1949-02-18

THE ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the house that I have received the following communication:
Ottawa, February 18, 1949
Sir:
I have the honour to inform you that the Right Hon. Thibaudeau Rinfret, Chief Justice of Canada, acting as deputy of His Excellency the Governor General, will proceed to the Senate chamber today, the 18th February, at 5.45 p.m., for the purpose of giving the royal assent to a certain bill.
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
J. F. Delaute
Assistant Secretary to the Governor General PRIVILEGE



REMARKS OF MEMBER FOR VANCOUVER CENTRE, REFERRED TO ON JANUARY 27  STATE- MENT OF MR. YOUNG

Mr. Rodney Young (Vancouver Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. On January 27 the attention of this house was drawn to a reference made by me outside the house on July 25 last. Shortly before coming into the chamber on that day I informed the leader of the C.C.F. that I expected that the matter would be brought up, and told him of my intention to withdraw the language about which the complaint was made. Unfortunately the atmosphere which developed led me to believe that my withdrawal would be misunderstood by this house. I do now make this withdrawal, and I ask hon. members to believe that no one is more desirous than I am of maintaining respect for parliament and its members, as well as for parliamentary procedure.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. James Sinclair (Vancouver North):: Mr. Speaker, this apology and retraction is quite satisfactory to the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Merritt) and myself. Obviously it has been so received by the house. For this reason the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard and I will not proceed with our motion as indicated.



WHEAT BOARD


Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I should like to advise the house of changes in the personnel of the advisory committee of the Canadian wheat board.	[DOT]
It is a matter of regret to the government and to myself personally that Mr. C. Gordon Smith and Mr. D. A. Campbell have found it necessary to resign from the committee. Mr. Smith has resigned for business reasons, and Mr. Campbell's health is such that he cannot continue to serve. I should like to take this opportunity of expressing the government's appreciation of the services rendered by both Mr. Smith and Mr. Campbell.
Mr. Smith served with distinction as assistant chief commissioner of the board during the difficult wartime years from 1939 to 1944, and has been a member of the advisory committee since 1946. Mr. Campbell has represented the milling industry on the advisory committee since 1940, and for a period of over eight years has given conscientious service to the committee.
Mr. D. I. Walker has been appointed to the committee to succeed Mr. Campbell as the representative of the milling industry. Mr. Walker has had long experience in the milling industry in Canada, and I am pleased that he has consented to act on the committee.
Mr. J. C. A. Nijdam has been appointed to succeed Mr. Smith, and will represent the export trade on the advisory committee. For many years Mr. Nijdam has been active in the export trade in Canadian grain, and his experience will be of great value.



DOMINION ELECTIONS ACT


Mr. H. R. Argue (Wood Mountain) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. 27, to amend the Dominions Elections Act, 1938 (age of voters).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Hazen Robert Argue: The purpose of this bill is
simple. It is to amend the Dominion Elections Act, 1938, to provide that the

Inquiries of the Ministry eligible age of voters shall be reduced from twenty-one years to eighteen years.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 25, respecting the Globe Printing Company.-Mr. Graydon.
Bill No. 26, respecting Chartered Trust and Executor Company.-Mr. Jackman.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Has his attention been called to an announcement in the press this morning, made by Mr. G. R. McGregor, president of Trans-Canada Air Lines, concerning the removal of another 155 T.C.A. personnel from Winnipeg to Montreal? In view of the fact that last summer the minister gave me an assurance by letter that movements of this kind would not take place, can he make a statement about the matter on the floor of the house?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I have not seen the item in question. I am aware that Mr. McGregor intended to give to the public a full explanation with regard to the plans of the company. My hon. friend speaks of another transfer. His question obviously refers to the same transfer he asked about on a former occasion during this session of parliament. I have nothing to add to Mr. McGregor's announcement.



PRIZE MONEY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. L. Langlois (Gaspe):: In view of the representations which I have received with regard to prize money, and which I have brought to the attention of the Minister of National Defence, will the minister elaborate on the statement he made in this house on February 4 in answer to a question asked by the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton)?
Hon. Brooke Claxton (Minister of National
Defence): This matter has been brought to my attention by the hon. member for Gaspe, the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Gibson), the hon. member for Kamloops, and several others. In view of the widespread

interest in the question, with the leave of the house I should like to make a statement on it, supplementing the previous statements in the press and to this house.
Prize money is the term used for the old naval custom whereby the officers and men of the Royal Navy and privateers had their pay supplemented by grants out of the money received from the sale of captured enemy merchant ships. Part of this money was kept in the exchequer, and part was paid by the crown to the crews directly concerned. It should be emphasized that no one had a right to payment, but that payment was made as an act of grace. Formerly this was done by the king himself under the royal prerogative.
In modern war it has become increasingly difficult and increasingly unfair to allocate prize money to individual officers and men taking part in the capture of the prize. Consequently in the first great war officers and men of the Royal Navy shared according to to their rank and the amount of time they had spent at sea. Personnel of the Royal Canadian Navy shared in this allocation tnade by the British parliament as if they had been members of the Royal Navy. The scale operated so that an admiral, commander in chief, got 283 times as much as an ordinary seaman.
In the second world war it had become still more difficult to apportion prizes because of the part played in each capture by large numbers of ships and planes, frequently including ships and personnel of several different nations. An agreement was therefore made under which the countries of the commonwealth would share in the proceeds of the prizes taken in proportion to the peak strength each of them had had in the navies and air forces engaged on naval operations.
There is no law or custom under which any individual has any right to any part of this money.
In the United Kingdom it has been decided that one-third of the United Kingdom's share would be kept by the crown and that the remaining two-thirds would be divided between the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force in proportion to the peak strength of these two services engaged on naval operations. The navy's share will be paid to the officers and men having more than six months' service at sea on a graduated scale, which provides for the payment of ten times as much to senior officers as to men. It was decided, however, that the air force share should be paid to the Royal Air Force charitable and welfare societies caring for present and past members of the service.
In Canada the government proposes not to take one-third off but to divide the whole

Canadian share in proportion to the numbers engaged on naval operations, which works out at sixty-eight per cent for the navy and thirty-two per cent for the air force.
In considering how the navy's share would be divided, the whole position was thoroughly reviewed. Obviously, on the British scales which are predicated	on	responsibility,officers, particularly	senior officers,	wouldbenefit substantially,	as	their	shares	wouldrun into considerable sums; but in the case of men, the share would be about $10 each if paid to all the sailors who had been on sea operations for six months or more. A distribution on this basis would, it was considered after careful examination, be very much less desired by naval personnel themselves than to have the money used by their own representatives	to	meet	needy	cases.
This was particularly desirable in view of the fact that the system of disposing of canteen profits in the navy resulted in the Royal Canadian Navy benevolent trust fund receiving less funds in proportion than those made available to the other services. Moreover, the fund is being expended at a rate which will speedily exhaust it. Accordingly, both the navy's share and the air force's share will be paid into the trust funds for the benefit of veterans and members of these services. In other words, a distribution to individual personnel would involve a gain of small consequence to those who might be eligible, but by the method proposed the scope of assistance to those who are in genuine distress will be materially greater.
It was felt that the great majority of veterans and active force personnel concerned would want the money to be used to help former comrades and their families who are in need.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. S. Harkness (Calgary East):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Has the government given consideration to the brief of the Canadian Legion asking for payment under the War Veterans Allowance Act of $50 a month to single men and $85 a month to married men? If so, what action has been decided upon?
Hon. Milton F. Gregg (Minister of Veterans
Affairs): Yes, the government has given consideration to the matter, and the results of the consideration will be announced in due course.


Douglas Scott Harkness: When will that announcement be made?
Inquiries of the Ministry MARSHLANDS



BAY OP FUNDY AREA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. P. C. Black (Cumberland):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. When may we expect a statement as to the program which will be carried out this year with respect to the five-year program of reclaiming the marshlands of the bay of Fundy area?


Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Minister of Agriculture):: As the hon. member knows, legislation was passed at the last session of parliament which provided for a five-year program, the costs of which are to be split three ways, among the federal government, the provincial governments, and the farmers concerned. Negotiations in connection with the program are under way, and when we are on the estimates of my department which are concerned with special expenditure I expect to be able to give full details with regard to any action which will be taken this year.


Percy Chapman Black: May I ask the
minister when we may expect a statement from him, and when his estimates will be brought down? A great many people are interested in the government's policy in this respect, and sometimes the estimates do not come down before two or three months from now.


James Garfield Gardiner: The committee had a meeting this week. Our officials have been down in the maritimes, and I think the matter has been fully discussed with the people concerned. I do not think there is any doubt that they will be kept fully informed as the discussions continue. So far as hon. members are concerned, they will get full information when the estimates are before the house.



INQUIRY AS TO TABLING OF MAIN ESTIMATES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Gordon Graydon (Peel):: I should like to ask the Prime Minister when we may expect the estimates of the coming fiscal year to be tabled in the house.


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: It is my understanding that it is not the practice to table the estimates until the address in reply to the speech from the throne has been disposed of. As soon as that is done the estimates will be ready for tabling. If there is any unexpected delay in concluding the debate on the address, I

Inquiries of the Ministry hope arrangements may be made to have the usual practice departed from and the estimates brought down at an earlier date.


Gordon Graydon: May I direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Public Works? May I ask him to make sure that when the estimates are brought down, the urgent need for permanent development of Port Credit harbour be not overlooked?



HOURS OF SITTINGS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. Garfield Case (Grey North):: I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether the government is likely to give favourable consideration to changing the hours of sitting of the house so that we may sit from two to six and eight to ten p.m.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: That is not a matter for the government to decide. It is one which would be decided by the members of the house themselves.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question to that asked by the hon. member for Grey North? Will the Prime Minister consider calling together informally the members of the committee which dealt with the rules last year, to see whether we can make some progress in connection with some of the changes which have been suggested?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I shall be glad to hear the views of any members of the house as to what might be done to accommodate the greatest number of members in respect of the hours of sitting.



INQUIRY WITH RESPECT TO TAPPING OF TELEPHONES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Alistair Stewart (Winnipeg North):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Has the minister received protests from any member of parliament or of the press gallery about the telephones being tapped?


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of Justice):: No.



VACANCY IN CONSTITUENCY OF WETASKIWIN

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Solon E. Low (Peace River):: I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the government to call an early by-election in Wetaskiwin in order that the people there may have representation in this house.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: It is my impression that the formalities required by law to bring officially to your notice, Mr. Speaker, the fact that there is a vacancy in Wetaskiwin have not yet been fulfilled. I can assure the hon. member that as soon as they have been complied with the government will proceed in the manner provided by the statute.


Gordon Graydon: Does that mean a byelection?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: My hon. friend can read the statute.


Gordon Graydon: It does mean there will be a by-election sometime?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: It does mean that there will be a by-election in the manner and at the time prescribed by the legislation passed by this parliament.


Gordon Graydon: That means a delay.



PARLIAMENT HILL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. E. Lennard (Wentworth):: I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Public Works. Has his attention been drawn to the fact that although the lights are now on again in Ontario, there is still a blackout on parliament hill? On the most easterly approach to the parliament buildings the lights have been gradually fading, until last night there was a complete blackout. I would urge that the minister remedy this as soon as possible.


Gordon Graydon: They have been out ever since Nicolet-Yamaska.


Hon. Alphonse Fournier (Minister of Public Works):: May I thank the hon. member for calling my attention to this matter. In his question he mentioned the lights at the most easterly approach to the parliament buildings, and pointed out that they have been gradually fading. I would remind him that the easterly side of the building is the opposite to this one, and I can assure hon. members that the government will do its utmost to enlighten that side of the house.



SMOKE FROM PUBLIC BUILDINGS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. K. Fraser (Peterborough West):: Referring again to blackouts, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Public Works. For some mornings now there has been a blackout in this district because of the smoke issuing from public buildings and

clouding the sky. Is the minister providing smoke abatement appliances for public buildings?


Alphonse Fournier: Mr. Speaker, I have noticed the condition to which the hon. member refers. I can say that the department is doing its utmost to relieve it. We are trying to find means to make the smoke disappear as soon as possible.



PRICES AND TRADE BOARD


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Lake Centre):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. It has to do with the debate which will come up today in reference to emergency powers. Several days ago the supreme court of Ontario declared ultra vires a section of the wartime prices and trade board regulations dealing with the matter of fair prices. What were the reasons for the declaration of the court and the judgment that was rendered? Does the department intend immediately to appeal this judgment in order to make sure that this legislation will be carried into effect?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: My hon. friend did not give me notice of this question. I shall be glad to bring down an answer in due course.


John George Diefenbaker: It is five days since the minister was first asked the question.


Mr. H. W. Timmins (Parkdalo):: I should like to repeat the question I asked the Minister of Finance four or five days ago. Has he given consideration to the decision in the McGinn case? If so, what is the result of that consideration?


Hon. Douglas Abbolt (Minister of Finance):: I apologize to my hon. friend for not having answered his question before. The reason is that the chairman of the wartime prices and trade board returned from Newfoundland only yesterday. I have sent a note out to ask whether he has yet received advice from the legal advisers of the board as to what action should be taken concerning the decision referred to. Hon. members will recall that it relates to what has been referred to as the just and reasonable clause in section 8 of the wartime prices and trade board regulations. When we reach the bill which is based upon the resolution to be considered this afternoon hon. members will see that it contains a provision that in the continuation of these powers no prosecutions will be taken under that section. The reason is, as I indicated to the house the other day when the resolution was
Inquiries of the Ministry first introduced, that price ceilings will apply only to articles on which there are now specific ceilings. I shall give my hon. friend an answer later this afternoon.
On the orders of the day:


Mr. A. L. Smiih (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, my question will be brief-and it may have to do with a blackout. Has the government yet received a copy of the judgment in the McGinn case? If so, will it be made available so that we may look at it?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I have received a note indicating that a copy of the judgment was received only yesterday. Mr. Spence, counsel of the board, is now considering it, and I hope I may be able to make a statement with respect to it some time early next week.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Could the minister have a copy made?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I shall lend the hon. member
my copy.



SEED GRAIN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. P. E. Wright (Melfort):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Can the minister now, or at an early date, indicate to the house and to the country whether it is the intention of the government to establish a floor price under flax, rape and sunflower seed for 1949, and what that floor price will be? Most farmers want to make arrangements now for their seed grain, and I think some indication of the government's intention with respect to the matter should be given.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Consideration is being given to the matters referred to by my hon. friend, and a statement will be made in due course.



RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. Blackmore (Lethbridge):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport, of which I have not yet given him notice. In view of the increasing use of fast-moving diesel trains on our railroads, will the minister consider the advisability of providing that such trains be painted in some bright colour, such as yellow, to help highway travellers to see such diesel trains sooner and thus avoid fatal accidents?
674

Inquiries of the Ministry


Stanley Howard Knowles: Did the minister give the hon. member notice that he was not going to be here?



WHEAT BOARD ACT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. J. Bentley (Swift Current):: I should
like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Will the minister give a reply to my question of February 16 with reference to the request of Mr. Garson, premier of Manitoba?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I have not received any notice of this question. I shall have to look up the record to see what the premier of Manitoba asked for.


Thomas John Bentley: The minister promised to do that the other day. Forty-eight hours have elapsed since that promise was made.



ASSINIBOINE RIVER VALLEY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. C. C. Miller (Portage la Prairie):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture, of which I have not sent him notice. Will the minister tell us what, if anything, has been done during the last twelve months to have a survey or investigation of the Assiniboine river basin made by engineers of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act or by his department with a view to taking such steps as may be necessary to remove, as far as possible, flood damage by an overall scheme?


James Garfield Gardiner: The work of investigation has been going on at the Assiniboine river valley for some years, and much of the detailed work has been carried out as far down the river as the city of Brandon. Much work was done last year in the way of putting in safeguards around Brandon, and I am sure that some investigation has been carried on further down. I am not certain that all the work will be carried out this year.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. C. .E. Johnston (Bow River): Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Winters) or, in his absence, the minister who is taking care of the department. In
[Mr. Blackmore.l
[Stage Direction]
view of the foreclosure proceedings by the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company of Calgary, Alberta, against home owners who have houses under construction by the Bow River Construction Company, will the government see to it that these veterans, and some civilians, will not lose their financial equity in their property as a result of these foreclosures?
Clarence Decatur Howe: In the absence of the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply, I suggest that the question be put on the order paper.



INCOME TAX


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Knapman Fraser: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of National Revenue. Press reports indicate that the United States has detailed one of its agents at the embassy in Ottawa to help United States citizens with their income returns. Has the minister's department done the same thing in the United States?


Mr. Cruickshank:: I wish they would help me to pay mine.


Hon. J. J. McCann (Minister of National Revenue):: We have never had any request for such an officer.



THE PRIME MINISTER


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. L. Church (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, I understand that the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) is to visit Toronto tomorrow to turn over Christie Street hospital to the city. He will be the guest of the mayor and the corporation of that city at a civic luncheon to be held at the Royal York hotel at 12.30 in the afternoon. I can assure the Prime Minister of a cordial welcome in Toronto, where he is well liked on account of his many fine personal qualities. He opened our winter fair. I understand he is to tour the city. For three parliaments I was the federal member for the district in which that hospital is situated. I regret I cannot return for the reception, but I assure the Prime Minister that it is the desire of every member from Toronto that he receive from all the people of that city a most enthusiastic welcome.



TRANSITIONAL MEASURES ACT, 1947 CONTINUATION OF CERTAIN ORDERS AND REGULATIONS

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, February 7, consideration of the motion of Mr. Garson that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the continuation of certain orders and regulations of the governor in council for a limited period during the national emergency arising out of the war.
Solon Earl Low: Mr. Speaker, I sincerely hope that the contents of this resolution for the continuation of certain orders and regulations of the governor in council does not constitute the whole of the program the government intends to bring in at this session in connection with the very serious matter of prices and distribution facing the country today.
The people of Canada are expecting effective government action at this session relative to the present unprecedented high cost of living. The rank and file of the Canadian people are not asking for more controls; but they are asking for relief from the burden of high living costs. People generally are waking up to the fact that the government itself is perhaps the chief culprit in this whole matter of extremely high prices. I claim the government has contributed very largely to the making of any emergency which does exist at the present time, four years after the close of the war.
For example, the people of Canada are aware that the Liberal government last year overtaxed them by at least $600 million in hidden and indirect taxes alone, which taxes were added to the price the consumers had to pay for the things they have to buy from day to day. Perhaps the most vicious of all these hidden taxes is the sales tax.
I was much interested in the excellent speech delivered in the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne by the hon. member for Beauce (Mr. Dionne), an experienced manufacturer. In his speech he illustrated the bad effects of the government's eight per cent sales tax, and showed clearly that this tax, applied at the manufacturer's level to, for instance, $100 worth of cotton goods-I believe he mentioned shirting-often pyramids to $30, or 30 per cent of the manufacturer's price by the time the goods reach the consumer.
We need only look around us and do a little investigating to find that on most articles we have to buy from day to day government taxes constitute up to as high as 74 or 76 per cent of the consumer price. I need not 29087-431
Transitional Measures Act go into details, because I am sure all hon. members have run into examples of the same thing.
This raises what I consider is a serious point for consideration, a point about which I have complained in this house on a number of occasions and about which I intend to complain now. During the last half century governments have moved in to prevent the people from realizing the benefits that should have accrued to them from technological improvements in machines and processes and manufacturing. As everyone who has studied the situation knows, through the use of machines things can be made today faster, cheaper and better than ever before.
But I ask this question: Can we buy them more cheaply than ever before? Certainly not. In the last fifty years improvements in machines have greatly reduced the real cost of production, but the benefits from the use of those machines have not been passed on to the consumer. Goods that are totally produced by machine today cost five or six times what they did in the day when they were totally made by the hand of man. The major reason for this is the fact that as savings have been effected by the improvement in processing and machines, governments have stepped in and have imposed scores of different kinds of hidden taxes at different levels of manufacture and production. As a result we have today sales taxes, processing taxes, turnover taxes, excise taxes of a dozen different varieties, and customs duties. All these things pyramid the costs of things to consumers.
Is it any wonder that under the circumstances the cost of living to the Canadian people is high? The people of Canada have a just right to complain about this high-handed and I would say tyrannous way in which the government has arrogated to itself, not only all the savings that have been effected in the cost of production through the use of machines but many more times these savings as well.
I have stated on a number of occasions and I repeat today my firm belief that the government is the main culprit in the high cost of living situation. However, I should like to point out that they are not alone responsible. Many Canadian industries have proceeded to price themselves out of future markets. Many of them have taken advantage of scarcities to charge all that the traffic will bear. That practice is reprehensible and I think the industries that have been guilty of it will in time come to see that it is not to their advantage let alone to the advantage of the Canadian people so to do.

Transitional Measures Act
I should like to point out another factor in this high cost of living situation that is rarely if ever considered. The C.C.F.-C.C.L. hook-up must shoulder a considerable share of the blame for the condition under which many Canadians actually suffer because their incomes are inadequate to enable them to pay the high prices for the things they need. The C.C.L. unions have been badly led and badly advised in their blind and determined drive for high wages. They have constantly refused to face facts, particularly the fact that when wages and salaries rise, costs also rise. That is inevitable. It is not just the amount of money that they get with which labour should be concerned; they should be concerned about the purchasing power that is available to them.


Mr. Irvine:: Is it not true that wages were the last to rise? Is it not true that the cost of living rose so high that the unions had to ask for more wages?


Solon Earl Low: I shall have to answer part of
that "yes" and part of it "no". To the latter part I would have to say, "Definitely no." I say that for various reasons. As I said, it is the total of the purchasing power available to labour that measures its prosperity or the lack of it, and not the monetary return they receive. I say that, had the C.C.L. unions- this is in answer to my good friend, the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine)-been better advised and led, their first efforts would have been directed toward holding the price line by a means that would not have discouraged the incentive for all-out production; that would not have imposed an unbearable burden of taxes upon the people.
That could have been done by insisting that whatever increases were won to supplement salary or wage incomes should not be first passed through the channels of industry in the form of salary or wage increases that enter and inflate costs. They were encouraged by the C.C.F. to believe that they should strike for higher wages and that the government would be driven to reimpose over-all price controls without wage controls, thus making all wage increases a net gain to labour. What has been the result? Organized labour did go out after higher wages, but the government did not impose over-all price control. Indeed they claimed that they could not do so in peacetime without imposing wage ceilings at the same time. The result was that production costs went up in an alarming fashion and of course consumer prices spiraled to new heights.
Once more we have had in this country a demonstration of the cat going around and around in an effort to catch its own tail. I

notice that the C.C.F. has not been so urgent of late in their demands for control.


Mr. Probe:: Give us a chance.


Solon Earl Low: We will give you a chance. Nor have we heard so much about planned economy this session as we did in other sessions. In fact I have noted quite a significant change in this respect. In his contribution to the throne debate the leader of the C.C.F. (Mr. Coldwell) spoke of planned objectives, but not once did he say a word about planned economy.


Mr. Coldwell:: You cannot include everything in one speech.


Solon Earl Low: I realize that and the hon. member will have a chance. We used to hear a great deal from the C.C.F. about the superior economy which has been established in socialist Britain. I had the privilege of visiting Britain last autumn and was able to see something of the socialist planned economy and the results of the over-all government controls which have been imposed in that country. I certainly came away from Britain much more impressed with the far-reaching results of bureaucratic control than I was with any good that has been accomplished through them. Let me point out a few examples. These are only a few and I do not mean to be unfair to Britain when I mention them.
When we first got to Britain we found that according to a government order there was a ceiling of five shillings on meals in restaurants. However, we found that after we had ordered our meal and had eaten it, such as it was, they imposed a cover charge, a surcharge, a supercharge and a house charge in addition to the fairly substantial tip that we were expected to give.


Mr. Bryce:: What kind of a dump were you in?


Solon Earl Low: I will have something to say about that pretty soon.


William Irvine: You are speaking about the Savoy.


Solon Earl Low: I will have something to say about that, too. These charges usually brought the price of the three-course meal up to a grand total of twice the ceiling price, or an amount which would compare with what we would have to pay for a very good meal of four or five courses at the Chateau Laurier. I went into a small place which possibly the ' hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Bryce) might call a joint. I do not know, but I tried to eat in various places. I noticed when I went into small luncheon places that a snack of fish and chips, a dark flour roll, and a cup of

tea would cost about what the price of a good lunch would be at the Cavendish restaurant in the city of Ottawa.


Mr. Thatcher:: That was caused by the war, not by the Labour government.


Solon Earl Low: Then what about milk in this planned economy? So much has been said about the wonderful things they are doing about milk, and I acknowledge they have done some good things. I understand that today the children are getting more milk than many of them have ever had in their lives. I think that is quite true, but the older people, of course, are rationed very severely, and receive just a modicum in a week. This is the thing that I wish to point out. I found by staying with a family in the country for a little while that families could get an extra supply of milk if they dug down and put up a fairly substantial tip to the milkman, provided they could afford the tip. I am only pointing out to you-


Major James William Coldwell: What kind of family were you visiting, black marketers?


Solon Earl Low: No, I was visiting a nephew of mine in West-Cliffe on Sea. I found that ordinary workingmen with families knew that it was a common practice, and that they could get more milk if they dug down for a penny, a shilling, or more.


Major James William Coldwell: My relatives are not black marketers.


Solon Earl Low: This was not black marketing. It was the regular thing.


Major James William Coldwell: The buyer is just as bad as the seller.


Solon Earl Low: I do not know, but everybody is doing it.


Major James William Coldwell: No, they are not.


James Sinclair: Even Belcher.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: It is not the fault of the Labour government.


Solon Earl Low: It is the fault of controls. Meat is very scarce in that country, and they are having a difficult time. Consumers can buy the occasional joint at a subsidized price that is quite reasonable. I noted, for example, that they could buy certain Canadian beef at from 36 cents to 40 cents a pound, and we could not buy it for that amount by any means. Taxes, of course, have to be high for all of the people to take care of the subsidy. The amount of meat they can buy is wholly inadequate. Therefore they turn to other things, fish, fowl and sausage. The sausage is wonderful, Mr. Speaker. I must say a word about the sausage.


James Sinclair: Oatmeal.
Transitional Measures Act


Solon Earl Low: It was something in casings that tasted very much like a mixture of oatmeal and sawdust, although I am quite sure it was not sawdust.


An hon. Member:: Haggis.


Solon Earl Low: I have tasted haggis that was worse.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.


Solon Earl Low: But the price which they had to pay for the substitute for the real thing, this phony sausage, was away out of proportion to the value of the contents. That is just an example of the situation that one gets into in a controlled economy. In order to supplement their meat supply under the subsidized plan people would turn to fowl, but I noticed that an ordinary roasting chicken cost around $4. What chance would they have under such circumstances? Taking it all in all, I should like to say that, according to my observation, British bureaucracy is experiencing real difficulty in the enforcement of the controls which they have.	*
I observed also that when the general run of the British people got through providing themselves with the bare necessities of what I thought was a rather lacklustre and monotonous living, they had nothing left to put away for a rainy day. In that respect they are hardly any different from the general run of the Canadian people except that we in this country are much more fortunate in the variety and the quality of the things we buy.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: That is not because the government is better.


Solon Earl Low: I was not saying that the government was better. I am telling you what the situation was as I found it there, and it cannot be denied.


William Irvine: Oh, yes, it can. Don't ever get away with that idea.


Solon Earl Low: I think there is no doubt that in Great Britain all-out efforts to produce have been discouraged by the bureaucratic controls employed by the socialist government. Regimentation has been the poison that has killed the spirit of every nation down through history. It has killed the spirit of every nation which has imposed regimentation and bureaucratic control. I am convinced that regimentation and bureaucratic control will destroy Great Britain if the people suffer them to remain a major part of their economic life for very long.
The point I wish to emphasize is that there is nothing in the socialist British system of a controlled economy that commends itself for introduction in Canada. On the other

Transitional Measures Act hand, no one can deny that some worthwhile things have been done towards ensuring social justice to a good many people of that country. Any honest person must make that admission.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: Who won the by-election yesterday?


Solon Earl Low: There again I cannot tell who won the by-election.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: The Labour government did.


Solon Earl Low: That has nothing whatever to do with it. The improvements, which they have made in social security for many of their people, have been things which could have been done just as well in other ways without involving bureaucratic control and regimentation. For their particular emergency, and there is no question that they have been in a state of emergency, doubtless some controls have been necessary; but in England and Scotland I met many well-informed people who believe that the final objective of the socialist intellectuals, who are now in control of the policy of the Labour government, is the complete sovietization of the people.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Major James William Coldwell: That is absolute rot, undiluted rot.


Solon Earl Low: I repeat that in my journey through England and Scotland I met a good many people who sincerely and earnestly said they believe that the policy being advocated by the intellectual socialists who are in control of the policy of the Labour government is the final sovietization of the people of Great Britain.


An hon. Member:: Spoken like a fascist.


Solon Earl Low: More of my hon. friend's polished remarks. Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, what I have just stated does not seem to be the desire of the bona fide trade unionists who have come up through the ranks of apprentice and journeyman, and into the master class. I spoke to a good many of them, and it appears to me that there is a growing and serious divergence of views between the two divisions of government supporters, the intellectual socialist who thinks he has an itch to control everybody's business, and the true trade unionist who is an honourable fellow who came up through the ranks in an honourable way.


An hon. Member:: Where do you stand?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am laughing, too.


Solon Earl Low: I have not heard the C.C.F. talking about controls very much or very ardently during this session.


Major James William Coldwell: Give us time. Two weeks on Newfoundland.


Solon Earl Low: Perhaps in the course of the years they have been giving some second thoughts-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Tell us something about free money.


Solon Earl Low: -to this subject, just as one of their brain-trusters has done. I refer to Professor Frank W. Underhill, the distinguished Canadian socialist philosopher and co-author of the book "Social Planning for Canada", which our friends have been putting before the public for some years.
In an article written for the Canadian Forum of August, 1947, Professor Underhill had this to say:
-and when socialists keep on harping about controls as the essence of their policy, they lend plausibility to the charges that they are really frustrated bureaucrats with an itch to manage other people's business for them.
At another point in the same article, he says:
Still, the socialists should ease up on their persistent talk about controls. What the world needs chiefly at present is enterprise and imagination, initiative and vision. The defenders of capitalism are quite right in maintaining that these qualities were given full scope in the capitalism of the past and that this was the reason for the great material progress of recent generations. We still need enterprise.
Those are the words of the brain-truster of the socialist party of this country.


Major James William Coldwell: Head the next paragraph.


Solon Earl Low: It is evident that he has done a good deal of thinking since the time he wrote the book "Social Planning for Canada" or helped with the writing of it.
Today, the government is asking for an extension of certain control orders and regulations that were imposed by order in council during a real war emergency. It is not possible, sir, to get a full picture of the government's request from consideration of this one resolution, No. 5 on the order paper. To get a complete picture it is necessary to consider, along with resolution No. 5, the resolution on foreign exchange; the resolution on the Agricultural Products Act; the resolution on the export and import of fish and fish containers; and resolution No. 6 in connection with the Canadian Commercial Corporation Act.
If the powers requested in these resolutions are granted, the government will then have control over foreign exchange, agricultural products, rentals and price ceilings on flour, bread, butter, citrus fruits, imported canned citrus fruit juices, certain imported fresh vegetables, onions, certain fresh fruits,

molasses and sugar. In addition to that, there will be steel control, timber control and price control of certain steel products. This represents a sizeable centralization of power under present-day conditions.
When these various resolutions are before the house, I take it the minister concerned will make a statement to justify the request contained in those resolutions. There should be justification, particularly, of the continuation of control by the procedure which is being followed, namely, by resolution and continuing orders in council, rather than by specific acts of this parliament.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I say that the people of this country are going to be bitterly disappointed if the government fails to supplement these orders, which are now in the form of resolutions, by positive action aimed at reducing the cost of living. I declare there is no better place to start than in their own taxation structure, especially the iniquitous sales tax. This tax is not an economic necessity. It is an instrument of policy which pushes up the cost of living by fully 20 per cent. At the polls, sir, the people of Canada are going to show their extreme displeasure if this tax and a number of other nuisance taxes are not abolished. If at this session this government does not make a substantial effort to bring down the cost of living to a reasonable level by eliminating the sales tax and using the modest subsidies which we have proposed from time to time on selected items used from day to day by families, which subsidies could be paid for not out of taxation but with interest-free money, then the people of the country will be disappointed. With a single stroke the government can cure the major cause of the high cost of living. The people of this country are demanding action along the lines I have suggested, Mr. Speaker.


Harold Aberdeen Watson Timmins: The resolution before the house this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, reads as follows:
Resolved, that It is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the continuation of certain orders and regulations of the governor in council for a limited period during the national emergency arising out of the war.
In 1947 we had before us the first one of these orders for continuing the emergency powers that had been granted the government during the war. At that particular time, I believe there were some fifty-seven of them and the Minister of Justice of the day told us each one of these controls contained a principle. It is the principle contained in these control measures of which I wish to speak this afternoon.
A similar debate dealing with the continuation of controls was held in 1948. Last week,
Transitional Measures Act on the 7th of February, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) and the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) gave us some indication of the controls it was proposed to continue. We have not been told whether it is proposed to continue them for one year or two years. At that time, in dealing with one of the controls, steel control, the Minister of Trade and Commerce said, as reported at page 317 of Hansard:
We have been importing roughly 30 per cent of all the steel that is used, and those imports have been obtained with a great deal of difficulty.
For a few moments, Mr. Speaker, I propose to deal with the matter of steel control. I am quite prepared to admit that what the minister says is true. We have been importing 30 per cent of our steel and he has had a great deal of trouble in obtaining it. As I see it, however, that is his job as Minister of Trade and Commerce, and probably he has done a very good job. In respect of this measure of steel control, we have also the continuing powers of the steel controller, which is quite a different thing, so far as I am concerned. It is about the continuation of those powers that I wish to speak.
Through the press, the steel controller has reported what he considers our position to be in respect to steel in 1949. In the Globe and Mail on the 27th of January last, he said:
Makers of all steel products from cans to cars and bolts to bridges can look for steel supplies to be no better and no worse in 1949 than they were in 1948.
Then he goes on to say:
Canadian production this year should be up by about 75,000 product tons from last year's 2,300,000, but the import from United States will be down by about 120,000. The difference which makes the outlook "about the same for 1949," will be made up by increased supplies from Belgium, Austria, the United Kingdom, and other European sources.
I suppose we have to depend upon the steel controller for information concerning our position in 1949 and what provision we are going to make for industry to proceed as it should. I suppose he ought to know the situation at first hand. But on the other hand his report is not the only one that appears in the papers. The Canadian Manufacturers Association's special committee on steel met within the last month. They issued a statement to the effect that, as to United States mills, there are positive signs that the pressure for delivery of steel is easing up, and that the prospect is that by the third quarter of 1949 a buyers' market will develop in some steel products. It is this matter of steel that the government is seeking to control in this bill. The quotation continues:
While there has been no apparent move on the part of the United States or Canadian governments to enlarge the nominal Canadian import quota of

Transitional Measures Act 200,000 to 220,000 product tons of steel per quarter, the only actual control exercised over imported steel in Canada has been the rather loose one on structural steel.
That is a report from people who are in the business. It is a report from a committee of steel manufacturers. They tell us that by the third quarter of 1949 steel will be easier. In fact, they go on to say that there is quite a chance that the production and use of steel may be almost on an even footing. Just yesterday another report came from New York through the Associated Press. I should like to quote from it:
Steel people believe that the next sixty days "will answer a lot of questions" as to extent of demand for steel, the "Iron Age" metalworking trade weekly said.
Noting that some American companies are planning capacity operations into June, the publication said: "They don't say June will be the turning point, they simply are unwilling to guess too far ahead."
Going to the second last paragraph of the article, I find it reads as follows:
For the fifth consecutive week, steel production in the United States has been maintained at an annual rate of more than 97 million tons. The first quarter of this year, the publication said, probably will see an all-time record for production of steel.
It continues: "Every week the industry continues this tremendous production pace it moves the market factors of supply and demand nearer to the point of balance. Some people inside and outside the steel industry are beginning to wonder what will happen when that precarious point is reached- possibly during this year."
So I am pointing out to the minister and through him to the steel controller that, as a matter of fact, there are in the industry people who seem to think that during this year we shall reach a point where we shall have not only in the United States but here in Canada sufficient steel for our purposes.
How is this control exercised here in Canada? Last year the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) told us, when he was dealing with the matter of the import and export bill, that there was no restriction on steel coming through from the United States, that we would take all the steel we could get. I understand, and the minister will correct me if 1 am wrong, that the practice is for the manufacturing concerns in the United States to ship their steel directly across to those of our Canadian buyers who wish to buy steel from them, and that in that respect there is little or no control; we take all the steel that we can get, with this one exception of structural steel. I believe the Department of Trade and Commerce, under the export and import act, exercises some control over the fabricator of steel and says that this steel may go to such and such a project and that other steel shall go to such and such another project.
Last year when I was speaking on this matter I asked the minister if there would
TMr. Timmins.]
be steel for theatres, and I believe his answer was that there would not be. I also asked him if there would be steel for office buildings, and I remember pointing out one particular office building that was going up. The answer by the minister was that steel would not be allowed for that project. As I pass the building from day to day, however, and see it progressing, I see that it has steel and that it is an office building. If we are to have control in respect of steel in our own country, there should be some formula or some plan so that we might know who may have steel, in what quantities, and for what purposes.
The emergency control order which we saw last year, and which I presume may be presented again in somewhat the same fashion this year, is a fairly all-embracing one, giving wide powers. As it is said

and I believe it to be true-that we are getting to the point where steel in Canada before this year is out will be in sufficient quantity that we can do what our manufacturers and our people want to do, it seems to me that there should be some relief from these controls instead of a further measure of increase of them. Before the debate is over I should like the Minister of Trade and Commerce to reaffirm what he said last year about what was needed and what kind of permit would be given with respect to the delivery of structural steel.
Within the industry itself there are some controls exercised by either the steel controller or the Department of Trade and Commerce-and I was under the impression that it was through the Department of Trade and Commerce-whereby, as the minister said as reported at page 317 of Hansard:
We are also moving semi-finished steel from the Dominion Steel and Coal Company at Sydney to Hamilton, to the extent of about 10,000 tons per month. That 28,000 tons of steel, which cannot be finished at Algoma or at Sydney, would ordinarily go for export and be finished in other countries. That was the pre-war history of the surpluses of those two plants. By moving that steel to Hamilton 28,000 tons per month of additional basic steel are turned into finished products.
I think that is all to the good. It helps us to keep up employment in our own country and it helps the industries to work between each other and complement their various plants; and I suppose to some extent the price at which the finishing is done is fixed through the control order. But the fact of the matter is that under these controls the situation is getting to the point where a plant may survive or perish depending on how the controls are exercised. I was in a plant in which they were doing what I presume would be called metal stamping. I found that they were working only at about 50 per cent capacity because, as they said, they could not

get sufficient steel to carry on with, and it was all subject to what they could get from Canadian firms through the controller of steel. They also told me that they had not been able to take an order in almost a year because they did not know what the future was to be in respect of production.


Clarence Decatur Howe: May I ask the hon. member if
he knows where the stampings were to be delivered? Were they to be delivered in Canada or outside of Canada?


Harold Aberdeen Watson Timmins: It was my impression that
they were being delivered in Canada.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I think the hon. member is mistaken.


Harold Aberdeen Watson Timmins: The point I wanted to make was this. When I asked for permission to use the material and to give the names of the manufacturers who were involved in this matter, I found that there was a great deal of resistance on their part to being quoted in any way. This is no reflection on the minister, but the fact of the matter is that the industry is so much in the hands of the Department of Trade and Commerce and of the steel controller that they just could not afford to be complaining openly for fear that their steel might be curtailed to a point where they could not carry on. When we get the steel industry of the country in that position, then we are getting to the point where there is dictation. I am not suggesting to the minister that he is dictating, but I do say that we are in a trend, and the control trend is increasing to such a point that if we do not watch ourselves this whole industry will be under control. If one refers back to the control measure of last year, and examines the controls that are contained in that measure, he will easily discover that there is hardly anything the controller of steel cannot do. He can even go out and prospect for iron ore. He can run a smelting mill; he can run a melting mill; he can take possession of steel wherever he finds it. He can sell it for whatever price he wishes; he can run a refinery, a foundry and a warehouse. He can fix and regulate prices. There is hardly anything that he cannot do. He can do all this at a time when indications would seem to show that we are coming out of a shortage of steel.
I was disturbed when I read what the controller of steel had to say the other day as reported in the press. He said:
I do not wish to detract from the magnificent increases in production which have been achieved by the Canadian steel industry since 1939, but merely to point out that if Canada is now fully developed from the viewpoint of steel production, the United States and Great Britain are hopelessly overdeveloped.
Transitional Measures Act
He went on to say:
The United States does not take the latter view. The United States is prepared to give assistance to expansion, and "if the industry is not prepared to expand with governmental assistance, the expansion will be effected by the government without recourse to the industry."
I do not believe that these words were used with respect to Canada. I believe they were used with respect to the United States, but a little later on referring to Canada he said:
As for government assistance, he thought it unlikely the government "would go into the steel business by creating any plants of its own but would make loans for the expansion plans of others."
Then he went on to say:
Every ton of steel made in Canada has a definite home at least sixty days before it rolls off the production line. For this reason, if the flow of steel to a particular project must be increased, it can be done only at the expense of other users.
"It is for that reason," he said, "that those enterprises which are being supported by the government have been confined to a small number of projects of a national character."
This quotation from the controller of steel would seem to indicate that there is a trend to increase the control of steel. Perhaps some of the powers that we had in the bill last year and which are to be brought forward this year will lead us into new fields in which the government will be taking an active part. So far as I am concerned, this is a matter which, just as quickly as the government can do it, should be left to the people who are in the enterprise. If we are ever to get this country on its feet the one hope that we have of obtaining enough United States dollars is in the production of iron ore and the fabrication of steel in this country. The day will probably come, and I hope it will come soon, when this industry will be the saviour of the economy of Canada. I hope that by its own efforts it will bring itself to the point where we shall produce sufficient iron and steel so that we shall have enough United States dollars to carry on with. When we come to the bill itself I hope we shall see that a great many of these powers that were contained in the bill of 1948 will not be carried forward in the 1949 bill. I hope that a great number of these powers which the controller of steel has been using up to this time, or could fall back on, may be discarded.
I understand that we are to have a new controller before very long. Perhaps this will be the time at which we should make these reductions in control because we do not want the new controller to begin his duties with the same thoughts in mind as the present controller seems to have, namely, that the government might get into the steel business.
I should like now to say a word or two about rental control. I presume we shall have the

Transitional Measures Act same bill before us this year as we had last year. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) has already said what his proposals in the matter were going to be. At page 316 of Hansard he said:
As the house is aware the government announced some time ago that it proposed to ask parliament to authorize the continuance ot rental controls until March 31, 1950, and that provision would be made in the order continuing that control to provide that the dominion government would withdraw from that field in any province where the province requested that it do so, and that parliament would also be asked to make provision for paying the costs for one year of rental controls in any province which might see fit to exercise control in that particular field.
The minister knows full well that rental control, whether by good judgment or bad, was brought about by this government in 1945. He knows that the solution does not lie in throwing the responsibility onto someone else when all the mechanism of dealing with the housing situation, which is at the bottom of it all, rests with the federal government itself. As a matter of fact, how could the provinces hope to do anything in the realm of housing, which is our major problem today, when timber control is entirely in the hands of the federal government? In addition to that, steel control is in the hands of the federal government, and out of steel control emanates the production or non-production of bathtubs, basins, hardware, soil pipe, furnaces, and so on. All these things are under the control of the federal government. Further than that, building priorities are a subject matter that the federal government has stuck close to and still holds on to in order to produce the type of house that they think should be produced in Canada. So long as these elements are in the hands of the federal government it is useless for the minister to say that we shall turn this over to some other government who will do the job from that point on. As a matter of fact, the federal government has no housing program for Canada. It simply stumbles on, from year to year, telling us two or three times each year how many houses have been produced in that year, mostly by private enterprise, and then telling us that next year so many more houses will be produced. If the government would take this problem by the throat, shake it a bit, and then shake themselves, we would probably have some houses built in Canada. When we had the houses we might consider doing something about this rent control measure. Until such time however as the government really gets hot about this matter of producing houses, the matter of rent control will stand where it is.
It would not be so bad if we did not see so many anomalies under rent control. For instance, I believe the people of Canada, by

reason of rent control regulations, in a sense are losing faith in themselves in the matter of looking after their own housing rights and responsibilities. For instance, how many tens of thousands of Canadian people have had to look to someone else to provide them with the kind of accommodation they have been unable to produce themselves. And there are thousands of others still living in accommodation not fit for human habitation.
Further when the government seeks to put through amendments to rental orders, I say it is in duty bound to see that it makes workable amendments, instead of the sloppy and inefficient amendments which do harm to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of good Canadian citizens. For instance in November of 1948 an amendment was made to the rental order which provided that an owner who had been owner of a property on November 1, 1947, could give six months' notice to the tenant to vacate, provided the landlord needed the accommodation for himself.
That was a sloppy amendment. It has struck more fear and terror to and caused more anguish in the hearts of more people throughout this country than any other provision in any amendment to a control measure. As a matter of fact, when the tenant receives such six months' notice he does not have a chance in those six months to find out whether the landlord actually needs the property, and is going to be able to prove his need before a judge or not. The result is, there is no way for the tenant to know whether he is going to be put out at the end of six months, or whether the notice is invalid and he should pay no attention to it.
The fact of the matter is that, after two or three months, not being able to get any satisfaction, and not knowing what his position is, he tries to find ways and means of getting other accommodation, often of an inferior type, when, as a matter of fact, if at the beginning he had been given an opportunity upon receipt of the notice to go before a judge and have the matter decided, he could have known whether, at the end of six months, he would have to move or not.
In addition to that, the amendment does not show in what legal jurisdiction the decision is to be made. There is no commissioner, such as applies in respect to other regulations under the rental orders. The decision would probably be made by a county court judge; but the county court judge does not get his authority from the rental order, but rather from the landlord and tenancy act of the province in which the tenant may be living.
So that, in respect of probably a thousand notices now being given, there are a thousand

families in Toronto who do not know today whether or not they can be put out six months hence. Those of us in the House of Commons have some responsibilities in respect to what amendments are made by the minister's department. To be a party to the sort of amendment I have described does not reflect any credit upon the minister or upon us.
By reason of the various amendments made to the rental order, without any thought to the housing situation, in Toronto today there are about four thousand people who on the first of May or June next will be evicted, if judges make orders against them, and who will be forced to try to find some other accommodation. This happens at a time when the government takes no responsibility whatsoever in respect to a real housing program.
Last year those of us who spoke on rental control suggested that, if this control was to be continued, some further relief should be given to veterans. Perhaps it was intended that the amendment of 1948, of which I have just spoken, would give that relief. I do believe however that at this time the minister ought to give thought to bringing that relief to the veteran who, prior to December 31, 1948, had acquired a home and paid for it, and who finds it necessary to get into that home. It seems to me that in all circumstances a veteran, on six months' notice, ought to have the opportunity to get into his own home, if he purchased it prior to December 31, 1948. I suggest the minister should give some thought to this matter.
Finally, speaking generally in respect to control of prices, we know that just this week the court of appeal sitting in Toronto handed down a decision in the McGinn case. That was a case in which a hardware merchant had been convicted of selling nails in contravention of section 8 of the wartime prices and trade board order at a price that was higher than was reasonable and just. In that particular instance, the man dealing in the nails -I believe he was a builder who dealt in nails rather than, in the strict sense, a hardware merchant-made a profit of $3,661.48 on 1,532 kegs of nails, when the average profit would have been $965.16.
I do not believe the court of appeal handed down a written judgment. My information is that the judgment was delivered orally. It may be that someone took down in shorthand the effect of the judgment but, as I say, I understand it was delivered orally. Perhaps reasons for judgment will now be forthcoming. The fact of the matter seems to be, however, that the court of appeal felt that the expression "higher than is reasonable or just" is so general in its application, 29087-44J
Transitional Measures Act and lacked such definition, that it could not possibly permit the conviction to stand.
Last year the government told us that in respect of control of rising prices two remedies could be had. The first was that under the Combines Investigation Act a person who did not play the game in the matter of prices could be brought to book or that, under the wartime prices and trade board order, there was provision to look after the man who was a shyster and who took advantage of the situation to make exorbitant profits. Now we seem to be down to only the Combines Investigation Act. In that connection I was interested to read again the conclusions of the committee on prices which sat last year, to see if, having regard to the decision in the McGinn case, the Canadian public could take any comfort out of the committee's conclusion with regard to prices.
Conclusion 11 of the committee reads:
The committee realizes that in the long run the federal government may be faced with constitutional difficulties in regard to its operations in the field of prices. This is clearly a matter in which, within the Canadian federal structure, responsibility normally rests with the provincial governments, although the federal government, under wartime emergency conditions, was compelled to take action in this field.
The committee is therefore forced to the conclusion that the solution of the problem of the adequate protection of the Canadian consumer will require the co-operation of the provincial governments with the federal government by taking the measures required in meeting their responsibilities.
That just lands us simply nowhere. I suggest to the minister in connection with the McGinn case, either that it be appealed right away, or that he see to it that the wartime prices and trade board order be given some teeth with respect to prices.


Mr. F. S. Zapliiny (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, in my opinion this measure with regard to our domestic policy is the most important measure we have had before us this session. Under the authority of this resolution it is proposed to introduce a bill which will continue certain orders and regulations that were exercised during the war. Of course the principal part will be that dealing with prices and the authority under which price control has been exercised.
I am glad the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) is in his seat. Although the resolution is in the name of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson), in this case he is only the innocent bystander-he is only giving the bride away. The main proposal has been made by the Minister of Finance and it is chiefly to him I wish to refer when I refer to the government.
About a year ago this house set up a special committee to investigate the price situation in this country. There were those



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Transitional Measures Act in this group who said that it would be a waste of money and time to set up a committee which would only make excuses for the policies of the government. That committee, together with the royal commission which is still operating and which is about to make its report, will cost this country about $100,000.
One of the duties of parliament at this time is to assess the work done by the special committee-we have not the means available to assess the work of the commission as yet- to look at its proposals or recommendations and decide whether the government is doing or has done anything to carry out the recommendations of the committee or to warrant the time and money expended in gathering that information.
I contend that the government has made no attempt whatsoever to carry out the rec-ommendatijns of the prices committee which worked so hard under difficult conditions. The Minister of Finance is the chief culprit in making a complete farce of the work of that committee. I was astounded when this matter first came before the house to see the Minister of Finance blithely get up in his place and give us a preview of the bill which is to follow this resolution. That was a most unusual course to follow because on other occasions when we were anxious to find out something about bills that were to come at a future time we were told, "Oh, no, we cannot tell you anything about the bill until the resolution is passed." On this occasion, with only the slightest encouragement, the minister was apparently glad to give us a running account of what is to be contained in the bill.
Douglas Charles Abbott: It was just my naturally frank nature.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Perhaps. Although I am not of a particularly suspicious nature I wonder if it was not a bit of appeasement; I wonder if the minister was not trying to forestall the hue and cry that is bound to be raised in this house and elsewhere over the government control of prices and its carrying on in a bureaucratic manner. I think the minister was just a little too anxious to get out from under. He was just a little bit anxious to say to the powers that be, "Do not worry yourselves too much; this bill is going to be even less insignificant than the bill of a year ago." He said that it was going to cover a restricted field and a rapidly diminishing one. In other words, this is going to be a decontrol bill.
After having read the report of the special committee and the publicity in connection with the royal commission, many people were under the misapprehension that something would be done. The royal commission carried on a tremendous task in gathering mate-


rial and hearing witnesses and no doubt will be making recommendations. But before the report of that commission is even tabled in this house, the government is telling it that its work has been wasted, that it has made up its mind not to impose controls but to propose a decontrol bill which would cover a restricted field and a rapidly diminishing one.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Does my hon. friend suggest that the commission was set up to recommend controls?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: If the commission was not set up to make recommendations, I wonder why it was set up at all?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I am asking the hon. member if he thinks it was set up to suggest controls?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I did not say that. I said
that even before the tabling of the commission's report the government is telling the house and the commission what it proposes to do; it is telling them that it is going to present a decontrol bill.
Before referring to the actual report of the special committee on prices, I should like to consider for a time the situation in the country, which is creating concern in the minds of the people of Canada. I have never argued in this house or elsewhere that high prices as such were a burden upon the people, or that inflation in itself was the chief evil in this country. High prices or inflation are burdensome only to the extent that they create injustice in the distribution of prices across the country.
If there is a general rise in prices affecting all producers and all other people equally, then the only harm that is done is the inconvenience of having to carry a bigger pocket-book. But when the prices of the products of some people are going down while the prices of the things they have to buy are going up, a real injustice is created. That is where price control comes in.
By that proposition it follows that price control is not, as some people seem to think, merely a matter of keeping prices down. It is a matter of keeping prices properly adjusted so that no injustice shall be done to any occupational group in the country. That is the responsibility of the government, whether they admit it or not. There is one occupational group in this country, the primary producing group which would include farmers, fishermen and ranchers, that is seriously concerned at this time because it is beginning to see a trend similar to what happened approximately twenty years ago.
If any one had said in 1929 that it was necessary to have price control many people

would have laughed, would have said, "What for?" At that time prices were quite reasonable. The primary producers were receiving a fair return for their products in relation to the prices of the manufactured products they had to buy. But in a brief space of time what happened? I have the figures here to show the double-barreled trend that came upon us so suddenly that the people were completely unprepared. At that time we had what is now known as a depression. Some people blamed that on spots on the sun while others claimed it was due to certain mystic causes.


John George Diefenbaker: It was in socialist countries as well.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Would you name those
socialist countries?


John George Diefenbaker: New Zealand and Australia.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: My friend had better study his history as well as his law books because in 1929, 1930 and 1931 they did not have socialist governments.


John George Diefenbaker: But after they came into power the people still suffered.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: The Labour government of
New Zealand did not come into power until 1935. Now that we have our history straightened out let us go on. There was a double-barreled trend that hit the country all at once, and particularly the primary producers, with the prices of farm products taking a sudden drop and the prices of manufactured products leisurely taking their time about coming down, and in some cases not coming down at all but going up. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) will remember the time when the price of wheat was dropping by ten or twelve cents a day, and at the same time the prices of farm implements were actually increasing. I have figures here which illustrate the situation as to prices for cattle and hogs. The table is as follows:
Cattle and. Hog Prices, December, 1933
Per 100 lbs.
Hogs	 $5.43
Beef Steers	 3.00
Cows	 1.45
Bulls	 1.38
You could feed a multitude of people with the price of a cow at $1.45 per hundred pounds. In 1934 the Robert Simpson Company was doing fairly well. I have figures showing that on certain types of clothing they made profits ranging from 101 per cent to 374 per cent at the same time that farmers were giving away their produce for practically nothing. In some cases the cost of trans-
Transitional Measures Act portation was more than the value of the animal shipped.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Was that gross or net profit?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: That is the percentage of profit in relation to cost.


Mr. Merritt:: Gross profit.


An hon. Member:: What are you quoting from?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I am glad that question was asked. The figures are taken from the report of the special committee on price spreads and mass buying. The chairman of that committee was Hon. H. H. Stevens, who was appointed by the Bennett administration.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: It is markup, is it not?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: That is the percentage of profit in relation to cost. It is the markup, and that would be the gross profit. When we are talking about gross profit and net profit it might be just as well to quote the figures of total farm income for comparable years. I cited the year 1934 in relation to the profits of the Robert Simpson Company. According to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics the gross income per farm in Canada was $535, and the net income was, if you please, $98 per farm.


Arthur Leroy Smith: If you take the total income it makes it even worse. I think it was only $86 million.


Major James William Coldwell: That makes it worse.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: The reason I am putting these figures before the house is to show that price control is not merely nor chiefly a matter of holding prices down. It is a matter of adjusting prices in order to make them fair to all concerned. As I mentioned on a previous occasion not so long ago, the main objective of the primary producers of the country, as expressed through their organization, the Canadian federation of agriculture, is the stabilization of their position. Farmers today are prepared to carry their share of the load, but they do not wish to see their prices diminishing while other prices are still climbing, and thus be given an unfair share in carrying the burden of the country's economy. I think that is a reasonable position to take. It should be one of the chief objectives of the house to work out a program under which agriculture will be stabilized in the future, and without a measure of price control I do not know how it can be done.
I want to say with all sincerity that when I read the various party platforms I find much in their proposals for agriculture with which I can agree; but frankly I fail to see how any of them can be carried out unless we

Transitional Measures Act have a system of price control in order to stabilize the economy of our country. All parties start out by saying something like this: "We believe in giving the farmers a fair share of the national income." How are you going to do that under a system of free enterprise if the trend is the same as it was in the period of ten years from 1929 to 1939? Under free enterprise what government of that day could have given the farmers a fair share of the national income, and what government made any attempt to do so? Therefore, if we are going to carry out the pledges to the Canadian people that we have made in our election platforms, we must carry them through to the point where we are willing to accept responsibility in the house for providing and setting up machinery which will do what the various party platforms say they will do for agriculture.
To return to the report of the special committee on price spreads and mass buying, the chief question that arises is, who is responsible for the increase in prices. I am not going to say that all the responsibility lies in one quarter, but I do say that the chief villain in the drama is the profits that have been taken by various industries. There are those who will challenge that statement; there are others who will say that profits are not the main cause of price increases. Let me refer them to a newspaper clipping I have of a public opinion poll taken in July, 1947. The heading is: "Big profits are pointed to as the number one price villian." On reading it I was interested to find that they not only gave figures about public opinion on the question as a whole, but they also broke it down by political parties. I am not saying it is perfectly accurate, but it gives us a general picture. The question was asked: "Do you think the main cause of high prices in Canada is high wages, big profits or some other cause?" Fifty-five per cent answered, "big profits". More than half of the people of Canada said that big profits were the cause of high prices. When we come down to the party groupings we find that 54 per cent of the Liberals questioned admitted that the main cause was high profits. Forty-five per cent of the Conservatives questioned said the main cause was high profits, while only 35 per cent of the Conservatives said that it was high wages. Then it goes on to show that 72 per cent of the C.C.F. said that the main cause was high profits. That gives us an indication at least of the general public opinion on the question in 1947. I believe that nothing that has happened since that time has had any effect in changing their opinion. If anything, their opinion would be reinforced, because on the whole profits in 1948 were higher than they were in 1947.
[Mr. ZaplitnyJ

What did the committee on price spreads and mass buying say? First of all I will quote from page 4 of the report which is in the section dealing with their findings. I read:
In its investigations the committee found that, in certain instances, opportunists, taking advantage of the special conditions existing, made unprecedented profits. While it may be true in some cases that such profits were of a non-recurring type, there is no doubt that the high prices that produced these profits did raise the cost of living at that time.
That is a very mild way of putting it, but it is admitted that the profits involved were the cause in that instance of prices going up.
Then, on page 8, under recommendations, the committee says:
The government should give consideration to the desirability and practicability of restricting price rises by special taxation of unreasonable profits.
If they were not unreasonable profits, why would the committee recommend a special tax on them. It is a clear indication that the committee felt very uneasy about the unreasonable profits that were being taken.
On the tenth page of that report, the' committee makes a direct recommendation asking the government to consider the reimposition of certain control measures and the application of some measure of temporary subsidy. The committee which sat during last session made that direct recommendation. This committee cost the country $88,000, and the government has already announced, through the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), that it is tossing the report aside and is not going to act upon it.
We go further through the report and on page 24 we find these words:
-there can be no doubt from the experience of the committee that unreasonable and unjust profits and prices have been brought to light.
On page 25, we find these words:
-there were indications also that it represented in some exceptional cases a selfish attitude of trying to get the most out of the public without regard to the well-being of the consumer. This contention is based on the theory that so long as the public will pay a higher price, a higher price may be charged.
This is a reference to the attitude taken by various companies on the question of what constituted a fair price. The president of Canada Packers in his classic reply said that the price policy of the company was to buy as cheaply as possible and sell as high as possible.


An hon. Member:: What are you doing?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: That seems to be the attitude all the way through. Some members ask me, "Is there anyone who has not that attitude?" A little while ago we heard from the member for Peace River (Mr. Low), who told us it was a most reprehensible thing for anyone to take advantage of the condition in the country by

extracting as much as possible in the way of profits. If that is a proper thing to do, as some members seem to think, if that is the proper way to carry on under a private enterprise system, then we might as well say so and throw it wide open.


Mr. Gibson (Comox-Alberni):: Will the hon. member permit a question? Is that not the way he operates his own farm or his own business?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I am not going to argue about my private business. As it happens, I do not buy or sell things. The main point, however, is whether we are going to accept the proposition that it is proper for any industry or business in this country to gouge the customer as much as possible. If we accept that principle, there is no further argument. There is no need for this bill at all. On the other hand, if we accept the principle that our first concern should be for the public, that human rights take priority over property rights, then it is necessary for this house to provide legislation which will keep prices at a proper level. We can take one stand or the other.
When in doubt one likes to seek expert advice. This time, I am going to call a witness who, I think, will be acceptable to all members of the house in spite of some of the unkind things that have been said about him in the past. I still believe he was a faithful and loyal citizen doing a fine job in a difficult position. I refer to the former chairman of the wartime prices and trade board, Mr. Donald Gordon. During 1946, he made several broadcasts in which he frankly put before the Canadian people the choice they must make and the things that must be kept in mind in making that choice with relation to price control generally. I should like to quote a remark he made on the 1st of November, 1946.
People that want price increases sometimes suggest that removing the controls at this time would not result in any serious advance in the price level. That is sheer nonsense. That sort of view is the kind of logic used by an ostrich when he hides his head in the sand.
I am not going to make any comment on that remark, but I shall go to the next quotation, which is from a speech made on the 15th of November, 1946.
So, we Canadians haVe to make our choice-to decide whether the readjustments needed in present abnormal conditions should be controlled or uncontrolled. If our choice is to let the readjustment take place without government supervision or control, then we must be prepared to accept sudden and sharp advances in prices of many necessities and a condition of near-chaos in the field of shelter.
Those words were borne out by the argument of the hon. member who spoke just before me. I continue with the quotation:
We must also be prepared to take the very serious risk-in my view, it is a certainty-of a following
Transitional Measures Act slump in prices, in employment, in incomes and especially in farm incomes. Every lesson of the past shows how booms are followed by slumps. It seems to me that this fact must be one of the main certainties we must all have before us because assumptions to the contrary have been so consistently disproven.
In those few lines he not only pointed out, as far back as 1946, that if price controls were removed we would have to expect immediately the higher prices and hardships which we have been experiencing in the past few years; he also warned that, when the peak had been reached and passed, we must expect a sudden slump in prices in this country. We in western Canada who have seen the years of depression and the effect they had on the farm population know very well what he means by a sudden slump in farm income. Any member coming from the prairies or any member coming from a farming community should take that warning seriously, because as surely as we allow profiteering to run hog-wild, as surely as we allow industry to form combines and create monopolies in order to create artificial prices, then just as surely are we going to have another depression in this country. All the horrors, suffering and privation will be experienced again.
I could quote many more of Mr. Gordon's statements but I think I have quoted enough to indicate that, in his opinion, we could either throw the doors wide open and leave our price structure to speculation and profiteering, which seems to be the course some members in this house wish to take, including the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), or we could have what has been described as a planned economy. The planned economy was scoffed at by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low), but such scoffing was in poor taste because, in order to implement the social credit theory, it would require the most meticulously planned economy. In any event, we believe there must be planning on a national scale in order to see that the interests of the public are protected. I am sure the members of this house who are fond of reading should read a book entitled "Sweden, the Middle Way". It was written quite a few years ago and if it were rewritten to bring it up to date, it would be even more interesting. It is, however, one of the best books I have read to show what a democratic people can do in planning their economy, step by step, through co-operatives and so on. There is some private enterprise in that country as well. Sweden has natural resources similar to those in Canada, but not as much wealth; yet Sweden has managed to obtain a standard of living equal to any and to keep prices at a reasonable level at a time when
688	HOUSE OF
Transitional Measures Act other countries have been experiencing either , booms or slumps.
It seems to me, if this house is going to make a decision, it will have to be based on a knowledge of prices. There are those who throw up their hands in horror if you mention control to them in any shape or form. They scream for free enterprise. No one is opposed to free enterprise in its legitimate form. May I remind the members that as far back as 1934 or 1935, at a time when we were in a slight depression, we had just gone through a period in which we had the closest thing to free enterprise we ever had in this country.
All during the years of the depression we had no wheat board. There was no wartime prices and trade board, no rent control or control of any kind. Yet at the end of that period, as was well borne out by the report of the Stevens prices commission, it was found necessary to recommend to this parliament that certain forms of control be provided for in this house. Unfortunately, before many of those recommendations could be carried out, parliament was dissolved, there was an election in which the administration was defeated and a new government came in which of course tossed the whole thing out.
Even at that time, let me quote some of the words used in that report referring to what they call laissez-faire capitalism which is supposed to be the essence of free enterprise. This is what was said:
As the great master of English classical economists, John Stuart Mill, wrote in 1893, "that principle-
That is, laissez-faire.
-like other negative ones, has work to do yet, work mainfy of a destroying kind; and I am glad to think that it has strength left to finish that, after which it must soon expire . . ."
That was written fifty-five years ago. It means this. The economy of this country and that of all countries which have gone into what we have called the machine age has reached the point where, even if it were desirable, it is no longer economically possible to leave the running of the economy of the country-the main decisions as to the economic steps that shall be taken, the direction in which the economy shall expand, the amount of distribution and production and so on-to free enterprise; because we have reached the stage in our development where we find it possible to produce a far greater quantity than before.
But along with that tendency, along with the machine age, there came the modern development of capitalism which is aimed at monopoly. Every big industry and business operating under capitalism strives to create a monopoly; or if it is too small to do it alone, it tries to create a combine with other
flVJr. Zaplitny.l

businesses so as to restrict competition, do away with competition, and to set an artificial price structure in order to gouge the consumer. That process has been going on before our eyes for the last decade or more. Report after report has been handed to us by the commissioner investigating combines, cartels and so on. This government and past governments have been absolutely powerless to do anything about it under the Combines Investigation Act.


Mr. Ferguson:: May I ask my hon. friend
one question?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Yes.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: Can he name two combines of which he knows in the Dominion of Canada and which he can prove are definitely combines setting prices and controlling them absolutely?


Mr. Archibald:: Canadian Industries.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: I asked the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Zaplitny). I will have a couple of questions to ask the hon. member who interjected, which he will not be able to answer.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I will answer the question as soon as my hon. friend sits down.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: I am sitting down.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: The distribution of bread is one example.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: I asked for two. I thought my hon. friend would give that one.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Optical lenses is another. There is the dental industry, Canadian Industries Limited and International Nickel. I could name a few more, but I think my hon. friend asked for only two.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: My hon. friend wants to be fair.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: International Nickel does not control the price of nickel.


Thomas John Bentley: Let the hon. member make his own speech.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: I may be able to help my hon. friend along in his, if he will listen.


Thomas John Bentley: The hon. member has not anything to tell anybody.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Golding):: Order.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I do not mind answering questions provided they are asked in good spirit, and I am sure that is the way in which this question was asked. I am sure that if my hon. friend seriously wishes to find out whether there actually are combines and monopolies operating in this country, he has

only to read the report of the combines investigation commission and the report of the price spreads commission which was submitted by H. H. Stevens, once a member of his own party and who later on created a party of his own.


John Horne Blackmore: The combines are much bigger now.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: If he reads those reports, he will be thoroughly convinced that there is a strong and pronounced tendency towards monopoly, combines, cartels and all the rest of the things about which I have been speaking.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: I have read them, and I am not yet convinced.


Harry Grenfell Archibald: Stick around.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I am not responsible for that.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Will the hon. member permit me to ask one question which I assure him is a sincere one?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Yes.


Arthur Leroy Smith: The hon. member mentioned the bread situation in western Canada. Is he aware of the fact that the bread people in western Canada, who have been castigated by Mr. McGregor, are doing exactly the thing which the wartime prices and trade board forced them to do all through the preceding years? The wartime prices and trade board controlled their price, forced them to make it level; and now they are doing exactly that thing which the government forced them to do.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: There is one important factor that the hon. member left out of the question, and that is that, while they may be doing the same thing, they are going in the opposite direction. That is fairly important. The wartime prices and trade board set price ceilings on bread. What these people are doing is setting price floors on bread and gouging the customers.


Arthur Leroy Smith: The wartime prices and trade board-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Golding):: Order. I would call the hon. member's attention to the rule which says that the hon. member who has the floor should not be interrupted.


Arthur Leroy Smith: That is quite right. I will not say any more.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: In the time left at my disposal, let me review briefly what are the proposals that have been placed before this house at various times by the various groups here. I should also like to make clear my own stand on this question. Last year the hon. member for Spadina (Mr. Croll) made
Transitional Measures Act this statement, as reported in the Toronto Daily Star of January 24. I have checked the statement with him since then in order to ascertain that it was a correct quotation, and he assured me that it was. He was discussing prices, the cost of living, and also speculating as to who the next leader of the Liberal party would be. He said:
I hope that such a leader will have the same fidelity to the principles of reform. If we don't have that fidelity, then we become indistinguishable from the Tories.
Later on he went on to say:
We as Liberals admit we made a mistake, so we have put the controls back on again.
The first part of the last quotation is correct: they did make a mistake. But the second part is hardly correct. They have not put controls back on again.
The thing that intrigues me is that in an extremely frank way the hon. member said that, if the Liberals are not loyal to the principles of reform, they will be indistinguishable from the Tories. I think that point has been reached. The almost tie vote in Nicolet-Yamaska was a good indication that the voters could not tell them one from the other. In order to set at rest the minds of any hon. members who may think I am making a false assumption as to the basic philosophy of the two parties which sit to the left and the right of the speaker-that is, the Liberal party and the Progressive Conservative party-I would refer them to a statement of one of their own recently-elected members whose frankness may perhaps be forgiven because, as a new member, he possibly has not quite the experience of shadow-boxing which others can claim.


James Garfield Gardiner: On the basis of that argument, my hon. friends did not have any supporters there.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: In speaking to a Progressive Conservative group, the hon. member for Digby-Annapolis-Kings (Mr. Nowlan) said this, as reported in the Ottawa Journal of February 17:
Mr. Nowlan agreed with the statement that "there is not much difference between the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives. On the great mass of problems, we have the same general beliefs although our methods of doing things are different."
When you go a little further west to Manitoba or British Columbia you find that even methods are not very different, because there they have embraced each other and are carrying on as a coalition. In what direction are they going? I can quote from another paper, the Winnipeg Citizen, which came to hand today, and this is what one of the members who became fed up with the coalition and walked across the floor of the house said.

Transitional Measures Act This gentleman was one of the Liberal members of the coalition. He said:
The time has come to tell the people this government has been too reactionary.
He gave certain reasons for saying that.


Mr. Ross (Souris):: Who was the member?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I think the hon. member
knows who he is.


James Arthur Ross: Mr. Speaker, may I ask who the member was?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I shall be glad to provide the information. Mr. Prefontaine was the member. After having been in the coalition for so long he should know what he is talking about.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: That happened after I left.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: It is interesting to note that
in this house we have two former premiers of the province of Manitoba, both coalition premiers, sitting on opposite sides of the house. I would suggest that we provide them with a little desk in the middle of the aisle, because they really do not belong to either side. They could then sit together.


John Horne Blackmore: Will the hon. gentleman
permit a question? I think the house would be delighted to know to which party the member referred to belongs, whether Liberal or Conservative.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: He has crossed the floor only recently. So far as I know he has not declared any affiliation. He was a member of the Liberal party.
What I intended to show was that so far as the price control issue is concerned we can assume that both the Liberals and the Conservatives have the same basic policy. They do not believe in controls. They believe in getting rid of all controls and carrying on on the so-called free enterprise basis.
We come now to the Social Credit group. The leader of that party is reported by the Canadian Press under dateline Ottawa, January 10, as having suggested the reimposition of price ceilings on meat, butter, milk and vegetables.
In view of what he said today, I am not just sure which policy he intends to follow, because today he indicated he was opposed to price control. In the past he said that he was opposed to planned price control. I suppose if they were sufficiently unplanned he would not mind having them on these agricultural products. I am amazed that an hon. member coming from Peace River, where he represents an agricultural area, would advocate that this parliament pass legislation to hold meat, butter, milk and vegetables under


ceilings and let all the rest go scot free. Surely that is the situation we have today because in giving us a preview of his bill the Minister of Finance told us what is still under control and what he proposes to keep under control for the time being. He mentioned flour.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I must inform the hon. member that his time has expired.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I was going to quote the words of the minister in which he gave us the things that are still under control. He said that the things under control are flour, butter, vegetables, sugar, bread, fruits, molasses, steel and then of course rent control. It will be noticed that practically all the things mentioned by the minister which are to be put into the bill are products of agriculture with the exception of steel and rent control. These things are to be put under control at a time when the prices of agricultural products are on the way down and the prices of manufactured products are still on the way up. If there ever could be a more bedevilling situation I do not know who else could bring it up but the Minister of Finance. We of the C.C.F. group believe that the time has come to give the primary producers of this country a break, and that is why we have advocated price controls and advocate them today, and intend to continue to fight to have price controls on these things which enter into the cost of production of primary producers as well as price ceilings on essential commodities such as food and clothing.


Mr. R. R. Knight (Saskatoon City):: I was
not at all sure whether I would take part in this debate until I heard the speech of the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low). His allusion to Britain and the British government I did not particularly relish, and I shall have a word to say about it in a moment. The bill to be introduced, I take it, will propose the continuation of some of the orders in council in force at the present time. It will not provide for any further controls, and I presume the government at its own option can drop at any time any of the controls in existence at the present time and to be renewed.
If apathy in regard to the matter of prices has been apparent in this house for some time, if the tumult-and it has been a political tumult-of the last few weeks would seem to show a comparatively greater interest in legalistic arguments in regard to constitutional law than it does in things such as prices, I may say that the matter of prices is still a vital thing in 80 per cent of the homes of the people of this nation. If they have appeared to accept high prices through

becoming used to them, then I say that it is the acceptance of despair and the apathy of discouragement.
I believe that my hon. friend, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), was not far wrong the other day when he attributed the result of a recent byelection to the government's failure, its persistent and consistent failure, to do anything about prices. Even if prices do come down in the near future

there is some sign that in some directions they may, though I notice that the cost index is still staying at about the same level-the failure of this government in that regard will be remembered for a long period to come.
The record of my own group on this matter of prices, its particular stand in regard to it, has been clear all along and has been consistent. We have been consistent; we have been constant; we have been ardent in our protestations against the abandonment of price control, in at least as far as it guaranteed the standard of living of the great masses of the people of this country.
The rising tide of the desire for profits on the part of business, big business generally, I think was too much for the government to contain, and the dam of controls, if I may call it that, was punctured in many places. There is no good to be derived from referring to these historic occasions such as the 12 J per cent rise in the price of implements and the punctures all along the line which took place until the whole structure collapsed and the country was inundated by this flood of rising prices, and the savings of the people were swept away and their dollars were devaluated.
Not only has the control of prices been abandoned, but monopolies have been condoned. We had a query a few moments ago in regard to monopolies which I think was satisfactorily answered by the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Zaplitny). I am surprised that in this day and age any hon. member, or any public man anywhere, would ask the question which was addressed to my colleague this afternoon. The question was asked if there existed in this country anything that could be called a monopoly. The hon. member asked that question after having had three government publications made available to him, namely, the McGregor reports, which should have instructed the hon. gentleman in that regard.
I may be making a strong statement, but I believe it to be true that this government stood by and allowed people to be robbed in their purchases of bread-and when I say "robbed" I mean just that-and their purchases of spectacles and dental supplies. As a matter of fact I had those three items down
Transitional Measures Act here in my notes, the three things mentioned by the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Zaplitny).
In respect of the last two items, namely spectacles and dentures, sometimes I am inclined to wonder whether the helplessness of the victims was not the reason for the choice of those two groups of items for purposes of exploitation. I have wondered whether the choice might not have been brought about by the fact that, for the most part, the people who use these things are aged people, most of whom are not well off, and thus become good victims for these commercial predators.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I see the hon. member is wearing spectacles.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: Yes, and I paid $23.50 for them, too.


Arthur Leroy Smith: You were trimmed.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: That was a long time ago. I understand the price now is even higher. It will be higher when my hon. friend goes to get his. Many of the old people have to have spectacles, and it is unfortunate that the prices are so much higher than they were before.
Why has not the government acted against these people? That is a fair question, and one often asked me by my constituents. My only answer to them is that I do not know. I do know that the government did prosecute in one case; but owing to some legal and technical difficulty, which certainly I, and I am sure any average person in my constituency, could not understand, the case was dropped and the thing goes merrily on.
Someone suggested the other day that the government might be saving up to have a showing of these particular prosecutions to coincide with this favourable budget which we are supposed to be having from our friend -so often called our genial friend-the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), some of these days. Coincidentally, perhaps, the budget would be presented with a parade by the government of renewed good intentions, by way of showing at the proper time that the government has the good of the people at heart.
But the government has been in power long enough to have done some of these things it now intends to promise to do. I hope in this matter of controls it may even yet pull some of the chestnuts out of the fire. My view is that the government should now extend the power of this measure so that for another year at least they would be able to exercise,
692	HOUSE OF
Transitional Measures Act for the benefit of the consumer, the slight power left to them under the act.
I now turn to some of the remarks of the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) which I deprecate and which I was sorry to hear in the House of Commons. Let me say at once to the hon. member that he is not the only one who has ever crossed the water and looked at conditions on the other side.
I understand this was the hon. gentleman's first visit. 1 would remind him however that one usually sees what he looks for. And I would remind him further that one's opinions are often influenced by the company he keeps and the people with whom he talks.
I am not going to suggest that one of the people he saw was Oswald Mosley-but from the opinions he expressed, I should think such opinions might easily have been garnered from that source. The hon. member sneers at the intellectuals in the British Labour party. I am reminded of the old saying that the cat can look at the queen. I did think there was something incongruous in hearing the hon. member for Peace River criticize a man like Sir Stafford Cripps.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Why not?


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: As I said, the cat can look at the queen.


Arthur Leroy Smith: He is a lawyer out of place; that is all that is wrong with him.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: I, too, was in Great Britain
this summer and, while there, I saw some of the work carried on by those intellectuals.
I saw the houses they have built there-and that is more than I can say for the intellectuals sitting on the government benches in this house. I saw over there the great power plants coming into operation. I saw the result of the national investment carried on there in the last few years. I only wish we had some of those intellectuals over here. We could do with a few of them on both sides of the house, but for the moment I would rather see them sitting opposite, so that we might have something done. I would say to the hon. member for Peace River that this-


James Garfield Gardiner: Get new glasses.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: -was not my first visit to
the old land. I did not hear the interjection of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner). Perhaps he would like to repeat it-or get another pair of glasses.


James Joseph McCann: No combine on them.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: In defence of the suggestion
that my opinion is just as good as, if not better than, that of the hon. member whose


speech I am criticizing, let me say that I have visited the old country consistently and periodically for a good many years. Perhaps in that way I am able to note better than most people the changes which have taken place. Perhaps I have seen more, and my opinion would be as good as that of a man who visited there for the first time and had only a few days to look at those things which came under his observation.
I deplore this attack upon Great Britain. The state in which she found herself was that of bankruptcy-a bankruptcy which was caused by her war effort. Everyone knows that. And, if I may say so, that war effort was not exerted wholly on her own behalf. Let us not forget that for many days and months she stood alone. Let us not forget that after the war her foreign trade had gone, her foreign investments had gone, but that she did her share-and did it nobly-of feeding the starving people of Europe.
What did she do? There would have been some excuse for her if she had thrown up her hands, as many other countries would have done. But no, not the Britisher; he sat down and made plans. So far as I am concerned, this procedure of sneering at planning does not apply to Great Britain, because she planned, and planned to some purpose. She went to work and made the best arrangement she could with her creditors. And let me say that she did not try to meet her debts with funny money, either.
She clamped down on her people for the purpose of carrying out a severe program through which her export trade might be gained back again. The hon. member sneered at the food over there. Well, I was over there, and I did not lose any weight. Here are people who are doing without luxuries in order that they may pay their debts. I do not know that that is a thing to sneer at. They did all this in order that they may pay their debts, restore their economy and keep their heads high among free men.


Major James William Coldwell: And, incidentally, they are free men.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: The food does lack variety; of course it does. It is plain, but there is ample supply, and it is well distributed. Statistics of the social welfare department in England show that on the average children are both taller and heavier than they were a few years ago.
I shall not take much more time, but if I had the time I could give more detail of life on the farms over there. It so happened that I spent most of my time on the farms.
I did not see any of those things the leader of the Progressive- Conservative party has

been quoted as having said he saw in connection with the agricultural situation in England, to the effect that it is in a bad way. Indeed, my observations were the exact opposite. I do not know whether I was in a better part of the country than the part the leader of the opposition visited. I will say this howqver that, in all the trips I have made over there, this was the first time I did not find the farmers complaining. And when you find farmers who do not complain you can conclude that they are fairly well satisfied.
For the first time farm labour is contented in spite of the assertions that come from many quarters that that cannot be brought about. They have proved that it can be done, that farm labour can be placed on a basis of decent wages and decent working hours.
The district to which I refer happens to be in the north of Ireland. It is interesting to note that the government there is perhaps the only Tory government in the world, certainly in the commonwealth, with the exception of the one my hon. friends over here are interested in, in the province of Ontario. It is called a Tory government but it does not qualify as such according to my understanding of the term.
In my opinion they have more socialistic measures in force in Northern Ireland today than they have in any other country in the world that is not under a socialist government. As the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) will be able to tell you, they have a rigid system of farm inspection and seed inspection for things like potatoes. They have a rigid system of inspection of those things which they export to the British market. In addition they have a socialized transport system. You can buy a ticket on the train and then use the other half to return by bus. I suggest to my Tory friends in this country that they wake up and study some of the measures that government has put into force.
Of course, as I say, it is not really a Tory government. Anybody who understands northern Ireland or southern Ireland knows what kind of government it is. You would never believe it to look at me now, but I was brought up to be a good Conservative and all my people were Conservatives. What they have there is really a unionist government; it is not a Tory government at all.
I do not want to get into Irish politics because they have been at it for three or four hundred years and have not got things settled yet. I shall not delay the house any more with what are becoming anecdotes rather than remarks in connection with this bill.
I was delighted to see the things I saw because they meant prosperity to the people
Transitional Measures Act I knew in the old country. Many of the things I saw were directly due to the system of controls and subsidies that was in force. While the farmer was receiving excellent prices for his products, the working people and those who lived in the small towns were, under that same system of subsidies, able to buy the necessities of life at prices which they could afford to pay.
It is for these reasons and because of the observations I made that I think we in this country should not be too hasty in abandoning this idea of controls and going back to a system of unbridled private enterprise which brought us to disaster in the past and which may bring us to disaster again.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the hon. member for Saskatoon City (Mr. Knight) as he portrayed the operations of socialist agriculture in Great Britain. While he paid high tribute to it over and over again, I think for three times in succession he referred to what he called the benefits of the rigid system.



THE ROYAL ASSENT

[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by Major C. R. Lamoureux, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Right Honourable the Deputy Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable house in the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly the house went up to the Senate.
And having returned.
Mr. Deputy Speaker informed the house that the Deputy of the Governor General had been pleased to give in Hig Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bill:
An act to approve the terms of union of Newfoundland with Canada.
At six o'clock the house took recess.

AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.
John George Diefenbaker: At the time of the
adjournment, Mr. Speaker, I had just referred to the very interesting address delivered by the hon. member for Saskatoon City (Mr. Knight), in which he used the words, "rigid system" as necessary in the economic field. This phrase was repeated on several occasions. So far as I am concerned, rigidity such as he pictured must inevitably lead to a degree of regimentation that will deny our
694	HOUSE OF
Transitional Measures Act way of life. In saying that I deny the necessity of rigidity in our economic system,
I realize the necessity for state intervention in any system of private enterprise in order that the social rights of the individual within the state shall be protected and maintained.
We are dealing with a resolution respecting the continuation of certain controls. What those controls will be, we have merely an indication. Within the field of the control of prices, controls prevail over flour and bread, butter, sugar, cane molasses, imported fruits and canned vegetables. There is a further control over rentals, and there are also the specific controls requested by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) in respect of steel. Steel control was dealt with this afternoon in a very able and commendable manner by the hon. member for Parkdale (Mr. Timmins).
So far as prices are concerned, the minister has made no statement indicating the degree to which controls will be maintained. The committee on prices, whose chairman was the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin), sat for three or four months last session and made recommendations which the government has not seen fit to put into effect at all. Following the adjournment of the meetings of that committee, a royal commission was set up. The commission has proven true to the record of many royal commissions in that, while it sat for a long period of time, its recommendations have not been acted upon. They must be of so little importance that we have not them before us at the present time, when the whole question of price control is being discussed. Indeed, the only hope we have of seeing this commission report is at the end of the present month when the printer has finally completed his task.
Royal commissions are set up for one of two purposes: first, to secure information upon which a decision may be made or, secondly, to evade responsibility for the making of any decision. Until we see the commission's report, each of us is left in a position of personally determining which of these two reasons prompted the setting up of that royal commission.
These control resolutions are based on the principle of the continuation of a national emergency. When the legislation was first introduced in the house in 1945, I remember well that it was generally understood the ministers of the crown expected the emergency arising out of the war would be of comparatively short duration. The government believes that we still have it with us although within the last year there has been a considerable reduction in the fields in which the government has been able to


infringe upon the jurisdictions of the provinces by means of the powers granted under the emergency controls.
An outstanding judgment in connection with emergency powers was delivered by the chief justice of the court of king's bench in Manitoba, in the case of Nolan v. Hallet and Carey, reported in 1948, (2) Dominion Law Reports, page 726. If I understand that judgment, it limits the sphere within which orders in council may be passed that purport to be passed under the powers contained in the emergency powers act.
Prices are at an all-time high and all the government has done has been to have a royal commission sit on the question, the report of which is still concealed in the hearts of the members of the government. We have the highest taxation in the history of this dominion and yet there is no apparent realization of the necessity of a substantial reduction in income tax rates to the end that there will be a greater incentive to producers and workers in the country. The Canadian dollar is at its lowest ebb in its history. In the international world, trade is disappearing at an accelerated pace, where our exports are being greatly reduced in our customary markets.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John George Diefenbaker: I am not referring to the United States; I am referring to our customary markets. As a result of the rigidity of bureaucratic controls, international trade finds itself jammed between controls brought into effect on foreign exchange and the controls on exports and imports. The world is in a condition of prohibitions, embargoes and quotas that determine whether there shall or shall not be trade. If ever there was a time when there should be an extra incentive for production, it is today.
Some of the members of the government may laugh, but throughout our country people are demanding, and demanding in tones that even this government should hear, that there must be a reduction in taxation. There is no excuse for the continuation of a system whereby, within the first nine months of the present fiscal year, the amount of excess taxation imposed by this government totals $610 million. On a per capita basis of population that means that, at a time when there should be an incentive, when there should be a further expansion on top of the expansion already taking place, $165 in unnecessary taxation has been extracted from every Canadian family within the last nine months.
At this very time when such a tremendous surplus is being built up the government is continuing to expend, and to expand controllable expenditure, at an unusual rate. The

facts are available as at January 15, 1949, in the issue of the Canada Gazette. It is set out there that the revenue and expenditure for the first nine months of 1948 starting April 1, 1948, resulted in a surplus of $609,949,000. It is also shown that within the same period controllable ordinary expenditures by government departments have increased by some $140 million, or at the rate of 48-9 per cent. If ever there was a time when the government, in the interests of the people as a whole, should be reducing its controllable expenditures, surely it is now. Do they say it cannot be done? I call as a witness Senator Crerar, a former member of this house and an experienced parliamentarian. Speaking on this question a few months ago he stated that, with fair application, and without in any way diminishing necessary services, the government of this country could reduce its controllable expenditures by $500 million. That is a statement by a statesman who sat in this house.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I should like to have him in my department.


John George Diefenbaker: He sat with my hon. friends opposite and was a member of the cabinet to which certain of my hon. friends belonged, between 1935 and 1944.


Douglas Charles Abbott: He is now translated to a higher sphere.


John George Diefenbaker: Recently there have been a great many translations.


Gordon Graydon: He cramped their style.


John George Diefenbaker: May I say that there will be some more translations when the next election comes around.


Mr. Mutch:: Those on this side have a chance; those on the other side have not.


John George Diefenbaker: We are all feeling in good humour tonight, Mr. Speaker, and we shall not become annoyed.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Will my hon. friend permit a question?


John George Diefenbaker: I will take the question now.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Does my hon. friend agree with the view that expenditure can be reduced by $500 million? If so, will he tell us in what departments.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The question before the house is with regard to the continuance of certain orders and regulations of the governor in council. I am just wondering how this discussion and the question which has been asked relate to the resolution under consideration.
Transitional Measures Act


John George Diefenbaker: Your ruling is a correct one, Mr. Speaker. I cannot go into all the particulars-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Saved by a ruling.


An hon. Member:: Saved by the bell.


John George Diefenbaker: I suggest to my hon. friend that he interview the former member of the cabinet to which he now belongs.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I was asking the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) what he thought.


John George Diefenbaker: An hon. member to my left says, saved by a ruling. To him and those connected with him I say that the government can always expect to be saved by support from that direction.


James Garfield Gardiner: Saved by regulation.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.


John George Diefenbaker: You asked a proper question, Mr. Speaker, as to the relationship of this discussion to the matter under consideration. At the moment I am dealing with the question of prices, and what measures could be taken with regard to them. The first is the expansion of production by the reduction in income taxation as well as the increase in the exemption. All that the government has done is to make the income tax form brief. What the government must do is to make the income taxation briefer than it is. In the second place, as to a direct method of reducing prices, remove the 25 per cent tax on so-called luxury goods, which bears down upon the jewelry businesses of this country. Many of the things that are taxed in this connection are necessities, not luxuries. It results in the price paid by consumers being increased by 25 per cent. It is discriminatory. A reduction in that tax would reduce prices to the consumer on many items.
Another thing that could be done is to reduce the sales tax. As to such reduction, nothing has yet been said or even suggested.
As to the jewelers' tax, apparently the first major leak in the coming budget has taken place within the last two days. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that for some months a jeweler in Pembroke, acting as the modern John Hampden, opposed the taxation imposed by this government. John Hampden finally landed in custody, and the modern John Hampden finally decided to keep out of custody by an apparent promise made by the government that the tax in question would be removed or be reduced in the coming budget.


James Joseph McCann: Who said that?
696	HOUSE OF
Transitional Measures Act


Douglas Charles Abbott: Will my hon. friend permit a question?


John George Diefenbaker: Yes.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Does my hon. friend know that such a promise was made?


James Joseph McCann: It does not make any difference.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I am just interested.


John George Diefenbaker: All I know is what the modern John Hampden said.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Oh, oh.


James Joseph McCann: His name was Simpson.


John George Diefenbaker: The minister is well acquainted with the case. In answer to the Minister of Finance, I would say this. All I know is that within the last two days, following a recent caucus, the rumour throughout this building has been that income taxation must be reduced in the interests of the salvation of the government, and the reduction would include this taxation on jewelers.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Was that the Wednesday night caucus the hon. member speaks of?


John George Diefenbaker: I do not know anything about the caucus to which my right hon. friend refers. He may have been at one that night that he does not know anything about.
I was not.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member should know more about his own caucuses.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.


John George Diefenbaker: I wish now to refer to the maintenance of control upon farmers' prices while at the same time permitting a removal of most controls on the prices of the things which the farmer purchases. Now I shall get some support from the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) in this connection.


James Arthur Ross: Provided it is the right day.


John George Diefenbaker: He is one who will agree with me in this. Having recently been in a position of responsibility in Manitoba, he realizes that one of the major criticisms made by the farmers is that their prices have been controlled while the prices of things they must purchase have not been controlled, in general, since the war. I know he cannot disagree with that because on March 25, 1948, he wrote to the Minister of Trade and Commerce a letter in which he pointed this out.
I know that the western farmer will now have an ally, and that the minister will see to it that something is done to place the farmer in a position where he is not caught between a ceiling on his prices and an ever-rising cost of commodities which he is required to buy.


In the letter the hon. gentleman said:
At this point may we ask the question, "what other products of Canada, either primary or secondary, is the government going to fix the price of and leave the burden of carrying the difference between the government price and the market price upon the producers of these products?"
In these words the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) expresses exactly the view that was expressed by the former leader of this party, now the hon. member for Neepawa (Mr. Bracken), by the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Ross), and by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Miller). Then he went on to say:
If this is a good policy for wheat and pork and beef and poultry products, and now oats and barley, why is It not a good policy for copper, newsprint, fish, tractors and farm implements?
I suggest that the Minister of Justice communicate his ideas in this connection to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) and to the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe), and that he at least secure from the government of which he is now a member a policy in keeping with the views which he expressed in the letter of March 25, 1948. He refers to another matter which is another reason why the farmer objects to this government's policy. His first objection is to the discriminatory nature of the income tax in its application to agriculture. His next objection is that there is a controlled price of his products; or, as my hon. friend said in a letter to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, the government having fixed a political price for his products, he finds himself faced with lower net returns because of the ever-rising cost of the things he has to purchase. My hon. friend said, on page 5 of the letter:
If in the interests of national policy and for the Canadian people as a whole, the price of oats and barley is set at a level which is less than would otherwise be available, and it is not the intention under your legislation to have the whole Canadian people make up the difference between these two prices, by what arguments do you and can we justify this course?
In these words my hon. friend expressed the views of farmers generally throughout western Canada and throughout the whole country. There is a widespread demand by all our people for a reduction in taxation. There is a widespread demand by farmers of this country, without whose prosperity there can be no prosperity, for a reduction in taxation. Wheat agreements have been made at prices lower than world prices and the farmers should not be required to pay the difference between world prices and the price fixed in these agreements.
I am going to pass on to another phase of this particular resolution. The house is entitled to all the orders in council passed

during the last year, either under this act or pursuant to the powers contained in this act. Yesterday I mentioned an illegal order in council, and the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) said there were no illegal orders in council. There is one decided to be such in the judgment of Nolan v. Hallet and Carey, which declared that it was beyond the powers of the government to pass an order in council beyond the powers contained in the act.
I should like the minister to lay on the table of the house the orders in council which have been passed since January 1, 1948, to date under this act or under the powers contained in this act which have not yet been published in the Canada Gazette or tabled in the House of Commons.


Douglas Charles Abbott: There are none.


John George Diefenbaker: I should like him to set
forth the particulars of the regulations passed within the last year under the powers contained in the act which parliament passed last year. We have a right to expect that, when there are extraordinary powers such as have been granted under this act, the orders in council issued thereunder should be placed before parliament, and when they are important ones they should also be published in the Canada Gazette so that the country as a whole may know what laws are being passed.
If order-in-council government is still being continued in extraordinary measure we should know it. I am not talking about the legitimate use of order in council; I am speaking about abuses under order in council. I can refer to several which must have been passed under the extraordinary powers of this act, which are not justified, and which should not have been passed. One is referred to in the Public Accounts of 1948 which is wholly unjustifiable. We have had orders in council reducing interest rates on annuities and adjusting rates upwards under a statute passed by parliament. We have had orders in council passed changing the customs tariff. When the powers were granted to the government to do that, representation was made at the time by the then Minister of Finance that they would not be used without consulting parliament. The culmination of order in council is referred to on page 4 of the auditor general's report. Under section 9 of the auditor general's report appears one of the most flagrant abuses in the use of order in council by this government. I realize it has a long record in the uses to which orders in council have been put. We have had the introduction of taxation without an order in council. We have legislation under the Aeronautics Act, a statute passed by parliament, and evaded by order in council.


Clarence Decatur Howe: What is that?
Transitional Measures Act


John George Diefenbaker: That is the order passed under that act which my hon. friend made whereby private companies were not required to give up their flying contracts, or rights, or whatever you wish to term it, although parliament had passed legislation that they must do so.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I never like to interrupt my hon. friend, but what have orders in council which have been passed under the Aeronautics Act to do with a resolution preceding a bill concerning emergency regulations? I think we should stick to the matter before the house. My hon. friend frequently makes speeches on the alleged abuses of government by order in council. I have no doubt that during this session he will make at least a dozen others. I do not think this is the legislation under which to make them.


John George Diefenbaker: I was pointing out that these were intermediate stages, but the culmination finally came in 1948. My hon. friend says that I can make ten speeches on the abuses of order in council. I can-I can do that without referring to the same order in council in any one of the speeches. The culmination came in 1948 with a government spending away beyond anything ever spent by any other government in peacetime, in so far as controllable expenditures are concerned. And finally, in 1948, there was a sum of $689,967, which had been voted by parliament and would at the end of March, 1948, have lapsed, it being an unused balance. The Department of National Defence, so that it would not lose that expenditure, advanced it to certain corporations, so that they could spend it in the coming year. How serious that is is set out in the auditor general's report where it says this-


Douglas Charles Abbott: I have allowed my hon. friend to state what the order in council is. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the resolution which we are considering. It is in the auditor general's report. I would ask for a ruling that we stick to the resolution we are discussing.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I understood the hon. member for Lake Centre to say that it was an order in council passed under the act now before the house for reconsideration. But, from what he has read, I do not think the order in council comes under that act.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, if I might say so, there is no justification for the course taken and there was no power in the government to act as it did except under the transitional powers act. The Auditor General, with regard to this, says:
None of the orders in council cites any authority on which reliance is placed to give directions to pay in advance.

Transitional Measures Act
It means that either the transitional powers act was used, or an order in council has been passed-


Douglas Charles Abbott: I ask my hon. friend to stay
within the rules. He knows, or he should know, that there is no power under the transitional powers act of 1947 to pass new orders in council.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I think we ought to have a
ruling, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I think the
hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefen-baker) is aware that he cannot discuss orders in council generally. He was endeavouring to relate those expenditures to orders in council under the transitional powers act. But the Minister of Finance has pointed out that those orders in council cannot possibly have been passed under that act, and I would ask the hon. member not to continue with that point.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There is no authority for it at all. That is the trouble with it.


John George Diefenbaker: Then, Mr. Speaker, if
what my hon. friend says be correct, because he is a member of the government, there is no justification-


Clarence Decatur Howe: That is a deliberate insult to
the presiding officer in this assembly.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Let the hon. member proceed.


Gordon Graydon: Let the presiding officer
speak for himself.


John George Diefenbaker: You know, Mr. Speaker, that any insults in parliament do not come from me. My right hon. friend has too great a capacity for that. In view of these extraordinary powers, parliament has a right to know how they will be used. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance says that the only justification they have for passing orders in council is within the narrow ambit of the undertaking given by him last year when the bill was introduced. I say to him that within the last year orders in council have been passed which we in this parliament do not yet know about, and which have not been published.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Would the hon. member state under what statute they have been passed? Is the hon. member suggesting that they have been passed under the transitional powers act? If not, I do not think he should continue with it.


John George Diefenbaker: I think, sir, the minister should be able to tell us whether they were


passed under the transitional powers act, or without any authority at all. Now there has been progressive-


Mr. Grant:: 'Conservative.


John George Diefenbaker: -and continuing action on the part of this government in passing, under this legislation, orders in council which have not been justified under the legislation, as was stated by Mr. Chief Justice Williams, in the case to which I have referred-orders in council with sweeping powers over the economic life of the nation. In the use of those sweeping powers parliament has a right to demand, before this resolution is passed, that each and every order in council that will be passed under this legislation shall be made known to the House of Commons, to the end that the act will not be used during the next year for the passing of orders in council which are not justified, and which do not come within the provisions of the legislation passed by this parliament.
I am going to be frank and say that there has been a reduction during the last year in the numbers of orders in council passed under this legislation. There is room for a greater reduction in those numbers. We in parliament have a right to demand that orders in council used for legislative purposes shall not become the law of this country, unless parliament knows what such orders in council are and is assured that orders in council, whether secret or not, shall not be kept from the public gaze until, as a result of investigation, they are brought to light.


Mr. Arthur Williams (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, the resolution before the house has to do with the continuation of certain controls. Right at the outset I want to say that, speaking for myself at any rate, not only am I in favour of continuing controls but I am also in favour of enlarging their scope.
I hope what I have said will be noted by friends to my left, because this afternoon quite a play was made of the fact that we had not spoken so much about controls. We talk a good deal about controls whenever the opportunity arises; and I am certain we are talking the language of the people of this country. Because one thing which confronts them more than anything else is the free rein given to this noble free enterprise, to run high, wide and handsome in the field of establishing prices.
I should like to see some check put on the activities of people who are inclined to be so very irresponsible. I cannot quite understand why a man like the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), a very nice and very intelligent fellow-


Clarence Decatur Howe: The first kind words you ever got.


Arthur Henry Williams: -should prostitute his intelligence by subscribing to a philosophy of the kind to which he subscribes. Harsh but true. The truth is always harsh.


An hon. Member:: What philosophy does the hon. member follow?


Arthur Henry Williams: At the moment, the philosophy of socialism which I am here in the House of Commons partly to expound.


James Arthur Ross: Where is the other part?


Arthur Henry Williams: Apart from expounding the philosophy of socialism in the house I feel that I should also direct attention to the needs of the people outside. That is the other part.


Arthur Leroy Smith: The mine mill and smelter workers' philosophy.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I think the hon. member for Lake Centre found the house in good humour tonight when he was making his remarks, but I do not think hon. members should interrupt unduly the member who has the floor. I ask hon. members to permit the hon. member for Ontario to proceed without interruption.


Arthur Henry Williams: Thank you very much. I am sorry the hon. member for Calgary West has just left the chamber.


An hon. Member:: He is coming back.


Arthur Henry Williams: The hon. member made an interjection a moment ago to the effect that I had some connection, or at least he implied that I had some connection, with a union known as the united mine mill and smelter workers. I want to correct that and inform the house that in all my union activities I have never belonged to the united mine mill and smelters workers union.


An hon. Member:: What does the hon. member have against them?


Arthur Henry Williams: For the benefit of the hon. member for Calgary West and perhaps others who may be similarly mistaken in their designation of the union to which I belong, may I say that I belong to district 50, united mine workers of America. That union has in its constitution the provision that no communist can belong to or hold office in the union.
The reason I referred to the hon. member for Lake Centre was that I felt that if he faced up to the real fact about the wild spree that has occurred in the increasing cost of living he could not with his intelligence maintain the point of view he does. To me it is a simple question. Controls were on during the war and in that period the cost of living
Transitional Measures Act went up only 18-6 points. When the controls were taken off, the cost of living went up 39-5 points.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Subsidies were taken off at the same time.


Arthur Henry Williams: During the whole period of the war the cost of living rose just 18-6 points because controls were on; during the brief period of four years since the war ended the cost of living has gone up twice as much as it did during the war period. If the cost of living could be arrested so effectively during the period of the war, surely it is evident that if controls had been maintained since the war the cost of living would not have soared to its present high point.
That is the kind of thing that causes a great deal of worry among the people. I am certain that if any party attempted to deal with that particular problem strongly, effectively and boldly it would have the wholehearted support of the people in the country. After all, the people in the country are concerned only about the simple things such as the cost of living. I am certain they are not particularly interested in how that is effected, whether it is by some adjustment in the income tax or sales tax or by rolling back prices and putting on ceilings. All that they ask is that there be some arresting factor.
They have asked for a housing program and a health program. Their requirements are simple. Some hon. member said that the subsidies were taken off. This afternoon I listened with no great degree of pleasure to the remarks of the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low). An interjection was made earlier to the effect that I was harsh. I am of old country stock with relatives still in that country and I want to say that what the hon. member for Peace River said was harsher than anything I have ever heard. Is the Britain that we heard about this afternoon the same Britain about which we spoke so glowingly a few years ago?


An hon. Member:: A different government.


Mr, Maclnnis:: A better government.


Arthur Henry Williams: I should like to quote from a publication of the United Kingdom information bureau.


Frank Exton Lennard: When was it published?


Arthur Henry Williams: In 1947, but the conditions to which these particular parts I am going to quote refer are probably the same now as they were then. This is entitled "Fifty Facts About Britain's Economic Position." I am going to start at No. 20 and I will tell hon. members that I am not going to read up to No. 50.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.

Transitional Measures Act


Arthur Henry Williams: I do not think hon. members would laugh about a matter of this kind if they understood the character of the sacrifice made by these people.


Frank Exton Lennard: We certainly are not laughing at the contents of the book because the hon. member has not read it yet.


Arthur Henry Williams: Starting with No. 20 it says:
20.	Before the war, half the cost of Britain's vast imports was covered by income from shipping and overseas investments, and only the remaining half had to be paid for by exports. Britain's shipping and investment losses during the war have thus created a heavy burden.
21.	More than half of Britain's pre-war merchant shipping was sunk during the war. Even with new building and acquisitions, Britain was left at the end of the war with sixteen million tons of merchant shipping, compared with twenty-two million tons before the war.
22.	Despite lend-lease, Britain had to sell overseas investments to the value of $4,500 million to help finance her war effort. In addition, she acquired new indebtedness during the war amounting to $11,500 million. This, together with losses of gold and dollar reserves, brought her total wartime losses overseas to $17,000 million.
No. 23 and No. 24 are along the same lines, indicating the sacrifices that Britain made. There is no reference in this book to the other sacrifices that she made that cannot be measured in dollars and cents, the terrors of her people during the air raids, the destruction of property and the loss of human life. It was Great Britain, more than any other nation on the earth, that saved the civilization of the world. Apparently it is expected that in the short period of four years since the war Great Britain should have rehabilitated herself completely. As the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) said, she had a terrific burden to bear in regard to food. How sneeringly he referred to the sausage. Frankly I do not like the sausage in Canada either.
I do not like sausage whether it is British or Canadian.


An hon. Member:: Why condemn it then?


Mr, Williams:: Because I do not like it.


Thomas Vincent Grant: Do you like bologna?


Arthur Henry Williams: No, I shall let you enjoy that.


James Sinclair: We are all laughing.


Mr. Reid:: He is not enjoying it.


Arthur Henry Williams: During the period when Great Britain has been trying to rehabilitate herself she has done things that have never been done before. It has cost a lot of money, but the people of Great Britain have gladly accepted the burden. Let anybody in this parliament, or in any other parliament of Canada, tell me where they can get a social security program such as they have in the old country for four and eleven pence a week, aoout $1.25. What do they get for it? ComrMr. Williams.)

plete sickness benefits, maternity benefits, maternity grants, maternity allowances, attendance allowances, widows' benefits, unemployment benefits, guardians' allowances, retirement pensions, industrial injury benefits. They get all those things. It is not enough to measure how much a people pay without taking into consideration what they get for it. Here in Canada, for example, a little child buys a chocolate bar, and it is dearer now than it used to be. It would not be so bad if the child was getting the same size chocolate bar.


Thomas Reid: They will not suffer.


Arthur Henry Williams: But the children are soaked by the higher price, and then the manufacturer soaks them again by making a smaller chocolate bar.


Thomas Reid: A smaller bar is good for the children. It is good for their health.


Arthur Henry Williams: I shall let my hon. friend deal with that particular phase.


Thomas Reid: I will take you up on that any time. You cannot deny that.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.


Thomas Reid: It is better for the health of the child. I defy any man to disprove that.


Arthur Henry Williams: I did not hear a word the hon. member said.


Thomas Reid: I will say it again. The hon. member did not want to hear it.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. Hon. members are aware that they may ask questions of the member who has the floor only with his consent. It is improper for an hon. member to sit in his seat and ask questions.


Arthur Henry Williams: Mr. Speaker, I am rather surprised at the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid). Just the other day I heard him speak in the house, and one of the points he made was that he remained quiet and listened most attentively to whatever was being said.


Thomas Reid: But when such palpable untruths are being uttered I must interrupt. I am compelled to.


Arthur Henry Williams: What I have quoted from is the booklet that was distributed in Great Britain by the ministry to all participants in the social security plan.


An hon. Member:: That explains it.


Arthur Henry Williams: The booklet was for the purpose of explaining the plan to the beneficiaries.


James Garfield Gardiner: Most of those things started under Lloyd George.


Arthur Henry Williams: To me that is the picture of Great Britain as I know it. I knew it when it was much different. This great system which you support, and to which you would like to return-


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: It was good enough for you to come to.


Arthur Henry Williams: You would like to see all other avenues closed, and you ruling the roost. There was a time when you did.


Arthur Leroy Smith: There were no emergency powers then.


Mr. Maclnnis:: There were emergencies.


Arthur Henry Williams: During that particular time the condition of the people was a lot worse than it is now. Great Britain is being criticized most harshly in some quarters, but I can remember that until the nationalization of the mines quite recently the Duke of Northumberland-


An hon. Member:: A Tory.


Arthur Henry Williams: And how he was a Tory! He drew, by way of royalties from the mining industry, 24 shillings every minute of every day of the year whether he was awake or asleep, well or ill. There was a railway line which ran for about twelve miles from my own home in Wales. It was known as the Golden Mile, and the great lord got four pence for every ton of freight that passed over the line.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I think I should remind the hon. member that the resolution under consideration has to do with the continuance of certain orders and regulations. I would ask him to direct his remarks more strictly to the resolution.


Arthur Henry Williams: I am making certain points in explanation of the situation in Great Britain which was dealt with by the hon. member for Peace River.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I understood the hon. member for Peace River was blaming controls for the conditions which now exist in Great Britain. He was not stopped, and I am not stopping the hon. member if he is explaining the controls in Great Britain.


Arthur Henry Williams: With very great deference to you, Mr. Speaker, I think that my remarks are pertinent to the question, because I am endeavouring to show, dealing with the points raised by the member for Peace River, what happens when there are no controls. There were none at all in Great Britain in those days. Certain people carried on without any obstruction, and had it all their own way. It is because of such consequences that governments have had to step in to protect
Transitional Measures Act the people, and I am quite satisfied they will have to step in in Canada more than they have already. There are people running wild in this country who believe in the philosophy of buying for as little as they can and selling for as much as they can. That is precisely what has caused the present high cost of living. It was necessary to stop it during the war and it is necessary to stop it now.
The other day I heard the hon. member for Peace River quote St. Paul. It is true that at that time the subject of debate was (he British North America Act. The words he quoted appear at page 578 of Hansard of February 15, and read as follows:
Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
This was a very fine quotation, Mr. Speaker, but it is important to know to what St. Paul was referring when he spoke of bondage. This quotation was from the first verse. At any rate, in that particular address, St. Paul was exhorting the Galatians on the subject of circumcision. During the course of further remarks made by the hon. member for Peace River today, he chided my leader for some reference he made the other day to social objectives because he did not use the word planning. He went on to say that we in this group do not talk so much now about planning and controls. Even as St. Paul made other speeches, Mr. Speaker, we have made other speeches. We did not put all our eggs in the one basket. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to go beyond my time.


Some hon. Members:: Go ahead.


Arthur Henry Williams: We still believe in planning and we will continue to talk about those things we believe it necessary to mention. We will continue to talk about them wherever we are because we think, and personally I believe we think rightly, that those are the things of vital concern to the people.
May I come back quite seriously to this particular question? So far as I am concerned, I would say to anyone who quotes the scriptures that what I heard this afternoon was so low that it beats anything I have ever heard before. I should like to tell you what St. Paul said when he addressed the Corinthians.
Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
I should like to use that particular approach. All the people are asking is some degree of decency. They are not asking for twenty-four shillings a minute; they are not asking to

Transitional Measures Act own a city; they are not asking to own big factories. They are asking for these simple things. I am very certain that, if this government not merely did what is contained in this resolution but enlarged its scope, it would receive the blessing of the people. I hope it will seriously consider doing this.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I trust, Mr. Speaker, I shall speak with a bit more circumspection than the last speaker. I shall therefore leave St. Paul and all the rest of them out of it. The debate on this question has been generally related to the increased cost of living, and price control. Last year, the government appointed a special committee of this house to investigate the cause of the increase in prices and, allegedly, to try to find some cure for it. The reason for the appointment of this special committee was the fact that, at this time last year, prices were rising rapidly and had been doing so for some time. There was widespread alarm throughout the country on that account. The uproar was so great, the government felt compelled to do something to quieten it. As a result, the committee was appointed.
This committee was appointed, however, with power only to inquire and report back to the house. It did not have the power to recommend any action to the house. In other words, all the committee could do was to call witnesses, and it did call them for an interminable length of time. Eventually, the evidence ran to thousands of pages. For my sins I had to sit on that committee, and I became very tired of the futility of it. So far as I could see, it accomplished nothing. I now see, however, that it did accomplish one thing. It put on the record a great mass of evidence in connection with the reasons for the rise in prices during the past two or three years. It also put on the record a great deal of factual information as to the actual profits which producers, wholesalers, retailers and processors procured, particularly in connection with food products. As far as I can see, that is the only useful thing the committee did because it provides us at the present time with information which totally discredits the position taken by the C.C.F., and disproves many of their most-used arguments.
I regret as much as anyone the steep increase which has taken place in the cost of living. Particularly do I regret the hardships which, because of that fact, have been imposed upon people with small pension incomes; the so-called white-collar workers whose salaries, in a large number of cases, have not been increased to any great extent; the old age pensioners and the war pensioners
TMr. Williams.]

of one kind and another. Their plight has been rendered really desperate in many cases by the steep rise in the cost of living. I also regret the false picture put out in connection with the causes for the increase in the cost of living by the members of the C.C.F. in this house and throughout the country. They are at the same game they played last year, of trying to discredit the free enterprise system.


Mr. McCullough (Assiniboia):: It is discredited.


Douglas Scott Harkness: They have been trying to
do that by attempting to sell to the country the idea that the rise in the cost of living has been chiefly due to the enormous profits secured by companies and businessmen across Canada.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is that not right?


Douglas Scott Harkness: It is absolutely not right. This special committee sat for several months last year, and none of the evidence placed before it would in any way support the contention of the C.C.F. in this regard.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Now who is defending the government?


Douglas Scott Harkness: In no industry which we investigated did the evidence show that the rise in prices has been due, in any appreciable degree whatever, to enormous profits.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: I should like to ask a question of the hon. member. When he makes a statement of that kind, I wonder if he read the evidence placed before the committee.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I heard the evidence. I am sorry to say I had to sit there and listen to it month after month, in addition to reading it afterwards.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: I should like to ask the hon. member another question.


Frank Exton Lennard: Make your own speech.


Douglas Scott Harkness: If the question is a reasonable and sensible one, I shall be only too glad to try to answer it.


James Sinclair: That is a challenge.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: Does the hon. member
recall the evidence given by Canadian Industries Limited to the effect that in 1947 profits were about $1 million and the total wages for the whole factory, including executives, were only $957,000?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I must protest, Mr. Speaker, against the hon. member asking permission to ask a question and then attempting to make a speech.
FEBRUARY 18, <849


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: I asked the hon. member if he remembered that.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I remember the evidence quite well, and in the course of my remarks I shall deal with statements of that kind which members of the C.C.F. are so fond of making. The only thing of that kind that the evidence before the committee showed was a few gouges on the part of some fruit and vegetable men in Toronto, I think it was.


An hon. Member:: Shame.


Douglas Scott Harkness: And the undue profits they took on those few occasions were possible because the government imposed import restrictions at that particular time and thus provided the background which enabled those people to gouge the public in that way. As I say, there were few instances of that kind of thing. Apart from that, there was no instance in which it was shown that anything that might be called undue, unjust or enormous profits had been made.
The leader of the C.C.F. party and his followers are fond of quoting percentages of the increase in profits of some companies, and attempting by that means to show that most of the increase in the cost of living has been due to this big increase in company profits. As anyone with any knowledge knows, of course-and the leader of the C.C.F. knows it as well as I do-the quoting of percentages does not present a true picture of how a company is doing, of what profits actually were made, and whether the profits were just or unjust. To take an extreme case, you might have a company with a turnover of $1 million. If it made a profit of only $100 in one year, and in the following year made a profit of $1,000, the increase is 1,000 per cent, but the profit may still be extremely small.


Edward George McCullough: It is not
companies like that about which we are talking.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I object to this business of using percentages or lump figures and saying, as the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Thatcher) said a moment ago: Did you know that this company made $1 million last year? It may have made $1 million, but $1 million may still be a relatively small profit, and a just one, in comparison with the amount of business done.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: When they paid out only $957,000 in wages?


Frank Exton Lennard: Make your own speech later.


Douglas Scott Harkness: In the prices committee last year, as a matter of fact, the hon. member for Moose Jaw was fond of attacking the packers-I have heard various members of
Transitional Measures Act the C.C.F. doing the same thing since-and talking about the enormous profits made by the packers, which they say is a terrible thing. On the one hand they were trying to represent to the farmers that the packers were squeezing them to the last cent with regard to the prices paid for livestock, and on the other hand telling the consumer that they were paying high prices because the packers were making such enormous profits. The evidence before this committee-and it worked on the packers for a long time-was to the effect that the three major packing companies in Canada made a profit ranging from one-seventh of a cent to one-fifth of a cent a pound during the last ten to fifteen years.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: What did they make on capital investment?


James Sinclair: What did they make on butter last year?


An hon. Member:: And on meat?


Douglas Scott Harkness: If the members of the C.C.F. desire to present an honest picture to the country, they will go out and tell the housewives that if the packers made no profits at all they would save one cent every time they bought a seven-pound roast of beef. I do not think they will find many housewives who will vote for them if they tell them that, but it is true.


Mrs. Strum:: Why tell them that, then?


Douglas Scott Harkness: In my opinion, it is not intellectually honest to quote these percentages, bulk figures and so on, and thereby attempt to sell to the general public the idea that the reason prices have gone up so much, that people are paying so much for meat, or for this, that or the other thing, is that this, that or the other company is making an enormous profit. That just is not the case, as is shown by the evidence before that prices committee.


Edward George McCullough: May I ask
the hon. member a question in a kindly way? Would he tell the house-


Frank Exton Lennard: Wait till he says whether he will permit the question.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I am quite happy to have the question.


Edward George McCullough: Will the hon. member tell the house how much the packing houses made last year on butter? I have reference to the three major packing houses.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The matter is not particularly germane to the discussion, but one packing company really made quite a large profit in butter last year. I think it was around half a million dollars.

Transitional Measures Act


James Sinclair: But it cut the price of mar-jarine this year.


An hon. Member:: Just ten cents.


James Arthur Ross: It is peanuts compared to the margarine profit.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Their total profit on butter over the last ten or fifteen years was negligible. If they had not made that profit last year, they would have been well in the hole on butter on the ten to fifteen years' operations. If you look for evidence of that last year you will find it. Just look it up. I do not want members of the C.C.F. party to rise in their places in this house and go around the country and say that I am a great defender of the packers. I have no particular love for the packers. I am one of those who have to sell all of their farm products to the packers. I am one of the very people whom the C.C.F. are always trying to persuade that they are badly done by these packers. I want it clearly understood that any axe that I have to grind is to cut down the profits of the packers and not to increase them. I certainly want as much for my livestock as I can get, but I do think that these things should be presented in an honest way. It is popular to attack the big fellow, the big packing house. If you kick him everybody likes it; it is very popular, but it is not intellectually honest to do it in the way in which it has been done.
The best evidence that the special committee on prices was given last year as to the reason fop the price increases was from Mr. Taylor, the chairman of the wartime prices and trade board, and from Mr. Graham Towers, the governor of the Bank of Canada. The evidence that they gave was that the rise in prices was caused first of all by the general world shortage of goods which of course caused a great increase in the world level of prices, and it was impossible to isolate Canada completely from that price increase. Our price levels had to come up to them to some extent. The second reason was the increase in the amount of money in circulation. The amount of money in circulation in this country has increased greatly from 1939 to the present time, and that has created an inflationary pressure. The third reason was the rising costs of production and factors of that kind. Another important factor which these witnesses were not allowed to give evidence on was the high level of taxation. Since it was a political question, they had to refrain from giving evidence on that. But that is one of the main reasons for the high price of many goods which people have to buy at the present time. I am not going to emphasize this particularly, but I hold in my hand a letter which I received today, and


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: I am sure the hon. member wishes to be fair. Mr. Towers went ona to say
706

Transitional Measures Act that prices might have come down if controls had been put back on.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Towers did not.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: I have his quotation here.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member questioned him in connection with the matter. We then went into a discussion about consols, to which I shall refer in a moment, and concerning which I shall put on record what these gentlemen had to say.
So much for the causes given in the prices committee as to the rise in prices. I should iike to say something about the constant cry of my socialist friends that controls should be reimposed to bring down prices. The evidence we had in the prices committee could be summarized by stating that this could not be done. The evidence was that the reimposition of controls could stabilize prices at their present level, and prevent their going higher; but it would not reduce them. It was not a practical proposition. It was stated, furthermore, that such an attempt to bring down prices by imposing over-all controls, or even controls to try to stabilize prices at present levels, was not workable in peacetime, that controls would need to be much more rigorous than they were during the war, and that they would lead to widespread black-markets and extraordinary difficulty in trying to maintain them. It was pointed out that the result would be either a breakdown of the controls or the imposition of what would amount to a dictatorial system of government.
I have a good deal of evidence here in connection with that matter. I do not wish to take up the time of the house to read all of it. However, I believe I should put on record some of the evidence given by Mr. Towers and Mr. Taylor in this connection. At page 3358 of the evidence the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) questioned Mr. Towers as follows:
Q. This morning you made the observation that when controls were applied in 1941, that was postponing the trouble. Would you mind enlarging on that observation, please?
A. That is the way it necessarily turned out; and that, of course, could have been predicted at the time by anyone who foresaw that the war would last until 1945; but it was postponing it I believe to the great benefit of the public and of the war effort. To the extent that a runaway situation was averted during those years, I am sure that our war effort was much more effective than it could otherwise have been.
And again:
What I meant by saying postponing, was that price control did hold things so stable that we could not hope in a post war period to maintain that degree of perfection. There had to be some catching up with higher costs. And, of course, there often had to be a reflection of higher prices in other countries.

In the last annual report of the bank I have expressed this view (this will be found on page 20 of the report) :
"Short of substantially appreciating its exchange rate and increasing its taxation, no country could have insulated itself completely from the world-wide rise in prices. Theoretically it might be contended that this could be done by means of direct controls, but these would have to be very much more rigorous and complete than those of wartime, to say the least."
I should like to draw this evidence given by Mr. Towers to the attention of the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Williams), who just spoke and stated that it was only reasonable and common sense that controls which worked in wartime would work just as well in peacetime. The men who had to work on these controls and who were responsible for them to a large extent do not agree with him. Another question asked Mr. Towers was as follows:
Q. Does that add up to this:	If there were an
attempt made to reduce the level of prices by resort to controls would they have to be a very different type of control, very much more drastic, than those we had in wartime?
A. I would think so, yes.
I shall not bother reading what Mr. Taylor had to say because it was to the same effect. These gentlemen stated that over-all controls in a country such as this are not workable, that they can be worked only in a police state or something approximating a police state.
I should like to deal with the resolution before us more pointedly than I have in the general remarks I have been making. A bill was introduced in 1947 which contained a long list of orders in council, regulations of the governor in council and so on which were to be continued, and the little bill that we passed last year was simply a continuation. I should like to know how many of those orders in council, regulations and so forth have been done away with and what things are really to be under control after this bill is passed. We are dealing only with the resolution and we do not know in what form the bill will be, but I presume it will be similar to the one last year and provide for the continuance of these powers.
Personally I would not be so much concerned if the things to be continued were stated specifically and with no power to add to them. I should like to see them limited to the commodities and services which were mentioned by the ministers, such as rent control, steel control, timber control, priorities control and price control on certain commodities.
Mr. Gar son: Where there are price ceilings.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I think we should get rid of some of these controls. I can see no reason why a ceiling should be maintained on butter.

Margarine is now being sold and, I think, provides sufficient competition to keep the price of butter down to a level where people will not be charged unduly for it.


James Garfield Gardiner: Apparently the hon. member was following the evidence given last session in connection with butter. Has he noted that there has been no such profit this year as eleven cents per pound? Does he not admit that the present controls on butter have brought that condition about?


Douglas Scott Harkness: No, I do not admit that.


James Garfield Gardiner: Is it true?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I do not know. As a matter of fact I have not seen the report of the royal commission on prices to which I think the minister is referring, as it has not been tabled.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member said that according to the evidence there was a considerable profit on butter last year. There is no such profit this year as a result of what has been done.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I do not know whether there is or not.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am telling the hon. member.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The profit that was made on butter when decontrol took place was due to certain factors which would not repeat themselves. That profit could not be made this year no matter whether there was a ceiling or not. That had nothing to do with it. In any event, margarine is now on the market and those who do not want to pay a high price for butter can buy margarine.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Is the hon. member in favour of that?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Those people who prefer butter, and are willing to pay the price the farmer thinks he should get to cover his cost of production, may continue to buy it. I can see no logical reason for keeping butter under a price ceiling; it should be removed. The same thing applies to the rest of those foods still under price ceiling, such as bread, citrus fruits and other things. Personally I would be happy to see the price of citrus fruits go up two or three times so that the people of this country would drink apple juice, carrot juice and other things we have in this country, and thus help to eliminate some of the difficulties faced by the apple growers in Nova Scotia and other parts of Canada.
There is no reason for the continuation of these controls and I should like to see the government eliminate them. 1 do not think it is practical to get rid of rent control immediately. The government has managed to 29087-45 j
Transitional Measures Act get the country into such a horrible mess as far as housing is concerned that the elimination of rent control would probably be catastrophic. Until the present mess is cleared up I think we will have to have some measure of rent control. The same thing applies to steel control because of the shortages in that essential commodity.
I think the timber control might well go out the window. The lumber yards in Calgary appear to have an over-supply of lumber. There seems to be no shortage from what I can see and I do not think the continuation of this control is justified.
I think the government will get a much better reception for this bill if it provides only for the continuance of the same measure of control on the commodities I have mentioned and does not indicate an intention to impose further price ceilings.


Rodney Young: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the hon. member for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness) with a great deal of interest. I do not know how the people in Calgary East feel about the controls that have been under discussion, but I do know how the people feel in the area which I represent. With all due respect to the hon. member for Calgary East, I venture to say to him that if the speech he has just delivered here in this House of Commons were delivered on a platform in my constituency he would certainly meet a very hostile audience. It may be that in my constituency there are not many packing-house owners or many lumber barons.


Douglas Scott Harkness: You must be very badly informed in your constituency.


Rodney Young: Whether or not they are badly informed in my constituency, I think they are better informed than the hon. member for Calgary East. Those people have to use lumber. They are on the end when it comes to paying for the lumber. I am sure that young veterans returning from the last war, or munitions workers who saved their money and put it into government bonds in the hope that some day they would achieve the ambition of most Canadians, to own their own homes, when they came to buy lumber at present prices would be sufficiently disappointed. If they had to buy lumber without any price control they certainly would not like it in spite of the fact that in some parts of the country, perhaps in Calgary East, there may be a surplus of good lumber. There is no surplus in the place where the lumber originates, British Columbia. At the present time, I venture to say, the people of British Columbia will be most affected by the removal of the controls which this government proposes to carry on. I am dealing only with
708	HOUSE OF
Transitional Measures Act these controls, not with the innumerable controls which I should like to see the government institute on a number of things. Hon. members to my right may make the most of that, but I am simply dealing with the controls that the government proposes to continue.
The removal of those controls at the present time would affect certain classes of people in our country who are in desperate and straitened circumstances. It happens that they are centred in my constituency, because it is a place of rooming houses, and a large area is a place of slums. In these rooming houses, in the basement and in the attic, and in the slums, are the $40 a month burnt-out pensioners whom this country at one time treated as heroes. There are also the old age pensioners existing on $35 or $40 a month, people who gave the best that was in them to build the country and make possible the profits which my friends on the right consider to be reasonable and just. I suggest that this house represents them just as much as it does the lumber barons. Those are the people to whom we should have some sense of responsibility, and for whom these controls are essential.
I should like to point out that it was argued by the hon. member who spoke last that taxes, import duties, and the various tariffs that are placed on different things, are one of the essential causes for the maintenance of the present high prices. During the course of the discussion it was brought up as a matter of reproach that we should not look at things from the point of view of making as high a profit as we can. It was pointed out that we should not look at things from the point of view of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest. It was pointed out that was essentially a philosophy which should not be followed. That statement was greeted with laughter on the right, and on the government benches. If that is the philosophy that is followed, and apparently it is, then if we remove all these taxes, if we remove all these tariffs, and if we make it possible for buying and selling to go on without the government taking any slice out of the amount for which the commodity finally sells, have we any reason to suppose that people will voluntarily bring down prices who believe they should make all the profit they can because when the next depression comes they may have to take a few losses?


Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt: Competition will do that.


Rodney Young: Competition has not succeeded in doing that at any time. On the contrary, prices are determined at the present time, as was pointed out, by war produced shortages


where prices are uncontrolled, but wages are determined by the demand for labour. At the present time in my constituency, and in my part of the country, there are not less than
25.000	people drawing unemployment insurance. They certainly are not able to pay the prices which would result from the lifting of the existing controls. In addition to that, there must be at least half as many again who are unemployed but are not eligible to draw unemployment insurance. There are
7.000	between New Westminster and Abbotsford in the Fraser valley, as the member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) will tell you. In my section of the country at the present time fifty per cent of the industries have shut down because of the power shortage, resulting from a cataclysm of nature over which we have no control. These are the people whom I represent, and these are the people who would suffer if the policies advocated by the hon. member for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness) were carried out.
I would say that by and large the people of the country are suffering from a reduction in the standard of living compared to that which they had a few years ago. It is pointed out in the speech from the throne, and the government has amply demonstrated, that we are going through a period of maximum prosperity. At the present time maximum prosperity, as it is regarded in orthodox free enterprise circles, is a period of maximum profits. At a time of maximum prosperity and maximum profits it is poor philosophy to rise on the floor of the house and demand that a reduction be made in the amoimt of taxes that industry has to pay. That section of labour power which has been incorporated in the commodity which we call surplus value, and for which the average wage worker receives nothing, is being cut into by the state, and big businessmen, and indeed some of the small businessmen are greatly annoyed about it.
But at the time of the hungry thirties, when there was no such surplus, when business was in a condition where many of the businessmen were facing bankruptcy, the type of controls that we have today were unnecessary. At the same time we are facing the prospect of a return to that sort of economic debacle unless we have some sort of planned society. These controls are a small step in that direction. It is at least a recognition by the state that they have some responsibility for the economic development of the country. They have some responsibility for maintaining the standard of living of the producers of the country. They have some responsibility for seeing that those citizens who have the weakest defences under a society of un-

limited competition, under a society in which there is no possibility of quarter being given, are protected, because they have no other protection.
I think that the policy of the government, while it is to that extent on the right track, should be carried further, that the existing powers that were given to the government by the house should be extended further. I believe that for this reason. I live in a section of Vancouver where I am three blocks from the industrial waterfront. I live in what is called a slum area, an industrial area. I, together with thousands of my fellow veterans, returned from overseas and I could not find accommodation. I had to live in an area where my standard of living, and the standard of living of thousands of other Canadian producers, has been cut away from under us, although we have always been led to believe that we had a right to the high North American standard of living.
Owing to the fact that prices make it impossible for us to build our own homes, we are compelled to live in a slum district. Two blocks away from where I live there is a house in which there are twelve adults and seven children. There is no bathroom and only one toilet. The chimney catches on fire regularly every month. The place was condemned years before the war. Yet we are compelled to utilize such accommodation simply because the existing price structure is getting in the way of expansion which is necessary to maintain a standard of living commensurate with the great wealth of the country. The contention has been made tonight that price controls could not continue in peacetime, that it would mean a police state. I ask hon. members whether they think that old age pensioners, burnt-out pensioners, and superannuated civil servants are bothered much about a police state provided they can keep prices within reach of their tiny means. By stigmatizing this progressive policy with the reactionary name of a police state, the critics are not going to alter anything in the minds of the people. The people feel this thing personally. They are not discussing it, as we are, in a theoretical atmosphere. Price controls mean something to them and are essential to them.
Great Britain has entered this discussion a considerable number of times today. I should like to say that Great Britain maintains a system of price controls. These controls had to be maintained because, unlike this country, the British people are not sitting on top of the world in so far as natural resources are concerned. There are perhaps forty to fifty million people concentrated in that tiny island. They have to import all their raw materials at high prices and then compete in
Transitional Measures Act the highly competitive markets- of the world with their finished products. The people of Britain have had to share and share alike. In that country, it is not possible for an extremely wealthy person to get what an extremely wealthy person can get in this country. It is possible, however, for poor children in that country to get all that is necessary to make for healthy bodies, much healthier than they were under the capitalist system. Together with this system of price control or perhaps because of this system of price control in Great Britain, the government is able to give the people security from the cradle to the grave; health insurance and old age pensions for women at sixty and men at sixty-five. Canada is one of the wealthiest nations per capita in the world, yet we are unable to afford those things because of the unlimited competition of capitalism and because of the irresponsibility of those who, at the present time, control our natural resources, our mines, mills and smelters.


Mr. Hackeit:: Will the hon. gentleman permit a question?


Rodney Young: I will permit a question later, but at the present time I am in full spate like the streams of British Columbia and I do not want to be interrupted.


An hon. Member:: Just like a phonograph.


Rodney Young: It is no record to which you
are listening. In any event, the people like it and will continue to like it for some time. It will be heard more frequently on the floor of this house because the people like it. I would say that, so long as the prosperity, so called, continues at the existing level, there will be only discontent. The existing discontent has produced a protest to parliament in the form of the group of members I am amongst in this house. If the existing prosperity and the circumstances that go with it deteriorate, if they deteriorate only a little, we are going to experience in this country a tremendous change of heart.
The head of the welfare chest and the secretary of the red feather organization in the city of Vancouver, who is as far from being a socialist as my friend to the right, recently made this statement: that unless the federal authorities are willing to accept the responsibility for the mass unemployment which has developed there, and the lack of unemployment insurance to cover that situation, there will be serious riots and disturbances in that city. I have not been to Vancouver since early January, but this is the word of a man in a responsible position and drawing a salary equivalent to that of anyone in this house. He is a man whose business it is to know these things. Situations of that type are the

Transitional Measures Act direct consequence of the lack of control, the lack of planning, and unhampered competition.
At the present time the newspapers carry reports of very damaging floods in the south end of Vancouver island resulting in the loss of $100,000 worth of property. This flood is the direct consequence of the cutting-down of our trees in British Columbia without any thought of the necessity for replanting. In Sweden when one tree is cut down another is planted. They have been planting and cutting trees for hundreds of years. Owing to the lack of government controls in my province, in forty years we shall probably have no commercial timber within easy reach. We shall be going up to the top of the mountains for timber. Now, when the snow comes, it lies on the bare hillside and the first breath of warm weather brings flash floods. If the snow were shaded by the large trees, such floods would be avoided. At the present time the trans-continental trains are delayed twenty-four hours getting into the city of Vancouver. The same thing occurred last year on a tremendous scale, as this house knows.
I may sound rather radical to my hon. friends to the right and I may seem to have become somewhat emotional. I should like to say I have listened rather attentively to their point of view. I have not interrupted, nor do I intend to do so. I give my friends on the right credit for believing what they say, although I do not see how it is possible for them to believe all they have said. I do, however, give them credit for believing it. I know they believe it is their duty, but I should like them to have a look at this matter from the point of view of the man on the bottom of the pile. These controls are not being urged by the members of this group because we love controls. We love freedom as much as any man in this house. We do not want controls for the sake of controls. I do not want a policeman looking down the back of my neck or giving me a ticket every time I move. If it can be demonstrated, and I believe it can be, that in the interests of the country as a whole, during the transitional period from the production of war materials to the time when our peacetime production is again fully developed, controls are essential to the welfare of the majority of the people, then by all means let us use controls. Let us not look upon controls as a police state, but let us look upon controls as a means to an end and let that end be the best interests of the useful people of Canada.


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not know whether I can make the remarks which I hoped to be able to make by strictly adhering to the rules of the house. I think I can say all I wish to say,


however, by remaining as close to the rules as the other speakers have. The remarks which have just been made should, I think, have some reply. The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Young) has covered considerable territory. I am sure he must have realized, as he was speaking, that a number of the subjects he was discussing were not of direct interest to the members of this house.
His reference to the control of the cutting of timber, for example, is a case in point. In this country the cutting of timber, if it is under the control of a government, is largely under the control of provincial governments. The natural resources, belong to the provinces and are, naturally, under their control. The only authority under which this government may take control over such matters is the type of authority we get from a measure such as the one under discussion this evening. I only wish to impress upon the hon. member the fact that we are being accused by the members of the official opposition now of trespassing upon provincial rights and we would probably be trespassing upon them still further if we attempted to do some of the things the hon. member has suggested.
I am very sorry I was not in the house this afternoon when the member for Peace River (Mr. Low) delivered his address. From what has been said, I would judge he had certain things to say with regard to conditions in the old land which he had recently visited. I have been in Britain on a number of occasions since 1936. I do want to agree with much of what has been said by the last speaker about the condition of the people and with much of what has been said by the member for Ontario (Mr. Williams). I am not prepared, however, to give all the credit to the present government in Great Britain for those conditions. *


An hon. Member:: Why?


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend says, Why? One of the reasons is that most of the social services referred to by the member for Ontario were placed upon the statute books of Great Britain by no less a person than one of his own very great countrymen, Lloyd George, a Welshman. That was many years ago, Mr. Speaker. It is true that other governments, Liberal, Conservative and Socialist, have added to the basic principles that were established by earlier governments. But when socialists attempt to take credit for all that was done by all social reformers back over the years, they are taking in much too much territory.
Then when I listen to the description of the condition of the people in London and in Britain at present, I am inclined to agree. But I should like to say to my hon. friend that the

members of the present government were calling my attention to those conditions during the first six months that they were in office. Anyone who knows the city of London realizes that conditions such as those that are being described could not have been created by any government in six months. The fact of the matter is that practically everything they have in Great Britain in the nature of controls of the distribution of food was placed upon their statute books and in the regulations by no less a person than Lord Woolton, the present chairman of the Conservative party in Great Britain and not a socialist at all. If any credit is coming to the present government in connection with those regulations and that legislation, it is due to the fact that they showed good enough sense under all the circumstances to continue the regulations which had been introduced under the Churchill government, and which are still in force.
May I say also that, in spite of the fact that much of the criticism has been made with regard to the controls they have in connection with agriculture, which might not be acceptable in the Dominion of Canada because of our different conditions, many of those controls also were not placed there under the present government. Some of them were introduced before the war and some of them early in the war during the period that Mr. Hudson was Minister of Agriculture in that country. I make these statements only for the purpose of keeping the record straight. In this country we have people who are trying to claim the credit for everything that has been done by anyone who has been interested in reform for a generation before there was a socialist party either in Great Britain or in Canada; and I think it is well that we should keep the record straight as to who is responsible for what, in order that we may be able to make decisions as to what we ought to do under certain circumstances.


William Scottie Bryce: Those were the days when Liberals were liberal.


James Garfield Gardiner: Liberals are still liberal.


William Scottie Bryce: Not any more.


James Garfield Gardiner: My friend Scotty, the hon. member for Selkirk, will be a Liberal some time in the future when he has made up his mind that he is no longer a socialist; because no Liberal ever desired to be controlled to the extent that the socialists want to control us. I have never known a Scotch Liberal who could stand for it for any great length of time.
Coming down to some of the discussions to which we have been listening, we on this side of the house have been the audience. We
Transitional Measures Act have been listening to a debate between the socialists and the Conservatives on the subject of controls. The socialists maintain that we ought to be controlled in every direction and with regard to everything we are doing.


An hon. Member:: They never said anything of the kind.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am glad they are not quite as radical as they were a few months ago.


An hon. Member:: Keep the record straignt.


James Garfield Gardiner: They too, or most of them, are coming back a little nearer to where they were at one time. Probably we shall find them doing as some of them used to do, organizing for one of the old parties. We shall probably find them even going to conventions and trying to get conventions for one of the old parties. Some of them, when they had tried on three or four occasions to get a convention for one of the old parties, and were not able to get it, then of course organized a party of their own and ran in order to try to get elected.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Page the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Sinnott).


James Garfield Gardiner: I realize that in order to get here they will have to do similar things, and probably some of them will be talking a little differently from the way in which they are now talking.
The argument that has been going on has been one as to whether we should or should not have controls; and again I say that we have been greatly interested in it. The hon. member for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness), who is not here at the moment, had something to say with regard to butter, and I also want to say a little bit about it.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: It is a fairly slippery subject.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, it is a slippery subject. A certain party slipped out of power on it once, and the opposite party slipped out on another occasion. Someone might slip out again, but I do not think it will be this party.


An hon. Member:: Do not be too sure.


James Garfield Gardiner: The question raised a few minutes ago with regard to butter is one that is well understood in this country. The farmers of Canada produce in the summertime twice as much butter as we consume, but in the winter months they produce half as much as we consume. As a result, speculators can have a good time with our butter if they are left free to do so. I rather imagine that some of those speculators would even be socialists who would be taking a chance on making a little bit out of butter.
712	HOUSE OF
Transitional Measures Act


John Lambert Gibson: Oh, no; surely not.


James Garfield Gardiner: As a matter of fact, when you have twice as much of any product coming onto a market from which you cannot afford to let any of it go because you must have it all in order to supply the market completely throughout the year, if everyone is allowed to do what he likes about it, someone will do just what was done last year. The only reason such a great fuss was made about it last year was that it had not been done that way for seven or eight years. We had been at war, and the marketing of butter in this country had been under absolute control all the time. Then, when we let it out of control for a period, the butter was bought at under fifty cents a pound.


Mr. Burion:: Just what we told the minister would happen actually did happen.


James Garfield Gardiner: 1 think I told my hon. friend it would happen. He might have agreed. It was bought at under fifty cents a pound. I think the evidence given to the committee was to the effect that even throughout the whole summer it was bought at an average of about fifty-one to fifty-two cents a pound. Then during the winter months, when there was coming onto the market only half enough to supply the requirements of the people, those who had in storage the butter which had been produced in the summer months were putting it on the market at a higher and higher price, until when it reached sixty-seven and one-half cents a ceiling was placed on it. That ceiling was the only thing that prevented it from going up higher. The only reason that the ceiling was put on was for the purpose of seeing to it that, since the butter had been bought at a lower price, it was not allowed to be sold to the people at any higher price than it had then reached.
When the matter was gone into by the committee it was found on the evidence that one of the companies had sold the butter at an average of between 11 cents and 12 cents a pound higher than it had been purchased, and of course everybody called that a profit. But what I want to emphasize is the fact that unless there is some kind of control some place that thing will happen in spite of what anybody tries to do every year from now on. The only reason that this government cannot do anything about it, unless a measure such as is before the house at the present time is passed, is that the authority to deal with that kind of thing is with the provinces. I am quite certain that if this government were to attempt to take that authority away from the provinces we would experience some of the same kind of criticism that this debate tMr. Girdiner.]

started off with this evening. The first speaker, the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), said, as I was coming into the chamber, that he was going to discuss certain orders from the point of view that they were encroaching, or allowing this government to encroach, upon the authority of the provinces. That has been quite an issue in almost everything that has been discussed this session, and I presume it is going to be made the issue by hook or by crook with regard to everything that is discussed from now until the end of the session.
What I should like to point out, Mr. Speaker, is that in so far as butter and many of these other products are concerned, there is now no effective control over them unless greater authority is given to the federal government than it has in relation to these matters up to the present time. The only reason that we were able to control butter during the war, the only reason that we have been able to control it last year, is that we had the War Measures Act during the war and we had the extension of the powers contained in the War Measures Act under the legislation which is under discussion at the present moment.
The hon. member for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness) was inclined to question my suggestion that the controls during this year made it impossible for those who have been handling butter to make as great a profit. Probably I was stating it the wrong way around. Probably what I should have said was that the controls, as they have been exercised this year, made it possible for men who have been trying for years to be honest in connection with this matter, and to trade with people honestly, to find a method of doing it under the controls as they are up to now. All that these controls did was to place a floor of 58 cents a pound under butter. That floor has not been operative at all during the past year in connection with the handling of butter because butter has never been down to that price or anywhere near it.


Mr.   Hackell@: We had to import butter.


James Garfield Gardiner: But having said that the ceiling price is approximately sixty-seven and a half cents-it differs a little from that in different places in Canada but that is the basis of it-may I say the fact is that all the butter has been bought at sixty-seven and a half cents. All the butter produced last May when there was twice as much coming on the market as was required, all the butter produced in June, all the butter produced right through the year, has been bought at approximately sixty-seven and a half cents a pound delivered at a certain point in Canada.

The regulation allows a certain margin, a certain markup, between that wholesale price and the retail price. With that certain markup between the wholesale price and the retail price-that markup is only a few cents; it does not permit of any profits to anyone of the kind that these people could make back over the years under the conditions that existed in this country-that narrow margin of markup has been all the profit that anyone could get. Therefore those who are storing the butter have been quite prepared to take delivery of butter, and pay the producer a certain price right through the year, whether in the summer or in the winter, for that butter. I think that every farmer in this country will say that sixty-seven and a half cents a pound is more money a pound for butter in the summer months than he needs to get in order to cover his costs of production. But I think every producer in this country will say that under present conditions sixty-seven and a half cents a pound for butter in the wintertime is not quite as much as he ought to get. But the two have averaged out at the best he has ever received in peacetime, possibly at any time.


John Thomas Hackett: Will the hon. member permit a question?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


John Thomas Hackett: Is it not a fact that milk which goes into butter yields a lesser return to the farmer than that which is used in any other form?


James Garfield Gardiner: That is right, but it has not very much to do with what I am discussing at the moment.


John Thomas Hackett: It caused the sale of herds.


James Garfield Gardiner: Perhaps the consumer ought to realize that the farmer is getting less money out of butter than he gets out of cheese, or out of canned milk, or out of whole milk sold at so much a quart each day; and as has been indicated, it is the lowest price. What I was trying to point out was that this year the farmer got approximately sixty-seven and a half cents a pound for his butter wholesale at, let us say, Montreal. The butter was then sold at a certain markup throughout the year, with the result that the man who was storing butter did not need to take all the risks that he used to take in connection with it and therefore did not need the margin. The risks are largely taken by the retailer who handles the butter. He may take delivery of it the day it is bought from the farmer, leave it in storage and take delivery of it from the wholesaler as he requires it for his customers.
Transitional Measures Act
I do not think there is an hon. member in this house-who fully understands the conditions under which butter is produced in this country, and fully understands the conditions under which butter must be marketed-who will not agree that some reasonable degree of control on the marketing of that butter ought to be put into effect and ought to be retained in effect. But I repeat, the only way that we can have that kind of control is by having some kind of understanding between this government and the provincial governments, which does not exist in a legal sense right up to the present time.


Percy Ellis Wright: Is not that one of the best arguments which can be used for a Natural Products Marketing Act to co-ordinate the marketing agencies?


James Garfield Gardiner: That may be so, but it is not
an argument for socialism.


Percy Ellis Wright: I do not care what you call it.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is one of the things which make people vote for socialism, because people who are not socialists do not regulate it, but it is not socialism.


Percy Ellis Wright: Why are you not doing that?


James Garfield Gardiner: We are doing it at the moment, and we are asking you to give us authority to do it for another year. That is all that is before this house at the moment. I am simply answering the suggestion of the hon. member for Calgary East who says that he does not want to give us that authority this year.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Don't pay any attention to him.


James Garfield Gardiner: I may not pay attention to him, but I pay attention to the people to whom he is talking when he speaks in this house.


Joseph William Burton: Will the minister permit one question? In setting these prices for the handling of butter in the legitimate trade, is the minister getting complaints from these people or from those who want to speculate in butter?


James Garfield Gardiner: So far as I know, we have not had any complaints from anybody this year. We have had no complaints from the farmers, from the retailers, from the wholesalers or from the consumers, except that some of the consumers who are probably not too well informed do not know what was suggested a few moments ago, namely, that our butter is being sold at the lowest price of anything that is made from milk.


John Thomas Hackett: And our herds in the eastern townships have been sold for the same reason.

Transitional Measures Act


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not want to go into the discussion of that tonight. I am afraid my hon. friend will make me discuss it some other night when I come to my estimates. I merely wanted to deal with this one suggestion. On the one hand, people tell us that we must not step on the toes of the provinces, and on the other hand, occasionally by agreement with the provinces or in some other way, we find it absolutely necessary to do something which we have not the authority to do, in order to accomplish the things which people believe ought to be done in this country, no matter to what political party they belong.
It was not my intention to have taken up so much time in dealing with one product, butter. I had intended to spend more time in discussing the general position which has been discussed this evening. Our friends of the C.C.F. party have been maintaining, as they always do, that we should have retained all, or practically all the controls, and probably that we should have put on new ones that we did not have before. Then, our friends of the official opposition have been arguing that we have kept on too many controls up to now, and that we should have got rid of all of them, or at least the greater part of them.


An hon. Member:: You took the wrong ones off first.


James Garfield Gardiner: I have an idea that out of the argument there has come a thought which perhaps did not occur to many of those who were speaking. My hon. friends of the C.C.F. party have been dwelling at great length upon the cost of living, and hon. members of the official opposition have occasionally drifted into that argument-that the cost of living is too high.
The hon. member for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness) has tried to impress upon the house that food costs were possibly more responsible than anything else for increasing the cost of living; and hon. members in another part of the house argue that that is not so.
I should like to place on record one or two illustrations I have run across out in the country, to indicate the weakness of those arguments. Last summer while out in Saskatchewan I picked up a pamphlet which had on the back of it a big 59 in red numbers. Then, over the top of that was printed the inscription, "The purchasing power of the dollar today is only 59 cents". I looked at it, and then I said to the farmer I was visiting, "Do you agree with that?" "Well," he said, "it is not working out that way with me. I do not know just whom they are talking about. Perhaps they are taking an average all across Canada, and in that I do

not know whether they are right. But," he said, "in so far as I am concerned, I built a house this year; and the reason I built it was that I could build it with 34 per cent less wheat than I could have built it with before the war. I could have built it with 40 per cent fewer hogs than I could have built it with before the war. I could have built it with 56 per cent fewer cattle than I could have built it with before the war. So," he said, "my purchasing power in respect of those particular things today, with the dollar that I have, represented in products I have been selling, is away beyond what the pamphlet makes it out to be."
I think his reasoning was much sounder than the reasoning of some of my hon. friends who have spoken this evening.
Last summer out in the middle of Saskatchewan, where I did not think anyone knew me-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. Member:: Where could that be?


James Garfield Gardiner: -I walked into a restaurant. I will not tell you where it was.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Did you have to go there to eat?


James Garfield Gardiner: I had intended only to have a dish of ice cream to cool me off.


An hon. Member:: Getting pretty hot?


James Garfield Gardiner: The lady who was there ready to wait on me was seated at a table with a copy of the Winnipeg Free Press in front of her. She had not been reading the editorials they have been writing recently- but she was looking at the stock page. She called me by name and said, "Come over here, I want to show you something".


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


James Garfield Gardiner: And she was not thinking about the same things as the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Williams). When I went over and took a look at the paper it showed the picture of a big white steer, over which was the inscription, "The farmer got $546 for this one".


Arthur Leroy Smith: "Come up and see me some time".


James Garfield Gardiner: I said to her, "That is a pretty nice steer". She said, "That was not what I was thinking about".


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


James Garfield Gardiner: I said, "What were you thinking?" She said, "I was thinking that we could buy a tractor with three steers like that. I was just wondering how many it

would have taken in the years just before the war". That was an exceptional steer, it is true.


James Arthur Ross: Exceptional woman, too.


James Garfield Gardiner: Nevertheless, one could buy a tractor with six steers of the ordinary type. They would have brought just as much money as she would have had for three steers of the type of which she was speaking.
What I am hoping to do by these illustrations is to point out to the house that there is some truth in what was said by the hon. member for Calgary East, namely, that when we come to quoting percentages, quoting lump sums, and trying to apply our arguments to every condition that exists, no matter where we happen to be in different parts of this country, quite often we are talking with people who know a great deal more about their local conditions than we do. And I am afraid if my hon. friend the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Young) goes around to some places and talks as he was talking a few moments ago he would find that in due course people would not be as well pleased as he thinks.
After all, most of the farmers in this country whom I have met-and I have met a great many of them-are thinking just as straight with respect to the economic problems of this country as are any group of people to be found anywhere. Most of them believe that they are enjoying as favourable economic conditions today as they have ever enjoyed at any time.
And they know why that is. Hon. members have been discussing the matter this evening. Someone over here said, "They cut out the subsidies"; and someone in another section of the house said, "They increased the cost of coarse grain," and so on. That is the kind of argument we have heard here, there and everywhere. Someone said, half under his breath, that at a particular time this was being done at the expense of the farmer; that in other words we did not let him have the highest possible price when prices were at their peak. And it is suggested that because we did not do that, we ought to throw our markets wide open now.
May I say to him that there are very few farm products which a farmer could sell in the United States market today at a better price than he is getting for them in the Canadian market-very few.


Mr. Brooks:: What about potatoes?


An hon. Member:: Butter.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Butter is higher in Canada.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, butter is higher in
Canada. I look at the official prices every
29087-46i
Transitional Measures Act day, and I know the price has been down around 60 to 63 cents on comparable markets for some considerable time.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Not in whole milk?


James Garfield Gardiner: Milk powder has been lower in the United States for about two years than it has been in this country. Than, cheese cannot be shipped from Canada into the United States, with freight and duty paid on it, and be sold at as high a price as it can be sold in Canada. That is why I am getting appeals every day from people all over this country who want us to take cheese off their hands, cheese that they have been holding for one or two years. This market is the best market they have at the present time, but it does not bring enough to cover all the carrying charges in addition to what was paid for it.
I repeat that there are not many farm products that can be sold on the open market outside of this country at prices better than can be obtained in the country at the present time. Anyone who stands up in this house and advocates a lower cost of living by reducing the cost of food products is trying to make it absolutely impossible for this government to carry out the undertakings which they gave back in 1944 to maintain for a time during the transitional period floors under the prices of farm products.
My hon. friends in the opposition say that we denied the farmers the top prices at a particular period. If you allow prices to go down to the level of prices in some markets in order to satisfy consumers all over the country, then the farmers will lose on the long-time experience.
1 think we have had enough men standing up in this house and saying that the farmer lost money on wheat because he did not get the top price, that we should have been on the open market all the time, and then advocating at the same time that we ought to make all farmers-there is only a small proportion, some 200,000 out of 750,000, who raise wheat-that we ought to make all the other 550,000 farmers and their families accept a lower return for their products simply because they cannot be sold at a higher price in some other place for the time being. That kind of argument is going to make it absolutely impossible to carry out even the kind of control that is necessary to stabilize prices for a limited period of time.
It was necessary during the war and after to hold down prices for farm products and other products, and prices were held down. If we are to have stabilized prices it may be necessary to hold up farm prices. My hon. friends of the C.C.F. say that because
716	HOUSE OF
Transitional Measures Act we have no ceiling price, therefore we have no control. They are not talking in accordance with the facts.


An hon. Member:: Never said that.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member says
"never said that". They said that controls have all been taken off farm products and not off other things.


An hon. Member:: It is the other way around.


James Garfield Gardiner: Rather that controls have been taken off other things and not off farm products, with the result that farmers suffer. The keeping on of floors tends to keep up prices and for a period of time it tends to give the farmer back something of what he lost during the period when he was not allowed to take the peak prices he might have taken.
Let us examine for a moment or two the conditions and the time during which he did take comparatively low prices. The United States had controls right down to the end of the war and our people were not able to get much if any more, even if they had been able to get into the United States during that period. Shortly after the war the United States took off controls and prices rushed up very rapidly. Some people were inclined to say that we should have taken them off also and allowed our prices to run up just as rapidly. In other words we should have sold in the American market. Whether it was right or not, we did not do that; we maintained our prices at lower levels not only for food products but for labour and everything else. My hon. friend shakes his head. Probably there were a few things that one would buy once in twenty years or once in ten years that were higher.


An hon. Member:: Gasoline.


James Garfield Gardiner: You can buy more gasoline with a bushel of wheat today than you could at any time over a long period. One hon. member said "What about rye?" I know this will not be an answer because I do not know where it came from.


An hon. Member:: Assiniboia.


James Garfield Gardiner: If it came from the C.C.F. group it will not be an answer. If it came from the Social Credit group, it will be an answer. If it came from the Conservatives, it will be an answer. Some people have been saying that we should have kept the market open all the time, that there should have been a free market, that we should have let prices go where they would. Well, we did that with one product and I am going to tell the house why it was done because I was the culprit in the picture.


When controls were put on back in 1942 reasons were given for doing that. The first was that we wanted to keep down the cost of living in order that we could get more for the money that we were spending during the war period when we had to spend great sums of money to do the things that we would not do in ordinary times. It was thought that we should keep down wages in order to keep down the cost of production. We were working toward that end. With a few exceptions we controlled everything.
One thing we did was this. We did not tie the prices of food produced by the farmer to the price of the month period to which we tied almost everything else. We allowed the price of live hogs, we allowed the price of live cattle, and we allowed the price of grain to go up to higher levels before we put on absolute controls which resulted in those prices not going higher. Not only did we do that; we entered into contracts with Britain which took all our surplus at higher prices than we could have got in other places at that time. In other words, we improved the condition of the producers of food during that period.
That is one reason why the prices of food products were allowed to get up to a level which was much higher than the level at the time the prices of other products were fixed. Does anyone believe that the price of hogs did not go up between 1942 and 1945-46? Of course it did. Does anyone believe that the prices of farm products did not go up during that period? An effort was made by some people in this country-it was not the government-to tie wheat at the price it was selling for at that time, that is 78 cents. But the government did not permit wheat to be tied at 78 cents and it went up until it reached $1.25 before any particular effort was made to control it.
The only thing the government did during that period was to take wheat that nobody else would take. There was not an elevator company in this country, farmer, co-operative or otherwise, that would buy a bushel of wheat during the early forties at 50 cents. They all came to the government and said: "Take this wheat off our hands; put it in the elevators and allow us money with which to build annexes to our elevators so we can store it". The government did everything to make it possible for this product to be carried on to a later time in order to assist the farmers over a difficult period.
I think these things ought to be said when a discussion is going on of the kind that is going on here tonight. Those things were done. That is the reason why farmers will tell you when you drive into their yards that they are able to put up a building now with

less wheat than ever before. That is why they tell you that they are buying their gasoline, even at today's high price, for less bushels of wheat than they bought it before, or for less of the other farm products. These prices were not held at a dead level as of 1941. They were deliberately allowed to go up until they reached a higher level, and that higher level was maintained on products such as wheat right down to the end of the war. When wheat was sold at that price every single nickel was returned to the farmers with the result that the men who delivered during that period of time received another $60 million. We did not charge them the $60 million, Mr. Speaker, that we lost in the years just before that. We paid that out of the treasury.
When these people are figuring what has been lost and what has been gained they ought to go back to the beginning and figure the thing properly. If they figure it properly every one of them will come to the same conclusion that my friends have come to on rye. I got a letter from a man in Alberta the other day. He said, "I made a mistake. I put all my land in rye for the last three years, and I was hailed out for two of those years. This year it is down to less than $1 a bushel where I am." He hoped to get $4 a bushel for it when he put it in. That is what a so-called open market does for these fellows; that is what it does for them. Rye was around 50 cents a bushel when this thing started. Rye went right on up until it got to $4.30 a bushel. Farmers of the west put in rye against the advice of the government, against the advice of others. There was the offer staring them in the face; there was the propaganda from the grain exchange.
When I am on this question what I should like to say to my hon. friend from Souris (Mr. Ross) is this. I have heard him stand up in the house and say he is against the grain exchange.


Mr. Sinnoit:: It is not on the record.


James Garfield Gardiner: I have heard him stand up in this house and say-


James Arthur Ross: The hon. member for Springfield says that it was never on the record. I will show him in Hansard, where I moved a resolution. He is not making a true statement of fact.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is on the record.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: Can you give us the date?


James Garfield Gardiner: He can get the date, and if he does not get it I will get it, because it is on the record.
Transitional Measures Act


James Arthur Ross: The minister will correct you.


James Garfield Gardiner: The record shows my hon. friend has been against the grain exchange. The record shows that my hon. friend is in favour of the wheat board. That is a logical position to take; but when I listened to him the other day, putting forward all the arguments that anyone ever put forth in support of the grain exchange, I began to wonder whether he was arguing for what he believes in, or whether he was arguing for something that somebody else believes in. If so, I should like to have his reason why he was arguing for something somebody else believes in. In so far as rye is concerned, rye started out below 50 cents a bushel at the beginning of the war and ran up to $4.30. It dropped from $4.30 down to $1.14 at Fort William, according to yesterday's paper. That is a very good illustration of what happened to wheat in the first war.
When we are able to say now what we are able to say in that regard I think we have something that is worth putting before the people of the country from time to time. To finish my story on rye, I said I was going to tell you that I was the culprit. Back in 1942, when the argument was on to keep down the cost of living, I said that rye was a crop which did not enter into the cost of living in this country. We do not eat rye bread, or very little of it. We do not convert it into flour. Even our chickens will not eat it. We only get our hogs to eat it because they do not have anything else. They do not like it. I said, "It is not used generally by farmers for feed and it is not used generally by human beings for food. The people who grow it live in the driest areas of western Canada where it is most difficult for them to grow anything, and if they can get a higher price for it at the present time it is not going to hurt anybody very much. It is not going to affect our cost of living, so let them have it."
I found that people who will take your advice when the price is going up refuse to take it when the price is going down. Last year I was saying to people not in the drought area, "Get out of rye. One of these days you are going to take an awful bump." Some of them did not get out, and they have learned now why an open market is not as good a thing as some people think it is. There is nothing of the nature of socialism in the fact that a man says that one system of marketing is better than another. That is not socialism. It is not socialism to be on

Transitional Measures Act either side of the question. The system which we have had for the last seven or eight years, whatever it may have done in the past and whatever it may do in the future, is the system that operated to the satisfaction of our producers all over western Canada. I am sure that unless they can be shown something better they will support it right through the years.
On motion of Mr. Hansell the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Alphonse Fournier: the adjournment of the house.
He said:	On Monday we will resume the
debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne. The Prime Minister has given notice of motion to give precedence to that debate.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, February 21, 1949