1950-05-02

OFFICIAL REPORT


[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, May 2, 1950


[Stage Direction]
Mr. Hughes Cleaver (Halion) presented the first and second reports of the standing committee on banking and commerce, and moved that the first report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the house that I have received a communication from two members notifying me that the following vacancy has occurred in the representation, viz.:
Of Gordon B. Isnor, Esquire, a member for the electoral district of Halifax, consequent upon his being summoned to the Senate.
I have accordingly issued my warrant to the chief electoral officer to make out a new writ of election for the said electoral district.


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: I should like to say to you, sir, and through you to hon. members of the house, that following the issue of your warrant to the chief electoral officer, he has been directed to issue writs for by-elections to be held in the following electoral districts: Annapolis-Kings, Cartier, and Halifax, on June 19 next.


Mr. Daniel Mclvor (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my deskmate, but I am sorry for myself. I am sorry to lose such a deskmate. If any other hon. member had sat in my place during this session and the last, he would have appreciated the many fine characteristics of the member who has been removed heavenwards. His outstanding characteristics are Christian courtesy and helpfulness. Fifteen years ago we advised the prime minister to send young men into the Senate. This advice was heeded, and now they are sending wise men from the east. We congratulate the Senate.


Mr. Gordon Graydon (Peel):: Mr. Speaker, now that a close personal parliamentary friend of mine, the former member for Halifax, has just completed another stage in what the member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor) referred to as the pilgrim's progress, I could not permit this opportunity to pass without saying a few words. Having come into the House of Commons at the same time as the former member for Halifax who has now been appointed to the Senate, I suppose it is a favourable commentary upon the House of Commons itself to say that political lines interfere but little in the friendships or the good relations that people have with each other in this parliament. I always liked Gordon Isnor. Perhaps that is putting the matter in as plain and simple terms as one can put it. I liked him because he was honest and straightforward. More than that, he was a sound parliamentarian, even though sometimes we did not see soundness in exactly the same way. In addition, he came into this House of Commons as one who had had a wide and successful business career, and in that career, as we all know, he has since had continued success.
I want to say through you, Mr. Speaker, to the new senator who cannot take his accustomed seait among us today, that from this side of the house come the best wishes that a member can have from political opponents or friends on an occasion such as this. It is true that his appointment to the Senate will throw that body somewhat further out of balance, having regard to political affiliations; on the other hand, while I know that the Prime Minister is anxious to see that the Senate does not become too far out of balance, may I say to him that this by-election may perhaps see the House of Commons put in a little better balance.
When the new senator takes his seat I hope he will adopt the same judicial and nonpartisan air that some senators have been known to adopt in the past. If he does that and keeps out of party politics, it will help us to win Halifax in the next by-election.


Mr. W. F. Carroll (Inverness-Richmond):: As
the junior member from the province of Nova Scotia, I want to say how pleased I am at the elevation to the Senate of a colleague who had been one of the members for Halifax. What is the loss to the House of Commons will be the other place's gain. I know of no

Congratulations to Senator Isnor other person in Nova Scotia who in the past thirty years has taken such a keen interest in the welfare not only of his own constituency but of every part of the province as well as of this great dominion.


Mr. J. H. Dickey (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker,-


Mr. Knowles:: The senior member for
Halifax.


John Horace Dickey: -speaking for the constituency of Halifax, I should like to say that the many friends and supporters of Gordon Isnor in Halifax will be pleased at the honour that has been done him in appointing him to the Senate. The people of Halifax will realize at least as well as the members of this house how well merited that honour is.


Mr. L. A. Mutch (Winnipeg South):: As one
of the rapidly dwindling number of members of this house who came here in 1935 for the first time, I should like to express the pleasure it has been for me, as a western member, to have the advantage of the friendship and the advice of Gordon Isnor during these years in the House of Commons. But it is not particularly with respect to that that I wish to speak today. It is in the memory of everyone in this house, and in the experience of many, that during the period of Gordon Isnor's membership in this house the port of Halifax, which he never let us forget, became one of the great strategic war centres of the Dominion of Canada. I greatly doubt, sir, whether during those war years any other private member of this house, in uniform or out of it, contributed more to the good feeling which existed between the civilian population generally and the members of the armed forces than did Gordon Isnor. I dislike to talk in this way, because it sounds as though he were dead; on the other hand it is perhaps the only opportunity I shall have to pay this tribute.
I am morally certain that among the armed forces of the Dominion of Canada there are hundreds, if not thousands, of navy men, army and air force men who have had personal contact with and who enjoyed the benefit of the friendly assistance and co-operation of Gordon Isnor in that port of Halifax through which most of our serving personnel passed.
Because of that fact, and because of the scores, if not hundreds, of personal contacts I myself have had, I am sure that they, together with us, will remember his kindly good offices and will be glad that he has been rewarded-if it is a reward-by recognition by his Prime Minister, and that he has been sent to the place in which he will be able, without the problems that confront us in the
[Mr. Carroll.)

House of Commons, to be, as he has always been, the real friend of those men and women in this country who put Canada first.


Mr. G. A. Cruickshank (Fraser Valley):: -Speaking for the maritimes of the Pacific coast, Mr. Speaker, and having been a guest of Gordon Isnor-and no finer host that I know of and no finer gentleman could have been elevated-I want to congratulate him. Through you, Mr. Speaker, I also want to tell the Prime Minister and the government that I am available from the Pacific coast.


Mr. A. L. Smith (Calgary West):: I rise to utter a word of complaint, Mr. Speaker. In Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure many words are set out as unparliamentary. I think that section should be amended so that when anyone speaks of someone going from this place to the other place and calls it an elevation, he will be using unparliamentary language.


Leslie Alexander Mutch: I said "if it is"; I did not say it was.



PRIVATE BILL


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 152, to amend the Canadian Red Cross Society Act.-Mr. Macnaughton.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition):: I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of a Reuters dispatch of yesterday's date from Capetown, in which the Prime Minister of South Africa stated as a positive fact that Canada was dissatisfied with her position in the commonwealth, will the Prime Minister take the appropriate steps to remove any uncertainty on this score?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I do not think it requires any deliberation, Mr. Speaker, to be able to state that there is no justification I know of for any such statement to be made by anyone. The dispatch also referred to dissatisfaction with the king's title. That must be based upon some resolution or motion that was before this house a couple of years ago, pointing out that His Majesty's title was no longer in strict accordance with the facts. No dissatisfaction was expressed with the title, but a statement was made here some time ago that it no longer corresponds with the present situation in the commonwealth because the title does not include Ireland. At that time

it was said that when it was modified it would probably not be appropriate for Northern Ireland to be specially mentioned in the title and the other units of the commonwealth lumped together under a general description; and that possibly when consideration was being given to any change in the title there would not be merely the elimination of the reference to Ireland. I know of nothing else that could be any semblance of justification for the story that was shown me last night by a member of the press gallery.


Mr. Adamson:: May I ask the Prime Minister a supplementary question? The title of His Majesty was actually changed some years ago, was is not?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: It was changed some years ago, but since that time the republic of Ireland has ceased to be a member of the commonwealth. It is my impression-I have not the text before me-that the title still reads: "King of Great Britain, Ireland," and so on. It was felt that some change would have to be made there, and it might not be appropriate to substitute for "Ireland" the term "Northern Ireland" and leave the other units of the commonwealth lumped together as "The British dominions beyond the seas."


Agar Rodney Adamson: The change I am thinking of, Mr. Speaker, is in regard to the Indian empire. I am looking at a 1940 five-cent piece; now, our coinage omits the Latin abbreviation "Ind. Imp." I think the change was made in 1947.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Yes, and that change was assented to in this parliament by a special act, as is now required by the provisions of the Statute of Westminster.



THE SENATE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. J. Browne (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the fact that over a year has elapsed since the act of union between Newfoundland and Canada, and there are still three vacancies in the Senate to which Newfoundland is entitled, when does the government propose to make these three appointments?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, the government is giving very serious consideration to a number of candidates, and I can assure the hon. member that he will not be omitted.


Mr. McLure:: Since we are on the subject of new appointments to the Senate, I should like to address a question to the Prime 55946-1321
Inquiries of the Ministry Minister. We have a vacancy in Queens county, and I should like to know from the Prime Minister when that vacancy will be filled.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: It is not to my knowledge that there is a vacancy in Queens county. It is to my knowledge that there is a vacancy in the province of Prince Edward Island, and when a decision has been reached with respect to it I will, without any delay whatsoever, bring it to the attention of this house.

Hon. Alphonse Fournier (Minister of Public
Works) moved that the house go into committee of supply.



COMMUNIST ACTIVITIES IN CANADA

George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, events of the past few days have suggested the desirability of the immediate consideration of communist activities here in Canada, and the steps which should be taken to deal with the activities of persons who subscribe 'to those doctrines.
On March 7 of last year I wrote to the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent). At that time I pointed out to him that certain events had indicated the desirability of some action to deal with communist activities in this country. After outlining statements made by communist leaders in France, Italy, Australia, Britain and the United States, I suggested the desirability of taking immediate steps to amend the Criminal Code so that legal authority might exist to deal effectively with those who were seeking to undermine our democratic way of life in this country.
The letter was written at the time for the purpose of indicating to the Prime Minister that I proposed to ask a question in regard to this subject, and to ascertain whether it was the intention of the government to deal with the matter. At that time the Prime Minister stated that the subject was under consideration by the Department of Justice, and that in due course we would be informed as to the result of that discussion. More than a year has passed, and as yet no indication has been given by the government as to the course it proposes to follow in dealing with this very important subject.
Cabinet ministers and others have made a number of statements condemning communism in the most unrestrained terms, and this condemnation has gained increasing force within the past few weeks. If these words are intended to mean what they do mean in the ordinary interpretation, then the time

2080	HOUSE OF
Communist Activities in Canada
A great many people from Canada who are acting as delegates for some of the communist false fronts which have been set up in Canada and other countries find it strangely easy to go behind the iron curtain and tell the people there of the iniquities practised under the government of Canada, and then come back and, with the apparent authority of having been actual visitors to the communist scene, seek to impress the people of this country with the wonders of communism, whether in Russia or elsewhere. I think that seventh recommendation of the royal commission's report should have been acted on long ago, but since it has not been, the time has come for action; passport procedure should mean something, and should provide a method by which those who are carrying on treacherous activities of this kind can be restrained from moving back and forth in that way when their one and only purpose is to undermine the democratic processes of this country. [DOT]
The time has come when we should realize that freedom of entry is something which should not be extended to those who are flagrantly seeking to carry on a program of false propaganda in this country. While there is no reason why the Red Dean should not be allowed to pass through Canada, as long as he passes through, I can see no reason why he, any more than anyone else, should be permitted to state what is not true about Russia or any other country he has visited, when it is known by everyone who has been in Russia, or who has read carefully any of the accurate documentation which is available today, that his statements with regard to Russia are thoroughly misleading; but unfortunately they mean something because of the dignified position he holds in the church of which he is a member.
These recommendations of the royal commission were made not only to the government of Canada but also to the House of Commons. They stand as recommendations which this house should say in no uncertain terms it wishes to have implemented by its executive, the government, on the one hand by whatever steps may be taken in the ordinary course of its authority, and, on the other hand by the introduction of appropriate legislation to deal with offences related to activities of this kind.
This government at one time felt convinced that it was appropriate to take action. As a result of that decision communists in this country who were occupying leading positions in the communist party were arrested and placed under restraint. My recollection is that some of the leading communists were not arrested at that time; nevertheless action was taken on October 6, 1942. In the Ottawa


Journal of that date there is a report of the decision of government. I think it is interesting, in view of these recommendations and the fact that previous action had not been taken to implement them, to learn who those people are and what the attitude of the government was on an earlier occasion in regard to some of them. Under the heading, "Tim Buck and sixteen other Reds released", there was a subheading:
No mention of communist party ban. Justice Minister advises Hepburn that Reds freed.
The report went on:
Justice Minister St. Laurent has ordered the conditional release from custody of Tim Buck, secretary of the communist party of Canada, and sixteen other persons against whom detention orders were issued in June, 1940, and who surrendered to police a few days ago.
This information was made public through a release to the press of a telegram sent by the Minister of Justice to Premier Hepburn of Ontario.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Have you the date of that telegram?


George Alexander Drew: Yes; the report reads, "His telegram dated today". That is in the report of October 6, 1942.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: That must be erroneous.


George Alexander Drew: Of course I have only the report, but the report is dated October 6, 1942.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I think that was the report of the decision about incarceration, but the other matter arose a couple of years later.


George Alexander Drew: Later?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Yes.


George Alexander Drew: At any rate, what I have here refers to a telegram replying to the premier of Ontario, and I would remind the Prime Minister that Mr. Hepburn was not premier of Ontario several years later. This was in October, 1942, and that was the last October that Mr. Hepburn was premier of Ontario. The telegram from the then minister of justice to Mr. Hepburn reads:
Your wire of 3rd October reached my office the Saturday after I had left, and I did not see it until this morning. In the meantime had received recommendations from an advisory committee, dated yesterday, that Mr. Tim Buck and sixteen other persons against whom orders of detention had been made in June, 1940, and who had surrendered to the police a few days ago, be conditionally released because their admitted hostility of that period to Canada's participation in the war on the ground that it was an imperialist war has given place to an expressed desire, since Hitler's attack on the Soviet union, and under present circumstances, to support a total Canadian effort.
It continues:
I have accepted these recommendations and ordered accordingly.

As you know, this committee has been sitting in Toronto considering these cases since September 29, and completed the hearings on Saturday, October 3.
In view of the publicity given to your telegram, I am also informing the press.
I would point out that the action in that respect suggested that the activities of the communist party were not to be carried on, and that the conditional aspect of the release was related to that understanding. It does not leave too strong a feeling of confidence as to the way in which the government has from time to time dealt with this subject that in the Grey North by-election, when General McNaughton was a candidate, a number of the most prominent communists in Canada, some of whom had been released under that order, actively campaigned for General McNaughton in that by-election, and that advertisements appearing over the names of such well-known communists as George Harris, C. S. Jackson, Jack Shaw, Pat Sullivan, Harold Pritchard and others were published by the authority of the Grey North Liberal Association.
Nevertheless that is in the past, and the government can make its own decision about the wisdom of having accepted support from men of that type. It is a very high tribute to the good judgment of the people of Grey North, and elsewhere, that they took appropriate action to deal with the support of men of that kind. Nevertheless it suggests a failure to recognize the full seriousness of this threat, both then and now. It is perfectly true that Russia was fighting Germany because it had been attacked by Germany on June 22, 1941, and for no other reason. Russia would still be helping Germany today if Hitler's dream of a united Europe under his control had been fulfilled. Russia was fighting Germany, and because of that it was considered advisable in the higher realms of international decision that all who were fighting nazi Germany should stand together for that purpose; but these men against whom orders for arrest had been made, Tim Buck and others like him, were just the same men as they were before. The fact 'that Russia was forced to take up arms for the defence of its own soil in no way purified Tim Buck of his treachery, nor did it make any more decent citizens of the remainder of those people than they were before or than they are today.
There are many people who for one reason or another, and undoubtedly with the most sincere purpose in many cases, seem to think that it is not desirable to take positive action against communism, and that the only way to deal with it is to state publicly that communism does not meet with their approval. One reason why this subject should be under
Communist Activities in Canada consideration in the house at this particular time is certain events of the past few days in different parts of the world. Last week a bill was introduced in the Australian house of representatives which, when it is passed by their parliament, will have the effect of making communism a criminal offence punishable by very severe penalties. On Saturday it was announced that the government of South Africa will introduce in the South African parliament this week a bill to make communism a crime in that country and subject to very severe penalties. Last week it was announced that the government of Malaya has not only decided to make communism a crime, but in certain aspects thereof a crime punishable by the death penalty, and that this new law will come into effect on June 1. Yesterday it was announced that the government of Panama had introduced a most severe act which will make communism a criminal offence there. India has dealt with communism, and has made it a criminal offence; the law has been in effect now for several months.
I think it might be helpful if, while this debate is taking place, we were informed whether this subject was under discussion at Colombo, and whether this uniform pattern which is taking shape throughout the commonwealth was one of the things agreed upon but not disclosed at that time. I believe it would indicate that the Colombo conference was of more use than it appeared to be, if in fact there was such a decision on that occasion. In any event, it is rather significant that there should be this rapid sequence of events of a similar nature in different nations of the commonwealth which were represented at Colombo.
There are those who still take the position that it is not wise to pass laws which would make communism a criminal offence. There is an editorial in today's Montreal Gazette under the heading "Its Strength and our Danger", relating to this subject. I should like to read the first two paragraphs:
Whenever it is suggested that communism should he brought under legal control in Canada, many at once reply that this would involve an alarming invasion of civil liberties.
This type of reply has been well and fairly expressed by Hon. L. B. Pearson, Canada's Minister of External Affairs. Mr. Pearson explained that he considered it wise to reserve the penalties of the Criminal Code for those who by some overt act have threatened the peace and security of the country. He thought it would be dangerous to go further.
"Once we make it a crime to hold political ideas," he said, "merely because they are thought to be dangerous, it will then be but a short step to suppressing political ideas because they are not liked."
The editorial goes on to discuss this subject further, but I wish to refer to this statement by the Secretary of State for External
2082	HOUSE OF
Communist Activities in Canada Affairs (Mr. Pearson), which I understand is a quotation from a speech made some time earlier but which, subject to any indication from him that his opinion has changed, I assume can be taken as his opinion at this time. That quotation gains special meaning in view of the statement by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) in March of last year, that this subject was under consideration by the Department of Justice. I should like to hear the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) tell us exactly what consideration was given. In fact, I should like to hear the Minister of Justice tell us whether it is not a fact that an amendment to the Criminal Code was drafted, which would have had the effect of outlawing communist and similar activities in this country. Certainly I believe the house should be informed at this stage just what consideration has been given, and what the decision of the government is. I hope the government has come to the conclusion to take positive action to deal with activities of this nature.
As I have already indicated, I am not in any doubt that many of those-I most emphatically do not say all-who express concern about the danger to civil liberties from laws which would make communist or similar activities a criminal offence are sincere.
I do feel that they still misconceive the real meaning of communism in its modern interpretation, and that they still misconceive the nature of the activities of these agents of the Kremlin. We are not dealing today with any vague or shadowy dialectic consideration. We are dealing today with the most terrifying brutal reality the world has ever known. Nazism and fascism fade into insignificance beside the nature and scale of this horrible and evil force that is spreading its tentacles throughout the world.
When the war ended less than five years ago, one human being out of every twelve in the world was under this vile tyranny. In these five short years 600 million more people have been brought under that form of slavery. The red tide is on the flood. At no point has it stopped or receded. Today one out of every three people in the world is under the most evil form of human subjugation that was ever designed by the tortured brains of men of evil intent. That is the reality, and the flood is still on the move. Within the past few weeks we have seen still further evidence of the mounting forces of communism: fresh pressure in India, China, Malaya, Indonesia, and indeed on the southwestern borders of Russia in Afghanistan and the surrounding states. New pressures have emerged elsewhere, in Italy and in France-yes, right here in our own country.
rMr. Drew.]

Some people may still regard it as a minor manifestation, but this House of Commons was treated to at least one symptom of that disease within the past week. These things may seem unimportant to us, and merely the expression of a few men. But will we wake up in time? These men are not expressing a political doctrine, they are paid and financed by the Kremlin. Money does not grow on trees, and the expensive publishing and other activities of the communists in our midst require money, and plenty of it. It does not come from the workers in Canada. The real workers in Canada loathe and condemn communism as much as or more than any other people in this country. They are not the ones who are supporting any of these activities. We blandly watch activities of this sort, and regard them with an attitude of tolerant acceptance, without looking upon it as anything very serious.
It is only when one examines the sum total of all these activities, and realizes how they are spreading out into every part of the social structure of this country, that one realizes that tolerance of that kind is not tolerance but sheer insanity in the face of what is happening throughout the world today. If we really love our freedom, if we respect the memory of those who died for freedom in two world wars, the time has come for every Canadian, and particularly for those of us who collectively represent in this house all the people of Canada, to say that we will take the appropriate legislative steps so that freedom shall not be used to destroy freedom itself in the Canada that we love.
When we recognize the fact that communism now embraces in its dreadful grasp a third of the population of the whole world, we should remember that on no single occasion have the armed forces of Russia crossed a single border to carry out the actual aggression that placed other governments under communist authority. It was only after the coup d'etat or revolution was an accomplished fact that Russian troops were welcomed as brothers in a great cause. Just think of it: the Baltic states, Roumania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, China and now other parts of southeast Asia. All these countries came under the control of the Kremlin through fifth columns organized in exactly the same way that a fifth column is being organized in Canada right now. The fifth column in Canada, under Tim Buck and his associates, has exactly the same purpose as had the fifth columns in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary, in Bulgaria, in Roumania or in any other country now occupied by communists, including

China, in which was the largest act of aggression of all. There is no difference. This is not a political doctrine as we understand a political doctrine. This is a plan to carry out revolution in Canada.


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: It is more than that.


George Alexander Drew: Yes, a great deal more than that. It is the kind of revolution that matters, as well as the revolution itself.


Pierre Gauthier: It is more than that. It is a religion.


George Alexander Drew: It is a Godless religion, and that is the horrible feature of it. It is a religion without God. It is a religion which makes materialism in its grossest form the ideal, if possible, of those who serve this cause. It is in all truth the anti-Christ pictured by the bible. I do not wish anyone for one moment to think that I feel any less deeply about this matter than my words would indicate. The depth of my feeling with regard to men like the Red Dean and Dr. Endicott, as well as Tim Buck, is occasioned by the fact that I know of my own knowledge how false their interpretation of communism in Russia really is. Speaking of this being the teaching of the anti-Christ, those who have been in Russia have tseen the antireligious museums operated by the state, in which everything that we hold dear is held up to ridicule and to contempt, with the one idea of destroying faith in the minds of youth. Yes, it is true that the churches are open in Russia, but they are in great disrepair, in a state of neglect. You cannot kill Christianity. You cannot kill the belief of a people; and those in power in Russia have not done so. But in every way within their power they are using the mechanism of state instruction in order to try to create in the minds of youth a contempt for the superstition of their elders which interprets itself in a continuance of their religious beliefs.
I have talked to young communists in Russia, and they have frankly said that they pitied the older people for their superstitions; and they indicated quite clearly that they were more enlightened. They had come under the influence of this evil propaganda. It is, in fact, the doctrine of the anti-Christ; and if ever the spirit of evil incarnate was centred in a single human being, it is centred in Joseph Stalin in Moscow today. This is the force we are fighting. Every one of these people who knowingly propagates the Russian form of communism in Canada is serving that foul doctrine and trying to spread it here in this country.
We have been strangely tolerant in many ways. When I broke my remarks at that
Communist Activities in Canada point, it was because I agree so thoroughly with the statement that had been made to the effect that this is more than an ordinary revolution. The fact is that we do not need to be in any doubt as to what it is that these people are actually working for. According to their own statements, they are working for revolution. Those are the statements of Tim Buck himself. In the textbooks used by the communists in this country, which were seized at the time that Tim Buck was prosecuted and sent to prison, we find that no doubt whatever was left that they were working for an armed uprising. That was the reason that Tim Buck was sent to the penitentiary; he was sent there not because he was a communist but because the kind of communism he was supporting was, by their own statements, working for an armed uprising.
Let us see what he is working for in other ways. This is a definition used by the Canadian communist party as to the meaning of the word "revolution":
"Revolution" means an historic event when one part of the population imposes its will upon ttie other part of the population by bayonets, guns and rifles.
Perhaps we understand exactly what they mean when we find these words of Tim Buck himself in one of the many books he has written to explain communism in this country. This is what he says:
Once we have mastered the political strike, the general strike is but a step, and the general strike during a political crisis is the gateway to revolution.
Surely no communist can be critical if we take their own words as a definition of the intention of their organization in this country. They are working for revolution, and they do not mince words. We do not need to be in any doubt about that. They have not changed at all in that respect.
Even without an amendment to the law, the Department of Justice has been negligent in failing to deal, as it should have dealt, with some of the newspapers published in this country in languages other than English or French. The unfortunate truth is that the centre of communist activity in Canada today is in the city of Toronto, where a great many publications in the languages of many lands are appearing week by week for the purpose of undermining faith in Canada on the part of those who have come here with the one desire of becoming good Canadian citizens.
Just let me read to you a couple of examples. In Toronto week by week is published a Russian language newspaper known as Vestnik; and that newspaper, which has a strangely large circulation when one considers

Communist Activities in Canada how difficult some people find it today to start newspapers, has statements like this. In Vestnik of Saturday, January 14, of this year, appears an editorial which I have had translated by a translator of tested reliability:
The St. Laurent government should also check the warmongers in the ranks of Canadian military leaders, who, in the persons of General Simonds and retired General Crerar, propagate policies of preparedness and aggression against the U.S.S.R.
I should like to read from an editorial which appeared in Vestnik on Wednesday, January 11. I ask you to listen to this as the kind of thing that is being spread, in this particular case, among those who speak the Russian or Slav language:
The ruthless soldier Crerar is now prepared to sacrifice probably millions of Canadian lives on the battlefront, and on territories of Canada proper, in the atomic war with a view to correcting "the mistakes" made in the last world war. Crerar does not care, either for England, nor for other western European states, nor for Canada-which countries may be turned to ashes in a new world war, started by Wall street. It seems strange that such individuals, to whom Canada's security is entrusted, are permitted to address meetings and conferences. How is it that such individuals, who actually should be put in "straitjackets," are permitted to discuss problems of state politics at authoritative conventions? Canadian people should voice their indignation against the propaganda carried on by such fools, who strive to involve us in a horrible catastrophe.
This is not something to be treated as a joke, Mr. Speaker. There is no effective counter-propaganda going out in the same language to these same people; and this affects a great many people whose minds will be poisoned permanently unless this thing is tackled at the root. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that no new law is needed beyond what we already have to put the publisher of that paper behind prison bars, where he should be for writing an editorial of this kind. If this is not criminal libel I do not know what criminal libel is.
Let me read another editorial just to show the pattern. In Vestnik of Saturday, February 4, 1950, under the heading "Hydrogen Bomb" appeared the following:
The St. Laurent government, which has linked our country with the atomic policy of the U.S.A., is leading Canada to a catastrophe of war and devastation. It is imperative that this government should hear the voice of the people in the forms of hundreds of thousands of signatures on a petition in favour of outlawing the atomic weapon. Canada must break with the insane politics of Wall street and its protege, Truman.
This is just another example, and this goes on week after week. Again in Vestnik of Saturday, February 4, 1950, there is a special article to glorify Tim Buck. When the Department of Justice is looking at the files of Vestnik, as I hope it will, I hope it

will also look at the name of the Canadian citizen who wrote the article from which I now quote:
Tim Buck-the greatest product of the thirty-year old communist movement in Canada. He is the founder of the communist party in our country ... as in 1929 he again emphasized the full importance of the party, as the vanguard of revolution . . .
Don't let anybody talk of this as just an ordinary political doctrine. It is described in 1950 as the vanguard of revolution. We know from their own definition that they mean armed revolution, and always have. No other form of revolution has ever succeeded, because there has not been a single case yet where the communists who seized power were more than a very small percentage indeed of the whole population. To those who still can be so strangely tolerant of communism in our midst it may be well to remember that in Russia, when the third revolution of 1917 took place, and the socialist government of Kerensky was overthrown by Lenin and Trotsky, less than two per cent of the people of Russia were members of the communist party. It may be well to remember that in the seizure of power in what had been one of the finest democracies in Europe, Czechoslovakia, just over a year ago, less than ten per cent of the population of that country had ever supported the communists. That is the picture everywhere. They never expect to seize power through the ballot. They know they can seize power only by creating a fifth column, which, as Tim Buck himself has said, in a time of hardship and disturbance might open the gateway to revolution.
I might say that there are a great number of these papers. The Department of Justice is well aware of many of them. There is such an active communist paper as Vapus, a Finnish paper of Sudbury, and Munkas, a Hungarian communist paper, published in Toronto. There are communist papers published in Toronto every week in the Serbian, Croatian, Slovak, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, German, Bulgarian, Italian and Finnish languages. And I might of course add that there are also publications in Toronto every week in English. The Canadian Tribune is published every week; and there is also in English National Affairs published by the same organization.
It is only necessary to examine what these publications say to find the strange uniformity in pattern. I have here the originals of a number of these foreign language newspapers. The one in front of me is the Hungarian paper Munkas in which one reads almost the same words as the words which

appear in Vestnik. Read Vapus and you will find the same things. All this is emanating from some central point. All of it is eman- [DOT] ating from some guiding office.
Each of these publications is supplied with clippings, with photographs and with feature articles from their own countries. The diplomatic representatives of these countries here in Ottawa send out mats for the press, photographs and feature articles. And these papers, with no visible means of support, receive telegrams, thousands of words long, direct from Moscow.
It is wonderful how easy it is for some people to publish newspapers at this time, despite the high cost of newsprint and of expensive wire services. And then also, as part of that general activity, some of these diplomatic agencies here in Ottawa distribute propaganda films sent over here from communist countries. These are being used under guidance of these papers which, in the languages of the homelands of many of these people, tell them where they can see these pictures.
Lots of people who hate communism will go to see pictures of the Danube, pictures of Vienna, pictures of Roumania and of Poland and of Czechoslovakia, and of all the countries which they still love, and love dearly-and perhaos love even more because of the terrible conditions there today. These pictures are used to spread communist ideas in the minds of youth.
Over the week end children are brought together and these propaganda pictures- clever, dangerous, and opposed to everything we believe in-are used to attract the minds of youth to this doctrine. These activities extend into every field. We know the false fronts that are developing. Everybody believes in peace. Every decent human being wants peace. Therefore we have peace councils. I see by this afternoon's paper that the Secretary of State for External Affairs is to be visited on Thursday. I do not know that he has given an appointment; I hope he has not, and I do not believe he has.
However, the Ottawa Evening Citizen carries the head: Ban the Bomb Delegation Will See Pearson Thursday; Dr. J. G. Endicott With Petitioners Coming to Ottawa. The first paragraph of the article reads:
A ban-the-bomb delegation is expected to call on the Hon. Lester B. Pearson, external affairs minister, on Thursday, at noon. This information comes from Mrs. Edith Holtom, 5 Hawthorne Avenue, who is active in Ottawa in the Canadian Peace Congress. Mrs. Holtom stated that the interview with Mr. Pearson had been arranged through Prime Minister St. Laurent.
Communist Activities in Canada
I feel sure that that is a great surprise to the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), as it would be to any of us.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: No, it is not. I received a letter from the secretary of this league some time ago asking for an appointment with the cabinet, and asking that I arrange with Mr. Speaker to make the railway committee room available for a presentation of their petition or representations.
I wrote back stating that it was not the practice of the government to assist in publicizing movements of that kind; and that I would not attempt to arrange with Mr. Speaker for the railway committee room or any other room; that if this league had any representations they wished to submit to anybody, of course we could not refuse to hear those representations; that the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) would be prepared to receive them if they presented those views before the date of his departure for a real peace conference in London; that if it did not suit them to do that before his departure the acting secretary would receive their petition or representations but that their impression upon the government would not be added to by the numbers of persons attempting to compose the delegation.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, of course it was only a moment ago that I saw the article in this evening's edition of the Ottawa Citizen. But I will say I had thought that this probably was an inaccurate report; because I do think that in these troubled days the government of Canada-and every member of the government of Canada-has more important tasks to perform than to waste his or their time on communist fronts of this kind. After all, no one today is in any doubt about the so-called Canadian peace congress. I think it is the duty of the government, as the Prime Minister has indicated, through the appropriate ministers or officials, to meet every delegation which has some proper purpose to serve by coming here, whether or not one expects that they will have some necessary representations to make; but I think that we are contributing to the public importance of these bodies when these people are received at all.
We have too many of such organizations. We have the national federation of labour youth, the national committee of L.P.P. students, the association of united Ukrainian Canadians, the federation of Russian Canadians, the league for democratic rights. We have all sorts of organizations of that kind with innocent names. But to the extent that any member of the government indicates that
2086	HOUSE OF
Communist Activities in Canada they are to be regarded as public bodies which should be recognized as eminent democratic public bodies, then I suggest the possibility that other members of the public may think that they should be regarded in the same serious manner. And in those cases where it is definitely known that these are merely communist false fronts, then I suggest the wisdom of not giving them added importance by hearing representations that are intended as nothing else but communist propaganda.
This very week a youth gathering is being held in Toronto on Thursday, Friday and Saturday with the declared purpose of discussing peace. Whether he will actually be there or not, it was announced at one time that the red dean was to enlighten them about Russia. These organizations undoubtedly impress many innocent people.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Unfortunately.


George Alexander Drew: That is an unfortunate and very unhappy feature of these activities. But again we cannot ignore the danger that they will be considered seriously. For instance, here is a circular sent out by the second Canadian peace congress in regard to the meeting being held in Toronto to which I have referred. It is under the heading "The people can win the peace." Everybody is appealed to by the idea of peace and that is the sort of thing which makes appeals of this kind so dangerous and makes the corrosive influence of propaganda of this nature something that we cannot disregard.
Not only is this treachery of a particular form intended to serve Russia by weakening our democracy and by destroying faith in any way possible in our people; it is, as has already been indicated, an anti-Christian force which should be dealt with if only for that reason. No one should be complacent about the fact that there may be only a few thousand Canadian youth who come under the influence of this communist propaganda. If there is any way in our power that we can prevent it, we as the representatives of the Canadian people should take every step within our power to make sure that not a single Canadian youth will have his faith destroyed by these servants of the Kremlin.
There is another aspect of this matter which should be in the minds of members of the house at this particular time. The Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) leaves at the end of this week. World events are moving fast toward a climax. Peace or a break-down in international diplomacy depends on the conviction in the minds of the thirteen men in the Kremlin that the democracies really mean business.


There are different ways in which we can convince them. We cannot convince the people of Russia, because we cannot reach them. Even if the "Voice of America" or any other powerful radio system in the world could carry this message without being jammed by the costly jamming devices erected by the Russia people, there would still be only a limited number of the Russian people that could hear shortwave messages of that kind. The overwhelming majority of the citizens of that country cannot be reached by such means.
The only people we can convince with any results flowing from that conviction are the men in whose hands lies not only the fate of Russia, but to a great extent the fate of the whole world. They will be convinced by evidence of unity on the part of the nations who have signed the Atlantic pact. They will be convinced by strong and firm and definite statements by the heads of the free nations. But I am convinced that there is another argument which will impress them. If those agents in our midst and in other free countries to whom we extend facilities so readily are able to tell them that the democracies really know what communism means and are dealing with it accordingly, it may have a very profound effect upon the thinking of the men in the Kremlin.
If within the next few weeks we in Canada show that in our own domestic activities we intend to deal with this treacherous force, that will have its effect, just as the action in Australia, South Africa, Malaya, India and other parts of the world has had its effect. It is because I believe not only that action in regard to this evil force is long overdue, it is because I believe that this criminal conduct should be dealt with as criminal conduct, and also because I believe that a strong gesture by the elected representatives of the people of Canada may have its effect that I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green):
That all the words after "that" to the end of the question be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"this house is of the opinion that appropriate legislation should be introduced so that communist and similar activities in Canada may be made an offence punishable under the Criminal Code."


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, I do not think there are many Canadians who do not believe that there is ideological warfare going on and that there has been for a number of years a conflict between communism and Christian civilization. I am sure that there are very few Canadians who do not wish to see that war won by Christian civilization. It is

a matter of opinion as to what are the best methods to be adopted to prevent the spread of communism in our country. I firmly believe that it has diminished over the last few years.
I firmly believe that some years ago communist leadership was, to a regrettable degree, influential in some labour unions and the question arose as to whether or not some action should be taken by legislative authority in Canada to purge the labour unions. That was not done. We relied on the good sense, good judgment, patriotism and Christian traditions of the labouring people themselves to see that they got rid of these obnoxious influences.
I feel quite confident that they did a much better job than could have been done by the police attempting to enforce any laws adopted by this parliament in that regard. Labour unions in Canada are responsible democratic organizations and I feel sure that a large number who have no leaning whatsoever toward communism or any of its affiliated isms would have resented any attempt by legislative authority and the police to determine how their unions should be officered and who would receive votes at their elections. I think that at the present time we all have great reason to be satisfied with the autonomous purges that the labour movement of Canada has carried out in its own ranks. There are laws on our statute books, laws in the Criminal Code, which are sufficient, if applied, to deal with all overt acts directed against the security of the state.
The leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew) has just said that the Department of Justice has been negligent in not prosecuting the publishers of a certain number of newspapers published in Toronto and elsewhere in languages other than English or French, and even one published in English. When we give lip service to the distribution of constitutional powers and responsibility between the federal parliament and the provincial legislation we must continue to recognize that under the constitution the responsibility for the administration of justice in each province is that of the attorney general of that province. The character and tone of these newspapers now published in the city of Toronto are not very different from the character and tone of newspapers published in Toronto while the hon. * member, who has just taken his seat, was premier of the province of Ontario and had a devoted and respected colleague as his attorney general.
Again it is a matter of opinion as to when it is advisable to launch criminal prosecutions. For my part I am not prepared to say
Communist Activities in Canada that the attorney general of the government of which the hon. gentleman was the leader was negligent. I think, in his judgment, he did his best to maintain law and order in that province, and that if he had been of opinion that treasonable acts were being committed in the city of Toronto that were really dangerous to the security of the state he would have taken action.


George Alexander Drew: I do not wish to interrupt the Prime Minister but I think that an incorrect impression should not be left here. I would remind the Prime Minister that communist activities are peculiarly under the authority of the Department of Justice, and that the provincial governments have no facilities available, nor have they attempted to set up facilities, to deal with this particular problem.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, it is not proper to say that communistic activities are under the Department of Justice. By statute the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) is the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are active in endeavouring to suppress every kind of activity that might be a threat to the security of the state. They co-operate with provincial police forces, and have the co-operation of provincial police forces. But when prosecutions are to be instituted before the courts it is the privilege, the responsibility and the duty of the attorney general of the province where those activities are carried on to institute the proceedings. Of course there is a difference between peacetime administration of justice and wartime measures taken for the security of the state. The hon. member referred to what was done in 1940 and 1942, but that was done under the Defence of Canada Regulations which had the authority of law under the War Measures Act, and which no longer have the authority of law in this country, a thing for which we are all thankful. We are all thankful that conditions in Canada are no longer such that the special measures required during the war period still need to be applied. We are now in peacetime, and the administration of justice is the privilege and responsibility of the departments of the attorneys general of the respective provinces.
I am not suggesting that they are not doing their duty. They do their duty in the manner that they think best. One of these attorneys general attempts to administer a padlock law. There is much resentment in many parts of the country over his attempts to do so.
Since the report of the royal commission we have been giving close and careful attention to the recommendations contained therein. I can assure the house that nothing
2C38

Communist Activities in Canada that we felt could be done effectively to implement those recommendations has been left undone.
We have at times been subjected to questioning and criticism in this house because of the existence, for instance, of a security panel co-ordinating security measures adopted by all the different departments of government to ensure that the vulnerable departments of the state will be served only by persons in whom the heads of those departments can have implicit confidence. That was commenced even before the report of the royal commission was published. While the report was still in draft form and we had the advantage of knowing some of its recommendations this interdepartmental security panel was set up.
It is difficult for one to be quite positive in one's own mind as to how much one should disclose of the protective measures that are taken for the security of the state, because those who might be a threat to its security are sometimes pretty clever in the methods to which they resort in order to withhold information that would lead to proper conclusions in respect of them. I do not think it would be in the interests of security to describe too particularly the safeguards we are attempting to set up, just as trappers do not try to make their traps too obvious when they are placing them in the paths that game sometimes follow. I can assure the house, however, that we have been very much concerned about security.
It is no pleasant responsibility to have to do some of the things that I felt it was my duty to do when I was minister of justice in connection with the disclosures arising out of Mr. Gouzenko's declaration. I endured many a slap on the wrist in this house for the methods that were adopted to handle the situation. We do not want a repetition of such a situation if we can avoid it by any possible means. We have been taking all precautions that can properly be taken. One of the hon. members in the house this afternoon will recall the questions he put about the existence of snoopers for the purpose of finding out about prospective civil servants.
The association for civil liberties is not a communist organization. It is composed of a great many people with whom a great many other people may not agree as to all their views, but it is an association of which the president is the Rev. Dr. R. S. K. Seeley, the vice-presidents being Professor Harry M. Cassidy, Rabbi A. L. Feinberg, Mrs. W. L. Grant, Charles H. Millard, M.P.P., Joseph Sedgwick, K.C., Dr. Malcolm Wallace; of which the treasurer is Rev. W. P. Jenkins; the
r.Mr. St. Laurent.]

executive secretary, Irving Himel; chairman of committee for a bill of rights, Dr. B. K. Sandwell, the editor of Saturday Night; chairman of committee for academic freedom, Dr. Malcolm Wallace; chairman of committee on group relations, Miss Vivien Mahood; chairman of legal committee for civil rights, J. S. Midanik. It has an advisory board consisting of F. Andrew Brewin, K.C., R. G. Cavell, David Croll, K.C., M.P., William Arthur Deacon, Rev. Gordon Domm, Rev. James Finlay, Anne Fromer, Professor C. E. Hendry, G. A. Martin, K.C., Norman J. McLean, E. B. Jolliffe, M.P.P., Professor Charles E. Phillips, Professor E. J. Pratt, Senator Arthur W. Roebuck, K.C., Harry Simon, Professor George Tatham, and Professor H. Wasteneys. This association presented a brief to the senatorial committee on civil liberties and human rights concerning the desirability of a bill of rights. It was a statement of what they thought should be, by constitutional amendment, put beyond the touch of common members of parliament dealing with the everyday business of the nation, something that would be absolutely sacred.
Article 19 of their declaration reads as follows:
Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in the country.
Article 20 states:
Every person is entitled to all the rights and freedoms above set forth without distinction of any kind1 such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Article 17 states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
With regard to passports, article 13 of this declaration states:
Everyone legally resident in Canada has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the country, and the right to leave and return to Canada.
Those are things that a substantial body of public opinion in Canada think should be made a part of a Canadian constitution. They are good, honest Canadians, concerned about their own rights and about the rights of their fellows. In these matters there is room for diverging opinions as to what are the best methods of combating the spread of communism. For my part, I have been preaching for many months past that the best method of combating communism is to make democracy work as a system benefiting no particular classes or groups, but benefiting all the members of the population. There will be little danger of the spread of communism if all our

people realize that it is the desire of those representing the majority of the people in Canada to have laws that enable each to get a fair share of the welfare which Providence makes it possible to provide for everyone in the country.
I do not attribute any special effect to that preaching, and I have not been alone in preaching it; it is being preached by a great many others. But I do believe that with respect to communism we are in a better position today than we were a few years ago. It is disagreeable to have these organizations that we are inclined to believe are false fronts before us to receive their petitions and complaints. The hon. leader of the opposition must have been bothered, as many of us were, by those gentlemen-I shall call them that here-who were calling themselves the Unemployment League of Canada or the Unemployment Association of Canada, and who had briefs and petitions to present to us. They waylaid me at more than one place, and on one occasion they had these briefs to thrust into my hands. I said, "Gentlemen, I have other occupations at this moment. We have a good postal service, and if you have anything to communicate to me, put it into the post office and when received it will get the consideration it deserves". It is difficult to turn down requests to be allowed to present petitions.
I believe that perhaps one of the best arguments against these people is found in the fact that they are allowed to do these things. It establishes the best possible contrast between what happens in a democratic country that is confident of its ability to maintain its democratic institutions, and what is enforced by fear and police in the totalitarian states. Perhaps that opinion is shared by others.
With respect to the fact that Mr. Tim Buck and Dr. Endicott have travelled abroad, I do not know whether the leader of the opposition read the article in the Globe and Mail today which has a leader dealing with that particular subject. The last paragraph of it is in the following terms:
Some people question the wisdom of giving such people as Buck and Endicott the passports they need for their baleful itineraries. But surely it is better to let them go than to keep them at home. They do Canada no real harm because what they say in Russia merely confirms an ignorance already total. But they discredit themselves and their cause in the eyes of the Canadian public in a highly satisfactory way. No argument against the Canadian communist party could be half so convincing or so damaging as the argument that Buck and Endicott have themselves supplied.
I am not reading this because I agree with every word that is in it, but merely in support of my argument that this is not a ques-
Communist Activities in Canada tion of party politics in Canada. It is a question of individual opinion as to what is the best way to deal with this obnoxious growth in our midst. There are honest, patriotic Canadians of my party and the hon. gentleman's party, of the C.C.F. party and the Social Credit party, who have views that are the same, and there are others, probably in my party as in other parties, who think that a more drastic way of dealing with the obnoxious growth would be more effective.
There are interesting experiments being attempted at the present time in Australia, South Africa, Malaya, Panama, and India. We will be interested in seeing what are the effective results of that method. There are other things being practised across the border, a sort of witch-hunt. Committees are being set up charging the department of state with being overrun with communists or communist sympathizers. People are saying, "I assert that there are communists in the department of state, and until you put the F.B.I. files at my disposal I am not in a position to prove it, but I will still assert it." I do not think that has created a very favourable impression on our Canadian public. I do not think that the charges against General Marshall of incompetency, and his leanings while he was secretary of state, have carried much conviction in the judgment of Canadians who know anything at all about the former secretary of state. I do not think that the charges levelled against the present secretary of state, Hon. Dean Acheson, are disturbing us a great deal about him. But again there are no doubt some Canadians who think that the strong hand, the padlock law and such measures are the appropriate methods to be adopted. It may happen that they are right. But up to the present time the methods we have followed here have coincided with what appears to have been a diminution in communistic activities. This is something which all of us frequently have to talk about. I was talking about it in Windsor, Ontario, in March, 1949. I then cited the Globe and Mail because of the fact that my view had been that this is not a partisan party thing but rather a thing as to which Canadians, regardless of the political party to which they belong, have diverging views. I cited an article from the Globe and Mail which reads as follows:
How to meet the communist threat to liberty is a two-sided question for Canada as for other free countries. One half of the task is checking Soviet aggression and the other is curbing communist influence in home territory. The North Atlantic pact is the obvious answer to the first problem. It is harder to find the right method of dealing with the second.

Communist Activities in Canada
That is the end of the quotation. Then I went on as follows:
They-
That is to say, the Globe and Mail.
-do not pretend to have found a solution for it in an absolute manner but they do say this which I also read without feeling any revulsion in my mind.
And I quoted this further paragraph:
Any law which merely forbids communism as such is objectionable: but there can be no argument against a law defining the opinions and preachments the community will not tolerate. Recently the communist leaders in France, Italy and other countries have said1, directly or by implication, that their followers' duty in any future war would be to work and fight for the Soviet union.
Then I went on:
With that I fully agree. That is or would be, if said or attempted to be practised in our country, treasonable conduct for which we have plenty of laws to protect ourselves and laws with plenty of teeth in them to prevent that from going on here but I do not like the kind of laws that you put in the statute books and then put the statute books away and forget about them. That is not the way to maintain respect for the law in a free country.
I also expounded then the same theory, that the best antidote to the spread of communism was to make our free institutions really work, and work in a manner that would give satisfaction to all sections of the population. I repeated that statement recently in Toronto, citing this paragraph from Dr. Vannevar Bush about the prevention of a shooting war:
It need not come if we fully maintain our strength. It need not come if we realistically enough and with enough determination resolve that it shall not. It need not come if we really learn to make our democracy work. It need not come at all, for if the strength of free peoples prevents it for a generation, that same strength can then produce a new sort of world in which great wars will no longer occur. For this consummation we face a task that will test us as we have never been tested before, that will test whether we really mean it when we say that we believe in human dignity and human freedom, whether we can really submerge selfishness and petty motive, and bring our enormous latent power to bear, to make our way of life function with true effectiveness for the good of all.
With that expression of confidence and with the methods indicated as necessary to justify that confidence, I think most members of this house would be in full agreement.
I will not trouble hon. members by citing any more of my own speeches; they are of the sort that many of them have been making themselves.
Let us make democracy work, and work in such a manner that practically all of our people will feel its benefits; that they will then wish to retain it and defend it because they will know that it is not only a much

better system than what communism realizes but better even than what communism promises.
We must maintain a fair balance between the rights of the human individual and the abuses that human individuals may commit against society. But I would be sorry to see it become a crime to hold opinions unless, as a consequence of those opinions, one did something that threatened the security of the state.


Mr. Angus Maclnnis (Vancouver East):: imagine, Mr. Speaker, that most of the members in this house would agree with much of what the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew) said before he introduced his motion at the end of his speech. But I would be sorry indeed if a majority or even a small minority of the members of the house had agreed with the motion. The motion, if you will examine it, is extremely broad. If it were carried and if legislation were founded upon it, how it would be interpreted by those who had to interpret and enforce the legislation might be a sorry thing for this country indeed. Let me read the motion so that we can get it better in our minds. It reads as follows:
That all the words after "that" to the end of the question be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"this house is of the opinion that appropriate legislation should be introduced so that communist and similar activities in Canada may be made an offence punishable under the Criminal Code."
We may be able to define a communist, legally, as a member of the communist party; but who is going to define "similar activities" and what would be similar activities? The leader of the opposition, early in his speech, made the following statement. I think I have it correctly; but even if I have not the correct words, I am sure he will agree that I have what he intended to say. He said: "The strongest weapon of democracy is freedom of speech." Then he went on: "A discussion of public issues based upon a full disclosure of all essential information." If the strongest weapon of democracy is freedom of speech, surely any curtailment of freedom of speech curtails or lessens that democracy. We cannot have it both ways.
I believe that I am just as much opposed to the communist party and its philosophy as is the leader of the opposition, or as far as that goes, as anyone in this house can be. I abhor the communist party and all its works. I abhor its policy of force and violence; I abhor its policy of dictatorship and suppression of every freedom; but above all, I abhor and reject it because it has reversed human values. It has raised dissimulation, lying and deceit to the eminence of virtue. On the other hand, it has degraded truth,

integrity and fair dealing as between man and man, group and group, nation and nation, to the category of vices. Because it has done that it is hard, if not impossible, for anyone who believes in the virtues that it has turned into vices to have any association with communists under any circumstances, because you just cannot believe at any particular moment that their words mean what the words imply in our language and in our meaning. On that score I think there is very little difference between the members of this house.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a question, because it might clarify my own understanding of the situation presented by these words? In the amendment to the speech from the throne, as amended by the party to which the hon. member now speaking belongs, appears the following words:
Failed to take adequate measures to protect civil liberties and at the same time curb espionage and other harmful activities of communists and fascists in Canada.
I would have thought that this was entirely in line with this motion.


Angus MacInnis: I doubt whether it is in line with this motion; but I submit that our subamendment had to be based on the wording of the amendment before it, and because of that certain phrases had to be used. In any event, I do not agree that this amendment and the other amendment have the same meaning.
In the session of 1948 a bill was introduced by a private member with phrasing somewhat similar to that proposed in this amendment. In speaking to that bill I made the following remarks, which will be found at page 2926 of Hansard of 1948:
May I point out that no country ever saved itself from revolution or from overthrow by oppressive laws. If oppressive laws have any merit, if they would prevent subversive methods from growing, the communist party would never have come into existence, but the fact of the matter is that the communist party grew and prospered where oppression flourished. There is only one way in which freedom can be extended. That is by extending it. We cannot extend freedom by limiting it. We have laws now on our statute books for dealing with sedition and overt acts. Let us apply these laws where and when there is need, but do not let us begin to make laws to ban ideas, because such laws just won't work.
That was my position in 1948; that is my position today. We cannot make laws to ban ideas but we can make laws to deal with overt acts. It has been my opinion for a long time that the danger from communism lies mainly in the lack of the people's understanding of what communism really is and the conditions out of which it grows.
Communist Activities in Canada
If there had been freedom of thought, freedom of political action in Russia, prior to 1917, as there was, say, in the United Kingdom and in other countries of western Europe, there would have been no communist party in Russia, and no revolution of the kind that took place in Russia in 1917; but because everything that the czarist government did not believe in, and every thought that they felt was a danger to their safety, were suppressed, there developed the conviction that since we cannot change existing conditions by peaceful means, and if we are going to change conditions at all, then we must change them by force.
I have been troubled, as I said, because I find that even today, despite all we have learned since 1917 of what communism means, and all we have learned since the end of the war of social, economic and political development in communist controlled countries, people do not yet understand what communism means. I say, understand how it works, and understand how and why it grows.
Following the Soviet union's share in the war against Hitler, the Soviet union gained millions of friends among the peoples who were in that war on the same side, but they overlooked entirely how the war began, what it was that gave Hitler his opportunity, and they overlooked entirely how the Soviet union came into it. They saw only that the Soviet union put up a wonderful struggle in opposition to nazism. Then, as the various conferences took place from 1944 on, among Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, I saw in conference after conference the allied leaders giving away concrete concessions of great value to Stalin for, on his side, promises about abstract principles which he never intended to honour, promises he never intended to keep; there was the exchange of territorial concessions for a promise that democratic elections would be held in various countries coming under communist control.
That is the sort of thing that troubles me. While the Chinese civil war was going on I got myself disliked in social gathering after social gathering because I disagreed with people who insisted upon telling me that the Chinese communists were not communists at all, not communist like the Russian communist, but merely simple peasants who were trying to better their conditions.
It is true that the great mass of the Chinese people were not and are not communists; but it is equally true that those who were directing the civil war were and are communists who accept the same philosophy as the communists of the Soviet union. As a matter of fact, so deluded are people who ought to know better that in 1944 the chief justice of British

Communist Activities in Canada Columbia took a Sunday evening off to speak at an open forum in a church to justify the purge trials in the Soviet union in 1936, 1937, and 1938. He went over the evidence to prove that these trials were completely justified. The trials, Chief Justice Farris believed, showed that Leon Trotsky headed a vast plot to set up a fascist government in Russia and hand over vast areas of Soviet soil to Germany, Poland and Japan. He believed the trials showed that Trotsky plotted to kill Lenin and Stalin in 1918, and that he and his quislings had intended to enter into active negotiations with Germany in 1921. But he did not tell his audience that Stalin not only intended but did negotiate and make a treaty with Hitler. Then he said:
Is there any wonder, when Stalin's closest associates plotted against him, that he has a suspicious nature, or that he is hostile to the Polish government in exile.
It is that sort of inane thinking on the part of peoples who should know better that is responsible for the lack of understanding in this country of what communism means, and what should be done to combat it.
What should be done to overcome communism? I agree very much with what was said this afternoon by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent). I said in my speech on April 13, 1948, what I would say here today. Let me read from that speech a short paragraph which sets out my idea of how we can combat communism:
What is needed in this country is not a law to make illegal parties and ideas that we do not like, but that we should as quickly as possible improve the quality-I emphasize that, improve the quality -of our democracy by abolishing social inequities and making our economic democracy as pervasive as our political democracy. That is what this parliament has to do, and when we do that I have sufficient confidence in the common sense and good judgment of the Canadian people to be satisfied that we shall not need any repressive laws such as this bill would put into effect.
If I were to change the words "this bill" to "this motion" these same sentiments apply today.
Where do communists get their following among the various strata of society? They get a following among intellectuals who feel that their contribution to society is not being appreciated. These people get a feeling of inferiority; then they gravitate to the communist party where they are made much of.
Only a few days ago I was talking with a lady from the United Kingdom who is visiting Canada. She told me, and a few others, what the Labour party in Great Britain was trying to do, or was doing, to raise the standard of living in the colonies, particularly among the coloured people. She said they were bringing thousands of them to Great Britain for


education in the schools and universities. But, she said, as the government brought them over they would be met at the boat by members of the communist party and taken to some home for a social evening. Before the evening was over they would be given a little pep talk on the evils of the Labour government and, of course, on the glories of communism.
Of course the solution to a situation of that kind is that we who believe in democracy should be as active in support of it as is the communist party in support of communism. And until we believe in democracy so that we shall be as active, we shall be losing the fight for democracy.
The most amazing thing of all is that church people, ministers of religion, should remain in the church and in the communist party at the same time: It is a most amazing thing to me. I think it must be because they have lost faith in the efficacy of their spiritual teaching or their hold on spiritual things, and have not the courage to make a clean break with what they have lost faith in and embrace their new found religion.
When we come to another section of society, the working class, it is the poverty-ridden, the people who have no say in their own particular industries, who are affected, workers whose employer has the last say in everything. These are the people who grasp at the communist promises of freedom and power in the world of affairs.
As long as we have either here or anywhere else wealth and poverty, luxury and squalor, learning and ignorance side by side without doing our best to change their position and bring about equality, so long shall we be carrying on a losing fight with communism. Free people will not be content to remain merely free with limitations. As long as they are prevented from gaining the heights where they see other people, they will strive to reach those heights by whatever means may seem to be available to them.
I do not intend to take up much of the time of the house because I did not know that a matter of this kind would be raised. Had I known, and if I had the time, I have sufficient material available to keep me going the rest of the afternoon and evening. However, there is one other point I should like to raise before I sit down. The leader of the opposition said that he thought the government should not meet delegations from communist or their front organizations. I believe it would be wrong for the government not to meet such delegations.
I am glad that I can tell my communist friends that conditions are better here because we have more democracy, because, it is much

easier to see the Prime Minister of Canada than it is to see the prime minister of Russia. You do not have to get past so many people before you see him. I would hope that that would be the case if the leader of the opposition were sitting on the other side of the house. I would feel very sorry if it were not.
I think it was about 1934 that a delegation came down here to see the Prime Minister of that day.


Mr. Coldwell:: July, 1935.


Angus MacInnis: It was during the term of the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett. This incident has gone into history. This was a delegation of unemployed from western Canada. They stopped off at Regina and there was some trouble there. They then came on to Ottawa. One of the leaders was a fellow by the name of Evans and I saw him after the prime minister had met the delegation. I am sure that the feeling in the country was much stronger then than it is today because there was more misery. He told me that he had told the prime minister he was a damned liar. That is the sort of thing a communist can do in this country and live to tell the story, but it is not the sort of thing he could do in Russia and live to tell the story. Even if he were able to see the prime minister of that country he would not dare tell him what he thought of him.
I hope that when these people attempt to make appointments with ministers of the crown such appointments will be made as they would be made with people representing other sections of the community. These people should foe shown that democracy in this country is for everyone as long as they allow democracy to operate. I agree that communists make it very difficult to deal with them as one would like to deal with people, but as long as they do not make it impossible we should practise the democracy we preach and not enable (them to say that our democracy is a sham. Let us show them that it is deep and broad, that it is available to everyone in Canada who wants to make an effort to make it work.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say a brief word because I am convinced that any man who is elected to this or any other legislature should have a standard by which he can test anything and everything. I must admit that I was proud of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) when I saw the following heading and article in the Ottawa Citizen of yesterday morning:
P.M. says world In need of spiritual rebirth.
In these troublesome times, Mr. St. Laurent said, a spiritual rebirth is more required than the ingenu-
Communist Activities in Canada ity of man. "We need faith by deeds, genuine brotherhood cannot be achieved without faith in God."
Any nation that leaves God out is bound to go to the bow-wows sooner or later. Russia has treated God as a rpyth. Our Prime Minister worships as he was taught by his mother to worship, and when we have a Prime Minister who says that faith in God is our foundation then the legislation that comes from this house is going to be a credit to that foundation in which the Prime Minister believes.
Solomon was the wisest man of the Jewish nation. He sought satisfaction from wealth and money; he sought satisfaction from enjoyment and many wives; he sought satisfaction from public buildings; but when he wanted to build up the whole thing on the proper foundation he told the people they should fear God and keep his commandments. If we as members of parliament and as members of the Christian church build on that foundation the devil of communism will have to hide his head.


Mr. E. G. Hansell (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker, may I say in a kindly way that I believe it is a matter of courtesy that when a debate such as this occurs in the house each party takes part in it in rotation, and we usually come in at the last. When I saw my friend, the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor), rise I thought by conceding the floor to him he might even go on until six o'clock and my speech would not be broken. I regard him as a friend and he never takes too much time in the house. This time, however, he cut his speech too short, and it is now only six minutes to six. Would you care to call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker? I should like you to do so, but if not I will go on.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house that I call it six o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock. PRIVATE BILLS

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, May 1, consideration in committee of Bill No. 7, to incorporate Alberta Natural Gas Company- Mr. Maybank-Mr. Dion in the chair.
[Stage Direction]
Alberta Natural Gas Company
On section 1-Incorporation.
George Alexander Cruickshank: Mr. Chairman, when the hour for private bills expired last night I had taken five minutes of the time of the house, and I should like to take up a few minutes more tonight*on this subject which is of vital importance to my province and to the economy of Canada. I intend to start in a different way tonight, Mr. Chairman, because I believe that in a matter of such importance as this, we should have the support of all the members of this house. I should like to point out that I have yet to come here with a typewritten speech on these pipe line bills prepared for me by someone else. I have plenty of data that I could quote. In fact, I have a book full of clippings.
I am sorry the Minister of Public Works is leaving, because I am going to refer to something that should be brought to his attention. I am glad to see that he is returning. I do not intend to quote from the data I have compiled, although I could make a forty-minute speech by doing so. I intend to refer to the Chignecto barrier, but I am not going into great detail about it. I received a booklet concerning it, from which I intend to read. I am doing so because I am appealing to some of my friends on the right, and some who are over on the other side, who have spoken disparagingly of the rights of British Columbia.


Mr. Fournier (Maisonneuve-Rosemoni):: Name them.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I have never indulged in personalities in this house, but if the name of one is required I shall name the member for Charlotte.


Mr. Stuart (Charlotte):: And he will speak in that manner again when he has the opportunity.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I shall quote what the people in his own district say. I am not going into details about this Chignecto barrier, but this is the little booklet I got today entitled "The Voice of the Maritimes". So far as I have been able to ascertain in this house, the voice of the maritimes has completely forgotten the maritimes of the great Pacific. This booklet calls for the construction of the Chignecto canal. I wonder if some of those maritime members who are opposing justice for the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia will answer? I am going to put on Hansard the various organizations that took the trouble to mail this to me, and I presume to other members, at great trouble and expense to themselves. It appears to have

been published and distributed by the Chignecto canal committee, Sackville, New Brunswick. I understand that New Brunswick is part of the maritimes. British Columbia has supported every move that part of the country has made for justice.
Before I continue, I should like to draw to the attention of the Minister of Public Works the fact that this booklet contains a nice map in which he may be interested some day. It covers the territory from the gulf of St. Lawrence to the bay of Fundy. If that canal is ever built, and I do not say that it should not be built, the people of Canada will be called upon to pay for it, including British Columbia and the riding of Fraser Valley. They have paid for the Welland canal, and every other development in eastern Canada.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: Including the diking of the Fraser valley.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The hon. member will have an opportunity of speaking, and I shall be only too glad to hear the member for Charlotte speak, but not about petty smuggling across the line in his district. I live on the American border but we do not worry about the mounted police or smuggling because we are honest people in that district.
I am now going to name the different local committees supporting the construction of the Chignecto canal. They are located at Amherst, N.S.; Annapolis Royal, N.S.; Bathurst, N.B.; Bear River, N.S.; Campbellton, N.B.; Canso, N.S.; Caraquet, N.B.; Carleton county, N.B.; Charlottetown, P.E.I.; Chatham, N.B.; Chipman, N.B.; Clarke's Harbour, N.S.; Dalhousie, N.B.; Digby, N.S.; Edmundston, N.B.; Fredericton, N.B.; Grand Falls, N.B.; Grand Manan, N.B.; Hantsport, N.S.; Hart-land, N.B.; Kentville, N.S.; Moncton, N.B., and Newcastle, N.B.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Order. I do not think the remarks of the hon. member are relevant to the item under consideration.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Mr. Chairman, I will bow to your ruling because the people of the maritimes will know that when their members will not support British Columbia, Alberta, and the whole economy of Canada in the development of the resources of Canada for Canadians, they cannot expect our support in the construction of the work mentioned in this booklet. We are only asking that the Canadian route be adopted for the development of the resources of our own province.
I was interested in hearing the member for Coast-Capilano outline why we believe the timber of Canada should be processed within our own dominion. I have made that

remark myself. We believe the same thing applies to our fish and other resources. The surplus, of course, could be exported to any market we can find for the product.


Mr. Johnston:: What price are we paying for British Columbia lumber?


George Alexander Cruickshank: I will just tell you this.
If you were paying for British Columbia lumber what we are paying for No. 4 Alberta wheat, you would be doing very well.


Charles Edward Johnston: That does not answer the question at all.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I do not want to delay proceedings on this matter, Mr. Chairman.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I hear laughter from some quarters. I have been disappointed in some of the support that we secured in connection with our efforts to develop not only Alberta and British Columbia but, as we saw it, the entire economy of Canada. Particularly have I been disappointed that northern Alberta and northern British Columbia did not appreciate the great opportunity that had been afforded us by both of the companies; and I say by both of the companies to a certain extent but definitely, as to northern Alberta and northern British Columbia, by one company. In northern British Columbia we have possibilities that equal anything as yet produced in that great province of Alberta. I cannot understand why, all of a sudden, after a couple of excellent speeches-and I was a little bit surprised that each speech took up forty minutes of our time, because I do not believe in that sort of thing-from Alberta members in the far corner, closure was put on, and not another word and not another peep came from our friends in the Social Credit party. There is one advantage we in this party have, Mr. Chairman. Nobody puts closure on me or on any other Liberal member. But apparently it is possible for the great Social Credit party to be dictated to as to when they must and when they must not talk. That is, however, their privilege. If they are not anxious to develop their great province-


Mr. Low:: How do you know?


George Alexander Cruickshank: If you are not as anxious to develop your great province as is your fine premier, it is not to your credit.


Solon Earl Low: Maybe we ought to call in the hon. member for Fraser Valley to advise us.


George Alexander Cruickshank: It would be a good idea if you called in the member for Fraser Valley to advise your little group. You would then have a far more advantageous stand.
Alberta Natural Gas Company


An hon. Member:: Order.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I do not have to be called to order by the hon. member from Charlottetown or any other member from the mari-times. If the chairman calls me to order, I will sit down; but I will not be called to order by any maritimer, I will tell you that right now; and particularly after what we have done for the maritimes, and how we have supported them.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Gauthier (Porineuf):: You still have forty minutes to go.


An hon. Member:: Filibuster.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Filibuster nothing. And even if it is a filibuster, I am not ashamed of the fact that it is, when I am fighting for my own province and for my own riding.


Pierre Gauthier: That is quite an admission.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I notice one thing about my friends here. We were asked just a short time ago by certain interests from the province of Ontario to raise the tariff on pipes in order to protect a concern at Hamilton, and my friends did not object to a little filibuster then; but some eight western Canadian members prevented that. I understand what some members said, and it is apropos of our argument that we need this natural gas to develop industry and to decentralize it in Canada. I remember very well one member who was in favour of the United States route advocating that his province and two other provinces secede from Canada because it cost $40 more for a frigidaire in his district. That is a different story. I should like him to answer that. He is good at talking when he is working against the prosperity of western Canada; but when he wants to bring these frigidaires in $40 cheaper, he would advocate that three great provinces of Canada secede from the British empire on account of a frigidaire.
I do not want to go back too long to the committee we had the other day, Mr. Chairman; because, as I said, I do not think that committee or any such committee that ever sat in this house was a credit to it. It was dominated and dictated to by one member.


An hon. Member:: You should have been on it.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Yes; I should like to have been or it.


An hon. Member:: Why weren't you?


George Alexander Cruickshank: If any of you people want to make a speech that is all right; and if any of my friends behind the curtain have

Alberta Natural Gas Company not the courage to come into the chamber and ask me questions, they should not ask them. This committee was dominated, in my opinion-and I am expressing my opinion only; anybody who wishes may contradict it- it was dominated and dictated to by one individual who was the sponsor of a bill.
It was stated in the house-and this can be checked in Hansard-that the Westcoast Transmission Company, for which company I had the privilege of sponsoring a bill last year, have an application before the transport board for a United States route as well. I said at the time, and I repeat it, that when you are in a battle the first thing you learn to do is to protect yourself in the clinches. That is exactly what that company did. I want to point out through you, Mr. Chairman, to the members of this committee that what was stated yesterday and what was stated in the committee is absolutely not correct. Over two weeks ago that company withdrew from the transport board their application for the United States route. Do not forget that. They withdrew that application over two weeks ago.


An hon. Member:: Why?


George Alexander Cruickshank: For the good and simple reason that they have on the record before the petroleum conservation board an application for an all-Canadian route, a route laid out by competent engineers. The most competent firm, it is thought, in that line in Canada, have gone over every foot of that route; and it has been gone over by a firm of the most eminent pipe line engineers in the United States. That route is recorded in the application at the present time, and that application was withdrawn two weeks ago; but apparently some of my junior friends from my own province have not awakened to that fact. It was withdrawn two weeks ago. That application is on record, with every mile of the route laid out, even to the number of feet that it may be necessary to tunnel in order to put this line through.
As far as I know, there is only one engineer in the house. There may be more. If so, I will stand corrected. But as far as I know, there is only one engineer in the house and last night I heard him say this. Incidentally, both he and I have been over every foot of the route; but he happens to have engineering ability that I do not possess. But he happens to have engineering ability and I have not. The most capable engineers that can be hired in the Dominion of Canada have approved the route and it is on record in the capital of Alberta. The most eminent firm of engineers in the United States in pipeline construction, which had more to do with the building of pipe lines in Louisiana and

in other states than any other firm, have approved the route. That approval is on record in the capital of Alberta today. But I had to sit in the committee and hear two eminent engineers speak of it. One said that he had gone over the route by train and that he would go over it again by October.
I say to the sponsors of these bills that if they had happened to be where I was last Saturday they would have heard a lot. I do not know whether I have said this before or not, but I will repeat it. Last Saturday I went down to Montreal. I sat in a chair car and two of the prominent United States witnesses sat next to me. Naturally I knew who they were because I sat in on the committee, although some of my friends from British Columbia would not let me be a member of the committee. But I sat in there and listened to what was going on in the committee. I sat next to these United States witnesses on the train. I will give some advice to the sponsors of the bills. I advise them to tell their witnesses not to talk so loud and not to give away so many secrets. That is very good advice to the sponsors of the two bills. As I say, I sat in the committee and I recognized these two witnesses. I have supported Quebec long enough, and some hon. members from that province should try to get on the bandwagon for British Columbia.


Pierre Gauthier: Applesauce again.


George Alexander Cruickshank: As I say, I sat next to these two gentlemen, and it was very interesting to hear their conversation.
It was said in the paper the other day- and I admit it-that I got up by mistake and voted for this motion. They said that the face of the member for Fraser Valley was red. I admit that; but, Mr. Chairman, if the sponsors of these two bills could have heard their witnesses talk in the chair car, their faces would have been a lot redder than mine. I do not want to take up any more of the time of the committee-


Some hon. Members:: Go on.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I heard one of my Quebec friends over there interrupt.


Pierre Gauthier: Now you are
mistaken.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I should like to know of any member who has been more loyal to, or supported the ambitions and often unfair desires of, Quebec than those from the province of British Columbia. I have had to listen to speech after speech of forty minutes of stupidity from that hon. member. He ought to listen to at least twenty minutes, if he calls it stupid, from me.


André Gauthier: Who said
"stupid"?


George Alexander Cruickshank: If you want me to say so, I will say so.


The Deputy Chairman:: Order.


Pierre Gauthier: Nobody said it.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Mr. Chairman, I have already said one thing. The Westcoast Transmission Company have withdrawn their application before the board of transport commissioners for a United States route. I am authorized to say further, Mr. Chairman, and I particularly want a couple of my junior friends from the province of British Columbia to listen to this with interest-


Mr. Thatcher:: Capilano.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The Westcoast Transmission Company have a charter, and of course these charters are valuable, or why would they invest hundreds of millions of dollars, if they were not? I am authorized to say, Mr. Chairman, that the Westcoast Transmission Company have absolutely no objection to having it inserted that they will build an all-Canadian route if the other two companies have the same proviso inserted in their charter.


Mr. Campney:: Mr. Chairman, I had not intended until last evening to participate in any of the debates with respect to the bill to incorporate the Alberta Natural Gas Company, for reasons which I will mention in a few minutes. I rise now to take exception to what I regard as entirely unwarranted and unjustified insinuations and innuendoes contained in the speech of the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra. Referring to me in his remarks in the debate on this bill in the committee last night-


Mr. Hodgson:: May I ask the hon. member a question? Are you still the lawyer representing this company?


Ralph Osborne Campney: I am representing myself and I will indicate that in a few minutes. Referring to me, the hon. member said that when the original petition for incorporation was presented at the final session of the last parliament I was one of the applicants for incorporation. That is correct. On this fact, and on the fact that I was present at times at the meetings of the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines, as were many other hon. members of this house, and as was entirely my right as it was the right of every other hon. member of this house, he said that my position was open to question and implied that in some
Alberta Natural Gas Company way or other I had not taken the proper attitude as a member of this house on the consideration of this question.
I resent very much the aspersions on my conduct in this house which the insinuations and innuendoes to which I have referred clearly allege, and I want to state briefly the facts with respect to my own position.
These are the facts. Almost three years ago the sponsors of this company came to me as a solicitor and asked me or my firm to secure for them a Canadian incorporation to build a pipe line. At that stage the incorporation was obtainable, as was any other incorporation, from the Department of the Secretary of State under letters patent. We proceeded with that incorporation; but before it was completed parliament had passed the Pipe Lines Act which made a statutory incorporation necessary before a company could engage in the construction or operation of a pipe line. We thereupon abandoned the proceedings to incorporate under the Companies Act and launched a petition to parliament, and on that petition my name appears as an applicant, in accordance with what I think is generally recognized as a common practice in solicitor firms. Purely as a matter of convenience, I was a formal petitioner for the purpose of incorporation.
That petition, for reasons which in themselves are very interesting but probably not relevant to this debate, failed. That was in April, 1949.
In June of that year I was elected to parliament. I may say that during that election the same sort of attack by radio, by press and on the platform, as we have witnessed in connection with this bill, was directed against me.


Mr. Green:: Not by me.


Ralph Osborne Campney: I was the subject of vicious and unfair attack on the part of my opponents in that election simply because I had been the petitioner as a solicitor for this particular company, and had acted as a solicitor in the usual way. Well, I won that election, by almost 4,000 votes.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Ralph Osborne Campney: The Progressive Conservative candidate and the C.C.F. candidate, the then sitting member, very nearly lost their deposits in each case. Therefore this line from the hon. member from Vancouver-Quadra is not new.


Howard Charles Green: I did not attack you in the election.


Ralph Osborne Campney: It is old stuff, like so much, shall I say, of his contributions to Hansard.
2098	' HOUSE OF
Alberta Natural Gas Company
I should like to place before hon. members of the committee exactly what did happen following my election as a member of parliament. When the applicants for this charter came to me prior to last session and said that they intended to proceed with a petition to endeavour again to obtain incorporation I told them, definitely, in a general way, that I would not act in any way that was incompatible with my duties as a member of this House of Commons, and told them specifically a number of things.
This is what I told them:	That neither I
nor any partner of mine nor my firm would act for them in this or any other matter which would come before the parliament of Canada. I told them further that I would not be an applicant on the petition. I said further that neither I nor any member of my firm, nor my firm, would accept any fee or payment whatsoever payable to me or my firm or any member of it with respect to the petition to parliament to incorporate this company, so long as I was a member of parliament. I told them I would not sponsor their bill-


Arthur Leroy Smith: On a point of order. The hon. member is now speaking in complete breach of the chief rule of our profession, and that is that he is giving us information passing between him and a client.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Chevrier:: Tell that to Sweeney; great stuff, that is!


Arthur Leroy Smith: Will you let me
go on and finish my point of order? In spite of the raucous intervention, particularly by the Minister of Transport, that privilege is the privilege of the client, and not of the solicitor.


Mr. Abbott:: It was not your client.


Arthur Leroy Smith: No, it was the
client of the member who is now speaking, and who was busier than a one-armed paper hanger in the committee just a short time ago.


Ralph Osborne Campney: I said that I would not vote on the bill, and that I would be free to take any attitude I thought desirable in the interests of my own constituency, my own province and my country, a position which I have meticulously and continuously maintained to the present time. I believe that is a position which will commend itself to members of this house; and I would hope that it might even commend itself to the hon. member for Van-couver-Quadra (Mr. Green).
I am extremely desirous, as is every member from British Columbia and from Alberta,


and particularly desirous as a member of the House of Commons from the constituency of Vancouver Centre, that natural gas be brought to Vancouver at the earliest possible date, in abundant quantity, by the most safe and secure route in the best interests of Canada and at the lowest possible cost.
I would prefer to rely upon the decision of the board of transport commissioners which has been charged with the jurisdiction and with the responsibility of dealing with all the matters attendant on that decision rather than upon the jurisdiction and responsibility of the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra who, I do not think, has been blessed with either of those qualities.
Let me say in conclusion that from my observations during the short time I have been a member of this house nothing I have seen would lead me to have any desire whatever to base either my parliamentary ethics or my conduct in this house upon the example of the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra.


Mr. Gibson:: Mr. Chairman, on April 3 I spoke in this house during the debate on second reading of this bill to incorporate the Alberta Natural Gas Company. At that time I urged hon. members of the house to allow this bill to go to committee where we could ascertain further information, believing as I did that in committee evidence would be available from independent sources which would enable hon. members to make up their minds as to whether or not this all-Canadian route which was spoken of was both economically and physically possible.
I regret very much that my absence from the country made it impossible for me to attend the first meetings of the committee. But I have now received a belated edition of the evidence, and after a careful study of it I have come to the conclusion that the pipe line promoter was biased in the extreme, no doubt by his very evident desire to get his gas as quickly as possible out of Canada and into the United States, by the shortest fire escape, far from the searching eyes and voices of members of this House of Commons.


An hon. Member:: Louder.


John Lambert Gibson: By his own admission we now know that he never gave a passing thought to the welfare of the northern part of British Columbia, not having even tried to examine the possibility of using the Yellowhead pass route through Kamloops to Princeton and down through Hope to the Fraser valley. He had other fish to fry, evidently, with gas across the border to the south. The committee however was able to extract the monumental and exotic promise from him that he would

take another look at it, his previous look having been taken from the softly lighted interior of a C.N.R. drawingroom.
Mr. Chairman, is this the rugged type of pioneer we Canadians must import from across the line to develop our natural resources in Canada? I know that all hon. members here will wish to cast their votes in a way which they sincerely believe will accomplish the best results for Canada. While I am not an engineer, I have had considerable construction and engineering experience.


An hon. Member:: Where?


John Lambert Gibson: Despite the unbiased professional advice which the members of this committee did not receive, after the committee reported out the bills on Friday night I made it my business over the week end to obtain some factual engineering data on the Yellowhead pass route, and also on the proposed American route across Montana, the Stevens pass and the state of Washington.
This data was supplied me by Major "Jerry" Wood, a professional mining engineer, whose distinguished military career was referred to last evening by the hon. member for Coast-Capilano. May I add further that my personal knowledge of Major Wood extends over the last eighteen years, having been associated with him in a number of mining ventures, some of which were successful and some not. Anyone who is familiar with mining will know that that is the history of that industry.
I have complete confidence in his judgment and in his ability and integrity. This information is from his personal survey. All the information I have received was compiled by him from a careful personal study of the area involved. I know the house will be amazed and delighted to learn that the length of a pine line from Edmonton to Vancouver via the all-Canadian Yellowhead pass route will be within twenty miles of the same distance as a line laid from Pincher creek in Alberta, south through Montana and Washington to Vancouver.
Another fact which will astound and I am sure influence hon. members is the testimony given before the Alberta natural gas conservation board by the firm of Ford, Bacon and Davis, outstanding pipe line construction engineers of the United States, to the effect that there is eighty miles less of rock work on the Yellowhead pass route than on the American route across Montana and the state of Washington.
The same witness stated before the Alberta conservation board that he thought, from an engineering standpoint, that he would rather build the northern or the Yellowhead pass
Alberta Natural Gas Company route than the one through the United States. Those statements would indicate to me that the Yellowhead route will deliver gas to consumers in Vancouver at least as cheaply as by any other alternative or American route.
This testimony by the outstanding pipe line construction company in the United States has convinced me that the all-Canadian route is both economically feasible and sound. I know all hon. members are interested in the development of British Columbia. I can even point out to maritime members that the obvious source of supply and fabrication for our steel used in construction of an all-Canadian gas pipe line would be the Dosco plant at Sydney, and that it would reach us from that plant by way of the Panama canal by cheap water transportation for delivery at Vancouver. We know of course that this will create a great amount of employment for Canadian workmen, and consequently both the east and west coasts of Canada will enjoy a tremendous increase in employment by the building of an all-Canadian route.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: They did not do that with the one they are building now.


John Lambert Gibson: My hon. friend knows that there is a great deal of difference when it comes to a pipe line being built on the Pacific coast. I am speaking of water transportation and he knows very well it is quite difficult to get into the Moose Jaw swamp with a large ship. Some fear has been expressed in this house that in refusing these charters we are creating a monopoly for one company, the Westcoast Transmission Company. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.
The Alberta conservation board has said that they will welcome applications from any responsible company for a permit to export natural gas but so far the Alberta Natural Gas Company have not taken advantage of this opportunity. Such an application would involve the disclosure of what route was to be taken, a disclosure which every member of the committee realizes they are hesitant to make.
May I point out here that no company needs a federal charter until it has received the sanction of the Alberta conservation board since the board of transport commissioners in Ottawa have refused to listen to testimony until such permission is obtained. Why does not Alberta Natural Gas Company go ahead with its application and then come back to parliament next session? If they have received the approval for an allCanadian route then I know every hon. member will be glad to grant them a charter.

Alberta Natural Gas Company
Last evening the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Byrne) said that he was satisfied with the decision of the board of transport commissioners, that whatever decision they might make he was quite prepared to accept. May I remind him that parliament is the policy setting body. Parliament set the allCanadian policy in the post-confederation years for the building of the Canadian Pacific railway. Parliament set the policy for Trans-Canada Air Lines, and only last session this parliament set the policy for the trans-Canada highway. Let the parliament set the policy in this instance and instruct the board of transport commissioners that gas from Alberta may go to the Pacific coast only over an all-Canadian route. I have ascertained, and the committee could have ascertained also by calling independent witnesses, that such a route is feasible.
May I pause here to remind hon. members that the Westcoast Transmission Company, which has been incorporated, have withdrawn their application for a route through Kingsgate to the United States, and as further evidence of their good faith have submitted expert testimony extending for almost a month to the Alberta conservation board in connection with their request for permission to build over the Yellowhead pass route.
I am opposing the passage of this bill to incorporate the Alberta Natural Gas Company because I feel that this company has not been entirely frank, either with the committee or with the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe). Does anyone in this house believe that the minister would have written to the city of Vancouver as he did unless he had been assured of an all-Canadian route? The minister used these words:
My information is that the new company is proposing to build this line through all-Canadian territory and to serve all Vancouver points before taking the line into the United States.
I am quite sure the minister never would have written that letter unless he had been assured by Mr. Dixon or other principals of the Alberta Natural Gas Company that that was their intention. I certainly have no difficulty in making up my mind as to which of the gentlemen in question I believe. Probably hon. members would be interested in the views of the government of British Columbia in regard to this matter. With your permission I should like to quote from the testimony given by the attorney general of that province, the Hon. Gordon Wismer, before the Alberta conservation board on February 7 last. Mr. Wismer said:
We are and have been, ever since the construction of gas pipe lines has been under consideration, strongly supporting the proposal that such a line should be built from northern Alberta into and

through British Columbia and thence, if sufficient gas is available, to the Pacific northwest states of the United States of America.
I took that position before the transport board. We are, of course, assuming that it will be shown before the proper tribunal that this route is feasible and practicable as we understand it to be.
This route, if followed, will assure that the domestic and industrial requirements of the people of British Columbia will be a matter of first consideration, and it seems to us that this objective cannot be reached in any other way.
I would point out to hon. members that that is the considered view of the government of British Columbia. I continue to quote Mr. Wismer's remarks:
That is as we are advised at the present time.
More important than this consideration, however, is the fact that the northern route will undoubtedly afford the opportunity of great industrial development and expansion in both northern Alberta and through the considerable territory in British Columbia which lies in the path of the projected route.
And of first importance, in our view and submission, and here we may be of some assistance in the disposal of the primary question at issue, is the following:
The northeastern area of British Columbia lying to the east of the Rocky mountains in the Peace river block is part of the sedimentary basin which underlies the northwest portion of the province of Alberta. My information is that there are about 50 million acres in this area which may be considered to be potential oil and gas lands.
May I just interject to say that when I read that I called up the dominion geologist, Dr. Hume, whose name is familiar to most hon. members because his standing in the geological field in Canada is the highest. I asked Dr. Hume if the 50 million acres of potential oil and gas lands in British Columbia would be at all comparable with a similar acreage in Alberta, and he told me that those oil and gas lands in British Columbia unquestionably offered the same potential for the production of oil and gas as a similar 50 million acres in Alberta. I just pause there to point out how extremely important it is. to the people of British Columbia and to the development of the northern portion of the province that this gas pipe line go through that area rather than the Crowsnest pass route or through the states of Washington and Montana.
We have been told that it is only feasible to construct the one pipe line from the natural gas resources of Alberta to the Pacific coast. If by any chance that pipe line should go by the southern route or through the United States these 50 million acres of potential oil and gas lands would remain undeveloped. If that should be the case the development of the hinterland of British Columbia would be retarded for generations. I quote further from the submission by Mr. Wismer:
The government of British Columbia and others have carried out some exploration work in this

area, and I believe we are justified in saying that there are strong indications that there is a very considerable gas and oil potential in this district. The government is desirous that further exploration be undertaken, but it must be obvious that the greatest incentive for the undertaking of this work is that provision be made for market facilities if and when oil or gas or both are discovered in quantity.
The nearest market area for northwestern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia producing areas will be the Pacific coast points of British Columbia, and if the projected pipe line is built along the route suggested through the northern points, it will provide an available and accessible market for these products.
In considering the question of the route of the pipe line, it should be noted that the northern route would add to the gas potential of the province of Alberta that of the area described in British Columbia.
In conclusion may I say my government is most anxious that natural gas be made available to the people of British Columbia if and when the government of Alberta determines that in the interests of the people of Alberta a permit for exportation can properly be granted.
The government of British Columbia is prepared to take any reasonable steps within its power to facilitate the building of a pipe line system from Alberta to and through the province of British Columbia, and will be prepared to join with Alberta in supporting any applications that may be made to the federal authority in order to secure and make possible the building of the lines.
I would point out that the government of British Columbia has already advised the government of Canada of the resolution which they passed in regard to this matter. I continue:
We in British Columbia congratulate the people of Alberta on the successful oil exploration program being carried out in the province, and hope that the work now being carried on will continue to meet with success in greater measure year after year. One of the main factors which actuate our interest in the present project is that we wish to make it possible that British Columbia areas will be explored and will enjoy a like experience, and in the not too distant future oil and gas production in the province of British Columbia, particularly in the district which I have mentioned, will be able to share in the markets available, thus making a contribution to the general well-being and prosperity of Canada.
I think, Mr. Chairman, the house will agree that is a very worth-while submission by the attorney general of British Columbia. I ask hon. members to give the views expressed by that government their very earnest consideration before we allow the sanctioning of any other pipe line routes.
I was quite interested in some of what appeared to me to be the rather evasive statements made by the chief witness for the Alberta Natural Gas Company. At page 65 of the proceedings of the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines there was a question asked by the hon. member for Edmonton West. He asked Mr. Dixon,
Alberta Natural Gas Company the witness, what his opinion was with regard to the main supply of gas. Mr. Dixon replied:
. . . this is a matter of opinion-but to my mind the main supply of gas is in the southern part of Alberta.
Then the hon. member for Edmonton West asked:
Do you not think that situation is changing fast?
The witness replied:
No, sir, I think it is just the opposite.
In other words, the witness in this particular instance tried to prove what I am sure a man who is eminently well acquainted with the oil business must have known was not correct, and was an evasion. I cannot bring myself to believe that he could have been as stupid as that unless he was trying to be evasive. In order to check the matter again I referred it to the dominion geologist who informed me that as of the present date probably the largest gas reserves that have already been developed lie more in the south than in the north, but that anybody who has studied the geological structure and the recent developments in the province of Alberta must realize that the northern area is developing much more rapidly. He said that he would state without any hesitation that the greatest bulk of our natural gas resources will be found in northern Alberta. I said, "In that case you would say that Edmonton was much nearer to the centre of the gas resources of Alberta than Calgary". He said unquestionably that would be the case.
In conclusion may I reiterate that we are not delaying Alberta Natural Gas Company in getting on with their business by refusing them a charter to incorporate a dominion company at this time. All they have to do is to go to the Alberta natural gas conservation board which, as I have said before, has stated that they are willing to hear submissions from any responsible company. The Westcoast Transmission Company, which already has a charter, has stated that they would not raise any objection to the hearing of their submission. If the Alberta Natural Gas Company is acting in good faith and really desires to build an all-Canadian pipe line I can see no reason in the world why they should not make their submission to the Alberta conservation board as to what route they intend to follow. As I said before, I am sure I speak for every member of the house when I say that if they convince us that they really desire to build an allCanadian route they will have no difficulty in getting their charter through the House of Commons.


Mr. Macdonnell (Greenwood):: Mr. Chairman, I do not suppose it is very often that a man is believed when he says that he

Alberta Natural Gas Company really had no intention of speaking on a subject. At any rate, it is some evidence of the truth of what I say that I have waited a long time before venturing to take part in this discussion. Certainly during the early weeks of the debate I thought it was something that I could very well leave to other people. I thought it was a matter which primarily concerned the people of British Columbia and Alberta, and I acted on that belief for a considerable time. The principal reason, more than any other, why I am on my feet, is that as time has gone on I have *come to have a very uncomfortable feeling that this bill was not exactly what it seemed, that it was not as private as it looked, and that whether or not it was a government bill one might at least describe it as a "Howe" bill.
It has been stated in effect without contradiction in this house that it was a government bill. That has not been denied. As I say, certainly it seemed to me to have lost many of the aspects of a private bill as time went on. That was the first feeling that made me uneasy and made me feel that the house was not being treated with perfect candour. Perhaps that is not an entirely unprecedented experience for us. Therefore I began to feel more interest in it, and finally I came to the conclusion that it was a matter which concerned all of us.
There are one or two other things I should like to say about it. First of all I must admit I was impressed with the argument that we should vote for second reading because it would go to a committee and then all would be well. Incidentally, when I read the evidence of the committee and see what happened there I have a feeling that I was what might he called a "sucker" in ever paying very much attention to that argument.
I had never realized before that, whereas in this house many means have been worked out over the century to protect the rights of minorities, so far as I can discern in a committee there is no means of protecting those rights at all. The minority is entirely subject to the will of the majority, and in this case I think the will of the majority was exercised in a rather unfortunate manner.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The railroad committee.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Last night my colleague, the hon. member for Van-couver-Quadra, was taken up for suggesting that a certain gentleman who had to do with this committee had acted in a highhanded manner. Apparently that was regarded as a term which perhaps should not be used in the house. I am not offering


any opinion whether it should or should not. I am only saying I think it was a gross understatement of what happened in that committee.
Of course we remember the beginning of this difficulty. It all goes back to the days almost exactly a year ago when the government was getting ready, in perhaps unseemly haste, for an election. I will not say an unseemly election because that might sound as if one were feeling a little personal about it. At any rate, they were getting ready in a hurry for an election. A lot of things were done in a great hurry, and as has been pointed out not quite as well done as they might have been. The leader of the opposition and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre have outlined that in detail clearly and cogently, and I have no intention of going over it again. I observe that it is almost nine o'clock, Mr. Chairman. I move the adjournment of the debate.
Section stands.
Progress reported.



PURCHASE BY C.P.R. OF SHAWINIGAN FALLS TERMINAL RAILWAY CAPITAL STOCK

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, May 1, consideration in committee of Bill No. 88, respecting the purchase by Canadian Pacific Railway Company of shares of the capital stock of the Shawinigan Falls Terminal Railway Company-Mr. Pinard-Mr. Dion in the chair.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Fournier (Hull) for committee of supply, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Drew.

Ernest George Hansell: Mr. Speaker, when the house rose at six o'clock, we were dealing with the amendment that had been proposed by the leader of the official opposition (Mr. Drew), to the effect that this house is of the opinion that appropriate legislation should be introduced so that communist and similar activities in Canada may be made an offence punishable under the Criminal Code. I listened with a good deal of interest to the leader of the opposition, to the reply by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), and also to the speech by the member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis). All three speakers put forth some remarkable thoughts, with some of which I agree and others with which I disagree.
It does seem to me that, in order to make a motion of this kind effective, it would be necessary for us to define our terms. In fact, I think we have come to a place in our

Canadian life and thinking when the terms "communism" and "democracy" have been bounced around so much that they mean all things to all men. I wonder if the Prime Minister, who, after all is the leader of this nation, has ever actually attempted to define communism. Putting the resolution in other words, we might just as well say that anyone proposing anything contrary to our way of life be regarded as coming under the Criminal Code. Now, that would also be subject to definition. I do not know if there is anyone in this house who would be capable of defining our way of life. When we deal with these things, we are dealing with life principles. I doubt very much whether one could successfully legislate in such a way as to be able to govern great life principles.
The leader of the opposition said some things with which I agree. I was quite pleased to hear him say that communism was in reality anti-Christ, that it was anti-Christ doctrine. I do not want to appear to be splitting hairs, but in considering a matter of this nature, in order to get the most accurate picture, one has to say some things that might be interpreted as splitting hairs. I do not know whether the leader of the opposition watched his words carefully, but I think Hansard will record that he did not say it was anti-Christian doctrine. There is all the difference in the world to my mind between that which is anti-Christ and that which is anti-Christian. Now, that may pose a question that will involve some thought. The member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart) in debating this theme during the last session of parliament, made a remark which I do not think I shall forget for a long time. It was a remark that, on the face of it, might appear to be quite agreeable. He said that Christianity must deliver the goods. I have a high regard for the member for Winnipeg North. There are many people for whom, after you get to know them a little better, you gain a high regard, even though you do not agree with what they say.
I want to say this, Mr. Speaker, that when we get to the underlying root of communism, which is anti-Christ, we discover that it is not Christianity that is at stake at all. We use the term democracy, and the Prime Minister today said the best way to defeat communism is to make democracy effective. I remind you, Mr. Speaker, of something about which I reminded you last session, and that is that as you open these sittings each day you pray on behalf of this house, "Thy kingdom come." When that prayer is ultimately answered you will not have a democracy at all, but you will have what is known as a theocracy. It is for that reason that
Communist Activities in Canada the issue is not Christianity versus anti-Christianity, because I fancy the world would not have any great difficulty in accepting Christianity. The issue is between Christ and anti-Christ. It is Christ the world at large is not ready to accept. I pose those thoughts which may -be somewhat provoking to those with leisure to pursue them further.
When the Prime Minister replied to the leader of the opposition, I carefully noted some of the things he said. I am largely in agreement with him. I do want to say this, that I do not believe the leader of the opposition is any more concerned about this matter of communism in Canada than is the Prime Minister. I regard the Prime Minister as being a great Canadian who has the welfare of Canada at heart. I believe that he recognizes the danger of communism. But, as he said, and as the leader of the opposition would discover if he were sitting in the Prime Minister's place, it is a matter of how to deal with the situation that confronts us.
The Prime Minister referred to- the labour unions, and said that they were able to take care of the situation themselves. I think he used the significant term that they had undergone an autonomous purgence. I want to make an observation on that. It is true that the great labour organizations in Canada were able to get rid of some of the troublemakers who were communists and powerful men in them. But I will make this observation. They were able to do so only because those who were not communists still were in the majority and still had the upper hand. Given time, the picture may have changed, as it has changed in some other countries that we know of. France is supposed to be a democracy, but it just so happens that communism in France, having regard to labour, has gained the upper hand as it has also in Italy and some other countries. Given time, the picture may have been changed in those two great labour unions in Canada. If the communists had gained the upper hand, then the picture would be different today. I fancy that one reason they did not gain the upper hand was that since the war communism has become slightly more unpopular than it was during the war days when Russia was considered to be one of our allies.
Furthermore, let me say this. We must not think that all labour unions therefore have been able to cope with this particular matter. That may be so in the larger unions but it is not always so in the local unions. If any of you live in constituencies in which there are strong local labour unions, especially in some industrial areas, you will find that the communists, having regard to some of these local unions, still hold the upper hand.

Communist Activities in Canada
I do not think that anything the government did caused this autonomous purgence that has gone on in the labour unions. I think it was the natural course of events. Time happened to be on our side. Then the Prime Minister said that we are in a better position today with respect to communism than we were a few years ago. That may be a subject of argumentation. We may be. But if we are, once again I say it is not because the government has done anything in particular about it. It has simply been that public opinion has slightly changed with respect to communism by reason of the fact that Russia, since the war, has been acting rather badly in the United Nations; and this has had its reflection upon the people of Canada, of the United States and of some other countries. Time there again happened to be on our side.
Then the Prime Minister read part of a brief that had been presented to the Senate committee on human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Prime Minister read the names of those persons who were attached to the organization that presented that brief. Might I say that I personally believe that the reading of the names of prominent men does not strengthen the argument a great deal, for the reason that prominent men can sometimes be wrong. Anyway, let me go a step further. The Prime Minister read certain parts of that brief on the matter of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Might I point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that the parts he read from that brief, supported by those whom he named, could be accepted in every communist organization in this country. Each and every one of them would say "Amen" to that. Why? Because it would give them their freedom to pursue their work, and what they want is freedom enough to take away our democratic freedom.
I said, Mr. Speaker, that I did not believe that you could legislate with respect to great life principles. I happened to be on the committee of this house on human rights and fundamental freedoms when we were to recommend some stand that should be taken on this matter in the United Nations. I am reminded that it was a joint committee of the upper and lower houses. In debating that matter I posed the thought that I did not believe you could legislate on great human life principles. The then minister of justice, the Right Hon. J. L. Ilsley, when he spoke in the debate-and you will find it reported in Hansard-agreed with me on that matter.
As an illustration, a man is supposed to love his wife; but you cannot write a law that a man must love his wife. How could you?
, Oh, you could write the law, but that would not make him love her.
[Mr. Hansell.i


Stanley Howard Knowles: You can make a law to keep him from loving another man's wife.


Ernest George Hansell: No. My friend the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) says you could make a law to keep him from loving another man's wife. Maybe he should have defined his terms. You cannot make that law at all, not to make it effective. You can make the law, and put it on the statute books; but there is a life principle you cannot legislate for, and that is all there is to it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That applies to anything.


Ernest George Hansell: No, it does not apply to anything. It does not apply to stealing. You can legislate for stealing.


Stanley Howard Knowles: But that does not stop it.


Ernest George Hansell: Of course it does not stop it. But you can put a man in jail for stealing. There is something tangible there. That is not a life principle. He breaks a law. But when you are dealing with human relationships, you cannot legislate on great life principles.
I do not want to overemphasize this point at all, but we read a great deal about racial discrimination; and that is one of the parts of the brief that the Prime Minister read this afternoon. I greatly doubt whether you can legislate effectively on the matter of racial discrimination. Perhaps you can. But I believe there is a better way. I happen to live in a small community and I have a Chinese family as my neighbours. My children play with the Chinese children. They come into my house. We do not have any difficulties. He minds his own business; I mind mine. I go out in the morning and look over the fence. I say: "Good morning, Frank." He looks over the fence and says: "Good morning." He doesn't call me by my first name, but it does not make any difference; we are the greatest of neighbours. I have friends who are negroes. They happen to be studying to be missionaries. I do not have any difficulty with these people. Why is it? You do not have to enact any legislation. So long as they mind their own business and I mind mine we get along perfectly well. I have Jewish friends. I deal with one or two of them down here in Ottawa. I deal with them simply because in this particular instance at least they always give me a square deal. I know these are rather homely little illustrations. When I first came down to parliament fifteen years ago I used to wear a great big watch and chain. I said to myself: "It looks too much like a politician; I am going to get a wrist watch." I came down town, saw a little store and went in. The owner was a Jew who was trying to keep

in business. It was during the depression days and jewelry was not selling very well. I said: "I see you have some watches in the window." He said: "Yes, I have some." He said: "This is a very good watch; it is a $16 watch. I will give it to you for $8." I thought, well, I don't know-I bought the watch.


Alphonse Fournier: For
how much?


Ernest George Hansell: For $8.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Where did the money come from?


Ernest George Hansell: Mr. Speaker, I say this is a very homely illustration. I went back to that man on a number of occasions and bought things from him. I talked with him as a friend talks with a friend. He and I never had any difficulty. Of course if my watch had gone on the blink about a week afterwards we might have, but he appeared to be honest. What I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, is that I am wearing that watch here tonight; I have never had it in a repair shop and it does not lose a minute in a week. He and I did not have any difficulty. As a matter of fact a few years ago I came back and I said to myself: "You know, Hansell, I think you took advantage of that chap." I was going in there to tell him about the watch and pay him another $8 anyway.


Mr. Knight:: Did you ever do it?


Ernest George Hansell: Why bring that up?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Send him a copy of Hansard.


Ernest George Hansell: I was just about to do it, Mr. Speaker, when I walked by his place and found that he had sold out to another man. That saved the day.
If these various ethnic groups mind their own business they can get along with each other. I get along perfectly well with them all. Of course if they began to push me around it would be a different story; and I am quite satisfied that if I commenced pushing them around it might be a different story; but so long as we do not push one another around I do not know that we need any particularly stringent laws to try to force people to like one another. That is my view of these things.
I now come to something which I regard as more important than anything else. Suppose this legislation passes. Suppose the government should write into our Criminal Code something that would make the activities of communism, and, as it says here, similar activities, a criminal offence. How can we be sure even then that we are really getting the culprits? I may have some peculiar views
Communist Activities in Canada on these matters. Tim Buck was mentioned this afternoon. I do not know whether Tim Buck is the most dangerous man.


Mr. Sinnoii:: Oh yes, he is.


Ernest George Hansell: He is the head of the communist organization, but when you mention Tim Buck to a person he can label him right away. He says, "Oh, well, we know all about him." They have him categorized. They have him where they want him. They know what you are talking about. I am wondering whether it is the Tim Bucks that you really want to get after. Remember, Mr. Speaker, there is more than one way of selling out a country; there is more than one way of sabotaging a democracy.
I should like to pose this question to anyone who cares to answer it. How deep a hue must pink become before it becomes red?


Mr. Harkness:: That is a dyer's question.


Ernest George Hansell: I heard no answer. How deep a hue must pink become before it becomes a danger in Canada? Can we assume, Mr. Speaker, that it is criminal to gain power by a process of rape, while at the same time assume that it is within the law to gain the same end by a process of seduction? These are a few questions that we have reason to think about. The strange thing is that there has been a mentality built up in this country that will condition the people for the acceptance of a mild form of communism. I should like to ask this question to provoke some thought. Did this ever occur to us? How is it that some of those people in responsible positions, who perhaps fell into disrepute because their actions indicated a reddish hue, have resigned their posts only to find that they are welcomed into a wider and more influential field, sometimes going to some branches of the United Nations where criticism has no effect, and where we could not get our hands on them if we wanted to? That has happened over and over again.
The hon. member for Vancouver East gave a rather good speech. I agreed with a good deal of it, but sometimes he likes to tap me on the head, and I like to turn around and tap him. One thing he had to say-and I think it was quite reasonable-was that the best way to extend freedom is to extend it. You know, I cannot quite reconcile that with the fact that every time we want to loosen up controls and give more freedom, he wants to keep them on. It seems a strange sort of thing to me. What he should have said was that the best way to extend freedom is to institute control. I am just pitting what he said there against his philosophy.

Communist Activities in Canada
There was another matter mentioned by the Prime Minister which I think we have reason to think through. He said that the best way to combat communism is to make our democracy effective. That is a nice thing to say, and I am guilty of saying it myself. I am not afraid to say that sometimes I change my mind. When we talk of making democracy effective we usually think of making people economically secure, with the greatest amount of freedom.
Let me pose this question even to the Prime Minister: Some of the leading communists in the world are in one of the freest countries in the world, and have more money than they know what to do with. For instance, Hollywood is wracked from stem to gudgeon with communism; and yet nearly all of them have incomes in the millions.
Paul Robeson, that great artist and singer, was reared in the United States where he was free to pursue his talent and to become a great singer and a wealthy man. Democracy, so far as Paul Robeson is concerned, has been mighty good to him. But it does not stop him from being a communist. Furthermore let me say that those in our own country who were exposed during the recent spy trials were not those Who were the rabble rousers. They were intellectuals, men of letters, men whose economic future was assured, and who reached that position very largely through the freedoms granted them by this country and others. Yet, as the leader of the opposition said, and to use his term, they are the ones who had accepted communism as a doctrine. Communism had become a conviction of their lives, and all the legislation in the world would not take that conviction away from them.
So I doubt very much whether an effective democracy will do away with any fifth column in this country. Supposing we come to the place where we have an effective democracy, supposing we come to the place where taxation is reduced, where social security is the highest in the world and is guaranteed-in other words, supposing we have a Social Credit government: granting all that, does anyone suppose that the fifth columnists would say, "Well boys, it is all up now; let us pack our grips and go back home"? No, sir, not on your life; because communism, being what it is-anti-Christ- is out to win the world, to sabotage mankind, to frustrate any divine program for man's redemption and to make your prayer, Mr. Speaker,-"Thy kingdom come"-amount to nothing but empty words. That is the issue today.


Mr. Donald M. Fleming (Eglinton):: Mr. Speaker, may I begin by endeavouring to

clarify some aspects of the present debate and the amendment which, it seems to me, have become somewhat blurred in the course of the discussion since my leader made his speech.
I would first of all draw attention to the language of the amendment. This is an amendment to the motion that the house resolve itself into committee of supply, and it is in these words:
This house is of the opinion that appropriate legislation should be introduced so that communist and similar activities in Canada may be made an offence punishable under the Criminal Code.
Sir, the key words to the amendment are "legislation" and "activities". If I may say so, with respect, the full import of those words has been lost on some who have taken part in the debate today. What this amendment proposes to illegalize is overt acts. It is activities necessarily involving overt acts that are to be the object of the legislation proposed in the amendment.
There is no suggestion in the amendment of penalizing people for their mere thoughts. There is no suggestion here of the suppression of unpopular ideas, if they remain nothing more than ideas, and do not result in overt acts which, in effect, strike at the security of the state or strike at human freedom.
It is of the essence of freedom and our conception of it that no man should be subject to punishment for what he thinks, provided his thoughts do not issue in acts of the kind I have described. The acts at which this amendment is directed are acts which, as I have said, strike at the security of the state, and those which strike at the roots of our freedom.
It is inherent in the communist creed that religion is the opiate of the people. That was the language of the communist manifesto nearly a hundred years ago. Sir, if anyone wishes to confine himself to thinking atheistic thoughts he is not committing an offence against the law of the land. But if he advocates a system involving the overthrow of constituted government by force, the suppression of the right of any man to worship according to the dictates of his conscience in the church or the religious organization of his choice, then that overt act is something which challenges both the security of the state and the freedom of the individual; and of acts of that kind this parliament must take due notice.
There is no suggestion here of those purges of libraries which have occurred in some places in the world. There is no suggestion here of destroying those books which record

the essentials of the evil doctrine of communism. The people will want to know what are the essentials of that foul doctrine of communism. I am the possessor of a copy of Marx's "Das Kapital". I am the possessor of a copy of the communist manifesto. I possess a copy of the statutes of the third communist international. There is nothing in this amendment that proposes to take away from me or anyone else the right to possess documents of that kind. But it does propose that where people are animated by those ideas, where people put into action the doctrines contained in those works and in that way attack our system of government, not in a democratic way but by force seek to destroy freedom by that abuse of freedom, this parliament shall meet that danger by the democratic method of legislation passed in this parliament.
This afternoon the Prime Minister referred to this as a question of what is the best way of dealing with this obnoxious force in our midst. He said that was not a partisan question. But there are differences of view demonstrated in this debate as to our ideas of the best way to meet this challenge. The Prime Minister said this afternoon that we have sufficient legislation on the statute books to deal with all overt acts against the state. It is with that statement that this amendment takes issue. We say that there is not on the statute books of this country today sufficient legislation to deal with overt acts against the state of the kind which communism preaches, which communism indoctrinates into its followers and which communism advocates.
The Prime Minister introduced some other matters which I think were not germane to the amendment or within the proper scope of the debate before the house today.
The Prime Minister talked as though the amendment was directed toward making communism an offence under the Criminal Code. That is not what is proposed in the amendment moved by my leader. The amendment simply proposes that these activities, these overt acts-not communism as an abstract doctrine-should be made an offence under the Criminal Code. Again I say it is the results of that doctrine, it is the acts in which that doctrine seeks to issue, that are referred to.
The Prime Minister referred to the padlock law. There is nothing here that calls for a discussion of the padlock law. We are dealing here with a proposal that the Criminal Code shall be amended by democratic process in what we contend to be a necessary particular.
Then on the issue of civil liberties and the question of a bill of rights I submit 55946-134
Communist Activities in Canada that there is nothing in the amendment proposed that runs counter to or does the slightest violence to any of our conceptions of freedom or those rights of the people of this country that it is proposed should be guaranteed within the framework of our constitution by a bill of rights.
I said there was one other key word in this amendment. It is the word "legislation". If I may say so, the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) dealt with this amendment this afternoon as though it embodied the terms of the proposed legislation. Of course that is a highly unfair, yes, an absurd approach. What we are dealing with here is a general statement in an amendment as to the tenor and object of legislation which we submit should be enacted by way of an amendment to the code. The amendment does not purport to set out in detail the terms of the legislation, and never was brought forward by my leader in that light.
A word about dealing with particular or political organizations. I for one am convinced that communism is a challenge to the fundamentals of our Christian civilization, our free way of life, more direct, more immediate, more forcible than at any time in the history of the world. It is true that there has been some recent stabilization of the political situation in Europe, and we are very thankful for that. We are thankful that the nations of western Europe along with the nations on this continent have been able to see clearly the challenge with which they are confronted and are prepared to concert measures together against a common foe in the interests of a common defence of their free way of life.
Elsewhere in the world the picture is not nearly as bright. In what has happened in Asia we have seen the numbers of those brought behind the iron curtain to live under the darkness of communist rule doubled in the past ten or twelve months. Think of it, the number of those living under communist rule in the world has been doubled in the last year. That was not by a free political decision, not as a result of the expression of any free choice on their part, but as a result of military action and massive communist propaganda working to sabotage the functioning of other systems of government and to break down, break down, break down those forces of resistance which are trying to hold their ground against the pressure of the communist menace. In the face of the challenge which has been hurled at the very ramparts of democracy we need to be utterly realistic.

Communist Activities in Canada
I want to see our Canadian parliament proceed by purely democratic methods. I do not want to see our parliament meet this totalitarian menace by the adoption of totalitarian methods. The method which my leader has put forward today is a purely democratic method of the enactment of law binding upon all and known to all who will be affected by it. The method proposed is not to pick out a particular political organization that we know to be communist, namely, the Labour-Progressive party, and to say that that shall be deemed to be illegal-not that the Labour-Progressive party is entitled to any particular sympathy, because they are thoroughly communistic. They preach the communist doctrine and they preach communist methods.


An hon. Member:: They admit it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: If you simply passed legislation to declare the Labour-Progressive party to be an illegal organization, that would not get at the root of the problem. The root of the problem is, and must always be, those acts in which that doctrine or the preaching of that doctrine issues. You could abolish the Labour-Progressive party or declare it to be illegal and it would simply turn up tomorrow under another name. That is what happened during the war years when the old communist party of Canada was declared an illegal organization, and the Labour-Progressive party appeared the next day and blossomed forth as a reproduction of the old communist party. As I have said, that would not be an effective way of grappling with this problem. The effective way is to legislate in such a way as to make an offence of those overt acts which strike at the roots of our system of government and our conception of individual freedom.
It is worth remembering that in the past communists in this country have been placed upon trial for offences of the kind I have been describing here tonight. It was not when the law was in its present form. It was at an earlier period when there were some teeth in the law. At the moment I am not advocating any particular and detailed form of legislation. I do not know that in a debate of this kind it would be proper to do more than to indicate the intent, purpose and scope of the proposed legislation. As I have said before, it is a mistake to approach an amendment of this kind and criticize it because it does not contain all the words that would necessarily be written into the Criminal Code if the intent of the amendment appealed to the house.	[DOT]
When the law had teeth in it communists were placed upon trial and communists were convicted. Was it because of the existence of


some abstract theory? No. Was it because communism as such was declared to be an illegal doctrine? No, it was not just that. Communists were placed on trial and communists were convicted because the doctrines they were propagating were doctrines that proposed the overthrow of government in this and other countries by force. Some of the facts of this situation have been forgotten throughout the country, and if I may say so they have been forgotten by many hon. members of the house. They have forgotten just what it was that was the basis of the conviction of Tim Buck and others of his ilk in 1931.
In the courts of Ontario nine communists were placed upon trial in the year 1931 for certain offences. At the hearing the charges against one man were dropped. The remaining eight were tried and found guilty upon three counts. One of those convicted was sentenced to two years' imprisonment on the first two counts and one year on the third count. The other seven were sentenced to five years' imprisonment on the first two counts and two years on the third count, the sentences to run concurrently.


Mr. Diefenbaker:: What were the charges?


Mr. Garson:: I wonder if my hon. friend would permit a question. What were the counts? What were the charges?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Communist Activities in Canada today satisfactory? In the year 1936 when parliament amended the Criminal Code it eliminated the offences of which the communists, in the trial to which I have referred, were convicted. It substituted an amendment to the sedition section of the Criminal Code. By chapter 29, section 4, of the statutes of 1936, parliament simply substituted a further definition of the expression "seditious intention", and that is where the matter has stood since. It is for that reason we have not had prosecutions and convictions of communists since that time for advocating precisely what Tim Buck and his associates advocated, in respect of which they were convicted and sentenced in 1931.
During this session I put some questions on the order paper because I was anxious to get at this question of the efficacy of section 133, the section in relation to sedition in the Criminal Code, in the light of the position in which the legislation of 1936 left the law. These are my questions, and I read the answers immediately following the question instead of separating them:
1.	How many prosecutions have been instituted for seditious offences since the 1936 amendment of section 133 of the Criminal Code?
Two on behalf of the government of Canada. There may be other prosecutions instituted by the attorneys general of the provinces of Canada of which the federal government has no record.
2.	What was the nature of the offence charged in each case?
In one case the charge was speaking seditious words against His Majesty the King. The other case was one in which the accused was charged with being a party to a seditious conspiracy.
3.	What was the outcome of the prosecution in each case?
The outcome in the first case was "charge dismissed." In the second, the accused was convicted but the conviction was later quashed on appeal.
It is quite apparent either that the present law is not being put to work, or that it has not adequate teeth in it, to strike at what we contend ought to be an offence, namely, the advocacy of the overthrow of the governmental institutions of the country by force.
The Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) was at pains today to try to put the burden upon the attorneys general of the provinces. I want to say a word about that, sir, because it is a fact that most of the counter-espionage work in this country, as is well known, is carried on through the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The provinces have not attempted to duplicate the existing machinery for counter-espionage work in Canada. Then, sir, we always come back to this: that the attorneys general of the provinces, in carrying out their duty in regard to prosecutions, are only able to work upon the substantive law created by this parliament for the purpose. It is only an offence created under

the legislation that parliament itself passed Which will warrant the attorneys general of the provinces setting in motion the procedure designed to prosecute persons who are guilty of offences. The fact of the matter is, sir-we ought to be fair about it, because the return submitted by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) to which I have just adverted makes it abundantly clear-the Criminal Code in Canada at present is not strong enough to warrant the attorneys general of the provinces launching prosecutions designed to obtain convictions in cases where people in this country are preaching the doctrine of overthrowing the government by violence.
Is there any hon. member in this house who doubts for one moment that the communists today are preaching the same doctrines as those which were the essence of the theses and statutes that were made exhibits, and upon the basis of which a conviction was obtained in the Tim Buck case in 1931? Today direction from Moscow is much clearer than it was nineteen years ago when Tim Buck was convicted. That fact has been exposed in the quarrel between Tito and the Kremlin. Tito is a communist, and he has set up a communist government in Yugoslavia, but the basis of the quarrel between him and the Kremlin is that Tito is not prepared to take orders from the centre of communist world authority, namely, the Kremlin.
It is quite clear that it is no part of the communist plan to wait until they have massed the support of the majority of the people in a country. They have never waited for that in any country in which they struck. What they have sought to bring about was a well-organized, well-trained, and well-disciplined minority, who knew their job and were ready to strike when the order was given. The communists have gone into a country under one guise or another to get control of the key posts in the government until the time was right. In Greece they nearly succeeded in establishing a communist regime in the beginning of 1945. They would have succeeded in doing so had it not been for the presence of British troops under General Scobie. In late 1944 and 1945, the test of the communist strength in that country was the free elections that were held. The communist elements knew they could not make any kind of a showing at that election, so they decided they would boycott the election. They asked everybody to boycott it. The election thereby became a test of communist strength, but over ninety per cent of the electors turned out at the polls.
When some of us were in Greece a year and a half ago, the Prime Minister told us

that the communists were so organized that they could have established a communist regime in that country at that time, had it not been for the presence of the British army ensuring that a free vote would be held. In the name of freedom, the communists suppress freedom; in the name of truth, they preach lies and propaganda. Falsehood is one of the tools of communism in Canada as well as elsewhere, and the subjugation of our institutions is the declared purpose of the communists in our midst.
The world is in a disturbed condition, sir, and we are not, I am sure, likely to lose sight of the dangers offered by a fifth column in Canada, or in the other free nations who are parties to the North Atlantic pact.
It is high time that parliament gave serious consideration, and got some leadership from the government, in the implementation of some of those recommendations which came from the royal commission on espionage four years ago, and which have not been implemented by the government. Sir, let us not think for one minute that the determination to support Russia in the event of war is confined to the communists of European countries. Hon. members will recall the statement made in February, 1949, by Maurice Thorez, the leader of the communists in France, to the effect that in the event of war his communists would back Russia; or the similar statement made in March, 1949, by the red leaders in Australia and in Italy. But it is not confined to these countries because here is what Tim Buck said himself in November, 1946, at a meeting in Vancouver. I am quoting from a dispatch in the Evening Telegram of November 13, 1946, in which this appears:
Tim Buck, leader of the Labor-Progressive party, made it plain that if Canada should be drawn into a war with Russia, he would not defend this country but "would go into hiding the same as I did at the start of the last war."
Then further on:
Buck said if war were declared on Russia "under the same conditions as in 1939, I would fight against it-and I would go into hiding the same as I did at the start of the last war."
I was a member of the Toronto city council when war broke out. In those days we had communists in that council; and I shall never forget that in those anxious days, when the safety of our way of life was literally trembling in the balance, we had to sit and listen to communists in that council get up and denounce the war as an imperialistic war.


Mr. Croll:: What did you do about it?


Donald Methuen Fleming: What did we do about it?


David Arnold Croll: That is what I asked.
Communist Activities in Canada


Donald Methuen Fleming: We answered them, and I think we answered them effectively. Then in due course these people who were traitors to the country went into hiding so that they might carry on their nefarious work under cover.
The question comes down to this, Mr. Speaker. I see that I have but five minutes left, and I shall be brief. What is called for in the way of attacking the problem? We ask the government to give some leadership in grappling with this problem. Some teeth must be put into the Criminal Code if we are going to grapple effectively with this problem. It seems to me that the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) clearly recognized the necessity for strengthening the code in what he said to the Rotary Club in Montreal, in a speech on July 19, 1949; and I am reading from a Canadian Press dispatch.
He told the Montreal Rotary Club the domestic threat of communism must be met "by strengthening, if necessary, our Criminal Code against actions which threaten the security of the state."
That is the kind of legislation that this amendment asks, the strengthening of the code. That is precisely what we are asking. I trust that this statement by the Secretary of State for External Affairs means something more than "strengthening, if necessary, but not necessarily strengthening" the Criminal Code.
I took note of the statement made in my own riding during the election campaign last June by the then secretary of state, the Hon. Colin Gibson; and I put this before hon. members and ask them if this reflects on the part of members of the Canadian government and members of this Canadian parliament that vigilance that ought to characterize those who live in the kind of world we find ourselves in now, when communism is pounding on the doors of democracy. He said:
If enough Canadians want a communist government, that is the kind of government we should have.
That is the statement of the then secretary of state, as quoted in the Globe and Mail of June 10, 1949, and in other papers. We want something more than a passive folding of the hands on the part of this government while these communists carry on their nefarious work right in the midst of our people today.
The situation becomes infinitely more critical, sir, when you realize what a dead set these communists are making today on these newcomers who are coming to this land to make this country their home, whom we are welcoming here but who as yet have not come to know our system of government
2112	HOUSE OF
Communist Activities in Canada and who as yet do not know the two languages that are spoken in this country. It seems to me that in the light of the fact that communist sources are simply spewing forth this propaganda today, seeking to poison the minds of these people-before they ever come to know this country or to know its institutions-against the institutions of this country and against our freedoms, it emphasizes more than at any time in our previous history the necessity for putting teeth in the law and putting every obstacle we can, by democratic methods, in the way of those who would undermine our system by that method.
Then, sir, let me say this in conclusion. Vitally important as is the strengthening of the Criminal Code, I do not suggest for one minute that if we get that strengthening of the code we can simply sit down and think that the problem of communism is licked. I do not suggest that at all and my leader did not suggest it today. What we recommend to this house is that this method of strengthening the code-the democratic method, so that all may know the law, that the law may be respected, and that the law shall have teeth in it-is the first and obvious step that ought to be taken. We do not propose to stop there. We must continue. Everyone has a duty in this regard in our search for justice and for freedom. This kind of legislation that we propose is designed to strengthen our freedoms in this country. In the face of communist threats against us from abroad and communist threats against us at home, we must be strong. The communists respect force. The people in the Kremlin respect strength, and we must keep strong.
It is in no maudlin sense that I say, as my concluding words, that in the last analysis in this cold war, this ideological war, this war that is a shooting war in many parts of the globe today, this war in which the lines are clearly drawn between the forces of freedom and of Christian civilization on the one hand and the forces of totalitarianism and the enslavement of men's minds and bodies on the other, there is presented an issue in which we shall need all these resources if we are yet to win.
There is one further resource that we have which the communists have not, and which in my humble opinion will yet prove to be the deciding factor in the outcome of this struggle. It is the fact that we are spiritual creatures. We believe that the issues in life are not to be determined by materialistic forces. We believe that the supreme forces in life are not the forces of materialism. It is my humble expression of opinion that that


supreme resource, if we will but practise it and use it, will yet prove to be the deciding factor in this war of ideas.


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: This afternoon and this evening, Mr. Speaker, the house has been discussing an important question, namely, what we in our country should do to combat the menace of communism. If I may say so, the discussion of that subject has been carried on in a way which reflects its importance. In the course of this discussion we have touched on an even more difficult problem, how to reconcile, in our complicated and modern state system, the security of the state with the freedom of the individual. I hope that those of us who feel that this amendment before us is not the solution to that problem will not be accused of favouring any policy or practice of appeasement in our attitude towards communism; that we shall not be accused of being supine in our opposition to what we all recognize to be one of the greatest menaces to our domestic and international security at the present time. There is, Mr. Speaker, a very real risk of that kind of accusation being levelled at people today who sometimes do not feel it desirable or necessary to take extreme action in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. There is a risk of this happening when we try to keep our heads and refuse to yield to prejudice and popular clamour. The fact that that can happen is shown, if I may say so, in developments in certain phases of the public life of our great friend and neighbour, the United States of America, where we have recently witnessed the spectacle of innocent and respected people being persecuted and almost destroyed by innuendo and unjustified suspicion.
In certain parts of the democratic world now it is impossible to reply effectively to the charge, "he is a communist", because any evidence that can be adduced by the intended victim to overthrow that charge can of course be attacked by those who make it with the suggestion that naturally if he were a communist he would be allowed by his superiors to act in such a way as to refute that evidence. This tactic, of course, creates in the body politic disunity, division, fear and at times and in some quarters something almost approaching panic. That of course, Mr. Speaker, is exactly what the communists wish to see created in our democratic system. I hope, and I know, that in our country we shall not find it necessary to copy methods of that kind.
The first objective of the communist party in any country is to weaken and eventually

to destroy the mechanism of the state machine. That was made very clear, Mr. Speaker, in the long and I think significant debate we had at the United Nations assembly last November and December, on the essentials of peace. Today of course it is the policy of the communists to create within the borders of countries a feeling of insecurity, a feeling of fear, a feeling of suspicion that public officials and others in prominent positions may be disloyal. That feeling-and it is an asset to the communist cause, I suggest-has expressed itself in our neighbour to the south, in statements that the State Department of its government is riddled with communists, and indeed that the Secretary of State himself-who is one of the great leaders in the struggle today against communism, and is doing such a magnificent job of leadership in that field-may be a bad security risk. Thank goodness, we have nothing like that in Canada; and I hope that it will not be suggested in discussion in this country, in the press, on the air or in any other place, that there are communists holding high official positions in this government.
The detestation of communism and all that it stands for, which has been so eloquently expressed this afternoon and this evening, is shared by all of us in this house. The principles which were enunciated this afternoon in the discussion of this subject by the leader of the official opposition (Mr. Drew) will I think receive a very general agreement. I do not think that general agreement will extend to some of the evidence which he adduced to support his argument and to show that, in his view, the government was too complacent and not doing enough to meet this menace. And I do not think that all of us will be able to support the solution which he has advanced in this amendment to meet this problem.
This afternoon the leader of the opposition brought forth one or two facts in his very interesting statement with which I should like to deal very briefly because I think they misrepresent the position. He referred-and other speakers have referred-to Tim Buck. This afternoon the leader of the opposition said, and I think I am quoting him correctly: "We all know that he recently obtained a passport to go to a meeting of the comin-form in Hungary." He said the same thing the other night at a meeting in Ottawa, but he went a little further at that meeting, unless the report of it was inaccurate. He said that the government gave Tim Buck an exit visa to proceed to this cominform meeting in Hungary. What is the suggestion behind that statement? It is that somehow or
Communist Activities in Canada other this government has tried to facilitate the work of Tim Buck at communist meetings in Europe.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege, I would point out in the first place that at no time did I say that the government had given an exit visa, because I know perfectly well that such a procedure is not in the hands of the government. I did say that Tim Buck had a passport, and I do not believe that that is open to question; and I did point out that the recommendations of the royal commission, which were under discussion, suggested a tightening of passport provisions, and it was in relation to that recommendation that I had made the statement that Tim Buck had proceeded behind the iron curtain with a passport from Canada.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I am very sorry if the report in the press of the hon. gentleman's statement was inaccurate, because I quoted the report which I read in the press, which was the only one that I was able to secure. But what the hon. gentleman did say this afternoon was that Tim Buck had recently obtained a passport to go to a meeting of the cominform in Hungary.
The facts of the matter are quite simple. Tim Buck did not obtain a passport from the government recently to go to that meeting. The information in my possession-and I think it is accurate-is that Mr. Tim Buck has had a passport since 1947, and his present passport is a renewal of one which he had received many years before that time.
Also this afternoon the leader of the opposition made a reference to a very important matter, one which has been disturbing not merely to this government but to all free governments, when he alluded to the scientist recently convicted in London, Dr. Klaus Fuchs. In his statement this afternoon he gave me the impression that somehow this government had been at fault in dealing with this man; and that as a consequence of negligence on the part of this government-and it certainly would be an important dereliction of duty if it were true 

very important, vitally important, atomic secrets had reached the U.S.S.R. The leader of the opposition said that a complete evaluation of information, or the significance of the name of Fuchs in the light of the special knowledge obtained by the royal commission, had not been made. Now, Mr. Speaker, I think this matter should be cleared up in so far as I am able to clear it up from the facts which are available. And I should like to put on the record what the facts are in connection with this particular man.

Communist Activities in Canada
This man Klaus Fuchs was sent to Canada in May or June of 1940 as an internee picked up in the United Kingdom during that period of fear and panic when all German suspects or people who might even be suspected later were collected, put in internment camps, and later sent by the United Kingdom authorities, with the consent of the Canadian government, to this country for safekeeping. This particular internee remained in Canada for six months during 1940. He was returned by Canada to the United Kingdom at the request of the government of that country, and has not been in Canada since.
During the hearings of the royal commission on espionage, which has been referred to so often in this debate, some evidence came to light, from a notebook of one of those suspected of spying, a suspect who was later accused and acquitted. This particular notebook had some 600 items in it. Four hundred, I think, were names or addresses. Of those there were 150 names of persons resident in Canada, 163 of persons resident in the United States and five of persons resident in the United Kingdom. The names of those resident in the United Kingdom were turned over to United Kingdom authorities with all the evidence available in connection with this matter, including all the evidence we had at our command about the person who owned the notebook in which his name appeared.
The names of United States residents were similarly turned over to United States security authorities. The Canadian authorities naturally looked after and took the necessary steps to investigate the Canadian names in that notebook. I suggest that the responsibility of the Canadian government was discharged, and very effectively discharged, in sending those United Kingdom names to the United Kingdom government. And I hope that with these facts in the possession of the house there will be no further suggestion that the Canadian government was derelict in its duty in this regard in any single respect.
The leader of the opposition also made reference this afternoon to the Colombo conference and asked me whether I could throw any light on the discussions of that conference in so far as they affected communism, and whether possibly it was as a result of that discussion that action has been taken recently in Australia, has been proposed I believe in South Africa, and has also been taken in India to outlaw communism. He has asked whether that action springs from some discussion at the Colombo conference. Well, we did discuss communism at Colombo. I have already reported briefly


upon that aspect of our discussion. It was generally agreed at that conference that the real menace to the peace of the world today is Soviet imperialism, using communism as the spearhead of its aggressive adventures.
The leader of the Indian delegation-and India was cited as a country which has taken somewhat drastic action against communists within their borders-emphasized more than once that it was not communism as an economic social doctrine which was so great a menace as it was Soviet imperialism. I do not think I can give the hon. member any assurance that our discussion at Colombo resulted in any action that has been taken since that time. The Indian action, as a matter of fact, was taken some time before the Colombo conference.
Reference was made this afternoon to the activities of what is called, I believe, the Canadian peace congress, to its president, Mr. Endicott, and to a delegation from that movement which is coming to Ottawa later in this week. I think I have made myself pretty clear as to what I think about this movement, and as to what I think about its leader, who has recently been visiting Moscow.
The delegation which is coming to Ottawa to present the peace petition-I believe that is what they call it-will, as the Prime Minister indicated this afternoon, be received for the purpose of accepting that petition. The Prime Minister indicated that possibly I might receive this delegation. I have telegraphed to them that I hope to be able to see them on Thursday at twelve o'clock; but as I have to attend an important meeting of a committee of the cabinet in the morning, I might not be available, in which case the under-secretary will receive them in my stead. That telegram, I may say, was sent before the beginning of the discussion this afternoon. Personally, I still hope I may be able to see this delegation, because I rather look forward to telling them what I think of their movement and what I think of the activities of their president in Moscow.
My own views in regard to this whole matter have been expressed outside the house, more particularly in a speech I delivered before the Rotary Club of Montreal some time ago, a speech to which reference has been made by more than one speaker this afternoon. So that there may be no misunderstanding as to what I did say, and so that no part of what I said can be taken out of its context, I should like to read into the record one or two paragraphs from that speech,

which explain my own views, and I think will explain the attitude I propose to adopt on this amendment.
I said at that time:
In the absence of these disruptive domestic influences-
And I was referring to communist influences.
-we must constantly ask ourselves what we shall do to minimize them and protect ourselves. The first answer to that question, I am sure, is that we should not be led into hasty or ill-considered action, either at home or abroad. The communists gain part of the victory if they mislead us into thinking that we must always take short cuts in dealing with them, for by so doing we may ourselves weaken the very political institutions which they are seeking to destroy. In endeavouring to destroy the influence of communism, therefore, we must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water.
We have always hesitated in this country, sensibly, I think, to make it unlawful either to hold political ideas or to establish organizations to express these ideas. We have reserved the penalties of the Criminal Code for those who by some overt act have threatened the peace and security of the country. I think that this particular democratic tradition is wise in both principle and practice. Once we make it a crime to hold political ideas merely because they are thought to be dangerous, it will then be but a short step to suppressing political ideas because they are not liked. And from a practical point of view, it always seems to me that there is much to be said for having people like the communists organizing in the light so that the public may know who they are and what they are doing, rather than to have them hidden underground. I agree, nevertheless, that the danger from international communism is presently such that we have to keep examining and re-examining ways of meeting that danger.
We are meeting it on the international level by arranging for collective action, against an aggressor; by combining national forces and pooling national resources.
And this was the sentence quoted by the hon. member for Eglinton, who preceded me:
We must meet it on the domestic level by strengthening, if necessary, our Criminal Code against actions which threaten the security of the state; but, even more, by keeping our democratic society so healthy and strong that the germs of communism cannot breed in it.
Mr. Speaker, nothing that I have heard or seen since, and nothing I have heard in this discussion, has caused me to desire to change any single word of that statement. I suggest there are two approaches to this problem. One seems to be that embodied-and I hope I am not being unfair in this-in the amendment before us, that we should act now to strengthen the provisions of the law against communists and communism, in the terms of this amendment.
I am not supporting the amendment because I think that kind of action under present
Communist Activities in Canada circumstances is not called for. The amendment reads-and it has been pretty clearly explained to us by the hon. member for Eglinton:
This house is of the opinion that appropriate legislation should be introduced so that communist and similar activities in Canada may be made an offence punishable under the Criminal Code.
The question at once arises in our minds: What are the activities within the meaning of the amendment that would be activities similar to communist activities? It seems clear that the amendment does not refer to the outlawing of the communist party. I certainly gathered that from the remarks we have just heard from the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming), who has said that it is not intended to interfere in any way with a person's beliefs or thoughts. Then we go on to ask ourselves whether under this amendment the statement of communist doctrines in word or in print by a member of the communist party would be an activity within the intention of the amendment. I do not know whether it is or not.
From the remarks of the hon. member for Eglinton I drew the inference that what would occur under this amendment would be a return of section 98 of the Criminal Code. As has been said already, that section was amended in 1936. I ask myself the question: Has communism increased in this country since that section was amended? My answer would be: No, it has not increased, it has decreased. I suggest that one reason for that is that Canada is a better country to live in now than it was In 1936. If we can continue to make it a better country in which to live I hope we shall not have to restore section 98.
But what has increased is the imperialistic might of the U.S.S.R. and the danger of imperialistic aggression from that source. It is difficult to exaggerate that danger. At the same time I suggest that we should not be misled by a consciousness of that danger into taking action in respect of domestic policies which would not be desirable otherwise. I suggest that we use the laws that we have when they are required to be used and they will be found to be adequate. I hope we shall refuse to throw overboard our liberty, remembering that communism is declining in free countries, including Canada. It is declining in our country because it is being beaten by the good sense, the loyal patriotism, the belief in liberty under the law of
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Communist Activities in Canada our people; by the maintenance of prosperity and the eradication of social and economic injustices.
That in my belief is the way to defeat the domestic menace of communism. Let us then continue to follow that course which has already served us so well until it is clear, as I do not think it is now, that another course is required to accomplish the purpose which we all have in mind1-the eradication of the communist menace from this country.


Mr. Alistair Stewart (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I for one am glad that the leader of the Conservative party has introduced this subject to the house, not only for debate but for decision. With quite a lot of what he said, and indeed with what the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) said, I am in agreement, but I disagree very much with the remedy which they suggest. The leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew) said that communism is not academic, and that is very true. It is certainly not an academic matter in the international field, and as we are confining our remarks to the national field I think we can say that it is not academic in Canada although not nearly so serious as he would have us believe. If communism is not academic we ought to remember that the essential civil liberties which we all profess to cherish are not academic either.
When the hon. member for Eglinton was speaking he said something with which I find myself in agreement. He said that we have one resource which communists do not have, the spiritual strength which is the legacy of Christian people. But immediately he started to tell us how he distrusted the power of that spiritual strength by insisting that there be legislation to bolster it. If we have that spiritual strength, as I think we have, I am not afraid of communism or what communists preach in this country.
Then the hon. member went on to point out certain key words in the amendment. I have picked out other key words which I think are more important. The amendment states that the practice of communist and other activities shall be a criminal offence. What are those other activities? As a member of the C.C.F. I am particularly interested because the Conservative party and individuals who supported that party, as well as individuals who supported the Liberal party, have said on more than one occasion that we in the C.C.F. are merely paving the way for communism.


Mr. Ferrie:: You sure are.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: Who said "You sure are"?


An hon. Member:: The member for Mackenzie.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: I should have known better than to pay any attention to what he says. The hon. member for Eglinton went on to say that he wanted to punish overt acts. I think the real danger of communism is not in the overt acts which are committed, it is in the covert acts. I do not believe Tim Buck is the most important personality in the communist party. There are others in that party in Canada who are much more important than Tim Buck. He is merely one of the front men for that party.
The hon. member for Eglinton has suggested that we should bring back section 98 of the Criminal Code and it is there that I find myself in sharp disagreement. I have never liked the things which the Conservative party has done under that section of the Criminal Code. As I mentioned once before, we have the classic example of a Tory cabinet minister, Mr. Meighen, sending a telegram in 1919 to Winnipeg ordering the officials of that city to deport certain men who were among the strikers, and then going on to say that the act would be legalized. At times the Conservative party in its zeal against communism gets very red-eyed and I distrust its judgment in these matters.


George Alexander Drew: On a question of privilege, so that the hon. member may not be in any doubt-he may not have been in the house when I mentioned it this afternoon-the purport of that was very clearly defined by the C.C.F. party itself when an amendment to the amendment we had presented on the speech from the throne was moved. It was the C.C.F. party which added the word "fascist" to "communist" to give a similar generic description to actions of this kind, and that is what is intended in this present motion.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: I am all
in favour of curbing the actions of both fascists and communists, but how do you go about it? Certainly not by suggestions such as have been advanced by my hon. friend. As a matter of fact communism was at its peak in this country when a Conservative government was in power. The way to eradicate communism is not to pass legislation against it but as has been pointed

out time and again, by curing all those things on which communism battens and fattens, by getting rid of social injustice, racial discrimination, slums and the needless poverty which exist. Get rid of these and there will be no communism in Canada.
I want to make my position amply clear. It is a pity I always have to when I speak on the subject. I am no friend of the communists. A couple of years ago I received a letter dated March 18, 1948, from the rather well known Mr. Tim Buck. I shall read only a part of it. It reads:
Recent press reports indicate that the House of Commons may soon be considering the private bill presented by Mr. Wilfrid LaCroix, M.P. This LaCroix bill proposes that legislation be enacted to declare the Labor-Progressive party an illegal organization . . .
And so on. I replied as follows under date of March 20, 1948:
Dear Mr. Buck:
I am in receipt of your mimeographed letter of March 18, protesting the bill which is before the House of Commons sponsored by Mr. LaCroix. We shall oppose it, not because we like your party particularly much but because we like democratic freedom more. You will notice here the difference between democracy in the real sense of the word and what is happening in Czechoslovakia.
Believe me your party is not unpopular because you are in the foreground of the current struggle of Canadians against profiteering, etc. The reason is that many suspect you are in the struggle just now because it suits you. Three years ago you were in the struggle during the general election, as you may remember, to elect the very party which you now condemn as the upholders of monopoly and the profit system.
It so happens that you have decided to support the C.C.F. just now, because it is the current North American line to support a third party. You have even told constituents of mine in Winnipeg North that they have to support me. Let me tell you that your policy will change before the next election and that you will oppose me in Winnipeg North as you will oppose the C.C.F. in other areas. That prediction approaches certainty. Nevertheless, despite the known enmity of your party towards the C.C.F, over many years, we will defend your right to express that enmity, even when it is disguised under the cloak of friendship.
That is the position I took then and it is the position which I take now. I know something about communists because I have had to fight against them much harder than many members of the house. So far as I am concerned, the communist party is a very odd mixture of political treachery and intellectual lechery. They cannot be trusted in any sense whatsoever, but I see no reason for adopting communist tactics to defeat communism. If democracy is strong enough, as I think it is, we can defeat communism without doing what is suggested in the amendment. I have
Communist Activities in Canada seen communists at work in Canada, and I have seen them at work in the country of my birth, in the coal fields of Scotland where they were very strong indeed.
We have seen what has happened in the United Kingdom as a result of a general improvement in the conditions of the people and as a result of a greater measure of social security for all the people. Today the communist party in the United Kingdom is a negligible factor. I think that is so in this country too, although it is always ready to spring into action again when the opportunity presents itself. Nevertheless it is true to say that the communist party in Canada today represents much less of a threat to Canada than it has for many years past.
One thing we have to remember, and which we are constantly inclined to forget, is that we cannot outlaw ideas. We have been told that we are not going to outlaw the communist party; we are just going to outlaw the activities which spring from that party; but I should like to point out again that we never can tell where such legislation is going to stop. It has been pointed out by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew) that there is a danger of infiltration. None of us will deny that. That danger is always present, but the danger does not arise from known communists. In my opinion it arises from those who are sympathetic to communism, those whom we do not know to be sympathetic. Certainly the dangerous ones are not the members of the communist party.
Again I think it should be pointed out that if by any chance communism is outlawed in Canada it will have one effect only. Communism will be driven underground, and there is a sufficiently lunatic fringe in every society who like some sort of perverted excitement and who would be encouraged to try to join such a group if it were declared outlawed, not because they like communism but because of the thrill which they feel they are getting. For my part I want to see communists put where we can point a finger at them, where we can watch what they are doing. If we want to find out how to handle communists adequately in this country all we have to do is to look at what the trade unions have done.
I said earlier that I believe Canadian democracy is strong enough to stand up against any subversive attempts such as communists, fascists, or any other group can bring to bear. I say that because I have complete faith in the common sense of the Canadian people. When we suggest that we
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Communist Activities in Canada must legislate to stop this thing then by inference we suggest that the Canadian people are not intelligent enough to withstand the lure and indeed the guile of communism. I hope that the amendment will be most thoroughly defeated. I hope so for this reason, if for none other, that it is high time the world saw that in one part of North America at least there is still, if I may mix my metaphors, a beacon of sanity.
On motion of Mr. Macdonnell (Greenwood) the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Alphonse Fournier: Tomorrow we will continue this debate, hoping to reach a vote. As announced last night, two departments will be called, national health and welfare and post office. Then we would like to go into ways and means and have a vote on the amendment of the leader of the opposition. Then we will take up the budget resolutions.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, May 3, 1950