1949-09-20

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. H. Hatiield (Victoria-Carleton):: wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Will the exporters of surplus potatoes, fish, lumber, and other commodities of the maritime provinces be allowed to accept sterling in payment for exports to the British West Indies and South American countries, thereby retaining those markets which they have built up over the years?


Hon. Douglas Abbott (Minister of Finance):: I received notice of the question a few minutes ago. I will give an answer tomorrow.



IMPERIAL DISABILITY PENSIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: In
view of the devaluation of the pound and the plight of imperial pensioners in this country, I should like to ask two questions. Will the Canadian government continue to adjust the exchange rates on imperial disability pensions paid to Canadian citizens domiciled in Canada at the time of enlistment? Has the position of other imperial disability pensioners been brought to the attention of the British government, and if so, does the minister know whether the British government is giving consideration to adjustments of imperial disability pensions paid in Canada to offset the loss occasioned by the devaluation of the pound?


Hon. Milton F. Gregg (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second question is that I do not know whether or not the British government has given consideration to this matter.



COMBINES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Angus Maclnnis (Vancouver East):: should like to ask whether the Department of Justice has taken any action against the companies mentioned in the reports of the investigations under the Combines Investigation Act into the optical and bread business.


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of justice):: The answer is that in both of these instances the preparation of the case and the handling of it are in the hands of counsel who I understand are making as swift progress as they can.



SUPREME COURT ACT


Stuart Sinclair Garson: the second reading of Bill No. 2, to amend the Supreme Court Act.
He said: In its progress towards full selfgovernment, Canada until the present time has retained two badges of colonialism. The first is that we must petition the United Kingdom parliament to pass a United Kingdom statute which alone can amend our Canadian constitution. The second is that the ultimate determination of Canadian statute and other laws is the responsibility of the judicial committee of the privy council, a United Kingdom court.
The bill which is now before us will strip off the second of these badges by abolishing appeals to the privy council. In that sense it represents an important step towards complete nationhood for our country.
Clause 3 of the bill sets out its principle, and its major purpose, namely, to create in the Supreme Court of Canada exclusive, ultimate, appellate civil and criminal jurisdiction within and for Canada by abolishing appeals to the privy council and by making the judgment of the Supreme Court final and conclusive in all cases.
No principle is involved in the other sections of the bill. They are either consequential or they clarify the law without significantly changing its substance. I would suggest, therefore, that they can be discussed to a greater advantage in committee.
Clause 3 deals with one of the most vital parts of the mechanism of government in Canada. When in 1875-76, the United Kingdom Colonial Secretary, the Earl of Carnarvon, was carrying on a spirited discussion with Hon. Edward Blake, then Attorney General of Canada, on the very matter we now have before us, a memorandum of the

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United Kingdom privy council said this with regard to this matter of supreme appellate authority:
. The supreme appellate authority of the empire or the realm is unquestionably one of the highest functions and duties of sovereignty. The power of construing, determining, and enforcing the law in the last resort, is, in truth, a power which overrides all other powers; since there is no act which may not in some form or other become the subject of a decision by the supreme appellate tribunal and that tribunal can alone determine the limits of its own jurisdiction.
This power has been exercised for centuries as regards the dependencies of the empire by the sovereigns of this country in council; that is to say, the sovereign to whom the prayer for relief is addressed affords that relief, with and by the advice of a certain number of the most eminent judicial officers and jurists of the realm, who are sworn of the privy council for this purpose. The final order made on each appeal is the direct act of the queen in person. So that by this institution, common to all parts of the empire beyond the seas, all matters whatsoever, requiring a judicial solution, may be brought under the cognizance of one court-
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to note this particularly.

in which all the chief judicial authorities of this country (the United Kingdom) have a voice.
I suppose, sir, that at first blush one might think that the words "a power which overrides all other powers", are rather strong language. I am sure that brief reflection on the effect that judicial interpretation of the British North America Act has had upon our ability in this country to deal effectively with questions of social welfare, marketing, and the fluctuations in the business cycle, will indicate that this statement is perhaps not quite as strong as it may at first appear.
At any rate, the situation today is that the supreme appellate authority of Canada, the power of construing, determining and enforcing the law of Canada in the last resort, a power which this United Kingdom memorandum says is one which overrides all other powers, is still vested in a United Kingdom court in which all of the chief judicial authorities of the United Kingdom have a voice, but in which Canada, from time to time, has had but a slight voice or none at all.
It is this situation with which clause 3 of the present bill deals. I should like, therefore, to discuss at some length this clause, its background, and its implications.
The section of the British North America Act which we are invoking to pass this bill now before us is section 101, the relevant portion of which reads as follows:
"The parliament of Canada may, notwithstanding anything in this act, from time to time, provide for the constitution, maintenance and organization of a general court of appeal for Canada . . ."
What immediately strikes a casual reader, is that the language of section 101 of the British North America Act empowering this parliament to establish a federal appeal court

with ultimate and exclusive jurisdiction is clear and unequivocal. But until the passage of the Statute of Westminster, 1931, the legislative power thus created was not the power of a sovereign state. According to the decisions of the privy council it was the legislative power of a British colony and subject to three constitutional bars which prevented this parliament from effectively exercising it in order to create a court of last resort in Canada.
The first of these three bars was the Colonial Laws Validity Act. This act provided that any colonial law which conflicted with any United Kingdom statute applicable to the colony was void to the extent of that conflict. Since at that time there were imperial statutes which gave a right of appeal to the privy council it followed that under the Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865, neither the dominion nor the provinces could then validly legislate so as to abolish this right of appeal given by the imperial statute.
The second constitutional bar to the abolition of privy council appeals by either the dominion parliament or the provincial legislatures was the legal doctrine of extraterritoriality. This doctrine was that each colonial legislature could legislate only as regards matters within its own geographical territory. The so-called prerogative right of appeal to the privy council, or, as the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) mentioned yesterday, the appeal as a matter of grace, was, as Viscount Sankey put it in the British coal case, "a residuum of the royal prerogative of the sovereign as the fountain of justice." Since this fountain was situated in the United Kingdom, it was beyond Canada's territorial jurisdiction, and no Canadian legislature was competent to pass laws abolishing or dealing with it.
The third constitutional bar was the express terms of section 129 of the British North America Act itself. This section provided that all the laws in force at the time of confederation, in Upper Canada, Lower Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, should continue, subject to repeal or amendment by the parliament of Canada or by the respective provincial legislatures. But this section specifically excepted imperial laws-that is, laws of the United Kingdom-in force in these four provinces at confederation. Therefore, since the right of appeal from these provinces to the privy council had been legislated upon by the United Kingdom parliament, it followed that this right of appeal was specifically excepted from this section 129 of the British North America Act; and that the parliament of Canada was not considered competent to abolish it.

Such, then, was the legal position of this matter before the passage by the parliament of the United Kingdom of the Statute of Westminster, 1931. As you, Mr. Speaker, will recall, this statute was passed to give effect to certain resolutions which had been arrived at by the- imperial conferences of the United Kingdom and the various dominions of the British commonwealth, held in the years 1926 and 1930.
Some of the older members will recall that the late Hon. C. H. Cahan was of the opinion that the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931 had removed the constitutional bars to which I have just referred. Acting in that belief, he introduced in this parliament in the year 1938 a bill to abolish privy council appeals, the main operative provisions of which were identical in substance with the clause 3 which we are now considering. Mr. Cahan's bill, after some consideration by parliament, was referred to the courts for a ruling whether it was within the power of this parliament to enact. In due course this reference came before the judicial committee of the privy council, which held in its judgment-cited as the Attorney General of Ontario v. the Attorney General of Canada, 1947, A.C. 127-that the Statute of Westminster had indeed removed these three constitutional bars, and that the draft bill under consideration by the court in that case was within the power of the parliament of Canada to enact.
Some parts of the privy council judgment are so relevant to the present discussion- that is, although they deal with legal matters they are relevant to the political issue whether or not we should pass the present bill -that I venture to quote from them. For example, their lordships said:
It is in the light of this act of transcendent constitutional importance-
They were referring, of course, to the Statute of Westminster, 1931.
-that the question must now be considered whether it is competent for the parliament of Canada to enact not only that the supreme court of the dominion shall have appellate-civil and criminal jurisdiction within and for Canada, but also that that jurisdiction shall be "exclusive" and "ultimate." This question must be considered under two heads, first, in regard to appeals from the supreme court itself, and secondly, in regard to appeals direct from the provincial courts to His Majesty in council.
With respect to appeals from the supreme court itself, their lordships found that there could be no doubt as to parliament's power to abolish them. Once the fetter upon the legislative power of the dominion could be removed and had been removed by the Statute of Westminster, it followed that the power of the dominion parliament to enact that the jurisdiction of its own supreme court
Supreme Court Act
should be ultimate was beyond question. As they put it-and I bespeak careful consideration of these words-"No other solution is consonant with the status of a self-governing dominion".


Mr. Smith (Calgary West):: Who is speaking there?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Their lordships of the privy council.


Arthur Leroy Smith: The minister does not know which one?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: No. As the hon. member knows they give only the one judgment.
This statement of. the legal position has a bearing upon the political position. We who submit this bill to the consideration of parliament can and do justify the passage of clause 3 upon the grounds that no other solution than that of abolishing these appeals is consonant with the status of Canada as a self-governing nation.
The privy council went on to deal with appeals direct from the provincial courts to His Majesty in council. They pointed out that it was in regard to these appeals that the validity of the bill had been most strenuously challenged. That was indeed the case, because when the Supreme Court of Canada found that the bill in its entirety-with two dissenting judgments, one a complete dissent and the other a partial dissent-was within the power of parliament to enact, an appeal was taken from that judgment by the Attorney General of Ontario and three other provincial attorneys general. The respondent in the case was the Attorney General of Canada, joined by the attorneys general of two provinces, one of whom, I am very happy to say, was the Attorney General of my own province of Manitoba. Therefore in the proceedings before the privy council on this appeal, the Attorney General of the United Kingdom having taken no part at all, the real contest was between the dominion and certain of the provinces on the one hand and others of the provinces on the other. And as their lordships point out in their judgment, it was in regard to this question whether the appeals brought from the provincial courts should be abolished that the validity of the act had been most strenuously challenged. Their lordships came to the conclusion that the dominion was competent to exclude appeals not only in criminal cases, not only in civil cases falling within the subject matter of section 91- which is the section of the British North America Act dealing with these matters coming under federal legislative jurisdiction-but also in every other case which can be brought before any provincial court in Canada. Upon this point their comment is as follows:

Supreme Court Act
In coming to this conclusion, their lordships do not think it useful to embark on a nice discrimination between the legislative powers contained in sections 91-
That is the dominion powers.
-and section 92-
That is the provincial powers.
-respectively of the act. Nor, as it appears to them, is it necessary to determine whether the words of head 14 of section 92, "The Administration of Justice in the Province," would, if they were disembarrassed of any context, be apt to embrace legislation in regard to appeals to His Majesty in council. There appear to be cogent reasons for thinking that they would not. But their lordships do not make this the ground of their decision; for it is elsewhere, it is in section 101 of the act that the solution lies.
Then they go on to quote from the language of the former Chief Justice of Canada, Sir Lyman Duff, in his judgment in the very case which was then under consideration by the privy council, and they quote him in these words:
Assuming even that section 92 gives some authority to the legislatures (of the provinces) in respect to appeals to the privy council-
That is to say that if head 14 of section 92, concerning the administration of justice within the provinces, were considered as giving the provinces some authority with respect to appeals to the privy council, nevertheless says Sir Lyman Duff:
-that cannot detract from the power of parliament under section 101. Whatever is granted by the words of the section, read and applied as prima facie intended to endow parliament with power to effect high political objects concerning the self-government of the dominion (section 3 of the B.N.A. Act) in the matter of judicature, is to be held and exercised as a plenary power in that behalf with all ancillary powers necessary to enable parliament to attain its objects fully and completely. So read it imports authority to establish a court having supreme and final appellate jurisdiction in Canada.
That is the end of the quotation of Sir Lyman Duff. Then I go on with the language of the privy council judgment itself, as follows:
The vital words in the passage cited, with which their lordships are in full agreement, are the words in the last line, "and final,". But in the opinion of their lordships the same considerations lead to the conclusion that the court so established must have not only "final" or "ultimate" but also exclusive appellate jurisdiction. They would emphasize that section 101 confers a legislative power upon the dominion parliament which by its terms overrides any power conferred by section 92 upon the provinces or preserved by section 129.
"Notwithstanding anything in this act" are words in section 101 which cannot be ignored. They vest in the dominion a plenary authority to legislate in regard to appellate jurisdiction, which is qualified only by that which lies outside the act, namely, the sovereign power of the imperial parliament... What then is the power of the dominion parliament since the Statute of Westminster has come into operation? ... To their lordships it appears reasonably plain that, since . . . the subject in conflict belongs primarily to the subject matter committed to the dominion parliament, namely the establishment of the court of appeal for Canada, to

that parliament also must belong the power not only to determine in what cases and under what conditions the appellate jurisdiction of that court may be invoked, but also to deny appellate jurisdiction to any other court.
Then notice the next sentence:
The natural attribute of sovereign power was no doubt qualified by an external constitutional limitation, namely, the existence of imperial statutes, but, given the power-
Which is contained in the Statute of Westminster.
-to abrogate such statutes, the authority conferred by section 101 stands unqualified and absolute.
Then their lordships go on to say this, which has a bearing on the political questions with which we are concerned here today:
Giving full weight to the circumstances of the union and to the determination shown by the provinces as late as the imperial conferences, which led to the Statute of Westminster, that their rights should be unimpaired, nevertheless it appears to their lordships that it is not consistent with the political conception which is embodied in the British commonwealth of nations that one member of that commonwealth should be precluded from setting up. if it so desires, a supreme court of appeal having a jurisdiction both ultimate and exclusive of any other member. The regulation of appeal is, to use the words of Lord Sankey in the British Coal Corporation case, a "prime element in Canadian sovereignty," which would be impaired if at the will of its citizens recourse could be had to a tribunal in the constitution of which it had no voice.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that, based upon the language of the judgment, the question before us today is whether we are to use our undoubted legal powers to regulate the appeals from our own courts to our own supreme court of ultimate appeal. Are we to exercise this prime element in our sovereignty by providing our own courts of ultimate appeal? Later in the judgment their lordships say:
It is, in fact, a prime element in the self-government of the dominion that it should be able to secure through its own courts of justice that the law should be one and the same for all its citizens. This result is attainable only if section 101 now authorizes the establishment of a court with final and exclusive appellate jurisdiction.
Again I say that the question we must decide is: Do we wish to provide our citizens with the prime element in self-government of our dominion, that the law should be one and the same for all its citizens? If so, are we prepared to attain this result in the only way possible by authorizing, as we seek to do in the bill now before us, the establishment of a court with final and exclusive appellate jurisdiction?
Well, sir, I submit that there can be only one answer to these questions, and that an affirmative one.
This is the present condition of the law as interpreted by the privy council in the year 1947, and of course applicable today. I have gone into the text of the judgment at some

length in order to show how the Statute of Westminster has established unqualified and absolute rights in this parliament with the natural attributes of the sovereign power of a nation having complete powers of self-government-or, to be precise, having available to it, for the asking, complete powers of selfgovernment.
From now on the only impediment to our governing ourselves fully and completely is our own inability to agree among ourselves, first, whether we should do so, and, if so, how we should do so. That, I suggest, is an intellectual and moral impediment which exists in the minds and character of our public men and citizens. It is not a legal impediment which needs to continue to exist in our constitution.
Having full powers of self-government available to us, we have to decide whether we shall use them completely to govern ourselves, or whether we shall leave important functions of the government of Canada to be discharged by legislative and judicial bodies of the United Kingdom-by the United Kingdom parliament at Westminster, and by the judicial committee of the United Kingdom privy council. And if we come to the point in the interests of complete self-government in Canada where, for example, we no longer ask the United Kingdom parliament to amend our constitution for us, it is certainly not because the United Kingdom parliament-the mother of parliaments, the outstanding sanctuary of political freedom-is not a most excellent legislative body.
If we no longer wish to have the United Kingdom privy council hear the final appeals of our Canadian lawsuits, and to be the ultimate interpreter of the laws which we make in this chamber, it is not because the privy council is not today perhaps the strongest law court in the world. We shall always be grateful for the massive judicial services which the privy council has performed for this country. We shall still remain conscious of its greatness as a court of exclusive ultimate appellate jurisdiction. Indeed, sir, we desire in our supreme court to emulate that greatness as a court of ultimate exclusive appellate jurisdiction; and we think that the best, if not the only way, in which we can begin to do so, is to make our own supreme court also one of exclusive appellate and ultimate jurisdiction, by passing the bill we now have before us. If, as has been urged upon me by persons opposed to this move, our supreme court lacks experience as a court of last resort, it certainly cannot get that experience until it becomes one; and the first step toward its becoming one is the passage of this bill.
Supreme Court Act
In support of the passage of the bill there are also a number of other arguments of a more practical nature, and, I suggest, of no inconsiderable force. It is said, for example, that the extra appeal to the privy council in respect of the ordinary case tried in a province, appealed to the appellate court of that province, from there to the supreme court and finally to the privy council, gives a great advantage to the more wealthy, reckless litigant, who, having lost his case in our supreme court, can, by the threat of further expensive proceedings, force a less wealthy or more prudent respondent to choose between having his judgment discounted into an unfavourable settlement, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, risking the hazards and the expense of another appeal to a court on another continent.
It is argued that privy council appeals tend to make the Supreme Court of Canada merely one of the appellate tribunals through which the Canadian suitor or lawyer must pass before he reaches that court in the United Kingdom which alone is clothed with power to determine, finally, Canadian litigation in general and his lawsuit in particular.
One of the difficulties of this arrangement has been that of counsel advising his clients as to when, and under what circumstances, and in what class of cases, the litigation in which his client is involved is likely to be ended if taken to the Supreme Court of Canada at Ottawa. He is always confronted with the chance that if it be taken to Ottawa it may, in the long run, have to be fought out all over again in London, in which case there is the added cost and delay of the appeal to London and of the application to the privy council for leave to appeal. Perhaps in some instances he is disposed to conclude, therefore, that it would be better to go direct from the provincial court to the privy council. This, in part, explains why, in spite of the fact that the very considerable expense of going to the privy council is greatly in excess of that involved in going to Ottawa, there are a number of cases in which the parties bypass the supreme court altogether and go to the privy council direct. This condition will continue as long as the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada is not final and conclusive. For until it is made final and conclusive, as we propose to do in this bill, there is no sure and certain ultimate destination for the Canadian litigant, short of the privy council, in any of the large class of actions within privy council jurisdiction.
This situation is further aggravated by the fact that this court, to which Canadian lawsuits must go for final determination, is one in the composition of which Canada virtually has no voice, and upon which it has never had adequate representation. Under the

Supreme Court Act
British North America Act we have power in our provincial legislatures and in this parliament to make our own laws, but heretofore we have had no say with regard to the tribunal which is finally to interpret them.
But, sir, these more practical arguments, it seems to me, are by no means the most important by which the abolition of the appeals to the privy council can be supported.
The real issue in this matter, I submit, is whether, having available to us, for the asking, all the constitutional power which we require to take unto ourselves the complete powers of self-government of a sovereign nation, we as members of parliament can rise above lesser loyalties and lesser considerations to think and act as citizens and legislators of a great country. In many other respects our forefathers and we ourselves have done so. The first pioneers of this land, the hardy pioneers of New France, have been described, by one unsympathetic by temperament and religious views to those of whom he wrote, in language the eloquence of which is unsurpassed in our literature.
"The French dominion," wrote Francis Parkman, "is a memory of the past, and when we evoke its departed shades, they rise upon us from their graves in strange romantic guise ... A boundless vision grows upon us: an untamed continent; vast wastes of forest verdure; mountains silent in primeval sleep; river, lake and glimmering pool; wilderness oceans mingling with the sky. Such was the domain which France conquered for civilization. Plumed helmets gleamed in the shade of its forests, priestly vestments in its dens and fastnesses of ancient barbarism. Men steeped in antique learning, pale with the close breath of the cloister, here spent the noon and evening of their lives, ruled savage hordes with a mild, parental sway, and stood serene before the direst shapes of death. Men of courtly nurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry, here, with their dauntless hardihood, put to shame the boldest sons of- toil."
Even our school children know that enterprisers in the fur trade-this is particularly true of my own western part of Canada- ranging over the continent in the competitive search for new trading fields, conducted, almost as a by-product of their business activities, voyages of exploration and discovery which in conception, competence and achievement would have done justice to professional explorers. It is true that in some cases these men were not Canadians by birth, but Canadian was the environment which evoked their genius and made them great.
The United Empire Loyalists, whose adherence to the political principles in which they believed drove them into the virgin forests of the maritime provinces and of Canada, strove and succeeded in laying there some of the most important foundations of our nation. Canadians and new immigrants to Canada, with almost incredible rapidity, transformed

the wilderness of the prairies and the mountains into fruit lands and huge timber, mining and fishing industries and into a granary, not only for Canada but for the world.
Statesmen, businessmen and workmen of the little Canada of some 4J million souls of the 1870's, with a sublime, almost a ridiculous, confidence in the Canadian future, embarked upon the construction of a transcontinental railway, over 3,500 miles long, no less, the western 2,500 miles of which had to traverse the Pre-Cambrian shield and the prairies and three mountain ranges in order to reach the Pacific coast; and in the beginning had to depend upon less than 200,000 men, women and children dispersed throughout this vast area for its operating revenue. Yet their efforts too were crowned with success.
And in the realm of the spirit, this Canadian nation, thanks to the tolerance of her people and to the fairness and wisdom of her statesmen, I am happy to say of all parties, has contained two main races, two great religious groups, and two languages, with less enmity and more unity than any other country in the world in which these conditions obtain, with the possible exception of Switzerland.
All these Canadian men and women thought and felt and acted as the citizens of a great country. So, too, did those who contributed to the war effort of Canada in two world wars, in which in relation to her manpower and resources Canada has made heroic efforts and sacrifices in defence of freedom and peace.
By far the most powerful argument, therefore, for the passing of this bill as a step towards complete self-government is that Canada in almost every other respect-politically, financially, economically; in the realm of foreign affairs; in both her primary and secondary production; in her trade and commerce; in her assistance to less fortunate nations; in her armed support of freedom and peace-has attained a complete and honourable nationhood. The question is whether it is consistent with that nationhood that we should continue an arrangement with regard to the hearing of our law cases which was begun in colonial times and still preserves its colonial characteristics; and whether we should continue this arrangement in the face of the privy council judgment which in the clearest possible terms declares Canada's sovereign right to pass laws to establish her judicial sovereignty.
Surely, Mr. Speaker, we have here a country which from the beginning has had many qualities of greatness, which is more united, magnanimous and powerful today than it has ever been, and whose resources and possi-

bilities seem to require only that we should ourselves act as the citizens of a great country to make our Canada achieve the destiny of which she is capable.
We, the citizens of such a country, should not ask those of another, even though they be of our own blood, to decide our lawsuits for us, interpret for us the laws which we pass here, and provide amendments for our constitution at our request when we need them. If in smallness of mind and meanness of spirit we needlessly perpetuate such a situation, we are unworthy of the efforts and sacrifices of our fellow-Canadians, and undeserving of the bounty which Providence has bestowed upon our country.
I submit that the passage of this bill will be an historic occasion. It could well have taken place before now. It should not be postponed for an instant longer, and it should be followed by the last essential of our complete autonomy, namely, the taking unto ourselves of the right to amend our own constitution.


Mr. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the printed bill in English was not available until late this morning, and I understand the bill in French has not yet been delivered, I believe the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) is agreeable to the adjournment of the debate, and I so move.


Mr. Church:: It is a most unusual proceeding.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Dion in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF LABOUR

[Stage Direction]
142. Departmental administration, $735,337.
Item stands.

[Stage Direction]
121. Departmental administration, $256,281.
Item stands.
DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL DEFENCE General services-
239. Grants to military associations, institutes and others, as detailed in the estimates, $227,150.
Item stands.

[Stage Direction]
453. Departmental administration, $836,737.
Item stands.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Administration service-
1. Departmental administration, $282,160.
45781-6i
Sup p ly-A gricu Iture
Mr. Ross (Souris):: Supply-Agriculture
I am sure that is a most interesting contrast between what the agricultural producer in Canada receives for his products and what is received by the agricultural producer in the United States, and, on the other hand, what the farmer's wife and every housewife in Canada has to pay for the articles that I have mentioned. That was the situation on the day that parliament opened.
A recent survey by the Sanford Evans bureau in Winnipeg points out, with respect to wheat, that in the period from 1945 to 1949 the Anglo-Canadian wheat agreement cost Canadian farmers $536,229,978. That is the loss-the difference between what the farmers in the United States received for their product compared with the amount received by our agriculturists. According to this bureau, the average half section in western Canada, had a loss each year of $1,064, or, on a bushel basis, the United States farmer received approximately 50 cents more per bushel for his wheat than his Canadian neighbour did during those four years.
At a given point, North Portal, where the main street divides the village, and the United States farmer delivers his grain to the elevator on one side of the street and the Canadian farmer delivers his grain on the opposite side of the street, there is a very great difference today. The United States farmer is receiving considerably more per bushel for his wheat than the Canadian farmer, for the same grade, just across the street in the same village.
I pointed out in the last session of parliament that since 1942 the policies of the government have cost our agricultural producers over $2,000 million that they might have had if they had been able to market their product on the same basis as the farmers of the United States. I point that out because today we are facing falling markets for our agricultural products. We were assured in this house by the then Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture that such a condition would have to be taken into account in a period of falling prices. I hope the Minister of Agriculture will give us a lead with respect to those statements which he and the former Prime Minister made so often in this house.
I referred to the cost of living. According to the Bank of Canada report for August, the cost of living now stands at 162 -8, an all-time high in the history of this nation. It has risen consistently month by month for some time, and anyone can see that if he refers to the figures. As I stated, while that cost of living has been rising month by month, the prices received by our agricultural producers have been falling month by month.
IMr. Ross (Souris).]
I have here the most recent copy of the Rural Co-operator, an Ontario paper, pointing out that farm produce prices have dropped during the past year. It names many of the articles we do not produce in the prairie provinces, so it is quite apparent that this situation extends from coast to coast. There is mention of a severe drop of 54 per cent for pears and other fruits. There was a drop in potato prices as well as in the prices for Ontario wheat, which is not handled by the Canadian wheat board. The figures for the drop in the prices of oats and barley are given. It is an interesting article published by a farm organization in the province of Ontario.
Last night the Minister of Finance announced a ten per cent devaluation in the Canadian dollar. I do not think there is any doubt that this will again proportionately increase the cost of living to every householder in Canada. I know personally that it will increase the cost of production on every farm in Canada. The cost of new machinery as well as the general cost of production will be increased as a result of that measure.
So much for that point, Mr. Chairman, and the many false accusations that have been made in various parts of this country, blaming the farmer for the increased cost of living. The blame lies somewhere else. A year ago we had a costly and futile investigation into the cost of living. It proved little or nothing and prices continue to increase.
I should like to mention a matter which particularly affects the three prairie provinces. It has to do with the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. This act is supposed to cover the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Every grain farmer who sells a bit of grain has to make a contribution of one per cent to the fund provided for by the act, although this does not take care of the entire insurance scheme.
I have here the last Searle Grain Company report, which says that 70,000 farmers will draw assistance payments under the act. Thirteen million dollars will be paid to 50,000 farmers in 1,700 townships in Saskatchewan. Twenty thousand farmers in Alberta in a thousand townships out of a total of 100,000 Alberta farmers, will receive approximately $4 million. These payments will be made to farmers whose fields yielded eight bushels or less per acre. It will be remembered that all farmers contribute to this limited form of cash insurance by paying each year one per cent of the value of the grain they deliver to country elevators. It will be seen, therefore, that thirty-six per cent of all Saskatchewan

and twenty per cent of all Alberta farmers will be receiving Prairie Farm Assistance Act payments.
No mention has been made of Manitoba. I am not sure whether any township in that province will come under the act this year.
I believe surveys are being made now to determine that. Some mention is made in the speech from the throne of amendments to this act. I want to point out that it has proven very unsatisfactory, because it is applied on a township basis, even though each grain farmer makes his contribution. During this past growing season, in most parts of Manitoba there was a most promising crop. I have never seen a heavier stand in my life. In the midst of that growing season part of Manitoba suffered a severe infestation of aphids. The aphid is a bug which is so small that it is difficult to see.
Here and there throughout southwestern Manitoba there were farmers who did not harvest any cereal crop. The township average, however, might still be high. This infestation was most peculiar. There would be a group of farmers with a splendid crop, and next to them there would be a farmer who had no cereal crop. As I say, the township average would be well over the eight or twelve bushels per acre. Many farmers

I am sorry to say that a large number of them are veterans operating under the Veterans Land Act-have come to me and said that they cannot properly sustain their families for the next twelve months and have seed for next year's operations. I am pointing this out to the minister now because it is possible we might be dealing with the amendments to this act before we come to the proper item in his estimates. I hope his officials will give consideration to this situation, and that amendments will be brought forward whereby the payments will be made on an individual basis. With the payments on a township basis, as they are under the present act, payments cannot be made for individual crop failures.
We in Canada, as has often been said, have a potentially large agricultural production. At times, however, our export problem becomes great. True enough, it is an international problem now. A large percentage of all our agricultural production must be exported if we are to have prosperity in this country. In recent years we have been extremely fortunate because Britain, one of our very best customers, has been able to use ECA funds from the United States for the purchase of our agricultural products. I am sure we were all pleased that our governmental officials were able to succeed at Washington in having United States funds provided to complete the fourth year of contract under the Anglo-Cana-
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dian wheat agreement. I do not believe Britain would have found it possible to complete the fourth year of contract had this fund not been provided.
I believe we all realize, however, that this is a rather temporary state of affairs. We are greatly concerned about future markets. We realize there must be a considerable amount of advance planning for agricultural production in this country, whether it be graingrowing, livestock or dairy production. I know that many people in my neighbourhood have not finished this year's harvesting, but they are keenly concerned about what they should be doing with regard to production in 1950.
It may be that the next session of parliament will not be convened early enough for the people to be told what they should produce. It is not only the people who produce the materials who are interested in that, but those who sell it, those engaged in transport, bankers, and a host of people in all parts of the country. It is a matter of importance to the other branches of agriculture in the various parts of Canada, to the British Columbia fruit producer and the dairy producer in the east. It is important to the potato grower, concerning whom a question was asked today at the opening of the sitting.
I know that as a matter of administration there is a technical division between our agricultural production and our markets. The Department of Agriculture is solely responsible for guidance as to production, while the Department of Trade and Commerce is responsible for markets. I am sure that at this point no one is going to be concerned over the technicalities as between these two departments. But before we pass this item I hope that the minister, for the benefit of Canadian producers, will indicate what he expects in the coming year in the way of markets for many of these agricultural items. You cannot expect people to produce beyond their own requirements if there is no satisfactory market in sight in some of these other countries. I trust the minister will take the first opportunity of making a statement in this regard.


Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Minister of Agriculture):: I had intended to make-a short statement but I am pleased that the hon. member for Souris took the opportunity of expressing his point of view before I had the opportunity to do so. I wish to join with him in expressing my own appreciation of the fact that you, Mr. Chairman, have been appointed to the position you now occupy, and I am quite sure that we shall carry on in this committee under your chairmanship much in the traditional manner.

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The house itself is composed of members selected from all parts of Canada; and as a sort of mild reply to some of the suggestions which have been made by the hon. member for Souris I should like to point out that by far the greater part of the agricultural sections of this country is now represented in this house by members from rural areas who support the government in such great numbers that many of them are obliged to find seats to the left of Mr. Speaker.


James Arthur Ross: Especially from Saskatchewan.


James Garfield Gardiner: That fact in itself should be a fair indication that at least the farming population of Canada has been fairly well satisfied with the agricultural policy of the government.
The suggestion which was made a few moments ago to the effect that I should be prepared to give to the committee, at this stage, figures with regard to production, marketing and all that kind of thing, leads me to make some suggestions which probably are not as familiar to those new members who have been elected to the house as they will be to those of us who have been discussing these estimates over a considerable period of time.
This item before us is the item of administration; and in this committee since I have been here, that is, for the last fifteen sessions, and I think for a long time before that, on this item hon. members have been encouraged to discuss agricultural questions in a general way, basing their right to do so on this item on the fact that administration covers all parts of the Department of Agriculture and therefore that on this item a general discussion can take place on almost anything having to do with agriculture. But I can assure you that it never has been the custom to expect the minister on this item to give detailed information with regard to quantity or anything else having to do with the particular items which will be discussed individually as we move along from one item to another. When we are on the item which has to do with production I shall be prepared to give all of the information which is available with regard to the production of agricultural products and the relationship of their consumption in Canada to the necessity of marketing them outside Canada. Hon. members need only look at the estimates in order to find where that item is.
The Department of Agriculture is divided into five divisions: administration service, science service, experimental farms service, production service, marketing service and special. What I am pointing out is that when

we come down to the item which is production service, either I shall have all the information here at my own fingertips or the two gentlemen in front of me will have it at theirs to answer any question that anyone desires to ask or to give the kind of information which the hon. member for Souris has just said that this committee will expect at some stage. He suggested that the committee might expect it at this stage under "administration". I would suggest to hon. members that if we are to proceed on that basis there would be no necessity at all for our considering the other items. We would be considering them all on this item. Therefore I am hoping that the chairman will keep us in order and permit a sort of general discussion on this particular item which will permit of members expressing opinions with regard to certain matters having to do with agriculture, but that we shall all content ourselves until we get down to the individual item about which we are concerned, and not ask for detailed information based upon statistics.
Having said that, I just want to point out that on page 2 of the estimates there is a table which gives a summary of the expenditures for the last year and the proposed expenditures for this year. Agriculture, because of the fact that it begins with the letter "A", is the first department in that summary. At the top of that summary hon. members will find that the amount to be voted for this year-that is for 1949-50, the year we are now in-is $49,396,253 and the amount authorized by statute is $12,000. Therefore the total is $49,408,253. The total for the year previous was $60,044,038. In other words, there is a decrease of $10,635,785. It may be thought by some that that is a decrease in the payment for what is generally known as agricultural services in Canada, but that is not exactly correct.
Just for a moment or two I should like to give a few figures with regard to past expenditures on agriculture, expenditures during the peak years of wartime and the expenditures we are making now, in order to illustrate the reason why the proposed expenditures are lower for the year we are now in than the actual expenditures for the year preceding. In the early 1930's-that is, prior to the war- the expenditure of the Department of Agriculture for all purposes ranged from around $7 million to $8 million a year. By 1938-39 total expenditures had risen to approximately $22 million a year and they remained at that figure until 1940-41 when they were still around $22 million. In other words, there had been a considerable increase in expenditures for general activities in relation to agriculture in the years immediately preceding the war. Then in the following year,

1941-42, expenditures under this department jumped to $83 million. There was no important change in the regular departmental expenditures nor in the general administration costs. The increase was largely accounted for by payments under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, which was a new act, the wheat acreage reduction plan and the introduction of food production subsidies, in order to encourage the provision of those large supplies of food which were required to supply the British demand in the early years of the war. The peak year of expenditures was 1943-44, when through this department we spent $110 million. In fact, the expenditures of the department during most of the war years ranged from $95 million to $110 million annually. Food production subsidies and freight assistance were major items during those years. Costs of administration moved up moderately owing to increased salaries and rising cost of supplies, but there was no great increase in costs of administration, the item we are now dealing with. During the years when there were these considerable rises and falls in the expenditure of this department the regular departmental services declined in cost from $10 million in 1938-39 to $8,800,000 in 1943-44. That is, from one of the years just prior to the war down to the peak year of the war there had been a decline in expenditures for ordinary activities in the department. The great increases had to do with matters that pertained largely to the prosecution of the war, and the necessity of supplying food in connection with that prosecution.
Coming to the point that I wish to make, following the cessation of hostilities food production subsidies declined in amount and were eliminated one by one, until at the present time the only important remaining items in this category are freight assistance on feed grain moving from the prairies to British Columbia, and from Fort William eastward, and quality premiums on hogs. These two items still remain. I might say that the quality premiums on hogs were in existence back, I think, as early as 1922 and continuously from then on to the present. The only difference in the premiums now, as compared with the period prior to the war, is that they were paid out of the sale price of the hogs in the years preceding the war through an arrangement entered into with the packing houses. Now they are paid out of the treasury of Canada, and have been since early in the war period. Therefore that item appears in our estimates; whereas it did not appear there before.
These items now account for expenditures in the neighbourhood of $20 million annually, depending somewhat on the volume of pro-
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duction in different regions, that is, the volume of production of feed grains in different regions. If the production is low in the east and high in the west, then of course there is much more feed-I speak now of the west as the central prairies, and I include British Columbia along with the east. If the supplies are high in the one area and low in the other, then it affects the amount of grain which has to be moved back and forth in Canada, and affects the amount of assistance which is given on the payment of freight for that movement.
In the main estimates now being considered by the house, provision is made for about $20 million for these purposes. But I call attention again to the fact that that is in comparison with the $22 million which we were expending just prior to the war. The great rise in expenditure from $22 million to $110 million was largely due to very special conditions existing during the war which required large expenditures of money in order to persuade farmers to change from one activity to another and in order to obtain exactly what we required during the war period. As an illustration, in one period we required cereals, and we switched later from cereals to a supply of livestock products. Then we switched back from livestock products to a supply of cereals again, and in the process certain subsidies were paid, or certain encouragements were given to farmers to go from one line of production to another. We are not following that line of policy at the present time, and therefore these expenditures are not made. But we are continuing the very heavy expenditures which have to do with the payment of freight on feed grain from one part of Canada to another, which has something to do with the increase from $22 million up to $50 million. We are also now paying out of the treasury these considerable amounts that constitute the premiums on high-grade hogs which were previously paid in another way. They are being paid perhaps to a little greater amount at the present time than they were before. That makes up largely the new expenditures; but as we go along in dealing with these estimates it will be found that there have been considerable increases in connection with the general expenditures having to do with agriculture.
The other items which are almost entirely new since four or five years before the war are what we call the specials, which are at the end of the table. These specials have to do largely with the work which is being done in different parts of Canada in order to bring about the developments which we think are worth-while in agriculture. In British Columbia we are spending some money to assist in the bringing about of irrigation in some of

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the valleys where it is urgently required. We are doing something to bring about proper drainage in some other valleys, particularly where returned men of one or other of the two wars, or both, have been settled in that province. These expenditures are comparatively new. They started just before the war, were continued during the war, and are still going on. Then on the prairies we have expenditures having to do with the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. That is the rehabilitation of an area which most of us, I think, are agreed now had not been properly settled in the years when it was being settled under the administration of policies which originated in Ottawa.
Therefore some years ago the parties generally in this house agreed that some money should be spent in order to rehabilitate those areas. I think a better word to use in connection with it is to resettle some of these areas and get people off submarginal lands in so far as it is possible to do so and to improve the land on which they are going to settle and where others have already settled, under conditions where it will not be necessary, even in the most difficult drought years, to move, provided better use can be made of the water available. Therefore there is an expenditure there which is new in the years beginning in 1935 and extending down to the present, which we did not have before. In addition to that, there is an expenditure upon an item which was mentioned by the hon. member for Souris, namely, prairie farm assistance.
What I should like to emphasize at this time is the fact that prairie farm assistance is an item which was placed in our estimates first in 1939 because of legislation which we placed on the statute books in that year. It is not generally understood that the Prairie Farm Assistance Act is closely associated with the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. Under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act it was planned that over some twenty or twenty-five years we might make a very great contribution toward the resettlement of those areas where it had been proven that drought is so persistent that people cannot make a comfortable living on submarginal land, and that these people ought to be removed from these lands as soon as possible, or conditions should be created, through the expenditure of money upon irrigation, which would make it possible for them to live on some of them, which are only submarginal because of low rain fall. Therefore, while we are going on with the development of the plan, it was felt wise to make some provision to enable people to live where they are until such time as we can 
either bring about better conditions where they are or make it possible for them to move elsewhere.
So we undertook prairie farm assistance. I am afraid many people still have the idea that that is a form of individual insurance. If it had been, we could never have put it into effect here. That has been tested out on other occasions. It was suggested at one time that we should have hail insurance brought into effect by the federal government. However, it was investigated at that time and the declaration was made that insurance is a matter which falls within the control and responsibility of the provinces. If we began to levy premiums in the manner in which premiums are levied in connection with insurance, we would be running into difficulties both constitutionally and financially.
Other forms of dealing with the situation were considered. In respect of hail, the insurance was brought into being in each of the three western provinces. It has been administered with more or less success in each of those three provinces, although it has been changed from time to time. However, it has always been done by the provincial governments and authorities. There has been no suggestion that we should carry it on from Ottawa.
When we brought down the Prairie Farm Assistance Act we acknowledged that. We said that it was not possible for us to bring it down in the form of insurance legislation. We could not put it on the basis of individual premiums paid by individuals. We recognized also the fact that even if we desired to do so, and had the authority, it could not be made effective for the particular job which had to be done. That job was to make it possible for some people to live where they had been put, or where they had been encouraged to go-and where they never should have been encouraged to go-until such time as we can prepare conditions under which they can live to advantage in those areas, or provide some place to which they can be moved and where they would be better off than they are now.
Therefore we have said we must provide some fund from which payment can be made on a basis which would make it possible for them to continue. But this was not on the basis of an insurance from which they would draw a certain percentage of the value of the crop which in good areas it would be possible for them to grow. That plan could never be financed in Saskatchewan. However, it has been shown, as the hon. member for Souris has said, that it could be financed in Manitoba. It has been just as effectively proven, however, that it could not be financed

in Saskatchewan. The amount of money which would be necessary in any one of the bad-crop years to insure crops in Saskatchewan would be more than could be raised by any system of raising revenues which one might wish to follow in that province. Any fund created for the purpose would disappear in such a short space of time, on occasions, that no one would undertake to build it up again.
We said therefore that, in order to make this effective, about all we could guarantee to the people living there would be that their store bills would be paid. We said that the store bill a farmer might run up during a summer season might run from $150 or $200 up to $400 or $500. We said that it was impossible for a merchant in the village or town to carry farmers through a season, with accounts of that size, knowing that there was a possibility of a complete crop failure at the end of the year, in which event no payment could be made by those people. Not only would the farmers be in difficulty, but every businessman in the community and every wholesaler and manufacturer in eastern Canada who supplies retailers in western Canada would be in a difficult financial position.
We said therefore that what ought to be done would be to tax all the people of Canada for a time, because a government representing all Canada possibly had made some mistakes in the beginning in connection with the settlement of these people, and that therefore we should take over that obligation for a time in order to make it possible to pay the store bills. Therefore we set up what is known as prairie farm assistance.
It was our intention in the beginning to take all the money for this whole program out of the treasury of Canada. Suggestions were made to us, however, by those representing farm organizations and farm groups, that the farmers themselves in different parts of western Canada would be quite willing- indeed they would prefer-to subscribe something toward the fund to be set up. We said therefore that in order to collect something from most of the farmers of western Canada we would collect at the elevators one per cent of the value of all the grain delivered in any particular year, and would put it into this fund. This means there are people living in areas who never expect to collect. I have in mind the greater part of Manitoba. The people living in the area in which I live have never collected, and perhaps never will. That is true of a large part of the northeastern section of Saskatchewan. This year, for instance, the crops are just as good there as those in Manitoba described by the hon.
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member for Souris. But in the southwestern part of Saskatchewan for three years the crops have been just as poor as they were at any time during the worst years of the thirties.


Mr. Brooks:: Has the minister's policy succeeded in moving the people out of that section of Canada for which all the rest of Canada has been paying?


James Garfield Gardiner: I shall come to that in detail when the item is reached, but I shall answer it briefly in a moment. However, those are the matters with which we dealt, so far as the western provinces are concerned.
My hon. friend from New Brunswick has asked whether these people had been moved. Let me say that before the war began we had taken out of cultivation or possible cultivation 1,500,000 acres of land, and fenced it in for community pastures. We regrassed land which had been broken up and cropped, and which was considered to be submarginal. We had moved 1,400 families off those lands onto other lands. Some of those lands were in Alberta and some in Saskatchewan. In Saskatchewan there were 1,300,000 acres in the pasture category. The gfeater part of the remainder was in Manitoba. The only reason we did not convert a very considerable part in Alberta into community pastures was that the government of that province preferred to carry on its own program in that connection, and did not wish that we should carry it on in the same manner we had in Saskatchewan or in Manitoba. At the present moment, in a limited way, we are getting into Alberta with that policy, and we are proposing to proceed with it.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Is that in the southeast corner?


James Garfield Gardiner: Partly there, and up along the east side. The hon. member from New Brunswick has asked how much we have done. I am prepared to admit that 1,400 families are not very many; but I remind the hon. member that this was all done before the beginning of the war. When the war began there were many reasons into which I shall not now go, but which the hon. member will understand, why it was neither necessary nor possible to carry the policy further at that time.
However we are now back at it again, and the items in these estimates under the heading of specials will afford an opportunity to discuss all the questions with which we are now confronted in putting in larger irrigation projects to take care of people who are living on lands which are very good and which are submarginal only because of the weather.

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Several projects have been carried on for the purpose of creating more areas to which people can be moved from some of these submarginal lands.
We expect and hope that in the years that are just ahead these people may be moved in thousands whereas they were moved in hundreds before.
That in general is what we have been dealing with in the western part of Canada. In connection with the eastern part of Canada we have had a long standing battle in this house, which hon. members know about and no one better than the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Black), to try to have something similar done in connection with the marshlands in the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and in a more limited way in Prince Edward Island. I am not yet familiar enough with Newfoundland, although I hope to go down there and become better acquainted with that province, to know whether the same thing should be done there as is being done in the other maritime provinces.
The fact is that there are lands there which were some of the most productive and most helpful in maintaining farm population. These had been operated for one hundred and fifty years or more as lands protected from the sea by dikes that had been built around areas that were flooded when the tide was high but were not flooded when the tide was low. Because of certain conditions, which I will not refer to now, having to do with the tariff levied against us from time to time by the country to the south, the state of agriculture in that part of the country was somewhat changed. The production of livestock was not considered as important as it had been at one time and some of this area was allowed to go back. The dikes were washed out, the sea came in, and the land was no longer productive.
We have carried on experiments on a piece of that land in association with the experimental farm near Amherst. These have proved to us that three times as much hay can be grown on that land, if it is properly protected and properly taken care of, as can be grown upon it if it is not so treated. The first effort toward that experiment was carried out by my predecessor, who purchased the land. Just about the time he purchased the land there was a change in government.
I went down and looked at it some fourteen years ago and came to the conclusion that he had previously come to, that it was something worth doing. As I say, we have had a long battle, or perhaps "long discussion" would be the better term to use, from that time down to this in an effort to convince members on all sides of the house who have any influence

upon the administration, either provincially or federally, that a problem such as that is somewhat akin to the irrigation problems in the west.
No group of farmers can pay all the capital cost. They did not in the first instance. I understand that France had something to do with some of the first works that were erected during the period that she was operating on this continent. Great Britain had something to do with some of the others. Usually these works were carried out following a war, when there were troops available. The method used was similar to that followed in the construction of other great works such as some of the canals that we have in the central part of Canada. That kind of thing never can be done and charged up against the land that is going to benefit any more successfully than you can charge $50 per acre as an irrigation cost against land in western Canada.
Finally we prevailed upon this house and the government of Canada to permit the spending of money down there for that purpose. Of course, expenditures will go on in other provinces in eastern Canada for similar purposes, but they must be similar before we can justify them on the same basis. These expenditures will go on from time to time in order to make land productive and capable of producing greater quantities of food, not only for the people in this country but for people elsewhere.
In general those are the activities that will be carried on under the last item. This last item, together with the two items I referred to a moment ago, namely, the payment of freight on grain from the prairie provinces to British Columbia and to eastern Canada and the payment of a premium upon hogs, are responsible for the greater part of the increase from $22 million to close to $50 million which is now being expended on matters having to do with agriculture.
That is all I wish to say at the moment. As all hon. members know, this is a time when they are free to get up as often as they please to ask questions, and when I am free to speak as often as I like. I am supposed to be able to answer the questions asked by members but I say to hon. members that if they will wait until the proper time to ask their questions I will guarantee to answer them. If they insist on asking all the questions in the next two or three days, when we are dealing with the general item, I am afraid I shall have to sit here and listen to those questions and try to remember them, and then have them repeated when we get down to the particular item. I hope it will not be necessary for us to do that and that hon. members will not make it necessary for me to tax my memory to that extent.


Mr. Wright:: Mr. Chairman, on this my first opportunity to speak I should like to compliment you upon your new appointment as chairman of the committees of this house. As we have known you during past sessions we are sure you will fill this position with justice and honour.
I should like to say, both personally and on behalf of our group, that we are glad to see the Minister of Agriculture dealing with his estimates with his usual vigour. We understood that his health was poor, but we are glad to see that he has taken over the handling of his estimates in his usual capable manner.


Arthur Leroy Smith: His voice was never sick.


Percy Ellis Wright: It is a pleasure to see him doing so well. While we do not always agree with with him back in the province of Saskatchewan, we always enjoy a fight with him out there. Sometimes he wins and sometimes we win. This time he believes that with the return to this house of a number of rural members from Saskatchewan there is an indication that there is agreement generally in Saskatchewan with his agricultural policies. However, I would point out that there were other matters besides his agricultural policies which entered into it.
One of the things causing a great deal of concern, not only to farmers but to consumers, is the increased cost of living in this country. A great many people when looking at the cost of living indexes which are issued from time to time are inclined to blame the major part of the increase on the increase in the cost of food. I am sure that if they will go into the matter more deeply they will find that, while that is a major item, it is not the farmer who is getting all of the benefit of the increase in the price of foodstuffs. If you consider what the farmer was receiving in 1944 and 1947 during the war and compare it with what he is receiving today you will find that today there is a greater difference between what the farmer receives and the price the consumer pays than there was during those years. The processors and the people selling agricultural products have increased their margins. The increased cost is not all going to the farmer.
One thing which is particularly alarming to the farming population of Canada is the loss of our markets for certain products. In reading a bulletin on foreign trade issued by the Department of Trade and Commerce, I was surprised to find, in the issue of August 27, certain figures which indicate a tremendous drop as far as our markets for agricultural products in Great Britain are concerned. The Minister of Agriculture may say there are factors there over which his department has no control, such as currency, and so on.
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I will admit that, but nevertheless the policies of the government have largely been the cause of the loss of those markets, either by reason of refusal to reduce tariffs in this country to allow British goods to come in and thus provide the necessary dollars with which Great Britain could purchase our foodstuffs, or by reason of other policies of the government.
The bulletin to which I have referred states:
Results of the policy of substituting soft-currency countries for dollar countries as sources of supply for imports into the United Kingdom are apparent from the trade returns for the first six months of the current calendar year. Typical Canadian products like oats, beef, poultry, apples, canned tomatoes, canned salmon, chilled and frozen fish and linseed oil have disappeared entirely from the list of imported commodities.
Then the article proceeds to give a further list of products which have been greatly reduced. It goes on to state:
For the second year in succession, there were no sales of Canadian oats to Great Britain; practically the only source of supply was Australia with
979.000	hundredweights.
The article proceeds to point out that the market which we formerly had has gone to Russia and some of the other eastern European countries. Then the article continues:
In over-all imports of flour (6-1 m. cwts.) there was a drop of 20 per cent. Canada's contribution (41 m. cwts.) fell by 46 per cent, while Australia (1-6 m. cwts.) supplied nearly ten times the previous year's quantity.
Further on the bulletin states:
With the exception of bacon, Canada has now been practically eliminated from the United Kingdom market as a source of supply for meat.
The article states, as to poultry:
The poultry market imported a total of 237,000 hundredweights or nearly double that of the previous year. Australia, Poland, Ireland and Hungary shared this increase, but there were no purchases from Canada.
As to shell-egg imports, the article states:
The rise in shell-egg imports by 23 per cent to
116.000	dozen was principally due to substantial increases in imports from Denmark and Ireland. Canada's shipments (9,000 dozen) were only one-third of those recorded for the corresponding months of 1948. Purchases of liquid or frozen eggs totalled 364,000 hundredweights, more than double the 1948 figure. China, Poland and Australia stepped up their consignments. Canada's share fell to 2,000 hundredweights as compared with 38,000 hundredweights in the first half of the previous year.
As to dried eggs, the article states:
Canada supplied 14,000 hundredweights as compared with 50,000 hundredweights in the corresponding period of the previous year.
It is the same story with fish and timber.
Another matter in which we are particularly interested in the province of Saskatchewan is the export of various seeds,

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alfalfa and grass seeds, et cetera. The bulletin states:
There was a heavy cut in purchases from Canada of agricultural seeds. The quantity recorded during the half year was 30,000 hundredweights, only one-quarter of the previous year's figure . . .
Much of the Canadian business was switched to Denmark and the Netherlands, which contributed
48,000	hundredweights and 84,000 hundredweights respectively.
This is a serious matter as far as Canadian agriculture is concerned. In western Canada we are starting to export more and more grains rather than finished products. That inevitably will result in the depletion of soil fertility. The Minister of Agriculture was one of those who advocated diversified agriculture in the province of Saskatchewan. I think he was right, but today he seems to have forgotten that policy. He has told us during his remarks that during the war his department was able to direct the production of agricultural products in Canada, was able to switch from dairy products to grain, and from grain back to other products which were needed by the markets during the war. If that is possible in wartime, if it is possible to direct agricultural production in our economy toward certain ends, then I say it is equally possible in peacetime to direct agricultural production toward the end which will produce more dairy products, meat products, and those other products which will protect the fertility of our soil.


James Garfield Gardiner: May I point out that in wartime we had the War Measures Act, and in peacetime we have not the War Measures Act.


Percy Ellis Wright: If we have not the War Measures Act then it is time that the minister, after consultation with the provinces, did some of these things. I am sure the provincial departments of agriculture throughout Canada would co-operate with the minister if he would get together with them to formulate an agricultural program extending over a period of ten, fifteen or twenty years in order to direct agriculture in Canada toward ends which would be of benefit to the country. The minister may smile. He has not tried very hard to co-operate with the government of Saskatchewan on a great many matters, but I do not want to go into that now. We may go into it at a later date.
Agriculture is a matter which comes under the jurisdiction of the provinces and the dominion. It is a matter in which we have to have co-operation if we are to have an agricultural policy in Canada that will look to the future, not merely from year to year, not merely contracts which you make this year and renew next year, and then again the year after. Agriculture is something

which must be planned and directed toward retaining the fertility of our soil.
I have an article from the Lethbridge Herald which reads:
In 1944 Canada exported 291,000,000 bushels of wheat, 40,000,000 bushels of barley and 83,000,000 bushels of oats. Those exports represent 219,126 tons of nitrogen, 94,234 tons of phosphorus and 47,341 tons of potash besides the trace minerals from the soil needed to produce the grain.
Further on the article reads:
We cannot go on forever drawing from the fertility bank without making some deposits to our account.
I think that is quite right. I think the minister should give the house some idea of what his department is planning for agriculture. Toward what end are we directing our agriculture? I can see in the future even more difficulties in maintaining our markets in Europe than we have had in the past, because of the recent devaluation of the pound. Today it takes more pounds to buy the products which the farmers of Canada have to sell. It is true that as a result of the devaluation of the dollar by ten per cent we get an advantage on the United States market, but what good is that market to us for most of our agricultural products? Unfortunately in the United States there is an economy which produces to a large extent the very things that we produce here. We have a market there for beef at the present time, but that is the only agricultural product that I know of for which we have any extended market in the United States.
In the United States they are faced with some very serious problems. I have in my hand a clipping from the Christian Science Monitor which reads in part:
It took world war II to ball the government out of its previous spending spree in farm commodities. No such "solution" is now in sight. And things are now piling up faster than 10 years ago. After five years of such accumulations, the government still in 1940 had only about 10,000,000 bales of cotton, 500,000,000 bushels of wheat, and 200,000,000 bushels of corn. But in little more than a year it has now sunk almost twice as much money in farm products as its cumulative investment in the entire 1930's. And the recent twelve months' investment looks like not only a total but an annual rate.
The article goes on to state that at the present time the corn crop is being stored in oil tanks, university dormitories, and every place in which storage can be found. It indicates that in another year meat production will be increased in that country, so we might not have that good market for our beef which we have today. It is my opinion that our long-term market for agricultural products is Europe. We must do something to retain those markets.
Within the next month or two I expect our contracts for agricultural products, such as the one we have with Great Britain, will be

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coming up for renewal. I should like the minister to give us some idea as to the prospects for renewing those contracts. I should like him to tell us what the prospects are with respect to other markets for agricultural products which we can raise in quantity. Those are some of the things about which I should like to hear the minister speak. I do not want him to go into details on the various items in his department. We will do that at a later stage. I do insist that two things are important at this time: one is markets and the other is production in a manner which will retain the fertility of the soil in this country.


Mr. Quelch:: I should like to make a few comments at this time. I believe that, generally speaking, agricultural prices are fairly satisfactory today. On the other hand, there is a good deal of fear and uncertainty in the minds of the farmers as to what the future holds in store for them. I believe that is holding back a good deal of the capital development on the part of farmers because, unless they have some assurance as to what might happen in the future, they are going to be hesitant about making any large-scale investment in capital developments on their farms.
The farmers remember that since 1942, as part of the government's program, they were compelled to accept less for their farm produce than they might otherwise have received. That program was carried out in the name of stabilization, yet so far the only legislation on the statute books is the Agricultural Prices Support Act. True, there is the international wheat agreement, but apart from that the only legislation is the Agricultural Prices Support Act, and that expires on March 31, 1950. So far the government has given no assurance that, upon the expiration of that statute, the operation of the act will be extended.
As I say, at the present time prices are fairly satisfactory. On the other hand, unfortunately, crop conditions in many parts of western Canada were very unsatisfactory this year. In the district I represent, Acadia, crops were disappointing. Up until July 15, in the eastern part of the constituency crops were generally good. It appeared as though a bumper crop might be harvested. Unfortunately, after July 15, hot dry weather continued and in a short space of time the crops deteriorated, and as a result large parts of that area will harvest no crop. Strange as it may seem, the reverse was true in the western part of the constituency. The first half of the year was very dry and on July 1 most of the fields were still black; little or no grain had come up. After July 1, there were heavy rains and the grain came up. The grain was so late, however, that when heavy frosts
occurred on September 9 most of it was frozen and a great deal of it will not be worth cutting. Consequently, a large part of that area will be eligible for payments under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.
The people of Acadia constituency do appreciate the assistance that is granted under that act. I agree with what the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) stated when he said the federal government had some responsibility for helping to rehabilitate those people. The people in that area were encouraged to go there while it was still under federal government control. They were encouraged to settle there despite the fact that the federal government had received word that the land was not suitable for settlement. The history of that area has been tragic. Over sixty per cent of the population have moved out. With the help that has been given them under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, the remaining forty per cent are now getting on their feet.
This area, however, will never be a safe area for agriculture until irrigation has been established. A program for irrigation was first set up in 1922; I believe that is when the first survey was made. Since that date surveys have been made from time to time, until today we have a project known as the Red Deer diversion project. I think it is unfortunate that that project has been made a political football. At no time has that project been made such a political football as during the last federal election. During the last election campaign, the Liberals in that part of the country told the people that unless Liberals were elected that scheme would never be put into operation. On the other hand, if they elected Liberals, the federal government would start construction of that project next year.
At this point I should like to compliment the Minister of Agriculture, because when he went out to the Acadia constituency during the federal campaign to speak at my home town of Morrin, and at the town of Hanna, he refused to take any part in that type of propaganda. He said that whether or not a Liberal was elected, he was afraid it would not be possible to start that program next year. He wanted them to elect a Liberal, but he wanted to make it clear that if they did he was not going to promise the government would commence work on the Red Deer project. While I appreciated his attitude at that time, it was not appreciated by the local Liberals.
In that area work has been done on small projects. Two dams were built on Berry creek and I believe a third is being built this year. Unfortunately, these projects depend entirely on the surface runoff to provide water

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for irrigation purposes. Unfortunately, the dam which was built last year did not contain a single drop of water this year and consequently was of little use in taking care of the drought condition that developed. I am hoping that at the earliest opportunity the government will proceed with this project.
I quite realize that what the Minister of Agriculture states may be sound when he says that, first of all, the government has to complete the St. Mary river project and the dams on the Bow river. We have had his assurance -'*I hope I am correct in saying we have received his assurance-that when these projects are completed the government will then be prepared to proceed with the construction of the Red Deer diversion project. This can be regarded as a self-liquidating project. It would irrigate a half million acres and it would be possible to increase the population of that area by thirty thousand people. Services are already established. It would be a worth-while project and would relieve the government of a great deal of expense in the way of Prairie Farm Assistance Act payments, because those payments are not made on irrigated land.
I notice that when the last dam was built on Berry creek, instead of making provision for taking the water by ditches onto the land, provision was merely made for letting the water out into the creek, and that any lands to be irrigated from that project will apparently have to be irrigated through the sprinkler system. I believe the sprinkler system is becoming recognized as the most efficient form of irrigation, and that over a long period of time the actual cost of irrigating the land by this method may be just as cheap as, if not cheaper than, when it is done by ditches. But on the other hand the initial cost is heavy for the pumping equipment and the pipe. I understand from the local P.F.R.A. representative in Acadia that the federal government are making a grant of $350 toward the purchase of aluminum pipe. At a later time I hope the Minister of Agriculture will be able to say something on that matter, because there seems to be some uncertainty as to whether or not that money is actually being paid. I should like to have an assurance that it will be paid. Then I hope it may be possible to get the provincial government to match that payment, because if irrigation is to be done by the sprinkler system instead of by ditches there will be a great saving of money not only to the federal government but to the provincial government as well; and the provincial government may very well make a contribution toward the cost of the pipe in order to avoid paying for the cost of ditches.
There are other matters that I should like to discuss with respect to the Prairie Farm

Assistance Act but, as the minister has already suggested, I think it would be better to leave matters of that kind until we come to the individual items. When we come to the item with regard to the P.F.A. Act, I hope the minister may be able to intimate briefly what form of amendment is to be brought down. I am not asking him to tell the house what the amendment is, but if he will tell us whether or not the amendment has to do with the establishment of the basic unit, it would be a guide to us in a discussion of that kind; because if an amendment is to be brought down to deal with the very thing we want to have done, it will not be necessary to take up the time of the house in discussing that point at this time. On the other hand, if the amendment that is to be brought down is not of that type, a number of us would like to make suggestions as to what type of amendment might be brought down.


James Garfield Gardiner: In answer to that last question I might say that I thought I stated to the house in the last session that the bill which was prepared has to do entirely with that question, namely, the unit upon which payment is to be made. As far as I know, the bill will be brought down in the same form as that in which it was then drawn. I also think I said in the last session that I was quite prepared to submit that bill to the committee on agriculture so that it could be discussed there and so that all ideas could be brought forward at that time.


Mr. Hansell:: I do not propose to make a speech, but I should like to ask the minister a question which I am not certain comes within any specific item under his estimates. Would he care to say whether he thinks the announcement made by the Minister of Finance last night with regard to the devaluation of our dollar will have any effect on the present agricultural agreements with the United Kingdom? I know that the minister is aware of the wizardry performed by these economic experts, which goes on behind the scenes. He expressed himself on that subject when he was in England some time ago. Some of us are not so conversant with that wizardry. I am quite certain that the farmers of this country are not crack economists, but I am sure they are concerned as to whether or not the dollar devaluation will affect those agreements. I know that some of those agreements are in force for only another year. But considering the little that we know about the operation of international exchange, I think that the committee should have an expression of opinion from the minister on this matter.


James Garfield Gardiner: Just in a few words I would say that the agreements which we have with

Britain, including the wheat agreement, specify that we are to be paid in Canadian dollars. Britain will pay us in Canadian dollars and therefore the farmer will get the same number of dollars for his wheat and for his other products as he is getting. I think that has been stated by nearly all of the experts who are not employed by the government and who write the financial pages of the papers across the country. As far as I have been able to read, they have made a statement to that effect. There is a possibility that the action which we took may be of some benefit to the farmers on the long-time wheat agreement. I am not going to attempt to explain how much that will be or what it will be. I do not think anyone can at this moment tell what it will be or what the exact result of the action is going to be. All I can say is that I satisfied myself, before agreeing with what we were doing, that it was going to be in the interests of all of the people of Canada, including the farmer, to do that particular thing. I think that is all I care to say at the moment.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am going to speak briefly, but in view of the concern of my farmer constituents-fruit growers, poultry producers and others-about the insecurity of the future with regard to markets, I feel that I should make a few comments.
I realize that the Minister of Agriculture has one of the most responsible positions in Canada at this time. I am quite sure that any fair-minded person would sympathize with him in the problem he is facing, under present world conditions, in attempting to find outlets and markets for Canadian agricultural production. In reviewing the main estimates I regret to notice that those of such an important department show a reduction Df $10,635,000. I think that is unfortunate when we consider the basic importance of the agricultural economy to the prosperity of Canada as a whole.
At the present time we hear a great deal about the arsenals of democracy. But I want to preface my few remarks by saying that finally, after all we have done and all that we can do in the nature of armed defence, in my opinion the basic arsenals of democracy rest in agriculture. The peace of the world and the security of the peoples of the world are to be found, finally and fundamentally, in well-fed, well-clothed, well-housed and contented people.
The agriculturist is faced with a dilemma at this time. To reduce production is unthinkable, in my opinion. Yet in some industries, particularly in the fruit industry, there is some thought of reducing production in certain varieties because of lost markets. In that connection I wish to quote briefly from our
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British Columbia farm paper Country Life. The article deals with the question of production and increase in production.
How can a reconciliation of these factors be effected? The answer is not available but progress is being made towards working it out. Note this: "Less than ten per cent of the world's food production is exchanged today between country and country, representing only three-quarters of the volume before the war,'' so the FAO council reports. A large share of the present movement originates in North America. Naturally, variations in output in Canada and the United States have now a greater effect on supplies and prices in the producing countries and entail more serious consequences for consumers elsewhere than would be the case if the volume of international trade were greater and were more widely distributed between suppliers throughout the world.
At a time when hundreds of millions are still hungry, the inability of the world to devise policies which would enable the surplus-producing countries to avoid a deliberate curtailment of efficient production, should not be tolerated, the FAO council proclaims and every humanitarian will agree with it.
No question presents a greater problem to the minister and to all of us, sir, than the welfare of agriculture in Canada at this time. I hold in my hand a report of the department of agriculture of British Columbia for 1948. This report deals with the question of increasing world population in relation to a declining agricultural production. While this is a very complex question-I do not think the solution is going to be easy or simple- we must recognize certain principles in approaching it. I think the first one is this. We profess to the world that we are a Christian nation, a Christian democracy. In view of that, do we think that we can see starving millions of the world go without food because we will not produce it? No doubt the question will be faced from the ordinary commercial point of view. The minister and his officials will do what they can do to find markets through the regular channels; they will try to make sales agreements and so on. But if we are going to face this problem satisfactorily and find even a partial solution in the near future we have to do some unorthodox things. We have to convince the Canadian people that the stability and the prosperity of the Canadian nation depend on a stable agriculture. If that is going to be possible under present conditions all of the Canadian people must make some contribution to the stabilization of our agriculture and to the sale of our commodities. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, in a few words I suggest that in addition to finding a market through normal channels, commercial bulk sales agreements, or personal trading, we have got to be willing to supply these people who require food with food when they require it and where they require it, in other ways: in the first instance on long-term loans

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at low interest and in some cases as straight gifts. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that if the position of Canadian agriculture was explained to the Canadian people, if the seriousness of the situation in general was explained to the Canadian people as a whole, they would understandingly assume the burden of extra taxation required to finance such a program. That is all I am going to say in that respect at this time.
Before proceeding to make a few remarks concerning my own constituency, I want to emphasize my complete agreement with the remarks made by the hon. member for Mel-fort when he was dealing with the necessity for a long-term over-all agricultural policy in Canada. I readily recognize that during the war period such a policy could not be developed under abnormal conditions, but I do think it is necessary, and it can only spring from and be the result of much closer agreement and much closer co-operation between the federal and provincial governments. We need a long-term marketing policy worked out between the government. We need a long-term production policy. In going around my own district and other districts I am amazed to see-and I give credit to the scientific staffs of our departments of agriculture for the excellent work they have done-that necessary information does not reach all the people settled on the land. 1 find people, after all these years of experience, planting the wrong varieties of trees. I find people clearing land which should have been left in timber. I find people attempting to produce crops which are unsuitable, and as a result they gain their experience through unnecessary cost and labour. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I heartily support the hon. member for Melfort in his contention that we need a long-term over-all agricultural policy, devised as a result of joint and increasing co-operation between the federal and provincial governments.
I am going to deal with one or two things which are not strictly within the purview of the Minister of Agriculture. They come within his purview only in the sense that I think the minister is doing what he can as a member of the cabinet and within the cabinet to improve rural living conditions. We have to give every consideration to that if we are to keep our younger people on the land. I should like the Minister of Agriculture to use his influence toward doing all that is possible in the development of a trans-Canada highway, because if a trans-Canada highway is built across this country, and the provinces are assisted, not only will the food producers, the egg producers and others in many parts of this country have better roads to market their products, but the
[Mr. Herridge.l
provinces will have more money to surface and improve feeder roads. That is an important item when it comes to moving soft fruits and other commodities of that type in the constituency which I have the honour to represent.
In my constituency there are a large number of people living in isolated areas who get very poor radio reception. In fact, the only programs most of them enjoy in the evenings are American programs. I trust that the minister will use his influence within the cabinet to see not only that the urban dweller gets good radio reception but that people in the backwoods, people in the country, have every opportunity to enjoy Canadian programs.
Farmers of my district are concerned about the grading of hay and the inspection of cereals imported particularly from Alberta. I think without question there have been some quantities of low-grade hay, poor hay and very questionable feed imported from Alberta. The farmers I represent are anxious for me to bring that to the attention of the minister. They are urging increased inspection facilities so far as hay and feed commodities are concerned.
In addition to that, we find some of our people living in the backwoods who are trying to build houses. Some of them are log cabins, others of frame construction. They are really living a pioneer life under present-day conditions. During the last year or so they have found it very difficult to obtain baling wire and barbed wire. It has been almost impossible to obtain barbed wire, fence staples and things of that type for some time. I do hope that the Minister of Agriculture will use his influence within the cabinet to make certain that the first people who receive these things will be the rural people who are developing the backwoods areas of this country and need them badly.
The people I represent are also interested in the operation of the Canadian farm loan board. I made a forty-minute speech on this question in the session before last but I wish to refer briefly to the subject again. Personally I am still of the opinion that the Canadian farm loan board does not serve the pioneer in the backwoods communities to quite the same extent as it serves the well-developed communities. In my opinion these people are somewhat of the impression that the backwoods farm, where the farmer is making possibly, in the early years, 75 per cent of his living from the sale of logs, poles, cordwood, is not as good a risk, not as good an investment, as possibly a well-developed farm which is paying far higher taxes. The type of man who goes to the

aackwoods and develops a farm under pioneer conditions is often the best type of credit risk you can obtain in Canada. I hope the minister will use his influence to see that the Canadian farm loan board gives every :onsideration to those who are wanting some assistance in the pioneer districts of the west. The farmers I have the honour to represent believe, too, that interest rates on loans made through the Canadian farm loan board should in fairness be reduced.
Let me add, to what I have said, that our poultry producers are greatly concerned about the uncertainty of the future. Here is in illustration where there is great necessity for provincial and federal planning in production and marketing. Owing to the recent slump in poultry prices and the loss if poultry markets-and in this I am sure the ion. member for Fraser Valley will bear me iut-in recent months hundreds of poultry producers have gone out of production.
The poultry industry is in a most unstable condition. It is not fair to permit people without knowledge and experience to enter into the production of poultry on a large scale. No doubt the minister is familiar with the conference which was held at Regina, upon which occasion poultrymen expressed their desire to have floor prices placed under eggs and poultry, according to the terms of the Agricultural Prices Support Act.
I offer these few remarks so that the matters I have mentioned may be placed before the minister, and in conclusion I express the hope that he will use his influence within the cabinet to remedy the conditions I have mentioned.


Mr. Cruickshank:: Mr. Chairman, I shall not take much time-just about an hour and a half. I shall cover a number of subjects, but first of all I would say to the Minister of Justice, who is now in his seat, that I hope he takes my advice when he is considering the appointment of judges, or anyone else, in my riding in the future.
I shall now digress from fruit and eggs-


Mr. Sinclair:: Bathing beauty judges?


George Alexander Cruickshank: The hon. member for Coast-Capilano must know that I happen to have ability he does not have, in that I can judge anything satisfactorily.
The remarks I shall now direct to the Minister of Agriculture might have the support of the hon. member for Coast-Capilano. May I say to the minister that the minimum price at which we can produce filbert nuts in British Columbia is 25 cents a pound, and that at no profit to ourselves. Those nuts are being sold on the Winnipeg market today, and on European markets, at 15 cents a pound. The Americans have a protection to the extent
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of a duty of 5 cents, but we have no such protection, with the result that they are being imported into Canada.
I would ask the minister to consider this matter seriously, particularly in view of the fact that it requires from five to seven years to produce filbert nuts. Yet they can be brought to Canada to sell at 15 cents a pound. These nuts come from Sicily and Italy-and I do not know what either Sicily or Italy ever did for this country.


John Ewen Sinclair: Liberal free trade.


George Alexander Cruickshank: There are only two free traders here, the Minister of Agriculture and the hon. member for Fraser Valley. I would submit, particularly for the benefit of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, and the junior member for Coast-Capilano, that to add insult to injury, a company from Hamilton is now installing a margarine factory in my riding. Surely there should be some law against that.
I speak seriously when I refer to the filbert nuts, because this is a matter which affects my district in which we have about 500 acres in production. There would be that much if my riding and New Westminster were taken together. We can produce figures to show our cost of production, which indicates that we cannot possibly produce them for less than 25 cents a pound. Yet they are being sold today at the low price I have mentioned. Further, I am informed by the association of growers that many of these imported filberts are diseased. We do not want the disease to affect our production.
I shall not discuss eggs or other matters, because I shall have time to do that in the future. The Ottawa Journal is a newspaper of note, and I have been interested to see that in one week it contained an editorial praising me, while in the next week it condemned me. So it must be a pretty good paper. It carried an editorial yesterday in which mention was made of a few of the scrub apples grown in Ontario. I want everyone to know for sure that we in British Columbia do not ship our scrub apples; we do not even make them into cider, as was mentioned in the editorial. We just send them out to the Pacific coast for pig feed.


Mr. Harris (Danforth):: Before the hon. member leaves the matter of nuts, would he tell the committee the percentage of oil or fats in the nuts he proposes to grow in his community. No doubt the fat from the nuts to be produced there will find its way into the margarine factory he has mentioned. I imagine it would run about 30 or 40 per cent fat.

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George Alexander Cruickshank: I cannot answer the hon. member's question, but I do not wish to be turned aside into a discussion of margarine, because in most cases it is made out of whale oil and any other useless kind of oil one can get. However, I cannot answer the question which I have been asked.
While I do not wish to discuss dairy products at this time, I would ask the minister to give serious consideration to a floor price, or some protection for the Albert growers in British Columbia, not in my constituency only.


Mr. Jones:: I should like to take some time to deal with a subject which I believe has been neglected, namely the fruit of the Okanagan valley. I know it has been suggested that we talk a good deal about this subject, but we do so because we are not satisfied that it has received the recognition it deserves throughout Canada.
First of all I would express my thanks, and those of the industry in general, to the Minister of Agriculture for producing and passing the marketing act at the last session. The growers have worked hard for some protection of that kind, and I can tell him truthfully that the reception given the news was as great as that given the news of a victory overseas during the war. It was only just that the government should take away the great element of gambling from the growing of fruit. They have had to gamble with the weather, with pests and other hazards of the fruit-growing industry, and I cannot see any reason why they should not be given all the protection the government can give them, particularly in the domestic market. This bill can be the source of that protection as far as the domestic market is concerned, and I fully believe that the minister has that in mind.
But we must consider other markets as well. A couple of weeks ago I was in England for the summer holidays and I went out of my way to find out the type of apple that was being offered for sale. I was amazed at the low-grade apples that were displayed in the stores of London, Manchester, Liverpool and other cities. These were apples which, I think the hon. member for Fraser Valley will readily admit, would be considered in British Columbia as culls of a very inferior type. They would not be allowed to be offered for sale in that province. I understand the statement has been made that the British people are .getting all the apples they want, but I can state definitely that that statement is not correct. The apples they are getting are of a most inferior grade.


An hon. Member:: Where are they from?


Owen Lewis Jones: Most of them were domestic.


An hon. Member:: Fraser Valley.


Owen Lewis Jones: Most of the dealers and consumers that I spoke to told me that they regretted the Canadian apple was not available. They all felt that the best apple that had ever been offered on the British market was the Canadian apple. As far as they were concerned-I am referring now to the consumers and dealers, not to the government- they were willing to do anything reasonable in order to get the Canadian apple back again.
I should like to deal briefly with the domestic market. As is known, we in British Columbia have geared our production of fruit to the needs of the British market. We selected and pruned our trees in order to produce the varieties demanded by Great Britain. They do not care for a large apple or one that is too small, so we pruned our trees to produce an apple that suited the British market. But the British market has been lost and the apple we are producing is not suitable for United States or domestic consumption. Therefore, this apple has become a heavy member of the cull group, not because of quality or colour but simply because of size.
We contend that we have suffered a terrific loss through losing the British market for this particular variety of apple, but what alarms us most is the fact that dumping of apples and other fruit products by the United States and Europe is being permitted. I should like to read extracts from two resolutions which were passed this spring by the British Columbia Fruit Growers' Association. One reads as follows:
Whereas the West Kootenay was put on a quota of 27 per cent for processing of Bing and Lambert cherries for the 1948 season, and Whereas the growers of the district, covered by the Sunshine Bay local of this organization, would like to know definitely whether the above quota will be maintained for the future, and whether there is any definite hope of an increase-
In other words, the growers of cherries were placed on a quota. At the same convention, possibly the same day, the following resolution was passed:
Whereas a processed cherry industry of considerable importance has been established in Canada during the past seven or eight years, and Whereas, growers have been encouraged to produce cherries suitable for this industry, and
Whereas our market for these cherries is seriously threatened by the importation of similar cherries from Italy, packed in brine and subject only to a tariff of 17J per cent ad valorem.
The implication is that the policy of the government is to allow cherries to be imported from Italy in direct competition with cherries that could be produced and processed in the Kootenay valley. I am going to suggest to the minister that consideration

should be given to this industry and if possible the dumping duty regulations should be enforced when necessary. I feel that as long as we can grow first-class fruit in the valley we should be given the preference in the domestic market. Another resolution was passed as follows:
Whereas for many years the government of Australia has imposed an embargo against the import of Canadian apples on the ground that fire blight might be carried to Australian orchards, and
Whereas horticulturists agree that it would be impossible to transmit fire blight through shipments of packed apples.
The resolution goes on to ask the government to take steps to have this embargo removed, and I support that resolution. I feel that we have been most generous with the Australian people. Last year and the year before we carried on certain trade with Australia. All the imports from Australia were agricultural products while all the exports from Canada were manufactured goods. I think a balance should be arrived at whereby a break could be given to the fruit growers of British Columbia.
At the same time the Australians have been sending onions into British Columbia duty free. A shipload of No. 1 hard arrived in Vancouver last year. Our first crop of onions are not No. 1 hard; they do not reach that grade until they are matured. Our onions had to go on the market in competition with the Australian No. 1 hard with the result that in the opening week our price had to be dropped from $60 per ton to $40 per ton, which the growers claim is $2.50 per ton less than the cost of production.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at eight o'clock.
Owen Lewis Jones: Before the recess I was speaking of some of the difficulties encountered by the fruit and vegetable growers of Canada in regard to the importation of certain agricultural commodities, resulting in depressed prices generally. I realize that the government is faced with certain difficulties, and particularly the Department of Agriculture, in putting a stop to this condition. I have in mind an instance last year when United States carrots were imported into Canada long before ours were ready. They were brought in in such vast quantities that naturally our carrot growers were anxious to know if the market was going to be flooded. The minister co-operated to the fullest extent by placing a stop order on the importation of United States carrots as soon as ours were ready, but unfortunately the damage was caused by allowing importation in such vast quantities that they were put in cold storage
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throughout the dominion and kept there in order that they might be released week by week. That practice went on for several weeks.
As our young carrots came on the market, United States carrots stored prior to the stop order were used to depress the market. I realize the difficulty in meeting that situation. Possibly drastic action would have to be taken by allowing the importation of quantities sufficient only for the immediate needs of the market, and not for storage purposes.
The same is true of the importation of soft fruits, particularly in the province from which I come, where apricots, peaches, and other soft fruits are brought in from California and the state of Washington. They are more or less dumped in British Columbia because the best market for United ^ States products, as for our own, is in their home country. After the home market is supplied, the residue is usually dumped in another country. That has been particularly true of peaches and apricots along the border between British Columbia and the state of Washington. We are very anxious to stop this practice, because we have an industry that is growing rapidly and is expanding far more than we thought was possible. I have figures for peaches, apricots, et cetera, but I will only mention peaches. In the year 1939 we had 503,000 packages and in the year 1947 we had close to 2,000,000. In the current year that amount will be greatly exceeded.
"Dumping" probably is not the correct word to use, but it is one that might be applied to the existing condition where fruit is allowed to enter the country at a lower price in competition with our own. Vegetables also enter in the same manner. I have a letter here from the British Columbia Pea Growers Limited. They are speaking not only on their own behalf but on behalf of the pea growers of Alberta, Ontario, and other parts of Canada where peas are grown. I will not read the whole letter, but in part they point out that:
. . . prices of peas have been arrived at in a very-logical manner. They have been scaled to give a return to the farmer on a parity with what he could get growing wheat on the same land. Therefore they have tried to keep that price in order to induce the farmer to grow peas. There is a tie-up between the price of peas and the price of wheat. This year a serious threat to the Canadian dried pea business is posed by the surplus of peas in the United States.
The letter points out that there are many bags of peas left over from last year's crop, and there is a large increase in the crop of peas for the current year. The letter goes on to say:
The impact of this situation has been felt here where samples of last year's whole dried green peas

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graded U.S. No. 1 are offered at $3.50 per cwt. f.o.b. country shipping point which is eastern Washington. Green split peas are similarly offered at $4.50 per cwt. This price is less than we must pay our growers to produce in competition with wheat offers. It is the opinion of this office that American dealers are sloughing last year's surplus at a sacrifice in preparation for a plugged market this fall.
The letter goes on to deal with the various prices quoted and also points out that the United States government has a parity price on peas of $3.50 per hundredweight. These peas have been offered f.o.b. Moscow, Idaho, at a price of $3.85 per hundredweight which is 35 cents extra for cleaning, packing and bringing the peas to market. Canadian producers of the same commodity claim that these services cannot be given for less than $1 per hundredweight. This letter is very fair, and goes on to point out:
We realize and were advised . . . that dumping is a very difficult fact to establish, even though we may be completely sure that such activity is occurring. We are advised, therefore, to plead our case on other grounds. These may be outlined as follows:
The government support price of wheat in Canada is in direct competition with our own price to growers for acreage; the government support price in the United States to peas has encouraged much speculation and overproduction in pea growing; and from what we gather in the newspapers and from the radio, the recent agreement of the American government to allow ECA funds to purchase Canadian wheat in the face of an American surplus of wheat puts us in a very difficult position, because by way of compensation for this to the Americans, surplus American fruits and vegetables are apparently to be allowed entry into Canada. You can readily see how disastrous this action is to us, who with no government supports or favours, must operate a business in what ultimately is government competition-both here and abroad. It is on the grounds of these latter-mentioned facts that we must base our plea to Ottawa to re-impose the emergency restrictions on the importation of American peas (and beans), which were removed about one year ago, and which have subsequently piled up surpluses of Canadian canning and edible peas.


Mr. Ferrie:: How is it that they cannot produce these peas in British Columbia as cheaply as they can produce them in the United States?


Owen Lewis Jones: I did not attempt to read the whole letter, but I tried to outline that the price in Canada is governed to a certain extent by the price the land would bring if it were producing wheat. Apparently it is good productive land, and in order to get the growers to plant peas they have to give a price equal to what would be received if the land were planted in wheat. I take it that is the reason the price is a little higher.
There is one other thing I should like to mention. I feel that we must do something about our export market. I know it is a sore subject, and a difficult one, but recently in England I noticed in all the larger towns that they have a great deal more South African canned products, not only canned

fruit and vegetables but also canned fish, than when I was last there. We are losing out in the British market on a commodity in which we excel. Incidentally, everywhere I went people said to me, "What has happened to the Canadian salmon?" It is almost unobtainable in England. If steps are not taken soon to protect that market we are going to abdicate in favour of other members of the commonwealth who are, fortunately for them, in the sterling bloc.
The object of my brief talk is to impress upon the minister the vital need for restoring the overseas market for Canadian fruit and canned vegetables. I know there are difficulties as to currency, dollars, but I have noticed that other countries have overcome those difficulties either by a straight exchange of goods or by some other means. I understand there are several methods, and I would suggest that they be investigated and possibly given a trial to see if they will work out with the commodities I have mentioned. Failing that, I would certainly urge the minister to protect our domestic market with strong and forceful anti-dumping laws. It is our only sure market, and owing to the loss of our overseas market a healthy, prosperous domestic market is a must, if we are going to keep a large body of people operating successfully in the fruit and vegetable industries, not only in British Columbia but in the whole of Canada.


Mr. Diefenbaker:: Mr. Chairman, I shall not be in the chamber when some of these estimates with particular reference to agriculture will be dealt with in detail. With your leave, sir, and the leave of the committee, there are two matters that I should like to bring to the attention of the minister at this time. One has to do with a situation that has arisen in the province of Saskatchewan and to a lesser degree in Alberta.
While crops have been generally good, there are large areas in which there has been, in whole or in part, a complete failure. This afternoon the minister dealt at some length with his intention to introduce amendments in connection with the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. He set forth in detail the operation of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act and the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, joining them together as two measures designed to relieve and assist the people of the prairie provinces against recurrent drought and its effects.
The first matter to which I wish to direct the attention of the minister is-it applies in part to my own constituency and to others in southwestern Saskatchewan where there has been a total or almost total failure of the crops-that there are two or three areas in which the farmers have gone into cattle and

hog production on a large scale. They find now that the outlook for fodder in the months ahead is extremely dismal.
Over the years since 1941 provision has been made for the granting of freight assistance on western feed grains being exported to eastern Canada. A number of farmers have communicated with me, one as late as today, asking whether or not the government intends to do something towards providing free freight on fodder for hogs and cattle brought into these areas. I have before me a letter received today in which the situation is set forth in some detail. After referring to the events of the last few years, and the shipping of fodder to eastern Canada, this man says the elevator agent at his point tells him that the price the wheat board will charge for barley will be $1.17 per bushel in the elevator. He says:
I have about sixty hogs, so I will have to have about a thousand bushels of barley between now and next fall. If I have to pay $1.17 per bushel plus freight for the feed, I will have to dispose of these hogs.
Has consideration been given to the granting of free freight or freight assistance on fodder brought into these areas? I think there is a general demand for it. Secondly, could the minister direct the attention of the wheat board to the need for keeping a supply of barley on hand in the various elevators in these areas in order to meet the local situation, where barley and oats are, in fact, being produced though not in the quantities required in those areas?
The other matter with which I wish to deal is one that has been dealt with on many occasions in the past. At this time I want to add a word of congratulation to the minister on what is being done in connection with the exploratory work on the south Saskatchewan dam and irrigation project. It is not everything the people want but, at the same time, it is a step in the right direction. When this matter was before the house last year, the minister said it would be impossible to decide on the location of that dam or to proceed with the work until such time as the consent of the three provinces had been secured. The work done on this project in the last few months has been rather extensive. When the report was filed last year it was found that the benefits that would flow from this project were as follows:
(1) Irrigation of some 500,000 acres in the province of Saskatchewan. (2) Restoration of lake levels and, in particular, restoration of the level of Last Mountain lake, to which I shall not refer in detail this evening. (3) A water supply for Regina and Moose Jaw.
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During the events of recent months one of the matters discussed in Saskatchewan, particularly in the cities of Regina and Moose Jaw, was the need of something being done about ensuring these two urban centres of the necessary supply of water throughout the years that lie ahead. The development of power was another matter, but I am not going to refer to that because it has been dealt with before.
This project has caught the imagination of the people in our province and they are looking forward to more extensive developments taking place in this connection within the next year. The increase in the amount of the vote that is being requested indicates that some further development is to take place. Would the minister let the house and the country know what he can add to what he said last April regarding this matter? Has any finality been achieved in determining the location of this dam? When the location is determined, have the necessary representations been made to the several provinces and their consent secured so that the project may be undertaken?
The committee on water has been set up. Is the minister now able to say that, as a result of the work that has been done and is to be done, the project is a feasible one and that, in so far as the supply of water is concerned for the Qu'Appelle valley, particularly the supply for human consumption in Regina and Moose Jaw, that supply may be soon achieved? Will they be proceeding with the work without unnecessary delay? This is one project toward which the people of our province are looking forward and I know they await from the minister a statement which will indicate that the project will not be long delayed. In particular, they want to be assured that the urban centres to which I have referred will be assured of a water supply and that the level of Last Mountain lake will be restored, because the preservation of this lake depends on the work being undertaken at an early date.


James Garfield Gardiner: I hope the hon. member's optimism will be borne out in the discussions in committee. He suggests that he will be away for three or four days. These items that are spoken of are the last items in my estimates. I hope they will all be through when he comes back three or four days from now.


John George Diefenbaker: That is why I am giving the minister the opportunity now to give the information I have requested.


James Garfield Gardiner: Sitting where he does in the house, the hon. member probably has more justification for that optimism than I could possibly have. With that explanation, I shall

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be pleased to give what information I can with regard to the matter; but, with regard to the south Saskatchewan river project, I would suggest that the questions asked have to do with next year's estimates. The estimates we are dealing with at the present time are the estimates for the financial year 194950. As is understood by hon. members who were here in the first session of this year, we had advanced to us sufficient to carry us through the first six months. In other words, half of this vote is already spent, and any part of the other half that is going to be spent will be largely spent within the next two months because out in our country it will freeze up two months hence. We are pretty well on with our expenditures of the sum of money that is herein involved, as has been suggested for expenditure on the south Saskatchewan river project. We have placed in these estimates, and we have spent a considerable part of it already, $2 million for the purpose of determining finally whether this project is a feasible one or not. I am sure the hon. member will agree with me that until we get the report on that expenditure, which is being prepared at the present time, it will be impossible for me to give reasons for any opinion I may hold with regard to the future development of the project. It will be necessary also for me to discuss with the government the possibility of getting a vote next year to proceed farther than we have gone before I can make any statement to the committee on that matter. So I would suggest to the hon. member that when we get down to that item-I hope it will be through before he comes back, but there is some reason for thinking it may not be-I will give whatever information I can, but I doubt very much if it will be much more than I have just now given, unless it be that I am able to account to the house for the expenditures which have been made up to the present time in connection with operations this year. I agree with the hon. member that those operations have been somewhat extensive, particularly in his own constituency, but that is only because the site of the dam is located in his constituency.


John George Diefenbaker: No mistake was made.


James Garfield Gardiner: If it were in my constituency, there would be just as much spent.
Then on the other question having to do, not with prairie farm assistance direct but with the shipment of grain into the drought areas, I should just like to remove the implication in the one suggestion that there is any relationship whatsoever between the freight rate paid on grain out of western Canada into the eastern provinces and out of western 
Canada into British Columbia, and any freight which might be paid by this government or any other government on assistance given because of drought in western Canada. As a matter of fact, my understanding of the position is that we have a special rate on grain being shipped out of western Canada eastward and westward if it is going out of Canada. In other words, we have a long-standing arrangement-I am speaking now from memory and may not be exactly correct-which I think is based in part at least upon the Crows-nest pass agreement, which gives extremely low rates on the shipment of grain in Canada, both east and west, if it is on its way out of Canada.
Those low rates on that grain going out of Canada created a condition under which it was costing more for farmers in the maritime provinces and in British Columbia to get feed grain to be used on their own farms, if it was produced on the prairies, than it would cost the Chinese to get grain to feed the chickens over in China to produce eggs to sell in competition with eggs produced in British Columbia, and more than it costs the people in Denmark, Britain or elsewhere over in Europe to get feed grain with which to feed livestock to produce livestock products which would be sold in competition with those which are produced in the eastern part of Canada.
Under those circumstances, until such time as there is a consideration of the equalization of the freight rates on grain and other commodities being shipped from western Canada to other parts of Canada and vice versa, and until that matter has been determined, an appeal was made that the federal government should give some assistance toward paying the freight on the grain that is moving into those other parts of Canada. That, I repeat, is a reason and a condition that has no association whatsoever with the fact that we sometimes have drought in western Canada.
Coming back to the question of what should be done under the circumstances, since we have drought and since assistance must be given by someone in order to see to it that grain is available for the feeding of livestock in the drought areas of the west, I may say that that has always been considered to be a provincial problem. The basis upon which it has been dealt with in the past is that, when those conditions have arisen, the province has gone to the railways and has made an arrangement under which the grain has been shipped into those areas at lower rates. The basis on which the railways assisted in years gone by was this. Where the farmer paid all of the cost of the grain which was shipped to him, he paid the freight too. But where the grain was given to the farmer because of the

conditions which made it absolutely impossible for him to pay, then the governments and the railways shared the cost of shipping that grain in. In other words, as I remember it, the railway reduced their rate down to fifty per cent of the actual cost, the province took twenty-five per cent of the cost, and the iominion took twenty-five per cent. Some arrangement similar to that was made down antil the time when prairie farm assistance vas brought in. Since then the federal government has taken the position that, by taking care of relief problems in areas where there aave been crop failures, our share of the 'esponsibility has been fairly well taken care af by the payments that we make in connec-ion with prairie farm assistance. During ;hese last few years they have totalled sums -anging up to $14 million, $15 million, and 516 million; and this year, I understand, ;hey will amount to a sum about equal to the lighest of those figures I mentioned. That aeing the case, we have not considered that ;here was any problem in the west that necessitated our taking any direct action in con-lection with the matter of freight.
Last week Mr. Nollet, the minister of agriculture in Saskatchewan, was in Ottawa. Prior to that, just a few days before he came, le had written to me making representations somewhat similar to those that have just ceen made by the hon. member for Lake Centre, indicating that resolutions to that effect had been passed by some farm organ-zations in the areas where the drought had aken place, and suggesting that freight ought o be paid. No request has been made by Wr. Nollet that we should pay all the freight, le has suggested that probably we ought to Jive some assistance toward the payment of he freight.
On the other question of maintaining the ;rain in the area, that has always been taken care of by direct request of the provincial ;overnments to the wheat board, and the vheat board and the provincial governments vorking in co-operation have arranged that Tains which are necessary in order to main-ain livestock in any given area, provided that he grain is there, is retained in that area ufficiently long to permit all farmers to go o the elevators for the grain in them, or to [o to a neighbouring farmer, get the grain, end take it to their farms. As I say, a certain ength of time is given, sometimes two nonths, sometimes three months in advance, md it is indicated that no grain will be hipped out of the elevators in those areas luring that period. The farmers are notified hat they should go there within that period nd get their grain. That of course avoids, to he extent that grain is available, the neces-ity of having any freight whatsoever paid on rain that is being moved about.
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John George Diefenbaker: Has that been done this year?


James Garfield Gardiner: I imagine so. It is not our responsibility to do it. Every time that the provinces have asked us to have it done it has been done, and I would assume that the provincial government has undertaken its responsibility in that respect. There is no reason why it should not, and if they have there is not any doubt that it is being done. If it has not been done, then I am quite sure that the discussion which has been raised here tonight, if it is reported tomorrow, will bring about action which will see that it is done. From the discussion I had with Mr. Nollet last week I was under the impression that that kind of thing had been done-at least he did not suggest to me that there was anything further for us to do about it in order to see that it was done. Therefore I presume it has been done. The only question that he had in his mind was as to whether we did not think we had some obligation in the matter of paying freight, and he based it on the fact that we were paying freight on grain going east and west. I explained to him, as I have explained to the committee, that we did not think there was any connection between the two things, and therefore no responsibility passed on that line. I also referred to the arrangement which had always been made by the railways, and he explained to me that that seemed to be impossible at the present time. The railways do not acknowledge that there is any way in which they can deal with the situation. In addition to that, they have also denied the farmers the special rates which they had been allowing on seed grain. On the railways in years gone by there was a very special rate, a low rate, on grain which was being shipped from one place to another in order to provide seed. It was based on the idea, the better the seed the more tonnage the railways would have to ship; but this year for some reason or other-I presume it is associated with the investigations which have been made into freight rates-the railways have cut out all the special rates. They have cut out the special rates on taking livestock to fairs. Everything of that nature has been struck out. Therefore the farmers are having a little more difficulty in getting arrangements made. It is on that ground that Mr. Nollet suggested that probably the federal government ought to do something. I have asked him to write to me, giving me a detailed statement of the position that they find themselves in. I have suggested to him that after I receive that detailed statement I shall be quite prepared to place the matter before the government; and, when I do receive it, it will be placed before the government.

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Mr. Studer:: It is not my intention this
evening to prolong the discussion on the estimates; but since I am one of those who have come from Saskatchewan, one of the new members, as we are called, perhaps it would not be amiss to let the committee know that fourteen of us came back from Saskatchewan this year, and we think that if we kept quiet all during the session hon. members might not be aware of the fact.
Since it is customary for one who speaks for the first time to extend congratulations, perhaps it would not be out of order if I went along with the others. Most of those who have spoken so far have extended congratulations to the mover and seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. I can assure them in all truthfulness, as one of the new members, that the speeches were two of the best I have ever heard in this house, and I can also say that they were two of the best speeches that I ever expect to hear.
Compliments have been paid in considerable number to prominent people, including our Prime Minister. It was suggested that this one or that one was responsible for the winning of the past election. We should like to agree with all that has been said. Remarks have also been made to the effect that agriculture is the backbone of a nation and that the economy of a nation is founded on agriculture, or we can call it food. I believe it is. I believe that the general economy of the world is founded on food. I so believe for this reason, that man can get along without anything else except food. It is the one essential of life. I believe that the economy is based on food. If that is true, and if the welfare of the people of Canada, as well as that of other countries, is based on the production of food, and if the welfare and prosperity of the farmers are based on what has been produced in the way of food, and on export and its prices, then we should compliment one man who has been outstanding in connection with the prosperity of Canada, namely, the present Minister of Agriculture. If prosperity has been in evidence as a result of agriculture, he is one of the men who have brought this about. In saying that, I do not wish to detract from what has been said in all kindness-and I agree with it-of anyone else, or of any other member of the government. These remarks apply not only to the Minister of Agriculture but also to his assistant, the deputy minister, and to his other assistants. If we continue to have prosperity in Canada it will be due to the prosperity of agriculture. When the farmer is prosperous everyone is prosperous. That has been true up to date. I do not think this government can ever originate or bring into

operation any plans which will make the farmers too prosperous. I do not believe that that has ever existed on earth. The onlj danger to this country and to every othei country arises when agriculture is not prosperous, because the whole economy of everybody in this country is built on a prosperous agriculture. We should keep that in mind There is no danger of agriculture ever becoming too prosperous. The more prosperous it becomes the more prosperous everyone else in this country becomes.
I should now like to turn to the estimates if I may. I just wish to deal with one item I hesitate to throw a discordant note intc what has been said so far this session. Much has been said about improving conditions; and this is as it should be. Even the opposition has been in general agreement that the country has not done too badly up to now that the government has not done too badly and that there is some measure of prosperity in the country. There is some evidence ol international wheat agreements which will result in security, and there is some stability in regard to prices. We are all interested ir increasing agricultural prices and making them permanent. However, in some parts ol the country, I regret to say, the people art still suffering. The hon. member for Lake Centre dealt with it just a moment ago, a: did the Minister of Agriculture this afternoon I believe he said that in some large areas ir Saskatchewan the situation is as bad as ii was in 1937. I am one of those who believt that when one member of the body suffers the entire body suffers. Not all the communities in Canada are prosperous. We wan' to endeavour to bring all of them along, a' least in some degree.
Incidentally, I believe the expression "croj failure" was coined in the constituency oi Maple Creek. I believe that was one of th< first places where people suffered such i thing, if I remember correctly. I have beer there for thirty-three years and I cannot give any good reason why I am still there, because on an average in the last five years I have not had five bushels to the acre. But : believe there is good reason for saying that I along with others, have stayed there because we are firmly convinced that over a perioc of time we will create some stability in tha country. We know that we will, and we are not prepared to throw up our hands and te leave the country, and thus follow the line of least resistance. If we were to leave the country it would be detrimental to its furthe: development.
We are not prepared to do that. We believe in that area of the west, and as time goe: on and as problems increase in this world, i one looks at the map of this country and o:

the United States and determines what areas are suitable for agriculture, he must conclude that those areas on the face of the map of Canada are pitifully small in relation to world development of the future and to the production of foodstuffs for people throughout the world, to which Canada can make so great a contribution.
Therefore those of us out in those areas feel that if you will just bear with us and continue assistance to us over a period of years-and it will not be too long-it will turn out all right. After all, it has been only ten years, and there have been many countries on the North American continent which have suffered for more years than that before they became self-sustaining. We believe that if you will bear with us we will make ourselves self-sustaining, and make as great a contribution to the future welfare of Canada as will any other area of this country.
For a few moments I shall refer to crop failure, to which reference has been made today. In that connection we would suggest that consideration be given to continued assistance for another short period of time, until we can make ourselves self-sustaining. We should have the advantage of P.F.A.A. assistance to make our conditions livable, and make it tolerable for the people in this country, who have suffered through these long years in trying to make their contribution to Canada. We should make it possible for those people to realise their ambitions, to stay in that area and build their homes.
Some of us will move, because that is a country of vast extent. The constituency of Maple Creek has, I believe, 265 polls in it. It extends about 180 miles along the Montana border, and about 80 miles along the Alberta border. People will be moving out of that area in sufficient numbers when the incentive is provided for them, or when they have better possibilities to earn a living elsewhere.
As we know, the dominion government has no land available on which they can settle. It might not be agreeable to the other provinces to move these people to irrigated land in other provinces. I think it is the intention of the government-certainly I hope it is- to make it possible for those people to obtain land the government will have in irrigated areas, and in whatever province they may be, so that when they have to move they will move to a place not under the same conditions, thus they would have a better prospect of making a living.
In the meantime those people are there. I am one who believes that to make that area productive we have to increase the methods we have been following. Farmers must have more land in arid areas than they need in 45781-7
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those parts of the country where they have an annual rainfall of from twenty to thirty inches. There may be some people willing to move to those irrigated areas which are provided. Then we will follow a system of double summer-fallowing of our land and summer fallowing of our water and summer fallowing of grass. We have to summer-fallow our water out in the west. You will build a dam through P.F.R.A. which will hold the spring runoff, and so that you may have sufficient water to irrigate. Last spring there was very little runoff, so that we have had to build other dams to hold two years' supply, so that in a dry year we will have sufficient water to irrigate the land.
If we get moisture we will make a contribution to this country-and I hope in the not distant future. We will not be standing here asking for assistance for the dried-out areas of Saskatchewan in the Maple Creek area.
Meantime, farmers have been getting along with prairie farm assistance. It was never intended from any other motive or for any other reason than to keep the people off relief, as was pointed out this afternoon by the Minister of Agriculture. However, in the minds of the people of Saskatchewan the dominion government is the senior government, and the one responsible for a greater share in the interests of those people. Some think that the payments to farmers under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act should be increased, and we are repeating that to the government. We believe that, in those townships which have suffered crop failure two years or more consecutively, a supplementary bonus should be paid for the coming year. Owing to the decreased value of the dollar below what it was in 1938, when the act was brought into force, they will be able to pay the same amount at the present time, with the increased amount of the supplementary payment, that was paid when the act was brought into force in 1938.
To illustrate what would be involved: During the ten-year period from 1938 to 1948 there were 1,810 townships in the three western provinces which yielded less than four bushels to the acre. That would be an average of 181 townships for each year for ten years. If these figures are correct, and the same happens in the next ten years, it means that not more than 181 townships in any year in that ten years would come under this program.
So I would ask for consideration by the government in giving assistance to these people during these most difficult times. They are interested in their spring operations. Sometimes people think that, when we speak of townships with five bushels or less on an

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average, the yield in that township is five bushels, or the equivalent of $10. But only too often there is no yield whatsoever in the township, and consequently no revenue.
I would suggest to the government, therefore, that they give consideration to this, so that it may give some benefit and some relief. This will not be a gift, because I know it will be repaid a hundredfold. These thoughts, Mr. Chairman, I humbly offer for your consideration.


Mr. Argue:: In rising to speak this evening I wish to express my pleasure in seeing the Minister of Agriculture once again restored to health. So far as we could tell this afternoon, he had never been ill at all. Apparently, however, our impression would be wrong, because I noticed in the press that shortly after the election he had gone for a ride in the Saskatchewan air ambulance plane. I am sure it speaks well for that service when a man of the standing of the Minister of Agriculture is prepared to take a chance in what many people call a C.C.F. plane.
I can agree with much of what has been said by the hon. member for Maple Creek. It is true that conditions of farming in that area are very risky. Crop failures occur frequently. However, it is still an area which can be a permanent agricultural area, and it could give a satisfactory standard of living to the people who reside in that country if certain agricultural policies were followed by the government.
I believe one of the most important problems with which we should deal at the present time is that of soil conservation and land utilization. I am glad to see that some steps are to be taken to protect our forests.
I should like also to see legislation advanced to protect land under cultivation. Dr. J. J. Booth of the Department of Agriculture, writing in a booklet called "Summary of report of special committee on land use", had this to say in respect to land in the eastern provinces:
In reviewing the past, an examination of census statistics in the use of land in the older provinces reveals that four million acres, at one time classified as improved land, have been lost. These census figures do not take into account abandoned farms, and an additional area, which might well total several million acres, has been lost through complete farm abandonment.
It is thought that of major and primary concern is that conservation policies should aim at protecting the productivity of land in active use and increasing its efficiency.
There is land which, because of topography and nearness to water, could best be used under irrigation; but irrigating two or three million acres more land in western Canada than is irrigated today is solving only
[Mr. Studer.l
one problem of land utilization. It will not stand us in very good stead if we merely increase our irrigated acreage considerably and then lose from production, by bad cultural practices, much of the land that we are now farming.
I suggest that the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act should be extended. More money should be made available for the taking of certain land out of the production of wheat and putting it back into grass. Money should be available to farmers in certain afeas who are to contour farm and regrass slopes that have been badly eroded. Money should be used to buy farms from some farmers whose unit is uneconomic. The policy in the past has been to fence in a large acreage as a community pasture and then try to obtain some suitable farm land to be exchanged for the land being put into community pasture. Sufficient money should be made available to purchase outright from farmers the land placed in community pastures. With the help of money received from the sale of submarginal or inferior land a farmer could buy better land and be able in the future to look after himself and his family more in keeping with an adequate Canadian standard of living.
At the present time the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act pays a farmer $125 for the construction of a dugout but in our particular district the farmer himself must pay the contractor $300. If the farmer has a crop failure during a dry year, and often that is the only time he can construct a dugout, he may find that he has not the additional $175 needed to pay for the dugout. I suggest to the minister that this allowance should be greatly increased, at least doubled, so that the farmers can afford to build dugouts and conserve the spring runoff.
I was interested to hear the Minister of Agriculture say this afternoon that the main reason the government had not undertaken a crop insurance scheme was that the federal government did not have sufficient constitutional power. I do agree however that an insurance scheme against crop failure, as we understand ordinary insurance schemes, is not practical for western Canada, at least for many parts, since in a high risk area premiums would be entirely too high. But I do not think the minister should use the constitutional argument as an excuse for not expanding and improving the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.
I was interested to hear the minister state that the payments under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act were probably just about enough to cover a farmer's grocery bill for the past summer. A farmer would not need to

have a very large family to find that it would not go even as far as that. I wonder how the minister thinks a farmer can obtain money with which to meet his other expenses if the payments under the act are sufficient only to meet his grocery bill.


James Garfield Gardiner: I said store bills.


Hazen Robert Argue: For groceries and clothing. That is in keeping with some of the advertisements put out by the Liberal party during the election campaign, which said that the amount was sufficient for the grocery bill and the clothing bill, and to some extent would pay the other farm expenses.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Why does not the hon. member keep within the bounds of truth?


Hazen Robert Argue: I would ask the hon. member to withdraw that remark.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: I do not have to withdraw that. The hon. gentleman made a statement.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


The Deputy Chairman:: The hon. member for Assiniboia has requested the hon. member for Mackenzie to withdraw a certain remark he has just made. I am sure the hon. member for Mackenzie does not want to offend the hon. member for Assiniboia in any way and therefore I think the hon. member for Mackenzie is ready to reconsider the remark he has made.


An hon. Member:: We hope.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Mr. Chairman, do I have to withdraw that remark if I can prove that the hon. member is wrong?


Hazen Robert Argue: I have asked the hon. member to withdraw his remark, but apparently he does not think he should. I realize he is a new member. I know something of the reputation he has earned for himself in certain parts of the country, and, knowing that, I shall not press the matter any further. I just want to say-


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Mr. Chairman-


Hazen Robert Argue: I have the floor.


Louis-René Beaudoin: I would add to the
remark I have made by saying that I do not think the hon. member for Mackenzie intended to impute any motive to the hon. member for Assiniboia. He merely questioned the accuracy of the statement made by the hon. member for Assiniboia. At a later stage the hon. member for Mackenzie will perhaps seek to prove his assertion.


Hazen Robert Argue: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sure if I have made an incorrect statement about Liberal advertising the minister will correct me, and I shall be willing to 45781-7J
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stand corrected. I was saying that the present payments under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, agreeing with the minister, are certainly no more than enough to pay the farmer's store bill. The farmer's store bill is only a very small part of the expenses he must incur in farming each year. He must pay his taxes. If he has a complete crop failure he must buy seed. He must buy fuel, and pay for repairs. He must carry on all his farming operations for at least another twelve months, and certainly $200, $300, $400, or a maximum of $500, as the case may be, is not nearly sufficient for the farmer to do that.
I am glad to learn that amendments to the act are being brought in at this session. I understood from the minister this afternoon that the basis for payment, the township, would be reduced. I welcome that announcement, but certainly even that change is not nearly sufficient. This group would like to see the payments made on a more equitable basis. We would like to see them paid on an individual basis. I should also like to see the residence qualifications, if I may term them that, changed to some extent. At present to obtain payment a farmer must reside on his farm from the first of May until the first of November. A number of my friends and neighbours had crop failures this year. Some of them had very small farms, and some quite large farms. They did not want to stay at home on the farms all winter with very little income, so they have moved to the cities to obtain employment. A number of them feel that unless there is an increase in the amount of precipitation before next spring they are not going to return to the farms. If they do not go back to the farms, then they cannot qualify for payments under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. I think it is certainly not a wise thing to ask a farmer to remain on his farm two or three months after his crop is lost and twiddle his thumbs merely to obtain the bonus.
As I said before, we would like to see the money paid under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act greatly increased. I think the maximum payment of $2.50 an acre is far too small and should be increased to at least $6 an acre. If it were increased to $6 an acre that would be somewhat less than the selling price of four bushels of wheat per acre. Surely no one would suggest that farmers would stay on their land merely to obtain the bonus even if that bonus were increased to the sum of $6 per acre.
It has been stated that economic conditions in western Canada are pretty good. It is true that the prices of non-farm products are reasonably satisfactory, but it must be borne in mind that the farmer's costs are also high. We should keep in mind that, with the

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farmer's costs high, it is much more difficult for a farmer to operate when he has a crop failure than if the government had maintained some control over his costs, some control over the cost of his machinery, oil, and so forth.
The announcement yesterday of the devaluation of the Canadian dollar will increase the farmer's costs to some extent. The devaluation of the British pound announced on Sunday is going to make it more difficult in the future for us to hold the British market. Prices of our products are going to go up to the people of Great Britain. We are concerned lest our markets in Great Britain continue to fall. We all know that the quantities stipulated in the food contracts that have been signed for this year are very much less than they were a few years ago. I have them here, but I will not tire the house by quoting the figures. The contracts have dropped in some instances to less than fifty per cent of the quantity a few years ago.
In western Canada there is a trend away from the production of coarse grains and livestock to the production of wheat. That is all right if we have an assured market for the quantities of wheat that we are likely to produce in the years ahead. But from articles that we read from day to day we know that the world's production of wheat is increasing rapidly. According to a Canadian Press dispatch from Ottawa on July 8, world wheat stocks are now almost as high as they were back in 1930. We have an initial price continuing until July 31 of next year of $1.75 a bushel basis No. 1 northern, Fort William, but the government has not announced what policy it will follow after that date.
It is true that we have a guaranteed market under the international wheat agreement which our group supported. Canada's share in the agreement at the time it was signed was 203,000,000 bushels of wheat per year. I wonder if the Minister of Agriculture would tell us at some time during the discussion of these estimates whether or not all the countries have entered into that agreement so that we can in fact expect an export market thereunder of 203,000,000 bushels.
I noticed a few weeks ago that all the importing countries had not yet signed, and therefore we are not assured of a market for even 203,000,000 bushels of wheat per year. That quantity of wheat per year, if the international wheat contract operates to its fullest extent, is still perhaps 100,000,000 bushels of wheat per year short of the quantity necessary to absorb all our surplus wheat.
The government may very naturally congratulate themselves, and we congratulate them as well, on their election to office with

so large a majority. Naturally the government and the Liberal party are pleased that their support in western Canada has been increased. I do not know all the reasons for that increase in support. The farmers I talked to around the first of June felt that one of the reasons they could safely support the government was that the government, beginning August 1, was removing oats and barley from the grain exchange, and the wheat board would be the sole marketing agency for those grains. On June 1, 1949, there was a Canadian Press statement reading as follows:
The Canadian Press Wednesday learned that the complete buying and selling ol western oats and barley will be taken over by the wheat board, leaving the grain exchange only the marketing of rye and flaxseed.
An earlier announcement from the trade department merely stated that the board would undertake the marketing of coarse grains and did not indicate the extent.
The Canadian Press later learned that the marketing of coarse grains, similar to wheat, would be removed from the grain exchange.
In all the reports of the speeches of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), from that day until the end of the election, I did not see any denial of the report that the wheat board was going to handle oats and barley in exactly the same way it has been handling wheat. We were therefore surprised indeed on August 1 to find that the wheat board was buying coarse grains at local elevator points and using the facilities of the grain exchange to market the grain.
We in this group, and we think the organized farmers of western Canada agree with us, believe that the grain exchange should be closed permanently and that speculation and fluctuating prices should be removed in the sale of grain. Next year the government should change its policy in respect to the initial price for oats and barley. At our local elevator point, the barley sold nets the farmer 67| cents, that is for No. 2 feed barley. The price of oats is something over 40 cents per bushel. The return on wheat at that local point is $1.58-| a bushel. The return on a bushel of wheat therefore is more than twice as much as for barley and almost four times as much as for oats. If these prices continue, the farmers will be forced to abandon the seeding of coarse grains next spring, and I think that would have serious consequences.
Mixed farming is the only method by which agriculture can be continued on a sound basis. After looking at the wheat markets of the world today, I think all of us agree we cannot be certain of an adequate market. I would therefore urge upon the government the need to increase the initial price for oats to 75 cents and barley to $1 per bushel at local points. Then farmers will continue to seed

some coarse grains and by that means maintain agriculture on a more sound basis.


Mr. Stewart (Yorkton):: Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the Liberals from Saskatchewan, I wish to congratulate you on your elevation to your present position. We from western Canada are not used to this eastern atmosphere; the air is heavy, so it will take us some time to get used to it. You have already had one demonstration in the house and I am afraid, Mr. Chairman, while I am congratulating you on your elevation to your position, before the Saskatchewan delegation is finished with our friends over there to the left you will have plenty of time to exercise that discretion which I hear you possess in such large measure.
This house has been regaled for two days by the members from Saskatchewan in the C.C.F. party. We in Saskatchewan feel some responsibility for that party because it started in our province. I believe I speak for the fourteen Liberal members from Saskatchewan when I say that, since it started there, it is up to us to eradicate it from that province. I think we can assure you that three years hence that job will be done.
Our friends have a right to speak in this house, however. They have exercised that right for two days continuously. Yesterday we had a demonstration when they introduced an amendment concerning old age pensions, not with any hope of securing old age pensions but simply for the purpose of political propaganda.


Mr. Knowles:: Order; there are two points of order, Mr. Chairman.


Louis-René Beaudoin: Order. I am afraid I must point out to the hon. gentleman that we are now dealing wth the Department of Agriculture.


Alan Carl Stewart: The point of order is well taken and my point has also been well taken.
We are fortunate in having as Minister of Agriculture a man from an agricultural province. Some bright newspaperman who works for the Ottawa Journal inserted an item in Saturday's paper to the effect that the Minister of Agriculture and I had almost engaged in fisticuffs twenty years ago and that we were sitting in approximately the same relative positions in this house as we occupied in the Saskatchewan legislature. We can scrap fairly quickly and get over our difficulties just as quickly. The Liberal party in this dominion has proven it is broad enough to take in anybody in Canada.


Arthur Leroy Smith: You said it, brother.
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Alan Carl Stewart: I had not noticed that my hon. friend the member for Lake Centre was not in the house. I regret that he is not here. I believe that eventually hon. gentlemen of the Conservative party are going to find out that he was elected by half the Liberal votes in his constituency and that he will be taken into the Liberal party.


An hon. Member:: Taken in is right.


Louis-René Beaudoin: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but if we are to make any progress I would ask him to keep to the item.


Alan Carl Stewart: I am coming down to the agricultural estimates. Certain remarks have been made in connection with those estimates, Mr. Chairman, by the members of the C.C.F. They have criticized the administration of the department. Most of us have read the pamphlets they brought in, even the Christian Science Monitor. I think they have brought in every pamphlet except Eaton's catalogue and the Western Producer. The Minister of Agriculture and the efficient officers in his department have read most of these treatises.
The group for whom I am speaking represents thirteen rural constituencies in the province of Saskatchewan. I believe my hon. friends in the C.C.F. have one practical farmer in the person of the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright). He is quite free to join us in consultation on agricultural matters.
In connection with the estimates for this department, there are certain things that bother the western farmer, whether he is from Saskatchewan, Alberta, or Manitoba. I realize that the Minister of Agriculture is not in charge of the selling of our grain but that the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) is charged with that duty.
I trust that when I question the minister, even though he may to a certain extent have to usurp some of the functions of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, he will try to give us some information that will be useful to our constituents. For instance, one thing that is bothering the western farmer is the matter of the surplus grain that has been accumulated in the United States. Those of us who are familiar with grain handling realize that, by a system of subsidization which is followed in the United States, and by increasing the acreage the last few years until last year, the United States has gradually accumulated a surplus of wheat. We also realize that England has been purchasing our western grain with United States funds.
We as members from Saskatchewan have discussed the matter, and if it will aid the

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minister at all I may say that we feel that a strong protest should be made to the representatives of the United States government, suggesting and requesting that on no account shall their excess of grain be declared surplus and Great Britain be required to buy that grain with Marshall dollars. We are naturally concerned about that matter. I do not know whether the minister wishes to make a statement about it or not. That I believe is the feeling of the Saskatchewan Liberals and I believe it will be the feeling of those here representing a farming constituency. It will be noticed that in the United States congress and senate it has been advocated that wheat be declared a surplus. We representing the western farmers should make it known to the United States that we are strongly opposed to that action being taken, and that we do not think it is fair in view of what has happened between our respective countries and under the United Nations.
Last night we listened to the announcement made by the Minister of Finance. Whether we belong to the C.C.F. or to the Liberal party, we are all here together representing our constituencies. I think we are concerned rather deeply not only over the effect of the devaluation of the British pounds-over which, of course, we have no control-but also as to the effect of the devaluation of the Canadian dollar by ten per cent. Our cattle now have access to the United States at a reduced duty. In view of the fact that we now receive ten per cent more for our cattle as a result of this drop of ten per cent in our money, I would ask the minister whether in his opinion the farmers of western Canada and of eastern Canada who are exporting cattle to the United States can logically expect to receive roughly ten per cent more for their cattle shipped over to the United States. I believe that would be correct. I think the same thing will apply to alfalfa seed which is sent from northern Saskatchewan, practically all of which goes to the United States, and also to the shipment of our seed oats particularly, of which we send a great quantity to the United States.
Our friends in the C.C.F. do not like to point out the benefits of what the government does, but I think they should be optimistic enough to realize that those are effects that we can expect-ten per cent more for our farmers in connection with those products. The situation in the British market is one of concern. But again I say that we have nothing whatever to do or say about the devaluation of the pound. That was purely a matter for Great Britain herself to settle, and she has settled it. Naturally it will take more pounds to pay for Canadian farm products. But the whole object of the devaluation

-and again I do not think we should be unduly pessimistic-is that England expects to get on her trading feet, and figures that this is the way to do it. After all, I say again to my friends in the C.C.F. that they should be optimistic because in England there is a Labour government which at one time they held in high esteem. They have done that in England, and while it may temporarily hurt some of our exports, I believe the minister has stated that we have been able to export everything we have in the line of farm products except apples and an excess of wheat. That is the situation so far. I do not know whether the minister will want to make a statement on what effect, in his opinion, this action will have on our bacon market, but it would be of interest to us. I would ask him what, in his opinion will be the effect on our wheat agreement with England next year. As I understand it, it will mean ten per cent more for the western farmers. Is that correct, in the opinion of the minister?


James Garfield Gardiner: I think the present position is, as I said this afternoon, that our wheat agreement provides that wheat be paid for in Canadian dollars. Therefore the price of the 1949 crop will be as has been arranged under the agreement, and the farmer will get the same as he would have got had there been no change in Britain. But on the long-time agreement which starts with the 1950 crop, the arrangement made in that agreement is that payment is to be made in terms of
U.S.A. dollars as they were on the day that the agreement was signed, which means that we shall be paid for our wheat on the basis of $1.80 in United States funds; and the reduction of ten per cent which has been brought in by this government will mean an increase of approximately eighteen cents above that, which puts our wheat for the term of the contract in this position, provided that the present thirty per cent devaluation continues in Britain and the ten per cent devaluation continues in Canada, that we will get by what we did approximately eighteen cents more, which would put our wheat back close to $2 in Canadian dollars instead of $1.80, which the farmer would have received had exchange remained at par.


Mr. Larson:: I understood some time ago that the matter of marketing wheat under the Canadian wheat board had been fairly well settled. Many of the members of the committee know of the struggle that the farmer and the farm organizations went through to get their wheat marketing away from the open exchange. The reason this was done I will leave to your imagination, although I can explain it. But whenever we have had

a great deal of wheat on hand we seemed to have low prices. Finally, with the concurrence of the province, the federal government established the Canadian wheat board. I think the committee is with me in congratulating the Minister of Agriculture on the matter of marketing wheat. Just after that wheat board came into existence we began to get floods of propaganda to the effect that the farmer had lost some $400 million. Since that time participation payments have been made to the extent of nearly $400 million. I noted here this afternoon that one of the hon. members claimed that we have lost $525 million. I almost hope that is right. The Minister of Agriculture somehow or other produced the $400 million. I wonder if somehow he now can produce the other $125 million. I think we have been fairly well dealt with.


Mr. Byrne:: I should like to associate myself with all those who have extended congratulations to all the ministers and their associates. I am certainly wholeheartedly in agreement with everything that was said, and I do not wish to take up any more of the time of the committee except to congratulate the minister under questioning on his recovery. I am certainly glad that he is back with us today.
The constituency of Kootenay East, which I represent, is an extensive one and its industries include farming, mining, logging and small businesses. Although it is not a good political position to take, it has been customary for me to say exactly what I think; and on this occasion I intend to do so. I have been elected from a diversified constituency. You will find in that fact conclusive proof that I am a Liberal and have been elected on the same basis as a great number of hon. members here also who are prepared to look after the best interests of all in our society.
With regard to the farmer, the hon. member for Yale and the hon. member for Kootenay West outlined the difficulties which are prevalent in the fruit-growing areas. There is a large fruit-growing area in the western portion of my riding. These hon. members must have made an extensive study into the difficulties that prevail among the fruit growers. I should like to say further that I hope the government will continue in their policy of expenditures looking for further markets, markets which are certainly essential to the welfare of the fruit-growing areas.
It has been said by the hon. member for Yale that the domestic market is one on which we are prone to rely. I feel quite certain that when the estimates for some of the other departments come up we shall fully realize that this government is making forward plans which will ensure the develop-
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ment of Canada in general and British Columbia in particular, thereby providing employment for a greater number of people in that area. There is one small matter which is of concern to the Creston valley, to which I refer. During the war years and shortly after the war a great number of people migrated to the balmy Creston valley. Probably they had not heard the speech of the hon. member for Vancouver South but they must have heard a similar one because there is an excessive number of people there at the present time. In order to sustain the people who are there I should like to suggest that in the estimates the government make every effort to see that irrigation is provided for some of the arable lands in that area. By doing so they would ensure an efficient industry being established there. In my riding milk is 22 cents a quart. I am sure that a market could be provided in Kimberley, which is a mining area, and also in Trail, which has a large industrial plant. If some of these fertile fields were irrigated it would help to solve the problem of a slightly overpopulated district.
We have one problem which I think is unique in my riding and it concerns the farmers in the great Columbia valley. The Columbia valley is some two hundred miles long. I might add that my riding is another fifty to seventy-five miles longer than that. It runs approximately close to three hundred miles in a northern and southern direction. The farmers in the northernmost portion of my riding are in the position of having a very small market for their produce, unless they are able to journey to Calgary, a city with which you are all familiar. It is a logical market for their produce. They also desire to purchase in the city of Calgary equipment, supplies and so on for their farms. However, they are in this unique position. Although they are only one hundred and sixty-three miles from Calgary they find it necessary to travel four hundred and seventy-five miles to get there. They have to travel from the northern to the southern part of the riding and then westward to the Crows-nest pass and up to Calgary to take the smallest amount of produce to market. That is a condition that I heard of only in the last year, although it has prevailed for a considerable length of time. The reason for that is that they do not have highways connecting the Columbia valley with Calgary and other large centres in Alberta, but they have two national parks between them and this large city. Because they are not allowed to drive even the smallest truck carrying the smallest amount of produce through those parks into Calgary, they find it necessary to travel these four hundred and

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seventy-live miles. I ask the minister to use his good offices and make some effort to alleviate this irregularity which is prevalent in my riding. Since I represent a large group in a large riding, and since I speak for them, you will hear more from me.


Mr.   Baler@: Mr. Chairman, we shall now leave British Columbia and come back to Saskatchewan. In doing so may I say that I happen to be one of the fourteen Liberal members who come from the province of Saskatchewan. I started on my way on June 27 last.
At the outset, sir, I should like to concur with other hon. members in congratulating the Prime Minister on his return to this house as Prime Minister of this great dominion. Along with other hon. members I should also like to congratulate the mover and seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. Last, but far from least, may I say I am pleased to see that we have with us in the house tonight one who just a few weeks ago we were afraid might not be with us on this occasion. I am referring to the one who is in charge of the department which we are discussing tonight, namely, the Minister of Agriculture.
Since we are dealing with agriculture estimates, Mr. Chairman, I shall try to stay as close to that subject as I possibly can. I shall try to the best of my ability to stick to the point in my few remarks.
After listening to the many speakers today we have all come to the conclusion that agriculture still has many problems, hazards and pests. We have heard of the new pest from Manitoba, the aphid. We know we have drought in southwestern Saskatchewan. We had the grasshopper. Then we have heard of a new one, one that I had never heard of before, which is attacking the nut growers of British Columbia. They too have their problems. But their problem is one which has been mentioned once or twice before in this house. I refer to tariffs. In connection with agriculture I have heard some say that tariffs should be reduced or taken off. Others have said that they should be increased. I hold in my hand a letter which I received from the secretary of a rural municipality in Saskatchewan, which brings to our attention that there are other pests in Saskatchewan at this time. This one happens to be weeds. In this letter this municipality advises me that during this season they have used upwards of a hundred and thirty thousand pounds of atla-cide in the attempted destruction of toadflax. They, too, think they should have assistance.
Something was said about the loss to western agriculture on the price of wheat. I question whether we have lost anything. Let

me repeat what I said last summer on the hustings, and I say it now in all sincerity, that I do not think there is any government in any country of the world-and I am taking in a lot of territory-which has endeavoured during the pre-war, the war and post-war periods to do more for the stability of agriculture than has the government of this country. When we take into account subsequent payments for our wheat, in face of the fact that we have sold all our wheat, I think it is possible we will not have lost one cent.
I wonder if we are altogether fair when we make comparisons with our neighbour to the south in the matter of grain prices, especially wheat prices. I believe I am correct when I say that our neighbour consumes about 80 per cent of the wheat she grows, whereas we export 80 per cent of our wheat. Our problem, and the problem of this government, or any government which may hold office in Canada, has been and will be the great problem of marketing our grain. I believe this government will see to it that we get every cent that it is humanly possible for us to get in the sale of our wheat.
Something has been said about prairie farm assistance, and the minister has said that amendments will be brought down. I have every reason to believe and hope that in the amendments consideration will be given to bringing under this scheme more farmers who have less than eight bushels to the acre, and less who have more than'eight bushels to the acre.
I shall conclude my few remarks by saying that I believe this department, under the direction of the Minister of Agriculture and his deputy minister, will keep its sights high and see to it that measures are brought down from time to time, possibly in this very session, which will bring about a greater measure of stability for Canadian agriculture.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Mr. Chairman, I understand you are keeping us very close to the item under discussion this evening. Therefore I must justify what I intend to say, because I intend to speak about higher education. I say that with some confidence, because the minister and I graduated from the same school of higher education. He may disclose that in what he does and says now; but I am frank to admit I was a faker there -and some of you think I am now.
In those days in the place where we went the courses were limited under which one might graduate. There was natural science- and that was the one I chose because, upon inquiry, I found that was the easiest way to become a bachelor of arts-there were classics, moderns, mathematics and philosophy. That about ran the gamut of those

subjects with the aid of which one could acquire this so-called higher education. While the minister and I attended the same school,
I graduated by trickery-I got a medal for it, as a matter of fact. The minister, of course, was the sterling character that he is now, and did not take advantage of things as I did- for instance, crawling up a rain pipe to steal the examination papers in botany before I wrote them. And that was my last connection with botany; I do not mind telling you that.
I find now, however, that higher education has gone much further-and I use the expression "higher education" as being synonymous with university education. Now we find that degrees are given to women. The minute they learn that when they quit eating starches, fats and sugars they lose weight, that gives them a degree. I think, too, that we should give a special degree to those who discover that you can have a proper beefsteak only when it is broiled over charcoal. But that would be a new departure in higher education.
The thing that disturbs me at the present time, and which compels me to speak now, is that I now see a new departure in higher education, namely the game of football.


An hon. Member:: The Calgary Stampeders.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I hear an echo from my left, from a supporter of mine and of the Calgary Stampeders. For several days I have sat here listening to congratulations, in the hope that no one would say what I am now going to say, and that is to congratulate and to welcome the more than ninety new members who have come to the House of Commons. I say that for a number of reasons, but principally because we welcome them to this so-called finest club in Canada. My old friend Carl Stewart from Yorkton, who spoke a moment ago, has now arrived in a club where he is absolutely welcome, and there are no conditions or anything of that kind to detract from full membership in this organization. So I am sure they will all be happy here.
As I said a moment ago, the new course of football has now been introduced in higher education. I say that because I come from a place called Calgary, where we have the best football club in Canada-and even if the Secretary of State for External Affairs had been here, I would assert that as a simple fact. We have the Grey Cup. I do not know of any better proof than winning the Grey Cup.
But returning to my subject of higher education: we had three very good lads out there named Pullar, Tomlinson and Wilmot, who formed a good part of our line. They were Calgary born, and splendid lads. But in this higher education McGill stole the
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three of them from us two days before the season opened-and we had only two days to replace them.
You will realize, Mr. Chairman, that I am addressing my remarks to the first item in this department. Under the agricultural estimates we find a vote for research, which brings me back, right in the groove, so to speak, and in line with what the minister has in mind. I have seen a lot of football players; I saw some in Ottawa last Saturday. It appeared to me that they could not get any higher education in football; they are all quite clever. But while I was watching them it occurred to me that higher education may be obtained in various ways. Having seen them I thought the best method would be to bore a hole through their heads. That would not hurt them very much and you could then pour in the higher education through the hole, and God knows what might happen after that.
I know that there are many alumni of the old university of McGill here and I want to compliment them upon being the great protectors of amateurism. But the fact is that they stole three players from one club because they were able to pay them more money than we can. That is how we are being protected in this sport business. Then they came along and took another one who was the best kicker I ever saw. He was already getting higher education because he belonged to the university of Alberta.
I congratulate the alumni of McGill university on having raised money to make higher education available to poor boys who are not able to pay their way through college or whose parents are not able to pay for them. But the father of this boy could buy out the whole side of this House of Commons and have plenty of money left to live on the rest of his days. But they were willing to pay more for higher education than we can pay for football players. Perhaps that is a new idea. Perhaps it is an excellent thing. Dear old McGill! May their colours some day rise from the bottom of the heap to the top. I ask you to pass your judgment on these raiders of professional football clubs.
How do I attach all this to the agricultural estimates? Your guess will be just as good as mine. I notice in the estimates that a lot of money is to be spent for research. We all live from the soil; that is the basis of everything we have and do. I think if the minister were really put to it he could justify it. I have never known a man who could justify things as he can. I know that if he were really put to it he could find something in his estimates which would provide a new scheme instead of having to bore holes through their thick skulls. I know that he and his research staff

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could find a better method of finding out whether they can kick a football farther than anybody else.
I pay that compliment to his natural ability which has been so much enhanced by the fact that he has sat where he is for so long. I spoke to him a moment ago and asked if he did not think we were getting a little beyond things. He replied, "I think probably we are." I did not say it then, but I say now that the minister is a past master par excellence at that sort of thing.
Now that I have finished my speech on the agricultural estimates I hope that the people of McGill university will not send out some low-flying aeroplanes to spread insecticides which will do almost anything but help these lads pass their examinations. It must be remembered that our club is well represented in this House of Commons. I am vice-president and the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition are both honorary vicepresidents. Last year I gave them definite assurance of that in the form of a cleverly drawn certificate with a little red ribbon on the corner and all that sort of thing. That was drawn by my stenographer because I was not capable of doing it. I turn now to the agricultural estimates and in that respect I am going to take a great deal of your time in saying exactly nothing.


James Arthur Ross: Now that our dollar has been devaluated I wonder if the minister could state what our quota of cattle is to the United States and what was the total exported last year by producers in Canada?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is no quota on our cattle going into the United States. An arrangement was made prior to the war under which we were permitted to export only so many cattle. All countries in the world were permitted to export only so many cattle to the United States. During the war that regulation was dropped, but it was understood that after the war it might be reinstated. Foot and mouth disease has developed in Mexico since the war, with the result that no cattle from that country are permitted to enter the United States. No restriction was placed upon cattle from Canada to the United States. My memory is that last year somewhere between 450,000 and 500,000 cattle went from this country to the United States.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Did they pay any extra duty?


James Garfield Gardiner: They paid the reduced duty.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Did they all pay it? My memory is that it was a cent and a half for the first 200,000.
[Mr. Smith (Calgary West).!


James Garfield Gardiner: That would have applied if the quota regulations had been enforced, but my information is that the quota was not enforced last year.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Administration service-
2.	Publicity and extension division, $242,760.
Percy Ellis Wright: The details show that $52,000 is for acquisition of equipment and $25,000 for the printing of agricultural bulletins. This branch was set up to disseminate information with regard to various agricultural activities and I am wondering why $52,000 should be needed for the acquisition of equipment and only $25,000 for the printing and distribution of this material.


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand that the extra $25,000 is required owing to the fact that during the war the printing and distribution of this material was greatly curtailed. Now that there is a greater demand we are trying to meet it by printing these publications for distribution across the country.


Percy Ellis Wright: What was the equipment that was required to the value of $52,000?


James Garfield Gardiner: Motion picture equipment amounting to about $10,000 was acquired.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Administration service-
3.	Advisory committee on agricultural services $5,000.
James Arthur Ross: Who constitute the personnel of this committee and what are their duties?


James Garfield Gardiner: Two committees in connection with agriculture are more or less of an advisory nature. The first is composed of the ministers of agriculture of the different provinces of Canada. There have been some changes compared with the list I have here, but whoever happen to be the ministers of agriculture in the various provinces comprise the advisory committee on agricultural services. The chairman is the Minister of Agriculture for Canada. That is the committee itself. The advisory committee is composed of the deputy ministers and the deans of the different agricultural colleges of Canada.


Mr. Ferguson:: In view of the comparison of prices given today by the hon. member for Souris, and in view of the statement made that 400,000 head of Canadian cattle were exported last year to the United States, does the minister not think that there is not only a nigger in the woodpile but also a wolf in sheep's clothing as far as the poor people of Canada are concerned? The consumers of

Canada are paying these high prices, and apparently it is a fact that it is not the farmer who is making all this money, but somebody else. The prices board could well afford to investigate the situation to see where the robbery is occurring. A prices commission sat here last year. When one hears the Canadian retail price for meat, and the fact that we shipped 400,000 head of cattle to the United States and paid a slight duty on them, and when one learns that the United States consumer buys these meat products at a lower price than the Canadian consumer pays, then it is almost time that the government set up a fact-finding committee, including representatives of agriculture, to investigate the exorbitant high cost of living in Canada today.


James Garfield Gardiner: This is not just the item upon which that matter should be discussed, but I think that I probably should correct the impression that may have been created. Speaking this afternoon someone-I think from the C.C.F. group-suggested that we should have some proof that an undertaking given to this house by the previous Prime Minister and myself is being carried out. That undertaking was that over a certain period of time after the war, and after prices for farm products had gone down in the United States, the farmers of Canada would still receive something more than the farmers in the United States were receiving. The reason for that was, as has been stated by one of the members on this side of the house, I think it was the member for The Battle-fords, that we succeeded in stabilizing farm prices in Canada. Everyone agrees that we did not permit farm prices to go up as high as they went in the United States for a few months following the removal of their controls. During that period many members on the other side of the house suggested that we were robbing the farmers of this country because we did not permit these prices to rise.
During that period, it is true, the Prime Minister of that day, and I as Minister of Agriculture, said that for some time after prices in the United States did come down to our levels an effort would be made to maintain our prices at a stable level in order that some of these returns might go back to the farmers. I am not sure that the hon. member has selected a good item when he takes beef, because the hon. member for Souris did not read all the items in the article he referred to this afternoon. I happened to have the article in my pocket when he was reading it, and I took it out of my pocket and checked it rather carefully. In so far as pork products are concerned, it is true that prices in Canada are somewhat higher than they 45781-8i
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are in the United States. For example, it is stated in this article from the Winnipeg Free Press that sugar-cured sliced rindless side bacon at St. Paul is 43 to 49 cents a pound whereas in Winnipeg it is 47 cents a half pound. In other words, the price of bacon in Winnipeg is just about double what it is in St. Paul.
It is stated in this article that the claim is made by the packers of Canada that what you are talking about when you talk about Canadian bacon is quite a different product from what you are talking about when you speak of bacon in St. Paul. That may be true, but they go on to say that some people like United States bacon just as well as Canadian bacon.
On the other hand, taking spring lamb, it is 59 cents in St. Paul and 59 cents in Winnipeg. If you take a pot roast of beef, commercial grade, it is 39 cents in St. Paul and 38 cents in Winnipeg. There is not very much difference there. A T-bone steak, commercial grade, is 59 cents in St. Paul and 57 cents in Winnipeg. In so far as beef products are concerned, they appear to be almost the same, or possibly slightly lower in Canada than they are in the United States.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: Have you considered the value of the United States dollar, as admitted by this government? It is higher.


James Garfield Gardiner: The two currencies were supposed to be at par at that time.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: No matter what they were supposed to be, the fact was that they were not.


James Garfield Gardiner: I must say, in the light of what my hon. friend has said, that I used that same argument myself in another place the other day, and I was informed that ninety per cent of the transactions between Canada and the United States are on the official level, which is par. I presume that transactions such as those between cattle dealers on this side of the line and cattle dealers on the other side have been on the official basis. When I go to the United States and spend some money and try to pass a Canadian dollar it is true they cut me down to 90 cents right now, and have done so in the past; but in so far as official transactions are concerned they are carried on on the official basis, which is par. Therefore the prices at St. Paul are comparable.
I say as far as beef is concerned there is not any great difference. I should like to say, in reply to those who represent constituencies that are largely composed of persons who are consumers and not producers, that we thought two years ago, and we still think, that as

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regards some of these farm products it has been justifiable to maintain prices in Canada at a slightly higher level for a period of time than the level to which they have gone down in the United States, as a result of the fact that United States prices were allowed to go up as high as they did and our prices were held down for the few months during which that condition prevailed.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Administration service-
4.	Contributions to commonwealth bureaux, $86,139.
Percy Ellis Wright: Where are these bureaux situated to which we make this contribution, and does Canada supply any of the personnel?


James Garfield Gardiner: The commonwealth agricultural bureau is a bureau that compiles information from different agricultural departments all over the world that may be of use to people in other parts of the commonwealth. A bureau has been conducted in London during the past few years. One of those bureaux was transferred from London to Ottawa during the war period. My understanding is that it is to remain here. These bureaux were set up for the purpose of gathering information from all parts of the empire and sending it to anyone who may require it in order to form a judgment as to whether that particular part of the empire should proceed in the same way. The only way that information could be made available was to have it accumulated at one place and have each section pay a proportion of the cost. This item covers Canada's share.


Percy Ellis Wright: How are the personnel for these bureaux selected? Are they selected from the various countries?


James Garfield Gardiner: The scientific services in the different countries select the men who are to serve on these bureaux.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Science service-
5.	Science service administration, $680,079.
Mr. Harkness:: The major portion of this item amounting to over $500,000 seems to be for the acquisition and construction of buildings. It is so large a sum, I wonder whether the minister would explain what buildings this item covers?


James Garfield Gardiner: The reason for putting it in this item is that it is concerned with a number of divisions, that is production, experimental farms as well as some of the others. There is no one item under which we could put these buildings, so we have placed them in the item covering scientific services. Keally, they are concerned with scientific services.

One building for which this money is being provided is being opened at Lethbridge the day after tomorrow. As my hon. friend will know, that building has to do with the study of certain diseases in livestock. For a long time it was located at a different point outside the city of Lethbridge and some distance from the experimental farm. It has now been located closer to the experimental farm. A year ago the money was provided for the land on which to construct this building. It has been constructed and is to be officially opened the day after tomorrow.
Another of these buildings is located at Sault Ste. Marie in the northern part of the province of Ontario. It is connected with the department of entomology and is concerned with the fighting of forest pests. We have those buildings established at different places across Canada and the money is for them.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I understand that this item covers a series of buildings. Could the minister tell us how many?


James Garfield Gardiner: Those I have named are the major ones. I believe a start has been made on a building at London, but it is not completed. I believe those are the three buildings involved.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Would the minister tell me what amount was spent on the buildings at Lethbridge to which he just referred?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am sorry, but the information we have here shows a lump sum for the three buildings. I have not a breakdown of the expenditure, but I can get that information for the hon. member at a later date. I can bring it in when my estimates are again before the committee.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Would the minister tell the house what progress has been made in the investigation into "little cherry" disease? What staff is employed now on that work?


James Garfield Gardiner: Would the hon. member return to that matter when we reach the item concerning' botany? In that way, the information can be given in the order in which we have it here.


Mr. Stewart (Winnipeg North):: Does the item discussed a few moments ago cover the acquisition of the land?


James Garfield Gardiner: No. As I said a while ago, the amount for acquiring the land was obtained in a previous estimate about a year ago. After the land was obtained, this amount was needed for the construction of the building.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

Science service-
6.	Animal and poultry pathology, $353,515.
Mr. Pearkes:: Early this summer the animal pathological laboratory which had been located at the experimental station at Saanichton was transferred to the university of British Columbia in Vancouver. For a great many years that animal pathological laboratory under the direction of Dr. Bruce had served the needs of the dairy and poultry farmers on the southern portion of Vancouver island. Since its transfer to Vancouver, these people have been deprived of those services. I realize that these laboratories serve a double purpose, one of research and one of servicing the general needs of the farmers in the area.
It is likely that the research functions can be carried out to better advantage at the university of British Columbia. This means, however, that the poultry and dairy farmers of Vancouver island are left without the services to which they have been accustomed for a great many years. There is a shortage of civilian practitioners on Vancouver island and such as there are are located mainly in the cities where they look after pets. The people in the rural areas are deprived of the services of a qualified veterinarian.
I realize there will be difficulties in returning that laboratory to Saanichton. It might not be desirable, but I would ask the department to have Dr. Bruce, who has retired, replaced by a qualified veterinary officer so that the services which were carried out by this laboratory for so many years might be continued. Would that be possible?


James Garfield Gardiner: I shall certainly have the matter investigated to ascertain whether that is possible. I was just asking whether the station at Saanichton had been entirely closed. I am given to understand that such is not the case and some work is being carried on at that point. Some work has to be centralized on the mainland at the university, but that would be there in any case. This work will be continued at that point. I would think there is some justification for suggesting there should be some services available on the island and I shall look into the suggestion.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I should like to speak on this item for a moment because we have fought for many years to have that station moved from Saanichton to the university of British Columbia or the Agassiz experimental farm. One of our biggest assets, particularly in acquiring United States funds, is the shipping of purebred cattle to the United States. All the tests for those cattle had to go over to Saanichton. Any one farm in the Fraser valley has more cattle on it than the whole of Vancouver island. The logical place for
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these tests to be made was at the university, if not right in the centre of the Fraser valley. After all the years we fought to get the station moved, if the minister or his department attempts to move it back to a point where there are only half a dozen cattle and a few chickens raised by the retired people of Saanichton, there will be a battle.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Science service-
8. Botany and plant pathology, $1,154,500.
James Garfield Gardiner: The question asked was as to what the position is in connection with little cherry disease of cherry trees. Little cherry disease is caused by a virus continuously spread in the Kootenay and Arrow lake district as revealed by a survey conducted by dominion and provincial officials. The insertion of buds from diseased cherry trees into peach, prune, apricot, choke cherry and wild cherry and of buds of peach, prune and choke cherry growing near diseased cherry trees into healthy trees and the artificial pollination of healthy cherry trees with pollen from diseased trees, all failed to produce any clear-cut symptom the following year as would be expected if the little cherry disease had been transmitted. A tree-to-tree survey was conducted in the Okanagan valley by provincial officials with the assistance of the staff of the Summerland laboratory of plant pathology, which covered all the southern part up to and including Kelowna. No tree with definite symptoms of little cherry disease was found. One tree in the Oliver district was removed on suspicion.
All that indicates is that investigations are going on and the results of those investigations are as they are shown here. In answer to the question, all I can say is that the work is still going on.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Science service-
10.	Agricultural entomology, including a payment of $3,500 to the commonwealth biological control laboratory, Belleville, Ontario, for special services, $1,321,926.
James Arthur Ross: I should like to ask the minister what his entomologists have found with regard to the probable outbreak of grasshoppers in each of the three prairie provinces in 1950, and what success they have had in controlling the outbreaks this summer. Many farmers are greatly concerned about what the situation will be next year.


James Garfield Gardiner: The practical battle against grasshoppers on the ground is carried on by the provincial governments. My information is that during this last summer they have been fairly successful in combating the grasshopper plague. I presume that is because

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the means of doing it now is much more highly developed and they have more successful means of doing it than they had a few years ago. This department is making a survey to determine what is likely to be the position next year, but that survey is not yet completed. There is therefore no information that I can give out which would be of any great help at the present time. It may be that before the session is over, and maybe before we are through with these estimates, we shall have a report which I could give to the committee. But at the moment it does not exist.


James Arthur Ross: I hope the minister will give us that information. His officials now make surveys in the different districts, and it would be beneficial if, when he has the report, he would at some time give the committee the benefit of the surveys.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Science service-[DOT]
11.	Forest entomology, $1,087,490.
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: What work is undertaken under this item of forest entomology, and where are investigations being carried out in Canada at the present time?


James Garfield Gardiner: Some forest entomology work is being done in every province in Canada; but of course the greater part of the work is done where the greater forests are. That is in British Columbia and Ontario, and in some of the eastern provinces. Of course, where disease is threatening, a considerable part of the work is done there. But in direct answer to the question I would say that work is being carried on in every province in Canada.


Heber Harold Hatfield: Why should it come under the Department of Agriculture?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is a matter of research, and a considerable part of the entomological work must be done in the Department of Agriculture. I do not say that the forestry must be done there, but the same experts who deal with insects that are pests to crops are experts in the handling of insects which are pests to trees. As a matter of fact, in most countries forestry is considered as a part of agriculture. The production of trees is considered to be agriculture just as much as the production of any other crop that grows out of the ground. As to entomology, in the department here the practice is followed of maintaining the staffs to do this work, both for forestry and for agricultural products, under the operation of this department.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
TMr. Gardiner.]
Science service-
12.	Plant protection, $639,320.
Percy Ellis Wright: Has the department any information with regard to the rather severe infestation of a weavil which has destroyed the small sweet clover and alfalfa seedlings in the northern part of the three prairie provinces? There has been a rather serious outbreak in the last year or two. I was wondering if the department had any information on the matter or if they had any methods of control worked out with regard to it.


James Garfield Gardiner: The proper place to have asked that question was, of course, on the last item, which dealt with entomology. This particular item is to prevent the bringing in of commodities in such a way as to bring along with them diseases of one kind or another. The question asked comes under the other item. I do not think we have any information with regard to the matter, but I am pleased to be informed that there is some of that infestation in the area mentioned, and we shall see that someone looks into it.


Ernest George Hansell: I should like to make a suggestion to the minister. I think most of us know that the government is desirous of protecting our orchards and our plants by destroying the diseases that may come into Canada from the United States by way of the transportation of certain fruits. I am just wondering whether the customs authorities at the border points where that rule applies might give to those coming in with fruit some reason why this regulation is in force. I make that suggestion because we can quite understand that, if a carload of peaches or something of that nature comes into Canada, it is likely to bring in some disease. But this regulation does not apply only to commercial quantities coming into Canada. It applies to certain types of fruit no matter how small the consignment may be. A tourist may come along with twenty-five cents worth of peaches in a bag. He is informed that he cannot go any farther unless he eats those peaches; or if he does not care to eat them there are disposal cans at the back of the immigration buildings where he can dispose of the fruit. That is what happens. That was my experience. I was not going to dispose of any fruit in that manner. Therefore I sat there and ate it, and I also shared my bag of fruit with the immigration authorities who were quite happy about it, too. But while I was there I noticed one or two who were highly incensed as they hustled off with their few peaches, or whatever they had, and dumped them into the garbage can. I did not know anything about this and so I asked one of the authorities, as we were standing there eating our fruit together, why these regula-

tions were put into effect. I said, "I am a member of parliament at Ottawa and I must confess in my ignorance I had not heard of it before." He said, "It is a regulation of the Department of Agriculture." He explained to me that some type of germ, moth or something got into the stones of this fruit and when people ate the fruit they threw the stones away. The stones dried and the moth, or whatever it was, flew out and the orchards became infested with the disease. The explanation was a good one. I do not expect them to go out of their way to tell a long story to every tourist who would come in, or to citizens of our own country who cross into the United States; but it would be more satisfying to those who come in if some word were given to them in that regard. I might even suggest a little printed sheet. It would not have to be elaborate. This sheet could be handed to them and it would explain the matter to them.


James Garfield Gardiner: The procedure followed is that the officials of the customs hold up the fruit or other product which might be carrying disease into the country. It is just possible that some of these men are not equipped with the knowledge which would make it possible for them to make a full explanation. The regulations are there, and it must be done. The fruit or vegetables, as the case may be, are held until one of our inspectors goes there and inspects it. That might take place after the traveller has gone through. It is a regulation made to apply probably to larger quantities, and it may apply successfully to larger quantities. It is more or less of a nuisance for people who are going hurriedly back and forth across the line. Possibly the last suggestion made by the hon. member is a fairly good one, that these men be supplied with slips upon which the explanation is made. All they will need to do is to hand it to'the person. I think it is good and we shall consider that method of dealing with it. Some way should be found of giving these people the information. I may say that it is a regulation which does not apply only to this country, as everyone knows. A very high official came to me a short time ago and said that he could not get certain plants put on an aeroplane going to England. He was a very high official from Britain. He said he was surprised that he could not send these plants to Britain, and that they would not accept them on the plane. I said, "That would not be our regulation, that would be a regulation of your own government." On checking it he found out it was a regulation of the British government. They could not load on a plane here to be taken into Britain certain
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plants which might carry diseases from Canada to that country. It is a general regulation and a good one as applied to plants being moved from one country to another throughout the world. But I quite agree that some way ought to be found of telling the ordinary person who is just going back and forth across the line why the commodity is being seized.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I suppose the answer to the problem is that you should not bring into Canada moths in your stones, as the hon. member tried to imply.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Experimental farms service-
13.	Experimental farms service administration, $113,470.
Mr. Knight:: Is this the correct place to discuss what we call forestry farms? We have one in Saskatoon.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: I should like to say a word or two on that question. What is the work carried on there? Is its only purpose the growing and distribution of small trees for the purpose of farmers establishing shelter belts and so forth? I shall have a word or two to say afterwards on another use which I conceive to be perhaps even better than that. In the meantime, is that the business of that particular institution?


James Garfield Gardiner: The purpose of these forestry farms is to propagate trees to be supplied, I think free in all cases, to farmers in the prairie sections of western Canada. So far as the one at Saskatoon and the one at Indian Head are concerned, they deliver largely to farms in Saskatchewan, but they also deliver to farmers outside Saskatchewan. The reason for that is that it is very difficult to grow trees in some parts of that section of the country.


George Alexander Cruickshank: And anything else.


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend back here says, "and anything else". We did a better job of feeding all of our people than they have done in British Columbia with the farm lands there. But in any case, trees are put out to farmers free of cost on condition that they plant them under the regulations which are laid down by the department.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: Can the minister give me an estimate of the number of trees which have been distributed annually, and during the last year for instance?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am informed the number would run up to five or six million trees a year.

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Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: The other use of that particular farm is one which should be mentioned. I should like to pay a tribute to the Department of Agriculture and to the management of that particular farm. This particular forestry farm, as the minister knows, is just a mile or two out of my city. It is on the north side of the railroad town of Sutherland, and thousands and thousands of people during the summer months find relief from the heat by going out there on Sunday afternoons and in the evenings after work. That particular farm is fulfilling a fine function in that regard. It is a farm which is particularly well kept. The lawns in particular are like a cushion and the flower beds have been beautifully kept during the last year or two. I suppose the present management has been the inspiration of it. They are now making a small attempt at an animal park. They have a few deer and pheasants and that sort of thing.


Mr. Lennard:: And mosquitoes.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: I should like to say to the hon. gentleman that probably he has more experience with mosquitoes than we have.


Frank Exton Lennard: I was out in Saskatchewan and I was nearly chewed up.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: May I say to my hon. friend that there were more things than mosquitoes that were chewed up in Saskatoon during this past summer. In saying that, I am being just a little political. I shall get back to my story.


Arthur Leroy Smith: It may be
political but it is not politic.


Frank Exton Lennard: It is not good politics.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: This, sir, is higher education. To go back to this particular item, and I have a reason for mentioning it, the minister has said that there is a particular difficulty in growing trees in that area. I do not know what dust does to trees, but the only fault with that particular farm is that the trees and the flowers and the lawns are continually covered with a coating of dust. In dry weather, which is normal in our part of the country in the summer, with the thousands and thousands of cars which are travelling over the road and the avenue into that particular place during the summer, there is a constant cloud of white dust, which is a menace. During the last summer the town of Sutherland approached me, as the member of parliament for that district, and I was also approached by the council of the city of Saskatoon and asked to bring this dust menace to the attention of the proper govern-
ment department. They asked that the road which goes through that part be hardsurfaced.
The matter was brought to a head by the fact that the provincial government had been persuaded to hard-surface the road through the town of Sutherland. The dust menace, as I have no doubt the minister knows, is particularly bad there because all the traffic travels down the main street-perhaps I should say the only business street in the town. The dust was constantly in people's eyes, in the stores and everywhere. The provincial government did hard-surface the road through the town. I do not remember whether the pavement goes farther than the railway tracks, but the idea was that while the machinery was there on the job perhaps the dominion government might have been persuaded to co-operate with the province and hard-surface this particular stretch of road leading to this beauty spot.
We know that in the middle of the summer the minister was busy, as were many of the rest of us-and probably engaged in the same sort of business. I was informed that in the absence of the minister nothing could be done about it, and that certainly there was no provision for such an item in the estimates. I tried the Minister of Public Works, with the same results. When I went there I was referred back to the Minister of Agriculture. I take this opportunity tonight to suggest to the minister that there might be some way in which the dominion could co-operate, as a result of which a good road might be built into that particularly beautiful spot, out of which so many people gain restful pleasure during the summer.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Experimental farms service-
14.	Central experimental farm, $1,330,560.
Heber Harold Hatfield: Why is there this increase in the expense in connection with carrying on the central experimental farm? About nine years ago the estimate for this farm was only about $400,000. Why do we have all these extra men and this extra expense at the farm?


James Garfield Gardiner: There has been a great deal of discussion in the house on the matter of increasing wages of persons employed at the farm, and increasing the salaries of scientific personnel associated with the farm. All of that has resulted in an increase as compared with some years ago. However, it will be noticed that, as compared with last year, there is this year in the item a reduction of $85,281. So that in the estimates of those two years we have this year a reduction rather than an increase.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: How much land has been added to the experimental farm in the last two or three years?


James Garfield Gardiner: The Caldwell farm was added in the last twenty-four months. I am not sure of the size, but I believe it was either one hundred or one hundred and fifty acres.


Heber Harold Hatfield: That makes 827 acres for the whole farm.


James Garfield Gardiner: The total is about 1,100 acres.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: What was the cost per acre of the farm?


James Garfield Gardiner: I shall have to work that out, because 1 have not that information before me. I shall bring it down tomorrow.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: Then, may we let the item stand?


Heber Harold Hatfield: What is the revenue from the farm?


Alistair McLeod Stewart: I should like the item to stand until we have an answer.


Heber Harold Hatfield: Would the minister tell the committee the amount of revenue from the farm?


James Garfield Gardiner: If the item stands I shall answer all that later.
Item stands.
Experimental farms service-*
15.	Branch farm and stations and illustration stations, $3,819,403.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Has any provision been made for an illustration station in British Columbia in connection with small fruits such as raspberries and strawberries? If so, where? Has any station been established in connection with tulip and daffodil bulbs? If so, where?


James Garfield Gardiner: A survey is being made to establish an experimental station in connection with fruit. I was asked the question today by way of a note from one of the new members from British Columbia, and I replied to him to the effect that a survey is being made, and that when a report is received it is our intention to establish a station somewhere. I am not in a position to say at the present time just where it will be.


George Alexander Cruickshank: It is for small fruits?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. The station which does give out information in connection with the growing of bulbs, and which has been established for that purpose, is at Saanichton. It is in operation now.
Supply-Agriculture


George Alexander Cruickshank: Quite a large amount of money is involved. Will the minister give consideration to establishing an experimental plot at the present experimental farm at Agassiz. We brought in some bulbs from Vancouver island, and some disease has developed in our Fraser valley bulbs.
The minister has said that they are considering establishing a station somewhere; I suggest that it should be located where the small fruits are grown. Let me point out that 85 per cent of small fruits are grown around the central part of the Fraser valley, and I suggest that would be the logical place for the station. I am not particularly concerned about where it is located, but that would seem to be the logical place for it.


Mr. Gibson (Comox-Alberni):: I do not like the inference left by the hon. member for Fraser Valley, that the diseased bulbs came from Vancouver island.


James Garfield Gardiner: Some work is being done at the Agassiz farm in connection with bulbs. I believe the hon. member is right when he says that there is not enough work being done in connection with small fruits. It is my understanding that quite a number of people in that section of British Columbia have a feeling that we ought to move the farm. I do not know that that will be done. Probably there is some good reason for having it remain where it is. No doubt some work will be done there in due course. But the general opinion, as a result of a survey, is that the station should be farther down the valley. I am not sure that that will be acted upon, but it indicates the present position.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I should be consulted before a change is made.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I have had inquiries from farmers in Alberta in connection with the experimental farms in the province and I should like to ask where those are located, what particular type of work is being carried on, and the number of personnel employed in each instance.


James Garfield Gardiner: There are farms at Beaver-lodge, Lacombe, Lethbridge and Fort Vermilion, and then there are other experimental stations here and there throughout the province. The general practice is to rent land from a farmer, allow him to utilize the crop for any purpose desired, provided he follows instructions in seeding and permits people to be taken on to the farm to be instructed as to what is being done.


Douglas Scott Harkness: What are the activities being carried on at each of the four main farms?

Supply-Agriculture


James Garfield Gardiner: There are eleven stations in Alberta, there are seventeen in British Columbia and fifteen in Saskatchewan. Those are all apart from the experimental farms. Very few if any of those experimental stations are on land that we own; they are generally on land rented from the farmers.
With regard to the work carried on, Lethbridge has to do with the type of agriculture carried on in that district and, as hon. members know, the Lethbridge area is an irrigation area. Another type of work carried on has to do with the large stock farms and ranches in that area. There is a considerable amount of work being done to promote the production of the best type of stock for those ranches.
Mixed farming is carried on in the central part of the province and the farm there is to assist in the carrying on of agriculture in that area. Persons engaged in agriculture have access to the farm and the farm officials go out on extension work, particularly to the illustration stations that are established here and there.
The work carried on at Beaverlodge has to do with the utilization of two types of land which fortunately are to be found on that farm. The farm is situated on the edge of two large areas and experimental work is carried on in order to assist farmers going onto those lands.
The Fort Vermilion farm is 500 miles north of Edmonton and one can understand the type of work that would be done there. We endeavour to indicate to people going into the far north the manner in which they can best set themselves up in agriculture in that area.


Mr. Shaw:: Approximately a year ago considerable publicity was given to a government announcement that a special station would be established in Alberta to operate either out of Lacombe or Beaverlodge in order to study the grey wooded soils. Has that station been established and, if so, where has it been established and what progress has been made in this work?


James Garfield Gardiner: As 1 mentioned, some eleven stations of this type have been established. There is one at Rocky Mountain House which contains some of that soil. There are two types of soil there and experimental work is being done. It is intimated that at an earlier session it was suggested that we might be establishing other stations to take care of that work. We are giving consideration to these matters at all times. I have no definite information, but I have no doubt that the

matter is still being considered. If not, I shall inquire into it and see that it is.


Mr. Applewhaite:: It may be a surprise to hon. members to know that the representative of Skeena should take an interest in agriculture, but I would assure hon. members that agriculture is only one of our primary industries. I think the minister will bear me out when I say that he has been approached by the Terrace board of trade and other organizations in the Skeena valley on more than one occasion requesting the establishment of a small illustration station in order to ascertain the value of the soil there for the production of small fruits and vegetables.
I regret that I cannot agree with the hon. member for Fraser Valley, who suggests that as his district has demonstrated its ability to produce more fruits and vegetables it should now have an illustration station in order to prove that they can so do. I suggest in all seriousness that the location of Terrace coupled with the tremendous development that is going on in the north-central area of British Columbia justifies the government in establishing a station there so that farmers may be advised what type of produce they should grow in order to take advantage of the markets which are now right at their doors at Prince Rupert and Prince George.
It may be said that there is already a station at Smithers, but Smithers is 141 miles from Terrace and as between the two locations there is a tremendous difference in the terrain. The type of farming carried on at Smithers is largely grain and stock raising whereas the type of farming carried on at Terrace is the growing of fruits and vegetables. Terrace is the growing area possibly closest to the Pacific coast and it can readily supply the market at Prince Rupert. I request that the minister give consideration to this matter.


James Garfield Gardiner: Representations were made to the experimental farms branch of the Department of Agriculture to have such a station established at Terrace and that branch has agreed that one should be established. At the present time they are looking over the area with the idea of selecting the farm upon which it ought to be established, and I can assure the hon. member that we will press on with that work as rapidly as possible.


Louis-René Beaudoin: Shall the item carry?


Some hon. Members:: No, stand.
Item stands.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

James Garfield Gardiner: Before I move the adjournment of the house I should like to say that tomorrow we shall continue with the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne. I move that the house do now adjourn.
It being two minutes after eleven o'clock, the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[The following items were passed in committee of supply]:



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
Administration service-
1.	Departmental administration, $282,160.
2.	Publicity and extension division, $242,760.
Supply-A griculture
3.	Advisory committee on agricultural services. $5,000.
4.	Contributions to commonwealth bureaux, $86,139. Science service-
5.	Science service administration, $680,070.
6.	Animal and poultry pathology, $353,515.
7.	Bacteriology and dairy research, $125,335.
8.	Botany and plant pathology, $1,154,500.
9.	Agricultural chemistry, $368,823.
10.	Agricultural entomology, including a payment of $3,500 to the commonwealth biological control laboratory, Belleville, Ontario, for special services, $1,321,926.
11.	Forest entomology, $1,087,490.
12.	Plant protection, $639,320.
Experimental farms ser.vice-
13.	Experimental farms service administration, $113,470.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, September 21, 1949