1950-05-12

Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to draw the attention of the house to the fact that, effective May 1 last, a reduction of 33J per cent has been made in the scale of minimum additional premiums on hull insurance rates on ships trading between Churchill, Manitoba, and the United Kingdom. This is additional to a reduction of 25 per cent which was made last year.
These reductions have resulted from representations made by my department to marine underwriters organizations in London through the commonwealth shipping committee. Further representations will be made by my department with a view to the extension of the navigation period in which the minimum additional premiums will apply on the Churchill-United Kingdom route.
I think I am fully justified in saying that Canada is appreciative of the representations made on its behalf by the commonwealth shipping committee.



FIRE AND FLOOD DAMAGE


Hon. Robert H. Winters (Acting Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, many persons desire to assist in helping those who have suffered hardship and loss in the disastrous fires at Rimouski and Cabano, Quebec, and in the flooded areas of Manitoba. Organizations have been formed for the purpose of receiving money and supplies and applying them for this purpose. In response to numerous inquiries it is announced that organizations formed by local or provincial authorities or by responsible persons for the sole purpose of aiding the people in the distressed areas will be recognized as charitable organizations for the purposes of the Income Tax Act. Cash donations made to such responsible organizations, when evidenced by an official receipt issued by them for such donation, may be claimed by the donor as a deduction for income tax purposes, in accordance with section 26(a) of the Income Tax Act.



AIR DEFENCE ZONES


Hon. Brooke Claxton (Minister of National Defence):: Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Peterborough West (Mr. Fraser) asked me a question to which I replied in part. I should now like to supplement the answer given.
As it is, of course, entitled to do, the United States government is establishing air defence zones in the eastern and the Pacific regions within its boundaries and therefore wants to be sure of the identity of aircraft entering those zones. The task of identification is greatly simplified if all aircraft entering the zones file flight plans, as the R.C.A.F., Canadian and United States air lines and many non-scheduled and private operators have been doing regularly for a long time.
In this connection, the civil aeronautics administration recently consulted the Canadian Department of Transport regarding the desirability of encouraging airmen to file flight plans prior to southbound flights across the international boundary between the 87th meridian in lake Michigan and the Atlantic coast, and between the 115th meridian a little west of Edmonton and the Pacific coast. As a result, on May 2, the Department of Transport issued a request to airmen, effective on May 5, to file flight plans prior to southbound flights across the boundary between the points mentioned. I understand that the United States authorities took similar steps at that time.
One of the main purposes of these notices was to take care of non-scheduled United States operators who constitute the bulk of the non-scheduled and private traffic crossing the boundary southbound. As I have indicated, the notices will not affect normal practice except as regards comparatively few non-scheduled and private operators, who will now be expected to file flight plans regularly for flights into the areas affected.


Mr. Drew:: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question respecting the statement of the Minister of National Defence? This relates to flights southbound. Is the Canadian government taking similar steps, and will it require similar flight plans to be filed by non-scheduled aircraft northbound?


Brooke Claxton: No.
2424	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry


George Alexander Drew: May I point out to the Minister of National Defence that along with the defence aspect of this problem it is important to Canada that we know what aircraft are coming in, because of the necessity of protecting our fishing areas from non-scheduled flights of that kind. I suggest that consideration be given to our making the same requirement for the filing of flight plans of all northbound flights.


Brooke Claxton: I am sorry; I misunderstood the leader of the opposition-I thought he meant exclusively from the defence point of view, because this statement dealt with defence areas. With regard to the matter of ordinary flights north and south, and particularly north across the boundary, the ordinary rules apply, and I am sure the Minister of Transport will take account of the hon. member's question and see whether our regulations need any supplementation. From the defence point of view, of course, it is obvious that they do not.



HUMAN RIGHTS


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of Justice):: Yesterday the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) asked me a question arising out of certain evidence given by the deputy minister of justice to a committee on fundamental freedoms in the other place on April 28, as appears on page 125 of the proceedings of that committee.
As hon. members will recall, I indicated in my response yesterday that I disagreed with the interpretation my hon. friend had placed upon that evidence. I now find, upon discussion with the deputy minister of justice, that it was his intention, which in my opinion was clearly indicated by the language which he used, to inform the committee that the Criminal Code revision commission might in a later stage of its operations hear representations from any persons who consider that the Criminal Code might be amended for the protection of fundamental freedoms. It was not Mr. Varcoe's intention to recommend the introduction of a bill to effect such purpose at the present session, and in my judgment his language is not capable of that interpretation.



POST OFFICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Alexander Drew: May I ask the Minister of


Justice whether he will indicate when an opportunity will be afforded to discuss the statement which he made to the house earlier this week in regard to the suspension of postal services to certain citizens of this country?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I think it would be preferable for the leader of the house to answer that.


Hon. Alphonse Fournier (Minister of Public Works):: I have given a lot of thought to that question since the other evening, and in fairness I think at the first opportunity I should call an item in the Post Office Department so that the matter may be discussed, perhaps early next week.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: In that connection, if I may have some part in this answer, in response to an invitation I have received from Premier Campbell of Manitoba I am leaving on a plane this afternoon. If possible I should like to be present when the discussion takes place, but I hope that that fact will not delay the discussion. I should be back some time in the early part of next week.


Mr. Mclvor:: The request of the leader of the opposition is not as important as the flood disaster. Go.



PRAIRIE FARM ASSISTANCE ACT


Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Minister of Agriculture) moved: that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to amend the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. 1939, to exclude certain areas of land from the operation of the act; to repeal the limitation that the shape of blocks of sections brought into payment in ineligible townships should be rectangular in shape; and to provide further for the exemption from payment of the one per centum tax previously collected from certain flour mills.


Mr. Charlton:: Is the minister not going to make a statement?


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, there _ is not much of a statement required in addition to what is in the resolution itself. It states clearly what the intention of the amendment is.
As all hon. members know, the Prairie Farm Assistance Act was first put on the statute book in 1939. The purpose of the act is to provide assistance to those who happen to live in what turns out to be a drought area. The method of determining whether it is a drought area or not is to check the crops in that particular area, and if the wheat crop is an average of eight bushels or less per acre, then certain payments are made. I would

like once again to say that the payments are not made on wheat. They are simply made on the farm operations in that area, whatever they may be. Wheat is used only as a means of determining whether payments should be made.
We have been functioning under that act from 1939 down to the present, and considerable money has been paid out to those farmers. We have amended the act from time to time, and on this occasion we are making three simple but fairly important amendments to the act. The purpose of the first one is to avoid making payments where we think they should not be made. That is, our intention under this act is to assist people who of necessity must remain for a time in what might be called submarginal areas, but our hope is eventually to get them off those lands. Therefore we have been organizing the submarginal lands into pastures under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act.
In going over the areas this year in order to seek out new areas to organize into pastures, we did find that some persons were getting back on those submarginal lands oy obtaining what are known as cultivation leases. Under those cultivation leases they were operating, and of course if operating under the terms of the act as it now is they would collect. This bill proposes to make it impossible for persons to collect who have gone on lands that are owned by the federal government, a provincial government or a municipality, our view being that if either the federal government, a provincial government, or a municipal council lease lands to individual farmers for cultivation purposes, they should lease them on terms that will pay as well without any assistance under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, as if they paid rent and obtained assistance. For that reason we are suggesting that payments should not be made on government owned lands.
We are making provision for the fact that there will be lands in those areas that to all intents and purposes are owned by the government through the Veterans Land Act. It is provided in the legislation that this exemption shall not apply to lands held under the Veterans Land Act. In other words, the payments will still be made there.
The next part of the bill does something which most members thought a year ago should have been done when this legislation was before the house. We then changed the unit that could be treated under the act so that it would be regarded as though it were an entire township, whether it was being dealt with because that particular area had more than ten bushels to the acre-in
Prairie Farm Assistance Act which case it went out-or whether it had less than eight bushels per acre, in which case it was brought in.
In the previous legislation we said it required nine sections or a quarter of a township to make it possible to bring areas in. Last year we amended that to say that it had to be only six sections, but we still continued the provision that it had to be rectangular. Under this amendment, whether an area is going in or coming out, under the terms of the payment the area may be six or more sections, and it does not require to be rectangular. It can be L-shaped, or T-shaped, or it can be some other shape, but it does not require to be rectangular.
The third part of the bill proposes to amend the section which provides for the collection of one per cent from all elevators and mills which operate in grain. This simply restricts the definitions of mills, so that it does not include all of what were termed "mills" two years ago. Prior to the war, all our larger mills were making flour from wheat for sale either in Canada or outside Canada, and the smaller mills were mostly engaged in the grinding of feed. During the war many of these smaller mills found it possible to make flour to sell to advantage, and did so. Under the act as it reads now, any grain delivered to these mills is taxed one per cent to assist in paying prairie farm assistance. Now the mills which have gone back to the milling of feed grains will not be taxed. In other words the tax will be confined to mills which are milling wheat which is to be sold into interprovincial and export trade, and perhaps also sold intraprovincially as well.
Those are the three amendments. I do not think there will be any great controversy about the need for putting them in the act. I suggest that since we are going to proceed with the discussion of the estimates there would be no necessity for discussing at this time details of payments, and so forth, because these matters can be discussed when the estimates are before the committee of supply.
I should like to say, however, that a very considerable number of members are not here this afternoon, because of a trip which was arranged and in which many of our members are taking part. I was asked by some of ithem, including the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) to assure them that we would not go beyond the stage of first reading this afternoon. I had hoped that we might have the resolution adopted and the bill presented. I have given the understanding that I will not suggest to the house that the measure go any further today, thus giving

Prairie Farm Assistance Act hon. members who are now absent, but who will be here at the beginning of the week, an opportunity to discuss it.


Mr. Argue:: Will the minister send the bill to the committee on agriculture, as has been done in the past?


James Garfield Gardiner: I did not think there was anything in the bill sufficiently controversial to make that necessary.


Mr. Smith (Calgary West):: I am of course very much in favour of the first suggestion made by the minister. But with respect to the other two, may I ask, for purposes of clarification if for nothing else, whether those six sections must necessarily be together?


James Garfield Gardiner: They must be together.


Arthur Leroy Smith: They must be contiguous?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, they must be contiguous, and must lie alongside a township already in.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I followed that; but there is no arrangement about shape

or is there some discretion in that matter?


James Garfield Gardiner: I think the hon. member for Calgary West, knowing western Canada as well as he does, will understand me when I say that if you have six sections just one mile wide and six miles long lying alongside a township already in, they can come in, and there is no question about it. That is rectangular. If you have them two deep and three across, they can come in because they are rectangular. You could have three running north and south and two across, and they could still come in. But, under the act as it now stands, if you had four lying alongside an area already in, and then two on top of that, it would be impossible for them to get in. So that you could have zigzagging to the extent that there would be one section dropped out, and still you would have six. Or perhaps there would be two sections dropped out, and you would still have six-or you could have five in a block, and one on top of it. But it would have to be a continuous block of land. You could not take five at the bottom and put in one away up at the top to make the six.


Arthur Leroy Smith: You could put six clear across?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Mr. Speaker:: Would it not be better if the house were to go into committee so that these questions might be asked?


Hazen Robert Argue: Before going into committee I should like to speak briefly.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I have only one question, and if it is answered I shall be


satisfied. In connection with these mills, did I understand the minister to say that a number of mills have gone back into the milling of feeds and out of the milling of flour?	.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is so. If it has not already developed in connection with some mills, it is expected that it will develop as we go along. For the purposes of this section, a mill now, in order to be taxable, must be one that has been declared by the parliament of Canada to be a work for the general advantage of Canada. If it is so declared, it is in the same position as an elevator.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I understand.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, the house will welcome that feature of the resolution which removes the rectangular (provision covering six sections or larger blocks of land, which now can be joined to an eligible township. I am not just certain what is covered by the first part, which excludes certain areas of land from the operation of the act; ibu-t if I understood the minister correctly it would prevent people from going back on the P.F.R.A. pastures which contained submarginal lands, working that land and then becoming eligible for bonus. I certainly do not like to see at any time prairie farm assistance paid on submarginal lands; but I hope that this provision will not be used to prevent farmers, even though they have farmed on submarginal lands, from receiving payments as they have received them in the past.
I approve the removal of the rectangular provision from the six-section block. Since I was first elected to parliament in 1945, on every occasion I have brought to the attention of the minister the injustice that has arisen from adding only rectangular blocks. Crop failures in western Canada so often occur because of the way in which the showers happen to fall. They certainly do not fall in rectangles. I do not know whether they fall in L-shaped or T-shaped patterns, but certainly the T-shaped and L-shaped blocks would give more farmers the benefit of crop failure payments than the rectangular provision which is now applied.
I hope the minister will have this bill referred to the agriculture committee. In the past we have obtained real co-operation in that committee and have been given a good deal of information. Based on my experience I feel that the government has paid some attention to the proceedings of that committee, and as a result improvements in the act have been made from time to time. I repeat that I hope the minister will find it possible to send this bill to

that committee. It took only two or three hours of the time of the committee last year, and as the committee has not met so far this year it certainly would not be a burden on its members to consider this bill in greater detail.
There is another discrimination under the act which this resolution does not seek to relieve. I refer to the taking out of certain blocks of land. As the act now stands, a six-section block may be removed from an eligible township if the yield is more than ten bushels an acre. As always happens, there are farmers who have complete crop failures under the provisions of the act, that is, a yield of less than eight bushels per acre. As long as the rectangular provision is maintained when taking out certain blocks of land you are going to take out a number of farmers who in fact have crop failures.


James Garfield Gardiner: Perhaps I did not make myself clear. This applies to both.


Hazen Robert Argue: I am glad it does. That is one more point in the minister's favour, and I hope he will keep on making others as I go along.
On March 23, 1950, as reported on page 1039 of Hansard, I asked the Minister of Agriculture if consideration would be given, in the amendments to be presented this session, to making the half-township unit apply to all sections of the act. The minister replied as follows:
We brought in an amendment last year which to all intents and purposes does that.
I have received a number of representations from farmers living in half townships where the yield has been less than four bushels to the acre, but who were not able to qualify under the act as it is now constituted. When an area is established as a crop failure area, if the department can find half a township outside of that area, perhaps in another province, perhaps a thousand miles away, then the people in the half township can obtain a payment based on the average crop yield in the half township. As I say, a number of instances were brought to my attention last fall in which a township had become eligible for the $1.50 per acre payment-the average yield in the township was between four and eight bushels per acre-but within that township there was a large area a half township or more in which the yield was less than four bushels to the acre. Those farmers could not obtain the $2.50 per acre payment because the average was based on the whole township.
I might demonstrate what I am trying to point out by referring to a specific case that was brought to my attention. I could give the 55946-154
Prairie Farm Assistance Act legal description of the township, but I do not think it is necessary for my purposes. The average yield was slightly over four bushels per acre. As a matter of fact for all the farmers within the township the yield exceeding four bushels per acre amounted to only 288 bushels, according to information from the farmers concerned. That meant that because a farmer had one-fifteenth of a bushel per acre more than the four bushels, he was denied assistance to the extent of $1 per acre. It amounted to about ten bushels of wheat for each farmer. Each farmer had ten bushels too much and was thus prevented from getting the larger payment. In other words, because the farmers in that township had $15 worth of wheat more than they should have had, they could not get the larger payment, and were thus denied payments up to $200 in the form of prairie farm assistance.
The north half of this township had almost a complete failure. The south half had somewhat better crops, but the yield was still under 8 bushels per acre. The average for the two halves meant that no one in the township was able to qualify for the $2.50 payment. I would hope that the half-township provision which is now applied in certain areas as long as they are removed from the crop failure area will be made the basis of payment under the act.
There is no doubt that the Prairie Farm Assistance Act has been of real benefit over the years to western Canada, particularly to that part of it which comprises the high risk crop area. While the act has been of real benefit in many respects, it is becoming less beneficial with each succeeding year. The payments under the act have remained the same since 1939, while during that ten year period the costs of farm production have practically doubled. It is true the one per cent deduction has remained the same, but because of the much better price of wheat and other grains at the present time the government can expect to get almost three times as much revenue with this one per cent deduction.
The largest amount that any farmer can receive in the form of prairie farm assistance is $500. Where a man is farming 400 acres of land, $500 is just a drop in the bucket. It would not even pay his seeding operations, much less the varied farm costs and the farmer's own cost of living. I should like to see the payments under the act increased. On the basis of present farm costs they should be increased to at least $5 or $6 per acre.
The Saskatchewan wheat pool organization, at their convention last fall, supported an increase in prairie farm assistance, though

Prairie Farm Assistance Act half or more of the delegates came from areas where there were not crop failures last year, and where crop failures are not usually experienced. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, while I welcome some features of the resolution, I should like to see the amount of payment increased.
I hope also that the time will come when areas added to an eligible township may be added on the basis of a section of land. While the rectangular provision is being removed, apparently the area cannot follow a zigzag pattern if the crop failure which occurs follows such a pattern. I hope that the half township may be made the unit throughout the act, in order to remove the discrimination that exists in the present legislation between persons living within a crop failure area and those living in a halftownship outside the crop failure area.


Mr. Robert Fair (Battle River):: Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to take much time in discussing the resolution now before the house. The matter has been considered at considerable length, both in the house and in the standing committee on agriculture, since the act was first passed in 1939. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) might have saved himself a lot of time and difficulty in the house if he had accepted many of the suggestions made from time to time in earlier years as to the operation of the legislation. I am glad to see that little by little he is accepting the views of many of his own supporters as well as members of the opposition, by bringing the act into conformity with requests that have been made.
As to the first amendment proposed by the resolution, I think we should wait until we have more information from the bill or otherwise before saying very much about it. We are in complete accord with the second part of the resolution, with the exception that we would like the minister to go a little further. He is learning to walk little by little, and if he could just take one more step it would be helpful. If he is not satisfied to bring it down to an individual basis, then let him bring it down to a section basis. Even during the past year we have had many complaints from farmers, who have had crops that were next to a failure, because they have been put into an area with farmers who had a good yield, and were thus denied the benefits of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. I feel that is not the intention of the act, and if it were brought down to a section basis many of those in difficult financial circumstances would be able to receive the benefits of the legislation.
As to the third proposal suggested by the resolution, I do not feel that we have any complaint against it. Perhaps it will remove

some of the complaints of eastern farmers about the high price of feed. If it does not have the desired effect, I suggest that the profits of the dealers should be investigated because I feel that there lies most of the trouble as to the high prices that the eastern farmer has to pay. Western producers cannot be expected to take lower prices than they are accepting at the present time, particularly in view of the sacrifices they made during the war and for many years prior thereto. When the measure goes into committee we may have further questions to ask in order to get definite information, particularly about the first suggested amendment.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Beaudoin in the chair.


Mr. Wrighi:: I should like to ask the minister a question about the first part of the resolution, which reads:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to amend the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, 1939, to exclude certain areas of land from the operation of the act.
I understood the minister to say that this applies only to lands which have now been declared community pastures.


James Garfield Gardiner: No.


Percy Ellis Wright: If it does not apply only to community pastures, then does it apply to provincial lands sold under a thirty-three year lease? In Saskatchewan school lands are being sold to individuals under a thirty-three year lease. I believe some of the farmers' co-operatives hold their land under a thirty-three year lease. Would the amendment to the act exclude those lands from payment under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act?


James Garfield Gardiner: It will exclude lands to
which title is held by governments, whether they be federal, provincial or municipal. If land is sold to someone under an agreement of sale, I presume he will hold it in the same way as any person holds land under such an agreement; but if it is land to which the clear title is held by the government, and not by anyone else, payment will not be made. Our argument is that when the government leases it, no matter under what kind of lease, it must be responsible for seeing that the individual gets the land on a lease under which he can make a go of it. If it is the federal government, then we should not take money out of the tax payments of the people of Canada to help to pay rent on land that an individual is working. The same thing should be true with regard to a province or a municipality. If the land is not worth anything, there should not be any rent for it. If it is worth only fifty cents an acre, the rent should not be more than fifty cents an

acre. We should not put people on land that is not worth anything, or is not worth the rent being charged for it, and then expect the taxpayers of Canada to help to pay the rent.
That is the general plan. It does not apply to the lands referred to a few moments ago by the hon. member for Assiniboia and by the hon. member for Melfort-lands that have already been taken into community pastures. It is presumed that individuals will not be able to go back on those lands. For example, we own the lands we have in community pastures in Saskatchewan, and we own them for the purpose of seeing to it that an individual does not get back on them. Once we put a fence around the pasture there is no difficulty about those lands. On the other hand, if we go to Saskatchewan, Alberta or Manitoba looking for lands to be put into community pastures, we may find that one or other of those governments has leased these lands to an individual, and therefore they are not available. We may be able to get possession of surrounding land, but that particular area is not available because it has been leased. We maintain that if it is going to be leased under those circumstances, then whoever leases it, whether it be the federal, a provincial or a municipal government, they should make provision for the individual, and it should not be made out of this fund.


Mr. Quelch:: Do I understand the minister to say that all land in the special areas of Alberta which is under cultivation lease will not be eligible now for payment of the bonus? The minister knows that in Alberta land is divided into two classes. Land that is considered unsuitable for cultivation is leased on a grazing lease, and it cannot be cultivated. Land that is considered suitable for cultivation is leased for a period of twenty years under a cultivation lease. Do I understand the minister to say now that all that land cannot be eligible under this act? If so, it is going to affect adversely a great many farmers.


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand it is perhaps two thousand quarter-sections, which is a considerable area of land scattered here and there, some of it in blocks; but if we permit that to go on I am afraid we shall not have a Prairie Farm Assistance Act at all in a very short time. Within the last few months we have found that as many as thirty-six quarters within one township have been leased in the areas where we are of opinion pastures should be formed. If that sort of thing is permitted to go on, I am quite sure the taxpayers in other parts of Canada are going to take very strong exception to it.
Prairie Farm, Assistance Act
For example, we find this in certain areas- and I do not want to go into too many details, because in doing so I may tread on somebody's toes. We find cases in which individual farmers are unable to collect on more than one 400-acre area; but by leasing a piece of land alongside through some member of the family the amount can be doubled,., or if two members of the family lease land it can be trebled. It was in checking lands in connection with that sort of thing that the difficulties were discovered, and of course that cannot be permitted to continue if we intend to keep this legislation in operation.


Victor Quelch: The minister knows very well that originally that area was settled on a half-section basis. Over a period of time the farmers found they were not able to make a living on a half-section; many of them got into financial difficulties, and the land was offered for sale for taxes. The provincial government put up an initial bid; the mortgage companies claimed the land was not worth the amount asked, and let it go, which made it possible for the provincial government to lease back to the farmers areas of land considerably greater than a half-section. A half-section is not sufficient in that area to provide a living; so we find areas up to 2,000 and sometimes 3,000 acres being leased to individual farmers, and on that basis they are able to make a living. So far as cultivating land is concerned, the provincial government has made it a practice to grant cultivation leases only on land considered suitable for cultivation. The land is good; the only thing wrong with it is lack of moisture. In the initial stages those farmers were encouraged by the federal government of the time to go there and settle on a half-section basis. The government opened up the land and encouraged the people to go there. The people went there, and great sacrifices have been made in that area. The Prairie Farm Assistance Act was brought in to help out those farmers. Now I understand that under this legislation about eighty per cent of those farmers are to be declared ineligible for the bonus. Why, it is just going to cause a riot up there. The minister says the provincial government can pay, but he knows very well that is not the solution of the problem.


James Garfield Gardiner: May I ask what are the terms of those leases?


Victor Quelch: They vary from one-eighth to one-fourth of the crop, a very small amount. Actually it comes to less than the taxes used . to be. It is cheaper for the farmers to pay on that basis than it used to be to pay taxes,

Prairie Farm Assistance Act and far cheaper than the rate of taxes in other areas, where they run to $70, $80 and $90 per quarter section. The amount they pay is considerably less than that.
The minister knows the solution-it is irrigation. The government has been talking irrigation ever since 1922. It is true that certain amounts of money have been voted during each of the past three years or so, and they are doing a certain amount of work now, but we are still a long way from getting that land irrigated under the Red river diversion project. So far the only thing the government has done, apart from making surveys, has been to put up small dams to create reservoirs from the run-off water. Unfortunately, however, in very dry years there is no run-off water, and just at the time we need the water most for irrigation it is not available. Now the minister is just going to get out of the whole thing by declaring that no bonus will be paid on land under lease from the government, though all the land in that area is under lease with the exception of the odd section here and there which is privately owned. The minister is now asking us to support the proposal that this whole area in Alberta shall be declared ineligible under this act unless it is privately owned, and I do not think he can present one argument to show that this is fair.


Mr. Harkness:: Do I understand from what "the minister and the hon. member for Acadia have said that if there is a section of privately owned land in a certain area surrounded by land provincially owned and leased to the farmers, the people who own the land will continue to get the P.F.A.A. payments but that those who have leased land will not get those payments? Is that the situation?


James Garfield Gardiner: The people who have title to their land or have it under agreement of sale, though they may not have clear title

 that is, the people who own their land in the sense that land is owned all across the country-are entitled to payment under the terms of this act. But if such a person or some other person goes on a piece of submarginal land and takes a cultivation lease, with the land still belonging to the government, whether it be this government, a provincial government or a municipal government, the amount is not payable on that land.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Let me get this clear. Take a township half of which is privately owned by individual farmers, with the other half owned by the provincial government and leased by those farmers for cultivation purposes. If they have a crop failure do I understand that they will get P.F.A.A. payments for the half they own but will not get

those payments for the other half they have leased? In other words, though only half that township is privately owned, if there is a crop failure throughout the township so that the total amount of cultivated land produced less than four bushels to the acre, will those people get the assistance for the half of the land which they own?


James Garfield Gardiner: They will get assistance on the basis of the land they own, which means they can be paid on half their cultivated acreage up to 400 acres. If a man is cultivating 800 acres it does not matter where it is, whether it is in that area or anywhere else; he is paid only on 200 acres, and that would continue to be the case with land owned in any part of the entire area. If he had land elsewhere, outside that area, it would not come into the picture. The sort of area that creates trouble for us, and which I am sure every hon. member would agree should not come in, is where you have an area that has been declared submarginal, or if it has not been declared so at least we have paid prairie farm assistance for every year but one of the eleven years we have been giving that assistance, which very definitely shows that people cannot farm in that area. Some of it is land which in the thirties, prior to the war, had been allowed to go back; the people left it, in some cases, and it remained uncultivated. In other areas the individuals who purchased the land simply dropped it and let the payments go, so they do not own it now and finally it has reverted to the government. A farmer and his son may live on a section alongside land of that kind. The farmer may have 400 acres broken, so we would pay him on 200 acres. Then the son gets a cropping lease on the next half section, and he has another two or three hundred acres broken there. By breaking that land you -can bring in all that block. You can get it in two 400-acre blocks, and cause P.F.A.A. to pay on all of it. We find we have been doing that; and if we go on doing that year after year, and -those cases keep multiplying, I can imagine what will happen eventually, and what would have happened if the opposition had found it out first. I was pleased that I found it out last summer when we were looking for areas to put pastures in; because I know what would happen to this government if we let it get out in the public accounts committee as something which was raised by someone else that we pay out thousands of dollars, -and maybe it might run into hundreds of thousands of dollars on payments of that kind. We paid out $20 million last year. If we pay a considerable part of it out of the treasury on submarginal lands that are owned

by the government, whether it be this government, the Alberta government, the Saskatchewan government, the Manitoba government or one of the municipal governments, I am quite sure that before we got through with the discussion, if we had not blown the act up, we would have come close to it.


Hazen Robert Argue: As I understand the minister, it is not a case of changing the act now so that payment will be made only on land that is not submarginal. What the minister is saying is whether or not payment is made on a given piece of land will depend on what type of lease it is held under or whether it is held on a title basis. If the minister wants to change the act so that payments are made only on land suitable for grain and if at the same time he will do something else under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act to rehabilitate these people who have been taken off submarginal land for wheat production, that is O.K. But what the minister is suggesting now, as I understand it, is not that they are going to remove submarginal land entirely from the application of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, but that the government is going to remove entirely land owned by the provincial government or other governments and leased to farmers within the various provinces. I think that kind of policy of the government is most discriminatory. I do not think this government should be attempting to dictate to the government of Alberta or to the government of Saskatchewan by what method they should dispose of provincial land. Over the last few years in Saskatchewan we have leased a great many parcels of land to young veterans on the basis of a 33-year lease. I should like to know if the government is going to continue prairie farm assistance to these veterans under that type of lease.


James Garfield Gardiner: There is a special provision in the bill which says that the co-operative farmers are covered by the bill.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is O.K. for the co-operative farmers. What about the veterans who are on individual farms?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is a special provision in this amendment which provides for them, as I said in presenting the legislation.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is O.K. for individual veterans. All right, then, what about the civilian who is living in an area where the land is not submarginal, where it is definitely good wheat land,-


James Garfield Gardiner: Someone had better buy it.


Hazen Robert Argue: -where the farmers and the government agree on the basis of past history,
Prairie Farm Assistance Act and remembering that they have a government at Ottawa not too sure that it is going to get rid of wheat at decent prices, that it is good business for the farmer and it is good business for the country for the farmer to have a 33-year lease under which he will pay from one-sixth to one-eighth share of the crop at the end of each year? At the end of ten years, he may buy it if he wants to. But this government should not tell any other government how it should dispose of its land. If this legislation goes through, I do not know what will happen; but I know that, as has already been said, a great many people will be angry. The Saskatchewan government may be forced to reverse its agricultural policy, even though it knows it is not in the best interests of the people, and sell that land. But are you going to ask a man to assume a large debt in order that he may qualify for prairie farm assistance? Another thing the minister said was that now in some families you have one or two sons that are renting lands that actually constitute one unit. We have had a long fight over the last few years to get the government to make that bonus payment on land farmed by young farmers, even though that land is rented. Does the minister mean now that no rented land can be eligible for prairie farm assistance?


James Garfield Gardiner: I will send my hon. friend over a copy of the bill, and he will be able to discuss it to better advantage.


Hazen Robert Argue: I appreciate that. But I certainly have the strongest possible objection to what the minister has already told us.


Victor Quelch: I think the minister should clarify the position with regard to the last question asked by the hon. member. Does this definitely mean that all land that is leased will not now be eligible for the bonus?


James Garfield Gardiner: No.


Victor Quelch: That is, under lease from the federal, provincial or municipal governments?


James Garfield Gardiner: If it is under lease from the government under the kind of arrangement which the returned soldier has under the Veterans Land Act and that kind of assistance, then under the bill as it is at present drawn payments are not made on that land.


Victor Quelch: This is supposed to be a drought bonus, to take care of drought in the area.


James Garfield Gardiner: That has been repeated about four times, that it is supposed to be a drought bonus. It is no such thing in these cases.


Victor Quelch: Originally it was.

Prairie Farm Assistance Act


James Garfield Gardiner: No; it was not originally either.


Victor Quelch: Whether the minister would agree with that or not, across Canada it has time and again been referred to as a drought bonus. I am not going to argue the technicality, but it was largely to compensate the farmer for loss of crops due to drought and other reasons, but mainly drought. Now, as a result of the passage of this legislation, it will mean that the majority of the farmers in the drought area will no longer be eligible for the bonus.


James Garfield Gardiner: No.


Victor Quelch: That is what it will mean in Alberta. Certainly it will mean that, because the major part of the drought area in Alberta is in the special areas; and the majority of the land in the special areas is already under lease from the provincial government, and now all that land in the area, is declared ineligible. That forces me to vote against the motion. I could not possibly support it.


Percy Ellis Wright: I do not think there is anybody who objects to land which consistently has had to have P.F.A. paid on it being withdrawn and having something else done with it; either put it into community pastures or put it back into grass and move the people who are on it onto land where they can make a decent living without having to receive the P.F.A.A. bonus from year to year. But it is not on the basis of whether the land is marginal that we are excluding it. It is on the basis of the type of ownership that that land is held under.


James Garfield Gardiner: No.


Percy Ellis Wright: Yes, absolutely. That is what the act says or what the minister has said. He has said that if the provincial governments own the land and they have leased it to individuals for cultivating purposes, and if there is a crop failure, they are not entitled to payments under the P.F.A.A., whether it is in a marginal area or not. In the northern part of the province there is a good deal of school land which has been held under a 33-year lease from the provincial government. Occasionally we get a crop failure there; it is only once in every ten years, but we pay one per cent every year. Now you say that these lands, because they are held under a 33-year lease, or a 20-year lease, or whatever the lease may be, from the provincial government, are not entitled to payment. But every bushel of grain that is grown on that land has to pay a one per cent levy. Is the minister going to exclude the grain that is grown on this land from that levy? If he is going to withdraw the payments, certainly he 

should exclude the grain that is grown on this land from the one per cent levy, because otherwise he is puting a tax in perpetuity on the grain that is grown on that land and is saying to the people who are growing the grain, "You can never get a payment under the P.F.A.A."


Mr. White (Middlesex East):: There are other lands in Canada that are submarginal besides those in Alberta or in the western provinces. Under the present set-up they never hope to get anything but they always have to pay something, as I understand it. I should like the minister to tell me how much payment has been paid under this act in each of the years from 1939-1949; because I understand the intention was gradually, and as far as practical, to remove from cultivation these lands that were not giving good yields and to put them into pasture. But if we were going to go on spending more money each year, as remarked by the minister some time ago, the people were going to object to these payments in time and they would find out that some of us were paying too much for this type of legislation. In fact, as I understand it, the two acts are working one against the other. One is trying to build up an area and the other is trying to keep people on land when they should be somewhere else. I should like to have the minister make a statement as to what it has cost each year. Does the one per cent that is collected cover the cost?


James Garfield Gardiner: The one per cent that has been collected up to date has resulted in a fund of $45,008,887.31. Therefore we can say it is $45 million. The payment out has been almost $125 million; it is $124,749,758.15; but one can I think remember it best by saying that $45 million has been paid in on the basis of one per cent, and $125 million has been paid out up until now.
I think I should give the year by year payments in round figures rather than read them all over. In the first year it was $10 million; in the second year $6,750,000. The first year was 1939.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Is that collections or payments?


James Garfield Gardiner: These are payments. In
1941,	the third year, the payments were $15,500,000. There was nothing at all in
1942,	although the collection went right on that year. In 1943, $7,500,000; in 1944, almost $6 million; in 1945, almost $17 million; in 1946, $10,800,000; in 1947, $17 million; in 1948, $14 million; in 1949, $20 million, a total of $124,749,758.15.
I might indicate how the collections run. In the first years, of course, the price of grain

was low, and while the total amount of grain marketed was much similar to what is still being marketed, the amount collected was much lower because it is one per cent that is collected and not so much a bushel. In the first year the amount collected was about $2,500,000; in the second year it was about $2,500,000; the third year was a very poor year, and about $1,500,000 was collected. In the year 1942, $2,700,000 was collected and in 1943-44, when the prices got higher, $4,700,000 was collected. In the next year, $5,300,000; in the next year, $3,400,000; in the next year, $5,100,000; in the next year $5,100,000 and in 1948-49, $6,600,000. In 1949-50, the year we are now in, it has amounted to $5,350,000 up to the present, but we have not completed the crop year yet.


Mr. While (Middlesex Easl):: Why not
increase the payment of the one per cent? Why not increase it to three per cent and let the western provinces pay their own insurance? Why ask the rest of Canada to carry this?


Robert Fair: I believe I can answer that question very well and save the minister the trouble of doing it because it might be embarrassing to him. I suggest that the amount paid to the western farmers on this insurance is not a drop in the bucket as compared with the losses that have been sustained by the farmers of the west in accepting government policy and the resultant low prices during the war years. I think that is a conclusive answer to the question. There is also free freight feed grains that many eastern farmers have taken advantage of; but do not let us forget that there are other subsidies that people would like to hear about. Perhaps we can give them a little later on in the debate.


Percy Ellis Wright: I asked the minister whether he was going to continue the collection of the one per cent levy on the grain grown on those lands which he is going to exclude from payment under this Prairie Farm Assistance Act, under the proposed amendment.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think probably I can best answer that by saying to my hon. friend that I can hardly conceive of his ever drawing anything on the land that he farms.


Percy Ellis Wright: Quite right.


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not conceive of my ever drawing anything on my farm.


Mr. Johnston:: There is a chance.


James Garfield Gardiner: Not much chance. We have gone on now over the worst years we have ever experienced, and we have not collected any yet.


Charles Edward Johnston: You are not excluded.
Prairie Farm Assistance Act


James Garfield Gardiner: We are excluded in a sense. I had this all out with an area down at Gladstone, in Manitoba, the first year that we had the bill. I was invited there by the people of the area and they had the reeve of the municipality in the chair. They had the hall packed, and I was not supposed to have been able to get out of there with a whole hide when the meeting was over. I went and met the farmers there and I said to them: On the estimate that we made when we put the bill through this house we said that there would be about $3 over a long period, say twenty or more years, taken out of the treasury for every $1 that is paid into this fund. The house accepted that; and in answer to my hon. friend who spoke a moment ago, all the issues which he suggested a moment ago were then brought up in the house and threshed out; and finally it was unanimously accepted. I think I am right in saying that we finally got the amending bills associated with this matter through the house almost unanimously on every occasion.
What I said to those people then is what I say today. I said to them:	"You tell me
that because you have never had a crop failure, and you never will have one, you should not pay anything into this." I said: "If I have got to admit that, I have got to go back to the house and say that the people in Montreal and Toronto who never will have a crop, let alone a crop failure, should not be asked to pay into this." I said: "I do not know of any way that you can set up crop failure insurance in western Canada that could be carried on a basis of charging it up to the land itself." I do not know of any system under which it could be done.
Since, we have proven that it could be done in Manitoba. We have proven that it might be done in about one-third of Alberta. It could not be done over the whole province of Alberta; and we have certainly proven that there would be no possibility of doing it at all over the province of Saskatchewan.


Percy Ellis Wright: It could up in northeastern Saskatchewan.


James Garfield Gardiner: Still the province of Saskatchewan produces half of all the wheat that is produced in Canada, and wheat itself provides, if not the greatest, the second greatest medium from which we obtain new wealth year by year in the country; and it certainly provides the greatest tonnage of exports, with one possible exception, that is shipped out of this country to bring into the country new dollars or new wealth of one kind or another.
We argued at that time, and we still argue, that on that basis everyone in Canada has some justification for believing that it is a
2434	HOUSE OF
Prairie Farm Assistance Act good thing to keep that country operating, and to give it a sufficient amount of insurance to carry along; but I do not know of any arrangement under which we could do it and argue that the farmer who is never going to have a loss in western Canada should not pay anything and the other fellow should attempt to pay it all; or even any basis upon which you can say that the farmers who are never going to have a loss should pay sufficient in in order to take care of the other group that are ' operating in the interests of all Canada. We have been able to maintain this legislation on a co-operative basis. I had hoped we would not get into a discussion of that general question. We have discussed it before; we have threshed it out; we have finally come to the conclusion-that is those of us who were here at the time. I am sure the same thing would happen all over again if we discussed it long enough-that this is one of the best pieces of legislation that we have in the country from the standpoint of all the people of Canada.


Hazen Robert Argue: Don't spoil it.


James Garfield Gardiner: The reason we do not want to do things that are unreasonable, that other people cannot accept, is that that would spoil it.
I am quite prepared to argue here in the house, or anywhere out in the country in the area that is concerned, or anywhere else, that to deliberately go on year after year making payments to make it possible for people, without investing any capital in it at all, to get onto submarginal lands in western Canada, which ought to be in pasture, and try to farm them is wrong.
I am prepared to go anywhere and argue that payment under this act should not be made in such cases. Then, coming back to the questions asked, it has been suggested by most of the members who have spoken critically of it that if this was going to result in lands that are to be in pasture remaining in pasture, and lands which are submarginal being in pasture, and the private lands outside being in a position to be farmed, they would then be prepared to consider the matter more or less favourably.
Now the present position, as it has been stated by the hon. member for Middlesex East-and he has stated it correctly-is that we have been told in the house, I have told it to the house on many occasions, that we have two acts, one of which is the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, and the other P.F.R.A.
Under P.F.R.A. we offer to take any lands that are submarginal, put a fence around them, regrass them, put water in them and then allow the farmers who are located round about to organize themselves into pasture areas and put their cattle up to the number


of two-thirds of all that that area will accommodate into those pastures from year to year at a small fee. We have a million and a quarter acres of that land organized today on that basis. This government has purchased the lands that had to be purchased, and paid for them. They have assisted people to move off those lands and to go somewhere else. They have helped those people to get lands, and resettle themselves somewhere else. We have gone on to say that we are prepared to do that in Manitoba, prepared to do it in Saskatchewan and prepared to do it in Alberta. Now, so far, we have not got any lands in Alberta under that plan.


Victor Quelch: The provincial government have leases.


James Garfield Gardiner: If they wish to run some show of their own, then I have no objection to their doing it. But I hope they will not expect the taxpayers of Canada to pay for a plan which has not been worked out here and agreed to in the House of Commons.


Victor Quelch: That has nothing to do with the cultivation lease.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is a very simple matter for the government of the province of Alberta to organize those areas so as to bring them under the act, even as we are proposing to draft it today. But I do not think they should ask the government of Canada in Ottawa or ask this House of Commons to do for them what it is not necessary to do in order to have the matter dealt with as they want it dealt with.
I agree that there are lands all through the constituency my hon. friend represents-I have driven over practically all of them- which should never be farmed, as the hon. member knows. And I know he would never be a party to saying that they should be. Then there are other lands there which are very good, and ought to be irrigated. And both the provincial and the federal governments are working toward that end. Then there are lands in that area owned and operated by private individuals. They have been living there a long time, and by getting a sufficient area around under lease from the government or from somewhere else to be used for pasture, they can live there, and live just about as well as they could live anywhere else.
But I do not think any of us are worrying very much about what the proposed bill is doing'to those people. We certainly do not want to do them an injustice. But we do want to put this legislation in shape whereby no one can come into this House of Commons

and say, "You are paying money out on submarginal lands which are owned by a government and should be under pasture", this government is prepared to put it under pasture for the common good and someone deliberately goes on it and gets a lease, and makes it impossible to do that. I do not think the House of Commons wants us to pay to continue that.
I think there might be some good in the suggestion made by the hon. member for Assiniboia at the beginning of his remarks. There is just the possibility that out of the discussion which might take place in committee some who are now afraid of this legislation might be convinced that it is all right. There is just the possibility that some also may be able to bring forward some suggestions which would result in allaying to some extent the fears now held by some hon. members.
But I hope that nothing will come out of committee which will make it possible for anyone to continue going around and picking off pieces of land which they can get on leases, and into which they can put $100 or $200 or $300, and then pull out of this government $200 to $500 to make it possible for them to live there for a year. I hope that will not be permitted by anything that is done in committee or in the house. However, I am quite prepared to see that when the bill receives second reading we send it to committee so that we may have it threshed out in committee, so that we may know what the facts are, and then have our legislation go through with everyone understanding what is meant.


Percy Ellis Wright: I agree with the minister that the bill under the circumstances should go to the committee on agriculture. However, I should like to clear up one point. There was one question which, by the way, he did not answer, although he spoke for thirty minutes. I did not say anything about the one per cent levy being paid in my constituency and in his own area by people who never hope to obtain anything out of the act. I have been in the house for some considerable time, and this act has been up for revision six times, and no one has ever heard me raise my voice against paying the one per cent levy, except in respect of a few individuals, so as to assist in making the act workable in the southern part of the province.
But now he is excluding lands in the southern part of the province where there will be crop failures, and where they will not have the money to pay the one per cent levy, 55946-155
Prairie Farm Assistance Act as we have in the north, where we are fortunate enough to grow good crops. However, I do not wish to prolong the discussion now. That can be discussed in committee.


James Garfield Gardiner: I shall answer the question. I do not think we should be agreeing to any lands in your district or in my district or any other district being under this act where the land itself will not show as much as one per cent earnings. And the suggestion is made that there are some of these lands on which they are paying up to one-ninth or one-eighth of the crop into the provincial government. It could be into this government or some other government. Well, one-eighth is not much and one-ninth is not much. But on some farms that would get close to being the $200 or $500 in some cases that can be paid out under this act. And in those cases I do not think anything should be charged by the government that owns the land, whether it is just a tax or what it is. If it is just a matter of making it possible for the man who lives alongside and owns some land to continue living there, then I think a man should have the use of that land, and that he would not need prairie farm assistance.


Percy Ellis Wright: The minister has provoked me again. As I understand it, one of the reasons that P.F.A. was paid, and accepted by the rest of Canada, in the southern part of Saskatchewan or in the Palliser triangle, was that certain lands in that area were put under cultivation at a time when those lands were under the control of the dominion government. That was during the first war. They were put under cultivation to produce wheat, because we needed wheat at that time. Therefore it was the responsibility of the federal government that such lands were put under cultivation.
As some compensation to the provinces, when they took over the lands so as to maintain those people there, and to help them move out of those areas, the P.F.A.A. was introduced, and the P.F.R.A. was brought into effect.


James Garfield Gardiner: But under the act as it now is, when a person refuses to move from pasture land he is not paid. I think that when people are deliberately moving back into the area that is known to be submarginal they should not be paid either. That is all this measure is intended to do, and that is what it does do.


Victor Quelch: No one would contend that a bonus should be paid on land which is definitely submarginal, and if this measure were ordered so as to accomplish that it would get our support. But that is not what it does. It merely says that land that is privately
2436	HOUSE OF
Prairie Farm Assistance Act owned, whether submarginal or not, so long as it has not been declared submarginal, shall receive the bonus; but land which is under lease from a provincial, municipal or federal government will not be eligible. You may have two sections side by side, one section of subimarginal land privately owned being eligible for the bonus, the other section held under a provincial lease not being eligible. The minister says that it rests in the hands of the provincial government, that they can overcome the difficulty. I suppose the provincial government could sell the land back to the farmer. Is that what the minister is advocating? Is that what he meant by his statement?


James Garfield Gardiner: I was the minister in charge of a lot of these things in Saskatchewan for a number of years and I have travelled over most of the province hunting for land which the provincial government owned and on which anyone could live. I challenge any hon. member in the other corner to tell me of lands anywhere in Saskatchewan that are not held by someone other than the government and that people would think of settling on and making a home. We hunted for land away up in the north. Some people now say there are a million acres that people could settle on. Certainly down in the part of the province we are talking about every acre of land on which anyone could make a home has been taken up long ago by homestead or pre-emption.
Much of the land we are talking about is land on which no one under any circumstances would have settled ten or twenty years ago. But some people take a cultivation lease on it now because it is close to their home farm and because it might be possible to obtain payments under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. We must stop that sort of thing if the act is going to go on.
Then there is land which people have settled on and have tried to live on. But they found they could not and they got off. In my constituency an application was made under this act in the first or second year the act was in existence. The act definitely provides under its terms and regulations that land which has been broken up and allowed to go back to prairie shall not be eligible. If any one had asked me if this particular block of land had ever been broken up I would have said it had not. I have been driving across that ever since I was in the district and it is quite a large area. When the protest was first made that no payment could be received because it had been broken up, I questioned that and took the trouble to go and look at the land. When you searched carefully you could still see the furrows running all through the land which showed it


had been broken up away back in the eighties or nineties. That particular land had a gravel subsoil and it has been in pasture ever since. But in the early days they attempted to break it up and farm it. These safeguards are against practices such as that, to prevent people going onto land that no one should go on. It is to withhold land that should be organized into pastures to be utilized by the people in the area. It is to prevent people from being encouraged to go onto this type of land which has been proved to be not fitted for successful farming that the amendment is proposed.


Victor Quelch: The minister knows very well that it goes far beyond what he has stated. The land I have in mind has been farmed consistently for twenty or thirty years or more. The only trouble is that it is dry. The minister knows these special areas probably as well as I do. There are large areas of this dry land that could produce good crops if irrigation were possible. Surveys have been made to see whether water could be put on these lands. The difficulty about this legislation is that it denies a bonus to land which is held under lease from the por-vincial government, regardless of whether or not the land is good.


James Garfield Gardiner: No.


Victor Quelch: The minister shakes his head and I am a little more hopeful. I hope I am wrong, but I understood from the minister that any land held under lease from the provincial government would not be eligible for a bonus. Am I wrong in that? I hope I am.


James Garfield Gardiner: I would not go so far as to agree that any particular piece of land that happens to be owned by the government would be out, but I will say that the general principle involved in the amendment is that it is not our intention that land that people would not take up to farm on their own should receive benefits under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act if leased from the government.


Victor Quelch: The minister knows that the land I am referring to was considered good enough to be taken up. Because of circumstances some of these people were forced to lease their land but they continued to farm it. They proved that it was possible to farm the land. The minister says that not all land held under lease from the provincial government will not be eligible for bonus. Does he mean that there will be consultation between the federal and provincial governments to decide as to what leased lands will be eligible?


James Garfield Gardiner: The provincial government will be free to handle the lands in such manner as to bring them under the act.


Victor Quelch: Does the minister mean that the provincial government can sell the lands back to those who are leasing them?


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand that there are people living in that area who still own land but who lease other land from the provincial government, some for pasturing purposes and some for cultivation.


Victor Quelch: Some of them live entirely on leased land.


James Garfield Gardiner: There are a considerable number of people in the first group and I think it is true that most of them would be able to draw the full allowance under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act without taking into consideration what they have leased. They must have large acreages in that area if they are going to farm at all, and a number of them have quite considerable acreages in addition to what they lease. Those people would have no worry at all so far as this act is ccncerned as they will draw on their full acreage.
Then there is the other group who have been leasing all they have. It is difficult to state in an act that one man who leases submarginal land from the government can be paid while another man who leases submarginal land from the government cannot be paid. We have not said that at all, but to do what is suggested will work out to that in actual practice. What we have said in effect to the provincial government is this: "Are you satisfied that this is the only way in which these people can operate for a time until they get established?" I ask hon. members to consider what that means. If the provincial government replies, "There is nothing we can do to meet the situation; there is nothing that is going to help him, he must have this legislation." Then I would say to them, "You had better find some way of allowing these people the use of this land other than by leasing so that somebody else can do something about it." Under the other legislation we are prepared to take up a lot of that land and put it into pasture and make it available to these people without any capital outlay. Having offered that, I do not know why we should step in and adopt some plan that somebody else puts up and have to pay for it.


Arthur Leroy Smith: All the more reason for a committee.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I take it that the real purpose of this legislation is to prevent people 55946-155J
Prairie Farm, Assistance Act taking up submarginal land, or where they are already on submarginal land to force them off it or attempt to force them off it.


James Garfield Gardiner: The latter part of the hon. member's statement is scarcely correct. We are prepared to assist them to get off, but not to force them off. If we had been trying to force them off we would have had them off long ago.


Douglas Scott Harkness: With the general principle of taking submarginal lands out of cultivation I am in complete agreement. So far as the provision proposed by the minister at this time is concerned, I think the difficulty arises over the fact that a straight clear-cut provision has not been introduced to withdraw submarginal land from cultivation, land which, as the minister says, in many cases is leased. Instead it is being put on the basis of land qualifying or not qualifying for assistance payments on the ground of the kind of tenancy. It does not seem to me that is a reasonable way to do it. I suggest it would be very much better to change the provision with regard to withdrawing land so that it will be on the straightforward basis of no assistance being paid on land declared to be submarginal. Under those circumstances I think you would accomplish your purpose much better than by the proposed provision of getting people to move off submarginal land and preventing them from moving on.
The minister has said much about the desire to put a good deal of this land under the P.F.R.A. As long as you continue to allow farmers to farm submarginal land and make payments to them under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, you will not get them to agree to give up such land, move off and let it come under the P.F.R.A. From the point of view of general conservation measures, the protection not only of dry land but of other areas on the edges thereof from blowing, deterioration and so on, it would seem that a good deal of submarginal land still under cultivation should be withdrawn. With the exception of what I have suggested, I do not know what the particular means should be, but certainly from the point of view of long-range conservation measures there is no doubt we are still cultivating far too much land in the dry areas of Saskatchewan and Alberta.
As a boy I was raised on a ranch in southern Saskatchewan. It was beautiful ranching country, and it was opened up for homesteading. We then moved to Alberta. I have only been back once, in 1931, and I did not recognize the area. It was just a desert. There was a nice creek flowing

Prairie Farm Assistance Act through the place that always had water in it, and you could not tell where the 'course of it had been. It had been completely filled in. Great holes had been blown out of the land. That happened to be worse than most areas but there are many of that kind that never should have been opened up for cultivation. They should never have been homesteaded. It was a serious error, but since it was done the best course now is to try to repair the damage by putting the whole area back into grass as rapidly as possible. I do not think we will do that by half measures. I think it is necessary to put both the Prairie Farm Assistance Act and the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act on a much more definite basis in order to make sure that submarginal lands will be taken away from the provisions of the P.F.A.A. and put under the P.F.R.A.


Hazen Robert Argue: As I said before, I am not opposed to the government taking submarginal land out of wheat production provided that the people who are presently farming such lands are taken care of. I do object, however, to the minister attempting to dictate to provincial and municipal governments and to farmers as to how and on what basis they shall hold the land that they farm. It is certain that the land in the southwestern part of Saskatchewan presently owned by the provincial government is not all sub-xnarginal. I am sure the minister knows the area around Readlyn some of which is Sceptre heavy clay. The provincial government owns the odd piece of heavy clay land there, and it is certainly not submarginal for wheat production. It is some of the best wheat-producing land in the province of Saskatchewan.
The minister is saying that if a farmer wants to comply with the provisions of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act he will have to buy the land from the provincial government. Let us take the hypothetical case of a young farmer in the Readlyn district who owns a quarter section of land. He is just starting to farm and if he wants to expand he will have to go heavily in debt to buy more land. I am sure a half section in that area of that kind of land would cost $10,000. He will also have to buy a full line of equipment. Therefore he is most happy if he can get a half section of land from the provincial government under a leasing arrangement. Then he will only have to undertake the obligation of purchasing machinery, and goodness knows that is heavy enough for any man starting to farm at the present time. As I understand what the minister has said, a young man owning a quarter section of land and leasing a half section of Sceptre heavy


clay land from the provincial government on a thirty-three year lease will not be entitled to payment under the act.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not talking about Sceptre or any other particular place, but I know Sceptre just about as well as my hon. friend.


Hazen Robert Argue: I am not arguing that.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think I know the whole southern end of the province, and I repeat that there is no area in that section belonging to the government that anybody would think was good enough and with sufficient area to start a settlement of people who were going to live on the land and cultivate it. A few moments ago the hon. member for Calgary East described an area in such a way that I am sure I could go there and walk over it, although I do not know where he came from. It may have been under a Conservative government but I believe it was under a Liberal government that some years ago after a lot of coaxing we permitted one or two ranches in that area to be opened up for homesteading. Just as my friend said a moment ago, if you go back there today you will not recognize the country. Everyone there will tell you it never should have been opened up. Some of the people own their land but it is altogether wrong to say that just because it is heavy land it is good land in the sense that we are talking about. Some of the very best soil I know of in Saskatchewan is south of Cadillac, about halfway between there and the border. We have
110.000	acres there in community pasture. It is much heavier clay land than a lot of the land being farmed in western Canada but it is on the ridge where the water runs both ways. On one side it runs to Hudson bay and on the other it runs down to the gulf of Mexico. It is rolling land and the water runs off so fast that no one can farm it for grain growing purposes.
We put 110,000 acres into pasture. Then we put 6,000 acres under water down in the valley at Valmarie, and today those people are living to advantage where formerly they could not do so at all. It is one of the finest areas in the southern part of Saskatchewan. I would not advise the house, and I would not do anything as a minister of the government, to encourage people to go onto that
110.000	acre pasture and settle there for cultivation purposes. I am sure anyone who has lived in the southern part of Saskatchewan would not suggest that should be done. You can go right over the area from one end to the other, and there are no lands owned by the provincial government that they or we desire to have put under a plow. I may say

for the benefit of some of my friends who have been talking about this matter that if they will discuss it with the government of Saskatchewan they will find that they hold opinions quite similar to those I am expressing.


Hazen Robert Argue: The minister certainly has not answered my question at all. I asked him if a young farmer, or any other kind of farmer, who had a half section of land leased from a provincial government, which land, according to the best economic survey by the Department of Agriculture at Ottawa and the university of Saskatchewan, is at least second best land in that province, would be eligible for a bonus.


James Garfield Gardiner: The kind of land this bill really covers, and the kind I have in mind, would never get that sort of certificate from anyone who knew anything about land.


Hazen Robert Argue: That still does not answer my question. Of course the minister does not have to answer it if he does not want to, but it seems clear that one of the main purposes of this resolution is to try and force the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan to adopt a different land policy than they have been following so far.


James Garfield Gardiner: Oh, no, it is not. My hon. friend's views are so coloured by the opinions he holds with regard to socialism-


Hazen Robert Argue: Speak for yourself.


James Garfield Gardiner: -that he thinks I am always fighting his socialist government. Some of the opinions I am expressing here this afternoon I got while sitting in with them, discussing this question. I believe most people who know the situation do not believe we should pay prairie farm assistance when everyone knows the lands to be submarginal.


Percy Ellis Wright: I agree with the minister in regard to moving people from submarginal land; I have said so three times. The minister said he had sat in and discussed this matter with the governments of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Did he discuss this amendment he is now proposing, with respect to excluding those lands?


James Garfield Gardiner: I suggested to them that I probably would bring it in, and at the farm meeting in Saskatoon, at which representatives of all the groups were present, I said I was going to bring it in. I told them it was something they might find rather hard to take, but no one objected to it.


Victor Quelch: I do not think the minister will claim that the government of Alberta is socialist. A large percentage of the land in the special areas, as he knows, is owned by the province. I believe he understands
Prairie Farm Assistance Act how that came about. He knows the history of that land; and he knows that the policies carried out in that area were very largely agreed upon and applied by Mr. Longman, of whom I believe the minister has a very high opinion. Under the act the bonus car>-not be paid on submarginal land. That is definitely stated in the act.


James Garfield Gardiner: On land the provincedeclares submarginal.


Victor Quelch: That is correct; and I would agree with the minister on any steps that might be suggested to take submarginal land out of cultivation, without causing injustice. But the problem is that under the resolution now before us a man who owns submarginal land can continue to farm it and receive the bonus, provided that land has not been declared submarginal by the provincial government. This resolution does not take care of that situation at all; it only applies where submarginal land is owned by a provincial government and leased to an individual.


James Garfield Gardiner: No, it does not. As a matter of fact there is nothing we can do in regard to what the provincial government is going to say, but neither the government of Alberta nor the government of Saskatchewan has declared an acre of land submarginal since the act was placed upon the statute books. That is the first fact. They have never declared any of this land submarginal in the sense that this act says it must be declared.


Victor Quelch: But they have taken it out of cultivation.


James Garfield Gardiner: That was done long before. As a matter of fact the picture my hon. friend has in mind and that I have in mind began to be formed back in 1922. I believe it was commenced at least that far back. It was not under any of the gentlemen who have been mentioned when it was started, but it has gradually developed to the present position. It is only necessary to drive over that area to understand why that action was taken. When it comes to the other matter, however, knowing that both provincial governments had legislation on their statute books empowering them to declare any area submarginal and to commence to move people out of it, we put that provision in our statute. That was their own intention; those acts have been on the statute books of the provinces for a long time. So in this act we said that any land declared submarginal under that provincial legislation would not receive prairie farm assistance.
Then we set up the P.F.R.A., under which we organized this large area I mentioned a few moments ago, about 110,000 acres, some of which was owned by the government and
2440	HOUSE OF
Prairie Farm Assistance Act some by individuals. We bought out the individuals, and the provincial government gave us back the leased land. We had turned it over to them for nothing in 1931, and they gave it back to us for nothing in 1939 or 1940. We organized it into pastures, and bought up other lands to put in with it. Then we irrigated lands alongside it, in the Frenchman river valley, and people are living there and growing fodder, and stock is run in this large pasture. To any individual who wanted to live inside that fence we said, "You are on submarginal land, and you will get no prairie farm assistance." We have done that in every pasture we have set up, and those pastures now total some 1,300,000 acres in that area. To every person who wanted to remain there we said, "If you stay you remain under these conditions. In the first place, you have to get out through our fence. Then you have to put up with other people's cattle running around your place. In addition, you will not receive any prairie farm assistance; that is provided by our act."
Now we are going into other similar areas and saying we are prepared to put a fence around them and make pastures out of their land. There are perhaps only half a dozen or so people in the area, and we would like to have them move out. But now we find that svithin the last two or three years as many ,:as thirty-six people have moved into one Township in that area, and taken up crop leases. I do not think anyone in this house will suggest that we should continue to pay prairie farm assistance on that land. The situation is different in the case of a man who has been living on a piece of land for twenty or thirty years; who settled on that land years ago, when he did not know and no one knew what the conditions were. That man owns his land, or is living on it under an agreement of sale of some kind. He has managed to get along up to the present. We are not saying to him that unless he gets inside the pasture fence he must move off the land. We are saying, "Until we can find some place to put you we will help you along and pay the prairie farm assistance. Sooner or later, by obtaining this other land that still belongs to the province, to the municipality or to someone else, we hope to be able to get it organized into a pasture, and then we will help you move into an irrigated area, or somewhere else." In such cases we have undertaken to help a man take down his buildings; we have trucked them for him to his new location, and have helped pay the cost of putting them up again. So it is a matter of persuasion rather than compulsion, as my hon. friend suggested it might be. As long as we are going along with that policy we do not think we should turn around and


assist people to settle in these areas, by taking over cultivation leases, and getting prairie farm assistance. We do not think we should pay it.


Victor Quelch: The minister stressed the fact that Alberta has not declared any land submarginal under the act. On the other hand he knows they have taken a great deal of land out of cultivation. They have carefully surveyed the land in the drought area. Some has been classified as grazing land and some as cultivated land. The land that should not be cultivated is kept under grazing leases. So, while they have not declared it submarginal under the act, they have taken it out of cultivation.
The minister has had quite a bit to say about what the federal government has done in Saskatchewan in connection with building up pastures. The provincial government of Alberta has done exactly the same thing in drought areas. One would think the minister would appreciate the fact that the provincial government has established these pastures without assistance from the federal government, and has thereby saved this government a good deal of money. They have established a number of community pastures, and no one within those areas is allowed to cultivate the land. If the provincial government now disposes of some of the land at present held under cultivation leases, however, it will not have the same control over that land that it has at the present time, and I think the minister will realize that in that area it is necessary to retain control over the method of farming that is adopted. There was a great danger that they would become a dust bowl and therefore certain policies were adopted in order to ensure that they be not turned into a dust bowl. But if you were to sell back to private individuals that land which is held under cultivation leases there is no saying what type of farming may be adopted, and serious situations might be developed. The provincial government has had thousands of acres of submarginal land seeded down to crested wheat grass and let out on grazing lease. That has been taken out of the benefits of this act. In view of the fact that there are many farmers who have resided in that area for twenty or thirty years, but who today farm that land under a cultivation lease instead of holding the title, I think the minister will agree that these men should be entitled to the bonus just as much as the men who hold title to the land. I am wondering whether or not the minister consulted the municipalities or the provincial government before that section of the resolution was drafted. Is it just one of his own brain

waves or his department's, or did he arrive at this decision as a result of discussing the matter with the provincial governments and the municipalities out there?


James Garfield Gardiner: Again I do not like to be repeating my speeches that have appeared in the press all over the country for months, but I did go to the municipal convention in Saskatchewan, and I went purposely to discuss this matter along with one or two other questions.


Victor Quelch: Mainly section 2, the rectangular block.


James Garfield Gardiner: No. I discussed the whole matter. If the hon. member wants it repeated just as I said it at the time, maybe I should do so.


Victor Quelch: Go ahead.


James Garfield Gardiner: The whole province of Saskatchewan was represented at the municipal convention; the representatives of the municipalities in Alberta were there and also the representatives of the municipalities in Manitoba. They come to these meetings from year to year. I rose to my feet and stated to them that they had been asking for this rectangular area in the act to be changed to a solid block which was not rectangular. I said, "It is my intention to suggest an amendment of that kind in the act this session." I of course got quite a hand for that. I said, "Probably I should have given you the bad news before I gave you the good, and got the clap last rather than the other." Then I indicated that it was the intention of the government to prevent lands which belonged to the government-whether federal, provincial or municipal-from benefiting under this act.


Victor Quelch: I am glad you called it bad news.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am quite candid to say that I did not get quite so much applause for that; but maybe they did not fully understand the situation.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is probably why they applauded.


James Garfield Gardiner: I went into it with them, and no objection -vj/as raised to the idea that that ought to be done. I am going to say this in addition. The one area in which it is probably most difficult to apply the amendment is the area that the hon. member for Acadia has been talking about. That area has been organized under a special organization, and I do not think there is any other part of western Canada to which you can apply the same arguments.


Victor Quelch: The minister will agree that it is a good organization.
Prairie Farm Assistance Act


James Garfield Gardiner: I agree that it has taken care of a difficult situation over a period of time. Probably some examination should be made into the circumstances that exist and of the extent to which this legislation would harm people who maybe should not be harmed. But that again is something which can be done if the bill goes to the committee; and if it does not go to the committee, it is something that I can look into a little bit further before I bring it back to the house. But I am quite satisfied that the principle involved in this resolution has got to be brought into being now. When I say what I have said to the hon. member, what I am thinking of is that maybe if we said, "Anything that has happened within the last twenty years should not be a consideration", it would cover the matter. Most of this set-up was put up years and1 years ago and has been an established thing there. I think the hon. member himself will agree that people have been coming in and starting to do this in the last five or ten years since this act became a statute, and that some care should be taken with regard to permitting that to go on in the future.


Victor Quelch: I will agree with practically everything the minister has said this time; but I am more concerned for those farmers who went in there and homesteaded there in 1910 and 1911, and so on; who have tried to make a go of it, but who are now to be penalized under the act as a result of this amendment. With the assurance that the minister gave that this matter will be sent to a committee and discussed there, and that special consideration will be given to the peculiar situation that exists in that area, I will not object any further at this time.


Percy Ellis Wright: There is just one other point to which I want to refer. The minister talked about the dominion government establishing community pastures. I believe in Saskatchewan the provincial government are establishing community pastures today. They have already established a branch to work in co-operation with the P.F.R.A. administration; and that is the one thing that I think is important. There should be co-operation between the dominion government and the provincial government in this whole matter of the re-establishment of settlers in western Canada under P.F.R.A. The provincial government have under their control land on which many of these settlers could be settled in Saskatchewan. I know the northeastern part of the province fairly well, and I know the area to which the minister referred when he talked about some people saying that there were one million acres that could be put under cultivation. I know
J442	ftoUSE OF
Prairie Farm Assistance Act the people who said that. One of the men who said it was Mr. L. B. Thomson, director of the P.F.R.A., who had a party out there in the northeastern part of Saskatchewan and the northwestern part of Manitoba making a survey in the area. He said that there was land available there that could be put under cultivation for a cost of, as he stated, a few cents an acre. I think it will cost more than that to put in the necessary dikes to prevent the flooding of some of this land. But if P.F.R.A. is to be a success in the western provinces, it can only be a success when there is complete co-operation between both the provincial government and the federal government.
As to this amendment, may I say that I will be greatly surprised if the Saskatchewan government has been consulted and understands the implications, as the minister has explained them here today. I would urge that the Saskatchewan government be consulted. After all, the dominion government cannot make a success of the P.F.R.A. without the co-operation of the provincial government; and the provincial governments certainly cannot make a success of it without the co-operation of the dominion government. I would certainly hope that that cooperation would be available from both parties.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, I want to say only one thing with regard to the matter, and I am glad to have an opportunity to say it. I find it a little bit difficult to understand that a government is trying to co-operate with you under these circumstances. We say we are prepared tq spend all the money and do the job for you and leave the situation in the same position as the million and a quarter acres that are already fenced into pastures are in, namely that the federal government owns the land. Wfe put up the fences and built them; we set up the organization round about it that has operated it now for ten years successfully, and we are quite prepared to go right on doing that. Then the provincial government comes in and says: "This has been a fine job; it has been well done; everything is fine. We would just like you to turn the job of doing that over to us now and let us own the land instead of you". I presume they say that because they like a government that calls itself socialist to be owning something rather than a government that does not call itself socialist to be owning something. They say: "We would like to do this now; we would like to do this, but we want you to pay for it." Probably if they said: "We want to do it and we are prepared to pay for it," it might be all right. We think co-operation goes
[Mr. Wright.J

along this line. Herfe is a tiling that has been done well in Saskatchewan. It ft&s beeff done' well everywhere it has been tried, and nobody has complained about it. Everyone is satisfied. It has not cost the treasury anything outside of the original capital expense. It is paying its way every year right along, and we say, we are quite prepared to g0 along and operate it and take over the lands that you find you could not administer. I am not blaming the present government, because other governments found it the same. Prior to 1931 everyone in western Canada said-probably I should not say "everyone"; some of my hon. friends opposite perhaps do not agree-nearly everyone in western Canada said: "Turn the natural resources over to us. We are closer to them. We can administer them. We can pay for their operation better than anybody else." They were turned over to Liberal and Conservative governments, if you like, and they have been operated since by other kinds of governments. None of them has been able to find enough money to do the job at all.
Then the federal government comes along and says: "Well, we have got some responsibility in this, and we are prepared to go ahead and do the job. All you need to do is to turn back to us some of what was turned over to you, and we will go right ahead and do the job." When you get to that point they say, "Oh, well, yes, but we would like to do it now that you have shown us how, provided you will pay for it." I do not call that co-operation. If they will come right along and say: "Let us go right ahead with this thing as we have always been doing; let us make a go of it", they will get a hundred per cent co-operation from Ottawa. So long as they do not want to do that, we Will not have any row with them at all, we will go right on administering what we have now, and go on looking after the people we have undertaken to take care of, and do everything we can to develop the other as time goes on-


Hazen Robert Argue: Does that apply to irrigation, too?


James Garfield Gardiner: Oh, well, we will discuss irrigation when we come to it.


Hazen Robert Argue: Another principle then.


Mr. MacKenzie:: There is a simple way to settle this problem. I have listened to the same discussion in the house I am sure for the last 15 years. It has not varied very much. I feel that there was some justification for establishing the Prairie Farm Assistance Act and the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act when they were enacted. They have done a pretty good job. I feel that the two'
HT~
provinces have become very wealthy. They do tell us, when they are in different moods from what they are in now, that their farmers pay more income taxes than all the other farmers in Canada. That being true, I feel that this is not a federal field at all. It would be a good time to step out of the operations and let the provincial governments handle it. I think it actually is a provincial department.


Robert Fair: Some years ago I told the hon. gentleman:
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
I think that applies today as it did the first time I told it to him. If he got a little education on conditions in the other provinces and found out how very very efficiently the Income Tax Act has been operated in our provinces and that it is not operated in the same way in the other provinces he would have the answer to his comment.


Mr. Blackmore:: I have listened with great interest to the discussion up to the present time. It would be well to lay this down for the sake of the people of Ontario and the east who are more or less at a loss to understand what this thing is:
The time has come to lay it down definitely that in the days when the country was first being explored it was fully known by men who knew conditions, like Captain Palliser, that wide areas of Saskatchewan and Alberta were not suitable for settlement. That has already been referred to.
Alberta and Saskatchewan had nothing to do with settlers coming in and settling on that land. .Alberta and Saskatchewan were not even yet born as provinces. They were territories in those days. A great deal of the settlement which is causing us our trouble today took place before 1905 when these two provinces were born as provinces. Well, then, there was evidently a serious problem on the doorsteps of the new provinces as soon as they were organized; no one knows that better than the Minister of Agriculture himself.
What was to be done in order to assist these new provinces? What we are really debating today has a great deal to do with that very question. I do not think any hon. member, or anyone in the country, would say that because the dominion government had settled wide areas of that land with settlers, and put prospective provinces in the position in which they would have to pay crop failure relief, seed grain relief and a number of other things of that sort, and provide social services, schools and the like in areas that were not able to support such
Prairie Farm Assistance Act services by their own production-I do not think there is any member in this house of anyone out in the country who would argue that we could consistently ask Alberta and Saskatchewan to assume the financial responsibility for providing these services. The problem has just gone on and on from there.
We have now got to the point where what the minister seems to be arguing is this: If the dominion government is going to come into the province of Saskatchewan and take over this bad situation which has grown up during the years, then the dominion government requires that as a price of that assistance, that remedy, the province shall surrender to the dominion government the ownership of that land which properly belongs to Saskatchewan. I do not think there is an hon. member in the house who believes that that is exactly the thing to be desired. The dominion government has created a situation in the province of Saskatchewan which is beyond the capacity of any province like Saskatchewan unaided to take care of financially or any other way. When it is discovered that the situation is beyond control and the dominion government comes in to discharge a responsibility which certainly morally they assumed when they put the settlers in the area, when the dominion government comes in to deal with the problem and assumes the responsibility, it says: You will have to give back the country to us.


James Garfield Gardiner: May I ask one question?


John Horne Blackmore: Yes.


James Garfield Gardiner: The dominion government has spent about $30 million in round figures on the job up to now doing what my hon. friend is suggesting should be done. Does he not think that under these circumstances, whatever government happens to be in power at the time ought to be absolutely assured that at the end of the work the same evils are not going to be created again? If he thinks that, does he think there is any other way than the government of Canada having control not for twenty years, fifty or a hundred, but for all time?


John Horne Blackmore: The only answer to the question of the minister is this: It is a matter that has been before the house many times. Can we rely on the people who are elected by the people of Saskatchewan to form their government, can we rely on them to assume responsibility for the good government of Saskatchewan? In other words, are the people of Saskatchewan capable of electing as intelligent people, as honourable and as wellmeaning people, to govern them in Regina as they are to govern them in Ottawa? There can be only one answer to that. Surely, they


Prairie Farm Assistance Act are. Therefore I see no reason why the mere fact that the problem is taken over by the dominion government is a guarantee that the problem is going to be more successfully handled than it would be if it were in the hands of the provincial government granted financial assistance. As a matter of fact the splendid work which has already been done by Alberta-I am not so familiar with Saskatchewan but I presume it is just as good there -indicates that. The splendid work that has been done by Alberta in administering special areas is clear evidence that a province is quite capable of dealing with the situation. The only handicap a province has in confronting such a problem is that of financial commitments.
The minister may say, "Well, the federal government has to foot the bill; so, let the province manage the land!" There is no particular reason why that argument should be valid, because Saskatchewan is paying part of the money that goes to foot the bill, just as Nova Scotia or any other province. Saskatchewan pays abundantly in tariffs and by every other means of revenue to create funds at Ottawa from which costs are defrayed.
I fail to see why the mere fact that the dominion government provides the money should entitle it to take over the whole control and ownership of the land involved. I think that matter has to be understood. I would say that under the minister's control, while he has been in charge of the Department of Agriculture, it is only fair to say that he should have the credit that I am going to give him. I believe that he has handled this whole situation, including the irrigation question, with a vision which probably surpasses that which has been manifested by any of his predecessors in office. He is entitled to full credit, and entitled to that credit right here and now from a member who is not identical with him in political views or economic views, but who is anxious to see that a man gets credit for the things he does.
In my judgment, if the minister would just incorporate into his thinking the idea that I have intimated clearly in the few remarks I have made, he would have much more cause for satisfaction and happiness in the future, and so would the provinces of Canada, than would be the case if he does not accept that point of view.
Xvlr. Gardiner: We will apply it in a different bill from this one.


John Horne Blackmore: The reason I have risen lies in the fact that a question was raised by the hon. member from Ontario as to whether the other provinces should be called upon to pay money to help solve this special area problem.


I rise partly to deal with that question, realizing that it is an honest question, honestly and understandably asked. The minister in his remarks dealt with the question as to whether the dominion government should contribute to the accomplishment of an objective which seems to be primarily of provincial concern and responsibility, without assuming some sort of ownership or control of the land involved.
I think the answer very definitely is that the federal government ought to be prepared to help any province solve any problem beyond the power of that province to solve, knowing fully that the stronger each and every province is, the stronger is the Dominion of Canada. It has not hurt us at all to provide assistance on a generous basis for the people who suffered from floods in the Fraser valley. It will not hurt us to help the people who are suffering as a result of the terrible floods in Winnipeg. It did not hurt us to help Ontario build great canals, to which reference was made by the hon. member for Queens, I believe it was, the other night. It will not hurt us to help any of the provinces with a great project which makes the economic life within that province better and, in fact, helps everybody.
For the benefit of the hon. member from Ontario, who raised the question, let me ask: What was the main reason for bringing population into those plains which constitute the Palliser triangle? Those who go back to read the words of men like Sifton and others, who were instrumental in causing the settlement policy to be adopted, will find that those men said something like this, "So long as those plains have no people in them, there is no market for our agricultural machinery, no market for our textiles, no. market for eastern Canada. But if we can get people in there, we will have a market."
What was manifestly their primary object in settling people in those areas? It was to increase the economic stability of Canada as a whole through Ontario as a province. We have no objection to that; it was sound statesmanship. But part of the cost of providing those vast markets for Ontario and Quebec constitutes the very problem we are discussing today, the creation of a special area in which people were unable to support themselves because of drought.


Harry Oliver White: The question I was about to ask is somewhat aside from what has been under discussion. I was surprised to hear the statement that veterans would be established in those areas under the Veterans Land Act. How did that come about?-because this came into being in

1939 and conditions were pretty well known at that time. How many are there established in that area under the Veterans Land Act?


James Garfield Gardiner: The only reason veterans are being brought in is that it is assumed that all the land they are on was properly inspected before they went on it, and it was determined before they went on that they could make a living on that land. That was all determined by the inspectors under the Veterans Land Act. That being so, we-concluded we should not rule them out if, in some particular year, they have a crop failure.


Harry Oliver White: I just wished to be certain that a veteran would be protected in respect of his holdings.


Mr. Knighi:: I think perhaps the minister made some statements while I was out but to which I shall now refer. I understand the lands being thrown open in northeastern Saskatchewan are lands the title to which is in the name of the Saskatchewan government. These lands I understand are being leased to groups of young men, some of whom are veterans and some of whom are not.
My question is this: Do groups of young men, veterans or non-veterans, under those conditions of taking up land on a co-operative basis, become eligible for benefits under P.F.A.A.? Perhaps I might forestall what the minister might say by saying I know that that particular area is not likely to suffer from drought. However those of us who have lived so long in western Canada know that almost anything can happen there. If and when that does happen, what is the condition in regard to the class of men I have mentioned, namely young men who come together to lease land from the provincial government for the purpose of cooperative farming?


James Garfield Gardiner: I believe I said earlier that the act as it is now drawn takes care of cooperative farms as such. But, on the other question, most of what I know concerning that northeastern area I have learned as a result of discussions with delegations who have come to see me for the purpose of persuading the federal government to spend money to open it up. I can assure the hon. member of this, that so long as I am here, at least, and have anything to do with it, there is not going to be federal money spent on it in order to open it up, until we are pretty sure that it will not come under prairie farm assistance. To begin with, that land is in a section of the province where there never has been prairie farm assistance,
Prairie Farm Assistance Act until now. When I was minister in Saskatchewan I had something to do with opening up that area. We put in the drainage which made possible the occupation of much of the land from the highway running north to Nipawin. None of those people have come in under prairie farm assistance and I am quite satisfied that the question does not apply to people up in that section.
We are referring to the people in probably a good half of the province of Saskatchewan in the southwestern section, to the people in about a third of Alberta and the people in about a sixth of Manitoba. The remainder of those provinces is not much concerned with this particular legislation except for the fact that they have to pay the one per cent.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: Granting the correctness of what the minister has said, I still would like a more specific answer. Let us suppose that we have co-operative farms in northern Saskatchewan organized on the basis I have described. If drought should occur those people would not come under the P.F.A.A.


James Garfield Gardiner: I have attempted to make it absolutely certain that these co-operative farms are not eliminated.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: Will this amendment take them out of the act?


James Garfield Gardiner: No.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: Is there any distinction as to non-veterans and veterans in connection with those farms?


James Garfield Gardiner: Not if the man owns his farm, and the veteran is presumed to own his. Many veterans who own their land outright originally bought it under the Veterans Land Act. Others bought government land-this number is quite limited-but the land was properly inspected. Therefore we are prepared to say that such land would be classified as land in connection with which payments could be made.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: The minister has emphasized the purchase of the land. He first referred to those who owned their land and then he referred to those who had bought their land from the provincial government. If he will remember, my question related to those who were leasing land from the provincial government.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member is confining his question to an area that will never come under prairie farm assistance and he wants to be able to go up into that corner of the province and tell the people that the Minister of Agriculture said that they will never get anything, no matter what happens. I am not going to answer the hon. member's

Prairie Farm Assistance Act question to permit him to do that. I am telling the hon. member that this is intended to keep people from going on submarginal land for the purpose of drawing prairie farm assistance.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: I do not think the minister is fair in imputing motives. I can ask any question I like in this House of Commons.


James Garfield Gardiner: Certainly, but I do not have to answer it the way you want me to.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: The minister has indicated on many occasions that he does not have to answer, but my conception of the responsibility of a cabinet minister is that he is supposed to answer questions. Could we not discuss this thing without political tinge? The minister has not yet answered my question and I assure him that I do not want the answer for any political purposes or to be able to go up to talk to these people in that district.


James Garfield Gardiner: I have listened to you before.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: Perhaps that is what the minister would do if he had information which was against the party to which I belong. One of my greatest difficulties in dealing with the Minister of Agriculture is that I always feel that he never forgets politics. I am not interested in politics in that way. I have asked a proper question and I should have an answer. If a drought were to occur in that particular area would those people be permitted to draw P.F.A.A. benefits when they are on land that has been leased from the provincial government for the purpose of setting up co-operative farms? I have not yet got an answer and the minister says he will not give it so there is nothing I can do about it.


Mr. Sinnoit:: There is nothing wrong with this legislation the minister is bringing in.


Arthur Leroy Smith: That settles everything.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: I know of many young fellows who have wanted to buy a quarter section alongside a farm which they own already but because it happens to be part of a school section the provincial government would not sell although they are ready to lease over a period of years. When you lease land you generally do not make any attempt to improve its productivity. A man generally tries to get as much as possible year after year out of such land, with the result that it deteriorates. If the Saskatchewan government does not want to sell this land, that is their business, but I think the minister is following a sound policy with this legislation.


Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in.
Mr. Gardiner thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 209, to amend the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, 1939.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



CUSTOMS TARIFF

[Stage Direction]
The house having reverted to the order for introduction of bills:
Robert Henry Winters: for leave to introduce Bill No. 210, to amend the Customs Tariff.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

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



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
1.	Departmental administration, $293,670.
John Alpheus Charlton: There are a few questions I should like to ask on this item as it might be easier to ask them now rather than to wait until the various items they concern are before the committee. One matter has to do with the expenditures for miscellaneous, sundries, n.o.p.-not otherwise provided for -and contingent. Dealing with the Department of Agriculture alone they amount to a total of $198,159. Although it does not have to do with this department, I may say in passing that I have gone through all the estimates and I find the grand total for all departments is $17,382,354 for sundries, miscellaneous, not otherwise provided for, and in some cases contingent expenses. I believe that should be explained by the Minister of Finance if not by the Minister of Agriculture. If such expenses amount to so much then it would seem to me that they should be set out in greater detail or the departments should get together and agree on a common plan to deal with them.
The total for travelling expenses, for instance, in the Department of Agriculture for 1950-51 is $2,148,000, an increase of $171,500 over last year. I think the minister should answer these questions. I realize a great deal of travelling must be done by officials of the department but certainly not that much. In the case of sundries there is something else I should like to point out. It happens that thirteen out of the forty-five votes for sundry items are exactly the same as they were last year. They include such figures as $617, $513, $1,147, and they are identical with last year's items. I think that arouses a little suspicion and calls for an answer. Is the minister not going to answer?


James Garfield Gardiner: I will wait until I hear more, if there is any more criticism. I want to look up these sundries.


Mr. Jones:: I am not going to follow the criticism of the hon. member for Brant-Went-worth. Under this item I want to deal in a general way with an industry with which I am fairly familiar, fruit growing in the Okanagan valley. I should like to express my appreciation and that of the industry as a whole for the co-operation and assistance given to the industry by the Minister of Agriculture. I should like to point out, however, that if it were not for the disasters at Winnipeg and Rimouski you would probably be hearing a good deal more about the plight of the fruit growers of the Okanagan valley. While their disaster is not as great as those featured in the papers at the present time, they have received a terrible set-back through loss of markets and particularly because of the severe winter. I have heard from several of my friends in the industry saying that they have lost some of their orchards, peaches and apricots particularly. The value of their loss has not been completely assessed so I am not going to deal with that now. I should like to point out to the minister that I hope he has provision in his estimates to take care of the farmers who have suffered heavy losses.
I am also satisfied that the total amount of money received from all sales of apples up to date plus the $2 million generously given by the government will fall far short of returning to the farmers the cost of production. I hope if they come to the minister he will treat them in his usual co-operative way as he has in the past. I should like to review briefly the prospects for the coming year as it has a bearing on the situation of the fruit growers. I want to refer to the Penticton Herald of May 4. Mr. Embrey, an official of the British Columbia Tree Fruits Limited, is reported as saying that the estimate for the present year for apples is five and a half to six million boxes, which is roughly 70 per cent of last year's crop. He goes on to say that apricots and peaches will be practically nil. I do not think it is quite that bad but I am using his own words. He says that the cherry crop is expected to be about 30 per cent in comparison with last year's crop.
I merely point out that the fruit growers have suffered from loss of markets and conditions following a severe winter. They are battling natural obstacles plus artificial trade barriers. Mr. Embrey goes on to point out that the apple growers of Washington and other states, whose apples are in competition with our own over the border, are fighting hard to get Mr. Truman to place an import quota on Canadian apples. Nevertheless Mr. Supply-Agriculture
Embrey has hopes that will not be the case, and I think Mr. Truman has sympathetic feelings toward the Canadian growers. Our people are constantly in search of world markets, and I want to suggest some places where the government can help. One of them is by entering wholeheartedly into the principle of a world food pool. We feel that apples-and doctors have said so on many occasions-are needed as a part of any balanced diet. They are a necessity and should be used to balance the diet of every household the whole year round.
In the world as a whole there is a vast shortage of apples but in Canada, as is well known, we have a large surplus. I want to read a resolution passed by the growers at their convention last November concerning the suggestion I am endeavouring to pass on to the government. The resolution reads:
Whereas the food and agriculture organization has adopted in principle the world food pool resolution submitted by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture to and adopted by the international federation of agricultural producers at Guelph, Ontario, last June, which resolution conforms with submissions made by the British Columbia Federation of Agriculture during the last ten years, and
Whereas the FAO international commodity clearing house seeks to establish-
1.	''The maintenance of a high level of production and employment."
2.	"The reduction of trade restrictions, including tariffs and quantitative and monetary restrictions."
3.	"An increase in the standards of productive efficiency particularly in western Europe."
4.	"International investment to finance export and import surpluses" and
5.	"The restoration of convertible currencies and multi-lateral transactions as a basis of world trade" -all of which is designed to feed properly an undernourished world and thus utilize all presently available potential food and fibre production.
Therefore, the British Columbia Fruit Growers Association in its 1950 annual convention commends the Canadian Federation of Agriculture for promoting so effectively the world food pool principle and the sixty-one countries which make up FAO for planning to put this world-essential principle into active operation, and urges the Canadian government to give this project its complete support.
On their behalf, Mr. Chairman, I am passing on the desire and hope that the minister's support will be given to this resolution. Under those conditions we would have no surpluses. Instead of embarrassing us, they would be converted into tangible wealth. It would help build up good will throughout the world, and would put the industry on its feet. I believe our ability to produce is a sacred trust, and if we violate it or destroy our production by waste or dumping, some day we shall have to pay the price and answer for our actions.
Since Canada is one of the world's leading agricultural producers, Canadians should give leadership, and by that I mean we should

Supply-Agriculture
break all the economic red tape that is now tying us down to orthodox methods of trading with other countries. We shall be sorry indeed if the day ever comes when Canadian farmers, whether wheat growers or fruit producers, are asked to restrict their production. To me that is contrary to the laws of nature, and should not be done. In the light of that I ask the government to study the implications of this resolution, a copy of which was sent to the minister. My appeal is ably backed by Mr. Hannam, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. He has summarized the matter in these words, and I quote from his statement in the Ottawa Journal of April 20:
"The problem, then, is largely a matter of distribution of food within each country and throughout the world. To have embarrassing surpluses of food piling up in one part of the country, undermining both producers' security and their domestic economies, while in some other parts of the world millions are hungry and undernourished, is a denial of everything that leads to human progress.
"Our farmers and farmers in other exporting countries will be compelled to restrict production against their better judgment if a world food plan is not undertaken to distribute abundance to people in great need. A continuation of this situation is a threat to the peace of the world, because you can't talk peace to hungry people nor can you argue successfully against communism, whcse leaders take full advantage of that kind of situation," concluded Mr. Hannam.
As I have stated already, I bring up this matter in the hope that the Minister of Agriculture, who is capable of taking the lead and who is in the happy position of having these surpluses more or less under control, can step into the picture and present the case to the rest of the world. I should like to compliment the minister and his department on what they have done, but I understand the difficulties they are up against, particularly with respect to foreign markets. When I came to investigate what were the actual handicaps I understood those difficulties better than ever. I find that one difficulty is the lack of peace treaties, [DOT] with which I shall deal later on. Recognition of countries which were formerly enemies, who are now in a position to deal with us, has not taken place owning to the absence of a peace treaty. Presumably that is a matter that will have to be dealt with by the Department of External Affairs. Then the Department of Finance comes into the picture of world trade, with our austerity program and the conservation of dollars. Into the same picture comes the Department of National Revenue, with its tariffs, quotas, duties and so on. So the Department of Agriculture has to make the best of a huge production and huge surplus, and battle against the interests of the other departments.

I suggest that the department exercise the powers granted in 1946, which to me appear very wide, in order to overcome some of the obstacles to which I have referred. The Canadian Commercial Corporation Act gives that corporation power to assist in the development of trade between Canada and other nations, and to assist persons in Canada to obtain goods and commodities from outside Canada or to dispose of goods and commodities that are available for export from Canada. Then in section 5 it provides:
. . . the corporation may carry on the business of:
(a)	importing goods or commodities into Canada, and
(b)	exporting goods or commodities from Canada, either as principal or as agent, in such manner and to such extent as it deems advisable to achieve the said purposes.
To my mind that gives the department power to work in conjunction with the corporation to set up an import-export board or its equivalent to take care of the marketing of our fruit products overseas. I realize it has been suggested that we have trade envoys to do these things; or, as one minister suggested, the industry itself should have representatives seeking these markets. The trouble is that a small firm, or any firm as far as that goes, finds it difficult to obtain properly qualified people to send abroad, mainly because of the cost involved. You need men able to speak the languages of the countries in which you are seeking to do business. They must be trained to ascertain the trade requirements of various countries, and so on. For many years we in Canada were indifferent to the trade needs of countries such as Britain, for instance. Their timber dimensions vary widely from ours, yet we stubbornly kept on sending our own dimensions. As a result it was many years before we realized why we were not making headway in that market. We also need a body that will have power to advise Canadian manufacturers and producers as to the requirements of these markets. These would include such things as timber dimensions, which I just mentioned, and the type, quality and size of pack with respect to fruit. We have probably drifted into world trade; we have gradually caught up with the trend, but we are still in the drift.
In the absence of any such policy, such bodies as the Canadian chamber of commerce are doing their best to overcome the difficulties. I should like to quote from a letter recently received from this organization to show what they are doing to fill the gap in the absence of a department organized to look after our import and export needs:
. . . anything which diminishes the output of our primary industries is bound to affect all business.

Primary industries, as you know, are dependent to a large extent upon foreign markets. Fluctuations in foreign trade can be related directly to your business. A continued deterioration of foreign trade could have the same damaging effect on primary industries in this province as weather adversity.
Regardless of whether we sell to the foreign market or not, we should be concerned about it. It seems obvious that we as individuals can do little. We can, however, support an organization which has as its objective the study and development of improved foreign trade.
You may have read in recent press dispatches of the return of Mr. Howard T. Mitchell of Vancouver from Anglo-Canadian trade talks in London, England. This is only one of the efforts of the Canadian chamber of commerce in this field. Undoubtedly such continued efforts will benefit British Columbia greatly.
Item stands.
At six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Friday, May 5, consideration in committee of Bill No. 9, to incorporate Prairie Transmission Lines Limited,-Mr. Benidickson-Mr. Beaudoin, in the chair.
On section 1-Incorporation.
Mr. Maclnnis:: I should like to say another word, Mr. Chairman, on this bill before it gets out of committee. When I last spoke in the debate on the second reading of one of these bills-I think it was before the Easter recess-I said that I did not intend to take up any further time of the house in debating these measures. I spoke only briefly at that time.
When we were debating the bills on second reading, the chorus from the supporters of the bills was, "Let us get the bills through the house and to the appropriate standing committee where we can get all the information that our hearts can desire". Eventually the bills reached the committee, but once they got there the situation changed. Instead of making an attempt to get all the information required, the chorus began to get the bills back into the house. As I may mention later, that strategy had results which the strategists did not expect. Some members of the committee, and some who were not on the committee, but who were interested in the bills, were disgusted with what they saw and heard. The result was that they changed their minds, and their support for the bills
Prairie Transmission Lines is not nearly so strong now-at least not among the members from my province-as it was before the bills went to the committee.
On the order paper each Tuesday and Friday, and on private members days' on Mondays-I was going to say the perpetual private members' Mondays-these bills appear under the heading "private bills". In order to bring the heading of the bills in proper relation to reality, I think we should have a new page on the order paper, and put these bills under the title "privileged bills"; because I have never heard of a situation such as this one, where outside promoters can get greater preference in the House of Commons than can the members who were sent here by the electors of this country.
I think, however, that the long debate has had some good results. I notice that the hon. member for Vancouver South who, I am sorry to say, is not in his seat tonight, in an article written for a neighbourhood paper in his constituency said this:
The tragedy of the filibuster has been that it held parliament in contempt to the extent that it prevented members from exercising their responsibilities.
Then he went on to say something that we have heard time and time again during the debate on these bills and to which I shall refer later:
Parliament has no power to determine route of any pipe line but this authority is vested with the board of transport commissioners. Parliament has no authority to sanction either gas or oil for these pipe lines-this is the responsibility of the Alberta gas and oil conservation board. Export of these and like commodities is subject to statute of the Department of Trade and Commerce.
The filibuster, if the hon. member for Vancouver South wishes to call it that, has surely had at least one favourable result. It has held up discussion on these bills long enough for some of the British Columbia members, who were definitely in favour of the bills before they went to committee, to oppose them now in their present form at least while the others, with the possible exception of the one who is supporting the bills, do not know just where they stand.
To refer again to the hon. member for Vancouver South, in some remarks he made in the house in connection with the bills he said that he would vote for them and would go back to British Columbia and educate the people of that province into demanding an all-Canadian route. If there is need for education, it is the hon. member for Vancouver South that needs it. It is the people of British Columbia who are educating the hon. member for Vancouver South as they have educated the hon. member for Coast-Capilano, the hon. member for Comox-Alberni and quite
House of
Prairie Transmission Lines a number of other members who are at the moment sitting on the fence, not knowing which way they are going to fall.
The argument has been made and reiterated, that this parliament has no authority or power to designate a route. For my part, I would hate to believe that of this parliament. But whether or not parliament has the right to designate a definite route, surely parliament has a right to indicate what general route this House of Commons believes the pipe lines should follow in taking a Canadian natural resource from one point in Canada to another. Surely parliament has the right to say that. If not, we had better leave at once for our homes. The argument made by my hon. friends who are supporting these bills is that parliament need not do that. The board of transport commissioners will protect the interests of the people of Canada. Well, the board of transport commissioners have authority over our freight rates.


An hon. Member:: They have made mistakes before.


Donald MacInnis: My hon. friend says that they have made mistakes. A great many people in this parliament are not satisfied with the board of transport commissioners as they have dealt so far with freight rates. We have appointed a royal commission to look into freight rates because we are dissatisfied with the way the board of transport commissioners has been handling the job.
The board of transport commissioners was not sent to this house by the people of British Columbia to protect their interests. The people who were sent here to do that are the members from the constituencies in that province; and either we protect the interests of the people of British Columbia or we should stop making the alibi that that is the duty of the board of transport commissioners.
It is unnecessary to say a great deal on that point. When he spoke on this question a few evenings ago, the leader of the opposition made the point very clear, so clear, really, that there is no possibility of misunderstanding it. That is, that the first authority which must deal with the route the pipe line is to take is the government of Canada, and that the board of transport commissioners cannot and will not deal with the route until the government of Canada has made its decision in regard to it.
I read in a book once a saying that was attributed to the late Lord Randolph Churchill, father of Winston Churchill, to the effect that whenever you were in the position where you had to say a kind word about a political opponent in the House of Commons you should always be careful to do it with a


kick instead of a pat. 1 have never accepted that philosophy, and tonight I want to say a good word for the leader of the opposition. I believe hon. members and the people of Canada should be grateful to the leader of the opposition for the clear statement he made on this matter when he spoke in this debate on Tuesday evening last. Let me draw the committee's attention briefly to what he said. I shall not quote from his speech extensively, but only a small part of it. He read from a minute of council, and this is the last paragraph of it:
That, in the opinion of the minister, the construction of the pipe line by Interprovincial Pipe Line Company is in the national interests of Canada.
The committee, therefore, on the recommendation of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, advise that under the provisions of the Electricity and Fluid Exportation Act, a licence, in accordance with the form attached hereto, to construct a pipe line to connect at the border of Canada and the United States of America at or near Gretna, Manitoba, with a pipe line to be constructed in the United States, be granted to Interprovincial Pipe Line Company of Edmonton, Alberta, accordingly.
That was on the 13th day of September, 1949. Until that order in council passed, the board of transport commissioners would not make an order in the case at all. On the 15th day of September the board of transport commissioners made this order as reported in the speech made by the leader of the opposition at page 2325 of Hansard:
Upon hearing the application at the sittings of the board held in Ottawa, September 8 and 12, 1949, in the presence of counsel and representatives for the applicant, the province of Alberta, the Department of Trade and Commerce, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, the city of Port Arthur and the board of trade of Fort William . . .
It is ordered that leave be, and it is hereby granted to the Interprovincial Pipe Line Company to construct a pipe line for the transportation of oil from a point in the vicinity of the city of Regina, in the province of Saskatchewan, to a point in the vicinity of the village of Gretna, in the province of Manitoba; the said pipe line to be constructed and completed on or before October 31, 1951.
Be it noted by those who believe that parliament and the government have no authority in this matter that that order was made two days after the order in council which I read just a moment ago was passed. In the face of those facts, in a similar circumstance, let us no longer quibble as to where the authority in this matter lies.
Another argument made by the supporters of the bill-and I think it was made by the Prime Minister when he spoke, but when the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra questioned him later he agreed that the point was not just exactly as he made it-is that the board of transport commissioners can decide in all circumstances the route the pipe line should follow. But leaving aside the point that I have already made, namely, that

the board of transport commissioners can move only after the governor in council has moved first, may I say that the board of transport commissioners is limited in its decision to the route in the application made to it and in the plans which accompany such application. I suppose it could, in its wisdom, decline to grant an order for the construction of a pipe line over any route whatsoever. I do not know; but I would be of the opinion that if this parliament passes a bill that gives authority to this company to build a pipe line either through Canada or through the United States, the board of transport commissioners will consider that, parliament being indifferent as to the route the pipe line should follow, it could authorize the laying of the pipe line on the route, whatever it may be, that the company making the application lays before it. In my opinion that is a logical conclusion. Let me repeat it. If we members of parliament are unconcerned as to which route the pipe line should follow, if we do not care whether Canada should be served after the United States cities are served, or that Canada should be served before United States cities [DOT] are served; if we are unconcerned in the matter and refuse to make a decision one way or another, the board of transport commissioners is justified in giving an order endorsing the particular route that is laid before it by the company making the application.
Anyone who has read the report of the proceedings of the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines must be struck by the fact that, in so far as the companies making application having information in regard to the different routes are concerned, the great bulk of their information is concerning routes through United States territory. There is hardly any information at all in regard to routes through Canadian territory.
Let me quote briefly from the proceedings for Friday, April 28, where the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Smith) was questioning Mr. William C. Gilman:
Q. You have made no examination of the all-Canadian route. You do not know whether a line can be built between Hope and Princeton or not, do you?
A. No.
Q. Why are you giving us figures in millions per year to the lower mainland in British Columbia when you have nothing to base it on at all?
A. It is just an engineering guess of the cost of construction.
But, remember, the application is placed before tihe board of transport commissioners, and the costs of the various routes are placed before the board. These costs will also be an "engineering guess." And the $17 million
Prairie Transmission Lines difference in cost between building a pipe line through Canadian territory and through American territory is also a guess. As the hon. member for Coast-Capilano said when speaking in this debate, they just took that amount out of the air. But let us remember that when they get a charter for a pipe line they have something far more important than anything that can be pulled out of the air. The questioning continued:
Q. What do you mean by an engineering guess?
A. Well, all estimates are guesses.
What do you think of an answer like that? -"all estimates are guesses." I do not care how wise and fine a citizen that man may be, my conclusion, is that he took the committee for a pack of fools. I presume he thought the members of parliament on the committee, sent here by the electors of Canada to represent them in parliament and to make their laws for them, were intelligent men. Yet he tells them that all estimates are guesses. A guess is something one says in this fashion: "I guess it is going to rain tomorrow" or "I guess it will not rain tomorrow." What do hon. members think of that sort of evidence as something to make a decision on?
Then the questioning continued:
Q. It is a pious hope because you like the southern route? A. No, we have no preference at all.
And then later on:
Q. I do not know how I missed you. a distinguished looking gentleman like you.
A. I did not see you there either.
Q. The answer to that is I do not know why you should have. We will go on further: you have made no surveys whatever in the Yellowhead pass route?
A. No.
Q. So you do not know what the cost will be to take gas via that route, do you?
A. No.
Q. So you are talking about saving these hundreds of millions over a twenty-year period and you have no basis for comparison at all, have you, with the Yellowhead route?
A. I was not making a comparison with the Yellowhead route.
Then on the next page of evidence he was questioned by the hon. member for Vegre-ville (Mr. Decore):
Q. In connection with the Yellowhead route the only observation you made was when you went through by train?
A. That is right.
Q. Now, I just want you to answer this question. How fast was the train going when you were making those observations?
A. Oh, about twenty to twenty-five miles an hour.
There should have been one or two further questions, such as, "Was it during the day or during the night?" and "Were you awake, or were you asleep?" All these questions would be equally relevant, because

Prairie Transmission Lines the answers they received were just the answers that had to be given in a situation where those replying had no answers to give.
I could continue quoting questions and answers from these amazing proceedings, but it is not necessary. I have already quoted sufficient to show that the committee was nothing but a farce.
Another argument offered by supporters of these bills is that if we grant a charter to one company, and to one company only, we are creating a monopoly. The hon. member for Edmonton West was surprised that the Progressive Conservatives, who are in favour of free enterprise, should support a policy of monopoly, and that members of the C.C.F. who favour public ownership should also favour monopoly, or a course of action which would lead to monopoly.
Has anyone suggested that if we grant three charters three pipe lines will be built to the Pacific coast? Certainly no one has made that suggestion within my hearing. We know that of course no one has said any such thing, because there will be no business for three pipe lines to the Pacific coast. Consequently, no matter which company gets a charter to build a pipe line, it will have a monopoly. After all, a monopoly is not always necessarily a bad thing, and I think the hon. member for Edmonton West should know that. When the pipe line reaches Vancouver -should it reach there-I understand the distribution of gas will be carried out by the British Columbia Gas Company. A monopoly, if you like; but surely no one in this parliament is foolish enough to say that you could grant two charters fpr supplying Vancouver with gas. A monopoly is a bad thing when it is used to raise prices to the consumer through the elimination of competition. When you give one company a charter or a franchise to do a certain thing and keep control over what that company can charge, when you provide that they receive only an amount that is considered fair, reasonable for the service they give, that sort of monopoly is a good thing.
It is time we stopped talking nonsense. It is time we stopped trying to find alibis for following a course which reason indicates does not meet the requirements of the situation. I have heard it said on many occasions that Canada's resources are unlimited. They used to say years ago that the resources of the United States were unlimited. But the United States has consumed its resources to such an extent that it is looking more and more to Canada for raw materials such as ores and other raw materials to keep its


industries going. So far it has been the policy of this country to be content to sell our raw materials.
This committee should not be panicked by the specious argument that unless we grab this opportunity to sell our natural gas at once the United States will get its gas from some other source. They used to put up the same argument in 1910 when they were selling lots in Vancouver. When a real estate agent was trying to sell you a lot he would tell you he had a dozen buyers for it when he didn't have one. We are being told the same thing here. That is another alibi we should stop using. We have not unlimited resources.
The people of British Columbia are anxious that they should be given the first opportunity to use this resource. If there is more than we need there is no reason in the world why our American cousins cannot have it. These gas resources are ours and we should have the first opportunity to use them.
I had no idea when I rose to speak that I would speak at such length because I do not believe it is necessary to labour this question. I have said already that this parliament has an obligation to at least give an expression of opinion. If it cannot give a directive, it can give an expression of opinion that it wants this pipe line to serve Canadian needs first. Because this parliament has an opportunity to give an expression of opinion, because the first order must be passed by the executive of this parliament, that will be a directive as to what kind of order in council should be passed. Then the board of transport commissioners will have its cue. Hon. members from other parts of Canada have an obligation as members of this parliament to protect the interests of British Columbia.
When we have done that I am sure that the pipe line will be built through British Columbia, but if we let this bill through in its present form there is no assurance that the pipe line will be built through British Columbia.


Mr. Goode:: Mr. Chairman, I do not intend for one moment to get into what I consider is a stew, such as the hon. member for Vancouver East has got into, by appealing to the sentimentality of the problem.


Donald MacInnis: I object to the hon. member saying that I have got into a stew. I have not got into a stew-whatever a stew is I do not particularly know. I could not accept the situation as it existed at the moment and I simply decided that the time had arrived to make a forceful demonstration of the issues in this case.


Tom Goode: I fail to see how the hon. member for Vancouver East can take exception to my remark when he admits that he does not know what he is talking about. This is a business proposition which has two angles. One is the companies who are interested to the extent of $150 million. The second angle is the fact that British Columbia, as the hon. member for Vancouver East very ably said, must be protected.
How are you going to protect the people of that province? Are you going to let the Westcoast Transmission Company have the only charter with which to go before the board of transport commissioners, or are you going to let in perhaps three or four other companies to practically tender on this business? Quite apart from the interests of British Columbia, if one company goes before the Alberta conservation board it puts that board in a rather awkward position. If these bills are permitted to pass it will mean that there are three companies before them. Disregarding entirely the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver East, I think it would be far more valuable to have three companies rather than one tendering on this matter.
I had not intended to start out in that way and I shall come back now to the point from which I intended to start. I think every hon. member from British Columbia no matter on which side of the house he sits should place on record his feelings in regard to this matter. That should be done in order to be fair not only to this committee, but to the people back home. I am going to vote in support of these two charters because I believe it is the only possible thing a member from British Columbia can do.
I am not going to refer in detail to the proceedings of the committee because I was not satisfied either in regard to what went on. In reply to repeated questions from me Mr. Dixon told the committee that the cost to the people of British Columbia would be between $750,000 and $1,250,000 a year.


An hon. Member:: Rubbish.


Tom Goode: The hon. member may say that, but he did not say anything in committee regarding it and the statement has not been denied. I realize that Mr. Dixon represents $150 million and perhaps his statement may be a little -biased, but I must go along with it unless it is disproved. The only place to disprove it is before the board of transport commissioners.
Most of us have been in business at one time or another, although sometimes I wonder from the statements that emanate from the gentlemen on the other side whether they
Prairie Transmission Lines know what business is. As I say, this represents $150 million and I think this house should let this matter go before a board which has the responsibility of seeing that all the details are brought out, not only from the standpoint of the Alberta government, not only from the standpoint of the Westcoast Transmission Company, but from the standpoint of the Alberta Natural Gas Company and the Prairie Transmission Lines Limited.
I am of opinion that the Westcoast Transmission Company have never intended to build a pipe line.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Nonsense.


Mr. Gibson:: That is not fair.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Why? Give one
reason.


Tom Goode: I respect greatly the sentiments of the hon. member for Comox-Alberni. He happens to be a good personal friend of mine. The hon. member for Comox-Alberni has listened to representatives of the Westcoast Transmission Company in his office just as I have done in mine. Their opinions did not interest me. Evidently they interested the hon. member for Comox-Alberni. In the interests of British Columbia I believe that every hon. member should allow these charters to be granted. I think if three companies appear before the board of transport commissioners to present their cases, in the same way that Mr. Dixon presented his case, it will be more satisfactory. I know that Mr. Dixon represents interests involving $150 million, but as a result of such deliberations before the board I am sure that its members can come to a more intelligent conclusion and I think British Columbia will benefit thereby. I intend to vote in support of the incorporation of these companies for the one reason that I believe three companies appearing before the board of transport commissioners will be more effective in the interests of British Columbia than one company.


Mr. Harris (Danforih):: The hon. member who has just taken his seat has observed that we should approach the problem confronting us from a business point of view. With that I am entirely in accord, and I ask him to do a little research in a big broad way as to the business end of the problem which faces us not only for this year but for two or three decades to come. I ask him to try to think the matter through in the light of the next generations, those who will follow after us. I have tried to do that. I have no particular personal interest except that it has been my high privilege to preside over a board which has seen to it that during the last year we have spent $100,000 in Calgary in the promotion of a little industry

Prairie Transmission Lines which I hope will require close to $1 million in the next ten years and will consume many hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of gas from that great potential supply which Providence has placed in our lap for us to use.
It is my pleasure to be interested not from the point of view of monetary return particularly but from the point of view that there is one feature of our Canadian citizenship which makes our breasts swell with pride, namely, that from the business point of view we are making vocations and providing livelihoods not only for our own people but also for others. I have already transplanted a nephew of mine to Calgary in the last eight or nine months. On June 3 of this year three most prominent executives from London, England, are coming to Canada. One of them is Mr. I. H. Chayen, one of the most eminent engineers in the British isles, who is now operating some sixteen factories in different parts of the United Kingdom. He will be accompanied by an engineer, Mr. Page, and his general manager, Mr. H. W. Orwell. They are flying to Canada and will be my guests in Toronto. From there they will go to Calgary, Alberta, for the reason that they want to expand a little industry presently established there on seven and a half acres of land with half a mile of trackage and other railway facilities. This industry was inveigled to go there, and in fact was anxious to go there because of raw materials which they desire and because of power, in this case gas. There is an ample supply of gas so that they can in turn expand the industry by the use of steam units operated by gas available for that industry.
They are not promoters; they are not men who sit behind mahogany desks on mahogany chairs and make money out of our natural resources. They are men who want to establish an industry. Of course it is a private enterprise for their own benefit. They want to expand an industry which is world-wide. They will be here within a month, and I am encouraging them to come. While I am on my feet and thinking about this problem, there are hon. members in the house who say that we have no right to delay the passage of these measures, that we should turn them over to the board of transport commissioners. We have not only a right but also a duty to put on the record of the house anything we know which may be of some value to the economy of Canada. Some may say that the board of transport commissioners may not be influenced by what is said in this house, but I am of the opinion that they pay attention. I am of the opinion that hon. members of the house, anxious as they are to discharge
r.Mr. Harris (Danforth).]

their responsibility, pay attention to what their colleagues say. I do not see the sponsor of the bill in the house.


Mr. Green:: He is not here.


Joseph Henry Harris: Is the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River here or the hon. member for Simcoe East? As neither of them is here perhaps I may address myself to the Minister of Public Works. I see that the hon. member for Simcoe East is now in the house. I am anxious that he, as the co-pilot of this bill, should try to get the sense of what I am trying to say.


Mr. Robinson:: That would be very difficult.


Joseph Henry Harris: Well, I have got a measure of his intelligence. I think if I labour it long enough it will not be quite so difficult, and that on contemplation and reflection he will say that perhaps he made a mistake.


William Alfred Robinson: I expect you will labour it at least until nine o'clock.


Joseph Henry Harris: I am not so much interested in nine o'clock as I am in the people of Canada.


William Alfred Robinson: And British Columbia.


Joseph Henry Harris: I am coming to that. It is a long way around. The people should have some sort of idea of what is going on. I will switch to British Columbia right now. I do not care whether hon. members are from British Columbia or any other part of Canada. As the hon. member from one of the Winnipeg constituencies said a moment or two ago, this matter is the responsibility of all members of Canada's House of Commons.


Mr. Sinclair:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Henry Harris: And particularly is it the responsibility of hon. members from British Columbia.


James Sinclair: Hear, hear.


Joseph Henry Harris: I should like to refer British Columbia members to a speech made by their premier on March 26 in London, England. He travelled 6,000 miles from Victoria to London to point out to the federation of the British timber interests that British Columbia is anxious about the development of its industry. He pointed out to the people of the British isles that in 1939 timber of one kind and another constituted only 5 per cent of their exports to the United Kingdom. It rose to 38 per cent and then it went up to 74 per cent. Since 194748, however, it has gone down again. Hon. Mr. Johnson was over there on a trade mission. He did a good job, and made a great

speech on behalf of British Columbia. As I read that speech I could visualize the gas from Alberta coming down through British Columbia to be used in the plants making sash, doors, veneers and what not for the construction industry of the United Kingdom.


An hon. Member:: What is a what not?


Joseph Henry Harris: Well, they used to have whatnots before you were born, when I was a boy. They were pretty nice pieces of furniture, too. I would not mind having one of them in my home now; they are handy places to put trinkets. In British Columbia they have wonderful lumber and wonderful veneers. They have perhaps the largest stand of timber of any country in the world. They make the finest doors and sash available in Canada, and those products should be going over to the United Kingdom by the boatload. Instead of that we have the United Kingdom government advising their people to use metal sash and doors and metal trim for their houses, though it costs anywhere from ten to twenty per cent more than the wooden products, which could be manufactured in the mills of British Columbia with the use of Alberta gas for power. That ought to be done, and promptly.
Not only do these steel doors and sash cost more; there is another feature about it. British Columbia, together with the rest of Canada, is anxious to use the metal products coming from that great workshop of the world, the United Kingdom. I am not like the absentee minister of barter, who is at present in Australia, but I would not object to any barter scheme that would bring us the metal products of the United Kingdom in exchange for the wood products of British . Columbia. I believe this bill should be laid aside until such time as the minister, who knows more about the lumber business and about British Columbia than I do, returns to this house to tell us what we ought to do about these things. He is down in the land of the mugho pine, the land where the specific gravity of the wood begins where ours leaves off -so that, if you threw a log of mugho pine in a river in Tasmania, it would sink to the bottom. But they have beautiful lumber and beautiful veneers down under. I have a sample in my office; I am sorry I did not bring it here. What an education the Minister of Fisheries will get in the manufacture of veneers-


An hon. Member:: Oh, oh.


Joseph Henry Harris: I repeat, in the manufacture of veneers; that is the correct phrase, and I know what I am talking about. What an education he will get down under as a lumber man. I hope he brings back something of their technique and applies it
Prairie Transmission Lines to the production of veneers and other articles in British Columbia. If he applies his experience to conditions in this country I am sure it will aid our economy so that with the use of Alberta natural gas for power brought down through British Columbia instead of being taken down to the United States and then brought back up to British Columbia, we will have a greater opportunity to develop these God-given resources that are at our hand. When I refer to our resources I include gas and oil, about which I shall have something more to say before this bill is through.
This discussion has not been a waste of time. I say to my young friend over there, don't worry about its being nine o'clock. The bass fishing season does not open until July 1. We will be out of here by then, and I will be up to see you on July 2. I hope you will take me out to get some fish. Let the people of Canada-


James Sinclair: And British Columbia.


Joseph Henry Harris: I will not say Canada and British Columbia; I will just say Canada; but when I think of Canada now I think of British Columbia and her potentialities.	[DOT]


James Sinclair: At times we wonder whether we are a part of confederation.


Joseph Henry Harris: I do not like that suggestion, and I am glad it did not come from me. I have always loved British Columbia and every other part of Canada. I hope I shall never be that small; I like to think of Canada as a whole, and in my humble way I am trying to expand our economy in every possible way. Would that I were thirty years younger, Mr. Chairman. I would desert this city of Ottawa and settle in Alberta, in the hope that I might be able to help in the development of that province, bringing it closer to its destiny which lies ahead.


The Deputy Chairman:: Order.


Joseph Henry Harris: I move the adjournment of this debate.


Louis-René Beaudoin: Before calling it nine o'clock I would say to hon. members that great latitude is being given in the discussion of section 1 of this bill. I do hope, however, that when we come to section 1 of any other bill the discussion that is now taking place will not be considered as a precedent.
Section stands.
Progress reported.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Beaudoin):: The
hour for private and public bills having expired, the house will revert to the business under consideration at six o'clock.

S upp ly-A griculture SUPPLY
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Beaudoin in the chair.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Administration service-
1. Departmental administration, $293,670.


Owen Lewis Jones: Mr. Chairman, at six o'clock I had placed on record a letter from the Canadian chamber of commerce which suggested the thought I am trying to pass on to the minister; that this voluntary body has been doing excellent work trying to capture or recover some of our overseas markets. I pointed out that if a voluntary organization could do it, I felt that the government should either assist them to enlarge their work or step into the breach and carry on the work themselves. I think I should compliment them for what they have done and the public spirit they have shown in this one connection in trying to recapture our markets.
I should like to deal with one or two resolutions passed by the fruit growers of British Columbia along these lines. They also have ideas on how to go about recapturing the world markets that we have already lost. This is one dealing with marketing missions:
Whereas export markets for the products of Canadian farms have been contracting to an alarming degree which already has entailed grave losses to the agriculturists of the dominion, and
Whereas the threat of even greater losses is indicated by Ottawa, the United Kingdom and by other countries which formerly imported farm products from Canada, and
Whereas the continued absence of export markets will be disastrous to various important divisions of Canada's agriculture,
Therefore be it resolved by the British Columbia Fruit Growers' Association, in 1950 annual convention,
That the Canadian and the British Columbia governments be urged to set up special missions for the purpose of gathering exact information and constructive recommendations, with a view to developing markets outside of Canada, such missions to visit other countries in the course of their investigations.
That these missions supplement the operations of the four farm specialists appointed by the dominion Department of Trade and Commerce in October to speed up sales of Canada's foodstuffs in export markets.
I submit, sir, that that resolution is well worth consideration. It offers an alternative to the full responsibility by the government of doing that work which apparently they are not caring to do. At the same time I seriously suggest that the government consider the proposition made by several others during the last year for barter deals for our products and for products of other countries, particularly those countries that cannot produce the dollars. I am pleased to find in the
[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Beaudoin).]
Financial Times of March 3 this year what the Minister of Trade and Commerce said. I will read the quotation:
Trade Minister C. D. llowe on his return from a trip to Europe, stated in New York that he saw an over-all improvement in the outlook for increased trade there. Canada, he said, is encouraging private businessmen to arrange barter deals where such are found more desirable.
I do not know to what extent the minister intends to support barter deals, but I take it that he would consider assisting financially any company that is willing, on its own, to arrange barter deals or to assist with personnel or in some other way. In view of the statement by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, closely followed by a similar statement by the Minister of Fisheries, I would suggest that the cabinet as a whole reconsider its stand on possible barter deals. If it is the minister's wish that these various companies, and particularly in our case, the Tree Fruit Company Limited, carry on the barter deal on their own, then would the minister consider giving this company financial support and personnel support?
I would suggest, Mr. Minister, that at least this measure could toe tried for one season; just try it for the coming season while the crop is not heavy and see what the result will be. I think that under the act I quoted this afternoon you have full power to carry out such an experiment. I feel that the looming fight for world markets today is such that the country that will get the market is that one that has the best trading plans. I would urge you, sir, to try this experiment for at least one year.
Another resolution that rather intrigues me is this one, and I think I should read it to the minister because he can take to task afterwards the minister involved:
Vitaminized apple juice:
Whereas Canada is producing surpluses of apples, with producers faced with serious losses if markets are not available, and
Whereas one economic and proper outlet Is through the processing, distribution and consumption of vitaminized apple juice, containing an adequate measure of vitamin C (as noted in Diet Menu for Week, issued by authority of the National Health and Welfare Department, Ottawa, in September, 1949, volume 5, No. 9), and
Whereas the information services division of the above-mentioned department-
That is the Department of National Health and Welfare.
-excludes mention of vitaminized apple juice in its following bulletin of September, 1949:
"Citrus for health.-Drinking a daily glass of fresh or canned orange or grapefruit juice is the eaisest and most pleasant way to be sure that the body's vitamin C requirements are met. The wish for variety sometimes leads people to choose other types of popular fruit juices, but none of these are as good an Investment as the citrus fruits- either for economy or vitamin C content."

Naturally, when the fruit growers heard of this they were rather distressed because they felt they had the backing of the Department of Agriculture and through them the Department of National Health and Welfare. They went on record to this extent:
Therefore the British Columbia Fruit Growers' Association in annual convention, January 17-19, 1950, recommends the National Health and Welfare Department:
(a)	to investigate intensively the relative merits of the vitamin C contents of the vitaminized apple juices and of citrus fruits, as taken from local retail markets, and also the canned citrus juices, and
(b)	to investigate thoroughly the costs to consumers of the vitaminized apple juices, citrus fruit and of citrus fruits, fresh, as taken from local "For economy and vitamin C content" as mentioned in the foregoing bulletin, and
(c)	to prepare a comprehensive report for examination and publication.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, to be obliged to interrupt the hon. member, but I cannot hear all that is being said. I do not know whether it is because of the noise or just what it is. But what is my hon. friend quoting from?


Owen Lewis Jones: I am quoting from a resolution from the British Columbia Fruit Growers' Association convention held this year.


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand that you are reading a resolution which is critical of something that was published, and I did not catch what you were quoting from then.


Owen Lewis Jones: The gist of it is that the Department of National Health and Welfare issued, in a bulletin, a recommendation for the people of Canada to use citrus fruits as the best possible form of fruit juices. We naturally feel that we have a product of equal merit at least in apple juice vitaminized as ours is in the market today. I should like to draw your attention to what the growers have done with waste apples. The apple juice industry started from purely cull and waste apples, and the pack of apple juice this year would be 490,000 cases and 40,000 gallons of concentrate and 40,000 gallons of vinegar. The industry has built itself up until today it has buildings and equipment of a total value of $546,000, and a turnover in cash and shares of $600,000, all from culls. So that, on the other hand, if we had neglected this form of development the cost of dumping those culls would have been $50,000 to the growers. My point, Mr. Minister, is that I want you to take the matter up with the Department of National Health and Welfare and get that corrected, and get them to investigate whether our claims are not correct, that apple juice is equal to if not better than the citrus juice that they recommend so highly in their bulletins.
Supply-Agriculture


James Garfield Gardiner: Better.


Owen Lewis Jones: I could probably put it more specifically. I shall be quite pleased and satisfied if the Minister of National Health and Welfare will issue either a special bulletin or, in his next bulletin, a correction and a recommendation that apple juice is equally good for the modern breakfast table. I know the Minister of Trade and Commerce, during a recent discussion, in answer to the hon. member for Kamloops-I forget the subject now-when the hon. member for Kamloops shouted, "What about apples?", replied: "That is a bright remark. We are talking billions, and my hon. friend speaks of apples which incidentally are hardly food. Their content is water."
I should like to take issue with him, because last year Mr. R. P. Walrod, who is in charge of the production of apple juice in the Okanagan valley, found a method of fortifying this juice. So effective and so good was the method that for several weeks he lived on nothing but the fortified apple juice. At the end of that period he was weighed and examined by a doctor and he was in first-class health. He had not lost an ounce of weight. From that evidence I can assure you that the product we have is sound and good. In view of the adverse publicity, I would also ask the minister to consider assisting this industry to advertise in the coming year, and if possible put in a word with the authorities so that the army and navy will also use this juice.
There is one other point that I should like to bring to your attention, sir, and that is van der Giessen Brothers Limited of Grand Forks, who are Dutch bulb and seed growers. They are finding certain difficulties which are common to many producers of seed in Canada. Before the war the export of seeds, both vegetable and flower, was relatively unimportant, but during the war a good market was developed between British Columbia and England. Naturally this market is now lost through the austerity program and their shortage of dollars. The customers in both Britain and Europe are willing to buy British Columbia seeds and we have the seeds ready for shipping. It would require negotiation at high level to overcome this difficulty. The difficulties facing private firms who try to negotiate international trade are obvious. There are such things as customs tariffs, quotas, exchange difficulties, shortage of dollars, taxes and everything else. In this particular instance this firm has an order from Germany for several thousand dollars worth of seeds, but they are up against a brick wall. I will deal with that subject later on, particularly in regard to Germany.

Supply-Agriculture
I feel that Germany has either to remain a burden or to return to the family of nations. Personally I am opposed to rearming Germany, but I favour giving them all assistance to let them recover their agriculture. In other words, let them get on their feet again. One way is to supply them with the seeds they need, but that cannot be done because we are still technically at war with Germany. I understand that it may be a long time before a peace treaty is signed. Other trading nations have overcome this difficulty by effecting a treaty of commerce between themselves and Germany. I would ask the minister to get the proper department-I presume it is External Affairs-to endeavour to effect a treaty of commerce between Canada and Germany, and not wait for a peace treaty, and thereby give Germany a chance to recover on an agricultural basis so that she may meet her obligations to the rest of the world and particularly to Canada.
I would suggest that in such a treaty of commerce, which is the customary thing to do, at least $100,000 be included for vegetable and flower seeds. At the present time the soft currency countries are capturing all this type of trade. I should like to quote from a letter I received from the Department of Trade and Commerce quite recently. The information came from that department on December 5. In it they tell me:
The most recent information that we have received on the western German exchange situation as a whole is that they have been running behind to the extent of approximately $500 million a year, most of which deficit has been covered by grants from the United States. In these circumstances, we understand that they, like all recipients of ECA funds, have been under pressure to reduce and keep down their dollar expenditures. They have consequently had to direct their purchases, to a considerable extent, to soft currency sources, especially ECA recipients and countries which have the goods available and are prepared to promote imports from Germany by discriminating in their favour.
It goes on along that line. Then, this firm to which I am referring were advised that they could possibly get funds from other channels, ECA or any channels they could find. They have done their best and have found no channels with funds available. Funds are given to others with higher priorities, I believe. The letter continues:
We do not have a bilateral agreement with Germany and are not in process of negotiating one; but if we were to negotiate an agreement with them at the present time, it is highly probable that they would demand that Canada should agree to buy much larger quantities of goods from Germany as a condition of maintaining German purchases even at the present level.
I suggest that our present trade, what little trade there is being done between Canada and Germany, is done with the grace of the United States of America, through the use of

United States funds. I contend that we should stand on our own feet. We do not have to stand on the charity of the United States. We can do just what they have done for their own nationals to provide funds for our own commercial concerns that wish to do business in that country. Other countries have found it important to trade with Germany. I am sure that time alone would prove that we would be wise to do it as well. My information is that at the present time seeds for the free zones in Germany are imported by the military authorities, and most of the orders for the 1948 crop went to the United States. I have evidence-I am not going to read it into the record tonight-from German sources that they are very keen to get these seeds that we have for sale in Canada.
The remarks I have applied to Germany apply equally well to other countries with whom we are still technically at war, or have not a peace treaty. I suggest that in view of the serious situation in which our growers find themselves at the present time all efforts, some of which I have suggested, and others that I have not, which the minister may know of, should be tried in order to promote the trading of Canadian goods with countries that are hampered by the lack of dollars.


Victor Quelch: I have one or two questions that I should like to ask the minister, but first of all I should like to make a few general remarks regarding the marketing of agricultural produce.
We have been told by the food and agriculture organization and other bodies that the population of the world today is expanding at a faster rate than our production of food. We are informed by the food and agriculture organization that the supplies of food per individual are today less than they were in 1939, and that even with expanded production it will continue to be less for the next six or seven years, and for a considerably longer period of time than that in so far as the Far East is concerned. Whether or not we benefit by that potential market will largely depend upon our own policy; that is, whether or not we adjust our international trade policies so that we are able to enter those markets.
During this session I think it has become quite evident that some at least of the ministers in the government lack confidence in our own international trade policy. I think that was shown quite clearly by the speech of the Minister of Fisheries when he suggested that in order to be able to increase our exports of certain products we should enter into barter agreements.

From time to time the Minister of Agriculture has expressed a certain degree of concern regarding our international trade. Today the farmers are being repeatedly told that they will have to make the price of their products competitive so as to be able to enter the markets of the world.
In order that farmers may make their prices competitive they will have to be in a position to reduce their costs of production. But unfortunately many of the farmers' costs are of an uncontrollable nature, and for the last few years those costs have been still increasing. Even as late as last fall the price of machinery took a sharp rise, freight rates went up and various other costs increased.
So I would say it is not so much a question of the farmers making the prices of their commodities competitive as it is of the secondary industries making the prices of their commodities competitive. Because, after all, if we want to sell farm products abroad we must enable nations to sell their products to us in order that they may obtain Canadian dollars with which to buy our produce; and in order to accomplish that tariffs will have to be kept down.
I think by now manufacturers in this country should be in the position to stand on their own feet. I was very much interested in a statement made by Professor Galbraith before the annual convention of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. The report in the Manitoba Co-Operator of February 9, 1950, contains this:
If our manufacturers, both, in the United1 States and Canada, feel they must continue to have protection from European imports then they must candidly admit the consequences of their demands. Because of their need for protection, they are denying Europe dollars with which to buy agricultural products. Europe is thereby being denied access to the efficiently produced farm products of the western hemisphere because the manufacturers of the west, their vaunted) claims to efficiency notwithstanding, cannot stand the competition. The American and Canadian farmer is being asked to take the rap for them.
Again I stress the fact that instead of harping upon the suggestion that farmers must be prepared to make the prices of their products more competitive, we must realize that before that can be done the prices of products of secondary industries must also be made competitive. If the prices of manufactured goods fall, then the prices of agricultural products could also fall without any detrimental effects on the farmers. Because, after all, the farmer today is asking only for a price that bears a fair relationship to the prices of other commodities.
The government has set up machinery to provide support for the prices of agricultural products. This session that legislation was
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amended so that it shall carry on indefinitely. It is well for people to remember that the farmers have already paid for that support by accepting for their commodities, ever since 1942, prices which were lower than world prices. If one considers the amount of money lost as a result of taking those lower prices, one will find that it is a very substantial sum. My suggestion is that it should be regarded as a reserve established for the purpose of maintaining fair prices in the future. I would say that the main concern of farmers today is the fear that prices will not be maintained at a fair level in the future.
I agree with statements made from time to time by the Minister of Agriculture to the effect that our chief market is the Canadian market. Also I believe we can all agree that even today the Canadian market is not developed to its full capacity. It is my view that the government should give careful consideration to adapting in some form the Brannan plan, which is gaining more and more support in the United States. I mention this especially in view of the fact that we are constantly faced with the danger of surpluses of certain commodities in this country.
For instance, we have had a butter surplus. I think when a surplus occurs the government should be prepared to introduce a policy somewhat along the lines of the Brannan plan under which those surplus commodities can be sold to the consumers^ of Canada at a reduced price. To put it another way, we cannot afford to allow the fear of a surplus to reduce our production. No one could suggest that such a policy could be justified in a world where many people face the danger of mass starvation.
I understand when the Minister of Agriculture was out west he recommended a reduction in wheat acreage to the extent of three million acres, and that the farmers increase their production of coarse grains and grasses. But when the Minister of Trade and Commerce spoke in the house on the wheat resolution he stressed the fact that we are having greater difficulty now in selling our farm produce. He visualized a certain amount of difficulty in selling our farm produce, other than Wheat, in the future. In so far as wheat was concerned he pointed out that he did not expect any difficulty in selling it because it is the best wheat in the world and our price is competitive.
I ask this question: If wheat is the one agricultural product we can sell readily, and if the Minister of Trade and Commerce feels there will be no difficulty in selling wheat in the future, is it really wise to reduce our wheat production and to increase the

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production of other commodities which may not foe sold so easily? After all, if we extend the production of coarse grains and grasses it is 'almost certain to result in increased production of dairy products and hogs.
I believe the farmers are 'concerned about the sale of dairy products. We have heard a good deal about it in the last year, and there seems to be some uncertainty as to the future of the hog market. From the point of view of sound agriculture I would agree with the Minister of Agriculture one hundred per cent that it is in the interests of agriculture to reduce our acreage of wheat and to have more grasses if for no other reason than to restore the humus to the soil, and to prevent soil drifting. It is time we adopted some form of crop rotation. But from the point of view of whether or not we can sell our produce, it seems to me it is better to produce a commodity we can sell readily, when we have already been told by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, as I have already pointed out, that there will be no difficulty in selling wheat because it is the best in the world and our price is competitive.
Therefore when the minister speaks I would ask him to tell us what he considers the prospects are in regard to the sale of hogs in the future. What does he expect the hog market to be? Does he feel that farmers should go ahead and expand hog production-because I believe that is taking place now in western Canada. I know in the part of the country from which I come hog production is expanding. Can they continue that expansion with a reasonable degree of safety? Can they also expand their production of dairy products? If the minister is not able to give that assurance, then does he not feel it might be safer for them to maintain the present level of wheat production? Because, even if wheat does become a surplus commodity, it is much easier to store wheat than to hold hogs, once they reach the weight of two hundred pounds.


James Garfield Gardiner: Supply-Agriculture
While we have butter we can adjust it as we think it ought to be adjusted. On this occasion we thought a downward adjustment of 5 cents ought to be made. I assume that over the years ahead of us in all probability for a time adjustments will be in a downward direction, but if the policy and plan continues over a term of years eventually we will come to a time when the adjustment may be down one year and just as likely be up a similar amount the next year. We may go down one cent or two cents one year and be up one cent or two cents the next year. One will balance against the other.
That is the plan which is in operation, and if we never get below 20 million pounds of butter we do not need to be worrying about it. If we never get above 20 million pounds we do not need to be worrying about it very much. The only time when you need to worry about being below that figure is around Christmas. Then one certainly should have about 40 million pounds of butter if you are going to take care of that market and see to it that nobody walks in and makes the consumer pay a price he never should pay. We ran into a difficulty which we did not expect to meet, and we have had a little experience which may suggest improvement. You will recall that for last year we set the end of what might be called the dairy year to correspond with the end of the financial year. That is not the natural end of the dairy year. The natural end of the dairy year is the last day of April, and the first day of May over a long period of years has been the first day of the new dairy year. We worked last year on the financial year in order to make it more convenient for those who were financing. When we came down to within a week or two of the end of that time we announced we were going to continue it for another month. A lot of people across the country who were running stores and taking more or less of a chance in connection with the matter, this being the first year of the operation, began to wonder whether they were going to be required to take the two cent, three cent, or five cent loss that people were talking about. Therefore they cut down their stocks in their stores so that they would not be loaded up at the end of the time and have to take a loss.
When it became apparent that we were going to take care of the adjustment, then most of them had their stocks provided in the ordinary way from their usual wholesalers without any great difficulty. I found, however, that a great many of the smaller stores around the country did not get stocks.

When they were not getting stocks the really live agents of those who were putting out oleomargarine put that product on their counters. In country areas throughout the dominion during the latter part of last season a great many farmers who were accustomed to using butter on their own farms were using oleomargarine. It is all very well to criticize it, and I do criticize it; but at the same time I realize it was the first experiment in the new plan and that people were likely to do things which they probably will not do a second time. Therefore with that experience we are hopeful that when we reach the end of another season there will be no great difficulty.
I say that in order to get out of the minds of those in this house who are thinking in terms of surpluses the idea that there is any surplus of butter that ought to scare anybody away from continuing to make it. Over all the years that I have had' anything to do with agriculture we have just made the amount of butter that we have been able to consume in this country, and we should go on aiming to do that. If we put enough of our enthusiasm and ability into the marketing of butter in this country I do not think we would need to be talking so much about oleomargarine, and by the very fact that we are talking about it more or less advertise its sale all over the country. Butter is the best food that is put on the market in Canada, and in accordance with food values it is the cheapest in these days of high food prices. That being the case, I do not see any reason why we should be worrying about any surpluses harming us in that direction.
Turning to cheese, it is a dairy product that has to be sold largely outside Canada. We have 17 million pounds, or we had a few days ago. I should not have said that we have 19 million pounds of butter. The last time I looked at the figures we had about 17 million pounds. At the beginning of the dairy year we had about 17 million pounds of cheese. The people of Canada eat close to 60 million pounds of cheese. We have 17 million pounds and the trade has 17 million which makes about 34 million, and we eat almost double that. We are requisitioning cheese to send to Great Britain. She has undertaken to take approximately 85 million pounds. We have been asked by the producers of cheese to requisition it until we fill the British contract, and that is what we are doing. Remember that the year before last we only produced 96 million pounds, and last year I think we produced about 114 million pounds. Since our production has been hovering around 100 million pounds a year, and if we are going to send 85 million to

Great Britain, and we only have 34 million in storage, there is not going to be any great difficulty in, marketing any amount of cheese which seems to be in sight during the year ahead.
In other words, what we ought to be doing in the house and elsewhere is telling the farmer to continue to produce as he has been producing and as he thinks he ought to produce. There has not been up to the present, and there is not likely to be ini the immediate future, any great difficulty in selling. We can sell all our butter on the Canadian market if our production continues at the level it has been. We sell most of our cheese in the British market. If there is any danger at all at the present time in the figures which I have just given you, it is that we may run ourselves a little short on the Canadian market, although we are not going to be in any great difficulty at the end of the season if our production continues as at present seems probable.
Therefore in so far as cattle and dairy products are concerned I think we should be going right ahead with production. I do not know of anywhere that the farmer can make more than he can by going ahead and producing beef cattle at the present time, and at the moment returns are very good from dairy products as well.
As to hogs, I think eastern farmers will continue producing them. I think it was the director of livestock in Ontario, Mr. Watson, who said at our conference last December that Ontario farmers depend for 60 per cent of their income upon dairy products and hogs. He went on to say they just could not stay on their farms without producing dairy products and hogs. I think every Ontario farmer realizes that. So long as that is the condition there is no need to worry about their production being cut very much. They keep their production at about the same level all the time. They did so in wartime, before the war, and are still doing so. In western Canada hog production rises when we find a shortage in the United' States or somewhere else which makes it possible for us to market great numbers outside our own country. Then hog production goes down when we find any excuse for letting it because we like to produce grain in western Canada a little more than we like to feed hogs. If we can find any really good excuse for cutting down on hog production we cut down and we stay down until we have reason to feed hogs again. I am not worrying about that side of it. At the moment all I am worrying about is that the cattle on our farms in western Canada are not in as great numbers as I would like to see.
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Victor Quelch: When the minister commenced his remarks he rather deplored the fact that I had made what he apparently considered a pessimistic speech. I was not being pessimistic for a moment; I was not even being critical. I was just referring to a statement by the Minister of Trade and Commerce that had been very optimistic in regard to the marketing of wheat but not so optimistic in regard to the marketing of other products. Therefore I asked the minister to give the house a statement of the situation as he saw it. I am very glad he has made this statement; I think it is a good thing. There is no doubt, however, that many people were worrying just as I was worrying, as a result of the statement made by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, and particularly because of the statements that appear in the press periodically referring to our surplus of butter and the tremendous surpluses of farm products in the United States which they are liable to dump on world markets at any time and depress prices.
I think the minister will agree that one reason the farmers have not reduced their wheat acreage is that since the Minister of Trade and Commerce seems to have such a steady market for wheat, they decided it would be better to raise wheat. In other words they are following what they consider to be a recommendation of the Minister of Trade and Commerce. But I think the minister will also agree there is another reason the acreage of wheat has not gone down. The minister knows that last year, owing to crop failures, a very large acreage was tilled under. In the district from which I come the acreage is perhaps fifty per cent greater this year, because of the large acreage tilled under last year.


James Garfield Gardiner: And throughout the previous drought period they found it to be a mistake to try to get back this year what they lost last year because of drought.


Victor Quelch: Yes, but as the minister knows the situation last year was different from an ordinary drought. In that area it did not rain until after July 1, and hundreds of acres never turned green at all, even after the rain came. The wheat was sown; apparently it rotted in the ground, and even when the rain came early in July the wheat never came back.


James Garfield Gardiner: I repeat, because I think it is most important, that this was the reasoning we followed from 1931 to 1937, and by 1937 we were growing an average of two and a half bushels to the acre on an average all over Saskatchewan. We do not want to reach that point again. We got our acreage up to twenty-eight or twenty-nine million; by ourselves

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trying to get back one year after another what had been dried out the year before, until eventually we had very little if any wheat. I think we will go through the same experience if we follow that .practice again.


Victor Quelch: But half of that area was already in summer fallow last year.


James Garfield Gardiner: That was the case back in the thirties, too; it was in summer fallow just in the way you are talking about, because we had to summer fallow it. That is not summer fallow at all.


Victor Quelch: Half of it was in summer fallow and the other half was sown to wheat. That crop never came up; after July 1 that ground was as black as the rest of the land. Is the minister going to suggest that that land should not be sown again?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am going to suggest what I am sure my hon. friend has found in practice. The reason you keep land black all through June is to put the June rain of that year into the land and keep it there. But if you sow something on it and it grows during June, and then the crop dies out because there is no moisture, what is the use of saying that is summer fallow? It just isn't.


Victor Quelch: You have it all wrong. I explained that the rains did not come until July 1 or July 3, so nothing grew.


James Garfield Gardiner: They didn't come even then.


Victor Quelch: The land that was sown was just as black as the land that was not sown. The wheat had died, moulded in the ground, so there was no difference between that land and the land that had been, summer fallowed. As a matter of fact it was in better shape than the land that had been in summer fallow, because that land had to be cultivated.


James Garfield Gardiner: If you follow your own argument you will argue yourself out of a crop.


Victor Quelch: I would be prepared to wager that the land which was sown last year and produced no crop, this year will produce a crop as good as if not better than the land that was summer fallowed. The minister is fond of saying you can trust the farmers to do the right thing, and that is what they are doing. As the minister knows, the area around Drumheller is one of the best wheat growing areas in Canada, and that is the practice being adopted there. I will have to be shown that it is not sound.


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend is talking about an area where it did not rain.


Victor Quelch: Last year it did not rain until July 3.


James Garfield Gardiner: The area the hon. member has just described apparently does not need the amount of summer fallow that most of the land in western Canada must have.


Victor Quelch: We summer fallow half the land each year in our area.


James Garfield Gardiner: You are not doing that when you do what you are suggesting tonight.


Victor Quelch: Nature forced an extra amount of summer fallow.


James Garfield Gardiner: Anyway, we want three million acres less wheat. What is the use of asking for advice if you just argue after you get it?


Victor Quelch: That is not the point on which I asked advice. I asked about the policy regarding hogs and dairy produce.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The question before the committee seems to be when summer fallow is not summer fallow, but I would like to refer to the question of butter and hogs, which the minister was talking about a few moments ago. You know, the minister is an amazingly ingenious dialectician. For the first time tonight he brought forward the proposition that the floor price was put under butter to protect the consumers. The dairymen have been under the impression ever since this floor price was put in that it was done to protect them, to make sure the price of butter did not fall below 58 cents, which would make it impossible for them to produce, at any rate according to their own claim.
In addition to the dairymen I think up to this moment every member of this house was under that impression. We voted money, to the extent of some $200 million all told, as a sort of revolving fund which the minister could make use of to put floor prices under agricultural products. Not long ago he rose in his place in this chamber and said he had taken a certain amount of money out of that fund to put a floor price under butter. Certainly there was no question in our minds but that this support price was for the purpose of protecting the dairy farmers; but, as I say, the minister has now confided to us for the first time that it was not for that purpose at all but to protect the consumers. When the consumers read about this in the newspapers tomorrow I am sure they will laugh and laugh; but it is going to be a very derisive laugh. It will be very difficult to convince the consumers-


James Garfield Gardiner: They will be laughing at you, because that is not what I said.


Douglas Scott Harkness: -that the minister has put this floor price under butter for their protection. He went on to say there was a

surplus of only twenty million pounds; in fact he said it was not a surplus but only twenty million pounds in hand. The hon. member for Greenwood suggests that it is just working capital, and hardly enough of that, so there is no need to worry about it at all. A little later on the minister said that during past years we have made in Canada just the amount of butter we could consume. That is more or less correct, of course; but I would point out to the minister that during those periods we were not consuming any margarine. I have not the figures at the moment, but if he will look them up I am sure he will see there has been a constant increase in the production and sale of margarine every month since it came on the market.
There is no use trying to delude the people of Canada or members of this house into believing that the sale of margarine is not going to reduce the sale of butter. Now that we are in the position of having twenty million pounds of butter on hand at the end of what you might call the storage period, when new production is starting and we are going to be building up our supplies of butter again, a year from now we probably will still have that twenty million pounds on hand, unless it is sold outside the country or used for industrial purposes or consumed in some other way. I do not think there is any other answer but that this twenty million pounds of butter is not going to be eaten as long as the relative prices of butter and margarine remain anything like they are at the present time.
In addition to this twenty million pounds, which in my opinion is an amount the minister is stuck with, we will say, and which he is going to have extreme difficulty in getting rid of anywhere, I should like to know how much of this butter which was taken over has already been sold abroad at cut-rate prices. I know that a certain amount has been sold to Germany. I do not know where else it has been sold, but certainly some has been sold- abroad at prices considerably less than the going price. We therefore now find ourselves, Mr. Chairman, in the ridiculous situation in which the minister is using this agricultural floor support price money to protect the consumer of butter so that he will have to pay for it more than the Germans or other people abroad have to pay for it. Of course the dairy farmer thinks he is being protected by it too, but that is an error, I guess.
I should like to know just where we are going in this matter. Certainly it does not make good sense. It seems to me that, instead of trying to persuade the committee
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and the country that there is not a surplus of butter at the price at which butter stands at the present time, the minister should admit what the situation actually is, namely, that as long as margarine is being sold at the price at which it is being sold-some twenty cents or some figure in that neighbourhood below the price of butter-it means that we have not at home the market that we used to have, and that some other means must be taken of disposing of this butter. Otherwise the farmers must be persuaded to put their milk into some other form of production.
While I am on my feet, I should just like to comment on the minister's statement about hogs. It happens to be a subject I know something about. He said that hog production was quite satisfactory in the eastern part of Canada and he saw no reason why it would decline. In the west it has declined considerably, but he was not worrying about that. He did not think the farmers would go out of hogs any further than they had done-that is what I gathered from his remarks-and they were better to put their efforts into beef. With the present relative prices of beef and hogs, there is no question about the fact that a man is much better to be raising beef. There is no argument on that at all. I think the minister will admit that one of the main factors that discourage the farmer from growing hogs is the hog barley ratio, which means the price of coarse grains in relation to the price of hogs. In the last issue of this livestock and meat trade report put out by the minister's department, I notice that for the week ended April 29-which was the last one on record -the-hog barley ratio at Winnipeg was 14-1. The long-time average is 17-4. The figure of 14-1 is the lowest point it has been at for some considerable time.
I would suggest to the minister that that is one of the reasons why a great many people -and they are already doing so, as far as that goes-will get out of the hog business. People are not prepared to put in the labour which is considerable in raising hogs, when the relationship between the price of hogs and the price of coarse grain is so unsatisfactory as it is at the present time. I think the minister is deluding himself and is attempting to delude others if he has any idea that people are going to increase or even anything like maintain the present hog production in Canada as long as coarse grains are so expensive in relation to the price of hogs.


Mr. Herridge:: I make no apology, Mr. Chairman, for taking a few minutes of the time of the committee to bring to your attention and that of the minister some of the problems of my constituency.

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Before proceeding with these few comments on the matters I wish to deal with, I think I can correctly say to the minister that, so far as my constituents are concerned, the fruit farmers are glad they have received some financial assistance from the dominion government towards the cost of the 1949 crop. The vegetable producers, I would say, are highly indignant over the unannounced' removal of the import restric-' tions on vegetables, and the poultry producers are just plain mad at the mangling they have had in the last three or four months.
I think it is generally admitted throughout the country thqt the minister has wide knowledge of his department and that he is thoroughly conversant with and interested in agriculture; but I think his strict adherence to the principles of the Manchester school of Liberalism prevents him from facing squarely certain of the marketing questions that are facing this country and the world today.
This evening I want to deal briefly with the question of land conservation, the use and conservation of water, and the proper use or utilization of land for agricultural purposes. I want to make a few brief remarks about the marketing problems faced by the producers, by British Columbia and by my own constituency. Then I want to bring to the attention of the minister and of the committee certain problems that affect my own constituents and certain suggestions that they have asked me to make as an indication of the remedies they think might be given effect to.
I am not one who believes that our production problems, our marketing problems, or any of these problems, can be solved in some easy and quick way. I realize that if we are going to work our way through these difficult times and find a democratic and satisfactory solution to these problems, it is going to mean co-operation between governments and co-operation on all levels of those interested in solving these problems for the common good.
I want to say a few words tonight on soil and water conservation, and on land use as related to agriculture, because I believe that [DOT] with millions hungry in the world, with thousands unemployed in Canada at this time, and with possibly thousands continuing to be unemployed at certain periods, we cannot continue to waste our land and water resources, to waste our opportunities for producing that necessary food and to waste the opportunity of providing labour if we aim to plan to give that labour something to do.

I wish therefore this evening to deal with a suggested national policy of soil and water conservation and land use which has been drafted by the Agricultural Institute of Canada and which I understand was presented to the minister about a year ago. I understand that this policy was the result of several years' work. It is the result of, shall I say, a combination of idealism, intelligence, brains, science, knowledge and hard work. I am a member of the organization myself; and personally, I am of the opinion that this worth-while professional organization of scientific agriculturalists in Canada have not performed a more useful service than they have in presenting this policy to the Minister of Agriculture and to the nation. Because I have been interested throughout my life in land and water conservation, in conservation measures of all types, I do not apologize in any degree for bringing this matter to the attention of the committee at this time.
Just to give one illustration, Mr. Chairman, of the great need of some national policy in this respect, I want to deal briefly with a situation that has existed in my own constituency for over 45 years. I know the great need on the prairies, in the maritimes and in other places; I know the general need, but in a few moments I can give an illustration of deplorable neglect and inaction because of the lack of a policy of the type suggested by the Agricultural Institute of Canada.
There is in my constituency a very beautiful valley known as Lardo valley, which is about 30 miles in length on the northeast of the Kootenay lakes. In that valley will be found some 500 million feet of uncut timber, matured. It should be cut now. It should have been cut many years ago. It is virgin timber. There will also be found some 10,000 to 15,000 acres of first-class land. There are abundant water supplies. There is everything in that valley to build up a stable agricultural and forestry industry over a long period of time, and to provide home sites and farms for hundreds of people. But today, because of a lack of a national policy on land and water use, and the co-operation required between federal and provincial governments, this great opportunity remains neglected; remains neglected, Mr. Chairman, while we have thousands of young Canadians who are anxious to secure farm sites and opportunities to farm under somewhat pioneer conditions at reasonable rates; young men who have not the $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000 required to establish themselves on an improved farm close to larger centres of population, but who

are seeking an opportunity to establish themselves at a low cost and to develop a farm with little capital, but as the result of hard work and sticking with it.
In this valley we have this land, we have the timber, we have the water, and yet for years we have had federal government experts go in there and look the situation over for another department of government, not the Department of Agriculture. They reported the fertility was there, the water and the timber were there, but nothing could be done. They would not recommend settlement because 12 miles of a road had to be built to give communication from that valley to the outside world. Provincial government inspectors have done the same thing, and have reported that 12 miles of road were required, and there were no services. There was no small hospital; there were none of these services required to establish a small community.
This has gone on, as I say, for 45 years, because there is no co-operation between the provincial and federal governments and no interdepartmental co-operation. If we are to develop great assets like that in this country we must have a policy that provides for co-operation between federal and provincial governments and between departments.
Not only is co-operation necessary between governments to develop a project such as that, but it would require the co-operation of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Public Works, to look after the navigation and the draining of rivers. It would require the co-operation of the Department of National Health and Welfare and the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys. But we lack that departmental cooperation-and I find, Mr. Chairman, so often that governments become extremely departmentalized. In this instance a question arose of removing a log jam from a river at a relatively small expense, so that boats could tow booms down the Duncan river. It would have meant an expenditure of around $4,000. I happened to mention to one public works official that this lowering of the dam would not only provide for navigation but would also lower the river at high water, and drain some 3,000 to 4,000 acres of beautiful black land in the Meadow Creek area. I was immediately told that I must not suggest that; that the Department of Public Works had nothing to do with draining land. If it was going to do that it could not be considered; that it must be strictly for navigation. And yet one little 55946-157
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operation, and a little expansion of one operation, would have meant the draining, not of
3.000	or 4,000 acres only, but of 10,000 or
12.000	acres.
I give that, Mr. Chairman, as an illustration of the lack of departmental co-operation.
I am not blaming the heads of departments;
I am not blaming the officials; it just results from the lack of a national policy of soil and water conservation to make the best use of our land and water for agricultural and other developments.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I am going to place this policy on the record. I am going to read it because I think it is a document which is well worth bringing to the attention of this committee and well worth bringing to the attention of the Canadian people. The policy reads as follows:
The Agricultural Institute of Canada therefore urges:
(a)	that the dominion Department of Agriculture recommend to the government of Canada the immediate establishment of a national policy of soil and water conservation and land use for Canada, and that the government make provision for the necessary legislation;
(b)	that under the act there be appointed a dominion co-ordinator of soil and water conservation and land use;
(c)	that a national council on soil and water conservation and land use be established on a joint dominion and provincial basis, with sufficient powers to implement programs according to the need across Canada;
(d)	that having regard for the variable nature of soil conservation, reclamation, andi land and water utilization, procedure, and practices across Canada, and inasmuch as the land resources of Canada are for the most part vested in the provinces, the custodianship and conservation of our land and water resources available for agricultural purposes be the responsibility of the department of agriculture in the province concerned;
(e)	that the provincial governments be asked to provide the legislation, administrative organization, and educational services necessary for the effective utilization, conservation and reclamation of soil and water resources and further that they be asked to design ways and means of encouraging cultural and land use practices which will maintain and enhance the productivity and usefulness of our soil and water resources;
(f)	that the provinces provide such legislation, aid and guidance to municipalities and farmers as will permit them to effectively perform their duties resulting from soil and water wastage and deterioration;
(g)	that under the provincial legislation there be established local autonomous committees to implement land use and soil and water conservation projects;
(h)	that the dominion and provincial governments inaugurate an immediate program for the training of personnel adequate to provide an advisory service to farmers, and
(i)	that in view of the immediate need for an advisory service to farmers, existing staff be trained and used to the fullest possible extent.

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It is the opinion of the Agricultural Institute of Canada that under the above legislation and organization the necessary agreements between the dominion and the provinces can be implemented.
The above program is recommended by the Agricultural Institute of Canada to provide a broad national policy for the conservation of the land and water resources of our dominion.
I heartily agree with that policy, and it appeals to me in many respects. It does not ask the federal government to do everything or the provincial government to do everything. It means, if implemented, satisfactory co-operation between federal and provincial governments and farmers or, should I say, the rank and file concerned. I think it combines the opportunity for government direction and government guidance with self-help, local improvement and local interest.
That program has been presented to the Minister of Agriculture, and about 8,000 reprints have been sent to interested individuals and organizations throughout Canada. In a matter like this, which is a somewhat abstract question to many people who may not think deeply on these problems, problems which in many cases do not affect them directly because of the lives they lead, it takes time to build up public opinion in support. I know however from my acquaintance with large numbers of people in Canada, and my knowledge of a good many organizations and institutions, that there is a slowly growing interest in Canada at this time as a result of the efforts put forth in this proposed national policy by the Agricultural Institute of Canada, and that there is decided public opinion in favour of the establishment of such a policy.
This policy has been recommended by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. Interest is being taken in it by universities and other educational institutions, by development organizations across Canada, by chambers of commerce, by labour organizations, by business organizations and so on. In fact, I have before me a list of twenty-nine major institutions, organizations or business concerns which are now taking a direct interest in the promotion, knowledge and understanding of the policy I have just read to the committee.
When the minister replies before his estimates are concluded I would ask him to tell the committee his opinion of this policy, and to state whether there is any possibility of the dominion government's accepting the recommendations and giving some effect to them in the immediate future.
I wish to deal briefly with world market surpluses. I shall be brief indeed because I support the remarks of the hon. member for Acadia, and I do not think it is necessary to repeat them, more than to underline what he said about the necessity for accepting the
[Mr. Herridge.l
policies advocated by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and by the International Federation of Agricultural Producers with respect to the need for a world pool for the distribution of agricultural surpluses.
May I make a few brief comments with respect to the fruit industry of British Columbia. When I speak for the fruit growers I speak as one who has been interested for forty-five years, who has grubbed out stumps. So at this point I do not represent those farmers who ride on rubber-tired tractors and who use the big machinery with headlights, and all the rest of it. I represent the farmer who walks behind the walking plow, the farmer who uses the mattock, the shovel, the pickaxe, the axe, and other instruments of that kind. I represent the small farm hewn out of the forest.
But I do suggest that our fruit growers of British Columbia do urge that greater efforts be made by the government, particularly by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Commerce, to develop the potentialities of the British market for our fruit. We believe those departments have underestimated the possibilities of that market. When we read of Australia making a deal less than a month ago for three million boxes of apples, and of apples being shipped from Italy and other countries, we realize that when we were told a year or two ago by a representative of the Department of Trade and Commerce that Great Britain would be nearly self-sufficient in apples, because of heavy plantings, we were not told the facts. I think that in this connection it would be proper for me to quote Sheridan when he said that the honourable gentlemen were using their memories as far as their wit was concerned, but their imaginations as far as their facts were concerned.
I do urge that every effort be made to explore the future possibilities of the United Kingdom market, knowing of the difficulties which are created by the exchange situation.
I wish to express my appreciation-and I am now referring to the United States market-of the work that has been done by the Canadian Horticultural Council and its sister organization in the United States in meeting together each year and coming to some sort of arrangement. I think the work of both organizations is welcomed and recognized by the government when they make a mutual arrangement with regard to the shipment of apples to the United States and possibly some importations into this country. They try to work out their marketing arrangements on a mutual basis. I think the method of working out quotas so far as possible, especially into an area where the need is

found, and back again where the need is found, will be the development of the future, rather than dependence upon tariffs and tariff restriction.
Our growers believe that, if we are to meet the situation which will face us at the end of this crop year, the government should now commence to plan to implement its price support policy, and to give some evidence of the formula it intends to use in respect of certain crops. I am of opinion that we will get a satisfactory solution for this question only if we have co-operation between all governments and producer organizations. I believe all will agree that farmers are not unreasonable; the average farmer seeks to make only a reasonable living. He is not expecting more than his share of the total production of society.
But I do suggest that the time is ripe for the government to commence to study its floor-price program rather than to take action when the need appears urgent as a result of the necessity to dispose of our crop. In this connection I should like to read a resolution adopted by the British Columbia Fruit Growers Association which has to do with the Canadian subsidy for export fruits. This resolution arose because of the fact that Canadian apple producers, tree fruit producers, are meeting exceptional competition from American producers because those American producers are receiving the export subsidies. The result was that this resolution was passed in January by the British Columbia Fruit Growers Association:
Whereas the offshore exports of fruit from the tree fruit area of British Columbia is of paramount importance to maintaining fair market conditions, and
Whereas it has become increasingly difficult to enter the offshore export market, due to the devaluation of currency, and
Whereas United States growers are able to enter these markets by means of a government subsidy on apples and pears shipped offshore,
Therefore be it resolved by the 1950 B.C. F.G.A. convention that the dominion government be requested to give serious consideration to the giving of a subsidy on offshore shipments of Canadian tree fruits.
I bring that to the attention of the minister because our organization is of the opinion that it may be necessary as a temporary move to consider subsidies for some offshore shipments under these very uncertain world marketing conditions.
I should like to make brief reference to the poultry industry. I feel sorry for the poultry industry because it is not organized in the same way as the beef and dairying people are, and particularly as these grain growers in front of me are. Because of that 55946-157J
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they sometimes fail to make their voices heard with the government and with the trade as well as some other sections of agriculture do. Unfortunately they seem to be misunderstood by the consumers.
I urge that every consideration be given to the present position of the poultry industry and to the possibility of establishing satisfactory floor prices.
I think something should be done towards supplying feeds at reasonable prices. When I was home at Easter I had the opportunity to examine some feed wheat and feed barley and other grain which had been shipped in for poultry feeding purposes. I am of the opinion that the distribution of mill feeds for livestock and poultry is well worth the special attention of the Department of Agriculture. Some of the samples of wheat I examined were almost unfit for stock or poultry feed. I did not have the opportunity to get many samples, but I believe a high percentage of weeds and dust and so on would be found. I suggest that the minister have his department give particular consideration to this matter.
I am getting closer to home all the time and I have now landed in the Kootenays. I want to express the thanks of our people for the work of the officials of the department in connection with the little cherry disease. We think they are doing a good work and we realize the difficulties of the problem they are facing, but I have one criticism to make. Because of the interest of the cherry growers in the investigation it would be a good thing if the officials could keep the farm and fruit growers' organizations informed periodically of the progress being made in trying to find a solution to the little cherry disease problem.
I am not as pessimistic over this as some people are. When it first occurred many people threw up their hands and thought that was the end of the industry in the Kootenays. I think without question we produce the finest cherries in British Columbia. Personally I believe the disease is the result of soil unbalance caused by excessive irrigation, over-application of fertilizers and things of that sort. I am a great believer in barnyard manure and green crops in connection with the production of cherries. Our orchard practice of excessive irrigation and fertilization, especially nitrogenous fertilizers and leeching, has produced a soil unbalance that has affected the vitality of the tree.
I have knowledge of a tree which bore little cherries, that is cherries with less sugar content than normal, somewhat pointed in shape and lacking the normal colour, for two or three years, and then later on bore normal

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fruit. I repeat that in my opinion this is the result of lack of vitality occasioned by soil unbalance.
Our organization, as well as those in the Okanagan, are greatly interested in the research being carried on by the department with respect to the use of cull apples and little cherries, and also the possibilities for making cider. I come from a farm family in England and we used to make excellent cider from Pippin apples. We make a considerable quantity of cider at home for our own consumption but we have never been able to make the same grade as we used to make in England. It may be because of the different apple varieties that are used, but I do urge that more research be carried on with respect to cider production.
I support the hon. member for Yale when he suggests that the Department of Agriculture should put out some counter-propaganda against that of the Department of National Health and Welfare which is so eulogistic about citrus fruit juices to the disparagement of the possible use of apple juice.
Before concluding I want to make a plea on behalf of our vegetable growers. There are a number of vegetable growers who supply the local markets in the interior of British Columbia. In the spring of last year they planted their celery, their leeks, their cabbages, their carrots, in fact their usual crops believing they had the protection of the import regulations. They had ample markets for their crops provided they had that protection. They are most indignant at the fact that the import regulations were suddenly raised after they had been induced to plant those crops because of the shortages that existed in the district.
I want to point out to the Minister of Agriculture, in the hope that he will use his influence with the Department of Finance, that there are root cellars full of cabbages, carrots, beets, turnips, leeks and other vegetables at a time when carloads of similar vegetables are being brought in from the United! States. Here is a case where the Department of National Health and Welfare could do something for the Canadian vegetable producer.
The consumer in the city believes that he must have fresh carrots and cabbages and lettuce from California. As a matter of fact, if you take one of these small bunches of carrots that you get at the present time and cut off the tops you will find what you are actually getting. Our people would be far better off if they would go out and buy good Canadian carrots that are now in root cellars waiting for a purchaser. The Department of National Health and Welfare could well

direct the attention of the Canadian consumer to the value of vegetables that are grown normally in order to counteract the drift of the consumer toward the use of quickly grown vegetables which all nutritionists say are not as nutritious as those grown in a normal way with the normal moisture and mineral content, vitamins and so on.
I do hope the minister will give some consideration to providing protection by some means for our vegetable growers. I am not suggesting a tariff, but I do suggest that the quota system is an excellent thing. So long as we have unsold vegetables in Canada let them be sold first. If our local supplies had been allowed to come on the market in the normal way they would have been exhausted earlier last winter. When they are exhausted then there should be an arrangement between vegetable growers' organizations here and in the United States to import sufficient to meet Canadian requirements. I think many of these things can be settled by mutual agreement and adjustment particularly if the growers concerned can meet face to face as they have in the horticultural industry.
In conclusion I suggest that the matters I have brought to the attention of the house can only be solved as a result of co-operation between federal and provincial governments, producers' organizations and farmers as individuals. In British Columbia we have an excellent producers' organization in the British Columbia federation of agriculture. In Tree Fruits Limited we have a marvellous marketing organization unequalled anywhere in the world, and I make that statement without fear of contradiction. It is efficiently operated. The organization is controlled by the rank and file, and it is democratic from its head to its toes. It is well run in every respect. I suggest that if the government is willing to bring together all these great forces of democracy, federal, provincial, local and individual, then in solving our agricultural problems we will also be doing something to solve the problems of democracy as a whole.


James Garfield Gardiner: One or two questions have been asked which I think I should answer tonight because I and those who asked them may forget them before we come back to the agricultural estimates. The first speaker this afternoon made some suggestions as to travelling expenses and miscellaneous items. He said that some $190,000 odd in the agricultural estimates was for different items which he said were sundries, n.o.p. and contingencies. I think most of ours are not classified under any of those heads but rather are described by a different name from any

of the three which have been used. In every branch we have miscellaneous items. I presume that is the term to which my friend was referring. All I wish to say in reply this evening is that we will deal with each one of these miscellaneous items as we come to it, and will be in a position to give explanations as to the purpose for which the expenditures were made. Generally speaking the items are comparatively small or are ones that cannot be classified properly under any one of the other items in the branch, and they are all put in the miscellaneous item.
At the same time I might say that it is not a matter with which the officials of our department have a great deal to do. Those who have the responsibility of compiling the estimates put all items that they consider should be so classified under the different headings in the estimates, and those which they are not able to classify are put under miscellaneous. We have a complete explanation for every item in that category which we can give when we come to the different branches of the department, but at the moment I do not think I should go through all these items and select them. We will be prepared to make explanations as we go along.
As to travelling expenses, I note that the amount mentioned was $2,148,000. The item is fairly large but as the hon. member said at the time he mentioned it I doubt if there is any department where it is more necessary to have fairly high travelling expenses than the Department of Agriculture. Much of the work which is done has to be done in contact with farmers scattered widely over Canada, and if not directly with farmers then with organizations which are more or less localized across the country. For that reason considerable travelling expenses are involved. I should like to repeat what I said as to the other item, namely, that travelling expenses run through all the different branches of the department, and I think it will be much more beneficial to deal with them as we come to them under the different items. I think it will be better to explain them then rather than to attempt to give any general explanation at this time.
The last speaker referred to a report made by technical agriculturists throughout Canada. As everyone knows, technical agriculturists across Canada are largely officials of our department and the departments of the different provincial administrations from one end of Canada to the other. They also include professors of Canadian universities who are associated with the agricultural division of university work. These men and women are
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the ones who actually carry on the activities of the department. I have glanced rather hurriedly at the recommendation which they made. I have not had an opportunity to study it closely but I venture to say that their recommendation involves in large part pretty much what is being done in connection with agriculture in Canada.
1 remember when I came to Ottawa fifteen years ago one of the first conferences I attended was a conference called for the purpose of discussing the overlapping of activities in different federal departments with relation to different provincial departments. It was generally admitted by all those who attended the conference, which was a general one covering all departments, that there was as little overlapping in departments of agriculture across Canada as would be found in any other department of government. In other words, there was very little of it found in any particular place. Wherever it appears, to some people that there is overlapping it will usually be found on examination that 3 co-operative set-up has been established which makes it possible for our officials to do provincial work where it is better to have it done that way, and for provincial officials to do our work where it is better to have it done that way.
The system we follow in connection with grading inspection, for example, is to appoint provincial officials as our officials where we require to use them, and the provinces, appoint our officials as provincial officials where they require to use them. There is every degree of co-operation that could possibly be brought about in that regard. We have joint plans throughout as to soil surveys, and work in co-operation with university staffs. We contribute toward that work, as do the provinces. We do a certain amount of the work here and a certain amount is done in the provinces but there is the most complete co-operation among those who are concerned with that particular kind of work.
The same thing is true as to research. While some of our research work is done by the national research council, by far the greater part of it is done ini agricultural schools and colleges, and universities that have an agricultural campus in addition to. the main university campus, as many of our universities now have. They are all working; together in the matter of agricultural research from one end of Canada to the other. Having said that, I agree with the suggestion that there should be much more of it. If we could get the funds I believe a great deal more research work could be carried on in all parts of Canada with beneficial results. As a matter of fact we have representations

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from certain sections of Canada that not as much research work is being done there as somewhere else, and we are constantly being urged to speed up our research work in certain areas.
The same thing might be said of reclamation work. From time to time we have discussed the possibility of bringing down legislation which would spread P.F.R.A., for example, over the whole of western Canada in order to take care of reclamation work. We have had suggestions that other legislation should be brought down covering eastern Canada which would be more or less an enlargement of the legislation we now have dealing with the reclamation of the marshlands in the extreme east. At one time we had hoped to bring down legislation this session covering both those activities, but I am sorry to have to say that because of the delays in connection with the discussion of financial matters as between the dominion and the provinces, in all probability we will delay bringing down that legislation until after the conference that is to be held.
Let me say at once that this does not mean there is likely to be very much delay in the work that can be planned within the next year. In connection with P.F.R.A., for example, we have a sufficient number of dug-outs applied for in the area described as the Palliser triangle to take care of all the work we could do in probably two seasons if we applied ourselves entirely to work of that kind. So there is no need for delay in anything that requires to be done, because of the lack of legislation this year. Again, probably all the money we would be able to obtain for that sort of work during the coming season is already required in connection with the reclamation work being carried on in the marshlands of the maritime provinces and other assistance we give here and there along the St. Lawrence, the great lakes and elsewhere. Much of that work is being carried on under special votes, so I think perhaps we are doing fairly well in that direction.
One matter was touched upon by two speakers from British Columbia that rather stirs my sympathies. I remember going to British Columbia many years ago and attending one of those summer picnics they have at the Summerland farm. For the first time I had the opportunity to drink apple juice, apart from the hard cider we used to drink down in Ontario in the earlier days. I came back an advocate of the drinking of apple juice in this country. The war came on shortly after that and we had no market for our apples, so we put on a strong advertising campaign to promote the consumption of apple juice. My particular part was that no

matter where I went, east or west, when I went into a restaurant or hotel I asked for apple juice. Now I can get apple juice everywhere, except in one line of restaurants in Canada. At first I thought it must be a line of American restaurants-


Donald MacInnis: Why don't you serve it during the estimates?


James Garfield Gardiner: I do serve it sometimes; but there is one line of restaurants well established in this city and in most cities across Canada where I cannot get it. I go there less and less often because I require apple juice three times a day; but when I ask for it the waitresses tell me they just cannot get their management to provide apple juice. One of these restaurants is only about two blocks from where we are meeting tonight; another is in one of the prominent hotels of this city. I go right on asking for apple juice, however; and I think if everyone who went there, particularly those from British Columbia, would do the same thing in all probability we would get that management to provide apple juice. After all, one way to get these things used in Canada is to ask for them. When I see persons who come from apple-growing areas walk into a restaurant, particularly for breakfast, and ask for orange juice I rather resent it when they get up in this house and suggest that we are not doing enough to help them.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I do not ask for orange juice.


James Garfield Gardiner: Then I take that back as far as my hon. friend is concerned. Many others do ask for orange juice constantly instead of asking for apple juice, but I can assure my hon. friend I never do. I ask for apple juice every morning for breakfast and I usually get it, because I do not go to that restaurant when I want breakfast. The other evening I was there after the theatre and asked for apple juice. They did not have any, so I said there were about two thousand people around here with whom I had some influence, and I was going to suggest to them one of these mornings that they begin to boycott that place until they serve apple juice. I do not think it does any harm to talk that way occasionally; perhaps if we all did it we could get those restaurants to serve apple juice. I agree with my hon. friend that it is a delightful drink, even were it not npurish-ing. With the weight I have been putting on recently, however, not knowing anything else to charge it up to I think it might even add to your weight, as was suggested by an hon. member a few moments ago.


Mr. Low:: That is not apple juice.


James Garfield Gardiner: 

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Alphonse Fournier: Monday is private
members' day.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, May 15, 1950