1952-12-02

Hon. Robert H. Winters (Minister of Resources and Development):: I should like
to table a list of apportionments and adjustments of indebtedness on advances of seed grain.



QUOTAS ON COARSE GRAINS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. R. Argue (Assiniboia):: I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Will coarse grain quotas be raised to fifteen bushels per acre in the same manner as wheat quotas or will they continue to be increased at a slower rate? Is it expected that quotas can be raised sufficiently to enable producers to market all grain before the end of the present crop year?


Righi Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, the hon.
member was good enough to let me have notice of his question. From approximately December 1, quota policy will be more definitely related to equalizing delivery opportunity amongst producers and as between grains. It must be remembered that producers will market some two bushels of wheat for every bushel of oats and barley and this relationship should be more or less preserved throughout the crop year. Up to November 20, marketing of oats and barley amounted to 94 million bushels as compared with 192 million bushels of wheat. Deliveries to date therefore are not seriously out of line with the volume of wheat and coarse grains which will be delivered during the crop year. Actually barley deliveries in per cent of expected marketings during the crop year are ahead of wheat, owing in part to the provision that a producer can market a car lot of barley accepted for malting or other industrial purposes over and above established quotas. Oats deliveries, in relation to prospective marketing, are running behind wheat and barley, and this is one of the factors which will be corrected as the crop year progresses.
It will be the policy to keep deliveries of wheat, oats and barley running in proper relationship to expected marketings of each grain and this factor will be reflected in the
rate at which delivery quotas are increased. This is the important consideration rather than the actual delivery quotas established. In general, however, the board will work towards 15 bushel quotas on oats and barley. There are certain areas in the west where oats and barley are relatively more important. These specialized areas will be given consideration in connection with coarse grain delivery quotas.
In reply to the hon. member's second question, may I say that although sales, export clearances and shipments out of country elevators are proceeding at a rate in excess of last year's accomplishments, it is difficult to forecast at this stage of the season's operations the total quantity of grain it will be possible to receive into storage facilities from producers during the crop year. If, for storage reasons, it is not possible to take delivery of all the grains which producers wish to market, the Canadian wheat board will endeavour to distribute the excess as equitably as possible amongst all producers. The intent is maximum marketings, maximum transportation, and maximum sales.



TRANSFERS TO 1952-53 POOLS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. P. E. Wright (Melfort):: I wish to direct a further question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Can the minister indicate to the house the amount of wheat and coarse grains that were transferred from the 1951-52 crop pool to the 1952-53 pool and the prices at which such transfers were made?


Clarence Decatur Howe: In answer to the hon. member for Melfort's question, the orders in council covering the transfer of the 195152 coarse grain pools to the respective 1952-53 pools are order in council P.C. 4304 of October 15, 1952, in the case of oats, and P.C. 4331 of October 23 in the case of barley. These two orders in council were included in the group of statutory orders and regulations tabled in the house on November 13. P.C. 4508 of November 19 covers the transfer of the 1951-52 wheat pool to the 1952-53 pool. This order in council will be included in the group of statutory orders and regulations to be tabled on December 11 next in accordance with the customary procedure. The quantity of wheat transferred was 103,208,409 bushels
244	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry and 16 pounds valued at $169,853,350.92. I might say that 222 grades of wheat were involved in the transfer.



RAILWAY CROSSINGS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Daniel Mclvor (Fort William):: I
should like to ask the Minister of Transport a question. At the town of Raith children have difficulty crossing the railway track in going to school. When will it be possible for the people there to have a crossing so that settlers can get their goods across, children can be protected and others can cross in safety?


Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Minister of Transport):: The hon. member kindly told me a few moments ago that he was going to ask this question. I understand that an application has been made to the board of transport commissioners who have the matter under investigation, and I am hopeful that the decision which they will hand down may be satisfactory to all parties concerned.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: Thank you.



INDIAN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. J. Brooks (Royal):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Have complaints been received from Indian veterans with reference to the poor and incomplete construction of Indian veterans' homes at Micmac, Nova Scotia, and Big Cove, New Brunswick? If so, will an effort be made to have this situation corrected at once before more severe winter weather sets in?


Hon. W. E. Harris (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration):: The hon. member was kind enough to give me notice a few hours ago, but in the meantime I have not been able to get in touch with the agency concerned, so my answer will have to be based on the information available in Ottawa. We have not received any complaints from Indian veterans on the reserves mentioned. On the other hand, I did receive a personal letter about the 20th of last month from an individual who is not resident in the maritimes about conditions there. In answering him I promised an investigation and ordered it, I believe on the 22nd of November. I have not had a report but I will ask for it right away.



INQUIRY AS TO PRICE CUT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. William Bryce (Selkirk):: I had intended to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture but perhaps his parliamentary assistant will take note of it. In view of the minister's announcement yesterday regarding the lifting of the United States embargo, will the minister give further consideration to the cut in hog prices to take effect on December 31? Perhaps this cut could be postponed to March 1 or later.


Mr. Robert McCubbin (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture):: will take note of the hon. member's question and an answer will be given in due course.



REPORTED CONTRACT WITH UNITED STATES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Defence Production. Is the minister prepared to comment on press reports from Washington which allege that Silver Miller Mines Limited of Toronto agreed to pay $835,000 to a former assistant secretary of defence at Washington to promote a contract with the United States government for the purchase of cobalt from this firm? Would the minister care to tell the house whether the Canadian government is purchasing cobalt from this firm, and if so, under what terms?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Arrangements for the purchase of cobalt for defence purposes were announced in the house on February 15, 1951, and a revision of the plan was announced on December 28, 1951. A public announcement was made at both times. The government agency is purchasing cobalt from any source that offers cobalt to the smelter on the terms of those two announcements. The Silver Miller situation is one that involves certain Canadian citizens and a procurement agency of the government of the United States. We have no knowledge of the circumstances and are not particularly interested.
The situation could have been avoided if the procurement agency of the United States had followed the arrangement we have suggested to it, and which has been followed generally, that any purchase contract for metal in Canada be cleared through the Department of Defence Production before the contract is closed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is the present price of $2 a pound, which appears in the press reports,

the price that was fixed in the revised arrangements made on December 28, 1951?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I am sorry to say my memory is not that good. I do not remember whether the price is $2. However, I know my hon. triend is very good on research, and if he will look up the statement I made in the house on the date mentioned he will find the arrangement set out in great detail.



SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, December 1, consideration of the motion of Mr. J. L. Deslieres 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.
Mr. G. T. Fulford (Leeds):: Mr. Speaker, last night when I adjourned the debate I had been dealing with the particular phase of the speech from the throne having to do with the St. Lawrence seaway. Today it is my intention to deal with matters of an entirely different nature. First of all, I am sure that we all wish the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) well in their discussions at the economic conference between the various commonwealth nations now being held in London. I know furthermore that we regret that the Minister of Trade and Commerce could not join the Canadian delegation that is over there at the present time, but at the same time I can think of no better person who could have been left behind to head the government during the absence of the Prime Minister.
We all feel that probably at the root of the trouble so far as commonwealth trade and world trade generally are concerned is the peculiar and unfortunate position of the pound. Certainly everyone would like to see some method devised whereby convertibility of the pound and Canadian and United States dollars could be brought about. The best way of bringing this about of course is to increase our trade with the United Kingdom and other parts of the commonwealth, but we in Canada have come to a place where I doubt very much whether our dairy farmers and our beef and hog producers would be satisfied if they were dependent on the former contracts with the United Kingdom.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to put on record some figures which I obtained from the Department of Trade and Commerce. I might
The Address-Mr. Fulford say that these figures are as of November 18, 1952. The prices of products of countries other than Canada are those at present in effect and in terms of the Canadian equivalent in cents per pound f.o.b. the country of origin for approximately the same quality.
We will take bacon. The price of bacon in Denmark and in Holland is 30-32 cents per pound. In Canada it is 36 cents per pound. For beef, New Zealand top quality, average 14 cents; medium, average 12-5 cents; and cows, average 9-8 cents per pound. Argentine prices are presently being negotiated but the asking price for all meat in the Argentine is 18-7 cents. The Canadian prices are: good, average 44 cents; commercial, average 42 cents; cows, average 36 cents. Then we go to butter. In Australia the price is 37-8 cents; New Zealand, 37-8 cents; in Denmark which is a little closer to the British market, and that makes up the price differential, 40-7 cents; and the Canadian price is 62 cents. With respect to cheese, Australia and New Zealand both have the same price, 21-2 cents per pound. In Canada the price is 32 cents per pound.
I have one more set of figures I should like to place on the record. These are supplied by the Department of Agriculture and they have to do with eggs. The figures quoted per dozen are the mid-September prices, 1952: Australia, 52-2 cents per dozen; Ireland, 54-2 cents per dozen; and Denmark 46-4 cents per dozen. Grade A large eggs were selling in Montreal at that time for 61 cents per dozen.
Now, Mr. Speaker, it does not take much argument on my part to show that we cannot blast our way into such markets. Quite a famous Conservative leader some twenty years ago-


An hon. Member:: What was his name?


George Taylor Fulford: Well, we do not speak ill of the dead, and he was a great Canadian.


An hon. Member:: We heard yesterday
about the dead.


George Taylor Fulford: It does not take much vision to see that it would not be to Canada's advantage at this time to try to blast our way into the agricultural markets of Great Britain with produce from the Canadian farms. One important thing that those opposite are always trying to say is that we are losing our markets and that we should have more markets in the United Kingdom. Well, we should have more markets in the United Kingdom, but it is an axiom of trade that in order to sell you have got to buy. It is a strange paradox that when we do purchase in quantity from the United Kingdom our

The Address-Mr. Fulford friends opposite are the first to raise their voices in protest, and in particular I will mention the textile trade.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


George Taylor Fulford: When we try to increase our trade there we are told that we should not do it and that we are destroying Canadian industry. I cannot imagine a more inconsistent policy.
Also, our friends opposite are wont to criticize. That is their privilege and, as a matter of fact, it is the duty of all opposition parties to criticize; but I feel that they leave uncriticized those things which should be criticized and they criticize those things which should be uncriticized and there is no wisdom in them.
We hear so much in this house and also in the press of Canada about our surpluses- surpluses which have created nothing short of phenomenal decreases in our public debt. These attacks on the surpluses are attacks on something for which the rest of the world admires and envies us, there is no doubt about that.
If the productive capacity of this country is such that it produces more revenue than can be anticipated when the budget is drawn up, then surely the Minister of Finance cannot be criticized but is to be complimented. Our policies are such that we are making Canada more prosperous, and Canada is more prosperous than could possibly have been originally anticipated. Had our gross national product fallen and had we shown annual deficits as are shown in practically all of the governments of the rest of the world, and had our national debt increased since the war, then our friends opposite would have had plenty to criticize and to criticize rightly. I can imagine the hue and cry that would have been set up. It would have drowned out every other noise in the land.
I would like to read now figures to show just how our national debt has decreased since the war and what the savings to the taxpayers of Canada are. In 1938, before world war II-and I am using the North American figure for billions-our national debt stood at $4,336 million. That increased during world war II to reach its high point in 1945 with a total of $17,479 million. By 1951 it had been reduced to $15,342 million, a reduction of more than $2 billion in six years. At the rate of interest we are now paying, the interest on $2 billion repaid in the last six years would have amounted to $TJ million per week, with which our national budget is no longer burdened. If we have to contemplate deficit spending in times of
[Mr. Fulfcrd.)
emergency most people would feel that we should reduce our outstanding obligations in times of prosperity.
Listening to our friends opposite and the press representatives in the country, one would imagine that we Liberals derive some sort of diabolical pleasure from raising taxes. Well, certainly, no one enjoys paying taxes. I am sure that cabinet ministers do not like taxes or paying them any more than private members of parliament, or party followers, or the public generally-or even that little fellow the Montreal Gazette depicts every day, a little fellow called "You know who". None of us like to pay taxes. I certainly have no reason personally to love the income tax but I am unlike-for those of you who saw the play "You can't take it with you"- Grandpa Vanderhoof, who asked the tax collector: "Why should I pay income taxes; what do I get out of it?" We realize that these taxes have to be paid in order to keep Canada in a sound financial position, and at the same time to meet the foreign obligations that we have contracted; to pay our share in trying to keep the world at peace, and in order to keep Soviet Russia from breaking its bonds, thereby throwing us all into the most terrible holocaust that human imagination could conceive. That is why taxes are high. Certainly, I would be the first to condemn any government that wilfully wasted taxes or wilfully raised them when they were not needed. To say that our taxes are destroying private industry is sheer nonsense.
Our expansion and development since the end of the war is advancing beyond our most exaggerated expectations. Canada is now considered the safest and best investment market in the world. Evidence of this is seen in the flood of United States dollars, Swiss francs and other hard currencies into our markets, making the Canadian dollar the highest in the world.
I should like to read an article which appeared in the Brockville Recorder and Times as early as September 30, 1952. It is entitled "The Economist"-that is the London Economist-"examines Canada's horizons." It reads as follows:
The boom in Canada seems to have slackened temporarily. Taxes admittedly are high. There is some spotty unemployment, and the people of New Brunswick recently indicated in some measure their protest against Liberal fiscal policies. Seen from "inside" Canada the view of the future may be a trifle unclear. What of the view of Canada's future as seen from "outside"?
The London Economist, one of Britain's most respected newspapers looked editorially at Canada's horizons, recently. In part, this is what the Economist saw: "Already occupied with a load of work that less vigorous countries might stretch over a generation, Canada has the faith, and pro-

fesses to have the capacity to proceed with the gigantic St. Lawrence seaway scheme and to disregard Washington's refusal to participate."
"It would certainly be unwise to reach the conclusion that too much is being attempted too quickly. . . . The rise in both industrial and agricultural productivity since the war has been so astonishing that Canada may well be able to provide guns, factories and butter all at the same time."
Perhaps of even more interest to Canadians than this optimistic examination of Canada by the Economist is the principal reason which the London newspaper cites as being responsible for our situation today. The reason: "Canada is not merely favoured with abundant material resources. It has had the good sense-or the good luck-to provide itself with good government. Its economic affairs have been handled with a skill unexampled throughout the world. It has found in the short space of two or three years, a degree of selfconfidence that is the proper mark of a country entering upon the early stages of economic maturity."
Here the Brockville Recorder inserts its own observations.
Here then is some pretty solid food for thought for those Canadians who cry "it's time for a change in Ottawa", but who don't know for sure just what the change would involve. Looking before leaping is sound practice.
Now, Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to agree with my hon. triend the member for St. Mary (Mr. Dupuis), when he suggested that our friends opposite change their policies, their tactics and their leadership. Oh, no; I think that these same policies, tactics and leadership have done much for the cause of Liberalism in Canada. I know that the Liberals are satisfied with this government, and I am fairly confident that the majority of the people in Canada feel the same way. We must never allow ourselves to become complacent or self-satisfied. We must ever strive to improve our standard of living on the farm, in the factory, in the office and in the home. I feel that the speech from the throne contains much that points towards this goal.


Mr. Howard C. Green (Vancouver-Quadra):: In discussing'the speech from the throne this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, I intend to deal primarily with questions raised in that speech which are of particular interest to the Pacific coast. Since there are several of these subjects, I do not intend to take any time on preliminaries but rather to get right down to my criticisms and suggestions with regard to these questions which are of such importance to us on the west coast.
The first subject, of course, is that of the commonwealth conference now under way in England. In particular, we are interested in commonwealth trade. We hope, in fact we demand, that from this commonwealth conference there will come an improvement in commonwealth trade. It has always been of great importance to the west coast of Canada, and for many months now we have
The Address-Mr. Green been looking forward to the conference hoping for favourable results. I have here an editorial from the Vancouver Sun, published as long ago as July 14 of this year. It is entitled "Trade Revival Urgent." It opens with these words:
The coming meeting of commonwealth finance ministers in London will be momentous for Canada and this country's relations with its sister realms in the commonwealth.
Something must be done quickly to perk up trade both ways between Canada and Britain and other parts of the sterling area.
British Columbia is deeply concerned. We must regain our British market for lumber, fruit, salmon and other commodities.
The statements in that editorial are quite accurate. I propose to mention three of those commodities. First, I shall mention lumber. A few months ago one of our leading lumbermen said that the United Kingdom market for lumber is "B.C.'s old faithful." That, of course, is true. This year that market will be about 20 per cent lower than it was last year, and the same is expected to be the case for the Australian, New Zealand and South African lumber markets. I am told on good authority that it is likely that the Canadian west coast will export about 500 million feet less of lumber than was the case in the year 1951. In addition to the cuts in these exports, we are meeting increasing competition from the Baltic countries. That situation is becoming serious in each one of the markets to which I have referred.
We believe that the prospect for 1953 is no better. The word has come out that during that year the market for British Columbia lumber in the United Kingdom, for example, will be held down to about one half of the pre-war market. That, of course, is an extremely serious situation and it cannot be blamed in any way on the lumbermen themselves. They have first-class selling arrangements. I do not believe that there are any more efficient exporters in any line in Canada than the lumber exporters on the west coast.
So much for lumber. The situation with regard) to canned salmon is also extremely serious. Last summer our warehouses were full of canned salmon from the 1951 pack. Since then there has been the 1952 pack, and we are completely out of the United Kingdom market. In 1950 and 1951 that market purchased over $6 million worth of canned salmon, but in 1952 it is purchasing nothing at all.
I -have before me the annual report of our largest fishing company, namely British Columbia Packers, Limited. It is dated July 11 of this year, and we find this reference by the president to the prospects for exporting canned salmon:
The combination of a near record pack of canned salmon in the 1951 season and a very much reduced

The Address-Mr. Green marketing area has created a difficult sales problem. There has been further impairment in the dollar exchange position of such important former markets as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. All these countries still prohibit the import of British Columbia salmon. Recently an even greater blow was received when the British Ministry of Food reluctantly advised that it would be unable to purchase canned salmon from the 1952 pack. This important buyer has constituted the largest single export outlet for canned salmon over the past three years, having taken from the industry 410,000 cases in 1949, 227,000 cases 111 1950 and 290,000 cases in 1951.
Concerning the loss of the United Kingdom market for salmon, resolutions have also been passed by the Vancouver, New Westminster and district trades and labour council, a responsible body in our province. The same position has been taken by the fisheries council of Canada. They are a nation-wide organization with headquarters in Ottawa. In their publication of October 3 I find these words:
We hear about the 40 million pounds of canned pork now on hand-but there is more canned salmon and canned sardines looking for a market right now than there is canned pork . . .
The Canadian fishing industry has always been dependent to a large extent on its export market. What has happened to many of these markets is now an old story-lack of dollars on the part of our old customers. With government assuming steadily increasing responsibility for international trade, the industry has no alternative but to look to government for assistance in the solution of these problems.
Then the report goes on:
It is to be hoped that the Canadian government realizes fully the gravity of the present situation. Something must be done to restore our traditional markets if the fishing industry is to continue to provide a livelihood for the numbers of persons now dependent on it.
I believe that the fishing industry has asked the government for help similar to that given to the pork producer.
Then our other British Columbia product which is in great trouble having regard to commonwealth markets is the apple. We have been shut out of all the commonwealth markets for apples.
Mr. Speaker, I deplore the smugness of the government on this question of commonwealth trade. During the last election in 1949 the present Minister of Trade and Commerce made a speech in Vancouver and he blurted out this statement in the middle of his speech.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I never blurt. On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, may I say that I do not blurt.


Howard Charles Green: The minister says "I never blurt." I say that he does.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Why does the hon. member not be a gentleman and say "the minister said"?


Howard Charles Green: All right. The minister said:
Anyone who suggests we are losing our British markets is talking nonsense.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Right.


Howard Charles Green: He says "right" today, and he still feels the same way. I say that he is too smug. That is what is the trouble with him in connection with that subject.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The hon. member is expressing my views as to himself.


Howard Charles Green: I did not hear that remark. Just a few months ago in this very house we had a resolution introduced by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) which suggested as follows:
. . . that the government should consider the advisability of taking steps to convene at the earliest possible date a conference of the nations of the British commonwealth to seek means by which there may be convertibility of commonwealth currencies and to explore all the possibilities for restoring and enlarging those traditional markets upon which our prosperity so largely depends.
That resolution was, of course, voted down by the government majority in this house. Then this fall the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) came to Vancouver and made a speech. He did some blurting as well. In that speech he advised us to produce more and to be more efficient and thus all our problems would be solved. I have here an article written, shortly after that speech, by Roy W. Brown, who without a doubt is the dean of our newspaper editorial writers. It is headed "B.C. Merely First to Suffer"; "Abbott Overlooked Dropping Exports"; and Mr. Brown had this to say:
Hon. Douglas Abbott's clear and excellent speech in Vancouver Monday did not bring much satisfaction to leading businessmen of Vancouver who are exporters of natural products.
Mr. Abbott admitted the problem posed against timber and salmon shipments contained in the exchange premium, but his smug comment did not promise relief.
Instead, he offered some advice, oft-repeated during recent months by learned Easterners to the effect that "this means that efficiency and low net cost of production are vital to your prosperity."
It has come to be the fashion to direct not a little of what one may call high-class kidding to the B.C. manufacturing scene. Actually, what it seems to boil down to is that because our labour costs are higher than in centres on the Atlantic coast, then we must therefore be Inefficient. I challenge this as incorrect and altogether a wrong picture.
Real efficiency has reached a high pitch, especially in most of the top operations in B.C. timber and fishing. What we are really suffering from is a restriction of markets.
In the loss of markets, we are just feeling the pinch about a year or 15 months sooner than central Canada.
That article appeared in the Vancouver Sun which is a supporter of this government; and just about two weeks ago the Sun had

a final comment concerning this particular situation and the attitude of the government to it, which is as follows. I am now reading from the issue of November 15:
To British Columbia producers at the moment the stirring challenge of Mr. Abbott to produce more has a slightly hollow ring because the producers of this province face shrinking markets for their most important primary product, lumber, and for other things beside. To pleas for help in opening new markets or for bolstering the old, weakening markets, the government-if not deaf-is at least seemingly indifferent.
I regret that the Minister of Trade and Commerce is not at this commonwealth conference. He should be there. Even though it would have been necessary to withhold the calling of this session until after the new year, our Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) should have been at that commonwealth conference.
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the criticism contained in the amendment of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) with regard to this question is more than justified when he regrets the failure of the government-
-to take any effective steps to regain the commonwealth markets for food and other products upon which the prosperity of our farmers and other basic producers so directly depends.
I repeat, on this question, that this commonwealth conference must find a way to improve commonwealth trade.
On the west coast we hope also that the commonwealth conference will take steps to promote increased co-operation between the freedom-loving nations of the Pacific area. The conference is in a splendid position to give such leadership because, in the first place, seven of the eight commonwealth nations have vital interests in the Pacific. The only one which has not is South Africa. In the second place, the association of these seven commonwealth nations constitutes the best bridge there is between the east and the west.
At the present time there is no broad plan for maintaining peace in the Pacific area as there is in the Atlantic, and indeed in the Mediterranean areas, by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In the Pacific we have a series of treaties between the United States and other countries. There is one treaty between the United States and Japan; another between the United States and the Philippines; another between the United States, Australia and New Zealand. It is strange, but apparently Canada and the United Kingdom are not welcomed to this treaty between the United States, Australia and New Zealand, known as ANZUS; we are being shouldered out of that treaty, and so is the United King-
Tile Address-Mr. Green dom, although our two countries are the ones which have the largest number of troops fighting in the Pacific, with the exception of the United States.
I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Pacific should not be considered a United States lake. With the new government of the United States obviously placing greater importance on the Pacific area than did the Truman administration, now is the time for the nations of the commonwealth to try to work out with the United States a general plan for security in the Pacific area.
Reference is made in the speech from the throne also to Vancouver harbour. We are told that there are to be certain improvements and engineering studies. Naturally I approve of that proposal. I would point out, however, that in addition to improvements in the harbour there must also be additional modern docking facilities. With regard to the harbour itself, there are two jobs to be done. I want to make sure that that distinction is kept in mind - by the ministers who are responsible. There is the larger job, which is the widening of the channel of the first and second narrows and the reduction of the current. That particular work will require study. I think it is very wise to have a model set up to work out the best plan. It will take time, and it will be expensive.
But there is a smaller and more urgent job to be done in Vancouver harbour, namely, the deepening of the present channel in the first narrows. I am told, by the people in Vancouver who know, that this does not require study; that there is already a plan; in fact that there has been a plan for over forty years, and that in deepening the first narrows channel there would be very little change made in the current, so that there is no reason why that work should have to wait for a model. Time is pressing on this work because we have now a problem with oil tankers. Some of the tankers are waiting outside the harbour, and coming in at high tide. The channel is deep enough for those present tankers, but even now there is that difficulty, and when the oil pipe line reaches Vancouver, which we hope will be in 1954, it is expected that much larger tankers will be coming into the harbour, and there will be trouble with them, unless the first narrows is deepened to 40 feet.
We are worried now for fear failure to deepen the harbour entrance may result in most of the oil going down to the Washington state coast rather than coming to Vancouver. Therefore I urge upon the Minister of Public Works, and his associates in the government, that they put in a supplementary estimate
250	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Green for the present year, 1952-53, so that a start can be made after the new year on the deepening of the first narrows channel.
In addition to being Canada's great seaport on the Pacific, Vancouver is also Canada's great Pacific air terminus. It serves over half the people of the province, because over half the population of British Columbia is in greater Vancouver. There are lines running out across the Pacific, to the south and up the coast, and of course to the east across Canada. In a short time we shall have a line from Vancouver to South America. Our airport is one of the great airports of Canada, and yet the approach is a disgrace. It is across the north arm of the Fraser river by a low level bridge known as Marpole bridge. This bridge opens many times a day. I was held up there myself just two weeks ago tomorrow by a very small tug pulling a scow of sawdust. I cannot imagine such a situation existing on the road to the Dorval or Malton airports. In fact I know that at either of those airports such a condition would have been done away with many years ago. We ask that similar steps be taken in Vancouver now.
Then there has been haggling about the purchase of the airport. The government has offered $900,000. The city is asking $1,287,000. In other words, they are less than $400,000 apart, yet they have reached an impasse and apparently nothing can be done. I suggest there should be further steps to settle it. The purchase price paid by the dominion is to be turned over to be applied on a new Marpole bridge anyway. The provincial government is ready to help with this bridge, and all that is necessary is for the dominion to take a lead in the project. This government should look at the broad picture of Vancouver as Canada's great terminus and outlet on the Pacific.
In the speech from the throne reference is also made to studies of possible improvements to navigation on the Pacific coast. On our coast there has been a great increase in shipping. I need only remind hon. members of the construction going on at Kitimat, of the growth of Prince Rupert and of the developments in Alaska. There is far more shipping on that coast now than there has ever been before. Furthermore, with radar, the ships are expected to run regardless of fog. In many cases in earlier days they would have tied up; now, the ship owners expect the officers to keep the ships in operation, and I may say that we have as fine a group of ships' officers on our coast as can be found anywhere in this country.
During the last few months there have been some serious accidents. About a year


ago the Princess Kathleen and the Prince Rupert collided in a fog. The radar was not in operation at the time. Then this summer the Princess Kathleen, which was the flagship of the Canadian Pacific, was sunk a short distance out of Skagway. There again the radar was not in operation at the time of the accident. Later on in the summer the Prince George very nearly ran aground but was saved by splendid seamanship. In this case the radar had gone out of commission during the run to the north and as there were no facilities at Prince Rupert for repairing it the ship was being operated without radar.
I am told that there is urgent need on the west coast for further aids to navigation. I believe that if there had been a fog signal at the point where the Prince George nearly ran aground that trouble would have been averted.
A decision must be made by the Department of Transport with regard to the use of radar. The court of inquiry which inquired into the collision last year between the Princess Kathleen and the Prince Rupert recommended that the use of radar should be compulsory and that training in its use should also be made compulsory. That was not done although a voluntary scheme was set up for training officers in the use of radar. With these accidents behind us it becomes essential that the Department of Transport make up its mind as to what provisions it will make for the use of radar and also whether or not wireless operators must be carried. In recent years there has been a relaxation of the regulations governing the use of wireless and I believe the government should make provision on both these points at this session.
Then steps should be taken to remove Ripple rock. This has become more or less a joke in the house. When anyone mentions Ripple rock the rest of the house laugh, the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier) laughs, and that is all there is to it. In the meantime the rock remains. The people on the west coast are becoming increasingly annoyed that the Department of Public Works seem to have neither the energy nor the vision to do something about this rock. I have here an editorial from the Vancouver Sun in which they suggest a commission to deal with Ripple rock. The editorial is rather harsh on the Minister of Public Works, the first paragraph reading as follows:
Federal works minister Fournier's admission of defeat in the removal of Ripple rock is a disgrace to Canadian engineers and contractors.
The last paragraph reads:
The time has come for Mr. Fournier to stand aside. He's thrown up his hands in defeat and dis-

The Address-Mr. Green
grace. Let him set up a commission to handle the job. B.C. members of parliament should demand that he do so.
I would not be that hard on my good friend, the Minister of Public Works, because I realize this will be a most difficult job. But I repeat that some attempt should be made immediately to deal with this menace.
There have also been serious complaints in British Columbia in connection with the Department of Defence Production. One of the senior officers of this department, the director of the small industries division, Mr. F. W. Hore, went out to Vancouver in July and was reported as saying that British Columbia defence orders were then at a maximum and that no increase in defence orders for British Columbia was in sight. I should like to quote from the Vancouver Province of July 22 as follows:
Wo increase in defence orders is in sight for British Columbia, though B.C.'s "share" is admittedly less than the rest of Canada, according to F. W. Hore, director of small industries division. Department of Defence Production, Ottawa.
Mr. Hore, who is here consulting with manufacturers and suppliers, said that British Columbia's $29,000,000 shipbuilding contracts are the only big arms manufacturing B.C. can expect. "Higher labour rates more than anything else" put B.C. at a fatal disadvantage with eastern Canadian plants, and the freight to destination is the second major factor working against the coast, said Mr. Hore.
In other words, we are losing out because we are paying adequate wages and because we happen to be too far away from Ottawa. I believe that in some cases these goods have to be shipped to Ottawa and then distributed from Ottawa to the different centres across the country. That is an unfair situation. We should not be penalized for either of those reasons.
A firm known as Canadian Mobile Company tendered last summer on some forklift trucks. They are the only firm in Canada making this equipment. They do business with the trade in the east in the ordinary way but lost this government contract; it meant that fifty employees were laid off. The union took up the matter; in fact it was through the union that I heard of the trouble. I wrote to the deputy minister of defence production and discovered that this equipment had been purchased from a United States firm.
It is true that the price was about $1,000 less per unit but when one takes into consideration that about $500 would have been paid to the Canadian National for transporting each piece of equipment, that the discount on the United States dollar made a further difference of $300 per unit, and that the government would lose corporation taxes from the company and income tax from the men in addition to having to pay unemployment insurance, it would appear that in the long run the government lost out by placing this contract in the United States. I suggest that the minister look into this matter. The deputy minister replied to me as follows:
On the question of securing defence items from American sources, Mr. Howe has often mentioned in the house the importance of our trade with the United States, particularly in view of the very close co-operation that exists between our two countries on all matters pertaining to defence.
That is not a very satisfactory answer to fifty men who have been thrown out of work because a defence production contract has gone to the United States. Later on in the summer this same company lost out again because a tender actually called for United States equipment.
Further trouble is caused through the notices of tenders not being received sufficiently early to permit firms to tender. For example, tenders were called for the construction of wooden ships and I am informed that firms on the coast received these only one day before the tenders had to be submitted. As a result it was impossible for them to submit tenders. That may not be accurate, but it is the report I have received and I hope that the minister will look into it.
This department has very wide control over industry and can influence business both now and for the future. I believe that great care should be taken by the department to see that firms in the more distant parts of the country receive their fair share of the contracts.
There is also much annoyance on the west coast with respect to television. There is quite a long reference to this subject in the speech from the throne, and apparently it is to be the fate of the people of Vancouver not to be able to have Canadian television until a station is built there by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I do not know how long that will be, perhaps a year, two years or even longer. Vancouver is told to wait for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and even then there can be no competition from any Canadian private station. We already have a great many television sets in operation in Vancouver, and the owners of these sets are watching United States privately-sponsored television. Just last week a television record was made of the opening of parliament and we had the four youngest, most handsome and promising ministers in the cabinet, although I understand they needed grease paint even at that, in television.


Mr. Graydon:: Where were you, Jimmy?


Howard Charles Green: The Minister of Resources and Development (Mr. Winters) was not in it.

The Address-Mr. Green


Gordon Graydon: I am talking about the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. McCann).


Howard Charles Green: How do you suppose the people of Vancouver saw the television show of these four ministers? They saw it last Thursday night over station KING in Seattle.


Mr. Gibson:: Free enterprise.


Mr. McCann:: How did they look?


Howard Charles Green: That is a ridiculous situation. The new government policy on television means that Vancouver people will be able to tune in privately-owned television stations in Washington state but not privately-owned Canadian stations although there are several Canadian firms anxious to build television stations in Vancouver. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is going to have competition for listeners anyway from the United States. Why not let private Canadian stations enter the field? I must tell the minister that there is very bitter criticism of this policy on the west coast by the press of all parties and particularly in the press which supports the Liberal party. This policy should be reconsidered. I do not believe it is good enough for the west coast in the year 1952.
Finally, I should like to deal with the reference in the speech from the throne to the veterans of Canada. I deal with them last not because that is the least important subject in the speech from the throne but because this problem is nearest to my own heart. We find the following reference to veterans:
A bill designed to provide greater educational opportunities for children whose fathers died as the result of war service will be placed before you.
I heartily approve of that plan. It is long overdue. Many of us have been pressing for it for some years and so have the great veterans organizations of Canada. I only hope the measure will be a broad one. There is also a reference to a bill to continue the benefits of the Veterans Benefit Act for another year. Everyone will be in favour of that measure. I regret, however, that there is no reference whatever to the War Veterans Allowance Act.
Amendments were made to that legislation at the earlier session this year but there was great dissatisfaction with them on the west coast. Hon. members will recall that the amount of the allowance was increased to $50 for a single veteran and to $90 for a married veteran although the veterans organizations had asked for $60 for a single veteran and $120 for a married veteran. Furthermore the total permissive income of a single veteran for a year was raised to $720 and for a married veteran to $1,200. That meant
	|
that over and above his war veterans allowance a veteran, whether single or married, could only receive by way of a small pension or additional earnings $120 a year or $10 a month. Before this amendment was made the figures had been $125 for a single veteran and $250 for a married man. Even under the Old Age Assistance Act the ceiling is $240 a year over the amount of the assistance. There is obvious discrimination here against veterans who were front-line troops.
Last session the special committee recommended that the government should give further consideration to the recommendations of the veterans organizations and particularly with respect to permissive income. I had hoped that there would be some mention in the speech from the throne of further amendments to the War Veterans Allowance Act, and perhaps it is even yet not too late for the government to introduce such amendments. I cannot urge too strongly the need of making further improvements to this act.
There is a tendency growing up in the country, Mr. Speaker, to treat these veterans as welfare cases. Apparently some departments of the government are trying to get the veteran on the same basis as the recipient of welfare assistance. So far as the newer veterans are concerned, I have been disappointed to find in recent weeks that in Vancouver Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which administers houses rented to veterans, is considered by the authorities to be more hard-boiled than civilian landlords when it comes to evicting tenants. There is no excuse for an official attitude of that kind. There is something wrong with the approach to the problems of these veterans, and it is well illustrated by a pamphlet put out by the Department of Veterans Affairs after the last session entitled, "A message to older veterans, employment and war veterans allowance". In it we find these suggestions to the older veterans under the heading, "A few personal pointers":
Keep your hair neatly trimmed, boots clean, and, so far as your circumstances will permit your clothing neat and clean. Your hands and nails should be tidy. You should not enter the office with a cigarette in your mouth or smoke during the interview unless the interviewer offers you a cigarette. Do not attempt to shake hands unless the employer makes the first gesture. Do not rush into his office; walk forward easily and confidently. Don't sprawl in the chair or sit with feet and legs wide apart. Because a man's name is very important to him, be sure that you have previously inquired-even if it be from a member of the outside staff-what the executive's name is, and then greet him with a courteous "good morning" or "how do you do, Mr. Jones."
That pamphlet is an insult to the fighting men of Canada who are entitled to the war veterans allowance. Nothing could be more

calculated to wound the spirit of these gallant Canadians. I suggest that anything they get from the Canadian government is not a handout but only partial payment for services rendered. There is an obligation of this parliament to these men which I, for one, do not propose to see forgotten.
(Translation):


Mr. Pierre Gauthier (Portneuf):: Mr. Speaker, if I make my first remarks in French, it is because I like to hear the walls of this house echo once in a while to the tongue of Racine and Corneille, and also because, during the provincial election held last summer in Quebec, there were increasing complaints of encroachments. I heard such indignant denunciations of the so-called federal encroachments upon provincial rights that I made a point to say in this house that, in spite of these alleged encroachments-exaggerated, magnified and multiplied at pleasure by those who complain about them-we still speak French in the province of Quebec, we still keep the same religious belief and we go on hoping that we will always speak this beautiful language.
May I now be permitted to congratulate the mover (Mr. Deslieres) and the seconder (Mr. Schneider) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne, who so brilliantly accomplished their task. In choosing them to move and second the address, the government has honoured not only those two members, but also their respective constituencies and those who have recognized their merits by sending them to the House of Commons.
In this year 1952, my thoughts inevitably and unconsciously go back to the Quebec legislature where I had the honour of sitting for the first time on October 31, 1927, as member for Portneuf county. I have therefore been a member of the provincial legislature or of this deliberating assembly for twenty-five years. The other day I was happy to see my friend, the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot), celebrate the 28th anniversary of his election to the House of Commons. If my memory serves me right, it was the hon. member for Temiscouata who sent me the first letter of congratulations following my election as representative of Portneuf county in the provincial assembly.
I also have other congratulations to offer, Mr. Speaker, and this time they go to the government. Some of my colleagues may know why I want to do so. It is quite simple. I wish to congratulate the government on not having opposed the admission of Spain to UNESCO. As you know, for several years now I have spoken here, in this house and in the committee on external affairs, in favour of the admission of Spain
The Address-Mr. P. Gauthier to the United Nations. I have brought up this subject more than once and attempted to be as objective as possible. I had been sent to Europe by my municipality, on the occasion of the Holy Year. While there I thought it would be a good idea to investigate conditions on the spot and I spent a week in and around Madrid-which is not very long, admittedly-in order to find out whether Spain was as fascist as its opponents make it out to be.
I had been told, by the way, that I should not bring any camera with me since it would be confiscated. Still I took every picture I wanted of interesting landscapes; I even took pictures of public buildings such as the civic building in Madrid and the building which houses Franco's external affairs department, and nobody, no policeman, ever came around to ask me what I was doing. Consequently this propaganda about everything being the same in Spain as behind the iron curtain is absolutely misleading.
In any case, if Spain has not been admitted to the United Nations up to now, if there has been delay in recognizing that this country is probably the most unsurmountable obstacle in the way of communism, it is because well organized, well directed propaganda, amplified even at various meetings of the United Nations, has served to conceal that country's real worth.
Through skilful propaganda, the Franco government was criticized for its attitude towards so-called heroes who it is claimed fought in the French maquis for the liberation of France. I have made serious research on the subject and, with the help of official documents, I found that these so-called heroes were born in the very fertile imagination of the communists who had spread all over the world this false propaganda. Hence, there is no reason whatever why Spain should not have been admitted to the United Nations, to UNESCO or to other international organizations long before today.
In any event, I wish to congratulate the Canadian government for not having objected to the admission of Spain to UNESCO; I hope that the veil will vanish more and more and that the door will open as wide as ever, so that Spain may some day take her rightful place in the United Nations as well as in all organizations which are concerned with the welfare of the world generally.
I listened with great attention the other day-as I always do in any case-to the speech of my friend the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Courtemanche), who spoke of Mr. Henri Bourassa, the great Canadian orator.
;54

The Address-Mr. P. Gauthier
I agree with most of his laudatory remarks about that great Canadian. He was one of our best French-Canadian speakers, a fighter who fought almost until his death. In some debates, I would say that he was ferociously energetic. He made mistakes like any other human being, but I believe that history will place Mr. Henri Bourassa among the great men of our country.
He made several prophetic utterances in the House of Commons. I remember that at the time of the constitutional crisis in our parliament around 1926, Mr. Henri Bourassa was among the first to support Mr. Mackenzie King's suggestion that the Canadian people should be asked whether the Canadian constitution was binding or whether it could be disregarded according to some official's will or passing fancy. Needless to say, I do not agree with all the hon. member for Labelle said, especially about the C.B.C.
I know that, up to a certain point, the C.B.C. is a government enterprise. He spoke of monopoly and, once he got steamed up for a great electoral speech, he thoughtlessly used the word "socialism" which is so often uttered by our opponents when they try to link the socialist party with the Liberal party. That is their business, but one must remember that words have a meaning and that they should not be used at random about this and that.
I feel that radio broadcasting is too important a matter to entrust it to anyone at all. Neither private enterprise nor anyone else has the right to say that such and such a program is good or not so good or even bad for the public. I know that some officials of the C.B.C. may have let some things go by that we did not like and that we would not like to hear again. Along with my colleague from Three Rivers (Mr. Balcer), who is a member of the radio broadcasting committee, I have protested against the broadcasting of certain talks by Bertrand Russell, Anna Freud, and others, because we believed that the ideas expressed by these speakers should not be fed indiscriminately to the public without being subjected to a certain control. Indeed we did not share their opinion, which were often erroneous. But we must not overlook the fact that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is a man-controlled institution, as are the private stations, and as such can make mistakes. I repeat radio broadcasting is too important to leave it to the public at large to decide whether or not a program is acceptable. Therefore, I also feel that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation should be maintained in order that a certain control may be exercised over radio broadcasting. I understand that certain private stations, the majority of them perhaps,

may not take a favourable view of control exercised by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as pointed out by the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Courtemanche) in his remarks. He is right in saying that they are not allowed to operate networks. Moreover, were we to ask them to contribute to the maintenance of a national network from one end of the country to the other, the private stations would oppose these suggestions, precisely because they are commercial undertakings first and foremost. The operation of such a network would not be profitable, far from it. On the other hand the C.B.C., thanks to the state subsidies it receives, can operate two national networks and relay to the farthest corners of this country-and goodness knows we have a large country-programs which are quite acceptable to the people as a whole. Private stations would never dare to do so, for financial reasons.
On the other hand, private stations are allowed to have regional stations. As a matter of fact, when listening to CKAC, I often turn to another station when reception is poor, to get the same broadcast over another station. This advantage is due to the fact that private stations are allowed regional affiliates. But to imply that the C.B.C. operates a state monopoly and that it is tainted with socialism-after all one must know the meaning of words. I understand that, politically speaking, the word "socialism" uttered during an election battle or through the new loudspeakers of the House of Commons, may serve to diminish one's opponent in the eyes of the public. But you will admit that there is a difference between the C.B.C. monopoly and socialism. Furthermore, even if private stations enjoyed such complete freedom as the one advocated by the member, there would still be the danger which existed in the past.
Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to embark upon a too deep and too wide philosophical explanation, but I still say that the hon. member wants to go too far to the right and that he will eventually sink into economic liberalism. Of course, economic liberalism cannot be compared to the Liberal party doctrine, for everyone knows to what extent the former has been harmful to democracies. It is fortunate that the Liberal party doctrine in Canada is excellent. Its definition differs widely from that of economic liberalism, and I believe it is worth remembering because it is quite applicable to the present Liberal policy-it is the progressive attainment of our civil, social, individual, political, economic, and religious freedoms, all of them based upon a moral law. Such are the ideals of the Canadian Liberal party, ideals which deserve to be encouraged.

If, on the contrary, we afforded to anybody with talent, anybody in a favourable position, anybody with connections, anybody with certain financial advantages, the opportunity of making all the money he could, so that eventually a small group of men would control all the wealth of the world, that would be a return to economic liberalism, and then man would become a mere economic creature, striving to make money and benefit therefrom. Those are not the ideals of the Canadian Liberal party. In fact, I don't have to stress that fact since one has only to recall the social legislation the Canadian parliament has enacted, old age pensions, unemployment insurance, family allowances, and many more, to find the Liberal doctrine in Canada is very good.
Moreover, may I say to my hon. friend that those who lean too much to the right-to use a word which illustrates well what I have in mind-are bound to sink into economic liberalism which is very different from what is called "Canadian liberalism"; that those who tried to link "Canadian liberalism" with historical liberalism, condemned by the church, in a word, those who lean too much towards historical liberalism become inevitably engulfed in monopolistic capitalism. And monopolistic capitalism- whether my friend believes it or not- allowed Marx, on the strength of a theory on economic liberalism expounded by an English economist, to bring about class struggle after transposing a synthesis of that theory. Then, when the chosen, as they were called at that time, were to be the ones entitled to make money, because of their intellectual superiority, Marx transposed the theory and instigated class struggle. Today, the proletarian class and not capitalism comes first. He merely transposed a theory.
Moreover, Mr. Speaker, monopolistic capitalism has of course given false ideals to all who have been disappointed, who have had a hard time to make a living, to all who have had to work harder and who were in difficult conditions. Contrary to those who believe that a depression gives birth to communism, I say that a depression fosters communism but does not bring it about. Communism is born of something more remote, deeper. It is a muddle of the theories of Hegel: the contradiction in ideas. It comes also from the materialism of Fuerbach and of a Frenchman, Proudhon, who had lent Marx his theory on the class struggle. The errors of historical liberalism have been taken over by Marx and transformed by him; that is where he found his inspiration. He claimed that it was now the turn of the workers, instead of a small fortunate group, to take advantage of conditions. Unfortunately Marx went too
The Address-Mr. P. Gauthier far. Instead of the unfortunate class being the only one to gain by it, he created another group, that of the bureaucrats. The group of bureaucrats I speak of is not at all like the one we have in Canada. There is no comparison between the two.
This group of bureaucrats consists of one and a half million people, who control a population of 235 million people; they have all the opportunities and the means to acquire wealth, food, clothes, beautiful cars, and so on.
Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, my words may seem remote from the matter of the C.B.C. But it would be a shame if we succeeded in getting out of difficulties brought about by abuses only to be faced with new ones.
I would now like to discuss the C.B.C. broadcasts to our most remote regions. I am not always able to share my hon. friend's opinion; to my mind, his speech has been most interesting; but I shall not go as far as to say that we should abolish the C.B.C. monopoly. I doubt whether it would be wise, for I am confident that the C.B.C. controls programs more efficiently than private stations would and sees to it that the Canadian people get first rate broadcasts. Besides, if this monopoly is so detrimental to private stations, how is it that more than 80 of these out of 110 are linked with the C.B.C., and relay its programs? I believe private stations benefit from this situation, financially at least.
The other day, at the opening of a station in Saskatchewan, several speeches were made. One of the directors of the C.B.C., Mr. Adrien Pouliot, and another, spoke. They congratulated all who had worked for years to get French broadcasting in the west. It should be recognized also that the C.B.C. affords to private stations, and particularly French language stations, certain advantages.
Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor) who expressed the opinion that the speech read by the Governor General should be read one year in French and the next year in English. Let me mention as an example, Mr. Speaker, the prayer which is alternately recited in the two languages, in French one day and in English the next. May I say that we are in a country with two cultures and two official languages, even though our constitution does not entirely recognize them as such. However, everybody admits the existence of two official languages. Furthermore, I would not deny the hon. member for Fort William who is very broad-minded and who undoubtedly recognizes the existence of two cultures in Canada, I would not deny him, I

The Address-Mr. P. Gauthier repeat, for a whole year the pleasure of hearing the present speech in French and he would not likewise deny me the pleasure of hearing the same speech in English. Therefore, I believe that the speech from the throne must be read immediately in French and in English instead of being read first in one language and then in the other language a year later. That is my opinion.
I have listened very carefully to the speech delivered the other day by the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming). The hon. member also believes in a bicultural Canada; he has often enough expressed himself in French in the house.
I offer him my congratulations. However, it seems to me that his words exceeded his thoughts when he criticized the government with regard to an alleged scandal in the purchase of neckties-which we ordinarily call "faux cols" in Canada-as well as the purchase of serving forks and of a great quantity of soldiers' footwear. Reference was also made, in the Quebec legislature, to the speech made by the hon. member for Eglinton. Indeed, a minister cried out: "What about the million neckties?" On certain lips, on those of some members of the Union Nationale, for instance, the word "million" sounds queer. They throw it at you with disconcerting ease, cheerfully, as the hon. member for Beauharnois would say. What about the million neckties? Well, the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) dealt with this point the other day, and I believe he said just what ought to have been said. What he told was the truth. Besides, there is no point in gloating over it. I notice the hon. member for Three Riveirs (Mr. Balcer) is smiling. We must believe what the Minister of National Defence said, we must take his word because he is a member of this house and a minister of the crown. Last week end a veteran came up to me and said: "Pierre, what's the matter with our Conservative friends and why do they talk about scandals concerning ties, shoes, and serving forks?" Do they think that because we are soldiers we do not need two, three or four ties every year? Do they think that because we are soldiers we do not need shoes and serving forks? The federal government and the Department of National Defence have to provide for the needs of servicemen, for their clothes and their shoes, as these gentlemen provide for their own needs.
Mr. Speaker, I am a poor man, but I have to buy five or six ties every year. Our soldiers need four or five neckties every year. Furthermore, we are aware that they work hard and are ready at any time to risk their lives to protect our freedom. This veteran
[Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf).l
told me that they were going too far, that they should worry about more important matters, about savings which would really be of interest to all Canadian taxpayers.
That reminds me of a fact. When I was a member of the legislative assembly I often read the debates of the House of Commons. At that time, the Hon. Ernest Lapointe, who represented Quebec East, was also minister of justice. Mr. Meighen or Mr. Bennett, one of them or perhaps both, I do not recall correctly, was speaking of an alleged scandal. The Hon. Mr. Lapointe told him: "You act in a petty way about important things and take unimportant matters too seriously." As you can see it is always dangerous to discuss certain little scandals which actually are not scandalous at all.
I know that such things are bound to surprise. The other day I read a newspaper clipping which one of my electors had sent me. The item was captioned: "Why should I vote for the Liberals?" It seems that a member of the provincial legislature was going about the province of Quebec repeating after his minister: "Tell us more about neckties." He repeated those words every time he made a speech. Then, one of my constituents queried: "Why vote Liberal?" And I understand that he considered this as an abominable scandal. Now, I sent him part of the speech of the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) dealing with this question of ties and serving forks and I hope, knowing that man as I do-he is truly unbiased-that he will return that press report and say: "Now, I know why I should vote Liberal. It is because the Liberal party is serious while the Tories are not." That is all I wanted to say about the small scandal alleged against the Liberal party which has been amplified, inflated and multiplied at pleasure by different speakers, especially those of the Conservative "Union Nationale" in our district.
Moreover, since an agreement was entered into by the province of Ontario and the federal government, those who enjoy harping on the constitution and the question of autonomy now feel uneasy since they have found out that Mr. Frost is not, after all, so disappointed in the fiscal arrangement he has entered into with the federal government. Now, in this connection here is a British United Press dispatch published in the Action Catholique of October 21, 1952. These, by the way, are Mr. Frost's exact words:
He added that in this connection Ontario had sacrificed nothing of its constitutional rights.
This is clear; this is a trustworthy paper, one which is often quoted by our opponents.

I have kept this British United Press dispatch in order to show it to my friends. I tell those who are afraid, those who are fainthearted, that Mr. Frost, in concluding this arrangement with the federal government, has sacrificed none of his province's constitutional rights.
Besides, Mr. Speaker, I carried my investigation a little further. I am not a lawyer and, consequently, I must work harder. I must be careful not to make a legal heresy, but I found in a book dealing with the Canadian constitution that in the Quebec resolutions, before the federal pact became an accomplished fact, and especially in the resolutions of October 10, 1864, in section 29, paragraph 5, the following provision:
That the raising of money by all or any other
modes or systems of taxation belongs to the federal .	. .
And in the London resolutions of December 1866, section 28, paragraph 3, the same facility is granted the federal government. Moreover, I think the other day, the Right Hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) mentioned the fact that the federal government had the right to levy funds by all modes or systems of taxation. I know that my hon. friends say and repeat unceasingly that provinces have exclusive jurisdiction in the matter of direct taxation. But, Mr. Speaker, I know that when someone speaks about income tax, everybody wants to add his word. I admit that I do not like it more than anyone else. I have to pay it like everybody else. We have to do so at the present time owing to the social security legislation we enacted for the benefit of our people and owing to the enormous national defence program we have undertaken. The people of our country cannot cease to contribute, by way of taxes, to those two programs. I am confident that the Liberal government would hasten to lower income taxes if the war in Korea had come to an end. Our opponents say that our country is badly run, that the Liberal administration should be replaced; we need a change, as they say not infrequently, using a slogan which was used profusely in connection with the election of General Eisenhower in the United States. And yet, the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr. Dupuis) discussed that subject the other day. He told them what was the change he advocated; it seems to me they should have caught on. I must add that certain countries, our neighbours in particular, are keeping an eye on us.
I read in a special dispatch to the Star dated June 10, 1952, that the Americans are all flabbergasted at the masterly manner in 68108-17
The Address-Mr. P. Gauthier which we manage our political economy, so as to make a success of it. The dispatch is headed:
(Text):
Oh, Canada, how do you do it?
Dollar upset humiliating-N.Y.'
Referring to the fact that the Canadian dollar is now worth more than the United States dollar as a "humiliating upset'' the Daily News of New York today asks if the Truman administration might not learn a useful lesson from this and other facts about the Canadian economy.
We move that Truman and company send a commission to Ottawa to find out more-much more- about how Canada does it. This would involve a feat of pride-pocketing of which, frankly, we don't think the fair dealers are capable. But it would also dig up a barrel of useful tips and information which the people of the United States badly need. What ho, Harry?
(Translation):
So you see for yourself what numerous contradictory assertions our adversaries are guilty of-in spite of themselves, however, for they notice them only long after they have been uttered, after a more or less protracted period of gestation. It seems to me that they should delve into the past and ask themselves why, all things considered, they have not won the support of the people of Quebec which, as a political party, they were entitled to expect.
I have before me an article taken from Le Droit, explaining why the Conservative party has failed to secure the support they had hoped to gain from Quebec. This article was written on May 1, 1952, by Mr. Georges Henri Dagneau who is not an employee of the Liberal government, I am sure.
It is well known, that one of the main reasons-
He is speaking about the blundering of the Conservatives and the little support they are gaining in the province of Quebec.
It is well known, that one of the main reasons for this situation may be found in the lack of know-how, which the federal Conservative party shows by invariably taking an attitude which alienates Quebec. The present session-
That is, the last session.
-supplies three instances:	First of all, when
Massey was nominated to the post of Governor General, the leader of the Conservative party, Mr. Drew, kept silent in a clearly reproving manner, while some of his lieutenants vented vigorous diatribes; soon after the federal government had announced its bill granting aid to universities, the C.C.F. party emphasized its demands in favour of subsidies for primary and secondary education, and the Conservatives took this opportunity to join the latter, after fifteen years of fighting the C.C.F. as well as the Liberals; finally they acted in quite the same way with regard to divorce; the Conservative members supported the C.C.F. motion.
That is, the resolution sponsored by Mr. Knight.

The Address-Mr. P. Gauthier
There we have a reliable newspaperman, well known in Quebec, giving the reasons why the Conservative party should change Us attitude, or at least its policies, not only with regard to Quebec, but with regard to the whole of Canada. And I say that our friends opposite should not speak one way in Quebec and another way in the other provinces.
I remember one famous election, and my hon. friend knows what I am talking about, because he speaks French now and understands it, but I will speak in English. (Text):
I was in Roberval that afternoon when the chief of the Conservative party spoke. It was a wonderful day, and the theatre was full of partisans. The hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Balcer) and other friends of the Conservative party in Quebec were there. As I said, it was a bright Sunday afternoon and speeches were delivered aimed at the election and directed especially to Quebec.


An hon. Member:: Was it a religious meeting?


Mr. Gauihier (Porineuf):: It was not a
religious meeting. I have arguments other than religious to put forward, and I am ready to present them to you so you can send them on to your Union Nationale friends in Quebec.
The speeches were delivered in French, and I congratulate the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) on the manner in which he read his speech. I do not blame him for that because French is not his mother tongue. He is making a wonderful effort to try to speak French. After his speech was delivered he sat down on the platform while his friends spoke in French. One speaker indicated that he was strongly opposed to any policy of immigration for Canada and everyone applauded, including the Leader of the Opposition. Another speaker said we should have a national flag without the Union Jack on it and everyone applauded, including the Leader of the Opposition. That cannot be denied. I was there and I have witnesses.
The Leader of the Opposition cannot say that he does not understand French, and he was applauding just like all the others. If my hon. friend had kept quiet I would not have dealt with this. However, he asked for it and he is getting it. I am sure everyone will be pleased to hear that the Leader of the Opposition wants a Canadian flag without the Union Jack and wants no immigration whatsoever into Canada. The Leader of the Opposition applauded when one speaker asked that our soldiers be brought

back from Europe, that they had no business there.
Apparently they have two policies, one for Quebec and one for the rest of Canada. That is not what the Liberal party does. That is why we have stayed so long in power and that is why we will be in power after the next election.


Mr. Michael Starr (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to address you for the first time in this distinguished assembly I do so with a deep sense of personal responsibility to the great traditions represented in your person and office and also in the time-honoured customs of this house. I wish to extend my congratulations to the mover (Mr. Deslieres) and the seconder (Mr. Schneider) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne.
Coming as I do from the one constituency in the great province of Ontario which has the honour to bear the name of the province itself I find many reasons for pride as well as humbleness when I am told that according to the usages of this house I alone of all the members can be referred to as the member for Ontario. There are many other reasons for the mixed feelings of humility and gratitude, yes, of pride which I feel at this moment.
In the short time I have been here I have learned much of the story of the great democratic institutions exemplified in the distinguished office of Mr. Speaker, in the offices of the responsible ministers of the crown, of the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, of the leaders of the other representative groups, of the Clerk of the House of Commons, of the Sergeant-at-Arms and last but not least of the members of the parliamentary press gallery.
My own presence here, by your permission and at your command, I venture to say is to some Canadians a readily understood symbol of the reality of Canadian democracy of which this house is at one and the same time the chief functionary, symbol and guardian.
I refer first of all to my fellow Canadians in Ontario constituency who know me as a plain man working at an everyday job. They knew me so well that they rejected my first three offers to represent them in their municipal affairs, but I am glad to say they later relented and have given me some measure of their confidence in the city of Oshawa for the last nine years. I refer also to an even larger group of my fellow Canadians whom it is the current fashion to call "new Canadians," for I am one of these, though having the honour and good fortune to be born in Canada.

The Address-Mr. Starr
I do not know at what precise point in time one ceases to be a new Canadian and becomes an old Canadian. Nor does it matter. We have Conservative and Liberal Canadians, French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians, rich and poor Canadians, eastern and western Canadians, C.C.F. and Social Credit Canadians; so whether we are old or new Canadians, we are all Canadians. Only the other day I heard the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) say in a public address in Toronto that he disliked the term "new Canadian" when applied only to those who have come here from the continent of Europe. He said that it should apply equally to newcomers from the British Isles and even to the many thousands of future citizens whose daily arrival places are the maternity wards of our hospitals from Corner Brook in Newfoundland to Dawson in the Yukon.
I agree with my hon. leader, and if I may speak for those most closely concerned 1 think it can be said that they care not what the first adjective may be as long as the second word is "Canadian", nor what the temporary designation may be as long as they feel, as they most certainly do, that their welcome here is warm and generous and that the opportunity here is what they themselves make it by their own deportment and the degree to which they learn what it really means to be a loyal Canadian.
Nor will it matter much to them or to any of us what they may be called, seriously or in jest, as long as the son of a poor emigrant from the Ukraine can take his place in this house, as I have done, sir, commended to your favour by a group of Canadians old and new, of many creeds and faiths, of different positions and occupations in life, from the city, towns, villages and farms of Ontario riding including the historic old township of Whitby, East Whitby, Pickering, Reach, Uxbridge, Scott and Scugog. I mention these famous old Ontario municipalities because I am humbly aware of the fact, especially after hearing some of the hon. members these last few days, that my own experience in the many problems that confront governments is limited strictly to the local field of municipal self-government.
Yet as I have sat here during this session and listened to the discussions of our national problems I have become more and more convinced that the very real problems of Canada's 4,000 municipalities cannot be solved at the local level or at the provincial level, but are in a truly national sense a very proper subject for your attention, Mr. Speaker, and for the attention of this house. Particularly, as I hope to show, they are a matter for the consideration of the present
government; for it is my opinion, based on experience in the administration of one representative Canadian city, that the main cause contributing to the financial plight of the municipalities of this country today is the policy of higher and higher federal taxation followed for so long with such undisguised zeal by the present government here in Ottawa. I am aware, sir, that it is the current fashion of the hon. members opposite to dismiss any such statement with the very offhand excuse that municipalities are none of their concern because they are what they call the mere "creatures of the provinces." It is, I believe, a lawyers' phrase, and I have no doubt that it is strictly correct in the legal sense. But I am sure that the many thousands of earnest men and women who have been concerned during the last decade with the pressing problems of municipal government regard it as the poorest possible excuse for the present continuing and expanding federal invasion of the sources of municipal income and livelihood.
I refer to the mythical Canadian tax dollar. It is mythical in name only. In practice it is a grim reality blandly ignored, it seems to me, by the federal government, but ever present in the frantic planning and thinking that goes on every hour of the day in a municipal board or council somewhere in Canada. I think the facts speak for themselves. The Canadian tax dollar is a representation of the total amount of all tax collections on the level of the three authorities which, under our Canadian federal system, have responsibilities in the matter of the expenditure of public funds. As of the last fiscal year for which complete figures are available, 1950, it represents the staggering total of $4,292-7 million as against a mere $1,032-2 million in 1939. That is the total of all taxation in Canada, federal, provincial and municipal. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the tax burden has increased in this short period almost four times.
In the very limited field in which I have had experience our first instinct when we discover a situation like that is to look for the villain. We check over the expenditures of each department and ask, "Who caused this? Who is spending all the money?" These can sometimes be embarrassing questions, but at a level of government as close to the people as we are in the municipalities we have no alternative. We must not only ask the question but we must also find the answers.
If we apply this simple test to the astounding fourfold increase in Canadian taxation since 1939, we discover the answer very quickly. We find that the provincial and

The Address-Mr. Starr
municipal governments have been extraordinarily modest in their demands for a share of the Canadian tax dollar, but not so the federal government. The latest study which has been made covers the years 1930 to 1948.
It was undertaken by the Canadian federation of mayors and municipalities last year. It shows that the dollar value of municipal taxes all across Canada in 1948 was almost the same as in 1930. I -cite that amazing accomplishment as proof positive of the taxconscious, budget-wise, good and careful housekeeping which is the guiding principle of municipal government in Canada today.
I am sure it follows that if all governments had been as tax-careful as the municipalities in these years we would have today an almost ideal tax situation in Canada. But what happened? In 1930 the municipal share of the tax dollar paid by Canadians to all governments was 39-4 per cent but in 1948 it was only 12-7 per cent, and current estimates indicate that it will even be lower in 1952. The share taken by all provincial governments also decreased in this period from 22 per cent to 19-8 per cent. These are what our economists call the lower levels of government, and rightly so. They are not only lower in authority and taxing powers but they are also lower in what they think the taxpaying traffic will bear.
What has happened on the highest level of government, the government of Canada? In the answer to that question we have the whole story of the crushing and unbearable taxation in Canada today. Between 1930 and 1948 the percentage of the Canadian taxpayer's dollar pre-empted by the federal government rose from a mere and reasonable 38-6 per cent in 1930 to 67-5 per cent in 1948, and it is still climbing. As the Leader of the Opposition said in the house a few days ago, the latest estimate of the share of the Canadian tax dollar which is being taken by the federal government is no less than 77 per cent, leaving a mere 12 per cent for provincial governments and only 11 per cent for all the 4,000 municipalities.
I can well imagine hon. members opposite saying that the municipalities can get more if they want to, that all they have to do is raise taxes. That attitude toward the raising of money for government purposes is well known to the people of Canada. It is an attitude which they almost automatically associate with the present federal administration, which has increased the level of the Canadian tax burden more than all other administrations put together since confederation. Fortunately, however, this come and get it viewpoint has not been shared by our so-called lower levels of government, and one does not have to be an economist to
know the reason. It is no mere accident that the level of government that has been the most economical in its operation, and therefore the least demanding on the taxpayers, has been that level which is closest to the people and which accounts to them at all times and most often.
The facts are there for all to see and note. In this period of just over twenty years, while the federal government has been doubling its percentage demands on the taxpayer's dollar, the provincial governments have reduced their demands by about half and the municipal governments by about two-thirds. In other words, local governments are today asking for only one-third the share of the tax dollar which they received in 1930. They have made this remarkable contribution to good housekeeping in spite of steadily increasing demands on their services. That is an important point. I need not detail here the nature and extent of these demands except to say that they include the majority of those facilities and services which determine whether the standard of living of our people is to be high or low. They centre about the school and the home which, next to the church, are the most important and vital institutions in our way of life.
' In the welter of publicity that rolls out from Ottawa every day it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the welfare state is no new creation of the central government but has long existed as an achievement of municipal government. It is the local, not the central or the provincial, government which must provide the hospitals in which young Canadians are born, the day nurseries to relieve working mothers of some of their burdens, and the schools in which our children are fitted for citizenship. It is the local government which provides the community basis of the home, which supplies the water, the electricity, the protection from fire and theft, the roads and streets within the community and the systems of public transportation. It is the local government which still, in spite of some contrary claims, assumes the principal share of responsibility for the welfare of our people in those emergencies of life which come to all sooner or later. I refer, Mr. Speaker, to such things as hospitalization, economic misfortune, and even to the problems which beset so many in the autumn of life requiring the provision of shelter and maintenance.
Our population has increased greatly in the last few years, and this has meant increasing demands upon the municipalities for all their services. Costs of providing these services have more than doubled since 1930. Many

new areas, both residential and industrial, have been opened up. New municipalities have been created.
I cite these facts, sir, because we are so often told about the increased demands upon the federal treasury. I do not wish to minimize those but it is important, I think, that we remember that the proportionate demands upon the municipalities have been just as great and perhaps greater; yet municipal revenue all across Canada is no more than double the 1930 total. In terms of real dollars and measured by the purchasing values in 1930 and 1952 the total municipal income in Canada today is no more than it was 22 years ago. In the last 12 years, on the other hand, the federal tax load on our people has multiplied itself more than four times; [DOT] personal income tax has increased ten times; corporation taxes at the federal level have increased ten times; customs revenue three times; liquor taxes five times; tobacco taxes four times, and so on.
How then, we may ask, have the municipalities managed to achieve this miracle of money management? Not, I hasten to say, Mr. Speaker, by going into debt. To the many glories of the accomplishments of our municipalities must be added, sir, their steady rejection of the principle of taxing unborn generations to pay for the comforts and facilities of the moment. In total dollar volume the combined debts of all 4,000 Canadian municipalities is less today than it was in 1933. When we remember that today's dollars mean much less than the dollars of 1933, the real burden of municipal debt is much lower than at that time.
If our municipalities are in a sound financial condition today, Mr. Speaker, it is not because of any high level of income, nor has it been achieved by borrowing. They have balanced their budgets, sir, by the old-fashioned family virtue of not spending money which their taxpayers cannot afford to pay. It is a principle which I may well recommend to hon. members opposite as a sound basis of public as well as private finance.
However, merely not spending does not solve the problems of municipalities. It is well known to every hon. member that the backlog of necessary and long overdue municipal capital expenditure is the most pressing single need in Canada today if we are to maintain and improve the standard of living to which we would appear to be entitled as
The Address-Mr. Starr a result of the great bounty of Providence and the hard work and energy of our people.
We are told that Canada leads the world in industrial expansion. Canada is booming. Our productive capacity, our national income, and our output of goods are rising to dizzy heights undreamed of even a decade ago. For what reason? For what reason, Mr. Speaker, do we work, save and invest, except to raise our family and individual standard of good living? Why sir, they are the very things that we expect our municipalities to provide-hospitals, schools, community services and comfortable, well protected homes, well supplied with power, water and sewage systems in keeping with a progressive civilization.
What is the situation today? The plain fact of the matter, Mr. Speaker, is that we are lagging behind in all these things. We are not getting the benefits of the boom because our municipal governments are being denied a fair share of the Canadian tax dollar. What good is prosperity expressed only in terms of million and billion dollar industrial plants, if it does not reflect on the home and the standard of living of the residential community?
Not far from the borders of my own constituency of Ontario we have the billion dollar mile on the eastern limits of Toronto. It is a magnificent industrial achievement, the credit for which, incidentally, must be given to wise and farsighted municipal government in the township of Scarborough. Here we see the industrial boom at its biggest and best. Huge new plants by the dozen have been rushed to completion along both sides of what was a farm road a few years ago. Already a billion dollars has been invested in plant and equipment in that fabulous mile, and more is being added every week.
Only a few miles away-15 at the most- there is a thriving village in my constituency. It is no backwoods hamlet. It is an old community settled 150 years ago by United Empire Loyalists and situated on Ontario's main street, the great east to west thoroughfare linking Toronto and Montreal. On a clear day you can see the smoke rising from the factories along the billion dollar mile; and yet, Mr. Speaker, the residents of Pickering village eanot afford a municipal water system, surely one of the earliest

The Address-Mr. Starr evidences of progress in community living in this country. Indeed, sir, when there was severe drought in that area last month, some of the trucks hauling supplies for the billion dollar mile had to be diverted to the town of Whitby to haul water by the tankful for the homes of Pickering.
It may be said, of course, that Pickering could have water if its citizens were willing to pay for it. That is true. But it is also true that they have investigated the matter thoroughly and have reached the conclusion, expressed at the polls last December, that they could not afford to pay the additional taxes which would be required to finance it. Why? Because, sir, they are already so overburdened with federal taxes that they have reached the breaking point. This is the situation in most of our municipalities today. Regardless of what the opinion of the federal government may be, these local governments, which are close to the people, and which must account to them every year, know there is a limit to the bearable taxation load. They hesitate to add to that burden when they see the federal government reaching into the taxpayers' pockets with an increasingly heavy and greedy hand every year.
I say, Mr. Speaker, that a serious and indeed dangerous state of affairs has been reached in this matter. A few months ago the annual meeting of the Canadian federation of mayors and municipalities was held at Calgary and those present heard the results of "An Analysis and Study of Urban Growth and Municipal Finance"-that is the official title-prepared by Mr. D. C. Corbett, a lecturer in public administration at McGill university. In that report I read the following summary of the present plight of our municipalities:
Everywhere one goes, on the outskirts of growing cities and towns and in the new suburbs, one sees streets unpaved, and sidewalks not laid. Water, sewerage and street lighting, far from preceding the new developments, have not yet caught up with them in many areas. We hear of new districts where residents buy their water by the pail and where the spring thaw mires the roads.
The same is true, of course, of the older municipal areas. On this I think I can quote no better authority than the premier of the province of Ontario. In a recent speech in the Ontario legislature he had this to say:
The municipalities of Ontario face an acute problem in their efforts to restrict or curtail the construction of many projects which are essential to their operation. Facilities such as water supply
[Mr. Starr.1

systems, street car and bus lines, streets, schools and disposal plants which may have been adequate a decade ago are now breaking down under the wear and tear of trying to provide services for their populations which in many instances have increased by 50 per cent.
The municipalities of all our provinces face the same problems. We may call these organizations of local government by different names-counties, parishes, townships, cities, towns or villages-but in the long run they are all part of a level of government which is just as essential to the federal principle as are the provinces or the government of Canada. It will be, indeed, a catastrophe if the time should ever come when they are forced into obscurity or insignificance by the taxation grab of any other level of government. This, to my way of thinking, is the real danger of the centralization of so many of the functions and powers of government here in Ottawa.
On the other hand it will be just as much a calamity if the municipalities are forced, by the sheer necessity of everyday problems, to so increase the taxation load that home owning becomes in Canada a mark either of great wealth or economic folly. I need not remind hon. members that no less than 80 per cent of all municipal taxation is borne by real estate. There are other sources of income but our municipalities, far from reaching out to impose more and more taxes, have deliberately restricted their own sources of income in the public interest. It is true that we have a municipal sales tax in a few cities, and taxes on gas and electric bills in another. We hope these are temporary expedients only, and that in time they will be made unnecessary by wiser taxation policies of the federal government. It is not so long ago, Mr. Speaker, that we had a general levy of municipal income taxes in this country. We shall all hope that their return will never be forced upon our local governments.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I may be asked what the federal government should do, in an immediate and constructive way, to help this critical situation. I do not have to go far afield to find the answer. In the first place there must be a re-balancing of the taxation books between the federal government on the one hand and the provinces and municipalities on the other. In other words the central government must learn-as we have all to learn in our private lives-to get along with less. Taxation must be reduced.

Particularly the federal share of the Canadian tax dollar must be brought within reason to allow the municipalities to levy taxes which are at least close to being within keeping with the increased demands on their resources. After all, this relationship between federal, provincial and municipal governments is a family affair. There is only so much money in the family budget, and if one member of the family takes more than he needs, the others must suffer. We do not say that all should share equally, but it does seem to make sense that each should participate in the family finances, not according to his strength, size or power, but according to his needs as agreed upon in family council.
And that is my second suggestion, Mr. Speaker; the calling of a friendly family council to discuss these matters. Specifically I suggest the reconvening of the economic committee that was set up with such high hopes a few years ago during the federal-provincial discussions of the immediate postwar years. It met, I believe, in December 1945 and in January 1946. Then it faded somehow out of existence. The municipalities of Canada have asked that it be reconvened on a very wide basis of representation, and I urge the government to give this immediate consideration.
There are many things which could be worked out to the mutual satisfaction and advantage of all of us in such a setting. To mention only two, there is the taxation of crown property and crown companies; the exemption of municipal purchases from the federal sales tax to the same extent and for the same good reasons that provincial purchases are now exempt.
These very questions, f am informed, will be brought to the attention of the federal government this week when a delegation from the Canadian federation of mayors and municipalities calls upon the government here in Ottawa. That meeting, Mr. Speaker, could be a momentous one for the whole future of this country if the government will look upon the delegation in the spirit in which we would expect the senior members of any family to listen to a plea from its junior members for assistance in a financial matter whose seriousness is no fault of their own and whose solution is beyond their income and allowance. I hope they will not receive, instead, long and learned lectures on the British North
The Address-Mr. Sinnott America Act or the usual unreal excuses that the head of family is too hard-pressed financially to help. Most of us know better.
Above all, sir, the government will render a great service to all the people of Canada if they will admit their share of responsibility for the plight of the municipalities. For it is the weight of federal taxes that embarrasses every one of the 4,000 municipalities of this country. It is a weight so burdensome and unbearable that it threatens their future, and thereby endangers our whole democratic system. For taxes, Mr. Speaker, may not only cripple; they can also destroy.
The wise words of the great Chief Justice Marshall in the supreme court of the United States as long ago as the year 1819 are as valid in this municipal problem as they proved to be in those problems which confronted our neighbours to the south many years ago. None of us, sir, has any doubt about the power of this present administration to tax us, but we do ask that in these things which so closely touch our daily lives they heed John Marshall's warning to all who have great taxing powers:
The power to tax, is the power to destroy.


Mr. J. S. Sinnotl (Springfield):: I believe it is a coincidence, Mr. Speaker, that in this debate a long-time reeve of a municipality should follow the young mayor from Oshawa. I do not know just how long he has been mayor, but judging by what he has said in the house I do not think it has been very long. He has still much to learn about being mayor.
This may well be the last time I shall take part in a debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne.


Some hon. Members:: No, no.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: At this time I wish to offer my sincere thanks to all the members in this house who have been so kind and co-operative during the past seven years. We have had our differences at times during debates, but on the whole you will not find a better group of men with whom to work.
There are a few very important subjects to which I should like to draw the attention of the government. First of all I should like to make a clear statement concerning a newspaper article which was carried in the Ottawa Journal, entitled "Had to Play Ball with the Cabinet". When this newspaperman inter-

The Address-Mr. Sinnott viewed me I told him I was a member of the Liberal party, that we could get along very much better if we worked together than if we worked separately, and that in doing that sometimes I had a sense of duty to work with my party. Newspaper reporters, of course, can always twist words to suit themselves, and that is quite natural on the part of opposition newspapermen.
At the outset, Mr. Speaker, in spite of the fact that certain members of the opposition have made several charges of waste and extravagance against the government, up to the present time there has not been one bit of evidence to prove their charges.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: The opposition was crying to the high heavens about overtaxation, but in not one single instance has that party put forth any concrete suggestions to amount to anything. They have talked about a few neckties, a few dishes and a few teapots, but in total the amount is incidental. At no time in the history of Canada has this nation been better off financially; at no time in the history of this country have there been so many people actively employed; at no time has this country been looked upon by the rest of the world as such a good place for financial investment. At no time has our income from agriculture been so abundant in volume, and at no time has our industrial capacity enjoyed such great expansion. To cap it all, at no time has the Canadian dollar been at such a high premium, thereby encouraging much foreign investment which, in turn, is a great help to our national expansion.
Mr. Speaker, I should like the whip of the Progressive Conservative party to notify his chief that I am going to talk about him later on and that I should like him to be here to hear me. The cry of the opposition has been and will continue to be that the Liberal government has taxed the people of Canada to death.


An hon. Member:: Hear, hear.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: I hear someone say "hear, hear". That is the only slogan they can find at the present time. I wish at this time to say that no country in the world under any government has a better record of financial improvement and expansion than has our present government. For six consecutive years we have had a balanced budget with


a fair surplus. Ours is a government which has brought in important measures of social security, including family allowances, unemployment insurance, floor prices for agricultural and fish products, veterans' benefits, pensions for the blind and old age pensions. In the year 1951 over a billion dollars was spent by the government to provide these services, while at the same time having reduced Canada's national debt to the tune of approximately $2J billion; and if this were not paid, our tax load would be increased a further $62 million per year for interest charges.
Is it the policy of the opposition to have this cancer of civilization which is called interest take away most of our profits? If that is so, it is certainly not the policy of the present Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), his Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) or his government. Mr. Speaker, to make a long story short, our 1951 tax dollar was spent as follows: We spent three cents in payments to the provinces in subsidies and tax rentals. Fourteen and a half cents of our tax dollar were paid back to the people of Canada in social security measures. Five and a half cents of our tax dollar were paid to Canadian veterans of both world wars and Korea. Thirteen and one-third cents were paid in annual charges on our national debt. Six and a quarter cents were paid to reduce the national debt. Thirty-six and one-third cents were applied to Canada's national defence, and I do not suppose anybody complains about that. Twenty-one cents were spent on all activities and services provided by the government; that is, railway transportation, railroads, ships and the rest of it.
I want to emphasize the fact that a large portion of the taxes over which the opposition are crying so much is for purposes other than the operation of the federal government. I refer to the large increase in subsidies and tax rentals which have been turned over to the provincial governments and which have been passed on to the municipalities; and they in turn have passed substantial amounts on to the various school boards. I want to direct the attention of the last speaker to these facts.
The opposition has repeatedly stated how terribly poor some municipalities have found themselves to be, and that comment applies

to the last speaker. One of their members referred to the increase in taxes from $252 to $700, and at the same time that 45 per cent of the increase was due to special school taxes which would amount to some $315. This statement, Mr. Speaker, has nothing whatsoever to do with the federal government but is merely a red herring which has been drawn across the trail so that this member may fool some of his constituents who are not familiar with the way the municipal and school boards raise their funds.
Mr. Speaker, I am told that the Leader of the Opposition is behind the curtain. I should like to have him come into the chamber. The Leader of the Opposition spent a considerable amount of his time on this same theme, knowing full well that this is strictly a provincial and municipal matter. The financial critic of the Progressive Conservative party, (Mr. Macdonnell) and the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) who have had a good deal to do with public finance, and the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Hees), have all failed miserably in their attempts to paint an adverse picture. Of course, Mr. Speaker, you cannot blame them too much, when they are trying their best to assume power in this country-and God forbid that.
The Leader of the Opposition used to be the premier of Ontario. Because of his attacks on the provincial governments, the present premier of Ontario has had to go to bat to defend the action which he has taken in helping the municipalities in Ontario. This quotation is from the Globe and Mail of December 2, 1952. The article is headed "Frost Defends Record on Municipalities' Aid", and I think it would be well for me to read it into the record because it is just exactly the opposite of what we have heard here from the opposition. It reads as follows:
Premier Frost took the occasion of the opening of the new water filtration plant at Scarboro yesterday to defend his government's record in financial aid to the municipalities-but no mention was made of any impending increase in that aid.
Taking Scarboro statistics, he illustrated the change in his 10 years as provincial treasurer. In 1943, exclusive of education, Premier Frost said Scarboro was receiving $48,380 from the province. In 1952 this amount had grown 677 per cent, he said, to $375,778. This included fire, police, children's protection and assistance for Home for the Aged, but the biggest single item was road maintenance and construction which has grown from $23,250 to $315,000.
In the same period, Premier Frost said, assistance to schools has increased by 600 per cent.
The Address-Mr. Sinnott
I want the last speaker to take particular notice of that item, Mr. Speaker. The article continues:
In 1944, the total education subsidies were $74,981; in 1951, $524,725. In addition, through the Municipal Improvement Corporation, the province has helped Scarboro purchase $3,965,000 in bonds at much less than market cost, he said. Purchase of another $394,000 has been authorized, and about $445,000 additional is pending.
If that is not substantial aid, I do not know what is. To continue:
These tremendous sums which are common to municipalities across Ontario have substantially supplemented the work of municipal councils. Premier Frost said. This is keeping our municipalities strong and solvent in days of most extraordinary demands and growth.
What does the hon. member for Ontario think about that? The article continues:
While we all feel the impact of high costs and the high cost of living, this assistance has very measurably decreased the taxes which our real estate owners pay, the premier said.
These are the words of the premier of Ontario, and they are the exact opposite of what the hon. member said here a short time ago.
In order to give a little more light on where this extra money is coming from I should like to quote some figures which I obtained from the bureau of statistics. They are tax rental payments to the provinces under the terms of the tax rental agreements. I am not going to read them all, but with the consent of the house I should like to put them on Hansard, because they are very enlightening. I should like to give a little illustration of the totals in the four years previous to the present time. In 1949-50 the total tax rentals received by all the provinces of Canada amounted to $99,874,082; in 1950-51, they increased to $111,506,696; in 1951-52 they had increased to $122,415,769 and in 1952-53, this year, the opposition say the federal government are taxing the people to death but they gave back to the municipalities the sum of $284,219,011. The opposition say the federal government is taxing the people to death, but a large proportion of the money is being returned to the people through the provinces, through the municipalities, and through the school boards.
Just a few weeks ago the premier of Ontario saw the light of day. He was getting no tax rentals in 1949-50, none in 1950-51 and none in 1951-52. But after he saw the light of day what do you think he got? He got $123,327,363 from the federal treasury in 1952. If that is not a generous handout from the federal government I do not know what is. Therefore when our Tory friends go around the country telling the people that the federal
266

The Address-Mr. Sinnott government is taxing the people to death, I want them to be honest and fair and tell the people that a large proportion of those taxes is returned to the provinces. I think that pretty well sums up the position with respect to tax rentals from the provinces. With the consent of the house I should like to put this schedule on Hansard and have it added to my speech so it will inform hon. members just exactly what the provinces are getting.


Mr. Ross (Souris):: Read it all.


Some hon. Members:: Read it all.


Some hon. Members:: No, put it on.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the request of the hon. member agreed to?


James Arthur Ross: No.


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: The schedule is as follows:
Tax rental payments to provinces under terms of tax rental agreements (In addition to statutory subsidies)
Province	1949-50

Newfoundland	 6,549,745
Prince Edward Island	 1,983,776
Nova Scotia	 11,617,199
New Brunswick	 9,504,980
Ontario	
Manitoba	 14,608,738
Saskatchewan	 15,152,776
Alberta	 15,676,357
British Columbia	 24,780,511
99,874,082
The payments shown for three years under the June, 1952.
' Agreements		1952 Agreements
1950-51	1951-52	1952-53$	?	$7,372,231	8,143,744	10,722,4612,234,145	2,474,286	3,258,73912,899,563	14,075,951	18,093,57510,581,550	11,571,895	14,945,605123,327,36316,221,061	17,775,291	23,004,76816,600,091	17,972,432	23,529,88617,783,572	19,830,983	27,241,55227.814,483	30,571,187	40,095,064111,506,696	122,415,769	284.219,011
1947 agreements are those as finally calculated in The amounts shown as payable in 1952-53 under the 1952 agreements are subject to recalculation.
I was very pleased to see the fine results of the resale price maintenance bill all through the country. Electric refrigerators, electric stoves and many hundreds of articles are now being purchased on a competitive market. I recall how strenuously our Tory friends fought the investigation in committee, as well as the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Thatcher) of the C.C.F. party, who made a right-about turn. However, those who were crying crocodile tears and blue ruin are still maintaining thriving businesses, including the hon. member for Moose Jaw. I understand that his refrigerator business has increased 40 per cent.
When our Tory friends talk about cutting down expenditures may I say this. It might have been good policy on their part to have stopped talking just before Christmas last year, and thereby avoided bringing all the members back here at additional expense to the country. The country was put to the expense of thousands of dollars, which can be attributed to nobody but our Tory friends. The C.C.F. party, the Social Credit party, the independents did not vote against the bill, but the Tories voted to protect their manufacturing friends to the limit.

The hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Dins-dale) and the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Churchill) made several repetitious speeches during the debate, and one cannot forget what a disservice they rendered to their constituents and to Canada as a whole. There, Mr. Speaker, was the true Tory party catering to their manufacturing friends, trying to dictate to the consumers of Canada; but thanks to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) and the Liberal party we were able to render a real service to the people. When the vote came on this issue the Conservatives voted alone against this legislation. They voted alone against legislation which saved the consumers of Canada millions of dollars.
I think the recent appointment of the former attorney general of Manitoba to the position of chairman of the restrictive trade practices commission is to be commended; He has every qualification for the position. His appointment will do much in the years to come to keep down the ever-increasing groups uniting in order to stifle competition.
I also wish to congratulate the government on the appointment of the hon. member for Coast-Capilano (Mr. Sinclair) to the post of Minister of Fisheries. I am sure it will meet

The Address-Mr. Sinnott with the approval of all the fishermen of the Large manufacturers and retailers are east coast as well as the west coast, and par- gouging the consumers for all they can ticularly his constituents. I also wish to possibly obtain. Here again this is not the express my sincere congratulations to the fault of the government, but the get-rich-hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. quick idea is to blame. Here is a place for Campney) on his recent appointment as the restrictive trade practice's commission to Associate Minister of National Defence.	step in.
As to the interruptions coming from a place called Peterborough, I think, may I say that we have been trying for a long time to nail the hon. member down, and I am going to nail him down right now. He asked me who wrote my speech. Here are my rough notes that I wrote myself in my room. Come over and have a look at them. Furthermore I did not have the help of the Conservative party as has the Leader of the Opposition. I did not have the help of Rod Finlayson.


Mr. Fraser:: No; Pickersgill.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: I am talking about the Leader of the Opposition who read every word of his speech.
I wish now to take a few minutes to divulge exactly what is taking place with regard to the exorbitant prices farmers are paying for their farm machinery. There is what is called a retail farm dealers' association, which meets once a year, at which dealers throughout the country gather. There methods of distribution, rates of commissions, and so forth are discussed. Prices are arranged and a program is drawn up for dealers to follow. Commissions are set, and so forth, on implement sales and parts. Commissions on implements and parts have greatly increased in the last few years, with the result that dealers now charge a commission as high as $1,500 on the sale of a self-propelled combine, which two men can put together in two days.


James Arthur Ross: It is more than that.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: Surely this is most unreasonable. I think the hon. member for Souris said the commission is more than that. If it is more than that I should like to know the exact figures. Farmers as a whole do not complain, but, Mr. Speaker, I think the time has come when the chairman of the restrictive trade practices commission should look into this highway robbery to which farmers have been subjected.
While on the subject of exorbitant prices, may I say that there is plenty of room to investigate the prices charged for ladies' shoes and apparel. I am sure the ladies of this country would be very pleased if something were done about the prices of the shoes which they have to buy. Some shoes consist of only a few ounces of leather, for which prices range to as high as $22.
68108-18J
Building material is another item which needs a thorough investigation, especially the cement business in the city of Winnipeg. If ever a combine situation existed any place to keep the average person from obtaining enough cement to build his own home that condition certainly prevails in Winnipeg. No cement whatsoever is available to a private individual. Yet you can call up a certain company and all the cement you require will be poured in your basement for the small sum of $14 a yard. Talk about cheap homes; no, sir, not as long as this kind of distribution continues, and I suppose this method exists in all parts of Canada. Here is another job for the combines commissioner. The price of lumber is another item which is worth while looking into. I am sure these subjects I have mentioned will receive very careful consideration by the government and its law officers.
Another matter I should like to draw to the attention of the house is that almost everyone is led to believe that the western farmer receives $2 per bushel for his wheat on the farm. Such prices are a long way off the beam. All prices quoted are f.o.b. Fort William, which nets the farmer on an average for the three prairie provinces:
No. 1 dry wheat	 $1.68
No. 2	dry	wheat	
1.66No. 3	dry	wheat	
1.64Feed	dry	wheat	
1.34Damp	feed wheat	
1.32
These prices are subject to a 1 per cent deduction for the P.F.A.A. which works out at less than $1.52 on the average. Quite a difference, I am sure.
Now to make my statement more clear as to what I would like to accomplish, it is to reduce the cost of production to the grower and at the same time make it possible for the eastern feeder to obtain his feed grains at a lower cost. As it is at the present time, the western farmer is asked to pay the freight on all grain shipped to the lakehead, and again he is asked to pay the freight on all his agricultural implements, farm trucks, et cetera, going west to his farm. In this way the western farmer is required to pay the freight both ways.
If the manufacturers were to pool the various shipping destinations and make an over-all price applicable to all parts of Canada, an implement now costing $6,000 in

The Address-Mr. Sinnott western Canada would be considerably less. The adjustment in commissions on the same farm machinery costing $6,000 would mean that it could no doubt be bought by the farmer for something less than $5,000. This would reduce the western farmer's operating costs, thus enabling him to produce much cheaper. He would then be able to compete on a more equal basis with other exporters of grain. The farmers in the west, due to freight, have to pay approximately $200 to $400 more for each large tractor and family automobile.
I understand that an application was made some time ago to the railways by the railway unions for an increase of 45 cents per hour. A board of conciliation did award a 16 cent per hour increase which up to the present time has not been accepted by the railway unions. I should like at this time to strongly protest the action of the union leaders in not accepting this very favourable increase. The cost of living has been continuously declining for the past four or five months. Prices of farm products have been dropping by from 10 to 30 per cent. Therefore the demands being made by the railway unions are not only totally unwarranted and unjustified, they have become a chronic disease. I do not pretend to be unkind to labour and I have always advocated a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, but the time has come when labour union leaders must realize they have to be honest and fair with the rest of the country as well as themselves. These continuous demands for higher wages in turn only cause the railways to ask for higher freight rates which in turn makes it impossible for the cost of living to be reduced.
It might be well for the labour unions throughout the country to realize that the present government has bent over backwards to meet their demands, but that the time has now come when the government itself will be forced to say "no" to further increases even though it takes the chance of being turned out of office. Union leaders would do well to think back to the days of the thirties when there were soup kitchens and men were being paid $5 a month by the Bennett government to stay on the farm. This situation could very well come again if labour is not reasonable in its demands.
I have a resolution prepared which I shall introduce in the House of Commons as soon as the resolution which I have now on the order paper has been disposed of, and which will read as follows:
Resolved, that, in the opinion of this house, in view of the emergency now existing and the urgency of a program of war preparedness, the gov-


ernment should take into early consideration the advisability of introducing legislation to make strikes illegal for a period of two years, providing, at the same time, for the settlement of labour disputes by arbitration between labour and management.
In conclusion may I say that in my opinion we are very fortunate to be able to say that Canada is the envy of the world. No other nation with our population can come anywhere near the record of achievement by its people or by its government. I therefore take great pleasure in closing by saying good luck to you, Mr. Speaker, good luck to the government and good luck to the rest of my colleagues in the House of Commons. (Translation):


Mr. Maurice Breton (Jolieiie-L'Assomp-tion-Monicalm):: Mr. Speaker, like the hon. members who have preceded me, I have the pleasure to pay a tribute to the two brilliant members who have moved and seconded the address in reply to the speech from the throne, the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi (Mr. Deslieres) and the hon. member for Waterloo North (Mr. Schneider). I also take this opportunity to congratulate the new members for Outremont-St. Jean (Mr. Bourque) and Richelieu-Vercheres (Mr. Cardin). The house will surely benefit from their presence in our midst.
I have read carefully the speech delivered by the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Courtemanche) and I could not help seeing that the political creed of the party to which he belongs has not varied from time immemorial since he is still ready to uphold at any cost the very excesses of what they call the incomparable advantages of private enterprise.
Whatever the subject of the debate, whether it be the prohibition of resale price maintenance, the act concerning combines and monopolies, or the question of broadcasting and television, the hon. member for Labelle always adheres strictly to the classical and well-known line that the "profit" motive must alone be responsible for anything that is fine and good in our modern society.
Does not the hon. member imply that the government are becoming socialistic because they have to a large extent given effect to the conclusions of the Massey report on the arts, letters and sciences, as did their predecessors when dealing with the Aird report on radio broadcasting.
If my colleague has that word "socialism" at heart, may I add that there is not much to choose between socialism and the abuses of private initiative. Many countries have obtained good results steering a middle course, that is to promote private initiative while trying at the same time to remedy

some of its inescapable abuses. That is what the present government tries to do by giving effect to the recommendations of the Massey report on radio broadcasting and television.
And now, since the hon. member for Labelle neglected to study the question from every angle, it would be a good idea to go back a little and consider the reasons why the C.B.C. entered the field of radio broadcasting and television.
Thirty years ago, the Canadian people were beginning to take an interest in radio broadcasting. Radio broadcasting was becoming a wonderful means of recreation and culture for the entire population, rural and urban, and particularly for those citizens who had to live alone, isolated from their neighbours by the vastness of the country.
Our first programs, as could be expected, were brought in from the United States for the benefit of those who lived near the border. For quite a few years, the government limited its activity to the granting of permits for receiving sets and broadcasting stations. The first license was granted in 1919. In 1929, ten years later, there were in Canada 10 broadcasting stations and 296,926 receiving sets, most of them located in large cities, and our rural population, especially the isolated settlements in the western provinces, had to forgo the benefits of this invention.
The Aird commission, established in 1928 to inquire into the field of broadcasting, praised the efforts of private enterprise but deplored the growing commercialism which characterized the new industry, the all but dominating influence of American music and advertising, the gradual lowering of the quality of the programs which were automatically adapted to the poorest cultural standard of the listening masses.
Besides, a large proportion of the people, those who live in the country far from the large cities, were urging the government to intervene so that they might enjoy as soon as possible the numerous advantages of radio broadcasting.
Consequently, after an investigation conducted among many groups, the government decided to intervene in order to establish in Canada a radio broadcasting system so as to, first, set up a national network; secondly, protect this propaganda medium against an overdose of American influence; thirdly, to encourage our Canadian artists.
Certain aspects of the policy of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation may have been open to criticism. But, out of 170 various organizations whose opinions were
The Address-Mr. Breton sought by the said corporation, such as the Canadian Congress of Labour, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and others, the greatest majority supported the stand taken by the government on radio broadcasting and television.
Profiting from the experience acquired in England, where radio is an absolute state monopoly, with no commercial advertising whatever, and in the United States, where radio is an entirely private concern sponsored by commercial and industrial firms, the Canadian government had decided to steer a middle course and to aid the public while, at the same time, allowing private enterprise to compete with the official network.
Then, at last, came the organization of television in Canada, an undertaking which has aroused, and for that matter is still arousing, greater enthusiasm than all the others.
At present relatively few countries enjoy television broadcasts. Great Britain, France, the United States, Russia, Mexico, Brazil and Cuba were the only countries providing television services in 1951, when the Massey report was completed. There were, at that time, two television stations in Russia, two in England, two in France and 107 in the United States, the latter being distributed amongst 66 American cities.
The only other countries which are at present concerning themselves with television are Italy, Denmark and Switzerland, but, so far, they have not progressed beyond the experimental stage.
England and France have organized television as a state monopoly, without any commercial advertising. The United States alone, followed by Mexico, Cuba and Brazil, rely exclusively on the trial and error method of free enterprise.
It is true that television has developed more rapidly in the United States, under the system of private enterprise. But it was at the price of enormous costs which could be justified by the great profits made by radio, by the large urban population and by the wealth of sponsors. Canada can neither afford such luxury nor fall completely under the control of American television whose publicity extravagances and low quality programs have even been criticized by the Americans themselves.
It may be that a certain number of listeners are contented with baseball, hockey or wrestling. But there are others who would prefer a much wider variety of programs comprising good music, theatre, and educational features.
Commercial^ experience has shown that it is hardly possible under a solely private system to better the quality of the programs and


Mr. Balcer:: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that you call it six o'clock.


Mr. Drew:: Mr. Speaker, just before the house rises, I have checked with Hansard in regard to a remark I made while the member for Portneuf (Mr. Gauthier) was speaking.
I find it was not reported in Hansard and I simply wish to state that I interjected, in regard to the remarks he made about my applauding certain statements made at Rober-val, that there is not a word of truth in the statements that he made.


Mr. Speaker:: Of course I do not recall what took place at that time. I understood the hon. member for Portneuf to say that he had seen the Leader of the Opposition applaud the remarks. Now I take it that the Leader of the Opposition says he did not applaud the remarks.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I had interjected a remark at the time but I checked with Hansard and it was not picked up. I made the statement then, and I repeat that statement, that the remarks the hon. member has made about that meeting are utterly untrue.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think that is in order. I cannot accept the statement that the hon. member for Portneuf has said what is untrue.


George Alexander Drew: All I am doing is placing a statement on the record that I had thought was on the record earlier, and I am not asking you, Mr. Speaker, to deal with the question of fact.


Mr. Speaker:: I must deal with charges against other hon. members, and it is against the rules of the house to charge an hon. member with making a statement which he knew to be untrue.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I would draw your attention to the fact that I have not said that. I have said that the statement is untrue, and I do not ask you to rule on the facts. I have made the statement and that statement has been made on other occasions, as Your Honour well knows by the record; and I am simply stating that it is untrue and I am leaving that as a statement of fact.


Mr. Speaker:: I can accept the statement that the Leader of the Opposition did not applaud certain remarks. I can accept that, but I cannot accept the statement that the hon. member for Portneuf said something that he knew was untrue.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I repeat that I have not said what you have just quoted. I have said the statement is untrue. If you prefer it in the form that I did not applaud
272	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Balcer the remarks, which was the statement which he made, I am quite prepared to have it that way.


Mr. Speaker:: I think the house will realize the position in which I found myself when I first heard the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition, but I think he has now clarified the point.


George Alexander Drew: I just realize that the remark I have made now might not be full enough. I wish to make it clear also that neither did I applaud them nor were the remarks made to which the hon. member for Portneuf has referred.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Why don't you get the two of them together?


Mr. Speaker:: I suppose that is a question of fact-the hon. member for Portneuf said they were made; the Leader of the Opposition said they were not made. They were both there, so I will have to leave it at that.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock. (Translation):
Léon Balcer: Mr. Speaker, for the past fifteen years or so, public opinion in this country has constantly been alerted on the question of the sharing of powers between the federal and provincial governments. The federal government has carried out an ever-increasing effort towards centralization. In this connection protests have come from every province in Canada and more particularly from the province of Quebec. Though other governments may be interested in the retention of provincial rights for financial reasons it is only natural that we of Quebec whose language is different, whose soul, culture, traditions and religion are different, should always have taken a very keen interest in the constitutional arrangements under which we are living.
Our representatives, in 1867, consented to join the rest of Canada precisely because, at that time, they were being offered a federative compact, since it was suggested that a confederation be established wherein the various powers would be apportioned between the central government and each of the various provinces in such a way as to ensure, for many years to come, the survival of our language, our traditions, of our French schools, in short of our very racial group.
Confederation is a constitutional pact between the two great races of this country. It is a document which we, from Quebec, have learned to admire, for it has favoured here,


in Canadian territory, the prosperity of two ethnical groups of different cultures; it has enabled them to blend themselves firmly enough to make of the Canadian nation one of the great nations of the world.
Unfortunately, the spirit which at the time inspired the fathers of confederation seems now to have disappeared and, today, the very existence of this federative pact is shaken every day. The federal government is insatiable and wishes to monopolize all powers of taxation and thus relegate the provincial legislatures to the rank of administrative commissions.
The Quebec government has waged a stubborn fight, a daily fight against this exaggerated centralization of the central power and up to the last few months, it was supported by the Ontario government.
Unfortunately, the whole question of federal-provincial relations has taken a still more tragic aspect, especially since the prime minister of the most populous province of Canada has accepted the proposals of the central government. But here again, while he accepted these direct grants in return for the taxation rights surrendered by his province, the premier of Ontario did not hesitate to make it clear that it was regretfully that he consented to sign that agreement and that it was on his part a gesture of a purely temporary nature. He hoped that this question of the distribution of taxes would be the object of a more exhaustive study so that a new plan could be proposed without delay.
The fact remains however that Quebec is the only province which was able to refuse the mess of pottage offered by the central government. And, as a member from the province of Quebec, I can only rejoice that our province is headed by a government which has always sustained the rights of the provinces, while confronted by the centralizing pressure of the federal government.
In my capacity as a Conservative member, I note with pride that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) is also imbued with the same respect for our confederation and that, at the very beginning of this session, he did not hesitate to raise this problem in the house and to demand, in his first speech, that a conference be held between the central government and the provinces, so that the latter may at last obtain justice.
It goes without saying that the provinces have not only rights but also duties. However, by taking over their sources of taxation, the federal government has increased its power in an exaggerated manner and has destroyed altogether the balance established between the provinces and the central government, under the British North America Act.

So that it is really the government which is to blame. It has monopolized taxation rights which, since 1867, belonged to the provinces under the pretext that this was essential for the conduct of our national war effort. But the government had more or less promised to relinquish those rights one year after the war.
The war came to an end seven years ago but the federal government has not yet relinquished these sources of taxation. It is determined more or less to starve the provinces as Mr. Filion so aptly put it in his editorial published last Saturday in Le Devoir. I quote:
The power of taxation as understood by Mr. St. Laurent is the power to starve. According to the Prime Minister, Ottawa would be entitled to monopolize every source of taxation assigned to the central power under our constitution and to let the municipalities and the provinces go bankrupt.
During the war, Ottawa got into the habit of taxing as much as it could and it never lost this habit altogether. It has used the moneys thus collected to set up social services which are within the fields of the provinces; it has accumulated from year to year considerable surpluses; last year, the Minister of Finance collected very close to three quarters of a billion over and above his needs.
While Ottawa is rolling in wealth, provinces and municipalities have trouble to make ends meet. Nine Canadian provinces, several of them reluctantly, had to surrender to the federal government because they were unable to meet their obligations in any other way. Municipalities and school boards are all repeating the same desperate cry: their responsibilities are increasing while their sources of revenue remain inadequate.
Every day the federal government tries to obtain more and more from the provinces, asks them to abandon such and such a right in its favour, so much so that it has succeeded in getting all taxes to flow into its own coffers. In 1939, when the federal government was getting 51 per cent of taxation revenues, the provinces and municipalities were getting 49 per cent. Today, after thirteen years of Liberal regime, Ottawa is taking 77 per cent while provincial governments are getting only 12 per cent and municipalities only 11 per cent.
It is impossible for the provincial or the municipal authorities to collect another cent from the taxpayers when they are being clipped by the federal authorities as they are today through increased taxation.
So much so that during a period of prosperity like the one we are experiencing at the present time, the provinces and the municipalities, especially the latter, are unable to face their responsibilities. And they are forced to seek a handout from the federal government which is piling up surpluses.
The federal government is infiltrating every field of government under the pretext that
The Address-Mr. Balcer the provinces are financially unable to cope with the situation, and if the provinces lack the means to do it, it is only because Ottawa takes all their resources away from them; the federal government is depriving them of their sources of revenue and taking everything for itself.
For instance, let us consider education. Education is the exclusive field of the provinces, granted to them by the British North America Act. While every province has always kept a jealous watch over its autonomy in the field of education, we, in the province of Quebec, realize that it is the very foundation of our racial and religious survival, and the population of the province of Quebec will never give up on that point.
No doubt the federal government, with its millions in surpluses, will put forward very tempting offers of direct subsidies. They should know, though, as the Leader of the Opposition so well put it, that what the provinces need in this connection are not horse traders' gifts, but merely the respect of those ideas which served to inspire the fathers of confederation.
If the federal government is seeking the disappearance of confederation, its replacement by a unitary state, let them say so, but let them put a stop to this policy of horsetrading and so-called gifts which are merely detrimental to the rights of the provinces.
The Liberal premier of Nova Scotia, a former member of the government, did not hesitate to raise the alarm.
This country is on the way to becoming, rapidly, a unitary state, a totalitarian state.
It is our duty, as members from Quebec, to see to it that this centralization, so harmful and so dangerous from the point of view of our racial group, be stopped as quickly as possible.
If we do not apply a brake to these centralizing tendencies, it is possible that ten or twenty years hence, the province of Quebec may well have lost its power to legislate.
And I am glad to belong to a party which was the party of confederation and which is headed by a convinced autonomist who did not hesitate to declare in the very legislature of Ontario the following words:
There are excellent reasons why Quebec should attach particular importance to the provisions of the B.N.A. Act and should be less disposed to accept important amendments brought about without the consent of that province and without reasonable protection by way of compensation, if it is a matter of restriction to certain of its established rights. The province of Quebec considers with reason the B.N.A. Act as the guarantee protecting its civil law, its customs, its language and its religion . . .

The Address-Mr. Balcer
These words were uttered by none other than the leader of the Conservative opposition.
Besides, the serious w'arnings of Premier Duplessis and of my chief have been heard and understood by the whole population of my province.
The vital importance of the question, both from the economic and the social points of view, has moved the forty thousand members of the chamber of commerce of Quebec to choose it as the main subject to be studied during its convention in Ottawa, and last week they presented to the Quebec legislature a brief in which they stated their opinion in no uncertain terms.
That body cannot be accused of playing politics because it is absolutely free from political ties with any party. It is, however, a gathering of French-Canadian businessmen who believe that the present situation is an evil one since the population of Quebec must pay higher taxes than the other provinces, simply because the provincial government refuses to yield to the pressure exerted in Ottawa in favour of centralization. I would like to quote an editorial written by Mr. L'Heureux, editor of Le Droit, the newspaper that the hon. member for Portneuf (Mr. Gauthier) was quoting with so much satisfaction this afternoon.


Pierre Gauthier: Surely.


Léon Balcer: This article, which is to be found in the newspaper Le Droit of this day, December 2, 1952, shows the importance of the whole question under the title:
Provincial Autonomy
An important brief has been submitted to Premier Duplessis by the Chamber of Commerce of the province of Quebec on relations between the federal government and the provinces.
That public body justly affirms that never in the history of the Canadian confederation have the rights of the province of Quebec, so far as provincial autonomy is concerned, been so seriously imperiled. According to this group, the increasing centralization of taxation powers into the hands of the federal government reached its peak with the last world war and the 1947 tax rental agreements. Since the end of the war, the federal authorities have found no other solution to the problem than that of extending the application of the principles laid down during the last war in order to give renewed impetus to our production. Which means that the provinces and municipalities are deprived of the freedom of movement required to adjust their services to the people's needs. The provincial governments are getting only 13 per cent of the total tax revenues, instead of 28 per cent they were receiving in 1937.
Mr. Duplessis, whose firm stand in the fight against centralization was recognized by the Quebec Chamber of Commerce accepted the proposal in principle. For some fifteen years, the present Quebec government has been the only one to resist effectively. Quebec has been fortunate to have him at the head of her government for the past eight years. In all fairness, it must be admitted
[Mr. Balcer.)
that if the people had not elected Mr. Duplessis in 1944 and kept him at the helm of her administration, Quebec's autonomy would undoubtedly have been sacrificed on the altar of centralization by those who would have been in power in the province.
True, that picture will not please politicians, but truth must come to light. Since 1944, the Duplessis government has been the bulwark of provincial autonomy against which all attempts from the centralizers in Ottawa have failed. In a way, its stout resistance can be said to be the Verdun of the epoch-making fight that went on in the dying days of the King regime and which is still going on.
Those are the words of Mr. L'Heureux. Again:
In the face of that united opposition, our statesmen in Ottawa should wake up and those who represent the province of Quebec in the federal field should also climb off the fence.
No better example can be provided of the importance of the present crisis than the views expressed by all the editorial writers of the province of Quebec, especially as regards provincial autonomy which is at present endangered as it has not been for the past fifteen years.
Mr. Speaker, those are the reasons why I heartily endorse the views of my leader on this matter and why I will support with pleasure his amendment to the address in reply to the speech from the throne in which he once more asks for a new understanding between the federal government and the provinces so that the latter may enjoy those powers of taxation necessary to discharge their duties and face their responsibilities.
Mr. Speaker, before concluding, I would like to say to the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr. Dupuis), who stated Friday that the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Courtemanche) and myself were elected by luck, that we much prefer to have been elected as we have been elected rather than being a so-called independent who was not recognized by his own party as its official candidate, and who, in order to be accepted by his party, has nothing better to do than to sling mud at the person of my chief, the Leader of the Opposition. It was a surprise to me to see the hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency-


Mr. Dupuis:: It is shocking.


Léon Balcer: do exactly the same thing, though he has much to be forgiven, when we consider how the scandal about C. D. Howe and Company was disclosed. No wonder he has something to be forgiven by his own party. I come now to the hon. member for Portneuf (Mr. Gauthier) who was so brave as to hide behind a door, during a meeting which we held at Dolbeau during the Rober-val by-election.


Pierre Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I was in the hall, not behind the door.


Léon Balcer: I come to the member for Portneuf, who was in the hall, and who was therefore personally able to view the triumphal reception accorded my leader by the people of Dolbeau on the occasion of the Roberval election.


Pierre Gauthier: It was well
organized.


Hector Dupuis: It was touching.


Léon Balcer: The member for Portneuf quotes words which have never been uttered; which exist only in his imagination. Does he wish to render the leader of a party responsible for what his supporters say in the course of a campaign? I wonder then if the Right Hon. the Prime Minister approves Mr. Potvin, his official candidate in Roberval who, at a large meeting in St. Felicien said, and here I quote the dispatch published by the Action Catholique on May 20, 1952:
Having recalled that the present electoral campaign was more than a battle between two political parties, but a war "between two races and two men of different religious beliefs" . . .
I wonder if the present Prime Minister would be proud to admit that these words are a part of his party's platform? And this same Mr. Potvin, the official Liberal candidate, declared in the same speech that a vote for Drew meant a vote for our economic and social ruin-


Hector Dupuis: That is true.


Léon Balcer: -in attacking with an unspeakable boldness-


Mr. Spence:: Our people did not believe him.


Hector Dupuis: That is true.


Léon Balcer: -our clergy. I wonder if such policy is admitted by the hon. member for Portneuf. I wonder whether the member for Portneuf would be prepared to integrate such a policy into the program of his party. Besides, it is an old Liberal practice in the province of Quebec to deceive or garble the speech of the leader of the Conservative party in order to cause him injury, and they wish to have him known as a bogey, but the people have reacted otherwise and have already shown it in the provincial elections. The Canadian people judge men by their acts-


An hon. Member:: That is true.


Léon Balcer: -and the people will know that Mr. Drew is a guarantee of provincial autonomy and the people will recognize it. This worn-out practice which consists in say-
The Address-Mr. Balcer ing to the people of Ontario that the leader of the Conservative party is too much of a francophile and to the people of Quebec that he is "anti-Canadian" will soon cease to bear fruit.


An hon. Member:: Oh! no.


Pierre Gauthier: Oh! no.


Léon Balcer: The hon. member for Portneuf says "Oh! no." Let me tell him that on the eve of the election the Toronto Star had a 10x12 picture spread over its front page. It was the picture of our leader and of Camillien Houde, and the caption said: "Vote against the Drew-Houde axis". Above this picture, the following words could be read:	"Keep Canada British. Vote St.
Laurent." These were in four-inch type.


Pierre Gauthier: I also have
pictures.


Léon Balcer: The Toronto Star saw to it that this picture was published on the Saturday previous to the election. But it did not appear in the province of Quebec. The Liberals tried to give to our leader the reputation of being "anti-Canadian."
Mr. Speaker, it is up to the people to decide and it will be up to the people of the province of Quebec at the next election to show its appreciation to the leader of the Conservative party, as, for instance, the Frenchspeaking population of Ontario was thankful for the $100,000 grant to the University of Ottawa by the premier of Ontario, as well as for the excellent treatment meted out to the separate schools of his province. The French-speaking population showed its gratitude by electing seven out of eight of his candidates. The same thing is happening today and will happen again.
(Text):


Mr. Jean Lesage (Monfmagny-L'Islel):: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of following the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Balcer) in the last part of his speech, which was mostly political. However, I want to follow the first part of his speech in which he discussed specifically the fourth paragraph of the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew). This fourth paragraph reads as follows:
We regret that Your Excellency's advisers have failed:
(e) to reach agreement with the provincial governments in regard to a clearly defined reallocation of taxing powers so that the provincial governments and municipal councils may have adequate financial resources to carry out their rapidly increasing responsibilities.
276	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Lesage
In explaining that part of his proposed amendment, the Leader of the Opposition paid special attention to the province of Quebec, which he mentioned twice, and for reasons which are easy to understand. Since he has become the Leader of the Opposition, and as a matter of fact since he first had some hopes of becoming the leader of his party, he has been bidding for the Quebec votes, after taking a tremendous somersault. Having claimed in 1937 that the provinces had assumed powers meant for the federal government, and that we should go back to pne strong government, he now claims, with an eye to the votes of the province of Quebec, that Ottawa should divest itself of still more powers in favour of the provinces, although those powers are given to the federal parliament by our constitution.
In our province, Quebec, we know very well, sir, the traditions of the Conservative party. We know what the Conservatives think; we know that their sudden love for
o.ur people, this extraordinary about-face, comes more from a lust for power that has been denied to them for so long by the people of Canada, than it comes from the heart. From the very beginning their great chief, the founder of their party, whom I respect, Sir John A. Macdonald, said in the parliamentary debates on confederation:
Those who were, like myself, in favour of legislative union, were obliged to modify their views and accept the project of a federal union.
And later:
We have strengthened the general government. We have given the general legislature all the great subjects of legislation . . . we will have in fact all the advantages of a legislative union under one administration.
How much like the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Speaker, when he exclaims:
We must start all over again from confederation, if we are to have one country instead of nine.
How history repeats itself, but how inconsistent is the Leader of the Opposition. This is, sir, the short story of the Conservative party for three-quarters of a century. Sir John, whilst renouncing his ideal of a unitary state, declared that confederation was to be a form of centralized federalism, and this has always been the aim and philosophy of the Conservative party. Let us remember 1934 and 1935 under Mr. Bennett. It is for this reason that in opposition to what took place in the United States, and in opposition to what was to happen later in Australia, the residue of powers was given in Canada to the federal government. The powers of the provinces were enumerated in 1867 in a


very restricted list, being essentially those of a local and private nature, in line with the importance which Sir John A. Macdonald intended to give to the provincial authorities.
The federal government, according to Sir John, in 1866, was to have the right to appoint and dismiss the lieutenant governors of the provinces; also the right was to be granted to the federal government to disallow the laws passed by the legislatures within the year following their assent. We sometimes find it surprising that the distribution of powers between the federal and provincial authorities gave rise to so little discussion at the time. The explanation given by Sir John was that the delegates at the conference had realized the necessity of creating a strong and powerful central government. That is the record of the founder of the Conservative party.
Let us examine now what are the reasons alleged by the Leader of the Opposition to accuse the present government of centralization. I quote from his speech in this house on Monday, November 24, as reported at page 32 of Hansard:
The rapidly increasing trend toward centralization of taxing powers has greatly weakened the position of the provincial and municipal governments.
The hon. member for Three Rivers has just made the same assertion in other words. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) has learned to listen to his friends of the Union Nationale of the province of Quebec, of which the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Balcer) is no doubt a proud member.


Pierre Gauthier: L'Union Nationale Conservatrice.


Jean Lesage: Two or three weeks ago the premier of Quebec said in the legislature that the provinces had been robbed of their sources of taxation by the federal government, that the fiscal rights of the provinces should be restored and that the spirit of the pact of confederation and the intention of its fathers should be respected in that field. Those were the words pronounced by the hon. member for Three Rivers a few moments ago, that the intention of the fathers of confederation should be respected.
Many people seem to ignore or forget the facts. What were the real facts at the time of confederation? That is where we should look to learn what were the exact intentions of the authors of the British North America Act. At that time the provinces were using

very little of whatever taxation rights they had under the constitution, and in 1867 nearly two-thirds of the budgets of the provinces were met by subsidies paid to them by the federal government. Since then the provinces have gained more and more independence in that field until they have reached the point where if it could have been said that at the time of confederation the provinces were subservient to the federal government as far as taxation is concerned, they have now reached complete autonomy in the field of taxation.
For instance, in 1937 federal subsidies accounted for only 4 [DOT] 5 per cent of the budget of the province of Quebec. Listening to the hon. member for Three Rivers and to the outcries and accusations in relation to the centralization of taxing powers and against the present Liberal administration, one would expect that the trend had been reversed since 1937. On the contrary, in 1951 the total revenues of the province of Quebec were $275-5 million, of which only $3,300,000 was from federal subsidies, or a little over 1 per cent. The province of Quebec was collecting through its own means of taxation 99 per cent of its revenue, whereas in 1867 it was collecting only one-third. Where is their fiscal subservience in that? Does not the difference between 60 per cent and 1 per cent prove that far from having lost its fiscal autonomy the province of Quebec has now complete fiscal independence?
If you will allow me to say so, let us not be fooled by grandiloquent speeches, by outcries of Au voleur! A l'assassin! Non, ecoutons plutot la raison et les faits. Let us look at the facts; let us look at the figures; let us look at the record. Let me ask this question: Are there any provincial taxation rights that have been stolen by the federal government and that should be restored to the provinces?


An hon. Member:: Income tax.


Jean Lesage: I am coming to income tax. That tax was first imposed by the Conservative government in 1917, and it was never tested in the courts by the province of Quebec. My young colleague should know that, and I think he does know it. The Leader of the Opposition was most careful not to point out any one. The hon. member for Three Rivers was very careful not to point out any one. They did not for the good reason that there is not any one. According to section 91 subsection 3 of the British North America Act the federal parliament has the right to raise
The Address-Mr. Lesage money by any mode or system of taxation. In spite of that provision the federal government is presently levying taxes in only four fields of taxation; first, customs duties; second, excise taxes and duties; third, personal and corporate income taxes and, fourth, succession duties on estates of a value of over $50,000. Does the levying of taxes in any of those four fields-


An hon. Member:: Sales tax.


Jean Lesage: That is an excise tax. Perhaps my colleague does not know that the sales tax is an excise tax.


Mr. Fulton:: Maybe you do not either.


Jean Lesage: I do.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Maybe you do not know that the sales tax is a sale tax.


Jean Lesage: It is because you do not know anything that you are never in power. The first two fields of taxation are customs duties and excise duties and taxes. There never has been any question about those. They are reserved expressly to the federal government by the constitution. That leaves us with three and four, personal and corporate income taxes and succession duties.
Would any member of the opposition, especially the Leader of the Opposition, deny the rights of this parliament in those fields? Let us consult the real authority on the matter, the British North America Act. I should like to read from sections 91 and 92 of the British North America Act, 1867. Section 91 reads:
. . . the exclusive legislative authority of the parliament of Canada extends to all matters coming within the classes of subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say,-
3. The raising of money by any mode or system of taxation.
Section 92 reads:
In each province the legislature may exclusively make laws in relation to matters coming within the classes of subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say,-
2. Direct taxation within the province in order to the raising of a revenue for provincial purposes.
What is the meaning of those paragraphs? They mean precisely what they say, that the federal parliament has the exclusive power to raise money by any mode or system of taxation, whether by direct or indirect taxes, and that the provinces may impose direct taxes for provincial purposes only. In Silver Brothers and the Attorney General for Quebec v. the Attorney General of Canada, 1932 A.C. 514, Viscount Dunedin is reported as saying:
The two taxations, dominion and provincial, can stand side by side without interfering with each other, but as soon as you come to the concomitant

The Address-Mr. Lesage
privileges of absolute priority they cannot stand side by side and must clash; consequently the dominion must prevail.
If by imposing income taxation on individuals and corporations, or if by imposing succession duties the federal parliament had overridden its jurisdiction it is easy to imagine what would have happened. As I said a moment ago, it was over thirty years ago that the Conservative party then in power initiated the income tax. Does anyone think that if that legislation had been ultra vires of the federal parliament, during that long period from 1917 to 1952 some provincial government, especially a Union Nationale government, would not have tested its validity?
There is no use in stressing the point that there has been no attack upon provincial autonomy. Provincial autonomy has no more been affected thereby at the present time than it was in 1917 when the bill was introduced by the Conservative minister of finance, Sir Thomas White. As I mentioned a few moments ago, there has been a substantial evolution in the political set-up since confederation. There is no doubt that the provinces owe a debt of gratitude to the supreme court and the privy council which bodies did not quite follow the wishes of Sir John A. Macdonald. On the contrary, these courts went as far as they could go to restore the autonomy of the provinces, more especially by invoking the clause in section 92 of the British North America Act respecting property and civil rights. I also believe and am convinced that the head of the government, his ministers and the members of this party do not wish to violate provincial autonomy to any extent.
I am convinced that the present premier of the province of Quebec will agree with me when I say that the cause of provincial autonomy was admirably served and helped by those great Liberal leaders of the province of Quebec, Mercier, Gouin, and Taschereau. These men never failed at any time to be the convinced champions of minority rights and of provincial autonomy well understood and liberally conceived. In speaking tonight in this House of Commons I am proud to repeat that there is no member of the Liberal party who wants to encroach on provincial autonomy.


An hon. Member:: Why do you do it, then?


Jean Lesage: The Liberal tradition is one of respect for our constitution as it has evolved in favour of the provinces since the days of Sir John A. Macdonald, and the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Three Rivers can count on the present speaker as a staunch defender of provincial autonomy. But that does not mean this

parliament does not have its autonomy and its rights which are a corollary of its very important and even enormous obligation at this time. It is the duty of all members of the house to see to it that the autonomy of parliament is protected so that in turn it can protect the security of Canadian citizens.
Coming back to direct taxation, it is understood that the provinces share the field with the central parliament; but the fact that there is a concurrent right and the fact that we are using it does not mean that we are preventing our partners, the provinces, from using it themselves. The province of Quebec, for instance, is at the present time levying corporate income taxes apart from a number of other taxes it collects from corporations. An income tax on individuals was imposed in the province of Quebec in 1940 and 1941, I believe. I may be wrong and if so I am open to correction on that point, but my memory is good and I feel sure it was in 1940 and 1941, at a time when federal rates of taxation were quite high. But since the end of the last war the government of Quebec has not chosen to levy that kind of tax even when the federal rates of taxation were low as in 1948 and 1949, particularly 1949.


Mr. Murphy:: An election year.


Jean Lesage: Yes, but it was not an election year in Quebec. They could have imposed such a tax if they had wished to do so. At the present time there is nothing at all preventing the Quebec government from fixing any rates it wishes for corporation and individual income taxes of its own except of course-and I am using the words of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent)-"the unwisdom of trying to collect too much from an individual taxpayer." But the same limitation, Mr. Speaker-and my hon. friends opposite will agree, particularly the member who just interrupted-


Pierre Gauthier: Surely.


Jean Lesage: -exists for the federal government and of course would exist-and this is important-if a personal income tax were imposed by the Quebec legislature. The same limitation would apply to both.
Now, sir, allow me to come back to the alleged "robbery", to the outcries of "au meurtre, au voleur, a l'assassin!" Have the province of Quebec and the province of Ontario, for instance, lost any revenue since 1939? Let us look at the figures of the Quebec and Ontario governments. They have not lost any revenue as has been alleged.


An hon. Member:: Good governments in both provinces.	.


Jean Lesage: They are good collectors anyway. You will see that is the case. On the contrary, in 1939 the total revenue of the province of Ontario was $87-5 million.
In 1951 it was $291-1 million. It tripled and more. In 1939 the total revenue of the province of Quebec was $59-8 million. In 1951-52 it was $275-5 million, and it is expected to be around $300 million in 1952-53, which means it has increased fivefold since 1939. How is it possible to contend, as the hon. member for Three Rivers did, that the present Liberal regime has deprived the Quebec government of its taxing rights when the latter has increased its revenues five times in the last thirteen or fourteen years? Where is the robbery? Where is the tendency towards centralization, especially when you realize that the federal government has not entered any new field of taxation since 1939-


Joseph Warner Murphy: They did not need to.


Jean Lesage: -except that of succession duties?


Mr. Hodgson:: What about the excise tax?


Jean Lesage: Excise taxes are reserved to the federal government. Parliament is taxing estates of the value of over $50,000, the quasi-totality of which have been accumulated through interprovincial or international trading, business and activities. It is true that during the war Quebec rented certain taxation rights to Ottawa, but since 1945 the federal government has withdrawn from all those fields except that of succession duties for the reasons I have just mentioned. The total amount of succession duties collected during the current fiscal year by the federal government is only $43 million. For instance, the federal government was levying a tax on gasoline during the war but it abandoned the field immediately the war ended, and the provincial government of Quebec is now imposing a tax of 13 cents per gallon on gasoline sold in that province, which is a rate of 30 per cent, speaking of high rates.


Joseph Warner Murphy: How does it compare with the 25 per cent increase in the sales tax?


Jean Lesage: The Leader of the Opposition in his speech on November 24 said that in 1939-and this was repeated by the hon. member for Three Rivers-municipal governments collected 30 per cent of every tax dollar, provincial governments 19 per cent and the federal government 51 per cent. Those percentages are taken from the green book of the dominion-provincial conference on reconstruction, pages 32 and 33, and for the purpose of those calculations the fiscal years used are those nearest to the calendar
The Address-Mr. Lesage years. I must point out that those percentages are based on a figure of total revenue for the provinces which is not complete. To that revenue must be added the following:
1.	$28-1 million from motor vehicle licences.
2.	$24 million from the public domain.
3.	$9 million from miscellaneous licences. If you take those into account you can reach the exact percentage figures, which are as follows: federal, 48 per cent; provincial, 23 per cent; municipal, 29 per cent. That is for 1939, when the expenditures of the federal government for national defence and for social security were practically nil.
The Leader of the Opposition said in the same speech that, last year-


An hon. Member:: Two years ago.


Jean Lesage: He said that last year, in 1951, the federal government took 77 per cent of our tax dollar, leaving the provincial governments 12 per cent and the municipal governments 11 per cent. I have here the figures for the total revenue of each group for the fiscal year nearest to the calendar year 1951, which is the last known figure. The federal revenue was $3,657 million. The total provincial revenue including licences was $904-9 million and the municipal revenue was $528 [DOT] 8 million. Those figures are taken from the Bank of Canada statistical summary for 1951. The exact percentages are as follows: federal government, 71 per cent-not 77 per cent; provincial, 18 per cent-not 12 per cent; municipalities, 11 per cent-correct.
For the current year the federal revenues will be comparatively higher because of higher taxation; and according to the estimates I have studied and taking as a basis for my calculations a total federal revenue of around $4-4 billion, the percentages would be as follows: federal government, 75 per cent; provincial governments, 15 per cent; municipalities, 10 per cent. The federal revenue is going to be spent as follows: First, for national defence or national security, $2-1 billion; or, if you wish, 35 per cent of every tax dollar collected in Canada is going for national defence or national security; second, social security, $900 million or 16 per cent of every tax dollar; then interest on the national debt, around $430 million or 8 per cent of the total revenue. Payments to the provinces as subsidies or following the tax agreements will amount to $300 million; 5 per cent of every tax dollar. All other services, all the other services of the federal government, will cost $700 million. So only 11 per cent of

The Address-Mr. Lesage every tax dollar in Canada is going to be used by the federal government for all of the services except national defence, social security and interest on the national debt.


Joseph Warner Murphy: Wake up some of your members over there or you won't need it.


An hon. Member:: That is so stupid.


Jean Lesage: It is surprising, sir, that these gentlemen will grumble only when it hurts.


An hon. Member:: Never mind the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; get going.


Jean Lesage: The figures I have just given show that while in 1939 the federal government took 48 per cent of every tax dollar at a time when there was practically no expenditure for national defence or for social security, it now spends 35 per cent of every dollar levied in Canada for national security, leaving only 40 per cent for all other federal expenditures including those for social security.
As you know, under social security we have the following main expenditures: benefits to veterans which are, I believe, a consequence of the last two wars; and that is expenditure which is directly linked to national security. Then we have family allowances; and I do not believe my friends opposite would ask the federal government to leave the field of family allowances- nobody in my riding would, anyway. The figure for social security includes payments for old age pensions and the provinces have all given their consent to an amendment to the constitution in that field. Federal expenditures for social security, I repeat, take 16 per cent of every tax dollar levied, and they are mostly transfer payments. The national debt was incurred mainly during the two world wars and practically 8 per cent of every tax dollar goes to the service of the national debt, which must be more or less directly attributed again to national security.
More than three-quarters of the present federal expenditure is on security, past, present and future; international security and social security combined. Finally I just mention that among the important items of expenditure about $300 million a year is being paid to the provincial governments through subsidies and tax rental payments. This accounts, I repeat, for 5 per cent of every tax dollar. We are left then with something less than $700 million out of a total budget of $4-5 billion to spend on all the other services and activities which the government is asked to carry on in the course of its ordinary operations.


An hon. Member:: What is $300 million?


Jean Lesage: Only $700 million is left to spend on all the services of the federal government, that is to say only 11 per cent of every tax dollar collected in Canada, when the provinces will have at their disposal this year 15 per cent of every tax dollar.
To put it in figures, let us say that the federal government will have only $700 million to spend on its ordinary services while, for instance, the total budget of the province of Quebec will be of the order of $300 million, which is just a little less than half. I believe that all of these figures speak for themselves and prove what I said a few minutes ago, that the provinces are in a better position than they have ever been; that the federal government has not taken away from them any field of taxation.
Mr. Speaker, the reason federal taxation is high today is that the present government and the members of my party believe that it is our first duty to see to it that the Canadian citizen enjoys security and freedom.


An hon. Member:: Plenty of neckties.


Jean Lesage: According to our constitution it is the obligation of the federal government to ensure national security, and it is for the protection of our citizens that we are spending huge amounts of money as an insurance premium for the protection of the North American continent and to fulfil our obligations towards NATO and the United Nations. As the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) said in the house on November 24-


Joseph Warner Murphy: What is $300 million?


Jean Lesage: -and I quote from page 35 of Hansard, we have-
-the responsibility for taking all measures required for the continued existence and freedom of this country. That constitutional responsibility was clearly envisaged by those who drafted the British North America Act which came into force in 1867. It was that defence, national security, would be the responsibility of the federal government and that the federal government would have by constitutional declaration the right to resort to any and every form of taxation on the Canadian people.
Before I conclude, Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow the example of my hon. friend from Three Rivers, who has been quoting extracts from newspapers. I have an editorial which appeared in the Montreal Star on October 24 last, commenting on a speech made by the Leader of the Opposition at North Hatley. I quote:
Stage by stage, Mr. Drew told the Conservative organizers at North Hatley yesterday, the federal government has infiltrated into provincial spheres of taxation, attempting to weaken the provincial governments by taking a large share of their revenues.


An hon. Member:: That is true.


Jean Lesage: I do not believe the hon. member who just interrupted listened to what I said. While I was speaking I never heard one field of taxation named that we have invaded. I asked the question many times, and the interruptions to which I was subjected were not as serious as that. The newspaper article goes on:
It would be interesting to see some documentation of this persistent accusation. For the reiteration of this charge must puzzle a great many people who cannot for the life of them see what field of provincial taxation the federal authority has entered that it did not have a right to enter.
A little further down, it reads:
The clear implication of Mr. Drew's statement is that if the Conservative party took office it would hand something back to the provinces. But what would it hand back? Nothing has been taken. The further implication is that Ottawa can do with much less money than it now spends. But could it? Could the federal budget be cut back? How? By reducing expenditures for defence? For social services? These are the major items of the federal budget and the Conservative party has not opposed them in the house. The money to finance them has come from the people of Canada as a whole. No province has been subjugated in the process, no taxation field invaded that was not already at the disposal of the federal authority. (Translation):
Mr. Speaker, I did not look at the time when I started my speech. Do I still have five minutes?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: You have only one minute left.


Jean Lesage: I thank you. I have not enough time left to continue my remarks. (Text):


Mr. Carl O. Nickle (Calgary West):: I wish to express a few thoughts this evening, Mr. Speaker, upon taxation, the welfare state, economy in government, a short statement about Brigadier Connelly and finally a few words about some rather important new developments in the petroleum industry in Canada. Before doing that, I take this opportunity to congratulate the mover (Mr. Deslieres) and seconder (Mr. Schneider) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. They both made fine maiden efforts in their speeches to this house. At the same time I express my congratulations to my colleague, the new member representing Ontario constituency (Mr. Starr), for a very thought-provoking, interesting and timely address this afternoon. Finally, since I am extending congratulations on speeches, may I extend congratulations also to the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Sinnott). I do not agree with everything the hon. member had to say in what he described as his final speech in this house, but I did enjoy it in many ways. I was happy to see that, after spending
The Address-Mr. Nickle a vocal quarter sidelined on the bench, he is winding up the final few minutes of the game playing ball again.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: Very well put.


Carl Olof Nickle: My colleague the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Pearkes) spoke at considerable length yesterday concerning the case of Brigadier Connelly, a gentleman who was born in my home community of Calgary. He has made a substantial contribution to this country of ours during his long years of military service. May I say that I endorse completely the statements made by the hon. member for Nanaimo. I say that, having had an opportunity over the past few weeks to study the Connelly case very thoroughly. I have seen much of the correspondence relating to that particular affair. It is a disgrace to Canada that this very able officer, who since his graduation from the Royal Military College has used his engineering and military training in a career of service to this nation, should now be suddenly booted out of the army and his service lost to Canada. This has happened merely because the Ottawa government believes that a political error on its part should be covered up by making Brigadier Connelly the goat. I believe this government should, without further delay, rectify the serious error it has made and clear the name of a very able soldier.
It is not often that a member from Calgary asks for something for his particular community. However, tonight I should like to comment briefly on two things.


An hon. Member:: You want the Grey Cup.


Carl Olof Nickle: No, we will get the Grey Cup next year. The mayor of Calgary has presented to the government a proposal for the joint financing by the city of Calgary and the federal government, of a new terminal for the Calgary airport. Incidentally, this airport is the fifth busiest in Canada. It is the busiest airport between Toronto on the east and Vancouver on the west. When the runways were lengthened three years ago we were required to relinquish the services of a fairsized terminal building. Since that time old shacks which were used during the last war by the United States air force have been used as terminal facilities. For an airport as busy as this one, it is a disgrace that the port of entry to a very progressive community such as Calgary should have as terminal facilities a sizeable but most inadequate tarpaper shack. The proposal made by the city of Calgary is simply that the city put up about a quarter of a million dollars to be matched by the dominion government, to provide for the erection of a modem air terminal.

The Address-Mr. Nickle
The other question concerns something which has been hanging fire for six or seven months. Apparently it takes that length of time to get something accomplished through the rather lengthy mass of red tape separating defence officials in Calgary from those in the national capital at Ottawa. This has to do with the community of Altadore in southwest Calgary, built by the defence department to accommodate the married men and their families from Currie military barracks. Unfortunately, due to an oversight, presumably by the Ottawa authorities, storm sewers were not provided. The result was that, in the midst of this modern community in the city of Calgary, there developed a large slough which has been a source of danger and inconvenience to many of the service families residing near Currie barracks.
Some months ago the city of Calgary offered to split the cost of the installation of storm sewers, which would bring about the removal of that slough and enable that new part of our city to function in the normal way. I am glad to say that, after a great many complaints from the service families in the district and strong requests from the city of Calgary, a few days ago the federal government apparently finally passed an order in council to provide for its contribution of $105,000 toward the cost of constructing these storm sewers. This will now clear the way for the city of Calgary to go ahead, after the completion of the storm sewers, and provide a means of bus transportation by finishing off the road under which that storm sewer will be laid.
Returning to the major issues as I see them, the by-election which brought me to this house last December was decided, I believe, mainly on the issue that this Liberal government was being too liberal with the taxpayers' money, was spending high, wide and handsome, spending wastefully and trying to be Santa Claus by wildly tossing luscious parcels to the Canadian voters, trying to kid the voters into thinking that the money for fancy presents was hoisted from somebody else's piggy bank, not their own.
This brings us to the question of social security, which in essence is the taking by the government of part of the national product to provide greater measures of social security for the underprivileged, the aged, the sick and the maimed. Social security is recognized by the mass of the public and by all political parties as a responsibility of government. On the municipal, provincial and federal level Canada has already gone well along the way to the welfare state. I for one would fight against any retreat from


the social security progress already made, just as would all members in this house.
Like you, I realize also that in the present welfare program there are certain inequalities and injustices to some segments of our population. Some adjustments of a relatively minor nature could and should be made now. However, I firmly believe that Canada cannot now afford any further major steps toward a more complete welfare state. Direct and indirect taxation has for far too long been drawing too heavy a share of the national product. All those who contribute to that national product-the workers in all our businesses and industries and the corporations that are our businesses and industries-are bearing an excessive load of taxation. Our nation is bearing this load partly to provide the essential needs for defence, a spending with which the nation has no quarrel provided waste is eliminated from it. Canada is bearing a federal tax load partly to provide about $1 billion yearly for social security, which is also something that most of us approve. Canada is bearing that load partly to provide a host of essential government services, again without quarrel provided government waste is eliminated from the spending.
The levels of taxation on both personal and corporate incomes help to determine our ability to finance an increasing national productivity and a higher standard of living. Too excessive taxation, regardless of its purpose, is like underfeeding the goose that lays golden eggs. Sometimes it seems to me that it is wiser to defer big-surplus budgeting and more welfare statism and to slash the fat of waste from government spending habits in order to give the goose a full-growth diet and thus boost the golden egg production for years ahead. I believe that time is past due for Canada. You can load a great deal of weight on a pack-horse and get to your destination of greater and more widespread national posterity; but if you overload the pack-horse, meaning the taxpayer, he will sink into the mud of depression, carrying this nation and its hopes with him.
This government, too long in power, has been seeking to extend its tenure by more and fancier handouts, by more and better jobs for party supporters, by lavish passing around of the taxpayers' money and I think also by general extravagance. It is high time that tenure ended, just as the tenure of the free-spending, socialist-minded government has ended in the United States and has also ended in Britain, and Canada had a return to a Conservative and economy-minded government dedicated to letting our citizens keep a larger share of their earnings

to spend and build with as they please, and to leading the nation to the great destiny that can be ours. I believe, of course, that such a government would be one headed by the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, the leader of my party.
There are other alternatives, of course. We have the socialists represented by my friends to my left who are now wooing the citizen taxpayers with the offer of what would be another billion dollars of welfare statism through a costly national health plan and higher old age pensions. There could also be the Social Crediters, the group which was described last night by one of its members as the splinter off the beam.
As to the Social Credit group and their national policy, I must be guided-because I have seen no other statement of national policy recently-by the platform adopted a week or so ago by the Social Crediters meeting in convention in Saskatchewan. At that time they adopted a platform calling for a $100 a month old age pension without a means test, coupled with the raising of tax exemptions to $5,000 for married taxpayers and to $2,500 for single ones. Of course that poses the problem: who is going to pay the shot for the extra $700 or $800 million of pensions? Maybe their answer lies in the nebulous thing called Social Credit dividends, that wondrous currency backed by gosh knows what; but personally I prefer to put more reliance in real dollars.
I notice that on the order paper we have some resolutions from several members of the existing government calling for new and better handouts of various types. All these remind me of a cartoon which I saw recently in the New Yorker magazine and which I should like to see reprinted in Hansard. The cartoon shows a political gathering, with the usual politician spouting lustily from the platform; and in the audience are two ministers of the gospel listening to this politician. One of them turns to the other and says, "Why, that is more than even we can promise them".
Mr. Speaker, I was happy that a day or two ago the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Dinsdale), when discussing the problems of the west, dealt at some length with the problem of increased population to aid in the building further of western Canada. I want to say that I fully agree with him. I should like to quote briefly from an address on the subject entitled "Building the Future for Western Canada" which I made at Winnipeg a month or so ago. In it I said:
To fully realize the future offered by our natural resources, therefore, we western Canadians must expand our efforts to match our resources with markets . . .
The Address-Mr. Nickle
One phase is to encourage an accelerated rate of immigration to western Canada, not only to provide greater home markets for our products, but also to provide the human resources with which to build a much broader industrial potential. An enlarged program of selective immigration of men and women of pioneering temperament and a wide range of knowledge and special skills is essential to the long-range planning of a still brighter western future.
I trust that this government will greatly enlarge its efforts to ensure that the west and all Canada, in fact, will reach this great objective of 20 million, 25 million or 35 million people before the end of this century.
At the present time we have under way in London a conference of commonwealth prime ministers. Regardless of politics, I am sure the Canadian delegation carries with it the hope of all in this house and all in this country that they will come back with great results which will bring market expansion. However, I noticed in the Ottawa Journal tonight a Canadian Press story dealing with the conference, and in it there is one statement that may be taken with considerable concern in the west. The Canadian Press statement dealing with the commonwealth conference reads in part:
In the case of wheat, for instance, it was noted that in 1950-51 the sterling area imported 5,400,000 tons from dollar sources, principally Canada, at a cost of $490 million. The ministers agreed that increased wheat production is needed particularly in such countries as Pakistan, India and Australia.
It is understood that Canadian officials take no objection to increased commonwealth production of wheat, one of Canada's leading products.
This is what concerns me.
For one thing, Canada is "bullish" about wheat at the moment, and for another Canadian ministers have always said that all they want is a free market run.
I am sure every wheat producer of western. Canada and of the east hopes that the apparent optimism of the government as to its ability to find markets for the growing wheat surplus of the west will be rewarded with success.
In this morning's paper there was another headline, whose background means far more than is implied in the words of the headline itself. It reads: "Plan to extend west pipe line to Sarnia". Back of this announcement made in Toronto today is the start on a third major pipe-line project to serve western Canadian oil. With this particular project, and in the expansion of lines to be tied in with that project across western Canada, will come a transport system for oil adequate, when they reach full capacity, to handle at least 40 per cent more oil than the entire petroleum consumption of this country.
It may be of some interest to this house to know that during the first ten and one-half

year to an average of 162,000 barrels a
The Address-Mr. Nickle months of this year western Canada has been coming through with a rather remarkable record. During those months this year 155 new discoveries of either oil or gas were recorded in the western provinces. It included some 80 oil discoveries, 64 discoveries of natural gas, plus 11 discoveries of wet gas or gas laden with liquid products. This rate of discovery, about one every two days, is 50 per cent higher than the former all-time Canadian record set in 1951. It will interest this house to know, I am sure, that in this string of discoveries the four western provinces have shared. Alberta came through with 118 discoveries of various types. Saskatchewan, as a new oil province, has come through with 25 discoveries this year of oil and gas; northeastern British Columbia, another new oil province, has come through with nine discoveries of oil or gas this year. Southwest Manitoba has come through with three more oil discoveries.
Among the great discoveries of this year, which account for this announcement concerning the new expansion of pipe lines, is the discovery in Fort St. John, northeastern British Columbia, of a natural gas field already proved to contain something over 1,300 billion cubic feet of natural gas. And in central Alberta has come a discovery of the Bonnie Glen-Pigeon Trend field. It contains, on the basis of knowledge to date, a minimum of 250 million barrels of crude oil. This year western Canada is going to record the greatest increase in proved reserves of oil and gas in the history of this country. Oil reserves, for example, for 1952 are going to increase about 500 million barrels, to a total of about 2 billion barrels by the end of this year. Natural gas reserves this year are going to increase about 3,500 billion cubic feet to around 10J thousand billion cubic feet by the year's end. These figures may mean a little more to you when I tell you that back in 1946, only six years ago, our west had oil reserves of only some 65 million barrels, and gas reserves of something like 2,000 billion cubic feet.
More important than the discoveries of oil and gas, with their gross value of more than $5 billion, are the beacons they have lit pointing the way to the future. Our reserves have been developed by an intensity of exploration less than 5 per cent of that in the United States oil states. Undoubtedly ultimate Canadian oil and gas reserves will be several and perhaps many times those proved today.
The oil potential, or our ability to produce out west, has climbed by the present day to something like 280,000 barrels a day. Our actual oil production has climbed this

day. In other words we are running well behind production, compared with actual ability to produce. In the light of this situation and the growing reserves and discoveries that have been made since last spring, there have been two important pipeline developments. One was the start of the construction of an $80 million pipe line across the Rocky mountains from Edmonton to Vancouver. That pipe line, I may say, will be completed next August, and the first oil by pipe line to reach Vancouver refineries will start servicing the market on the coast next October.
A few weeks ago it was announced that on the Pacific coast, in the state of Washington, just south of Vancouver, a $35 million oil refinery would be erected to use Alberta crude oil. The Washington refinery will be completed in the summer of 1954. Word has also come in recent days of the purchase of a refinery site by another major United States oil company in the general Seattle area, and it is reasonably assumed that in the not too distant future plans will be announced for a second United States oil refinery to use our oil on the Pacific coast.
With the growing oil reserve potential, I might say that during this coming year our ability to produce oil will climb to at least
350,000	barrels a day; it will climb in 1954 to probably beyond 400,000 barrels a day, and in 1955 our ability to produce may pass half a million barrels a day, or the equivalent of self-sufficiency for Canada.
With these growing reserves there has been a great deal of concern as to where the oil would go beyond the Pacific coast and the markets west of the existing interprovincial oil pipe line from Alberta through to Superior, Wisconsin, the head of the great lakes area. Today comes the announcement of what is going to be done. A 630-odd mile oil pipe line, 30 inches in diameter, capable of carrying at its peak more than 350,000 barrels of oil a day, will be started immediately from Superior, Wisconsin, across northern Michigan, across the four-mile wide Mackinac strait, through central Michigan and across the St. Clair river at Sarnia, Ontario. That pipe line will be built and placed in operation within one year. So far as our prairie provinces oil producers are concerned, it will open the way for a year-round direct market into Ontario; and so far as Sarnia is concerned, the hon. member for that constituency will perhaps be interested to know that the development of a direct route by pipe line to Sarnia ensures that city's place in the scheme of things,

so that it will likely become the greatest single oil and chemical refining centre in eastern Canada.
This oil pipe line that is being started across United States territory to Sarnia is going to cost something like $75 million. Arrangements to finance that project are now being completed. The necessary steel,
160.000	tons, has recently been allocated by the United States department of defence production. Coupled with this pipe line construction will be a further expansion of the existing interprovincial pipe line leading to the great lakes. Over the next two to four years, depending on the rate of oil reserve growth and the rate of development of oil markets, will come the spending of about $200 million to provide an eastward pipe-line system from Alberta to Ontario and the Detroit region of the United States capable of handling something over
350.000	barrels of oil a day. The Pacific coast pipe line is now being completed and will be in operation next August. It is designed to handle ultimately something over 200,000 barrels of oil per day.
With the several pipe-line systems under construction or well on the way there will be developed an oil transport system capable of handling at the peak more than 650,000 barrels of oil per day. When the west can produce that volume and the markets of this country and our neighbour to the south can consume that amount of oil, Canada will be more than self-sufficient for the first time in her history so far as petroleum is concerned.
As to natural gas, we have had a lot of discussion on this matter during the past session and previously, and I am not going to go into it in any detail. I am happy to say that at the present time a survey, financed by private capital, is being carried out by a great United States university and a university in the province of Ontario. A study will be made of the entire fuel picture of eastern Canada and of the best methods of matching the fuel reserves in western Canada and in the United States with the great market of eastern Canada.
A few days ago the president of Shell Oil Company of Canada, W. M. V. Ash, made an address in Montreal which contains some thoughts on the question of natural gas that I think are worth repeating to this house. Of course he was speaking as the head of one of the large companies which have played a material part in the exploration for and development of oil and gas reserves
The Address-Mr. Nickle in western Canada. Speaking in Montreal on November 20 Mr. Ash said:
As a producer of both oil and gas therefore I would urge with all the force at my command that those responsible for framing Canada's gas policy should base it on fundamental economic principles. After gas reserves have been set aside for the foreseeable local needs, including new industry, let our first and most valuable gas be delivered to the nearest and greatest market, where the best price can be had. Later, as we develop further gas, let us look to the more distant and marginal markets.
Today the picture seems to shape up like this. Substantial reserves have been found in northwestern Alberta and in the northeastern portion of British Columbia, and additions to these reserves are being discovered almost daily. Canadian and provincial permits have been given to one pipe line company which in effect dedicate these reserves of gas to movement to Vancouver and southward to U.S. markets. Percentage-wise, it is anticipated that about 85 per cent of the gas will be delivered to the U.S. markets. The necessary U.S. permits for the on-movement beyond the border are presently the subject of hearings before the U.S. federal power commission. Their award will depend on the answer to the question-do adequate proven reserves exist in the north to satisfy the large northwestern United States demand? Personally I am confident that the strong and growing exploration activity, which is steadily pressing further north, will inevitably prove more than enough reserves of gas. On the other hand delay may cause the insistent demand to be supplied from other sources and that market will be lost forever to Canada.
That is a statement which this government as well as the governments of Alberta and British Columbia might well take to heart. Mr. Ash continues:
Thus while this dedication of the northwestern Alberta and northeast British Columbia reserves to the Vancouver and southward movement seems a logical and sensible move by the authorities, since it is difficult to visualize any other economic market to which those reserves can go, nevertheless this will not provide for the marketing of the large quantities of gas which will be produced with oil throughout the body of Alberta.
To avoid such a situation there has been a school of thought which advocates a trunk line from north to south through Alberta and thence either east or west. Such a system would tap all of Alberta's gas reserves, it would make gas available to a maximum number of Albertans, and in effect would pool Alberta's gas for movement to any market, domestic or otherwise, in any direction.
The questions whether that direction should be east or west, whether any eastern movement should be intra-Canada or should include United States outlets, and other problems, have divided the parties according to two opposing philosophies. The one advocates that western gas, after serving prairie communities, should seek the nearest and largest markets south of the border. The other aims to keep Canadian gas wholly on our side of the border, would serve the same prairie communities, but from Winnipeg would cross relatively sparsely populated terrain over a long and expensive route to Toronto and possibly Montreal. The cost of such gas, unless subsidized, either by the western or the eastern taxpayer, or both, is substantially greater than the cost of gas from American sources.
Possibly the philosophy inherent in the second of these two schemes is not surprising in these

The Address-Mr. Nickle times when nationalism is the cry all over the world. I hope that in our country economic and not isolationist principles will prevail. In the long view surely it is best, not only for Canada's gas producing industry but for Canada at large, to sell its raw material in the most profitable market and to use the revenue obtained thereby to purchase equivalent energy from the most economic sources available to it.
With that quotation from the remarks of Mr. Ash, president of Shell, I shall close my comments on gas. However, I should like to state that in discussing gas going to various markets one prime concern is the price received at the Alberta or prairie end of the pipe line. It has been said that our present reserves are something like ten trillion cubic feet, or ten thousand billion. With that volume of gas a difference of one cent per thousand cubic feet in the price means a difference of $100 million to the Canadian economy. An uneconomic gas pipe line might mean a difference of from two to perhaps five cents per thousand cubic feet. In other words, the difference to the economy of this country might be anywhere from $100 million to $500 million based upon the presently known reserves.
In this connection it might be interesting to have a break-down of where that extra $100 million represented by a difference of one cent in the price of the gas would go. About $15 million would go to the owners of the royalties, mainly the Alberta government. Taking the balance of $85 million and considering our present corporation tax rates and the fact that this would come off the top, more than $42 million would be lost in the way of corporation tax income to the federal government. The balance of around $43 million would represent extra income which the oil or gas producers could use for further expansion, exploration or development; or it would represent dividends to those who are paying the major part of the shot for this tremendous development in western Canada or to the foreign investors and shareholders of so many small and large oil and gas companies.
In his concluding remarks in Montreal Mr. Ash dealt with a subject which I have discussed before in this house. I should like to close with his words in regard to that subject. He said:
When you add to this the fact that the eastern Canadian markets of Toronto and Montreal can be served by American gas at a substantial saving over western Canadian gas, surely every effort should be made by our nation, and by our neighbours to the south, to work out a pooling or "unification", or exchange of the continent's gas supplies.
The same principle has been followed to date and is being followed for the future in


the planning for the matching of oil reserves and markets in Canada and the United States.


Mr. E. B. Huffman (Kent, Onl.):: Mr. Speaker, I should first like to congratulate the mover (Mr. Deslieres);, and the seconder (Mr. Schneider) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. If I were to say more I would only be repeating what has been said already about these two hon. members. It is always of interest to me to hear the speech from the throne read, and I am sure that it pictures for each and every one of us some of the things that we expect will come to pass in the coming year. I was particularly interested to note that one of the subjects about which I had spoken in the house was included in the speech from the throne, namely the question of the rural mail carriers. I am sure some satisfactory arrangement will be made for these men and women who are providing a very creditable service for many people.
I have listened with a great deal of interest to the things that are said in this chamber to the ministers of the crown. I have always been amazed at the direct criticism offered to them from which one might assume that the sworn ministers of the crown are not wholly responsible citizens, but I am sure that is not the case. Often opposition members conjure up in the minds of the Canadian people something that is not in true perspective. It is always rather disagreeable for me to have to refer to some of these remarks. However, I note that my good friend, the hon. member for Middlesex East (Mr. White), had the following to say as appears at page 89 of Hansard for November 25:
People do not mind paying for aeroplanes, guns and other supplies for our troops, but I think the people of Canada are getting sick and tired of this arm chair army.
I was obliged to write a note of sympathy to a mother in my community whose son made the supreme sacrifice in Korea. I am sure in her mind and in the minds of her friends that son did not belong to the arm chair army referred to by the hon. member. On page 182 of Hansard for November 28 I find that my very good friend the hon. member for Lambton West (Mr. Murphy) has painted another picture of the things that the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) and the Minister of Defence Production (Mr. Howe) are doing for our armed services. He has painted a picture of 37 miles of carpet which would be quite a waste if only used to take light exercise. I would say that if there was a rug beside

the bed of that soldier who lost his life in Korea the people would not object to it having been placed there.
Last summer I had the privilege of having dinner with one of our servicemen. He told me among other things that he was going up to the icecap of Canada to serve his country. He also told me that when he got to Churchill he would only be half-way to his destination. He left his wife behind him and went there to serve Canada. If the government chooses to provide some of the amenities of life for men who are willing to do such things, we should not complain.
I would also say that there is hardly a man in any of the three armed services today who could not leave that service and enjoy, with the labour force of Canada, the greatest period of earning that anyone could possibly have. The dominion bureau of statistics has this to say:
Canadian labour income reached an all-time monthly peak of $922 million in August-
That is this year.
-as compared with $833 million in the same month last year.
I say, therefore, that these men are leaving their arm chairs behind them and making a great contribution to Canada and the security of the nation. When the members of the opposition point to those on the other side who are responsible for the direction of the defence effort they must do so having it in mind that three fingers are pointing back toward them, because we were told in the house only two days ago that at the beginning of world war II the government was criticized for not doing enough. Now they are criticized for providing too many things. That is the way I view some of the criticism being levelled at our senior cabinet ministers.
The hon. member for Middlesex East also referred to the taxes levied against a farm in his county. He indicated the increase that had taken place. I think it is a good defence of the spending of the government. Each and every one of us pay taxes. I also happen to be engaged in the occupation of farming. My taxes have increased, but that is because I had asked for better drainage and better roads, because we have better accommodation in our schools. I and the other people of my municipality asked for these things. So far as industry is concerned, I was speaking with an industrialist of the city of Chatham right after the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) had paid his visit to that city. The industrialist said to me, "I appreciate very much the position of the Minister of Finance because different sections of my industry come to me and say that so much
The Address-Mr. Huffman money is needed for expansion and development." He said, "We add all these expenses together and the price tag is put on the article as it leaves my plant." That is the way that we are financing the preparedness effort that is being put forward on behalf of Canada.
Now I would like to refer to my own particular part of the country, the part I represent. I come from a very diversified agricultural area. There are some 19 or 20 specialized crops and they often need special attention. I believe one thing that could assist us a great deal in that area-and we expect a survey to be made on the river Thames- would be to have more ships pass up and down the river, as was the case when this river was open to traffic. We could then get a storage terminal which would assist us to overcome the congestion that comes from time to time when special crops are being harvested. That is one of the things that could be of assistance to our community.
At this time there is one crop that is particularly pertinent and on which I would like to delay the house for a few moments by referring to its history. The sugar industry is of great importance to our economy and provides an annual purchasing power of some $120 million. This was the amount paid for material and services in 1951. The sugar beet industry was established permanently at the turn of the century after some unsuccessful attempts. The sugar refinery located at Chatham is the largest of its kind in Canada and has earned for the city the title, "The sweetest city on earth". The sugar company employs during the refining season some 1,200 people and maintains a permanent staff for its operations. In southern Ontario there are some 6,200 growers. One-half are in the county of Kent. This company provides an annual purchasing power of $11 million for services and the raw products based on 1951 operations. You will note the benefits an industry of this nature brings to any community of Canada.
All the beets for the production of beet sugar are grown locally, providing employment for many people, especially our new Canadians, and this has helped to assimilate many of our immigrants into the fabric of our communities. We have encouraged immigration. The Canada and Dominion Sugar Company of Chatham have had a prime interest in establishing many of our new citizens. They have indicated in their publications their appreciation of the assistance that was given to them by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and the Department of Labour. It would be unfortunate to have an industry of this size disrupted to such an extent that


1950 we imported $76 million worth of sugar; in 1951, $75 million; and this year, if the last quarter is on a par with the first three quarters, we will expend around $50 million. This action was duplicated, no doubt, by all importing countries.


Joseph Warner Murphy: You are talking about raw sugar.


Edward Blake Huffman: I refer to raw sugar. The international bank for reconstruction and development has stated:
Cuba has expanded sugar production at the expense of soil fertility and water supply. They also contend they are in a precarious position through failure to diversify agricultural production.
I contend we are encouraging this condition by taking sugar from their surplus production. I also contend we are limiting diversification of our agricultural production, as this purchased surplus will result in lower sugar beet acreage across Canada. The sugar industry is located from the Pacific to the Atlantic. It is designed to refine the sugar requirements of Canada, and has done this in the past, as we have imported very limited amounts of refined sugar. It is the employer of Canadian labour. It is Canadian knowhow, Canadian investment to a large extent. The sugar beet part of the industry is 100 per cent Canadian. We will never in the future of Canada produce enough sugar beets to meet the domestic requirements. This is not true of many agricultural crops. The government of Canada has lent assistance to market surplus crops in the past. This condition can be alleviated by encouraging more non-surplus crops. The production of sugar beets is at the moment carried on in four provinces, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec and Ontario.
Many were of the opinion that the contract for Cuban raw sugar was designed so that it would earn dollars and assist Cuba to purchase greater quantities of our basic production.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I notice it is ten o'clock.


Edward Blake Huffman: May I have the indulgence of the house to carry on for a few minutes?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member asks for the indulgence of the house for a few minutes.


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Edward Blake Huffman: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. We find their purchases of oats down 50 per cent from 1951; flour down 50 per cent for the same period; malt up 27 per cent; seed potatoes up 40 per cent, but the total is small; codfish, no change; machinery up 40 per cent; copper up 4J times or 10 per

cent of total exports. There are other items which have altered very little. This indicates the balance of trade was derived from materials, not basic production.
Our people have no complaint regarding the importing of raw sugar from Cuba, and if it is thought that the amount of refined sugar, namely the 30 million pounds exported to us this year, is the correct amount for Cuba to supply, let this be added to the Cuban contract. This would make the amount
90,000	tons instead of 75,000. But I must say I am partial to empire sources of supply.
The United States government of late imports almost all the sugar requirements of that country on a quota basis, first knowing their consumption, and then analysing their sugar beet production. Then quotas for raw sugar imports are set. This procedure does away with the fluctuation caused by unusual amounts of sugar being brought in unnecessarily. Imports of refined sugar have caused a stockpiling by our local company. If it had not been for the progressive views held by the sugar company, and the building of cylindrical silos to store the bulk sugar, they would not have been in a position to accommodate this year's production.
It is very evident Cuba is employing a determined effort to dispose of this year's crop. I note that H. R. Mackeson, British secretary for overseas trade, stated:
The government in the United Kingdom is determined not to buy more Cuban sugar than they are at present."
In March of this year representatives of the governments of producing areas and the sugar industry met in London. On September 29 the inter-sugar conference opened in London, and on this occasion it is understood Cuba was seeking control of prices-no doubt through some influence of the international bank for reconstruction and development. If Cuba wishes now to avoid chaos in the sugar industry, it is important to us that her earlier actions do not further disrupt our domestic sugar industry. Our growers have a participating sugar beet contract. The price they receive is related to the sale of sugar and plant by-products. This session I recall the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor) suggesting that if industry wish to have good
The Address-Mr. Huffman relations with labour, they should share their returns. May I say this form of contract has been in effect for some time in this industry.
I have stated some of the reasons for the position the industry finds itself in today. May I state some of the things that could be done to overcome the problem. It has been suggested by grower associations that a quota system for imports of raw sugar would prevent the unfortunate condition in which the industry now finds itself. Some might feel the consumer would be the forgotten person, but I believe there are two safeguards. First, the refiners of Canada would have to buy in competition. Second, if there were no competition at the wholesale level the office of the combines investigation commission could see that there was no special arrangement between companies.
The producer of sugar beets would then be safeguarded against the position in which he finds himself. This year, after producing the crop with labour costs estimated on returns for 1951, he now finds the return per acre considerably reduced due to importations of Cuba's surplus crop and the decline in his participating contract.
Adopting the quota system would provide for the raw sugar exporters a calculated amount of import requirements. It would do away with unnecessary importations of sugar, and stabilize the entire industry. Canada is moving toward stabilization in many phases of her economy. We listened to the announcement that will help stabilize the gold industry. The international wheat agreement has a stabilizing effect on wheat. Subsidies for farm products have had the same effect. These references could be enlarged.
I trust that this is a reasoned and reasonable resume of an important industry, and with co-operation we can attain a satisfactory solution.
On motion of Mr. Casselman the debate was adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
It being eight minutes after ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]

Wednesday, December 3, 1952