1950-03-02

DIPLOMATIC INSTRUMENTS


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secrelary of Slate for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I table herewith eleven documents, which are diplomatic instruments published in the Canada treaty series of 1948 and 1949. Perhaps the list might appear in Votes and Proceedings, unless hon. members would wish me to read it now.



MERCHANT MARINE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. Dickey (Halifax):: Is the Minister of Transport in a position to give the house a statement as to the steps that have been taken to implement the $3 million assistance program for the Canadian merchant marine?


Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Minister of Transport):: Well, Mr. Speaker, I am afraid I am not in a position to answer that question fully. Speaking generally I can say that the maritime commission have already put in motion the usual procedure to deal with the situation following the statement made in the house by the Prime Minister last December. I believe that early in December last they invited all ship operators and ship owners to forward their applications, indicating whether they wanted their ships transferred to the United Kingdom flag or whether they wanted to take advantage of the $3 million subsidy which was announced. I do not know whether my hon. friend has anything particularly in mind, but that is the general position as I know it.
The Prime Minister calls to my attention the fact, in addition to what I have said, that there is an item in the estimates to cover the amount of the subsidy.



NATIONAL HARBOURS BOARD


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Leon Balcer (Three Rivers):: I should like to ask the Minister of Transport whether it is within the knowledge of his department that the Montreal harbour commission has
offered its railway lines for sale to the Canadian National Railways. If so, is the minister prepared to make a statement about this transaction?


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, it seems to me a question of such importance should require some notice. However, I am not aware of the position to which he refers. I am aware of the fact that the members of the national harbours board did go to Montreal, as they go to all other ports under their jurisdiction, to discuss routine matters affecting the affairs of the port. I presume that they did have a discussion on routine matters when they were in Montreal, but I am certainly not in a position to deal with the question the hon. member has put.



RETURN OF MR. HOWE FROM EUROPEAN VISIT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Daniel Mclvor (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I feel very safe today because my neighbour, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe), is back, safe, from overseas.



RENT CONTROL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: May I direct a question to the Minister of Finance? Following the supreme court decision of yesterday with respect to rent control, will the minister say whether the offer of the federal government to pay the cost of administration for one year to any province wishing to take over these controls still holds good?


Hon. Douglas Abbott (Minister of Finance):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that offer still holds good.



SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Wednesday, March 1, consideration of the motion of Mr. F. H. Larson for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Drew, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Coldwell.
[Stage Direction]
The Address-Mr. Shaw
Mr. F. D. Shaw (Red Deer):: Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Speaker, I devoted my entire time to the consideration of several problems relating to the Sunchild Cree and Chippewa Indians located within my constituency. On that occasion, I laid emphasis upon the fact that as yet there is no indication whatever that the Department of National Health and Welfare appreciates the seriousness of the problem of health among these Indians. Moreover, there is no indication that appropriate steps have been instituted to meet, or even partly solve, the problem which exists.
In my opinion this results from one of two things. Either it is believed by some that this problem affects only a limited number of people, possibly removed from the well-beaten paths of the white man, or else government policy itself is such that justice cannot be rendered to these unfortunate people. In referring to policy I should like to quote from a statement made by the minister. I understand that this was in the form of a directive which was sent to certain of his departmental officials. It reads as follows:
While the dominion government has assumed specific obligations with respect to certain citizens, the only responsibility with respect to persons of native status is to organize a health program for those groups which are as yet unable to make s-uch arrangements independently. The officers of the Indian health services are charged with the responsibility of judiciously administering funds appropriated for this health program. It is not the intention to operate a complete but non-contributory service. The service now provided is certainly far in excess of that ever promised by implication.
I should like also to quote from a statement made by the director of Indian health services. He is even more specific. He said:
The federal government is under no obligation to supply free medical attention to any Indian.
This statement is in direct conflict with that of another departmental official, namely, Dr. Meltzer, medical director of the Charles Camsell Indian hospital in Edmonton. He said:
The health of Indians is our direct responsibility.
I would suggest that, when the Indian affairs committee meets, some members of the committee take up these statements and endeavour to get a clear-cut assertion of government policy and responsibility in this field. That is all I am going to say, Mr. Speaker, about Indian health services.
Yesterday I referred to other aspects of the problem falling within the purview of the department of Indian affairs. In concluding these remarks I just want to say that I should like to see immediate action taken to block out the timber I mentioned. I feel it is essential, and probably it will be done. I want
(Mr. Abbott.]

to see some supervision of the construction of those houses, and some expert advice provided for these Indians, in order that they may put under cultivation the land suitable for agricultural purposes. In this way food could be produced for the livestock which they now have, and must have in greater numbers if they are ever to become selfsupporting.
I should like to emphasize that obviously some people who deal with the Indians do not know that you cannot break faith with these people and expect to obtain the results which government policy should be designed to obtain. For example, you cannot tell the Indians to meet at a certain point on December 21 to receive certain parcels which are provided for them at Christmas, have them wait two or three days with no one showing up, have many of the parcels still undelivered a month later, and still expect the Indians to have faith. I know that a new Indian Act is to be brought down. I know also that it will take more than an act, it will take more than words, to deal effectively with such a long-standing problem as Canada's Indian problem. It is essential, Mr. Speaker, that along with the act there must be the proper spirit; there must be the will to do the right thing for these people. Above all we must cease to look upon the native population as an inferior people; that has been one of our principal difficulties.
I wish the new minister who is handling the Indian affairs branch all the luck in the world. I believe he will approach this problem in the right spirit. I trust that his desire to meet and solve the problems connected with the new Indian Act will result in a solution.
There is one other thing, Mr. Speaker, to which I should like to refer this afternoon. There is a reference to it in paragraph 3 of the speech from the throne, which reads as follows:
In the meantime negotiations are proceeding with the provincial governments for the implementation of the legislation adopted at your last session respecting housing, a transcontinental highway, and forest conservation.
It is to the trans-Canada highway that I wish to devote a few moments. This matter has always been an issue, but when it became a live issue it was very interesting to me to observe how quickly chambers of commerce, boards of trade, city and town councils, agricultural and other organizations got busy to plug for certain specific routes, especially in western Canada. New organizations came into being, and caravans began their weary trek across to the western coast in order to win support for specific routes, as well as to create on the part of the people who live in

those areas an interest in the matter. Tons of literature were printed and distributed across the country. As a matter of fact the battle of the route was actually fought, partly [DOT] at least, on the floor of this house.
My personal conviction with respect to this matter might be summarized in this way. First, defence and the economic welfare of Canada certainly demand that a trans-Canada highway be constructed without delay. Second, I was hopeful that this matter would never become a political football. Third, I was convinced in my own thinking that if the right thing were done, a factfinding body made up of provincial and federal representatives would immediately come into being. Of course my fourth view is that eventually, at least as to that part of the country from Winnipeg west, we would have a series of routes; that is, you would probably have upwards of four transcontinental highways.
One thing that has struck me-and this applies particularly to the route within my own province, or what might become the route-is that newspaper and other references have always been to the Crowsnest pass route, the Kicking Horse pass route or the Yellow-head pass route. The hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) and others have plugged hard and consistently for the Crowsnest pass route. The hon. members for Medicine Hat (Mr. Wylie), Calgary East (Mr. Harkness) and Calgary West (Mr. Smith), have plugged for the Calgary-Banff route, the Kicking Horse pass route. The hon. members for Battle River (Mr. Fair), Vegreville (Mr. Decore), Edmonton East (Mr. Macdonald), Edmonton West (Mr. Prudham), Peace River (Mr. Low), and Athabaska (Mr. Dechene), have all plugged for the Yellowhead pass route. While I do not want to start the battle here again, it is amazing to me that all of them, in their anxiety to have the route pass through their own communities, have completely overlooked the fourth and most practical route of all, namely, the one that goes through what is now referred to as the David Thompson route.
The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), and the hon. member for Kindersley (Mr. Larson), could both advance strong arguments, I am sure, to show this house and the country why the trans-Canada highway should not go through the semi-arid, semi-desert areas in southern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta. I am sure they could give ever so many reasons why it should go through their constituencies after proceeding westward from Winnipeg. I am sure that the hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch) could give ever so many reasons why
The Address-Mr. Shaw that same route should pass through his constituency. If it does pass through these three, as it should, then it could not help reaching the city of Red Deer in the province of Alberta.


An hon. Member:: Where is that?


Frederick Davis Shaw: Someone says: Where is Red Deer? Possibly I could answer that question by quoting from a short editorial which recently appeared in the Edmonton Bulletin:
Red Deer is one of the Alberta points to watch.
The city with the interesting past has a very promising future.
Strategically situated midway between Calgary and Edmonton, it is an ideal location to take advantage of the current trend to decentralize industry.
On many occasions in recent months Red Deer has been cited as an up-and-coming industrial centre, and faith in its future has been expressed by the dominion itself in announcement from Ottawa that it is going ahead with a $361,000 federal building.
May I just digress at that point, Mr. Speaker, to convey to the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier) and to the government the appreciation of all of the citizens of the city of Red Deer, and my own, of the fact that finally that great problem which does exist in the city of Red Deer has been recognized and is now to be met. We are pleased that a building of that size is to be constructed in that city. I continue the quotation:
Apart from its location and facilities, Red Deer is well able to take care of continued growth, for it is the centre of one of the most lush mixed farming areas in the province.
What a contrast that is to the constituency of the hon. member for Medicine Hat!


Mr. Wylie:: That is one man's opinion.


Frederick Davis Shaw: The editorial continues:
Then too, it is the hub of a new highway into the Nordegg country of the foothills to the west.
Incidentally, Nordegg is one of the greatest steam coal producing areas in western Canada. I hope the Canadian National Railways and the government will soon begin to realize that fact. The editorial goes on:
Completion of the highway will tap rich natural resources of timber and coal for Red Deer's benefit.
It is expected the highway will continue west from Nordegg into the mountains to join the Banff-Jasper route, and, if that happens, Red Deer will find itself in a class with Edmonton and Calgary as a jumping-off place for the summer mountain tourist trade.
I still think it is ahead of them, but that is the opinion of the Edmonton Bulletin. Finally:
All told, Red Deer is out front as another good place to live in a good province.
That is the end of the Bulletin editorial. If one goes on west of the city of Red Deer he passes over one of the finest mixed farming parts of Canada into the town of Rocky

The Address-Mr. Shaw Mountain House. That name alone indicates to hon. members what lore must be associated with a town having such a name.


Mr. Blackmore:: Especially "Rocky Mountain".


Frederick Davis Shaw: From Rocky Mountain House one travels over an area in which the province of Alberta today is in the process of constructing one of the finest highways to be found in that part of Canada. As I said before, you reach Nordegg, where the great Brazeau collieries produce a tremendous amount of bituminous coal for use in Canada's industrial life. From there westward this route would pass over the Kootenay plains. You have heard of tropical valleys, Mr. Speaker; British Columbia has boasted about them from time to time. Here we have the best example of what might be called a tropical valley in our Rocky mountains. These Kootenay plains are as flat as the prairie district. The temperature there is always fifteen to twenty degrees above that registered at points outside the pass. There is no snow in there at times when there are two feet of snow on the prairies to the east; and this road passes through to meet the Banff-Jasper highway. For forty-five miles beyond the Banff-Jasper highway the road would extend through the Howse pass, which is the lowest pass in the Canadian rockies, with an elevation of 4,840 feet. This area would be one of the easiest to keep free from snow in the wintertime and one of the least costly to construct. There is less snow in that area than in any other section of the Rocky mountains on the North American continent.
That is quite a contrast, Mr. Speaker, to the thirty feet of snowfall that you often find around west of Banff and Lake Louise. We still think-and these remarks are addressed to the government of Alberta as well as to the government of Canada-that if they are interested in establishing the trans-Canada highway where it will cost least to construct, where it will cost least to maintain, where we have natural beauty unexcelled on this continent, and where wildlife abounds in untold numbers; if they realize the advantages afforded by this route, coupled with the low elevation, there will be no question as to where the trans-Canada highway will run in that part of Canada.
I would say to the government of Canada and also to the government of Alberta that if this highway goes through Calgary, then Lethbridge and Edmonton will be offended. If it goes through Lethbridge you are going to offend the other two. If it goes through Edmonton it will also offend the other two. We do not mind offending all these cities-

not a bit. We feel that if the governments involved do not want to offend just two of them they will hasten to accept the route .which I have mentioned as the logical one for the trans-Canada highway. We feel that one could give this government and the provincial government the best possible arguments and support for such a decision. My personal hope is that eventually all the four cities which I have mentioned will find themselves on trans-Canada routes, because beyond question eventually from Winnipeg west we must have at least the four routes to which I have referred.


Mr. J. M. Macdonnell (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to begin by following the pleasant practice of congratulating the mover (Mr. Larson) and the seconder (Mr. Dumas) of the motion for an address to His Excellency the Governor General on their performance of the duties allotted to them. It is one of the pleasant things about democracy that, however much we may differ on principles, we are able to practise these amenities; and I might particularly say that this amenity can be practised today when we see the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) back in his seat. However much we may differ with him, we are glad to see him here. We can assure him that his name has not been wholly forgotten; that there have been frequent references to him, some of which have been highly eulogistic and some not so eulogistic.
This afternoon I wish to bring to the attention of the house the question of foreign exchange control as it exists in the western world, by which I mean the non-communist world. I believe, though it is a subject that we have treated in the past with a good deal of perfunctoriness, it will not be hard to convince this house today that it is a matter of great importance to us all.
Foreign exchange control first of all came to us as a war guest. It was hoped and expected that, like other war guests which were more welcome than foreign exchange control, it might leave us at the end of the war. But then it was continued. It really was introduced into what I might call the financial family with a kind of legal status, in spite of the fact that its parentage was deplorable, ns I shall show later. It almost seems as if the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) now can hardly distinguish between this child, as I say of deplorable parentage, and the more respectable members of his family.
I hope that in the circumstances in which we find ourselves now we may be able to have this child sent off to the place where it originated, namely, the totalitarian countries, and that it may flourish there as best it can.

Of course it has developed a veneer of good manners, but that should not blind us as to its real quality.
I want to bring before the house this afternoon four considerations. First I wish to satisfy the house-and it should not be difficult-that we are suffering from exchange control now; that the fetters which tie the non-communist countries are dividing it into two areas, with the dollar-sterling curtain in between; that in a sense they are driving us back to barter; they are depriving us of the progress of centuries.
Second, I wish to deal particularly with the devaluation that took place last autumn, and seek to convince the house that devaluation is not enough; that devaluation without freedom will not alone do the job.
Third, I wish to convince the house that if every nation waits until everyone is ready we may wait until it is too late; and I hope we in Canada, who are often fond of talking about the value of our example, may be able to give some kind of example here.
Finally, I wish to argue that we are in a favourable position to do so.
This is not the first time that I have attempted to interest the government in this question, but in the past I have been unsuccessful. When people are prosperous, when everyone has his pockets full of money, when he believes that everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, it is very hard to get him to believe that any clouds can arise on the horizon at all; but I think the difficulties are now beginning to emerge. So far as I can understand, it is not very difficult to persuade the farmers that not everything is still good. Take just one other industry to which I shall refer later; I think the newsprint manufacturers may have something to say about the difficulties which exchange control is causing them.
I hope to be able to satisfy the house and the government that the villain in the piece in both these cases, and in others as well, is the foreign exchange control measures which are spread all over the so-called free world, and which are getting in the way of those who are trying to carry on business. I hope that now that the farmers and the industrial workers can accept that, even the government may accept it.
Crooning to the farmers has gone out of fashion since last spring, and we no longer live in that pleasant Never-Never land where Peter Pan lived and where he never had to grow up. I think we are growing up. I think the government is showing signs of
2, 1950	381
The Address-Mr. J. M. Macdonnell learning things. The government learned between Monday and Wednesday of last week that there was unemployment in the land. On Monday we had the speech of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), which really made one wonder whether it was not almost indecent to suggest that there was any unemployment at all, so insinuatingly, so persuasively, so almost absent-mindedly he spoke of unemployment, as if it really was not here at all, or if it was it was just an accident of the climate, and that it would disappear with the spring when the birds come again. Well, on Wednesday, a few days later, apparently they had a change, because the debate on the address had to be invaded for the second or third time in order that the unemployment insurance measure could be carried through-and it was a very good thing it was carried through, though the surprising thing is that the Prime Minister did not know on Monday that it should be. Therefore, as I say, I have hopes for the government, and of course the hopes are accentuated by the return of the Minister of Trade and Commerce and by the foreword which appeared in the morning papers as to his arrival.
I am reading from the Montreal Gazette which carries a headline reading: "Howe predicts more exports." This headline rang a bell in my memory. I looked back and I found that on May 9, 1949, there was a similar headline in the Ottawa Citizen which read: "New deal disclosed by Howe." That was on May 9. That is what you might call an election sweetener. We read lower down that the Minister of Trade and Commerce said that he had negotiated contracts to the total value of $25 million. That is not a very large amount in the face of the whole of our trade; nevertheless there it was for what it was worth.
It is interesting to turn back to what the Minister of Trade and Commerce told them in New York yesterday. He explained that he was on a holiday during which time he "made efforts to encourage some countries to increase their exports to Canada." Then he says this:
The over-all outlook tor Increased1 trade with Europe is improving all the time.
That is good. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), I know, will be very glad to hear that. In fact it is a pity he did not know it a little earlier. The minister goes on and says:
Canada was encouraging private businessmen to arrange barter deals-
I suppose if we cannot have trade we can barter. If we cannot have real trade we have

The Address-Mr. J. M. Macdonnell to barter. It seems a pity we have to go back to the past like that. Next the minister said:
We are encouraging such deals because we want to make it as easy as possible for private trade to function.
Then at the end of the interview occurs this, which I find encouraging too. At the end of the interview the writer said:
Mr. Howe is returning to Ottawa tomorrow where, he said, he faces "a few routine things to get back to."
Now, I think the minister may find when he finds out what has happened here that some of the things are not so routine as he might have thought. He will not find unemployment quite so routine. Nevertheless it is a good thing to have him back, because he is always so optimistic; of course he tries to make everyone feel that this government is an all-wise government. Certainly the Prime Minister has gone a long way toward suggesting that the Minister of Trade and Commerce at all events does have that qualification.
I said a moment ago that we were suffering from the shackles of foreign exchange control, and I should like to read one or two statements in support of that. I would like to read the familiar words of the Minister of Agriculture, from what he said in December last in Brantford. I shall read a short extract in advance of that, something he said on May 28 last. He told an audience in Winnipeg that what we needed was "more food products to sell".
That was on May 28. But by December 1 he was telling the farmers that they would have to buy where they could sell, and he went on to declare:
The only place we can sen freely for the time being is Canada.
He suggested that we will have to sell in Canada; but it will be quite a task for Canadians to eat as much wheat as would take care of the Saskatchewan crop. Nevertheless that is what the minister suggested.
We all remember what the minister said in this House of Commons a short time ago, that there was a deliberate onslaught by the British government-and it will be noted it was the British government, not the British people-a deliberate onslaught on Canadian trade.
I should like to carry this one step further by saying what has happened to Canadian newsprint. As I recall, we had a contract for roughly 300,000 tons of Canadian newsprint. Canadian newsprint manufacturers had supplied Britain for years when it was inconvenient for them to do so, and at a price less than that at which the British 
could buy it elsewhere. The British importers were keen to continue the contracts, but in January, two months ago, the British government advised them that they could give no import permit for a period of six months, and that they were not able to give an assurance as to what would happen after that time.
I do not think anyone imagines that the British government are doing that out of malice or as a prank. The truth of the matter is that the British government, like other governments, are caught in this maze of controls which support overvalued currencies by rigid controls and rationing of foreign exchange.
It has been, so far, extraordinarily difficult to get people to buckle down to the task of taking this problem seriously, and if it was not for the fact that we are now finding ourselves in difficulties we would not get people to take it seriously even yet.
Controls are everywhere-import controls; export controls; controls of all kinds. It is in the air. Of course Great Britain in 1949 was the classic case. Every knowledgeable person except the Chancellor of the Exchequer knew that the pound was being dealt in at a figure far below the fixed rate, and eventually the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to come to devaluation; but there was no relaxation of the tightness of the controls. All that happened was that $2.80 was substituted for $4.03. In that connection I would like to read a sentence from the London Economist. Hon. members will realize that the London Economist is not only sympathetic but generous in its attitude toward the government. It sympathizes largely with' the objectives of the British government. It says this about devaluation in its issue of October 15, 1949:
It is now clear that the opportunity of devaluation has been missed. Abroad, there has been much disappointment, mixed with amazement, that so sharp a reduction in the exchange value of the pound sterling was not accompanied by the relaxation whatsoever of the restrictions that keep the pound so tightly inconvertible. "Devaluation," says one experienced continental commentator, "is usually the price paid for getting rid of exchange control. To pay so high a price and get none of the reward is a very bad business."
Now, as I have said, all the old powers have been maintained. There is, however, one hopeful sign; it is the fact that New Zealand and Australia have turned their faces away from controls. And in England last week the election returns could not be regarded as an enthusiastic endorsement of them.
Of course we must not overlook the great difficulties which England has. We must not overlook the three and a quarter billion

pounds of indebtedness they have. We must not overlook the fact that they spent such vast proportions of their resources in the carrying on of the war. But in addition to that there is and has been a doctrinaire mentality at work there. While tentative attempts have been made to introduce freedom to facilitate foreign investment, all that has happened is the substitution of one labyrinth of red tape for another: In the meantime the life-giving stream of foreign investments has remained cut off.
What, in plain words, is foreign exchange control? It means this: that the government of a country fixes in terms of its own currency the value of other currencies; then it enforces that rate upon the public, upon its own citizens, backed by the police power of the state, so that the citizens of the state can deal only at this fixed rate.
Those police powers you may recall. I do not wish to take too much time, but I should like to read one or two of the more extreme powers. They state:
The governor in council may make regulations prescribing that persons who would otherwise be residents shall be deemed to be non-residents or that persons who would otherwise be non-residents shall be deemed to be residents for any of the purposes of this act.
I have always understood that the British parliament had powers to do everything except to make a man a woman, or a woman a man. But this section seems almost to go beyond that. Then there is this one further subsection I should like to read. Regulations may be made:
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained elsewhere in this act. exempting any person or any class of persons or any transaction or class of transactions from any provisions of this act.
In other words this body, the governor in council, is given the absolute power to deal in any way it pleases. Let me add quickly that I think those powers have been, on the whole, exercised with judgment and with moderation. The fetters, so to speak, have been softened. Nevertheless there is the power. And let us never forget this: that when all other controls are done away with but foreign exchange control is left, it is the control of all controls. So long as the government can control arbitrarily every transaction in which any foreign money is involved, it has virtually complete control-an astonishing amount of power.
When one couples that with the Emergency Exchange Conservation Act, there is virtually nothing that cannot be done. Tomatoes and lettuce are "off again, on again". We never know whether we can have them or not from day to day. Perhaps we should learn something more about the tastes of the Minister
2, 1950
The Address-Mr. J. M. Macdonnell of Finance and the Minister of Trade and Commerce-their own personal tastes in foods-so that we could try to forecast just how these things will be dealt with.
In plain words, every transaction, no matter how small, has to have a permit, and one's personal business becomes the business of the board. If you wish money to go to the United States, you must lay bare your affairs. If you wish to move to the United States, they have the right to ask why you are doing it-whether you are moving away from your mother-in-law, or what. They have the right to examine into your affairs and be satisfied in their judgment as to what should be done. If you wish to send a few pounds to Great Britain, you have to satisfy them that it is necessary, because they have this policing power. We tried hard to have some relaxation, but we were told four years ago that it was a case of whole hog or none. Is it any wonder that a distinguished citizen of this country described the measure as being a peacetime measure "which was unnecessary and one which interfered with the basic rights of Canadian citizens"? That was said by Senator Crerar in the Senate in 1946. Senator McGeer gave an amusing description of the permit power in the Senate when he said that you could not take a suitcase of personal effects across the line without a permit. Another senator said that if you wanted to abide strictly by the permit system you would have to cross the frontier in a state of nature.
What about the origin of this foreign exchange control? I said that it had a deplorable ancestry, and I shall try to substantiate that. Like the mule, it has no pride of ancestry, and I would hope it has no hope of posterity. We first heard of its being used by the bolsheviks in 1917; but the man who is the real inventor, the man who should be given the real honour, is Schacht, of Germany, who brought it in in the early thirties. I need not tell you that this was the key control, which, added to other controls, enabled Hitler, plus Schacht, plus the Gestapo to make all their preparations for war. If we may use the language of the racetrack, we may say that foreign exchange control was by Schacht out of Gestapo.
There have been other attempts to control international prices. Hon. members will recall the efforts in connection with rubber and coffee. I read a report in the press the other day which explained why the price of coffee had shot up. According to this report the reason was quite simple. The price was controlled, and then millions of coffee trees were taken out of production, with the result that there is not enough coffee to go round
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The Address-Mr. J. M. Macdonnell and the price has gone up. I say nothing of the hardship to the persons involved-mainly, no doubt, small producers.
What I do wish to say is that it is just too hard for a few individuals to foresee the consequences of these far-reaching actions. If human beings were robots; if we were all economic men who moved according to mechanical rules, possibly there might be more to be said for it. But when you take human beings, each with his own desires and his own feelings as to how he will regulate his life, then when other people try to regulate it, it is a failure.
How much more difficult is it to regulate the price of a thing like money, which affects every commodity in the community, which enters into every detail of our life. How much more difficult is it to do that. It is not too much to say that this arrogant assumption of supreme wisdom always ends in disaster. When I say "arrogant assumption" I am not referring to those officials who have been carrying out the terms of this act; I am referring only to the general principle which inspires foreign exchange control and which I hope we may have the wisdom at least to begin to get rid of.
Of course exchange control has its friends. First of all there are people who are convinced that controls are right; there are people who believe in them. These are people whom I respect, although I believe their views are wholly wrong. I respect them because they are honest about their views; they say: Yes, we are going to control you ; look out! I always hope that the kindly light of reason may invade their minds and one day they will drop those views; nevertheless there they are, and they are entitled to them.
But there is another and very different class of people whom I do not admire nearly so much. These are the people who proclaim constantly their adherence to freedom but who as a matter of fact like controls in their own affairs very much indeed. I am not going to go further on that except to relate to the house a little incident that came to my attention through a wise banker friend. He was talking during the war with an importer who told him what a happy life he was having. He said to the banker: "My imports come in at a fixed price; I sell them at a fixed price, and there is a pleasant spread between.
I have no reason to worry about foreign exchange, because it is sold at a fixed price.
I am able to shut up my office door about midday and go off and play golf". My banker friend made a very wise reply to him. He said: "You know what has happened, you are no longer in business". I think that tells the whole story.

I am fond of quoting the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) on this. He said something in this house with which I have always agreed and which I like to repeat: "I do not object to private enterprise, but if they are going to take the profits, they have to take the risks as well". I would not want it to be thought that I am quoting the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar as the embodiment of divine wisdom, but I think that one statement was sound, and I should like to quote it to those who in my opinion are the worst enemies of freedom that you can find, because they proclaim themselves as being its friend when their actions give them away.
I should like to try to relate this specifically to our special difficulty with the United Kingdom. Why is it that we are losing markets and fear the further loss of markets in the United Kingdom? Of course it would be difficult if the pound were fully convertible. Then the people in the United Kingdom would be able to spend their money as they liked and where they liked. They would be able to buy wheat or anything else they wanted in this country, provided that the price was right. I am not going to suggest that convertibility would produce a miracle overnight, but I am suggesting that it would begin the cure.
I am suggesting that we are in danger- from this maze of controls. I shall support this by quotations; that things are going badly and there is no reason to expect that they will go any better. Incidentally I noticed in the annual report of the Royal Bank of Canada, issued the other day, a very wise remark by the president. He said that the real excuse for controls had gone now, that European production was up to the prewar level. I understand that it is practically up to the pre-war level in agricultural production, and fifteen per cent above it in manufacturing production. In the face of this, consider the situation in England today, six months after devaluation. Apparently there is little or no money available for agricultural products from North America. Apparently there is no money for newsprint. What is the money used for? It is used to buy exclusively North American products, such as Virginia tobacco and films. That is not said in criticism of Great Britain; that is said in criticism of this system which has us all shackled and which we must get rid of.
Of course even if the pound went free tomorrow it would not suddenly give them all kinds of United States dollars, but it would begin the cure. As I said before, it would begin to liberate the stream of investment which would begin to flow in and correct the

present situation. At the present time competent economists will tell you that they wonder whether anything else will do the job; whether anything else can span the dollar gap.
The bitterest irony of this control which is supposed to be our salvation is that it cuts us off from the very thing which could begin to provide the cure-international investment. There have been, as I said a moment ago, attempts to bring about some kind of freedom of investment in England. I think they have changed the number of years after which you can take money out, or something of the kind. It is just one bit more of red tape which the businessman must cut when he wants to invest. A businessman does not want to have to deal with government officials; he wants to deal with other businessmen. Unless there is some great lure like western oil, they are not going to invest except where there is freedom.
Do not let us forget that this whole control system is only twenty years old, whereas we had scores or hundreds of years of the other system. During all that time, when the world was still civilized, we had none of this. Lest anyone say: Yes, while we may have had stability before the war, there was also from time to time great hardship on certain people, when adjustments had to be made. I will admit that there is some truth in that, but I say that with the new techniques we have, with our new attitude toward and belief in social welfare, those difficulties would be taken care of. Merely because those difficulties exist we should not resign ourselves to the evils of controls.
You have been listening to one who certainly does not set himself up as an expert, and I should like to call in one or two experts, as they said on the radio program "Information Please." I should like to read just a sentence or two from a report by a body which has been criticized in this house, the international monetary fund, but was eulogized the other day by a competent hardheaded banker, namely, the president of the Royal Bank. When a hard-headed banker eulogizes a body of this kind and at the same time indicates that he is an advocate of freedom, I think it is worthy of note. I should like to read from the report; it is short, and I would ask hon. members to listen very carefully.
The members of the fund-
This was in April, 1949.
-have the obligation to put into effect as soon as possible such measures as are likely at the same time to improve their payments position and make possible the gradual reduction and ultimate elimination of restrictions on payments and transfers for current international transactions.
The Address-Mr. J. M. Macdonnell
Then it says this:
There are evident risks of various kinds in accepting the more competitive conditions that must follow such a policy; but unless these risks are accepted, the improvement in the world economic situation made thus far may be replaced by deterioration.
I suggest that is an understatement. We need not say it may be replaced by deterioration; we can say it is being replaced by deterioration. Then it goes on:
If the earliest reasonable opportunity is not seized to modify restrictive policies, the difficulty of resuming trade on an economic basis under more normal conditions will be greatly increased and world trade will tend more and more to be conducted with inconvertible currencies on the basis of bilateral bargains.
Again the report says:
The revival of the flow of private international capital, which is essential if the best use is to be made of the world's productive resources, is moreover scarcely to be expected if more elaborate exchange restrictions increasingly limit the uses to which earnings from foreign investments can be put.
It is of interest that yesterday, March 1, 1950, was the day which under the articles of agreement the fund was to report to its members on the restrictions in force at that time. In other words, after three years of operation, there was to be a sort of stocktaking or review of the situation.
I would call the attention of hon. members to four things from what I have read: first, the duty to get away from restrictions; second, the deterioration that will come about if we do not do so; third, acceptance of the fact that there is risk-but our whole system depends upon risk; only when there is risk is there incentive to call forth the maximum of effort on the part of people with energy and initiative. Fourth and last of all, they stress the importance of international investment.
If we need to underline the truth of these statements, let us carry our minds back three years, to 1947. What happened then? Two things happened. The British failed to make the pound convertible; and the Geneva treaty was negotiated, which has been almost ineffective except so far as Canada and the United States are concerned.
I have referred to the statement by the president of the Royal Bank. He has two things to say. He points to Britain's debt difficulty, and indeed suggests that the rest of the world should come to her assistance because the burden she bears was incurred in behalf of everyone. Then he calls for a period of freedom of exchange, for a certain fixed period when we should let the market determine rates of exchange as it did immediately after the first world war. Then he thinks we might work toward a period of stability, such as we had previously.
=,5946-25

The Address-Mr. J. M. Macdonnell
Now I should like to sum up in a word. A few moments ago I said that devaluation last autumn was of some value; but was not enough. I quoted what I regard as three competent authorities; the international monetary fund itself, the London Economist, and the president of the Royal Bank. If the prospect is disturbing now, Mr. Speaker, is it likely to be any better when we come to the end of the Marshall plan? In congratulating ourselves on what has been going on, we have often forgotten to mention the enormous extent to which the Marshall plan and its various ancillary bodies have helped the situation.
Is this exchange problem going to remain with us forever? Is the minister going to keep this doubtful child in his financial family in spite of its deplorable origin, or is he going to expel it?
What prevents a return to freedom? First of all there is pride. I have never been a member of the government, though there are always hopes; but I have no doubt a government develops pride. There is unwillingness to admit that anything done by the government can be wrong. One member of the government, however, does not seem to be clothed with pride in the matter. I refer to the Minister of Agriculture; and I want to quote something he said just over a year ago, speaking in London, because I think it so true:
X am convinced that the world is not in any state of mind where it can be expected to agree that the manipulation of any system or systems of currency is going to be allowed to interfere with the will of those who have empty stomachs when it is preventing their purchasing surpluses of food and distributing them.
I suggest that is exactly what is happening now, that the manipulations of currency are preventing that very thing; and I suggest to the minister that he bring this situation to the attention of his colleagues. I think that was a wiser remark than the reference by the Prime Minister to chaos. Chaos is a word that covers a great deal of territory, one of those words we all use without perhaps intending very much. The Prime Minister used it on June 6 of this year in Quebec, when, speaking of devaluation, he said:
That would bring chaos to the Canadian economy in twelve months or so.
It might be interjected by the Minister of Finance, so I shall do it myself, that when the Canadian devaluation was made last autumn it was done at a time when other currencies were devalued. However, as I was saying, there is pride in this connection; and no doubt the Prime Minister, remembering his use of the word "chaos", might find difficulty in changing his view.


But there i^ another and, I think, more real difficulty. Government officials have been administering all these controls; and I want to say quite candidly that I think they have made the best of a bad job. But those who have been administering controls really have an extraordinary intellectual job to do in order to conclude that the time has come to abandon them. It seems to me they almost have to jump out of their intellectual skins, and that presents a difficult problem. Meanwhile, the abnormal is becoming the normal. I am sure they feel what I quoted from Senator Crerar was like a voice from another world. It has become respectable now to have controls. The day before yesterday the minister himself referred to the orders issued this year as compared with those of last year; and very naturally, I suppose, made the reference in such a way that he did not give me the impression of having the slightest feeling that these were things that we should get away from.
I have pointed to the effect of devaluation alone, and have shown that it has been largely sterile so far as we are concerned. I have quoted the advice given our farmers by the Minister of Agriculture, to sell at home. I have shown that this rigid control is preventing the flow of investment, which I think is the best hope we have for the future. It may be said in reply that we have had quite a lot of investment in Canada; nevertheless, to me that is no proof that fixed rates do not militate against investment. After all, there were strong reasons for investing here; and if anyone presents the argument that investments have been made in Canada, in spite of controls, it is perfectly open to me or any other member to say that such investments would have been much greater if there had been no such controls. When you consider Britain, you do not have the same sort of magnet for investment; nevertheless you have a concentrated market of forty-five million people, and I am assured by business friends that they believe investment would be freely made in Britain if the world could get away from these shackles.
I said a while ago, Mr. Speaker, that if we wait we may wait too long; and that brings me to the suggestion I wish to make. Why can we not make a start here? After all, we have had a considerable amount of experience since last September. I believe the official rate is endorsed by the rate on the dollar in the free market, such as it is; the dollar is quoted within a fraction of the ninety cents which is the official rate. Thirty years ago we took the risks, such as they were. We have a tremendously stronger position now, both absolutely and relatively. We have the added strength of iron ore and oil, which have

greatly improved our position. Actually in the last four months of the year we increased our exchange position by something like $130 million. As a matter of fact, as someone has said, at that time we were really supporting the United States dollar to that extent. We have no huge internal debt problem, as they have in England. I suggest that now is the strategic moment. We have evidence that in Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain, the control mind is not so firmly in the saddle. I am not suggesting that the freeing of the Canadian dollar is going to work any magic, any more than the freeing of the British pound at this moment would work any magic. After all, there is no mystery or magic involved. All I am asking is what Churchill suggested, that the government get out of the way, and let the millions of people who want to buy and sell to each other exercise their initiative, energy and ingenuity, without being forced to get permits for everything.
If, on the other hand, we do nothing, then the forest of controls becomes more and more deep-rooted. If the government, or the board, with its knowledge which the rest of us do not have concerning capital deposits, sees fit to begin with freedom on current account only, I would be disappointed; nevertheless I would say that was a beginning. Let us have a beginning. I would also say, let us not underestimate our own influence. In my opinion we are sometimes inclined to overestimate it, but I do not think we should underestimate it. I believe we have a place in the world. The fact that we are next door to the United States strengthens that place. Our action might give a lead which would prove fruitful.
As I was saying before the minister came in, yesterday served as a sort of stocktaking day, in which the present position of controls was to be investigated.
The minister made a speech last autumn somewhere in the United States, which I read with interest. He stated, with pardonable pride I thought, that two things have been characteristic of the policy of the Department of Finance-boldness and a sense of timing. The minister will forgive me if I say that we on this side of the house relate the timing rather to the election. We have done that before, so I need not stress that point. Last year we told the minister that we thought he was influenced by the political cycle rather than the economic cycle. But seriously I commend those two things to the minister-boldness and a sense of timing. I do suggest to him that now may be the moment when our action might have a real influence. I hope that we shall not have one day to make the devastating confession, "too little and too late."
The Address

Mr. Byrne


Mr. J. A. Byrne (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in this debate this afternoon, realizing that it is the common practice of members to take advantage of this opportunity to tell something of their constituencies, I hope that my constituents, as well as hon. members, will not feel that it is a lack of interest or pride in my constituency that has deterred me from making an earlier address. I have waited until the second session of this twenty-first parliament primarily because, in common with the other members on this side of the house, I was genuinely interested in allowing sufficient time to consider the estimates and legislation that were before us l&st fall during a necessarily short session.
I wish to congratulate the mover (Mr. Larson) and seconder (Mr. Dumas) on their addresses, which precipitated this debate. They did an excellent job. They will probably get little satisfaction from any complimentary remarks that a new member extends, but I do wish to add my compliments to those already given. If I attempt to cover as many points as I wish in this debate, the house may be suspicious that I intend to leave again to join a convention. I should like to assure the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank), who so eloquently informed you of my absence last year, that I have a genuine interest in what is taking place.
The constituency I have the honour to represent, Kootenay East, comprises a large portion of the southeast corner of the province of British Columbia. There are three great valleys of the Kootenay and great Columbia rivers. These rivers drain almost the entire northerly portion of the Canadian Rockies. One might almost say there were three great Fraser valleys rolled into one, and bounded by mountains filled with coal and mineral wealth. The Columbia valley in the northern part of my riding is one that is particularly noted for its tourist attractions. There is also some mining and agriculture carried on there. In the Creston valley, we have a fruit industry-I was about to say thriving, but later on you will understand why I cannot say it is a thriving industry- as well as many tourist attractions.
The adjacent Kootenay lake is a mecca for sportsmen from all over the country. Cran-brook is in the centre of the riding, and is particularly noted for its tourist attractions, and as a logging and railway centre. It is situated on the celebrated Crowsnest pass railway, and is also on the north-south highway which extends to the tourist attractions I have already mentioned, as well as Banff and Lake Louise. The coal fields of the Crowsnest pass and the Fernie area contribute a great deal of wealth to the interior
388	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Byrne of the province. It is regrettable that because of the severe winter, which made it difficult to obtain coal cars, there has been a considerable amount of unemployment in that area. The people are struggling along however, and with the help of unemployment insurance payments I believe they are getting by. The mines will soon return to full-time operations.
I have purposely left until the last the city of Kimberley, which is my home. Although I am not going to describe the city itself,
I wish to point out what industries are there, and then continue with some of the points I have in mind concerning social security. In Kimberley is located the largest lead-zinc mine in the world. Ten thousand tons of ore roll from its portals daily, and the resultant 800 to 1,000 tons of concentrates, which are shipped to the Trail smelter in Kootenay West, provide employment for approximately 6,000 people; about 2,000 people in Kimberley, and I believe in excess of 4,500 in the Trail area. It certainly contributes a great deal to the well-being of Kootenay West. I might say that, in effect, the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) and I would be virtually without a riding if it were not for the Sullivan mine.
As I am on my feet for the purpose of discussing the speech from the throne, I must spend a certain amount of time on it. I am no economist, however; but because of my work in the past few years, dealing specifically with wages, sales and so on, I have necessarily gained a certain amount of information with regard to economics and have necessarily put myself in a position in which I can at least form an opinion and be prepared to agree or disagree with whatever arguments may be advanced.
In their complaints with regard to the throne speech, the opposition have contended that nothing has been done to ensure markets for our farm produce and insist that there are no measures taken to obviate the unemployment. Many members from this side of the house, including the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Picard), have defended the throne speech successfully in the matter of farm products. I simply wish to make a few observations. I feel that up to the present time the marketers of the main farm produce such as wheat, beef, pork, poultry and dairy products have not suffered a great deal. The gross income in 1948 was $2,449 million; for 1949 it was $2,409 million. The higher figure was for 1948 and the lower figure was for 1949; that latter figure shows a $40 million decrease or one and one-third per cent, which is far from the sixteen per cent that I have been hearing mentioned in this house since the opening of this session.


Considerable discussion has taken place with regard to the fact that farm prices were pegged during the war and for some years following it. Certainly during the war wages were also pegged, and we had little quarrel with that policy of the federal government. The controls were necessary, and I think that we may be congratulated that we wound up by not going into the tailspin which has taken place in areas where prices have been allowed to inflate themselves.
I have figures from the bureau of statistics which prove that at the present time, taking the 1926 figure as 100 per cent, farm prices are still, as of the end of 1949, nine points above the prices of whole or partially-manufactured articles. Those who work in manufacturing industries are primarily interested in this matter. These figures would tend to prove that labour's rates are still eight or nine points below farm prices for the same year.
There is, however, one group of farmers who seem to have been entirely forgotten; I refer to the apple growers of central British Columbia. For the 1949 crop they have, up to the present time, received little if any returns. I have already mentioned Creston valley. In that locality a large number of farmers now face what I may describe as near disaster because of the fact that for the apple crop, although it was somewhat larger than normal, markets have dropped off. The apple growers are therefore facing disaster if something is not done to assist them.
To build up a producing orchard takes from six to seven years. The land on which these orchards are planted, and the surrounding land, we might say, costs in the neighbourhood of $1,000 to $2,000 per acre. It is impossible for the tree fruit rancher to have on his farm a subsidiary product on which he can rely if his tree fruits fail. The mixed farmer has something to fall back on if one of his products fails to bring in a return. I think we can confidently say that those who are raising wheat in the central plains have found that, with the improvements in methods, and with the introduction of larger and better machines, they have been able to lower their production costs. With the fruit farmer, however, the situation is different.
Fruit farming does not lend itself to mechanization. Everything must be done by hand. The wage rates that are being paid at the present time, which are correct and proper, necessarily cause an extra amount of expense. The improvement in marketing methods has brought about the necessity for more handling which entails more labour charges at every turn. In the orchard the work goes on for twelve months of the year. If the winter is open, or even in a severe

winter, the fruit rancher is out pruning his orchard. In the spring he must begin spraying early, putting on a coat of spray. If it rains that day, he must return to the orchard and put on another coat. Perhaps throughout the summer almost innumerable sprayings will take place. There is also the matter of hand thinning. The apples must be thinned. Millions and millions of apples in one orchard must be handled by hand, taking them from the bud in order to allow large apples to mature. The picking must certainly be done by hand. So far there is no mechanization in the apple-picking industry. I have seen attempts made, but nothing has been accomplished; because the apple coming from the orchard must be without a blemish. If there is one spot on it, it is culled; and the consumer apparently does not want it. It will therefore be seen that the apple growers' costs are rising.
This year they are in this position; they have invested this money. The apples are in the packing houses, prepared for shipment, but no markets are available. The tree fruit board have attempted, somewhat generously I would say, to do something about a large portion of the surplus that the growers are going to have. We realize that if these apples are left, they will rot and must be dumped. It is different with wheat which may be stored and kept for even hundreds of years, if necessary, but certainly for a year or two until the market has levelled off and the producers are able to sell at prices which will at least pay the cost of production and give them some return. But they are facing this condition. As I under-stand it, the British Columbia tree fruit growers have offered to give a certain amount of their crop to Great Britain. The people of Canada who are doing fairly well economically should not allow this to be done without giving some support to these fruit growers. I would expect the hon. members who represent [DOT] farming constituencies to lend all support to a plea to the federal government to do something to help these tree fruit growers who are in this precarious position at the present time.
With regard to the unemployment situation, it is regrettable that we have some 350,000 unemployed in Canada. There are many factors which contribute to this situation, probably not the least of which is the present :oal shortage arising from the strikes in effect in the United States at the present time. Also the severe winter that we have experienced out west has had something to do with it. Even though the weather has been considerably milder in the east, it is not conducive at the present time to starting Large-scale construction or building. The building of the trans-Canada highway and
The Address-Mr. Byrne the national housing scheme should alleviate the situation. If it does not I am sure there is no hon. member on this side of the house who will go back to his constituency until he is assured that something has been done by the federal government authorities, if necessary, to support some project. If they do not start it themselves I am sure they will see to it that something is started in collaboration with the provincial authorities. We will not go home to our constituencies in the summer until we are sure that the situation has been controlled.


Mr. Maclnnis:: It will be dangerous to go home.


Mr. Fraser:: He will go home when his leader tells him.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Some hon. members have said earlier that there are other countries that have no unemployment. I shall quote the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Her-ridge). I am not picking on the hon. member for Kootenay West, but his speech is one that I recall as having been made quite recently. He said, as reported at page 370 of Hansard:
The latest figures for Great Britain show 329,000 unemployed, a labour force of 23 million and a percentage of 1-4 unemployed. Similar figures for the United States show 4,300,000 jobless, with a labour force of 60 million, and a percentage of unemployed of 7-5. On the basis of 323,000 jobless and a labour force of 5T million, Canada has a percentage of 6-3 unemployed.


Mr. Gibson:: How cold was it in Britain?


An hon. Member:: It was cold after the election.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Getting a lot of cold comfort out of this, too.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: 
Stanley Howard Knowles: What about the United States?


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: In India there is no unemployment; but in that country the scythe has not yet displaced the sickle. In Australia the motorcar is hardly known even amongst what you might call the middle class. The worker does not think of owning an automobile. In China, where the ox pulls the wooden plow which tills the field, there is no unemployment. In Egypt the treadmill lifts the water from the Nile. We could even take Great Britain, where they take the voters to the polls in stage coaches.
I know that some hon. member are becoming bored. They expected me to speak on the question of social security. I wish to say a word on the measures of social security that have been attained in Kimberley. In so doing I may attempt, and I hope hon. members will forgive me, to prove to the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) that while I was an unpaid elected representative of labour I had considerable success in that field. Incidentally the hon. member from time to time makes reference to me as one who claims to be a representative of labour.
I wish to remind the hon. member that while sitting in this house I do not claim to represent any one particular group of people in my constituency. I represent the employees, the farmer, the smaller businessman in retail and service capacity, the employers of labour, the unemployed, the aged and infirm. Certainly it is my bounden duty to be assured that the money collected from these various groups is spent prudently and, above all, to guard against the necessity for any increase in the present heavy burden of taxation. Certainly I do not think we should use it now, as has been requested by certain members


of the opposition, to accept sterling to counteract our unbalance of trade with the United Kingdom.
I do not think we should use anything like three or four hundred millions of dollars to prime an already dry socialist well. I shall not take the time to trace developments in the organization of the union at Kimberley, except to say that through tireless efforts the union has reached the stage where it commands the respect of the community and the company, and at present operates under the best collective bargaining agreement in Canada.
Prior to organization the work week was fifty-six hours, with no consideration for statutory holidays; and, in general, conditions were such as would be found in any unorganized camp-with the exception of the fact that living conditions had necessarily improved because of permanency in employment. I neglected to say earlier that the developed ore body, at the present rate of reduction, will last for another fifty years. That has been known for a long time, and with that in mind employees invested and built their own homes.
The Sullivan mine is the first and only hard-rock mine in Canada working on a forty-hour week basis. By adopting the forty-hour week twenty per cent more people were put on the payroll and given employment. Since that time production has gone up to the extent of 2,000 tons a day because of the new methods of extraction and haulage introduced by the company. Working on the forty-hour week they are producing 2,000 tons more than were being produced before the introduction of the union agreement.
I shall run through quickly some of the other features in this agreement. There is an excellent seniority system. This system gives seniority to veterans returning from the services, regardless of whether they have had previous service with the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company, the operators of this mine. They may return after one to six years of service in the armed forces, enter the employ of the company, and, after ninety days, will be credited with six years' seniority rights.
We have a labour-management committee which works in an advisory capacity, a joint safety committee, which has done excellent work. I am happy to say that the Sullivan mine came very close to winning the award for its safety record in the last year. We have a contract committee, and the miners are working on a contract basis. The contract committee have been able to maintain contract prices at a rate sufficiently high that

some miners last year had earnings which exceeded considerably the indemnity paid to members of parliament.
We have a good arbitration procedure for the settlement of disputes. We receive overtime pay for all work performed in excess of eight hours. We receive pay for statutory holidays when not worked, and double time if worked; two weeks vacation with pay; and we have the check-off of union dues. Last, but not least, we have wage rates ranging from $1.09 plus a shift differential of four and eight cents to $1.53 per hour for safety miners. In addition each employee customarily receives $75 as a Christmas bonus. Also a non-contributory pension plan which, at the present rate of pay for a miner with a lifetime of service, would amount to between $90 and $100 per month.
In connection with sick benefits the Kimberley employees have a sick benefit society. This was not brought into effect entirely by the union, but has been improved upon immensely. To this society we pay $1.50 a month, which amount is matched by the company under a recent bargaining agreement. In this way $1.50 is paid by the employee and $1.50 by the company. The directors have the right to change the figure that will be paid in benefits'. But, at least for the present, I understand that for the first month a member if off sick will receive $4 a day for thirty days, increasing to $5, and for the last one hundred days of the year he will receive $6 a day or $180 a month.
We have a medical set-up. The fee is $3.50, and includes everything-doctor, hospital, specialists' fees, and travelling by railway, T.C.A. or C.P.A. We hire C.P.A. if it is necessary to take an employee to a specialist-and at no additional cost to the member. By agreement the company matches this payment. I have not the time to go into them in detail, but an employee need have no worry as regards medical expenses or hospitalization so long as he is a member of the society. He might be in hospital for some years, but through all that time he would be attended by a doctor and would be given full coverage so long as dues payments were met.


John Lambert Gibson: Free enterprise, is it?


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Certainly. I have omitted many of the details and accomplishments of local 651 of the international union of mine, mill and smelter workers, because of the lack of time at my disposal. Through this entire period of accomplishment I have been closely associated with and a leading officer of that organization. Let me add that these gains have been made entirely as a union bargaining collectively without the blessing of any political party.
The Address-Mr. Jones
Recently in the debate the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) intimated that the union to which I belonged and of which I was an officer-since coming to this house I have resigned that office-has been thrown out of the Canadian Congress of Labour. This is quite true. If the hon. member meant what he said when he pointed out it was for ideological purposes, that was also quite true; the ideological reason being that my union steadfastly refused to become a part of or to join the political machine of the C.C.F. socialist party.


Mr. O. L. Jones (Yale):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the amendment to the amendment particularly because the first clause deals with agricultural markets and suggestions for their recapture. I am going to 'speak also about the fruit industry. I realize that a number of hon. members have already touched on this matter but I make no apology because I represent a riding in which are grown 75 per cent of all the apples grown in British Columbia. I feel also that I have some experience in this regard because at one time I was a fruit grower and have been in close contact with the fruit industry for thirty years. My home town of Kelowna is right in the centre of the fruit growing district.
I should like to deal briefly with the chaotic condition which existed in that industry thirty years ago. At that time there was no organization and the fruit was sold where it could be sold at any price at all. Various firms, unorganized in many cases, would get the fruit on consignment and then proceed to dump it on any market at any price that would give them any profit. Such was the condition in the early days that the fruit growers became so desperate that they organized one of the finest organizations in Canada, the tree fruit board.
At the present time all our fruit is properly handled, packed and graded for shipment all over the world. We are proud of the tree fruit board. We had difficulties to overcome because, taking just one item, we are 4,000 miles farther away from Great Britain than Nova Scotia. In order to overcome this handicap the quality of the product was improved, as well as the quality of the pack. The result is that today the tree fruit board handles roughly $25 million worth of fruit products grown in the interior of British Columbia.
It should be noted that a good deal of our fruit is sold to the United States, which brings United States dollars to Canada. A current review of agricultural conditions in
392	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Jones Canada states that during 1947-48 and 194849 the United States purchased 1,500,000 bushels and 2,150,000 bushels respectively of Canadian apples, and in both years over 90 per cent came from British Columbia. In 1948 the apple crop in the United States was smaller than normal and there was a strong demand from that country. I merely point that out to indicate how the exportation of fruit to the United States has brought several millions of dollars to this dominion.
The people engaged in the growing of fruit are very cosmopolitan. Practically every race on earth is engaged in fruit growing.
I often think that it would be beneficial if the United Nations could come into our valley to see how these people live so happily togeth'er. Even the odd Russian fruit grower gets along quite well with his Japanese and Anglo-Saxon friends. They all have something in common, the welfare of the industry in which they are engaged.
There are from 120,000 to 150,000 people living in our valley which is about 150 miles long and quite narrow in places. I am not going to dwell too much on our climate because I think the press has publicized it sufficiently for the present. While we have had some cold weather, they have also had similar weather in California, so I am offering no apology. However, damage may be quite considerable from frost. It is expected that many of the young trees will have been killed, and considerable damage is expected to have been done to our peach and apricot trees. It is a little early to know the exact damage, but definitely a good deal of damage will be done.
The difficulties faced by these people are numerous. One difficulty is the obtaining of a staple market when you have crop variations. As is known, a tree grows a good crop one year and a poor crop the next, and so on. Scientific efforts have been made to overcome this through controlled deblossoming. We have had to overcome practically every pest known to the orthodox fruit grower, but one of the worst, the coddling moth, has been practically eliminated by the use of D.D.T. and other sprays.
Hail has taken its toll of our crops because that is one thing that cannot be controlled. This year the growers have organized their own insurance company to take care of hail damage. Each grower will be assessed to build up a fund to take care of the odd orchard that is hailed out. Then we also have high winds which sometimes occur when the fruit has matured. If the fruit is not picked in a matter of days, it is lost. Another difficulty is that our crop seasons coincide CMr. Jones.]

with those of Washington and other states. I have tried to outline briefly some of the difficulties with which the fruit growing industry is faced.
In order to overcome some of these difficulties the industry was encouraged by the present government to try to capture the British market. In order to do that they had to grow a different type of apple from the one sold on the Canadian market. The trees had to be pruned in a different way in order to produce the type of apple wanted in the old country. The industry was geared up to produce roughly three to four million boxes of that type of apple. Now that that market has gone it is found that some of the apples being produced are not suitable for the Canadian or United States market.
The normal shipment of that type of apple to Great Britain was from 2,500,000 to 3,500,000 per year. This year all we have sold to Great Britain is 434,000 boxes. Those were purchased by the British food ministry, the Canadian government paying half the cost. We could not market our production this year and at least a million and a half boxes would be wasted. The growers took the bull by the horns and decided they were not going to have that waste. Without waiting for any arrangement to be made by the government or by any other body they decided hastily

the product is perishable and must be taken care of quickly-to send 1,150,000 boxes to Great Britain as a gift. The alternative was waste and, later on, dumping.
In addition we sell 500,000 boxes to the fruit juice processors at anything from $7 to $9 per ton, or an average of $8. Incidentally this price does not cover the cost of production.
The cost of production is made up quite simply. First there is the cost of packing. Most of those apples were already packed and had borne the packing costs. The cost of handling, packing and storing a box of apples runs from 90 cents to $1; and that charge is usually against the apples in storage. The cost of growing apples varies according to the size of the operation, the type of land, the location of land-whether it faces north, south, east or west-and the size and quality of the crop; but roughly speaking the cost varies from 75 cents to $1.25, or an average of $1. I am referring now to bare costs; I am not including any profit or anything else.
This year we had to handle over eight million boxes; and it has been a problem. Naturally the farmers are reluctant to seek assistance from the government. I feel that they are being a little modest, however, because during the war they accepted ceiling

prices on apples, but for which they would have made much greater profits and been able to build up reserves to take care of a situation such as that with which they are faced this year. Then there is the high taxation on fruit land, especially for provincial purposes; irrigation is costly, and there are many other expenses. I realize that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) is fully aware of these conditions; and though we have heard a good deal of criticism of his actiorfs in other matters, I will say that he has given considerable assistance to the fruit growers of the Okanagan valley and British Columbia generally.
One of the greatest things to happen was the culmination of our fight, which extended over a period of thirteen years, for a marketing act. As hon. members know, last year that marketing act was passed and is now in operation. But these things in themselves are not sufficient to overcome the difficulties now facing the growers. We have conditions that are beyond their control, especially the dollar shortage and the loss of the United Kingdom market. I need not go into the history of that, because hon. members know it as well as I do. It is principally because of the loss of this market, and the fact that in order to avoid waste we had to send a gift of 1,150,000 boxes of apples overseas, that I appeal to the government to consider the emergency that has arisen this year.
The government have wisely set aside $200 million placed at the disposal of the board for the support of agricultural prices. That legislation states that it is intended to secure a fair relationship between the returns from agriculture and those from other occupations. I would point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that under no circumstances can the fruit growers, with the present market, having in mind the deficiencies I have mentioned, obtain enough revenue to give them a fair return; so now the time has come when they require this assistance. I know the difficulty, and I fully believe it is temporary. On that basis I am making my appeal.
Any assistance given should be at least to the extent of the cost of production and the cost of handling already incurred by the growers. I have given that figure roughly as $2. I should like also to see the grower given a reasonable profit, to enable him to maintain a decent standard of living. I am not asking this for a bunch of people who are doing nothing to help themselves. The fruit growers have done a great deal. They have increased production; they have improved their grading and packing; they have done everything possible through cold storage to extend their season. They have set aside 55946-26
The Address-Mr. Jones a large sum of money for advertising, and are now working on the theory that the Canadian market itself can be improved. I believe it can. In 1948 the per capita consumption of apples in Canada was 33 pounds. In 1949 it fell to 27 pounds. I believe we can not only recapture lost ground abroad but also improve Canadian consumption, because after all 27 pounds of apples per person per year is not a large quantity. They have also tried to improve the quality of their apples by assistance from the dominion experimental farm at Summerland. This year they are making a grant of $5,000 to that farm for special work on pests and other problems with which they are still faced.
So I believe these producers have done everything possible to retain their export market; but, as I pointed out, matters of international trade and world conditions are definitely beyond their control. Fruit is unlike any other crop. As the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Byrne) pointed out, trees are at their prime for from twelve to thirty years. During that period of productivity many changes may take place; wars, depressions, loss of markets and so on. The fruit grower is stuck; he must carry on. His trees are there, whether he likes it or not, for that period of years; and he must take the ups and downs of our economic system in his stride. The grower must be assisted to carry on, because he becomes either a permanent asset or a permanent liability; and an asset is far better than a liability. In prosperous years he is a heavy taxpayer. He pays high taxes on his land, high income taxes, and high irrigation taxes. He is an employer of labour on a large scale; and he maintains himself and his family on a fairly high standard of living. During the odd year like this he needs help to tide him over until once more he has access to his old markets.
I refer once more to the legislation under which I am making this appeal. It states that the board is to endeavour to insure adequate and stable returns for agricultural products. That statement covers my request. Some $200 million has been set aside annually, and the unexpended portion goes back into the general revenue. They have the power; they have the money; but I believe any action must be taken before the end of this month. I appeal on behalf of the fruit growers because, being three thousand miles away, they may not have the opportunity to come before the house, at least not en masse. So I ask that assistance be given at least to the extent of the cost of production.
I should like to deal with one other matter in behalf of the municipalities of British Columbia. I do so because I was surprised
3S4

The Address-Mr. Jones and alarmed to hear the statement from the other side of the house within the last day or two that the municipalities will be expected to bear a greater share of the cost of unemployment relief. When you say a municipality must bear a greater share of the cost of relief it means that land taxes within that area must be made even higher in order to carry the additional burden. Any further tax on the land within the municipalities of this dominion, particularly in my province, would just about break them. If a depression came along, as it well might, we would see acres of land revert to the municipalities for non-payment of taxes. The growers, to whom I have just referred, would also find themselves in the same unfortunate situation they experienced in the thirties, when they could not raise enough money on their land to pay their taxes.
If this situation arose, there would be insufficient funds to keep any municipality functioning properly. When this situation arose before, it forced many municipalities into the hands of the receiver. I am going to suggest one or two logical methods by which the government could help. One of these methods concerns dominion properties located in municipalities. Last year a bill was passed granting token payments to certain municipalities, on the basis of the amount of dominion property located within that municipality. By and large, this method does not bring any revenue to the smaller towns of our province, because few of them qualify. I believe the government has a responsibility in this regard. Usually a government building, whether it is a post office or a customs building, occupies one of the choicest spots in the municipality, and one which would pay the highest taxes if it were taxable. I know the argument is that the post office renders a service and, therefore, should not be called upon to pay taxes. Liquor stores also render a service, but they are taxable. Revenue producing offices, such as the post office and customs offices, are in a position to at least pay the service charges to the city for road and sidewalk maintenance, police and fire protection; all the services rendered by a city to its inhabitants.
The other method by which the government could help would be by contributing towards the cost of education. In my province, and I assume the same is true of all provinces, the cost of education is increasing rapidly. In many municipalities it now represents 50 per cent of the levied taxes, not only in municipalities but in unorganized territories as well. Building costs and teachers' salaries are both up. I do not believe education should be curbed for lack of money, because through

it we are building citizens for the future. I believe, therefore, that the dominion should enter the field, and the cost of education should be borne by other means than a tax on land. The method of the grant can be controversial, but I am not suggesting any particular method. I merely suggest that such a grant must be made to give some relief to the land taxpayers of our province. A good education naturally makes good Canadians. I believe that any grant the government cares to make should be earmarked for the use of the municipality, or for the reduction of taxes now levied on land.
I have had a great deal to do with this particular question because, like the member for New Westminster, I was in municipal politics before I entered this sphere of activity. I was the mayor of my town for four years, and an alderman for ten years. I was elected with the New Westminster hon. member to the executive of the union of B.C. municipalities, and I was president of that organization for a term. I happened to be chairman of the committee which prepared projects to take care of post-war unemployment. We did that work on the assumption that federal aid would be given to us to carry out those projects. Every municipality in our province co-operated, and we had a fine list of necessary public works ready on the shelf, in case this present situation in Vancouver arose. Without federal aid for our schemes, however, we are absolutely lost. We cannot carry them out. Many of those schemes have now become a must. Practically all of them were self-liquidating projects. For that reason, I am asking the government to again open access to cheap money under the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act, under which money was available at two per cent. I have several requests from municipalities desiring to borrow money under that act, notably Armstrong and En-derby, where the waterworks need renewing. These municipalities hesitate to borrow on the open market at a high rate of interest, but they could handle the low-interest loans available under that act, because they are extended over a reasonable period and are generally self-liquidating.
Another way by which the government could assist the municipalities would be to become realistic about the hospital grant. I realize that, according to the act, the hospital grant was given on the basis of one-third of the total cost, but was not to exceed $1,000 per bed. The cost of building hospitals, however, today is between $6,000 and $7,500 per bed. As a matter of fact a projected modem hospital in Vancouver, it is estimated, will cost $10,500 per bed. I am going to suggest

to the minister that he should at least consider doubling this sum of money to make it more nearly comparable to the higher cost of building today. If one refers to the estimates of last year and the public accounts of this year, one finds that the province of British Columbia estimated it would use $13 million for hospital construction. Actually, only $2,223,000 was used. The reason the province used only 17 per cent of that money is fairly obvious. After the small grant from the dominion government, plus an equal amount from the provincial government, the balance was so great that the hospital boards and municipalities could not handle it. We need the extensions to our hospitals, because of the growth of our population. The institution of the health act in the province of British Columbia has also brought more customers, so to speak, to our hospitals. Every hospital in our province is filled to capacity, and many of them have patients in the corridors awaiting a room. Sometimes patients who are in the hospital for a serious illness are rushed out in order to make room for the next patient.
In conclusion, I might point out to the government that the health and education of our people is a national obligation. I say it is national because I do not believe small units give the best results. I do not believe health should be administered by a small town, in which a part-time doctor is responsible for the health and welfare of the people. It should be put on a broader basis than that. Education should not be carried on as it is today, with one teacher being responsible for four or five different grades. Generally, small units are not very efficient, and it is for that reason the dominion government should enter the field to bring order out of a certain amount of chaos. We need more hospitals; we need more clinics; we need more schools; and only the government can give them. Only this government can afford to be generous. I feel that this government can afford to be particularly generous with the province of British Columbia because a few years ago it made a splendid deal in connection with the tax agreement. In 1948-49, under these agreements, the dominion government collected $148,563,000 in our province, and in return paid $21,960,000.
The income tax is a fair tax. It is based on ability to pay. Evidently my province has the ability to pay approximately $150 million. But I do feel that, in order to keep that province supplied with schools, hospitals and clinics, a bigger proportion of that money should be returned, either by a new agreement or by a more generous grant to the municipalities, in order to meet the increased cost of hospitalization and education.
55946-26 J
The Address-Mr. Arsenault (Translation):


Mr. Bona Arsenault (Bonaventure):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to avail myself of my privilege to speak in this debate in order to urge the government of my country to grant Count Jacques de Bernonville asylum and the right to remain permanently in Canada.
Convinced of his innocence and of his respectability, I believe it my duty, notwithstanding the difficulties which my attitude may bring upon me, to rise in this house in order to plead for a French citizen who is being persecuted by his political enemies, by French communist organizations and here, in this country, by notorious communist sympathizers.
A shameful campaign of lies and false accusations has been launched, without any proof whatsoever, against this man. I shall endeavour to remove, on the strength of the evidence which I shall produce, the prejudices of which he has been the victim, and to rehabilitate him in the mind of certain hon. members of this house and in the opinion of the public.
Who is this man who for almost four years has been hounded by French communists and Canadian communist sympathizers?
Since the age of 17 and during two world wars, Count Jacques Duge de Bernonville has served his country and the allies.
During the war of 1914-1918 he fought in the French army and won promotions and decorations for gallantry and feats of arms.
He was promoted to officer of the Legion of Honour-the youngest soldier so decorated-he was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1918 and 1940, mentioned eight times in dispatches, wounded five times; he bears the scars of thirty bullet or shrapnel wounds.
In the interval between both world wars, he held honourable and important posts in industry and business. At the outbreak of hostilities, in 1939, he was appointed commanding officer of a mountain rifle battalion. He fought in the French army and was mentioned once more in dispatches for gallantry. After the armistice, he remained in the French army until demobilization. Arrested by the Germans, he was freed by the advancing allies.
His record of service is such that no one can teach him anything when it comes to patriotism.

The Address-Mr. Arsenault In June, 1944, Jacques de Bernonville was appointed, by order of the government of Marshal Petain, commanding officer of the forces in charge of maintaining order in the military district of Lyons, France.
The following letters are forceful evidence of his record of service during the time he held that post, from June to August, 1944.
Dr. Pierre Bertrand, professor at the Faculty of Medicine, hospital surgeon and mayor of the city of Lyons in 1944, during Herriot's internment, certified as follows on the 22nd of August, 1944:
I met Major Jacques de Bernonville during his stay in Lyons from June, 1944, to the end of August, 1944. He was commanding officer of uniformed troops detailed to maintain order, that is the Mobile Guard, the police and the mobile reserve groups. He was never in charge of militia.
Major de Bernonville's reputation as a fearless and blameless officer preceded him in Lyons. It is with courage and unselfishness that he served, not political ends but his country. During those three months, he performed a difficult task and never issued an order that could have resulted in an attack upon the life of a compatriot or ally or upon the private property of anyone.
Major de Bernonville is entitled to my esteem and to my respect.
(Signed) Pierre Bertrand, Former Mayor of the City of Lyons
(1944)
The following declaration was made at Cap d'Ail on August 27, 1949:
I, the undersigned, Abbe Victor Bouillon, do. on my honour, declare that Major Jacques de Bernonville, to my knowledge, has always behaved as a leader, a good Christian and a gentleman. Far from attacking French citizens or allied soldiers or from interfering with property, he has, during the troubled times from 1940 to 1944, by his courageous attitude towards the Germans and, with the help of the troops which he commanded, ensured the supply of food, protected the people and maintained order, and thus facilitated the task of the allies who, in their advance, found a maximum of order.
I certify that I have myself seen Major de Bernonville at work in 1940, at Cap d'Ail, where he was my faithful and unanimously respected parishioner, and in 1944, at Lyons, where he commanded the troops of the Ministry of Public Order and where I had the honour of being his guest on two occasions. The first time was the 31st of July, on the occasion of a sermon which he had asked me to give during a mass organized by him, with the consent of His Eminence Cardinal Gerlier, for all the forces detailed to maintain order and which took place the next day, July 22, in St. Bonaventure church. The second time was three weeks later, on the 14th of August, when, passing through Lyons I had supper and spent the night at his home.
On the 15th, he personally served my mass and together with several of his officers received Holy Communion. Everything I have known or heard about him at that time, the universal respect in which he was held-his officers and men worshipped him-even the atmosphere of his home, force me to state that I believe that he filled a difficult

mission with a self-denial, a devotion to duty and a perfect honesty which would, in normal circumstances have brought him the gratitude of the nation instead of the persecution he now suffers.
In witness thereof, I freely certify the above and, in order to re-establish the truth, without any intention of interfering in a case which comes under the jurisdiction of the Canadian government, I declare, as a priest and as a Frenchman, that Canada would have everything to gain in allowing a man like Major de Bernonville. a great fighter, a true Christian and patriot, to settle among people who are known for their generosity and their chivalry.
(Signed) Father V. Bouillon,
Doctor in Theology,
Laureate of the French Academy, Former parish priest at Cap d'Ail, Missionary in the diocese of Nice.
Here is a further declaration, by an officer of the Legion of Honour:
I, the undersigned, Colonel Groussard, certify that I met Mr. Jacques de Bernonville during the year 1940. Monsieur de Bernonville struck me as being an absolutely straightforward and honest person, incapable of meanness, and I am sure that he never, in any way, went counter to his principles as a good Christian.
Paris, October 30, 1948 (Signed) G. Groussard
Officer of the Legion of Honour
Croix de Guerre

The Address-Mr. Arsenault
Mr. Speaker, as regards the nature of these purgation courts, I wish furthermore to refer to an article which just appeared in the January 13th, 1950 issue of France Catholique from which I quote the following paragraph:
We all know nowadays that there is no justice but instead a reign of terror organized by one party.
The article, signed by J. de Fabregues, adds:
This travesty of justice has dealt harshly "with anything that might have stopped the communist party's tactics aimed at national disintegration".
I also wish to bring to the attention of hon. members of the house an article which appeared on January 7th last in the London, England, publication The Tablet. Signed by Frank MacMillan, it bears the title "After the French Purges". From it, I quote the following paragraph:
Moreover, as many of the leading members of the (French) government which had authorized the trial of Marshal Petain had themselves voted him into power in the most strictly constitutional manner in 1940, the shuffling-off of responsibility was too blatant. If eminent statesmen like M. Lebrun, the former president of the republic, M. Vincent Auriol, M. Blum, M. Reynaud, M. Dela-dier, M. Herriot, and others, had voted Marshal Petain into power in 1940 and recognized the authority of his administration for four years, and had recommended it to the country, how could ordinary citizens be later tried for obeying the legal orders of the government?
In fact, eminent French jurists have fully shown that these so-called courts of "justice" were illegal and, consequently, that the sentences imposed by them were null and void.
Further, Jacques de Bernonville had never taken up residence and never filled any public office in Toulouse where he has, in any case, never set foot. It is nevertheless by a court sitting in Toulouse that he was judged and condemned in absentia.
These facts supply us, therefore, with formal evidence that Count Jacques de Bernonville is a political refugee. It is in this capacity of political refugee that he asks the favour of being definitely admitted to Canada and of living here in peace among people whose ideals and traditions are exactly like his own.
This favour has already been granted in many cases, both to political refugees and to foreigners who arrived in Canada without a visa. I now ask the same favour of the government of my country on behalf of a Frenchman, Count Jacques de Bernonville.
It has been alleged by some newspapers and even by high officials that de Bernonville


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.
Mr. Howard C. Green (Vancouver-Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne is of great value in one particular respect. Coming at the beginning of the session, it enables hon. members to explain the thoughts and hopes of the people they represent much better than can be done as the session runs on. While the period between the last session of this house and the present session was very short, we did have an opportunity to meet our constituents. That was so even in Vancouver, in spite of the deep snow about which I have heard so much from eastern members since my return. By way of standing up for my own city may I remind Your Honour and hon. members that today the people of Vancouver will be looking at their snowdrops and crocuses while back here it is fifteen below zero, with a north wind. So the west coast is still the banana belt of Canada.
During that intervening period there have been many far-reaching developments. For example, we have had the disclosure, with


all it implies to the future of mankind, that hydrogen bombs can be made. We have seen the continuation of the spread of communism in Asia. Many disturbing things have happened, and I believe our people are deeply worried over the situation throughout the world. There has been a great deal of disillusionment in the minds of all thinking people; and that is easily understood. This is a time of great uncertainty for thinking Canadians; and that being so a strong lead from parliament would be most helpful.
This evening I have four suggestions to offer as to what parliament could do at this session to give a lead to the Canadian people. The first is that we keep Canada standing firmly with the other peoples of the world who want peace, yet who are unafraid and are prepared to beat down any aggression. This brings to mind those young Canadians serving in our forces, both active and reserve. I believe we have a splendid group of young men serving Canada. They must be enabled to maintain efficiency and, perhaps even more important, must be made to feel that their efforts are appreciated by their fellow Canadians.
Hon. members will recall that within the last few days some of those young men have been taking part in a military exercise known as Exercise Sweetbriar. It is significant that the area in which that operation was held was the Yukon and Alaska. We must be realistic about the situation today. The shortest and easiest route to the arsenals of democracy and in fact to the heart of democracy is across Bering strait to Alaska, into northern Canada and so on to the United States. The Soviet now has standing with her the communist regime in China, a nation of over four hundred million people. I hope there will be no trouble, but Russia plus China adds up to Canada being probably in greater danger under present conditions than any other democratic nation in the world.
If serious trouble should come in the Pacific area it will probably be in the north rather than the south Pacific. So I warn this parliament that it behooves Canada to take the lead in bringing the nations of the Pacific together, rather than assuming the role of an observer in Pacific affairs. I was disturbed by the attitude displayed by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) in his address the other day. Mind you, it was gratifying to have him emphasize the importance of the Pacific area; but in reporting on the conference so recently held at Colombo he seemed to take the attitude that Canada was just sitting in. For example, he used this expression: "Canada was a dollar

country at a sterling party." I know that in using those words he was referring particularly to currency problems, but that indicated his attitude. Again he said, "Canada was a persistent dollar gadfly." Then with respect to the commonwealth consultative committee, the formation of which was recommended by that conference, he made no statement as to whether or not Canada would join; in fact he said it would be of meagre value unless the United States also joined. I was reminded of the attitude taken a year or two ago when we had to have our ambassador at Washington assure the state department there that at a conference to be held at Canberra nothing would be decided. In effect the minister damned with faint praise this suggestion of a commonwealth consultative committee; and that attitude is not in line with the menace to Canada in the Pacific area. I hope that when the minister speaks tomorrow he will tell us that Canada has decided to join that committee, and I further hope he will say that the Canadian government has decided to advocate a Pacific pact just as there is a North Atlantic pact.
I believe we would have support for such a proposal. I have here a dispatch from Bangkok, Thailand, dated February 15 and headed, "U.S. diplomats want Pacific alliance." There is a great demand for a Pacific pact; and under present conditions Canada's position is so dangerous that she should take the lead in advocating such a pact. At the present time we are in the ridiculous position that of all the nations of the commonwealth only Great Britain and Canada are in the North Atlantic pact. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa cannot join.
My second suggestion as to what this parliament could do by way of giving a lead to the Canadian people at this time is that we could enact legislation at this session to raise the standard of living of those Canadians who are in want. That is extremely important when we are faced with the menace of communism. Our failure to take steps of this kind is our Achilles heel when we are attacked by Canadian communists within our own country.
Let me give you some examples of what we could do. First of all, today no one accepts any responsibility for the employable unemployed, unless they are qualified for unemployment insurance. There are many thousands who cannot qualify for that insurance. The belief is held across the country that the care of these men and women is the responsibility of the dominion government. This government should say what responsibility it will accept for those people who are having such a difficult time. I am afraid the government is evading that ques-
The Address-Mr. Green tion. I hope a statement will be made during this session as to just what responsibility Ottawa will accept.
Another example would be the raising of the ceiling on permissible income under the Old Age Pensions Act, to correspond with the increase in pension which was provided about a year ago. Because that was not done, at least a quarter of the old age pensioners in Canada did not get the full benefit of that increase. I believe the figure is approximately 63,000 senior citizens of Canada. This means that we penalized thrift, because those people who did not get the full benefit of the increase were the people who had some small income.
I suggest further that we should, at this session, establish a system of contributory pensions and abolish the means test. The vast majority of Canadians are willing to pay towards a contributory pension scheme. They have no other way of saving enough to retire when they reach an advanced age. I venture to say that few of the members of this house have any other way of providing for their old age, taxation and the cost of living being so high today. By and large, the Canadian people are in that position. We should no longer delay in making it possible for them to protect themselves under a contributory pension scheme.
Then, too, I believe there are few Canadians who do not wish to have the means test abolished. They resent the humiliation of that means test. It is un-Canadian, and it should go. It is going to go; it is just a matter of time before it is a thing of the past. It is delaying adequate industrial pensions in Canada. I believe most of the members of this house, when they stood for election, promised the electors that they would abolish the means test. Yet, in the second session of this parliament, it is quite obvious there is no intention of removing that means test. All we are to get is a committee, which is to review the whole question and then report at the end of the session. You know, Mr. Speaker, I know, and everybody in the house knows, that is merely a delaying action.
Another group who are in want, and who should be helped at this session, are the older veterans of Canada, the men who served this nation on the battlefields of France and Belgium. In the speech from the throne, there is a statement that the war veterans' allowance is to be made payable to those veterans who served in the allied forces. The government is to be congratulated on taking that step, even though it only comes after some of us have been advocating it for 15 years. I hope the legislation will be wide

The Address-Mr. Green enough to cover the men who served in the South African war, as well as those who served in the first great war.
Other amendments to the War Veterans Allowance Act are urgently required. I believe the war veterans' allowance should be increased to equal the old age pension. In British Columbia the old age pensioner draws $50 per month and his wife draws $50 per month, making a total of $100. In addition, both man and wife get free hospitalization, dental care and other benefits. On the other hand, the recipient of the war veterans' allowance, the man who served this country in the trenches, receives only about $40 if single, and about $70 if married. He may get hospitalization, but his wife does not. As a matter of fact, under the provincial hospitalization scheme, the veteran is compelled to pay a certain amount to the provincial government to cover his wife's hospitalization. It can only come out of his small veterans' allowance. I know of one case where a man who served in the German forces during the first great war came out here and settled, and he and his wife are now drawing an old age pension of $100. The Canadian veteran who served against him can only get approximately $70. That is a ridiculous situation, and it should be remedied at this session.
Furthermore, the time has come to decentralize the administration of the War Veterans Allowance Act. First-class administrators are now available in the districts, as well as adequate staffs. They are in close contact with the veteran, and able to deal with his case without delay. The war veterans' allowance board in Ottawa are out of touch with the veteran. Mind you, this board have done a great deal of good work, but they simply cannot appreciate the position of the veteran in the same way as the men who are out there living with him. There are long delays. I believe it sometimes takes as long to get a decision from the board in Ottawa as it took to investigate the case out in the province. Furthermore, if there are overpayments, it means delay in getting the matter adjusted. The first thing the veteran knows, he receives a letter telling him he has to pay back a large sum of money. I believe if these applications for war veterans' allowance were dealt with locally, with an appeal to the board in Ottawa, there would be far more satisfaction and far more fairness, as well as quicker action in dealing with these cases. Remember, when a man needs the war veterans' allowance, he needs jt in a hurry. He is not in a position to wait for a long time for a decision from Ottawa.
I intended to say something about the men in the merchant navy, but the members of the

house know my position on that question quite well. They should be getting far better treatment than they have received. I hope something will be done for them at this session.
Also, I endorse the appeals made by so many members of the house in this debate, that a special committee on veterans affairs should be set up at this session, the second session of this parliament; and there has been no such committee yet. There are many new members in this parliament. They should be given the opportunity of becoming acquainted with veterans legislation; and the rest of us should be given the benefit of their views as to what should be done to improve that legislation.
My third suggestion has to do with improving the efficiency of the government, and I am looking right at the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier). In these days of threats of war and mounting unemployment, with the cost of living at an all-time high and with taxation still at wartime levels, the Canadian people become exasperated when they learn that the government is not observing businesslike precautions in awarding contracts, and is awarding those contracts to favourites. This has happened recently in Vancouver with regard to at least three public buildings, namely the Alvin building, the Begg building and the Catelli building.
There was some discussion about two of those buildings on the last day of the last session. If hon. members wish to refer to that discussion they will find it at page 3112 of Hansard of 1949. After the session ended the Minister of Public Works was good enough to send me the documents which I had requested when asking him questions on that last day.
Let us take the first one, the Alvin building. On April 6, 1948, an order in council was passed authorizing the Minister of Public Works to enter into a lease of a building to be constructed. I have here the order in council. It set out that there was a shortage of office accommodation in Vancouver and that was true, but there were buildings which could have been purchased, I believe. The order in council reads:
An offer has been obtained, however, from the Alvin Estates Limited to construct a fireproof building on their property-
I direct attention to those words "on their property".
__and to rent it to the crown on the following terms
and conditions.
It was to be a four-storey and basement fireproof building and the rental was to be $96,000 a year, which is quite a substantial

rental. The period of the lease was to be ten years from the date of occupation, and the government was to get an option to purchase the property at $554,000 at any time within the first twelve months of occupation.
You will note, Mr. Speaker, that the order in council sets out that the lease is to be from Alvin Estates Limited. No tenders at all were called. There was no competition. The company was not in existence at the time, I believe; it was incorporated a week or so later, on April 14, 1948. At all material times there have been three shareholders, and the same persons have been directors. There may have been the odd qualifying director, but substantially there were three shareholders and three directors. Two of them, Messrs. Allan and Viner, of the contracting firm of Allan and Viner Construction Company Limited, and the third, Mr. Braidwood, solicitor, all three close to the government. They apparently found out that there was a chance to do business with the government. The Minister of Public Works, in his answers to be found at page 3112 of last year's Hansard, told me that in March of 1948-and that is the month before the order in council-Alvin Estates Limited offered to construct a four-storey building. As I say, the company apparently was not incorporated until after the order in council was passed. It did not acquire the property until June 11, 1948, when such property was obtained from those same three men for $45,000. One-third of the property had been held for a couple of years by one of the men and the other two-thirds had been acquired by the others in May, 1948, for $7,000 each. That is, those two men apparently paid $14,000.
Then on July 20, 1948, another order in council was passed. This means that it is not a matter for the Minister of Public Works only. Each step was taken by the cabinet. I have here the order in council for July 20, 1948. It sets out that there shall be three more storeys put on the building and the figures go up to a yearly rental of $146,940, with a purchase price of $862,155. The order in council also sets out that there had been a parliamentary vote, number 828, for $800,000 for purchase, alterations and extensions from Alvin Estates Limited. Here again no tenders were called and there was no competition. I think it is reasonable to assume that these three men were able to finance their construction largely on the basis of the fact that they had a government lease. Debentures were issued. Although I cannot verify this, I am told that most of those debentures were held by the three men, doubtless being put up with the bank or some other lending institution as security for their financing.
The Address

Mr. Green
Then we have another order in council of February 8, 1949-and this is the third one- dealing with equipment and fixtures for the building; this is apparently for permanent fixtures. The figures now go up by $200,950, until the annual rental mentioned in this order in council is $183,995; and mind you, this is for a ten-year lease which means getting as rent over $1,800,000 and having the building after that. The total purchase price, if the option is exercised, has now gone up to $1,063,105. The order in council sets out that it is the intention to exercise the option to purchase the building within the time specified, and goes on to say that the rental is so high that the option should be exercised quickly. This was over a year ago. The copy I have shows that the monthly rental is $13,332.90 but I think that is a mistake and the figure should be $15,332.90. The order in council, in its last paragraph, gives authority to go ahead and complete the purchase.
When I questioned the Minister of Public Works in December he said that his department was going to exercise the option and buy the building. Then there was a good deal of publicity in Vancouver, and I understand the option has not yet been exercised. The government is still paying this rent of $15,332.90 a month and apparently only a few days remain within which the government can exercise the option. I am told the date is March 16.
I would point out, Mr. Speaker, that this business was handed out by the government to favourites. No tenders were called. No attempt was made to call tenders. The city assessment of the property is $508,725. The building permit for which application was made was about $451,000 although I believe that was meant to cover only the original arrangement. The contractors did not bother to take out any further building permits. If this deal is carried through the total cost to the country will be $1,063,105, plus whatever rental has been paid, which I think will amount to between $100,000 and $200,000 additional.
In Vancouver this deal is the talk of the town. It is considered fantastic by the man in the street, by responsible construction men, by real estate men and by the workmen who worked on the building. The Vancouver Sun, which is an ardent supporter of this government-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Howard Charles Green: Hon. members are glad enough to get their support at election time, and certainly get it. The Vancouver Sun has taken a fighting lead on this question,

The Address-Mr. Green demanding that it be cleaned up, and quite rightly so. They have demanded that the building be expropriated.
I say to the minister and to the government that we look to the government, and we look to our own British Columbia minister, the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Mayhew), to see that this mess is cleaned up, and cleaned up quickly.
The second building, the Begg building, was authorized to be purchased by order in council on April 20, 1948, for $375,000. It was an automobile sales building, and that price was plenty. On January 7, 1949, a contract for extension was let to Allan and Viner Construction Company, Limited. All this took place at the time they were building the Alvin building. The contract was for $850,000. There was no competition; there were no tenders. The contract says they are to get a fee of $25,000. I believe it is the custom on the coast also to have sub-trades allow a certain commission, in some instances as high as 10 per cent. On August 24, 1949, the cabinet increased that figure by $200,000 to $1,050,000. On that increase of $200,000 the firm is allowed an additional 3 per cent. Since then I believe it has gone up another $375,000, so that the repairs and improvements to that building are costing $1,425,000, making with the original purchase price a total of $1,850,000, and I believe the work is not yet completed. It was not completed when I left Vancouver.
The third building is the Catelli building. The contract to change over that building was given to the same firm during the same period without any tenders, without any competition, at a figure of $67,197. That makes a total over $2,500,000, without any tenders, given to the same group. The government has no right to use public funds in this way. The government has no right to allow anyone to have the inside track. Therefore I suggest that at this session parliament could and should act to improve the efficiency of government in Canada.
My fourth suggestion as to what this parliament could do by way of giving a lead to the Canadian people is that it could enact legislation to ensure that Canadians are enabled to carry on with the building of a great nation by providing that our Canadian resources will be used in Canada to the maximum extent possible rather than being sold out to the United States. That is particularly important now with our promising discoveries of oil, natural gas, iron and uranium. These resources can be the pillars upon which we build a great nation. They are essential for greatness in the second half of the twentieth century. Canada needs a national oil and gas policy. We also need a


national iron and steel policy both designed to give the Canadian people the utmost benefit from these resources. Without such a policy much of the benefit will go to the people of the United States. By and large they are the people who are putting up the money for these developments and naturally enough if the Canadian government, if the Canadian parliament, does not adopt a national policy the people of the United States will get just as large a proportion of these natural resources as they possibly can.
I believe-and I am glad the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) got back today, and is here-that the government's policy is to sell as large quantities as possible of these raw natural resources to the United States, namely, oil, gas and iron. We know that the government is sending our oil down to Superior, Wisconsin. With regard to natural gas, last year we had the Minister of Trade and Commerce and the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) battling to force through a bill for a company that was going to pipe natural gas down into the states of Washington and Oregon before it got to British Columbia. With iron, members might just wait and see if the policy will not be the same; get it down to Massachusetts, get it down to Cleveland; sell it in the raw state and get the money for it, and do not worry so much about using it here in Canada to the largest extent possible, to build up this nation. Sending these commodities to the United States in that way means jobs in the United States. It means that your son and mine will probably have to migrate to the United States to get work. In the next fifty years it may mean Canada becoming a satellite of the United States rather than, a great nation in her own right.
In respect of these discoveries, these great resources, we are trustees for the Canadians of the future. What this parliament does about them in the next four or five years may well be the deciding factor in Canada's rate of progress in the remainder of this century.
These are my four suggestions, Mr. Speaker. In conclusion may I say I believe that each of these suggestions meets with the hearty approval of the citizens of Vancouver-Quadra, whom I have the honour to represent in this house, regardless of their political allegiance; and I place these suggestions before the government and more particularly before the private members of the house. I have more confidence in them than I have in the members of the cabinet. I place these suggestions before the house for that serious and earnest consideration which I believe is characteristic of the members of this present parliament.

Hon. Alphonse Fournier (Minister of Public
Works): Mr. Speaker, may I follow tradition and offer, at this stage of my remarks, sincere congratulations to the mover (Mr. Larson) and the seconder (Mr. Dumas) of the address in reply. Both these new members did credit to themselves and to their constituents in the way they delivered their messages to the house and country. I hope in the years to come they will continue to sit in parliament.
I have not had many occasions to congratulate those who have spoken on the address. I have not spoken in this debate myself since 1942, and I needed one special invitation to decide whether or not I should speak on this occasion. Generally I attend to the work of my department and the work of the house, doing my utmost to please everyone.
In the seven years and five months I have been head of the Department of Public Works, this is the second occasion upon which I have been taken to task for some of the doings in the department. One of those instances-and that goes back to wartime- was when I was kept on my feet for some hours during the passing of my estimates in connection with the blowing up of Ripple Rock.


Howard Charles Green: And it has not been blown up yet.


Mr. Fournier (Hull):: That, too, was from British Columbia. This is the second time criticism has been levelled at my department, and it still comes from British Columbia. In 1947, travelling through British Columbia, I had to go over Ripple Rock. When first I awakened in the morning there was an editorial appearing in one of the papers there stating, "Sleep well, Mr. Fournier." I did sleep well. The rock is still there; a million dollars was spent to try to take that rock away from British Columbia, but without success. I went to the United States to obtain the best engineering views, but we did not succeed.
I am taken to task tonight by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green). I could see, as soon as he came in from Vancouver, that something was not the same about him. He was not smiling as much as usual. He did not cross the floor to come and shake hands with me, as an old colleague of fifteen years. I was asking myself: "What is the trouble with him? I should help him to sleep well and to digest well." Well, this afternoon, around 3.30, I received a very courteous note from the hon. member telling me he was going to show us how to run the Department of Public Works.
The Address-Hon. A. Fournier


Howard Charles Green: No, I said I was going to point out some of your mistakes.


Alphonse Fournier: Well, you could extend that, and try to run it; and if ever you become minister of public works I hope you do as good a job as I am trying to do.
At all events I appreciated the note. It was a mark of courtesy. I crossed over the floor and said to him, "What is the trouble? Are you violent or mild, or are you rabid?" He said, "No, I will be very mild." I said, "I am glad of that, because after dinner I like to be mild myself." So, during the course of this little speech I shall try to be as mild as I usually am.
The hon. member spoke for forty-two minutes. For eighteen minutes of that time he referred to external affairs, employable unemployed, and unemployment. He spoke about old age pensions, veterans affairs and men in the merchant navy. Then we had reached 8.20 o'clock, and it seemed that he then thought he would show us how to have a government department run efficiently. He spent eighteen minutes doing that. He told us there were three things he wanted to prove to the House of Commons, which were not correct. But he got winded and went back to gas. He then spoke about gas lines, the export of power and so on.
Well, I had heard for the last two or three months that one newspaper in the country was speaking about public works activities in one city in Canada. One newspaper out of I do not know how many daily newspapers, and I do not know how many weekly newspapers, undertook to have on its front page sometimes my photograph and sometimes the photograph of the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra, and to state what had transpired on December 10, during the last session of parliament.
, I did look into that. Indeed, I was so polite that I invited several members of their staff to come to my office. I took out the files and showed those files to them. Then I said, "Now, young man, if you were sitting here, what would you think of those deals?" I am not going to give you the answer, because it was made off the record; but I was elated to see that the man had judgment.
Then, going back to their home paper, they did print certain things that I had told these people-but the comments they made! They were out of all proportion to what was being discussed in those three deals.
On the last day of the last session, two hours before prorogation, my hon. friend was about the only one who did discuss my estimates. I should think that is quite a good average, when out of 262 members only one
406	HOUSE OF
The Address-Hon. A. Fournier of them could criticize the Department of Public Works. I should think that is an average of about 97-5 per cent.


Howard Charles Green: You kept your estimates until the last day.


Alphonse Fournier: Oh, I am making a mistake; that would be 97-5 per cent of the members of the opposition. And if we take the whole membership of the house it would be about 99-2 per cent. So I was quite satisfied when the session prorogued that I had not been doing too badly. And I am going to tell you why I was not doing badly. After this cross-examination-


Howard Charles Green: I warned you about it the night before, did I not?


Alphonse Fournier: I beg your pardon?


Howard Charles Green: I warned you I was going to ask questions.


Alphonse Fournier: Yes, and you told me other things.


Howard Charles Green: But I-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Alphonse Fournier: No, he is quite in order-because we are such good friends that [DOT] after this speech is over we will be congratulating ourselves on how well we have spoken. If he has any questions or interruptions, let him go right ahead.
If hon. members will turn to Hansard for December 10 at page 3112 they will find this:


Howard Charles Green: I should like to ask the minister
about two buildings, one of which is known as the Alvin estates building and the other as the Begg building, both in Vancouver-
And then he spoke about the site for the new post office building in Vancouver. He put a number of questions as to who were Allan and Viner, and what was the cost. We were discussing an item of $1,100,000 which was in the estimates for the special purpose of purchasing the Alvin estates building. It is on this item that this discussion took place.
I shall not read the whole of what was said at the time, but if I could just give a resume of what struck me at the time, I found out that my hon. friend from Vancouver-Quadra did not like some gentlemen by the names of Allan and Viner living in Vancouver.


Howard Charles Green: I do ndt dislike them at all.


Alphonse Fournier: Well, I do not know; the way you spoke, it was far from being favourable to these people. The hon. member said this:
I hope that no more deals of this kind will be put through by the department, and that they will stop handing all these contracts to Allan and Viner.


Now, if the hon. member did like the people perhaps he would encourage me to give them contracts. But here the hon. member was not doing that. He was trying to tell me that these gentlemen were friendly to the government, and that they were getting work from the Department of Public Works. I will tell you one thing: I had enough trouble to get a place in your fair city, Mr. Member from Vancouver-Quadra; but if I had to start over again I do not know that I would undertake the task. The hon. member mentioned the Vancouver block in his little speech. That building had been built for forty years in 1945. It was quite an old building and I can give the house a description of it if needed. That building was offered to the department for $1,500,000. I had a report on the cost of renovating the building so that government employees would have some comfort and the figure given was nearly $1 million. That would have meant an outlay of $2,500,000 and the building is not as good as the Alvin building.


Howard Charles Green: But it is right in the centre of the city.


Alphonse Fournier: The hon. member is speaking of the site now, not of the building. I am not going to speak of external affairs or any other matter tonight; I am going to refer only to these three questions. I believe the hon. member has spoken in good faith but I am going to try to prove that I was right in following advice. The Public Works Act states that I must follow the advice of these people and I did. That will be my defence in connection with these three deals.
It was said that this was giving things to friends of the government. I do not think my officials know these people, and I certainly do not know them. I have never met them nor seen them. You cannot expect the Minister of Public Works to go all over the country meeting contractors and deciding whether they will be given work. I am advised, and the law says I should be advised by certain people in the department. In the seven years and five months that I have been there I have been well advised.
Coming now to the three deals. In 1947 the pressure for more space in Vancouver was considerable, particularly from three departments. There were nights that I could not sleep thinking that unemployment insurance might be put out on the street when we were thrown out of the Vancouver hotel. At that time income tax occupied six different buildings, the Winch building, post office building, the Metropolitan building, the Macaulay-Nicolls building, the Begg building, and then for storage purposes, the Winch building, the post office, the Royal Insurance

building and the immigration building. That was the income tax set-up in 1947 in Vancouver.
I do not know just how many buildings unemployment insurance occupied. There was no continuity in the government service in the set-up of those departments. How did that come up?
During the war no office building was built in Vancouver. The last building was started in 1933 and completed in 1939. We did get some space at the beginning of the war under rent control and we were so harsh with those people that members of this house who are sitting right here tonight came to ask me to vacate space occupied by the government in order to give young veterans who were coming back from the war a chance to establish themselves in business or the professions. I am looking now at hon. members who came to me to make that request.
In the fall of 1947 I had a report from Mr. Dawson on space that could be rented or bought. During the war and even up to 1947, the policy of the government was not to put up public buildings. We wanted to give the people a chance at the materials and labour available. Some of the largest construction associations in the country sent me resolutions and letters asking that public buildings be not constructed by the federal government because of the great demand for labour and materials. When my estimates were being discussed in the house in 1946 and 1947 I do not know how many members told me that I was right in not having public buildings constructed. During those years my estimates were kept down to about $15 million.
In 1947 the war had been over for two years and the demand for space was still pressing. We could not put up buildings but space had to be found and I, as Minister of Public Works acting as agent for the other departments, had to find space. What did we do? Mr. Dawson is the resident architect in Vancouver. He has lived there nearly all his life except when he was overseas during the war. He was born, bred and educated as an architect in Birmingham, England, and then he spent the rest of his life in Vancouver. The reports I get from Vancouver are that Mr. Dawson is so honest that no one in that province would dare to make any insinuations against him. I have been told so by the highest authorities in the province. He has had the confidence of my department ever since he has been in that district. I have found him to be a good adviser and under the act I am supposed to follow the advice which it is one of his duties to give.
He became so discouraged about the situation that I sent out Mr. Cherry, the head real
The Address-Hon. A. Fournier estate man at headquarters of my department. I also sent out Mr. Boucher, chief of leases in the department. They returned without success after making efforts to meet people who would rent, sell or construct buildings for the use of the government.
We had a conference and decided to send out Mr. A. K. Mills, who is supervising architect in my department and probably one of the outstanding architects in the country. He went out to Vancouver and after being there two or three weeks he returned and reported to my deputy minister, who by the way handled quite a bit of construction during the war years. Mr. Mills reported to the effect that the only firm that could put up a building of some 75,000 to 100,000 square feet was Allan and Viner. Mr. Mills reported that he had discussed the matter with these people but without committing the department. The matter was discussed with the deputy minister and the chief architect and then those people in turn discussed it with me as minister.
If the hon. member had read all of the first order in council he would have found out that all this did not come out of the blue sky. We had worked on this matter for about six months before we could find someone who could give us a guarantee to provide a building that was needed for income tax or unemployment insurance within the year. I slept well that night because I thought that at last we would have space in the good city of Vancouver. I went to cabinet with this submission. Referring to Vancouver and the different offices that income tax occupied, I said that the space was crowded for the then staff of 981 civil servants and that it would be impossible to accommodate the additional staff required to bring up the complement to the authorized figure of 1,280.
Hon. members must remember that I am the agent for these departments. According to the law I am supposed to get them the space they need so that they can carry on their duties and functions. The Minister of National Revenue (Mr. McCann) had the right to call on me to get space. Here is what I said:
A further difficulty arises owing to the fact that all income tax forms have to be retained for a period of four years and the space presently used for this purpose is both entirely inadequate and unsuitable for personnel to work in. As a result of a survey of the situation in this respect it is considered that the acquisition of a minimum of 50,000 additional square feet of space is necessary in order (1) that the present staff may have sufficient room; (2) that space may be made available for the additional authorized staff and (3) that adequate accommodation be provided for the storage of records and income tax forms.
I do not think better reasons could be found for entering into a deal to furnish space for

The Address-Hon. A. Fournier one of the essential departments of government, the department that collects the money we need for the service of Canada. Here is what these officials said to me:
That as no office buildings for rent have been built since 1939 in Vancouver and. in view of the extremely rapid growth of the city-
I am glad to know it is growing every day, and perhaps that is why buildings are becoming more expensive.
-there is no available office space in the locality.
Am I to take the advice of these men, in whom I have confidence and who have been appointed to advise me?
An offer has been obtained, however, from the Alvin Estates Limited to construct a fireproof building on their property and to rent it to the crown on the following terms and conditions:


Howard Charles Green: What date was that?


Alphonse Fournier: This was when we had seen nearly everyone who owned office space, or who might be ready to sell or build, or who had any proposition to offer which might provide accommodation quickly for these departments. It was after all this that we presented this submission to council. The rental asked for this space was $96,000. If you just stop there it seems like an exorbitant rental; but what if we had rented the Vancouver block at $3.30 a square foot for 100,000 square feet. Do you realize that would have meant a rental of $335,000 a year? In the case of the Alvin building the rate per square foot was $2.14. Now do you want to hear how much is paid per square foot for other buildings in Vancouver? I shall give you a list of seven, and you will see why I am so proud of this deal. You know all these buildings:
per sq. ft.
Wolverton building	
$2	90Benthal building	
2	75Stock Exchange building	
2	75Vancouver block	
3	30Marine building	
2	75386 West Hastings street	
2	60
Comparing our price of $2.14 with those prices, I think I could get the unanimous approval of all hon. members in this chamber, with the exception of perhaps one or two, for this order in council. Needless to say I got the unanimous consent of cabinet. But I will tell you a secret. The policy of the government was that we would not put up buildings ourselves, because I know how long it takes to put up a federal building. We always had in mind the acquisition of the property, keeping in mind the cubic content of the building, the square foot area, and so on. This was discussed with my officials, and they estimated that if built according to the specifications set out at that time, the building would be worth $554,000. So I told them to get an option to purchase at that price, not 
to mind the amount of rent so much if we could get the building within the year, but to try and get a price for its purchase.
Well, cabinet did adopt this submission; but time went on. Government never remains static; departments develop and need space. I cannot ask these departments to keep their employees working in fifty square feet of space per person, as I did during the war. Who would expect me to keep these employees working in unsanitary and cramped quarters? As time went on we found that the Vancouver hotel was to be torn down and that unemployment insurance, another important service in our country, would be out on the street. We tried to turn the Vancouver armouries into office space, but I was advised that it would cost too much, and that we would interfere with the activities of the Department of National Defence. So, having two departments on the street, we had to pass a second order in council on July 20, 1948. I am trying to give you the story as it developed; and while I am speaking I am thinking of those old and efficient civil servants in my department who prepared this case and advised me on it, and whose suggestions I adopted. The second order in council stated:
That the order in council (P.C. 1382) of April 6 granted authority to lease from the Alvin-
That is just repeating the order in council.
That order in council (P.C. 1466) of April 20, 1948, granted authority to purchase, for the accommodation of the Department of Labour, unemployment insurance commission, the Begg building property situated on Georgia street, at the comer of Thurlow street and extending to Albemi street, with a frontage of 132 feet on each street, from Begg Motors Limited, for the sum of $375,000 and to perform the necessary alterations and1 improvements to the building at an estimated cost of $354,500:
That, after consultation with the departments of national revenue and labour, it was decided that the needs of those two departments could best be met by accommodating the national revenue department m the Begg building and the labour department in the Alvin Estates building;
That the building proposed to be erected by the Alvin Estates Limited on Robson street was a four-storey and basement building but to fully accommodate the Department of Labour it was found necessary, in view of their increased activities, to provide a six-storey building for which the rental would be $135,504 per annum and the purchase price increased to $781,641;
That the chief architect of the Department of Public Works has now advised-
Listen to this, because I quote the statute to show that this was done according to the legislation under which I am operating.
*-that the city of Vancouver has decided to widen Robson street at that point taking seven feet off each side of the street. This will have the effect of reducing the floor area in the proposed six-storey building and, on a recommendation from the district resident architect of the Department of Public Works and from the regional director of the unemployment insurance commission at Vancouver, the

chief architect has reported it is necessary that a seventh storey be added at an increased cost of $80,514 and at an increased rental of $11,436.
In the 1948 estimates there was an item of $800,000 for the purchase of that building. That money was not expended because the building had not been completed and we could not take possession. Now, however, you see what is happening. Unemployment insurance is going over to the Alvin building, where all their activities will be centralized with the exception of casual labour, while income tax is going over to the Begg building. I have been told repeatedly that in all Canada the income tax branch has no better space than in the Begg building in Vancouver.


Howard Charles Green: They should have, for the amount that has been paid.


Alphonse Fournier: Just wait until I discuss that, because you do not know what you are talking about. You have not studied this as I have. Be patient, and I will tell you.


Mr. Smith (Calgary West):: Address the Chair.


Alphonse Fournier: If I should say a hasty word, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw it before it is said. So we have one of those two departments in the Begg building; and if the minister speaks I know he will tell you that it is the best space he has anywhere in the country. When the hon. member cross-examined me on December 10, one of my colleagues stood up in revolt, and said that the unemployment insurance commission had finer offices in Vancouver than in any other city in Canada.


Howard Charles Green: The best price was paid for it, too.


Alphonse Fournier: It has not been paid for as yet, so your remarks are premature. When we decided to have these two departments well housed so that the public would receive the service they deserved and the civil servants would be in a comfortable place to do their work properly and efficiently, I thought that in helping the efficiency of the other departments it was a sign of efficiency in my department.
On January 31, 1949, to complete that Alvin building-mind you, this work could have been done by the officials of this department, but not in the time that that firm could do it. The unemployment insurance commission subsequently advised of certain additional items of work which would be required to complete the building, and the lessors were directed to have this work incorporated, on the understanding that the annual rental and the option price would be adjusted accordingly. It was at that time
The Address-Hon. A. Fournier that we installed three vaults, phone conduits and outlet plug-ins. We installed fluorescent fixtures and lamps to give 35 foot-candle at desk level throughout; installed a janitor cupboard and sink on the ground floor; installed engineer's shower, toilet and basin in the basement; interior partitions, railings, counters, sectional panel and glass partitions to the ceiling, sink and cupboards in lunch room and soundproof walls. All these were shown on the plans that were given to us by the unemployment insurance commission. These expenditures are detailed in this order in council. The estimates were prepared by these two bodies, the unemployment insurance commission and the officials of my department. If this amount that was added on January 31, 1949, is considered, it will be found that the three option prices we have amount to $1,063,105.
Now, that estimate was given to me by the resident architect and was confirmed not long ago by the estimators for one of the outstanding contracting firms in this country. We did not look at the building and decide it was worth so much. We asked a large firm in Canada to give us their opinion, having all the specifications, all the material and labour that went into that building; we submitted those facts to two of the outstanding estimators who work for one of the largest companies in Canada, the E. G. M. Cape and Company.


Howard Charles Green: When was that?


Alphonse Fournier: After all this noise about giving away the public's mone3r, and getting nothing in return. I was astounded at that charge. We have not purchased the building yet, so everything that has appeared in those articles in the Sun is without foundation in fact. We have not completed the deal.


Howard Charles Green: Is the department going to buy it?


Alphonse Fournier: If the hon. member will be a little patient, he will find that my story is quite interesting. When I reach the conclusion, I think the hon. member will agree with me. An attempt was made to arrive at an evaluation, and accordingly a regular take-off was made such as would be done in an architect's or engineer's office, wherein the exact quantity of each component part entering into the construction of the building was determined, and the labour needed to execute the work; after which these were priced by two contractors' estimators loaned by one of the largest contracting companies in Canada. I have named the company, the E. G. M. Cape and Company.

The Address-Hon. A. Fournier I do not know whether they are friendly to us, but I know they are one of the largest companies in Canada.


Howard Charles Green: In Montreal?


Alphonse Fournier: I do not know. They gave us a valuation over the one that is in the option in this order in council.
I took this matter seriously, and for my personal benefit I explained the facts to the head man of one of the largest valuating firms in Canada. It is located in Toronto and is known as the Bosley Company. I do not know whether you know the company. I met Mr. Bosley once or twice, but I have been told he has been doing work all over the country. I do not know his political faith. He was sent out to Vancouver and looked at the building. He reported it was a good buy.	.
I believe I have given the member for Vancouver-Quadra most of the information. If only he had read it all in the house, I would have been satisfied. When the hon. member cross-examined me on December 10 he was just fishing, and had in mind that the public works department was trying to favour friends of theirs.


Howard Charles Green: No. that is not fair.


Alphonse Fournier: If it is not fair, I will withdraw. '


Howard Charles Green: You see, there were no tenders called for any of this work.


Alphonse Fournier: I shall take the hon. member to my office and give him a month's training. When one is buying a property, one does not ask for tenders. If that property is needed, you negotiate and attempt to get it at the best price you can. Tenders are asked whenever you are going to erect a building. It was not the policy of the government to do so. I had to find space. One does not ask for tenders when a property is being purchased. You send someone who knows values to discuss it with the owner, and try to make a good deal. In all these deals, even amongst private people, there is always one party who feels satisfied, while the other believes he has made a mistake or has been victimized. There are no fixed values when putting up a building or even buying property. Three valuators will not give you the same figure.
When the department prepares estimates before calling for tenders on a million dollar job, it receives offers varying from fifty to sixty to a hundred to two hundred thousand dollars from outstanding contracting firms. You cannot have exact figures. I would be satisfied if I paid 3 per cent over and above the estimated value for this building. I would
[Mr. Fournier (Hull) .1

think my advisers had been wise. Now, that was the first deal. Does not the hon. member think we should purchase it? He has listened to me and I have told him I have received the advice of my own officials, and that I have gone outside and got valuations from other firms. This is the price. Does the hon. member not think we should buy it?


Mr. Siewari (Yorkton):: Oh, sure.


Alphonse Fournier: Mind you, the hon. member approved of the money to purchase this property on December 10. A vote of $1,100,000 was approved and the money is in the treasury. I can purchase that building. No one tried to stop the vote, and it was voted unanimously.


Mr. Lennard:: No, not unanimously.


Howard Charles Green: Rather a weak excuse.


Alphonse Fournier: We were not so numerous then, and probably those who are saying, "No, no," were not in the house at that time.
Now, let us consider the Begg building. It was occupied by the War Assets Corporation. Since we were having trouble finding space, and the activities of that organization were diminishing, we did ask them if they could find some other location. I thought it was a vanishing department, and we could put a growing department into that building. This building had been erected under the supervision of Mr. Viner. I do not know him, but I am informed he was one of those who helped erect the first Begg building for Mr. Begg.
When it came to repairing, altering, redecorating and adding to this building, I still was told by my advisers that this gentleman knew the building better than anyone else. We had to do this quickly. It often happens that these repair jobs or alteration jobs are not given by calling tenders because even the contractors do not know exactly what is to be done; they can find out the needs as the department gives them when they go on with construction.
We needed to add to that building I do not know how many floors. The plans and specifications for those floors were prepared by an outside architect, Mr. Lort from Vancouver. His estimate at that moment was $850,000 for the proposed work. We offered Viner a fixed fee of $25,000 on an $850,000 job. He accepted. It was understood that if the plans were expanded or modified and the expenditure went over the amount of $850,000, he would be satisfied with a 3 per cent benefit. Our own man and architect was supervisor of the building. That is a building with a cubic content of 1,900,000 feet.


Howard Charles Green: It is not an office building at all.


Alphonse Fournier: Government buildings generally cost $1.25 per cubic foot. This Begg building cost $1. The Alvin building cost approximately 92 cents per cubic foot. Compared with those figures, the other buildings that were built and are being built right now in Vancouver, I am told cost $1.06 to $1.10 a cubic foot.
I have not yet mentioned one of the most important points. These buildings were delivered to the government within the year; within eleven months. Since I have been in the Department of Public Works or even since I have been in the house I have never seen the Department of Public Works put up a million dollar building in less than three years.
Now I wish to deal with the Catelli building. When we were thrown out of the Vancouver hotel, that is the place in -which we took refuge. We got a lease at 67 cents or 63 cents per square foot, for five years. You say that is not all the story. Certainly it is not. The space was not in a condition in which to house the civil servants. We spent $67,000 in making the partitions, alterations, and redecorating and fixing it up for the civil servants. Do you know what that cost the country per square foot? It cost $1.26. That is the lowest price for space that we had in Vancouver.


Howard Charles Green: Were any tenders called?


Alphonse Fournier: No, not for a repair job. All right; I will change over right now and try to give my hon. friend satisfaction.


Mr. Casselman:: It is forty-five minutes
now.


Alphonse Fournier: When my hon. friend goes so far as to say that the minister or his officials did not act according to the law, I would ask him to look at section 36 of the Public Works Act. I have tried to show the house that there was urgency in this matter. The hon. member may or may not believe me, but my colleagues know that there was urgency. If the hon. member will look at section 36, he will find that this is what the law says the minister shall do:
Whenever any works are to be executed under the direction of any department of the government, the minister having charge of such department shall invite tenders by public advertisement for the execution of such works, except in cases
(a) of pressing emergency in which delay would be injurious to the public interest;
Who is to judge if there is an emergency? I always thought it was the minister. Perhaps I should consult the members of the house before going into every deal, but I did not think that was the spirit of the law.
The Address-Hon. A. Fournier


Howard Charles Green: May I ask the minister if there were in British Columbia any other no-tender contracts?


Alphonse Fournier: In the country?


Howard Charles Green: In British Columbia.


Alphonse Fournier: I recall that we did ask for tenders in that province in the last years of the war and nobody would tender.


Howard Charles Green: That is not what I am asking.


Alphonse Fournier: I could not answer from memory. I would have to consult the files. If the hon. member saw all the works that are being done in that province where we are spending a good many millions of dollars, he would have a better understanding. Tenders are generally called and advertised. But hon. members are not getting into the spirit of the space question. Sometimes I think ignorance is bliss.


Howard Charles Green: The minister should know.


Alphonse Fournier: If I did not know so much about public works, I would not be trying to make out the case that I am. In all sincerity, having in mind that the hon. gentleman wanted explanations, I felt that in those three cases, I should give them as fully as I could; and I have tried to do it in the best way possible.
If there is anything else on the hon. member's mind, perhaps we could save time in the house by his seeing me. We are friendly, and I will give him all the explanations he wishes.
(Translation):


Mr. Paul E. Gagnon (Chicoutimi):: Mr. Speaker, the economic problems and the bright prospects in certain parts of both western and eastern Canada have been skilfully outlined by the mover and seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. I congratulate them on their success and greatly rejoice in the praise that they have received in this house.
In the constituency which I have the great honour of representing here, the main concern of civil and religious authorities at the moment is the struggle against unemployment.
Last September, when I took part in the debate, I warned the government that this evil had appeared in Canada, that the people were looking to the fast approaching winter with anxiety and that it was urgent to take the necessary steps to deal with this calamitous possibility. No suggestion was put forward, however, no steps were taken to check the progress of a trend which is fatal to both the material and moral life of our
412	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Gagnon working classes. People now are troubled and gripped with anxiety. The fear of want has now become a nightmare, and idleness an overwhelming burden.
Days of misfortune are still close at hand and the worker, mindful of the depression of the thirties, has an inner fear of want and of the spectre of misery hovering over himself and his family.
Insecurity is the worker's greatest- enemy.
The federal authorities knew this deeply human feeling when they stated in the speech from the throne, in January, 1944:
The post-war objective of our domestic policy is social security and human welfare.
To have ideals and noble principles, or a set of comprehensive plans hidden in a drawer is one thing. Implementing them, passing from the theoretical and blueprint stage to the carrying-out of the plans is another.
But the Hon. C. D. Howe did say, in 1945, when he was Minister of Reconstruction and Supply:
In the interest of members of the three armed forces and of the civilian population, our reconstruction program should ensure a smooth and orderly transition from economic conditions that prevailed during the war to conditions that are consistent with the return of peace, but such as will maintain a high and stable degree of employment and earnings. That is the first item in the government's program. And when I say that we are aiming at a high and stable degree of employment and income, it means nothing short of full employment. The government know that employment and income will be subject to fluctuations of international trade that cannot be fully or immediately overcome; they also know that seasonal fluctuations resulting from our climate and established trade practices can be overcome only by much patience and skill.
It seems that those two qualities have been lacking in our ministers. In view of such clear and perfectly true statements, the policy of our present leaders is surprising, to say the least.
The authorities do not seem to realize that everything has come about as they had foreseen. Yet they make no concrete proposal to alleviate the people's hardships. Whatever improvements or amendments the Unemployment Insurance Act undergoes, this can only bring temporary relief instead of a permanent solution for this chronic evil.
With respect to employment and earnings, government expenditures fall in three categories.


The minister of reconstruction continued:
First, current expenses for goods and services;
Second, transfer of sums such as pensions, allowances and similar payments;
Third, capital expenditures or public investments for buildings, equipment, roads, airports and other construction or improvement projects of a lasting nature. The last mentioned expenditures can, up to a certain point, be timed to contribute to employment when the need is felt.
The time has come to carry out this program, to help the unemployed, to alleviate the cruel suffering of the low income groups and of the poor.
The government announced in 1945 that it intended to make expenditures likely to provide alternative sources of income in areas affected by the ups and downs of export markets and also to contend with the majority of our economic crises at the very moment they appear rather than after they have spread throughout our whole economic system.
What are we waiting for to translate these fine words into actions? The people of my constituency, who did a wonderful job from the military, industrial and agricultural viewpoints between 1939 and 1945, are particularly affected by the depression that has prevailed for the last six months. For instance, he Soleil, a Liberal newspaper, dealing with the situation in my constituency, wrote on February 10, 1950:
It is not without reason that the Chicoutimi area is applying for public works to assist families affected by unemployment. There are hundreds of them in the erstwhile prosperous centres of Chicoutimi, Arvida and J cnquiere.
On the whole, it can be said that thousands of men, women and children are suffering from hunger. One lives poorly on unemployment insurance, and very miserably when he has to rely on family allowances to buy bread.
It is also the duty of the dominion government to help the working people of the Saguenay district. It can be readily seen that they have had to suffer from conditions that prevailed during the transitional period that followed the war. When the needs of new industries exceeded the number of workers that could be found in that farming region, official agencies urged entire families to move out there. They were not told that work would be of a temporary nature only and that their employment depended on the war which Canada was fighting due to fortuitous circumstances. In several cases, travelling expenses were paid to people who agreed to work in industries essential to the war effort. Under the circumstances, I believe the government should look after those families that are on the verge of starvation due to regional unemployment that could have been foreseen.
They could have been indeed, since, in 1945, the minister of reconstruction stated:
There will be some disorganization and unavoidable delay in a few areas where wartime demands

entailed a large concentration of orders and an abnormal increase in population. In these centres more than elsewhere, cancellation of war contracts will require considerable adjustment.
The government, through the department of reconstruction, is working out plans to settle these local difficulties. They will be carried out to the extent deemed necessary and desirable, special attention being given housing projects and public works.
We ask nothing more, Mr. Speaker.
My constituents have long been asking that level crossings be eliminated, especially in the city of Chicoutimi, where they are very dangerous; that the wharves of Grande Baie and Petit Saguenay be repaired; that public buildings and breakwaters be put up since they are more and more urgently required. Such useful and necessary improvements would not only fill serious gaps but, if undertaken immediately, would help to restore economic stability.
The task of those gentlemen who manage the business of this country is to afford every citizen the opportunity to exercise his right to work, since work is the source of national wealth, happiness and prosperity. It behooves them to carry out this urgent obligation. The sight of all these good people, full of health, energy and courage yet condemned to inaction and idleness, is both painful and heartbreaking.
The state, to whose expenses they have contributed by their taxes and their labour, treats them with less kindness than it does foreigners.
Pariahs are still being recruited in Europe and our country is being flooded with seedy aliens at a time when the homeland has nothing to offer to those who have spent themselves on her behalf. This is both outrageous and absurd.
Immigration is one of the causes of the present unemployment. Any argument to the contrary notwithstanding, the 362,451 immigrants who entered Canada from September 1, 1945 to December 31, 1949, have taken jobs that were occupied or should be occupied by Canadians.
If it is true that today about 375,000 people are out of work, it is because of the mass of refugees which has overrun our shores and crowded the labour market. Our workers are now the victims of this overgenerous policy.
As a matter of fact immigration has never, in this country, shown itself to be the wonderful thing that railway and transportation company propaganda claimed.
The Address-Mr. Gagnon
Every attempt made by Canada to bring in immigrants has ended in failure.
Between 1900 and 1933 we received 4,671,927 immigrants who had come over to settle in Canada. This immigration cost the Canadian taxpayer $80 million. During that time 4,013,523 Canadians emigrated to various parts of the world. Out of 340,000 new arrivals between 1925 and 1927, 282,000 made their way into the United States. If we consider the natural rate of increase we will notice that our population has increased at about the normal rate and that in this connection immigration has played quite a minor role.
Speaking about Canada's experience in this field during the 90-year period from 1851 to 1941, Mr. Herbert Marshall, dominion statistician, stated before the Senate committee in 1946:
Undoubtedly, Canada since 1851 has brought in several million more immigrants than she could absorb. It was a disturbing and costly step but the fact that there was an outlet to the United States prevented the situation from becoming more serious.
He reminded the committee that this outlet is now closed and that therefore:
The present long-term immigration policy of Canada must be as closely related to present needs as possible. If immigrants were admitted as in the past in larger number than we could absorb them, the results would be disastrous.
That statement is clear and definite.
Our workers' minds are filled with gloomy forebodings under the constant threat of lowered standards of living because of the newcomers' willingness to accept any job, at any wages and under any conditions, in order to escape want and starvation.
Immigration must not provide a supply of workers for unscrupulous employers to hire at lower wages in order to increase their profits at the expense of local labour.
Let us remember that during the decade before the first world war, when immigration was flourishing, when vast and choice farm land was available, when huge amounts of capital were flowing into Canada, our capacity of absorption was at its peak.
"The number of immigrants," according to Mr. Marshall, "exceeded this capacity by 37 per cent."
Canada is no longer mainly an agricultural country. As a result of the war, we have
41-1	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Balcer taken a definite and permanent rank amongst industrial nations. We cannot get immigrants in equal numbers and of the same quality as in the past.
"In the present stage of our economic development," according to Mr. Stewart Bates, deputy minister of fisheries, "we do not need more farmers and fishermen; at best we need miners, labourers to engage in heavy work, servants, and so forth."
With all due respect to the minister of immigration.
I therefore suggest that unless we provide adequate shelter and housing to the working class, unless we secure those necessary markets for the sale of our farm products, unless our statutes provide sufficiently remunerative employment for hundreds of thousands of seasonally unemployed, unless our future as a nation is secured, we must approach the grave problem of immigration with extreme care.
Our country will not grow if we import human cattle. It will grow if we protect the family, encourage the raising of children and provide every Canadian with a happy home where he may live in peace.
If Canada can support a larger population than at present, there is no reason why, with our rich heritage, we should have poverty, unemployment and misery in our midst.
No immigration as long as there is unemployment! No favours to any foreigners as long as our own people have not been provided with the daily bread they are fully entitled to! No privileges to refugees as long as the sons of the pioneers of our country have not been treated in the fair and equitable manner to which they are entitled! Positions, salaries, comforts, leisure and security should go to Canadians first. That is what we want and expect, because we are entitled to it. That is what thousands of unemployed from the constituency of Chicoutimi expect from the federal government.


Léon Balcer: Mr. Speaker, it gives me real pleasure, to congratulate very sincerely the mover (Mr. Larson) and the seconder (Mr. Dumas) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. As a beginner, my tribute may not have the same value as that of the distinguished speakers who spoke before me. It is nevertheless paid with great sincerity. These two members indeed deserve congratulations, for their task was made the more difficult because of the inadequacy of the speech from the throne and the fact that it offered no solution to our national problems.


Mr. Cote (Verdun-La Salle):: This is not so good.


Mr. Courtemanche:: Time will tell.


Léon Balcer: At the beginning of this session, I am duty bound as member for the county of Three Rivers to deal first of all with the unemployment problem which affects so deeply our country and the St. Maurice district in particular.
As the member for Chicoutimi (Mr. Gagnon) stated so well a few moments ago, the number of unemployed is increasing daily. In spite of the optimism shown by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) the situation has become serious even though the government does not seem to realize it.
The situation must be examined seriously and the government must use all means at its disposal to remove or at least to mitigate the consequences.
My constituency is one of those that really have to suffer from this scourge.
The city of Three Rivers, with a population of fifty thousand, has about five thousand unemployed registered with the local employment office. According to experts there probably are another thousand unemployed who are not registered.
I do not claim that they are all heads of families, but their number is sufficient for the situation to have disastrous effects both on the commercial and the agricultural aspects of our national economy.
To the representations made, and rightly so, by the leader of our party in this connection, the government has answered that unemployment is only local and seasonal. But the whole country is only too well aware of the fact that such a situation prevails from coast to coast and that every province is affected by unemployment, a problem which the government considers as of a purely local nature.
The government seems astonished that our people should be concerned with the fact that there are approximately five hundred thousand jobless in this country.
The Liberal party finds it normal that there should be a certain number of unemployed every winter and that in various sections of the country 5, 10 or 15 per cent of the labour force should be without work. Its attitude was surely different prior to June 27.

The government should do everything humanly possible to remedy that deplorable state of affairs. In our opinion it has been remiss in its duty.
Every party in the house agrees that the scope of the Unemployment Insurance Act should be extended without delay. But such a move will only bring temporary and inadequate relief. What the jobless are requesting at present is the undertaking of public works in order to ensure prosperity in districts where there is unemployment. The large labour organizations of Canada are also pressing for such remedial action.
However the government refuses to undertake those public works, contending that unemployment is of a purely local and temporary character. That, Mr. Speaker, is a further argument in favour of those projects. If unemployment is of a local and temporary character, so are public works by their very nature.
In the city of Three Rivers, where there are at present almost 6,000 unemployed, a large scale program of public works should be carried out in order to ensure the future prosperity of the whole district. Our piers are in poor condition and new sheds are needed if Three Rivers is to remain one of the important seaports of the country.
In Three Rivers also, as in the other cities affected by unemployment, there are slums where large families have to live under conditions which from the health and social standpoint are disgraceful. In the 20th century, such a state of affairs is inexcusable in a country as wealthy as ours.
I honestly believe that there has never been a more auspicious time for the dominion government to sign an agreement with the provincial government and the municipality of Three Rivers in order to eliminate this scourge of society.
Another public project should be undertaken in our district; I refer to the building of a bridge on the St. Lawrence connecting Three Rivers and Ste. Angele. Between Montreal and Quebec, no bridge crosses this mighty river. A bridge there would serve some ten counties and would help eliminate unemployment in that area for several years to come.
In this connection I should like to quote an editorial from the Three Rivers he Nouvelliste of Saturday, February 25th last. This editorial, headed "Bridge claimed' by St. Maurice valley city councils", reads as follows:
Mayors and aldermen of the city councils of the St. Maurice valley, who are to meet in the city
The Address-Mr. Balcer of Shawinigan today, will be asked to vote upon a resolution requesting the federal authorities to expedite the building of a bridge over the St. Lawrence, between Three Rivers and the south shore, as a measure to alleviate unemployment, which is growing more and more serious in this area.
We are convinced that this resolution will be unanimously approved by all members present at this second meeting of the municipal authorities of the St. Maurice valley. In fact, the building of a bridge between the two shores of the river would be an excellent way of providing, for several years, regular employment to thousands of persons, especially common labourers, who always suffer most whenever such seasonal unemployment as we are now experiencing occurs. It would most assuredly be a sane and highly beneficial measure which would furnish remunerative employment to thousands of people.
Besides helping ease the unemployment, the building of a bridge over the St. Lawrence is needed to ensure quick and easy communications between St. Maurice river valley, the south shore of the St. Lawrence and the United States. Nowadays there is more talk than ever before of completing the Three Rivers-Megantic highway and of extending it to the American border in the state of Maine. To achieve all these hoped for results, this project requires the bridging of the St. Lawrence.
There has been much talk of this project in the past and federal authorities are well acquainted with it. A few years ago almost every municipality on both shores of the St. Lawrence forwarded resolutions to the responsible authorities requesting that the building of this bridge be proceeded with. We were then at war and it was said that the proposal might be taken up as a post-war public works project.
The war, Mr. Speaker, has been over for five years, and it is time the government did something about this.
I also wish to take this opportunity to request the building of a post office in the municipality of Yamachiche. Yamachiche is today a rural mail distribution centre for several neighbouring parishes and such a building would be very useful.
In another sphere, a field of action in which federal aid would really be appropriate is the building of waterworks in the rural municipalities in my constituency. This would be an excellent means of helping the rural unemployed, while at the same time ensuring a sanitary running water distribution system and adequate protection against fires in the beautiful rural parishes of our county. These rural parishes are already suffering seriously from the loss of our agricultural markets and such federal aid would help to lighten the burden.
I have mentioned but a few of the public works which should be undertaken by the government to help the unemployed in my constituency. I could list many more if the government were ready to undertake them.

The Address-Mr. Balcer
To date, only one solution has been found by the government: let the municipalities concerned find work for their unemployed.
This is a very strange way of meeting problems and dodging responsibilities. For the people know very well that of all the taxes collected in Canada 76 per cent find their way into the federal treasury, whereas the provinces and municipalities must be satisfied with the balance, that is 24 per cent.
What can the municipalities do with scarcely 10 per cent of the taxes? It is physically impossible for them to solve the unemployment problem without any assistance from the government which grabs the lion's share of revenues, while refusing to shoulder its responsibilities.
As far as the government is concerned, the present unemployment situation may be local and temporary. All the more reason why every effort should be made to prevent it from spreading any further. The most logical way would be to implement a public works program designed to promote the future prosperity of the communities most affected.
And now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to deal with another timely matter, although along a different line of thought.
It is unfortunate that the speech from the throne has no provision for the purpose of endowing our country with a truly national and a truly Canadian flag. Such a provision would have met the wish of people from every province.
Under the present government, our country seems to suffer from an inferiority complex. Every country in the world has had a flag of its own for centuries. In the government's opinion, Canada is not yet mature enough to have a token of the spirit of our nation.
We have recently been through a world war that brought glory to our troops, but our soldiers, sailors and airmen never knew under what flag they were fighting. Since the war, our Department of External Affairs has opened more than fifty embassies, legations and general consulates throughout the world. Yet our representatives have no flag to hoist on the masts of their embassy. There are in Canada thousands of public buildings erected with funds supplied by our fellow citizens. We are unable to raise on those buildings a flag that would arouse in the minds of our people a true Canadian spirit.
In all our schools, from the smallest rural school to our large universities, devoted teachers are trying hard to instil in our young people a feeling of national pride.


At present, our department of immigration spares no effort to inform thousands of new Canadians about the country and its glorious history.
The government, however, in spite of the majority which its supporters never fail to mention, hesitates to give every Canadian a symbol that would fill them with justifiable pride.
Such an emblem should be free of all colonial ties which would not be suitable to an independent country like ours.
The Canadian flag should be neither English, French nor Ukrainian, but Canadian. Thus it would strengthen national unity which must rest upon the legitimate pride all citizens feel for their great country. The fact that our ancestors were French, English or Polish does not in any way prevent us from being Canadians above all else.
There is at present, a movement which has gained in popularity all over the country. It is called the ligue du drapeau national. It advocates a truly Canadian emblem, in keeping with heraldic requirements and of such a design which, embodying a neatly contrasting maple leaf, would be acceptable to all true Canadians.
I therefore urge the government to make a gesture of national import and adopt this flag without delay.


Mr. Arthur Masse (Kamouraska):: It is not
without emotion that I rise to speak, since this is the first time I have the honour to make a speech in this house and since my duties have more often brought me into contact with the great outdoors than with so distinguished an audience. However, trusting that the members of the house will bear with me, I already feel much better and I promise to deliver the message of the electors of the beautiful constituency of Kamouraska, a constituency remarkable for political clashes and for the men who have represented it since confederation. Among others, I am pleased to mention the name of one who was a disciple of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and the father of the Solicitor General of Canada, the Right Hon. Ernest Lapointe whose name, after a quarter of a century, still holds first place in the affections of the Liberals of my constituency.
Mr. Speaker, after having listened to the debates that have taken place here, I can but congratulate you upon the dignity and impartiality with which you carry out the tasks that devolve upon you. You seem to have an innate sense of what is right, proper and reasonable.

Along with all those who have spoken before me, I wish to congratulate both the mover and seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the throne, the hon. members for Kindersley and Villeneuve (Messrs. Larson and Dumas), the latter being like myself a fellow of the surveyors' guild of the province of Quebec and of the association of forestry engineers of the same province. The member for Villeneuve is the embodiment of the character of the rich northwestern Quebec district, which he desires to see grow and prosper; he knows that part of the country well, having travelled throughout its length and breadth.
I will not dwell at any length upon a description of the constituency of Kamour-aska, which is well known to the members of this house. I might however remind them that it is bounded on the north by the St. Lawrence river, on the south by the American border, on the east by the constituency of Temiscouata and on the west by Montmagny-L'lslet.
Therefore, it will be crossed by the trans-Canada highway, a project sponsored by this government to which I must convey my congratulations and my thanks.
Kamouraska is an agricultural and lumbering district. I may add that when speaking about agriculture today, one feels the need of including the wooded areas which are inherent and related to agriculture, because in a non-industrial district such as Kamouraska county, agriculture and lumbering must be held in high honour so that one may^sus-tain the other in times when our national economy needs to be stabilized.
Mr. Speaker, I welcomed the Canada Forestry Act which was passed by the government at the last session. It is time we realized that our forests are not inexhaustible, unless we adopt an adequate forestry program.
There is in my constituency a cultural centre, Ste. Anne de la Pocatiere, which spreads its influence through a classical college, an agricultural school, and fishery school, as well as a federal experimental farm. And the beams of light from these cultural lighthouses illuminate all the surrounding region. I fear at the moment that my poor voice is insufficiently eloquent to show all the good that this cultural centre has done in the Quebec district and elsewhere.
May I urge the government of my country to be generous and-increase its grants to those institutions so that they may successfully pursue their agricultural research.
It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that some wooded lots should be added to the federal 55946-27
The Address-Mr. Masse experimental farm and subjected to continuous study, in order that the forests, which are adjuncts of the farms in my constituency, may be taken care of by our governments in the same way as agriculture.
Allow me to give some figures describing the provincial county of Kamouraska:
Acres Per Cent
Wood lands (denuded or semidenuded acreage included) 

 517,332	76-18
Farm lands	
149,577	22-03Productive lands	
666,899	98-21Rivers, lakes, etc	
7,816	1-15Highways, railways,	etc	
4,325	0-64Unproductive lands	
12,141	1-79Total	
670,040	100
The economic situation is such that we must use every method which may help develop our natural resources. I am pleased to congratulate the Liberal party upon the social security measures it advocates, for, I am sure, they act as a bulwark against subversive ideas usually nurtured by hardship.
As the representative of an agricultural district, I am pleased to congratulate the government and in particular the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) for his stand in the matter of price support for bacon, cheese, eggs and certain other farm products. By his attitude, he has brought hope to the population of my constituency.
The family allowances and the old age pensions came as a ray of sunshine in many homes. May I point out, in connection with the old age pensions, that the law should be amended or adjusted so that our people may receive a pension at 65, without the means test. I get many letters from my constituents pointing out that a man may have worked all his life to put aside a certain amount of money while his neighbour, who never toiled and who lived an idle life, is the only one eligible for the pension.
I know that legislation cannot please everyone, but I am confident that the government will give due consideration to that state of affairs.
In my opinion, the government should do everything in its power to launch public works, facilitate money transactions and create lasting works.
I said a moment ago that in a county like Kamouraska, forestry is an adjunct of agriculture; I would even say that it is a very useful complement.
This year weather conditions in our district nearly paralysed the lumber industry.

The Address-Mr. Wood Although trees were felled under ideal conditions, the delays in hauling have temporarily jeopardized operations. May I make a recommendation. Federal and provincial authorities should co-operate in order to bring wooded lands under a forestry program so that all profitable woodlots may be used economically.
There can be no lumbering operations without the necessary means of transportation: railways, highways and the St. Lawrence river. I must congratulate the government on having built and repaired the wharves that lie along the St. Lawrence river in my constituency and from which a large percentage of the pulpwood cut in the Kamou-raska forests is shipped. The St. Lawrence river will ever remain a natural channel along which exports and imports will flow. It would therefore be a mistake to neglect this means of transportation for our products.
(Text):
Mr. Speaker, may I have the honour of offering my most sincere congratulations to the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), on the dignity with which he conducted his 1949 electoral campaign. All the population of Kamouraska is grateful to him, and as long as the Liberal party goes forward on the route which it has taken, and in which he has directed it, the future of our parishes, of our counties, and of our country, Canada, will be assured.


Mr. R. J. Wood (Norquay):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to take part in the debate on the address in reply to the speech 'rom the throne. It is the first time I have iccepted the privilege of speaking in this jhamber. Before proceeding, I wish to extend my congratulations to the mover (Mr. Larson) and the seconcier (Mr. Dumas) of the address which we are debating. It is gratifying to find two prominent young men, such as the member for Kindersley and the member for Villeneuve, taking an active part in federal affairs.
I represent the constituency of Norquay in Manitoba, and wish to speak briefly on matters as they affect my constituents. Originally my constituency was known as Selkirk, but in the redistribution of 1948, the town of Selkirk, which is situated in the extreme south end of the old Selkirk constituency, was put in with some of the suburbs of the city of Winnipeg, and that was called Selkirk. The old Selkirk constituency, the one which I now represent, was named Norquay after the Hon. John Norquay, the first Manitoba-born premier of that province.

The forebears of the people of Norquay originated in about twenty-five countries throughout the world, so I can truly say the people of Norquay are a cosmopolitan people. Some of the early settlers came from England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Ukraine, Poland, the United States and some from central Canada.
As far back as 1870, a number of Icelanders came up from North Dakota and settled on the shores of lake Winnipeg and lake Manitoba. Later other groups came in, some from the Dakotas and some direct from Iceland. Two of the first points of settlement by the early Icelanders were Gimli and Hecla. These people were hardy pioneers. Their principal occupation was fishing, although many of them kept livestock and did considerable farming. The finest grazing land to be found in the country is on the east shore of lake Manitoba. The Icelanders are a sober, industrious, intelligent and progressive people.
It was in this Icelandic settlement on the west coast of lake Winnipeg that Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the Arctic explorer and author, was born on November 3, 1879. When he was four years old, his father moved back to North Dakota where Vilhjalmur attended school and university. In 1905, he joined an Arctic expedition on which he got lost. He lived among the Eskimos for eighteen months learning their language and customs. In 1914 he and two companions travelled 600 miles north of Martin Point, Alaska, living on seals and polar bears. He had bean given up as dead, but returned to civilization in 1918 after exploring and mapping 100,000 miles of unknown polar territory, thus adding three large and several small islands to the map in the region north of Melville island. Vilhjalmur never gave up his Canadian citizenship. Many other men and women of distinction came out of this settlement of Icelanders in the interlake area of Manitoba, men and women who became prominent in law, medicine, education, arts, politics and sports.
In 1896^ when the government of Sir Wilfrid Luarier opened the doors to immigrants of eastern as well as western Europe, one of the first group of immigrants of Ukrainian descent arrived in Canada, on May 24, 1897. Forty families from this group of new Canadians moved out of Winnipeg, going as far as Stonewall by train and from there to the district north of Teulon. Some moved by ox team, and many travelled On foot. These families all settled in the Teulon district, on land which a great many of us at that time considered unfit for agricultural purposes. However, these settlers cleared small patches of

land, and drained the swamps. They erected log houses and barns with thatched roofs. The men folk would work either on the railroads or in the grain fields, and although the first few years of their lives in Canada were gruesome and difficult, each settler had a homestead of 160 acres of land. They were building their homes, and slowly opening up the land for cultivation. Soon these people were erecting new and better houses and barns. Mixed farming was carried on in a majority of cases.
In this settlement today, after fifty years, we find some of the best and most prosperous farmers in the country. These settlers now have modern homes with telephones, and hydroelectricity, large attractive barns of latest design, nicely painted. They all have power machinery, new or almost new automobiles, and good roads leading to all the small urban centres in the community. These people moved to this country from eastern Europe in 1897, with a promise of freedom. I am pleased to say, Mr. Speaker, that they protect, probably more jealously than many of the rest of us, the freedoms that we enjoy in this country. From amongst this settlement of Ukrainian Canadians who came here in 1897, we find men who have reached an important place in the cultural, educational, political and economical fields in Canada. During the two world wars many young men from this settlement flocked to join the army, the navy and air force, along with other young Canadians.
In the constituency of Norquay the people may be classed as primary producers. Their livelihood comes from farming, fishing, fur trapping, lumbering and quarrying. By far the largest percentage are farmers and, in addition to grain, they raise cattle, hogs and poultry. I believe that, although a great deal of wheat is raised, close to 50 per cent of the crops would consist of barley, oats, flax, rye, sweet clover and alfalfa seed. Our supplies of cattle, hogs, lambs, butter, milk, cream, eggs, poultry and vegetables are so abundant in the interlake area that my constituency is sometimes known as the food basket of the city of Winnipeg. Our fresh water fishing industry is one of the largest in Canada, if not the largest, last year the catch of white-fish alone in lake Winnipeg being close to six million pounds. The constituency of Norquay is composed of people whose ancestors originated in twenty-five countries, and in every case each has added something to our citizenship. Persons of no one component or breed can say they alone are Canadians and their neighbours are something else. For this reason we should like to see, without any 55946-275
The Address-Mr. Wood unnecessary delay, the adoption of a distinctive Canadian flag, one which would be Canadian in every detail.
Being primary producers we depend to a great extent on foreign markets for many of the goods we produce. Markets are probably our No. 1 problem at the present time. We do not want to see enacted any kind of legislation which would disturb or aggravate our foreign markets. It always requires two parties to complete a sale, a purchaser and a seller. In case trade falls off, the fault may rest on the shoulders of either or both. We believe in multilateral trade. We believe that bilateral trading would hamper trade with our free markets. We believe that no country should be given a preference, thus discriminating against other countries. We believe that tariffs of every description should be pared down to the very bone or cancelled. We should like to see an end to what is even worse than tariffs, namely administrative orders which prevent the free movement of our goods to where they may be wanted.
As I understand, tariffs were originally put on in order to encourage and protect our Canadian industries in their infancy. Most of these industries, I might say, are located in what is called central Canada. They have been protected for over fifty years now by tariffs of every conceivable type; and in practically every instance these industries, in pricing their goods, take full advantage of the tariff structure. Although we are obliged to sell our surplus products in foreign markets, and sometimes over the top of foreign import tariffs, we the consumers of the western prairie provinces, like the consumers of the maritime provinces, when we buy, are obliged to pay higher prices on account of the wall of tariff protection, which our Canadian industry enjoys, and, in some cases, on account of administrative orders.
As I said before, markets are probably our No. 1 problem. Hon. members to the left are saying that we have lost and are losing markets. That may be true. Whose fault is it? Hon. members of the C.C.F. socialists predicted a depression four years ago and are still predicting it; and I believe I am right, Mr. Speaker, when I say they appear to be disappointed. I am sure, if the people of this country were called upon to elect a government which would provide or secure markets for our surplus products, they would not consider a socialist government. As for the Conservatives, we must remember that it was a Conservative government that first introduced tariffs into Canada. Each successive Conservative government, when elected, increased the tariff wall all along the line.

The Address-Mr. Wood


Mr. Higgins:: What evidence have you of that?


Robert James Wood: In 1930 the Conservative government of R. B. Bennett climaxed all other Conservative governments by increasing the tariff wall to a height never experienced before or since in Canada. Although I would not say that they were responsible for the depression in the hungry thirties, I will say that their tariff policies certainly intensified the depression in this country, as they tended to make other countries reciprocate with tariffs and administrative orders against our surplus goods finding a market.
In 1934, when the United States congress passed the reciprocity treaty, the Bennett government failed to take advantage of it, even although we had surplus goods piled up all over the country. I remember that in 1934 we were selling cattle in the Winnipeg stockyards at a price of from half a cent to two cents a pound. In 1934 in the Winnipeg stockyards you could buy a 1,000-pound cow for $5; and I saw carloads and carloads, which came in from western Canada to the stockyards to be processed, and were sold for that price. Yet at the same time people in western Europe were paying twenty-five cents a pound for horse meat and could not get enough to eat. That is what happens when a government tries to make a country self-sufficient. But in 1936, after the King government took office, Mr. King entered into a reciprocal trade agreement with the late Mr. Roosevelt, then president of the United States. One of the items the United States agreed to take from Canada was 250,000 head of cattle per year, in quarterly quotas of 62,500, at a reduced tariff of from three cents to two cents a pound.


Mr. Warren:: You are right.


Robert James Wood: As a result of that agreement, our cattle immediately advanced about four cents a pound while the quotas were being filled. In other words, instead of selling our cattle at from half a cent to two cents a pound, we were getting five and six cents a pound. That was in 1936; and ever since then, year by year, our cattle have been going up in price until today our best steers are bringing twenty-four cents a pound in the Winnipeg stockyards. Our cattle prices never went back since 1936, and we still have a Liberal government.
I want to commend this government and the ministers responsible for our trade agreements during the past fifteen years. I do not believe we are going to have a depression, at any rate while we have a' Liberal government. Certainly we may take lower prices for many of our products; but as long as we


have a government that will endeavour to find markets for our surplus products, the likelihood of a depression is remote.


Gordon Francis Higgins: They had better get busy now.


Robert James Wood: Our farmers were never better off than they are today.
I should like to commend this government for having established trade missions in many countries throughout the world for the purpose of seeking markets. I should like to commend this government on its attitude towards trade with our neighbours and best customers, the United States. We should go all-out and use every means in our power to increase our trade with the United States. In 1949 the United States took over fifty per cent of all our exports. We must give the United States every consideration in our trade relations, and under no circumstances must we discriminate against her.
I should like to commend this government on the floor price set on eggs. I do not believe in a floor price set too high on any goods, because that would tend to allow stocks to pile up in this country. It is not a floor price which will solve the egg situation; it is a market. The same is true with regard to all our surplus products.
Any government which, through its lack of effort or through restricted measures, fails to provide markets for the surplus primary products of this country would find that a floor would not hold for long. Let us endeavour, by every means possible, to create a multilateral trade system among the nations of the world, to operate with some kind of an international banking system. Let us reduce or wipe away tariffs and trade blocs. There are many countries of the world which would like to buy our surplus products.
I want to commend this government for its efforts toward the construction of a'trans-Canada highway. This is a project that will be welcomed by every Canadian. I also want to commend this government on a bill which was introduced and passed about six years ago, known as the Farm Improvement Loans Act. Prior to the passing of this bill, in order to secure money to finance the purchase of farm machinery, trucks, farm buildings, building repairs, drainage and fencing, farmers were obliged to pay excessive interest rates ranging from twelve per cent to fifteen per cent, made up of interest, appreciation and insurance. But now this money costs the farmers only five per cent through the Farm Improvement Loans Act. By this bill the western farmers have saved millions of dollars in interest charges; and although the act has been operating now for

nearly six years, I understand the government guarantee has cost the federal treasury nothing.
Early pioneers came to this country knowing it to be a land of freedom. They prided themselves on their individual dignity and freedom. But there are amongst us today men who would destroy that freedom if they had the opportunity to set up a state control of our economy. We must guard well our traditional freedom.
Just forty miles from Winnipeg, on the west shore of lake Winnipeg, we have slimmer resorts at Sans Souci, Matlock, Whyte-wold, Ponemah, Winnipeg Beach, Sandy Hook and Gimli, each with its lovely sand beach, well shaded shores with maples, elms and evergreens. I might say at Winnipeg Beach alone during the summer vacation about 40,000 people come from many parts of Canada and the central states to spend their holidays.
(Translation):


Mr. Auguste Maltais (Charlevoix):: Mr. Speaker, I am deeply honoured to have the privilege of speaking at this second session of the twenty-first parliament. I am also pleased to follow tradition, which requires that congratulations be extended to the mover (Mr. Larson) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne and also to the member who seconded the motion (Mr. Dumas). I cannot express myself as eloquently as those who have spoken before me, but my congratulations are none the less sincere.
I will take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the debate on the address to point out some of the needs of my constituency and to make some comments on the economic conditions in this country.
There is one part of my constituency whose needs I would like to point out. That part of Montmorency constituency that extends from St. Tite des Caps to Chateau Richer is made up of a predominantly rural population.
One of the better known parishes of the constituency is that of Ste. Anne de Beaupre. This parish has become an international shrine, and as it is visited by more than a million visitors every year, the problem of traffic and parking in that municipality is serious. I have often been requested to intercede with the federal government in order to obtain either a grant or the carrying out of some project which would enable the priests who are in charge of the church to extend their property so as to allow those visitors to park their automobiles. I therefore ask the federal government to give these requests most careful attention.
The Address-Mr. Maltais
I would also like to call the government's attention to the unemployment situation which has developed in that part of my constituency.
I wish to talk of a problem which affects the whole of my constituency, that of the Quebec-Murray Bay railroad. That railroad was constructed during Mr. Forget's tenure of office as federal member for the riding. I know of no better way of pointing out the necessity for improvements on that road than to call your attention to the fact that it now takes four hours to travel ninety miles over it.
I shall probably have occasion to deal with this at some more opportune time.
I will not pretend that my comments will offer a solution to all the problems now facing the government. However, even a cursory examination of the economic situation of this country will show that if we are to maintain our national economy we must necessarily export a certain amount of our surplus goods.
Should there be a drop in our exports, it is only natural that it would be followed by a slowing down of business in general. When Great Britain cut down her purchases in Canada, either of newsprint or of agricultural products, it was quite natural that we should have felt some uneasiness at the thought of the problems with which we are now faced.
However, I do not share the opinion propounded by the members of the opposition and by certain newspapers that would have us believe that we are now in the throes of a serious economic depression.
I know that there is unemployment in some parts of the country. There is some in my constituency but I trust that the problem will soon be solved. I have full confidence in our young country; perhaps the fact that' I am still young accounts for my optimism. I believe, however, that the situation will right itself and that we will return to a normal if not prosperous state of affairs.
I am also delighted to learn that new markets have been opened in Spain and Latin America. I do not approve the opposition's proposal to sell our export goods for sterling. That would only mean handing over thousands of dollars to another country in order to support a socialist regime that seems to be on its last legs. To attempt this costly experiment might result in our own downfall.

The Address-Mr. Maltais
We have only scratched the surface of our national wealth. I feel sure the operation of Labrador's iron mines will prove beneficial not only to the province of Quebec but to the whole of Canada.
I was happy to discover, when the estimates were brought down, that the government had been kind enough to grant the requests I had made.
There is yet another question to which I would like to call the government's attention, that of pensions for incapacitated persons.
Every week I receive several letters from people who are, in a way, handicapped by some illness or accident that makes them unable to earn their living without the help of others. I realize that the government has spent large amounts on social services but I believe that serious consideration should be given to this matter.
I have a great deal of sympathy for people who seem totally incapable of fending for themselves and of providing for their own needs. It is absolutely necessary that the state help these people. The electors I have the honour to represent in this house would deeply appreciate legislation that would help those invalids.
I was also pleased to note that the government has introduced a measure dealing with unemployment insurance. In my constituency there are many woodsmen who have already started receiving benefits and I believe that will do a great deal to help my fellow citizens.
There is also another class of people that the government has not forgotten-I refer to

those who are engaged in sailing on the St. Lawrence river. However, a considerable number of those people who work on ships during the summer find themselves out of a job when winter comes along. Since this class of workers has no right to unemployment insurance benefits it seems to me that the Unemployment Insurance Act should be amended. I would like the government to consider the plight of these people and to enable them to benefit also from the provisions of the act.
Mr. Speaker, I could go on, since there are in my constituency some other urgent problems. I hope that another opportunity will be afforded me of setting forth, in this house, the point of view of those whom I have the honour of representing here.
(Text):
On motion of Mr. Knowles the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Alphonse Fournier: the adjournment of the house.
He said:	Tomorrow we will go into
supply, and call the first item for the Department of External Affairs. I understand we will spend the day on the general discussion of the first item. If that is completed we will ask to revert to the motion under government notices of motion, to refer the external affairs votes to the committee on external affairs. Then, if time is left, we will revert to the debate in reply to the speech from the throne.
I should add that from eight to nine is the hour for private and public bills.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.45 p.m.

Friday, March 3, 1950