1949-02-24

Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Roselown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. In Le Devoir of Wednesday, February 23, appears a letter by their correspondent, Pierre Vigeant, of which the translation of one sentence is as follows:
The C.C.F. party continues a systematic struggle against all French immigration or those who might be susceptible to becoming French.
May I say that the C.C.F. has always urged immigration into this country regardless of race, creed or language, provided that those who come here will become good citizens of Canada. May I say that in a statement issued on October 18, 1948-and this has application to the emigres who have been the subject of discussion in this house-we said this:
The C.C.F. fully supports the recent government decision to admit French nationals to Canada on the same basis as British nationals. But this decision must be safeguarded against opening Canada as a haven for ex-nazi collaborators of the Vichy regime.



NEW MEMBER INTRODUCED

[Stage Direction]
Renaud Chapdelaine, Esquire, member for the electoral district of Nicolet-Yamaska, introduced by Mr. George A. Drew and Mr. Georges H. Heon.

Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I wish to announce the decision of the government in regard to increasing the initial price being paid to western producers under the Canadian Wheat Board Act. As hon. members of the house know, all wheat delivered to the Canadian wheat board between August 1, 1945 and July 31, 1950 constitutes a five year pool. When this pool was first established, the initial price was set at $1.35 per bushel, basis No. 1 northern wheat in store Fort William, Port Arthur or Vancouver.
Last March parliament amended the Canadian Wheat Board Act to give the governor
lin council power to increase the initial price jbeing paid to producers. At that time the Canadian wheat board had a substantial cash surplus on hand arising from its operations during the first two and a half years of the five year pool period. The government decided that at that time the initial price to producers would be increased from $1.35 per bushel to $1.55 per bushel, basis No. 1 northern wheat in store Fort William, Port Arthur or Vancouver. Accordingly the board was authorized to increase its initial price to $1.55 per bushel effective April 1, 1948. At that time provision was made whereby the board would make the new initial price of $1.55 per bushel effective on all wheat delivered to the board between August 1, 1945 and March 31, 1948. This retroactive payment involved the distribution of 20 cents per bushel on 776 million bushels of wheat and the distribution of about $155 million among producers delivering wheat to the board during the period to which I have referred.
At the end of the crop year ending last July the board again had a substantial operating surplus, and this surplus has been increased substantially as a result of sales made during the present crop year. During 1948-49 the board is selling wheat to the United Kingdom, under the Canada-United Kingdom wheat agreement, at $2 per bushel plus a carrying charge of 5 cents per bushel; the board is selling wheat for domestic purposes at $2 per bushel plus a carrying charge of 5 cents per bushel. Substantial export sales have been made to countries other than the United Kingdom at prices in excess of $2 per bushel. Having regard to these facts, and having regard to the price assurance involved for the crop year 1949-50 as a result of the $2 agreement price already negotiated for the final year of the five year pool, the government has decided that the initial price paid to western wheat producers can now be increased by a further 20 cents per bushel, or to $1.75 per bushel, basis No. 1 northern wheat in store Fort William, Port Arthur or Vancouver. This increased initial price will apply on all wheat delivered to the Canadian wheat board since August 1, 1945, and all wheat which will be delivered to the board up to and including July 31, 1950.
The government has taken the necessary action under the Canadian Wheat Board Act to increase the initial price of wheat to $1.75

Wheat
per bushel, basis No. 1 northern in store Fort William, Port Arthur or Vancouver. This increased initial price will become effective on April 1, 1949. The Canadian wheat board is therefore proceeding to increase its buying price at country points on April 1, 1949. The board is also taking the necessary steps to make the new initial price effective as from August 1, 1945. This involves payment of 20 cents per bushel on all wheat delivered to the board between August 1, 1945 and March 31, 1949. The board estimates that its receipts under the five year pool up to March 31, 1949, will amount to about 1,070 million bushels; consequently producers will receive a total of about $214 million in respect to their deliveries from August 1, 1945, to March 31, 1949. When these adjustment payments have been completed, the initial price under the five year pool will have been increased from $1.35 per bushel to $1.75 per bushel, basis No. 1 northern wheat in store Fort William, Port Arthur or Vancouver, and as a result of the two adjustments in the initial price authorized by the government, producers will have received retroactive payments of approximately $370 million.
The government has decided that this payment should be made to western wheat producers prior to seeding, and to that end the Canadian wheat board will commence the distribution of cheques on March 31. As a result of the previous adjustment payment, producers' certificates for the period August 1, 1945 to March 31 1948 are now in the hands of the board, and the 20 cent payment on deliveries during this period will be issued at the rate of 40,000 cheques per day commencing on March 31. This rate of distribution is in line with the capacity of the post offices to distribute mail in excess of normal quantities, and the ability of the banks to clear the large number of cheques involved. The rate at which cheques can be mailed, in respect to wheat delivered to the board after March 31, 1948, will depend upon the rate at which producers send their producers' certificates to the board for payment.
In effecting this distribution commencing at the end of March, the government has in mind the expenses which wheat producers incur in seeding their crops and in carrying out their spring and early summer operations on the land. The government also has in mind the fact that a large number of wheat producers in western Saskatchewan and eastern Alberta harvested small crops last year. Over substantial areas yields per acre have been low for the past two seasons. Under these circumstances the government feels that an early payment in respect to deliveries

since August 1, 1945 will be most helpful if made prior to seeding.
I might add that the Canadian wheat board is making arrangements to give preference in the mailing of cheques to areas which harvested short crops in 1947 or 1948.
In conclusion I should like to point out that the decision which I have announced means that wheat producers in the prairie provinces are now guaranteed $1.75 per bushel for the five-year period ending July 31, 1950, and they are still entitled to receive any surplus which may be in the hands of the Canadian wheat board after the wheat of the 1949-50 pool period has been sold.

On the orders of the day:


Mr. C. C. Miller (Portage la Prairie):: I should like to ask the minister a question, arising in part out of his statement as to increase of initial price paid to western producers. Does the minister think it is necessary to insist that the producers send in the duplicates of their participation certificates when these payments are made from time to time by the board? The duplicates are not assignable or negotiable, and in view of the fact also-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member should realize that this is a question which should be placed on the order paper.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The answer is that the certificates are all in, up to March 31, 1948. I see no reason to change the procedure of the board, which seems to work very satisfactorily, though I shall be glad to call the attention of the board to the question asked by my hon. friend. Since it is a matter of internal management on the part of the board, in my opinion it is a matter for the board to decide.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 31, for the relief of Francis Thomas Joseph Cleevely.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 32, for the relief of Jack William Corber.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 33, for the relief of Mildred Ida Acres Wells.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 34, for the relief of Wilhelmina Doris Guenette Parkes.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 35, for the relief of Anita Phyllis Ticktin Sacks.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 36, for the relief of Sylvia Feldman Blant.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 37, for the relief of Doris Arvilla Jackson Legassick.-Mr. Winkler.

Bill No. 38, for the relief of Rose Klein Levin.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 39, for the relief of Thelma Wilhel-mina Wintonyk Colter.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 40, for the relief of Doris Mac-Arthur Richards Arnold.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 41, for the relief of Mary Matheson Baker.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 42, for the relief of Vivian Pauline Davies White.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 43, for the relief of Helen Hawthorne Kuhn Ellis.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 44, for the relief of Joseph Octave Jules Lapointe.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 45, for the relief of Nena Ruthen Teitelbaum.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 46, for the relief of Annie Gwendoline Mabel Gammon Noble.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 47, for the relief of Margaret Catherine McDonald White.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 48, for the relief of Howard Vincent Jones.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 49, for the relief of Matilda Schneider Hutter.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 50, for the relief of Robert William Phillips.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 51, for the relief of Ethel Rose Katz Cohen.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 52, for the relief of Edith Cecelia Cole Williams.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 53, for the relief of Agnes Mathie-son Metsos.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 54, for the relief of Dorothy Fern Brown Lacoste.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 55, for the relief of Sylvia Barnett Shane.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 56, for the relief of Louise Solta-noff Rudy.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 57, for the relief of Armand Bois-clair.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 58, for the relief of Mary Robertson Pangman Elder.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 59, for the relief of Merilda Nor-mand Maury.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 60, for the relief of Janet Stevenson Ivory Stein.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 61, for the relief of Reba Schulman Schecter.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 62, for the relief of Helen Fulton Burns Clark.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 63, for the relief of Lyford Homer George.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 64, for the relief of Joan Winnifred Lewis Hawkins.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 65, for the relief of Frances Lenore Roe Robinson.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 66, for the relief of Philip Victor Thomas Rodbourn.-Mr. Timmins.
Private Bills
Bill No. 67, for the relief of Dorothy Edith Entwistle Lorimer.-Mr. Emmerson.
Bill No. 68, for the relief of William Christie.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 69, for the relief of Priscilla Ben-ning Peart.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 70, for the relief of Margaret Nelson Smith Calvert.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 71, for the relief of Shirley Pearl Claman.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 72, for the relief of Lillian Helena Cross Page.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 73, for the relief of Rosario Proulx. -Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 74, for the relief of Micheline Lefebvre Simpson.-Mr. Ross (St. Paul's).
Bill No. 75, for the relief of Catherina Koszak Tymczuk.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 76, for the relief of Anne Warnes Rice.-Mr. Emmerson.
Bill No. 77, for the relief of Joseph Edmond Tremblay.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 78, for the relief of Grace Lambert Sturgeon.-Mr. Stuart (Charlotte).
Bill No. 79, for the relief of Mary Middleton Thompson.-Mr. Emmerson.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk).	[DOT]

Mr. Coldwell:: 1.	Which provinces if any have undertaken to provide free treatment for (a) tuberculosis; (b) mental illness; (c) venereal disease; (d) crippled children; (e) cancer?
2.	How many personnel are being assisted by the provincial training grant under the health grants in each province and for what professions are they training?
3.	For how many hospital beds have grants been authorized under the hospital construction grant in each province for (a) acute disease hospitals; (b) convalescent or chronic hospitals?


Mr. Reid:: 1.	(a) Tuberculosis:
Patients are treated free by statute in Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. In other provinces only a small number are required to pay treatment costs. Ninety-six per cent of all tuberculosis patients in Canada received free treatment in 1947.
(b)	Mental illness:
Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia. Free treatment in the Nova Scotia hospital.
(c)	Venereal disease:
Facilities are available in all provinces for free treatment.

Questions
(d)	Crippled children:
No province has a completely organized free treatment program although all make provision in some degree for free treatment in cases of need and are planning to extend existing services through utilization of the crippled children's grant.
(e)	Cancer:
Saskatchewan provides complete free diagnostic treatment and hospital services. Alberta provides complete free diagnostic and treatment services and limited hospital services. New Brunswick is establishing a complete free diagnostic service. All provinces make provision for free services in cases of need.
2.	The number of persons receiving assistance for professional training under the health grants is shown in the table below.
3.	Projects have already been approved under the hospital construction grants, to the various provinces for various types of beds as follows:
Prince Edward Island-
Mental	 249
Nova Scotia-
Active treatment	 142
Quebec-
Active treatment	 1,160
Chronic and convalescent...	120
Mental	 1,269
Tuberculosis	 1,408

	3,957
Ontario-
Active treatment	 640
Chronic and convalescent...	45

	685
Manitoba-
Active treatment	 76
Bed equivalents	 9

	85
Saskatchewan-
Active treatment	 15
Alberta-
Active treatment	 280
British Columbia-
Active treatment	 451
Mental	 100

	551
Total-All provinces:
Active treatment	 2,764
Chronic and convalescent	 165
Mental	 1,618
Tuberculosis	  1,408
Bed equivalents	 9
Total	 5,964


HEALTH GRANTS ANALYSIS
[Stage Direction]
Training of Persons, all Provinces, by Province and Nature of Training (For projects approved to February 16, 1949, for fiscal year 48-49)
Province	Medical Personnel other than Psychiatrists	Mental Health Personnel	Dentists	Public Health Nurses	Sanitary engineers	Sanitary inspectors	Veterinarians	Industrial engineers	Lab. technicians	Health educators	Nutritionists	Social workers	Clerical and Stenographic	| Other	Total| Public health	Radiologist	Pathologist	Other	Psychiatrist	Psychologist	Mental health nurses	| Psychiatric Soc. W.	Teachers	Supervisors	Other	Pr. Edward Island	1	1	5	1	1	1	10Nova Scotia	1	2	4	1	2	10New Brunswick	1	1	1	i	3	3	2	18	30Quebec	13	4	9	29	10	3	5	15	13	101Ontario	9	8	20	7	10	2	8	30	5	12	111Manitoba	1	14	8	1	24Saskatchewan	2	3	7	6	1	150	169Alberta	2	4	2	10	4	2	2	1	4	31British Columbia	2	3	29	1	3	1	6	1	1	1	3	51All Provinces	28	5	12	60	24	24	14	11	3	6	15	94	1	18	5	1	7	2	3	1	203	537
[Stage Direction]
BUTTER IMPORTS Mr, Fleming:
1.	How much butter (by countries) was imported into Canada in 1948?
2.	How much thereof in each case was purchased by the government or Canadian Commercial Corporation or other government agencies, and how much by private importers?
3.	What was the average total cost per pound to the government or its agent, including all handling and other charges?
4.	What was the average price per pound paid by the government or its agent in the case of each country?
5.	What was the average price at which the government or its agent sold the same?
6.	What is the aggregate profit or loss to the government or agent?
Mr. Mcllrailh:: 1.	1948
lbs.
United Kingdom	 2,225
United States	 432
Australia	 1,849,232
New Zealand	 2,463,996
Denmark	 10,079,559
2.	The Canadian Commercial Corporation purchased the following quantities of butter during 1948:
lbs.
Australia	 2,240,000
New Zealand	 2,240,000
Denmark	 11,200,000
15,680,000
3.	The average total cost per pound, including all handling and other charges, was 73-47 cents.
4.	The average price per pound paid in the case of each country was:
F.o.b. loading port
Australia	 67-50c
New Zealand	 67 -43c
Denmark	 71-21c
5.	The average price at which the butter was sold to the trade was 67-99 cents per pound.
6.	The aggregate loss on butter imported is approximately $866,271.21.


* SOCIAL SECURITY-INCURABLES
Mr. McCullough (Assiniboia):: What social security, if any, is provided for persons who are incurable by reason of accident, paralysis, or other specific handicap?


Mr. Marlin:: I should like to answer this question orally. In another form it has been put to me twice during this session by two other hon. members. There is nothing I can add to what I have already said.
Questions


EMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES
Mr. Diefenbaker:: How many Canadians by (a) birth; (b) naturalization, have left Canada to make their homes in the United States, month by month, since January 1, 1947?


Mr. Maybank:: No record is kept of Canadians leaving Canada.


TRANSPORTATION TAX
Mr. Lockhart:: 1.	When was the fifteen per cent transportation tax first applied on all transportation purchased in Canada?
2.	What is the actual or approximate annual revenue derived from this tax?
3.	Is any consideration being given to the removal of this tax?


Mr. McCann:: 1.	June 24, 1942.
2.	Actual annual revenue derived from transportation tax during the fiscal year 194748: $20,416,941.97.
3.	This is a matter of government policy.


OLD AGE PENSIONS
Mr. Maclnnis:: 1.	How many persons received old age pensions in the (a) calendar year 1947; (b) calendar year 1948?
2.	What was the average monthly pension, by provinces (a) for the calendar year 1947; (b) the calendar year 1948?
3.	How many persons were in receipt of old age pensions (a) single; (b) married, for the years 1947 and 1948?
4.	What was the average outside income reported by applicants for old age pensions whose applications were accepted in the years 1947 and 1948 (a) single; (b) married?
5.	What was the average age of spouses (not eligible for pension in their own right) of applicants for old age pensions whose applications were accepted in the years 1947 and 1948?
6.	How many applicants for pensions whose applications were accepted in the years 1947 and 1948 had spouses who were not eligible for pension in their own right?


Mr. Reid:: 1.	Number of persons receiving pensions under the Old Age Pensions Act at end of each quarter of calendar years 1947 and 1948: 1947
	Old Age	Blind
March 31 . ..	
209,029	7,311June 30 	
211,603	7,384September 30	
215,889	7,476December 31 .	
223,364	7,8721948	Old Age	BlindMarch 31 ....	
229,158	8,476June 30 	.. .. 235,947	8,842September 30	
241,032	9,140December 31 .	
248,289	9,425
Questions
2.	Average monthly pension by provinces at end of each quarter of calendar years 1947 and 1948:
1947-Old Age Pensions
Province	Mar. 31	June 30	Sept. 30	Dec. 31Alberta 	$24.09	$28.89	$29.41British Columbia 	... 24.22	24.19	24.16	29.65Manitoba 	. .. 24.53	24.51	29.44	29.71New Brunswick	... 22.68	22.79	28.39	29.50Nova Scotia	... 22.76	22.81	23.92	29.33Ontario 	... 24.52	24.52	29.76	29.76Prince Edward Island . ..	.. 19.36	19.41	19.48	24.53Quebec 	.. 24.01	24.03	26.06	29.17Saskatchewan 	.. 24.37	24.32	24.27	29.68Northwest Territories . ..	.. 24.69	24.71	24.69	29.671947-Pensions	for Blind Persons	Province	Mar. 31	June 30	Sept. 30	Dec. 31Alberta 	.. $24.51	$24.51	$29.38	$29.98British Columbia 	.. 24.59	24.49	24.57	29.88Manitoba 	.. 24.71	24.76	29.73	29.93New Brunswick	.. 24.65	24.65	29.96	29.93Nova Scotia 	.. 24.25	24.23	29.69	29.64Ontario 	.. 24.71	24.71	29.93	29.92Prince Edward Island ...	.. 22.84	22.81	22.75	27.81Quebec 	.. 24.73	24.65	29.88	29.75Saskatchewan 	.. 24.83	24.79	24.74	29.84Northwest Territories ...	.. 25.00	25.00	25.00	30.001948-Old	Age Pensions	Province	Mar. 31	June 30	Sept. 30	Dec. 31Alberta 	.. $29.69	$29.65	$29.56	$29.50British Columbia 	.. 29.54	29.46	29.36	29.27Manitoba	.. 29.71	29.67	29.64	29.61New Brunswick 	.. 29.37	29.33	29.25	29.16Nova Scotia 	.. 29.19	29.02	28.95	28.86Ontario 	.. 29.71	29.63	29.58	29.52Prince Edward Island ...	.. 24.82	25.44	26.15	26.32Quebec 	.. 29.08	29.04	29.02	28.96Saskatchewan 	.. 29.60	29.51	29.37	29.29Northwest Territories . ..	.. 29.21	29.29	28.64	28.811948-Pensions	for Blind Persons	Province	Mar. 31	June 30	Sept. 30	Dec. 31Alberta 	.. $29.98	$29.98	$29.91	$29.83British Columbia 	.. 29.67	29.40	29.30	29.28Manitoba 	. . 29.92	29.92	29.84	29.67New Brunswick 	. . 29.83	29.82	29.81	29.78Nova Scotia	. . 29.59	29.57	29.45	29.49Ontario 	. . 29.83	29.70	29.69	29.63Prince Edward Island ..	.. 27.91	28.24	28.37	28.54Quebec 	.. 29.69	29.66	29.64	29.65Saskatchewan 	.. 29.78	29.82	29.77	29.70Northwest Territories . ..	. . 30.00	30.00	30.00	30.003.	The information is not available. One provincial pension authority shows in its annual report the marital status of all pensioners. Five show the marital status only of persons to whom pensions were granted during the provincial fiscal year. Three do not publish the information.
IMr. Reid.]
4,	5 and 6. The information is not available and could be obtained only by a review of the files of all persons to whom pensions were granted in 1947 and 1948. The provincial pension authorities do not record any of the information requested.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE-ELIGIBILITY FOR BENEFITS
Mr. Harkness:: 1.	What is the minimum length of time that a person must have been in employment covered by unemployment insurance in order to be eligible for benefits?
2.	What lapse of time is allowed after employment covered by the scheme ends before a person becomes ineligible to draw benefits?
3.	What is the scale of benefits paid at the present time?


Mr. Coie (Verdun):: 1.	A person must have paid 180 daily contributions within the two years prior to his claim. In a second or subsequent benefit year, 60 of these contributions must be earned since the commencement of the previous benefit year. The two-year period may be extended to not more than four years under certain circumstances.
2.	See answer to No. 1 above.
3.
Rate of benefit
Average	Person
employee	without	Person withcontribution	a dependent	a dependent
Daily Weekly Daily Weekly Daily Weekly
(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	cents	cents	$	cts.	$	cts.	$	cts.	$i	cts.0.02	0.12	0	70	4	20	0	80	4	80. 024	.15	85	5	10	1	05	6	30.03	.18	1	00	6	00	1	25	7	50. 034	.21	1	20	7	20	1	50	9	00.04	.24	1	35	8	10	1	70	10	20.04J	.27	1	55	9	30	1	95	11	70.05	.30	1	70	10	20	2	15	12	90.054	.33	1	85	11	10	2	40	14	40.06	.36	2	05	12	30	2	60	15	60.064	.39	2	20	13	20	2	85	17	10.07	.42	2	40	14	40	3	05	18	30


NAVAL SERVICE
Mr. Pearkes:: 1.	Has the government received submissions on behalf of the motor transport drivers employed at naval establishments on Vancouver island?
2.	If so, to what extent has it been able to meet their requests in respect to (a) wage increases;
(b) holidays with pay; (c) sick leave; (d) provision of uniforms; (e) public liability insurance for drivers?


Mr. Baker:: 1.	A brief has been received on this subject from Mr. R. R. Sneal, special representative, Canadian brotherhood of railway employees and other transport workers, dated 10th February, 1949.
2.	This matter is now under consideration by the appropriate officers of the department, but no decision has as yet been made.
Questions



VETERANS LAND ACT


John George Diefenbaker: How many applications for land under the V.L.A. were (a) received; (b) granted; (c) refused; in each of the provinces during the year 1948?


Mr. Gregg:: Department of Veterans Affairs Soldier Settlement and Veterans Land Act
(a)	(b)	(c)Applica-	Applica-	Applica-tions	tions	tionsProvince	Received	Granted	RefusedP.E.I	. . 167	108	108Nova Scotia ....	. . 371	376	235New Brunswick	.. 598	473	179Quebec 	. . 1,842	1,666	333Ontario 	. . 3,300	2,725	697Manitoba * 	. . 784	937	145Saskatchewan ..	. . 1,171	1,089	420Alberta 	. . 1,240	1,216	95British Columbia	.. 1,724	1,781	194Total	. . 11,197	10,371	2,406
^Includes the Port Arthur region of Ontario which is part of the Winnipeg (Manitoba) district of V.L.A.
Note 1. On December 31, 1947, there was a considerable backlog of applications received which had not been approved or refused. As a result more cases were considered for qualification than were received during 1948.
Note 2. The foregoing figures relate to applications for qualification to participate in benefits under the Veterans Land Act, 1942.



MINES AND RESOURCES


Mr. McKay:: 1.	What photographic companies received contracts from the Department of Mines and Resources for aerial survey work in the province of Saskatchewan in (a) 1944; (b) 1945; (c) 1946 (d) 1947; (e) 1948?
2.	What was the rate paid per square mile for aerial survey work done by each company for each of the above-named years?
3.	Has the Saskatchewan government airways offered to do aerial survey work for the federal government in Saskatchewan?
4.	If so, what rate per square mile was offered to the federal government by the Saskatchewan government airways for such work?


Ralph Maybank: 1 and 2.
(a)	1944-none.
(b)	1945-none.
(c)	1946-Arctic Airlines Ltd., $6 per square mile.
(d)	1947-Aero-Surveys Ltd., $3.40 per square mile; Canadian Pacific Air-Lines Ltd., $5.25 per square mile.

Orders for Returns
Rates vary in accordance with size and location of the different areas being photographed.
(e)	1948-none.
3.	Yes.
4.	$3 per square mile in 1948. $4 and $4.25 per square mile in 1949.
These offers were for certain designated areas.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY


Mr. Stewart (Winnipeg North):: 1.	What subsidies have been paid the iron and steel industry in Canada, by companies and by yeafrs, from January 1, 1938 to date?
2.	What accelerated depreciation has been allowed the iron and steel industry in Canada, by companies and years, from January 1, 1938 to date?



GOVERNMENT ANNUITIES

Mr. Knowles:: 1.	What was the total number of individual contracts (not including certificates to persons in group plans) issued by the government annuities branch during each month from January to March, 1948, inclusive, and how many were issued from (a) April 1 to April 19, 1948; (b) April 19 to April 30, 1948; (c) during each month from May to December, 1948, inclusive?
2.	What was the number of certificates to individuals in group plans issued by the government annuities branch during each month from January to March, 1948, inclusive, and how many were issued from (a) April 1, to April 19, 1948; (b) April 19 to April 30, 1948; (c) each month from May to December, 1948, inclusive?
3.	What was the total number of individual annuity contracts (not including certificates held by persons in group plans) held as at the latest date for which (a) provisional; (b) final figures, are available?
4.	What was the total number of persons holding certificates in government annuity group plans as at the latest date for which (a) provisional; (b) final figures, are available?
5.	What was the total number of new annuity group plans put into effect during each month from January to March, 1948, inclusive, and how many were issued from (a) April 1 to April 19, 1948; (b) April 19 to April 30, 1948; (c) during each month from May to December, 1948, inclusive?
6.	What was the total number of government annuity group plans (a) governmental bodies; (b) non-governmental bodies, in effect as at the latest date for which (a) provisional; (b) final figures are available?


Mr. Cote (Verdun):: Return tabled.



AID TO GOVERNMENT OF CHINA

Mr. McCuaig:: 1.	What was the total cost of all military supplies shipped by Canada to the Chiang Kai-shek government in China in the years 1946, 1947 and 1948?
2.	What was the total amount of economic aid given by Canada to the Chiang Kai-shek government in China in the years 1946, 1947 and 1948?



I. G. FARBEN COMPANY  OPERATIONS IN CANADA

Mr. McCullough (Assiniboia):: 1.	Is the I. G. Farben company or any subsidiary of such company operating in Canada?
2.	If so, what is the nature of produce of these companies, and what are their affiliations with other companies?



POLYMER CORPORATION OF CANADA LIMITED

Mr. Murphy:: 1.	What are the names of the directors and officers of Polymer Corporation of Canada Limited?
2.	What is the remuneration of each, including salary and special emoluments, such as bonuses and expense accounts, for the year ending March 31, 1948?



POLYMER CORPORATION


Mr. Murphy:: 1.	What taxes or other contribution, since its incorporation, was made by Polymer Corporation of Canada Limited to the municipality of the township of Sarnia or to any other municipality in each of the years ending March 31?
2.	Were any payments other than taxes made by the said corporation to any municipality?
3.	If so, for what consideration were such payments made?



ORDERS IN COUNCIL NOT TABLED OR PUBLISHED IN &quot;CANADA GAZETTE&quot;

John George Diefenbaker: How many orders in council passed since July 1, 1948, as at the 18th of February, 1949, were not (a) tabled; (b) published in the Canada Gazette?



NATIONAL DEFENCE


Mr. McCullough (Assiniboia):: 1.	What percentage of the national budget was spent by the Department of National Defence for 1948?
2.	How many dollars were spent in each of the branches (a) army; (b) navy; (c) air force?



TEMPORARY PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN OTTAWA

Mr. Case:: 1.	How many temporary buildings were constructed by the government in Ottawa and suburban area for use during the last war?
2.	What was the total cost of these buildings?
3.	How many, if any, have been disposed of and at what price?
4.	How many are still in use by (a) the government; (b) any other parties?
5.	How many (a) are presently not in use; (b) have been abandoned; (c) declared non-usable?
6.	Are buildings owned by the government and presently not being used by the government under supervision of a caretaker and subject to periodical inspection?



INCOME TAX


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. K. Fraser (Peterborough West):: Can
the Minister of National Revenue explain to the house what is meant by the press comment

of this morning that a new tax computation or new tax set-up is to be established for farmers?


Hon. J. J. McCann (Minister of National Revenue):: I did not see the report, but I shall take the hon. gentleman's question as notice.


Mr. Graydon:: If I may ask a supplementary question, has the minister any comment to make with respect to the brief submitted yesterday by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture? It has to do with a revision of farmers' income tax with respect to basic herds, I think.


James Joseph McCann: I have no comment to make, other than that the directive in reference to basic herds is being given reconsideration.


Mr. Fulion:: I should like to ask a question arising out of the answer the minister has just given to the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon). Will the minister say whether he will extend beyond April 1, 1949, the time for filing returns?


James Joseph McCann: That is a matter to which we will give consideration.



NATIONAL HEALTH


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Major James William Coldwell: Will the Minister of National Health and Welfare please take a look at the return which was laid on the table in response to a question I asked yesterday? The question was:
How much of the thirty million dollars in health grants has been spent to date by each of the provinces on each of the various types of health grants?
The answer is:
No figures available before the end of the fiscal year.
Order in council P.C. 3402 requires that the amount expended in the development of such projects during the preceding month shall be submitted to the minister, and so on. It seems to me there is a mistake in the answer to that question.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I shall be glad to look into it at once.



INQUIRY AS TO SUPPORT PRICE FOR 1949

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. A. Ross (Souris):: As many farmers are now busy planning their operations for spring seeding, for which they require good seed-


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


Clarence Decatur Howe: What is the question?


James Arthur Ross: Will the minister say as soon as possible whether there will be a support price for flax produced in 1949? Many farmers are inquiring now.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The situation as to flax is so uncertain it is not likely that any decision about a support price will be made for some months to come. If any farmer is in doubt whether or not he should plant flax, I would advise him not to plant it.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Donald M. Fleming (Eglinton):: I should like to ask the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply whether the government is continuing or suspending the integrated housing plan.


Hon. Robert H. Winters (Minister of Reconstruction and Supply):: The hon. member was kind enough to give me notice of his question. The answer is that the integrated plan, which is under section 4B of the National Housing Act, is being reviewed in the hope that some modified form can be arrived at to overcome certain of the difficulties which occurred in isolated cases in 1948. An announcement will be made in due course.
While I am on my feet I should like to reply to the question asked by the hon. member yesterday having to do with purchases of lumber by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Contracts for the construction of veterans rental units are asked on two bases: first, that the contractor supply all materials, and second, that Central Mortgage provide materials. Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation prefers the former type of contract, but their experience has been that units can be brought in for lower prices under the second form of contract. Most of the projects are proceeding on the latter basis. In order to provide materials to contractors, Central Mortgage is purchasing lumber in specified lengths. Bids have been asked for some eleven million feet for the Ontario area. Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation purchases the lumber in the cheapest market, which usually is directly from producers by car lots. However, in this particular order tenders are also being received on the basis of the lumber being stored in the local yards of the bidders, and any retailer who wishes has the opportunity to submit a tender. Tenders have not yet been opened for the transaction referred to by the hon. member.

Inquiries of the Ministry


Donald Methuen Fleming: Will the minister give the house his assurance that no purchases will be made except alter tender?


Robert Henry Winters: I can only say it is the policy of the corporation to call for tenders wherever that procedure is practicable.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Rodney Young (Vancouver Centre):: Is
the government taking steps to reduce the nine-day waiting period now required between the time of application for unemployment insurance and its actual payment?


Hon. Humphrey Mitchell (Minister of Labour):: The government has received no recommendation in this regard from the unemployment insurance advisory committee or the unemployment insurance commission itself. I have been informed, however, that the unemployment insurance commission is at present considering the matter. I should point out to my hon. friend that the nine-day waiting period is statutory; it is in the basic law, and it is necessary to give some consideration to the actuarial basis of the fund before any change is made.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The Minister of Labour refers to a waiting period in regard to unemployment insurance, and says he had not received any recommendation in this regard from the unemployment insurance office. Has he received any request from municipalities throughout the country?


Humphrey Mitchell: The ministers received many requests about many subjects. I should like to point out to the hon. member and to the people who have written him that the unemployment insurance advisory committee is responsible for protecting the contributions made by both parties to the scheme. In effect this is a trust fund. It is the easiest thing in the world to pass resolutions- "Therefore be it resolved that we move the earth"-but let somebody else do the moving.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Responsible persons have
written to the minister, as have many municipalities.



CLOSING OF GOVERNMENT-OPERATED FACTORIES IN SASKATCHEWAN

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Julian H. Ferguson (Simcoe North):: Is the Minister of Labour aware that the premier of Alberta is about to close some government-operated factories, and that he may have to take care of a large number of people who will be on relief in Saskatchewan?


Humphrey Mitchell: I think I should correct the hon. member's statement. This is being done in Saskatchewan, not Alberta.



SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, February 23, consideration of the motion of Mr. D. F. Brown for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Drew, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Coldwell.
Mr. J. H. Matthews (Kootenay East):: In
rising to participate in the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, I should like to express a few of my personal convictions.
First, I should like to convey my congratulations to both the mover (Mr. Brown) and the seconder (Mr. Demers) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. In previous sessions of parliament I have heard the speech from the throne described as innocuous, something devoid of real meaning and significance. No one reading this particular speech from the throne could truthfully refer to it as innocuous. Unquestionably it deals with matters of great importance to the people of Canada. His Excellency the Governor General stated correctly that the first concern of a government is to ensure the peace and security of its people. Certainly no right-thinking person could challenge that statement.
When we come to devise methods of ensuring peace and security, however, divergent views arise. Whatever methods are employed to secure the desired result, they will be conditioned by the state of the world which calls them forth.
In this present session of parliament we are to declare our stand on the north Atlantic pact. I for one give to the north Atlantic pact my wholehearted support. In a speech delivered by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low), and reported in Hansard of Monday, January 31, at page 96, I notice a reference to the fact that his group supports the north Atlantic pact. This 'is evidence of their good judgment. The hon. member goes on to say, however, that the proposal to set up this north Atlantic pact indicates a loss of faith in the United Nations assembly and the security council. With that opinion I certainly do not agree. I believe that for the few years we have had a United Nations organization, it has more than justified its existence. Certainly it has not come up to our expectations, but in point of fact, Mr. Speaker, our realizations rarely ever do

come up to our expectations. In the main I believe the actions of that organization have been motivated by good will. I believe also that time will enable us to view the work of the United Nations in a truer perspective than is possible today.
No doubt there are some who look upon this north Atlantic pact as designed to provoke war. Frankly I do not see it in that light at all. My mind goes back, sir, to those memorable years that gave rise to Hitler and the nazi regime. We saw the war clouds gathering; we heard the muttering of the storm in the distance, yet we felt helpless to prevent the war. The fear of war was raised in many hearts, but we could not and did not act, other than to follow a policy of appeasement that did not appease. As we know all too well, a devastating war broke upon the world, and for six long years we fought for our very existence, until victory crowned our arms. Once again we see the war clouds gathering. Nations, our own included, are rearming as quickly as possible. What are we to do? Are we to stand helplessly aside, petrified by fear, or shall we do something before it is too late? The setting up of this north Atlantic pact is, to my mind, the effort of peace-loving nations. It is the combining of their strength to maintain peace in a world that is weary of war.
Since leaving my constituency to attend this session of parliament I have been disturbed by reports in the press that the Canadian Pacific Railway Company has decided to convert many locomotives from coal to oil burners, especially locomotives operating through the Crowsnest pass and on the Calgary to Edmonton run. There can be no doubt that the recent discovery of new and extensive oil reserves in Alberta has had something to do with this decision. Coal has steadily increased in price, along with other commodities, both to small and to large consumers. It has been said, and it will be said again, that the steadily increasing wage scales applicable to our miners have brought about this unfortunate situation. In other words the blame is being laid at the door of the coal miners of Alberta and British Columbia. It is true that wages have been increased in order to avoid work stoppages, but those wage demands have been made necessary by the steady increase in the cost of living; and a large part of the responsibility for the increase in the cost of living rests upon this government because of its mistaken policies. Had price controls been retained, these inflationary tendencies could have been curbed. It is easy to blame the coal miners for making legitimate wage demands. To any person who is inclined to do that, I would say this: you had better be prepared to take off
The Address-Mr. J. H. Matthews your coat and show a willingness to go down into the coal mines and work as these men do, under the same conditions, facing death every hour in many forms.
I have spoken before in this house of the need for ample meals for men engaged in a heavy industry such as coal mining, and I do not intend to repeat those remarks today, except to say this. The housewives who prepare meals today fully realize the difference between meals of the sandwich variety and those which include vegetables, butter, eggs, bacon, cheese, and so on. Such meals cost real money, let no one make any mistake about it.
No doubt there are many who will defend the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's decision to convert their engines from coal to oil burners, but let us look at the picture. They have secured a twenty-one per cent increase in freight rates. They have increased the price of all meals in their dining cars and of all berths in their sleeping cars. What, then, is the purpose of these increases? Is it to show a favourable balance sheet at the end of the year? Is it in order that they may pay higher dividends to their shareholders? If so, I want to say that such a result will be dearly bought if it is to be at the cost of a long-established industry, and if it threatens the security of the men, women and children to whom this industry means so much. Boards of trade in Alberta and British Columbia are vigorously protesting this action on the part of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, but the company has declared its unalterable determination to proceed according to plan. I want to tell the government that this is not the last they will hear of this particular matter.
It is only a little better than a year ago that a royal commission on coal presented its report to the government. At that time a nation-wide survey was made looking to the stabilizing of the coal industry. In view of these more recent developments there will soon be no coal industry to stabilize; for I believe that what is now taking place through this action of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company is the beginning of the end of our coal mining industry.
Before I leave the question of coal and coal miners, I wish to voice a grievance which to many of our coal miners is a source of much irritation. During the year 1947 many of our coal miners, particularly in the Fernie and Michel areas, worked steadily and qualified themselves for two weeks' holidays with pay in 1948, according to the terms of their working agreement. The house will remember, however, that last spring we suffered disastrous floods in many parts of British

The Address-Mr. J. H. Matthews Columbia. The Kootenays and the Crowsnest pass areas were terribly unfortunate in this respect. Owing to the damage to railway bridges, traffic on the railways was suspended, with the result that for three weeks our coal mines were idle. When the miners applied for unemployment insurance benefits for that period, it was refused to those who had holidays with pay coming to them. On the other hand, men who had not laboured so diligently as to qualify for holidays with pay, men who had not hesitated to be absentees, received unemployment insurance payments for the whole period during which the mines were idle. It would seem that in the unemployment insurance regulations there are still some kinks which need to be ironed out.
I now want to refer to a situation which exists at Field in British Columbia, a town in the Yoho national park. Field is a railway divisional point. It is here that the time changes from Pacific time to mountain and vice versa. Field is built on a mountainside sloping down to the Kicking Horse river. It has no sewage-disposal system. Each home has its own septic tank. Many of these have served for so many years that they overflow, to the annoyance of those who live on the lower levels. This situation constitutes a threat to the health and well-being of all the people in that particular community. To make matters worse, there is a real need of an effective water supply. Much of the water for household purposes is taken from the Kicking Horse river, which in more recent years has been polluted by the tailings from the base metals mine located farther up the river. The Minister of Mines and Resources (Mr. MacKinnon), on whose department rests responsibility for the care of our national parks, would earn the deep gratitude of the people of Field if appropriate action could be taken with respect to these matters.
We understand that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) is now preparing a budget for the fiscal year 1949-50. For two years in succession-at least this will be so when this forthcoming budget is brought down-he will be reporting to the house staggering surpluses. Consequently nearly everyone is demanding tax reductions, and I join in that demand. I want particularly to suggest the dropping of the two cent tax on soft drinks, and the return of the five cent chocolate bar. The government prides itself on its adherence to the principle of free enterprise, but certainly these taxes on the soft drink industry have had the result of almost putting some of these people out of business. It has a strong bearing as well on the question of employment. In June 1947 a tax was put on soft drinks in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States.

The result of that tax was responsible for a twenty-five per cent drop in employment in the soft drink industry in that state. Our Canadian tax has had a similar effect in this country.
The 1941 census figures list 61,266 retail stores whose business includes soft drink merchandising. These 61,266 retailers help to distribute to Canadians the profits of the soft drink industry. Let us not forget that a large part of their tax-paying ability depends directly on the revenue from the sale of soft drinks. There can be no question in any person's mind that soft drinks are socially desirable. They do supply refreshment which the public demands. These soft drink taxes were first imposed as a wartime emergency system of taxation. It is high time they were removed.
Speaking of income tax reductions, I wish to point out to the government that in every part of Canada there is a group of people who are not helped by income tax reductions. The people to whom I am referring are the old age pensioners and those who are living on social service allowances. These people have taken a terrific beating during the years of inflated prices. I ask the government to think very seriously about these people and their predicament and to give them a break. The government has condoned rising prices. It has tried to win the good will of business generally. Now it had better reverse the trend or be prepared to pay the price, which will be an electoral defeat. Already the handwriting is on the wall for all to see. Last year this group, the C.C.F., took three federal by-elections in a row. This year the Progressive Conservative party have accomplished the same feat. It would seem that a flood tide is setting in, both for the C.C.F. and for the Progressive Conservative party. That can only mean that it will be an ebb tide so far as the Liberal party is concerned.
In part the speech from the throne says:
A measure for assistance in the provision of a transcontinental highway will also be laid before you.
When people across the dominion read that sentence, some will be tempted to say, "At long last, thank goodness." But those who better understand the workings of departmental red tape will merely smile and continue to wait and see. There is no greater domestic need in Canada than a trans-Canada highway linking east and west. Such a highway will do more to create national unity than reams of paper or countless speeches could ever do.
At the close of the session last summer I motored from Ottawa to my home in British Columbia. I certainly would have rejoiced if there had been an all-Canadian highway

that I could have used. But because we have not an all-Canadian highway I crossed into the United States at Sault Ste. Marie and enjoyed the excellent paved roads provided through the states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, returning to Canada via Winnipeg and proceeding thence west. A trans-Canada highway, paved throughout and built to standard width, would not only keep a host of Canadian motorists in Canada, but would help to bring tens of thousands of United States motorists into the country, all of whom spend their money freely for food, fuel and shelter.
The people of British Columbia have three highways leading into Alberta; the northern route from Edmonton, sometimes spoken of as the Yellowhead route; the central route through Banff and Calgary, and the southern all-year route through the Crowsnest pass. There is no need for new construction on the southern route; it is necessary only to widen it to standard width. The British Columbia government has practically completed what is called the Hope-Princeton cutoff. As a matter of fact, I understand that it is to be opened this year. They have also spent over $1 million on the southern route between Creston and Crowsnest, thus connecting up with a splendid new highway on which the Alberta government spent many hundreds of thousands of dollars in 1948. This southern highway passes through a highly industrialized area, and therefore is of greater value from a commercial point of view. Last but certainly not least, it passes through what is considered to be the most scenic portion of the mountains. It is without question the most readily accessible Canadian east-west highway for United States tourists and businessmen. With the necessary improvements made and maintained on the southern highway, no Canadian motorists should ever again have to go into the United States in order to travel from coast to coast.
Many areas in British Columbia would be benefited by an extension of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. I should like to refer particularly to areas in the Columbia valley which are crying out for water for irrigation purposes. It is not possible for the residents in these areas to provide irrigation facilities for themselves. They need government aid. The district of Wilmer in my constituency is a case in point. Here we have an area that once enjoyed irrigation through a private company. It is now suffering for want of an adequate water supply. The private company has gone out of business. Flumes have broken down and disappeared, and once fertile acres are now reverting to brush. Here, then, is an area
The Address-Mr. J. H. Matthews which should be served through the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. I am not yet in possession of all the details that may be required, but when I get them I intend to take the matter up further with the Department of Agriculture.
Now, sir, I wish to call the attention of the Minister of Public Works-I am glad to see that he is in his seat this afternoon- to the ever-present menace of Ripple rock on the north Pacific coast, and the need for its removal. I know it has been a headache, and it will continue to be a headache until it is dealt with. In this connection I should like to refer to an article which appeared in Saturday Night of February 18, 1948, entitled "Radar and whistle-listen on backstairs to Alaska", by Marjorie Freeman Campbell. The article reads:
In the event of a third global war, British Columbia's famous inside passage will take on an importance it did not possess in either world wars I or II. For whether war comes to Canada by air, which military strategists consider the most likely method, or by water, its direction will undoubtedly render land bases in Alaska and the Aleutians a prime necessity. To help service these bases, freight will again move in wartime volume up the protected inner channel. Naval vessels will thread its maze of waterways.
Under these circumstances it is of interest to Canadians to understand the channel, the methods of navigation peculiar to it, its difficulties and dangers, foremost of which is the ill-famed Ripple rock, described in the Pacific Marine Review as "the nightmare of the north Pacific sea lane."
Representative of the many hazards of the passage is Ripple rock, a twin-headed shoal lying in Seymour narrows, in the region between Vancouver island and the mainland.
Since as long as Ripple rock remains in the narrows no capital ship of the navy can use the inside passage, its removal was determined upon by the federal government as a war measure.
Although the government of the United States offered its services, the Canadian government considered the shoal a Canadian responsibility. Consequently two attempts, costing in the neighbourhood of one million dollars, were made, both abortive, the first attacking the rock from a drilling barge anchored by steel cables attached to some 550 tons of concrete, the second from a barge supported by overhead cable. That Ripple rock is partly exposed for only forty-five minutes at extreme low tide explains part of the difficulties met.
Over the years many millions of dollars of shipping and countless lives have fallen prey to the rock -even in 1944 the Canadian government's own hydrographic survey ship, equipped with a wealth of delicate instruments, and dedicated to locating danger spots for shipping.
"He who holds Alaska," said the late General William Mitchell, "holds the world."
I want to repeat those words for the benefit of the minister:
"He who holds Alaska," said the late General William Mitchell, "holds the world."
Now, in time of peace, would it not seem good policy to eliminate the nightmare of the Alaska sea lane?
I am sure that the minister has not forgotten Ripple rock, or the vast sums of money
866

The Address-Mr. Jutras that have been spent in trying to remove it. It would be foolish of me to presume to tell the minister how to remove it, but in view of the menace of war which now confronts the world I submit he would do well to secure immediately the best engineering advice available in the United States or any other country in the world.
The article which I have just quoted mentions the fact that the government of the United States offered its services some years ago, but they were declined. The United States is deeply interested in the removal of Ripple rock, because the inner channel is used by their shipping as much as, if not more than, ours. In the event of another war their interest would be intensified. Would it not be wisdom and good policy on our part to hand over this problem to the United States to see what they can do with it? We have tried our best, and have failed. I suggest to the minister that it is possible that the United States may be able to adopt other methods and succeed. One thing is certain- Ripple rock must go.


Mr. Rene N. Juiras (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, I wish first of all to associate myself with those hon. members who have congratulated the hon. member for Essex West (Mr. Brown) upon the manner in which he moved the address in reply to the speech from the throne. He proved that he was fully conscious of the responsibilities that were bestowed upon him and he carried out those responsibilities in the best manner possible.
(Translation):
At the same time, I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains (Mr. Demers). Although he was making his maiden speech in the house, and sitting here for the first time, he was, from the very start, a credit to his own people, to his constituents, to his party and to this chamber.
I also take this opportunity of congratulating the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) on his acceptance of the honourable but no less exacting responsibility of guiding a state bubbling over with activity and extending to new lands, of leading the greatest political party in this country, and of succeeding the two most eminent political leaders in all our history. I commend him for the high-mindedness, determination and warm sincerity he evinced in taking on these duties.
(Text):
I wish now to offer my congratulations to the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew). He has begun his duties as leader of the opposition with great vigour and has succeeded in raising the morale of the official opposition.


I cannot in the time at my disposal extend my congratulations to all the newcomers to this house, but I should like to say one further word to our Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson). He has already made a great contribution to the debates in this house. His coming here was a great loss to the provincial government of Manitoba, but by the same token his coming here has been our gain.
I should like to turn briefly to our diplomatic representation throughout the world. I was struck by the story contained in the annual report for 1948 of the Department of External Affairs. This report shows the growth of Canada among the nations of the world, and more particularly does our diplomatic representation throughout the world bring out that fact.
We are told in the annual report that Canada now has twenty-nine diplomatic missions abroad, eleven consular offices, four special missions, and diplomatic missions consisting of fourteen embassies, eight legations and seven high commissioners' offices. Fifty-one countries maintain missions in Canada, which reveals that the other nations of the world recognize the importance of this country and its maturity. The report goes on to state that seven new Canadian posts were established in 1948. There were established a legation in Belgrade; permanent representation to the united nations at New York and Geneva; a consulate general at San Francisco; consulates at Detroit and Boston in the United States, and at Frankfurt in Germany. During the year the legation at Rome was raised to the status of an embassy. Of course we cannot expect to see as much expansion in future years. I should like to add my voice, however, to those who have already requested the government to send a representative to Vatican City. As you know, the matter has been raised throughout the length and breadth of the nation in the last few months. Most, if not all, of the leading newspapers of the country have commented very favourably on such a move.
At this moment there is in Canada a representative of the Holy See. Most of the members must have seen the residence of the apostolic delegate on the Driveway, but I am sure that quite a few of them do not understand the function of such a representative. The office of apostolic delegate has been in existence for nearly fifty years. Although it is in all senses of the word a permanent mission to Canada, nevertheless it is a purely religious one. The apostolic delegate acts in the name of the Pope in relation to the episcopates of the country. That is his only function. If we were to send an ambassador to the Vatican, however, the

office of the apostolic delegate would then be raised to the status of a nunciature. Then he would have a twofold mission, the same mission that he has now, to be the representative of the Pope to the episcopates of the country, and secondly, a diplomatic mission to the government, the primary purpose of which would be to improve relations between the state and the church.
To those who might see in this situation an occasion for the church to encroach upon the rights of the state, let me say that they need not have any fear. History proves that the church knows her place. It would be against her traditions and against her interests to do so. If one needs to be convinced he has only to look at China, one of the most pagan countries of the world. China has exchanged representatives with the Vatican for a great many years. The same thing applies to Japan. Surely no countries could be found with views more divergent from those of the Vatican. Yet there has never been an instance of encroachment either way. Therefore the real advantages to the church, in having such a diplomatic exchange with this country, would be very small indeed compared with the advantages that Canada would derive, because I am sure that most members will agree with me that, particularly at this time, the church is the strongest rampart against communism. It is the one force that will never surrender under any circumstances. That is why the church is so ruthlessly and relentlessly attacked in all countries where Russia, if she is not the dominating factor, at least has great influence.
Today, when so many countries are confined behind the iron curtain, the Vatican offers a special vantage point to survey that particular problem, and all other problems of the world. Again, if one is looking for an example, during the war Hitler, even when he was persecuting the church, maintained a diplomatic representative at that vantage point in order to have better knowledge of the situation. I think it is common knowledge that the diplomats of the Holy See have always enjoyed the highest prestige of any diplomatic representatives. Above all, in my opinion, the diplomats of the Holy See epitomize the Christian spirit. On that basis alone, does one need to say anything more? I hope that in the near future we will take our place at this highly cultural, highly intellectual, and highly strategic centre.
I should like to deal more particularly with export trade. I do not claim to be an expert on export trade, but I do claim the ability to read the English language. At the present time there is no doubt that our export trade is very good. There are signs, however, that point to certain dangers at this very moment.
29087-55J
The Address-Mr. Jutras If one analyses Canada's export trade for the last year, one finds that half of our export trade has been paid for by loans from Canada and ERP authorizations. Therefore what that means is that, if those two factors are removed, our export trade will drop by at least 50 per cent. When you couple that fact with last winter's announcement that our best buyer of wheat did not have any money to pay for it, it raises a very definite challenge, a challenge similar to the one that was placed before Canada and the United States after the first great war. It is not merely a challenge to the farmers; it is a challenge to the whole nation, because surely nobody will propound the thesis now that there can be prosperity in Canada with no export market for agricultural products. If that part of our economy drops, then the rest of the economy of the country will follow in the wake of it. Therefore I say it raises a definite challenge similar to the one that was raised after the last war.
You remember how we came out of the war with very large production in Canada, and our buyers in Europe practically all broke, and with no facilities to pay for our goods. It was at that time that the Liberal government went to the people. At that very time it made arrangements and it had made arrangements before, to take care of the challenge. We know today that the Liberal government met the challenge very successfully. The official opposition of that day had nothing to offer. They even tried to ridicule the promises made by the government that they would maintain prosperity in the country. They were so sure of themselves that they just sat back complacently, expecting that their hopes would materialize, and that there would be no prosperity in the country. The same thing could be said of our friends of the C.C.F. During that time they put on a frantic act to try and stampede the western people especially into taking cover under their protecting wing.


Mr. Wright:: What period are you speaking of?


René Jutras: I am speaking of the period after the last war, when this government went to the people. That was exactly the position your party took at that time. You went throughout the country saying the government had no way of controlling these matters; and you pointed also to this great, black, rolling cloud of depression that was coming and was going to burst upon this nation, saying the government was absolutely helpless to do anything about it. Today your party is singing quite a different tune. They say there were no clouds at all, that all was well; but that was not the story you put out at that
868	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Jutras time. It was under those circumstances that the United Kingdom wheat agreement was signed. At that time, after the last war, there was quite a feeling of dread and anxiety among farmers throughout the three prairie provinces, and quite a bit of uncertainty as to the future.


Percy Ellis Wright: Is there not today?


René Jutras: I think the hon. member will agree that at that time the farmers were not ready to return to the previous method of marketing. They demanded stability and security. It is one thing not to get the highest price. It is another thing to operate at a loss; to see our farms mortgaged one after the other; to see our children clothed by charity; to see our schools closed; to see our governments staggering under a huge load of public debt and the municipalities with taxes unpaid to the point where they are absolutely stymied. That is an entirely different story. In the last few years we have heard a great deal in this house about losses, but the great propagandists of those losses have been very careful to pick out a few years which suit their own purposes. They did not go over the whole record. We heard nothing about the time the farmers were actually operating at a loss.
I think it should be pointed out particularly at this time that this nation owes a great deal to the farmers of Canada. All through the depression the farmers not only did not get the highest price or even a decent price; they operated at a loss. But they fed this Canadian nation without flinching. They mortgaged their farms; they even mortgaged their provinces, in the case of the west. The farmers did not go on strike but kept on feeding this country at a loss all during the depression years. If one were to try to compute the debt this nation owes the farmers my hon. friend from Souris (Mr. Ross) would not be even close with the figures he obtained from the Winnipeg grain exchange. These are the losses the farmers do not want to have to bear again. If one were to take only the drop in national revenue in 1934, that alone would be sufficient to pay off the total bonded indebtedness of the three prairie provinces and the total bonded indebtedness of all the municipalities in those provinces, and leave over enough money to finance those three provincial governments for practically twenty years. That will give an idea of the contribution the farmers have made to this country.
I am making this statement now for one purpose only; that is, to plead with the other classes of society in other parts of this country that if the day ever comes when they


are called upon to recognize that debt of gratitude, they will not hesitate to do so and by doing so help the farmers to help themselves; for I am quite sure no one would attempt to argue that we can have a prosperous country when such a large and important class of society as our farming class are heavily in debt and incapable of doing anything for themselves.
It was under those circumstances, Mr. Speaker, that the wheat agreement was signed. It is little wonder that the farmers as a whole held that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush. Thus came the demand for a long-term agreement. What was the stand of the official opposition on that point? The hon. member for Neepawa (Mr. Bracken), then leader of the Progressive Conservative party, is a good farmer. For over twenty years he was premier of Manitoba, and during that time he was recognized in the political field as the spokesman for the farmers of western Canada. He knew the score on that question when it came up, and he stated the position of the Progressive Conservative party. There can be no mistake about it. It was exactly the position taken by the farmers; that in choosing between two evils they would choose the lesser and accept a long-term agreement. Now our friends of the official opposition would like to have us and the farmers believe that they never had anything to do with the United Kingdom agreement and never supported it. The leader gave the stand of that party, and not one member from the western provinces had the guts to stand up and vote against it. That is the position of the official opposition on the wheat agreement.


James Arthur Ross: If the hon. member would permit a question, would he state when the vote on the agreement as such took place? Would he give the reference in Hansard to any vote on the agreement as such?


René Jutras: I am very glad the hon. member has asked that question. It shows clearly that he is trying to jump on the fence. I went to a great deal of trouble-and believe me I took a great deal of punishment-reading all the speeches made by the hon. member for Souris during that session, and he did not say a single word that would show his opposition to the United Kingdom wheat agreement. That was where the hon. member stood.


James Arthur Ross: The hon. member cannot quote one word I ever said in favour of it in this House of Commons.


René Jutras: Not in the session of 1946.


James Arthur Ross: Nor any other session.


René Jutras: You kept very quiet. You never said anything against it. But your chief said he was in favour of it, and that puts you very definitely behind it. That is the stand that was taken at that time.


James Arthur Ross: X know the hon. member wants to be fair. I have referred to that agreement at every session from 1946 on, and he cannot quote a word I ever said in favour of the agreement as such.


René Jutras: I will agree wholeheartedly that I cannot quote a word by the hon. member, because there are no such words. That is exactly what I was saying.


James Arthur Ross: There was a speech at every session.


René Jutras: Then I will answer in another way. There are members of the Progressive Conservative party who would never admit that they supported the wheat agreement, and they can show it on the record.


Gordon Graydon: Did the Free Press?


René Jutras: I am coming to the Free Press, and I am sure you will find it most interesting. These hon. gentlemen did not vote for the wheat agreement. The other day one of them pointed to his vote, to show, that he voted against it. The name of the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Ross) was not there. Again I say they have been chased out of two pastures, so they are climbing on the fence.


James Arthur Ross: You have not read Hansard very carefully.


Gordon Graydon: You have not read the Winnipeg Free Press, either.


René Jutras: I am coming to the Free Press. After the agreement has been signed and put into operation, the official opposition would like to jump on the grain exchange band wagon. It is a bit late for that.
Since the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) is so anxious to hear what the Free Press has to say, I shall read part of an editorial, which appeared in that paper. The recent stand of the official opposition is not limited to this house, but has also been taken in the other place by their official leader. It has been said they were against the agreements at the time they were discussed in the house, but they cannot point to anything in the official record to substantiate that statement. I shall quote from an editorial which appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press on. February 8,	1949, entitled " Empty
Criticisms":
The trouble with Mr. Haig's argument is that it is a reversal of Conservative policy.
The time for Mr. Haig's party to have denounced the agreement was at the beginning when something
The Address-Mr. Jutras might have been done to modify it. Surely, no credit can be gained by denouncing a contract two and a half years too late.
If it so chooses, the Conservative party can swallow itself today. But it cannot gain credit now by denouncing a bargain which it approved.
For the information of the hon. member for Peel that is what the Winnipeg Free Press has to say.
The official opposition would like the grain exchange and the rest of us to believe they are the great friends of the grain exchange. At the same time they try to make people believe they are also the friends of the wheat board. On the one hand they would like to leave the impression that they are the friends of the grain exchange and, on the other, that they are the friends of the wheat board. This position inevitably leads to double talk. At the moment, I am not directing my remarks to any particular member. This is the policy of the official opposition at the present time. I do not believe it is the policy of every member of that party, but it is the official platform of the Progressive Conservative party. Surely, there is no better way of indicating this than by pointing to the resolutions passed at the convention of the Progressive Conservative party. Some of this double talk originated at that convention.
I shall quote from an article appearing in the Winnipeg Free Press written by a reporter of unquestionable reputation. He was present at that convention, and therefore knew what was happening.


Gordon Graydon: Is that the double talk referred to in the writings of the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power)?


René Jutras: You will soon find out by whom it was written; you will recognize it. I do not suppose the hon. member for Peel knows anything about the stand of his own party on wheat, but he will in a few minutes. This is a report of the proceedings of the convention, so I am sure the member for Peel will recognize it. I am quoting from an editorial which appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press on October 5, 1948:
The Progressive Conservative convention's vote on Saturday to restore the 1935 wheat board on a voluntary basis and also to guarantee producers the right to market grain "by any other means," while refusing to say specifically that means wheat trading on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange, touched a new high in political sleight-of-hand.
Speaker after speaker declared frankly that the resolution as it stood, and no mistake, means wheat trading on the Winnipeg exchange. But with equal frankness, they decided to accept an amendment by John McDowell, Winnipeg, changing the words "by any other means" to read "through the open market."
Under the grave warnings of M. A. MacPherson, Regina, and Col. J. A. Ross, Souris, that even to mention wheat trading "through the open market" (meaning the Winnipeg Grain Exchange) would be

The Address-Mr. Jutras
dangerous to the party-"dynamite on the prairies" Mr. Ross (Souris): What was the recom-said Mr. MacPherson-the amendment was shot mendation? down the sink. Along with it went what many	'
delegates thought was a very sensible addition by


An hon. Member:: Who was the member?
G. S. Thorvaldson, Winnipeg, that with an open
market, there should be a supervisor to eliminate Mr. Julras: It was the hon. member for Irresponsible and unwarranted speculation.	Battle River (Mr. Fair).
From another part of the same editorial, I quote the following:
But what the committee was anxious to avoid was any imputation that the convention was working for the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. The attempts of Mr. McDoweU and Mr. Thorvaldson to amend the skilfully worded resolution let this fighting cat out of the committee bag. There was no good attempting any longer to cover the fact that selling wheat by "any other means" meant wheat trading on the Winnipeg exchange.
So these antics of my hon. friends opposite are carried on not only in this house but before the people of their own party at a national convention. As I said before, they have been chased out of the grain exchange field and out of the wheat board field, so they say, "We want both."


Mr. Weir:: Vote both ways.


René Jutras: Yes, vote both ways. They want a free grain exchange, and even the member for Souris (Mr. Ross) applauded when I read that the amendment had been shot down the sink. Apparently the member for Souris wants a free grain exchange-I know that he does not, but this resolution indicates he does and he was instrumental in having it passed. It indicates a desire for a grain exchange as free as a lark and, at the same time, a desire for a wheat board divested of all powers except the administering of a floor price. This is the solution the official opposition offers-have both things.
What have the farmers of this country received for trying to improve their position? The members of the Progressive Conservative party have given them nothing but abuse. Even from the members of the Social Credit group, or should I say the other Tory party, the farmers receive nothing but abuse.


An hon. Member:: You are so confused you do not know where you are.


René Jutras: I know where I am and the record will prove it; that is more than you can do. I do not need to quote the record since all members will remember it. When the committee on agriculture was sitting in 1947 the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Ross) rose and made the statement that the leaders of the organized farmers in this country had done a great disservice to the farmers of western Canada in their recommendation to the government. In that committee the hon. member who was representing the Social Credit party rose and said the same thing, and supported the hon. member for Souris.


James Arthur Ross: What was the recommendation?


Mr. Fournier (Hull):: Who is making the speech?


Gordon Graydon: I am not sure myself.


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


René Jutras: I shall take just a moment or two more for the purpose of giving the reference. It is page 97 of the proceedings of the committee on agriculture and colonization. I do not wish to abuse the rules of the house, so I will sit down.


James Arthur Ross: It had to do with the United Kingdom wheat agreement.


René Jutras: I just want to summarize the situation in one word. An attempt was made to discredit the farmers organization. The official opposition tried to make people believe that they were all for the wheat board; but up to now their only contribution on that score has been the suggestion to throw wide open the doors of the Winnipeg grain exchange and allow the farmer to swim by himself when everyone else has a life jacket.


James Arthur Ross: That is not a fact.


Mr. J. W. Murphy (Lamblon West):: I should like first, Mr. Speaker, to associate myself with the others who have complimented the mover and the seconder of the motion now before us and especially the mover, because at one time I lived in that part of the city of Windsor which the hon. member for Essex West (Mr. Brown) now has the honour to represent.
As the first one of my party to have the occasion to address this house after the ceremony we witnessed this afternoon, I feel that it is only fitting that I should make some comments thereon. To me it was significant -and I do not think I am alone in this feeling-to see our leader, with the hon. member for Argenteuil (Mr. Heon), present to you, Mr. Speaker, the new member for Nicolet-Yam-aska (Mr. Chapdelaine). The applause came from this side of the house, of course. We enjoyed his presentation and Your Honour's direction to him to take his seat in this House of Commons. We who viewed the opposite side from our grandstand seats here watched in particular the reception the hon. member for Nicolet-Yamaska received from the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier),

for instance. The latter had a smile which required some forcing to produce. The Solicitor General (Mr. Jean) slumped so low in his seat that I wondered if one chair in this house had short legs. As for the Postmaster General (Mr. Bertrand), it occurred to me that at one time he may have taken piano lessons or pounded a typewriter with one finger, judging by his applause. He may, of course, have been recalling that famous speech he made on the Friday night, I think it was, prior to this by-election when he predicted to the country that, if this infamous party-the Progressive Conservative party- won the by-election, that would be the forerunner of what they could expect not only from the province of Quebec but from the rest of Canada.
The introduction of the last three members in this house afforded us a great deal of satisfaction. The first was our leader who won a smashing victory in the by-election in Carle-ton. In addition, the treasury was enriched by $400, I believe. It gave me some satisfaction to know that $200 of it came from the C.C.F.


Mr. Thatcher:: Be careful.


Joseph Warner Murphy: They lost a similar amount in a certain riding which I have the honour to represent, and I can assure them that we shall repeat that dose if they attempt the same performance at a later date.
The second by-election was the one in Nova Scotia, as a result of which another member who belonged to our side of the house and to our party was introduced. His election, I think, can be taken to indicate to the people of Canada the expression of the opinion of the maritimes in an unmistakable way. That by-election was a want of confidence in the government and a declaration of confidence in the new leader of our party and in our policies. The hon. member who was introduced this afternoon means a great deal to us. Coming from the province of Quebec he reflects, I think, the views of the people in that province, their confidence in our leader, the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Drew) and in the policies of our party. We welcome him to this house.


Gordon Graydon: The handwriting on the wall.


Alphonse Fournier: Says you.


Joseph Warner Murphy: For a moment or two I should like to deal with a quid, and I will take the literal meaning of that term, which I noticed in a recent edition of the Toronto Telegram under date of February 16. It refers to the profits of the Imperial Tobacco Company.
The Address-Mr. Murphy With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to read a short extract from that:
The Imperial Tobacco Company of Canada net profit after taxes in 1948 was $7,193,011 equal to 66J cents per share on the common stock, compared with $5,999,153 or 57J cents per share in 1947, according to the annual report.
This showed an increase of twenty per cent in 1948 over 1947. I have not, nor has any member of our party-and I think the same applies to a great many who sit to your right, Mr. Speaker-any quarrel with companies which are able to make good profits. In fact, a great part of their surplus goes back into plant expansion, enabling increased employment. We fully realize that companies which continue to work in the red are bound for the bankruptcy courts; and as we know, bankruptcy courts give little employment. In this particular statement there is one point with which I quarrel, and I do not think there will be any dispute in this house on that particular point.
Today the tobacco manufacturers are able to obtain from this country practically 80 to 85 per cent, if not more, of the tobacco which they use in the manufacture of cigarettes and cut tobaccos. In the last fifteen or twenty years in this country we have expanded our tobacco-growing industry. It is a big industry. My quarrel with the Imperial Tobacco Company's statement is that the prices they have paid to the producers of tobacco are not as large as they should have been. This applies not only to the seven or eight counties in western Ontario but in other places as well. Today we find that good quality tobacco is grown as far north as the Bruce peninsula. We also know that in Quebec cigar-leaf tobacco has been grown for a great many years, and is still grown in that province. If any hon. members have any doubt about that, all they have to do is to walk up the corridors of this building and they will get the aroma of the home-grown cigar tobacco.
There is another feature to which I shall refer with disfavour. And I speak with some authority on this matter because, with the exception of the last fifteen years, I have been engaged in the tobacco industry. I grew it. We manufactured it, we jobbed it or wholesaled it and I did have something to say about a few retailers who retailed it. Before I continue I want to make it clear that I am not speaking on behalf of any particular wholesaler or any group of wholesalers because I am not associated with any wholesaler or jobber in this country, notwithstanding the fact that the company name Murphy with which I was associated some years ago is still retained by the company. Up until fifteen years ago the distributors

The Address-Mr. Murphy payment of salaries which are reasonably comparable with what are being paid on the other side. These young men leave our country to go there because of our taxation policies. A young man on the other side who wants to get married can furnish a four-roomed apartment for at least a third less than it would cost here in Canada because of the many taxes imposed on the goods required to set up housekeeping. They are complaining, and rightly so, about the luxury taxes that are imposed on so many goods that are really necessary when they are planning on starting up housekeeping.
To us on the border, and I believe also to those who are not, luxury taxes are more than nuisance taxes, and they are not bringing in the revenue which they might, because of the dissatisfaction they are creating. There are merchants along the border who are returning shipments to manufacturers and jobbers if the merchants are obliged to impose a luxury tax on those articles. Furthermore, for our British goods and for many of our own manufactured goods which today bear a luxury tax, we have at all times enjoyed a good market in their sale to tourists from the United States. Merchants along the border tell me that tourists coming from the United States to purchase these goods now find that certain articles imported from Great Britain are sold more cheaply in United States stores than they are in our own. We are losing a very important market because so many tourists buy quite large quantities of British-made goods. It is alarming to us to find that they are now realizing that they can purchase them for a lesser price in the United States than they can buy them for in Canada, simply because of the luxury tax which the government imposes.
There is another matter I should like to deal with. It is relevant to crown companies. As I have said before in the house, we are very glad that we have the Polymer Corporation in the county of Lambton. I have said that before and I repeat it. The Polymer Corporation and other industries, many of them chemical, have brought a fine type of employee and citizen to our community. But I say this-and it is a plank in our platform -that crown companies should make some contribution by way of taxes to the municipalities in which they do business. I feel very strongly on the matter because in this particular township, which now has about 10,000 people whereas some five or six years ago there were only about 2,500, a great deal of additional expense has been incurred, not only for administration, but also for roads, hospitalization, relief, and everything else that is
!Mr. Murphy.]
entailed in municipal administration because of the increased number of people now residing in the township.
I have heard the present Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) say, and he has said it more than once, that he defies anyone in the house or elsewhere to say that a municipality does not benefit because of the operation therein of a crown company. I must say to him through you, Mr. Speaker, that it is true that the municipalities benefit. We all realize that industry brings in population, and the greater the population the greater the taxes. While the area benefits, the same argument can be advanced as to any industry, but these other industries, which are not crown companies, make their contribution to the municipalities. For instance, we know what the increased cost was in that particular township for roads, schools and administration. I will say that our present leader, when he was premier of the province of Ontario, realized what the problems were, and in his capacity as minister of education he saw to it that several of the school sections received very substantial grants to compensate for the additional costs incurred by the influx of people. Sessions of the house roll around, and while we see resolutions on the order paper, it is about time that we got down to discussing one of them relative to the contributions crown companies should make to the municipalities in which they are located.
The next subject which I should like to discuss for a few minutes is the tourist industry. I sincerely hope that this session the government will set up a special committee to deal with the tourist industry, and to co-operate with the minister in the development thereof. We all read the announcement by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) when he made the appointment of the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Winters) to the portfolio of Minister of Reconstruction and Supply. We recall with some pride that, when the appointment was made, emphasis was placed upon the importance of the tourist industry, and as I recall it that was repeated. Our tourist bureau was instituted in 1934 by a former prime minister. It has seemed to so many of us, who have taken a keen interest in the tourist industry, that the present government hesitated to support a child fathered by a former prime minister. There is one astounding fact that we all admit, and which helps us to realize why the industry has not progressed as it should. Since 1934 the tourist bureau has been under the direction of either ten or eleven different ministers. Since parliament assembled in 1945 we have had four ministers, if we count the present Minister of Trade and Commerce in two different

ministries. It is apparent that no bureau, no part of a portfolio which has been treated as an adjunct, can receive continuity of consideration to the extent to which it is entitled in order to bring it up to a high standard, and in order for it to do what we expect it should do. On this side of the house we are very proud of the appointment that has been made; we are very anxious to work with the minister, and to help him to promote the industry. We know that we cannot recover the time that has been lost up till now. The tourist industry is not like the oil or gas business. In any area, including the province of Alberta, what they do not take out today they can take out tomorrow or even a hundred years from tomorrow; but what has been lost up until last night in the tourist industry we do not get back. It is gone forever. I have pointed out on different occasions the necessity of our getting more United States dollars. There is no more effective way to obtain more of the United States exchange that is so needed than through our tourist industry.
We are not the only country that realizes the importance of this industry. Earlier this year I think every hon. member received a memorandum from the United Kingdom travel association, in which we find that the patron is His Majesty the King; the vice-patron is Her Royal Highness the Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh; the president is Right Hon. Viscount Jowitt; and the chairman is Right Hon. Lord Hacking. Then in a news item dated February 15 of this year, which I think appeared in one of the Canadian newspapers, I see the heading, "France opens all-out drive to attract tourist industry," and I quote from the article:
France is going all-out to attract more tourists this year. Millions of francs and tons of glossy paper are being used to induce more Britons and Americans to spend their sterling and dollars on holidays in "the loveliest pleasure ground in the world."
Then in conclusion the article states:
France recognizes that tourists provide the greatest single source to cover the deficit which it is anticipated she, like other Marshall-plan countries, will face when dollar aid dries up in 1952.
Then I have another quotation from the New York Herald dated February 8, 1949, from which I shall read only the headlines: "Cheaper franc likely to lure rush of tourists." In the same newspaper I see the statement that in 1947 foreign tours cost the United States some $690 million, which was American money spent in Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, and I am advised that last year the total spent in those areas was close to a billion dollars.
We have our own records here, and we are said to have received from this source some $270 million in 1948, an increase of twenty
The Address-Mr. Murphy odd million dollars over the previous year. There has been an important change recently with respect to the amount of goods Americans can take back from this country after having been here for twelve days. Formerly it was $100; today it is $300, and that is a very important factor.
I should like to mention two other references in that connection. The first appears in the foreign trade publication of January 29 of this year, at page 222:
Prosperity In Bahamas is largely derived from tourist industry.
Kingston, January 6, 1949. Tourism and housing construction are contributing substantially to the post-war prosperity of the Bahamas . . .
Then on page 223:
There is little unemployment in the Bahamas at the present time, owing to the prosperous condition of the tourist industry and the high level of construction ... As a result of these favourable conditions, labour unrest has not been a problem during the past year.
Another very well written article appears on page 240 of the same journal under the heading, "Tourist industry in Great Britain largest dollar earning export." At the bottom of the second paragraph I find this statement:
Outside of shipping, no other export industry would seem to hold more promise than the tourist industry.
When the present leader of this party was premier of Ontario he recognized the importance of the tourist industry and appointed a minister to that portfolio. I think it can be said without fear of contradiction that about two-thirds of this amount of $270 million is spent in the province of Ontario. We know that the premier of Quebec has taken under his personal direction the promotion of the tourist industry there. Many members of the House of Commons believe that if we had a committee to work with the minister to develop this industry a great deal could be accomplished. I appreciate, as we all do, that a committee has been set up in another place, but I would suggest that a committee of this house might go into the question from the research angle and call as witnesses men who have been successful in industry and who appreciate the importance of advertising in connection with sales promotion. I believe that today the amount spent in advertising the tourist industry is little more than one-half of one per cent, which is very little when we have in mind what we have to offer. Now that we have the tourist business under a minister so it can be dealt with at the cabinet level I believe the development of the industry should be proceeded with in a businesslike manner with the support of all members of this house.
876	HOUSE OF COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Murphy


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired.


Some hon. Members:: Go ahead.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member has unanimous consent he may proceed.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Joseph Warner Murphy: I thank hon. members for their indulgence. We might call before such a committee some of those who have been successful in promoting big industry, where advertising is an important factor, because this is an advertising sales job. The provinces also will benefit to the extent that they contribute by way of good roads, which are so necessary, and adequate accommodation, which seems to be somewhat lacking. Through this committee I believe more publicity could be given our tourist industry so people would become more tourist conscious. This might give many the idea of making a contribution in one way or another to this most important activity. We might call before the committee men from the Ford company and the oil companies. I mention those in particular because I say in all sincerity that this travel bureau should have been organized when those industries were in their infancy, because they tie in one with the other. I am satisfied that our delay in recognizing the importance of this industry has cost us millions of dollars. Had the dominion government-I do not mean only this government, but any government-recognized the importance of this industry in the early days, I am sure it would have set up committees to co-ordinate the work of the provinces, so the industry might progress as our oil industry and our automobile industry have progressed. We might also call Mr. Berkinshaw, who I think is president of Goodyear Tire, and other men of that kind who have contributed so much to the development of this country, including railway and steamship executives and so on. We might also bring in representatives of the provinces. It is not enough to have those representatives meet here for a two-day session in the fall of the year. Such an important industry deserves more than that. If we are going to make it a billion dollar industry we must proceed with businesslike methods.
Just recently I saw an item in the newspapers with respect to the Alberta oil fields, and it occurred to me that this applied equally well to the tourist industry. We have had oil for years, just as we have had the tourist industry for years, but promoted originally by the railways and steamship companies. Recently in Alberta a huge reservoir of oil has been found in connection with which, incidentally, a group of companies tMr. Murphy.]
including Imperial Oil are immediately spending some $80 million on development. Here are corporations giving employment to thousands of people, which have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in order to develop the natural resources of this country; and I say the two industries are comparable in this respect.
Our 1948-49 anticipated production in Alberta is 50 per cent greater than in 1948 and 75 per cent greater than it was in 1947. I would suggest that is the figure this tourist industry could use as a guide. There is no reason in the world why the members of this House of Commons could not get together with the minister who could, if he so desired, create a committee to look into this matter. The set-up of the committee would not matter a great deal, so long as it was composed of men who were willing and able to lend their services. God only knows we are not overworked in this house. This would also tie in with the trans-Canada highway, upon which I hope to have the opportunity of speaking at a later date. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, and in closing hope that a special tourist committee will be set up immediately.


Mr. Frederic Dorion (Charlevoix-Sague-nay):: Mr. Speaker, for the reasons I gave in the house a few days ago, I believe it is my duty to reply to the charges made by the member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart) against some French persons who came to Canada a few years ago after having fled from France because of the persecutions which took place in that country after the war. The hon. member for Winnipeg North advised us that he wanted to take the opportunity afforded by the amendment to the address to make another speech on the same subject. He went so far as to say that if he did not have sufficient time to put all the information he had on the record in these two speeches, he would make a third speech on the main motion. I wish to state that, after answering his first speech, I intend to reply to any other speech the hon. member might contemplate making on the same subject.
If it were only a matter of discussing the fate of a few individuals, I would refrain from taking up the time of this house to correct the allegations made by the hon. member. Owing to the principle involved, however, all members must see that it is an important matter. It concerns the struggle between the communists on the one hand, and Christianity on the other. As everyone is aware, subversive ideologies are spreading throughout the countries under Russian control as well as other countries in the world. We know that the communists are at work in Canada, and particularly in large centres

such as Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg. It is most unfortunate that, even in this chamber, communists so easily find advocates for their cause. I do not hesitate to state that if the French citizens referred to by the member for Winnipeg North were communist Jews instead of French Catholics, we would not have heard about them in this house.


Major James William Coldwell: Shame, shame!


Frédéric Dorion: How does it happen that we only hear of the five or six French citizens who have been given shelter in this country? Why do we hear nothing about the six or seven Jews who were admitted to Canada last fall after having entered with false passports? I do not intend to blame anyone for issuing permanent visas to these Jews because I am willing to believe that they, as well as others, were entitled to the protection they received from the authorities. I ask, however, why make it a crime for a French Catholic to seek refuge in this country when no one dares to say a word about the Jews who are in the same situation?


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: Were they collaborators?


Frédéric Dorion: Listen to my speech and you will find out whether they were collaborators. I repeat, why make it a crime for a French Catholic to seek refuge in this country when no one dares to say a word about the Jews who are in the same situation?


Major James William Coldwell: These men were condemned by the French courts.


Frédéric Dorion: If you will listen to my speech you will find out about that.
If there is a fight between Christianity and communism in the world today, everyone is aware that the communists regard the Catholic church as enemy number one. Recent occurrences in several central European countries have demonstrated this fact.
The member for Winnipeg North referred to the question of privilege which I submitted to the house the other day relating to the de Bernonville case. From his remarks at page 794 of Hansard, I quote the following words:
The hon. member also went on to say he was convinced not only of de Bernonville's innocence, but also of the assistance he has rendered our soldiers during the war. I think the most significant thing then was not the statement of the hon. gentleman, but the applause coming from the Tory benches which greeted it. One of us is wrong. Either the hon. member for Charlevoix-Saguenay is right or I am right, and I am prepared to leave it to the judgment of the house.
I shall deal with the innocence of de Bernonville first and, later on, I shall submit the evidence which I have regarding the assistance he gave to our soldiers during the war.
The Address-Mr. Dorion Before reaching that point, I should like to comment on certain remarks the hon. member made about a French citizen by the name of Jean Bonnel, living in Montreal. It is true that, for personal reasons, this man has not yet chosen to apply for his Canadian citizenship. Mr. Bonnel has been living in Canada for over twenty years. He is married to a Canadian woman and is the father of many children born in Canada. During these last twenty years, I am sure Mr. Bonnel has succeeded in acquiring a real Canadian spirit, more so than some new Canadians who have only been in this country since 1930. I would rather depend for Canadianism on a man who has lived in Canada over twenty years than on one who, although he may have his Canadian citizenship, came to Canada more recently.
Speaking about Mayor Camillien Houde,. the hon. member said, at page 795 of Hansard:
I can well understand how a man behind bars, for hampering the war effort could feel such a close relationship for a nazi collaborationist.
Before making such a statement the horf. member should have remembered that the late Mr. Woods worth, the founder of his party, and his present leader were not so favourable to our participation in the war before Russia became our ally.


Major James William Coldwell: I rise on a point of order to correct that statement. The C.C.F. group in this house, with the exception of Mr. Woodsworth, voted on September 9 or 10, the day war was declared, to declare war. Hansard shows that.


Frédéric Dorion: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, my reason for making that remark is that I have read Hansard for September, 1939. On the 8th September, 1939, at page 55, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) made a statement concerning the policy of the C.C.F. group. This is what he said:
Canada should be prepared to defend her own shores but her assistance overseas should be limited to economic aid and must not include the conscription of manpower or the sending of any expeditionary force.


Major James William Coldwell: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker-


Frédéric Dorion: I am speaking on the point of order-


Major James William Coldwell: I say we voted for the declaration of war and we supported every move to further the war effort once that decision was made.


Mr. Speaker:: I should like to remind the members that only one member at a time should speak.

The Address-Mr. Dorion


Frédéric Dorion: On the same day, September 8, 1939, at page 47 of Hansard, Mr. Woodsworth said this:
We laud the courage of those who go to the front; yes, I have boys of my own, and I hope they are not cowards, but if any one of those boys, not from cowardice but really through belief, is willing to take his stand on this matter and, if necessary, to face a concentration camp or a firing squad, I shall be more proud of that boy than if he enlisted for the war.
Speaking of de Bernonville, the member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart) said, at page 794 of Hansard:
-the Germans made him military commandant of the Lyons area, a post that would go only to one of the most tried and true supporters of the nazi cause.
Speaking especially of de Bernonville, the hon. member says, as reported at page 794 of Hansard:
This time the Germans made him military commandant of the Lyons area, a post that would go only to one of the most tried and true supporters of the nazi cause. His special task was to set up a counter-resistance police to combat the French maquis. In this he was concerned particularly with identifying British and other allied officers who dropped into France by parachute to aid the resistance movement. His work resulted in the death of many of these allied soldiers, it was said. This information came out during the Toulouse trial at which de Bernonville was convicted in absentia.
First, I must take exception to the statement made by the hon. member to the effect that de Bernonville was given military command by the Germans. Everyone knows that it was the Vichy government which ruled southern France after 1940; and we must not forget that nearly every country recognized the legality of the Vichy government. Our own country, like many others, even had an official representative there. But the part of the statement to which I wish to draw special attention is the one concerning the conviction of de Bernonville by a Toulouse tribunal. Here I wish to report a description of the kinds of tribunals that were supposed to administer justice in southern France, and particularly in Toulouse, after the liberation of France. To make that demonstration, I shall not depend upon unknown and unverified statements, but will quote from an article published in the American Mercury in April, 1946; it was written by Donald B. Robinson and is entitled, Blood Bath in France. The excerpts that I am about to quote will show the hon. member for Winnipeg North what was going on in that part of France when de Bernonville was condemned in absentia. Mr. Robinson writes as follows:
As a member of the civil affairs headquarters of the American seventh army, stationed in Marseilles during and after the liberation, I personally witnessed the communist terror which reigned in southern France after the defeat of the nazi armies . . .
[Mr. Speaker.)
Further on he says:
During those months in the summer and autumn of 1944, revolution almost engulfed the south of France, and the communists were doing everything in their power to foment it. . . Almost immediately, bitter factionalism broke out among the native population, and the watchword "unity" which had been an all lips at the hour of liberation was forgotten. Within ten days a reign of terror was in full swing all the way from Toulouse in the southwest to Nice and the Italian border. The streets of every city and town were thronged with toughlooking civilians carrying every variety of arms, from stilettos to rifles, hand grenades and tommy guns. They raced wildly down the boulevards in automobiles whose doors had been removed to permit the occupants to shoot easily on the move. They scoured all sections, looking not only for the hated Vichy militiamen but for anyone else who had incurred their political enmity. Even the liberating Americans were not immune. American soldiers were killed and wounded. I was shot at myself, more than a dozen times.
Further on he goes on to say this:
What happened in Marseilles was typical. The FFI-
FFI stands for Forces Franchises de l'lnterieur, French forces of the interior.
-totalled about 1,600 members when the city was liberated. Within two weeks, according to a report by American army intelligence officers, this number had swelled to 4,500 as "all the hoodlums and grudge-payers flocked to the colours after the fighting was over." The same report stated that soon thereafter the total membership "dropped to about 3,000 as the original members, mostly reliable citizens, returned to their normal pursuits, leaving the undesirable elements as the great bulk of the organization.
A little further on he says:
At least two allied officers who had been carrying on espionage in Vichy France were killed; their FFI captors refused even to inquire of the nearby American army concerning their claim that they belonged to the allied forces.
On the following page I read this:
In Toulouse-
Always Toulouse, where de Bernonville was condemned.
-where the communist element was very strong, the situation was so tense that residents urged American occupation of the city for a few weeks until "the armed communist element could be brought under control."
Further on I read:
Then American officers and men began to draw FFI fire. These "accidents" coincided with a change in the French communist party line towards the United States. For the first few weeks after the liberation, all Frenchmen were unanimous in fervent gratitude to the Americans. Then the communists, evidently fearing that France would turn against Russia, began sniping at our forces. Since most of the newspapers of southern France were communist-controlled, an almost unanimous tirade of unjustified complaints arose in the press against the American army. There was also a crescendo of word-of-mouth propaganda. Civil affairs officers noted an organized communist-inspired campaign to discredit America and Americans with the French.

I wish to read one more passage. Speaking of General Parkman, the author writes this:
He was soon forced to intervene in another connection. In all parts of the south the FFI established drumhead courts whose judges were usually persons acceptable to the communists. These courts-marital, which had no legal basis whatever, tried thousands of Frenchmen, most of whom were sentenced to death or to long terms of imprisonment. The most notorious of these courts were at Nimes, Perpignan, and Toulouse.
The place where de Bernonville was condemned. To continue:
Such a scandal resulted from their illegal and summary proceedings that General Parkman wrote to General de Gaulle's military delegate, General Henri Cochet, insisting that the courts-martial be discontinued and succeeded by ordinary processes of law.
Mr. Robinson finishes his article by saying:
Such is the fuel under the bubbling cauldron of hate that is France today.
This was written in April, 1946. To continue:
If it boils over into further bloodshed and death, the world should at least know who is responsible.
When I heard the hon. member for Winnipeg North vindicating the French maquis, I knew that he was not well acquainted with all the information that could enable him to have an exact idea of that organization.
Regarding the maquis, the hon. member is reported at page 793 of Hansard to have said:
A word about the maquis might be in order. The maquis are men who gave back to France her soul during the war. They are the men who gave back to France her honour after the betrayal of Vichy. They are the men who died, not only to free France from nazi persecution but also to enable us to live in Canada as free men and women. The men of the maquis are heroes whose names will be remembered wherever there are free men.
We know, Mr. Speaker, that the maquis could be classified under three headings, namely, the military maquis; the communist maquis; and the terrorist maquis. Skirmishes, and even pitched battles, took place among members of the various underground movements, although the communist underground and the terrorist underground, outnumbering all others, were practically amalgamated. In a press conference in October, 1948, Mr. Francisque Gay, the present ambassador of France here in Ottawa) admitted that at the outset the resistance movement in France was ninety per cent communist.
Several underground leaders in the maquis were Russians. Their title of soviet agent gave them prestige and a part as leader. May I mention Kadewz Kosinski, in the Pas-de-Calais; Captain Votcharemko, great torturer of the group known as "Captain Marius' gang", who operated in the department of Saone-et-Loire; Captain Alexandre and Lieu-
The Address-Mr. Dorion tenant Sabourov, of the red army, who played an important part in the Auvergne underground, and this band of Georgian killers who controlled the Dordogne underground, as was revealed in the course of a trial.
Sometimes they received orders from Moscow. No doubt this led to the apparently unexplainable assassination of leading personalities, such as General Debeney, army commanding officer during the first great war; or General Noel, former army commanding officer, Grand Officier de la Legion d'Honneur, kidnapped and assassinated with twelve other persons at Dorat, in the Haute-Vienne. There again, it happened that the victims were bona fide members of the resistance movement. Let me mention the case of Baron Henry Reille-Soult, hero of the first war, organizer of a military underground, who during the second world war invented a sighting gear, the plans of which he was able to forward to the allies.
Here is the evidence of Madame Reille-Soult, recently published in newspapers:
On July 21, 1944, Baron Henry Reille-Soult and his wife were arrested at Rancho and handed over to the group called "he Chouan". which controlled the maquis in the forest of Lussac-les-Chateaux. After twenty-six days of terrible agony, they were compelled, with numerous other Frenchmen, to travel by forced marches across the region, to be then tried by a mock tribunal and locked up in a pig-sty. At the same time, under pretext of requisition, their property was looted, their livestock stolen, and their chambermaid raped by their tormentors, and they were finally freed after handing over a cheque for 60,000 francs.
Raymond Daniel, New York Times correspondent, in September 1944, wrote about the reign of the F.F.I., French forces of the interior, of the snipers and the members of the underground or maquisards in Paris. He described these irregular formations composed mainly of young loafers-such is the expression used by him-using guns, grenades, and machine pistols in the streets of Paris. People were denouncing their neighbours, believed to be collaborationists, to these guttersnipes, not to the police. On a mere denunciation originating from the first comer, members of the resistance movement invaded a house, arresting or killing the occupants. There again it happened that they robbed and killed people who were far better resistants than they were themselves. Pierre Tattinger, president of the municipal council of Paris at the time of the liberation, said, "The liberation committee was a committee of arrest, nothing else".
Here is the opinion of the eminent sociologist Joseph Folliet who, in September last, wrote in Les Etudes, the great Jesuit review:
Repression has taken the aspect of political revenge, and not of serene and universal justice. How

The Address-Mr. Dorion can we believe in a purging justice? Depending upon the time and place, the same charge warrants a death sentence here, twenty years' hard labour there, five years of national indignity elsewhere. Under the same general label of "treason" were classified traitors in the technical sense of the word, all the spectrum of "collaboration", every shade of "Petainism" including, sometimes, those who refused the collaboration program.
Now that we know of the mock tribunals existing in Toulouse, France, and it was in Toulouse that Bernonville was condemned in absentia; now that we know of the entire control of the tribunals by the communist maquis; it is worth knowing the type of man Bernonville is. At the age of twenty, he was made Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur for his military exploits. At the age of twenty-three, he became Officer de la Legion d'Honneur for similar accomplishments. He later on was given seven citations and la Croix de Guerre 1918. He was wounded five times and bears the scars of thirty wounds. In 1940, he was singled out in the army orders of the day and awarded la Croix de Guerre 1940. This citation was published in the official journal of France. This is the record of a man whom the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart) wants us to believe to be a traitor to his country.
When he gave evidence before the court in Montreal last fall, he made a sworn declaration which has never been denied, and cannot be denied by anyone, in which he related his actions and conduct during the war.
He accepted from Marshal Petain the functions of military governor of the district of Lyon. He was a full military commandant. He was entrusted with the security of people and supplies which was then in a precarious stage, having barely one day of food supply ahead. He also stated in the course of his sworn evidence that he had a secret mission with the purpose of preserving and saving all the military units and material under his command, to put them at the disposal of the allies at a moment to be decided by the chief of the French state. On August 20, 1944, his functions terminated and he met that day one of the principal leaders of the French underground and informed the latter of his military forces and material which he had salvaged from the Germans. One-half hour later, he was arrested by the gestapo and incarcerated in Nancy. He was released when the Americans reached that city.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at seven-thirty o'clock.
Frédéric Dorion: Mr. Speaker, at six o'clock I was reviewing the duties that had been carried out by Count de Bernonville when he 
was at Lyons. I mentioned that in August, 1944, he was arrested and incarcerated by the German gestapo. I submit- that those are facts upon which I would rather rely than on hearsay and gratuitous declarations. I wonder why a man by the name of Jacolson, and Mme. Carnet, who are supposed to be actually secret agents of the communists in Montreal, did not come last fall before the court in Montreal during the trial, which lasted many weeks, to present their evidence against de Bernonville. That is the reason why I said the other day that I was convinced of the innocence of de Bernonville.
Coming now to the other point about the assistance given to our soldiers. I shall refer first to the evidence de Bernonville gave before the court in Montreal, and afterward to the testimony of a great Canadian soldier. It was in November, 1942, that he came to Vichy and stated before the court that he had participated with officers of the Vichy army in organizing and supervising a communication line, that is, shelters, relays, et cetera, in order to facilitate the escape of allied officers to Spain.
That sworn statement of de Bernonville was fully corroborated by Captain Antoine Masson of Montreal who, after having been sworn, stated in evidence that he had joined the army in 1940 and had gone to England with the Fusilliers Mont Royal. During his military service he was decorated with the Military Cross. He took part in the Dieppe invasion and was captured by the Germans and hospitalized in a German hospital after being wounded. Afterward he was transferred from place to place until in October, 1942, he was finally stationed at Chambaran. I shall quote the exact words used by Captain Masson when giving his evidence, which were as follows:
In the month of October, 1942, we were transferred to Chambaran. At that time, I mean to answer your question-the commanding officer of the camp was Commandant Lamothe, who at times, in various circumstances, used to come and speak with us and he was very anxious to enquire about our way of thinking and our reactions about the Vichy government. He showed to us, and among others to me personally, a list of fifty divisions of the French army that were ready to gather right in 1942 and help the allies in case of a mass invasion, that is, assist the allies against the Germans.
Here is what happened: We were called-two or three days before, we were called in the office of the commanding officer at the time of the German invasion on November 12, 1942. The commanding officer of the camp took the telephone, in presence of Lieutenant-Commander Michael Redvers Prior, who was also a prisoner of war with myself-a D.S.O. with Bar. He told me at that time: "It is decided, we are letting you go, yourself and Prior. Now sit down for a few minutes." He took the telephone, he asked to speak with Mr. de Bemon-ville and Mr. de Bernonville was not there then; he then asked to speak with Mr. de Bemonville's assistant, and they had a conversation of a few

minutes over the telephone and he said: "The organization of the two I have here in my office is ready and they will leave at two o'clock. Therefore, you will have to notify the authorities accordingly." He then hung up the telephone and what I report now is practically verbatim. And on the following day he supplied us with a bus and then we left for Grenoble, and then, step by step, we reached Spain.
Those are the reasons why I contended that de Bernonville had given assistance to our soldiers. As those facts were clearly established before the court and could not be contradicted, that must have been the reason why the judge expressed the opinion in rendering his judgment that this man should receive asylum in Canada. In his remarks the hon. member for Winnipeg North stated that he was amazed to learn that the judge had so expressed himself, and I quote from page 794 of Hansard:
The court ordered the count liberated immediately and said it was directing authorities at Ottawa to grant him asylum along with his family.
Then the hon. member went on to state:
That is an amazing statement, and in it I think the judge went far beyond the bounds of propriety.
I must tell the hon. member that there are precedents in our jurispudence for such a statement and I should like to cite one of them. A case dealing with one Carmichael is reported in 3 Dominion Law Reports, 1942, page 519, where Mr. Justice Coady, of the Supreme Court of British Columbia says:
While this court has no jurisdiction to interfere with the order made herein by the court, yet one cannot help but express the hope that under all the circumstances here the enforcement of the deportation order may be indefinitely deferred and that the woman and son may be allowed to remain in Canada.
After Count de Bernonville heard of the statements made in the house the other day by the hon. member he authorized me to make a categorical denial because he contends that those statements are absolutely unfounded. Just before three o'clock this afternoon I received a telegram from Paris, but before reading it I would direct the attention of hon. members to the fact that it has been stated that the events referred to took place on June 20 and 21, 1944. Those events are supposed to have taken place at a place called Chalon-sur-Saone. It might be noted in passing that that place is more than 250 miles from Paris. This telegram is dated February 24 and is signed by six persons, one of whom was decorated for his resistance activities. It reads:
We certify on our honour Jacques de Bernonville was in Paris from the 17th to the 21st June, 1944. We have seen him there.
The Address-Mr. Dorion
And the telegram is signed by:
Abbe Hadot, Professor, Grand Seminary, Versailles.
Isabelle and Jacqueline Ronin, 80 Ranelagh.
Madame Lallemant, displaced widow, 26 Faisan-derie.
Madame Deverdelon, 1 Fenelon.
Landry Lagatinerie, decorated for resistance activities, 1 Dickens, Paris.
Frederic Dorion, M.P.,
House of Commons, Ottawa.
I submit that a telegram of that type from six reliable persons is much stronger evidence than the statements reported by the hon. member. In closing I should like to recall that when the United Nations were assembled in Paris in December, 1948, they adopted a declaration of human rights, article XIV of which reads as follows:
Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
It is the application of that rule that we request in the case of de Bernonville. I will go so far as to say that if it could be established properly and legally that this man is a common-law criminal he would not be able to find anyone to contest an order of deportation. But contending as I do that he is a political refugee, I say to the government that it is their duty to give him shelter in our country because the right of asylum is a sacred right which has always been recognized by all civilized countries of the world.
(Translation):
And now, Mr. Speaker, I should like to quote two excerpts from a book on international law by a well-known French writer, M. Calvo. Here is what I find on page 574, Vol. 2, No. 1034:
In 1849, during negotiations conducted by the great powers in connection with Turkey's refusal to hand over to Austria certain individuals who had been involved in the Hungarian insurrection and had taken refuge in Wallachia, Lord Palmerston wrote on October 6: "H there is today a rule which, more than any other, has been observed in modern times by all independent states, large or small, throughout the civilized world, it is the rule whereby a government should not hand over political refugees, unless some positive provisions of a treaty compel it to do so, and His Majesty's government believes that there are few, if any, such agreements. The rules of hospitality, the requirements of humanity, the feelings which are a natural attribute of man combine in ruling out such extraditions, and any independent government which of its own accord would grant one of such a nature would justly and universally be stigmatized as having disgraced itself.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, may I say that the documents to which I referred and the quotations I submitted this afternoon clearly show what kind of courts existed in France

The Address-Mr. Langlois in 1944 and as late as 1946. I have here the testimony of a French author, who wrote in November 1948, in the magazine Conferencia, that practically the same conditions still exist. He writes as follows:
There is yet another crime, but of an essentially moral character. Men and women who, in France and in our empire, have followed Petain in good faith (I naturally leave out profiteers of the regime, the mob of cowards only too eager to hide their guilty conscience under the mantle of the victor of Verdun, shady politicians and racketeers of all stamps), such men and women were always, yes always, of the French elite. Their unselfishness, courage and patriotism were unquestionable, and I have known many of them. Blinded by the myth of Petain, deeply convinced as they were, that the old man of Vichy was thinking only of France and that, when the day came, he would pull them out of humiliation and defeat, they allowed themselves to be drawn on the sinuous way where a glorious name guided them, committing themselves to Petain, entrusting themselves to him body and soul.
Many, at this very moment, are paying dearly for their misplaced trust and their lack of critical judgment. Many were tried by so-called civic chambers, in so-called courts of justice, presided over by magistrates who, not so long ago, were light-heartedly sending our comrades to prison or to the firing-post, aided and abetted by too many so-called "resistants", whose fresh titles would have borne looking into or about whom it would have been nice to know if they were not putting political rancour or personal hatred above equity. Many of those unfortunate Frenchmen and Frenchwomen are now rotting in overcrowded jails or concentration camps. Some are yet waiting to be questioned. Well, I have seen all this happen in Spain, two years after the civil war and, according to press reports, it still prevails on the other side of the Pyrenees. There have been rightful protests against this shame, this challenge to justice and humanity. I say, regretfully, that today Spain can reply that she has no cause to envy us in that respect. It is an outrageous blemish on the name of France, a festering sore that infects everything, poisons everything and which, as long as it is not cleaned up and healed, shall impede any earnest attempt at reconstruction in this country. It is not realized that France emerges, in fact, from a larval civil war, a war, more insidious and therefore more dangerous yet than the war in Spain, because it goes under the false colours of a war of liberation.


Mr. J. G. L. Langlois (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, before opening my remarks, I wish to abide by the tradition of the house as far as the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne is concerned. It is with great pleasure that I do so.
I must first congratulate the mover and seconder of the address in reply, the hon. members for Essex West (Mr. Brown) and for Laval-Two Mountains (Mr. Demers). Both fulfilled their task with tact and skill.
I have special words of praise for our new colleague from Laval-Two Mountains. As a newcomer in the house he was invited by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) to second the motion now being discussed.
{Mr. Dorion.]
Being a new member myself at the opening of the session in September 1945, I had the same experience, having been called upon to second a similar motion. I congratulate the hon. member most heartily on his maiden speech in the house. As was stated this afternoon by another speaker, he was a credit to his constituency and to the house at large on that occasion.
(Text):
I also extend congratulations and best wishes to the new cabinet ministers, the hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson), the hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson), and the hon. Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Winters). When they joined the cabinet they already had a substantial and meritorious record of service. I am convinced that their new functions will afford them a better opportunity to continue to serve Canada with equal devotion.
(Translation):
During the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, it is customary also for hon. members to praise the good points of their constituencies and proudly display the development and progress of the industries that flourish in their district.
I too may well extol the natural scenic beauty of my constituency. In fact, I can assert without fear of exaggeration, that I represent a constituency which is one of the loveliest spots not only in the province of Quebec but in the whole country. I refer to the Gaspe peninsula.
I regret to say, however, that, unlike previous speakers in this debate, I cannot praise the development and progress of our local industries.
As a matter of fact, my constituency is now feeling the ill effects of what is apparently the beginning of an economic depression.
Last October, November and part of December I traveled up and down my constituency and, during this comprehensive tour,
I saw with deep concern, how far our economic situation has slipped from the peak prosperity it enjoyed during the war.
This kind of talk may sound strange when, admittedly, every part of this country is enjoying a degree of prosperity such as it had never known before. But when I shall tell

this house of the very special conditions in my constituency and point out the causes of this incipient economic depression, I am sure my fellow members will all agree I am right.
There are only three industries in my county-I will not call them the chief industries, because they are the only ones- and these are deep-sea fishing, lumbering and the tourist trade.
As early as 1937, if I remember well, about two years before the start of the last war, my district had begun to feel the consequences of the world war that was to follow. Indeed, Canada having agreed to take part in the economic sanctions directed at Italy when Mussolini declared war against Ethiopia, my district lost, as a result, its biggest market for dried fish. This product, needless to say, is the cheapest one to manufacture in my district, as it requires less care than is necessary for the kinds of fish we can produce.
During the war a new market was opened up to us, that of England and of allied nations where, because of a shortage of meat at the time, we could sell frozen fish. Because of this new market, we had to convert our salt and dried fish industry into a frozen fish industry.
To comply with the requirements of this new market, we poured money into the venture, built additional cold storage plants and overhauled our production methods from top to bottom. This market lasted throughout the war and even for about two and half years after the war, under the so-called post-UNRRA plan.
Now that this new market has vanished we have had to reconvert our industry so as to regain our former customers. However, economic conditions in South American countries, in Central America, and in Italy, do not allow us, at the moment, wholly to recover the world market we enjoyed before. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, since the war ended, the price of fish took a frightful plunge.
Furthermore, our fishermen from Gaspe have to compete with the fishermen from the maritimes, who are able to use more modern methods. Indeed, in New Brunswick as in Nova Scotia, fishermen are able to benefit from the federal grants initiated during the war to promote fisheries in Canada.
During the war, indeed, the federal government provided grants to fishermen anxious
The Address-Mr. Langlois to build trawlers in order to increase their catches. The building of these trawlers was a rather costly proposition and required especially the preparation of detailed drawings and specifications that had to be approved by the inspection branch of the Department of Transport. The services of architects were required for the drawing of plans. So, in view of the prohibitive cost of these drawings, our fishermen in Gaspe-that is the main reason why they have been unable to benefit from the federal grants-were unable to build their trawlers in accordance with federal requirements.
As far as the fishermen of my province are concerned, I know that the Quebec government could have done as in New Brunswick where they, to supplement federal subsidies, paid for the drawing of plans by naval architects. The Quebec government did not see fit to grant the same privilege to the fishermen of Gaspe.
The second reason why the majority of fishermen of my constituency cannot purchase trawlers is the lack of appropriate fishing harbours to accommodate deep-draught ships. Since my election as representative of Gaspe county in this house, I have constantly urged the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier) to provide more fishing harbours in the Gaspe peninsula, so that a larger number of deep-draught vessels may put into port there. I must thank the Minister of Public Works for the courtesy, the sympathy and, might I say, the generosity with which he has always received my requests. However, much remains to be done.
I believe that it is a federal responsibility to provide for more fishing harbours that would enable our fishermen, as I said a moment ago, to build larger boats and increase their catch. They would be in a better position to compete on a fairer basis with the fishermen of the neighbouring provinces, and by that I mean the maritime provinces.
The lack of decent fishing harbours is a serious handicap to our fishermen, compelled as they are to use smaller craft.
All our fishing harbours are tidal harbours. This means that to go out or return the fishermen must wait for the tide. Sometimes they fish all through the night and then find that they cannot put into port because

The Address-Mr. Langlois the tide is out. They must therefore wait four or five hours, during which time their catch loses much of its value.
Again, due to the fact that we lack decent fishing harbours in the Gaspe district, our fishermen cannot secure loans to build their boats because these craft, once completed, cannot be insured. I have myself approached various marine insurance companies, but no insurance can be secured for these boats because we lack decent harbours, decent shelters where they might be safely moored during storms. The marine risks are too heavy. That is the reason why private insurance companies refuse to take them. If we had larger fishing harbours, where our fleet could find a haven, our fishermen could take out an insurance policy on the boats and of course, if they can insure their craft, it logically follows that they can obtain credit from our lending institutions.
The other industry we have in Gaspe is the lumbering industry. In the past, we have always made our sales on the European and South African markets. During the war, this industry prospered, as did the ocean fishing industry, but since the end of the war, our activities in this field have reached a rather low mark. After having lost the British and South African lumber markets, we now have to turn to the domestic markets, either in Quebec or Montreal. Even those entirely unacquainted with this region can well imagine the situation that must be faced by Gaspe lumber producers, when we consider how far Gaspe is from Quebec or Montreal.
You can see the predicament of our lumber producers. They have to compete with producers close to the main Quebec markets.
This is not the only problem of our lumbering trade. The Gaspe coast is abrupt and difficult of access. The national highway around the peninsula crosses one mountain range after another. Our commercial wharves are on the average 25 to 30 miles apart. It is easy to imagine how hard it is for our lumbermen to bring their wood down to the ships that take it up to Montreal or Quebec. That is why I again ask the hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier), as I have repeatedly in the past, that new wharves be built in Gaspe, so as to bring our local industry into line with those of the better developed districts in the province.

Mr. Speaker, a year ago I put a resolution on the order paper requesting that careful consideration be given to a certain project, viz that the Canada Gulf Terminal Railway, now linking Mont Joli to Matane, be extended to Ste. Anne des Monts.
I hope that within a very short time this house will have the opportunity of giving a favourable vote on this proposal but meanwhile I must bring it to the attention of the Minister of Transport asking him, on behalf of my electors, to give it his sympathetic consideration. Such a railway would afford a good part of my constituency a better access to the Montreal and Quebec markets, to which I was referring a few moments ago. If I may mention the benefits which one of our industries would derive from such an extension, I shall say that through the lack of railway facilities we are unable, in that part of my constituency, to sell our lumber on the United States market. Of course, with the extension we are now asking, that market would at once be opened to our local producers.
Before I conclude this part of my remarks relating directly to my constituency, let me say, Mr. Speaker, that in the past it has always been thought that the solving of the economic problems of the Gaspe peninsula might lie solely in the export of our manpower. I now want to correct this false impression and false opinion because I believe that if we in Gaspe were given the means ordinarily afforded any other district, we would be able to provide for our own maintenance without being compelled to leave our little Gaspe country which we love so dearly. To use the words of the great British political leader in the last war: "Give us the tools and we will finish the job."
Mr. Speaker, I shall spend the rest of the time allotted to me this evening in making a few remarks on Canadian politics in general.
First, I heartily approve the wonderful speech delivered this afternoon by the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Jutras) and I approve unreservedly the proposal he made- a suggestion which had already been made by several other members-to the effect that Canada should be represented at the Vatican.
Allow me now to congratulate and thank on behalf of my compatriots of Quebec the right hon. the Prime Minister for the deserv-

ing effort he has made and the practical results he has achieved, since his rise to his present position, in order to give a fairer representation to my French-Canadian compatriots in the civil service.
Last year I had the opportunity to discuss this question of the federal civil service and more particularly of our French-Canadian representation in that service. In the speech I made at that time, I answered a so-called nationalist who took a gloomy view of the situation, in so far as our representation in the civil service was concerned. In order not to paint so gloomy a picture for those of my province who might like to enter the civil service in Ottawa, I thought it advisable then to point out to this house that we had had some success in that field in the past.
Besides, my views at the time were justified for, later on, the Jean report acknowledged that one of the reasons why there were not enough French Canadians in the civil service, in Ottawa, was that our prospective applicants had been made timorous and that our citizens from the province of Quebec were afraid to apply for a position in the federal civil service.
However, when making these remarks, I failed to take what is commonly known as a rhetorical precaution-I made what some people consider the serious mistake of forgetting to state that I was not satisfied with the situation at the time, any more than I am with the situation now. Yet I was immediately made a target for abuse and accused of stating, although I had said nothing of the sort, that I was satisfied with the situation in the federal civil service, in so far as the representation of French Canadians was concerned.
I made no effort to correct that impression I did not even attempt to challenge this statement, except that I asked the hon. member for St. Maurice-Lafleche (Mr. Hamel) to quote that part of my speech where I was supposed to have said that "I was satisfied." He then admitted that I had said nothing of the kind. I did not deem it necessary to refer further to that charge. However, I think my hon. friends will be surprised to hear that, a few weeks ago in Quebec, the same nationalist member to whom I replied in this house last year-


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: Name him.


Mr. Hamel:: Name him.
The Address-Mr. Langlois


J. G. Léopold Langlois: I shall, later. This same
nationalist member stated that the question of a larger representation for French Canadians in the dominion civil service was only a minor matter. Now, I think it was the hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency.


Pierre Gauthier: The member for Quebec, period.


J. G. Léopold Langlois: I must add that in his
speech before the legislature this member of the provincial house weighed representation of French Canadians in the dominion civil service against policies of concern to the country at large. However, I can well imagine what those who criticized me last year would have said if, perchance, I had had the misfortune of stating that French-Canadian representation in the dominion civil service was only a matter of secondary importance.
Mr. Speaker, back home, when speaking to the good people of my constituency, people who know me, I am not in the habit of minding my statements to that extent, and I ask to be permitted to do likewise in this house. Besides, I am more inclined to practical patriotism, such as that of the Right Hon. Prime Minister.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


J. G. Léopold Langlois: Besides I believe no part of
those great problems will be settled, for problems there are, though one is sometimes prone to magnify them, with mere protestations of patriotism or of boundless nationalism.
(Text):
In this debate, on Monday, February 21, the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew) deemed it necessary, for his own good, to make the following statement as reported at page 732 of Hansard:
In a flattering way hon. members opposite as well as some to my left seem to have been assiduous in reading past speeches of mine to which I pay much less attention today then they seem to. The interesting thing, however, is that throughout all those speeches I was emphasizing a basic principle which has never changed: that is, that I believe under our federal system there should be a strong central government with clearly defined powers and there should be strong local governments with clearly defined powers, all having taxing powers, clearly defined, adequate to carry out their responsibilities. For years I have criticized overlapping as between the dominion government and the provincial governments. I have criticized increased overlapping on
886	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Langlois the part of the dominion government, as I have criticized overlapping by the provincial governments. By such an inquiry as was urged by myself and others at the dominion-provincial conferences that overlapping could be effectively eliminated.
I know that in the past the leader of the opposition on many occasions has complained of having been misquoted. But if he compares the mild statement to which I have just referred with the following press reports of some of his previous utterances on provincial autonomy, he will surely be obliged to accuse the present leader of the opposition of having misquoted the former premier of Ontario. I refer to the Montreal Gazette of November 13, 1942, page 20, column 1. The Montreal Gazette was giving a fairly substantial report of an address he made to the Mount Royal division electors, community hall, N.D.G., and he is reported to have said:
If a contract is to be binding, both parties to the contract must observe the conditions, and it cer-. tainly takes no lawyer to understand that unless the conditions upon which a contract was made are observed, then any special rights which arise out of the contract come to an end, therefore without any misunderstanding-
And this is in quotation marks in the press report.
-"I believe that it is appropriate that we should make it clear that any rights which may be claimed under the British North America Act can only continue so long as the basic condition is recognized, and that the pact, among other things, is for the purpose of promoting the interests of the British empire. That is one of the things we should keep in mind."
In the same press report the Montreal Gazette quotes the leader of the opposition as follows:
Colonel Drew cited the preamble of the British North America Act, with its stipulated consideration that " such a union would promote the interests of the British empire," and he made the points that every right claimed under that contract is dependent and contingent upon that condition -and then he said an interesting thing . . . "That should be taught in our schools" . . . whether or not it was so intended that sentence carries explosive implications. It implies federal supervision, if not control, of education. That in turn, implies a change in the Canadian constitution from piecemeal federalism, and in the direction of solid nationhood.
Again, I read the following report in the Toronto Star of February 23, 1935:
London:	Digressing from a defence of the capitalist system during which he traced a picture of Canada overrun with "halfbaked theorists spreading plausible lunacies and quick tricks to end the depression" the former commissioner launched upon an attack on the attorney general.
For Canada, harassed by debts, labour troubles and conflict in company, insurance and labour laws. Colonel Drew saw in one strong central government the solution, instead of an utterly mad jig-saw puzzle of ten conflicting governments. If we were starting all over again who would be crazy enough to set up ten governments in Canada? he demanded.


In the Toronto Globe of November 10, 1936, reporting an address at the board of trade club on November 9, 1936, the leader of the opposition is quoted as having said the following:
Canada must eliminate the costly inefficiency of ten governments doing in most cases, the job of one, or else sink in the rising tide of fascism . . . We must decide whether we are one nation or nine.
I have still another quotation made on another occasion when he went so far as to speak of a main office-that is the central government-and nine branch offices; that is, the nine provincial governments. One wonders today what has happened to the branch offices mentioned in his earlier statements, considering his last statements on the same subject. On Monday the hon. member said that he wanted then to point out only the overlapping authority vested in both the central and the provincial governments. But when one speaks of main offices and branch offices one has surely in mind more than the mere problem of conflicting authority and jurisdiction.
Speaking on this important problem of dominion-provincial relations the other day when taking part in the debate on the entry of Newfoundland into confederation, I made a suggestion which I want, in the few minutes left at my disposal, to repeat with some additional details. I said then: If the nine provincial premiers are sincere when they claim that their autonomy is threatened by the past efforts of the central government to come to agreement with them on constitutional problems, why are they prevented today from getting together themselves, on their own initiative, with a view to agreeing on a formula which will be accepted by the nine provinces?
We have been accused-and by "we" I mean the central government-of having strayed from the path laid down by the fathers of confederation. We have heard it said-and among the provincial premiers whom we have heard in this connection has been the premier of Quebec-that the central government is the daughter of the provinces. Well, Mr. Speaker, what is to prevent the premiers of the nine provinces from setting us back onto the path laid down by the fathers of confederation? Why do not the premiers of the provinces follow the example which was followed at the preliminary conferences of Quebec and Charlottetown? The representatives of the then existing provinces or colonies were not afraid to get together and come to a common agreement which served later on as the basis of our confederation of today. They were not afraid to get together and lay before the imperial government of the time what was their idea of a federated Canada.

If the premiers of the provinces would so get together and discuss provincial autonomy, if they would discuss these provincial rights together-and they could include fiscal arrangements in their discussions-and if then they would come to Ottawa with a combined agreement which could serve as the basis of a dominion-provincial conference, I say, Mr. Speaker, without fear of being contradicted by the members of my party, that the central government would then be pleased to meet with the provinces anew after such a procedure had been followed.
May I add this, Mr. Speaker. I believe sincerely that, so long as we are going to mix politics with this most important question of provincial prerogatives or dominion-provincial relations, we are not going to meet with success. I venture another suggestion. When at the end of the 1939-45 conflict the nations of the world joined at San Francisco to draft a constitution for the future United Nations assembly, most of the countries sent bi-partisan delegations. I am sure that if at these preliminary meetings, which I have just suggested, the provincial governments would send bi-partisan representatives, the central government would be ready to do the same thing at the dominion-provincial conference following them. By doing that we would at least be taking this most important problem out of politics. If bi-partisan policy was good when it came to deciding on the constitution of the international body which was to deal with the future of Europe, including countries which were former enemy countries, it surely must be good when it comes to amending the constitution which will govern the future of Canada, our beloved country.


Gordon Graydon: The government does not do that, though.


Mr. A. L. Smith (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I begin by paying my compliments to all those who have spoken before me. I intend to direct these compliments a little later to two of the ministers. Before opening as I had intended to, I should like to tell the hon. member for Gaspe (Mr. Langlois) a little story, the moral of which I hope he may grasp. I am thinking of his attack on my leader in the latter part of his remarks. It is said-I should add, I suppose, sir, that it comes from the usual authoritative sources from which government pronouncements come-that at the time Noah built his ark he gathered the animals together, that they came in by a single strong plank. That was necessary, perhaps, to count them as you count and register cattle through a gate. You see, they had to come by a plank because
The Address-Mr. A. L. Smith Noah had to build his ark with a doorway somewhat above the waterline when the ark was loaded. It so happened that the fly preceded the elephant. The fly turned around to the elephant and said: "Whom do you think you are pushing?" I just suggest that to the hon. member for Gaspe.
Because of the latitude which you have allowed in this debate, Mr. Speaker, I want to take the time to pay a compliment to the city of Ottawa, to the people of Ottawa, and to a certain football club in Ottawa which is the second best club in Canada. I mean every word that I say. I think that particularly the sports writers of the papers were fair. I think that in his broadcasts Tommy Shields was both accurate and generous, and therefore my hat is off to this city, to its football players and to its football fans. But I noticed last evening that our brand-new Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) addressed a banquet given to those splendid players. According to the newspapers he said that he had written his speech while listening to a dull address by a member of the Progressive Conservative party. I thought that was rather good. But then I thought that the member of this party who was speaking must have had a particularly soothing voice because, having read the speech of the minister, I am quite sure that he wrote it while he was sound asleep.
I should like now to pay a compliment to the people of Toronto. Two or three hundred people went there, all of them paying their own way, and they did not break a thing in the Royal York hotel. Perhaps some of the members of the universities who were there a week or ten days ago might note that, because at that time the damages ran into thousands of dollars. That excursion, and it was that, did more to bring about understanding between eastern and western Canada than all the speeches that have ever been or ever will be written. My hat is doffed entirely to the people of eastern Canada. As I am essentially a kindly person I should like to include the Secretary of State for External Affairs in the compliments I am paying.
There are three or four things I intend to mention in this debate. I think it is a shame that this debate should be broken up into pieces, as has been done to some extent this year as well as on other occasions during my short sojourn in this parliament. The debate on the address is the only opportunity that private members in all parts of the house have to make suggestions to the government as to the items that should be contained in the budget or as to legislation which it is thought should be brought down by the

The Address-Mr. A. L. Smith government in power. So I intend to mention three or four things which in themselves may seem to be small or even insignificant.
My first suggestion is that the government should make a change with respect to the superannuation allowances of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, as they were then known. I want to be extremely fair. The answer given by this government is exactly the same as the answer given by the Bennett government. In saying that, I think I clear myself of the charge of having political motives in mentioning this matter. The answer is that this would involve changing all civil service superannuation matters.
These men may be technically civil servants, but only technically. They do not have an eight-hour day; they are on call twenty-four hours, day and night. The old regulations, and I assume they are still the same, made a man subject, not only to criticism but to court martial, if he lost a prisoner in a period of five days during which he would have to stay awake. That is the kind of job they are doing. The argument that you must treat the civil servant, whether on an eight-hour day or not, the same as you do the former mounties does not hold water.
I make the following suggestion to the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Gregg) and perhaps to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin), or in any event to those people who have charge of veterans hospitals. This could be done without any definite statutory authority; it could be done by changing a regulation. There are not a great many of these old men-they are old now-and I suggest they should receive the same hospitalization as the veteran. That would help these poor old chaps who have done a real job for us and who are now unable to take care of themselves.
I turn now to another matter where I think separation in legislation is not only essential but imperative. I refer to the blind. There is no more reason why pensions for the blind and pensions for the aged should be in one act than there is that you should associate any two matters as far apart as the poles. They are asking for that. I am sure that we have all been circularized with respect to this matter. They want to be considered separately and it would be a simple thing to do by way of legislation.
I come now to two matters that have to do with health. I am sure we have all had letters with regard to the arthritics, and I am sure also that many of us have had letters with regard to the incurable. I would crave some of your time in order to read a letter I 
received this morning, and I might mention that it is not from a constituent of mine. It reads:
Dear sir:
My son-
I will not mention the name.
-has been paralysed since the age of 10 years; he is now 27 years old. He is incurable, he cannot use hands or feet. It's called agitating paralysis and the continual shake troubles him more than the paralysis. His dad died seven years ago at the mine, so I am a widow (his mother). It's impossible for me to leave him except for an hour or so, so I cannot work myself. I have not left him a day in seventeen years. Why is there no pension for incurables?
I know all about provincial jurisdiction, but before now this parliament has made grants in aid in connection with pensions. Last evening the minister expounded that for an hour and a half, and I shall have something brief to say about it in a moment.
With regard to the first subject, it does seem to me that none of us could receive a letter like that without having his heart strings wrung and without feeling that perhaps we are not doing our job. I do not say that critically, I do not mean it in that way at all; but it does seem to me that we have failed in doing a humanitarian job unless we do what we can to alleviate conditions of that kind.
In speaking about arthritis I want to say that I know something about it, having had some difficulty with that ailment not so long ago. I spoke about arthritis in the first session after I came down here and I have spoken about it during each session since then. We have been talking about it since 1945 but we have not done one single thing. There are 600,000 people who today are suffering arthritic and rheumatic pains. Not all of them are cripples, but a great many of them are, and we have done nothing. It is perfectly true that about a year ago the minister gathered together some people who formed an association and had an organization meeting. They have not met since, and the arthritics are in the same condition as they were when I came down here.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. gentleman would not want the country to get that impression. They have met. They are meeting repeatedly; as a matter of fact, they met a week ago last Saturday. They have an organization in Ottawa. The hon. gentleman asks what they did. If he will read the speech I made last night, he will see what they did.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I am one of
those who heard most of the minister's speech last night. I am one of those apparently who read it carefully and accurately this morning.

I repeat that not one thing has been done tor arthritics except a lot of talk, and newspaper advertising which has gone across the country. I will tell you somebody who is doing something for the arthritics. Anyone who read the speech from the throne in Alberta a few days ago will find in that speech from the throne that they promise both clinical care and hospitalization for the very young and the very old who are suffering from this illness.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Partially with money provided by the federal grants.


Mr. Rowe:: Where did you get the money?


Arthur Leroy Smith: I am going to tell you about your money in a minute.


Paul Joseph James Martin: You said we were not doing anything.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I promise the minister that I will not overlook what he is doing with the people's money, if I may put it that way. In the town of Banff, which is in a national park, there is a doctor by the name of Robinson who has two sons who are also medical men. The three of them are operating a clinic and a hospital. It is the only institution of its kind that I know of in Canada. There, by way of research and treatment, these three men have done more for arthritics than all the government organizations, provincial or dominion, in the whole Dominion of Canada.


An hon. Member:: Oh, oh.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I am sorry that I did not hear what was said then, but I did think I heard the buzzing of another fly.


Mr. Grant:: Tory wit.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Tory what?


Thomas Vincent Grant: Wit.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I am delighted to be described as a wit by a famous psychiatrist; I don't know whether it is with animals or humans. The business of treatment of this illness is all right, but what we need is a concentrated drive to find the cause, because no one has yet found what causes it.
I turn very briefly now to the speech of the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin) of last evening. Frankly it was not a speech; it was an oration. Many people's names passed through my mind. I thought he looked a little more like Daniel Webster than Horatius at the bridge, or anything of that sort, but it really was a magnificent oration. A careful examination of it reveals- what? It reveals that his department, because we voted a certain amount of money in parliament, has paid out that money to pro-
The Address-Mr. A. L. Smith vincial people who are making use of it. That is the total achievement of the minister's department.
You know, Mr. Speaker, when we sit around in our rooms and chat with one another we discuss many subjects. Very often we talk about one another, and particularly about the cabinet ministers, and we have difficulty deciding just who is a great man. The Minister of National Health and Welfare solved that. I have got to give him the number one prize because we require no proof that he is a great man. He admitted it very frankly last night.
I now turn to the speech made by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner). It is the best political speech I have heard in this house. I pay him that compliment. While he was speaking my mind was searching for something, and it finally came to me a few minutes ago. It is based on a little article in the Reader's Digest that appeared a year or a year and a half ago. According to this little story three bulls were out in a pasture near Ottawa feeding on the lush grass.


Clarence Decatur Howe: A very old story.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I am very glad that the minister says it is a very old story, because he knows that his old jokes are the best that he has got, and I am in the same spot. What I am doing is improving on the story in the Reader's Digest, to this extent. While these bulls were eating the lush grass they had one ear cocked on a radio which was in the field. They were listening to a speech by the right hon. Minister of Agriculture. He was telling them what a wonderful country this is, how great agriculture was here, there, and elsewhere. They decided to take him at his word and go on a little trip to see what really was going on. They got on the road, and there was the big bull, the intermediate bull and the little bull. They trotted along the roads, and they came to Toronto. The royal winter fair was on, and the big bull thought that was the spot for him, so he stopped there. Then the intermediate bull and the little bull went on. I may be short of time, and I wish my friends would not give me quite so much help.


Thomas Vincent Grant: Go ahead, give us some more
bull.


Arthur Leroy Smith: They went on
and they came to London. The intermediate bull jumped the fence because he thought London was all right; but the little bull went on to Windsor, passed through the tunnel went across the western states, the dust bowl, and on into the mountains somewhere. In short, he went on and on and on. That is
890	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. A. L. Smith not a funny story, but it seems to me that it has a moral for the Minister of Agriculture, and it is that sometimes a little bull goes a long way.


Thomas Vincent Grant: You have a lot of bull in front of you.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Frankly I wish you would keep quiet. I cannot hear you, and if I did hear you it would be silly anyway.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.


Arthur Leroy Smith: While the minister was speaking I admired him as a mathematician. He and I graduated from what we were delighted to call an institution of learning. It was not very strong on mathematics. It was not very strong in mathematics. Recently I was somewhat concerned because I heard that the great mathematician Einstein was not well, and I thought what a tragedy it would be if we lost him. Now, however, I think the loss would be only to his own immediate family, because I am sure the minister is ready to take his place. The way he threw those hundreds of thousands and millions and billions up in the air and caught them behind his back, under his leg and all that sort of thing was one of the most amazing pieces of jugglery I have ever seen. When I was a wee lad in Regina, which place he also knows very well, the only entertainment we had was when the Kickapoo Indian medicine show came to town. In the first gaslights I ever saw, too, I watched a fellow called a prestidigitator, a sort of cross between an illusionist and a juggler. He had these metal balls, one of which he would let drop so that it nearly went through the platform they had built outside. He also had iron bars which he got under with a terrific effort and lifted into the air, nearly breaking his back in the process. Then he began to toss these great iron balls around like nobody's business. While he was doing this, at the edge of the platform there was a woman in tights, the first such woman I ever saw. This woman was singing a song, I am quite sure in order to distract the attention of the kids from the man. My attention was distracted already, but this was her song:
They are large balls, as heavy as lead;
With a flip of his wrist he gives them a twist And throws them right over his head.
That was what the minister did with his millions and billions all through his speech.
Now I intend to discuss that speech, which I have since read, to at least this extent. From what he said I gathered that the Liberal government takes credit, particularly in agriculture, for all the good things that ever happened to us, and that the difficulty in 

which they find themselves now arises because a man by the name of Bennett made the Ottawa agreements of 1932. I am not going to quote any millions or billions or anything of that sort, but I do assert that what Mr. Bennett said then and what the late Mr. Woodsworth said then, that there were no markets, was absolutely true. The minister did not teU us that under the Hawley-Smoot tariff we had been closed out of the United States market. There is no question about that; and remember, that was in June of 1930. So when our party came into power, with things in chaos and no agricultural markets whatever, what did Mr. Bennett do? He made a market by means of the Ottawa trade agreements. And remember that a very few years before that the then Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King, made a similar agreement with Mr. Baldwin. It never came into operation because Mr. Baldwin thought and said that in view of the previous commitments of his party, made by Bonar Law, he should have an election. They had the election and he was defeated; but the agreements of 1932 followed the agreement made by the Right Hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King with Prime Minister Baldwin just a few years before. That is the true history of this matter of quotas; that is exactly what happened. That, of course, was not mentioned in this oration by the minister, which was second only to the major effort of his junior, the right hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin).


Paul Joseph James Martin: Thanks for the promotion, making me an imperial privy councillor.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Well, I do not know anyone I would rather promote, but perhaps we can put it down just to wishful thinking and let it go at that.
What is the answer to the present position? It will be said immediately that it is a dollar problem; and anyone who denies that the dollar situation has a great influence on this and all our other problems would be fair neither to himself nor to anyone else. But if the right hon. minister is going to take all the credit for the good things, as he did last night, then he must accept responsibility for those things which are no good. His government, and no one else, got us into the position we are in at the present time.
Now I want to turn to a few figures, the only ones I intend to use. The minister endeavoured to persuade us, or perhaps it would be better to say to persuade those who might read his speech, that the farmer in this country, particularly the wheat farmer, is better off than he has ever been. That I accept if you keep within the confines of this country, but what is the position as com-

pared with other people? I have a few figures here, not from any outside source but from sessional paper No. 115A, dated Wednesday, February 4, 1948, in reply to a motion by the hon. member for Maple Creek (Mr. McCuaig). On page 2 of that return we have the monthly average prices for wheat to domestic users, to the United Kingdom, and to other purchasers not included in those two classes. I am using the figure $1.55 for the United Kingdom, to which must be added the 20 cents about which the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) told us this afternoon. He appeared very anxious to get these cheques out before seeding, but it seemed to me there was more than seed involved. I think this means a June election, but of course they know more about it over there than I do. I take the year 1946-47 and begin with August, the first month in the crop year. The price to the United Kingdom was $1.55, to which must be added the 20 cents. The price elsewhere was:
August	 $2.05
September	 2.07
October	 2.15
November	 2.27
December	 2.26
January	 2.27
February	 2.45
March	 2.88
April	 2.85
May	 2.88
June	 2.59
July	 2.53
Then I go on to the next year and take the $1.55 again plus the 20 cents for the United Kingdom. The other figures are as follows:
August, $2.62; September, $2.94; October, $3.22; November, $3.30: December, $3.29.
I might say that the difference between the agreement price and the last figure is $1.74. If one considers the twenty cents, it makes it $1.54 a bushel. No matter how anyone may be able to juggle figures, and you can prove almost anything by figures, there is $1.54 that the farmer lost. Nobody can laugh that off. The farmer received that amount based on this grain at Fort William.
Another thing one must take into account when considering these figures, especially when the minister mentioned millions and billions, is the value of a dollar today. What is our dollar worth? If it is worth half what it was a year ago, then of course those figures which he gave us would be cut in half. If half is not the correct figure, then take any figure which is the correct one, and you will see that these huge dollar figures do not present a true picture of the position in which we find ourselves with respect to foreign trade. I used the word "foreign" advisedly, but perhaps I should have said "overseas trade with Britain", or foreign trade in so far as other countries are concerned.
The Address-Mr. A. L. Smith
I would not want anyone to think I stand here, Mr. Speaker, with a cure-all for our economic difficulties. I do not. I am not as clever as that. I am utterly unable to see my way completely through many of the difficulties which confront us. I do say however that, if we keep trading away British preferences for certain alleviations of the United States tariff, then we shall place ourselves in a position where our throats can be cut in one minute. The history of this government has been just that.
After this tariff of four dollars per thousand on lumber and four cents a pound on copper cut off our natural products, what happened? President Wilson came into office and he gave us a new tariff. This was before the Hawley-Smoot tariff. What happened after that? The United States congress immediately gave the President the right to cut that duty 50 per cent, and that was done. Later it was cut another 50 per cent on many of these natural products. Why was that done? It was done because Bennett's empire trade agreements completely shut the United States out of the British markets. Prior to that time the United States sold infinitely more overseas than did Canada. On this occasion, by the exercise of a little bit of independence, Mr. Bennett restored Canadian trade to its proper position. Prior to his coming into office our trade was completely gone.


Mr. Garson:: Tell a big enough one and tell it often enough and people may believe it.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Someone does not think that is true. I was going to read an article which appeared in the London Economist, Mr. Speaker, but I know that one of my interrupters never heard of that paper so it would not do him any good. I will make one assertion, and that is that all this story about our being against provincial rights and against trade is just bunkum, as the minister knew it was when he delivered his speech last night.


Edward George McCullough: At the
outset, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that whenever I have the privilege of speaking in this house, I consider it a very great honour. During the time when nominations were being considered to send our member to this House of Commons, I remember I pledged myself to voice, whenever an opportunity should present itself, those principles in economics and social justice for which our group stands. I would not otherwise take up the time of this house.
Tonight I am speaking on the motion of non-confidence moved by the leader of this

The Address-Mr. E. G. McCullough party. There can be no doubt in any member's mind where the C.C.F. party stands. We stand for a planned economy. We feel that after five sessions of this twentieth parliament the government has failed to provide for the people of Canada those economic advantages which could have been provided. We have therefore moved a motion of nonconfidence in this government.
I have listened attentively to the speeches made by the new leader of the Progressive Conservative party because I felt he might spark-plug that party. I also wanted to find out what sort of leadership he would give that party. My conviction is, sir, and the history of the world proves, that economic conditions throughout the world will bring forth the leadership necessary for the particular time. This was proven to be true when Hitler came to power in Germany to save the large industrial leaders and the vested interests of that country. The same thing happened in Italy. Whether or not I am correct in saying so, I feel that the vested interests of this country can do no better than to choose the leader of the official opposition for their spokesman in this House of Commons. I view with a great deal of concern some of the speeches he has made in this house because, as we all know, history shows that the democratic forms of government have been circumvented and replaced by other forms of government. As a democratic people, we do not want to see that happen in Canada.
In view of that, I was somewhat disturbed about the type of leadership the new leader of the opposition was going to give.


Gordon Graydon: They are disturbed over there, too.


Edward George McCullough: 
Gordon Knapman Fraser: All other groups have advocated that.


Edward George McCullough: The government failed to do that. In 1946 and 1947 we had first a subsidy to Dosco of $7,200,000.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: Will the hon. member permit a question?

The Address-Mr. E. G. McCullough


Edward George McCullough: If it is
reasonable and sensible.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: It is reasonable, but I do
not believe the hon. member will answer it. Does the hon. member's province believe in increasing old age pensions? It has a C.C.F. government.


Edward George McCullough: It certainly
does.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: Why have they not done it?


Mr. Bentley:: They have done it. Do you
know nothing at all?


Edward George McCullough: If the hon. member would come out of the bush he would be able to find out that we have already done that. We are the only province which has initiated that sort of thing. What I am saying is that we have to do it on a national scale. We are looking after our old age pensioners in Saskatchewan. Every one of our 28,000 blind and old age pensioners are today receiving free, full health care, glasses, hospitalization and medical care.
May I return to what I was saying, Mr. Speaker. Last night we had a long speech from the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin). I listened to every word he said. I want to say to him that last year a lot of talk was heard about the $30 million given in the way of help to our thirteen million people throughout Canada. It is a drop in the bucket when you consider the revenue of the federal government. Here are two steel companies, Dosco and Algoma, which received $7,200,000 in one instance and $1,600,000 in the other. In these two instances they received an amount equal to one-quarter of what was provided last year for national health care for our people. I think it is a shame that this government cannot provide more for our people. Every day letters come to our office asking that something be done for our incurables. I am sure that all hon. members receive these letters. We also receive letters about giving more to our old age pensioners. I just want to show the house the kind of thing that everybody reads these days. Our people are not protected. I hold in my hand a letter which the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Jones) gave me and said I could use in the house. This is from an old age pensioner in his own riding. He gives a list of the foods which they were able to buy in 1942 and the amount of food and the price which they paid for it in 1948. When he comes down to some of the staple foods such as bacon, meat and some of the other foods, he finds that he is not able to eat them at all. I have another letter here which appeared in the Winnipeg Tribune of February 10, 1949. This is from an old age pensioner in the city [Mr- Ferguson.]
of Winnipeg, Manitoba. He indicates what he can eat today in the way of daily food. It is as follows: for breakfast, nothing; for dinner, one egg sandwich, 15 cents, toast and coffee, 12 cents; for supper, two sandwiches, 30 cents, coffee 7 cents, the day's total, 64 cents. The article goes on to say:
That leaves Mr. Martin nothing for clothing, medicine, smoking, laundry or small incidentals. Haircuts, at 65 cents apiece, come once every six months for Mr. Martin.
"Somebody took my drinking water glass. A new one at the fifteen-eent store cost me 8 cents."
As Mr. Martin told about the 8-cent purchase and his need for a suit of winter underwear, the pain in his water blue eyes showed he wasn't soliciting sympathy.
These are conditions which these people are facing. I want to impress on hon. members that the government is not doing anything. If we call this democracy, it is not good enough. We have to do better. On the one hand we read of things that are reminiscent of the thirties. Here is an article from Woodland World, a publication in Montreal. Mr. O. A. Buck, past president of the loggers' association, had this to say in the course of a speech:
Lumber always has been and still is in demand. The present problem was to find markets.
It is the same old story. I hold in my hand one of the papers published in this city, the Evening Citizen of Monday, February 7. It contains a picture entitled "Home sweet Home", and the following:
Mrs. Clair C. Bilow stands outside old OER bus No. 14.
Alongside the picture we find the following: "Treasury surplus is huge". The Minister of National Revenue said in the report that we have a $750 million surplus. All I can say to that is that it is a negation of justice and democracy. I hold in my hand another clipping taken from the Citizen which says: "Farmhouse fire fatal to three." Another one is contained in the Globe and Mail of Toronto of Saturday, February 19, which states: "Three children die in fire, Woodstock mother, 19, held back from shack." There is not a constituency or town in this country that does not need new houses. Because of the government policy of taking off controls we find that our old age pensioners and home-owners have suffered. We find that the farmers have suffered. We find that the veterans have suffered. The people whom we meet on the train or during the course of our business and everyday life are asking: You have done this for big business; what are you doing for us? Those are the hard facts.
We find that, since controls were taken off, the index of farm living costs has gone up 38 per cent. The general cost of living index

has gone up 33 per cent and the general index of wholesale prices by 54 per cent. It is quite clear that the farmer has not been getting his full share. The wholesale price index of farm products has gone up 27 per cent as compared with an increase of 54 per cent in the general wholesale price index. In other words, general wholesale prices have risen twice as much as wholesale farm prices.
I think this is a good time to interject the remark that the net profits of 665 of the largest Canadian corporations, after taxes, increased 64 per cent between 1945 and 1947. Those figures were obtained from the statistical summary for 1948 of the Bank of Canada, page 192. We find that during that period the cash income from the sale of farm products was up only 17 per cent, compared with an increase of 47 per cent in the profits of the largest food companies.
In order to show that these increases were not due to wages it might be noted that weekly wages and salaries in the iron and steel industry increased only nine per cent during that period while profits were up 66 per cent. Wages in the pulp and paper industry were up 23 per cent while profits increased 247 per cent.


Mr. Case:: How much have wages increased at the box factory in Prince Albert?


Edward George McCullough: The records show that when we took over the box factory in Saskatchewan the employees were getting 11 cents per hour. Today they are some of the best paid workers in the province.


An hon. Member:: You are not running it now.


Edward George McCullough: We are running it and we are making a profit for the people of Saskatchewan.


Julian Harcourt Ferguson: How about the shoe factory?


James Herbert Matthews: Does the hon. member want to buy a pair of shoes? That is a good place to get them.


An hon. Member:: They do not make them that big.


Edward George McCullough: It is quite easy to see who are ready to fight for the interests of big business. I want to say that we in this group are going to fight the black shirts, the white shirts and the stuffed shirts. I have tried to make a simple plea for the common people, particularly for those people who are inarticulate, who have no chance to come to this House of Commons to fight for themselves.
Take the old age pensioners, for instance. After a lot of prodding by hon. members in
The Address-Mr. E. G. McCullough this house, particularly members of this group, the federal government finally boosted the old age pension by $5 per month, but in terms of real purchasing power today it stands at only $22.50. Surely it is not asking too much to ask this government to do something about that in the immediate future. On February 16 a return was tabled in answer to a question asked by myself as follows:
What is the estimated cost to the dominion treasury for an old age pension plan of $50 per month at 65 years of age; (a) with a means test; (b) without a means test?
The reply to the first question was that the dominion government's share, which on the present basis would be 75 per cent, would amount to $174,400,000. Surely it is not asking too much to ask that a plan such as that be instituted, especially when we find that this year there will be a surplus of $750 million. I plead with the government to institute such a program, not only for our aged people but along general lines.
We in the C.C.F. recognize that you cannot plan for one phase of our economy without planning for it all. You cannot protect the farmer if you are not going to protect the worker. That is why we are trying to fight for those people. Hon. members to my right indicate in almost every speech they make that they are ready to protect big business. This reminds me of the story of the elephant who danced around in the chicken-coop and thought it was wonderful. It really was fine for the elephant, but it was tough on the chickens. The same thing applies to our people.
I am not going to take up much more time, but I did think that the problems we are facing today are bigger than political issues or political parties. If you asked any hon. member of this house I think he would say that Canada is a land worth fighting for, a land worth going all-out for. It is recognized that war may come at any time and it behooves us in this house to think seriously about these things. We must override political differences in order to plan in such a way that real democracy will work. If the bickerings and foolishness go on I am sure that, while we are fighting, communism will come in through the back door. You are not going to stop it unless you can offer a better ideology than the communists offer.
This is not the time to fool; we should be as serious as possible. We should plan our economy so that we could underwrite job security. By job security I mean that there would be actually more jobs than we have workers. That is what I consider to be full employment. The dominion government

The Address-Mr. E. G. McCullough should take control of those industries which would be necessary to provide that full employment.
The government should take over those industries which manufacture armaments and which carry on preparations for war. I refer to the large steel corporations and other corporations that can make profits out of war or even out of the fear of war. Those corporations should be owned and controlled by the people. But that is not the picture that has developed since 1945. We in this group have fought against the policy of turning back to private industry those crown corporations which were built up with the money of the taxpayers. I need to name only a few.
There was the Consolidated Smelting plant at Calgary which cost the Canadian taxpayers $18 million and which was handed back for 25 cents on the dollar. There was the Research Enterprise building No. 14 which was turned back to the Corning Glass Company, a company which was indicted in the United States. Here we have the picture of the government once again permitting the entrenchment of big business and vested interests so that they can lead us down the path to another war.
The government has set up the Combines Investigation Act, now under the administration of Mr. McGregor, in order to stop the growth of monopoly in this country. It was recognized by every one that there was a danger from cartelization and monopolies in this country. I have here four publications arising from the work of Mr. McGregor and his associates. In 1945 he published a report entitled "Canada and International Cartels".
I want to read one or two of the recommendations of the commissioner. There are some ten recommendations in all. Mr. McGregor has this to say in paragraph No. 2 of his recommendations and conclusions:
Those examples illustrate the power of cartels to eliminate competition and to control production and distribution in wide areas of trade. The allocation of markets through restrictive arrangements made by private interested parties impinges on government authority over foreign trade and may nullify national trade policies developed to serve wider public interests. Government policies to encourage either imports or exports may prove ineffective if private barriers to such trade are erected by cartels. The reservation of the domestic market to particular producers may be as effective as a prohibitory tariff in barring imports. The allocation of import or export quotas by cartel agreement subjects foreign trade to quantitative limitation although such control may run counter to public policy. Ways must be found to prevent private business organized as cartels from supplanting government in the establishment of such commercial policies.
In paragraph No. 4 he has this to say:
The post-war period will require flexibility in industrial organization and operations, rather than 

restrictive arrangements designed to maintain the status quo. Industrial progress will be assisted by government policies directed to the elimination of restrictions on trade and by positive measures to promote expansion of trade and thus prevent the development of demoralized markets.
' Today our farmers are facing a decline in their markets. I have a clipping from the Ottawa Citizen of today in which Sir Stafford Cripps intimates that his government will have to cut down on the bacon and eggs imported from Canada. We find that in the United States also the agricultural market is slipping. I think it behooves us to plan for an international agreement, and to break cartelization in the industrial field so that we may have a free exchange of trade.
I advocate among other things, Mr. Speaker, that the government plan a national marketing act for our farmers, and secondly that they institute long-term agreements with other countries on the block trading barter basis if currency difficulties are in the way so that we may have the free flow of Canadian food products to the hungry countries abroad, and in exchange bring back the things which we need in Canada.
I think we have to do something for our veterans. We either have to roll back prices or we have to increase their allowances so that they can rehabilitate themselves. Of the 90,000 student veterans, about 42,000 have either finished university, or through financial difficulties have had to leave university. There are many black spots that have to be cleared away. I am very sorry that the government has failed to remove them, because if we go down we all go down together. Those of us in our little orbit of mankind must gird ourselves and be strong. In the words of the poet:
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do and loads to lift.
Fear not the struggle, 'tis God's gift.
Be strong.


Mr. Patrick H. Ashby (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, as I was walking down to the chamber this evening an hon. member reminded me that I have spoken on hogs, I have also spoken on sheep, and in fact I have even mentioned turkeys. "But," he said to me, "why not mention horses?" It is a very simple matter for me to mention any kind of living thing because I have not spent my life with artificial things such as pens, pencils, paper and figures. I have been working during the past twenty-five or thirty years with germ cells, with chromosomes and determiners, with living things, with life itself. I have never worked for God, as some of these false preachers claim they are, but I have worked along with God. In fact, I have hobnobbed with Him for some time, figuratively speaking,

of course. I said to God one day: "Do you mind my taking your place for a while?" "No, no", He said, "go ahead; you will learn a few things." So I climbed upon a mound, the usual one outside the barn door, and when my feet began to get warm I said, "let there be life", and lo and behold there was life. I could say, "there shall be no life", and there was none; for I determined which animals should mate. I determined whether an animal should breed or whether it should not reproduce itself. I determined whether it should live, whether it should die, or whether it should be enslaved.
When a human being begins to take the place of God upon earth that human being has got to be God Himself. I shall illustrate what I mean. Unfortunately I have to get up early in the morning, and one morning I was waiting for the bus about six o'clock. Shortly after six o'clock, the early morning bus passes the street where I live. It is necessary that I come down here early in the morning because some short-sighted, long-legged, broad-bottomed, narrow-minded bureaucrat neglected to supply members of parliament, the representatives of the people, with sufficient office space. The early morning is the only time I can efficiently do my work undisturbed. We are crowded together in a small room, so crowded that if I lean back in my chair I strike the back of the chair occupied by the other member. It is the most disgraceful condition that exists in this parliament today. I have seen these bureaucrats, with their private secretaries, occupying sumptuous offices. Have I a private secretary? No, I have not. I have done all my own secretarial work, including typing, for the past two and a half years.
I was standing there waiting for the bus. Daylight was just dawning, and thinking of home, my sweetheart-who is my wife-and my children, I heard a slight rustling beside me. I looked down and it was an old tomcat wearily wending his way home. It stopped as it got halfway across the sidewalk, looked up at me, and I will swear it winked at me. It then crossed the road very slowly and disappeared among the garbage cans on its way home, where it would be mauled by the kids. Two slaves were the next form of life that came along. I looked at the face of the first one and found it entirely lacking in expression. I looked at the face of the second one and found it had no expression either. The first was pulling a wagon; the second was on the seat, holding the reins and driving the first. As I said before, I have dealt with life, with living things, and I recognize expressions on animal faces that would not be recognized by those not accustomed to looking for them. If one wants to know what sort of master a
The Address-Mr. Ashby slave has, look at the faces of the animals under his control. I have made these tests, and I would like hon. members to make similar tests in any town or city of any Christian country on the face of this earth. You will find that the expression on the faces of young people is hopeful. When they reach the age of eighteen or twenty that expression of hope begins to disappear, and by the time they are forty or forty-five you will not find more than one out of every fifteen people on the streets who smile. The reason is that Christians are being enslaved today.
Unfortunately my time is going very rapidly; if someone would only plug the hands of that clock I would be able to deal with these matters more fully, because they are very important. There is such a thing as what I call natural wisdom. Let me put it this way. The result of God's work is perfection. Did God make living things without endowing them with wisdom? Of course not. When we look at horses we think they are dumb brutes. I remember my neighbour, a poor elderly woman, coming to our house with both eyes blackened, her nose broken and her teeth knocked out. I did not ask what her husband had done to her because I knew he had died some time before and that could not be his fault; but I asked, what in the world had happened to her. She told me that she was looking out the kitchen window while washing the dishes, and saw poor old Nellie, the old mare, standing by the well waiting for a drink. So she dried her hands on her apron and ran out to give the horse a drink of water. No sooner did she get near the animal than it turned and kicked her squarely in the face. Many people would say that horse was vicious, but the fact is that the horse was not to blame because the natural wisdom with which it had been endowed originally had been distorted and rendered dormant, shall we say, by restricting its freedom. It was a slave. When you have an animal like that the only solution is to give it freedom. Crime is a result of slavery.
Now let me give you an illustration of what I mean by natural wisdom. If any hon. member of this house would volunteer for an experiment I will guarantee he would not be able to equal the humble horse when it comes to natural wisdom, for the human mind has been distorted. Take any volunteer, blindfold him and take him a given distance away, in a direction and to an area of which he has no knowledge whatever. He does not know where he is going, nor how far. Then take the blindfold off, if you like; put him in a box car; close the doors; transport him in any direction, north, south, east or west, for a given length of time. He does not know how long he has been traveling, nor at what
898

The Address-Mr. Ashby speed nor in what direction. Take him out of the box car and in another direction for a predetermined distance. Then after a couple of years, without contact with other human beings who might give him instructions, tell him to walk directly to the point from which he started. I do not think a human being alive today could possibly do that; yet I can show you horses that have done it, some of them travelling a distance of up to sixty-five miles, covering an area over which they had never traveled before. That is what I call natural wisdom.
Our troubles today, Mr. Speaker, are due to the fact that the natural wisdom with which we were endowed by God is being interfered with by human beings who deal in false ideas. When our children go to school, to college and university, if they remain there long enough they will be rendered incapable of thinking correctly and sanely. What we call universities are really nothing but elaborate barber schools or training factories, where our youths no longer receive an education but are trained for various professions, and the false and artificial instruction they receive renders the individual incapable of thinking naturally and sanely. Let me give you an illustration of what I mean. I have in my hand a copy of Industry, the official organ of the Canadian Manufacturers Association. I think I know the man who has been writing these articles; I believe I have been in touch with him, and if he keeps it up, one of these days I am going to name that individual because the day is rapidly approaching when we shall have to identify ourselves, just as we do in this parliament. When a vote is called and the bell rings we stand and identify ourselves for or against whatever it may be. I shall have to read this. It is only three or four short paragraphs, and I will hurry through it. The title is, "Money on Trees" and it reads:
Windfalls do occur. As a matter of fact, it's not so long ago that a gentleman in an Ontario industrial centre received the pleasant news that he had won the tidy sum of $34,000 simply because he held a sweepstakes ticket on the winner of the Manchester handicap.
All that happened there, of course, was that one man gained what other men lost.
But the best brains of this and any age still persist that there is no substitute for hard work-
I guarantee that this man has avoided hard work. If he believed in it he would be working on a farm or in a mine or factory; he would be doing hard work. The fact is that he has learned a way of avoiding hard work. -in the task of getting on in the world, while practically every father has at some time or another come up with the none too original pronouncement to his children that money doesn't grow on trees.
fMr. Ashby.]
Unfortunately, there is more than a fair share of the globe's population suffering from the delusion that money does grow on trees.
I want all members to pay particular attention to this part because it is very important.
Witness the state of Oregon, which held an autumn referendum on a scheme to pay a pension of $50 a month to all men of 65 and over and the same amount to all women of 60 and over, even without the "means" test. The Oregonians not only approved the plan with a whacking majority, but on the same ballot plumped for higher income tax exemptions.
The people of Oregon were perfectly right. If the people of Oregon would discharge from office every individual who opposes this demand, I would give these individuals thirty days to do it and, if they did not, I would kick out the whole lot of them. It is possible to give this money to the people, as I will show you within the next few minutes.
This man says further:
Came the dawn and a study of practical details.
This man is deliberately lying when he talks about the practical details, for these are impractical, artificial details. This man's mind is polluted, as I will show you before I am through.
Somebody with a flair for mathematics-
That makes me think that if we could take these bureaucrats with a flair for mathematics and place them in an institution where they would be provided with an abundance of paper and pencils, as well as boys who would sharpen pencils for them, they could do all their estimating and planning there. When these plans and estimates were finished, they could be rushed into the next room where another group could tear them apart. This process could be continued until they all died and the world would be far better off. We do not need them.
Somebody with a flair for mathematics discovered to his and the state government's horror, that in 1949 there would be more than 175,000 male and female Oregonians eligible for the pension and that the cost to the state would be in excess of $100 million a year.
That also is a lie because it would not cost the state of Oregon one dollar. Think of that for just a moment. I know there is laughter, but I hope before the hon. members who are here die they will recognize the truth of that statement. The greatest mind in the world today is that possessed by a man now living whose name is Major C. H. Douglas. This man has given us a law which I shall quote to you so it will be on the record. "The true cost of production is the consumption of all production over a given period of time." This law should be written in capital letters and people should read it until they memorize it.
I remember standing in this house some two or three years ago, when I said the cost

of this chair was the chair. I am hesitating so my words will be fully appreciated. The price may have been $50 or $100, but the cost is this chair. True, it is not all of the cost, but most of the cost. The cost of production is what is consumed, as well as what is lost, of course, in the form of sawdust. Instead of a tree we have the chair. We still have the chair; it has not been consumed. If we burn the chair, then it is consumed and we have exchanged being able to sit down in the chair for the heat obtained from it. The cost of production is what is consumed.
If you go outside of this building and ask anyone you meet what he thinks this building cost, you will be told it must have cost hundreds of millions of dollars. What is a dollar? I asked this question last year and I received some of the most stupid, imbecile answers it is possible for the human mind to conceive. I received these answers from the official bureaucrats who are employed with the money of which we are robbing the people. I will read one of these answers to you. I asked these questions: Who owns this paper money? Who owns this metal money? Who owns the true dollars created by the banks? In my hand I hold the official answer I received to those questions, and I will read it to you:
This money is owned by the particular individuals, firms and corporations which have it in their possession.
Oh, rubbish! Let us see if this is true. Last year I copied from the Ottawa Journal of December 18, I think it was, something one of the magistrates had to say. Many of these magistrates and judges are almost as imbecile as these stupid bureaucrats. I am going to begin to mention names. This man is named Strike. Had I been there, I would have said, "Strike, you're out". Yes, sir, he missed the ball. According to the newspaper, this is what he said when sentencing some men:
One finds it a little difficult to understand how men like the two accused would commit such an offence.
These men were trying to avoid paying income taxes. Perhaps I had better read this article first and leave my remarks until later. The more one studies the works of Major Douglas, the more easily one can pick up any statement made by any Christian and find that his mind has been distorted; he cannot reason properly. In fact, I have found it difficult to do so myself. It is a tremendous relief for me to be able to recognize at least some truths today. Some years ago, I was just as dumb as anyone, for I also came under the influence of these false teachers.
The Address-Mr. Ashby
Magistrate Strike goes on to say:
It would appear that you have a good reputation in the community, that you were good employers and that you were considered to be reasonably good citizens.
My thought at that point is, why not leave them alone then? I shall continue to read the statement.
It is difficult to understand how you would stoop to commit such an offence as this. If it had not been for this tax investigation, you and your company would have had in your possession (money) the property of the treasury of Canada.
Let me illustrate, in this way, what the magistrate said. I am on my farm and someone comes to ask me for a dozen eggs. I say: "Those eggs do not belong to me, they belong to the hen-house", or the sheep belong to the sheep-shed or the cattle belong to the barn; all of this belongs to the farm, not to me. No one but an individual can own anything. These buildings own nothing. The only way that anything can possibly be owned is by individuals. In this case those in control of the treasury department are the ones that own the money. In other words, this man was a slave.
What is a slave? A slave is a person who has no property of his own and who is forced to toil for those who are his masters. What then is a free man? A free man is one who owns property which no man may take from him without his full will and consent. What right have these tax collectors to enter any home in this country or to take one single cent from any individual? They have no right, and they could never do it except by deceit and fraud. Instead of going as individuals and holding a revolver at the heads of citizens and demanding their money, they wave an order in council sneaked around parliament and say: this is the law; you are forced to hand over your hard-earned money.
Let me tell hon. members this. Merely because an individual is paid by the officials of a department to rob and plunder, and to commit these crimes, is no excuse, and will be no excuse in the hereafter. May I point out that each individual will, and should be, held responsible for his own actions. Yet these bureaucrats will tell you that it is the institution that is to blame, that it is the farm that is to blame, that it is the barns that are to blame. It is this, that and the other thing that is to blame; it is never "we are to blame." There is a key that will unlock the doors to freedom, security and peace on this earth, and this key we might call individual or personal responsibility, where each individual is held responsible for his own actions, which he cannot shirk and place upon any institution.
900	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Ashby
I have read about half of the quotation.
I must get back to this Money on Trees-I forgot all about it-and finish this last paragraph. I had reached the point where these figure experts estimated that the cost would be $100 million a year. This man continues:
This astronomical figure turned out to be three times the state's budget for all purposes. Not only had the get-rich-quick voters ignored the fact that such a sum could not materialize except through ruinous taxes,-
Which is another lie, for taxes are not the only method of obtaining revenue.
-but they have voted for a tax reduction. All in all, the Oregon legislature is in a pretty fair pickle.
That is what he says. I would straighten him out. Let them hire me and give me the authority, and I will see that the Oregonians get their $50 a month. In fact, if the members of this house want our people to live decently, let them put me in charge and give me the authority. That is all I need. I will guarantee that every human being in Canada sixty years of age and over will obtain $50 a month, and I will do it without taxation. In fact, I will gradually abolish taxation altogether for revenue purposes as I will show before I am through.
I want to point out that the writer of this article was trained by these institutions of training to think in terms of what we call money economics-which is an unreal, artificial economics-instead of real, physical economics. This man does not estimate the amount of food, clothing or other essential needs of the people and then determine if we can supply these requirements.


Mr. Blackmore:: In Oregon.


Patrick Harvey Ashby: In the state of Oregon, in Canada, or anywhere you like. He merely deals in artificial things, not in realities. In Industry for February, which I received in the mail today, I find a similar article. But this one is not nearly as bad. Since I have been in contact with them, they are cutting down a little bit. They are getting wise, because I challenge them. Two thousand years ago Christ said, seek ye the truth. He did not say, get Pat Ashby to seek it for you.
I will hurry through this latter portion although it is important. It will be noticed by all that our greatest industrialists-in fact, our greatest citizens, our real citizens-have grown up with an industry. I refer to Edison, Henry Ford and men of that type-great industrialists, inventors and so forth. They have all started on a farm or somewhere in a small village, and have gone to a small school of not more than twenty-five to thirty pupils. Some of us praise Henry Ford as a great industrialist, and others praise other


great men. But really behind those men were good mothers, in the first place.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Patrick Harvey Ashby: It is all right to laugh. But I know from experience. I cannot help saying this, because I have such a wonderful wife myself. It does not matter what happens to your children, we men always say to them: you had better go to mother; mother knows best. I mention that for this reason. There perhaps lies the solution to the future problems of this country. But I must hustle along. I am constantly watching that clock. I think I shall have to let this go. It will take too much time. I will just quote rapidly:
The teaching of economics-
What kind of economics? Those unreal, artificial economics or real economics?
-and related subjects in American schools-
And Canadian schools are included.
-and especially in colleges and universities-has a profound influence on the economic life of the nation.
That is true. Our manufacturers are therefore trying to get young men who intend to study economics to work in a factory, to start at the bottom and grow up in it and use real things in order to obtain a contact with realities instead of specializing in all this artificial stuff.
Now I should like to illustrate hurriedly the work of some of these bureaucrats, the uselessness and stupidity of some of these poor imbeciles, because I cannot think of any other name to call them. Hon. members know that in the fall of the year for generations it has been customary for the farmer to butcher a hog or two for himself. A few days before he is ready to butcher the hog, he will gather up his equipment, consisting of a barrel or tank to hold the hot water, his implement to scrape the hair off the hog, basins, pails and all the rest of it. But when they go to get the knives from the kitchen the wife will say sometimes, "I wish you would use something else instead of my good knives". Therefore private enterprise, free enterprise as we call it, provides for everything. It does not matter what it may be. Take traveling equipment, for instance. I bought some beautiful bags for my wife-I mean traveling bags. They were really sturdy suitcases which were made by Cecil Sprigings and Company Limited. The price of these suitcases was between $60 and $70.
I discovered that if this firm were free of all these taxes imposed on them and these controls were removed, they could put these suitcases on the market actually better than they are-I could not see how they could

become any better-for half that price, or somewhere around $28. Individuals engaged in private enterprise say, "We will provide you with tools for every purpose, even to scrape the hair off the hogs. They manufacture a cheap little instrument. It has merely a wooden handle and a small metal disc on it; that is all. The price is only a few cents. Free enterprise, being what it is, plans months ahead. In July this particular storekeeper sent away and ordered five or six dozen cheap hog scrapers in order to accommodate his customers. I called at the store because one of my boys said, "When you are in town, dad, get a hog scraper; ours is lost. We want to butcher a hog". So I called in at the store and the gentleman came to me immediately and politely asked me what he could do for me. He asked me if he could serve me. I said: "I would like a hog scraper". Anyone would have thought that I had hit him square in the face. "Hog scraper!" he yelled at me, and he turned red in the face. "Don't talk to me about hog scrapers". I said: "I am Pat Ashby, a highfalutin' member of parliament; don't shout at me like that". He said: "You, a member of parliament, allowing these bureaucrats to carry on in this way. Look at this", he said, and he thrust into my hand a whole bundle of papers-and I hold them in my hand now. He ordered those hog scrapers in July but on August 25 he received a letter from these bureaucrats. He had written to them decently, for he said: "Dear Sir", and signed his name: "Yours truly", and so on. But these bureaucrats, these dictatorial scoundrels! I would soon put them all where they belong. If the people of Canada receive from any government department officials letters of any kind not signed "your obedient servant", they should return the letters without postage to the place from which they came. If enough people will do that these officials will learn who is the authority here in Canada and they will sign these letters as they should. What did this man say? He said: "Gentlemen!"
I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will give me a few more minutes because I have had to
The Address-Mr. Ashby wait so many times until the laughter has subsided before I could continue. The letter
goes on:
This will acknowledge your application dated August 17 to import the following equipment.
The man lists them under three columns as follows: one, "supplier, Edmonton Butchers' and Packers' Supplies." That is a wholesale and retail store on Jasper avenue, Edmonton. But why tell him that? He knows that because he sent for them. In the second column appears the following:	"six dozen hog
scrapers"-the store keeper knew what he ordered-and under column three, "end users", those who scrape the hair off hogs. Can you imagine that? The letter continues:
It is noted that the end users are stated to be butchers . . . No letter of essentiality from the end users has been furnished, as required as per instructions on the reverse side of the application under paragraph three.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired.


Patrick Harvey Ashby: Not yet, sir. I move the adjournment of the debate.


Mr. Speaker:: Has the hon. member unanimous consent to continue?


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Knowles:: Ten thirty.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member has not unanimous consent.
On motion of Mr. Ashby the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Gordon Graydon: May I ask the acting leader of the government what the business is for tomorrow?


Alphonse Fournier: Tomorrow we shall continue this debate.
At 10.30 p.m. the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to the order of the house passed on February 22, 1949.

Friday, February 25, 1949