1947-04-15

NEW MEMBER

Mr. SPEAKER:: I have the honour to inform the house that the Clerk of the House has received from the chief electoral officer certificate of the election and return of the following member:
Of Maurice Hartt, Esquire, for the electoral district of Cartier.
(Translation):



NEW MEMBER INTRODUCED

[Stage Direction]
Maurice Hartt, Esquire, member for the electoral district of Cartier, introduced by Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent and Hon. Ernest Bertrand.
(Text):


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs) moved:
That the name of Mr. Richard (Ottawa East) be substituted for that of Mr. Ross (Hamilton East) on the special committee on the Dominion Elections Act.	.
That the name of Mr. Lapointe be substituted for that of Mr. Picard on the sessional committee on railways and shipping.
Motions agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. It is based on a telegram which I received this morning, to the effect that there is such a serious shortage of soap in parts of Canada that it is likely to make necessary the closing of commercial and hospital laundries, particularly in the prairie provinces. Has the government been advised of this situation, and if so, will the minister inform the house what action, if any, has been taken to meet it? *


Hon. DOUGLAS ABBOTT (Minister of Finance) :: I received a similar telegram, as I think every other hon. member of the house has. I believe the telegrams must have been prompted by some fear of a curtailment in the supply of soap. As the house knows, oils and fats are in very short supply. I mentioned this yesterday. The administrator of oils and fats has issued a directive requiring soap manufacturers to maintain their present quotas of soap to industrial users, which would include laundries and hospitals. So in the event of a shortage of soap it will not interfere with those institutions, though it may affect the ability of members of the house to have their usual morning bath.



REPORT AS TO QUOTA ON SLAUGHTERING FOR DOMESTIC DISTRIBUTION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. DIEFENBAIvER (Lake Centre):
I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture arising out of a wire which I do not think has been widely distributed.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Louder.


James Horace King: Order.


Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: I am afraid I cannot give hearing to my hon. friends over there. The telegram states that the placing of quotas by the government on live stock slaughtering for domestic distribution was protested at a mass meeting of wholesalers, processors and retail distributors held in Winnipeg on Sunday, and then it goes on to set out the protest. Is the minister about to introduce a quota system on cattle slaughtered for consumption in Canada, and if so, before this is done will an opportunity be given both producers and consumers to make their protests to the minister?


Right Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture):: I have heard no discussion any-
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where of any such policy being followed. I rather expect this has to do with controls already on, rather than any to be put on.


John George Diefenbaker: No; it has to do with another control that may be put on.


James Garfield Gardiner: I know nothing of any such control.



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[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, April 14, consideration of the motion of Mr. Usley for the second reading of Bill No. 104, 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 the amendment thereto of Mr. Fleming.
James Horace King: I should like to give my ruling on the point of order raised last night by the right hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) on the amendment moved by the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming).
There is before the house a motion for the second reading of Bill No. 104, 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. To this Mr. Fleming, member for Eglinton, moved in amendment:
That all the words after "that" be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"While recognizing that the said bill deals with some matters such as old age pensions and veterans in the civil service which do not depend for constitutional validity on the existence of an emergency and some other matters which can only be dealt with by this parliament on the basis of an existing or apprehended emergency; and while willing to support properly drafted legislation dealing with such matters;
This house is unalterably opposed to the enactment of a measure to continue indiscriminately. the sweeping powers of the presently existing boards outside the control of parliament."
The first paragraph of this amendment is only a recognition in general terms of some matters dealt with in the bill; it purposes to place the house on record as recognizing that the bill deals with some matters and being prepared to support properly drafted legislation respecting such matters. The house can only make such recognition by voting partly for and partly against the bill, which is a meaningless proposition.
As to the house's readiness to support properly drafted legislation dealing with these matters, this is a question which will have to be submitted to the committee on the bill. Questions of drafting provisions are dealt with at that place and not with the Speaker in the chair.

As to the last paragraph of the amendment which declares that "the house is unalterably opposed to the enactment of a measure to continue indiscriminately the sweeping powers of the presently existing boards outside the control of parliament", it is merely asking that the house either approve or disapprove questions in indefinite terms. There is no doubt in my mind that proposals submitted for approval or disapproval must be set forth in expressed words, which can only be done in committee on the bill.
It happens that there are many orders and regulations included in this measure. There is a principle to each of them. Which of them the house should approve or disapprove is a mater which certainly is not covered by the amendment.
On the 24th of April, 1934, the Speaker of the house rejected an amendment proposed by the then leader of the opposition, which read as follows:
... . this house, while prepared to support legislation for assisting the orderly marketing of natural products, is unalterably opposed to the enactment of any compulsory measure which delegates to unnamed and undetermined individuals, groups or organizations, sweeping powers over the production and trade and commerce of the nation, and which confers upon a minister of the crown and upon the governor in council unprecedented authority and unusual powers to restrict production, and interprovineial, interimperial and foreign trade as regards both exports and imports, as well as other autocratic powers.
In giving his decision against this amendment the Hon. George Black, then Speaker of the house, made the following statement:
The Right Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King in moving the amendment quoted paragraph 755 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, which paragraph is published as a quotation from May, 13th edition, at page 390, which is repeated by Bourinot at page 509:
"It is also competent to a member who desires to place on record any special reasons for not agreeing to the second reading of a bill, to move as an amendment to the question, a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from the principles, policy or provisions of the bill."
This rule is subject to certain limitations. If the right hon. member had continued to quote from May, he would have found the following reference to an amendment to a motion for second reading of a bill:
"Nor may such an amendment deal with the provisions of the bill upon which it is moved, nor anticipate amendments thereto, which may be moved in committee-"
May, 13th edition, page 391. The precedent cited in May in support of this is found in 188 Parliamentary Debates, 4th series, column 76, The Education (Scotland) bill.
Mr. Speaker:	I have to rule that the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member for Glasgow and Aberdeen universities to the effect that the house while welcoming eduea-

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tional legislation for Scotland regrets that the present measure does not propose change in the educational areas, which is urgently required in the interests of efficient administration-is not technically in order, because it does not challenge the principle of the bill. The question raised can he decided by an amendment to the bill itself. If the hon. member wants to object to the second reading, he should move that the bill be read this day six months.
An appeal was taken and the decision sustained by a vote of 103 to 52. This is a decision of the house itself which is equivalent to a standing order and must be adhered to. I therefore rule the amendment out of order.


John Bracken: Mr. Speaker, you have just
ruled out of order the amendment moved by the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming). I am aware that we cannot debate your lulling, but in view of the unusual character of the measure before us I am forced to say that I must challenge that ruling. I do not ask for an opportunity now to defend that position, although I should be glad to do so if the rules permitted. However in view of the unusual nature of the bill I must protest your ruling.
Mr. SPEAKER put the question as follows:
The question before the house is an appeal from the Speaker's ruling. The Speaker having decided that an amendment to the motion for the second reading of Bill No. 104 was out of order on the ground that it both approved and disapproved the bill, and also that it dealt with matters that should only be considered in committee on the bill, the leader of the official opposition (Mr. Bracken) appealed from 'that decision.


Mr. TUCKER:: I was paired with the hon. member for Vegrevill'e (Mr. Hlynka). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain Your Honour's ruling.


Mr. CLEAVER:: I was paired with the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain Your Honour's ruling.


Mr. LITTLE:: I was paired. Had I voted I would have voted to sustain Your Honour's ruling.


Mr. RICHARD (Gloucester):: I was paired with the hon. member for Royal (Mr. Brooks). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain Your Honour's ruling.
(Translation):


Mr. DORION:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Lalonde). Had I voted, I would have voted against Your Honour's ruling.


Mr. GAGNON:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Montmagny-L'Islet (Mr. Lesage). Had I voted, I would have voted against Your Honour's ruling.
(Text):


Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Cape Breton South):: Last evening when I moved the adjournment of the debate I noticed that there were quite a few on the front benches on the other side who were not desirous of carrying on the debate. They did not take very kindly to adjourning the house fifteen minutes early. Evidently there is a hurry to get-


Mr. MACKENZIE:: On a point of order, we consented immediately to the hon. gentleman's suggestion.


An hon. MEMBER:: But not with good grace.


An hon. MEMBER:: Nonsense.


Douglas Charles Abbott: You did it so you could get your speech all in the one Hansard.


Clarence Gillis: I am not concerned with getting it in Hansard; I am concerned about checking the memories of hon. members opposite in connection with a lot of the promises they made during the six years this country was at war. I think the time that I will take this afternoon will be well spent because I still believe that some of them have consciences even though they have bad memories.
The matter now before the house is the principle of the bill we are now considering. That question is whether controls should be maintained in this country. I am going to take up some time this afternoon for the purpose of dealing with the principle of this
[Mr. Speaker.)
bill; the mechanical details can be discussed when we are in committee, but the broad principles upon which the bill is or should be based cannot be discussed at that time. I consider, Mr. Speaker, that any time spent by this house, no matter how long it may be, in clarifying the subject matter of this bill will be time well spent, because the very principles are involved for which we fought through six years of war and sacrificed a great many of the boys of this country.
Although there are several different groups in this house debate on the bill now before us divides the house into two. The Progressive Conservative party, the Liberal party and the Social Credit party all through this debate have stated in no uncertain terms that they believe in the system of free enterprise. The group to which I belong say that they do not, but rather that they believe in a planned order of society. That places the question squarely before the house. On this subject there are only two opinions.
Let me remind some of my free enterprisers in this house that the system of free enterprise has failed us twice in one lifetime and brought about armed conflict throughout the world.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Clarence Gillis: I knew I would get under somebody's skin. Throw a stone into a pack of wolves and you will hit one and it will howl. I said that I was going to try to reawaken the conscience of the members of this house, because I still believe that they have a conscience. The fact that interruptions are coming so freely shows that I was not wrong in my surmise that they still have a conscience, and it is beginning to prick them.
I have said that that order of society brought on two wars in our lifetime, and it did. You cannot deny it.


An hon. MEMBER:: I certainly do.


Clarence Gillis: History proves it. I want to remind hon. gentlemen to my left who still believe in the free enterprise system, and who in the province of Alberta at the present time are administering a kind of economy that is evidently quite satisfactory to the Tory party-


Mr. REID:: Was there not a planned economy in Germany?


Clarence Gillis: The Tory party in Alberta decided that they would not contest the province, that they had a government that was satisfactory to them.
The lessons, Mr. Speaker, that we have to learn from the last war are, first, that the system of free enterprise did not measure up. Dictators were born and bred out of selfish-

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ness and jungle law. That is the system of free enterprise. We aim to replace that kind of society by planning. There is not a member of this house who does not plan his own life, or at least he should. You plan your home.


An hon. MEMBER:: No.


James Horace King: I would remind hon. members that they should not interrupt the hon. member who has the floor. A question may be asked with his permission.


Clarence Gillis: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not mind the interruptions. It shows that I am beginning to hurt someone; I am saying something that is effective. If hon. members were reading their newspapers and paying no attention to me I would think that perhaps I was wasting my time, but I thank you, just the same, Mr. Speaker, for your assistance
I am surprised that prominent lawyers in this house who believe in the rule of law, just as we all do, and emphasize it earnestly at all times, will stand up in this house and oppose a bill which simply aims at bringing the rule of law into our economic life to replace gangsterism-and I use the word advisedly. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) yesterday placed clearly on the record of this house the fact that large corporations and companies in this country are running rampant in extracting from the people profits which no legal mind in this house could justify under present economic conditions. That is the first point I want to drive home-that we want to replace in our economic life tooth-and-claw law of the jungle with the rule of law as it exists in every other section of our society. We want a regulated order of society in which every person may have the opportunity to protect himself and his means of livelihood against unscrupulous people who want to exploit him and anyone who opposes this bill opposes that very principle.
I would remind my hon. friend who upholds the Social Credit-Tory coalition in Alberta that there were no controls in the thirties. We fought the 1914-18 war on the same slogans as those that were used in the last war. They were written by the same people. They were freedom, democracy, the right to live, homes for everyone. We came back after the 1914-18 war, and what did we find? There were no controls in the thirties except section 98 of the criminal code to control the worker, the fellow who died for you on the battlefields. When his fellow workers came back and asked you to live up to some of the promises you had made at that time, that was the kind of control they got. It was a form of control that was satisfactory to the wrong people. From 1930
to 1939 there was no government regulation of our economic affairs, and in that period we had a million and a half people unemployed and slave camps established in this country. That was a form of control that relegated to slave camps at 20 cents a day, where they were regulated and regimented, hundreds of thousands of people who had offered their lives to maintain democracy. Tear gas and the mounted police were used against them. That was a form of control in the wrong direction. Was there any freedom there? Freedom to go barefoot when you had no shoes; freedom to go hungry when you had nothing to eat; freedom to march from Vancouver to Ottawa to plead with those who sit in these great legislative chambers. No one objected to these controls except a few people like ourselves who were fighting them.
We have finished another war. I have listened in this house to many members who have expressed a fear of communism, but as I have said, the system of free enterprise has failed us twice in one lifetime, and the same seeds are being sown in this country today to defeat the ends for which we fought the last war. Again we promised the boys, the sons of the fathers to whom we made promises from 1914 to 1918, that they would come back to homes, to a new order of society; that the government would see to it that they were protected; that they would not go through the misery and degradation they experienced in the thirties. Twice in a lifetime we have given free enterprise all the rope it wanted, when it hanged and strangled the world, and we have signs enough on the North American continent to induce us to try to avert the conditions that may ensue; otherwise what happened in Europe and elsewhere will happen to us. Do not let us forget for a minute, when the country expresses fears of communism, that Karl Marx said a long time ago that capitalism had within itself the seeds of its own destruction. It will destroy itself if you leave it alone, if you give it enough rope and let it go.
We have done that twice in a lifetime, and capitalism has been destroyed in every part of the world except on the North American continent. Revolution, fascism and all the other isms about which we express fears are not common to any particular people. They are the product of a system, and we shall travel the same road if we allow that system unchanged, to prevail in the same way. Surely we have had enough lessons to take the abuses out of the system, the abuses that have destroyed the system throughout the world. This can be done only by removing fear, insecurity
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and all the other factors that contribute to the destruction of confidence in the minds of the people.
We cannot do much about it so far as the United States is concerned. The picture there is not so bright. We can do something about it, however, in Canada. If free enterprise is capable of doing the job, why is it that the system functions and establishes standards of living for the workers of the world only when there is a war on, when most of the young and productive people are in the armed services? Then we can pay them wages and allowances, provide pensions, provide hospitals and the best of medical services and all that kind of thing. We can do that during a war, but when these people come back to the country they come back to a different set of conditions. Notwithstanding that there are plenty of resources, plant and machinery, we relegate them once more to the street.
Why is this? It is because of lack of planning. The Conservative party does not believe in planning, except from Bay street in Toronto and Jesse James street in Montreal. They are on record as being favourable to that, and we know what to expect from it. As soon as the war was over, up went the not-wanted signs again.
I am really ashamed to say in this house what the conditions are in the maritime provinces. Listening to a newscast this morning we heard that there were over 30,000 unemployed in the maritimes. On that little island that I come from there are 2,200 exservicemen, most of whom never had a job in their lives before they went into the services. They were unemployed under free enterprise. They donned the uniform and offered their lives for the institutions of the country, and they came back after all these promises that were made them. But, as I say, on that little island alone there are 2,200 of these men who today are unemployed, and they write pathetic letters, as the Minister of Veterans Affairs knows.
There is no work. Everything that was functioning during the war has been closed up. Back to the streets they go. I want to say for the benefit of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) and the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Howe) that there is a strike on there at the present time, and I want to put a question to my hon. friends over here, and over there too, because I think there are a lot of Tories over there. I want to ask if they can tell me that the coal industry in the maritime provinces is better off because of the removal of controls.

For thirty years I worked in and around that industry and witnessed the most terrible conditions, socially, underground, and from every other point of view, and the most terrible relations with the employer, because we have the toughest octopus to grapple with in Canada in Dosco-tougher than any other organization in the country. There are no human values whatsoever so far as the management or the directorate of that organization is concerned.
During this war, with the establishment of national control in that industry, there was a different condition. I say without fear of contradiction, that the establishment of a national labour relations board, which took the whole industry and centralized it in Ottawa meant that, for the first time in my life or in my experience in that industry, we got away from Dosco's machine. Demands were made, the national board met with the Minister of Reconstruction, who handled the industry practically all through the war, and there were no strikes, no difficulties; wages were stepped up to some extent,; vacations with pay was established, and people in that part of the country were beginning to want to live.
In December, 1946, the federal government removed these controls and passed them back to the provincial government, and when you pass them back to the provincial government you pass complete control back to an agency of that corporation. That is all they are, an agency of the corporation. The executive board of the mine workers' union tried to work out an agreement, but there was no agreement-you cannot come into Ottawa; the controls are off. No more subsidies; we have to get back to free enterprise and give them the right to run the show themselves.
Well, they have run that show for a long time. The price of coal in this province has gone up approximately $3 a ton because of the removal of subsidies. That industry cannot pay wages in Nova Scotia because of the removal of production subsidies and the assistance the corporation was getting. I am not saying they were entitled to all the assistance they extracted from the government, but I say that was because this government lacked the machinery to scrutinize and check reports and balance sheets of the twenty-six subsidiary organizations by which that company can juggle costs around. It is pretty hard to chase them unless you are there all the time. Unless the federal government steps into the picture and takes that strike out of the hands of the provincial and local authorities, and reestablishes some kind of machinery in

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Ottawa to settle it, the province of Nova Scotia will be depleted in a very short time. Hundreds of men who were in that industry during this war are leaving Nova Scotia and seeking work in other parts of Canada, because apparently no one is trying to do anything' in the way of settling that strike.
i mention this merely because I want to drive home the point of controls. It all adds up to public responsibility. When a member is elected to the House of Commons, or a government is formed, the people who send that member here or delegate power to the government expect that government to give them leadership and to supervise, the economy of the country and see that everyone is guaranteed the right to live in the country, that someone does not make a million dollars while another is on relief. That is their job, and when I hear some of our provincial people who believe in retaining provincial autonomy talking, they have been overseers of the poor for thirty years. That is all they are. There has been no government in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island. They want to hang on to something that exalts themselves. It is that vanity of man again, wanting to hang on to a little bit of power for himself.
I would never try to defend our provincial premier about the bickering and squabbling that he goes on with in this matter of provincial rights. This is where the power rests. There must be some central direction, and the people of Nova Scotia under the federal proposals would have been a hundred per cent better off than they could be in dealing with that little ox-cart government down there. I strongly urge what I suggested before to the Minister of Reconstruction-and I have a great deal of respect for him, too. There must be a great many Tories over there who keep him back, because I think that as an engineer and a practical man he knows the problem and wants to get things done, never mind the money. That is the proper attitude. There is something over there holding him back or he would have settled that strike, provided the necessary subsidies or got some kind of machinery in action. I suggest to him that he try to get together with the Minister of Labour and come to some understanding. It looks bad to see this situation: the Minister of Reconstruction makes a statement in the house to the effect-I think this was on April 1-that he was prepared to sit down with the industry and the union and work out some kind of subsidy arrangement by which that matter might be settled.


Mr. HOMUTH:: That was April Fool's day.


Mr. KNOWLES:: The date of your amendment.


Clarence Gillis: Regardless of what date it was, the statement was made publicly and officially by a member of the cabinet. Then a few days later there is a statement from the Department of Labour-not from the minister but from some of his officials-to the effect that no subsidies will be provided to clean up that problem in Nova Scotia. I suggest that they get together.
I am not sure that my friends to my right or their coalition on our extreme left can stand up in this house and tell me that the coal industry, the steel industry, the shipping industry, the fishing industry, or the textile industry-all basic industries in this country-are better off today than they were during this war when the government were planning production, allocating materials, and supervising the general income of the country. There is no comparison. If it could be done in time of war, there is no reason why it should not be a hundred per cent easier to do it in time of peace. I cannot understand it. I would advise my Conservative friends over there to do a little checking up. They are venomous on this matter of controls and free enterprise. The hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker)-I am sorry he is not here now -is a man for whom I have a great deal of respect. He is a lawyer, a good reasoner, and logical in practically everything except where he sits. On this matter of controls he gave the Conservative party some very good advice back in 1942. Speaking at the business men's club in Toronto, he said this:
No one can successfully argue that principles of the Victorian era can cope with the conditions in times that produce Sir Stafford Cripps, (a socialist) as deputy prime minister (of Britain), and William Temple as Archbishop of Canterbury.
He goes on to tell about that kind of thing, but the meat of his remarks is farther down, where he says, "Bureaucracy is danger". The article reads:
Mr. Diefenbaker said the danger exists of government by bureaucracy after the war.
"The Liberal party today stands for reaction, the C.C.F. for complete nationalization, which will destroy private enterprise," he said. "The Conservative party must meet this challenge that comes to it and show the people that our economic system shall continue to be one of free enterprise under stringent control . . ."
The caption of the article was "Advises Tories to Modernize".


Mr. MacINNIS:: How could the Tories modernize?
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Clarence Gillis: That was in 1942. They did modernize to this extent: the word "progressive" is a modem term, and they adopted it on that advice.


Mrs. STRUM:: Twenty years too late.


Clarence Gillis: If you listen to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) or the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) or any member of this group, you may say: Those fellows are just propagating for their own cause-the socialist cause. But this advice was not given by a socialist, and it should be seriously taken.


Mr. LOW:: Propagation, you mean?


Clarence Gillis: Certainly. That is the only way you can create things. Let me read a short statement by another person who is not a socialist. I heard the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) one evening quoting the Pope's encyclical. I do not believe in bringing religion into a discussion of this kind, because a man's religion is a matter between himself and his God. But I do say this. For nineteen hundred years we have been preaching Christianity and it is nearly time we began to put it into practice. We certainly have not been practising it, judging by conditions in the world for the last fifty years at least. I am going to quote Monsignor J. A. Ryan, National Catholic Welfare Conference. This is a statement he made in 1943 and I would advise the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Jackman) to listen carefully:
Unless the middle classes-that is, the comfortable farmers, the members of the professions, the small business men, the holders of executive and directive positions in the great corporations, and indeed the majority of the "white collar" classes-cease to get their opinions from the daily papers and strive to acquire a greater amount of realistic economic intelligence, they (the middle classes) may exercise sufficient voting power to place the champions of "free enterprise" in control of economic reconstruction after the war. From such a calamity, may the Good Lord deliver us.
That is not from a socialist. That is from a person who is realistic, and who learned a lesson from the last two wars.
While we know where the Conservatives stand in this matter of controls and the planned economy, we are doubtful about where the present government stands, because since the termination of the war they have paid lip service to controls, have spoken of trying to avoid exploitation, and all that kind of stuff; and I think most of the people who make those statements really mean them at the time. But we have been watching. The cost of living is going up. No public works 
programme of any kind has been instituted. Practically all the war assets built up by the people during the war have been scrapped without being put to productive use. The ranks of the unemployed are beginning to swell. There are rumblings from the farmer, the industrial worker and the white collar worker, who I think perhaps has suffered a worse squeeze than either the farmer or the worker, from the standpoint of taxes, because he is in between, on a fixed salary, and has had to take the squeeze from both sides. That cannot continue for very long without a smash-up of some kind. I want to say in all sincerity that perhaps in 1939 Hitler saved us from a revolution on this continent. If any serious minded person will look back at the conditions which existed in 1938 and 1939 right across Canada and throughout the United States he will realize that had they lasted for another six months without a bust-up of some kind we would have had serious internal disturbances in this country. We do not want a set-back now which would allow that sort of thing to develop again.
There is only one way to avoid that. We have two alternatives, either to go to war or to create employment. The people of this country do not expect too much. They want jobs; they want houses. They are quite prepared to work for them and produce. They do not want charity; they do not want handouts. They want to live as decent citizens, and they have that right. Those were the promises we made them while we were fighting the war. Personally I am ashamed of the conditions that exist in the part of the country from which I come. They should not exist, and they could have been avoided if the government had accepted its responsibility. Only yesterday the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) definitely stated that all the subsidies were coming off. When you knock off the subsidies under this form of society you destroy price ceilings. You cannot hold down prices without subsidies unless you have in the field an army of policemen checking everything that is sold. But you can hold' down prices and redistribute income by means of subsidies. They are not appreciable to every industry; in many cases they are not necessary, but they are necessary in some of the basic industries, and should be continued. When the Minister of Finance, speaking for the government, makes the statement that they have officially decided to discontinue the subsidy arrangements, then he tells us there is no longer any desire on the part of the government to manage the economy of the country, because it can only be done in that way under this form of society.

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I am coming to the end of my time, Mr. Speaker. I could inject many matters into this discussion. I hope some member of the cabinet will speak before this debate is con-, eluded, and I should like him to answer two or three questions; I think it is necessary at this time. In its issue of April 12, 1947, the Montreal Gazette carried a story from Ottawa that the government is carefully scrutinizing price increases arising out of the recent release from control of thousands of goods and services, and will move without delay to reimpose price ceilings in any case where the increase appears to be unreasonable or exorbitant. I should like some member of the cabinet, if and when he speaks, to tell us if that is really government policy. If so, what checks are they maintaining on the situation? Why has no action been taken so far in connection with such items as newsprint? These are three questions on which I think the Canadian people, and particularly members of this house, want some reassurance.
In conclusion I want to repeat what I said when I started, that as far as I can see there are only two opinions in this house on this question of free enterprise as opposed to a managed economy. As I see it, the attitude in all corners of the house is opposed to the attitude taken by this party. Our policy is clear-cut. There is no equivocation when we say that if we were in power we would establish a managed or planned economy in this country. We would go to the mat with anyone extracting more than his share of the national income, and would see to it that everyone was provided with a means of life. Is it not startling to realize that in a country such as this a large section of the population cannot get-enough to eat?


Mr. McCANN:: Nonsense.


Clarence Gillis: The Minister of National Revenue says that is nonsense. It is not. In 1945 I travelled through sections of the province of New Brunswick where soldiers back from this war were existing on parish relief of $6 a week. Can you look after a family on that? I can take you to section after section in any part of Canada today and show you hundreds of unemployed ex-service men whose credits have run out, who cannot get relief of any kind, who cannot get jobs, and who are existing with no income at all.


Mr. MARIER:: They refuse jobs.


Clarence Gillis: No, they do not refuse jobs at all. If the government will pay their transportation I will send 2,200 ex-service men tomorrow to any part of Canada where jobs are available.


Mr. MITCHELL:: I will take you up on that.


Clarence Gillis: All right; you get the jobs for me. If the government will provide transportation and employment-I am not quibbling now-I will send a wire tonight and have a mobilization of these people. They will take the work.


Mr. FOURNIER (Maisonneuve-Rosemont):: Maybe you talk too much.


Clarence Gillis: No, I am not talking too much. According to a newscast this morning selective service officers in that part of the country-that is your own officials of the regional employment service-meeting in Moncton yesterday said there were 30,000 registered unemployed in the maritimes who cannot be placed. If the Minister of Labour has issued any directives as to where there is employment for these men in Canada, and there is any machinery by means of which they can be shipped to those places, the director of employment services in the maritimes does not know anything about it. I heard that statement myself on the nine o'clock news broadcast this morning, arising from a meeting held yesterday to deal with the question of employment in the maritimes.


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


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go ahead.


Clarence Gillis: I shall conclude; I will follow up the matter later with the Minister of Labour.
After listening to this debate for a number of days I am reminded of a story. You see, sometimes the Conservatives want controls and sometimes they do not want them. On the other side over there they are strong for them, but they are taking them all off. The Social Creditors want nothing except the right to print money.


Solon Earl Low: And that is more socialistic drivel.


Clarence Gillis: It reminds me of the story about the chap who was going down the street one day with one foot on the curb and the other in the gutter. He walked some distance that way, until a police officer came along, stopped him, and said, "What is the matter with you? I think you are drunk". "Gush" he said, "I'm glad to find that out. I thought I was crippled". And that is about the way the house is-one leg up and one leg down. And we suggest it is pretty nearly time they made up their minds where they are going.
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Mr. DAVID A. CROLL (Spadina): Mr. Speaker, the Easter vacation and the decontrol measures taken before and during that time gave all of us an unusual opportunity not only to feel the pulse of our constituencies but actually to take stock. The people I met during that time were greatly disturbed about our decontrol measures. I met people in all walks of life, and found the same complaint on every side. Somehow or other they got the impression that we in this house do not realize that laissez-faire is dead and buried. There are still some who believe there are hon. members in the house who feel that the good old days ought to be brought back-the good old days of no government intervention, the good old days of the thirties, when we had the complete freedom of action which brought false booms and real depressions.
Many people have a different understanding of free enterprise and laissez-faire. To me it means that if business is left alone it will work in such a manner as to bring about ideal economic conditions for the average man. Yet it overlooks one important truism, that industry is based upon the profit motive. While I have nothing against the profit motive as such, there are times when there is a clash between the justifiable interests of the business man and those of the consumer. Under those conditions the function of government is to act as a brake, when industry, so to speak, tries to run away with itself. In other words there will be times when controls are not only desirable but essential; and, so far we in this country have no complaint. Controls have not failed us, nor have they been the cause of shortages. During the war the government used successfully the device of controls to divert the tremendous output of industry to the interests of the state-which at that time was the fullest prosecution of the war. Now in these critical and emergent years of peace we must take these same forces and use them, but not, as some political thinkers would suggest, to bring industry back to normal. To my mind that is a label only, and one which hides a multitude of iniquities. As we saw in the thirties, in the titanic struggle of economic forces the small man was crushed.
The outstanding economic factor in our economy today is scarcity. So long as economic scarcity is with us, industry can use it to achieve its own gains. After all, it is not the function of either the landlord or the mill owner to run his business for the benefit of the public. The true function, as they see it, is to produce profits; and it would be naive for us to assume otherwise, or to ask them to run their business in an altruistic manner. The
;Ur. Gillis.l
good business man is not operating for the sake of charity; and if scarcity presents him with an opportunity, he takes advantage of it. If for instance, there is greater promise of gain from building glamorous moving picture theatres or elaborate night clubs rather than houses, how many business men would forgo the greater profit for the greater need? But it is only by the will of the people as expressed through parliament that we can force industry to work for the common good as well as for its own good.
As I see it therefore, so long as the element of scarcity prevails-and none of us can predict how long that will be-we dare not decontrol too fast. And that we are doing at the present time. In normal times there was always a check of monopolistic tendencies within a healthy business organism by what economists call the marginal producer, the man who was ready to compete at a small rate of profit. But today, when goods are scarce, there is no incentive for such marginal production. We have on the one hand a great shortage of commodities at home and abroad, and on the other hand a comparative abundance of money, although the situation at the present time is tighter than it was a year ago, as many businessmen will agree. In an uncontrolled economy what is the result? Demand forces prices up. Previous wage scales become obsolete with the rising cost of living, and you have the whole inflationary spiral of skyrocketing prices and costs which can only end in disaster.
There is a remedy; there is an alternative, and that alternative is controls. If the situation is not too far gone-and it is not in this instance-and if business men are prepared to work together for the good of the country and their own good, then we can rely on industry to control itself without any need for government intervention. So far it must be admitted that industry has not done a good job of self-control. I have only to ask the house to refer to the speech delivered yesterday by the leader of the C.C.F. (Mr. Cold-well) in which he quoted figures giving some indication of the abnormal profits of corporations. I picked up the Globe and Mail of April 12 and on the financial page I found the following headlines:
Zeller's sales and profits hit a fifteen year peak.
St. Regis Paper sets new record.
Hiram Walker profits up 58-7 per cent Consolidated Bakeries lifts profit 22 cents share. Gurney Foundry profit is $6.46 against $2.08.
Atlas Steels earns 96 cents against 61.
And on and on, all in the one day. Then
I recall reading a report on the same page

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that a movie corporation had had the highest earnings in the history of the company, yet admission prices were raised throughout the length and breadth of this country. Are these indications that the Canadian business man is waking up to his responsibilities? Frankly I do not think he is. Despite what I have said about the profit motive and private enterprise I think the average business man has enough common sense and enough patriotism to impose his own controls once he becomes fully aware of the dangers inherent in a runaway situation. The words uttered yesterday by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) are reported in the Montreal Gazette of this morning, and he is reported as saying that the government would reimpose controls in any case where it was felt that the public was being exploited.
It is well for the house to know that some time ago jute bags were decontrolled. There were none on the market; they were not available, but within forty-eight hours after the order came into effect they were available at double the previous price. The government immediately reimposed the control, and today they can be bought at a reasonable price.
In referring to the business man I am not talking about the fly-by-night.ers who come up from nowhere on the strength of a few quick killings. I am thinking of the firms who were here ten and twenty years ago and who will still be here ten and twenty years from now when the quick-profit boys are dead and gone. They are the ones who have everything to gain from a policy of control and self-control until such time as we level out our economy and the normal checks and balances of a free economic society can come into play.
I conceive then of decontrol as neither a quick process of throwing the book out the window and going back to business as usual, nor a long-drawn-out process of hanging on to a horde of irksome regulations until that elusive will-o'-the-wisp called normalcy returns. Precipitous decontrol will start us down the primrose path of higher prices with consequent consumer resistance, wage demands and the inevitable strikes and unemployment with ultimate frustration. By our haste I believe that we will defeat the very purpose we are setting out to achieve. The time has come for the government to stop decontrolling and to reexamine the position of the articles or commodities that have been decontrolled.
During the war years we took away, in whole or in part, some of the most cherished prerogatives of private industry. We told industry what to produce, how much to produce and how much profit to make. If we had not, perhaps industry would have made a great 83166-132
deal more money than it actually did; although I would say in passing that when you recall that last year Canadian corporations realized net profits after taxation of half a billion dollars one is forced to the conclusion that industry has not done badly under controls. Bj' its present conduct capital, which has the most to gain from the free enterprise system, is fouling its own nest by exacting the large and abnormal profits that have been referred to in this house during the last few days.
I view decontrol as a process of letting controls go as quickly as is compatible with the welfare of the little man', to the point where government can hand the whole thing back to private enterprise and say, "You take it from here." A realization by business men of the heavy responsibilities that are theirs today will speed up this reconversion. The sooner they are prepared to exercise selfcontrol, the sooner will we be able to dispense with government control.
In the meantime, for the protection of everyone, a large measure of official control must remain. Our affirmative decision on this point will be met with approval by the little man throughout Canada. As for the comparatively few who will object-they are really a small minority, but they make a noise like a majority-I would say tnat they are guilty of selfish or illogical thinking. Let us give them the benefit of the doubt by saying that they are only illogical, and let us point out to them that those who oppose controls in principle or in fact are blindly evoking the attitudes of bygone years when planning and controls were linked with the totalitarianism of Germany and Italy.
Many of these people reason that Hitler and Mussolini imposed a controlled economy on their countries and that all kinds of evils followed as a natural result-loss of liberty, persecution, regimentation, mass murder, and war. They are convinced that if we hold on to the few controls that remain we shall be selling the freedom of this country down the river-quite overlooking the fact that Britain, probably the most largely controlled English speaking country in the world today, is also the one in which the flame of freedom burns the brightest. Only persons who have little faith in democracy should live in fear of democratic controls. People have come to take for granted the exercise of economic controls which prior to the war they would have called totalitarian. We must not forget that the little people of this country do not merely accept controls; they actually want them, and they do not want to go back to the days of false booms and real depressions.

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Something has been said about planning. Corporations do not grow up like Topsy. They are planned, they are blue-printed. The better the plans, the better the corporation; the better the corporation, usually the better the plans. If it is a good thing for a corporation to plan, why is it not a good thing for the individual to plan? Why should not many individuals plan? Why not have the government plan for individuals? After all, planning is not the exclusive property of socialist or totalitarian countries; it is also a healthy ingredient of the new democracy. The little people are weak; they lack buying resistance. Their needs are immediate-food clothing, rent-and their bargaining capacity is weak. They know this and they look to parliament to plan for them. They remember well how we planned during the war and what a good job we did, and they look to us for a continuation of planning in the post-war period.
I believe that the people have always been in favour of controls and they call for the retention of essential controls. The uncertainty of life in an unbalanced economy makes this a "must" for the little man. The recently announced increase of ten per cent in rentals means an immediate rise in the cost of living, which is placing an unbearable burden on the shoulders of people who cannot take it. The low income group, the people on fixed incomes, the white-collar workers, are finding times in this country hard in the midst of the greatest corporation profits in our history. How do we justify it? How do we explain it? How do we reconcile it?
Labour made certain gains across the board last year in an attempt to bring their earnings into line with the then high cost of living. The gains they achieved did not put them ahead of the game-they only compensated for the years when wages were frozen and the cost of living got ahead of them. Last year's wage gains were not prospective- they were retroactive. They took up some of the slack between wages and prices as they were last summer, but they were not a cushion against rising prices in the future. In other words it was not a question of their gains being wiped out by the increased cost of living in the past year, they have actually lost ground, and once more the prices-wages equation is being tipped dangerously to their disadvantage.
I ask the members of this house to look to the south and take note of what is happening in the United States on the labour front. Let it not happen here. I know that the question uppermost in the minds of the mem-

bers of this house and the people of Canada is this: How long will our economy need the controlling hand of government? How quickly can that hand be relaxed? I confess, Mr. Speaker, I do not know the answer. I know that we cannot bring about decontrol on a fixed time-table. Conditions and events, not only in Canada but all over the world, have a direct bearing on the problem. If there is a strike in the motor industry in the United States it will be only a matter of three weeks before our factories are closed. If we are unfortunate enough to have a coal strike in the United States it will probably be only a month before our factories will feel it. Any large strike in the United States affects us economically almost as much as it does the state of Texas. And so we have to keep our eyes open. We cannot remove control on a fixed time-table. We must face the issue and see it clearly. The issue is not whether we should have controls or no controls. The problem for Canada is whether we should have more or fewer controls. Apart from the real need there is to hang on to some essential controls until we have levelled off our economy, the fact remains that people have tasted the benefits of a Canadian planned economy and are not going to give it up lightly. They like it.
The last decontrol order has had a disturbing effect. Today decontrol is unrealistic. With savings down from last year, with production and inventories up, with profits never higher in the history of this country, despite the ruin that was to come to us from last year's strikes with prices escalating, but up, and with labour straining but acting restrained, the time has come for a decision.
This debate on controls has been going on for weeks, and while we have been talking the government has been whittling away at the subject matter of our debate. The recent increase in rentals is a case in point. I should have liked to see the ten per cent increase in rentals made conditional on the landlord's renovating and repairing the premises, but there it is. Time is running out and I urge most strongly that we make up our minds now, while there is still something left to make up our minds about.


Mr. R. R. KNIGHT (Saskatoon City):: Mr. Speaker, I have been greatly encouraged by the hon. member for Spadina (Mr. Croll) who has just spoken. Someone on this side of the house said that all the Tories were not on this side of the chamber, meaning of course that there were some Tories over there. I am sure that the hon. member for Spadina is not one of them.

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I had not intended to take any part in this debate, because I thought that most of the things that could be said had already been said. I rise today not altogether because of of the fact that I am fresh from an Easter vacation but because from the contacts with my own constituents in the city of Saskatoon I have become convinced that if I have any mandate here at all it is a mandate from the housewives, the workers, the pensioners,' the civil servants and the salaried people, ninety per cent of the ordinary people of this country, to give voice to their universal demand that this government halt the release of price controls, and that it reimpose those which have been released and have resulted in a rise in the price of the commodities of life.
I was interested to hear the unanimity with which my colleague the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) has just now been attacked from all sides of the house. I might tell a little story about my recent trip to Saskatoon. Everyone in the house in the last day or two has been a little political, and I was amused at the shadow-boxing-I will explain my reason for calling it that in a moment-that took place in the house yesterday between the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Isnor) and the hon. member for Van-couver-Burrard (Mr. Merritt). Out where I come from there is a hurrying and a scurrying to and fro and a wondering about what is to be done about the next provincial election. We have fights in this house between Liberal and Tory, and I characterized them a few moments ago as shadow-boxing. On the surface they look tremendously genuine, and yet I cannot conceive how parties who are at each other's throats almost literally in this house should be such good friends in other parts of the country. I find, for instance, that the Liberal executive in my own cqn-stituency met some time ago and decided that one candidate and only one should run in the forthcoming provincial election, although we have a two-candidate constituency so far as provincial matters are concerned. But it was decided on Monday to run only one candidate.
I have another clipping here from the Star-Phoenix, which says that Rupert Ramsay, provincial leader of the Progressive Conservative party, said that he would not oppose a plan whereby Conservatives and Liberals cooperate in certain constituencies to fight the C.C.F. in the next election. Then let us come to the supreme authority, the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker), provincial Liberal leader. He said:
If Saskatoon Liberals feel they can elect only one candidate, and decide to put all their weight into that election-
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The rest of the clipping is to the effect that they will have his blessing. It is quite apparent that they do not think they can elect more than one candidate, because another prominent Liberal said a day or so later, "We cannot win here with two candidates as I see it." And so the thing goes on. My Social Credit friends may seem a little neglected and they will coalesce with anyone where they think they can get a little support.


Mr. FAIR:: In the interests of the common people.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: If my hon. friend wishes me to answer that question, perhaps he would like me to read this clipping, which comes from Saskatoon-


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: Order. I
would remind the hon. member that we are considering Bill No. 104, the second reading, and he must discuss the principle of the bill. He is referring to a debate which took place on a motion yesterday to go into supply. I would ask him to discuss the present bill.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: Mr. Speaker, I admit some guilt in the matter, but I do feel, since this matter has been introduced, that perhaps I should do something about it. Perhaps I would be permitted to answer the hon. member's question-it practically amounted to a question-and that done, I promise that I shall return to the business before the house. This is a report of a Social Credit convention and it states:	"Social Credit convention
attracts only three persons". Apparently Doctor Haideman was there, and there were two others. They did not admit the press, or there would have been four. As regards my hon. friend's question, it says that social crediters may cooperate with other parties. Doctor Haideman says they can do so if they desire-with, I presume, the qualification which my hon. friend has stated-provided that it is in the interests of the country. And after all, when three good men and true believe that, there must be something in it.
To come back to the question, or rather to initiate the question of controls, I am a believer in controls so long as I think the controls are, as my hon. friend has suggested, for the good of the country at large. There was a protest by certain women in this country not very long ago. a delegation of western women. I followed with some interest the eastern press comments on that delegation. The eastern press was practically unanimous in saying that the movement was communist-inspired. Perhaps it was to some extent, but I know for a fact that they were not all communists. However I would advise
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the government, whethej' there be some truth in the suggestion or not, that they had better not take comfort from that fact or try to get behind it, because I think that, irrespective of' what people had given the delegation their blessing, their cause was supported by all the women of the country, if not vocally, at least in their hearts and minds.
The government's idea would seem to be that the release of controls does not necessarily mean an increase in prices. The theory which we have heard expounded time and again by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) is that the throwing off of controls will so stimulate production that supply will quickly equate demand and prices will level off. I do not think that assumption has proved to be valid in the experience of the United States, nor do I think it is valid in the light of our experience here. The minister himself, I believe, pointed out what had happened in the United States in the matter of an increase in prices when he was defending the idea of continued control, even if that continued control were only for a short period.
I would ask him whether, in his opinion, the removal of these ceilings has not been to some degree contributory to that result. I think the government's policy is most inconsistent in the matter. The Minister of Justice, when he rose in his place to introduce this legislation in its various stages, knew that he had to defend the policy of controls, a control which, it is true, he was asking only for the period of one year. But it had to be defended, and in defending it he gave some interesting information.
He said that during the war-I believe it was from 1942 to 1946-in each year of that period these controls had saved the consumers of the country a billion and a half dollars. I believe, although I did not check this, that someone said these controls had saved us about fifty-five dollars for each dollar they had cost us for their operation. We were told by the Minister of Justice and by other members on that side of the house that the too hasty abandonment of controls would produce chaos, and the minister warned us-this time the Minister of Justice himself, I believe -about the plight of the salaried worker, the white-collar man, the wage-earner, the pensioned person and so forth. And then, having traced the tremendous benefits that these controls had brought during the war, he said almost in the same breath, "Of course, it is our policy to get rid of the thing as soon as possible." I will admit there was a qualification. I am not quoting him, but he made the qualification, "as quickly as conditions permit". I say that in justice to him.
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My point is that the conditions do not yet permit, and that is evidenced by the steadily increasing prices of commodities in this country. Members of the cabinet have talked of orderly decontrol. I think it has ceased to be that, and has become decontrol in unholy haste. On the very day that the right hon. gentleman was advancing such eloquent arguments for the maintenance of certain price ceilings, and introducing price legislation which would preserve that maintenance, we find his colleague the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) cutting the ground from under the feet of such legislation by releasing numerous items from under these ceilings.
Going to my home at Easter time, I found that we were paying higher prices for simple little things, the things that aggravate the cost of living. I would bring this to the attention of the government, which is usually politically conscious. I do not see why it should be so freely butting its head against the wall of public opinion. We are paying eight cents for chocolate bars, and an increase of one cent a pound for sugar; we are threatened with a ten per cent increase in rents under certain conditions; there are increases in the price of tea, coffee, soap, fuel, shirts if you can get one, and all the rest of it; jams, shortening and practically everything else.
May I remind this usually astute government that everybody-rich or poor-is taking note of these things, and, in particular, of the cost of the things which I have mentioned, which comprise a great part of the purchases of those in the lower income brackets. The man in the higher salary brackets, who spends a lesser proportion of his income on living, is not much affected by the prices of these simple things, but to a great many other people they mean the difference between decent living and a stringent economy.
The government is, of course, aware of these things. I have here something put out by the government, by a publications bureau of some sort. The series is "Wartime Controls" by the wartime information board of Ottawa, September 12, 1944, in which this statement appears:
Uncontrolled inflation is a severe and unfair form of taxation. Under conditions of inflation, while some wages and salaries may keep pace with increases in prices, wages and salaries in general can never keep abreast of increases in the cost of living.
I think that is true. Wages are now lagging behind. The logical thing now is for another increase in wages to keep up with increased prices, and there we go in that famous old

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merry-go-round to which a lack of planning apparently always leads. I continue the quotation:
For that section of the population living on pensions, annuities and other forms of small savings bringing in a fixed income, inflation spells disaster, poverty and hardship.
To continue with another clause in the same document:
Economic stabilization is necessary to protect the savings of the Canadian people. Most Canadians have saved something for the proverbial rainy day. They have put money into savings accounts, purchased insuran ;e policies, annuities and other types of fixed dollar investments (those which bring in the same number of dollars regardless of what they will buy).
Might I say that those dollars do not buy as much now as they did when those people invested them? I know, from experience with my own friends, that they are, little by little, step by step, withdrawing their savings from the bank, withdrawing their bonds and selling them in order to eke out their wages and salaries in an attempt-a temporary and perhaps foolish one-to preserve the standard of living which they had been accustomed to during the war.
I speak here in what I conceive to be the interests of the people of my constituency, and I fancy they are very much like the people in other constituencies. This is a burning question in my own city. It is the thing about which people are talking most. I noticed the other day in the report of the Gallup poll that right up at the top of the list of things about which the people are now concerned-I mean regarding government matters and legislation-is the item of the rising costs of the necessities of life. I found there was practically no disagreement among the people of all shades of opinion whom I represent, with the argument that I am advancing here today. I know that argument would not be advanced by everyone in this country. It would not be advanced by those who ordinarily get their excellent standard of living from selling goods to the Canadian people. I would not fancy, for instance, that the manufacturers would advocate such a policy. They tell us that increased prices are necessary to meet increased wages, expenses and so forth. If we were to examine that statement, aided by certain statistics, we would find what was advanced by my leader, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) yesterday, and the hon. member for Spadina (Mr. Croll) advanced the same argument today, so I shall -not weary the house with a recital of the tremendously increased profits and dividends of these great companies and corporations for
the year 1946 as compared with the year 1945. But the figures are reliable. They were quoted, I think yesterday, from the Financial Post. I do not think these companies need any particular relief. They are doing quite nicely. And so this government-and I must say it, though reluctantly-by deliberate action, has increased the cost of living in such degree as it has abandoned the price ceiling. The government has, in so doing, ignored the protests of the people of this country, protests which have been expressed in many places and notably in this house, when one remembers the result of the vote at the last session on the question of the milk subsid\\ It has flouted the will of the people as expressed by parliament.
The fact is that wages and small salaries, even those which have been increased, cannot be stretched any farther to cover any increased cost of living. Yesterday, when the Minister of Finance made a statement I noticed that he said, "Let the law of supply and demand operate; we are going to get back to the position where the law of supply and demand will operate." Well, the truth is that the law of supply and demand is being more and more interfered with. One has only to read the report on cartels to prove that to his own satisfaction. Control is constantly and generally exercised; and this party would rather that it be exercised by a government composed of representatives of the people of the country than that it be exercised by those interests which are opposed to the interests of the great masses of the people and are interested, first of all-I shall not say altogether, but first of all-in their own gain. The Minister of Finance said that a wise industrialist would moderate his own profits voluntarily. Might I for a moment use the vernacular and say, "What a hope!" The days of benevolent despotism are over. I do not think a modern industrialist has the same ideas of benevolence as had the feudal barons. I think it is too much to hope. In the state of things as they are, is it sensible, since success is so generally measured in terms of money and power, that we can expect that from the modern industrialist? Nowadays the modem industrialist, when a concern does not pay, shuts it down and would like to throw his workers into the lap of a benevolent government. Those things have not been always so.
If I may digress here for a moment, I shall recall the case of a linen manufacturer who lived in the country I came from. That man was benevolent. He was not even a despot. He was the great man in that little country
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place, and there were linen mills there. This was in the north of Ireland, and those hon. members who know the history of that country will know what the linen industry meant to that land for many years. Then the day came when the linen business began to go down. Women ceased to wear linen clothes. People ceased to use heavy linen tablecloths and the business began to deteriorate. This man had accumulated a certain amount of money and he had a very fine estate. He looked after two or three villages, and he Lad one or two mills. Things began to go bad. That man did not dismiss an employee. That was most uneconomic, our modern industrialist would say. Certain industrialists even then said that, but he refused to change his method. This had been his father's business before him. These were his people and he felt a certain responsibility for them. To make a long story short, I shall merely say that he kept that business running until he had mortgaged every stick of his own and until he himself was in the same condition, as far as wealth or the lack of it was concerned, as the people who worked for him. That type of benevolence is not very evident in the industrial .world today, nor would I reasonably expect that it should be. We think, of course, there is something that we could substitute for feudalism.
To conclude these few remarks, I would say simply that I am in favour of any scheme or any control which will preserve for the people of this country in time of peace at least the standard of living they attained during the war. While I am on my feet I should like in a word or two to express my ideas about this business of regulation, this business of freedom, this business of individual liberty. No man in his senses in this house would say that I or those around me believe in enslaving anybody, least of all ourselves. I believe men of good will have the same objects in view. I do not know of anyone in this group who does not value his personal liberty and freedom. The hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdonnell) rides this subject on almost every occasion, and if I might say so without being rude, rides it to death.
In my opinion a certain amount of regulation is necessary. To me freedom is not licence. To me some regulation is necessary, with the sole object that we may attain that freedom which all men desire. That is how I look at this subject, and I shall leave it at that.


William Ross Macdonald: Is the house ready for the question?


John Bracken: I thought perhaps the Minister
(Mr. Knight.]
of Justice (Mr. Usley) would be closing the debate. If he is not going to speak I should like to direct a question to him before the motion is put; and before sitting down I should like to outline the position in which the members of this house find themselves because of the unprecedented nature of this bill and the fact that our amendment has been ruled out of order.
The question I wish to direct to the Minister of Justice is this. The measure before us is described as an act 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. It is popularly known as the omnibus bill. It consists of eight sections, of which I take it the important one is section 2, and it includes a long schedule outlining the names and numbers of some fifty-seven orders in council. Perhaps the minister would say, if not before the vote, then as soon as we go into committee, just what procedure he suggests should be followed in the discussion, most of which I imagine will take place on section 2.
With respect to the measure itself, as I have said it seeks to put into one statute some fifty-seven orders in council which were passed in time of war. The motion now before us is that the bill be given second reading. As hon. members know, an amendment was moved by the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming), which amendment was declared by His Honour the Speaker to be out of order, so that we are now dealing with the main motion. In that situation we have no choice but to either vote for all these fifty-seven orders in council or to vote against them all. That is the position in which we on this side of the house object to being placed. We think it is a position in which the members of this house should not have been placed, a position where we have to support all these measures or to oppose them all. As a matter of fact we do not oppose some of them, but we do oppose others. And we oppose certain of the wide powers which, under this legislation, are left with officials. It is clear, therefore that, no matter how members vote, they are likely to be misrepresented with respect to certain sections of the bill.
In order to protest against that procedure and the position in which members are placed by the government including some fifty-seven different subjects in one bill, we moved the amendment to which I have referred and which was ruled out of order. In his decision Mr. Speaker was supported by the members of the government and the C.C.F. party.
I have no doubt this measure will pass, because it is supported by government mem-

Emergency Powers
bers as well as by some members on this side of the house. Let me repeat; some aspects of the bill we can support; some we must oppose, and some of the wide powers it contains we must also oppose. In the circumstances in which we find ourselves; in view of the fact that the measure will go forward; and since we can support some of it and are opposed to other portions, we in this section of the house will vote against the bill at this stage.
That is all I wish to say at the moment, other than to ask the Minister of Justice to indicate, either now or later, the procedure he intends to follow when the bill reaches the committee stage.


Mr. ILSLEY:: Mr. Speaker-


William Ross Macdonald: If the right hon. Minister of Justice speaks now he will close the debate.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) has endeavoured to place before the house the position in which the members of his party find themselves with respect to this bill. I should like to say a few words about the position in which we of this group find ourselves. Unlike the leader of the opposition and his followers, it has been our intention right from the start to support the second reading of this bill, and from time to time we have so indicated. However I may say that we support the measure because we would not be satisfied with anything less at this stage in our country, but we are by no means satisfied with the extent to which it goes. In saying that, I have in mind the limitation placed in the bill upon the principle of price control, and also the fact that the bill gives the government power to revoke price control at any time in whole or in part, which is now happening from day to day. I also have in mind the views I have expressed repeatedly with regard to other matters covered in the bill, such as old age pensions. We are by no means satisfied with a bill that simply extends the present $25 for a period of time. We believe that long before this the government should have given us an opportunity to vote on its proposed amendments to the Old Age Pensions Act itself, and boost the pension to some reasonable amount. However though we are not satisfied with the extent to which the bill goes, we state quite clearly that this country could not get along with anything less, could not run the risk of the chaos that would ensue if this bill were not passed, and for that reason we intend to support it.
I want to say further, though, that we do not feel the house has yet had an opportunity to express itself clearly, by means of a vote, on the basic principle that is before us, so far as controls are concerned. There has been a good deal of arguing between hon. members on the government side and those in the official opposition; but in principle there is very little difference between them. Spokesmen for the Progressive Conservative party contend that controls should be brought to an end immediately. The position taken by most speakers on the Liberal side of the house is that controls should be brought to an end, but more slowly, and through what is called a programme of orderly decontrol. The only difference between those two positions is one of timing. Both agree that controls should come to an end, and that we should get back to what is called a free economy.
When we in this group refer sincerely to this talk of getting back to a free economy as a process of returning to what we had in the thirties, we are met with some rude interjections. We are told sometimes that we do not believe it ourselves, and that we are resorting to soap-box oratory, and that sort of thing. But I submit, Mr. Speaker, that that is quite clearly what we are heading for, if we go back to what is called a free economy. To call it free does not make it free.
Freedom is one of the things in which, in principle, members on all sides of the house are united. We all believe in it firmly; we strive for it, and would do anything we could to protect the freedom of our citizens. But it does seem to me there is too little realization in the house of the fact that, if we are going to hold on to our political freedom and to the civil liberties we prize so much, we must move on and achieve a much wider measure of economic freedom-and not just for the few, but for all the people of this country. And that, to use a phrase the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) so frequently employs, means the rule of law. The contention of those of us in this group is that the rule of law must begin to take effect in the economic sphere. We contend that democracy is control by the people of the things that affect the people. Two or three generations ago economic processes did not greatly affect the individual lives of the people in the country. My grandfather, and his father and grandfather before him, eked out an existence in Shelburne county, Nova Scotia, planting potatoes among the rocks and doing a bit of fishing. Economic processes did not play a large part in their free-
Emergency Powers

dom. In that day freedom consisted in protection from inroads by the state or the government.
But times have greatly changed. Peoples' lives today, from the cradle to the grave, are affected by the economic processes which surround us. The most immediate evidence of that statement is the effect that the rising cost of living is having on the lives of our people at the present time. And I suggest that if we are to carry out the full meaning of democracy, the people who are elected to represent the interests of about 12,000,000 Canadians must see to it that in the name of the people they have control over the economic processes which affect those
12.000,00 people.
The point at which this is most evident is in the rising cost of living. As members of parliament, members of a democratic representative body, I submit we are negligent in our duty if we sit idly by and let the cost of living sky-rocket, and our people suffer as they will as a consequence.
That is the reason we have been contending, from the time this debate opened, that instead of presenting us with a measure which merely provides for the continuance of controls on a skeleton basis, just long enough to get rid of them, the government should be introducing a system of orderly and democratic controls so as to combat any inflationary tendencies, combat the rising cost of living, and make possible the achieving of greater justice and greater equality among our people.
The very fact that the leader of the opposition has indicated that he and his followers intend to vote against this measure, and that it is known that we intend to vote for it, shows what a confused situation confronts us.


John George Diefenbaker: You will be consistent in that.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The hon. member, coming as he does from Saskatchewan, has perhaps less ground than any other member in the house for talking about cooperation with the government. He knows what is going on back in his own province, where members of his party and the party opposite are certainly climbing into the same bed.


Mr. JACKMAN:: The forces of good against evil.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I had begun to point out the unreality of the vote now before us. Hon. members to my right w'ant to get rid of controls. The measure before us is one which will have the effect of getting rid of controls in something less than a year, maybe very quickly, but they are going to vote against it.
	*
We in this group want controls. We have before us a measure which will get rid of them, but we are put into the position of having to vote for it, so as to retain some controls for even a little while. That is just how confused and unreal is the issue placed before the house.
Because of this confusion and unreality, from the beginning of the debate we have tried to present at some stage an amendment which would be in order and which rvould give the house a chance to vote on the real issue. I suggest that the real issue is not as to whether controls should come off today or next week, or even at some time within a year. The real issue is whether or not the parliament and government of this country, in the name of the people, are going to pursue a policy of orderly and democratic controls, in the belief that it is our democratic duty to protect the Canadian people by having something to say in their name about the economic processes which affect their lives.
And so, Mr. Speaker, I rise now' to present another amendment. This amendment is one that we have thought out carefully in the light of the experiences that we have had thus far in this debate. I mean, by that, that we have done our best to word it in such a way as to make sure that it will be in order. My hon. friends to my right moved an amendment on April 1, which, 1 grant, stated the issue as they see it. However, this afternoon that amendment was ruled out of order, in which ruling we of this group concurred. Yesterday the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldweil) moved an amendment to the motion to go into supply, which was ruled out of order on the ground that it anticipated doing things which could be done in committee on Bill No. 104.
We hope that the amendment we now propose to move will avoid that supposed error for it suggests something different that we feel should be done than what is now placed before us. In other words, it will suggest to the house that there should be introduced a system of orderly and democratic controls. I submit that that is quite different from a measure which provides merely for the continuation of certain skeleton powers until such time as they are revoked. Therefore I submit that the amendment which I shall offer in a moment cannot be ruled out of order as was the case with the one proposed yesterday.
Further, on March 20 the hon. member for Rosetowm-Biggar moved an amendment to the motion that Your Honour leave the chair for the house to resolve itself into committee of the whole to consider the resolution that preceded this bill. Your Honour ruled that

Emergency Powers
amendment out of order, not on the basis of its substance, but on the ground that no amendment could be moved at that stage. Your Honour quoted the citation of Beau-chesne which had to do with referring matters to a committee, and Your Honour took the position that that particular citation covered that amendment. This is a different stage, and that citation does not now apply.
The amendment which I am about to propose is in exactly the same form as others which have been moved during this session and which have been allowed by Your Honour and voted upon.


James Horace King: If the hon. member will permit me to interrupt, he is trying to explain to the house why his amendment is in order, but neither the Speaker nor hon. members know what his amendment is.


Stanley Howard Knowles: All right; I shall read the amendment and then afterwards indicate the references in Hansard and the citations in Beauchesne which I think provide a basis for the propriety of the amendment. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Yorkton (Mr. Castleden):
That this bill be not now read a second time but that it be resolved that in the opinion of this house the headlong decontrol policy of the government has depressed the standard of living of the people, threatens the country with economic chaos, and is surrendering the future of Canada to profiteering and monopoly;
And be it further resolved that in the opinion of this house the government should give immediate consideration to the introduction of a system of orderly and democratic controls and the restoration of lower prices for the necessities of life, particularly articles of food and clothing, soap and shortening, shelter, household appliances, and supplies and machinery needed in agriculture, in order to eliminate the injustices which now exist and to arrest the rapidly rising cost of living.
In drafting this amendment, we took into consideration citation 657 to be found on page 228 of Beauchesne, third edition, which says in part:
It is also competent to a member who desires to place on record any special reasons for not agreeing to the second reading of a bill, to move as an amendment to the question, a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from, the principles, policy, or provisions of the bill, or expressing opinions as to any circumstances connected with its introduction, or prosecution . . .
And so on.
Then on page 337 of Beauchesne, third edition, will be found form No. 93, which gives the form for an amendment to the motion for the second reading of a bill. As I was about to indicate a few moments ago when Your Honour asked me to read my 83166-133
amendment, there have been two amendments in exactly this form moved this session. One was moved on February 21 and is recorded on page 697 of Hansard. That was an amendment which I made to the motion for the second reading of the redistribution bill; it asked that the bill be not given second reading at that time but that the house resolve a certain proposition. The other occasion was on March 31, as recorded on page 1910 of Hansard, when the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Nicholson) moved an amendment to the second reading of the bill providing for the appointment of auditors for the Canadian National Railways. Again the amendment proposed that the bill be not then read a second time but that the house by resolution declare an alternative principle.
I have taken this much time to deal with the technical points in order to make clear how perfectly in order this kind of amendment is. As I indicated earlier, this kind of amendment has been moved twice this session, has been accepted by Your Honour and voted upon by this house. I submit that that is what this house wants, namely, an amendment which states the issue clearly so that we can vote upon it and let the country know where we stand. This amendment does not simply make decontrol a matter of time, which is the issue between the government and the opposition; it calls for a definite policy of orderly and democratic control; it calls for a permanent policy looking toward the exercise by parliament of its democratic responsibility to have something to say about the economic conditions that affect the lives of our people.
I submit that a great deal more is at stake than just the cost of living, important as that is at the present time. Involved in this whole question is the future of democracy itself. Democracy cannot go backward; it cannot stand still. It must move forward. Democracy involves freedom and the control by the people of the country, through their elected representatives, of the things that affect them all. If we are to maintain our political freedom and civil liberties we must move on to economic freedom and economic democracy, and if the house passes this motion it will be taking a step in that very necessary direction.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: If I may ask my hon.
friend a question, are he and his party in support of this bill or against it?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether my hon. friend was in when I started.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I wras here all the time.

Emergency Powers


Stanley Howard Knowles: I made it clear at the outset that we are supporting this measure on the ground that Canada could not at the present time have anything less than is contained in it, and could not run the risk of the economic chaos that would ensue if the will of my hon. friends to my right prevailed and the measure were throwm out. But the point we are making is that it contains far too little. We are supporting it but we demand a great deal more for the Canadian people.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: And you are trying to kill it at the same time.


James Horace King: I must say to the house that I will study the amendment and give a ruling on whether it is in order or not after the dinner recess.


Mr. J. H. MATTHEWS (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, if I did not rise to express my views on this measure I should feel that I were remiss in my duty and negligent of the welfare of the constituents whom I have the honour to represent.
During the years of the war the government took to itself pride and credit for the initiation of a policy, of subsidies and price control, and speeches which have been made in this house quite recently indicate quite clearly that, as a result of this policy, great savings have accrued to the Canadian people. When -we compare the results of price control in Canada and the United States we feel that we have great cause for pride, and I for one like to give credit where credit is due, whether it be to this government or to any other. If price control has been good for the Canadian people-and again I say that it has been shown that controls have been good-then why this unseemly haste to abolish them? I know, as every member of the house knows, that great pressure has been brought to bear on the government to remove price controls, but I am very sure that that pressure has not come from the housewives and the families of Canada. They are viewing with alarm the threat to their well-being which is contained in the rising cost of living. Personally I cannot understand the attitude of the government in thus yielding weakly to the pressure of big business to remove controls in the face of the rising resentment on the part of the electorate. It would seem to me, Mr. Speaker, that the time is fast approaching when the government should have its ear to the ground so as to know and understand the temper and attitude of the people preparatory to a general election, but on the contrary the government seems to be riding high and very handsome disregarding

entirely the resentment and the expressed wishes of the people. The people today expect of a government that held prices steady during the war that it will hold prices steady during this recurring time of peace.
During the war I heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), speaking over the radio, make a statement to this effect, that the people of Canada now' have more money than they ever had before, presumably because of the high wages received from war work. Personally I think the Prime Minister's statement was unw'ise, because there were at that time many thousands of Canadian people whose wages had not been increased because of war work and who certainly had no more money in their pockets at that time than they had before. Necessary spending in many families was restricted during the war time by compulsory savings and, by the way, the people today are very anxious to connect again with those compulsory savings which wrere withheld from them.
But my deepest concern todaj' is for the people in the low' income brackets, the men and the women who are feeling very keenly indeed the rising cost of living-the old age pensioners, our sick and infirm people, our unemployed, for we do have them. It may interest hon. members to know that the provincial government of British Columbia has dismissed, in the city of Fernie, w'hich I represent, all its employees over the age of sixty-five. No provision whatsoever is being made for the way in which these people shall live. They are not eligible at the present time for the old age pension, and they are finding that the cost of living is soaring day by day and hurting them considerably. I wonder if this government expects that these dismissed employees will vote at a coming election for the Liberal party, for a party that has failed to hold prices at a time when they need to be held very strictly indeed.


Mr. MARTIN:: No other country in the world did as well as Canada in holding prices.


James Herbert Matthews: I am not concerned with what other countries are doing but I am concerned w'ith what Canada is doing. We have prided ourselves-I have taken pride in it and have supported the government for it in my speeches-on what the government did during the war in holding prices. My concern today is why the government has weakly yielded to the high pressure coming from the Canadian Manufacturers' Association and such like bodies to remove price controls.

Emergency Powers
Only yesterday the member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Merritt), speaking in the debate, used the word "demand". He was demanding that the government set a date in the very near future for the Halifax by-election. I am not much concerned in demanding that the government should do that, but others can use the word "demSnd" as well as the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard, and today I demand that the government be very watchful indeed. It is all very well for the papers to say that the government warns business against too rapid increases in the prices of goods. That may sound all right in the press, but let the people sit in this house and see the actions of the government, how they pay lip service to controls and then get rid of them as rapidly as they can, regardless of consequences. My demand is that the government shall watch more carefully the rising cost of living and reestablish controls where necessary before irreparable harm is done to the Canadian economy. Then, when these things have been done, the government can look with a degree of certainty to receiving the support and the votes of the people of the country, but not on the basis of the policies they are following at the present time.


Mr. G. H. CASTLEDEN (Yorkton):: I
think what the Canadian people will have to face up to in the near future is the fact that, under the modern organization of industrial economy such as we have in Canada today, price controls are an absolute necessity. It sometimes surprises me to hear Social Credit members voice their opposition to any kind of control boards or price control. The very foundation on which their party was built in the early days was a fair price established by boards which would estimate and determine what that fair price was.


Mr. QUELCH:: We have never taken a stand against any form of price control.


George Hugh Castleden: But if there must be price control how is it to be established except by means of boards?


Victor Quelch: Agriculture has always taken that stand.


George Hugh Castleden: something wrong with an economy which tells me what price I shall pay for the goods I want to buy, while the same economy tells me what prices others will pay me for the commodities I have to sell."
Consequently the farmer is squeezed, as I have said, between two pressures. The economy tells him what others will pay him for the goods he has to sell, while it tells him at the same time what prices he will have to pay for the things he has to buy. The result is that he is soon squeezed out. There will have to be some control if we are to prevent complete chaos.
The farmer saw that in the days prior to the war. Now he sees prices set on farm commodities. He has accepted a set price for farm commodities. He believes it is a good thing. I think the majority of the farmers of the country have supported the wheat agreement with the United Kingdom, because it gives a guarantee of an initial price of $1.35 for a period of years. The farmer has forgone the present world price. He says that is better than the fluctuations we have had. At any rate he knows he is going to get that, and that has been set. But, may I point out, all the advantages that may accrue from that, can be wiped out overnight if there is no control over the prices of the commodities he has to buy. If you turn the implement companies and the monopolies loose and let them put up prices as they wish; if you take the ceilings off gasoline, distillates, binder twine, clothing, sugar, the things he has to buy, then this set price that he has agreed to will mean absolutely nothing to him.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster) moved the second reading of Bill No. 59, respecting British Columbia Telephone Company.
He said:	Mr. Speaker, at this stage on
second reading and before the bill is forwarded to the committee on railways and telegraph lines, there are a few remarks I should like to make. Briefly, the purpose of this bill is to obtain parliamentary authority for an increase of capital from $11,000,000 to $25,000,000. The increased capital asked for is necessary for capital expenditures required by the company,

to provide facilities adequate for the telephone requirements in British Columbia, and for the purpose of the company carrying out its postwar programme of service expansion and modernization of facilities. Perhaps the purpose of the increased capitalization can be summed up briefly in this way. It is required for extensive additions to replace obsolete equipment for present and future demands and to take care of the large building programme. The increased capitalization from $11,000,000 to $25,000,000 is estimated to be required for the next five years' expenditures.
Perhaps a word or two regarding the development that has taken place in the province and the need for this increased capital might also be appropriate at this time. The 1941 census gave the population as 817,861. According to the ration books issued-and this was only a short time ago-the population of British Columbia is now 1,019,745. I doubt if there is any other part of the country which has increased its population so greatly in such a short space of time. The building permits issued last year totalled $42,717,250 in value. I should like to say just a word or two regarding industrial expansion and give some figures showing a comparison of production in the year before the war with that in 1946: Production in British Columbia 1938	1946
Lumber	
$67,122,000	$150,000,000Agriculture ....	47,782,000	112,000,000Mining	
64,486.000	70,250,000Fishing	
18,673,000	41,500,000
These figures show the rapid growth and expansion of industry and also, as I mentioned a moment ago, the great growth that has taken place in the population of British Columbia. The telephone company have estimated from their books and from the actual records that they have on hand at least twenty thousand applications for telephones. I do not know of any part of Canada which has such an expanding and increasing population and which has greater need for telephones than the districts of British Columbia. I know in the district in which I live-and I am only some eight miles from the city of New Westminster- there is one telephone line, and if you wish to get on it in a hurry, it is just too bad because there happen to be twenty-six parties on the one line. That is just a sample of the inadequacy of the telephone facilities throughout British Columbia; and I think one could find districts where requirements are equally as great as they are in the district I have mentioned.
May I say, Mr. Speaker, that the union of British Columbia municipalities which, in its

Private Bills
membership, comprises all the cities and municipalities of British Columbia, has been notified as to the intentions of the company to ask for the increased capitalization from $11,000,000 to $25,000,000 and it has raised no objection whatsoever. Then the city of Vancouver which, as everyone from British Columbia knows, has almost fifty per cent of the population of the province, if one considers the Greater Vancouver area, was notified by letter -and I think it might be advisable to place it on the record-regarding the application of the company. The letter is from the clerk and it reads as follows:
Application of B.C. Telephone Company to increase its capital stock
Dear Sir:
I wish to notify you of the following recommendation of the harbours, utilities and airport committee, dated February 10, 1947, which was adopted by council on February 17, 1947:
"Recommended that the following report, dated February 3, 1947. from the special committee comprising the chairman (Aid. Thompson), Aldermen Miller and Gervin and the corporation counsel, with regard to the subject matter, be approved and the company be so notified:
The application of this company to increase its capital stock from $11,000,000 to $25,000,000 and to effect the repeal of subsection (3) of section 6 of its Incorporation Act, was referred by council on the 27th ultimo to the undersigned as a special committee with instructions to report to your committee at its next meeting.
We have had an interview with Mr. Gordon Farrell, president, Mr. C. B. Diplock, general manager, and Brigadier Sherwood Lett, counsel for the company.
We are impressed with the fact that the company requires fresh capital in substantial amounts to meet the backlog of deferred instalments during the war as well as the normal expansion of its business. Under its charter the company even if authority of parliament is given to increase its capitalization, cannot make any issue, sale or other disposition of the new capital without first obtaining the approval of the Board of Transport Commissioners for Canada. No question of rates is directly involved in such increased capitalization because rates are specifically under the control of the board of transport commissioners and the company agrees to give to the city notice of any application for a change in rates that might affect its subscribers in Vancouver.
We have also considered the company's application to repeal subsection (3) of section 6 added to the company's charter in 1941. Having regard to modern principles of rate making, we think the section is of little importance either to the city or to the company. As, however, it was apparently added to the act with the intention of serving as a measure of protection to the company's subscribers, we make no recommendation on the application with respect to it.
Our recommendation is that the company be notified that the city has no objection to the amendment by which it seeks to increase its authorized capital from $11,000,000 to $25,000,000, subject always to the approval of the
Board of Transport Commissioners for Canada to the issue, sale or other disposition of such stock or any part thereof."
I think that is all I need say at this time. I am asking the house to be good enough to give this bill second reading and let it go to the committee on railways and canals.
Motion agreed to and bill read the second time.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. W. A. TUCKER (Rosthern) moved the second reading of Bill No. 72, to incorporate Conference of Mennonites in Canada.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, considered in committee, reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 109, for the relief of Lillian May Alsop Mackenzie.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 110, for the relief of Robert Crawford Kirk.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. Ill, for the relief of Robert Thomas Jackson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 112, for the relief of Ernest Wright. -Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 113, for the relief of Theresa Sher-pitis Morganti.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 114, for the relief of Omer Mont-petit, junior.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 115, for the relief of Harold Robinson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 116, for the relief of Margaret Cote Traux.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 117, for the relief of Netta Cheyne Lee.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 118, for the relief of Bessie Letovsky Silverman.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 119, for the relief of Percy Coleman Stuart.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 120, for the relief of Pearl Vesta Fields Hollenbeck.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 121, for the relief of Adele Kuznetz Lesser.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 122, for the relief of Joseph Alexander Oswald Mercier.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 123, for the relief of Michael Maturjiw, otherwise known as Michal Mat-wijow.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 124, for the relief of Eugenie Beatrice Smith Ricketts.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 125, for the relief of Hilda Mary Charlotte Kelly Smith.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 126, for the relief of Eileen Louise Thomas Bleakney.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 127, for the relief of Eugenia Drake Armstrong Newell.-Mr. Boucher.
Dominion Elections Act
[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 128, for the relief of Muriel Aileen MacKeage Fewtrell.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 129, for the relief of Evelyn Marie Elliott McGrath.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 130, for the relief of Mary Nellie McGurk Stone.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 131, for the relief of Cipoire Segall Wurmbrand.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 135, for the relief of Violet Olive Magdalene Allchin Clark.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 136, for the relief of Victor Reid Murray.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 137, for the relief of Agnes Jane Irwin Everitt Dixon.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 138, for the relief of Peter Samuel Rosen.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 139, for the relief of Rose Wase-levslcy Balakirsky.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 140, for the relief of Sophie Wener Finestone.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 141, for the relief of Norma Mary Sharp Chapman.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 142, for the relief of Douglas Wilson Bradshaw.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 143, for the relief of Muriel Amelia Dufty Rochet.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 144, for the relief of Ethel Orn-stein Pfeffer.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 145, for the relief of Hilda Katz Delnick.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 146, for the relief of Emilienne Grinsell Daoust.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 147, for the relief of Alice Hamilton Peck Stevenson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 148, for the relief of Doris Victoria Bellisle Page.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 149, for the relief of Sydney Beaver.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 150, for the relief of Gladys Kathleen Wilkins Todd.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 151, for the relief of Norma Elizabeth Jane Murray Hanko.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 152, for the relief of Bernadette Mayford Roy.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 153, for the relief of Ellen Irene Gertrude Preston Hastie.-Mr. Maybank.
Frédéric Dorion: On division.



DOMINION ELECTIONS ACT


[Stage Direction]
Mr. ROBERT FAIR (Hattie River) moved the second reading of Bill No. 3, to amend the Dominion Elections Act, 1938.
He said: I am glad to have on opportunity tonight to bring up a matter of injustice to our old age pensioners and others who, through circumstances entirely beyond their control, are compelled to seek shelter in institutions maintained by provincial or municipal authori-

ties of certain provinces. When I first brought this matter to the attention of the house I was compelled to name four provinces which treated their poor people in this way. Tonight I am glad to be able to say one of those provinces has removed that disqualification from its statute books. The section to which I take objection is paragraph (k) of section 14 of the Dominion Elections Act, which provides that certain persons are disqualified from voting a.t an election and are incapable of being registered as electors. Among those disqualified are:
(k) in any province, every person who is an inmate of an institution which is maintained by any government or municipality for the housing and maintenance of the poor. . .
James Horace King: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but I should not have called his bill. I understand that the Dominion Elections Act, 1938, which the hon. gentleman is discussing, has been referred to a committee of this house, so that the hon. gentleman is discussing a matter which is actually before a committee.


Robert Fair: I have brought up this matter on two different occasions. Last year the then Secretary of State asked me to let the bill stand, because no committee was being set up to deal with it, and I did so on the understanding that I might discuss it on another occasion.


James Horace King: I am sorry again to interrupt the hon. gentleman, but I would not have called the bill if I had remembered that a committee had been set up to study this act. Just as the hon. gentleman started to discuss the matter, I realized that it had been referred to a committee, and it is a well known rule that we should not in the house discuss a matter which is before a committee.


Robert Fair: I am a member of that committee, and I shall discuss it when the committee meets.


James Horace King: Order. The hon. gentleman knows the rulings of the Speaker may not be discussed. The motion stands.



CRIMINAL CODE


[Stage Direction]
Mr. WILFRID LaCROIX (Quebec-Mont-morency) moved the second reading of Bill No. 133, to amend the Criminal Code (illegal organizations).
He said: The bill I am submitting this evening for the approval of this house, the object of which is the suppression of any

Criminal Code Amendment
kind of communistic party in Canada, is selfexplanatory and should not require very much debate in order to justify it. As all hon. members know, Mr. Igor Gouzenko recently exposed the Soviet spy rings in Canada. To the following question, "What attitude should Canada adopt towards the Canadian communist party?" Mr. Gouzenko replied:
The communist party in Canada is not just a political party like other major political parties in this country. It is an agency of the Soviet Union, which aims to overthrow our system of government. Canadians must never lose sight of that fact.
The free existence of the communist party here astounds, more than anything else, every soviet person who arrives in a democratic country from the Soviet Union. They know perfectly well whose interests that party is serving. Taught from their experience in the Soviet Union, where the democratic elements were mercilessly destroyed long ago, and where only the communist party has the right to exist, these soviet people expect to see the same picture in the democratic countries. They expect to see the communist party banned, and the leaders of that party in jails, or liquidated.
Their surprise is, therefore, equally great when they see that the communist party functions openly and propagates anti-democratic ideas, the while it takes advantage of a constitution which ensures its right to print and issue its newspapers, to broadcast on the radio, to hold meetings, and all this with the aim of overthrowing the same constitution which gives it this right.
Allow me to say, Mr. Speaker, that I was bewildered to find that in one constituency alone, six thousand Canadians have, during a recent by-election, clearly shown their adherence to the communist party. According to Mr. Gouzenko, the most important factor of the communistic programme is absolute allegiance to Moscow.
I would request that hon. members adopt the second reading of the bill, since it involves its principle. This bill has been in the hands of members of the house since before the Easter recess, and they should by now have found the time to read it in its entirety. Should hon. members wish to suggest amendments, they will be afforded the opportunity to do so in committee when the sections of the bill will be examined in detail.
For instance, section 1 stipulates the following:
The communist party of Canada, the Labour Progressive party of Canada and any association, society, group or organization having similar aims or purposes are declared to be, and shall be deemed to be illegal organizations:	Provided
that no association, society, group or organization, except the communist party of Canada, and the Labour Progressive party shall be deemed to be an illegal organization unless the governor in council has, by notice published in
the Canada Gazette declared the said association, society, group or organization to be an illegal association within the meaning of this section.
The reason behind this wording is that no one is in a better position than the government, with the assistance of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to have the necessary information which would allow it to make a decision in the matter.
However, should certain members of the house ascribe to this section powers which are too arbitrary to be placed in the hands of a government, nothing should prevent an amendment from being tabled in committee, which would force the government to submit this information, documentation and evidence to the Supreme Court of Canada, which would decide without appeal.
Since no amendment may be made on second reading, it is vital that the principle itself be decided upon by allowing the bill to be passed on second reading. I therefore count on the good will of the members of this house in this matter.
James Lorimer Ilsley: Mr. Speaker, I had not anticipated that the bill would be reached tonight, and I should be very much obliged if the hon. member would agree to let it stand. I should like to read in Hansard the remarks he has just made to the house, and on another occasion state the attitude of myself or of the government, as the case may be. I therefore beg to move the adjournment of the debate.
Mr. LaCROIX: Following the remarks of the minister, I have no objection to letting the motion for second reading stand.
On motion of Mr. Usley the debate was adjourned.



EMERGENCY POWERS


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Usley for the second reading of Bill No. 104, 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 the amendment thereto of Mr. Knowles.
James Horace King: I should like to give a ruling on the amendment moved by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), which reads as follows:
That this bill be not now read a second time but that it be resolved that in the opinion of this house the headlong decontrol policy of the government has depressed the standard of living
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of the people, threatens the country with economic chaos, and is surrendering the future of Canada to profiteering and monopoly;
And be it further resolved that in the opinion of this house the government should give immediate consideration to the introduction of a system of orderly and democratic controls and the restoration of lower prices for the necessities of life, particularly articles of food and clothing, soap and shortening, shelter, household appliances, and supplies and machinery needed in agriculture, in order to eliminate the injustices which now exist and to arrest the rapidly rising cost of living.
I wish to call the attention of the hon. member to citation 357 at page 139 of Beau-chesne, third edition, which reads as follows: Mr. Speaker Sproule on the 13th February, 1913, decided that a proposed amendment which was substantially the same motion as the member had moved on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, was not in order because "a motion must not raise a question substantially identical with one on which the house has given a decision in the same session."
I would also direct attention to the ruling given by the Hon. George Black, Speaker, on March 14, 1934, which is found at page 714 of the same edition, in these words:
A motion dealing with a question moved and rejected as an amendment to the address in reply to the speech from the throne is out of order.
The hon. member will recall that on March 7. during this session, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) moved the following amendment:
We respectfully submit, however, that in the opinion of this house Your Excellency's advisers have shown a readiness to return to the policies of uncontrolled and unplanned private enterprise which resulted in the depression and unemployment in prewar years . . .
The first part of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre being substantially the same as the amendment moved by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, I have no hesitation in saying that the amendment is out of order. As far as the second part of the amendment moved by the hon. member is concerned, I would call his attention to May, 13th edition, page . 391, where he will find the following:
Nor may such an amendment deal with the provisions of the bill upon which it is moved, nor anticipate amendments thereto which may be moved in committee . . .
I therefore rule the amendment out of order.


George Hugh Castleden: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to hear your ruling with regard to this amendment, but we are going to abide by your decision without challenging it at this time.
Before the dinner recess, in dealing with the principle of this bill I was discussing the 
various effects of price control and trying to point out to the house that the time has come when in an economy such as we have in Canada it is essential to protect the people against the ravages of monopolistic enterprises and to have some democratic control that will say to these people, "This is a fair price, this is a just price, this is the price to which you are entitled and over and above that there is not to be exploitation; we intend to stop it."
I was pointing out that by the removal of controls over prices by a government body we are not thereby removing controls. The controls are still there. Prices will then be dictated by the people who control the commodities. One monopolistic organization or another has the supplies completely within its hands and it says to those who come to buy them, "You pay this price or you go without." It seems to me that in days such as these, with industry organized as it is in this country today, this country or any other country similarly organized cannot be without some measure of price control to protect its people.
I ask the house to consider the position of the working man, the position of the farmer and the position of the pensioner who are squeezed between the cost of living and the wages that they earn. The farmer is squeezed between the cost of the things he must buy in order to produce and the prices; which he receives for the commodities he sells. He finds that the prices of these-things are dictated to him. We have little right to say that there is no dictatorship in Canada. Prices are dictated to him when he goes to buy the commodities he needs and when he goes to sell his products he is told the price he will get.
I think we are coming to the dividing of the ways. Are we to remove all control by the government and let private and monopolistic enterprise go unbridled, allow prices to. go higher and higher with no redress, no board, to appeal to, with reduced production, lower living standards, unemployment; back again to the old routine that we have gone through for the past forty years, depression, war, a period of prosperity, depression again and. then war coming on as the only release? We have a continuous procession in which the common man finds himself hopeless and helpless to fight against the tide of those who control.
The common man, the farmer in particular, finds that in order to fight he must organize himself into groups. The cooperative movement is nothing more or less than a sign of

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the times on the part of the common people, an effort to protect themselves against the ravages of monopolistic enterprises. They must have some control over the commodities which they are selling in order that they may have some say as to the prices at which those commodities shall be sold. The organization of a trade union is nothing more than a group of people getting together to say, "The wages we are receiving are too low in order to pay rising costs of living; we have nothing to sell but the sweat of our brow, and therefore we must have some say as to what we are going to sell our commodity for."
I noticed that as soon as the government released these controls it turned around and pleaded with big business to be careful and to be sensible. I would point out the fact that a similar appeal was made by the President of the United States and I would refer hon. members to what happened in the United States after the removal last year of controls under the OPA. The financial editor of the Globe and Mail on April 12 lists the United States weekly commodity prices. Taking 1926 as 100, he shows that in August, 1939, the index was 63-7; in March, 1946, it was 114-7; on January 3 of this year, 150-2; on March of this year, 166. Those are the index levels as compared with 1926. What is to be the outcome? How far is this to continue? The President is certainly disappointed in the effects of the removal of price controls.
If there is no check on the operations of competition evening things up, but where is these enterprises, what will they do? They will have complete control. We talk about your competition? Monopolistic enterprise does not recognize competition. What it says is this: "We will cut the throat of any small competitor, but we will cooperate with the big boys who compete in the same field." If the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) wants to start taxing cooperators he should start at the top and tax those who are really cooperating in the way of fixing prices.
We all know the hue and cry that is raised as soon as anybody says anything about controlling the prices which big business wants to charge. Many people seem to consider organizations such as International Nickel as being the real essence of democracy; but as soon as any cooperative enterprise, like our great wheat pools in western Canada, get started they are charged with being communistic and socialistic. Some people seem to think that is communism. They consider the operations of a monopoly to exploit the people as they wish as being real democracy. As soon as any one challenges their right to
exploit the people there is the cry that we are establishing a dictatorship; that this is socialism. They are ready to tie it up with communism, Russian spies and espionage. They want to start a holy crusade to save our families and homes.
When the common man organizes into a cooperative organization in an endeavour to fight against the forces which he finds are turned loose in this land and when such an organization endorses the maintenance of price control it is contended that they are setting up a dictatorship. What we are fighting is a form of dictatorship which is abroad in this country and which at times makes it impossible for a man to make a living. It is impossible for the common people to establish the kind of homes they should have if we are to make this Canada of ours a great country.
The whole set-up has failed, and failed dismally. Actually the control exercised by monopoly in this country is one of the worst forms of exploitation I can think of. Jesse James was a piker compared with these fellows. He went out with a gun and a blind over his eyes to rob people, but today it is legalized. These fellows go around with the law on their side and with lawyers and the sheriff to protect them.


Mr. FERGUSON:: If the hon. member will permit a question, would he prefer to live in this awful country of Canada or in either of the two countries where controls existed prior to the war, in Italy or Germany?


George Hugh Castleden: Of course I would prefer to live in a country where there is democracy and democratic control. I would not want to live under any kind of dictatorship. Here, Mr. Speaker, is a repetition of the cry to which I was referring a few moments ago. But I say that Canada is not yet half the country she might be. Here we are located on the northern half of the North American continent, a country of great natural resources but with only 12,000,000 people where we might well have 20.000,000. Our population drifted across the United States border, and a million of our people were on relief. We are heading into unemployment again. It is to prevent just such a thing that, we require controls. Those controls have to be exercised by a democratic government. In a resolution which the Progressive Conservative party introduced on April 1 they declared they were unalterably opposed to the enactment of any measure w-hich would give sweeping powers to boards outside the control of parliament. Of course we would not want pow-ers to be given to boards that are outside the control of
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parliament. The government in operating the wartime prices and trade board operates it under a department of this government. The board exercises control over prices and the minister is responsible to parliament for the actions of the board. He can be questioned in the house and called upon by the democratic representatives duly elected by the Canadian people to answer for the policies which the board is carrying out. That is responsible, democratic control. No one believes that we should give powers to boards that are not answerable to anyone. Large corporations have to answer to no one today, but parliament can and does exercise democratic control over boards set up by parliament. Such parliamentary control is the essence of democracy. To assume that because you support a board that is under democratic control by parliament you are in favour of establishing a dictatorship is utter nonsense.
The Canadian people require a shield to protect the masses of our people against the ravages of unbridled private enterprise. It is because of the failure of the system that controls have become necessary. I believe it is an established fact that the development of industry in the direction it has taken necessitates this very thing, and I doubt that any government could continue long in Canada without such controls. When you relax these controls and give free rein to private enterprise you are quickening the downward march of the Canadian people into unemployment, to lower standards of living, higher costs, lack of production, lack of ability to maintain a proper income level to enable the Canadian people to meet the costs of government and the costs of the war. The costs of the war to the Canadian people have not yet been met. The national debt of this country has mounted to over $15 billion, which means that we must maintain a high income level for the masses of the Canadian people, not just those at the top, but the great masses of our people. It means that we must. establish an economy under which the masses of our people may have decent homes where they will be free from fear and free from want.
Surveys made recently show that in Canada, the United States, Great Britain and even Sweden the population is not being maintained because people will not raise children to live in poverty and in want. Fathers and mothers will not be responsible for bringing children into a world where they will suffer from want, poverty, hunger, and the fear of war. In Canada we are not maintaining our natural increase in population. Already there are signs of a declining birthrate. To counteract that, we must see that conditions are

established where people will not live within the shadow of unemployment but will have some measure of security and a decent standard of living.
We are deciding today what Canada of the future shall be, and I take a chance on prophesying that if controls are completely lifted Canada will be headed into another period of unemployment. Already there are signs of it in the eastern maritime provinces. We find higher costs and a lower standard of living, unemployment, and a demand from the people for redress and that parliament shall exercise some measure of control to protect them from the ravages of monopolistic enterprise. It is those who sit in responsible positions on the benches in this house who will be held responsible by the people if these controls are let go, and the people will repudiate those who say of private enterprise: Leave it free to go all the way and the situation will correct itself. For the sake of the Canada of the future, and of the near future, I plead with the members of this house to think seriously of the consequences of removing controls completely. Think of what kind of Canada we would have under those circumstances! The question before us is more than simply a matter of political necessity at the present time, of giving what people here and there may be clamouring for or what the press may be demanding. The press is finding that it has made its mistakes. Let us learn from the mistakes that have been made by our great neighbour to the south and lay the foundations now for a Canada which can be truly great.
Mr. GORDON B. ISNOR (Halifax): Mr. Speaker, yesterday afternoon I had a friend sitting in the gallery while the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) was speaking, and during the dinner recess my friend said to me, "What a fine speech the leader of the C.C.F. party made." I agree with him. The hon. member spoke of controls and decontrols and discussed the merits and demerits of the bill, indicating why he felt that controls should continue. I was in accord with many of the thoughts he expressed. But today that very fine presentation by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar was completely changed by members of his group, and particularly by the hon. member for Yorkton (Mr. Castleden), who spoke in the manner in which he did. As usual the hon. gentleman dragged into the discussion something foreign to the principle of the bill, and once again he spoke on a subject in regard to which I think

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he showed to all members his lack of experience, as he has so often done on previous occasions.
I do not wish to refer to the terms he used with reference to free enterprise. I speak this evening as one of those who stand for free enterprise. I am one of those 137,331 retailers doing business in Canada, employing some 300,000 persons whose wages represent S289,379,500 a year.


George Hugh Castleden: You are not the
monopoly to which I was referring.


Mr. ISNOR:: Thank you. There are always exceptions in all classes, and I made reference a moment ago to the definite difference between the types of representative we find in the C.C.F. group, one very kindly and experienced man who presents his views temperately to the house, while the other, in extravagant language, condemns and creates distrust and fear in the mind of the average person. He does not help the situation in Canada with such speeches as he has just made.


George Hugh Castleden: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: I am pleased to permit a question. The hon. member always interrupts me.


George Hugh Castleden: I assure the hon. member it is only in a kindly way. Will he point to any particular instance in which I differed from my leader?


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: The hon. member is so far different from his leader that I would not attempt to span the vast space between them.


George Hugh Castleden: Are there any instances in which I differed from him?


Gordon Benjamin Isnor: Dealing with the observations of the hon. member for Yorkton, who has just interrupted me, may I point out to him the situation with regard to farmers, who, he complains, are not enabled to enjoy a proper standard of living. I point out that the farmers are getting prices today which are higher than they received at any other time during the hon. member's lifetime. They are enjoying higher prices for their products than at any other time in the history of Canada.
The hon. member says that those doing business with private enterprise have no redress. Why, the consumer holds the controlling hand in any market. That is recognized both in this country and in the United States. If the merchant, the manufacturer or the wholesaler runs wild the consumer can bring him back to a proper sense of values because of that buying control which the consumer exercises, and because of that control we shall not have the sky-rocketing of prices in Canada which was experienced in the United States for a short time.
With regard to the principle of controls and decontrols, if there is one country in the world whose government should be complimented on the policy it is carrying out in this regard it is Canada, and that government is the government which is in power here. I might differ with my hon. friends of the Conservative party who advocate complete decontrol and I say that it is not a proper time for a complete decontrol policy. I advocate, and right along have stated that controls during war time are absolutely necessary. Further, I do not hesitate to say that controls should continue until Canada has gone through the transition period and properly rearranged production so as to supply the market in a reasonable and safe manner. That, I think, is the policy that has been pursued up to the present time.
Whether the government will in the future decontrol too quickly remains to be seen, but I would point out that this bill is for the purpose of providing proper controls. If we find that the manufacturers are allowing things to get out of hand the government can recontrol certain items of luxuries or other commodities as they see fit There is a reason why Canada should look forward to great expansion, and as a free enterpriser I believe that expansion must be carried on, not alone by the twenty-six firms cited by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. I am thinking of the thousands of small manufacturing concerns throughout the country who throw into their efforts the very best they have. I am thinking of the large number of individual owners who have a small number of employees, not of the twenty-six large firms which are so often referred to by the leader of the C.C.F. and members of that group.
My hon. friends, it seems to me, wish to draw a red herring over the trail in regard to the fine effort being made by the great majority of the smaller manufacturers, and for that reason I do not think they are fair in their criticisms. As I have said on more than one occasion, I always enjoy listening to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. Perhaps some of my hon. friends on this side, the Liberal side, will say, "Why pay so many compliments to the leader of the CCF and build him up?" Well, I like to be honest. At the same time I warn the hon. gentleman that he is doing Canada a discredit by allow-
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ing his followers to go from one end of the country to the other creating fear by reminding people of the period from 1930 to 1935.
I do not refer to this period for any political purpose but because I do not think we want to see a return of those conditions. We do not want a depression, and I do not think we shall see a return of those conditions if we follow the policy laid down by this government, which provided such wonderful leadership during the war, and which has made such plans for the post-war period as will bring industry back to a safe and sane way of producing the necessities to supply the need that exists so definitely today.
There is scarcity; we all know that. How will you overcome that scarcity? You can overcome it only by production, and production means employment. My hon. friend has referred to people like myself as Jesse Jameses. Why, Jesse James was a piker alongside the member who has the floor at the present time, he would lead you to believe. Jesse James was a piker alongside those fellows. What fellows does he refer to? The fellows who in the war tried, and in the future will still try, to build a better, brighter and more prosperous Canada. Those are the fellows referred to as Jesse Jameses.
The hon. member refers to certain types of businessmen as cutting the throat of the small fellow. That sounds good from a public platform in' certain districts but not on the floor of the house when it is sent broadcast throughout the country. I am not trying to lecture the hon. member; I would not dare to do so; but why should we have a constant repetition of this hackneyed phrase about the common man? I am just a common man myself, and so are we all. I do not think that does a bit of good. The common people are the people I depend upon for a living in my business. It is not being up here. It is my business that gives me a living, and I am going to look after that business. How am I going to look after it? By doing what I consider to be fair to the men who are dealing with me. I think the remarks of the hon. member about ravishes of private enterprise are very much uncalled for.
I think Canada is a wonderful country. No other one has greater supplies of basic materials. Our natural resources fall into five main classes:	farm, lands, mineral areas,
forests, waterpower and fisheries. These contribute in varying degrees to the whole national income. Not only or even mainly by the sale of raw materials but by the use of the products shall we be successful in building a bigger Canada with a greater opportunity for export

business and domestic business. I believe if the people of Canada understood this bill and the purpose of it, which is to control in such a way as to carry on for the period named in the bill until such a time as we resume along natural lines and are able to produce and supply those articles that are scarce at the present time, they would appreciate it; I believe that the sooner the people realize the purposes of this bill, the sooner they will know what a fine job this government is doing in bringing into effect a bill of this type.
I had no thought, Mr. Speaker, of speaking at any length; but, since I am a firm believer that the progress and future development of this country rest to a very large extent on the men known as free enterprisers, I could not sit here and allow such remarks as have been made to go unchallenged. I should like to have dealt with some of the points raised by the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) this afternoon. In the main I agree with him, but I question the wisdom-and I am sincere in this-of decontrolling at too rapid a pace. I wish to throw out a suggestion to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) and others who have studied this matter of controls and decontrols. I compliment them upon their policy up to the present time and suggest, because of the effect that it might have on the so-called organized labour forces of this country that if decontrol comes too quickly it might possibly force them to continue to make requests to industry for higher wages and thus slow up what we hope will be continued progress in regard to production.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps I spoke a little too warmly on this subject. Free enterprise is, of course, to me a subject to which I am very close. I began life on my own hook, so to speak, and I have competed with these big fellows, these so-called giants that some people think are after the little fellow all the time.
I never had very much unfair criticism; in fact, I would criticize the so-called big fellow as quickly as the C.C.F. criticize all the rest of Canada who do not fall in line with them. But on the whole I think the big fellow wants to do what is right. He has his own ideas as to what will be best for Canada. I feel that we are all working in the same way to bring about better times or continuing good times for Canada.
In connection with the decontrols which have already gone into effect, it is only fair that I should point out that a very large number of the retail stores have already advertised through the press and made it known that they did not propose to increase in price

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any stock which they have on hand. There are always exceptions to the rule. Yesterday someone cited-I think it was the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar-the example of chocolate bars, that chocolate bars had been raised from six to eight cents. It is unfortunate that the manufacturers of that particular article saw fit to do that. That is one case. They raised the price of their chocolates. Of course that is the same industry. But when you think of the very large number of wholesalers and retailers who have publicly announced that there will be no change in regard to their price lists, then I say they far outweigh the few who have adopted the other course.
In closing, I just wish to repeat what I have said on more than one occasion, that I believe free enterprise is doing a good job for Canada and that without this unfair criticism it will continue to do a good job and bring Canada back to a normal state and will continue the prosperity we have enjoyed and the high standard of living we have had in this fine country.


Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, the Social Credit members have been listening with considerable interest to the discussion which has been in progress for a good many days now. It seems that we might be welcome with a contribution to this debate. We believe that the members on the various sides of the house have pretty well talked themselves into a state of mind in which they realize that something must be done different from what has been advocated by any of the three, shall we say, major parties in this house. All hon. members I think have indicated a good sense of the problem facing us. I was particularly pleased with the speech made by the hon. member for Spadina (Mr. Croll) this afternoon. A good many others have given fine speeches, showing the difficulties before the house, but not realizing to any great extent what can be done about the difficulty. May I make a brief contribution on the subject?
Before going forward, I should like to refer to the speech made by the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) this afternoon. I think he gave a rather brilliant and witty speech, although he was considerably under par this afternoon because, instead of clarifying the situation, he added confusion. If there is any one thing that the members of this house ought to do when they rise to speak- if hon. members will pardon me for making the suggestion-it is this:	Let us clarify the
issue. Let us not confuse it. As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) so well said this afternoon in an excellent speech, I thought, every man in this
house is trying to find out how to solve the difficulties; and, make no mistake about it, every member of this house and every group in this house has a distinct contribution to make, and no group in this house can afford to treat slightingly the contribution of any other group. To make remarks such as the hon. member for Cape Breton South made to the effect that social crediters do not believe in anything except just printing a lot of money, is simply to show either profound misinformation concerning the matter or a levity which is hardly to be excused.


Clarence Gillis: Except for the information I got here in the house.


John Horne Blackmore: I thank the hon. member for making that remark. There is no time for the members in this house to make a detailed exposition of what they stand for, but if the hon. member for Cape Breton South had listened to my speeches alone since he came here, and had read them through carefully, he never would have made the unwise remark which he made this afternoon, because the statements are clear to anyone who desires to understand.


Clarence Gillis: But then somebody else behind you gets up and confuses me.


John Horne Blackmore: We will grant that, but we must allow people time to mature. You cannot expect people to come full-fledged into this house and speak freely without making little blunders occasionally. They will get their feet on the ground after a while, and you will not find any confusion at all. Recently we have had a number of people speaking from among our party who have not spoken to any great extent during the ten or eleven years we have been here; but there have been certain members of this group who have spoken for the group, and those people have never wavered or deviated one jot or tittle since the first day they came into this house. They have preached a straightforward doctrine, logical and consistent all the time, and are still preaching it.
That having been said, may I now turn to some other matters? As I have just said, the Social Credit group has always spoken consistently in favour of certain principles. The first of those is that they have favoured inducement controls. When we first came into the house a number of hon. members were alarmed. They said that we believed in regimentation, that we would simply build up a dictatorship, and all that sort of thing. The only kind of thing we were advocating was controls by inducement. That goes right to
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the heart of the problem today. What we need in this country is controls by inducement. In the discussion recently a number of our C.C.F. friends have shown that they desire controls by inducement. They talk about desiring freedom, and of their wish to increase their freedom. They will increase their freedom by introducing controls by inducement rather than controls by regulation or coercion. I shall say a few words about that later on, but I wish to emphasize that particular point because it goes right to the heart of the problem confronting Canada and the world today: controls by inducement rather than controls by coercion. Just as soon as you begin to pass laws demanding that people do such and such, fixing prices, fixing wages and so on, then you begin to build up dictatorial concepts which are likely to result in a totalitarian state. On the other hand, if you can bring in measures which will induce people to do the right thing, then you are on the way to a greater measure of democracy and freedom. The social credit movement has consistently advocated controls by inducement right from the very beginning. As the hon. member for Yorkton (Mr. Castleden) well said, and I should like to give him credit for it, ever since he has known the social crediters they have spoken of fair prices. That is quite right. It is impossible to have fair prices without inducement controls; and the mere fact that social credit advocates have consistently spoken in favour of fair prices and just prices has implied as clearly as possibly could be implied that they favour inducement controls. And we still favour inducement controls. I would challenge any member of the C.C.F. group or any other member of the house to point to a single occasion, in Hansard or anywhere else, when responsible members of this group, speaking for the group, have said anything to the contrary.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who are the responsible members?


John Horne Blackmore: If you do not know I will tell you off the record. Of course you are a new member.


An hon. MEMBER:: You are too kind.


John Horne Blackmore: Oh, I know vou
can say a lot of smart things. I can say them too, if I have to. I challenge any member of the C.C.F. or any other party to show where responsible members of this group, speaking for the group throughout the years, have advocated anything but controls by inducement to bring about fair prices, fair wages and a regular, ordered economy.
The Social Credit group has always favoured private enterprise, responsible private enter-

prise. There have been members who have tried to convey-and the hon. member for Cape Breton South was one of them this time-the idea that social crediters are in favour of unlimited free enterprise, that they agree with the Conservatives and Liberals in this respect. No one who knows anything about social credit will make that blunder, unless he just wants to play politics. We have always, as a group, favoured private enterprise because we believe, when business is conducted by private people who are concerned about the success of their own business, they will produce more efficiently both as to quantity and as to quality than will government-owned enterprise. We point to the simple fact that the free enterprise of the private enterprise nations has simply overwhelmed and swamped the nations that depended on government ownership whenever they have come into conflict with those nations. The last war was the finest possible illustration of that, when the United States utterly overwhelmed all opposition with the production from private enterprise, and Canada did simply marvellously in production, because she was following the private enterprise system.
No one can say that private enterprise has failed. As I pointed out in my speech in this house on March 7, why be foolish enough to say private enterprise has failed in the light of the marvellous achievements which can be chalked up to the credit of private enterprise? It is not private enterprise that has failed. We do not need to change from private enterprise to public enterprise. What we need to do is introduce some device whereby we can allow private enterprise to produce to the fullest desirable degree under the circumstances, and then enable the people to purchase and consume the goods private enterprise is able to produce, thereby raising the standard of living, the standard of employment, the standard of prosperity and everything else that is good in the nation. That is the thing we want.
Let us see the line we must follow in order to find that thing we wish to secure. I believe I have made it quite clear that social credit is not in favour of free enterprise that results iD monopolies or cartels. It is in favour of private enterprise regulated in such a way as to avoid the abuses and monstrosities which result from unrestricted, unregulated free enterprise. Now may I submit to the house in all seriousness that the time has come right now for the members of the government and the members of this house to consider with the most earnest care the introduction of social credit. This means that the time has come to change the

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Canadian financial system in one or two important respects, to enable that system to distribute goods as it now so magnificently produces goods. The cost of living simply must not be permitted to rise; I think every hon. member has advocated this idea. There is not a member anywhere in this house who wants to see the cost of living continue to rise. The trouble is the}' do not know how to stop it. What can we do about finding out how to stop it? Prices simply must be controlled. Just prices for both primary and secondary producers and for consumers must be maintained. That is a problem the solution of which requires much care and much skill. Just wages must be maintained. I was quite well pleased with the arguments advanced by the hon. member for Cape Breton South this afternoon with respect to the Nova Scotia coal workers. Those workers in Nova Scotia and the other maritime provinces absolutely must receive the means of a higher standard of living. If they do not this nation is going to rue the day. As long as those people are kept in poverty or semi-poverty, that fact stands as a disgrace to every person in public life in this dominion; and the nearer he is to the Prime Minister of this country, the greater the disgrace. The problem simply must be solved, and it must not be solved by being turned over blithely to the provincial administration. It is a coward's trick to turn the problem over to provincial administration: after we have allowed it to grow to such dimensions that even the dominion is unable to deal with it, then to have the dominion government go down and hide behind the skirts of the provinces! Yet we have to listen to that sort of thing from the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) and from other people in the house from time to time.
Now that problem must be solved How? That is the question. It can be solved. Two methods of control have been employed by the government in power during this war. I am astonished that they have not learned the lesson which was so obviously taught during the -war. First of all, they used the method of coercion, or prohibition by law. If any person sold an article above the celing price, and the offence was discovered, that person paid a penalty, and it was a pretty severe one. That was the law. It was control by law, or coercion. It worked fairly well during the war, while the people were under the stress of many different kinds of emotions. But it does not work very well in peace time. It is not the device which is desirable, because it leads to totalitarianism.
The other method the government used was that of control by inducement-by subsidy, or bonus. I do not suppose any government in the British commonwealth, or perhaps in the whole world, went farther than our government did in the matter of subsidizing prices in one way or another, by direct and indirect means, so as to keep prices down. Hon. members will recall how the price of oranges was kept down and how the price of milk was kept down, and the prices of a great many other commodities.
At this point I wish to commend the then Minister of Finance, the present Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley), who was in charge during those years, for the superb success which attended his efforts. The important thing I would suggest, is that the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), who has succeeded the Minister of Justice, shall go forward with that device in peace time, and that he shall not imagine that the principle of subsidies is unsound. The principle of subsidies was a completely sound principle. It was used in Great Britain, the United States and Canada, with signal success. Then why should anyone suppose that it is not a sound principle? It is a principle of control by inducement.
I have mentioned the two methods of control which have been used with success in this country, and which we can examine at the present time as possibilities for greater use in the future. Social crediters favour the deep and broad application of the principle of control of prices, through subsidies, the control of wages through bonuses, it having been agreed upon, after careful study by representatives of all groups concerned just what ought to be accepted as a fair price for any given commodity, allowing for a fair profit and just what ought to be accepted as a fair wage for any given service.
To illustrate:	Let us keep in mind, so far
as wages are concerned, the wage scale schedule which prevailed, say, in the railroad systems. Wage rates have been determined by careful study and agreement. The various relations of all people who are working throughout the whole system are all set down and agreed upon as being fair. That sort of thing should prevail throughout the whole nation, in respect of the wages of the nation; and once that has been agreed upon, then the next problem is to take steps to see that the financial support which is necessary is provided to maintain that wage structure.
A similar thing can be done with respect to prices. We have already gone a long way in determining what ought to be the price of wheat, for example, and various other commodities. To my mind, it is not beyond the
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ability of the brilliant minds which are so numerous in Canada to get together and to agree on what ought to be the fair prices for wheat, oats, barley, meat, eggs and all those various other things we produce in a primary way, for all the various commodities we produce in a secondary way such as shoes, hats, furniture and all those other things we produce. We ought to be able to determine what is a fair price. Having determined that price, let us find the financial means of supporting that price, and maintaining it throughout the country .
Such having been done, such agreement having been attained, and the price structure and wage structure ascertained, it ought to be supported, sustained and maintained by means of subsidies and bonuses. Under such circumstances there would be no fixing of prices, no fixing of wages by any arbitrary body. This is where I believe the tendency of social crediters is to go off at a tangent from the C.C.F. Whether our good C.C.F. friends really mean to set up an arbitrary body which will fix prices and wages, I am not sure. But a great many of the things they say lead me to believe that they envisage having the representatives of the various elements concerned in the production of a commodity meeting together to agree on the price and the wage. That is a perfectly democratic way of doing it. It is a process of arriving at a price and agreeing on a wage without fixing it by an arbitrary body.
Social crediters are opposed to the idea of fixing. They are all in favour of the idea of agreeing or arriving at it by compromise and study. There are people who have gone off at a tangent, I think, in respect of social credit. I am speaking particularly for social crediters across the country, and for those who wish to know what the great social credit authorities favour. In this connection I should like to quote some passages from great social credit authorities. I shall quote so as to show that what I have said here tonight is perfectly sound in respect of the social credit attitude with respect to controls.
I turn first of all to "Social Credit" by Major C. H. Douglas, published in 1937 in revised form, and I quote from the appendix at page 208, which deals with a draft social credit scheme for Scotland. It states: Simultaneously with the publication of the foregoing notice-
And the foregoing notice refers to the dividend which, although we are not saying very much about it, is still a very living thing.

-a figure to be published known as the discount rate to replace the existing hank discount rate, a suitable value of this for initial purposes being 25 per cent.
That amounts, I might say, for those who wish to know, to a subsidy. It brings down the price of the goods. Then he continues:
It is important that the figure should not be less than 25 per cent, and it might reasonably be higher.
Simultaneously, an announcement to be published that any or all business undertakings will be accepted for registration under an assisted price scheme.
I interpolate to point out that they are not going to be registered. They are not going to be listed. They will be accepted for registration upon their own volition. I proceed to read:
The conditions of such registration will be that their accounts, as at present required under the Companies Acts, should contain an additional item showing the average profit on turnover, and that their prices shall, as far as practicable, be maintained at a figure to include such average profit, where this is agreed as equitable for the type of business concerned (the suitable profit being of course, largely dependent on the velocity of turnover).
I pause to comment there that it will be noted by those who have followed these words that social credit is not opposed to profit. It favours the profit motive as being perhaps the finest incentive ever discovered by man to encourage people to produce. But it does not agree with allowing the profit to be determined at will, or through the whims of the people who are making the profits. This profit is agreed upon, after study, as being the proper profit, having in mind the possible turnover; and having been agreed upon, it is held to by all concerned.
May I quote from one other authority, this time from the "A.B.C. of Social Credit" by E. S. Holter, published in 1944. Before 1 commence reading, may I point out that this book is accepted by Major Douglas as being authentic. He has said of it that it is a straightforward, honest and simple outline of social credit; and of course members in this group accept it. There has been no deviation by members of this group from the ideas and opinions, both economic and financial, of the great founder of the movement, Major C. H. Douglas. I read from page 49 as follows:
To put the foregoing proposal into effect would not imply the elimination of competition in industry-there would be no fixing of prices. Taking a fair price level as a basis (not a level conditioned by a period of either inflation or deflation) prices would vary as today according to the variety of commodity being sold. The retailer availing himself of the discount would obviously be able to undersell those who preferred not to make use of it.

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May I interpolate there for the sake of those who are following so closely. It is quite obvious that there is no desire to force people to use the discount. We will say a large company selling coal is able, by coming under the scheme, to sell its coal twenty-five per cent lower than it could under ordinary circumstances. If the company does not choose to come under the scheme and accept that privilege of selling under the discount, that is entirely a matter for the company to decide. But that company will soon find itself in competition with other companies which are selling under the discount and will feel the pinch and be induced to fall in line. Our C.C.F. friends and a good many others throughout the house are quite disturbed over monopolies, but they will find no monopoly in the country which cannot be brought under control by inducement. I proceed to quote:
The question of profits might conceivably ruin all the benefits to be derived from the application of the "just price." What is to prevent producers from raising their prices sky high and then using the discount purely to their own advantage? The answer is simply this-that producers wishing to avail themselves of the right to dispense the discount would have to agree to a fair but fixed profit on turnover. To put it another way, using a hypothetical illustration-a producer will be offered a proposition such as the following: "If you will agree to continue to sell an article at $20 instead of raising the price to $25, by being eligible to dispense the discount you can offer that article to the consumer for $15, the sum of $5 being reimbursed to you through the national credit account." Now- though in some instances profits on individual sales v-ould be less than they are today, the fact that the producer is enabled to sell his articles below cost, assures him of a far greater number of sales. In this -way his increased turnover would more than compensate for any decrease of profit on individual sales. If he rejects this offer and sells a portion of his goods at whatever price they will fetch, he runs the risk of having a large portion of his goods remaining for they will be in competition with goods benefiting by the discount. Here it must be observed that there is no compulsion involved. The producer makes his own choice.
Just a -word or two further and I will close this technical discussion, technical because technicalities are necessary because of the difficulties which confront us. The question will arise, "Where is the money coming from?" This is the question the Liberals will be asking constantly. The Minister of Finance will be asking constantly, "Where is the money to come from?" Let me say once more, even at the risk of having people, as did the hon. member for Cape Breton South this afternoon, superficially sneer at the idea, that the money can be created under certain circumstances by the state, debt free. It will be sound money and just as desirable and as free from every
kind of inflationary tendency as the finest money that can be borrowed from the strongest bank on the face of the earth.
The question will be raised now as to how the money can be created. All that it is necessary to remember is that it will simply be a ticket to goods. Where goods are, tickets can be created. Where you have seats in a theatre, tickets to the seats can be created. Where there are seats in a train, tickets to those seats can be created. Where there are goods and services not being purchased by the purchasing power at present in circulation in the country, the government can create tickets representing those goods and services. Those tickets will be sound money and will not cause any rise in price, and consequently they will not cause any kind or degree of inflation.


An hon. MEMBER:: Can they be cancelled?


John Horne Blackmore: Under certain circumstances they could be cancelled. I do not want to go into details, but that is a very good question that has been asked. I simply ask hon. members to bear in mind that in a talk of this kind it is not desirable to go into too great detail, not because I cannot do it but because, as I pointed out on March 7, in a talk of this kind it would make too long and complicated a speech if I went into too great detail.
In certain circumstances these tickets could be cancelled just as tickets to seats can be cancelled out of circulation. Under certain circumstances the banks lend great quantities of money. Under other circumstances they withdraw their loans and cancel the money out of circulation. The objection to the present system is that the money lent is not always lent upon sound principles nor is the cancellation of money out of existence always sound. That is why in the depression in the United States it was found that that country which had started with $23 billion found itself $8 billion short inside of four years, because $8 billion out of $23 billion of the purchasing power had been cancelled out of circulation. The United States was trying to carry on with too little money, and consequently it suffered just as much as an animal would suffer that had lost one-third of its blood.
Money can be cancelled out of circulation and would be under certain circumstances and in accordance with certain definite rules. I feel that I have said enough on this occasion to put before the house and before those in the country who are interested the social credit attitude on controls. Once more let me sum up. The Social Credit party is absolutely in favour of control by inducement, but it is
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unalterably opposed to control by coercion, unless by some chance you had to deal with some pugnacious company and I doubt whether any such company would continue to carry on very long in the country. Social credit is opposed to autocratic and totalitarian control, but it is in favour of control that will control prices and wages by inducement, mainly by subsidies and bonuses.


Mr. ALISTAIR STEWART (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, we have heard a very interesting exposition tonight on the theories of social credit, one which has been a little clearer than others I have heard and yet one which I think is based upon a false premise. I was glad to hear the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) state that he and his party agree that the cost of living must not be permitted to rise, but I cannot see how the cost of living can be kept down by inducement. I think it can be kept down only by the sanction of law or by the force of the state. An hon. MEMBER: How about subsidies? Mr. STEWART (Winnipeg North):	I
intended to deal with subsidies. I know in the province from which I come the price of milk was kept down by the provincial authorities, by the state if you like, despite the subsidy which was being paid. What intrigued me was the reference made by the hon. member to the United States, one which has been repeated in other parts of this house. I have heard the hon. member for Stanstead (Mr. Hackett) use it. The United States has been held up to us as an example of private enterprise. I think those who hold up the United States as an example of private enterprise have not delved deeply into the recent economic history of that country.
I would suggest to those who believe that the United States is the last hope of private enterprise that they read the minutes of the temporary national economic committee which was set up by the late President Roosevelt in 1938 and which made its report in 1942. The best statement I have seen about the last island of private enterprise appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press of March 31 of this year. That paper eaidl:
Private enterprise, then, in its most complete form is to be found in a small island upon this continent.
Of course the largest part of that island is the LTnited States. I should like to examine the private enterprise which prevails in that country. All the figures I am using are those which have been submitted to that government committee, T.N.E.C. and all can be verified from the reports of that committee.

We find, for instance, that private enterprise may exist in the United States, but it is a private enterprise which is leading to a still greater concentration of economic power, a private enterprise which is leading increasingly to monopoly, and that, of course, belies the very meaning of private enterprise. Between 1938 and 1942, in 95 per cent of American industries, and those the smallest, employment declined by 23 per cent, whereas in the other five per cent, and those the largest corporations, employment increased by 22 per cent, showing a concentration of employment in the larger companies. From that we can deduce that the relative importance of small business is steadily declining, while domination by big business is becoming much more pronounced. Those figures are pointed by this interesting fact, that 50 per cent, or the smaller half of employers in the United States employed only four per cent of the labour in that country, while nine-tenths of one per cent of the largest employers employed 50 per cent of the wage-earners of the United States. These figures are startling in their implications, but I have checked them and rechecked them to make certain they are correct.
Some twelve years ago, in 1935, there was a study produced by the Brookings institution, one which involved the publication of four volumes, and those who were engaged in that study were not men who were notoriously sympathetic to the left in their outlook. One of the conclusions they came to was that in that land of free private enterprise the distribution of incomes amongst consumers was startlingly unequal and, to add point to that, we find from the T.N.E.C. report that one-tenth of one per cent of the richest families in the United States received as much income as did the lowest 42 per cent of the families in that country; surely another indication of the fact that wealth is becoming more and more concentrated in this last island of free and private enterprise.
Furthermore, those who were responsible for the Brookings study stated, what I hope we already know, that money savings did not automatically become new investments. As a result of that, there was a deficiency of purchasing power on the part of consumers. Those who had the money were unwilling either to spend it all in consumer goods or to risk it in new investment, so that there appeared on the economic scene in the United States an actual deficiency of purchasing power, which, of course, resulted in the depression.

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What was the cost of that depression brought on by private enterprise? Between the years 1929 and 1939, 43 million man-years were lost through unemployment. This was private enterprise, perhaps not at its best, but private enterprise as it is expected to function again in the near future in the United States. Along with that loss in labour there was a loss, it has been calculated, of $120 billion in wages and in salaries, and during those eleven years when 43 million man-years were lost through unemployment the federal government had to spend between two and six billion dollars each year to alleviate hunger and suffering.
The hon. member who has just spoken has just told us that private enterprise has not failed. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that private enterprise has failed and for this reason if for none other, that private enterprise has never been able to give full employment to the people except in time of war. That is too expensive a way to provide full employment.
Another fact which that committee pointed out was that during the time it was sitting less than three per cent of United States families received incomes of $5,000 or more, while 54 per cent of the families received incomes of SI,250 or less.


Mr. JAQUES:: That is more than they get in Russia.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: I have no doubt about that. It is also more than many get in Canada.
In 1935, based on reports of 400,000 corporations which filed balance sheets with the bureau of internal revenue, 55 per cent of these corporations held only 1-4 per cent of the total recorded assets, while two-tenths of one per cent, or, in number, 7S0 corporations, held 52 per cent of the recorded assets; thus showing once again the truth of what we have been saying, that private enterprise leads inevitably to the concentration of economic power and to monopoly. Indeed in 1941 one-half of one per cent of all manufacturing establishments were awarded 75 per cent of all war contracts. Thus, when we hear the United States praised as the home of private enterprise we should be careful how we accept those words, because private enterprise there is becoming more and more monopolistic enterprise. The odd thing is that most defenders of private enterprise assume without much reason, that the existing system is competitive and that competition in itself leads of necessity to efficiency. That was a theory which was held by Liberal economists
and Liberal philosophers over a hundred years ago. They believed that if there were many small units manufacturing, producing and distributing, the consumer would inevitably get the benefit. But the small manufacturing concerns found that competition was expensive and extravagant, and so we saw the more powerful ones gobbling up or driving into bankruptcy or absorbing their competitors until we have come to the system of free enterprise as it exists today.
Walter Lippmann, who is becoming more conservative as days go by, has this definition:
Competition is something of which producers have only as much as they cannot eliminate.
That, I think, is true. We find that same lack of competition in this country. We find that the people are being subjected not to the control of government but to the control of private enterprise. As a result of the price spreads commission, certain facts were brought to light, and we found this situation in Canada. I have here a table which I have taken from "The Control of Competition in Canada'' by Lloyd G. Reynolds. The table is headed, "Control of output in selected manufacturing industries," and it shows that 89 per cent of the output of automobiles is controlled by three firms; 100 per cent of the output of ammunition, explosive^, ammonia and chlorine is controlled by one firm; 75 per cent of the output of agricultural implements is controlled by four firms; 90 per cent of the output of cement is controlled by one firm; 93 per cent of the output of copper is controlled by four firms; 83 per cent of the output of canning (fruit and vegetable) is controlled by two firms; 79 per cent of the output of cotton yarn and cloth is controlled by three firms; 100 per cent of the output of electrical equipment is controlled by three firms; 91 per cent of the output of lead is controlled by one firm; 85 per cent of the meat packing is controlled by two firms; 100 per cent of the output of artificial silk is controlled by two firms, and so on all down the line. Private enterprise as it exists in the imagination of many members of this house does not exist in fact.
At this stage I should like to read from Hansard of 1932-33 certain remarks made by the right hon. gentleman who is now Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mackenzie King). At page 2510 he said:
Price fixing by agreements restrict and hamper trade internally.
Tlie internal trade of our country has become honeycombed and enmeshed by secret understandings and agreements. The protective tariffs, as they obtain in Canada today, have fostered the formation of combines, monopolies
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and trusts, and under these combines, monopolies and trusts there are no end of secret agreements by which prices are being held at artificial figures.
The right hon. gentleman who made that statement is now Prime Minister of Canada, but we are still enmeshed and honeycombed with secret understandings and agreements, and many of them have been exposed on the floor of this house. And protective tariffs as they then obtained in Canada obtain in Canada today. The Prime Minister went on to say:
The system of distribution of products needs overhauling. Distribution should be on a service-at-cost basis. The spread in prices is too great, as any comparison of prices paid to producers with prices consumers have to pay will make self-evident.
That was true in 1933 and it is equally true today. The spread in prices today is too great; the spread in profits is too great. But lest I be accused of unfairness in quoting from only one section of the house, I will also quote from a radio address given on January 11, 1935, by one who was then leader of the Conservative party, Mr. Bennett. The title of this part of the address is the "Duty of the State". Here are Mr. Bennett's words, and we realize, after hearing them, why he had to find sanctuary in England:
In some ways, though only in some ways, conditions have improved since early times. Who made them better? Why, the state. In the past, even Liberal governments, now and then, in times of crises, had to swallow their economic principles and come to the rescue of the people. Laissez-faire had worked such frightful hardships in the circumstances that even the apostles of laissez-faire had to take note of that. But what a feeble, halting intervention. Now today, the accumulated inequalities of capitalism demand independent and courageous action by government. Is the party of laissez-faire ready to take itThe tragedy of these times has put that question straight up to it. Why has it not answered? I will tell you. Because it cannot say "Yes." Because it dare not say "No!" That is why it is dumb.
That is why the party of laissez-faire apparently finds itself in the same predicament today when on the subject of controls it cannot say "yes" and it dare not say "no."
The unfortunate thing about decontrol is that every step the government has taken has merely hastened the next step, and what a few months ago was called by this government orderly decontrol has now most obviously become a disorderly rout. We know what the effects of rising prices are. One would think the government especially would know. For their edification, I should like to read some more remarks by one who was then Minister

of Labour and who is now Prime Minister of Canada, 'remarks made as long ago as 1909 about the evils of rising prices:
This increase in the cost of living has not been confined to any one class. Rich and poor alike have had some experience of it, but it has had a very serious effect upon men of limited incomes, upon the wage-earning classes, upon those whose salaries are fixed and those who do not receive much in the way of remuneration.
What was true in 1909 is just as true today. To continue:
To one family after another it has meant curtailment of enjoyment, the forgoing of opportunities of education or recreation, a neglect of future needs, and the claims of others for future support, the giving up of insurance policies; to many it has meant a mode of living less congenial or beneficial to that previously enjoyed to some, downright privation and hardship; to all sacrifices of one kind or another.
These words were uttered thirty-seven years ago. They are equally true today, and I hope the government will pay some attention to the views of its present leader in this respect.
We have pointed out several times the experience of the United States. Last year, in June, OPA was killed. Immediately prices rose. Then there was a temporary recession, only to be followed by what has since turned out to be a constant increase in prices, as those who have been in the United States can well realize. In November of last year Mr. Donald Gordon, a man who has served Canada well and who has been frequently maligned, had this to say:
Canada now had an excellent opportunity to study the effects of general control removal in the Lfnited States before following a similar path.
We had an excellent opportunity to see the way, and we could have watched; we could have studied; but we refused to do so. The argument has been made that decontrol will lead eventually to increases in all sorts of goods on the market, but what do we find in the report of the wartime prices and trade board of last year at page 45? I am taking these two statements out of their context, but not unfairly. Dealing with furniture:
During the year, significant price adjustments were authorized on all the main types of furniture.
Later, on the same page:
By the end of the year, the total supply of household furniture had improved substantially. There was, however, a lack of balance in the supply since higher-priced lines W'ere quite plentiful and lower-priced lines w'ere often scarce or unobtainable.
That is what happened when control was taken off there. Naturally the manufacturers

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went into more profitable lines, and the people not able to buy furniture are those who need it most.
There has been a general rise in prices all across the board and one which must have as its inevitable effect the lowering of the standard of living of Canadian workers; and, just as obviously, the trade union organizations of Canada are not going to permit that lowered standard of living to continue. Therefore they will demand, and I think rightly so, higher wages to maintain their standard of living, and so once again Canada is faced with the possibility if not the probability of severe labour troubles this year. But the government has continued its course of decontrol, having had some knowledge of what the people of Canada want. '
I think we can place a certain amount of faith in the Gallup poll, and the last Gallup poll I saw concerning the maintenance of controls led me to believe, properly, that two-thirds of the Canadian people wish to see these controls maintained. Had the government listened to the people more than to certain other advisers, I think these controls would have been maintained in better order than they have.
It has been argued frequently that by the imposition of controls our freedom in Canada is threatened. It all depends, of course, upon the definition of "freedom". Lincoln said that the sheep and the wolf were not agreed upon the definition of the word "freedom". I am quite sure that the hon. member for Stanstead and I, or the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario and I are not agreed on the definition of that word. It appears to me that the freedom that they want is freedom for the economically powerful to continue to exploit the people. The freedom I should like to see is the freedom of the people maintained to continue a standard of living which will keep them in some measure of decency. But we are faced with the odd situation where those who are asking for freedom in Canada today are the top dogs and not the under dogs. There are the two conceptions of freedom: that, I think perhaps not unfairly, which is held by the hon. member for Stanstead of "Leave me alone; let me do as I want to do," that concept of freedom which gives all the power in the world to the powerful-


Mr. HACKETT:: All subject to the law.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: Granted it is all subject to the law, but even subject to the law the powerful have been able to wreak their will against the poor. On the other hand, there is the other concept of freedom
which is, I think, that of the majority of the people of this country: "Give me a chance; give me a chance to live in decency; give me a chance to live with some security; give me a chance to live so that I shall be able to buy the necessities of life for my family and so that I can feed them properly." That chance is demonstrably not being given to them. If this headlong haste in decontrol continues we in this country shall be faced with economic chaos. There is the distinct possibility that we shall face inflation, and inflation is just another method of taxing the people. Inflation is just another method of taxing the poor, those who can least afford taxation. That is why I say that the government, if it feels any responsibility at all to the people, ought immediately to stop this process of decontrol and to reimpose some of the controls it has taken off.


Mr. D. J. McCUAIG (Maple Creek):: Mr. Speaker, the debate which has been going on in this house has brought forth a number of opinions on what controls will do for the country. I should like to be realistic and practical in what I have to say on the subject. I know that controls remedied the very bad conditions that we had between 1930 and 1910 and brought us through one of the tightest crises Canada ever was in during the war days. The motive behind the wartime controls was our united effort to win the war or everything would have been lost; and controls made a good job of it. [DOT] With the same motivation in the interest of peace and humanity, controls can do an equally good job.
In my lifetime, the capitalist democratic freedom and liberty that I knew about brought two of the worst depressions and two of the most disastrous wars in history. Selfishness and greed, wholly out of control, were the cause. The fact of the matter is that right up to the day we declared war we were supplying the countries that we fought against with thousands of tons of nickel and scrap-iron with which they built up their fighting machines. This was done through the channels of free enterprise, free national enterprise, free international monopolistic enterprise. I think hon. members will agree with that. These are the very same people and institutions who are today hollering for decontrol. The motive and spirit behind this hollering is selfishness, greed for power, domination and money, which is totally devoid of the Christian spirit of humility and service to mankind; and, Mr. Speaker, this is reaching out far beyond American shores today.
There was no quarrel in the world of international finance before the war. St. James street, Wall street, the Bank of England, the
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Reichsbank of Germany, the banks of Italy and France, international finance-they were all of the same kit. One hon. member to the right of us spoke about those countries as dictatorships. If I remember aright, we had said nothing about dictatorship in Germany and those other countries before the war. When the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) went over to Germany in 1937 Hitler was not such a bad fellow. As a token of our high appreciation when he came back to Canada he sent Hitler a pair of buffaloes for his wild animal park. Mussolini had world recognition. If Hitler had not kicked over the traces after Canada, the United States and England had fed him up and made a big fellow of him, if he had played ball, I do not think there would have been a war with Germany. It was the "master race" idea that we fought against. It was not a quarrel with international finance or monopolies or things of that kind. It was the "master race" idea of Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo and their world domination idea that we fought against. Did we call them nazis and fascists in 1937? No. They were good international capitalists, with world-wide monopoly control, along with the rest of us.
So far as Canada is concerned, we are on the way back to everything we had before the war, with additional billions of debt on which to pay interest. Has there been any fundamental change in the national economy of Canada that will give us anything different from what we had before the war? If there is, the controls have done it and will continue to do it. Any government that has any power today will have to accept the responsibility for the welfare of all the people. The official opposition has made much ado about the constitutional rights of the provinces. I say that the three western provinces are only enlarged municipalities and, under our economic and financial system, they have not the power or the scope to look after themselves. The federal government must have the coordinating power to look after the social welfare of all the people of Canada. There must be one national government for all the people of Canada, not the Tory idea of nine little governments, or nine little Balkan states. In the ten years before the war the population of the three western provinces-Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta-shrank by 104,000.
It should have gained twice that much, in the midst of the greatest abundance of food ever accumulated in one place on earth.
Both old parties were equally helpless under the financial and distribution system of that day. The war taught the Liberal party a lesson, because they had a great responsibility.

The Tories had no responsibility, and they learned nothing. They are still a horse and buggy party. I have a feeling of great sympathy and loyalty for a government which makes a conscientious endeavour to solve the economic and social chaos in which we find ourselves today. We cannot hope to go scot-free from all our sins of the past. We may yet have to atone severely for them.
In addition to the economic conditions facing us at the present time, we have to deal with this situation. From 1930 to 1940, or one might say to 1945, we had a new generation growing up in Canada. In that space of time they did not learn how to do anything. They did not learn any trades; they had no responsibilities, and that is something from which we are suffering today. They could have learned a great many things by way of trades and skills that would have come in very handy today.
I contend that the economic and social chaos of today cannot be solved under the capitalist system, as we learned in pre-war days. The government knows that. This bill, providing for the continuation of controls and other emergency measures, now contained in fifty-seven orders in council, is proof of that-It will depend wholly upon the motivation behind these controls whether or not they fill the bill. If the motivation is to serve humanity all the way, then the new order has taken its first step on the way to a better economy in Canada. I should like to quote from a pamphlet I hold in my hand entitled "God-Man *-Work", and I wish to add two more words, "Science-Resources." This is a statement on human relations in industry and commerce by the Montreal council on Christian social order, subscribed to by thirty-nine representatives of the following churches:	Anglican, Baptist,
Lutheran, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Salvation Army and United. I quote:
Our present economic and industrial order is built largely upon false notions of self-interest and competition, which have resulted in confusion and division; its methods of unbridled competition and self-seeking are causes of friction and warfare, fore-dooming the industrial world where they prevail to anarchy and strife (such as we are now experiencing) . . .
And further:
It is necessary, for example, that irresponsible ownership be curbed and that the primacy of human rights over property rights be fully recognized in positive law. It is also necessary that labour realize that its gifts and arts are, like property, a trust to be used for the benefit and service of all. Moreover, we declare that the resources of the earth are God's gifts in trust to the whole human race, to be used with due consideration for the needs of future gen-

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erations as well as of the present. These resources should be regarded in a spirit of reverence which will be a safeguard against the selfish exploitation of the bounties of nature and the treatment of material things as mere commodities.
In the light of these Christian principles which we have mentioned, and as conducive to the attainment of true democracy and brotherhood in industrial relations, we for the present advocate:
1.	The recognition in our laws and in our practice of-
(a)	the right of association;
(b)	the right of collective negotiation;
(e) the full partnership of labour with capital in industrial management, economic planning and governmental regulations;
(d)	the responsibility of both capital and labour to the general public;
(e)	the participation of the public in industrial negotiation, planning and regulations, along with capital and labour.
2.	A wage that will ensure a decent standard of living for the family; that is to say, an income sufficient to provide adequate food, clothing and shelter, educational opportunities, medical and dental care, and holiday with pay. (An immediate need is better housing at low rent for the strengthening and safeguarding of family life, and in the interests of moral and physical well-being.)
3.	A system of social security that will meet the economic needs arising from such contingencies as unemployment, accident, illness, old age, or the death of the breadwinner; and will guarantee freedom from want.
4.	That such family income, adequate housing and social security be provided by the cooperative effort of individuals and industrial groups, encouraged and, where necessary, aided by state action.
The Tories are clearly out of this picture, by their own admission. They do not subscribe to this logic. I honestly believe we have seen the last of Tory government in Canada. They have just had a convention; perhaps they have new ideas. I have just read a book called "Ideas Have Legs," and I would recommend it to hon. gentlemen to my right. Perhaps the ideas of the C.C.F. are moving in their direction; I hope so. Purely for information I would ask the leader of the Progressive Conservative party, who opposes these controls and who would have no scruples about taking over the reins of government in Canada: What have the Progressive Conservatives now in 1947 to bring about a better economy in Canada that the Liberal Progressive Conservatives did not have in 1935? What fundamental difference is there between the Bracken policy of 1945 and the Bennett policy of 1935? Further, I should like to know their domestic and international policy. Is it to have a high tariff wall around Canada, like Mr. Bennett had, and to blast our way through the high tariff walls other countries would put up
against us? Many times this house and the country at large have been told by hon. gentlemen to my right terrible things about socialism which I, as a socialist, know nothing about.


Mr. FRASER:: The socialists are keeping you in the dark.


Duncan John McCuaig: And here is a man who never went to the socialist school telling socialists all about their own system. I can tell my hon. friend that the roots of socialism are deep in the minds of the producers and workers. That is what socialism sprang from, not from the institutions for which hon. members to my right stand. And it is gaining ground in every country in the world. The day is coming when it will be recognized in the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God throughout the world.
I do not want to live under a more autocratic dictatorship than that of the Bennett government between 1930 and 1935. It was an economic dictatorship, if there ever was one. It stood solidly behind big business and monopolistic enterprise which controlled our natural resources, industry, transportation and finance.
A government's job is to administer those things in the interests of all the people of the country it governs. In substantiation of this, one need only refer to those 3,000 boys from western Canada who in 1935 formed a delegation to come to Ottawa. But the bureaucrats in Ottawa at that time had them stopped at Regina, by police and machine guns. They were put in five-dollar-a-month camps, and if th.ey left those camps they were treated as criminals. And that happened in a free Canada, under a good Tory government, and at a time when there was another Tory government in Regina.


Mr. MacNICOL:: "Good" is right.


Duncan John McCuaig: That was at a time when there was a free exchange of commodities with all the world. Those were the days when prices of foodstuffs reached their lowest point in 400 years. Mr. Bennett's policy at that time was that he was going to blast his way into the markets of the world. Hitler used the same logic, and they both got their just deserts. We won our struggle during the war because our whole motivation was to do it. B3t the same token wTe can bring about the same results in peace time, if we use the same endeavours to put man on the pedestal and to serve him with all the resources given us. If we follow that method, it can be done.
Let me say, further, that agriculture in Canada will not continue to elect governments which have repeatedly turned down
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their just requests. Labour people and those in the public service will not continue to elect governments under which they have to organize strikes so as to fight for a fair share of the fruits of their labours.
The common people have learned that they can have cooperatives, that they may join collectively in cooperatives and in trade unions or other organizations. But in. the final analysis the political economy we have in Canada has control of the national economy. That national economy can listen to the voice of the common people or listen to the voice of their masters and starve the common people into slavery.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Who are the common people?


Duncan John McCuaig: 
Karl Kenneth Homuth: The fact that they work does not make them common.


Duncan John McCuaig: I have referred to them as the common people. I would close by saying that these controls are at least an experiment in peace time, in the interests of all Canadians, and I am going to support them. I do so because they are a step in the right direction.


Norman Jaques: Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to become technical. For a few moments I should like to discuss the philosophy of controls as contrasted with freedom of enterprise. First of all, however, I should like to pay tribute to Mr. Donald Gordon. I do this for two reasons. I have heard, and I suppose we have all heard, in our conversations with others, people who have cursed and damned Donald Gordon for all the shortages and inconveniences of the controls. I say that is a mistake, and for two reasons. In the first place, I am quite sure that Donald Gordon does not deserve that treatment. In my personal experiences with him, limited as they were, I always found him a most obliging public servant, and one who was always willing to do what he could to help out.
The other reason is that it leads to confusion in the minds of many people who mistake controls for the controller. They do not like the results of the policy of control; but, instead of blaming the controls, they were apt to blame the controller. I believe that is a mistake, and it is for that reason I have mentioned the matter this evening.

One eminent Liberal member has said that he was fed up with certain Liberal policies. Let me say that I am fed up with certain policies today. I am fed up with any Liberal who is jilting Liberalism for socialism and trading freedom for control. I am fed up with the C.C.F. double-talk about democratic socialism and their promises to control everybody but the farmer. I am fed up with our socialists opposing communism and at the same time consistently supporting Soviet policies and never mentioning the fact that Karl Marx, the socialist prophet and Messiah, was the author of the communist manifesto. I am fed up with the self-appointed defenders of our civil liberties who instead defend disloyal and dishonest public servants, while advocating the surrender of our national control of our national freedom. Finally, I am fed up with the controls and subversive propaganda of the Red networks of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, of the national film board and of the wartime information board. At another time I intend to go farther into that subject.
The fact is that socialists are waging a sham fight with communism. England today proves that socialism and free enterprise do not mix, that they are mutually destructive. Socialism means the total destruction of private enterprise and of individual freedom. That was Marx, and that is Marx today. Let me quote from the communist manifesto of Karl Marx of 1848, just 100 years ago.
1.	Abolition of property in land.
2.	Heavy, increasing, graduated income tax.
3.	Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4.	Centralization of credit in state by national bank (and international bank).
5.	Centralization of means of transport in hands of state.
6.	Extension of ownership of means of production by state.
7.	Equal obligation of all to work.
8.	All children educated in state schools.
That was and is the Marxian policy. Is that not exactly where we are headed today?
I should like to put on record some notes which I have made from time to time of the social credit conception of democracy, its philosophy. I do not intend to speak technically at all, and I want to be just as brief as possible. Democracy is not so much a form or policy as it is an abiding faith in man's individual right to be himself as himself. That faith is natural. It is only the man with self-respect who has any respect for others and so is capable of governing. Lacking this sound human foundation, govern-

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ment and controls must become a dictatorship; collective security, a delusion, and internationalism, world tyranny.
Today democracy, so-called, is by code. Our whole way of life, therefore, is no longer a free or living inspiration. To be free, a man's life must flow from within. Democracy must aid and not prevent that flow. We call ourselves a democracy when we are doing our best to kill the truth, the truth that all inspiration has its source within the individual. Socialists and "fellow travellers" have one idea, to smother all such inspiration and to bury all responsibility under government controls.
True democracy must come from within, from the inner man, as our Lord saw it; not tlm masses, but the living individual soul. This organic living organization can grow only from the independence of the individual. Individual independence means freedom to be true to oneself, and that freedom cannot be enforced or planned by the state. As with certain wild creatures, our inspirations cannot breed in captivity.
Force is useless; force can organize nothing. Nor can science solve the problem. Science has given us the tools, but science cannot guide us in the proper and humane use of those tools. It is only from organic growth and interior individual philosophy and a living religion that our national life can be recreated, that people can attain security with freedom and government can be made and kept tolerable. So much for the philosophy of social credit.
In dealing with the problems of a depression, it may be necessary to be a little more technical. I and I think most social creditors will agree with me, so that perhaps I can say "we" believe that controls hamper production. Controls encourage black markets and the evasion of the law. What did the government do to prevent deflation before the war? What did the C.C.F. propose to do about deflation before the war? We hold that profits will encourage production and that increased production will decrease prices. I know that is being denied today, but I would suggest that there are two explanations. One is that production has not yet got into its full stride, and the other is the most determined policy on the part of all governments to export as much as possible of retail goods production.
It is obvious that exports, or foreign trade, were the remedy for deflation during the depression. How then can it be given as a proper remedy in these times when, accord-83166-134
ing to the authorities, we are threatened with inflation? If it was necessary, as it was, to decrease purchasing power in time of war, then certainly it will be necessary after a bit to increase purchasing power in time of peace in order to prevent deflation. If inflation in a country is due to the diversion of production from retail goods to munitions, resulting in an excess of purchasing power, therefore deflation in peace time is due to the diversion of production from munitions to retail goods, which results in a deficiency of purchasing power. To prevent inflation, necessity would control, that is limit., consumption in war time. But how can we successfully control, that is limit, retail production in time of peace?
That leads me to the question whether there can be such a thing as a shortage of purchasing power. I remember that in 1939,1 think it was, in the committee on banking and commerce when the present governor of the bank of Canada was a witness before the committee we debated this very question, and I put a hypothetical question to him. I quoted Mills' statement as to the impossibility of there being such a thing as a shortage of purchasing power. I forget the exact words but the statement runs something like this.
It is sometimes asked whether there can be such a thing as a shortage of purchasing power. Those who ask that question cannot understand what constitutes purchasing power. Every seller is, in the end, a buyer. Could we suddenly double the production of goods we should double the supply of goods on every market, but by the same stroke we should double demand. So that there cannot be such a thing as a shortage of purchasing power.
I put that statement to Mr. Towers and asked him if he agreed with it. He said it was a long time since he was at school but he still thought it was sound. I said, "May I put it a little differently?" I said that Mills said that every seller is, in the end, a buyer and could we suddenly double the production of goods in the country we should double the supply of goods on every market. I went on to say that every birth ends in a death. Mr. Towers said, "I beg your pardon?" I repeated, every birth ends in a death. Could we suddenly double the number of births in the country we should double the supply of babies in every nursery, but by the same stroke we should double the deaths. How then does a population increase?
Mr. Towers is most astute. He saw where the question was leading; so he turned it aside by saying, "My modesty forbids me to answer that question." I said, seriously, that

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is exactly what Mills said, that if you double the number of births you double the number of babies, but you would also double the number of deaths since we all must die. How then does the population increase? Hon. H. H. Stevens was sitting in the committee, and he said "That is simple. It is obvious. The birthrate is greater than the deathrate." I said, "Thank you; that is the answer." That is the social credit analysis of the shortage of purchasing power in normal times. It is that the birthrate of prices is greater than the deathrate of prices or, if you like, that prices are generated more quickly than purchasing power is distributed with which to meet those prices. That has been denied, I know, but no one has yet denied it successfully, and if anyone would like to try to I should be interested to hear him.
Our socialist friends talk about the freedom and brotherhood of man, but what do they offer for the freedom of man except to put him to work? And what is their quarrel with the leaders of the old-line parties to which they are so much opposed? Their only quarrel is as to who shall do the bossing; that is all.
Social credit has a totally different philosophy. We offer and the very soul of social credit is the national dividend. It is the recognition of the right of all people to live or to at least exist as free men because the good God or nature or science, whichever you like to call it, no longer imposes the necessity of compulsory work on all people in order that we can have at least the means of existence. And so we say right out, not only is there no longer the necessity for full employment, but there is no longer the possibility of it unless work is created for its own sake. There is our challenge to the socialists when they speak of freedom and of the common man or of the submerged tenth. There is our offer, the right to live or at least to exist for every man, woman and child, and not at the price of being compelled to work. That does not mean to say, as we are sometimes told, that we should bonus idleness. We do not believe that it is human nature to be idle if men are healthy and if they have an opportunity of working at a worth-while job. We believe that people will be only too glad to put themselves to work when they are relieved from the drudgery of work for the sake of work.
In conclusion, I should like to quote from a radio address on the Catholic Hour by Right Reverend Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. I quote it because he puts, in language better than I could hope to use, ideas which I hold and, I

think, all other social crediters hold as well. He is speaking of the coming of the antiChrist, and he says:
How will he come in this new_ age to win followers to his religion? He will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty, not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. He will write books on the new idea of God to suit the way people live; induce faith in astrology so as to make not the will but the stars responsible for sins; he will explain guilt away psychologically as inhibited eroticism, make men shrink in shame if their fellowmen say they are not broadminded and liberal; he will be so broadminded as to identify tolerance with indifference to right and wrong, truth and error; he will spread the lie that men will never be better until they make society better and thus have selfishness to provide fuel for the next revolution . . .
He will tempt Christians with the same three temptations with which he tempted Christ: The temptation to turn stones into bread as an earthly Messiah will become the temptation to sell freedom for security, as bread became a political weapon, and only those who think his way may eat; the temptation to work a miracle by recklessly throwing Himself from a steeple will become a plea to desert the lofty pinnacles of truth where faith and reason reign, for those lower depths where the masses live on slogans and propaganda. He wants no proclamation of immutable principles from the lofty heights of a church, but mass organization through propaganda where only a common man directs the idiosyncracies of common men. Opinions not truths, commentators not teachers. Gallup polls not principles, nature not grace-and to these golden calves will men toss themselves from their Christ . . .
No man, the 19th century claimed, could be a good American, a good Frenchman or a good German if he accepted shepherding, albeit spiritual, from a spiritual head. But in the new era, what the modern lost soul will take particularly about the counter-church, is that it is catholic or international. It breaks down all national boundaries, laughs down patriotism, dispenses men from piety to country which the Christ enjoined, makes men proud that they are not Americans, not French or British, but members of a revolutionary class under the rule of its vicar who rules not from the Vatican, but the Kremlin . . .
. . . millions today are embracing the counterchurch for these very reasons; they love its infallibly defined dogmas of dialectical materialism, economic determination and its labour theory of value; they like its hierarchy, or approved party leaders, who, as bishops of the new counter-church who derive authority from the apostles, Marx and Lenin, and who in their role of secret police keep the errant in the party line, even indeed to the consummation of the world.
I could say more, Mr. Speaker, but I see that it is eleven o'clock.


John George Diefenbaker: I wish to make a few remarks in regard to the bill now before the house, particularly by reason of the fact that throughout the day those to our left have devoted themselves, not to a discussion of the bill in question, but

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rather to an attack against ourselves in the official opposition in respect of the stand taken by the leader of this party.
May I say this? I think that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) ought to have introduced separate bills to cover these various orders in council; for we are placed in the position that, while we accept certain of these orders in council, some of them we cannot accept because we believe the time has come in this country to restore the right of the individual to recourse to the courts. I mention in that connection that there can be no justice for the individual when he is placed in the position in which the individual in this country is placed under various orders in council, whereby he is denied recourse to the courts and is also denied any right of action against those who administer the tremendous powers that are granted under different orders in council.
There is, as I see it, no justification for endeavouring to carry into the days of peace the tyranny of a bureaucracy that is permitted to make discriminatory orders, while the individual is denied the right of appeal to the courts. I cannot understand why, when amendments were being made to these various orders in council, something was not done to repeal the sections that grant to those administering the orders in council absolutely arbitrary power over the individual, denying to the individual the sacred right, which everyone should enjoy, of appeal to the courts against the tyranny of the acts of an administrator.
I have only a few moments at my disposal but I will mention this. Under the wartime prices and trade board regulations, is there any reason why the individual should be in the position of being subject to acts of unfairness on the part of a board, and is denied the right of appeal to the courts? I think we in this parliament should once more return to the principle of trusting the courts, instead of denying to the individual the right to appeal against unfair and tyrannical action. I cannot see why the Minister of Justice did not see fit to remove the powers contained in section 15-


James Horace King: Order. The hon. member is discussing a section of the bill on second reading.


John George Diefenbaker: I am speaking on the principle and referring to the order in council referred to in the bill which we are asked to approve by a blanket vote on second reading. We are asked to approve the principle contained in paragraph 15 of the wartime prices and trade board regulations. We are also asked to approve other regulations at 83166-1344
page 23. I have already dealt with page 28. We are asked to place in the hands of boards certain powers-


James Horace King: I would call the attention of the hon. gentleman to the fact that we have before us Bill No. 104, 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. We have not before us the actual orders in council.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Eleven o'clock.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I take a stand against you in that, if I may be permitted, with deference. The order in council to which I refer is appended to this bill that is before the house, and I am referring to the principle contained therein.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: That is for discussion in committee.


John George Diefenbaker: That is the subterfuge the government is operating under.


James Horace King: The hon. member is experienced, and he knows that on second reading only the principle of the bill may be discussed.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Eleven o'clock.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Continue your speech
tomorrow.
On motion of Mr. Diefenbaker the debate was adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, April 16, 1947