1948-02-02

STANDING COMMITTEES

[Stage Direction]
Hon. LIONEL CHEVRIER (Minister of Transport) presented the report of the special committee appointed to prepare and report lists of members to compose the standing committees of the house, as follows:

[Stage Direction]
Messieurs:
Baker
Benidickson
Brooks
Brunelle
Casselman
Coldwell
Cote (Matapedia-Matane) Cruickshank Diefenbaker Fair
Fournier (Maison-neuve-Rosemont) Graydon Green
Harris (Grey-Bruce) Jaenicke
Knowles
MacNicol
Manross
Marier
Marquis
Martin
Miller
Mutch
Parent
Pouliot
Raymond (Beauhar-nois-Laprairie) Richard (Ottawa East)
Richard (Gloucester) Winters-29.
(Quorum 10)
MISCELLANEOUS PRIVATE BILLS Messieurs:
Black (Yukon)
Bonnier
Boucher
Bowerman
Brown
Cleaver
Cloutier
Cote (Verdun)
Cournoyer
Croll
Dechene
Dickey
Dorion
Dubois
Ferguson
Fournier (Maison-neuve-Rosemont) Gariepy Gladstone Grant Halle Hazen Healy Hlynka Knight Laurendeau
Lennard
Little
Lockhart
McCuaig
McGregor
MacLean
Matthews (Brandon) Matthews (Kootenay East)
Maybank
Mayhew
Miller
Murphy
Nixon
Parent
Picard
Richard (Gloucester)
Ross (St. Paul's)
Sinnott
Stokes
Timmins
Townley-Smith
Warren
Webb
Whitman
Wylie-50.
(Quorum 15)
BANKING AND COMMERCE Messieurs:
Abbott Argue Arsenault Beaudry Belzile Benidickson Black (Cumberland)
Blackmore Bradette Breithaupt Cleaver
Cote (St. Johns-Iber-ville-Napierville)
Dechene
Dionne (Beauce)
Dorion Fleming
Fournier (Maison-neuve-Rosemont)
Fraser Fulton Gour Hackett Harkness
Harris (Danforth)
Hazen Ilsley
(Quorum 15)

[Stage Direction]
Messieurs:
Arsenault	Green
Beaudry	Hamel
Black (Yukon)	Hartt
Boucher	Homuth
Bradette	Howe
Burton	Isnor
Case	Jackman
Cleaver	Johnston
Cocker am	Kirk
Cloutier	McCubbin
Cruickshank	Macdonnell
Dechene	Marshall
Denis	Maybank
Diefenbaker	Murphy
Dionne (Beauce)	Nicholson
Ferguson	Picard
Fleming	Pinard
Fournier (Hull)	Probe
Fournier (Maisonneuve	-Raymond (Wright)
Rosemont)	Richard (Gloucester)
Fraser	Rinfret
Gibson (Comox-	Stuart (Charlotte)
Alberni)	Thatcher
Gladstone	W arren
Golding	Winkler
Grant	Zaplitny -50.
(Quorum 15)
Irvine
Isnor
Jackman
Jaenicke
Jutras
Lesage
Low
Macdonnell
(Muskoka-Ontario) MacNaught Manross Marquis Maybank Mayhew Michaud Nixon Picard Pinard Quelch Rinfret Ross (Souris) Stewart (Winnipeg North)
Smith (York North)
Thatcher
Timmins
Tucker-50.
[Stage Direction]
Standing Committees

[Stage Direction]
Archibald Ashby Aylesworth Beaudoin Beaudry Bentley
Messieurs:
Lafontaine Lennard Lesage Little Maybank Mayhew
Bertrand (Terrebonne) Mclvor
Black (Cumberland) Blair Bonnier Bourget Breithaupt Brooks Campbell Chevrier Church Douglas Drope Eudes Farquhar Gagnon Gauthier
Gauthier _r______
Gourd (Chapleau) Hartt
McCulloch (Pictou)
McKay
Michaud
Miller
Mullins
Pearkes
Picard
Pouliot
Robinson (Simcoe East)
Robinson (Bruce)
(Hamilton East)
(Portneuf)
(Nipissing)
Ross Shaw
Smith (York North) Stephenson Stuart (Charlotte) Timmins Townley-Smith Vi au
White (Hastings-Peterborough)
White (Middlesex East) Whitman Winters-60.
(Quorum 20)
AGRICULTURE and colonization Messieurs:
Hatfield
Herridge
Hodgson
Irvine
*Johnston
Jntras
Argue
Arsenault
Barrett
Beaudoin
Belzile
Bertrand (Prescott)
Black (Cumberland)
Black (Huntingdon)
Bryce
Burton
Cardiff
Charlton
Clark
Cloutier
Cote (Matapedia-Matane)
Coyle
Cruickshank
Dechene
Desmond
Diefenbaker
Douglas
Drope
Dubois
Fair
F arquhar Fontaine Gagnon Gardiner Golding Gour (Russell)
Halle
Harkness
Harris (Grey-Bruce) Hatfield Herridge Jutras Kirk Lapalme Laurendeau Leger
rMr. Chevrier.]
Lesage
Matthews (Brandon) McCubbin McGarry McLure Menary Michaud Quelch
Robinson (Bruce) Ross (Souris)
Senn
Sinnott
Strum, (Mrs.)
Townley-Smith
Tucker
Warren
Webb
Whitman
Wright
Wylie-60.
(Quorum 20)

[Stage Direction]
Messieurs:
Bertrand (Prescott)	MacLean
Brunelle	Marier
Cardiff	Murphy
Daniel	Pinard
Denis	Robinson (Simcoe East)
Hamel	Sinnott
Jiaques -	Smith (York North)
Knight	Stokes
Knowles	Stuart (Charlotte)
Lapalme	Tustin-20.
(Quorum 8)
MARINE AND FISHERIES Messieurs:
Archibald Arsenault Ashby Baker Blair Brooks Bryce
Cote (Matapedia-Matane)
Cournoyer Farquhar Gibson
(Comox-Alberni)
Gillis
Gour (Russell)
Gregg Ilazen Kirk Kuhl
Lafontaine
(Quorum 10)
Langlois
Leger
Menard
Little
Mac-Naught
McDonald
(Parry Sound) McLure Merritt Miller Moore Pearkes Reid Sinclair
(Vancouver North) Sinnott Stanfield
Stuart (Charlotte) Winters-35.
MINES, FORESTS AND WATERS Messieurs:
Adamson
Benidickson
Black (Yukon)
Blackmore
Boivin
Cockeram
Caouette
Dickey
Dion (Lake St. John-Roberval)
Gariepy
Gourd (Chapleau)
Hodgson
Laeombe
Lafontaine
Lalonde
Lapalme
Little
MacNicol
McCullough
(Assiniboia)
McDonald
(Parry Sound)
McM aster
Maloney
Matthews
(Kootenay East) Moore
Raymond (Wright) Ross (Hamilton East) Ross (Souris)
Sinclair
(Vancouver North) Sinnott Viau Webb
White (Hastings' Peterborough) Zaplitny-35.
McCann
McCulloch (Pictou)
(Quorum 15)
Barrett
Brown
Desmond
Dubois
Hlynka
Knowles
DEBATES Messieurs:
Matthews (Brandon) Pouliot
Richard (Gloucester) Richard (Ottarva East) Rinfret Rowe- 12.
(Quorum 7)

Standing Committees

[Stage Direction]
Messieurs:
Adamson
Archibald
Beaudry
Black (Cumberland)
Blackmore
Boivin
Case
Charlton
Cote (Verdun)
Croll
Dechene
Dickey
Gauthier (Nipissing)
Gibson
(Comox-Alberni) Gillis Gingues Homutli Johnston
Knowles
Lalonde
Lapalme
Lockhart
Maclnnis
Mclvor
Maloney
Maybank
Merritt
Mitchell
Pouliot
Raymond (Beauharnois-Laprairie)
Ross (Hamilton East) Sinclair
(Vancouver North) Smith (Calgary West) Timmins Viau-35.
(Quorum 10) EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Messieurs:
Baker
Beaudoin
Benidickson
Boucher
Bradette
Breithaupt
Coldwell
Cote (Matapedia-Matane)
Croll
Dickey
Diefenbaker
Fleming
Fraser
Gauthier (Portneuf)
Graydon
Green
Hackett
Harris (Grey-Bruce)
Jackman
Jaenieke
J aques
Kidd
Knowles
Lapointe
Leger
Low
Mclnnis
Marquis
Mayhew
Mutch
Picard
Pinard
Raymond (Beauhar-nois-Laprairie) Reid
Winkler-35.
(Quorum 10)

[Stage Direction]
Messieurs:
Adamson
Arsenault
Aylesworth
Baker
Beaudry
Bentley
Bertrand (Prescott) Bertrand (Terrebonne)
Boivin
Bradette
Bradshaw
Brunelle
Campbell
Church
Clark
Cote (St. Johns-Iber-ville-Napierville) Dubois Emmerson Fontaine Fraser
Gauthier (Nipissing) Gibson (Hamilton West)
Golding Halle Hansell Healy Henderson Hlynka Kidd Kuhl Lacombe Lalonde Lapalme Lapointe Leonard MacLean MaeNaught Maloney McCuaig McCullough (Assiniboia) McDonald (Parry Sound) McGregor McLure McMaster Nicholson
Robinson (Simeoe East)
Ross (St. Paul's) Sinclair (Vancouver North)
Sinnott
Strum (Mrs.)
Tustin
Viau
White (Hastings-Peterborough) Winters-54.
Mr. CHEVRIER moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.

Hon. LIONEL CHEVRIER (Minister of Transport) moved:: That the standing committees of this house shall severally be empowered to examine and inquire into all such matters and things as may be referred to them by the house, and to report from time to time their observations and opinions thereon, with power to send for persons, papers and records.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Lionel Chevrier: That the following members be appointed to assist His Honour the Speaker in the direction of the library, in so far as the interests of the Commons are concerned, 'and to act as membeis of a joint committee of both houses on the library, viz.:
Messieurs Adamson, Aylesworth, Black (Chateauguay-Huntington); Bowerman, Cardiff, Castleden, Cloutier, Dion, Eudes, Fournier (Maisonneuve-iRosemont); Gauthier (Nipis-sing); Gingues, Gladstone, Gourd (Chapleau); Grant, Henderson, Herridge, Howe, Jackman, Jaques, Kidd, Knight, Lapalme, Leger, MacLean, Marier, Marshall, Matthews (Brandon); Mc-Garry, Mcllraith, McKay, Menary, Mullins, Nixon, Pearkes, Reid, Richard (Ottawa East); Ross (St. Paul's); Skey, Smith, Stephenson, White (Middlesex East), Winkler, Zaplitny; and that a message be sent to the senate to acquaint their honours therewith.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Lionel Chevrier: That Messieurs Black (Yukon); Bradshaw, Breithaupt, Cote (Matapedia-Matane); Cour-noyer, Coyle, Gagnon, Gariepy, Gladstone, Hark-ness, Jutras, Kirk, Laurendeau, Leger, Len-nard, Lesage, Marshall. Mayhew, McGregor, Mclvor. Richard (Ottawa East); Stewart (Winnipeg North); Strum, Mrs., be appointed to assist His Honour the Speaker in the direction of the restaurant, in so far as the interests of the Commons are concerned, and to act as members of a joint committee of both houses on the restaurant, and that a message be sent to the senate to acquaint their honours therewith.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Prices Committee


[Stage Direction]
Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Vocational Training Co-ordination Act, 1942, to extend vocational assistance to unemployed persons although such persons may not have applied for insurance benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to present a bill respecting industrial relations and investigations of industrial disputes and to make provision therein for the payment out of the consolidated revenue fund of the remuneration and expenses of the members of the boards and commissions and the officers, clerks and employees appointed or engaged by or under the authority of the act.
He sand: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Before you put this
motion, Mr. Speaker, might I draw to the attention of the house the fact that one clause which should have been added, has been inadvertently omitted. The committee is to be sixteen in number. Standing order 65 requires that a special committee shall be limited to fifteen in number unless special provision is otherwise made, and, unfortunately, notice of the suspension of that rule has been omitted. Perhaps the house would allow the motion to be amended by adding the words "and that standing order 65 be suspended in relation thereto."

With that amendment I would proceed with the motion. I move:
That a select committee of this house be appointed to examine and to report from time to time as to (a) the causes of the recent rise in the cost of living; (b) prices which have been raised above levels justified by increased costs; (c) rises in prices due to the acquiring, accumulating or withholding from sale by any persons, firms or corporations of any goods beyond amounts reasonably required for the ordinary purposes of their businesses.
That the committee shall have power to appoint from among its members such subcommittees as may be deemed advisable or necessary to deal with specific phases of the enquiry, and power to send for persons, papers and records, to examine witnesses under oath and to print such papers and evidence from day to day as may be ordered by the committee.
That the committee shall have leave to sit while the house is sitting;
That seven members of the committee shall constitute a quorum;
That the committee shall have power to engage the services of counsel, accountants and other necessary assistants who shall be paid out of the appropriation for parliament;
That the committee shall consist of Messrs. Beaudry, Cleaver, Fleming, Homuth, Johnston, Knowles. Lesage, Martin. Maybank, Mayhew, McCubbin. Merritt, Nicholson,' Pinard, Smith (Calgary West), Winters, and that standing order 65 be suspended in relation thereto.
I might begin by saying that I believe all hon. members of the house are agreed that the question of the recent rise in prices, particularly the increase in the cost of living, is a matter of nation-wide concern. This afternoon I do not intend to go into the question of the causes of the rises in prices, or of possible remedies, but merely to bring forward a motion on one related matter which is part of the government's program in dealing with this large question. As hon. members will have seen, the motion itself is for one specific purpose, namely, the appointment of a special committee of this house to investigate the rise in prices and cost of living, with special reference to what we describe ordinarily as profiteering and hoarding. I wish to make quite clear that the motion is only one of a series of -measures which the government has already adapted in relation to the solution of this problem, and also of other measures that will be brought forward later in the course of the present session.
On January 15 of this year, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) made a public statement in which he indicated some of the measures which had already been taken or were about to be taken to deal with this question. Among others he mentioned that: Price ceilings were being reimposed on meat and on butter.
The prices of certain types of fertilizers which had advanced sharply in eastern Canada

Prices Committee
would be reduced by the application of markup controls and by the roll-back of certain basic chemical ingredients.
Mark-up controls would be applied where necessary to imported fruits and vegetables.
The government would invite parliament to extend its authority to control prices and rents for a further period of one year, that is to say, to March 31, 1949.
Price ceilings on sugar and molasses, oils and fats, certain canned fruits and vegetables, primary iron and steel, tin, and residential rents would be continued in effect until circumstances justify their removal.
The wartime prices and trade board has been requested1 to examine further into recent sharp increases in certain food products to see whether there were grounds for launching exemplary prosecutions against persons who have been selling such products at prices that are higher than is reasonable and just. Shortly thereafter I announced that the commissioner of the Combines Investigation Act had been told that it was part of government policy and the wish of the administration that this act should be vigilantly administered. He has been told that he and the members of his staff would be expected to exercise to the full the authority given under provisions of the act where there was justification for bringing those provisions into operation. Today I am asking hon. members to appoint a select committee of this house to examine and report on matters pertaining to the recent rise in prices and in the increase in the cost of living. For obvious reasons some other parts of the government's program could not be disclosed at this time. For example, it had been stated in the press that the proper way to bring down the cost of living is to make certain changes in the tax schedules and the like. As hon. members know, the government cannot disclose its program regarding taxation until the budget itself is brought down. What I am seeking at the moment to make clear is that the resolution before us today does not purport to do other than what appears on the face of it, namely, to be a request to this House of Commons to appoint a select committee with wide powers to investigate the causes of the recent rise in prices and of the cost of living, and the matters mentioned in relation thereto.
Now I should say just one word, before proceeding further, in regard to the problem of rising prices at a time like the present. I would say that the problem of rising prices is not in any way peculiar to Canada. I suggest that is something which may well be kept in mind in any discussions that may take place on this question. As far as I am aware, it is 5849-48
a problem affecting every country in the world; and I believe that were an investigation of the situation made in the different countries it would be found that, everything considered, Canada has been affected less adversely by rising prices than any other country in the world.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I hear som.
hon. gentlemen taking exception to that. If when they come to speak they can tell this house what other country or countries have been more fortunate, all thing considered, than Canada in the matter of the cost of living since the recent war, I hope they will give us that information. That is a statement of fact which is well known, and which I think it is important to have kept in mind.
In the second place I would point out that the problem of rising prices is not a new phenomenon; it is something that, I think, has occurred in every country after a great war, whether it has been civil war or an international war. The whole range of prices has changed; as shortages in supplies have arisen, prices have risen suddenly to new heights. That, as I say, is something which inevitably appears after a time of war. In this connection I should mention what happened in Canada and in this House of Commons after the first great war, which, as hon. members will recall, was from 1914 to 1918. In 1919 Sir Thomas White, who if I recollect aright was then Minister of Finance, introduced a motion for the establishment of a committee on the cost of living. He did so by a motion very similar to the one I am introducing at the present time. I should like to draw the attention of the house to this significant fact, that when that motion was introduced by Sir Thomas White it was carried by this house without any opposition whatever, and without any debate. At that time it was recognized very clearly by hon. members, as it was by the public, that the question of the rising cost of living was something on which the public was anxious to have full and exact information, that the public itself desired to know the facts concerning a phenomenon with which for the first time it was being faced in such an emphatic manner. The parallel with today is as complete as it could possibly be. The establishment of that committee did not prevent the government of that day from adopting other measures, but it did afford to this House of Commons, and the public, information which was of assistance in meeting what was most necessary in the public interest at that time.
Prices Committee

I have no doubt that, in the course of this debate, we shall have frequent references to another select committee of this house which also had to do with matters of prices; that is, the select committee on price spreads which this house appointed in 1934. It was the late Viscount Bennett, as Prime Minister at the time, who introduced the motion for the price spreads committee. I have no doubt that some hon. gentlemen opposite will find, in some of the remarks I made at that time, much that they would be pleased to quote at this moment as to why wider powers should have been given to that committee than apparently was the case. May I draw attention at once to this important circumstance. In that case the parallel does not hold.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I expected that laugh, because I knew a great many hon. gentlemen opposite were not fully informed about the situation as it then existed. If they had been they would not have laughed. Let me now illustrate what I mean by saying there is no parallel between the duties of the two committees. The committee of 1919, which had to do with the question of the cost of living, was appointed at a time when prices were going up rapidly, when persons were concerned about further increases in the cost of living and wished to discover the causes. When Mr. Bennett introduced his motion for a committee in 1934, prices were not rising. It was not a problem of a rising cost of living; it was the problem of a depression. Prices were falling very rapidly, and the public of that day could not understand how it was that, in some cases, prices had dropped considerably, while in others they remained comparatively high or had not fallen at all in comparison with prices in some other branches of industry and commerce. The committee was appointed to discover, if possible, the reasons for great spreads in prices between primary products and consumer goods, or what was regarded as an exploitation of the producers on the one hand and the exploitation of the consumers on the other. That was an entirely different situation; and the ground, above all others, which was given at the time -and to a large extent, I think, correctly- as to why some prices were kept at such high levels instead of falling with the others was that combines were operating to keep up certain prices and preventing them from falling in accordance with the natural law of supply and demand, as they would otherwise have fallen. For that reason, in that debate, the emphasis was placed on increasing the powers

under the Combines Investigation Act and giving larger powers to deal with combines, mergers and trusts.
In the present situation of rising prices I believe there are many cases in which an existence of combines does not enter at all. Owing to the circumstances of our time, owing to the opportunity which is afforded to individuals here and there to hoard, owing to the opportunity which is given them to exact high prices in sales, they are keeping prices at an unnaturally high level; but there is not necessarily a combine supporting them. The question of a combine entering into the picture to support them may not enter at all. I do not say that is so all through, but I do say that it is one of the things the committee I am today asking the house to appoint could inquire into, and upon which it should be able to throw a considerable amount of light. I venture to say no one of us in this house today knows whether in some of this class of cases a combine is operating, or whether there are greedy individuals, selfish individuals, mean individuals who, without the support of combinations of any kind, are taking advantage of their fellow members of the community to exact undue profits, because they have consumers in a tight place with conditions as they are at the present time. I wish to make that point clear at once, in order that hon. members may understand the difference between the work of the two committees and why it is that a committee dealing with the question of rising prices has quite a different task from one which is dealing with a depression and falling prices, where quite other factors may enter in to affect the situation.
Now may I say just a word as to the committee which is being proposed today, first of all as to what it is and, in that same connection, a word as to what it is not. As I said at the outset this motion is for what it purports to be for and nothing more, namely, to establish a committee to investigate with a view to finding facts. It is a fact-finding committee, not a policy-making committee. It is the belief of the government that this is essential and necessary in order to make clear in the quickest possible time what the real circumstances are that are governing in the situation at the present time.
May I say that this desire to find the facts, making that the basic duty of the committee, is founded upon the very sound philosophy that in the cure of what one might call social wrongs or anti-social evils, those anti-social acts which adversely affect the great masses of the people in their individual lives and

Prices Committee
homes, publicity in regard to the facts is a much more effective remedy than penalty.
Whatever men may be in their individual lives, there is nothing they abhor more, if they have been guilty of any meanness or taken any undue advantage of their fellowmen, than to have that meanness exposed in public. In regard to this class of social wrong I believe that if there are people today in Canada who are hoarding where they should be selling, and if there are others who are profiteering where they should be glad to do what is fair, just and reasonable in the matter of prices, such people will quickly take notice of the fact that this House of Commons has appointed a committee which can go into any single phase of this problem and bring individuals from any part of the country to answer for situations in which they may be involved.
I for one firmly believe in the power of publicity when based on facts. Public opinion plays a very large part in determining the course of events and the conduct of human beings. However, if public opinion is to be effective and to be of national service, it is very important that opinion be fully and clearly informed. The trouble wfith the situation today is that there is not sufficient knowledge of the facts to enable public opinion to be formed intelligently. Men are being blamed in one quarter for doing things of which they say they are wholly innocent, while others may be doing many things which they should not be doing, but for which others are being held responsible. At the present time, except to a very limited extent, there is not the opportunity to turn the searchlight of investigation upon a questionable situation with a view to informing public opinion intelligently in regard to it.
I venture to say to the House of Commons that if public opinion can once be formed intelligently and brought to bear on any situation which adversely affects the well-being of the people, very soon parliament will find the remedy for that situation. But without knowledge of the facts, some suggested remedies may do more harm than good. Remedies must be directed to the right place and in the right way.
It is not more in the way of legislation that we need; it is more in the way of information. There is a body of legislation already on the statute books of this country; but, as everyone knows, the minute an effort is made to set in motion some of this machinery, obstacles are raised from one side or another which tend to operate against speedy and thorough action. Nothing will remove those obstacles so quickly as the power of a committee of this House
of Commons to take up questions.which affect the well-being of the people, something which adversely affects their lives.
I would also say that the mere existence of this power, the mere existence of a committee of the House of Commons appointed to investigate these matters, to a considerable extent will have the effect of curbing and possibly reducing what otherwise might be a further rise in prices and a further increase in the cost of living. I know that has been so in regard to what has happened under the Combines Investigation Act, what has happened under the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, and what, I believe, has happened in connection with investigations by the wartime prices and trade board. I would point out that in regard to all these bodies, however, they are agencies of government, and the minute an agency of government, as contrasted with the action of members of parliament themselves, is put to work on a problem of this kind, it is immediately suggested that they are a body of bureaucrats; that they are under the control of the government.
What the people of Canada want to be convinced of is that the body appointed to investigate is one in which they have full confidence. They also want to know that those they have returned to parliament have the right, to make their grievance known and to see that it is thoroughly investigated. That is the opportunity which the government is giving to members who have seats in this house at this time. The people of this country want to have their representatives in this parliament proceed to discover the causes underlying what they have experienced thus far of what they believe to be an unwarranted rise in prices, whether due to profiteering, hoarding, or any other cause.
Now, just a word as to what this committee is not. The government has no desire or intention that the committee should be used in what might be described as a witch hunt, to see what persons, w'hat firms or what corporations may be brought into difficulties, or to have individuals, firms or corporations unnecessarily embarrassed by a public inquiry. If the committee were used to serve a purpose of that kind that would completely defeat the end and purpose the government has in mind. The committee is not intended to be a prosecuting tribunal; it is hoped it. may save the need for prosecutions. The committee is a fact-finding body. Its purpose is the publicizing of facts, not the piosecution of offenders. Once the fadts are known, the
748
Prices Committee

opportunity, for prosecution will come in accordance with legislation already on the statute books.
I do not believe the people of Canada today wish to have any person in trade or commerce do other than receive what is recognized as a fair and just remuneration for services rendered. I do not believe the people of Canada wish producers or distributors to be paid prices lower than those which are just and reasonable. Once they are convinced that, having regard to an existing situation, prices are just and reasonable, they will be content to try to find ways of making necessary adjustments, but what they do not like is the idea that some individual or firms or corporations are profiting unduly at their expense, and that others are hoarding in a manner which prevents the people from getting the benefit of that plenty
which there may be in the land-although it
is not as great a plenty as it may have been at other times.
I repeat that the aim and desire of the people is not, as I believe, the prosecution of any victim; what the people are interested in is having prices reduced-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: -and having the cost of living reduced to the point where it is just and fair.
I hear some hon. members applauding. Of course they applaud; we all applaud that. We all wish to see prices and the cost of living reduced, where there is legitimate reason for believing that prices are unfair and that the cost of living is being held up by unjust means. But I ask those who are applauding the sentiments I have just expressed whether they would say that prices are being fairly reduced and the cost of living is being justly reduced if, in the course of that process, injustice is being done to producers or distributors who are doing their utmost to supply the people's needs today under the difficult situation which exists. The purpose of the committee is not to embarrass any individual, any firm or any corporation that is seeking to do business in a business-like, honourable and fair manner. Here I may point out that many concerns in this country are being criticized today on the score that they are responsible for some unfair increase in the cost of living, that they are responsible for some anti-social behaviour. This committee will give an opportunity to any individual or firm that has been unjustly accused to make its position perfectly clear to the public of this country. It cannot be said that this procedure of setting up a committee of hon. members of the House of Commons to make a public inquiry could be other than

helpful to those who are doing what is right, while making it increasingly difficult for those who are doing what is wrong.


An hon. MEMBER:: Get off the bandwagon.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Just a word as to the attitude of the opposition. I will begin by expressing particular surprise at the fact that members of a certain group not immediately opposite at whom I am looking at the moment should have found it necessary to make so many interruptions and to inject so much in the w7ay of laughter during the course of my remarks this afternoon on a question which concerns the whole country.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: You cannot tell where you are looking by reading Hansard.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As I have said, this is one of the most important questions with which the country has been faced, and with which this parliament has been called upon to deal. I hope I have not said anything which was provocative. I have tried my best to have hon. members appreciate the opportunity that is being given to them now, and that will be given to them for the time this committee is sitting to help to expose what is wrong and to bring about redress in cases where there are unjust acts and unfair dealings. I should think that was something which the country, feeling as it does today, would appreciate, rather than something to laugh at, as some of my hon. friends opposite-though not immediately opposite-have been doing.


Mr. MACDONNELL (Muskoka-Ontario):: If the Prime Minister is referring to me, I wish to say that he is entirely mistaken if he thinks I am laughing at anything he said.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not know why my hon. friend should have thought I meant him, unless he was conscious of some reason for it.
May I return again to the attitude of the opposition. It is a little puzzling to understand the different positions that have been taken by hon. gentlemen opposite, and I speak now more particularly with reference to the leaders of the three parties.
After I had announced the other evening that the government intended to have a committee of members of this house to investigate rising prices and the cost of living, I think each of them in turn said that this was welcome. One or two used the word "welcome," others said it was a good idea. I did not hear much in the way of deprecatory notes at the time the statement was first made. But, for some reason or another, a few days after

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the statement came out, an attempt was made to belittle the work that the committee would do. There was an effort made to distort the motives of the government in setting up a committee of this kind. Among other things, it was said that the committee would be impotent and ineffective, that the government was adopting a policy of deliberate and needless delay. Many other like things were said which I might cite if I wished to take the time.
It was the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) who said that the Prime Minister evidently intended the committee to be impotent and ineffective. This was said when I was asking him and others on his side to look into this all-important question, and was giving him a free hand in the investigation. If this committee is impotent and ineffective the blame will not lie on the shoulders of the government which has given hon. members of this House of Commons the opportunity it is giving them today; it will lie on the shoulders of those members of this house who do not take full advantage of the opportunity that is given them, and who may thereby seek to make it impotent and ineffective.
I might touch on one or two of the other criticisms which have been made and which doubtless will be made again in the course of the discussion. The leader of the C.C.F. (Mr. Coldwell), using one of his many pleasant metaphors, spoke about this being a smoke screen. May I tell him-


Mr. COLDWELL:: It might be.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It might be.
Let us leave it at that. That is a milder form. May I tell him that it equally may be, and it is intended to be, the very opposite. It is intended to take away t'he smoke which today is hiding from the people the real causes of the rising cost of living, which today is blinding the eyes of the people of this country to the truth of the situation; it is intended to cause the smoke to disappear and to let us get a dear view of the situation.
Then it has been said that the committee is unnecessary. Knowing the mentality of the opposition, let me ask hon. members whether, in the event of the government not having brought in a motion of this kind, we would not have heard over and over again, if not immediately, then later on: "Why does the government not give the House of Commons a chance to deal with this question; why does the government not appoint a committee of members of the House of Commons and give them full powers of investigation? They do not dare to do it, they are afraid of certain interests. They are
afraid that in some way or another they would be exposing some weaknesses of their own."
That is the kind of thing we would have heard from hon. gentlemen opposite. When we bring in this measure, when we give them this opportunity, they say the measure is unnecessary.
Then they say that the powers are restricted. Hon. gentlemen of the C.C.F. were not even going to name members on the committee until they saw how extensive the powers would be. May I say I think the powers are as wide as it was possible for the government to make them. We made the terms broad that there could be no objection taken to them on the ground of their being too narrow. The motion reads:
That a select committee of this house be appointed to examine and to report from time to time as to:
(a)	the causes of the recent rise in the cost of living.
There is nothing narrow about that. I should like to know how that could be made any broader.
(b)	Prices which have been raised above levels justified by increased costs;
(c)	Rises in prices due to the acquiring, accumulating or withholding from sale by any persons, firms or corporations of any goods beyond amounts reasonably required for the ordinary purposes of their businesses;
I have looked very closely at the terms of reference of the committee on the cost of living, which 'Sir Thomas White proposed in thi9 house in 1919. Those terms of reference enumerated a great many individual matters that could be investigated, such as the prices of foodstuffs, clothing, fuel and other necessaries of life, the rates of profit made thereon by dealers and others concerned, and so forth. May I say that, having gone over that list I cannot find a single item in it that would not be covered1 by the broad' language used in the resolution now before the house.


Mr. LOCKHART:: What about recommendations?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend asks about recommendations. I am glad he mentioned that, because that was the next criticism I was going to refer to. May I say that hon. gentlemen opposite have taken exception to the resolution not specifying that the committee should bring in- recommendations. May I say that at -this stage the obligation was left out deliberately by the government, and for this reason. If it had been added that the committee were to make recommendations we would now be hearing from -hon. gentlemen opposite, and they would have been speaking correctly, that the minute you give to a committee of this kind1 the
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'business of making recommendations, that minute you- are certain to start all kinds of political controversy. You start issues of policy making. You would start pros and cons between members of the committee as to whether this recommendation should be made or that, and the time of the committee instead of being used for the purpose of getting at
he facts would be used for the purpose of
rying to bring forward one particular policy or another. I say this, that if the committee, after they have been at work for some time and have the facts before them, feel that they would like to have their powers enlarged and' be given the opportunity to bring in recommendations, I for one shall be very happy to further a purpose of the kind. But what the government wants to do today is to have this committee get down to the business of fact-finding as rapidly as it possibly can, and to carry out that duty as thoroughly as it possibly can.
I have already dealt with the criticism that there are already other agencies of government capable of investigating rising prices. I spoke of the government being accused in this connection of having a lot of bureaucrats, which is what members of the public service come to be termed much too freely at times-men who are doing a great public service and seeking to serve their country well and faithfully; they are dismissed as being bureaucrats. Let me quote the exact words of the leader of the opposition. He spoke of an inefficient and blundering bureaucracy.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hon. gentlemen say "Hear, hear". The public will be interested in seeing what kind of an efficient and enlightened body this committee will become with the opportunities it has. It will not be a question of blaming the bureaucrats this time. It will be a question of every individual member of the house accepting responsibility for what he is prepared to allege and to do in regard to matters with which the committee is dealing.
I might mention one other matter which is important. It has been said that the committee would stifle or preclude parliamentary discussion. I think I have already made clear my view on that point. Last week, when my hon. friend the leader of the opposition asked me for my view as to how the government would construe the work of this committee, I said that we would expect it to go into its business thoroughly. When he then asked, what about the House of Commons; are we to be told that because the committee is
rMr. Mackenzie King.]
investigating this question we cannot speak on it in general debate in this house?-I replied that that was the last thing the government would wish; that it was not from that point of view at all that we would look at the matter. We can see no reason why on the general question of prices and the cost of living there should not be the greatest possible freedom of debate in this house where the rales of the house permit it, regardless of the fact that a committee is sitting which is investigating the question in the manner that I have described. I have discussed this aspect of the matter with the Clerk of the House so as to be in a position to give an authoritative statement to the house. I shall read the words of a memorandum which the Clerk has been kind enough to give me:
There is no standing order precluding members from debating on the floor of the house matters referred to select or standing committees. Precedents do not show that a general discussion in the house on su<;h matters is not permitted. There is no reference in May's fourteenth edition to this particular side of the question; but the trend of decisions is that no reference to the proceedings of the committee can be made until the committee's report has been presented to the house. The implication is that it is irregular for the house to duplicate the work assigned to a committee.
The Speaker of our house decided in 1873 that, in accordance with English precedents, papers and letters relative to an important matter under the consideration of a select committee could not be read in the house. Speaker Sutherland ruled in 1908 that any reference to the proceedings of a committee or evidence before the committee, 'after inquiry had been entered upon and before the committee reported, was out of order. Please note that these precedents do not deal at all with the right of debating on the floor of the house matters referred to the committees. There is a wide difference between discussing proceedings and debating the main question to which proceedings are applied.
When a matter is before a committee, motions for production of papers dealing with it should be made therein and not in the house. No question ought to be placed on the order paper seeking information obtainable from the committee, which has as much power as the house itself to compel departments to give written as well as oral evidence. The reason for this seems to be that the house should not encroach upon the committee's prerogatives.


Mr. FRASER:: Too bad that didn't come to light last year.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend ought to thank me for giving him additional light at this time. That is what we are seeking. We want to let the light in on this price situation.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: We certainly do, because we have not had any light on it up to now.

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William Lyon Mackenzie King: The more help we can get in that way, the better.
Let me add this one word in conclusion. Hon. gentlemen opposite will doubtless continue to criticize, will doubtless belittle, will doubtless question the motives of the government in respect of this matter. But what will tell in the end as to what they really believe will be seen when they show where they stand, not by their words, but by their votes on the appointment of this committee. I will venture to say that the numbers who will vote against the appointment of a committee to investigate this important question of rising prices and the cost of living will be mighty few indeed, if indeed there be any at all. The importance and value of the government's action will be judged by the vote on the motion which is now before the house. That vote will reveal whether in the minds of hon. members opposite they believe it is in the public interest or not. Whatever hon. members may say, there is one thing I am perfectly sure of, and that is that a committee of this house to investigate and find facts is what the people of Canada want at this time in reference to this all-important question. Knowing that is so, knowing this is a great question which affects the well-being of the nation as a whole, I hope that hon. members of this house will for the time being, if at all possible, forget their party politics and do their utmost to make the purpose underlying this investigation serve the great end that it is intended to serve.


Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure we have all listened with interest, if not with agreement, to what the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has had to say. I think the members of the house have all been surprised that he did not deal more fully with the real issue before us instead of the side issues to which he has referred. If talking all around a question woidd solve the problems of the Canadian people they would all have been solved by now. But the fact is that after the Prime Minister's long years of office, and after all his plausible words, and after all his policies that he says are being brought to bear on the cost of living, Canada still faces the greatest economic problems which the country has ever been called upon to face.
The Prime Minister has stated that the setting up of this committee is only one of several measures of the government for dealing with the problem of the rising cost of living. My observation on that is that this is the measure we are dealing with now. The others are not before us, and there is nothing
to show that they will be before us in any different form from that now existing.
The Prime Minister went on to enumerate three other policies which the government has for dealing with this question. He mentioned the reimposition of price ceilings on meat, butter, fertilizers, and so on; the government's plans for extending the Emergency Powers Act, and the fact that we have a Combines Investigation Act on the statute books. Let me refer briefly to each of these.
The Prime Minister referred to the policy announced by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) on January 15 of reimposing price ceilings on meat, butter, and so on.
I simply wish to say that if that is the kind of policy the government feels will solve the problem, there is little hope of its being solved. Indeed there is serious questioning in the minds of the Canadian people as to whether this government intends to use the price ceiling policy to control this condition of affairs.
The Prime Minister went on to say that the government was proposing to extend the emergency powers act. Mr. Speaker, the government already has the emergency powers act on the statute books, and what has it done? We have the problem still with us today, and the government is asking that only existing legislation be continued, the legislation under which the present problem has arisen.
The Prime Minister referred to the Combines Investigation Act. That is the favourite child of the Prime Minister. We have had the Combines Investigation Act for many years; we have also had this problem, and it has not been solved. If it has not been solved by that act up to now, what hope is there under it of its being solved later on? The Prime Minister said that he had told the officials administering the act to administer it rigidly. I want to ask how they have been administering it up to now. What is the act there for if it is not to be administered rigidly?
The Prime Minister resorts to the old excuse that all countries have this problem. Well, we understood that this government had the capacity to solve problems that every other nation in the world had failed1 to solve. Then he indicated that this problem was no new phenomenon: he said a similar condition had existed after the last war; and he went on to say that at that time a resolution. somewhat similar to this was introduced into the house, and-I do not know whether he meant this as advice to the present leader of the opposition-he said that the measure then went through without opposition. May I ask whether the present Prime Minister was leader of the opposition at that time?
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Some hon.-MEMBERS: No.


John Bracken: I venture to say that if he
had been, the resolution would not have got through without opposition from him. Then he referred to the fact that another resolution was introduced in 1934 under what he described1 as somewhat different conditions, and he anticipated the criticism of members on this side who might quote his own words at that time. I do not propose to use those words, but they are there to be used by way of criticism of the present government's policies if anyone wants to use them.
He went on to say that this was not a prosecuting committee, and not a witch-hunting committee. There are those who say it is to be a whitewashing committee. From, my point of view, I regard the proposal as a sidestepping of responsibilities. He says it is to be a fact-finding committee. Mr. Speaker, all the powers of searching out the facts are now in the hands of the government. They asked for them from parliament and they have had them. If the facts are not now available, who is at fault? I suggest that the present machinery of government for finding the facts is far superior to that of a body of men sitting around in a parliamentary committee and trying to search them out. That is what the government has had these hundreds, perhaps thousands of officials to do, to search out the facts, to know what is going on and to know where, if justified, to prosecute.
The government already has the power to search out the facts and to prosecute the guilty. It has not used it, and now it is proposing to sidestep its responsibilities and to try to direct the anger of the Canadian people away from the government, where it belongs, to some committee or to some individuals or institution outside the government.
I had thought that, for this debate, I would deal with the policy that is now before us, then with conditions in Canada as they are, which this and other policies are designed to remedy. I had thought of touching on the causes of rising costs and on the government's contribution to our difficulties. In passing I may say that whoever else may be guilty of causing rises in the cost of living, the government bears more guilt than anybody else, because its joint policies of expanding credit on the one hand and its restrictive policies, which resulted in lessened supplies on the other, have more than anything else caused rising prices. With these two policies combined nothing else can happen but that prices will rise. And for these conditions nobody else but this government is responsible. I will conclude my remarks by indicating some of the things which I think

should be done. And before I sit down I shall move an amendment, not limiting the powers of the committee but expanding them, and indicating some specific things that should be studied.
The resolution before us contains the government's immediate plan for dealing with the rising cost of living. It proposes to appoint a parliamentary committee to examine and to report from time to time as to the causes of the recent rise in the cost of living, prices which have been raised above levels justified by increased costs and rises in prices due to the acquiring, accumulating or withholding from sale by any persons, and so on. The Prime Minister says he seeks to find out whether there are hoarders or profiteers about.
The disease, Mr. Speaker, which the government is attempting to deal with here is the disease of inflation. It is a serious disease. It is easy to pass it off by calling it a rise in the cost of living. But we are dealing with a serious inflationary condition in the country and it is not going to be solved easily. The government is presuming to solve it in the three or four ways which the Prime Minister mentioned, ways which he already has had at his command, but with which the government have not solved the problem. They have only aggravated it. The only thing that is new in the government's policy is this proposal which he says is a fact-finding committee to do what he already has the power to do through the vast organization he already has.
From where we sit, this policy looks like one of delay, one of shelving responsibility from the government, where it belongs, to some committee or to some individuals or to some institutions unnamed in this country. It looks as if the government is sidestepping responsibilities it must accept as a government.
We have consented without prejudice, to the appointment of four members on this committee. As I have said, from where we sit this looks like a move to dodge responsibility, a device to try to direct public anger away from the government to somebody else. It looks like a move to give an emergent issue indefinite postponement. In my judgment this proposal does not touch upon several important matters. It does not touch the question of the government's inflationary policies, which, in association with others, in my judgment have been more responsible for this condition than anything else. It does not touch that. It does not touch the question of the government's policies which have resulted in the restriction of production and supplies in this country. It does not touch on the question of

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the merits or demerits of price control. It does not touch on the question of the value or the lack of value of subsidies under certain conditions. I am not here suggesting what the answer should be. I am suggesting that the public should know.


Mr. BRADETTE:: The hon. member knows all the answers.


John Bracken: Apparently a lot of
people on the other side of the house do not know the answers, or we would not have the conditions we have today.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is the answer.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: The hon. member knows them all.


John Bracken: This proposal does not include the question of the wisdom or the lack of wisdom of having wage controls if we are to have other controls. It does not touch the question of the advisability of having controls on the prices of farm products when the costs of what the farmer has to buy are allowed to increase. It does not touch on those matters in this proposal. I think it should. I think the public should have as unprejudiced a view of these matters as possible. Let the arguments for all sides of these issues be put forward. My hon. friends to the left of me have certain arguments; the government has some; we have some. What the people want is the truth, as nearly as it can be arrived at, and the wisest possible policies formulated.
Then the government's proposal-and here again the Prime Minister anticipated my criticism-is that the committee is to examine and report, but it says nothing about making recommendations. In all deference I suggest that most of the committees appointed by this house are not so limited. I suggest that powers ought to be given to the committee to make recommendations. Otherwise what are we to have? We are to have policies brought forward by only one party in this house. The Prime Minister suggests that members of all parties are to be on this committee, then says that it cannot make recommendations, and he suggests that that is an impartial approach to this question. I leave it to the house and to the public to decide whether or not that is a fair statement of the position.
The problem we are dealing with is a serious one. I said it was inflation. This government has been presumed to have anti-inflation policies. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it has had more inflationary policies than anti-inflationary ones. What we are interested in now is getting at the actual conditions. I suggest there are a great many facts that we do
not need that committee to get. Let me go over some of them.
On the basis of the cost of living in the years before the war, 1935-39 being taken as 100, the cost of living in Canada as announced in January of this year was 146. I venture to say that it is now over 150. The cost of living in this country went up 2-4 points in one month. It went up 15-4 in eight months. It went up 22-4 points in a year.
The cost of food is an important element in the cost of living. What has happened to that? The figures look high. They are high because at the time of the base period farm prices were relatively low. On the basis of 100 for pre-war days the cost of food announced in January of this year was 178-7. It went up 5-1 points in one month; it went up 27-1 points in eight months and it went up 38-3 in a year. Taking individual items in the cost of food, it is said that in a year the cost of bacon went up 113i per cent, the cost of butter 134 per cent, and the cost of milk 49 per cent. I mention these figures simply as evidence in the analysis of this situation.
There are some very significant facts in connection with that trend. Let me indicate a few of them. The rate of rise in the cost of living is increasing. It is increasing more rapidly in Canada than it is in the United States. It increased more rapidly over there in earlier days, but now it is increasing more rapidly here than it is over there. Since April last their cost of living increased 7-7 per cent; ours increased 15-4 per cent, or twice as much. Theirs increased 17-7 per cent in a year; ours increased 22-4 per cent in a year.
The third significant fact is that the cost of living in Canada bears more heavily on us than the cost of living in the United States bears on United States citizens. Industrial wages in this country are equal to 70-3 per cent of theirs, but the cost of living in this country is 77-7 per cent of theirs. I shall not take time to give the figures in any more detail.
The fourth significant fact is that the official statement of the increase in the cost of living does not reflect the full weight of that cost. The official statement is based on a subsistence level of living, and to all who are above that subsistence level the cost of living today is higher than the official figures show it to be.
The fifth significant fact I want to mention is this. On the basis of the present trend it has been estimated that if it continues at the present rate of increase for three months the cost of living here will equal or surpass the greatest height after the first world war. I
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mention these facts to impress this house and to impress the Canadian people with the seriousness of this problem and to suggest that it will not be solved just by asking a parliamentary body to get at some more facts. We have a great many of the essential facts now. Perhaps a parliamentary body can hunt out someone who is guilty. But the government has not lacked any power to do that up to the present time, as I shall show a 'little later on.
It is important to examine the causes of this condition. The Prime Minister, in a speech in this city a couple of weeks ago, said there might be a lot of mean people around taking advantage of this situation. The Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent) and, I think, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) suggested there were greedy people around taking advantage of it. Some others said there were profiteers, and others said there were monopolies taking advantage of it.
What is the basic cause of this condition? It is the relationship of purchasing power to supplies. The Canadian government has the power to control the banking' affairs of this country, and it has allowed a policy of credit expansion which has expanded the credit of this country twice as fast as the supply of goods has been increased. Under those circumstances, as I intimated a short time ago, nothing can be expected but that prices will go up; and to the extent that the government did those things it alone is to blame, and no one else. One need not go into the specific figures at this time; that is one thing I hope we may get the officials of the government to come forward and tell us about.
The government has had power to deal with the expansion of credit. We had the figures the other day as to what that amounts to. It has also power to exercise certain controls. The criticism generally has been on the price of foods, although many other things enter into the cost of living. In recent days the chief criticism has been about prices. The government has maintained a type of control on the farm prices of foodstuffs, but it has not maintained controls on the costs of producing those foodstuffs. The result is that the production of certain foods in Canada has gone down. That is directly attributable in a large part to these policies. On December 19 last I read into the record a brief statement showing the effect of these policies on production in Canada; it will be found on page 521 of Hansard of that date. I should like to take a moment to refer to it again. The number of hogs on farms in Canada in 1913 was

4,968,000; in 1946 it had dropped to 1,771,000, or about one-third. In respect of meat, one thing on which controls have been retained, the total dressed and inspected in 1943 was 2,200 million pounds, while1 in 1947 it was only 1,290 million pounds. Cheese production in 1942 was 207,000,000 pounds. That was not a typical year. It was a good year; more was produced that year than in some other years, and a normal figure would be somewhat lower. In 1947, however, cheese production was only 118,000,000 pounds. I think in only one or two major agricultural items has production been maintained. At that time I also referred to the reduction in the acreage of feed grains, which are used for the production of this type of human food.
These are the facts. As to the extent to which government policy is responsible for this condition there may be some differences of opinion. There is no difference of opinion in the minds of the farmers, however. They have lost confidence in the farm price policies of this government, so they have to the extent I have shown, gone out of the production of these things.
What are the consequences of these rapidly rising prices, the condition we call inflation, the condition which in earlier years the government was said to be seeking at all times to prevent, the condition which has now gotten beyond its control? Let me mention some of the immediate effects and then some of the long term effects. One immediate effect is the virtual confiscation of a considerable part of the savings of the people. When a man's dollar is made worth only 50 or 60 cents, or on the basis of the official figures 66 cents, a vast number of people suffer. Another immediate effect is a lessening of the real value of pensions and all other fixed incomes. A third effect is the loss occasioned to all people who, when spending a dollar, find it is worth only 50 or 60 or 66 cents. Their feeling is very easy to comprehend. A fourth effect is a reduction in the standard of health and nutrition. When you have many people barely able to maintain health and nutrition, and perhaps many unable to do so, a reduction in the value of the dollar to 60 or 66 cents will force them far below a decent standard of living. Another effect is the stress and strain of wage disputes, when workers find their money will not buy as much as it once did. Finally there is the rise in production costs of all goods, which again expresses itself in the increasing difficulty of people with low incomes to buy enough to give themselves a reasonable standard of health and of living.

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As to the long term consequences I shall
mention four or five of them. First, confidence in the future is destroyed. Business hesitates to expand.


Mr. MITCHELL:: It has never expanded more quickly.


John Bracken: With what consequences? Look at your bank statements today and see the consequences.


Lionel Chevrier: You said there was no expansion.


John Bracken: Let my hon. friend come forward with his speech when I am through. The destruction of savings dries up capital needed for expansion. My hon. friend is talking about the expansion of business. He cannot be talking about any expansion since the government's new policies were announced six or eight weeks ago. He must be talking about expansion prior to that time. Business will not expand very quickly under the embargoes and restrictive policies brought forward by this government, policies which the Minister of Finance the other day was forced to admit were the highest form of protectionism this country has ever known. Then there is the fear of a possible depression haunting everyone. There is also, as I hinted a moment ago, the recent decision of the government restricting the importation of goods from the United States; prohibiting, for example, the importation of vegetables into this country in the fall of the year, at a time when the supply cannot be augmented by the farmers of Canada. These are some of the consequences of the condition the government is presumably seeking to remedy.
I want now to refer specifically to the speech delivered by the Prime Minister in this city on January 20. At that time he dealt with what he regarded as the merits of the proposal now before us. I want to refer to two or three of his comments. I am quoting from the Ottawa Citizen of January 21. I understand it is a verbatim report of his remarks. At one point the Prime Minister had this to say:
No doubt, on the part of some, there has been, and continues to be profiteering . . . Mean men, where opportunity presents itself, will seek, at the expense of others, to profit by their own meanness.
Clearly, the task of all right-minded citizens, the task of governments and the task of parliaments is to make this sort of thing impossible, or as nearly so as it can be made.
Yet in addition to the appointment of this committee the government is only asking for
the continuance of powers it already has,
powers under which it has not cured this situation. Then the Prime Minister goes on:
To retain the necessary power to deal with such conduct in the coming fiscal year, we intend, as already announced to ask parliament to continue the wartime prices and trade board in being after March 31.
I answered that a minute ago when I said that the government has had that power right along. Yet it has failed to cure the difficulty. Under its use of these powers the condition has been allowed to develop to the extent I indicated a few minutes ago. Then the Prime Minister goes on to say:
Here I wish to draw attention to something I have all along believed, and asserted. It is that however mean and contemptible individuals may be in their private lives there is nothing they abhor quite so much as the exposure of their meanness in public.
And then-
One other thing I have long believed and asserted is that for social evils or anti-social behaviour, publicity is a much more effective remedy than penalty.
What I ask here, and what the Canadian people will wish to ask, is whether this is a publicity show that we are going into, when this committee is set up, or whether it is to be a serious attempt to deal with this matter. Then the Prime Minister goes on to say:
This is the philosophy on which the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act and the Combines Investigation Act were founded.
Well, if the Prime Minister expects wrongdoers to be tracked down only by publicity, I am afraid that there will still be wrongdoing long after this committee gets through with its work.
The Prime Minister continues:
We believe, however, that the mere existence, to say nothing of the work of the committee, will help to slow down the increases-
Not to stop the increases in the cost of living, but to "help to slow down the increase"! Mr. Speaker, if that is the highest hope the government has for the work of this committee, then I am afraid that not only the housewives but the people of Canada generally will be disappointed with what comes out of it. The Prime Minister finished the paragraph with these words:
And in cases where, for example, there has been or Is hoarding or profiteering, to effect a reduction in prices.
I am afraid that statement will not scare many hoarders or many profiteers, if we are to depend upon publicity instead of the enforcement of legal penalties to cure wrongdoing in this country.
What will come out of this committee? We have had parliamentary committees before,

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plenty of them. Let me mention three or four. In 1915 we had a flag committee; it had fourteen sittings. It reported but the government took no action on the report. In 1946 we had an industrial relations committee, set up to deal with the steel strike. It held forty-eight sittings' and reported, but it did nothing to end the strike. In the next year, 1947, the industrial relations committee dealt with the labour relations bill. Nothing was done. The whole matter must be gone over again. In 1946 the committee on Indian affairs met twenty-five times, and in 1947 it met sixty-seven times. There is some mention of legislation in the speech from the throne, but no sign of it yet.


Mr. BROWN:: Sixty-eight times.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Much worse.


John Bracken: Thank you for the correction.


An hon. MEMBER:: You have not accomplished much.


Donald Ferguson Brown: Give us a chance and we will.


John Bracken: One parliamentary committee, however, did good work and got some action. The veterans affairs committee of 1946 was a notable exception to the others. It was well represented by all parties in the house. It held fifty-eight sittings in that year, and we now have consolidated legislation with respect to veterans affairs.
As I said a minute ago, with respect to the Prime Minister's suggestion that this is to be only a fact-finding committee, the government already has power to find out any facts it has not got at the present time. Let me indicate where these powers are. The National Emergency Transitional Powers Act of 1945 has been extended twice. It is now the law. and will remain so until the end of March of this year. And the government says that the act is to be extended. Under that act emergency regulations were set up with respect to many things, among which are found the following powers with respect to investigations, prosecutions, penalties and so on. I shall read only the beginnings of some of the paragraphs in order to indicate the powers the government now has, and has had for all these years. But apparently they have been of little effect. And if they have been of little effect in the past, how much effect will they have in the future? Section 4 (1) (a) states:
The board shall have power to investigate of its own motion or on complaint, costs, prices, profits and stocks of goods -and materials of any person engaged in the manufacture, importation, exportation, production, storage, transportation, supply or sale of any goods or services.

I need not go on; the paragraph is two or three times as long as that. Then, section 4(1)(f) states:
The board shall have power to fix specific or maximum or minimum prices or specific or maximum or minimum markups at which -any goods or services may be sold or offered for sale by or to any person.
This paragraph, too, is two or three times as long as the part I have read. Then, section 4(1)(g):
The board shall have power to prescribe terms and conditions upon which, and the manner and circumstances in which, any goods or services
may Ibe produced, manufactured, extracted, refined, processed-
And so on.
Coming to the section which deals with prosecutions, penalties, offences and matters of that kind, let me give an indication of the powers which exist. Section 8(1) is as follows:
No person shall sell or offer for sale or supply any goods or services at a price that is higher than is reasonable -and just-
And the section goes on to amplify that. Section 8(2) starts out in this way:
No person shall sell or supply or offer for sale or supply any goods or services at a price that is higher than a maximum or specific price or lower than a minimum or specific price which has been fixed by these regulations.
And one other, namely section 8(8), commences as follows:
No person shall buy or pay for or offer to buy or pay for -any goods or services at a price which he knows or has reason to believe is higher than is reasonable and just-
And so on. Mr. Speaker, those are powers the government already has, not only with respect to fact finding but with respect to prosecuting any who are guilty. I respectfully suggest that either those powers have not been used, or have not been used effectively. In any event they have been there. Outside the appointment of this committee I think I have referred to all the measures the government has brought forward as a means of tackling this serious problem.
As I have said, the chief criticism has been with respect to food prices. Aside from the government's inflationary policies the chief criticism against it has been as to its management or mismanagement of its decontrol policy. I wish now to mention two or three of those criticisms.
First, when decontrolling nearly everything else the government left price controls on farm prices, and took controls off wages and the cost of producing farm products. They thus decreased production at the very time when this nation and the world needed more food. The -farm price controls were not

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called price controls. They did not have that name, but they were price controls. What were they? They were the freezing of farm prices under the British contracts and the embargoes against selling our products to the . United States. One contract was for wheat which is today being sold at a price just about half the world price. Then this government tried to fasten the prices of other products to the level of wheat prices. In other words, it froze the prices the farmers were to receive and it allowed costs of wages and other things to go up. That is one of the main criticisms made by that section of our people which produces the nation's food.
Another criticism is that the government removed certain subsidies at the worst possible time. It was thus the government brought on increases in prices which disturbed consumers from one end of this country to the other. The first such commodity to which I shall refer is bread. The government policy was to require farmers to sell their wheat for consumption in Canada at $1.55 a bushel. The millers who bought that wheat at that price were given a rebate of 77 or 78 cents a bushel, the net result being that the price of the wheat to the millers was some 78 cents a bushel. With wheat at 78 cents a bushel the price of bread was kept low.
Then what happened? The government, with its policy of having price controls and subsidies, and then determining as a doctrinaire policy to take off subsidies at once without much thought as to the consequences, removed the subsidy on wheat which had kept the price of bread low. It was taki'U off at the worst possible time, taken off a' a time when wheat was selling at the highe-t price in Canadian history.
Let us look frankly at this wheat situation. Wheat is probably the largest and most important single commodity we export. We export two-thirds or more of what we produce. ^4 ? must depend upon foreign nations for a ma

ket. Foreign conditions, outside conditions, determine the price. Sometimes it is 40 con's a bushel and sometimes it is $3.40 a bushel When it is 40 cents a bushel and nothing is done about it, and since other agricultural prices relate themselves to the price of wheat, the farmers of this country go broke. The economy of the country then suffers; business stagnates and unemployment steals in upon us.
In. the wisdom of parliament we decided that that is bad for the country, that is, bad for the farmers and bad for everybody else and we decided to try to avoid it in the future. We said we would not let prices drop that low. We realized that we could not
control conditions outside this country, conditions which determined the prices of wheat and other similar export commodities. So we decided that we had either to try to regulate these wide fluctuations in prices or to leave them alone. Well, parliament decided to regulate them; we decided that we would have floor prices so that wheat and other farm products would never again go down to a 40-cent per bushel level. Just where we would put the floor price was a matter of judgment. We have our opinion as to just where that floor price should be.
The point I wish to make is this. When parliament is willing and when the Canadian people are willing to protect the producers when the price of wheat is low, what answer is there to the demand that the consumers of bread be protected when the price of wheat is high? There is no justification for a negative answer. This government, when it had a subsidy on wheat to keep the price of bread low, took off that subsidy at a time when the price of wheat was practically at the highest point in Canadian history. It was over $3 a bushel.
The average price of bread at that time was low and now it is high. It would have gone higher yet but for one thing. There is still a subsidy on bread in Canada. Who pays it? Does the government pay it? No. the government does not pay it. Do the Canadian people pay it? No, the Canadian people do not pay it. The government of Canada requires the farmers of Canada to pay it. The government of Canada requires the farmers of Canada to sell their wheat for consumption in Canada at $1.55 per bushel when the price outside is over S3 per bushel. My criticism of the government is that in its desire to get rid of all these subsidies, because of its doctrinaire policies in this respect, it did not look at the consequences. The subsidies which kept the price of bread low should not have been taken off at a time when the price of wheat was at its highest peak.
I could deal with milk in the same way. Every party in this house outside the government warned the government that it was a bad time to take off the subsidy on milk. It was taken off at a time when the workers in this country were disturbed with increased living costs. If we are not going to be fair to workers and to consumers, we can be sure that there will continue to be economic and wage disputes in this country. That was not the time to take off the subsidy on milk and every hon. member on this side opposed that policy. But the government, when it got rid of parliament, took off the subsidy.
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There is another criticism of subsidy removal to be made. By the government's mismanagement of its decontrol measures which affected agricultural production the farmers lost all confidence in the government's plans. Many curtailed their production, while others went out of certain lines of food production. In this connection I should like to refer to the action of the government in removing price controls and subsidies on coarse grains.
What was the situation? This government, in its wisdom or lack of wisdom, decided to tie itself to certain contracts with Britain. Then in its propaganda to sell that policy across the country it said in effect to live stock producers -I shall refer particularly to poultry producers-"Go into poultry production. We have an assured market and the price of your feed is being controlled. It is low today and this is a good business to get into." I am thinking now more particularly of the poultry producers in British Columbia, in that province with its mild climate they have been most successful in producing poultry. Many small and large farmers went into poultry production or expanded their production on the basis of these assured prices through the British contracts and the expected low prices for their feed.
Then the government came along and took off both the price ceiling and the subsidy and the cost of their feed went up from $10 to $20 a ton. Many of them found it was impossible to carry on, and went out of business; others found it most difficult to continue. My criticism of the government is that they encouraged these people to go into that business. I think the government can rightly be accused of acting under false pretences when they encouraged these efforts and then took off the subsidy. I am not complaining about price ceilings in this case, although there was serious criticism that prices were thus being held down and that we were not getting production. But I do criticize the government for taking off this subsidy at that time.
And' I criticize the government on another ground, namely, that they took off the subsidy in the middle of the marketing season. Those farmers who had sold before the government took it off received a low price for their barley, a little over 80 cents a bushel, while those who sold the next day got 20 cents or 30 cents a bushel more. For administering decontrols in that unfair fashion there can be no defence or excuse for the government- none whatever.
I have said that some of these policies were resulting in a loss of confidence on the part of the farmers. I have indicated what has happened in the way of lessening agricultural

production. Let me now show what is happening to exports under these policies of the government.
Take bacon and hams. In 1944 we exported 692 million pounds, and in the following years 446 million pounds, 286 million, and last year it is estimated, 225 million, or less than one-third of what we exported three years before.
Take cheese. In 1942 we exported 142 million pounds. I do not suggest that that was a normal year; it was one of our best years. The next year we exported 116 million pounds, and in the following years 123 million, 126 million, 95 million, and this year, it is estimated, around 30 million pounds, and cheese is the great export agricultural commodity of eastern Canada, chiefly from Ontario and Quebec.
Take beef. This is another commodity in connection with which the government is
attempting to control prices, but lets cost of production go up, thus tending to drive farmers out of business. In 1945 we exported 184 million pounds, in the following year 123 million pounds, and last year, it is estimated, 25 million pounds.
That is where the government's policies are leading us, Mr. Speaker. But let us look at some other evidence. In the short weeks we spent here before Christmas I asked for a statement from the government of the amounts which it had contracted to deliver to Britain and how much had actually been delivered. The figures will be found in Hansard of December 11, 1947. They show that we delivered only two-thirds of the bacon and ham that the government undertook to deliver. They show that we delivered only one-third of the beef that we had agreed to deliver. They show that we delivered only two-thirds of the canned meat we had agreed to deliver. They show that we delivered only one-fifth of the mutton and lamb that we undertook to deliver. They show that we delivered only one-half the cheese that we undertook to deliver.
Now, Mr. Speaker, these are serious trends in a time when food production is more needed than anything else in the world. To the extent that this government is responsible for these trends it deserves our censure.
I have emphasized the seriousness of this situation and have referred to some of the causes, as well as some of the effects of the government's policies. I want now to ask this question. What happens when price levels rise? Who loses when price levels rise? Inflationary increases hit nearly everyone. They hit at every person who owns a life insurance policy because he gets back dollars of less value than he put in. They hit at every per-

Prices Committee
son who has purchased an annuity. He puts in a dollar worth one hundred cents and gets back a dollar worth only sixty-six cents. They hit at every holder of a war savings bond, because the government give back to the purchasers of these bonds less value than it got from them. Inflation hits every person who has savings deposits in the bank, because the dollar he gets back is worth less than the dollar he puts in. These inflationary rises hit at every shopkeeper who has extended credit to his customers. They hit at every one of the vast number of Canadians who live on a fixed income. These latter are the ones who have carried a heavy burden since the war. Where they have had the same income in number of dollars, where they have had no increases of income, and where each dollar has been reduced in its purchasing power to a half or two-thirds of what it was before, theirs has been an unfair burden.
The government has decidedly and deliberately contributed to this inflation by its credit expansion policies, its inflationary policy, coupled with its restrictive policies on production. The government has eased its own interest burden on its vast debt, but it has done so by virtual confiscation of a substantial part of the savings of the ordinary men and women in Canada. That is one of the prices we are paying for that policy. It has confiscated one-third of the value of the income of eveiy person in Canada living on a fixed income who has had no increase in that income. It has taken that value from him behind his back, and without his realizing irhat was happening. It has done it because it was easier to take it from him in that way when he was not looking than to tax him when he was looking.
There are those who will say that there was virtue in that policy. But whatever virtue there may have been in it, I have pointed out some of the consequences of it, and the government must accept the ill consequences of policies of that kind if it is going to accept credit for the favourable consequences.
Now what should have been done? It is not the responsibility of the opposition, Mr. Speaker, to tell the government what should be done. Under our system it is the duty of the opposition to point out the weaknesses of the policies brought forward. Whether it does or does not advance policies of its own is a matter for its own judgment. But I wish to tell the government some of the things that should not have been done, and I propose to do that now.
The government should not have created so much paper money. By doing so it increased all prices and lowered the value of all money. The government should not have piled up so much debt to the banks. The government should not have removed the subsidy on bread when wheat was at the highest point in Canadian history. It should not have removed the subsidy on milk when the workers of this country were already greatly concerned over living costs in relation to their wages. It should not have removed the subsidies on coarse grains when it was encouraging the production of livestock and poultry products based on the control of the prices of feeds necessary to their production. The government should not have prevented the importation of vegetables from the United States at the beginning of the winter, knowing as it should have known that it would create a scarcity which farmers could not make good in this country in wintertime.
You ask what should now be done. Let me indicate three or four things that should be done. The government should keep out of any more inflationary policies which only make the situation worse. The government should set in motion policies that will produce more food, and not less. The government should prevent profiteering, if there is any, and it has the power now to search it out and apply the remedy. The government should do something else. The rising cost of living is supposed to be what is scaring us all. The government can put into effect one policy which will lower the price of everything which the people have to buy. It can lower prices by lowering the hidden taxes which increase from twenty to forty per cent everything that every consumer buys. The government can do one other thing; it can accept the responsibilities that go with government. It can use the legislation it now has to search out wrongdoers and to prosecute them. These are things the government can do.
I had intended amplifying one other point, namely, the effect of the hidden taxes on the cost of everything that people buy in this country. I will not take time to do that on this occasion, but let me say this. These hidden taxes, the sales tax among them, provide this eovemment with almost half its revenue, more than a thousand million dollars a year. What are the indirect taxes bringing in?-the hidden taxes, the regressive taxes, the sales tax, the excise taxes on amusements, manufactures, transportation and communication, the stamp taxes, the excise duties and customs duties and licences. These taxes totalled in the last fiscal year more than a thousand million dollars-
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$1,013 million-or nearly half the revenue of this government. This huge sum is taken in the form of hidden taxes without the people knowing it. That is what makes them popular with the government. These are taxes on production, and more than anything else they increase'the cost of everything the people buy.
To show you the burden of these taxes, let me give two or three comparisons. As I say, the sum of $1,013 million is taken in the form of these hidden taxes. The total value of the whole production of agriculture in the same period was only $1,240 million. To use another comparison, $1,013 million from these hidden taxes is twice as much as the net taxable income of some 32,000 incorporated businesses in this country after their income and excess profits taxes are paid. They receive $500 million and the government takes over $1,000 million in indirect taxes. These indirect and hidden taxes come to nearly twice a? much as all individual incomes in excess of $3,000 a year.
If all individual incomes over $3,000 were confiscated, it would come to $600 million, or 40 per cent less than the government takes in these indirect taxes.
As to the suggestion that somebody is mean, that somebody is greedy, that there are profiteers around, let me say, Mr. Speaker, that in so far as the cost of living is concerned the government, in these indirect taxes, is meaner and greedier than anybody else in this country of ours.
Let me briefly summarize what I said a moment ago. First, the government should quit making the situation worse. It should discontinue its inflationary policies if it expects to halt or reduce the rising prices. Secondly, the government should get off the taxpayers back and make it possible for him to buy needed food. It is today taking 400 per cent more in taxes than it did in any year prior to the war. Thirdly, it should get off the farmer's back and encourage him to produce more food. More production is what is needed -not the restriction of production. Increasing the supply of goods will cure this condition, and lessening it will only make it worse. In the fourth place, the government should get off the consumer's back by reducing the indirect taxes which he pays on the price of everything he buys. This, it has been roughly calculated, amounts to from 20 to 40 per cent of the cost of everything the housewives and the consumer generally buy in this country.
One other thing. Instead of creating a cloud of suspicion of the innocent and the guilty alike in this country, the government should accept its responsibility as a government and use the powers it already has to find out those among us who are guilty,

instead of leaving suspicion on all alike. And then it should use its powers to prosecute anyone whom it finds guilty.
The amendment which I propose, seconded by the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth), is as follows:
That the said resolution he amended:
1 By inserting after subparagraph (c), Ime 7 thereof the following: "And in particular to examine and report upon:
(d)	the effect of present government policies in lessening Canadian agricultural production;
(e)	the advisability of continuing the present controls on prices of farm products when there are no controls over farmers' costs ot productl0(f) the advisability of reverting to payments of subsidies on essential commodities of consumption;
At the moment I am taking no position on that matter. We do not favour the widespread use of subsidies, but on certain basic commodities which are subject to wide fluctuations under certain conditions, we can support
them.	.
(g) spreads between prices received by producers and prices paid by consumers.
2. By adding at the end thereof the following
Cla"That as well as reporting its findings the committee shall from time to time make recommendations to the House of Commons, as in the opinion of the committee may be considered necessary to secure as far as possible lair and iust returns to producers, employees and employers and fair and just practices m marketing and distribution that will safeguard the^in-nf consumers as well as of producers.
In conclusion let me say this final word. There is >no use in this parliament talking about restoring ceilings over wages. That project will end in talk no matter where the talk is coming from. There is no use in talking about a reversion to an ironclad system of wartime controls. The government has no intention whatever of imposing them. The primary purpose of wartime controls was to drive people out of civilian production, out of the production of unneeded goods.
The basic trouble about the government's present policies is that it is unable to make a choice between wartime and peacetime economies. It has one foot still planted in the psychology of world war II. Its other foot gropes hesitantly and fearfully into the problems of reconstruction and peace. We must, have more forthright and courageous policies. In the long run the government does more harm to consumers by driving farmers out of production than it helps consumers by placing the whole weight of such price policy as it has on the shoulders of one producing group. The government's first watch word should be "More not less production, especially farm production". The



FEBllUARY 2, 1948

[Stage Direction]
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government's first concern for the consumer should be to lighten his tax burden, especially the hidden taxes.
Some subsidies under certain circumstances can be justified, but they should not be made a burden on one producer group only, and they should not be extended as a doctrinaire policy to all commodities. We will support any honest effort to protect the consumers from exploitation. That is the purpose of the last paragraph of my amendment respecting recommendations by the proposed committee to this house.
Major James William Coldwell: I think we can all agree on one thing, Mr. Speaker, and that is that the increase in the cost of living over recent months presents this house with the gravest situation that has faced our country since the war ended. At the outset I wish to say that we are of the opinion that, in the present crisis in Canada, the people demand not the establishment of a parliamentary committee but rather some effective steps to meet the situation. That is the position which we take and that is the position which we have taken. Right from the end of the war we have said to the house and to the country that we believe that beneficial controls and subsidies should have been continued in the interest of the great masses of the Canadian people. The government saw fit to remove both the controls and the subsidies. I listened to the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) cover a great deal of ground this afternoon, and with much of what he said I could certainly find myself in agreement.


An hon. MEMBER:: Wait a minute.


Major James William Coldwell: Yet when I look back over the speeches that the leader of the opposition and his friends have made in the house during the past two years, demanding the removal of controls and subsidies, and when I look at the program of the party which has been published, I wonder how it is so easy to move from one political foot to another. So this afternoon I want to place before the house as briefly and as clearly as possible the position that we take in this matter.
This afternoon the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said that the appointment of the committee was one of a number of measures that the government proposed to take in order to meet the present price situation. I think the house is entitled to know at this time what those measures are and when they are to be put into effect, and to know nob only when the people of Canada are to see a halt in the rising cost of living but when steps are to be taken-and effective
steps-to roll the cost of living back. Lately we have seen some feeble steps taken. The price of butter has been stabilized at a price which I think is beyond the reach of many people in the low-income groups. Prices of meat and other commodities have risen to a point where the average family man, with four or five children, paying rents which are controlled-and they have always been relatively high in this country-is finding it not only difficult to make ends meet but almost impossible to provide his family with those protective foods to which a family is entitled and which a family needs in a climate such as the one in which we live, with temperatures such as those we have experienced in this city over the past couple of weeks.
The placing of ceilings on such commodities as butter and meat I think clearly involves the consideration of subsidies. The prices of the products that one group in the community produces, namely the farmers, cannot be controlled while at the same time other controls are removed and prices are allowed to run wild. In my opinion, the farmers have a legitimate criticism of the policy of the government in that the things which have entered into the cost of raising their produce have been allowed to rise in price while from time to time the prices which they have obtained for their produce have been controlled and stabilized.
A few moments ago the leader of the opposition mentioned the removal of the subsidy on coarse grains and the return-although he did not say so, this was involved-of these grains to the speculative market. I shall not go over that ground because I do not believe that my former arguments need to be repeated. What I intend to say is what I have said on previous occasions in this house. I believe that was one of the worst steps taken by this government since the war ended. It has had a disastrous effect on the morale of the farming community, and it will have a disastrous effect -as is indicated by the figures placed on the record a few minutes ago by the leader of the opposition-on the production of pork, beef, poultry, and dairy products. That, as I say, will be reflected in a shortage of these foods which are necessary to the health not only of our own people but of the people of the world.
I disagree with the Prime Minister when he says that what the people of Canada want is an investigation. They do not want an investigation. I do not think the members of the house require an investigation. What the people of this country require is a policy to prevent this inflationary rise in the cost of living. I say to the Prime Minister that if he really wants to know what the
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people of Canada want, he has an opportunity to find out. Today in Canada three constituencies are vacant, and they are representative constituencies. There is the constituency of Yale in British Columbia, which is largely a rural riding; there is the constituency of Ontario, in which is situated the manufacturing centre of Oshawa; and there is the constituency of Vancouver Centre, which is, in many respects, a typical business area in a great port and distributing city. Under our British parliamentary system the time-honoured method of finding out between elections what the people of a country think, is the holding of by-elections as quickly as possible after death or retirement makes them possible. In the two years which have just passed the British people have been involved, I think, in some thirty-six by-elections. Each one of those by-elections has been looked upon as a test of what the people thought of the policies of the government in power. The government have lost one of the seats which they formerly held, but the people of Britain have had that opportunity of allowing representative constituencies to speak for the whole population.
I disagree with the Prime Minister when he says the people of Canada desire an investigation. I am certain they desire action, and there is a way to find out. We have three representative, typical constituencies, rural and industrial. Why not open those seats and call the by-elections in order that the people of Canada may express themselves in that way? I believe the Prime Minister knows, as I am sure the government know, that unless they can change this situation they will lose all three by-elections. I say the government is afraid to face the country at this time. I do not like to issue any sort of challenge; but I suggest that if the government really want to find out what the people are thinking they should use the vehicle at hand and follow the tradition we hear so much about in this house, the great tradition of a democratic parliament, of our democratic way of life. Here is an opportunity for the government to practise one of those democratic methods which it preaches, to find out what the people of Canada think, by giving the people of those three constituencies an opportunity to vote upon this question at this time. I can assure the Prime Minister that as far as we are concerned we are prepared to make this the issue and stand or fall by it. I do not know what my hon. friends to the right will do.


Mr. GREEN:: We are going to win the three by-elections.

Mr. COLDWELL; I do not know what their policy is; but whether they win them with the kind of indefinite policy that has been placed before this house, or whether the government wins them, or whether we win them, that is not the material thing. The material thing is that the people of Canada, through those three representative constituencies, will have had an opportunity to express themselves on this issue, and that is the democratic procedure which I urge the government to follow.
This afternoon the Prime Minister said what I think I heard the Minister of Fisheries say a couple of weeks ago in a radio address.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Which one?


Major James William Coldwell: I mean the former
Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Gregg). He said we had been very fortunate that the cost of living had been pretty well held in this country. I am not sure of his words, but the impression I got was that he thought it had been held here better than anywhere else, and this afternoon the Prime Minister said very much the same thing. I have the Labour Gazette for the month of December last; and if hon. gentlemen will look at the government's own publication they will find that the figures gathered from other lands tell a very different story. On page 1885 of the record hon. gentlemen will see the increase in the cost of living in the various countries since the war ended. I may be asked why I take the period since the war ended. I do so because we all started at that point into a post-war, peaceful world; and this afternoon the Prime Minister said the cost of living in this country had risen less since the war ended than in other countries.
Let us take a look at some of these figures; and) I may say the percentage increase has been accurately worked out. In Canada in 1945 the cost of living index, on the basis of the pre-war base period, was 119-5. In October 1947 it was 139-4. The difference between 1945 and 1947 was 19-9, which gives us a percentage increase of 17 per cent; that is on the 119-5, of course. In the United Kingdom, taking 1945 as 100, the index for 1947 was 101, the difference therefore being one point.


Mr. SINCLAIR:: Because of gifts from
Canada. We subsidized them.


Major James William Coldwell: But this committee is merely a fact-finding committee, with no power except to report to the House of Commons; and thus it is not to make recommendations in that report. The Prime Minister says that, of course, later on, if we want to do so, we can add authority to recommend, but that it is not the desire now to give that power, because it is more or less unnecessary until we have found the facts.
Well, when we have found the facts we should be entitled to make recommendations. And in finding those facts the committee should always bear in mind the cross-examination of witnesses. As my hon. friends know, the cross-examination of witnesses is often conducted on the basis that the examiner will be making recommendations. He sometimes examines in order to substantiate the recommendation he wishes to make and, consequently, to establish a fact in order that on that fact he can make a recommendation.
Well, why not give the House of Commons an opportunity to hear recommendations and to recommend to the government action to be taken upon those recommendations? We know what the opinion of the country is; we do not have to find that out as a fact. I do not know bow reliable the Gallup poll is. It seems to have been pretty reliable in many instances in the past. But a Gallup poll taken before Christmas indicated that seventy-six per cent of the Canadian people wanted the reimposition of price controls. That seventy-six per cent is one per cent more than three quarters of our population, a very substantial body of opinion, if it is representative; and it has been in the past. That is a very substantial section of Canadian public opinion demanding reimposition of controls.
Years ago the Prime Minister himself made speeches respecting references to committees. I do not think that on occasions anyone was more critical than he was respecting references to committees. I do not think, really, that it was necessary either for the leader of the opposition or myself to make a speech this afternoon on this particular point. We could merely have quoted.
However, I brought with me Hansard for February 2, 1934; and I rather suspect the Prime Minister had that particular page of Hansard in mind this afternoon when he said that, under different circumstances, he had made speeches opposing references to committees. But may I say to him that, while I agree with him, at the time the price spreads committee was set up, prices were depressed; today prices have gone sky-high. The situation is reversed.

But the methods the government should use are in some respects quite similar to those which were recommended by the price spreads committee. I believe that powerful interests in this country have been able to increase prices abnormally. Indeed, I read only a short time ago that the government had forced down the price of fertilizers. The price of fertilizers was high. Why? Well, because there is no effective competition in the production of fertilizers. It is in the hands of a giant monopoly, a monopoly which is part of a great international cartel, Canadian Industries Limited. The government took action to force the cost of fertilizers down.
Some of the revelations in the price spreads report were that certain restrictive practices and certain monopolistic practices of certain combines were operating in Canada. And, perchance, the scarcity of some goods we produce in Canada has given the same kind of people an opportunity to do the same kind of thing. This is what the Prime Minister said at that time, because it was well known to most Canadians why prices had been driven down in Canada to the level at which they *were at that time. Said the Prime Minister on February 2, 1934, as reported at page 190 of Hansard:
The motion indicates that there is to be an inquiry by a committee with the possibility of the matter being followed still further by a royal commission.
And I think that is what has also been said about this problem.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) has just indicated that in all probability a royal commission will be appointed. I would take that to mean that so far as this session of parliament is concerned, if we are to judge by the length of time parliamentary committees and royal commissions usually take to do their work, we shall hardly be able to look for much in the way of legislation that will help effectively to meet what apparently at last the government recognizes to be a very serious condition. The motion is in large part one of postponing action. What the country is interested in is not so much further inquiry with respect to matters about which nearly everyone knows a great deal, but legislation, if more is required, to meet a situation that is already understood.


Mr. MARTIN:: What did he say on page 215?


Major James William Coldwell: Did ever words spoken on one occasion so aptly fit another situation exactly fourteen years later?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Read what he said on page 215.


Major James William Coldwell: I will let the minister read what the Prime Minister said on page 215 because I have not read that page. I could

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go on reading from this speech and point out that the Prime Minister roundly denounced the idea of setting up what he called at that time a postponing committee.
May I just say a word about the amendment and perhaps make one or two comments on what the leader of the opposition said. He indicated that we were suffering from a period of inflation due to increased credit, that is, increased purchasing power and the lack of goods available for purchase with that increased purchasing power. It is true that there is a great deal of money around, and I think we should do everything in our power to step up production rather than to make money dear and scarce. If we endeavour to make money scarce and dear we shall enter upon a period of deflation which may be as disastrous, perchance even more disastrous, than the present inflation.
The difficulty at the moment in increasing production substantially is that we have, as the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) boasts from time to time, full employment. In order to increase production, more labour is needed. That kind of labour we cannot get by immigration even though we were able to get labour by immigration in large quantities. It seems to me that we are then faced with the problem, not of allowing the law of supply and demand as it is so called to settle this problem for us, but of the exercise of beneficial controls. That is the only way by which we can meet the situation. It can be met, not by deflation, not by withdrawing money from circulation, not by increased production to the extent necessary, but rather by the exercise of controls and by the use of subsidies, methods . that were tried during the war and found to be effective under not dissimilar circumstances.
The leader of the opposition has moved an amendment. That amendment was moved just as I rose to speak and I have not had an opportunity of studying all its implications. In the main I find myself in agreement with much of what that amendment says, but I ask the house to look at the new clause (e) which reads:
(e) the advisability of continuing the present controls on prices of farm products when there are no controls over farmers' costs of production;
I would' think the inference to be taken from that clause is that the mover of the amendment and his party wanted the removal of all remaining controls because, with the exception of rent, the remaining controls are on farm prices.


John Bracken: We did not mean to have anything read into the paragraph that is not
there. There is nothing behind it more than you see. I ask the leader of the C.C.F. to accept that statement.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: If there is nothing behind it, then what does it mean? Let me explain to the leader of the opposition just how my confusion arises. He says: "The advisability". If jou talk about the advisability of something, then you mean that you have doubt in your mind. He said:
The advisability of continuing the present controls on prices of farm products-
He questions the propriety-


John Bracken: You must read the latter part of the sentence, not just the first part by itself.


Major James William Coldwell: The leader of the
opposition need not worry; I am going to be perfectly fair and read all of it:

when there are no controls over farmers' costs of production.
I would say that implies that the controls on prices of farm products should be thrown out because there are no controls on farmers' costs of production. That is the inference I would take from it. Had it been worded something like this: "In justice to our farm population the reimposition of controls on such commodities as enter into the cost of production of farm products," then it would have been clear. That is what I have in mind. I believe that the farmers are entitled to have controlled the things that enter into the cost of production when, we control the prices of the things that they produce.


John Bracken: Will the hon. member permit me to make one other observation? With all deference I think he is reading something into this that is not there, certainly something that was not intended. It reads:
And in particular to examine and report upon:
(e) the advisability of continuing the present controls on prices of farm products when there are no controls over farmers' costs of production.
The whole sentence must be read together, not separated into parts.


Major James William Coldwell: This is the place to get an interpretation of what it actually means. I thank the leader of the opposition for giving his interpretation, but that is not the interpretation I placed upon those words. I think they are subject to two interpretations, and therefore there is some ambiguity.
I do not intend to go into all the ramifications of high prices. I could give figures as I did on December 9 showing how profits of
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many of our great corporations are phenomenal today, higher than they have ever been in our history. I could show, from the figures published in the Financial Post and other papers, how apparently they have gone up in the last couple of years. I put a list on the record on December 9 but in error I included two United States companies with Canadian names. I think there were twenty-six other companies on that list, so that the inclusion of those two made no difference to my argument.
The point is that since the war we have seen the cost of living rise; we have seen the standard of living for many of our people go down; we have seen the mother and the housewife finding it more difficult to make ends meet; we have seen how the pensioner and the veteran student at our universities have been embarrassed by increased costs of living. Then, after all the discussion there has been in the country, after the obvious needs of the country, what do we get? We get a resolution referring this matter to a committee for further investigation. It is not investigation that we need; it is action, action to protect the living standards of the Canadian people.
Mr. SOLON E. LOW (Peace River): Mr. Speaker, I listened with attention to all three of the speakers who dealt with this resolution this afternoon. I was especially interested in what the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) had to say by way of trying to justify the resolution which he has put on the order paper in his name. While he spoke I was reminded two or three times of the story of the minister in the old church. One afternoon, after the minister had left, the caretaker came in to tidy up before the evening service. He noticed that the minister had left his script for the afternoon sermon on the pulpit, and curiosity led him to look over the notes. He found on the margins of some of the pages little reminders such as this: "soft voice here", "not much emphasis here", "a sly wink here". Then he came to another notation which said: "argument weak, yell like hell". I could not help noticing, Mr. Speaker, that at two or three points in the Prime Minister's presentation he resorted to some forceful speaking, and I could not help noting that these were exactly the places where his arguments were the weakest.
I am not going to take too much exception to the things the Prime Minister said because I think they have already been dealt with quite effectively. But I should like to assure him and the government that I am not one of those given to charging the government with trying to place upon parliament the respon-

sibility for policy when the Prime Minister asks this parliament to give him advice. I have always taken the position that in criticizing the government's policy I should try to offer something constructive, and I shall have, I hope, some constructive things to say in my contribution to this debate.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. LOW:: Mr. Speaker, at the time of the six o'clock recess I believe I mentioned that I had listened very carefully to the addresses that were given this afternoon and had found in them a great deal with which I could agree. I wish to congratulate particularly the Prime Minister on the way he manoeuvred to get himself out of a tight situation, because every one of us, I believe, went back to what he had to say, while he was leader of the opposition in 1934, in connection with a proposal of the then prime minister, Mr. Bennett, to set up a price spreads committee. I think, however, the Prime Minister's manoeuvring this afternoon hardly got either himself or the government out of the predicament in which they find themselves today.
May I congratulate the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken). In my opinion he made a splendid speech and my only regret is that I was not able to hear all of it. I was tempted once or twice to move my carcass into the close proximity of the leader of the opposition, but I thought perhaps I had better stay here and take notes.


Mr. KNOWLES:: Move your carcass into
his caucus.


Solon Earl Low: I have no desire whatever to move my carcass into his caucus. I prefer to have my carcass here where it belongs. In all seriousness, Mr. Speaker, I believe the leader of the opposition made a splendid contribution to the debate and we can agree with much of what he said. With regard to his amendment, I only wish to say that I have not had a chance to study it as carefully as I should like to do, but we will give it careful consideration and at a later stage in the debate it is altogether likely that some proposals may be made by one of our speakers with regard to other matters that should be incorporated into the amendment, in order to make the whole thing acceptable to us.
I should like to mention also the speech given by the leader of the C.C.F., the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell).

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I wish to congratulate him on a splendid address. I believe that in large measure what he too had to say we can accept. I was taken with this one statement he made, on which I should like to make a brief comment. If I remember correctly, he said: "What the people want is a policy to prevent a rise in prices. The people do not want investigation; they want action."
That is essentially what the Prime Minister said back in 1934 in his contribution to the debate on the Stevens price spreads committee. I believe that what the people of this country want is both investigation and action.
I was interested in the hon. member's challenge to the Prime Minister to call the byelections in the three vacant constituencies in order to give the electors in those constituencies a chance to express themselves on the whole matter of prices and cost of living. I would think, sir, that would be a reasonable thing to do except that in the heat of an election campaign there is so much confusion of issues and so much distortion of the facts that, in my opinion, few electors could possibly know what would be the best stand1 to take. I suggest that they would be much more capable of an intelligent vote if the facts were brought to light in an investigation such as is proposed by the Prime Minister's resolution. Especially would that be the case if the terms of reference were broadened in a manner which I should like to suggest a little later on.
I am afraid that too much has already been said by certain people in this country and certain political parties with regard to the culprits in the price situation in Canada. I believe a good deal of unjust criticism has been levelled against certain groups of our Canadian people, particularly those in business, and there are two political parties in Canada who must bear much of the responsibility for that unjust criticism, if it proves to be unjust-time will tell-and for the distortion of a good many facts that can be obtained1 by anyone with a high school education.
This investigation would doubtless make available to the people of Canada all the facts with regard to the rise in prices and the very high cost of living, and I contend that these facts should be in the hands of every citizen. At the outset, I may say that I am in general agreement with the idea of having an investigation.
During the late war when an enemy plane dropped on to the tail of one of our own fighter machines, the pilot found it necessary for his own safety to take what he called
evasive action. I suggest that the resolution now before this house is evasive action on the part of the government. There is no question about the fact that an aroused Canadian public is right on their trail and the government are belatedly realizing that something must be done about the matter. But what we have in the Prime Minister's resolution is little if anything more than an attempt to evade the whole of the government's responsibility in the hope that they can save themselves without doing anything effective to solve the problem of increased living cost, which problem has forced many people into an almost impossible set of circumstances.
The Prime Minister has argued this afternoon that an investigation of the kind envisioned in the resolution will have a salutary effect upon businessmen, manufacturers and importers who will come under severe public scrutiny and criticism as a result of the inquiry. I have been somewhat incensed of late, as I have already indicated, by the obvious attempts of many people to lay the blame for the rising cost of living on Canadian businessmen, manufacturers and dealers. A great deal of malicious propaganda is circulated having the effect of throwing a smoke screen around and over the real causes of our present plight. For that reason if for no other I would favour the setting up a committee of this house to investigate and report on the factual causes of the rise in prices. The Canadian people should know the facts. The whole truth must be revealed; for, in my judgment, no effective action can possibly be taken until both the public and this parliament are in possession of all the facts.
I venture to assert that when the searchlight is thrown on the true causes of the high cost of living we shall discover that businessmen generally are carrying on their businesses honestly and commendably. There may be and possibly are some individuals and combines in Canada that are taking advantage of the situation to rob the public. If that proves to be the case, then those people should most assuredly be brought to justice swiftly in the interest of the people as a whole. I am convinced that a thorough investigation of the whole price situation will reveal that the policies on finance and taxation followed bjr the government have done more to bring up the cost of living than any other single factor. For that reason the terms of reference given to the proposed committee should be broadened to include the possibility of a full investigation of the effect on prices of the hidden taxes imposed by the government. Speaking in the house on January 26, a member of this group, the hon. member
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for Acadia (Mr. Quelch), had this to say as reported at page 557 of Hansard:
In closing, I would ask the minister to bring down, during this discussion, a table which will show the prices of staple goods and the tax content in those prices. I think such a table would be most illuminating. We would then realize who is largely responsible for the high prices we are paying for many commodities. A similar table was presented to the British House of Commons aud, even though they pay large subsidies, it was amazing the proportion of price that was represented by taxation.
I believe that a full investigation of the effect of hidden taxes especially will reveal that prices in this country could be reduced in a reasonable length of time by from twenty to forty per cent. I do not think there is any question about that. There is no other single factor that anybody can point to at the present time, with the knowledge we have at our disposal, which would contribute to a reduction of prices by anything like from twenty to forty per cent. The proposed committee provides, I suggest, the means of getting just such a table as was asked for by the hon. member for Acadia if the terms of reference are made sufficiently wide to include that type of investigation. Let me just emphasize the need of such a thing by giving an example or possibly two.
In the fiscal year 1946-47 income taxes on wages, salaries and fees of individual Canadians brought to the government a total of S691,988,000. In hidden consumer taxes-that is, customs and excise, sales taxes, processing taxes and so on-the government brought in an additional $1,012 million in the same fiscal year. Of this sum, thirty-two per cent came by way of the sales tax of eight per cent which the rich and poor alike must pay on nearly everything they eat, wear or use. Having collected $313,6*33,000 from the pay envelopes of the people of Canada with incomes of $3,500 or less, the government then proceeded to collect from these same people another $328 million, from their take-home pay, by adding the sales tax to their already high cost of living.
This whole matter, Mr. Speaker, is one that I suggest should be thoroughly investigated. When the people have the facts, they should then unite in demanding that effectual action be taken to remove what I consider to be the pernicious force which pushes up and pyramids the cost of living. I was glad to hear the leader of the opposition speak strongly on this matter this afternoon, and I congratulate him heartily for so doing. The group which I represent in this house has consistently and steadily over the years attacked this pernicious form of taxation. We have pointed out

where it would lead the Canadian people. Our judgment and our warnings are now being vindicated in the conditions which the Canadian people generally are forced to face. I should have liked to hear the leader of the C.C.F. declare specifically the position of his group with regard to taxation. Because he did not mention it except in a passing way, I must conclude that the C.C.F. are not anxious for a reduction of hidden taxation-I have said that before-I believe that their whole program is based upon high taxation. It is possible only with high taxation.


An hon. MEMBER:: Read some of the speeches.


Solon Earl Low: I should like to have somebody from the C.C.F. get up and declare himself. I am giving them every chance. I should like them to make clear just where they stand with regard to taxation, more especially with regard to hidden taxation that pushes up the cost of living.


An hon. MEMBER:: Read some of their speeches.


Solon Earl Low: If they believe that these taxes should be reduced in order to bring down the cost of living, then let them say so; and certainly I shall be the first to congratulate them. Thus far we have been kept in the dark.	)
We feel that the government is also to blame for the present high prices through removing subsidies which should have been maintained until prices levelled off. Social Crediters have opposed steadily' the elimination of subsidies. We warned the government about what would happen if they went ahead with removing them before the time was ripe. The time surely was not ripe when these subsidies were removed, and we are now reaping some of the results of the ill-advised speedy, headlong action. For many years Social Crediters have advocated the just price, which is the cost of production plus a fair profit. However, I say that there are times in which and conditions under which just prices cannot be maintained without subsidies to producers and price discounts to consumers to stabilize domestic price alignment. We have always advocated their use whenever and wherever necessary. They represent what we have constantly called controls by inducements as opposed to controls by compulsion.
I wish to make it abundantly clear once and for all, Mr. Speaker, that this group believes controls are necessary to a reduction in the cost of living. We have always taken that position; and anyone who goes out on the hustings and says we have taken any other

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position is definitely lying. Several people have been guilty of doing that very thing, in order to make it appear that their political party was the only one in the country looking after the interests of the people and advocating price controls. But let me make it absolutely clear that the type of controls we have constantly advocated are controls by inducement such as are found in subsidies and price discounts; such do control effectively without destroying incentive to produce at a high rate.
I believe this resolution is defective in a number of particulars. I should like to point out about four particulars in which I think the terms of reference can be broadened to make the investigation worthwhile. In the very first clause I believe the word "recent" ought to be struck out. If that word is left in, it is quite possible that the investigation could be narrowed down according to the caprices of those in control of the majority in the committee, and the chairman. I am not imputing motives to any chairman, but I have seen these things work and I have seen how futile investigations of this sort can become if the terms of reference are not made sufficiently broad. To substantiate what I have just said, I want to refer for a moment to the words of Hon. Charles Stewart, who took part in the debate in 1934 when the then prime minister, Mr. Bennett, introduced his resolution setting up the price spreads committee. As reported at page 196 of Hansard for February 2, 1934, Mr. Stewart said;
Inquiries of this sort never amount to a great deal so far as parliamentary committees are concerned. Hon. gentlemen need only refer to the investigation held last year, and the statements made in this house last night by the hon. member who had asked for that inquiry, with respect to milk. Everyone knows how futile it has been-even the suggestion made by the committee.
Then on page 197 he said:
Personally I believe that we would go further by an inquiry under the Combines Investigation Act-[DOT]
Strange, is it not, that the same thing should be said here today.
-but so far as I am concerned, I am in favour of the investigation. I do want, however, to see something result from it. What effect has the milk inquiry had upon the fixation of prices, and how much have the producer and the consumer been helped? I am afraid that is about where we shall find ourselves in this inquiry.
Those were the words of a prominent Liberal, a man who was sitting over on this side of the house, who was telling what had been his experience with investigating committees composed of members of the House of Commons. I would suggest, sir, that if this word "recent" is left out of the first clause 5849-49
of the terms of reference it will be made possible for the members of the committee, if they wish, to go back to the very beginning of the imposition of these pernicious taxes. I believe we ought to be in a position to go back there; and I submit we ought to be able to go back to the time the subsidies were removed. I am afraid we shall not be allowed to do this if we are confined to the "recent" price rises. "Recent" might mean last week or last month or two months ago, according to the caprices of those in control of the majority of the committee. So I suggest this is one place where we could strengthen the terms of reference, by striking out the word "recent" and leaving it open.
Then I believe that the government of Canada, with the support of the House of Commons, ought to be working toward a state of affairs in which no family in this land would be forced to live on less than $1,800 or $2,000 a year. I know that cannot be done all at once; I know there are great difficulties in the way of achieving such an objective, but certainly we should be taking steps in that direction. In that regard I must certainly congratulate the leader of the C.C.F. party (Mr. Coldwell), who has said this is his view. I commend him for it, and support the idea with all my soul.
If it is true, then, that this government should be working toward such an objective, then I believe this committee ought to be empowered to investigate the effects of rising prices on the standard of living of the people of Canada or on any section or sections of the people. I think it ought to be definitely known to the members, and should be publicized to the people of Canada generally, exactly what effect the increase in the cost of living has had upon the student veterans, for example, or upon old age pensioners, who have been forced to live on $30 or, at the most, $35 a month, with prices in many cases three times what they were when those pensions were granted. I speak a word also for the veterans who have been pensioned, and for their dependents who receive allowances. All those people have been treated pretty roughly by the increase in the cost of living, and I think we in this house should know exactly what the effect of the increased price structure has been upon these people. So I suggest that we could and should add a clause making it possible for the committee to investigate those effects.
My third point, sir, is this. I believe it was the present Prime Minister who, in his contribution to the debate in 1934, complained hat the resolution of the then prime Minister, which proposed to set up the price spreads
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[DOT]committee, did not take into consideration a study of some of the ways by which this country's industries were being financed. Everyone knows from experience, I think, that many of our industries have been financed in such a way that losses have occurred, which in turn they have passed on to the people in prices in the hope of recovering those losses. Perhaps I may quote the very words of the Prime Minister at that time; and I am referring now to Mr. Mackenzie King while he was leader of the opposition in this house. On February 2, 1934, right at the end of his remarks, he had this to say, as reported at page 193 of Hansard for that year:
So I would suggest that, before this motion, carries, if at all possible it should be enlarged to include an investigation into the method of financing some of this country's industrial concerns.
I do not wish to enlarge on that at the moment because, if the government should see fit to grant such an addition to the terms of reference, I believe the committee itself will) be able to deal with the problem in detail. However, I think an extra clause should be added to the terms of reference providing that the committee may investigate the methods of financing of some of the industrial concerns of this country, to determine just what effects their methods of financing have had upon the cost of living.
I now come to my fourth point. I believe one of the weaknesses of the resolution, and perhaps the greatest weakness, is that it does not provide that the committee may make recommendations. In this regard I agree entirely with the leader of the opposition and the leader of the C.C.F. I believe the committee ought to be authorized to make recommendations for corrective measures that might) be found necessary as it goes along, as a result of its investigations. Especially I think the committee should be authorized to make recommendations with regard to the means of maintaining a minimum standard of living for all the people of Canada. That, certainly, ought to be one of our major considerations, in line with what I said with regard to those sections of the Canadian population which have been adversely hit by [DOT] the unprecedented rise in prices we have witnessed during the past year.
I was prepared 'to incorporate these suggestions in a formal amendment. But an amendment was moved this afternoon which I should like to study a little more carefully, for it might be possible for us to integrate the two. Therefore I shall not move it at this time. However, I should like to say that it

did include provision for removing from clause (a) the word "recent". It adds the following new clause:
(d)	The effects of rising prices on the standard of living of the people of Canada and/or of any section or sections of the people of Canada.
And it provides for the addition of the following as clause (e):
(e)	The method of financing of some of this country's industrial concerns.
It provides for the addition of another clause, immediately after (e), containing the authorization-
That the said committee shall be authorized to make recommendations for corrective measures which may be necessary as a result of the investigations, and more specifically to recommend means of maintaining a minimum standard of living for all of the people of Canada.
In conclusion, let me say this, that I am not opposing the resolution. I am welcoming the opportunity for this group to participate in a very close inquiry into the causes of the increases in prices and the increased cost of living. But I suggest and1, in fact, I very strongly advocate, that the government give consideration to broadening the terms of reference, and especially making it possible for that committee to make recommendations with regard to measures which might be taken to meet the situation as it obtains today. Action is long overdue.
Some others of my group will have something further to say later on.
Right Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Secretary of State for External Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I have only a few observations to offer on this resolution, and I should like to have the opportunity of offering them at this lime before the motion which is now before the house becomes, by amendment and subamendment, something to substitute this committee for both the government and parliament., the economic departments of our universities, and everything else that may have some responsibility with respect to the economy of a civilized nation.
The resolution is directed at one feature which is giving the public very much concern at the present time. I rise to speak upon it because it is of no special concern to my department, and therefore I believe I can do so from the angle of the ordinary Canadian citizen.
The ordinary Canadian citizen has been quite disturbed over the causes of the recent rise in the cost of living and, I think, will be very much interested in having a representative committee of the House of Commons make an investigation into the causes

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of that recent rise in the cost of living. He is also, I would judge from conversations I have had, and from correspondence with a great many, concerned over the question as to whether or not prices have been raised above levels justified by increased costs. He is also concerned as to whether or not some of these rises in prices have been due to what is commonly called hoarding -the withholding from sale of goods or services in the hope of obtaining for them, later on, a higher price. And I believe he will watch with interest the proceedings of a committee set up to ascertain the real facts in that connection.
There have been statements made here that the facts are well known. There are things which are believed by a great many of us- and by me among others-which may not be facts at all. And we are certainly not all agreed as to what are the real facts in connection with this situation. I think it will be of considerable advantage to the Canadian people to have our present views as to what are the facts clarified by evidence brought out before a parliamentary committee in that regard.
It has already been suggested by more than one that the presenting of this resolution to the House of Commons at this time is evasive, and is a resort to tactics which are not sincere and which do not propose to deal with the matter which is giving such concern to the Canadian people. This afternoon the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) said that we were dealing only with some symptoms of the disease, which was really inflation.
It must be conceded that there has been a degree of inflation in the economy of this country, and that there have been inflationary factors which have operated on the economy of the country.
One of the important inflationary factors which has operated on the economy of the country has been the extension of loans to the United Kingdom and to other war-torn countries for purchases in Canada of goods and supplies for which they did not have commodities to exchange, and for which they did not have currency which was currently exchangeable.
We might have had a different situation here if, for every ounce of food and every stitch of clothing supplied to UNRRA, we had chosen to require the equivalent in cash or in commodities. We might have had a different situation if, admitting that we should have contributed to relief, we had for everything we sold required cash on the barrelhead. What would have been the effect on our own economy if we had attempted to do that?
5849-49$
I have been asserting in a great many places as my firm belief, and it still is my belief, that when we agreed to extend credit to the amount of a billion and a quarter dollars to the United Kingdom without interest for the first five years, and on very generous terms after that, on condition that the United States government would extend at the same time three and a quarter billions in credits on the same terms, and sell on the same' terms of credit the amounts of war supplies they had in Europe, we were taking a course which was wise and in the interest of the Canadian public. And I think it is something which met with pretty general approval on the part of the Canadian people. If we had not done that it seems to me there is very good reason to believe that, with the opinion of the United States public as it then existed, they would not have either extended their credit or done the other things which they have already done for the restoration of the economies of those war-torn countries.
And had we both abstained, what would have been the consequence? It is not possible to assess that with any accuracy or with any exactness. But it is possible to assert that the situation in this country would be very far different from what it is today, had nothing been done by the North American continent for the assistance of the economies of war-torn countries of Europe. Economic chaos would have overtaken them long before now and would probably have extended to our own country. And had we not had these hundreds of millions of our loans to distribute here to pay for the labour of those employed in our factories and for the produce of our farms and for the labour employed in our forests and in our mines, I wonder if we could have avoided a depression, and the depressing effect of direct relief. Instead of that we have had a situation which is said to be artificial prosperity; nevertheless it is the kind of prosperity which shows in the graphs, which shows levels of employment and of economic activity never before achieved in this economy.


Mr. HOMUTH:: And the chickens are now coming home to roost.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I shall let my hon. friend roost wherever he likes, but I will deal with this resolution which is a serious resolution before a serious assembly representing the Canadian people.
That was inflationary. It was inflationary to ship out of this country during 1946 goods to the value of $860 million for which we received no equivalent in kind or in currency that was convertible. It was inflationary during 1947 to send out $505 million worth of such
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goods without any equivalent in commodities or convertible currency. It did reduce the quantity of commodities available for the purchasing power created and in the hands of those who had produced those goodsj.it did have a tendency to increase the prices of those commodities in Canada.
Another thing which rendered some increase iu prices inevitable was the increases, which took place elsewhere. When Canada is prosperous Canadians buy a large amount of goods from the United States economy. Last year they bought $2,000 million worth of such goods. They had to pay for them the prices that were charged by those who had produced them. That had a serious effect on prices here in Canada. We purchased not only goods that were ready for consumption; we purchased large quantities of raw materials that went into our own economy, into our own plants. There was one of two things we could do. We could either do without them or we had to pay the price the foreign producer required in order to cover his costs.
During the war these increases in prices were taken care of by subsidies. The subsidies were paid at that time because we had an allover control over wages and prices and because the Canadian government was the purchaser of the major portion of the annual production of this country. In the view of us who sit on this side of the house the subsidy system is not a system which can be permanent in our economy. It is not a peacetime system. It is a system which served its purpose during the war and under those extraordinary conditions. We do not agree with my hon. friends of the C.C.F., but we discuss their views and they discuss ours, and ours differ on that, point. We do not believe in subsidies as a permanent peacetime policy, and we endeavoured to get away from them as quickly as the circumstances which had made it necessary to resort to them during the war permitted us to do so. Without subsidizing the cost of materials or commodities brought in from elsewhere, the consumer is required either to do without them or to pay the price that is fixed in the market in which they are produced. That cannot be disputed.
That brings about one tendency toward rise in our level of prices and immediately it sets in motion a series of pressures to maintain equilibrium. Labour at once demands and obtains higher wages. That went on even during the war in spite of the fact that we endeavoured to maintain an all-over system of controls and ceilings. An increase in the cost of labour increases the cost of the things produced by that labour. Even when we had ceilings the wartime prices and trade
[Mr. St. Laurent.!
board had constantly to adjust the ceilings to take care of increased costs that were thus unavoidably inserted in the production price of the goods for sale.
That in turn affects other sectors of the economy. Soon the farmer finds that he is paying more for his seed, for his wages, for his fertilizer, for clothing for himself and his family, and he has to have higher prices for the product of his farm. That affects the cost of food to all consumers and sets off another wave of these efforts to maintain or to improve one's level in the general economy, in the distribution of the national income. '
It was realized, when prices were stipulated for farm produce in the long-term contracts with the United Kingdom, that they had to be adjusted in relation to new costs and that the prices of that portion of the farmers' products which would be consumed here in Canada would also be affected in the same way and to the same extent. It was realized that there would have to be increases in the price of butter, that there would have to be increases in the price of meat, but it did appear to a great many that some increases in the prices of some of these commodities were beyond what was reasonable and fair. The public wants to know if that is really so.
When the actual price ceiling was removed from any commodity there seemed to be an impression that that commodity ceased to be controlled. Of course that was an error because the general provisions of the wartime prices and trade board regulations remained in effect. It remained the law of this land that no one was entitled, to charge for a commodity a price which was higher than that which was fair and reasonable. It also remained a provision of the wartime prices and trade board regulations that no one was entitled to withhold from sale goods or services for a price that was higher than that which was just and reasonable, and that no one, if he were in business, was entitled to withhold from sale goods or commodities beyond an amount reasonably required for the purposes of his business. It was required that no one, if he were only a consumer, was entitled to hoard in his possession more than what was reasonably required for the purposes of himself and his family.
As I say, it was felt that, as soon as the actual ceiling was taken off, all control disappeared. It was necessary to make it known to the public generally that the general provisions remained and that the government intended to do what was declared by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) on January 15, namely, to ask parliament to extend

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the duration of the powers under which these regulations could be maintained as law for another year from the expiry of this fiscal year.
There were some things which actually remained under ceilings, such as the prices of primary iron and steel products and tin. Those controls did in fact put an effective brake on the prices of implements and other important supplies required by some of our primary industries such as farming, forest operations and mining. We also still had controls and ceilings on sugar and molasses, on oils and fats, on canned fruits and vegetables and, what is perhaps most important of all, on the rent of residential housing.
At that time it was found that there seemed to have been an inordinate increase in the prices of certain fertilizers and the wartime prices and trade board took steps to roll back the prices of basic ingredients and to prevent inordinate processing and distributing markups. It was also announced that there would be ceilings provided for dairy products and meats. It was also announced that investigations would be made by the wartime prices and trade board to ascertain if there had been cases of violation of the general regulations which would warrant prosecutions, not that prosecutions would be instituted in any vengeful spirit, but because it was necessary to make the Canadian public realize that these regulations still existed, and that though we were partisans of free enterprise we did not want the kind of enterprise that would be free to take advantage of all possible conditions to impose undue hardships on the community at large.


Mr. MacINNIS:: There is no other kind.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I think there is another kind. I think free enterprise is very much like free democracies, and I had the opportunity in this house on one occasion to declare my belief in free democracies and my belief that, though we of the French race were in minority in this country, we could count upon the Canadian citizenry at large to use the free democratic institutions in such a way as would not cause us unjust injury. I still believe that. I still believe that the institu- ' tions worked by reasonable-minded people can be worked in a reasonable way and that there are more men in business and in enterprise in Canada who want free enterprise to be worked in a reasonable way to the benefit of the whole community rather than of the few who attempt to take advantage of any possible circumstances to extract inordinate prices.
This resolution has been put before the house in very general terms. The resolution asks for the appointment of a committee to examine and report as to the causes of the recent rise in the cost of living. The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) suggests that the word "recent" should not be there. I can tell the hon. member that it was not there in the first drafts that we had prepared. But you had to have some point from which the rise started, and it was felt that it would be dangerous and hampering to insert any date, that it might well be left to the committee to determine what the public was concerned about, and that the time factor might very well vary according to the results of the investigation after it got under way. It was felt that a committee of this house could be trusted to construe that in a reasonable way to achieve for the Canadian public what it would feel the Canadian public wished to know.
The committee is also to examine and report on prices which have been raised above levels justified by increased costs. I remember some time ago, when the subsidies were removed on wheat used for milling purposes in Canada, that an increase took place in the price of flour. There were many who felt that that increase was larger than was justified by the increase in costs. I made inquiries about it, and I was shown and convinced that there was a larger increase in the price of flour than was represented by the removal of the subsidy, but that that increase represented less than the increase occasioned by the removal of the subsidy and the additional increase which had been applied for six months before the removal of the subsidy because of the increased costs of labour, bags and so forth, and that the price which had been fixed represented less than the aggregate of the application which had been pending before the wartime prices and trade board for some time and the portion represented by the subsidy. I did not make an investigation under oath, but that is a question which might very well be determined with precision by this committee:	Was the
increase in the price of flour which occurred on such a date an increase larger than was justified by the increases in costs?
Another matter into which the committee is to inquire is hoarding. I have heard it asserted-I do not know whether it is a fact or not-that some of the difficulties with respect to the distribution of coarse grains and feedstuff's are due to the fact that a considerable number of dealers are refusing to sell what they have on hand and holding out for a higher price in the future. I do not know whether that is true or not, but there are a
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great many in the Canadian public who would like to know if it is true or not and would like to have that brought out as a fact.
Then the leader of the opposition comes along and proposes to add particulars. The hon. member for La'ke Centre (Mr. Diefen-baker) and I know that when we could1 force an opponent to particularize his bills in court we felt that we were restricting him and not enlarging the terms of his general allegations. I think what takes place before the courts of justice takes place there because it is something which is comformable to general experience everywhere, and instead of these proposed amendments enlarging the scope of the inquiry the result in fact would be apt to be somewhat restrictive.
I was rather amused1 by the passages between the leader of the official opposition and the leader of the C.C.F. party (Mr. Coldwell) as to the real meaning of paragraph (e) of the amendment of the leader of the opposition, which reads:
(e)	the advisability of continuing the present controls on prices of farm products when there are no controls over, farmers' costs of production.
The question was asked: Are you for or against the control of farm prices? I would defy anybody without another bill of particulars to give a positive answer to that question. I think the amendment is in terms which permit of either construction with as good reason to support either as there would be for the other. Then (f):
(f)	the advisability of reverting to payments of subsidies on essential commodities of consumption.
It is suggested that the committee should consider it advisable to revert to the payment of subsidies on essential commodities of consumption, that would be an even more striking example of how quickly one can pass from one political foot to the other. As a matter of fact, this seems to be rather academic. I can quite appreciate the advisability of having all the facts as to the effect of the removal of subsidies or what would have been the effect of maintaining the subsidies. But I do not think it is the proper function of the committee to determine as to its advisability or otherwise under our system of constitutional and responsible government, which is now almost 100 years old. As a matter of fact, it was on March 10, 1848, that a Tory government resigned because it had been defeated in the assembly sitting in Quebec, and Mr. Lafontaine was called' upon to form the first responsible government. We have had it for almost 100 years, and under the system of responsible government the

government has to take responsibility for recommending to parliament the policies which have an effect on the public exchequer. It is a system which has been going on for almost 100 years here and which had a long, and, I believe, very useful history before that 100 years in the old land. It is the system to which this party is pledged.
This party wishes to see all the facts brought out; this party wishes the public to know exactly what the situation is, and this party feels that then it will be its responsibility, and not that of a committee made up of sixteen members of this House of Commons, to say what are the policies affecting the public exchequer that should be recommended to parliament. This party intends to do that, and it requests nothing better than full knowledge by everyone in the Canadian public of all the facts which are pertinent to the forming of a conclusion as to what the policy should be. Then, if this government does not bring before this parliament the kind of policy that the Canadian public feels is in the interests of the largest number of Canadian citizens, this government will face defeat and be turned out of office, and whatever party is able to convince the public that it has a policy to recommend which will better serve the interests of a greater number of Canadian citizens, will have the chance to take its responsibility. That disposes of the objection that this resolution does not require the committee to make recommendations.
When the facts have been ascertained it will appear whether or not there are things the responsibility for which rests on the administration, whether or not there have been laches in carrying on under the powers conferred upon the government and its officials by this parliament. There may be, on these facts, a conclusion to be arrived at that further legislation is required and, if there is, that further legislation has to be in. the form of a money bill, which cannot come before this house without a message from His Excellency the Governor General. If this government does not bring before the house a recommendation from His Excellency the Governor General of the kind of legislation that the public of Canada will feel is proper in the circumstances shown by this committee in its investigation, then this government will have failed in its responsibility to the Canadian public and the Canadian public will know how to deal with it.
'Mr. DIEFENBAKER: There is one question I should like to ask the minister. He was speaking about the constitutional background of the country and he mentioned that it was

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not a proper thing to leave with the committee the right to make recommendations. Has that not been the constitutional course followed throughout the years by both sides when in power?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: No. It has not been the course followed by both parties when in power to leave to the committee the formulating of policies.
Mr. DIEFENBAIvER: Making recommendations.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I have no objection to the committee making recommendations. My leader, the Prime Minister, declared this afternoon that if in the course of investigation the committee felt that it wished to make recommendations it can seek an enlargement of powers; and the responsibility for such policies as will follow has to be the responsibility of this government, or it will cease to be the government.
I was rather amused by the naivete of the leader of the opposition in suggesting looking into me advisability of restoring subsidies, which of course involve the expenditure of very large sums of money, and on the other hand suggesting the elimination of the indirect taxes which he says amount to SI,000 million.
I do not know whether it is SI,000 million, but I do know that some of these indirect taxes are the result of items such as these: indirect taxes on spirits in 1947, $78,377,185; malt and malt products, $51,825,575; wines, 83,310,378; or a total, on spirits, beer and wines, of S133,513,138. That sum goes to the federal exchequer; and of course we know that one and one half times that much goes to the provincial treasuries on these same commodities. When, therefore, I hear grumbling about the level of taxation, and stop to realize that there is such a huge amount of taxes paid voluntarily, I am not so very much impressed.
The other item which no doubt the leader of the opposition would like to see removed is taxes on tobacco and cigarettes amounting to $185,513,309. No one has to pay these taxes and it is not extremely difficult to get along without these articles.


An hon. MEMBER:: People could go barefoot if they had to.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Let me tell the hon. member of a rather disagreeable experience I had, but one that left me no worse than I had been. About two months ago I went to a doctor who examines my eyes from time to time and, after looking at them and going through a lot of testing, he said to me as I was leaving, "Do you smoke?" I replied,
"Yes, but not very much; certainly not enough to have any deleterious effect on me." He said, "What do you mean" I said, "I smoke perhaps a dozen cigarettes a day." He said, "I think you had better cut it out."
I replied, "It sounds rather foolish to me but if you say so I'll do it." He told me to come back in five or six weeks time and he would look at my eyes again. I went back five or six weeks afterwards and he examined me once more. Then he said, "By the way, did you stop smoking?" I said, "Of course. I paid you for advice and you gave it to me, and I wasn't going to waste that advice, but during the whole time I was off smoking I felt I was doing something rather foolish for which there was not very much occasion". He said, "Well, perhaps there was not much occasion. You might start again but don't overdo it".
That was a matter of five or six weeks without smoking and I suffered nothing extraordinary from the abstention. Certainly I would not want to pay $185,513,309 worth of taxes for the right to have that kind of luxury. These two amounts of taxes on spirits and on tobacco together with $17,000,000 on amusements yield to the federal treasury $336 million odd, and I suppose these are the kind of taxes that the leader of the opposition would like to wipe out.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: You know perfectly well they are not.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: When the leader of the opposition-perhaps I should say if and when the leader of the opposition, that is a better way of putting it-is leader of a government, he will be in a position to recommend to His Excellency the removal of these taxes, which this government will not do.


An hon. MEMBER:: You must have worn rose-coloured glasses.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I am sorry, but there were two interruptions coming at the same time and I did not catch either.
I do not think the hon. member for Peace River really wants this committee to be converted into the kind of committee that would never get anything done. The public is concerned at the present time and actively concerned. I can give him that assurance. I have heard it from a great many people oraliy and I have read it in a great many letters written to me. They are much concerned about these three matters. They may at some other time or perhaps even at this time, in another committee, be concerued with regard to how Canadian industries are financed. But I do not think they would be impressed by
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being told that we are to find out how Canadian industries are financed before we ascertain whether or not certain prices which have been charged for certain food commodities were above those that were fair and reasonable at the present time.


Mr. JOHNSTON:: Is that not a cost factor? Your own Prime Minister said it was.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: There may be a million things which are cost factors. If there are, they are covered by the general terms of this resolution. If you instruct a committee that is being set-up to go out and find out about these other things, even if they are not factors in the recent increase in the cost of living they will have their instructions to go and find that out and they will not give you the other answer until they are prepared to give you that one too. I do not think that is what the Canadian public want at this time.
I have said more than I intended to say, Mr. Speaker, and I will not say anything further.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Surely I do not need to apologize, Mr. Speaker, for rising at this time because I have been careful not to take up too much time of the House of Commons. I wish to preface my remarks on the discussion of the present resolution by quoting an article which appeared in the Financial Post, and in the Ottawa Journal of January 12, dealing with the present prices.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


An hon. MEMBER:: There they go again; the cost of living.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I should like to know what is wrong, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I would gladly take my seat in order to allow the hon. member on the other side to go ahead, and to speak after he gets through.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not now.


Mr. SPEAKER:: The hon. member for Cochrane has the floor, and I would ask hon. members to abide by the rules of the house which provide that the member who has the floor should not be interrupted without his permission.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I am quoting from the article I mentioned, which reads as follows:
Screaming about high prices will not help us. Hard work and prayer are the only effective cures. The world is short of goods and harvests and until that situation is corrected, general price levels cannot possibly recede.
Canada and the United States could if they desired forget about the rest of the world. They could stop the flow of goods and food to Europe,
CATr. St. Laurent.]
sit back and revel in their own plenty. They alone of the nations of the world have the capacity and production to do this just now. But such a callous course .would soon bring its own reward. There can be no permanent peace, prosperity and happiness for North America until Europe is rebuilt.
I preface my remarks with that quotation because I fully understand the seriousness of this situation. I know that every section of the Canadian population is discussing and debating the high cost of living, but it is a problem which will not be solved by demagoguery and half truths. It will be solved only by uniting our people and by proper measures in an effort to solve that serious problem.
I want to compliment the government upon presenting this resolution to the house. I know that in my section of the country-and I believe this applies to the whole of northern Ontario-at the very least, 90 per cent of the people are satisfied that such a committee should be set up. To me it is a puzzle to understand the mentality of some of the opposing groups because time and time again we have heard, more particularly from the Progressive Conservatives, that the individual members of parliament were losing their initiative and prerogatives and that the government was taking to itself all the functions which should belong to parliament. Yet the moment a cpmmittee of this kind is being formed, whose members would be given full scope for their initiative, knowledge and sincerity of purposes, immediately we have to face unfair opposition. But I want to say that I am sincerely convinced' that the great majority of the Canadian people want that resolution to be carried and want that committee to function as quickly and strongly as possible.
I have had some experience in committee work for a number of years, and I believe it is a wonderful part of our parliamentary system. It gives scope for the exercise of prerogatives and initiative; in fact it is partly a government in miniature. The government is giving some of its prerogatives to that committee. From looking over the names of the members of that committee, I am confident that they are all good men and true, that they are all sincere men with some experience in all activities of life, that they will do good work. When the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) spoke this afternoon in presenting this resolution, some adverse comments were made, and the industrial relations committee was mentioned. Who will dare say that that committee did not do wonderful work? It is true that it did not stop the strike. It did not function

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for that purpose. However, it did a certain amount of good in helping to have proper legislation passed with regard to labour. The same thing applies to the war expenditures and economy committee. What member in any section of the house will dare say that committee did not do wonderful and useful work? It was an alert watchdog during wartime and assisted to a great extent in liquidating the surplus we had in the post-war years. I say these things most feelingly because time and again in the last five or six years, particularly from the Progressive Conservative opposition, we have had it said that we were losing our initiative as members of parliament. A necessary committee is being formed now which the Canadian people are asking and begging should be formed as rapidly as possible, and the official opposition have decided to turn it down; they 'have practically decided not to vote for it and in fact, if possible, not to work in it. I hope they will reconsider their attitude and stand, because they will soon find strong public reaction against such an attitude.
It is a hard situation that has been so well explained by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent). Who will dare say that any other party, if they were in power, could solve the problem in a short period of time? With regard to our international situation, which has a bearing on our present situation, who will say that whoever may happen to be at the head of the government, whether in this country or another country, can solve the problem of inflation or the high cost of living in a few days or a few weeks? We have been very fortunate so far at St. Moritz, and I hope we shall also be fortunate in bringing some of our prices in line with those in Switzerland. This afternoon when the leader of the apposition (Mr. Bracken) was skating all around the subject, and was doing some very fancy skating. I could not help thinking that he never mentioned the fact that his party for the last two years since the war has been over has been asking for the elimination of all controls. The second prize may be given to the leader of the C.C.F. party. He was also extremely skilful in skating around the subject when he spoke of price controls, price ceilings and so on, not to mention wages. We cannot get away from the fact that when you mention control of prices, of necessity you must have control of wages also, because it is one of the primary costs of production, no matter whether it is on the farm or in industries.
With regard to the matter of subsidies, 1 must state that if I were looking out for my 5849-50
own personal political advancement in my constituency I would ask the present administration to re-establish subsidies immediately to the extent of S150 million or $200 million a year. That would be the line of least resistance. It would be at the moment fairly popular; it would be good politics. It would be camouflaging to the Canadian people the actual cost of commodities, of food and so on. But this is not the way to deal with the people. During the last five or six years I have been astonished at the extent to which the leading spokesmen of the C.C.F. party have been thinking in terms of subsidies and hidden taxation. There has been a very great change, it seems to me, because previously they did not seem to believe in that principle. For many years I heard the principles of direct taxation propounded by the C.C.F party, so that the people might be familiar with the exact situation.
What happens under subsidies? The Canadian consumer is not in a position to know the cost to the farmers of the production of milk, wheat, meat and so on. Then subsidies were taken off. It was not something the people accepted very gladly; it was not a very popular thing for a political party to do, but at the same time it was the implicit duty of the government to be fair with the Canadian people and not pay the cost of camouflaging the situation out of the federal treasury. At the present time who will say that the price of a quart of milk, at 18 or 19 or 20 cents, is too high when our farmers are getting from $4.15 to $4.35 per 100 pounds of fresh milk? The moment the subsidy on milk was taken off, the cost to the consumer was bound to increase. Because of that increase, the Canadian people immediately became agitated in their minds. They wanted to find out the actual cost of production. They wanted to find out how much it cost the farmer and how much it cost the distributor to produce and deliver a quart of milk. This is true democracy. From what I heard this afternoon-and I speak of this matter with some delicacy-apparently our dear friends of the C.C.F. party think any other country in the world is a better country than Canada, that any legislation, any government, any economy is better than we have in Canada.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Particularly Russia.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I did not say that. I know them; they are doing the same thing here that they did during the last federal election, at least in my own constituency. There we had two C.C.F. candidates, and all the time they were talking about the wonderful legislation in the Scandinavian countries,
7/8
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Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: And I hear members of that party say, "Hear, hear." Is that the way to tell the people what is the actual cost of living? Do they mean to suggest that because the British people pay lower costs than we do in Canada, eventually somebody else does not have to make up the difference?


Mrs. STRUM:: It is the way to keep up the national health, anyway.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I am rather surprised at that remark. I do not want to make any comparison, but I believe the Canadian people, under our present economy, are also able to maintain their health; and I make that statement deliberately. Why are hon. members always trying to cheapen their own country in making those comparisons? They are not called for.


An hon. MEMBER:: You are off the beam.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I am no more off the beam than your party has been for so many years. What has Canada done for Great Britain? The Secretary of State for External Affairs has mentioned some of the things, and I do not want to discuss the point further, because we are all glad and proud to do what we have done and wish we could do more, and no matter what we shall do in the future, we shall never be able to fully repay her. At the same time, however, the C.C.F. party try to vilify our own government. They go into their own section of the country, as the Conservatives did in the Portage la Prairie byelection, and tell the farmers of the west, "Your Canadian government is selling you short to Great Britain. They pay you only so much for a bushel of Canadian wheat, while the British government pays 75 cents more for British wheat." And that is the same party which always wraps around itself the great big flag of loyalty. If that sort of thing is not disloyal I do not know what is.


James Arthur Ross: Are you satisfied with the present policy?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: You were at Portage la Prairie, too. You severely criticized the Canadian government because we were asking the farmers of this country to make some reasonable sacrifices; and what they have done is all to their credit. If our farmers were left to themselves they would not criticize the fact that they get a little less for their wheat and their meat by selling to Great Britain, because they also want to help that country. That is one reason the cost of living in Great Britain is as low as it is at the present time.
Then a great deal is made of the fact that the Canadian farmer is not allowed to sell his cattle on the United States market. If he could do so what would that mean? It would simply mean that, generally speaking, the cost of all meat to the Canadian consumer would immediately increase by at least thirty per cent. Would hon. gentlemen opposite pay the difference by a federal subsidy? Suppose for a moment the Canadian farmers, who played a great role during the war and who are continuing to play a great role at the present time, were permitted to sell their wheat in the world market. They would get almost forty per cent more than they are receiving at present; but what would happen to the price of a loaf of bread in Canada? Immediately it would go up forty or fifty per cent. What would happen to the price of 100 pounds of flour? Immediately it would increase by forty or fifty per cent. I say such high prices would not be good even for the farmers, because the moment flour went up thirty per cent, of necessity the consumers of Canada would ask for higher wages and salaries. Would hon. members opposite camouflage that situation also and cover it with subsidies? It is purely and simply camouflage; you cannot get away from it. If today the people are agitated in their minds, if they thoroughly study the present situation it is because they realize that the cost of living is too high; but I repeat that to hand out subsidies right and left would not be a solution of the problem. Nor would it be the solution of any of the problems we are facing at the present time. What would we subsidize? Milk?


Mr. ZAPLITNY:: Only gold.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: No, we do not want any subsidies on gold. If you knew what you are talking about you would not make that remark. You do not know the gold situation. There is a rigid price on gold, with which the Canadian government has nothing to do. The gold mining industry has never asked for any subsidy or hand-outs, but just a chance to operate profitably. If you study the legislation

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the government has brought, forward you will not see any mention of a. subsidy. What do you want subsidies on? On milk?


An hon. MEMBER:: What about the $7?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: You must have been dreaming when the legislation was brought in. It was not $7; it is $3.50; and it is not a subsidy. Would anyone say the price of milk is too high at the present time, that the farmers are getting too much for it?


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: Yes, the price of milk is too high, but the farmers are not getting too much.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: You will have to back up on that statement. What about the subsidy on bread? It is necessary, no doubt. What about, meat? Where are you going to stop? What about subsidies on shoes? It is easy to start on subsidies, but where are you going to draw the line of demarcation? These are questions the Canadian people have been asking, and they want to know the. truth. It is not the duty of the government to camouflage any issue, but to place them sincerely before, the public.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: We do not need to camouflage.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I agree with you. Is it
camouflage when you have subsidies? In great Britain they camouflage the issue when they subsidize food to the extent of a quarter billion pounds a year. There is no way of getting over it; you cannot say black is white, because the two things are different.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: If I may ask a question, did this administration not continually publish the cost of subsidies? I remember statements made by the present Minister of Justice (Mr. Usley) on numerous occasions, when he told the cost of subsidies. I do not think it is dishonest to pay subsidies and admit that this is what you are doing to distribute the ordinary, necessary articles of life.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: This afternoon the
C.C.F. party said it was a better distribution of the cost they wanted. Let. me take as a typical example the city of Ottawa. Suppose we put back the subsidy on milk. At least ten per cent of the subsidy would be paid to big hotels, restaurants and eating houses. From a quart of milk, on which the government subsidized them, they would get an average of four glasses. If I am not mistaken they will charge five, cents for the glass of milk. Is that proper subsidizing? Who will tell me-and no one will challenge this fact; I throw the challenge to any member in this parliament-that the cost of milk at 17. 18. or 20 cents to the consumer is too high?


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: May I ask another question?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Certainly.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: What percentage of milk is consumed in restaurants, and what percentage is consumed in homes, by the children of this country?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: In a city like Ottawa at least ten per cent is consumed in public houses.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is not what they consume in public houses.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: They talk about subsidies. May I repeat that I could outdo the C.C.F. party on that point; I could ask the government to spend a quarter of a billion dollars to subsidize shoes, to subsidize shirts, to subsidize hats-to subsidize ladies' long skirts, if you please-all the known commodities. It is all right for them to talk that way, but those things are all commodities. There are practically no luxuries today. Take even the case of automobiles; who will say from the C.C.F. group on the other side of the house that automobiles for the miners, the farmers or the lumber operators in my section of the country, in the bush section, are a luxury for those people? Why not pay $500 or $600 as subsidies on automobiles, or as subsidies on refrigerators, on radios, on building material?


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: Be reasonable.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I am showing sound arguments against subsidies. But it is so easy to get started on subsidies, and it is very hard to stop. I say the government was very courageous when, at the time the war was over, it accepted the responsibility for the gradual and partial withdrawal of controls, price ceilings and subsidies. And when such actions were taken the Canadian people accepted these withdrawals with patience and loyalty.


Mr. WRIGHT:: Do you suggest we should take the subsidy off feed grain?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I did not mention feed grains, but there also, subsidies should remain withdrawn.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: During the war the
people gladly accepted controls, though not always very happily, and naturally with some criticism. Some of the C.C.F. and of the Progressive Conservative party have talked severely about bureaucrats. From what they have said it is clear they would have figuratively hanged Mr. Gordon, who did a marvellous job. But no credit is due to them, because time and again he was opposed by them. I did not hear any cheering from that side of the
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house at that time. They politically capitalized on price controls in my own section of the country, against some of the restrictions the Canadian people had to accept.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: You hanged Gordon.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Quack, quack.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: The leader of the C.C.F. spoke about by-elections and he was trying to prophesy or act as a prophet with respect to by-elections. Well, I hope the government will find it unnecessary to hold by-elections in the winter months. I had an experience with one in 1935, and I do not want to have it again, if possible. The leader of the C.C.F. tried to prophesy what would happen.


Stanley Howard Knowles: He just called for a byelection to be held; he did not prophesy at all.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: And the same leader of that same party criticized the Aluminum Company of Canada during the war when they were doing such a good job. They talked about the scandalous and exorbitant profits made by the Aluminum Company. But there was no scandal; it was one of the big corporations which did such a good job during wartime. To their viewpoint it was going to be an issue that would slide them into power.
The C.C.F. have tried to pass as prophets. Their leader .prophesied in 1944 I believe, that in the following summer there would be
250,000	unemployed, and no doubt he was hoping that would be the condition. But it did not happen

again he was off the beam in that connection.
And what would be the -attitude of the C.C.F. party if we held by-elections? Will they speak about the serious international situation? Will they speak about the problem of -atomic energy? Oh, no, they will talk only about the high cost of living. They will talk about tremendous profits. They will try only to show that tremendous profits are being made, and yet when proof is offered them they vote against a committee which will give that proof, if there is any to be found.
That is the kind of by-election they would wage. It would be demagogic, capitalizing on a serious situation, making an appeal to false prophecies. That is one of the weaknesses in a democracy. In a matter which the Canadian people want to have solved in a practical way, working through the machinery of their -representatives in parliament, to look into the present situation, with a view to solving it to some extent, we find the mentality of the opposition which says, "No, we do not

want to co-operate with you at all. We do not want to co-operate with the Canadian Parliament."
There will be a price to pay for that lack of co-operation, because,-and I repeat what I said earlier,-the foundation of this committee is one of the very finest that could be found.
I believe it was only two years ago that members of the opposition were asking that the war expenditures -and economy committee be replaced by a royal commission. The Progressive Conservative party are always harping on the suggestion that they are losing their prerogatives as members of parliament. We find that one day they want a royal commission to inquire into the high cost of living, suggesting that it will be better than the present committee which has been nominated.
Will they dare say that a judicial inquiry would be better than a committee of inquiry? Will any of those hon. members answer: Yes, that it would be better? No one will dare say so; because I repeat that on this committee we have a group of sincere men. We have men of all walks of life and all political persuasions.
Do they think for one moment that even those of us who sit on the government side of the house would not give anything if we could have the cost of living 20 per cent or 25 per cent lower than it is at the present time? We are just as human as they are. And the people of Canada understand the situation. They know this condition is not the fault of the Canadian parliament or of the government. They have enough vision and enough intelligence to discuss the situation and to realize that it is due to several factors, some of which were so well set out by the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Will they say, for instance, that the fact that we are so close to the United States where they have a highly inflationary condition, is not causing some inflation in this country?
I heard with a great deal of relish the speech of the leader of the opposition where he said that the cost of living in the United States was practically lower than it is in Canada. Well, I must have visited the wrong place last fall. But I did go to that country to visit as a delegate to the united nations meeting, and when I was there if I ordered a round steak or a sirloin steak they charged me S4 for it, while in Canada I could get that steak for SI .25.
The cost of living in the United States is much higher than it is in Canada. As I said at the beginning of my address, who is there who will say that it is not the duty of Canada

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to help Europe in every possible way, and more particularly Great Britain? Who will say that, even if the western and eastern farmers have to make a certain sacrifice in the matter of prices of goods they have to sell? When will the C.C.F. stop saying that they speak for all the farmers of the west?


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: We are the farmers.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: In my view, this is the first time in the national life of this country when the primary producers of Canada are coming into their own.


An hon. MEMBER:: A long time coming.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Well, yes-and some of you do not seem to relish it. Who will dare say that the farmers are not getting fairly reasonable prices? Who could begrudge them reasonable returns? I will go farther; it has been said, and repeated, that the Canadian packers are fleecing the farmers. If that is true, we should use with promptitude the machinery available to make them come to order, because no one has any right under present times of stress to profiteer, no matter who it happens to be.
May I repeat-and I speak for the farmers in my own constituency-that we are working to get fair prices; and I hope that in our Canadian economy it will be possible to maintain those prices. It will not be done through subsidies, or by camouflaging the issues. How many people in the city of Ottawa, if tomorrow they were getting their milk at ten cents a quart, would realize the work there is in producing that quart of milk? The same applies to cheese and to butter. Why camouflage those issues? Why not inform all our people of the exact situation as far as our farmers are concerned, and of the absolute necessity of getting fair returns for their hard work?
Who will deny that, generally speaking, what we pay for food is to a great extent based upon the cost of production? Will any one argue, for instance, that a quart of milk at 20 cents is higher relatively than shoes at $20 or $22? The Canadian people are beginning to realize these things. They are beginning to realize that when in the past the farmer was selling his butter for 25 cents a pound he was not getting a fair remuneration. At that time no one was worrying about the farmer, but new they are worrying because they have to pay reasonable prices, and I hope that the farmers will come more and more into what it is only fair should come to them.
As far as I am concerned I hope that the committee will use all its talents and sincerity of purpose to bring about an end to
profiteering at the expense, not only of our farmers but of everyone in our country. These are things that we cannot tolerate. We on this side of the house are just as honest about that purpose as members on other sides. I think every hon. member knows that the Canadian people are fair in all their actions, and yet some on the other side would try to make political capital out of this matter. I just want to say that any effort to raise passions at the present time is not being fair to Canada as a whole and to our population.
Only a few days ago I had the pleasure of meeting in Timmins about sixty ladies from that section. These ladies made up the consumers league of Timmins and other organizations. They were trying to deal with this situation and to get at the roots of the problem. They represented all political parties. There was a leading lady of the communist party, a leading lady of the C.C.F. party, a leading lady of the Conservative party and a leading lady of the Liberal party. They were meeting together in an effort to find an eventual solution of the high cost of living.
The meeting was presided over by Mrs. Stevenson and she showed by her statement that she was practical and that they wanted to be logical. She told me that they had heard that some organization was asking the present government in power to resign. She told me that she said to herself, "What would be left? Who would take charge? What would1 be the alternative? What party has a majority in the House of Commons if the present administration resigned under pressure? Was it the C.C.F. or the Progressive Conservative or the 1'Union des Electeurs? Surely not." That showed the intelligence and comprehension of these people. Let me read the resolution they passed, which was as follows:
In order that the health of our children can be assured so that they may grow up to be useful citizens of our great country and to protect the standard of living of all people the consumers league of Timmins feels that the following program should be implemented by the government at the next session of parliament.
1. Price controls established on all essential consumers' goods.
I told them that consumer goods would cover a wide field, that outside of a few jewels or a few other high priced articles it would cover almost all items. Then they asked that prices be rolled back to the levels of January, 1946. That showed that these ladies had studied the problem. They knew that they could not be rolled back to the levels of 1943 or 1944 in a short period of time. They knew
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that during the war when we had rigid controls and price ceilings, at times those controls and price ceilings were broken under pressure by labour, by business, by finance or by other groups. They were never stationary; they were never static; they were always dynamic. T-he index of the cost of living went up by leaps and bounds from 1939 to 1947 because the pressure was so terrific, and impossible of stopping completely.
Then they asked for subsidies on foods such as bread, butter, flour, et cetera. There is a country often referred to by our C.C.F. friends, which they always show as an example to our own country. I refer to New Zealand. I should like to quote to the house what one agricultural leader there said about controls. The article reads:
Not long ago, Mr. Mulholland, head of the farmers union of New Zealand, an organization similar to our Canadian federation of agriculture, in discussing at its annual meeting, the progress of New Zealand agriculture, made this statement:
"Unfortunately, our experience of government, or political control of prices, indicates the danger of the development of political pressures and sectional interests, losing sight of the national welfare, and selling, consciously or unconsciously, their support to a political party for the prices which they will undertake to give them. It is not impossible, in fact I think the danger is real, that this pressure might develop to the extent of active civil commotion."
That is what controls generally do. It becomes a question of, are we free people or are we not free people? I am ready to admit that the day is gone when there will be no control of any kind. Under our present times there is bound to be always some control, but the Canadian people will not stand for a thorough implementing of a rigid over-all peacetime control. That is so, no matter what may be said about Great Britain. I know whereof I speak when I say that some of the controls there are highly resented by the people. It may have been an extreme article, but the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) quoted an article last fall giving details of what had happened to one farmer in Great Britain. Perhaps that article may be taken more as a joke than anything else, but it shows what may happen under complete government controls.
Absolute controls are not necessary, but at the same time some controls and severe actions will be necessary over the ambitions of the avaricious and the profiteer. We are now creating that machinery in the form of a committee to be made up of members from all sections of the House of Commons. No one will deny that they are all well qualified

and are sincere. I was greatly impressed with the list of members and I quote from the resolution:
That the committee shall consist of: Messrs. Beaudry, Cleaver, Fleming, Homuth, Johnston, Knowles, Lasage, Martin, Maybank, Mayhew, MeCubbin, Merritt. Nicholson, Pinard, Smith (Calgary West), Winters.
I do not think anyone can find fault with the membership of that committee. I do not think anyone will dare say a word about the honesty of every member in his efforts to try to solve this problem which affects the people, not only in his own constituency but throughout the whole of Canada. I appreciate the opportunity that has been given me' to speak. I know that the boos which I heard at the beginning of my remarks came without premeditation. I have been here for quite a number of years, and I do not think anyone can accuse me of being disrespectful to other hon. members. I think all hon. members know and agree that I do not take up much of the time of this house at any time.
Before I left the meeting to which I referred a few moments ago, one of the ladies told me that they would be watching me when I went back to Ottawa to see what I did about price controls. I told her that it was the right of every hon. member to rise in his place every day of the session and speak, but I told her to consider, if that were done, how long it would take to complete the work of the house. I told those ladies that the most efficient work by a member is done in the different departments and in connection with one of the most important aspects of parliamentary procedure, committee work. I have always made it a point to attend religiously and attentively at any committee of which I am a member. I told those fine ladies that if I did my duty in the department and in connection with the administration, that if all sections of the House of Commons got together and worked on this serious national problem, eventually a solution would be found.
Before I take my seat may I make a sincere plea for the passing of this resolution unanimously, with any amendments that may be necessary. I am sure that the Canadian people would appreciate such action by this house. They would realize that no section of the house wants to play politics on such an important and serious question.
One thing I like about the resolution is that the committee is to have power to appoint subcommittees to deal with specific phases of the inquiry. The Secretary of State for External Affairs mentioned in his address tonight certain matters that might be looked

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into by the committee. I think every member has heard rumours that the packers have made too much money. The committee can ascertain whether that is a fact, and if any profiteering has been done those who have been guilty of it can be brought into line. We have also heard that some wholesale firms have been holding back textile goods, pillow cases and the like. The committee can go to the bottom of these things and find out what are the facts. We have heard that some great industries prefer to sell on the black market rather than to the legitimate one. The committee can investigate, and if it is found that that is not true the rumours will be dispelled. If it is true, those who are guilty can be brought to punishment, as they deserve. And so I conclude by asking for the unanimous support of the house for this resolution, and by its adoption to accomplish fruitful and constructive work, that will be highly appreciated by all our people.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Mr. Speaker, I listened very attentively to my old friend the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Bradette). I doubt if anyone has known him longer in political life than I have. I knew' him back in the old days of provincial politics when perhaps he was not so unkind to the Conservative party as sometimes be appears now. I knew he was going to speak this evening. There was the usual general understanding that arrangements would be made through the Speaker as to who would follow in this debate. I came into the house expecting to hear, after the leader of the Social Credit party (Mr. Low), my old friend from Cochrane, and then I was to follow him. But shortly before the leader of the Social Credit party finished his speech I noticed a galaxy of cabinet ministers lining the front benches, and I said to myself: They are here to pay tribute to one who has been very loyal and has done a great job for the Liberal party but who, in the last couple of years, has been more or less ignored. Then suddenly the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent) rose in his place and usurped the position on the list of speakers that was to be taken by the hon.. member for Cochrane. To my mind he rose for one of two purposes, either to defend the government or to make his first bid for the leadership of the Liberal party by showing his ability in defence of the government.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is not funny.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: It was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. I realize that some of his admissions were most damaging
to the government and certainly did not support many of the points made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) this afternoon. It was the first time that any responsible minister of the crown admitted that, in spite of all the promises which were made during and toward the end of the war -jobs for everybody who came back from overseas, tens of thousands of houses to be built to shelter them, the cry that went out in the election of 1945, jobs with good pay for everyone, and nothing to worry about, the heaven they fought for was going to be here-such prosperity as we have had1 has been dependent upon the lending of1 money.
Let me say to the hon. member for Cochrane that I enjoyed his speech. I realize what a great job he would1 do in meeting the women who came to see him. He and the Prime Minister have been the best dodgers of women we have had in this house for many years, and perhaps some members of the house may be inclined to congratulate them. Nevertheless I hope that as a result of his speech tonight, in defence of the government he will soon be able to occupy a vacancy in the senate.
I should like to refer to one or two points raised1 by the Secretary of State for External Affairs in his address. He said he would be opposed to the committee making recommendations to the house, that if they made such recommendations the government would not necessarily accept them but would have to use its own judgment. In other words, we should have a nullification of the committee's work, just as the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) the other day nullified the 'Geneva agreements.
The minister, in referring to one clause of the motion, said that people who had been guilty of certain offences could be prosecuted. He admitted that the government had the power to prosecute profiteers and those who withheld from the market goods of which they had a superabundance. If the government have that power, why do they not exercise it? As our leader said this afternoon: If you have the power to prosecute the profiteers, why do you not exercise that power?
This committee is proposed to be set up because of the tremendous hue and cry across this country following the action of the Minister of Finance in bringing down his austerity program, and because of the hue and cry against the profiteer. Has there been profiteering? Frankly I do not know. There are those w'ho say there has been, and perhaps there has. The Minister of Labour (Mr. 7S4
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Mitchell) says there has been profiteering. Speaking to the construction association, he said that the profiteers in this country were the greatest menace to free enterprise that we have.


Humphrey Mitchell: I still believe that.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: He admitted that there was profiteering. Then -why did the Minister of Labour not see to it that those profiteers were prosecuted? He had the responsibility, and if he knew that there was profiteering it was his duty as Minister of Labour to see that profiteers were prosecuted. Why set up a tribunal such as this? You can get evidence of the high cost of living today by simply looking at the small armful of groceries that a woman, carries home for five dollars as compared with what she got for the same money a few years ago.
Have we not a tribunal in the high cost of living today as compared with what it was a year and a half ago? Have we not a tribunal in the type of taxation we have today, compared with the type we had only six months ago, on some items that are very important to the every-day life of the people? Why set up a tribunal in this house to say, these are the facts, these are the things that have happened. How far back are you going in the investigation? Are we to search diligently for the cause? If we do, then I say we must go a long way back to see the general trend of government policies over a number of years, over the war years, when the government was warned time and again to prepare for the post-war period.
When this committee meets and finds something it thinks is wrong, why should it not have the right to make a report to the house and have the government take action as they ought to do? I quite agree that the government have the right to initiate action. It is the government that must initiate action; nevertheless they should not hesitate to take a recommendation from the committee that they themselves set up, a recommendation as to what should be done with regard to profiteering or anything else that has tended to increase the cost of living beyond the point that is a fair standard.
We know that committees do report to this house, but reports mean nothing. I do not think there ever was a time when there was a greater condemnation of a government than our leader made this afternoon. He referred to the committee on the flag, and then there was the industrial relations committee. Not only did the committee on industrial relations report to the house, but the house almost unanimously adopted their report. With the 
exception of some members of the C.C.F. party, the members by an overwhelming majority adopted the report, and the government failed to act. They failed to carry out the recommendations of that committee's report.
My own opinion of this committee is this -and I am a member of it-so far as I am concerned, let me say right now that this will not be any whitewashing committee. It will fight for the things it is set up to do, and I hope the house will accept the amendments that have been proposed, so that we shall be given greater powers to do the things we ought to do. To my mind this committee is set up for one purpose, and that is to whitewash the government. That is the purpose, to take away from the government the responsibility which is theirs.
The government says it is not responsible. The Prime Minister this afternoon referred to the high cost of living and he said it is not only in Canada but is happening all over the world. I have known the Prime Minister for more years than most members of this house have known him. I know his ability as a very subtle politician. I know the Prime Minister and I know how he has been able to change situations to suit the best interests of the party which he leads. I think back to the election of 1935. I can remember the Prime Minister going across this country laying all the -blame for the depression on the then government of Canada. There was no depression in other parts of the world. In 1930 the Prime Minister had had to face an honest electorate and he got out. In 1935 the Prime Minister befuddled the electors by telling them that the situation then existing was -not worldwide, that it was something that had happened in Canada, that Bennett was the man responsible for all those things, and the people believed him. Now the people do not.
He says that this situation is not confined to Canada, that it is general. But this government was saying to us all during the war and in the post-war period that regardless of what happened in other countries, such things would not happen in Canada, with the Liberal party in power. There were to be homes for all the veterans. There were even -pictures in the literature of the 1945 campaign. But compare those pictures with the actual situation today and the comparison is a sad one.
They talk about profiteering. Let me say this now in all sincerity. No one should know more about profiteering than this government, because this government is the

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biggest profiteer there is. While food prices and the prices of other things are going up and up, the government is still accepting its increased sales taxes and other indirect taxes, which just helps to pile one load on another until today the people are wondering how they will keep their families.
Who caused the profiteering in vegetables in this country? Is there anyone in this house, or any man or woman in the country who will say that the increase in the prices of vegetables was caused by anything other than the austerity program announced by the Minister of Finance? If you start interfering with economic laws you must interfere with all, and when he said, "You can no longer buy in that market in which you have been accustomed to buy over the years, and these fresh vegetables are no longer yours to be had in the stores of the country", he should have said at the same time, "In spite of the fact that I am against controls, I am interfering with one part of the Canadian economy and now I have to interfere with the rest of it, and I will see that the people get those vegetables and canned goods which are available and get them at the prices which were being paid when the austerity measure came into force."
But the government has put on new taxes, new controls, not at the prices that were in effect prior to the bringing in of the austerity program, but at present prices. This is the new control the government is bringing into force; and I say to the people of the country, to the government and to the members on this side of the house, that there is only one party responsible for the situation as it exists today, and that is the government of the day, because when they interfered with one part of the economy they had not the courage to interfere with all.
This committee will be set up when this motion carries and it will be carried with the government's overwhelming majority. A lot of them will vote for it with their tongues in their cheeks, just as so many members, speaking in the last debate in this house, because they did not want to be recorded back home-


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: Order.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: I realize I am out of order. The Secretary of State for External Affairs said that we must and should have the power to prosecute those who hold goods over and above those required, or hold them off the market in order to get higher prices. How far does this go? Is the government's program not itself a program that has encouraged and fostered the high cost of living? Every now and then the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) would make a new pronouncement in the house. It was not a pronouncement like the budget pronouncement, which says, "Tonight at midnight this goes on." Oh, no. It was an announcement that a month or two or three months from that time we might expect so and so. The people expected it and waited for it and usually they got it. They did not get so much at a time, but they got something.
Take an example. In western Canada we are producing a tremendous lot of flax. I am told by men who know their business that in many districts they are producing as much flax per acre as they are wheat. Furthermore-


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Where is that?


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Do not laugh before you disprove that statement.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I did not say it was wrong. I asked where it was.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Not only that; but the general cost, with new seeds and new methods of harvesting, gives to the flax growers a greater return with a little less cost than is the case with regard to the production of an acre of wheat.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: All right. My hon. friends may chuckle, but perhaps if they will go into the matter carefully they will find that I am not far wrong in what I say. But what happened? In May of last year the Minister of Agriculture said to the people in the west who held flaxseed, "You are now getting $3.25 a bushel." I do not know whether or not that price was adequate. I do not know whether or not that price paid an adequate profit to the producer of flaxseed. But the government said, "You are getting $3.25 a bushel." If the government had at heart the interests of these growers of flaxseed in western Canada, they surely would have seen to it that they were not producing at a loss. But on August 1, the Minister of Agriculture said, "We are going to give you $5 a bushel," an increase of $1.75 a bushel.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is a "flaxible" control.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: What happened? In the granaries of the farmers of western Canada were 500,000 or 600,000 bushels of flaxseed, and they held them. Why should they not hold them, if they can afford to do so? Why should they not hold them, because this government said, "You are going to get $1.75 a bushel more if you will hold them for a couple of months." So they held them. They did not
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deliver them to market and they got their $1.75 more. If you held off the market stuff that you did not need ia your business, is this committee going to say that you had no right to hold it and that you are a profiteer because you did so? If these people are profiteers, they are profiteers because the government gave them the opportunity and made profiteers out of them. When you compare the price of flax-and again I say, I do not think my figures are far out-and the cost of production of an acre of flax and an acre of wheat- and I am speaking of quantity production in many of the districts out west-and you find that $5 was paid for flax and $1.55 was paid for wheat, I think there was something extremely screwy in the whole government policy.


James Arthur Ross: $1.35 for wheat.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: This committee, Mr. Speaker, is to have an opportunity of delving into certain phases of price control. What those phases are, I do not know. I suppose we shall have to take our leadership from the majority members of the committee. I want to warn them now that, so far as our representation on that committee is concerned, we shall fight for the right of that committee to make recommendations to this house. We shall take the government at their word, as given by the Prime Minister, that they will not dodge responsibility because they set up a committee. People are to have an opportunity of going there; we are to investigate these things and let the blame fall where it may; and there is no question in my mind as to where it will fall. It will fall on the government of the day.


Mr. BERTRAND (Prescott):: Prejudice.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: May I say to my hon. friends over there that it is a funny thing, but when the Prime Minister spoke this afternoon it ran through my mind that I listened to the first speech I ever heard him make back in 1908, long before some of my hon. friends opposite had ever cut their political or any other kind of teeth. I heard him in 1908. I think he was at that time deputy minister of labour and had just come back from China or Japan. He made a speech in old Berlin. He made one there later which the people did not acclaim so greatly, but they acclaimed the one he made in 1908. All during his life the Prime Minister has posed as the great friend of labour. It is said that it was through his leadership that those favourable planks were put in the platform of 1919, a platform which has rotted and disappeared since that day.

But at all events, those planks were in the platform at his behest; but the platform was heaved and shifted and shot about until it went all to shatters and slivers, so that thej' are, I believe, going to draw up a new one this year.
As I say, however, there is no one I know of in the Liberal party who ever seemed to be more interested in the welfare of the working man and the working woman in this country than did the Prime Minister. Yet I think back to the election of 1921, and I remember the speeches made across this country with regard to the high cost of living. Then I remember later elections when we were told what terrible conditions had come about as a result of Tory administration. Then I cannot help thinking -and it is vivid in the memories of all of us in this house-of how from 1939 until about eight, ten or twelve months ago, the hon. gentlemen sitting to the right of the Speaker, cabinet ministers and private members alike, bragged and bragged about how they had held down the cost of living and what they had done to keep the people in a happy and contented frame of mind. There are many things that they did to the people which they do not brag about, but the only time you can really understand them is when you get them into figures. So a while ago I thought to myself, just what is the situation? Was the situation so terrible in 1920 as compared with present day conditions? Were the people so much worse off in those days than they are today? I started to review in my own mind many of the political platitudes I had heard from all parties during the intervening years, and my memory is vivid about most of them.


An hon. MEMBER:: The hon. member is repeating them now.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Then I thought I would make some comparisons and these comparisons are interesting. The comparisons are not made from my figures. These figures come from the department itself. Suppose we take the cost of living, say from 1935 to 1939, as 100. What do we find? The cost of living in 19131 was 79-1 and the cost of living in 1920 was 145-4, an increase of 66-3. That seems to be a tremendous increase in the cost of living. So it was, and we resented it. The people of this country resented that increase in the cost of living. Then, when we look at the other side of the picture, what do we find? We find that the per capita tax in 1913 was $22.41; that is with regard to both direct and indirect taxes. The per capita tax in 1940 was $40.52, an increase of $18. Now what do we find? Taking it on the same basis, we find

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that the cost of living index in 1939 was 101-5. At the present time it is about 148-5, a difference of 47 points, or about 19 points lower, comparatively, than the cost of living in 1920. But what about the tax? What about these fellows who say "We cannot buy butter and the other things we need"? In 1939 the tax was S38.67 per capita. Today the tax is S192.97. or almost six times as great. That alone. Mr. Speaker, ought to answer the question of what this government has done to the people of this country, not for the people of Canada.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, this is one of the most ridiculous motions to be brought before the house for many years. In the first place, the cause and effect of all these controls and the austerity program have been known for years. In the annual statement of even' bank, almost every insurance company and other large institution in this country we have been told the cause and effect of prices, profiteering and other economic matters. We do not need a committee to find out those things.
Why should this committee be appointed? Many of these committees have been appointed by this government during the last year or two. Let me name some of them. They appointed a committee on Indian affairs, which travelled all over Canada for two years and then could not even decide one little question: Are they citizens, or are they not? If they are. then automatically they were entitled to all rights and privileges of citizens. Then we had the famous C.B.C. committee of the house. What did they do? They brought in a report but were afraid to move concurrence. This will be just another whitewashing committee. They will know more about whitewashing than they will know about the high cost of living, profiteering, and the austerity program.
I am one of those who for many years past have tried to help the government. In time of emergency, as in war, I believe it is the duty of the opposition to help the government as far as possible. So we never complained about the Prime Minister or anyone else in wartime, because he had a great deal of experience; but the war has been over now for nearly three years, and I believe that as a private member of the opposition- and I am speaking only for myself-there should be an end of government by order in council in these matters, and parliament should function. But I remember when this situation arose previously in 1932, 1933 and 1934. and Mr. Stevens made a great success
of his work as chairman of the price spreads committee. One of the glories of the Conservative party was the work of the price spreads committee, which revealed how many people in this country, the white-collar workers and others, were suffering. As I say, I believe in giving the government some support if they are right, but not if they are wrong.
I now come to another select committee. I remember one appointed to deal with the question of the flag. They were afraid to move concurrence. Then we had another committee presided over by the then member for Northumberland, Mr. Fraser. There was a big fight in that committee for months and months; it was a regular battle. Instead of attending a fight, I would rather have attended a real meeting of that committee; but they also refused to move concurrence in the report. We had another called the C.N.R. committee. Did they find out anything about the C.N.R.? They sat around a table smoking cigars and just whitewashed the whole thing. There were many other committees, a dozen or more than I can remember. There was the labour-steel committee. They were appointed; they were going to do certain things. Did they do them? Concurrence was not even moved, as far as I remember.
It all comes down to the question of whether we are prepared to trust the conduct of this business to the government or to a useless, select committee on prices and profiteering. If you read the text of the resolution you fill see that it mentions a select committee. Well, it certainly is select. It includes a great many of those who made a great success of their trip down to Lake Success. It is high time the auditor general limited such parties to five or six members. There is a health convention going on in New York this week, and I do not know how many people we are sending to it. However, let us consider this resolution. The committee is to meet and appoint subcommittees; then they are to decide on the causes of the present high prices. Well, a day or two ago I saw some hon. members going into a store to buy clothing. I saw them come out again pretty quickly, because they only need to put their hands in their pockets to know the cause of the high cost of living. Wre cannot buy anything while this austerity program is in force.
This whole resolution is based on what was done at Geneva, where all those people met and drew up what they call a charter. For some time now the definition of a charter has been changed. The other day I looked it up in the Oxford dictionary, and the definition seems
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the history of our country since confederation. Britain should have been included in it and preferential trade with the empire. I am opposed1 to our being economically dependent upon another country not in the empire. No country will long maintain its political independence if it is economically dependent upon another country, especially if that country does not belong to the empire.
If we had only stayed in the dollar area with,Britain and the dominions, as I proposed when we were discussing Bretton Woods, the natural resources, raw materials and the manufactures of the mother country and dominions would1 have been available. The great Liberal doctrine of preferences as enunciated by Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Mr. Fielding were abrogated in 1938. That Liberal doctrine was repealed in 1938. At the time of the diamond jubilee Sir Wilfrid said, "If you want our assistance, invite us to your councils." Before the Geneva charter was passed, upon which this motion is based1, New Zealand, Australia and Britain wanted a conference of the senior dominions, but Canada opposed that. They went on to meet at Geneva without a conference. The Canadian Manufacturers' Association is a very moderate body and they presented a very moderate brief to the government on this particular question.
The Prime Minister spoke when he opened the Canadian national exhibition last September. The people of Toronto were glad to see him there and he got a wonderful reception. He and his family have had a long connection with our city. At that exhibition we were able to see the results of the preferences. The high commissioners for New Zealand and Australia were there and there were many wonderful exhibits from those countries. This is what the Canadian Manufacturers' Association said in their brief:
While it is vital under present international trade difficulties to expand markets in the United States and other dollar areas, the government and industry should intensify and extend their investigation of iways and means of re-establishing and developing the commercial trade which has been fostered and proven over so many years within the British empire. The recent trade mission to Africa was a move in this direction. Perhaps the time has come for such old customers to sit down again at the conference table to study the removal of restrictions on one another, and a return to more normal commercial trade within the empire. For generations there has been a stability in British commonwealth and empire trade relations which should be kept in mind by the government in making plans to expand international trade.
The Stevens price spreads committee, a committee similar to this, was appointed by the Bennett government. I have here a report of

a speech made by the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine), in which he refers to the wonderful work done by the Stevens committee. I am sorry the Conservative party does not have Mr. Stevens with it today. He is a wonderful man and he understands trade and commerce, and did a grand job as head of the price spreads committee of 1934.
Why should the government choose the chairman for a committee like this. If the government is to choose the chairman the committee may just as well never meet. The chairman is also the chairman of a health committee and he is off to New York. The government will write the final report because they have a majority on the committee. The Conservatives have four members; the C.C.F., two, and the Social Creditors, one.
The Stevens committee sat for months and months and it did a lot to show the consumers some of the evils of protection and big business of that day. The Conservative party were the real pioneers and the authors of protection, but the Stevens committee showed that we had made no progress. I should like to read from an address which I made to my constituents on September 24, 1934:
The Stevens committee showed us that we have made no progress in eliminating sweatshops in over 100 years, since Lord Shaftesbury got legislation to eliminate the sweatshop evils and secure a ten-hour day at the time of the great industrial revolution, which converted England from an agricultural to an industrial country.
And further down:
The time has come to stop "pussyfooting" with these cankers in the body politic and reassert the supremacy of parliament as the first duty of a government is to look after the health and happiness, welfare and prosperity of its people. The Conservative party has done itself credit in the spread prices and mass buying committee. ..
At that time I suggested that there should be an investigation into our electrical utilities, grain exchange, newsprint industry and other things of that kind. That Stevens committee did a valuable work for the white-collar workers and for labour, industry, and other people of this country. If Great Britain had called upon the commonwealth and the empire to meet before the trade conference, this Geneva charter would never had been passed and she would have escaped her present crisis. The natural resources of the mother country and the dominions would have been available and those raw materials and manufactured goods are vastly superior to those from the United States or Russia. If we could have hung together as an empire we would have been all right and Great Britain would have had no trouble at all. She would have been able to avoid her present trouble.

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But she went into Bretton Woods, Geneva and many other things. We in Canada were blindfolded. We never heard from Geneva from February 17 to November 17. We knew nothing about it in the House of Commons and we might just as well not have met. If Britain had called on the empire and the commonwealth she would have escaped this crisis and would have been able to expand her exports and markets and thus enable her industries to recover. Then the empire would have had preferential trade first, last and for all time. That could have been done because that is the best way to trade. Then, after this last war there would have been prosperity for all. It is only in that way that it could have been done. We got ourselves into this jam by agreeing to Bretton Woods and refusing an empire trade conference before the Geneva trade tower of Babel. They preferred internationalism and totalitarianism to preferential trade. We should have told them at Geneva that preferential trade is a family matter and not open to dispute with the United States. If we had kept it at that we would have been all right. The government is- now simply awaiting the next trump card from Washington, and in the meantime we are committing ourselves to the most fatal mistake we have made since confederation, in rescinding preferences; that is, we are tying ourselves up to this principle which I enunciated a moment or two ago.
If this committee is appointed it will have counsel and all that kind of thing. I notice that the conference at Havana has appointed a lot of subcommittees, with counsel, and is going to deal with the very same subject as will occupy the attention of this committee.
It will be a sorry day for the people of this country when we depart from the British preferences because Great Britain as well as France and Italy, have always been steady customers for our wheat, butter, eggs, bacon, apples and other foods, and once that market is given up we may find the United States coming back to high tariffs, in which case we shall not be able to sell them veiy much. I have been a great admirer of the people of the United States and I respect them. We certainly owe them a great deal for what they did in the two wars. But they would respect us far more if we would tell them the whole truth and nothing but the truth and be honest and aboveboard with them in these matters of trade and tell them our side of it. We have too many of our people abroad now supposed to be representing Canada in the United States. We have a whole standing army of them in Washington and ambassadors
on the seven seas. I believe the day is not far distant when the people of this country will know who their best customer was and they will regret the day when we turn our back on preferential trade within the empire.
I thank hon. members through you, Mr. Speaker, for listening to me.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I now
move the adjournment of the debate.


Mr. CASSELMAN:: No.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, the motion I just made having been turned down, I rise to say a few words tonight and shall continue tomorrow with respect to the motion made this afternoon by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), to which an amendment has been moved by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken).
I could not help but notice the great effort to which the Prime Minister went this afternoon to portray this motion as one giving great freedom to the members of the House of Commons to investigate this very serious problem of the high cost of living. At one point the Prime Minister declared that if his government had not moved for the setting up of this committee we would be condemning them and demanding such a motion on their part. I wish to call to the attention of the Prime Minister that we in this group have been having a good deal to say on the rising cost of living and its danger to the health and living standards of the Canadian people over the past two years. We have been making a good many requests and a good many demands on his government ; but never at any time have we requested merely the establishment of a committee to inquire into the matter, a committee without even the power to make recommendations to the house. On the contrary, we have considered, as the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent) said tonight, that this is a responsible government that we have in this country and that it was the responsibility of the government to bring in legislation to deal with the crisis facing this country. But every time, with one exception, that we have moved motions calling for the restoration of price controls and subsidies there has been no freedom given to the members of this house to vote on such motions as they saw fit.
There was one occasion when the Prime Minister was absent from the country when that freedom was given, and that was on a motion made by this group some time ago
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with respect to the removal of the subsidy on milk. On that occasion freedom was given to the members of this house to express themselves on the merits of an idea, and the members of the house revealed here what they felt to be the views of their people back home. But on every other occasion the whips have been on, and the things we have demanded in the name of the people of Canada have been turned down. I submit that it does not impress this house at all and will not impress the country for the Prime Minister to say that it is giving freedom to the members of the House of Commons, to have a committee of sixteen members inquire into these matters, when that committee has not even power to make recommendations to the house.
I take it, Mr. Speaker, that now you may accept and might have better success in putting to the house a motion that the debate be now adjourned.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

John Bracken: Will the Prime Minister indicate the business for tomorrow?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We shall continue with this debate and, if it is concluded, go on with Bill No. 3, respecting the conservation of Canadian foreign exchange resources.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, February 3, 1948