1948-03-09

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, a day or two ago a statement appeared in the press and I believe a release was made by the Department of Trade and Commerce with respect to an international wheat agreement. Might I ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce if he expects to make any statement to the house with respect to that agreement?


Right Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, the public announcement came on a Saturday at noon and I felt that the logical step would be to follow the practice in the United States and make the announcement through a press release. I would be pleased to put a statement on Hansard tomorrow. I had a statement here yesterday which I expected1 to put on Hansard but I am sorry I have not got it here today.


John Bracken: Will the minister make a statement tomorrow?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I will, yes.
[Later:}
On the orders of the day:


Clarence Decatur Howe: M<r. Speaker, I find that I can now comply with the request of the leader of the opposition that I make a statement on the wheat agreement.
Agreement has been reached among the representatives of thirty-six countries on the terms of an international wheat agreement, which was opened for signature in Washington last Saturday. The agreement is in the nature of a multilateral bulk contract and contains the following basic terms:
1.	Operation for a period of five crop years, commencing August 1, 1948.
2.	Prices on specified quantities to be within the following price ranges, basis No. 1 Manitoba wheat in store Fort William-Port Arthur:
1948-	49	
$2.00-$	1.501949-	50	
2.00-	1.401950-	51	
2.00-	1.301951-	52	
2.00-	1.201952-	53	
2.00-	1.10
Equivalent prices are to be fixed on wheat in other locations and in other countries.
3.	Canada, United States and Australia, the three exporting countries party to the agreement, collectively undertake to sell 500 million bushels of wheat to the thirty-three importing countries if required1 by those countries at the ceiling prices. Canada's share in the 500 million bushels is 230 million bushels, the United States' share 185 million bushels, and the Australian share 85 million bushels. The importing countries in return collectively undertake to purchase 500 million bushels of wheat each crop year from the three exporting countries if the latter desire a market for that quantity at the floor prices provided in the agreement. These quantities include flour in terms of wheat.
4.	Provision is made for the negotiation of narrower price ranges in the third, fourth and fifth years of the agreement if mutually acceptable to the exporting and importing countries; otherwise the floors and ceilings as stated above for these years will prevail.
5.	The importing countries and the quantities they undertake to purchase at the floor prices and have the right to buy at the ceilings, are as follows, in thousands of bushels.
Afghanistan	 735
Austria	 18,739
Belgium	 23,883
Brazil	 19,290
China	 14,697
Colombia	 2,205
Cuba	 8,267
Czechoslovakia	 1,102
Denmark	 1,470
Dominican republic	 735
Ecuador	 1,102
Egypt	[DOT]	 6,981
French union and Saar	 35,824
Greece	 18,739
Guatemala	 367
India	 27,557
International Wheat Agreement

Ireland	 13,227
Italy	 36,743
Lebanon	 2,756
Liberia	 37
Mexico	 7,349
Netherlands	 30,680
New Zealand	 5,511
Norway	 7,532
Peru	 4,042'
Philippines	 6,246
Poland	 1,102
Portugal	 4,409
South Africa	 6,430
Sweden	 2,756
Switzerland	 7,349
United Kingdom	 179,930
Venezuela	 2,205
The quantity for the United Kingdom includes requirement for British territories such as Newfoundland and1 the British West Indies. I would point out that the three exporting countries in return for selling 500 million bushels of wheat annually at prices not above $2 over the next five years have secured international floor price protection for their producers over the same period. Canada's quantity of 230 million bushels represents her total normal exportable surplus. The importing countries in return for guaranteeing floor prices had assured themselves fixed supplies at prices not over $2. Although Argentina and the U.S.S.R. are not parties to the agreement, whatever wheat transactions take place between these exporters and the signatory importers must 'be in addition to the importers' undertakings within the agreement. Canada, the United States and Australia remain free to sell any additional quantities they may have for sale outside the terms of the agreement. By balancing the interests of both producing countries and consuming countries in an agreement covering the bulk of the world's trade in wheat, the agreement represents a major development in international economic co-operation.


John Bracken: I have one suggestion to make and two or three questions to direct to the minister arising out of his statement with respect to the agreement. When can the minister let the house see a copy of the details of the agreement? I would suggest that it be tabled.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, I shall be glad to table the agreement as soon as I receive a copy. My hon. friend will understand that while it has been initialled by the thirty-three countries, it is open for formal signature until June I,


Mr. COLDWELL:: May I ask a supplementary question? Will this agreement be placed before the house for ratification?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I would think that that would be the procedure. The government has initialled the agreement, and I think before it is formally signed it will be placed before the house for ratification.


John Bracken: The minister has partly answered one question that I had intended to raise. I understand that the agreement has been signed by an official representing Canada, but not by the government. Does the fact that he has signed the agreement carry the approval of the government to the agreement? There are two other questions I wish to ask. Can the minister say what progress, if any, has been made towards getting Argentina and the U.S.S.R. into this arrangement? And will this agreement make necessary a review of the United Kingdom wheat agreement?


Clarence Decatur Howe: In reply to the first question, as to whether initialling by a government official has the approval of the government, the government duly authorized the official to initial the agreement as representative of the government.


John Bracken: Then it does carry the approval of the government?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes. The second question was whether Argentina and Soviet Russia have been approached. No. They declared their lack of interest in the agreement a year ago and that has been accepted. What was the third question?


John Bracken: Will this make necessary a review of the United Kingdom wheat agreement?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes. That is proceeding.
Discussions are taking place at the present time-not a review, but certain adjustments.


Mr. ARGUE:: May I ask the minister a supplementary question? Is the price yet to be negotiated under the United Kingdom wheat agreement for the 1949 crop to be limited by the $2 per bushel ceiling in the international agreement ?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The agreement was initialled subject to an understanding with the United Kingdom that the initialling of the agreement would be without prejudice to the settlement of the present United Kingdom-Canada wheat agreement. Discussions that will lead to a settlement or a basis for settlement are now proceeding.


Mr. FAIR:: May I ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce whether the $2 ceiling on wheat will remain in effect regardless of the cost of production of that wheat?

Inquiries oj the Ministry


Clarence Decatur Howe: If the five-year agreement is implemented, the ceiling price will be $2 for the five years.


Major James William Coldwell: On the external market. That would not prevent Canada from doing something internally to assist the farmers?


Clarence Decatur Howe: We undertake to deliver to the signatory countries wheat at $2 a bushel.


Major James William Coldwell: And will the government consider making compensatory adjustments if necessary?



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. L. SMITH (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the minister in charge of immigration, who I see is not here, but perhaps it might be answered by the Secretary of State for External Affairs. I realize that they may not want to answer it today but I would ask that a statement be made shortly. We have all read in the press recently of certain steps that may or may not be taken to exclude communists at our ports of entry, the last one, of course, being with respect to Mr. Harry Pollitt, which I think appeared in yesterday's papers. There has been no statement of government policy with respect to the matter. Would one of the ministers please enlighten the house tomorrow as to whether anything has been done, and if so what, with respect to that subject?
Right Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Secretary of State for External Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Glen), who has been absent on official duties meeting displaced persons, will be back tomorrow, and I will bring the matter to his attention immediately upon his return.



QUESTION AS TO MOVEMENT OP IMMIGRANTS PROM NORMANDY

Mr. EUGENE MARQUIS (Kamouraska):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. Is it true that about 5,000 immigrants from Normandy, France, are supposed -to come to Canada? And, as a supplementary question, did that movement originate in France or in Canada?


Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: I know nothing -about the numbers involved. Correspondence has been exchanged, not on the ministerial level but between the deputy minister of labour for the 5849-128
province of Quebec and my deputy minister, who is chairman of a subcommittee on immigration. That is as far as I can say. The request, I understand, has to come from an organization in Normandy, making inquiries with reference to the possibility of the emigration to this country of people in that area.
(Translation):



PRIVILEGE


Mr. FERNAND VIAU (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege. There appears on page 9 of the Monday, March 8 issue of Le Devoir an item entitled "The Francophobe Liberals of British Columbia," which is a report of the debate of last Tuesday night and the interruptions from the hon. members for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) and Vancouver-North (Mr. Sinclair) d-uring the speech delivered by the hon. member for St. Maurice-Lafl-eche (Mr. Hamel). In the seventh paragraph, which I am going to read, the following mention is made of my name:
On his part, Mr. Cruickshank was persistently twitching his lips in an effort to shout "Taisez-vous!" His prompter was Mr. Fernand Viau, member for St. Boniface, who was handing him notes indicating the meaning of Mr. Hamel's remarks -and suggesting interruptions in French. At a certain stage, Mr. Cruickshank even got up to say with remarkable selfassurance that since the member for St. Maurice-Lafleche did not understand English-


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order. I suggest to the hon. member that he should not read the whole article.


Fernand Viau: I have just one short paragraph to read, Mr. Speaker.
-he would call on him in French to observe the rules of the house. However, Mr. Cruickshank did not succeed in -reading intelligibly the text prepared by Mr. Viau.
Mr. Speaker, the reference to the member for St. Boniface which is made in that report is wrong, and I ask the correspondent for Le Devoir to be kind enough to withdraw that falsehood and, in the future, to obtain accurate information before making such statements.
(Text):



QUESTION OP NUMBER IN FEED LOTS DURING

[Stage Direction]
Mr. J. H. BLACIvMORE (Lethbridge):
I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Will the minister tell the house tomorrow whether or not he desires that in western Canada there
Inquiries oj the Ministry
[Stage Direction]
shall be as many beef in the feed lots during the year 1948-49 as there are during the year 1947-48?
Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker, I can answer that question today. The answer is yes.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: May I ask a supplementary question of the minister? Is he prepared to recommend to the government such measures as will ensure that that state of affairs shall obtain in western Canada?
, Mr. HOWE: That is my constant objective.



NAVAL SERVICES

[Stage Direction]
REPLACING OF CARRIER "WARRIOR" BY "magnificent"
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. R. PEARKES (Nanaimo):: Will the Minister of National Defence say when the new aircraft carrier Magnificent will be available to replace H.M.C.S. Warrior in Canadian waters?


Hon. BROOKE CLAXTON (Minister of National Defence):: Some time during the summer.



INQUIRY AS TO REPUTED CURE BY JOHN BRAUND OF AUSTRALIA

[Stage Direction]
On1 the orders of the day:
Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare on behalf of the many sufferers from cancer. Has his attention been drawn to the claim made by John Braund, of Australia, to whom patients are flocking, including three who left Vancouver a short time ago, to be cured of that terrible disease? Is he and his department aware of the claim and are they investigating it on behalf of those in Canada who are suffering?


Hon. PAUL MARTIN (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the Department of National Health and Welfare, when it first learned of the alleged Braund cure, sent inquiries at once to the government of New South Wales. The government of New South Wales has advised that an expert committee of inquiry has been set up and is now in the course of investigating the alleged Braund treatment. I have in my hands

a cable received on Saturday last, which in part reads as follows:
Expert committee now investigating. Strongly recommend against patients coming here at present.
(Signed) Morris,
Chairman Investigating Committee.



TOURIST INDUSTRY


[Stage Direction]
1946 and 1947.
On the orders of the day:
Mr. DONALD M. FLEMING (Eglinton): Last Wednesday the Minister of Trade and Commerce tabled in the house reports of the dominion-provincial conferences on tourist traffic held in October 1946 and October 1947. May I ask if these reports are to be printed for circulation among members?
Clarence Decatur Howe: The reports that I tabled are printed. There are plenty of copies available if any member cares to apply for one.



FLAXSEED

[Stage Direction]
question as to announcement of price for 1948
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. A. ROSS (Souris):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Many farmers are anxious to complete arrangements for seeding for the coming spring. Is it the intention of the government to set a price on flaxseed for 1948? If so, when can the farmers expect an announcement?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I think I can promise that a price for flax will be set at least as soon as the house authorizes the government to pay the participation certificate on the present wheat contract.


Mr. HOMUTH:: Aren't you happy you got into agriculture?



FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Arthur Leroy Smith: I have a question to ask the Minister of Fisheries. I have been looking for an opportunity. Are those Winnipeg ciscoes we get in the parliamentary restaurant the same fish as the old Winnipeg goldeye?

The Address-Mr. Nicholson


Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, to the best of my knowledge they are not, but I may say for the information of the hon. member that at the present time plans are under way to tap a prolific source in the west from which to bring in Winnipeg goldeye.



GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, March 8, consideration of the motion of Mr. J. A. Dion for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session.
Mr. FULTON:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of order and a question of privilege. Last night when I rose to speak on the address in reply there was some confusion in the chamber and I find that as a result of that con^ fusion the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Nicholson) had not realized that the order for the debate on the address had been called. He had moved the adjournment of the debate on Friday night. After waiting for a moment yesterday and seeing that no member rose, I rose to speak on the address. The result is that I have taken the place of the hon. member for Mackenzie, something I had no intention of doing. As he has lost his place as a result of the confusion, I would appreciate it if the house would give unanimous consent for him to take my place in the debate at this time.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I think the house will appreciate the gesture of the hon. member who has taken his seat and will be only too happy to give unanimous consent to repair the effect of the error that was made.


Mr. MacINNIS:: One point: I hope we are taking into consideration protection for the hon. member for Kamloops as well.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Oh, yes.


Mr. A. M. NICHOLSON (Mackenzie):: I must thank the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton) for his generous gesture in permitting me to conclude my remarks. I also appreciate the spirit of the house in granting me unanimous consent to continue, and in view of the fact that this debate has carried on for a long while I will co-operate in bringing my remarks to an end as quickly as possible.
On Friday night I mentioned that my reason for participating in the debate at this stage was to protest against the policy of the government as far as it affected commercial
rentals. It is my opinion that, in view of the fact that a committee is investigating the causes of the rise in the cost of living, it should have studied the whole question of commercial rentals and reached some conclusion as to whether or not the landlords were having difficulty in meeting their commitments and whether the policy should be changed.
I find in the Olobe and Mail of Saturday, March 6, an article as follows:
Fear that small businesses will be injured or destroyed, particularly those launched in recent years ~by ex-servicemen as a result of rent increases and despite the protection of appeal to the courts, was expressed last night by W. Probert, director and past president of the retail merchants association, Toronto division.
I realize that the Minister of Finance mentioned on Friday that P.C. 9029 would still hold, and that consideration would be given cases where rents charged were higher than might be considered reasonable or just. But it will be extremely difficult to decide whether rentals are higher than what might be considered reasonable or just. I want to emphasize further that it will be extremely difficult for the rentals control division of the wartime prices and trade board to deal with complaints that might come to them. On February 3 one of my constituents wrote to me complaining about the prices of food in local stores as compared with the prices in Winnipeg and Saskatoon. The local price for strawberry jam, he said, was $1.15 to $1.20 as compared with 95 cents in Winnipeg and 95 cents in Saskatoon. Canned soups were 12 cents to 17, cents a tin locally as compared with 7 cents to 8 cents in Winnipeg and Saskatoon; Blue Ribbon tea was $1.15 as compared with 85 cents in Winnipeg and Saskatoon; canned milk was 16 cents a tin as compared with 14 cents in Winnipeg and Saskatoon. I brought the matter to the attention of the wartime prices and trade board, and I now have a report. I want to commend the board for dealing with the case so promptly, but a month has elapsed; and if my friend had not written to me by air mail and had not brought the matter to my attention in concise form, it is doubtful if the complaints would have been brought to the-attention of the authorities. The report from the board states that there are eight food stores in the town concerned; and it reads in part as follows:
In store No. 1, 13 items were found to be over, ranging from 1 cent to 5 cents, the 5-cent overage being Clark's mushroom soup, 10-ounce size, which should have sold for 10 cents and which was- priced 15 cents.
Store No. 2- was found to have 9 items over, overages ranging from 1 cent to 5 cents, the 5-cent item being the same -as store No. 1.
5849-128J
The Address-Mr. Nicholson

Store No. 3, was found to have 10 items over, overages ranging from 1 cent to 7 cents.
Store No. 4 revealed 12 items over, ranging from 1 cent to 13l cents.
Store No. 5, 2 items only -were over, both 1 cent.
Store No. 6 had 10 items over, ranging from 1 cent -to 10 cents.
Store No. 7 was found to have 10 items over, ranging from 1 cent to 4 cents.
Store No. 8 had: 22 items over, ranging from 1 cent to 5 cents.
The comments are of interest and are in part as follows:
Our investigator reports that the merchants adopted a rather independent attitude until he pointed out that certain of their merchandise was still under control and that the board held that it was just as serious to violate its orders today as it was at any time during the years of the war. These merchants, either by intent or accident, claimed that they were not completely familiar with what merchandise was still under board control. Out investigator rather came to the conclusion that these merchants generally were taking what the traffic would bear, feeling perhaps that they were a long way from board investigators, more particularly during the winter months.
The investigator expressed the hope that the merchants, after having the matter brought to their attention, would co-operate and bring their prices in line with the prices they should have been charging.
I think hon. members will appreciate the local resentment there is if a person has to pay 15 cents for a commodity that should be selling locally at 10 cents to give the local merchant the necessary spread to cover rent, taxes, wages and all the other items. It will be extremely difficult to check on the individual cases where commercial rents are to be increased across the country. In the United States a year ago there were two interesting hearings in connection with rent control. The senate committee heard a great many witnesses. I should like to mention- particularly some of the evidence given by J. B. Carey, secretary of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He drew attention to the fact that representatives of the landlords were there and tried to present a case for the removal of these controls, but he reminded the committee of what happened during the ten-day period between July 1 and July 9, when 3,500 rent increases were given and 1,395 eviction notices were reported in Kansas City alone, and three out of ten of these cases showed rent increases of more than fifty per cent. Mr. Carey submitted documentary evidence to show that between 1939 and June 30, 1946, landlords' net operating income from residential rents had gone up from 35 to 40 per cent, but rents from commercials had gone up by 120 per cent.

Before the committee on banking and currency of the house of representatives the late Mayor LaGuardia of New York gave some interesting evidence. He said:
Gentlemen, I want to appeal to -this committee with all the earnestness I can muster to continue rent controls, unhampered and unrestricted, for at least another year . . .
It is absolutely necessary to do three things. One, preference to the veterans must be continued, and I will tell you why in just a moment. Secondly, we should not remove but enlarge the present provisions on priorities and absolutely restrict the use of any building material for any other purpose, except emergency repairs, until 1,500,000 dwelling units will have been constructed. . . .
Why should we have preference for the veterans? I think the gentleman here on the right said there were 14,000,000 veterans. They are the largest group of young families in our country. Most of them were married during the housing shortage. The greater percentage of the veterans' families have never had their own home, and certainly never had a proper, decent, sanitary, cheerful place to live in.
They are becoming discouraged, demoralized. They are splitting up. The birth rate is going down. You cannot ignore these conditions, gentlemen. All the talk of the chambers of commerce and the real estate boards and the landlords is mot going to cure the situation. They are concerned with returns. We are concerned with the happiness of the American family. . . .
I was very much amused by my neighbour, just a moment ago. He asked for a 15 per cent increase. But, he says: "Give the veterans an exemption. It wouldn't apply to them." We would have our veterans sleeping in the park.
Point to one landlord-just one, that is all I ask-who has a choice between a 15 per cent increase from a non-veteran and a 15 per cent less rent from a veteran who would give the preference to the veteran. Show me one. . . .
Gentlemen, did you ever go to a fire? I did. I don't like it, gentlemen. When you walk into a burning tenement and hear the cries of children and people trapped in there, and then you witness their charred bodies being removed -and those are the conditions that exist today in my city, and more so now in every other large city in this country. . . .
Without rent control, gentlemen, the situation will go wild. There will be 15, 20. 25 per cent increases. There will be a shifting of tenants. The evictions will get beyond control and we will reach the stage such as we met in 1932, I think it was, where marshals all over the country could not sell foreclosed farm lands. And any time a situation is created which brings about defiance of law, or resistance to the enforcement of the law, then you have a very serious situation and we must avoid it.
I realize, Mr. Speaker, that it is too late to do anything about the government policy so far as it affects commercial rentals, but I hope it is not too late to appeal to the government to refrain from removing any more of our controls until the committee has studied the problem carefully, and especially to continue domestic rent control until our present housing situation has been alleviated. I realize

The Address-Mr. Fulton
frankly that the present regulations create hardships, but I think that on balance we must agree that the establishing of these controls created a great deal more security than we would have had if there had not been controls. Until we have adequate housing units for all the people in Canada who want them, taking into account the effect that removing controls would have on the cost of living, I think the administration must continue these controls for a longer period.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the members of the house for permitting me to make these few comments.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It is not my purpose this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, to debate specific issues of foreign policy, nor is it my place to suggest what should be our policy on specific questions. But as I indicated last night, the reason, that I participate in this debate at this stage is that I feel that the question of foreign policy generally and the situation; confronting the world is so important, so fraught with possible consequences for good or ill, requires positive action on Canada's part to such an extent, that we should request once again that the government make a statement on foreign policy to the house and to the country so that people of Canada and the world at large will know where we stand. What I intend to do, this afternoon is to indicate some of the dangers and disadvantages, inherent in maintaining the present silence, which dictate that we should have a foreign policy known to all the world, and to press again for a statement at an early moment.
The background of events from 1935 to 1939 has already been referred to, and it has been stated that recent events in Europe bear a disturbing, an almost frightening, resemblance to what took place between 1935 and 1939. There is one event particularly which took place in 1935 to which I wish to refer in order to emphasize why that background for events today and the background for events in the past is so similar. It was an event which no Canadian can recall with pride. It took place at Geneva at the time when, the Canadian delegate having espoused the cause of oil sanctions against Italy, that attitude was repudiated by the Canadian government. It has been alleged, and I certainly believe, that this was the beginning of the end of collective security. From there on the smaller free nations of Europe and other continents were picked off one by one. No one believed there was any point in standing together or that any action would be taken to preserve them. There was no collective security. So the scene was laid, the
stage was set for the drama of the aggression and rise to power of Hitler and Mussolini. And because that death knell was sounded then; because the results were so tragic and disastrous, we cannot afford to let history repeat itself and allow the impression to go abroad once more that the countries of the west, the democracies, are not going to act together against aggression.
That immediately raises the question: what, then, is Canada's attitude? What is Canada's policy in the light of these circumstances? In effect, Mr. Speaker, it raises the question directly: has Canada a foreign policy? That is a question which so far the government has not answered. We took pride, and a just pride, in our position as a leader among the middle powers. We achieved that position largely as a result of the efforts made by our armed forces during the war. At that time it was easy to have a foreign policy. Canada's voice was certain and sure, and was understood and respected by all powers, particularly the middle powers. But it is very doubtful if any middle power, particularly, could answer the question which they must be asking themselves at the moment: where does Canada stand? What is Canada's foreign policy? One has only to ask where the countries of South America or such of the democracies of central and western Europe as still survive can find an answer to that question. What will Canada do in any given set of circumstances? Has Canada a foreign policy? Will Canada help? After recent events in Czechoslovakia it is quite certain those countries could not find an answer to that question because our attitude-and this is the great objection to it-looks like the acceptance of a fait accompli. We have made no protest; we have barely even referred to the coup in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovakian minister in this country has made his protest, one which I think might well evoke some response from Canada. The events now taking place in Europe with respect to Finland and Germany have raised the same question: what is Canada's policy? What is Canada's attitude with respect to those developments?
I should like to make this point, perhaps just in passing. The present government, as a matter of policy, has opposed' any move toward the development of a united commonwealth voice on foreign policy. At the moment I am not prepared to enter into a debate on the merits of that position, but I think that can be stated as a fact. However one may view that fact, unfortunately the government have not taken the other step which they might have been expected to take
The Address-Mr. Fulton

to complete the picture. They have not as yet developed Canada's own voice, or if they have it has not been announced. Canada does not speak with any clear and distinct voice, so we have neither a united commonwealth policy nor a distinctive Canadian foreign policy.
These great unanswered questions, because they are unanswered, mean that Canada's leadership of the middle powers, Canada's opportunity to take a position in world affairs befitting her stature and merited by her sacrifices, is being frittered1 away. This is a fact which is to be deplored, something which makes us bend every effort by persuasion and demand, if you like, upon the government to have steps taken and to have a statement issued to prevent that leadership slipping away to any greater extent.
In connection with the development of Canada's foreign policy, Mr. Speaker, I should like to put forward the suggestion that the voice with which we speak must be the voice of the country. A foreign policy is not or should not be a party question. It is a national question, because upon the success of the foreign policy developed depends the security of the nation, and1 that is the concern of every party, every organization and every citizen of the country. But if that foreign policy must represent and be chosen and supported by all the people, then its scope will be limited by the extent to which the vision of our people is limited. In other words it becomes necessary for the people to be fully informed about foreign affairs, the various issues which confront us, the various views and ideas on foreign policy which may be held by government spokesmen, by opposition spokesmen and others, so that, with these view's put forward clearly and assessed by the people, the people and their representatives in parliament may have an opportunity to arrive at a common foreign policy the success of which will ensure the national security. But it is impossible for the people to have that vision and that understanding of the problems which confront them; it is impossible for us to arrive at the foreign policy best designed to meet the circumstances in which we find ourselves as a nation, unless we have full discussion in parliament. I might point out here that in the case of the other great democracies, certainly in the case of the United States, the United Kingdom and France, their voices have been heard with respect to current events in Europe, and with respect to foreign affairs generally. So far in Canada, however, though this session is now three months old, no opportunity has been provided for a debate on these questions, and

no statement has been made by the government which might perhaps preclude the necessity of a debate by being so clear and so acceptable. Surely the government cannot escape the responsibility for one or other of those alternatives. They must either of their own volition say where they stand, or allow us to have a debate on foreign policy.
I am sure the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent), the house and country feel definitely that Canada has a legitimate claim to a voice in world affairs. The right to that voice arises partly from the fact that Canada has no territorial ambitions. There is no conquest, either economic or physical, which she wishes to make. There is no reason for her trying to play one group against another. So far as impartiality is possible, Canada speaks with the nearest approach to impartiality in respect to international affairs that could be achieved. So for that reason alone, other countries of the world would respect Canada's opinion, and, I believe it is fair to say, would be glad to hear her voice and to heed it.
But there is another reason why Canada is entitled to a place in world affairs, and why it is the inescapable duty of the Canadian government to make its voice known and heard. I refer now to the sacrifice Canada made in two great wars, neither of which was fought on her shores, but rather in Europe. In the first war particularly, there was no direct threat to Canada. As events developed in the second war it became obvious that there would have been a direct threat to our owTn territory had we not acted. But at the commencement of neither conflict was there any reason for Canada to fear physical violence to her territory. So that her participation in those wars arose from a disinterested belief that the right, wherever it is violated, is the concern of the whole world; and that we cannot isolate ourselves from the consequences of wrong, wherever it may be done. With that belief we felt we had to go to war, although no nation could have taken up arms more reluctantly than did Canada. We did take up arms, however, because we believed in the right, and in those things for which we fought.
Having made that sacrifice, are we then to see it frittered away because now, when wrong is being done, we take no action? We do not even raise our voices in protest. If we are content with this neglect, then we disregard the lessons of the recent past, indeed almost of the present, and also we do violence to the memory and the traditions of each of those who fought, and particularly those who died. The life and memory of every Canadian

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who made the supreme sacrifice in either world war cry out to this country and to its people for a declaration that their sacrifices were not in vain; and, if nothing more, for the raising of our voices in protest against the wrongs and injustices being perpetrated on the continent of Europe.
That being so, it is the inescapable duty of the government to speak for the Canadian people; and one which I hope it will accept before the opportunity for it is too late, and before the good which can be done by it is no longer open to us to follow.


Mr. LUDGER DIONNE (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, ever since the government abolished subsidies, lifted price ceilings on certain products and suggested definite steps in order to curb certain imports from the United States, they have been subjected to general criticism. Without even stopping to consider the reasons which may have caused them to act as they did, our people have held our legislative authorities responsible for all the trifling daily worries which are the common lot of every one of us.
Frankly I sometimes wonder if my fellow-citizens have not forgotten that Divine Providence has endowed them with intelligence so that they may judge current events according to the dictates of common sense. From the way they are asking what steps the government intends to take to protect their present standard of living and to provide them with what they call their due share of happiness, one would think their voices were the monotonous reproduction of a gramophone recorder. They resent being asked what they themselves intend to do in order to bring about this state of things, this happiness to which they claim they are entitled.
During the war our people used to complain about controls. While a great many were clamouring for the abolition of the same controls, a large portion of our population openly favoured black-market practices against which the government was trying to protect them by means of a nation-wide organization. Officials of this organization invited every Canadian to inform against those guilty of illegal practices. Committees were created in practically all important centres to gather, under the pledge of secrecy, information in connection with such infractions. Offices were opened all over Canada by the wartime prices and trade board in order to proceed against violators of the law.
The majority of our people refused to denounce black-market operators. They preferred to hide them in order to obtain more
easily sugar at $20 a bag, adulterated butter at 60 or 65 cents a pound, nails at $30 a keg, and so forth.
In general the working people refused to do overtime, and even absented themselves in order to avoid additional income tax payments. They spent lavishly, not only for necessities of life but for luxuries. Money spent on liquor in Canada gives us an idea of our people's extravagance. I shall quote the figures regarding our liquor consumption for the years 1939 to 1946 inclusive:
1939		 $179,338,373
1940		 191,709,976
1941		 231,977,246
1942		 287,446,107
1943		 335,174,259
1944		 341,892,135
1945		 372,866,288
1946	  483,681,678
These figures are based on the price per bottle or per case. We could easily double these amounts by adding the profits on liquor sold by the glass or in blind pigs.
Our people were completely taken by a frenzy of pleasure, which was evidenced by long queues outside liquor stores, theatres and other places of amusement, and it often ended in orgies at night-clubs. During that same period, China, Japan and the whole of Europe were under the iron heel and were subjected to all kinds of privations, and the flower of their youth was being sacrificed on battlefields, among indescribable sufferings.
After the war, while controls and subsidies were still in force, our workers demanded salary increases, holidays with pay, shorter working hours and so forth, which were granted willingly or otherwise. Canadians received in wages, salaries and supplementary labour income a total of $530,000,000 in September. The figure was $13,000,000 higher than for August and $84,000,000 more than in September 1946, according to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. For the first nine months of 1947, labour income amounted to $4,404,000,000 an increase of 18 per cent over the corresponding period of 1946. Our total production was around $12 billion; our labour for twelve months received $5,872,000,000, or nearly fifty per cent of our total production. I mention these figures for the information of those who believe that increase in salaries is insignificant in the cost of the finished products.
In 1947 our imports from the United States amounted to fantastic figures. Automobiles could not be purchased without payment of a bonus ranging from $500 to $1,000. United States imports were at such a premium in the stores, and it was such a problem for dealers to keep their shelves stocked, that Canadians
The Address-Mr. Dionne

crossed the border to buy coveted luxury articles at fancy prices. Such a spending spree is without parallel in the history of the country.
In the meantime the government gained house approval of legislation setting the price of wheat at SI .55 a bushel, thus making it possible for our agricultural classes to produce and feed the people of Canada at reasonable prices while providing producers with a stable market.


Arthur Leroy Smith: On- a point of order, Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the hon. members for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) and Vancouver North (Mr. Sinclair), I think I should make their usual complaint and tell you that the speech is being read by the hon. member. I know I shall get nowhere with that, but I do not think the speech should be read with the hon. member having his back turned squarely towards you, sir.
Mr. CHEVR'IER: That was described as cheap politics the other day.


Mr. MACDONNELL (Muskoka-Ontario):: This is a new point.


Mr. CHEVRIER:: Not at all; it is exactly the same.


James Horace King: I would ask the hon. gentleman not to read his speech. Of course he is quoting a lot of figures and I understand has to make reference to his notes.


Mr. THATCHER:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, when a member is speaking a language not his own I think some allowance should be made.


Ludger Dionne: Recently the
president of the Argentine republic stated that although his country sold its wheat at S5.10 a bushel the farmer's proceeds amounted to only $1.70. It is, I presume, expressly to spare the country from the distressing inflation that has spread all over the world that government restrictions still prevent us from exporting various foodstuffs to the United States. There is no embargo on salmon. Sockeye brings $36 per case in the United States and $25 in Canada.
While protecting those nations that must purchase in order to feed the hungry, the Canadian government is trying, by every means at its disposal, to prevent prices from rising too steeply in this country. When the government, faced with the rising costs of manufactured goods and realizing that the producers who feed our people were entitled to a fair reward for their hard work, decided to remove controls so that the farmers could sell their

products at prices in line with those they have to pay for the manufactured goods they need, everybody in the country starts clamouring hysterically against the high cost of living. Some newspapers hail with screaming headlines the victories scored by trade unions in gaining wage increases, while they storm at the rising cost of living. Looking at this situation dispassionately, one must wonder whether people are not completely out of touch with reality.
I can sense already how some people will react against increased prices of farm products. They will claim that such increases do not benefit the producer but the go-between. How can we hope to deal fairly with the Canadian public by imposing ceiling prices without controlling wages?
In the newspaper La Presse, of Friday, February 20, I read an article announcing the intention of the unions to ask for a forty-hour week and an increase in wages from the contractors. If this request on the part of labour is satisfied, and I would not be surprised to see it go through, it will increase the price of construction and will aggravate the housing situation. How can you expect to induce a labouring man to become the owner of his own house when he can see no end to its costs, which are already exorbitant? Do you think that labour will be happier if they work only forty hours a week? My experience has taught me that happy and satisfied people are only those that work full time. After all, who is the first one penalized by the increase in prices? The labouring man, because he has to buy everything he needs. What is the cause of increasing prices? Unjustified increases in wages, and loss of production. No one can expect to correct this situation by increasing wages and reducing working time.
Let us not forget Sir Stafford Cripps' recent appeal to British workers, begging them not to ask for wage increases if they did not wish their country to go bankrupt and face starvation, and beseeching them to increase production in order to prevent impending ruin.
Glancing at developments in England, let us be realistic. While in Great Britain last April, I stayed at a big hotel where the bill of fare was so meagre that I could not have bread at one meal if I accepted a lettuce leaf as an entree. I did not see milk, butter, eggs, coffee, steak, ham, and more than very little sugar, during my stay over there. Yet I was paying $10 a day for my hotel room. I had to keep on my overcoat and hat because the room was unheated. At that time, English papers were reporting that seventy ships loaded with

The Address-Mr. Dionne
foodstuffs bad been lying at anchor in Glasgow harbour for thirty-nine days while stevedores went on strike.
Have you ever considered what huge quantities of coal, iron, textiles and other products England could ship to us and thus be in a position to feed her people properly? Unfortunately she does not produce enough of them to meet her own needs. Workers' salaries have been raised to the saturation point in so far as the security of the national economy is concerned. Working hours have been reduced and absenteeism is becoming more and more noticeable, besides the fact that strikes are frequent all over the country. To what cause can they be ascribed? To destructive criticism and to reckless promises made to the labouring class.	-
Now that England is at the edge of the abyss, things have come to such a pass that the workers are being besought to prevent the country from being thrown into anarchy.
Since I am discussing the hardships suffered in England, why should I not consider what is occurring elsewhere? In France, for instance, where workers had to pay last spring 350 francs for a frugal meal in the restaurant around the corner. In Germany, where all cities except three or four have been demolished in the proportion of sixty-five to ninety per cent, and where the people have to live on United States charity, supplemented by the black market. In Russia, where thirty million people are starving and shelterless, according to the report of Brazil's ambassador Mario Premental Brandao, published in the December 26 issue of the Montreal Star.
In view of this tragic situation, which affects eighty to ninety per cent of the world population, compelling them to do without even the necessaries of life, forcing the majority of the people in war devastated countries to live in cellars, in improvised shelters, if not in the open, I wonder whether we are not defying Providence when we criticize in and out of season. What is to be gained by such sterile and pessimistic criticism? To convince our people they are unhappy, whereas we are living in a garden of Eden compared to the rest of the world.
I remember Mr. R. B. Bennett's election around 1930. Quebec farmers were told then that they were giving away their butter at 30 cents a pound, due, among other things, to poor government administration. What happened? Butter, if I remember rightly, later sold at 15 cents a pound. Real estate was selling at a tenth of its value and at that often found no takers. Is there anybody here who really believes that this campaign of defeatism has really helped this country? Why
do we carry on like this today? Why do we inveigh against the cost of living when we ourselves are primarily to blame for it because of our lenient attitude towards the black market and the activities of the trade unions which operate in a vicious circle? Besides, if we would only stop being the mouthpieces of trouble seekers and show ourselves capable of independent thought, could we conclude that the cost of living could reach such heights without a corresponding rise in revenue?
In the Toronto Worker on January 26 last, we find a passage which is extremely significant in this regard. I quote:
Present cost-of-living index is only about 12 per cent above 1929, the greatest pre-war year in Canadian history. Present wages are about 70 per cent higher than in 1929.
If this is true, and I believe it is, it clearly shows that the main reason for the rise in the cost of living is the rise in wages. If any proof were needed, the building industry would provide it. Standing timber should cost the company who owns it no more than it did several years ago, and yet when it is bought on the market it costs 300 to 400 per cent more today than it did a few years ago. There has been little increase in the price of nails, cement and asphalt shingles, since they are mainly machine made; yet the price of a finished house is prohibitive. It is evident that higher building costs are due to the increase in every class of wages.
On July 12, 1946, speaking in this house, I suggested that the tax be abolished on incomes up to $1,500 in the case of single persons and $3,000 in the case of married people. I advocated making up this loss of revenue by means of a ten per cent tax on the retail price of clothing, home furnishings and automobiles, such tax being collected by affixing a stamp on each article. If a women wanted to buy a dress with a 75 cent stamp sewn inside the lining, she would never agree to pay $10 or $20 for it. The same thing applies to ladies' hats, which contain about one or two dollars worth of material but retail at $10 to $15, or even more. Such a measure would afford protection to the buyers against any unfair advantage taken by dishonest dealers and would put a stop to black market operations. When controls were lifted, all the government would have had to do was to add to its order in council a clause maintaining the prices shown by the stamp. This measure would have been a powerful means of curbing all exploitation. Prices would have increased gradually as old stocks became exhausted throughout the country. The price of a suit selling at $35 on September 12 would not have gone up to $50 the day after controls were
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removed, and so on. Because of this measure, workers could hardly have claimed such heavy wage increases, for tax reductions would have relieved them to a certain extent, and the protection against exploitation by dishonest traders would have bettered their lot automatically. Not a member of the house paid the least attention to my suggestions. I hold no grudge against anyone. I am not one to take offence because my suggestions were ignored. Nevertheless I wonder if we really are justified in protesting against the high cost of living after such indifference toward means to prevent it.
Are the members of this house fully aware of their responsibilities when they criticize the government at every turn'-using the rise in the cost of living to make their speeches more high sounding, when they have not even taken the trouble to consider all the means which could at least have considerably delayed that rise or regulated its pace so that it would have been much less noticeable?
It is strange that such protests against the high cost of living should relate to necessaries of life, like milk, butter and beef, which are produced by a class of people who are busy every day of the year and whose working hours exceed one hundred per week. Let us take butter at 73 cents, for instance. After deducting 3 cents for the retailer, 3 cents for the -wholesaler, 6 cents for the factory and one cent for freight, there remains 60 cents net to the farmer. One hundred pounds of milk average four pounds of butter; therefore the farmer is paid $2.40 for producing 100 pounds of milk.
The average yearly quantity of milk given by a cow in the province of Quebec is about 4,000 pounds. That will give about 170 pounds of butter. Now, 170 pounds of butter at 60 cents makes a total of $102 a year or, 28 cents a day. To obtain that paltry sum of 28 cents the farmer must invest money in a farm and all the necessary equipment; he must purchase the cow and pay for it; he must, with his wife and children, work to put that farm on a production basis; he must buy the feeds he lacks for increasing his milk production; he must care for and feed that cow in the stable every morning and evening during six months a year; he must milk her twice a day during nine or ten. months of the year. For all that work, from sunrise to sunset, for the risks assumed the farmer only gets 28 cents a day. Is there any worker who would consent to do that work for such a small remuneration?
Having spent all my life among farmers I am conversant with their problems; above all I know that a farmer must work hard, with the help of his family to stay and live on his farm.
I am also aware of the daily sacrifices which are

imposed upon him; I know that he must reason things out in a practical way when he compares his lot with that of the industrial worker. I know that his heart bleeds when he is compelled to refuse a new dress or a new hat to his daughter, because he is unable to afford the expense. I know how difficult it is for him to get his sons to stay on the farm and help him in his agricultural pursuits. He has all my sympathy, and I will never criticize if he can manage to obtain 60 cents net for his butter.
One has but to think the matter over briefly to admit that the general concern about the price of agricultural products is but a storm in a teacup. When the price of butter or beef goes up a few cents people make shrill pro' tests, but we do not hear them criticize the price of a $5 bottle of liquor, the price of cigars and cigarettes, theatre admission and so forth. In view of the fabulous amount spent on liquor in 1946, are our people justified in complaining?
Our people are spending their money lavishly on things which are not only useless, but detrimental to their health, yet they have the impudence to complain when the price of milk increases a few cents a bottle. When I think of citizens of foreign countries who are deprived of everything, have no money and cannot even work in order to buy what they need, while we in this country are spending our money foolishly, I wonder how1 long that situation is going to last. How can we reasonably expect it to continue when between eighty and ninety per cent of the world's population is deprived of the bare necessities of life, while we in North America, who form the other ten or twenty per cent, live a life of plenty?
To what meritorious deed can we attribute the fact that we have been spared the evils which afflict at least three-quarters of our fellow men? If Canadians would only avoid excesses of all kinds they would be the happiest nation on earth. Unfortunately such a wish cannot materialize unless people show good judgment and strength of purpose. Our people, bent on enjoying themselves, no longer have the leisure to pause and think. Searching for something different in the way of entertainment, giving in to every whim, they have no time to consider anything else. People live mechanically, criticize the government and expect it to cure all evils, real or imaginary.
Is the time not yet ripe for the government to. introduce legislation designed to correct these manifold abuses? Why not begin by curbing excessive use of spirits? In 1939 our people spent $179 million on alcoholic beverages, and $483 million in 1946. Could this latter figure not be reduced to the 1939 level,

The Address-Mr. Dionne
that is to say, to $179 million? How many trials, headaches and family quarrels would thus be eliminated? How many tears alcohol has caused deserted mothers and children to shed 1 Think of the worries it brings to parents whose sons left home without ever having touched a drop but return, after a while, addicted to the 40-ounce habit. Think of the highway accidents, the broken lives, the ruined prospects attributable to this disastrous evil. Think of the unfortunate victims of over-indulgence who now await death in lunatic asylums. If you look into divorce statistics you will find that nine times out of ten, alcohol is at the root of the trouble. Slums would vanish if the $750 million wasted yearly on spirits were devoted to the building and improvement of homes. Is there any reason why Canadians should now indulge in alcoholic beverages more than in 1939? The huge amounts of grain required for the distilling of spirits could be exported to needy countries and would thus help untold numbers of starving people.
Why mot re-educate our people to save, or at least to do without the superfluous? Some may claim that Canadians cam no longer save because of the high cost of living. Yet I was reading last week in a Montreal newspaper that the company responsible for distributing juke boxes in Montreal restaurants collected weekly dues amounting to $250,000, or more than $12,000,000 a year. Millions of dollars are spent on soft drinks. I could go on quoting examples of similar squandering. Canadians are incredibly wasteful and improvident.
If the Canadian worker cannot make any savings out of the wages he is earning in this country, how could he manage to make both ends meet if he earned only $59.85 per month as in Russia and had to pay $5.50 for a pound of butter, $3.50 for seven quarts of milk, $2.50 for a dozen eggs, $7 for a pound of coffee, $6 for three pounds of veal, $1.20 for one pound of sugar, $1.20 for one package of cigarettes, $1.35 for one bottle of beer, $54 for a pair of shoes and $285 for a suit?
I know that this speech will certainly not be popular. I think however that it is more constructive than the boot-licking eulogies which some men are wont to deliver. It is high time our people were told the evils which are gnawing at our way of life. Take away alcohol, wastefulness and immorality from Canada and you will have the happiest country in the world.
Many will say this is impossible. Let me remind you that if as much energy were spent by public men in fighting these three curses as in promoting their political philosophies, beneficial effects would follow in short order.
A great many people, it must be admitted, experience hardships as a result of the rising cost of living. Those with fixed income or wages who are unable to better their financial standing in relation to the cost of living are much to be pitied. But we cannot improve their lot with any degree of efficiency by reducing farm prices. Let us strike at the very root of price increases, which stem from such evils as-
(1)	Unfair price increases by profiteers. The present inquiry into rising costs of living will no doubt reveal the names of many dishonest dealers, and, let us hope, teach them a good lesson. Besides, exploitation of the public by a few dishonest dealers cam be only of short duration. As soon as goods become more plentiful, competition will necessarily cause the price of manufactured products to fall and the dishonest dealers will be the first victims of their exploitation.
(2)	Unwarranted pay increases in industry. Before allowing am industry to grant wage increases, it should be ascertained what difference they will mean in the price of the finished product. If the increase demanded causes the final price of the manufactured article to go up to such am extent as to be detrimental to the general well being it should simply be refused. The manufacturer of whom a wage increase is demanded almost invariably refuses it at first. Trade unions then enter the picture and, through the press and by many other means, as often as not illegal ones, attempt to blacken the manufacturer's reputation in the eyes of the public. Jostled and threatened from all quarters, he weakens and gives in. What happens? The next day he increases the price of his product. This state of affairs will continue until the union leaders demand a new wage increase. And so it goes on, the same process being repeated several times, until the cost of the article becomes prohibitive. Who will suffer from all this? Everybody, including the worker himself.
As long as we allow such methods to be employed it is useless to look for really efficient means of relieving the consumer. We shall not find any. That was not the way our ancestors built up this country and left us our national heritage. That is not the way in which we should pass on this heritage to our descendants.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak for a very few minutes on this occasion. I spoke on the amendment moved on this side and my reason for speaking on the main motion now is to direct the attention of the government to the grave injustice under which the people in our city
The Address-Mr. Church

are suffering at this moment in consequence of the rentals that are being charged. I refer particularly to the small store keepers and business people in the retail and wholesale part of our city. The regulations refer to rentals which are "just and reasonable", but the interpretation of these terms has given rise throughout the years to great differences of opinion in the law courts as to its meaning.
County court judges sit in the division courts in the county of York throughout the week and my suggestion is that it would be better to give the county court judges jurisdiction in this matter, fixing a limit at ten per cent increase in the discretion of the trial judge. The whole problem is a very serious one in the city from which I come and I hope that something will be done along these lines. I do not think there is any reason why our judges should not have jurisdiction, up to ten per cent, to determine what they deem just or reasonable according to the circumstances.
There are one or two other matters to which I should like to refer. The Prime Minister listened to the first lesson from the hon. member who preceded me and I am sorry he did not wait for the second lesson which I am now making. On the 26th day of this month, that is to say on Good Friday, Their Majesties the King and Queen will observe the twenty-fifth anniversary of their wedding. The visit of Their Majesties in 1939 showed their tremendous popularity in every province in Canada. I suggest that the government consider the passing of a resolution by both houses of parliament extending congratulations to Their Majesties on that happy occasion. I understand that they are having some kind of celebration on Saturday, the day after. Will the government give this consideration? I suggest that a proclamation be issued by the government calling it to the attention of the public of Canada and of the provinces for action.
Here is the last suggestion I have. Christianity is part of the law of England, and automatically by the Constitution Act, 1791, of Canada, I claim that it is thus part of the law of Canada. I have called on the government in previous years to see to the proper observance of Good Friday this year, because we are a Christian nation and a Christian country. I think there should be some proper observance of that day as a religious holiday throughout Canada. The C.B.C. should be instructed to have no jazz or no advertising on that particular day. It is largely a religious day.

I am glad to see the interest taken now in the house in foreign affairs and external affairs. Just yesterday in our city a gentleman from Washington, John Foster Dulles, made a political speech at the Canadian club. I think the doctrine of pan-Americanism that he was advocating is dangerous. Some of these Latin republics in South America have not been friendly to Britain, and it was Britain who gave the Americas the protection they had at sea, as the Monroe doctrine was the supremacy of the British fleet. I am surprised at Canadian clubs having speakers like that. I do not belong to them because at times some of them are not any more Canadian than some of the empire clubs are imperial. It was a great mistake to have a speaker like that at that time. There should be no attempt to trifle with the question of pan-Americanism. These Latin republics will lead us into a war if we join and follow them.
I hope that some day before Easter will be set aside, afternoon and evening, to discuss the whole question of foreign affairs. They have had such a debate in the old country. I hope that something will be done to call the attention of the house to the grave danger which our country is in at the present time. We can no longer depend, as the British government have announced, on the mother country for all our defence. If we are to have any defence, we must re-establish the empire air training plan for the defence of the commonwealth. I hope before Easter a day or so may be set aside for that particular discussion.


Mr. E. B. McKAY (Weyburn):: I have not spoken om this motion before, Mr. Speaker, and I had no intention of doing so until recently when I received a great number of letters from farmers in my constituency and throughout western Canada protesting with regard to the T-l prairie farmers' 1947 income tax form. It seems to me that this form is a most unpopular piece of work. The farmers complain that the forms are too long and too complicated. I believe the promise has been held out to the farmers that this year at least they would receive forms that were simpler than the ones commonly used in the past. But on the contrary they are worse now than they have ever been before. In most cases it seems to require the payment of fees to have the forms completed. The farmers are resentful also of the insistence of the Department of National Revenue on completion of the part of the form with regard to net worth. The following extract from a letter I have just

The Address-Mr. McKay
received seems to indicate the position that a great number of farmers of the west are taking. It reads:
For months now we have been hearing on the radio and reading in the papers about the new "Prairie farmers' income tax guide" book and how much more simplified it would be to fill the forms.
Well, this week we got the book and also the new forms. We just can't believe it's possible that in a country which is supposed to be democratic and support the four freedoms that such a fascist piece of dictatorship could be used against the prairie farmer. We strongly suspect some very sinister motives behind it all, because all this information has been withheld from us until the time we have to fill the forms. Then too, it's going to be a lot of guesswork to fill in the questions asked, how many farmers are educated or able to fill in or even keep a record of what we are supposed to do?
Surely, Mr. Speaker, there are brains enough in the Department of National Revenue to devise a simpler form than this. If, as the minister has intimated, the income tax is here to stay, it would appear that it is about time a simpler tax form was devised so that the farmers at least would be satisfied that, while they have the taxes to pay, everything is fair and aboveboard. Every year the same complaints are heard. This year there are more than there have ever been before. I urge upon the minister that he recall the tax form known as the T-l prairie farmers 1947 and prepare something simpler; I urge that he have them circulated early enough, so that the farmers will be able to fill them out this year without all the trouble to which they are now being subjected. Everybody knows the paying of income tax is onerous enough without adding to it the extra burden of a complicated and unreasonable income tax form.


Mr. W. G. CASE (Grey North):: I do not intend to detain the house long, but I have received some petitions and information which I thought I should like to put on the record.
I wish to underline some of the things the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton) has said. I am conscious of the fact that Canada has made certain commitments or assumed certain obligations with respect to our foreign relations, and I sincerely hope that an opportunity will be presented to the house in the near future to debate our foreign policy. I realize that a certain formula was adopted for procedure at the beginning of this session, but so many things have taken place since then, in Europe particularly, that I think we should have an opportunity not only to learn for ourselves but to indicate to the outside world, and particularly to our friends, the position we take.
I today received a copy of the Windsor Daily Star dated Monday, March 8, with the first of what will be a series of articles on the communist threat to Canada. This enemy is boring from within, and while one would not want to be classified or considered as an alarmist, nevertheless to be forewarned is to be forearmed. When I think of the magnificent reception today for Miss Barbara Ann Scott, who returned to Ottawa with her skating laurels, I recognize the depth of enthusiasm and admiration for this beautiful Canadian girl, a product of our way of life in this great freedom-loving nation. I feel that we should give consideration almost immediately to the means we propose to employ to preserve, for this generation and those who are yet to come, that way of life.
I have a letter from the Kelowna branch of the citizens' committee, with respect to our military position. I am going to read only two paragraphs, to indicate their concern in this regard:
With reference to our earlier letter regarding the need' for compulsory military service.
We, the citizens committee of the reserve army in ICelowna, continue to be deeply concerned over the failure of repeated recruiting drives; and at the apparent lack of response to the efforts made 'to produce a sufficient body of trained personnel for active service, if and when the need arises.
Then this is the last paragraph:
We would respectfully draw your attention to General Crerar's article in Maclean's magazine of the 15th July, 1947, which bears on the matter, and ask your support of our proposal, to the end1 that action may be taken at the present session of parliament.
It is not my responsibility to say what I think the government should do or what their fixed policy should be, but I do say the government should have a manpower policy which *would have the full support of all the Canadian people. I think the time to decide such a policy is when we are at peace. We are said now to be in the midst of a cold war. Events are indeed startling but it is my considered opinion that if war does come it will indeed be a war of survival, with the Christian world pitted against the godless world, or however you may care to describe it, because in the main the democracies have never been aggressors. We should take time by the forelock and be prepared at least to defend ourselves, and to this end the people should know something about the art of self-defence.
Then I have a communication by way of telegram from the Canadian association of radio and appliance dealers, signed by A. G. Frame, their secretary, and supported by other
The Address-Mr. Case


Arthur Leroy Smith: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Question.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I am going to delay the putting of the question- by not more than two and a half minutes at the out-

The Address-Mr. Knight
side. I have not taken part in the debate on either of the amendments or on the main motion. I am glad the hon. member for Wey-burn (Mr. McKay) raised the subject he mentioned a few moments ago, because I want to place myself squarely behind everything he said with respect to this tax form which is being presented to the farmers of the west and, as I learned a few days ago by questioning the minister, also to the farmers of the east. All I have to say about it is this, that it is there to serve a certain purpose, namely, as a stool-pigeon in written form for the income tax branch. There is no other reason on earth why they should cover this net worth business. If the farmer has to do it, then why have not, I, a lawyer, to do it? I do not care what the occupation is; if the farmer is to be picked out for it, then, let us all be picked out.
It is utterly unjust, unfair and indefensible, and is to be used only as a process of detectiv-ing, if I may coin that expression, to catch the poor chap, who says this year that his net worth is $10,000 and next year makes out he has a profit of $2,000. Next year he puts down $15,000 as his net worth. Perhaps next year there is an increase in value and they say, "But what about the $3,000 you did not show?" That is all it is for.
It is utterly unfair that one class in our community should1 be singled out for discriminatory treatment of that kind. So far as I am unconcerned, and for all I am worth, I will buck that thing from now until this session either comes to an end or freezes over -if you know what I mean by that.


Mr. R. R. KNIGHT (Saskatoon City):: Mr. Speaker, I notice that most hon. members who have spoken recently have apologized for rising in this debate. I have no apologies to offer, although I assure the house I shall be brief. There are two subjects I consider it my duty to bring before hon. members because certain of my constituents have asked me to do so. These matters may have been discussed before, but the people like to have their own members discuss them on their behalf.
First of all is the matter of commercial rents. This subject was discussed: eloquently by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldiwell).


An hon. MEMBER:: The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) gave the lead1.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: I do not think the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar needs a lead from anyone. That, of course, is a matter of opinion. In my view the matter of commercial rents was handled in an inadvisable and hasty manner. I do not know whether the
hon. members from Ottawa have spoken on the point; if they did I did not hear what they had to say. I know, however, that there is considerable consternation on Bank street and many other streets in this city.
I do not think the government has given much consideration to the little man. The minister says these small businessmen will be protected when rentals rise above a point considered just and reasonable. But the process of defining what is just and reasonable is a difficult procedure. I am reminded of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), when he was pleading with businessmen not to raise their profits above a point which could be considered just and reasonable. We all know how business responded to that appeal. I believe the government's decontrol policy was at times hasty and ill-advised.
Another point I wish to discuss briefly is the removal of the ceiling from canned milk.
I should like to tell the house what happened in my city on that particular occasion. It is well known, sir, that in these days many babies are fed from cans; and that applies not only to milk but other baby foods. When the ceiling was removed there was almost a panic in my city. When decontrol became effective in respect of milk people who had been short of it for some considerable time, people who, because of the high cost of living, could not have cream, turned immediately to canned milk. The effect of decontrol was that it produced a shortage, and mothers of young babies were unable to get the food which they required, and the feeding of which they understood. Their babies were being fed on formulae, and when the canned milk supply was short the whole procedure was upset. I received calls from many irate mothers, although I do not know what they thought I could do about it. I did my best, however, and telephoned the civic health department. They told me that the condition was serious, and that instructions had been issued to these young mothers enabling them to convert plain milk which could be purchased from the dairy. Proportions were suggested which would approximate the milk they had been getting from cans.
For a few days there was almost a crisis, and I was afraid that some of these babies would be casualties of decontrol such as the minister spoke about somewhat casually the other evening. In a condition of this kind I suggest that the government, and particularly the Department of National Health and Welfare, should have seen to it that some provision was made before decontrol became
The Address-Mr. Castleden

effective. They should have seen that provision was made for hospitals, other institutions and young children.
I believe I have said all I wish to say, but I have made these few observations because the people I represent expect me to bring matters of this kind to the attention of the house.


Mr. G. H. CASTLEDEN (Yorkton):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to join with those who have voiced protest against the type of income tax form, and the general picture of farm incomes in western Canada. I cannot speak for eastern Canada, because I am not so sure of conditions here. Let me assure all hon. members that the protest is a real one. It is a protest against a condition of injustice, discrimination and maladministration, which exists and is not good. This condition exists in western Canada in a very real way, or we would not have this kind of protest against the present set-up.
Farmers are a tolerant and long-suffering people. I can tell the house that they thought this government would so change the income tax form, and would so simplify the matter, thereby giving them justice, that they delayed their protest until recently, when they received the new so-called simplified form. I used the word "simplified" in a jocular fashion, of course; because if anything could be considered complicated, then certainly it would be the form recently issued. It would require a Philadelphia lawyer and six parliamentary assistants to prepare one of these forms. And when they had finished I am quite sure that most lawyers could find a hole to go through it.


Mr. KNOWLES:: That makes the parliamentary assistants shudder.


George Hugh Castleden: The general picture of farming in western Canada is one which requires official attention. If these new income tax forms prove anything about the government, then certainly they prove that those who are responsible for preparing the forms do not understand the position of western farm people, nor do they understand the conditions through which these people have passed.


John Horne Blackmore: They do not care; that is the main thing. They just do not care.


George Hugh Castleden: In studying this matter I would ask hon. members to recall what western farmers went through for about fifteen years prior to the war. If anyone will look at the record issued by the bureau of statistics he will see that they became indebted to the extent of about $680 million. That was the burden of debt carried by the farmers, part of which was levied against the municipalities.

That was the result of work and hard labour by people who had gone on year after year under a condition wherein the cost of production was not covered by the price of the commodities they sold. The mortgage indebtedness of that part of the country was terrific.
The first opportunity these people ever had of showing their heads above the debt line came with the slight increase in the price of the commodities they sold during the war. We maintain that, in fairness and in justice to those people who did so much for Canada- so much, indeed, that if they had not carried on, despite the debt under which they operated, Canada would not have had the machinery with which to produce the food and sinews of war. They should not now be confronted with this form. On those farms was equipment which permitted them to continue their work and to do their job well.
What did they do with their money, as soon as they got it? They paid off their indebtedness out of money which they received largely in 1944, 1945 and since. Now they find that no allowance is made for the payments they made on their previous debt. We maintain that, in all fairness to these people, the farmer should be allowed to deduct from his income any money which he pays off on debt incurred prior to 1940 at the end of the depression. Surely that is not too much to ask. The farmers have been loaded down with debt. A good many paid what they owed out of their incomes in 1942, 1943 and 1944, even before they had any idea that they would be taxable for income.
The farmers during the war were asked to produce, and did produce, and often they did not get the cost of production. When we were sending gifts of food to Britain the farmers were quite willing to make their contribution. Wheat was bought from the farm at fifty cents a bushel, which was below the cost of production, and was sent over to Great Britain as a gift. Why was the farmer not allowed at least his cost of production? Manufacturers of tanks, guns and other war equipment were guaranteed profits on their production. They went on strike at the beginning of the war and got cost-plus contracts.
In 1942 the farmers in the west got a crop, but the government quotas prohibited them from delivering their grain in 1942, and they had to build bins on the farm and store it.
I think the regulations allowed the delivery of five bushels per acre. The same regulations were in force in 1943, and the farmer again had to store his grain in bins on the farm. In 1944 the government said:	Deliver all your grain.
The farmer did so. He delivered the grain

The Address-Mr. Castleden
that he had stored on his farm in 1942 and 1943, and now the income -tax collectors come along and say:	"Where is your permit book
for 1942 and 1943?" The income tax collectors are not interested in costs of production in those years, and the farmer finds that the grain which he had stored up on his farm in 1942 and 1943, and which he sold in 1944, is added to his income for 1944, thus bringing him up into a higher bracket. The more grain he had stored on his farm in 1942 and 1943, the higher the income bracket into which he goes. He was not allowed to deduct his expenses in 1942 and 1943 when he grew that grain. As a matter of fact, some farmers actually lost money, so far as cash income was concerned, in 1942. But when the grain grown in that year was sold in 1944 he was allowed to deduct only the expenses of growing his 1944 crop. After considerable protest by myself and others in this group, the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Gibson) finally agreed to do something about it. And it was provided that every farmer who could show that he lost money in 1942 or 1943 would be able to carry his loss over to the other year. That was done, and it afforded some measure of relief, but only a small measure. In 1945 the income tax branch said that the farmer could spread his costs over a couple of years, and in 1946 the three-year average was started, but the farmer was not allowed to spread his income over 1942 and 1943.
With conditions as they are; with agriculture being such a hazardous occupation, with the likelihood of many areas having no crop for three or four or five years perhaps consecutively, the three-year period or even a five-year period is inadequate.
There should be a spreading of costs over a longer period to take care of the type of agricultural production we find in western Canada with all its risks. Some farmers have lost money for five years in a row; and some farmers have had no crop for five years in a row. A three-year average is of not much use to that man. Now he finds that he is not even allowed to claim as an exemption from income the debt he incurred in those drought years.
The farmers are also seriously concerned too about the method of collection. I came in contact with a farmer who in 1945 bought $5,000 of farm machinery and claimed exemption for depreciation in 1946. But the income tax collector said, "We are going to charge you income tax because you must have got "$5,000 in that year." The farmer said, "I did not earn it off the farm." "Where did you get the money?" the income tax collector asked; "you must have made it off your farm." "No, I did not," the farmer said. The
income tax collector said, "You are going to pay income tax on it anyway." The farmer came to me personally and I went out with him and interviewed the tax collector, who told me -exactly the same thing that he had told the farmer, that he bought the machinery in that year and must have made the money off his farm. I said, "No, he did not, and you are not allowed to tax him on that under the act. All you can tax is the money he made that year." The farmer finds it difficult to understand why there is n-o tax on th-e money a man makes on, say the Winnipeg grain exchange, but that if he and his wife and children work on a farm, his wife looking after the chickens and his children perhaps in grades 2 and 3 milking the cows -and feeding the hogs, the income of the family is taxed. Finally I pointed out to the income tax collector that the farmer had this $5,000 left to him by his mother. He was not inclined to take that into consideration at all at first but, after considerable argument, he finally admitted that it was not taxable. That made a difference of $1,000 in the tax that farmer would have otherwise paid.
The farmers of western Canada are wondering when the government will give a clear explanation to them of w-hat is capital on the farm and what is income. That needs to be made perfectly plain. For a good many years there has been no clear definition of "basic herd." One set of departmental regulations which the farmer knows nothing about will say one year: This is the basic herd. Another year it will be something different. The farmer is allowed exemption one year and the next year he is not. The basic herd idea should be clearly explained to the farmer, so that he will know that it means the average stock he possesses. It should be considered as capital. It should apply to the horses, hogs, poultry and other farm stock, as well as cattle.
The farmer's family all join together in earning the income from his farm. It is entirely different from the way in which an ordinary business is conducted. A man in town may work at a departmental store for a few dollars a week and his wife may make a little extra money working at something else, while the boy of the family may make a few dollars by delivering telegrams. Their combined income is not taxable like the income is which the farmer and his wife and children earn. When the farmer and his wife and children find that at the end of the year they have earned just over the minimum and the tax collector comes along and takes away all the money that the wife earned from her poultry and eggs, it just takes the heart out of these
The Address-Mr. Castleden


Mr. McCANN:: Nobody has ever said that he could be taxed on the increased value.


George Hugh Castleden: Another incident which has been brought to my attention is that of a man seventy years of age who had paid for some of his indebtedness by the crops he obtained during the war. He was too old to continue to work, and not knowing he was liable for income tax for those other years he built himself a little cottage in the towni and had a few dollars left for his old age. When the income tax inspectors came into that town they brought this man in and told him how they were going to tax him. The man became so seriously flustered and upset about the whole thing that he became violently ill. He was taken to the hospital in Yorkton and died about a week later.
These farmers do mot understand that they are taxable in these years. What the farmers of this country need is a simplified form of taxation. They do not want this complicated thing that has been set before them. They are sincere. I have heard farmers one after the other, after the farm income tax people were there and told them what the taxes were, say, "What is the use of our labouring early in
the morning and late at night if that is the result. I am selling my milk cows and hogs;
I am going to quit production; I am not going to milk cows at this rate; I am going to leave this farm and move into town, I will rent out my farm, or I shall operate it as a mechanized farm." You have done more to break the morale of the farmers and producers of western Canada by this farm income tax than ini any other way. If you want to know why butter and hog production is down and why the farmers are leaving these farms and living in the towns let me say that is the basic reason. These people have suffered for a long time; they went through fifteen years of drought and hardship; they went without proper food and clothing. Many of them have worked too hard because the young people were away at war and the older people carried on. They now find, as a result of their toil, that this is what is happening. It is just not good enough. The whole thing must be further reviewed. The whole thing needs a complete revision. I would advise the government to call in some representatives of the farm organizations, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and representatives from the pools and other organizations throughout the country to talk over this matter and, along with the advisers of the department, to deal with this matter. I would be remiss in my duty if I did not make this protest in the house at this time. If the government does not do something about it at once the farmers will.


Robert Fair: Mr. Speaker, speaking on the amendment to the amendment on the address in reply to the speech from the throne on February 26 last I raised objection to this income tax form that was put out all across the country. At that time I had only a few letters. Since that time I have received letters from farmers violently objecting to the form itself and, in particular, to page 5. In addition, the hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch) has brought this matter to the attention of the government. I hope the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. McCann) will remember getting hot under the collar because of the remarks made by the hon. member for Acadia. Since that time the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Smith) has brought the matter to the attention of the government on different occasions and so has the hon. member for Weybum (Mr. McKay).
I feel I should be remiss in my duty if I did not raise my voice in objection to page 5 of the form. We have been bombarded by different sections of the country, even by the

The Address-Mr. Pouliot
government, with literature demanding that communism be ruled out of the country, and I do not know of any better method of helping the communists than for the government to proceed with the present income tax form. We have pointed out on many occasions that farmers have had a portion of their income actually confiscated by the government's agricultural program. On Saturday last we had an announcement again of the international wheat agreement, by wdiich our wheat will be turned in at a particular price regardless of the cost of production, and we find that our taxation is to continue. It would seem that we have in our set-up somewhere people who are interested in the communist program for taking away from farmers and other workers of the country. Again I protest against page 5 in particular of the income tax form.


Mr. JEAN FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata):: I have just one thing to say before the debate is over. We must take a lesson from the Argentine. Everybody knows about the deal between the Argentine and the United Kingdom. They got a market for their meat and they were paid, not with United States dollars; they were paid by a remittance to the Argentine government of British-held railway stock and security. Therefore the Argentine has got something for what it is delivering to Great Britain, while we get absolutely nothing, because we are told we are tied up by the scarcity of United States dollars in this country.
How many times have I said the brain trust that is guiding the destiny of this country has no imagination at all. This is an example. A country to the south of us is gaining something from a deal with the United Kingdom, while we are continuing to make sacrifices for nothing. When shall we get something from the United Kingdom? When shall we get something tangible?
The United Kingdom has given concessions to the United States in Newfoundland, Labrador and elsewhere. This government has given concessions for the road that leads to Alaska, and wre get nothing in return. Years ago I suggested that we should have something-the Bahamas, Trinidad, Bermuda, the West Indies. Get something in return. We have no tropical climate; why should we not get our share?
I remember that during the war the minister of naval affairs refused to accept two cruisers that were offered* to us by the United Kingdom. He did not want to get anything for our war effort. Everybody is getting something, and Canada, the country that did the utmost for the United Kingdom, is refusing everything. When shall we have common sense to follow the example of practical countries like the Argentine, the United States and other nations?

No. We are colonials and will remain colonials. What has struck me in the speech from the throne is the appalling statement made in the first paragraph. It was read on December 5 but it is forgotten by everyone now. It is time to read it again:
Conditions throughout the world continue to be difficult and disturbing. The dislocations resulting from the ravages of war have become increasingly apparent. In Europe production has made only .a partial recovery. In Asia, over large areas, active fighting continues. Shortages of the necessities of life, particularly of food, are still acute. In many countries, political and soci-al unrest is serious. Failure to agree on peace settlements with Germany and Austria is preventing the recovery of Europe.
This is not a picture to be proud of, and this is what has been achieved after two years of discussion at the united nations. Then in the third paragraph there is the following:
Support of the charter of the united nations remains an essential feature of Canada's foreign, policy.
I cannot conceive it. The world is in a mess; Canada has been attending conferences; nothing good has come out of it. What did we get from the security council? General McNaughton has been presiding at the security council for some time, and what has happened? We have heard something about Kashmir. Well, India is out; so much so that the King of England cannot call himself Emperor of India any longer.
There is trouble in Palestine, in Greece, all over the world, and now we see British battleships going to Honduras and the Falkland islands to show the might of the British Empire. Is it not ridiculous? We are tied by the policies of the united nations, the policies of Russia, the most important nation, because she is the only one that has made progress, and if we look at the map that is known to everyone, which is published at times in the press, we can see what Russia has gained since the end of hostilities: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Roumania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Finland and the Baltic States. Russia is gaining all the time. The United Kingdom is losing all the time, and we still stick to the United Kingdom and boast of belonging to the British commonwealth, which is doing positively nothing for us. And we have to pay for our own trade with them.
There are some people who are deeply colonial. They may resent what I say now, but who has ever heard a trade policy like the one we have with the countries of Europe at the present time? We have not the backbone. We are having a Marshall

The Address-Mr. Pouliot
plan of our own and we get nothing in return. We are ready to swallow everything, provided that it comes from an outsider.
I still believe, sir, that it is high time to preach a Canadian sentiment among the people. Patriotism is not a dishonour; patriotism is a virtue, and patriotism is the love of one's land, the land we live in. The Englishman who is hete and is proud of his country may not be a Canadian. He may be a good British citizen. His heart is not with us; his heart is with another country, and he fights hard for that country. He deserves respect. But when a Canadian who lives in this country has no regard for this country at all and no regard for the people who live here, and thinks only of utopia, thinks only of promoting the importance of the united nations at the expense not only of Canada but of the British empire as well, and at the expense of the peace of the world, that man cannot call himself a Canadian at all.
But, sir, I am not going to vote against the address. I regret very much the wording of the speech from the throne. I regret it because it is a true picture of the world condition at the present time. I will not impute the responsibility of it to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent); but I will say it is my deep conviction that it would have been better if, instead of sending other people, he had been at Lake Success and at the other conferences, bringing to bear the weight of the influence of a man who is in the dominion government and whose job it is to look after the external policy of Canada; I believe he might have achieved more success than any one of those to whom Canada has given power of attorney. I do not say that to depreciate him. I have high regard for him, and I have known him for a longer time than have many other members of this house. I believe the Department of External Affairs should not be guided by London or by the united nations, but rather that it should be guided by the love of Canada. I have decided not to make a long speech about the matter. I regret to the utmost extent that all the sacrifices which Canada made during the war -sacrifices of money, food, but mostly of men and women-have served no useful purpose. We were told at first, "Make these sacrifices to bring peace again to this world." The sacrifices have been made and the condition is still worse than at the end of hostilities. Of course, there are some dreamers who still believe in utopia, while our ears are ringing with the broadcast that sooner or later-and rather sooner than later-we shall again have war. What a calamity! Some people find it normal that the youth of this country should
be exposed to destruction every ten years. How is it? We may have war; we may not. I hope not. God forbid that we should have another war for many years to come. I hope that we shall not. I hope that our country will go back to the old tradition of patriotism, of love of country, and the policy that charity begins at home. Then we shall have no reason to complain, and it will probably be not only the best way to serve Canada but also the best way to serve the British empire as well as the whole world.


Mr. MACDONALD (Brantford City):: I was paired. Had I voted, I would have voted for .the motion.


Mr. CARDIFF:: I was paired. Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. MALONEY:: I was paired with the hon. member for Northumberland, Ont. (Mr. Drope). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. MARSHALL:: I was paired with the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Melvor). Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.

(Translation):


Mr. BONNIER:: I was paired with the hon. member for Simcoe East (Mr. Robinson). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.
(Text):


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved:: That the address be engrossed .and presented to His Excellency the Governor General by such members of this house as are of the honourable the privy council.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, it is customary at this point, after the address has been voted, for the house to set up the two committees of the whole, namely the committee of ways and means and the committee of supply. That has already been done, so that there is no necessity to repeat the procedure.
It is customary to table the estimates, if possible, immediately after the debate on the speech from the throne is completed and the address in reply has been carried. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) is now in a position to table the estimates.



MAIN ESTIMATES, 1948-49

[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Governor General transmitting estimates for the financial year ending March 31, 1949, was presented by Hon. Douglas Abbott (Minister of Finance), read by Mr. Speaker to the house, and referred to the committee of supply.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


[Stage Direction]
The house again in committee of ways and means, Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to .amend the Excise Tax Act and to provide:
1.	That on and after November 18, 1947, there shall be imposed, levied and collected an excise tax of twenty-five per cent (25%) on the following goods imported into or manufactured or produced in Canada: (a) the following electrical appliances, grills, waffle irons; hot plates, roasters; kettles; chafing dishes; food or drink mixers; juice extractors; coffee makers; toasters of all kinds; portable humidifiers; curling irons or tongs; hair dryers; permanent waving machines and spacers or clamps; rods and heaters therefor; razors and shavers; food choppers and:

Excise Tax Act Amendment
grinders; irons and ironers; vacuum cleaners and attachments thereof; garbage disposal units; floor waxers and. polishers; (b) electric or gas refrigerators or freezing equipment, and coils, condensing or compressor units, cabinets, boxes, evaporators and expansion valves therefor; air conditioning, cooling or filtering equipment, and complete parts thereof; oil burners and oil burning equipment; all the foregoing when adapted to household or apartment use or when for use in places of entertainment, amusement or recreation, including rinks, audi-toria, halls and clubs1,' (c) articles and equipment designed for use in golf, tennis, badminton, squash, racquets, polo, billiards, pool, bowling and curling; fishing rods and reels; (dj) firearms except for military or police purposes; (e) engines or motors for use in boats or vessels, except when the boats or vessels are to be used exclusively in commercial or industrial enterprises; (f) outboard motors; (g) motorcycles, and all other two- or three-wheeled1 motor-driven vehicles including motors for attachment to bicycles but not including vehicles designed for use by invalids; (h) musical instruments of all kinds, not including organs for churches; (i) projectors for slides, films or pictures designed for industrial or professional photographers' use; and (j) toilet articles of all kinds, including combs, mirrors and brushes except tooth brushes, not coming with any other item in schedule one of the said act.
2.	That on and after November 18, 1947, the rate of excise tax on automobiles adapted or adaptable for passenger use with seating capacity for not more than ten persons each, imported' into or manufactured or produced in Canada be increased from ten per cent to the following rates, namely, on, automobiles valued at $1,2'00 or less, 25 per cent over $1,200 but not more than $2,000, 25 per cent on $1,200 plus 50 per cent on the amount in excess of $1,200; over $2,000, 25 per cent on $1,200' plus 50 per cent on $800' plus 75 per cent on the amount in excess of $2,000.
3.	That on and after November 18, 1947, the rate of excise tax on phonographs, record-playing devices, radio broadcast receiving sets and tubes therefor, be increased from ten per cent to twenty-five per cent.
4.	That on and after November 18, 1947, the rate of excise tax on cameras, photographic films and plates, projectors for slides, films or pictures, except those designed exclusively for industrial or professional photographers' use, be increased from ten per cent to twenty-five per cent.
5.	That on and after November 18, 1947, electricity and gas used in dwellings be exempt from consumption or sales tax; and
6.	That on and after November 18, 1947, the excise tax of one per cent per pound on sugar, grape sugar, glucose, sugar syrup, corn syrup, etc., be repealed.
William Ross Macdonald: When the committee last sat it was considering an amendment moved by the Minister of Trade and Commerce to amend the resolution.


Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: Mr. Chairman,
some ten days ago the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario and the hon. member for
Moose Jaw referred at some length to the action of the Minister of Finance on November 18 last in his radio broadcast of that day when he, bringing a new facet to parliamentary government, imposed taxation in this country by a radio speech, coupled with the telephone. I have read the explanation of the Minister of Finance in regard to his action and I feel that too little attention has been paid to the action of the minister. The only conclusion I can come to is that parliament and the people of this country are becoming inured, as it were, to the political erosion of democratic rights which has. so frequently taken place within the last few years on the part of this government.
The minister, in reply to the speech and the criticisms of the hon. member for Moose Jaw, first took the stand that there had been no order in council to justify the imposition of taxation under the Excise Act after November 17. He said there was no order in council. The reason he took that position no doubt was that the Minister of Justice last year promised the house that orders in council under the War Measures Act or its successor, the transitional powers act, would no longer be used by this government. So, instead of an order in council, the Minister of Finance made an advance, a retrograde advance, if I may call it such, in parliamentary life. All it lacked was television so that, in addition to the mellifluous tones in which he imposed his taxation, the people would have been able to see his smiling face as he imposed it.
I took it upon myself to go to the library of parliament for the purpose of ascertaining whether ever before, anywhere, taxation had been imposed either by order in council or upon the mere ipse dixit of a minister or a member of the executive. I went back to Magna Carta and carried on through the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII and found that the last occasion on which anybody had ever endeavoured to do that-yes, the minister remembers it because I heard him saying "ship money"-the last person who tried it was Charles I, when he endeavoured to impose ship money, and I thank my hon. friend for having looked up history himself.


Mr. ABBOTT:: I did not have to look it up. I knew it.


John George Diefenbaker: That makes the offence all the more serious. Only the other day the minister was asked if it had ever taken place.


Douglas Charles Abbott: And I said that so far as I knew it had not.
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Mr. JOHNSTON:: What happened to
Charles I?


John George Diefenbaker: History shows that he lost his kingly head, and that may not be out of the way when it comes to the head of the present administration.
Speaking seriously I believe that no more brazen abuse of parliament has ever taken place in our country than the action of the minister on November 17. He cannot justify it. First, he tried to justify it by telling the hon. member for Moose Jaw that there was no order in council. Then, at page 1540 of Hansard the hon. member for Moose Jaw said:
On November 18 last he imposed by order in council, or he applied by a notice of some kind, a tax of 25 per cent on a long list of commodities.
To which the Minister of Finance replied:
No order in council; no taxes yet imposed.
What that answer means I do not know, because hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxation have been imposed and collected from the Canadian people since that day. I now go back to histoiy. Some may say: of what interest is history at this time? To those who say that, and I hope the minister does not, let me say that the right hon. leader of the government in the past has quoted history, but never in the past has he had an opportunity to deal with so flagrant a misuse of the powers of the executive in this country as in this case. I am not going to quote from Magna Carta except in one particular:
No scutage nor aid shall be imposed in our kingdom, unless by the common council of our kingdom.
There were exceptions then, but I do not think the government of this day comes within those exceptions, which were:
. . . excepting to redeem our persons, to make our eldest son a knight, and once to marry our eldest daughter, and not for these, unless a reasonable aid shall be demanded.
The government's action obviously does not come within those exceptions. Coming down now to the time of Henry VIII, I find in "British Financial Administration," at page 266, the following:
The struggle of the house to control the public purse has been one to control the power of the crown to impose taxation rather than the power to expend money.
All of its efforts were directed to the establishment of the principle that no new burden could be imposed upon the people without its consent.
Then Davenport on "Parliament andi the Taxpayer" clearly sets out that no parliament not sitting can delegate to anyone the author-

ity to impose taxation or to collect taxation. I could give numerous quotations in that regard.
The minister quite frankly admits mow that it has never been done since 1628 at the time of the imposition of ship money.
Finally, during the period of Cromwell, Cromwell tried it once and never tried it again. There was a case tried about that time, namely, the Bates' case, which again sets forth the principle that taxation cannot be imposed when parliament is not in session. I refer to Prothero's "Statutes and Constitutional Documents 1558-1625":
I hold them all in one degree . . . without the subject's free and voluntary assent, and that in parliament.
There can be no imposition of taxation except in parliament.
Then again, because the whole history of our times consists in the right of parliament to deny the executive the opportunity to impose taxation when parliament is not in session the government has used the emergency doctrine, and is using it today to destroy the constitutional rights of the province. It builds up in this country a centralized authorized which finally has its culmination in the action of a minister of the crown doing what the Minister of Finance did on this occasion. I refer now to Morgan on "The History of Parliamentary Taxation in England" because I want to give the complete picture. At page 288 this is said:
The statutes of the realm provided in most emphatic language that no tax should be levied on the subject without the consent of parliament.
I know what my hon. friend said the other day. He said we are doing the same thing as is done each year when the budget is introduced. I shall answer that in a moment. The Bill of Rights of 1689 points out that it is illegal for the imposition of any taxation by the executive or by the king when parliament is not in session. That principle is repeated over and over again. E. H. Young in his book "The System of National Finance", recognized everywhere as an authority on the subject says this at page 50:
Before a penny can be extracted by the state from the pocket of a taxpayer or a penny spent or a pennyworth of liability incurred a law must be passed to authorize it. . . . The principle has the most distinguished origin: it is one of the few actually rooted in Magna Carta, out of the many which are traditionally supposed to be.
A little later on he says this:
Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights leave no room for any confused idea that the crown has any shred of prerogative to impose, increase, or reduce taxation, or to alter ' its incidence!

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independently of parliament. Runnymede was the beginning of the end of prerogative imposts, and the revolution was their grave.
There, sir, is the picture from 1215 to 1947; and, with only one exception, never after the development of parliamentary government either in Britain or in any of the self-governing dominions has taxation been imposed as a result of the simple statement or the fiat of any one minister. I could quote in support of that Durell, "On the Function of the Committee of Ways and Means", in which he points out clearly that any taxation imposed such as that would be unconstitutional, uncollectable and unjustifiable. How did the minister go about it? The government knew in August last what this situation was. It realized that we were losing out on United States dollars, and after it realized that fact the minister took a trip one way, the Minister of National Defence another way, and the then Minister of Veterans Affairs took another. They waited until November 18; then, on that night by a simple statement, without any authority, the following notice went out:
Until further instructed take all customs and excise entries presented on and after eighteenth instant subject to amendment. Notify outports by wire: The following are the provisions of special resolutions affecting the Excise Tax Act and the Customs Tariff, to be introduced in parliament at the coming session. Please note particularly that these resolutions are effective today.
And to add to the sham, there is attached to it as part of the document the following:
The Excise Tax Act. Resolved that it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Excise Tax Act and to provide:
1. Effective on and after November 18, 1947, an excise tax of 25 per cent is imposed on the following goods.
The minister very well realized-because tonight at last he has admitted the fact-that this had never been done before, and it cannot be answered by a simple facetious answer either. We are becoming accustomed-


Douglas Charles Abbott: It can be answered by a simple answer, though.


John George Diefenbaker: My hon. friend is an authority on simple answers when he endeavours to answer the hon. member for Moose Jaw by saying there is no order in council and no tax. But the answer he gives is this: the same thing is done every year on the budget. Let us examine that. I have before me-and I do not intend to read them -quotations from various books on the subject showing clearly that his answer in that regard amounts to a subterfuge and does not answer the problem for us.


Douglas Charles Abbott: That was not his only answer.


John George Diefenbaker: What is the other one?


Douglas Charles Abbott: If my hon. friend wants to sit down I shall give it to him, but I presume he would like to finish his speech.


John George Diefenbaker: I want the minister to add to it because we have only three now. Are there any more?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I will answer my hon. friend
as soon as he is finished.


John George Diefenbaker: There have not been any other answers since 1628. I am glad to see that the minister has figured out one that will answer this situation. It is pointed out in every volume dealing with constitutional development that when the minister comes before parliament and presents his budget he makes his motion. That motion is offered before he starts his speech in order to give him the opportunity to get the floor. He makes the following motion:
That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means.
Parliament is sitting. When he makes that motion he points out that on and after this day taxation! is to be imposed, provided that parliament accepts. If parliament does not believe that the taxation which the minister intends to impose should be imposed, then it defeats him there and then upon his motion to go into supply.


Douglas Charles Abbott: They can still do that.


John George Diefenbaker: Certainly parliament can still do that, but my hon. friend does not answer this situation. If he can impose taxation-


Douglas Charles Abbott: He has not imposed taxation.


John George Diefenbaker: My hon. friend says he has not imposed taxation. What do you call this? Money taken from the people, 25 per cent collected from men and women across the country, and the minister says, "We have not imposed taxation".


An hon. MEMBER:: He has my two bits.


John George Diefenbaker: If that was all he had of the people's money there would not be much complaint about it. Here is the situation, and no amount of facetious utterance can answer this question. Never before did any minister attempt this, and I will give the minister an opportunity when he answers to show me whether he asked the advisers, the law officers of the crown, for an opinion. Did
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he ask whether or not this could be done? If he says he did, I would very much like to have laid on the table of the house the opinion of any reputable constitutional lawyer that the minister's conduct in this regard was justified. His whole attitude is this: The king can do no wrong. I can do no wrong. I can impose taxation two weeks before parliament meets.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Oh, rubbish! I never took any such attitude.


John George Diefenbaker: Rubbish, he says. He is a good judge on that point. Sometimes the minister seems to think that finance minister and facetious minister are synonymous terms. I am dealing with the matter seriously-


Douglas Charles Abbott: Very clever.


John George Diefenbaker: -and I am asking the minister not to take that attitude-


Douglas Charles Abbott: I will answer and answer seriously.


John George Diefenbaker: -but to tell the people of the country whether in the imposition of this taxation he received an opinion. You cannot play on words by saying that taxation is not imposed. The people who pay do not understand the subtleties of the minister who says that while you pay you are not being taxed. If that be so, there is even less justification for what is being done. If they are not paying taxation, then they are paying an impost imposed by a minister of the crown, by himself, which is even more serious than the imposition of taxation.
I have again gone through the reports from the library. No minister anywhere-and I repeat this-ever had the effrontery to appear before parliament and say, while we are extracting thousands of dollars from the people-indeed millions, as it will be over a period of time and possibly is already-what we are doing is not imposing benevolences but simply asking the people to pay something which is not a tax, but which was called an excise tax when a letter went forth from the deputy minister of national revenue on November 18.
Furthermore, I should like the minister to say by what authority he notified David Sim, deputy minister of national revenue, customs and excise, to send out this notice to customs officers. Certainly it was not on the basis of any precedents, certainly not on the basis of any constitutional rule. I should like him to answer this question when he gives the legal opinion, because he must have had a legal opinion, since he did not wish to use for a

different purpose the other act, the Foreign Exchange Control Act, which parliament passed for a particular purpose.
I see the Minister of Justice here too, and I should like to hear from him, whether, as the chief law officer of the crown and custodian of justice in this country, he gave the Minister of Finance am opinion that taxation could be imposed in the manner in which it has been imposed in this particular case, and still not be taxation.
I reserve some further remarks until the minister has advanced some reasons as to the constitutionality of this measure. Having gone through the reports, and having submitted the question to constitutional authorities in this country. I can find no one anywhere who has ever justified or attempted to justify the action on the part of the minister and the government in what it did on November 18.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I will not attempt to imitate either the forcible language or the gestures of my hon. friend the member for Lake Centre on this matter of the imposition of this excise tax. In my announcement in the broadcast of November 17, and on several occasions since, I have explained! the government's attitude in that respect.
No one has ever suggested for a moment, and least of all myself, that any minister of the crown or anyone else can impose taxation without the authority of parliament; but the position, so far as this proposed tax is concerned, is this. When I made my announcement on November 17, when the government had decided on various measures which it felt it was desirable to take in order to endeavour to correct our exchange situation, those measures, broadly speaking, fell into three categories. First, there were the purely restrictive measures in the nature of import restrictions; second, there were the fiscal measures which are now being considered; and, third, there were constructive measures to expand to hard currency countries.
The question as to whether the announcement of that program could or should be deferred until parliament met early in December was considered, and it was felt that, in view of the rate at which we were losing United States dollars, that action could not be deferred. The second question then arose as to whether the policy should be announced with respect to the import restrictions and, broadly speaking, the constructive measures, leaving the fiscal measures to be announced when parliament met. The question arose as to whether or not that should be done and after very careful consideration, I came to the conclusion, and

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my colleagues agreed with me, that the whole policy should be announced at the same time in the broadcast I made on 'November 17.
I was perfectly well aware, and the members of the government were well aware, that up to that time the government's proposal to impose taxation had not 'been announced when parliament was not sitting. It would have been, of course, perfectly open to the government to say, "When parliament meets we intend to ask the house to impose excise taxes of this kind," but every member of the committee would realize that that course of action would be unthinkable. It would have allowed speculative advantage to be taken by anyone who cared to do so. So that the conclusion was arrived at that we should announce our whole policy at the same time, and I should announce that when parliament met parliament would be asked to impose certain excise taxes retroactive to November 17, the date on which I made my announcement. And that is what parliament is being asked to do today.
As I have said on a number of occasions, no one is today under any legal obligation to pay these taxes. One may say, "Yes; they are paying them." Of course they are paying them, but the public assumes that parliament will pass these taxes and make them effective, as the government has asked, from the 17th day of November, 1947. If parliament does not pass them, everyone who has paid such a tax will be entitled to a refund. That is the position and it is just as simple as that.


An hon. MEMBER:: Do you get interest on it?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I have never contended, nor has any member of the government contended, that in law these taxes are effective today. They are not effective until parliament has seen fit to pass the appropriate legislation. There is a difference, it is true, between the situation as it exists today and the situation that exists when the Minister of Finance announces, while the house is in session, that certain taxes are proposed and will be made effective from the date of his announcement. The taxes, as everyone knows, are not passed as a rule until some weeks afterwards. The difference in this case was that I announced some two or three weeks in advance of parliament being in session-although it had been announced that parliament was called-that it was the government's intention and my intention, when parliament was convened, to ask parliament to enact these particular taxes effective from November 17. The conclusion that I arrived at and that the government 5849-129J
arrived at after a great deal of consideration was that the circumstances were so exceptional and the emergency was so great that that action should be taken. It is open to any hon. member to criticize that action, 'but it is not correct to say that taxes were imposed without the consent of parliament, because they were not.


Mr. JAENICKE:: I listened with a great deal of interest to the minister and also to the hon. member for Lake Centre. I am sorry, but I cannot agree at all with the minister in his position and in his attitude. I must endorse the argument of the hon. member for Lake Centre. I think the strong language he used was entirely justified. I myself have done some reading in connection with this matter, and I came to the same conclusion as the hon. member for Lake Centre, but possibly in a different way. As a matter of fact, I go farther than he does. I maintain that the minister has no power to impose any taxation even when parliament is in session.


Douglas Charles Abbott: The minister agrees with you.


Frank Eric Jaenicke: That is, as far as Canada is concerned. I found my law in Anson's "Law and Custom of the Constitution", volume 1, the fifth edition, where I find the following:
It is usual for any resolutions of the committee of ways and means agreeing ,to the renewal of old or the imposition of new taxes to be passed on the day on which the chancellor of the exchequer makes his annual budget statement to the committee; and it had long been the practice to treat them as having the force of law and to begin forthwith the collection of the taxes to which they referred'. This practice was convenient to the exchequer, and not inconvenient to the taxpayer; but its legality was challenged in the case of Bowles vs. Bank of England.
That case is, I think, exactly on all fours with the present situation. The case is reported in Chancery (1913) at page 57. The facts of the case are shortly these. The plaintiff Bowles had some bonds and the Bank of England paid out the interest on those bonds. It must also be noted that at that time-that is, in 1912 and 1913 when this case was decided-the income tax act of Britain was a yearly tax act; it was not a permanent tax act. It was re-enacted every year in the month of April, and it expired in April, 1912. The intention was that it be re-enacted, and a resolution was presented to parliament. The interest on these bonds fell due in July, and the plaintiff notified the Bank of England not to pay the tax on that interest because it could not be legally collected. He finally
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started an. action against the Bank of England on before July 1, claiming an injunction to prevent the bank from paying over the money. The bank finally paid the money into court. Here is the judgment. I may say the plaintiff pleaded his own case. I presume he was a barrister because it was a most learned argument that he put forward. I have some quotations from his argument. The hon. member for Lake Centre has already quoted Magna Carta. The plaintiff quoted Magna Carta. He quoted the Petition of Right. He quoted especially the Bill of Rights, upon which finally the question was decided, as I shall show later on when quoting the judgment of His Lordship Mr. Justice Parker. The attorney general was made a party or was given notice, and he intervened. His argument was the same as that which the minister gives to the house today, that it is a practice and has been a practice in all these years. The plaintiff, in refuting that argument, says this:
The court is invited to believe that -a resolution sufficed, that there need he no act, that vast powers of taxation have sprung from the mere opinion or resolution of a House of Commons, -and that the taxing power has passed from parliament into the hand of the Department of Inland- -Reven-ue and the Bank of England. Resolutions in- any case -are unknown to this court. The only taxing power in this realm resides in parliament. The only -authority to levy any tax, -whether by deduction or otherwise, is to be found in an act of parliament. Where -there is no act there is no -taxing authority.
Even if such -a practice had existed as -alleged in the defence ever since the imposition of income tax by the income tax -act, 1-842, that would no-t justify i-t. It cannot be pretended that the practice has grown into a custom which this court will recognize. Even- if it has grown into -a custom, it is a bad custom, to which the maxim "Malus usus abolendus est" applies.
The principle -that the subject cannot he taxed without consent, or otherwise -th-an- by law, is as old as history. It was affirmed by the laws of King Alfred. It was -adopted and confirmed even by the laws of William the Conq-ueror.
Then Mr. Justice Parker delivers his judgment, and I quote from part of this as follows:
This question may be stated as follows: Does a resolution of the committee of the House of Commons for ways and means, either alone or when adopted by the house, authorize the crown to levy on the subject an income tax assented to by such resolution but not yet imposed by act of parliament? Apart from the effect of certain provisions contained in the statutes relating to the collection of income tax, to which I shall presently refer, this question can, in my opinion, only he answered in the negative. By the statute 1 William and Mary, usually known as the Bill of Rights, it was finally settled that there could be no taxation in this country except under authority of an act of parliament. The Bill of Rights still remains unrepealed. and no practice or custom however prolonged, or however acquiesced in

the part of the subject, can be relied on by the crown as justifying any infringement of its provisions. It follows that, with regard to the powers of the crown to levy taxation, no resolution, either of the committee for ways and means or of the house itself has any legal effect whatsoever. Such resolutions are necessitated by a parliamentary procedure adopted with a view to the protection of the subject against the hasty imposition of taxes, and it would be strange to find them relied on as justifying the crown in levying the tax before such tax is actually imposed by act of parliament.
I may say that this case did not go to appeal. No doubt the British government at the time thought, and rightly so, that this was good law and that there would be no use in appealing. So promptly they passed an act, kn-own as the provisional collection of taxes act, 3 George V, chapter 3. In this act they are making legal the collection- of taxes after the chancellor of the exchequer introduces his resolutions. But mind you, it applies only to an increase in an already existing tax or to the continuation of a tax that had- been collected under a previous statute. It does not apply to any absolutely new tax as, for instance, the first portion of the resolution now before the committee applies to a tax which had not been applied before. I should like to read part of this statute:
Where a resolution is passed by the committee of ways and means of the House of Commons . . . providing for the variation of any existing tax, or for the renewal for a further period of any tax in force or imposed during the previous financial year . . . the resolution shall, for the period limited by this section . . . have statutory effect as if contained in an act of parliament. . . .
We have n-o such statutory provision in Canada, and surely no one will contend that this British statute has any application- here. Even if it d-id, the action of the government in imposing the tax last November would not be justified under such a law. The act goes further and says:
The resolution shall cease to have statutory effect if it is not agreed to ... by the house within the next ten days . . . and also if a bill varying or renewing the tax is not read a second time by the house within the next twenty days on which the house sits after the resolution is agreed to. . . .
And there is this further provision:
The resolution shall cease to have statutory effect if parliament is dissolved or prorogued ... or the resolution is rejected by the house. . . .
Then follows this provision:
Where the resolution so ceases to have statutory effect . . . any money paid in pursuance of the resolution shall be repaid or made good and any deduction made in pursuance of the resolution shall be deemed to be an unauthorized deduction. . . .

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The period for which a resolution shall have statutory force under this section shall be a period expiring at the end of four months. . . .
This law, as I said, is not in force in Canada. We have no such law here; therefore the common law as applied to our constitution is the law that applies, namely, that even in the budgetary resolutions, if the house is in session the government has no right to impose any taxes until an act of parliament is finally passed, unless the government passes such a law as was passed in Great Britain i.n 1913.
On the strength of these authorities and in the absence of similar legislation here, I maintain that the levying of this excise tax since last November has been entirely illegal. It strikes me now that perhaps parliament was called to meet for the two weeks before Christmas in order to give some semblance or colour of legality to these resolutions. Parliament being in session now does not help the government at all in the absence of an act such as this; and I repeat that when my colleague the hon. member for Moose Jaw protested the other day that the imposition of this tax was illegal he was on solid ground.


Mr. LOW:: I should like to take a few minutes, Mr. Chairman, to place before the committee the position of the Social Credit group with regard to this resolution. I have listened with keen interest to the arguments that have been presented by my learned friends the legal men, and I must say that as I listened to both sides I found myself materially swayed toward the side of the speakers in the opposition who claimed that the minister had absolutely no legal ground to stand on when he imposed this tax. I have been especially interested in watching how the minister has squirmed on this thing.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I have not squirmed at all. I have been perfectly forthright.


Solon Earl Low: You have squirmed. As yet I have not heard a single good reason advanced by the minister for the action he took last fall. I am not going to argue the legality or illegality of the procedure followed by the minister. I do not feel competent to do that, particularly in the presence of brilliant legal men. But I think I can say without fear of successful contradiction that the kindest thing we can say about the way in which the minister went about imposing this tax-and regardless of what he said he did impose it; it is being collected and has been collected for months past-is that, the procedure was highly irregular. That is about as kind as anyone can be.
Tonight the minister said the public assumes that parliament will ratify the actions of the minister. I say to him the public can assume only one thing; that is, that they are in hard luck to have a minister who assumes, as he does, that he can do this sort of thing and get away with it. And they are in hard luck. The public do not feel like assuming that they will get their money back if this is not passed by parliament, any more than they assume that they will get their tires back if a thief breaks into the garage at night and takes them away.


Douglas Charles Abbott: A mere figure of speech, I hope.


Solon Earl Low: The action of the minister becomes all the more serious, I believe, in view of what has been said here tonight and in light of the fact .that he has not presented one good reason as to why it was necessary to impose the tax. In fact there has been no necessity emphasized. After listening to all that has been said by the minister; after having read and marked very carefully what he said in all his speeches pertaining to this matter, I do not believe he has emphasized at any time that it was necessary to impose the tax. It was not necessary from the point of view of revenue, and certainly it was not imposed upon him by the people of Canada. I have not heard a single one of my constituents or anybody else's constituents ask the government to impose this tax. I have heard hundreds of them, and have received letters and wires and what-not from other hundreds, demanding that the tax be taken off. In the light of these circumstances it seems to me the minister ought to rise in his place and justify the tax on the ground of necessity; and if he cannot, then he ought to allow the members of this assembly to decide the matter by a free vote. I will guarantee that the people on his side of the house would vote against it.
This represents just one more encroachment by a growing executive council dictatorship upon the powers of this parliament. We are becoming nothing more or less than a body of people to whom the ministers can come and say, "Here; take it or leave it." I protest that this is not democracy at all. Moreover, in spite of the minister's categorical denial on the evening of February 23, I maintain that this proposed tax is definitely and immediately inflationary. Over a long term I agree that what the minister said is possibly true, that it would become deflationary; but the minister has assured the house that this tax is but a temporary measure to meet a specific crisis. For that reason we must consider not the long-
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term effect but the immediate effect of the tax. I contend 'that if inflation means anything at all it means a rise in prices. It is widely conceded, I believe, that this is the outstanding characteristic about a condition of inflation anywhere; and it must be perfectly obvious to anyone that this excise tax will have an immediate effect in causing a rise in the price of a good many articles the Canadian people want to buy.


Mr. BENTLEY:: I am told the leader of the opposition does not believe that.


Solon Earl Low: I do not know; I have not heard him say. But let me just say this, I contend that the tax will be immediately inflationary, and on two counts.
On the first count, in a direct way. For example, let us suppose a housewife goes into an electrical goods store and asks to buy an electric iron she has wanted for some time, but the purchase of which she has deferred because of the difficulty during wartime to get materials of that kind. Let us suppose that that electric iron is quoted retail at $8; and I think that is the ordinary price for an electric iron, although I am no expert in the matter by any means. She will have to pay 25 per cent excise tax, thereby bringing the price of the iron up to $10. Who in the world could argue that that is not inflationary, so far as the people who have to buy electric irons are concerned?
The minster may say that she can turn to something else as a substitute. But if she then proceeds to buy two sadirons which she can place on the top of a coal, gas, or electric stove she will find that the increased number of purchases of that type of iron will cause their price to go up. Certainly that is inflationary, from the direct point of view.
Then, on the second count, the tax is inflationary in an indirect way. I think even the minister expects that the tax will discourage the purchase of many commodities listed in the resolution. He implied as much when speaking in the house on the night of February 23 where, as reported at page 1543 of Hansard, he said:
In the great majority of cases they are articles, the purchase of which the people can defer for a time.
A great many people will defer the purchase of these articles because the tax makes them altogether too expensive. And that will make considerably more money available for the purchase of other goods, the prices of which are bound to go up because of increased demand. Especially is that so on things where prices are not fixed. It is inevitable that

such a situation will tend to push up prices generally. Surely no one will say that is not inflationary.
There is another phase of the matter to which I object strenuously. This tax will bring hardship to a great many Canadians. Returned men are trying to build and to furnish homes. There are families with children living in the country, where no ice is available for food preservation. There are farmers and businessmen who, for a good many years, have not been able to replace the old cars they have been using since, in many instances, before 1940. They will find it most difficult and in many cases impossible to buy new cars.
May I point out that today in a great many areas in Canada cars are looked upon as essential to farming. They are essential, if these people are to farm efficiently, as we want them to do. This proposed tax pushes up the price, and brings the lowest priced cars up by $350 or $400. Surely that makes it impossible for people to buy them.
There is another serious angle to which I object. It seems to me that the minister ought to ponder this carefully. I refer to the matter of loss of confidence on the part of the people who, all during the war, were urged to defer their purchases of a good many things and to put their money into government bonds. Virtually they were given a promise that, when the war was over, the government would do everything possible to see to it that they could buy those things which, for patriotic reasons, they had denied themselves during the war. I guarantee that if the government goes to the people of Canada again with a bond sale they will find out where the confidence of the people has been lost,


Mr. BURTON:: They do not go to the people now. They go to their friends and get their money.


Solon Earl Low: 
Mr. MERRITT:: Has the minister anything further to say in defence of his conduct on the constitutional question?


Douglas Charles Abbott: Is that a question or a statement?


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: A question.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I have explained it on several occasions. I do not think I have very much to add. It is pretty clear, and obvious. It needs no defence.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: In other words, the minister has no further explanation to make to the committee? Now, as I sat and listened to the hon. member for Lake Centre and the hon. member for Kindersley, and I saw that now all-too-familiar and facetious smirk on the minister's face-


Douglas Charles Abbott: It is nothing compared with the smirk on my hon. friend's face.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: *-I thought that perhaps it had better be explained to the minister that tonight he is on trial before the House of Commons for his breach of the constitution.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Dear, dear.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: The situation is as serious as that, and cannot be laughed off, or met in
any of the ways with which we are now too familiar; because if the minister cannot give the committee some constitutional foundation for what he has done, then I suggest to him that, as an honourable man, he should resign.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Thank you, thank you.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I hear the minister say, "Thank you, thank you". I have no personal animus toward the minister; I am very fond of him, as are all the members of the house. But I wish to point out to him this, that in the house at Westminster, where they seem to have greater care for their constitution than has this government, the resignation of the Minister of Finance, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after a breach of the constitution such as this, would be automatic. It would not have to be called for from the other side of the house at all. Indeed, I do not call for the minister's resignation; I suggest to him that if he cannot better justify what he did, then he should resign, himself, of his own volition-


Douglas Charles Abbott: Oh, oh.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: And he laughs again. But let me go on-so that our constitution may be preserved. That is the reason.


Mr. JACKMAN:: Fifteen votes last time would have done it.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: It is not a question of votes at all. We have had since this parliament assembled more than one breach of the constitution. Always the excuse on the part of the government has been that the safety of the state was at stake or that the emergency situation justified the setting aside of the constitution. On more than one occasion from this side of the house we have been obliged to call the attention of the government to these breaches of the constitution, but this one is the most serious of all.


Mr. ROBINSON (Simcoe East):: To What breaches of the constitution does my hon. friend refer?


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: That is very easy. Magna Carta was breached by the manner in which the government handled the spy inquiry in January, I think it was, of 1946. The petition of right was breached when the government introduced their Militia Act one year ago. Because members of the opposition called that breach of the constitution to the attention of the government, the matter was set right by the imposition of a ceiling on our armed forces. Ever since the seventeenth century t'he constitution of this country, which, of course,
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we took from Great Britain, laid down that the army was the army of parliament and not the army of the crown. By its legislation the government would have breached that principle, but we called the attention of the house to that breach and the government back-tracked.
Here we have a breach of the Bill of Rights of the reign of William and Mary. The hon. member for Kindersley and the hon. member for Lake Centre have given the member who questioned me chapter and verse of this breach of the constitution. I hope this short explanation will satisfy the hon. member that there have already been, on the part of this government, three breaches of the constitution. With respect to this most serious breach the hon. member who questioned me and who sits in the -back row on the government side, and all other members of this house, have a duty to perform which is paramount to any duty they owe to their party. It is a duty to the constitution of Canada, a duty which every member of the house must carry out. If the government do not justify themselves or find a way in which they may excuse their conduct I call upon the hon. member who questioned me to remain in the house tonight and listen to this discussion, so that he may make up his mind that his duty is to see that our constitution is not set aside.
I want the Minister of Finance to pay serious attention to this problem because no member on this side of the house likes making the suggestion that I have made to him. I make it only because I think this house has one duty that transcends all others, and that is to see that our democratic constitution, our system of representative and responsible government, is maintained, particularly in these very trying times. We see country after country falling behind the "iron curtain" and their constitutions going down with them. This is a time in the history of the world when no government can afford to play fast and loose with the constitution, even on such ground as the minister has advanced, such as the peculiar circumstances and the exigencies of an emergency. I say that what the minister has done is much more serious than just collecting for the government a bit of money which he ought to pay back. What the minister has done is this. He has undertaken to use a means of raising money which our constitution does not permit. I want to point out to the minister and the government that the only difference between a democratic constitution and totalitarian rule is in the way you do the thing. A capital levy of 100 per cent passed through parliament would be perfectly constitutional.
fMr. Merritt.1
Our constitution is flexible enough to allow such a levy to 'be made within the four corners of the constitution. But a tax of one cent levied in the way in which the minister has levied this tax is entirely unconstitutional.


Douglas Charles Abbott: It is not levied.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I suggest to the minister that he do not say that any more, for his position before the bouse tonight is too serious for that easy out.
The open announcement of a tax before an assembled parliament is ani act of a responsible minister under a democratic constitution, but a decree hurled at people from a sound-proof radio studio is mere tyranny.
I call to witness an interesting press clipping which I cut out of the New York Times of March 1. The date line is Prague, February 29, and) the article is headed "Czechs to impose totalitarian rule by edicts on radio-action committees, directed by broadcasts, will guidfe all activities in country".


Douglas Charles Abbott: The next time I may do it by press release.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: Yes, but I suggest to the minister that if he does not make a better explanation quickly and the members of this house sitting behind him do their duty, there will not be a next time for him. I want to read the first paragraph of this clipping, dated Prague, February 29:
The reorganization of Czechoslovakia into a totalitarian-type state and society will be carried out by radio instructions, it was learned today. The action committees will receive their instructions by radio beginning tomorrow.
I suppose that the action committees in our case would be the officers to whom the hon. member for Lake Centre referred! It goes on:
These committees are being built up into a tight hierarchy of intimate control covering every imaginable activity, from major ministries and enterprises down>
to the "table tennis association."
I suggest to the committee that the minister will be quite unable, except in the extent of the edicts, to differentiate between the method used by the Red premier in Czechoslovakia and the method used by the Canadian Minister of Finance in imposing these taxes. He can say that he has no action committees; he can say that he is not going to extend his decrees any wider, or something like that, but in the method used there is no difference at all. This is something which this committee must face up to and deal with before we are through.
When I make these comparisons between what is done in totalitarian states and what

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is done here in Canada I do not do it unkindly to the minister. I know, and I give him full credit for this, that this was never his intention; nevertheless he has done: it.
I want to refer to one further matter. The minister has said that he has never imposed the tax; the tax is not on; you do not have to pay it if you think you can get away with it or something to that effect; or if you do not want to pay it until later when it is made into law by parliament. He calls it a proposed tax. He says that no one is under legal obligation to pay it, and he makes trifling excuses of that sort. But I want to call the attention of the committee to this aspect of what the minister has done. The minister has presented the committee with a fait accompli. The thing is on. We oan sit here for the rest of this session, and the government by not bringing forward this measure can continue to collect taxes for six months and it would not make a single bit of difference to the government and their conduct of public affairs whether they got the approval of parliament or not. They could go on collecting under this system so long as they wished so to do.
We saw when we had the debate on Bill No. 3 in this house what a tremendous weapon a fait accompli puts in the hands of a government. They are not coming before the house asking for some power from parliament that they do not now possess, and perhaps have to get within a certain time, therefore having to be conciliatory to the house and to answer questions of opposition members. No; they come in with their legislation in effect, with the fait accompli, and then they can stand up and be rude and refuse to answer questions and be facetious and taunt members of the opposition who are trying to do their duty and find out what it is that the government has in its mind. This fait accompli is a very dangerous mechanism. The fait accompli was Hitler's favourite weapon before the war. He always walked in over the week end when parliaments were not in session, and when people complained afterwards he said, "Oh, is that not too bad? I am here now; what are you going to do about it?" That is the position which this government is trying to assume over its emergency measures, and particularly with regard to this measure.


Douglas Charles Abbott: There is one difference; my hon. friend1 is still talking about it.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I may say to the minister that I shall be talking about it for some time and I think I may promise him that so will he.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I was just pointing out that there was one difference. I have plenty of time.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I want to suggest this to the minister. His very attempt to defend this unconstitutional act before this house and to get the house to condone his act and to adopt it will do more harm to the constitution than would the act itself. What he has done is patently illegal and everybody in the country knows it. But if this parliament accepts his excuse and put the seal of our approval upon what he has done, then any minister of finance in any government which may follow after will have a precedent, sanctified by parliament, upon which he can act. He will not feel compelled to call the house within two weeks of his illegality. He can just let it run for a year; indeed he can let it run and not call parliament so long as he gets his money in. We know that. That is what history teaches us; that is why we find an authority on the constitutional history of England, Maitland, saying at page 309 of his work, after pointing out how James II had continued to levy taxes for a period of two months by the pretence of prerogative without grant from parliament, that the Bill of Rights was passed. He concludes thus:
This we may say is the last wrord on this matter-one great chapter of English history has been closed.
We find now, in the year 1948, that Maitland was wrong and the great chapter in British constitutional history has been re-opened by the minister who is sitting in this committee tonight.
I am not going to say any more at this moment. I hope we shall hear much on this matter before we are through with this resolution. I simply want to say to the minister once more that the constitution is a sacred thing and not even a well-meaning minister can break it with impunity. In Great Britain only within the last few months a minister in the socialist government, the opposite number to our Minister of Finance, because he talked to a newspaper reporter by inadvertence fifteen minutes before he entered the house to make his budget speech, afterwards resigned of his own volition without demand from the opposition. He resigned, not because anyone thought that the minister himself had done anything to shame him, not because anyone wanted to see the minister cast down, not because anyone did not respect him, but simply because that minister respected the constitution more than he respected his own hide.
2038
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Douglas Charles Abbott: This has nothing to do with the constitution. His statement was not a public statement; mine was. There are a few points of difference. Mine was a public statement to the people of Canada; his was a statement to a newspaperman.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: It gets weaker and weaker.


Douglas Charles Abbott: What is known as a leak.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: It gets weaker and weaker.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I am only answering my hon. friend's analogy. There is no analogy at all.


Mr.   SICEY@: You just said you were going to tell the press the next time.


Douglas Charles Abbott: It would be a statement to all the press and not to one newspaper reporter. It would be again a public statement.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: The minister said he would do it by a press release the next time.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I jokingly said I might issue a press statement the next time.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I know, but the minister is joking too much, and I hope we shall impress upon him that this is a matter over which he cannot joke.


Douglas Charles Abbott: My only reason for interrupting was to point out that the hon. member was trying to draw an analogy which does not exist.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I will agree with the minister that there is one great difference between the two situations.


Douglas Charles Abbott: My statement was made so that everyone in Canada would know what was intended.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: As an hon. member has just said, so was Gottwald's statement made so that everyone in Czechoslovakia would know what was intended.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Cheap stuff, very cheap stuff, if I may say so.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: The minister says, "Cheap stuff".


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yes.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


An hon. MEMBER:: Expensive stuff.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I stand here and say that I am not making my remarks lightly. I do not hold the constitution cheap.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Neither does the minister.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I am not going to be satisfied to see this passed off, and I warn the minister of that.


Douglas Charles Abbott: You have your vote the same as anyone else in the house.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: The minister says that there is no analogy between the Dalton case and his own case.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I find it hard to see any. There may be some but I cannot see it.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: The difference is, of
course, that in the Dalton case the offence was less heinous. In the Dalton case the house was in session. The minister acted by inadvertence; no harm was done; no tax was collected; no speculation took place. But the minister never gave it a second thought. He knew he had done wrong and he resigned. He will probably be reinstated. My hon. friend's career would not be long interrupted if he respected the constitution. In that case what happened was known as a budget leak, and the only difference I can see between that act of momentary carelessness and the minister's studied disregard for parliament is that one is called a budget leak and the other might be termed a budget deluge. That may be the distinction to which the minister is referring. I will say no more in that regard at the present time. I am sorry that the minister does not seem to realize that his act is a very dangerous one for the stability of our constitution. I am sorry, too, that I have had to raise the matter in the way I have done. But I feel it my duty to raise this issue in its most blunt form, because in my opinion no more serious or more important issue has faced the house since I have sat here as a member.


Douglas Charles Abbott: That is not very long.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, there is a good deal of laughter and derision coming from the other side of the house tonight, but I should like to ask the Liberals for just a moment to consider what the situation would be if the tables were turned.


Paul Joseph James Martin: No chance of that
happening.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just suppose, to stick to a hypothesis, that the Tories had been in power-


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is impossible.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -and that a Tory minister of finance had done what the Liberal Minister of Finance has done. Suppose hon. members

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opposite were sitting over on this side of the house, professed Liberals as they are. In that case, the language used on this side of the house tonight would have been mute compared to the rafter-ringing eloquence we would have heard from the Liberal members about the sacredness of the constitution.


Mr. GRANT:: They would have been better speakers.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I would suggest to hon. members opposite that if they have any doubt about their ability to make good speeches on the constitution, if they have any modesty- and they are not revealing it at this moment *-they go back to Hansard for the period from 1930 to 1935. I suggest that they study in particular the debate on what was known in that period as Mr. Bennett's blank cheque legislation. Led by their leader, a professed Liberal, they devoted pages and pages of Hansard to denouncing the unconstitutionality of that legislation proposed by Mr. Bennett. I suggest that this is no subject for the kind of derision that is being revealed on the opposite side tonight. I suggest, in fact, that the laughter and the attempt to slough off this issue is an indication that their consciences are being pricked. It means that there are still a few small "1" liberals among the big "L" Liberals, and they realize that this practice is completely unconstitutional.
The Minister of Finance has tried to base his whole argument, in defence of what he has done, on the ground that there is not a great deal of difference between an announcement of tax changes over the radio two weeks before parliament meets and an announcement of such changes in the house itself. The hon. member for Lake Centre pointed out that there is a considerable difference, but my colleague the hon. member for Kindersley has gone on to indicate, on the basis of a study he has made of British parliamentary practice, that even to impose at the time when it is announced in the house a tax that has not yet been passed by parliament is unconstitutional.
It is all right to shout that there was a situation which demanded it. Expediency is never an excuse for departing from the constitutional way of doing things, and I submit that what this situation calls for is serious attention by the government to the case which the hon. member for Kindersley reported here tonight. It seems to me that, on the basis of the experience in 1913 in the United Kingdom, we should have here on our statute books a general law giving the government powers of 5849-1301
this kind within a limited period such as is set out in the United Kingdom legislation.
I do not think there is any doubt as to the validity of the case which the hon. member for Kindersley made, that the collecting of any tax before it has been passed by parliament is invalid, even though it may have been announced in parliament by a resolution referred to the committee of ways and means. I call on liberal members opposite-liberal members with a small "1"-to take this matter with the seriousness it deserves and deal with it in their own caucus if they are not prepared to deal with it on the floor of the house, and try to help those of us who are fighting for a principle on this side of the house to get back to the proper constitutional way of doing things.
I have before me a paper which does not support the government, but that does not matter. Some other papers can express good ideas now and then, and this one is the Montreal Gazette of February 26, 1948, in which there appears an editorial under the title "Democracy of Deviations Unsound." As a matter of fact I commend to small "1" liberals the reading of the whole editorial, but there are one or two sentences in particular that I should like to call to the attention of the committee tonight. To begin with, I will quote the last paragraph, which reads:
All those in parliament and out of it who work for the preservation of democratic procedures of government are not engaged in a dreary pedantry.
That is what hon. members opposite think the opposition is doing, but it is not. To continue:
They are those who realize that the best way to preserve freedom is never to admit a precedent for taking it away.
Let me go back and read one or two other sentences. After discussing the tendency for things to be done by the boys in the back room and pointing out that this is not a good practice, even though the boys in the back room may for the time being be good democrats, the Gazette says this:
And when voices then are raised for the democratic rvays to be followed, they seem to speak, not only out of turn, but out of time, and to be trying to call back old and outmoded things, long since shattered by other usages.
I regard it as tragic that it is possible in this day and age in Canada for editorials like that to be written, and that it is possible for a responsible newspaper editor to feel that there is something out of turn and out of time when people call for strict observance of the democratic and constitutional way of doing things. I will not take longer to read other quotations
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from that editorial; I shall merely again recommend it to such small "1" liberals as there are across the way.
I wish just briefly to point to something else that happened a few days ago, which indicates the slipshod manner into which this government is getting so far as the constitutional and democratic way of doing things is concerned. On February 26, when the house met, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) tabled a document and said, as reported at page 1627 of Hansard:
I should like to table a letter addressed to my colleague, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), advising him to make effective the provisions of Bill No. 3 as regards tariff items 393, 427e, 434, 434b, 446 and 461.
I heard that statement and I was puzzled, Mr. Chairman, as to how the Minister of Trade and Commerce could ask a fellow minister to bring into effect the provisions of a bill which was not yet law. It is true that we had passed that bill in this house, but it had not been passed by the other place and it has not yet been given royal assent. So my curiosity led me to send to the parliamentary papers office, down below here in room 167, and ask for a copy of the letter which the Minister of Trade and Commerce had tabled. You will note that the minister said he had written to the Minister of Finance advising him to make effective provisions of Bill No. 3. So I expected this letter, when I got it from the parliamentary papers office, to deal with Bill No. 3. But nothing of the kind. It is a letter signed by the Minister of Trade and Commerce addressed to his dear colleague the Minister of Finance, dated February 17, 1948, asking him to bring into effect certain tariff changes under the provisions of section 43(d) of the foreign exchange control regulations.


Douglas Charles Abbott: The import restrictions.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I know the legal arguments those across the way can make, that they have found it was possible under the foreign exchange control regulations to do things not originally intended. I know it can be said that the Minister of Trade and Commerce may have made a slip when he said what he did in this house at three o'clock on Thursday afternoon, February 26. But there again you have a sample of this slipshod and careless way into which a government gets that has been far too long in power and which thinks that merely because it is Liberal with a big "L", therefore it is also liberal with a small "1". The times are too serious, Mr. Chairman, in this world of ours today, for us to trifle at all

with these time-honoured and time-tested democratic constitutional ways of doing things. In my view we have far too often in this parliament, even when we have done it by unanimous consent, set aside the rules of the house. We get into trouble all the time when we do that. These things have grown up through centuries of British parliamentary practice. They are safeguards that it is not just pedantry for us to try to keep them.
I feel that two things should comei out of this experience. First of all, this committee should vote down this resolution and show the minister that he had no right to say that it was assumed that parliament would pass it. In the second place, I call upon the government- and I am glad to note that the Minister of Justice has been following the argument of the hon. member for Kindersley and also following my argument-to give consideration- and I hope they will do so-to presenting to parliament a bill similar to the statute that is in effect in the United Kingdom, making some provision so that when a situation arises such as that which faces the Minister of Finance, there will be authority to deal with it. I grant that the minister has an argument in trying to tell us how serious the situation was. But once you let one expedient lead you to set aside proper parliamentary procedure, there is no telling where wre shall get to before the story is all over. Of course, often times we get the opposite answer. When we want a national health program; when we want an over-all social security program; when we want coarse grains to be taken over by the wheat board and so on, we are told that there are certain constitutional rights which pertain to the provinces with which this government must not interfere. When we ask for the continuation of commercial rentals, we get the same answer. I submit that there is too much of this trifling with the constitution, using it as a defence for inaction when the government does not want to act, but throwing it out of the window when there is something it wants to pursue merely for the sake of expediency. I submit that this is just about as serious an issue as has yet faced this parliament.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I propose to say little about the constitutional issue. But even a reformed lawyer likes to have a word on constitutional matters. So I propose to say just two or three things about it. In the first place, I feel that I would echo not only the words but the spirit of the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard, because it seems to me-and it has been supported by the hon. member who just spoke-that this is

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a serious matter, and if we do not take it seriously we are just not rising to our responsibilities as members of parliament.
The second thing I want to say is this. We have here I think a riddle as to when a tax is not a tax. The minister has been saying again and again that there is no tax. I want to read him something he himself said in this house on February 24, in answer to a question asked by me. I had asked him what figures could be given showing what was the progress of the taxes or the proposed taxes up to date, and the minister said, as recorded at page 1593 of Hansard:
No, I cannot give any figures.
Then he adds this, and this is what I draw your attention to, Mr. Chairman.
It is probably a little early yet in any event for there to have been any real results which could be shown. A good many of those who were affected by the taxes-
It is difficult for the minister, of course, to say "proposed taxes"; but I will not press that point. To continue:
-have made representations to us that orders have been cancelled and that their volume will be substantially reduced.
I read that just in order to make this point. For the minister to say there is no tax I think would sound funny to people whose business had already, when he used those words, been substantially affected and, in some cases, perhaps closed up by these particular taxes which were no taxes. Therefore it seems to me that it is no use whatever for the minister to try to escape in that way.
The second thing I want to say is this. I can imagine circumstances in which the difficulty of the government was so great, the emergency so unexpected, the time for action so little, that we would have said1, "Well, it was a terrible thing to do; it was a terrible breach of the constitution, but still they did have this situation facing them. It was unexpected; they had to act, so we will try to deal leniently with them." Were any of those elements present in this case? I submit, not a single one. The situation had been facing the government for months. The minister told us candidly they had begun considering the dearth of United States exchange, which was the reason for the whole business, away back in July or August. Therefore I say there was no earthly reason why parliament could not have been in session at the time this action was taken, if proper foresight had been exercised.
That is all I wish to say about the constitutional issue, except to say that the serious words used on this side of the house might
have sounded too serious ten, twenty or thirty years ago, though incidentally no one would have dreamed of doing this sort of thing at that time. If it had been done, however, people might have said, "Oh, well, what does it matter? We are living in an orderly world, and no one will ever think of doing it again." As the hon. member for Yancouver-Burrard has said, if ever there was a time when people like ourselves should be guarding, as one might say, the sacred fires of the constitution, it is today.
I now want to talk about the resolution itself, and I want to say in advance, speaking for myself, that I believe my friends and colleagues recognize that here we have a mess; here we have a difficult situation, and that somehow or other we have to conserve our United States exchange. I am not going to take time now to remind the committee, as I have tried to do on other occasions, that this situation is due to grievous errors on the part of the government. I am not going over that again tonight. I think I would agree that measures to conserve exchange are necessary; but it seems to me this resolution is the most unholy hodge-podge. I cannot understand in which direction it is going. It seems to be a composite of three or four things not inconsistent, perhaps, but at any rate strangely assorted. It seems that the minister has not yet made up his mind what this resolution is. It appears to be all kinds of things, "everything by turns and nothing long". It has been, in effect for four months. It has been changed beyond recognition. Speaking in the house a couple of weeks ago, the minister candidly told us they had found that certain of the taxes would be so onerous and so injurious to certain businesses that they had made changes; and, as I say, it has been changed beyond all recognition.
Well, now, I want to ask what this rego-. lution is, anyway. Is it one to discourage United States importations? Sometimes that, is what it seems to be. Let me read a sentence on that from what the minister said in this house on December 16, at page 336 of Hansard, speaking of the special excise taxes:
Their first and primary purpose is to discourage the soTt of expenditure which adds to our imports from the United States.
That is the first thing. From that we may take it that this is a measure to discourage United States importations; but that is not the whole story. The second thing we find it to be is a measure to offset advantages which Canadian manufacturers might gain by reason
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of the exclusion of certain articles under Bill No. 3, the embargo bill. Let me read that part of it:
A second reason for these taxes was to limit as far as practicable the degree of discrimination against regular suppliers in the United States and their dealer organizations in Canada.
Then I skip some sentences and read further down:
While the Canadian manufacturers are temporarily relieved of competition from the United States, their unexpected advantage is being at least partially offset by the effects of the special taxes. Without these taxes, prices of many of the articles affected1 could have risen a good deal, to the benefit of the manufacturers and distributors. As a result of the taxes, it is the public treasury that benefits.
In passing, I point out that this seems to assume there would be an automatic rise in prices; that it also seems to assume there is no competition in Canada to keep down these prices.
But I pass on to the third thing this resolution is, that is, a tax measure. Further the minister said:
Now I have emphasized that the main purpose of the new excise taxes is to save United States dollar exchange rather than to produce more revenue. At the same time, auditional revenue will not be unwelcome for two good reasons. The first is that the new taxes will undoubtedly withdraw some purchasing power even if, as we hope, they lead to some reduction in purchases . . . The second is that out budget, position, though good, is not as good as many popular reports would have it.
In other words, the third alternative view of this measure is that it is a taxation measure. Then, on February 24, at page 1542 of Hansard, in reply to a comment, I think by the hon. member for Moose Jaw, that the tax was inflationary, the minister said:
Now, with regard to the excise taxes being inflationary, I do not agree that they are inflationary. I think that they are just the reverse; that they are deflationary, if anything. One of the means of combatting inflation, when there is an excess of purchasing power, is by imposing taxes such as these that drain off purchasing power. Far from their being inflationary they will have, if anything, a deflationary effect.
It would ill become me, after what I have said in this house, to criticize the government for proper deflationary methods; but I suggest that the unfortunate individuals who are buying these goods would be considerably surprised and, I think, entitled to feel aggrieved if they found, they were being made a special mark, a kind of special sacrifice, in the cause of deflation. That does not seem to me a proper way to deal with deflation, for surely it is a much broader thing than that. As I say,

I think those who are paying an additional 25 per cent in the price of these goods will be anything but pleased to find themselves being made a kind of sacrificial offering in the cause of deflation.
There are one or two other points I should like to make, quoting again from the minister's speech of last December. He made a great point, and incidentally a point which I cannot understand, about this being an over-all tax and not a tax on the United States content of the goods. I had better read what he said:
Most of the goods subject to these taxes are produced in Canada in substantial volume and most of them have .a significant United States dollar import content. The import of practically all these goods in finished form has been prohibited or placed under quota restrictions and substantial savings in United States dollars are expected to result from this action. The savings, however, would be considerably reduced if domestic production of the same type of articles were to expand to fill the gap in the supply, since this would involve further substantial imports of parts and components.
Then I would draw particular attention to these words:
It could be argued that a more effective way to check expenditures that involve a considerable import of parts and materials would be to relate the tax directly to the import content of the article concerned. But the objections to this type of action are conclusive. Taxes directly related to import content would be tantamount to sharp increases in the tariff and under the Geneva agreements as well as in our own longer-range interests we would not consider such a course.
I find myself unable to follow the minister there. It seems to me that to put a tax of 25 per cent on, an article costing $100 which has only $8 Canadian content in it, is out of all reason. And I am utterly unable-and I shall question the minister later on it-to understand his reasoning here. I point out in particular that his reference to tariffs in connection with these articles seems to me to be quite out of place, in view of the fact that the finished products from, the United States are being excluded by us, so that I do not think the tariff argument enters into the matter at all.
There is one other thing the minister says which I find' myself quite unable to follow. He refers to small businesses, and says there would be a special discrimination against small businesses if that were carried out. He used this argument:
Moreover, such action-
That is to say, a tax related merely to the United States content.
-would represent an extreme form of discrimination against businesses which are in the early stages of developing their operations in Canada.

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I am not able to follow that at all. I have raised these points for the minister's consideration. But before sitting down I wish to ask this which, I think, goes to the root of the matter and which, if the minister is not able to answer it in detail, he may answer later. We have had this measure in operation for some four months andi, although it may not be a tax, it certainly looks like one to all concerned.
I think we should all know what effect this is having. One hears statements made which, of course, may not stand up under cross-examination. But one does hear the statement that it is not having the desired effect. I think it is time now, after the lapse of four months, to find out whether the results are at all those which the minister hoped for.
I just wish to repeat that it seems to me this is just a hodge-podge of different ideas. I do not believe it will have the effect that was desired. While I am in favour of sound measures, soundly conceived, to conserve United States exchange, I cannot believe that this is soundly conceived. And now I hope that the government will see fit either drastically to alter it, or to withdraw it altogether.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I shall not take time to answer the general observations of the hon. member, but I might be permitted to answer the specific question he asked, as to why the tax was not related to import content. The hon. member said he could not follow why we did not relate it. The first reason is that it would be manifestly unfair if we attempted to do that, because in a particular commodity such as a refrigerator, for instance, through no fault of the manufacturer at this particular time the import content of one refrigerator might be, let us say, 50 per cent and that of another might be very low. So that we would have on one manufacturer either a comparatively low tax, or almost none at all, while on the other one we would have a comparatively high tax. It would distort the whole competitive picture.
The second reason is that it is extremely difficult to administer. That was discussed with the Department of National Revenue, to see whether it would be feasible; and when you come to look into it, it would not be workable, aside from the question of its being unfair.
Then, as to the question of what the results have been on this particular phase of -the policy of restrictions at this time, I frankly cannot say. It is tied up with the import restrictions. But I can say this, that at the end of February our exchange reserve of United States dollars stood at approximately $527 million, outside the $50,000,000 which we
have drawn from the export-import bank loan, as against $514 million at the end of January.
I do not attach too much importance to that. Nevertheless' it does demonstrate that the over-all program up to the present time at any rate appears to be accomplishing what it was intended to do. But, with the best will in the world, I do not know what portion of the results, if any, can be attributed to the fiscal side of the measure. How much the imposition of these proposed taxes has deterred persons from purchasing these articles which have a high import content, I cannot say.
I shall make inquiries from the officials and see whether any reasonable estimate can be given. If so, I shall give it, to date. But I do not believe it is possible to attribute to this aspect of the program any specific results.


Mr. GREEN:: How much money has been levied by way of these excise taxes? What is the sum involved?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I shall make inquiries. I am told by one of the officials in front of me that it would be difficult to apportion it; because the committee will recall that in respect of the automobile tax, for instance, it was increased from an already existing ten per cent right up to twenty-five per cent in the lowest bracket and on a sliding scale in the other brackets. In respect of toilet articles it was put on some which were not included before, while in respect of some of the others the rate was increased. On radios there was an already existing tax, and that tax is increased. Whether it would be possible to give the information, I cannot say at the present time. My officials in front of me tell me it would not be possible, but I shall look into the matter.


Howard Charles Green: Is any record kept of the money brought in by way of this tax being imposed?


Douglas Charles Abbott: Yes, there is a record kept as to what comes in from this special excise tax, but it is kept pretty well by categories. It would certainly be difficult to break it down and show just what the results were. Of course no one has mentioned that some taxes have been taken off in these measures, too.
I did not wish to interrupt the hon. member from Calgary West, but I thought I should answer the specific question which has beeD asked.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Before I say what I have to say, do I understand the minister to say that he has a record of these taxes? Are they going into the general revenue fund of Canada?


Douglas Charles Abbott: That is right.
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Arthur Leroy Smith: I intend' for a moment to turn to the constitutional question, if you like to call it that. I promise I will not repeat anything that has already been said. But on this question, as to whether this is a tax or nut, it is going into the general revenue fund of Canada, the same as all other taxes, as I gather from the last answer given by the minister.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Collected at the wholesale level.


Arthur Leroy Smith: If it is not going in- there as a tax, it has no room there. The only provision, by which that fund can hold it is that it does go in as a tax.
It seems to me that whether it be a tax or not, is this not the position, and do I not give a parallel when I say this: I am speaking tonight on the invitation of the minister, given to me in the house last December, when I spoke under the wrong heading with respect to some refrigerator equipment ini the warehouse of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company at Calgary.
The simple facts are these: equipment came through, and it was paid for. It came in on the afternoon of the day the minister made his announcement and, so far as I know, it is still there. Why? The government will not permit its being moved without the payment of taxes. If that is not a tax, I do not know what it is. It seems to me that this is the position which the government takes: Some of ius ini this House of Commons have had occasion to visit jails, for different reasons of course; I confess to having been in a number of them. And I am now looking at the Minister of National Health and Welfare.


Paul Joseph James Martin: You would not see me in the same jail.


Arthur Leroy Smith: He knows what I am. going to say, because he has had the same experience. I give you this as a parallel: you are telephoned' to go down there to the jail. You talk through a wire mesh in the very up-to-date jails, or through a board in the old type of jail. The fellow says: You cannot put a man in jail for this, can you? You say no. But there he is. That is the situation with respect to your tax. It is a tax; you do not need to pay it; it is illegal; but you have to pay it. Furthermore, to get your tax back you have no legal remedy. For the man in jail there is habeas corpus to get him out. So this is tougher than maintaining a man in that position.
Here is my question and I ask for a reply from some minister. I am going to take a

parallel of government service, that of immigration, and I mention that because we have immigration agents all along the border where we have customs agents. I ask this serious question. If the Minister of Finance can be justified in setting aside the statutes of Canada with respect to tariffs, both in amount, in exclusions and quotas, why cannot the Minister of Immigration set aside our immigration statutes and run immigration as he sees fit by a radio address? If it be true that the finance minister's action was right, then surely it inevitably follows that any minister of the crown can at will set aside the statutes of Canada and operate his department as a one-man show until parliament catches up with him.. So why cannot the Minister of Immigration do the same thing with respect to immigration? I mention immigration because I wanted to give a parallel service, where they have powers of enforcement, where they have parallel agents, where the same methods and measures of control obtain. I put that problem to the government, I know they have many brilliant lawyers over there, but they will need to be very brilliant indeed to find a distinction between the two sets of circumstances which I have given.


Thomas Langton Church: I regret that the government have taken this step. They are going back twenty-five to thirty years. A great hydroelectric development has taken place in Ontario and. Quebec by means of which the working man in the city and the farmer on the farm has had brought within his reach many electrical appliances and labour-saving devices which he looks upon today as necessities. A very great development of electric power took place between the two wars. This country has a potential 42,000,000 horsepower of electric energy, with only one-sixth of that developed so far in the central provinces of Ontario and Quebec, where the light and power movement has expanded tremendously in the last twenty-five years and brought to the kitchens of the toilers and. industrial workers, under cheap power, joy to the housewives and farmers' wives through these labour-saving devices, and joy of living at small cost.
I see that the excise tax is to be imposed on firearms. I know one Toronto firm imports from Connecticut pistols of various kinds and puts them in our city for sale where young people can get guns and pistols. Anybody could walk into this store on lower Spadina avenue and buy them. They were imported from Connecticut. I complained to the government but nothing was done about it, although there were a lot of hold-ups in that district. They had a catalogue out with cuts of these

Excise Tax Act Amendment
pistols and the cheap prices. Why are they not shut out and a limit and exception allowed by this excise tax act for police purposes?
Many of the items on which the excise tax of 25 per cent is imposed are no longer luxuries but now necessities. You could buy a refrigerator for $125 a few years ago. The cost is now double, and on top of this there is this 25 per cent excise tax, so that refrigerators are impossible to secure. I think the government is making a very serious mistake in imposing this tax in view of the great development there has been in electric power. True, a lot of those household labour-saving devices have been sold out by a raid on them over the past two years, and they are and were hard to get, but with further power development there will be a great scarcity of them for years, with this imposition of a 25 per cent excise tax.


Mr. MacNIOOL:: Hie minister in his reply to the hon. member for Lake Centre commenced by saying that the reason he had imposed the excise tax and the other taxes was that our reserves of United States dollars were diminishing. That was a very good reason perhaps for making some move, but I ask myself, why did the government during the past year, when our reserves in the United States were rapidly diminishing from over $1 billion to approximately $500 million, not take measures to conserve our United States exchange? During 1946, and I suppose we imported more in 1947, we imported approximately $125 million worth of United States coal. Just a year ago an Alberta coal company were advertising extensively in the Toronto papers and, I presume, other papers that their coal was just as good as anthracite coal imported from the United States. I went to see it myself. I took a hammer with me and tried1 to break up the coal. They gave it the trade name of Canthracite. I found it a very hard coal which burned well and gave wonderful results. All that company wanted was, I believe, some assistance in having a railway run from somewhere near High River to their mines in the foothills of the Rocky mountains, and I ask myself, why did the government not make some effort to encourage the use of anthracite coal mined in Canada and save some of the $125 million which we spend on bringing in United States coal?
During his remarks the minister said that we are perhaps saving some United States dollars through the excise tax on refrigerators and other articles of that description, some of which use steel. I looked up some figures and I found that in 1946 we imported $491
million worth of iron and its products. As a businessman, if I had been in the government a year ago I would have made some effort to produce much more iron in Canada and roll it into steel here and thus save more United States dollars.
I am going to close with this. Last year we imported some $100 million to $150 million worth of petroleum and its products. How much more we could produce in Canada I do not know, but at Norman Wells there are fifty or more oil wells not being used at all. Perhaps it would mean a pipeline to bring it down to railhead if it could not come down by tank barges, and it could. I just ask myself, has the government made the strongest effort it could during the last year on these three items alone to avoid the necessity of Canadians sending dollars out of Canada to the United States? . Had we produced more iron and steel in Canada, it would have saved our United States dollars in that connection. Had we produced more oil in Canada, we would have saved United States dollars there, and had we just used our heads and used Canadian coal of which we have, I believe, one-fifth of the world's resources, we would have saved United States dollars. I saw the new Alberta coal, Canthracite; I saw it burning. Had we assisted whoever controls the company-I do not know who controls it or if anyone controls it-to bring out Canthracite coal, we would have saved a lot more United States dollars. As a businessman, I like to look at the thing in that way. My hon. friends, the member for Lake Centre, the member for Kindersley and other members dealt with the constitutional end of the question in a splendid manner. From the businessman's point of view I would take another tack altogether, i would try to produce in Canada and dig out of the ground in Canada that which we require and thereby save good United States dollars.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: I should like to ask the minister two or three brief questions. In the debate a moment ago he said that if parliament by some chance should not pass these bills or approve these taxes everybody would be entitled to a refund. My question is this. How exactly would the department refund to the consumer? I presume they collect the tax from the manufacturer who passes it on to the wholesaler who passes it on to the retailer, and then the retailer collects from the consumer. For the past few months I suppose every store in Canada has been collecting these proposed taxes and has been giving cash slips, but cash slips without any
Excise Tax Act Amendment

name on them. Whether this parliament approves this or not, I think it is absolutely impossible for the minister to refund the tax.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Every manufacturer who has paid the tax, the proposed tax, would be entitled to claim the refund.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: How will you get it back to the consumer'?


Douglas Charles Abbott: That would1 be his problem.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: No.


Douglas Charles Abbott: He would be collecting and the consumer would be aware of the tax. He would know himself. Naturally, the consumer is not as simple as some think he is. He would go back to the retailer and would say, refund me the price of this proposed tax, and that would have to go right to the consumer.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: There are hundreds of thousands of consumers who may not have receipts of the sale. I suggest that it is absolutely impossible for the minister to get the tax back to the consumer.
My second question is this: on washing machines, refrigerators, electric irons and things of that kind we are imposing a-


Douglas Charles Abbott: There is nothing on washing machines.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: Whatever the appliances are; I could go over the list. You are imposing a tax of 25 per cent on these articles. I believe there is already a sales tax of eight per cent, and it seems to me that there will be an additional seven per cent tax of a tariff levy on things you bring in from the United States. That would mean that on some of these articles you will have a tax of about 40 per cent in all. Is that corject or not?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I could make a calculation. The 25 per cent is on the wholesale price. This particular tax, if it is one which has not been imposed before, is 25 per cent on the wholesale price of the article. Prior to this notice, there has been a ten per cent tax on radios. There is a ten per cent excise tax on radios now on the wholesale level. In this resolution that tax would be increased1 to 25 per cent; therefore the increase will be 15 per cent over the existing tax.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: The minister would not estimate how much there will be in all federal taxes on these appliances?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I could not do that, no.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: I estimate it to be at least 40 per cent.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I understand that my hon. friend is in the business, and he probably could make a good estimate.


Mr. FLEMING:: Mr. Chairman, in the government's handling, or rather mishandling of this present matter, if we are frank and honest about the situation and view it in relation to the constitutional issues involved; we are witnessing now the final burial of small "1" liberalism in Canada. Approve what the government has done in connection with the matter of imposing and collecting this tax, Mr. Chairman, and you will condone anything that this government is doing or will do in its assault upon the constitution.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: Communism.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I see the minister and others have their smiles back on their faces, which is indicative of the levity with which they have treated this entire matter. I tell the minister and those who sit around him that it will take more than a laugh and a gesture to meet the Canadian people and render an accounting to them on this issue in the face of what the government has done to the constitutional rights of Canadians. It is not just a matter of what may be the rights of parliament as such; these are involved; of course they are. But here is an issue where the government, by its studied1 disregard of its responsibility to parliament, by its studied disregard of every sacred constitutional principle, has given offence to Canadian citizens and has dipped' illegally and unconstitutionally into the pockets of Canadian citizens and has, as things stand today, taken money out of their pockets by illegal and robbery methods. Until this parliament by statute condones what has been done by the government, in what has been done to date by the government in imposing or levying or collecting or filching, whatever you wish to call it, money out of the pockets of the Canadian people, it has committed) robbery. As things stand today, what the government has done is robbery and nothing short of it.
Think of this, Mr. Chairman. Here is the Liberal party; the small "1", of course, is gone, but the big "L" remains. Only the name remains to identify the party in office in this country today with constitutional principles which most people in this civilized generation had thought to be accepted by all people who believe in democracy. Can you imagine, Mr. Chairman, what would have happened at Westminster in Gladstone's time if the government of the day, not while parliament was in session, had simply by a

Excise Tax Act Amendment
declaration of a .minister, not made in parliament, commenced to dip into the pockets of the people and take money from these pockets without any authority from parliament? In that case, Mr. Chairman, the welkin would have rung with denunciations of the government of the day, and protestations of these principles of small "1" liberalism which would have been violated in that very act on the part of the government. What would have happened in the time of Laurier? Can you imagine such a thing as this happening in Laurier's time? Even to suggest such a thing is to offend the memory of that statesman. Can you imagine what would have happened if this thing had been done by a government in the days when the present Prime Minister was in opposition? Every word in the English language would have been drawn upon by him to denounce in the name of liberalism what the government was doing. And yet it has remained for this government, in the days when its fidelity to democracy and to parliamentary institutions has given way to the belief in its own absolute right to rule, to do violence to everything that small "1" liberalism has stood for, ever since liberalism became identified with a political party.
Condone what the government has done here; legalize the robbery that has gone on since November 17 last, and this parliament will have been an accomplice with this government in such an assault on the constitution of the country as we .may never recover from.
The minister has invited this house, in a gesture which I say is an insult to the intelligence of the house, to believe that this was done in obedience to necessity. How necessity is always conjured up to serve the ends of tyrants! Last week I quoted in. this house the words of William Pitt: "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves". And naturally it was necessity to which the Minister of Finance tonight ascribed the act which, in the name of the government, he embarked upon on November 17.
Necessity! Was there necessity for overriding the constitution, for over-riding settled constitutional principles centuries old, principles which have been the buLwark of the rights, not simply of a few but of all citizens? This is not an issue that affects just a few people; this is an issue that touches every man, woman and child in Canada who values freedom, and who can see, in what this government has been doing in the past three and one-half months, steps toward oligarchical rule and the destruction of our parliamentary institutions.
I want to remind the committee that this kind of issue has been fought over in days gone by. Men were not prepared in other days to submit to arbitrary measures on the part of the government. It was this very issue that brought to a focus the struggle between Charles'I and parliament, which resulted eventually in the civil war and in the just retribution upon Charles. It was not any abstract issue; it was not any academic question. It was this question and this alone: shall the government be entitled to dip into the pockets of the people apart from authority expressed by parliament in terms of statute?
As you will remember, Mr. Chairman, the Petition of Right in 1628 was the ultimatum presented by the long parliament to Charles I, and leading among the issues presented in that Petition of Right was this, set out in section 1:
And other the good laws and statutes of this realm, your subjects have inherited this freedom, that they should not be compelled to contribute to any tax, tallage, aid, or other like charge, not set by common consent in parliament.
Charles I assented to that Petition of Right, but of course he and others who followed him forgot that obligation, just as this government has forgotten it, and it remained for blood to be shed again half a century later, culminating in the Bill of Rights in 1689, in which you will find these objectives set out, which I commend to those on the other side. Of course it is no use offering them to the government, because the government is blind and its ears are stopped to anything offered to it in the name of respect for constitutional usage. But in case there may be some private members opposite who still have some respect for liberalism, the small "1" liberalism they profess, I quote it and ask them to give heed to these words in the Bill of Rights of 1689, forming a part of the constitutional fabric of this country as well as of the United Kingdom. This is one of the wrongs referred to in the Bill of Rights which that bill was intended to rectify:
By levying money for and to the use of the crown, by pretence of prerogative, for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by parliament.
The Bill of Rights then proceeded to declare:
That the levying of money for or to the use of the crown by pretence of prerogative without grant of parliament for a longer time or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted is illegal.
It is on the strength of that Bill of Rights that every reigning sovereign in the United
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Kingdom, or for that matter in Canada, has held his crown. It is to that principle that every reigning sovereign from 1689 to this present day has given his plighted oath, and on the strength of it he has held his crown; but it has remained for hon. gentlemen opposite, in a light-hearted manner, in an easy, debonair way, to undo what men have shed their blood to win for all the men and women who enjoy the many benefits of our parliamentary institutions. It does them no credit that they have done it at all, and least of all that they have done it with this studied contempt for parliament, which is reflected in the frivolous attitude they have taken toward this matter from the outset.
I had something to say recently about the quibbles of the Minister of Finance in distinguishing, if you please, between a statement and an undertaking on the part of the government, the theory back of liis quibble being that a mere statement made in this house by a minister of the crown is not necessarily binding upon the government. There sits the Minister of Justice who made such a statement in this house, a statement which the house accepted, and upon which it proceeded to pass the foreign exchange control bill two years ago, a statement given to the house, upon which this government turned its back in 1948. As I have said to the minister before, I cannot for the life of me see how he can continue to sit in a government which has repudiated a solemn assurance which he gave to the house. But still he sits there.
That is a sample of the quibbles which are being indulged in by the Minister of Finance who distinguishes between an assurance or undertaking and a mere statement on the part of ministers of the crown.
And what is the latest example of these quibbles? You have two fine examples this evening, two exceptionally striking examples. The minister dare not face this proposition, that taxes are being levied today illegally and unconstitutionally without the slightest colour of right. How does he meet that? He says, "Don't call it a tax because it is really not a tax until parliament imposes it by statute". Of course it is not a tax in that sense until parliament imposes it by statute. What it is today is an illegal tax, an unconstitutional tax. The Minister of Finance can enjoy all the pleasure it gives him to be the author of a tax impost or levy that is absolutely illegal and unconstitutional.
But that was not the end of his quibbles tonight. I do not know when we shall reach the end of the quibbles indulged in by the Minister of Finance. There was another one.

He does not like the word "imposed" as it was put to him by the hon. member for Lake Centre tonight in his powerful speech. He said, "No, no; we have not imposed these taxes. Please do not say 'imposed'." It reminds you, does it not

his denial of the word "tax" and his denial of the word "recovery"- of the language he used last December in the house when he took strong exception to the use by those on this side of the house of the word "austerity" as applied to this dictatorial program he announced. He did not like the word "austerity". He said it was most improper and inapplicable. Who was the author of that expression? It was the Minister of Finance himself in that radio speech of his of doubtful memory on November 17 last. Yes, he was the author of the expression "austerity". Who is the author of the expression "tax"? This is a tax that these collectors of excise were instructed by the minister to collect throughout the country. Excise! Of course it was. Let us have no more of these quibbles, Mr. Chairman, as though a tax by any other name could Smell any worse than this tax smells.
What would have happened if events had taken a slightly different course since November 17 last? Just think of what has happened in terms of the constitutional realities of the situation. It has already been pointed out by hon. members on this side of the house, and pointed out so accurately and so penetratingly, that i.n the case of those who have been robbed of this money by the government, by an order of the Minister of Finance, there is no right of recovery. Yet the Minister of Finance has the effrontery to say in this house, as he said a few minutes ago with respect to the people who have been robbed, "Oh, that would be their problem." "It is not our worry," says the Minister of Finance. He is not worrying about the people who have been robbed.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: Shame.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Litigation? He says, "Do not come to the government. You, Mr. Final Consumer, who have paid this tax, go back and collect it from the retailer whom you bought from and maybe he will go back and try to collect it from the wholesaler; then maybe he will go back and try to collect it from the manufacturer" and so on. That is offered in this house, i.n this year 1948, as a serious statement coming from this government. Do you want any clearer proof, Mr. Chairman, of the utter unfitness of this government to hold office any longer?
This is the same government, remember, which turned the key in the door of parliament in March. 1945. AVhat would have happened

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had it suited the political purposes of this government to dissolve parliament without notice at any time since November 17? This tax would have been in effect. This robbery would have been going on.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This government would have been returned.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Parliament would have had no opportunity of dealing with it, because this government would have dispensed with parliament. Did I hear the Minister of National Health and Welfare say something?


Paul Joseph James Martin: We would have been
re-elected.


Donald Methuen Fleming: If the Minister of National Health and Welfare has learned so to despise the intelligence of the Canadian people that he can believe the Canadian people would re-elect a government which has trampled the constitutional rights of Canadian citizens into the earth, then I say to him that he ought to be ashamed of himself for making a statement like that in the house. For my part, I prefer to believe that the Canadian people are blessed with intelligence, and have determined to see that their rightful freedoms and constitutional rights shall not be stolen from them by a government that has ceased to be responsible to the people.


An hon. MEMBER:: Louder.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Have you seen the latest Gallup poll?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I have only to say to my quibbling friends opposite that I would recall the example of one Charles I and others, people who indulged in the great quips they thought were so good in their palmy days. I say in all seriousness to the Minister of Finance or any others such as the Minister of National Health and Welfare who has just come to the rescue of his colleague-


Douglas Charles Abbott: Thank you.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -that one of these days, as we survey the political remains of these ministers, we shall be saying, "Alas! poor Yorick; where be his quiddities now?"
Yes, Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Finance thought to make a virtue tonight out of the fact that when he made his radio speech parliament had received notice that it was being summoned to meet. Apparently the issuance of the proclamation by the government calling parliament to assemble, so far as this government is concerned when it suits its purposes, is treated as just the same as parliament being in session. Well, a proclamation of the kind that was issued at the end of October last calling parliament to meet-on December 5 is not immutable. These proclamations are frequently issued and withdrawn. It would have been completely within the constitutional powers of the government to withdraw the proclamation summoning parliament to meet. They could have done that simply. It has been done before. Where would we have been then, Mr. Chairman?
Where would have been the virtue that the Minister of Finance sees in having made his radio announcement a few days after a proclamation had been issued summoning parliament; because that proclamation had no effect as binding the government to proceed to meet parliament on December 6?
I have indicated what the passing of the resolution and the passing of the bill to follow will mean in terms of condonation of the most grievous assault upon the constitutional rights of Canadians that has been delivered at any time in our history. Go back to the days before responsible government, when people who called themselves Liberals in those days were fighting the battle for responsible government in Canada, and you will not find anything in the actions of the governors in those days who did not consider themselves responsible to the legislature, to compare even faintly with the studied disregard of the rights of parliament that this government has shown so contemptuously all the way through this piece.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Louder.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I would speak louder if I had any hope at all that words of wisdom would penetrate the skulls of some hon. gentlemen on the opposite side.
The hon. member for Yancouver-Burrard tonight sounded a word of warning to all hon. members as to the effect that will follow the creation of a precedent in this matter. If this parliament condones what has been done here -for condonation it certainly will be if parliament passes this resolution and the bill to follow-you are simply opening up the floodgates to more assaults upon the constitutional rights of men and women in Canada at the hands of this oligarchical institution yonder that calls itself a government.
Is there not one private member sitting to your right, Mr. Chairman, w'ho has a little left of his asserted devotion to the principles of liberalism, who has a fragment of appreciation left of the importance of these great constitutional safeguards, who will rise in his place and speak on this question? I challenge any private member on the government
Excise Tax Act Amendment

side of the house to rise and tell hon. members that he supports what the Minister of Finance has done, that he condones his methods and will support his measure, and to give his reasons for doing so. I challenge every hon. member sitting to your right.


Mr. CLEAVER:: If my hon. friend will sit down I will gladly accept the challenge.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Very well. The hon. member for Halton has just indicated that he is coming to the rescue of the Minister of Finance. Very well, Mr. Chairman; we will listen with great interest to what the hon. member for Halton may say. We will ask him to say how he squares the action of the minister with the fact that parliament was not in session.


Douglas Charles Abbott: He can make his own
speech.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I thank the Minister of Finance for his assistance, but I assure him I do not need it. I am not calling upon him for help. We will wish to hear from the hon. member for Halton and all other hon. members opposite what they have to say as to the right of any government to take money out of the pockets of their constituents without the matter ever coming before parliament.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, I hope that before this debate concludes we shall hear an opinion expressed on this matter by the hon. member for Quebec South, an hon. gentleman who, with some right and justification, still calls himself a liberal. I hope we shall hear also what, the hon. member for Temiscouata has to say on this measure.


Jean-François Pouliot: I will say it right away.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The hon. member has spoken eloquently in this house in asserting the rights of parliament against the inroads made upon those rights by the government. Let us hear any hon. members opposite who still call themselves liberals. Let them say, "We condone this action. Our constituents will approve it. Our constituents do not mind having the Minister of Finance dip his hand into their pockets and take out money with no authority from parliament." Let such hon. members say they approve these methods and condone what has been done, and are prepared to put their political conscience in the keeping of the Minister of Finance on this issue.


Jean-François Pouliot: I am ready to start now.


Donald Methuen Fleming: If you condone what has been done here, Mr. Chairman-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Give him a chance.
rMr. Fleming.]


Jean-François Pouliot: Don't provoke me; I am ready to start now.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I hope all hon. members yonder who call themselves liberals will have plenty of opportunity to speak on this measure before this debate is concluded. As far as I am concerned, in concluding what I have to say, I wish to state that if this condonation is given by hon. members opposite, then we might as well say good-bye to the rule of law, to the supremacy of parliament over the executive, to the rule by constitutional methods and procedures that has been followed in this parliament in times past and has been the rule among all, in whatever part of the world they live, who derive their constitutional rights from Magna Carta, the Petition of Right and the Bill of Rights.


Hughes Cleaver: Mr. Chairman, I want to assure my hon. friend who has just taken his seat, as well as every other member of this committee, that I cherish my personal rights under our constitution just as much as anyone in this country. But I want to say also that I have never knowingly hidden behind the constitution to attack a measure that I cannot attack on its merits. I think this committee well remembers a speech made by the leader of the opposition when we were called together on December 5; and I should like to know right now who is the leader of the Progressive Conservative party in this house. I am serious in that; I am going to read chapter and verse, and' I should like to know who is leading that party here.


Donald Methuen Fleming: John Bracken is leading it, and you know it.


Hughes Cleaver: We have listened to a regular barrage of criticisms tonight, and I have patiently waited for a chance to say a word or two now, at ten minutes to eleven. There was no opportunity before to say a word to remind hon. members of what happened so recently. I am just wondering why these wonderful defenders of the constitution should suddenly burst into bloom at this late stage, four months after the event, and why they should1 suddenly develop this constitutional mania about this measure.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Hughes Cleaver: I will have a word for my hon. friend a little later on, about the pig bristles which were his contribution in the early stages.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Will you permit- a question?

Excise Tax Act Amendment


Hughes Cleaver: I have only ten minutes. I will gladly answer any questions tomorrow, but I want to take my ten minutes tonight.


Douglas Charles Abbott: We have had a series of forty-minute speeches from the opposition.


Hughes Cleaver: Hon. members opposite have had the whole evening, and this is my first chance to take part in the debate.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Hughes Cleaver: I have already given my answer.


William Ross Macdonald: The hon. member has stated already that he requests no interruptions at this time. Therefore, under the rules he should not be interrupted.


Arthur Leroy Smith: He is wiser than I thought.


Hughes Cleaver: When I am through I will gladly answer any questions any member of the opposition would like to ask. On December 5, in discussing the business of the house, the Prime Minister suggested:
The government would have preferred' to have had the debate on the address left over for some weeks . . .


Edmund Davie Fulton: What page?


Hughes Cleaver: Page 3 of Hansard.
... to be resumed after particular measures we have met together to consider immediately have been dealt wdth. I understand, however, that the leaders of the parties opposite prefer that they at least be given the opportunity to speak immediately on the address.


Mr. MANROSS:: Nothing there about taking money out of the pockets of the people.


Hughes Cleaver: Just be patient. Then the leader of the opposition spoke, and gave his stand in regard to that suggestion. Bless you, if the constitution had been infringed in any manner, if our rights under the constitution had been trampled underfoot, as we are given to understand tonight, surely at least a dozen members of the opposition would have raised the constitutional question on the very day the house met.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Did I not raise it at that time?


Hughes Cleaver: I say you did not.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The leader of the opposition did.


Hughes Cleaver: The tax was imposed on November 17. The house met on December 5. Not one member of the opposition raised this wonderful constitutional question.


James Arthur Ross: The leader of the opposition raised it. Where were you?


Hughes Cleaver: I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that they did not think of it until they found they could not attack the bill on its merits, so they had to scare up another issue.
I should now like to read to these hon. gentlemen opposite what their leader said.


James Arthur Ross: Read what he said about the constitution, at page 5 of Hansard.


William Ross Macdonald: Order.


Hughes Cleaver: At page 4-


James Arthur Ross: Read what he said about the constitution.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Too many leaders.


William Ross Macdonald: Order. I think all hon. members will agree that the hon. member who has the floor should not continuously be interrupted.


Hughes Cleaver: Mr. Chairman, when they feel and look so foolish, I really do not blame them. They have my sympathy. Here is what their leader said to the house, at page 4.


James Arthur Ross: Read page 5.


Hughes Cleaver: Following the Prime Minister, he said:
It is suggested that the measures which are now before us are urgent.
And this is what the leader of the opposition goes on to say:
Well, Mr. Speaker, the matters with which they deal are urgent, but I suggest with all deference that the measures themselves are not urgent.
Then he goes on to say that he wants the time of the house taken up with the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne. And if my hon. friends want the -reference for that, I will give it to them. And he went on to tell us how mad the farmers were, and a whole lot of other things; nothing about this terrible crime committed against the constitution.


Mr. HAZEN:: Read the last paragraph.


Hughes Cleaver: I will have read enough when I am through to satisfy all of you.


William Ross Macdonald: Order. Some hon.
members desire that page 5 be read, but they will have an opportunity to read it if they wish. I would suggest that they should not interrupt the hon. member for Halton.


An hon. MEMBER:: Eleven o'clock.


Hughes Cleaver: Not only was the leader
of the opposition content with urging that we should go on with the debate on the address,
Excise Tax Act Amendment

but he gave his reasons for it, and cited parliamentary precedents for it. And if my hon. friends will turn to page 5, they will find he said this:
We are as anxious as anyone else to discuss this question as soon as we can, but I should like the house and the public to realue that these measures are now in effect as a result of that decision. They are just as much in effect as the decisions of the government brought down in the budget delivered by the Minister of Finance in which he says in effect, "These proposals -will come into effect tonight though the bill dealing with them may not be passed for a couple of months."
I suggest-


James Arthur Ross: Go on; go on.


William Ross Macdonald: Order.


Hughes Cleaver: I don't blame them, Mr. Chairman, at all.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Page 5.


William Ross Macdonald: The hon. member
should not be interrupted.


Mr. GARDINER:: What is the matter with Charles I now?


Hughes Cleaver: It is a pretty bitter pill; I don't blame them for kicking about it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: First column, page 5.


Hughes Cleaver: Then, from that day forward, until-


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I rise to a question of privilege.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Privilege.


James Arthur Ross: A question of privilege, Mr. Chairman.


William Ross Macdonald: Order. If I must interpret the rules strictly, a question of privilege can be raised only when the house is in the house. I must ask hon. members to allow the hon. member for Halton to continue for the very few moments left this evening, and to continue without interruption.


James Arthur Ross: Let him be fair, then.


Hughes Cleaver: Following on from there; from that day forward, until December 19. there was no mention of the Excise Act, except the facetious question in regard to pig bristles asked by the hon. member for Calgary West.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, can we not have a point of order in committee?


The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN:: Order. It should not be necessary to remind hon. members that when a member has the floor he

should not be interrupted unless he consents to answer a question. And if he wishes to answer the question, he will so indicate by taking his seat. It is not proper to keep on interrupting an hon. member when he has the floor.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: I rise to a point of order.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


William Henry Golding: I would ask the hon. member to let the hon. member-


John Bracken: He has raised a point of order.


Douglas Charles Abbott: You are killing time.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: Perhaps it would be well to let me state my point of order.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: The hon. member for Halton has said, on his responsibility as a member, that on December 5 the leader of the opposition made no statement about the constitutional aspects of the matter.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: Mr. Chairman, on page 5 I read these words-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: Already these policies have-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: -I was going to say, murdered the constitution and shamefully flouted parliament.


William Henry Golding: If the hon. member wishes to raise that point and speak on it, he has that opportunity in this committee as soon as the hon. member takes his seat.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Eleven o'clock.


Howard Charles Green: Eleven o'clock.


Hughes Cleaver: Then, Mr. Chairman-


Howard Charles Green: Eleven o'clock.


William Ross Macdonald: Order; shall I report progress and ask leave to sit again?
Progress reported.



PRIVILEGE


John Bracken: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege.

Privilege-Mr. Bracken


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Eleven o'clock.


John Bracken: A minute ago-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Eleven o'clock.


John Bracken: A minute ago, at a time when the chairman of committees said-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


James Horace King: [DOT] Order.


John Bracken: A minute ago, at a time when we were in committee of the whole, the chairman of committees pointed out that at that time no point of privilege could be raised, and the opportunity was denied an hon. member on this side of the house to raise it. I rise now to raise that point of privilege.


Lionel Chevrier: You are out of order.


John Bracken: The hon. member for Halton made a misstatement with respect to myself.


Lionel Chevrier: Raise it tomorrow.


John Bracken: I will raise it now, unless you on that side of the house force the Chairman to deny me that right.


Lionel Chevrier: You have not that right at this hour.


John Bracken: I am taking it, until I am denied it by you. The hon. member for Halton said that the leader of the opposition had made no statement on the-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Eleven o'clock.


John Bracken: -illegality and unconstitutionality of the government's program on the opening day of parliament. I want to complete the quotation which the hon. member did not read.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is not a point of privilege.


John Bracken: It is a point of privilege as you will soon see.


William Ross Macdonald: Order. Although it is after eleven o'clock, I did not look at the clock because I wanted the leader of the opposition to have the opportunity to state his question of privilege. He has now stated it and I must say that it is not a question of privilege. It is a matter which he can bring up when the house is in committee.


John Bracken: Mr. Speaker-
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Mr. Speaker, I move that this house be now adjourned. It is after eleven o'clock.


James Arthur Ross: Pretty small stuff.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Dictatorship.


John Bracken: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


William Ross Macdonald: A motion to adjourn the house is not debatable.


John Bracken: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I was on my feet on a question of privilege.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


William Ross Macdonald: Order. I think I have been very fair. I have allowed the leader of the opposition to state his question of privilege without my looking at the clock. I will now quote the rule which states that at eleven o'clock the Speaker will leave the chair without question put. It is eleven o'clock and I hereby adjourn this house until tomorrow at three o'clock in the afternoon.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Stanley Howard Knowles: What will be the business for tomorrow?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: If hon. members do not want to know the business, all right.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, March 10, 1948