1947-05-15

Right Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), and because I was Minister of Finance at the time, I rise on a question of privilege in regard to the charge made yesterday during the budget debate by the hon. member for York West (Mr. Adamson), that the Canadian dollar was restored to parity with the United States dollar last July as the result of pressure from the United States. In brief the hon. member claims to be reliably informed that a deal was made whereby in exchange for placing the Canadian dollar at par with the United States dollar-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


James Lorimer Ilsley: -the United States administration gave assurance that the British loan would go through.


Mr. FLEMING:: I rise -to a point of order.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I contend that this is not a question of privilege. The statement of which the minister complains was made yesterday in the course of a debate which is still current in the house. If something was said which requires correction, that should be done in the course of the debate. It is not a question of privilege.


James Horace King: I am of opinion that the statement being made by the Minister of Justice concerns a matter of public importance, and as such would be a matter of privilege.


Donald Methuen Fleming: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that even if it is a matter of public importance any such charge should be answered in the course of the debate.


James Horace King: I believe it is in the interests of the house-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


James Horace King: Order. I believe it is in the interests of the house and the interests of the public that the correct information should be given by the minister on a question of such importance.


Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, there were ministers of the crown in the house yesterday at the time that statement was made, and this is not the time for a statement to be made in reply. It should have been made then.


James Horace King: The hon. member has no question of privilege. The point of order was raised; I have given my ruling, and I would ask the minister to proceed.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The statement made by the hon. member for York West was so absurd on its face that had I been in the house at the time-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


James Lorimer Ilsley: -which I was not, probably I would not have gone to the trouble of denying it. But to my surprise the statement has received wide publicity in the press and on the radio.


Mr. LENNARD:: Rightly so.


James Lorimer Ilsley: So, lest someone believe the statement, I wish to deny it forthwith, without any qualifications. I wish to deny that any pressure was at any time exercised upon Canada by the United States or any other country to restore our dollar to parity, or that there was any prior discussion of the proposed action-


Mr. CASE:: This is the first explanation you have ever given. [DOT]


Mr. MACKENZIE:: And you don't like it.


Frank Exton Lennard: That is all you have to say.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: You never have anything to say.
Mr. ILSLEY 

with the authorities of tl^e United States or of any other country. The action was taken by the government of Canada completely on its own initiative, and for good and sufficient reasons, in the interests of the Canadian people as a whole.
It is most unfortunate, in my opinion, that circulation should be given to such mischievous rumours which are totally devoid of any foundation in fact.

Inquiries of the Ministry



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Has Canada yet signed the peace treaty
with Finland adopted by the united nations at Paris recently, as set out in the white paper, tabled No. 7?	_
2.	What action has been taken in the matter by Canada?
Mr. ST. LAURENT:
1.	Yes.
2.	Canada has not yet ratified this treaty.


OLYMPIC GAMES
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. DIEFENBAKER (Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Prime Minister, arising from an article in the Ottawa Journal of today to the effect that His Worship the Mayor of Ottawa has asked the government to look into and investigate the Olympics committee. Do the people of Canada contribute to that committee, and does the government in any way recommend any of the appointments made in connection with it?


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: 1 should like to be exact in making my reply. In the circumstances I shall have to ask my hon. friend to let the question stand as a notice.


SHORTAGE IN EUROPE-REQUEST FOR REMOVAL OF CEILINGS ON AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. W. EARL ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the critical food situation in Great Britain and Europe, and the almost starvation conditions in many zones, will the government give consideration to the removal of all price ceilings from agricultural products so as to restore production, which has been steadily declining in the last two years?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Answer.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I might say for the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) that he evidently considers he is not the whole government.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: That is news.


PUBLIC WORKS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. ALPHONSE FOURNIER (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) inquired as to the intentions of the government concerning new wharfage facilities at North Sydney. Llis question was based on a telegram he had just received. The hon. member for Cape Breton North-Victoria (Mr. MacLean) had received a similar telegram at the same time, and handed me a copy of it so that I might make an investigation.
I understand that at North Sydney the government has two wharves, one of which was completed last year at a cost of $500,000. Any new project contemplated for North Sydney would be part of the post-war reconstruction programme; and if the government decided to build a new wharf, an item would appear in the estimates.


INQUIRY AS TO DATE OF ESTABLISHMENT OF FLOOR PRICE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. E. DROPE (Northumberland, Ont.):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask about a matter of urgent public importance, as a result of a number of telegrams and letters I have received. Will the Minister of Agriculture name a definite date on which the floor price on butter, if any, is to be announced?


Right Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture):: I must agree with the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), that I cannot speak for the whole government.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: Think of that!


POSTAL SERVICE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. RONALD MOORE (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Postmaster General, arising out of several telegrams received this morning. Will the minister recommend that an air mail service be included in the new air service to begin June 1 between Winnipeg and Flin Flon via Dauphin and The Pas? The present mail service by railway is very slow.


Hon. ERNEST BERTRAND (Postmaster General):: I shall take the question as a notice, and have the department look into it.
The Budget-Mr. Zaplitny


THE BUDGET
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, May 14, consideration of the motion of Hon. Douglas Abbott (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Macdonnell (Muskoka-Ontario) and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Coldwell.
Mr. F. S. ZAPLITNY (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I regret that the Minister of Finance is not with us today, although I realize he may be more usefully employed where he is.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: Where is he?
Mr. ZAPLITNY': Every budget I have heard delivered so far has had its forgotten man. This one is unique in that the "forgotten man'' is more than half the people of Canada. Never have so many waited so long for so little, and never have so many waited in vain. If one strips the minister's budget of its flippant optimism, nothing is left but a sop to private enterprise. In my view there will be keen disappointment in the ranks of those who are faithful to the government, and who had expected that two years after the war the government would finally have launched its much-tooted new social order.
Few people throughout the country today would deny that if the government had any intention two years ago of implementing its talk about a new social order by 1947, by this time they have discarded the idea and have relegated it to the limbo of forgotten things.
There are those of course still faithful to the government who say it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But the government's acquaintance with the new social order was of such a casual nature that I doubt if the romance ever developed at all. I do not think any single factor has contributed so much to the regression of government policy within the last several months as has the Minister of Finance himself. It will be admitted that the present minister has launched a new government policy which conforms to this government's old fashioned laissez-faire and drift policy, and this do-nothing budget characterizes that policy.
Since taking office the present Minister of Finance has done a beautiful hatchet job on the whole price control structure of the country. It is common knowledge that the 1939 dollar is worth only about 62 cents. If one takes into consideration the deterioration

in the quality of the commodities that we buy today he will realize it is no exaggeration to say that the 1939 dollar is worth only 50 cents today. In the face of those facts the Minister of Finance blithely got up in his place in this house and with a great deal of cheer and beneficence announced to the house how fortunate the country was that more than half the population had the privilege of earning so little that they fell below the income tax exemption limit. I do not know how the people of this country will ever repay such left-handed generosity as that.
As I said, more than half the people of this country are the "forgotten man" as far as this budget is concerned. If we check the position of people such as farmers, casual labourers, clerks, fishermen, trappers, civil servants, school teachers, clergymen, and small business men, we will find that they are in an income group which does not benefit in any way from the cut in income tax. I will leave the income tax end of it at that point and deal with another factor in the budget which I think is more serious. I refer to the almost complete lack of any plan for the stabilization of income, particularly that of western Canada.
It is well known, and I think the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) will bear me out in this, that if western Canada is to have a stabilized economy it must have more industries. The years of the war brought temporary prosperity, but the figures placed on Hansard the other day by the Minister of Agriculture do not tell the whole story. Although there has been a large increase in the gross income of the farmers of western Canada, there has been a more than corresponding increase in the cost of production. Therefore, their position is not as good as the minister made out. We must admit that their position today is better than it had been for many years; but as I said, it may be of a temporary nature. If there is to be permanent stability in the income of the western provinces we must have more secondary industries, particularly processing industries. This is a field which has hardly been scratched. I see no reason why the government should not take the initiative in establishing such industries in the towns and cities of western Canada. They have done a little bit along that line, because the hon, member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Miller) referred to the flax fibre mill which had been established in his town. That is a start in the right direction, but not enough of that sort of thing has been done in Manitoba or Saskatchewan. We are perhaps a little more fortunate in Manitoba than they are in Saskatchewan because we do not depend quite

The Budget-Mr. Zaplitny
so much upon grain farming. We have a mixed farming economy, and to that extent there is a little more stability in our prospects of income.
The lack of secondary industries in western Canada has had another serious effect. The recent prairie census revealed that the prairie provinces are losing population instead of gaining it. In my opinion there is no reason why such a wonderful country as we have west of the great lakes should be losing population at this time. If we are ever to have a stable economy and a united nation there will have to be a greater increase in the population of western Canada than there has been so far. The past few decades have not shown the increases in population that should have been shown. In the next twenty or thirty years there should be an increase of millions in the population of western Canada. The resources are there; the opportunities are there in the way of primary production, but what is keeping the people away, what is causing the drift from the west to the east, which is the exact opposite to what the drift should be, is the lack of secondary industries. It is a serious thing, and I believe this government should take steps to arrest that trend. There is only one way I know of in which that can be done. Apparently western Canada has no attraction for private capital; therefore it is up to the government to use public investment and public enterprise to develop secondary industries, particularly processing industries, in order to provide something around which the population of the towns and cities of western Canada may live.
There are those who say that this is a private enterprise country, that we have free enterprise and if people do not like western Canada, they have a perfect right to go somewhere else. That is perfectly true, but let us not forget that this has not always been a free enterprise country, and it is not now in actual fact. Ever since the first prime minister of Canada introduced what he called a national policy, which meant the subsidizing of the industries of central Canada to provide Canada with manufacturing industries, this has not been a free enterprise country. When the tariff policies were instituted, all the people of Canada, regardless of whether they lived in the east, in the west or on either coast, contributed through the tariff structure to the building up of industries in central Canada. We are not objecting to that, because we realize it is desirable that Canada should have manufacturing industries in Ontario and-Quebec or wherever else it is possible to have them, But we should not be deluded by the
story that this is a free enterprise country, that those industries grew up through their own efforts. That is not so, because they were heavily subsidized for many years, and they are still being heavily subsidized through our tariff structure. The taxpayers are still paying for the manufacturing industries of central Canada.
If that is a desirable policy for central Canada then something of the sort is desirable for the west. I am not suggesting that we institute a new tariff policy for the west, but I do suggest that the government should consider using public investment and public enterprise to initiate industries in western Canada where the people themselves are not able to do it because of a lack of capital. I am saying these things because I believe there is a serious trend in present government policy away from public investment and public enterprise. During the years of the war the government were forced to use public enterprise in order to create a war effort. It was a struggle for survival, and although many of the members of the cabinet of that time were private enterprisers and did not believe in public enterprise, yet events forced them into the position where they had to use it. It must be said to their credit that they used it with great success.
Today the trend seems to be the other way. In this connection I should like to quote a few passages from a speech made by the Minister of Finance, I think on January 27, when addressing the Toronto board of trade. I think his remarks indicate the regressive policy of the government. Here is what he gave as his method for preventing the next depression-and I would point out that in this case he used the word "depression," which he has shied away from ever since:
If at any time in the future a recession or depression is threatened, it may be far wiser and far cheaper to make drastic cuts in income and corporation taxes in order to expand consumer buying power and stimulate private investment than to embark, let us say, on an ambitious public works programme which is bound to be wasteful and would tend to perpetuate itself.
That was a statement of policy by the Minister of Finance, who said in plain language that his solution for a depression would be to cut the taxes of the corporations and thus in some mysterious fashion extend the buying power of the people. Then he goes on to say that he does not advocate a public works programme because it is bound to be wasteful and will tend to perpetuate itself. Why should any public works programme be wasteful? No one- in this house has asked for public works which are unnecessary or
The Budget-Mr. Zaplitny

useless, or which will not return a value to the country. Surely the government must have little faith in itself if it admits that any public works programme it might undertake is bound to be wasteful.
The other objection is that it might tend to perpetuate itself. What is wrong with a public works programme perpetuating itself as long as it is useful and producing something for the benefit of all the people of Canada? That is regression back to the laissez-faire drift which characterizes the present trend of the government. To emphasize that limitation the minister said in his speech:
We believe that government should create conditions, a climate, if I may use that term, within which initiative can be exercised and enterprise flourish. To create such conditions, we believe it should be made possible, through reduction and simplification of taxes, and in other ways, for private enterprise to operate boldly and courageously, and, in doing so, provide most of the employment; and that government should, by direct action, fill the gap in employment-when, but only when, there is a gap to fill that would not otherwise be filled.
There are two parts to that statement which are very important. First of all he would create those climatic conditions for progress by reduction and simplification of taxes. I do not know what simplification of taxes would have to do with creating a proper climate for industry. But what will reduction of taxes mean to more than half the people of Canada who do not pay income tax today because they have not enough income on which to pay taxes? Surely the minister can see that under his programme the very people who would most need a shot in the arm, so to speak, would be the ones who would not get it, and the ones who would get it would be the corporations which would have their taxes reduced.
The minister went on to say that the government would take direct action to provide employment when, but only when, there is a gap to be filled that would not otherwise be filled. In other words the government is quite satisfied to leave everything to private enterprise, to let private enterprise decide not only how much employment there shall be, but in what particular industries, where it shall be and what the wages shall be; and the government itself will stand to one side as a sort of referee and only take action when there is a gap to be filled. That sounds all right, but it is not practical, because the government if it follows that course will never be prepared to do anything until unemployment is upon us. The last depression surely taught us this much, that if full employment is to be provided it takes planning. The

government will have to plan their public works projects for the good of the people many years ahead, and not sit around and wait until the last moment, until private enterprise has broken down and failed, and then try to rush in and fill gaps by establishing camps in the hills where men can cut cordwood at twenty cents a day. But that is the policy the minister is trying to bring forward.
In contrast with that I want to quote what the Prime Minister said in his speech in 1942 to the American Federation of Labor in Toronto. He said:
When the war is won there will be an immense task to repair the great physical destruction caused by the war . . . but the work of repairing and restoring the ravages of war will not be enough.
He recognized that, and went on:
Fortunately, we are also learning that the only limit to our productive capacity is the limit to our resources, and our will and skill to use them to satisfy human need instead of human greed.
That is a statement which implies a great deal more than the Minister of Finance implied with his gap-filling statement. There is a statement by the Prime Minister which implies that it is up to the government, and was even in 1942 when the war was still on, to start looking towards the future and start planning for full employment. I like the words the Prime Minister used:
. . . the only limit to our productive capacity is the limit to our resources, and our will and skill to use them to satisfy human need instead of human greed.
That does not sound very much like private enterprise. It sounds like public enterprise, that the objective of industry shall be to satisfy human needs. The objective of profit-making industry is to satisfy their own urge for profits-I will not call it human greed, although that was implied by the Prime Minister.
In contrast with that, the policy brought forward by the Minister of Finance looks puny. I think he should go back and read over some of the speeches made by the Prime Minister in 1942, 1943 and 1944 and try to follow them out in his budget. Surely when the Prime Minister admits that the only limit to our productive capacity is the limit of our resources and our will and skill to use them, it means that the government should undertake to see that our resources are developed to satisfy the needs of the people and that employment should be the right of the working man.

The Budget-Mr. Zaplitny
I want to emphasize this point further by quoting from the Prime Minister. Speaking at that same convention he used these words:
The era of freedom will be achieved only as social security and human welfare become the main concern of men and nations.
Those are fine words. He went on:
I would mention the following as a national minimum: useful employment for all who are willing to work.
All right; I am quite willing to accept that. But let us see what is taking place in practice. This may be only a slight indication, but I think it shows the attitude of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) towards this national minimum of every person having the right to work. On April 18, after the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) had asked the Minister of Labour some questions about the employment of persons from Nova Scotia in other parts of Canada, the hon. member for St. John-Albert (Mr. Hazen) asked this supplementary question:
Will transportation be provided by the government to the place of employment for persons in New Brunswick who -are unemployed to accept employment that is offered elsewhere?
The Minister of Labour replied:
As my hon. friend is well aware, my department is not in the business of providing Cook's tours for everybody in Canada.
That is how they implement their promise of the right to work and the right to full employment for all the people.
In addition to the promise of full employment there was also the definite promise of social security for all. I have already quoted and I continue to quote from the Prime Minister's speech in 1942:
It is necessary that social security and human welfare should be expressed in definite terms.
Those words were quoted as recently as May 9 at Niagara Falls by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin), and he added these words of his own:
If we are to justify some of the promises and assertions we made during the war it is necessary that Canada as a nation enact a programme of social welfare.
1 agree with him. If we are to carry out the promises that were made, the government, according to the minister, should enact a programme of social welfare now. But what do we find in the budget? Look through the budget and through the whole social security programme of the government, and you will find that when it comes to implementing the promises made and repeated so often, only as recently as May 9 by the Minister of National
Health and Welfare, even the minister himself is a little doubtful as to how well the government are succeeding, because he said:
Some people may say some of these objectives have not been realized, but it is important to have a statement from the head of a government in these terms.
I agree that it is important to have that statement on social security in these terms, but I contend it is far more important that the government should now be presenting their social welfare legislation to the house so that the curtain will at least be lifted a little to give us a peek into this great new era of freedom promised by the Prime Minister in 1942. But so far what have we got? We have a mystical resolution on the order paper which promises something for old age pensioners, but no amount of prying or questioning can bring out what is going to be done. The government's programme seems to be well hidden, although some of the newspapers seem to be better informed on it than members of this house. So far as a broad general programme of social security covering the needs of certain classes of people, whom I shall mention later, is concerned, practically nothing has been done so far and nothing is in prospect. What the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) laid down when he said that that era of freedom will be achieved only as social security and human welfare become the main concern of many nations was in reality the basis of a socialist society, because it is the objective of a socialist government that laws shall be made for the benefit of society as a whole. Under a capitalist economy laws are made to protect the rights of capitalists, to protect the rights of privileged classes, and it is not surprising that in the house we hear hon. members who believe in capitalism make long speeches for certain classes of people; but when it comes to making laws for society as a whole, when human welfare becomes the objective of the programme, then you have socialism in practice. The Prime Minister laid down a socialist theory; the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin)-as recently as May 9-is beginning to doubt w'hether we are carrying that objective out as we should. We shall have more reason to doubt before we are much older.
I wish to deal with another point which I think is important, namely, the repeated references which have been made by members of the Progressive Conservative party, and particularly by the official financial critic of that party, to what they call the middle class. The hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Mac-donnell) was the one who introduced it in
The Budget-Mr. Zaplitny

the house when he made a plea for what he called the great middle class, which he characterized as being the backbone of the country. That same idea has been reechoed by many other hon. members who sit around him. I want the house to pause for a moment and realize what this actually means. What is a middle class? What is it in the middle of? Surely as soon as we begin to talk about a middle class we are automatically accepting the fact that there must be an upper and a lower class; otherwise there could not be a middle class. It must be in the middle of something. What the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario said when he introduced this idea in the house was accepted without question and condoned by his speech. He tried to prove that there was a vertically stratified conception of society, something which I repudiate from the beginning. I cannot for a moment accept-I cannot understand how any hon. member living in a country such as ours could accept it-the idea of a vertically stratified society in which we shall have lower, middle and upper, middle upper and middle lower, and so on. classes. Thousands of people, yea, millions of them left beautiful spots in Europe to accept hardships and poverty in this country as pioneers in order to escape from a stratified class society. They came to this country and now in the house we hear hon. members say that we must have a strong middle class because that is the backbone of the country; we must therefore have an upper class, a lower class, and it shall be the duty of the lower class to keep alive the upper class with the middle class acting as a sort of referee in between. What sort of conception of society is that? I cannot accept it. I repudiate the very basis of it-and I am speaking for myself.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: And for all of us.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I say that if the Creator who conceived the earth and its population intended that there should! be an upper class to rule and a lower class to be ruled, then he would have brought into this world an upper class with spurs on their feet and a lower class with saddles on their backs. We all have the urge to stand up straight; we will not bend our knee before any class. If we do, we are not worthy of the name of Canadians. I repudiate the idea, and I hope that never again in this house shall we get into a squabble about a middle class and their incomes and say we shall legislate for them. Let us for once accept the fact that there is only one class, namely, the Canadian people. There is only one class in the world and that is humanity. Let us legislate for humanity in

this country and we shall be laying a basis for what the Prime Minister called in such fine words, "an era of freedom which will be achieved only as social security and human welfare become the concern of men and nations." He did not say: As the welfare of the middle class becomes the main concern of men and nations, only then shall we have the real basis of human society.
_ Mr- JACKMAN: That is a complete distortion of the remarks of the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I did not hear what the hon. member said.


Mr. JACKMAN:: The remarks of the hon. member are a complete distortion of the remarks made by the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario. What he referred to was the fact that some people have larger incomes than others, and that those in between are middle incomes.


The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr. Golding):: Order.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I appreciate the hon. member's attempt to patch up a bad speech, but this is not the place to do it. He will have another opportunity and I hope he will use it. I hope he will quote from Hansard what the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario said, because it is in the record.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: No one knows better than I do what the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario said. There is no greater humanitarian in the house.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I wish to say that when these gentlemen refer to the middle class as being the backbone of society they should study the human anatomy a little more closely. If they do they will see that there is more to the human body than the backbone. The backbone of itself would be functionless and useless unless it had a few other attributes.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: The head and the belly. What the hon. member is saying is primary school stuff.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: If the hon. member wants to talk about the belly he may go ahead.


Mr. MacINNIS:: That is all he is thinking of, anyway'.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: If we are to talk about the backbone of this country, meaning thereby the main class of people who are necessary' in the country, we cannot pick and choose because all the people who lead a useful life, who produce anything by means of their

The Budget-Mr. Zaplitny
hands or their brains, are a part of human society. To say that some mystic middle class is the backbone of something is simply to exhibit one's ignorance both of the human anatomy and of society as a whole.
I now wish to refer to another serious matter.


Mr. MAYHEW:: I am pleased to hear that what the hon. member has just said was not serious.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I said "another serious matter". I am glad the Minister of Finance has a spokesman in his place who may be able to answer some of the arguments I am using. If the parliamentary assistant disagrees with this, he will have an opportunity to contradict it.
I say very plainly that the present Minister of Finance is more responsible than anyone else for having wrecked the price control system in this country. No one denies that.
I sa3r also that he has been aided and abetted in doing so by hon. members on both sides of the house. Not all the reactionaries are in the official opposition; although the opposition are blessed with a good percentage, there are some on the government side. Also there are some progressive thinking people on the government side. Some of the back benchers on the government side-


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Don't forget to add us.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Yes, I shall be glad to include the hon. member's party later on in the right category. There are some progressive thinking members on the Liberal side of the house who have brought to the attention of the government the seriousness of the scuttling of the price control system and have warned them that it is time to do something to make good their pledges of a new social order.
Listening to the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Benidickson) yesterday afternoon I was pleased with that part of his speech in which he advocated that the government do not sit around and wait until the Drew-Duplessis axis makes up its mind what it is going to do, to make agreements for social security with the other provinces. But unfortunately the reactionaries on the government side occupy the front benches at the moment. What has happened is that there is confusion not only in the cabinet itself but on the whole Liberal side of the house. Watching their difficulties I am reminded of a poem written by Macaulay entitled "Hora-tius". Hon. members will remember the epic story of how three men held the bridge to Rome while the hordes were trying to attack it, and there was a point at which the attacking hordes were badly confused-which puts
me in mind of the way the government is acting today. I will quote this verse, and I think there is much point to it:
Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack:
But those behind cried "Forward!"
And those before cried "Back!"
And backward now and forward Wavers the deep array;
And on the tossing sea of steel,
To and fro the standards reel;
And the victorious trumpet-peal Dies fitfully away.
The Prime Minister sounded the trumpet peal in 1942 when he said the era of freedom will be found only when social security and human welfare become the main concern of men and nations. I am afraid that bugle peal has died fitfully away.
Now I want to go on with what I was saying about price control. Although the government is responsible for having destroyed the price structure in this country, nevertheless all of us in this house have a certain amount of responsibility for the advice that we give to the government, in so far as they carry it out. To that extent the official opposition is responsible for the advice it has given to the government, and which I am afraid has been too well carried out. In checking over some of the clippings I have saved up I find that, on the question of price control, the official opposition appear to have taken three different stands. I think they are to be congratulated on having added something new.
In the first place the leader of that party, the hon. member for Neepawa (Mr. Bracken) speaking in the Portage la Prairie by-election and appealing to the voters of that constituency for their support of the candidate who is now the member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Miller), used these words to appeal for their votes on the question of price control, as reported in the Winnipeg Tribune of October 19, 1946-a paper which I am given to understand is not opposed to the Progressive Conservative party. He said this:
Mr. Miller's election will have no effect whatever on government controls, because his views, stated on every platform, are in entire accord with the government's stated plan.
There is one stand on which he appealed to the voters.


Mr. MERRITT:: What is the date of that?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: October 19, 1946.


Mr. KNOWLES:: It is authentic.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: His appeal to the voters was that the Progressive Conservative price control policy was exactly that of the government, I wish to quote from the hon.
The Budget-Mr. Zaplitny

member for Portage la Prairie, as reported in the Portage la Prairie Graphic of October 18, 1946, as follows:
Mr. Miller emphasized there was no difference between the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives on price control and inflation.
Surely that makes it clear; the candidate himself declared that there was no difference whatever between the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals on the question of price control and inflation. They were both for inflation, and the leader of the opposition, in supporting the candidate, endorsed that. That is one stand, and on that basis they appealed to the voters of Portage la Prairie and won the by-election, I must admit.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: The hon. member's party did not do very well.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: We preferred to conduct our campaign on the policy that we stand for rather than on shifting sands.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: The hon. member is pretty holy, isn't he?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: But in this House of Commons it is plain to everybody who has ears to hear that one member after the other in the official opposition, this session and in other sessions, rose in their places and attacked the government, and abused Donald Gordon for having maintained the price control system. They thought it was the most iniquitous thing in the world. One hon. member suggested that we take a sawed-off shot gun and go on a man-hunt for the officials of the prices board. [DOT]


Mr. LOCKHART:: I still say so.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: It is too bad you did not go out to Portage la Prairie and say it. That is the second stand. We have had two. Here comes the third one; here is the coup de grace. Speaking on May 7, 1947, on the radio, as reported in the Evening Citizen of the following day, the leader of the opposition had this to say. The report starts out:
John Bracken, Progressive Conservative Leader, told Canadians Wednesday night their cost of living "is mounting much more rapidly than your taxation is decreasing/'
Who is responsible for that? Who has been advocating decontrol and the raising of the cost of living? Only today we heard one member asking for the sweeping away of price control. Aet they complain on the radio that the cost of living is rising faster than the tax reductions are coming into effect. This report continues:
Dealing with Finance Minister Abbott's budget, Mr. Bracken said more than half the Canadians who paid income tax had no relief through  '
1947 reductions cancelled by the increased cost of living in the first four months of the year. The reductions had been offset by the removal of government subsidies, forcing price rises in eggs, cheese and butter.


Mr. HARKNESS:: Do you deny that?


Mr. COLDWELL:: Who asked for the
removal of subsidies?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: We have the three stands, the three-headed monster before us: (1) they are exactly the same as the government in their policy on the price control system; (2) they ask the government to do away with price control; and (3) they get on the radio and attack the government for having done away with price control. There you have it all.


An hon. MEMBER:: And the government listened to them.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: His Majesty's official opposition has a responsible position in this country and has a duty to perform, and I believe it should take its duty a little more seriously. However, I will leave it at that, because time is going on and I want to place on record a few concrete suggestions for the government to consider. What I have said in criticism has been said in good faith, and I do not want to leave the impression that I wish to be destructive in my criticism.
I should like to suggest to the government that while there is still time they consider these proposals, I think that if they will look among the Liberal benches, when they are filled-and unfortunately there are not many here at the moment-they will find many members who are of the same opinion. Here are the proposals that I think are fair and reasonable. They are not all the proposals I should like to see enacted, but they are what I would think can be supported by this house:
1.	Raise exemption levels to SI,000 for single persons and $2,000 for married persons.
2.	Amend the old age and blind pensions act so as to provide an old age pension at the age of sixtv-five at the rate of $50 a month and a blind pension at the age of seventeen at a similar rate.
3.	Introduce legislation to provide for financial assistance to persons who are crippled or otherwise disabled and thereby prevented from earning a living.
4.	Provide financial assistance to provinces for the purpose of improving and equalizing educational opportunities.
5.	Amend the Prairie Farm Assistance Act so as to make it more applicable to hail and flood damage and place its provisions on a smaller unit basis.

The Budget-Mr. Fulton
6.	Amend the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act so as to make it a Canadian Farm Rehabilitation Act applicable to every province in the dominion.
7.	Place a floor price of $1.55 per bushel under wheat with comparable floors under other farm products, fish and wages.
8.	Remove from our statutes all discriminatory legislation against co-operative associations.	.


Mr. E. D. FULTON (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, on May 6 of this year the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdonnell) concluded his criticism of the budget by moving an amendment consisting of three clauses. This afternoon I should like to deal briefly with those three clauses, one at a time. I should like to take them in the following order: the second clause first, then the first clause and finally the third clause.
The second clause of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario reads:
This house regrets that the proposals of the Minister of Finance
(b) offer no encouragement of those engaged in the development of our natural resources, especially mining and agriculture.
It is with the agricultural aspect of that clause I should like to deal for a very few minutes at the commencement of my remarks. Had time permitted I should have liked to refer to the unfair taxation measures being applied to cooperatives, but I think perhaps when the house is in committee on the resolutions an opportunity will be given when it might be more appropriate to speak on that subject. I wanted to speak particularly with reference to agricultural cooperatives, and to object to the unfair and arbitrary decision introduced last year and applied this year, that such cooperatives must automatically earn a profit on whatever capital they may be able to use in their business. That, of course, is not a. true picture. They do not earn a profit; they merely act as agents for their members; the receipts they get from their activities are held only in trust for those members, and do not form income in the hands of the cooperatives.
What I want to discuss principally at the moment is the fact that the taxation proposals of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) offer no relief from what is now a pressing and unjust situation, namely that the proceeds from the sale of breeding herds are still to be subject to income tax. The remarks I am going to make are based upon knowledge of the situation in my own part of the country particularly, the interior of British Columbia, where we have a large number of cattle ranches each
operating a herd running anywhere from less than a hundred up to several thousands of cattle. It applies to the constituency I presently represent and to the one I have some reason to think I may soon be called upon to represent; that is, the Cariboo and Chilcotin areas.
This question was dealt with during the budget debate last year, while the house was in committee. On July 25 in conjunction with several hon. members of the opposition I put forward arguments in favour of relief from this unfair burden. Those arguments I believe are still sound; and their soundness was established by the fact that the present Minister of Finance gave no fewer than four separate assurances that the matter was being investigated, that it was still being considered and that it would continue to be considered in an effort to find a solution. This in itself indicates that the minister-as indeed he said in so many wrords-recognized that there was merit in the contentions advanced by those who favoured the proposition that proceeds from the sale of breeding herds should not be subject to the payment of income tax.
Of course there is great merit in those suggestions, because the imposition of that tax is causing a real and unfair hardship to many who have laboured all their lives to build up ranches; who have worked hard during hard times to maintain their herds-not necessarily to increase them but to maintain them-and who now, when they have an opportunity to sell those herds at a decent price and enjoy a little well earned leisure, are prevented from doing so because of the ruling of the revenue branch of the income tax department that the whole proceeds are income and are subject to taxation in the one taxation year. The fact that this process is continuing is discouraging these people from making such sales; it is discouraging others from entering the business of raising breeding herds, and is having an adverse effect not only upon those older people who wish to retire but upon the whole cattle industry throughout the country. The problem being so pressing, and the minister having indicated that the matter has been under consideration for at least three years, surely it is inexcusable that no action should have been taken in this year's budget proposals.
The principle is quite simple. It is that the basic or breeding herd is a capital asset. It is just as much a means of production as plant and equipment in a factory. Our own Department of Agriculture recognized this last year in the brief it submitted to the Department of Finance. That principle is recognized in the United States, where the bureau of
The Budget-Mr. Fulton

internal revenue accepts the fact that breeding herds are capital, and proceeds from their sale are not subject to income tax. The matter was fully discussed in the house last year, and the views I put forward at that time were along the lines of a brief I submitted to the Minister of Finance, which he was generous enough to say contained some sound proposals. But all these generous expressions and promises of consideration are not doing anything to relieve the unjust burden which is being placed upon those engaged in the cattle industry.
I raise this point briefly now to serve notice, as it were, that I intend to discuss the matter more fulljr later on, and to say that I hope it is not too late even yet to take some action this year. I regret that the Minister of finance is not in the house, nor is his parliamentary assistant. I hope someone, perhaps the Minister of Agriculture, will take word to him that some hon. members on this side of the house regard this as an urgent question and intend to thresh out the matter in committee this year, to force a decision one way or the other, in so far as it lies within our power to do so. I raise the question now so that the minister may perhaps give it further consideration, and by way of notice that it will be debated hotly when the house goes into committee on the budget resolutions.
The next portion of the amendment with which I wish to deal is paragraph (a), which reads:
This house regrets that the proposals of the Minister of Finance
(a) offer no relief from the oppressive burden of indirect and hidden taxes on staple necessities that compose the family budget, all of which taxes directly increase the cost of living.
At the outset it would be only fair to say we recognize that an important and welcome measure of relief has been given this year in the budget proposals. There is no direct criticism on the score of the relief that has been given, except that it was limited entirely to the realm of direct taxation and the relatively minor effects "which result from the abdication by the dominion government of the field of gasoline taxes. I should like to make some general observation with regard to the question of the proper balance between direct and indirect taxation, which is raised in the amendment I have just read. We feel that relief should be given those groups in the lower income brackets, particularly those with large families; the middle class. I use those words again, and I want to refer to the argument just put forward by the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Zaplitny). I refer to the middle income group, those who are

struggling to remain independent. These indirect taxes are not imposed on the basis of ability to pay; they are not desirable from that point of view, for they hit much harder those in the income group to which I have just referred. In dealing with this matter this afternoon the hon. member for Dauphin was guilty of a distortion of the remarks of the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdonnell). He was reproached for that by the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Jackman), but denied that he was distorting the words used. But what he actually did was to take the speech of the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario, which itself was directed toward what he regarded as the middle income group, and to turn it into a defence of what he said the hon. member regarded as a class structure -the principle of a ruling class, as the member for Dauphin put it, and a lower or ruled class. The hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario had no such thought in mind, of course. What he refers to is an income group. And there can be no denial, as a matter of fact, that there are large numbers in the middle income group.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: May I ask the hon. member a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: It seems to me that this question of a class society exists only in the minds of hon. members such as the hon. member for Dauphin. Of course the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario said that the middle income group was the largest proportion of society, because there are more people with incomes in that group than in any other group. That is simply a question of fact.
This party recognizes that initiative and ability will always produce results, and that those results are reflected in the incomes of those who exercise this initiative. We recognize that and we wish to preserve that system, because we want initiative and the incentive to enterprise that the preservation of this initiative system gives. We want the production of plenty, instead of the uniform misery advocated by the C.C.F.
To get back to the remarks I intended to make at the outset, it is true that the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario gave figures, perhaps by way of illustration of what he meant when he referred to the middle income group. He did refer to those with incomes between $3,000 and $7,500. These figures have been criticized by some hon. members; indeed the other day the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) dealt with them.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: May I ask a question?

The Budget-Mr. Fulton


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I do not
mind dealing with interruptions when I know what they are; but I cannot deal with them when two or three of them come in at the same time.
The fact that these limitations were used by way of illustration was referred to, as I say, by the Minister of Agriculture and by the hon. member for Restigouche-Madawaska (Mr. Michaud). But the operative words used by the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario are found at page 2803 of Hansard, where he said:
Let me say that by middle class I mean people, neither rich nor poor, who have a great desire to look after themselves, to provide for their present and for their future, and to be beholden to nobody, not even the state. They used to be regarded without question as the backbone of the community.
In discussion with the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario-and it is regretted that he is not able to be in the house at the present time, owing to illness-I mentioned this fact to him and he agreed that the income range which he gave was perhaps given without a great deal of consideration. He said that he merely mentioned those figures in passing. He said that had he considered the matter carefully, or had he intended accurately to define the incomes of the group of people about whom he was speaking, he would have named a much lower figure. But he was not thinking of figures at all. As I have said, the operative words were his reference to that great group who are trying to look after themselves and, "to be beholden to nobody, not even the state." And in that group the hon. member agreed with me that he would have included all those who are engaged in the farming industry.
It is undeniable that indirect taxes hit this group, who for the most part have larger families than other groups, and hits them much harder than those with higher incomes. One has but to think of the taxes on such things as shoes, cigarettes, tobacco, tableware, and amongst other things, the indirect tax on soft drinks. I say that because it is the people with families who are hit most by this particular two cent tax-this is a tax which they must pay when their children buy soft drinks. But the same principle applies to all indirect taxes.
In addition one should take into considera-iton the effect of increased prices. The luxury tax, so called, of twenty-five per cent, and the eight per cent sales tax, are applied to the end price. If prices go up, taxes are correspondingly increased, because the taxation is levied as eight per cent on the total cost. That is why it is called a regressive tax.
We submit there is room for a reduction of these taxes. It should be remembered that
this year there is a' saving of government expenditures, through the removal of subsidies, to the amount of S208 million. Yet this tax reduction is not being passed on. There is an income tax reduction of only $110 million this year.
I should like to deal here with another portion of the remarks made by the hon. member for Dauphin, when he said that the official opposition was inconsistent when it advocated the immediate removal of all price ceilings-which, incidentally, it did not do-and then turned around and said, "You have allowed the cost of living to go up, and yet you have not given any relief in taxation." The fact is that by the removal of subsidies, which admittedly have had the effect of increasing prices, the government will have saved $208 million. But in the form of tax relief there has been passed on in 1947 only $110 million, thus leaving nearly another $100 million which might have been available in the form of tax relief. That is one point.
The other is that the only relief which has been given has been relief from direct taxation. The point we make in our amendment is that there should have been greater relief from indirect taxes which increase the cost of living. If the minister had removed subsidies which increased the cost of living, and at the same time removed indirect taxes to the same extent, the net effect on the cost of living would have been the same. Our point is that that great group of middle income people with large families should have been given this relief. Then, not only those who pay taxes, but also those who receive incomes which do not place them in income tax paying groups, would have received relief to meet the rising cost of living, and our financial position would have been placed on a sounder basis.
I should like to give a few figures with regard to the actual proportion of income derived from indirect and direct taxation. The hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) dealt with this at some length, but I think the picture is even worse than he painted it. It should be remembered that only $1,005 million is being raised this year by indirect taxation as against $1,045 million being raised by direct taxation. The figures as given by the Minister of Finance at page 2552 of Hansard show a total of $1,045 million being raised from indirect taxation and a total of $1,155 million from direct taxation at the 1946 rates, before the tax reductions were applied. But the reductions in taxes subsequently announced have the effect of taking off $40 million from the indirect and $110 million from the direct, thus leaving, as I say, $1,005 million to be raised by indirect taxation
The Budget-Mr. Fulton

as against $1,045 million by direct. So that the proportion is 49-02 per cent as against 50-08 per cent. In other words we are raising virtually as much by indirect taxation as by direct.
It must be admitted that, despite what I have said to the effect that relief is desirable, the problem remains to be solved as to how this relief is to be given. How is one to decrease indirect taxation and still balance the budget? The answer to that-and I think the only answer-is by reducing government spending. Then the question will be asked: How are you going to reduce government spending?
I have a suggestion to make in that regard to which I shall refer in a moment. But I should like to say this, that we remember last year hearing the Minister of Finance reproach the opposition because, as he said, "You criticize us for the level of our expenditures, and you say 'reduce them', but you come along later and say, 'spend more money on this and on that'." I am reminded of the answer of the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario, who referred the minister to the book of Genesis, where he would find words to this effect: "The woman tempted me, and I did eat." If that is the answer of the government I think it is an indication of a weak-minded policy. If they recognize the necessity to reduce expenditures and fail to do so because the opposition does not suggest methods of reduction, then I say that they ought not to continue in office any longer. It is the government's responsibility to reduce expenditures, and they cannot evade that responsibility by saying that we have not suggested means of doing it.
There are some interesting figures in this connection. First, the national income as compared with the pre-war figures is up some two and a half times, an estimated $12,000 million this year as against $5,000 million in 193S. At the same time national expenditures by the federal government are up four and a quarter times, $2,100 million this year as against $550 million in 1938. Our federal government's expenditures have increased four and a quarter times while the national income has gone up only two and a half times. On analysing the situation further it is found that the proportion of the national income taken in taxes by the federal government was in the neighbourhood of one-ninth to one-tenth in 193S-39 but in 1947 it had increased to between one^fifth and one-sixth. In other words, twice as great a proportion of the national income is taken by the federal government in taxes now as before the war.
The problem becomes still greater when we realize that the total cost in taxes to the

Canadian people of provincial, municipal and federal governments is over $3,000 million. The last available figures from the Canada Year Book show $3,231 million taxation revenue by all governments for 1943. That is over one-quarter of the national income of $13,000 million. Admittedly that figure is for a war year, but it must be remembered that taxes by the dominion government are practically as high now as they were during the war, that taxes by most municipal governments are going up this year, and certainly provincial government taxes have not come down. So I think we are safe in assuming that the figure of $3,231 million would be a fair estimate of the tax revenue today of all three governments in Canada, which means that over a quarter of the national income is being taken from the Canadian people by their governments through taxation.
This raises the question of whether there is not some duplication of services between these different forms of government, and whether some extravagance does not result from duplications which might be eliminated. To my mind this does not mean that the only method of eliminating duplication is by increased centralization. On the contrary, it suggests to me that a great deal of extravagance through duplication could be eliminated by increased decentralization, by the elimina-nation of some of the things which the dominion government does.
One example is the cost of administration of family, allowances. According to a return tabled in the house on February 27 in answer to a question of mine, the estimated cost of administering family allowances in 1947-48 was $3,881,415, or nearly $4,000,000. All provinces have social services and public and private welfare institutions which are already in this field. I see no reason why those services and institutions already existing could not assume some responsibility for this administration, thereby saving us some money. I know that there is a certain amount of political advantage to be gained from the fact that it is represented that the great and good federal government is actually paying all this money directly into the hands of Canadian families, but I suggest that the provinces could have undertaken a part of this administration although it might not have been quite so easy to say each time the cheque came in that it was a donation from the federal government. In answer to another question which I asked it was indicated by the Department of National Health and Welfare that the provinces had never been approached in this matter. There was no effort made to achieve a saving through

The Budget-Mr. Fulton
having the provinces assume part of the responsibility of administering family allowances.
Although some saving might be made here, there is still the problem of how are we to get government spending down by any large amount. I think it will be agreed by everyone in the house, and probably everyone in the country, that the only way to get taxes down is to get the cost of government down-that is, if we are to have balanced budgets. I think there will be general agreement that taxes are still too high, when they are taking over a quarter of our national income, and that they must come down. With unsettled world conditions we have to insulate ourselves against any possible upset. To put it mildly, the Moscow conference did not achieve the ends it sought, and the Geneva trade conference may not succeed. There may be a recession in international trade and in conditions here and in the United States, so we must get our costs dovrn to guard against the unforeseen possibilities referred to by the Minister of Finance. We must reduce taxation also in order that the individual may have sufficient of his income left after paying taxes to provide for his old age and. unforeseen requirements and emergencies such as medical and dental attention, particularly in the case of a family.
We come back therefore to the same question: How are we to get expenditures down? There are certain irreducible increases in government expenditure just now-such as the increased cost of servicing the national debt, the increased pensions and gratuities payable as a result of the war; there are family allowances, and so on. Yet some reduction must be made.
Another suggestion is that we should examine costly items, such as the national film board, which runs into an expenditure of some four or five million a year, in a more critical attitude. We should say to ourselves something like this: We admit that the national film board, and other such institutions, may render a desirable service to the Canadian people, but at a time like this when it is essential that we get our costs down for the various reasons we have discussed, is it not in fact a luxury which we cannot at the moment afford? I think this should be our approach to such spending as that being made on the national film board and other such government activities.
Next there is the question of government publicity. A quick review of the estimates reveals that there are over fifty separate items for government publicity, with a total expenditure of over S3,000.000, not counting the Canadian information service which has a
separate expenditure for overseas service. There are nineteen separate publicity items in the Department of National Health and Welfare alone. There is competing in publicity in each branch of the department. The total expenditures in that department are over 8350.000. I suggest that a solution would be to set up a bureau of publicity along the lines of the bureau for translations. This at least would prevent duplication between departments, and I think would result in a considerable reduction in expenditure on government publicity. It would also ensure that such publicity as was put out would be non-political in nature. Then there is the question I have referred to already of the potential saving in the cost of administering family allowances. There are various other items one might mention, but time prevents my going into too great detail.
There is one main suggestion, however, which I want to make at this point. In trying to look at the problem analytically I am conscious of the fact that even with the reductions suggested we might save at the most some 812,000,000 and that we would not have found a real	solution-although
economies wherever possible should be practised. The most effective approach to, and the most obvious solution of the problem would be the appointment of a budget committee, charged with the responsibility of recommending sweeping reductions in expenditure. May I put it this way: It is surely obvious that each minister and deputy minister must regard their own department as most important; he would not be a good officer if he did not. Therefore he wants his estimates to be granted in full. Again, within a department the heads of branches will equally regard their own branch as most important; they would not be good civil servants if they did not, and so they are not going to recommend reductions in expenditure but fight for every dollar which they consider is required for what they regard as the essential services they are rendering to the country.
When it comes to comparing the estimates of different departments, the Minister of Finance cannot be a superman. He cannot possibly know all the details of every department and say that the estimates of this department are more justified than the estimates of that department. He cannot therefore exercise that police control over expenditure which is so essential if we are to reduce our taxes. For these reasons I think there should be appointed a budget committee. I am not limiting it as to numbers, but a budget committee should be appointed consisting of
The Budget-Mr. Fulton

accountants and I should like to suggest also an engineer, which committee would work in consultation with perhaps two or three members of the cabinet, to go over the estimates and advise the cabinet as a whole which expenditures can be dispensed with, where reductions can be made, which expenditures should be allowed or even increased. I suggest as another approach to the problem that a limitation on total expenditure should be set. We are now spending two billion dollars a year. It might be said, let us try to get along with one billion and a half. The budget committee might approach the problem from that starting point and then examine the proposed expenditures of the different departments and apply the axe where needed and make recommendations accordingly. Only if some such approach is made shall we make a substantial reduction in expenditure.
The other advantages which such a budget committee might have would be (1) to ascertain what expenditures are really necessary; (2) to eradicate duplication, waste and extravagance; (3) since there are so many competing requests for increased expenditures- for instance, the British Columbia members are all urging that the principle of P.F.R.A. be extended to that province, which would not necessarily mean an increase in capital expenditure because it could be put on a self-liquidating basis over a period of years-the budget committee could, where necessary, recommend expenditures that are not now provided for, but which would be more advantageous to Canada as revenue-producing projects than some which are now being made.
Finally, and most important, this budget committee could bring the cost of government down more into line with the ability of the Canadian people to pay and more in line with our present uncertain position in world trade.
The third subject on which I should like to touch briefly is the third clause in the amendment moved by the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdonnell), that the budget proposals:
fail to provide for reconvening the dominion-provincial conference in order to complete satisfactory agreements with the provinces,
And so on.
It will be eighty years next July 1 since the Dominion of Canada was created. I should like to suggest, in passing, that the government give consideration to setting aside next Dominion day for a special commemoration, so that we might recall to our minds the spirit in which confederation was achieved.
This question of dominion-provincial relations is, I think, one of the most important which faces the country today, and certainly

the failure of the budget to advance any constructive solution of this problem is one aspect in which it is most open to criticism. The official opposition has urged, and many good Canadians both inside and outside the house have urged for some time now, that the conference be reconvened. But we recognize that there is a necessity for a new approach to the question if the conference is to get anywhere. A new approach is necessary to the question whether or not any readjustments of responsibilities as between the various governments should be made. It must be admitted that the conference broke up last year without any progress having been made on that head. But surely we should remember that between 1860 and 1867 there were similar disappointments and conferences broke up and had to be reconvened, but they kept at it in the spirit of give and take. Their approach was: We have to make an agreement in the interests of the general good of all. They realized that the general good of all could not be preserved or retained by denying the good of any of the components of confederation, and so they achieved a compromise between the general good of all and individual interests. I think, if we approach the matter in that spirit, we can undoubtedly achieve agreement, not only in regard to financial matters, but in regard to the other important questions of social security, public health and public investment.
I do not think it would be fair to try to apportion any blame for the break-down of the conference last May, but I earnestly suggest that the dominion government is open to severe censure for its attitude since and for its refusal to reconvene the conference. Had that attitude been maintained in the years between 1860 and 1867, there would have been no confederation. I suggest that the dominion government must find a new approach to this question, or we shall never get that re-confederation which all of us feel is so essential, including the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. I am going to suggest a new approach, I hope a reasonable constructive approach, to this question. There are three reasons why I feel this is necessary.
In the first place, it seems that the approach of the federal government as illustrated in its present attitude is unsound, because it insists upon making financial agreements before it is willing to discuss details of a general agreement on other matters. That surely is not the sound way to a solution of our difficulties. If you or I, Mr. Speaker, wanted to go to a trust company let us say, to arrange with it to administer our affairs we would not discuss financial arrangements first. We would agree

The Budget-Mr. Fulton
upon what it was we wanted done and then discuss the financial arrangements to carry it out. I think that illustration has some force because, after all, the federal government has no rights or powers of its own. Governments derive their powers from the people; to that extent our governments exist only as trustees for the Canadian people, and the federal government is there also as a trustee of the provinces. Certain powers were given to the federal government in 1867 and certain powers were retained by the provincial governments, which surrendered some of their rights to the federal government. If we approach the question in that attitude, that it is a trust we are trying to arrange for our mutual benefit and that we must agree on the terms of the trust before we settle the financial details we shall,
I believe, be able to make progress.
Secondly, I suggest that the dominion government has been too uncompromising since the conference broke down last May. I do not ask the house to accept my own words for that. I should like to read the words of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) in answer to a question asked of him by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) on March 17. The point I am making is that the dominion government is now insisting upon all provinces concluding financial arrangements with it before it will continue the discussions on other matters. That attitude was expressed clearly in the words of the Prime Minister on March 17 when he was asked if he would reconvene the conference. In reply to that question he said that the dominion government felt there was no point in reconvening the conference until the financial proposals had been accepted by the provinces. He read from a telegram which he had sent to the premier of Saskatchewan as follows:
As soon as there is a sufficient acceptance of the proposed tax agreements we shall be ready to explore in a general conference or otherwise the possibility of working out mutually satisfactory arrangements in regard to the whole or any part of our earlier public investment and social security proposals.


William Henry Golding: Order. I must remind the hon. member that his time has expired.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I have just one or two
sentences and I shall conclude. The Prime Minister concluded by saying:
The conditions set forth there have, in the mind of the government, not as yet been fulfilled.
That is surely indicative of an uncompromising attitude, which insists that until these proposals are accepted, we shall not have any further discussion.
Thirdly, in actual fact, Mr. Speaker, there is no reason, even though the financial proposals have not been accepted, why the conference should not be reconvened, because the Minister of Finance's statement this year, as reported at page 2561 of Hansard, was to the effect that it would cost us S110 million more should the non-signing provinces sign the agreement. Here it is significant to remember that the reduction in income taxes this year is exactly $110 million. Furthermore the great tax fields, the corporation and personal income taxes, are as vacant as though the provinces had signed the agreement, because they have not imposed or reimposed these taxes to any greater extent than they could have done even though they had signed the financial agreement held forth by the dominion government. Therefore the tax fields are still as clear as they would be if the agreement had been signed. Consequently there is no financial reason why the dominion government should not proceed with the discussion of its social security, public health and public investment programme.
Furthermore, I suggest that it is too expensive to do it in any other way, because actually the taxpayers are paying $100 million more (again according to the minister's statement at page 1841 of Hansard) as a result of the agreements which have been signed, than if no agreement had been signed, and yet we have not advanced one step farther along the road to solving our problem in regard to social security, public investment and public health. Although the agreements have been signed and involve the expenditure of S100 million, these problems have not been settled; therefore surely it is obvious that the conference must be reconvened. It is too expensive financially not to reconvene it. There is no financial obstacle arising from the fact that all provinces have not signed. Surely then, it is too vital, too important to the spirit and the very framework and lifeblood of confederation to permit the problem to remain any longer unsolved. Surely it is in the best interests of Canada that the conference be convened again and these pressing problems finally settled.


William Henry Golding: Order. The hon. member's time has expired.


Mr. MAXIME RAYMOND (Beauharnois-Laprairie) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, the
budget speech has given rise, this year as in the past, to many and varied appreciations. For my part, I wish to make a few remarks and express my views on certain subjects.
In the first place, let me draw the attention of hon. members to the tremendous debt of
The Budget-Mr. M. Raymond

$16,500,000,000 borne by our twelve million population, which is throwing our national economy off-balance. It is the result of our undue participation in the war and our unprecedented bounties to England. Such extravagance was based on imperialistic feelings, contrary to the best interests of the nation and conducive to disunity among the people.
At the beginning of the war, the then Minister of Finance set forth the "pay-as-you-go" policy which he meant to follow. Obviously we overstepped the mark since our $3,433,000,000 debt at August 31, 1939, has grown up to the startling figure of $16,500 million, despite the many billions levied on Canadian taxpayers, so that we could pride ourselves on policing the world, on lending without interest to Britain, on being the Santa Claus of the empire. Such titles are expensive.
If only those sacrifices had helped to safeguard world peace and order. Far from it, the turmoil is greater than ever. Europe and Asia are starving; rivalries between countries are more acute than ever; and the will to dominate, so evident among the victors, is the forerunner of another conflict. Nazism and fascism have been replaced by a much greater danger, communism, which dominates a large part of Europe and threatens to spread throughout the world. Hitler and Mussolini have been vanquished, but Stalin, who is ten times more inhuman, has taken their place and is dictating the peace terms. In eradicating one evil we have given rise to another, greater than the first. No wonder that uneasiness prevails throughout the world. Surely, such poor results obtained at the cost of tremendous sums and of so many human lives give little cause for rejoicing.
Our policy of lavishness towards Great Britain is being continued in various forms even though the war is over and that country's budget shows a billion-dollar surplus.
For instance, in the case of wheat alone, we are selling ours to Great Britain way under the world price, and at the expense of the Canadian producer. In the words of a Canadian bank president:
When the demand is brisk, we should be getting top prices for our surplus wheat, lumber, metals and minerals on the world's markets.
As a matter of fact, ours is not a Canadian policy, but a policy in the service of the empire.
A reduced scale of income taxation was announced by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) at the same time as a $352 million surplus, accumulated in the last fiscal year by means of taxes that were too high. Why should the new schedule not apply from Janu-
ary I, 1947, instead of July first? When taxes are too high is hardly the time to accumulate surpluses.
As for the new tax schedule, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) has shown that it brings no relief whatever to the majority of our citizens. In most cases of apparent reductions, they are completely cancelled by the elimination of subsidies on food products and a corresponding increase in the cost of living. So, the reductions are more apparent than real in most practical cases. In order to relieve the taxpayer, the exemptions should have been raised to at least $1,000 for single persons and $2,000 for married people.
Everyone needs a minimum revenue to live. Due to the present cost of living a person cannot live normally on $750 a year. Therefore, the government is not justified in maintaining the present exemptions while announcing a $352,000,000 surplus. The burden of indirect taxes applying to the necessaries of life should have been lightened; the large families would thereby have been granted a measure of relief.
In England, the exemption has just been raised from $600 to $1,000 and the subsidies on the necessaries of life have been increased. Let us stop extending gifts to foreigners and start thinking of our own people.
Another exemption should be granted to taxpayers, covering all medical expenses incurred.
As the act now stands, where medical expenses do not exceed four per cent of the income, no exemption is granted; if they exceed four per cent, the exemption is limited to a certain amount. Why should it be so? Does the government want to tax illness, misfortune or family obligations? For instance, most of us know what medical, hospital and nursing expenditures the birth of a child entails. People whose income is barely sufficient to cover the necessaries of life are unable, after they have paid their income tax, to provide the confined woman with the required care, or else they run forever into debt. In other cases, through lack of money, children are deprived of necessary medical care.
The provision of the act which limits the medical expenses exemption is antisocial and detrimental to the family. It should be repealed as soon as possible.
Another provision of the act that is antisocial, that discriminates against families, is that concerning exemptions for dependent students.
If I am not mistaken, this exemption used to be 1500, and was granted to age 25. Why limit it now to age 21 and S300? Anyone

The Budget-Mr. M. Raymond
knows that it costs more than $300 to support a university student. Costa are indeed so high that an "honour loan'' system has been devised to help students complete their studies when parents cannot meet the expense. I therefore ask the government that the age limit be raised to 25 and the exemption to $500 per student.
There has been talk in this debate of immigration to boost our population and develop
our resources.
In the view of certain hon. members and a certain section of the press, immigration means only immigration from the British Isles. What is this if not racialism, the very doctrine advocated by Hitler, against which we have fought.
Mr. Chairman, I am one of those who consider that this matter must be approached not from the "racial" standpoint but from the standpoint of "need" in the light of the interests of this country, not those of the British empire. It is both an economic and a social problem.
There can be no doubt that our population is not commensurate with our natural wealth. But if we must increase it by means of immigration, let us look to the character and quality of our future citizens.
But what section of the population calls for an increase? The urban or the rural?
At the present time, our cities are overflowing with people, who cannot find any living accommodation, due to the scarcity of houses, or are compelled to live in revolting conditions, numerous members of the same family occupying a single room, often unsanitary. Before inviting foreigners to live in our cities, let us first provide homes for our own people.
However, there is one class of immigrants who could be welcomed as the need for them is very acute; I mean domestic helpers. At the present time, servants are unavailable, which constitutes a serious problem for many young families. The best way to increase population is to raise the birth-rate. Let us give our families the opportunity to hire the help they need to bring up their family properly and let us get that help where it is to be found. We will require no additional living accommodation for this purpose, since servants live with the families employing them.
I hope the immigration regulations will be amended so as not to allow British subjects only to enter Canada as domestic help, but that the privilege will be extended to people from all countries, provided they are otherwise physically and morally fit.
In the case of the farming community, the situation is quite different, and I have no hesitation in saying that the immigrants we need are agricultural workers.
We have extensive vacant areas, as well as undeveloped natural resources, and there is room in this country for more farmers. Moreover, from a social standpoint, it is desirable that we should bring here farmer immigrants who can more readily be assimilated and have more stability. Workmen travel from one country to another, while people who settle on land stay there permanently.
Since the interest of this country requires agricultural immigrants, let us seek them where they can be found. Would it be in Great Britain? Excellent farmers are certainly not lacking in that country, especially in Scotland and Ireland, and I know a number of Scotchmen and Irishmen who have settled on lands in the countries of Beauharnois, Chateauguay and Huntingdon, and who own splendid farms. But can we hope that a larger number will come here, under the present circumstances? Far from being in a position to export farmers, Great Britain needs more of them. The shortage of industrial labour is so acute in that country that German prisoners of war are being held to alleviate the situation.
The same applies to other war-ridden countries.
On the other hand, there are countries where the rural classes are dissatisfied with their lot and would be only too glad to establish themselves on Canadian farms. Let us not bar them out systematically. We are in need of farm-hands, of miners and forest-workers. Let us, therefore, accept them from whatever country they may come as long as they are carefully selected as to their ability and character in order that no one may come into this country, spread subversive doctrines and stir up trouble.
To sum up in a few words, I say that mass immigration from any country whatever is not a desirable thing. There must be at all times a certain relationship between our birth-rate and the number of our immigrants and we must give newcomers time to assimilate themselves and become true Canadians.
Our immigration policy must be essentially Canadian, based solely on the needs and interests of Canada and of no other country whatsoever. It should not run the risk of making our country the world's dumping ground by opening the door too wide; let this policy be of a welcoming character but nevertheless strict, with selection based on individuals rather than on races.

The Budget-Mr. M. Raymond

Work, health and order are the main components required to give our country a powerful and prosperous impetus; we need citizens who wish Canada to become their sole country and who, merging with our masses, will help to build a great and united country, free within as it is without, consisting of different races which, without repudiating their native heritage, will contribute their own genius and fine traditions to the development of the Canadian nation.
I shall discuss briefly the relations between the dominion and the provinces. The Minister of Finance referred to the fiscal proposals made by the government to the provinces. The latter are asked to waive in favour of the federal authorities their right to tax personal and corporation income and to levy succession duties.
Such proposals, Mr. Chairman, would undoubtedly tend to deprive the provinces of their main source of revenue and to make them dependent on the central government. In other words, they are aimed at holding the provinces in bondage. In effect, they would mean interference with the exercise of the legislative powers which have been reserved exclusively to the provinces in social and educational matters.
The respective powers of the dominion and the legislatures in the fields of legislation and taxation have been set forth in the act of 1867. For a long time the constitution was respected, but during the past ten years repeated assaults have been launched by centralists with a view to concentrating in Ottawa social and fiscal legislation and administration.
That campaign has become more aggressive recently; it has even become a sort of bargaining which brings to light the true designs of its sponsors. I believe in provincial autonomy and in the part which French Canadians are called upon to play within confederation. Therefore, I feel that it would be a sheer betrayal to accept such proposals which not only violate the provisions of the pact of 1867, but encroach upon our most sacred rights. If there could have been any doubt in regard to the intentions of some advocates of centralization, the speech delivered by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) while he was Minister of National Health, has dispelled them. According to L'Action Catholique of December 16, he made the following remarks:
Through its proposals, the dominion government is trying to place the provinces in such a position that they might relinquish their constitutional responsibilities. The dominion government is striving to avoid double taxation and to place the whole of Canada on an equal foot-

ing, which would enable all sections to develop their resources and to relinquish their responsibilities in matters of education and welfare.
Such was the statement made by the Minister of National Defence, while he was Minister of National Health.
We seek not to shirk our responsibilities, nor do we need the advice of Ottawa centralists on the Quebec educational system. We merely ask to be allowed to exercise our powers in the matter.
Let us briefly review the federal government's real or attempted encroachments on provincial jurisdiction. Advantage was taken of prewar unemployment to intrude upon social legislation, through unemployment insurance. In January 1941, the government called upon the provinces to accept the tax proposals embodied in the report of the Rowell-Sirois commission. These proposals which called for the permanent waiver of the three taxes under discussion, were" turned down. Note that the Prime Minister took care to state that the report did not aim at centralizing powers in Ottawa. Thus are provinces despoiled of their rights on the claim that those rights are being respected.
In 1942, Ottawa secured from the provinces the power to enter certain tax fields until then reserved to provinces, but for the duration of war only.
Now that the war is over, the federal government wants to be allowed to exercise that power for another five years.
In 1917, income tax was inaugurated with the understanding that it would disappear at the end of the war. It has remained. It is thus that centralization in the hands of the federal government is gradually realized: the provinces are deprived, bit by bit, of their powers and the means of exercising them.
Under the pretext of temporary arrangements, precedents	are	created	leading to
permanent conditions.
The province of Quebec has more reasons than the other provinces for fearing such political centralization. Besides realizing that Ottawa	will raise	the	greater	part of its
revenues from within our frontiers to return only a fraction of them to us, we know that it will be in a position to decide what use we shall make of that fraction it will return to us.
Here	is what	Mr.	Angus	Macdonald,
premier of Nova Scotia, said1 on March 7 last:
Could anyone deny that, if the greater part of the revenue accruing to the provinces has to be paid by the dominion, the time may_ come.-indeed, is it not probable that the time will surely come,-when the dominion will insist on deciding what use the provinces will put them to? The advent of that day will mark the end of provincial autonomy.

The Budget-Mr. J. II. Matthews
This is what centralization will lead us to; it would only increase, I believe, the unfair treatment meted out to the province of Quebec.
(Text):


Mr. J. H. MATTHEWS (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, so many complimentary phrases have been addressed to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) on the presentation of this, his first budget, that it seems almost superfluous to add to them. Yet along with others I do wish to compliment him, even though I do not agree that his budget is as fine as he would have us believe.
Others have taken that budget apart and revealed to us its many deficiencies, and there is no need for me to do so. However I want to say that I share the disappointment felt by many thousands of people, in that the exemptions have not been raised to SI,000 for single persons and $2,000 for married persons. Speaking in this debate a few days ago, the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) said, as reported at page 2897 of Hansard, that people would not mind paying taxes for a decent social security plan. I quite agree with the hon. member. For many years as a servant of the church my salary with exemptions did not bring me into the taxable group. When I heard people from time to time grousing about the taxes they had to pay I said then, as I say now, "Give me the salary and I will gladly pay the taxes." That, sir, is the feeling of many thousands who are in such low income groups that they do not come anywhere near being taxable. Canadians generally are not a tax evading people. They know that it costs real money to run any country, especially one as large as this dominion, and they are prepared to do their part. But having said that, let me also say that they want their taxes used wisely and economically. They abhor reckless, wasteful spending, much of which went on during the war years; on the other hand, they do not want to strangle progress by the adoption of a penny-pinching policy. There is a happy medium to be struck and they want their Minister of Finance to strike it.
I also want to support another statement made by the hon. member for Cape Breton South when he deplored the fact that the Minister of Finance had not seen fit to drop the nuisance tax on soft drinks and chocolate bars. I have received representations from some comparatively small soft drink manufacturers in my constituency, and they have assured me that on the removal of the two per cent excise tax they will pass the tax 83166-199J
savings on to their customers, keeping the price at five cents and maintaining a uniformly high quality of product.
I also want to voice my disappointment with the budget in that no change has been adopted with regard to the taxing of cooperatives. The amount of revenue that has accrued to the government cannot be much; but I know that ever since the tax provisions were applied to cooperatives at the last session of parliament they have not ceased to voice their objections. Let me point out to the minister that when cooperators from the Atlantic to the Pacific voice their objection, an increasing number of the Canadian people are speaking. Personally, I am in entire agreement with those who ask the government to introduce a cooperative act, one that will permit cooperatives to function on a proper basis.
I want now to leave the discussion of the budget for the moment and speak of other matters of national concern. The various countries of the world are engaged in a titanic struggle for markets for their surplus products, and Canada is participating in that struggle. At the moment the limitations of production give a head start to those nations which have the more quickly reverted to a peacetime basis. A hungry world is clamouring for consumer goods, but the day is not far distant when the supply will exceed the demand. Then good will, salesmanship and quality will again enter the picture. There are three areas which particularly interest Canada at the present time. They are the Orient. Great Britain and Europe. The oriental markets we shall have to share with others. The British market is fairly well assured to us by preferential tariffs. The European market has to be developed if Canada is to have her fair share of it.
By way of illustration, let me speak off Czechoslovakia and its needs and the possibility of Canada's developing a real market in that country. Today Czechoslovakia needs large quantities of wheat, rye and other coarse grains, lumber and other goods that we produce in abundance. These she can buy on the open world market at prevailing prices. The difficulty arises when we ask the question "How shall she pay for them?" Not only Czechoslovakia, but all European countries are anxious to buy from us. Their difficulty is that both now and in the future they must pay in dollars. Transportation costs to and from European countries must also be met in dollars. The fact that central Europe (Germany) is an occupied country makes the task all the more difficult in that more United States dollars are required to pay for land transportation. These, together with tariffs against


Mr. VICTOR QUELCH (Acadia):: Mr. Speaker, I, too, should like to join with others in congratulating the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) upon the delivery of his first budget speech. In all sincerity, however, I

cannot say that I congratulate him upon the contents of it. In the first place, I consider it took a somewhat dismal and unrealistic view of the future and, second, it fails to provide for an equitable distribution of the burden of debt and taxation.
If there is one thing that is necessary today more than anything else it is to maintain the confidence of the people of this country in our ability to go on and achieve that new order of which we heard so much during the war and of which we hear so little today. It is not to be wondered at if the people are today beginning to fear that they will seek that new order in vain, because they will recall, and hon. members will recall, that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) stated during the war that, unless that new order was well on its way before the end of the war, we might look for it in vain. Many people are already beginning to wonder whether or not that promise was given merely in the form of a bribe that would cause them to be willing to undergo great sacrifices during the war.
We are still in a state of reconversion, a transition period from war to peace, and the maximum output of consumer goods has not yet been reached. On the other hand, I think everybody in Canada knows, or at least they should know, that when reconversion has been completed the Canadian people will be in position to enjoy the highest standard of living that they have ever had or ever dreamed of. We suggest that it is high time we face these problems realistically and deal with them adequately.
I should like to summarize briefly our economic position as disclosed by the minister in his budget speech. Our productive capacity is today many times greater than it was at the start of the war. We have greatly increased the number of our factories and industries and we have greatly increased their efficiency of operation. We also have more skilled labour now than we had at the start of the war and new areas have been opened up to provide raw materials for our increased production. In addition, while carrying on our war effort *we were able to reduce our external debt by ' about thirty-five per cent. I shall refer to our internal debt later on.
The minister disclosed that our national production for 1946 was over $11,000 million and he suggested that by the end of the year it might reach $12,000 million, making a total personal income of $9-2 billion after allowing for investment income not distributed and contributions to pensions. This provides an average income of over $3,000 for a family of four. In spite of that favourable picture, the minister went on to tell us that over fifty per cent of the people in this country who

The Budget-Mr. Quelch
earn income will have incomes of less than $750 in the single bracket and $1,500 in the married bracket. Keeping those figures in mind, I wish to discuss the minister's statement with reference to normal production, to be found on page 2548 of Hansard, where he is reported as having said:
Moreover, our revenues are based on very high levels of production, incomes and imports which we probably cannot expect as normal levels in future years.
The question that immediately comes to my mind is, why does the minister call the present level abnormal; why does he suggest that we shall not be able to maintain our present levels of production in the future? I suggest that when the Minister of Finance makes a statement of that kind he is bound to create a feeling of lack of confidence in the minds of the people. There is no doubt that our production can be expanded considerably above present levels. At the same time there is no doubt that with over fifty per cent of our population today receiving low incomes we can greatly expand the consumption of goods in this country to provide an effective demand for any increased production that we may be able to accomplish.
In other words, that fifty per cent of the people in the low-income brackets represent a great potential market which we should develop in the future instead of spending so much time and energy in trying to find new markets here or there. It is high time we realized that right on our doorstep we have a potential market which we have never tried to develop in the past. After all, that was to be the purpose of the new order, to guarantee a Canadian standard of living. The Minister of Finance, along with many others, apparently takes it for granted that under our system we are bound to have booms and depressions; because we happen to be up today, he takes it for granted that we must be down tomorrow. Just because we have tolerated slumps and depressions in the past is no reason why we should be prepared to tolerate them in the future. They are not acts of God; they represent the stupidity of man in failing to deal with his economic problems.
I would say that unfortunately the policy of the government today is headed for lower production which may very well result in a depression. If you talk and think in terms of lower production, you will get lower production. In two or three places in his speech the Minister of Finance emphasized the fact that we could not expect to maintain national production, income and employment at present levels. I would suggest that the reason the
minister says that is that he does not believe we can maintain an effective demand against that production in the future.
The Minister of Finance referred to the temporary nature of income from reconversion, from the spending of war savings and from our export sales on account of shortages caused by the war. The minister is not alone in that; that is the stand taken today by most financial authorities. The same stand was taken by the governor of the Bank of Canada in 1946, and it has been taken by Beardsley Ruml in the United States and by many other economists. They all fear that we face a depression in the near future, as a result of the fact that we shall have difficulty in maintaining demand against our production. I would say that in Canada we are very fortunate, because, our main problem is that while we can produce an abundance of goods for the people, apparently we cannot provide the necessary purchasing power to the people with which to buy that production. If our problem was that the country was so barren that we could not produce the goods the people required, then we would have a real problem on our hands. Fortunately that is not the case.
I want to deal with this question on a national basis and at a later time I shall deal with the international aspect of it. The Minister of Finance emphasized that when a nation exports goods it must be prepared to accept imports in return, to balance the trade; well so long as we do that we will not change the internal situation. It then becomes a matter of balancing effective demand with supply, whether that supply represents our own production or the production of other nations for which our own production has been exchanged. The problem remains the same just so long as you maintain the balance between your exports and imports. Referring to the times when our production and; income fall off, the Minister of Finance had this to say on page 2553 of Hansard:
We must expect, I believe, that at times when our employment, production and incomes are below satisfactory levels, our revenues will fall short of our expenditures. Indeed, at such times it will probably be necessary to incur expenditures of various kinds to assist in restoring better levels of employment and income.
What does the minister mean by "satisfactory levels''? He talks about having lower levels of production, and I should like to know what he means by "satisfactory levels." Will he agree that when our production and income fall below the optimum level, that level is unsatisfactory? That is, will he admit that just the minute our production falls below
The Budget-Mr. Quelch

the highest level that we are able to accomplish and that the people desire, then it becomes an unsatisfactory level, and it would be the duty of the government to immediately make the necessary expenditures to maintain production at the high level? As pointed out already, the greatest danger to optimum production is a lack of effective demand. I would suggest to the minister that the most equitable way to build up effective demand today would be by expanding the purchasing power of those people who are needy and helpless. That is why in this group we have consistently urged that we should immediately take action to pay an old age pension of S50 a month at the age of sixty and a pension of $50 a month to all who are physically incapacitated and unemployable. The pension for those physically incapacitated would, of course, have to be graded according to their degree of disability. I suggest that it is not necessary to wait for an agreement with the provinces to do that, because, if the federal government accepted full responsibility for paying these pensions, no province would, I think, object to receiving the sum on behalf of its people, and of course the pensions should be paid without the application of the means test.
The Minister of Finance would no doubt protest against the financial cost of such a proposal because, when it was suggested last year, I recall that the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin) objected that the financial cost would be altogether too great. On the other hand, I do not think anyone in the house will dare suggest that we shall not have the goods in this country necessary to satisfy the demand that would be created by the payment of those pensions, because, remember, the great problem we are afraid of in the future is lack of an effective demand, and that would be one way of creating an effective demand against the production that we know we shall have in this country. It is not a question of money; it is a question of goods. During the war the government repeatedly said that no financial limitations would be allowed to impede our war effort. Then why should we allow financial limitations to impede us in peace time and bring on a depression?
I recall a speech which the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) made in 1944, in which he said that after the war it should be easier to obtain the money to finance production and reconstruction than it had been to finance the war effort, and, further, that it should be possible at the same time to reduce both debt
and taxation. It might be well for me to read just what he said, because no doubt he meant what he said at that time, and it is necessary that we should keep those words of his in mind today when people talk of our not being able to get the money to meet necessary expenditure, although we were able to finance five billion dollars a year for our war effort. I refer hon. members to page 2101 of Hansard of April 17, 1944. The Prime Minister was replying to a question by the leader of this group who had asked where the money was to come from to finance post-war projects which had been referred to, and the Prime Minister said:
My purpose in speaking in answer to my hon. friend was, however, to point out that if it has ibeen possible in this time of war for this country to raise the enormous sums which have been raised to help pay the cost of the war, running into billions of dollars, it it has been possible to raise at least half of the total cost of the war at the time of the war itself, it should be a very much easier task for the government to raise the money that will be necessary for the purpose of reconstruction. It should be easier for this reason. The money we are raising today is being raised unfortunately for the purposes of destruction of human life and property, and this on a colossal scale. The money that we will have to raise for purposes of reconstruction will be money that will be used for purposes of construction, used to further increase all commodities in order to satisfy human wants. Once a human want is satisfied, it seems to be the case that new wants are thereby created which will also have to be satisfied. I think it will be possible to satisfy many wants by maximum production of useful and usable commodities. It should not be difficult to obtain the money, in other words the effective demand, which will be essential, and at the same time I would hope to reduce taxation and also debt.
I am sure that every hon. member would like to agree with that statement, but it is not borne out by the record of history. We did not appear to have very much difficulty in financing the war of 1914-18, nor did wt have difficulty in financing the war of 1939 to 1945. But I recall that during the 1930's we were told time and again in this house that it was impossible for the government to finance this or that because it lacked the money. The Prime Minister said that it should be easier to finance production and reconstruction in peace time than it had been to finance the war and that we should be able to maintain production and employment and income at the maximum level and at the same time reduce debt and taxation.


Mr. LOW:: That is the challenge facing the government right now.


Victor Quelch: Would the Minister of Finance agree with that statement of the Prime Minister? Apparently he does not, or

The Budget-Mr. Quelch
he would not have brought down, the kind of budget he did. If he does agree with the Prime Minister he should withdraw this budget and bring down a realistic one. I do not blame the Minister of Finance for one moment if he disagrees with the statement of the Prime Minister, because I do not believe that it will be easier to bring into being and finance a new order than it was to finance the war effort so long as we carry on under a debt-creating system. The Prime Minister was careful to say that it "should be" easier, which is typical of so many of his statements. It might mean something, or it might be mere wishful thinking. We all agree that it would be easier to finance peacetime production than wartime production if our system of financing were sound and equitable, but unfortunately the government's war finance policy was neither the one nor the other, and consequently our peacetime programme is handicapped by a burden of debt extending to seventeen and a half billion dollars today. During the war a large percentage of our production was financed by going into debt and, while a large percentage of that production has been destroyed, the major portion of the debt still remains with us.
I do not consider it is an honest, perhaps I should say a businesslike statement to say that you have a surplus on current account when this surplus has been obtained by the sale of capital that has not even been paid for. That statement of the Minister of Finance reminds me of an incident in the early homestead days. I had a young neighbour from Australia who had no intention of following farming as an occupation. He was out to try to make money quickly. He went to a number of machine agencies in the nearby towns and bought up a number of new wagons. You could go to a machine agency in those days and buy machinery without paying any money down, but simply signing a note. After he had bought a number of new wagons he bought a number of teams on the same terms. Then he took a subcontract for railroad construction and stayed on the railway all summer. When he came back in the fall I rode to his place to see how he had got along. He seemed quite cheerful and said, "Not too badly at all." I asked him "Where is your outfit?" I could not see any horses or wagons around the place. He replied, "I had some pretty heavy expenses. They reduced my grade level by one foot and put me on force account work, and in order to meet my expenses I had to sell my outfit but I still have a nice little surplus." That is the position of the Minister of Finance today. That outfit had
not even been paid for, but after he had sold it, he met his other expenses and had a nice little surplus. So in the future it will not be merely a question of finding money to maintain full production; there will be an interest charge of $437,000,000 a year to meet on our national debt. The financial advisers of the government would have us believe that a national debt owed internally is not a great handicap. Members who were on the banking committee in 1939 will recall how Mr. Towers, governor of the Bank of Canada, in reply to a question whether we should be able to pay off the national debt, said that he did not think there was any sense in the question. He said, "Why should we pay off the national debt? The national debt is a national asset. Therefore why pay it off?" He went on to say that it was generally found that a country where the debt was reduced became less prosperous. Perhaps I had better quote his actual words, because some people may say I am taking an unfair meaning from them. These are the words he used in 1939 before the banking committee. They are found on page 80 of the minutes of proceedings and evidence. This question was asked:
Is it possible for you to imagine any way by which we are ever going to pay the debt we have got?
Mr. Towers replied:
As the debts of the government are an asset of the Canadian people, I do not see much point in the thing; except that, to the extent that the government thinks that the distribution of those assets of the Canadian people-which are its debt-is unsatisfactory, it may take steps to remedy that distribution in any way that lies within the legislative power; in fact, in any way, I suppose-by income tax or succession duties or any other action it cares to take.
Then, when we came back to the question of the national debt later on he had this to say, as reported at page 235. I think this statement is perhaps one of the reasons why the government has not shown any concern regarding the national debt. Mark well what the governor of the Bank of Canada said at the time when the national debt of this country was in the neighbourhood of $3 billion. He said:
So that all I can say would be this, that in a country where the sum total of public and private debt was decreasing you have a country which is going backward, and which is becoming more poverty stricken. Generally speaking, in a country where you find there is no public and private debt you have a country resembling darkest Africa; there is nothing else.
Therefore, according to that, the bigger the debt, the bigger the asset; the bigger the asset, the more prosperity there is in the country. Why pay off your national debt? All you have to do is to create a bigger debt and we become more and more prosperous. I wonder how any
The Budget-Mr. Quelch

businessman in Canada would do if he ran his business on that Line. While an internal debt is not., of course, as serious a problem as an 'external debt because payment does not require sending wealth abroad, on the other hand, unless there is an equitable distribution of the debt claims it may be the major contributing factor to depression. That unfortunately is the situation regarding the national debt of Canada today. The greater part of it is owed to a comparatively few individuals and corporations. If anybody doubts that for one minute, in view of the great publicity and wide distribution our loans got during the war, just make an analysis of any one of the war loans made during the war. What will you find? You will find in each one of these that less than one-third of one per cent of the subscribers purchased sixty per cent of the total subscriptions. In addition to that, we sold over $3 billion worth of bonds to the chartered banks. So, while the national debt is a liability of all the Canadian people, the major part of the debt is an asset of only a minority. Therefore, directly or-indirectly all the people will be taxed, in order to pay the greater part of this interest to a minority in the country. This situation will become progressively worse in the future as the small bond holder is forced to sell his bonds in order to get the money to meet his cost of living.
During the war we repeatedly criticized this inequitable method of financing. We emphasized the need for more equitable distribution of debt. We repeatedly suggested to the Minister of Finance that all money taxed from people with incomes less than $2,000 in the married brackets and $1,200 in the single bracket be in the form of compulsory savings; that is to say, that all. money that was taken from the people in the lower income brackets should be credited to their accounts in the chartered banks and frozen there for the duration of the war. Then, as production expanded in relation to demand, the government could release so much of these savings year by year in order to help maintain that demand against our production. This would have been a form of insurance against lack of effective demand. But, more important, it would have given the people in the lower income brackets a share of the national debt that Mr. Towers says is a national asset. But until such time that there is a more equitable distribution of the claims upon that debt, we are not in a position to call it a real asset of the Canadian people. It is a national liability, an asset of the minority of the population.
Furthermore, during that time we urged that, to the extent that the taxation and the

borrowings of the people's real savings failed to meet government expenditures, national money could be used instead of money created by the chartered banks and lent to the government. During the war the government found it impossible to finance by taxing the people's savings alone. They found it necessary to get large sums of new money created, well over $4 billion. But- instead of using our own bank, the Bank of Canada, they depended largely upon the chartered banks, with the result that we increased our debt to the chartered banks by over $3 billion. As a consequence of our war financing policy, we are now paying interest on $17,500 million of debt, the greater part of which goes to the financial corporations in the country. In other words, the government has insisted on maintaining a financial policy under which Canada has been forced into debt to provide a safe investment for financial institutions and corporations throughout the dominion.
The taxing of people to pay interest on this debt is bound to reduce effective demand and have a deflationary effect upon the country. Therefore we urge upon the government the need progressively to reduce this debt by refunding through the Bank of Canada. This has been our suggestion consistently throughout the time that we have been here, and I am glad to see that a progressive lead was given to the Liberal party the other day by the hon. member for Restigouche-Madawaska (Mr. Michaud). At one time there used to be others in the Liberal party who took a similar view. I refer to the former member for Vaneouver-Burrard, Mr. McGeer, who is now in the senate, and the former member for Parry Sound, Mr. Slaght. But there are two members in the house now who used to take quite a strong stand on this question. I refer to the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker) and the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie). The Minister of Veterans Affairs was a monetary reformer before I was a member of the house. These hon. gentlemen are now, respectively, a parliamentary assistant, and a minister of the crown. I believe they will find it difficult to convince the government that their financial policy was sound, and thereby make it possible to find the money that will be needed to deal with the veterans' problems adequately, because I have in mind a statement made by a previous minister of veterans affairs. I remember that back in 1936 when we were dealing with the question of making pensions retroactive the then minister of veterans affairs said that he quite agreed veterans should have their pensions made retroactive, but it was not a ques-

The Budget-Mr. Quelch
tion of what the veterans should have but rather of what the government could afford, because, he said, the government was practically bankrupt. That was in 1936 when the national debt was less than $3 billion. I hope the hon. member for Rosthern and the present Minister of Veterans Affairs will be able to use all their powers to try to convince the government to adopt a realistic financial policy under which justice may be done to the veterans of today, and I hope we shall not have the same statement made as the former minister of veterans affairs made in 1936 that the veterans should receive a better deal but that the government was bankrupt. If there is any bankruptcy I would say it is bankruptcy of ideas rather than of money.


Solon Earl Low: Economic illiteracy.


Victor Quelch: I should also like to join with the hon. member for Restigouche-Madawaska in his reference to the various letters which have been sent out by Mr. Wilfrid E. Krug. I think he has been doing a great service to Canada.
I believe there has developed in the country widespread opposition to the high rate of taxation levied in part in order to provide the money to pay interest on bonds held by financial institutions. The question is often raised, would financing through the Bank of Canada cause inflation? My reply would be, not necessarily, if carried out wisely. People today have money in bonds for investment purposes, in order to get the interest. If the people who hold these bonds today wish to spend that money they can take the bonds to the chartered banks and cash them. The chartered banks create new money for that purpose. That is being done. It was done in the later stages of the war and it is being done today. If the people holding bonds want money for their bonds they get that money today. Therefore, if we finance the purchase of these bonds through the Bank of Canada it will not make any difference in that regard. The people who get the money for their bonds will immediately seek investment in other fields. We insist that the refunding of the debts as they mature should be done through the Bank of Canada. Then the holders of those bonds, upon receipt of the money, will immediately seek investment in the proper field of investment, namely, in private industry and commercial enterprise.
The former Minister of Finance defended using capital from United States residents on the ground that we lack venture capital in this country; that is to say, he defended borrow-83166-200
ing from the United States of America on the ground that we had to get a certain amount of capital from that country because we lacked venture capital. I would say that so long as investment in government bonds is encouraged, investment in industry will be discouraged. Refunding dominion bonds through the Bank of Canada would tend to force investment in industry and provide all the venture capital that we need. If the government still argues that the expansion of the chartered banks' cash reserves resulting from refunding would cause inflation, then it could very well amend the Bank Act to compel the chartered banks to maintain 100 per cent cash reserves behind their demand deposits; that would adequately prevent the danger of inflation.
I quite realize that the minister may say, "That would be too hard upon the profits of the chartered banks." But I do not consider it to be the responsibility or the duty of the government to provide investments for the financial institutions of this country and then tax the people to pay the interest on those investments. Let the financial institutions and corporations invest their money in industry instead of expecting the government to provide them with an investment backed by the resources of the country, and then use the Minister of National Revenue as a collector for it. That is really what the government is doing. It is making the Minister of National Revenue a collector for a most undesirable kind of racket.


Solon Earl Low: Social security for the few.


Victor Quelch: If the government insists on financing in the future as in the past, then I would say that depressions are inevitable, with expanding debt. From confederation up to this year we have had only fifteen balanced budgets, with a continuously rising public debt. Even in the years when we had a balanced budget in this country our public debt still expanded, because the provinces and municipalities were forced into debt. Of course the minister may say that it is different this year, that we have a surplus, that there is no increase in the debt, and that we are actually reducing the debt. But as I pointed out, that surplus is due to sale of capital which cannot be considered, or should not be considered, as current revenue. If, during the past eighty years, it has not been possible to halt the growth of public debt, what likelihood is there that in the future we shall be able to halt its growth? Are we going to suggest that the reason we could not prevent the growth of debt in the past was that our ministers of finance were incompetent or dishonest? If we are not prepared to admit that,

The Budget-Mr. Lockhart

then I think we must admit the problems which will face the present and future ministers of finance will be far greater, because we have expanded our debt many times over. We have today many far greater problems to meet than we had in days gone by.
The Minister of Finance, like former ministers, apparently still believes or hopes that we can tax ourselves into prosperity and borrow ourselves out of debt. Doctor Cyril James, when giving evidence before the reconstruction committee, emphasized the fact that we need a new budget philosophy in this country. He said that we should have two types of budget : one to balance current expenditures and revenue, and another, which would be a long-term budget, to finance capital expenditures. He said that in all probability under that system we shall see the national debt increased by several hundreds of millions of dollars in the next 100 years. I do not know why he stopped at 100 years because, if we go into debt steadily for the next 100 years, I should imagine that we shall have increased our debt to such a size that we shall have even greater difficulty in meeting our obligations as long as we continued under the present financial system. The only sound alternative would be to finance our national projects through the Bank of Canada and pay for them through taxation at the rate of depreciation of the capital asset, so that the capital asset is paid for during its lifetime instead of the debt being passed on for future generations. When we finance as we are doing today, the debt may run on for many years, so that, when the final payment is made, you have not only paid for the capital asset in the form of principal, but paid for it many times over in the form of interest.
In closing, I should just like to say that the budget should have embodied in it the following features:
1.	It should provide the means for maintaining an optimum development of our resources.
2.	It should provide for maintaining the purchasing power of the people at a level sufficiently high to create an effective demand or market for our production.
3.	It should provide the means for a basic income to all citizens.
4.	It should provide for meeting any deficiency in revenue by the use of national money, thereby making it possible to bring about a reduction in debt and taxation and at the same time maintain the income of the country at its highest level.
At six o'clock the house took recess.

After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: Mr. Speaker, my observations this evening will be fairly brief, and more of a general nature. It is my desire to avoid repetition as far as possible, and when the budget resolutions are before the house they will provide ample opportunity for perhaps more detailed discussion.
In presenting his budget-and I may add that, in my opinion, he presented it extremely well-the minister was optimistic in proclaiming a surplus of something over $300,000,000. I do not find myself in such an optimistic mood as that of the minister on the night he delivered his budget speech. However, as he proceeded we found him to be quite frank in admitting that the surplus of $300,000,000 odd was perhaps made up largely of the proceeds from the sale of war materials by War Assets Corporation. Two or three weeks ago, in conversation with two officials of that corporation, I asked their honest opinion about the disposal of commodities placed in their hands. One man was very frank in saying that he thought the organization had been started a year too late. He said it was already evident that markets were disappearing rapidly, because new commodities of many kinds were now appearing and this had a definite effect on the prices that could be realized from the sale of war assets. He expressed the fear that perhaps much of the materials which could have been salvaged to fair advantage might be headed for the scrap pile.
From my observations and investigations in connection with some of the airports in my own district, in regard to the machinery and other materials disposed of there, I am inclined to agree with him. I hope he is wrong, because, after all, these materials would have been of considerable value if they had been properly sold. In any event, time will tell that story. But it seems to me that the surplus of $300,000,000 might shrink rapidly as developments take place in the very near future, and I should like to give one instance to show why I make this statement. A veteran located some distance from my own city, though still in my own constituency, bought from War Assets Corporation a large quantity of material with which to build himself a small home. I believe those materials consisted of lumber, wallboard, plaster base, electrical equipment, plumbing supplies and so on. Most of it was used material; some had been taken off other buildings during the demolition of airport buildings and the like. He bought the material at open prices; he could not get it anywhere else and in his desperation, because he was in

The. Budget-Mr. Lockhart
a difficult position, lie bought these things expecting to be given fair treatment. A little later on, he claimed to me that he had been overcharged, and spoke of one item in particular, that of plaster base, for which he said he had been charged $42 per thousand. It had been taken off the walls of an air force building and had the usual nail holes and ragged edges which anyone who knows anything about such materials would' quite expect. He asked me about the price and I said, "Well, young man, there is something wrong, because the ceiling price on that commodity is $26 per thousand." I had occasion to inspect the materials, and I had to agree that it did appear as though he had been wrongly charged. So I took up the matter with War Assets Corporation here, asking that a competent inspector and valuator be sent to that job. This was done, and I want to thank the officials of the corporation for giving such prompt attention to this matter. They sent an appraiser, and I am told he was quite competent. He inspected the materials, and found that what had been stated was to a large extent actually true. Just two or three weeks ago I had a letter from this veteran expressing his deep gratitude for having received such favourable consideration. His account was reduced by a total of $600.
I say, Mr. Speaker, if an adjustment like that can be made in connection with one small lot of material our surplus of $300,000,000, which is largely accounted for by the sale of surplus war materials, might reasonably be expected to be considerably reduced. To me, this transaction smacks a little of inefficiency. I cannot understand why veterans in particular should be given that kind of treatment. This particular matter was straightened out and adjusted, but this sort of thing may have a definite effect on the actual results as far as our so-called surplus is concerned.
In his budget the minister provided some relief from income tax for those in lower income brackets, and the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdonnell) in his able speech, and also again this afternoon the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton), dealt with that phase of the matter in detail. I do not intend to deal with the statistics in this connection, because I believe that can be done more effectively in the discussion on the budget resolutions.
The war has now been over for two years, but the man on the street is far from satisfied when he sees his income tax and all other taxes continuing on a war basis. He states readily that production is rapidly falling off, a condition which he cannot understand. At 83166-200J
the same time he says that food prices are rising with equal rapidity. Many I have talked to say it is just as if the minister had handed them a crust of bread with one hand and taken it away with the other. One chap, speaking in a humorous vein, likened it to the father who paid his child one cent to go to bed, and then took it away from him after he had gone to sleep. That seems to be the general impression of the average man on the street, particularly those who struggled so hard during the years of war. It applies with marked effect in respect of the man who worked for a set salary during the war years, and did not receive any great benefit from war production.
If there is a surplus either in the amount mentioned by the minister, or in a lesser amount-and I am inclined to believe that the lesser amount is more accurate-there has been nothing set aside for those old age pensioners, who have been promised something. Neither was there anything for blind pensioners, or for aged civil servants, many of whom took it on the chin during the war years.
With the advance in the cost of living industrial workers received a cost of living bonus, and rightly so; but not the old age pensioner, the blind pensioners or aged civil servants on retirement. They had to struggle along as best they could.
Only a few days ago there was tabled in the house a return setting out the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid by way of war supplements to many types and classes; and X shall not say "all", because some seemed to be overlooked, mysteriously. For the most part those war supplements were paid to civil servants in this city and elsewhere. I am one who believes that a workman is worthy of his hire, and I do not object to that practice. If a man or woman is worth a certain amount, by all means pay it. But I would point out that certain classes of people have been totally overlooked. I feel, therefore, that perhaps if the government had been a little more fair in the matter there might not have been so much surplus in the minister's hands as he claims.
I turn now to another surplus, one which I cannot understand. The records show that in the past year there was a surplus of $11 million in the Post Office Department, and that since the outbreak of war a surplus of $42 million, approximately, is credited to that department. It is true that at one time the minister did authorize a slight reduction in parcel rates to Britain. I claim, however, that he
The Budget-Mr. Lockhart

could have done much more, and that at the present time he can, and should, do much more.
Orders in council were passed almost overnight, and this is still being done. Yesterday we had evidence which would seem to indicate that one minister passed an order in council which another minister seemed to know nothing about. Apparently it is quite easy to slide them through. How about passing an order in council cutting postal rates back to the pre-war basis. It is about time that consideration was given to that, and that we stopped talking about a false surplus. A reduction of the kind I have suggested would help everyone to meet the higher costs of living. No one would complain, because it would affect the purse of every man who has to pay ten cents more for a pound of butter.
Particularly let us make a real effort to cut in half postal rates on food parcels being sent to Britain. A surplus of $42 million has accumulated in a department which I always thought was supposed to be a non-profit branch of government; at least that has been my understanding of it in my years in the House of Commons. I may be wrong, but that has been my impression. If that $42 million is included in the 8300 million surplus, then I say it is time to hand out a portion of it to the people by way of a return to pre-war postage rates.
Hon. members have noted the effort being made by Ontario in connection with flood relief, one of the most worthy projects that could have been undertaken. I wonder if, [DOT] just for once, the federal government could not take a lead from Ontario. The province is doing a real job in this respect, and I suggest that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) confer with the Postmaster General (Mr. Bertrand) to see if something could not be done along the lines I have suggested. Let us share some of that $42 million of accumulated surplus with our friends in Britain who are starving themselves in an effort to feed starving humanity in Europe. If that effort were made, rve would certainly be doing nothing wrong, and at the same time we would help our own people by permitting them to return to a pre-war basis for postage.
I believe any effort on our part to allocate some of this accumulated money for the purpose of sending things at cheaper rates to the people in Britain would be commended by people throughout the country.
There is one further point I should like to discuss in some detail. Yesterday the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Howe) announced in the house that the government agency to provide housing for veterans has

largely failed. I would ask any lion, member this question: What is the poor veteran going to do? Speaking in a jocular fashion, the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie) said he intended to subpoena someone to attend before the public accounts committee. I am going to hold a public meeting on the ground whore forty veterans homes have been constructed, and I am wondering whether I might subpoena the minister to come down to see what the actual situation is. Some hon. member suggests that perhaps we could take the public accounts committee there and have a meeting. That might be a good idea. However, we shall have a meeting there one of these week-ends and get to the bottom of this thing. I gave the details to the minister and I must say that he appears to be trying to do all that is fair. Today I received a communication that the matter will be followed through carefully.
If these government agencies have failed, what has the veteran left to turn to? Some of our hon. friends to my left here talk about free enterprise. If they had a chance to get behind free enterprise and free enterprise is given the proper opportunity to do the job, it should be given a chance to show what it can do.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: Who is stopping them?


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: I am putting it up to the government. If the members of the C.C.F. had their way it would be certainly stopped. The veteran must have some help. The distribution of building materials is wrong. I want to say a word to the minister of reconstruction about the distribution of certain materials. The minister told us some weeks ago that the supply of nails in the country was about equal to the demand. I suppose he was referring to the nails being produced by Canadian manufacturers. I am sure the house will be astounded when I tell it that from October 1, 1946. to March 31, 1947, a total of 32.487 kegs of nails was imported into Canada from the United States. Those were in addition to the production which the minister stated was nearly equal to the demand. The value of those nails was $266,825. or approximately $8.20 per keg of 100 pounds.
I ask any hon. member to go back home and talk to his veteran friends who are trying to build homes for themselves through private contractors, perhaps doing some of the work themselves. He will find that these men are being handicapped because they cannot get lumber or nails. Last Saturday afternoon I visited an area where at least forty veterans who had saved their money were trying to

The Budget-Mr. Lockhart
build homes without any help from any government agency. I talked to twelve or filteen of these men; some of them, told me that they had their excavations in; a few had finished their foundations and some had part of the framework up. Some of these men told me that they had gone to Niagara Falls, New York, to buy five pounds of nails at ten cents a pound plus one cent a pound duty. That was all they could get. That is the story they told me. If there are the nails in the country that we have been hearing about, then there is something wrong with the distribution. I am going to see these men again on Saturday; I have written to several of them, and I want to have a group of them there so that I can tell them some of the things I have found out.
As I say, I learned about the 32,487 kegs of nails which have come into Canada in addition to what have been manufactured here. The hon. member for Frontenac-Addington (Mr. Aylesworth) had his car here and he was good enough to drive me to one or two jobs which are in progress in this city. I went to one very large job and I counted 247 kegs of nails being used. A workman told me that the original order had been for 1.000 kegs of nails. I was told the name of the local hardware man who had the order, as he supposed. I called on that local hardware man and I begged him to give me a keg each of two and a half inch and four-inch nails for a veteran who is in dire need. I will not relate the circumstances, but they would almost bring tears to your eyes, Mr. Speaker, I wanted just one keg of each size and I could not get them.
This hardware man admitted that he had tried to get the order for 1,000 kegs but someone else had got it. He told me he could not give me any nails. He admitted that that amount of nails had been concentrated on the one job. When I visited the job I found that the nails came from the Bethlehem Steel Company in the United States. I saw the nails myself. They were splendid nails and were doing a good job nailing together the hundreds of thousands of feet of lumber which were being cut up in short length for a particular purpose. Thousands of feet of lumber and tens of thousands of feet of wallboard and panel board are being used. I did not go over the entire job, but I suppose I could have found several hundred more kegs of nails.
What I maintain is that the distribution is wrong. That lumber which is being cut up will never reach veterans' homes. You cannot cut lumber up into one, two, three, four or five foot lengths and expect to use it in a veteran's home. I am appealing to someone
to try to find out whether this thing cannot be done in a more equitable way. I ask the government to try some way to channel lumber and nails into the hands of veterans or private contractors who are building homes for veterans. That is their only hope; there is nothing left. It is the last hope the veteran has. I appeal to the government not to permit the concentration of tremendous quantities of essential materials in the manner to which I have referred.
There certainly appears to be surpluses of materials in some places, and my point is that we should get behind the veteran, we should try through private enterprise to see that these goods, particularly lumber and nails, are channelled so that these homes can get under way. The veteran is up against an absolute stone wall today because he cannot get these materials.
I have no hesitation in criticizing this concentration of materials on large jobs which might just as well have not been proceeded with. I am pleading with the government to see that something be done at otace to remedy the situation. I believe there was a tinge of sadness in the minister's voice when he made his announcement; I really believe he intended to see the veteran taken care of. However, he has failed. My plea to the government is to give the veteran this last chance. Bring about the proper distribution of the essential materials and then I am sure that we shall have, through the veterans themselves, by their own resources and through the resources of private enterprise, far more homes and far better homes than we have ever had under these government housing schemes in the last two or three years.


Mr. J. E. MATTHEWS (Brandon):: Mr. Speaker. I have always admired the quality of the budget speeches and the tone of the budget debates in this house. I want to congratulate the hon. member who has just sat down (Mr. Lockhart) on the forcefulness of his speech. I have on several occasions had the pleasure of tendering my congratulations to that prince of finance ministers, the present Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley). I say without hesitation that our people are coming to realize more clearly every year our debt to the former finance minister for his able administration during the war years.
If we keep in mind that Canada's first parliament lasted only forty-three days and that the first budget speech in April, 1868, forecast an expenditure of $14 million, it is interesting to recall budget estimates for some later years. For instance, for the year ended March 31, 1915, Hon. Thomas White

The Budget-Mr. J. E. Matthews
budgeted for an expenditure of $190 million; in 1920 the same finance minister, then Sir Thomas White, budgeted for an expenditure *of $620 million; 1925, Mr. Robb, $342 million; 1930, Mr. Dunning, $360 million; 1935, Mr. Rhodes, $351 million; 1940, Mr. Dunning, $550 million; 1945, Hon. J. L. Ilsley, $5,152 million, or just ten times as much as the 1940 budget; 1946, Mr. Ilsley, $4,650 million, and in 1947, $2,750 million; and for the financial year ending March 31, 1948, our present Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) budgets for an expenditure of $2,450 million.
These figures give us some idea of the development of Canadian governmental finance since that first budget of $14 million. They also serve to make more clear the Right Hon. Mr. Ilsley's colossal task and his tremendous achievements. But time keeps rolling on, and the Ilsley mantle, so creditably worn by him, has now fallen unspotted and secure upon the capable shoulders of another man. I have seldom been as proud of any budget speech I have heard as that delivered by the present Minister of Finance in this parliament on the evening of April 29. At the very outset he struck a note of triumph, a note of confidence, a note of achievement, .yes, a note of mastery, if you will, and that mote he held right through to the finish. As ?I listened to his words of conviction and his ^acceptance of the challenge of the future; as 'I gleaned something of the growth and [DOT] expansion of this country's business as indi-[DOT]seatsed in the budget figures just quoted. I -realized1 once again how proud I ought to be, and how proud I am. of the privilege of calling myself a Canadian.
Major H. G. L. Strange, a widely known resident of western Canada, prominent in the grain trade and in research, recently returned from seven weeks spent in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland and Denmark. He has this to say:
The overwhelming impression comes over me that each one of us should utter a daily prayer of thankfulness that we are citizens of Canada with all that this great country has to offer to adults and to the future of our rising generation.
And then Major Strange, rightly or wrongly, goes on to say that hope for the future is almost disappearing in Britain and in the whole of Europe and is being replaced by a feeling of sadness and resignation. These are serious words made by a capable observer, a responsible man, and we may well pause to wonder as to the future.
We all realize that the years as they roll around bring some new experience; there is no doubt about that. During the course of my young life, I have listened to many budfMr. J. E. Matthews.!
gets, some federal, some provincial, some municipal. I have heard finance ministers roundly criticized for having ended the fiscal year with a deficit. But it is a new experience to me to hear a minister criticized for having closed the year with a substantial surplus.
I have heard shafts of ridicule showered upon a minister when he announced higher taxes, but again it is a new experience to hear him condemned when he announces lower taxes.
We all know that many a finance minister has had to run the gauntlet of opposition sniping, when he announced an increase in national or provincial debt, but again it is a novel experience to hear a minister roundly denounced when he has made a big reduction in the national debt.
I pause to ask, as I may well do, what is the score anyway? What is back of all this? What is in the minds of those who thus criticize the budget? Are we to assume, as we are compelled to do, that some opposition speakers are in reality saying to the finance minister: You should not have a surplus when we were all primed for you to announce a deficit? Are they saying to the finance minister: You have no right to lower the taxes in this country because we were confident you would have to increase them? And again, is their attitude not equivalent to saying to the finance minister: Why did you reduce the national debt? Why did you not increase the debt, thereby increasing our interest charges and thus compelling us to pay still higher taxes? Surely, Mr. Speaker, some of our opposition friends are beginning to realize the astounding absurdity of their criticisms, because the tone and calibre of many of their speeches do not lend themselves to any other interpretation than that I have just mentioned.
No one resents more than I do the fact that Hitler has compelled me to pay higher taxes. But I am thankful today to be living in a country and among people where we enjoy something-and greatest of all, our freedom- for the taxes we have to pay. It could have been different, for let us not forget that we are paying taxes to ourselves as Canadians and not to any foreign foe. It could have been different, yes, and it very nearly was different. Someone has well remarked how great civilizations of the past, such as Babylon, Crete, Egypt, Greece and Rome "went over the cliff." It is only as we get farther away from the suspense of the war days, only as more war secrets are being revealed, that we begin to realize how narrowly our own nation was saved from going over the cliff.
No, I do not like paying taxes; but when I realize that a large part of the taxes I paid last year was applied to reducing my indebtedness it takes away the sting. The Minister of

The Budget-Mr. J. E. Matthews
Finance (Mr. Abbott) collected-and this is some of the criticism-mostly from Canadian taxpayers, $352 million that he did not use. The question is, what did he do with it? Well, he did not start stepping out. He did not act the part of Canada's prodigal son and encourage this nation to spend that surplus in riotous living. No; he did with that surplus just what he should have done; he did with it what any man with ordinary horse sense should have done. He applied that surplus of $352 million to the reduction of our national debt. What does that reduction mean to the citizens of Canada? Assuming interest paid at three per cent-the government is paying that and more on an average on its victory bonds-they have in that one retirement saved the people of this country interest payments of $10,500,000 annually all down the coming years. I leave it to the Canadian people and I leave it to the good sense of my hon. friends across the way to say whether or not that was good business. Further, Canada's net indebtedness remains at $13,069 million, figures almost beyond our comprehension. Suppose we were to continue retiring the debt at the rate of $352 million a year; any school boy could tell you in thirty seconds that it would take just thirty^seven years to retire the national debt, not including interest.


Mr. JOHNSTON:: Then, according to Mr. Towers, the country would be ruined.


James Ewen Matthews: Do hon.
members not think it is about time we got started? The war left us with a legacy of freedom, but it also left us with a legacy of debt. Canadians, old and young, rich and poor, may just as well face the facts. Some scoffing references were made to the Minister of Finance having received in the last fiscal year $372 million from the sale of war material by War Assets Corporation. These sales, our critics point out, cannot be repeated in any future year, and that only resulting from such sales was a surplus on this year's business possible. I suggest that that implication is unfair because, on the other side of the ledger, there are special war expenditures which will not have to be repeated another year. The Minister of Finance was frank enough to state both sides when delivering the budget, and I suggest that his critics should be equally frank. He pointed out that $320 million were paid out in war service gratuities. He pointed out that $70 million were spent in liquidation and termination of war contracts that had to be halted when peace was declared. That amount, too, was spent. These two items alone more than offset the $372 million
received from war assets. In addition to these, there were many other large items of expenditure that will not apply in future years. Therefore I say that the argument, when analysed, is completely and overwhelmingly in favour of the minister's position.
May I remark right here that I regard it as a most creditable performance on the part of War Assets Corporation, to have turned back to the government in one year the sum of $372 million, with a lot more still to come. I confess to having been among those who at one time felt that War Assets Corporation was desperately slow in getting the wheels of distribution started. But the completion of their organization was doubtless a much bigger undertaking than most of us realized. I now want to congratulate War Assets Corporation on doing what I regard as a very fine piece of work, and I believe it is everywhere conceded that they are doing that work in the disposal of war material not only efficiently but above board.
May I digress to say that, in my experience, deputy ministers of various departments, secretaries, senior officials and all officials with very few exceptions did everything that was humanly possible in cooperating to solve the perplexing problems that were constantly arising following the period of the war. I want to extend to them, one and all, my deep appre-preeiation and sincere gratitude.
Reverting to the budget, I accord the Minister of Finance every credit for collecting our taxes and reducing our debt when times are good. The great bulk of our citizens have more money than they ever had. It is true that the cost of living has risen; nevertheless over a million persons bought Canada savings bonds last fall at a coupon interest of 2| per cent. There is also this significant fact that interest bearing deposits in the chartered banks last year amounted to $3,476 million, an increase of S600 million over the previous year. The number of accounts represented was 6,063,000. This does not include the deposits in the provincial chartered banks or in the post office savings department. If we make due allowance for several accounts carried under one name such as trust accounts, it is still safe to say that over five million of our population have savings bank deposits to their credit.
May I here refer to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdonnell), in which he deplores the fact that we have indirect and hidden taxes. I am not sure that that comes with very good
The Budget-Mr. J. E. Matthews

grace from some of those on the other side of the house. Part of the amendment reads as follows:
This house regrets that the proposals of the Minister of Finance
(a)	offer no relief from the oppressive burden of indirect and hidden taxes on staple necessities that compose the family budget, all of which taxes directly increase the cost of living;
(b)	offer no encouragement to those engaged in the development of our natural resources, especially mining and agriculture.
In that regard the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) made this pointed observation a few days ago. Many hon. members heard him. He said:
In my reading of the history of Canada, particularly its political history, I have always been under the impression that the members of the Conservative party were strong advocates of the indirect system of taxation and that the Liberal party over a long period of years had been a strong advocate of the direct system of taxation.
A big principle is introduced in the amendment, but let us see how it works out in practice. Much of the record, almost the whole record, of the Conservative party is manifest in their consistent raising of indirect or hidden taxes. We all know that. During the last Conservative regime, tariffs were raised to a startling degree. Sales taxes were raised. An excise tax of three per cent was placed on all imported goods. Taxes on lower incomes were raised; postage was raised; taxes on cheques were raised; nuisance taxes were levied and taxes on sugar were inaugurated.
Let us compare, say the fiscal year ended March 31, 1941, with that ended March 31, 1945. So far as the three chief hidden taxes are concerned, in 1941 customs duties made up 16-8 per cent of the national revenue; in 1945, only 5-37 per cent. Another hidden tax, the excise tax, represented 11-3 per cent of the national revenue in 1941. That was down to 7 per cent in 1945. Sales taxes represented twenty-three per cent in 1941 and were reduced to 9-7 per cent in 1945. The total of 51 per cent in 1941 was reduced to 22 per cent in 1945. That is the answer so far as hidden or indirect taxes are concerned. With regard to direct taxation

and I mean taxes that were not hidden-the present government came right out into the open. Income taxes and excess profit taxes, which five or six years ago formed only 28 per cent of our national revenue, now form about 60 per cent of it. There is nothing very much hidden about that; it is not nearly so hidden as is the implication in the amendment to which I have referred.
Paragraph (b) of that amendment expresses the criticism that the proposals of the budget: offer no encouragement to those engaged in the development of our natural resources, especially mining and agriculture.
This is another complaint which I am going to diagnose for a few moments. I do not pretend to know anything about mining conditions. Those were well discussed a few evenings ago by the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Bradette). But representing, as I do, Just about the best agricultural constituency in Canada-and I have seen most of them-I propose to make a few remarks along agricultural lines, keeping in mind the purport of paragraph (b) of the amendment, particularly as it applies to western Canada. I do this because I think we are all agreed that there is no more accurate measure of our financial progress than is afforded in the realm of agriculture. In the maritimes, reports from Nova Scotia indicate that the farmers of that province netted $5,000,000 more in the year ended November 30, 1946, than in the previous twelve months. The Dominion Mortgage Investment Association reports that farm mortgage debts in the three prairie provinces are now less than one-third of what they were at the end of 1937. The research department of the United Farmers of Canada, referring to Saskatchewan, announces that during the years of crop failure and low prices there was a farm debt increase in that province from an estimated $200 million in 1930 to over $600 million in 1939, despite debt, cancellations and adjustments. The research department now estimates that over two-thirds of that 1939 debt or, in other words, $400 million, was liquidated during the years 1942 to 1946. While the average debt per farm in Saskatchewan in 1939 was estimated at $4,398, the debt in 1946 was estimated at only $1,466, or less than one-third. That is certainly some accomplishment in seven years.
A statement appearing in the press a few days ago indicated that in 1946 alone Manitoba farm mortgage and agreements of sale debt was reduced by 23 per cent, and that since the end of 1937 this reduction amounts to no less than 76 per cent; certainly another great accomplishment. I am almost tempted, to remark that this accomplishment was achieved under the beneficent reign of a Liberal government. The farmers of Manitoba no longer depend entirely on the wheat crop. They are following diversified farming, largely and successfully.
I wonder if it was possibly the Ontario farmers whom the hon. member for Muskoka, Ontario had in mind when he suggested in his

The Budget-Mr. J. E. Matthews
amendment that they need encouragement. If that were his thought, then he may be right.
For instance, some Manitoba farmers came with live stock exhibits to the Toronto Royal a few months ago. The Toronto Royal is a wonderful institution and does credit in a large way to the people of Ontario. The Toronto Royal attracts to its show rings every year the cream of Canada's production from coast to coast. Notwithstanding the excellence of those dominion-wide exhibits, including, of course, many from Ontario farms, our friends from Manitoba carried off nineteen first prizes, sixteen second prizes, sixteen third prizes, fourteen fourth prizes and thirty-three others, or a total of ninety-eight prizes for live stock alone. But that is not all. Manitoba farmers at the Toronto Royal carried off also two grand championships, one reserve grand championship, one senior championship, two reserve senior championships, two junior championships, one reserve junior championship, one championship and one reserve championship. This means a total of eleven awards and ninety-eight prizes won by Manitoba exhibitors.


Mr. FRASER:: That shows that Manitoba must have had good management and good government there for years.


An hon. MEMBER:: They cannot get any nails.


James Ewen Matthews: Perhaps the Ontario farmers or those in the Muskoka district do need some encouragement after having fared so badly in the show rings.
May I add to that, Mr. Speaker, that in the field of dairy products alone Manitoba has seventy butter factories whose product last year reached a total value of $26 million. Lots of quantity, someone will say, but what about quality? Well, I will give my answer. At that same Toronto Royal a silver cup is always awarded for the highest score in dairy products, and I am informed that Manitoba exhibitors have won that cup every year w'ithout a break for over twenty years. Then just to lend a touch of sweetness, as it were, to the whole Toronto Royal performance, out of nine prizes awarded for honey exhibits last fall, Manitoba exhibitors walked away with seven.
My natural modesty almost compels me to refrain from making this further observation, that by far the largest percentage of those prizes and awards were won either in the constituency, or close to the constituency, of Brandon which I have the honour to represent in this parliament.


Mr. GIBSON (Comox-Alberni):: All
Liberals?


James Ewen Matthews: Some of them. To be serious about the matter, there is a reason for these successes; in fact, there are several reasons. First of all, there are climatic conditions, those gifts of an over-ruling Providence. Then there is the thrift, the intelligence, the vision of the farmers, their wives and families in that part of Canada. Another reason is the wisdom and the readiness with which they adapt themselves to the suggestions of the agriculture departments, both federal and provincial, which suggestions are made only after a keener, more comprehensive study of world conditions has been conducted than could possibly be made by the individual farmer. Our dominion Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) is a man wrho, from long and wide experience and from careful observation, desires to adhere strictly to the policy of stability rather than speculation. In that I thoroughly agree with him, because farming has sufficient speculation in it at any time without one asking for more. A third reason is the wise, educational and aggressive leadership given by the Brandon experimental farm, one of the best directed in Canada. A fourth reason is the contribution made and the incentive furnished, down through the years, by the summer and winter fairs held at Brandon under the auspices of the provincial exhibition of Manitoba. These Brandon fairs are among the best, and on a yearly average are probably the best, of any held west of Toronto. As a matter of fact, the name might well be changed from Brandon fair to Western Canada Royal.
So I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that paragraph (b) of the amendment deploring the fact that the budget proposals offer no encouragement to agriculture falls rather flat when reduced to its par value. The farming population of this country will judge a government by performances rather than by promises. They have done so repeatedly in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
I might go on to speak of other records made by Manitoba last year in regard to the production of raw furs, the production of paper, the production of hydro electric power, and receipts from tourist travel. I should like to add that Riding Mountain national park, located just sixty-seven miles north of Brandon, was visited in 1946 by 161,308 people, being second only to Banff and coming very close, in point of visitors, to leading every national park in Canada.
Arising from another observation made by the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario in

The Budget-Mr. J. E. Matthews
moving his amendment to the budget-and let me remark here that I always greatly enjoy his speeches-I want to point out that seventy-two new industries were established in Manitoba in 1946. This is a credit to the industrial development board of that province, but the regrettable feature is that only comparatively few of these industries were established in rural centres. Manitoba might well follow the example set by Ontario and see to it that her manufacturing establishments are located in many different centres of the province, particularly now with the advent of rural electrification. This is essential if the ultimate blighting consequences of centralization are to be avoided.
I have emphasized the points discussed so far, not because of any local colouring, except by way of illustration, but because of my belief that it would have been inexcusable had the finance minister not seen to it that our national debt -was substantially reduced during the period of abounding prosperity in 1946. I trust that even with the levying of lower taxes there may be another drastic reduction in our debt in 1947. Why? Simply because that very fact will make possible still lower taxes each succeeding year. I am absolutely opposed to excessive taxation in any form, though I was always aware that the obligations of war would remain with us long after hostilities had ceased. I am also aware that taxation can become less only when the expenses of the state are curtailed. In this respect I am glad to note the tendency to reduce along many lines, including the number of so-called experts in some government departments. I am heartily in accord with an editorial which I recently read in a leading magazine, and which concluded as follows:
This is a time for governments to do less and individuals to do more-a time for more production and less regulation-a time for converting not only the sword but the filing cabinet into the plowshare.
Therefore I am sure that to every Canadian the minister's announcement of lower taxes will be welcome. I have no doubt whatever that to have continued the recent high rates of taxation would have meant a serious set-back to this country. There is a distinct limit to the taxation a country can bear without dulling initiative, lessening production, diminishing returns and creating economic chaos. It is a healthy augury when the taxpayers have the courage and intelligence in the matter of taxes to say to any government, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further". A Canadian economist recently expressed the case in these words:
Is it wise to discourage thrift, to put a high premium on spending? Should we rob posterity

to maintain the dance of today? Saving has a social value. The loss to society would be great if saving ceased to be a virtue. We have reached the stage where the emphasis is almost entirely on spending. Will this policy bring real gains? It is very doubtful.
I am not going to discuss controls except briefly, even though they have a direct bearing upon the financial situation of Canada. That controls played a tremendously advantageous part in this country during the war no one will dispute. I hope to see controls steadily discontinued, not all at once but one by one, as speedily as conditions will warrant. This might result in some temporary dislocation of prices, but it would be only temporary, because greater production resulting from the removal of price controls would prove the best remedy for inflated prices. Give us an abundance of commodities and prices will take care of themselves. Most of the control regulations were fair and well advised. In my judgment, a few were, and still are, grotesque in their stupidity, and I shall have something to say about them later on.
In the matter of rent control, I am aware of the ruthlessness with which some property owners would have soaked tenants during and since the war years had there been no controls. I am also aware of the callous treatment accorded by some tenants to owners. I have in mind particularly cases of men and women advanced in years who in the past had demonstrated their faith in Canada by investing their surplus-often a small one, it is true-in residential property. I need not rehearse cases, as I could by the score, of the raw deals handed to elderly people who in some instances were relying upon those rentals for their livelihood. In many cases their hands were tied, and securely tied, against any rent increases. No matter that taxes were raised, that costs of maintenance were raised, costs of labour raised, costs of food and clothing raised, everything else raised; those elderly people were compelled to struggle on as best they could, with no redress. I stand for the right of any owner to have access to his own property. I am glad to see that a start, though not a very great one, has been made in this direction. I want to see regulations adopted under which proved rental injustices on either side may not be permitted longer to exist.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, may I once again tender my sincere congratulations, this time not to the finance minister but to the Canadian people, on having such a strong man guiding our financial destiny. A well known writer has said:
There may be little doubt that we as a people are going through years of decision. Yet there are many signs to give confidence that

The Budget-Mr. Mayhew
after the troubled equilibrium of these later years there is a return to a greater soundness and balance of outlook. There appears to be a deepening recognition of the fact that the government cannot create wealth, but that anything it promises in the form of a gift must be taken away in the form of a tax.
There are signs that people and government alike may be returning to the realization of the fundamental economic truth that whatever regulations may be found desirable in the public interest, the most natural and the most fruitful role of government comes from what it may be able to do to reduce all that restricts and discourages, and to assist all that may release the immeasurable potentialities that lie in free individual effort and responsibility.
With the opinions of that writer, I am in full accord.


Robert Wellington Mayhew: Mr. Speaker, evidently there is one champion from Manitoba who did not get a prize, but I am sure if it were left to this house he would be handed one right away. I rise to take part in this debate mainly for the purpose of endorsing the proposals contained in the budget speech delivered in this house on the evening of April 29 by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott). I want to congratulate him upon the manner of presenting his budget. Nearly every lion, member who has spoken has extended his congratulations, but I believe one point, which perhaps affords him the greatest compliment, has not been mentioned. When he began his speech all the seats in the house were filled, as well as those in the galleries, and they remained so until the end of the address. Many times people can find excuses for leaving the house after speeches have gone along for an hour or so. It was quite evident, however, that on this occasion people were interested in the manner in which the address was delivered, and were anxious also to find out exactly what would be contained therein.
This debate has now been in progress for over two weeks. About fifty members have taken part in it. All the heavy artillery of the three opposition groups have been firing their shells and bombs at the budget speech, but thus far they have failed to dent any of the structure or supports. In fact, it has not suffered blemish in any respect, and still retains the appeal it had when first delivered.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Watch out; there might be some delayed bombs.


Robert Wellington Mayhew: Perhaps, but that would not do much harm. From the fall of 1939 up to the present time Canadians have been diverted from their ordinary course of peace and progress, and have been operating under the uncertain conditions of war. Every bit
of strength they had was directed to one purpose, and until the bringing down of this budget we had not been able to see clearly the path ahead of us.
It remained for the Minister of Finance to give to the country an indication of where we are going, and what our responsibilties are. I have said that the people of Canada, because of war clouds and the clouds of rehabilitation, had not been able to see clearly what they had to do. But in his budget speech the minister has brought great encouragement to them. How has he done it? The first encouragement contained in his speech was the fact that there was a surplus in the last year of S360 million. Another encouraging factor was that he was able to indicate and, I believe, on a sound basis, that our national income will be increased this year by another billion dollars. I know that is an estimate, but I believe it is on fairly conservative grounds.
Let me tell the house why I say that. One reason is that the industries of Canada are now ready to spend in this year $1,700 million in new industries, new plants, the renovation of old ones and other methods to bring in greater production. Who can estimate what $1,700 million in new industries will mean to Canada? One can state safely that this will go a long way toward making effective the increase of the billion dollars.
I wonder if the labouring people in Canada do not take great comfort from the fact that there are prospects of that increase in our national revenue. Surely it should mean to them that there will be more employment in 1947 than we had in 1946. During the greater part of 1946 we were short of man-power. So that I think the minister's statement would give definite encouragement to labouring people.
I have had some opportunity of investigating what is taking place in the first quarter of this year, and I say that if the other three quarters measure up to the turn-over in the first one, the minister's estimate of an increase of a billion dollars will be too modest. In other words, I think it will be more than that amount.
I know hon. members in the opposition have attempted on various occasions to say that there was no optimism and no encouragement in the budget speech. I cannot see from what source they derive their pessimism.
There is another point I should like to mention, and that is in connection with the forecast made by the minister respecting the construction industry, one which I am sure will be greatly increased this year. The Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. The Budget-Mr. Mayhem

Howe) claims that it will be possible to build
80.000	houses in the present year, but 75.000 will be required annually to take care of our increased population.
Some seem to think Canada has been a static country. Let me point out that when I was born there were only 4,000,000 people in this dominion, whereas today there are
12.000.	000. I say that, only to show that in the lifetime of one man, in a period of sixty years, our population has increased threefold. During those sixty years there have been seventeen or eighteen when we have had no immigration. In that time three wars have taken place, although we do not take much account of the South African war. It is known, however, that there was no immigration during either world war one or world war two; in fact, there has been none to speak of since 1931. On top of that we lost
100.000	of our male population in those two wars, but in spite of it all we have gone on and we now have a population of 12,000,000 people. I maintain that in the life of our own grandsons Canada will have a population in the neighbourhood of 35.000.000 to
36.000.	000 people. We have every reason to be hopeful.
The minister was criticized for pointing out our difficulties, but he also pointed out the way we might go. We have our national debt and we know that the world around us is disturbed and unsettled. It is hard to fight against those difficulties, but the minister pointed out how we might go. I remember as a small boy learning to ride my first bicycle. I was going along a small path between two puddles. I failed to look at the path and kept my eye on the puddles, and I finally landed in the puddle. People who today are looking at our troubles-I do not mean that you should not know they are there-should know that if they keep on looking, that is where they will land up. That is where those people are trying to drive us at the present time.
I want to say a word or two about this surplus of $367,000,000 in connection with which there has been so much talk. Some hon. members have charged that the surplus last year was somewhat of a phony surplus because it was revenue which included a yield from the sale of war assets. It is apparently considered that it would have been sound accounting for the government to have set up its purchases of shells, bullets, ships, tanks and guns and other supplies of war as investments in capital assets rather than as supplies of short-lived duration which could1 only sensibly be regarded as the current inventories of war. In this more sensible light the gov-

ernment's accounts showed at the time of purchasing these supplies the total amount of their cost as an outright expenditure, and it is, therefore, in accordance with sound accounting that the revenue received from the sale of this war inventory should be treated as current revenue. I believe the hon. member for Peterborough West (Mr. Fraser) even went so far as to say that he regretted that this money had not been used to reduce the debt. May I assure the hon. member that this is exactly the result of including this item in our revenue. The surplus on the last year's operation, as he will find stated in the budget speech, resulted in a reduction in our net debt of the same magnitude. There are some hon. members who seem to think the whole surplus was obtained from the sale of war assets, but if they will turn to the bottom part of page 14 of the appendix to the budget they will find a break-down of this surplus. It will be noted that the amount received from sales by War Assets Corporation was $182,400,000, and that the remainder was made up in various ways.


Mr. HACKETT:: Will the hon. member state whether that surplus was used to purchase bonds in the hands of the Bank of Canada or bonds in the hands of the chartered or private banks?


Robert Wellington Mayhew: I do not get the meaning of the hon. member's question. It was used to reduce our debt.


John Thomas Hackett: My question was whether it was used to purchase bonds in the hands of the Bank of Canada or bonds in the hands of the chartered banks?


Mr. HARTT:: It is the same difference.


Robert Wellington Mayhew: I am sorry; I cannot answer that.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: One hon. member says it is the same difference.


Maurice Hartt: It is reducing the debt of the government.


Robert Wellington Mayhew: Another argument advanced by several hon. members is that the exemptions under the income tax should have been raised to $1,000 for single persons and $2,000 for married persons. Apart from the fact that our exemptions are now generally the highest in the English-speaking world, I would point out that the greatest benefit from raising the exemptions would go, not to the lower income groups who would be relieved of tax, but to the taxpapers remaining after the increase in the exemptions. I am informed that of the total reduction in tax that would

The Budget-Mr. Mayhew
result from this change only slightly more than one-fifth would be for the benefit of those exempted from tax; the other four-fifths would go to existing taxpayers. Viewed in this light, the argument for increased exemptions takes on a somewhat different complexion.
I think the amount of money that we were at liberty to pass on as relief to the taxpayers of Canada was spent in the most equitable way. If we had increased the exemptions to $1,000 and $2,000, the benefits to a single man earning $1,000 a year would have been exactly $29, while the benefits to a man in the higher brackets of $100,000 a year would have been $200. I give that example to show where the money would have actually gone. It would not have gone for the relief of people in the lower brackets. This whole thing wras planned to be of the greatest benefit to those who needed assistance.
I should like to refer briefly to another speech that was made by the hon. member for High Park (Mr. McMaster). The hon. member gave an interesting series of calculations in his speech. I say they are interesting because they represent an attempt to assess in brief space the amount of tax paid in total on family budgets at certain levels of income, a subject on which I am informed several large and studious books have been written. I feel I should point out to the hon. member that in his desire for conciseness he has probably overlooked the fact that the great staples of life which form the basis of every family budget-bread, milk, butter, eggs, flour, salt, fresh meats, fresh vegetables and fruits-are all completely exempt from sales tax. There again is an indication that, so far as this government is concerned, it has tried in every way possible to take the load off the people who need relief the most.
I am also informed, on the other hand, that he has considerably understated the amount of income tax reduction that will be received in a full year by married taxpayers under this income level. Such taxpayers, in place of the $18,000,000 reduction mentioned by the hon. member, will, in fact, benefit in a full year by an amount of $43,000,000, according to estimates which I believe are accurate. I would also point out that if account is taken of the family allowance, which as far as taxpayers are concerned may be regarded as in lieu of an income deduction under the income tax, then on balance the great majority of the taxpayers in the group mentioned are not paying a tax at all.
I should like to refer to an article which appeared in a reliable magazine called World Report and which gives an indication of the
taxes paid in Great Britain, the United States and Canada. A single man with an income Of $2,000, and with the new tax rate in effect, pays in Great Britain a tax of $447; in the United States, $249; in Canada, $220. A married man with one child and an income of $3,000 pays in Great Britain, $603; in the United States, $232; in Canada, $230. A married man with two children and an income of $10,000 pays in Great Britain, $3,497; in the United States, $1,810; in Canada, $1,930. Here again is the place wdiere the government has tried to take the load off the people in the low income brackets and put it on the people in the higher brackets.


Mr. GREEN:: What is the date of that magazine?


Robert Wellington Mayhew: April 29, 1947.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Do those figures take into account the state taxes in the United States?


Robert Wellington Mayhew: No.
I should like to refer to a speech made by the hon. member for Northumberland (Mr. Drope). He made a four-minute speech. I refer to it because I cannot quite understand the reasoning of some of our hon. friends opposite. The hon. member asked that the four-cent postal rate be reduced to three cents; he asked for a subsidy on butter, a subsidy on cheese and for the removal of the two-cent tax on soft drinks. In all what he asked for in that four-minute speech, for that is about all it was, would have meant a reduction of $63,000,000 odd in revenue. So I was quite pleased that he did not continue for the full forty minutes.
The hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Zaplitny) this afternoon criticized the Minister of Finance for taking off price controls through the wartime prices and trade board. He would give one the impression that all controls had been lifted by the board. But I have here a long list of commodities which are still under control, several thousand of them, mostly foodstuffs, clothing, farm machinery of all kinds, meats of all kinds, sugar, butter and so forth which shows that the main staples of life are still under control. He also intimated that we were not paying any more subsidies. But if he will look at the estimates for this year he will find that we have some $35,000,000 for subsidies and to pay for losses on bulk buying in the United States. The greater part of this amount will be used in the subsidizing of cotton and textiles.
I want to finish, Mr. Speaker, with a general word or two. Canada has one job that it

The Budget-Mr. Pearkes
must do, and it must plan to do it very soon and in a big way. I mean that Canada has to take care of those Canadian people who are unable to take care of themselves. That is a part of our programme which, regardless of what comes, we simply have to do. I do not think it matters whether a Liberal government, a Conservative government or a socialist government is in power, because the people of Canada will demand that that be done, and, in my opinion, it can best be done through cooperation between the federal and provincial governments and the existing organizations as we have them today. It is a matter of planning and cooperation.
In my first speech in the House of Commons I spoke of compulsory contributory superannuation to look after our old people. I still believe that that plan should be put into effect as soon as we can possibly do so. I think that one plan would do a great deal to settle our social problems in Canada, and I hope to see that plan in existence before I retire from public life.
On the other hand, if Canada is to look after the people who cannot look after themselves as they should-and this includes their care and hospitalization-it must have a staunch forthright programme for the development of this country. In my opinion, that programme of development can best be carried on through some direction from the dominion and provincial governments, but mainly by clearing the road and providing the proper atmosphere for private enterprise to work in. In other words, again it is a matter of cooperation between the existing agencies which we have in this country and private enterprise. Since the war, private enterprise has already shown its determination to develop Canada and all its resources; and if private enterprise is given that green light I believe that it can best be done in that way. I do not mean to say that we should give private enterprise a licence to carry on just as they will, because some of them, not all, would take advantage of the situation. But by proper encouragement the government can assist private enterprise in many ways, and it can also exert a certain control over private enterprise but not so as to harness them and prevent them from going ahead and doing the job. Our forefathers developed this country and we are extremely proud of them. There were very few of them. I think the next generation or two will do equally well if given the same opportunity.


Mr. G. R. PEARKES (Nanaimo):: Mr. Speaker, this is indeed a red-letter day for Vancouver island, that two members from that small part of Canada should have an opportunity of speaking on the same evening. I

hope, sir, that you will exercise your authority as a modern Joshua, and that you will stop the clock long enough so that the other member of the triple alliance, the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Gibson), will also be able to speak before eleven o'clock.
I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Victoria, B.C. (Mr. Mayhew) on his speech, but I am going to ask his pardon if I do not follow the lead that- he has given me in endorsing the budget speech made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott). I should like to call attention to the fact that, although he spoke for forty minutes, he did not reduce the taxes any more than did the hon. member for Northumberland, Ontario (Mr. Drope) in the four-minute speech which he gave.
I referred to the triple alliance of Vancouver island.. I want to refer to other triplets before this evening is over. During the budget speech the Minister of Finance said that the Department of National Defence had spent S376 million during the past year, which was S136 million more than was being estimated for the current year. With the armed forces now on a peacetime footing and demobilization completed, this country has a right to expect considerable reductions in the expenditures on defence. My only anxiety is whether these reductions are being made in the right place and are not such as to render ineffective the efficiency of the services. When war broke out in 1939 we were dangerously unprepared. Our navy and air force were poorly equipped; we were pathetically short in destroyers and other escort vessels, just the very type of vessel which our naval authorities had considered would be essential for the role that we should have to carry out in a major war, and as the experience of the last war showed they were correct, but we were short of these. We were also practically without aircraft or antiaircraft artillery. Our army was small, badly equipped and without munitions. With these deficiencies we are no longer concerned, except that we cannot permit the forces to drift back into conditions of stagnation and frustration such as existed in the pre-war days. The sum of $376 million spent represents only three-quarters of the amount which the then minister of national defence asked parliament to provide last year to meet what he described as the minimum requirements. A saving of $113 million is very pleasant, but one is forced to ask, has there been a change of policy? Have there been unforeseen circumstances arising during the year? As far as the latter is concerned, I think not. It has been a perfectb" normal year. The events have taken the course which they were estimated to take.

The Budget-Mr. Pearkes
Then I must ask the question, was it just bad bookkeeping which made the minister ask for $489 million, of which he required only $376 million?
With regard to the changes in policy which have been announced either in the press or in the house during the course of the year, the outstanding one is the combining of the three defence departments under one minister, and that is a sound and practical course to have followed and is in accordance with the lessons learned during the two world wars in which the armed forces of Canada have played their share. I can speak for this party when I say that the opposition approves the amalgamation of the three services under one minister of defence, because that is a course which various members on this side of the house have recommended on several occasions. Experience indicates the necessity of a central organization for defence. One of the reasons which contributed to the unpreparedness of Great Britain in 1939 was the absence of a guiding hand to formulate a unified defence policy for the three services. There was no provision to ensure that, if war came, that country would be ready in all the important aspects to meet the situation. The weakness was not remedied merely by the appointment of a minister for coordination of defence. It is now an indisputable fact that no operation of war can be carried out by one of the fighting services unaided by one or both of the others. Any weakness or failure in any one of the elements, be it sea, land or air, invariably produces a profoundly adverse effect upon the prospects of success in the other. These truths are so self-evident that they need no elaboration.
The old conception of a sea power, a land power or an air power as being in some way independent of each other is now quite obsolete. They are totally interdependent. If we have not learned that lesson now; if we must wait for some future enemy to teach it to us over again, we shall probably perish in the attempt; yet nothing in the announced proposed post-w'ar organization of the defence forces of Canada indicates that this government has learned that vital lesson or has really taken it to heart. When that lesson was applied during the war it showed conclusively that for success the command and direction of all the armed forces has to be unified at the top; there had to be unity of command, not only of all the forces of any one nation, but of all the forces of all the allied nations in each theatre of war. For each particular operation of war, whether it was the battle of the Atlantic, the landing in Normandy or the capture of Okinawa or
in any other of the Pacific islands, a task force was designed and assembled. To each such task force a commander was appointed, and to him were allotted all the armed forces needed to do the job, although these forces did include elements from all the three armed services, the ships, the transport, the aircraft, the tanks, the artillery, the infantry and all the manifold services of supply and maintenance. Until this unification of command was achieved catastrophe followed after disaster. Once this unification was brought about, victory followed victory until the final conclusion of the war. But in spite of the lessons learned at such stupendous cost, when the reorganization of the armed forces of Canada was undertaken after the war the principle of unity of planning and direction was thrown into the discard. Though the services are now under one minister, each service still retains its independence in matters of organization, training, equipment and, to a very large extent administration. Surely the logical development of that close relationship which was built up during the war between the sea, land and air forces, demands greater unification than is now given to it in this country. As a means also of giving fuller play to scientific developments a much closer amalgamation is definitely indicated.
As if existing conditions were not bad enough, a clumsy and expensive attempt has been made to achieve some sort of outward semblance of unity in the Department of National Defence by superimposing upon the navy, army and air force headquarters an enlarged civil service under a deputy minister, with associate deputies, assistants and a numerous civil staff. At the head of each service is a chief of staff. Besides these three, and of equal status, is the director general of defence research. These officers form the chiefs of staff committee whose function is to advise the government on defence policies. They are the professional military advisers of the government.
The organization of national defence in its broader aspect, which should include plans for mobilizing the nation's resources, both civil and military, remains seemingly forgotten. I might refer to it as the forgotten factor. This requires the collaboration of nearly every government department and is concerned, not only with the interrelationship of the three fighting services and their supply, with scientific research and civil defence, but also with the preparation of plans for the country's transition from peace to war. Because these problems are the concern of the government as a whole, a defence committee under the authority of the cabinet, somewhat sim-
The Budget-Mr. Pearkes

ilar to the pre-war committee on imperial defence which was established in Great Britain, is necessary. Does such a committee exist? Is it being considered?
There is, of course, a defence council, but that is an entirely different organization. By order in council P.C. 887 there has been set up a reorganized defence council. This unwieldy body has nine members, six civilian and three military. The members are:	Chairman, the
Minister of National Defence; the parliamentary assistant to the minister; the deputy minister; the chief of the naval staff; the chief of the general staff; the chief of the air staff; the director general of defence research, and the two associate deputy ministers. Its functions would seem to be to allocate the available resources between the three services and to settle questions of general administration on which a common policy is desirable. But in the absence of guidance from a broader committee, such as a defence committee, its decisions are likely to be of a hit-or-miss nature. Its duties are defined in P.C. 887 as:
to advise the Minister of National Defence on matters relating to the naval, military and air services.
I should like the house to note the limited scope which is given in that order in council to the defence council.
To come down one step in the departmental organization, each service maintains an independent staff responsible for operations, planning, training and intelligence. Thus we have an assistant chief of the naval staff, a vice-chief of the general staff, an air member for air plans and another air member for operations and training. Dealing with all the problems of manning, again each service has its own head, namely, the chief of naval personnel, the adjutant general and the air member for air personnel as well as directors of civil personnel and treasury representatives. Each of these officers is responsible for the recruiting, discipline and administration of all the officers and men of his own particular service, making uniformity and equality of treatment in matters of discipline, special allowances and pay and a host of things which affect the morale and welfare of the troops, almost impossible to achieve. As an example, there are in northern Canada today stations where the airmen receive special allowances for isolation, to which the soldiers living in the same quarters are not entitled.
Finally, there are three separate staffs provided for the equipping, accommodating and supplying of the three services. These are controlled respectively by the chief of naval administration and supply, the quarter-master

general and the master general of the ordnance, now combined in one person, and the air member for technical services. Below all these levels, the triplication of organization is continued. Each service still has its own machinery for pay, medical treatment, and many other services of administration.
The feature hardest to understand is that, despite this triple set of naval, military and air planners, trainers and administrators, thousands of civil servants are charged with the general administration of the department, and the deputy minister is the senior permanent official on the defence council. The result is that in every department of administration the responsible service heads must find their way to the minister through the labyrinth of the deputy minister's branch. The service officers are thus deprived of initiative, obstructed and hampered in the discharge of their responsibilities.
It will be obvious that this complicated organization of the Department of National Defence must be incapable of making and executing a unified and workable plan for the defence of Canada. In peace time, the money allotted for defence must be limited. Each independent service is naturally and inevitably concerned to maintain its strength as high as possible, to keep up its efficiency, to conserve its traditions, and to protect what it conceives to be its own interests. Each set of planners will plan with these things in mind, and each service will bid against the others for such funds as they feel are likely to be made available. How then can there be any coordinated plan of defence under which all funds are spent in the right proportion on ships, aircraft, tanks and the other things which are needed to carry out such plans? With the department organized as at present, every plan of defence put before the government is the work of a committee, and in the very nature of a committee it must be a compromise as between the rival claims and interests of the three services. Who, for instance, is to say what proportion of the trades and man-power generally is to be mobilized for each service if war comes, or are the services to do as they did last time and compete in the open market for the men they need? I venture to say that the man-power difficulties during world war II arose very largely because there had been no adequate pre-war organization which could assign the resources in properly balanced proportions, in the light of the country's economic position.
What authority comparable to the defence committee of Great Britain is there or was there for coordinating departmental action in

The Budget-Mr. Pearkes
preparation for war? The problem needs continuous study, not only as between the armed services and civilian requirements, but also on an interservice basis, so that in terms of man-power, weapons and equipment the resources available are distributed in properly balanced proportions. Surely the proper answer, in order to apply the great lesson of the war and bring about the necessary unification, planning and direction, is unification at the top now. It is better to make mistakes now, and in the immediate future-and it is inevitable that there will be mistakes, as there are always mistakes when you are trying out a new system-than to wait until another war comes and then attempt to correct them, because, if another war comes, there may not be an opportunity to correct them.
I know that certain writers on parliamentary procedure say it is the duty of the opposition to criticize. One could go on criticizing, the organization of the national defence department and the organization of the services, but if I can break away from the advice of those writers for a moment and treat the national defence department as something of far too great importance to this country to permit mere partisan advantages to be taken, I should feel that I was making a bigger contribution to this debate if I offered one or two constructive suggestions. I believe that the first step to bring about unification and to avoid such mistakes is the establishment of a defence committee under the authority of the cabinet ; and the second is the appointment of a single, responsible, professional adviser to the government as chief of staff of all the armed forces. Under this head the three staffs now charged with the separate planning, training and organization, would be merged into one, and would be able to produce a single unified plan of defence and to design a balanced force to carry out that plan. Likewise the triple staffs now dealing with man-power or equipment or supplies should be unified under one head instead of under three; and anyone who says they are now unified under one head does not know what he is talking about. Only in that way can man-power be properly allocated in war. In no other way can economy and efficiency be secured in the supply of equipment, clothing and all the innumerable items needed by the forces. It is essential that the minister be provided with a guiding hand to formulate and unify defence policy for the three services. For lack of such unifying influence the separate aspects of our defence tend to be examined one by one. There is no provision for any thorough examination of the
different service plans to ensure that if war comes, we shall be ready to meet it in all respects.
This weakness is not overcome by the appointment of a minister of defence. He has neither the time nor the technical training for the task. His chief concern is the administration of the services in accordance with the general policy and within the resources allotted to him. The chiefs of staff committee at present does not form a combined staff in the sense of an impartial organization which formulates plans without regard to the interest and prejudice of each particular service. You will never get that thorough unification; you will never have a proper, coordinated plan submitted to this government, until there is a chief of staff who is chief of staff of all three services.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, the office of the deputy minister, with its cumbersome organization duplicating the administrative machinery of the services and hampering every act of the service heads, must be materially reduced. The financial saving in overhead would then be enormous. This reorganization can be brought about without any one of the services losing any of its worth-while traditions or peculiarities. For generations the army has welded its different arms and regiments-the artillery, the armour, the engineers, the infantry and so on-into brigades, divisions and corps. It has done so without diminishing in any way the efficiency of the separate units within those various arms; and, having done so, the army has been able to win major battles. And this was done while the individual characteristics and esprit de corps of each arm, and even of the individual regiments were actually being fostered. The same result can and must be achieved as between the three services themselves. So far, this government's attempt to form an integrated service can be described only as having been a topsy-turvy affair. The government has said to the very young naval and air force cadets attending Royal Roads. "You must learn to work and play together." But as you advance up the military hierarchy you find seniors still working in airtight compartments and officers of middle seniority endeavouring to serve twro masters.
With reference to the policy for research, the problem here is to secure the continued and complete integration of military and scientific thought at all levels, and to ensure that, in the planning of defence research as a whole, account is taken of the scientific effort of the countiy in other fields, so that our resources may be efficiently and economically used.
The Budget-Mr. Hartt

In conclusion, I must reiterate that our defence problems cannot be viewed in isolation. We must be ready to play our part in any measure of collective defence which may be organized under the authority of the united nations, and we must maintain our machinery for collaboration in the defence of the British commonwealth.
The drastic reductions in the operational and training units, rather than in the overhead and administrative services, where they could have been made to advantage, cause grave concern as to the ability of our fighting services to fulfil those functions under the present policy of this government.


Maurice Hartt: Mr. Speaker, it is fitting that a member who has been elected in one of the constituencies of the province of Quebec should utter in the French language his first words in this House of Commons. I am glad to note, Mr. Speaker, that we have reached a stage where it is not necessary to apologize for using the French language in this house. If I take the liberty or indulge in the luxury of addressing you-
(Text):


Mr. SMITH (Calgary West):: I don't know what he says.


Maurice Hartt: If I were you I would be ashamed to admit it.


Arthur Leroy Smith: One thing I thank God for: I am not you.


An hon. MEMBER:: You could do worse.


Maurice Hartt: I would not change with my hon. friend-and he has nothing to offer, I assure him, for the exchange.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Carry on; don't be stupid.


Maurice Hartt: My hon. friend was so good as to admit his ignorance; I am glad he appreciates it.
(Translation):
Mr. Speaker, I expected to be interrupted and to hear acknowledgments of ignorance. That does not upset me in the least. I wish to pay a tribute to the French Canadians and tell them how deeply I respect their group, which has contributed so much to the formation and development of our great country, Canada. If I make bold to utter these few words in French, it is with the purpose of rebuking those who harbour prejudice and because I wish to say that Providence has blessed Canada. If our friends were willing to show more tolerance and admit that the French Canadians have been the pioneers

of this country, that they have greatly contributed to her development and have every right to what they claim, I believe that overnight the future of Canada would become greater and that we would thank God for having achieved so much progress. Mr. Speaker, I invite all hon. members of this house to visit the province of Quebec, the most liberal, hospitable and generous of all provinces, and the one which has done the most to ensure the future of Canada.
(Text):
Mr. Speaker, I regret beyond words that at this stage of our development we still have to translate speeches in this Dominion of Canada; and I sincerely regret that some of our hon. friends, who state boastfully that they do not understand, do not seem to appreciate the disservice they are doing this country.
I said a few words in French. I am sure every hon. member in the house is as keenly interested as I am in seeing today and tomorrow a greater and a more glorious Canada. We can see it; we can build it; we can edify this as an example to the world, if we but agree to be a little more tolerant, a little more understanding, and to lead a life of give and take.
I do not have to plead for the French-Canadian:	history speaks for itself. His
accomplishment as a pioneer in this country, his contributions culturally, literally and otherwise should be sufficient. Every man of good will should be happy to recognize and to appreciate the rights of this large segment of our citizens-our compatriots, if you like-* so that we may build a better and greater Canada.
I am grateful to the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Thatcher), who, I regret, is not at the moment in his seat. I applaud his splendid effort to say a few words in French. If hon. members only knew how much this effort was appreciated by the biggest ethnic group in Canada-the Frenchspeaking people-they would all make a little effort to help promote that national unity, that unity of understanding and of purpose.
I also wish to thank the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Benidickson), who is not at the moment in his seat, but who spoke beautifully in French. Let me say to him that any time he wishes he may come to Quebec, select a constituency, and be elected by acclamation.
Let me be frank, Mr. Speaker, when I say that I bad not intended to speak in the budget debate. With the modesty with which

The Budget-Mr. Hartt
I feel I must assess my efforts, I wanted my contribution to be a constructive one, one which would be helpful in the subject under discussion. I wanted to submit hard facts and cold figures. I wanted to discuss with our hon. friends on the opposite benches the mistakes they may be making. I wanted to point out to them that the present budget will go down in history as one of the most glorious. Whether they accept my interpretation or not is a matter for their subjective decisions; it is up to them. But I had thought, in my naive fashion, that even Progressive Conservatives can learn something. At least they have adopted the word "progressive".


Arthur Leroy Smith: They have forgotten more than you will ever know; but go on.


Maurice Hartt: They have adopted at least the word "progressive", and they progress like lobsters, swimming backwards. Like the Bourbons, they learn nothing and they forget nothing. They sing the song "Long, Long Ago," of the private interests.


Mrs. STRUM:: Hear, hear.


Maurice Hartt: The lady member does not know how much encouragement she gives me. I could have said more were it not that my good wife is in the gallery. I suppose that is where my deepest criticism will come from. Like the Bourbons, I say that they learn nothing and forget nothing; they keep on hooting the hoot and have been hooting ever since hooting began. What a pleasant task! What a dream! But we cannot revert to yesteryear or to yesterday. Canada is a country that is looking forward in its social, economic and political structure and the quicker our noble and good friends learn that, the better this country will be.
I was going to speak about the election in Cartier.


An hon. MEMBER:: Be careful.


Maurice Hartt: My hon. friend is invited to come down to Cartier where he will get a warm reception. I do this, not because this election is more important than anything else, but because it was unique in the history of Canada that in two former elections a certain gentleman slipped into the House of Commons, flowery as his name might have been. However I do not want to say anything unpleasant about him because he is not in the house to defend himself.
I do not want to say. though, that it was an abortion of history; it was an accident in Canadian political history. I can assure the
house with all the emphasis at my disposal that Cartier or any other place in Canada never wanted to elect a communist. I say that the phenomena of 1943 and 1945 was an accident. I think I should repeat that to every hon. member, because we cannot foresee what might happen unexpectedly and insidiously in some constituency when something that is dead keeps creeping and finally seizes the constituency in order to make this national forum a place where its propaganda can be spread.
I want to tell the house that I ran this election without bravura or without bravado. I never referred to my opponents as communists because the word communist pre-supposes some intellectual and social study such as political economy. I called them bolshevisfcs. There was nothing communist about that group. They never discussed political economy. They were never interested in the welfare of the people of Canada. They had one purpose, to create a bolsheviki Canada to serve the bolshevists of Russia. I called them spies with an ideology, spies with an excuse and a label.
The candidates who opposed them in 1943 and 1945 respectively did not emphasize that
point. They were delicate. They tried to discuss old-fashioned politics. They tried to talk to the people in the old classical way of 1895. However I took my bolshevist friends to task and here is what I found out. Due to a deficiency in our election act these people were able, whenever a general election or a byelection was being held, to concentrate on one constituency, this time Cartier. All their sympathizers from Halifax to Vancouver, from every part of the country and from every part of the city, would invade the constituency and register as boarders with residents of Cartier who were of the same mind1 and political opinion. This was particularly true of Cartier. When the enumerators came around these bolshevists were entrenched and would give their names in as residents of the constituency. Consequently they were entitled1 to vote. I call the attention of the government to that deficiency in the act and ask that it be remedied.
Then they imported their professional gangsters armed with blackjacks in one hand and the hammer and sickle in the other. If there
were negroes in the constituency who had some grievance the bolshevists would play on it and exaggerate the evil. That was true of Jews and others groups. They play on the weakness of the constituents and they make so much noise that a clear voice is not understood. They always manoeuvre to have a multiplicity of candidates, because they feel
The Budget-Mr. Hartt

that if they can split the electorate they will get a block of votes and be elected. That is what happened in 1943 and 1945. I reassure the house that at no time have the bolshevists elected representatives to this house through the communist vote of Cartier.
I want to express my grateful thanks to the leader of the Progressive Conservative party (Mr. Bracken). He was in Montreal on a Friday three weeks before the election. He was asked whether he would present a candidate, and I understand he said no, that he would not, because he did not desire to split the anti-communist vote. I am grateful to him and I want to make this public acknowledgment. I must also express my thanks to another group-I shall mention their name because I think they can take it-the C.C.F. party. The leader of that party (Mr. Coldwell) refused to be jockeyed into the position of splitting the anti-communist vote in Cartier. I want to thank them and assure them that they have rendered a service to the country. I cannot say the same for the other groups. I know Mr. Masse said he was a social crediter.


Solon Earl Low: He was not.


Maurice Hartt: I appreciate that and I accept the word of the leader of that group. He certainly was no credit.


Solon Earl Low: He was not even social credit.


Maurice Hartt: He was not even a credit to his parish. The premier of Quebec financed Mr. Masse to the tune of $30,000. He sent down men to speak from the platform and he sent along his best organizer, Mr. Paul Bouchard. The gang from St. Henri was there.
I want to say with all reverence and respect that the sisters have a right to vote. Legally they had the right to vote and they received dispensation. When they went to register they allowed their pictures to be taken. There is nothing shameful about that; they were within their rights. But on election day you could not take a picture of any one of the sisters. Rumour had it that thirty costumes were rented and that other ladies were dressed in those nuns' costumes. That is why the umbrellas appeared. On their fingers there were diamond rings, and nuns have no diamond rings. They wore toeless shoes, and nuns do not wear toeless shoes. I am sorry the hon. member for Beauharnois-Laprairie (Mr. Raymond) is not here to hear of the wonderful work that was done. I assure you that that was no credit to Canada.
The trouble is that we think of perversities only when they are about to engulf us at the time of an election. Our educational institutions and our social leaders at no time take the trouble to explain these perversities to the people, to explain this foreign system of politics. If they did so, without any name calling, but in a short and keen analysis, I am positive that we would have nothing to worry about in the future.
I want to say a few words about the budget, a few words perhaps motivated by a selfish outlook. I am new in this house, and I do want to share the glory and the honour and the respect which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) has drawn upon himself in presenting this budget. It is no ordinary compliment to him, and it is no ordinary compliment to me that I should be sitting on this side of the house when a budget is presented that shows the greatest surplus in the history of Canada since confederation. Our hon. friends opposite bemoan that fact; they probably would not have liked to see so great a surplus, not that I impute any ill will to them or that they do not wish Canada well, but for some other reason peculiarly their own-I would not call it political-they did not wish that we should have a surplus. But the figures are there and, whether you put them head down or toes up, there they are; there they remain in Canadian budgetary history, and no amount of talking will change the figures one iota.


An hon. MEMBER:: A war assets surplus.


Maurice Hartt: My hon. friends who have not the responsibility of government, how happy they arel We call it in French, "II rit jaune"; they do not laugh so happily. I remember the first great war when butter was $1.10 a pound and sugar fifty cents a pound. That did not happen in the last war, and the laughter of my hon. friends opposite is really the laughter of pain if I diagnose it aright. I would not call it hysterical, because they are gentlemen of weight, some of them overweight. But that is their attitude, their outlook. The Tories have never forgotten the pocket boroughs and the rotten boroughs. The fact remains that there is a surplus of $350,000,000. It is there and it cannot be contradicted, whether you call it capital gain or the resale of war assets or whatever you call it. There is the surplus, and the indebtedness of the country has been reduced by that amount.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: It is-


Maurice Hartt: Anything you have to say get up and say it. I do not like shadow-boxing. I see my hon. friend blush.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Blushing like a rose.

The Budget-Mr. Hartt


Maurice Hartt: My good friend from Rose-dale has the first syllable of his constituency's name properly placed, the first of which is Rose, who is placed in St. Vincent de Paul and as for the other part of the name we will put a Liberal in his seat at the next election in Rosedale.


An hon. MEMBER:: Try to do it.


Maurice Hartt: There will be no difficulty at all. Let the Tories just keep on as they are going and they will be dwindling and evaporating like exhausted volcanoes very soon.
We have reduced the national debt by $350,000,000, or by the amount of the surplus. One hon. member who posed as a great economist asked, What bonds did you retire, bonds in the hands of commercial banks or bonds in the hands of the Bank of Canada? When you pay off a debt, whether you pay it to one creditor or to another, you reduce your debt by that amount. That is elementary, so elementary that even my hon. friend can understand it. I do not mean the hon. member for Stanstead (Mr. Hackett). who wears a red tie tonight. I think he is coming our way. He could not have lived all these years in the province of Quebec and be anything else.
Then our hon. friends opposite complain of the income tax reductions. They are never satisfied. If the reductions had been less they would have said, why not more? If the reductions had been made for people in other brackets they would have said, why not reduce it somewhere else? I am a plain man, and I know that when I draw a cheque on my bank account, money goes out, and that when I make a deposit money goes in. That is plain, elementary, and my stenographer understands that, too. without having been elected for some constituency. Every newspaper, every accountant, every man that knows anything about budgeting knows that the average income tax has been reduced by fifty-four per cent, of which twenty-nine per cent is in the lower brackets. Every periodical, every newspaper, every economist admits that. But what do our hon. friends opposite say? They say, why did you not reduce the hidden taxes, the indirect taxes? It is like the boy who kills his father and pleads for mercy, being an orphan.
Hon. gentlemen opposite complain of the indirect taxes, and it was they who introduced them. They introduced the income tax. Every indirect form of tax is their baby, and now they want to lay the baby at our door. Let them bring up their own baby. I remember that we had no income tax until the first great war and I remember how prices went up. The members of the Progressive Conservative party are travelling backwards like a lobster. Suddenly they shift their position from the aristocratic group, from the money bags, those fellows who clip coupons, to the middle class. The financial critic for the opposition cried woefully:	Why did not the
middle class receive the necessary relief? Since when did I hear a Tory speak for the middle class? Why, they are now indulging in poetry, lyric poetry. Actually they have only one class and that is the exploiting class. High tariffs-that is what they want. I sympathize with them. A drowning man will clutch at a straw. They thought that by putting "progressive" on to their name they had accomplished something. The bolshevists did the same thing. They called themselves "progressive labour." The Tories call themselves "Progressive Conservatives." There is a contradiction in the name. One counterbalances the other. You cannot conserve and go forward. You have to stand still in one place. That is self-evident.
They cry for the middle class, and to cap it all, what did they do? I shall put some chocolate around it if my hon. friend likes that better. What did do? They moved an amendment. It divides itself into three parts like Gaul, and there was plenty of gall in the amendment. You remember your Julius Caesar:	Omnia Gallia in tres
paries divisa est; all Gaul is divided into three parts. And was there gall in the amendment? I submitted it to a jurist whom I consider an intelligent man. Here is what he said. The amendments, disregarding their intrinsic value, have for effect one thing. They admit that there is a fifty-four per cent reduction in the income tax. The opposition admits that, but because they are dancing the dance of long, long ago they introduce an amendment, and they say to the people of Canada in effect, there is a reduction of fifty-four per cent, but we shall move an amendment. If we win, you, the people of Canada, cannot get that reduction. There has never been anything more ridiculous in political history than in moving that amendment.
I come now to the third part of it. The refutations of the first two parts are selfevident, but there is one that I am keenly interested in, namely, the calling together of the provinces and provincial agreements. Well, who is holding out here? Tory for Tory; we have two Tory premiers, no matter what they call themselves. These Tories hold out against an understanding with the Dominion of Canada.


Mr. TIMMINS:: No.
The Budget-Mr. Hartt


Maurice Hartt: Oh, yes. If my hon. friend
has anything to say I shall listen; I want to learn. The arrangements for an interprovincial conference is a matter of Canadian importance; it is a matter of constitutional rights established and recognized by every court, including the privy council. My former colleague, Mr. Fernand Choquette, gave jurisprudence to the premier of Quebec, and said, "Here is the accusation that I throw at you. You are causing dissension in Canada and a disruption of confederation." You gentlemen were not in the Quebec legislature in 1942 when Britain stood alone, when you talked so British, when you believed so much that the destruction of Britain was a matter of a few moments, when human liberty was about to be destroyed, when that beautiful anthem which everybody sings or talks about but which everybody chooses to forget, was in the air, praising themselves for their part in the greatest moment in human history; it was at that time that the federal government called upon the provinces to relinquish certain fields of taxation, to rent them out, to give a chance to the federal government to carry on the war. The Liberal government at that time in power in Quebec said, "Take it; we will cooperate; we want to do all we can." What did Mr. Duplessis, who was a member of the legislature at that time, say? He was the leader of the opposition at that time. Had hon. members been there they would have heard Mr. Duplessis' speech. They would have heard him say that we were giving away our autonomy. It has nothing to do with autonomy. It is egomania;	that	is what it is. It	is	a mamafor his	own	aggrandisement, to	go	down in
history as the greatest French-Canadian. That may be possible for Mr. Duplessis, but when I heard the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdonnell) move his amendment and have it supported by people who are so British or Canadian I say it is something that is self-contradictory.
I do	not	know the premier	of	Ontario,but he	is one of those coy babies	who run
away and say, "Come hither." You know those coy babies, the young ones. He comes to this town and blames the Canadian government-the government that speaks for the people of Canada, for our interests-for all the troubles. He accuses them of blackmail. If you call that statesmanship; if you call that patriotism, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that there has never been a more traitorous act in this country than the two premiers of Ontario and Quebec are practising, who are trying to encroach upon the rights of the federal government. If Mr. Duplessis and Mr. Drew-


Harry Rutherford Jackman: Shocking language.


Mr. SINCLAIR (Vancouver North):: Speak up so we can hear.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: I think he must have
heard. I say that it is shocking language to say that two premiers of this country are traitors.


John Thomas Hackett: On a question of privilege or on a question of decency, I suggest that the term "traitorous" used by the hon. gentleman as applied to eminent public men holding positions of the highest trust in Canada should be withdrawn.


Maurice Hartt: Mr. Speaker, there was no
question of privilege and there is no question of privilege when an hon. member holds the floor. There may have been a point of order.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: There is in this house.


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker-


Maurice Hartt: I will withdraw the word
"traitor".


Howard Charles Green: We do not mind all this
cheap abuse of ourselves, but the word "traitor" should be withdrawn.


Maurice Hartt: I withdraw the word.


James Horace King: I understand the word
has been withdrawn.


James Sinclair: What about "cheap abuse"?


Mr. ABBOTT:: Yes; I think that should
be withdrawn.


James Sinclair: The
pot calling the kettle black.


Maurice Hartt: Seeing where it comes from I do not mind, Mr. Speaker. I withdrew and withdraw the unparliamentary word "traitorous". There is nothing in the rules of parliament which forces me not to think what I like. Hon. members can make their own guess about it. I sat for eight years in the provincial house, and I heard Ottawa being spoken of as if it were the capital of Germany, not the capital of Canada. I! resented it at the time and I said so; I repeat it here. If anybody is so touchy that he does not like Mr. Duplessis to be called to account, but would rather see Canada divided to suit his own purposes they can decorate it with any candy they like. It speaks for itself. It will go down in the annals of history. As a Canadian I feel that this man has not contributed anything to Quebec. I cannot speak intimately of the premier of Ontario, but judging him from his statements-I think somebody referred to them as a rhapsody in blue. Let me add one word, tragedy in blue.

The Budget-Mr. Hartt
The Dominion of Canada will overcome these difficulties. When the provincial treasuries begin to be empty, when no more subsidies of $20 million go to the provinces they will either have to tax or they have to come hollering to the Minister of Finance. To say that for a province to make an arrangement to rent its taxation rights to the mother parliament is an infringement of autonomy is misrepresenting the situation. Seven provinces have signed an accord, and they are satisfied. Does that say that they are not patriotic, and they do not want their autonomy just as much as the other provinces? It will have a bad effect. I do not want to play politics with the proposition.
I rose to speak tonight on another matter. The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) said to me that I was wearing my pants thin. I could not understand him at that moment, but when I read over Hansard today I could follow the proposition. I do not think he will ever make that remark again. I am susceptible to invitations.
If I could say in words what 1 have in thought about that speech which the hon. member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Jaques) made yesterday in this house, I think everybody in the house might agree with me, but I think it would make history in the Canadian parliament. I have not too much time left, but as a preface, I have never heard anything more insulting to Canada. I have never heard anything so psychopathic. I never heard any such crackpot philosophy, such a half-wit and nit-wit ideology as I heard here yesterday. I have Hansard here, and if you, sir, would allow me the time I would analyse that speech from page one to the last letter. I would analyse it from page 3086 to the last page in Hansard of May 14 where the hon. member who spoke yesterday is reported. Here is a man who consorts with the greatest enemy of the British empire. Here is a man who is consorting with the former Ku Klux Klan. Here is a man, Smith, who has been declared antiBritish and anti-semitic, who has hindered Britain to the utmost degree and the hon. member for Wetaskiwin says "I have gone to the United States to convert the Americans," and that he. succeeded. After listening to the hon. member, I would say the only thing he can do by his speeches is to repel anybody who listened to him. There was not any coherence in what he said. He knows nothing at all about the people he spoke about. He misled and misrepresented the house in that statement. He is a propagandist for which Canada has given hundreds of thousands of young lives and billions of dollars in wealth. I
do not think Canada wants that type. He objects to being called a Hitler. It is a compliment to him. I think Hitler had a little more brains. What he is looking for is publicity.
I have this copy of Hansard all marked up, and if I had the time I should like to go down the line to show you the contradictions, the inventions that this man has brought into this house, a man who has been consorting with the enemies of this country, but who says that he is a Canadian and a Christian.
I wonder where he got that appointment as a Christian apostle. I know something about this Christianity. I am no foreigner to it. We have contributed to that Christianity. There is nothing in it which is not in Judaism. [DOT] I admire the leader of the Social Credit party.
I think he is a fine and genial person. In fact, I congratulate him on his first name, Solon, it being that of. the great Greek lawgiver. I was hoping that he would live up to that name and not live down to his second name. Low. When he denied any association with Smith for his party, I admired him for it. But I am surprised: that the hon. member who spoke yesterday was not read out of the Social Credit party. He is a menace to the country, and we are not ready to spend another one hundred thousand lives and billions of dollars to devastate half the world.


Solon Earl Low: If the hon. member will show me where he is a menace to the country, we will have him read out of the party.


Maurice Hartt: I have not the time.


Solon Earl Low: Oh, you waited until five
minutes to eleven o'clock before mentioning this.


Maurice Hartt: I am willing to sit down with my hon. friend. I have great confidence in him, and I am willing to sit down and show
him that his colleagues are singing the song and the dirges of misery that were sung in the countries which are now completely exhausted and devastated;, and whose people were fed on the blood of others, people who feed on human lives.


Mr. POULIOT:: Do not discuss it with the leader of the Social Credit party alone. Let us listen to the argument.


Solon Earl Low: That is the idea.


Maurice Hartt: Let us begin at the beginning, if you will allow me to do so. The hon. member for Wetaskiwin rose and said that he intended to speak on the budget, but because he visited the United States and visited the united nations he had of necessity to change
The Budget-Mr. Hartt

his speech. But he reported nothing about the united nations in the remainder of his speech. I refer hon. members to the report in Hansard. He does say something about the anti-defamation league. Let me tell you something about the anti-defamation league. This is a Jewish institution organized in the United States. It never crossed the Canadian border and it will not cross the Canadian border, because Jewish interests in the United States are not the same as Jewish interests in Canada. We have learned to serve one God in one way, but we respect the nation that gives us asylum and gives us a home and liberty. So if an American Jew finds his interests contradictory to those of a Canadian Jew, we cannot march along together. This anti-defamation league is supposed to have given a statement which was reproduced in the Ottawa Journal:
... as saying that Jaques had addressed "nationalist" rallies in various parts of the United States recently with Gerald L. K. Smith, leader of the newly organized Christian nationalist crusade. Smith told a conference here yesterday-
That was in New York.

that the crusade's ten-point programme includes preservation of the United States as a Christian nation, exposure of communism, and the "safeguarding of America against the menace of bureaucratic fascism."
We all agree with that. The United States can have any religion it likes. So can Canada. It is the individual right of every person. It can have its ideology. It can have its own political system. What does the hon. member say?
I may say that my reply to the press locally was as follows:
The Zionist terrorists-
And so on.
Now, I ask hon. members to take Hansard. I do not want to read the whole thing. Not a word was mentioned in the first quotation about zionism or terrorism. But what does he do by that sophistry? Like a demagogue, he finishes a sentence quoting something, then interjects something else which has no relationship whatsoever to the two former quotations. The hon. member said in the house that the mob and the people do not understand. He is the only free man. The mob is not responsible and he is going to show them the way. So I say to you, first of all, the antidefamation league may also be anti-zionist.


James Horace King: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but it is eleven o'clock.


Maurice Hartt: May I adjourn the debate?


Stanley Howard Knowles: You have already spoken for forty-five minutes.


Maurice Hartt: I know that, but I want to bargain.


Mr. WEIR:: May I adjourn the debate?
On motion of Mr. Weir the debate was adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Friday, May 16, 1947
T.re house met at three o'clock.


Hon. BROOKE CLAXTON (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of personal privilege. Speaking in the house yesterday the hon. member for Beauharnois-Laprairie (Mr. Raymond) at page 3108 of Hansard cited L'Action Catho-lique of December 16 as having quoted me as saying:
(Translation):
Through its proposals, the dominion government is trying to place the provinces in such a position that they might relinquish their constitutional responsibilities.
(Text):
Had the hon. member looked at L'Action Catholique for the next day, that is the 17th of December, he would have seen a correction, showing that I did not say anything of the kind but said almost exactly the reverse. Because this is a matter of some importance, and as the hon. member based a considerable part of his speech on this translation-or mistranslation-I know he would be the first to admit his own surprise at my ever expressing the view he credited me with, and I should like to quote from L'Action Catholique for December 17, as follows:
(Translation):
It does seem that a faulty translation by a contemporary has caused us to do an injustice to Hon. Mr. Claxton. We had been sent a newspaper clipping which ascribed to the Minister of Health a statement which was the opposite of what he actually said. As a matter of fact, one of our readers assures us that he has the English text. Mr. Claxton had used the verb "discharge" which the translator rendered by the expression "se defaire" (to get rid of), instead of using the proper term "s'acquitter." The minister was asserting that the offers made by the dominion to the provinces would enable

them to discharge their obligations with respect to education and social welfare, and not to get rid of them-
And they ended their note with:
(Translation):
We are making this correction even before being requested to do so by Hon. Mr. Claxton, because it is a matter of justice.
(Text):
As it happens, I have the text of the speech referred to, as delivered in French and English. What I said in English was:
In its proposals to the provinces, the dominion government has tried to put the provinces in a position where they could properly discharge their constitutional respon sibilities. It is not centralization for the federal government to offer to pay Quebec $57 million for what was never before worth to the province more than $31 million. The dominion is trying to avoid double taxation and treat all Canada on an equal basis so as to enable every part to develop its resources and discharge its responsibilities for the education and well-being of the people.
A French translation was given to the press at the same time. It will be seen from the foregoing that what I said was actually-
Some lion. MEMBERS: Order.


Brooke Claxton: -almost exactly the
reverse of what the hon. member for Beau-harnois-Laprairie quoted me as saying.


Mr. FERGUSON:: I submit that in making a speech at this stage the minister is out of order.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: I am tired of listening to that.


Brooke Claxton: I am sure that like L'Action Catholique the hon. member for Beauharnois-Laprarie will be the first, to regret the error made.



MR. DROPE-FLOOR PRICE ON BUTTER

Robert Earle Drope: The hon. member for Victoria, B.C., (Mr. Mavhew) is reported on page 3127 of Hansard as saying that in my speech of May 8, I asked for a subsidy on butter. I wish to correct the hon. member and I refer him to page 2892 of Hansard. What I said was: If the ceiling price and rationing are to be continued, a. floor price should be put on butter.



PETITION


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, I desire to present and endorse a petition signed by Mr. John Beckett and
____________ Privilege
256,282 others. It is very short, and I would therefore ask permission to read it to the house.


James Horace King: Has the hon. member the consent of the house to read the petition?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Agreed.


Major James William Coldwell: It reads:
To the Honourable the House of Commons of Canada in Parliament assembled:
The petition of the undersigned citizens of the Dominion of Canada humbly sheweth:
That, in the opinion of your petitioners, the present standard of old age pensions is grossly inadequate to provide a life of security and dignity to the aged people of this dominion.
Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray that your honourable house .may be pleased, during the present session of parliament, to amend the Old Age Pensions Act
(a)	to provide pensions of not less than fifty dollars per month at age of sixty-five,
(b)	to eliminate the means test,
(c)	to provide, in addition to the basic pension. a cost of living supplement, invalidity supplement, and free medical, dental, optical and hospital care, and
P''ovide that all such pensions be paid
in tull from the dominion treasury.
And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.



PRIVATE BILL


[Stage Direction]
No. 206. to amend -the Act incorporating The Canadian Council of The Girl Guides Association.-Mr. Ross (St. Paul's).

[Stage Direction]
Hon. BROOKE CLAXTON (Minister of National Defence, for the Minister of National Health and Welfare) moved the first reading of Bill No. 205, to amend the War Charities Act, 1939.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs, for the Prime Minister) moved that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution:
That a joint committee of both houses of parliament be appointed and that Messrs. Benidick-son, Breithaupt, Croll, Sinclair (Ontario), Bel-zile, Beaudoin, Pinard, Lesage, Marier. Rinfret, Whitman, Ilsley, Isnor. Michaud, Maybank, Mayhew, Diefenbaker, Fulton, Hackett, Hark-
[Stage Direction]


Human Rights
ness, Hazen, Maedonnell (Muskoka-Ontario), Massey, Miller, Irvine, Jaenicke, Stewart (Winnipeg North), Hansell, Herridge be members of such committee, as far as the interests of this house are concerned, to consider the question of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the manner in which those obligations accepted by all members of the united nations may best be implemented;
And, in particular, in the light of the provisions contained in the charter of the united nations, and the establishment 'by the economic and social council thereof of a commission on human rights, what is the legal and constitutional situation in Canada with respect to such rights, and what steps, if any, it would be advisable to take or to recommend for the purpose of preserving in Canada respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms;
That a message be sent to the senate requesting that house to unite with this house for the above purpose, and select, if the senate deems advisable, some of its members to act on the said proposed joint committee.
He said; Mr. Speaker, I have the honour at this time to move on behalf of the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), who is absent from the house on a mission of devotion and duty, this resolution. I shall not repeat the words of the resolution which you have just been kind enough, sir, to declare to the house, but I do desire at once to remind the house that this is an implementation of the message contained in the address of His Excellency in the speech from the throne that a joint committee of both houses be appointed to consider what I consider to be one of the most important issues of our time.
We have had discussions in this house on many occasions on the subject of human rights and personal and fundamental freedoms in their relationship to matters of domestic concern. Since then events in a wider sphere have brought this question before us in a different form. We are to consider the subject of human rights and fundamental freedoms, not only as a Canadian problem but in relation to our obligations to other peoples, to the recently liberated peoples of the fascist states, to the awakening masses of Asia, to the citizens of our former allies whose concepts in many cases of human rights and freedoms, however tenaciously held, would seem to differ vastly from our own.
The inspiration for this international approach came in our day from what I might without extravagance term the memorable terms of the Atlantic charter. I am not going to go through the details of that charter this afternoon, as every hon. member of this house knows them as well as I do, but I will just quote:

They respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them . . .
The rest of the articles of the charter, to which I could easily refer, will be left for the discussion which may ensue.
When the united nations was formally constituted at San Francisco in April 1945-some of my hon. friends in all parts of the house were there-the very preamble of the charter set forth the supreme purpose of the united nations in the following terms-I shall quote only one paragraph because I shall be fairly hurried in my summary:
We the peoples of the united nations determined ... to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men ana women and of nations large and small . . [DOT] and for these ends . . . have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.
All through the charter, Mr. Speaker, we find the same ideal kept in the foreground.
Article 1, defining the purposes of the united nations, I need not read.
Article 13 includes this purpose among the principal functions of the united nations by providing that:
1. The general assembly shall initiate studies and make recommendations for the purpose of: (b) promoting international cooperation in the economic, social, cultural, educational, and health fields, and assisting in the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or Teligion.
Article 7 of the charter, which establishes the principal organs of the united nations, lists among them an economic and social council.
Article 55, is the basic article surrounding this debate, together will: article 56. Article 55, dealing with the subject of international economic and social cooperation, pledges the united nations to promote, inter alia:
universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex. language or religion.
Article 61 provides that: the economic and social council shall consist of eighteen members of the united nations elected by the general assembly.
Article 62 authorizes the council to initiate studies and reports with respect to the purposes assigned and in particular:
It may make recommendations for the purpose of promoting respect for and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.

Human liights
Article 68 provides that the economic and social council shall set up commissions in economic and social fields and for the promotion of human rights.
That is a brief summary, Mr. Speaker.
All freedom-loving Canadians I am sure will note with gratification that the united nations have sought faithfully to carry out the purposes laid down in the charter. Pursuant to article 68 the economic and social council has already established a commission on human rights. At its first session in London the economic and social council on February 16, 1946, defined the functions of the commission on human rights, as follows:
The work of the commission shall be directed towards submitting proposals, recommendations and reports to the council regarding:
(a)	an international bill of rights;
(b)	international declarations or conventions on civil liberties, the status of women, freedom of information and similar matters; '
(c)	the protection of minorities;
(d)	the prevention of discrimination on grounds of race, sex, language or religion.
To which at a later meeting on June 21, 1946, there was added the following:
(e)	any other matter concerning human rights not covered by items a, b, c and d.
By a further resolution on June 21. 1946, the economic and social council took steps for the compilation of a universal survey of the subject in very definite terms which are available to all hon. members.
The commission on human rights has met and organized itself and has set up several subcommissions of experts. One of these is a subcommission on freedom of information and of the press. Its function is:
-in the first instance, to examine what rights, obligations and practices should be included in the concept of freedom of information, and to report to the commission on human rights on any issues that may arise from such examination.
The other subcommission which has already been created is on the protection of minorities.
A drafting committee has already been established for the purpose of formulating a preliminary draft of an international bill of human rights in accordance with the great concepts laid down in the charter of the united nations. This draft will then be submitted to all states which are members of the united nations, for their observations, suggestions and proposals. The objective is that the proposed bill may be submitted to the general assembly of the united nations in 1948.
While no Canadian is a member of the commission on human rights, Canada is one of the eighteen nations represented on the economic and social council which created it.
83166-201*
The two members of this government who have attended and participated in the sessions of the economic and social council are the present Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin) and the present Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton), and I think we all owe them a great debt of gratitude for the work they accomplished in these deliberations.
It is obvious, Mr. Speaker, that any document so far-reaching as an international bill of rights is of great importance to the people of Canada. It is essential therefore that our Canadian representatives should have the advantage of the fullest possible expression by the Canadian parliament and the Canadian people of their views on this subject. We must be ready to consider the draft, international bill of human rights when it is referred to us.
One of the recommendations of the economic and social council adopted at the meeting in June, 1946, is as follows-and this is very important to us here:
Members of the united nations are invited to consider the desirability of establishing information groups or local human rights committees within their respective countries to collaborate with them in furthering the work of the commission on human rights.
No action along these lines has been taken in Canada.
The joint committee of both houses of parliament which by the resolution now under discussion it is proposed to establish will undoubtedly give a lead along these lines. I think it can be said with safety that our Canadian attitude would be to have voluntary committees instead of those under governmental direction or control. It is doubtful that the Canadian people would look with favour upon organizations set up under government auspices. Nevertheless it is not too soon to draw attention to the desirablity of the Canadian people giving widespread and intense study to this vital and far-reaching subject.
May I be permitted, sir, with respect, to refer to what has been said in this house . before in connection with this subject, especially by my hon. friend the member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), whom I congratulate. There are certain historic landmarks of tremendous value to us in Canada. If we as a Canadian parliament and a Canadian people are to make our appropriate contribution to the formulation of world opinion on the subject of human rights and freedom, it is well that we should briefly look back to some of the historic landmarks in mankind's progress along the road to freedom. They include-and these things are funda-
[Stage Direction]
Human Rights
mental-magna carta, the Declaration of Rights, the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act and the United States bill of rights, which was referred to in the debate in this house last year.
I shall not say very much about the fundamental doctrines of magna carta, they are so well known to every hon. member. It was an agreement wrested from a ruthless king by the barons of England; and, unfortunately, although it made the biggest contribution to this continent of any document in history, it did not make an equal contribution to the continent where it was formed. It was near the famous meadow of Runnymede you can see from the king's tower at Windsor castle that Grey wrote his famous elegy:
Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood.
The principles it declares include: freedom of the church, the limitations on the payment of interest-my friends to the far left will be glad to hear that; prohibition of the levy of taxation w'ithout consent of the general council of the nation; arranging the assembly of the council of the nation; safeguarding the property of the dead; uniformity of weights and measures, if you please, back in 1215. The /great paragraph was recited by my friend in [DOT]the house a year ago, the real vital paragraph «of magna carta:
No free man shall be taken, or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the legal judgment of his peers or the law of the land. To mo one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay justice or right.
Magna carta, as every student of history knows. was the foundation of the Petition of Right, the Declaration of Rights, of the habeas corpus and the reform bills of England. May I quote to the house the words of Alexander Hamilton, one of the greatest Americans.
The sacred rights of mankind are not to he rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature by. the hand of the Divinity itself and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.
Magna carta was the formation, the inspiration of the constitution of practically every state in the union. In the legal system of the Puritan colonies of New England we find important features of magna carta, Their deputies were instructed to frame the body of their law in resemblance to magna carta, and the very words were repeated in 1641. In 163S the colonial assembly of Maryland passed a bill to recognize magna carta as part of the law of the colony. In

the charter of liberties and privileges of New York of 1683, you also find these title deeds. In Pennsylvania, the basic law of the state was said to be a sort of magna carta. Its familiar phrases appear in the charters and constitutions of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 1687 William Penn published in Philadelphia an edition of magna carta exhorting his fellow colonists,-and I quote:-
-not to give away anything of liberty and property that at present they do enjoy, but take up the good example of our ancestors and understand that it is easy to part with or give away great privileges, but hard to gain them if they are once lost.
The American constitution was itself consciously linked with magna carta. As Lord Lothian, the former Philip Kerr, minister to Washington, said:
The tea was thrown into Boston harbour with the words of magna carta ringing in men's ears.
The American bill of rights, passed ten years after the declaration of independence, traces its pedigree back to that ancient document, and as late as 1907, forty years ago in the constitution of the new state of Oklahoma the most famous sentences were repeated in the constitution.
I want to conclude that reference with a little touch from a speech of a great American general, that friend of freedom, Eisenhower, delivered in England just before he left. He loved London and London loved him. He said:
When we consider these things,-
He was talking about these elemental things, -then the valley of the Thames draws closer to the farms of Kansas and the plains of Texas.
That is the cooperation we need today among the Anglo-Saxon peoples. I think I have dealt with that, part which has to do with the sources of freedom, but I want to say that while magna carta was the inspiration of this country, it was never observed in the historical development of my own native country. That is true.
May I say something about habeas corpus. Let me quote Dicey's law of the constitution, sixth edition, page 217:
The act, while the most important landmark in the constitutional history of England, in no sense creates any right to personal freedom, but is essentially a procedure act for improving the legal mechanism by which acknowledged right may be enforced.
And again at page 195-Dicey is the greatest authority who ever wrote on the British constitution:
It declares no principle, and defines no rights, but is for practical purposes worth a hundred articles guaranteeing constitutional liberty.

Human Rights
The bill of rights of the United States I shall leave with the house. The house knows it. but I should like to quote what was said by Mr. Jefferson. In the first place this was his first inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1801. I think the last words of the address are far more powerful than the words of the United States declaration of independence. I must say something here in a personal way. I think that the words of the United States declaration of independence are indefensible where they say that every man is entitled as of right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious that in these days of . uncertainty, in these days when nations have duties one to another, no one is entitled to free possession of life because his life may be at the service of the state. Liberty is a variable thing. On the streets of your communities, your municipalities or cities, there is interference with your liberty, and properly so. The pursuit of happiness depends on many elements. It depends on heredity, it depends on environment, it depends on political, social and economic conditions that surround one's life. There is no fundamental right to the pursuit of happiness but there is a fundamental right that one shall not be prevented from pursuing happiness.
This is what Jefferson said, in a far finer phrase, in my opinion:
Equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations,-entangling alliances with none; the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;-
And these are the lines that I really wish the house to remember:
-freedom of religion: freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected-these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
It is clear, Mr. Speaker, that the American bill of rights, like the great British charters, laid no claim to the declaration of a new law; and as a fundamental principle that may be recalled, it was rather, sir, in the words of an eminent authority, Sir Maurice Amos, in his work on the American constitution, an attempt to insure-
-that certain fundamental axioms might be placed by the constitution beyond the reach of the ordinary legislature.
This was possible in the United States because its parliamentary bodies, its congress, its state legislatures derive all their powers from the express language of a written constitution. It is possible in a country which functions under a written constitution to define and limit the powers of law-making bodies. The function of the British North America Act is to lay down which of our two parliamentary bodies, the federal or the provincial, has jurisdiction to legislate in certain fields. In theory at least, Mr. Speaker, the dominion and the provinces have their rights under their respective jurisdictions. Hence if we are to consider whether in Canada we should adopt something in the nature of a bill of rights, we must do so having regard to certain conditions.
Let us never forget that we already possess in this country the rights affirmed in magna carta on the nineteenth day of June, 1215, the declaration of rights in 1628, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, and the great body, with its sweep and scope, of common law. We can legislate with no greater authority or durability than pertains to an act of parliament. Some of the subjects commonly associated with a bill of rights are not within the jurisdiction of the federal government but have been assigned by the British North America Act to provincial jurisdiction. That is one thing this committee will of course remember.
It will be noted, Mr. Speaker, that to the extent that we may wish to deal with the subject of human rights and fundamental freedoms as domestic legislation, there is much, very much, for a select committee to consider. It may even be desirable or necessary that consultation with the provinces take place.
Just a word about France. They attempted a comprehensive constitution last May but they finished up with a brief affirmation of a fundamental principle which they have had since 1789. May I read it-it is only four lines:
The solemn affirmation of the rights and liberties of man and of the citizen consecrated by the Declaration of Rights of 1789-and the fundamental principles recognized by the laws of the Republic.
Thus, sir, we see that on second consideration the people of France regard it as wiser to avoid defining and confining in mere iteration of words those deeply' ingrained concepts of men's inherent rights, whose greatest protection is not in printed words but in mankind's sense of natural justice.
I wish to say a word or two about my native country, and this will probably shock
Human Rights
[Stage Direction]
the house. Let me say how the principles of magna carta were there betrayed. Notwithstanding magna carta of 1215, notwithstanding the Bill of Rights of 1689, the Highlanders of Scotland, after the rebellion of '45 and the battle of Drummossie Moor in April, 1746, were prohibited from wearing their native dress or playing their native music or speaking their native tongue.
An hon. MEMBER:: The government has
done that too, as far as the kilts are concerned.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Will you listen to
the Culloden oath? Probably you have never heard it before but I ask you to listen to it:
I do swear and as I shall answer to God at the great day of judgment, I have not nor shall have in my possession any gun, pistol or arm whatsoever and never use tartan, plaid, nor any part of the Highland garb, and if I do so may I be cursed in my undertakings, family and property. May I never see my wife and children, father, mother or relation. May I be killed in battle as a coward and lie without Christian burial in a strange land far from the graves of my forefathers and kindred-may all this come across me if I break my oath.


Mr. BRYCE:: Craigellach.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: This is no idle gesture. Here behind me-


An hon. MEMBER:: Is a piper.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: -is the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid). There is on record a ruling of the Court of Session in Scotland-in Edinburgh-in the year 17.46, which sentenced a Jacobite named Reid to be hanged for carrying a weapon of war in the form of a set of bagpipes.


Mr. REID:: Some would like that today.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Of course, times have *changed. Under the taxation laws of Great Britain, during the recent war, a purchase tax of 100 per cent was put on bagpipes because the government of the day ruled that it was a musical instrument and not a weapon of war.
And now I wish to leave with the house something which, I may say, is not my own, since I am only expressing opinions I have derived from history. I am being very impartial this afternoon, taking both sides of the argument. But there is something here that my friends of the name of Ross must appreciate. This is the most famous declaration of freedom, in my opinion, and I think I have read most of them in the world. Six years after the battle of Bannockburn it was passed by the Scottish parliament, in 1320. and addressed to His Holiness the Pope. There was a demand made that Robert the Bruce, who was then king, should be removed from

the kingship of Scotland. I want to quote the last four lines, and those alone, because I think the hon. member for Lake Centre will greatly enjoy them. The pride and the arrogance which this declaration contained, with the great love of liberty, make a wonderful statement:
If this prince should leave the principles he has so nobly pursued, and consent that we, or our kingdom, be subjected to the king or people of England, we shall immediately endeavour to expel him as our enemy, and as the subverter both of his own and our rights, and will make us a king-
Note that, "will make us a king".
-who will defend our liberties; but long as there shall be but one hundred of us remain alive, we will never subject us to the dominion of the English.
These are the last four lines which are worth remembering:
It is not for glory, riches, or honour, that we fight, but for that liberty which no good man will consent to lose but with his life.
That is the Scottish parliament of 1320.
I come across the seas to the dominions. Professor A. Berriedale Keith, in his "Constitutional Law of the British Dominions", at page 91, says:
True to the British tradition

Let us remember this.
-the dominion constitutions ignore entirely the question of defining the rights to be enjoyed by subjects.
That is by one of the greatest constitutional writers the world has known. If we look back, sir, we shall recall that the greatest right and privilege which the fathers of confederation sought to protect and preserve was that of remaining British subjects. If we hark back to the debates of 1865 we shall find that the great fear which drew the provinces together was that of being swallowed up in the American republic, notwithstanding its famous bill of rights. John A. Macdonald, whose father was born in my own native county of Sutherland in Scotland, and who was one of the greatest Canadians of all time-


Douglas Gooderham Ross: The hon. member did not make much use of that relationship.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Well, I am a great admirer of him; I could not be more so if I had met him myself. John A. Macdonald said:
If we are not blind to our present position, we must see the hazardous situation in which all the great interests of Canada stand in respect to the United States.
These were the early days.
1 am no alarmist. I do not believe in the prospect of immediate war. . . . Still, we can-

Human Rights
not trust to probabilities. The government and legislature would be wanting in their duty to the people if they ran any risk.
Cartier spoke, and he said that-
-the matter resolved itself into this: either we must obtain British North American confederation or be absorbed in an American confederation.
'Listen, please, to this, in the same debate. I am going to leave only one paragraph with you. It is a graphic picture presented by that dour Edinburgh Scotsman, George Brown. He was talking about the historic battles between Britain and France, and about a just settlement in Canada, and these were his words:
Here sit the representatives of the French population discussing in the French tongue whether we shall have it. . . . Here sit the children of the victor and the vanquished, all avowing hearty attachment to the British crown, all earnestly deliberating how we shall best extend the blessings of British institutions.
These were three great men speaking in a great debate.
Now I want to say a very brief word about the essential features of the international bill of rights. In considering the proposed international bill of rights and the position which will be taken by Canada in respect thereto, I believe it is necessary that we should give some thought to the nature of the rights which we seek to protect and conserve. Lord John Russell, that great- lover of liberty, notes three kinds of liberty, which I will just mention:
(1)	Civil liberty . . . the power of doing that and that only, which is not forbidden by the laws. This definition comprehends the security of person and property.
(2)	Persona! liberty . . . the power of doing that which in itself is harmless, as speaking or writing, and of which the abuse only is criminal. Religious freedom and eligibility to office may also be comprehended under this head.
(3)	Political liberty . . . the acknowledged and legal rights of the people to control their government, or to take a share in it.
Later in the same discussion, which is found in Ernest Rhys' "Growth of Political Liberty". Lord John Russell, while pointing out that civil and personal liberty have existed to a certain degree in despotic states, concludes in these words:
The only efficient remedy against oppression is for the people to retain a share of the supreme power in their own possession. This is called political liberty.
Professor Reginald Trotter-and I am sure you have all read his recent book-in his "Charters of our Freedom" comes to a similar conclusion. He says:
Freedom . . . means many things. Freedom in relation to government and law has two sides, civil liberty" and political liberty . . . Experience has shown that without political liberty, civil liberty is in danger.
We feel, sir, that in our British and American systems of democratic -parliamentary government we have a good working plan of political liberty. But I feel sure that when the question of fundamental human rights and freedoms comes to be debated by the united nations a school of thought will find expression there which will disagree profoundly with our theory that freedom depends upon our system of political democracy. It may well be, Mr. Speaker-and this is a matter for the committee to consider-that the international bill of rights, when it emerges, will fall far short of that which we as Canadians would consider desirable and even fundamentally necessary. If our conceptions of freedom are in the long run to prevail, the minimal bill of rights which is likely to emerge from the united nations assembly will require many amendments and augmentations in the years to come. For that process of spreading the spirit and the substance of freedom among other peoples we -must prepare ourselves by experience, by example and by education.
I recall a speech that I heard delivered by Field Marshal Smuts, when I was a young undergraduate, to the red-gowned students of St. Andrew's university in Scotland. He spoke on freedom:
In the long run only the spirit of international comradeship can solve the problems of freedom and of peace. But in the meantime the supreme cause has to be kept going, and to be safeguarded from all danger, till the coming of a new renaissance of the European spirit.
Just a word to the house, if I may, on the source of freedom. As one delves, as I have delved somewhat in recent months, and as my hon. friend from Lake Centre has delved for some years, into the literature of freedom, one observes two specific approaches to the subject, apparently in direct conflict with each other. One school of thought regards freedom as the state of nature and looks upon all law making as tending to restrict man's natural and original freedom. Algernon Sydney says this:
The liberties of nations are from God and nature, not from kings.
Lord John Russell, probably the greatest apostle of liberty in .many centuries, said:
What is called love of liberty means the wish that a man feels to have a voice in the disposal of his own property and in the formation of the laws by which his natural freedom is to be restrained.
The other approach seems to regard each segment of freedom as something wrested from authority.
There was a fine presentation made-and I shall not refer to it in detail at the present
Human Rights

Human Rights
It is a good thing that we of this generation should also seek to make our contribution as heirs to the common law. Perhaps our greatest contribution can be made in directing men's minds to the study of the essential principles of freedom. Let us engrave its great principle upon our monuments of marble and stone. Let us preach them from our pulpits and thunder them in the columns of our free press. Let us debate them in our deliberative assemblies until the eternal verities are enshrined in the hearts of men. But let us not delude ourselves that freedom can be created out of perishable pieces of parchment. Freedom is not a code of man-made laws. Freedom lives and abides and endures in the spirit and the soul of man.
I am going to ask the indulgence of the house-I am sorry I am-speaking so long-to tell them something of my own personal experience in obtaining a bill of rights in Canada. It will be very brief. As the house knows, I was born overseas in Scotland. I came to Canada, arriving in Halifax in 1914. I did not know a soul in that beautiful city. I waited for the cushionless upper of the colonist train which was to take me over the long seven-day trail to Vancouver. I passed through all the provinces of Canada except one. Prince Edward Island. I knew something of the history of that grand island. Although I had to pass them by, I knew that I got my bill of rights from Prince Edward Island.
I went through Nova Scotia. I knew something of the history of Nova Scotia. I knew how Sir William Alexander got a charter in 1621 and how the barons of Nova Scotia were enabled to become barons when t'he esplanade of that old castle at Edinburgh was declared to be part of Nova Scotia so that they could take titles to their lands. I remembered about the arrival of the Hector from my native county in 1773 in Pietou harbour, where my good friend, the hon. member for Pietou (Mr. McCulloch) lives. I remembered how Norman Macleod came from the same place in 1817 and lived there for thirty-one years before he went to Australia and New Zealand. I felt that Nova Scotia had given me a bill of rights.
Then I went through New Brunswick, that glorious province, probably one of the most beautiful in Canada. I knew of the loyalists who had sacrificed much to keep a deathless devotion to their sovereign. They were the forebears of magnificent people. I felt that I had a bill of rights from New Brunswick.
Then I came up to old Quebec where I saw the glorious St. Lawrence. I remembered in 83166-202
my wistful reflections how Jacques Cartier had left St. Malo in April, 1534, and how Champlain came first of all to New Brunswick and then to Quebec with his missionaries, nursing sisters, pioneers and explorers. I remembered how for one hundred and fifty years they had given us in Canada the type of settlement and government which makes it possible for us to be here in this House of Commons today. I felt that I had a bill of rights from the province of Quebec.
Then I came past this building here as a humble immigrant, never dreaming that I would be debating in this house some day with the hon. member for Lake Centre. I thought of Galt and Guelph, and I thought of Goderich, Seaforth, Huron, the Yorks and Carleton. I thought of the grand history of the Scotch people of Ontario. I went up the shores of lake Superior and I felt that Ontario had given me a bill of rights.
Then I came to Manitoba, the Red river. I saw the great country there. I remembered how it was peopled from my shire, from my county who had made up the Selkirk settlers. I remembered how there had been women with children in their arms, how other stout-hearted women had borne children in the ice and snow. They went to the Red river and through a willingness to sacrifice and to shed blood and sweat, to fight frost and storm, they held that northwest for the British crown.
Then I came to the spacious reaches of Saskatchewan where the old pioneers opened up the country far up into the northern stretches of that grand province. Many people of my race were there. I have not the time to describe all these Highlands splendid people, but I felt that I had received my bill of rights.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not many C.C.F.'s at that time.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Of course I am not making a political speech. Incidentally I believe that the mother of the hon. member for Lake Centre was sprung from one of the old Selkirk pioneers. Then I came up to Calgary and the foothills and I went down that famous stretch from Calgary to Banff, one of the most famous in the country. Alberta is a province full of education, full of religion and full of changing political ideas. I came down to Banff and that bastion of grandeur of the Rockies and its eternal sentinels of hills. Then I came to Golden, which is the real entrance to British Columbia. What a wonderful name for an entrance to a province -Golden. Then down to Revelstoke, Kam-

Human Rights

loops and Lillooet where Pauline Johnson, the great Indian poetess, wrote her famous poem, "The Trail to. Lillooet":
Sob of fall, and song of forest, come you here on haunting quest,
Calling through the seas and silence, from God's country of the west.
Where the mountain pass is narrow, and the torrent white and strong,
Down its rocky-throated canon, sings its golden-throated song.
Then to Vancouver, the queen of them all in Canada, queen of the Pacific coast. I come now, I know to the great relief of the house, to a summary and conclusion of what was intended to be an entirely neutral presentation of this question. Our confederation of four provinces was formed upon the basis of the British North America Act. That is our constitution, and our bill of rights, especially the bill of rights of the provinces now numbering nine. Canada has its charters of liberty, beginning with the Quebec Act guaranteeing the sacred rights of language and religion. Imbedded in Canadian rights are the rights of minorities. The rights of the provinces are clearly laid down in section 92 of the British North America Act and sustained in countless decisions of the privy council. Canada has her maritime rights, her prairie rights, her Pacific rights, her Ontario rights, her Quebec rights; of course they are there. Our rights in a federal state are such as are agreed upon by cooperation and consent.
Who gave us these rights in Canada? First the reformers of 1837, William Lyon Mackenzie and. Papineau in their struggle for responsible government. Secondly the fathers of confederation, Macdonald, Cartier, Brown, Tupper, Howe and McGee. It was they who gave to the people of Canada their "dominion from sea to sea". It was they who laid the foundations of this nation and "builded better than they knew". Thirdly, Mr. Speaker, rounding down from precedent to precedent, Mackenzie, the stone mason of Sarnia; Laurier, the knight of the white plume; Sir Robert Borden, with the big booming voice like the breakers on Nova Scotia shores, and our beloved leader of the present hour, Mackenzie King-all these gave greatness and stature to the nation which the founders had established.
World recognition of Canada's stature was won by the achievements of our fighting men in the first great war. Legal sanction to the accomplished fact was recorded in the historic language of the statute of Westminster, the preamble of which made clear that the principles of the statute were merely in accord with the established constitutional position of all the members of the commonwealth in relation to one another.

The statute of Westminster confirmed the free association of the members of the British commonwealth of nations.
Once again in the second great war our knights of the battle clouds, our sailors on the embattled seas, our soldiers on the battlefields of Sicily, Italy, France, Belgium and Holland, supported by the united efforts of this arsenal of the empire, this aerodrome of the united nations, raised Canada to the status of one of the world's great powers.
This new power and authority which accrued to Canada through her military and economic might was not the result of the seeking after glory or the desire to impose her will upon others. Whole-heartedly Canada subscribed to the charter of the united nations, whose high purposes are succinctly stated in articles 55 and 56. May I be permitted to quote them, because they are the kernel of this whole debate:
55.	With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, the united nations shall promote:
(a)	higher standards of living, full employment and conditions of economic and social progress and development;
(b)	solutions of international economic, social, health and related problems; and international cultural and educational cooperation; and
(c)	universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.
56. All members pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in cooperation with the organization for the achievement of the purposes set forth in article 55.
Here the united nations gave concrete expression to the ideal placed before the world by President Roosevelt in his four freedoms, and I think it might be well for us all to recall that marvellous voice over the air:
1.	The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world.
2.	The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way, everywhere in the world.
3.	The third is freedom from want, which translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world.
4.	The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will_ be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbour anywhere in the world.
- In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, it is well that Canada should play her part in drafting and proclaiming to the world an international bill

Human Rights
of rights as a guide and a direction post foi the freedom-loving peoples of the world. It is less evident that Canada, free Canada, heir to the common law, should tamper with her heritage of liberty by seeking to inscribe in statutes the freedom that is inherently ours.
My personal conception, and it is not necessarily that of my colleagues but it is my own, is that we need, far more than a bill of rights, a bill of duties for our people. What would they be? Loyalty to this grand Canadian land in every single province, and loyalty to our sovereign. The second would be comradeship, the essence of comradeship among the one and quarter millions who have come back from fighting Ihe war and saving freedom for us in Canada. The third would be unity, unity between the dominion and the provinces, unity between capital and labour, unity between provincial and federal authorities, unity between Canada and other freedom-loving countries. For the fourth, go down there and read the inscription on the national memorial, "Without peace there can be no enduring freedom; without freedom there can be no enduring peace" for your children who will be the leaders of Canada tomorrow. The duty and responsibility of this House of Commons of Canada is to lay deep and true and steadfast the foundations of a just and abiding and enduring peace for Canada. And the last one, and I trust I may not be termed irreverent, would be the application of the golden rule, the preservation in the Dominion of Canada of the eternal principles of Christianity as laid down in the sermon on the mount.
Not only are there the duties of the state to its citizens but there are the duties of the citizen to the state. The liberty of the subject is possible only within the security of the nation. Personal liberties are the treasured nurslings of liberalism. But national security, the security of the nation, against aggression, against sabotage, against treason, these are sacred trusts indeed, and they are in our keeping in this parliament of Canada. It was for these that our gallant youth fought on the seven seas, on distant battlefields, and amid the scudding clouds.
Let us by tolerance, by prudence, by patience, by mutual understanding build, ever higher and wider, our national structure of freedom, the expression of the very soul and spirit of our Canadian people.
Canada has never been behind in asserting her willingness to defend the right as God gave her to see the right. Let us carry on in peace as in war, in the spirit of service to humanity. The stern sense of duty which led 83166-202J
Canada into the forefront of the battle for freedom found expression in the development of our owm land. The hardy pioneers conquered the wilderness, laid low the forests and brought the plains into fertility. Let us be worthy of these gallant settlers of long ago and their great deeds. Let us recall them in the inspiring words of a great Canadian, John Willison:
0 generous land, 0 mighty inspiration That floods the morning of the world to be;
Thy people are the builders of a nation Lofty, benignant, free.


Mr. McLURE:: I rise to a point of order, or probably on a question of privilege. I hate to do so after listening to such a wonderful address this afternoon. But with reference to the government's motion, I have an objection that I have taken on several other occasions on similar motions. After all the talk on freedom, I find that one province, Prince Edward Island, has no representation on the committee. All other provinces are fully represented. I wish my point of order to be brought to the attention of the leader of the government.
Mr. MACKENZIE; Thank you.


John George Diefenbaker: No one could be other than deeply moved by the address to which the house has listened. No one could be other than deeply moved by the oratory displayed by my hon. friend. After all, oratory is the expression of those things that move one's emotions, coupled with the diction which all of us must congratulate the minister on possessing.
Since I cannot hope to emulate him, possibly in some things that I shall say I may perchance bring back the house from the cathedral of devotion to which my hon. friend brought it, to a practical consideration of the freedoms which recent years have shown, while the heritage of our people, have too frequently not been observed in our country.
My right hon. friend has spoken of freedom as something that is not a parchment; that parliament should become the forum for the declaration of the principles of freedom. If I understood him aright, while he asked the nations of the earth to agree, and Canada to take her place with the nations of the earth in the formulation of a great charter of world liberties, he frowned on the necessity of there being a declaration on the part of this parliament of liberties for the people within the dominion.
On a subject such as this I realize that our aim must be as far as possible to refrain from anything that might be considered partisan, and so I shall, but, before I am through, I shall have to point out some instances in this dominion which reveal that the great prin-
Human Rights

eiples of magna carta, the Bill of Rights, the Petition of Rights and habeas corpus have been departed from in our country, have been departed from by the government across the way in such a manner that, while in theory our freedoms remain, in actuality the right of the individual to the assertion of those freedoms in the courts of our land has been denied.
First, sir, I shall deal with the international freedom bill of rights, if I may call it such, and I summarize the necessity for that bill of rights in the words recently used by Mr. Shot-well, president of the Carnegie endowment:
The effort to safeguard human rights is, in my opinion, the most fundamental of all international movements today, and also the most difficult to achieve. This judgment runs counter to popular opinion because a movement to eliminate oppression is by no means as pressing and immediate as that to eliminate war. But the menace of war cannot be removed from human affairs so long as life and liberty are imperiled by arbitrary power. The purpose of international organization must therefore be something more than a direct attack on war itself, it must reach into the processes of peace to make sure that no subtle poison is being distilled to make the resort to force seem an escape from greater ills. Thus the two central problems of international relations, the guarantee of peace and the provision for human rights, are the realities behind the confusion in international affairs today.
The minister gave us a panorama of the freedoms that we enjoy as Canadians as our heritage by reason of our being within the empire. Freedom is difficult of definition. International freedom is difficult of interpretation. International law, as the years go by, as the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent) will admit, has changed with changing conditions. International law progresses as man's conscience demands it shall progress. International law has made advances. Only the other day I was reading Grotius and Sir Francis Bacon. These two great internationalists took the point of view that war was justified anywhere in the world, provided it was against anyone or any nation professing other than the Christian faith. Freedom of religion was not appreciated. The English nobles at Runnymede endeavoured to enunciate principles of freedom as against the king. They enunciated, too, the first known declaration of religious freedom. For the first time the Jew was entitled-and I shall not read the sections; they are sections 10 and 11-to do business in England. The minister stated that the great principles were not lived up to, and that is true. Within fifty-five years after magna carta, the Jewish race was driven from England.
As I agree that although parliament can make charters, the nation can only achieve
what is in those charters if the heart and soul of man demands the achievement of those ideals. I realize that you cannot make mankind good by legislation, but on the other hand, by legislation you can set out the ideals to which you wish men to attain. At the present time we are endeavouring internationally to set out a new set of responsibilities and duties of one nation to another under the rule of law. Declarations regarding freedom do not assure the practice of freedom; unless the right remains for the individual or the nation to have his or its rights established under law, they are but pious declarations.
Internationally we are endeavouring by easy steps, by difficult faltering steps to secure adherence to the rule of law everywhere in the world. The pathway to the future is indicated in the charter of the united nations. The united nations are striving to ensure freedom of worship and of expression, freedom from fear and want throughout the world, these being the minima of man's quest to assure and maintain the dignity of the human personality. There can be no freedom internationally without international order, nor can there be any international order unless there is freedom among the nations internationally.
Those of us who hope for the achievement of the rule of law realize the difficulties facing the united nations today. That idea can never foe achieved as long as a wrongdoer among the nations has the right to veto any measures being taken to bring it under the rule of law. How long within our own country would justice prevail if wrongdoers nationally were permitted to decide whether or not for their wrongdoing they would submit themselves to punishment by the courts of the land?
As regards an international bill of rights, there have been approximately one thousand recommendations submitted to the united nations committee. Concrete declarations have been made by Professor Lauterpacht of Cambridge university, by the American Bar Association, and many others. A few years ago there was a declaration in Great Britain by Lord Sankey with regard to a bill of human rights. Lately the text was drafted by the executive committee of the Committee on Human Rights. These have been drafts of rights to assure peace in the world, and no one today argues against this principle that an international bill of rights is necessary if the united nations are to discharge their tremendous task.

Human Rights


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: May I interrupt my
hon. friend. I believe there is one before the House of Lords by Lord Reading.


John George Diefenbaker: Yes. Lord Reading, son of the Marquis of Reading, finding the constitution in the United Kingdom today such that there have been interferences 'with the rights of the individual in Britain, has introduced in the House of Lords a bill of rights to cover many invasions of the kind that have taken place here in Canada.
An international bill of rights will deal with the political and economic liberty of men, with human equality, without regard to race, colour or creed. It will deal with social security everywhere in the world, because man today is beginning to realize internationally that war will result so long as the world is divided between those who enjoy a high measure of social security and those who do not.
The united nations is endeavouring to set up rights elementary in their terms, an expression of hope to all parts of the world. I welcome a committee being set up by this parliament for the purpose of having Canadians make their recommendations in order to render effective a bill of rights internationally, to be patterned in the spirit of our time.
Every one of these drafts before me seeks to establish international justice under law, international understanding and, above all, international tolerance, to which my right hon. friend referred so eloquently this afternoon. They seek to embody the principles of the great charters of Britain as well as the bill of rights of the United States. But, as my right hon. friend pointed out, an international bill of rights will not be sufficient to establish and assure rights in our country, having regard to the fact that under our system we believe that politically we have achieved a high degree of democracy. With sixty nations required to agree in order to bring about an international bill of rights, it is obvious that such a bill of rights can never assure the rights that we in our country want to establish for our people.
So far as the resolution is concerned, dealing with an international bill of rights, it has our support. I come then to the second part dealing with the establishment, or consideration for the establishment of a bill of rights for Canada, which reads:
. . . what steps, if any, would it be advisable to take or to recommend for the purpose of preserving in Canada respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
I was disappointed at the stand taken by my right hon. friend. Instead of allowing the committee to determine its course in this regard-and when he speaks he must speak for
the government-he left me with the impression that, as far as he was concerned, he was opposed to the establishment of a bill of rights for our country.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Not necessarily, no.


John George Diefenbaker: Well, that is the interpretation I placed on his words. Perhaps I might put it this way. My right hon. friend displayed less enthusiasm for a national bill of rights than he did for one internationally. In one breath he said we must have an international bill of rights to determine our rights, and, in the next, that nationally the establishment of a bill of rights or a declaration by parchment would not assure the perpetuation of the freedoms we ask for.
Last year, when he spoke in this house on May 13, as reported at page 1478 of Hansard, he left me with the idea that he was going to support a bill of rights. He said:
May I say to my hon. friend that the place for that-
That is, the bill of rights.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: No, the declaration of rights.


John George Diefenbaker: is not in connection with this bill.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Did I not say "declaration of rights"?


John George Diefenbaker: No, but I have no doubt that is what my hon. friend meant-Continuing:
. . . the place for it is in those terms which may be brought to reality in a year or so from now, terms which would contain a joint declaration of this parliament and sent, if necessary, for such comment as might be made upon them to the provinces of Canada. And thereby may I say with the greatest possible respect for my hon. friend, whom I deeply respect, that we shall be worthy of the traditions of this great country of ours, and worthy of the great principles of freedom of the various provinces, and so build a charter worthy of the future of this nation which we all jointly love.
That was the declaration last year, and it is far removed, as I understand it, from the statement made now by my hon. friend.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Oh, no.


John George Diefenbaker: I am glad to hear that. I realized last year, when I drafted that amendment to the Citizenship Act, that it could not have a place in that act, but I submitted the amendment with a view to securing a discussion on that subject. I achieved the purpose sought, because public opinion across this country is asking parliament to bring in a bill of rights, a charter of Canadian freedoms. Within the last three weeks a petition has been signed by 501,000
Human Rights

people-and it will shortly be presented to this parliament-asking that consideration be given to the assurance of the maintenance of the great freedoms. I realize the difficulties under the British North America Act and the division of powers as between the dominion and the provinces. It was for that reason that I suggested, and now suggest, that, when this committee is set up, representatives from the various provinces be convened here, so that by joint action a comprehensive bill of rights may be evolved either by way of constitutional amendment or by statute.
When this session opened I placed a resolution on the order paper; but private members' days have been, to all intents and purposes, non-existent this session, and the resolution will not come up for discussion. I drafted a bill of rights in order to give a lead in this regard so that a committee would have something upon which to base discussion of the subject, but I did not introduce it because of my desire to secure joint action on the part of all parties in this house. This is not a political or partisan matter. It is one that, in order that success may be achieved, must have the support and cooperation of hon. members in all parts of this house and of the provinces of this dominion. The bill of rights I had drafted would have provided the assurance to Canadians, without regard to race or creed, of the following ^freedoms:
I. Freedom of religion.
'2. Freedom of speech.
3.	Freedom of assembly.
4.	Freedom from wrongful interference by the state; and by that I mean freedom from unreasonable interference with person, home, reputation, activities and property of the individual.
5.	Freedom from arbitrary detention and in particular that habeas corpus shall not be suspended or abrogated except by parliament.
6.	The right of everyone to have his case determined without undue delay and assuring everyone required to give evidence before any tribunal or commission the preservation of all constitutional safeguards and, above all, the right of the individual to be represented by counsel.
My right hon. friend the Secretary of State for External Affairs shakes his head. In Great Britain the Marquis of Reading has introduced a bill of rights, and that is one of the things which he demands, without which there cannot be freedom. There would also be provided;
7.	The right of equal protection for all against arbitrary discrimination in the provisions and applications of law because of race, religion or any other reason.
Those were the political freedoms that [DOT] I would have placed in a bill of rights. In addition to those, there would, of course, be

social freedoms, if I may call them such, assuring educational, property and social security rights.
My right hon. friend says that the great danger in listing rights is that if you do not list every one of them the court might, in its wisdom, determine that because a certain right had been omitted, therefore that right is non-existent. That was why in the United States bill of rights a saving clause was added 

which we would have to have added to any bill of rights established in this country-as follows:
The enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
My right hon. friend says we have these rights without a bill of rights. He traced the great charters of freedom. He referred to the Quebec Act and the Constitutional Act. He told of the great crusade by William Lyon Mackenzie and Louis Papineau in 1837 for constitutional government. He omitted the Act of Union in 1841. He referred, of course, to the British North America Act. It is interesting to read what happened when the Quebec Act was introduced in the House of Lords by Lord Mansfield in 1775. It was opposed in the House of Lords by many because of the fact that it would deny the right of habeas corpus and would permit letlrcs de cachet to be carried over into this new country, and would deny trial by jury. That was the reason for the opposition, and it is interesting as one looks ahead from 1775 to 1945 to the temporary establishment in our country of a procedure akin to lettres de cachet. It was a prediction and a fear expressed in 1775 which finally had its culmination in 1945. My right hon. friend said, "What could a bill of rights do? Have we not our rights?" Yes, we have our political rights curtailing the authority of the crown. My right hon. friend said words to this effect "What did magna carta do? Was it not departed from? It was, when the king became supreme over the courts of the land. It was departed from in the days of the star chamber when men were tried behind' closed doors. The star chamber was effective. It got better results than the espionage commission in 1945. There were not so many acquittals in the star chamber as there were in the courts of this country after the espionage commission had met.
What would a bill of rights do? It would assert the right of the individual to go into the courts of this country, thereby assuring the preservation of his freedoms. These great

Human Rights
traditional rights are merely pious ejaculations unless the individual has the right to assert them in the courts of law.
A bill of rights would be a contract between the individuals of Canada and the government of Canada. It would assert the right of the individual; it would assert the right of a minority to be protected in the exercise of its rights, against the majority. It would, above all, assure that each of us would have a legal right to be heard in the courts of this country.
We have political rights; what about the individual rights? After all, denying the individual his rights denies freedom. Our British heritage gave us our national freedoms. Our individual freedoms are .maintainable only at the caprice of the government of the day. If we acknowledge the right of a government to declare the non-existence of these freedoms, while at the same time the great charters proclaim their existence, we deny those freedoms unless we permit the aggrieved individual recourse to the courts.
The difference between democratic government and authoritarian government is this, that, while democracy gives rights of the individual against the state, authoritarianism annihilates the rights of the individual. Democracy enthrones the sacredness of human dignity, while authoritarianism enthrones the power of the state.
A bill of rights must declare for this country a government of laws, not of men. And only under a government of laws can there be a full development of the human personality.
The history of our times shows that civil liberties have been seriously curtailed within the last generation. The fathers of confederation had no fear in 1867 that these rights would ever be curtailed. That is why they did not incorporate them in the British North America Act. If one reads the discussions which took place at Charlottetown and Quebec, this fact emerges, namely the acceptance on the part of the fathers of confederation of the certainty of the preservation of their individual liberties, without the necessity for their declaration.
All governments are responsible for the diminution of the freedoms. New conditions have developed. The assumption of new functions on the part of the state demands, if I may use my right hon. friend's expression, new landmarks to define the boundaries of liberty, and to restate the traditional rights of democracy. Laws and institutions must change with natural evolution. Our constitutional concepts alter.
There are some who are afraid of change, because they look on the past with unelastic reverence. I was interested the other day to
hear the hon. member for Kindersley (Mr. Jaenicke) introduce a motion to do away with appeals to the privy council, one of our landmarks. A few days later, the premier of Saskatchewan announced that he was not satisfied with a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, so that, in the endeavour to secure justice for the province of Saskatchewan, an appeal to the privy council was to be launched.


Major James William Coldwell: So long as the right is mere, why not take it, if you have a chance of winning?


John George Diefenbaker: I will not argue that. But in addition to the right, there must also have been a hope that there would be a change, because surely no province would expend the fees necessary to go to the privy council unless it hoped that the Supreme Court of Canada would be declared wrong in the decision it had made.


Major James William Coldwell: Hope springs eternal in the human breast.


John George Diefenbaker: And the hope is there only when there are those who believe that wrong has been done, and that a higher court will reverse the w'rong.
My right hon. friend dealt with the battles for freedom fought by his highland ancestors, and in doing so resorted to all the eloquence that tradition could impart to his words. But he said nothing about the necessity of fighting for freedom today.
Freedom today must be fought for, as it was in the past. Freedom is indivisible; there cannot be fractional freedom in our country. When the state is supreme over the individual, then every person must be prepared to act on instructions from the state. Then personal freedom ends. History shows that if the state plans and provides for the individual, the state must have an unchallengeable right to direct the individual as to where he must go and what he must do. And when that is done, freedom ends.
My right hon. friend said that a portion of the Declaration of Independence was not in accordance with fact in that the doctrine that *men are born free is a fallacy. Men are born to be free; they are not born free. Freedom does not mean the altering of regulations. It implies rules; it implies regulations.
My right, hon. friend dealt with the various acts in Great Britain. As I have already pointed out, those acts and those charters did not establish the rights of the individual. They restricted the sovereign power of the state. He quoted Alexander Hamilton. It is most interesting to read the debate which took
Human Rights

place at that time between Alexander Hamilton on one side and. Thomas Jefferson on the other, when the United States bill of rights was being established.
Alexander Hamilton took the view that I thought my right hon. friend took. He used these words:
I go further and affirm that bills of rights in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted, and on this very account would afford a colourable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?
Why, for instance-
Said Hamilton.
[DOT]-should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?
I thought the tenor of those remarks found expression in the address of my right hon. friend.
On the other hand, Thomas Jefferson, realizing that a federal union was being set up and that the rights of the individual had not been assured under the British charters of freedom, used these words:
A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse or rest on inference.
Answering what my right hon. friend said, that there is no need for a bill of rights as our freedoms are established, I would quote with approval Mr. Bernard K. Sandwell, as follows:
The famous declarations of liberty in England, the Magna Carta and the bill of rights, have no binding effect upon the British parliament or upon the dominion parliaments upon which its powers have devolved in the respective dominions. Canadians learned with something of a shock a short time ago that their parliament, according to an express decision of the privy council, has power to send into exile and to strip of their property any Canadian citizen whom it elects so to treat; it can probably do so only by declaring an emergency to exist, but it can make its own emergency and the exile does not have to be connected with the emergency nor does it terminate when the emergency is over.
I am not going to deal with the emergency doctrine today, because the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley) is not in his place at the moment. Mr. Sandwell sets out the fact that all government has to do today is to have a majority in parliament in order to declare an emergency, and the individual-freedoms that are interfered with in consequence may then be denied. Whatever an international bill of rights may do for Canada

as far as I can see it cannot detract from the necessity of one for our own country. We have taken our liberties for granted as Mr. Sandwell says in that article; but events of recent years have shown that they can be lost by apathy. The answer through the years by those in authority to those who would uphold freedom is to the effect that, "I have heard those same arguments before." Charles I directed those very words to John Hampden in 1628.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: He lost his head.


John George Diefenbaker: That was 300 years ago; yet the right hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs resurrected them in this house some two weeks ago in answer to a speech I had made regarding freedom. You may ask me, "Where have our rights been interfered with?" I am going to mention a few instances. What about freedom of religion? We find interference with that right under the guise of its being a provincial right. Those whose rights are interfered with, if freedom of religion be one of our charter rights, should have the right to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada to have their rights preserved and their freedoms maintained. They have not that right. I am going to ask the Minister of Justice to bring in an amendment to the Supreme Court Act to provide that when anyone has his freedom interfered with, by leave of the supreme court when he has shown to a judge of that court that there has been such interference, there shall be the right of that individual to appeal to that court. After all, if our freedoms mean anything they mean the right and the heritage of every Canadian. They are not circumscribed by territorial or other considerations.
There has been the interference with the right of freedom of the press. There was interference with the press where the press was directed what it should publish and when it should publish. When my right hon. friend says that jurisdiction to restrict the freedoms rests with the provinces I ask him to read the judgment of the supreme court in 1938 in connection with the submission regarding the Alberta press law\
Have we our freedoms when the state by order can provide for the deportation of Canadians whose only offence is their colour? Have we freedom on the part of the individual when in these days the crown's power increases and crown officials have clothed themselves with impugnity from challenge by the courts. How many of our officials may interfere with the individual's economic freedom without there being any right on the part of that

Human Rights
individual to appeal to the courts because discretion has been exercised by that official? Does that not deny those principles of Magna Carta quoted by my right hon. friend:
To no man will we deny, to no man will we delay, to no man will we sell justice or right.
If we are to maintain freedom on the part of the individual I submit that we must grant to the individual in this country the right to appeal against the jeopardy of his rights which follows closed hearings by boards and officials. British constitutional safeguards were designed to limit the absolute power of the monarch, but they do not protect the personal liberties of the individual when challenged by the state.
A bill of rights today would be a declaration delineating the field of liberty that must be reserved to the individual against continuing invasion on the part of the state. One of the first principles of freedom is that a man shall not be a judge in his own case. How many times has that been departed from within recent years when under order in council, yes, under statute as well, recourse to the courts is denied against the caprice of an order of an administrative official? We have to bring our freedoms up to date when we live in a period where the government is going into business on an ever-increasing scale, and yet. the archaic proposition remains that the individual shall have no right to proceed against the state except with the consent of the state, thereby denying the principle stated by Sir Frederick Pollock that Magna Carta established that "the king is and shall be below the law".
One of my hon. friends to my right has mentioned that there is a bill of rights in Saskatchewan. Yes, but the state bill remains supreme and is above the law courts of the country under that bill of rights in so far as the right of the individual is concerned to proceed for the invasion and infringement of his rights by the state. During the war and since, parliament went on a legislative vacation, and executive order in council is taking the place of what my right hon. friend described as a free and unfettered parliament, to such an extent that only the day before yesterday' the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) quite frankly admitted that he was unaware of an order in council which determines the rights of Canadians to the extent of millions of dollars, although it had been passed on the 17th of April last. Many orders in council still deny to the individual the right of recourse to the courts. Power in a state or in a state official without accountability to the courts permits of unequal laws being applied, and consequent injustice. Parliament has placed the power in tihe hands of the Minister
of National Revenue (Mr. McCann) to deter* mine as between individuals who shall be subject to the law and who shall not. In some statutes we have denied the principle that the rule of law must apply equally to all in our country.
You might ask, is freedom of speech interfered with or freedom of the radio? I am not going to deal with that matter this afternoon except to say this, that those freedoms are in danger when you have a public radio system and private radio stations, often operating in competition with one another, and when the right to determine disputes between them rests with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. which is both judge and litigant. It judges its own case. That is an example of the denial of private rights and a danger potentially to freedom of speech in our country.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: It can make its own laws.


John George Diefenbaker: And what about freedom of the press? I realize the circumstances under which t'he section went into the broadcasting act giving the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation the right to publish newspapers or periodicals. The statute was passed before we entered a period in our history when we were about to have a facsimile newspaper issued as a result of a broadcast over a frequency modulation network many hundreds of miles away.


John Thomas Hackett: The weeklies were suppressed for a whole fortnight in England a short time ago.


John George Diefenbaker: Yes. We have established in this country an ever-widening system of government information agencies, ever expanding in their output rather than receding, and however unintentionally those in authority would have it, the power rests there of controlling or moulding, by government propaganda, the thought and the thinking of individuals in our country. What about freedom of speech? A case where freedom of speech was interfered with during the war comes to mind, and the government had to recede from the position it took. That was in the prosecution of George Drew when he spoke, and spoke truly, in regard to Hong Kong. I remember, too, on June 22, 1943, after Miss Agnes MacPhail, a former member of this house, had spoken against the judiciary, the present Secretary of State for External Affairs made this statement in the house:
I shall direct the attention of the censors to this dispatch, and see if arrangements cannot be made that publicity will not in future be available for matters of this kind.
Human Rights

That was during the period of the war when rights were interfered with in the interests of the safety of the state, but to criticize the judiciary could, by no standard that I know of, interfere with or disrupt our nation.
I come down to 1945. The emergency powers bill was introduced in November, 1945, when an all-powerful executive was reaching out for still greater powers and asked to give to the executive the power by order in council to deport Canadians without trial and to revoke their nationality without appeal. Parliament opposed that, but it is indicative of a trend that is taking place when the power of the state continues to expand without accountability to the courts.
I come down to a more recent example, and that is in connection with the espionage commission set up under order in council passed on October 6, 1945. No one today would say that there was not in that order in council a cavalier disregard of great and basic constitutional liberties, of those liberties which my right hon. friend says are guaranteed to all our people under the charter of British peoples. Under that order in council habeas corpus was swept aside by the simple subterfuge of averring that each man held thereunder was presumed to have been in lawful custody.


Mr. GAUTHIER (Portneuf):: But they were spies.


John George Diefenbaker: Of the fifteen who were held eight have been acquitted by the courts of this land.


Pierre Gauthier: Seven were spies.


John George Diefenbaker: Does my hon.
friend believe that we should have one law for the good and a different law for the bad? That order in council was a denial of those basic principles which we cherish. Liberty under law was denied and coercion and interrogation resorted to in order to translate suspicion into proof. The individual was denied the right to counsel. The Secretary of State for External Affairs indicated that that was not very serious. Let me point out that every one of these international bills of rights which are to be in effect in British countries, in the United States, in Russia, in France and in China, declares in favour of the right of an individual to be represented by counsel and to be protected in his person from arbitrary interference or arbitrary detention and arrest, and above all, they prevent the denial of the right of the individual to test the legality of his detention. Fifteen were declared to be guilty by the royal commis-

sion and subsequent events proved that the commission was about sixty per cent wrong. That royal commission impaired or tends to impair respect for the judiciary. By the publication of the report it did irreparable harm to those whose names were mentioned before the trials, in that it said they' were guilty before they were tried. It is doing irreparable harm today to individuals who have been found not guilty, and the government has seen fit to add an addendum to the report in these words, words that smack of persecution. These are the words:
It must not be assumed that in any case the evidence before the commission and that adduced at the criminal proceedings were the same.
I abhor communism and all its works, but the added words signify an attitude that no government should display. They indicate a spirit of resentment because the courts of the country saw fit not to follow the declaration of a royal commission.
Canadians have the right not to be deprived of life, liberty or property without process of law. Should they not also have the right not to be deprived of reputations by an executive that is exasperated by the results in the courts? That addendum by the government condones the lawless enforcement of the law.
I am not going to deal any further with the matter at this time. Is there any outstanding constitutional writer who has approved what was done? The other day the Secretary of State for External Affairs called as his witness Professor Lower as an answer to me when I deprecated the possession of tremendous powers by the executive. He said, "What did Professor Lower say?" He quoted from the look, "From Colon}'- to Nation", but Professor Lower wrote another article after the completion of the book, and I have that article here. It was published in the "Fortnightly Law Journal" on March 1, 1947. I am not going to call as a witness anyone who has not been accepted as a witness by the government, but Professor Lower who has. I am reading from page 2:
Certainly government will now have a hard time convincing people that the safety of the state was endangered by the actions of a few misguided spies.
Listen to these words coming from an authority which the Secretary of State for External Affairs produced as a witness to demolish me a few days ago:
The conduct of government, from Prime Minister to royal commission, over the espionage case, bore every appearance of hysteria, when it did not bear the appearance, as unfortunately in certain quarters it did, of sheer persecution.
A little later on he asks:
Do we need a bill of rights in Canada?

Human Rights
He says:
It would seem obvious that the arbitrary experiences of the past few years have shaken our historical position of freedom, and yet the head of the government which has been in power during this period not long ago, could make a ringing declaration (over the air) in favour of liberty just as if the whole structure were as unharmed as in the days of his youth.
It is not unfair to characterize this as unawareness of the social process.
A little later on, he says:
The simple truth seems to be that there are always men in places of authority who prefer short-cuts, who are timorous and therefore avail themselves of power, who are impatient of parliamentary methods, who wish "to get things done" or who, by reason of something within themselves, some instinct for power, some egotism, actually desire to bring in authoritarian methods.
I could continue. He becomes even stronger as he proceeds. Finally, he ends up in support of the necessity of a bill of rights. He says:
The modern state has behind it a power not possessed by the Stuarts; a state police of whose conduct the ordinary citizen is unaware, just as he is unaware of the ideas which govern those who are in control of it. Such men may be in every respect estimable. They may be liberty-loving citizens. Or they may be obsessed with desire for power. They may, as police, fee! the necessity for results overruling the stumbling methods of freedom. Whatever they may be, the citizen does not know their nature or their methods. All he can be sure of is that power "grows with that it feeds on."
Then he continues in effect to say that unless something is done in this connection to establish a bill of rights for Canada the state will continue to expand to the detriment of the rights and the freedoms of the individual irrespective of the terms of the charters.
I have a few suggestions to make. The first one is that this committee should consider the advisability of the repeal of the War Measures Act which has been on the statute books since 1914. In between the first and the second wars, on several occasions in the House of Commons a declaration was made that it was no longer in effect. That act, standing as it does, constitutes an invitation to any government in the future under the emergency theory to declare an emergency to the detriment of the rights of our people.


Mr. RINFRET:: Who passed it?


John George Diefenbaker: It was passed by the Sir Robert Borden government in 1914.


An hon. MEMBER:: Shame.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: A very necessary act, too.


John George Diefenbaker: My right hon. friend says it was a very necessary act. It was necessary in the period of the war; but in the
days of peace, with the challenge that the state is making to the rights of the individual, Professor Lower supports the stand that I take, namely, that the act should be repealed.
My second suggestion is that the Official Secrets Act be considered by the committee in order to remove some of the present presumptions of guilt which deny an innocent person his full rights of defence. I suggest that the Public Inquiries Act, which was made such use of by the espionage commission, should be revamped, to the end that no longer shall the power rest in the hands of the state to bring an individual before a commission meeting behind closed doors, to hold him there and interrogate him with a view to self-incrimination, while denying him his rights. Even after the Public Inquiries Act was used by the commission, does it not strike hon. members as interesting and strange that most of those convicted at their trials were men who were not locked up at all but were men against whom proceedings were taken regularly according to law? Among those was a former member of this house and two or three others. Proceedings against them were in no way submitted to investigation or interrogation by this commission; yet in their cases convictions were obtained; whereas, when British principles were departed from, in many cases convictions were not obtained.
In the interests of our judiciary the time has come for parliament to make a declaration.- I think it is about to be made in Britain- that a royal commission dealing with matters in any way of a political nature should not have seated thereon judges of our high courts of justice.
I have dealt with the Supreme Court Act, chapter 35, 1927. I am not going over the authorities, but they are to the effect that an individual who claims his freedoms have been denied has no inherent right of appeal to the court, because no matter of monetary value is in issue. The act should be brought up to date and an alteration should be made in that regard to the end that such anomaly should be removed.
I was going to deal with one other matter but I will not. It is the question of the constitutionality of a bill of rights. I refer hon. members to the judgment to which I have already made reference, namely, a judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1938 dealing with the Alberta Press Act. It decides, as I understand the judgment of Mr. Justice Cannon, that every freedom is guaranteed to every Canadian and that when the British North America Act was passed it was never intended that any provincial authority should be
Human Rights

allowed to derogate from those freedoms which are the inherent right and heritage of every Canadian and British subject.
As far as the resolution is concerned, I support it. It holds forth the hope that we shall be able to mobilize opinion, to educate ourselves in the preservation of freedom, and to assure that posterity shall have handed down to it the rights that are ours. Some may say, "What interest have I in this matter?" Well, sir, apathy and complacency menace human liberty no less than the positive actions of those who would destroy it. Free men can destroy their rights by indifference; they can forge their own chains by apathy.
Five hundred years before Christ, Heraclitus of Ephesus set forth a principle which is as old as antiquity and as new as modernity. These are his words:
The major problem of human society is to combine that degree of liberty without which law' is tyranny W'ith that degree of law without which liberty becomes licence.
Freedom is not destroyed intentionally in many cases. It dies from misuse; its sphere is extended by proper use. It cannot be static. It is not the same today and tomorrow in a changing world, with the state ever advancing upon the rights of individuals. The principles of law that were applicable in justice fifty years ago are interpreted differently today. But the great abiding principles must be preserved. The right of the individual in his search of civil liberties is imperative.
What are civil liberties? The most sacred things of the human personality. They epitomize our belief in the dignity of the human being; they translate that dignity into rights which the individual can enjoy against the state or against other all-powerful individuals within the state. Civil liberties constitute the individual a sacred being. Civil liberties make him a sovereign in his dealings with the state, provided that he remains within the law.
There can be no civil liberties under laws that permit discrimination; there can be civil liberty only when there is, to use the words of Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, "free trade in ideas," the right of the individual to hold the view that I disagree with, so long as that individual keeps within the law and does not wish to undermine my beliefs by force.
Individual civil liberties, those that we have inherited today, guard the weak against the strong. What is needed are civil liberties by declaration of parliament which will guard the individual against the state. It might be argued that another government, another parliament, can revoke a bill of rights passed by parliament. True; but has not history shown
fMr. Diefenbaker.]
that when laws are put upon the statute books, having the support of a vast majority of the people, they stay there?
A declaration of a bill of rights in this country would b,e a positive declaration on the part of men and women of all political faiths in their belief in civil liberties. Whether the federal authority has the power or not to pass legislation respecting civil liberties, its passage would strengthen the hand of the Minister of Justice in the matter of the disallowance of any statute which would deny freedom anywhere in our country.
To be effective, a bill of rights must represent, as my right hon. friend said today, the philosophy qf the human being, and of a free people. It must deny the right of any government to interfere with my right to speak within the law; my right to serve my Maker as my conscience demands; my right to be free from the threats of a police state, whether consciously or unconsciously administered; my right to live my own life within the limits of the law, without regard to race or colour or creed; my right to belong to an unpopular minority anywhere in this country; my right to have recourse to the courts to guard me against the intrusions or the invasions of the state.
These are the rights, sir, which I hope-and I speak with feeling on the subject-this parliament and this committee will see its way clear to enunciate, to assure that every person, wherever he lives in this dominion, shall be allowed, if his rights are interfered with, to appeal to that supreme body, the Supreme Court of Canada, in order that equality of rights shall be attainable everywhere in this dominion.
I want to see a bill of rights declare the principles of liberty for all racial origins who come here and have come here because of their passion for liberty and their belief in tolerance. My right hon. friend mentioned that my mother's grandparents came to Red river with the Selkirk settlers. They came for the same reason that those who came later did so, because of intolerance and the denial of the right of the individual to have recourse to the courts of Scotland. They came to this country, as thousands since have come, because they believed that here they would find justice, righteousness and tolerance without regard to race and creed. Tolerance does not mean that I look across at my hon. friends on the other side and permit them to live and to have their view. It means that I welcome their viewpoint, even though that viewpoint is different from my own. Though we may speak different languages, all of us have the same heartfelt concept of

Privilege-Mr. Knowles
liberty. With the trend that ia taking place, having regard to the unanimity there is in this country, surely we in this parliament will join together without regard to any other consideration in a great crusade to assure, not only freedom today to every individual under the law, but freedom to those who will come after us.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVILEGE


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, on a point of
privilege I wonder if I might bring a matter to the attention of the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie). Has his attention been called to the fact that two veterans, Harry Crowe and John Crowe, Winnipeg, brothers who served overseas and whose schooling was thereby interrupted, graduated this afternoon from the university of Manitoba, both of them receiving gold medals? Would the minister join with me in congratulating these two men on their record-breaking achievement?
Right Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs):	Mr. Speaker,
I am only too proud, not only personally, but on behalf of the government, to identify ourselves with congratulations extended to these brilliant brothers. Perhaps with a certain amount of pardonable pride I might be permitted to refer to some of the courses which our department is carrying out. It is certainly with the greatest of pleasure that I identify the entire government, and indeed the house with the congratulations extended to these two brothers.
Mr. II. C. GREEN (Vancouver South): Mr. Speaker, may I add a word on behalf of the official opposition? It is a splendid thing to know that these young veterans have done so well. As a matter of fact, it has been a great inspiration to see the wonderful work done by all the veterans attending our universities. They have set a very high standard indeed.


Mr. DANIEL McIVOR (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to add my word, too. Surely this speaks well for our old alma
mater of Manitoba. It shows that it gives a thorough training, and supplies the boys capable of taking it.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 156, for the relief of Mary Winifred Joyce Dick Dunford.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 157, for the relief of Eileen Ardis Locke Thompson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 158, for the relief of Margaret Hamilton Wilson Bergeron.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 159, for the relief of Norma Marzi-telli Rudzik.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 160, for the relief of Eileen Millar De Levi.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 161, for the relief of Hilda Constance Caroline Mosley Dwyer.-Mr. May-bank.
Bill No. 162, for the relief of Louis Marcel Frigon.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 163, for the relief of Florence Nancy Maria Haworth Stewart.-Mr. May-bank.
Bill No. 164, for the relief of John Bernth Jones, otherwise known as John Berth Jones. -Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 165, for the relief of Patricia Violet Puttock Bromby.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 166, for the relief of Dorothy Hawkins Myers.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 167, for the relief of Evelyn Deltoff Moore.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 168, for the relief of Evelyn Hache Groulx.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 169, for the relief of Annie Lucy Hurteau.-Mr. Boucher.
Bill No. 170, for the relief of Evelyn Alice Lancaster Chenoweth.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill	No.	155,	for	the	relief of Marjorie
Winnifred Bearman Smeall.
Bill	No.	182,	for	the	relief of Robert
Lussier.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill	No.	183,	for	the	relief of Robert
Rosaire Loiselle.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill	No.	184,	for	the	relief of Marjorie
Evelyn MacPherson Puley.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 185, for the relief of Sarah Rafferty Jackson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 186, for the relief of Ida Berman Zatz.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 187, for the relief of Patricia Ellen Burt Williams.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 188, for the relief of Charles Alfred Michel Kelly.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 189. for the relief of Pearl Summers Slater.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 190, an act for the relief of Aime Jacques.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 191, for the relief of Grace Evelyn Smith Copeland.-Mr. Maybank.
Human Rights
[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 192, for the relief of Jessie Gertrude Noel Magee.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 193, for the relief of John Luchuck -Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 194, for the relief of Rhondda Blanche Peace Hurford Smith.-Mr. May-bank.
Bill No. 195, for the relief of Mabel Grace Mattinson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill	No.	196,	for	the	relief of Marcel
Simpson.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 197, for the relief of Marian Susan Willson Roberts.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 198, for the relief of Jean Gainfort Grossman.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill	No.	199,	for	the	relief of Evelyn
Mildred Cook Stone.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 200, for the relief of Lily Elizabeth Harris Cunningham.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill	No.	201,	for	the	relief of Mildred
Merica Ruth Goodreau Snyder.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 202, for the relief of Harry Powell. -Mr. Maybank.
Bill	No.	203,	an	act	for the relief of
Margaret Patricia Fairhurst Richards.-Mr. Maybank.

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, May 13, consideration of the motion of Mr. Sinclair (Ontario) for the second reading of Bill No. 178, respecting certain patents owned by Toronto Type Foundry Company Limited, and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Jaenicke.
James Horace King: Is the house ready for the question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Question.


James Horace King: The question is on the amendment.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS-OBLIGATIONS UNDER UNITED NATIONS CHARTER *-APPOINTMENT OF JOINT COMMITTEE
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mackenzie (for the Prime Minister) that the house go into committee on a resolution for the appointment of a joint committee of both houses of parliament to consider the question of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
[Mr. Mclvor.)
Mr. ALISTAIR STEWART (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, we in the C.C.F. give our complete approval, of course, to this resolution that a joint committee of both houses be appointed to consider the question of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Never in all recorded history have the rights of man faced so ruthless a challenge as has been the case in the last ten or fifteen years. This challenge has been met. We survived the onslaught of enemies who were intent upon destroying freedom in the four corners of the world.
The cost of survival has been heavy. When history comes to be written it will be seen that part of the cost of survival is a world struggling in the birth pangs of a new social and new economic order; change is in the nature of things and change is in the air today.
On every continent exploited and subjugated peoples are struggling for their freedom. They are among those who fought in the last war, partly with the negative desire to defeat fascism, and partly for something more positive. I should like to think of that positive aim in the words of the declaration the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie) gave to us this afternoon, that declaration issued by the parliament of Scotland in 1320. I repeat it here:
It is not for glory, riches, or honour, that we fight, but for that liberty which no good man will consent to lose but with his life.
Six hundred years ago they fought in Scotland against the foreign oppressor. They fought for the right to nationhood, and today there is still that same desire in the world for the right to national self-determination.
Throughout the generations and centuries the conception of freedom has broadened out, and each generation must view it in the light of circumstances of the day. Freedom involves new problems as the years go by. Once again the time has come for us in Canada to reexamine what we mean by human rights and fundamental freedoms.
This last war was fought on the part of tens of thousands, not only to guard these essential freedoms of speech, of conscience and of the person, but for something more. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said in the early days of the war that, unless a new order was well on its way before the end of the war, the world might look for it in vain. Those who fought the war looked for that new order. They fought perhaps with a sense of burning idealism wich was imbued in them as the result of the concept that this was the century of the common man, a concept which, as President Roosevelt said in 1944, realized that true freedom has no meaning unless man

Human Rights
has independence and economic security. That is what we fought the war for. Mankind is now looking to the future with hopeful, if fearful eyes.
We realize that there are two paths ahead, either one of which we as free agents may choose to follow as we will. One path leads to heights of splendour yet undreamed of; the other to the darkness of hatred and strife. One leads to a realm where the human spirit will rise triumphant over the bigotries and persecutions of our age, where racial discrimination and intolerance of another's religious beliefs will be regarded as crimes against all mankind; where freedom of speech will be the inalienable right of every citizen; where men will no longer exploit their fellowmen for private gain; where every man will be master of his soul. That is one path we can choose.
The other path can lead only to that spiritual desolation to which our enemies would have consigned us. After the last war, Field Marshal Smuts told us that mankind was on the march. Perhaps we did not go far, but after this last holocaust humanity is once more striking its tents and is again on the march, this time in a much more decisive fashion. The yeast of liberty and of freedom is at work throughout the world. In Europe they are winning the battle which is being fought against industrial and agrarian feudalism. China is throwing off the chains of western bondage. India will, within a year I hope, have assumed that nationhood which is her due. Colonial peoples everywhere are demanding emancipation, while coloured peoples are demanding equality of treatment with the white peoples. The world is being rebuilt and we shall be false to our traditions if we do not play our part in ensuring that it will be built on the basis of the most enduring values-human freedom and respect for human dignity.
What of us in Canada? We are faced with the situation of an increasing complexity in our social and economic life which is compelling the state to interfere in fields which are new. When the state interferes in such a way there is always the grave risk of the infringement of the rights of individuals. While the state may so infringe upon the rights of the person there is also the danger, which some of us have found out to our cost, of equal infringement by the owners and managers of great aggregations of wealth. These are two reasons then why there is a growing demand for some amendment to our constitution which will safeguard our essentia! freedoms.
We are inclined to forget that our democracy was not attained by wishing it, nor can
it be maintained by willing it. Democracy implies a constant struggle against irresponsible power, an hourly and daily struggle and one, if it is to be successful, that demands constant inspiration. New hopes and new enthusiasms have to be aroused. We can create those new hopes; we can create those new enthusiasms if we give to the people of Canada a charter of rights. Here is our opportunity to tell our people in Canada what our objective is as a nation, to declare without equivocation what are our rights.
Important as it may be to do that, it is even more important to protect those rights. The American settlers after the declaration of independence found that the common law of England which they had inherited was not sufficient to safeguard the individual, and Jefferson said in 1787:
A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse or rest in inference.
What was true then is true now. and no government of Canada can refuse a bill of rights to its citizens, one which will at once protect and inspire. We need that protection. We fought this war for democracy and the democracy which we have is developing cracks. We have permitted flagrant injustice to continue. We have violated and are violating the fundamental rights of the citizens of this country. This house has debated- and I do not intend to reopen the debate- the question of citizens of Japanese descent and the question of Chinese residents in Canada. I am not going to say much about that, but I could not help but notice the affection which the Minister of Veterans Affairs had this afternoon for the golden rule. As he knows, the golden rule is that we should do unto others as we wish to be done by. I wonder what the Minister of Veterans Affairs would do if the parliament of Canada were to strip him of his citizenship? I wonder what he would then think of the golden rule which he played up so much today? When I saw that it was the Minister of Veterans Affairs who was introducing this resolution I felt that perhaps human rights were in a bad way when we considered who the midwife was. Let me say that I think the legislation we have passed in this house against these people is a shame to a democratic parliament. I say also that we in the C.C.F. will never stop in our opposition to discrimination against any individual because of his race or because of his creed. We shall never stop that fight.
We see dangers to our civil liberties in various parts of Canada today. In Manitoba an attempt is being made to take away cer-

Human Rights
tain rights from a group known as Hutterites. In Ontario there was passed at the recent session of the legislature an act known as the police act, which is a direct threat against the democratic right of every citizen. In Quebec we have seen a religious minority persecuted to some extent because of its views. How can we blame the provinces for violating civil rights when the federal government of Canada has given them the lead? I do not hold them any more responsible than I do the present government. We realize the danger in idly standing by while a minority is oppressed. It has been said in the house frequently and it must be said again that, where a minority in Canada is oppressed, then every minority in Canada is in some danger.
There is in Quebec a sect known as Jehovah's Witnesses. According to the 1941 census, they had 136 members out of a total population in the province of some 3,331,882 persons. Many of those witnesses are today being accused of seditious libel and of being a nuisance. They are a small sect. In all probability, compared with other denominations they are poor. With great certainty I say they have no friends in high places. Some of these witnesses circulated a pamphlet called "Quebec's Burning Hate". Because they did so many were arrested and appeared before the magistrate and, as was their constitutional right, were allowed out on bail. There was a Canadian resident in Montreal, one Ronearelli by name, sympathetic, I assume, to the witnesses, who took up the bail which was authorized by the court; but when he did so he was penalized by the executive of the province for doing so, penalized to such an extent that his living was perhaps placed in jeopardy. Here is a an example of interference by the executive with the judiciary, and it is dangerous. I think most of us in this house will disagree with much of what the Witnesses of Jehovah said; we will deplore perhaps the way they say it; and yet I maintain as a democratic citizen that they are entitled to freedom to say it so long as they do not violate the laws of the land.
We in the C.C.F. hold no brief for those who attack the religious faith of another. We have no brief for abuses of freedom. But I recall to your attention, Mr. Speaker, what Benjamin Franklin said, that abuses of freedom of speech perhaps ought to be stopped, but to whom dare we give the power to do so? That is the recurring problem we shall always find in democracy. These abuses which we dislike so much must be stopped, but to whom do we dare give power to stop them?
It may be argued that the witnesses were intemperate in language. That I do not know,

but I think it is a fair comment to say that those who opposed them were equally intemperate. I quote from Le Temps of Quebec:
The Witnesses of Jehovah are impostors, scabby sheep, malefactors who must be destroyed before they can corrupt certain of our own people.
I believe that the editor of that paper has forgotten that great responsibilities go along with the great privileges of democracy, and one of the responsibilities is this:-Freedom must be given to those whom we believe to be in error and whose views we abhor, so long as they remain within the laws of the land. We say that in Canada we have freedom of religion. Freedom of religion means that the individual has the right within the law to try to persuade others to come to his way of thinking. Freedom of religion implies the right to proselytize. That freedom has been denied by the provincial authorities of Quebec, and to that extent I say that freedom of religion has been denied.
One magistrate by name Mercier said, when some of the witnesses were before him:
Any measures are justified in ridding our Christian society of those transgressors of all laws, these enemies of all religions, these witnesses of falsehood.
It may be that they are witnesses of falsehood, but there are other examples, fortunately not many of them, in that province, who are proven witnesses of falsehood. I refer to that small group with no great following in Quebec known as the Union des Electeurs, who publish a periodical known as Vers Demain. In recent months this group has been printing extracts from the protocols of Zion. Any normally intelligent person knows that the so-called protocols are arrant forgeries and frauds and anyone who will print them does so only with the intention of stirring up group against group and creed against creed. Let me read what the editor of the Canadian Register says in its Quebec edition, and I should like to pay tribute to the editor of that paper. It is the organ of the English-speaking diocese of the Roman Catholic church in Montreal. This paper says:
It is therefore with feelings of shame and horror that -we have noted the publication in Vers Demain, organ of the Social Credit party in this province, of that spurious calumny of the Jews known as the "Protocols of Zion." This fantastic forgery, long known to all serious students as false, contains all sorts of nonsensical "revelations" of non-existent "plots." It is a vulgar and crude libel of our Jewish brethern which is capable of causing great harm among prejudiced or uncritical readers.
But still the attention of the executive of Quebec is centred on the Witnesses of

Human Rights
Jehovah. Here I should like to quote from the remarks of Mr. Justice Jackson in the Supreme Court of the United States when the case of the rights of Jehovah's Witnesses came before that court. He said:
As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be . . . Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the inquisition as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fastfailing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.
Mr. Justice Jackson has laid down certain principles of religious and civil freedom which I commend not only to the authorities of Quebec but to those in every province. We see that today certain basic rights are in danger in Canada and, as I said before, the federal government has led the way.
I now refer to a matter that has been brought before this house on several occasions. I should like to remind the house of the espionage trials, and what the leader of my party said about them last year: We regard with revulsion and contempt any Canadian who betrays or attempts to betray his country. I regard with something akin to that revulsion and contempt the conduct of the government in this case. A little over a year ago some thirteen suspects were arrested, were held incommunicado for several weeks, subject all the time to close questioning by the police. They were denied the fundamental right to counsel; they were denied the privilege of seeing their families. By odd irony, there was being held in Europe at that time a trial in Nuremberg, where some of the worst war criminals we have ever known were given these rights which we in Canada denied to our own people. One suspect, Doctor Alan Nunn May, was sent over to the United Kingdom. When he arrived there he was arrested, charged the next day and given the right to see counsel and also to meet with friends. These rights, despite the minister's talk of magna carta and habeas corpus, were denied in the espionage trials. I should like to know where magna carta and habeas corpus were during those months. The answer would be enlightening. Reading the evidence, one can only be struck by the fact that the commissioners emphasize that the procedure they adopted was legal in terms of the statute law of Canada. They justified a great part of their procedure under the Official Secrets Act, the
Inquiries Act and the Canada Evidence Act. I am not skilled in law, but I do say this, that if that legislation permits the government to do what it has done in the past, then I think it is time to bring amendments to the legislation before the house so that rights of the individual may be protected.
But there was also an order in council passed which appointed the royal commission, order in council P.C. 411. Section 3 of this order states:
That the said commissioners may adopt such procedure and method as they may deem expedient for the conduct of such inquiry and may alter or change the same from time to time.
I have heard it said that the government has assumed to itself at times great powers. These are extraordinary powers.
One of my principal quarrels is with the commissioners themselves and with their report. Although we were assured by the Prime Minister that they would be anxious to maintain in every way possible the freedom and the liberty of the individual, the commissioners refrained from telling witnesses that the protection of the Canada Evidence Act was theirs for the asking. In part of the report we read that certain persons did not, so far as the evidence discloses, take an active part in the subversive activities, but would have done so if required. I have not yet seen the evidence which would lead me to believe that that was so. I am compelled to believe that the commissioners deserted fact and law and became, for the time, soothsayers.
The commissioners declared on February 14 of last year that, unless individual rights were set aside and citizens suspected of being spies were held incommunicado, some of the basic purposes of the inquiry would be defeated. That statement is even more extraordinary, for neither the government nor the commission has yet made it good. I have seen no jot or tittle of evidence to suggest as to how this unconstitutional procedure helped the investigation in any way whatsoever. We are entitled to know where the security of Canada was aided by setting aside the constitutional rights of Canadians.
The government may say that it acted on the advice of the commission, but it is notorious that governments accept the advice of commissions only when they want to. The government cannot escape responsibility because of what the commissioners said. The government must be held accountable on several scores. In the first place, they permitted and, I maintain, permitted wrongly, the publication of evidence which was obtained by the commission in advance of the trials of suspected persons, and so in the minds of people at large the case was prejudiced. But
Human Rights

the government also repealed one of our most fundamental laws, the right of every citizen to a fair and free trial. What is worse, the commissioners have taken away the good names and reputations of those who were found not guilty in the lower courts of the land. Here let me pay tribute to that standard of Canadian justice which will examine the evidence as it stands and not accept the judgment of those who occupy high positions in the judiciary.
As I said, the reputation of these people has been taken away. Many of them have lost their jobs. Perhaps all of them have lost their jobs and are finding it difficult to obtain new employment. Throughout all the days of their lives they will be pursued by the dark cloud of suspicion that at one time they may have been traitors to their country, and nothing which the government may do now can redress that wrong. Already their good names have been taken from them Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his. and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
We have not only left these people poor; we have left them paupers. We have destroyed their reputation; we have compelled them to use their savings or to borrow from their friends so that they could defend their names in Canadian courts; and the very least which can be expected is that the government will assume responsibility for this and pay the costs of those who were acquitted.
I should like to quote what the Prime Minister said last year, as reported at page 9 of Hansard:
I would also ask hon. members to remember in reading these reports that they have been prepared by two chief justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, gentlemen who, above all, would be anxious to maintain in every way possible the full freedom and liberty of individuals in our country.
I dispute the accuracy of that statement. [DOT] Let me place beside it what Mr. Chitty had to say in the "Fortnightly Law Journal" of Toronto, which was reported about a year ago. Speaking of the politicians, he said:
They have abolished the constitution. They have deprived men and women of their constitutional rights not to be arrested uncharged, not to be held in prison unarraigned, not to have justice deferred or denied. They have subjected those men and women thus illegally arrested and imprisoned to inquisition and all that that implies. But beyond and above that they have destroyed the independence of the judiciary and suborned the courts to lend the appearance of legality to their crime.
[Mr. Stewart.1
I should like to say something more than that. Not only have the courts been suborned, but justice itself has been suborned and that by two justices of the Supreme Court of Canada. They found guilty those who were afterwards acquitted. They approached witnesses at times apparently, if one can read the evidence, with biased minds. They accepted and even created a commission which violated our most sacred rights.
Mr. MACKENZIE; I hate to interrupt my hon. friend, but I think that is not parliamentary.


James Horace King: Before the minister rose, it was my intention to rise and call the attention of the hon. member to the fact that he should be very careful in his expressions when referring to the supreme court.


Major James William Coldwell: May I submit that the hon. gentleman is not dealing with judges; he is dealing with a commission.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: It is the same thing.


Major James William Coldwell: There is a distinction.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: No.


Major James William Coldwell: Though the persons
may be the same, the office they held or hold is different. The hon. member was discussing the commissioners; it is just an accident that they were judges.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: That very point raised by my hon. friend came up years ago and it was not sustained at that time. I am sorry I have not the decision in hand at the moment. The procedure is that it is not proper to criticize judges even in their capacity as royal commissioners.


Major James William Coldwell: May I respectfully
point out that if the government wishes to escape criticism all it has to do is to appoint judges to a commission. That is wrong. If the government appoints justices to a commission, then these justices as commissioners must be subject to criticism in this house as commissioners.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: My hon. friend is raising an entirely different point. The point he has raised has nothing whatsoever to do with the standing rules of the house. I submit that, according to the standing rules of the house, any reflection upon a member of a court is improper.


John Thomas Hackett: I should like to say a word on the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am going to begin by beseeching the hon. gentleman not to continue in the vein of his last utterance but I must submit that he has

Human Rights
the right to say what he is saying. It is because he has the right-possibly the duty-to say it that establishes the impropriety of putting gentlemen of high judicial office into positions which expose them to the things the hon. member is saying about them.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I have just one word to add. My hon. friend used the word "justices", and I take objection to his statement about the courts being suborned. I quite agree that he is free to comment as he pleases upon the conduct of the royal commission. I am not an expert on parliamentary procedure, but I think it is going a bit far to say that the courts in this country have been suborned.


John Thomas Hackett: He should not say that.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Of course he should not.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: I was quoting Mr. Chitty. May I say I had concluded with that aspect of it.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: He is only a half journalist.


Edmund Davie Fulton: He is a Canadian citizen.


Douglas Charles Abbott: There are some ten or twelve million Canadian citizens.


James Horace King: Order. I again ask the hon. member who has the floor to be very careful in the expression he uses when referring to the courts. It is not only a question of using unparliamentary terms, but I should call the attention of the hon. member to the fact that Mr. Speaker shall preserve order and decorum. Hon. members must be very careful when they refer to the highest court of the country.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I had finished what I had to say in that respect. You may rest assured that I shall always try to observe order and decorum in what I am assured is a free and unfettered parliament. We have seen that there are certain dangers to our civil and religious rights in this country. As part of our election manifesto in the last election, we in the C.C.F. said this, and I give it as a declaration of faith: That a bill of rights should be incorporated in the constitution, protecting minority rights, civil and religious liberties, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, establishing equal treatment before the law to all citizens irrespective of race, colour or creed, and providing necessary democratic powers to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms.
That is part of our basic philosophy of life, and yet it scarcely goes far enough. We need a supplement to a bill of rights such as that. We need a supplement in the shape of a bill of social rights, and that, I think, is implied by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) in the speech he made in Toronto before a
labour convention a few years ago when he said that the era of freedom will be achieved only as social security and human welfare become the main concern of men and nations.
We are beginning to realize that democracy implies social rights as well as political rights, and I will give some of these social rights, not in any particular order of importance or in any particular priority. But we believe that every worker and' producer has the right to sufficient income to maintain conditions adequate to human dignity. There are many aspects to these conditions, not the least of which is the belief, shared by all, that there is dignity in honest toil.
Another is that conditions of work shall be such that each shall be given moral and physical security and assured of his personal dignity. We believe in the right of the individual to leisure and to recreation, as we believe in the right of the individual to retire at the very latest, if he so desires, at the age of sixty-five, and to retire with an old age pension which is adequate to keep him in that dignity which we associate with the individual. We believe in the right of the individual to an indemnity in the event of unemployment. Too often it has happened that a man has lost his job because of some event which took place ten thousand miles away and over which he had no control. He was penalized and had to suffer, and many times was left in poverty. Today we have a measure which grants some relief in the form of unemployment insurance, a measure which is not yet enough to ensure men that dignity of which we speak.
We believe in the right of the individual to membership in an organization or association of his own choice and we believe in his right to strike after all procedures of conciliation and arbitration have been exhausted. These are the rights of the individual as a worker or as a producer. But we also have to consider the individual as a consumer, and he has social rights, too, which must be protected.
We believe the consumer has the right to freedom from want, and the right to share in the national wealth of the country. The consumer has the social right to a minimum of economic security guaranteed by a system of social insurance against sickness, inability to work, poverty and old age. The consumer has the right to join any form of cooperative organization, as has the producer, and so to take part in the economic life of the country.
But there are other rights which must be emphasized and one which is honoured more often in the breach, is the right to complete equality as between the sexes; and, stemming
Human Rights

from that, the right of mother and child to all the consideration and care which society can provide. We in the C.C.F. believe in the right of the individual to own individual property, the right of the farmer to own a farm, effectively cultivated by himself or his family, as we believe in the right of the craftsman to own the means of craftsmanship.
We believe, of course, in the right of all to the fullest education in citizenship. It may be said that these rights are visionary; it may be said that they are impractical, that they are a dream. Yet, Mr. Speaker, I believe with all my heart and soul that the . day is coming when we shall awaken to find that it is the night which has gone and the dream which has become the reality. The eyes of men are on the future, for we are weary of the past. The old world is dead. The future lies with those who abjure the errors of the past and with courage and resolution confront and solve the problems of our times.
These rights I have enumerated are the minimum rights essential to maintain that human dignity of which we speak. These are the minimum rights which will grant emancipation from the fear of insecurity and poverty, not only to our people but to the peoples of the world. These are the human rights for which we as democratic socialists are pledged to fight.


Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: It has indeed been a pleasure to listen today to the fine speeches that have thus far been delivered.
It is not always easy to know what to do. It is usually less easy to know how to do it. It is often very hard to have the skill, strength, freedom and courage to do the right thing, when the right thing is known. And so it will be found in this matter of human rights. It will be hard enough to agree as to what should constitute a sufficiently comprehensive catalogue of human rights. Let us try to solve that problem first. It will be much harder to come to unity of opinion as to why these human rights so commonly elude man's eager grasp, and as to how we might in parliament best proceed to attain those human rights and maintain them and guarantee them, both for ourselves and for our children as Canadians, as Britishers, as Americans and as citizens of One World. Yet this task must be essayed. Let us attempt this problem secondly.
There will remain, then, the question: Have we Canadians the skill, strength, freedom and courage to make the contribution requisite for providing and ensuring ourselves those human rights agreed upon as appropriate for

all of us to enjoy? Into this thicket of investigation the time limit will hardly enable us to penetrate far. Yet this assignment, too, we must not shun. May we consider this problem as the third?
What should constitute a sufficiently comprehensive category of human rights? Christ laid down a delineation of human rights which I think all of us have been taught to revere, when he said:
I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
The American constitution laid down a fine suggestion for human rights when it said that man was entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Then in our own times we have had the Atlantic charter which undertook to guarantee freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear. And now there is a statement of essential human rights published at page 217 of the report of the united nations of 1946. It is the report on the second part of the first session of the general assembly of the united nations held in New York, October 23-December 15, 1946; conference series, 1946, No. 3. The statement contains the following, which I believe it is quite worth our while to contemplate. I read from page 217:
Upon the freedom of the individual depends the welfare of the people, the safety of the state and the peace of the world.
In society complete freedom cannot be attained;-
Those are not my words. Continuing:
-the liberties of the one are limited by the liberties of others, and the preservation of freedom requires the fulfilment by individuals of their duties as members of society.
The function of the state is to promote conditions under which the individual can be most free.
To express those freedoms to which every human being is entitled and to assure that all shall live under a government of the people, by the people, for the people, this declaration is made.
Article 1. Freedom of belief and of worship is the right of every one. The state has a duty to protect this freedom.
Article 2. Freedom to hold opinions and to receive opinions and information is the right of everyone. The state has a duty to protect this freedom.
Article 3. Freedom of expression is the right of everyone. The state has a duty to refrain from arbitrary limitation of this freedom and to prevent denial of reasonable access to channels of communication.
Article 4. Freedom to assemble peaceably with others is the right of every one. The state has a duty to protect this freedom.
Article 5. Freedom to form with others associations of a political, economic, religious, social, cultural, or any other character for purposes

Human Rights
not inconsistent with these articles is the right of every one. The state has a duty to protect this freedom.
Article 6. Freedom from unreasonable interference with the person, home, reputation, privacy, activities and property is the right of every one. The state has a duty to protect this freedom.
Article 7. Everyone has the right to have his criminal and civil liabilities and his rights determined without undue delay by fair public trial by a competent tribunal before which he has opportunity for a full hearing. The state has a duty to maintain adequate tribunals and procedures to make this right effective.
Article 8. Every one who is detained has the right to immediate judicial determination of the legality of his detention. The state has a duty to provide adequate procedures to make this right effective.
Article 9. No one shall be convicted of crime except for violation of a law in effect at the time of the commission of the act charged as an offence, nor be subjected to a penalty greater than that applicable at the time of the commission of the offence.
Article 10. Every one has the right to own property under general law. The state shall uot deprive any one of his property except for a public purpose and with just compensation.
Article 11. Every one has the right to education. The state has a duty to require that every child within its jurisdiction receive education of the primary standard: to maintain or insure that there are maintained facilities for such education which are adequate and free; and to promote the development of facilities for further education which are adequate and effectively available to all its residents.
Article 12. Every one has the right to work. The state has a duty to take such measures as may be necessary to insure that all its residents have an opportunity for useful work.
Article 13. Every one has the right to reasonable conditions of work. The state has a duty to take such measures as may be necessary to insure reasonable wages, hours and other conditions of work.
Article 14. Every one has the right to adequate food and housing. The state has a duty to take such measures as may be necessary to insure that all its residents have an opportunity to obtain these essentials.
Article 15. Every one has the right to social security. The state has a duty to maintain or insure that there are maintained comprehensive arrangements for the protection of health, for the prevention of sickness and accident, and for the provision of medical care and of compensation for loss of livelihood.
Article 16. Every one has the right to take part in the government of his state. The state has a duty to conform to the will of the people as manifested bv democratic elections.
Article 17. Every one has the right of protection against arbitrary discrimination in the provisions and application of the law because of race, religion, sex or any other reason.
Article 18. In the exercise of his rights every one is limited by the rights of others and by the just requirements of the democratic state
That concludes the quotation. I feel tempted to say just a word on that last, division, article XVIII, inasmuch as several of our C.C.F. friends have been so greatly disturbed by reason of what some of us have said concerning the Japanese problem. I believe it would be a right good thing for them to read that section very carefully, to ponder it deeply, apply it to our own case and see how it will work out in Canada.
On page 65 of the publication from which I have just read, we are told that this statement which I have read was drawn up during 1943 and 1944 by a committee of lawyers and political scientists consisting of the following gentlemen, whose names I believe the committee will be pleased to hear. They are:
Mr. Henri Laugier, who is now assistant secretary general of the united nations in charge of the department of social affairs;
Dr. P. E. Corbett, formerly of McGill university and now of Yale university;
Mr. C. Wilfred Jenks, legal adviser of the I.L.O.;
Dr. Rajchman of Poland;
Dr. Hu Shih of China;
Senor del Vayo of Spain; and
Professor Quincy Wright of the university of Chicago.
The statement was submitted to the general assembly by the delegation from Panama, as is recorded at page 217. By resolution of December 11, 1946, this draft was referred to the economic and social council for reference to the commission on human rights, for consideration by that commission in its preparation of an international bill of rights.
I feel tempted to say a word or two to the government regarding this bill of rights. If that bill of rights ever passes, and the government of this country undertakes to do what is suggested by the united nations, then the government will be adopting ways and means which have never yet been considered in this house or throughout this country. I think hon. members should be warned regarding that before they become quite consumed in their enthusiasm for the united nations.
In order to discharge to the full its responsibility suggested by this resolution, each and every state must evidently possess and exercise unchallengeable sovereignty. May I stop to comment at that point. To a great many in this house who have advocated so earnestly that Canada surrender some of her sovereignty, may I point out that if Canada surrendered essential sovereignty it would be a matter of utter impossibility for her to discharge the responsibilities which, by implication, are placed upon her by acceptance of that resolution.
Canada would have to have unchallengeable sovereignty over her economic system-over the goods and services she should produce and consume; unchallengeable sovereignty over her trading policy, to determine with whom she
Human Rights

shall trade, and on what terms; unchallengeable sovereignty over her financial system with power to determine what she shall use as money and what shall be the credit system both for production and consumption; what shall be the price structure in Canada, and how those prices shall be determined, stabilized and maintained; unchallengeable sovereignty over the form of government which she shall use; unchallengeable authority or sovereignty over her legislative, judicial and executive system, over her defence system and over her educational system.
May I pause just to comment, for the benefit of a good many hon. members who, in my judgment, have expressed somewhat reckless enthusiasm for the united nations, when they have spoken in the house. It would be well for them to think right through this whole situation before taking precipitate action in connection with international organizations, and the surrender, in part, of this nation's sovereignty.
If she is to discharge her "human rights" responsibilities, there are several fundamental principles upon which Canada or any state ought to base her way of life domestically. Let me name five of these fundamental principles.
First: Her institutions should be democratic. We should have ministers and officials-including commissions, may I point out, and also emphasize-who will be not only responsible to the people and to parliament but sensitively responsive to the will of the majority, with the will of minorities deeply respected by the constitution, as well as by law and by institutions-conditions which, 1 fear, we are rather far from at the present time.
Second: The state should have decentralization of its political government, of its industry and of its financial control. In all of these respects the Dominion of Canada is today in more or less large measure deficient. To those who argue for centralization of power and more or less weakening the autonomy of the provinces, let me commend this principle to their consideration.
Third: The state should be founded upon the basis of individual enterprise-individual enterprise, stimulated to abundant production by an equitable profit system, by the right to own property, the right to save fair earnings, and the right of bequeathing property to heirs.
Ilf I might stop just for a moment to discuss this question I would urge upon every hon. member, socialistically inclined and otherwise, that production in a state can be accomplished by only two devices. As the London Economist well illustrated it, we must
[Mr. Blackmore.l
use either the carrot to tempt the donkey forward or the stick to drive it forward. What is happening at the present time, under the guidance of the Liberals, is, in large measure, and under the urgent pressure of the C.C.F., to destroy the carrot.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We think Canadians are more than donkeys.


John Horne Blackmore: It will not be very long until they will be as stupid as donkeys if politicians keep on as they are doing now. The government is utterly destroying incentive in the country.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We think they are human beings.


John Horne Blackmore: I am making my speech, and if anyone has any argument against what I am saying, I am quite capable of speaking for myself.
My stand is that we must be exceedingly careful not to destroy the incentive for production in this country. Otherwise, in one of the most wealthy countries in the world, we shall find it almost impossible to get that degree of production which is necessary to ensure an abundant standard of living. That condition, I fear, has already developed in some states, and is developing in others.
Fourth: In order to guarantee these freedoms, the state should use a debt-free economy based upon debt-free money, for consumption, as well as debt money lent, as at present, for production-debt-free money which would enable the government to be free from the control of financial institutions, debt-free money which would enable the state to render the resources of the country available in the form of goods and services; and to render the goods and services financially available, first, to the state's own people, and then, to the peoples of other lands.
Fifth: The state's way of life should be based upon the principle of economic selfsufficiency, stimulating adequate varieties and quantities of production by wisely beneficent defence of home industries, through price adjustments in favour of home consumers.
There will be plenty of people in parliament and throughout the country who will not agree with that statement. I can see now the Prime Minister (Mr. 'Mackenzie King) rising in his place in this house at various times since I came here in 1935 in order to declaim against the iniquities of economic nationalism. I do not know exactly what he had in mind in respect of economic nationalism; but my general approach to this problem would be this: that the more nearly a state comes to produc-

Human Rights
mg the goods and services which it needs to supply its people with a desirable standard of living, the freer that state is, and the more likely it is to be strong and prosperous.
Liberals in the house as well as a great many Conservatives will be somewhat interested in the observations made by Mr. W. H. Moore, who was for a long time the member for Ontario in this house, in his recent book "Grey Days", which I fancy most hon. members have read. Mr. Moore had established a reputation for being a thorough student, a careful thinker and a cautious speaker. On page 100 of his book, he makes this observation concerning economic policy:
It is a dogmatic phrase, "There is nothing else to do"; but I have not coined it; the admonition to balance our economy arises out of the requirements of human welfare in a changed world.
So I make no bones about suggesting that the country should have its economy, its way of life based upon the principle of economic self-sufficiency. Let us have our own oil produced in this country; let us have our own coal; let us have our own sugar and our own rubber; let us produce as many essential products as we possible can.
With the details of human rights as listed in the section which I read from the eminent committee's report there will be, I presume, but negligible disagreement in the house. May we seek now to arrive at a united opinion as regards what causes make human rights so hard to guarantee, and what this parliament can do toward remedying or even eliminating those causes.
The main causes of the miscarriage of justice in respect of human rights arise from insufficiency and insecurity of income-poverty- and from war.
The main causes of war are economic. Men fight because of commercial rivalries. Commercial rivalry results from shortage of purchasing power, in home markets, from adverse trade balances, and the fear of adverse trade balances-and consequent Prepayable international debt. Men fight also for markets and for access to raw materials, which is only another way of saying what I have just said. Practically all these causes would efface themselves if the nations would recognize and adopt certain fundamental principles upon which the state ought to base its way of life internationally; that is, in its relations with its neighbour states.
These international principles involve the establishment of a world peace organization under which, first, each nation retains its complete sovereignty to order its affairs in
accordance with the will of its people. I opposed the formation of the united nations. There are hon. members in this house who will remember that in March and April, 194S,
I rose and opposed that organization, and I am convinced the day will come when members will realize that the whole San Francisco agreement was based upon false principles and has done more harm in the world than good.
But that does not mean that I am opposed to having an international organization. Mr. Anthony Eden, as I recall it, stood in this house and advocated the formation of an international organization based upon the blueprint of the British commonwealth. We British nations did not need to have a central organization established in London to order Canada to go to war when Britain was in danger, to order Australia or New Zealand to go to war. Those nations were fully aware of the danger which threatened them and they rushed into the conflict as quickly as did the motherland. Will anyone tell me that the nations- of the world would not do a similar thing?
Why should there be an international police force with power to order nations to war, to order them to conscript men to be sent to it? The whole idea is so contrary to our democratic way of thinking that I stand astounded that hon. members were ever deluded by the concept. But that does not mean that I am opposed to an international organization based upon the complete sovereignty of every state, so that the state would be free to go into the struggle or stay out, as Eire did in this war. If the struggle is not of such a nature as would commend itself to the states concerned, then they could pretty well count on a good many states remaining out.
Second, each state undertakes to maintain adequate armed forces. Third, each power undertakes to go to the aid of any other member of the association of nations who is the victim of armed aggression.


Mr. JAENICKE:: Who would decide that, if there were no central organization?


John Horne Blackmore: Who decided it in the British commonwealth?


Frank Eric Jaenicke: The world is not all British.


John Horne Blackmore: WTho decided that Great Britain, France and the others should be united in the struggle? There was no central body with the power to command.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: There was a war.


John Horne Blackmore: During peace there is a war against poverty and there is a war
Human Rights

to prevent war recurring. Surely we could not have any stronger motives to impel men to unite and go forward1 together. All we need is a set of sound principles upon which to go forward and such principles I am now laying down. I proceed: Fourth, each member undertakes to prohibit its nationals from owning or controlling any property or economic undertaking in another sovereign country. Fifth, each nation undertakes not to export goods to any other nation, except in payment for imports from that nation, without the consent of that nation's government. Sixth, each state undertakes to receive payment in goods and services for any debt owing to its nationals.
I am aware that there will be a good many hon. members who will not see eye to eye with me in respect of these principles, but I commend them to the consideration of members of this house as being principles upon which the welfare and harmony of a united world will be based when the world finally reaches a state of sanity and understanding in which it can have good will and cooperation. I add to the foregoing principles the following: seventh, each state undertakes that if at the end of seven years it shall have refrained from accepting goods or services (other than gold) in payment for goods and services it has sold to any neighbour state it will cancel the debt. Eighth, each state undertakes by means of some form of lend-lease or mutual aid arrangement to render available to any state of good will any supplies of goods and services which it may have in excess of the means to provide an abundant standard of living for all its own people. Ninth, each state undertakes to adopt such an economy and financial system as will make financially available for all its people whatever degree of material well-being may be found to be physically possible for the people in that state.
I commend these principles to the careful consideration of the proposed committee and of the members of this house. This resolution calls for the committee to examine into the possibilities of what Canada can do about the situation that is confronting the country. Here are some suggestions which will be found quite worthy of study.
We come now to the matter of Canadian skill, strength, freedom and courage to accomplish the "human rights" objectives which I have indicated and which we all desire. Have we the skill necessary to accomplish the things which are suggested as being appropriate and desirable by all the fine idealism which is written up in publications emanating from the united nations? My answer is that undoubt-

edly we do possess the skill. As proof of that, I point to our remarkable performance during the war. I point to the fact that in many cases we had factories and industries established hastily for the construction of war materials. Into these factories we had young men and young women brought who knew not a single thing about the processes they were called upon to execute. Yet in a surprisingly short time they learned and did their work so superbly well as to overwhelm the enemy with their production. Will anyone tell me that we cannot, under similar circumstances in peace time, train our young and old to accomplish these desirable objectives of production just as well as we did in the war? The only thing we need is adequate markets and profitable prices. That is what we had in the war. Some people have the idea that the reason we had so much success in production during the war was that there was a war on. That is not so. There was a good market at profitable prices, and every producer knew he would be sure of a market at profitable prices. That is all we need to get a high standard of production in a private enterprise country-the natural motive.
Have we the strength? I point to our manpower which performed during the war so magnificently, to our industrial structure, to our factories of various kinds, to our industrial skill, to our transportation facilities, splendid for a nation at our stage of development, to our parliamentary and civic institutions of which every Canadian can be justly proud, to our resources bountiful and rich, to our access to new discoveries and technological skills in great numbers.
Illustrative of my last remark may I refer to a statement made by an eminent chemist in the United States in 1942, because some hon. members may not have had an opportunity to read what this man said? I refer to Doctor Charles A. A. Stine, vice-president of E. I. du Pont Nemours, one of the greatest industrial chemists in the United States. He said:
Under pressure of the necessities of war, the inconceivables of only two years ago are today's realities. American chemists are discovering new continents of matter and the world of 1940 has already become an antiquity. When the war is won we shall have at our command ten to a hundred times what we had before in raw materials. New and more versatile plastics . . . high pressure syntheses of ammonia . . . fertilizer of such capacity that the trends of agriculture may be changed . . . glass that is unbreakable and will float . . . wood that won't burn . . . hosiery from air . . . window screens without wire . . . the war is compressing development.
We Canadians have at our disposal all these superb skills and technological discoveries.

Human Rights
Apply them to our resources with our own national skills, and what sort of strength shall we have in Canada in the production of goods and services to produce a high standard of living, of human rights for the people?
Have we the freedom to do the things which we ought to do? Judging from that list of human rights, I am not so sure that we have not given up too much of our freedom already. For generations now, international finance has been exercising an evil influence over this country. Then when we signed the Bretton Woods agreement we gave up a considerable portion of our financial sovereignty and of our trade sovereignty. Then the united nations charter threatens our national sovereignty in respect of defence. The international trade conferences which we have held, and of which one is now in progress in Geneva, have endeavoured to deprive us of empire preferences which are vital to our economic prosperity and strength, and to force upon us the most favoured nation clause to make us impotent to protect our economy against the crushing impact of the productive potential of the United States.
To the degree to which Bretton Woods and the united nations charter have impaired Canada's freedom to act, I would suggest that this house insist that these agreements be modified, and if they cannot be modified I would be prepared to suggest in all seriousness that this house advise the government to take steps to withdraw from both the united nations agreement and the Bretton Woods agreement.
Have we the courage to do the things we ought to do to ensure human rights? Have we the courage to learn new things? Have we the courage to depart from old opinions? Have we the courage to adopt new concepts, new techniques, new ways? Have we the courage tc advocate new measures for freedom? Have we the courage to fight for these new methods? Have we the courage to win? I often wonder. If there is any one thing that would cause me to lose a measure of my optimism and hope in this country it would be the very fact that so many seem to lack the courage even to consider new ways. Bather would they go forward in the old ways, even though they were assured that we were going over a precipice into chaos, deep, dark and dismal, than consider something new in the way of finance or some other economic system which might be of benefit to the nation. Have we Canadians the courage which is necessary, the courage which is more rare than is the cour-93166-203
age to die on the field of battle? It all remains to be seen. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that we have.
So in considering this resolution to set up a committee to examine into the whole question of human rights, I face the future with hope and with confidence. I believe that if the committee will apply itself to its task with earnestness, with singleness of heart and with open-mindedness, having a determination to do all that can possibly be done to solve the problems confronting mankind in this most dangerous hour, it will find ways and means of giving Canadians a measure of human rights such as. Canadians have never even dared dream of as being possible in this country; for we have everything in this nation necessary to give everybody the highest standard of human rights if we would only use the resources and facilities and blessings which Providence has showered down upon us in rich abundance.
There must be a way in which our aged people can be guaranteed against the penury which now wastes them and chagrins us. There must be a way by which we can guarantee to people doing the work of this country the means of earning a livelihood adequate to support them in comfort and happiness. There must be a way of enabling the people of Canada as a whole to enjoy the good things which the Lord has given us in rich plenty. I say that in setting up this committee we ought to charge them with the solemn and sacred responsibility of discovering the means of enabling the people of Canada to enjoy and to share the rich resources which God has given them.


Mr. ROCH PINARD (Chambly-Rouville):: I wish, first of all, to express my congratulations to all hon. gentlemen who have spoken before me in this debate. I was particularly impressed by the magnificent speech delivered this afternoon by the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie). It is not the first time that I have heard the right hon. gentleman express his opinion on matters such as are being discussed today, but in my opinion he surpassed himself on this occasion. I felt personally that not only his voice but his whole heart was speaking in defence of human rights and freedom. I wish also to congratulate the other speakers who spoke before me. It seems to me that everybody agrees on accepting the same principles.
As has already been mentioned, the economic and social council of the united nations organization established in June, 1946, an important body called the commission on human rights. It is often contended that international commissions of that sort are being unneces-

Human Rights

sarily multiplied by the united nations. During a recent visit to the seat of the organization at Flushing Meadows with some of our distinguished colleagues, I began to wonder whether such statements were entirely accurate. I am not in a position today to give any definite opinion in that regard because it is difficult to analyse the situation with fairness.
At the opening of the special session of the general assembly on the question of Palestine, which I had the privilege to attend, several of these commissions, eight of them, I think, were formed by the united nations' delegates. I do not think any of my colleagues present had the time to find out exactly the functions of these numerous new commissions. As a matter of fact, our chief Canadian delegate at the conference, Mr. Pearson, whose competence is highly recognized in all international circles, had the honour to be appointed chairman of one of these committees to investigate some of the political aspects of the Palestine question.
But among the more permanent international commissions already formed by the united nations, it appears to me that this new commission on human rights is one of the most important. Again our country was given the distinction of being represented on that commission on human rights by a capable Canadian, Mr. John P. Humphrey. Mr. Humphrey, who was a former professor of international law at McGill university, is very well known and has always been a credit to his country. On many occasions he has expressed his opinions and his desire to see unity established in Canada. In that respect his advice was often quoted, and it has demonstrated his wish to see better understanding and tolerance between the English and French groups in Canada. On such occasions he has proven that he knows well the problems of our country. His ability and broadmindedness will allow him to understand better the great problems facing mankind and also the task he has been called upon to fulfil as secretary of the commission on human rights.
At the time of its formation, the new commission was given by the council, among other things, specific instructions to submit a report regarding the adoption and acceptance by all the united nations of an international declaration on human rights and the rights and duties of states. The task imposed upon the commission was great, and its importance for the betterment of relations between individuals and nations and for the establishment and maintenance of peace cannot be exaggerated.
In its past and often useless efforts to prevent wars, the world, through its international

organizations, has constantly tried to define certain great principles concerning the rights of individuals and peoples, and to force their recognition and observance by all nations. It has always been because such principles have been misinterpreted, ignored or violated by a nation or a group of nations in particular that conflicts of all kinds and wars of evergrowing intensity have devastated mankind. The same remarks apply to the numerous civil wars which, from time to time, have plunged certain nations into misery, desolation and even complete destruction.
But, if these former international organizations have, on different occasions, proclaimed their belief in certain general principles, it often happened that nations could not agree on these basic rules and their opinion could not be unanimous. The immediate consequence of such disagreements was the sudden discovery of undeclared hostilities, which gradually increased and developed to become sources of quarrels resulting in conflicts and wars.
One of the causes for such failures may be attributed to the fact that such international organizations understood their tasks too late; instead of working to secure the consent of all their members to the recognition of the intangible rights and duties of each at the beginning of negotiations, they waited until differences were actually created and then sought to find a solution. When passions have been aroused, it is often too late to intervene.
It is for one of these reasons, I think, that the economic and social council of the united nations has decided to define or enact for the benefit of its negotiations a declaration of rights and duties which will be accepted by all.
Since Canada has decided, by signing the united nations charter, to do its full share in the organization of this new post-war world, and wants to take an active part in all the deliberations of the new international council, I was glad to read of the intention of the Canadian government to participate in a constructive way in this new task of preparing this international charter of freedom. Such intention was indicated in the speech from the throne and also appears clearly m the order of reference of the new committee to be appointed.
But a strange thing struck my mind when I discovered that we, members of this parliament, were called to study the preparation of a bill of rights to be applicable to the world at large. If I rightly understand the nature of our task, we are to work as a nation, together with the other nations of UNO in

Human Rights
drafting a declaration containing the enunciation of the rights, liberties, fundamental freedoms and duties of all the nations which signed with us the San Francisco charter. Yet, we do not possess a bill of rights of our own. We are to suggest to other nations for their approval certain rules and regulations which it did not seem necessary that we should adopt ourselves.
Members of the opposition could at this point object that it was up to the government to enact a bill of rights for our own country. I would answer first, that such would have also been the duty of other governments in the past.
But, even then, some members of the opposition could again intervene and ask us why we refused to adopt the amendment they introduced in this house last year, when we were dealing with the Canadian citizenship bill; for, at that time, an amendment to section 10 of the bill was suggested which was intended to incorporate in the new legislation on Canadian citizenship a bill of rights for Canada.
Again I would answer that the amendment as introduced was incomplete, or that the incorporation of a bill of rights in our citizenship bill was not the proper thing to do. In fact, those were the reasons why the amendment could not rally the support of the members of this house.
There is, however, in my opinion, a reason of much greater importance why it is not as yet possible for this country to enact its own bill of rights without its appearing to be unsound. I do not wish to give the impression that I am against the adoption of such an important measure; on the contrary. But in such matters we have to follow the usual and normal course.
Not only has it been the constant practice, but it is only common sense to enact measures of that sort only when a country has secured the disappearance of certain ties or bonds which may paralyse its complete freedom of action or be an obstacle to the proclamation of its real independence. There are things that a country must first do if it wishes to define the inalienable and sacred rights of its citizens. Among these things, there is the inevitable obligation to adopt, before everything else, its own constitution.
If we examine the case of all the other nations which decided, at a given moment of their history, to enact a bill or declaration of rights, we shall see that such nations did not take such measures before having, first of all, enacted their own distinctive constitutions.
93166-203i
For instance, in the case of our neighbour the United States, that country, after proclaiming its independence by a formal declaration in 1776, adopted its constitution in 1788 by special act of government. And it was only two years later, by way of a certain number of amendments to the constitution itself, that the United States adopted what they call their bill of rights.
In fact, in many cases-and I think it is the most logical way to do it-the bill of rights is incorporated in the constitution itself. In any event, one thing appears to be undeniable. There cannot, or at least there should not, be a bill of rights or a declaration of that kind enacted by a nation unless there already exists a constitution adopted by that nation, or unless one is formed simultaneously with such declaration.
To come back to the point I raised, it is my opinion that Canada should as early as possible, in order to follow the logical course, adopt its own constitution and then discuss the enactment, if it becomes necessary, of a Canadian bill of rights.
Who will deny that the most important of our rights as free citizens is that of adopting our own constitution? I would fail to understand our attitude if we were to study a definition of our rights as Canadians, if we decided to define these rights in a special bill, while at the same time we failed to ensure for ourselves the most important of this, the right to our own constitution as a free nation.
Both actions are necessary if this country is to affirm once more its maturity; if Canada is to attain its real freedom of action; if the nation is to complete its march toward final independence. In the meantime, in so far as the rights of Canadians are concerned, I feel we cannot be better protected than by the British North America Act, by the Statute of Westminster and also by the British charters of freedom, the principles of which have been constantly applied in our own country.
I have just given the opinion that it does not appear possible to discuss the enactment of a bill of rights for Canada before this parliament has adopted its own constitution. I also said at the beginning of my remarks that, at first sight, it seemed strange to me that we should participate in the preparation of a bill of rights for other nations while we did not even possess our own. But I think our position can better be defended in that respect, and it is my belief that if Canada does not possess a codified bill of rights, it still can work with the other nations and
Human Rights

offer its constructive suggestions toward the drafting of such a declaration for all nations of good will.
Our participation in that important task will at the same time be of great assistance to us if we ever find it useful to enact our own bill of rights; for I believe that there cannot exist different principles in the determination of such rights by a nation in particular or by the world at large. I would go farther and say that it is necessary for a nation itself to possess a bill of rights, comprising more specific definitions of rights and obligations of a purely local nature and applying to that nation in particular. On the other hand, when it comes to considering a declaration which would be suitable and acceptable to all other nations, the principles are necessarily wider and, in some cases, different and specially applicable to the international field. But in no case should it be permissible for a nation to possess a bill of rights, the principles of which would be different from and contrary to those expressed in an international declaration of the same kind.
There are in the world of today many nations which already possess their distinctive bill of rights. Some of these nations, in the course of their history, have been called upon to modify and even to repeal some of the provisions of their own bill. In fact, this remark applies to nearly all those nations which, through a longer and more agitated existence, have undergone various transformations resulting from both internal and external events. And, of course, there are nations which appear to be fonder, by temperament or otherwise, of this sort of declaration, although sometimes the}7 might forget more often than others to put its contents into practice.
But for all nations, those which have their own bill of rights as well as those like Canada which did not find it necessary to adopt such codification, the duty is the same, and the principles enunciated in their own bill should be identical with the contents of an international bill of rights.
For this reason, it will become necessary to study the bills of rights already in existence, so that they may be modified if they contain a definition of principles which would be contrary to the basic declarations which the world would wish to incorporate in an international bill of rights. In other words, all the united nations must again find themselves in complete agreement, and none of them must be allowed to advocate doctrines to their own people and defend ways of life which the world at large cannot accept but vill be bound to condemn.
In order to be clear on that point, it is my contention that every nation must conform in its internal policies as well as in its international dealings to the same inviolable rules and orders. It cannot be authorized to preach at home theories that are rejected in the international arena. Neither can it impose upon its people a way of life or restraints on its liberties which are internationally disapproved.
I am sure that attitudes of that kind cannot be permitted and any nation which would persist in their practice should be subject to international sanctions; it is not my opinion that actions of that kind should remain unchallenged under the cover of the principle defined in article 2 of the charter of the united nations. If, for instance, freedom of worship or liberty of individuals is threatened by any act of any state, such injustice should not be tolerated simply because the matter would appear to be within domestic jurisdiction. Nations must also conform to article 55 of the charter, which imposes upon all members the obligation to promote respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms. That is where it appears essential to obtain for the guidance of every nation of good will a clear definition of the rights of nations and individuals. And it is to meet this necessity that the commission on human rights was established by the economic and social council.
The delegation of Panama submitted, at the first part of the final meeting of the general assembly held at London, a draft declaration, which the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blaclcmore) read some time ago. Such drafts were prepared by a committee of the American Law Institute in 1943 and 1944; that is, long before UNO was created and before the charter of San Francisco was signed. For this reason, they have the merit of not being influenced by political considerations. The commission on human rights is to consider such drafts as submitted by the Panama delegation, and is to report the whole matter for consideration by the general assembly. Although Canada was not represented on the commission itself, we find that Doctor P. E. Corbett, formerly dean of the faculty of law at McGill university, who was attached to the league of nations as legal adviser of the international labour office, was a member of the committee appointed by the American Law Institute.
I have read carefully the statement as drafted by this committee, which was submitted by the delegation of Panama as a basis for the preparation of an international bill of rights. I must admit that the document, although incomplete, is quite impressive. In its
[Mr. Pinard.l

Human Rights
eighteen articles preceded by a short preamble, it summarizes well the essential liberties and fundamental freedoms of nations as well as individuals living in society.
I do not intend to discuss at length the clauses or declarations contained in that statement, which might well be considered as the proposed international bill oi rights. But I wish to make a few remarks with regard to some of the principles embodied in that statement on essential human rights and also to refer to some of its deficiencies. First, I wish to draw the attention of hon. members to an omission of prime importance in that statement on human rights as prepared by the committee of the American Law Institute. The task of that committee, composed of legal and political scientists from all important cultures of the world was, as I said, to prepare a declaration containing a summary of the essential rights of human beings. We all know-and this could only be denied by a certain group of people whose blindness or bad faith has misguided them into the desolate regions of atheism, agnosticism or proud nationalism-that all rights whatever are not conferred by man, but must originate and derive from God. In our troubled world of today, when everything seems to be confused and when doctrines of all sorts assail the minds of us all, the only intangible principle dominating all the others should be enunciated in such declaration on human rights.
In other words-and I want to be emphatic on that point-no international declaration on human rights and the rights and duties of states should be approved by the united nations and by Canada in particular, unless faith in God and also belief in religion are firmly and clearly expressed therein. Many people seem to consider the separation of church and state as indispensable to the security of a nation. They would, of course, also be of the opinion that the same principle should apply to international relations.
This group of people would consequently advocate complete exclusion of religion, not only from schools or governmental organizations, but also from international meetings. Wherever such policy was applied, past experience has shown disastrous results. It is a fact that religious hate or even religious illiteracy always becomes an enemy to progress, to national security and also to the maintenance of international peace.
I read the other day some excerpts from an interesting United States publication called the "Relation of Religion to Public Education." This book was published by the American council on education, and it contains the report and conclusions of a committee appointed by such council. The committee, after more than two years of deliberation and study, came to the conclusion that schools should accept the teaching of religion as a factor of social life. I have found the following remarks very constructive:
On all sides we see the disintegration of loyalties . . . the revival of ancient prejudices, the increase of frustrations, the eclipse of hope. . . . Religion at its best has always been an integrating force, a spiritual tonic for a soul racked by fear and cringing in weakness. . . . Its imperfections will not be lessened by an attitude of splendid isolation on the part of intellectuals, or of indifference on the part of those responsible for the education of youth.
After the horrible catastrophe of the last war, all men of good will must again return to the eternal truth if they are to succeed in their efforts toward better international realities and the maintenance of peace.
I do not wish to confuse the issue when I express such an opinion, and I am completely at ease in speaking in that way when I review the experiences of the past. If one examines with attention those declarations of rights which at times have constituted halting places in the history of mankind, he will discover that, they contained in their preamble such reference to the divine power, dispenser of all rights. Such reference is found in magna carta, the Bill of Rights of 1688, which constitute the declaration of principles so precious to British people. It is also clearly expressed in all the great charters of rights that the French people have at certain intervals adopted for their guidance. The most important of such French documents is undoubtedly the famous declaration of rights in 1789, which, written in the blood of the revolution, became a symbol for the first republic of France. Although it seemed that the leaders of the revolution wanted to crush religion at the same time as aristocracy, Robespierre insisted, before having the "declaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen" adopted by the national assembly, that reference be made in the preamble to divine authority. So it was "in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being" that the national assembly adopted the solemn declaration. And on October 30, 1946, when France proposed its last constitution of the fourth republic, reference was again made to the principles of 1789, and the constitution reaffirmed the same social, economic and political principles.
In the United States both the declaration of independence and the constitution and its
Human Rights

amendments, the American people expressed its belief in the Almighty, from whom is derived every right and every power.
I could refer to a number of other declarations or constitutions adopted by other countries, such as that of Eire, for instance; and in every one that I have consulted, the same faith in God and religion was reaffirmed. The only two documents I have consulted where such indispensable references wei<e omitted, were the statement on essential human rights of the committee of the American Law Institute and the constitution of the U.S.S.R. In the case of the committee of the American Law Institute, I am convinced that the omission could be attributed to the absentmindedness which is often the lot of legalistic scientists. But in the second case, the omission of reference to divine power in the Russian constitution is in perfect accordance with the policies followed by that country ever since.
May I make the wish that the new international bill of rights which our worried world is trying to create and proclaim will call for the protection of Him without Whom all our quests for peace would be vain? May I also express the hope that every nation will, in that respect, come to preach and follow the same doctrine toward a better conception by man of his duties toward God? The adoption of any other kind of bill of rights would be for the world a sad mistake and a miserable blunder.
I should like to be as categorical in discussing such articles of that statement on essential human rights as deal with the freedom of opinion and expression, the habeas corpus, the right to own property and the article which concerns the right of peoples to enjoy governments of their choice through democratic elections. As I have already said, I do not intend to discuss all the principles which, in my opinion, have to be embodied in an international bill of rights. It seems to me that theoretically they are all accepted by every nation. In fact, it is often the case that such principles are better praised and glorified precisely by such governments for which it has become common practice to violate them.
For instance, I have carefully read and studied the constitution of the U.S.S.R., and I must say that I have made startling discoveries. I am sure that an attentive reading of that document will be of definite interest to every one of us.
Embodied in the constitution itself is found a chapter entitled: "Fundamental rights and duties of citizens", which might justly be called the bill of rights of the Russian people, or at

least of the Russian government. It is interesting to read about the great principles defined in that declaration and to try to reconcile their application with so many events which took place in that country or behind the iron curtain in all Russian dominated countries.
One can learn, for example in that Russian document in article 125 that citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly or street processions and demonstrations. And then he will recall so many events and occasions when such freedoms were constantly denied to so many Russians.
For instance, how could it be seriously contended that newspapers in Russia are allowed to comment on world or even domestic events with the same liberty and independence as is the case in our country or in any other democratic country whatever. If such contention was made, all we can say is that the Russian government is lucky indeed to find in all the newspapers of the U.S.S.R. such complete and unfaltering agreement and support. Even our great Liberal party in its most glorious days could never succeed in obtaining from Canadian newspapermen such decisive and constant help.
If it is a Canadian who reads such article of the Russian constitution, he will remember the recent declarations of Igor Gouzenko, a former Russian citizen, who could not in his heart and in his mind conceal any longer the real truth concerning the absence of liberty and freedom in his country.
In sections 127 and 128 is embodied the great principle that citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed inviolability of the person and that no person may be placed under arrest except by decision of a court of justice. I leave it to members of this house and to the public at large to reconcile that declaration of principle with what has happened in the U.S.S.R. in the past.
And coming to article 124 of the same constitution of the U.S.S.R. one cannot help being astonished to read that, if freedom of religious worship is recognized, freedom of antireligious propaganda is also allowed to all citizens of that country. I may say that I know of no other country where freedom of anti-religious propaganda is especially mentioned and referred to in the constitution.
If one will recall, for instance, the trial and condemnation of Archbishop Stepinac by the courts of a Russian satellite, he will be inclined to think religion might be tolerated in those countries under Russian domination, but he will also believe that anti-religious propaganda is not only permitted but is strongly encouraged.

Human Rights
There is also another chapter in the constitution of the U.S.S.R. dealing with the electoral system, and I could not fiind anything in it to explain or justify what happened during the recent elections held in Poland, another Russian dominated nation. We all remember the strong but useless protests uttered at that time by one of the members of the Polish government.
For all these reasons, I think the time has come for the world to define in a clear declaration what it means by the rights and fundamental freedoms of nations and individuals.
And, Mr. Speaker, in spite of some events which may at times contribute to develop pessimism in the troubled sphere of international relations, I sincerely believe that the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent) found the right expression when he said at one of the meetings of the general assembly at New York:
Each state represented here has its own ideals, its own standards, its own ways of life. Differences of outlook are therefore inevitable. It is what we do about these differences that is crucial. Attempts to exploit them to the advantage of any nation or group of nations can accomplish nothing wholesome or constructive. Let us beware of recrimination, of charge and counter-charge. Let us, with good will, patience and forbearance, pursue the course which leads to resolution and not to exploitation of differences.
For these reasons, if for no other, I am firmly convinced that the proclamation of an international bill of rights will go a long way toward helping nations to attain that aim.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, the resolution before the house sets out a state of affairs which has been discussed in the house before. The resolution of the government is based upon the charter of the united nations, and it deals with human rights and fundamental freedoms. It proposes to appoint a committee of both houses of parliament to look into the matter so as to see what can be done.
Another related resolution, which was introduced by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), dealt with all the freedoms, including freedom of religion-which we hope we shall never lose in this country- freedom of speech, freedom from fear, freedom of the press, and the right of habeas corpus. There has now been added the right under which no one would be deprived of his liberty by order in council, or detained to give evidence without the benefit of counsel.
These resolutions were discussed in the session of 1937, on February 17. A resolution I placed before the house at that time proposed the appointment of a committee to look into these freedoms. They are all based on four things. My resolution is based on these four things: parliamentary reform, constitutional reform, cabinet reform and law reform -and to a great extent the latter. A long discussion took place in the house on February 17, 1937, in which the then minister of justice took part.
So far so good. In its resolution now before the house the government seems to forget one fact, namely that by the Constitutional Act of 1791 so much of English law was copied into the constitution of Canada as was adapted to our circumstances. This included the provisions in respect of habeas corpus, the various acts which had come before the country, the rights under magna carta, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights and the right of habeas corpus. All these things, were included. Then came the Statute of Westminster.
All those matters were dealt with in the debate in that year. As I have said, the liberty of the subject is an important matter, and something which has been dearly bought in the old land. Many people have died for it, including Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer, who were burned at the stake. Then there were the seven bishops who won freedom.
I do not want the liberty of the subject to become a meaningless thing in this country. I said the other evening that in some places trial by jury was, to some extent, supplanted by trial by newspapers. Sometimes magistrates will remand prisoners for a week or two weeks until they make up their minds.
As I said before, we in the British commonwealth are very fortunate. Through our allegiance to the crown and to common ideals and interests and loyalties, this unseen link engenders a chain of mutual sympathy which has been moulded, and which has stood the strain of two long struggles for survival.
As Lord Chatham said in 1776, there is something behind the throne greater than the king himself. As I said in the house on September 11, 1941:
Every principle for which the British nation struggled in the old land since the 17th century has been surrendered to the political caucuses. Parliament itself, which came into being to ensure that taxes shall be voted only by those who have to pay them, has become the institution through which those who do not pay them impose them on others. I want to emphasize to the committee that powers of legislation older even than the right of taxpayers to determine the national expenditure have been surrendered, and if we are to continue this sort of thing, the power of parliament will be gone forever. Whole spheres of activity, involving the livelihood of every man, woman and child in this country, have been removed from the jurisdiction of the law and of parliament and reserved for the
Human Rights

determination of tribunals, irresponsible, irremovable, governed by no control and subject to no appeal.
I hope that state of affairs is now at an end. Many Indians and Eskimos are not yet citizens and have no social rights, although they were here long before we were. The Indians, for example, have no civil rights or civil liberties, even though those rights were guaranteed by treaty. We are not treating these people as I hope they will be treated when the resolution is considered.
It is not constitutional changes that are needed at the present time, because the matters referred to in the resolution are already the law of the land. It is the function of our law courts to see that the law of the land is carried out. Although this parliament deals with the liberty of the subject and the criminal code and other statutes, the enforcement of the law is under the provinces. It has been contended in this parliament that this legislature should enforce its own law. I believe it would be a good thing if we did that. We have what is called a duplicate system. We have a provincial system under section 92, and within it is another duplicate municipal system. All these freedoms referred to have long been the law of the land.
What do you propose to do? As I see it, this involves no constitutional change at all. The constitution is clear; that is not what we need in connection with these matters. After two long wars to secure freedom we need a change in the hearts of men. That is one thing which is more essential than anything else. We have been going around in a circle trying to find a solution to this problem. We propose now to appoint a committee, but that will lead to nowhere. We have had royal commissions, committees, conferences and ministers travelling abroad on this mission, and members of all parties have gone travelling, but it seems to me that all their efforts have largely been failures. As Tennyson said in his, "In Memoriam":
Let knowledge grow from more to more.
And again in the early stanzas of "In Memoriam":
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, 0 Lord, art more than they.
As I see it, one of the main factors is that we must get people back to where they started years ago, back to religion. Freedom of religion is one of the things in the charter which the government has set out. I believe that one of the great changes which will come about in this country is that we shall return, as I said the other day, to religion and the

principles of Christianity. St. James in his General Epistle, chapter 1, verses 26 and 27, says of freedom and religion:
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his own tongue, but deeeiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
We have always had freedom of religion in this country. I know I have never seen any bigotry in the city from which I come, and I was born there. All the citizens have the same freedom; they are equal; they can run for any office. Some of the brightest students that we have are children of parents who came from European and other foreign countries, and long may it continue that way.
How are we to solve these problems? I do not know, but I wish to refer to what I said when this discussion was up before. I referred to the fact that in the early days of this country everybody owned some property, a farm, a little mill or something else. We have been slow to see how the rights of property have been taken away in Canada by big business; the old business has passed away, and a large' majority of the people are just proletarians. In the days of Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier it was quite different. In this house we are behind the times, and1 unless we make up and reform our house from within, it will be reformed from without. So far as my knowledge goes, none of the great reforms that have marked the history of England since 1800 originated within parliament; every one began outside. The same is true of our house. All our great reforms, except those which were initiated a few years ago, began outside the house. Reform was not enacted into law, either in Canada or in England, until parliaments were driven to do something. Look at the mother country. Parliamentary reform did not start in the House of Commons or the House of Lords, but outside those houses. The abolition of the slave trade, the abolition of the corn laws, prison reform, colonial reform, catholic emancipation and the reform of the franchise -all these started outside parliament.
I remember away back in the days when we had a committee which investigated the white-collar worker and the great reform which went *on in our industrial system. That committee was appointed to make an inquiry in connection with the freedoms set out in this charter. What was the result? We were told about the principles of magna carta that no free man shall be arrested or detained in prison, and so on, and that there shall be no taxation without representation. Is that the law in Canada

Human Rights
today? No. We have appointed numerous outside bodies that are imposing taxation. It was in defence of that principle of no taxation without representation that the American colonies commenced their struggle with the British government. Yet under universal suffrage we see magna carta restricted, if not abolished, and almost kingly powers conferred upon magistrates in connection, for instance, with t'he restricting of bail. Thousands of people are in prison for debt.
All the great landmarks of our constitutional history, beginning with magna carta, going on to the Declaration of Rights, the Petition of Right, and the Statute of Westminster, were founded on one principle; they were simply the reassertion of the principle of the subjection of the executive and of its members to the law of the land. It was the strength of the barons that made magna carta possible; a police force, so to speak, not to be used unless necessary, which gave us the liberty of our whole constitutional system. Today that liberty is contracted. Today the Canadian working man is at the mercy of arbitrary social conditions beyond his control. A century ago the reform of the franchise secured the liberty of trade and industry for the mercantile and industrial middle classes. Later it was extended to wage-earners; then women were given the franchise and their aid enlisted in the betterment of social conditions. We cannot afford any longer to sit still here and take no notice of what is going on in Canada. The danger to our freedom is greater from within Canada than from without.
What is Canada's answer to all this? First, we should put our own place in order, overhaul the British North America Act and revise our parliamentary system and the other systems I have named. We should adopt some system of Christian socialism for the workers of this country, the white-collar employees, the artisans and the farmers. A system of Christian socialism was brought in a hundred years ago by the industrial revolution in England. A similar movement brought about the evangelic and Oxford movements. There were great social reforms brought about in England a hundred years ago and similar reforms have been long overdue in Canada.
We must strive for freedom from within. We must be forever on our guard. It was the armed strength of the barons which made magna carta possible, and it is the armed strength of the British empire which will ensure the freedom of the British .people. History shows that disarmament is impossible in a world where intolerance is so rampant.
The disarmament of the free is the tyrant's chance now as in the days of King John.
In the debate on constitutional reform on February 17, 1937, I referred to how the provincial legislatures were created, and I had a word to say in relation to industrial employment, contrasting the precepts of Christianity with the way in which our industrial workers are used. Personality counts as nothing; the dollar is all supreme. Modern life is machine life, soulless, a life of standardization, a high speed production, a highly efficient organization for the making of profit. Dividends are the chief objective; to get dividends, human beings are sacrificed. Wages were often below the level of mere subsistence, so that people were forced into other ways of life to eke out a precarious livelihood. I spoke of the long hours of work exacted, but reforms have been brought about in that. Senior employees, after long years of faithful service, were in many cases cast out without a retiring allowance to make room for younger people. I said that the admonition, "Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ," was not being carried out. So, Mr. Speaker, these matters were before the house and before the countrry back in 1937. I do hope that something will be done to straighten out all these matters.
I should like to quote what I said in an election campaign in September, 1934 in Toronto-Broadview. I said:
I am for property rights and contract rights of the capitalistic system and sound money but I am also for human rights first, last and all the time, and a social order that will give fair play to labour and the consumer and for removal of the admitted abuses of the capitalistic system. The cause of freedom needs our eternal vigilance. There is no true liberty for the working man today if his whole life and that of his family are continuously at the mercy of arbitrary economic forces wholly beyond his control.
Take, for example, the effect of modern machinery on unemployment. Every new process seems to put men out of work. Our artisans are becoming machine minders, and women can mind machines as well as men. Thus you get a rise in female employment and a disastrous fall in the number of men at work. It is apparent to anyone that the very object of machines is to put men out of work. That is the reason they are invented and installed and they succeed in their purpose. Where is liberty while all this goes on?
The welfare of man should be our greatest care as a people and that of our workers' children. There can be no true remedy until the whole structure of our national and economic life is so remodeled as to aim at a national balance and stability rather than at the largest immediate profits.
It is more important that men, heads of households, should have the status of remunerative work than that our boards of trade and Department of Trade and Commerce should pub-

31S0
Human Rights

lish returns showing an increase in the country's wealth without any explanation of how that wealth was distributed.
The schoolteacher and not the judge or magistrate or policeman is the best protector of life and property today, as in the days of Lord Macaulay, 100 years ago.
The committee on price spreads appointed by the former prime minister of this country, the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett, did a great deal of good. I hope that the government will take this matter up and give consideration to all the matters that were included before as well as those to which I have referred to tonight.
Mr. JOHN T., HACKETT (Stanstead): Mr. Speaker, I shall not discuss the general proposition of the motion that is before the house. I am prompted to say a few words by the utterance of the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart). He has deemed it wise to criticize, in definite and pointed language, the conduct of the two commissioners who presided over the investigation into what is commonly called the espionage case. I think it was the great Napoleon who said that the best argument was reiteration. On no fewer than three previous occasions I have referred to the frequent and unfortunate appointment of members of the bench to tasks which lay beyond their judicial function. We declare frequently that we believe in the rule of law. The rule of law means to most of us a system of government which through its different branches makes laws, administers laws and interprets and applies laws to individual cases. Laws are made in parliament; they are administered by the executive, and they are interpreted and made applicable to cases by the judiciary. Happy indeed is the country which has a judiciary in which the people have complete and abiding confidence. That has been the lot of the Canadian people. Never yet within my ken has the judiciary, when acting within its proper sphere, been subjected to criticism in parliament or beyond. But in the last two or three years we have heard members of the judiciary criticized, and criticized violently, for their conduct and for their statements when fulfilling dirties allotted and assumed beyond their own proper sphere of judicial activity.
My whole life, Mr. Speaker, has been spent before the courts. I believe in the courts. I believe in the integrity of the courts. I believe in the integrity of our judges, and I am made sad by the practice which exposes that great institution, the judiciary, to criticism such as we have heard levelled at it tonight. Some will say that criticism is unwarranted. I am not going into the issue as to whether or not it is warranted; but I submit that the conduct

of the government, in appointing members of the courts to duties beyond their judicial office which expose them to criticism such as we have heard tonight, is unfortunate if not reprehensible. I am not prone to be unduly critical of those, who, in the immediate aftermath of the war appointed these gentlemen to the duties in the execution of which they have been so bitterly criticized. I am not prone to criticize the gentlemen themselves who answered the summons of the government, but I do say we have witnessed the fact that they have been criticized. We know that no judge can suffer that kind of criticism and not have it reflect upon the court of which he forms a part. I say to the government-and I must be fair, for there were grounds to say as much to governments which preceded it>-stop this abominable practices of using judges to solve political or partisan problems. The practice is growing; every time that the government has a political problem that is urgent; every time that it encounters a political situation that is difficult of solution, it refers it to a commission and names a judge to preside over the commission, so that the problem may be stayed or solved largely by the high repute of the arbiter. It is not right that men who have been appointed to judicial office, men upon whose integrity and upon whose reputation for integrity depend the fortune, the good name and the liberty of the citizen, should undertake tasks which cause them to be called partisans and tools of government.
I am going to ask the government, not for the first time, not for the second time and not for the third time, to desist from the pernicious practice of naming men who hold high judicial office to preside over commissions and committees for the solution of problems that are highly tinged with politics. And should perchance my plea fall upon deaf ears, I ask the judiciary, men whom we respect and rely upon, to have the courage and dignity to refuse when they are asked to enter upon a field which exposes them and their high office to the suspicion and to the criticism, the like of which we have heard this evening.
Every word that was uttered tonight in criticism of these gentlemen I felt almost as a personal affront, for I knew it was a wound in the side of the great institution in the service of which I have spent my life. Never has there been a time, Mr. Speaker, when as a people we depended more upon the courage upon the integrity, upon the wisdom and upon the high repute of the judiciary than today when all about us shakes and trembles. A law-abiding people, we depend for the honest interpretation of our laws upon a judiciary

Human Rights
whose reputation is inviolate. We ask the government to spare the Canadian judiciary so that its great tradition for impartiality may persist and its record continue.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I believe that the crux of the resolution before us is contained in the instruction that is given to the committee to consider:
. . . what steps, if any, it would he advisable to take or to recommend for the purpose of preserving in Canada respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Our horizon has indeed been broadened by the terms of this resolution to the question of an international bill of rights. But I want to congratulate the framer of this resolution on the recognition that it gives to the fact that as a country we can best play our part in seeking to establish freedom around the world by making sure that it burns brightly within our own boundaries.
We have, to begin with, in this country a great heritage. Let there be no doubt about that. But some of us feel that that heritage is in danger. Perhaps one of the reasons why it is in danger is that it is precisely what the word implies, a heritage, not something that we won or fought for ourselves, but something that was handed down to us by people across the seas.
I dare to hope that, as the years go on, we shall transform that heritage into something really native, really part of the life of this country. In the meantime, we must face the fact that if we are to maintain and enlarge upon that heritage eternal vigilance is the price we must pay.
I should like to quote a paragraph from the writings of a distinguished gentleman in this country to whom reference has been made several times already today. I refer to Mr. B. K. Sandwell, who says this:
Canadians have never had to achieve their own rights as against their own governments. They had to achieve the rights of their own government as against the government of the mother country, but the rights which they as individuals have against their own governments they inherited from that mother country. For that reason they may not appreciate them as highly as the British, who achieved them over many generations, or as the Americans, who devised a set of their own when they devised their own constitution. For that reason also they may not realize how very easily they can be lost nor, once lost, how desperately difficult they are to recover.
I was interested this afternoon in the argument put forth by the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie) for getting along if we can without a written bill of rights. He 93166-2041
sang the praises of unwritten rights, of an unwritten constitution; and I am sure that there is something in all of us that responds to the idea of our rights and our freedoms being so clearly understood, so indelibly written into the hearts of our people that they do not need to be written in law and statute.
Unfortunately, however, we do not start from scratch. We are not in the situation where freedom and liberty are ours without question. We have had certain precedents. Reference has already been made to them today, to laws and orders in council that have been passed, which, in the view of some of us, have constituted a denial of human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is because we have had these denials that it has become necessary to make impossible their recurrence by getting down in writing the rights and freedoms that are ours.
In any society which has only an unwritten constitution, precedent plays a big part. I believe it is fair to say that that is the case in the United Kingdom. There is not a written constitution there, but there is a body of law and statute that has grown up through the years, and wrapped up in it is the story of one precedent after another. In that case, the precedents are overwhelmingly on the side of freedom and liberty.
We have many such precedents here. We also have in recent years precedents that are on the other side, and it is because we have these negative precedents that it is no longer possible for us to depend on an unwritten statement of our freedoms. We must get it down in black and white. I agree with those who have said, on both sides of the house, that this is not a matter to rush into merely by the presentation of a resolution or a bill to the house and by the passage of it by a majority vote. Not only is it a matter that should be referred to and discussed by a committee of the house as suggested in the resolution before us, but I support the proposal that representatives from the provinces might also be consulted before we achieve a final statement.
I accept the suggestion that a declaration of rights might be even more desirable than a bill of rights, but I press the point that the time has come in our Canadian history to get in writing the freedoms and liberties that we are seeking to establish, seeking to make not just a heritage we have received from the past but very much our own.
The result of the experiences we have had in recent years with the denial of certain rights and freedoms that we believed to be fundamental is that there has been a spontaneous growth of associations across the
Human Rights

country concerned about civil liberties. I hold in my hand a communication from the Civil Liberties Association of Manitoba. I call the attention of the house to this one because it comes from my own province and I know quite well the executive members and the membership generally of this association. The letter before me is signed by Professor W. J. Waines as president of the Civil Liberties Association of Manitoba, and Professor David Owens as secretary, and I should like to place on record the suggested declaration of rights which this association has placed in the hands of all members of parliament.
I may say that this proposed declaration was sent to us after a recent meeting which was held in the city of Winnipeg, very largely attended, where citizens of that city made clear their interest in this question and their support of a declaration of rights.
Before I read the six points in this declaration, may I read one short paragraph from the letter accompanying it:
We do not presume that every person concerned about rights will approve of the details and phraseology of the inclosed. We desire rather that the principles should be accepted, unprejudiced by the possible need for minor alterations in the statement.
It was in that spirit that this declaration was sent to us and it is in that spirit that I place it on the record of the house.
1.	No Canadian citizen shall be exiled, nor deprived of his citizenship in any part, nor be discriminated against in the exercise of his citizenship because of race, religion, colour, sex, language or political beliefs.
2.	No Canadian citizen shall be denied justice as administered in the regularly constituted courts of law; nor be denied protection against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. To this end, and except in time of actual insurrection or invasion, the writ of habeas corpus shall override any administrative order to the contrary.
3.	No Canadian citizen shall be denied freedom of religion in the right to profess, advocate and practise any conscientious belief not inconsistent with the rights of others.
4.	No Canadian citizen shall be denied freedom of expression, either in speech or writing, except as provided in the laws respecting slander, libel and blasphemy.
5.	No Canadian citizen shall be denied the right of peaceable assembly; nor be denied the right of association or organization for any peaceful purpose not inconsistent with the rights of others.
6.	No Canadian citizen shall be denied the right to petition the government or to criticize it in good faith; nor be restricted in the right to bring suit against the crown or any administrative board, agent or corporation acting on behalf of the crown.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question? Do you believe the

communistic party to be a political party and, if a man had political views along commu-deported?
nistic lines, would you say he should not be


Stanley Howard Knowles: I will answer that question at another time. It is not asked at all in the spirit of this debate.


Edmund Davie Fulton: What is the spirit of the debate?
Mr. KNOW'LES: The spirit of the debate is one that concerns something very sacred and fundamental, and I thought the tone of the debate had been set by the speech made by the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie) and the able speech made by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker). I suggest that the debate should go on in that tone.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: May I say that introducing what you are doing into this speech, you brought the question on yourself, and you cannot answer it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I can answer the question quite easily, but for the reasons I have stated I shall not bother.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: You are embarrassed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am presenting to the house at the moment a suggestion for a declaration of rights which comes from as responsible a body as there is in connection with this matter anywhere in the country, the Civil Liberties Association of Manitoba.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: They are not communists.


Stanley Howard Knowles: No.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: All of them or some of them?


Major James William Coldwell: None of them.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Does my hon. friend imply that those who compose this association are communists?


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: I will answer you at some more opportune time.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Now who is it that will not answer the question.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Two opportunists in one evening.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: You cannot answer the question.


James Horace King: I would ask hon. members not to interrupt the member who has the floor.


Stanley Howard Knowles: In the spirit of the short paragraph I read from the letter from Professor

Standing Orders
Waines and Professor Owens, before I quoted the six points, I should like to add a seventh point of my own. It has already been suggested a number of times in this debate, but I feel that when the question is being considered by the committee the whole story of human rights and fundamental freedoms should be before us. I would therefore suggest No. 7 to read:
No Canadian citizen shall be denied the right to freedom from fear and freedom from want.
The fact that an organization of men and women such as comprise this association, and others across the country, axe concerned about this matter, bears witness to the need of something being done about it at the earliest possible moment. References have already been made today to the obvious encroachments on our civil liberties that have already occurred in this country.
First of all, there is racial discrimination. It does seem to me to be tragic, after what certain racial theories did to this world from 1939 to 1945, that any form of racial discrimination should be continued in any country that adheres to the democratic way and believes in human rights and fundamental freedoms. I was sorry to pick up a United States paper a few days ago-the Christian Science Monitor, which does such a good job of reporting

and have to read therein, as a Canadian, an article about our continuing on our statute books a law that denies to certain Canadians, because of their racial origin, rights which are accorded to other Canadian citizens. I am not going into any detail on that matter just now because we discussed it in another debate. But I suggest that the eternal vigilance which we must use to preserve freedom sooner or later must bring us around to the point where we get rid of racial discrimination from the statute law of this country. May we do it soon.
Reference has also been made this afternoon or evening to religious persecution as it has been practised in various parts of Canada. In recent months and recent years we have also had attacks on the rights of labour, injunctions against picketing and so on. We have people picked up because of their activities as trade union organizers, and on one pretext or another, imprisoned. Then we have had the whole sorry espionage incident which has been discussed so fully by speakers who have preceded me. I will not go into these matters in any further detail, but I just wanted to mention them as a prelude to something else that I wish to speak about, but which I fear I shall have to leave over until the next day we meet. At this point I would
simply say that there are these obvious, but none the less serious threats to our liberty and freedom to which we must give some consideration.
There are, however, other threats to our freedom which are less obvious but which, in my view, are more sinister. They are threats not generally considered in discussions about civil liberty. It is about these very real threats that I wish to speak. But since it is almost eleven o'clock, Mr. Speaker, and since this is launching into another part of what I wish to say, perhaps I might be permitted to adjourn the debate.
On motion of Mr. Knowles the debate was adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Monday, May 19, 1947