1952-12-01

MR. POULIOT    FELICITATIONS ON ANNIVERSARY OF ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT

Mr. W. G. Weir (Poriage-Neepawa):: Mr. Speaker, I rise at the moment on a question not so much of privilege as of courtesy. Yesterday afternoon I happened to look through the Parliamentary Guide, and found that one of our distinguished members in the house is today celebrating his twenty-eighth anniversary as a member of the house. I refer of course to our genial and very good friend, the hon. member for Temiscouata, Mr. Jean Frangois Pouliot.
He was first elected to the House of Commons in a by-election on December 1, 1924, and has been elected in seven general elections since that time, a period of twenty-eight years-three years more than a quarter of a century.
While in the house we may have our differences, while there may be harsh words exchanged at different times across the floor of the chamber, nevertheless I think that on an occasion of this kind we might pause a moment and pay a well-deserved mark of courtesy to one of our senior members in the house. I do this with a great deal of pleasure, although perhaps all too inadequately.
I noticed further, in reviewing the comments in the Parliamentary Guide, that the Pouliot family has been quite distinguished in its record of public service. I believe the hon. member's father was a member of the House of Commons, and that his grandfather and great-grandfather served in various legislative capacities.
It is clear therefore that the background of the Pouliot family in the public life of this country has been most significant. Having in mind the atmosphere of this institution, and what it means to serve here a long time, I think all hon. members this afternoon would wish to pay our tribute of respect, and to offer our congratulations and very best wishes to the hon. member for Temiscouata.
I believe I speak for all members in the House of Commons when I extend to the hon. member our very best wishes.


Mr. George A. Drew (Leader of Ihe Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, may I indicate my own hope that everyone will join in extending good wishes to the very genial member for Temiscouata. May I point out that he occupies a unique position in the house, not only by reason of the association of his family with the public service of this country, but perhaps in another way. I refer of course to the fact that he has differences of opinion not only across the floor of the house, but at times even on the same side of the house. In the relatively short time I have been here, he has never hesitated in that respect to express his opinion. He knows I do not always share his opinions, and I have discovered he does not always share mine. I know that with whatever friendship I extend my congratulations today, and I do so with good friendship indeed, he will not expect me to assist him unduly in continuing this long record of public service-although I must say he seems to have got on very well without that in the past.
In all seriousness may I say that it is a matter for comment that in one family there should be such a unique record of public service. When anyone can look back on 28 years of personal service and recall that his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather served Canada in a similar capacity, it is indeed right that he should claim to have sought to help Canada by serving the country publicly. In doing so there has been established a family tradition.
Whatever differences of opinion there may be, and these differences of opinion characterize this free democratic system of ours, may I add to what has been said already-I feel sure that this is the conviction of every hon. member here-and extend to the hon. member for Temiscouata all good wishes and hopes that he may enjoy in health and happiness the many friendships he has established.


Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Roselown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the official whip of the government and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) have spoken for all of us. In the seventeen years that I have been here it has been my pleasure to sit almost directly opposite to the hon. member for Temiscouata. Not only have I listened to his contributions to the debates that have appeared in Hansard; I have also heard the witticisms in which he has indulged and which on occasion did not

Felicitations to Mr. Pouliot
get into Hansard. I have enjoyed both and I hope that at least for the lifetime of this parliament all of us may continue to enjoy these witticisms.
As the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Portage-Neepawa (Mr. Weir) have said, it is unique that a dynasty in elective service, for such it is, should have been established in parliament and legislatures for four generations. I would hope that this tradition will be carried on when the time comes by the young son of the hon. member. I am very happy indeed to join in these felicitations.


Mr. J. H. Blackmore (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, I think it is obvious to all present that there is nothing further to be said. The Social Credit group join with their fellow members in the fine things that have been said concerning the hon. member for Temiscouata.


Mr. Gordon Graydon (Peel):: Mr. Speaker, as next-door neighbour to the hon. member for Temiscouata in our room accommodations, and as a friend of long standing, I want to say a word about the hon. member. For a short period of time I occupied the position of leader of the opposition, and at that time I am afraid I was a very green stick of political timber. While I was carrying on my duties in that capacity, I shall never forget the great kindness and the extreme courtesy that I always received from the experienced and brilliant member for Temiscouata.
At all times I have been the recipient of many acts of kindness, in and out of the house, by this member from the province of Quebec. Two years ago he came into the county of Peel to address one of our important organizations which, I hasten to say, has nothing to do with politics. I think he left one of the best impressions that any parliamentarian who has come into my part of the country has ever left upon the people. As an ambassador of good will between the different sections of Canada he has made an outstanding success.
Quite often at the United Nations-I am sure my feelings are shared by other members who have been there-when listening to Vishinsky carrying on in his top form and doing the most damage he could, I have wished that for a few fleeting minutes Jean Frangois Pouliot could be there to deal with him as he deserved.
When he visited us in Brampton two years ago we presented his charming wife, through him, with a bouquet of flowers from the flower town of Canada. I only wanted to rise and add to that bouquet a verbal orchid of my own.
[Mr. Coldwell.l


Mr. Daniel Mclvor (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, as a former deskmate of the hon. member for Temiscouata, may I say that I have always found him courteous and kind to me in my inexperience, and sober, sensible and convincing in his remarks. I want to bring to him greetings from a number of friends in Fort William who wish him at least 28 years more in the House of Commons. We wish him not only success here but peace in his own heart.


Mr. Jean Francois Pouliot (Temiscouata):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the chief government whip, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew), the hon. gentleman who leads the C.C.F. group (Mr. Coldwell), the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore), my good friend the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon), and my good friend the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor).
I am quite fortunate in having been a member of parliament for 28 years. I went through eight general elections, three within twenty-two months, and here I am listening to the finest obituary to which one could listen. It was most kind of the whip to speak as he did and I am deeply touched by what he and the other gentlemen said.
I remember when I was first elected to the House of Commons 28 years ago. It was a Monday like today, with fine weather. It had been a terrific election. When I was invited to the land of flowers, to Brampton, to speak before a social club there, I told them some of the incidents that had occurred during that election and perhaps I could repeat one or two at this time.
I did not run as an independent, I ran as a straight Liberal. The official candidate was not actually the member for Temiscouata, it was another gentleman. It was quite difficult to convince some of the diehard Liberals that their duty was to vote for me. Therefore my friends got a good-looking chap with dark hair who went from house to house to canvass the people. He told them that he was Mackenzie King's messenger and that it was their duty to vote for Pouliot. When they asked his name he said he was Chubby Power. He was not actually the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power), he was just a good friend of mine. There was no impersonation, because he voted in his own name. That is just one of the numerous stories I told in Brampton.
I think my hon. friends know that I do not intend to make a long speech but I would like to tell the house the secret for survival in politics. I think each member of parliament knows it. The motto we used to read

in our copy books when we were at school- "Honesty is the best policy". Another one is "I serve."


Major James William Coldwell: Is that illustrated by the story?


Jean-François Pouliot: One must stand by one's own people provided that the member honestly believes they are right; and if they are wrong, which happens seldom, he must tell them so. This is the only condition for survival. Besides that one must not promise more than can be done.
I never expected that so many members of parliament would be so kind. I have done my best to be fair with all my colleagues without distinction, and if we disagree at times with regard to various policies we nevertheless have a common bond that ties us very strongly, namely, that though we may belong to this or that party we are in the first place members of the House of Commons and as such we are brothers. Not only that, I think that the members of the House of Commons form indeed an exclusive club. They also form a very representative crosssection of the country and a very good slice of mankind. Those who come here to attend our deliberations are in a position to have a fair opinion of the Canadian people at large.
I have been touched iby the very kind remarks of all those who have spoken, by the remarks of the whip who has always been very kind to me. Often when I was not sure what to do I sought advice from him, and he has been most helpful to me, as have all my colleagues. I have also appreciated warmly the kind words of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew). We disagree but we remain friends. This is a thing that is essential in public life; otherwise life would be unbearable. I say the same thing of the leader of the C.C.F. group and the former leader of the Social Credit party. They have been very generous to me. I appreciate it. I do not know what are the future plans of my son. I do not think he will get into politics but I will surely send him a copy of Hansard.
It was very kind of my good neighbour, the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon), who was formerly leader of the opposition, to associate the name of my wife with the work that I have done as a member of parliament. Our wives deserve even more sympathy than we who are in politics. Life is very hard for them, and I have been comforted by the kindness and the support of my wife. I am very thankful to her and I am thankful to my electors who have been most kind to me. They have been fair, they have been very generous and kind to me, and I cannot speak highly enough of them. I managed well with my neighbour.
68108-14J
Inquiries of the Ministry I managed well also with my former desk-mate, the hon. member for Fort William, who is one of the kindest members of the house. The good he said of me I think of him and I cannot say any better. I thank all hon. members of the house for this tribute, which I appreciate very deeply.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Alexander Drew: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. Can he inform us when he will receive the report which we were assured was being prepared some time ago by Mr. Currie with respect to the administration of the Department of National Defence so far as it affects Petawawa camp?


Hon. Brooke Claxton (Minister of National Defence):: I have not been in touch with Mr. Currie myself for some time but I am informed by the deputy minister that he has been in touch with members of Mr. Currie's staff, and that it is expected that the report will be available within the next week or two. It has not been made yet.


George Alexander Drew: As a supplementary question, may I ask whether the government has received an interim report?


Brooke Claxton: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Major James William Coldwell: should like to direct a question to the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs, the Minister of National Defence. Under what authority do United States planes cross into Canada for the purpose of investigating planes flying over Canadian territory?


Brooke Claxton: As hon. members know, the defence of North America must be regarded as a single operation, and in consequence of recommendations of the permanent joint board an arrangement has been worked out related to the defence of North America against air attack. The important element in this arrangement is that air defence identification zones have been set up along both sides of the international border and along both coasts. Civil aeronautical regulations require that any aircraft operating in these zones should file flight plans.

Inquiries of the Ministry
Any unidentified aircraft flying in an air defence zone near the international border and apparently heading toward the border is liable to interception for purposes of identification by military aircraft of the country towards which the unidentified aircraft is believed to be headed. For this purpose United States air force aircraft may cross the border into Canada and R.C.A.F. aircraft may cross into the United States. Interceptor aircraft must obey the rules of interception procedure laid down by the country over which the interception is made. United States aircraft when flying over Canada are not permitted to order any aircraft to land.
With respect to the press report which gives rise to this matter, I think I should say that the Globe and Mail refers to three specific incidents. The information made available to me by officers of the R.C.A.F. and by the Department of Transport would indicate that one incident referred to as taking place recently and involving a Leavens Brothers aircraft actually took place in 1950 long before this arrangement was in effect. Another incident referred to concerned an Austin Airways plane. This, I am informed, related to an incident that occurred well on the United States side of the border. I am informed that no report regarding the interception of the Ed Thomas-piloted photographic plane has been received by either air force headquarters or the Department of Transport, but from their own information they believe it occurred in March or April of 1952.



CIVIL SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) in his capacity as Acting Minister of Finance? Will Winnipeg be included with Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver as a city where the year round five-day week will be established for certain branches of the civil service according to the letter from the Minister of Finance which was tabled in this house on Friday?


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Acting Minister of Finance):: At the present time the treasury board does not contemplate the extension of the five-day week to government employees in Winnipeg. The advice received by the officers of the board's staff from the civil service commission is to the effect that the five-day week is not sufficiently predominant among private employers and employees in Winnipeg that it is necessary to extend it to the government staffs in that city.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the situation in Winnipeg be reviewed in the light of additional information that may be received from that city?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I think the situation would be reviewed in the ordinary course of the government's handling of the matter at the present time.



INTEGRATION OF SOUTH KOREAN FORCES WITH CANADIAN UNITS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. P. E. Wright (Melfort):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) a question? Recent reports would indicate that there is a new policy being followed with regard to the integration of South Korean troops with Canadian units. Could the minister indicate whether the reports are or are not correct?


Brooke Claxton: It is the policy of the Canadian government to support any action which will enhance the military effectiveness of the South Koreans and to assist them to defend their own country. On a proposal emanating from commonwealth representatives with the United Nations command, discussions have taken place with other commonwealth countries concerned, with a view to reaching agreement on the integration of South Korean personnel into units of the first commonwealth division.
For some months past the United States divisions in Korea have integrated a number of South Koreans divided among their division units. The American practice has been to feed, clothe and lend arms to the South Koreans serving with United States units, while the South Korean government has been responsible for their pay. It is probable that the arrangements contemplated for the integration of South Koreans into the commonwealth division, if agreed to, will be on lines similar in effect to the United States formations.



PERCENTAGE OF SOUTH KOREAN FORCES ENGAGED

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Graydon: Is there any objection to giving the house information as to the percentage of Republic of Korea troops engaged in the United Nations activities there? What is the percentage of South Koreans as opposed to the others?


Brooke Claxton: I have not got that information at this moment and I am sure that I could not give it without reference to the United Nations command in the Far East.



FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE STATEMENT BY UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Minister of Agriculture):: With permission of the house I should like to place on record a statement which was issued from Washington the other day and forwarded to us. It was issued on November 28 and reads as follows:
Acting Secretary of Agriculture Knox T. Hutchinson announced today that if present favourable conditions continue, Canada will be declared free of foot-and-mouth disease on March 1, 1953.
Consultations were held with the department's livestock industry advisory committee on foot and mouth disease in Denver this week regarding the re-opening of the Canadian border to livestock and livestock products. The committee recommended the March 1 date.
Action has been started on regulations which will permit the entry of Canadian cattle, sheep, other domestic ruminants, and swine, and fresh, chilled, or frozen beef, veal, mutton, lamb and pork. Restrictions applying to other animal products and hay also will be removed.
The United States border has been closed to such imports since February 25, 1952, when the Canadian government announced the appearance of foot-and-mouth disease in the province of Saskatchewan. Strong measures adopted by the Canadian officials, which included quarantines, inspection, slaughter of diseased and exposed herds, and disinfection of premises, confined the disease to a relatively small area of that province. In addition to the original infection near Regina, two subsequent appearances of the disease nearer the United States border were brought under control without spread to other premises. The last infection was found on April 28 and the infected animals were slaughtered three days later.
The same prohibitions and restrictions applying since February 25 will continue in effect until the new order becomes effective. This applies to susceptible game animals as well as domestic livestock.
This is the report as put out in Washington and we received it on Saturday last.



TELECOMMUNICATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. J. Browne (Si. John's West):: should like to ask a question of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier). As the new long distance telephone rates between Newfoundland and the mainland come into effect today, I wonder whether the minister is in a position to answer a question I asked the other day. Are there special rates for calls put in after six o'clock and on Sundays, as is the case in the rest of Canada?


Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Minister of Transport):: I am afraid that I shall have to take notice of the question and inquire what the situation is. The statement I made the
Inquiries of the Ministry other day covered the tariff for the usual calls. I am sorry that I have not the information available.



TRANSPORT SERVICES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. F. Higgins (St. John's East):: I should like to ask the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier) whether he has read the comment of the director of tourist development of New York relating to Canadian National Railways facilities at Port aux Basques and another article appearing in the Citizen on November 26 with respect to improved facilities at Gander airport, and whether he is prepared to comment on both.


Lionel Chevrier: I have not read the article in the Citizen although my parliamentary assistant has told me about it. I do not know that it is a proper thing to comment on articles of the press on orders of the day and I do not want to be disrespectful to my hon. friend, but my parliamentary assistant tells me that the article covers a long-range program for terminal facilities for airports across Canada. I should think the place to comment on that would be when the estimates of the Department of Transport are up for consideration. We have under review from time to time plans for Gander and other international airports for Canada and the items covering those expenditures will be placed in the estimates. They are subject to review by the treasury board and also the approval of the house and I do not think I would like to comment beyond that.
In so far as the other matter is concerned, conditions at Port aux Basques, which are said to be disgraceful: I visited Port aux Basques this summer and I did not find conditions too good, but I would remind my hon. friend and the house that there is a tremendous amount of construction going on there for new terminal facilities. I saw nothing there that I did not see in two or three other places, for instance on the north shore of the river St. Lawrence at Sept lies where there was a great deal of construction work going on. The Canadian National Railways have been given the job of building the facilities. It is just to remedy the present position that they have been put in charge of the operations. I think that any disorder that is to be found there at the moment will be remedied when the new wharf and terminal facilities are completed.

Inquiries of the Ministry
[Later: ]


George Alexander Drew: I hope the Minister of Transport will regard this as an appropriate comment on what he has just said. A question has been asked in regard to certain facilities in Newfoundland, related to different points, but I would suggest that the airport at Gander is in a special position. It is the front door to Canada to scores of thousands, and will be to hundreds of thousands within the coming year. I would think that this is something that might well be discussed without waiting for the estimates, and that the members of this house would wish to know, in fact would be entitled to know, if the government does contemplate, as has been suggested, that the airport facilities at Gander are to be improved in keeping with the tremendous movement of people which will take place through there in the coming year.


Lionel Chevrier: The question that was
directed to me was a request for a comment on a newspaper article which I have not had the opportunity of reading. It is a very long one outlining long-term plans in connection with all the airports. I was telling the hon. gentleman that I did not think it was appropriate to discuss that on the orders of the day.
As my hon. friend says, of course, Gander is an airport of great importance, just as Vancouver and the other transcontinental airports are. It would strike me that if my hon. friend had a definite question to ask, perhaps I could deal with it. I was asked to comment on the whole series of plans, and I think perhaps it would be better if that could be done at another opportunity, such as my estimates.


Gordon Francis Higgins: May I ask the minister, are there to be improved facilities made available immediately at Gander?


Lionel Chevrier: There are in the estimates now, I can tell my hon. friend, provisions for additional facilities. Those estimates, of course, will have to be approved by the treasury board. At this time I believe it would not be advisable to give any details as to what they are, but at the appropriate time I shall be glad to give them to the house.



TELEVISION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Donald M. Fleming (Eglinton):: May I
direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. McCann). In view of the unfortunate break-down of television broadcasting in an otherwise good telecast last

Saturday of the Grey Cup game, are the minister and his government now prepared to consider licensing other stations in the area so that there will not be simply a monopoly enjoyed by the one C.B.C. station?


Hon. J. J. McCann (Minister of National Revenue):: That is a matter which has not yet received attention.



PUBLIC BUILDINGS

[Stage Direction]
st. John's, nfld.-proposed federal building
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Francis Higgins: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. In view of the protests made by Sir Brian Dunfield, who is chairman of' the town planning commission of St. John's, Newfoundland, and the endorsation of both daily newspapers of St. John's of the protest against the erection of the new federal building on the grounds of Government House at St. John's, is he prepared to give an undertaking that the building will not be erected in this place?


Hon. Alphonse Fournier (Minister of Public Works):: This morning I had a most interesting talk with the hon. gentleman about this site. He told me he would ask whether I had read about the protests against the site of the new federal building. I may tell him that I have received protests against every and all sites we have considered up to date. The last protest would be the one from Sir Brian Dunfield, who says that if we put the building on that site we would be squashing the heart and lungs of St. John's. I am in very serious doubts, and when I am in doubt I generally do not act.


Gordon Graydon: Is that why you are holding back the election?


Alphonse Fournier: I have not much to say about that. This newspaper clipping was sent over by the hon. gentleman, and it is entitled "Wants say in site". Actually I find that I am the only one who has no say in connection with the site.



CRIMINAL CODE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, -may I ask the Minister of Justice whether the proposed revision of the Criminal Code, if it is introduced at this session, will be referred to a committee of the house so that interested persons or organizations may appear before that committee and

make representations with respect to any sections over which there may be concern?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: The Criminal Code, Mr. Speaker, has already been introduced in the Senate. It has been given first and second readings and referred to the Senate committee on banking and commerce, by which committee it is now being considered. When that legislation comes to this house it will be referred to a committee of the house which will be assigned power to hear interested persons and organizations.



THE CABINET


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stuart Sinclair Garson: Before the orders of the day are called, Mr. Speaker, I should like to refer to a question which was asked last Thursday, November 27, by the hon. member for Van-couver-Burrard (Mr. MacDougall), in these terms:
I should like to know what members of the cabinet are considered officers of the crown. If there are any members of the cabinet who are not in that category, who are those specific ministers of the crown who are not so considered?
I have drafted an answer to that question after speaking to the hon. member and finding out from him that what he had in mind was a recent decision by the president of the exchequer court to the effect that the Secretary of State is not an officer of the crown within the meaning of that expression in paragraph (c) of section 30 of the Exchequer Court Act, which gives the court jurisdiction in all cases in which a demand is made or relief sought against any officer of the crown for anything done or omitted to be done in the performance of his duties as such officer. I have no reason to suppose that the court would not hold similarly in the case of any other cabinet minister, that he is not an officer of the crown within the meaning of that expression in section 30 of the Exchequer Court Act. This decision should be regarded as the law of Canada so long as it stands unreversed by a higher court, but it applies of course only to paragraph (c) of section 30 of the Exchequer Court Act.



SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Friday, November 28, 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.
The Address-Mr. Feme
Mr. G. M. Ferrie (Mackenzie):: When we adjourned the debate on Friday night, Mr Speaker, I was talking about the price of cattle. Since I have looked over Hansard, I should like to say a few words concerning what the member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) said on page 189 of Hansard for November 28. He made the statement that I had no right to come to the conclusion I did with regard to what that party did in 1944 on the family allowance vote.
Then, going over to page 199 of the same volume, he says that I won an election on this statement but I will not do it again. I should like to bring to the hon. gentleman's attention this point. If I won an election in 1949 on this particular point, there must have been a great many people in my constituency who thought the same as I did, and they still do.
I want to tell the hon. member that I did not win the election on that alone. The C.C.F. party, over the signature of the member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), issued a pamphlet entitled "Who owns Canada". This statement came to my notice, and I may say that in my constituency there is one of the best farmers organizations in Canada, the United Grain Growers. There are thousands and thousands of farmers in that organization, and the United Grain Growers has elevators scattered to the north, south, east and west of my constituency. In this pamphlet "Who owns Canada", you will see that there are one hundred organizations listed with a capital amounting to $9 billion. It is these organizations that the C.C.F. say they are going to take over. Some of these same gentlemen say that they stick up for the farhaers, that they are doing everything for the people that it is possible for them to do, but that we as Liberals from western Canada do not do anything. I want to tell them that we go in to fight where there is some sense in fighting, not by standing up on the floor of the house and trying to bawl others out. We go to fight to get things for western Canada where we know that we will have some recognition and that someone will listen to us.
In this article, Mr. Speaker, you find that they say that they are going to take over the United Grain Growers, amounting to $28,128,000. The men who started this company started it away back in 1908 or 1909, or maybe a little bit earlier than that. When they started that company, I know of one man who went to one of those meetings and who drove his horses 100 miles-


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?

The Address-Mr. Ferrie


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: You sit down. There is no question at all. I have only a few minutes left. I did not interrupt you. You sit down.


Major James William Coldwell: All right; I will sit down. I just wished to ask the hon. member to read the section.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: I have only a few minutes left in which to finish.


Major James William Coldwell: Such a statement is not there. That is why I wanted to ask the hon. member to read it.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: These farmers put their money in. As I said before, one of these men drove a team of horses 100 miles, then he went the rest of the way to this meeting, which was about 15 miles, on foot. His horses were played out and he walked the rest of the 15 miles. He was a shareholder from our part of the country in the United Grain Growers. He walked to this meeting in order to add his voice in helping that elevator system along. We now come along to this point, Mr. Speaker, that these gentlemen put out this pamphlet and say that they are going to take over this farmers' organization, and that they would take it right in with this same body of people. The only one that they have left out is the pool. They left our pool out because they dare not put that in.
I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that it is time the people of western Canada woke up and realized just exactly what is happening. We are trying to fight for them down here in Ottawa, in an effort to get something for western Canada; but all we get from our opposition in western Canada is abuse. I want to say that I have sat here and taken it long enough-we have got lots more like this-and we will not take it any more.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member's time has expired.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Mr. Speaker, I had fifteen minutes. I started at 25 minutes to the hour and I went on until 3 minutes to the hour, and now I have fifteen minutes.


Major James William Coldwell: The Speaker decides.


Mr. Speaker:: It is unfortunate that there is a misunderstanding. My information was that the hon. member had just a few minutes left. I do not want to deprive him of his time, if he has any left. Probably we should give the hon. member the benefit of the doubt.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, surely a record is kept. If the hon. member has not exhausted his time, and the record shows it, there is no

objection to his continuing. The hon. gentleman would allow no question to be asked, and I do not see why he should have any extra time, under those circumstances. Ordinarily, I would be prepared to agree but I am not prepared to agree now.


Mr. Speaker:: The clerks at the table who keep the time inform me that the hon. member has exhausted his time. Unless there is unanimous consent, I cannot allow him to continue.


Major James William Coldwell: No.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry there has been a misunderstanding, but I am bound by the information I receive from the clerks at the table.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Excuse me, Mr. Speaker; I will accept your ruling but it certainly is not right. I started at 25 minutes to the hour and I did not-


Mr. Noseworihy:: The only man right in this house!


Mr. Speaker:: The record shows that the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Ferrie) started to speak at 5.21 on Friday and that the debate was adjourned at 5.59 p.m. I am informed by the Clerk that that amounts to 38 minutes, which would have left him two minutes today. I have allowed him at least five minutes. I cannot go beyond that without the unanimous consent of the house.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Mr. Speaker, under a C.C.F. protest I will relinquish my time.


Major James William Coldwell: Rubbish.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is a comment on Your Honour.


Major James William Coldwell: That is a comment on the Speaker and not on anyone in the house. The hon. gentleman would not allow a courtesy question, and consequently he cannot expect to receive favours from those to whom he will not grant favours.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: I am not looking for favours.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think that what the hon. member for Mackenzie said is a reflection upon the Speaker. I think he is of the opinion that there is a mistake in the facts; but, as I say, I am bound by the information which I rfcci/e from the table.


Mr. G. R. Pearkes (Nanaimo):: Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) rose to take part in this debate on Thursday of last week, he prefaced his remarks by saying, as reported at page 134 of Hansard:
Today I propose to deal with boots, forks and rugs.

I could not help thinking that perhaps he was going to quote from "Alice in Wonderland":
Of shoes-and ships-and sealing wax-
Of cabbages-and kings-
Then somebody mentioned neckties-hundreds of thousands of them. In fact, there were so many neckties that if they were placed end to end they would stretch from the minister's office to the firehall in Winnipeg-a thousand miles of neckties.
The minister then went on to explain why it was necessary that large quantities of stores of clothing and equipment should be purchased.
Stores of clothing and equipment were required for mobilization purposes. Everybody, of course, knows that large quantities of stores are required for mobilization purposes, and it is the duty of the government to provide those stores. But it is also the duty of the government to buy those stores in the most economical way possible. In order to attempt to prove his case the minister placed a great many figures on the record. But one set of figures which he did not give were those which would indicate what articles have been sold at bargain prices in the last few years through such organizations as War Assets Corporation. From the return which was made to this house in the early part of 1949, we know that the government had received no less a sum than $454 million for goods that it had sold at bargain prices. Or course in those days the word "stockpiling" did not enter into the minister's vocabulary.
Today I am not going to pursue that subject any further. I want to speak about another matter which affects the reputation of an officer and this country's standing in the sphere of international affairs and co-operation, in that it is in respect of the question of national defence. When the public is aroused by some particular incident and the government of the day gives only vague replies, a certain responsibility rests upon Her Majesty's opposition. When the public conscience feels uneasy over the treatment of one of its public servants, then it is again the duty of the opposition to ask for further clarification on that point. I intend this afternoon to ask for further clarification in the case of a brilliant young officer whose career was cut short suddenly in the middle of last summer. I refer to Brigadier A. B. Connelly, who was recalled from Korea and was retired at the age of 44.
Suspicion has been aroused because the government endeavoured to hide the fact that he was being recalled, and that he had been retired. It was only because of a news
The Address-Mr. Pearkes release in a foreign newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, that the facts-or at least some of the facts-regarding this case leaked out. The only definite information given by the Department of National Defence is in a release made by Mr. W. H. Dumsday, director of national defence public relations. He gave, I presume on instructions, the following release:
Brigadier Connelly is on retirement leave which will extend over a period of some months. The department does not normally give reason for retirements, except that senior officers are retired when there is no further suitable employment for them. With regard to the report that he was retired for his failure to immediately notify the Canadian government of the intention to use Canadian troops on Koje island, the department has no comment.
As appears in a dispatch in the Regina Leader-Post of October 7, 1952, the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) said that he could neither confirm nor deny the report that the Koje incident was involved in the retirement. Then the release states, in inverted commas, "I know nothing about it," he said. That is, the Secretary of State for External Affairs said that he knew nothing about it.
However, the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) of course does know all about this case, and he has made no statement over his own signature. There have been press comments and statements. The Victoria Daily Colonist refers to-
-a report from Ottawa published in a great many papers over the signature of Gerald Waring in which he says that the army has not even admitted officially that Connelly was sacked because he failed to advise the government last May that a company of Canadian soldiers was being sent to riot-torn Koje island to help guard prisoners of war.
Then it goes on to say:
However, high-ranking officers say that it was the "immediate cause" of Connelly's retirement.
I do suggest that by this silence and these rather cowardly insinuations the reputation of this officer may have been damaged, and his opportunity of finding employment, now that he has been forced to retire from the army, is handicapped. It is for these reasons I feel that the public of Canada and the members of the House of Commons are entitled to a full and clear statement.
It should be noted that Brigadier Connelly did not retire. He was retired, and retired eleven years prior to the time when, under normal circumstances, he would have reached the age limit for retirement. It is also to be noted that there have been other promotions made from lieutenant-colonel or colonel to the rank of brigadier, since the time of Brigadier Connelly's forced retirement.
210	HOUSE OF COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Pearkes
So the public are asking why this has been done. Can they be assured-and they want to be assured-that their public servants, particularly those on active service overseas, are treated with absolute fairness? They are asking why this promising career has suddenly been cut off, after this officer had been educated at great public expense. He attended the Royal Military College at Kingston, an educational establishment maintained very largely by public funds. After having done exceptionally well in his four-year course at Royal Military College, he was given further education at public expense by being sent to McGill university. In 1931 he joined the permanent force and, in the course of his years of service, attended various other schools of instruction.
When war broke out in 1939 he went overseas and soon rose to the rank of senior engineer officer in the first Canadian division. He was then transferred to the position of senior engineer officer in the fourth armoured division and, shortly after that, promoted to the position of chief engineer of the first Canadian corps.
Then he was selected to command all the engineer reinforcements of all the Canadian forces in the United Kingdom. Then he became deputy chief of staff in London, and as such was responsible for the return of the Canadian troops remaining in the United Kingdom after the cessation of hostilities. In all I believe he spent some seven years out of this country on active service in Europe.
When he came back he was first of all made deputy adjutant general and then, because of his engineering experience, in 1948 he was selected to be the commander of the northwest highway system. As all hon. members know, the northwest highway system administers the Alaska highway which runs from northern British Columbia into the Yukon. Many glowing reports have been made to the house, particularly by the hon. member for Yukon-Mackenzie River (Mr. Simmons) and Cariboo (Mr. Murray), as well as by the ministers concerned, as to the importance of that great highway both from the point of view of national defence and from that of the economic life of the country.
I know that during Brigadier Connelly's tenure of command in the northwest highway system he was personally visited by members of this government. I never heard any complaint as to the work being done on that highway system; in fact, the contrary has been the case. In an address delivered in the

house by the hon. member for Yukon-Mackenzie River these words are used, as they are reported at page 1366 of Hansard for November 1, 1949:
The Canadian portion of the Alaska highway from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to the Alaska-Yukon border, a distance of 1,223 miles, is maintained by the northwest highway system of the Canadian army and X wish, at this time, to commend them for the excellent job they are doing under the command of Brigadier Connelly, in keeping this highway open.
General A. G. L. McNaughton writes and says that he is personally familiar with Brigadier Connelly's work in connection with this section of the northwest highway system and says:
I consider that Brigadier Connelly is well qualified to assist in the organization and administration of important construction projects.
After two and a half years' service in the far north Brigadier Connelly was appointed commander of the Saskatchewan area where he remained until he was moved to a position of greater importance, namely, to be acting general officer commanding, prairie command. After the war broke out in Korea and the United Nations had established supreme headquarters in Tokyo, Brigadier Connelly was selected to be the liaison officer or military adviser from Canada to the United Nations supreme command.
I think hon. members will recognize at once that his has been a remarkable career, one which reflects great credit not only upon the officer concerned but upon the whole Canadian army. The public moneys which have been spent on his education would have been justified had he been permitted to complete his normal term of service.
The public want to know why he was retired on pension eleven years before the time at which he might ordinarily be expected to retire. He is still in good health, being a young man of only forty-four years of age; yet he is retired on a pension of more than $4,000 per year. Over the next eleven years that will amount to close to $50,000 of public money.


Brooke Claxton: It is $11,000, I am sorry.


George Randolph Pearkes: I think it is nearer to $50,000 than to $11,000.


Brooke Claxton: The present value of the cost of his retirement today instead of in eleven years is $11,000.


George Randolph Pearkes: He is being retired on a pension of $4,400 a year and he still had eleven years to go. That would come close to $50,000 for that period. For the next eleven years we will get no value from his services. That is

why there is widespread feeling that Brigadier Connelly has been made the scapegoat for the Koje incident.
Let us examine Brigadier Connelly's position. He was liaison officer to the United Nations supreme headquarters situated at Tokyo where for the last year General Mark Clark has been in supreme command. The liaison officers serve under the assistant chief of staff of the eighth army who is particularly detailed to look after intelligence. General R. F. Ennis was the officer in charge of the United Nations Far Eastern command at that time so far as intelligence was concerned.
The duty of the liaison officer was to keen the government of Canada informed from such information as he could obtain with regard to contemplated operations and the progress of such operations. I presume he would write to the commanders in the field and would send in written reports or if necessary communicate with Canada by cable. I would emphasize that the liaison officer is not a commander.
I understand that this matter of sending troops to Koje was discussed with Brigadier Connelly and the commonwealth liaison officers in Tokyo and that before giving a definite answer, although it was hardly his place to do so, Brigadier Connelly suggested that the matter be referred to the commander of the 25th brigade, the officer designated as the senior Canadian officer in the Far East. The inference can be drawn from the press reports that this move was made while the matter was still in the consultative stage. Another inference which may be drawn is that Brigadier Connelly did report in his regular weekly reports to Ottawa that the matter of sending Canadian troops to share in guard duties at the prisoner of war camp on Koje island had been discussed with him and he had referred the matter to the commander of the troops.
Subsequently orders were issued through the regular channel of command passing down from the eighth army, from the commonwealth division to the commander of the Canadian brigade, that a company of troops would be required in order to give a more United Nations aspect to the guarding of the prisoners of war in that camp. It is fairly obvious that the troops did not consider this incident to be unusual. Canadian troops were under the command of the commonwealth division which in turn was under the command of the eighth army. Other detachments had been made along the lines of communication and certain Canadian troops were retained in Japan.
The Address-Mr. Pearkes
When the commander received the order he notified Ottawa in the ordinary course of events that he was sending one company of one of his battalions to assist in this guard duty. This house was informed on May 26 by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) of this fact, and I quote from page 2552 of Hansard of that day as follows:
On the afternoon of Thursday, May 22, the chief of the general staff received a telegram from the officer commanding 25th Canadian infantry brigade, Korea, to the effect that he had received an order from the first (commonwealth) division issued in accordance with a request from the United Nations command to post a company from the brigade to guard duty at the prisoner-of-war camp on Koje island, and that he was accordingly assigning a company from the Royal Canadian Regiment for this duty.
All of this had been in accordance with the plan for Canadian co-operation in the United Nations effort. We were part of the one effort striving for a common end. General Clark certainly had it within his authority to call upon any commonwealth troops to carry out any special duty within the area of the command that he considered was a reasonable task to assign to them. He was anxious to give a more United Nations aspect to this guarding of the prisoners of war. They were prisoners of war who had been captured by United States and commonwealth troops. In fact many of them had actually been captured by the Canadian forces. The continuation of the statement made by the Secretary of State for External Affairs reads as follows:
The Canadian government therefore views with concern the dispatch of a company of the 25th infantry brigade to Koje island without prior consultation with the Canadian government . . .
Apparently the government seemed to go off rather half-cocked at that time because they issued this protest to Washington without taking time to discover whether the matter of sending a company to the Koje prisoner-of-war camp had been discussed with the commanders in the field or with the liaison officer. Faces were rather red when Washington came back and said that this matter had been discussed, that they had discussed it in Tokyo, and that the commander of the 25th brigade had been informed and had raised no objection.
It would appear that the government was embarrassed by this incident and they did not hesitate to let it be known that they had been embarrassed. So a whipping boy had to be found. Of course the darling of the government could not be chastised. Somebody had to take the beating for him. It may have been an error in judgment on the part of Brigadier Connelly when he did not send back by wire the fact that the matter

The Address-Mr. Pearkes of sending a company of Canadian troops to Koje island was being considered and merely reported it in a written statement, but it would hardly seem that one such error in judgment would be full and sufficient justification for cutting short the career of an officer who had already rendered such distinguished service and from whom the people of Canada might well expect to have additional valuable service rendered.
The opinion held by the United Nations officers under whom Brigadier Connelly was serving in Tokyo is of the very highest. I have a copy of a letter signed by General Mark W. Clark, the general in supreme command there. It is dated August 25, 1952, is addressed to Brigadier Connelly, and reads as follows:
Upon your departure from this command I wish to express to you my appreciation for the outstanding service you have rendered to the United Nations cause during the past ten months. Your unfailing courtesy, co-operative attitude and efficient handling of the tasks pertaining to your assignment have been of material assistance to this headquarters.
Then Brigadier Connelly's immediate superior, Major General Ennis, took the trouble to write directly to the Minister of National Defence expressing his deepest regret at hearing of Brigadier Connelly's pending departure.


Brooke Claxton: May I ask the hon. member where he obtained this letter? Was it from General Ennis or myself?


George Randolph Pearkes: You did not send it to me, sir.


Brooke Claxton: I was not asked for it.


George Randolph Pearkes: In this letter, dated August 6, 1952, General Ennis says:
Never have I had the opportunity of working with a representative of an allied country that has given me more satisfaction and pleasure. Brigadier Connelly's impeccable honesty, diplomacy, sincerity, courtesy, humility and devotion to his country have won for Canada and for himself the highest respect from all United Nations representatives in this command.
He goes on to say:
We, your neighbours to the south, feel a great sense of pride and assurance in the future when we have the privilege of associating with such outstanding soldiers of the Canadian army.
He concludes by saying:
Those of us who have been closely associated with Brigadier Connelly during this past year wish him continued success in what will unquestionably be an outstanding military career.
That outstanding military career has suddenly been cut short. I repeat that in my opinion Brigadier Connelly has been used to cover up government embarrassment. He has


been retired from the service without justification, his character besmirched by innuendoes. I think this is a particularly vicious example of the government policy of concentrating control in Ottawa. To my knowledge it has already had a bad effect upon the morale of the troops. Commanders feel that their initiative is restricted, that they must refer every little detail to Ottawa thousands of miles away. Surely the question must be answered: Are we in or are we out of the United Nations Organization?
I cannot help thinking that, if the government had been honest with itself, then instead of retiring Brigadier Connelly the real blunderer would have been promoted to the other place. All I am asking is that the government make amends for the wrong it has done to this promising officer. Let right be done now. Let further employment be found for him so that the people of Canada may still have the benefit of the money they have spent on his education and the experience he has gained in the service of his country.
I want to touch briefly upon one other matter having to do with the question of national defence. Last August a new instruction was issued entitled "Regular Officer Training Plan". It laid down the means by which assistance would be given to selected students to obtain academic standards suitable for a career in the regular army. The instruction reads in part as follows:
This entails a guarantee of a minimum of two years university training beyond senior matriculation or equivalent to selected students who are enrolled as members of the active force and who remain in good standing from both academic and military viewpoints.
It goes on to say:
In addition to a special scale of pay, the assistance to students will consist of payment of tuition and all essential fees, books and instruments, required during the periods spent at academic training.
It explains that this training may be carried out at such military training establishments as the interservice colleges, R.M.C., Royal Roads and the college at St. Johns, Quebec. It lays down the scale of pay that they will receive while taking such training. During the first year they will receive $30 a month and the second year while they are serving in camps $170 a month. The point I want to make is referred to particularly in the next paragraph, which deals with the Defence Services Pension Act, and there it is stated that, as members of the forces, all officer cadets are eligible for the benefits prescribed in the act. Service from the date of enrolment, including time spent at university and at summer training, is pensionable service.

I have no quarrel with the conditions as laid down. I recognize that every effort is being made to obtain officers for the services and to give them a thorough education; but an anomaly does exist in that there will be officers still in the active army who passed through those colleges last year and in years previous who will not be able to count their service at service colleges towards pension. The young man taking advantage of this scheme, as promulgated on the tenth of August of this year, will have a very decided advantage over his fellow officers who are serving in the same units at the present time. Therefore, I would ask the minister if an amendment could not be introduced into the necessary acts in order to allow service at the interservice colleges to be deemed to be service in the forces-so that members who are now in the active force may have the same advantage as these new officers who are going in. Officers who are now serving in the active army will then also be allowed to count as pensionable service periods they spent at Royal Military College and elsewhere.
I think it is a reasonable request. In many respects service at the colleges is regarded as military service. The cadets are subject to military discipline, Queen's regulations, and so forth. They swear allegiance to the crown and if they receive injury through accident while they are at the college they receive a pension in much the same way as any soldier who suffers injury through accident. I think it would be only fair to those officers who have passed through these colleges and who, in many respects, do not get the same advantages as will be given the younger men who will be going through from now on. Those serving in the active army today should be granted the right to count their service at the colleges as pensionable service in exactly the same way as those who are now and who will be in the future passing through the colleges.


Mr. G. M. Murray (Cariboo):: By coincidence I follow a distinguished and gallant army officer. I am a good friend of his and also of the gentleman referred to as being formerly in charge of the Alaska highway and northwest service command. Therefore I am very hesitant as a layman to make any comments further than to say that in these days all sorts of things are being said about army officers. Over the week end I had the opportunity of reading a book, the work of a distinguished Canadian author, which purported to be a biographical sketch of a former prime minister of this country. I see the statement made in that book that at a certain time certain army officers were in
The Address-Mr. G. M. Murray revolt against the crown, against the government and against the prime minister, and that there was a mutiny in the Canadian army. That is stated in so many words.
I was shocked and surprised to find that such a statement should have been made and that no one has risen to contradict it. I must refer to the book here, and I am probably doing good work for the publisher in referring to "The Incredible Canadian", which goes on and refers to all kinds of people here and pays "compliments" to the late Right Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King. It is surprising to those of us who were his humble followers over the period of his public life to read such things. Statements in the Chicago Tribune and books of this kind should be carefully studied before they are accepted as truth.
Mr. King is referred to on one page of this book as the "lord high executioner" in relation to the position with regard to Colonel Ralston at a very important period during the war. The inference is that Colonel Ralston was ruthlessly slaughtered and set aside by that cruel and relentless man, Mackenzie King. I am not willing to accept that statement simply because I see it in print here. In another place in the book Mr. King is referred to as a grasping, mean little man; at another, as Mr. Uriah Heep, the most despicable character in all the works of Dickens. You will remember that Mr. Heep was "an 'umble man"-"always at your service, sir". At another point Mr. King is referred to as an old spinster and at another point he is referred to as man with a mailed fist sending people to slaughter; a liar. Well, that is a word that is seldom heard in parliament although it is often heard out on the hustings. He is referred to as a conniver, a schemer, a ruthless-I would almost say "monster" from reading the book -a lover of luxury, a gourmet, and a spiritualist.
It would be unfortunate in the affairs of this parliament if anything like that were to be allowed to go unanswered-although who am I to answer it? A student of Liberalism for many years as I have been, and a follower of Mr. King throughout, and a close observer too-I admit I am thirty years too late getting into the House of Commons but that is another story-I regard him as having been a great humanitarian, a stout champion of the poor, and while he was branded as a pacifist by some of his enemies, of course, I will say he was a Christian gentleman. He was a diplomat and he may have been a negotiator, but he was a very unselfish, very modest man, simple in his habits, a man who lived in a very modest way. Anyone who goes

The Address-Mr. G. M. Murray out to Kingsmcre and looks over the little cottage in which he died will see that. They will see the rugged stony acres where he had his walks. About the only enjoyment the man must have had was taking walks over the hills back of Kingsmere and watching the sunset. It is regrettable that such things are said of this outstanding man, outstanding in the affairs of this country, of the United Nations and of the world.
This afternoon when we were paying tribute to the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) I wondered whether he was dead, from the fine things that were being said in the house. I want to tell some of these leaders over here that it is another grim feature of death when, three years after a prime minister of this country is placed in his coffin, circulation is given to literature which tends to belittle him in the eyes of the public. It is a very sad commentary upon our country. I hope that the time is not far distant when certain volumes will be published which are based upon the facts as contained in Hansard or other official records concerning that man's life, so that that will be the story that will go into the libraries of the land and not a book, as I say, that is calculated to break down and destroy the reputation of a great leader of this country.


Mr. MacDougall:: By his works he shall be known.


George Matheson Murray: The hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard says that by their works ye shall know them. I think a further applicable reference would be that you do not gather figs from thistles. The great contributions of this statesman to our country are evidence of the man he was, and the position he will undoubtedly hold in history.
Turning to military matters, I had in mind making some reference to the Alaska highway, which is part of the northwest highway system. Anything that the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Pearkes) said about the officer responsible for the management of the Alaska highway was, I am sure, well said. The same could be said about Brigadier Geoffrey Walsh, who preceded him. These men, and the Canadian army, have done an excellent job in maintaining that highway. I hope that we shall follow the example of the United States with respect to the Alaska highway, and see that a hard surface is laid as soon as it is convenient to lay one. Hundreds of miles within the territory of Alaska have been paved, and I think it should be our policy to start at mile zero, lay down fifty miles of pavement, and continue that paving program throughout the length of the highway.

This highway was one of those war services which have been of tremendous value in the industrial and peacetime life of the country. We have heard of the oil development up in the Peace river territory in British Columbia, as well as the development of the vast natural gas resources. Access to these drilling sites has been made possible by the Alaska highway and that very costly bridge over the Peace river. In fact, I do not know how much of the oil and natural gas development is due to the discoveries made by the men who built the highway. The first gas well was discovered by a firm of road builders who drilled a well for water at their camp and were surprised when natural gas gushed forth. For a long time there was a huge torch burning in front of that camp, just as if nature were crying out and trying to advertise the natural resources that were there.
When test drilling was undertaken for the bridge, they contacted a certain series of rocks containing fossils which gave geologists information in drilling for oil. The first oil well was drilled a few miles from this bridge. It was an achievement which, costly as it was, is now opening up the country to agriculture, mining and the peacetime development of the country.
There is a recent development to which I should like to refer, and that is the loss of so many aircraft between the United States boundary and the territory of Alaska. This leads me to say that there is a genuine need for a railway running north from Prince George in the direction of Alaska. The position now is that the United States is endeavouring to establish an airlift from Montana and the army camps to the south of the international border to the territory of Alaska. Such an airlift would cover a distance of between 1,500 and 2,500 miles, and in bad weather it is questionable whether such an airlift could be maintained. It is well to experiment with it. It is well to try to discover whether certain things could be done.
The loss the other day of an aircraft with fifty-two persons aboard, after flying across British Columbia, was a very regrettable thing. Some days before an aircraft with thirty-nine persons aboard went down, and a great number of lives have been lost on what I think is the foolhardy policy of the United States government in attempting to sustain an airlift from the United States to the Alaska border. I believe that General Eisenhower will probably have something to say about this matter, because there are few men who are better acquainted with that territory than that distinguished army officer.

On repeated occasions he visited the highway as well as the airports, and undoubtedly if we are to have security in the northwest the present airfields and highway will have to be supplemented by a modern railway running from Prince George. Such a railway, like so many of the things that have been carried out by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) as a wartime measure, would turn out to be a great peacetime achievement, because it would open up the extensive valleys to great mining industries. You already have the oil along that route.
In the interval since we were here before I made a journey from Prince George in my riding a distance of 360 miles over the Parsnip and Finlay rivers to Fort Grahame and Fort Ware. This journey was made by boat, and I wish to say to you that we passed through magnificent country in which the agricultural possibilities are as good as they must have been in the Ottawa valley in the very early days of the settlement. In the whole 360 miles, we met about six white people and probably twenty Indians. Now, that is the Great Trench, as it is called by engineers. It runs due north and south from Prince George to Whitehorse. In that valley the United States army made a survey for a railway, and I believe such a railway should at some time be built through Sifton pass and north to Whitehorse and Alaska. Then, an armoured train carrying troops or civilian personnel could roll right from Puget sound through Vancouver to Prince George, Whitehorse and on to Alaska. I do not know why there has been a cooling off towards the idea of building that railway, but I am sure that in due course it must be built if we are to make this place secure and give the maximum amount of protection north of Edmonton.
I do not want to understate the fine defensive organization which is up there now. The airports are being well maintained and communication systems are being established. They are most modern in character. I have it on the authority of some very qualified army men that if an army of 150,000 men were to be placed in Alaska for the defence of that part of the continent, they could not be supplied by a highway or by airway and a railway would be an absolute necessity in order to provide supplies, munitions, guns and so forth for the service of such an army.
The riding which I have the duty to represent was given a high honour, during the early fall, when the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) himself came through and paid us a visit. He travelled by air and came into Prince George from Prince Rupert. While he was there for only three hours or a little
The Address-Mr. G. M. Murray bit more, he endeared himself to a great many people. We had a fine audience out to greet him. There were probably 5,000 people there. Some wise strategists said that there should not be any political speeches, so that restriction cut me out of the program fairly well. All I could do was to go with the chairman of the board of trade and his worship the mayor, to see that the Prime Minister was given a good luncheon and that he was enabled to meet the people.
At the great public ground there the little children gathered around with their parents; there were many thousands of them. It was a perfect day. The Prime Minister proceeded to make his address. He said that he was not going to make any political references because it was sort of understood that this was more or less a personal visit. He went on and talked about Canada, our need of being good Canadians, and so on. Many of his listeners were children, of course. He said, "You know, down at Ottawa we try to conduct the government of the country in such a way as to safeguard your interests and to pass along to you young children who are here a better country than that which we received when we came into power". Just then, a dog came up in front of the platform, barked three or four times and then began to growl. The Prime Minister paused and then he said, "Don't you growl, because if our kind of good government is carried on, the bone which you get will have a lot more meat on it than was usual before we came into power." That is just a little human interest incident that shows the wit of the man and the gift which he has in greeting people of all ages and all conditions and moving among them.
After his speech he went out among the audience. I suppose he met probably 500 of those children in the concourse before him. How he does it, I do not know, but he has a smile for this one, shakes hands with that one and moves among the people. There is no necessity for any police to be around for his protection. We got him back on his plane in good time. He remarked upon the magnitude of the country over which he had flown from Prince Rupert, over that Alcan dam and up along towards Grande Prairie and Edmonton, a vast country where there is limited settlement. If I have any criticism at all to offer of the government benches it is that during the interval we have been here we have not paid enough attention to putting settlers-and by that I mean people who are fit to take over land-on that land or in that part of the country.
I know there are headaches and all that sort of thing in getting newcomers in here

The Address-Mr. G. M. Murray from Europe, from the United States and elsewhere; but we should have embarked upon a plan of settlement. I hope that in the next parliament that will be done. There are vast areas in there awaiting settlement. The resources are already well proved. In the Peace river block in British Columbia alone we will turn out, I suppose, eight million bushels of grain this year. You will remember that 20 years ago Sir Henry Thornton said that if we got ten million bushels in the entire Peace river country he would build us a railway. I hesitate to ask Mr. Donald Gordon to build a railway in there, but if there are that eight million bushels in the Peace river block, I will bet that there are 58 million in the entire Peace river country which would be served by a railway from there down to the Pacific coast. The present back-haul to Edmonton is expensive. It is retarding development.
As I say, we need settlers there. I think that we should draw the line at bringing any more foreigners into Canada and putting them in the cities. They have come and have brought along with them their skills, their knowledge of the various trades and so on, and some of them have been extremely valuable acquisitions. But if we want to do them and ourselves a service, we should fill up some of these vacant valleys that I have mentioned up in my riding and in those other ridings on the northern frontier of this country. We should have more people from the province of Quebec up in there, because the farmers from Quebec-who are trained and are familiar with the handling of livestock, grain and so on, who know how to use a broad-axe and can file a saw-could go in there with little capital and, with the roads that are now built and the facilities, that are now there, could establish new communities.
I repeat what I have said before, namely that I think such settlement would support the military effort. I am not one of those who are greatly enthused over the Korean situation. We are there and we have got to stay there; we have a job to do. It is a vast problem out there on the Pacific. Unless miracles are performed, we are going to be in there for a good many years to come. What is more sane, then, than to settle these valleys in the northwest, in those regions which are close to the Pacific? Get a population in there and allow them to prosper under a good sane government, have a few federal buildings built now and again when the hon. member for Cariboo asks for them, give them the other facilities which are necessary for carrying on the affairs of the country, and we will make a great contribution to Canada and to our allies.

I am aware of the fact that this is probably the last session of this parliament. I find that the time has passed rapidly. It is later than we think. I do not know what the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) and his associate will bring back from the commonwealth conference in England, but a good many of our people up in the northwest would like to see an early election. They point to the fact that the coronation is to take place in June. The government has outlined its program fairly well. Its policies are fairly well understood. The advice that I receive from my friends there is not to be overholding tenants but to urge the ministers to go to the country as early as possible so as to get another mandate to carry on good government in Canada. Some of them also said that in 1897, when Queen Victoria enjoyed her great jubilee, Canada sent over to England a distinguished prime minister to take part in those festivities, in the person of the then Mr. Wilfrid Laurier. With all the other leaders from the colonies or from the empire, he was there in attendance at those festivities. The record from that time up till now is of Canada steadily progressing as a member of the British commonwealth and as a great and prosperous land. My friends are saying that we should have an election and, if possible, send Mr. St. Laurent over to London so that he could follow in the footsteps of Laurier and represent this country at the crowning of the young sovereign. That would be my message. I hope that, before the summer is over, the election will be held and that the opinion of Canada will be taken on those great issues which have been so properly put before parliament since 1949.


Mr. R. R. Knight (Saskatoon):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak in support of the C.C.F. amendment to the address in reply to the speech from the throne and to speak more particularly upon the health insurance plan which the members of my party have put forward at this time, especially one phase of it. The care of the sick and the helpless is surely something with which we should be concerned. Indeed, I suppose it is the yardstick by which one can measure to what extent we are humanitarians or, perhaps, practical Christians. The survival of the fittest may be a perfectly good animal law, but we think that the care of the ill should surely be a human obligation.
Then, too, the benefits of healing must not be the sole prerogative of the privileged, as at least to some extent it is today. There are those who by reason of age, by reason of accident, by reason of a weak constitution or

by reason of the vicissitudes of illness must be cared for, and we cannot pass by on the other side.
In this connection I should like to divide the public into several classes. First we have the medical men, the scientists, the technologists, the nurses, those people whose services are at the disposal of the ill. At present, under our way of doing things, there are too few of these; and the fact that they are scarce in number adds at least in some cases to the price of their services, a price which many people find to be at a level they cannot afford.
Then among the general public there are those who, by their extra ability, by reason of good health or just through plain luck are able to obtain and to pay for, without limit, such medical services as they need. Those are the fortunate few. But we come then to the great middle group, a group for whom the fear of illness is always like an overhanging shadow, the group who know that a serious operation or a protracted stay in a hospital means for them and their families not only illness and pain but also economic ruin.
As I said, the great masses of the people fall into that category. What they want, what they would like to have now, is some insurance against such unfortunate contingencies. When I first came in contact with this sort of thing I was homesteading in northern Saskatchewan among a group of people who had gone up into that rough country to try to hew out a life for themselves. They went there with an axe, a grub hoe and, if they were fortunate enough, a team of oxen and a walking plow.
I saw there what it means to have no medical attendance, to live 42 miles from a railway. I recall having sold the municipality three-quarters of an acre on the side of a coulee as an addition to the graveyard. I can remember on cold winter nights when there would be a knock on my door. My neighbour would be there, and we would go out to the graveyard with a stable lantern and dig another grave on the side of that little hill, perhaps to bury the mother of a family. Perhaps that family had decided to take a chance, because they knew if they went for a doctor and brought him that considerable distance, and learned that it was a case for hospitalization, they would be crippled in their attempt to get on their economic feet, if I may so describe it, and would be set back for years and years. So they took the chance, and as a result they buried another Canadian mother, and perhaps an unborn child. We were very anxious about immigration in those days; we encouraged it. But we buried
The Address-Mr. Knight a great many Canadian babies and their dead mothers, when we should not have had to do it.
The third group I have in mind are the poor, the indigent, the maimed, the halt and the blind, those who are unable to take care of themselves, the victims of untoward circumstances, the victims of their own disabilities, or, if you like, sometimes of their own inabilities. They, too, are human beings; and no nation which vaunts its Christian philosophy can afford to neglect them, particularly in a Canada so blessed in its natural resources and its wealth. We cannot pass them by on the other side.
In the old days there was the charity ward, the infirmary, the poorhouse. I believe the people of this land are individually entitled to health services, in so far as they and their neighbours, speaking nationally, can afford to provide them. I believe my interest in education has been well established in the house; but let me say that while I consider education important, I consider of even greater importance the health of the people. I believe each Canadian is as much entitled to health, in so far as it can be provided, as each Canadian child is entitled to a free and full education.
All hon. members are old enough to have witnessed something of the ravages of disease, and the physical and economic ruin which in most cases are its results. It is enemy number one in the life of the nation, and the entire resources of the nation must be massed in battle against it. Science and the medical profession are embattled against it now, but I suggest embattled against it under handicaps.
I wish to pay tribute to the medical profession. My own father was a doctor, and perhaps I would have been one, too, had I not been in a preferred position to witness, and to come to dread, the spectacle of human misery brought about by suffering. Among my earliest recollections is the clanging of the night bell in the quiet and dark of the night and then, a few minutes later, the clop-clop of the sharp-shod mare on the stones of the street, taking my father out upon his errand of mercy, perhaps in the rain or the snow, and in an open vehicle.
I pay my tribute to him here, and to those other noble-souled doctors like him. He did more work for nothing than work he was paid for. Occasionally when he found it difficult to meet his own financial obligations he might say to us, in the morning at the breakfast table, "You know, I really ought to send some bills to those people"-but I do not think he ever did.
1 do not believe the doctors of today make such sacrifices; and let me hasten to add that
218	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Knight I do not think they should have to. In any event, free services to some mean eventually the higher cost of services to others. I think a doctor should he paid for all his work, and that fee should come out of the collective purse of the nation, where the amount of payment would be based upon the ability to pay.
We have not enough medical services; we have not enough doctors. Sometimes it is as difficult to see a doctor today as it would be to see the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent). I remember last June sitting in the office of an eye, ear and throat specialist in Saskatoon. While I sat there a farmer came in, walked up to the desk past twenty or thirty people who were waiting there, and said, "I want to see the doctor." The young lady in charge looked at him in amazement. "Have you an appointment?" No, he had not an appointment. He had never been in before but had come 200 miles. He said he would like to see the doctor. She told him that the best they could do was to give him an appointment on August 24, two months later. The argument that doctors are scarce is no argument against the immediate inauguration of a health plan. I shall develop this point later on.
There is one item I should like to deal with at once. Some people contend that the development of such a plan would somehow or other entail the loss of freedom. The only loss of freedom which would result would be in the payment of taxes to support such a plan. Of course those taxes would be compulsory, but the same can be said of any other form of taxation to which we are subjected. If there is any loss of freedom involved in the hospitalization fee in Saskatchewan, for example, apparently the people of that province are happy indeed about it. Last June they indicated that they were prepared to accept that loss.
There is not much freedom in the charity ward. Instead of any loss of freedom, on the contrary there has been in that province the opening up of new paths of freedom. There has been freedom from care and anxiety, there has been created that mental freedom which comes from security. This has been present since the passage of our hospitalization act. This feeling of satisfaction is so widespread in the province that it is only rarely that someone will get up, generally someone who is motivated by political intent, at a meeting and say, "I am strong and well, why should I pay $10 a year to provide hospitalization for someone else?"
On various occasions I have replied to people of that sort by saying, "I hope you will always remain strong and well. I am reasonably healthy and reasonably strong, but I


say to you that I shall be glad if I am able to pay $10 a year for the rest of my life even though I may not be ill a single day. I will consider that as not just insurance for myself for the rest of my life; I will be proud and happy to pay that for the benefit of some sufferer who may be less fortunate." I think that is the motive behind a medical health plan. There is still the question: Am I my brother's keeper? You can answer that just as you like.
Many of my colleagues have spoken on this plan during the present debate but there is one phase I should like to deal with, namely the shortages we have heard so much about. I shall have time to cover only the rather important one of hospital beds. The Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) has said that these shortages are likely to preclude any immediate inauguration of a national health insurance plan.
The Liberal party has behind it a long string of promises in regard to a national health insurance plan which have not as yet been implemented. I need not remind you that the first of those promises goes back to 1919. I should like to read a few quotations from Hansard of that and other days. A health insurance plan was promised in the speech from the throne in January, 1943 and also in the election of 1945. I should like to quote what Mr. Mackenzie Kang stated on May 14, 1948, as reported on page 3932 of Hansard. He said:
We have accordingly pledged ourselves to support a measure lor federal assistance in a nation-wide system of health insurance, to include assistance to the provinces lor preventive medicine.
That is fair enough. I could quote again from the same page where Mr. King is reported as saying that this measure represented the first stage in the development of a comprehensive health insurance plan for all Canada. Those grants were to pave the way for health insurance. They were to permit the necessary planning to be done. They were to eliminate the shortages which the present Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) now brings forth as the reason these promises cannot be implemented, particularly the shortage of hospitals, hospital beds and certain key personnel.
At that time Mr. King went on to say that the purpose of these grants was to assist the provinces in planning the extension of hospital accommodation and the proper organization of hospital and medical care insurance. Referring to professional training Mr. King said, as reported on page 3934:
The purpose of this grant will be to assist in making available the public health personnel which will be required in the development of an enlarged public health program in all fields. The grant will

also be available to assist in developing and training the personnel required for the operation of constantly expanding hospital services.
In discussing hospital construction, Mr. King went on to say:
Before health insurance can be established on an adequate basis, another development is essential. At the present time there is a tremendous shortage of hospital beds in Canada.
He then went on to say that the government would seek an appropriation for outright grants toward the construction of additional hospital accommodation. So much for Mr. King. It was made quite clear at the time he spoke and at the time the government program was announced in 1948 that the health grants were intended or designed specifically to pave the way for a nation-wide system of health insurance by eliminating shortages through inducing the provinces to undertake the required planning.
Four and a half years have gone by since 1948. Four and a half years of the program have been completed and what is the result? Apparently the government has no intention at the moment of introducing a health insurance plan and is still using the excuse of shortages in various fields as a reason why health insurance cannot be undertaken. The Prime Minister was reported in the Globe and Mail of September 6 last as having said in Victoria on September 5:
There isn't sufficient hospital space in Canada at present to make a federal health insurance program feasible ... I don't feel that the government has the right to give Canadians contractual rights to hospital treatment until there is sufficient accommodation in the hospitals to enable the government to fulfil the obligation. I don't feel that there is sufficient hospital space to enable all who have contractual rights to receive hospital treatment.
We in the C.C.F. party have long contended that shortages should never be allowed to delay the introduction of the scheme itself. In fact it is our contention that the graver those shortages are, the more urgent is the necessity of seeing that such services as are available are distributed according to medical need and not according to the ability to pay. When the government now says that there are not enough hospital beds to permit health insurance it is simply condemning itself, because this was a specific task which the government undertook when it gave these grants four and a half years ago. They undertook by giving these health grants to provide the hospitals, the hospital beds and the personnel necessary to permit the establishment of a health insurance scheme.
The C.C.F. is only too pleased to acknowledge the fine work that has been accomplished as a result of these plans, but as far as eliminating shortages of personnel
The Address-Mr. Knight and facilities is concerned the surface has not even been scratched. We claim that the most effective stimulus for the elimination of these shortages would be the introduction of a health scheme. The shortages will not be overcome until a vigorous attack is made on the problem as part of a nation-wide health plan. That has been the experience of every government that has undertaken comprehensive health measures. If the government waits until all shortages are overcome before introducing a health plan then we shall be waiting forever and no plan will be introduced.
I want to deal specifically with the most important of the shortages and the one which
1	think the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) emphasized in his Victoria speech, namely the shortage of hospital beds. Reliable authorities-I may say I have documented what I am about to say and have the authorities here whether or not I quote them -have estimated that a minimum of 7-5 hospital beds per thousand of population is required. Indeed some authorities have estimated the figure to be somewhat higher. They go as high as 9 per thousand, including acute and chronic cases. But if we take the lower figure of 7 [DOT] 5 per thousand of population and calculate on the basis of our 1951 population, Canada should have a hospital bed capacity of 103,800 odd. We actually only have some 69,400, and I think that figure is too low, because it would necessarily imply certain duplication. It is a figure taken from the pamphlet "List of Hospitals" issued by the Department of National Health and Welfare.
Thus it is that on the basis of this standard -and, mark you, that is after approximately four years of the government's hospital building plan-there was still a shortage, according to their own figures, of 34,000 hospital beds in Canada. One of the things that must be remembered is that while there has been some increase in the actual number of beds there has been a corresponding or even greater increase proportionately in the population of Canada itself. In fact we have had an increase in population of roughly
2	million in the last five years, which years would be covered by these grants. This of course means an extra demand upon hosnital space. For example, between 1948 and 1950 the average daily patient population of hospitals increased from 48,000 to 53,000, an increase of 10 per cent. The reference there is to the annual reports of hospitals, 1948 to 1950, dominion bureau of statistics. The point was very well made in the annual report of hospitals for 1949 at page 10 in these words:
Although the number of reporting hospitals and their combined bed capacity has shown an increase

The Address-Mr. Knight in the past seventeen years, the ratio of bed capacity per 100,000 population for the same period has shown little variation.
Necessary though these grants were, we should ask ourselves what success they have had in bringing us closer to the ideal which prompted the giving of them. Of course there has been an increase in the number of hospitals built over the years, and no doubt we must give credit-and we give it cheerfully-to the hospital construction scheme of the government. But from 1948 when the grants were announced to 1951, four out of the five years, hospital bed capacity has only increased by roughly 13,500 beds, which is far short of the goal of 40,000 beds announced by Mr. King in May of 1948. This leaves approximately 26,500 beds to be completed in this last year of the program. I suggest to you, sir, that is a construction program for one year roughly twice the total of the past four years. It may be physically possible that that objective will be achieved but I would suggest it is highly unlikely.


Mr. McCusker:: Will the hon. gentleman
permit me to ask him a question?


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: I would much prefer to deal with questions later.


Emmett Andrew McCusker: I know the hon. member does not wish to give wrong figures.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: Quite true.


Emmett Andrew McCusker: I wish to correct the hon. member with respect to the hospital figures he has given.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: That is not asking a question. If the hon. member wants to ask me the source of any figure I will be pleased to give it.


Emmett Andrew McCusker: Does he wish to give correct figures?


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: The answer is yes.


Emmett Andrew McCusker: Then will the hon. member permit me to give them?


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: No. As I explained, I have the source for all these figures. If my friend wishes to correct them in a speech of his own that is his responsibility.


An hon. Member:: Anything but the truth.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: I took particular care to have all these figures documented. I have a complete list of such documentation which I will give my hon. friend when I have finished. I want to deal with another matter after I finish with this subject and I would rather not have my hon. friend give me a lecture at the moment. The fact of the matter is that the hospital grants program is going


to fall far short of its goal, and it is extremely doubtful if even half the five year goal will be reached.
Why is it that hospital construction is failing so badly? The only reason I can find is that the grants are too small. The program makes available $1,000 per bed for active treatment cases and $1,500 per bed for those cases which may be termed chronic or convalescent. But this is such a small proportion of the total amount required to build hospitals that it has not stimulated hospital construction sufficiently. In 1948-49, when the program got under way, hospital construction costs were approximately $10,000 per bed. That is a statement by an Ottawa man, Controller Paul Tardif, when speaking on March 14, 1949.
If we look at the composite index of wholesale building costs, including all construction materials and wages, we find that it has gone up from 200 in 1948 to 260 in mid-1952. If we use this as a measure of increase in hospital construction costs during that period, we find that construction costs would have gone up by at least $3,000 per bed in that period. In other words there would have been an increase over the period of $3,000 per bed, but the federal grant is only $1,000 per bed. At that rate it is no wonder that the program is failing in its objective.
Let me repeat that the only way to be sure that such shortages can be overcome is to undertake a nation-wide health scheme first. Far more generous grants would have to be made in connection with the program, and I want -to emphasize that the stimulus to increase construction arising from the increased demand for hospital services will do more than any other factor to ensure that the requisite hospitals are constructed quickly. This has been well demonstrated in my own province. When the C.C.F. government was elected in Saskatchewan in 1944 that province was short of hospital beds, as was the rest of Canada. It only had 3-75 hospital beds per thousand population. My authority here is the annual report of the Saskatchewan hospital service plan, 1951.


Emmett Andrew McCusker: Will the hon. member permit me to give him the correct figure for hospital beds in Saskatchewan in 1944? It is 4-7, not 3-75.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: I have the correct figure as found in the report of the Saskatchewan hospital service plan, 1951, page 12.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member must not interrupt the member who has the floor, without his consent.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: We have had some bold and imaginative action which, coupled with a lot

of hard work, resulted in a tremendous hospital construction boom. I shall say, too, for the benefit of my hon. friend who has interrupted me that a great part of that construction was undertaken before federal hospital construction grants were available at all. The result has been that hospital beds in Saskatchewan have increased from 3-75 per thousand in 1944 to 6-7 per thousand at the end of 1951. By the end of this year there will be well over 7 beds per thousand.
Saskatchewan, thanks to its inauguration of a provincial hospital scheme and a vigorous construction program undertaken in conjunction with that scheme, is the only province in Canada which has anything like adequate hospital facilities available. This experience, we think, should be applied in the federal field. The best stimulus, I repeat, that could be provided to overcome the hospital shortage would be the inauguration of a national health insurance program such as is advocated by this party.
A similar experience has been found in the United Kingdom in connection with their universal health services plan, the one they undertook in 1948. They too were faced with severe shortages of hospitals as well as personnel. But, in the three years after- note that I say "after" and not "before"-the inauguration of their program, they increased the number of staffed hospital beds by nearly 40,000.
In literally dozens of countries it has been the same story-insufficient doctors, hospitals, nurses, and so on. If they had waited until those shortages had disappeared they would be still waiting as we are still waiting in Canada, but they proceeded with their plans for health services. They introduced them themselves, and that introduction was the best stimulus to overcoming the shortages. It is the demand which creates the supply, and it is useless to build hospitals unless at the same time provision is made by which the general public can be enabled to pay for those services when they are provided.
I would like to have said a word or two about the shortage of nurses. Just as with hospitals, there have been shortages of facilities for training nurses. Other governments have found that the best method of dealing with those shortages is the inauguration of a health plan. In the United Kingdom the most acute shortage, as a matter of fact, was in the nursing field. In preparation for, and later as part of the national health service plan introduced in that country, working conditions were improved and pay was increased not only for nurses but also for other hospital workers. As a result of those measures and as a result of the better finan-
The Address-Mr. Knight cial circumstances of the hospitals resulting from the inauguration of the health plan- and by the way that is something we discovered in our province: the hospitals are no longer running behind financially-nursing staffs in the United Kingdom increased from 127,200 in 1947 to 153,100 in 1949. That is an increase of more than 20 per cent in a little more than two years. To my hon. friend I would recommend the reading of a new book by James Ross, "National Health Services in Great Britain, 1952".
In Saskatchewan the effort to increase the supply of nurses has been described in the Saskatchewan health survey report, volume 1, page 176, and I quote:
In 1945 a plan was instituted by the health services planning commission whereby the hospitals with nursing schools which could legitimately enrol more than their normal quota of nursing students would be paid a grant to defray the additional expense incurred in doing so . . . Since 1947 the costs of operating the schools of nursing have been recognized as hospital operating costs under the payment system of the Saskatchewan hospital services plan. As a result of these efforts there has been a substantial increase in enrolment in schools of nursing.
This is also a statement from the report:
From 1945 to 1949 there was an increase of 29 per cent in enrolment in schools of nursing in Saskatchewan. During the five years, 1945 to 1949, the increase in the number of students enrolled almost kept pace with the increase in the rated capacity of those hospitals.
With the improved conditions of nursing and with the active encouragement of the government in the manner indicated, the rate of withdrawal of nursing students in Saskatchewan has been reduced to 20 per cent, well below the rate in the rest of Canada, which is 33 per cent, and below the figure of 30 per cent for the United States.
The government says there are shortages and that it cannot undertake a national health insurance plan until the shortages are overcome. It is the C.C.F. contention that the government's program for overcoming these shortages will fail miserably, and that rather than a health insurance program being dependent upon the overcoming of shortages it will be the best single means, if not the only means, by which the shortages may be overcome. This applies not only in the two fields I have been discussing-hospitals and nurses-but also as far as physicians, dentists, psychiatrists, technicians and other personnel are concerned.
Sir, I have now to turn rather abruptly and hurriedly to another subject. I am almost compelled to raise it by the fact that I have a letter from the branch of the Canadian Legion in my own city, and I have

The Address-Mr. Knight a file of other letters from private individuals. I want simply to quote this letter from the Legion:
For your information we are attaching copies of letters despatched to the Prime Minister and to the president, Canadian National Railways, with respect to the recent demotion of Mr. R. S. Pitt, from manager of the Fort Garry Hotel, to that of Prince Edward Hotel.
Mr. Pitt served our country well in time of war, being mentioned in despatches and awarded the M.B.E.
We feel certain that the explanation now given by Mr. Chevrier on behalf of the government was not the basis of the demotion at the time it was made and we urge your interest until justice is accorded this veteran.
That was from the Legion, and I have another from a well-known gentleman who owns a couple of hotels and who assures us of Mr. Pitt's honesty, efficiency and courtesy. I should refer to the answer given by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier) to the question which was previously asked in regard to this man's demotion. The minister stated that he was satisfied with the explanation of the Canadian National Railways management, but I would like to say that I and these other people do not feel satisfied and I have written to the minister to say so. Many people have written me that they are not satisfied. After all, this Canadian National Railways is publicly owned and we are pretty much concerned about the method of treatment of our employees.
I have stated the case. I felt I should put it on the record. Our city daily paper which, in its editorial policy, usually supports the government, is also extremely critical. I think I should include for the record what that newspaper has to say, in my plea that there may be a further investigation into this matter. I assure you that if the matter is not again raised in the house somebody- and if no one else does it I shall do it myself- will question the officials of the Canadian National Railways in regard to what is apparently felt in my city at least to be a matter of some injustice. I shall close my remarks by quoting a line or two from the editorial in question. It is headed "Unsavoury incident".
The thousands of citizens of this city who recall Mr. Bob Pitt erstwhile manager of the Bessborough hotel with affection and respect must certainly be dissatisfied with the excuses offered for his summary demotion from manager of the Fort Garry in Winnipeg to manager of the Brandon hotel. It is said that he neglected to greet the Prime Minister on his arrival at the Fort Garry last summer. Investigation has shown that Mr. St. Laurent was met in the hotel by some dozens of local dignitaries and it is understandable that Mr. Pitt, whose 25 years in the service has given him broad experience-
I am going to skip that part.


An hon. Member:: Read it.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: Very well.
. . . Mr. Pitt, whose 25 years in the service has given him broad experience in such matters, would not barge into a group whose evident connection with the Prime Minister was much closer than his as hotel manager.
News stories in Winnipeg have also suggested1 that the hotel system management charges that the Fort Garry has been mismanaged under Mr. Pitt. We who recall the splendid and courteous management he gave our own institution would like proof.
We suspect that some member of the Prime Minister's group, possibly some officious party slavey-
That is his word, not mine.
-who might have regarded the railway system as strictly Liberal party property, in a fit of pique registered a complaint, and that this brought disaster to a lifetime of service. It is too bad it seems to us that the Prime Minister's name should have been linked with such a business.
This newspaper, which in this matter presumes to speak for the owners of the C.N.R. who happen to live in this city and who have had the privilege of having Mr. Pitt serve them, would like a fuller explanation from the hotel management and from the Prime Minister's office which, whether properly or not, is involved in the matter.
I should simply say that I, too, would welcome an investigation. I hold no brief for Mr. Pitt. I know nothing of the circumstances but I think he or any other man in the public service who is demoted in that manner has a right to a hearing. It is only proper that the public should know the reason for this demotion, and if this was not merely routine what was the reason for it. If it was merely routine, why the demotion?


Mr. G. D. Weaver (Churchill):: This afternoon I am going to follow a little different line of thought from the previous speakers. It has been most interesting during the past several sessions for me to watch the chief opposition party under the direction of its leader, the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Drew), change direction many times in its attack on the Department of National Defence. In the fall of 1950, some months after the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, the Leader of the Opposition had this to say, and I quote from page 473 of Hansard for September 8, 1950:
Does any hon. member think that the men in the Kremlin are going to be greatly impressed by the news that some months from now we are going to have a special brigade available? In the face of their 175 fully mobilized divisions and their 350 divisions which could be in the field in a very short time, is one special brigade, with three or four thousand combatants, going to leave very much impression in their minds of the urgency, vigour and determination with which we are playing our collective part in the responsibility of saving freedom for ourselves and for others?
In actual fact the Department of National Defence extended its facilities so greatly that in the spring there was an announcement to this house of a $5 billion defence program.

This $5 billion was to be spent over a period of three years. In the fiscal year 1951-52 parliament authorized the Department of National Defence to spend $1,700 million. This was an extremely ambitious program, of which more than one-third was to be implemented in the first year. In spite of the fact that this program was extremely ambitious, the Canadian part of it was almost accomplished. The bulk of the $340 million odd which was not spent was made up of undelivered orders placed in the United States. It was later stated that all that Canada was behind in that defence program was the undelivered orders from the United States.
Then last spring, lo and behold, the Leader of the Opposition changed his tactics and played up the overtaxation theme, chiefly because of this surplus that had been built up. He refused to recognize that the bulk of that accumulated surplus was the underspent portion of the defence program. Some of the words that were used during that last session by members of the chief opposition party were "waste" and "inefficiency". Inefficiency was supposedly rampant in the armed forces and they spoke of large-scale looting, theft, fraud and incendiarism.
Then at the opening of this session and the beginning of this debate the Leader of the Opposition continued his charges of waste and inefficiency, and brought up* material that had been thoroughly covered in the defence expenditures committee last spring. He went further, and I quote from page 23 of Hansard for November 24, 1952:
This government has largely destroyed the effectiveness of the committee system established by this parliament for the examination of government expenditure by permitting and in fact encouraging the use of a majority of government supporters on those committees to deny any real opportunity to conduct effective inquiries.
It has been my privilege, Mr. Speaker, in the last two sessions of parliament to be a member of the defence expenditures committee. In the two final years, 1951 and 1952, $2 billion of the taxpayers' money was spent by the Department of National Defence. That is a great deal of money, and it came out of the pockets of our taxpayers, including the pockets of the taxpayers in my constituency. As a member of that committee I felt it was my responsibility to my constituents to assure myself as to whether or not that money had been spent to the best advantage.
Any other hon. members who are concerned would do well to read the third and final report of the defence expenditures committee of last session. I am going to quote one paragraph:
Mr. E. B. Armstrong, assistant deputy minister, Department of National Defence, gave a detailed
The Address-Mr. Weaver explanation of the control and accounting of materiel and stores in the Department of National Defence. In addition, the committee requested and obtained documents containing detailed information regarding thefts, frauds, fires and other write-offs in the navy, army and air force during the fiscal years 1950-51 and 1951-52. These documents contained a total of 182 pages of relevant information.
I hold in my hand those 182 pages of relevant information which were given to the committee on defence expenditures last spring. While the committee was sitting, certain figures were given. These figures which were given to the committee were commented upon later in the house by the Leader of the Opposition. I again quote from page 2329 of Hansard for May 19, 1952 where he said:
. . . but there have become available reports of theft, looting and fires, some of them incendiary, which have resulted in the last two years in a loss estimated by the Department of National Defence at a figure of more than $7 million.
He tried to leave the impression that this figure had resulted entirely from theft, looting and incendiary fires. Not only did he do that; he tried to leave the impression that this $7 million figure was greatly underestimated and should have been much greater, because a few lines further on he said:
If the accounting methods of the Department of National Defence report a loss of only $3,500 at Farnham, then the statement given of the total loss as in the statement prepared by the department, showing a loss of more than $7 million, should contain figures very much higher than it actually does.
I just wonder how much higher the Leader of the Opposition would have liked the people of Canada to believe they should have been, whether it was $5 million, $10 million or even perhaps $20 million.
Along with these documents I showed to the house there was a recapitulation giving the amount. The first heading was "Losses due to Theft or Fraud" and it gives the total sum for all three services at $85,809.75. The next item was "Losses due to fire", and the total for the three services was given at $5,205,970.54. Finally, the third item was "Other Write-Offs" amounting to $2,212,931.15. It is this figure for "Other WriteOffs" that I particularly want to deal with this afternoon.
I should point out that "Other Write-Offs" covers the units, the amount of the write-off, and the surplus taken on charge at the same time. There is also another column showing "Estimate of Total Holding" and a column showing the reasons for the write-offs. In these figures that I read out there was nothing to show how much had been taken on charge at the same time; and in the committee I asked that this figure be supplied. This

The Address-Mr. Weaver figure was supplied as $643,193.09. I will shortly give you the reasons I quoted it in this way.
The hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Macdonnell) in the committee asked for a break-down of one of these items, and this break-down was filed in the committee as exhibit G. I will just mention two of these items. In stocktaking there was an item, three globe valves x 300 pounds. Those were written off. Right under that there is another item of three globe valves x 280 pounds, taken on charge. In other words, valves of the exact designation x 300 pounds were not there, but there were three valves with a slightly different designation and they were taken on charge. Another item was 12 globe valves 2" x 150 lbs. written off and another twelve valves with a slightly different designation taken on charge. The total written off in this particular exhibit was approximately $7,000 and the total taken on charge was approximately $6,600, so that there was a net write-off of just $452. This is carried all the way through the many documents-taking on charge an amount, as I gave you before, of $643,000 approximately, which naturally should have been subtracted from that figure. Then on going through ttrese documents it was found that among the things written off was one North Star aircraft valued at $225,000. This aircraft was destroyed by explosion. I will read from the remarks column where this information was given to the committee:
Explosion occurred while aircraft was being refuelled. It is believed that the N.C.O. who had removed the snow from the aircraft had accumulated electric static in his body and by kneeling on a broom and a piece of rag caused a spark which resulted in the explosion.
We are enjoying nice weather down here in Ottawa at the present time and we are all quite comfortable. I wonder whether those who have been so critical of the soldiers, airmen and naval personnel would remember that this aircraft was destroyed at Whitehorse in the Yukon.
Then there was damage in a crash, to a Lancaster aircraft, amounting to $78,000. Another item written off-I am not going to give the exact figures because it takes a great deal of time to do that; I will give round figures-was approximately $500 for the loss of propeller and anchor from a marine craft:
The propeller was lost while proceeding out Miramichi river. The craft returned to Chatham on the starboard engine. It was necessary to use anchors to hold the stem of the craft against the tide. One anchor had become caught in an old sunken crib and it was impossible to raise and recover the anchor.

I am sure hon. members will recognize that this item does not fall under any of the classifications of looting, theft or fraud.
Another item was $14,000 for radio equipment to be replaced following a fire in the Department of Transport control tower at Coral Harbour. I am sure that would not come under the heading of theft, fraud or looting. Here is another one that struck my fancy. This one amounts to approximately *$2,500 and is for the loss of 335 empty gasoline drums:
The loss occurred while being transferred to Norman Wells via Waterways. The loss is attributed to a storm on Great Slave lake.
That could bear no relationship to theft, fraud or looting. Then there was a figure of approximately $3,500 for other damage in aircraft crashes, including loss of wing tanks, parachutes, airmen's kits, and so on. Here is another one amounting to $16,000, gas written off in northern gas caches. These gas caches are spread over the Northwest Territories all across northern Canada. They are there and are used under circumstances of great urgency, usually when the thermometer is at a very low point. I am sure none of the airmen who get cold fingers trying to transfer gasoline from one of these caches far from civilization would like it thought that the figures of write-offs in these cases were included in the figures given to the committee on defence expenditures under the heading of thefts, frauds or looting.
Another item was for $10,000 of bridging equipment carried away by flood in British Columbia. There is a further item of $4,000 for bridging equipment damaged and sunk in British Columbia. Then there was a total of approximately $23,000 for accidental damage to vehicles and other equipment. Just to mention two of these items, there was one for $4,000 and one for $6,000 for aircraft engine damage.
Thus far I have overlooked one large item. In the figures given to the defence expenditures committee under this recapitulation there is included naval aircraft write-off for
1950-	1951 and naval aircraft write-off for
1951-	52. In one year it was $385,000 and in the other $670,000, or a total of $1,055,000. This certainly cannot be classed as theft, fraud, looting or incendiarism.
The figures I have given total $1,434,028.67. I have already explained the figure described as "taken on charge". That, added to the previous figure I have given, makes a total of $2,077,221.76. All these amounts must be subtracted from the figure given before, namely $2,200,000 odd. I have not begun to give all the things written off that are of a similar nature to the ones I have already

given. However, subtracting the total from the figure given for "other write-offs" we have left $135,709.39. It is only in this figure that there might be room for some dishonesty, along with some carelessness and perhaps some mistakes. But that is a far cry from $2,212,931.15.
Let us now consider the subject of fires. According to this recapitulation, losses due to fires in two years amounted to something more than $5,200,000. Among these were two large fires, one at Trenton with a loss of $2,300,000 and one at the 26th Canadian ordnance depot. These two losses totalled approximately $3,031,000.
These losses drew no special criticism from the committee. As a member of the committee I had all the information available, and I could see no reason to suppose that these were not in the same category as fires in other cities in Canada. In fact these fires were far below the rate of fires in six representative cities. This information was given to the house last session by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton). But of all the fires listed in these documents there were one case of incendiarism and three cases of suspected arson, although they were not proven.
In this recapitulation I have allowed the three cases of suspected arson, in order to meet the conditions set out by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) in the statement I read, where there was reference to theft, looting and fires, some of them incendiary. Meeting these conditions, the totals would now appear to be: losses due to theft or fraud $85,809.75; losses due to incendiary fires and suspected arson, $218,096.33, and other writeoffs where there might be room for some carelessness, dishonesty or mistakes, the sum of $135,709.39, making a total of $439,615.47.


Mr. Hodgson:: Where did you get those figures?


George Dyer Weaver: Which figures?


Clayton Wesley Hodgson: That you just read.


George Dyer Weaver: They are available to any member of the committee on defence expenditures, of which I was a member. I went to considerable trouble in digging them out from the documents placed before us. They are available to all hon. members.


Clayton Wesley Hodgson: You missed some.


George Dyer Weaver: I missed a lot of them, and I have already explained that. I might tell hon. members I was questioned about this matter last summer in my own constituency, about thefts and frauds in the army amounting to $7 million. I have shown hon. members that 63108-15
The Address-Mr. Robichaud this figure is now contracted to less than $450,000, and I say further that any hon. member who would take the trouble to go through the information available can reduce the figure drastically below $450,000.
Hon. members have spent a good deal of time in making reference to Petawawa. So far as I know the situation there is still sub judice. However, the amounts involved are included in the figures I have placed on Hansard this afternoon, and the total losses at that point are part of this $450,000. I am sure this will surprise many hon. members, and certainly will come as a surprise to many Canadians who have been seriously misled by these charges concerning looting and theft by members of the armed forces.
If I am fortunate enough to serve as a member of the committee on defence expenditures, which according to the notice on the order paper is to be set up at this session, I shall spare no effort in determining to my satisfaction, and on behalf of my constituents, that the large sums of money being spent by the Department of National Defence are being spent to the best advantage.


Mr. A. M. Robichaud (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, as a newly-elected member who was introduced to the House of Commons on the same day as was the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi (Mr. Deslieres) and the hon. member for Waterloo North (Mr. Schneider), I would indeed be remiss in my duty if I did not join hon. members on all sides of the house and extend my sincere congratulations to the mover and the seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the throne upon the able manner in which they have discharged their respective duties.
I crave the indulgence of the house if I find it necessary to confine myself to matters of purely local interest. I do so cognizant of the fact that there are those more able than myself who can discuss questions that are of major national or international importance. If I steer a somewhat homeward course it is done in the hope of better fulfilling the mandate which has been given to me by my constituents. I intend to speak about matters about which I know something rather than to trespass into unknown fields.
It is my intention to limit my modest contribution to this debate by dealing first with a passage from the speech from the throne which raises a matter of interest to the province of New Brunswick. I shall then centre the remainder of my remarks around certain policies and practices of the present administration which directly affect the primary industries of my own constituency of Gloucester.

The Address-Mr. Robichaud
In the speech from the throne it is indicated that parliament will be asked to make financial provision for a proposed new ferry service between Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and Bar Harbor, Maine. I preface my remarks at this point with the clear statement that my native province of New Brunswick has no animus against our neighbouring province of Nova Scotia. The fact is that the two provinces have many things in common. Ethnically our people spring from the same ancestry. Geographically we are neighbours and partners in the maritimes. Economically we have similar problems. New Brunswick, as you know, has always been ready to champion any cause put forth by our sister province which we felt would be conducive to the attainment of economic advantage. Let it be understood that the support of Nova Scotia in any maritime-wide effort has always been appreciated by every New Brunswicker.
However, when the announcement was made by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier) in November last that a contract for the construction of a vessel to operate between Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and Bar Harbor, Maine, had been awarded to the Davie Shipbuilding Company of Lauzon, Quebec at a price of $3,926,000 we in New Brunswick were indeed deeply concerned. We realized that this project was the result of a most laudable effort by the Nova Scotia government to attract a greater number of United States tourists to that province by providing a short-route ferry between the points I have mentioned. Were the province of Nova Scotia to assume the greater part of the cost of the construction and operation of this ferry we in New Brunswick would have next to nothing to complain about, but as I understand the situation the provincial government of Nova Scotia has succeeded in convincing its counterpart, the federal government, that it should assume approximately two-thirds of the cost of construction as well as a substantial share of the cost of operating this ferry.
It is reported that the new ferry will have an over-all length of 345 feet 10 inches and a service speed of 18J knots. It will make one round trip a day during daylight hours and will have a capacity of some 600 passengers and about 150 automobiles. In announcing the award of the contract the Minister of Transport, according to a special press dispatch from Ottawa, was reported to have said that when in operation the new ship will add considerable impetus to the interchange of traffic between Nova Scotia and the New England states and will attract tourist traffic to the maritimes.


It would be most illogical to take issue with the first part of the minister's statement, as undoubtedly traffic between Nova Scotia and the New England states will be considerably increased by the proposed new service, but I am not prepared to concur in the second part of the minister's statement where he says that the car ferry will attract tourist traffic to the maritimes as a whole. The position we take in New Brunswick is that the proposed new service will prove detrimental to our tourist trade. The Moncton Times of September 26 put it tersely in an editorial as follows:
In committing the dominion government to such a bargain, Hon. Lionel Chevrier is directly discriminating against New Brunswick in its tourist industry. Or to put it another way, Ottawa is subsidizing Nova Scotia's vacation travel business to the detriment of a border province, and, therefore, is at once unfair and unjust to the latter. This federally-aided Bar Harbor-Yarmouth ferry will, unmistakably, funnel off from this province a very considerable volume of motor-visitor travel from U.S.A., and on which we have expended quite large sums of money to promote.
The people of our province, particularly those in the southern part, are gravely concerned over what they consider to be discrimination against New Brunswick on the part of the federal government. The general opinion is that the ferry short-cut will deprive New Brunswick of numerous tourist cars which otherwise would travel through the province en route to Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island. The New Brunswick tourist industry is bound to be affected by the new service, as a considerable number of United States tourists will take advantage of the ferry service and go to Nova Scotia rather than motor through the beautiful province of New Brunswick. Such being the situation as we in New Brunswick view it, are there any possible solutions in order to at least palliate our lot as a contributing partner to this project? It is suggested that the matter would be at least partly solved if arrangements could be made to operate the ferry on a triangular route including a call at the port of Saint John, New Brunswick, for instance. Again, if the former link between Saint John and Boston through the passenger liner service of Eastern Steamship Lines could be re-established, this, we submit, would increase the tourist traffic to the province of New Brunswick without too much interference from the proposed Yarmouth-Bar Harbor, Maine, ferry. However, as the matter now stands the province of New Brunswick is bound to lose in the deal.
We are unfairly called upon to contribute our share as a province of this dominion to a costly project which cannot but prove highly detrimental to our own interests. I

am fully aware of the principle that particular local interests or provincialism, if you want to call it that, must often be forgotten or sacrificed to bring about the attainment of a greater common good. Yet I cannot see any justification in a project involving a considerable expenditure of public moneys to which New Brunswick will have to contribute its share, whose resultant effects will necessarily prove detrimental to our province to the exclusive benefit of our sister province of Nova Scotia. I therefore feel that I am voicing the opinion of my province in protesting against this proposed large federal subsidy to the Yarmouth-Bar Harbor, Maine, ferry.
Coming now to the consideration of certain policies or practices of the government in so far as they directly affect Gloucester county, I must deplore the loss of markets for unmanufactured wood and underline certain policies or practices on the part of the Department of Public Works bordering on malfeasance and, most particularly, on nonfeasance, which are seriously hindering the expansion and development of our fisheries. The products of our forests have played a most important part in the economic development of our county. During the past few years one of the most profitable exports from Gloucester county, the Miramichi area, and from all our New Brunswick eastern ports down as far as Pugwash, Nova Scotia, has undoubtedly been our pit props.
Perhaps the main reason pit props have proven to be one of the most convenient resources on the farms of my own and other counties of the maritime provinces lies in the fact that almost every farmer has on his woodlot jackpine, spruce or fir, which are all adaptable to the making of pit props. One cord of pit props cut and peeled is a fair average day's work for our eastern farmers in their off-season spare time, and this represents the appreciable sum of $30. In 1948 total Canadian exports of pit props to Great Britain amounted to $7,580,399. In
1951	these same exports had fallen to $2,566,136. I dare say that most of these pit props, especially in 1951, came from the maritime provinces.
According to the latest available statistics the total value of pit props exported to the British market during the first nine months of
1952	has shrunk to $1,812,902. It may be said that competition from the Baltic countries and the scarcity of so-called "hard money" in Great Britain are responsible for this loss of markets. Nevertheless this is a situation which is bringing hardship to the people of my constituency and of other
The Address-Mr. Robichaud counties in the maritime provinces, and we naturally look to the federal government to do something about it.
There has also been a marked decrease in our exports of peeled and rough pulp-wood, as it is called, to the United Kingdom. Whereas our exports of peeled pulpwood to those overseas markets represented a dollar value of $1,846,297 in 1951, we only exported to the amount of $152,086 during the first nine months of 1952, or about one-twelfth of our 1951 export value. Similarly our exports of rough pulpwood fell from $1,383,607 in 1951 to a paltry $6,507 during the first nine months of the present year.
These figures, Mr. Speaker, are tragically eloquent in their significance to the pit-prop and pulpwood operators, to the woodsmen and the farmers of the northern and eastern parts of New Brunswick. Prospects for the coming year at the present time are on the dark and gloomy side. Britain's 1953 pit prop requirements will be mostly filled by Poland, Finland, Sweden and Russia. I am informed that we cannot expect any substantial contracts from Great Britain next year. This picture of our exports of unmanufactured wood is obviously far from rosy and promising for the coming cutting season. Already our newly elected government in New Brunswick, fully awake to the gravity of the situation, has taken active steps with a view to inducing the buyers in Great Britain to continue their patronage in pit props at least to the operators, woodsmen and farmers of New Brunswick. This problem is of such magnitude as to necessitate the direct intervention of the federal government and I therefore make a strong appeal to the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) to explore every avenue, every possible means of reopening the markets which we are losing in Britain to the great detriment of the woodsmen, farmers and operators of our maritime provinces.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.
Albany M. Robichaud: Mr. Speaker, just before the recess I had been quoting statistics in support of the contention that we are faced with losing our British markets for pit props and pulpwood. In view of these considerations, which have had such an immediately unfavourable reflection on an important factor of the economy of my constituency, as well as that of many other counties in

The Address-Mr. Robichaud the maritime provinces, I certainly cannot endorse nor accept that part of the throne speech which states:
Our economic conditions remain favourable and the level of external trade is high.
I turn now to fisheries. In my maiden speech in this house I took a definite stand on behalf of the fishermen of the county of Gloucester. I stated then and I repeat now that fishing is positively one of our most important industries. For quite a few years the federal government has agreed to pay to the fishermen's loan board of the Atlantic coast provinces a subsidy of up to $165 per gross ton towards the construction of dragger or long-liner type vessels. In Gloucester county several draggers have been constructed under that arrangement. The subsidies provided by the federal government have certainly proved to be a good investment because landings and landed value of cod, and more particularly flatfish, have certainly increased since our fleet of draggers has been operating. Lately there has been a considerable increase in the landings of flounders particularly in the bay of Fundy and northern New Brunswick. With a ready market for these fish, the marked increase in the catch from 9,351,000 pounds in 1949 to 15,159,000 pounds in 1950 represented quite a substantial increase in revenue for our fishermen. In New Brunswick alone for the first nine months of 1952 the landed value of plaice and other flatfish was $174,000 as compared with $154,000 in 1951.
I think it is safe to say that most of those fish were caught by the Gloucester county dragger fleet in the course of their coddragging operations. In 1949, when the landings of cod and other ground fish showed a marked decrease, especially in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, our Gloucester county fleet draggers produced an increase of 2 million pounds over the preceding year. Those figures substantiate the contention that the new type draggers have certainly revolutionized the fishing industry in northern New Brunswick. There is an increasing demand for those draggers and it is my hope that the New Brunswick fishermen's loan board will continue to receive ever-increasing assistance from the federal government as this type of federal assistance has certainly proved to be a practical and efficient way of increasing the production of our deep-sea fisheries.
May I, at this stage, bring to the attention of the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Sinclair) a clause in the contracts heretofore entered into between the fishermen's loan board of


the province of New Brunswick and applicants for dragger type vessels. This clause has already given rise to numerous justifiable complaints on the part of dragger owners. I wish to refer to the contractual obligation under which our fishermen are bound to sell all their catch, if not to specified dealers then at least within the province of New Brunswick. This clause, in the dragger contracts, has always seemed to me most unfair to our fishermen. It borders, in my submission, on a clause in restraint of trade inasmuch as it gives local dealers an opportunity to agree on a set price which in some instances may be lower than market conditions warrant; and at the same time it forces our fishermen to sell at such a dealer's agreed or set price. I have been informed that draggers coming in from the fishing banks with a load could easily, in a few hours, cross the baie de Chaleur and sell their fish on the Gaspe shore at a price higher than the Caraquet or Shippigan dealers will allow them. Yet being bound by their contract they cannot avail themselves of such a profitable opportunity.
According to the September issue of the "'Monthly Review of Canadian Fisheries Statistics", the price received by fishermen for cod at Caraquet, New Brunswick, as at September, 1951, was 2J cents per pound as landed. During the same period cod commanded a price of 3 cents per pound at Souris, Prince Edward Island, 3 to 4J cents per pound at Halifax and 3J cents per pound at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. As at September 15, 1952, our fishermen were receiving 3 cents per pound for cod at Caraquet when they could have sold the same cod at prices varying between 3J and 3f cents per pound at Souris which is a most accessible port for them, especially during the late summer and fall operations.
The above statistics clearly show a disparity of prices which is detrimental to our Gloucester county fishermen, bound as they are by the already mentioned restrictive clause in their contracts. The dragger fishermen cannot protest too loudly against this unfair situation, or when they can protest it is too late as they must sign their agreement before they can obtain a loan from the New Brunswick fishermen's loan board. On the face of it, however, this restrictive and mandatory clause in their contracts militates to the detriment of the fishermen and favours the dealers. I consider it my duty to bring this situation to the attention of the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Sinclair) with a view to obtaining his assistance and collaboration, so that our New Brunswick

The Address-Mr. Robichaud
fishermen's loan board may be induced to have this unfair clause deleted from all our dragger contracts.
I hope I have in no uncertain terms underlined the importance of the dragger type of vessel in the development of our deep-sea fisheries. This brings me to the problem of dragger operations and their effect on inshore fisheries, particularly along the coast of the baie de Chaleur. Numerous complaints have already been filed with the Department of Fisheries on behalf of several long-line fishermen in my county. According to the terms of condition 1 printed on the licence issued to draggers, no fishing operations can be carried on within one-half mile of boats or vessels fishing with hooks and lines or any stationary fishing apparatus, nor interfere with other methods of fishing. Unfortunately it is a well known fact that this regulation is disregarded by several small draggers, some of which come from the Quebec side of the baie de Chaleur during their fishing operations in our bay. Hundreds of dollars worth of actual damage to trawls and other fishing equipment have already been reported to departmental officials. Were we to add to these amounts the catch value of the fish lost as a result of the damaged gear and the time and labour involved in repair and replacement, we would realize that the fishermen who depend for a livelihood on inshore fishing along the coast of Gloucester county certainly have good grounds for complaint. We have been told that the problem is under active consideration. May I urge the Minister of Fisheries and his technical advisers to spare no effort in finding a solution to this important problem.
I am and always will be prepared to assist in promoting the best interests of our dragger fishermen. I am one of those who believe that these dragger type vessels are essential to the modern concept of deep-sea fish production. On the other hand I feel that I owe a duty to the no less deserving inshore fishermen who are entitled also to a full measure of protection and encouragement. Having approved the actual method of federally subsidizing the construction of dragger or small dragger type vessels, may I now suggest to the Department of Public Works some of the ways by which it can also assist in promoting and encouraging our fisheries in Gloucester county.
I have stated already in this house that the county of Gloucester has been sadly neglected by the present federal government, particularly with regard to certain public works which the people of my constituency consider essential to the full development of our fisheries potentialities. In the estimates
for 1952-53 there was an item of $32,000 for the dredging of Ferguson gully near Tra-cadie, New Brunswick. The dredging of this gully has been a perennial promise by Liberal candidates at every federal election since the turn of the century. The dredging of this gully is a matter of major importance to the fishermen of that locality. Although the moneys were voted at the last session, nothing has been done so far. How much longer shall the fishermen of Tracadie Beach and Big Tracadie river have to wait for the realization of this project?
Likewise, strong representations have been made to the Department of Public Works and the Department of Fisheries by the Tracadie board of trade urging the opening of the main Tracadie gully and protecting it by adequate breakwaters, so as to provide the Tracadie fishermen with a navigable outlet to the gulf of St. Lawrence fishing banks. This important undertaking, were it properly carried out along the lines suggested by the Tracadie board of trade, would provide Tracadie with its own fishing fleet and would undoubtedly mean the opening in the very near future of a large fish processing plant in that thriving village. As yet nothing is being done by our federal government.
Last summer I witnessed a spectacle which I would have liked the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier) and the Minister of Fisheries to view for themselves. I happened to be at Miscou Point one afternoon as the fishermen were hauling their boats ashore. Hardship and brawn were the natural qualificatives which came to my mind as I watched these hardy Miscou fishermen straining, with the assistance of a homemade winch, to haul those heavy brine-soaked boats ashore. There is no wharf, no breakwater at Miscou Point. Yet within a few hundred yards from where I stood I was shown a spot locally known as Lake Fry which, with a little dredging, would provide a navigable entrance and thus afford a natural shelter at which the fleet could safely anchor. A somewhat similar situation obtains at Island River on Shippigan island, where lack of dredging deprives the local fishermen of another safe and natural haven for their boats.
Then if we proceed up shore we come to Maisonnette, another important fishing village of our county. There also we meet with another very discouraging situation for our fishermen because of the lack of a proper wharf at which to tie their numerous fishing boats safely. There is hardly one storm of any consequence in which several of their boats are not seriously damaged on the shore. Is it any wonder that, with local situations

The Address-Mr. Robichaud such as these prevailing in the best and most productive fishing county of New Brunswick, our boys abandon our fishing villages to seek an easier life somewhere else?
We all deplore the exodus of our young boys from the farms of Gloucester county. In so far as agriculture is concerned, we are passing through a real crisis. There are far too many abandoned farms in my county. A few years ago many of our good people raised their own vegetables, potatoes and turnips, grain and hay in sufficient quantities to feed their cows, hogs and hens, but now they go to the general store to purchase canned milk, potatoes, eggs and vegetables. This is a serious situation, and before long I fear we may experience the same slump in our fishing industry unless something is done by our federal government to encourage the sons of our fishermen to follow their fathers' calling and take to the open sea.
Another example of neglect on the part of our federal government is to be found in the village of Blue Cove. It is also an important and strategically located fishing centre. A number of companies consider Blue Cove as the real spot for the establishment of important fish processing plants. Along these shores herring and cod are especially plentiful. The lack of proper wharf facilities have so far prevented any major fishing development there. Oh, yes, Blue Cove has a wharf or breakwater. I do not know under what classification the Department of Public Works has listed the structure it erected at Blue Cove in 1929 or it might have been on the eve of the 1930 election, in apparent fulfilment of a promise made by Liberal politicians from time immemorial. It is quite a substantial structure, but it is not linked with the shore. By actual measurement the so-called Blue Cove wharf is exactly 750 feet from the shore at high tide, and 650 feet therefrom at low tide. Hon. gentlemen can realize the practical value of such a freak in public works. When you are on it, you need a boat to get ashore; and when fishing boats are moored thereto and a storm suddenly arises, you cannot reach this unfinished symphony, even with a boat, to salvage the fishing boats. I greatly doubt whether another such masterpiece exists in Canada, with the exception of course of Beresford, another fishing village in my own county of Gloucester where we were also gratified-by a Liberal administration, of course-with a similar anomaly of about the same vintage and uselessness as the Blue Cove wharf.
In order to bring these anomalies clearly to the attention of the Minister of Public


Works (Mr. Fournier) and the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Sinclair)-because I do not expect the hon. gentleman will ever visit Blue Cove in the county of Gloucester-I have had enlargements made of photographs of the Blue Cove so-called wharf. I am sorry the Minister of Public Works is not here now because I wanted the permission of the Speaker to send the enlargements over to him, but I will do it later. I wish I could put them in Hansard, but unfortunately I cannot do so. I know that photographs are perfectly admissible in court as the best evidence. I therefore hope I am in order in sending them across the house to the Minister of Fisheries and to the Minister of Public Works. With these exhibits of best evidence in hand, surely the ministers will realize that it is high time the fishermen of Blue Cove and Beresford were given more humane and equitable treatment, and that those two unfinished, useless and costly structures were linked with the shore, as I hope they soon will be.


An hon. Member:: The Minister of Public Works is coming into the chamber now.


Albany M. Robichaud: These are but a few of the most pressing needs of the fishermen of my constituency. It is not my intention, nor will time permit me today, to catalogue all the undertakings which the county of Gloucester deserves and expects from the federal Department of Public Works. Gloucester county has been the orphan child of the present federal administration. This is precisely one of the main reasons why our people indicated, by their votes at the May by-election, that it was time for a change- not the change advocated on Friday, I think it was, by the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr. Dupuis), but a real change this time. There was then, and still is, in this large county of ours which stands as the headpiece of the province of New Brunswick, between the mighty waters of the gulf of St. Lawrence on one side and the majesty of the baie de Chaleur on the other, a prevailing strong current of public opinion opposed to the present federal government because we have not received our just share in the distribution of public moneys. I was elected to the House of Commons in order that the voice of Gloucester would once again be heard, to further the interests of my constituents, to make their needs known to the government, and to appeal for fair and equitable treatment for our large county of Gloucester.
Before concluding my remarks on the question of fisheries, may I again stress the necessity of providing fishermen with some form of remuneration for losses sustained through storms. I am informed that a plan is now under advisement by the Department of

Fisheries to establish a permanent program of insurance as well as loans-interest free, I hope-to storm-stricken fishermen. May I advocate the elaboration of a system following the broad outline of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act which has proved to be highly beneficial to western farmers. I am also in favour of extending the plan now under study so as to embrace some kind of cheap contributory insurance not alone on the fishing equipment but on the lives of our fishermen as well. After all, there is in my submission no more hazardous occupation than that of those hardy and courageous toilers of the sea who risk everything and face the ever-recurring dangers of storm and sea in order to develop the fishing grounds of Canada's Atlantic and Pacific coasts, which are recognized as the richest in the world. Hence special consideration should be given by our government to the welfare of Canada's fishermen; and a protective scheme of assistance and insurance is indeed long past due.
In the course of my remarks I have endeavoured to state the position of the province of New Brunswick with reference to the proposed Yarmouth-Bar Harbor, Maine, ferry service. I have also stressed the detrimental effects of the loss of British markets for our unmanufactured wood. Several aspects of our Gloucester county fisheries have been underlined with a view to obtaining more protection and more encouragement for our fishermen.
Before concluding, may I express the hope that my observations will receive the consideration which the people of my native province of New Brunswick and my own constituents are justified in expecting from the departments concerned.


Mr. E. G. Hansell (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to take this opportunity to say a few words with respect to what I think might be a misunderstanding as to the relationship between the Social Credit movement in this country and other political parties. Before doing so, may I say that I was a bit disappointed in the apparent timidity with which this present debate started. I refer particularly to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) and the reply given to him by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent). We had felt, and perhaps justifiably, that this was a pre-election session. It still may be a pre-election session. I think most of us felt that perhaps there would be a good deal of fireworks, and that the first people to start the fireworks would be the leader of the official opposition and the Prime Minister in defence of his government. Before I left home many people expressed to me the opinion that we might expect a
The Address-Mr. Hansell fairly lively pre-election session. Let us hope that it will get more lively as the days go by.


An hon. Member:: What are you going to do about it?


Ernest George Hansell: I do not know that I can contribute a great deal to the liveliness of the present debate. After all I am perhaps small fry sitting on the back benches, but that description does not apply to the leader of the official opposition or the Prime Minister of Canada.


An hon. Member:: How about your own leader?


Ernest George Hansell: If there was any excitement at all, it was when my own leader spoke. As I listened to the Leader of the Opposition and to the Prime Minister I noticed that, after they had finished, both were wearing their suspenders and everything was intact. I felt that perhaps there might even have been an understanding between them to this effect: "If you don't let me down, I won't let you down."
Be that as it may, I want to say a word about the charge which has been levelled at the Social Credit movement for some considerable time. It is a charge that has been levelled at us by writers and by some political observers to the effect that, in reality, we are Conservatives. I noticed that when the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr. Dupuis) spoke the other day he said something similar to that. Referring to the Social Crediters he said, as reported at page 178 of Hansard:
I was told that a large number of Social Credit supporters were only disguised Tories. That is not a good recommendation as far as I am concerned, and there is good proof of it. Considering the matter further, if we look at the new cabinet that has been formed in British Columbia we find many ministers who were at one time prominent members of the Conservative party, so if they are not disguised Tories they are at least converted Tories.
That was said in this House of Commons. I am reminded that the hon. member who said this, while he now sits on the other side of the house, sat behind us when he first came here. Perhaps there is a measure of conversion there.
We have heard observations here and there about this same matter. Very often when newspaper writers are commenting on the record of the Alberta government they like to say that it is really a good, honest Conservative government. What gives rise to that sort of opinion? I think perhaps there may be three main reasons, the first of which is that for the last 17 years, since Social Credit was first represented in the House

The Address-Mr. Hansell of Commons, we have been sitting in opposition with the Tory party in Canada. This is no indication that we are part and parcel of them, but the fact is that often opposition members applaud opposition members. It just seems to be the normal process. Very often amendments and motions of want of confidence are offered, and we vote with the Tories. Perhaps that has added a little fuel to the fire.
Then there is this further basis of comparison, in that we do feel that our relationship with the British commonwealth of nations is very important. Traditionally, of course, the Conservatives take that position. We, too, have tried to stress our absolute allegiance to the British crown. We have that feeling; we hold that belief, and we have not wavered when we have had to come to any decision affecting that loyalty. It may be that that, too, has been a factor of similarity from which people have drawn certain conclusions.
Then the third point, of course, is found in the recent political trends. I refer of course to the British Columbia election and the fact that Mr. Bennett, a one-time member of the Conservative party, came over to the Social Credit ranks, is now premier of the province and is evidently doing a good job. Because a thing of that kind happens is no reason for saying that Social Crediters are, in reality, nothing but Tories. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Let us look at this matter from a safe and sane standpoint. In the first place, while some more or less prominent Conservatives may have come over to our movement in British Columbia, several rather prominent Liberals have also come over to us.


Mr. Johnston:: The best of the Liberals come over to us.


Ernest George Hansell: Regardless of that, the Social Credit movement in Canada is a new movement. If we are to gain support from the people of this country, from whom is it that we must obtain that support if not from those who have been connected with the other political parties? Any citizen who can be properly described as a loyal citizen must take an interest in the welfare of the country or of the province in which he lives, and it is possible that he might have been active in political affairs. If we are to get support, from where shall we get it? I am saying right now that if our movement grows, as we expect it to grow, more and more Conservatives and Liberals will join us.


John Horne Blackmore: All the intelligent ones.


Mr. Molt:: What about the C.C.F.?
IMr. Hansell.]


John Horne Blackmore: All the intelligent ones.


Mr. Smith (Moose Mountain):: You would not have them, eh?


Ernest George Hansell: If we do attract to our movement people who have been prominent in other parties, it means only one thing: that is the other political parties have not been able to hold them. That is a self-evident fact.
We have need to reflect upon these things a little more deeply. Recently the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) made a tour across Canada, upon which occasion he made a number of statements. I am not too much concerned about what he said, but perhaps I should read one or two of his observations because it would seem that he, evidently, is not claiming any relationship between the two parties.


An hon. Member:: What about the Globe and Mail?


Ernest George Hansell: The Globe and Mail is an independent paper.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Sinnoil:: A Tory paper.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just like the Toronto Star.


Ernest George Hansell: The Globe and Mail may have been supporting Conservative policies throughout the years; but if it wishes to print its opinions, we still have a free press. The Star has been supporting the Liberal party and its policies for a good many years.


Mr. Fraser:: And the socialist party.


Ernest George Hansell: And the socialists, too. But if it wishes to express its opinions, we still have a free press. I am not going to hold it against the Globe and Mail or the Star if occasionally they want to write favourably about the Social Credit movement. According to a press report in the Vancouver Province, when the Leader of the Opposition was in Victoria recently a newspaper reporter noted that some Conservatives were joining Social Credit in British Columbia. The reporter then went on to say that Socreds were just Conservatives of a different shade and asked the Leader of the Opposition if he would like to draw a distinction. The article then continues:
Mr. Drew said that might be difficult because he knew what Conservatives stood for but he had never been able to understand much about Social Credit.
I will not deny that he has not been able to understand Social Credit, but I will observe that for the leader of what is today one of

The Address-Mr. Hansell
the major parties in Canada to make an admission like that means that he has not given much thought to it.


Charles Edward Johnston: Or else he has not the ability.


Ernest George Hansell: The hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) says, "or else he has not the ability." I believe he has the ability. At least he has written a few books and he should be able to read some. If he can read, surely he will not stand up here and say that although he has been in public life the number of years he has he cannot understand some of the rudimentary principles of Social Credit. I claim that Social Credit is not difficult to understand. Where I find the people getting into difficulty is in trying to understand the present monetary system. They simply do not understand it.
The Leader of the Opposition went on to say that any suggestion that the two parties were the same was utter nonsense. I am glad that comes from the lips of the leader of the Progressive Conservative party in Canada. That should settle the thing once and for all. We did not say it; he said it and that should settle it.


An hon. Member:: Don't believe everything he says.


Ernest George Hansell: I have drawn a number of other conclusions. The Leader of the Opposition during that tour appealed to the people to get back to what he called the two-party system. He referred to other parties, presumably meaning the C.C.F., the Social Credit and perhaps one or two others, as splinter parties. The term "splinter parties" is not original with the Leader of the Opposition, it is a phrase which has been coined. When you analyse that phrase you realize that it does not express what is really meant. A splinter is simply a piece of wood that has been knocked off the main beam. Let us analyse it. Will anyone say-I am now referring to our C.C.F. friends-that the socialists have been splintered off some other party?


An hon. Member:: Liberals in a hurry, the Prime Minister said.


An hon. Member:: They are certainly off the beam.


Ernest George Hansell: Socialism was an idea long before the Liberal party ever appeared in Canada.


An hon. Member:: Or the C.C.F.


Ernest George Hansell: I am talking about socialism. There have always been socialists. Socialism appeared in the political realm in Great Britain many years ago. It was not splintered 68108-16
off the main beam at all; it was a new idea that was propounded. The same thing applies to Social Credit. We have not been splintered off something else. Twenty years ago Mr. Aberhart read about the new economics known as Social Credit. He took the idea to his heart and mind and began to teach it. It was a new idea and nobody can say that it was splintered off something else.


An hon. Member:: No, but they can say that it is off the beam.


Ernest George Hansell: That is playing with words. If my hon. friend is so bright that he wants to play like that, I will let him enjoy himself for a minute.


An hon. Member:: Tell him to take the beam out of his eye.


Ernest George Hansell: This cry to get back to the two-party system is nothing more or less than the cry of frustrated politicians who feel that their grip is slipping. That is all it is. I believe in a two-party system, but it has to be made up of two parties with distinctive ideas, two parties with basic principles that are opposed one to the other. Surely my hon. friends are not going to say that the thing that distinguishes one party from another is the name or the political machine that runs the party. Surely they are not going to stand up and admit anything of that kind. Surely they must realize that what distinguishes one party from another is the basic principles upon which each party is founded and the objectives at which it is aiming.
I believe in a two-party system because there are only two ways of life. Those two ways of life are gradually emerging today in Canada. I should like to suggest to those who write about splinter parties and to the Leader of the Opposition that Canada is coming back to a two-party system, but it will not necessarily be a system composed of two parties bearing the names Liberal and Progressive Conservative.
An. hon. Member: What will it be?


Ernest George Hansell: I do not know what the names will be, but I can make a pretty good guess. I have nothing against my friends who sit to my far right. They are good fellows; I like them all and I try to work with them. But I want to say to them that if this country does come back to a two-party system the Progressive Conservative party will not be one of them.
I do not claim to be a prophet or the son of a prophet, but I ask you to look at what happened in Great Britain. Just reminisce for a while. Years ago when I was a boy the two great parties in Great Britain were the

The Address-Mr. Hansell Liberals and the Conservatives. Well, what happened in the process of time? Labour came into the picture with a fairly strong leadership. Their ideas, which embraced certain tenets of socialism, came into the picture. They began to emerge and became stronger until Labour took over the government. Then they went back a little later on and the Conservatives took over the government. We find that the Liberals in that country gradually diminished in numbers, and I am not now comparing the Liberals of Great Britain with the Liberals of Canada or the Conservatives of Great Britain with the Conservatives of this country. All I am saying is that one of the old major parties in England is a forgotten factor today.
The same thing can happen here. The only issue today in England between the parties is whether you want socialism or whether you want private enterprise. That is the issue, and that is going to be the issue as the days go by in Canada. I am not a prophet, but I will make this suggestion that, whether or not I live to see the day, either the C.C.F. will take over the Liberal party or the Liberal party will absorb the C.C.F.


An hon. Member:: Never.


An hon. Member:: And you will take over the Tories.


William Gilbert Weir: Now we are going to get it.


Ernest George Hansell: That is going to happen and they will emerge as one of the great parties in Canada. If my guess is right the Social Crediters will emerge as the private enterprise advocates in Canada who will put a little effectiveness and freedom into our democratic way of life. That is my guess. You can dispute it if you like.


Mr. Harkness:: That is your hope.


Mr. Wylie:: You would not know any better anyway.


Ernest George Hansell: I would say yes, it is our hope; but in saying it is our hope let me tell my hon. friend that I am not hoping it because I want to sit over on that side of the house or because I want my party to take the reins of government. I am not saying it with that hope. I am saying it with the hope that I may see Canada governed by a party that can govern according to private enterprise principles, keep the people free and at the same time give us an administration that will reflect the true physical facts of life and give the people of Canada the things they want. That is my hope, and I do not care who it is that puts it across.
I was talking about the difference between parties, not in their machinery but in their


concepts, and I come once again to the two main parties of this country. The Leader of the Opposition tried to tell the government where they had failed and what they should do with respect to cutting taxation and at the same time keeping up their expenditures. The Prime Minister replied and although he was not fiery and did not wake the dead at all he was logical in presenting the facts to the Leader of the Opposition and asking him, "If you want to cut taxation, where are you going to cut it? If you want to cut expenditures, where are you going to cut them?" He was perfectly right in asking those questions.
As far as I am concerned there is no difference fundamentally in the basic financial policies of the two parties, not a bit of difference. They argue about little things but do not come to grips with the vital errors inherent in the present financial policy of Canada. The old financial system is just like a man with one leg shorter than the other going around in a circle all the time. The Conservatives and the Liberals are arguing with one another about this short-legged chap going around in a circle. What are they arguing? The Liberals say, "Well, of course we know the reason he is going around in a circle is that one leg is shorter than the other." The Conservatives jump up and say, "No, that is not it. The reason he is going around in a circle is that one leg is longer than the other." So they argue that point without coming to grips with the real situation.
The fact of the matter is that there is something wrong with our present financial system. To journalists and others who like to try to say that we Social Crediters of Canada are nothing but Conservatives made over, let me say it is true that in the province of Alberta they have not been able to exercise the Social Credit financial technique. That is true. We admit it. We know it. But let it not be said that if Alberta had the constitutional right to change monetary technique it would not do so. In that respect I want to quote from the report of an interview that the Lethbridge Herald had with Premier Manning during the recent provincial election campaign. Mr. Manning was asked whether or not Social Crediters were satisfied that they could not put Social Credit monetary technique into effect in Alberta, and this is the way the reporter wrote up Mr. Manning's reply. I am reading from the edition of the Lethbridge Herald of the 19th of July. The article reads as follows:
He dismissed-
The "he" refers to Premier Manning.
-as an "unsound theory" the idea that the Social Credit party no longer held to its original principles

The Address-Mr. Hansell
and was concentrating instead on providing a conservative administration. "We are blocked (by federal laws) from instituting our monetary proposals, but that was only one field of Social Credit ideas" he continued. "We have kept the guiding principle that our policies should enhance the freedom and security of the individual." This had been partly accomplished through decentralization -leaving as much power as possible in the hands of local elected bodies. If, however, the constitution were changed to permit Social Credit to put its monetary theories into practise, "we would immediately implement them."
Those are the words of Premier Manning, and in that respect I want to say: Let nobody write or think that if Social Credit should take over the reins of government here they would only follow along the lines of good honest conservative government. If the Social Credit party took over the government of Canada let it be understood they would introduce Social Credit technique. There will not be any argument about that. If you want to go out on the election platform and fight on that ground that will be all right with us.


An hon. Member:: That is different from good honest government.


William Duncan McKay Wylie: It may come in time and it will worry you if it does.


Ernest George Hansell: The fact of the matter is that there is no use dilly-dallying around the outside of the problem. We have to get right at the heart of things and come to grips with the real issues facing the country. The real issue in the country is not to adjust your taxation so as to move it from one class of people to another, or to cut this expenditure here or something else there. We have to recognize-and I must say I have a little sympathy with the present government- that they have pursued certain policies along certain lines which have involved certain expenditures. They will not listen to us on where to get the money, so they have to get it by taxation. If they are to keep up the vast expenditures that are necessary they must get the money from somewhere, and their policy is to get it from taxation. That is all there is to it as far as they are concerned.
I think, too, that when we propose things here-this goes for any member, and certainly we Social Crediters have adhered to it in the past-we should be capable of showing how we would do it. I was noticing the order paper and although I am not permitted to discuss resolutions on the order paper, I see that the Ottawa Journal referred to the matter tonight. There are perhaps six and certainly four resolutions on the order paper which ask the government to spend more on social legislation. That is all very well. Of course we cannot put resolutions on the order 68108-16*
paper calling for an increase in expenditures, so the way to get around it is to word the thing in such a way that the request is not for an increase in expenditures but that the government give consideration to this or that, and that gets around the technical point. I often wonder what would happen if we revised our parliamentary rules and forms. What would happen if we made them to the effect that when a person puts such resolutions as that on the order paper he should also state where the government would get the money to do the thing proposed? I wonder what kind of resolutions we would get.
Well, we would get the same suggestions as the Liberals and Conservatives are compelled to give: "We will have to get it from the people; we will have to get it from taxation, or we will have to borrow". It is a nice thing to put these resolutions on the order paper but it is another thing to say how we are to accomplish the thing we are after.


An hon. Member:: Come on, let's have it.


Ernest George Hansell: If you have been here all these years and cannot understand it, well, why should I bother answering the small fry anyway? If we-and I am not talking about ourselves, but anyone-want to appeal to the people to solve this country's problems and make Canada one of the greatest nations on the earth, and it can be made that, then let us go to the people with our proposals as to how we are to do this thing. Right now I think I should read from an editorial on this same subject that appeared recently in the Western Producer. The editorial is entitled "Social Security" and I will not read it all but it starts off:
In some quarters there is growing complaint about the rising cost of welfare measures.
It goes on to comment on those costs and indicates that just so long as we remain within the confines of present financial policy, of course those measures have to be paid for and the money must come from somewhere. Then it says, and this is what I want to read:
Those whose aim it is to eliminate unnecessary want and poverty will have to raise their sights. They cannot attain their objective if they confine their efforts to redistributing by means of taxation the present national financial income. Taking from the rich to give to the poor will not do the job because under the most equitable system of redistribution there isn't enough money to do it.
That is the thing our friends do not recognize. The editorial continues:
But there is enough and to spare potentially, if not actually, of goods and services to satisfy every reasonable demand. What is needed is a change in our economic system which will encourage the maximum use of our material and human resources
236	HOUSE OF COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Dumas
to the point of optimum production and a reorganization of the method of distribution so that the resulting goods and services are made available to consumers. That implies a drastic revision of finance and banking.
Now, the sooner we recognize that the better it will be for this country. I am going to skip a bit for the sake of brevity; but the editorial refers to the welfare state and here, I think, is a gem:
As one high authority recently stated, "the welfare state as a permanent institution bears witness not to the success of government but to its failure" . . . The ultimate aim should be economic policies which will remove the shackles from production so that it can function to capacity thus providing plenty for all. In the transition period generous welfare measures should be provided to aid all those in need. But the need for welfare legislation is the mark of the age of scarcity and the object should be to move with all possible speed from the age of scarcity to the age of plenty.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Would you do away with welfare legislation?


An hon. Member:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: May I take advantage of the pause to tell the hon. gentleman that his time has expired.


Ernest George Hansell: I would like to answer the hon. gentleman's question if I may. It has always been found that you cannot readily retract or undo something the country has already done; but I would say that the greatest welfare that can come to the people is to leave with them their absolute freedom to act according to their own conscience and will, and see that their incomes are such that they can make available to themselves the highest standard of living the resources of the country can give without interfering with that freedom. That to me is the greatest possible welfare state.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question?


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: In your statement you said you wanted free enterprise. Would you want to put all the grain in western Canada back on the grain exchange?


Ernest George Hansell: I do not regard that as a very clever question. However, I will answer my hon. friend. When we talk of private enterprise we do not say: Now, we are going to scrap all such things as orderly marketing. We certainly would not do that. We believe in orderly marketing because we believe that in a complex world it is necessary. We do not believe that you have to cast away all regulation. We do not believe in substituting liberty for licence.


Mr. Armand Dumas (Villeneuve):: I wish to associate myself, Mr. Speaker, with those who have spoken before in conveying my congratulations to the mover (Mr. Deslieres)

and seconder (Mr. Schneider) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. I wish to also convey my congratulations to the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Sinclair) and the Associate Minister of National Defence (Mr. Campney). Both the hon. members have proven to be able parliamentary assistants, and I believe they will be active and capable ministers.
(Translation):
Mr. Speaker, with all my fellow Canadians from coast to coast, I rejoice at the elevation of His Excellency Archbishop Paul-Emile Leger to the rank of cardinal. The people of Villeneuve county are happy to pay tribute to him and to assure him of their filial devotion.
(Text):
My main purpose in rising this evening is to draw to the attention of this house some of the problems of my constituents. I do so because I sincerely believe that other constituencies in Canada are concerned with the same problems. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the speech from the throne, and desire particularly to refer briefly to one paragraph because I believe Canadians should be interested in it. The paragraph reads:
You will be invited to consider a measure to provide for federal co-operation with the provincial governments in the conservation of the water resources of Canada.
I am sure every right-thinking Canadian will welcome this legislation. I am hopeful also that each and every one of the provincial governments will take steps to provide the legislation, the administrative organization and the educational services necessary for the effective conservation of the water resources. In 1949, without a dissenting voice, the forestry act became law, thus opening the door to federal-provincial teamwork. I hope the same thing will happen in connection with this legislation.
The conservation of our natural resources is actually a problem of prime importance. The conservation of our forests, of our soil, of our water and the preservation of our wildlife are matters of grave concern to every Canadian. The conservation of water is of paramount importance, and it bears a close relationship to the conservation of our forests and our agricultural land. Floods and the shortage of water are too often considered by the public only from the standpoint of immediate inconvenience. Much more publicity will have to reach the public. Hard campaigning for conservation has been carried out by the Canadian Forestry Association and L'Association Forestiere Quebecoise. Both devoted the main part of their revenues to bringing home to the public, through their

magazines and other publications, the idea of conservation. For this reason they must command greater financial support from all governments, especially from the federal government.
At this point, 1 should like to congratulate the Minister of Resources and Development (Mr. Winters) for having provided larger grants to the Canadian Forestry Association during the last two years. I hope the minister will see his way clear to recommending to the government that a substantial amount be granted to L'Association Forestiere Que-becoise. It has been wisely stated that the wealth and health of this world lies in the top six inches of its surface. The conservation of these top six inches is a problem of paramount importance to every nation, in order that its people may be well nourished and survive. If we do everything we can towards the conservation of our forests, our soil and our water, it will be easy to preserve that top six inches for our own good and for the welfare of our children.
There is another paragraph, Mr. Speaker, in the speech from the throne which to my mind is of great importance to all Canadians. This paragraph reads:
To give effect to recommendations made by the standing committee on banking and commerce at the last session of parliament and to extend its scope your approval will be sought for an amendment to the National Housing Act.
I do not intend to elaborate on this subject, but I hope we will do everything we can to provide all Canadians with adequate housing. I wish to congratulate the government for what it has done in the past; the undertaking was far-reaching and the results have been substantial.
Many other measures will be brought before this house. When they come before us we shall consider them calmly, laying aside and sacrificing if necessary our own interests and ambitions to think only of the interests of Canada and Canadians. Hon. members are aware of the importance of Canadian mining. It is already a great industry, and the future is even more impressive. A new record of production will be attained this year, if not in value at least in volume. Canada occupies first place in world production of asbestos, nickel and platinum. Canada occupies second place in world production of aluminum, cadmium, gold and zinc. It is third in the production of silver, fourth in cobalt, copper
The Address-Mr. Dumas and lead. In 1951 the production of these minerals by our Canadian mines was as follows:
Mineral	Production
Asbestos	
967,000	tonsAluminum	
445,000	tonsZinc	
334,000	tonsCopper	
270,000	tonsLead	
153,000	tonsNickel	
137,000	tonsCadmium	
1,210,000	poundsCobalt	
947,000	poundsSilver	
24,200,000	ouncesGold	
4,300,000	ouncesPlatinum	
154,000	ounces
The iron ore production in Canada this year will reach 4-8 million tons and the day is not far off when it will be 25 million tons. The petroleum production of 1951 had a value of $121 million. In 1952 it will reach $149 million, an increase of $28 million. The total value of the mineral production of Canada for 1951 was $1,228 million. In 1939 it was only $475 million. These are extremely impressive figures. During the last 50 years Canada has produced mineral products worth more than $12 billion, and actual mining operations are adding more than $1 billion every year. Every new mine adds to the richness of Canada and of Canadians. The past was great but the future will be greater.
Is Canadian mining going to continue to forge ahead? Will the value of our mineral industry move upward to the $2 billion mark in the near future? In both cases I hope the answer is yes. However, this objective cannot be accomplished without careful planning. We shall need a large amount of risk capital. Our leading operators, our engineers and our miners have, in the past, shown that they were equal to the task. We shall need more of their kind. Our governments, federal and provincial, will have the responsibility of building more roads, more railroads and more airfields in order to facilitate transportation and give access to new mining camps. Over and above that, we shall need people who are imbued with the spirit of determination and perseverance, people who have the vocation of pioneers. We shall need people of the same calibre as those who in the past took up the challenge and met it successfully, thus rewarding Canada with tremendous advantages which are felt in every home in this country.
The Cambrian shield, this V-shaped area covering more than half of Canada, has not yet yielded its full measure of usefulness to Canada and to Canadians. This great storehouse retains untold treasures yet to be found. The success of the past is merely an indication of what may be found in the future.

The Address-Mr. Dumas
The mining industry means the steady creation of new wealth for the people of Canada. The earth's most essential minerals are of greatest importance to the entire civilized world. From Newfoundland to British Columbia the industry gives employment to more than 110,000 men. These men are the breadwinners of their families, and counting them with others who are supported directly by mining and who are living in Canadian mining communities, we have a population of over 500,000 people.
Mining communities may seem to bear little relation to the prosperity of eastern and western farmers, but let me say this, Mr. Speaker: 500,000 people represent a large number of mouths to feed and a large number of people to clothe and shelter. Statistics are available to prove that these mining centres buy more than $65 million worth of food each year from the Canadian farmers. What do the mining communities mean to the manufacturing and lumbering industries? The answer is this. Annually the mining communities are buying more than $150 million worth of clothing, shelter, furniture and other articles, and the same communities are buying each year more than $100 million worth of lumber, machinery, electrical equipment and other similar products.
Keeping in mind what I have just said, we will have a look at the gold mining industry and briefly analyse what it means to the economy of this country. Every day close to 50,000 tons of ore-bearing gold, silver and other minerals worth close to half a million dollars are passing through the 59 mills operated by the Canadian gold mines. Every working day close to 22,000 men, the breadwinners of a population of some 130,000 people, are employed in these mines.
There are 30 Canadian gold mining communities and they buy more than $12 million worth of food from Canadian farmers and more than $50 million worth of other services from the manufacturing and the lumbering industries. Each year the gold mines themselves are paying over $70 million in wages and more than $45 million in purchases of all kinds.
Surely an industry such as this must be considered to be of primary importance. I am sure hon. members will agree that an industry which has played so great a part in opening up northern Canada and in building up our national economy must be a matter of interest and concern to all Canadians. History may repeat itself and the gold mining industry may be called upon again-if not this time to save the country from bankruptcy, as it did before-at least to strengthen our national credit.

The gold mining industry is going through a difficult period because the official price set for the precious metal is much too low. Were it not for the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act few gold mines would still be operating. This legislation really rescued the declining industry. Many producers owe their continued operation to this assistance. The gold mining communities have also greatly benefited by it. The facts show that the legislation enacted by the government has done a real job. Proposed amendments to the act were outlined in a statement made last week by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) and they will surely be of great help in assisting the industry to survive.
In this respect, I should like to quote an article which appeared under the title "Help For Gold Mines" in the Ottawa Journal of November 26, 1952:
More aid for marginal gold mines, beginning with 1953, should be welcomed by more than gold miners and owners of gold shares. Gold mining is one of the important industries of this country, supporting many communities, providing work and wages for scores of thousands, providing a profitable market for many allied industries, and undoubtedly a major factor in taking care of our international balances.
During recent years gold mining has suffered grievously through the fact that while operators of the mines have had to meet soaring costs in wages and other needs the world price of gold has remained at a fixed official level.
The help now provided by the government may not meet this situation entirely (the formula of assistance is so complicated a layman cannot understand it) but it is bound to make some difference, and in some instances, the Journal is informed by mining men, may make a substantial difference.
The only question that may be fairly asked is: In the light of knowledge by everybody that gold mining has been in jeopardy these past three years, why was this aid not given before?
While the article is good, I think the last paragraph is superfluous. The Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act was instituted at the beginning of 1948. It has been amended and extended, and has been profitable to the great majority of gold mines.
Many other newspapers had articles commenting favourably upon the proposed amendments to the assistance act. I should like to quote from a letter I received yesterday. It is dated November 28, 1952, addressed to myself, and states:
Our association wishes to go on record as commending heartily the recent amendment to the gold mines assistance act, under which additional costaid has been provided for the hard-pressed gold producers of the country.
Yours very truly,
Prospectors & Developers Association V. R. MacMillan President.

I have received many similar letters from people closely connected with the industry. They are all thankful for what is being done by the government to provide additional assistance to the gold mines.
Altogether there is ample evidence that this government is doing much to help the industry. The welfare of the gold mining communities has always been regarded by the government as of very great importance. For this I wish to express my thanks. The fact that the government has definitely stated that increased assistance will be provided is encouraging to the industry and to the residents of the gold mining communities. We are all very thankful.
No government would have made this effort and gone to this expense unless it was firmly convinced that the price of gold was much too low, and unless it had in mind that the situation was indeed a temporary one, that it should be corrected or that it would in time correct itself.
We must not forget this. We are sellers of gold, so we can hardly dictate the price to the buyers. We are not the largest producers, and for this reason we can only more or less influence the market. And, last but not least, the production and sale of gold is very important to our economy. I firmly believe that better days are not too far ahead for the gold mining industry. The future of gold is much better than some of us are inclined to think. I saw in this morning's press that Canada intends to support South Africa's request for a higher price for gold. I congratulate the Canadian government on this logical attitude, and for two reasons. The first is that this is the best way I know of to help the sterling bloc to get back on its feet. The second reason is that it will also be of great assistance to our people generally, and to the gold mines in particular.
There are two ways of helping the other commonwealth countries. The first is to give or lend them billions of dollars which either we will have lost or they will have to repay. The second is to do something that will be beneficial to all of us. In supporting South Africa we will be choosing the second method, which will be the most beneficial to all of us. I believe the choice is obvious.
When the price of gold is where it should be, the industry will take its rightful place in our economy. Instead of being a burden to the taxpayers of this country it will, as it did in the past, contribute generously to the welfare of Canada and its people. For the benefit of those who are afraid that the government is not doing the right thing, or that it is doing too much for the gold mines,
The Address-Mr. Fulford I should like to quote a short article from the Rouyn-Noranda Press of November 20, 1952. It states:
In terms of Canada's total budget gold assistance payments are not large. They are not large when compared to the sums paid out to carry other key industries, notably wheat growing, through bad times. They are not large when set against the revenues the federal government derives in corporation and personal income taxes from the industry and those who work in it.
I will ask those who are worried over this question to think twice before objecting to this increased assistance to an industry which needs it so badly. I will repeat what I said at the outset: Let us consider this question calmly, laying aside and, if necessary, sacrificing our personal interests and ambitions, to think only of the betterment of the nation as a whole, which demands everywhere and always that citizens shall be happy and contented with their lot.


Mr. G. T. Fulford (Leeds):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in this debate on the speech from the throne one usually performs the perfunctory duty of complimenting the mover and seconder of the address in response to the speech from the throne. In this instance it is no perfunctory duty; it is a genuine pleasure. I can say without hesitation that in my view the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi (Mr. Deslieres) as mover and the hon. member for Waterloo North (Mr. Schneider) as seconder made the best speeches I have heard on any parallel occasion during the years I have sat in the House of Commons. Certainly their speeches have put to shame many of the more futile efforts of those of us who have sat in the chamber a much longer time.
It was most gratifying to hear in the speech from the throne mention of the findings of the international joint commission in relation to the St. Lawrence seaway.
Recently I had the privilege of addressing a group of citizens of Canton, New York, in a large auditorium which had recently been opened at St. Lawrence university. I tried to deal with this matter from a different angle than is generally used. I did a little research, particularly on the subject of navigational facilities between the great lakes and the sea. I had said that all my life I had heard this referred to as the St. Lawrence deep waterway, and latterly as the St. Lawrence seaway and power development. I found that I spoke better than I knew because the first committee to advance the project was founded in 1902, and that happens to be the very year I was born.
As one delves into the history of the navigational facilities connecting the lakes and the ocean he will be interested to note that

The Address-Mr. Fulford from the beginning Canada has taken the initiative. The first connecting link was around the Lachine rapids and was constructed by the Capuchin Fathers in 1700. Naturally it was only a narrow ditch capable of carrying canoes loaded with furs. Then in 1797 the Northwest Fur Company, a private company, constructed a canal connecting lake Superior with lake Huron. This canal served a most useful purpose for fifteen years, but was completely destroyed by the United States army in the war of 1812.
I shall not bore the house with all the details of this history but shall try to say enough to demonstrate how proud we Canadians ought to be of the work we have undertaken. In the 1820's a private company began and completed a canal connecting lake Erie with lake Ontario. That was no small feat in those days when it is considered that the height of Niagara falls and the drop of the Niagara river had to be taken into account when the canal and locks were built. Later on this canal was taken over by the government of Upper Canada. Previous to that the government of Lower Canada had circumvented the stretch of river between Beau-harnois and lake St. Francis. Strangely enough the canal of that day followed closely what is now the Beauharnois canal.
It was not until many years later that the present Soulanges canal, which is used at present for navigational purposes, was built. Then in the 1840's the government of Upper Canada started and completed in stages the Cornwall canal and the Williamsburg canal. Those were finally completed in 1848 and permitted small draught vessels to ply between the upper great lakes and the St. Lawrence river below Montreal.
With the completion of the great Welland canal ships with a draught of 27 feet could be accommodated and the "only real bottleneck that exists today is the area from just above Cornwall, Ontario, down to the foot of the Lachine canal. There would be no restrictions upon Canada building a deep waterway in its entirety, as this section would be entirely within Canadian territory.
The section about which we would have to negotiate with the United States begins just above Cornwall and continues to a point just above Cardinal. This is the international section which will have to be developed jointly. Canada can go ahead with the navigational section and the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier) has said that Canada courageously will go ahead. But we must have the co-operation of the United States in order to develop power.
We all know that the Canadian power will be developed by the Hydro Electric Power


Commission of Ontario. The international joint commission has given the green light to go ahead, but the matter is still being held up because of uncertainty in the United States as to which authority in the state of New York will be given the right to develop power, whether a federal power authority or a New York state power authority.
In the report of the international joint commission reference was made to the Gut dam; I trust you will not call me to order when I say "Gut dam". The Gut dam was built by Canada at a point between Prescott and Cardinal in order to divert water flowing between two islands to the head of the Cardinal canal and thus eliminate certain dangerously swift currents, and at the same time create a somewhat safer channel. I understand that engineers have estimated that this dam makes as much as eight inches difference in the water level of the upper reaches of the St. Lawrence river, with a somewhat lesser effect in lake Ontario. Not being an engineer I cannot give an expert opinion, but I venture to say that it does not make half an inch difference. I base that statement upon evidence I heard last summer at a hearing of the international joint commission at Ogdensburg, New York. At that time the treasurer of the Ogdensburg Trust Company stated that he owned land on the United States side both below and above the dam and he found that the height of water on both sides of the dam was exactly the same. In other words the water below the dam on the United States side was as high as the water above the dam. We who live in that part of the country know that on the United States side the dam is not visible. The shore line simply seems to be a continuation of the New York state side of the river. To me that evidence showed conclusively that the Gut dam made no difference. However, the international joint commission recommended that Canada should destroy this dam and work is now in progress to carry out that recommendation.
With Canada showing its good faith, I think it is only reasonable to ask our friends to the south to give proof of their good neighbour policy toward us by not holding up any longer than is necessary the action that will determine which body will be given the authority to proceed with the development of the power, whether it be the federal power authority or the New York state power authority. I am sure that every one of us in this house was most alarmed when we read last week in the press of Canada that the whole project may be held up eighteen months or more while Washington decides which authority will be granted the right to develop the power. Surely it is not asking

too much of our great neighbours to the south to ask them to co-operate with us as we have co-operated with them by carrying out the order of the international joint commission.
I should like to suggest that along the connecting waters of the St. Lawrence seaway project certain of the larger ports be designated as harbours under the Canada Shipping Act. I make this suggestion so that these harbours will have the necessary authority to regulate the course and speed of vessels plying up and down the narrow channels. Naturally I have special reference to my own town of Brockville. Recently large ships, both domestic and foreign, have been increasing their speed and the wash from these ships is constituting a menace not only to small craft owners who leave their craft in their boathouses but also and particularly to people who are out on the water in small craft such as rowboats, boats with outboard motors or even canoes. Sometimes in recent years we have seen waves come in that would almost make one think they were rollers coming off a vast ocean.
It has been stated that some years ago when the port of Albany, New York, was opened as the head of the seaway from New York city up the Hudson river one of the large steamship lines proceeded to send an ocean vessel up to Albany. That was well before the war, and that particular line is still settling lawsuits for the damage that was done to small craft, docks, boathouses and other buildings along the Hudson river. Certainly we do not want to see that happen when the St. Lawrence seaway is built. A certain amount of damage is being caused now, and I think it could be avoided if the necessary authority were given to the ports along the various streams connecting the great lakes and along the St. Lawrence connecting lake Ontario with the ocean.
The Address-Mr. Fulford
I also should like-and I have mentioned this in the house before-to call to the attention of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier) the advisability of establishing a weather station somewhere along the upper reaches of the St. Lawrence river. At present the weather prophesying facilities in this district are unreliable. We do not have much fog in the Thousand Islands region but when we do they are bad fogs. Eventually a weather station will have to be set up somewhere between Cornwall and Kingston, and I should like to recommend that it be established as soon as possible. It must be done when navigation facilities for larger vessels are completed, and if it were done now it would be an invaluable aid to farmers in prophesying how severe a frost will be.
We are told to look at the Ottawa valley weather reports, that they will tell us what we can expect. That is not so, and I will give the house a concrete example. Last night, according to the official bulletins in the elevators in the parliament buildings, the temperature in Ottawa reached a minimum of 4 degrees above zero which would be more than enough to create a navigational hazard on the St. Lawrence. I understand that the lowest temperature reached in Brockville was 14 and that the lowest in Montreal was 13, which is not enough to cause a navigational hazard. Therefore in spite of the fact that Ottawa is so near the St. Lawrence valley the fact remains that we are in a different weather belt, and I believe our request for a weather station should be given consideration with the least possible delay.
On motion of Mr. Fulford the debate was adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
At ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, December 2, 1952