1949-10-25

REQUEST FOR STATEMENT OF GOVERNMENT POLICY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Howard C. Green (Vancouver-Quadra):: I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. On October 14 I asked a question concerning a statement which had been made by Hon. T. C. Davis, our ambassador to China. The essence of the question was whether the government would make a statement early in the week as to Canadian policy with respect to China. On October 17 the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) answered and said that Mr. Davis would be in Ottawa shortly and that when the Secretary of State for External Affairs returned from Lake Success he would make a statement with regard to Canadian policy concerning China. Apparently Hon. T. C. Davis is now in Ottawa. Yesterday he made a further statement to the press, to the effect that communist China wants to do business with Canada. He also said something about Canada recognizing China.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Howard Charles Green: Will the minister make a statement today?


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: The hon. gentleman was good enough to give me notice of his question. It is true that Mr. Davis arrived in Ottawa yesterday morning. Since my own arrival from Lake Success, which was late the preceding evening, I have been able to see him only for a few minutes, because of my preoccupation with other matters arising out of Mr. Nehru's visit to Ottawa.
Mr. Davis of course has been on the spot in China as Canadian ambassador there, and is fully familiar with the situation in that country. I am sure hon. members will appreciate the fact that the government does not wish to make a formal and complete statement with respect to Canadian policy toward China before full consultation with Mr. Davis, and that has not yet taken place. I might, however, say at this time that Canadian policy with regard to the recognition
of any government, in China or elsewhere, will naturally take into consideration the usual requirements of international law. These provide that before a government is granted recognition it must be shown to be independent of external control by any other state; it must exercise effective control over the territory which it claims, and that territory must be reasonably well defined. If and when these requirements are met, then I believe, Mr. Speaker, that consideration should be given to the recognition of a government in China or in any other part of the world.
The Canadian government is in close touch with other like-minded governments on all aspects of the present state of affairs in China, and careful consideration is being and will continue to be given to all the implications arising out of the situation there, which is so important to peace in that area and indeed throughout the world.
I hope that the hon. member who has asked the question will be satisfied with this provisional answer, and that in due course I shall be able to add to it.



TRANS-CANADA AIR LINES VANCOUVER HEADQUARTERS  TRANSPACIFIC SERVICE-ALLOCATION OF PERSONNEL

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Angus Maclnnis (Vancouver East):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Is the minister in a position to add anything to the short statement he made on Thursday last in regard to the transfer of Trans-Canada Air Lines shop work from Vancouver to Montreal? I am asking a question now because of the concern expressed in letters and telegrams received from Vancouver in the last few days.


Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, since replying to a similar question a few days ago I have made inquiries, and I find that of the maintenance staff Vancouver pay roll, T.C.A. is releasing 144 men. Thirty-seven of these 144 have seniority rights, which will permit them to transfer to other stations if they care to do so. In the stores department six men are being laid off, of whom three have seniority rights. These notices have been given and are effective progressively from November 1 to November 15. The greater proportion of

The Budget-Mr. Adamson those being laid off are quite junior in service, having been taken on within the past two years, since T.C.A. first began its program for a transpacific service.
The Canadian Pacific Air Lines have some 300 people on their staff at Vancouver, many of whom have been transferred on a seniority basis from other service points in Canada. However C.P.A. have taken a great number of new employees from the Vancouver area, and have made an informal arrangement with T.C.A. to give first preference to those laid off by T.C.A.
The situation is that T.C.A. had organized a transpacific headquarters at Vancouver. So far T.C.A. has been able to keep the men busy on major overhaul work, but now that that work is coming to an end it is necessary to cut the staff at that point down to the ordinary overhaul requirements of the air lines for domestic service.


Angus MacInnis: May I ask a supplementary question? In letters which I have received it is stated that the cut in staff would mean that some planes would have to make the return trip of 6,000 miles, to and from Montreal, without being overhauled.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I cannot say as to that, since it is an internal operating matter. But I would point out that a very considerable maintenance staff is being left, consisting of some 150 men, and I assume that that staff will take care of the overhaul duties to be performed at the Vancouver end of the system.
I think we all have sufficient confidence in the safety of operations of Trans-Canada Air Lines to believe that the staff is not being cut down to a point where overhaul cannot be taken care of at the Vancouver end to the extent required.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, October 24, consideration of the motion of Hon. Douglas Abbott (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Rowe, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Thatcher.
Mr. Rodney Adamson (York Wesf):: The Budget-Mr. Adamson only a three per cent rise in the total average cost in sterling of United Kingdom production. That is extremely encouraging from the point of view of the United Kingdom, but it is something which we must consider as having a serious effect on our economy. The danger is that we shall soon be selling less and less, and not that we shall be insufficiently paid for selling more and more. I want to quote a statement made several days ago in London by Right Hon. L. S. Amery. It is as follows:
The only real and permanent remedy for the present world unbalance lies in creating a new balance by building up nation groups comparable to the United States, thus providing a market for an internally balanced expanding production. The natural way of doing so is by common currency arrangement, and by the flexible methods of tariff preference, and not by the clumsy restrictive devices of quantitative import restrictions and quantitative bilateral bargains. That is the solution clearly envisaged by the recent economic resolution of the Strasbourg assembly. It is even more the obvious policy for the British commonwealth.
There are only two serious obstacles in the way. One is the attitude so far taken up by the United States administration and foolishly accepted by other nations, that all arrangements for mutual cooperation are "discrimination" and therefore anathema. The other is the very serious effect on Canada if she then finds herself excluded from all her natural markets and forced into the position of becoming a mere appendage of the American economy. That is a problem for Canada to decide. For her and for the United States, no less than for us, a solution of the world problem involves a fundamental change of outlook, but nothing less will meet the case, and, until it is achieved, no amount of conferences between statesmen will set the world right.
What does Mr. Amery's statement mean? I think the most significant words in it are those with reference to the Strasbourg assembly. There we have a group of European nations getting together. What is the first thing they do? What is the first problem on their agenda? To find a currency mutually acceptable to each other. Apparently they made great headway in that direction.
Our natural markets-and they must continue to be-are offshore markets, markets abroad, markets in Europe, and once the markets of the Orient. We see the Strasbourg assembly and the British commonwealth finding a method of mutual acceptance of currency, but we find ourselves still with our currency pegged to the United States dollar. There can be only one result. Progressively we are going to be shut out of market after market throughout the rest of the world. That is a very serious thing to contemplate. I realize the difficulty, but the government is taking no fundamental steps to sell to those countries which have been and still are our natural and historic markets. The United States has been a great market for many of our products, certainly the greatest market for products such as wood pulp

and many of our base metals. At the present time we do a far greater business with the United States than with all the rest of the world put together. Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, the United States is essentially a competitive economy with ours. While they have a deficit economy we can sell to them, but just as soon as that deficit position fills up, just as soon as we find ourselves really competing with their industries, mines and farms, that market will disappear.
There are many devices which the United States has used in the past, and we have suffered from them heretofore. As the millennium does not appear to have arrived, it is altogether likely that she will use them in the future against Canadian products just as soon as they are a serious competitor in the United States market.
We in this party have suggested before now a universal currency. We have suggested convertibility. I have suggested a free gold market, some method whereby our currency can be used by the rest of the world-not just the sterling bloc but the whole of the world. The government apparently are frightened because of the effect of the impact of the world economy if we set our currency free. They have so stated in an apparently inspired article which appeared recently in the Financial Post, headed: "Why government didn't allow dollar to find own level".
I will not read the article but it expressed the fear of the effect on our dollar by speculators and others who would trade in exchange and cause wide fluctuations in the quotations of Canadian dollars in terms of United States exchange and thus upset legitimate trade between the two countries. I would point out that with a powerful central bank and the great number of extremely capable foreign exchange operators in the chartered banks, I should not be very much afraid of serious arbitrary fluctuations of our currency in the United States. We control the issuance of our own currency. That was the fear expressed in this article in the Financial Post.
The basic evil of exchange control does something else, I think; it restricts and inhibits the investment of United States funds in Canada. It is not that the restrictions themselves are particularly onerous; it is the fact that restrictions are there at all that does so much harm to the free investment of United States funds in this country. One way to correct our unbalance of trade with the United States would be to encourage the investment of United States funds here; yet because of these restrictions that investment is inhibited-despite what is probably the greatest boom in oil the continent of North America has ever seen, which is being largely financed by United States capital. I admit

that this has brought to Canada a tremendous amount of United States capital which is very valuable; but in spite of this there is still some hesitancy in regard to such investments. The other day I was speaking to a lawyer, a citizen of the United States, who has an estate in Canada. He was doing everything possible to persuade the beneficiaries to maintain that investment here rather than liquidate it and move it out. Their argument was simply that while the restrictions in themselves were not particularly onerous, there were still restrictions on the free movement of capital. This they would not abide.
Now we come to the essential move which had been forecast for months, the acceptance of the specious argument of devaluation. Following the devaluation of the pound, and in fact the general devaluation of all currencies, we were forced to take similar action; but devaluation is not the answer. We still have a hard currency, even though it is worth only 90 cents. It is still a hard currency, and if you have none of it you are not going to buy even 90 cents' worth of our goods. It is of no use for a restaurant to decrease the price of a meal from $1 to 90 cents if you do not have even the 90 cents. This is another problem which arises from the continuous shackling of our currency to the United States dollar.
One of the recent names for inflation is devaluation. It is a word which conjures up, both in the mind of the seller and in the mind of the buyer, a sort of trick solution which is likely to bring something for nothing in international trade. The policy of devaluation is no answer to an unbalance of trade. Threatened by an external drain of real assets and gold, the monetary authorities do not resort to credit restriction and an increase in the interest rate. They devalue. Devaluation does not solve the problem. If a government is oblivious to the rise in the foreign exchange rate expressed in a free market, it can continue the policy of credit expansion for a considerable time, and even devalue its currency repeatedly; but the nemesis of the crack-up ending of the boom, if the credit expansion is carried to the extreme, will destroy its monetary system. Today credit expansion is an exclusive prerogative of government. Credit expansion, which is inflation in its purest form, is so popular that to speak against it is tantamount to committing political suicide.
The other day the minister took great pride in the reduction of the funded debt. That is a very good thing, and I think it should have been reduced a good deal more. But if we are faced with a major contraction of our north-south trade and at the same time lose our historic and natural markets abroad, we are going to find ourselves faced not only
The Budget-Mr. Adamson with currency expansion and inflation, but also with a trade unbalance the like of which no country has yet experienced. Our apparent prosperity and the extremely high level of our trade since the war form one of the great dangers we see ahead. We, and I particularly, have suggested over and over again that the problem of convertibility should be solved; that we should establish a common denominator, which has always been gold, to make our currency convertible. Many times in this house I have suggested a free market for gold in Canada, and I still believe that is one method we should have adopted.
I had hoped that a more realistic solution would be found when the so-called dollar talks were held in Washington. No matter how you devalue, no matter what you say your currency is worth, it will not be worth what you say it is until somebody else will freely buy it in the open market. That applies to all goods and services in world trade. The hatred of gold has inspired the superstition that omnipotent governments can create wealth out of little scraps of paper. The struggle against gold by all socialist and neo-socialist governments is a part of the great process of destruction which is the overriding symptom of the trend of our time. Autocratic controllers in the national treasuries fight the gold standard because they want to substitute autarchy for free trade, and, in extreme cases, war for peace and omnipotent government for liberty. This is the overriding principle which has driven governments ever since the end of hostilities.
We are in a position of apparent prosperity. Through the Marshall plan, we are the major sellers to the countries of Europe. These are in reality not true sales, however, but are partly gifts resulting from the generosity and foresightedness of the Marshall plan administrators. Eventually those sales will stop. The other day someone said that Europe could be self-sufficient in wheat within three years. This statement was made by an international authority on wheat. If that is so, our major export through the Marshall plan, namely wheat, will cease. If we can find no medium of exchange which will enable us to sell our wheat to the hungry countries in the world outside the North American continent, fifty per cent of our Marshall plan exports will cease, and we shall be left with an immediate unbalance of trade even before the end of ECA. There will then be no generous plan to help us out of our difficulties, and our historic natural markets will be gone. In the words of Right Hon. Mr. Amery, we shall be merely an appendage of the United States. That is the position I foresee in the comparatively near future, Mr. Speaker. I believe

The Budget-Mr. Blackmore that difficulty can be solved only by finding some medium of exchange which will enable us to sell our goods to the rest of the world.


Mr. J. H. Blackmore (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, were it not for the high degree of esteem in which I hold the hon. member (Mr. Adamson) who has just taken his seat, I would be tempted to make some caustic remarks concerning the general tenor of his statement. I believe it would be a good thing for the hon. member, however, to consider three questions. First of all: If there had been no gold created in the world, does he suppose mankind would have been able to live on the earth, or would the people have had to die because the Creator forgot gold? If all the gold in the world today were to be accumulated in Fort Knox, where a good share of it is already, I wonder if the hon. gentleman thinks the rest of the nations would have to give up and die because they could not get any of that gold. If, owing to some unusual or unexpected mishap while men were tinkering with atomic bombs, they were to discover some concoction the emanations from which were to decompose all the gold in the world, should we all die because there was no gold? The hon. gentleman, however, concluded his remarks on a more hopeful note, in that he implied it might be possible to discover some other medium of exchange.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I happen to attack the problem from the other point of view. I do not believe we need gold at all in this world. I believe the thing that counts is the resources of the world and man's ability to convert those resources into goods and services useful to man. If we could approach this monetary question from that realistic angle, what a difference it would make! We now live in an age in which man, with the wonderful technological skills and machines at his disposal, can produce more goods than all the people in the world could possibly use if they could all obtain everything they wanted. If some means could be discovered, upon which we all agreed, whereby we could distribute those goods to the people who need them, we would be on our way to a veritable garden of Eden in which all men could enjoy the good things of the world as the Creator unquestionably intended they should.
So much having been said with respect to the hon. gentleman's remarks, I will pass on to something more hopeful. I do believe there is a way out of our difficulty without destroying our freedom, without setting up dictatorships or bureaucratic controls which result in the destruction of goods and threats to punish men because they produce too much. I have been told that in the United States they are actually contemplating a measure

under which a man who produces extra wheat next year, and is caught feeding it to chickens, will be punished. This indicates an anxiety on their part to see to it that no more is produced than under the present financial system can be consumed. I believe that is just as silly, just as useless, as it was to shoot cattle and drop them into the Mississippi river, or pile up surplus oranges and burn them, as was done at the beginning of the last depression. Evidently in the United States of America the same kind of mentality prevails today as that which plunged that great nation into the depression and dragged the rest of the world with it, where it remained until finally a war was necessary to rescue the world from the depression. Surely the time has come when someone with a little influence and prestige will say something that will light the way out of these difficulties.
I shall say something about this in the course of my remarks. It is not going to be as hopeless as the words of the hon. gentleman seemed to indicate. I do hope there is somebody in the Conservative party who is capable of learning that goods and not gold constitute the determining factor as regards money.
Everyone is worrying about a shortage of United States dollars. Britain needs Canadian dollars too. There is a shortage of hard currencies. Now, why is that? I shall not attempt to answer the question, because I have other matters to consider. It is astonishing, Mr. Speaker, that dollars can be short while goods are plentiful; for dollars are only tickets or claims to goods. Unless there are dollars to claim the goods, then certainly the goods appear worthless. Surely, if that is so, where goods are, dollars can be.
Reports are now circulating concerning surpluses in the United States which are embarrassing the authorities. They do not know what to do about these surpluses. There are reports of gathering surpluses in Canada which are going to confound the scarcity-minded people. At the same time, there are reported shortages in the have-not countries and the less developed countries. The fact that only yesterday the Prime Minister of India was in Canada recalls that medical investigations reveal that about ninety per cent of all the Indian people today are undernourished; that the average income of the wage earner in India is $26 a year. Famine stares them in the face on every hand, while in the United States and in Canada we are meditating on how to limit the production that we are to bring into being in the next year. Canada, fortunately, has not gone as
ms

far as the United States has, and never did become quite as foolish even in the last depression. I hope they never do.
It is reported in the Christian Science Monitor of September 21, 1949, that the FAO experts are contemplating the creation of a $5 billion fund to buy the surpluses of the world and render them available for purchase by the have-not nations with their own currency. This is a hopeful suggestion. The only thing that I think hon. members are asking with considerable anxiety is this: How far do we have to go in increasing our taxes or our debt in order to be able to supply the money which will be necessary to create a fund sufficiently large to buy the surpluses we are lucky enough to produce when we really turn ourselves loose in the matter of production. If the nation has to be penalized by being taxed for enough money to buy the goods that have been declared surpluses, then hope has departed from the world.
I should like to say a word or two that will guide us to some hope. In the parliamentary library there is a book with the title "Economic Tribulation", published in 1941, by Vincent C. Vickers. I fancy the name will commend the book to all. hon. members, whether they have just come to the house or whether they have been here before. From one of the chapters of this book, entitled "Democracy or Financial Dictatorship?", may I quote two excerpts? From page 59 of the book I quote as follows:
Unless we can contrive and design and establish an improved and reformed financial system, which is the first essential towards a new and better economy in our own country, no satisfactory outcome of the war is possible; for where there is still widespread injustice and discontent there can be no ending to that war, unless it be a tangle of internal revolts and revolutions.
Therefore this man concentrates his attention on the financial system. Do we agree with him, or do we refuse to give any credit to this man? May I quote another passage from the same chapter, this time from page 65:
Strenuous efforts have been made over some twenty-five years to patch up the money system in an attempt to make it last a little longer; but it has stood, and now stands, in the way of progress and social betterment, thereby creating universal unrest and a tendency to obtain by force what cannot be obtained otherwise. For the sake of our children let us take warning in time. Let us discard the policy of inaction and pretence and boldly face the fact that it is not the inevitable smoke of the galley-stove which assails our nostrils, but that a fire is raging in the hold and that the ship of state is in imminent danger. Our democratic system and our existing financial system can no longer live together. One of them must give way to the other.
May I now quote two short extracts from his recommendations? What does he think needs to be done to change our present financial system into that which would be better
The Budget-Mr. Blackmore suited to this age of plenty in which God has placed us? From page 75 of his book I read two of several recommendations. These two are:
1.	Any additional supply of money should be issued as a clear asset to the state, so that money will be spent into existence, and not lent into existence.
When we reflect that there is not a dollar that goes into circulation in Canada that is not borrowed from somebody-in other words, every dollar of our money is lent into circulation, and not one dollar of it is originally spent into circulation by the government-. we find that there is some cause for careful study of our own financial system, if this man knows what he is talking about. I read the next recommendation:
2.	The abolition of the debt system, where all credit is created by the banks and hired out at interest to the country.
You would think that he had his eye particularly on Canada, would you not? All he did was cast his eye on every country which is operating on the present debt-creating financial system which our government and our people seem to be absolutely enamoured of.
Who was this Vincent Cartwright Vickers that we should give any attention to his idea? From a note in the forepart of the book by Wilma Cawdor, his daughter, we learn that he was born on January 16, 1879, and educated at Eton and Oxford. He was deputy lieutenant of the city of London, director of Vickers Limited for twenty-two years, director of London Assurance. He resigned in January, 1939. He was made a governor of the bank of England in 1910 and resigned in 1919. He later became president of the Economic Reform Club and Institute. He is just about as experienced a man as our Graham Towers, on whose every word we all seem to hang with breathless adoration.
What does he say about himself? In his foreword which he wrote in the last months of his life in 1939 he said:
I who write this need no proof of the importance of the money system to the very lives of the people and even to the future existence of the British race, so long as that system fills the position which it now holds in our national economy.
Again:
I therefore decided to take the unprecedented course of offering to my readers my own qualifications for putting down before the British people the very precarious condition of our monetary system as it exists in this country today; that this our money system forms the most important part of our economic system, and that the nation's economic system forms part of our social system.
And again:
Ever since that day in 1926, when, not in arrogance but with humility, I felt it my duty to explain to the governor of the Bank of England, Mr. Montagu

The Budget-Mr. Blackmore
Norman, that "henceforth I was going to fight him and the gold standard and the Bank of England policy until I died''-(and well I remember the words of his reply!)-I have been an ardent money reformer. Some few years afterwards I resigned my long directorship of Vickers, Limited; since when I have spent much time and money in advocating the necessity for a reform of the monetary system.
And again:
I bear no ill feeling against my own class or any other class. I seek neither notoriety nor kudos. If someone can change my convictions I shall be only too ready to alter them. But in fifteen years nothing whatever has occurred to make me alter my views. I still believe that the existing sytem is actively harmful to the state, creates poverty and unemployment, and is the root cause of war.
And again:
This personal confession is merely to demonstrate that I have seen both sides of the picture. My opinions are based upon my own experience and knowledge. I am today in the unique position of being absolutely and entirely devoid of animosity and wholly disinterested. I feel myself no longer under any restrictions whatsoever, except to guard against doing harm to my country or giving offence to anyone.
These sound like good qualifications; one would feel prompted to listen to a man like that, would he not? Here is one man, eminently qualified, who frankly advocates government-created debt-free money to be spent into circulation, and not lent as is our money under our present financial system.
May I turn now to another man. This time I select Right Hon. Reginald McKenna, longtime chairman of the Midland bank in England. Reginald McKenna was one of the fourteen members of a committee on finance and industry appointed on November 5, 1929, by the British government as the Macmillan committee to inquire into banking, finance and credit. I should think that would be sufficient qualification at least to entitle him to some attention on our part-and probably to a little thinking about what he had to say. He, along with others, inquired into banking, finance and credit, and prepared the Macmillan report on finance and industry.
In January, 1936, in his annual report to the shareholders of his bank, he made a statement which is of great importance to all men of our race. His report is printed in the London Times of January 30-it is available in our parliamentary library to anyone who wishes to read it. May I read a passage from that report:
Additional currency, however, can now be furnished by the authorities, if they choose to exercise their powers without reference to the central bank's holding of gold. Thus the nineteenth century, which brought into general use a means of payment hitherto scarcely known outside London, brought also the machinery whereby it could be subjected to intelligent control.
We learned that a shortage of money may be just as vicious in its effects as an excess, though deflation has still a touch of virtue about it in the

minds of many people. Nevertheless it is becoming more and more widely recognized that greater productivity calls for an increased supply of money, for otherwise prices will fall, business will stagnate, and the growing productive capacity will be unused.
For money to be truly "sound" there must be enough of it to finance an ordinarily growing volume of trade, yet not so much as to give rise to an inflationary movement of prices.
One would think that man was a Social Crediter, would he not? I suppose the Progressive Conservatives would eject him from their party if he made a remark like that. I am almost sure the Liberals would stop him from talking from the floor of the house. And if he did not, they would see that he did not receive any further nominations in his constituency.


Mr. Knowles:: He would get an independent nomination-and win, as happened yesterday.


Mr. Brooks:: Not bad.


John Horne Blackmore: 
An hon. Member:: He can read it in Hansard.


John Horne Blackmore: The Budget-Mr. Blackmore to one commodity like gold. Guernsey's method had obvious advantages, and speaking broadly, achieved its objects and was successful.
I wish to comment on that passage. Sir Norman Angell seems to assume that a price rise occurred in Guernsey island as a result, but I challenge that assumption. I say that there is no evidence whatsoever in "An Example of Communal Currency" or in any report of the meetings of the finance committee that there was any rise in price. I quote further from page 271 as follows:
Why did Guernsey succeed where Rhode Island failed?
Briefly, because the Guernsey notes (to take those issued in connection with the market house) were very limited in amount, issued with reference to revenue-bearing property shortly to become fruitful, "goods moving into consumption." Each note stood for consumable goods, which, if not actually in being, were coming into being; and the issues were limited to the value of those goods (the goods, in the particular issue under consideration being the market house).
I wish to point out that Sir Norman has erred just slightly there. In another book of his called "Your Money", written seven years later, he gets just a little nearer to the recognition of the full truth about the real backing of money. It was not the market house which gave value to the money, it was the goods and services which were surplus in Guernsey island for which the people could spend money, when they got money for building the market house, without causing a rise in price. It was the resources of Guernsey island standing behind those goods, and the capacity to produce more goods, to absorb money as fast as the money came into circulation, that provided the backing. As long as there is a surplus of goods and services in the country not being bought by the money at present in circulation in that country, new money can be issued debt-free and wisely spent into circulation without any danger whatsoever of a rise in price.
That is the absolute truth concerning the real backing of money; it is far removed from the gold backing idea.
How much money can be created and used by the state? Enough money can be created and used, spent wisely into circulation, to enable people to buy the surplus goods on the market. If this is done and no more money is issued than enough to enable people to buy the goods, if that money is put into the hands of people who will buy, and is used to consume goods, then there will be no adverse results from the creation and issue of debt-free money.
Debt-free money can be used to distribute goods internationally. For example, we are now worrying about where we shall get the money to put into this huge $5 billion fund. Provided we have a large enough surplus of goods in Canada we can create enough

debt-free money to put into that fund, and when spent it would buy Canadian goods that were surplus on the Canadian market. It would do no more harm than the money which is ordinarily spent in Canada to buy goods, let us say wheat, by a nation like France, or even the United States. If this device is used by an increasingly large number of states, then the financing of the international distribution of goods by the surplus-producing countries can be managed without debt and without taxation.
Similarly debt-free money can be used to distribute goods internally without additional taxation or debt, and without loss of freedom. I recommend to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), and to the earnest men behind him in the house, that they should set to work immediately to discover the uses of debt-free money so that when the Minister of Finance next goes to an international or an Anglo-Saxon parley at New York or London, or wherever the meeting may be held, he will be able to offer a suggestion that may have some possible chance of being of real assistance to men in these trying times.
As a means of dealing with the economic tribulation in which we find ourselves, I recommend the principles of Social Credit.


Mr. J. M. Dechene (Aihabaska):: Mr. Speaker, in rising today to ask you for the privilege of the floor, I do so not because I have a momentous message to bring to the members of the house nor because I have any remedy to offer as a quick solution of the great problems which this parliament, in common with other parliaments throughout the world, is called upon to face at the present time. I rise because I feel I have a duty to perform and an obligation to fulfil to the people who have again honoured me by re-electing me a few weeks ago after many decades in the public life of Canada. If I may be allowed to speak of myself for a moment, I was re-elected by the largest majority ever given to any candidate chosen to serve the great constituency of Athabaska.
If, in the course of the remarks I desire to address to the government and the members of the house, I sometimes speak of localities which may be strange to some of the new members of the house, if I speak of regions which they do not know, I wish to assure them that I do not do so because of any desire to speak about local and parochial issues, but because what I wish to submit to the government and to the House of Commons today concerns a great part of the northern sections of the provinces of western Canada, the northern parts of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. I shall mention names which may seem strange and unknown to you,

but may I remind those of you who come from the provinces by the sea of the tremendous size of the western provinces and the great distances they cover. May I remind hon. members, for instance, that the constituency which I am representing for a third time is larger than the province of Nova Scotia, and that within its boundaries are to be found resources that would enable the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) to meet all the obligations of Canada if we proceed to develop them as they ought to be developed.
The other day the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) warned the new members of the house of the feeling of frustration they may experience when they first come here, and the feeling that their time seems to be wasted. Let me remind them of the advice I gave to some of the young members of the Liberal party some years ago. I told them that changes in a country are not made just by talking about them. They do not take place from day to day. For instance, we are now discussing the matter of bringing our constitution up to date. Changes are brought about by discussion, debate, serious talk, and by seeding thoughts in the fertile soil of the intelligent minds of the Canadian people. Some day they bear fruit.
I have known young men to tell me how discouraged they felt at times, but ten years later they found, if they remained true to their ideals and carried on preaching in the desert, that what they had hoped for had come to pass. Personally I have reached the age of three score and ten and a little over, and I sometimes have a feeling of frustration. That is why I am on my feet today. I sometimes feel I have not done much to reward the loyalty which I have received from the pioneering population of northern Alberta. I sometimes feel I have not done enough, and I ask myself what more I could have done in order to serve them as they deserve to be served. I only have my voice left to tell you of their plight, their desires, their ambitions and their ideals. I hope hon. members of the house will bear with me for a few minutes today while I do that.
I have no written speech. It is in my heart. I hope to speak from my heart on behalf of the people I love and whom I wish to help. During the last election campaign my opponents said that Joe Dechene was too old. I gave the people a pledge that in the waning years of my life, in the evening of a life which I have devoted to them for over four decades, I would give them the best that was left in me, and they thought it was still better than was offered by much younger men who attempted to wrest the seat from me.
The Budget-Mr. Dechene
I speak on behalf of the people of my constituency this afternoon when I place before the House of Commons their plight in so far as railway communication is concerned, something we must have in western Canada. I refer to the through line north of the Saskatchewan river serving the constituency that I represent as well as those to the west and to the east of Athabaska. I am not suggesting the initiation of a new plan of construction. I am not asking the house or the government to undertake a new program of railway construction. I am only asking parliament, the government and the executive of the Canadian National Railways to fulfil their solemn pledge and to carry out their word of honour to the people I represent in this house.
This is nothing new, sir. Time is passing very quickly, but I should like to give the history of this matter. It began in 1909-and I was already active in politics then-when the government of Alberta had to meet the demands of the pioneer population which had spread throughout the northern part of the province, and decided to undertake a program of railroad construction by guaranteeing the bonds of the railway companies up to $13,000 or $15,000 per mile according to the type of ground they had to cover and the cost of construction. The lines whose completion I am now advocating were originated at that time, forty years ago, so I think we have been fairly patient. Gradually the construction proceeded, fifty miles, one hundred miles or one hundred and fifty miles. Later, when the Canadian Northern became part of the Canadian National Railways under a broadminded man of vision as minister, who I think is still alive-I refer to Hon. Charles Dunning -and another man of vision as president, a great program of expansion was undertaken on the western prairies in order to serve those settlements which had been created. Hon. members will remember the bills which were introduced in this house providing for the construction of fifty miles of line here and fifty miles of line there.
When those bills were adopted and the money was voted by parliament, settlers poured into the newer portions of the country which were to be served by these branch lines. That became particularly true when drought struck the southern portions of Saskatchewan and Alberta and these people had to move out. I wish I had time to describe the plight of those settlers moving by the thousands across the prairies, coming to the north where they could hope for rain, in order to start anew. I know of men who left homes worth $10,000 and more, who had the finest equipment ruined by year after year of drought, and who moved to the north. I remember

The Budget-Mr. Dechene how the horses were played out because they had no feed left on the farms; but they moved slowly north, bringing with them a cow or two and the remnants of their furniture, seeking a new home in the north. And of course they went to the districts which were to be served by the proposed lines, which were not merely talked about but which had been arranged and contracted for.
Hon. members may ask why these people went to those districts. They went because the word of Canada and of the Canadian National Railways was behind the development of that country where they were trying to start again. I remember the women, whom I described in this house on a previous occasion. I saw whole caravans pass by my home in Bonnyville. One of these new lines served that town, and that was why I went there: to help in the development of a new region by those pioneer elements which after all are the lifeblood and backbone of this great country. I can remember those men leaning over in their seats, tired and discouraged; but the women sat looking ahead, as the women of Canada have always done, as they did during the first great war and the last war. They still had faith that they could conquer a new world and make another home for the children God had given them.
Then we had the Tory government. Unfortunately I have to come to this, though I do not like it. That was a government of cowardice, lack of vision and fear, which in 1931 stopped this work. That government left the settlers fifty, sixty, seventy-five miles from the nearest railroad. When I was in business in my town I remember cashing relief cheques every day not by dozens but by hundreds. People had to be provided with food and clothing because they could not raise anything and could not earn anything, and they were given relief instead of being put to work building those lines. I am sorry to be beating my desk; I am probably imitating an hon. member across the way, but I feel so strongly about these matters. The Tory government of 1930-1935-and I hope it may be the last Tory government this country will ever have to pay for-went so far as to pay the Tomlinson Construction Company, which had the contract for grading the line from my own town of Bonnyville around to St. Walburg in Saskatchewan, an amount of money to cancel the contract and stop the work, while people were starving all along that line through lack of work.
With all these drawbacks, with the work being stopped, and since most of these settlers had nothing left, you would hardly expect them to get by. But, Mr. Speaker, they have succeeded in developing that country. It is now prosperous, except for the fact that these

settlers have no communication with outside markets. They have to carry their goods by truck or wagon for many miles; but along that one line of rail from Edmonton east to the towns of St. Paul and Heinsburg, on into Saskatchewan, to Battleford, Turtleford and St. Walburg, you can see farms with fine buildings. The men and women who went through Bonnyville years ago tired and discouraged now hold their heads high and have homes again. But they are saying to the people of Canada, "We came here on the strength of the word of the Canadian National Railways, an institution controlled by and belonging to the people of Canada. Now that the war has been over for five years we are asking you to come through and build these lines, and give us the access we must have to both east and west."
My time is passing quickly, and I am afraid I may not say all I want to say, though I am speaking as quickly as I can. I might read a resolution which appears in the official journals of the legislature of Alberta for 1932. In that year a by-election was held in the riding of Athabaska, during which a young Conservative, one of the ablest men in that north country-he is still alive- carried that seat because a majority of the people thought that after having elected a Liberal in the election of 1930, by electing a supporter of the government we might have that work continued, after Mr. Bennett and his ministers had ordered it stopped. But that young man came back in 1935 discouraged, and he never ran again. I was a member of the Alberta legislature at that time, as I had been for some years previously, and in March of that year I moved a resolution, which was carried unanimously, asking the government and the Canadian National Railways to fulfil their promises to the people of that northern country. Well, we wasted our time.
Then the war broke out. Of course we knew nothing could be done during the war; but those hon. members who have done me the honour of listening to me or who have read Votes and Proceedings and the Orders of the Day will have noticed that each year during and since the war, in order to keep the matter to the fore, I have placed similar resolutions before this house. I believe the time has come to fulfil that promise to the people. From 1909 to 1949 should be long enough to wait. During this time towns have grown prosperous. I could name you many in the constituency of my friend the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Decore). There are Smoky Lake, Vilna, Spedden and St. Paul, Elk Point, and others in my own constituency which have developed into centres of population, although they were sixty-five miles away

from the nearest railroad. Try to duplicate that anywhere in Canada. These towns have developed with all the facilities, churches, schools, and everything. The railroad was sixty-five miles away or more and goods had to be shipped by team or light truck to Bonny-ville, my home town.
At a place called Abilene, the railway divides and one branch goes southeast to Heinsburg and the other branch goes up to Beaver River. At these points the Tory government stopped construction. I have never seen anything more desperate. Talk about frustration! I have heard the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) talk about frustration and I remember his eloquence when he pointed the finger of scorn at the treasury benches. I am reminded of the trestle over the Beaver river which cost nearly one million. It crosses the valley on cement piers over the water and only a small span of steel is needed. What a saving there would be for those farmers who are hauling their stuff to market if this bridge were completed. I say to the administration and to the new manager of the Canadian National Railways that we should go back to the days of Sir Henry Thornton, the days of construction. The time has arrived to complete this railway link, and I challenge any railway authority in Ottawa to say otherwise.
I have spoken with many railway officials. A short time ago I was speaking with a railway official in Edmonton who told me the line would not cost us two cents because of the business that will originate along that line. There will be traffic for Battleford, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and even for the Hudson Bay Railway up to Churchill. Only a few miles along that line one finds the new oil field of Red water. We have heard arguments about keeping all this oil in the west. Imagine! This field will produce about 750 million barrels of oil as prospecting indicates and a short distance away from it there are the vast resources of Leduc. Transportation is needed to develop these vast resources.
Twenty miles beyond St. Paul, and about fifteen miles west of the present Canadian National railway lines terminating at Heinsburg, a salt mine has been discovered. It has been developed and a great factory has been built. This mine is now serving the needs of the prairies without the necessity of importing salt from eastern Canada.
I am going to tell you something. The Canadian Pacific runs through that country between the main line of the Canadian National Railways and the Saskatchewan river. The line, which was built some years ago, runs from Lloydminster into Edmonton. It is taking about two-thirds of the traffic
The Budget-Mr. Dechene from the Canadian National Railways. The Canadian Pacific did very well to obtain this line; they must have good lawyers. Their railway line is only a few miles from the salt factory of which I spoke a moment ago. In spite of the necessity of hauling goods up and down the hills of Saskatchewan, many farmers are transporting their wheat, cattle and hogs south to the Canadian Pacific. In this way they receive a cent or two more. A highway is now being built from the town of Vermilion to Elk Point in Athabaska and unless the Canadian National Railways and Mr. Gordon become alive to the situation they will find that three-quarters of the traffic from that country will go south to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Do we want that to happen? If we do not, then during the course of the next few months steps will have to be taken to meet the situation.
Let me remind the house that the surveys have all been made and specifications have been prepared. The cost has been ascertained under present prices which are much higher than they were when the original plans were made. Unless these branches are built from Heinsburg to St. Walburg and from Beaver River to St. Walburg to close these gaps, all the oil, wheat and cattle shipments will be diverted to the Canadian Pacific. I am sure the Canadian Pacific hopes we will not bridge these gaps. Again I remind hon. gentlemen that the plans were prepared. Even the contracts were granted, so let us go ahead.
Often I have asked myself, what is the price of loyalty? What are the rewards of loyalty?-loyalty to your country, loyalty to your family, loyalty to your church, whichever it is. Loyalty is, I believe, the greatest virtue in the world. It is because of this loyalty, sir, that I am trying to obtain these things for the people of Athabaska which they ought to have. They deserve these things from this government. It is because of loyalty to these pioneer settlers that I am making this speech. Here I am talking about myself again. I could name forty places throughout that country, from Edmonton north, east and west, in which I was the first man to hold a public meeting; that was fifty years ago in some cases. The name of Dechene is still good, and the people know that I try to honour my obligations. It is for that reason that I am asking for the privilege of speaking to you today.
I should like to speak about something else for a few moments. Oil has been discussed in this house. There is one thing I wish to bring to the attention of the people of Ontario and Quebec, where the money and the great factories are. I would ask them why they do not move some of these factories or branches thereof to the source of
1122	HOUSE OF COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Dechene power, which is in Alberta. It is so logical. What do we do now? We pay a bonus on coal and haul it all the way down to eastern Canada. There is talk now of pipe lines to bring the oil to the east. We have to do that because within a year the province of Alberta will produce enough gas and oil to supply the whole of the Canadian market. This will save over $300 million of valuable United States currency. These resources are there and only the transportation facilities, which are now being undertaken, are necessary.
One can see how foolish it is to move the power, whether it be gas, oil, or coal, hundreds and thousands of miles away. Would it not be easier and cheaper to bring the factories to the sources of power? These factories could be built on top of the coal seams of Alberta. Fifteen per cent of the coal reserves of the British empire, if we can still mention the empire, are in the province of Alberta. A short time ago at a place called Pickardville a gas well was discovered, but it was necessary to cap it because there was no market for the gas. The people of eastern Canada could actually benefit tremendously through cheaper manufacturing costs if the factories were moved to the source of power.
There is something else about which I have spoken in this house before. You will say this is a provincial matter, and in a way it is. I do not believe we should be parochial in our approach to these questions. This is the parliament of Canada. I am proud to be in parliament, sir, because with the little ability I may have it gives me an opportunity to speak from my little corner to the people of Canada as a whole. The Liberal party, which went out of power in 1930, passed the act in 1926. Finally it was accepted by Alberta, and the natural resources of Alberta, the lands, the gas, the mineral rights and everything else, with the exception of a few, were turned over to Alberta and Saskatchewan by an Ottawa Liberal government.
I hold in my hand a copy of the Edmonton Journal of March 25, 1924. It contains a picture of myself. I was a pretty good-looking fellow in those days. The headline reads:
Dechene urges cash reward for oil well.
Some said that I was foolish, but I felt that there was oil under my feet in Alberta, but I felt something else, and I still feel it. I do not care what I may be told. This tremendous wealth that is now being taken out of the bosom of the earth in Alberta, as I believe it will later be taken out of Saskatchewan, does not belong to any government. It belongs to the people of those provinces.
The other day a few hundred acres of land in Alberta were sold to one of the oil companies for over $3 million cold cash for

just the right to search. No oil had yet been found there. What did the farmer who owned the land get? A smile, and not a very pleasant one. I stand on solid ground, sir, when I repeat that if it was a new matter for me to preach and to foster I would still not leave it entirely to Alberta. I was a member of the legislature of Alberta long before any living member here now from Alberta. There are possibly only two of the party who went out in 1921 yet alive, who are survivors of the disaster when the Liberal party was put out of office, and I am the only one left in public life. In those days I preached not only for the return of the natural resources but also for the return of the mineral rights to the owners of the soil.
Up in my country, as I told you, sir, there were settlers at Bonnyville and Cold Lake and all over that country, and some of them were ninety miles from the nearest railroad. They operated; they carried on. They felled the trees, picked the stones and developed this land. It was a difficult and tremendous job. Few people in this country would ever undertake the job or go through what these people went through, but they did it. They carved out farms in that country long before the railway came. They had to drive their cattle and their hogs sixty-five, seventy and eighty miles to the nearest town. Just the other day oil was found on some of this land or on the next quarter section, but the farmers in that area never got anything for it. It is too late now to talk about the return of mineral resources because so many millions of acres have been alienated; but something can still be done in Alberta and Saskatchewan, or anywhere else where these resources are found, to see that the farmers out of whose land this wealth is taken receive a royalty and that the whole royalty does not go to a provincial government to use it as it sees fit. At least five per cent of these royalties should go to the farmers, to the men, who by their sweat and hard work have developed these lands, and to the mothers who raised families of five, six, seven, eight and nine children under indescribable conditions. They showed courage and made sacrifices which it is beyond the greatest poet of the English language to describe. Why should they not get them? Let us think that over. Let us show the people of Alberta that the people of Canada, of whom I am a humble member, believe that right and justice should be done to this pioneer population of the northern part of Alberta.
I see that my time is nearly exhausted. We did not have much of a crop in our district this year. For some reason Nature did not smile on us as she usually does. That has happened for two years now. But we are

carrying on as we did during the war. At that time we had a program entitled, "Canada Carries On". We shall carry on until these railroads are built. As I said, they were contracted for. What would you think of a man in business or of a firm or corporation who made a contract, signed it, and then under stress arranged with the other party to cancel the contract? You would say that man does not keep his word. You would look upon him as a quitter and say that you would not do business with him. Are we, the people of Canada and the government of Canada, going to give that kind of reputation to the Canadian National Railways. I say no. I make my plea to you gentlemen of the House of Commons this afternoon. My days in politics may not be long. There is not much for a man of my age to hope for except the last trip which will be a happy one I believe because of the love I have for my fellow man. When I was a young fellow in Alberta I had great faith in the destiny of that province. I saw a vision for the province. I knew-I do not know how I knew-but I knew there was oil under my feet. I knew of the wealth of its soil. I knew of the great ranches, of the cattle and the hogs, and of the wealth that would be taken out of the soil of Alberta. Later on when it was taken out of its bosom, as it were, I felt like a conqueror. I decided in my humble capacity to do my share to bring about development and progress. I thought that, when I had climbed one hill, I had reached the top, but it was only the beginning of the climb, and there were vast fields for development. Then I realized that we never reach the top. If we carry on with faith and loyalty to our country we pass on our vision to our younger people, many of whom I see in front of me this afternoon.
I have a vision of the mighty Rockies standing loyally as a sentinel. They are loyal because they never move from their post. They are guardians, as it were, of the wealth of the western prairies. It seems to me that God in His wisdom placed them there as a barrier to anyone who might invade the wealth of these great plains of western Canada. Perhaps He never overlooks anything, but did He foresee that the evil genius of humanity would find an instrument of war to fly over these mountains and bring disaster to humanity? I say that the people of Alberta have the Rockies as a guardian against war. If some modern enemy should try to cross the Rockies as Hannibal crossed the Alps, do not fret, the government of Canada, the Liberal government served by young men of vision and courage, will see that every protection is afforded. From the generous breasts of the buxom woman that symbolizes the western prairies we shall have the milk of abundance,
The Budget-Mr. Mclvor the warm milk of abundance, of power, of oil, of grain, of everything to give to the rest of Canada and to the world. All that we are asking from you this afternoon through my humble instrument is to come to the help of this pioneer population and see that they are given all the advantages of production and transportation.


Mr. Daniel Mclvor (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, like the hon. member for Athabaska (Mr. Dechene), who has just taken his seat, I too have something to say. When the budget was first introduced in March I said it was a good election budget. Today I think it is even better than that: it is a good afterelection budget.
Before a budget is brought down there is a good deal of uncertainty. Only two parties know what is in it, and neither of them will tell. One is the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), and one often has to talk to the Other silently. Neither the right hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Howe) nor I used the election budget in our campaigns, because we had so many good things to talk about we never got that far down the list. The worst they could say about me was that I was an old man, just like the government. I came back and thanked them for that splendid tribute, because they could not have paid a higher one. Even though a man be up in years, if he has common sense and a Christian character to back up what he says, he is not afraid anywhere.
I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe). I pitied him before he rose to speak, because he had a heavy task ahead of him. It was a man's job, but he measured up to it splendidly. We at the head of the lakes know him in industry as a man among men, a man who leads his executive to play fair with the workers in the big plant up there.
I know he said we should have more trade with Great Britain. We should; but I should like him or anyone else in the house to say how we are going to get it. How can we sell to anyone who has not the dollars to pay? Let me tell the hon. member how we can sell to Great Britain without receiving dollars in return. Let us do what the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) did during the depression, when there was too much butter. He did not dump it into the lake; rather, he sent it out to the various relief centres throughout Canada. A resolution was passed, about which I have some knowledge, thanking him for that splendid gift.
We can sell our wheat to Britain if we offer it on a loan basis, or give it to them free of charge. After all there is nothing wrong with that. We know what the plan

The Budget-Mr. Mclvor of the Great Teacher was-feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick. If Britain has not enough wheat, what can be done? If we have more wheat than we need, what are we going to do with it? I leave those matters in the hands of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) and the Minister of Agriculture.
The budget gives me certain reasons for assurance. I believe it has been made clear, both during the election campaign and since, that the dominion government is willing to do its share toward paving the trans-Canada highway from the Altantic to the Pacific. If the provincial governments play the game, then they will rise to the occasion, and we shall have a highway across this country. Fort William wants it dearly, because not altogether selfishly we have some things up there which we believe all Canada should have. We have the greatest wheat-handling machinery in the world; there is nothing like it to be found anywhere else. The head of the lakes is known as the world's bread basket.
I was amazed the first time I saw two big cars of wheat pulled into an elevator, turned up and down, and emptied in a very short time-and all without the use of any shovels. As I have often said, we have the greatest scenery to be found anywhere in Canada- scenery second not even to the lakes of Kil-larney. Stand on Mount McKay, and one would be enrapt with the beauty he would see. There we see Thunder cape and Thunder bay, and over yonder the sister city. With all this beauty it would be one of the greatest tourist attractions in Canada.
And what about fishing? Why, you people do not know anything about the attractions of fishing. You would forget even to say those bad words, because the fishing is so good. The assurance from the federal government that the trans-Canada highway will receive its full support brings comfort to us at the head of the lakes.
The second assurance in the budget concerns housing. Anyone who heard that dignified, athletic, young and brilliant Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Winters) the other day would say at once that there was a coming young man who is doing a great job. The minister gave us the assurance that the little man, the man with the small income, one day before very long will own his own home. Let us say to the minister that we thank him for the work he is putting into his job.
We take encouragement at the lakehead from the hope given to us by way of support for our gold mining and other mining interests. The Minister of Mines and Resources
tMr. Mclvor.1
(Mr. Gibson) is not in his seat, but let me say to him that we appreciate his getting out and seeing the gold mines for himself. While I was speaking a few days ago, where was the minister? He was away up yonder in northern Ontario making an inspection, and getting' firsthand information so that he would know whereof he was planning.
Much discouragement has come to the goldmining industry in the last five years. Many of the smaller men went out of business. Why? Because they could not make enough to pay their help. I trust that the gold mining interests will now be in a better position, having in mind the deflation of the dollar and the bonus.
The other day we were pleased when the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Knight) moved a resolution sponsored by the teachers federation of Canada. As an Irishman he made a good speech-even though he is a C.C.F.'er. He did it well and his efforts are appreciated. I know that, like the rest of us, he wants to see every last boy and girl in Canada get an education that will help to fit them for the tasks of life. So his word of encouragement.
The Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin) has done a splendid job in helping hospitals whose boards were becoming discouraged. I am looking for further advances in the way of social security and I have one suggestion to make. A pension should be provided for those suffering from arthritis and other incurable diseases. I know of a family that came from Saskatchewan the head of which is suffering from arthritis. He is unable to go to work and his wife cannot go out to work because she must look after him as well as three lively children. The province of Ontario cannot do anything for them because they come from Saskatchewan. I have tried to help them along with some of my friends. I hope the minister will see his way clear to provide pensions for those suffering from arthritis and other incurable diseases.
I would like to have spoken for half an hour on a statement made by a recent visitor to Fort William from the United States. This gentleman said that a revolution was coming in Russia. I did not think about what he said at that time, but since then I have given some thought to his statement. I have been thinking of the man who once led Germany. The country that treats God as a myth and leaves Him out will sooner or later come to trouble. This gentleman said that within three years Russia would have a revolution. We shall watch to see whether he is right. He was a steady-going Christian, a Presbyterian, if you

know that kind of man, and he would not say that sort of thing without having some information to back it up.
I have a request to make of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott). I studied phrenology a little and I think that anyone with any knowledge of phrenology can learn more by looking at a man's head than he could otherwise. When I look at the minister I see the bump of perception is highly developed. I also see the bump of honesty and the bump of fair play fairly well developed. That is why I make my plea for the removal of the sales tax on hearing aids.
I have one and it has been of great help to me, but everyone in Canada has not the large salary I have. Many people cannot afford to pay $175 or $195 for a hearing aid. Many have to buy cheaper instruments, but they are dear at any price. As the minister's bump of fair play is highly developed I hope he will realize the need for the removal of the sales tax on these hearing aids. The duty has been removed already. The sales tax has been removed on wheel chairs, medical appliances and artificial limbs and it should be removed on these aids. I am sure if the minister does remove that tax more hon. members in this house will soon have the benefit of these hearing aids. The sales tax is eight per cent but the invoice is made out in United States dollars so it amounts to almost ten per cent in Canadian funds. It would be a great help if the tax were removed.
I congratulate the minister upon his budget. The minister should be thanked for being consistent in bringing down the budget. I think he held off as long as he could in order that more taxes would be paid and the national debt reduced. Of course there are others who thought there might be another reason for that. But he stuck to his task and brought down the same budget, with two added improvements. I wish him every success with it.


Mr. T. L. Church (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to take part in this debate for many reasons, one being that I am always ready to go on with the inquiry. This debate affords us a last opportunity to air the grievances facing the country. This government has obtained the greatest majority of any government since confederation. I believe the people should rule because after all is said and done we should have government of the people, by the people and for the people. But are we getting that at the present time? Do the people back in the constituencies know what is going on here? A great many people read Hansard and others depend upon the radio.
The Budget-Mr. Church
Public meetings are not what they used to be in the olden days. I remember when I was the head of the city going to meetings where there would be a couple of thousand people.
I have spoken as often as seventeen times in one night, starting at the east end of the city and going through the different wards.
Since I entered this house I have always believed in certain economic principles. I have always felt that there are some economic truths that should not be forgotten. We should uphold the Christian religion. There should be continual security against external aggression. There should be safety for seaborne trade. There should be maintenance of internal law and order so that all men may reap what they have sown. There should be impartial justice. I have always believed that our judiciary should be free from interference or pressure on the part of the executive. Have we that now? I am very doubtful.
There should be sound finance and strict supervision of our national income and expenditures. We have now seen the budget -the same one as proposed last spring, with few changes. We are just holding a post mortem on it. The money has mostly been spent already with the interim supply that has been granted. I believe in an empire shipping policy and the continuance of the long-sighted development of our commonwealth trade, as suggested in the amendment moved by the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe). Without that Great Britain and the dominions will perish.
I believe in the promotion of all measures which will improve the health, wealth, happiness, peace, welfare, comfort and social conditions of the people of this country. I believe in private enterprise and initiative as against state trading and the nationalization of industry. I should like to see the younger members who come here from the municipalities assert themselves once in a while and not be yes-men and nodders. That is what I called them a few years ago, yes-men and nodders who follow the government whether it is right or wrong. I believe that as private members we should not go with the multitude and do wrong accordingly. A nation should never threaten another unless it is willing and ready to make its threat real. What is the use of our boasting we have security when we know very well we have not? Let us tell the people the truth. You can ask the people to make sacrifices without fear, but in my opinion in some ways it is dangerous to offer them a bribe.
It is not the commonwealth's business to be the policemen of the world. If you trust the people they will trust you. Do not be afraid to tell the people you have made a mistake because the Canadian people do not

The Budget-Mr. Church expect their leaders or their members of parliament to be God and never legislate against human nature. Those are some of the principles which I have supported in the house for many years.
We are only holding a post mortem on the estimates because most of the money has been spent. It is the second budget we have had this year. I have a high regard for the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) because I have known him and his family for many years. I have a high regard for his fine human qualities of mind, head and heart, because after all the heart is the head. I want to call his attention to the fact that the government has put him in the position of a coroner conducting an inquest. The money has largely been spent, and we have had practically the same budget twice in one year. The House of Commons has not been asked to appoint the public accounts committee to examine the auditor general's report. You will find that he makes certain recommendations. We have had interim supply. We are now into the tenth month of the year, and the public accounts committee has never been convened.
The auditor general's report mentions a great many things, and one is the taking of Cook's tours of the world by certain people. Instead of one or two delegates a whole carload is sent. That is one matter the Auditor General mentioned recently. Why should we send a whole carload overseas in the manner indicated when they do not do anything when they get over there? When I was head of the city of Toronto we had a parsimonious controller. I refer to the late ex-mayor Foster who was then a controller. He called these trips joy-rides. That was his description of them. I do not call them that. I am glad to see those who get a trip enjoy it. I am not a man of that stamp, but I think there should be some economy, as the Auditor General told us a while ago, and not send a whole carload when one or two would do. Some are even sent overseas.
We used to have a parliamentary association that did things. It was one body where there was no politics. They took a joyride, as my friend Foster used to say, all over Europe. They were not satisfied to go to Great Britain but went all over Europe. Money has been spent in sending people to meetings of the United Nations. In fact, a former lady member of the house, for South Grey, Miss Agnes Macphail, proposed sending me to the league of nations. She said if I went over there I would be converted, but far from it. God forbid that as a humble member of the house I should ever be sent to the league of nations. I know what the league of nations did. They

caused already two world wars, and the United Nations will cause another one. It will be strike three on the whole world if they get their way.
I sympathize with the Minister of Finance because he does not prepare all his own estimates; other ministers have a say in them also. Where do the two old parties stand today? In the by-elections yesterday only the two old parties made any showing, the Liberals and the Conservatives. I said the other day that the two old parties were like old soldiers; they never die. They are re-created and are being re-created today so that the policies may be carried on that were propounded by Sir John A. Macdonald, by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, by a former leader of the government, Right Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King, whom I respect very much as a friend and for what he has done for the country. There was also a former minister of justice, the very able Mr. Lapointe. We have had Mr. Cardin, Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, Sir Allen Aylesworth, Right Hon. Mr. Meighen, Sir Robert Borden. All these men were diametrically opposed to tearing up the constitution in the manner indicated by the action of the present heads of the government. I say as far as possible we should not forget the past because, after all, as Walter Lippmann says in his textbook on foreign affairs you can learn a lot from the past about education, political and economic matters, and especially about foreign policy.
One of the glories of the Victorian era was that the people kept the state. Now, according to some of the letters I receive, the state is keeping about fifty or sixty per cent of the people. They are looking after them from the cradle to the grave. I am one of those who support social services, but I believe there should be some other way of accomplishing the objective, and that as far as possible we should adapt ourselves to the conditions of the country and the ability of the nation to pay. We should consider the ability of small merchants and returned men to pay. Where does the government get the money? They get it from income tax and sales tax. That is where it is secured. It is a direct charge on the consolidated revenue fund.
What have we to show for it in the Toronto district? The people spoke yesterday in a Toronto riding. We have not had a cabinet minister from the Toronto district since 1935, nearly fifteen years ago. Look at the income tax and sales tax paid by the people of Toronto. Yet we have never had a minister from the Toronto district. It is the centre of the educational system, the financial system, and of trade and commerce. It is away ahead of anything else. Although there are

four or live Liberal members representing that district today there is not one of them in the cabinet, and we will not have one as long as the present government is in office. The people have spoken. Troops from the Toronto district under Colonel Denison of the bodyguard saved the prairies -the Queen's Own, the Grenadiers. They went out there to Cut Knife pass, The Pas, and all those places and saved the prairie provinces. Those men marched across by lake Superior in the depth of winter, with the temperature 45 and 50 degrees below zero. All they had were biscuits and hardtack, yet during the Riel rebellion of 1885 they saved that country from being dislocated. Yet now, sixty-four years later, that Toronto district is not considered worthy to have a cabinet representative.
While the present budget is very good in some respects, in others it is very defective. It is true that the 8 per cent sales tax has been removed from fuel oil used for heating, and that the tax on cider and other wines containing 7 per cent proof spirits is reduced; but the tax reductions are very small. For 1948-49 the revenues of the country amounted to $2,771 million, while the expenditures were $2,176 million. Back in 1896, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier took office, it only required $36 million to run the whole of Canada; and dear knows we have not doubled in population since that time. Now they spend that much in a day. They count that day lost in which they do not spend more than that. According to these revised estimates, the revenue for 1949-50 is expected to be $2,550 million and expenditure $2,460 million. No change has been made in the personal income tax. That is too bad, because the small businessman and the wage earner were expecting that something would be done for them.
When we come to look at the housing situation we find that it will be difficult to qualify under any of the schemes suggested by the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply (Mr. Winters) or the central mortgage company because we have no cheap land left in the city of Toronto. Neither do we have a steam suburban railway service; and the government has taken too much money out of the pockets of the people. Refunds from the prior budget were supposed to be made six months ago, but now we find that an act of parliament will be required before the money that has been collected can be given back. That is unfortunate, because many people were looking for that money to help pay their income tax for the current year.
The amendment moved by the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) calls for an inquiry into our trade position. Trade is 45781-72
The Budget-Mr. Church falling off, and now our constitution is being tampered with by the federal government in the manner I indicated a moment ago. I quoted several Liberal ministers of justice and chief justices of Canada who were opposed to any such action, but the government are going ahead anyway. All this has happened since the election in June. Where are our ships today? They are tied up in our harbours because we are not exporting the maximum quantity of goods to the markets of the world. We should be sending forth products of the sea, the soil, the forest and the mine, but our export trade is falling off and our ships are tied up.
Then I come to the dominion-provincial conference. There is no reason in the world why that should not be held immediately, before they make the British North America Act into a scrap of paper. Why not call this conference now? Most of the provinces have chosen new leaders within the last few years, so a conference could be called at any time. Why not call it here and now, while parliament is in session? Such a conference is very badly needed. It is a case of now or never, or perhaps of now and forever. Why should we have to wait months or years before such a conference is held? I can see no reason for the delay.
The amendment moved by the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe speaks for itself. So does the report of the Auditor General, who has very little control over things now. Look at those in the other place. I asked the former head of the government many times if he would not arrange for a joint meeting with those in the other place to see if they could not be given more work. The Senate was never intended to be top-heavy as it is today; that was not the principle in mind when it was decided to have two houses of parliament. The other day I received a letter from a gentleman who said he had noticed in the Citizen that the Senate would not sit. He wrote to me and said, "The Senate will not work," and went on to express a little humour about our friends in the other place. I believe they have a great many able men over there, however, and if they were given more work this chamber would be relieved and parliament would not need to sit so long.
The amendment of the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe deals with trade, and particularly with trade within the commonwealth. We all remember the depression of the thirties, when it was only preferential trade that saved this country in the early thirties. Under it the trade of Britain with Canada was increased by 45 per cent while the trade of Canada with Britain was increased by 44 per cent, and still both Canada and Britain

The Budget-Mr. Church traded with the whole world as well. We have had an example of the blessings of preferential trade. Now, they have hanged it on the sour apple tree alongside John Brown's body. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) said that was a good place for it, but I believe it would be a good place for some of his policies. It would be a good thing if that were to happen to some of these Geneva pacts and the unilateral agreements that have been made with some countries.
Today, the Liberal party has gone back over one hundred years and is adopting unilateral trade. This was Mr. Fielding's policy and it was the policy of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who in 1897 proposed a six cent per bushel preference on wheat. The United Kingdom was our traditional market and, because of inability to solve the sterling difficulties, we are losing that market. I can tell you that the time is not far distant when the government will have to face the country. I believe Britain will be starved under the present Attlee policy. Why should they be starved out when Britain is our best customer? Would any of the departmental stores, such as Eaton's or Simpson's, treat their best customers that way?
This house should adopt the amendment to have an economic conference with the rest of the British commonwealth in order to draft a policy to help the mother country. Such a policy would cover grain and all food products. The commonwealth countries have been our best customers, our steady customers, along with allied France and Italy. This conference could adopt a policy for the future which would avoid the United Kingdom being dependent on the United States for everything. After all, we are partners. I admire the people of the United States. It is a great nation, but it is well able to look after itself. We are just friendly competitors, and should be friendly competitors to that extent. We should stand by those who stood by us.
Was there anything more striking than the appearance of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) at the British industries trade fair in which there were those magnificent exhibits from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Rhodesia and other crown colonies? I believe the minister did a lot of good work in that connection, as did his predecessor who is now a senator in the other place. I hope that something will be done about that matter.
May I refer now to other matters that have come up here. I should like to say that the granting to women of the right to vote was started at the city hall in Toronto. A married woman only had a dower right in the property; she could not vote. We went

to the legislature and had a bill passed which gave two votes per house, and that spread all over Canada. The provinces then prepared the federal lists. In view of what women did in the war we went to the premier of Ontario in 1917, Mr. Hearst, and he gave them the ballot in provincial matters. Automatically, women secured a federal franchise; that is the way it started.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 67, for the relief of Margaret Helen Milne Ward.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 68, for the relief of Lizzie Brogden Hibberd.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 69, for the relief of Eric Jeffery Burn.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 70, for the relief of Agnes McIntosh McKillop McBride.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 71, for the relief of Elizabeth Audrey Beauclerk Quinlan.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 72, for the relief of Thelma Blanche Collins Geick.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 73, for the relief of Thora Becking-ham Lock.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 74, for the relief of Hugh William Lloyd.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 75, for the relief of Linda Emilia Wilen Robitaille.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 76, for the relief of Brina Paskin Warshaw.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 77, for the relief of Thomas Hanusiak.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 78, for the relief of Loretta Waugh O'Dell.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 79, for the relief of Marie Rita Plante Boyer.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 80, for the relief of Dorothy Waxman Sherman.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 81, for the relief of Laura Cohen Kaminsky.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 82, for the relief of Annie Marion Lesnichuk Krushelniski, otherwise known as Annie Marion Lesnichuk Krush. - Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 83, for the relief of Marjorie May Smart Birmingham.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 84, for the relief of Anna Sandberg Goldbloom, otherwise known as Anna Sandberg Gold.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 85, for the relief of Olive Frances Harper Morrison.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 86, for the relief of Delphis Brous-seau.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 87, for the relief of Gladys McCar-rick Bonnemer.-Mr. Winkler.

Bill No. 88, for the relief of Bernice Beverly Corry Cohen.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 89, for the relief of Bessie Zinman. -Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 90, for the relief of Marion Lillian Gargan Thomson.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 91, for the relief of Mary Piekos Rynski.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 92, for the relief of Victor Chrys-solor.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 93, for the relief of Blanche Ruth Serokey Smith.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 94, for the relief of Raymonde Belanger Skaife.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 95, for the relief of Elizabeth Maud Gwendolen Tobi Hearns.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 96, for the relief of Ruby Muriel Keith Gray.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 97, for the relief of Laurel Jeanne MacGregor Thomson.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 98, for the relief of Edith Sara Hamilton Warlund.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 99, for the relief of Donald Duncalf Birchenough.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 100, for the relief of Joan Gertrude Fox Corbett.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 101, for the relief of Richard William Henry Wark.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 102, for the relief of Eileen Dorothy Richards Turner.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 103, for the relief of Janey Beryl MacPhail Shuttleworth.-Mr. Winkler.


Mr. Clarence Gillis (Cape Breton South) moved: the second reading of Bill No. 60, to amend the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act (enforcement).
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see that hon. members on the opposite side of the house are co-operating in getting this bill before the house. Since we have discussed this matter on previous occasions I am reasonably sure that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) will give us a lot of help with it at this time.
The purpose of the bill is to repeal sections 43, 44, 45 and 46 of the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act. If this bill passes, and the sections of the act now known as the national labour code are repealed, it will have the effect of giving the national labour relations board the right to enforce the act. This is the board to which employers and employees come when they have a dispute. The board hears all the evidence, understands the nature of the dispute, and is then in the best position of anybody in 45781-72J
Industrial Relations
Canada to determine when either one side or the other may be committing infractions of the act. If the board decides that either employer or the employee is guilty of an infraction of the act it will have the right, under these amendments, to enforce the act by laying in the magistrate's court the information along with the evidence they have gathered. They will place the matter in the hands of the magistrate's court for the purpose of having imposed whatever penalties are contained in the act.
Some people argue that this would give the board judicial power. It does not. It is merely placing that body in the same position as the income tax department. The income tax department determines when an infraction of the Income Tax Act is committed. They have the right to initiate proceedings in the courts and have the courts fix the penalty which is contained in the act.
Since the national labour code was enacted we have watched it and we have seen how it works. One case was taken before the courts in Quebec, namely, the Hull Transportation Company v. the Brotherhood of Railway Employees. In that case, while there is no doubt about rank discrimination so far as discharge of members of a union for union activities is concerned, nevertheless the magistrate found in favour of the employer on the ground that the brotherhood did not prove their case on the basis of evidence, taking of course as his cue or precedent evidence as presented in a court of law for violations of the Criminal Code, and the matter was thrown out. The men remained dismissed. It has been my contention for a long time that legislation that is not enforced is not worth the paper on which it is written. If we are to have a national labour relations board we must give it some status. As it is constituted today the employer and the employee can appear before it. All the board can do is sit and listen, and no matter how unreasonable or unfair, or how many violations of the act are committed, the board is powerless to do anything about it. When the board institutes proceedings in the court on the basis of the evidence it has assembled the magistrate is in a position to determine the legality of that evidence and so on. If the employer or employee is not satisfied with the decision of the magistrate's court there is a provision in this bill giving them the right to appeal to a higher court.
Not wanting to talk this measure out, and wishing to give other hon. members an opportunity of saying something on it, I am going to rest the matter there. I think this is a step that is absolutely necessary to give the labour relations board some status so

Industrial Relations
that those who come before it will realize that they are dealing with a body which has semi-judicial power and is in a position to determine who may be committing an infraction of the act. It gives the board the right to institute or initiate a prosecution in the court as the income tax department can do now. The motor vehicles acts in the provinces are enforced in that way. In my opinion, unless we are prepared to enforce this legislation, it is absolutely valueless as it is at the present time.


Mr. J. H. Dickey (Halifax):: I should like to speak on this bill. I had the privilege of being a member of the committee which studied the new dominion labour code two sessions ago. It has been a source of some wonder to me why so many bills amending this new labour code have been brought in both in the last session of the last parliament and in the first session of the new parliament. It appears to me that in spite of the very thorough and considered attention which was given to all these matters by the industrial relations committee and by the house in considering the labour code during not one but two sessions of parliament, it has been found appropriate to bring in substantial and important amendments to the code adopted after such care and attention. It would seem that hon. members feel that the labour code, and the provisions which have been placed in it, should not be given an opportunity to be proved by the test of time, and if they are to be found to be unwise or unworkable, or not what is required, then to change them in the light of experience. I would certainly prefer to see this labour code, as it was adopted by the last parliament, given an opportunity to prove itself or not to prove itself. If it appears, in the light of experience, to be not what the country needs, then it will be time to change it when the manner and extent of the changes which will be necessary become apparent from the experience of both employers and employees, the departments of labour in the provinces, and the Department of Labour of the federal government.
The bill sponsored by the hon. member deals, not strictly speaking with the question of enforcement, but rather with the procedure whereby punishment or sanctions may be applied to people or organizations which have committed breaches of the provisions of the labour code, and have committed what are termed improper practices or unfair labour practices.
The theory underlying the bill is that there should be set up in the board certain judicial functions which it does not have under the labour code as it now stands, and which in fact the board was never intended to have.
[Mr. Gillis.l
The board, as envisaged by the labour code, is one which deals with the question of certification of bargaining agents for a group of employees, and other questions which proceed, not on a basis of legal rights and wrongs, but upon the basis of the provisions of the act relating to certification or the various regulations in relation thereto.
This is not a board which through its personnel or in the manner in which it has been set up, was intended to act as a court of law. The hon. member and some others may consider that the functions of a court of law are simple, and that any other body which could be picked could carry out those functions just as easily and just as thoroughly, and with the same competence as if done by a court.
I submit that is an improper simplification. Our system of justice and our courts of law have been developed over many centuries of use of the common law. The personnel of our courts are carefully selected from men who have spent their lives in the practice and profession of law. The proposal here is to substitute in a very narrow field a board which has neither the experience of nor the talent required for a court of law, but which in this instance would be asked to carry out the functions of a court of law.


Clarence Gillis: The same as the income tax branch. There is no difference.


John Horace Dickey: The income tax branch is not a court of law, but a court of law with special jurisdiction has been set up to deal with questions arising under income tax legislation.


Clarence Gillis: It asks for the same powers as the income tax branch now has.


Mr. Mitchell:: The hon. member would not compare a labour dispute with a breach of the income tax law, would he?


Clarence Gillis: Yes.


Humphrey Mitchell: I thought you knew what you were talking about.


John Horace Dickey: I submit the comparison is not a good one. In any event a special court, properly constituted, has been set up for that particular purpose. They have not established a board to adjudicate upon certain features in connection with the preparation of income tax returns, and then, after having set up a board for that purpose, turned around and given it the functions of a court of law.
The actual provision within the bill itself is that an employer or trade union may apply to the board for an order that any person, employee, trade union, employer or

employer's organization has violated a provision of the labour code. Then the second subsection states:
Upon receipt of such an application, the board shall by notice in writing, direct the party making the complaint and the party against whom the complaint has been made to appear before it.
In other words the board may call the parties before it. Then subsection 3 states:
After hearing the evidence as aforesaid the board may, if it is of the opinion that there has been a violation of the provisions of this act, issue an order indicating the precise nature of the violation.
We find here the use of the technical term "evidence". I would direct the attention of hon. members to the fact that in dealing with matters of a criminal or quasi-criminal nature the question of evidence is a technical and difficult one. It is one which requires the attention of a judge or a court of considerable learning and wide experience, so that the laws of evidence may be applied fairly and properly and with justice to all parties.
It may be argued by the hon. member that when he uses the word '"evidence" he does not mean that anyone will be restricted by the rules of evidence, or anything of that kind. If that is so, then I submit it is most improper to ask parliament to legislate in a manner whereby any citizen of this country may be brought before a body given the powers of a court of law, and at the same time be denied through legislation the protection to which he is entitled under the laws of evidence before any other court in the country.
The power of the board is to issue an order indicating the precise nature of the violation. It is one thing to issue an order indicating the precise nature of the violation, but I am wondering if the hon. member intends that the board shall say who is responsible for that violation. That is certainly not set out in the bill. However, if that is the intention, then in addition to indicating the precise nature of the violation the board must be given power to indicate who has been guilty of the violation.


Clarence Gillis: That is the intention.


John Horace Dickey: From the next subsection it would appear that that is the real intention.


Clarence Gillis: That is the intention.


John Horace Dickey: My hon. friend says that is the intention. If so, I submit it should be set out in the language of the subsection, because it might be somewhat difficult to read that interpretation into the words used.
Subsection 4 states:
(4)	Where an order is made by the board pursuant to subsection three of this section, the chief executive officer of the board or anyone acting through or under him, may file such order, duly certified by the chairman of the board, in the magistrate's court of the jurisdiction in which the
Industrial Relations
violation referred to in the said order took place, and the magistrate of the said court shall, by summons issued in the usual manner, thereupon direct the person, employee, trade union, employer or employers' organization against whom the order was made to appear before him and shall impose upon such person, employee, trade union, employer or employers' organization the penalty or compensation provided in this act for the violation specified in the order of the board. For the purpose of any proceedings taken under this subsection the fact of the violation shall be sufficiently proved in any court of law by the filing of the said order of the board certified by the chairman of the board.
The important aspect of that particular subsection is that, having set up the board as a court of law and giving it the responsibility of dealing with the evidence on which one of the parties bases its claim that a violation has been committed by the other party, of determining the precise nature of the violation and, I am informed by my hon. friend, deciding who is guilty of the violation- having assumed that responsibility, the board is then empowered to abandon the matter and to turn it over to the ordinary judicial authorities, to hand to a magistrate what amounts to a mandatory order to pass sentence upon the person who the board says is guilty of a certain violation. I submit that that is an absolute departure from our whole conception of the administration of justice in this country.


Clarence Gillis: What justice?


John Horace Dickey: My hon. friend says, "What justice"?


Clarence Gillis: Yes, I say, what justice?


John Horace Dickey: I am not going to discuss the administration of justice in this country. If my hon. friend is not satisfied with the way in which justice is administered in this country, I am sorry for him.


An hon. Member:: Let him go to Russia.


Clarence Gillis: You get as much as you can buy, no more.


John Horace Dickey: My hon. friend is entitled to his own opinion, but that is not an opinion that is shared by anyone else in this country.


Mr. Smith (Calgary West):: The remark that you can get as much justice as you can buy is strictly against all the rules of debate in this house and should be withdrawn.


Mr. Speaker:: I am afraid that remark reflects on the judiciary and I would ask the hon. member to withdraw it.


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Speaker, if it is offensive to you, I will withdraw it.


An hon. Member:: Oh, no.


Mr. Fournier (Maisonneuve-Rosemont):: It
is offensive to everybody.

Industrial Relations


An hon. Member:: No condition.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member has withdrawn the remark.


John Horace Dickey: I think it is improper to suggest by legislation or otherwise that the magistrates of this country are officials to whom any board or body can issue a direction to impose a sentence upon a person who has not been before them in the ordinary manner in which justice is dispensed in this country. The magistrate is to be ordered to pass a sentence upon persons who have not been before him and in connection with which he has not heard any evidence. The fifth subsection of the proposed bill reads:
(5)	If, in the opinion of a magistrate, the order of the board is ambiguous or its meaning not clear in any particular, he may refer to the board any question or matter for clarification by the said board.
There is certainly nothing objectionable about that. Then the sixth subsection reads:
(6)	The board may appeal from the decision or judgment of a magistrate.
I am completely unable to understand the purpose of that particular subsection except that it is absolutely improper. To state that the board may appeal from the decision or judgment of a magistrate is meaningless because I submit that in fact there is no judgment or decision which a magistrate can give. Under subsection 4 the magistrate is directed to pass sentence upon a party who has been selected by the board as being guilty of a violation. That is not in any sense of the word a decision or judgment of that magistrate. It is a decision of the board and the magistrate is simply the official who decides what penalty will be imposed upon the person selected by the board.
I submit that the only purpose that particular subsection could have is this: When parliament legislates its words are taken in context and construed strictly; when parliament purports to give the power of appeal, and the courts are construing that power they are inclined to say that parliament must have intended to deal with the matter of appeal in a complete manner and to set out the way in which the appeal is to be brought and the persons who are entitled to appeal. I submit that if this subsection is enacted by this parliament we shall have a strange system whereby a board would hear evidence, make a decision and then pass over to a magistrate a direction as to who shall be sentenced.
If the person sentenced by the magistrate tried to appeal his conviction the courts would say that parliament had intended to deal completely with the question of appeal in subsection 6 and that, as parliament had decided that the board could appeal, by inference it was meant that the individual
[Mr. Fournier (Maisonneuve-Rosemont) .1
could not appeal. If we pass this subsection I submit that we shall be laying ourselves open to grave danger of being accused of denying to citizens of this country, union members, employees or anybody else, who come within the purview of this legislation, the right to appeal a decision or judgment which that individual feels is unjust and by which he is aggrieved.


Clarence Gillis: The hon. member knows that that is nonsense.


John Horace Dickey: My hon. friend says that I know that that is nonsense. I do not know that that is nonsense; I know it is absolutely correct. I should like to refer now to the sections which it is proposed to repeal and replace by the single section set out in the bill. The point to notice there is that the main subject matter dealt with in sections 43, 44, 45 and 46, which it is proposed to repeal, is in the main very different from the subject matter of the new section 43 which it is proposed to place in the act. Section 46, for instance, provides in general terms that:
No prosecution for an offence under this act shall be instituted except with the consent in writing of the minister.
It was felt by the industrial relations committee, and by the parliament that passed the act, that the minister should be consulted on questions of prosecution under the code.


Clarence Gillis: One-man dictatorship.


John Horace Dickey: My hon. friend says "one-man dictatorship"-


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not believe the hon. member thinks I am a dictator. He is just kidding the troops.


Clarence Gillis: You may not always be there.


John Horace Dickey: My hon. friend seems to enjoy making these interruptions.


Clarence Gillis: So your speech will look intelligent.


John Horace Dickey: Thank you very much. The fact is it is a wise provision to have the minister consulted in these matters. The federal Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) and the ministers of labour for the provinces have heavy responsibilities with respect to matters of industrial relations. I think that the manner in which the labour departments of the federal government and the provincial governments have dealt with these matters should be a source of great pride and satisfaction to the Canadian people. It is proper that the officers who assume these responsibilities should have some right of consultation when parties to disputes believe they have been aggrieved to such an extent that they feel they have to resort to prosecution to secure their rights.

The final point I wish to make is that section 45, which it is proposed to repeal, sets out that:
A prosecution for an offence under this act may be brought against an employers' organization or a trade union and in the name of the organization or union and for the purpose of such a prosecution a trade union or an employers' organization shall be deemed to be a person . . .
If we are going to have any machinery whereby the labour code can be administered and enforced, then trade unions and employers' organizations must be regarded as legal personalities. They must be regarded as persons who can be brought before the courts, and against whom or for whom judgment can be rendered. The bill would not have the effect of making enforcement of the labour code possible but of making it impossible, because the proposal is to take out of the act the provision which makes it possible to proceed against an employers' organization or some other body that is unincorporated. If that is done, then I submit that the elaborate and improper procedures which are proposed by the amendment would be absolutely ineffective except against individuals.


Mr. C. E. Johnston (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say a few words on this measure. I think possibly what the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) had in mind was to introduce amendments to the act whereby a dispute between labour and an employers' organization could not be prolonged for weeks, months, and sometimes years before a settlement is reached. If that were the purpose of the proposed measure then I would agree with it. I think there have been occasions when such proceedings have been dragged out so long that it injured the industrial relations of the country.
I am afraid I cannot agree with the bill as it is put before the house. I take it that its purpose is to clarify the enforcement part of the legislation, but personally I cannot see that it clarifies it very much. In fact, I hold the view that possibly it creates a little more confusion than there was in the first place. I want to review the language the hon. member for Cape Breton South used when he introduced the bill. At page 650 of Hansard of October 11, 1949, he had this to say:
By this proposed change, if two parties came before the board with a dispute the board would have the authority to determine which party had committed an infraction of the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act. The board would be empowered to declare one or the other of the parties guilty and then turn the matter over to the magistrate's court.
I cannot conceive of that being the best type of machinery to settle disputes. In the
Industrial Relations
first place the board was set up as a labour relations body. If you attempt to convert a conciliation or labour relations board into a court then I think the purposes of conciliation and arbitration have been defeated. After the evidence is taken before the board it is to be turned over to a magistrate. I should like to read further from what the hon. member had to say when he introduced the bill.
Whatever penalty this act empowered the magistrate's court to impose would be imposed by that court. This amendment would give the board some legal authority, and create respect for it in the minds of those who would be taking disputes before it.
I cannot conceive of that type of action. You would have the board taking evidence, and when the evidence was all taken and the board had decided which of the parties was guilty the evidence would then be turned over to a magistrate who would not even have heard it. Possibly I am not familiar with legal procedures, but I cannot understand how a magistrate could impose a sentence when he had not heard the evidence.


Mr. Harrison:: They do it in Saskatchewan; that is the way they operate.


Charles Edward Johnston: I am not interested in that point. I cannot conceive of such a conciliation body being in a position to give a fair judgment. They may be able to decide which party is guilty and which party is innocent, but surely the board which hears the evidence and pronounces upon the guilt or innocence of the parties is the logical authority to impose the penalty. But that is not the set-up. When the board gets the evidence it is turned over to a magistrate who imposes the penalty.
I am not going to review the whole bill, but at this point I want to turn to the last two subsections. Subsection (5) provides:
If, in the opinion of a magistrate, the order of the board is ambiguous or its meaning not clear in any particular, he may refer to the board any question or matter for clarification by the Said board.
I suppose that procedure would be proper, but does it not indicate the ridiculous position in which you place the magistrate. He has to impose a penalty upon a party as to whom he has heard no evidence, yet he must go back to this board-for clarification of the things he should have been told in the first instance. Then to further confuse me I find this in subsection (6):
The board may appeal from the decision or judgment of a magistrate.
In my view the board would not have anything to appeal. It would decide who was guilty or who was innocent. The board could not impose a penalty, and if no penalty was imposed what difference would it make? The position would be exactly the same as before. In my view the fact that the board could

Industrial Relations
appeal the decision of the magistrate would render the magistrate almost powerless. Where would you go if your appeal was granted? Certainly you would not go back to the same magistrate. You would have to go to a higher court.
It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that this bill would do away with the very foundation of unionism. Certainly in my judgment it would put an end to all forms of collective bargain' ing. Suppose this bill passed and a matter came up for collective bargaining between the workers and the company. If they knew this procedure would be followed, neither side would want to reach a decision, and then a conciliation board would have to deal with the matter. It would make no difference which way the board decided; the other party ' would feel aggrieved and would bring the matter before the government, either this government or any other. Then it would become a political football; and I do not think that is the best solution for our problems in labour relations. I believe collective bargaining would break down entirely, and for that reason I am afraid I must oppose this measure. I believe one of the most sacred rights labour has gained over all these years is the right of collective bargaining. I agree that in some cases disputes between labour and management have dragged out for weeks and months, perhaps for more than a year, without reaching a final decision. I think some arrangement should be made under which these decisions must be given within a certain period of time; otherwise that situation will endanger industrial relations in this country.
Having said this much, Mr. Speaker, I do not think I need say more; but I shall have to vote against the bill.


Angus MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention to take part in this debate, but I am constrained to do so by the speech just delivered by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston). Whether or not this bill is good legislation, I do not think it is the bill the hon. member has been explaining to the house. The board mentioned in the bill is not a conciliation board.


Charles Edward Johnston: It becomes one.


Angus MacInnis: No, it does not; it is the labour relations board that determines whether or not an offence has been committed, which is altogether different from a conciliation board. The point I want to make is that there are two objections to the present procedures as far as the trade union movement is concerned. The first is that under the act the offending party cannot be taken

to court without the consent of the minister. Surely that is not the ordinary procedure in law. Surely an offence under the law is an offence, and a person has the right to take the other party to court when an offence occurs. He should not have to wait until the Minister of Labour decides whether or not he may go to court. In my opinion that is not the way British law, or for that matter Canadian law, is administered.


Humphrey Mitchell: I think my hon. friend will admit that they have no laws like this in Great Britain.


Angus MacInnis: I do not know as to that. The minister can catch me very easily when he asks about something about which perhaps neither of us knows anything. He knows I cannot say that is not the case, because I do not know. I have seen those tricks played before.
During the present session I have heard strong demands made on several occasions in this house that we should change the law that now prevents a person bringing the crown into court without the consent of the crown. Surely if that should be the case when the crown is concerned it should not be different in regard to organizations which under this act are considered as individuals. Now let us look at section 46 of the old act. In my view it is rather strange that the junior member for Halifax (Mr. Dickey) should take the worst of the sections that are proposed to be repealed in order to show why they should not be repealed. Section 46 reads:
(1)	No prosecution for an offence under this act shall be instituted except with the consent in writing of the minister.
That is the Minister of Labour.
(2)	A consent by the minister indicating that he has consented to the prosecution of a person named therein for an offence under this act alleged to have been committed, or in the case of a continuing offence, alleged to have commenced, on a date therein set out, shall be a sufficient consent for the purposes of this section to the prosecution of the said person for any offence under this act permitted by or commencing on the said date.
As a matter of fact here the Minister of Labour is acting as a judge of the law he is administering. If he says there is no offence, there is no offence, no matter how aggrieved one party to the dispute may feel. He never has an opportunity to take the other party to court and find out whether or not he has a case unless the minister consents. We had a case of that kind a couple of years ago, when two boards of conciliation appointed by the minister reported in terms as explicit as they possibly could that the employing company was responsible for the trouble. I am not sure whether or not the minister

was asked for leave to prosecute, but there was no prosecution, though in my opinion court proceedings should have been undertaken.


Humphrey Mitchell: My hon. friend said the junior member for Halifax was mixed up. I am afraid my hon. friend from Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) is mixed up. He starts to talk about the labour relations board, and then he speaks about a conciliation board. I am no waif and stray in these things. I believe I know which way I am going. I believe I know the philosophy of the American Federation of Labor, the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada and the general labour movement of North America. I believe my hon. friend should stay with the labour relations board. I know the board about which he is talking. It was a political strike, the Canadian seamen's strike.


Angus MacInnis: I am afraid the minister is putting himself in a spot right there. If I referred to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Gar-son) instead of the Minister of Labour it was a slip of the tongue, and a slip of the tongue is no fault of the mind. The Minister of Labour says, "Oh, it was the seamen's strike." Just because the Minister of Labour did not like the seamen or their organization, they could not get their case taken to court.


Humphrey Mitchell: I must rise on a point of order.


Angus MacInnis: If you would sit down, you would not get into all this trouble.


Humphrey Mitchell: I must rise on a point of order. I have never refused prosecution by any organization since this legislation has been on the statute books. I believe in conciliation and not the settlement of disputes before the courts.


Angus MacInnis: That is not a point of order, that is an argument. After I am finished, the minister will have the remainder of the evening to make all the arguments he wishes. Then, he will have some evenings later on in the session, so he should not take my time in making arguments-arguments which, after they are made, have nothing in them anyway.
I merely rose tonight to make the two points, that the member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) was not considering the proper board and that we should not have a law on the statute books of Canada the enforcement of which is dependent upon the will of the minister.


Humphrey Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, there is five minutes remaining, but I cannot finish in five minutes.
Industrial Relations
I disagree completely with the approach of my socialist friends, and let me say that very frankly.


Angus MacInnis: I disagree with the approach of my capitalist friend.


Humphrey Mitchell: This is a free country.


Angus MacInnis: Of course it is.


Clarence Gillis: Will the minister permit a question before he gets into deep water?


Humphrey Mitchell: I have not said anything yet.


Clarence Gillis: With the minister's permission, I should like to ask him this question: This bill is not socialist philosophy, you know that. Are you aware of the fact that the bill was scrutinized and approved by the representatives of 300,000 industrial workers in Canada? That is their philosophy.	'


Humphrey Mitchell: That is all right; my friend cannot speak for 300,000 people. I have heard a lot of things in election campaigns.


Angus MacInnis: You said a lot of things in the election campaign.


Humphrey Mitchell: That is all right; you do not like to hear these things.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Humphrey Mitchell: I disagree fundamentally with my hon. friends in the thought that you can negotiate labour agreements on the floor of the House of Commons. That was tried in Germany, and at the very moment it is being tried in France. My mind goes back to my old friend, Sam Gompers, who said, "The truth is still the truth, it does not matter what year it is." He said:
I want to tell you, socialists, that I have studied your philosophy; read your works upon economics, and not the meanest of them; studied your standard works, both in English and German-have not only read, but studied them. I have heard your orators and watched the work of your movement the world over. I have kept close watch upon your doctrines for thirty years; have been closely associated with many of you and know how you think and what you propose. I know, too, what you have up your sleeve. And I want to say that I am entirely at variance with your philosophy. I declare it to you, X am not only at variance with your doctrines, but with your philosophy. Economically, you are unsound; socially, you are wrong; industrially, you are an impossibility.
Now, that is a quotation from the proceedings of a convention of the American Federation of Labor held at Boston in 1903.
In introducing this bill the other evening, my hon. friend used these words:
If the dispute between the two parties cannot be resolved, the board is powerless to do anything except let the parties go back to fighting it out on the streets.


Clarence Gillis: That is as it is now.

Industrial Relations


Humphrey Mitchell: That is, as it is now. What my hon. friend is preaching there, probably unconsciously-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Humphrey Mitchell: I say that analytically, not in a critical sense. The hon. member is preaching compulsory arbitration. He knows as well as I do that the labour movement of North America, even the 300,000 people of whom he has spoken, is opposed to compulsory arbitration. I am talking trade union language now. Let the lawyers, with all their faults from some people's point of view, speak about the law. My hon. friend knows that this bill has been on the statute books since 1948. I think it has worked reasonably well.


Clarence Gillis: It has not worked at all.


Humphrey Mitchell: My hon. friend says that it has not worked at all. Look at the picture to the south of us; look at the picture in other countries such as Australia, Great Britain, if you like, or New Zealand, that second heaven of my hon. friend. I believe the good sense used is responsible for our situation. I do not take credit for it, nor should this parliament altogether. The credit should go to the partners in industry. This piece of legislation was passed in 1948 after consultation with every province in Canada, after consultation with every trade union centre in Canada, and after consultation with representatives of industry and commerce.
By and large, I think we did not do a bad job. My friend was a member of the labour relations committee. He did not get everything his way, nor did I get everything my way. I think he will agree with me that is the genius of British institutions. In this House of Commons the spirit of compromise is the guiding formula on any question that comes before it.


Mr. Speaker:: The hour for private and public bills having expired, the house will resume consideration of the business before it at six o'clock.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Hon. Douglas Abbott (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Rowe, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Thatcher.
Thomas Langton Church: Mr. Speaker, I believe about fifteen minutes of my time remains. At six o'clock, I was speaking on

the amendment which has been moved by the hon. member for Dufiferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe), with reference to the immediate calling of an interprovincial conference as well as a meeting of the commonwealth countries and crown colonies to discuss the sterling situation which is causing so much trouble between the dollar countries and the sterling countries. The amendment speaks for itself.
As you know, a dominion-provincial conference could be called immediately. Most of the provinces have recently elected new prime ministers, although some of them are holding elections almost immediately. In my opinion, there is no reason why a dominion-provincial conference should not meet at once. I am surprised that the Prime Minister has not already called such a meeting. As my hon. leader very wisely said, there is no reason why such a conference should not be called immediately. You are going to make a scrap of paper out of the whole British North America Act. You have the cart before the horse. The conference should be held now or never, and now and forever or not at all.
I was referring to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe). In it he spoke about calling a commonwealth conference immediately for the purpose of discussing with our best customer, Britain and the dominions and colonies-what? The sterling situation. Are we to toss our best customer clean overboard? She has been our best customer all these years. Hon. members will recall that preferential trade was started by the Liberals themselves. You are not supporting the Liberalism of the past.
As I say, this house should not be a rubber stamp. A great many of the younger members come up from the municipalities. We hope there will no longer be yes-men and nodders in this house. Dear knows we have had them long enough. While I am a party man, and support Conservative principles, I am not a bigoted party man-far from it. I think I have shown that ever since I first entered the house. An immediate conference should be called with the dominions and the crown colonies. All these countries should get together and map out a program so that we shall not lose our best customer. I do hope that something will be done about it.
In this debate reference has been made to many matters. During the debate on human rights and also on March 24, 1938-hon. members will recall that date-before the second war started, I said almost the same thing. I do not agree with the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) who said there is no great danger of a war for five years. He corrected that the other day. When you consider

this fact, as I have already said, thanks to Russia the world is faced with two kinds of warfare. One is the atomic bomb which has been perfected by the United States. The Soviet union has devised a more powerful instrument, the cold, brazen, weaponless war and she conquers without destruction. By this method of warfare ten satellite countries have been subjugated and put behind the iron curtain. Let us face the facts and let the public know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about this problem. This should be read into the remarks of the Prime Minister the other day. They have got all these countries now behind the iron curtain, and under the threat of aggression they will have the entire world, including those countries of the UNO, in a restless fear of destruction. There is something new in warfare-this struggle for survival. This is only a war of camouflage and it lulls us into a false sense of security in the western country. This cold war and its technique is brilliant as applied by the communists. They know that fear is what scares the satellite countries. They have scuttled pretty nearly the whole of Europe and the rest take it for granted and have taken it for granted until recently. That is the situation which should be faced. There may be trouble in time. For that reason I am of the opinion that the Prime Minister was altogether wrong when he said that there would be five years without war.
I can say this, as I said before: democracy never dies; it perishes from neglect. Militant communism is on the march westward. I want to emphasize the very grave danger this country is in at the present time, as well as this continent and the whole world. Not since the days of Munich has the world outlook been so depressing. Not since the days of the barbarian invasion has Christian civilization faced such a menace as the ruthless advance of communism. These are times that try men's souls. The communists have overrun the Balkan states. Yesterday it was Poland and Austria. Today it is Czechoslovakia and Finland; tomorrow it may be Italy, China, Spain or France. Nations that have experienced the brutality of oppression are now experiencing the cruelty and horror of soviet nightmares. "Their fate", says H. H. Schlact, an American, "will be ours unless we wake up right now. In one generation our dauntless manhood has bled twice and many of them have died on foreign battlefields. They fought to destroy the roots of the insatiable ambitions of fiendish tyrants who sought to enslave humanity."
It is sad to contemplate that after such terrible conflicts we should be faced with such grave events. Russia has the largest 45781-73i
The Budget-Mr. Church army and the largest air force. She does not maintain this mighty military machine for defence; for no one threatens her. She maintains this mighty armada for aggression and attack and conquest. Russia will attack us when she thinks we are weak. She will never attack us if we are strong. While our lawmakers talk, ponder and debate our national security, Russia is relentlessly weaving her web of intrigue and violence wherever she can obtain a foothold. She challenges our physical courage. She challenges our moral fortitude. She challenges our culture and our church. Our democratic way of life is threatened by communist concepts.
Let us sound the clarion call for national defence. Let us summon every true Canadian, every Britisher and American, to fight for national defence. There is little time left; there is no time for timidity. To be free we must be strong. Preparedness is not a war policy but an insurance policy for peace.
In the debate on foreign policy in the British House of Commons Mr. Churchill distinctly said that he never consented to what was done by inviting Russia to come in on the Pacific ten days before Japan collapsed. He never consented to that. That was the idea of the United States. What did she do? Russia was invited in, although Japan was already beaten. This is all referred to in the debates of the British House of Commons on July 21, 1949, and takes up sixty pages of Hansard. I am sorry I have not time to read it tonight. Russia went in there. At that time she had half a million troops in Manchuria. She has now overrun the whole of Asia. She has China and many other places.
I now wish to refer to the Bell Telephone matter. I have about five minutes of time left to deal with that particular matter. A committee of the House of Commons considered this matter two years ago. As a Conservative I strongly opposed the Bell Telephone bill in the house. I was the only one who opposed it on division when the bill was passed. The time has come for the government to be represented by counsel before that body. I remember away back when I was a young alderman in council in 1909 Hon. Mr. Justice Mabee, chairman of the railway board, heard the case at the city hall. At that time the board of control would not do anything about it, and as a young alderman I took the case myself before Mr. Justice Mabee. What did he do? He issued a flat rate for greater Toronto. Citizens were paying as high for telephone bills as $185 a year for business phones, and $95 to $100 for resident phones in the suburbs. Mr. Justice Mabee passed a flat rate for the whole of greater Toronto. He was once a great Liberal and

The Budget-Mr. Gillis a great chairman. I have every confidence in the judges, but you need somebody who will take over and do what the late Mr. Justice Mabee did. We have another opportunity of taking up these matters. I do say that the government should be represented by counsel before the board of transport commissioners when this case is heard. They should oppose the rate; they should oppose any increase. I moved in committee that there be no increase for three years. The workingman will not be able to have a phone-no one will be able to have one. Their stock was at 140 and it went to 183. Then it was split five for one and was quoted at 25. Now it is 42J-and you can see the results.
It has only been in Ontario and Quebec where they have any jurisdiction, because the other provinces have their own telephone systems-and have made a success of it. I say in conclusion that the case should be fought, because these increases are going to have a serious effect. I can remember when the hon. gentleman who used to represent the constituency of Davenport, and I, pointed out that in the villages and towns of western Ontario signs stating "Closed Until Monday" were posted. I pointed out that the telephone system, was part of the post office department in England, and that over there they had boxes on the street from which a person could phone for a taxi. And it was as a result of this action, along with that of the hon. member who used to represent that constituency, Davenport, Mr. MacNicol, that we got telephone boxes on our streets in our cities and towns.
For the reasons I have stated I say the government should be represented by counsel and should oppose any increases for three years. There should be no increase at all. The public cannot pay it, and it simply means that the working class in Canada will not have phones-or if they do have them, will have them only at prohibitive prices.


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Speaker, I shall try to stick as closely as possible to the matters coming within the scope of the budget. I listened to it on a previous occasion and heard it discussed. I am not unmindful of the fact that since that time there has been an election at which the government was returned to power with a substantial majority. Nevertheless I believe considerable criticism can be levelled at the budget, as such.
The first point I should like to make is one we have made on many occasions, namely that the budget as brought in by the minister is merely a bookkeeping statement for the past year. We have recommended from time to time-and I repeat it tonight-that in a country which has just been through a war,

and which is still in the process of bringing its economy back to a peacetime basis, where there is considerable unemployment throughout the country, in addition to bringing in a statement showing expenditures and anticipated surpluses the minister should also bring in a capital budget. The government has taken the position from time to time that, while it does not agree with the principle of having the government in business, where free enterprise failed they have been prepared to take up the slack. They have been doing that to some extent, but not in the manner in which we would like to see it done.
I say the minister should be setting aside large sums from surpluses which have accumulated from budget to budget since the war. He should be picking out those spots in Canada where the economy needs a lift, and where the edge has been taken off industry. He should be presenting to the house a plan to be effective from coast to coast whereby, although he might not step on the corns of free enterprise, he would take action where free enterprise has failed to make good where it felt it was not profitable to invest money. Thereby he would give us a national plan across the country under which we would spend in given areas certain sums from our surplus, to enable the people in different parts of the country which are considered depressed to make plans for the future.
This would give employment offices an opportunity to plan employment. In my opinion that kind of budget is absolutely necessary. I notice that in some provinces, particularly in Nova Scotia, that kind of action is now being taken. In addition to the regular budget of the last session of the Nova Scotia legislature, the premier introduced one just as I have described.
This is one respect in which the minister's department has fallen down. He did not consult with the other departments-public works, mines and resources, or any of the others-nor has he given us any idea of what the government had in mind in the depressed areas.
The second point to which I would direct the minister's thoughts is connected with the removal of the 8 per cent sales tax on fuel oil. The assumption by most people is that they are going to receive the benefit immediately of an 8 per cent reduction in the cost of fuel oil. I believe I am safe in saying that the majority of distributors, those who sell to the consumers, never knew there was a sales tax. So far as I can gather it went directly to the oil companies. Whether that saving is going to be passed on to the consumer remains to be seen. I suggest that some time before the end of the session the minister should make some decision in

this matter. I believe the assumption in his department was that in taking off the 8 per cent sales tax the saving would be passed on to the consumer. Today however there is no indication of that, and some decision should be made in the matter. I shall have more to say about it at a later time.
May I now direct a few words to the hon. member for Maple Creek (Mr. Studer), who spoke in the house last evening. He is a new member, and as 1 sat and listened to him I noted that most of his discussion was directed to ridiculing other groups not seated with the government. He made some disparaging remarks about splinter groups, and in his view it seems that it was because everyone was so far off the mark and so politically unwise that we now have this huge majority on the government benches.
Because he is a new member I forgive him for much of what he said. Before he is here long however he will find that the House of Commons is one of the broadest forums it has ever been my privilege or will ever be his privilege to attend. It is a forum in which one's measure is taken rather quickly. If one is inclined to be small or mean in his approach to problems in the house, or in personal attacks, he does not get very far in the House of Commons.
I thought that the hon. member's references last night to splinter groups were uncalled for. Let me remind him that, as far back as one can go in the records of history, one finds that it was the small groups, who were not self-seeking, who were not looking for something for themselves, but who were pioneering for social reform, who have been responsible for all the reforms in the history of the world.
It was only yesterday afternoon we sat in the House of Commons, with hon. members from the other place and the public at large -among whom was the hon. member for Maple Creek, I have no doubt-and listened to and applauded the Prime Minister of India. He was a splinter, he stood alone for a long time in that country. He spent over eight years in British prisons because he fought British imperialism. But despite that he carried on, he advanced his ideas and stuck by his principles. Today he is the oak tree of India, the man who will perhaps have the greatest influence on the future of the world.
I would remind the hon. member for Maple Creek (Mr. Studer) that that kind of approach in this House of Commons does not go down too well. We respect everyone's opinion in a matter of this kind, and sometimes I even agree with the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell). I think he has the right to hold whatever opinion he wishes.
The Budget-Mr. Gillis
Last evening the hon. member thought that it was because of political immaturity and a nonsensical approach to things that the government was so large and the opposition so small. I would remind the hon. member that it is not good enough to get up and make statements of that kind in this house if he has not the necessary facts to put on the record to support them. When I went upstairs I picked up a western newspaper which I am sure is quite friendly to the government, a newspaper that would not want to put out propaganda. A report in this newspaper refers to figures put out by the dominion bureau of statistics which show that farm income in 1949 had increased by 14-7 per cent over the figure for the same period last year. I should like to read a few of these figures which might indicate why the government was able to influence the western vote in the last election. I am not suggesting that anyone was bribed, but I do suggest that these figures are thought-provoking. The article reads:
Canadian fanners realized a cash income of $1,056,500,000 from the sale of farm products during the first six months of this year, according to preliminary estimates released by the dominion bureau of statistics.
This was 14-7 per cent over the 1948 cash income of $921,400,000 for the same period and an increase of 45-9 per cent over the $724,300,000 received during the first half of 1947.
In addition, supplementary payments amounting to more than $9,000,000 were paid out, during the first six months of this year under the provisions of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, to farmers in the drought-stricken areas of the prairie provinces. This compares with nearly $10,000,000 in 1947 and more than $15,000,000 in 1948.
The first six months of this year would bring us up to June. The western farmers have received these benefits under prairie farm assistance, P.F.R.A., and all the other A.A.'s they have and I suggest that if everyone in Canada was treated as fairly by way of bonuses and subsidies and supplementary payments-it must be remembered that a large proportion of those particular payments went to the province from which the hon. member for Maple Creek comes-


Mr. Sinnott:: Perhaps if they took as many chances things would be different.


Clarence Gillis: The hon. member is a reeve now, so he should watch his dignity.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: Labour never takes chances.


Clarence Gillis: I am not suggesting or insinuating anything; I am merely putting a few facts on the record and will allow hon. members to judge for themselves whether it was political immaturity and nonsensical arguments on the part of the splinter groups or irresponsible action that is responsible for the large majority the government has in the house. Or, on

The Budget-Mr. Gillis the other hand, was it the spending of the taxpayers' money in certain areas where the government was weak that had the greatest influence in sending to this house a large number of Liberal members from the prairie provinces? I ask the hon. member for Maple Creek to think that over.
From time to time we hear arguments that we are prosperous, that we are going forward, that we have a decentralized economy, that there is no monopoly and that everyone has an equal opportunity. That argument was advanced on several occasions during the war and has been since. It was said that there was a great levelling off of income in Canada and our provinces were assured equal treatment in the distribution of the national income. I should like to focus attention on this for a few minutes, not in a critical way but merely to provide some food for thought.
I have in my hand a little booklet that was issued in 1943 by the National Liberal Federation of Canada. This book contained a question and answer set-up which was attractively done and nicely worded. I intend to quote very little of it, but there are parts that have a bearing on the subject of commercial failures to which I should like to direct attention. The soldier was being asked what he wanted to come back to, what kind of Canada he wanted to come back to, and he is supposed to make this answer:
I remember my father telling me how the little business he tried to start collapsed during the inflation of the twenties, and he had to begin all over again.
Then this statement is made:
That will be avoided this time. To help pay for the war as it is being fought, your government has made such laws as 100 per cent tax on excess profits, heavy income taxes on large and medium incomes, compulsory savings on all taxable incomes, borrowings through six victory loans and through the sale of war savings certificates.
That was correct at that time. The statement continues:
And your government didn't stop there. Price ceilings and controls have held down the cost of living, so that when you get back into civilian life you won't be shunted into a topsy-turvy world of high prices and uncertain values.
That was in 1943 when all the machinery described in that booklet was in operation. It worked at that time and it could have worked in the post-war period. When the soldier came out of the service he remembered that he had accepted literally the statements and promises which had been made in the literature distributed to him. Many of these boys went into small businesses. They took their gratuities and credits and set themselves up. I have in my hand some figures from the dominion bureau of statistics which indicate the trend in commercial failures in this country.
IMr. Gillis.]
Mind you, it is not Canada Packers who are failing. It is not Dominion Steel and Coal or International Nickel who are failing. It is the little fellow, the man who did not have much capital behind him who has been swallowed up by the octopus that is able to squeeze him dry. I know some of these boys who have taken what they had saved during the war to go into little businesses but who have been squeezed out because of a lack of capital. Here is the trend in commercial failures in this country as indicated by this article, which reads:
Commercial failures in the first half of 1949 were the highest in number for the similar period since 1941, while estimated liabilities amounted to $8,725,009, a gain of 22-5 per cent over 1948 and "the highest for the first six months of any year since 1934 when the economy was just starting to recover from its lowest levels," according to the dominion bureau of statistics.
Nearly all branches of business showed increases in failures. For example, as compared with last year, trade and manufactures increased 14 and 21 per cent respectively. Furthermore, all areas, except Ontario, shared the increase.
Maritime Failures Double
"There were eleven failures in the maritimes as compared with six last year," the D.B.S. report states. "Quebec showed an increase of 57 to record a post-war high of 380, while the number of failures in Ontario declined from 67 to 59 in the same comparison.
Then the article deals with the prairie provinces. That is not a good trend and, as I pointed out, I think legislation should be enacted to halt it. I mentioned a moment ago that many of our service personnel were encouraged to invest what capital they had in small businesses. The promise was made that the price control machinery and other such machinery as we had during the war would protect them, and would if it were still in existence. The right of the government to fix prices and regulate production and the allocation of materials and supplies to some extent would have protected them, but we did not live up to the promise. When we threw that machinery in the discard on the cessation of hostilities we left price fixing and the distribution of goods and services across the country in the hands of people who have sufficient control over everything that is produced and distributed in Canada to say who is and who is not going to get it, what price you are going to pay for it, and what the mark-up will be.
With that kind of machinery small businesses, which we should be encouraging and protecting, are gradually being pushed out of the picture. As the figures I have quoted are official, inasmuch as they come from a government bureau, I suggest that the minister should take the matter under consideration and try to devise some machinery

whereby small businesses with limited capital may be enabled to remain in operation, because that is the kind of business that we want to encourage in Canada.
The next point to which I should like to draw the attention of the minister and the government is the matter of the distribution of income. The hon. member for Maple Creek (Mr. Studer) suggested that income was distributed fairly equally across the country, and that the government had achieved a balance in the whole economy. I have some figures here which also come from the dominion bureau of statistics. They have to do with per capita income by provinces and indicate the standard of living. While it is not an accurate measurement, nevertheless it is a pretty good indication of what the standard of living is in the various provinces.
I should like to point out for the benefit of hon. members that the national income of Canada is far from being equally distributed and, mind you, the trend is downward since the end of the war. I wish to cite a few figures. In British Columbia and the Yukon, for example, per capita income has declined by 9 per cent from 1945 to 1948. Alberta has gone up by 14 per cent. Saskatchewan has gone up by 13 per cent. Manitoba is up by 3 per cent. Ontario has gone down 11 per cent. Quebec has gone down 3 per cent. New Brunswick has gone down 9 per cent. Nova Scotia has gone down 15 per cent, and Prince Edward Island has gone down 9 per cent. This is a matter which I should particularly like to draw to the attention of members from the maritime provinces. I have not the figures for Newfoundland but I imagine they are even worse. In 1948 the per capita income for British Columbia and the Yukon was $661, Alberta $643, Saskatchewan $601, Manitoba $610, Ontario $694, Quebec $506, New Brunswick $410, Nova Scotia $440, and Prince Edward Island $354.
These figures indicate to me that the per capita income of the maritime provinces is approximately 33 per cent below that of the rest of Canada. That means that the standard of living in those provinces is 33 per cent lower than it is in the rest of Canada.


Mr. Browne (St. John's West):: I do not
think that is right.


Clarence Gillis: These are dominion bureau of statistics figures.


William Joseph Browne: It is not an
exact reflection of the standard of living.


Clarence Gillis: That is the per capita income and figures do not lie. I suggest that there must be serious planning by the government to increase the standard of living of the
The Budget-Mr. Gillis maritime provinces. Mind you, we are not asking for charity because that part of the country at the time of confederation was the most prosperous section of Canada. As I pointed out a few nights ago, since confederation there have been over 200 industries siphoned off from the maritime provinces and centralized in Quebec and Ontario, and that trend continued right up until 1943. Many of them were not small industries. One that was shifted into Montreal in 1943 was a plant that had operated previously at Trenton, Nova Scotia, and had employed some 1,600 men. It had been operating there for approximately thirty years. The hon. member for Inverness-Richmond (Mr. Carroll), who was on the bench at that time, wrote a report on that particular operation which was a strong condemnation of governments which would permit the siphoning off of an industry of that kind. He stated that if one-third of the money spent on moving it into Montreal had been spent on modernizing the plant where it was it would have been a better operation where it was than in Montreal.
When I say we are not asking for charity, we are asking you, by establishing subsidiary industries in that section of the country, to try to give us back at least 50 per cent of the industries that were stolen from us. That is not charity; it is restoration.


Mr. Graydon:: Restitution.


Clarence Gillis: Or restitution. There is a way that it can be done. The government is doing it now to some extent but someone else reaps the profits rather than the people of the maritime provinces. I said a moment ago that I would say something about coal. I listened to a discussion in the house about abolishing the smoke nuisance in the city of Toronto. I heard the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier) say that the intention of the railways is to replace, as rapidly as they can, steam engines with diesel engines burning oil. One of the basic industries of Nova Scotia is coal, and one of the largest customers for that coal is the Canadian National Railways. In effect the minister said that as soon as they can do it that market will be taken away. The development of the use of oil in Canada from coast to coast definitely shows that for steamships, railroads and domestic purposes oil is the coming thing in the near future.
Well, while you are solving that problem you are creating another: what are you going to do with the coal industry? I suggest the time has arrived when the government should be examining the possibility of other uses for coal rather than just burning it and letting it go up in smoke. The oil resources of this continent are not unlimited;

The Budget-Mr. Gillis anyone who examines the matter closely will see that. With the developments in the air, in which fuel oils will be necessary, and with the present trend to use oil for everything else, the resources of this country can be depleted very quickly. So I suggest that at this time the government should be probing the possibilities of producing oil from coal. The whole industrial set-up of Germany was based on the extraction of the byproducts of a very inferior grade of coal, but very little is being done in that field in this country. During the past year or two the government have spent a great deal of money on research in other directions, but nothing has been done about research in that field, which goes to the very base of the economy of this or any other country. If tomorrow the United States decided to keep in their own country the twenty-six or twenty-eight million tons of coal we import every year, within a couple of months practically all our industries would be tied up. We do not have the fuel ourselves. Britain's big problem since the end of the war has been lack of fuel. When Henry Wallace came back from Europe two years ago, when the Marshall plan was being talked about, he made the statement that if we could send fifty, sixty or a hundred million tons of coal to Germany in order that they might get their own plants and factories into operation, that would be the best contribution we could make. Apparently we are not going to appreciate this problem until we run smack up against it some time.
In other fields the government is spending a good deal of money on research, and rightly so. I am not objecting to it, but I am going to make a comparison. In the development of atomic energy and jet engines, on the national research council, on agriculture, fisheries, forests, aerial photography and that kind of thing, the government spent $81,857,000 on research in 1947-48. But to provide for the fabrication, erection and equipment of hydrogenation plants to do the kind of research I am suggesting, the bureau of mines spent $4,500 on an engineering design. The expenditure for research in that field actually made in those two years was $3,090, which shows that the problem is absolutely not considered by those who are in a position to have that sort of research carried on. With the oil development in Alberta the coal industry of that province, which is represented here by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston), will be nearly wiped out within the next year or two.
It is true that these are matters coming under provincial jurisdiction, yet I say it is time the national government began to pay some attention to that field, because

the coal industry of this country is a great national asset. It can be used for many purposes; and I leave that thought with those who are responsible for it.
Now I want to offer what I believe would be an immediate solution for the problems of Nova Scotia, and what I think would give the maritime provinces generally a very great lift. I suggest that the government should be considering the immediate expansion of the steel plant at Sydney. I am not guessing on this; I have my statistics again. Iron ore in the United States, where they carry on some terrific steel operations, is running out. The greatest iron ore deposits in the world are over here in Ungava. I could quote statements indicating that before very long the major steel plants of the United States will be shifting to the eastern seaboard, to New Hampshire and Maine, in order to be close to the raw materials in Newfoundland, which they pretty well control now, by remote control, through front companies in Canada.
This government has given a great deal of money, by way of subsidies and grants, to the operating steel industry in Canada; that is, to Algoma, Stelco and Dosco, which are supreme in the field of steel. I have all the figures here, and I am going to summarize them. From 1939 to 1948 inclusive government subsidies to the iron and steel industry amounted to $51,776,483.65. That is not peanuts. Special depreciation allowance to Stelco, Algoma and Dosco from 1939 to 1948 inclusive amounted to $14,128,447.40. Net profits after taxes of the three operating companies I have mentioned, for the same period, were $58,981,586. The operation of these major steel plants has been quite costly to the taxpayers of this country; but the figures I have just given show that if it had not been for government assistance these companies would have had an operating deficit of some $7 million during that period.
What does this indicate? To me it indicates that an industry in which the Canadian people have such an investment-because after all that is our money-should have some measure of government management. There is no reason why a board of directors we never see, responsible to no one but themselves, should be spending this amount of public money in that industry and taking those profits because they are subsidized to that extent, without the government having some say in the spending of the money and the expansion of the industry.
The problem is not fabricated steel but raw steel. At that very point we have coal, and we have the iron ore just a few miles away across the gulf. We have the boats to carry the ore. Why are not the facilities expanded

for the making of raw steel? Why are we now, under whatever measure of steel control we still have, compelling Dosco to ship that raw steel back to Stelco and to Montreal for fabrication? Why are we not going after the overseas market? There will be a market for raw steel overseas for a long time to come. The logical market for that part of the country is the overseas market; and I suggest that with this amount of public money invested in that industry the production of raw steel should be stepped up. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) is a man for whom I have very high regard, a man who has carried a terrific load during the last ten years. On a good many occasions I have heard him say that steel was our main bottleneck, and that the production of raw steel would have to be increased. Why is that not being done? Why is not the government in a position to say to the operating company at the Sydney end of it, particularly, that they shall do nothing but turn out raw steel? Why is the government not in a position to say that the plant must be expanded? The government is paying out enough money, so let us step up the facilities and go after the overseas market.
My time is drawing to a close. I just wanted to leave these few suggestions with the government; but before I conclude I want to say this. During this debate, I have heard considerable discussion on the matter of trade. Much of the emphasis was on our export markets. A country that exports one-third of its total production will have to have export markets; there is no doubt about that. But what about the home market? What are we doing about that? I suggest that before any country commences advising the people in some other country what they should do, it should put its own house in order. There are ways by which we could create a greater internal consumption in Canada.
One of the things upon which I should like to focus attention is that of increasing our old age pensions. In this country there are approximately 200,000 old age pensioners. These people now receive $30 per month, with a supplement of $10 per month where there are extenuating circumstances. Why could we not step that up to $50 per month? Why could we not lower the age to the minimum that has been suggested, 65 and 60? Immediately someone will say that the bill for this would be tremendous. Fifty dollars per month is not a large sum of money, as anyone who is living in Ottawa knows. It will just buy the necessities of life for an old lady or an old gentleman. It will buy a bite to eat, and that is all.
The Budget-Mr. Gillis
If that additional $20 per month were given without a means test, it would mean those people would have $20 per month more to spend. There are 200,000 of them. All this money would go towards buying the essentials of life. The lowering of the age limit to 65 would lay off men and make employment for younger people who could produce more. In the final analysis, the younger people should be kept in the fields in which productivity is necessary. If we did that we would not be facing the problems that we are facing today, with no one responsible for the aged or the charitable contribution that the old age pension has become. You have to be old to get it, three score and ten. Then there is the means test, of course. I believe that is something we can do. The money would not go out of this country. It would be spent in this country. It would create employment for the younger people, who would produce more. It would start to turn the wheels of industry.
The thing which we must keep in mind is that it is necessary to keep up the standard of our people. If we are going to weather the storm that is ahead, we must have full production. All this talk one hears about communism, bolshevism, and all these other isms, does not bother me. I am not particular about the tags, and I never was. I like to see things done. If we can show the people in the outside world that our system is working, our people are happy and, basically, things are not bad, there is no need to fear any other philosophy. It is the little irritations, such as the means test in old age pensions, that keep the people upset. Those things make it easy for any demagogue who wants to come in and sell his line of chatter to them.
I have not sufficient time to go into this question of devaluation. I want to say emphatically, however, that so far as devaluation is concerned Britain was forced into it by the United States in order to sell her produce there and in this country. The devaluation of the pound was a last desperate move for survival on the part of the United Kingdom. It did not solve anything. The devaluation of our dollar by ten per cent raises by that amount the cost of everything that comes in from the United States. The minister should not be surprised. He has been devaluing the Canadian dollar since 1945-since 1939, in fact-in terms of purchasing power. In the field of food, in which about eighty per cent of the income of the lower income groups is spent, the dollar has been devalued by about fifty per cent. In the over-all picture, it has been devalued by about thirty-five per cent. In the field of housing-well, it has gone out of existence.

The Budget-Mr. A. Gauthier We should not be surprised or shocked, therefore, that Britain has been forced to make that move in order to assure economic survival.
I notice, Mr. Speaker, that you are getting restless. I do not want to impose upon the house. I hope the minister will read my remarks in Hansard and attempt to correct some of the injustices I have been trying to describe.
(Translation):


Mr. Andre Gauthier (Lake St. John):: Mr. Speaker, this being the first time that I have had the honour and privilege of speaking in this house, it is fitting that I should do so in French. I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate you upon your accession to the high office which you now hold. I also wish to congratulate particularly the Deputy Speaker of the house who so worthily represented my constituency during the last four years before the present parliament was called.
It is my heavy responsibility to take his place as the representative of my constituency. I trust that bearing in mind the high standard which he set in parliament during those years, and fully aware of the responsibilities of my office, which I have accepted entirely, I shall not be the cause of too much disappointment.
Geographically speaking, the constituency I have the honour to represent is situated in the north of the province of Quebec, forming a semicircle around the great lake St. John. Father Jean de Quen set up the cross there more than three centuries ago.
The population of the constituency, almost entirely of French descent, is half agricultural and half industrial. The hydroelectric development at Maligne island and the imminent harnessing of the Peribonca river portend a great industrial future for my district. The farming community, sound and intelligent, has kept the best French traditions. It is a fact that the highest average number of children per family for the whole of Canada is to be found at Notre Dame d'Hebertville, a fine agricultural centre. That half the population of that locality should be of school age is therefore not surprising.
Aluminum production of Maligne island and the pulp mills of River Bend bring well deserved earnings to an industrious and law-abiding class of workers. At both latter points, the English-speaking people of my riding live in perfect harmony with the French-speaking population. This is a living

example and a concrete symbol of that unity which must and does exist throughout Canada.
Lumbering, related and subordinate to the paper industry, is generally prosperous though at the present time there is a rather marked drop in employment, due to the uncertain British market. Moreover, pulp companies, having accumulated substantial reserves, have seen fit this year to do much less wood-cutting, hence the considerable rise in unemployment. It might be felt that unemployment insurance will come to the rescue of these men in their temporary difficulties but such is not the case. This timber industry does not fall within the jurisdiction of the commission and those who are deprived of their usual livelihood are in urgent need of help.
I realize, Mr. Speaker, that the government is not responsible for a situation like this one. I am confident however that once it is made conversant with the facts, the government will, in order to remedy the situation, immediately undertake certain public works which were planned during the past few years. Such projects already exist in many parishes of my county, particularly in St. Joseph d'Alma.
Up to now my requests have been favourably received by the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier) and I wish to thank him for the first results obtained.
Since lumbermen are not exempt from the fluctuations of employment, they should receive the attention of the Department of Labour. The department should, immediately and without taking into account the representations of certain pulp and paper companies, apply the Unemployment Insurance Act to the lumbering industry. That would prevent a recurrence of what is going on at present.
Mr. Speaker, I should like to say a few words about my elderly constituents. Most industries seem to have made it a rule to turn down requests for work from people over 65 years of age. If men can no longer earn a living at 65, then this is the very age at which the government should grant them a pension, so they will not come to want. All old people should be paid a pension without the means test-as is being done now in the case of family allowances-or without sacrificing any nest egg they have set aside for their old age.
Mr. Speaker, the members of all parties in the house are unanimous in proclaiming the autonomy of our country, both in the national

and international spheres. But we should assert our sovereignty in the economic as well as in the political field.
Our trade policy must be resolutely and firmly directed towards Canada's best interests, even if it means the sacrifice of traditional markets often preserved for sentimental rather than practical reasons. The Geneva agreements and the Annecy negotiations are a step in the right direction. In this respect, I am happy to congratulate the government while urging that this policy be pursued still further for we cannot always expect to link two great economic powers. Fortunately, the policy of the government has put us in a better position to play the important part for which we are fitted in the field of trade.
Mr. Speaker, I know that in the minds of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) and of the members of his cabinet, there is no room for any inferiority complex of a political or economical nature; it is in that spirit that I supported the government during the last election.
I do not belong to that generation whose only interest is to magnify the glories of the past, but rather do I belong to that generation which looks to the future, which, while it jealously guards the legacy left by its forebears, is anxious to enrich, improve, and develop it.
For this reason, Mr. Speaker, because the present government is going in that direction, I have every faith in the future of my constituency and in the destiny of my country.
(Text):


Mr. Pierre Gauthier (Porineuf):: Mr. Speaker, being a Liberal and a democrat at the same time I think my first words should be to congratulate those who were elected yesterday in the eight by-elections held in Canada. In a democracy everyone is entitled to his own political opinion, and in respect of their political platforms I think we should congratulate them and convey to them our best wishes for success in the course of their political lives.
Tonight I want to say a few words on an industry operating in my own riding. I hope that the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier) will give my request his best attention. In February, 1947, I wrote the minister a letter asking him to do something on the St. Lawrence river in order that the ferry from Lotbiniere to Deschambault, my home town, would have greater facility in carrying fertilizer produced in my constituency. This fertilizer is produced by the Deschambault Quarry Corporation of St.
The Budget-Mr. P. Gauthier Marc des Carrieres. It is called the Deschambault Quarry Corporation because this parish was a part of Deschambault, and the limestone of Deschambault was used by this corporation and built up a fine reputation for St. Marc des Carrieres. The company erected a plant and started to produce fertilizer from limestone dust. Its trademark is "Calco". This company has been distributing Calco for twenty-five years. Every year for seven months of the year it has been shipping around fifty to sixty carloads of Calco a day. They are making improvements so as to be able to ship in the province of Quebec and into Ontario nearly a hundred carloads a day. In each carload is forty tons, therefore quite a large amount of Calco is distributed to the farmers of the district. This company is distributing on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, in the county of the Solicitor General (Mr. Lapointe), the county of Nicolet, the county of Quebec, and on the north shore in the counties next to mine, and has been shipping into Ontario and the lower part of the south shore of Quebec.
As I said, the company has been shipping around fifty or sixty carloads a day. To that must be added the hundreds of trucks which carry this fertilizer onto the farmers' land during seven months of the year. If I ask for improvements, if I ask that the channel be dredged from the north shore of Deschambault up to the St. Lawrence to allow the ferry to transport this Calco, it is a request that should be granted. The letter which I sent to the minister on February 18, 1947, contained all that I have said about the Calco producing company of St. Marc des Carrieres. The minister answered on March 5, saying that a survey by his engineering staff was to be made, and he gave me the result of the survey on April 21, 1947. He said the cost would be around $400,000. That is a large amount of money to spend. But when we think of the thousands of farmers using that fertilizer so as to make the land more productive I believe we would agree that the cost is not too high. I should hope that the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier) might see that this work is performed next year.
I did not make any election promises. I have been working at this for a few years, because I have known it was absolutely necessary. I know my farmers want it, and that the farmers in the south shore counties along the St. Lawrence want it, too. I believe it is a necessity, and that the Liberal government should continue to give farmers the facilities they need to carry out their farming operations, and those operations of production necessary for the benefit of the Canadian people.

The Budget-Mr. P. Gauthier
In the budget we see that the government is making many grants for many purposes including public health, research, physical fitness, scholarships, and scholarships to help the medical man attain a specialty in some branch or other of the medical field. For these reasons I believe I am entitled to speak briefly on a matter concerning which I spoke at the last session of parliament. I refer to the spread and enormous consumption of alcoholic liquors in our country. I know, and I am sure every hon. member knows, that if one wants to cure a patient of any illness or disease, the medical man must attack the evil at its source. If one concentrates his effort on. the same symptoms he errs; he walks in a circle without attaining his goal, which is the betterment of his client.
With the permission of the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Blair) I should like to quote what he said in a speech delivered in the House of Commons on March 4, 1949. Speaking with respect to national hygiene he said, as reported at page 1149 of Hansard:
For years X have tried to use the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne as a vehicle to talk to the members, and to try to bring before them the necessity for some action to bring about betterment of health conditions in Canada, and a definite health plan for Canada. For this I offer no apology. It is not so much because of my own interest in these matters as it is that I realize there are conditions in Canada-
And the hon. member proceeded to mention hospitalization and the lack of opportunity for treatment-


that make it a matter which should receive the
attention of all members.
We must recognize today that, with nations as with individuals, we are faced with the fact of the survival of the fittest, and if Canada does not raise the standard of health of her citizens to a maximum equal to that of any other nation she will fall by the wayside in international affairs. We must recognize a nation's health at its full value, not only from the human point of view, but from the economic side as well. We must realize that money spent on health is money saved.
And I allow myself to add that money spent on liquor is money lost. When he says we have to raise the standard of health of our citizens to a point equal to that of any other nation, we have to think that the best way to cure is to prevent, and the best way to prevent is to state bluntly, without any futile attack on anyone, the real situation concerning the spread of alcohol in our country.
Dr. R. G. Bell, who is an authority on alcoholic matters, stated in Toronto on March 2, 1949:
As far as medical science can determine, there is no satisfactory solution for the alcoholic but total abstinence for the rest of his life-
This is a little drastic, but it is true.
-and modem treatment is designed to make this possible.

Let me quote another authority in this connection. In a letter sent to me by Dr. A. M. Campbell of Winnipeg, after I had made a speech in the house, he said:
The menace of the spread of alcoholism to the character and health and future of our young people is one of the great questions of our times, and the means to combat it are so ineffectual.
I think he is right. And if the means are ineffectual, then I do not think everyone is taking the steps necessary to combat the abuse of alcohol in our country. Perhaps hon. members will recall that in a speech I delivered on February 22, 1949, I quoted Dr. Monin who was secretary of the comity of hygiene in France-and this goes back to pre-1900 days. He said:
The truest word ever uttered on this subject remains perhaps that of Bucknill: "The drunkard drinks because he is insane. He is insane because he drinks."
Dr. Monin adds:
Alcohol is a major factor in criminality. The investigations carried out by Mr. Yvernes show that the first principle violated by the drunk man is the respect of officials.
I do not see why a public man can utter sentences like these, and leave every facility to people within their own province to use as much liquor as they want, thus developing a lack of respect for the law, and giving even to children of fifteen years the opportunity to obtain liquor in any liquor dispensary, hotel or grill. If, as Mr. Yvernes said, the first principle violated by the drunken man is the respect of officials, then I do not see why we can talk about the respect we have for authority when we give such wide opportunities to everyone to obtain alcoholic drinks.
You know very well, Mr. Speaker, that a man intoxicated has no will power. I do not see why we are not taking the necessary steps-and I say "we", meaning that public authorities should have an understanding so that they might get together and stop the giving of these facilities to youngsters of fifteen years. Dr. Monin continues:
Then come insults to policemen, destruction of trees, plants, fences, gross indecency, assault and battery, seditious cries, conditional threats, manslaughter through criminal negligence, arson . . .
A tenth of all murders result from bar-room brawls. Of one hundred divorces granted in Denmark 24 are granted on grounds of drunkenness (Magnus Huss).
Dr. Monin says further on:
In the comer of each brain, used to say Moreau (of Tours), madness lies dormant; the main thing is not to bring it to life.
I am using many quotations because I do not think I am qualified to speak directly on this subject. I am not a specialist but I think I should do my utmost to perform my duty as a public man to help Canadians to get rid of this pain in the side, if I may use that

phrase. I should like now to quote the Temperance Advocate, which in turn quotes Mr. William J. Faulkner of the Message magazine of Nashville, Tennessee. Mr. Faulkner is referring to the way in which advertisers are trying to get the attention of the general public in order to increase the sale of liquor, and I quote from the article:
"We need to understand the habits of women and the younger generation. Train your publicity to catch the eye and develop the interest of the younger generation . . . Make youth liquor conscious . . . Make it smart to drink wine. Teach American women to drink." These were slogans adopted at the March, 1935, convention of 49 leaders of the wine and liquor industries in Chicago. And they are really making the younger generation liquor conscious.
It is high time that college presidents, deans, professors, and counselors organized their forces in a scientific attack on the major evil in our society. They must co-operate with the church, the home, the public schools, and the government in an intelligent nation-wide crusade against strong drink.
We in Canada should also co-operate with the church, the home, the public schools, and the governments if they want to, in an intelligent nation-wide crusade against strong drink. I should like to refer now to an article in the Toronto Star of October 12, 1949, by Robert Taylor, the staff correspondent. It reads:
Canadians spent $48 per capita last year for alcohol compared with $28.50 on medical care and death expenses, a survey by the dominion bureau of statistics reveals.
Each Canadian averaged almost as much for tobacco, $24, as for fuel, $27.
And again:
The magnitude of the Canadian booze bill may be gathered by the fact that it was considerably greater than the total amount the federal government spent in the same year on family allowances, war service gratuities, re-establishment credits, rehabilitation benefits, pensions for both wars, war veterans' allowances, unemployment insurance benefits, Prairie Farm Assistance Act benefits and pensions to government employees.
Here are some comparative figures showing the per	capita	expenditures on	different
commodities:
1948	1938
Food	
$215.00	$75.60Clothing	
102.00	34.00Household operations	
78.00	60.50Alcohol	
48.00	15.00
Those increases are worth noting. An article in the Toronto Star of July 4, 1949, states that a hospital is going to be built in Toronto for the treatment of alcoholics. The article states:
The Ontario government is to "get tough" with those who do not observe the liquor laws.
But Ontario has been going right ahead creating alcoholics who will require treatment.
Ontario has been multiplying the liquor outlets which in turn multiply the number of drinkers and thus increase the problems of law administration.
The Budget-Mr. P. Gauthier
What is the use of building hospitals to treat alcoholics when we provide the populace with every facility to obtain alcoholic beverages? If a man or woman succumbs to the lure of alcohol it is very rarely that he or she can overcome the longing without treatment. The main thing is not to start. I should like to quote now from another article which I consider is of great importance. I shall quote this in French and then give the house a general idea of what it says: (Translation):
This article was published in the May, 1941, issue of the Jesuits' review and is entitled "Alcohol and Democracy":
Having been introduced on Tuesday night, Bill 56, amending the Alcoholic Liquor Act was voted on second and third reading by the provincial legislature.
And again:
Such is the true reform awaited with understandable impatience by all the honest citizens of this province and especially the new women voters, wives and mothers, who will judge of its merits by what it does and not by its promises. The new legislation seeks to reimpart to the Lord's day something of its Christian character, and to the night something of its original purpose. It also seeks to lessen the lying power of liquor advertisements, to divest night clubs and hotel rooms of some of their glamour, and finally make enforcement a little more effective. All these points have been won, at least in theory, by the public opinion campaign on behalf of temperance.
(Text):
It is true that a good job was being done against the enormous spread of the use of alcoholic beverages. I think the law should be enforced by the government and an effort made to get the public interested in this question of the sale of alcoholic beverages. In Quebec there have been cases where children of 15 years of age have been sold alcoholic beverages. I quote again: (Translation):
And that in spite of unanimous, energetic and repeated protests from the highest religious authorities, parent associations and Christian labour movements, and in spite of 260,000 affidavits.
(Text):
We are now in the year 1949 and I believe that what that article says is still true. I quote again in French:
(Translation):
In any event a vigorous and intelligent temperance campaign is required more than ever before, so as to uphold the will of the government to prevent abuses and have the law respected, and also to lessen the effects of this shady and evil clause, until it is repealed.
(Text):
I believe in Quebec the law has not been enforced to its full extent, and I hope that the provincial authorities will at last open their eyes and see that the law is fully respected. I have here a letter written by Mr. J. Wilfrid Gaudette, general president of the

The Budget-Mr. P. Gauthier Sacred Heart league, to L'Action Catholique to be found in the issue of March 25, 1949. He has also written repeatedly to the premier of the province of Quebec. I am glad that once in a while a man feels strongly enough about a subject to dare to put his finger on the evil without being afraid of reprisals of any kind from anyone, even from the government itself. Mr. Gaudette says in his letter: (Translation):
For some time past, the Prime Minister has on many occasions, pointed out the need of action as regards law enforcement. In the case of the liquor commission law, it does seem that breaches give rise to much less scruples on the part of authorities.
An inquiry has recently been conducted in parishes about the observance of the liquor law in licensed establishments on Sunday. More than 300 parishes from 60 provincial counties have sent in replies. Over 50 per cent of the latter state that hotels, taverns and licensed establishments are breaking the law by selling liquor at all times on Sunday, in spite of the fact that the law only authorizes the sale of wine and beer between one o'clock in the afternoon and 9 o'clock in the evening, with meals comprising food for a value of at least 40 cents.
That article was published on March 25, 1949, and Mr. Gaudette added:
Law is being transgressed through the sale of liquor to minors. It is being broken through the sale of liquor to drunken people. It is being transgressed also through the sale of liquor without a licence. In the majority of the parishes which have answered our inquiry, it is said that the liquor commission have no control, that the action they do take, if any, is inefficient. When such abuses are reported to the authorities, they reply that those disorders are the result of the original sin. We are no longer at the time of the original sin. We have at least come to the deluge, which floods our province.
We know that each of our federations has its own special struggles to wage against the liquor racket.
I wish to mention particularly the tremendous and dignified work performed by the leagues of the Sacred Heart and the Lacordaire and Joan of Arc organizations in my province. I believe they deserve to be entirely successful and I hope that their work will be fruitful and that the authorities will help them.
As I said a while ago, we need organizations strong enough to face up to anyone.
It is not by sitting back idly that we shall reap success. We therefore urge that every league, every member of such an organization and anyone able to hold a pen write to the Prime Minister and to their member of parliament and support our request: observance of the law.
The Canada Temperance Union has submitted a request published by L'Action Catholique under date of February 11, 1949:
Request to the federal government by the Canada Temperance Union.
In a memorandum submitted yesterday to Prime Minister St. Laurent, the Canada Temperance Union recommends the appointment of a royal commission

to investigate the Canadian liquor problem. A delegation of 12 representatives from religious and temperance organizations met the Prime Minister yesterday afternoon and submitted to him a six-page memorandum.
I understand why certain people would like to restrict the use of alcoholic beverages. Autonomy should not be a factor in my opinion, when we are out to curb mass poisoning, and the unreasoned and unreasonable use of alcoholic beverages.
(Text):
I have an article from the Toronto Star of the 3rd of March, 1949, stating that 30,620 "drunks" were convicted in Ontario in 1948. It reads in part:
Out of the Ontario government's expanding liquor business came 30,620 convictions for drunkenness in 1948 . . .
I do not quote that to sling mud at any province of Canada. I merely do so to arouse public opinion. I want everybody in Canada to know what the situation is and to realize that it is time to rise in force and make the public authorities conscious of the danger confronting our population. That is why I do so. That is why I repeat the same things I said in my first speech on liquor consumption. I want to return to that question, and I hope I shall not be the only one to come back to it, because the time has come when everyone should face his responsibility for the betterment of our Canadian society. I have an editorial from the Ottawa Journal of March 15, 1949, and I note that the danger is present in other provinces. The title of the editorial is:
Still Debauching the Indians
It reads in part:
A disturbing story comes from Alert bay, a small British Columbia settlement 299 miles northwest of Vancouver, with some 600 white residents and a reservation of 1,800 Indians. Greedy and unscrupulous white men are taking liquor into the area by speed-boat and bootlegging it to the Indians at $10 to $25 a bottle, with the result that drunken Indians are a major problem and, according to the Indian superintendent, "it is neither fit nor safe for a woman to walk down Alert bay's one street at night."
As you see, Mr. Speaker, the evil is spreading its tentacles into other parts of our country. I have a calculation made by Mr. Gaudette, the president of the Sacred Heart league. A question was asked in the letter sent to every municipality as to how many quart bottles of milk the amount of liquor consumed in the country in 1947 would provide? The answer was that it would amount to 635,433,900 quarts of milk for the children. I have here a release from the same league and by the same man, Mr. J. Wilfrid Gaudette, president of the Sacred Heart league of the province of

Quebec, on collective temperance, which was distributed by the episcopate of my province. It reads:
(Translation):
Lawgivers, and in them all whose duty it is to approve and enforce the laws, will understand, we are sure, that in the interest of the public it behooves them to practise and respect the virtue of temperance. Need we recall that any person in authority is responsible not only for his own wrongdoing but for leading others astray: he is also accountable for his failure to do good or preventing others from doing good. Finally, he is responsible for all the evil he does not prevent when he can and should do so.
(Text):
The bishops and archbishops of my province have given this warning, and I hope that at last it may be understood and heeded by provincial authorities throughout Canada. I hope we may all face our responsibilities and take steps to see that drinking, which is increasing even among youngsters as well as grown people, is discouraged.
(Translation):


Mr. Auguste Maltais (Charlevoix):: Mr. Speaker, before I speak briefly on the budget, may I devote a few minutes to outlining a problem which, though not of national concern, means a great deal to a part of my province.
In the house, I have the privilege and the honour of representing the constituency of Charlevoix. Extending over a distance of 140 miles from Chateau Richer to the Saguenay river, it is largely peopled by French-Canadian catholics. I also wish to state that my constituency is proud of its local history since from there many pioneers set forth to share in the development of certain parts of the lake St. John district and of the north shore.
Because of its topography, my constituency is partly agricultural and partly industrial. Indeed, the lumber industry plays an important part and a growing number of men skilled in that kind of work are to be found in certain municipalities.
This constituency, which borders on the St. Lawrence, is served by a very primitive railway line. The Canadian National has a branch running from Quebec to La Malbaie and, in fact, La Malbaie is actually the terminal of the only railway line in that area. This situation is assuredly unsatisfactory, much more so because its improvements can easily be justified both from an economic point of view and from that of the development of Charlevoix county. As was stated by my friend from the Saguenay and north shore regions, and as is known to the majority of the members of this house, our district is on the threshold of great developments
The Budget-Mr. Maltais which will probably have a tremendous bearing on the economy of this country.
So, I think it is time that, at the request of my fellow citizens, I should bring to the attention of the government the transportation problem as it exists in my constituency. In the near future I intend to ask the proper authorities that improvements be made as regards the line now linking Quebec with La Malbaie. I shall first request that the Canadian National start negotiations with the Quebec Railway, because in my opinion present arrangements between the two are now inadequate and greatly handicap the service we want. I shall then ask that this service be extended from La Malbaie to the municipality of Clermont and that it be made a daily service, since a line is already there and the people of Clermont are entitled to and should obtain such a service. Finally, since the matter of opening a new outlet to the lake St. John and Chicoutimi districts is now being discussed, I shall also request that the line be extended from Clermont to Port Alfred, and that its eventual extension into the county of Saguenay be considered.
This proposal is far more justifiable than that submitted in Quebec city to the royal commission on transportation by the council for the economic development of the Saguenay. I will have the opportunity to prove it at some other time, but meanwhile I wish to quote a thought from Le Feuillet de la semaine, a small local newspaper full of common sense published at Baie St. Paul.
Let it be known, nevertheless, that we refuse to be treated as second-rate citizens, as poor relations. We will never submit to being set aside.
(Text):
It is almost a commonplace to say that the prosperity of this country and the high standard of living enjoyed in our land is closely related to our foreign trade. One who has followed the legislation of this government will soon be convinced that this very important part of our economic life has been dealt with in an effective way. I have learned from many reliable references, and in my short experience in business, that external trade is of paramount importance to the successful development and the welfare of this country. To support this statement I want to quote part of a monthly letter published by the Royal Bank of Canada in June, 1946, which illustrates the importance of external trade to the welfare of Canada. This has reference to the theory of self-sufficiency in Canada, and says:
To dispose in one paragraph of the bogey of what would happen if Canada were so foolish as to adopt a policy of self-sufficiency, contrast the actualities of the past twenty years with what might
1150	HOUSE OF
The Budget-Mr. Maltais have been under a nationalistic economy. If Canada had not exported, there would have been an average of $1,365 million a year less entering the flow of money, a reduction of about 27 per cent in the national income, or nearly $10 a month smaller purchasing power for every man, woman and child in the country. If there had not been exports of $8,537 million of farm products in the 19 years preceding 1945, there would have been $614 less income per year per farm.
In other words, Canada just cannot continue on her present standards, much less can she raise them, without foreign markets for her goods.
It is based on the fact that, although Canada is rich in many natural resources, she is lacking in quite a few important commodities. When I refer to an abundance of natural resources, I mean that in certain products, such as wheat, newsprint and different metals, Canada has large surpluses. In many cases a foreign market is necessary in order to liquidate the surpluses. On the other hand, it is no less true to say that we lack certain vital products such as steel, coal, coffee or sugar, as well as certain specialized manufactured goods. This country has to import many items which are necessary to our daily life.
In the last two or three decades this external trade has made great strides, Mr. Speaker. From a value of slightly more than $431 million in 1914, our exports have jumped to approximately $2,750 million in 1947. When one goes over the maze of statistics concerning this period, one is impressed by several features which seem to have a direct bearing on the future of our national economy. I find that up to recent years our exports have been chiefly in the field of primary products, usually referred to as raw material or semi-processed material. Of course, by the very nature of these products they generally react more violently to price cycles than manufactured products.
I refer now to the statistics for the year 1921 which show that Canada received $311 million for 120 million bushels of wheat, whereas in 1939 Canada received approximately $109 million for 163 million bushels. If I pushed my study further I could illustrate this trend with other farm products or

with metals. Helped by the impetus of the last war, however, it is interesting to note that our exports in the last few years have been made up of a larger proportion of manufactured goods. I believe this is a new trend which indicates a greater diversification of our national economy. In view of present world conditions, this certainly affords ground for satisfaction. It is likely this diversification will permit Canada to open new markets. I believe the agreements made at Geneva and at Annecy will also help this country to obtain new markets for the exportation of these new products which Canada seems to be manufacturing in larger quantities.
However, Mr. Speaker, although my remarks might indicate that our foreign trade seems to have become re-oriented, I should like to say at once that we should not neglect our traditional markets, which have always been in the commonwealth. It is well known that the greatest trade exists among the most-developed nations. I believe I am right in saying that this government was very much aware of this principle. When I look at the assistance this government has given Great Britain in the form of mutual aid, I consider it not so much a gift as an investment in the long run economic development of this country.
On motion of Mr. Maltais the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Fournier (Hull):: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow is private members' day, but I understand the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) has consulted the leaders of the opposition parties with a view to moving to go into supply, so that he can ask for interim supply. If there is no objection, that will be the first order, and then we will revert to private members' business.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, October 26, 1949