the tax then removed. Indeed, in an answer to a question I received from the government last Monday, I think it was, I was told that the recent increase of ten per cent in the prices of certain articles -and I asked particularly about refrigerators -had been allowed on top of the old prices, plus the twenty-five per cent increase allowed as a result of the removal of the excise tax. I think I heard someone say I am wrong. If that is so, the answer given me by the government a few days ago was also wrong.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I was questioning the fact that there was a twenty-five per cent tax removed recently.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: In the last budget.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I do not think so.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: Then perhaps it was the budget before that. Whenever it occurred, whenever it was removed, it was added on to the price. I will not argue as to when the twenty-five per cent excise tax was removed, but I say, when that was done, it remained in the price to the consumer, according to the answer I received a few days ago. We are told, of course, that price increases were made necessary by increased wages. Well, look at the reports of the bureau of statistics, a government agency. They do not bear out that statement. For example, one important price rise of $5 a ton was granted the steel industry before the men were forced by the increased cost of living to strike for a modest rise in wages.
The government policy in returning the control of the Canadian economy to those
selfish interests who controlled it before the war is not in the interests of the Canadian people. I want to repeat that the C.C.F. believe that intelligent controls under the supervision of the elected representatives of the people, that is by this parliament-I had better narrow that down a bit and say by this House of Commons-are far better than controls exercised by private corporations.
Of course my hon. friends will immediately conjure up the bogey of bureaucracy. What do they mean? They will tell me that the so-called bureaucrats set up by the country have absolute and great power. The power they get is derived from this parliament; this parliament gave it and this parliament can take it away. Sometimes they quote the old saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I agree with that, but public servants are answerable to this parliament. They do . not possess absolute power. Private corporations are answerable to none but their shareholders, and that is quite often ineffective.	.


Mr. HACKETT:: And the law.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: "And the law," my hon. friend says, but what law? It is the law of the private economy in which we live. They do possess absolute power. Let me give an example. I shall give only one, but I could quote a number. The chemical industry^ which strengthened its position and power during the war has further strengthened itself since the war. It has obtained valuable public property from this country through the disposition of that property by War Assets Corporation. Everyone knows, or should know, that the chemical industry in Canada is effectively controlled by du Pont and Imperial Chemical Industries of the United Kingdom, groups which had close associations with the nazi-controlled I. G. Farbenindustrie before the war. A resolution of the du Pont executive committee passed in October, 1939, set out their policy on control. What was that resolution? It is on the public record, but I shall read it. It was as follows:
Resolved, further, that the foreign relations department be advised it is the feeling of the executive committee that Canadian Industries Limited has no right to export any products embodying shareholders' inventions, except that during the present emergency Canadian Industries Limited may be permitted to supply Irii-perial Chemical Industries such goods for sale in the British empire at prices returning a satisfactory profit to Canadian Industries Limited.
That resolution was passed in the second month of the war when Canada and Great Britain were facing a desperate war situation. What about this kind of control of a Cana-
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aian industry by a United States board of directors? What about the stipulation in that resolution that even in the extremity of war Canadian Industries Limited could sell only to the British company goods at only what they were pleased to term satisfactory profits?


Mr. MACDONNELL (Muskoka-Ontario):: That was practically the same attitude taken by the C.C.F. at the time.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: It was the other way; we all voted for war.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: On a business basis.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: No, not on a business basis. I am not going to argue with my hon. friend whose friends on August 26, 1939, six days before war broke out, caused the government of this country to pass an order in council setting aside an act which this parliament had passed in June, 1939, stipulating that no contracts for the Department of National Defence could be let to give a profit of more than five per cent. The Minister of Munitions and Supply replied on September 12, 1939 to a question asked by the present premier of Saskatchewan, Hon. T. C. Douglas; he rose in his place and said that the order in council setting aside that act of parliament had been passed in spite of appeals to the patriotism of some of our manufacturers who refused to accept a single contract on the basis laid down by that legislation.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Does the speaker want to have the record clear on the pure matter of patriotism, because that is apparently what he is talking about at the moment?


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: Yes.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I should like to read a sentence from his own speech delivered on September 9, 1939, which I think makes it quite clear. I quote from page 63 of Hansard of that year-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: I am not objecting; the hon. gentleman has my consent to read what he wishes to read.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I should like to read this one sentence. I am doing it simply because the question of patriotism has been dragged in. This is an extract from the spoken policy as read by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. It winds up this way:
Canada should be prepared to defend her own shores, but her assistance overseas should be limited to economic aid and must not include conscription of man-power or the sending of any expeditionary force.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: That is right, limited to economic aid, but there is no stipulation as to profits.


An hon. MEMBER:: What has that to do with it?


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: Your friends refused to accept contracts unless the act of parliament limiting the profits was set aside. It is those same gentlemen who are today, trying to get rid of controls in order that they may put this country into the kind of mess we had before. I want to go on and say that Lammot du Pont, chairman of du Pont, wrote to Lord McGowan, chairman of Imperial Chemicals, stipulating that Canadian Industries must stay in Canada and not expand by exporting its products except upon terms satisfactory to du Pont and McGowan. That letter is also on the record.
Controls-yes, indeed, the campaign against public controls is in reality a smoke-screen behind which the Canadian economy can be handed over to powerful monopolistic interests. You say that chemicals are an exception. What of aluminum? What of steel? What of farm machinery? You will say that there are three firms manufacturing farm machinery and therefore there must be competition. I was a member of the agriculture committee which held an investigation in 1937 or 193S into farm machinery prices. Read that report and you will find that the manufacturers charged the same price for the same type of machine. We found that prices were usually set after the most powerful company, the International Harvester Company, had published its prices.
What of the packing industry? Again you will say that there is competition. According to the price spreads report, two companies control some eighty-five per cent of the business with one company, Canada Packers, controlling some fifty per cent.
Yes; hon. gentlemen are opposed to controls that attempt to control the prices and profits of these corporations. They call corporation control, free enterprise. Whose enterprise? How free is it? No wonder that Canada is often said to be monopoly ridden and, be it noted, by foreign monopolies at that! Not that I think a native monopoly is any better for the people than a foreign one. We want to see the elimination of that kind of control. We want to see the elimination of speculative agencies in foodstuffs like the grain exchange. We want to see the marketing of wheat continued under a public agency. And I say, because we want to do these things, they involve both planning and control.

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Now to secure a proper relationship between the price of the farmer's products and the things he must buy to produce them and live decently, we require a comprehensive system of planning. And so, Mr. Speaker, I have taken this opportunity, because I think it should be done in all honesty and fairness to ourselves and in fairness to the country, to place before this house in the plainest of plain terms exactly where we stand in regard to controls.
We believe that democracy must extend its own power; we believe that democracy must be made to function; we believe that this political democracy which we possess is valuable and must be safeguarded. The right to free speech, the right to think, the right to elect freely our representatives in our democratic institutions, the right to freedom in religion-these things must be safeguarded. But we shall never have full democracy until we have economic democracy, until the producer through his own cooperative effort, or through the effort of his elected representatives, in the legislation which they enact, is given an opportunity to control and enjoy with his fellow man and woman the products of their own cooperative toil.


Hon. C. G. POWER (Quebec South):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say only a few words with respect to this resolution and to voice my objection to the procedure which has been followed and to the method, the routine, of bringing this legislation before the house. I have neither the time nor have I the researches necessary to permit me to discuss this question of procedure from the constitutional point of view, or even from the point of view of the rules of the house. But from the point of view of custom and usage, I respectfully submit to the minister, and the ministry, that this is a most unprecedented resolution.
In the ordinary course, when it is proposed to ask parliament to appropriate money, resolutions are introduced asking for the appropriation of specific sums of money. The estimates, which are familiar to all of us, carry a list of some 600 or 700 items, and each one of those items is a resolution of this house. The sacrosanct formula used by the chairman of committees is something like this: "Resolved that a sum not exceeding"-let us say $3,000- "be voted for the construction of a wharf at"- such-and-such a place. So that all expenditures of money must be preceded by a resolution. And in the normal course of events these resolutions specify what the amount of money is to be.
This resolution before us, in the name of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley), states:
Resolved that it is expedient to introduce a measure-
"A measure".
-to provide for the continuation of certain orders and regulations of the governor in council for a limited period during the national emergency arising out of the war and to provide therein that the governor in council may appoint and fix the compensation of the officers, clerks and employees necessary for the administration of any order or regulation continued in force by the act and further to provide that certain officers, clerks and employees may continue to perform the duties for which they were previously appointed.
The legislation which will be offered when this resolution passes will be offered, as I understand it, in the form of a schedule to the bill. This schedule, according to the minister's statement of yesterday, contains some fifty-sevem pieces of legislation. As I understand it, by passing this resolution we are authorizing the ministry to spend unlimited sums of money on fifty-seven pieces of legislation.
And mark you, Mr. Speaker, those fifty-seven orders in council will form a body of legislation as great as that which is passed during the whole session of one parliament, or as great as that incorporated in the statutes of one session. We are asked to do this in the form of one bill.
As an aside, may I ask you, Mr. Speaker, and any member of the house: How will it be possible to discuss intelligently-and I am not talking about the particular bill-at one time, as is our duty as members of the house, fifty-seven bills, some of them more important and carrying the implication of new principles, new ideas and new thoughts such as we have never had introduced in this house before; some of them good, some of them bad, some of them indifferent, some of them unimportant, and some of them awful.


James Lorimer Ilsley: May I ask a question? Is the hon. member aware that exactly this course was followed in the British parliament and the Australian parliament?


Charles Gavan Power: I have been hearing so much about following the British parliament. I am glad the minister gives me an opportunity of saying what I have been wanting to say for about ten years. During the last war, every time this side of the house or the government of the day did something, somebody rose on the other side of the house and said the British did not do it in that way. I am fed up with knowing what way the British do it, or do not do it, and I am not taking an example in administration from the present British government, even though I would have voted for the Labour party had I been in England.
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I do not care what the British government did; I do not care what the Australian government did. I think we are here to legislate for Canada. We are to legislate according to principles which we have adopted. We have been a parliament here since 1867, and I do not know why we should slavishly follow the rules of any other parliament. I believe there is more free democracy yet in this country than there is in any other country on earth, not excepting England. And whether it be here or in Great Britain or in Australia, the representatives of the people sent here by the people to represent them and to discuss legislation have a duty to perform.
I contend; I assert, without fear of contradiction, that in this mass of legislation which is to be thrown at members of parliament it will be impossible to have intelligent discussion or intelligent debate on the issues that are before the house.
But to return to the question of the resolution and the financial involvement, can anybody tell me that it will be possible, or that there is the slightest chance of members of the House of Commons who are here to see that expenditure of the people's money is carried on in an orderly fashion being able to perform their duty with respect to expenditures, under the terms of this resolution? This resolution carries with it the acceptance by this house, in advance, of any expenditure under such things as the wartime prices and trade board regulations. Probably they are not very important; I do not know; I do not think anybody knows; I do not think the minister knows. It carries with it such things as this, the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation Incorporated. This will become law when the bill is passed. It provides for the setting up of a company, and that company may purchase or otherwise acquire, sell or otherwise dispose of stores, transport, process or otherwise deal in or deal in any goods, wares or merchandise. There is no limit. This Commodity Prices Stabilization Company can buy any goods, anything in this country, and we give them a blank cheque to do it.
We are setting up a crown company to be known as the Canadian Sugar Stabilization Company. I do not know how much money is involved in that or what the chances are of making a gain or a loss, but there are large sums involved, and so on all through the piece. Not one of these measures but at least merits, both from the financial point of view and from the point of view of principle, the most careful consideration of this house and at least 
some knowledge by hon. members of the amounts of money which might possibly be involved.
To return to the matters involved in the bill, I come to the question of controls. I am not prepared to say that I am opposed to all controls, nor am I in favour of all controls. I think it would be most unfair for any hon. member to say that those who oppose this resolution oppose controls as such. I would be quite willing to vote for any of the controls that we have at the present time. Like the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), I too have some objection to the so-called free enterprise controlled by private industry, but I will not go as far as he does and have the totalitarian system of control which he would like. I believe it is possible for hon. members, it is possible for the people of Canada, to devise some means whereby we shall not take on the pattern of the totalitarian fascist controls as they exist in some countries in Europe, whereby we shall not return to the old system of control by private interests to the detriment of the common people.


Angus MacInnis: That is what we are
waiting for.


Charles Gavan Power: I know we are waiting for
it and I think thousands of people are struggling to attain it. I do not know that they have attained it as yet, but I am not prepared even today to take on holus-bolus, because the members of the government have not thought it out or because we have not been able to evolve a system, to admit that there is no middle course and that there is no means of having controls controlled by parliament.
I object to bureaucratic controls by people outside parliament. I have less objection- and in that I do not share the opinion of the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker)

and we are almost forced to the conclusion, in order to do away with bureaucratic control, to give more controls to the ministers of the crown and to the members of the administration. If I am to be kicked around I want to be kicked around by someone I can see and hear and kick back and not by someone surrounded by a steel or iron curtain in some office of the government whom I never see. I say that, Mr. Speaker, without in any way wishing to criticize any of the existing controllers or those of the past. The few times when, at the request of my constituents, I had business with the controllers I had the fairest

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and most courteous treatment, and that applies to Donald Gordon as well as to all the others.
I could, I suppose, except that it is pretty late and it may not be fair, quote a precedent with respect to bills of this kind. In my recollection there was only one piece of legislation like it, namely, that introduced by Mr. Bennett in 1931 and 1932. To that piece of legislation men now sitting on this side of the house took strenuous objection. It is within the memory of many of us sitting here that we objected to the first reading of the resolution, right up to the closing. At that time there was presented to us a bill called "unemployment and farm relief." The objection taken by the members of the opposition of that day was that the two things, unemployment and farm relief should not be provided for in the same resolution. I wonder whether we ever thought then that some day we ourselves would be bringing in a bill with fifty-seven different varieties of legislation.
I shall not quote the arguments used by the members of the opposition of that day; but I think if anyone will look over them they will find that if there was one thing that the opposition asked for it was that the resolution mention the specific amounts of money that were to be expended on each of these subjects. It was a blank cheque and members of the opposition objected strenuously to any legislation involving a blank cheque. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is a blank cheque which involves more important considerations than any blank cheque has ever been given in this country.
I would appeal to the minister once more to try to break down this legislation into its component parts. It would be possible to do that. In looking it over, I find the civil service commission mentioned. There are five orders in council all dealing with preference to returned soldiers. That has no place in this kind of legislation. One of the orders in council is simply an order providing that the people who served in the war of 19391945 should have the same preference with regard to civil service positions as those who served in the war of 1914-1918. Why introduce that in such an extraordinary piece of legislation as this? We may question the conditions with respect to time, with respect to age and in any other respect under which these positions and this preference will be made available to all veterans, but I have never heard in this house or outside it anyone questioning the fact that the veterans of the last war should have the same preference
with regard to the civil service as the veterans of the first war. I submit that there is no necessity for bringing in this sort of legislation in a resolution which involves-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: They would lose the
preference without this resolution.


Charles Gavan Power: I hear my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) whispering to my hon. friend the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie) that he is having a committee and bringing in a bill. Let him bring in a bill; he has until May 15. But do not let him load down legislation and make it an affront to parliament, as this thing is, giving us something that we cannot possibly study and discuss. The people of Canada will not understand what the whole argument is about.
There are a dozen other things in this. There is the pelagic sealing treaty. I do not know anything about it, but I do not think it has its place in a piece of legislation dealing with the wartime prices and trade bo&rd, or dealing with the stabilization fund or dealing with the control of sugar, lumber and steel. There are other matters dealing with compensation for merchant seamen, and there are, I understand, certain endeavours to wind up the war service gratuity.
All these things could be dealt with in their place and passed by this house in five minutes, but I object to these almost innocuous and certainly easily explained pieces of legislation being thrown in with pieces of legislation on the principles of which the people of this country and the members of this parliament are not agreed.
My last objection is that, by passing this resolution and bringing in the bill, in the shape in which it will be brought in, we are creating an extremely dangerous precedent. We are preparing the way for the time when any government or a government which will not have the same respect for ancient constitutional usages and practices will be in power in this country, and when they come in they will have ready-made at their hand such legislation as will enable them at once to put into effect their theories and the practice in which they believe.
I have said before and said many a time that I have no objection to a great many of their theories. I would like to see many of them put into practice if they could do away with the regimentation that goes with them. But I certainly do not want to be a member of a party which will prepare the way and make it easier for them when they do come into power to carry out what I believe to be
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false principles in a democracy. In other words, I do not want to be a St. John the Baptist for a socialist messiah.


James Horace King: Having considered the amendment moved by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), I should like to call his attention to standing order 50:
A motion to refer a bill, resolution or any question to the committee of the whole, or any standing or special committee shall preclude all amendment of the main question.
I have therefore to declare the amendment out of order.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to read that standing order 50 carefully.
When is the resolution to be referred to the committee of the whole? Not until after second reading. The motion to refer has not been made and I contend that this amendment to the resolution is therefore not covered by standing order 50 and is therefore in order.


James Horace King: I am sorry, but I must read the standing order again. There is no doubt in my mind:
A motion to refer a bill, resolution or any question to the committee of the whole, or any standing or special committee shall preclude all amendment of the main question.
I therefore declare the amendment out of order.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: I am going respectfully to challenge your ruling, Mr. Speaker.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Is this not really and factually a motion to refer this resolution to the committee? The motion is that the Speaker do now leave the chair so that the house may consider this resolution. This is the motion to refer the resolution to the committee.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: The motion is to leave the chair.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: For the purpose of resolving into committee of the whole.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: The motion that the Speaker do now leave the chair-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: For the purpose of resolving into committee of the whole.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: -is always subject to amendment.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I may be out of order, Mr. Speaker, but I think it is crystal clear. The motion moved by the minister was that Mr. Speaker leave the chair so that we should resolve ourselves into committee to discuss this resolution-


Stanley Howard Knowles: It was not the motion to refer.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: -and now we have an amendment that Mr. Speaker do not now leave the chair, which is a complete abrogation of the main question and a complete refutation of the essential features of standing order 50.


James Horace King: As the hon. member
knows, the Speaker's ruling is not debatable and I must repeat that, having considered carefully the amendment moved by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, and having consulted not only Beauchesne but Bourinot and others, I have come to the conclusion that the amendment is out of order.


Mr.  M. J. COLD WELL@Rosetown-Biggar: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but we, too, considered carefully what the implications of the amendment would be before we made it and we are still of the opinion that it is in order. I must therefore appeal your ruling.


John Bracken: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that your ruling has been challenged, may I ask that you read to the house the motion made by the Minister of Justice? I do not know whether the form of the motion -was read or not, but let us know what we have before us and then, having motion and amendment, we may be in a better position to judge as to the merits of your decision.


James Horace King: I do not think I should establish a precedent by letting the house discuss the ruling which has been made, but the motion before the house is that the Speaker leave the chair on the following resolution:
Resolved, that it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the continuation of certain orders and regulations of the governor in council for a limited period during the national emergency . . .
And so on; and the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar moved as an amendment:
That Mr. Speaker do not now leave the chair hut that it be resolved that in the opinion of this house the headlong decontrol policy of the government has depressed the standard of living of the people, threatens the country with economic chaos, and is surrendering the future of Canada to profiteering and monopoly;
And be it further resolved that in the opinion of this house the government should give immediate consideration to the introduction of a system of orderly and democratic controls so as to provide stable price levels and equitable price relationships in order to eliminate the injustices which now exist and to arrest the rapidly rising cost of living.
According to standing order 50, a motion to refer a bill, resolution or any question to the committee of the whole, or any standing or special committee shall preclude all amendment of the main question.
fMr. Power.]

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Angus MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, I was going to rise before-


James Horace King: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but he knows that Speaker's rulings are not debatable. I read the motion because the leader of the opposition had requested it.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: Then I must challenge the ruling; that is all.


James Horace King: Those in favour of sustaining the Speaker's ruling will please say "yea".


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yea.


James Horace King: Those against will please say "nay".


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Nay.


James Horace King: In my opinion the "yeas" have it. Call in the members.
Mr. SPEAKER put the question as follows:
The question before the house is an appeal from the Speaker's ruling. Mr. Ilsley moved, seconded by Mr. Mackenzie, the following motion:
That the Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to resolve itself into committee of the whole to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the continuation of certain orders and regulations of the governor in council for a limited period during the national emergency arising out of the war and to provide therein that the governor in council may appoint and fix the compensation of the officers, clerks and employees necessary for the administration of any order or regulation continued in force by the Act and further to provide that certain officers, clerks and employees may continue to perform the duties for which they yrere previously appointed.
Mr. Coldwell moved, seconded by Mr. Maclnnis, in amendment:
That Mr. Speaker do not now leave the-chair but that it be resolved that in the opinion of this house the headlong decontrol policy of the government has depressed the standard of living of the people, threatens the country with economic chaos, and is surrendering the future of Canada to profiteering and monopoly
And be it further resolved that in the opinion of this house the government should give immediate consideration to the introduction of a system of orderly and democratic controls so as to provide stable price levels and equitable price relationships in order to eliminate the injustices which now exist and to arrest the rapidly rising cost of living.
I declared the amendment out of order, and I based my ruling on standing order 50, which reads as follows:
A motion to refer a bill, resolution or any other question to the committee of the whole, or any standing or special committee shall preclude all amendment of the main question.
The house divided on the question:	Shall
the Speaker's decision be sustained? And the decision of the chair was sustained on the following division:
++YEAS
Messrs:
Abbott	Gibson (Hamilton
Arsenault	West)
Ashby	Gingues
Aylesworth	Gladstone
Baker	Glen
Barrett	Golding
Beaudoin	Gour (Russell)
Belzile	Gourd (Chapleau)
Benidickson	Grant
Bertrand (Prescott)	Green
Black (Chateauguay-	Hackett
Huntingdon)	Hamel
Black (Cumberland)	Harris (Grey-Bruce)
Black (Yukon)	Hazen
Blackmore	Healy
Blair	Heon
Blanchette	Hlynka
Boivin	Hodgson
Bonnier	Ilsley
Bourget	Isnor
Bracken	Jackman
Bradette	Jean
Bradshaw	Johnston
Breithaupt	Jutras
Bridges	Kidd
Brooks	Kuhl
Brown	LaCroix
Brunelle	Lafontaine
Cardiff	Lalonde
Case	Langlois
Casselman	Lapointe
Charlton	Leger
Chevrier	Lennard
Church	Lesage
Claxton	Low
Cloutier	McCann
Cote (Matapedia-	McCulloch (Pictou)
Matane)	Macdonald (Brantford
Cote (St. Johns-Iber-	City)
ville-N apierville)	McDonald (Parry
Cote (Verdun)	Sound
Cournoyer	Macdonnell (Muskoka-
Coyle	Ontario)
Cruickshank	McGarry
Dechene	McGregor
Denis	Mcllraith
Desmond	Mclvor
Dion (Lake St. John-	Mackenzie
Roberval)	MacKinnon
Dionne (Beauce)	MacLean
Douglas	McLure
Emmerson	McMaster
Eudes	MaeNaught
Fair	MaeNicol
Ferguson	Marier
Fleming	Marquis
Fontaine	Marshall
Fournier (Hull)	Martin
Fournier (Maison-	Matthews (Brandon)
neuve-Rosemont)	Maybank
Fraser	Menary
Fulton	Merritt
Gagnon	Michaud
Gardiner	Miller
Gariepy	Mitchell
Gauthier (Portneuf)	Mullins
Gibson (Comox-	Mutch
Alberni)	Nixon

Veterans Affairs-Housing

Pearkes	Sinnott
Pouliot	Skey
Power	Stuart (Charlotte)
Quelch	Timmins
Raymond (Wright)	Tremblay
Reid	Tucker
Richard (Gloucester)	Tustin
Richard (Ottawa	Viau
East)	Warren
Ross (Hamilton East)	Webb
Ross (St. Paul's)	Weir
Ross (Souris)	White (Middlesex
Rowe	East)
St. Laurent	Whitman
Senn	Winkler
Sinclair (Ontario)	Winters-156.
NAYS Messrs:	
Archibald	McCullough (Assini-
Bentley	boia)
Bowerman	Maclnnis
Bryce	McKay
Burton	Matthews (Kootenay
Campbell	East)
Castleden	Nicholson
Coldwell	Probe
Hansell Herridge Irvine J aenicke	Stewart (Winnipeg North) Strum, Mrs.
Knight	Townley-Smith
Knowles	Wright
McCuaig	Zaplitny-26.
On motion of Mr. Hansell the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie the house adjourned at 11.05 p.m.
Friday, March 21, 1947