1949-03-11

MANITOBA


Mr. Alistair Stewart (Winnipeg North):: should like to call the attention of the house, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that the rink led by Mr. Ken Watson of Winnipeg emerged for the third time as the best curling rink in Canada, thus bringing much credit to himself, his colleagues and his province.
Manitoba's obvious superiority does not end there, however, for last week in Toronto the Winnipeg ballet club, under the skilled direction of Miss Gweneth Lloyd, also brought honour to Manitoba by asserting its supremacy over all comers by taking extra honours in the Toronto festival.


Mr. J. A. Ross (Souris):: I should like to ask the Secretary of State whether he realizes that in his home city last night one of the finest curling teams in the world won the Canadian championship for the third time.


Some hon. Members:: Too late!


James Arthur Ross: They should be congratulated, I believe, on their fine victory.


Hon. Colin Gibson (Secretary of State):: had the pleasure of seeing the Manitoba rink curl in Hamilton, and I do want to congratulate them on their victory.



PROVISION FOR EVENING SITTINGS 7.30 TO 10.30 UNTIL LAST SITTING DAY IN APRIL

[Stage Direction]
On the order:
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion of Mr. St. Laurent that, except on Wednesdays, Mr. Speaker shall leave the chair at six o'clock p.m. until seven-thirty, and shall adjourn the house at ten-thirty p.m. without question put, unless the closure rule (standing order No. 39) be then in operation, this order to be in effect until and upon the last sitting day of the month of April.
Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: May I suggest that this order be allowed to stand? It is not immediately practicable to proceed with it, because we have not reached the end of the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne.
29087-87i
If by good fortune we do reach the end of the debate today, I shall ask the house to come back to this motion and deal with it then.



IMMIGRATION


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: At the risk of making some of our newspaper friends believe that I am providing the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) with another easy victory, I should like to deal with a couple of questions that he has placed on the order paper, one of which was passed as an order for return.
The first question was as follows:
1.	How many orders In council relative to the provisions of the Immigration Act have been passed since the first day of July, 1947?
2.	Of said orders in council, how many have not been (a) published in the Canada Gazette; (b) tabled in parliament?
Answer: 121, of which ten were published in the Canada Gazette and none tabled in parliament.
The other question, passed as an order for return, read as follows:
1.	How many written permits provided for by section four of the Immigration Act were issued by the minister during each of the years 1947 and 1948 (a) authorizing any person to enter Canada; (b) authorizing any person to remain in Canada; and in either case without being subject to the provisions of the said act?
2.	How many of these permits have been included in a return laid before parliament within thirty days after the commencement of the next ensuing session of parliament in each of the said years?
Answer: 1. 1947-twenty-four authorizing persons to enter Canada and three authorizing persons already here to remain in Canada; 1948-twenty-five authorizing persons to enter Canada and twenty-six authorizing persons already here to remain in Canada.
2. All the above permits were included in the following returns: For 1947-January 28, 1948, Votes and Proceedings, page 94; for 1948 -January 27, 1949, Votes and Proceedings, page 16.
The answers to two other questions, which have also been passed as orders for return, will be tabled as soon as the necessary information has been collected.
I have had a careful check made of all the orders in council relative to the provisions

Immigration
of the Immigration Act, including those orders regarding the entry into Canada of individuals or groups of individuals during the period from July 1, 1947, to March 4, 1949.
As will be noted from one of the answers just given, there were 121 orders in council in all. Included in this total were eleven orders of general application amending the regulations. Of these, ten were published in the Canada Gazette; the eleventh-P.C. 4852 of November 26, 1947-merely repealed certain obsolete orders in council and its publication was therefore not considered necessary. Next there were sixteen orders in council dealing with unnamed groups of persons, such as the displaced persons, the Maltese, the Estonians, the movement of orphan children, and the like. Then there were nineteen orders in council of an administrative or executive character. Lastly there were seventy-five orders in council which waived the provisions of the general immigration regulations in regard to the persons named therein.
I now wish to table copies of all the orders in council included in the four groups to which I have referred. This in fact includes all orders in council relating to the Immigration Act that have been passed during the period July 1, 1947 to March 4, 1949. The tabling of these orders in council will also serve as a return to the motion on the order paper in the name of the hon. member for St. Paul's (Mr. Ross).
I think I should take advantage of this occasion to say a word about the manner in which the government-not only this government but all preceding governments-have administered the question of exceptions under the regulations for the admission of immigrants.
Immigration into Canada is controlled by the terms of the Immigration Act and by the regulations made in accordance with those terms. The act does not define the classes or categories of persons who are admissible to Canada as immigrants. On the other hand it does define certain prohibited classes, including persons suffering from some forms of mental or physical ailment, criminals, advocates of the use of force or violence against organized governments, spies and certain others enumerated in the terms of the statute. Persons within these prohibited classes cannot be admitted to Canada as immigrants unless and until the Immigration Act is amended by parliament. On the other hand it is in the general orders in council that one finds in the definition of persons who are from time to time admissible.

The reason for such an arrangement is to provide a certain flexibility which would not be possible if every changing circumstance had to be met by an amendment to the act. Because the regulations made under the act can be altered by order in council, this provides the flexibility without which the whole administration of the Immigration Act would be so rigid as to be practically unworkable.
It is of course inevitable that in dealing with human beings, as is the case in the administration of the Immigration Act, special circumstances will arise in which it is proper to make exceptions to the general rules. This happens most frequently as a result of humanitarian considerations. For example, a person is found to be living in Canada who entered several years ago contrary to the regulations. In the meantime he has become well established, is married to a Canadian citizen, and has a family. In such circumstances, if the regulations had been embodied in the act, it would have been necessary to pass a special act of parliament to provide for the admission of that one person. Under the procedure establishing the regulations by order in council, however, it is possible for the governor in council to provide for his admission, and that is quite frequently done.
Another example of the kind of thing that is handled in this way would be found in the passage of an order in council to permit the admission to Canada of a Swiss manufacturer who desires to come to this country with certain capital and technical knowledge to establish himself in business here. Under the existing regulations he is inadmissible, but by the passage of an order in council his admission can be authorized.
The whole movement of displaced persons to Canada has been provided for by order in council.
The members of the house will recall that at the beginning of the depression, the government of the day, under the authority of section 38 of the act, passed order in council P.C. 695 of March 21, 1931, which practically prohibited the landing in Canada of immigrants of all classes and occupations except those coming from the British isles and the United States. This order in council was amended from time to time as it became desirable to widen the field of immigration. Therefore, when for the reasons I have mentioned it is desirable to admit persons who are not classed as admissible under this order in council, new orders are passed waiving the prohibition.
As I have said before, there is nothing new about this procedure. It has always been followed.
It might be of interest to hon. members to know-and I am not citing this in any critical

m0od-that during the period from November 1, 1930, to October 23, 1935, two hundred and seventy-five such orders in council were passed in regard to 4,173 persons, waiving the provisions of the restrictive regulations. May I point out that this was during a time when there was great unemployment and there were felt to be very good reasons for restricting immigration. None of these orders was published. But it shows that even in those times there were considered to be that number of cases which were worthy of special treatment.
I should also say a word about the alleged "secrecy" of these orders in council. In fact, of course, there is nothing at all secret about them. When an order in council is of a general character, changing the regulations or affecting categories of persons, that order is published in the Canada Gazette. On the other hand, when the order in council deals with groups of individuals or specific individuals, it is normally considered to be of interest only to the persons immediately concerned and it is not published. Information about it, however, can be obtained by application to the immigration branch.
Perhaps I can summarize what I have said in this way.
There is nothing secret about the immigration orders in council.
There is nothing new about this method of administering the act. It is the procedure that was envisaged when the act was passed and it has been followed by all governments. These orders from 1930 to 1935 were not published or tabled. They were passed in the usual course, as have been those made since.
I think this would be an appropriate time to refer to statements attributed by the press to the hon. member for Lake Centre.
According to the Montreal Gazette of March 9, the hon. member is reported to have taken steps to determine why the federal government has not tabled all special immigration permits, covering cases not covered by the Immigration Act. This statement appears to be confusing two different things. Section 4 of the Immigration Act provides that the minister may issue a written permit authorizing any person to enter Canada, or having entered or landed in Canada, to remain therein without being subject to the provisions of the act. These permits are limited in time; they do not grant and cannot be used to allow permanent entry. The statute requires that they must be reported to the house within thirty days of the opening of the session, and that is always done. The return for the calendar year 1948, as I have already said, was tabled at the beginning of this session, and showed that fifty-six persons, and fifty-six persons
Immigration
only, were granted such permits. Of these twenty were Polish veterans.
With regard to the other category of persons, that is, those who have been admitted by order in council, I have fully explained the situation in the course of the statement I have just made.
But I want to make it absolutely clear that the department has invariably reported all cases of persons admitted by minister's permit as is required by the act, and this year the report, which was required to be made within thirty days, was made within three days, of the opening of the session.
I should like to refer to another statement attributed to the same hon. member. The Ottawa Journal last Tuesday quoted him as saying that by the use of "secret" orders in council, the government may provide an "underground railway by which thousands of aliens are entering the country, completely by-passing the Immigration Act ..." May I say emphatically that it is a complete distortion of the facts to suggest that there are orders in council providing "an underground railway" or "by-passing the Immigration Act". These orders in council have been passed in accordance with the provisions of the act and in accordance with long established practice.
Because of the controversies which have arisen over this, I felt it my duty towards the Canadian people and their representatives in this house to establish the facts in their true light, so that whatever differences there may be as to the wisdom of particular decisions, there may be no further doubt as to the legality of the procedure, and no excuse for allegations that there has been any concealment or secrecy.
I now table the return I have just mentioned.


Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I be allowed to say a word in reply to the statement made by the Prime Minister? First he suggested casually that his answers to the questions could not be interpreted as an easy victory for any hon. member, and with that I agree. The tabling of these orders by the Prime Minister and the attitude he has shown in the last two or three days is a victory for the cause of the restoration to parliament of its right to know what is being done.
The Prime Minister on March 9 tabled a list of the first one hundred orders in council, beginning on July 1, 1948, and a further one hundred beginning on January 1, 1949. He suggested the other day when he brought this matter to the attention of the house that, if there was a request, a like summary would be made for the period not covered, from

Immigration
August 1. I suggest, so that the record be complete, that that list be provided.
One word with regard to secret orders in council. It is all very well-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I would remind the hon. member for Lake Centre that there is no motion before the house. As the hon. member knows, it is not the practice to permit a debate upon a statement made by a member of the government. The hon. member, if he wishes, may ask for information from the Prime Minister, but I cannot permit debate.


John George Diefenbaker: On a point of order, sir, the Prime Minister went out of his way to make a reference to myself which was not necessary and which was totally irrelevant to the matter being discussed. All I wish to do is to answer the point made by the Prime Minister with regard to secret orders in council.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Mr. Abbott:: Go ahead.


John George Diefenbaker: An order in council is secret when members of parliament have no knowledge of it unless they get in touch with the proper office, give the number of the order and ask for its production. In other words, before a member of parliament can inform himself about an order in council he first must know of the order; then he must get in touch with the office; then the office asks for the number before it produces the order.
I conclude my remarks by referring to page 17 of the auditor general's report, in which reference is made to an order in council which was passed amending section 17 of the Civil Service Act; that order in council was not tabled, and hon. members had no knowledge of it until the auditor general's report was brought down.
QUESTION AS TO MEDICAL EXAMINATION On the orders of the day:


Mr. G. K. Fraser (Peterborough West):: Do
all the people who are allowed to remain in Canada permanently by special permission, and not subject to the Immigration Act, have to undergo medical examination and X-ray?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: In my declaration a short time ago I stated that no permits to remain permanently in Canada could be granted under section 4 of the Immigration Act.
[Mr. Diefenbaker 1



REPORTS AND PAPERS


Mr. Hugues Lapointe (Parliamentary Assistant to the Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table a series of diplomatic instruments, being part of treaty series 1947, as follows:
Exchange of notes between Canada and the United States of America providing for the renewal of the arrangement of 1942 for the exchange of agricultural labour and machinery, together wtih the text of the 1942 arrangement. Effective May 19, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/42).
Supplementary protocol to the protocol signed in London on 26th November, 1945, amending the international agreement for the regulation of whaling, signed in London on the 8th of June, 1947, as amended by the protocols of 24th June, 1938, and 7th February, 1944. Signed at London, March 3, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/39).
Exchange of letters between Canada and the United Kingdom constituting an agreement concerning the grant to airlines of traffic rights in Fiji and Canton island. Effective February 1, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/37).
Exchange of notes between Canada and the United States of America amending the provisional fur seal agreement effected by exchange of notes signed at Washington, December 8 and 19, 1942. Effective, December 26, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/36).
Exchange of notes between Canada and France constituting an agreement concerning the application of the French national solidarity tax to Canadian nationals and corporations. Signed at Paris, May 15 and September 5, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/28).
Exchange of notes between Canada and Switzerland extending to the principality of Liechtenstein the treaty of friendship of September 6, 1855, and the additional convention of March 30, 1914. Signed at Ottawa, May 19 and July 14, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/26).
Supplementary financial agreement between Canada and Czechoslovakia. Signed at Ottawa, November 26, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/32).
Supplementary financial agreement between Canada and France. Signed at Ottawa, August 20, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/23).
Supplementary financial agreement between Canada and Norway. Signed at Ottawa, November 10, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/31).
Universal postal convention and related documents. Signed at Paris, July 5, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/40).

Convention of the postal union of the Americas and Spain and related documents. Signed at Rio de Janeiro, September 25, 1946. (Treaty series 1947/41).
Protocol amending the international accord on German-owned patents of July 27, 1946. Signed at London, July 17, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/38).
Agreement relating to the resolution of conflicting claims to German enemy assets. Signed at Brussels, December 5, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/35).
Exchange of notes between Canada and the United States of America constituting an agreement on the allocation of channels for radio broadcasting. Effective October 15, 1947. (Treaty series 1947/30).



POSTAL SERVICE


Hon. Ernest Bertrand (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to announce a reduction in postage rates for gift parcels. Arrangements have been made with the British Post Office Department and the steamship companies whereby they have agreed to accept lower handling charges for gift parcels to the United Kingdom containing non-perishable foodstuffs, discarded wearing apparel, and soap. Therefore, effective April 1, 1949 any such gift parcels so marked by the sender will be accepted for onward transmission by the postal service at the rates indicated below:
Postage
Weight	Rates
Up to and including 5 pounds	 $0.50
" [DOT][DOT] 10 "	 1.00
[DOT][DOT]	"	"	15	"	
1.50[DOT]*	"	"	20	"	
2.00



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: That, from and after completion of the debate on the address in reply to the speech of His Excellency at the opening of the session, government notices of motions and government orders shall have precedence over all other business except routine proceedings, introduction of bills, questions and notices of motions for the production of papers until the following resolutions and the legislation based thereon shall have been disposed of by this house, viz. (a) the resolution for 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; (b) the resolution for a measure to amend the Agricultural Products Act to extend the operation of the act for a period of one year; (c) the resolution to amend the Canadian Commercial Corporation
Business of the House
Act to provide authority for advances to the corporation by way of loan out of the consolidated revenue fund and to extend the time of operation of the act; (d) the resolution for a measure to provide for the continuance in force of the Foreign Exchange Control Act until sixty days after the commencement of the first session of parliament commencing in the year 1951.
He said: Mr. Speaker, when this notice of motion was drafted I had hoped that by the time it was presented the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne would have been concluded. But the debate has provided opportunity to so many members to bring to the attention of the house matters which they have considered to be of interest that we have not yet concluded the debate, and it may not be concluded today. I shall, therefore, ask one of my colleagues to move, as an amendment to the motion, that if the debate on the address be not concluded at or before the ending of today's sittings, the order of business set out in this motion apply as from Monday until the business referred to thereunder is completed, and that the order of the house of February 21, 1949, continue to apply after it is thus completed.
The reason for making this motion is as follows: As hon. members will have noted, the motion makes reference to four measures. Three of these are referred to in paragraphs (a), (c), and (d), having reference (a) to a continuation for a limited time of certain orders and regulations; (c) a resolution to amend the Canadian Commercial Corporation Act, and
(d)	a measure to provide for the continuation in force of the Foreign Exchange Control Act. These measures are due to expire sixty days after the opening of parliament, or on March 31, 1949, whichever is the earlier. The sixty days expire on March 27. In order to give the house an opportunity to express itself as to whether or not these measures should continue in force after March 27, it is necessary that they be dealt with before that date. Then, by the terms of the statute, the one dealing with agricultural products will expire on March 31, 1949, unless it is extended. There will be only eight or ten sitting days after Monday in which to deal with these matters, and even during those days hon. members may wish to take some little time to express their views about the text of the north Atlantic security pact, which I hope will be tabled early next week, possibly on Tuesday. We have to deal with these matters, and unfortunately it is necessary that we ask that the debate on the address be interrupted again if it is not completed today.
I think the Canadian public are entitled to expect that parliament will deal with these measures and in express terms say whether

Business of the House
or not they are to be continued beyond March 27 and March 31 respectively. I think it is in the public interest that there be an opportunity for parliament to make its views in that regard expressly known, and that matters of this kind should not be allowed to be disposed of by the lapse of time It is for that reason that I put this motion before the house and ask my colleague to add to it an amendment which will make it applicable if the debate on the address is not completed today.


Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Minister of Agriculture) moved:: That there be added to the motion the following words:
"Provided that notwithstanding the order of the house of the 21st of February last if the debate on the said address is not completed at or before the end of this day's sitting the order of business set out in this motion shall be followed on and after the 14th of March instant until the above mentioned resolutions and the legislation based thereon shall have been disposed of by the house, and thereafter the said order of the 21st of February last shall continue to operate according to its terms."


Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Roseiown-Biggar):: rise simply to ask the Prime Minister one question. As I understand this motion, it applies only to the four matters mentioned. I understood the Prime Minister to say that there would be an opportunity to debate the proposed north Atlantic security pact soon after it is tabled. I think that that should be done before the house adopts the pact or approves it. But I understand that nothing else in the way of government orders will be introduced, other than perhaps what the Prime Minister has mentioned already. I think we should be clear on that point, because last year we passed a motion in somewhat similar terms and then found that we had more or less agreed to something that many of us did not understand.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: First of all, with respect to the north Atlantic security pact, of course there will be a full debate in which every hon. member will have the opportunity of expressing his views. This debate will take place at the tim'e the pact is presented to the house for ratification. However, I think it would probably be the desire of the house that there be a short debate, possibly some time next week upon the proposal that is to serve as the basis for discussion. I would hope that I could arrange with the leaders of the groups to provide, say, a day for that preliminary debate, reserving to all hon. members their full rights to go into the matter at much greater length when the pact comes back for ratification.
There is one other bill which deals with legislation that would expire on March 31;
I refer to item No. 14 on the order paper, a 
bill to amend the Mail Contracts Supplemental Payments Act, which provides for supplemental payments to mail carriers. This was done by legislation last year, and it is felt desirable that it be dealt with again before it expires; otherwise there will be a hiatus in the payments to these mail carriers.
Before the end of March some supplementary estimates for the current year may have to be dealt with. Furthermore, it might be of interest to the public to have the Minister of Finance bring down his budget, if it is ready-and there is a possibility that it will be ready. I think the public would be glad to know the contents of the minister's proposals as soon as they can be made available. I should like to make the reservation that something unforeseen may arise, but at the moment this is all that appears to be of the kind that would justify taking time away from the consideration of the emergency measures.


Mr. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I would point out that there are considerations other than merely emergency measures. So far the private memoers of this house have had no opportunity to assert their positions. What is now proposed is to continue a procedure which will prevent the discussion of a number of matters that have been put forward by private members of this house.
The amendment which has been moved deals with the possibility of the debate on the speech from the throne not terminating tonight. I for one am not able to say when the debate may end, but there is certainly every reason to believe that we are within a short distance of taking the vote. It seems to be an extraordinary procedure to come forward now with the statement that this motion must be dealt with today and the debate postponed thereafter when in fact only an hour or two of discussion may remain on Monday.
The debate on the address has covered an extended period. The discussions, in many but not in all cases, have dealt with matters of particular interest to the communities of hon. members. The general debate has taken place and an amendment to the amendment has been presented in substitution for an earlier amendment to the amendment which was voted down. It seems to me that it would be consistent with what has been suggested already that the motion now before the house should stand over until later today, when it can be discussed with some knowledge as to whether the debate is likely to continue. It might well terminate today. Even if it should not, there is no reason why the debate should not continue until Monday,

with the expectation in the minds of all members, I am sure, that it will be concluded then.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I hope you can hear me, because I am addressing my remarks to you, and I realize that you are listening to them. Hon. members who are not interested will be able to check in Hansard and see what was said. The debate on the address has obviously come to the point where a vote is about to be taken. I do not think hon. members should vote on the motion before the house with the idea of postponing indefinitely the debate on the address, when a vote may conceivably be taken today, or, under any circumstances that can now be foreseen, will be taken on Monday. If there has been any delay, it has been the result of the considerable lack of direction-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


George Alexander Drew: If there has been any delay, it has been the result of a lack of direction of the affairs of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


George Alexander Drew: I would point out that a considerable measure of businesslike procedure can be followed if it is possible for the whips of the parties to know in advance exactly what is to take place, as is the case in other legislative bodies, and make their plans accordingly. Of course I need not point out it also helps businesslike procedure if those who have some particular noises to make will make them outside the house.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I can think of some other noises.


George Alexander Drew: I admit that some of these noises are doubtless the only utterances of which these particular members are capable. I urge very strongly, Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


George Alexander Drew: -that this motion be not put at the present time. I urge that it stand until we consider the other motion which is before the house, and which the house agreed should be considered later in the day when it will be known what is to be done. We have not yet reached the orders of the day, and if this motion is not to stand, then the other motion should be dealt with at this stage.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Who is directing the business of the house?


Some hon. Members:: Question.
Inquiries of the Ministry


George Alexander Drew: I ask that the Prime Minister indicate which course he is prepared to follow. If this motion is to be proceeded with, then the other motion also should be proceeded with before the orders of the day are called.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The matter connected with the other motion has been dealt with, and I am sorry that I cannot acquiesce in the suggestion that consideration of this motion be postponed.
Amendment (Mr. Gardiner) agreed to on division.
Main motion (Mr. St. Laurent) as amended agreed to on division.



NOTICE OF MOTION WITH RESPECT TO MARKETING OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. S. Zaplitny (Dauphin):: According to Votes and Proceedings of today the Minister of Agriculture intends to ask for leave to introduce a bill on Monday next to provide for the marketing of agricultural products in interprovincial and export trade. Obviously the bill is not to be preceded by a resolution. Does this mean there will be no government expenditure in connection with that legislation?


James Garfield Gardiner: The bill will be presented in due course, and at that time all the necessary information will be available.



ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. L. Church (Broadview):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. The minister stated this week in a return requested by me, and in answer to questions I asked, that the Canadian navy has no submarines. Does the minister's answer mean that so far as modern submarine protection is concerned we are dependent on the United States? Has the minister a copy of a report made by Hon. J. L. Sullivan, United States Secretary of the Navy, to President Truman last December, in which he says that the United States navy is spending a very large sum of money on submarine navy defence, a sum of money which in time will be well on to $1 billion? I should like to ask the minister what further action he will take in the matter.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. May I suggest that the hon. member put his question on the order paper.

Inquiries of the Ministry


Thomas Langton Church: I am not asking for an answer today; I am merely giving notice of the question.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.



OLD AGE PENSIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the fact that Manitoba has announced a small old age pensions supplement, which means that the federal government will soon be paying less than seventy-five per cent of the old age pension being paid in six out of the nine provinces, will the minister not agree that it is time to amend the Old Age Pensions Act so as to bring the payment up to $50 across the country?


Hon. Paul Marlin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: I thank the hon. gentleman for giving me notice of his question. I am bound to tell him that his calculations are incorrect. The federal government is reimbursing the provinces for seventy-five per cent of all payments made by the provinces under the provisions of the Old Age Pensions Act.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Only up to $30.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This applies, without exception, to all nine provinces of Canada. It is true, of course, that in six out of the nine provinces the provincial governments are paying additional allowances of varying amounts-$10 in British Columbia, $7 in Alberta-


Some hon. Members:: Ten dollars in Alberta.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Seven dollars. In the province of Ontario it is $10 in certain cases, and lesser amounts in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia. These payments are supplementary payments, and are not made under the provisions of the Old Age Pensions Act or the agreements made by the provinces and the federal government under the authority of the Old Age Pensions Act. For this reason it is not correct to include them in the calculation, because under the Old Age Pensions Act the federal government clearly pays seventy-five per cent of the basic amount of the pension provided under that act. May I tell my hon. friend that, pursuant to the amendments to the act introduced by this government a year ago, there is nothing now to prevent the province of Saskatchewan or any other province from paying $50 a month.


Major James William Coldwell: Except their inability to pay.


Stanley Howard Knowles: What is there to prevent the federal government from amending the act?



ASSISTANCE TO BERRY GROWERS IN FRASER VALLEY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. A. Cruickshank (Fraser Valley):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. When may we expect consideration of the problem of the Fraser Valley berry growers similar to that announced for the Manitoba fisheries?


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, the difference between the British Columbia berry growers and the Manitoba fishermen is that we started to consider the difficulties of the British Columbia berry growers almost a year ago. We gave them consideration last spring to the extent of guaranteeing the price of their picking baskets or boxes, and the barrels of SO2 for the preservation of the commodity. At present we are arranging to sell all the SOo we possibly can. Negotiations are proceeding with the government of Ireland for the purchase of certain parts of it, and we are obligated to pay the amounts for which we gave guarantees last spring. We are also considering the disposal of that part of the commodity which may not be sold to Ireland or to some other government. For that reason I would say we are considering the matter all the time, and have been considering it, and are dealing with it in the most satisfactory manner possible.



INQUIRY FOR RETURNS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. D. Fulton (Kamloops):: I want to direct a question to the Prime Minister arising to some extent out of his statement that there are no secret orders in council. On Monday, March 7, three motions standing in my name were passed for the production of orders in council, of which at least two had not been gazetted or tabled in the house. I should have thought a week would be sufficient time in which to produce those orders in council, and I would ask the Prime Minister-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member knows he should not make a statement but should ask his question.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Will the Prime Minister take the necessary steps to see that the orders in council are produced without further delay?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The hon. member may be assured that this will be done.



COARSE GRAINS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. P. E. Wright (Melfort):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, of which I have sent notice. Is the order in council which sets the present floor prices on oats and barley based upon the emergency legislation at present on the order paper? The second question is, when can we expect some statement on floor prices for the 1949 coarse grain and oilseed crops?


Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: The answer to the first question is no, because the floor price legislation enacted by this House of Commons, I think in 1945, governs the matter. As to the second question, I hope to be able to make a statement on the position of the coarse grain and oilseed crops on Monday or Tuesday of next week.



ENABLING PROVINCIAL LEGISLATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. J. Bentley (Swift Current):: Has the
attention of the Minister of Trade and Commerce been drawn to an article in today's Financial Times which states that the Alberta and Manitoba governments have decided to pass enabling legislation with respect to this government's Bill No. 135 of 1948; and will the minister inform the house whether this news report is correct?


Clarence Decatur Howe: As to the first question, I have not seen the article referred to.


Thomas John Bentley: I have it here if you would like to see it.


Clarence Decatur Howe: And as to the second question, I have no knowledge of any decisions along the lines mentioned by the hon. member.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Angus Maclnnis (Vancouver East):: should like to ask whether either the Minister of Fisheries or the Minister of Labour is in a position to make a statement on the position of the unemployed in Vancouver.


Hon. Humphrey Mitchell (Minister of Labour):: I shall be glad to do that on Monday.
29087-88i
Inquiries of the Ministry COMBINES



BAKERY FIRMS IN WESTERN PROVINCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. John O. Probe (Regina City):: With respect to the Goldenberg report alleging that a breadmakers' combine exists in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, will the Minister of Justice indicate to the house what advice with respect to prosecution has been given him by his legal adviser, Mr. C. S. Blanchard, and what follow-up steps the minister has taken on this advice?


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of Justice):: Instructions have already been given to counsel to proceed with the prosecution in the case referred to by the hon. member.



INQUIRY AS TO APPEAL IN DENTAL PROSECUTIONS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John George Diefenbaker: Having regard to the outcome of the appeal in the dental case, arising under the Combines Investigation Act, and the decision of the court of appeal, which would appear to emasculate that act, is it the intention to carry the appeal further or to bring in amendments to cover the matters referred to by the court, which render a conviction very difficult to obtain?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: My hon. friend did not give me notice of this question, but the answer is that the matter to which he refers has been under consideration by the officials of the department and our counsel who appeared in that case. We are now awaiting their report, which we expect shortly.



NORTH ATLANTIC SECURITY PACT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Langton Church: I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether before the Easter recess we will have an opportunity of discussing the proposed north Atlantic pact. I ask that question because of the motion presented today by the right hon. gentleman, as amended by the motion of the Minister of Agriculture, which it seems to me gives the government power to call an election at any time. I should like to know from the Prime Minister also whether or not there is going to be an election.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: With respect to the north Atlantic pact, I do not think I can add anything to

The Address-Mr. Blackmore what I said a few moments ago. I hope it will be possible to arrange for a short preliminary debate during the course of next week. And I would hope that the north Atlantic pact may give us sufficient security so we can look forward to an election.



CEILING AND FLOOR PRICES FOR CURRENT YEAR

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. E. Drope (Northumberland, Oni.):: Is it the policy of the government to continue the present ceiling and floor prices on butter for the remainder of 1949?


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member was kind enough to send me a copy of his question. In reply I would say that the dairy year, a? acknowledged by both the department and the farmers, begins on May 1 and ends on April 30 following. It has been our custom to announce the policy for the coming dairy year prior to May 1 of each year. The announcement made last year with regard to floor prices had to do with the dairy year we are now in. The announcement with respect to ceilings had to do with a period beginning with the date of the announcement, and that matter is subject to reconsideration. The policy for the remainder of 1949 will be discussed and announced some time before May 1.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Percy Ellis Wright: In view of the recent application of the non-pensioned war veterans' widows for further consideration of their case, will the Minister of Veterans Affairs reconsider the matter of setting up a veterans affairs committee of the house this session so that this matter and others related to it may be given due consideration?


Hon. Milton F. Gregg (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: The answer is no, Mr. Speaker; but I may add that last year the parliamentary committee considered this question and did not bring in any recommendation with regard to it.



SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, March 10, consideration of the motion of Mr. D. F. Brown for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the amend-
[Stage Direction]

ment thereto of Mr. Drew, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Low.
Mr. J. H. Blackmore (Lethbridge):: After years of careful study, Mr. Speaker, of certain individuals among the veterans, I have come to be filled with a deep anxiety concerning Canada's treatment of her veterans. I refer to the case of veteran Thomas Harvey of world war II. According to evidence I placed before this house in June, 1948- evidence that, so far as I know, has never been denied or questioned-the following are facts concerning that unfortunate soldier.
Veteran Thomas Harvey, regimental No. D76502 and pension No. 550593, I find was punished without trial by his equals. He was railroaded forcibly into an insane asylum. He was held in that asylum under duress. He was foi; years cheated out of his well-earned pension. He was denied medical treatment to which he was fairly entitled, thereby risking and seriously impairing his health. He was given no chance to contest his case in the courts of the land. He was provided no recourse for redress to any impartial agency. He was intimidated against having recourse to his member of parliament or to parliament.
This is not the only case of that kind which has come to my attention, Mr. Speaker. Careful consideration of this case of veteran Thomas Harvey forces upon one the conclusion that the time has come for the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Gregg) to discover for himself, the government and the Canadian people-by a royal commission if need be- the grim, unsightly fact that, in accordance with actual present-day practice in Canada, any Canadian who signs into any of the services of Canada thereby signs a document by which in effect he surrenders, forgoes and forfeits for all the remaining days of his life every one of his fundamental rights and freedoms. In other words, a free Canadian man or woman enlisting in the Canadian forces to defend freedom virtually forgoes for life all possible effective legal claim to those precious inherent freedoms won for him by his fathers through Magna Carta, the petition of right, the bill of rights and every other guarantee reclaimed for Anglo-Saxons through their strenuous thousand years of struggle for liberty.
To anyone who has not studied these cases with some care I know those words sound extreme. But I am afraid that when the facts are all known concerning the way in which scores and scores of veterans of world war I and world war II in Canada have been and are being treated those words will be found to be moderate, and to be a bare, simple expression of the facts as they now exist in Canada.

May I read from Magna Carta:
No freeman shall be seized or imprisoned or dispossessed. or outlawed, or in any way brought to ruin: we will not go against any man nor send against him, save by legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
Again:
To no man will we sell, or deny, or delay right or justice.
A careful consideration of the facts pertaining to Thomas Harvey will, I think, make it abundantly clear to every hon. member that we have fallen far short of Magna Carta, even, in respect of our treatment of certain classes of veterans. I am not saying that a great many of our veterans do not obtain treatment which is quite satisfactory but there is a "no man's land" of veterans. The luckless individuals who happen to find themselves in "no man's land" are in a bad way.	,
We have permitted to grow up in peacetime in Canada a military dictatorship over our veterans, under the name of the Department of Veterans Affairs, including the Canadian pension commission, and the war veterans allowance board. This dictatorship is absolute as far as many people are concerned. In fact, I have evidence to show that employees working under the war veterans allowance board and the Canadian pension commission have rather arrogantly told people that they would not modify their way of treating any given case no matter who asked them to do so, whether it was a member of parliament or anyone else. In due time I will bring evidence to show that that has actually happened in Canada, and within the last year; and I think the evidence I have is dependable.
Let us take a glance at the present-day organizations to which I have referred, namely the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Canadian pension commission and the war veterans allowance board. I asked a question which was answered recently in this house. The question was:
1.	How many former commissioned officers are now employed by D.V.A.?
2.	Of these, how many were (a) brigadiers; (b) colonels or lieutenant-colonels; (c) majors, or officers of equivalent rank in other services?
In a return dated March 7, 1949, for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Canadian pension commission and the war veterans allowance board, the answer given was as follows:
1.	1,386 former commissioned officers.
2.	(a) 8 brigadiers; (b) 122 colonels, lieutenant-colonels, officers of equivalent rank; (c) 269 majors, officers of equivalent rank.
We might as well face the facts. The Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Gregg) and the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) both know,-as do a majority of the
The Address-Mr. Blackmore members of this house, I believe-through having been in the army, that during military activities, training and fighting, great bitterness often develops between the men and their officers. Sometimes it is the fault of the officers; sometimes it is the fault of the men; and sometimes it is merely the fault of the situation in which they find themselves. Nevertheless, the bitterness is there.


Milton Fowler Gregg: Will the hon. member allow me to make a comment at this particular time?' In the first place, I deny that statement regarding great bitterness. In the second place, as the house knows, all the medical officers, all the nursing sisters, and all the pension doctors in my department are as far as possible men and women who had service. All such medical personnel-both men and women-when serving in the forces were automatically of commissioned rank.


John Horne Blackmore: That has no bearing on what I was saying, although I am glad to have the minister tell us that. But what we are concerned about is this fact. The men who occupy key positions in the Department of Veterans Affairs are men who could have had grudges against certain men in the services or who could be influenced by men who have had grudges against those men, and who could be influenced in their judgment on a given case by such considerations as that. I am not saying they are.


Mr. Mutch:: Will the hon. member permit a question?


John Horne Blackmore: I am quite ready to permit all the questions that hon. members wish to ask, but I do not want to have "forty minutes" called on me when the time has been taken up by members asking questions.


Leslie Alexander Mutch: Will the hon. member permit a question?


John Horne Blackmore: I would ask the hon. member to speak a little bit louder so I can hear what he is saying.


Leslie Alexander Mutch: I am asking whether the hon. member is suggesting that the position between the commissioned and noncommissioned members of the Canadian forces was one of hostility.


John Horne Blackmore: I think that the hon. member who asked that question reflected on his own sincerity by so doing.


Leslie Alexander Mutch: I have been on both sides. I think I know, but I do not think you do.


John Horne Blackmore: The hon. member would be surprised at how much I know, and we shall just leave it at that. When the time comes that we can get at each other across

The Address-Mr. Blackmore the floor I shall give the hon. member all the evidence that he wants, and perhaps a little more.
The difficulty lies in the fact that there is too much of a stacking of the cards against certain veterans, and I believe that the case of Thomas Harvey well illustrates that point. I wish to make this comment. There must be provided in Canada a set of nonmilitary, nonbiased tribunals, before whom the humblest and weakest veteran can present his case and call in every bit of pertinent evidence, with implicit assurance that every particle of applicable evidence shall be sympathetically weighed on his behalf. That certainly does not exist today. These tribunals must have power to compel the making of appropriate adjustments in favour of the veteran where these are justified.
On June 30, 1948, I put on record a statement prepared by veteran Thomas Harvey. I refer hon. members to Hansard of 1948 at pages 6228 and 6229. The salient facts concerning veteran Harvey's case, as outlined in his statement, will be elicited by answering the twenty-five questions which I asked on June 30, as recorded on pages 6227 and 6228 of Hansard. These questions have never yet been answered. It may be the intention of the department to answer them in this house, but thus far they have not been answered. If the evidence at hand concerning veteran Harvey's experiences is reliable, and it would appear to be so, then it is important that this house and the country should know who are the persons responsible for the wrongs committed against veteran Harvey in the name of Canada.
In order to help the minister to discover these persons, and the nature of their responsibility to the Minister of Veterans Affairs,
I propose to put the following series of questions. These questions are slightly different from the ones which I asked on June 30, but I believe that they go after information which is vital to all Canadians at the present time. Let us bear this in mind. Probably half the members of this house are going to have sons enrolled within the armed forces of Canada within the next two or three years, and there will be tens of thousands of people across Canada who will have sons enrolled in these forces. In the past we have had to worry about having our boys injured in service, or taken sick in service, or killed in service or lost. Now we have the haunting fear that something will happen to them and that they will fall into the clutches of some inner circle in the war veterans allowances department or Canadian pensions commission, and suffer as horrible outrages as those which were endured by Thomas Harvey. I say that it is absolutely unjust, inequitable and injurious 
that Canadian people should have to worry, as men would worry, after hearing about Thomas Harvey.
The following are the questions:
1.	Where is the Captain Haljerston, president of the mess, whom veteran Thomas Harvey had paraded before Major General Price and charged with refusing to obtain medical aid for veteran Harvey sometime between September 8, 1939 and June 10, 1940?
2.	Upon whose recommendation was veteran Harvey sent back to Canada In May or June, 1940?
3.	Upon what grounds was the recommendation made?
4.	Who asked veteran Harvey to sign his discharge?
5.	Who told veteran Harvey that the veteran would receive no treatment for his pains?
6.	Who threatened to keep veteran Harvey in detention until veteran Harvey did sign his discharge without guarantee of suitable treatment for his illness?
7.	To what extent was Captain Haljerston at the bottom of the two outrages against Harvey referred to in questions 5 and 6?
8.	Was veteran Harvey classified as A-l upon enlistment?
He says he was.
9.	Was veteran Harvey classified as category E upon discharge?
He says he was.
10.	Was veteran Harvey X-rayed upon discharge?
He says he was not.
11.	Was veteran Harvey, notwithstanding the facts indicated in questions 8, 9 and 10, told that he did not need treatment?
12.	Who was responsible for this miscarriage of justice?
13.	To what extent was Captain Haljerston at the bottom of this piece of skulduggery?
14.	Who in the D.V.A. refused veteran Harvey treatment for his pains on the grounds that there was nothing wrong with him? Why?
15.	After veteran Harvey had gone to a civilian
hospital and been diagnosed as afflicted with T.B., who refused to grant him treatment in D.V.A. on the grounds that he had been out of the service for more than a year?	.
16.	What facilities are provided by D.V.A. for rectifying for a veteran such crass injustices as are indicated in questions 14 and 15?
17.	Why did not these facilities intervene on behalf of veteran Harvey?
13. By what course of procedure can a veteran now suffering from such a grievance gain redress?
19.	Why was pension granted veteran Harvey in May, 1946?
20.	Why had he not received pension in May, 1944, in May, 1942, in May, 1941?
He had already been discharged as category E after enlisting as category A.
20.	(a) Who refused veteran Harvey pension?
21.	To what extent was Captain Haljerston responsible for this wrong against veteran Harvey and Canada?
22.	Why was veteran Harvey taken under escort from the veterans pavilion to Ste. Anne's when it was known that he was afflicted with T.B.?
22.	(a) Upon whose orders was this done?
23.	Did veteran Harvey get out of Ste. Anne's on condition that he would not fight for his pension or write to parliament about his treatment?
He says he did.

24.	Does this signify that the D.V.A. systematically intimidates veterans of certain classes to discourage them from writing to members of parliament, to discourage them from fighting for their pension rights?
25.	After veteran Harvey left Ste. Anne's was he still denied treatment by D.V.A., although he was haemorrhaging and growing worse?
He says he was.
26.	Was veteran Harvey on May 7, 1948, forcibly taken from St. Hyacinthe, where he was recovering steadily, to Ste. Anne's?
He says he was.
27.	What was the reason?
28.	Who gave the orders?
29 At Ste. Anne's was veteran Harvey locked up for six weeks and held incommunicado?
He says he was.
30.	Upon whose orders?
31.	For what reason?
I do not know how anything more important to the fathers and mothers can possibly be found than these questions and the answers to these questions. The country will expect the minister to answer the twenty-five questions on pages 6227 and 6228 of Hansard of 1948, and the thirty-one questions I have asked today. I suggest that the minister answer these questions early.
I have several other flagrant cases-Stuart Brown is among them. Stuart Brown has written an extended article, very carefully prepared, very thoroughly documented, given in great detail under the title, "They put me in Essondale". This article appeared in the Vancouver Sunday Sun on January 8, January 15, and January 22, 1949. Before this session is over I am going to call for an accounting for the treatment of veteran Brown. Why are there these outrages against veterans? What is the fundamental cause? Is it a fact the government fears Canada is unable to produce enough food for those boys to eat, enough clothes for them to wear, enough shelter to protect them? Is that what is the matter? Or is it a fact they are afraid they cannot raise the money to provide the needs of these veterans?
That is a vital question. That is the point at which that which I am discussing enters into this debate, on the amendment of the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low). That is why I say a change in the method of financing should be found.
May I stop here to assure the minister who sits in the house that I do not wish to complain against him at all. In my judgment he is the victim of circumstances, and he faces a task of such colossal magnitude, in endeavouring to clean up the situation over which he is now called upon to preside, that I doubt if any man alive could do it. It will
The Address-Mr. Blackmore require a great deal more assistance than the efforts of one man. The object of my efforts today is partially that of giving the minister some assistance.
The solution to the problem facing us in connection with veterans is the solution to the problem in connection with old age pensions and a hundred and one other things troubling us in Canada. It is a money question. The whole trouble is one of money.
I am going to suggest the solution lies in social credit, and it is implied in the amendment offered by the hon. member for Peace River.
Before I commence to discuss social credit I should like to pay some attention to certain remarks made yesterday by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell). With this in mind I shall read some of his words as they were reported at page 1341 of Hansard. The hon. member rose and, in a rather assured way-perhaps that word is sufficient-proceeded to tell the house or to imply to the house that he knew all about social credit, that probably he knew quite a lot more about it than hon. members who are fighting for social credit, and that long ago he had discovered that it was fallacious. I hope I am fair to him in this remark, and I shall proceed to read what he said:
The more I read the more I came to the conclusion that while financial reform was necessary, he was going about it at the wrong end-
Referring to Major Douglas-
-that it is not money that counts, but physical assets and goods. The physical assets and goods must precede the distribution of money; otherwise you have merely an inflationary process.
With the second part of his remarks of course we all agree; and the hon. member for Peace River said we believe that. The surprising thing is that the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar would take the trouble to make a remark which, in the light of the knowledge he must have, if he knows anything about social credit, must be considered to be completely inane.
What manner of man is this member for Rosetown-Biggar? He poses as a rather intelligent fellow, rather an able chap. He would like to have people consider him something of a student, and he would hate to be called dishonest.
Having said that, let me point out some of the things the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar has done or has neglected to do since he came to this house in 1935, the same year in which I came.
He has been in the house long enough to know better than to make a remark like the one he made yesterday. The first speech I made in March of 1936 made clear that social

The Address-Mr. Blackmore credit proposes to create money to represent surplus goods and services already on the market. That fact completely stultifies the remark of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. It indicates that either he is not intelligent, or he is not diligent, or he is not honest-one of the three. He may choose whichever of the three undesirable alternatives he wishes. In the first speech I delivered in 1936 I cited the fact that in 1918 the United States produced $60 billion worth of goods-and I wish the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar's friends would call him in.
I wish he were here-I was hoping he would be. I want to talk with him face to face. I said that in 1918 the United States produced $60 billion worth of goods, but distributed among the people only $45 billion worth of purchasing power.
How in the world could a bit of evidence be found which would more clearly illustrate the fact that social credit stands for the monetization of surplus goods? And the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar must have sat right here in the house and heard my speech -although he probably utterly disregarded it, as coming from one of those poor Social Crediters who did not know anything. I believe that probably this year we shall have to have a real collision with the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, to find out who does know more-he, or the Social Crediters. I must say he has not shown up very promisingly thus far. He does not show in a very favourable light, considering what he said yesterday.
The figures I have given will be found in the report of the bureau of economic research, No. 2, for 1922. This is a United States document, and is obtainable in the House of Commons library. I wonder if, when the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar was studying social credit, he read the Douglas books. I wonder if he read Maurice Colboume's two remarkable books, the first of which is "Unemployment or war" and the second "Economic Nationalism"? I wonder if he ever read Charles Marshall Hattersley's "This Age of Plenty"? If he had read any of these he would have had it impressed upon him, and it would have been made painfully clear to him so clear that even he could have seen, or could not have failed to see-that what was in mind was the creation of money to enable people to buy surplus goods; he would have seen that the difficulty arises out of the shortage of purchasing power which develops naturally in our modern economy, in which we have an abundance.
Time and again since 1936 I have repeated the truth which I have indicated, and I have 

done so in the presence of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. He has had Hansard; he could have read it. If he did not have the time, probably he could have had his secretary read it.
Now let me illustrate further. I have pointed out, too, that the reason the depression hurt the United States so painfully was that between 1929 and 1934 eight billions of dollars in purchasing power, of a total of $23 billion, had been withdrawn in the United States. Naturally it was the shortage of purchasing power which caused the falling of prices and which caused the depression in the United States, so far as its technical and physical aspects were concerned. In the Dominion of Canada in that same period over $930 million was withdrawn. This indicated quite clearly that while we were in the depths of the depression, one for which my Liberal friends love to blame the Conservative party, we were suffering from a shortage of purchasing power, and surplus of goods. Will some of the intimate friends of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar take that copy of Hansard, read it to him, and point out the words I have just mentioned?
As I have declared three or four times in the house, the fundamental cause of the depression in the United States was the fact that within her own economy the United States had a shortage of purchasing power, as was indicated by the figures of production and purchasing power in 1918.
Between the years 1920 and 1929 the United States lent abroad vast quantities of money to enable people abroad to buy her goods. Thus she maintained a level of prosperity, or apparent prosperity, in her own economy. The trouble was she had a shortage of purchasing power and too many goods. Let the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar take note of that-too many goods. Once more I do hope he is able to read what I say this time. The United States lent money abroad so that people could buy her goods which her own people could not buy, goods for which they did not have the money to pay.
In 1928 it began to dawn on United States authorities that perhaps it was not safe to lend money abroad to enable people to buy their goods. So they discontinued lending abroad; and that fact caused the depression.
I am sure the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar and his colleagues need to read deeply of these matters before they can attempt to be the wise men they claim to be. I am sure the Liberals have not read deeply enough of these matters because they do not know anything about what it is all about. I am sure the Conservatives do not know. They

do not know as much as the Liberals, judging from the way they have been talking in the house.
The simple matter is that if we are going to begin to deal with the causes of our trouble instead of just the symptoms, if we are going to begin to discuss a policy that will solve our problems instead of just throwing smoke screens around and scattering red herrings on the trail, we have to get down to the fundamental causes of the phenomena which afflict our generation.
The fundamental cause of the phenomena which afficted us in 1929 was the shortage of purchasing power in the United States economy which the United States endeavoured to rectify by lending abroad, just as she is doing today through the Marshall plan. When she ceased to lend abroad she was in for the depression into which she descended with such fearful rapidity. She will do the same thing again unless a remedy is applied to the fundamental cause of all these troubles.
If the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar or any one else desires to read up on this matter rather than just take what the Social Crediters say, I would suggest to him that he read "The United States in the World Economy", to be found in the parliamentary library. If the hon. member cannot find a copy down there I will lend him mine if he comes to me. I can show him where he will find the facts. He will discover that what I have said about the causes of the depression in the United States is true. "The United States in the World Economy" is a United States public document which was prepared by a committee which was especially appointed to examine into the causes of the trouble which came on to the United States in the depression.
The United States and Canada are now approaching a surplus position. That is the reason why I asked the questions I did the other day of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe). If we are approaching a surplus position in Canada in connection with a considerable number of commodities, then we are on the verge of a depression. We shall have to make fundamental adjustments in our national economy in order to enable us to distribute the purchasing power necessary to absorb those surpluses or they will become vexatious in several different ways. We must have a distribution of purchasing power if a depression is to be avoided.
I am going to refer once more to "The United States in the World Economy" a carefully prepared document. Is the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar prepared to face the facts, now that I have brought them out? Are the members of the C.C.F. prepared to face the facts? Does the hon. member for Rose-
The Address-Mr. Blackmore town-Biggar dare to face the facts? I suggest that several of his most trusted members take him aside and suggest to him that he read what I have said in this speech this afternoon and then explain himself to them. Let me tell him that if he does face the facts he and his party will have to stop talking their nonsense about private enterprise failing, because it is the success of private enterprise in producing goods that brings about surpluses.
Let me point out another fundamental principle which I am afraid has eluded the intelligence of a number of them. No industry is designed to distribute purchasing power, be that industry a coal mine or a farm or any other kind of industry. Industry is designed to produce goods. When an industry produces ample goods, it succeeds rather than fails. The fact that we have produced surpluses so many times is the best evidence that private enterprise has succeeded superbly in producing goods. But private enterprise cannot distribute purchasing power enough to enable people to buy the goods it produces. Private enterprise, and even a government-owned industry, could not afford to spend as much money in producing its goods as it receives for the goods.


Mr. Low:: For instance, the wool mill in Saskatchewan.


John Horne Blackmore: Or any other mill. Let hon. members of the C.C.F. tell the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar that if he does face the facts he and his party will have to go back to their constituents, if they are going to be honest, and say to them, "We have been all wrong in our diagnosis of the problem up to the present time; we find that the only people who seem to have any real knowledge about this whole economic situation which is confronting us are the Social Crediters; they have been right all the time."


An hon. Member:: They must be wonderful.


John Horne Blackmore: They are wonderful; that is right, I should say they are! The hon. member has not been here as long as I have but I can tell him that in every major decision since the C.C.F. became an important party it has voted wrong. It has been wrong every single time and the Social Crediters have been right every time.


Angus MacInnis: There have been times when the Social Crediters voted with us.


John Horne Blackmore: We have voted with the C.C.F. at times to keep the C.C.F. from going out into the country and lying about us or misrepresenting us. The people out in the country are not in a position to know what we

The Address-Mr. Blackmore in parliament know, and the result is that they can be deceived. The C.C.F. are the people who are trying to deceive and the Social Crediters are the people who are trying to keep them from deceiving. You can debate that fact right here on the floor of the house as much as you like. We will take you on from now to the end of the session. It is time that you C.C.F. people were asked to put up or shut up. I know, and the hon. member does not know; he only thinks he knows.


An hon. Member:: A Daniel.


John Horne Blackmore: We need a Daniel today and, lo, he has come. The C.C.F. do not recognize the Daniel because he is right.


Mr. Maifhews (Kooienay East):: Do they recognize the hon. member?


John Horne Blackmore: You will recognize him when you get to know him better. We are having real fun now, but I mean every word of what I am saying.


Mr. Matthews (Kootenay East):: That is the trouble.


Angus MacInnis: If the hon. member did not mean it, it would not be so bad.


John Horne Blackmore: Let the hon. member take advantage of this debate and get up and say what he has to say and I will answer him point for point. That is the thing to do, rather than to make silly remarks. If the C.C.F. were honest with the people whom they represent they would go back to them and say:	"The only solution that you can
possibly find for the problems which confront us today, for the ills from which we are suffering in Canada today and throughout the world, is to be found in the social credit proposals, and the only accurate analysis of the situation is the social credit analysis."
Just before I close I want to read into the record, as evidence of the truth of what I have been saying with regard to the need for adjustment in the United States, a passage from "The United States in the World Economy." This is to be found on page vi, and it reads:
A world economic structure organized on the basis of equal treatment and with large scope for free enterprise cannot be maintained in the face of such reductions in the supply of dollars as have occurred in our international transactions in the past. Unless the supply of dollars is more adequate-
I direct the attention of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar to these words:
-to meet foreign requirements, other countries will assuredly insist on their rights to exercise a close selective control over the use of the amounts available and to promote more intensive relations with third countries under preferential trading arrange-

ments. Unless dollars are made available with greater regularity than in the past, it would be both unjust and unwise to demand the removal of restraints and controls largely designed to protect the internal economies of other countries against external shock and pressure.
That is dealing with the international situation, but here is what is said about the internal situation, the problem of distributing purchasing power:
On the solution of these problems, through maintenance of a high and reasonably stable level of economic activity in the United States, the interests of this country, and of other countries, are most clearly and indisputably united.
There is only one way in the world in which the United States or Canada can keep her economy stable, and that is by continually introducing into the hands of consumers sufficient purchasing power to enable them to buy the goods they can produce. The only possible solution to the world's difficulties is to be able to put into the hands of the have-not people the money which is necessary to enable them to buy those goods which the more happy countries can produce.
Because of the evidence and of the facts which I have brought forward, I intend to support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low).


Mr. Howard C. Green (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I propose to say a few words about the question of freight rates, and I do so for two reasons. First of all I believe that there is great urgency about the matter. It is now admitted in most parts of Canada that there are great inequalities in our Canadian freight rate structure. Unfortunately each delay in dealing with these inequalities makes the position just that much worse. Therefore the time element is of great importance. My second reason for dealing with the subject today is that I fear there will be no other opportunity before the Easter adjournment, and possibly for the remainder of the session. I say that for this reason. Not only is there nothing coming up on the order paper which would open up a debate on the subject, but a royal commission on transportation has been set up, and I expect that once that commission commences its hearings anyone who rises in the house and tries to debate the question of freight rates will be met with the objection that the matter is under the consideration of the courts. In effect, an iron curtain will then be drawn over the question, and it will be impossible to have effective debate.
In approaching the subject at this time I believe it is necessary to bring up to date the record of what has been happening, and to see that the record is kept straight. It is also necessary to make clear to the house,



II, 1949

[Stage Direction]
and to the country, that the removal of the inequities, of the discrimination, is still a long way off; also that it is necessary to ask that the functions of the two bodies which are supposed to be dealing with the question of freight rates, the royal commission on transportation and the Board of Transport Commissioners for Canada, be much more clearly defined; at the present time there is great uncertainty across the country as to the respective functions of the two bodies. I think it is also necessary to demand that the government face its responsibilities on the freight rate question.
There is a reference to the matter in the speech from the throne, reading as follows:
A royal commission has been appointed to inquire into and report upon all questions of economic policy within the jurisdiction of parliament arising out of the operation and maintenance of national transportation.
That, of course, refers to the royal commission. Then the paragraph goes on:
Together with the findings of the investigation by the board of transport commissioners, the report of the royal commission should furnish parliament and the government with the basis for a sound transportation policy.
Here we have the government handing on the obligation to determine policy on railroad transportation not to one commission or board, which is the usual practice, but actually to two boards. We have two bodies being asked to do the job which the government should do for itself.
What is the record on the. question? On October 11, 1946, the railways applied for a flat increase in freight rates of thirty per cent. I suppose there were very few people in the country who did not believe that the railways were entitled to a reasonable increase because of the rising costs in all the activities of the country. The application for an increase was opposed by seven of the provinces, the three maritime provinces on the east coast, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, and the four western provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Those seven provinces were the ones primarily concerned with any increase in freight rates.
The other two provinces, Quebec and Ontario, are not so much concerned about fail charges. The distances that freight has to be hauled in those two provinces are much shorter. Then, too, there is very efficient road and water transportation which is in direct competition with the railroads, and which has served throughout the years to keep rail rates down; and has resulted in fact in the full rates permitted in Ontario and Quebec not being charged in many cases. As I have said,
. The Address-Mr. Green these two provinces were not directly concerned with the increase in the freight rates.
British Columbia was in the unfortunate position of being more concerned than any other province because the people of that province pay the highest rate of all by reason of what is known as the mountain differential, which takes the prairie rate and adds to that another quarter. It costs as much to haul freight a mile in British Columbia as it does to haul it a mile and a quarter in the prairie provinces, and the prairie rates are higher, of course, than the rates in Ontario and Quebec, or in the maritime provinces.
The board of transport commissioners held many sittings across Canada, and finally on March 30, 1948, handed down a judgment which allowed a flat increase of twenty-one per cent as against the increase of thirty per cent which had been requested by the railways. In their judgment they held that the freight rates must pay not only for the costs of operating the railways but also such charges as income taxes, dividends, fixed charges, depreciation and surplus, although a portion of those charges came from other earnings such as hotel earnings, shipping earnings, and various other services supplied by the railways. The Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company is another example, it being a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The judgment could be put into effect upon three days' notice, which meant that the increase of twenty-one per cent could be made by the railways after that time had passed.
Great dissatisfaction was expressed immediately by the seven provinces which had been involved in the hearings. I have here the different wires that were sent to the cabinet requesting mainly that the increase of twenty-one per cent be suspended for a period of thirty days in order that the different premiers might get together and decide what they would do about appealing the judgment. For example, I shall read from the, wire sent by the premier of Manitoba, who is now the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) in the government. In his wire we find these words:
The provinces which oppose the application desire the opportunity to meet and consider the judgment and to formulate their grounds of appeal, and it would be manifestly unjust to allow the higher rates to go into effect before they have had this opportunity.
Those seven provinces were in this position, that the only appeal they had from the judgment of the board of transport commissioners was to the cabinet. There is no other appeal from a decision of the transport board. On April 7 the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier), speaking in this house, announced
[Stage Direction]
The Address-Mr. Green that the government refused to suspend the operation of the judgment, and went on to say that the government had decided to order the board of transport commissioners to conduct a general rate inquiry. That was the answer given by the government to the seven provinces. I have here the order in council passed on that date, P.C. 1487, which contains the instructions to the board of transport commissioners concerning this general rate inquiry, and I read the material part of it, as follows:
... it is therefore advisable that the Board of Transport Commissioners for Canada be directed to make a thorough investigation of the rates structure of railways and railway companies which are under the jurisdiction of parliament, with a view to the establishment of a fair and reasonable rates structure which will, under substantially similar circumstances and conditions, be equal in its application to all persons and localities so as to permit the freest possible interchange of commodities between the various provinces and territories of Canada and the extension of Canadian trade both foreign and domestic, having due regard to the needs of agriculture nd the other basic industries.
It goes on to exempt from that inquiry the statutory provisions, which I believe are the maritime freight rates and the Crowsnest rates, both of which are in existence by reason of statute. In effect the government on April 7 last admitted that there were inequalities in the freight rate structure. Hon. members were very much concerned. The minister was asked how long it would take to complete this general inquiry and this was his answer, to be found at page 2718 of Hansard for April 7:
It may take a year, or it may take two years. That will depend upon the dispatch with which the board can get across the country.
Because the minister's statement was not considered satisfactory, that same day an amendment was moved to a motion to go into supply, by means of which the whole freight rate question was brought before the house. It was also a matter of the greatest interest across the country. For example, I have the 'leading editorial from the Vancouver Sun of April 9, 1948; and as the minister knows that newspaper is a consistent supporter of this government. In the editorial I find this paragraph:
This government has given the victims of regional rate discrimination not the slightest grounds to believe that it is interested in inequalities as such. It is interested, however, in shutting up the roars of protest evoked by a twenty-one per cent magnification of the injustices.
That was a very good word, I think, to apply to these increases, considering the discrimination which existed before. The debate was adjourned on April 7 and resumed on April 13, when the minister took part. At page 2904 of Hansard for that date he dealt 
with the question of the length of time it would take the board of transport commissioners to complete this general inquiry. He said:
In order that there will be no further misunderstanding on this question may I say that I conferred with the chief commissioner of the board and asked him how long in his opinion it would take to complete this investigation. He said that because of the circumstances which had changed in the economy of this country from the time that the judgment was handed down in 1927-
There the chairman was referring to a previous general inquiry.
-it would require an absolute minimum of six months in which to complete the investigation, and that it would probably be completed within a year.
Then on April 15 the board of transport commissioners issued a directive, which stressed the need for speedy action. For example, it says:
The Board of Transport Commissioners for Canada, in order to carry out as expeditiously as possible the direction of the above recited order in council-
That is the one from which I read a few moments ago.
-hereby invites provincial governments and other authorities, boards of trade, chambers of commerce and other interested parties to submit to the board any statement of facts under which it is claimed that unjust discrimination, or undue or unreasonable preference or advantage, or prejudice or disadvantage, or unfair treatment exists against or in favour of any locality, province or region by reason of the present rate structure.
The directive goes on to say that submissions should be filed not later than May 25, 1948, and that the railways would be given until June 30, 1948, to file answers. Then it goes on further:
The purpose of this notice is to put the board, as early as possible-
I point out that throughout this directive the board is stressing speed.
-in possession of any and all complaints against the existing rate structure, and to specifically direct attention to the subject matter of such complaints, with a view of considering what changes, adjustments and redistribution in rate incidence may be necessary to correct the defects complained of.
The board desires to proceed with the investigation and to hold such public hearings as may be deemed necessary with the least possible delay, and to conduct the same in a manner most calculated to secure a complete and systematic development of all material facts.
That directive was issued just about eleven months ago. Eleven months have gone by, and I believe as yet not one brief has been filed by a provincial government. There have been no hearings. It looks as though this general rate inquiry has just been pigeonholed in the meantime.
Mr. Chevrier:: May I interrupt the hon. gentleman? The application for the removal

of the mountain differential, which came from British Columbia, has been heard since that time, following that directive.


Howard Charles Green: I am going to deal with that in a moment.


Lionel Chevrier: Is that not so? The hon. gentleman has made the statement that nothing has been done under that directive, and I am saying now that the application of British Columbia has been heard. Is that not right?


Howard Charles Green: The minister is not right, because the directive to which I referred has to do with the general rate inquiry. It quotes the order in council issued on April 7, and deals only with the general rate inquiry. The application of British Columbia for the removal of the mountain differential was an entirely separate application.


Lionel Chevrier: No, it was not. I do not want to be interjecting, as my hon. friend interjected during my speech, and if he thinks I should not I will sit down. But I believe he should be fair. The mountain differential is a part of the whole rate-base structure.


Howard Charles Green: The minister will understand as I go along. I will deal with that point.


Lionel Chevrier: I did not want to interrupt the hon. gentleman unduly.


Howard Charles Green: This general rate inquiry has not been held, and unfortunately the discrimination continues. Of course that discrimination was accentuated by the 21 per cent increase, because it meant that where an unfair rate was being charged that rate went up 21 per cent, which was more than the 21 per cent on a lower rate.
Then in spite of the formula therein to which I referred a few moments ago, which said that the freight rates had to bear all these various charges, the minister in his speech in this house also vigorously defended the judgment of the board of transport commissioners. I would refer you, Mr. Speaker, to page 2900 of last year's Hansard; it was on April 13. As reported at page 2900 of Hansard of 1948 the minister said:
The board gave careful consideration to all the arguments that were put before it. They sat for almost fourteen months.
He went on to say how careful they had been in holding hearings in all parts of Canada. Then he said:
There are six commissioners on the board at the present time.
The Address-Mr. Green Then he uses these words, which are the key words supporting the point I am now making:
The board through the chief commissioner has delivered a clear and outstanding judgment in this case.
He went on to refer to the various commissioners, and to point out how much each of these commissioners knew about the railway question, arguing that, because they knew so much about it, therefore their judgment was right. But he was not content with that.


Lionel Chevrier: The words speak for themselves.


Howard Charles Green: Yes, they certainly do. The words shout for themselves. The minister went on to explain about the board's experts. He said they were fine experts and therefore the judgment must be right. The tragedy of the minister's action was this. In this country we have, or are supposed to have, cabinet solidarity. The minister spoke for the cabinet, and the cabinet was the only body to which persons could appeal against this judgment of the board of transport commissioners. In effect the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier), for the cabinet, prejudged any appeal that the seven provinces might take.
He went further. The other day he was praising this royal commission. I would refer hon. members to page 2906 of Hansard of 1948, the same day, where we find what he thought about a royal commission then. He said:
X say to the house that if we were to appoint a royal commission or other body to investigate the inequalities of the freight rates structure in Canada this is what would happen. The royal commission or other body would come to the government and say, "We are ready to proceed with the case. Give us the technical assistance: give us the experts." We would have to reply, "We know of only two groups of people in this country who are able to give you the technical evidence and assistance you require, and those two groups are to be found in the board of transport commissioners." Those groups are, first, the bureau of economics of the board of transport commissioners, and second, the traffic experts of that board, the one composed of a personnel of forty and the other of a personnel of twenty. That being the case what would be the use of asking four, five or six men, not nearly as conversant with this question as are the members of the board of transport commissioners, and who to my mind would not have the same knowledge of the circumstances as the board, to carry out such an investigation? I say to the house therefore that the members of the board, four of whom are from provinces other than Ontario and Quebec, are better qualified and equipped to deal with this question than would be the members of a specialized board or commission of some land or other.
That is the minister less than a year ago. On the same day, by the way, the leader of the opposition moved an amendment-which will be found at page 2915, and which

The Address-Mr. Green expressed the position of the Progressive Conservative party-in these words:
. . . regrets the government's failure to secure the removal of inequalities and discriminations in the Canadian railway freight rates structure before the imposition of a horizontal increase of twenty-one per cent-an increase which is bound to intensify the aforesaid inequalities and discriminations . . .
Then it went on to regret the refusal of the government to give the provinces thirty days in which to consider an appeal.
That carries the picture up to April 13, 1948. An interesting series of events followed in that year. On April 26 the seven provincial premiers again protested to the cabinet. They were in the position of having had their appeal prejudged by the Minister of Transport on the floor of this house. Obviously, in the nature of things, they would not expect much help from the cabinet. They asked then that a royal commission be set up; and they did not ask for a royal commission just to investigate the transportation question. They actually asked to have set up a royal commission which would act as an appeal body from the judgment of the board of transport commissioners. They also asked for the suspension of the twenty-one per cent increase in the meantime, and went so far as to say that, if the railways were hard-pressed financially during the time that this matter was being considered, the government should subsidize the railways. On April 29, British Columbia filed a claim for the removal of the mountain differential. That was a new case which they filed on that date. This claim has been heard, but the decision has not yet been handed down.
Then on July 1, some two months later, the Prime Minister (Mr. King) advised the seven provinces that he was refusing a royal commission and that there could be no suspension of the twenty-one per cent increase. On July 14 there was a wage increase of seventeen cents an hour across the board. On July 20 the provinces again appeared before the cabinet. At this time they filed their appeal from the decision of the board, and again asked for a royal commission. Four days later, on July 24, the royal commission was refused. Four days after that again, on July 28, the railways applied for a further increase-that is, on top of the increase of twenty-one per cent.
I believe their second application was for a fifteen per cent interim increase and a twenty per cent permanent increase. But I am told that now the argument is for a twenty per cent flat increase over and above the twenty-one per cent increase granted previously.
Early in August the government party held a convention here in Ottawa. Among the resolutions passed by that convention-we 
were told it was against the wishes of the cabinet, and it certainly must have been against the wishes of the Minister of Transport-was one advocating the setting up of a royal commission on transportation. On September 17 the announcement was made that there was to be a royal commission. In other words, the Minister of Transport was then overruled for the first time.
On September 27 and 28 the provinces argued before the cabinet their appeal from the decision of the board. The Minister of Transport was not present at that time. He was representing Canada at a conference in Europe. It was a good thing that he was away, in view of the speech he had made on April 13. In any event, eleven other ministers heard the appeal by those seven provinces. On October 14 the eleven members of the cabinet handed down a judgment which will be found in "Canadian Railway and Transport Cases," volume 62, at page 273. That judgment upset the formula which had been laid down by the board. I will quote to the house the material paragraph, which reads as follows:
The committee are favourably impressed with the view-
That is, the cabinet.
-that income derived by the railways from sources other than their railway transportation operations should not be entirely excluded by the board in determining the corporate needs of the railways. The payment of fixed charges and income taxes are corporate obligations of corporations as such, and the incomes of corporations, whatsoever their source, are liable therefor; provisions to be made for dividends and a surplus are likewise corporate needs and should be so considered. For these reasons, the committee are of the opinion that some portion of the corporate needs should be borne by the income derived from nonrailway operations.
The cabinet referred the judgment back to the board of transport commissioners. The headnote reads that it is to be referred back for consideration by the board of the claims set forth in the petition by the provinces, and that consideration "should take place concurrently with and in relation to the pending application by the railways for a further increase in freight rates." Then the following footnote appears:
The result of this order in council is that the increase of 21 per cent in freight rates authorized by the board in the general increase case 1946-48 will remain in effect unless and until altered by the board by means of an adjustment which may be made in the course of its disposition of a pending application for a further increase of 20 per cent in freight rates.
The Minister of Transport was clearly wrong in April, 1948. He was proved wrong by the fact that in October, 1948, his colleagues found the judgment of the board of transport commissioners in error. Since October, 1948, the board has been hearing

these two applications; reconsidering the application for a 21 per cent increase on the basis suggested by the cabinet, and also hearing for the first time the application for an additional 20 per cent increase. All the time, Mr. Speaker, the discrimination continues and it will be made worse, as I pointed out, by any flat increase. There is no sign of a general rates inquiry by the board of transport commissioners.
In the meantime, on December 29, a royal commission on transportation was appointed. Its powers, obviously, conflict with the powers given to the board of transport commissioners to hold a general rates inquiry. In addition to a repetition of the powers given to the board for such inquiry, power is given to this royal commission to review the Railway Act, and to review the capital structure of the Canadian National Railways. Various other powers are given to them, with the one proviso contained in the last paragraph of the order in council setting up the commission, which reads as follows:
That the scope of this commission shall not extend to the performance of functions which, under the Railway Act, are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the board of transport commissioners.
There is no proviso there concerning the statutory freight rates, namely, the maritime freight rates and the Crowsnest rates. They are not excepted from the powers of the royal commission. It may well be that these statutory rates will be lost as a result of the hearings of the royal commission. Furthermore there is no sign of the commencement of the hearings of this royal commission. There has already been a delay of six months. In September of last year it was announced that a commission would be appointed, and when the commission was set up on December 29 press dispatches stated that the job of the commission would take the better part of a year, with public hearings across the country starting perhaps in two months from the announcement of the appointment of the commission. That would mean in March. The press dispatch goes on to say:
It is not expected a report will be received from the commissioners befo^p 1950.
The other day I asked the minister when the hearings were to commence and he said the intention had been that they would commence in May-


Lionel Chevrier: No, by the end of April.


Howard Charles Green: Surely the end of April would be the beginning of May, or pretty close to it. He said that it had been thought the commission would be ready to proceed by
The Address-Mr. Green the end of April. He went on to say, as reported at page 1062 of Hansard:
Since then I have been informed that provinces have sought some delay in order to prepare their cases.
I point out that there has already been a delay of six months.
It would appear, Mr. Speaker, that the royal commission must first sit and report, because they are instructed to review the Railway Act. The royal commission having reported, if any changes are to be made in the Railway Act, these will have to be put through parliament. After that has been done the board of transport commissioners will have to decide on rates. They would obviously be foolish to try now to set up a new basis of rates, because that job has been handed on to the royal commission. This double set-up, this business of two boards, means more delay; it means more expense; and of course it means that the discriminations continue, unless the railways themselves get soft-hearted and remove them.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There is not much chance of that.


Howard Charles Green: After all, the actual equalizing of rates can only be done by the rate experts. It cannot be done by the royal commission; it cannot be done by the members of the board of transport commissioners. It has to be done by rate experts. I suggest that parliament could have been used. Instead of setting up a royal commission we could have had a committee of this house deal with this question and then parliament could have advised the experts what was to be done, and they could have drawn up the rates. Certainly nothing miraculous will come from this commission any more than has come from other commissions.
In any event, the government can now clarify the function of these two boards. There is confusion from coast to coast.


Lionel Chevrier: There is no confusion at all.


Howard Charles Green: Boards of trade do not know-


Lionel Chevrier: Let me tell my hon. friend that there is no confusion at all.


Mr. Graydon:: Except in the cabinet.


Lionel Chevrier: If my hon. friend reads the order in council setting up the investigation, and setting up the royal commission, he will find that there is no confusion. It is quite clear. The duties are set out. Of course my hon. friend can make the statement that there is confusion, and he is entitled to his opinion.


Howard Charles Green: The minister tells me that, but I tell him that there is confusion across the country.

The Address-Mr. Maclnnis


Lionel Chevrier: I am saying that there is not.


Howard Charles Green: Boards of trade and other public bodies interested do not know to whom they should make recommendations. Furthermore, the government should insist upon the speeding up of these hearings. If there are to be two sets of hearings, then the hearings should be speeded up. And most important of all, the government should make up its mind as to its freight rate policy. The question involved is, are these discriminations to be removed or are they not? That is a matter of government policy. The present government is dodging that responsibility, but in the end some government will have to adopt a policy on freight rates.
I repeat what I have said several times, because I want to emphasize the point; in the meanwhile, discrimination continues and it will be made worse with each flat increase across the board.


Angus MacInnis: wish to deal with two points for a few minutes. First, I shall say a few words in regard to the subamendment moved yesterday by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low). In doing so, I should like to assure my Social Credit friends that my comments will be as bereft of chiding criticism, if one can call it that, as I can possibly make them. I have a certain affinity, if I may use the word, with my Social Credit friends. I shall be careful of my words and say that we are both descended from the same social stratum of society, and that consequently we see the same kind of people and to a large extent meet the same conditions. For that reason, if for no other, I have no wish to be either unfair or acrimonious in any remarks I make.
The subamendment, however, is one which this party, I regret, cannot support. It contains three sections, the first of which is an expression of regret that the government has shown studied indifference to social credit financial proposals. The secorfd is a regret that the government has failed to take up the social credit challenge to debate in the house certain aspects of social credit. Surely no such proposals were ever made a part of a want of confidence resolution. What does it matter if the government has not done those things.
Then, the last section is a regret that the government has not made legislative provision for the maintenance of purchasing power for the distribution of goods and services. All of us would agree with that. But if the assumption is that that could only be done, or must be done, by the application of social credit principles, then we cannot agree with it.
Yesterday my leader said the trouble today was not one of a scarcity of money, but a maldistribution of money. As a matter of fact up to a very few months ago it was not a scarcity of money, but too much money.


An hon. Member:: We agree with that.


Angus MacInnis: If you agree with it, and if that was the condition two months or six months ago, the question is not that there is less money today than there are goods. As a matter of fact the processes of production distribute always in wages, salaries, rent and profits enough money to consume the goods produced.


John Horne Blackmore: Never in your life.


Angus MacInnis: Yes, that is the Social Credit argument. They assert one thing and I assert the opposite. And while I am not a Daniel, or any of the major or even the minor prophets, I am prepared to put my opinion against theirs any time. As I shall develop my argument I shall have something to say along that line.
I maintain, and I think every economist of any note anywhere maintains, that the trouble with the capitalist system, with so-called free enterprise, is that it does not distribute equitably enough the fruits of industry so that the people can be provided with the clothing, food and shelter they need through our productive processes. That is the fact. But the reason it does not do that is because it is not its purpose to do that. The purpose of industry is to produce profits for the owners of industry. The more that is put into wages or into any other costs, the less goes into profits. If we do not understand that, I do not believe we can understand anything about our economic system. And until we understand that we will not understand how to apply remedies.
The hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) complained yesterday, as he has on several other occasions-if "complained" is the right word-about his inability to make the members in the house understand the principles of social credit. I have listened to the hon. member since 1935, and the more I listen to him the more confused I am. I am free to say that perhaps that is not his fault; it may be mine. I find however that I can understand other people when they are talking; I can understand what they mean. But I cannot understand the hon. member for Lethbridge or the others in the Social Credit party who deal with the theory of social credit; they are not understandable to me.


John Horne Blackmore: Give us an example.


Angus MacInnis: I shall do that.


Mr. Shaw:: Give us your amendment of 1935.


Angus MacInnis: Speaking in the house on March 12, 1947, the hon. member for Lethbridge said, as reported at page 1309 of Hansard:
Up to the present time there has been the danger, when banks have lent money, that they could not get their money back. It is obvious that with debt-free money going into circulation among the people the banks would have a far better chance of having their loans repaid. In many cases the loans would be partly if not wholly repaid with debt-free money. That is one way in which the debt-free money would be cancelled out of circulation. So there would not be the danger of too much of it being in circulation.
If that means anything at all, it means that bank loans-in other words, debt money- are to be paid with debt-free money which, when the bankers receive it, they are going to cancel out so that there will not be too much money in circulation. If that makes sense to anyone I should like him to hold up his hand and then to explain it to the house. It does not make sense to me. Then we have this paragraph:
The banks lend money for production purposes but not to pay interest. But interest is necessary to encourage the banks to lend money.
In other words, debt money is necessary to encourage the banks to lend debt money. Then it continues:
The banks also never lend money to pay a profit. If we are to continue under our system of interest and profits the finest way to enable us to carry it on is to have debt-free money which can supply means for the payment of interest and profits. That is another way to cancel debt-free money out of circulation.
There again, when you pay debt-free money to pay interest and to pay profit, then the person receiving it cancels it. If he cancels it out, what has he got?


An hon. Member:: Nothing.


Angus MacInnis: Well, that is social credit. I have been trying to understand that sort of thing for the last fourteen years.


An hon. Member:: Page the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine).


Angus MacInnis: If the hon. member for Cariboo understands it, he was never able to make me understand it.
Then, again, my hon. friends charge the socialists and the C.C.F. with favouring controls and regulations. They are fearful if that sort of thing is allowed to creep in we will not be able to control it. As the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Shaw) said last night, bad men will get into almost any organization, and may take over control.
At the last session of parliament I asked the hon. member for Lethbridge a question,
The Address-Mr. Maclnnis which is found at page 5605 of Hansard for 1948. I quote:


Angus MacInnis: I have been trying to grasp the
principles of social credit. My understanding is that it is controlled free enterprise. Is that correct?


John Horne Blackmore: I think you could say "controlled" or "regulated." It is difficult to get a word which will carry the exact truth without an unfortunate connotation.
I might say that I am still trying to grasp those principles. Even after listening to my Social Credit friends I think it must be admitted that any controls that we would likely have under a C.C.F. or any other government would be the utmost freedom in comparison to the controls that would be necessary under social credit. The high priest of social credit was brought out last night to bear witness.	I refer to Major
C. H. Douglas. I have in my hand a copy of "Social Credit" by C. H. Douglas. This is a revised edition, but I do not know the year of publication. At the back of the book is an appendix headed, "Draft Social Credit scheme for Scotland."
It is rather interesting to note that Major Douglas should make Scotland a testing ground for social credit. I imagine he felt that, if social credit would not work with the intelligence of the Scottish people, it would not work at all. For that he is to be commended. What is this plan? Section 1 reads:
Obtain from existing sources, such as company balance sheets, land registration offices, and insurance companies, such information necessary to place a money valuation upon the whole of the capital assets of Scotland, such as land, roads, bridges, railways, canals, buildings, drainage and water schemes, minerals, semi-manufactured materials... Add to this the sum representing the present commercial capitalized value of the population.
There was to be a census made and a value put on sewers, roads, cattle, hogs-


An hon. Member:: And porridge.


Angus MacInnis: Yes, on oatmeal as well.


An hon. Member:: And haggis.


Angus MacInnis: The Address-Mr. Maclnnis quish the control of real Immovable estate will do so to the government, which will take any necessary steps to re-allot it to suitable applicants.
This from the people who shout about the socialization of land, but such things as this were never in any C.C.F. program at any time. Yet we find them here in the only social credit plan that has ever been drawn up. Yet social credit members talk about freedom. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Shaw) quoted Major Douglas last night. Does the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) repudiate Major Douglas?


Solon Earl Low: No.


Angus MacInnis: These are Major Douglas' words. These are the words in the bible of the Social Credit party.


Solon Earl Low: That is not what he said.


Angus MacInnis: Those are the words of the high priest of the Social Credit party.


John Horne Blackmore: It is the hon. member's interpretation.


Angus MacInnis: I think I can understand English. I have not time to read much more, but the following is found on page 210:
Wage rates in all organized industries will be reduced by 25 per cent where such reduction does not involve a loss to the wage-earner exceeding 20 per cent of the sums received in the form of national dividend. The wage rates ruling in 1928 to be taken as the basis against which the reduction would be made.
Any trade union violating a wage agreement to render its membership liable to suspension of national dividend, and any employers' organization committing a similar offence, to be liable to suspension of price assistance or wage reductions.
If you put a program like that into effect, and I submit that that is the only extant program of the social credit movement, without an iron-clad dictatorship you will be doing something that has never been done before.


Solon Earl Low: That is just the plan for Scotland.


Angus MacInnis: If it is good enough for Scotland it ought to be good enough for any place else. My hon. friends remind me of the minister who had been brought into a new parish. He had been there for six months or so and had never heard any comment on his sermons. One day he asked one of the elders how he thought he was getting along, whether they were satisfied with his sermons, and the elder replied, "Don't worry, the members of this congregation did not know what sin was until you came here." Let me say again that despite what the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) said this afternoon the industries of Canada do distribute purchasing power.


Solon Earl Low: Incidentally.


Angus MacInnis: As a matter of fact any useful work that they do is incidental. It is not their purpose to do useful work for the community; their purpose is to produce profits for the shareholders. If you are selling shares or stock in a company no one will ask you what useful service the company is doing for the community; but they will want to see the balance sheet for last year. If the balance sheet shows a loss, no matter what useful purpose the company is performing they will not buy. That is proof positive of what I say is the purpose of private industry. I regret that we cannot vote for the subamendment.
I should like to say a few words in regard to the amendment moved by the official opposition. This amendment expresses want of confidence in the government and I think it has been referred to as a straight want of confidence motion. It is customary when a member of the house moves a motion of want of confidence for him to give his reasons for moving the motion. The leader of the opposition did that before moving his amendment. When the leader of the C.C.F. party moved the amendment to the amendment, which has been disposed of, he accused the government of failure to deal effectively with two matters; natural products marketing, and national health insurance. We could have included half a dozen other items of government policy, but we have been in the house long enough to know that, if you put a thing in an amendment once you are not allowed to refer to it in an amendment again. We want to move several votes of want of confidence in the government before this session is over, and we are leaving ourselves as free as we can.
The point is that the official opposition voted against the amendment to the amendment although our amendment left the want of confidence part intact. It did not interfere with it at all. Having voted against it, we can only assume that the official opposition are satisfied with the government's marketing policy, and that they are satisfied with the government's policy on national health insurance.


Mr. Casselman:: That is your argument only.


Angus MacInnis: It is not only an argument; it is a logical assumption and I think I am a very logical person. I have mentioned the reasons behind the amendment to the amendment moved by the leader of the C.C.F. party. Let us look at the reasons for the amendment moved by the leader of the official opposition. The amendment was preceded by a speech by him lasting more than two hours justifying his own position with regard to the dominion-provincial conference.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We will probably get another one today.


Angus MacInnis: And it ended up with this paragraph to be found on page 59 of Hansard.


Mr. Harti:: Which side did he try to justify?


Angus MacInnis: I stated quite clearly what, in my opinion, he tried to do. The paragraph reads:
By its refusal to reconvene this conference to which I have referred, the dominion government is not only threatening national unity, but making impossible any solution of our constitutional problems. For that reason this government should not receive the support of hon. members of this House of Commons in the course it is following.
Then there were a few further words, and he moved the amendment. I think I am justified in saying that his amendment was an amendment of want of confidence because of the policy of the government in the dominion-provincial conference. Later on I think he must have felt that was a rather thin reason because he referred to the matter again in his second speech on February 21, and he indicated that really the amendment was based on more than the results of the dominion-provincial conference. I shall read from page 738 of Hansard, where he said:
In this debate this house has an opportunity to say by its vote that the time for arbitrary powers has gone; that the right of parliament to enact laws on behalf of the people should be restored; that any legislation which should be continued should be continued only in the form of proper statutory terms and that those things which we are asked to deal with should be dealt with only in the form of statutes.
But that was only an afterthought. He did not mention any of these things when he proposed his amendment of want of confidence. On the same page of Hansard he refers to the amendment to the amendment in these words:
The amendment to the amendment presents limited objections to the conduct of the government,-
They were not nearly as limited, in my opinion, as the amendment itself.
-and what is stated in the speech from the throne. That in itself might be interpreted as a general want of confidence motion, but it also might be interpreted as simply limiting criticism of the government to those points that are set forth in the amendment to the amendment. I for one do not feel that it touches upon some of the most vital points that are before us, and particularly the right of parliament to assert its authority as against the right to govern by order in council. For that reason I think that the amendment to the amendment is inadequate.
If the amendment to the amendment was inadequate, then surely the amendment itself was inadequate because it did not deal with any of these matters. As I said, we could have dealt with a dozen things, housing, the
The Address-Mr. Maclnnis high cost of living, social security, and a whole host of things for. which this government can be condemned for not doing anything about them, and for which they will be condemned. To take that position three weeks after the amendment had been moved is just not good enough. When a person takes more than two hours to justify his own position on any question it seems to me that he must be doubtful of his position himself.
I am told that criminologists-I believe that is what you call the people who study crime -say that criminals have a propensity for coming back to the scene of their crimes. The preoccupation of the leader of the opposition with the dominion-provincial conference can only be explained by some such hypothesis as that. He is continually drawn back to the scene of the crime, to where the conference was strangled. I often wonder as I listen to him if his partner has as tender a conscience or as morbid a curiosity. I have already said in the house that I was not placing the blame for the scuttling of the conference. I am not absolving the government from having a share in it. As a matter of fact, I am fairly well convinced that they were more or less pleased when the premier of Ontario and the premier of Quebec made the carrying on of the conference impossible. During periods of war people see what can be done when they co-operate for certain ends. They see that in wartime, despite all the expenditure on goods and services for war purposes, the standard of living of the people can be raised, and there is a realization of the necessity for better living and more security when peace comes. The feeling was there in 1945 when the proposals in the green book were drafted, but by 1946 it was wearing off. Other pastures looked more luscious, and social security less pressing than it did in 1944 and 1945. Therefore when the conference broke down I am convinced that the government was pretty well satisfied. I see the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin) shaking his head.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That certainly was not the case.


Angus MacInnis: If they were not satisfied there was no reason under heaven why they could not embody the proposals in the green book in an agreement with the provinces that were willing to sign. What I am working up to is that as far as this party is concerned the want of confidence amendment moved by the official opposition is phony and we are not going to vote for it. We will vote against it. We have given the official opposition one chance, but we will give them another; we will call a vote on the main motion itself.

The Address-Mr. Sinnott


Mr. Sinnott:: Would you call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker? ,


Some hon. Members:: No.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: Well, Mr. Speaker, I shall make my remarks short, concise, brief and to the point. Having been named as one of the reformers of the Liberal party along with the McGeers, the Slaghts and the Tuckers, I thought this might be an opportune time to say a few words. We hear much criticism from the other side about the surplus the government has had this year. We heard a great deal of criticism from the opposite side about the taxation of the people, and I think this is a good time to let the government know that they have someone who can help them out a little. I have every reason to believe that when the next election is over and we come back here to the house I shall be asked to become Minister of Finance. If I should accept, my first step will be to tell the private banks that we intend to discontinue their charters and to assign all their branches and subsidiaries to the Bank of Canada. Then we would be in a position to look after our own finances.
I shall never forget the statement of our former Prime Minister, now the hon. member for Glengarry (Mr. Mackenzie King), in 1935, that once a nation lost control of its currency and credit all else would be idle and futile. Nor shall I forget the words of one of the old financiers, who said, "Give me control of the currency and credit and I care not who makes the nation's laws." We live in an age in which science and invention have improved the old methods of production, but we are still following the orthodox methods of finance. We have seen Canada's debt built up during wartime to the astronomical figure of sixteen billion dollars, on most of which we are paying interest, and we are told we will continue to pay interest on this money until we go to join our ancestors. So I think it is about time the government really took a hand in seeing what makes the clock go round as far as finance is concerned. We can make all the speeches we like in this house; words will not mean anything. It is action we need, and action now. If the Minister of Finance makes up his mind that he is going to get down to business and tell these bureaucrats who are advising him that he is going to run the business, we will be better off. I remember when I took over a municipality which was being run by some of these bureaucrats, with the money of the people being squandered here and there. When I took over the reins I said, "I am running the show," and as a result the people of that municipality were better off by some 
$226,000 in eight years. I believe that if the Minister of Finance would take the reins in his own hands and follow the same procedure the people of Canada would be very grateful, and I wish he would do it now.
I should like to call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


George Alexander Drew: Before we rise, Mr. Speaker, with the consent of the house I would move that we sit through the dinner hour, in view of the fact that the debate is to terminate this evening by reason of the motion of the government. That will make it possible for the debate definitely to conclude this evening.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I would second the motion.


Mr. Quelch:: I move the adjournment of the debate.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. It is moved by Mr. Drew, seconded by Mr. Howe, that notwithstanding standing order No. 6, Mr. Speaker do not leave the chair at six o'clock, but that the debate be continued.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Does it not require unanimous consent for a motion of this kind to be made without notice?


Arza Clair Casselman: He got consent.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Oh, no.


Mr. Speaker:: According to standing order 45 notice is not necessary for this motion. Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.


John Horne Blackmore: Mr. Speaker, it is impossible to understand what you said.
And some hon. members having risen.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the desire of the house to have a division?


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at seven-thirty o'clock.
Victor Quelch: Before I go on with what I really want to say tonight, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make brief reference to a number of statements that were made by the hon. member for Vancouver East

(Mr. Maclnnis). I want to congratulate him upon the orderly way in which he made a criticism of certain proposals that we have put forward from time to time. But I was surprised at his attitude to the principles of social credit when he said he could not understand them even after studying them for some fourteen years. He even went so far as to say that the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine) had not been able to convert him. I am satisfied that the hon. member for Vancouver East must be suffering from a serious relapse.
I do not think he is getting old; it certainly cannot be his age; but I cannot understand how he can say that he does not understand these principles when apparently he understood them quite clearly in 1935. I should like to quote, in order to refresh his memory, an amendment that he seconded on March 26, 1935. The motion was moved by Mr. Coote and seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver East. Let me read the amendment, as reported at page 2138 of Hansard of 1935:
That the amendment be amended by striking out all the words after the word "Canada'' and adding thereto the following:
"and would appear to be based upon the assumption that poverty and debt are inevitable conditions within the country;
and whereas the real and potential wealth of the nation, based upon our natural resources and our capacity to produce, is such as to make possible an abundant provision for all the requirements of our people;
Therefore, this house is of the opinion that the government should take immediate action to insure the fullest and most equitable distribution possible of our socially-created wealth and that, as a first step in this direction, the measures which may be necessary to meet the pressing needs of the farmers and the unemployed should be financed-
And mark this well.
-by the social credit of Canada, thus avoiding a further increase in the debt burden of the country.
The hon. member for Vancouver East took exception to the statement by the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) advocating that debt-free money could be used to reduce the debt. He thought that was a weird suggestion. Yet in 1935 he advocated that social credit should be used for the purpose of expanding certain services without any expansion of debt.


Mr. Johnston:: He has a convenient memory.


Victor Quelch: As I say, the hon. gentleman seems to be suffering a relapse. The hon. member also implied that we in this group were opposed to all controls. Yet on every occasion when a motion has been made in this house to grant the government continuation of emergency power to exercise certain controls, we have always voted for that motion in order that any absolutely necessary controls could be continued. The stand
The Address-Mr. Quelch that we have always taken is that we are opposed to controls for control's sake. We are opposed to the idea of continually controlling, unnecessarily, the lives of the people.
I will give one or two examples of the type of controls that I dislike. During the war we had the wartime prices and trade board.
I am of the opinion that some frustrated fashion expert got into that board. All his life, apparently he had wanted to have the power to make men change their methods of dress. The fashion experts have always been able to get the women to change their methods of dress, to make them pull up their skirts one day and let them down the next. But they have never been able to get men to change their method of wearing pants. So a measure was put into force which said that men would have to take the cuffs off the bottom of their pants. It might be argued that by so doing there would be a saving of a little bit of cloth. One day I went into a store on Sparks street in order to get a pair of semi-finished flannels. They were not hemmed on the bottom. There was enough material on the bottom with which to make cuffs. So I asked the manager, or the man who was serving in the store, to finish them with cuffs. Oh no, he said, that is against the regulations of the wartime prices and trade board. I said, what are you going to do with the cloth? He said, cut it off. I said, what for? He said, to throw it away. I said, surely that would be a waste of cloth; surely they could turn it up into cuffs. He said, no, we will have to cut it off and turn it up underneath. But, he said, if you like, you can take the pants away as they are and turn them up yourself. What kind of silly control was that?
Then again control was exercised over the kind of lapels you wore, and the kind of pockets you wanted. For years I had been in the habit of getting inside pockets in my vest. No, I could not have them; it took extra work. I said, all right, put only two pockets on the outside and put one on the inside. No, they could not do that. It was against the controls. It is that kind of silly control that makes people angry. If any decided benefit accrues from the controls, or if the controls are necessary to the welfare of the country, the people will not object. But just the minute a bunch of bureaucrats start interfering unnecessarily with the peoples' way of life, the people will object.
For some strange reason the hon. member for Vancouver East objected to Major Douglas' plan of assessing the value of human beings. Surely the hon. member would not suggest that human lives are not valuable. We assess them at a high rate, because the

The Address-Mr. Quelch more manpower you have, the greater potential productive power there is in the country. Therefore we should look upon every human being as a great asset. Our main complaint has been that in the past we have regarded the people of a country as a liability, and have deplored the fact that we have unemployment instead of rejoicing in the fact that we have surplus productive capacity to make it possible to increase the production of the country, improve the standard of living of the people and at the same time reduce the hours of labour. Certainly we would be the last ones to look upon the people as a liability rather than an asset.
There is just one other point I want to deal with at this stage. The hon. member referred to profits and insinuated that it was wrong to produce for profit. I think that people will be obliged to agree, whether they believe in profits or not, that they are a great incentive to production. I claim that everybody who works, either with his brain or with his hands, works for a profit, whether it be a labourer or whether it be what some like to call a capitalist. It is true that when the labourer works he should take an interest in the type of work he does, but he hopes to profit by his work and therefore he will always try to get the highest wage possible in order to profit more. On the other hand, that does not mean for one minute that we condone exorbitant profits or excess profits. But those are things that can well be taken care of by taxation.


John Horne Blackmore: By the just price.


Victor Quelch: When the hon. member for Vancouver East was speaking, he disagreed with us in our argument that in normal times there is invariably a deficiency of purchasing power with which to buy the produced consumer goods of a country. Instead of dealing with that matter at this moment, I will deal with it later on when I shall be dealing with a situation which developed in this country during certain years.
After being in this house for the past fourteen years, I want to say that I am more convinced than ever that the people of this country will never reach the objective towards which they are striving until the principles of social credit are adopted in some form or other either by this government or by some other government.


John Horne Blackmore: Both nationally and internationally.


Victor Quelch: Furthermore, I would say that either the principles of social credit will be adopted or private enterprise will go, and in its place will come some form of "ism" which we may not like but which, once we have 
had it, we may have a great deal of difficulty in getting rid of. It is only necessary to refer to what has happened in the past fifteen years in certain parts of Europe to appreciate what I am referring to. We maintain that by the adoption of social credit principles it will be possible at all times to maintain the optimum development of the resources of the country in order to give the people of Canada the highest standard of living that the country is capable of producing, at the same time giving them the greatest degree of personal freedom possible. In order that a high standard of living may be maintained, we have always advocated that it would be necessary to use a certain amount of national money for the purpose of maintaining the purchasing power of the people at a level sufficiently high to maintain an effective demand against the production of the country. We have never advocated that more money should be issued than was necessary to maintain an effective demand. In other words, we are advocating that national money shall be issued to equate demand with supply.


John Horne Blackmore: We have always said that.


Victor Quelch: It must be quite obvious that this is essential if we are to maintain the full development of our resources, because just the minute that demand lags behind supply, industry will reduce production, since no industry can continue to produce unless it can sell.
It is true that most political parties would say that they believe in maintaining the full development of our resources; but the other three parties, the Liberals, the Conservatives and the C.C.F., advocate that it be done out of taxation or by borrowing. When you borrow money you increase debt. When you increase debt, you increase debt charges. When you increase debt charges, you have to increase taxation in order to pay them, and when you increase taxation you reduce the purchasing power of the people and thereby make it impossible to maintain an effective demand, resulting in unemployment, and then you are on your way into the spiral of a depression.
When the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) introduced the budget last year, he told us that we had a new high in production, in employment and in prosperity. Already this session we have heard words to that effect. But the Minister of Finance went on to warn us that we could not expect that situation to continue indefinitely into the future. As a matter of fact, he warned us that there might be a recession in the not distant future. Therefore, in view of the fact that we have

a large national debt, the government considered it a wise policy to tax the people heavily while they had the money because, the minister said, if a recession comes they will not have so much money. Therefore the only thing to do was for the government to tax the money while they had it. It will be recalled that during the past two years the government have taxed from the people $1,200 million more than was required to meet government expenditures, and the national debt was reduced to quite an extent. But here is the point. The minister emphasized the fact that we had a high level of income, production and employment. Then he warned us that a recession might come, but instead of trying to safeguard the country against a depression developing he instituted a policy which hastened the day of the depression, because he maintained taxation at a high level, thereby withdrawing from circulation $1,200 million, and thereby of course reducing the purchasing power of the people to that extent.
When the minister told us that we had a new high in production, in employment and prosperity, I think he might also have reminded the house that we had, and still have, a new high in discontent; discontent among the workers, discontent among the farmers. You can find it wherever you go. Not only is there discontent among the workers but there is a high degree of fear in the minds of all people, fear as to what is going to happen in the future, fear as to whether or not there will be a depression. Why does that situation exist at a time when we are supposed to have such a high degree of prosperity? I think it is easy to understand why that situation exists. It exists because the people can remember only too clearly what happened in this country during the past nineteen or twenty years. They remember the nine years of the depression when many people lost their life savings, and in some cases their health and in other cases even their lives. They remember the five years of war and the various restrictions that were placed upon their movement. I suppose there is hardly a family in Canada that did not suffer the loss of a relative or a friend. They remember only too well the last four years of high prices and the inflationary period. There is no doubt that many people have prospered during that period, but on the other hand there are many people who have suffered, and suffered severely. I have in mind the people in the low-income brackets, and especially those on low fixed incomes, such as old age pensions, and those on the war veterans allowances. At last they are hoping that we may be approaching an era where there might be a fairly high
The Address-Mr. Quelch degree of prosperity on a somewhat permanent basis. But instead of being able to look forward to an era of prosperity, they are now being warned on every side that the danger is that we are going into another depression. Therefore, is it any wonder that fear is expressed on all sides today and that there is widespread discontent? I believe all hon. members will agree that it is a somewhat dreary outlook. People are asking the question whether or not depressions are inevitable. Just because people in other parts of the world suffer depressions, is it any reason why we in this country have to have one? Surely in a country such as Canada, where we have great resources, it should be possible at all times to maintain the development of these resources at a sufficiently high level so as to give the people a fairly decent standard of living, whether or not there is a depression in Europe or in some other part of the world.
I am not suggesting for one minute, Mr. Speaker, that the problem is an easy one to solve; but I do suggest that the situation has been greatly aggravated by various blunders on the part of the government, blunders which will always occur so long as the government ties itself to an orthodox financial system. We believe that these difficulties could have been avoided under a system of social credit. Let me give an example of what I mean when I say that. Let me deal briefly with the three periods that I have mentioned, namely, the depression years, in the thirties, the war years and the postwar years.
Yesterday the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Shaw) referred to the depression years from 1930 to 1935. Let me go on from there and deal with the years from 1935 to 1939. What was the situation in Canada at that time? During that period we had around a million people on relief, half a million people unemployed, and industry operating at less than 50 per cent of its capacity. In addition, strangely enough, during those five years we had, on an average, a favourable balance of payments of over $219 million. In other words, we had exported $219 million worth of goods more than we brought back in imports. During those years it was a very common thing for people to blame industry for the situation. They asked, why does not industry have more confidence? Why does not industry employ more of the unemployed, expand its production and produce the things that the people require? I think the answer to that question is quite obvious. Industrial production at that time was less than 50 per cent of its capacity. Even with that low production, industry was having a great deal of difficulty in selling that limited production. Industry knew only too well that
1406	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Quelch if they expanded their production they would just have that much more goods left unsold and they would go bankrupt that much quicker. It was in those years that the social credit movement originated in Alberta. It is interesting to note that after fourteen years the Social Credit government of Alberta was returned stronger than ever.
What was the analysis we made at that time, an analysis which is just as sound today as it was then? Fortunately more and more people are coming to realize the soundness of that analysis. At that time we said that owing to certain practices inherent in the capitalistic system industry was not able to distribute sufficient purchasing power in the form of wages, salaries and dividends to maintain an effective demand against its own production except-and here is the point that most people ignore-in times of abnormal capital goods construction, such as you have in wartime, or in the early development years of a country. And the reason of course that purchasing power at that time can increase to the point necessary to maintain effective demand against the production of the country is that the money paid out in the construction of roads, bridges and the like is not required to buy those roads and bridges. Therefore that money becomes available to buy the consumer goods upon the market. Therefore, the higher the degree of capital construction in relation to production of consumer goods, the more purchasing power will there be in circulation for the purpose of maintaining an effective demand against the production of consumer goods in the country.
It was that point to which the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) took exception. He said that in his opinion industry always distributed sufficient moneys in salaries, wages and dividends to buy back this production. I pointed out that owing to certain practices inherent within the system, that was not so.
Let me give an example. In the first place, banks create money and lend it, but they do not create the money to pay the interest on the loan. They charge interest on the money they lend. But they do not provide the money for which the interest is paid.
A deficiency is created, therefore, to the extent that total interest paid exceeds wages and dividends paid out by banks. Then take, for example, an industry which produces $10,000 worth of goods. We will say that in the production of those goods the industry pays out $10,000. Therefore you have $10,000 available to buy back $10,000 worth of goods. But if $1,000 of that $10,000 is saved, then only $9,000 is available to buy the $10,000 v-orth of goods, and you have a deficiency


of $1,000. As we know, people are being continuously urged and advised to save more money. The more you save, the greater that deficiency will become, unless other steps are taken to make up the deficiency in purchasing power existing as a result of the saving.
Then again, the industry will have certain profits. If the people benefiting from those profits proceed to spend them, there is no deficiency in purchasing power. But we all know that many industries make a practice of not distributing all their profits. They plough them back. To the extent the profits are not distributed, you will have a deficiency.
Those are three simple examples of how a deficiency of purchasing power occurs. I do not wish to go into it in greater detail now. Rather than argue the point further I believe it would be better to give one or two concrete examples to prove that in the past the purchasing power of the people has not been sufficient to buy the total production of the country. Let us see what happened in England for two hundred years prior to 1914. Let me quote what was said by Reginald McKenna to the American Bankers Association on October 5, 1922. These are his words:
For over two centuries British capital, that is, credit, has been lent to other countries: year by year England produced more than she either consumed herself or could exchange for the products of other nations, and she could not obtain a market for the surplus unless she gave the purchaser a long credit. Foreign loans and foreign issues were taken up in England and the proceeds were spent in paying for the surplus production. British factories and workshops were kept in good employment,-
And this is the important point-
-but it was a condition of their prosperity that a part of their output should be disposed of in this way.
In other words, during those years of production industry found it impossible to sell its total output within England, or the imports brought back in return. In order to maintain production it was necessary to ship surplus goods out of the country, and to refuse to accept imports in return. So that the money paid out in the production which was exported, and for which no goods were brought back in return, helped to maintain an effective demand against the goods left within the country.
That is why one will find all great industrial nations have insisted in the past-as they still do-upon trying to maintain a favourable balance of trade in order to prevent unemployment. That is one of the main reasons we took such strong exception to the Bretton Woods agreement; because under the Bretton Woods agreement we find the great industrial nations endeavouring to maintain

a favourable balance of trade merely for the purpose of dumping their own unemployment problem upon the doorstep of another nation.
Let me quote from a survey made in the United States under the direction of the government of that country. In 1934 the Hoover administration set up a committee of technicians to make a national survey of the potential productive capacity of the United States. Let me quote from the foreword to that book:
After almost a year of research by sixty technicians, financed by the federal government, the national survey of potential product capacity has released its findings. Official publication will follow in due course. Preliminary thereto, Mr. Loeb, the director of the survey, here describes the results.
Let me quote two short paragraphs from this survey, one which is well worth reading because it illustrates much better than I can do the manner in which a deficiency of purchasing power has curtailed production. At page 71 I find this:
The total national monetary income in 1929 did not equal the total price asked for the goods which could have been produced by the plant then existing. But instead of dropping prices until monetary income was able to command full production (which is the classical answer to this situation), prices were maintained and production was restricted. Consequently, national monetary income did not in 1929, nor does it today, command the full production of our industrial plant.
Then, later in the book, they make certain suggestions. Perhaps I did not mention the name of this book; it is "The Chart of Plenty". One of the conclusions at page 161 states:
It would seem that the simple and obvious way out, that of giving a buying power adequate to procure desired goods and services to the limit of our ability to produce them, might well be tried. It is simple in principle but has not been attempted.


John Horne Blackmore: That is social credit.


Victor Quelch: And that is what we maintain. There you have sixty technicians appointed by the government of the United States to make a survey - of the potential capacity of that country; and they bring in a report which states that the logical way to deal with the situation is to issue money to maintain the purchasing power of the people to a point where the people will be able to buy the total production of the country.
Let me return to the point I was making earlier. I was stating that during the year of depression we had a situation wherein our production was less than 50 per cent of its capacity. We were not able to expand our production, because the people did not have money to buy even the reduced supply of goods then being produced. Industry knew only too well that if they expanded their production they would have that much more goods left unsold. So in those years we .	29087-89
The Address-Mr. Quelch advocated that a certain amount of national money should be issued in order to raise the purchasing power of the people, thereby expanding the demand for goods. Consequently as soon as industry found there was an expanding demand for their goods they would have employed more people and would have begun to expand their production.
Someone may suggest that if that had been done in the early stages of such a program there would have been inflation until there was an expansion of production. But that is not so. It would have been possible for the government to have issued $200 million because, as I have already mentioned, throughout the whole five-year period we had an average favourable balance of payments of over $219 million a year. In other words we had paid for more than $200 million of imports which we never brought back to this country. Is anyone going to say the reason we did not bring $200 million worth of imports back into Canada was that the people did not need them, when at that time we had a million people on relief? The reason those $200 million worth of imports were not brought into the country was that the importers knew that if they brought them in the people would not be able to buy them owing to the fact that they lacked the money with which to pay for them. Therefore we advocated that $200 million be issued as a start toward increasing social services and to provide for national projects that were so urgently required at that time, such as the elimination of railroad crossings, irrigation and many other things. Hon. members who were in the house at that time will remember the pitiful reply we got from the government on every occasion that we made that suggestion. We were told that it could not be done because the government lacked the money with which to finance it. We were told then, as we are being told by some people today, that the only money available to the government was the money that could be obtained from the people's pockets.	I remember the late
Norman Rogers stating that they could not obtain that money by taxation because it would mean increased taxation of the people in the lower-income brackets who were already suffering from a deficiency of purchasing power. That was the situation up to September, 1930.
Then, strangely enough, a change took place in the situation. Shortly after war was declared the government instructed the chartered banks to create for their use $200 million. It is interesting to note that when the Minister of Finance spoke on the budget he stated that the government were indulging in monetary expansion for the purpose of
1408	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Quelch putting some of the unemployed to work in order to produce the goods they would need for war and, of course, provide the government with the money to pay for those goods.
I think it is a great condemnation of any nation to say that it is willing to adopt a certain financial system in order to go to war and yet is not prepared to adopt the same financial system in order to maintain the welfare of its people.
There is no question that the war did more to retard the growth of social credit than any other one thing. As I pointed out, in normal times there is bound to be a deficiency of purchasing power; but that is not the case in times of abnormal capital goods production as in wartime. The vast sums that are paid out for capital goods production help to make up the deficiency. In wartime over 50 per cent of the production of the country was being taken away from the people and being used for war purposes. Then the government maintained heavy taxation in order to withdraw the purchasing power that had been created by the production of goods used for war. Then in addition a large number of people who would have been able to produce goods were taken away for war purposes.
In spite of everything our production went ahead by leaps and bounds. Why? Was it because we had socialized the industries of this country? No. It was due to the fact that during the war the banking system created for the use of the government over $4,000 million. I admit that they carried on the fictitious rumours that the war was being financed through the sale of bonds and by taxation. But if we had depended on the sale of bonds and taxation to finance the war we would have had a very different type of war effort from what we did have. It was due to the fact that $4,000 million was created that it was possible to finance the great production of this country and at the same time finance the government as the great purchaser of all kinds of goods that were being produced. An insatiable market was established.
I see my time is running out and I should like to close by saying that the situation that existed during the war has changed considerably today. There was an inflationary period after the war, due to reconversion and the spending of war savings as well as on account of the large loans made to foreign nations; but today reconversion has been completed and industry is now in the process of turning out the greatest volume of consumer goods this country has ever seen.
In addition, the people in the lower-income brackets have largely spent their savings, and loans to foreign nations have been spent. In
EMr. Quelch.]

the very near future we will be approaching that period of time about which the governor of the Bank of Canada warned us in 1946 when he said that after these three things I have mentioned had taken place we might run into difficulty in maintaining the purchasing power of the people at a level sufficiently high to buy the production of the country. That day is rapidly approaching.
Unemployment is increasing and apparently we have lost some of our markets. Surpluses are beginning to appear. If the government waits until that situation develops it will allow such a lack of confidence to be created in this country that we may have great difficulty in restoring it. Therefore, we urge that the government bring down at this session legislation that will guarantee in the future that the purchasing power of the people will be maintained at a level sufficiently high to buy the production of the country and the imports brought in on a permanent basis. If that is done, and if industry is assured that no matter how high their production goes they will be able to sell it, I believe we could enjoy in this country the greatest degree of prosperity we have ever had.


Mr. R. R. Knight (Saskatoon City):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to take part in this debate for only a few moments. On March 10, on the orders of the day I asked the following question of the Prime Minister, to be found on page 1331 of Hansard:
I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister received the brief presented by the Canadian Teachers' Federation in February last, and can he say whether any action is being considered with respect to federal aid for education, UNESCO, and the other matters referred to therein?
The Prime Minister's answer was as follows:
The answer to the first part of the question is yes. The answer to the second part of the question is that the brief is still under consideration.
That last line sounds rather familiar. If that answer had been given by one of the Prime Minister's lesser colleagues I might have termed it as being glib, but having an appreciation of the sincerity of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) I shall merely say that the answer was brief. But in any case it was not satisfactory.
My purpose in rising is to place on the record the details of this brief so that members of the house and people outside the house may be informed. I sometimes think that it takes a brave man to bring up the subject of education on the floor of this house. When one does venture upon that particular subject he is told immediately that it has to do solely with the provinces. As we have reason to know, this session there are those who are very zealous of provincial rights.

I offer no excuse for bringing up the matter of education on the floor of this or any other house. To me education is fundamental. I shall be very brief with the philosophical part of my discourse, if I may call it that. Education is our hope for democracy.
I would say that it is our only hope for unity, both national and international. It is our hope for physical survival itself. If enlightenment does not secure national and international unity, then I do not think there is any other agency that will secure it.
During times of crisis, . and particularly during times of war, there are those who say that education can wait. Education is the first casualty of war. The thing to do in a case of that kind as a substitute for education is to accumulate gadgets. The accumulation of gadgets, by the way, seems to be one of the main hobbies of the people of the North American continent. In times of war we substitute for real education large doses of scientific knowledge which enable us to perform certain functions which have to do with the process of war but which, after the war is over, leave the mind perfectly barren as far as general education is concerned. And scientific knowledge of itself is not enough.
I know it has been scientifically proven that acquired characteristics cannot be handed down to another generation by means of heredity. That is why education must be a continuing process, because we can get no knowledge from our parents through the processes of heredity. What I mean to say is that a generation or two generations cannot neglect education and then expect to resume where they left off. Similarly, in the case of democracy it has to be worked at to be retained, and it has to be passed on not by heredity but rather by precept and example. In that sense education to me is like freedom of speech. Irrespective of the conditions under which I live, as long as I can retain it I can use it to obtain ultimate justice; but, if I lose it, it is in a measure like losing my own soul.
Culture can be lost. A generation can be left in darkness. Remember, that generation which is left in darkness does not come back of its own volition and demand the light. It does not know enough to do that. That is the reason why certain conditions in some European countries today are a cause for real alarm because, given a generation or two of darkness, these people will have to start the long slow process of education again. As I said before, it can only be done by a continuing process.
So much for my interest in this particular matter. I shall now deal with the brief which 29087-891
11, 1949	1409
The Address-Mr. Knight I mentioned in the first place. This is a brief which was presented to the federal government by the Canadian Teachers' Federation in February last. It drew to the attention of the government some of their desires and requirements, and contains some of the matters which they presented to the government on that particular occasion. There were three main points. The first one was that this organization was convinced that some form of federal aid would be a good thing for the people of the country. We hear a great deal about floor prices. We have floor prices now, or had during the war, for almost everything, and I would suggest that one of the things we want is a floor price on education.


Mr. Sinclair:: What about lower taxes?


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: That is to say, a certain minimum shall be available to every child in every province of Canada. The federation thinks that the best solution for the problem would be a federal grant to education given- note this-to the provinces to be used as the provinces might see fit. I should like to quote from page 8 of the brief as follows:
After studying for a number of years various plans that have been commended to us, we believe that a straight per pupil capita grant would bring the greatest benefits compatible with the safeguards which certain provinces would require to guarantee that the federal government would not infringe upon their jurisdiction in the field of education. We believe that any system of federal aid should be contingent upon the provinces maintaining or bettering their present level of payments toward education.
That, Mr. Speaker, would do away with the objection of any interference with provincial rights. May I say to those gentlemen, who are so zealous about provincial rights in this particular matter, that they were apparently not so squeamish about accepting family allowances. The mere acceptance of family allowances has not taken away any of that individual liberty of which they are so proud.
Let me say that the federal government is presently immersed in the matter of education. We have federal grants to education now. We have technical aid grants. I need not go into the details as to the particular grants, and the years in which they were passed, but there are youth training grants and vocational training grants. These things have not in any sense taken away from the prerogative of the provinces to handle their educational problems in their own particular way. Under this particular scheme each province, irrespective of whether it be rich or poor, would have a certain minimum amount of money per capita for each child, and in that way each child would be assured of equality of educational opportunity.

The Address-Mr. Knight
In closing I should like to quote another paragraph from page 4 of the same brief. It reads:
In any plan of federal assistance It would be understood and agreed that the expenditure of funds by the government of Canada would in no way be deemed to confer upon any minister or official of the government of Canada any right of supervision or control over any school or educational institution with respect to which any federal government funds are expended.
The second matter that I dealt with in my question to the Prime Minister was the matter of UNESCO, the United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organization. For some reason, which I have never been able to understand, the present administration has always been suspicious of UNESCO. The organized teachers have often asked the government to put into effect the original plan which was that, along with international UNESCO, to which this government sends a delegation, there would also be a Canadian national commission of UNESCO. The teachers have also asked that they should be consulted as to some of the appointments to the international body. I myself have always pleaded for a national commission of UNESCO. I have spoken in favour of it in the house and out of it. Personally I think that the usefulness of the international organization is very much limited by the non-existence of a national commission. May I say that I think the latter, had it been created, would have been of great assistance to the government at this very time in its proposed cultural program about which we were told in the speech from the throne.
I should like to read a short quotation from page 12 of the same brief, as follows:
We have persisted in our efforts to get the government of Canada to establish a national commission for UNESCO affairs because we agree that UNESCO without national commissions is like a tree without roots.
There is one other, and perhaps lesser, matter which I shall mention, and then I shall have finished. It is the last matter dealt with in the brief of the federation, and it has to do with income tax exemptions. This organization feels that there are certain people who have to take summer school courses, not to improve their positions, but so that they may hold the educational status to which they are already entitled in order that they may practise their profession. They think the fees for courses of that kind should be deductible for purposes of income tax. I wish to read from page 14 the relevant paragraph, which is very short.
We urge the government to give consideration to amending legislation if necessary to permit the expense of summer school courses taken by teachers
[Mr Knight.]
as a condition of employment to be a deductible item from their fixed income.
That, I think, is a legitimate expense in the case of teachers. There is one other small item, to which I personally have given no particular thought, but the brief asks:
That travelling and extraordinary expenses attendant upon teacher exchange should be deductible for income tax purposes.
Now, I feel I have only done my duty to the organized teachers of this country and, which I believe is much more important, to the cause of education generally, in bringing before this house and this country this very short synopsis of the brief presented to the government by the Canadian Teachers' Federation.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: What I have to say will take only about two minutes, Mr. Speaker. It concerns a matter which it would be difficult to discuss on a question of privilege; therefore I am taking this opportunity of bringing it to the attention of the house and the country.
On March 1 the broadcasting station at Moose Jaw, CHAB, carried a news report in which Mr. Sam Carr was referred to as a "Ukrainian-born former organizer of the Canadian communist party." In view of the serious charges that have been made against Mr. Carr, which call in question his loyalty to this country, it is important that no wrong impressions should be created by inaccurate news items such as the one to which I have referred.
When this newscast was brought to my attention by a resident of the province of Saskatchewan I immediately went to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) who, after checking with the commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, confirmed my belief that Mr. Carr was neither of Ukrainian nationality nor of Ukrainian racial descent. I want to make it clear that I am not interested in what Mr. Carr's nationality or racial origin may be, but I am interested in clearing up any misunderstanding or wrong impression that may have been created by this erroneous newscast.
Canadians of Ukrainian origin wish to completely dissociate themselves from any such activities as those with which Mr. Carr has been charged. Their loyalty to Canada is beyond question, and they wish to keep it so. More than forty thousand Ukrainians, that is Canadians of Ukrainian origin, served in the armed forces of Canada in world war II. Many of them made the supreme sacrifice. Those who remained at home sought to promote Canada's war effort in every way possible, and have a fine record of voluntary service in such organizations as the Canadian Red Cross, Canadian victory clubs

and various other organizations which in time of need serve the nation on a voluntary basis. It is therefore understandable that such an erroneous news report as the one to which I have referred would create resentment and bring forth protests from our peace-loving and law-abiding citizens. I am informed by the manager of the radio station at Moose Jaw that the news item in question came from the British United Press. Accordingly I have communicated with the manager of that news service, asking him to have an appropriate correction made.
I am making this statement in the house today in order to clear up any misunderstanding or wrong impression which may have been created by the news report broadcast by the Moose Jaw radio station on March 1, by placing formally on the record the correct position with regard to this matter.


John Oliver Probe: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Oliver Probe: I am as anxious as any hon. member of this house to proceed with the vote, but if I have a grievance to air or a matter that affects any citizen of this country I will not listen to the oh's and ah's of impatient individuals in any part of the house.
Very briefly, Mr. Speaker, my purpose in rising this evening is to suggest to the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Gregg), in a way that is not possible by means of a question preceding the orders of the day, that it is high time he decided to reconstitute the committee on veterans affairs for this year. Very shortly I am going to give one glaring example to indicate why such a committee should function again. It will be recalled that a year and a half ago, in July of 1947, the hon. member for Swift Current (Mr. Bentley) and the hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch) raised certain questions affecting the administration of Shaughnessy hospital, and that to deal with these charges or suspicions what was known as the McCann commission was appointed by the then Minister of Veterans Affairs, Mr. Mackenzie. That commission was composed of the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. McCann), the hon. member for Inver-ness-Richmond (Mr. McGarry), the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Blair), the present Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Winters) and myself. The terms of reference governing our work were exceedingly narrow; and while we did what I think was a thorough job in regard to the particular work assigned to us, though I was powerless
The Address-Mr. Probe to say anything at the time, I did feel that our authority was not broad enough to enable us to do the things that really should have been done. I believe that only a committee of this house can deal with the difficulties individuals are having with the pensions board or other branches of the Department of Veterans Affairs in a way that can solve those problems.
To indicate the sort of thing I have in mind I want to refer briefly to what I think is a serious charge against the pension officials. I have before me the case of a young man of this province who served in His Majesty's forces from June of 1942 to October of 1945. He was in the naval service and was on some particularly dangerous missions in the course of which, from the evidence as I gather it, he suffered a form of battle fatigue. The young man came back to this country, married and now has two children, a fairly good position, and is buying his own home. Because of his mental state he went to the authorities in Hamilton in January of 1946, within three months of his discharge from the service. At that time the examining doctor was of the opinion, as I have it here in a letter from the director general of treatment services, that no treatment was required. After being told by the officials in Hamilton and those at Christie Street hospital, to which he went later, that treatment was not necessary in his case, being concerned about his mental state he went to a private doctor in Hamilton and, according to the evidence furnished the pension board, started treatment at his own expense within the year of his free entitlement, that is in July of 1946.
I have in my hand receipts covering medical treatment by the psychiatrist, Dr. Finlayson, and other Hamilton doctors, which this young man received as a result of trying to look after his own case because the Department of Veterans Affairs did not consider his case sufficiently serious to recommend D.V.A. treatment.
The medical bills that I have here, running throughout the last year and a half or two years, in the aggregate amount to well over $500. This man was advised to apply for a pension. In a letter to me he said he did not want a pension. All he wanted was his hospital bills paid and the opportunity to return for free treatment for his mental condition. His bills have been turned down. He has been refused the right of treatment.
This man may not have a case, but I feel that he has. I have talked to him. I find him to be a fine young man. The pension board speaks of his straightforward and frank manner in giving evidence before the board. He may be frank, he may be straightforward, he may be everything; but the fact is that he was still turned down, and he is

The Address-Division paying from $25 to $50 a month for his own medical treatment. That is not good enough from a country which he served as he did. Every member of this house has similar cases.
Before I take my seat I want to plead with other hon. members and with the cabinet to make certain that the so-called bureaucrats -I do not like to speak in disparaging terms of the officers in charge of any government department; I know they have a job to do- carry out government policies. It is time that the ministers of the government made certain that the policies they talk about on the hustings are enforced by the employees of the government itself.


Mr. Dorion:: I was paired with the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Marquis). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.
(Translation):


Mr. Gagnon:: Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. member for Lake St. John-Roberval (Mr. Dion). Otherwise, I would have voted against the amendment to the amendment.
(Text):


Mr. Desmond:: I was paired with an hon. member-I mean a Liberal hon. member. Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. Cardiff:: I was paired. Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. Robinson (Simcoe East):: I was paired. Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. Wylie:: I was paired with the hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. McDonald). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. Dickey:: I was paired with the hon. member for Digby-Annapolis-Kings (Mr. Nowlan). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. Heon:: As you know, Mr. Speaker, I am permanently paired with the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm (Mr. Lapalme). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: I was paired with the hon. member for Lake St. John-Roberval (Mr. Dion). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.
(Translation):


Frédéric Dorion: Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Marquis). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.
(Text):


Alistair McLeod Stewart: Mr. Speaker, on February 9 last this house passed a motion for the production of certain papers. These papers have not been produced. They concern nazi collaborators.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. There is nothing before the house.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: As I said, Mr. Speaker, on February 9 last a motion was passed for the production of certain papers. This is now March 11, and those papers have not been produced.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry, but I am informed that the hon. member has spoken on the main motion.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: I could not have spoken on the main motion. The leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew) was the first

The Address-Division opposition speaker, and he moved an amendment. I want to say that these papers have not been produced, and I should like very much to see what is in them. I have sufficient evidence of my own to make very interesting reading, but I am not going to produce it just now. Rather I am going to wait until, in the fulness of time, the government does produce these papers.


John Horace Dickey: I was paired with the hon. member for Digby-Annapolis-Kings (Mr. Nowlan). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Clayton Earl Desmond: I was paired with the hon. member for Essex South (Mr. Clark). Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.


Lewis Elston Cardiff: I was paired. Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.
Mr. Dor ion: I was paired with the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Marquis). Had 1 voted I would have voted against the motion.


Paul-Edmond Gagnon: I was paired with the hon. member for Lake St. John-Roberval (Mr. Dion). Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.


William Alfred Robinson: I was paired, Mr. Speaker. Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


William Duncan McKay Wylie: I was paired with the hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. McDonald). If I had voted, I would have voted against the motion.
(Translation):


Georges-Henri Héon: Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm (Mr. Lapalme). Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.

(Text):


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: That the address be engrossed and presented to His Excellency the Governor General by such members of this house as are of the honourable the privy council.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
WAYS AND MEANS Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister) moved:
That this house will, on Monday next, resolve itself into a committee to consider of the ways and means for raising the supply to be granted to His Majesty.
Motion agreed to.
Louis Stephen St-Laurent: That this house will, on Monday next, resolve itself into a committee to consider of supply to be granted to His Majesty.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I move that the house do now adjourn. On Monday the striking committee will present its report, and the stand-
Business of the House ing committees can then be set up. The estimates for the year 1949-50 will be tabled, with a message from His Excellency that they be referred to the committee of supply. We shall then proceed first of all with resolution No. 6 on the order paper, resuming the adjourned debate on the motion of the Minister of Justice that the Speaker leave the chair to consider a resolution for the introduction of a bill to extend rent control and certain other controls.
Afterwards order No. 4 on today's order paper, resuming the adjourned debate on the motion of the Minister of Agriculture on a resolution to present a bill to amend the Agricultural Products Act. If that is disposed of, then resolution No. 7 on the order paper for the introduction of a bill to amend the Canadian Commercial Corporation Act. If there is time we shall deal with No. 3 on today's order paper, a resolution for the introduction of a bill to continue the Foreign Exchange Control Act. These are only resolutions and they may be disposed of quite rapidly. If so we shall deal with order No. 14 on the order paper for the introduction of a bill to continue supplemental payments to the mail carriers.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 9.50 p.m.
-90

Monday, March 14, 1949