1949-04-29

PARTICIPATION OF BRANDON WHEAT KINGS IN CANADIAN JUNIOR FINALS

Mr. J. E. Matthews (Brandon):: Because I will not have an opportunity again at this session, I want to refer to a matter that I think will be of interest to most hon. members. As some of you are aware, the Brandon Wheat Kings hockey team, junior champions of western Canada, are now playing a seven-game series with the Royals of Montreal, junior champions of eastern Canada. The result of these games will decide the Canadian junior championship. Perhaps I should explain to some of the older men who have quit the game that we now consider a player eligible for junior rank who has not passed the age of twenty at the beginning of November of the particular hockey season. That does not mean that a junior team is composed of a bunch of small boys. On the contrary, I am told that the average weight of the Wheat Kings is 175 pounds.
This is the record of their performance to date. This season they have played fifty-seven games, of which they have lost only ten. They have scored 294 goals, and have had only 155 scored against them. I doubt if in the annals of Canadian hockey there is a more impressive performance. I believe it is a record that might very well find a place on the pages of Hansard. I wish to extend congratulations to every player on the team, to the executive, and to their efficient coach, Bill Mackenzie.



OLD AGE PENSIONS


Mr. Howard C. Green (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. Late yesterday afternoon I received a petition, for presentation to the house, from the British Columbia Old Age Pensioners Organization Inc., signed by some 1,500 persons, many of whom signed as officers of responsible organized bodies of various kinds. I believe this petition to be in proper form for presentation, and I am prepared to present it, but in view of the expected dissolution of parliament later today I am drawing to your attention, Mr. Speaker, and to the attention
of the house, the fact that it sets out the great difficulties of these Canadians in receipt of old age pensions, and suggests that the minimum basic pension should be $50 per month at age sixty-five without a means test.
The prayer of the petition is only three lines long, and reads as follows:
Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray that your honourable house may be pleased to give its fullest consideration at the present session to the grievous sufferings of these pioneer citizens.



REFERENCE TO REMARKS IN DEBATE ON APRIL 27

[Stage Direction]
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North
Centre): I rise on a question of privilege. I regard it as a serious matter, but I shall state it is briefly as I can. During the discussion on the old age pensions measure on Wednesday, April 27, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, as recorded at page 2637 of Hansard, interrupted me to say, as I clearly understood him, that, under the amendment, ninety per cent of the old age pensioners of Canada were going to receive $10 a month more by way of pension. I may say that that understanding of what the minister said is confirmed by press reports, an example of which I hold in my hand. I quote from an Ottawa paper:
Mr. Martin said that ninety per cent of Canada's 275,000 old age pensioners will get $10 more a month because of the new legislation.
All of us who heard his statement were startled by it, and I said in the next few lines that I doubted his statement. On looking at Hansard I find-
Mr. Martin:: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Knowles:: Just a minute; it is my question of privilege.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I rise on a point of order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I have the floor on a question of privilege.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I rise on a point of order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker-


Paul Joseph James Martin: I rise on a point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There is a rule that there cannot be a question of privilege on a question of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: I understand that the minister is rising on a point of order.

Privilege-Mr. Pouliot


Mr. Marlin:: I rise on a point of order. Surely on his question of privilege the hon. member is now engaging in argument as to the merits of a particular point in debate.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Not at all.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This is surely not a question of privilege.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am not engaging in argument about the point. As I recall the debate, and as I recall reading it afterwards, a very important change has been made in the record. Hansard has the minister saying that ninety per cent are going to receive "up to" $10 per month. Of course I would not have doubted that statement, but it is altogether different from what the minister said.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Peter Francis Martin: Mr. Speaker-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, in resuming my seat I found that the chair wasn't there. I rise on a question of privilege to say that I am still on my feet and still have my seat.



PRIVILEGE


Mr. Jean Frangois Pouliol (Temiscouaia):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege, correction and personal explanation. The house knows that I have always been a Liberal, and those who are familiar with the dictionary-


Mr. Speaker:: It is almost impossible for the Speaker to hear the hon. member who has the floor. Is the hon. member rising on a question of privilege?


Jean-François Pouliot: Yes, sir. I was saying that the house knows that I have always been a Liberal, and those who are familiar with the dictionary know that the words "liberal" and "independent" are synonymous.
In the list of members, with political affiliations, as it appears at the back of the daily edition of Hansard, I am described as an Independent Liberal-the only one; and that was done at my request to the editor of debates. My reason for making that request was that I wanted my crossing of the floor to be ratified by my electors at the last election. The same thing appears in the latest edition of the Parliamentary Guide at page 233.
I have waited for some time to judge the new Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) as leader of the house and of the party, and I am so much satisfied with his accomplishments since he took charge-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Jean-François Pouliot: Even if hon. members do not like it, I will state my correction, which is on a question of privilege. In future I want to be designated in Hansard, as well as in the Parliamentary Guide, as a straight Liberal.



STANDING COMMITTEE


[Stage Direction]
Seventh report of the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.-Mr. Winkler.


Mr. E. D. Fulton (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to present a petition, addressed to the honourable the House of Commons of Canada, in parliament assembled, from sixty property owners who are residents of the Russell road area, Hurdman's bridge, Ontario, who have been informed that the greater Ottawa plan contemplates the designating of this area for industrial purposes, and who point out that the area is now a residential district.



INQUIRIES FOR RETURNS


Mr. Alistair Slewarl (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. On February 9 the house passed a motion standing in my name for the production of certain papers dealing, among other things, with the entry into Canada of nazi collaborators. In a speech a few days later I suggested that these papers might be so much emasculated when I received them that they would be worthless. I withdrew that statement at the time, believing that perhaps I was in error. However, not only have I not received emasculated papers; after seventy-nine days I have received no papers at all.
Can the Minister of Mines and Resources give me any assurance that this return, which was ordered seventy-nine days ago, will be brought down today?


Hon. Colin Gibson (Minister of Mines and Resources):: I shall be glad to make inquiries to find out if it is possible.



SHIPS OPERATING FROM PACIFIC PORTS-RADIO EQUIPMENT AND WATCH KEEPING

Mr. Angus Maclnnis (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, on March 21 an order for return in my name was passed for the production of certain papers. Could the Minister of Transport see that I receive those before we leave here?


Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Minister of Transport):: Is that the return concerning radio operators?


Angus MacInnis: Yes.


Lionel Chevrier: I was under the impression that the hon. gentleman had received that information, but I shall look into it at once and see that the matter is expedited before the house adjourns.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: There are still on the order paper some questions and motions for production of papers. If it suits the convenience of the house, at three o'clock I shall ask that questions and notices of motions for production of papers be called, and perhaps Your Honour would allow us to do that at that time.


Mr. Coldwell:: Lest the ministers forget, may I remind them that I am anxiously awaiting answers to questions standing on the order paper in my name, dealing respectively with food contracts with Britain and health grants. Parliament is about to dissolve, and I do not want to be making statements that will not be borne out by the facts.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I had the hon. member's questions in mind when I asked the house if, in spite of the standing order, it would consent to have questions dealt with at three o'clock this afternoon.


Major James William Coldwell: Thank you.



ATLANTIC TREATY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition):: I should like to suggest to the Prime Minister, in view of the announced order of business, that there are three matters in connection with which it is evident there is unanimity on the part of hon. members. I would strongly urge that we proceed to deal with the Atlantic treaty, the international wheat agreement, and the pipe lines bill. I feel that hon. members would like to indicate their approval of the Atlantic treaty. It would certainly not lead to any extended debate.
The pipe lines bill was held up because of the request of certain hon. members from Alberta that they be given an opportunity to examine its effect. Then there is the international wheat agreement. I feel sure that if these measures are brought up, there will not be extended debate.
Inquiries of the Ministry The Atlantic treaty was dealt with yesterday in the other place, and if hon. members of this house have the opportunity of dealing with it, this parliament will be the first to ratify this most important document.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: At the meeting of council at two o'clock I shall take up with my colleagues the remarks made by the leader of the opposition.
I hope I shall have a satisfactory statement to make at three o'clock, if in the meantime we have not already reached these measures, having disposed of the motion to go into committee of supply.


Major James William Coldwell: I hope favourable consideration will be given to the question of dealing with these matters.


George Alexander Drew: In the event of interim supply having been dealt with, we shall then proceed to deal with these other matters?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Yes.


Mr. Low:: Will the Secretary of State for External Affairs be in the house when discussion is called on the resolution concerning the Atlantic treaty?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: No, Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State for External Affairs is still in London. I understand he is leaving London by air tomorrow, but I do not expect that even with air transportation he will be able to arrive here before parliament is dissolved.


Solon Earl Low: Does the Prime Minister not feel it is essential for the Secretary of State for External Affairs to be here to answer questions that only he can answer?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: It is very desirable for ministers to attend to a great many things, but it is not possible for them to attend to different things in different places at the same time. It was considered highly desirable that the Secretary of State for External. Affairs attend the meeting which took place in London, the result of which met with the unanimous approval that was indicated in this house the night before last.



INDIANS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. John R. MacNicol (Davenport):: I
should like to address a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. I hold in my hand a letter from Andrew Pauli- who, according to the letterhead, is president of the North American Indian Brotherhood- asking whether it is the intention of the government to implement a recommendation of

Inquiries of the Ministry the committee on Indian affairs to the effect that Indians be included in the benefits of the Old Age Pensions Act?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I can only say that the government is giving and will continue to give this matter its very earnest consideration.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. S. Harkness (Calgary East):: I should like to direct a question to the minister of reconstruction. Is the minister aware that Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation is is being sued by one of the residents of the Bow River Construction Company project in Calgary? Will he make a statement as to what has been done or will be done for the relief of the people who bought houses in that development?


Hon. Robert H. Winters (Minister of Reconstruction and Supply):: I have reported to the house from time to time about that development. I am not aware of this particular incident to which the member refers.


Mr. Johnston:: I was going to ask the same *question as that asked by the member for Calgary East. I understand that an action has been entered in court against the Manufacturers Life, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and the Bow River Construction Company. This matter is of urgent importance to the home owners who have suffered losses as a result of this development. Can the minister make a statement about this urgent matter?


Major James William Coldwell: In view of the persistent and alarming reports of pending evictions of tenants in all our large cities, will the Minister of Finance or some member of the government say whether, under power secured from this parliament, the government will take immediate steps to protect families who are threatened with serious hardships?


Hon. Douglas Abbott (Minister of Finance):: Yes, Mr. Speaker; in answer to a question by the member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol)
I promised to look into this alleged situation. Of course these properties are freed from rental controls, and just what action the government either could or might appropriately take, I am not prepared to say. All I can undertake to do is to look at the situation and see if anything can be done.


Major James William Coldwell: You should not have released these properties from control.
IMr. MacNicol.]



INVESTIGATION OF DISPOSAL OF MATERIALS AT ST. CATHARINES, ONT.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr G. K. Fraser (Peterborough West): I
should like to address a question to the minister of reconstruction.
An hon. Member:: Nails.


Mr. Fraser:: Do not yell "nails" at me, because we have not received them yet. All we get from this government is taxes. My question is this. Has the minister received a report from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with regard to the irregularities in the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation project at St. Catharines? He wrote a letter to one person.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I want to ask the minister another question, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I would ask hon. members not to interrupt an hon. member who is trying to put a question. But I would ask the hon. member not to forget the rule that questions should be brief, and should be urgent.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Any irregularities in government procedure are matters of urgency.


Douglas Charles Abbott: There aren't any.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I should like to ask the minister if he has received this report from the mounted police; and if so, has he answered the gentleman in St. Catharines to whom he wrote about this matter?


Robert Henry Winters: I received no notice of this specific question.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: You should not need it.


Robert Henry Winters: As I recall the matter of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police report on this particular incident, it was dealt with by the house on a previous occasion.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: And I was refused it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: That is why we have irregularities.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.



PROJECT FOR PERSONNEL OF CANADIAN SCHOOL OF ARTILLERY AT PICTON

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. J. Tusiin (Prince Edward-Lennox):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. The minister

Ls not in his seat at the moment, but I believe his parliamentary assistant could either give me or get for me the information I desire. I have discussed this matter previously with the minister; therefore I did not send written notice to him this morning. Has the government decided on a housing project for the personnel of the Canadian school of artillery at Picton? If so, how many housing units will be provided? Have tenders been called Dr contracts given for any of this work?


Hon. Brooke Claxton (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, there is a housing project planned for Picton. It will be carried out by the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation for the Department of National Defence in accordance with the arrangements already announced, under which housing for married personnel in the armed forces in urban and settled areas will be constructed by the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The number of units planned for Picton for 1949-50 is two hundred; but whether or not they can be completed will depend upon the speed with which contracts are let and the work begun, and the availability of labour and materials. But that is the target-two hundred for this year.


John Ritchie MacNicol: One hundred or two
hundred?


Brooke Claxton: Two hundred. Contracts have not yet been let.


George James Tustin: I want to apologize to the minister. I did not see him when I said that he was not in his seat.



RADIO BROADCASTING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Douglas G. Ross (St. Paul's):: I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Is the rumour true that, because of pressure from this side of the house, the $2.50 radio licence fee is to be abolished?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Any rumour to the effect that the government's policies are influenced by pressure from the hon. member's side of the house is entirely false.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Do not forget the removal of price and rental controls.



ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAY QUESTION AS TO ACTION BY UNITED STATES CONGRESS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Arthur Williams (Ontario):: I wish to address a question to the Prime Minister. I must apologize for not having given him
Inquiries of the Ministry notice of the question, but if he is not able to answer it completely I shall not be too critical. The question arises from a news item from Washington in this morning's Globe and Mail, datelined yesterday, intimating that according to congress sources, it is not expected there will be action on the St. Lawrence waterway scheme. Can the Prime Minister give us any information as to the actual situation?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Unfortunately I am not in a position to give accurate information as to what the situation is. I know that there are many who are anxious to have it dealt with at this session of congress, and I know that there is some opposition to it. I am unable to inform the house whether or not, under the rules of procedure at Washington, those who wish it dealt with at this session will have their wishes implemented.



COMPENSATION FOR T.B. REACTORS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. K. R. Daniel (Oxford):: I should like to address a question to the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the statements made by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), as reported on page 2239 of Hansard, concerning increases in the compensation paid farmers who have lost cattle under the area T.B. tests, is the minister's parliamentary assistant prepared to say that these payments will be made this year?


Mr. Robert McCubbin (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture):: I should like to thank the member for giving me notice of his question. In reply may I say that it might not be possible to reach some of the things we should like to reach before the end of this session, but I can assure the member it is the intention of the government to increase the compensation paid to T.B. reactors, and also to make it retroactive. If it is not done before the end of this session, it will be one of the first things done by this government after the election.


Mr. Gordon Graydon (Peel):: I should like to ask a supplementary question. I hope that the farmers will have a better-


Some hon. Members:: Question-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I suggest that the member for Peel put his question without making a statement.


Gordon Graydon: I should like to ask this question of the parliamentary assistant before an

Inquiries of the Ministry election comes-he will not have an opportunity after that-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Gordon Graydon: Before the election I should like him to state-


Some hon. Members:: Question; never mind the speech.


Gordon Graydon: On the question of compensation for herds that have reacted unfavourably to the T.B. test, I should like to have the parliamentary assistant look into the case I have mentioned time and time again in the house, that of Donald McIntyre, of Stayner, Ontario. It is one of the most serious and urgent cases of which I know.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I would ask the hon. member to address himself to the chair and, when the Speaker rises, to resume his seat. I would ask the hon. member to put his question and to be brief.


Gordon Graydon: My difficulty, Mr. Speaker, has always been that when I address you, the noise is so great here that nobody can hear me. I just want to ask the parliamentary assistant to look into the question of the Donald McIntyre case at Stayner, Ontario. It is one of the most serious matters-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Gordon Graydon: If it is not done before the end of the next two months, he will not have a chance to do it. '


Robert McCubbin: This is the first occasion on which this matter has been brought to my attention by the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon).


Gordon Graydon: It is not the first time it has been brought to the attention of the minister.


Robert McCubbin: It is the first time it has been brought to my attention. I can assure the hon. member that I will look into the matter and give him an answer.


Gordon Graydon: We shall have to do it in the next two months, if you do not.


Mr. Robinson (Bruce):: Through you, Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture. He has just now stated that this increase in compensation will be made retroactive. Will the government make it retroactive back to the time when the testing started or when the war ended?


Robert McCubbin: The hon. member for Bruce can rest assured that this compensation will


be made retroactive, but to what date I am not in a position to say right now.


Andrew Ernest Robinson: I should like to direct a supplementary question to the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture. My question arises out of the last answer he gave. Has the government not as yet decided to make payments retroactive to the fall of 1947 for T.B. reactors?


Robert McCubbin: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member has the answer. When the amendment is brought down I know the good people of Bruce will be satisfied.



POSTAL SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. Garfield Case (Grey North):: should like to direct a question to the Postmaster General. Will the franking privilege be extended after the dissolution of parliament?


Hon. Ernest Bertrand (Postmaster General):: According to custom, the franking privilege is extended to members for ten days after prorogation.



INQUIRY AS TO MARKETING IN GREAT BRITAIN

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister. I apologize for not sending him notice of it. Is the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) now in London discussing the question of the marketing of Canadian apples in Great Britain for this coming year?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I am unable to say what the Minister of Trade and Commerce is doing in London at this moment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Probably having afternoon tea.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I know that the Minister of Trade and Commerce is well aware of all the interesting problems with respect to trade that face us at this time, and I am quite sure that during his visit in London he will avail himself of every possible opportunity to discuss those that may be pertinent.



DOMINION ELECTIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Graydon: I should
like to direct a question to the Secretary of State. What instructions have gone out with respect to enumeration, and on what date will the enumeration start?


Colin William George Gibson: Any instructions with regard to
enumeration come under the provisions of the Dominion Elections Act, and those instructions will be sent out by the chief electoral officer.


Gordon Graydon: I suggest to the Secretary of State that this matter comes under his jurisdiction, and that we cannot question the chief electoral officer in the house.


Mr. Sinclair:: Read the act.


Gordon Graydon: I have read it, and that is why I asked the question.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.



TRANS-CANADA AIR LINES QUESTION AS TO INSURANCE APPLICABLE TO PILOTS ON TRANSATLANTIC DUTY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Alexander Drew: I wish to direct a question to the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Will he explain to the house the circumstances in connection with the cancellation of the insurance applicable to the pilots of the Trans-Canada Air Lines flying on the transatlantic route? This was done as at the beginning of this year, press reports of this morning indicate.


Mr. G. J. Mcllraiih (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I have had no notice of the question. 1 will have to look into the matter; if it is possible to get a complete answer later this day, I will get it.


George Alexander Drew: I do not want to interrupt the parliamentary assistant-


Douglas Charles Abbott: Then why do it?


George Alexander Drew: -but I would point out that this has been a matter of discussion between his department and the pilots' association for some time; $20,000 of insurance has been cancelled.


George James McIlraith: That may well be. I stated that I had no notice of the question being asked by the leader of the opposition; therefore I am not in a position at the moment to
Inquiries of the Ministry give an accurate and complete answer. I will look into the matter, and if it is possible to get an answer later, I will do it.
[Later: ]


George James McIlraith: I should like to answer a question which was asked this morning by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew). The hon. member asked about a report in the newspapers having to do with Trans-Canada Air Lines pilots' insurance. In reply to the question I would say that Trans-Canada Air Lines air crew on transatlantic duty during the war years were, for periods of stopovers, in actual theatres of war. The company therefore in addition to providing insurance for flying duties, covered its transatlantic personnel with non-occupational insurance. With the cessation of hostilities, the non-occupational hazards were no different for transatlantic personnel than for domestic, and consequently this coverage has been cancelled.
There has been no change in the air risk coverage which provides $20,000 for captains and $15,000 for first officers on transatlantic runs. This compares with air risk coverage of $10,000 for captains and $7,500 for first officers on domestic runs.
I am assured that the negotiations between the company and the pilots were on a most friendly basis, and that there is no foundation for the suggestion that the decision to drop the non-occupational coverage has resulted in strained relations as reported in some editions of the Globe and Mail of April 29.



PUBLIC WORKS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Douglas Gooderham Ross: I was
interested, Mr. Speaker, in the dictatorial reply that I got from the Prime Minister when I asked him a question a moment ago about radio receiving licences.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: My question is this- of course he is not interested in what we say. That is the answer to it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I want to ask a question.


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask the hon. gentleman to put his question. If he does not abide by the rules of the house, I shall ask him to resume his seat.

Inquiries of the Ministry Mr. Ross (Si. Paul's): I want to ask the Minister of Public Works a reasonable question.


Jean-François Pouliot: Hear, hear.


Mr. Ross (Si. Paul's):: For a great many years the people of my riding in the neighbourhood of St. Clair and Yonge streets have been suffering from lack of accommodation in the form of a public building.


Jean-François Pouliot: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. There is much noise in the chamber. I would ask hon. members to respect the Chair and keep quiet. I would also ask the hon. member to put his question and to be brief. If he does not do so, I shall ask him to resume his seat.


George Henry Ross: I will certainly ask the question. I ask the Minister of Public Works how soon the people of Yonge and St. Clair, Toronto, can expect some co-operation from the government, which has not been given to them for years, in the matter of the erection of a proper public building there.


Jean-François Pouliot: Is this the swan song? We have the swan dance.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Mr. Rowe:: There will not be enough of you fellows left to form a dance.
Hon. Alphonse Fournier (Minister of Public Works:) The hon. gentleman wants to know how soon a postal station will be erected in his riding. The answer is as soon as possible.



WAR GRAVES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. Maiihews (Kootenay East):: I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister.
I am sorry I was not able to send him notice of the question. Has he received representations from the next of kin association asking for free transportation to enable mothers and widows to visit the graves of their loved ones overseas? Is it the intention of the government to grant this request?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: There were representations about this matter some time ago, but no decision has yet been reached.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. B. Barrett (Norfolk):: information as to the likelihood of the Jarvis airport being reopened? It was formerly No. 1 bombing and gunnery school.


Brooke Claxton: I have to see whether the officers of the department have that under consideration, but it has not reached me yet, and so far there is no decision to reopen that airport.

The house resumed from Thursday, April 28, consideration of the motion of Hon. Douglas Abbott (Minister of Finance) that the house go into committee of supply.


Mr. H. H. Hatfield (Victoria-Carleton):: When the house adjourned last evening I was comparing the support price given to potato growers in Canada with the support price given to potato growers in the United States. The support price in the United States is $3.25 a hundredweight, bagged, tagged and loaded on the car, which amounts to $2.75 in the bins on the farms. The support price given to the farmers of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick is $1.15, or $1.60 per hundredweight less than the support price given to the farmers across the border in the United States, which is a difference of $2.60 a barrel of 165 pounds. Their support price is effective the year round. Our support price is effective April 1. The smaller farmers who were unable to finance and hold their potatoes until April 1 had to sell them at a price below the cost of production, which is contrary to the Agricultural Prices Support Act which passed this house in 1944.
The Department of Agriculture and this government should make this price retroactive to September, 1948, so that the farmers who came back from the war and just got a start in farming under the Veterans Land Act could have the advantage of the support price and be reimbursed for the loss they took on their crops. I was informed by my constituency this morning that some changes have been made in the support program. They are now willing to take potatoes stored off the farm. About a week ago the legislative assembly of New Brunswick unanimously passed a resolution asking this government that that be done. I understand that the support price has been put forward to the last of May, which means another month. However, this does not reimburse the small farmers who are unable to hold their potatoes until April or May.
The support price was supposed to go into effect as soon as any agricultural product went below the cost of production, or went down to an unfair price to the producer. I ask the government to make the price retroactive to September 1, 1948. I ask this in

fairness to the potato growers of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
I have another grievance, Mr. Speaker. I am absolutely opposed to the Agricultural Products Marketing Act which was passed in this house on April 8. Twenty-five years ago I was in conference with representatives from every province of Canada. We sat around a table in Toronto and drew up what we thought was the best kind of marketing act that we could devise. That marketing act was introduced in this house in 1934 by the Bennett government, but it was amended to take in marketing of agricultural products within the provinces, and therefore was declared ultra vires of the federal authority. What the agriculturists of every province have been asking for is a dominion marketing act so that representatives of every province could sit around a table and decide on a fair price to be paid for any agricultural product for export or interprovincial trade. That price would be the only competition they would have in outside markets. Our farmers in the maritime provinces have lost millions upon millions of dollars in the last few years through cutthroat competition, between one province and another and within the provinces. We have lost a million dollars this season on two shipments of potatoes to the Argentine and other points in South America. We had no competition from outside. We were the only province which could supply those orders at the time. The price was cut down so low that our farmers lost millions of dollars.
This is not the marketing act the people of Canada have been asking for. With this marketing act which was put before the House of Commons by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), we have ten provinces in Canada, all competing with one another, and that is all that marketing act has done. The fact is that we have ten different marketing acts. Through the enabling legislation the provinces have set up ten different marketing boards, with the result that one province is competing with another.
The Social Credit party or the C.C.F. party offered a resolution when this measure was before parliament to the end that one or two provinces could be linked together, but that resolution was thrown out. The marketing act which was passed was absolutely useless, and it is not the marketing act for which the people of Canada have been asking for the last twenty-five years.
I have a further grievance, in connection with the way in which this parliament has handled the butter question as it has been affected by the sale of oleomargarine. After the ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada this government tried to pass the buck to the
Oleomargarine
provinces. I am surprised to see that some of the provinces have tried to stop the sale of oleomargarine by changing its colour. Even Ontario, and my own province of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and other provinces, have passed legislation respecting the colouring of oleomargarine. However, this will not stop the sale of it.
I say the sale of oleomargarine depends upon the action taken by this government, and this government alone. It was the federal government which released the restrictions by order in council after the ruling of the supreme court was made. It was the federal government which lifted all restrictions on the importation of vegetable oils for the manufacture of oleomargarine in Canada. Before that time the importation of vegetable oils was on a quota basis. United States dollars could not then be had to send out of Canada for the importation of vegetable oils. Now, after the ruling by the supreme court, this government, by order in council, has taken off all restrictions against the importation of vegetable oils; and I now charge the government with supporting the price of oleomargarine in Canada, because they are removing from the market large quantities of butter, the only competition oleomargarine has. Every pound of butter removed from this market supports the sale of a pound of oleomargarine.
This government have allowed $95 million of United States dollars to be sent out of Canada for the importation of vegetable oils since the supreme court ruling. Of that amount, $40 million was for the importation of refined vegetable oils suitable for the manufacture of oleomargarine, and $55 million was for the importation of crude and uncrushed vegetable oils brought into this country. The government made it easy to bring in those oils by allowing to the manufacturers large amounts of United States dollars which were in short supply.
This is the only government that can stop the sale of oleomargarine in Canada by not allowing United States dollars to be sent out of this country for the purchase and importation of vegetable oils.
The government could also impose a higher duty against vegetable oils entering Canada for the manufacture of oleomargarine. The present duty does not amount to anything. It is free from British countries, and ten per cent from the United States and other countries.
Despite the operations of the prices support board, and even after the placing of a floor price on butter, the government is today taking butter out of competition with oleomargarine, thus placing grocery stores in

Trade
such a position that they cannot buy a pound of butter. Those stores have gone out of the business of selling butter, because butter is going into cold storage, and is being placed there by this government. Butter is being taken out of competition with oleomargarine in Canada, which means that when a man walks into a store he must buy oleomargarine, and he can buy it at twenty to thirty cents a pound less than the price he would pay for butter.
I contend that the government should change its policy at once. It should allow butter to find its own price level on the market in Canada, and subsidize the producer up to the floor price, thus giving some competition to oleomargarine in this country. On the contrary they are today taking butter off the market and advertising oleomargarine to the point where the Canadian consumer cannot buy anything else.
Within the last month 2,500,000 pounds of butter have been taken off the market in Canada and put into cold storage. What will be taken off the market when the cows are put out on grass and butter is being manufactured in surplus quantities in Canada? We will have 100 million pounds of butter in cold storage, and our people will be eating oleomargarine. By its policy this government is advertising oleomargarine, and I contend it should change its policy at once. Let butter compete on the market, and subsidize the producer up to the floor price.
I have another grievance. When the Canadian dollar was put back to par it was the greatest detriment to the producers in my constituency and to others throughout Canada. That ten per cent premium we received on the United States dollar gave us $4 to $5 a thousand on lumber, and it gave us almost enough on potatoes to pay the duty into the United States and other countries. It gave us $1.50 to $2 a cord on pulpwood. When the Canadian dollar was put back to par it did more harm to our trade with our neighbours to the south than anything the government has ever done.
When the austerity program went into effect on November 17, 1947, it almost ruined our trade with the United States. True, we had trade with Europe through the Marshall plan, but the Marshall plan is not going to last. It has furnished funds to Europe to help European countries, some of which have been taken over by Russia, to get into full production. Today if you go to New York you will see a German exhibit with all kinds of products manufactured by modern machinery furnished to Europe under the Marshall plan. They are ready to flood our market with all kinds of products manufactured with

our money, manufactured with machinery furnished by us. Through the Ukraine and Poland the land was farmed with the mule, the donkey and the cow before the Marshall plan furnished them with tractors and other modern agricultural machinery.
Water ocean rates from Europe are going down daily, while railway rates in Canada are going up. Soon they will be delivering wheat from Europe to the centre of Canada and the United States by way of the St. Lawrence waterway more cheaply than you can rail it from the western provinces to central Canada. We are going to lose our markets for wheat in Europe; we are going to lose all our markets in Europe. You might as well make up your mind to that. The policy of the United States government and of this government has started one of the greatest trade wars that this country will ever see. I am surprised that the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) did not wake up sooner and bring on the election, but he has awakened at last. He has gone to Europe, but it is of no use for him to go to Europe unless he wants to buy goods from Europe, because this government and ERP have furnished Europe with modem machinery to put them into production. Ocean water rates are going down almost daily. You can charter a ship today at almost any price you want to offer, and on the other hand rail rates have gone up. I hope that the government will wake up before it is too late. It is not aeroplanes that we want today; it is not guns. We want something to stop the trade war. Russia is going to ruin the United States and Canada within a year's time with the greatest trade war that has ever been known in the history of this country.


Jean-François Pouliot: The last twelve speakers on the motion to go into committee of supply have been opposition members. It is time for a government supporter to rise and say something about the prospects of the Liberal party in the coming election. Some canvassers may say unpleasant things about the leaders of the various groups and their supporters, but there is no reason for that. I have the utmost respect for my leader, the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), and for the leaders of the other parties in the house, as well as for my colleagues generally in the House of Commons.
Referring to what I said at the beginning of the session today, I have always been a Liberal because I believe in Liberal policies, and I have been strongly opposed to a union government formed by intrigue and by shaking hands under the table. A clear pronouncement was made by the Prime Minister

in the course of his successful trip to the west. He has given no quarter to his political opponents, and he is ready to carry on with Liberal policies as I knew them when I was first elected as a member of the House of Commons nearly a quarter of a century ago.
I have known all the leaders of the official opposition since that time. Mr. Arthur Meighen was then leader of the opposition, having been twice, and for a very short time on each occasion, prime minister of Canada. Then there was Mr. Guthrie, a former Liberal. Then there was Mr. Bennett, who was denied by his own party. Only two members of his party accompanied him to the station when he left. After that there was poor Dr. Manion, who suffered so much from intrigue in the ranks of his party. Then Mr. Hanson followed, and then Mr. Meighen again for a shadow appearance. Then there was the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon), followed by the choice of the former premier of Manitoba. Now we have a new leader of the Conservative party.


Mr. Fournier (Maisonneuve-Rosemont):: Who is next?


Jean-François Pouliot: My friend the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont says, "Who is next?" The same question is in my mind. Every time that the Conservative party has chosen a new leader they have beat the drum for his election, describing each one of them as a semi-god, and all others were puny people compared to the new Moses who was to lead them to the promised land. The only one who did so did it during four or five years of depression, but afterwards, in spite of his bags of gold, he was rejected by the Canadian people. I know something about that, because I had my share in discussing public questions with him in the House of Commons.
The Conservative party now has a new leader, and one who has something in common with the Prime Minister because each of them has a charming wife. They are great ladies, but the social question is entirely apart from the programs of the parties and from the pronouncements that are made by the respective leaders. The reason I give my unqualified support to the Prime Minister as leader of the Liberal party, and as Prime Minister, is the reasonable and sensible way in which he has been acting as leader of the party, leader of the house, and leader of the government since he assumed office in the late summer of 1948. It is most important that the leader of the government should be well versed in the law. As you know, our primary purpose in being here is to pass legislation which affects every man, woman and child in the country. Therefore the one who leads the government, who is the first
Party Policies
citizen of the land, should be thoroughly conversant with the law and with the effect of the law, so that no one in the country will be prejudiced by the law. The Prime Minister is one of the most prominent lawyers in this country. He knows and understands the law, and that is one reason for supporting him. I pay the same compliment to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), to the financial critic of the official opposition, the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdon-nell), and many others.
Each party should have a definite policy, and should not cater to other groups for support. There is nothing that will appeal to the people more than a red-blooded Canadian policy. I can see the day, although it may be distant, when the Canadian people will no longer have an inferiority complex, when they will consider themselves to be the equals of any in any other part of the world. It is unfortunate to realize that up to the present time there have been those who call themselves Canadians but who are no more Canadians than Chinese or Africans because of their inferiority complex in connection with the British empire or the so-called commonwealth.
I consider myself-all hon. members of parliament should be in the same position- the equal of any sitting member in the House of Commons at Westminster or in any parliament in any part of the empire. It is only by the acceptance of all public men in Canada, or at least a majority of them, of a conception of equality, that we can have a truly Canadian policy. We are gradually going forward to that conception.
When Mr. Bennett announced the slogan of "Canada first" he was simply trying to fool the people. After his defeat, and when he was leaving for the shores of Great Britain, he said, "I am going home." He forgot that he had been born in New Brunswick. He forgot the support he had received from the Conservative party, a party that had been very good to him.
I have many friends among the different parties and groups in this house. I have no complaint to make about individuals, but I disagree entirely with some of the policies of the Conservative party. There is so much bluff in the pronouncements that are made at times by those in charge. They speak of bureaucracy, but what will they do to stop bureaucracy? Where will they start? Nothing is said. They are denouncing abstractions. They are denouncing straw men that they set up themselves. Then they dare to say that those who are Liberals at heart, those who are good Canadians, can be compared to the straw men that they burn in effigy in their own imaginations.

Party Policies
We shall go forward. I am ready to forget the errors that have been made by my party in the past, provided that the Prime Minister continues with the policy he announced west of the lakes; provided that that is the policy that he will preach in each province, city, town and hamlet of Canada where he will be invited to speak and where he will be greeted by our own people.
The Conservative party cannot expect to have the confidence of the majority of the Canadian people as long as they keep a large painting of Arthur Meighen in their caucus room. They should break with the past and go forward. They should stop denouncing evils that do not exist. They should make constructive criticisms that will be helpful in the good government of this country.
What are the prospects for the next election? An able journalist who accompanied the Prime Minister on his trip through the west has said that the chances of the leader of the opposition and his party west of the great lakes are nil. Then what do we read in one of the best papers of Canada, the Montreal Gazette, under the signature of one of the ablest members of the press gallery, about the trip of the leader of the opposition to Newfoundland? He is a man of culture; he knows the Einstein theory. I never could understand Einstein's theory. One day I asked a learned mathematician to tell me if it was of practical use, and he answered that it served in the discovery of the undulation of light. I asked him if the undulation of light was a practical thing, and he said, "Not yet."
When the leader of the opposition went to Newfoundland he spoke in the birthplace of one of his great grandmothers, but he spoke a language that was not understood by his audience when he referred to dominion-provincial relations. In his article this able correspondent of the Montreal Gazette said that the explanations of the leader of the opposition about dominion-provincial problems were just as clear as Einstein's theory- or, in simple language, just as clear as mud. If the leader of the opposition thinks that he will have any success in getting the support of the good people of Newfoundland by using, perhaps purposely, such nebulous language, he is labouring under a delusion.
Let us look at the maritime provinces. By all reports the Liberal government in Nova Scotia will be returned by an increased majority. The government in Nova Scotia is strong. Then we come to the central provinces of Ontario and Quebec. I am sure that when the Prime Minister goes to Toronto and Hamilton he will have the same reception he received when he went to Windsor and Oshawa. He will be greeted not only

with sympathy, but with affection, by the Canadian people, who will have the advantage of meeting him both before and after the meetings that he holds there. I am not afraid of the province of Ontario. My contention has always been that since I have been elected as a member of parliament I am responsible to my electors for any information they request from me concerning dominion business. If they wish some information, they have a right to have an answer from their member. When it comes to provincial business, however, it is entirely different. I say that a member of parliament is responsible to his electors for any action taken in parliament, but is an entirely free man with regard to provincial matters. He becomes an elector, and he speaks and votes in provincial elections, not as a member of parliament but as a private citizen. He does so as an elector who is on the provincial electoral list.
What would be the objection if any one of the old supporters of Mitchell Hepburn or Conant, the old Liberals in the province of Ontario who put Mitchell Hepburn in power and who voted for the Liberal government in Ottawa, voted provincially for another party? Most of those who elected the present leader of the opposition as premier of the province of Ontario were precisely those who had elected Mitchell Hepburn. They were Liberals who for the time being changed their minds about provincial business, but always gave their support to a large number of Liberal candidates for Ottawa. A larger number of them will do the same thing at the coming election.
Speaking about the province of Quebec, I know in my own constituency many persons who have voted for the Union Nationale in the provincial election but who will nevertheless vote for the sitting member for Temi-scouata. Why is that necessary distinction not made? Personally I have great respect and sympathy for the present premier of Quebec, who is a lifelong friend of mine. Owing to the fact that the dominion and provincial jurisdictions are entirely different, I see no reason why the majority of the people of the province of Quebec cannot make that elementary distinction and consider provincial problems when they are called upon to vote in provincial elections, and consider dominion problems when they are voting in dominion elections. Well, sir, that is that.
I rely on the people of my province because I know them well. Because I know them well, I respect them. The reason I have had their generous and unqualified support for so many years is that I always tell them the truth. I have never hidden the truth

from them. I consider them my friends. They know very well that when anyone in my constituency, whatever his political colour, is in trouble, he may come to me for help, and I am always ready to do what I can for him. In this post-war period, when difficulties have arisen for which the government cannot be held responsible, it is important to have at the head of the state, as the first citizen of the land, a good Canadian who can be relied upon in the grave decisions he has to make quickly for the benefit of the country and the welfare of our fellow citizens.
Having said that much, I am sure that the Liberal party will come to power with a large majority after the next election.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: You ought to wake up; you are asleep.


Jean-François Pouliot: Do not tell me I am asleep; I am not a somnambulist. I shall tell the hon. member for Peterborough West that he will have to be very careful if he is not to arouse the anger of his constituents and be sent back to his beautiful home. The last day of the election of 1935 I told the supporters of the late R. B. Bennett-each one, and I named them-who v. ould be defeated. My guess was ninety-nine per cent correct. During the campaign for that election I had occasion to go to Toronto and other centres in the province of Ontario. I went to Huron, Perth, Essex and other counties of Ontario to preach the Liberal doctrine. Two weeks before the end of the campaign I was in Toronto, and I told the people who were listening to me-I spoke in French on that occasion, but the reporters were bilingual, so they understood what I said-


Mr. Probe:: You knew that, of course.


Jean-François Pouliot: It is a great privilege to be bilingual. I told them that the Liberal party would get sixty seats out of sixty-five in the province of Quebec. My statement was put on the wires from coast to coast; it was a message of cheer and confidence. The guess was correct, because it was based on reliable information. We can see what is happening. The small groups are disappearing. There are many Liberals amongst them. I do not say that they are not able parliamentarians. They are good members of parliament, but often their doctrines are wrong. Their doctrines are not accepted by the Canadian people, and I shall tell you why. Sooner or later-I hope in the near future-we will have two parties in Canada. We will have a Canadian party, and a party composed of all other groups.
We have only to look at what is going on in the world to see that there is a spirit of
Party Policies independence prevailing in all countries. So long as some of the hon. members keep that inferiority complex which I mentioned a moment ago, they are gradually losing the confidence of the Canadian people, who are opening their eyes just as the Irish and Indian people have opened theirs. They should rather think of those who are close to them, those who live in their vicinity. They should think of all those in their country whom they want to be happy. Then if they put their ears to the ground, they will hear the clamour that is arising for the Liberal party and the ultimate benefit of the Canadian people.
I have said enough. Although I did not speak much during this session, I followed what was going on, and I obtained some exceedingly valuable information as to what is going to happen on the date that will be set for the election in the last days of June.


John Oliver Probe: How will Temiscouata go?


Jean-François Pouliot: First-class.


Mr. Irvine:: It is too bad that you are going to be defeated.


Jean-François Pouliot: I say "first-class", because I have been honest with my people from the start of my political life, as was Sir Wilfrid Laurier. When I was eighteen years old I spoke at his meeting. I have known Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Few other members have. He was a great man.
With regard to the fixing of the date of the election, I regret one thing. I regret that it will be on a Monday and that it will not be June 23, the day that my father was elected as a supporter of Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the great election of 1896.


Mr. Robert Fair (Battle River):: It is no
wonder, Mr. Speaker, that many people are surprised that democracy has survived as long as it has when we listen to much of the political nonsense that is being discussed here instead of some of the country's business, which is being shelved.
I had intended to discuss a number of questions on the budget address, but because of the fact that parliament will be dissolved in the near future I intend to confine my remarks to just a few moments; and when I say "a few moments" I mean just that.
First of all I want to deal with the question of the trans-Canada highway. We have heard about this project for a number of years. It is peculiar that after the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) and the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier) had denied, last June, any responsibility or any connection whatever with that work, last December the-then minister of mines and resources (Mr. HOUSE OF COMMONS
Trans-Canada Highway MacKinnon) was successf ul in having a meeting here in Ottawa with the provincial representatives, and as a result of that meeting we were led to believe that legislation would be passed at this session providing for money to build the trans-Canada highway.
But then there comes another hitch. There is again the division of responsibility between the dominion and the provinces. Perhaps after the election is over some of the promises that have been made in this connection will again be forgotten. In my opinion that would be one of the greatest mistakes that Canada has ever made. Before you can have a prosperous Canada you must have some method of transportation by road from one end of the country to the other. It is amazing that we have lived up to the year 1949 and yet have not a road that we can travel on from east to west or from west to east. Because of the fact that the provinces of Canada have the right to say where the highway shall go, it now seems that west of Winnipeg there is considerable difference of opinion. My colleague the non. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) yesterday set up a number of arguments as to why it should go through his particular country. Today I am going to suggest that we bring the highway through the central part of the western provinces and follow up where we have production of oil and gas, abundant agricultural products, salt deposits, national parks, and, finally, the population to use those roads.


Solon Earl Low: That is perfectly logical.


Robert Fair: We do not intend to build this highway entirely for United States tourists. But, again, if we build the road up where it should be built, from Winnipeg to Saskatoon, Lloydminster, Vermilion, Vegreville, Edmonton, and on out over the Yellowhead route, then we shall also connect with the Alaska highway. In my opinion that is one of the strategic routes that should be followed, because of the threat of armed forces using that road-perhaps in the near future; I do not know, but I hope not.
Again we have been told about all the miles of road in the southern part of the province and the lack of population to use those roads down there. I do not think we can disagree with that. On the southern route I understand we have ten or twelve feet of snowfall annually. What is the use of building a road, one that a snake could hardly follow in many places for a number of miles, which in the winter will be covered with snow and the people will not be able to use it? My suggestion is to go up into that part of the country in which you will have far less construction difficulties, where you will have far less snowfall, and will have the use

of the road almost the year round. With some work I believe it can be used all the year round.
In order that there may be no hold-up because of this dispute between the provinces and the dominion, I am making a suggestion -and I believe it is backed up by a delegation from the Trans-Canada Highway Association, Yellowhead route, which presented a brief here not many days ago. The suggestion is to set up a highway commission to decide where the road should go. But before that decision is made, that commission would secure the advice of men who are in the engineering business, who would know the cost of building the road, and know the most desirable and feasible route to follow. As time goes on, we can have roads in the other more difficult places. I am appealing to the government here today to set up that commission, have it get the advice of experts in that particular line, and have the highway built without further delay. In the United States I understand there are national highways. If the dominion and the provinces cannot get together on this trans-Canada highway, perhaps they might build two or three national highways all across the country at federal government expense.
I wish to refer to one other matter that I have dealt with on a number of occasions, one on which there is practically unanimous agreement. Apparently the treasury board and some of their friends are dissenting from a decision which has been arrived at on many occasions. I am now dealing with our old friends, the soldier settlers of world war I. I am not going into the details, because many of us have placed them on the record time after time, and the case has been so strong that the special committee set up to deal with veterans affairs last year unanimously recommended that title be granted to those still remaining in debt to the soldier settlement board. The government apparently did not see fit to adopt that resolution, but they started in on a skim-milk program of appropriating $150,000 a year so that some of the needy cases would be taken care of. I have said that that is not good enough; and I am satisfied that if the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Gregg) had his way, all those soldier settlers would be taken care of before the election is held.
I believe the treasury board, or some of the other higher-ups, or those who are supposed to be higher-ups, are holding back this program and keeping these old settlers, who fought for Canada many years ago that we might have the good time we have here today, from getting that to which they are entitled. This soldier settlement scheme was, as described by the former minister of mines and

resources, Hon. T. A. Crerar, who now sits in a happy place at the other end of this building, a hastily improvised scheme. I think that that properly describes it, because there was no common sense or judgment used in the set-up, and the old settlers have had to bear the cost of the poor judgment used by some of the people in office at that time. It is up to us to spend the amount required- less than $3 million-to clear up all these debts.
Yesterday the hon. member for Pontiac (Mr. Caouette) told us of the more than $5 billion which has been paid in interest on our national debt. I believe that the interest on that national debt amounted last year to $455 million, and yet we cannot find less than $3 million to release these men, who farmed for close to thirty years, from the millstone which hangs around their necks.
I appeal again to the government to set this matter straight before the date of the election.
There is just one other matter I want to deal with, namely, the oil fields in the Lloyd-minster district. On many occasions representations have been made to the government to remove the discriminatory legislation against that particular oil field. We want to get many more United States dollars. That seems to be one of the restrictions on trade, and yet because of this we find that there is an inequitable and discriminatory eight per cent sales tax levied on the oil from that particular field. In addition there is a discriminatory freight rate which is preventing the development of that field. Production is much less than one-third of the potential.
I have appealed to the Minister of Finance;
I have taken the matter up with him personally and by letter, but so far we have not had those wrongs rectified. I am making this appeal this morning, and I hope the government will listen to the few appeals that I have made during the session.


Mr. Ronald Moore (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, the matter to which I wish to refer could have more properly been brought up in the budget debate, but because of the fact that the budget debate may not be resumed I wish to put it on the record on the motion which is now before the house.
In Manitoba there has been a problem which has been of some concern to the people. I refer to the decision of the directors of Trans-Canada Air Lines to remove their operating headquarters from Winnipeg to Montreal. I think it should be said that in the past two months all the Manitoba members have received communications from various civic bodies in that province, and from the chamber of commerce as well, asking us to oppose any move which would tend to
Trans-Canada Air Lines transfer T.C.A. from Winnipeg to Montreal.
I answered these communications and assured the bodies in question that I would do everything I could to prevent such a move.
When the sessional committee on railways and shipping owned, controlled and operated by the government was in session, a delegation from the city of Winnipeg interviewed that committee and presented a brief for its consideration. In that brief the chamber of commerce outlined the reasons why, in its opinion, T.C.A. headquarters should not be moved from Winnipeg to Montreal. Following the presentation of that brief, the directors of T.C.A. also presented a brief in which they outlined their position. The brief presented by the directors of T.C.A. made it plain that no matter what the committee did, it was the intention of the directors to move the headquarters from Winnipeg to Montreal. When I say that it was their intention to move the headquarters I am referring to the statement in the brief where it was said that the superintendent, his five assistants, and the office staffs, involving 159 employees in all, would be moved from Winnipeg to Montreal. The brief then went on to say that because this move was to be made, it should not be assumed that it was the policy of T.C.A. to move all of its operating staff from Winnipeg to the east.
On the following day a session of the railway committee was held in which it was decided to hold an executive meeting of the committee. It will be recalled by hon. members of the committee that the directors of T.C.A., the press, and all those not on the committee, were excluded from that executive meeting. In that meeting a motion was moved which asked that the decision of the T.C.A. directors be deferred for one year. I decided to vote against that motion. I decided to vote against it because in my opinion it was more of a political move than anything else. At the end of one year the election would be over and T.C.A. employees would be moved anyway. If the employees of T.C.A. mentioned in the brief presented by the board of directors were to be removed, they should know about it now and not a year from now. Hence I voted against the motion. I am not going into what took place after that, but it has been stated editorially by two newspapers in Manitoba that it was my vote which is permitting T.C.A. headquarters to be transferred from Winnipeg to Montreal. That is not so. I am perfectly willing to see T.C.A. retained in Winnipeg. I want to see it retained in Winnipeg.
I want to put on record a telegram which I have received from E. C. Gilliat, managing secretary of the Winnipeg chamber of com-
2748	HOUSE OF
Trans-Canada Air Lines merce, in connection with this matter. It reads as follows:
Manitoba is counting on you in co-operation with its other representatives in the Senate and house to make supreme effort prior to dissolution to prevent the removal of T.C.A.'s operating headquarters to Montreal. The immediate effects of such removal would be very serious to our economy. The long-range effects if move is consummated could be calamitous. We are satisfied Manitoba's case has not been successfully challenged on the merits; hence this earnest appeal for action now.


William Irvine: It might be better for T.C.A., though.


Ronald Stewart Moore: If any private member of the government or any member of the cabinet cares to take the attitude toward this problem as outlined in the telegram I have read, and move such a motion in the house, I shall be pleased to support it. Again I want to state that merely deferring the matter for one year 3oes not in any way assist the T.C.A. employees in Winnipeg.
In order to keep the record straight I think I should put on the record a letter which I wrote to the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) a day or two ago. This is a copy of the letter:
Dear Mr. St. Laurent;
As you are aware, the people of Manitoba are united in their insistence that the proposed removal of T.C.A.'s operating headquarters, together with another group of employees, from Winnipeg to Montreal should be abandoned. Organizations representing the people of Manitoba are continuing their efforts in this connection, but it has been drawn to my attention that my vote against a motion dealing with this matter, when the same was before the committee on railways and shipping owned and operated by the government, might be interpreted as justifying the announced intention of T.C.A.
In view of the above, I wish to make my position perfectly clear. Had the motion made by Mr. Maybank, in the above-noted committee, called for the complete abandonment of the proposed removal, I would have voted for it. Actually the motion called only for a deferment of the removal for one year. Quite frankly I regarded this motion as merely a political one, and I felt that if it were passed in the terms in which it was phrased it would simply add confusion to the present situation. I need not go further into this phase of the matter. But I do wish to make it clear that I wholly support the request of various bodies and organizations in Manitoba that this removal be completely abandoned, and I wish to add my support to the representations being made to you in *connection with this matter.
It seems clear to me that this issue is not just an administrative detail. It is rather a national policy in a good many respects; and I urge as strongly as I can that you see to it that the operating headquarters for T.C.A. remain at Winnipeg.
I understand that members of other parties from Manitoba are making representations to you in connection with this matter. I am authorized to say that all five C.C.F. members from our province,


namely, Messrs. Knowles, Bryce, Stewart, Zaplitny and myself, are in complete support of the request for the abandonment of the proposed removal.
Hoping that you will give this matter immediate and favourable consideration, I am,
Sincerely yours,
R. S. Moore
I am not going to say anything further on the subject at this time. I wish simply to make it clear that the motion which was before the committee, and which I voted against, was in my opinion but a political one which would not in any way meet the requirements of Trans-Canada Air Lines employees in Winnipeg.


Mr. W. R. Aylesworth (Fronlenac-Addington):: Mr. Speaker, I propose to confine my remarks largely to matters of trade. I do so because the question of trade is one of vital importance to the people I represent, and one in which perhaps more than any other there is less confidence in the government.
In 1939 Canada embarked upon a policy of state trading between the government of this country and the governments of other countries, chiefly the United Kingdom. Today, after ten years of this socialistic trading policy, we find ourselves facing the most serious agricultural economic problem we have perhaps ever been called upon to face, namely, the question of agricultural export markets, and particularly the retention of our market in the United Kingdom for our surplus agricultural products.
Export markets for agricultural products have been falling off during the past two years, and the trend is continuing. Unless something is done soon, the agricultural industry in Canada will face a major crisis arising out of a loss of markets and falling prices. Today our assured markets for the products about which I shall speak in a moment are no longer existent under the state-selling plan we adopted ten years ago. Those products are being secured by the United Kingdom from sources other than Canada.
Let us look at some of these products. First, with respect to barley, in the 1938-39 crop year we shipped to the United Kingdom 11,028,532 bushels of barley. That market is now gone. But barley imports by the United Kingdom increased from 4,701,416 bushels in 1947 to 32,538,013 bushels in 1948. Of this increase in barley imports into the United Kingdom the Argentine supplied 12,215,056 bushels, and 17,917,608 bushels came from eastern Europe.
With respect to oats, in 1947 we supplied 93 per cent of the total British imports, and in 1948, none.

With respect to beans, we lost this market in 1948, while at the same time British imports from eastern Europe increased from 51,666 bushels in 1947 to 521,666 bushels in 1948.
With respect to bacon-and this is important-we find that while the British contract for bacon from Canada was cut from 350 million pounds to 160 million pounds, her imports of bacon under state trading deals with eastern European countries increased from 341 hundredweight in 1947 to over 231,000 hundredweight in 1948. Since 1948 Britain has made five-year contracts with Poland, The Netherlands and other countries for additional millions of pounds of bacon.
With respect to cheese, our 1949 contract with the United Kingdom is for 50 million pounds. This is a very small amount-indeed it is lower than our shipments of cheese to that market in any year in the last fifty years.
As to poultry, last year our shipments fell off entirely when Britain secured these supplies elsewhere, particularly under barter contracts with Hungary and other European countries.
With regard to eggs, our contract this year to the United Kingdom market, totaling 46 million dozens, is about half the amount for which we had contracts in 1946, 1947 and 1948. At the same time British imports from foreign countries increased by 39 million dozens in 1948 over the 1947 figures. Further contracts have been entered into in 1949 for the purchase of eggs by Great Britain in return for coal, steel products, machinery, and other things which the United Kingdom agreed to ship to Poland, Hungary and other European countries.
Turning to apples, in 1947 we sold 1,150,000 bushels of Canadian apples in the United Kingdom market. In 1948 we had lost that market entirely, notwithstanding the fact that British imports of apples increased from 2,048,333 bushels in 1947 to 3,250,000 bushels in 1948.
Potatoes, which today are surplus on the Canadian market and are now assisted by the government under the prices support program, were sold in the British market in 1947 to the extent of 2,500,000 bushels. Today we sell none to that market although last year Britain increased her purchases of potatoes from the continent of Europe and elsewhere from 4,436,666 bushels to over double the volume of imports in the previous year.
In 1946 we sold to the United Kingdom almost half her imports of canned tomatoes. Today that market is gone entirely for Can-
Trade
ada-and not because Britain has discontinued importing these products. British trade figures for 1948 reveal that she increased her imports of canned tomatoes from 311,000 hundredweight in 1947 to over 621,000 hundredweight in 1948.
At one o'clock the house took recess.
The house resumed at three o'clock.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I ask leave of the house to revert to motions.
And the house having reverted to the order for motions:



NATIONAL CAPITAL PLAN


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I should like to table copies, in English and French, of the preliminary report of Mr. Jacques Greber, consultant to the national capital planning committee, on the plan for the national capital. With the report I am also tabling a memorandum by the national capital planning committee containing comments relating to the proposed plan.
The present preliminary report by Mr. Greber has been endorsed by the national capital planning committee and by the federal district commission. It was forwarded by the commission to the government only this week, and there has not yet been an opportunity for the government to study it. However, in view of the frequent indications there have been by hon. members of interest in the report, and of a desire to have it made public at as early a date as possible, it seemed best to table it at this stage. Certain parts of the plan have been submitted to the government separately from time to time and approved in order that some preliminary arrangements might go forward. Information about these has been communicated to the house at various times as approval was given. The present preliminary report will be followed later by a final revised report, which will contain additional plans and maps, but which is not expected to differ in substance from the preliminary report.
Hon. members will recall that the idea of developing the capital of Canada, so as to take advantage of its splendid natural location and to produce a city appropriate to the stature of Canada, has engaged the attention of Canadian statesmen ever since this country became a nation. Even before confederation a step was taken to make the best use of the location of Ottawa, when Sir John A. Mac-

National Capital Plan
donald had the vision to seize upon the commanding site of parliament hill for the three central buildings of the capital. Sir John's plan to use the entire hill in that way was attacked at the time as excessively grandiose and costly, and beyond the then needs of the country. If his critics had been listened to, the parliament of Canada would not occupy the impressive site on which these buildings are located. Sir Wilfrid Laurier established the Ottawa improvement commission, which subsequently became the federal district commission. Then Sir Robert Borden, in 1913, set up the Holt commission to prepare plans for the capital, but the advent of the first world war prevented the execution of those plans. Since that time the right hon. member for Glengarry (Mr. Mackenzie King) has been the moving spirit in the project to create a better national capital. He has certainly given generously of his assistance, his counsel, and his encouragement, and the present report is the outcome of his initiative. I mention the interest of these four great leaders of Canada in the development of the national capital to emphasize that this is not in any sense a political or controversial matter. The plan I am tabling is not a government plan. It is a report based upon objective and expert study in an effort to determine how we can best use what nature has here provided to build a capital of which Canadians may be proud.
Perhaps I should also emphasize the fact that the production of the present plan is a beginning, not an end. It is a guide to help in the long-term development of the capital as it grows in response to the needs of the Canadian nation. Plans for the national capital have been produced before, and the capital has certainly suffered because they have not been followed. Each year's unplanned growth has made the right kind of development rather more difficult, and certainly more costly. It is to be hoped that the present plan will ensure that future development is on a surer basis. Co-operation from the provinces and from the municipalities will be needed, because proper zoning is essential, and only the municipalities can provide it. With such co-operation, and with the foresight to appreciate the great development that Canada, I think, will achieve, I feel sure that we shall get the kind of capital here of which future Canadians may be proud.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I feel sure that all members will welcome the presentation of this plan, and will hope that some results may ultimately flow from it. One can only express regret that it should be presented at this time when there is no opportunity 
to discuss it during the life of the present government. I feel sure, however, that members will welcome the opportunity to examine the plans and to prepare themselves to discuss them when a new government is formed.



PRIVATE BILL


Mr. W. H. Winkler (Lisgar) moved: that Bill No. 236, for the relief of Jessie Kathleen Batiste Latter, reported to the house this day, be placed on today's order paper for consideration in committee of the whole.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. L. E. Baker (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of National Defence):: On
behalf of the Secretary of State for External Affairs I desire to table the report, in both English and French, of the Canadian delegation to the third session of the conference of UNESCO at Beirut from the 17th of November to the 11th of December, 1948.



REMOVAL FROM MARKET TO SUPPORT FLOOR PRICES


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: After the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture had stated yesterday that approximately 2,500,000 pounds of No. 1 creamery butter had been purchased by the dairy products board, the hon. member for Stanstead (Mr. Hackett) asked a supplementary question as to where the butter to which the parliamentary assistant had just made reference was purchased, and as to the full quantity now held by the government. As of April 27, 1949, the total quantity was 2,562,560 pounds. This butter has been purchased from creamery operators and the trade in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. Diefenbaker:: 1.	What was the expenditure on the South Saskatchewan river dam and irrigation project in each of the years 1946, 1947 and 1948?
2.	What is the estimated expenditure thereon for 1949, with a breakdown showing how computed?


Mr. Bertrand (Laurier):: 1.	Prior to 1946	
$117,308.001946-	1947	
176,629.061947-	1948	
120,532.671948-	1949 (to end of February) 119,736.522.	$2 million.
All work necessary to obtaining water rights, proving lands which may be irrigated, providing information upon which power utilization may be based, and all detailed engineering necessary to the letting of contracts.


FOREIGN EXCHANGE CONTROL-SEARCH OF CITIZENS AT YARMOUTH AND ST. STEPHEN
Mr. Nowlan:: 1.	During the calendar year 1948, how many Canadian citizens were searched by officials or agents of, or acting on behalf of the foreign exchange control board at (a) Yarmouth, Nova Scotia; (b) St. Stephen, New Brunswick?
2.	How much money was obtained at each of such ports as a result of such searches?


Mr. McCann:: The answer to this question is not immediately available, but will be available later today. If the question can be taken as answered, I will undertake to give the answer to the hon. member, and also to see that a copy is made available for publication in Hansard.


HEALTH GRANTS
Mr. Knight:: 1.	Have any moneys been paid under the Department of Health and Welfare grants for the purpose of new construction of or additions to nurses homes?
2.	If so, what were the amounts of such payments, and to what institutions and in what provinces were they granted?


Mr. Reid:: 1.	No.
2.	See answer to No. 1.


SHIPMENT OF BACON TO UNITED KINGDOM
Mr. Coldwell:: 1.	Who was responsible for the suggestion and therefore the subsequent decision that 195 million pounds of bacon would be exported to the United Kingdom under agreement for 1948?
2.	What shipments of bacon were made to the United Kingdom during the first three months of the 1948 agreement?
3.	Was any suggestion made by Canada that the total amount of this agreement should be increased?
4.	If so, what reply, if any, was made to this suggestion?
5.	Was the contract for beef reduced or cancelled to enable the United Kingdom to use scarce dollars for bacon instead?
6.	To what extent, if any, did the United Kingdom agree to take bacon beyond 195 million pounds originally agreed upon?
7.	Under the revised agreement what was the total expected delivery of bacon to the United Kingdom?
8.	What amount did Canada actually deliver In 1948?
Questions
9.	What amount of bacon did Canada expect to deliver to the United Kingdom in 1946?
10.	What amount of bacon was actually delivered in 1946?
11.	What amount did Canada expect to deliver to the United Kingdom in 1947?
12.	What amount was actually delivered in 1947?
13.	What was the price per pound agreed upon in 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, and 1949?
14.	What amount of bacon does Canada expect to deliver to the United Kingdom in 1949?
15.	What amount was delivered during the first three months of 1949?


Mr. Bertrand (Laurier):: 1.	The quantity of 195 million pounds of bacon provided for in the 1948 agreement was arrived at by negotiation, having regard to probable supplies available for export from Canada and the United Kingdom import program.
2.	85,327,947 pounds of bacon were shipped during the first three months of 1948.
3.	In the original negotiations, Canada suggested a quantity greater than the 195 million provided for.
4.	Answered by No. 1.
5.	No.
6.	When the beef agreement was cancelled by mutual consent, the United Kingdom agreed that the unexpended portion of the money provided for in the beef agreement would be transferred for the purchase of any surplus bacon that was available for export in excess of the 195 million pounds provided for in the original agreement.
7.	Surplus production in excess of domestic requirements.
8.	176,413,454 pounds.
9.	Surplus production in excess of domestic requirements.
10.	272,890,924 pounds.
11. Surplus production in excess	of domestic requirements.
12.	225,893,118 pounds.
13.	The prices per pound agreed upon were as follows: In 1945, 22J cents; in 1946, 22J cents; in 1947, 27 cents from January to August inclusive and 29 cents from September to December inclusive; in 1948, 36 cents; in 1949, 36 cents. Basis grade A Wiltshires, f.o.b. Canadian seaboard.
14. Surplus	production in	excess of
domestic requirements.
15.	13,809,370 pounds of bacon were shipped during the first three months of 1949.


HEALTH GRANTS APPROVED AND PAID
Mr. Coldwell:: 1.	By provinces, and for Canada, how much of each of the health grants had been approved by March 31, 1949?
2.	By provinces, and for Canada, how much of each of the health grants had been paid by the dominion by March 31, 1949?

Questions
3.	By provinces, and lor Canada, what per cent of each of the health grants had been approved by March 31, 1949?
4.	By provinces, and for Canada, what per cent of each of the health grants had been paid by the dominion by March 31, 1949?


Mr. Reid:: In reference to the question of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, I should like to say that telegrams were sent out to certain provinces, and I am hopeful to be able to complete the answer later today.


FAIRCRAFT HOUSES-REPAIRS
Mr. Fraser:: 1.	How many Faircraft houses owned by veterans under the Veterans Land Act have been repaired by the Veterans Affairs Department?
2.	What was the average cost of repairing the roof of each of these houses?
3.	Did the Faircraft company contribute to this cost?
4.	If so, what proportion of the total cost?


Mr. Mulch:: 1.	Of 54 Faircraft houses erected, thirty were flat-roof type, twenty-four gable roof. Of the thirty flat-roof houses, twenty-seven have been repaired. Of the twenty-seven repaired, twelve required repair to the roof involving replacement by gable type.
2.	$735.
3.	Yes, indirectly by forfeiture of $1,207 holdback.
4.	Answered by No. 3.


GOVERNMENT DOCK AT THE PAS
Mr. Moore:: 1.	Was Mr. Charles Morgan, of The Pas, employed in the repairing or construction of a government dock on the Saskatchewan river at The Pas?
2.	If so, what were his duties, how long was he employed and what was his salary?
3.	Did he receive any other emolument or consideration for his services?


Mr. Fournier (Hull):: 1.	Yes.
2.	Inspector of dredging, October 22 to November 11, 1948, at 90 cents per hour.
Inspector of construction, grade 1, December 6, 1948, to March 31, 1949, at $8 per day.
3.	No.


* CANADA LAND AND IRRIGATION COMPANY LIMITED
Mr. Wylie:: 1.	Has the government made an offer for the purchase of the Canada Land and Irrigation Company Limited?
2.	If so, at what price?
3.	Has the deal been consummated?
4.	If so, what steps have been taken by the government to expand this project?
[Mr. Coldwell.l


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I should like to deal with this question orally. There are negotiations under way at the present time in respect to the matter dealt with in this question, but they have not been completed.


KINGSVILLE, ONT., GOVERNMENT DOCK   STORAGE, ETC.
Mr. Murphy:: 1.	What rates, if any, have been granted for coal storage, wharfage, etc., in connection with the government dock at Kingsville, Ontario?
2.	To whom were any such rights granted?


Mr. Chevrier:: 1.	Top wharfage charge of five cents per ton. Side wharfage charges are payable on vessels in accordance with the general tariff on wharfage under the Government Harbours and Piers Act and regulations.
2.	The dock at Kingsville is a public wharf, and shippers may handle goods over same in accordance with the wharf regulations.


*PELEE ISLAND, ONT.  CONTRACT FOR TRANSPORT SERVICE
Mr. Murphy:: 1.	What subsidy is paid to, or mail contract made with any air transport or steamship company or companies operating to and from Pelee island, Ontario?
2.	Is there any public authority responsible for tolls or rates charged to the general public, and if so, what authority?
3.	If not, how are such tolls and/or rates arrived at?


Lionel Chevrier: In so far as the Department of Transport authority over the transport commission and the air transport board is concerned, there is no steamship or air subsidy paid to companies operating to and from Pelee island. There is therefore no object in answering questions 2 and 3.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
NATIONAL HEALTH AND WELFARE
Mr. Dorion:: 1.	What are the names of the doctors in the employ of the Department of National Health and Welfare?
2.	What was the domicile of each of the said doctors before being employed by the department?
3.	What are their respective salaries?
4.	From what university or universities did each of them receive a diploma?


MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. Murphy:: For a copy of all deeds, leases or other such documents made by the dominion government, or any department thereof, relating to the lease or sale of Bob-Lo island.

Trade


KINGSVILLE, ONT., GOVERNMENT DOCK
Joseph Warner Murphy: For a copy of all agreements relating to the use of the government dock at Kingsville, Ontario, for coal storage and wharfage purposes.


Lionel Chevrier: No agreements have been entered into for the use of the Kingsville wharf for coal storage purposes. With respect to the handling of coal and other commodities over the dock, no agreement is necessary. As it is a public wharf, shippers may handle goods over it in accordance with the wharf regulations. To that extent the motion could carry.


PELEE ISLAND, ONT.  CONTRACT FOR TRANSPORT SERVICE
Joseph Warner Murphy: For a copy of all agreements between the government of Canada and any steamship and air transport or other common carrier company relating to subsidies, mail contracts or payment for other services in connection with the steamship or air routes operating to and from Pelee island.


Lionel Chevrier: The remarks which I made a few moments ago with respect to the Department of Transport in reply to a question asked by the member for Lambton West (Mr. Murphy) apply also to this motion, and it might pass with that reservation.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Louis Stephen St-Laurent: When government orders were called this morning the only application I made was that questions and notices of motions for production of papers be taken up at three o'clock. I understood that as soon as they were disposed of the hon. member who was speaking in the debate on the motion for committee of supply would take the floor and continue his address.


George Alexander Drew: I would refer to the proposal I made this morning, that the Atlantic treaty, the international wheat agreement and the pipe lines bill be dealt with. At that time the Prime Minister indicated that it was his intention to discuss this matter at two o'clock with his colleagues. In view of the fact that these are important matters, which nevertheless will require little debate and about which there appears to be unanimity, I would urge strongly that they be dealt with now and disposed of before other matters are proceeded with.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I think it appeared at the end of the morning sitting that we had just about reached the conclusion of the debate on the motion that Mr. Speaker do leave the chair for the house to resolve itself into
committee of supply. If it becomes apparent that it will take some time this afternoon to conclude this debate, when we are in committee the chairman can report progress and ask leave to sit again this day. It would be desirable to have the debate completed.

The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Abbott for committee of supply.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order which I am reluctant to press because the debate has gone on today for nearly two hours. It seems to me that there is some question as to whether there should be any debate on this matter. This is Friday and under standing order 28 on Fridays Mr. Speaker leaves the chair for the house to go into committee of supply without question put. I would remind Your Honour that on Wednesday a motion was passed suspending standing order 28 with respect to Thursday, but it was not suspended with respect to Friday. I leave it to Your Honour to decide where we are.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The government thought that it would be only fair when asking for interim supply not to rely upon the terms of the standing order. When the motion was made we had hoped that the matter would be disposed of yesterday. It has not yet been disposed of, but I think it will be within the next few minutes. It appeared to be satisfactory to the house that we should not attempt to get interim supply by virtue of the special rule applying to the ordinary applications for supply in connection with the estimates generally. I think that this question will be disposed of within a few minutes.


Wilbert Ross Aylesworth: Mr. Speaker, before lunch I was
referring to our exports of canned tomatoes. British imports in 1948 increased by about 100 per cent while Canada, which formerly supplied about fifty per cent of that market, now supplies none.
For the past ten years our farmers and primary producers have had a market for practically all their production. Because our production is so like that of the United States a very important part of this production found markets in the United Kingdom and other European countries. These purchases were made first as war needs, then under Canada's loans and credits to the United Kingdom and European countries. Latterly a high percentage of these purchases have been financed from European recovery funds provided by the United States.

Trade
In 1948 our exports to the United Kingdom were valued at $688 million against imports from the United Kingdom of $299 million, leaving a balance of trade in our favour of $389 million. From this it is obvious our exports to the United Kingdom and other European countries are being maintained at a high level because of purchases in Canada through the European recovery program. This program, however, is tapering off and present plans call for its completion by 1952. The question now is what action, if any, is our government taking to fortify itself against the problems that are bound to arise when purchases in Canada, paid for out of ERP funds, are discontinued. Nor have we any continued assurance of a market, particularly for some of our agricultural products now being purchased with United States funds for export to Europe, even though the European recovery program is to continue until 1952.
One of the stipulations in this program is that products for which the United States is unable to find markets shall be declared surplus and as such they may not be purchased outside that country with money given to those European countries under the European recovery program. It is quite possible that increased agricultural production in the United States this year may result in such products as wheat, bacon, eggs, et cetera being declared surplus and not subject to purchase in Canada under the authority which provides the funds.
Our shipments of foodstuffs to the United Kingdom in 1948 and our contracts for foodstuffs in 1949 clearly indicate the extent to which we have already lost the United Kingdom markets for our farmers. During the period 1939 to 1949 we made 142 contracts for foodstuffs with the United Kingdom, and had as many as 22 in force at one time in the year 1946. Today we have only three, and these are all for reduced amounts. The stark truth is that the United Kingdom has turned elsewhere for foodstuffs formerly supplied by Canada. Britain has turned to countries which accept English pounds sterling instead of dollars.
During the past two years the United Kingdom has made over 40 agreements with other countries, some within the empire and some behind the iron curtain, whereby in exchange for foodstuffs she supplies machinery, tools, coal, electrical machinery and transformers, chemical and allied products-all goods in short supply in Canada. In the meantime Canada, in an effort to find markets for our production, has turned to the United States where an outlet for a considerable volume of goods has been found.

To the extent that this is a temporary situation the results have been favourable and have greatly assisted our dollar problem. The question arises, however, as to the degree to which our farmers can depend on continued availability of the United States market. The record of the past is not at all promising, and indications of increased productions of farm products in the United States in 1949 would indicate the danger to our economy and to our farmers of continued dependence upon the United States market as an outlet for our production. The alternative to this not too promising outlook for United States markets is markets in the United Kingdom.
In the United Kingdom we are confronted with a trade policy which has been planned for the next ten years. The effect of these long-term agreements which the United Kingdom has made and is making today will be to exclude Canadian farmers from markets in the future, and at a time when it is hoped the world dollar problem will have eased so that trade may be allowed to flow unhampered to the degree to which it is flowing today. We are told that this unfavourable situation arises because of the United Kingdom's shortage of dollars for purchases in Canada. The question in the minds of many Canadians, however, and upon which the government has failed to assure the Canadian people, is this: Has it exerted every effort at its command and has everything possible been done that could have been done to make trade between Canada and the United Kingdom possible?
Has every effort been made by Canada to secure exportable goods from the United Kingdom which are in short supply in Canada? In my opinion it has not, because goods in short supply here today are being shipped to other countries, including Russia, at an average price below the return for goods shipped to the Canadian market. So there will be no mistake about this, I would direct the attention of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) to the British government's official publication "Accounts Relating to Trade and Navigation for the United Kingdom for the Year 1948."
In that publication on page 205 under the heading "Exports, Class III, Electrical Machinery", which includes such articles as converting machinery, transformers, power house equipment, you will find that in 1948 the United Kingdom exported these articles to the value of over $53 million. Of these particular exports $1,121,000 worth or a gross volume of 493 tons was shipped to Canada. This same equipment shipped to Russia in

1948 constituted a volume of 1,719 tons valued at $4,052,000. The trade record indicates that the United Kingdom exports of these goods totaled 33,745 tons at an average value of $1,573.72 per ton.
The average value of the goods sold to the Canadian market is reported at $2,274.53 per ton or over $700 per ton more than the average price received from shipments to all other countries. This hardly indicates an inability to sell in the Canadian market because of prevailing Canadian prices. The return, however, for these goods sold to Russia was $2,357.15 per ton or $82.62 per ton more than was received from Canada, and $783.43 per ton more than the average received for exports elsewhere than Canada.
A further study of British trade figures shows that these goods, in short supply in Canada, were being shipped elsewhere to pay for exports of foodstuffs previously secured from Canada. For the first eleven months of 1948 United Kingdom imports from Russia totaled about $105-5 million as against exports to that country for the same period of $26-5 million, about one-sixth of which were these electrical goods and machinery in critically short supply in Canada. I believe a considerable portion of the responsibility for the present situation which threatens the stability of our whole agricultural economy rests with the government.
It was obvious to everyone, and particularly the farmers of my constituency, that such goods as electrical transformers were in short supply. It is because of shortage of transformers that rural electrification in many parts of Canada has been held up. In parts of my constituency electric power lines have been constructed along the concession lines; the power is available but the farmers are unable to get it owing to a shortage of transformers. Is it any consolation to these farmers to know that, while the bacon they produce is being sold in the United Kingdom market at $5.31 per hundredweight below the price paid for imports from other sources such as Denmark, the Argentine and other foreign countries, the transformers they need are available in the United Kingdom but are being shipped to Russia, Poland and elsewhere because the government at Ottawa has failed to do anything about it?
Is it any wonder our farmers are asking why, in a market where we sell our wheat for $2.16 per hundredweight below the average price paid for imports from other countries, our wheat flour for $3.10 per hundredweight, our cheese for $3.15 per hundredweight, and our eggs for $0.70 per hundredweight below the average price paid for similar imports from other countries, our government cannot
Trade
secure goods that are urgently needed in Canada and which are available for export? This is one question that I should like the Minister of Trade and Commerce or the Minister of Agriculture, before this debate is completed, to answer for those people I represent in this house.
These startling facts reveal that the government is losing, if it has not already lost, the British market for the primary producers of this country. The real seriousness of this situation becomes evident when one realizes that since confederation the British market has been the mainstay of our agricultural economy. True, we have at different stages in our history diverted a considerable volume of our exports to the United States, but the stability or permanence of this market has always been questionable. History showed us in 1921, 1926 and 1930 that as soon as surplus production appears in the United States we are almost immediately excluded from that market. Such conditions are bound to arise again because of the likeness of our production.
Today the grim prospect of farm surpluses is beginning to threaten our agricultural economy. The supply of many products already exceeds current market needs, and the export markets we have had in the United Kingdom are now being filled from Europe and other places. Our agricultural production in Canada normally exceeds our domestic requirements; and with export demand now rapidly falling, the outlook for Canadian agriculture is threatening. Unless some action is taken now to regain lost markets or to open new markets for this production, we shall be faced with surpluses which invariably result in lower prices and smaller farm incomes. The effect would be disastrous not only to agriculture but to our whole economy, because the number of people engaged in agriculture comprises one-quarter of our population. If, because of lower incomes, they are forced to curb this spending, this is very soon reflected in the domestic markets for consumer goods and the whole country suffers.
While all parties in parliament are committed to a policy of price support for major farm products, this may prevent drastic price slumps; but it will not solve the problem nor assure even an adequate income for farmers, to say nothing of a fair return for their labour. The solution to this problem depends upon our ability to export and our ability to increase consumption at home. To the extent that we can increase home consumption, the less dependent we shall be on export markets. One of the major steps we can take to increase home consumption of agricultural products is
2756

Interim Supply
to increase the take-home pay of those in the urban centres who constitute our domestic market.
The government has in its hands the power to do this by reducing taxation. A step in this direction, long advocated by the Progressive Conservative party, has been taken in the recent budget. This year the government proposes to extract from the Canadian people $369 million less than it did last year. This will help greatly, but of this $369 million 1 would point out that $282 million comes from reductions in income taxes; and only about forty per cent of those gainfully employed in Canada earn enough to pay these taxes in the first place.
In the field of indirect taxes, however- which every consumer pays, hidden and all as these taxes may be-there is much the government can and should do. This year the government proposes to extract in hidden or indirect taxes alone an amount estimated to exceed $1,072,500,000. These indirect taxes constitute about forty per cent of the total taxation of approximately $2,242 million. If the government really wants to do something in the way of assuring increased consumption of agricultural and other products in the home markets, steps should be taken to cut costs of government and to reduce taxation, particularly in the field of indirect taxation which everyone pays, because these taxes go into the cost of almost everything one has to buy.
The question of food surpluses, while not critical at the moment, will in all probability constitute a serious crisis within a year unless steps are taken now to meet this possible danger. Canada's export trade, in both agricultural and manufactured goods, is faced I believe with the greatest danger since confederation. Upon that trade depends the whole economy of Canada. Unless' prompt and effective action is taken to regain the markets which the policy of this government has lost to us, every Canadian will be faced with less employment and less income. Canadians have a right to receive better treatment than that; and I will say that, with the next government under George Drew, they will receive better treatment than that.


Mr. J. M. Macdonnell (Muskoka-Ontario):: I am well aware, Mr. Speaker, that the members of this house wish to have this question decided, and I am one of them. But I do not think it is desirable to have it voted on without our minds being brought back for a very few moments-and it will be a very few-to just what it is that we are being asked to do. We have had a great many grievances mentioned in this debate, and proper grievances too, most of them relating
[Mr. Aylesworth.J
to this or that part of the community, to this or the other section. But I want to bring to you, Mr. Speaker, a grievance that I consider to be a grievance of the whole Canadian people at this procedure which we are now being asked to adopt. We are being asked to vote four months' additional supply in addition to the two months' supply which we have already voted.
It is not necessary to remind this house of the importance to this democratic assembly of the right to vote supply. Nevertheless I will quote a brief extract from May's Parliamentary Practice, twelfth edition, at page 56, just so that it will be on the record:
The most important power vested in any branch of the legislature is the right of imposing taxes upon the people and of voting money for the exigencies of the public service. The exercise of this right by the Commons is practically a law for the annual meeting of parliament for redress of grievances; and it may also be said to give to the Commons the chief authority in the state. In all countries the public purse is one of the main instruments of political power; but with the complicated relations of finance and public credit in England, the power of giving or withholding these supplies, at pleasure, is one of absolute supremacy.
This voting of interim supply is of course a usual procedure. We do it, but we do it under the strictest of safeguards; and I will read to you the safeguard which is always given to this house when voting interim supply. I will read to you what the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) said in this house on March 29 last when two months' supply was voted. It was the usual assurance to give; it was an undertaking. The minister said, as reported at page 2148 of Hansard:
As I have said, the form of this bill is exactly the same as in previous years, and the passing of the bill does not prejudice the rights and privileges of members of the House of Commons to criticize any of the individual items in the estimates. And I give the usual undertaking that such rights and privileges will be respected and will not be curtailed or restricted in any way as a result of passing this interim supply measure.
What are we being asked to do today? We are being asked to vote for a measure which is an absolute repudiation of that undertaking.


Some hon. Members:: No, no.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Yes, it is. Let us consider what we are doing. We are being asked to vote this additional four months' supply, making altogether $1 billion; and we are being told that parliament is to be dissolved and there will be no opportunity-


Douglas Charles Abbott: Only $400 million.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: That is a lot of money.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Wait a minute. I will not quibble about the

amount. Now this will make six months' supply. If the minister wishes to correct me about a million or two, he can.


An hon. Member:: Peanuts.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: What I am saying is this. What we are being asked to do now is to vote for a repudiation of what the minister said on March 29 last, because we are voting in circumstances where we know that there is going to be no chance whatever to discuss these estimates. Parliament is going to be dissolved. That is the situation. It is preposterous for the government to ask us to vote for this measure by which we are voting for repudiation of the solemn undertaking given to this house. That is what we are doing.
So far as the opposition is concerned, I think we ought to welcome what the government is doing.
I do not suppose there is anything in the world which will put us in a better position to face the country than to describe what has taken place here at the present time. For many reasons I hope that I shall be back here in this house, but I hope so for one additional reason. I feel that this is a sorry ending to my first parliament. It is ending in an almost comic way, instead of dealing with the things that we should deal with.
However, the situation was very difficult. We will admit that. The government had either to dissolve this house or to face the music which it did not want to face, and it decided on the dissolution. They have taken the position, and it is up to them. They did not like Digby-Annapolis-Kings, they did not like Nicolet-Yamaska. They realized what the country was thinking about them. Of all the assets that we have in going out to face the country, the greatest will be what is happening now. Therefore, so far as we are concerned, we ought to welcome it. But from the standpoint of the dignity of parliament and the prestige and preservation of rights which, as we all know from our schoolbooks, we won in very truth with blood, sweat and tears, it is a different story. Is this not the travesty of all travesties; is this not the payoff? I thought we had the worst when the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) affronted this house by bringing in an estimate for $850,000 under the Canadian Commercial Corporation, when he might as well have used the money to buy St. Paul's cathedral as to use it for what he did. Finally, what did he say to my leader? He said, if we pass it now does not that settle it? In other words he said, we will do anything we like with it whether we have authority or not, and then we shall come back with our majority-I will not say brute majority
29087-174J
Interim Supply
because of my respect for hon. gentlemen opposite-and we shall pass it. I thought that was the limit, but it seems to me it does not compare with this, because we are now being asked in cold blood to vote this additional four months' supply, which is equivalent to asking us to vote for the repudiation of an undertaking given to us on the strength of which we voted hundreds of millions of dollars of the money of the people of this country.
I suppose there have been sudden dissolutions in this house, and I do not know of the circumstances connected with them all, but I believe it will be found that probably in every case where it happened before some reason was given, something that looked like a reason; either there was a crisis or it was suggested that there was a crisis, or something that could be dressed up to look like a crisis. But what is the situation here? There is no reason that I have heard of, no reason of any kind given except that the government would like to have an election in June.
There is no particular magic about June. When the hon. member for Glengarry (Mr. Mackenzie King) led this house he had an election near the end of July. It is true it was not a very successful election, and perhaps they do not think that July is a good month for elections. The idea that June is a magic month to have elections has nothing whatever in it. Therefore we have this situation. We are brought here; we are asked to swallow this. No reason whatever is given except the convenience of the government. We have had that before. There is no suggestion of the convenience of the Canadian people.


Ernest Bertrand: How could you be so glad the day we announced it?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I want to carry out my undertaking with you, Mr. Speaker, to be brief, but I want to say this. The fact that the government has asked us now to vote supply is preposterous. For any self-respecting member of this house to vote for a measure which makes a travesty of the right of supply, which was won by the efforts and sacrifices of our ancestors, and which is the very cornerstone of our rights, is just chucking it down the drain. Incidentally, we seem to be bringing the business of this house to an end in what might be called almost a comic fashion. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that no self-respecting member of this house should vote for what we are now being asked to vote.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion? Carried.


George Alexander Drew: No.

Interim. Supply


Mr. Speaker:: I put the motion.


George Alexander Drew: No chance was given. We want the ordinary procedure, and we want a recorded vote.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion? Those in favour of the motion please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those against the motion please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


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


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


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


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


Mr. White (Middlesex East):: I was paired with the hon. member for Middlesex West (Mr. McCubbin). Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.


Gordon Graydon: I was paired with the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pear-	
son). Had I voted, against the motion.	I would have voted


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on a	question of privilege.

When I rose to vote this afternoon an hon. gentleman to my right in the Conservative ranks, I believe the hon. member for Peterborough West (Mr. Fraser), interjected, "You do not care how money is spent." That is a reflection on my vote and on the vote of the party with which I am associated. I want to say that we believe that the house should have the opportunity of providing in the proper manner the money necessary to carry on the government of the country until after the election is over. May I say also that we are disturbed by the obstruction that has taken place in this house so that its business could not be terminated.
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) in the chair.



INTERIM SUPPLY BILL

Douglas Charles Abbott: Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $460,291,082, being one-third of the amount of each of the several items to be voted, as set forth in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1950, laid before the House of Commons at the present session of parliament, and in addition thereto the sum of $541,666.67, being five-twelfths of the amount of a certain item, the sum of $6,390,980.33 being one-sixth of the amount of certain items, the sum of $4,213,181.17 being one-twelfth of the amount of certain items of the said estimates, the sum of $7,362,243.33 being one-third of the amount of each of the several items to be voted, of the supplementary estimates (Newfoundland), and the sum of $414,855.83 being one-sixth of the amount of each of several items of the supplementary estimates (Newfoundland), be granted to His Majesty on account for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1950.
He said: Mr. Speaker, before the resolution is discussed perhaps I should give some information as to the details of the amounts we are being asked to provide. First I should like to say a word with regard to the statement made by the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdonnell) that in presenting this motion for interim supply I am repudiating an undertaking which I gave when the first interim supply measure was before the house. That, of course, is not the case.
The undertaking which I gave was in the terms of the undertaking which has been given by ministers of finance for probably fifty or sixty years, perhaps more. It is the undertaking which has been given on occasions when the house has been dissolved before the estimates were voted. I think this happened in 1925 and 1926. The undertaking was that full opportunity would be afforded to discuss every item in the estimates, and that opportunity will be afforded to parliament. It is quite true that a number of hon. members who are sitting here today may not have the opportunity of discussing these items in detail, but parliament will have the oppor-
Interim Supply
tunity of discussing every single item in these estimates. I make that statement. My hon. friend made an assertion and I make another.
I am content to leave it at that.


William Earl Rowe: The minister may not be here himself.


Douglas Charles Abbott: My hon. friend who is sitting in the front benches has made a statement similar to one which was made by a great friend of his who unfortunately is now gone. Mr. Hanson previously sat just two seats to the right of my hon. friend and he made the same statement three or four years ago but it did not turn out to be as he prophesied.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Is the
minister saying seriously that the undertaking he gave and which he read was not given to this parliament, that it was just given in connection with any subsequent parliament?


Douglas Charles Abbott: Of course the undertaking was given to parliament. As I indicated yesterday, the resolution which is before you asks for an additional one-third of all items to be voted, that is to say, an additional four months' supply. In addition there is five-twelfths being asked of item 452 under trade and commerce which is to provide for the replacement, repair, reconditioning and salvage of certain buildings destroyed by fire at the dominion arsenals plant of Canadian Arsenals Limited. As this is tied in with our defence program it is essential that the work be completed as expeditiously as possible. The amount will fall due in the early months of this year.
Then there is an additional one-sixth of certain special items of a seasonal nature upon which the heaviest payments fall due during the summer months. That- would cover such items as marketing of agricultural products, under agriculture; fish culture development, under fisheries; expenditures under the fisheries research board; then under mines and resources there are activities in connection with the geological surveys and the like which are conducted during the summer months.
Then there is an additional one-twelfth of certain other items similar to those which I have just mentioned.


Mr. Black (Cumberland):: Would the items referred to by the minister cover the reclamation of the marshlands?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I would think those would be included in the additional four months.


Percy Chapman Black: The entire work will be done during the summer months?


Douglas Charles Abbott: That is probably true and no doubt it is included. The departments were

Interim Supply
asked to indicate to me those items which would fall due for payment and which it was necessary should be carried on during this period. I have no doubt that the item to which my hon. friend refers is one of those. Then there is an additional one-twelfth of certain other items, of which a lesser amount is required, such as the agricultural science service administration, plant protection, dutch elm disease surveys and so on. Finally, there is an additional one-sixth of three special items; one in agriculture, the freight assistance on western feed grains-the item which is in the estimates will be entirely exhausted by the 31st of July, the end of the current crop year-and there is an item under unemployment insurance which relates to the payment of unemployment assistance to residents of Newfoundland. Those are the usual additional amounts, over and above the further four months, which will fall due in the early part of the coming fiscal year.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Chairman, the statement that has just been made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) certainly puts a new light on undertakings given in regard to the proceedings in this parliament. It is a new conception of an undertaking given to a sitting session that, when the minister says the members will have an opportunity of discussing something and puts that forward as an argument for granting interim supply or any other temporary measure, there is no other undertaking intended than that at some future time, any time in the future, some parliament, and not necessarily the parliament to which that undertaking was given, will have an opportunity of reviewing those items.
It would be utterly meaningless if that were the basis upon which undertakings were given in this house. As a matter of fact the whole theory of our system is that a minister can speak only for the government of which he is a member and for the parliament that is actually sitting at that time, to which he is responsible. In no conceivable circumstance under our system has any minister any authority to give an undertaking which is to be carried out by some other minister in some other parliament.
So that there may be no doubt about what the undertaking was, although it has been put on the record already, I shall place this in the context with my remarks, because this is the undertaking upon which the interim supply was voted earlier by the members of this party as well as other parties in the house, with very limited discussion, as is usually the case where that undertaking is given. This
(Mr. Abbott.]
is what the Minister of Finance said at page 2148 of Hansard:
As I have said, the form of this bill is exactly the same as in previous years, and the passing of the bill does not prejudice the rights and privileges of members of the House of Commons to criticize any of the individual items in the estimates. And I give the usual undertaking that such rights and privileges will be respected and will not be curtailed or restricted in any way as a result of passing this interim supply measure.
That interim supply measure is a measure that is adopted every year, or almost every year-


Douglas Charles Abbott: Several times a year.


George Alexander Drew: -for the purpose of carrying forward the business of the government past the end of the fiscal year and through that period when the ordinary procedure is being followed. But the right to discuss the items, and the opportunity to criticize items covered by that undertaking, is not limited to the statement of what those items are.
A parallel opportunity is afforded the members to obtain the facts through the operation of the standing committees of the house and any other committees which may be appointed for the purpose of obtaining particular information; that is an essential and vital part of our system. In this particular case the setting up of the committees has been delayed and delayed. The government has held back the opportunity to obtain most of the information which is essential. This is particularly true in the case of the public accounts committee, which is one of the most important committees related to the discussion of supply and the money which the government will have for any particular purpose.
There was another committee which the government undertook to set up. It was a committee to deal with a very important part of the responsibilities of this government and a very important part of the daily life of our people. Some time ago an undertaking was given to set up a committee to inquire into the control and administration of radio in this country. Today radio is not only a means of providing entertainment and cultural facilities for our people; it is also a very powerful means of propaganda, as every dictatorship has discovered in the years that have passed. To the extent that this new and tremendously powerful medium is placed under arbitrary government control, real freedom of speech is threatened no matter what professions of belief in freedom may be put forward by those who exercise that control.

There were many good reasons for insisting upon an inquiry into our radio system in this country. We have an unusual type of supervision and control. Our system is in part like that of the United States and in part like that of Great Britain. In Great Britain the British Broadcasting Corporation exercises a complete monopoly under the government over the supervision of radio broadcasting and the production of domestic programs. In the United States there is an entirely different system. Under the communications board, radio broadcasting is supervised, regulations are laid down for program standards, wire facilities and things of that sort. Subject to that measure of supervision and authority, radio broadcasting in the United States is free and competitive.
In Canada we have a third system. We have a broadcasting corporation which exercises full authority of supervision, licensing, control of the networks, and over the whole of the communications between stations. It also supervises the operations of the private stations. There is no free competition between these private stations and the government stations operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation because the corporation not only exercises supervisory authority and licensing authority over the whole radio system, but is also a producing organization which competes on a commercial basis with the private stations across the country. It does so with a number of advantages. Particularly, it has the advantage of being free of taxation which is one of the features of the cost of the private station.
That system is wrong in itself. Let us by all means have a commission to supervise radio and to supervise the general provision that is made for radio. But if there is going to be government operation, then let that be a separate organization which will be subject to the same regulations, the same supervision and the same rights as the other radio stations of this country. Any other system makes the whole government system not merely a supervising organization but a propaganda agency of the government which appoints the agency that operates this system.
One may say that, after all, the men who do the broadcasting are perfectly free citizens, and that they have just as great freedom as has anyone else. But, Mr. Speaker, that is not true. Those who work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and who broadcast regularly as employees of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are under a severe restraint which is not generally known. It is not generally known, for instance, that
Radio Broadcasting
each of those employees who broadcast over the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation takes a sworn oath of secrecy which is constantly held as a club over the heads of those men and women to prevent them from publicly stating what the abuses are within that system.
There has been a very striking example of that fact just today. Most of the people who follow radio will know the name of one of the top Canadian broadcasters, Mr. Joel Aldred. Mr. Joel Aldred has today been dismissed from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The reason for that dismissal is an article which appeared in the Standard, a magazine published in Montreal. That article is headed "He bet he Could Talk". It is an article written to tell the success story of a man who is described as one of the five top radio announcers in Canada. Let us just get the background, both of this man and of the situation which is disclosed by what happened today.
Mr. Joel Aldred, who is now twenty-eight, is one of those many gallant young Canadians who played their full part in the preservation of free speech, along with the preservation of the other freedoms that were at issue in the last war. He served for five years with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He served with the bomber command. He had many flights over Germany and he was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross. I merely mention those facts to indicate that this man has shown his faith, his belief and his willingness to serve the principle of free speech which is a part of all the freedoms which were preserved by victory in that war in which he took his full share.
Mr. Aldred was broadcasting in the ordinary way for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He was asked to permit this magazine to write an article about his life, because it is a typical success story of a young Canadian with vigour, courage and the willingness to do a job. He discussed this matter with the officials of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and with Mr. Davidson Dun-ton personally, and he was told that he was a free citizen in a free country. I urge the members of this house to read that article. They will find there simply a story of a young man who, as the heading says, believed he could talk in a free country, and who did, to the man who was writing the article, make certain statements as to things that he thought called for improvement within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He has been dismissed because he permitted his name to be associated with the statements contained in that article. He has been told that that was contrary to the oath of secrecy that is held

Aircraft
as a club over the heads of the employees of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
This device which finds its exemplification in what happened to this particular broadcaster is part of the fear complex which is employed to control the type of broadcasting which will be done over the C.B.C. Let me say most emphatically that, from a fairly extended association with many of those working with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, I know they are men and women who are trying to do the best job they can in this medium of public service. But I also know that they are constantly impressed with the fact that they must not tell the public what they think should be done to improve this publicly-owned corporation, because of the oath of secrecy which is held over their heads. That is one of the reasons-and this particular case is a perfect example-why this house should have been permitted to go ahead long ago in this session with this radio committee, to break through this crust of secrecy and find the truth as to how that organization is really being run under the control of this government.
It is not only in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that the same kind of restraint is imposed. We asked that the public accounts committee be set up and we did that for definite reasons. I have already indicated one of the reasons, and only one of several, why we wanted that committee called some time ago and why we asked on a number of occasions that it meet so that matters could be placed before it. Already, there has been some reference to the North Star aircraft which were supplied to the R.C.A.F. and to Trans-Canada Air Lines. There were particular reasons why we wanted, as a public duty, to place this matter before the public accounts committee. It is time, and past time, that the whole history of the activity be fully traced up to the present time. Let me answer in advance one of the specious arguments which have already been put forward in regard to any comment about the North Star aircraft. The Canadair plant in Montreal is a splendid, modern plant, well equipped, which turned out fine aircraft during the war, and it is equipped to turn out fine aircraft today, with excellent workmen, highly qualified in that extremely skilled type of work.


Mr. Whitman:: And they are turning them out.


George Alexander Drew: But that does not in any way answer the question as to how this contract was dealt with, and as to this particular machine, and the need for an examination of what took place in the past, and what should be done to put these workmen to work in improving this aircraft and in developing the

type of machines they really can develop for use today in Canada.
This goes back to the period when that operation was carried on under Canadian Vickers. Then for reasons which have been discussed, and which need not be reviewed now, the government decided to place this enterprise under a management company, called Canadair Limited. That company was not an aircraft company in the sense that it acquired ownership of a plant or acquired any ownership of the material which it was handling. It was a straight management company, operating a government-owned enterprise and simply handling the operation for which public funds were supplied.
That company was incorporated with a capital of $10,000. Everyone who has had any experience in the organization and capitalization of even the smallest company knows that figure is far below the lowest figure ever used where ownership is involved. The reason was that it was simply to act as a corporate manager instead of an individual manager. A contract was made for this particular aircraft to be manufactured under licence from the Douglas Aircraft Company of California. The licence permitted the company to change the design to the extent of installing a Rolls-Royce engine, and that called for modifications which are apparent in the design itself. It is known by the Douglas Company as a DC-4 M. That machine is made with great skill. The interior of the aircraft is a tribute to the quality of Canadian workmanship. The whole design and the whole appearance is one which is from the outside extremely satisfying to those who see it. The engine is a proved military engine. It is an engine which was designed as expendable war equipment, and designed to operate at high engine speed. As expendable equipment operating at high engine speed it performed great services during the war. It is a liquid cooled engine which presents certain problems which have had a great effect upon the satisfactory use of that engine.
All these matters are incidental to the fact that, instead of either designing a distinctly Canadian engine or adapting a proved engine which would be bought either from Britain or from the United States, this hybrid was produced, and the figures which have been given as to the cost of that machine have been very difficult to understand. They are figures which most people, who have any direct contact with aircraft production, know perfectly well to be completely misleading. They know perfectly well that a prototype of an aircraft of this kind could not be produced at the figures which have been given. It is a matter of common knowledge among those associated with aircraft production that the cost of the prototype DC-4 M or North Star,

as it was christened, was in the neighbourhood of $15 million. But it has been possible to disguise a lot of these costs because the government owned the equipment, the supplies and the plant, which were then sold under a long-term contract to the Electric Boat Company.
At the time that the Electric Boat Company bought the physical assets it apparently was considered desirable by the government that there should be an apparent continuity, and consequently, as part of the general arrangement, the Electric Boat Company bought the stock of Canadair, a company originally incorporated as a management company at $10,000.
One of the things that we wanted to find out before the public accounts committee was how that management company whose original capital was $10,000, and which was simply a management company, got more than $2 million as part of this deal. I should think that is something which hon. members have a right to know when they are discussing the affairs of that company and the general sequence of events.


William Earl Rowe: That is one thing that had better be left for the new parliament.


George Alexander Drew: That is one that is not covered by that undertaking. But also there is the fact that the government had bought equipment, material and other things which they had paid certain prices for. It would have been very interesting to have obtained evidence before the public accounts committee as to the fraction of the original cost of this material and equipment which was bought by the new company and which therefore made it possible in some way to give an appearance of costs on the new machines, which are not related to the actual over-all costs to the Canadian public when you go back to the beginning of the contract relating to the production of these North Star machines.
One of the witnesses who would have been called before the public accounts committee is a Mr. B. W. Moncur of Montreal who was the management engineer of that company. In February of 1947 when the management company was handed over to the Electric Boat Company, which was acquiring control through the purchase of stock, a careful estimate was made of what the total cost of this North Star aircraft would be. The figure that was estimated at that time for these forty-four aircraft was $57,500,000. Those figures were figures arrived at by a group of which Mr. Moncur was one; and Mr. Moncur would have been called as a witness beiore the public accounts committee to state
Aircraft
what these aircraft really cost the Canadian people.
The fact is that if these aircraft are being sold to T.C.A. at the figure that has been mentioned, then of course the higher cost on the other aircraft is being absorbed by the R.C.A.F. That would be the only way that this could be done.
Now that produces this result: if the twenty pressurized aircraft sold to T.C.A. had in fact cost T.C.A. $660,000 each, as has been said, that would amount to $13,200,000; and that would leave $43,800,000 as the cost to the Canadian people of the twenty-four planes supplied to the R.C.A.F. This would mean a cost per plane of approximately $1,820,000, or approximately three times what those machines could have been bought for from the Douglas company in the first place.
These are the figures and, after all, this is the sort of thing that should be examined by a public accounts committee, so that that committee could find out just how this transaction had been carried out, and how it has been that ministers of the crown have given in the house answers which suggest a very different state of affairs.
We have in this country a number of aircraft plants which during the war produced aircraft which compared favourably with any aircraft manufactured anywhere in the world.


George James McIlraith: The North Star compares favourably with anything manufactured anywhere in the world.


George Alexander Drew: No.


George James McIlraith: Yes, it does.


George Alexander Drew: Obviously the hon. member has not studied the records in his own department if he says that.


George James McIlraith: The North Star compares favourably with anything in its line in the world. And the best evidence of that is-


George Alexander Drew: Nothing could better illustrate the need for an inquiry into this subject before the public accounts committee than that uninformed statement which has just been made.


William Earl Rowe: Tell us something about
Canadair.


George Alexander Drew: Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, when this subject was before the House of Commons for discussion I urged that we have an opportunity to receive full information in regard to this matter, in view of the fact that twenty-four of these aircraft have been allocated to the R.C.A.F., and are part of the equipment of that force-except those which are in storage or are inhibited.
2764

Aircraft
The time has passed for any false sense of loyalty to a particular company or a particular contract to disguise what the truth really is. If the hon. member makes with conviction the statement he has just made- and I accept it on that basis-then he obviously has not been informed of the recommendation of many of the pilots flying these aircraft. Because if he were informed he would know that for some time past pilots have been recommending that the Pratt and Whitney motor be put in those aircraft so that they can give better flying service.


George James McIlraith: Do you want to sell Pratt and Whitney engines? Is that it?


George Alexander Drew: That, Mr. Chairman, is exactly the type of specious argument that has hidden the truth about this thing all the way through. If the hon. member is so concerned about the use of American engines, then why does the government not give the contract now to the Rolls-Royce Company to make the Ghost engines right here in Canada. If he believes that we should have our own aircraft production, then let him urge his department, in the absence of the minister, to adopt an aircraft which today stands as one of the finest fighter interceptors ever produced, and let him urge that a contract be given for the production of Rolls-Royce engines, as has been done in Australia, as has been done in Sweden, and has been done in other countries.
In so far as these machines are concerned, the pilots and aircrew of the T.C.A. are under the same kind of restraint as that to which I have already referred. But the department knows-even if the hon. member does not know-exactly what those pilots think about the kind of engine they should have.
Because the government has refused to permit examination in detail, then it does become necessary, as a duty in this House of Commons, to state what the facts are. When the hon. member says that these North Star aircraft are giving service comparable with similar four-engine aircraft used on the air routes of the world, then he simply indicates that he is not informed as to the details which he should have in regard to the operation of these aircraft.


An hon. Member:: Are you?


George Alexander Drew: Yes, I am. And he would find, if he made careful examination, that these aircraft which are being used by T.C.A. are only being used in the air about one-third of the number of hours that Constellations, DC-6's and other similar four-engine aircraft are being used today by air lines throughout the world. And if he does not already know it, then let him check the files for February 
and find out how many engine failures there were in the DC-4's in that month of February alone.


George James McIlraith: I have checked a lot of files about aircraft and I am fairly familiar with them.


George Alexander Drew: Then if that is so you might inform the house as to the number of engine failures in the DC-4 aircraft.


George James McIlraith: I know your record in the past about recommendations with respect to aircraft.


George Alexander Drew: If you do, then you are better informed than I thought you were. The last time I was in Vancouver, and was coming east, I had an experience which is a common experience today with those flying on North Stars. I went out for the morning flight, as usual, and found that the plane was going to be some six hours late. The explanation was that one of the engines had gone out coming over the Rocky mountains the day before. But it was pointed out that this was quite a common experience.


William Earl Rowe: I had the same experience last week.


George Alexander Drew: There are at least two hon. members-


Mr. Nicholson:: Would the leader of the opposition give some indication of how frequently this has happened? It does destroy confidence in air travel; and I think any hon. member making that statement should support it with statistics.


George Alexander Drew: I find that there are two members in the house, at least, that I know of-


An hon. Member:: Three.


George Alexander Drew: There are more than I thought- who have had the experience of engine failures within the last week.


Mr. Cruickshank:: I have had that in my lawn mower.


George Alexander Drew: But these are not lawn mowers. Perhaps you were not here when we started discussing this subject. We are discussing aircraft. I know that the experience of being held up because of engine failures is a common experience, and it has been my experience five times since January of this year.


John Oliver Probe: You went to Newfoundland.


An hon. Member:: Where?


George Alexander Drew: There are other members who have had the same experience. The hon. member who has just spoken should know, if he does not know, that these records are

available, and that this particular problem is placing severe difficulties upon the pilots who are handling these aircraft, and who are expressing their concern about the difficulties in maintaining these machines. We have in Canada pilots second to none in the whole world. These pilots maintain the very highest safety factors. It is because of that fact that, in spite of these difficulties, they have been able to operate the aircraft about which they are complaining. This particular subject is one that is known perfectly well to the department, if not to the hon. member who has just spoken. I think the best illustration of the attitude of the pilots to these aircraft was in evidence a few days ago in Montreal when I was standing beside a pilot whom I know very well. One of these aircraft came in, and the pilot turned to me and said, "That pilot cannot possibly have had his instructions; all four fans are actually running." That is the attitude of the pilots to these aircraft.
It is a machine which can be effectively converted and effectively made one of the finest aircraft in use. Whether that is done by use of a Pratt and Whitney engine, or a Bristol engine from Great Britain, or a Wright engine, is a matter for discussion and study. The engine that this machine was designed for was an air-cooled engine, which has a great deal to do with the balance, the weight, and the operating capacity of the machine. These are things that could have been dealt with before a committee, and that should have been dealt with before this government called upon the members of the house to vote further supply for the continuance of contracts of that kind.
Do not make the specious argument that it is improper and unwise to disclose these facts. That is the answer that is given in countries other than those where the democratic system operates. Do not let a government, which permits these crown agencies to dismiss one of its top broadcasters simply for telling the truth, and a very small part of the truth, pretend that it encourages full discussion of the facts by those employed in government agencies.


Sarto Fournier: What did you do with Sabourin?


George Alexander Drew: We have in this country plants that are capable of producing the finest aircraft that can be made. Let us develop our own aircraft in Canada, either under licence or under our own design, one or the other. Let us stop pretending that we are building a Canadian aircraft industry when we make the body and the wings, and introduce an engine made outside Canada, whether it be
Aircraft
made in Great Britain or in the United States. We need in Canada a solid base for our whole aircraft production, whether it be for military or for civilian purposes, and even though we are told that parliament is going to be dissolved the government can perform a great public service by really tackling this problem, and by assuring for the Canadian airlines aircraft that their pilots will approve, aircraft that their pilots know meet the highest tests, aircraft that can be kept in the air for as many hours in a day as any other aircraft which could be supplied. That is the least that Canadians can expect when Canadians undoubtedly stand head and shoulders over the pilots of most other nations in their handling of aircraft of any type.
Part of the broad demand for interim supply is for the continuance of activities of this kind, which not only are not admitted when they are brought out into the open but are denied in spite of the fact that there are many members on this side of the house, and I am sure members on the other side, who know that the problem of engine failure is one that is a matter of common talk at every airport across Canada today. This committee has not the information before it with which to deal with these bundled estimates, which should have been brought forward one by one, and dealt with in the way that was indicated in the undertaking given to the house by the Minister of Finance. I hope that some hon. members will discuss some of these other subjects which require reform in this way-


Douglas Charles Abbott: What about covering Bren gun?


George Alexander Drew: -and that, no matter what the government may do, there may be some hope of improvement in these conditions. Let me say also that the statement that there has been obstruction in dealing with the matter of supply is simply an expression of a state of mind which, if this parliament is still a responsible parliament, should be rejected emphatically by every member on that side of the house as well as on this side. The motion for interim supply was only introduced yesterday, and hon. members who resist any examination of the details of government charge obstruction when we are only partly into the second day in the discussion of estimates totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. The statement goes hand in hand with those who have continued arbitrary wartime powers into the years of peace, and is the sort of thing that those of us on this side of the house have fought here in the house and will fight on the hustings in the election campaign.


Douglas Charles Abbott: You should have covered Bren gun.
29087-175^

Irrigation


George Alexander Drew: I should have covered that and shown you up for what you are.


Sarto Fournier: And
the customs inquiry.


John Oliver Probe: Mr. Chairman, I can assure you that there are a large number of backbenchers in the House of Commons who will welcome the early dissolution of parliament if for no other reason than that we will have some relief for a short time at least from the sort of one-man show that we have had to listen to for a couple of months now.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: It is getting under your skin.


John Oliver Probe: It is not getting under our skin except that there are some 245 members of the House of Commons who are here to present the points of view of their constituents, and to attempt to get the work of government completed. I was amazed at the speech just concluded because of the very bitter doubt that was voiced by the leader of the opposition about the safety of air travel in Canada.


Mr. Jackman:: He did not mention safety.


John Oliver Probe: I am not, by any stretch of imagination, supporting the government-


Gordon Knapman Fraser: You did with your vote.


John Oliver Probe: -but from my experience and the statistical record of T.C.A. and the North Star aircraft, I feel that we have an air service in Canada that is second to none in the world. As a Canadian I want to be fair to Canadian institutions and to Canadian craftsmanship and, where there is any evidence of it, to Canadian good management.
For the reasons I have stated, an opportunity has been denied us to bring forward serious public problems during the session which is likely to conclude in a few hours. I would like to have supported the hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Fair) in what he had to say a short time ago about the granting of clear titles to our soldier settlers. No one has fought more keenly in their interests than that hon. member, the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright), the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. McKay) and others, but the government is still sticking to the form of contract made thirty or more years ago.
I am sorry the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) has failed to return for these last few days. Last autumn when speaking on behalf of the hon. member for Rosthem (Mr. Boucher) during the by-election he assured the people of Saskatchewan that at an early date important irrigation developments would be carried on in that province. The minister is not here to deny the accusation I make that he is continuously making promises of that kind for narrow partisan or
TMr. Abbott.1
political advantage. His business is here rather than out in the country in advance of the closing of this twentieth parliament.
On the prairies we need water more than any other single physical thing on this earth and some clue should be given by the government as to when it is going to relieve the dust bowls of Canada with water that is now being wasted by flowing to Hudson bay.
There is another item of considerable importance which I should like to toss at the government this afternoon-the need for a more enlightened immigration policy. For some four hundred years-it is slightly longer than that since Jacques Cartier first claimed Canada for France-the natural increase in population, plus immigration, has averaged only slightly more than 30,000 new Canadians annually. That is not good enough for a land which occupies such an important position and which has such vast resources as the country we call our own. It is not good enough that north of the forty-ninth parallel of latitude we populate at the rate of 30,000 souls a year when below the line the increase of population is at least eleven to twelve times as great.
I can testify that the policy of the Canadian government with respect to immigration is one of almost absolute exclusion. Two weeks ago I heard a delegation from the Canadian-German league and the German-Canadian association, the one a dominion group and the other a Saskatchewan provincial group. They made representations that German nationals are now being excluded by only one country in the world, Canada. Great Britain, Australia, South Africa, France, New Zealand and the United States admit settlers from Germany under certain conditions.
Since the war the policy of the government with respect to the entry of new settlers into Canada has followed the lead of influential employer groups who want a reserve pool of labour. I imagine that if the hon. member for Beauce (Mr. Dionne) were to comment upon his Polish immigration scheme of a few years ago he would say that it could be described as a complete flop.
Many hon. members have taken up the cases of citizens of Canada or naturalized Canadians who desire to bring relatives to this country and who are ready to give assurance that they will guarantee to provide all things necessary until these desirable immigrants are themselves Canadian citizens. Every form of delay and obstruction has been placed in their path by the officials and employees of the immigration department. The employees of that department seem to have the complex that new Canadians are

not desired in this country. The Canadian government has so few processing teams on the continent to examine would-be Canadians that it is utterly impossible to bring in any great number.
It is high time that the government reviewed its policy of exclusion. I submit that we should have an immigration board made up not merely of government employees or of influential employers of labour but of representatives of the congresses of labour. Such a board could advise the government on immigration matters and assist in selecting the type of person that should be admitted and not have the selection made only by large-scale employers. This board could help to plan development of our resources in such a way that' they could be used for the benefit of all Canadians, not just for the benefit of those who have capital or who have acquired capital and want to exploit these resources on their own terms.
In the meantime the federal government should consider the requests made by Canadian citizens who desire the admission of their own relatives. A more sympathetic ear should be given to these requests and less obstruction should be placed in the way of those who desire to come to Canada.
The Canadian Pacific Railway Company has its own employees in charge of colonization schemes and they are represented on the Canadian Christian council for the resettlement of refugees. The result is that these refugees are brought to Canada on terms suitable to the Canadian Pacific Railway. A few months ago I asked a question as to how many officials of the C.P.R. were members of the council for the resettlement of refugees. The answer given at that time was, one. Upon inquiry of the officials of the Canadian-German league I have found that that answer was false. Actually, there are three highly placed officials of the Canadian Christian council for the resettlement of refugees who are also employees of the Canadian Pacific Railway's land settlement group. That is not satisfactory to those people who may want to use other vehicles than those provided by the Canadian Pacific Railway for entry into this country.
I should like to ask, too, that the government make the staff of the department of immigration a little more sympathetic to the desire of those people to enter Canada. I cannot make that too emphatic. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that some people in the department have an abhorrence to granting the request of any of our Canadians for the entry of their relatives. A few weeks ago a charge was made in the House of Commons by the member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart) to the effect that certain highly
Immigration
placed officials of the French nazi party were admitted to Canada against the wishes of the French government. This party objects to that sort of thing and we fight against it with all the power we have. The people who desire the benefits of what democracy we have in Canada should find it as easy as possible to come to this country.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: The hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat has remarked that there were many things on his mind which he would like to take up on behalf of his constituents. I am sure if he were to examine the desires of his people at home he would find that they have a slight interest at least in the expenditure of some $400 million for which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) is now asking by way of interim supply.
I am sure that practically all members of this house would like to have some investigation of the estimates and the expenditures and some examination of the budget before this parliament dissolves. It is hard to believe, Mr. Chairman, that Canadians are living in the year 1949, in a country which is governed by British institutions. When was there a case where a budget was brought down, where estimates were tabled, where a public accounts committee was set up to examine the expenditures of the previous year, and parliament dissolved forthwith?
When this house voted interim supply on March 29, the Minister of Finance said, at page 2148 of Hansard:
As I have said, the form of this bill is exactly the same as in previous years, and the passing of the bill does not prejudice the rights and privileges of members of the House of Commons to criticize any of the individual items in the estimates. And I give the usual undertaking that such rights and privileges will be respected and will not be curtailed or restricted in any way as a result of passing this interim supply measure.
What do we find, sir? We find what is perhaps one of the finest examples of hair-splitting ever witnessed. The Minister of Finance says that that undertaking is just the usual undertaking of a minister of finance when he asks for interim supply. He goes on to explain that, when he said that members of parliament would have an opportunity of investigating the various expenditures, he meant not necessarily the members of this parliament but the members of some subsequent Canadian parliament.
What do we find the situation to be? This government has not given the members of this parliament an opportunity, on behalf of their people at home, to investigate the expenditures of the previous year. The public accounts committee which has been called has had one meeting-I think only one. No opportunity has been afforded the members

Interim Supply
of this parliament to examine the expenditures, and I was going to say the proposed expenditures for the coming year, but we are already well into the fiscal year. If this interim supply is granted, six months of the present fiscal year will have gone by before the people's representatives will have any opportunity whatever of examining the purpose for which the money is being spent.
As my leader has just said, there are items such as Canadair and many others concerning which this house and the people of Canada would like information before the items are passed. What is the result of this government calling for dissolution at this time and in the precipitate manner in which it has? The result is that an election will be held towards the end of June and people will be asked to vote for the various candidates. We suppose the government will have candidates running, and it is a fair assumption that they will ask for support on the basis of their record. What opportunity has there been to examine the record of this government so far as the expenditures of the previous year are concerned or the proposed expenditures for the fiscal year in which we are now? In other words, the government has said, "We will go to the country and if we are returned by any possible chance, then we ourselves will examine our own estimates." Is that the way the Canadian people feel that they should be treated, that their money should be so callously disregarded that they have no control whatever over the expenditures of the government?
If the budget amounted to only a small part of the total national income, the matter might not be so important, although the principle would be just as important as it is for the greater amount. We know, however, that the national budget today is a very large proportion of the total national income of this country. Yet no opportunity is to be given to the members of parliament, the members representing the people of Canada, to examine how the government proposes to spend that money, which is already being disbursed. We find ourselves in a constitutional position which is not only grotesque, but is a travesty on all British institutions; for a Prime Minister asks the Governor General for dissolution when we have not had an opportunity of examining the record and the proposed expenditures of this government.
There has been, Mr. Chairman, no opportunity to discuss the budget resolutions. It is utterly impossible for us to have any opportunity of discussing the budget resolutions between now and the proposed dissolution either today or tomorrow. What is the result of that? It means that the deductions are being made from pay rolls, that taxes are being collected, that customs duties are being 
levied for perhaps six months, without any of these particular exactions having passed the parliament of this country. This is a very peculiar position.
May I say a word or two about the budget which has been brought down but which has not been endorsed by parliament. In general, I cannot say that I disagree with many of the items in the budget itself. The tremendous surplus which the government has been exacting from the people over and above the necessary expenditures has been returned in part; so that in place of a surplus of approximately $600 million which we had in the last fiscal year we are, according to the government estimates, now budgeting for a surplus of $87 million. I do not think that they can be criticized for budgeting for so little in the way of a surplus. Indeed, it is only a token surplus, and I do not know whether, with the added expenditures, some of which I shall refer to later, that surplus will be adequate to cover the additional expenditures which are being made.
I should like to point out that the so-called cyclical budget theory to which the government subscribed for several years has now gone by the board completely, and we are wondering just what has happened to the principle which the government said was a good one when that idea of cyclical budgeting was first put into effect. One thing that I should like to point out to the committee with regard to this idea of a cyclical budget is this. During the years when the great surpluses were accumulated and taken from the struggling taxpayers, there never was at any time in the original budget estimate any substantial surplus to be compared with the surplus which resulted at the end of the fiscal year. In other words, it would seem that the tremendous budget surpluses which we have had were largely fortuitous. The government never expected to have them. They happened more by accident, because of the great volume of business which was transacted in the country, all of which was in one form or another subjected to taxation. Indeed, as to the main items in the present budget I can only say that I, and I am sure many others in the Progressive Conservative party, feel much like the salesman who has been trying to land an order for four or five years and has at last succeeded in getting a fairly good one. Many of the main items in the budget are things which we have been petitioning for on behalf of our people for four or five years.
I cannot refrain from reporting to the committee two or three descriptions of the budget which I received from people in humble circumstances the morning after the budget was presented, because we on this side of the

house have been striving for these reductions and for this return of the excess taxation taken from our people for these many years. One person said to me, Now we shall be able to start living again. Another said, I could not sleep last night thinking about it. A third one said, At last we can live decently after all these years.
That, Mr. Chairman, is no exaggeration when you consider the position of many of the people with ordinary incomes in this country. To take by way of a surplus over and above vast expenditures no less than $50 for every man, woman and child is a tremendous amount of money. In my riding, to have that much extra would mean that the people could not only pay their bills and meet their taxes, but would be able to look after some of those things which we no longer consider to be luxuries but rather to be part of the ordinary amenities of living on the North American continent. But I will take this opportunity of saying that I approve of many of the reductions which the government has made in the taxation on lower incomes, because not only are some people being relieved of taxation but, in place of having a steeply-graded tax on the comparatively small incomes, which discouraged production, there is now a considerable mitigation having regard to the progressive rate of taxation on the lower incomes.
It is my belief that that change in our tax law will have a considerable effect on production; because if one went through the factories of this country one would find that nearly every worker there knew exactly when he emerged from one tax bracket into another where he had to pay a higher rate, and he had his eye in many cases on that break-even point. That fact undoubtedly had an effect upon production. The same thing applies to people in the higher brackets. They felt that there was no use in putting in additional hours of effort beyond the ordinary round of duty, in working overtime or working on holidays if twenty-five per cent or fifty per cent of the reward went to the government.
It is nothing less than fundamental dishonesty to bring down a budget and to have no opportunity of examining it, and to ask for supply. It is contrary to parliamentary practice. We should at least have been given the opportunity of examining the estimates of expenditure. Indeed, it is the only real control which parliament has had over the generations since we have fought for and established a workable parliamentary system, a system of democratic government for our people so that we might govern ourselves in an orderly fashion and not have to resort to the methods either of dictatorship or of force which are prevalent in certain other countries.
Interim Supply
Is it that the government is afraid of the public accounts committee which has just been set up? No reason has been given for the strange action of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) in asking for dissolution at this time. Indeed we may well wonder if his haste to go to the country is inspired by the fact that business in many places is getting a bit spotty, to say the least. No longer are the reports of businesses and companies the same glowing accounts which we have seen over the last few years. The same thing applies to the producers of our raw materials on the farms, in the mines, and in the forests of our country. No doubt the government have said to themselves that now is the time to go to the country before conditions get bad. Perhaps it is because the condition of subsoil moisture in western Canada is now the poorest it has been in a number of years; and the possibility of a crop less bountiful than we have had in the past will greatly reduce their chance of being re-elected. Or perhaps it is because there is an indication of a grasshopper plague in parts of the west. One does not know what these reasons are and they have not been divulged to this committee. Perhaps of even greater importance is the fact that, as my colleague the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) pointed out the other day, our markets abroad are fast disappearing.
In a country where no less than 37 per cent of the total production must be exported, if we cannot find export markets, markets where we get paid in goods or in money for the materials we send over, we can be sure that this country is not facing a period of prosperity. There has been no answer by the government as to where we shall be able to export our surplus products. Most of the products which we do export are surplus. We cannot begin to consume more than one-third of our wheat, or a mere fraction of our newsprint production and lumber production, or of our base metal production, or of many other items. We must have export markets for these materials if we are to maintain our standard of living, and if we are to pay the workers in those industries and keep any semblance of a high level of business activity.
No doubt great problems are staring the government in the face today. It is no wonder that they wish to go to the people before some of these problems come home to us in all their austerity. But perhaps the chief reason why the government wants to go to the country is that the leader of this party (Mr. Drew) has not only put new ginger into the Progressive Conservatives, but has made a great change in the complexion of this whole house. For confirma-

Business of the House
tion of this fact I do not need to look on my own side alone, because Liberal members have said, and their statements have appeared in the press, that there is a great change here and that the leader of the opposition has not only justified all that was expected of him by his supporters, but has proved himself to be one of the greatest political leaders that Canada has ever seen.
Every day in this house we have seen the faults and the errors of the Liberal party exposed. Is it any wonder then, Mr. Chairman, that the government do not wish to see this political strength built up on this side of the house? Therefore they scurry away from parliament, away from answering for their misdeeds and their wrongs, and they seek to go to the country without revealing their situation or giving the elected representatives of the people an opportunity of going into their record.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Perhaps the hon. member would not mind at this moment my proposing that the Chairman report progress and ask leave to sit again this day. I understand that at seven-thirty private bills will be taken up, and some of them have to do with pipe lines. It might be an advantage to give third reading to the bill respecting oil and gas pipe lines before taking up private bills after the dinner recess.


Harry Rutherford Jackman: That would be satisfactory.
Progress reported.



PIPE LINES ACT


Hon. Alphonse Fournier (for the Minister of Transport) moved: the third reading of Bill No. 190, respecting oil or gas pipe lines.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: If I might have the leave of the house I should like to move:
That on Saturday. April 30, 1949, the house do meet at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and that there be the same intermissions and the same order of business and procedure as on Friday, April 29, 1949.
I understand that hon. members would wish to have the international wheat agreement and the North Atlantic treaty, two resolutions which are on the order paper, dealt with. If it were not possible to have that done before the adjournment hour

tonight, under this motion we would be able to continue tomorrow to deal with them. I am asking to do that at this time because there is some legislation that is ready for the royal assent, and if it were known that there would be no sitting tomorrow the royal assent would have to take place tonight. For the purpose of knowing whether or not it will be necessary to be summoned to the other place before half past ten it is desirable to have this motion passed at this time. If it is unnecessary to go on tomorrow I am sure that everybody will be quite happy about it. Hon. members will realize that without this motion we shall have to ask that arrangements be made for the royal assent this evening to such legislation as has already been passed.


George Alexander Drew: Just before the motion is put, will the Prime Minister indicate whether he is prepared to deal with the discussion of the Atlantic pact and the international wheat agreement.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: At seven-thirty an hour will be reserved for private bills pursuant to the standing order, so that we shall have to take up as much of that hour as may be required by the house to consider the private bills which are on the order paper. If it is the desire of the house that at eight-thirty we take up the international wheat agreement and the Atlantic pact, that will be agreeable to us. I would not want to prevent the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Jackman) from continuing his speech, but if it were the desire of the house that we go on with the resolutions I have mentioned, the government would be quite prepared to do so, provided the hon. member did not feel that we were treating him unfairly.


George Alexander Drew: I would indicate my preference to proceed at eight-thirty with the wheat agreement and the Atlantic pact.


Angus MacInnis: The party for which I am speaking at the moment will be very glad to support this motion. We are glad to facilitate the business of the house if we can finish within an hour or two of the ordinary adjournment time tonight. If my understanding is right, the official opposition are not going to allow interim supply but just these two other measures. We are in favour of granting the government interim supply because we think it is preferable to having the caretaker government, as it might be called, carrying on under Governor General's warrants. We think the other is much the preferable way, and we shall do everything possible to facilitate the house, because we want to see the election.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


George Alexander Drew: Is it the understanding that we shall proceed at 8.30 with the Atlantic pact and the wheat treaty?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: With the wheat agreement.
I believe that is likely to take less time, and is really more urgent because the deadline there is July 1. Without our ratification before July 1 all the work done in preparing the agreement would fall. If that is the pleasure of the house the government will call the resolution dealing with the international wheat treaty at 8.30, and as soon as it is disposed of, the resolution dealing with the North Atlantic treaty.


Solon Earl Low: That will be satisfactory.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I might say that, in spite of this motion, if it appears to be the desire of the house to go on for another hour tonight, instead of coming back in the morning, we can by unanimous consent dispose of it in that way. But I wish to have this motion so that we shall know whether or not there should be royal assent tonight.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Third report in English and French of the sessional committee on railways and shipping. -Mr. Mutch.

Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, there are certain private bills with respect to which there was an indication that hon. members were disposed to waive some of the rules. We still have five minutes before six o'clock, and perhaps some of them might be called. If they receive second reading they can be referred to the appropriate committee; and it might be that that committee would be in a position to report before the expiration of the hour for private bills after the dinner recess.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I was one who had something to say on the point yesterday. We do not register any objection against the small ones, orders 76, 77 and 78. So far as the pipe lines bills are concerned, the Prime Minister will recall that there was one we asked to have stand until the next sitting of the house. We are not opposed to the calling of the others, but the calling of second reading might be the occasion for one of our members wishing to speak.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Perhaps we could call item 79 at page 25 of the order paper.
Freda Linton PRIVATE BILL



INTERPROVINCIAL PIPE LINE COMPANY

Mr. W. A. Robinson (Simcoe East) moved: the second reading of Bill No. 238 (from the Senate) to incorporate Interprovincial Pipe Line Company.


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


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Well, I think that is proper. If there is to be a debate I do not think we have time now. It is probably six o'clock.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at seven-thirty o'clock,
Mr. Garson:: Mr. Speaker, with the permission of the house I should like to be permitted to make a statement.
And leave having been granted:



FREDA LINTON


Stuart Sinclair Garson: As we all know, Miss Freda Linton surrendered recently to answer the charges which were laid against her under the Official Secrets Act in 1946 when the other espionage conspirators were charged. After she surrendered we immediately instructed two eminent counsel, the Hon. Philippe Brais, K.C., of Montreal, and Mr. John R. Cartwright, K.C., of Toronto, to represent the crown in the prosecution of the charge against her.
After a careful examination of the case . these two lawyers have advised me that the evidence now available is not sufficient to warrant the crown proceeding with the charges against her, and that the proper course to follow in the circumstances is to withdraw the charges. I asked Mr. Brais and Mr. Cartwright to supply me with written and signed opinions to this effect, which have just come to hand-separate opinions from each respectively. Accordingly we are withdrawing the charges against the accused.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, April 26, consideration of the motion of Mr. Graydon for third reading of Bill No. 25, respecting the Globe Printing Company.
Frederick Primrose Whitman: Mr. Speaker, I feel that I should rise and protest the passage of this bill. I have followed it with some interest in the house and in committee, and I find that I still am not impressed

Private Bills
with the innocence of the bill as explained by my friend, the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon). The measure seems to step up the annual valuation from $30,000 to $100,000. I am not certain that the bill is in the public welfare of the people of Canada, much less the people of Toronto. Because of that I wish now to make a public protest against its passing. If it is merely the passage of a bill to procure some election funds for the Conservative party, I still protest it. I am not in favour of its being carried. I have not found anything yet to convince me that the bill should be allowed to go through. If the Globe and Mail has an annual valuation of $30,000 to $100,000 and it is willing to give that up so that the Globe Printing Company can go along with it, then I would be in favour of it, but I cannot find anything in the bill that will show that the Globe and Mail, or any other company, is going to give up its rights to an annual valuation of $100,000. I do not think that my protest will carry the weight that it should, but I wish to go on record as protesting the passage of the bill. I will not call it an iniquitous bill because that expression has been used by others in the house and out of the house, but I will say that I am not in favour of its passage.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.
Motion agreed to on division and bill read the third time and passed.



CONSIDERED IN COMMITTEE

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 191, for the relief of Robert William Goudie.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 192, for the relief of Nancy Catherine Harrison Moore.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 193, for the relief of Claire Wiseman Grynberg.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 194, for the relief of Clare Breitman Elias.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 195, for the relief of Lillian Florence Katherine Kaye Kulik.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 196, for the relief of Freda Simino-vitch Mosessohn.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 197, for the relief of Agathe Groulx Grenier..-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 198, for the relief of Pamela Mabel Mackrory Cameron.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 199, for the relief of Muriel Fishman Schmelz.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 200, for the relief of Virgile Zenor Joseph Poncelet.-Mr. Stuart (Charlotte).
Bill No. 201, for the relief of Mary Besner Bray.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 202, for the relief of Philip Wanton Engs.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 203, for the relief of Blanche Marie Yvonne Boissonneau Dunlop.-Mr. Winkler.

Bill No. 204, for the relief of Najla Tabah Ayoup.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 205, for the relief of Betsy Bruce Anderson Furlong.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 206, for the relief of Doris Mary Marjorie Evans Champagne.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 207, for the relief of David Anderson Guthrie.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 208, for the relief of Frieda Stubina Lobe.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 209, for the relief of Mary Bridget Ellen Conway Demers.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 210, for the relief of Alexandrine Gauthier Boisvert.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 211, for the relief of Mary Grant Macintosh Dobell.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 212, for the relief of Marie Louise Irene Bouchard Magill.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 213, for the relief of Thelma Jennie Alvera Brownlee Leslie.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 214, for the relief of Elsie Roberta McCutcheon Cornish.-Mr. Winkler.
Bil No. 215, for the relief of Vera Maude Rimmer Gasper.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 216, for the relief of Veronica Kazantseff Darrell.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 217, for the relief of Elsie Smith Brothers.-Mr. Emmerson.
Bill No. 218, for the relief of John Howard Clendenning.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 219, for the relief of Bessie Lillian Lockhart.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 220, for the relief of May Victoria Gledhill Hossack.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 221, for the relief of Marshall Frederick Lebeau.-Mr. Winkler. [DOT]
Bill No. 222, for the relief of Miriam Sarah Celeste Glass Butler.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 223, for the relief of Edna Vivian Eulie Hewitt Colclough.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 224, for the relief of Gladys Isabelle Brown Farewell.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 225, for the relief of Gladys Rollins Wilson.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 226, for the relief of Anna May Tedstone Mose.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 227, for the relief of Elise Knight-Huckle Metayer.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 228, for the relief of Charles Emile Groleau.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 229, for the relief of Olive Eva LaBeau Carlson.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 230, for the relief of Julia Catherine Dwane Raymond.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 231, for the relief of Philip Slut-sken.-Mr. Winkler.
Bills reported.
Howard Waldemar Winkler: the third reading of Bills Nos. 191 to 231 inclusive.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: On division.
Motion agreed to on division and bills read the third time and passed.



NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE BAHA'IS OF CANADA

Frederick Primrose Whitman: that the house go into committee on Bill No. 245, to incorporate the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Canada.


Gordon Graydon: Mr. Speaker, before the motion carries I think the hon. member for Mount Royal (Mr. Whitman) who had some very irrelevant remarks to make about a previous bill-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Gordon Graydon: I am not going any further; that is all I intended to say. However, in a more humorous vein I think the hon. member should give some assurance to the house that the passage of this bill will not mean any campaign funds for the Liberal party.


Frederick Primrose Whitman: Mr. Speaker, this bill provides for the incorporation of a religious organization. I can assure my hon. friend that as far as I know there are no campaign funds to be passed out, either to the Liberal party, to the Conservative party or to any other party. There is nothing iniquitous in this bill. It is an innocent little bill for the benefit of all Canadians.


Gordon Graydon: It was because of what the sponsor said about my bill that I asked my question. I fully and heartily support the measure.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Golding in the chair.
On section 1-Incorporation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: As the hon. member for Fraser Valley is the seconder of this bill perhaps he will have something to add to what the hon. member for Mount Royal has said as to the nature of this organization.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I was asked to second this bill by my colleague. I think the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre will believe me when I say that I will be delighted to second any bill for the spiritual welfare of the citizens of Canada.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I cannot find in Hansard any place where the hon. member for Mount Royal has given an explanation of this bill. Will he explain the purposes of this organization, its beliefs and doctrines?
Private Bills


Frederick Primrose Whitman: When the bill was in committee a full explanation was given and I do not think I need go any farther.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 2 to 16 inclusive agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

Mr. W. M. Benidickson (Kenora-Rainy River) moved: that the house go into committee on Bill 246, respecting a certain patent application of Walter Oliver Beyer.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Golding in the chair.
On section 1-Application deemed to have contained request for extension.


Gordon Graydon: I have no desire to delay the passage of this bill but perhaps the mover could indicate in a sentence or two why this bill is necessary.


William Moore Benidickson: This bill would be
unnecessary were it not for the fact that in 1947 the applicant omitted to ask for the specific requests that are now provided for in this bill and which could have been obtained under section 28 (a) of the Patent Act. I can assure the committee that had he asked through his solicitor for what we are now asking in this bill it would have been granted through the normal procedure of the patent office. The bill has been considered by a committee of the house and I am informed that it has the approval of the patent office. I am not aware of any objection to it.


Gordon Graydon: I think the hon. member deserves some commendation for the clarity and brevity of his explanation. I assume that if this bill is passed it will simply restore to this man the position he would have had had no error been made in the original application?


William Moore Benidickson: Nothing more is given in this bill than he asked for but which technically he did not get.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 2 agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

Mr. Gordon B. Isnor (Halifax) moved: that the house go into committee on Bill No. 247, respecting the Canadian Artillery Association.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill considered in committee, read the third time and passed.
[Stage Direction]
Private Bills

William Alfred Robinson: the second reading of Bill No. 238 to incorporate the Interprovincial Pipe Line Company.


Rodney Young: Mr. Speaker, it is my intention to move an amendment to the present motion. At the very outset I wish to say that I have no desire, and neither have my colleagues, of preventing the passage of bills which will bring the oil of Alberta to the people who can use it and must have it. I am going to be very brief. The principle upon which my amendment will be based is the principle upon which my party, as a political entity in this country, is founded. It is the principle that what a great many people are using, what the people must use, a great many people or all the people should own.
For that reason, we in the C.C.F. group in the house, as well as the movement across the country, feel that these lines should be nationalized. 1 should like to say, Mr. Speaker, that the party I represent is not in favour of nationalization for the sake of nationalization.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Rodney Young: I hear "Oh, oh". Very well, gentlemen; if you wish to make political capital out of this affair I, too, can filibuster. I do not want to make political capital out of it. I am simply making a statement of fact. We know perfectly well that, with the conditions in our country today, and I speak also of the condition of the minds of our people, it will be some time before this is a completely socialist country. We know that just as well as my hon. friends on the opposite side of the house. We recognize that for some years, Mr. Speaker, there must be a very definite place for private enterprise. You will note that I used the words "private enterprise" and not the misnomer "free enterprise," of which there has not been any for some years.
Private enterprise has a function to perform in the economy of Canada; we recognize that. But in one particular phase of the economic life of Canada the socialist principle of nationalized industry must function, and that is in the field of utilities. This is a form of utility. I would suggest that this particular oil which is going to be piped out of the province of Alberta has a special application to the principle upon which the present government of Alberta is based, the theory of social credit. If social credit means anything, and some people here doubt that it means anything, it means debt-free capital. I suggest to my friends to the left that, with the conditions they have in Alberta today and

a government which, through the blessing of nature, has struck oil in more ways than one and is rolling in money, this would be an excellent opportunity for that government to create a debt-free oil pipe line.
In order to do that, of course, it would be necessary for them to adopt some of the principles which this party advocates. They would have to build this line on behalf of the people, with the money of the people to serve the people without interest paid to finance-capital. I suggest that is something that they should take under immediate consideration. If they are to have debt-free money, then they must have industries which do not pay to the capitalist class, and especially to the bankers and the company directors, the blood of the people in the form of dollars-the sweat, blood and toil of the people of Alberta, the people of British Columbia and the people of Saskatchewan.
I said, Mr. Speaker, that I was going to be brief and I intend to keep my promise. We stand foursquare for the principle that what all the people must use all the people should own. In the last few years never was there a greater opportunity than this for us to build this pipe line to serve our people. There is the opportunity of eliminating the building of it for the creation of profit for the few. There are other pipe lines bills in addition to the bill under consideration. In some of these bills it is proposed to take the oil out of Alberta and take it directly south across the border into the United States to serve the great cities of the United States that can so easily compete as consumers on an unfair basis with our Canadian people.
As an afterthought one bill proposes to extend the supply lines to my home city of Vancouver. My people in Vancouver Centre will not betray the interests of the people in the rest of the province of British Columbia or the people of Alberta simply because they are being accorded this privilege by capital.
I should like my friends to know that. I speak for my constituents and I know they will support me in this instance. If there are to be pipe lines let them be pipe lines that will serve the people wherever the need is greatest. Let them not be pipe lines which follow a line where the greatest amount of profit is to be made from the oil, which is the heritage of all our people, merely for the sake of private capital and the great financiers.
I have now finished my appeal to my friends in this group to my left. I say "my friends" advisedly for I admire them. ' I believe they are on the right track, although in my humble opinion their knowledge of economics is not deep enough to enable them to grasp the significance of the struggle of

the people. My appeal is now to this house, and especially to the government of the day.
I appeal to the government which has under its jurisdiction the Canadian National Railways, a national enterprise, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, another national enterprise. I invite them to become worthy of the trust and support of the people of Canada by adding to that list a Canadian-owned pipe line to be used in the interests of Canadians. There would be pipe lines from the oil fields to our mines, our mills and our factories and for the use of our transportation systems. I invite the government to take profit, that loathsome motive which reduced us to impot-ency during the last depression and which will reduce us to impotency again if we should have the misfortune to have a second world depression. I invite them to substitute for that loathsome motive, profit, that other motive which fits so well into a modern civilization, the motive of being able to serve the greatest number with the greatest ease and in the interests of the economy as a whole. It is my privilege, Mr. Speaker, for the first time since I entered this house, to make a motion on the floor, and I am proud to do it. It is in line with the socialist principles of my party and of myself. I am proud to move, seconded by the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine):
That this bill be not now read a second time but that it be resolved that in the opinion of this house consideration should be given to the construction and operation of pipe lines by a crown corporation or other public agency owned and controlled by the government of Canada.


James Sinclair: should like to make a few comments on this amendment. I had no intention of taking part in this debate, but I have heard the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Young) say that it is the intention of the C.C.F. to socialize the oil industry. I recall that in this country there is a socialist government in Saskatchewan with complete control over property and civil rights. But as yet I have not heard of their socializing Standard Oil, Shell Oil or Imperial Oil. It is these helpless little private things to which they direct attention. If they were sincere, if it were not talk, and if they meant action, then in 1944 the premier of Saskatchewan would have socialized the Shell Oil Company, the Standard Oil Company and the Imperial Oil Company in Saskatchewan.


An hon. Member:: What with?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.


James Sinclair: But he did not do that. Today when they come forward-


An hon. Member:: It is a federal matter.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.
Private Bills


James Sinclair: The fact remains that we all know in this house that the government of Saskatchewan has complete control over property and civil rights within the boundaries of that province. They have the right to take over the bus lines, but they have not either the courage or the vision, or they have too much sense to go in there and take over the oil industry. So today when the hon. member for Vancouver Centre-and mark you, it is not a Saskatchewan member but the hon. member for Vancouver Centre-says that these pipe lines should be socialized, or that the oil industry should be socialized, we in this house know that statement for what it is -just a cheap political gesture.


Rodney Young: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Sinclair) has misquoted me, but I am sure it is an unintentional error. To the best of my knowledge, I at no time advocated that the oil industry should be socialized. I advocated the nationalization of the oil pipe lines.


James Sinclair: On a question of privilege, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre has said that I suggested that he believed in the socialization of the oil industry. Might I ask him this: Do you not believe in the socialization of the oil industry in Canada?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I would point out that questions are not in order at this time.


Solon Earl Low: I think that this is no time, Mr. Speaker, to be indulging in a lot of foolish politics. The welfare of a great many people is at stake in some of these bills that are before us. In order not to unduly delay the passage of some of these bills, or all of them for that matter, I intend to be brief; and I shall reserve until some later time my reply to the appeal of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Young). We certainly shall be happy to go into economics just as deeply as the hon. member would care to go, and we shall see how much he knows at that time.
The bill that is now called for second reading is the first of a series of bills called pipe lines bills, all providing for the organization of companies whose main purpose would be to export oil or gas from the province of Alberta. I understand that there is some opposition to one of the pipe lines bills which is more particularly a gas pipe line bill, and not an oil pipe line bill at all. I understand that an attempt is to be made to talk it out, so my remarks will take just about two minutes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has said that an attempt will be made to talk out a certain

Private Bills
bill. Will he indicate who he knows intends to talk out a certain bill?


Solon Earl Low: Yes. I know that my hon. friends intend to talk out Bill No. 239.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is not correct, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, a reflection is being cast by the hon. member for Peace River on myself and all the members of this group. We have made it known to them that with respect to at least one of these bills we will require the ordinary rules of this house to be observed. That is all we have indicated to them. We have no intention of talking any one of these bills out.


James Sinclair: On the same question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, may I say that I intend to talk on this bill as a British Columbia member, and I do not intend that my remarks shall be described by the hon. member for Peace River as talking out the bill.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Hear, hear.


Solon Earl Low: I will let hon. members put their own interpretation on that. If I am wrong, I am glad to withdraw what I said.
m
We are facing a rather strange situation- I am speaking now for the people of Alberta -in this whole matter of the pipe lines bills. In the first place, we are told by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier) and by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) that the government of Alberta has the constitutional right to deal with her resources as she sees fit. But at the same time Alberta is refused legislation to eliminate any doubt there may be as to her legal rights to deal as she sees fit with her resources. That is the position which parliament has taken thus far. After having taken that position parliament, in dealing with these bills, if it intends to pass any of them at all, is going to tell Alberta in effect: "Yes, you have control over your resources but we, the dominion parliament, are going to tell you how you may be allowed to export your resources. We have not sufficient confidence in your judgment to make the decision." In the light of that situation I want to make our position absolutely clear. As long as Alberta has authority to control her resources, and if that be true, then we have no objection to any one of these private bills. They should all be passed. If they are passed it will enable both the Alberta government and the board of transport commissioners to consider every application for a licence and to deal with that application on its own merits. That would be ample protection to the people of this country. Just before I close, may I say that the government 
should direct their law officers to undertake an immediate and searching study into our position, and into this whole question, with a view to providing at the next session of parliament an amendment to the legislation which has gone through in the major bill, which will affirm the undoubted right of the provinces to control effectively their conservation program without interference from any source.


William Alfred Robinson: I am
afraid that I have not previously given any explanation of this bill. I thought that that was unnecessary because, in the debate on the over-all pipe line bill, it was abundantly clear that this bill was of paramount importance to the people of this country. Every hon. member realizes that as the first stage of their development the sponsors of this bill intend to construct a pipe line from Edmonton to Regina. I feel that every hon. member believes that this is an important national development which deserves the favourable consideration of the house.
At this late stage of the session and of this parliament I do not intend to indulge in any repartee with the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Young) as to the relative merits of private enterprise and public ownership. I am sure that most hon. members realize that this bill will have a good effect upon the Dominion of Canada, and I hope that at this late hour we may get ahead with it without any further delay.


Douglas Scott Harkness: As a
member from Alberta I should like to appeal to all hon. members to co-operate in putting through bills dealing with oil lines in particular which are absolutely essential to the development of our industry in Alberta.


Mr. MacKinnon:: Don't waste any time.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I appeal most sincerely to every hon. member to get this bill through so that we can go ahead with the development in that province which is so essential to us and to the entire dominion.


Mr. Clarence Gillis (Cape Breton South):: 


Mr.   Speaker-Mr. Hatfield@: Now we shall hear from Cape Breton South.


Clarence Gillis: And it is not potatoes, either, Victoria-Carleton. And I am not interested in gasoline or pipe lines; I am interested in protecting the natural resources of this country.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Talk it out.


Clarence Gillis: It is not my intention to talk it out but I say that if this legislation is as important as the hon. member for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness) and the sponsor of this

bill suggest, this house has been in session since January 26. This house is now under pressure to adjourn. There are all kinds of people around the lobbies of the House of Commons trying to pressure hon. members into passing this bill at this time.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Clarence Gillis: I have met them personally, and the gallery is full of them right now.


James Angus MacKinnon: I don't believe it.


Clarence Gillis: I have heard this story before. The natural resources of Canada have been given away under many camouflages to the detriment of the people of this country.


Heber Harold Hatfield: That is the old story.


Clarence Gillis: If this legislation is so important we should have had it before, and we should have had ample opportunity to study it. This is merely a decoy. There are six more to follow it. Let us have a look at-


James Angus MacKinnon: Let us pass this bill.


Clarence Gillis: Let us have a look at the people whom we want to develop our resources. The same thing holds good in coal. English and United States capital was coming into Canada to develop coal. The provinces leased the coal areas for ninety-nine years, and the coal operators permit it to stay in the ground if they cannot market it profitably. But worse than that, they can prevent anyone in this country from taking a lease, creating employment and developing new wealth in this country. That is true not only of coal but of steel. The iron ore deposits in Ungava and Labrador were given away by this House of Commons and by the province of Quebec within the last year or two,. and the future of steel in this country is in the hands of United States capitalists today with front companies in Canada. The same thing is true of oil. We have tapped large natural resources in Canada and so someone, under the camouflage of building a pipe line to other parts of Canada, is going to be beneficent. They say we shall spend a lot of money building these pipe lines. But do not forget that along with that will go the right to exploit the resources which belong to the people of this country in Alberta.
Let us see who is looking after this matter. The Imperial Oil Company of Canada, a subsidiary of Standard Oil of the United States, who were so patriotic during the war that when the war effort was at a low ebb for the want of rubber they had a synthetic formula in the United States which they were under agreement to sell to Hitler-and they sold it to Germany while this country was in the middle of the war and was badly off for the want of rubber.
Private Bills
So far as I am concerned, if there is another war, oil will be one of the most important things required, and I do not want the oil resources of Canada to fall into the hands of Standard Oil of the United States.


William Alfred Robinson: Will the hon. member permit a question? Does he not agree that if there is another war one of these pipe lines will be a major asset to help Canada in that war?


Clarence Gillis: Yes, I believe that is true. But I want these oil resources and these pipe lines to remain in the hands of the government of Canada, who are responsible to the people of Canada and not to Standard Oil in the United States, over whom we have no control whatsoever. That is the answer. I think every hon. member is sensible. I think most hon. members want to do the best they can for the Canadian people; but at this late stage of the game let us not be pressured into something as important as this is in many ways to the future of Canada, particularly if and when we strike certain difficulties that we may have to face in the not far distant future. This bill could very well stand to one side. It should be laid over. The government of this country should examine it more closely. This is only a decoy. This is an innocent and simple little bill, but read the rest of them in their relationship to this particular one. If hon. members do that, I do not think they will be easy in their minds about it. I am not interested in talking it out, but I want a closer examination of this bill than we have had up to the present time. I suggest that the motion made by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Young) should be passed by this house, and this bill should be given to somebody to study along with the others. When this house reconvenes with someone who has been elected by the Canadian people in authority to direct the destiny of this country for the next five years-


James Sinclair: Louis St. Laurent.


Clarence Gillis: That will be all right. That will be his responsibility. It will be his responsibility to make the decision, but it is not the prerogative of hon. gentlemen who will not be members of this house tomorrow. The decision should be left to whoever will be directing the affairs of this country for the next four or five years. To deal with this bill now would be premature action on our part. It would be usurping the powers of the next parliament. I suggest that we be sensible at this time and let the bill stand over to be dealt with by those who may be here guiding our destinies for the next four or five years.

Private Bills


William Irvine: I will not take more than three minutes, if possible.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Hear, hear.


William Irvine: If you interrupt me I may go longer. I had the honour to second the motion of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre. I should like very much to have roasted the red herring of the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Sinclair). I should like also to have answered the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) but these things cannot be done if we are to allow this bill the right to be voted on by this parliament. I respect that right. I know perfectly well that the people of Canada need to have oil pipe lines and conveyances for their oil, and I know that under the capitalist system the only way to get them is the way we are getting them now. Therefore if we cannot get them the way we want them I am not going to stand in the way of getting them in the only way they can be got. But I say it is one of the great tragedies of our country and our time that we have to allow six oil companies to duplicate capital expenditures six times, and charge up the interest and the profits to the common people of Canada.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the house ready for the main motion? Mr. Robinson (Simcoe East) moves that the said bill be now read the second time. Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: On division.
Motion agreed to on division, bill read the second time and referred to the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Louis Stephen St-Laurent: There are more of these private bills on the order paper but the situation is such that they cannot pass the required stages
[Mr. Gillis.)

unless unanimous consent is given to waive the rules applicable to private bills. When these bills were introduced yesterday there was refusal to waive any of the rules in connection with Bill No. 239. If there is still a disposition to refuse to waive the rules in connection with that bill it would be no use having the motion for second reading. I do not know whether there will be unanimous consent to waiving the rules normally applicable in connection with that bill.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The Prime Minister has correctly stated the disposition which some of us have toward this bill. We do not wish to hold up all the bills and we are prepared to waive the rules with respect to most of them, but we do not feel inclined to give unanimous consent with regard to that particular one.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Perhaps we could call the others.



PRIVATE BILLS


George Alexander Cruickshank: the second reading of Bill No. 240 to incorporate Westcoast Transmission Company Limited.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines.

George James McIlraith: the second reading of Bill No. 241 to incorporate Trans-Northern Pipe Line Company.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines.

George James McIlraith: the second reading of Bill No. 242 to incorporate the British American Pipe Line Company.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines.

Mr. J. S. Sinnoll (for Mr. Maybank) moved: the second reading of Bill No. 243, to incorporate Western Pipe Lines.


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, before this motion is carried I want to say that while we are not disposed to oppose these bills I have an uneasy feeling that more consideration should be given to them by this
Private Bills
house. It is true that they are going to a committee, but when I look at these bills I feel that it is necessary to protect the interests of the country against the sort of thing that happened with regard to our railroads. A number of charters were put through for various railway lines and afterward the country found itself in difficulties in that connection. I know that the province of Alberta will probably have the final say on some of these measures.
There was a particular reason why my colleagues felt that they could not agree to Bill No. 239, and were it not for the urgency of the main oil line, which we approved a little earlier, although we did not like the manner of its doing, we would have contended that these bills should be more carefully considered by a committee so that all interested parties could appear to give their opinions, their points of view, and any information they might have.
We know that there is considerable urgency in regard to these oil lines and we are not opposing them, but we feel that we should be given more time to deal with the gas lines where there is not the same urgency.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines.

Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Yesterday the house adopted a motion waiving the posting of private bills coming from the Senate. Unless posting were waived, the second readings of these bills would not avail. Therefore I beg leave to move:
That in respect of all private bills read the second time this day standing order 105 respecting the posting of private bills be suspended.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: That it is expedient that the houses of parliament do approve the international wheat agreement opened for signature at Washington on March 23, 1949, and that this house do approve the same.
He said: Mr. Speaker, in moving this resolution that the house approve of Canada's participation in the international wheat agreement which was opened for signature at Washington on March 23, 1949, I do so on behalf of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe), who, as hon. members know, is absent from the country on official business in the United Kingdom.	.
2780	HOUSE OF
International Wheat Agreement Hon. members will recall that last June parliament approved a similar resolution relating to the agreement signed in 1948. The 1948 agreement did not come into operation, primarily because the United States did not approve the agreement before July 1, the deadline last year. I should like to review the developments leading up to the renegotiation of the agreement this year. I might point out that it does contain, similar to the agreement of 1948, a clause whereby the signatories are required to ratify their signatures by the 1st of July, 1949. It does not come into force unless seventy per cent of the purchasing countries and eighty per cent of the supplying countries have ratified by that date. As Canada is a supplying country to the extent of 203 million bushels out of a total of 454 million bushels, if Canada does not ratify it prior to the 1st of July, 1949, the agreement cannot come into effect.
It will be recalled that the ratification of last year's wheat agreement was one of the issues upon which President Truman reconvened congress. When the senate again failed to approve the agreement it became one of the issues raised in the United States election. Following the election President Truman addressed the conference of the food and agricultural organization of the United Nations in late November and stated that if the international wheat agreement could be renegotiated he would submit the agreement to congress and that he had reason to believe it would be approved at this time.
Shortly afterwards the government of the United States invited all the interested governments to attend a conference which met in Washington from January 26 to March 23 of this year. Because last year's agreement was not ratified in time, all of its terms were subject to renegotiation. In the light of changes which had taken place in the world wheat situation during the past year, the importing countries were not under the pressure of shortage of supplies, and both exporting and importing countries undertook the negotiations under more balanced conditions. The result, after eight weeks of negotiations, was that a new agreement was reached and the text was tabled in the house, and printed in Votes and Proceedings on March 28 last. The agreement has already been referred to the United States senate for consideration as a treaty.
Hon. members know that means that it will have to get the approval of a two-thirds vote in the senate in order to be validly ratified as a treaty. Since the same principles are embodied in this year's agreement as in the one which received the approval of the. house last year, I shall outline briefly 

the changes which have taken place in the actual terms of the new agreement.
Altogether thirty-seven importing countries actively participated in the negotiations and by April 15, the closing date for signatures, all but one, Paraguay, signed the agreement. Last year thirty-three importing countries signed. This year two minor exporting countries, France and Uruguay, have joined the main exporting countries, Canada, the United States and Australia. This year's agreement is a four-year agreement covering the last four years of the period covered by last year's five-year agreement.
For the quantities stated in the agreement, the exporting countries guarantee maximum prices of $1.80 per bushel, basis No. 1 northern wheat in store Fort William-Port Arthur, and the importing countries guaranteed floor prices of $1.50, $1.40, $1.30 and $1.20 in the first, second, third and fourth years respectively. Each exporting country undertook to sell the quantities agreed upon by each of them at a maximum price of $1.80 and the importing countries undertook to bid for that at the minimum price of $1.50 the first year, $1.40 the second year, and $1.30 and $1.20 respectively in the following years. It is evident there will have to be agreement to bring about a sale.


Mr. Bracken:: Will the Prime Minister permit one question? I did not hear the number of importing countries that he said had signed this agreement. Will the Prime Minister repeat the number?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Thirty-six, thirty-six
instead of thirty-three last year. There are five exporting countries this year instead of three exporting countries as in last year's agreement because France has taken the rank of an exporting country for the small quantity indicated in the agreement. Uruguay has also signed as an exporting country fof a very small quantity. Although the ceiling prices are twenty cents per bushel lower than in the 1948 agreement, the floor prices are ten cents per bushel higher than were the floor prices for the same years in the old agreement.
Last year's total quantity was 500 million bushels, but this year's quantity is reduced to 456 million bushels. The reduction is due primarily to the altered position of France, which last year required heavy imports but now, under ECA, is endeavouring to improve its balance of payments situation by becoming a net exporter of grain. Of this year's total quantity, Canada's share is 203 million bushels. Because of Paraguay's failure to sign, involving 60,000 tons and the reservation by the government of Peru that their quantity should be reduced by 50,000 tons,

an amount of about 4 million bushels will require to be adjusted when the international wheat council meets in July. Although our stated quantity is 203 million bushels of the 456 million bushels, there will probably be a proportionate reduction of about 4 million bushels. This will be made either by having the other importing countries take up this quantity or by the exporting countries sharing a proportionate reduction or by a combination of both, in order that the total import quantity will balance with the total export quantity.
Both Argentina and the U.S.S.R. attended the conference and were given every opportunity to participate. From the outset of the negotiations, however, it was apparent that Argentina had no intention of coming into the agreement. The U.S.S.R., however, took an active part in the negotiations and withdrew only towards the end of the conference when it was apparent that neither the importing countries nor the exporting countries could agree to the share of the total quantities which the U.S.S.R. delegation demanded. Our representative felt that, of the total quantity to be purchased, the U.S.S.R. wanted too large a share. The nonparticipation by Argentina and the U.S.S.R. is not a complicating factor in the operation of the agreement because the agreement is in the form of a multilateral contract, the terms of which stand among the participating countries regardless of any additional trade in wheat which they may conduct among themselves or may wish to carry on with countries which are not parties to the agreement. These importing countries have undertaken to purchase at the floor prices the quantity mentioned and the exporting countries have undertaken to sell at the ceiling prices the quantities mentioned, but this does not prevent the exporting countries from selling to others or from selling larger quantities. It does not prevent the importing countries from purchasing from others or purchasing larger quantities from the exporting countries.
This is an outline of the developments which led up to the conclusion of this new agreement and the way in which its terms compare with the agreement which was approved by the house last June. Having in mind the changed wheat situation and all the uncertainties which may face the marketing of Canadian wheat without such international co-operation as this agreement provides, I move the adoption of this resolution as one of particular interest to our wheat producers and in the general interest of Canada over the next four years. I think its ratification will also improve our situation
International Wheat Agreement and make easier for both parties the carrying out of our wheat agreement with the United Kingdom; because the international agreement does recognize our right to be exporters to these importing countries of a quantity of approximately 200 million bushels. Even if wheat were declared a surplus in the United States, the United States would nevertheless be a party to an agreement which recognizes our right to have these importing countries take approximately 200 million bushels of our wheat. On the whole, I think that this international agreement is an interesting step in these international arrangements that are now being made to try to stabilize the economies of the participating countries, and that it may be a valuable complementary agreement to the North Atlantic pact for the maintenance of stable and peaceful conditions among the nations which trust each other and believe that, when they have made international agreements, those agreements should be carried out.


John Bracken: The measure introduced by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) on behalf of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) is one which seeks the approval of this house to an agreement between five wheat-exporting nations and some thirty-six wheat-importing nations. The agreement has to do with the trade in and the prices for the major food product of the world, namely wheat. The agreement affects directly some 300,000 Canadian farmers and about ten times that many Canadian people. Indirectly it affects the economy of all our thirteen million Canadian people.
I am rising, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Progressive Conservative party to support this agreement.
The agreement deals specifically with the amount of wheat that will enter into world trade between these countries, with the prices to be paid for it, and it sets up the machinery of administration to carry it out. With the principle of the agreement we are in full accord; its details we accept even though we are disappointed with certain of them. We accept them because we realize that the government experts have done the best they could to get the best terms possible, sitting in council with some forty other nations; and we accept these details because, being only one of forty-one nations signatory to this agreement, this parliament could not alter the agreement even if it wished to do so.
As for the machinery of administration, I do not propose to discuss this aspect of the matter tonight. It has received the consideration of the best experts each of these nations
2782	HOUSE OF
International Wheat Agreement could send to take part in the formulating of the agreement; and in any case, as I have said, we could not alter these provisions because we are only one of forty-one nations signing it.
In supporting the agreement I do not, nor do the members of the Progressive Conservative party, expect that it will bring about the millennium. As long as human beings are constituted as they are, and as long as the world is governed by half a hundred different nations, each with complete sovereignty, we must not be disappointed if one of these surplus-producing nations drops away from this arrangement when the price outside the agreement becomes higher. Nor must we be disappointed if some of the deficit-producing nations become disappointed and drop away when the price outside the agreement becomes lower and they can buy cheaper.
Nor do we expect that this agreement will remain in perpetuity unchanged. We are not without experience in this respect. Once before a similar agreement was entered into. It failed because one country, feeling that it could do better outside the agreement, withdrew from it, with the result that the agreement lapsed. Let us hope that this agreement will have a longer and more successful life. If it fails we shall have to try again to find what were the weak spots in the arrangement; we shall have to try by every means possible to remove the wide fluctuations in price which have been the chief havoc-producing conditions in our whole wheat economy.
This agreement is not the first and probably will not be the last agreement of this kind between surplus wheat-producing countries and deficit wheat-producing countries or between wheat-exporting countries and wheat-importing countries. I have some personal knowledge of at least four attempts of this kind during the last two decades. The first was entered into about sixteen years ago when the great wheat-growing area of western Canada went through the most serious economic depression which it had ever faced. The second was an agreement entered into during the war, to come into effect when the war was over. It was a provisional arrangement, and unfortunately it never came into effect. As the Prime Minister pointed out, the third agreement was the one signed on behalf of some thirty-six countries last year, the year 1948. The fourth is the agreement which we are now discussing.
I had something to do with the first of these agreements, namely that entered into in 1933,
I think it was. It was upon the urging of myself and two other western Canadian premiers that the government of the day


entered into the first international wheat agreement. That agreement was short-lived because one of the signatories withdrew from its operations. Then the agreement fell into disuse.
The second agreement, namely that made during the war, never came into effect because, when the war was over, certain of the nations allowed themselves to sell their wheat at a price higher than that stated in the agreement. Consequently it never came into effect.
The third agreement, namely that of last year, 1948, did not come into effect because the congress of the United States did not see fit to approve of it. This year's agreement seems to have every prospect of being approved by practically all of the countries whose representatives have signed it. As I said, we can only hope that this agreement will have a longer and more successful existence than the first one.
The purpose of all these agreements has been the same. In fact there have been two purposes in making them. The first was to lessen the extreme fluctuations in price of this great food commodity. When we stop to realize that wheat is the greatest of the food commodities of the world; when we realize also that within the last three decades the price of that commodity has ranged from as low as fifty cents a bushel to as high as $3.50 a bushel, we can see how important its stabilization becomes. When it is $3.50 a bushel those producing it are prosperous and the nation is prosperous. When it is fifty cents a bushel the whole agricultural economy bogs down, and it has a very deleterious effect upon the whole national economy. This is the chief reason why these different nations enter into agreements of this kind-they are trying to lessen the wide fluctuations in price of this important food commodity.
The second purpose of this agreement is to lessen the wide fluctuations in the production and in the export of wheat. In some years the production of this commodity is hundreds of millions of bushels less than in other years. When the production is low the price becomes high, and when the production is high the price becomes low, and both of these conditions are unsatisfactory to our own economy and to the economy of the world.
Likewise it is desirable to try to lessen the extremes of our exports. The export of wheat which goes into world trade varies from as low as 300 million bushels a year to more than 700 million bushels a year. In years when there is only a small export again the price is high, and when there is a large export the price is low. When we stop to realize that in Canada our farmers produce

four or five times as much wheat as the Canadian people consume, w'e can see how important the question of exports and of prices becomes. When we realize that our exports are more than three times as much as the Canadian people consume, or more than twice as much as the sum of what the Canadian people consume, and what they plant, we can understand why our agricultural economy in this country is so vulnerable, why it is so important to try to lessen these wide fluctuations, and why farmers are so greatly concerned when these conditions are not corrected.
The Canadian wheat farmers have always before them two great fears: lack of adequate and stable markets and the lack of adequate and stable prices. The major economic problems which they continually face may be simply stated. They want assured markets for their surplus production, and they want stable prices at levels which will assure both production of this great human food, and an assured level of prices which will enable those who produce that food to live at a decent standard of living.
It was for those reasons that sixteen years ago I urged that the first international wheat agreement ever entered into by Canada should be entered into. I have explained why it failed. It was for these reasons that I, in common with those around me, was agreeable to the acceptance of the agreement of last year, and it is for these reasons that we are prepared to support this measure now before us, even though it is not as favourable in some respects as the agreement we had before us last year.
I want to take but a moment to point out some of the differences in this year's agreement compared with last year's agreement and then I shall be through. The first difference between the agreement now before us and the agreement we had before us a year ago is with respect to the maximum price. As the Prime Minister has pointed out, the maximum price in the agreement of a year ago was $2 a bushel. The maximum price allowed in this agreement is $1.80 a bushel. Another difference is with respect to the minimum price. The Prime Minister indicated that there was no change in the minimum price.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I beg your pardon. I indicated that there was an increase of ten cents in the minimum price.


John Bracken: The Prime Minister says he indicated that there was an increase in the minimum price. The facts will speak for themselves, but I question whether that is so. In the first year of this agreement the
International Wheat Agreement minimum price is $1.50. That was the minimum price in the first year of last year's agreement. In the second year of this agreement the minimum price is $1.40. That was the minimum price in the second year of last year's agreement. The minimum price in the third year of this agreement is $1.30. That was the minimum price in the third year of last year's agreement. The minimum price in the fourth year of this agreement is $1.20 a bushel, and that was the minimum price in the fourth year of last year's agreement. If you take the calendar years you can make out a case and say that the price in certain calendar years is ten cents higher, but with respect to the years commencing with the start of the agreement, the first year's minimum price is the same as this year's and the second year's is the same, the third year's is the same and the fourth year's is the same.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The hon. member and I are quite in agreement on the facts. The first agreement was for five years, and when they made this one they made it for four years. They had half a year to run in the period envisaged by the five-year agreement, and they used the price of the first four years of the five-year agreement instead of using the price of the last four years of the five-year agreement. That made a difference in each harvest year of ten cents, an increase of ten cents for each of the harvest years to which this agreement applies.


John Bracken: The Prime Minister would like us to tie this agreement in with last year's agreement. On that basis he can make out a case for his position, but I think he will agree with me that the figures I have given and the comparisons I have made are correct.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Quite.


John Bracken: In comparing this agreement for a period of four years with last year's agreement, which was for one year longer, I venture to say, the way this agreement is set up, that if it had been for five years the price in the fifth year would have been $1.10 rather than $1.20.
What I should like hon. members and the people of Canada to understand is that in entering into this agreement the government is undertaking for the wheat farmers of this country to sell their wheat in the next four years at figures somewhere between a maximum price 15 per cent lower than today and a minimum price approximately 40 per cent lower than today. That means that the price of wheat in the next four years is going to be somewhere between $1.80 and $1.20 a bushel, when the world market in recent
2784	HOUSE OF
International Wheat Agreement months has been over $2 a bushel. That means a considerable sacrifice by those who are producing wheat. Those in other classes who have fixed incomes are likely to receive the same level of income for the next three or four years as in recent years. Many employees are likely to have the same income in future years as they have been having in recent years. But in the lessened prices in this agreement is seen the sacrifice that is being expected of these farmer food producers. It means that their incomes will be less; it means that they will have less money to spend on other products; it means that other people will receive less because of the farmers' lessened purchasing power. It means that our national income will be lowered.
The second change in this year's agreement is one the Prime Minister pointed out. It is that this is a four-year agreement, whereas the other one was for five years.
The third change is that in last year's agreement this nation was allowed to sell 230 million bushels a year, whereas in this year's we are reduced to 203 million. This is just an indication that with the many barriers of different kinds to world trade there is a tendency for less trading-and that is not a healthy sign for the Canadian economy.
As I have pointed out, under last year's agreement we were allowed to sell 230 million bushels whereas this year the agreement allows us only 203 million. Each of the exporting countries has had to reduce its quota somewhat because of the reduction in the total amount. The total under last year's agreement was 500 million bushels whereas this year it is only 450 million.
Another difference, one which was also pointed out by the Prime Minister, is that two other nations have been added to the exporting nations, under the agreement. Those nations are France and Uruguay, France with 6 million bushels and Uruguay with 4 million. I believe it is of interest to us to realize that in France where industry was badly damaged by the war, and where agriculture has also been damaged, yet with a huge population to feed it now appears that that nation can export 6 million bushels of wheat to other nations, while Italy, right next to her, wants to import 38 million or 40 million bushels, and Great Britain, which is not an agricultural country, has to import half of her total food supply.
There is this further point that two great wheat-exporting nations are not in the agreement at all, namely Russia and the Argentine. Russia wanted to supply 100 million bushels, and pressed for the right to supply 75 million, but the other exporting nations did not want to see her have that much, with the result


that she refused to take as little as 50 million bushels. She is not in the agreement, and neither is the Argentine. The Argentine is not in because she was not willing to take these lower prices it provided for wheat. I do not accept quite so readily as has the Prime Minister the fact that these two countries are not in the agreement. In my view the agreement is less likely to live because they are not in it than it would be if they were in it.
In spite of these less favourable details in this agreement as compared with the one of last year, we propose to give the resolution our support. We trust that our own economy and that of other nations will be so managed that the minimum prices in the agreement can be avoided, and that prices can be agreed upon which will assure the world of food and the farmers a just price. Mr. Speaker, this world can be fed if the people in it are prepared to pay the cost of food production. And if they are not prepared to pay the cost of food production the world will continue to be hungry.
Therefore I trust that, as this agreement proceeds to operate, the prices we shall have to take will not be the minimum prices set out in the agreement, but will be prices which will assure a high production of wheat in the world, and prices which will assure also a decent standard of living to those who produce the world's greatest commodity, wheat.


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to delay the house long. I rise to say that the C.C.F. party in the house welcomes the presentation of the international wheat agreement. We have long urged that our country should endeavour in every way possible to co-operate with other producing nations in bringing about an agreement that would give some stability to the production of this important cereal.
In connection with the agreement the hon. member for Neepawa (Mr. Bracken), who has just taken his seat, has said many of the things that I had thought of saying. Therefore I am not going to repeat anything he has said. I am going to point out however that when the British wheat agreement was made on Thursday, August 15, 1946, in giving support to that agreement on behalf of this party I made the statement that in the event of the cost of production rising for the next few years, as it might do, largely because of the government's failure to maintain ceilings on other goods, any difference there might be between what the farmer received for his wheat and the increased cost of production should be made up out of the consolidated revenue fund of Canada. On that occasion I added that if this occurred, and prices rose, a compensatory adjustment should be made.

At that time the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) in reply made the statement that just as we had arranged to set aside some $200 million for the support of other agricultural products, so a similar provision might be made. He drew to the attention of the house the fact that owing to the change in the tariff of the United States he anticipated that the cost of farm machinery, and so on, would come down. We all know that that did not happen, and that the costs of production rose.
Western farmers, bound to this agreement, an agreement freely entered into with the support of all parties in this house, had to accept a price which was much lower than they could have obtained in some other way -although I do not agree that the price that was obtained on the Chicago market was what could be called a world price. However I do think that the price might have been considerably higher than the price which he actually obtained for the wheat which he sold under the British agreement.
And, Mr. Speaker, I want to draw this once again to the attention of the house, that from 1943 to 1947 the wheat growers of Canada subsidized flour and bread that was used in the homes of Canadian people from one end of the country to the other. No matter what the price of wheat was, it will be recalled that wheat was sold to the millers for domestic consumption at a price of approximately 78 cents a bushel when farmers received a price lower than the average wheat price.
Consequently I suggest to the house tonight that, in spite of the fact that there is a sliding scale downward for the wheat during the four years of the life of this world wheat agreement, namely from $1.95 a bushel down to $1.20 a bushel, we should guarantee to the producer, regardless of what the price of wheat may be, under this agreement, an average price over the four years of this agreement of $1.85 a bushel for the wheat he produces throughout the four years of the agreement. Some may ask, will that not involve a levy on the people of Canada? It depends of course on the price that we get for our wheat, but it is conceivable that it may involve such a levy. The point I am making is that during the five years 1943 to 1947 inclusive, the wheat growers of Canada -and of course they are for the most part the prairie farmers-assumed a major responsibility of providing cheap flour and cheap bread for the people of Canada. I contend that, having done that for those five seasons, they are now entitled to a compensatory adjustment, if you like to call it that, during the four years of the life of this agreement. I make that suggestion in all seriousness because I think it is one that is worthy of consideration by the government at this
International Wheat Agreement time in justice to the men who accepted the responsibility of providing that cheaper wheat and flour, apart altogether from any so-called loss that may have occurred through shipping wheat to the United Kingdom at a price lower than they might otherwise have obtained.
Having said that, I want to say that we welcome this agreement because the outlook is none too good for many of our agricultural products, including this great cereal grain. Last year the United States produced a great crop, and it is now estimated that the United States, with modern methods and machinery, with the land now under cultivation, and with a disinclination to grow certain crops that have been grown in the past, is geared to produce something like 1,300 million bushels of wheat of all kinds in an average good year. If we remember that the consumption of wheat domestically in the United States is usually something slightly over 700 million bushels, that means that between 500 million and 600 million bushels of wheat will be available for export to the markets of the world.
Consequently an agreement of this description, which guarantees to Canada at least an assured export market of approximately 200 million bushels of wheat, is worth while. Even if the adjustment referred to by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) has to be made, and we have to take a portion of that adjustment, the amount that Canada will export will still be in the neighbourhood of 200 million bushels. That will give some stability to our western agriculture although I realize, of course, that in a normal year we produce and export more than the amount that is allotted to us under this international agreement. None the less, in the uncertain world in which we live, and as the hon. member for Neepawa (Mr. Bracken) has said, with two great potential wheat-producing countries outside this agreement, the U.S.S.R. and the Argentine republic, with countries that up to now were importing, such as France, entering into the export field, and with the opening up of vast areas of semi-arid land in North Africa for the growing of wheat, I think we are wise as a country to participate in an agreement of this description.
Our western farmers have hoped for years for stability. They accepted the British wheat agreement because they preferred stability to speculation. This agreement is going to give them stability at least to a degree which they have lacked in the past. To my mind such an agreement must end the speculation in this great cereal grain, and it is another reason why this party has been
2786	HOUSE OF
International Wheat Agreement justified throughout the years in asking for the elimination of speculation in all the people's foodstuffs, and particularly for the closing of the Winnipeg grain exchange.
I do not propose to prolong the discussion.
I merely rose to make the suggestion that our western farmers having contributed to the food supply of our country and of the world both directly and indirectly, having accepted the responsibility during the years 1943 to 1947 of bearing a substantial part of the cost of subsidizing bread and flour for the people of this country-and they still do to some extent-and of supplying our great sister nation of the British commonwealth with food on a basis that we agreed upon in 1946, the government should now not only consider making, but actually proceed to make, what is in effect a compensatory adjustment, which was not given to our farmers during the war, and which we asked for when the British wheat agreement was under discussion. With this request we support the agreement, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Victor Quelch (Acadia):: Mr. Speaker,
I had intended to speak on this motion at some length, but the situation being what it is I shall make my remarks quite brief. At the outset let me say that we in this group believe in the principle of long-term international food agreements. As we stated last year, we believe in them because we believe they are in the interests of both the producer and the consumer in that they help to guarantee to the consumer adequate supplies of food at a fair price, and they are in the interests of the producer in that they help to guarantee adequate markets at a fair price.
I think one of the most important points is that it makes it possible in good years to build up a reserve of food to take care of poor crop years without those reserves being used as an excuse to force prices down, as has invariably been the case under the so-called open market system. Of course we logically believe that the right way to handle wheat to meet our commitments would be under the 100 per cent wheat board. On the other hand, we regret that this measure contains some of the same weaknesses that were contained in its predecessor brought down in the house last year, weaknesses that may very well undermine the agreement and force certain nations to cancel their purchases under it, not because they want to, but because they may well be compelled to do so.
I think the main general criticism of longterm international agreements is that, in trying to set a price for the future, you are merely guessing what that price should be. True, we do not set a definite price for any one year, but we do set a ceiling and a floor, and it is just a question whether or not the 

level of the ceiling and the floor that we set is the correct one. For instance, as an argument against the international wheat agreement many people will refer us to the British wheat agreement under which farmers have to date suffered quite severe losses. I want to point out one big difference between the international wheat agreement and the British wheat agreement. The British wheat agreement was not a straight business deal. When that agreement was brought before the house the government asked support for it on the ground that it was a moral obligation to help Great Britain get wheat at a reasonable price. Hon. members of this group supported it on that basis, but when we supported it we pointed out time and again that the responsibility was not that of the Canadian farmer but of the Canadian people and that any losses that might be sustained as a result of that agreement should be borne by the Canadian people as a whole and not passed on to the Canadian farmers. Up to date the full cost of that agreement has been borne by the Canadian farmers.
According to a return tabled in the house, in the first two years of the agreement the farmers lost over $353 million. At the same time the cost of subsidizing the Canadian consumer up to December last amounted to over $190 million, making a total loss of over $543 million which has been borne entirely by the Canadian farmer. There will be more losses in the third year. It may be argued that in the fourth year there may be some gains, but in view of the fact that under the international wheat agreement there is a floor of $1.50, the gain cannot be very great. There are 140 million bushels being sold to Great Britain at $2 and with a floor of $1.50 there can be a gain of only 50 cents per bushel, which would amount to $70 million. That would not be very much to offset a loss of some $550 million.
I think the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) should make a statement to the house of the policy of the government with regard to these losses. Is the government going to pay the farmers for these losses after July 31, 1950, the end of the agreement? Or will an equivalent amount be placed in a reserve to help stabilize prices in the future? The government might adopt the suggestion of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Cold-well) and place a floor under wheat prices during the life of the international wheat agreement of $1.75. The farmers are entitled to hear from the government what their policy is going to be in regard to the heavy losses they have sustained on behalf of the people of Canada as a whole.
It is well to remember that the international wheat agreement is not being

brought in as a moral obligation; it is being brought down as a straight business agreement. Under this agreement we are trying to estimate what the price should be in the future. In setting the ceilings and floors that we have, we may be right. On the other hand, we may be wrong. I do not doubt for one minute that when the government agreed to the British wheat agreement they thought that the price of wheat was going to go down; they never thought that the price was going to go up in the way it did. But they guessed wrongly. How do we know that a similar mistake is not being made today?
We feel that in trying to set a price for the future some consideration should be given to the price level of other commodities. In other words, we feel that we should set a price for the first year in relation to the price level of other commodities and then tie that price to the general price level of the importing countries so that, if that general price level goes down, the price of wheat goes down. If on the other hand the general price level goes up, the price of wheat will also go up. In that way you would be balancing your exports against imports and you would be getting an international parity price for your wheat which would make it a comparatively easy thing for a government to maintain a national parity price.
The second thing I want to refer to is the method of payment under the agreement. We are to be paid by the European nations in Canadian dollars. If any European nation suffers an unbalance of trade and is unable to meet its commitments in Canadian dollars it will have the right to be released from the obligation to buy its quota of wheat. That is the situation in existence today and that is the situation that is likely to continue for a few years. There is every likelihood that some of the European nations will not be able to meet their commitments and will have to seek permission to be released from their obligation to buy wheat under the agreement.
We feel that it would be a far safer procedure for Canada to agree to accept payment in sterling and then we could use our surplus sterling balances to trade with European nations on a multilateral basis. In that way we would be making it much easier for the European nations to buy our wheat and at the same time we would have currency with which to buy European products.
I regret that to date no legislation has been placed on the statute books of Canada to guarantee the stabilization of farm products on a permanent basis. We have the international wheat agreement for four years with prices at quite a low level. We have no guarantee that losses under the British wheat agreement will be made up and there 29087-176
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International Wheat Agreement is absolutely no guarantee regarding the prices of other commodities. Since 1942 the farmers have been accepting a loss on the sale of their products and they have been told that that is necessary in the name of stabilization. Up to the present time the government's program of stabilization has been to reduce the prices of farm commodities. Surely then the farmers are entitled to a future stabilization program which will maintain prices on a fair level. As I say, there is on the statute books no legislation of a permanent nature to guarantee that. The Agricultural Prices Support Act is the only act that deals with that question and it expires on March 31, 1950.
So I hope the Prime Minister will see fit before parliament is dissolved to make some declaration regarding the government's policy on this matter.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Speaker, I do not rise for the purpose of taking any extensive part in the debate but merely to correct a statement which I understood the leader of the C.C.F. party (Mr. Coldwell) to make. I took the hon. member's statement down somewhat in these words: In the period between 1943 and 1947 the wheat growers subsidized the price of bread by having wheat sold to the millers for 78 cents a bushel lower than the market price.
My recollection of the facts which I have since checked is that before 1943 the wheat farmers got the open market price. In 1943 the domestic price of wheat was fixed by the wheat board at $1.25. Early in 1947 that price was raised to $1.55, and on August 1, 1948, to $2. During that whole period it was the treasury of this country that paid the difference between these prices and the prices paid by the millers for wheat entering into bread. The cost of that subsidy was paid by the treasury of the country and not by the farmers except that it might be argued that they had paid to the extent of the fixing of their price.
I think it should be said also that during a large part of that period while the farmer's price was fixed he had the benefit of price ceilings upon his costs. While I agree to some extent with the hon. gentleman's conclusions, I disagree with this particular premise upon which the hon. gentleman's argument was based, and I thought it was desirable that the correction should be made.


Mr. P. E. Wrighi (Melforl):: I do not think the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) is quite correct in his interpretation of what the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) stated, at least as I understand what he said. I can be corrected by Hansard if I am wrong, The point is that in 1943 when the wheat

International Wheat Agreement board took over all wheat they took over some 200 million bushels at $1.25 per bushel. Immediately after that the price began to rise. The government used that 200 million bushels or more of wheat which they had taken over and sold it to the millers of this country at $1.25 per bushel. If they had sold at the world price there would have been a further payment to the farmers on that which was used to stabilize the price of flour in this country. The wheat board continued to pay to the farmers from 1943 to 1947, $1.25 per bushel for all wheat that was consumed in Canada. The government of Canada paid a subsidy to account for the difference between $1.25 and $0.78, but the farmers of western Canada subsidized themselves on the difference between $1.25 and the world price which continued to rise from $1.25 per bushel in 1943 to a high of something like $3.40 per bushel in 1946 and 1947. This means that the farmers of western Canada themselves subsidized the price of bread in Canada and also the price of the English loaf to the extent of some three or four hundred million dollars, besides paying their share of the subsidy between $0.78 and $1.25 which all the people of Canada paid.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Percy Ellis Wright: Yes.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: 
Percy Ellis Wright: Yes, the difference between $1.25 and the $0.77 or $0.78, whatever it was, was paid out of the consolidated revenue fund. The farmers along with the rest of the people of Canada paid that subsidy. But from $1.25 up, the farmers themselves paid that because the wheat board paid only $1.25 to the farmers' account for that wheat that was used in domestic consumption.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: The subsidization which took place there was as a result of the fixing of the price and the handling of the matter by the wheat board.


Percy Ellis Wright: Yes, but it was a subsidy nevertheless.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Oh, I am not saying it was not.
Motion (Mr. St. Laurent) agreed to.



NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: That it is expedient that the houses of parliament do approve the North Atlantic treaty signed at Washington on April 4, 1949, and that this house do approve the same.
He said: I deem it a great privilege to submit to this house a resolution to approve the North Atlantic treaty. I shall not take very many minutes in doing so because it was my privilege to recommend to the house on March 28 a resolution approving the attendance of a Canadian delegation at Washington to sign a North Atlantic treaty along the lines of a draft which was in the hands of the members at the time the resolution was adopted.
The treaty was signed in Washington on April 4 and photostatic copies of the treaty with the signatures were tabled in this house some days ago. The treaty is in exactly the same form as the draft which was before the members of this house when they approved the attendance of a Canadian delegation at Washington for the purpose of signing such a treaty. It was signed in that form by the twelve countries whose adherence was looked upon as essential to the constitution of a group of democratic nations that could, by their co-operation, favour the economic, social, political and military security of each other.
Since it was signed I have had the opportunity of discussing it with many Canadians in different parts of the country. Among all those with whom I discussed it I have found the same unanimity that was manifested in this house on March 28, 1949. I think it will be the feeling of a great many of us that the signing of it has already produced some easing of the tension in this cold war from which we have been suffering over the last four years. I was quite encouraged to find that practically everyone in Canada recognized that if we really wish to have peace we have to be prepared to do our part to see that peace is maintained in the world. If peace were not maintained in the world there would seem to be little prospect of our own people avoiding the repercussions of war. I hope that will prove to be the experience of this country and of the nations represented by the signatories to the treaty over the whole period for which the treaty is made.
I merely want to add that we still hope that the effect of this arrangement between the twelve democratic nations that have signed the North Atlantic treaty will show the rest of the world that it is possible for human beings to make an arrangement that

will secure to themselves, and to their fellows, the advantages that were promised to men of good will in this world. In time it will perhaps give place to that which we would all, I am sure, unanimously welcome, that is to say a similar satisfactory arrangement embracing all the nations who were parties to the San Francisco pact, and make that instrument the effective organ for world peace that it was intended to be when it was signed in San Francisco four years ago.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, there is very little to add to what has already been said here in support of the pact. At the time the draft pact was before this house there was practically unanimity here in support of that draft. As the Prime Minister has pointed out, the pact signed in Washington is in the exact terms of the draft we have already approved. The signing of the pact carries certain obligations which must be recognized and fulfilled by every one of the signatory nations if the pact is to achieve the high purpose for which it has been signed. It not only embraces the expression of joint action to preserve peace, but it involves also the joint action of those nations in the economic field which is of very great importance and which will require positive action on the part of the signatory nations.
So far as Canada is concerned, along with each of the other nations which have signed that pact, there is the obligation to join with the military strength of the countries for the preservation of peace as a great partnership dedicated to that purpose. There is also the obligation to follow a course in the economic field which has its place in strengthening this association. I trust that Canada, as one of the signatory nations, will at all times bear in mind that, while our ultimate hope undoubtedly is that, from the sound basis of this pact, a new attitude may develop which ultimately will lead to friendship even with Russia itself, in the meantime there is no illusion about the fact that the joint strength of these nations is being placed before the world as a challenge to further encroachment of the soviet empire. When we recognize that fact I believe it is essential that we be prepared to put forward our position and to express the hope that others will share the same point of view, and that, with regard to trading with Russia, there will be taken a position which will make it perfectly certain that through trading with Russia we will not at any time increase their war potential or their ability to strengthen their own position in confronting the free nations of the world.
I think we should also remember that Russia has followed a course of infiltration, and has achieved as much by that method of
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infiltration as by actual military power. I believe that we should recognize the fact that it would be to their advantage to undermine the economic strength of the free nations of the west, and that we should not enter into any trading arrangements with them which will have the effect of undermining the economic structure of the free nations which are joined in the defence of their own freedom.
I do not think I need to enlarge upon that matter, because this would include a definite understanding that there will not be supplied to Russia any aircraft, any war equipment, machine tools which could be used for war potential, the great electric generators and dynamos that can supply the war potential of the factories which would be dependent upon them, or in fact to supply them with any of those things which can directly or indirectly increase their military strength, until they have offered us some gesture of good faith which would justify us in extending the hand of friendship to them.
I think we should also bear in mind that since this pact was signed in Washington an event has taken place which has importance to those of us who live in the British commonwealth and also immense importance to those nations which signed that pact; because it needs to be emphasized not only within our country but to the whole world that, in that document which was signed a few days ago in London, an unprecedented relationship between the east and the west was established where, for the first time in the long history of mankind, three great Asiatic nations have freely associated themselves as free nations with the other nations of the commonwealth in the joint responsibility of preserving the principles of freedom to which we are all committed.
By this new expression of the fellowship of those who believe in the common principles of freedom upon which the British commonwealth has been established, they have said that all of them recognize their obligation to preserve those principles; and that includes not only Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, but India with its 400 million people, Pakistan with nearly 100 million more, and Ceylon with its millions. Those nations now stand side by side with us in supporting the principles of freedom which we assert as the basis of our signing the Atlantic pact. So through this very document which was signed in London, the implications of the Atlantic pact have been carried to Asia where, confronting Russia itself, are five hundred million people who, through their association in earlier years, have learned the idea of the British common law and of that concept of freedom which we all share.

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Out of these two documents, as long as the nations carry into full effect the undertaking they have given, we may well see the beginning of one of the most solid and most hopeful periods of peace that the world has known.


Major James William Coldwell: rise, Mr. Speaker, to join with others in the house in supporting this important North Atlantic agreement. With the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), I believe that already the signing of the pact has eased the tension among the nations, and has already contributed toward the possibility of bringing about a better understanding and of building a bridge to peace. I think that is a great gain which has been made already by the association of the powers and the nations that are united in the North Atlantic security pact.
This is not, however, wholly or indeed principally, a military agreement. Its terms embrace also economic aid-mutual aid-of all descriptions in order to bring about a better understanding and a better economic life not only among all the nations that are associated in the agreement but among the United Nations and indeed if possible among all the nations of the world. That is a primary objective of the pact, and we must never lose sight of that objective.
I want to say, however, that in supporting this pact which, because of its military implications may involve a considerable amount of rearmament, so once again I want to bring before the house the proposal-indeed the demand-of this party that we must eliminate profit from the armament industry. What we must do in the nature of re-armament should be undertaken by industries owned by the nation in order that no individual or group of individuals can make a profit out of the nation's need. I know how difficult it is to distinguish between munition industries and other industries that are not purely munition and armament industries but which benefit from rearmament and which are a part of our usual peacetime economy. Again I say to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), we believe that steps should be taken to do what we did during the war, to place at least a profits tax-I did not say excess profits tax, though that is what we did during the war- on privately-owned industries which benefit in any way from the nation's need to rearm at this time. I make these suggestions in all seriousness because I believe that many of the people of this country who feel some misgivings regarding the Atlantic pact-and there are those who do honestly have some misgivings-have them to some extent because they believe that out of this will come a program of rearmament which will

be used by powerful interests in this country to enhance their own interest and profits in a time of need.
In supporting this pact may I say, as leader of the C.C.F. party of this country, that our party supports it. A great deal has been made of votes which were cast or not cast when the agreement was before the house. May I remind the house that on that occasion the C.C.F. party had the highest percentage of votes of any of the political parties in this house. I want to say that not only might there be misgivings within some parts of this party, but I recollect that in my hon. friend's party on the government side one gentleman who today called himself a straight Liberal said that evening that he would not vote for the pact because he wanted to know more about it. I am hoping tonight, in spite of the fact that there appears to be unanimity, that a vote will be recorded on this important Atlantic pact so that there will be no misunderstanding as to where hon. members stand on the issue personally.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Talk to your party in British Columbia.


Major James William Coldwell: Let me say to my hon. friend that the vote in the British Columbia party had no bearing on the national movement. Let me also point out to my hon. friend that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. I remember that when this pact was first announced by the Prime Minister no less a person than the leader of the Progressive Conservative party in the province of Quebec denounced it in no unmeasured terms.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege, I simply wish to state most emphatically that that statement is not so, and the record shows that very clearly.


Major James William Coldwell: I let those who can read read what that gentleman said at that time, and then they can place the proper construction upon the words that he used; but as one who understands the language in which it was written, I can place no other interpretation on it than the interpretation I placed upon it ju&t now.
I also want to point out that there are people who have, as always, honest doubts when a situation arises which might lead to international difficulties and which might involve the threat of war.
I regard the North Atlantic pact as a pact for peace, not a pact for war. We are supporting it because we believe that the north Atlantic nations standing together have demonstrated that aggressiveness will not pay in the long run. We are supporting this particular pact because we believe that the economic aid will help to build up the nations which are associated in this

agreement. May I say that I thoroughly agree that it is important that our economic life shall be secure and that our level of employment and of rewards for labour in every field, agriculture, fishing, mining and all the rest of it, shall be maintained at a high peak; otherwise those who wish to undermine our democratic institutions and our democratic way of life will be given an opportunity to do so.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, in resuming my seat I want to say with all the emphasis I can command and without equivocation or mental reservation that the C.C.F. party in this house and in Canada is solidly behind the North Atlantic pact, and I hope that our vote will demonstrate it tonight.


Solon Earl Low: I feel that I have little to add to what I said in this house when the North Atlantic pact was being discussed here on March 28. However, I regret that the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) is not here. I quite realize, as the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) said earlier today, that it was necessary that the minister should be in London. It is unfortunate that that has to be so at this time, because when the North Atlantic pact was being discussed on March 28 I indicated in so many words that we should charge our representatives to the Washington conference to make doubly certain that there were no dirty fingers in this pie, and to make absolutely sure that the defence and the economic provisions of this treaty were exactly what they purported to be.
We were anxious to make certain that the ostensible purposes were the real purposes. I believe that we expressed at that time our wholehearted hope that that would be so. I think, sir, we made it quite clear that when the minister came back to bring before this house the signed pact for ratification it would be our intention to have him and his assistants go into every possible interpretation of both the defence and the economic parts of the pact. He is not here. He was the only one of the ministers present at the signing of the pact at the Washington conference, and at this time we are deprived, because of the rush, of any possibility of a thorough examination of what the minister found at the Washington conference. We trust that the signing and ratification of the pact will prove to ease the tension of the situation throughout the whole world. I believe, with the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), that there is some indication of an easement in the general tension. At this time it looks as if the signing of the pact has rendered the German situation at least much less dangerous than it was before the pact 28087-177
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was signed, and surely France has been given fresh hope and encouragement.
At this time I believe there is one other thing I should say. I hope the signing of the pact will not mean that the signatory nations are committing themselves to a belief in the permanency of the present world divisions. That seems to me to be a most important thing. The peoples of the world and the nations which have signed the pact will have to consider that most carefully. I do not subscribe to the inevitability of the continuation of the two-world situation. Finally, sir, I regret that we have not seen fit in either of the resolutions bringing this pact before the house to give expression to our need for Divine guidance in finding a way through the rocky shoals of a very difficult world situation.
I have on several occasions pointed out to the house that Canada is a Christian nation. We have constantly expressed our belief in the Christian way of life. Every day this House of Commons is opened with a fervent prayer to Almighty God to guide us in our deliberations. And yet, in one of the most important documents to be brought before the House of Commons at any session, this Atlantic pact, we have not seen fit to include in the resolution an expression, in so many words, of our need for Divine guidance to help us find our way through a difficult situation.
Some years ago at Christmas time our King gave us a lead, and we should have been paying more attention to it. On that occasion he quoted a most remarkable poem, to which I subscribe, and to which we should all subscribe in our efforts to solve the present terrible world situation. That poem was in these words:
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:	.
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."
And he replied: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."
I believe I have expressed all I wished to say at this time, except to say that we are still prepared to vote for this pact. We are prepared to work for it. And while it is true that we are voting for the woodpile, let me express once more that we have no intention whatsoever of voting for any niggers that may be in it.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion? Carried.


Rodney Young: Mr. Speaker, I desire to protest. I was on my feet before you declared the motion adopted.


Mr. Speaker:: I would call the attention of the hon. member to the fact that not only

North Atlantic Treaty
should he be on his feet but he should call the attention of the Speaker. Hon. members should address the Chair in order that the Speaker may see them.


Rodney Young: Mr. Speaker, with all due deference to Your Honour, I did address the Chair.


Some hon. Members:: No, no.


Rodney Young: Oh yes.


An hon. Member:: Oh no.


Rodney Young: Mr. Speaker, I feel that as one of the C.C.F. members from British Columbia it is particularly fitting on this occasion, in view of the interjection of one of the Progressive Conservative members from British Columbia into the speech of my leader, that I should assure this Progressive Conservative member of the complete and absolute solidarity of the C.C.F. in the position of their leader.
May I say that in circles with which I am familiar it would be unnecessary to make this explanation. However, in circles in which the hon. member who made the interjection happens to be, it is very necessary to make it. And I might say that perhaps also on the government side of the house there may be some doubt in the minds of members.
It happens that in the movement to which I have the honour to belong its policies on national and international affairs are determined by the rank and file of the members. Those policies are determined in conventions which are truly representative of our membership. Those policies, in so far as international policies are concerned-which would cover the subject under discussion tonight- are determined by national conventions which meet every two years. In the absence of a national convention, such policies are determined by a national council based upon representation from every province in Canada.
It is therefore the duty of the members of the movement to which I subscribe, in all provinces, to express their opinions upon international policies whenever they meet- and they recently met in the province of British Columbia. This does not affect the national policy of the C.C.F.; nor does an expression of opinion mean that the membership does not subscribe to the democratic right of their national body to make policies.
They express their opinions as one of the rights in a democracy, which procedure, may I say, Mr. Speaker, is so lacking in the two old-line parties represented in this house.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. Member:: Sit down.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: One man's opinion.


Rodney Young: One hon. member says it is one man's opinion. It is a matter of fact, not a matter of my opinion. I suggest that if the hon. member can show where it is simply an opinion, and in what respect his party is as democratic as the one I represent, he will have ample opportunity to do so in the very near future.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I can show you where your party is not democratic.


Rodney Young: I have something to say on the pact. I believe it will be worth saying, and I believe that what I say will represent some opinion-the opinion of the Canadian people.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Rodney Young: Not all the Canadian people.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Rodney Young: But I would suggest that you hold your judgment until you hear what I have to say.
Mr. Speaker, it being now half past ten I desire to move the adjournment of the debate.


An hon. Member:: Let us sit until eleven.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I trust that the Prime Minister's earlier suggestion of extending the debate will be accorded the support of the house, and that this debate will not adjourn

because this is a most momentous document, and I think hon. members should proceed to dispose of it.


Major James William Coldwell: I, too, hope that the house will not adjourn at this hour.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, with the unanimous consent of the house I move:
That this house do not adjourn this day at ten-thirty p.m.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the following resolution:
That it is expedient that the houses of parlia-nent do approve the North Atlantic treaty signed at Washington on April 4, 1949, and that this house do approve the same.
Rodney Young: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say in all sincerity that the members of my party-and we feel also the people of Canada-look upon this pact from the point of view of the possibilities of the preservation of peace. In

supporting this pact it is our sincere belief that it may be a step toward peace, and not a step toward war.
We believe that a third world war would be so catastrophic as to dissolve our very civilization, and to render null and void all that has been accomplished by our race over the centuries. This is an age which has within it methods of destruction at its disposal, such as the use of atomic materials capable of bringing about the tremendous results of which we saw evidence in the closing months of the last war. We saw that whole cities could be wiped out, large numbers of people destroyed, along with their means of living. We trust that such calamities will not occur again.
It is on these grounds that we support the pact, believing that the nations who are signatory to it will not attempt to abandon the hope and the promise that lies within the United Nations as a centre where we may discuss our problems and reach agreements. This is important to our people, and we hope that that will be the result of the pact when we support it. In this pact the signatories are committed to preserving the democratic way of life and to enlarging the principles of democracy, the principles of humanity, within the states that are now agreed as to the pact.
It is necessary at this time to direct the attention of the Canadian people, and of the Canadian government, to one of the signatories of the pact. I speak of Portugal. In Portugal for more than thirty years there have been no free trade unions. There had not been a free election until a few weeks ago when the dictator of Portugal, General Salazar, in order to qualify as a member of the democracies, held an election. That election was by no means within our concepts of a democratic election. May I urge, in the name of the people of Canada, that every effort be put forward by the government, inasmuch as it is a co-signer of the Atlantic pact with the government of Portugal, to encourage in that unfortunate country the restoration of the liberties and rights of man.


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: You do not call Portugal unfortunate, do you?


Rodney Young: My hon. friend says, "you do not call Portugal unfortunate." My hon. friend is perhaps not aware that the highest infant mortality rate in Europe is to the discredit of Portugal. I suggest to my hon. friend that he should investigate before he gives his blanket approval to a nation simply because he has signed a pact with it, or because it suits his political purposes. An
North Atlantic Treaty
examination of the facts, as reported before the various committees of the United Nations, will prove that when I say that Portugal is unfortunate I mean, and rightly so, that the people of Portugal are unfortunate. I say to my hon. friend that if he were living in Portugal he would not have the honour of being a member of a democratic parliament, and if he did not like that situation he might then find himself behind bars.


An hon. Member:: They would not have you.


Pierre Gauthier: Others, but not I.


Rodney Young: I should like to see my hon. friend amplify his remarks at greater length if he cares to take the floor after I have completed mine. When I make that statement it is not with a desire to cause the people of Canada, or hon. members, to become inflamed against the people of Portugal. I would say that above all things we in the C.C.F., and I hope we can say this also about the Liberal, Conservative and Social Credit parties, desire to restore the respect of man for man regardless of international boundary lines. Never let it be said that my remarks add to the fuel of international hatred. It is solely for the purpose of impressing upon the government-and I do so in the best spirit-the importance, if they are to do more than lip service to the terms of this pact, of their doing all in their power to persuade the existing government of Portugal to grant to its people the rights which we are so happy to enjoy in Canada today.


Mr. Mitchell:: Give us a talk on Russia.


Rodney Young: I am quite prepared to give the Minister of Labour a talk on Russia. He has asked for it, so here goes. I say that the unfortunate people of Russia did not have the good fortune to pass through the stages of civilization which we in the western nations have. I point out to my hon. friend that the iron curtain is not a new thing, that it existed during the middle ages. A study of history will show that the maritime nations of Europe, even before machines were invented and power machinery went into operation, through trade by sea were enabled to enjoy a much easier life than those nations which are cut off from the sea, and which lie between Asia and the west coast.


Humphrey Mitchell: Is the hon. member apologizing for Russia?


Rodney Young: The eastern nations of Europe have had difficulties which we have never had to undergo. Right up to the year of the opening of the first world war, 1914, they were still living under a feudal system while

North Atlantic Treaty
we were living under an advanced and modern capitalist system. I should like to point out to my hon. friend that the results of that were that when the transition had to be made from feudal to capitalist methods of production, instead of having the good fortune of that gradual evolution and development of public institutions that we have had, they had to make their change by violence, and they have reached not the promised land of democracy but the horrors of a national dictatorship. I suggest to my hon. friend that he try to think of the people of Russia not with hatred, not with contempt, and I suggest that international peace will be much better served if my hon. friend is inspired by the sentiments I am trying to voice than by the deliberate desire to hold in contempt the unfortunate people of eastern Europe.


Humphrey Mitchell: If I may say this to my hon. friend-


Rodney Young: Is this a question?


Humphrey Mitchell: It is a question.


Rodney Young: I have not given the hon. member permission to ask a question.


Humphrey Mitchell: I will just say this to my hon. friend-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I must call the attention of the minister to the fact that it is necessary for the hon. member to give his permission.


Humphrey Mitchell: He talks like a Trotskyite.


Rodney Young: It is very regrettable,-


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Rodney Young: May I assure my hon. friends that we socialists have listened to audiences make noises and catcalls for more than seventy years, and we are quite capable of withstanding anything they have to offer by way of interruption. I am speaking now to the people of Canada, just as you were speaking in your turn-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Rodney Young: I believe that the people of Canada will be more willing to listen to me than they are to listen to you.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Mutch:: We can do without a Trotskyite here.


Rodney Young: I should like to point out that in the course of the political evolution of the country it is obvious-and history should teach this lesson to the members on the government side of the house-that nothing lasts forever, and that includes them.


Leslie Alexander Mutch: Only forty minutes.


Rodney Young: Their policies, based as they are on the laissez-faire principles of John Stuart Mill of the nineteenth century, must eventually appear in the minds and eyes of the people to have outlived their usefulness; and the policies which my party represents, arising as they do out of the needs and the necessities of a highly advanced civilization in the twentieth century, must of necessity make their logical appeal. May I remind hon. members that our point of view on the North Atlantic pact is much more likely than their own to be in line with the thoughts of modern people.


James Sinclair: Especially in British Columbia.


Rodney Young: If it pleases hon. members to interrupt, it also pleases me to continue speaking. I was at the point where I was trying to point out to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) why he should regard the people of eastern Europe with sympathy instead of contempt. I will proceed along those lines. The situation which occurred in 1917 was that these people, 82 per cent illiterate, unable to read or write, and many of them unable to absorb more than a few simple ideas displayed to them through slogans by the Bolshevist party which assumed power, overthrowing as they did the monstrous fascist and czarist regime, instead of receiving co-operation, the humanitarian and brotherly treatment to which they were entitled in their hour of need, were surrounded by a cordon sanitaire with the net result that there was sown in them that distrust which we are reaping today when we meet with their representatives in the United Nations. Instead of being able to co-operate we are constantly being faced with the utmost hostility. The road to international peace lies not only in a change of heart on the part of the Russians but in a change of heart on the part of our representatives.
Our attitude towards these people, who we are being persuaded are our enemies, must be changed to one of peaceful approach to world problems. We must never give up the effort to co-operate. The signing of pacts cannot in itself prevent war and it is necessary for us to stress the peaceful attributes of this North Atlantic pact, to stress the desire on the part of the nations with which we are affiliated in this pact, on the part of our own government and our own people, to do what we can to reconcile the differences, great as they may be, between the unfortunate dictatorships of eastern Europe and the progressive democracies of the western world.
I suggest to members of the government that if we were able through negotiation with this great power, which covers one-sixth of

the earth's surface, to impress upon them the desire we have to help them to raise their standard of living to the high peaks on which the North American standard of living now rests, we might then be able to have peaceful relations with them. I would say that a million refrigerators, radios and Ford cars would do more good in eastern Europe than a million bayonets. Upon this government rests the responsibility of saving millions of our lives as well as millions of Russian lives through their attitude toward the eastern world.
I did not rise in order to lecture my friends across the way, because there is no great difference between us in our admiration for democratic principles. However, I earnestly ask them to take the stand that this pact must be enlarged to include more nations than are now signatories to it. We in this group would like to see every democratic nation on the globe become a signatory to this pact. If it is possible to stretch the Atlantic community to include Italy, which is in the centre of the Mediterranean, perhaps it will be possible to extend it to include India, Australia, New Zealand and many of the social democratic countries outside the North Atlantic area.
Perhaps it will be possible for us to negotiate to the extent where we can get some of these countries which today are considered to be under the influence of Russia to join with us in this North Atlantic pact. It might be possible for us to include Yugoslavia, which has shown recently that it is not prepared to submit to the economic dictatorship of Russia.


An hon. Member:: Why not Russia?


Rodney Young: Somebody says, "Why not Russia?" If this is a pact for peace, then why not Russia? If it is a pact for war, let us say so. I do not believe that it is a pact for war; I believe it is a pact for peace. That is why I want to extend it, for the forces of peace can never be too large.
I have only one more remark to make. As did many hon. gentlemen here, I served in the last war. For a time I served in Italy and I had the opportunity to visit the ruins of Pompeii. I saw there many marvellous things that I never believed had existed in a civilization so far removed in time from our own. I saw copper pipes, heating systems, baths, public clubs and evidence of a high standard of living. I saw many mechanical devices which have long since passed away.
I went from the old city of Pompeii to the modern city and I saw their hovels in which people were living in one room with narrow windows, without either hot or cold water and with absolutely no sanitary facilities. Many
North Atlantic Treaty
of them had very little to eat. In that picture lies a lesson. If we can devise ways to prevent another world war we may continue as a civilization. If we cannot prevent a third world war, then a state of affairs demonstrated by a comparison of modern Pompeii with the Pompeii of a former civilization may well be upon us.
I ask my hon. friends to learn the lessons of history, for they are well worth learning. They may represent the difference between survival and oblivion for the civilization in which we live.


Jean-François Pouliot: Mr. Speaker, the other day I read a brief communique of the C.C.F. party to the effect that some of their members were not present to vote on the Atlantic pact because they had left after I had started to speak. I am wondering if the hon. member for Regina City (Mr. Probe) was one of them. There was that communique, whether it was official or informal I do not know.
I am speaking at the invitation of the leader of that group for whom I have great respect and admiration as a debater. He wanted to know if I had some reason for expressing an opinion on the pact. I have one reason which I think will surprise him greatly. I want to know what members of his party went out when I started to speak and I want to know their reasons for opposing the pact.
Having listened to the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Young), I find that I know no more now that he has finished than I did before he rose. I would like to see him fitted with a glass skull so that I could see how his brain was working. I cannot understand the manner in which he considers a matter of such importance as the Atlantic pact. He spoke about Portugal and about Yugoslavia. We are not in Portugal and we are not in Yugoslavia. What we know of those countries we learn from the press. I have no particular friends in Portugal and I have no private source of information in Yugoslavia.


John Oliver Probe: Ask Chester Bloom; he will tell you.


Jean-François Pouliot: I will tell the member for Regina City (Mr. Probe) that I am conducting my own probe. I am not through with it. In every human being there is a natural instinct for self-preservation. There is the strength of all men to protect themselves against danger. We wear clothes because we want to protect ourselves against the cold. We are under the roof of a house because we do not want the rain to fall upon us when we are sleeping, and so on. It is the same instinct of self-preservation.

North Atlantic Treaty
Vancouver is a big city. A large number of the people are respectable and law-abiding citizens.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Jean-François Pouliot: But there are bums and thieves.


James Sinclair: And communists.


Jean-François Pouliot: Probably so, and other disreputable people. This is true not only in Vancouver but everywhere in Canada.


An hon. Member:: Even Riviere du Loup.


Jean-François Pouliot: We have a police force in Riviere du Loup just as there is in Vancouver. In my city I pay taxes for the police just as my hon. friend in Vancouver must pay taxes for the police for the protection of himself, his family and his constituents. If there were no such police in Vancouver all the bums would be attracted by speeches like the one he has delivered tonight.


Mrs. Strum:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I wanted to vote for the Atlantic pact, but I have to catch a train in a few moments. In case I miss the boat I want the long-winded members to know I am in favour of the pact and if I were here I would vote for the motion.


Jean-François Pouliot: I congratulate my hon. friend on coming to the house while I was making my speech, and I say that is my reward. I am most grateful to her for that, and I wish her a trip that will be just as good as her speech.


James Sinclair: One way.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: You are not up to your usual form.


Jean-François Pouliot: Mr. Speaker, I was explaining the necessity for police in the world. If the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Young) were appointed lecturer to the police force of any city in Canada, the force would be dismissed at once as no good. I tell you, sir, that I have never listened to such a strange performance as the one that has been put on by my hon. friend. At the present time I am most lenient to the new members. I want to give them a chance.
At an earlier stage today the member spoke on behalf of his party. He said "We socialists; we tailors of Tooley Street, Vancouver." Afterwards, he was expressing his views and he had a right to do so. Then, he was speaking again in the name of his party.


Mr. Thatcher:: No, he was not; he was speaking for himself.


Jean-François Pouliot: He led us to believe that he was speaking on behalf of his party and I am

very glad to hear the member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Thatcher) say no. I am not surprised that he said no.


Major James William Coldwell: I spoke on behalf of the party.


Jean-François Pouliot: I will not say anything about my own appreciation of what he said, sir. When we have listened to what has been said about this pact by the leaders of the various groups in the house, and then when we listen to a speech such as that delivered by the member on a matter of such importance, which concerns the life of all Canadians, may I say, speaking as a member of parliament, that I am deeply offended. It is a matter that must be considered seriously and I am sure that if the hon. gentleman does not mend his ways, if he continues speaking in that manner, he will do considerable harm to his party in spite of the very fine speeches that are made by the leader of the group and by so many able members who belong to it. I do not say that as a matter of censorship, but as a member of parliament who wants to do his duty-a duty he has to perform as a matter of trust.
Just one more word, Mr. Speaker. The matter is serious. The other day I said that international sovereignty was nonsense and it has been reported wrongly in Hansard. I said what I believed. I do not believe in international sovereignty. I believe also that instead of having pacts made in other countries by the former major powers, we should have our own pact with all other nations of the world.
But, Mr. Speaker, there is something else that I want to stress before you. It is that for a long time I have complained of the fact of the distinction between major powers and little countries. In the security council of the United Nations, Canada was there in turn. But in the United Nations organization everything was decided by the major powers. Countries like Canada, Australia and others had their say only at times, we had no status of equality, whilst in the Atlantic pact all are equal. For me the Atlantic pact is much superior to the United Nations organization. That is one point.
There is another point. I remember that my friend the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low), the leader of the Social Credit group, my good friend Tommy Church from Toronto, who is probably being nominated tonight as candidate in this coming election, and myself were called irresponsible by a dirty paper of Montreal because we were telling the truth. We were saying that the United Nations organization was going on the rocks. I compliment my friend the leader of the Social Credit group and my good friend

the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) for having joined me in protesting on that occasion. Were we right or were we not? Who was irresponsible? Was it the members of parliament who foresaw what was going to happen?-namely the downfall of the United Nations, to be replaced by a new organization, the Atlantic pact, which I hope will work well.
I have been invited to speak, Mr. Speaker, and I do so, although I do not intend to speak for any great length of time. The time of reckoning has come. We were good Canadian citizens and we were patriots in saying then what has happened since.
I want to be protected. As the United Nations organization has proved to be a failure and as some great nations of the world, especially our powerful neighbour, the United States of America, the countries of the British commonwealth, France, Benelux, some Scandinavian countries, Portugal and others are joining together for defence and protection, I will be for it. I want to give the Atlantic pact a chance. I do not want to stay behind. In these troubled times we need some protection against nations that may invade our country at any time. But I do not want the rule of brass hats; and I hope that the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) will tell the generals, who have been touring the country exciting the people and speaking as warmongers, to stop doing so. I hope that the work of the united nations who have signed the Atlantic pact will be effective, that in the near future the atmosphere will be cleared, and that we shall have peace throughout the world.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the house ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. L. O. Breiihaupi (Waterloo North):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to present the fifth report of the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines, and I move this supplementary motion:
That the recommendations contained in the fifth report of the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines, presented this day to the house respecting capital stock charges on Bill 240, (letter D-8 of the Senate), an act to incorporate West-coast Transmission Company Limited, and Bill 243, (letter G-8 of the Senate), an act to incorporate Western Pipe Lines, be now concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, before any motion is put I should like to make a suggestion which I think may facilitate proceedings. Before the dinner hour the house was in committee, and supply was being discussed. Quite contrary to the statement made by someone who spoke just before dinner, and who assumed responsibility for indicating what our decision had been, it is not our intention to prevent supply.	*
We have presented our objections. We have, I believe, covered them fully. We have stated what our case is, and we have called for a vote, which was in the nature of a want of confidence vote, and one which expresses our position. I believe that if we now went back into the committee stage we might advance with supply and then be that much closer to the proceedings of tomorrow.
In saying this I should like to explain why I regard this as the desirable course. The government has assumed the responsibility of announcing dissolution; and that course, it is recognized, has to be followed. I need not add to the opinion I have already expressed as to the procedure which has been followed -to do so would be only to repeat what is already on the record.
The business of the people must go on in any event during the course of the election campaign, and for a sufficient time beyond that to make it possible to carry on the business before parliament can reassemble. Therefore the only alternative with which the house is confronted is the alternative of supply or of proceeding with governor general's warrants. I am convinced, myself, that there are certain limitations upon the use of governor general's warrants, which may not have been fully recognized, and I feel there is no occasion for us to create any uncertainty as to the fulfilment of public
business while this election campaign is under way, and for sufficient time thereafter to call together a new parliament.
Therefore, having stated our case, we will facilitate the proceedings which are before us.


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, I was going to ask the Prime Minister if it was the intention to move that the house sit tomorrow. If it is the intention that we pass such a motion, then may I say that this has been a very long and very arduous day. These have been two days, indeed, in which we have had to listen to long speeches on occasion; and I wish to say, Mr. Speaker, that I think we would advance the business of the house more if we adjourned now and got a good night's rest.
I am not in favour of falling in with the suggestion made by some who have taken up a tremendous amount of time in this house during the past few days. I am going to object to the house sitting beyond this hour.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The hon. member said that if a motion was made to sit tomorrow he would feel that he would have to object to sitting further this evening. A motion was moved at 5.45 this afternoon providing that the house sit tomorrow at eleven o'clock, and that the intermissions and order of business be the same as today. That motion was agreed to. There remains the matter of supply and third reading of the bills that have been reported from the standing committee.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Also the committee stage on those bills.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The committee stage and third reading of the bills that have just been reported from the select standing committee. I would not imagine that would take very much time. It would not really relieve members of the necessity of coming back tomorrow because there has to be royal assent to these matters, and there will have to be consideration in another place of the bill based upon the resolution for interim supply, so that in any event we shall have to come back at eleven o'clock tomorrow. The suggestion made by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew) that his group would facilitate the voting of such supply as is required for the essential business of the country during the period necessary for an election, and to call parliament together, is welcomed by this side of the house, and I wish to extend to him a word of appreciation of that offer of co-operation. If there is objection to proceeding any longer tonight, perhaps the leader of the opposition will understand, and we can take up these mat-

ters when we meet at eleven o'clock. I would hope that the tentative arrangements that have been made to ask the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General to attend for royal assent at twelve o'clock noon can still be carried out.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to say more than that I think most of the members look reasonably fresh, and after all there will be certain advantages, I think, from the point of view of handling the business of the government itself if these bills are dealt with now. They can be disposed of very quickly and will then be ready for final disposition tomorrow. I suggest that we proceed in the committee stage.


Angus MacInnis: I am a little bit tired of the attitude adopted by the leader of the opposition.


An hon. Member:: You are always tired of it.


Angus MacInnis: You are not the only people who can talk here although you have been going about it quite aimlessly for the last three or four days.


Gordon Graydon: You were tired before you came here.


Angus MacInnis: I am not tired enough not to oppose the suggestion made now. I was the one who pointed out before the dinner recess that from the attitude of the official opposition it was quite apparent that they were going to oppose interim supply.


George Alexander Drew: Wrong.


Angus MacInnis: Of course I was wrong. I was wrong until it was pointed out to the official opposition-
Business of the House


Some hon. Members:: You are always wrong.


Angus MacInnis: I was wrong until I pointed out to the official opposition that if they persisted in refusing to vote interim supply they could not stop the government going to the country, that the government would have to carry on the affairs of the country by the use of governor general's warrants, and that it was much better that parliament should vote supply in an orderly way, and thus enable the government to carry on the business of the country in an orderly way. I am glad that my friends have seen the light. It is just about time. After carrying on for the last three days as if the debate was a debate on the budget or some other such general debate it is sheer impudence to ask the house to sit after this hour tonight.


George Alexander Drew: I am not going to extend this debate except to dispose of the statement that it was sheer impudence. That, of course, is so ridiculous that it need not be discussed-


An hon. Member:: It is true.


George Alexander Drew: -except to point out that this house went into supply only yesterday, not three days ago, and that we have been discussing a matter of $600 million for a little over twenty-four hours. We are prepared to facilitate the course of the proceedings.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I think hon. members will agree that we can perhaps finish in less time tomorrow than if we try to do so tonight. I therefore move that the house adjourn, and that the business for tomorrow be, first of all, interim supply and then consideration of the bills reported by the standing committee.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 11.40 p.m.
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Saturday, April 30, 1949