1947-03-24

[Stage Direction]
Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster) moved; the first reading of Bill No. 59 (from the senate), respecting British Columbia Telephone Company.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 60 for the relief of Evangeline May Connelly Stervinou.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 61 for the relief of Olive Viola Olsson Ferguson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 62 for the relief of Evelyn Ethel May Reich Macdonell.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 63 for the relief of Ernest Edward Lippiatt.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 64 for the relief of Elizabeth Butler Roberts Lambton.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 65 for the relief of Libby Margolese Smith.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 66 for the relief of Jean Elizabeth Hancock Thompson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 67 for the relief of Isabella Hodgson McRae Edwards.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 68 for the relief of Marjorie Aileen Copping Ladouceur.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 69 for the relief of Annie Mildred Parnell Smellie.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 70 for the relief of Veronica Donnelly Hope Johnstone Shelley.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 71 for the relief of Irja Alina Agnes Vaisanen Shanahan.-Mr. Maybank.

Questions

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

Mr. BURTON:: 1.	Is there a ceiling price set by the fuel controller on the following petroleum products:
(a)	gasoline; (b) kerosene; (cj distillate; (d) diesel fuel; (e) fuel oil for heating purposes?
2.	What is the ceiling price on each of the above in (a) maritime provinces; (b) Quebec and Ontario; (c) prairie provinces; (d) British Columbia?
3.	Was an increase in the ceiling price granted on any of the above petroleum products since the first of November, 1946?
4.	If so (a) in what regions; (b) how much did the increase amount to; (c) for what reason was said increase granted?


Mr. MAYHEW:: 1.	(a) The wartime prices and trade board announced on March 12 that maximum prices on gasoline and tractor distillates would be suspended from price control effective April 1. Price ceilings on these products continue in effect until that date.
(b)	Maximum prices on all petroleum products other than gasoline and tractor distillates were suspended effective' January 13, 1947.
(c)	Answered by (a).
(d)	Answered by (b).
(e)	Answered by (b).
2.	As indicated above, no price ceilings now apply in the case of kerosene, diesel fuel and fuel oil for heating purposes. In the case of gasoline and tractor distillates, the statement below indicates the current maximum prices for any locality on the basis of the prices ruling in that locality on September 30, 1941:
Increase above prices Sept. 30, 1941 Gasoline
Maritime Provinces, 1 cent per imperial gallon.
Quebec and Ontario, 1 cent per imperial gallon.
Prairie	Provinces,	2	cents	per	imperial
gallon.
British Columbia, no increase.
Tractor Distillates
Maritime Provinces, no increase.
Quebec and Ontario, no increase.
Prairie	Provinces,	2	cents	per	imperial
gallon.
British Columbia, no increase.
3.	Yes.
4.	An increase of 15 cents per barrel in the maximum price of heavy fuel oil sold in British Columbia was authorized in November, 1946. The increase did not apply to the sales of one large distributor who had received
a similar adjustment somewhat earlier. The adjustment in maximum prices was approved after a review of the cost positions of the major distributors concerned and offset in part increased costs of crude oil from the United States.


CONSOLIDATED REVENUE AND AUDIT ACT-LEGISLATION REGULATING FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS
Mr. MACDONNELL (Muskoka-Ontario):: 1.	What consideration has been given by the government to the recommendation of the auditor general in paragraph 6 of this report, that existing legislation be reviewed in order that statements made to parliament clearly reflect the operations of the public service?
2.	What conclusions have been reached?


Mr. ILSLEY:: The recommendation has been referred to the appropriate officials of the departments concerned, for report as to what specific measures or action would be necessary to carry out the recommendation and further consideration will be given to the matter when their report is received.


SUPERVISION OF DISPOSITION OF FINES
Mr. MACDONNELL (Muskoka-Ontario):: 1.	What consideration has been given to the recommendation of the auditor general that the Department of Justice should supervise the disposition of fines collected or ordered to be paid? (Paragraph 19 of report.)
2.	What conclusions have been reached?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The recommendation has been referred to the appropriate officials of the departments concerned, for report as to what specific measures or action would be necessary to carry out the recommendation and further consideration will be given to the matter when their report is received.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. TIMMINS:: 1.	How many immigrants were admitted to Canada in the year 1946?
2.	From what lands did the emigrants come,
and how many from each land (a) male; (b) female?	_
3.	How much money did they bring into Canada with them?
4.	How many were farmers?
5.	How many were mechanics?


Mr. GLEN:: 1.	Immigration to Canada during calendar year 1946-71,719.
2.	Country of last permanent residence-*
Males Females
Africa (Br.) 	,.. 44	71Africa (Not Br.) 	... 33	36Australia 	.. 126	107Austria 	... 118	14Belgium 	... 107	743
Questions

Males Females
Bermuda 		. 25	28
Bulgaria 		. 1	
Central America 	. 8	9China 	, 59	59Czechoslovakia 	. 96	72Denmark 	22	8Eire 	. Ill	357England 	. 9,285	31,527Esthonia 	. 3	1Finland 	. 3	1France 	, 136	218Germany 	, 439	47Greece 	32	8Holland 	, 205	2,029Hungary 	15	9India 	68	55Ireland, Northern 	, 174	469Italy 	22	27Japan 	4	8Yugoslavia 	7	5Latvia 	1	2Lesser British Isles 	14	20Lithuania 	1	1Mexico 	20	18Newfoundland 	1,036	1,556New Zealand 	50	46Norwav 	132	43Palestine 	6	5Poland 	310	88Portugal 	26	24Roumania 	3	4Russia 	2	9St. Pierre and Miquelon .	3	8Scotland 	1,550	6,404South America 	69	74Spain 	35	30Sweden 	7	10Switzerland 	9	6Syria 	2United States 	5,553	5,921Wales 	236	837West Indies (Br.) 	219	175West Indies (Not (Br.) ..	25	21Other Countries 	33	24Totals 	20,483	51,236
3. 326,063,667. This amount includes value of settlers' effects.
4 and 5. Occupation-
Via From
Ocean Ports U.SA. Totals
Farming Class
Males	
431	638	1,069Females	
166	258	424Children	
154	385	539
Mechanics
Males	
2,249	713	2,962Females	
587	219	808Children	
381	206	587


SUBSIDY FOR HAULING OF CORDWOOD, FLIN FLON AREA
Mr. MOORE:: 1.	What subsidy per cord was paid under the wartime prices and trade board order for the hauling of cordwood in the Flin F'lon area to Flin Flon, Manitoba?
2.	For what years was the subsidy paid?
3.	Who had the contract or contracts to haul this wood?
4.	What was the remuneration on each contract per year?	,


Mr. MAYHEW:: 1,	No transportation subsidy has been paid for the hauling of cordwood in the Flin Flon area to Flin Flon, Manitoba.
2,	3 and 4. Answered by No. 1.


WAR ASSETS-DISPOSITION OF BUILDINGS AT ST. CATHARINES
Mr. LOCKHART:: 1.	What buildings, of what type of construction and size, have been sold, and to whom, and at what price, by war assets corporation at elementary school No. 9 at St. Catharines?
2.	What disposition is proposed for buildings still held by war assets corporation at St. Catharines airport?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	The following 'buildings at No. 9 elementary flying school, St. Catharines, Ontario, have been disposed of by war assets corporation and sold to the purchasers indicated:
Building No. 9-other ranks' quarters and recreation building-"H" shaped hut, frame construction on cement posts, each wing 24' 120', connecting wing 60' x 35', sold to Anthes Imperial Limited, St. Catharines, Ontario, price-$1,600.00.
Building No. 10-other ranks' quarters and recreation building-"II" shaped hut, frame construction on cement posts, each wing 24' x 120', connecting wing 60' x 35', sold to Anthes Imperial Limited, St. Catharines, Ontario, price-$1,600.00.
Building No. 18-wireless telegraphy station -one storey frame construction on cedar posts. Dimensions 45' x 24' x 12'. Sold to the city of St. Catharines, Ontario, price-$371.00.
These buildings were sold conditional upon the purchasers removing them from the sites and restoring the land to its original condition.
2.	The buildings which are presently being used by war assets corporation at the St. Catharines airport are:-
Buildings Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 19, 21, 27 and hangar No. 2. These buildings are on loan to war assets corporation from the Department of Transport and, when no longer required, will be returned to that department.

Questions


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-NIAGARA PENINSULA
Mr. LOCKHART:: Respecting the present service on the C.N.R. in the Niagara peninsula between the United States border and Toronto, 1. Have any complaints been received from United States citizens complaining of the antiquated equipment now being used in the Niagara peninsula area of the Canadian National Railways between Toronto and the United States border?
2.	Have complaints been received from persons residing in the Niagara peninsula?
3.	If so, what is being done to rectify the present situation?
4.	If not, will the matter be investigated at once?


Mr. CHEVRIER:: The Canadian National Railways advise as follows:
1.	No.
2.	Yes.
3.	Every effort is being made to rehabilitate equipment which has been subjected to heavy use in recent years. The availability of materials and skilled labour affects the progress of this rehabilitation programme.
4.	Answered by No. 3.


MERCHANT MARINE-GRANTS OR ALLOWANCES FOR WAR SERVICE
Mr. GIBSON (Comox-Alberni):: 1.	Are any gratuities, allowances or grants paid to members of the merchant marine who served during the war years?
2.	If so, how do they compare with payments to those who served in the armed forces?
3.	If not, what steps have been taken by the government to grant these men gratuities and allowances?


Lionel Chevrier: In so far as the Department of Transport is concerned:-
1.	The monthly remuneration of able seamen was increased to a basic rate of $89.93, to which was added a war risk bonus of $44.50, making a total of $134.43 per month.
Income tax was paid on the basic rate only, war risk bonus and subsistence being exempted.
A special bonus of 10 per cent was paid on gross earnings, for a minimum period of six months' service in dangerous waters prior to April 1, 1944, provided a seaman signed an agreement to serve for two years or the duration of the war, or alternatively, signed an agreement to join a reserve of seamen to serve if called upon. Merchant seamen who have received a special bonus for service prior to April 1, 1944 are eligible to participate in the Veterans Insurance Act.
A war service bonus of 10 per cent on gross earnings was paid for service subsequent to
April 1, 1944 until the end of the war, for seamen who served on agreement or were listed as permanent employees of a Canadian company.
Leave on pay at the end of each year on agreement, at the cumulative rate of two days for each month of service, was allowed, together with round trip rail transportation
from a manning pool to the seaman's home, at the low cost of one-third of the one way fare.
Merchant seamen on agreement on completion of service were entitled to receive railway transportation from the port of discharge to their place of permanent domicile.
During service on a manning pool two year agreement a merchant seaman, if incapacitated for sickness or injury, received basic pay for a maximum period of twelve weeks.
Merchant seamen who qualified for the special bonus are entitled to vocational training to assist them to advance in their profession at sea.
Merchant seamen who left civil employment to serve at sea during the war are entitled to the benefits of the reinstatement in Civil Employment Act.
Pension for disability incurred from enemy action or counter-action is payable to merchant seamen serving on any Canadian ship, and to Canadian merchant seamen serving on ships of allied nations employed in service essential to the prosecution of the war. A disability pensioner is entitled to free medical care, with allowances during hospitalization for his pension disability, and is eligible to participate in the benefits of the Veterans Land Act and the Veterans Insurance Act. If debarred by their disability from following their former profession of seamen, they may be given vocational training under the Veterans Rehabilitation Act for any occupation.
In case of death from similar causes, widows and dependent children are pensionable.
A Canadian merchant seaman in receipt of a pension from an allied nation is entitled, during residence in Canada, to have his pension raised to the Canadian scale.
Merchant seamen detained by the enemy received a detention allowance, equivalent to their basic pay and war risk bonus, and also the special bonus. Dependents of merchant seamen who were detained by the enemy received appropriate portions of this detention allowance for their maintenance, the balance being paid to the seaman on his return to Canada.
Unemployment insurance coverage for merchant seamen came into effect on October 1, 1946, and by a special provision under the act

seafarers have been placed on a parity for unemployment insurance purposes with Canada's wartime armed forces. Under this provision many seamen are given credit for wartime service without payment of contributions after they have become established in insurable employment.
Medical and dental care is extended to pensioners while men on service are covered by the sick mariners fund and Merchant Seamen's Compensation Act.
2.	It would be very difficult to make such a comparison, inasmuch as the benefits differ so widely.
3.	Answered by No. 1.


OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT-ROYAL COMMISSION
Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	Is the Kelloclc-Taschereau royal commission still functioning in whole or in part?
2.	Does the said commission retain any powers which it is now exercising or might exercise at its discretion?
3.	Has its status as a royal commission terminated? If so, when?
4.	Who authorized the addendum recently appended to the report of the words to the effect that it should not be assumed that the evidence in the several cases in which the defendants were acquitted was the same as that adduced before the royal commission?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	No.
2.	No.
3.	Yes-June 27, 1946.
4.	The government.


WARTIME HOUSING-MONCTON
Mr. GILLIS:: 1.	How many units were built by wartime housing in the city of Moncton, New Brunswick?
2.	What was the original cost per unit?
3.	Are they now being sold? If so, at what cost per unit?


Mr. McILRAITH:: 1.	200 housing units are under construction of which 106 are practically completed and are now occupied.
2.	The cost per unit will not be known until the contract is completed.
3.	None have been sold to date.


MOUNTED POLICE-FINGERPRINTS
Mr. STEWART (Winnipeg North):: 1.	How many fingerprints of individuals are in the files of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?
2.	How many of these fingerprints are of criminals?
3.	Are fingerprints of non-criminals kept in the files of the R.C.M.P.?
4.	If so, for what reasons?
5.	On how many occasions have they been used for these reasons?
[Mr Chevrier.]


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	(a) Criminal collection-766,723; (b) civil collection-1,147,585.
2.	Answered by number 1.
3.	Yes, in a separate collection.
4.	To identify unknown dead persons or amnesia victims when so requested by an authorized source.
5.	Two hundred and eighty-four times since 1936-37 with ninety-three identifications.


NATIONAL HARBOURS BOARD-EMPLOYEES' WAGES, QUEBEC AND HALIFAX
Mr. ISNOR:: 1.	Has a wage increase been considered for employees of the national harbours board at the port of Quebec?
2.	If so, has it been approved?
3.	If approved, will the same increase apply to the employees of the national harbours board at the port of Halifax?


Lionel Chevrier: Answers furnished by the national harbours board.
1 and 2. Under consideration.
3.	Already granted.


HEALTH AND WELFARE DEPARTMENT-&quot;FILLERS&quot; CIRCULATED TO NEWSPAPERS
Mr. FULTON:: 1.	Who writes the "fillers" which are circulated to newspapers by the Department of National Health and Welfare?
2.	Is the position of writer of "fillers" a paid position?
3.	If it is a duty involving only part of the time of an official or officials of the department engaged on other publicity work, what percentage of his or their time is so employed?
4.	What salary or salaries are paid to the writers of "fillers?"
5.	What qualifications for this work have the [DOT]writers?
_ 6. What is the total cost of composing, printing and distributing these "fillers" for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1947, including salaries of writers?


Mr. MARTIN:: 1.	"Fillers" are written by editors in the information services division of the department.
2.	Yes. Writers of "fillers" produce this material as a minor part of their duties.
3.	The equivalent of 5 per cent of the time of one editor.
4.	Salaries of editors range from $1,920 to $3,120, per annum.
5.	Writers of "fillers" are qualified by years of practical journalistic experience, backed by professional advice of the department's medical officers, who not only suggest subjects for the "fillers" but approve the material so prepared before it is issued.

Questions
6.	Approximately $150 for paper and envelopes. Mimeographing is done in the department. It is impossible to compute the amount of salaries which would be applicable.


HOUSING-VETERANS-VALLEYVIEW PROJECT, KAMLOOPS
Mr. FULTON:: 1.	What is the highest cost price to the director of the Veterans' Land Act for any of the houses in the Valleyview project at Kamloops, B.C.?
2.	What is the lowest cost price to the director of the Veterans' Land Act for any of the houses in this project?
3.	What is the average price per unit to the director of the Veterans' Land Act for any of the houses in this project?


Mr. TUCKER:: 1. House only, $7,421.84; complete unit, $8,646.90.
2.	House only, $6,339.83; complete unit,
$7,508.79.	[DOT]
3. House only, $6,871.16; complete unit, $8,067.27.
"Complete unit" includes house, land, roads, septic tank, water main and service, driveways, landscaping, and a contingency of $100.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE COMMISSION- W. H. THOMPSON
Mr. IRVINE:: 1.	Has the justice department ordered the release from gaol of W. H. Thompson, of Edmonton. after serving only two months of a five-months' conviction for defrauding the unemployment insurance commission of $260?
2.	If so, on what grounds?


Mr. JEAN:: W'ith the concurrence of the trial magistrate and of the unemployment insurance commission, this man was released for Christmas 1946-three weeks before the expiry of his sentence.


VETERANS ATTENDING UNIVERSITY
Mr. FULTON:: 1.	Are all ex-service students attending universities in Canada under D.V.A. sponsorship. entitled to dental as well as medical treatment at government expense during the whole duration of their course?
2.	If so, what steps have been taken to advise both D.V.A. counsellors and students of this fact?
3.	Are any further steps being taken to prevent confusion in this regard?


Mr. TUCKER:: 1.	Yes, subject to the conditions set forth in order in council P.C. 4465 of June 13, 1944, as amended.
2.	This benefit was emphasized during training courses for counsellors. The regulations referred to in 1 constitute part of the counsellor's handbook. The counsellor advises the veteran of this benefit when application is made for training.
3.	Constant liaison is maintained with each university veterans advisory service.


HOUSING-VETERANS-VALLEYVIEW PROJ ECT, KAMLOOPS
Mr. FULTON:: 1.	What is the total amount applied to the Valleyview project under the order in council making $1,000,000 available to adjust the costs of Veterans' Land Act houses?
2.	What is the maximum adjusted cost to the director of any house in the Valleyview project?
3.	What is the minimum adjusted cost to the director of any house in this project?
4.	What is the average adjusted cost to the director of any house in this project?


Mr. TUCKER:: 1.	$44,030.31.
2.	House	only,	$6,519.00;	complete	unit,

3.	House	only,	$5,184.00;	complete	unit,

4.	House	only,	$5,596.00;	complete	unit,

"Complete unit" includes house, land, roads, septic tank, water main and service, driveways, landscaping, and a contingency of $100.


COMBINES INVESTIGATION ACT-PROSECUTIONS
Mr. FULTON:: 1.	How many (a) informations have been laid; (b) prosecutions have been launched under the Combines Investigation Act since the coming into force of the amendments to that act passed at the last session of parliament?
2.	If any, how many of each are the result of action by (a) private individuals; (b) attorneys general of Canada or of the provinces?
3.	What has been the outcome of any such proceedings?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	(a) The Department of Justice has no knowledge of any informations having been laid by private individuals or by the attorney general of any province, (b) None by the attorney general of Canada.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	Answered by No. 1.


EELGROUND INDIAN RESERVE ROAD, NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY, N. B.
Mr. HOMUTH:: 1.	What work was done or moneys expended on the Eelground Indian Reserve road, parish of North Esk, county of Northumberland, N.B., during the latter part of 1946 or January, 1947?
2.	Were tenders called for the work?
3.	If so, what tenders were received and from whom ?
Questions

4.	What were the amounts of the various tenders ?
5.	Was the work awarded to the lowest tenderer?
6.	To whom was the contract let, and at what amount ?


Mr. GLEN:: 1.	$1,500 was authorized for gravelling from provincial highway to the school corner, 4/10ths mile. Grading and ditching to be completed this spring (1947).
2.	No. Indian agent, Eelground reserve was asked to ascertain whether provincial government would undertake the work as in previous years. This arrangement could not be made.
3.	Tenders were not called owing to the lateness of the season (middle November). The agent made the best arrangements locally for having the work completed.
4.	Answered by No. 3.
5.	Answered by No. 3.
6.	Mr. Warren Flett, Newcastle, N.B., $1,500. Upon advice from the provincial district highway engineer the contractor deferred the ditching and grading until spring, 1947, when :he contract is to be completed.


CENSUS-PRAIRIE PROVINCES
Mr. HAMEL:: 1.	Was a census of the population taken in the provinces of Manitoba. Saskatchewan and Alberta during the year 1946?
2.	If so, what was the total population in each of the said provinces?
3.	What was the population in each of the said provinces (a) by racial origin; (b) by religious denomination?


Mr. MacKINNON:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Manitoba. 718,699; Saskatchewan, 823,438; Alberta, 795,007. Preliminary figures.
3.	The 1946 census was confined to an enumeration of the population and to securing other information required for essential purposes. No information was obtained on religious denominations and other matters that are contained in the more complete decennial census.


HOUSING-CONSTRUCTION BY PROVINCES 1945-46
Mr. HAMEL:: 1.	What is the number of dwelling houses built in each province during 1945 and 4946?
2.	What is the total number of housing units built in each province during 1945 and 1946?
_ 3. How many houses were built in each province during 1945 and 1946 comprising (a) one housing unit; (b) two housing units; (c) more than two housing units?


Mr. McILRAITH:: The answer to this question is contained in the answer to a question asked by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, which was made on March 10, 1947, as reported at page 1163 of Hansard.


Mr. KNOWLES:: And which was not a complete answer.


Lionel Chevrier: That should end it.


INDEBTEDNESS OF CANADA TO U.S.S.R.
Mr. GAGNON:: What is the total indebtedness of Canada to the U.S.S.R.?


Robert Wellington Mayhew: Nil.


INDEBTEDNESS OF U.S.S.R. TO CANADA
Mr. GAGNON:: 1.	Does the amount of $5,000,000 owed Canada by the U.S.S.R., for a loan authorized by order in council P.C. 7822 dated September 1, 1942, bear any interest?
2.	If so, at what rate?
3.	When will the principal be repaid?


Mr. MAYHEW:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Three per cent.
3.	The last instalment of principal is repayable on September 8, 1947.



Mr. GAGNON:: 1.	Does the amount of $2,848,171.48 owed Canada by the U.S.S.R., for a loan made by the government of Canada under The Export Credits Insurance Act, bear any interest?
2.	If so, at what rate?	_
3.	When will the principal be repaid?


Mr. MAYHEW:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Two per cent.
3.	The last instalment of principal is repayable on August 31, 1950.


*CANADAIR LIMITED
Mr. FRASER:: 1.	What was the total cost including wages, aeroplane engines, materials of all kinds, facilities, land, building plant, machinery and tooling of the Canadair Limited from the time of the government purchase of this property until sold to the Electric Boat Company?
2.	What was the total sale price agreed on between Canadair Ltd. and the dominion government?
3.	Who were the officers of the Canadair
Limited?	.
4.	Who are the present officers of the Canadair Limited?


Mr. HOWE:: The answer to parts 1 and 2 of this question are contained in the statement I made to parliament. The first part of the question is misleading in that the government did not purchase the property at Cartierville. The information that is asked for is also contained in my statement, together with the balance sheet referred to in an order for return which will be passed and tabled shortly. As

Questions
far as 3 and 4 are concerned, the two companies referred to are private companies and the matter is not one of public record.


FAMILY ALLOWANCES
Mr. GOLDING:: 1.	How many children receiving family allowances moved to a higher age group during the month of January, 1947?
2.	What percentage of children in pay moved to a higher age group during the month of January, 1947?


Mr MARTIN:: 1.	58,149.
2.	1-63.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. GAGNON:: 1.	How many rural mail services are in operation in the county of Chicoutimi?
2.	What is the name of each mail carrier?
3.	What is the salary of each?
4.	What distance must each mail carrier travel to perform his work?
5.	What is the expiry date of each contract?


SUBSIDIES
Mr. TIMMINS:: 1.	What commodities in Canada received subsidies in the year 1946 and what was the amount of the subsidies in each case?
2.	What amount in 1946 was estimated to pay the subsidy on milk and what was the amount of the subsidy actually paid?
3.	What commodities are to receive subsidies in 1947 and what is the estimated amount of subsidy for each commodity?


WOODEN CRATES AT BELLEVILLE RAILWAY SIDING
Mr. FRASER:: 1.	Do the wooden crates on the railway dump at railway siding near C.N.R. Belleville station, belong to any department, crown company or corporation of the dominion government?
2.	If so. what is the name of the department, company or corporation?
3.	If they belong to any department, company or corporation of the dominion government what do these crates contain?
4.	Have any new crates been placed on this dump lately?


SHIPMENT OF CANADIAN GRAIN THROUGH PORTLAND, MAINE
Mr. HAZEN:: 1.	How many ships will be loaded with Canadian grain at Portland, Maine, this month, for transport overseas?
2.	What are the names of the ships and how much grain will each of them transport?
3.	Were the box cars that carried Canadian wheat to Portland for these ships all owned by the Canadian National Railways or were some of them oivned by United States railways, and if so, how many?


HOUSING-VETERANS-VALLEYVIEW PROJECT, KAMLOOPS
Mr. FULTON:: 1.	How many faulty cesspools have been reported in the Valleyview project since its completion ?
2.	How many faulty interior sump-pits have been reported in the Valleyview project since its completion?
3.	How many furnaces have had to be moved in the Valleyview project since its completion?
4.	In how many houses was it reported that the plumbing froze during the winter owing to being located too close to the outside walls in this project?
5.	In how many cases is it necessary to move the plumbing as a result of the last named default?
6.	What is the total cost of the alterations resulting from the above and such other defects as may have been found to exist at the Valleyview project, which the department has undertaken to have carried out?
7.	Who is to bear these costs?
8.	When will alterations be commenced?
9.	When is it anticipated that they will be completed ?
10.	Will veterans occupying these houses be required to sign contracts for payment of the purchase price of their houses before the repairs and alterations are completed?


CONTRACTS FOR ADVERTISING AGENCIES
Mr. LACOMBE:: 1.	What advertising agencies were employed by the government for the distribution of its advertising in the daily or weekly newspapers or other publications during the years 1940 to 1946 inclusive?
2.	What are the amounts of the contracts awarded by each department to each advertising agency in each of the above-mentioned years?


FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PROPERTY IN OTTAWA DISTRICT
Mr. FRASER:: 1.	What property in Ottawa city, or within ten miles of the city boundaries, is owned or rented by the dominion government?
2.	How many square feet of space in each property?
3.	What is rental, or cost of upkeep, of each property?
4.	In what buildings are janitor services included?


COMMUNISM-FOREIGN PERIODICALS
Mr. WINKLER:: 1.	Were foreign periodicals or newspapers sympathetic to or favouring communism permitted entry into Canada during the recent war?
2.	Was a periodical called Narodna Volya published at 524 Olive street, Scranton, Pennsylvania, permitted entry into Canada during the recent war? Is it permitted entry now?
Questions


RACING-TAX REVENUE 1945-46
Mr. McLURE:: 1.	What amount of money in taxes did the government collect from the pari-mutuel betting at the horse races (both harness and running races), in Canada for the years 1945 and 1946?
2.	What are the names of the tracks or associations and the amounts collected from each?
3.	What did it cost the government to collect same?
4.	What race tracks or associations did the government make grants to?


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES-MOTOR VEHICLES- TRANSFER FROM OTTAWA TO OTHER STORAGE DEPOTS
Mr. FRASER:: 1.	Were any motor vehicles, owned or stored by any branch of the armed services of Canada, transferred from depots or storage in the city of Ottawa, or depots or storage within ten miles of Ottawa, to other depots or storage space in Ontario?
2.	If so (a) how many vehicles were transferred by each department; (b) to what place were these vehicles transferred?
3.	Were any of the above vehicles transferred to the war assets corporation?
4.	If so, of what make and number?



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Mr. FULTON:: For a copy of any report or reports made to the Minister of Veterans Affairs following the recent special investigation into the cost, construction and condition of the houses in the "Valleyview" project built under the Veterans' Land Act at Kamloops, B.C., and particularly of any 'recommendation as to refinancing submitted therewith.


Mr. MACKENZIE:: I understood a week ago when the reports were tabled that my hon. friend would be prepared to drop this motion.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am prepared to drop the motion, but I would ask the minister whether he will give instructions that the report he tabled on Friday be printed. Such instructions were not given, and it is not possible for members to obtain copies through the distribution office. Will the minister have a limited number printed so that members may have it?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I shall have to consider that.
Motion dropped.



HOUSING-VETERANS LAND ACT

Mr. MURPHY:: For a copy of all correspondence, contracts or agreements, or other documents in lieu of agreements entered into by the government, or any
[Mr. Winkler.1
department or agency of the government, between January 1, 1943, and February 25, 1947, with architects, for plans and specifications, or either, for use in constructing homes under the Veterans' Land Act.



Joseph Warner Murphy: For a copy of all correspondence, contracts or agreements, or other documents in lieu of agreements entered into by the government, or any department or agency of the government, between January 1, 1943 and February 25, 1947, concerning veterans' homes and holdings, in each province, for each area where three or more homes have been built under Veterans' Land Act.


Mr. LENNARD:: The hon. member for Lambton West is pleased to have the motion dropped on the understanding that he may redraft it and have it put back on the order paper.
Motion dropped.



HOUSING-VETERANS LAND ACT-BOUCHERVILLE, QUE.

Joseph Warner Murphy: For a copy of all correspondence, contracts, agreements, memoranda and other documents in lieu of contracts entered into by the government, or any department or agency of the government. between January 1, 1943 and February 25, 1947. concerning veterans' homes and holdings at Boucherville. Quebec; also copy of all time sheets and invoices in connection with the above.
Also a copy of plans and specifications for each house constructed in the above area.


Mr. TUCKER:: The subject matter of the motion is sub judice. both in the criminal and in the civil courts. I must ask that the motion be dropped.


Frank Exton Lennard: Stand.


Walter Adam Tucker: No; dropped.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Dropped.


Frank Exton Lennard: The hon. member is not here. It stands.


Walter Adam Tucker: The matter is sub judicc both in the criminal and in the civil courts. There are several prosecutions involved and there is a civil action so that the matter is sub judice in every way. I ask that the motion be dropped.


Mr. GRAYDON:: Mr. Speaker, this is the second or third time that this reason has been advanced by the government for not answering a question. I only want to raise this point of order, that I do not think the fact that the matter is sub judice is necessarily a good defence to not answering the question. I think the matter should be cleared up.

Motions for Papers


James Horace King: Order. The hon. member knows that, the matter being sub judice, the question cannot be answered.


Gordon Graydon: But the question cannot be sub judice. It only calls for the production of certain documents which might be used in the trial, but the question is not a sub judice matter.


James Horace King: As the matter has been referred to the courts, it is sub judice.



ELDORADO GOLD MINES

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: For a copy of the evidence taken in connection with the investigation of Eldorado Gold Mines Limited and an alleged conspiracy by Carl French, Marcel Pochon and Boris Pregel to defraud the said company and the report by the commissioner, Mr. Glassco in connection therewith.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I have previously reported to the house that the information asked for in this return is not yet in possession of the government. I have however made inquiries and I find that even if the information were in the hands of the government it could not be tabled, for the reason that it contains information which is of a secret character affecting other governments as well as the government of Canada. The hearings were held in camera, for reasons that appealed to the attorney general of the province of Ontario as justifying that procedure. It was at the request of another government that the hearings were held in camera, and the reasons for secrecy are as firm today as they were at that time. Therefore I must advise that it is not in the public interest to table the information.


John George Diefenbaker: Will the minister file the reasons for the change in attitude towards the three men, Carl French, Marcel Pochon and Boris Pregel? I understand they were committed for trial-


James Horace King: Order. The hon. member knows that these motions are not debatable. I will permit him to ask a question of the minister, if that is his intention, but I cannot permit a debate.


John George Diefenbaker: With the greatest respect, Mr. Speaker, may I say that I am not debating the motion; I am making a request of the minister, because if we are for ever to be bound by answers such as the one just given, whether proper or not, we cannot discharge our responsibilities. I am asking the minister whether he will not place on the table of the house the reasons why, after these men were committed for trial, a decision was
made by the government that criminal proceedings should not be gone on with, but that civil proceedings should be substituted therefor.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I shall be glad to table the letter from Mr. John Robinette, the prosecutor appointed by the Department of Justice, and also the letter from the Department of Justice which conveyed Mr. Robinette's letter to me.


Gordon Graydon: Will the full story be in those?


Mr. STEPHENSON:: Mr. Speaker, may I-


James Horace King: I have just reminded the hon. member for Lake Centre that these motions are not debatable, and I would ask that other hon. members be guided by what I said to him. May I point out that the Speaker is not responsible for these rules; they are the rules of the house. If hon. members are not satisfied with the rules of the house, they know what they should do.
HOUSING-VETERANS' LAND ACT-BRAEFOOT ESTATE i'ROJECT, VANCOUVER ISLAND


Mr. PEARKES:: For a copy of the report of the joint investigating committee, under the chairmanship of Mr. McCarter, appointed to investigate the cost and construction of the houses built under the Veterans' Land Act on the Braefoot estate project at Saanich, Vancouver Island, British Columbia.


George Randolph Pearkes: As this report was included as an appendix to a larger report., may the motion be dropped?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Thank you. I may say that I was overgenerous. I had a second report ready for my hon. friend.


James Horace King: Dropped.



DOMINION ELECTIONS


Hon. COLIN GIBSON (Secretary of State) moved:: That a special committee consisting of Messrs.: Beaudry, Bertrand (Prescott), Brooks, Cote (Verdun), Fair, Fournier (Maisonneuve-Rose-mont), Gariepy, Gladstone, Hackett, Hazen, Kirk, Lockhart, Maclnnis, MacNicol, Marier, Marquis, McKay, Murphy, Mutch, (Richard (Gloucester), Ross (Hamilton East), Sinclair (Vancouver North), Sinclair (Ontario), Stirling, Zaplitny, be appointed to study the several amendments to the Dominion Elections Act, 1938, and amendments thereto, suggested by the chief electoral officer, to study the said act, to suggest

Dominion Elections-Committee
to the house such amendments as the committee may deem advisable, and report from time to time, with power to send for persons, papers and records and to print the proceedings, and that the provisions of section 1 of standing order 65 be waived in respect of this committee.
Mr. JEAN-FRANQOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): Before this motion is debated, Mr. Speaker. I have a word of praise for Mr. Jules Castonguay, chief electoral officer. He is a most remarkable civil servant because he answers the letters he gets the day he receives them. He should be mentioned as an example to many others.
I have been interested in Mr. Castonguay from the beginning, when he was paid $4,000 a year. He was working very hard and was doing the work that another man, who was the grandson of a prime minister, did not do and for which he was paid $12,000. At that time I brought the matter up and was delighted that some consideration was given to Mr. Castonguay. He deserves special mention because he gathered the votes from all over the country at the last election. He has shown his efficiency. If he makes a recommendation to improve the act, I shall probably find it a good recommendation.
We have had experience of the unequal operation of the elections act. Before 1930 the election act was satisfactory; it was a good act. Between 1930 and 1935 it was changed by the administration of the day and made complicated and unsatisfactory. After the general election of 1935 the Liberal party decided to improve it. Then a committee met, in the daytime and at night, for a whole session, but it was impossible for them to reach a conclusion. The following session they met again. They fought hard, had bitter discussions, worked day and night, and finally made a report which was excellent, Do you know what it was, sir? The report recommended that the Bennett act be repealed and replaced by the previous act, something which could have been done by a very short bill without imposing so much work on the committee. But it was necessary to keep the members busy and to chase all evil thoughts from their minds. That is probably the only purpose achieved by the elections committee during the two sessions in which they worked so hard without accomplishing veiy much. My hope is that this time the members of the committee will not be fooled by such proposals, that they will have something serious before them and that their work will not be in vain.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Ca.pe Breton South):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Veterans Affairs arising out of telegrams which I have been receiving from veterans' organizations in Nova Scotia with regard to the proposed closing of the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital at Sydney, Nova Scotia. Can the minister inform the house if the government ha.ve definitely decided to close this hospital, or will his department give further consideration to the matter?
Right Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs): The government has made no final decision in the matter as yet. This week the director of treatment services is down in the beautiful country whence my hon. friend comes, and when he returns I shall be able to make a further announcement to the house.



EMERGENCY POWERS


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, March 21, consideration of the motion of Mr. Ilsley 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 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.
Mr. L. W. SKEY (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, on Friday evening last we were debating the omnibus bill, and I had a few remarks to make about controls. Today I should like to follow up the remarks of the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) on Friday when he proved to this house, as I believe you will agree, that controls are the essence of socialism. I say socialism cannot thrive without controls, and that socialism is contrary to human nature. That is my belief; and I address the house on this subject because on Thursday, March 20, the leader of the C.C.F. socialist party (Mr. Coldwell) laid down a challenge to this house to divide on this issue.

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That is why today I choose to debate the subject that socialism is contrary to human nature.
First let me give a quotation or two. The first one is found in Benham's Quotations, and is from Dean Inge's book "Prognostications on Social Life in the Next Hundred Years". He says:
The three strongest instincts in human nature are religion, the family, and private property.
Where does socialism come in there? Then in another place he goes on to say:
What is called socialism is simply political bribery on a large scale.
There is only one period in history when socialism will work. That will 'be after the second coming, when we are in the millennium, but fortunately we will not need it then because we will have a 'better government. Lest you think I am biased in my quotations, Mr. Speaker, I should like to quote from something said by Pope Leo XIII on December 28, 1878:
Socialists, communists and nihilists strive to uproot the foundations of civilized society.
- That is taken from the New Dictionary of Quotations; and at another point in the same speech he said:
These monstrous views-these venomous teachings . . .
Just to show that the Roman Catholic church has not changed its views I quote from something said by Pope Pius XI on May 15, 1931:
No one can be, at the same time, a sincere Catholic and a true socialist.
My quotations today are not taken only from the clergy. I also have some from laymen, and here is what they have to say. In 1884 Herbert Spencer said:
All socialism involves slavery.
F. J. C. Henshaw, in "A Survey of Socialism", published in 1928, said socialism is-
The combination of religious sentimentality, industrial insanity and moral obliquity.
Then I quote the views of Mr. H. L. Mencken in "Prejudices" at page 109:
Socialism is simply the degenerate capitalism of bankrupt capitalists . . .
That is taken from the Home Book of Quotations; and in the same quotation Mr. Mencken goes on to say:
Its one genuine object is to get more money for its professors.
I return to the authority from whom I quoted first, Dean Inge, to quote a little couplet he wrote on the subject:
What is a socialist? One who has yearnings
To share equal profits from unequal earnings
Be he idler or bungler or both he is willing
To fork out his sixpence and pocket your shilling.
I have covered the clergy and the laity, Protestant and Catholic, but. I cannot for a moment forget one of our finest modern writers, one whom I am sure other hon. members admire as I do. I refer to Mr. Somerset Maugham, who once wrote a paragraph on this subject which I believe to be as pertinent as anything I have ever read. He said:
For all the vaunted hopes and promises- there is no single instance where socialism has succeeded in bettering the lot of the common man.
You may ask, Mr. Speaker, why I have put these quotations on record. I can answer that question in a moment by saying I have done this because I have a mandate from my constituency to oppose socialism in every form in which it may find its way into this house. In my constituency are men of all religions, all races and all creeds. Since it is in the heart of Toronto you may think it is dominated by Anglo-Saxons, but that is not altogether true. It contains a great many who have their roots in central Europe, many of Polish and Ukrainian origin, many from the Baltic states, and numerous others. These men, these European-born Canadians, know what socialist and totalitarian governments mean. They do not have to be instructed in what their relatives still in Europe have suffered under those governments.


Mr. MacINNIS:: That is why their relatives in Europe vote for those governments every time they have a chance.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: This may hurt my socialist friends, and I do not blame them for yapping a bit about it. I say to the hon. member for Vancouver East (Air. Alaclnnis) that these men whose roots are in Europe know what socialism means. They know what it is to have the iron heel of authority on their necks. They know socialism is an expanding doctrine, that socialist and totalitarian states are anxious to expand and to dominate not only Europe but this continent as well.


Mr. ARCHIBALD:: Tell us about R. B. Bennett's slave camps.


Stanley Howard Knowles: W'hat did your friends do to the Speaker in Ontario?


Lawrence Wilton Skey: I understand he resigned; it is a free country.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It was dictation from the Tory government benches.
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Lawrence Wilton Skey: We find socialism creeping in upon the country in a most interesting way. It starts with benevolence. Here are the great benefactors of the people, clothed with kindness, and with the purpose of raising up the common man! Then we move from benevolence to tolerance. As the next step they tolerate the views of the people. Then after tolerance we reach the point where they impose controls on the people. After controls there is enforcement; and after enforcement there is protection of those who are doing the enforcing. After that there is policing; and after policing there is the process of individual investigation. After that come the purges; and after that dictatorships-and finally tyranny and darkness. That is the path which we will take if we follow socialism.


Stanley Howard Knowles: A perfect description of capitalism.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: Here is a quotation from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a socialist state. The New Dictionary of Quotations contains this:
The temporary victory of socialism in one country alone is possible, but its lasting victory in one country alone is impossible. That demands the victory of the revolution in other lands as well.
That is Joseph Stalin on Leninism, in 1926. I returned from the last war filled with admiration for the courage and bravery of the Russian soldiers who fought as our allies. But I cannot for one moment approve their philosophy of government, its teachings, its treatment of its own people or of some of the enslaved people in Europe. I am sincere in my belief that socialism will not work to the advantage of mankind. My socialist friends may be glad to hear that I am ready to admit capitalism is not all good. It has some abuses. But it is our privilege as members of a free parliament to rectify those abuses. Capitalism is subject to the law makers. We, who are the law makers, are subject to the electorate. The electorate are free to change their law makers at any time.
These times are not the times to be neutral; rather they are times to follow a positive course, to look ahead, to see the lessons of history, the lessons of the past.
In common with members of many other parliaments, we in this house have been accused by Major John W. Foote, V.C., of failing to lead the people. He is another Canadian who wears the Victoria Cross, in common with two members who belong to this party. At Fort William on March 23 Major Foote is reported by the Globe and Mail to have said that politicians are-
[Mr. Knowles.!
-mealy-mouthed and have not the brains in many instances to bring out a constructive programme.
He goes on to say:
"Too much narrowness and bitterness is sweeping the country today, creating a gulf between races and creeds. But problems of Canadians are simple in their elementary nature. Only interest and goodwill are required for a solu-tion."^ He had a word of praise for labour organizations that have purged their ranks of outside leaders.
Mr. CRUICKSHANK; He was speaking of Toronto.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: He was speaking at Fort William.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: But of Toronto.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: No, I think he was referring to the part of the country my hon. friend comes from, as well. I have never noticed the hon. member speaking without prejudice. Then, to quote further from the newspaper report:
The country was in the most precarious stage of its history because of differences of opinion in various sections; there was more disunity than ever before.
I said that this is no time to be neutral, that the government would do well to follow a positive course, to trust the representatives of the people and listen to their advice. In the three sessions I have sat in parliament I have never heard either of those two hon. members, who carry the same decoration from His Majesty as is worn by Major Foote, advocate any policy in which they did not believe, or did not know was for the good of the country as a whole.
I plead with the government to forsake their controller mistresses in the ivory towers of Ottawa, and to return to the House of Commons the power to govern. This is the challenge of the times. What actually happened was that we went to sleep one night in the summer of 1945 and awoke to find atomic energy a reality-to find ourselves in a new world. History is on our doorsteps. Today we see the United States of America, a young and vigorous but perhaps immature country, summoned-challenged-to lead the world. We in the Americas must respond with her, to keep the flickering light of freedom alive for western civilization. If we in Canada wish to preserve our birthright of British freedom we must be intelligent enough to understand its worth, and we must fight with all our vigour against the inroads socialism has made on this continent.


Mr. BENOIT MICHAUD (Restigouche-Madawaska):: Mr. Speaker, I would not have taken part in the debate had it not been for

Emergency Powers
representations made to me by a considerable group of electors who signed numerous petitions calling for the abolition of all controls. I shall deal later on with the matter of these petitions, and the information which I received from those whose names appear on them. What are these so much abused controls, after all? Judging from the tone of some members of the opposition one would be led to think that they are some sort of contagious, shameful disease. This may sound impressive to the unthinking, but to those who care to give the matter serious consideration, those controls are simply part of the law of this land, It is true that in these days this law of the land is much more considerable than it was a hundred years ago, or perhaps even fifty years ago. There is no question that the volume of federal and provincial laws and orders in council and regulations made thereunder has increased considerably. All this makes an imposing amount of legislation, but it is all based upon the proper legislative authority and hence it is the law of the land. Obviously all this legislation must have been good and desirable at some time and for that reason it cannot be condemned outright without a hearing. The most that can be said of some of these regulations is that they may have outlived their usefulness and should now be repealed.
The fact that very few of them have been singled out for particular criticism goes to show that the matter of their usefulness is generally recognized. For instance, the timber controls were debated with some amount of heat in this house on March 10 and we find that the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Howe) gave very good reasons for their retention. As far as I can recall, whenever any specific control has been attacked on the floor of this house there has always been a good reply made to the criticism.
A prominent British statesman, I think it was Edmund Burke, once made a remark in a jesting mood that the best governed country was the one with the fewer laws and the fewer taxes. That may sound all right to the unthinking, but how does it measure up to the facts? Listening to hon. members opposite one would think that they agree with such a statement, but I respectfully suggest that they compare our standard of living with that of other people who have fewer laws and fewer controls. Possibly there are a number of countries or peoples in Asia or Africa which are not burdened much with either laws or taxes. I am quite sure that the natives of Africa and of many parts of Asia are not in any way bothered by irksome 83166-106
controls such as the stipulation that they must cover certain parts of their bodies, but if one of those people were to look into our laws, usages and customs I am sure he would find that they are unnecessary and stupid restrictions which curtail unduly our freedom, and very likely he would denounce them with the same scathing language as that used by some hon. gentlemen in the course of this debate or the debate on the address.
Our modern civilization has become quite complex within the past century. In 1846 our population was mostly rural, and our farmers bought and sold very little. Industry was in its infancy and there were few manufactured articles compared to what there are today. Consequently trade was negligible in the terms of present day language. As we progressed our economy became more diversified, even to the point where our farmers are drifting into specialized farming, something altogether unheard of one hundred years ago. With an economy becoming daily more diversified, we need more laws and regulations if we are to benefit from our progressive specialization.
At this point I wish it to be well understood that I am not suggesting that our increased volume of laws and regulations is the cause of our material advancement. I simply want to observe that it accompanies it almost invariably in every country which enjoys a standard of living similar to ours as a result of greater industrialization and a greater diversification of production. There was a time in this country when we did not have any highway laws, and very little in the nature of game laws, liquor laws, income tax laws, and so on. Does anyone suggest that the degree of freedom enjoyed by our forefathers was more desirable than our present restricted freedom and increased social scurity? I think it is impossible to make progress along the line of social security unless we impose upon ourselves certain restrictions which do not inconvenience us to any great degree. Personally, I cannot say that I have suffered very much as a result of controls and rationing. On the other hand, like all of us, I have been inconvenienced by them on more than one occasion. And at this point I feel that I should take to task the hon. member for Pontiac (Mr. Caouette) who is reported on page 1641 of Hansard of March 21 as having said:
(Translation):
Mr. Speaker, there is not to my knowledge a single member of the house who, because of rationing, has had to go without sugar, butter

Emergency Powers

and clothing although our constituents and the citizens of this country in general were subjected to rationing.
This statement can only mean one thing, namely, that there is one set of laws applying to members and another set applying to the people in general, which is a monstrous falsehood. The hon. member for Pontiac (Mr. Caouette) knows very well that the law is the same for everyone. He must have noticed that notwithstanding his position as member of parliament, the income tax deductions are made at the source, at the end of each month, from his indemnity cheque. The law applies to members on both sides of the house as well as to low wage-earners.
Such language reflects the demagogic and thoughtless statements which unfortunately fill the pages of the Social Credit newspaper Vers Demain of which the hon. member has quoted lengthy excerpts in his latest speech.
I said at the beginning of my remarks that representations on this contentious matter of controls were made to me by a group of my constituents. Here is the gist of their requests:
Mr. Benoit Michaud,
Member for Restigouche-Madawaska.
Sir,
The undersigned, constituents of yours, absolutely opposed to all war-time and post-war controls, express the wish that you do all you can to have them removed this very session, for the following reasons:
1.	Controls are slowing down all production.
2.	By curtailing production, they are causing higher prices.
3.	They are depriving citizens of their freedom.
Anxious to find out if this petition was serious and justified, I sent each signer the following circular:
Sir or Madam,
Your name appears on a petition that recently reached me requesting removal of all controls. Though I do not as a rule send individual replies to signers of petitions, in this particular case, for very special reasons and without in any way undertaking to reply to signers of any future petitions. I wish to answer *those who saw fit to make representations to me on this ticklish matter of controls.
In the first place, may I point out that I take little stock in representations of this character, bearing all the earmarks of a put-up job by a handful of people. I have just received from some of you a set of pink cards all bearing the signature of the same person. It is obviously a put-up job instead of a free and individual expression of opinion on the part of those whose names appear on the cards. Such is the case with most petitions that come to us.
Now, let us come to the substance of the petition.
1.	Are you fully aware of the scope of your representations? No member of this house has, at yet, requested the removal of all controls.

At that time, the hon. member for Pontiac had yet to express an opinion on the matter of controls.
Are we to believe that you are better qualified than they to pass judgment on the measures which create so deep a division in the public opinion at the present time?
2.	And now, if you favour the removal of certain controls in particular, let me know which, in your opinion, should be removed.
3.	If you can convince me that the removal of such or such a control will cure the ills of which you are complaining, I shall he the first to demand their removal.
4.	It is an easy matter for people who are in no way responsible to the population to favour one measure or another without any knowledge of their consequences. I would be very much interested in knowing how many, among the signers of the petition, would be willing to make their eternal salvation dependent on the efficiency of the measures they favour for the greater good of the greater number.
5.	Finally, do you know that large organizations of your district are forwarding representations favouring the maintenance of controls? Who has the more foresight in these circumstances? Let us hope that our leaders, and their technical advisers, from the lofty observation posts they occupy, will be in a position to discover the best means of ensuring the greatest measure of material welfare to the greater part of our people.
For all the above mentioned reasons, I support the government's policy on the matter of controls, because I am convinced that their advisers are in a better position than you or I to decide what controls should be kept for a while. I consider these advisers as good doctors who prescribe bitter medicine to their patients, because it is essential to their recovery.
For your information I am enclosing copies of the five talks given by Mr. Gordon in November last. They explain much better than I could do it myself the advantages of these very irksome controls for the economic life of our country. I hope Mr. Gordon's explanations will satisfy you and help you better to understand why the government is deciding to keep certain restrictions in force for a period of time.


Mr. GAUTHIER (Portneuf):: Hear, hear!


Benoît Michaud: In reply to my circular, I have received, so far, six letters. Here is the first. Listen carefully; what suaveness!


Mr. CAOUETTE:: The electors know what they want.


Benoît Michaud: Obviously controls are useless and serve only to favour the black market; the same applies to the speeches of dictator Donald Gordon who controlled our dollars during the depression when people starved in spite of mountain-high supplies of products and when Canadian farmers, asked not to till the soil, were paid to this end with taxes collected from the very masses who were dropping with hunger; then began the grand slaughter designed to sell Europe to Joseph Stalin in order that communism might flourish with Tito and his kind.

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The same ration expert who had done so well during the depression was appointed to dictate to Canadians what their standard of living should be and to forbid them to spend as they saw fit . . .


David Réal Caouette: That's right!


Benoît Michaud: . . . after having collected a large proportion of their money in taxes used to present strangers with gifts and to pay interest on our wonderful debt-creating financial system.
Speaking of organization, we are setting up in every parish of the various constituencies an electors' union which will insist on results from their member of parliament.


David Réal Caouette: Good!


Benoît Michaud: I shall leave aside the next four and quote No. 6, issued by the Organization of the New Brunswick Union of Electors. It is signed by the president, the vice-president, the secretary and five directors, one of whom is the author of the first letter. May I cite a few gems from this tirade:
The people are fed up with the promises of their politicians. One does not need a university degree to see to what extent they are being exploited by the high priests of international finance which gave rise to political parties and their stupid politicians who allow the people to have bread to eat only when guns and engines of destruction are being manufactured for their mutual destruction, under cover of democracy and Christianity.


Mr. LESAGE:: Is the member for Pontiac (Mr. Caouette) included?


David Réal Caouette: The hon. member for Montmagny-L'Islet (Mr. Lesage) is.


Benoît Michaud: And further:
We are not surprised, because a member of a political party must, if he wishes to share in the electoral funds, obey the orders of his party rather than the will of his electors, and controls are much more essential to dictatorships and slavery than they are to democracy and freedom. That is why dictator Donald Gordon is preaching to us over the C.B.C. network-a network for which we are paying $2 a year only to be told lies every day of the year-that selfsame Mr. Gordon who, during the depression, while people were starving to death midst products of all description piled mountain-high was personally, and through the politicians of the day, stating that people had to starve and go about in rags precisely because of that overabundance.
Mr. Speaker, I apologize for those long quotations which to me, however, appeared essential to give hon. members and the many right-minded people among my electors an idea of what is being thought and written about controls by friends of the Social Credit in my constituency. And now, listen to those gentlemen from Alberta speaking "in New France" to use a favourite expression of Vers Demain. What are, exactly, the boundaries of that New France and why that expression?
Would it be that France is now ruled by a socialist government and that it seems to be rushing headlong into communism? I should like to know.


David Réal Caouette: You tell your colleagues.


Benoît Michaud: Mr. Speaker, there is evidently no control over the language used by those gentlemen in my constituency who go on merely repeating what has been so well taught them by the newspaper Vers Demain.


David Réal Caouette: That is right. They follow faithfully the example set by their representatives.


Benoît Michaud: If we were to believe the statements made by that newspaper which mixes religion with economics the government and the politicians, except Social Credit members, would be mere exploiters of the people. Those are revolutionary statements which do not offer any solid or constructive proposals. Those renovators of society seem to have only one purpose in mind: to destroy without knowing what they could rebuild on the ruins. The letters which I have quoted are to my mind examples of demagogic appeals to popular prejudices.


David Réal Caouette: Why not explain the meaning of the word demagogue?


Benoît Michaud: Mr. Speaker, I listened to three speeches by the hon. member for Pontiac and I refrained from interrupting him. As my time is limited and as I am anxious to complete my remarks, I would ask the hon. member to wait until I have finished my speech; then, if I have a few minutes left I shall endeavour to answer his questions if I deem it necessary.
As I consider such language dangerous, as well as several statements which appear in Vers Demain, I would ask the Social Credit members for Alberta in this house whether they approve of such verbal excesses. I would be very much surprised if they endorse those articles. I have heard them in this house and I know that they recognize the sincerity, the integrity and the devotion of all members of parliament. While they are at it, they could tell us what they think of New France of Messrs. Even and Gregoire, of Mrs. Cote-Mercier and others.
They could tell us what they think of what happened recently to the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Cloutier). As he was coming home a fairly large group of social creditors were waiting for him, for the purpose of ill-treating him-


David Réal Caouette: Three social creditors-
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An hon. MEMBER:: A whole gang of them.


David Réal Caouette: Yes, a whole gang. It takes a politician with cold feet.


Benoît Michaud: On the other hand, I ask the serious-minded people of my constituency-


David Réal Caouette: Meaning the Liberals?


Benoît Michaud: -especially those with dependents, if they approve of such methods. I ask them what they think of the statement of the hon. member for Pontiac, as reported on page 1642 of Hansard, at which he clearly referred to what happened to the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska. I quote:
I would not be at all surprised to hear in the very near future that some hon. members from the province of Quebec who voted for the resolution will have to face delegations of electors from their various constituencies.
Those are the very words of a letter published in the Drummondville-Arthabaska newspaper by the local Social Credit leader.


David Réal Caouette: We are responsible for the fear you experience. This is but the beginning.


Benoît Michaud: It should be noted-


David Réal Caouette: Place yourself at the service of your electors before serving your party.


Benoît Michaud: It should be noted that I express no opinion on the principles on which the Social Credit monetary doctrine is based and to which I reserve the right of reverting later on. For the present, I shall be satisfied to reprove methods and dealings which threaten to become the rule among us. To my way of thinking they have much that resemble that of the fascists. They differ from those used by communism which is craftier and less vulgar.


David Réal Caouette: It is not as bad as
Liberalism.


Benoît Michaud: On this score, I shall quote a comparison from Vers Demain, of October 1, 1945, page 2:
More and better communists. Alone, perhaps, besides the Social Crediters, the Communists have to a degree that sense of personal responsibility toward the promotion of social and political ideas.


David Réal Caouette: Read the whole article, instead of picking a single paragraph.


Benoît Michaud: And yet, we believe that, in the province of Quebec at least, Social Credit supporters show far more dynamic energy and individual zeal than Communists, judging more especially by the results achieved.

Communists are tenacious, but Social Crediters are even more so. Communists are daring, but Social Credit partisans have it over them in this respect. Communists are as active as they can be, but Social Credit adherents again have the upper hand. Communists, for instance, were forced to drop their newspaper La Victoire while the Social Credit organ Vers Demain attained heights heretofore unsealed by any other newspaper.


David Réal Caouette: Read the whole article.


An hon. MEMBER:: No, we have had enough.


David Réal Caouette: That is all you are capable of understanding.


Benoît Michaud: According to-


David Réal Caouette: That's a pretty feeble intellect!


Benoît Michaud: According to Social Credit supporters, people are being exploited. Voltaire once said: "Keep on lying, and something of it will always remain." If you tell the people often enough that they are being exploited and make flashing promises, they will end by believing part of what you say.


David Réal Caouette: You tell them so many stories that they will no longer believe you.


Benoît Michaud: All revolutions began like this. Let us look into the nature of this exploitation. Granted, there has been misery among the masses, but it is gradually disappearing. Will it some day vanish altogether? No one can foretell, but in order the better to appraise our own lot, let us cast a glance beyond our borders and see what happens elsewhere. In what other country do the workers live as well as in Canada? Why-and the fact is well known to us-do so many Europeans, of every class, ask for permission to settle in Canada?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, heart


Benoît Michaud: Recently, I read a newspaper article which claimed that 3 million British wish to come and live in Canada.


An hon. MEMBER:: Forty thousand
Japanese.


Benoît Michaud: There is a reason for this. Here is a piece of evidence which was not supplied by Liberals. I quote from an article entitled "Living Costs and Wages in Canada":
(Text):
Living Costs and Wages Canada's favourable position shown by I.L.O.
Figures
What has been happening to living costs and real wages all over the world is shown by articles in the latest issue of the International

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Labour Review, the monthly publication of the international labour office. The fortunate position of Canada in both respects is made quite clear.
Taking the cost of living first. Of 12 countries mentioned, the over-all living costs in Canada have gone up least since 1937, taken as the base year. Thus, in Canada costs went up by 26 per cent only; while in Great Britain they rose by 32, South Africa 38, the United States 48, Sweden 50, Norway 65, the Netherlands 82.
And further down in the same article:
In most of the ,12.countries mentioned above, the cost of food alone went up further than the over-ell cost of living.
(Translation):
It is true that we are more fortunate than some other countries, but is not our good fortune due, to some extent, to the fact that after all the affairs of our country are not too badly administered?


David Réal Caouette: This is due to the fact that the people are working; it is no credit to the government.


Benoît Michaud: The statements made at times by our opponents of ail the parties of the house support my contention. Generally they claim that they would do better if they were in our places. It is to be expected. Then why make such statements as those which I have pointed out and which, like sensible people throughout the country, I strongly condemn? Before concluding, I shall quote the four other letters which I have received from my constituents in reply to a circular letter which I forwarded them. Letter number 2 follows:
I acknowledge receipt of your letter of February 25 in connection with a petition demanding the removal of all controls. I was very much surprised as it was the first inkling that I had of such a request. I wish to thank you for having written to me in this regard; otherwise I would not have known that someone had taken upon himself to sign my name to this petition without my permission ...


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Shame.
. . . and you can see for yourself by comparing the signature appearing on that petition with mine which appears hereunder.
I have compared the signatures with those appearing on the petition and none bore any resemblance with their true signatures.
I would like to know, however, who dared to sign my name without my permission.
For your information may I say that I am a low wage-earner and I have a great deal of trouble balancing my budget. I am convinced that price controls have certainly helped us to make both ends meet. I regret that the removal of several controls has resulted in a substantial increase in the cost of living which affects me personally.
I do not consider myself important enough to attempt to dictate to our representatives the
policies which they should follow in the administration of public affairs, and I know that my knowledge is very limited in that respect.
I shall now read letter No. 3:
(Text):
I received from you quite recently a circular letter informing me that I had signed a petition, for the lifting of all price controls.
I can assure you that I had nothing to do' with the signing of any cards or petitions against price controls. Personally, I feel that the government has done a great work in the carrying out of these measures. ,
Thanking you for enlightening me to the fact that my name had been falsely used in the signing of these cards or petitions, I remain,
Yours truly,
Gerard Belliveau.
(Translation):


David Réal Caouette: He didn't write that either.


Benoît Michaud: No, sir, as you shall see.
We now come to No. 4:
Dear Sir,
I acknowledge receipt of the circular you apparently mailed to all alleged signers of a petition on price control.
Let me state at once that I never put my name to such a petition. . Like several friends of mine who received your circular, I had not even heard about the matter.
Naturally enough, I would be interested in knowing who took the liberty of signing my name to a petition which I certainly disapprove.
Here is the fifth and last:
May I be allowed to reply to your letter of the 12th which came as an unpleasant surprise to me. I can't see who, in this district, could have had the nerve to use my name for insulting you this way. I have never criticized in any way the steps taken by our leaders with regard to price controls. My wife and I are indignant.
May I ask you as a favour to let me know who circulated this petition and thus used my name without my knowledge?
And there, Mr. Speaker, you have the tactics of the Union of Electors of New Brunswick.


An hon. MEMBER:: It is the same
everywhere.


Benoît Michaud: It is not hard to choose between these two groups.
Besides, I have had representations from a large labour union favouring the maintenance of controls. No one aside from those who signed the above mentioned petition, demand their removal. As these good people have advanced no serious arguments to support their claim, I cannot consider their request. I shall vote for the resolution in accordance with my convictions, as I have always done, even when I voted against my party. The
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party to which I belong does not impose its will on its members. I support it, knowing full well what I am doing, having studied its programme and concurred in it before I decided to be a candidate, in 1945. As the government follow the policy decided upon which is infinitely better than that of any other party represented in this house. I do not have to hesitate in supporting them.


David Réal Caouette: You are the only one in that position.


Benoît Michaud: I hope the crediters in my constituency will be gentlemen enough to give me credit for as much sincerity and devotedness as I give their leaders in this house.
And now, let us revert, if you wish, to the petition whose text was no doubt taken from the newspaper Vers Demain, since my friend, the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Jutras), in far-away Manitoba, receives petitions worded exactly the same.


David Réal Caouette: The war was the same for all the provinces and you voted for it.


Mr. LEGER:: Try and improve on your learning.


David Réal Caouette: Speak for yourself.


Benoît Michaud: Mr. Speaker, I have been extremely polite while the member for Pontiac (Mr. Caouette) made his speech; indeed, I am polite every time my friends, the Social Crediters have the floor.


David Réal Caouette: Talk about things you know. Study.


An hon. MEMBER:: Study yourself.
Another hon. MEMBER: The wonder of Pontiac County.


Benoît Michaud: Some Social Crediters of my county-


David Réal Caouette: One must not be lazy.


Benoît Michaud: -want the removal of all controls, unaware of the fact that they are simply repeating the disjointed utterances of unscrupulous wire-pullers.


David Réal Caouette: Financiers are pulling *murs.


Benoît Michaud: I invited them to define their attitude. They thought fit to answer back by tirades taken from this pamphlet from which emanates, in the words of Cardinal Villeneuve, "a current which tends much more to inflame revolutionary passions than to promote social consciousness and the desire to work for the rehabilitation of society".
[Mr. Michaud.)


Pierre Gauthier: Hear, hear.


David Réal Caouette: All "ration-mongers" are revolutionary.


Benoît Michaud: "Ration-mongers." That is precisely the kind of expression used by those gentlemen, as well as in Vers Demain and in the documents from which I have just quoted.


An hon. MEMBER:: And by the hon, member for Pontiac.


David Réal Caouette: A term you will get to know, gentlemen.


Benoît Michaud: One can but deny or ignore such gratuitous assertions.


David Réal Caouette: Thank you.


Benoît Michaud: "Controls paralyze production and thereby cause prices to rise." This is all wrong and I challenge anyone to prove the contrary.
Third: "Controls deprive us of our freedom as citizens." What freedom, may I ask? The freedom to do and speak as one pleases? In that case, our freedoms are much more jeopardized by the ten commandments and by our federal, provincial and municipal laws and regulations. These gentlemen, I fear, are mistaking licence for liberty. No one is absolutely free to do everything. My freedom stops where that of my neighbour begins.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear!
(Text):


Mr. HLYNKA:: They are worried !
(Translation):


Benoît Michaud: Nowadays, neighbours
being fairly numerous and economic life quite complicated, it necessarily follows that the freedom of the individual is perhaps limited to a greater extent than formerly by that of his many neighbours whose needs are far from few. What is the freedom to which these gentlemen refer? As they do not commit themselves, I am left to form what seem to me the most plausible conjectures. Do they mean the type of freedom which, thanks to the policy of rationing goods in short supply, would allow a few monopolizers to buy large quantities of commodities, thus raising prices while pocketing enormous profits and depriving less fortunate people of essential products?


David Réal Caouette: There is no need to change the administration to bring about this state of things since it exists under the present government.


Benoît Michaud: Listen and learn!
Do they mean the kind of freedom that would allow some producers to take advantage of the scarcity of certain commodities and sell

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their goods, always to the detriment of the working classes, at prices twice and three times as high as the cost of production?
(Text):


Mr. WYLIE:: Put it on Hansard.
(Translation):


Benoît Michaud: And I could conjecture ad infinitum on this freedom which, in such cases, becomes indistinguishable from licence and mass exploitation beneficial to a few individuals only. I will have none of that freedom. The sooner controls destroy it, if I may use the terms of the petition, the better it will be for all who recognize and appreciate true liberty which gives the working classes of the country free access to the largest number of commodities, at prices which those of limited income can readily afford.
For these reasons I shall vote for the resolution and for the bill which will follow it.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear!
(Text):


Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (Cariboo):: Mr. Speaker, I have been surprised at the many weird fears of dire calamities which have been aroused by some hon. members in this chamber with regard to the legislation now proposed. Some have tried to make us afraid that parliament was prepared to give up its power to some external body; and they have gone on from that to talk about bureaucracy, regimentation and all the evils which they have been able to gather during the past few years from regimes which have been a disgrace to modern history. May I say that these fears, in my opinion, have been greatly overstated. Personally I have no fear at all about these things, and I hate them just as much as do hon. gentlemen who have opposed them. I do not for one moment believe, for example, that the right hon. gentleman who has led this parliament for more years than any other man in the history of Canada will deliberately give away the powers of parliament to somebody outside. I do not even believe that the Right Hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) would abuse the powers which we the other day permitted him to exercise in regard to a very important measure. I would not even be afraid of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) having similar powers conferred upon him by this house, which has the right and power to withdraw them if they are abused; for the people of Canada have the right and power to punish those who may be guilty of such abuse by discharging them.
In the past we have had to wrest our political freedom from great powers: kings, nobles,
lords and potentates; and still we have not possession of all the powers which the people must have. We must carry the struggle for democratic power into the field of economics. It is an extraordinary thing how hon. members can argue that a piece of legislation such as that proposed in the resolution before the house, which is to extend for a period of time certain powers which this parliament has never yet exercised except in time of war, could be represented as the abrogation of powers. It is the most extraordinary twist of illogical construction that I have ever listened to. I say, Mr. Speaker, we must not be simply content with the measure of political power the people have been able to obtain by their own efforts, despite the Conservative party in years gone by; we must gain economic power, and we must learn to use that power when we have achieved it. We must achieve it by democratic means, and we must learn to use it democratically. This means we must set up an entirely new technique, one which perhaps no one knows exactly how to proceed to organize, but one we must find as time goes by in order to exercise democratic power in the economic as well as the political field.
It took the crisis of war to reveal the need for the controls now under discussion, but peace has its crises as well as war. The resolution before us is to provide for the extension of those powers, taken in time of war, for a limited period, and I desire to join with the leader of this party in protesting against the willingness of the government to release these powers too readily at the urging of the private interests who are most concerned and the political parties who would like to serve them. The government, in following a policy of decontrol, appear to me as happy as children going to a circus when they can announce that they have let go something to which they should have held on. They have already given up many of the powers they should have held on to. This legislation is a proposal to continue some of those powers for a time, but the object eventually is to release all controls and go back to the old method of allowing the economic powers of the country who are personally interested to determine the economic course of this nation.
I want to impress upon this house that the economic pursuits of this nation are going to be controlled by somebody. They always have been controlled by somebody, and that control will be continued. It is of vital interest to the people of this land whether those controls are exercised by the people themselves in their own interests, or whether they are to be exercised by those interested only
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in their own personal gain. The questions we should be asking in regard to controls, and which really should not be applied to this measure at all, are these. Who are going to control the economic destiny of Canada in the future? How are these controls to be exercised, and what is to be their purpose? As I see it, sir, there are just two alternatives before us. The one is to allow those who own and control the great basic industries of this country to determine, in the interests of their own profits, what shall be the economic policy of Canada henceforth. That is one course. The other is to find a way of democratically controlling our economic destiny, through the democratically elected representatives of the people.
I have been astounded, too, at the way those who profess to believe in democracy can express such dire fears of power, as we have heard some hon. gentlemen in this house. Some have even boasted that they have no plans and do not desire power. In this respect I would refer particularly to the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) and the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdonnell). Both these hon. gentlemen have exhibited great nervousness over the possibility of having too much power, for fear they might be corrupted. But I have seen no nervousness on their part in respect to the powers now being exercised by certain individuals and corporations over industries which affect the lives of all the people of this country. I should like to ask the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario what he will do if by some chance, some day, he might become chancellor of the exchequer or minister of finance. Then he would have to prepare a budget. That is a great power, because a budget will affect the lives of all persons in this nation, from the baby in the cradle to the man in the :offin. Everyone will be affected, so it is a tremendous power. What will the leader of the Social Credit party do if he becomes prime minister? According to his own philosophy, announced in this house from time to time, he will be on the horns of this dilemma. Either he will have to permit himself to be corrupted by the power which goes with the office, or he will have to divest himself of power to the point that he will be completely useless. That will be his choice. A government without power and without a plan is the most perfectly useless institution in the world. Canada can very well do without a government that has neither a plan nor the power to carry it into effect, because such a government is nothing but a blundering, expensive, useless dummy. Government is government only to the extent that it has power. A government
[Mr. lrvine.l
is a good government only to the extent that it uses its power wisely. A government must have a giant's power; but I agree with the great Shakespeare that it had better not use that power as a giant sometimes does. There must be no competing power within the nation that can equal the power of a government; otherwise you have no government, because government is where the power is, whether that be in the factory, in the bank or on the treasury benches; and in most instances in Canada that power is still in the factories and the banks of this country. The real power of democracy is amongst the people themselves, and, as I say, they must have more power than any other body within the nation. A government without power is like a steamer without steam, like a car without gasoline, and I have my suspicions of people who are afraid to use power when they are asking for it.
Why do these people who are so anxious to get power express such fears of it? All power is dangerous in the hands of incompetents. The power of steam is a destructive power. It can blow up the boiler, wreck the establishment and kill everybody within a certain range. Atomic energy is a great power, and a dangerous and destructive power, but it may also be a very constructive one. Power may destroy, but power can also fulfil. Without power, however, we can do nothing in any government. I repeat that the important questions are: Who has the power; how is it to be used; what is it to be used for?
The danger in a democracy is not in having power; it is not in its using of power. The danger in a democracy is the abrogation of its powers, and the allowing of irresponsible people to use powers which ought to be in the hands of the representatives of the people.
It is assumed, theoretically at least, that the power of the people is supreme in a democracy. If the representatives are not to use that power, then who is to use it? I assume that the only practical way in which the people of Canada can use their power is through their representatives in parliament. It may be that we shall find some better mechanism as time goes on; but for the present that is the only way we have been able to devise. The old village moot is gone, and we have found it necessary to send representatives here to carry on the work of the people. They, from time to time, give power to ministers of the crown who are responsible to parliament, powers which are essential in order to carry out certain essential public services.
That is how our democracy operates; and until we find a better way for democracy to express itself we must adhere to those

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methods. Those who fear power should neither seek it nor be entrusted with it. Some hon. gentlemen are fond of quoting in the house the alleged aphorism of Lord Acton. I say it is an "alleged" aphorism, because it is not true. The so-called aphorism is this, that power corrupts-that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I have heard that from this corner of the house until I am tired of hearing it.
It is more clever than it is wise, Mr. Speaker. The most absolute power in human affairs in a democracy is the power of the people themselves. No autocracy or dictatorship in history, whether it was a so-called absolute monarchy or an absolute dictatorship, has thus far been able to withstand the absolute power of the people. The czars, the kings, the Hitlers, the Mussolinis, the potentates-they have all been humpty-dumpties on the walls of power, and have been thrown down by the absolute power of the people. They are not anything today but the dust of a disturbing memory.
Therefore I say to you, sir, if the leader of the Social Credit party believes that absolute power corrupts absolutely, then the democracies of the world are the most absolutely corrupt of all bodies whatsoever, because they have the most absolute power. Indeed, by the application of that assinine aphorism they are condemned to inevitable corruption. That is the logic of the Lord Acton parrots.
The fear of power implies the negation of all government. There can be no government without power. The fear of power indicates a lack of confidence in oneself to do the job of representing the people. The fear of power implies a lack of confidence in one's fellows, and lack of faith in the democracy of which he is a part. This distrust in ourself leads to our passing the precious, if dangerous power, to others, so that it can be used by them even against us, instead of our using it on our own behalf.
I think the fear of power constantly popular objections to taxation. Here is an illustration of that. I have known farmers who have been farming at a loss for a complete decade in the past history of Canada. They were farming at a loss, largely because speculators on the grain markets were making fortunes out of their produce, because monopolists, mortgage companies, railway companies expressed in the house is symptomatic. It is a symptom of a mal-education or mis-educa-tion which has been fostered deliberately in Canada by the few who have power, who like to use it, who enjoy being corrupted by it. The same idea crops up, for example, in 83166-107
and banks were overcharging them in prices, in freight rates and in interest rates. Yet they kept on farming.
But when a government taxes much less from them than the monopolists did, and leaves them with much more, what do they say? They say, "We won't milk cows for Ilsley." That is what they say. "We don't mind milking cows for mortgage companies; we don't mind milking cows for monopolists; but when it comes to milking cows to pay taxes to our own country, which money comes back to us in social services-no, we won't do that."
That is exactly the same attitude of mind as that of those who are afraid to exercise the power which democracy has conferred upon itself, and which we as representatives of the people are charged to uphold and exercise in the interests of the common people.
We are not taught in a similar way to fear the power of the profiteers, the power of the monopolists. It is suggested we ought to fear our own power, but never to fear the power of the profiteers or monopolists.
It is strange with what complacency we permit the most potently coercive power, namely that enjoyed by economic Hitlers, to dominate our lives, while we are so afraid of using power ourselves. I do not understand men who fight against delegating a portion of power in our possession to a minister, or to a board for which a minister is responsible, but who would not fight against the power now exercised by a corporation to use or not to use, or to misuse, the means by which all must live.
It is time we distinguished between power exercised by dictators and that exercised by a prime minister in a democracy. In the latter case the power is in our own hands, the hands of the people. We can delegate it or exercise it or withdraw it, at will. It is power that has never corrupted any government. It has been the power which governments refused to use-the economic power-which has corrupted governments. It is because we have never taken over economic power that it has been used by those who have it to corrupt public life, because they could not get what they wanted in any other way. Some public men in our history have succumbed to it.
Some writer has expressed the idea-I forget who it was; at any rate the idea is capable of standing on its own feet-that "He who fears what he must face exhibits symptoms of mental sickness; and until he is able to face what he fears he is not on the way to mental health."
I suggest that we must face this question of power; we cannot get anywhere without that

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behalf. The danger is always greater when power is in the hands of people other than in our own. This government or any other government in a democracy is simply a machine driven by the power of the people. To say that we must not use our own democratic power to control things which otherwise would destroy us is nothing short of political insanity.
power. Someone will use it against us if we show we are afraid to exercise it on our own
The British government was drawn into this argument by the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power). I must say that I agree with that hon. gentleman when he says that we should never follow blindly what any other government does. While I agree with him on that, I would say also that we should never fail to follow a good example, no matter what government sets that example. I notice that the hon. gentleman is the subject of an editorial in today's Ottawa Journal. He is now regarded as the one Liberal left; not a left Liberal, but the one Liberal left. I believe the hon. member for Quebec South is a very good Liberal. I agree with many of the things that he says and does. I like him, but I do not like the company he is now in. I am afraid of his Liberalism when he gets the support of the Journal. I do not know whether the Journal knows he said in his speech that, while he disagreed with the idea of copying any government, if he had been in Britain he would have voted for Labour. If the Journal knows that, perhaps it will take -back its support and the hon. member for Quebec South will be all right yet.
I think the British government have done some good things about which we ought to know. First, they have revealed that planning and controlling can be done without dictatorship. Second, they have shown that nationalization preserves all the advantages of large-scale production achieved by monopoly without any of the disadvantages of monopoly. Those are significant things for us to know. In this connection I should like to quote what I regard as a brilliant passage from a speech recently made in the British House of Commons by the Prime Minister of Britain. He said:
The British people will show that in peace as in war democracy can be combined with strength, tradition with progress, liberty with self-discipline and prosperity with social justice.
I want now to reply to some of the things that have been said by one or two hon. members who have preceded me in this debate. I am replying to them because they seem to think it is socialism that is covered by the resolution and not the extension of the meagre

power which has been practised by this country for years during the war. I shall refer first to the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming)
[DOT] who charges the government and the C.C.F. with taking power from parliament to transfer it to somebody else. If that were the case I am sure the hon. member would be the first one to vote for it. However the very opposite is the case. We are not transferring power; we are taking a little more power than we ever had before. What is the point of his argument? What we want to do is to continue the power proposed in the resolution; it as a matter of fact we want to extend. He wants to discontinue the exercise of these powers. That is what this debate is about. He is the one who is trying to give powers away or to allow the powers that this parliament has never exercised to remain in the hands of those who have always exercised them, apparently according to the pleasure of the hon. member for Eglinton.
The hon. member says that the Progressive Conservative came here to fight for the supremacy of parliament. They are 600 years late. The supremacy of parliament was fought for by the British people right in the very teeth of Conservative opposition throughout all history. For an hon. member who has as fine a mind as the hon. gentleman; for an hon. member who has the education he has been privileged to have to rise in his place and make an absurd claim of that kind with respect to parliament is nothing short of extraordinary. It has been the traditional position of Conservatives to retard democracy, to prevent the people from having their votes, in every way possible to hold power from the people. That is their tradition.
I do not charge deliberate totalitarianism to the Conservative party. I do not like to charge that to any party, because most of those who talk that way have just got hold of a stinking term that they like to apply to the policies of other parties in order to frighten the people. But while it is not perhaps totalitarian in its intentions, it is certainly totalitarian in its policy. If I wanted totalitarianism in Canada I would vote for the Conservative party. They want total economic power vested in private interests- private monopoly.


An hon. MEMBER:: Under parliamentary control.


William Irvine: That is what we are doing now; that is precisely what the minister is proposing, and that is what we have prevented him from having passed for the last two or three days. Why all the discussion if that

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is what the hon. gentlemen want? The slogan of the Conservative party-I never can see much in this Progressive that they use-is that parliament must have nothing to do with business; let the business man do everything with business. But business has everything to do with the lives of the people of this country. No parliament which represents the interests of the people of this country can afford to allow power to stay in the hands of business without a check by parliament.
The hon. member goes on to say: "We have seen it with our own eyes that the further the control, the further the power of parliament recedes". The hon. member heaps conundrum on absurdity. He says he saw it with his own eyes. With whose eyes did he expect to see it?


An hon. MEMBER:: To whom are you
referring?


William Irvine: To the hon. member for Eglinton. He saw it with his own eyes. What he saw was a large, overgrown hobgoblin, something no more real than the mythical "oogapooga" which so many people have seen in the lakes of western Canada. Then he goes on to say that big business is anxious to have controls maintained. That was the most subtle cut of all. I think there must be an element of cleverness in it if it were not so obvious.
The hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) is never afraid to say exactly what he thinks, and just three or four minutes after the hon. gentleman who is one of his colleagues sat down he blurted out the truth without the slightest hesitation. He said that business large and small has been clamouring for freedom from so many controls. My hon. friend should realize that he cannot have it both ways. If he does not get off that fence he will tear his breeches for certain.
I wish to say something now with respect to the argument advanced by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low). He reminded me somewhat of a helicopter. He flew over the whole empire of economic problems, but hovered here and there over very interesting spots, and then, when you thought he was going to make a landing, he roared away and never made a landing at all. I agree with him, however, on one thing. He said:
There can be no democracy at all without economic freedom.
I thought he was going to land on that spot, but if he had he might have discovered something about what economic freedom means. Economic freedom and monopoly cannot go together.


Mr. FLEMING:: That goes for state
monopoly.


William Irvine: There is no such thing as state monopoly except in the minds of those who do not understand the meaning of terms, and I shall deal with that in a moment because the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) dealt with it. He said:
There is actually no difference between a state monopoly and a private monopoly.
Just because a man says that with great unction does not make it true. Private monopoly is a one-man show, and he gets the proceeds of the gate; a public monopoly is everybody's show and they all get the proceeds of the gate. Private monopoly is a privilege held by an individual or corporation at the expense of all the rest of the community. A public monopoly, if you wish to call it so, is where the common people, all the citizens, are shareholders and have equal benefit in the so-called monopoly. If that is not a difference there is no meaning in the English language.
Then the hon. member went on to say:
The only effective controls are those which are inherent in a justly scientific structure.
Now, sir, that is the largest mouthful of sweet nothings I have ever seen anyone take at any one time. Not knowing what it means, I have to pass it. I will not say that the hon. member had nothing in mind, but I will say that if he had anything in his mind when he said that it is still there. He was anxious that we should define our terms. I ask him to define the terms in that statement. He then went on to advocate the establishment of a monetary authority charged by parliament with the responsibility of maintaining a constant balance between effective purchasing power and available goods and services.


Mr. JOHNSTON:: Will the hon. member
disagree with that?


William Irvine: No; I was just going to
agree with that; but I am going to ask the hon. member and ask the leader of the Social Credit party, what is the difference between a financial bureaucracy and any other of the bureaucracies that he has spent so much time in criticizing in this house? If that is not a bureaucracy, then a planning commission set up by this parliament and empowered by this parliament to give direction to the economic policies of this nation is no more a bureaucracy than the financial bureaucracy suggested by the leader of the Social Credit nartv.
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Mr, JOHNSTON:	But the hon. member
agrees with that.


William Irvine: Certainly, I agree with him on that, but the hon. member does not agree with me with respect to the other-a most extraordinary thing.


Charles Edward Johnston: I do not agree with
Donald Gordon but the hon. member's leader did the other day.


James Horace King: Order.


William Irvine: The hon. member said that the best way to plan is by competition of consumers with dollars as ballots and they will vote with their buying. Well, that is nothing like a plan; that is not planning anything. For the hon. member's information let me quote something of what that kind of thing does. This is a quotation from the brief presented on February 2, 1937, to the royal commission on textiles by Elie Beauregard, K.C., commission counsel. He said:
It is destructive competition that maintains wages at a low level. When responsibility does not rest with foreign competition, it lies with domestic competition waged at the expense of the worker and resulting from the wage inequality between provinces, cities, towns and villages.
Let me give another brief quotation from an official document of the British government which will give some idea of what happens when you leave things to the dollar votes of the consumer and have no regulatory plan for a national industry. This is in regard to electricity and reads as follows:
At present Britain suffers from the inconveniences of total absence of standardization in voltages or appliances. In 1936 there were as many as forty-three different declared voltages for low and medium pressure supplies, ranging from 100 to 480 volts. A citizen moving from one part of the country to another, or from one London district to another must often scrap the whole of his electrical equipment because of these divergencies.
That is the sort of thing which calls for planning. It is not enough to let anybody buy just what he likes so that when there are shortages the first thing that would happen is that all our sugar would go to the making of candies and they would be bought at high prices by the sweet-toothed people who have money in their pockets and the rest of the people would not have anything. But I must not take the time to develop that, because I believe I have just about exhausted my time and I should like to finish what I have to say.
I intended to take up the hon. member for Pontiac (Mr. Caouette); I think he needs someone to take him up after what "Little

Chicago" did to him a little while ago. I shall conclude, sir, by saying that planning means balancing all the needs of the nation against all the available resources of the nation; balancing the man-power demands against the available man-power; balancing the needs of factories, housing, transport and other public services against each other; balancing the need for exports against the need to keep at home products which are essential to the lives of the people within a given country. These are some of the things that are meant by planning. Therefore, sir, I am getting tired of the evangelism of private enterprise, of the ranting about bureaucrats, regimentation and the death-knells of freedom when we suggest that parliament must be supreme in economics as well as in political policy. I would say that hon. gentlemen who carry on a programme of that kind are mental monstrosities limping frantically across the political stage on crutches.of hate.


Mr. EDOUARD RINFRET (Outremont):: I listened with great pleasure to the speech delivered the other day by the hon. member for Montmagny-L'Islet (Mr. Lesage), and I compliment him on the brilliant expose of the constitutional question which he made in that speech. However, as I read the resolution before us I see that it states:
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 arising out of the war . . .
There is in this resolution only one constitutional basis.
Before taking the time of the house to discuss the constitutional aspect of the whole question, I should like, if I may, to ask the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) this simple question.
Is this legislation based upon any constitutional ground other than that mentioned in the resolution.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If I may, I will answer that immediately. The answer is no. I suppose the hon. gentleman has in his mind something I said the other day in the house, but all I said the other day was this. In response to questioning about a recent judgment of the privy council, I told the house what that judgment seemed to decide, supporting what I said by an opinion from the deputy minister of justice. None of our legislation is based on this decision of the privy council. Our emergency legislation is based on the existence of a national emergency arising out of the war, on the emergency doctrine, to which no one takes any exception either in this house or

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outside it. My statement did not purport in any sense to be one of government policy or any indication of government policy. It was a report to the house on what the court had decided, nothing more.


Édouard-Gabriel Rinfret: Mr. Speaker, in view of the explanation just given by the Minister of Justice, I do not consider it necessary to continue discussing the constitutional question, and on the basis of the information just given I shall support the resolution.


Mr. J. A. DION (Lake St. Jean-Roberval) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I intend to vote for this resolution and for the bill on the continuation of controls, not because I find it pleasant, but because I deem it necessary to do so. Furthermore, I support this legislation because of its urgency and its temporary nature. Were it neither urgent nor temporary, I would oppose it, because to my mind it would be unconstitutional. I may add that on that score, the majority of my colleagues from the province of Quebec are of the same opinion. I submit this with all the due respect for the decisions of the Privy Council and I take this opportunity of thanking the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) for the explanation which he has just given us. His statement of Thursday last had left a few aspects of this legislation out of focus, but now that the measure is recognized as constitutional, everything seems to be quite clear. I thank him once again and I congratulate him for having shed some light on the matter.
It is in order, I believe, to compliment the government on allowing Parliament this year to legislate on controls. I must admit that last year I felt some misgivings about supporting bill No. 15, which maintained the government's right to rule by orders in council.
I believe that the sooner we revert to the true allotment of legislative, executive and judicial powers, which constitute the very essence of our parliamentary democracy, the better it will be for the true interests of the Canadian people.
It is the duty of Parliament to enact laws and appropriate the money required for the management of the country's affairs.
It is the function of the government to administer those laws and to manage the money voted by Parliament.
Finally, the courts are required to give an interpretation of the laws and of the Constitution when disputes arise between citizens or between citizens and the Government. However, it is not within the jurisdiction of the courts, whichever they may be, to change the laws or to modify the Constitution.
Those are elementary principles of constitutional law, but it is advisable to bring, them, to the attention of this house from time to time, for, unfortunately, they are too frequently disregarded nowadays.
In a debate on controls and planned economy such as this one, if hon. members indulge first in electoral propaganda and then give their attention to the legislation under discussion, if the house is turned into a public forum instead of legislating, there are a large number of useless speeches and unending discussions. I suggest that parliament does not accomplish its true function which is to study and legislate.
If, on the other hand, instead of putting it up to parliament, as was done in the case of this bill, the government enacts too many orders in council, it transgresses the prerogatives of parliament. This should happen only in extreme cases, under quite exceptional circumstances, such as war.
And while it is the Government's duty to govern and to manage, if it allows its planned economy to be managed by boards and bureaucrats with no responsibility to the house and to the people of Canada, the cabinet surrenders part of its rights and privileges. Such practice, if allowed to last, will eventually distort the spirit of the constitution.
Then again, if a court, such as the Privy Council for instance, instead of merely interpreting the constitution of this country, takes upon itself to change it on the grounds that the central authority may encroach upon provincial rights, even when there is no urgent necessity to do so, this court is not exercising purely judicial functions. Instead of merely interpreting the law, it changes it, and in so doing trespasses upon the legislative powers of this country's parliament.
It then becomes a cause not for amusement but for genuine alarm to see the keenest champions of provincial autonomy acting likewise as the most ardent advocates of appeals to the Privy Council. Such inconsistency is nothing short of appalling.
In closing, may I express the hope that this measure for the maintenance of controls will be discontinued as soon as practicable in the best interests of the whole country.
Finally I hope that the necessary distinctions between the legislative, executive and judicial fields will henceforth be more and more closely observed, so that our constitution will operate as designed by the fathers of confederation.
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Let no one exceed his powers and the constitution will be more secure.
(Translation):


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: Mr. Speaker, the resolution which is submitted to us, shows once again that the optimistic forecasts of our leaders, both before and during the war were, in truth, nothing but weird fantasies of minds overstrained by the abuse of the imperializing drugs of our overseas friends. Master propagandists and experts in false mirages paid by the war mongers, they used posters, newspapers, pamphlets, as well as the radio, to sing the virtues of military conscription and to promise happiness to the heroic nations whose sons, forsaking their native shores, would fly to the defence of christiandom at the sides of Joseph Stalin.
The golden age would be the reward of the sacrifices made by the Canadians to ensure the sway of the Muscovite Bear over the world. It will soon be two years since the storm has ended, two years since we should enjoy freedom and peace; however, we still are on a war footing, victims and slaves of a planned economy administered by a cankerous bureaucracy. What a formidable price in human lives and economic disasters will we have paid for this crusade which served no other purpose than that of increasing the prestige of the man from the Kremlin. War has brought upon us problems the solution of which, in the opinion of the government, lies only in an undue restriction of the freedom and privileges enjoyed by individuals and in the discarding of the basic principles of our constitution. The hon. member for Terrebonne (Mr. Bertrand) had good reason to fear the dangers which he mentioned on February 3, 1944. when he said:
Will it be possible to make this post-war readjustment without running counter to the traditions, without breaking old covenants, and the conventions which ensure autonomy to the central authority and to the provinces in certain spheres. Some claim that we should forget about traditions and even that we should run ahead of evolution. Is it possible to break away from the past of a nation? Others advocate the most arbitrary measures, but that view is to be condemned just as the doctrines of those who would sabotage the present structure of the nation and replace it by the fragile columns of an exaggerated socialism.
Mr. Speaker, while listening on Friday last to the hon. member for Portneuf (Mr. Gauthier) expressing his faith in the present controls and his desire to have them maintained, I was reminded of these words which he spoke in this house on February 10, 1944:
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the time has come for parliament to remember that besides the empire, there is a country called Canada which is now being bled white, with the result that

its economy will have to be built up anew and her citizens will suffer both from the moral and the physical standpoint. That will be a consequence of the hardships, the vexations of all kinds, and the various controls forced on the labouring classes, the farmers and workers.


Pierre Gauthier: Is that all? Excellent.


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: It is a fact that the
workers and the lower-salaried groups have been hardest hit by the unfairness and the annoying features of government controls. Wealthy people, those whose powerful pocket-books carried weight, monopolizers and selfish individuals did not feel the harshness of rationing to the same extent. They obtained the required goods and services and still do get them quite easily while the little man, the poor man, whose influence counts for nothing with some dealers, saw biscuits, chocolate, liquor, nylon stockings as well as automobile tires go to fatter purses or black market profiteers.
Sugar at S20 a bag, butter at 60 cents a pound, jam at $15 per twenty pounds, such are the trade practices fostered by the ineffable control of the wartime prices and trade board.
On page 124 of his book La revolution d'hier, d'aujourd'hui et de demain, Mr. L. Marlio, member of the Institute, professor at the Academie des Sciences morales et poli-tiques, writes as follows:
Planned economy represents a bastard compromise between dictatorship and freedom and yields only a powerless dictatorship or an encumbered freedom. Never up to the present has this system given favourable results but, on the other hand, it has brought about numerous disasters.
In short, according to the same writer, planned economy is destructive of democracy. It robs private enterprise of its initiative. It is conducive to indiscriminate control by the State, to anonymous dictatorship, the worst form of absolutism. It organizes disorder.
We are asked today to maintain controls on various economic activities. But the people are surfeited with restrictions. This colonial policy is designed, above all, to serve the interests of a foreign country, to which we are committed to the detriment of Canada. Discontent waxes rife in this country, Socialists, Communists and Jehovah's Witnesses are undermining our democratic institutions, and still we are amazed to hear the proponents of strange systems, every one crazier than the other, expounding philosophies which nobody understands but perhaps themselves and promising happiness based on an equal distribution of material wrealth. State paternalism which is practised on a large scale by the present administration, and the untimely intrusion of the government

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in spheres which rightly belong to the individual, while destroying the principles of democracy, have allowed certain thinking and living habits to become ingrained in the mind of many, who are now accustomed to expect everything from the state. It will be difficult to eradicate such habits.
In the words of Benjamin M. Anderson, economist of Chase National Bank-
(Text):
It must be recognized that government has made dangerous gains in power as a result of the war. The primary historical functions of government after all, have been (a) organizing the groups for war against foreign enemies, and (b) maintaining internal peace.
War and preparation for war constituted 'the major activities of government until fairly recent times. Internal liberty of the individual and of private organizations was strictly and sternly subordinated to war time necessities. England, following the anarchy of the Wars of the Roses, surrendered liberties for the sake of internal peace under Henry VII and Henry VIII, and struggled to regain them, and to protect them by a bill of rights, in the seventeenth century.
(Translation):
An investigation carried out last January by Mr. Gordon's board on the prices of foodstuffs. clothing and household furnishings showed that prices were lower in Canada than in the United States. For instance, it was pointed out that bread sold from 8 to 11 cents for a 24-ounce loaf in Winnipeg, whereas it cost 15 cents in Minneapolis; that a pound of round steak cost from 43 to 44 cents in Ottawa and from 59 to 72 cents in Syracuse; that shortening retailed from 17 to 25 cents per pound in Montreal and from 43 to 51 cents in Boston.
In regard to clothing and furniture, the prices were about the same in Canada as in the United States. However, the Prices Board forgot to mention that cigarettes cost 33 cents or more per package in Canada whereas in the United States they sell for approximately 15 cents; that gasoline cost much more in Canada than in the United States; that we must pay from $100 to $500 more than our American neighbours for an automobile; that shoes which sell for $20 a pair in Montreal are offered for $6.95 in Syracuse. Nor does the investigation mention that hourly wages are on the average 35 per cent lower in Canada than in the United States; that the taxes affecting the middle class are one and a half times higher in Canada than in the United States.
Entrusted to officials with no responsibility to the people, the operation and supervision of controls are an almighty state within- a moribund state. The people are very often
at the mercy of employees who don't know the first thing about the people's problems, or the special economic conditions of a given area, and they have to bow to the edicts and obey the whims of meddlesome and invisible czars.
Under order No. A-2225, for instance, Mr. Taylor, the new chairman of the prices and trade board, will no doubt keep on looking, beyond May 15, after the wholesale and retail prices of toe and heel studs, fly-doors, chemical toilets, septic tanks, bath mats, adhesives, brassieres, skirts and shoulder straps, pinafores, smocks and dungarees.
If I had to set up communism in this country, Mr. Speaker, I should not go about it differently than has the present government. The dictatorship we have known during the last war has alarmingly favoured] the establishment of a socialist system in Canada. And if the C.C.F. members look so fondly today upon their friends across the way, it is because the Liberals, in taking over their principles and in legislating as the C.C.F. would have them do, are paving the way for the advocates of a system that has failed in every country where it was put to the test. Communists will then follow, whose Canadian family tree will reveal its descent from the present Liberal party.
"Socialism has liberalism for a father and communism for an heir", proclaimed His Holiness Pius XI, in Quadragesimo anno.


Mr. ARSENAULT:: Economic liberalism.


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: Yes, a doctrine applied at present by the Liberal government.
The bill which is to follow the present resolution will be, in essence and in fact, a new encroachment on provincial prerogatives. This reason alone justifies my voting against the resolution moved by the Right Hon. the Minister of Justice.


Mr. BRUNELLE:: As usual-


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: On the other side of the house, hon. members gargle high-sounding, throbbing and hypocritical statements about the sacred rights of the provinces-


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I ask that the hon. member withdraw the word "hypocritical".


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe there is any reason for withdrawing this word-


James Horace King: Order! I request the hon. member to be kind enough to change the wording of his statement.


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: Mr. Speaker, under what rule am I bound to withdraw the expression?

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James Horace King: Under the rule which prohibits the use in the house of an unparliamentary term. I would therefore ask the hon. member to withdraw it.


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: I did not apply the word "hypocrite" to any member in particular. I made a general statement.


James Horace King: The hon. member will not insist, I am sure, and he will withdraw his expression.


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: In order to please you, Mr. Speaker, I shall withdraw the word "hypocrite".


Mr. MARQUIS:: It must be withdrawn unconditionally.


James Horace King: Order 1


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: In order to be agreeable to you, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the word "hypocrite". However, I regret the intervention of the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Marquis) had no consequence.
Hon. members opposite indulge in high-sounding statements on the sacred rights of the provinces concerning civil legislation. The premiers of Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, as well as members of this house, are taken to task for insisting upon the prerogatives of the provinces. When the government is charged with trying to centralize power to a degree never attempted by any previous administration, members sitting to your right pretend to be deeply offended. Looking demurely upon us, they try to use such honey phrases as the fabulist Lafontaine puts in the mouth of a fox strongly tempted by the fine-feathered bird's piece of cheese. The recent statement by the Right Hon. the Minister of Justice (Mr. Usley), generally known as being brutally outspoken and a true lover of Great Britain has given us another proof of the federal government's willingness to impinge upon the exclusive rights of the province, should they find it convenient in order to promote their own objectives or those of the United Kingdom.
Progressively, through successive precedents and abuses of power, we have been led to our present alarming situation. It seems to me that the mandate given to us by our electors wras already burdensome enough without the government adding new problems quite beyond our concern.
Mr. GARlEPY: What statement are you referring to? I interrupt with the permission of the hon. member who has just mentioned some speech made by the Right Hon. the Minister of Justice. I am asking him to tell us specifically which statement he has in mind.


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: I am referring to the observations which the Right Hon. the Minister of Justice put forward last week when we were discussing the bill having to do with grain before the resolution which we are now debating was introduced.
Mr. GARlEPY: That has nothing to do with this debate.


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: Our plates are so well garnished that we do not feel the need of picking those of others.
If it was a mistake to start this deadly game, and I contend it was, the least we can decently expect is that certain limits will not me transgressed and that this whole business will cease before the advent of a socialist or communist dictator who could hoist himself to power simply by donning the cast-offs of the Liberal party.
(Text):


Mr. W. GARFIELD CASE (Grey North):: Mr. Speaker, I feel that this moment in the history of our country is too great to be allowed to pass without a word on my part. I have listened with considerable interest to the discussion of the various aspects of this legislation; and I have learned with concern of that part of it which could not be regarded as other than socialistic, which could indeed be very harmful to democracy in this country. As a matter of fact, I do not see how any stalwart Liberal who loves his country and believes in democracy can support this legislation. That is my principal concern. I am not rising necessarily to criticize the socialistic aspects of the bill, but rather to plead with the government, who are still proud to call themselves Liberals, to turn back while yet there is time. My sympathies indeed are with the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power). When parliament delegates to the government such tremendous powers as are contained in this legislation, dealing with so many aspects of our whole economic life, it is time we who still believe in democracy and in our way of life take notice of the trend of the times. That trend is toward socialism, and the pace is quickening. I have only to remind hon. members that there is only one alternative to democracy; that is dictatorship.
I should like to remind my Liberal friends, because my appeal will be made principally to them, that the socialist party in this country are selling the Liberals short, just as they did in the old land. When the late Prime Ministers Asquith and Lloyd George were persuaded to introduce socialistic and social welfare policies they actually signed the death-knell of Liberalism, and today the Lib-

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eral party in the old land is a nonentity. I am one of those who would regret to see the same fate overtake the Liberal party in Canada. Yet if they carry on with those who are seeking by subtle methods, by pressure methods, to undermine our democracy and to persuade our government that the only method they can employ is one by which they would rule by legislation which is subversive to the best elements of democracy, then I say Liberalism is indeed in for a very difficult time.
History has a habit of repeating itself, and Canada is today at the cross-roads. I can appreciate the unfortunate situation in which the government finds itself. Yet no one can be blamed. This country could have entered into a policy of decontrol during the last session of parliament. Had we done so we would have been further advanced today along the road of a return to government by parliament rather than government by orders in council or by omnibus bills.
Once you embark upon the road to socialism, there is no turning back. Follow the pattern of those who present the views of socialists in this House of Commons, and you discover that constantly they seek to advance the interests of the state and to submerge those of the individual. In other words, they would seek to make of Canada and of the Canadian people a nation of leaners, depending upon some form of central authority, which would guarantee their security and economic freedom.
Yet, Mr. Speaker, the greatest asset this nation possesses is its strong citizenship. The greatest asset we possess is our people. If we seek to interfere with ambitions and ideals, and to kill the enthusiasm of our people; or if we seek to depend upon some central authority to provide us with leadership, then indeed Canada has taken a backward step.


Mr. PROBE:: Come and sit over here.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: Well, I do not like to question the motives of anyone. This, after all, is a democracy, and you can expound your theories. History reveals that, wherever your doctrine has been tried, it has ended in bloodshed and sorrow, and has left a wake of broken hearts in its trail. Make no mistake about that. After all, socialism is not new. It has been tried time and again, and it is failing in Great Britain today.
The hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine) quoted the Prime Minister of Great Britain; but he did not quote their minister of labour who said, "You will work or starve." That is the socialism which will be applied in Great Britain, because they realize today as never before that their whole salvation depends
upon their ability to produce more goods. And they cannot produce more goods under socialist doctrines which guarantee security at the expense of the taxpayers and the state.
Therefore I offer this advice to hon. members who try to fasten on to Caiiada something which has failed-and failed miserably- in other lands. After all, this is a land of freedom, a land we are all proud to call our home. And I am one who will stand up and, by all the means I can employ, seek to stamp out socialism. I appeal to those hon. friends of mine, who are sitting opposite and who still believe in Liberalism-as I do-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: -that now is the time to turn aside this threat to our Canadian way of life.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You never forgot your first love, did you?


Wilfrid Garfield Case: It rests with the government. Thank God, I have the right to express my thoughts freely within this party, and to endorse the principles and ideals enunciated by my leader. I think I come a lot closer to ideal Liberalism than those who are sitting opposite today.
In respect of socialism there seems to be no saturation point. 'Never are they satisfied, but constantly they attempt to regulate and to control. The challenge is now one the government must meet. I know it is said that this omnibus bill is to meet a special emergency. If many of us could believe that there would be a turning back a year hence we would feel just a little more secure. But because the leader of the C.C.F. rose in his place and endorsed the bill, and because his followers have supported it so wholeheartedly, I am more than convinced there is something wrong with it.
Certainly it is not a Liberal bill.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You are against it, no matter how good it is, eh?


Wilfrid Garfield Case: There have been times when there has been lack of understanding with our friends from the province of Quebec. But I believe I can say to the house this afternoon that we in Ontario, and those from many other parts of Canada can say in all sincerity, "Thank God for the province of Quebec." It stands today as a bulwark against this threat to our economic freedom; it is our first line of defence against socialism and communism.


Angus MacInnis: The line-up with Duplessis is complete.
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Wilfrid Garfield Case: Quebec remains the one focal point where they are not going to attack our democratic way of life, without a real fight. That has been indicated in the house.
Even though I am not entirely satisfied with the answer given by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) to the hon. member for Outremont (Mr. Rinfret), it would be wrong on my part in any sense to question the constitutionality of the resolution. That has already been taken care of. I do know that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) is one who has always given close attention to the matter of constitutionality. If my memory serves me correctly, it was the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett, then leader of the Conservative party, who introduced to this house many measures of social security, comprising legislation which afterwards was determined to be ultra vires of the House of Commons.
The time has come when the battle lines are drawn. Are we to have happiness in Canada, or are we to have that which has taken place in the old land? I was greatly impressed with the words of the Prime Minister when he pleaded with Canadians to stick to the two-party system. I believe the day will come when we shall return to that two-party system. But I say-and I say it with feeling and regret-that unless the present trend is stopped, the Liberal party will be submerged in its desire to adopt measures which can lead to nothing more or less than socialism in Canada.
My chief point of appeal is to ask the government to reconsider, even at this hour, the resolution now before the house. I ask it to bring in bills so that parliament may decide that which may best be continued or discontinued. I realize, of course, that this procedure would take more time. But after all, with our future at stake, with the welfare of Canada, the welfare of the Canadian people and the whole economy of our country at stake, surely it would be best in the long run to do what I have suggested. We have already granted an extension of time of these emergency powers until May 15. It would be possible no doubt if these bills were not concluded by that time to seek a further extension, but in the meantime parliament, the elected representatives of the people, the voice of the people would be heard so that they might place their stamp of approval or disapproval on the bills as they were presented to this house.
I think we all feel greatly concerned at the trend today in world events. Canada is in position to give a certain type and degree of leadership in world affairs. We have reason to expect that leadership. We have

a great land, a country which offers a challenge to all Canadians. This afternoon the hon. member for Cariboo spoke about the supremacy of parliament and referred to the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) as being 500 years late. That brings to my mind the thought that sometimes the things we value most are treated much too lightly and parted with much too carelessly.
Certainly it has been a long upward fight and struggle to gain freedom. Freedom is the greatest thing we shall ever possess. Now they talk of our supremacy at a time when we can go on to greater things with the initiative and background and enterprise of our people. Are we to turn back the pages of history and seek to begin the struggle all over again? Balancing the needs of the nation, says the hon. member for Cariboo, but I ask him who in his group sitting in this house today would he feel capable of balancing the affairs of a great nation? Where would he find the ability or the initiative or the understanding of the complex problems of industry and finance and development that he would seek to have placed in the hands of someone who would tell you or me what we should do?
I think the time has come when we must seek to break the shackles and bonds that are binding us, so that we may have an opportunity for greater expression, greater advancement and greater development. Then Canada will indeed find her way to the leadership which she is capable of providing. In this great land we should seek to encourage those who believe in freedom, those who believe in democracy to come to our shores. We shall not get the people we would like to have as long as we have on our statute books legislation which provides for the continuance of the very things many of them are seeking to escape from in distant Europe.
I can see the trend today in Great Britain. We have a great stake in the British isles. I am not going to condemn the British government, but I am going to say that, unless they change, Great Britain is indeed in for a difficult time. Unless they can step up the production of their nation, where will they arrive at? We find that today they are seeking to import hundreds of thousands of workers to do the work which Britishers formerly were able to do for their nation. If that is done, the nation will suffer just that much more; yet they must produce even with foreign labour, if necessary, to pay for their imports.
Last year in Canada we had to seek to retain German prisoners of war and to import Polish immigrants in order that they might

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assist in farm work. What is wrong with our great country? As long as these controls remain, business will have no faith in the future. As long as we continue to regulate by legislation, farmers and others will not till the soil and we shall not obtain that vast production which is so necessary if we are to avoid inflation and satisfy the demands and needs of a starving world.
I make this last appeal to the right hon. minister and to the government of Canada: Reconsider the step you are taking, turn back while yet there is time to avoid this socialistic trend which is seeking to undermine our democracy; bring in these bills separately so that we may consider them in their true perspective; let parliament decide, and then the people of Canada must accept our judgment or exercise the remedy they have in their hands.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, it would take a brave man to try to pick out the central feature of the legislation now 'before the house. That is obvious from the way in which the discussion has ranged literally all over the universe. However, it does seem to me that the aspect of this legislation which most concerns the people of Canada is its bearing on the cost of living. There is included in the orders in council that we shall -be dealing with when the bill is before committee the orders having to do with price control, rent control .and other measures which have an effect on the whole economy of this country, and therefore on the cost of living. That being the central issue, as I see it, in this legislation, it seems to -me that this house is faced with two questions to which we should give our attention. First of all, is it necessary to do something about the cost of living? Second, is the something which must be done a course that might cost us any of our liberty or our freedom? In other words, I admit that the injection of discussion about freedom and liberty into this debate is germane to the subject, and I wish to deal with my remarks under these two headings.
First of all, there is no doubt that parliament has to do something about the cost of living. If we are a responsible body at all; if we consider that we are here to concern ourselves -about the interests of the people of Canada, we must pay serious attention to what
is happening to the cost of the necessities of life. As an example, a short while ago the price of shortening took a tremendous rise in a very few days. I know of few articles concerning which I have received from housewives across Canada more letters of protest than in connection with the increase of the price of shortening. I placed some questions on the order paper about this matter and received from the government the information that in a matter of two or three days prices went up all across Canada. An example was in Winnipeg where the price went from nineteen cents to twenty-nine cents a pound in a matter of just two or three days. Similarly one might mention what has -been happening to the price of soap.


Mr. MITCHELL:: Nineteen cents a pound for what?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Shortening.


Humphrey Mitchell: A farm product.


Stanley Howard Knowles: No; it includes vegetable oil. The increase was not due to removing the ceiling altogether, but just the permission from the prices board for an increase.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: And the farmer was not getting much of that, either.


Stanley Howard Knowles: So with the cost of soap-flakes and bar soap, and also with the price of tea; coffee; meat, especially bacon; canned goods, especially soup, and so on.
Hon. members throughout this chamber have, I am sure, had the same experience that I have, namely, of being bombarded by housewives with their protests against this rise in the cost of living, even under the controls which are still in existence. This is true not only with respect to articles of food-and I must not forget the increase in the price of milk, despite the vote in this house last summer-but also in connection with articles of clothing, particularly children's clothing. If I might cite an example which is close to home, may I say that the streets are rather wet in Ottawa today and it is necessary for children in this city to have rubbers or rubber boots of some kind. There are two children in the home in which I happen to stay here in Ottawa. I know that the parents have been desperate in the last few days to try to get rubbers or rubber boots for their children. They managed today to get a pair of rubber boots for their eight year old Gretchen for the sum of $5. Admittedly the boots are better than they would normally buy, but that is all that was available and that is the price they had to pay to get any at all. In addition. I have before me, but I shall not
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take the time to give them, other figures indicating conclusively that it is urgently necessary to do something to hold down the cost of living.
Last summer certain newspapers in Canada were singing the praises of the policy being followed in, the United States where price control was taken off and the law of supply and demand was allowed to function. I have before me copies of editorials which appeared in the Financial Post in July, 1946, and again in November, 1946, drawing attention to the fact that decontrol in the United States had not then had the disastrous results which had been predicted, but rather it was permitting certain initial fluctuations and then in due course the proper level was being reached- at least so it was claimed.
These editorials in the Financial Post to which I have referred called upon the government of this country to follow the lead of the United States in this matter. Today the story is quite different. I have before me now a clipping from the monthly letter of the National City Bank of New York for March, 1947, which is right up to date. That monthly letter says:
The resumption of the rise in commodity prices is the feature of the business news during the past month.
Then later on:
The resumption of commodity price advances is to be deplored rather than welcomed. It defers hope of a downturn in the cost of living.
Then still later on:
Meanwhile the situation holds various dangers, some of which have been alluded to. One is the danger that an unwarranted confidence in the price level, and in the continuation of inflationary advances, will spread.
I hold in my hand! a copy of the Financial Post for March 22, 1947, on page 20 of which is a digest of an article headed: "What is ahead of us this year." It is an account of what business expects in the United States under present conditions. Let me quote a few sentences:
Prices are higher than at any time since the boom period that followed world war I and are still rising.
Then later on:
Actually a turn from boom to set-back is approaching, and probably will become apparent by or soon after mid-year.
Still later on:
That average factory worker, due to price rises, can buy less with his weekly pay cheque at this time than he could buy a year ago. The same is true in the average salaried man.
The article goes on from a business point of view to point to the difficulties and the dangers that confront the United States where

this policy of the removal of controls has been carried to reductio ad absurdum. Therefore I contend that the answer to my first question is a definite yes. As a matter of responsibility to the Canadian people whom we represent, we must do something to try to keep down the cost of living.
I said, however, that it is germane to the whole question to have something to say about freedom. It is theoretically possible for one to agree that something should be done to hold down the cost of living and yet to be afraid that the something that has to be done interferes with liberty and freedom and therefore might be at too great a cost. I for one do not believe that to be the case. As a matter of fact, this whole position was presented to the .house most forcibly this afternoon by my colleague the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine). It does seem to me that we can too easily become the victims of certain cliches, and one of these cliches is the supposition that the protection of freedom involves only protecting the individual against the state. That has been the ultimate position stated in this house by those who claim to represent the essence of liberalism, and I agree that the day is not gone when we must watch in a democratic way to make sure that the state does not make inroads on the life of the individual.
But, Mr. Speaker, the thing that I should like liberals-with a small "1"

to bear in mind is that our main concern is to protect the individual against anything that interferes with his freedom and his liberty. In the days of our grandparents, if they were protected against the authority of the state, well and good; but in our day that is not sufficient for the protection of the individual. A person's life depends upon the cost of living; it depends upon whether or not there is full employment; it depends upon whether or not there is a market for the produce of the farmers and whether that produce can be disposed of in an orderly fashion. There is a whole gamut of things that bear on the life of the individual today which our grandfathers knew nothing at all about, and in that situation governments have a new responsibility; they still have the responsibility not to be bureaucratic or interfere with the liberties of the individual, but in addition, they now have the responsibility to protect the individual against the things over which he has no control in the economic order.
Our lives today are not cast in the simple environment that our grandfathers had; they are cast in a complex world where, underlying our very existence, underlying life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is the whole question

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of how the economic system functions. I maintain that those who claim to be liberals, those who claim to be concerned about protecting the freedom of the individual, must be concerned about the freedom of that individual against the caprice and the depredations of the economic system. And so it seems to me that all this talk about bureaucracy, about state monopoly being just as bad as any other, is a case of well-meaning individuals failing to think the matter through.
The liberal position-and I am still using the small "1"-is a great position, but it is a position that needs to be thought through and worked out in terms of the kind of society we have today, and in that society what is needed is responsible democratic government that protects the individual at every point where he needs protection.
It has been said a good many times during the course of this debate that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) has introduced a socialistic measure into this house. He has been chided by my hon. friends of the Progressive Conservative party and my hon. friends of the Social Credit group for this action. The attempt has been made to pin the word "socialist" on this bill in the thought that that would condemn it. Let it be said quite clearly, Mr. Speaker, that this measure is not socialism. This measure is a device to save capitalism. My hon. friends to the right are missing the boat completely when they rise in opposition to it. This is a measure that would save capitalism in Canada from the kind of chaos that the Minister of Justice rightly described the other night; and if that happened, there is no telling where this countiy might go. We of this group are not anxious to protect or save capitalism, but we do believe in orderly progress. We want to move on in an orderly fashion from what we now have to democratic socialism, and I pause for a moment to thank those who have taken the trouble to call attention to the fact that we in this group are socialists. We want to move on in that direction.


Humphrey Mitchell: Does my hon. friend say, Marxian socialism?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I said, democratic socialism. My hon. friend knows about it; at least he used to know a good deal about it.


Humphrey Mitchell: What they had in
Germany, they said, was democratic socialism.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Not at all; you know very well what they had there. Mr. Speaker, what we want to avoid is the kind of chaos which the minister rightly described as that which would follow if this measure were
defeated. Capitalistic chaos it would be. That chaos might throw the C.C.F. into power. If my hon. friends to the right want to take that chance, well and good; but there is no guarantee that it would throw this party into power. That chaos might throw into power something worse than we now have. That is the reason we take the position we do in supporting this measure as a means of avoiding chaos and keeping things on as even a keel as possible so that we can move on in orderly fashion.
The hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) the other day had something to say about the alleged crocodile tears of my colleague the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Zaplitny) because he was interested in protecting the position of people on fixed incomes, even people who were drawing their incomes from interest, if I understood him rightly, against rises in the cost of living. The hon. member for Eglinton was quite surprised that the hon. member for Dauphin was concerned about these groups of people. I ask the hon. member for Eglinton, does he not want to protect even his friends from the dangers and the chaos of a rise in the cost of living? That is what this is all about, and frankly I have been amazed-I confess I have changed my mind half a dozen times in the debate whether to speak or not-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: That could not be possible.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -but I have been amazed and annoyed at the kind of thing that my hon. friends particularly to the right have been saying about this measure, so I finally decided I would speak. If their heads were on straight, they would know that this is the kind of thing they ought to vote for to keep this country on some sort of even keel.


Mr. HOMUTH:: If we had socialism a lot of us would lose our heads.


Angus MacInnis: You would not be losing very much.


Stanley Howard Knowles: In addition to the confusion to which I have already referred, we have had other forms. It has been suggested that, because we in this group are prepared to support the measure before us, that means we thereby swallow in its entirety everything that goes with it and all the decisions made by all the so-called bureaucrats who function under the authority of these orders in council. That is just as ridiculous as the opposite position would be.
The hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdonnell), who sits near me here,
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believes in private enterprise and supports it wholeheartedly. But that does not mean he approves everything that every private enterprise in this country does. He finds some fault here and there with some of the things that some of them may do. So I say that neither acceptance nor support of this measure involves approval of every decision which has been made by every board set up under this legislation. I am simply suggesting that we try to keep a proper balance and perspective about this kind of thing. By supporting this measure it does not mean that we in this house approve controls just for the sake of controls. To hear some of my hon. friends talk one would think it means we go all-out to hunt for new phases to control in the lives of the Canadian people. It does not mean that at all, any more than the desire of the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario- and I am using him only because he is so close and is paying such good attention to me-


Angus MacInnis: He is a decent sort of fellow.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes, he is a decent sort of fellow. As I say, it does not mean that any more than his desire to have controls taken off means he wants no law or order at all in this country. It is a matter of balance, a matter of perspective.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Why not let the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario give his own views?


Stanley Howard Knowles: He very likely will. I am helping to develop his thinking for him before he gets to his feet. In principle, Mr. Speaker, and on balance, we feel that, in its effect on the cost of living-and that is the aspect in which this thing touches the lives of the Canadian people most closely-it. is better for our people that at least this much control that we now have be kept intact. As a matter of fact, our quarrel with the government is not that they ask for the kind of powers which are involved in this resolution and in the bill which is to follow, but that they do not take the responsibility which is involved in asking for those powers. As the Minister of Justice and other members of the cabinet know, I have been on my feet several times already during this session protesting against the action of the government in removing controls every week before the matter gets discussed in this house. My contention is that they owe a moral responsibility to parliament not to go on taking steps which keep boosting up the cost of living until the matter has been decided in this parliament. If parliament 
decides, either in this vote on the resolution or in the vote on the price control order when we get to it, that price control is to go out the window-and it will be against my vote if it does-then the government would be perfectly right in doing away with it, but until such time as that decision is made, we contend that the government has no right to take order in council action, or action by orders of the wartime prices and trade board which results in these increases that are annoying housewives, old age pensioners and other Canadian citizens and making it exceedingly difficult for them to carry on at all.
As I say, our contention is that the main fault of the government in connection with this whole measure is not that they are asking for powers beyond those which a democratic government ought to have in order to protect the interests of the Canadian people, but that they do not exercise the full responsibility which those powers involve.
In introducing this measure, the Minister of Justice referred to three different kinds of orders in council which wrere to be included in the bill. He put in one special group three of those orders in council: P.C. 1003, the order having to do with labour relations regulations; the order having to do with veterans' preference matters, and finally, order in council P.C. 6367, of August 10, 1943, which provides that the old age pension maximum is to be $25 a month rather than $20, which was provided in the Old Age Pensions Act itself. In putting these three matters in a separate category, the Minister of Justice gave as his reason for doing so the fact that it is the intention of the government that in due course these orders in council shall be replaced by acts of parliament. I agree wholly that since such acts of parliament or such amendments are not yet in statute form, we must pass this measure and keep these specific orders in council in effect. I wish those who voted against the six weeks' extension last Tuesday and those who say they intend to vote against this measure would realize that in doing so they are voting against the continuance of old age pensions at $25 a. month until such time as we can have them raised to whatever amount this parliament agrees to. It is all right to enjoy the holier-than-thou position which says: "I took a truly Liberal stand and voted against this measure". But suppose the majority had done that sort of thing. My hon. friends to my right say they are voting against controls. The hon. member for Trinity (Mr. Skey) sought to make it clear Friday night or this afternoon-

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Lawrence Wilton Skey: That he is voting against socialism.


Stanley Howard Knowles: He is not voting against socialism. He is voting against a device that would protect capitalism from its own inherent chaos; and he is also voting in a manner which would result, if the majority of this house joined with him, in old age pensions dropping back to S20 a month on May 15. It was March 31, but has been extended by the resolution we passed last Tuesday.


An hon. MEMBER:: Whose fault is that?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: It is not the government's fault.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It is the government's fault. The government put us in this position, and I deplore the fact that we have been put in this position. But having been put in it, surely we owe a responsibility to the old people of Canada not just to pride ourselves on being able to say that we voted against the government without taking into consideration the consequences of such a vote. Therefore I contend that, on the basis of the labour relations order, the veteran's preference order and the old age pensions matter alone, we ought to vote for this measure, even if we must swallow some things we do not like. But having said that I wish to go on and say that in relation to the old age pensions question I have a real quarrel with the government, and it is this: When this resolution is passed and w'hen the bill has been introduced and passed, it will make it possible to delay a proper amendment to the Old Age Pensions Act until March 31, 1948. I do not say that the government intends to do that but I have not been given any assurance that they will not. I have been told repeatedly-and I hear some remarks on the opposite side now which I fear Hansard is not getting-that it was promised clearly by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) on page 83 of Hansard that amendments to the Old Age Pensions Act would be brought in this year. A few days ago, on March 20, as recorded at page 1550 of Hansard, I asked the Prime Minister if he would consider bringing in Old Age Pensions Act amendments as an emergency measure at an early date. His reply was that he had made a statement about this earlier in the session and that I would find his remarks on Hansard; that is the reference on page 83. Then he said the answer to it would be the same as I would find there. Well, I am not quarrelling with the fact that it has been made clear to us in the speech from the throne and in the promises of the Prime
Minister that the Old Age Pensions Act is to be amended this session. I take the Prime Minister at his word; it is there in plain language.
We had a similar promise last year from the then Minister of National Health and Welfare, but that promise was amended. This year we have the promise of the Prime Minister himself that it will be done, and there is no argument on that. My question is, when will it be done? The promise was made in the speech from the throne on January 30, nearly two months ago. I could give this house the names of old people-I have in my office letters from their sons and daughters, their widows and so on-who have died since January 30 waiting for these old age pensions to go up so that they could keep alive, or waiting for something to be done about the means test so that they could get the old age pension. My fear is that this thing will be dragged on and on, causing continued months of suffering to our old people. Here is what can happen. We do not yet know what is to be the nature of the legislation that is to replace this order in council, but it is not impossible that it will be the kind of legislation that requires concurrent legislation by the provinces. That could mean the matter would not come into effect until some time next year; and, for all I know, 1948 may be the year of an election. In fact many people are beginning to suspect that is what is in store for us, the increased old age pension being held until the eve of an election.


Humphrey Mitchell: My hon. friend does not believe that.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Well, Mr. Speaker, this afternoon the hon. member for Outremont (Mr. Rinfret) had his speech cut out from under him by a statement from the Minister of Justice which satisfied him completely. If any minister will rise in his place now and tell this house that the amendments to the Old Age Pensions Act will be introduced within the next month, I will sit down immediately.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The price is too high.


Stanley Howard Knowles: What did the minister say?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Nothing at all. I was somewhat amused at the hon. member's attitude; that is all.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The answer would be a very simple one to give. The Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie) says he is amused at my attitude. It is not mine only; it is the attitude expressed1 in letters from old age pensioners which I receive literally every
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day. What is the government doing? What is the delay? The promise was made on January 30.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The Prime Minister keeps his promises, and will keep this promise.


Stanley Howard Knowles: But in the meantime old people are suffering and dying as a result of this delay. That is 'the point I have been trying to get across to the government. My contention is that it is utterly callous and inhuman for us to sit here in the comfort of this parliament and accept this continual delay. I am sure the impatience I feel about it is shared all over this house. As a matter of fact, I am sure it must be shared by the private members on the government side; I imagine they are embarrassed by the delay and are doing everything they can in their own way to prod their government into doing something about this matter which is so important in terms of human relationships. I wish they would express themselves in the house, so that it would be out in the open and the government might really be prodded from all sides into taking action without further delay.
We shall soon be in committee, I presume, or at least the Minister of Justice will have a chance to reply. I had hoped that when I made remarks similar to these on the resolution last Tuesday, the minister would reply and give some assurance, but it was not forthcoming. When he replies now I hope he will give some assurance as far as he is concerned, at any rate, that the adoption of this measure with the resultant extension of P.C. 6387 will not be used as a basis for interminable delay in the matter of old age pensions. When I spoke on this matter in the house on Tuesday of last week, March 18, it drew an interesting paragraph in one of the daily newspapers, which read something like this: "The Commons showed marked impatience when Stanley Knowles (C.C.F.-Winnipeg) began to discuss old age pensions."


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Hear, hear. That is
what they said.


Stanley Howard Knowles: What does my hon.
friend say?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: It was just something slightly accusing.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is just the point: impatience. The people who have a right to be impatient are the 190,000 old age pensioners across this country, and I decry this inhuman attitude.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: We on this side of
the house are as close to them as you are;

we have been all our lives. We gave them old age pensions before you ever started to work for them.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am tempted to pick
up a volume of Hansard I have here in my desk and see just how well you gave old age pensions to them.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: We started it for
them. Where were you then?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Where was I? I certainly was not a candidate for an old age pension. I was at the other end of life in those days. The thing I am decrying through all this is the callous and shamefully jovial attitude in which this thing can be taken right here in the house tonight.


Humphrey Mitchell: I wish to say to my
hon. friend that I signed the agreement to bring old age pensions into existence in Ontario. I do not know whether my hon. friend was even in Canada then; and to suggest that I am taking a callous attitude is not fair, as my hon. friend knows.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: The minister won an
election on it on one occasion.


Humphrey Mitchell: If you would only stop talking and get on with the legislation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I do not need to get
into a discussion as to how old age pensions got started; it is too well known. I give my hon. friend the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) all the credit he has coming to him for what he did in the trade union movement to try to get the idea of old age pensions started. I know that story; he has told it to us before, but some other people had a part in the matter as well, and we are still at it. The point I am trying to get across is that the promise of improved old age pensions was made to the people of Canada in the speech from the throne on January 30. Today is March 24; nearly two months have gone by and nothing has been done about it. Any questions that have been asked have simply brought forth the reply that it will be done some time this session. On one occasion the Minister of Justice repeated the old excuse that the matter is the subject of dominion-provincial discussions. If that is the basis on which it rests I am afraid the chances are that the old people of Canada will not get the benefit of these increases until some time in 1948.
So, Mr. Speaker, while I have stated my position in support of this measure so as to avoid chaos and confusion-let it be clear that it is by no means a socialist measure but a device to keep capitalism going in

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some more or less orderly iashion-nevertheless I protest against this necessary measure being used as a basis for interminable delay in this important matter of doing something for Canada's old people.


Mr. M. E. McGARRY (Inverness-Rich-mond):: Mr. Speaker, I have been one of the more or less appreciative audience listening to the numerous speeches, pro and con, for and against the resolution now before the house. There is an old saying that too much of anything is not good for one. We have had a great many speeches; I have listened to most of them, and now I should like to take about five minutes to vary the monotony as far as I am concerned and offer a few words on this important legislation.
I believe this matter of controls resolves itself into something not only of domestic but also international concern. I believe it places before this parliament and the people of Canada a problem that is of extreme importance in view of the disorganization that exists today in a world weary after many years of war. Right now this. country is faced with the challenge of solving these problems which face us in this period of rehabilitation, and we must bear in mind that in this conflict-if we may call it that-we are confronted with threatening forces just as terrifying as those which obtained in time of war. This should be the leading issue in the minds of our people today.
Fortunately we in Canada are in a better condition than most people in the world, including even our allied friends, because Canada is today economically sound. After the depleting war through which we have passed, I believe much of the credit can be attributed to the ex-Minister of Finance and the gentleman who until recently was chairman of the wartime prices and trade board. These men stood at the lines of defence when the country was in great danger, and not only combatted but hurled back what I might describe as the fifth columnists, those selfish interests which fain would break through the lines and put our economy into a state of chaos, even at a time when the government was enduring the stresses and strains of war.
The superior position enjoyed by Canada today, after a depleting war, certainly cannot be attributed to accident. As I said earlier, I believe our present economic soundness can be traced to the controls which obtained during the war. Is it not reasonable that in this conflict we should go cautiously and carefully before we eliminate or withdraw those measures which have done so much for Canada in time of war?
Let us not forget that, while Canada is enjoying the fruits of a victorious war, we are today engaged in a conflict that is just as important and just as serious, and bids fair to be just as enduring as the conflict of war. In those circumstances I believe it is just as essential that we should preserve the same precautions which operated so beneficially during the time of the greater stress of war.
There are those who advocate that all controls should be removed entirely and immediately. I believe people who hold that view disregard the best interests of millions of our people. It may suit some of the selfish interests, but certainly it is not to the advantage of the masses of the people of Canada.
Fortunately we have in Canada today a government that is very little concerned with the selfish interests of the few. We have a government which takes great concern in the interests of the masses. I have every confidence that the government will not continue one control which it considers unnecessary. I have the further faith that from time to time the government will be willing to make changes in any of the controls it considers should be maintained, so as to eliminate any factors in those controls which would tend to penalize any particular individual interest.
During the war there was a certain element that undertook to belittle and to hamper our remarkable war effort. I am afraid that today there is under the surface an element that is undertaking to hamper the progress of the efforts made by this government in the present conflict which, as I said before, is just as serious as was the conflict of war.
In war we had the dread of defeat. Right now we are threatened with the dread of economic collapse. This is too serious a time to be thinking about politics, or to think about the few who would gladly take this opportunity for their own aggrandizement, and to promote their own interests. I say that today in this conflict the government are given the same mandate they were given in the time of war. They did their part well by 'bringing us out of that struggle in a sound economic position. They have a mandate in the present conflict, a mandate of administration. That mandate is to meet present problems and to give leadership. Today I say they are giving that leadership. The government has a difficult and dangerous task to undertake, and I say that we must use the same generosity and have the same degree of tolerance, even to the extent of making some sacrifices, if we are to win this important conflict in a time of peace. Our very sons who went out and shed their blood in order that we may have prosperity
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in Canada, and so that we may have peace, have sown the seeds of peace on many soils. It is the responsibility of the government and of the Canadian people to cultivate that soil so enriched by their blood, and to see that that harvest of peace and prosperity for which they fought will be worth reaping.
I hear a great deal about bureaucracy. One would almost think the government's action is such as might be expected from Hitler. But as a Canadian, and one who will live in Canada so long as his span of life continues. I would be more happy living under an authoritative rule administered by responsible ministers of the crown, men who have done so much in the handling of controls, than I would be if all those controls were removed and those selfish interests were given the green light to proceed to the practice of that policy which they fain would undertake, for their personal aggrandizement and in disregard of the national interest.


Mr. LUDGER DIONNE (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, many people are asking the house to do away with controls. Some of those people think this move will favour their political publicity, some others have the intention of protecting their personal interests, and others take that stand because they think that if controls were lifted the flow of commodities would be resumed through the natural channels of trade.
In order properly to inform the fair-minded people, having in mind the welfare of the population of Canada, I have made a careful study of the subject and I shall now proceed to outline the conclusions at which I have arrived. If the government were to lift controls immediately I think everyone will admit that a large number of tenants would be thrown out of their homes. Since there exists at the present time an acute shortage of houses in this country, it does not require much imagination to foresee the perturbation which would result throughout Canada. Farmers and proprietors of houses do not realize what would be the distressing situation of tenants dislodged from their farms or homes, who would be at a loss to find shelter within the means of their pocketbooks. It is evident that the price of rent throughout the occupies rented quarters, and these people country would be increased tremendously. As a general rule it is the labouring class that occupies neeed an immediate increase in their wages to face this sudden additional increase in their budgets. It is evident that under such circumstances the cost of manufactured articles would have to be increased in proporfMr. McGarry.]
tion, and the disastrous result would be that the financial condition of every citizen in Canada would be upset.
The Labour Gazette of January, 1947, contains figures showing the cost of living in Canada as compared with that in effect in the United States since controls were abolished. The increase in the wholesale price groups from June to November, 1946, were as follows:
United Canada States
General Index	
2	21Farm products	
4	19Textile products	
0	19Metal and metal products ....	1	4Buildings material	
4	8Chemical and allied products..	1	26Raw material	
3	20Semi-manufactured articles ...	3	21Manufactured products	
3	31
The same issue of the Labour Gazette contains the following statement:
The point of the two comparisons above is that while wholesale price groups moved in a parallel manner until June, 1946, there has be.en a considerable divergence since that date, with United States prices outstripping their approximate counterparts in the Canadian scene. Canadian food imports from the United States are only a small portion of the total imports from this source, so that pressure on our own food price ceilings in this particular respect is not excessive. But our imports of manufactured articles, as well as certain industrial raw or semi-processed products of iron, coal, cotton and petroleum, are very large. The increasing cost of these items places additional pressure upon our own price structure. An indirect pressure is offered by the greater disappearance of our own produce now in short supply that is sold in the United States at high prices rather than in Canada at controlled prices.
I should like to give a brief resume of another article which appeared in a prominent newspaper last week. This article stated that it is evident that business in the United States is due for a shake-down by the middle of 1947. Even the most bullish supporters of the commodity market in the United States feel that the end is in sight, and it is this feeling that is given as the reason for the stock market remaining dull. A comparison of United States commodity prices prevailing last January, this month and those being paid on September futures will show that prices are due to decline considerably. Here is the picture:
January Today September
Wheat	
2-06	2-59	2-09Corn	
1-34	1-62	4-54Cotton	
-30	-34	-28Cocoa	
-25	-27|	-234Hides	
-224	-254	-214Wool tops	
1-514	1-58	1-29Black pepper .... -47	-57	-35Lard	
-26	- 314	-24f
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I sincerely believe that if we have the patience to wait a little longer before releasing more controls it will be possible to do so without creating too much disturbance of our economy. Every fair-minded member in this house will certainly realize that the government is not asking for the continuance of these controls for its own satisfaction. So far as I am concerned-and I know there are many others who share my view-I hate this interference of the government in private business.
In one of my previous speeches in this house I drew the attention of hon. members to the fact that I suffer personally from these controls. I have to sell the production of rayon yarn made in one of my plants at the same prices as prevailed on October 11, 1941, namely, seventy-five cents to 81.40 a pound when I could dispose of my production on the New York market at prices varying from $1.40 to $2.60 a pound f.o.b. shipping point. We produce in another plant ladies' shoes which retail in Montreal at from $6 to $9, when the same shoes are being sold at from $20 to $25 in Washington. I use these two items as an example only because I am familiar with them. I think they prove that it is against my own interest to favour controls. On the other hand, what lasting benefit could I expect from a situation in the United States which is bound to collapse at any moment? In the fact of such a precarious and dangerous situation, I prefer to carry on business on the basis of 1941 and not expose my country to an indescribably chaotic economic situation in which I would be engulfed with the rest of the Canadian population.
The government expects to reduce its expenditures next year by $900 million. This is interesting news for the population of Canada, but what is more important is the stabilization of prices without which we would be in the same situation as now exists in the United States where the purchasing power of 1947 salaries is lower than that prevailing during the war, even though there have been substantial increases. Salaries in the United States have increased eighty per cent. Weekly wages in industry averaged $25.20 in 1940 for thirty-eight hours. At the beginning of 1945 these had increased to $47.50 for a week of forty-five hours. The increases in wages have been completely wiped out by the lifting of controls in June last, except on rent, sugar and rice. In comparing the increases which took place in the prices of commodities and wages, the United States secretary of labour
admits that the purchasing power of salaried people is seventeen per cent inferior today to what it was during the war.
Since the decrease in the expenses of running the government of Canada, as announced in the federal budget, must reflect a decrease in taxation, the normal consequence should be a decrease in prices. Instead of a decrease in the prices of the necessities of life, it seems that we are on the threshold of a new wave of increases. Some controls have been abolished on some products and prices have increased. Any overvaluation of prices would absorb at least part if not all of the benefit derived from a decrease in taxation. The salaried man would not be any better off. At a time when employment is reaching normal and products and goods of all kinds are reappearing on the market, this man would notice with consternation his diminishing buying power. By that very fact his situation would become helpless. Scarcity of goods caused by the war does not free him from purchasing the necessities of life. He would then be compelled to ask increased wages or strike.
It is easy to prove to him, with indisputable figures, that he is the loser when he goes on strike. On the other hand, increase in salary, which will serve as a pretext for an increase in prices of goods, will create inflation and by the same fact will destroy the benefit foreseen by the increased wages.
Under ordinary circumstances the increase of prices should create abundance and should thereby correct the evil through the law of supply and demand. But unfortunately this scheme cannot produce any satisfactory results to prevent inflation owing to the fact that consumers need too many things at the same time.
During the war the government has assumed control of the economy in this country. Through many mistakes, it has nevertheless brought about useful and indispensable corrections. While our war effort has created an abnormal situation, requiring controls, we have to face the same situation today which is created by an unlimited demand for all kinds of products.
It is not the proper time to relax controls which are still in existence, and it is to be hoped that the government will receive the authority to maintain this policy for a limited period. The members of this house have so fully realized the importance of this precarious situation that when a vote was taken on the transitory measure presented by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Usley) on March 18, 177 members voted in favour of the measure while only thirteen members voted against it.
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In some requests which I received asking for the suppression of controls I notice there was also a demand to prohibit exportation. Needless to point out, we have an unfavourable balance of around $500 million with the United States for the year 1946. This means we need foreign currency to finance our importations. Moreover, if exports were prohibited how could we dispose of our wheat, bacon, cheese and other manufactured articles that we must sell to other countries if we want to maintain and preserve the position that this country has acquired in the world. If one takes into account the overvaluation of prices in other parts of the world compared with Canadian prices, he would certainly admit that suppression of controls would create an increase in the exports of our products and thus increase the scarcity of same on the Canadian market.
For the above-mentioned reasons and for many others which would take too long to enumerate, I believe that maintenance of existing controls for a certain period is not only useful but absolutely necessary if we want to maintain a sound economy in our country. I understand that proprietors deserve sympathy because they are the most affected, but in face of two evils it is natural to choose the lesser. I would rather see the proprietor rent his house on a cheap basis than witness the renters being thrown out om the street. It is to be hoped that the competent authorities will give preferred attention in the near future to the urgent ease of the proprietors.
If I listened to some of my electors who have not given much consideration to the matter I would vote against the controls. In so doing, I am sure I would please them. Unfortunately the duty of a sworn member of parliament does not consist only in pleasing electors and himself but rather to take the interest of the Canadian people at large, no matter how disagreeable his attitude might be on such an important matter.
Before taking my seat, may I draw the attention of the minister to some decisions of the officers of the wartime prices and trade board, which are unjust and detrimental to the interest of Canadian citizens. Personally, I have been the victim of one of their decisions which was far from being equitable, though the case, after different stages, had to be decided finally by Mr. Gordon himself.
Recently a firm in my constituency made application to the timber controller to extend an export permit from 1946 to 1947 because their timber could not be shipped last year, on account of the lack of cars. The permit was refused by the timber controller on the ground that it was not the policy of the board

to consider such requests. I do not know the salary being paid to this officer. I imagine he must earn many thousands of dollars yearly. What is the use of paying such a high salary to this officer if he refuses to use practical sense in face of uncontrollable circumstances? A clerk with a weekly salary of $25 could do the job. As a matter of fact, it does not require much experience to tell the people that the rules and regulations of the board must be observed. Though many additional cases could be told the house, I will not mention any more. However I will suggest to the minister that he appoint a committee composed of a few members of the house to reconsider unfair decisions of the wartime prices and trade board officers. There must be someone to judge and straighten out the actions of these officers when their decision is detrimental to the welfare of our citizens. I think this suggestion is a protection which we owe to our people when they cannot obtain justice from our bureaucrats.
I have been told by many of my colleagues that my suggestion would not be accepted by the minister because the officers of his department would not approve it. I have too much confidence in the honesty of the minister to believe this. I am convinced that if my suggestion is not acceptable to the minister, he will find some means of establishing some kind of control over the officers of the wartime prices and trade board. If he does not, I leave it to him to bear the responsibility of his inaction.
When I take the responsibility of voting for a measure of this kind wffiich is very unpopular in many parts of our country the least I can offer to my electors is that I have taken every precaution so that they may enjoy some kind of assurance that their cases will be fairly dealt with.	.


Mr. FREDERIC DORION (Charlevoix-Saguenay) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, when he introduced this resolution, the Right Hon. the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) expressed the wish that we wait until the second reading of the bill to fully discuss this measure.
His suggestion might be just and reasonable if this were an ordinary piece of legislation; but when I know that at this very moment a large part of the people on the north shore are undergoing hardships that may be even worse than those endured by the populations of conquered countries; and when I know, as I shall show in a moment, that those hardships are the direct result of the imposition of "controls", you will readily admit, Mr. Speaker, that I cannot pass by a single occa-

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sion of protesting against that policy of controls which the government want to maintain.
I say right now that I am far from joining in the praises of Mr. Gordon which we heard last week from certain corners of the house. Our national economy was much too long under the "control" of that man, a real dictator, who did not even have the decency to answer telegrams such as those I sent him and in which I nearly pleaded with him to grant the people of my county permission to obtain the necessities of life before winter had set in, when it is too late to have them brought over to the north shore.
The country in which we live is regarded as essentially democratic, but the claims made by the official representative of 70,000 Canadians carry no weight in the eyes of such bureaucrats who have no responsibility to the people.


An hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


Frédéric Dorion: Had I been speaking in the name of a few financiers instead of pleading the cause of 70,000 Canadians, there is no doubt at all but that I would have gained a better hearing.
The present legislation is placed before us with consummate skill. We admit readily that it may be necessary to control certain economic activities such as the relations between landlord and tenant. But on the plea of necessity, the government are asking us to pass various measures, every one more unconstitutional than the other.
Even as regards rentals, I deem such legislation to be unconstitutional. As I said in this house in 1945, the dominion government should allow provincial legislatures to adopt similar measures, if they are considered necessary. Let us once for all return to the provinces the rights guaranteed to them by the federative pact.
Now, Mr. Speaker, in support of my opposition to this measure, I shall not indulge in academic discussions. In the last twenty-five years, when I had to plead cases before the courts of my country, I always made it a point to present facts, and once the facts were proven, draw conclusions. I should like to present a series of facts which, I am convinced, will substantiate my opposition to the continuation of controls.
I might explain, in the first place, that my constituency extends over a distance of 900 miles on the north shore of the St. Lawrence; in the Charlevoix section the population is composed of farmers, whereas the Saguenay district is inhabited by fishermen. The last 600 miles of the St. Lawrence north shore are also inhabited mostly by fishermen, and no
lands suitable for cultivation is to be found there. Therefore the fishermen depend on supplies shipped to them from Quebec city and Montreal. As the hon. members know, navigation in that large section of the province of Quebec is usually interrupted at the end of November. It is absolutely necessary, of course, that those people bring in adequate food supplies for the winter season, which extends from early December to the end of April and even into May, before it is too late. To those people, as to anyone else, milk is one of the prime necessities of life. Unable as they are to obtain so much as a drop of fresh cow milk on the coast, they naturally have to bring in evaporated milk all the way up the north coast. As a provident people, who know they must not wait till the very last days of fall to bring in needed provisions, by last Augu^ they had come down to Quebec and Montreal in an attempt to secure goods to carry them over the winter. I have just called them provident. Knowing they sometimes have to put up with much hardship, they generally provide as best they can for possible emergencies. For all the makeshift means at their disposal, they none the less insist on taking the best possible care of their health. And here, Mr. Speaker, may I quote parts of a letter I received early last January from Dr. Currie, a member of the International Grenfell Association and the hospital "superintendent at Harrington:
(Text):
I am a newcomer to the coast and only here for the winter months, having practised in the city of Regina, Saskatchewan, for twenty-one years, then bought a fruit farm near Toronto, Ontario, and one year ago retired but came out of retirement to give a hand out down here.
I have been here only two months but have covered all settlements from Romaine to Blanc Sablon and am starting on the second round trip tomorrow, weather permitting.
Thought you might be interested in the medical aspect of your constituency. As you perhaps know, health conditions are not what they should be.
Deficiency diseases are rampant, such as bad teeth in both old and young, poor vision, susceptibility to skin diseases, all due to faulty diet, lack of fresh fruit and vegetables and the essential minerals. Estimate over 1,000 people with scabies (itch) and impetigo along this coast. This is generally being brought under control. It is not due to dirt or unclean bodies in these people as I have been amazed at the cleanliness of their bodies, have not even seen a pair of dirty feet.
Many cases of gastritis, duodenal ulcer and gall bladder disturbances, due usually to indiscretions of diet. These respond to proper diet usually.
Have seen a number of cases of high blood pressure, mostly in women over 50 years. This I did not expect to see at sea level.
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(Translation):
So, Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the living conditions 'of the inhabitants of the north shore are normally very hard, but when they are worsened by the implementation of control measures such as those that are in force we are bound to arrive at the results described by Dr. Currie in the report he sent me.
I said, a while ago, that last year, these people tried as usual to get their supplies in as early as August last. Here is a letter from one of the most important merchants of Natashquan, Mr. Emilien Landry, an excerpt of which I shall read to you. The letter is dated August 26, 1946:
During my last trip to Quebec city, early in August, I wish to make arrangements to order my stock of evaporated milk for the winter and, at the time I was there, on August 3 to be exact, an order was issued forbidding all or nearly all shipments of evaporated milk to the north shore, for the reason, I was told, that more milk had already been shipped to that district than in 1941.
See how intelligently the controls are. administered. In August 1946, a good looking man, comfortably seated in an office in Ottawa or in Toronto, learns that the people of the north shore have had more evaporated milk than in 1941, it matters little whether they lack food during the coming winter. He decrees arbitrarily that no more milk will be shipped to those people.
Which meant that milk was the object of a black market on the north shore. At least, that is the answer I received on the occasion of my visit to the office of the board in Quebec. On the other hand, I cannot see what outlets we could have had for such a black market, considering navigation facilities we now have at our disposal, namely, two boats that call at the same time and do not show up before another fortnight.
How ridiculous it is for the representatives of the prices board to make such an assumption when we know that all the places I have mentioned on the north shore are isolated from each other! How can it be said that those people were in the black market business? With whom could they have traded?
Moreover, they cannot leave their place except to go fishing a few miles off shore. Their only means of communication with the outside districts is the boat which calls every two weeks.
However, as soon as I found out about the situation to which the people of the north shore were being subjected, I at once tried to get in touch first with the office of the prices board at Quebec. Unfortunately, I did not obtain satisfaction. In passing, may I say that all the officers in the Quebec branch of the prices board gave me, in this and 
every other instance, their full cooperation; however, they were unable to do anything. They had to follow the instructions of the controllers. At the end of August, I described our plight to the Quebec office of the prices board to the best of my ability. I then received from an official of that board a letter dated September 6, from which I quote the following excerpt:
As stated in the course of our telephone conversation, Saguenay county is a "free zone" as far as the rationing of evaporated milk is concerned. Wholesalers operating in "restricted zones" and requiring extra coupons to cover their deliveries to free zones should apply directly to the wholesale administrator, Metropolitan building, Toronto.
In other words, Quebec and Montreal merchants wishing to supply the population of the north shore with condensed milk had to request permission from a Toronto gentleman who had not the faintest idea of conditions prevailing in our province.
Towards the end of August and the beginning of September, I received a great many letters from merchants all along the north shore complaining about the restrictions to which they were subjected. Some of these are really pathetic. In September, realizing that they would be caught by the oncoming winter season without supplies for the children of their district, therefore, still trying to help these people-it was my duty to do so-I contacted the controllers in Ottawa and Toronto but unfortunately, I obtained no satisfactory results.
Incidentally, may I quote a wire which I received on September 6 from the mayor of Sept-Iles who explained the said lot of his fellow citizens:
Please contact Mr. Hugh Cree, distributive administration, Toronto. Village in sad plight without lard or condensed milk. No farmers in district. According to physician's report, submitted today, many children suffering now. Please understand we plan for six months ahead, being cut off during winter season. Heard today from our wholesaler that 1,600 cases of milk for north shore are frozen by government. Would appreciate prompt reply.
J. R. Vigneault, Mayor of Sept-Iles.
About the same time I received another letter from Godbout in Saguenay county. Let me read from it the following excerpt:
Ordinarily, I buy from 50 to 60 cases of evaporated milk for my store during the winter season. But now I have no way of securing it. If existing conditions continue, we shall be unable to obtain milk for the winter and our people will go without milk for their children.
The dealers have milk that could be sent to the coast, but they are under government orders not to do so.

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During the same period, I received a similar letter from the mayor of Riviere-au-Tonnerre. On September 5, when I had come to the conclusion that it was impossible to correct this abnormal situation through the wartime prices and trade board's officials in Quebec, I sent a message to Mr. Hugh Cree, wholesale retail food director, Metropolitan building, Toronto, explaining the predicament of my constituents. My message was dated September 5. On September 9, four days later, as I had no answer from this controller, I decided to send another communication and finally, not having yet received an answer on September 10, I thought that as a member of parliament, representing a population of 70,000, I might at least get in touch with Mr. Donald Gordon, chairman of the prices board. I therefore sent him on that day a message of which I have here a copy, giving him a clear and lengthy description of the near plight of my electors and asking him, as a special favour, to remedy that condition. On September 13, having received no answer from Mr. Gordon, I presumed that my message might have been overlooked and I sent another, urging him to kindly take whatever action might be needed to help a population and specially children who, without his assistance, would in all probability have to endure very severe hardships. But Mr. Gordon did not take the trouble to answer. Little did he care for the Canadians along the north shore.
A few days later, on September 12 or 13, I received from Mr. Hugh Cree, of Toronto, a letter from which I quote the following excerpt:
(Text):
In an effort to correct the situation and stop the distribution of needed reserves, suppliers in restricted areas were reminded that shipments into free areas such as the north shore must not exceed basic quotas.
(Translation):
Note this, Mr. Speaker. The controller himself told me that the north shore people drank more milk than usual this year and will therefore have to do without for the rest of the winter. The children of the district, scattered along the coast, will have no milk next winter; such is the decision of the controller.
While we are deprived of this essential commodity, our government is doing its utmost to push it on the export market. According to information supplied in answer to a question which I asked recently, Canada produced, from August 1945 to July 1946, 198,394,000 pounds of evaporated milk. During the same period, we shipped abroad 62,423,900 pounds of this product while Canadians on the shore line did without. The controller had decided to deprive them of milk because this year they drank more than in 1941.
Such are the fruits of the control policy. Some people may claim that these are a few isolated cases; but I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that this bulky correspondence in my hand, these exchanges of telegrams, these numerous telephone conversations are proof enough that our dictators were not in the least concerned about the plight of the north shore people. Furthermore, I maintain that many cases similar to the ones I have just mentioned could be brought to our attention by other members. I am convinced that the same situation exists in various constituencies of my province and elsewhere. We had reached November, and still our people were clamouring for help.
Allow me, Mr. Speaker, to quote a few excerpts from a letter which reached me on November 18, 1946, almost on the eve of the closing of navigation. It was sent to me from Riviere-Moisie:
I have just written to you about an application I have filed for a permit to secure Carnation milk. I had asked permission to obtain 60 cases for the winter season. It is two months since I have had any to sell. I had been counting right along on that permit, but now I have been advised that I will receive only 10 cases...
We have no milk for sale here; the other dealers have none either.
As the season is far advanced, it would be necessary to ship the milk next week, for the longer the shipment is delayed the greater the risks of freezing. I am counting on you as I know that you are aware of our plight, especially that of our infants. Mothers are wondering how they will feed their babies, as there are a large number of them and all are fed on Carnation milk. It is not logical that we should allow our own children to starve in order to send our foodstuffs overseas.
Those are the letters which I have received from the merchants of the north shore during the months of August, September, October and November, 1946. But I was unable to obtain from those gentlemen of Ottawa and Toronto the permission to send supplies to our merchants. Finally, in December, I succeeded in obtaining a small portion of their requirements. May I, on behalf of my constituents, thank sincerely the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier) for the help which he gave us when, at the end of December, it was necessary to enlist the services of an ice-breaker in order to send foodstuffs to the north shore. As the river had frozen over, navigation was closed in all the bays of the shore. Hence it was necessary to use an ice-breaker in order to send supplies to the merchants. As I said just now, these are facts, amply sufficient to show that the government's present policy in the
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matter of controls is absolutely nefarious. Against the facts I have adduced, nothing has been advanced so far but theoretical considerations. It is claimed that frightful chaos would follow in the wake of decontrol, but I have yet to hear facts in support of such a claim.
That is why, Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to this control policy. I feel that the people of this country should no longer be subjected to the whims of bureaucrats. I know that Canada has all the resources required to avoid a predicament such as I have just described. If it were proved that certain controls are still necessary, then, Mr. Speaker, the government should assume its responsibilities. Let the ministers assume responsibility, let them take away dictatorial powers from irresponsible bureaucrats and when I have cause to complain of conditions such as I have just described, I shall know just what minister to blame.
(Text):
Mr. PATRICK H. ASHBY (Edmonton East): Mr. Speaker, I was going to claim sabotage, because I have been squirming about in my seat, jumping up every little while during the past two hours, and I am sure I have worn my pants as much tonight as ordinarily would be the case in a month.
Canada is a big business, with a great many branches such as agriculture, mining, transportation and so forth. This great business is owned by its shareholders, the citizens of Canada. I do not know who would own this great business but the people of Canada; and when the matter of controls comes up I immediately ask myself: control whom, by whom, and for what purpose? The greatest of all controls is taxation, and I went into the library for the sole purpose of reading up a little on taxation. I opened the encyclopaedia and noticed one quotation from what I must assume to be the greatest authority in the world on this matter. I called the librarian and asked if he would obtain for me the book by that author. In about the time it would take me to pluck a chicken he brought it to me, and here it is. I see a page boy has just brought me some water. I hereby christen this book, representing orthodox political economy, under the name of "Bureaucratic BlancMange". I should explain what I mean by blanc-mange. That is a French word meaning nothing more or less than plain, ordinary cornstarch pudding, spelled "pudd'n". Perhaps I should explain what I mean by bureaucratic blanc-mange. It does not matter what problem may face us; it does not matter what
TMr. Dorion.]
definition we seek, there is only one place to go for the answer. That is back to nature, so let us go back to the farm.
My wife has reminded me that unless I go over my hives we are not going to get the honey we deserve. So of course I ask her where I left this, that and the other thing, as is natural with most husbands. She tells me where I left everything, and I gather up the various odds and ends required, such as a bee veil, a smoker, an old piece of sacking, some matches, some toothpicks to pry into suspicious looking cells, a little pair of scissors to clip the wings of the queen, and a hundred and one things including a notebook and pencil to keep a record of each hive, and I start off toward the hives looking like Robinson Crusoe. But I am stopped by my little daughter, who pulls at my overalls and says, "Daddy, if I help you with the bees will you give me all the honey from one hive"? What father could refuse such a., request? Taking note of her delicate little hands and fingers, I see an opportunity to have that child pick up the queen bee so that I can clip her wings without injuring her. I arrive before a hive, ready to operate, as it were, and I say to my daughter, "A little anaesthetic", meaning a little smoke; I tap on the top of the hive, indicating that 1 am coming in; I ask for the hive tool, and open up the bowels of the hive exposing the combs. I lift out a comb. There on the bottom are queen cells, and I begin to cut them away. My little girl notices a specialized substance in these cells and inquires what it is. So I explain that a queen bee lays eggs, that when those eggs hatch out they are fed a normal diet and worker bees emerge. Fed a specialized diet, drone bees emerge. They are the ones that live on the products of the toil of the others. Fed a highly specialized food called "royal jelly", the larvae will hatch out and turn into royal queens.
I take one of these cells, about the size of an elongated thimble, and squeeze a glob out of it and offer it to the child, saying, "Taste it." She, being like her mother, keeping one eye on business and the other eye on me, says, "You taste it first." Well, I can't very well back out, so I take some in my mouth but I immediately turn my face from her because it shrivels up my tonsils till they are like a dried prune; the roots of my back teeth shimmy in their sockets and I am rendered temporarily cross-eyed. However, with a gulp I quickly recover my normal composure, face her again and say, "There, you see; it is all right." She asks, "You didn't spit it out?" and I truthfully reply "Oh, no, I didn't spit it out. I swallowed it,

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and now it is your turn." I squeeze a great glob of it, including the wriggly larvae, or maggot, into her pretty little mouth. The immediate result startled me, for she licked her pretty little lips, looked up into my face and said, "That's pretty good stuff, eh, daddy?" The ultimate result, however, was astounding; for ever since that day the child has stood at the top of her class in school, and I have become a member of parliament.
This bureaucratic blanc-mange is very similar to royal jelly, because if this is fed to unsuspecting, gaping, gullible students they are certain to turn into bureaucrats.
I now open the book, and here are two full pages of testimonials. Let me read just a couple of the shortest, just one sentence. Here they are from Leland Stanford university; Brimfield, Massachusetts; the Idaho Industrial Institute; Boston university; the university of Chicago; Liege, in Belgium; Columbia university, the university of Kansas, the university of Texas, Yale university and so on. Here is a short testimonial by one of these professors of political economy:
It contains admirable features, and I shall recommend it to our students.
Here is another:
It is, I think, the best . . . treatise that I have read. How clear and simple it is!
This, hon. members will understand, is the real cat's whiskers. Let us see what this man says in regard to taxation. He starts out by saying, "First of all, students, you must never forget"; that is the way these professors, with profound dignity of deportment, speak to these poor, gullible students. He says:
First of all, it is to be remembered that taxation . . . may be looked upon as a blessing...
That is his opinion. My opinion is that it is a blessed evil-and I believe my opinion is just as good as his. But listen to what he says further on:
Taxation stimulates individuals to endeavour by increased industry and economy to repair the breach taxation has made in their fortunes.
Can you imagine that! In other words, if you are out fishing in a rowboat, with your family, don't let the kids know, but just carry a small axe along with you, and knock a hole in the bottom of the boat. The whole family will be stimulated with renewed efforts to repair the breach you have made in the boat. And that is the sort of bureaucratic blanc-mange that is fed to students in this day and age.
Let us have a look at these bureaucrats. At the time of confederation they claimed, mind you, that we owed a tremendous amount of money. They said we owed $93 million. Under 33166-108
their careful, painstaking, thorough and efficient supervision it increased to S500 million in 1912, to $544 million in 1914, to $1,000 million -a billion dollars-in 1917, to $2 billion in 1919, to $3 billion in 1920. In 1939 it was $3,710 million and in 1946 it was $17 billion. And these bureaucrats want us to hand over controls to them today! Can you imagine it!
Here are the shareholders of this great business of Canada, which has been so wonderfully prosperous and has produced untold wealth in coal, in food stuffs, in oil and tar sands, in everything imaginable under the sun. And then these bureaucrats actually tell us we have been operating at a loss. Don't believe it. It is not true. I claim that the people of Canada, the shareholders of this business, have been robbed and deceived all these years into believing that these bureaucrats have been doing their duty faithfully, when in fact they have been sabotaging the resources of this country, which belong to the people. That is why we say it is time an accurate and true record was kept of our business and a dividend paid. I am certain of this, that no country in the world can show such prosperity as Canada. No business in the world can pay such dividends to its shareholders as can this dominion.
I am a farmer, a practical one, and it grieves me to know that the people of Canada, who are so trusting, will actually permit themselves to be so sabotaged. Look at this, as an example: In 1944, in hogs alone we produced 8,863,830. And we produced them at a time when the majority of our able-bodied young men and women were away from home. Taxation officials were not imposing such restrictions upon us at that time; they were leaving us alone. But no sooner was the war over than the enemy set its troops on the farmers throughout western Canada. They have not bothered the people in Quebec, because they know very well what would happen there. But out in western Canada these enemy troops have attacked agriculture, claiming that they are after money to pay debts-to pay for this, that, and the other thing; whereas their real objective is to pry and spy into the affairs of every person in Canada, and to keep a record for no other purpose than that of establishing socialism. And that is right here in Canada. It is a domesday book; that is true.
It is an old trick, as old as the hills. Here is the communist manifesto. What does the second paragraph in the list say? It says that there must be a heavy and progressive or graduated income tax against all the people. Is that not what we are doing now? You cannot establish communism until you do impose a heavy income tax upon the people,

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robbing them of their hard-earned money and rendering individuals dependent upon the state. That is the only objective of taxation -to enslave the people of this country.
What in the world are we doing today, I wonder? Why, at the time of the Petition of Right, the people were not afraid of kings. Listen to this. Paragraph 4 reads:
Resolved that the ancient and undoubted right of every free man is, that he hath a full and absolute property in his goods and estate, and that no tax, tallage, loan, benevolence or other like charge ought to be commanded or levied by the king or any of his ministers, without common assent by act of parliament.
The whole issue at stake at that time was *between members of parliament-the House of Commons-and the king. The whole fight today is between the House of Commons-hon. members who sit here-and the bureaucrats, and bureaucracy. Are we afraid of bureaucrats?
In the year 1100, in connection with the Arabs, I read this:
Eleven hundred years after the birth of Christ we find conditions very similar to our own existing. Taxation reached burdensome proportions, farms were neglected, soil robbed of its fertility, sand storms, dust storms, plagues and famine stalked the land. The people finally revolted against socialism and communism and once more began anew.
That was away back in the year 1100. It states further:
The subjugated people shared in a common fate of excessive taxation and oppressive rule. No wonder if under such conditions no creative work in art or literature was produced.
That was written by Professor Philip K. Hitti, of Princeton university, in his book, "The Arab".
Now let us see what has happened to our hog production. It is reported that in 1944 we produced 8,863,830 hogs. Last year the production had dropped to 4,465,159, or a loss of nearly 4,500,000 hogs. These bureaucrats would tell you that it is because Mars winked at Venus, and she let him down, or something of the kind. They will give you some excuse. The reason is that these controls are being used for no other purpose than to restrict production. If these bureaucrats do not know the results that are going to ensue they ought to be fired, discharged-dishonourably discharged-from their duties. That is what I would do, if I were in a position to do it. There would not be a deputy minister in his office tomorrow morning.
Can you imagine the shareholders of this great business, the people of Canada, being insulted and ruled by these dictatorial bureaucrats?


Mr. BLACKMORE:: Sold down the river.


Mr. ASHBY:: Yes. Controls usurp the legitimate sovereignty of the people. That being true, those who seek to usurp the rights, powers and privileges of the sovereign people of Canada are guilty of high treason. That is a serious charge. The people of Canada can and, I believe, should demand the arrest of every deputy minister employed in every department and place them on trial for the serious offence of high treason. I think we would get some Tesults if that happened and I should like to give evidence at such a trial. The power to tax is the power to destroy and that is the only reason why they have usurped this power.
Away back in the time of Charles I, the people through their representatives protested against government by order in council. The authority for the forced loan at that time came from the council. Those who refused to pay, those who revolted against that undemocratic compulsory law were examined by the council. The protest of the members of parliament was that the council was taking upon itself both the functions of the judicial courts and those of parliament, and that is exactly what these bureaucrats are doing today.
Let us see what the Lord Chief Justice of England has to say about this. I do not think any other country in the world can claim to have greater justices than those to be found within the British empire. I should like to quote from the book, "The New Despotism" by Right Hon. Lord Hewart of Bury, and I read from page 11 as follows:
A little inquiry will serve to show that there is now, and for some years past has been, a persistent influence at work which, whatever the motives or the intentions that support it may be thought to he, undoubtedly has the effect of placing a large and increasing field of departmental authority and activity beyond the reach of the ordinary law.
And later on:
... a despotic power which at one and the same time places government departments above the sovereignty of parliament and beyond the jurisdiction of the courts.
And again:
That there is in existence, and in certain quarters in the ascendant, a genuine belief that parliamentary institutions and the rule of law have been tried and found wanting, and that the time has come for the departmental despot, who shall be at once scientific and benevolent, but above all a law to himself, needs no demonstration.
And again:
It is that the whole scheme of self-government is being undermined, and that, too, in a way which no self-respecting people, if they were aware of the facts, would for a moment tolerate

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And again:
. . . the goal ... is to subordinate parliament, to evade the courts, and to render the will, or the caprice, of the executive unfettered and supreme.
Coming, as it does, from such an authority as that, we should realize the meaning of controls.


John Horne Blackmore: When was that book published?


Patrick Harvey Ashby: It was reprinted in 1945. I noticed a small .article in the Edmonton Bulletin by Harold L. Weir, a very wise man, which I should like to put on the record because it bears directly on this matter. It reads:
Decline of Parliament
There is no doubt that the power of the Canadian parliament and especially the power of the House of Commons has declined seriously in this generation. This gradual undermining of parliamentary authority may well be regarded as the most sinister development of this age.
The Canadian constitution, that is to say, the constitution of tradition as well as of statute, was developed on the democratic principle that primary governmental authority should be vested in the smallest units of government and the larger units should enjoy residual authority.
In other words, all government possible for the municipality to effect should be in the hands of municipal or civic councils. All affairs which are beyond the municipality but are within the scope ol the province, should be left with the provincial legislatures. Inter-provincial or foreign matters are clearly the business of the central government at Ottawa.
The present trend is decidedly away from this basic principle.
Thus, the current dispute between the provinces and Ottawa is clearly more than a question of subsidies and taxation. It involves centralization of control in Ottawa. And that centralization of control is daily violating to a more alarming degree the democratic structure of this country.
Every power that is stripped from the municipality or the province is an unhappy step towards the fascist system.
During war time, centralization of control was perhaps an emergent necessity. Some vestige of central control may be essential while the nation moves into normality again.
But it is utterly wrong to argue that centralization must be maintained on the grounds of efficiency because efficiency is not the first consideration in a governmental system.
Efficiency is an excellent objective. But when the steps taken to secure efficiency destroy even better objectives, efficiency can become dangerous.
Freedom of enterprise, for instance, is infinitely more vital than mere efficiency. And controls necessary in a war economy can very easily become intolerable bonds once the need for them is gone.
Italy wras translated into a corporate state to give the people employment and to "make the trains run on time." These w-ere splendid pur-83166-1081
poses. But in the achievement of them the Italian people lost their freedom and very nearly lost their souls.
I he centralization of power became so great in Italy that the common man became a slave.
And that is the great danger today in Canada. Once we restrict the right of the common member of the Canadian Commons to have a free voice in every public policy we will have lost much of our democratic right of governing our-seflves. No matter what is gained in efficiency or financial yields or even administrative economy, the loss in democratic freedom is frighteningly greater.
The Right Hon. Mr. Ilsley to the contrary, the cabinet must be the servant of parliament. It governs the country, not by a divine right, but by the will of the people. Once wre assume that governmental power is derived from elsewhere than the people's will, we are throwing overboard the very fundaments of democracy.
The member who permits himself to be dominated by a party whip is untrue to his functions. When a man is elected to represent a constituency, he must raise his voice in behalf of that constituency no matter what his party says or thinks.
Does that practice prevail today? It is so rare as to be practically non-existent.
If liberal and democratic ideals are not to go into eclipse before an encroaching fascism or a protesting socialism, the early power of parliament must be restored. The necessities of the war years must cease to shackle democracy.
It is only too easy, because Ottawa presently holds the purse strings to sometimes surrender rights for security.
It is an evil deal. To trade freedom for security is a precarious business. To have security without freedom is to be in chains.
I happened to discover quite by accident the cause of our difficulties. I played hooky the other night and went down to see some of the members of those adorable creatures the fair sex skating at the ice carnival. I paid $2 for my seat, but I lost about thirty-five cents worth of my enjoyment when my mind was bi ought back to parliament. Of course I went there because I could see more of these beauties than I ordinarily could on the street and therefore could admire them the more. I asked myself the question, how on earth can any human male possibly avoid marrying one of them? In fact I think so much of them that 1 would have married a half dozen of them by this time if my wife had not kept her eye on me and I had not watched myself pretty closely. How on earth any young Canadian could possibly sit on a sofa with one of these lovely creatures and edge away from her is more than I can say. Right then and there it struck me like a bolt from the blue that Canada has suffered for over a quarter of a century from bachelor administration.


James Arthur Ross: I am sorry that I shall not be able to follow the previous speaker.

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Mr. SINCLAIR (Vancouver North):: The house could not, either.


James Arthur Ross: May I say that the war was won on the battlefields, in the air, on the seas, on the farms and in the factories and that on the present emergency powers measure, in reply to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley), the leader of the official opposition (Mr. Bracken) agreed that the main debate should take place on the second reading of the bill which will be introduced following this resolution rather than on the resolution stage. However the leader of the socialist group (Mr. Coldwell) did not agree with this and, since then, we have listened to some thirty odd speeches, fifteen of them by members of the government and five by members of the C.C.F. group to my left.
In speaking on this measure on the evening of March 20, the leader of the socialist group, the hon. member for Rosetownr-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) said, as reported at page 1588 of Hansard:
We should, in the interests of the Canadian people, not only maintain useful controls but, ip some instances, even reimpose controls that have been lifted.
At page 1590 he also said:
We believe in social planning and public control.
May I say, Mr. Speaker, that we have had fine examples of social planning both in Germany and in Russia.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: Does the hon. member make any distinction between the countries?


James Arthur Ross: I do not know how much there is.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: The hon. member
does not make any?


James Arthur Ross: Other speakers have said it is no wonder that the farmers are worried about their costs of production and so on. I have compared the arguments of these same people of that group of a year ago with their arguments of this session. I well remember that when we were debating the wheat issue in 1946 these people as a group unanimously swallowed hook, line and sinker with respect to the United Kingdom-Canada wheat agreement. Some of the same speakers today are endeavouring to crawl out from under. With reference to the inference of the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Nicholson) may I just give one or two quotations taken from Hansard of the war years of the remarks made by the socialist leader of the group, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. In the House of Commons on June 5, 1940, as reported at page 545 of Hansard, during the discussion

on the unemployment relief and agricultural distress measure at that time, the hon. member said:
The secret of the recent success of the Germans is the fact they have consciously planned their economic structure.
Then on March 18, 1942, at page 1430 of Hansard, on the war appropriation-


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Read it all.


James Arthur Ross: I have not time to read the whole speech.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Then the hon. member must be doing it for a diabolical purpose.


James Arthur Ross: The hon. member said:
On the other hand, we have another nation with another theory called communism . . . the basis was planning . . . The basis was the control and utilization of the economic resources and labour of those nations . . . They did a remarkable job in a short space of time.
Then on July 11, 1940, again at page 1520 of Hansard the same member said:
Policies and controls advocated by the British Labour party are the same as the policies advocated by the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.
Then some question was asked my good friend, the hon. member for Melfort, (Mr. Wright) who is a fine successful farmer. The question was:	"What about the nationalization of land?" The leader of the C.C.F. party said, on November 14, 1940, as reported at page 117 of Hansard:
My conception of the programme and philosophy of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation is that they are the same as the programme and philosophy of the British Labour party.
Therefore there is that planning in all these various nations.
I was surprised this afternoon in listening to the speech of the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine), who belongs to the same group, on taxation. He severely condemned the farmers who had continued to farm while the grain exchange and such other people whom he mentioned, took the profit until the farmer went broke and still continued to farm but then refused to milk cows and feed pigs for Ilsley. I wrote down exactly the words that he used this afternoon. I can quite understand the hon. member and several others of his colleagues not knowing very much about farm problems; but I would think he might have consulted his farmer colleagues of the socialist group before making such a statement about the farmers of this nation. I think it was rather uncalled for.
I wish to make some comparisons of prices in Canada and the United States as of March

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4, 1947. This is the price of wheat per bushel -and this at North Portal. For any hon. members who do not know where North Portal is, may I say that it is on the boundary line, half in Canada in the constituency west of mine and half in the United States. It is rather an odd situation. The man who takes his bushel of wheat into the elevator on the Canadian side as of March 4 received at that elevator $1.20 a bushel. A few yards across the street in an elevator in the United States his neighbour received $2.22 for the same type of wheat.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: What did he pay for his bread in the other place?


James Arthur Ross: I shall come to that a little later. Barley per bushel-and these are figures for Cartwright, Manitoba, in my own riding, and Searle's, North Dakota, right across the border-67 cents in Canada and S1.65 in North Dakota; oats 52 cents in Canada and 74 cents in the United States; a 1,000-pound steer, a good finished animal, would net the Canadian producer $140; the United States producer, $255; a 210-pound hog would bring in Canada approximately $34 as compared with $61 in Chicago.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Will the hon. member permit a question?


James Arthur Ross: I have not much time. I should be very glad to answer the question when I complete my remarks if the hon. member will ask me then.
As of March 1, 1947, to purchase a Farmall M. tractor, International company tractor, in Canada required 1,225 bushels of wheat; in the United States, 710 bushels of wheat. To purchase a 3-furrow International tractor plow in Canada required 151 bushels of wheat; in the United States, 82 bushels. To purchase a 24-run International double disc seeder in Canada required 270 bushels of wheat; in the United States, 146 bushels. To purchase a 10-foot International binder in Canada required 333 bushels of wheat; in the United States 184 bushels. To purchase the same tractor in Canada would require slightly over the price of eleven finished 1,000 pound steers that I have spoken of, while in the United States the same type of tractor would require the proceeds of only slightly over six such animals. In the matter of hogs it would require forty-six select hogs weighing 210 pounds in Canada or twenty-six such hogs in the United States to purchase the same type of tractor. After all, what you can purchase with the goods that the farmer produces is what he is interested in. To purchase the same type of tractor in Canada would require on that date 2,365
bushels of barley; in the United States, 955 bushels. According to a press report from a reliable paper, dated March 10, 1947 the International Harvester Company announced that it would institute, by April 1 of this year or before, reductions in prices of many lines of tractors, farm machines and motor trucks. Mr. McCormick estimated the price cuts would save harvester customers $20 million a year. Within the past few days these price reductions have been announced, running in' some instances to as high as a ten per cent reduction in the prices of certain types of tractors and machines. The disparity in the purchase price of automobiles, as most people know, in each country is at least twenty-five per cent greater than is the disparity on farm implements. More than that, the people employed in the United States receive a greater remuneration for their services than people working on like jobs do in Canada. That is also recognized, and the point there is that the standard of living is higher in the United States than it is in Canada.
Some mention was made this evening about the production of live stock in this country. The greatest production of hogs for market in the history of Canada was in 1944, and that rather on a sound economic basis as compared with some of the controls we have developed in the later years. Out of a total of 8,863,178 hogs, 5,768,046 were produced in the prairie provinces where the grain was also produced to feed the animals. Alberta led all provinces that year, producing 2,981,940 hogs. In 1916, Canada as a whole produced only 4,465,161 hogs. May I also add that during 1945 there were in Canada some 6,760,000 beef cattle, and of that total 3,596,000 were in the three prairie provinces.
We have some of these controls in this omnibus bill applying to the agricultural food board and agricultural products, and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), in a statement on March 17, said that the production of dairy products, meat, poultry and eggs in 1947-48 will depend upon the feed supplies available in the form of pasture, fodder and grain produced in this country, and that, effective March 18, the system of advance equalization payments will be discontinued and the Canadian wheat board will stand ready to buy all oats and barley offered at new support prices, in the case of barley the floor price to be ninety cents a bushel and in the case of oats, 61J cents a bushel. These support prices remain in effect until July 31, 1948.
Because of the continuation of price ceilings on animal products, payments of ten cents a bushel on oats and twenty-five cents a bushel
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on barley will be made under the same conditions as the twenty-five cent payment on wheat purchased for feeding purposes. The government will continue to pay freight on grain for feeding purposes shipped east from Fort William or Port Arthur and west from Calgary and Edmonton until July 31, 1948, and the Canadian wheat board, either directly or through agents, will become the sole exporter of oats and barley.
Now on the basis of requiring twenty bushels of barley to produce a select hog, that twenty-five cents a bushel rebate to the hog producer other than on the prairies gives that producer a $5 per hog advantage, and in the free freight on his feed alone, and in transportation cost on the dressed hog there is approximately $4 difference as between Montreal and Edmonton, thus giving the eastern hog producer approximately $9 per hog advantage over the man in the prairies who may produce both the grain and the hogs on the very same farm.
Not only have we under these controls the great disparity, as set forth, as between the United States and Canada, but we have this great disparity in several sections of Canada, with the taxpayer of Canada settling for the difference under his or her personal income tax. As of November 30, 1946, these freight assistance and feed grain subsidy payments amounted to $105,081,627.62. That is quite an item which the taxpayers of the country had to account for in connection with that system of controls, which to me is not a sound economy for this country.
I have here a copy of an advertisement sponsored by the dominion government and appearing in various newspapers of western Canada during the spring of 1941:
Help Canada win the war by growing less wheat in 1941. See the secretary of your municipality. He can help with your application. Get your application completed by May 1, 1941, if possible. Published by authority of the dominion Department of Agriculture.
When you think back over the past few years and compare this with what I have termed on previous occasions the ridiculous 1946 United Kingdom-Canada wheat agreement, and further controls that place an unfair burden on the wheat producers of the country, I think it is interesting. The same case might be made, I understand, with respect to the potato producers of the maritimes or the milk and cheese producers of Ontario and Quebec. My colleague the hon. member for Hastings-Peteiborough (Mr. White) speaking on March 6-his remarks may be found at page 1069 of Hansard-placed on the record at that time a brief submitted to the cabinet on November 28, 1946, last, containing a detailed statement

of the cost of producing 100 pounds of milk for sale to cheese factories, condenseries and creameries. And so the same situation obtains under these controls in various sections from coast to coast.
I am quite convinced that the reason for so many shortages in essential goods todiay is to be found in these controls. Many big business interests have rather liked the controls. They prospered under them during the war years. These controls gave them markets and freed them from competition which would probably have come from many small business people in the country.
As has been said in previous debates on this matter, you cannot have it both ways. It has been next to impossible for some time to procure proper clothing in Canada for young children. I am surprised that some of my hon. friends who spoke earlier did not cite that fact along with their other arguments. Let them ask mother how difficult she finds it to obtain satisfactory clothing for young children.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Also ask them about controls.


Mr. HACKETT:: We do not have to; we know.


James Arthur Ross: It has been very
difficult and in some cases really impossible for some veterans to set themselves up in small business owing to these controls. Quite a few of these cases have come to my notice and I have taken them up with various controllers. When I could not get a satisfactory decision from them I took the matter up later with the responsible minister in charge of the wartime prices and trade board, or with his deputy minister. They gave me a courteous hearing and due consideration, but on no occasion did they upset or reverse the decision of the controller who had first determined the question with respect to the establishment of these young men in business. It may be true enough, as the minister said the other day in rebuttal of the hon. member for Eglinton, that there were shortages, but the shortages were distinctly brought about by the operation of the controls.
We have the present deplorable veterans housing muddle in Canada as a shining example today. Just today in the mail I received a letter from one in my constituency, from Boissevain, Manitoba, from rather a different angle. He said:
As president this year of the Boissevain hockey club I would like if you would draw the attention of the minister who this applies to, we have bought this year over $400 of hockey sticks and the sample of stick is a disgrace for the price that we have had to pay, $2.75, which

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before the war a better stick could be bought for $1.50 and besides about six or seven sticks would be broken each game.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Shame.


James Arthur Ross: We go on record that unless our manufacturers down east at Brantford and other places can't do something about the sticks that they are putting out that the government allow sticks to enter from the United States duty free, they have a far better stick as has been proven in Winnipeg this year when American college teams played in the city.
May I add that this chap was an ardent supporter of this government in the past. I am not surprised that the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) says "shame," because he probably will not have the same interest in these young chaps coming along playing hockey and taking part in sports that many fathers necessarily must have.


James Sinclair: It was a good game Saturday.


George Alexander Cruickshank: How are the
broomsticks out there?


James Arthur Ross: The operation of these controls is greatly responsible for the necessity of the heavy taxation of the past few years and of the present. This in turn affects the pockets of the average taxpayer in all sections of Canada. I do not think there is any argument about that. As a result, production of many essential goods has been slowed up in Canada. The cost of living index for Canada, as of December 1946, shows an increase of twenty-seven per cent since 1939. Ask any housewife in Canada if she believes that figure. Also ask her about the quality of material in the goods of 1939 as compared with the quality today. I am not arguing that every housewife in Canada desires to get rid of all these controls.


George Alexander Cruickshank: No; you bet you are not.


James Arthur Ross: But anyone I have yet discussed the question with says that it is just a matter of timing and that they would have been better off without many of the controls.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The hon. member has been talking just to hockey players.


James Arthur Ross: I have talked to some of those good officials of the United church that the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) referred to the other evening.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Name one who says he wants to have controls removed.


James Arthur Ross: A good many blame
the present shortage of materials on the operation of these controls over the past few years.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Name one who wants them removed.


James Arthur Ross: And if there happens to be one, two, or three of those controls which cannot be eliminated, it is because of the muddle and jam we find ourselves in today as a result of controls during the last few years.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Brooms and hockey sticks. The hon. member for Souris said that he would answer a question.


James Arthur Ross: Yes.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I wish to ask a couple. I am sorry if I interrupted the hon. member, but he did not hesitate to interrupt me the other night. But I can take it and apparently he cannot. I should like to ask the hon. member for Souris two questions. What is the difference in the cost of living- I am glad my hon. friend behind the hon. member for Souris told him to be careful.


James Arthur Ross: He did not. He was trying to get me to join the Anglican church.


George Alexander Cruickshank: All right. Bring in the rest of your party and I will take them on. The question I wish to ask is this: What is the difference between the cost of living in the United States, including the cost of dairy feed, and the cost of living in Canada? Can the hon. member answer that?


James Arthur Ross: I said that I have not the figure; and I said I did not believe the figure we have for the index in Canada gave a true picture.


George Alexander Cruickshank: You bet you cannot give the figure. I wish to ask another question.


James Arthur Ross: Mr. Speaker-


George Alexander Cruickshank: The hon. member said he would answer a question.


An hon. MEMBER:: He did.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I have another
question.


James Arthur Ross: All right; ask it.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Will you answer it?


James Arthur Ross: I will try.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Mr. Speaker, he said he would answer it.


James Arthur Ross: If I can.
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George Alexander Cruickshank: I will ask him to answer this question, if he can, which I doubt very much. I do not come from a wheat district-


An hon. MEMBER :: Don't get mad, George.
Mr. CRUICKSHANIv: I am not getting mad. You never saw me mad. Could we sell Canadian wheat in the United States at the price quoted by the hon. member for Souris, if it was permitted?


James Arthur Ross: We had no desire to sell wheat in the United States, but we can sell it for practically one dollar a bushel higher than the figure I gave in the United States, in many other overseas countries today. If the hon. member will consult the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon), they will tell him that in recent months, they refused a deal of some millions of bushels with other countries.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The hon. member did not answer my question.


James Horace King: Order.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Oh, let it go. They are afraid.


Mr. J. W. BURTON (Humboldt):: Mr. Speaker, I regret that I interrupted the crossfire that was going on. I can assure you that I enjoyed it as much as other hon. members did.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Are you on my side?


Joseph William Burton: If the hon. member waits until we are through, he will be more pleased than ever. I would also say that the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Ross) presented his case in an able manner; and while I cannot agree with him in his line or argument, at the same time I believe that both he and I have something very much in common, namely, that we both consider this to be a much too serious business for us to enter into the frivolous side, as we sometimes do. I can assure you, sir, that, like the hon. member for Souris, I shall not endeavour to emulate the hon. member for Edmonton East (Mr. Ashby).
The question before us is one of great concern to all the citizens of this country. In my humble opinion, this house and the country are divided into three camps. One is a small but sometimes very vocal minority, speaking for a small minority in the country, which would do away with controls willy-nilly, so that those who would fatten on the necessities of the people would have their way. The other group, as I see it, is represented

in this house by a small number, also representing possibly the same proportion out in the country, who would like to do away with controls. In fact, they are anxious to decontrol as fast as possible, but having taken hold1 of the tail of that pussycat they do not like to let it go or possibly are alarmed at the consequences if they did let go. In the third camp that I mentioned are members of this group. While we are in a small number in this house, I believe that we are speaking for the large majority of the people out in the country, the citizens who are vitally affected by this question of control or decontrol. We believe that we are speaking for them when we say we need these controls just as much to win the peace as we needed them to win the war. It is my humble opinion, Mr. Speaker, that, had the government not undertaken the controls which they did undertake during the time of war, our road to victory would have been much more difficult, if not even impossible.
My leader, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) and other members of this group have since this debate began, placed on the record in an able manner the stand we take, and it is not my intention to belabour the point much more this evening. In fact, I can assure you, sir, that it had not been my intention to take part in this debate at all until a certain question was brought into it by the hon. member for Trinity (Mr. Skey). In my opinion, it was ill-advised on his part, and, if not irresponsible at least misleading, when he made a statement that no sincere Catholic could be a true socialist. He gave only part of the story. He took only one short sentence out of the paragraph. I know where he took it from. It is in the encyclical quadragesimo anno by the late Pope Pius XI, from which the hon. member for Trinity took that one small sentence:
No one can, at the same time, be a sincere Catholic and a true socialist.
I am sorry the hon. member is not in his seat at the moment, because in the short time at my disposal this evening I hope we may have this question straightened out once and for all. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that it is with the utmost regret I find it necessary to enter into a discussion of this kind. Had the hon. member read at least the whole paragraph, the story would have been quite different. The heading is, "Catholic and socialist are contradictory terms". The late pope said this:
If, like all errors, socialism contains a certain element of truth (and this the Sovereign Pontiffs have never denied), it is nevertheless founded upon a doctrine of human society

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peculiarly its own, which is opposed to true Christianity, "Religious socialism," "Christian socialism," are expressions implying a contradiction in terms.
I would point out that when this was written the Conservatives had not yet established a contradiction in terms by adding to their name the word "Progressive". Times are changing. I would say that the church to which I belong condemns in no uncertain terms the type of socialism that interferes with a person's religious beliefs, which is opposed to Christianity and totally opposed ;o the ownership of private property; and that .s the only kind of socialism the church recognizes as such. I would point out further for the benefit of the hon. member that as the years have gone by, we have had many different kinds of socialism throughout the world; and for want of a better term we have applied to the philosophy and principles of the C.C.F. the expression "socialist", because the fundamental principles of our policy are to build laws around the protection of society rather than the protection of capital. I would also point out to the hon. member if he were in his seat that I take my religious instruction from the authorities of the Roman Catholic church and do not need to go to Tory Toronto for it. Eight years ago, almost to the day, I had to rise in my place in the legislature of Saskatchewan and tell a Liberal of like mind that I did not need to take my religious instruction from the Liberal party. I never thought I would be called on to rise in my place in this august chamber and deal with a matter of this kind.
As I mentioned, there are different kinds of socialism. I am not attributing any motive to the hon. member for Trinity, but why did he bring this matter into this debate at this time? I know from experience that on different occasions people have tried to put me on what they called a spot by asking, "Are you a socialist? If so, you cannot be a member of the church to which you profess to belong." I say that politics in this country have reached a very low level if we must put up with that kind of thing. Those people should stop and consider how unfair they are. For instance, if I were to ask the genial and honourable Minister of National Revenue (Mr. McCann) "Are you a Christian?" his answer certainly would be, "By all means." Would I then be justified in saying, "Oh, but you are a member of the Salvation Army"? Or if I were to ask the hon. member for Trinity, "Are you a Christian?" he would certainly and quite properly answer, "Yes, by all means." Would I then be justified in saying, "Oh, but you are 83166-109
one of Jehovah's Witnesses"? I ask for a little fairness in these things. Ever since I have been around in the world I have adhered to the teaching of my father, which was, "Let every man practise his religion according to the dictates of his conscience."
I said a while ago I wanted to get the record straight. I have another quotation from the same encyclical from which the hon. member for Trinity took one small sentence. Here is a paragraph entitled, "Domination has followed from free competition." It goes on:
In the first place, then, it is patent that in our days not alone is wealth accumulated, but immense power and despotic economic domination is concentrated in the hands of a few, and that those few are frequently not the owners, but only the trustees and directors of invested funds, who administer them at their good pleasure.
This power becomes particularly irresistible when exercised by those who. because they hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that reason supplying, so to speak, the lifeblood to the entire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of production, so that no one dare breathe against their will.
Mr. KNOWLES; The hon. member did not read that part.


Joseph William Burton: Quite right; the hon. member did not read that part. I would1 also ask what party in this house has gone farther than the party to which the hon. member belongs in helping to foster those very conditions that are being spoken of. There is a further quotation in the same encyclical that I should like to read:
. . . for it is rightly contended that certain forms of property must be reserved to the state, since they carry with them an opportunity of domination too great to be left to private individuals without injury to the community at large.
I contend that if we gave full sway to those interests which are so determined to have decontrol, to have everything thrown back into the hands of those who would use the power of their economic dictatorship, it is those people who would bring about an undesirable form of socialism or communism in this country, rather than the C.C.F. or any other group.
May I give one final quotation from an address entitled, "The Catholic Church and the C.C.F.," delivered on the trans-Canada Catholic broadcast, October 24, 1943, by Reverend C. J. Foran, D.D., St. Anthony's Pro-Cathedral, Edmonton, Alberta, in which he said:
Catholic social teaching will permit the nationalization of industries and facilities which must be nationalized to protect or ensure the common good. Thus far we can certainly go. The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation advocates

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the socialization of banking, transportation, communications, electric power and all other industries and services essential to social planning. Among the industries listed as essential to social planning the C.C.F. manifesto included mining, pulp and paper and the distribution of milk, coal and gasoline.
I wish the hon. member for Trinity to pay special attention to this:
The statement issued by the bishops of Canada after their recent conference in Quebec indicates that the gap between the Catholic position which allows for the nationalization of industries that need to be nationalized to protect the common good and the programme of those who call for the socialization of such industries as mining, pulp and paper and the distribution of milk, coal and gasoline-that gap can be bridged with safety.
Again let me express my hope that never again will a member in this august chamber, be he Jew, Gentile, Protestant or Catholic, find it necessary to defend his being in this party or that party because he belongs to a different religious sect or community.
I would say to the house that in our humble way we realize that we are only human beings. As human beings we have our faults and failings. As a human organization the party to which I have the honour to belong also has its shortcomings. But even so has the House of Commons its shortcomings, simply because it is a human institution. And so long as we bear in mind the ultimate end for which our Creator created us, and the destiny toward which we are all working, I hope that we may humbly walk in that way.


Mr. H. O. WHITE (Middlesex East):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in this debate, I have but a few observations to make, and I should like to deal with them as they affect the riding I have the honour to represent.
I wish, first, to deal with butter, and the price control of that product. The ultimate result is, of course, a reduction in production. Along with that comes the threat of oleomargarine. It is a threat to the dairy farmers of Canada. May I observe right here that if it is proper to protect industry and to protect labour, it is equally proper to protect the farmer from the importation of this product of cheap labour.
Another indication of the threat to farmers lies in the importation of New Zealand butter. In an order for return tabled some time ago, it was shown that the farmers of New Zealand were receiving 28-35 cents a pound for butter. I would ask the socialists to my left to explain how the farmers in New Zealand can be prosperous when selling butter at that price.
Another factor which enters into the picture lies in the fact that we spent $24 million a

year on butter subsidies. During the war years we were told that we paid only half of our expenditures in this direction, the remainder being borrowed. In other words, $12 million a year that was spent on butter subsidies is still to be paid. Our children's children will be paying for butter, milk and other subsidized foods consumed during the war years. I do not believe they will find it as easy to pay as we would have found it.
People have money to buy luxuries. They buy drinks of all kinds, and yet they want to have their milk subsidized. In this connection, may I make a few comparisons. On February 12, while butter was selling at forty-four cents a pound, Mr. Coulter, a general merchant in my home town, gave me figures showing that the price of lard was twenty-seven cents a pound; shortening, thirty cents, Mazola oil, thirty-seven cents, and Lux soap flakes, thirty-two cents. No one complained about those prices, but they did complain about increases in the price of butter.	It is easy to bear down on the
farmer who did not object to these things being done in the city, where no objection was made to increases in the price of manufactured products. But the little increases paid on farm products-oh, they were terrible!
The milk subsidies alone amount to about one-half the money paid out in family allowances. But people did not want to use family allowances to buy milk; they wanted those moneys for other luxuries, while at the same time subsidizing milk consumption.
At this time I should like to say a word or two about steel and hardware controls. Certainly they are working to a disadvantage, so far as the farmers in Middlesex county are concerned. Ilderton farmers cooperative say that lumber has never been so scarce. Farmers needing lumber for repairs have found it impossible to obtain it. Letters from Thorndale, Hyde Park, Dorchester and Glanworth complain of shortages. Small villages and towns in my community say that farmers are asked to produce in quantity and to maintain quality, while at the same time accepting immigrant labour. And what do they get for it? They get no nails, no lumber, no steel, no wire and no roofing.
A recent fire destroyed a service garage in the town of Lambeth. I was approached to have some steel made available so that quick repairs could be made in order to enable the proprietor to continue to give service to farm tractors, cars and trucks in the community. The steel controller advised me that there was no steel control, and that if I could obtain it from the manufacturer it would be all right. I approached a certain manufacturer and he

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said, "Yes, you can have the steel." But about the time it was to be delivered someone said, "No, you cannot have it." And, there is no roof on that garage yet.
Recently the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Howe) stated there was no shortage of nails. After he was questioned, it developed that those nails were of aluminum. They were about three times the regular price, and certainly were not suitable for farm repairs since, in many instances, hard lumber is used in farm equipment and construction.
Hyde Park reports that there are no nails in the stores in that area, and none in sight-at the wholesalers. Dorchester reports a very short supply of nails, and not enough spikes in town to build a hog trough. There are no steel troughs. Farm buildings are in need of repair. There are no nails, and there is no lumber or roofing.
From Glanworth one dealer says that he had only one keg of nails in six months, no wire of any kind for a year. Another report indicates that from June, 1946, to January, 1947, there were three kegs of nails, but wire and many sizes of nails were unobtainable. Poultry fencing, hooks and staples were unobtainable. Roofing paper and tar paper were very scarce, while harvesting tools, forks and repairs, as well as other kinds of hardware, were almost unobtainable.
It is true, too, that good, decent farm overalls cannot be obtained. Let me say a word or two about barbed wire. On March 20, I had on the order paper a question to which a reply was given. Among other things I inquired about the kind and tonnage of steel that was used, and how much was saved in changing over from heavy gauge to the lighter war-time gauge. I shall read the paragraph which deals with that particularly:
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 wire, therefore, a total of 12,395 net tons were made available for more essential products.
I submit that not only the amount they mention as being saved, but the whole 58.829 tons of steel was wasted. Farmers who bought that wire and put it up a year ago have not a decent, fence today. The whole business was wasted. They might better have made a few rolls of good barbed wire and let the rest go, because, as it is, these farmers have spent the money and they have nothing to show for it. It is about time the manufacturers started to make some decent wire for the farmers.



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I wish to say a word or two about rent controls. Rent controls have developed1 a lot of injustices and many crooked practices. I have in mind two houses in my own riding in east London. These houses are not more than two hundred yards apart and are identical in construction and size. One house rents for $23 a month, but the man who owns it cannot get into it. He rents two rooms in an identical house a short distance away, for which he pays $36 a month for the two rooms. These houses are of practically the same value. If there is any justice in that I should like to know about it.
The reason so many people are anxious to retain rent controls is that they have a minority group over a barrel and at a disadvantage. If it were not for that they would not want these controls. The same applies to food controls. The farmers are getting tired of feeding the world and getting the lowest labour return of any class in the country, while having to work longer hours than anyone else. Along with this, they are being denied the goods they need to maintain their farms and homes.
On motion of Mr. White (Middlesex East) the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie the house adjourned at 10.55 p.m.
Tuesday, March 25, 1947