1952-05-30

Mr. E. D. Fulton (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I base it on citation 198 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary-Rules and Forms, third edition, dealing with with statements referring to members of a committee of this house. There has just come to my attention an article appearing in the Vancouver Province of May 26, 1952, over which there is the heading, "Redistribution Pattern Appears". There is in this case no map in the paper as there was in another case but there is a very complete and detailed description of the proposed changes in the boundaries of constituencies in that province. Not only is there a detailed description but there is a statement that the changes in boundaries of some of the ridings have been agreed to by the members of the British Columbia subcommittee. I want to make it clear at the outset that as a member of that subcommittee I have not agreed to any such changes as outlined here. The article states:
Boundaries of the latter-
The reference is to one of the proposed new ridings.
-are far from settled by the B.C. subcommittee of the house committee on redistribution. But the outline of the former-
That refers to another proposed change.
-is fairly well set. It will run across Vancouver from east to west between the present Vancouver South and Vancouver-Quadra ridings-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I doubt whether this is a question of privilege that should be raised at this time in the house. The hon. member apparently is referring to certain matters that have taken place in the committee.


Edmund Davie Fulton: No, Mr. Speaker. Might I be allowed' to direct Your Honour's attention to the fact that I am not referring to something which took place in the committee but rather to a report outside to the effect that the committee has agreed on something which it has not agreed upon at all. In other words, the report is saying that something has taken place in the subcommittee which has not taken place.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I do not think that is a question of privilege to be raised at this time in the house. If it is an inaccurate report the hon. member can say that it is an inaccurate report, but I do not think I should allow a long statement with respect to it at this time. The committee is sitting and the inaccuracy can be corrected at the sittings of the committee.


Edmund Davie Fulton: On a point of order, I would refer Your Honour to citation 198 which reads:
Scandalous charges or imputations directed against members of a select committee are equivalent to libelous charges brought against the house itself . . .
The point of order is that I have been charged with having agreed to something in that committee-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Edmund Davie Fulton: -which I have not agreed to.


An hon. Member:: Lese-majeste.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Some of the proposed charges certainly are scandalous.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Edmund Davie Fulton: What I wish to raise by way of privilege is the fact that I have not agreed, I want to make it clear that I have not agreed to most of the changes outlined.


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member has done that now.


Edmund Davie Fulton: On another question of privilege directed to the same subject, I want to say that as a member of the house I feel if there are detailed changes to be made which are apparently within the knowledge of the Liberal members of that subcommittee then they should be made known first to that subcommittee and not to the press outside of the house.


Mr. Knowles:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think that matter should be raised in the committee, and not in the house.



EMERGENCY POWERS ACT


Righi Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: I should like to lay on the table

Beef-Floor Price
two copies of order in council P.C. 3197, dated today, based upon the resolutions of the houses of parliament and giving effect to them in extending the duration of the Emergency Powers Act up to and including the 30th day of May, 1953.



PENITENTIARIES


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of Justice):: Last night in the committee of supply, Mr. Speaker, I undertook wih the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) to table the most recent menus for the week ending May 24, 1952, received at headquarters from the penitentiaries of Canada. I do so now.


Mr. Pouliot:: I thank the minister, and the menu is excellent.



ANNOUNCEMENT OF CONTINUATION OF FLOOR PRICE

Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Minister of Agriculture):: Before motions are proceeded with, Mr. Speaker, I desire to make a statement concerning the floor price on beef cattle. I am pleased to be able to inform the house that the floor price for cattle now in effect will continue without change until at least September 1. Hon. members will recall that when the floor price was announced on April 9, the price of 25 cents a pound for good steers, basis delivery at Toronto and Montreal, was to continue in effect until July 1. It was indicated also that the price would be reviewed before June 1, and a further announcement would be made to be effective during July. It was suggested at that time that the matter would be again reconsidered from month to month. I am now suggesting that it will not be reconsidered until September 1, and that the floor price will remain on the same basis until that date.
In view of favourable developments in the marketing of cattle and the sale of meat, it has been decided that the price can be made firm until September 1. The developments to which I refer are, first, that cattle marketings are running at about 25 per cent below the level of last year to the same date. This indicates that farmers are co-operating fully by withholding from market cattle which might normally have been offered for sale; secondly, under the beef exchange agreement with Great Britain and New Zealand it now appears that we can deliver substantially nore beef than was first expected. This is due
[Mr. St. Laurent.l
to the fact that New Zealand, after reviewing their prospective cattle marketings for the balance of the season, have indicated that the quantity of beef available for diversion might approximate 80 million pounds as compared with the original estimate of around 50 million. Eighty million pounds of beef is equal to about 160,000 cattle of average weights as marketed in Canada.
I might add that beef already purchased or offered by the trade amounts to nearly 18 million pounds. Shipping space has been booked and other arrangements made for the orderly delivery of this beef to Great Britain. While no actual deliveries of New Zealand meat have yet been made to United States markets, diversions have been ordered and it is expected that deliveries will be made within the next few weeks.
Another development of fundamental importance is that it is now nearly four weeks since the last known cases of foot-and-mouth disease were dealt with by slaughter and burial. It is expected that by the end of this week all 42 premises on which infected or incontact animals had been slaughtered will have been disinfected for a second time. The placing of test animals on a number of the premises will begin next week. The test animals will be confined on the premises for a period of sixty days, during which they will be kept under close observation and the premises will, of course, be kept under close quarantine. The fact that the disinfection and testing procedures have reached this stage gives reasonable ground for the belief that the disease is under control.
I think I should add that the control procedures have been under continuous observation by veterinarians of the United States department of agriculture, and that we have every reason to believe that the United States authorities regard the work as having been done effectively.
May I conclude this statement by expressing a word of appreciation to the farmers and marketing agencies of the country who have co-operated so fully in regulating the flow of cattle to market. With a continuance of this co-operation, of which we undoubtedly can be assured, I am confident that floor prices can be maintained and that the cattle industry can look forward with confidence.



TAX AGREEMENTS


Hon. Douglas Abbott (for the Minister of National Revenue) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. 289, to amend the Canada-France Income Tax Convention Act, 1951.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Explain.


Douglas Charles Abbott: As the title of this bill implies, it is a bill to confirm certain proposed amendments to the Canada-France Income Tax Convention Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT BANK ACT


Douglas Charles Abbott: the first reading of Bill No. 279 (from the Senate), to amend the Industrial Development Bank Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 278, to incorporate the National Dental Examining Board of Canada.-Mr. MacDougalL
Bill No. 280, for the relief of John Harold Roger Wright.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill	No.	281,	for	the relief	of Agathe
Neubauer Landsberg.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 282, for the relief of Norma May Attridge Chilton.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill	No.	283,	for	the relief	of Andrea
Gendron Repper.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 284, for the relief of Edith Bessie Franks Parsons.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill	No.	285,	for	the relief	of Annie
Teresa Nash Pelltari.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill	No.	286,	for the relief	of Mary
Clemence Morice Waldbauer.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 287, for the relief of John Gordon Smithers.-Mr. Winkler.

[Stage Direction]
ro PROVIDE	FOR ADMINISTRATION

Stuart Sinclair Garson: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Combines Investigation Act to provide for the administration of the act, under the Minister of Justice, by an officer to be known as the director of investigation and research, for inquiries to be made by the director, and for the appointment of such director, deputy directors of investigation and research, and such other persons as may be required: to provide also for the establishment of a commission to be known as the restrictive trade
Proposed Legislation
practices commission consisting of not more than three members appointed by the governor in council, tor the appointment of temporary substitute members upon such terms and conditions as the governor in council may prescribe: and to provide further for the salaries, remuneration and expenses of the director, the commissioners, the officers, clerks, employees, temporary technical and special assistants.
He said:	His Excellency the Governor
General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. Alphonse Fournier (for the Minisier of Citizenship and Immigration) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure respecting immigration to amend, consolidate and clarify the Immigration Act, and inter alia to provide for the making of loans to immigrants in respect to the costs of their transportation, and living expenses en route, to their place of destination in Canada: to provide also for the payment, out of moneys appropriated by parliament, of the costs of transportation of divers categories of persons from Canada in certain cases.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs? What is Canada's stand with respect to the UNESCO treaty, which came into operation just a few days ago, concerning the removal of tariffs from books and similar items? Can the minister say whether we have signed the treaty? If not, why not?


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secretary of Slate for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman was good enough to give me notice of this question, the answer to which is that we have not signed the treaty.
I might say that while the Canadian government is in sympathy with measures to promote and facilitate the international movement of educational, scientific and cultural materials, it has not been possible for Canadian representatives to agree with the

Supply-Defence Production particular proposals embodied in this UNESCO agreement. This treaty or agreement unfortunately does not bind its signatories to remove protective restrictions embodied in their copyright laws or in their quantitative import controls. It would bind countries to abolish their tariffs, which in most cases are not the real obstacles to trade in these matters, while leaving the real obstacles untouched. Many of these educational, scientific and cultural items, I understand, already enter Canada free of duty, and the Canadian tariffs on the remainder are quite modest.
It is felt that it would be difficult to justify the complete removal of our tariffs at a time when other countries were retaining their own special forms of protection which would not have been touched by this treaty.

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



DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE PRODUCTION

[Stage Direction]
79. Departmental administration and payments to Canadian Commercial Corporation and other corporate agencies for services provided in connection with defence purchasing and production, $7,332,402.
Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Defence Production):: Mr. Chairman, when introducing the estimates of the Department of Defence Production a year ago, I indicated that we were embarking on a three-year defence production program, and at that time I outlined in considerable detail the main segments of the program. Again in October, in this chamber, I made a fairly lengthy statement, and on March 31 tabled a report of the Department of Defence Production, covering the period April 1 to December 31, 1951. This report has been available to all hon. members for some time. In addition, a special committee on defence expenditures has been given a great mass of detail concerning defence procurement. In consequence, it is not my intention to describe once again the details of the program.
During the fiscal year 1952-53, present plans contemplate the expenditure by this department of $1,400 million of the moneys voted by parliament for the defence program. Last year at this time our estimated expenditure was some $1,100 million but, as you know, actual expenditures fell short of the estimate by about $200 million, owing largely to developmental and production problems at home and to delays in delivery of military items from abroad.

Our difficulties last year arose through delays in delivery of machine tools, and particularly to delay in securing drawings and specifications from the United States, especially those involving classified projects. Many of these problems have now been overcome to a large extent.
During the last fiscal year, our machine tool division placed orders for more than $31 million worth of machine tools. While this was a definite bottleneck last year, the situation today is materially improved. A substantial number of deliveries have been made and delivery schedules on outstanding orders are, for the most part, satisfactory. We have also secured most of the information necessary to enable us to decide whether we should undertake production in Canada of military items, or whether these should be procured from the United States or abroad.
With regard to security problems, particularly those related to the exchange of classified material, this country has recently signed a security agreement with the United States, under which we take responsibility for security measures in connection with classified U.S. orders placed in this country, and the U.S. government agrees to accept the same responsibility in that country. The agreement contains terms which facilitate the movement of classified material across the border, and enables manufacturers in either country to visit classified establishments in the other country.
Whereas 1951-52 was a period of preparation and organization, 1952-53 will produce actual deliveries and completed facilities.
Without going into details, I might refer briefly to our major production programs. First is aircraft, and the production of two types of jet fighter aircraft constitutes the major projects in this program. Current production of the F-86E at Canadair is twice the rate originally planned, and it is expected to be doubled again by the end of the year. As was announced, we have been able to make some of these aircraft available to the United States out of this year's production, and it is anticipated that further sales will be made out of next year's output. F-86E's will also be made available to the United Kingdom as part of our mutual aid program.
At A. V. Roe it has been necessary to completely design a new fighter aircraft and jet engine-something never previously undertaken in Canada-before production could begin. There has been a great deal of uninformed comment regarding this program, and I should like to put a few facts on the

record. First, let me say that we did not undertake the development of a new type plane and engine just to prove how clever we were or in a spirit of national pride. In general, I am quite satisfied to let others take on the headaches of developmental work in the aircraft field, while we specialize in the production of proven types.
In this case, however, there was no plane in existence that would, in the estimate of competent military authorities, be suitable as an all-weather fighter that could be used in the defence of northern Canada. The only alternative was to produce one in this country. This we undertook to do, and so far the record is reasonably satisfactory. I do not say that we have not had setbacks and delays; we have. However, in comparison to similar programs in other countries, we have made good progress.
For example, the complete design, development, and manufacture of the first CF-100 prototype was accomplished over a period of three years and four months, which was less by several months than the elapsed time to date of the first prototype test flight of the Hawker P.1067, or the Gloster GA-5, both of which are military-type aircraft produced by firms whose development facilities and experience greatly exceed those of A. V. Roe, Canada, Limited. Furthermore, the time required to produce and fly the first production model of the CF-100 compared very favourably with other aircraft of similar type.
Similarly, in the case of the Orenda engine, the two years and six months required from commencement of design to the first test-run was one month less than required for the Rolls-Royce Avon engine, and only a few months longer than required for development of the Sapphire by Armstrong Siddeley.
It is interesting to note just how much has been done in the A.V. Roe plant in the last three years. The following are some of the
facts:
A.V. Roe completed the design and development of the CF-100 fighter between October 1946 and January 1950, a period of slightly over three years. They produced two prototype CF-100 fighter aircraft using United Kingdom Avon engines, and then developed the aircraft using Canadian Orenda engines. They produced one aircraft set of components for test purposes at national research council. In addition, they have developed a plastic canopy for high altitude operation and a satisfactory radome, which is a precision formed plastic nose for radar installation.
As far as the CF-100 aircraft is concerned, tlje company delivered the first pre-production aircraft in June 1951, which is now used by
Supply-Defence Production the company for continued testing and development. The second pre-production aircraft was delivered in October 1951. It was returned for modification owing to structural defect in the wing, but this has now been corrected. Two pre-production aircraft have been delivered to the R.C.A.F. and are now in use for training purposes. Three additional preproduction aircraft have been completed and are now in flight test by the company. Three more aircraft are completely assembled on the final assembly line, in process of equipment installation. The tenth pre-production aircraft is complete structurally and has been transferred to experimental shops for trial installation of certain airborne equipment.
Deliveries of the CF-100 under the main production contract are scheduled to commence in August, 1952. For security reasons, it would be inappropriate to review our planned rate of production, but I have every reason to believe that A.V. Roe will live up to our agreed production schedule, as long as certain electronic equipment can be secured from the United States.
The picture on the Orenda engine is even better. A.V. Roe completed design and development of the TR-5 Orenda engine between April, 1947 and March, 1950, a period slightly less than three years, including complete design and development of the smaller version of the Orenda which is used for test purposes.
They have produced twenty development engines, and ten sets of spare parts for development engines and have completed the 150-hour official type test on the Orenda engine in record time.
They have completed twelve pre-production engines for use in the CF-100 aircraft, and twenty-five sets of spare parts for these engines.
Sixteen Orenda engines on the main production contracts have been produced, and a further thirty-five engine sets completed and in process of assembly.
These few comments may serve to provide hon. members with some measure of the job that has been done by A. V. Roe. It is true that they have not fulfilled every optimistic forecast, but I am satisfied that a good job has been done and that within a few months they will be producing in excess of the schedules established earlier this year.
The other projects at Canadair, de Havil-land, and Canadian Car and Foundry, are all progressing according to plan. As you know, a substantial portion of our aircraft program involves production for United States account. I have just had word that it is the intention of the United States:

Supply-Defence Production government to place another contract in Canada for a new type of trainer aircraft.


Mr. Green:: How much will that involve?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I would not like to give the amount; the contract is not signed yet.
The shipbuilding program, as presently outlined for the three-year period, amounts to approximately a quarter of a billion dollars. The major project in the program is the construction of 14 destroyer escort vessels, which are primarily of Canadian design and will be almost entirely Canadian made. The propulsion machinery and some of the associated output going into these vessels is being made in Canada for the first time, adding considerably to industrial know-how, as well as to manufacturing facilities in this country. Another major part of the program is the 14 minesweepers now under construction for the Canadian navy which are among the most modern in design for this type of vessel. Three have been launched to date and an additional four will be launched within the next three months. The remaining vessels are expected to be off the ways by the end of the year.
The gun program has an estimated three-year value of approximately $130 million, and of this about $90 million will probably be placed with Canadian manufacturers. The major gun project is the production of the 3" 50 calibre naval gun at Sorel Industries. Deliveries will begin next month.
The first prototype gun has already been through its tests in Canada and has been delivered to the United States navy. It may interest hon. members if I read a wire sent by Admiral Schoeffel, of the United States navy, to the president of Sorel Industries Limited. I quote:
Congratulations on successful completion of first mount. I went to the gun factory to see Sorel's first 3-inch 50 twin gun mount upon completion of its initial inspection there. Admiral Hannon, superintendent of the naval gun factory, met me with a broad smile on his face and said: "This set a record. It is the first gun mount manufactured outside of this factory that has ever in our history passed all inspection with flying colours on its very first submission.'' I extend my most hearty congratulations to United States navy inspection personnel and to the personnel of Sorel for this outstanding achievement in the production of a very complex and difficult item of ordnance. The naval gun factory personnel were loud in their praises of workmanship.
The plant of Sorel Industries, at Sorel, and the Longueuil plant operated by this company, will be the major contractors for all artillery produced in Canada, in order that the department may make full use of the highly-trained staff of gun experts that have been assembled in these two plants. In addition to the 3" 50 calibre naval gun, the program for these plants will include the 105 mm. and 155 mm.
[Mr. Howe.l

Supply-Defence Production because of the ready co-operation of Canadian industry and the flexibility of our industrial structure in this country. Wherever formal orders have been issued, end-use restrictions have been sparingly used. In all but a very small minority of cases, informal consultation between industry and government has been sufficient to get the job done in a satisfactory manner, without saddling the country with an intricate and extensive control apparatus.
During some months of the past year certain strategic materials have been in very tight supply. Probably the most serious of these has been stee1, particularly plate, heavy structural, stainless steel, and seamless tubes. Although our own steel industry has been producing at capacity, and we have been able to import some 750,000 tons of steel more than in the preceding year, it has not been possible to supply all our demands. Many less essential projects have had to be deferred. But I think it is accurate to say that very few direct defence projects have been delayed significantly for reasons connected solely with a shortage of materials. This can properly be considered a measure of the effectiveness of our policies in this regard.
Apart, however, from the most efficient use of the available materials, it is heartening to note the solid progress that has been made during the last twelve months in the development of additional capacity to produce strategic materials. In previous statements in the house-when I last spoke on this department's estimates-I mentioned the expansion that was then getting under way in the steel industry. This expansion has gone forward with all possible co-operation from the government, and is continuing today. Some parts of this program have been completed and when the other parts are completed this year and next, a most important addition will have been made to the country's industrial base. Our primary capacity will then be greater than it was in 1950 by about one-third and a wider variety of products will be turned out by the industry than formerly.
In Quebec and Labrador the work preparatory to the production of iron ore, including construction of a 350-mile railway line from Seven Islands to Burnt Creek, has been speeded up. It now seems possible that delivery of ore will begin sooner than was originally expected, perhaps as early as 1954.
The defence requirements for nickel have resulted in a serious shortage of that metal. Our two major suppliers, International Nickel Company of Canada, Limited, and Falcon-bridge Nickel Mines, Limited, have been expanding their production. Sherritt-Gordon Mines, Limited, are making rapid progress in opening up their Lynn Lake deposits, and 
initial production from the new property is expected early in 1954. These developments will result in a substantial increase in the supply of this essential metal for the free world.
The mill at the Emerald tungsten mine, to which I referred last year, has been put in operation and is now producing substantial amounts of tungsten concentrates. Similarly, our incentive price schedule for cobalt has resulted in a 50 per cent increase in the available supplies of this essential metal.
The vast undertaking of the Aluminum Company of Canada in British Columbia scarcely needs emphasis. Furthermore, this company is making very substantial additions to its capacity to produce aluminum in Quebec. As Canadian production of aluminum is far greater than the amount we use, it is worth noting that this economic producer will be in a position to continue to meet competition anywhere in the world.
The exploration and development of our petroleum resources in western Canada goes on at a rising rate. Already more than one-third of Canada's domestic requirements of petroleum and petroleum products are being met from supplies produced in this country. If the discovery of oil and gas continues at the present rate, Canada should be able to produce the equivalent of its own requirements of these materials within the next decade.
The expansion of our chemicals industry has been very rapid. The world shortage of sulphur has required some limitation of our normal requirements, but a number of projects to relieve this shortage have been undertaken. The Shell Oil Company has completed a small plant at Jumping Pound,. Alberta, to recover elemental sulphur from natural gas and the Royalite Oil Company has-a similar plant scheduled to be completed very shortly. At Copper Cliff a plant to-recover sulphur dioxide gas for use in the paper industry will be completed later this-year and several paper companies are installing equipment to roast our native pyrites rather than rely on imported sulphur. Additional sulphuric acid capacity has been, installed to use Canadian pyrite or other sulphides as the source of sulphur for the basic chemical.
Apart from the plants built to relieve the sulphur shortage, Canada has witnessed a very great expansion in its other chemical operations. Some $200 million is being invested in new plants to make petrochemicals nylon intermediates, plastic components for structural and insulation purposes, chlorine and caustic soda and a wide range of other basic chemicals. Many of these plants will produce chemicals not.

hitherto made in Canada, but which are needed in our expanding industrial development.
I have referred to the current easing in pressure upon the supply of some strategic materials. This is occurring not only in Canada but also in the United States and in other countries of the free world. Thus, whatever action it is thought feasible to take in Canada, by way of relaxing our present controls, must take into account what is done elsewhere. It is necessary, for example, to give due consideration to the recommendations of the international materials conference on materials which are still under allocation by that body. And the degree and rate of decontrol in the United States likewise bears upon our decisions in Canada.
I scarcely need say that the government, like industry, would welcome a return to conditions where the supply of materials is such that normal commercial channels would provide satisfactory distribution. For some materials this is now possible.
Just a few days ago non-ferrous metals orders 6, 7 and 8 were revoked eliminating all controls on zinc, cadmium and antimony. The situation regarding other materials will be watched very carefully and remaining controls will be relaxed or removed as rapidly as it appears advisable.
In closing I would like to repeat that we are now entering another phase of the defence production program. Industry now has a pretty clear idea of the general outline of the program. We have passed through the major part of the development and tooling-up stage, and this year will mark the first year of volume production with deliveries coming forward at an increasing rate. I would also like to remind the house once again that this program has a large element of insurance in it. At the same time that we are producing the weapons and equipment needed to maintain a modern army we are further expanding our industrial strength. On both counts, I am satisfied we will meet our objectives.


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Chairman, the statement just made by the Minister of Defence Production will require a great deal of study and I would not presume to attempt today to deal with all the details he has furnished the committee. However, we on this side of the house have several subjects to place before him and the committee with regard to the work of this department and we would ask the minister to let us have his comments on these different questions.
The amount of money sought by the department for this fiscal year amounts to something over $98 million, but in addition the minister
Supply-Defence Production and his department will be spending approximately $1,400 million for the Department of National Defence, as he explained in opening his remarks today. That portion of the defence department estimates is about two-thirds of their total vote and is about one-third of the total moneys for all departments voted for the present fiscal year. So this Department of Defence Production is by far the most important spending department of the government. For that reason, as well as the importance of the estimates now being considered, these matters should mean a great deal to the committee and to the country.
I regret that the details given in the estimates are so scanty as to make it most difficult to get much of a picture of what is being done by this department. I hope that in another year it will be possible to have more details given. We had a very good report from the department covering the period from its inception on April 1, 1951, until the end of that year. But I do hope that in future years we shall have greater details and that the estimates of the department will be broken down into further subheadings.
The first comment I wish to make today with regard to the work of the department is that the minister seems to be placing much of his emphasis on the fact that this is a three-year plan. I think he called it a three-year defence production program. That program started well over a year ago so that we are now in the second year and the plan is almost half completed. I believe that the world situation today is such that it calls for a degree of permanence with respect to the functions of the Department of Defence Production, but there does not seem to have been much consideration given to the longterm work of the department. Mind you, there may not be a long period of tension, but the only thing that will prevent it is a third world war or a great change in the attitude of the communists.
The whole plan of the freedom loving nations is 'based on becoming so strong and remaining so strong that the communists dare not start a third world war. I believe that the Department of Defence Production should make its plans accordingly. Yet in the speech of the minister today and in the published report of the department all the emphasis has been placed on the three-year program. I point out, for example, that on page 156 of the estimates we find that this department has 75 officials who are described as officers on loan from business and industry, and for whom salary provision is not required. The different positions are listed which they hold. I take it that most of these positions are very important ones
2748	HOUSE OF
Supply-Defence Production in the Department of Defence Production. I am not quarrelling with that situation, at the moment, but there seems to be a clear indication that the department is working on an emergency basis and is taking men from industry for a short period of time and not paying them a salary because their salaries are paid by their firms. It seems to be an emergency operation, a short-term plan.
When the three-year period has expired, even if the department is able to complete its program there will still be need for a great deal of work to be done by the department. I notice that on page 9 of the annual report their main responsibilities are summarized as procurement of all requirements of the Department of National Defence, and second, the responsibility for taking whatever steps are necessary to ensure an adequate supply of materials to support the defence procurement program. That work will carry on indefinitely, certainly as long as we are living in this present state of tension. When the minister replies I would ask him to give us some idea of the plans of his department for the period at the end of the three-year program which, as I said, is less than two years from the present time. That is the first subject on which I would ask him to comment.
My second suggestion is that the time has now come to look again at the extreme powers given to the department last year when the Defence Production Act first became law. I refer particularly to the power which is described in the United States as the seizure power. As hon. members know, there have been great arguments in the United States within the last few weeks concerning President Truman's action in seizing the steel industry, apparently relying on his powers as the chief executive officer of that great nation. The question as to whether or not he had the right to do so is now before the supreme court of the United States, and until it is settled no one can say whether or not the President had the right to take that drastic action.
I do not doubt for a minute that most Canadians have been patting themselves on the back, if that were physically possible, and saying: The Americans may have troubles like that but it could not happen in Canada. Actually under the Defence Production Act it could happen in Canada, and there could not be any question about the legality of a seizure of that type simply because of the terms of the act. I would refer you, Mr. Chairman, to section 27 of the Defence Production Act passed about a year ago, which reads as follows:
(1) Where the minister is satisfied that
(a)	a person who has entered into a defence contract has failed! or is likely to fail-


Those are pretty far-reaching words; they could not be much more so.
-to perform the contract in a businesslike and efficient manner,
(b)	a person who has entered into a defence contract has failed to keep proper and detailed accounts and records of the cost of the work performed under the contract, or
(c)	a person to whom a direction has been given under section 23-
Section 23 enables the minister to order' a person to comply with a contract.
-or who is required pursuant to a regulation to give priority in the carrying on of his business to the production of or dealing in defence supplies, or construction of defence projects has failed without reasonable excuse to comply with the direction or regulation or the minister is satisfied that he will so fail or is likely so to fail-
Again these are terribly wide powers.
-the minister may authorize another person (in this act called a "controller") to carry on, until the minister otherwise directs, the whole or any part of the business of that person.
(2) Where a controller has been appointed to carry on a business or a part thereof, he shall be deemed to be the agent of the owner thereof for the purpose of carrying on the business or that part thereof, except that the owner shall not have any right to control the business or that part thereof and the controller may-
"The owner shall not have any right", mind you.
-subject to any instructions of the minister, do all such things as he thinks fit for the purpose of carrying on the business or that part thereof.
Then, the third subsection gives the power to compel industry to furnish whatever information is required by the controller. Not only does the minister have this drastic seizure power, but he can assign that right to one of his officials. In section 5 of the Defence Production Act, we find these words under the sidenote, "Minister's authority to assign powers":
The minister may authorize any person, on his behalf and under his control and direction, to do any act or thing or to exercise any power that the minister may do or exercise under this act.
Today we are legally in the position that the minister or anyone he chooses to authorize can seize practically any industry in Canada- certainly, he could seize the steel industry. That power was clearly a wartime power. We brought that point up during the debate last year, and the Prime Minister admitted that it was a war power. I would refer members to page 908 of Hansard for March 5, 1951, where I asked this question of the Prime Minister:
Then may I ask the Prime Minister whether any further powers would be required to carry out defence production if we were actually in a third world war?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I do not anticipate there would be.
He made a statement to the same effect on the following page. We also find that

clearly set out in the report of the department, which we received a short time ago, at page 14:
Although the powers now in effect are virtually the same as those which existed during the last war, it has been understood that these powers would be used to the minimum extent necessary.
The minister admitted a year ago that he had had the co-operation of industry up to that date. On the same page of Hansard I asked him this question:
But has there been any difficulty that would require the taking over of a business, for example?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Not yet, no.


Howard Charles Green: Nothing of that kind?


Clarence Decatur Howe: No.
Today the minister has said that he has been getting ready co-operation from the business world of Canada. He has said also that the general situation is much better, that materials are in much better supply. He said that we had now entered a new phase in this defence production program. He intimates everything is going along very well. I do suggest in all earnestness that the time has now come to give up that seizure power. I believe that it has not been necessary at all. I do not believe that such a power should ever have been taken in peacetime. I think it is unfair to the Canadian people to continue that power on the statute books of Canada. There would be plenty of other powers left in the Defence Production Act to enable the minister and his officials to carry on their program without any difficulty.
The third subject on which I would ask a comment from the minister is this. Has the time not come to consider the distribution of Canadian defence orders by countries? I do not intend to deal with the distribution of defence orders in the different parts of Canada; that will be brought up by other members of our party. I am referring to the orders to be placed outside of Canada. At page 51 of the department report we find what is called "Appendix G", and it is entitled, "Distribution of Canadian defence orders by countries, from April 1 to December 31, 1951." This list shows that there was a total of $1,431,000,000 worth of orders placed during the period. Broken down into areas, you have $987,500,000-I am only giving the round figures-worth of orders placed within Canada. Orders to almost half of that value, namely $412,600,000 were placed in the United States, and only $31,400,000 were placed in other countries. A very small proportion of these orders which went beyond the orders of Canada were placed in any country other than the United States.
We all know that there have been large purchases of defence material from our neighbouring country. We know also that it has
Supply-Defence Production been pretty much a one-way street. When we were first told about this program we were led to expect that large United States orders would be placed in Canada. I do not know what the figures are at the present time, but certainly up until this year the amount of defence equipment ordered by the United States has been very small compared with the moneys Canada has expended for defence equipment in the United States.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Would the hon. member like the figure?


Howard Charles Green: Yes, I should like the minister to give the figure later.


Clarence Decatur Howe: You said it was very small, and perhaps I should correct that. It stands today at $195 million.


Howard Charles Green: For what period?


Clarence Decatur Howe: That is to date.


Howard Charles Green: From what time would that run?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Almost from the beginning of the defence program.


Howard Charles Green: Is that from April 1, 1951, or from what date?


Clarence Decatur Howe: From July 1, 1951, to date.


Howard Charles Green: That is equal to a little over half of the orders we have placed in the United States.


Clarence Decatur Howe: More than that and United States orders are coming in very fast.


Howard Charles Green: There would be great benefit to Canada if as many of these products as possible could be purchased from the United Kingdom rather than from the United States. This is not the place to go into the details on that, but I would point out that in British Columbia we are extremely worried about selling our canned salmon, our lumber and our apples. The only reason we cannot sell them to the United Kingdom is because of the exchange situation. If Canada bought more war equipment in the United Kingdom, she would sell that much more of her own products. I do not think that could be questioned. I repeat that the time has come to consider again this question of the distribution of defence orders which go outside of our country.
Then it would seem that it would be wise also to review again this policy of a widespread standardization with the United States in the use of military equipment. We have that referred to throughout the report of the department. For example, at page 22 we find: As a result of the government's decision to adopt United States-type of army equipment, this division, in order to meet the most urgent requirements.

Supply-Defence Production negotiated with United States authorities for the purchase of initial supplies of many types of ammunition.
Then at page 23:
The decision to standardize on United States army equipment on most items necessitated early decisions regarding types of weapons that could efficiently be produced in Canada.
It has not worked out just as well as had been expected. A little further down on the same pages we find paragraphs which give some idea of the difficulties. For example, on page 22 there is this paragraph:
Because of the failure to agree on standardization of small arms, there was little production of smaller calibre ammunition, although some export orders were received for the types previously produced in Canada.
And at page 23:
Contracts placed for small arms have been limited, due to failure to achieve international agreement on standardization for these types of equipments. However, orders have been placed in Canada for -50 Browning machine guns and small quantities of -22 rifles and survival weapons.
Then we find another result on page 25 of the report where there is mention of tanks. We find this paragraph:
Tanks had been ordered from the United States, but in November action on these orders was suspended, and a contract demand was received for the purchase of Centurion tanks from the United Kingdom.
That is a good illustration of the point I am placing before the minister. The government set out to get United States tanks. Then they could not get them, or it was found that they were not as good as Centurion tanks produced in the United Kingdom. Now we are to get tanks from Great Britain.
Canadian troops serving in Korea are serving in the commonwealth division and Canadian troops in Germany are serving with or are attached to the troops of the United Kingdom. I believe that the government has been making a fetish of equipping Canadians with United States equipment, and that that decision should be reviewed without further delay.
Among the orders placed in the United States last year we find $68 million for United States-type equipment for two infantry divisions. We sent our British equipment for three divisions overseas to the other NATO countries. Now we are starting to buy from the United States equipment for two divisions. We seem to be in the position that we do not know what sort of rifle our troops are going to use if there is another war. The British, of course, are planning to use the [DOT]280 and the Americans the Garand. Canada sits in between; and unless the situation has changed recently, is not making any rifles.
[Mr. Green.1
It is not known just what our troops are to use. That is a bad situation and it should be dealt with without delay.
Then there are two other questions to which I wish to direct attention. One is with regard to the shipbuilding program. Today the minister pointed to the war vessels we are building or which are being ordered. A statement will be found at page 25 of the report. It is stated there-and the minister confirmed it today-that there are to be fourteen escort vessels. What are they going to escort? I suggest to the committee that they will be escorting Canadian freighters or possibly freighters of other nations. Yet Canada is still in the position that she has nothing but old, slow cargo vessels built during the last war. We have not gone ahead with our plans for building modem vessels which themselves might be able to get away from submarines or which certainly would need far less protection than these old slow boats.
I think that building escort vessels is only building up the wall on one side. Do not forget that the merchant navy is a part of our forces, if a war comes. It is the fourth arm of the services. I am afraid that we are going to find ourselves with some nice, new, fast escort vessels and nothing but these old, slow cargo freighters which, as I said a week or two ago, are nothing more or less than sitting ducks for the fast Russian submarines. I suggest to the minister that a start be made now on modernizing Canada's merchant navy. That is really just as much a part of the defence plan as are all these other undertakings.
Then finally, I wish to mention one other subject on which the minister and I have had words on other days, and it is this. I should like to know what steps, if any, are being taken or are in contemplation to assist in the establishment of a steel industry in Canada west of the great lakes. At the present time there is no steel industry in that part of Canada other than perhaps small plants which can turn scrap metal into steel. At page 36 of the report I find this paragraph dealing with iron and steel:
The division-
The materials branch of the department. -has, where necessary, assisted Canadian iron and steel producers in obtaining essential materials and equipment in Canada or elsewhere for the maintenance or expansion of their facilities. Progress was made towards the expansion of Canada's basic iron and steel facilities during 1951.
I pointed out to the minister some months ago that iron ore was being shipped from British Columbia to Japan, and that we were buying back the steel at a tremendously

increased cost. We find that this practice is still going on. I have here a dispatch from the Vancouver press of May 5, just a few weeks ago, which sets out that they will be shipping 100,000 tons a month of iron ore from Quinsam on Vancouver island and Iron River and 30,000 tons a month from Texada island. There appears to be no plan under way by the department for getting a steel industry established in that part of Canada.
I was also surprised to read a report of a speech made by the Minister of Transport with regard to the use of the iron ore in Quebec and Labrador. The Minister of Defence Production said today that he expected that iron ore would be coming from those vast deposits by 1954; but he did not say anything about the use of that iron ore for further expansion of Canada's steel industry. On May 8 the Minister of Transport was reported as saying at Quebec:
The federal government is keeping in mind the possibility of an expanded Canadian steel industry through use of Quebec-Labrador iron ore, transport minister Chevrier said tonight.
However, he said it is still too early to make any positive prediction on the subject.
That appears to indicate that there is in the minds of the cabinet no plan to drive ahead for a greatly expanded Canadian steel industry using this iron ore deposit. I regret that. I hope there is actually some plan being worked out, because I believe that steel will always be the key to the future greatness of this nation. The minister says we are still very short and are going to be so short this year that many projects will have to be deferred. I hope he can give us some assurance on this point as well when he replies to the various subjects that have been raised this afternoon.
Those are all the points I wish to place before him at the moment. When we get into the general questioning, no doubt other matters will come up for consideration.


Stanley Howard Knowles: As the hon. member for Van-couver-Quadra has already pointed out there is a very close relationship between the estimates now before us, the estimates of the Department of Defence Production, and the estimates of the Department of National Defence.
Earlier this afternoon the Minister of Defence Production indicated that in addition to the sum of close to $100 million being asked for directly for the Department of Defence Production, his department is also handling the spending of $1,400 million in connection with the procurement of equipment for the Department of National Defence. That means that before us this afternoon we
Supply-Defence Production really have just about one-fifteenth of the expenditures in which the Minister of Defence Production has a hand.
With respect to that other huge sum, $1,400 million, we will of course have an opportunity to discuss it when we are on the estimates of the Department of National Defence, and also when the committee on defence expenditure makes its report back to the house. Nevertheless, I hope that during the course of these estimates we may get a little more explanation from the Minister of Defence Production as to the part that he or his department plays in the estimates of the Department of National Defence. I should like to know whether the Minister of Defence Production merely places the orders, merely plays the role of a delivery boy, although I find it hard to think of him in those terms. Does he just place the orders that are handed to him by the Department of National Defence, or does he personally examine the proposals of the Department of National Defence, and have something to say about the whole defence program?
The estimates that are before us relate to the setting up of plant and equipment, but we would be interested in knowing what part the minister plays in that other aspect of our defence expenditures. When the estimates of those two departments are submitted to treasury board, for example, are they submitted independently of each other, or are they submitted together? There are further questions, but they can be asked when we get to the stage where we are asking individual questions.
I should like also if the Minister of Defence Production would bring us up to date as to the picture in relation to the various plants in which public money has been invested. When we get down to one of the items of the estimates of the minister we find a reference to three different categories. First, there is the group known as private plants; then there is the group known as crown plants operating on a management-fee basis, and finally there is the group known as crown companies under the Minister of Defence Production.
We should like to know how much money has been invested in each of those categories of plants since the commencement of the Department of Defence Production; indeed since the commencement of the whole current defence program. We are also interested in the question as to the decentralization, or the lack of it, of industry. Indeed my colleague, the hon. member for Cape Breton South, will have something to say on that during the

Supply-Defence Production course of the discussion this afternoon, and he likewise will have something to say on the steel industry.
Mr. Chairman, I listened with interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Van-couver-Quadra. There were sections of what he had to say with which we are in agreement; but it follows from that, that there are some things that he said with which we do not agree. The only thing that bothers me about what I shall now be saying is that it always gives a bit of comfort to the Minister of Defence Production. He always likes the situation where the Tories are coming at him from one side and we are coming at him from the other. He says: I am all right; I am right in the middle. He should realize, however, that that is sometimes known as sitting on the fence.
At any rate, the hon. member for Van-couver-Quadra complained, in keeping with complaints he and the members of his party have made in the past, against the wide powers enjoyed by the Minister of Defence Production as set out in the act which set up the department. Our complaint against the minister is akin to the comment that we made the other day when we were on the resolution to extend the Emergency Powers Act. Our complaint is that some of the powers which were conferred upon the Minister of Defence Production have not been used. During the discussion of this measure last year it was brought out that the powers conferred upon the Minister of Defence Production included the power to control prices of goods and materials affected by the defence purchasing program.
I think I am stating the case fairly when I make that distinction; for the minister wanted it clear that he was not being given over-all price control powers. But he did admit that he would have the power to control prices where there was inflation, where there was an increase in prices, owing to defence purchasing.
There is no doubt but that the high level of prices, the high cost of living that our people are experiencing at the present time, is to a large extent due to that very factor, namely the very heavy stream of defence purchasing. We feel that the minister should long ago have made use of some of the powers that were conferred upon him by parliament to protect the living standards of the people.
I do not know of any case-there may be one, and if the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra can tell us about it and point it out I would be glad to hear it-where the people of Canada have suffered by the use

or the abuse of the powers that were conferred upon the Minister of Defence Production in this emergency legislation. I do know that the people of Canada have suffered because the powers under that legislation, together with the powers under the Emergency Powers Act, were not used to control prices and to protect the living standards of the Canadian people.
Similarly, I think along different lines from the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra when he expresses his concern over the power given to the Minister of Trade and Commerce to seize certain industries. Here, too, as so often happens, it seems to me that one can do a form of arguing just by the words he picks out. By using the word "seizure" one would seem to be suggesting something sinister and against the interests of the people. But there are times when what has been described as seizure by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra is nothing more or less than the people of a country, through their elected representatives, taking control of something of concern to all the people.
Members generally have no hesitancy in doing that sort of thing at a time of real crisis, such as a time of war. They do not object even to its being done in a time of apprehended war, or a time of defence preparation because of fear of war. But the minute the pressure is off, the minute there is a notion in some quarters that a state of crisis no longer exists, there is this plea that the people's representatives should leave the economy alone.
As a matter of fact in his remarks this afternoon the Minister of Defence Production came pretty close to that for which the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra is asking, because he said he was glad he had not been called upon to use his powers in the way some of us wanted him to use them. And he went on to express the private-enterprise dream and hope that it might be possible soon to get back to the normal way of doing things.
Well, that is our quarrel with both the Minister of Defence Production and his party, and with the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra and his party. They are quite prepared to have government ownership, government operation and direct economic controls when the demands of war are placed upon us, or even the demands of defence production. But they want none of that, except when confronted with that kind of crisis. We contend that the interests of the people of Canada as a whole, in terms of their standard of living, in terms of housing and in terms of social security deserve just

as much attention as do these special problems that arise at times of international crisis.
And so I wished simply to express our views in this matter. I have no doubt but that our position will be misinterpreted. I have no doubt some will say we want centralization and controls, and there will be the misleading use of the word "seizure", the word used this afternoon by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra. We do not advocate any of our ideas for their own sake; we want simply the same measure of economic democracy and the same control of the economy in peacetime that all parties are prepared to practise in wartime. All parties agree that in a time of war and a time of national emergency we have to face up to those situations and deal with them in the best way possible. We feel, further, that in peacetime the problems of housing and social security, together with our health and living standards, are of concern to the people, and that we should deal with them in the same sensible way. namely, the rule of law. In other words, we believe in economic democracy.


Mr. MacLean (Queens):: Mr. Chairman, I was specially interested in the closing remarks of the minister when, as I understood him, he said that our program of defence production was accomplishing not only its primary purpose, but also a secondary and beneficial one in that it was strengthening the industrial potential of the country. I am not yet convinced that his second statement is entirely true, because I feel that if the economy of our country is to be strengthened up to something approaching its greatest potential, then it must be done in the most beneficial way possible. And, unless conditions have changed over the last few months, I suggest the minister is not justified in making that assertion.
I was interested in a reply to questions asked by the hon. member for Brandon, as it is reported at page 691 of Hansard for November 5, 1951. There were two questions, as follows:
1.	What defence contracts, if any, have been awarded by the Department of Defence Production in each of the prairie provinces, monthly, since July 1, 1951?
2.	What defence contracts have been awarded in Ontario and Quebec, monthly, during the same period?
To those questions the parliamentary assistant replied:
At the last session a question similar in form to this one was asked, and at that time it was pointed out that it is not possible to give accurate figures in answer to this type of question. It was pointed out that lists of the contracts awarded are published each two weeks, and these lists of course are available to any member at any time. There
Supply-Defence Production is this weakness in them, that the address shown of the contractor is merely a mailing address and may or may not give an indication as to where the contract is being carried out.
If that statement means what I assume it means it implies that the Department of Defence Production keeps no check and makes no stipulations with regard to where defence production shall be carried on. It seems to me that that is one of the primary and fundamental requirements for a strong defence effort. After all we are not living in the days of 1914. This is 1952; and if world war III comes it is inevitable that we will be subjected to devastating atomic bombing by our potential enemy. We must live with that fact, and realize that if our defence production is to be effective it should be carried on in a way which will subject it to the least possible dangers in time of war.
In the same connection the hon. member for Moose Jaw, while speaking in the debate on December 3, 1951, is reported in Hansard as having given some interesting figures in connection with defence contracts allotted between April 1 and October 31, 1951. According to his figures -03 per cent-that is, three one-hundredths of one per cent-of all contracts were let in Newfoundland. About one third of one per cent were let in Prince Edward Island; about one third of one per cent in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories; and two per cent in Alberta; while at the same time more than 75 per cent of all contracts were let in Ontario and Quebec combined.
It seems to me that insufficient thought is given to a program which would require that defence production be carried out over a larger area and in a way which would permit two benefits to accrue-(1), the most important, that these industries would be relatively safe from attack in time of war and (2), which in the long run might be the more important of the two, the benefits which would accrue from the development of industries in our smaller centres and in the undeveloped parts of the country, including depressed areas. We have large areas in our country which are not able to absorb the natural increase in population. In that regard I should like to quote from an article with reference to the prairie provinces, as follows:
The prairie provinces have not merely failed to attract population from elsewhere. They are, in fact, losing their own population. Their natural increase (excess of births over deaths) during 194151 was 396,394; but their actual population increase was 115,644, It is clear from this that between 1941 and 1951 they lost 280,750 people-a disaster as great, from the population viewpoint, as if Winnipeg and its suburbs had been wiped off the map.

Supply-Defence Production
The same is true of the situation in the maritime provinces. These are things which should be of vital importance to the government, and especially to several ministers. In addition to the Minister of Defence Production they should be of vital interest to the minister of defence, the minister of health and welfare, and the Minister of Resources and Development. It is not only the sparsely settled and underdeveloped areas which suffer from this program, or perhaps I should say this lack of program; our larger cities also suffer. Population figures show that during the last ten years our large cities have tended to become larger and our small centres have not grown at as rapid a rate. There are whole areas which are experiencing hardly any development at all.
There are a great many disadvantages that stem from this unordered but rapid growth of our large cities. Our country is carrying a load of defence and social welfare costs which is necessary and to have saddled upon it these other unnecessary problems which arise from the rapid and disorganized growth of our large cities simply adds to the burden. These problems are many. There is the problem of communications and transportation. For instance, the city of Toronto has found it necessary to build an underground transportation system which is using up large amounts of concrete and reinforcing steel and things of that sort which could be used for defence purposes elsewhere. That construction would not be necessary if the present transportation system were not overloaded because of the rapidly increasing population. I cite that as an example, but there are many others that could be cited. May I quote from a press digest as follows:
Traffic tie-ups are not unusual in most Canadian cities and downtown parking space is similarly at a premium but New York city outdoes all rivals. The Times says that in the commercial centre-the nine square miles south of Sixtieth street-traffic is "slowing New York to an oxcart pace." The reasons:
Every working day 3,750,000 persons pour into that area.
Into its 270 miles of streets come 380,000 automobiles, trucks and busses.
The same sort of thing is beginning to happen even here in Ottawa. I understand that something like 50,000 motor vehicles have been registered in this area whereas there are parking spaces for only 6,000. These things place unnecessary loads on all municipalities. I maintain that they could be avoided if industry, especially defence industry, were encouraged to make use of the potentials in materials, manpower and transportation available in the smaller centres.
As our larger centres grow rapidly there is a tendency for the central parts to decay and

eventually become slums. In that connection, I should like to quote as follows:
Blighted areas work havoc with the cost side of the balance sheet as well. The disproportionate costs of blighted districts in a representative group of American cities are concisely demonstrated in the following relationships:
Although slums and blighted districts comprise about 20 per cent of the metropolitan residential areas they account for: 33 per cent of the population: 45 per cent of the major crimes; 55 per cent of the juvenile delinquency; 50 per cent of the disease; 45 per cent of the city service costs; 6 per cent of the real estate tax revenues.
That is one of the problems that our municipalities have to face at the present time. This situation is just as true for Canada, as the data available for major cities like Saint John, New Brunswick, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg and Vancouver indicate the same underlying conditions.
It has been shown also that our large cities are not healthful places in which to live. It has been shown statistically that tuberculosis is becoming a large-city disease. In 18 cities of the United States with populations of 500,000 or more the average tuberculosis death rate during 1947 to 1949 was 42-9 per 100,000 of population, as compared to only 29-6 per 100,000 of population for the whole country.
I do not wish to labour the point, but I believe it is true that it is not beneficial for our economy as a whole that our large cities should be allowed to get much larger while our smaller places are allowed to decay and not develop. I should like to press upon the government, and especially upon the Minister of Defence Production, since he could do the most about it simply because he probably spends more money than any other minister for production of various types, the evils of allowing our industries to congregate in a few centres.
In addition to what I have said about the problems which arise through large cities growing too rapidly there is the obvious danger from bombing. We must realize that if world war III ever becomes a reality we will be subjected to bombing, probably by atomic bombs which can destroy everything within a radius of half a mile and do great damage in a much greater radius. There are other disadvantages which ensue from allowing our industries to flock together in a few large centres.
For example, it has been estimated that it costs the workers in the A. V. Roe plant in Toronto approximately $12,000 a day merely to get to work. I know of a lot of small centres where a plant of that sort would be appreciated and where the whole

economy of the district could be improved without placing too great a load upon the present available housing and transportation facilities.
To be fair, the government probably has plans in this direction, at least I hope it has. I trust the government realizes the benefits of carrying out a program of dispersing industry over as large an area as possible, over all provinces and into small towns and rural areas, or into entirely new centres if necessary. I do not mean to suggest that existing plants should be uprooted and transferred somewhere else, but new plants should be built for the most part in the smaller communities, and when plants have to be replaced they should be rebuilt in some other area. It may be argued that large cities are necessary, that they are efficient and provide a better standard of living. I should like to quote briefly from a speech delivered by Alfred North Whitehead at Harvard university in 1930. It is published in a Pelican book called "Adventures of Ideas". He said:
Throughout the whole span of civilization up to the present moment, the growth of condensed aggregates of humans, which we call cities, has been an inseparable accompaniment of the growth of civilization. There are many obvious reasons: the defence of accumulated wealth behind city walls, the concentration of power in the form of human muscles and, later, in the form of available heat energy, the ease of mutual intercourse required for business relations, the pleasure from a concentration of aesthetic and cultural opportunities, the advantages of concentration of governmental and other directing agencies, administrative, legal and military. . . But, if we examine the trend of technology during the past generation, the reasons for this concentration are largely disappearing. Still more, the reasons for the choice of sites for cities are also altering. Mechanical power can be transmitted for hundreds of miles, men can communicate almost instantaneously by telephone.
He points out that large modern cities are not necessarily the most efficient areas of production, nor are they areas which produce the highest standard of living for a given income. I see one glimmer of hope in the report of the Department of Defence Production. On page 10 there is the following with reference to the department:
It also includes Defence Construction (1951) Limited, a crown company responsible for the construction of barracks, radar stations, and other defence projects, and a small industries division which seeks to ensure that all segments of Canadian industry are given an opportunity to make their appropriate contributions to the defence production program.
I hope that phase of the efforts of the Department of Defence Production will be pressed forward as strongly as possible, and that the maximum benefits accruing from such a program will be realized. There are a few things on which I should like to have some information from the minister. First of
Supply-Defence Production all, I am concerned with the problem of the mechanics of safeguarding our system of carrying on the work of what would be very important departments if a world war should suddenly start. What would be our position in the case of a Pearl Harbor type of attack on us? Is there any safeguarding of government files? Are there duplicate files somewhere else so that business could carry on the next day even if an atomic bomb were dropped somewhere in the minister's department tonight?
Hon. members are laughing, but if our defence production means anything its purpose is to prevent a third world war, and we may not be able to prevent it. If we are thinking of realities at all we must anticipate such an event and recognize that it is useless to build up a vast organization which can be destroyed overnight. It might be suggested of course that if an atomic bomb were dropped on Ottawa tonight business could not be carried on anyway because no doubt parliament would be destroyed. If we were lucky enough to have the bomb dropped on a Friday night I think a large number of members would escape the tragedy.
Some hon. members may take the attitude that there is not much that can be done about this situation. After all, how do you go about pushing industries around or telling them they cannot locate in one place and should locate somewhere else? Other countries have recognized this problem long ago. As is generally known, in Great Britain a royal commission was established to consider the distribution of industrial population, and out of its work came legislation such as the special areas act, the distribution of industry act and the town and country planning act, all of which are designed to develop the country evenly, to disperse its industry so it will be less vulnerable to attack and to increase employment in depressed areas.
For instance, in the case of the distribution of industry act, the introduction reads as follows:
An act to provide for the development of certain areas; for controlling the provision of industrial premises with a view to securing the proper distribution of industry; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid.
The United States has also realized that if their economy is to be helped and if the fabric of their production system is to be strong their industry must be dispersed and must have its roots in the small towns and hamlets as well as in the large cities. They recognize that if another war comes the large cities will be primary targets. Realizing that, the United States has already taken some action in this regard. I should like

Supply-Defence Production to read a news item reported in the U.S. News and World Report of August 13, 1948. It reads as follows:
A guide is being offered' to owners of industry who want to be as secure as possible in the event of future war. This guide calls for dispersal of plants in time of peace so as to be prepared for war.
Official advice to businessmen on how best to meet the threat of world war III is given by the national security resources board. This board, headed by Arthur M. Hill, is charged with planning to co-ordinate military, industrial and civilian defence. Its advice, given in a report just made, is this:
Decentralization should be seriously considered by industry in its long-range planning, with a shift of new plants away from centres of industry. Small towns offer the best opportunity for industries seeking safety in the event of war. Plants in these areas are least likely to be the object of bombing attacks.
On the subject of attack it has this to say:
Attack, when it comes, will aim at a few key industrial centres. Warning may not be given. No location in U.S. will be out of range of enemy bombers or enemy sabotage. Destructive effects may be many times those of Pearl Harbor. Attempt will be made to knock out key war industry with the first surprise blow. Atomic bombs probably will be used. Those bombs, in the past, have been able to destroy nearly everything within a radius of half a mile from their centre of detonation. They have caused moderate damage to all structures within another 1\ miles of that area. Allowing for future developments, the atom bomb is not expected to cause heavy damage beyond a distance of three miles from its point of detonation. Area destroyed by each bomb, thus, will be small. Number of bombs used will be relatively small. They are highly difficult to make, will remain very expensive. Being scarce, they must be used on concentrated targets of great strategic importance. An enemy in tne foreseeable future, thus, cannot bomb every big factory, even every big city.
That lends point to the argument that our industry should be dispersed so that each factory producing war material would be in a different location. Then any potential enemy could not possibly have enough atomic bombs to destroy them all.
Summing up, this board recommends the following principles with regard to industry in the United States, so that its potential war industry may be as strong as possible if world war III should occur. The accompanying chart is headed "Where to build factories in the atomic age." It says:
Safest sites are:
In cities of less than 50,000 people:
At least 10 miles from a major city;
At least 3 miles from any strategic industry;
In industrial areas of not more than 5 square miles;
Away from major air bases, dams, power plants;
In hilly country, rather than in a flat area.
Then, too, the important thing I have already mentioned is the beneficial effects which accrue to small towns and hamlets if they can contribute to the war potential in their own area. The United States has recognized that point. In that connection I

should like to quote briefly from an advertisement appearing on page 2 of Look for April 8, 1952. It says in part:
As a prime contractor for the armed forces, General Electric is a major producer of aircraft and ordnance systems, jet engines, and other defence weapons. However, the job is far from being a "one-company" affair. Over 17,000 subcontractors and suppliers are contributing manpower and materials to G.E.'s defence production. This policy of spreading the defence effort is supported and encouraged by the military services. And, most important, many of those companies are classified as "small business."
I think that is an extremely important statement. This advertisement goes on to illustrate the benefits which accrue to the small town which has a subcontractor within its limits. The particular community which is pictured is a little place in Maine called Waterville. I would remind the minister that Maine is just across the border from the maritimes, and if subcontracts can be successfully let in Maine I think the same principle could be followed in this country. Subcontractors for small components for such things as aircraft engines, and an infinite number of items, could be set up in the maritimes.
This advertisement goes on to point out that General Electric jet subcontractors are numerous, and that 82 per cent of them are small businesses employing less than 500 people. That is an ideal state of affairs. If we could have our defence production coming from a large number of small factories in small areas, it would be about as safe as it would be possible to make it from aerial attack. It would serve as well as a great stimulant to the economy of many of the small communities across this country which, at the present time, are unable to absorb the natural increase in their population. Their young people are going off to Toronto, Montreal and a few other centres to work in the large war plants under unsatisfactory living conditions which largely stem from the building up of large unorganized cities, where great housing shortages exist today.


Mr. Gillis:: Mr. Chairman, I am not going to delay the house very long, but I have a few remarks I want to make on this general item of defence production. It is rather difficult to discuss the defence production estimates without getting into the field of national defence, because they are tied together very closely. The Department of National Defence is using the materials created or purchased by the defence production department. Nevertheless, the defence production department has a rather serious responsibility, not only to the defence effort but also to the economic future of Canada.
The minister has the power to create industry, regulate it and allocate it if the

circumstances warrant. In that connection what he creates and allocates now should be done with an eye to the future. I listened to the last speaker's plea for decentralization of industry, and it is not so far-fetched. While his suggestion that an atomic bomb might drop tonight on the minister's department and destroy the records is a bit far-fetched, nevertheless-


Clarence Decatur Howe: It would not be very serious if it did.


Clarence Gillis: It would be a great loss to this country and, under present circumstances, perhaps to the world. When you look at world conditions today, the hon. member's plea in that regard was not far-fetched. A lot of people sit complacently and say, "Well, those things are happening in other parts of the world, but they cannot happen here." We are faced with an enemy that is moving on a global scale. If one looks at Korea and listens to the warnings we are getting that the armistice talks were only designed to allow the build-up of forces, then one realizes that things are not so good. Anything could happen. The top military brass who were a bit complacent, not in Canada but all over the world a few months ago, and who had high hopes of something developing from the peace talks that might prevent the return to what we have had for the last two years, do not seem to be as optimistic now. There are communist riots in Germany, while in the United States there are threats of strikes. It is all part of the same pattern.
I have discussed with the minister many times the necessity for dispersing our war industry across this country as much as possible. The extracts from the press read by the last speaker-we have all read them-are warnings that are being sounded by men who are very realistic. They have been warning the United States against too heavy a concentration of her war industries in any particular city. I think that is also true of Canada. It does not seem as if we are learning very much from the past, because we are continuing to centralize our industry in the two provinces of Ontario and Quebec. There is no need of going into all the facts and figures that we have gone into in the past. I think the present policy is extremely short-sighted, not only from the standpoint of the possibility of war; and the kind of war we are going to have in the future is something about which no one in this chamber has any illusions. It is not going to be a matter of front lines and of soldiers taking the brunt of the battle. It is going to be a strategic war to knock out your machine of production; and the civilian is really going to be in the front line. The more highly concentrated your industry and population are in one spot, the
Supply-Defence Production easier it is going to be to knock you out. There is no need of our putting our heads in the sand. As the world looks today, there is a possibility of that kind of thing developing. I do not think our enemies are backing up. I think they are moving on all fronts and are following a well-defined pattern. We should be preparing for that eventuality.
I can understand a country like the United States, which has perhaps reached her maximum in population, building around what she now has, such as around her power sites and so on. That development took place before the advent of the kind of world in which we are now living. But this country is young and it is growing. We have a large-scale immigration program. Unless we are destroyed by an eruption I think that program is going to continue to expand. This country is one of the last frontiers. It is the only place available to those from other countries whose whole machine of production has broken down and whose resources have run out. This is about the only part of the civilized world today to which those people can come to eke out an existence in a country that is highly civilized. We are going to attract a great many people in the next twenty years.
The minister is a good planner; he has proved that in the past. He is a good engineer, and engineers are practical people. I suggest to him that the allocation of defence industries should be done with an eye not only to keeping them widely dispersed in the event of war but also keeping in mind the future development of the country. I think it is a waste of money to build a large-scale war plant in Ontario or Quebec, under present circumstances; for in the event of there being no war or in the event of a war developing and terminating, there is waste of money in tearing it all down again. It is a simple matter today to reconvert a plant from war production to peacetime production. I think the minister should be looking at the other parts of the country where there is power or the possibility of obtaining power, with an eye to locating there plants that can be swung over in the future to care for the needs of the future.
I think in the last war we wasted a great deal of money by building plants in certain sections where they had to be torn down after the war. To go to an established industry and ask them to create an adjunct to that plant for war purposes, and to build it on land that is owned by that corporation, with a clause written into the agreement that in the event of that plant no longer being useful for that particular purpose it must be removed from that site and off that land

Supply-Defence Production if anyone else intends to use it, is a procedure that should not be adopted. That is something that happened in a great many cases, and millions and millions of dollars of our money went down the drain with respect to plants that could have been maintained even today. Many of the plants that we lost after the war were given away for 10 per cent of their total value; and five years later we find ourselves buying those plants back at 100 cents on the dollar, and at inflated prices. I cannot see anything that has happened since 1945 or 1948 to change that picture. I think the same thing is continuing today.
I know the minister and I have talked a good many times about this business of steel expansion in this country. I do not think his opinions differ greatly from my own on the question of expanding the steel industry. We are leaning too heavily on the arm of the United States. There is no reason in the world why we should not be expanding our own steel industry. It has been expanded some. I am thinking now in terms of basic steel. The minister in his statement this afternoon and yesterday indicated that if there is a strike in the United States all our planning is thrown completely out the window as a result of our inability to secure the necessary steel imports from the United States. We have iron ore in Labrador and coal in Nova Scotia; and it is good coal for metallurgical purposes. Most of the weapons that we are producing will not be used on this continent-at least that is my hope-but will be shipped out; we have all the ingredients for the making of raw steel at Sydney, at tidewater where it can be readily shipped at the closest point; and I hope if we are going to use these weapons, they will be used in that direction. Having regard to all these factors, I cannot understand why a greater expansion of steel in that area has not taken place.
Our leaning on the arm of the United States for our steel requirements is something I cannot understand. That country has a population of 150 million people. Its steel requirements are gigantic. There is no comparison at all between the amount of steel they have to use and what we have to use. We have 14 million people in this country, and have much greater resources for the production of raw steel. If the trend is to integrate the economy of this country with that of the United States, I cannot figure out why they or we want to drag the raw material all the way across the country in order to process it or fabricate it, when it could be done so easily down there at the


coast at much less cost, and be readily available to be shipped in the direction in which it is intended to be used.
As I say, I cannot understand that situation. I think that is something about which the Minister of Defence Production should have a showdown with the United States. We are today linked up in a common cause. Their interests are our interests in this industrial picture. We have to stand together or fall separately. There is no doubt about that. We on this North American continent are interdependent. I suggest that the minister should have a showdown with the United States on this matter of steel. Steel is basic to the whole economy of the country. It is a "must" in defence production. It is an actual need in our own internal economy. When steel production goes down or when there is a shortage or an interruption in the supply, everything in the country is affected, right down to your farm production.
If we are going to work this problem out together, I think we in this part of the North American continent are entitled to say that in that matter of basic steel the situation has been one of shortage from 1939 on. We have never had enough steel. Every time you raise the question of housing, vehicle production or defence production, you run into the question of the shortage of steel. I cannot understand why that situation should exist because we have on both coasts everything necessary to turn out steel in this country. Why we are not going ahead with that expansion I do not know. I know the minister has done his best to interest the steel companies of Canada. He has offered to put up a dollar for every dollar they expend in expansion. Some of them took up the offer to some extent; others did not touch it. This business of free enterprise being permitted to create that kind of chaos with regard to a basic material is something that should not happen under present circumstances. I understand the government's policy to be: as far as we are concerned we believe in free enterprise. That was the statement as I heard it. But the government is prepared to step in where free enterprise does not do the job. There is no hon. member in this house-I do not care where he sits-who can tell us that the basic steel industry have made the effort they should have to meet the requirements of this country since 1945. I will be charitable to them and write it down to those last seven years.
That is something in which you have to get production. You can talk about manpower. These are problems that are tricky. We talk about a lot of other things, but the matter of basic steel is the root of the whole

economy of this country. It is something that we should not fool with for a minute. If Dosco or Stelco or Algoma are not prepared to meet the requirements of this country in the matter of supplying basic steel, then the government should follow up the policy enunciated in this house and step in where they fail to meet our requirements, and that certainly has been true in basic steel.
The minister or others may say that I am arguing for my own end of the country. I am not doing that at all. I would be making the same argument if Ontario had what is required to turn out basic steel. I am not talking about the fabricating of it. A lot of it should be done there, particularly vehicles and munitions which are to be shipped out of this country to the NATO countries of Europe. To ship from that part of the country is the shortest haul, and a lot of it should be done there. I am thinking of this problem now in terms of being a Canadian. We are going to have to face this situation quicker than we expect or want to. We cannot make guns unless we have the steel. We can fool around with the problem of housing and with almost everything else, but not with the matter of supplying the NATO countries and our own country and helping out in other directions. It is not enough to say that we have a shortage of steel. Every effort should be made to meet that situation. I see it as a very serious problem at this time. I think it is one that requires consultation with the United States. If we cannot do it and do it quickly; if we cannot find the capital to do it, then our partner in this job of defence should help us, because the NATO countries are dependent on the North American continent for most of the munitions of war they will have to use in the event of trouble developing.
I would suggest that the minister's statements are merely statements of his inability to meet the steel requirements at this time.
I would like to see something better than that done. I believe it requires a conference of the United States and our own people. If the basic industries in this country are still not prepared to go ahead and meet our requirements, then the government should do it, and they should hang on to the plants when the war is over. Do not turn them over at 10 per cent of their value.
There are some questions I should like to ask on the steel end of the thing, but I am going to wait until we get to the proper item.
I thought I should say what I have at this time, because I think the hon. member for Queens, who just took his seat, knew what he was talking about. He is a man who went through the last war. He has a good war
Supply-Defence Production record. He is watching the thing, and all these matters are fresh in his mind. Much of what he said this afternoon should be hammered home in the minds of the general public. Things are not as good as we think they are. We are dealing with an enemy who is working all the time. He is moving on all fronts. He is using none of his own people at all; he is just slowly breaking down democracy and everything it stands for in every other country that he wants to soften up against the time when he puts over a right hook. We should get wise to it.
It is all right for the Minister of National Defence to rise and say, as I have heard him say several times, that our manpower commitments are met; we are doing all right; we are short a few in the air force. That is fine; we can raise all the men that are necessary and do everything else that is necessary, but if we have not the steel to make the munitions of war, we have nothing. Men in uniform are no good if they have nothing but their bare hands. We require the sinews of war, and; the sinews of war are steel over and above everything else.


Mr. Adamson:: The basic problem we are faced with is to produce the sinews of war with as little damage as possible to our economy. The problem is certainly not an easy one, and it is one that takes constant revision, constant planning and constant alteration of demands that have changed through circumstances which arise in this country.
I wish to speak on one or two matters which, since I come from one of the concentrated industrial areas of Canada, have been brought to my attention. The first one is this. There are a number of small businesses who write to me or complain to me because they have not the information which tells them how to go about submitting their productive capacity to the department. I know the machinery is all there, and whenever they write to me I can always put them in touch with the proper officer of the department; but I feel this is one thing the department might be doing as a start either through the manufacturers' association or the boards of trade or the chambers of commerce, so that every producer, no matter how small, would know how to go about getting in touch with the department and having what he can produce available at all times.
I feel that a survey of production, continuously revised, would be a useful thing to have; not only, of course, of big corporations whose productive ability is well known, but of the small two or three-man industries which can and frequently have produced very valuable material. I feel that one of the first things

Supply-Defence Production necessary is a production survey. I realize that the minister has been working on it; but judged by the complaints I get, it has not gone down to small industry the way it might have.
The second point I wish to mention is the allocation of metals under international agreements. We in this country have, through an international agreement, allocated our production chiefly of metals but also of many other scarce and wartime materials. There have been complaints by some industries that because our position as a manufacturing country is not fully understood by the United States a greater proportion of our metals has been allocated for international use than the economy should stand. Whether or not that criticism is just I am not in a position to say; but yesterday in New York a Canadian speaking on the same subject before the association of Canadian management stated that the Americans did not have a proper appreciation of the productive ability of this country. I mention this because people have complained to me about the extent of our commitments under this agreement. I realize that metals have to be shared; we have to share things with our partners. But I hope we will maintain enough for our own productivity.
The minister rightly stressed the desirability of avoiding controls. Nothing can destroy production more quickly, or with greater effect throw a monkey wrench into the war production of this country, than the reintroduction of a system of controls. Nothing could do so much damage, do it so quickly or decrease production to so great an extent. So I am glad to note that there is no thought of controls in the department at this time. There have been occasions, of course, where the allocation of scarce metals has been absolutely necessary, but I shall refer to that in a moment.
Recent developments at places like Kitim:, t have shown the great value of accelerated depreciation in these new developments. There are many developments the economic future of which may be questioned-and in this group I would not include Kitimat- where, if it were not for the accelerated depreciation feature, the erection and construction of new plants might not be commercially advisable.
The importance of letting business and industry work out their own production problems was also stressed, and is of paramount importance.
Then the flexibility of specifications is a matter that has been brought to my attention. Many industries have made reference to the rigidity of specifications for weapons and other materials for war purposes. No

one knows better than I how important is the over-all efficiency in the production of a weapon when men's lives depend upon it. As an example of the rigidity of specifications I would refer to a six weeks' delay in a program for the production of radar sets because the name plate did not meet the specifications of one of the services. I feel that is carrying rigidity of specifications altogether too far.
In his speech the minister made reference to the interchangeability of specifications. I would hope that this would also include the interchange of information connected with atomic weapons. It is most important that this be done, because the fact that we work in one compartment while the United States works in another in this extremely important field is not to the advantage of either country. I would hope therefore that the interchange of information at all levels on atomic projects has been arranged.
I come now to the question of standardization of weapons. While I realize that this is not the minister's responsibility, nevertheless the problem is one in which he is vitally concerned. I mention one instance of this, namely the production of the -50 calibre Browning machine gun. As many hon. members can testify from personal experience, if this weapon is not obsolete then certainly it is now becoming so. The Royal Air Force, and later the Royal Canadian Air Force, held the belief that the 20 millimetre cannon was a far -ore effective weapon. Because of our agreement with the United States we have now standardized on the -50 calibre machine gun. While the factory in which it is being produced is most efficient, and while the production of the weapons will no doubt be carried out in excellent fashion, nevertheless the whole question as to whether in this day it is a desirable weapon, with aircraft travelling at greatly accelerated speeds and having much greater hitting power than at the time of the last war, is one with which the House of Commons should concern itself.
Not only are production and the cost of production matters of interest to the taxpayers but-and this is more important-we must always keep in mind that men's lives depend upon the effectiveness of the weapons we produce. As I said earlier, I realize that the choice of the weapon rests with the Department of National Defence, and that the Minister of Defence Production produces only that which he is asked to produce. But I would hope that before the close of this debate there might be some further discussion on this matter.

Then turning to the production of steel; while we hope next year to have production to a point a third greater than the production of 1950, nevertheless the production of basic steel has not kept pace with our economic growth in other lines. Despite the fact that the Steel Company of Canada, Algoma Steel, and Dosco have added blast furnaces and increased basic steel production in their plants, the production of basic steel has not kept pace with our economic growth.
I believe the producers of the rarer but extremely important metals, such as nickel, tungsten and cobalt, all of which are in extremely short supply, and which are essential war materials, are doing everything possible to make the supply adequate for our needs. There is, however, one point I would place before the minister, and that is with reference to scrap iron and scrap steel. There is an enormous amount of scrap metal available, but apparently so far an all-out drive is not being made to see that this scrap metal is made available for our basic steel mills. Scrap metal is what the steel makers call the mine above the ground I feel that the people of Canada are not aware of the importance of the scrap iron that might be available, and that a greater effort should be made to collect this and channel it to the steel mills.
The minister rightly suggested that next to the production of aircraft our electronics production constitutes a major effort. I have had the opportunity of seeing what strides we are making in this connection. This is highly skilled work, and 1 believe the percentage of professional engineers on any assembly line turning out electronic products would probably be higher than in connection with any other work being done in Canada. Unfortunately engineers are not available in as great numbers as they should be. With our modern aircraft having its weapons almost completely fired by electronic means and in many cases the projectiles being guided by electronic means, this side of our defence effort should be pushed to its utmost limit. Canadians seem to have a particular skill for electronics work. For some reason or another Canadian workers, Canadian engineers and Canadian designers seem to have a penchant for electronics and the design and operation of instruments using this principle. I am glad to see that next to aircraft it is considered as our second line of production, and I hope everything possible will be done to increase it still further. I would hope to see us producing in Canada such weapons as the new ground-to-aircraft guided projectile which has met with such tremendous success in the United States. In my opinion we are not using 55704-174J
Private Bills-Divorce
our utmost efforts unless we are producing these most modern of all weapons.
I come now to the production of aircraft. My observations would indicate that what has been said about the A. V. Roe Company is correct. This company started almost from scratch and developed three designs. Possibly this may have been a misfortune. They designed the Orenda engine, the CF-100 long-range fighter and the jet liner. The prototypes worked successfully in each case. It was then discovered that the company in turning out these three designs had possibly bitten off more than it could chew, and the jet liner was discarded. I regret that because I believe it would have given us a lead on this continent in the production of jet aircraft.
Item stands.
Progress reported.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. H. W. Winkler (Lisgar) moved: that the following bills be read the second time:
Bill No. 186, for the relief of Ludwik Bulkiewicz.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 187, for the relief of Jean Betton Harris.-Mr. Winkler
Bill No. 188, for the relief of Violet Mary Bailey Black.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 189, for the relief of Corinne Larocque Sergent.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 190, for the relief of Omer Mon petit.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 198, for the relief of Ismena Archange Labatt Chipman.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 199, for the relief of Rose Larocque Crawford.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill	No.	200,	for	the	relief	of	Gladys
Lucille Jane Annal Williams.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 201, for the relief of Emily Amelia Ahern Manhire.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 202, for the relief of Margaret Joyce Berryman Thomas.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill	No	203,	for	the	relief	of	Lillian
Deutsch Payne.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 204, for the relief of Murdoch Graham Nicholson.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill	No.	211,	for	the	relief	of	Jeanne
Antoinette Sophie Helena Kessler Meyer.__
Mr. Winkler.
Bill	No.	212,	for	the	relief of John
Stachyshyn.-Mr. Winkler.

Private Bills-Divorce
Bill No. 213, for the relief of Theodora Dunska Williams-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 214, for the relief of Marguerite Mary Winn Nelson.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 216, for the relief of Roger Pilon.- Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 217, for the relief of Winnifred Shirley Nice Perry.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 218, for the relief of Ursula Runge Kniewel Fijalkowski.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 219, for the relief of Bella Sybil Feinman Brenton.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 221, for the relief of Helen Kouri Cumas.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 222, for the relief of Cora Marguerite Blume.'-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 223, for the relief of Marie Maude Louise Ladriere Cook Tooby, otherwise known as Marie Maude Louise Ladriere Cook-Salisbury Tooby.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 226, for the relief of Laetitia Daig-neault Martel.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 227, for the relief of James Alexander Ford.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 228, for the relief of Joseph Gerard Abondius Fauvel.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 229, for the relief of Richard Patenaude.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 230, for the relief of Francoise Bellehumeur Dixon.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 231, for the relief of Cynthia Daphne Roberts Gagne.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 232, for the relief of Dorothy May Tucker Patterson.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 233, for the relief of Reginald Clare Darrah.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 234, for the relief of Marjie Weston Frost Law.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 235, for the relief of Carmen Verna Garcia Copping.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 236, for the relief of Edna Ruth Dowsett Young.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 237, for the relief of Eleanor Mary Courtney Flannery.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 238, for the relief of Florence (Fannie Ruth) Sacks Roitman.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 247, for the relief of William Wallace Watson.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 248, for the relief of Russell James Barrett.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 249, for the relief of Alice Sabria O'Connor Muskett,-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 250, for the relief of Julia Emma Pearl Sager Noiseux-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 251, for the relief of David Gilmore Bennett.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 253, for the relief of Mary Elizabeth Cate Lowe.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 254, for the relief of Aldea Gendreau Bourbonnais.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 255, for the relief of Peter Ernest Walker.-Mr. Winkler.

Bill No. 256, for the relief of Dorothy Agnes Kearns Bradley.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 257, for the relief of Sarah Bernstein Smith.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 258, for the relief of Margaret Gladys Redman Glassco.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 259, for the relief of Louise Joslyn Smith Harvey-Jellie.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 260, for the relief of Bertha Naujoks Stehr.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 261, for the relief of Margit Aloisia Payer Worontschak.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 264, for the relief of Tom Barnard Clayton Gould.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 265, for the relief of Helene Laura Solomon Wiseberg.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 266, for the relief of Joan Borland White.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 267, for the relief of John Laurence McDonough.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 268, for the relief of Jean Wiseman Schwartz.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 270, for the relief of Agnes Bertha Baugh Guimont.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 271, for the relief of Genevieve Flora Agatha Brown Smith.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No. 272, for the relief of Marcelle Alice Beliveau Martin.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No.	273,	for	the	relief	of	Marcel
Despatis.-Mr. Winkler.
Bill No.	274,	for	the	relief	of	Joseph
Wilfrid Ernest Senecal.-Mr. Winkler.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion for second reading?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Before you ask the house to approve this motion for second reading, may I point out that there is a total of sixty of these bills with respect to which the motion for second reading is being moved at this time. So far as these sixty bills are concerned, the printed evidence has been distributed. I have not had time to read the evidence in all sixty but I have looked over the evidence in a number of them, and I find that it conforms to the type of evidence that usually comes before us in connection with these measures. There is a monotonous degree of similarity about them. In case after case we have the story of detectives being called in to get the evidence. In fact in a good many of the applications that we have before us tonight there is one particular pair of detectives who get the evidence time and time again. Indeed, the evidence they get is so much alike one wonders how they keep it straight in their own minds.
I have expressed the opinion before in a number of ways that I do not feel this is the way to be handling these or any other divorce bills. I regret very much that parliament has not yet agreed to my proposal to transfer

them to the exchequer court, or has not found some other way to deal with them. As long as this practice is followed by parliament-and by the will of parliament, which I think is wrong-we have no alternative but to grant the divorces where the required evidence is forthcoming. I still feel it is the wrong way to deal with these cases. That is not to reflect on the hon. gentlemen of the other place who do the job. I point out, however, that we do not do a job on these bills. This House of Commons just passes them en masse as we are doing at this time. I hope that even yet parliament will come to the point where we will find some other way to deal with divorce cases. I ask hon. members to give more thought to this matter. I ask them to consider the opinions that are being expressed in newspapers and magazines throughout the country, and I hope the day is not far distant when we will make up our minds that parliament is not the place to adjudicate on individual divorce cases.
Motion agreed to and bills read the second time.



BOUNDARY PIPELINE CORPORATION

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Tuesday, May 27, consideration in committee of Bill No. 62, to incorporate Boundary Pipeline Corporation- Mr. Larson-Mr. Beaudoin in the chair.
On section 1-Incorporation.
Mr. Macdonnell (Greenwood):: Mr. Chairman, I wish to make some remarks on this bill. It seems to me that we face a rather strange situation. Since the bill was introduced there have been speeches made against it which to me seemed to have points of substance and arguments which were worth meeting. But I understand practically no answer of any kind has been made since the bill was introduced. I wish to deal with it mainly from the point of view of what I understand to be the interests and wishes of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, to which this incorporation would seem to go counter. I repeat that it seems strange to me that we should be debating this measure twice a week, and that it is left almost entirely to those who are opposed to it to speak. I do not know whether the measure is considered by those who support it to be of such outstanding excellence that it needs no support at all, but certainly it does not seem to me to be in that category.
The point, of course, is a very simple one. This Boundary pipe line is proposing to bring natural gas to Winnipeg, and then take it south. The sponsors, I understand, are Regina men; and the argument, which I shall endeavour to develop at some length later, is that their proposal is unsound because it
Boundary Pipeline Corporation is admitted that within the foreseeable future there is not going to be more than one pipe line. If, in fact, gas is taken to Manitoba and then taken south, this part of Canada will be left to what can be obtained from the United States, and at the present time that would be largely from Texas.
As I said a moment ago, there are two possible routes for this Alberta gas to take. One is to go to Winnipeg, then south to Minnesota; the other is to go to Winnipeg, then on to Ontario and Quebec. It seems to me that quite apart from the advantage of having this gas go to the central provinces, the latter route has this additional advantage, in that it does something to lessen that feeling of separateness which we had in Canada for so long. It lessens that area in the middle which, for a long time made the country seem like a pair of spectacles. Every enterprise that lessens that separateness of the two parts of Canada seems to me worth while in itself, and this would be an additional enterprise to the railways, woods operations and mineral operations which are filling up that interval and making that gap less obvious than it used to be.
As I say, if Boundary Pipeline gets incorporation, and if the province of Alberta allows the gas to be exported, and if the gas is taken to Manitoba and then south, central Canada will be left to the tender mercies of the United States, particularly of Texas. I believe it is relevant, not only relevant but important, for us to try to assess the likelihood of our getting gas on any basis which we could regard as sure from the United States. Happily, we do not have to guess what the attitude of the United States is, because there is considerable evidence. I wish to stress this evidence. I believe it has been given to the committee before, but the very fact that we are meeting here again tonight to debate this measure shows that it needs to be stressed again. I propose to stress it again, and 1 propose to read from a judgment of the federal power commission in an application of the Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Company for permission to export gas to Canada for the Union Gas Company of Ontario. The judgment is dated August 31, 1951 and I shall read from it.
Before I do so, I should like to stress this point which we should not fail to bear in mind. We live in the greatest amity with our friends to the south of the line. We are extremely like them in many ways, and it is perhaps the happiest circumstance of our life that our relations with them are as they are. But we should not blind ourselves to the fact that they are hard-headed business

Boundary Pipeline Corporation people. We can see evidence today, in connection with tariff matters, that they are beginning to revert to some of the exclusionist policies from which we suffered so much years ago. This judgment I am going to read- nobody can complain about it-shows that they are going to think about themselves. In thinking about themselves, they may not be able to think about us as much as we would like.
I now read from this judgment of August 31, 1951:
It is obvious from the foregoing that, in view of the demonstrated requirements of customers within the United States and the present designed capacity of the Panhandle system, no natural gas is available for exportation on a firm basis at this time.
I repeat those words "on a firm basis at this time", because anything less than a firm basis is really of no value. I shall have occasion later on to refer to what was said by Mr. Gemmell, minister of mines of Ontario. One of the points he stressed was that there was no use getting gas unless they got a guarantee of its continuance. It is better not to get it at all, because if a business community is built up on the basis of receiving a supply which is suddenly cut off one could imagine not only the economic confusion which would arise but the great bitterness and strife which would be in the greatest degree undesirable. I believe we have faced the fact that for us to export to the United States and then suddenly cut it off-when the shoe is on the other foot-is something that could hardly be contemplated. The United States, with its mudh greater strength, will certainly take that view.
I continue to read from the judgment:
The record, therefore, shows that the proposed exportation will not be consistent with the public interest. The application in this docket will, therefore, be dismissed without prejudice.
That seems to go a very long way to show that Ontario and Quebec would be in a most uncomfortable position if they were relying on the export of gas from the United States.
There have been other rulings to that effect, and I shall quote from another. I have a ruling on another application by Panhandle in 1946 for the right to export gas from the United States to Canada near the city of River Rouge, Michigan, to be delivered to the Union Gas Company of Canada. Here is an extract from the judgment:
No deliveries of natural gas shall be made to Union during the months of January, February, March, November and December in any year during the term of this authorization.
That is a comforting thought, that the months you could not get gas would be the very ones for which you needed it most. The


reason is obvious, because those are the months the United States needs it most. The judgment goes on:
Delivery of natural gas to Union shall be curtailed or interrupted whenever, and to the extent, required for the protection of deliveries of natural gas, either for immediate consumption or for storage, to any and all of the applicant's customers in the United States.
That is very clear. I continue to read:
The authorization hereby granted shall not constitute ground or justification for any refusal by applicant to transport or sell natural gas to any person or municipality at any time during the term hereof, either for consumption in the United States by such person or municipality or for storage, or for resale for ultimate public consumption in the United States for domestic, commercial, industrial, or any other use, it being the intent of this authorization that at all times, persons and municipalities in the United States are to receive preferential service over that to Union;
That is the Union Gas Company of Ontario, the Canadian company. I do not see how we can complain about it, but we certainly would be extremely foolish if we did not take the warning that is there contained and govern ourselves accordingly. In this connection it is interesting to note that apparently there are some large cities in the United States which are not yet fully served. Philadelphia is mentioned as one of them. As I say, without labouring the point, I think the committee will agree that we are on notice that even if we can get gas from the United States, it will be on the strictly limited condition which I have just read.
In the light of this situation I would have thought that the committee which was appointed to consider this matter-that is to say, the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines-would have wanted to try to get to the bottom of this thing and would have shown the patience and consideration which most committees show and which are the very genius of our whole system and of this House of Commons. Hon. members opposite often have to listen to speeches from us on this side of the house which they find exceedingly tiresome, and we have to do the same with regard to them; but it is understood that that is part of our system. Yet in this committee it seems to me the closure was used. Although the government has the right to use closure, it has certainly not been applied during my few years of experience in this house, and I understand that it has been applied but few times since it was first introduced forty years ago. But what I call closure-and I think it can be fairly described as closure-was used in this committee.
I should like to read briefly from the minutes of proceedings of the committee, just

to indicate what I mean. I am reading from page 73 of the minutes of proceedings of Thursday, April 24, 1952:


Mr. Cannon moved: that sufficient evidence has been obtained for the committee to decide as to the economic practicability of the pipe line under consideration; and that the question be put on the preamble without further examination of the witness. After discussion and the question having been put on the said motion, it was agreed to on the following division.
I think that was a pity, because it seems to me that the genius of this whole system of ours is that there is a certain amount of forbearance shown by members with each other. I am on the defence expenditures committee, and a good many things have happened with which I have not agreed; and I think I have said a good many things with which the chairman did not agree and with which other members of the committee did not agree. But the chairman has been patient. We have sometimes been voted down. That cannot be helped. But we have been allowed to have our day in court and to say what we wanted to say.
Last Tuesday when this bill was before the committee for consideration the matter came into prominence because the hon. member for Iles-de-la-Madeleine raised it on a kind of long distance question of privilege which he reached 'with difficulty. I would imagine that he may have made parliamentary history. I greatly doubt if there have been many questions of privilege which lasted so long. At any rate it was interesting while it lasted. What struck me was that he moved this resolution, as I understood it, because he felt that the hon. member for Calgary West was not cross-examining the witness. I had probably better read his exact words. As reported at page 2631 of Hansard of May 27, he said:
The point is that the hon. member for Calgary West at that time was not in fact cross-examining at all. He was simply trying to get on the record, through the medium of that witness, figures that had been prepared by others.
My -comment on that is this. The comment was made in this house the other evening that actually the hon. member for Calgary West was acting as a witness. The hon. member for Iles-de-la-Madeleine complained that the hon. member for Calgary West was acting as if he was a witness. In that connection the hon. member for Victoria (Ont.) who was also a member of the committee said:
He was as much a witness as Herring was.
Mr. Herring was the witness who was being examined. Without going into the niceties of the matter, and without going into the question as to whether the hon. member for Calgary West was in fact cross-examining
Boundary Pipeline Corporation the witness or whether he was in fact giving some evidence himself, may I say that, as we all know, he is a man with considerable knowledge of these things. Whether he was in fact observing the niceties of crossexamination or was introducing some information himself, I would have thought the committee would have been glad indeed to be informed and that the objection which apparently was felt so strongly by some members of the committee would not have constituted a serious objection at all.
I should like to read a little bit more from what took place in the committee because I think it is of some importance. I think there is one inescapable difficulty with all committees. We all know that they have to be chosen on a proportionate basis. We all know that they have a government majority. That fact cannot be escaped. We all know that, by and large, the government majority is going to vote as is desired. I am not criticizing that practice. All I am saying is that the whole genius of our system is that the rights of the minority are protected by their having their day in court, in other words by their being able to express their views.
I am just coming along now to the point at which closure was applied in the committee, and I think that is a matter of great importance. We arrived at the point where there was some question as to whether the hon. member for Calgary West was in fact cross-examining the witness or whether he was giving evidence. I read from the minutes of proceedings and evidence of the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines, commencing at the bottom of page 76:


Mr. Cavers;: Mr. Chairman, if I may be permitted a word; I do not think anyone wants to cut out discussion here.
I think that remark was in answer to the suggestion by the hon. member for Calgary West that perhaps the committee was not as ready to listen as they might have been. To continue:


The Chairman:: I do not think anyone wants to cut out discussion here and I think the hon. member will himself agree that at the last session of the committee that probably a wider latitude was given than is usual in matters of this kind. After our previous meeting it was ruled that Mr. Herring should have an opportunity of bringing in a certain statement, a report which he was to table. He was to produce that statement; I think it was Mr. Nickle who at that time said he would like to know whether Mr. Herring could give evidence as to whether it was economically feasible to run a pipe line from Winnipeg eastward to the province of Ontario, or what his views were. If that evidence can be given today, and if a cross-examination can then be confined to that statement, to the statement which is to be put in by Mr. Herring, I think we might very well get along in that manner without anyone being prejudiced.

Boundary Pipeline Corporation


Howard Charles Green: It is the right in any committee, anywhere, for any member to express his opinion, quite apart from his right to cross-examine witnesses: so I suggest that we get on with the business and if the matter comes up later on we can deal with it.
Notwithstanding that, however, there apparently was a certain amount of uneasiness. Then we come to page 86 where the hon. member for Iles-de-la-Madeleine is reported as follows:


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: Mr. Chairman, we have on the one hand the evidence that was given by Mr. Herring at the request of the committee, supported by telegrams, and we have the evidence on Mr. Herring's statement that the information in the telegrams was obtained from responsible persons; on the other hand, we have no evidence except the statement of a member of the committee here-he is certainly entitled to express views, or to express his opinion as a member of the committee-the only evidence we have is the evidence submitted by Mr. Herring.
Then the hon. member for Iles-de-la-Madeleine makes this motion:
I move at this stage that the committee has obtained sufficient evidence to decide on the economic practicability of the pipeline under consideration and that the question be now put on the preamble without further examination of witnesses.
Then the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra said this:


Howard Charles Green: -I am somewhat at a loss to understand why Mr. Cannon should make a motion of that type which in effect stops any further crossexamination.
In other words, Mr. Chairman, as you see closure was applied. The hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra continued:
Surely, we are here as reasonable men trying to get this story before the committee. It may be that it is taking longer than some of the members think it should but we will have another hour of sitting this morning. It is most unusual in my experience for a member on a particular bill to get up and move that the discussion be shut off. Now, this is not a party matter. It does not involve any question of policy. Surely, the committee.members are in favour of getting full information. It seems very strange that we should have someone rushing in to protect that particular charter.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: I am not protecting it.


Howard Charles Green: In effect that is what it is, by preventing any further cross-examination.
I will not pursue this any further, Mr. Chairman, but I will come back to point out what I said at the outset, that I cannot understand, first of all, why nobody, or practically nobody ever stands up to support this measure in the house. Second, I cannot understand why it would not have been agreeable to all concerned to let the examination go on. Surely we were seeking for truth in the matter. I do suggest that the proceedings of the committee were, to put it mildly, most unfortunate and most regrettable. I should like to say that my experience in other committees is that every effort is made by the chairman not to arbitrarily cut off anyone who has a view to express on the matter before the committee. That


is not to say the chairmen always allow you to discuss everything you think you should be allowed to discuss. I am not saying that, but I do say in general the chairmen are considerate, and I do not know of any case in which this has been done. If other people do know it might be interesting to taring it up, because I think to have virtually what can be described only as closure used in committee is a very unfortunate matter.
I said at the outset that the reason I was taking part in this debate and trying to sustain an argument against the measure was that the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, through their government representatives, have expressed themselves in such clear fashion. That being so, it seems to me there is the strongest onus on us, at any rate, to stop, look and listen before we go ahead with something which, so far as I can see from the record, is entirely inimical to their interest. I hold in my hand two statements by Mr. Gemmell, the minister of mines in the province of Ontario. I also have a statement by the premier of Quebec. I want to put these on the record. They are very clearly expressed. There is no doubt in their minds as to what the interests of their provinces demand. Incidentally, Mr. Chairman, we will find, particularly in the case of the statement by the premier of Quebec, a strong feeling that this is not merely a matter which is in the interests of Ontario and Quebec, but it is a kind of national matter which is in the interests of Canada regarded as a whole.
Here is what Mr. Gemmell said on January 26 last, as reported in the Globe and Mail:
Ottawa, Jan. 21.-Even if it has to be subsidized a pipeline should be built to bring Alberta natural gas to Ontario and Quebec, provincial mines minister Gemmell said here today.
In Ottawa to attend the annual meeting of the Canadian institute of mining and metallurgy, Mr. Gemmell declared that a west-to-east natural gas pipeline was as important to national prosperity today as the C.P.R. was when it was started in the 1870's.
That I find interesting, and I anticipate what he says in a later statement that I am going to read, because he speaks again of the foresight of those who built the Canadian Pacific Railway through Canada even though it would have been shorter, and I suppose cheaper, to build it through the United States.
I continue reading from Mr. Gemmell:
He envisaged the gas heating of homes, factories and office buildings throughout Ontario as well as the use of gas to generate the motive power of thousands of industries. He believed, he said, that there would be an initial market in eastern Canada for 300 million cubic feet of gas per day, rising to 500 million cubic feet in five years and one billion cubic feet per day in ten years.

At present an Alberta government board is entertaining a proposal by the Canadian Delhi Petroleum Company whereby the firm's subsidiary, Trans-Canada Pipe Lines, would build a pipeline to follow the C.P.R. main line from the Alberta oil and gas fields to Toronto and Montreal. The line would cost $250 million, take three years to build and would require 750,000 tons of steel. Such a tonnage of such a scarce commodity could only be obtained on general agreement that construction of the pipeline was vital to national defence. Mr. Gemmell says it is.
Natural gas is much cheaper than the manufactured gas such as is retailed in Toronto by the Consumers Gas Company. Manufactured gas costs roughly $2 per 1,000 cubic feet whereas natural gas would cost in Toronto $1.10 to $1.15 per 1,000 cubic feet. What is more, its heat is such as to bring a kettle to the boil twice as quickly as manufactured gas would.
I have to take his word for that; I do not understand gas well enough to express an opinion myself. The article continues:
It is believed that if Alberta gas were piped east, the Consumers' Gas Company would distribute it in the Toronto area.
If Alberta gas is so much cheaper and could be delivered to Ontario so readily, what is holding it up, anyone might ask. Mr. Gemmell gave the answer. The Alberta government will not let gas out of Alberta until it is satisfied that enough would be left to supply Alberta's present and potential needs. Naturally, Alberta wants the gas to build up industries of its own as well as to heat the homes of its own citizens. Thus, export to other provinces is a secondary consideration.
For these reasons, the Alberta petroleum resources board is giving long consideration to the Delhi application for permission to pipe gas to Ontario and Quebec. Some experts say Alberta has plenty of gas and to spare but the board is investigating. And when and if the Alberta board gives the pipeline the nod, its promoters must next get permission from the board of transport commissioners here to build the line. It is thought, however, that if the Alberta board agrees, the transport commissioners will not make any difficulties.
An alternative suggestion, Mr. Gemmell said, is that if Alberta would allow gas to be piped into the western United States, Ontario might draw an equal volume from the Texas wells. Gas is now being piped north from Texas to Detroit and thence into Windsor and western Ontario.
Mr. Gemmell declared the provincial government was wholly opposed to any deal of this kind. In the first place, he said, it was very doubtful that the United States authorities would agree to supply Ontario with a firm uninterrupted volume of gas, day in and day out, year by year.
"Secondly," he said, "there is the question of the national interest. Sir John A. Macdonald could have built the C.P.R. through the United States. It would have been a shorter route. But he had it built through Canada and subsidized the C.P.R. to build it that way and I think most Canadians will agree that he was right. We in Ontario are sticking to the view that a strictly national use of our national resources is the best thing for Canada in the long run."
Mr. Gemmell suggested that the pipeline company might need a capital subsidy to build its line, although when the company sought a parliamentary charter a few years ago it made no mention of a subsidy. He believed that in the national interest and particularly in respect of defence, the federal government would be justified in applying public funds to such a purpose. He made it clear,
Boundary Pipeline Corporation with a laugh, that he was talking about a federal subsidy, not a subsidy from the Ontario government, of which he is a member.
The proposed Trans-Canada pipeline would be of 30 inches diameter from the Alberta fields to Winnipeg and 24 inches thence to Toronto and Montreal. It would bring the gas to western Ontario where the old gas wells in Dawn township, between Sarnia and Chatham, present a ready made storage basin. These wells were pumped out years ago and are now used by the Union Gas Company of Chatham to store the gas it buys from Texas.
Mr. Gemmell said these old wells were one of the best gas storage basins in the world. They are needed because gas, like electricity, is used more in the winter than in summer.
I have another statement from Mr. Gemmell that I should like to read if I have time, but first of all I should like to read a statement by the premier of Quebec dated March 28:
Premier Duplessis said today a Texas firm and an Alberta firm want to export natural gas to this province, but Quebec has decided that if any is to be imported, it will come from Alberta.
The premier told his weekly press conference that representatives of the U.S. and Canadian pipeline construction firms had been in touch with him.
He said nothing had been decided yet on whether pipelines will be built into Quebec.
But he said Quebec preferred to import gas from Alberta because it would support a Canadian industry . . .
He said representatives of United States and Canadian pipeline construction firms had been in touch with him about the possibilities of exporting natural gas.
The premier said nothing had yet been decided as to whether pipelines would be built or not into Quebec province. But he said, if natural gas is to be imported it will not be U.S. gas.
The premier said Quebec preferred to import the gas from Alberta because it was preferable to support a Canadian industry, not subject "to a foreign authority."
Well, you will agree that this statement I have read bears out what I said at the outset, that responsible authorities in Ontario and Quebec believe that it will be most precarious and unwise to rely upon sources south of the international boundary line, and that the proper course, as soon as the province of Alberta makes up its mind that sufficient gas can be spared, is that that gas should be brought to eastern Canada.
So I wish just to review briefly the arguments I have made to date. It is agreed that there is to be only one line at the present time. It is agreed-indeed, it is not only agreed; it is in the record-that the present applicant is proposing to bring gas to Winnipeg, and then take it south. That would mean the central provinces would have to negotiate with Texas.
I have read the judgments of the United States authorities which say that gas can only be exported subject to American requirements. I have pointed out that there are United States cities, notably the city of

Boundary Pipeline Corporation Philadelphia, which are short of gas at the present time. Therefore it seems to me selfevident that the position of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec is such that it is an imperative need for them that, as soon as gas is available from Alberta, it should be brought, not to Winnipeg, and then turned south at the border but that it should be brought straight east.
Mr. Gemmell had some other things to say on this matter which are worth reading, because they underline what I have already placed on the record; and these statements were made two months later, when he was two months wiser and had a certain amount of additional information. This is his statement on March 6, 1952:
Despite the bright future for natural gas in eastern Canada, not one Canadian-owned firm has shown interest in piping it from Alberta, mines minister Gemmell said yesterday.
"Shall we always have to depend on our neighbour's eagerness to capitalize on our lack of imagination and daring to develop our country's resources?" he inquired of a Kiwanis club luncheon at the Royal York.
"Or shall we, as Canadians, decide once and for all that we could do this job all by ourselves and reap a greater share of the benefits to be derived from the exploitation of this, the most promising country on earth?"
That, by the way, leads me to point out that I understand that although this application is made by a group of Regina men, actually behind them is a United States pipeline engineering firm known as Fish Engineering Corporation of Houston, Texas. I am the last one in the world to object to United States capital coming in here. But I am referring to this view expressed by the minister of mines of the province of Ontario, which has some bearing on this present application. The article continues:
Noting that a decision on five applications to pipe natural gas out of Alberta is expected late this month or early in April, Mr. Gemmell expressed the fear that it might all go first to the U.S. and that the one company proposing an allCanadian pipeline-the U.S.-controlled Trans-Canada Pipe Lines-might be turned down.
While there was something to be said for the view that it was better to pipe Alberta gas first to the U.S. and then into eastern Canada, the mines minister suggested that, in the long run, an all-Canadian project would be better. "No matter how you look at it," he declared, "the future of Canada, and certainly the future of eastern Canada depends to a large extent on the decisions to be made by the Alberta conservation board, the Alberta government and the board of transport commissioners at Ottawa. I, for one, am inclined to believe that the interests of the majority of Canadians will not be forgotten at the time of decision.
"We need natural gas in eastern Canada . . . Natural gas will replace hydro as our source of power in the years to come ... We need a guaranteed supply of natural gas in northern and eastern Canada. I should like to underline that word guaranteed."

The view that gas could be brought more easily from Texas, Mr. Gemmell suggested, snagged on the word guaranteed. Already one application by an American firm had been turned down by the U.S. government, and another withdrawn because rejection had been indicated.
"In view of the Washington attitude toward Canada's reciprocal agreement relative to the St. Lawrence seaway, the question is raised as to the dispatch with which the U.S. would consummate the proposed natural gas deal," he said. "Further, no necessity exists whatever on Canada's part for a natural gas reciprocal agreement. An all-Canadian pipeline to serve Canadians awaits only government approval.
"Proponents of the reciprocal agreement theory suggest there would be no difficulty encountered in having the U.S. Natural Gas Act amended . . . They say, in effect, that U.S. citizens have a warm spot in their hearts for Canadians and would not raise a finger to stop natural gas from running past their non-supplied homes as long as we, in Canada, put it to good use. Well, that's a little hard to believe."
The all-Canadian line, Mr. Gemmell said, would serve over 5 million people, many more than any of the other projects being considered by the Alberta board.
An initial market of 200 million cubic feet a day is anticipated, rising in three years to 365 million and in 10 to a billion.
Cost for the heating of homes in Toronto by natural gas would be only about half that of manufactured gas, and its availability would be a "tremendous" stimulant for new industry in Ontario and Quebec.
I shall not repeat the arguments I have made; but I will say it seems to me that those who are supporting this bill are under a strong onus to stand up and answer these arguments being made by responsible public men in the governments of Ontario and Quebec. These men have studied the matter; it is vital to them. They have expressed their views definitely; and I think it is an undignified spectacle for this House of Commons to go on with this one-sided debate -if we could call it a debate, at all-this onesided monologue, when arguments, serious arguments by serious people, have been put forward which, so far as I am aware, no one has attempted to answer. However modest we may be, however unworthy we may feel ourselves to be, we are not quite at the point where there is no need at all to answer arguments made. And even if hon. members do not think it is worth, their while to answer us, they might think it is worth while to answer the governments of Ontario and Quebec, whose views I have tried to express.
Therefore I say that in the light of the evidence before this House of Commons, no one in the house has any right whatever to vote for this measure.
(Translation):


Mr. Gagnon:: Mr. Speaker, like my neighbour, the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) and my good friends of the Social Credit, I am glad that the Creator has put gas deposits in the area making up Alberta

today and that following the discovery of such deposits clever and courageous people have undertaken to develop them.
There lies in western Canada . . .
So states Mr. Gerard Gardner in his book "A study of the Economic Value of the Canadian Far North"-Mr. Gardner is a Ph.D. of the Universite de Paris and a professor at the School of Higher Commercial Studies, in Montreal.
-a vast strip of land capable of yielding oil and gas. This strip extends from the American border, which it crosses, up to to Arctic ocean, to the north; from the Canadian shield, in the east, to the Rocky mountains, in the west. This vast region covers 891,000 square miles of sedimentary ground. This strip is so vast that Texas, California, Oklahoma, Kansas and Louisiana laid upon it would not cover it completely. These five states are indeed the biggest producers of gas and oil in the United States and their present reserves and their production to date amount to an approximate 50 billion barrels. This does not necessarily mean that the Canadian area contains riches comparable to the resources of those five American states, but serious and justified hopes may be entertained with regard to future developments. We might say that deposits already discovered in that strip of land in Canada have reserves of over a billion barrels.
The whole Canadian people are bound to benefit from this providential windfall which at the present time gladdens the hearts of the people and the government of Alberta. But, in order to benefit fully from this new wealth, it is important to have it distributed in a judicious and adequate manner, so as to serve Canada first.
We must not consider only the present, but also the future of this country, which may be foreseen as a brilliant one.
In my opinion, the Alberta government has shown wisdom and foresight by establishing, in 1938, the conservation board, in order, among other things, to regulate production and to protect the oil fields against the disastrous fires that were then occurring in the Turner valley.
I hope it will continue in that direction and will ensure that the resources of the province will be developed to the benefit of all Canadians.
On the other hand, we should investigate carefully the petitions for charters submitted for our consideration by companies anxious to organize the transportation of natural gas. During the past few years we have been called upon to examine several bills like the one we are discussing tonight.
In October, 1949, we dealt with bills relating to the Alberta Natural Gas Company and to the Prairie Transmission Lines Limited.
Those bills were not passed and had to be submitted again at the following session.
Boundary Pipeline Corporation
The main point of division among members at that time was the matter of deciding whether we should compel those companies to build their pipe lines entirely on Canadian soil, so as to serve our cities and rural areas before those of the United States.
These private bills won the support of leading government spokesmen and of some cabinet members who recommended their speedy approval, though they were vigorously opposed by Progressive Conservative and socialist members.
The hon. member for Lambton West (Mr. Murphy) pointed out last Friday that the Liberal party is in favour of the exportation of Alberta gas to the United States, but the provincial Liberal party in Alberta vigorously opposes the idea.
There lies an amazing contradiction which prompts us to ask ourselves whether the higher interests of the nation are adequately protected by the party now in power. It has been said in this house that the sponsors of the Boundary Pipeline Corporation, though residents of Regina, are in fact nothing else but dummies, used as a screen by the Fish Engineering Corporation of Houston, Texas.
I would like to know what are the purposes of this company in thus hiding behind these men. What booty are they looking for and who will be their victim? We must proceed with great care.
This very company is also closely connected with the Prairie Transmission Lines Limited.
I do not think that it would be wise to grant this charter.
The Interprovincial Company whose pipe line goes from Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin, is at the present time carrying adequate quantities of natural gas. However these supplies, because of the growing industrial importance of Ontario and Quebec, will not be sufficient to provide the whole of these two provinces' needs should this company be incorporated, and should it receive the right of installing a pipe line of only 16 inches in diameter. In this way we shall lose a further opportunity of obtaining the gas we need. It is only natural that our first concern should be for our country and that we should work towards its advancement.
In the article I was quoting from a while ago, Mr. Gardner writes further:
To find gas and oil and take it from the earth is not enough. The great problem, which is the same all over the north, is to transport this gas or oil by pipeline to the south since there is no possibility of consuming it on the spot. The most readily reached markets are those of the American middle-west and central states. I am not concerned with

Supply-Defence Production the question of transporting gas or oil towards American or Canadian markets, but we have here facts which are of paramount importance in our economy. Business men should follow most closely everything that is done in this connection. The construction of pipelines would bring great changes to the economics of gas and oil.
It is interesting to note that:
Oil production in northern Alberta, in 1950, reached 28,200 barrels for the Normandville field (one well), 6,206 barrels for the Whitelaw field (one well), while the Bolloque lake field yielded only 753 barrels, this well having been abandoned later on.
(Text):
On motion of Mr. Gagnon the debate was adjourned.
Section stands.
Progress reported.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hour for private and public bills having expired, the house will resume consideration of the business under discussion at six o'clock.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Beaudoin in the chair.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE PRODUCTION A-Department-
79. Departmental administration and payments to Canadian Commercial Corporation and other corporate agencies for services provided in connection with defence purchasing and production, $7,332,492.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Mr. Chairman, when the committee rose at six o'clock I was about to discuss some of the problems of aircraft production. I think the one thing the country is interested in is when we can expect delivery of the weapons of defence in substantial numbers. We have really just arrived today at the end of our tooling-up program. We are about to produce. Nothing is worth anything until production gets going and the weapons of defence are delivered in numbers to the fighting services who may use them. I realize this is difficult. I realize that a great number of things we have had to produce have been new and have not been produced before. Apparently in all democracies there is a chronic shortage of machine tools. Engineers tell me that their idea of heaven is a place where there are enough machine tools for everybody to have one with which to work, but apparently the shortage of machine tools in Canada today is still chronic.


Mr. Stick:: We are a long way from heaven.


Agar Rodney Adamson: Apparently so. It may or may not be fortunate that we are a long way from heaven, but we still have a shortage of machine tools. Coming to defence production, and with particular reference to the A. V. Roe Company, may I say as a member in opposition to the government that I think

this company has been subjected to a great deal of unwarranted criticism. The A. V. Roe Company started virtually from scratch. First of all they endeavoured to design and then produce three things, the Orenda engine, the CF-100 and the jet liner. For a well established aircraft company to have tackled these three projects at the same time would have been a major operation; but for a company which was in its formative stage to attempt these three things was almost a heroic venture.
Hon. members may think that the design and the production of a prototype of an aircraft or a new jet engine is a difficult thing, but compared with making that prototype an. item on a production line I feel that the design and development of the prototype is comparatively simple. It was in the hiatus period between the testing of the prototype and putting the engine or aircraft on a production basis that the trouble took place. In part I blame the government for the reason that they did not fully appreciate the difficulties. The Minister of Defence Production probably did, but the Minister of National Defence certainly did not, and the Canadian people have become rather disenchanted with this establishment because of the glowing statements which were made when the prototypes of the Orenda engine, the CF-100 and the jet liner were first tested.
When the first CF-100 was test flown two years ago, I believe, there was an unfortunate incident. It was unfortunate in this way, that when a new aircraft is being tested and test flown for the first time it is generally the most-I will not say "secret"-nerve-wracking performance. When the aircraft is not only a new aircraft being test flown for the first time but has new engines in it, then it becomes a doubly nerve-wracking procedure. Not only are millions of dollars of effort riding on the aircraft but the very lives of the flight crew and test pilot are involved. As somebody has explained to me, test flying a new aircraft with new engines is like a woman having her first child. She does not want an audience. When this new aircraft was being flown for the first time the Minister of National Defence and a large contingent of top brass appeared at Malton for the accouchement, and the flight crew were so annoyed at what had happened that they very nearly refused to test fly the aircraft.
The aircraft was flown, but that is an example of the interference with this operation. As I have tried to explain to the committee-and I think the minister agrees with me-the design, development and production of a new aircraft with new engines is an extremely difficult thing to do even if

you have a background of years and years of production experience, but to do that with a comparatively new plane of new design is very difficult indeed. To have the top brass of the air force and the Minister of National Defence sitting around and saying now, you had better take off because we have got to get back to Ottawa, would be an intolerable burden.
That is the sort of thing that has bedevilled the A. V. Roe Company ever since it has gone into production. They are producing a good aircraft. They have a good engine. It is tragic that they had to abandon the jet liner, but the reason there is disenchantment, as I said, with this concern is that when the prototype was developed the government said the prototype meant production. A prototype does not mean production. The development of a prototype may still mean that you are years away from production, and it is most unfortunate that this very valuable contribution to the Canadian aircraft industry has been so bedevilled by this sort of thing.
There is just one thing more, Mr. Chairman. When the first CF-100 was flown by the R.C.A.F. it was known that there were certain structural weaknesses in the aircraft, and exactly what they were. I have a memo here of what they were. Actually it was a spar web which had no real structural importance whatever in so far as the safety of the aircraft was concerned. When aircraft No. 18104 was delivered there were strict instructions on the aircraft not to fly it over a certain number of G's-I think it was three. Apparently it was flown and tested at 5J or even 6 G's. This internal spar web cracked because of the flexing of the main wing structure, not a serious difficulty. It did not make the aircraft unsafe in any way, and it was certainly a small defect which has now been remedied.
I state these things because I believe this firm has done a unique job, and a great deal of criticism has been levelled at A. V. Roe because of the government having said, We have these aircraft, when in fact they did not have them at all. That is one of the inherent dangers in this whole business of defence production.
My criticism of the department, Mr. Chairman, is simply this. We have the plants and we haye the technical know-how. What we do not have is a certain knowledge that, not the prototypes but the weapons which we need and which our allies need to defend the free world are going to begin rolling off the production lines. The representatives of the people of this country want to know the truth. We are prepared to be told the truth. If the time lag between the prototype of the aircraft and the production of that aircraft
Supply-Defence Production is two years, let us know it. Do not say that we have the best aircraft in the world and it will be in production next week or next month and we will be producing it at the rate of fifty aircraft a month, when anyone who knows about aircraft production knows that is impossible. Such a person disbelieves a great deal of the story-I think it is a good story-about what we are producing.
In the future-I do not say this particularly of the Minister of Defence Production, because I think he has been quite frank- let us not have these propaganda statements from the government that everything is perfect. Everything never can be perfect in defence production; it must be a continuous headache. Let us admit that. Let the Canadian people have the facts. Let us have our bottlenecks, and have them explained in this house. Let us have the whole story of defence production delivered to us in its brutal, unvarnished truth if that may be necessary. Let us not have these propaganda statements that we are producing the best aircraft in the world, when we merely have the prototype. Let us not have this propaganda that we have the finest minesweepers or the finest escort vessels when they are still on the stocks. Let us have the real facts. We are fooling no one but ourselves by pretending that our defence production is better than it is.


Mr. Dinsdale:: Mr. Chairman, in considering the estimates for defence production it is inevitable that the topic of decentralization of industry should come up. Today we have heard two hon. members refer to that subject. In looking at the report of the department, on page 26 we And some brief reference to the role played by the small industries division in defence production. It is largely on that topic I shall concentrate tonight.
Recently in the Financial Post an article appeared to the effect that small industry has lost interest in making its contribution to our defence production program. I wish to point out to the minister tonight, speaking as I do on behalf of a Manitoba constituency that has been eager and anxious to make a small contribution, that this article does not refer in any way to the Brandon situation. As a matter of fact the Brandon defence pool, which drew considerable attention just a little over a year ago, as a unique approach to the handling of the problem of industrial decentralization received honourable mention in the Financial Post. The example it established in pooling its industrial potential has since inspired other communities of similar size to follow suit.

Supply

Defence Production
Unfortunately, in the year's interval the head of the small industries division has changed, the personnel has changed, and it might be that the up-to-date situation is not completely known to those responsible. The Brandon pool is still active and is still vitally interested in using the capacity it possesses for production in connection with our defence program. This applies to Manitoba generally, too. It might be of interest to the members of this house to know that for the first time this year Manitoba is having a trade fair, modelled on the Canadian international trade fair, but of course on a considerably smaller scale. This fair is to be conducted in connection with the provincial exhibition which takes place annually in the city of Brandon. It is hoped that some 80 or 85 industrial exhibitors from Manitoba will make use of the space available. I refer to that fact merely to indicate that there is no justification for making the claim that small industries have lost their interest in making the most of the opportunities provided for industrial expansion during the present period of huge expenditures for defence purposes.
Reviewing the situation up to the present time, so far as the Brandon pool is concerned we have actually had very little success. I realize that the minister is sympathetic in his viewpoint toward this problem of feeding suitable contracts to small defence industries, but there are difficulties that have already been mentioned. For example, there is the difficulty of natural trends, where it is exceedingly hard to break industrial trends that are already under way. But I feel there have been instances when contracts might have been awarded to the small defence industries had the situation been completely known.
We have been fortunate in receiving a contract for the fabrication of steel by the Canadian Brown Steel Tank Company. Again, our oil refinery has received certain contracts with regard to the supplying of fuel. But one industry that we are nurturing carefully, the Melco Electric Company, as yet has not been favoured with a contract. Yet with its 65 employees it is ready and waiting, as the article in a recent issue of Saturday Night expressed the Manitoba viewpoint.
There is a particular problem on which I might get some information. The Oshkosh Filter & Softener Co. Canada Ltd. tendered on an item, No. G-39-3A-494. The tenders were first called in November, 1951, to supply a water softener plant for Camp Shilo. Inquiries I made early in March indicated that the contract had not been awarded, and there is still no information as to the present situation with regard to that particular job. I state the claim of this company because it is the

only water softener plant west of the great lakes; and it should be in good position to meet the requirements of the contract.
In an industrial situation such as that prevailing in my own constituency, the smaller industries are finding that the expense of submitting tenders is almost prohibitive. It would be a considerable source of encouragement if, from time to time, tangible results were forthcoming. Because of the slowness in getting the small industry division under way, owing to change of personnel and unforeseen difficulties, no doubt, one of the members of our Brandon pool hired an industrial consultant. Actually this was done, I believe, as a result of an inquiry I made last fall, one that has already been referred to by the hon. member for Queens, when I tried to get information as to the breakdown of defence production contracts on a provincial basis. In reply to that inquiry I received the information that such statistics were not available, mainly because industrial consultants had set up offices in the city of Ottawa and a great many of the contracts were being awarded through these agencies.
On learning of that fact, one of the companies involved in the Brandon pool hired the services of a consultant, but unfortunately this measure has not as yet overcome the difficulty. I re-emphasize the fact that any impression that was conveyed by the Financial Post article concerning lack of interest on the part of small defence industries certainly does not prevail in respect to our Brandon defence pool.
The subject of the difficulties faced in the process of the dispersal or decentralization of industry has been adequately covered by earlier speakers today. For example, we have already heard of the natural trend which has tended to plague our western countries, whereby we find that industrialization has become almost synonymous, with urbanization. The two processes are inseparable. Wherever you have industrialization, inevitably huge metropolitan areas establish themselves. That has been the tendency for the last century, at least in the western world.
I am not going to deal exhaustively tonight with the arguments pro or co.n as to the advantages or disadvantages of the process of urbanization; but social thinkers are rather inclined to emphasize the unsavoury social effects that follow in the wake of this process of urbanization. The whole matter was summed up neatly in an article, under the heading of "Modern Utopia" by Bruce Hutchison, which appeared in the Ottawa Citizen of February 19, 1952. He was referring to the situation in which the city of New York finds itself, and the typical New Yorkers

who are supposed to have the highest standard of living of any people in the world. Incidentally, it is a situation the city of Toronto is perhaps rapidly approaching as it is faced with the tremendous boom of the post-war period. Mr. Hutchison says:
. . . the rich New Yorker who is the envy of the entire world arises at about 6 a.m. and hurries through his breakfast. He is then driven some ten miles along slippery roads and through the heavy traffic of various towns to the nearest railway station.
Here he is jostled by the cranky morning crowds on a cold windswept and dirty railway platform while gigantic trains, half a mile long, flick by, at least one a minute. Finally his own train stops and he is swept inside by a stampede of angry commuters, all with a high standard of living, a stomach ulcer and a harassed look. One is lucky to get a seat on the train and sit there for an hour and ten minutes while it wallows into the Grand Central.
The Grand Central at about 9 a.m. presents a sight very much, I imagine, like the buffalo herds of the Canadian prairies before the white man arrived, except that these herds are in a greater hurry. Only an experienced half-back can buck this line.
But if one survives, this is by no means the end of the journey. Now the high standard man descends with swarms of his own kind down dark and unclean passages into the bowels of the earth where, out of a black tunnel, roars the subway train, pauses for half a minute with open doors and then, swallowing up its passengers as a whale swallows herring, is off again with deafening sound through the bored rock of Manhattan island.
Thus about two hours after leaving home the high standard man finally staggers into his office to begin work. At 5 p.m. he repeats the same process in reverse and after a quick bit of dinner collapses into bed to prepare himself for the same carefree life next day.
That is known as the highest standard of living in modern civilization.
We could go on at length dealing with the social problems that emerge as a result of the process of industrialization and urbanization. As I have already said, the hon, member for Queens dealt with that subject, indicating that around the central area of these huge metropoli you have problems of delinquency and the multiplicity of social evils that plague our society today. In order to break that trend toward urbanization conscious effort and planning is going to be required; and we have a whole new movement of community planning developing in our midst. But I maintain, Mr. Chairman, that the community planners can do nothing until such time as industry is dispersed or decentralized, because your population must inevitably gravitate in the direction of large industrial areas. I will admit that there is a natural process of decentralization developing. We find the movement toward suburbs becoming increasingly popular, mainly because of the social amenities deriving therefrom. But in this great country of ours, with the vast wide open spaces, there is no reason at all why
Supply-Defence Production industry could not be much more widely dispersed than it is at the present time.
I realize the problems of history. Industrial development got under way much earlier in the central provinces. There is the great geographical barrier, the great formidable natural barrier, the Pre-Cambrian shield, and so forth. But today, when resources are being discovered right across our country, resources which have been waiting for development up to the present time, there is every reason why encouragement should be given to this very necessary process of decentralization of industry.
Unfortunately, as much as we appreciate both the basic economic necessity and the military necessity of the St. Lawrence waterway, there is some criticism. The Minister of Transport, when speaking on this subject last December 6, said something along this line in regard to the criticism which was raised by the railroads, which were protesting that the construction of the St. Lawrence waterway would interfere with their business. In his reply the Minister of Transport referred to the industries that will grow up on the St. Lawrence waterway in such large numbers that they will offset any loss of business or revenue that might be suffered by the railways as a result of the construction of the canal. In other words, in the very near future we can contemplate the establishment of a Ruhr valley in eastern Canada, much longer and larger and more vulnerable than the original Ruhr valley; and those who had anything to do with the Ruhr valley during world war II will realize how vulnerable was that area, particularly to aerial attack. Once effective bombing tactics, techniques, methods and weapons were developed it was just a matter of time until almost the whole industrial potential of the Ruhr valley was destroyed, a factor which contributed largely to the successful conclusion of world war II.
This brings me to the point of the dictates of our military strategy and defence. The hon. member for Queens has already referred to this subject. If the international situation is as dangerous as indicated, of course every effort should be given to decentralize our strategic and vital industries over as wide an area as possible.
In addition to the necessity of overcoming natural trends and the demands of our defence requirements, I should like to pause for a brief moment and refer to the peculiar situation in which Canada finds herself. Decentralization of industry in Canada is a unique and difficult problem, different from the problem of dispersal of industry in other

Supply-Defence Production areas, mainly because of the factors I have already outlined, namely the historic factors and the factor, for example, that the west was opened up at a much later date than the eastern provinces. As a result we on the prairies now find ourselves in the situation industrially that prevailed in eastern Canada after world war I, when there was a great upsurge. We must admit-I am speaking now particularly from the point of view of Manitoba-that we have moved far from the basic agricultural economy. For example, we can boast of an industrial output last year of almost $600 million. Unfortunately most of that has been concentrated in the eastern area of our province, particularly around the city of Winnipeg. I think the actual figure is something like 85 per cent.
We also have a population problem. It is both a quantitative problem and a qualitative problem, the number of people we have and the kind of people we have. We have lost large numbers of our citizens. We have not even been able to maintain a population increase based on natural increase. We have been constantly going back. It is claimed, as I have pointed out before, that unfortunately it is the more enterprising citizen who moves to the industrial areas of the country; so we are handicapped both quantitatively and qualitatively. I repeat, Mr. Chairman, the situation is such in Canada that the opportunity is there. With huge expenditure for defence purposes we can help overcome these difficulties by a conscious, logical approach to the problem. I appreciate that the need is well recognized by the minister and those responsible for the handling of defence expenditures. I merely wish to emphasize that we are very interested in playing our part to the maximum, using the facilities we have, and at the same time enlarging those facilities during a period when every opportunity is there for industrial expansion.
One final word on this subject. It seems to me that a basic difficulty of democracy in Canada would be overcome, could we establish the ideal of an equitable distribution of industries across the country. We know that local democracy has lost some of its vitality and some of its enthusiasm mainly because our communities have been depopulated with the constant drain of our human resources arising from rural urban migration. By relocating or encouraging smaller industry in some of these smaller communities we can assist measurably in re-establishing and reactivating the spirit of democracy in our local communities. I say that we cannot have a vital democracy on other

levels of government, either provincial or federal, unless the individual citizen in his home community is carrying the responsibility of local affairs.
What could result from the establishment of one small industry has been very nicely indicated by F. J. Lyle, who is the director of the trade and industry branch of the Ontario government.
He said:
A Canadian plant employing 150 men entails, on the average, these material benefits:
Support for one 22-room school and its teachers;
110 occupied homes;
A livelihood for 24 professional men;
Purchase and operation of 135 automobiles and services for them;
33 retail salespeople and annual sales of $325,000;
Support for 6,600 farm acres whose products are consumed by the factory employees, their families, and the families of those tradesmen and others who are sustained by the factory.
That demonstrates dramatically the beneficial effects that will result and are resulting as this process of decentralization continues. I only hope that every effort will be made to carry out the intentions of the small industries division, as expressed at page 26 of the report.
Then I would submit one final question to the minister, and this on a different subject. I noted that in his review of the activities of the department he made reference to the manufacture of -5 calibre machine guns, and also the ammunition for the machine guns. I believe the factory carrying out that contract is known as Canadian Arsenals. Several times in the house I have made inquiries as to the status of -5 calibre armament. I know the subject is discussed repeatedly in military circles. I first became aware of the controversy during world war II when the tendency was to emphasize larger armament for the Royal Canadian Air Force. For example, during the progress of world war II we moved from -303 machine guns, finally concentrating on 20 millimetre cannons. The controversy then, as it is today, was between the United States and Britain as to the respective merits of the -5 machine gun and the 20 millimetre cannon.
Repeatedly the effectiveness of the -5 weapon is questioned by those in authority. Some few weeks ago I made reference to the comments of a pilot in the 410th squadron located in England, the comments of Major Davies of the United States air force, one of the United States aces fighting in Korea, and more recently to the comments of Dr.
G.	M. Shrum, a member of Canada's national defence board and of the national research council.

Dealing with the presence of obsolete and obsolescent weapons in our forces, he had this to say in regard to the -5 machine gun:
Jet planes, travelling at 700 miles an hour, are using obsolete machine guns.
"They might as well be shooting at each other with pea shooters."
That is language similar to that used by the pilot in the 410th squadron overseas.
The question that arises out of these comments in this: Are we embarking upon a large-scale production of -5 calibre machine guns and armaments, which many people feel is obsolescent? If it is effective at all today, it is obsolescent and very soon will be superseded by rocket projectiles still in the experimental stage.


Mr. Pearkes:: Mr. Chairman, I believe our defence efforts would fall under three headings. First there is the planning stage; then there is the provision of personnel and, third, the provision of equipment for those personnel. I think all hon, members in the committee are familiar with the details of the planning stage. It is built up on a three year program in order to meet our commitments for the defence of Canada, our commitments in connection with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations, and to build up a general strategic reserve. That is based upon a three-year plan. I think it is essential that all hon. members realize that we are working on such a plan.
With regard to personnel, we have had many assurances from the Minister of National Defence that the provision of personnel is moving along satisfactorily, according to plan. Figures published in tonight's newspaper, if correct, would give assurance along those lines. The official figures as stated in that newspaper indicate that in the active component of the Royal Canadian Navy there are 14,000 men, in the active army some
50.000	men and in the active air force some 33,000, making a total of about 97,000 men. This is within an appreciable distance of the target set for the number of personnel required at the end of the three-year period.
Figures are also given regarding the reserve forces, the navy having 7,000, the army
44.000	and the air force 6,000. We have no target figure at which those reserve forces are aiming; but I should like to call attention to various statements made recently by such commanders as General Eisenhower, stressing the importance of building up the reserve forces to a point where in due course they would be ready and available to take their place with the more active components of the armed forces of the various nations, should the world situation deteriorate.
Supply-Defence Production
I think it is fair to say that the general manpower situation in the armed forces, according to the target set two years ago by the Minister of National Defence, appears to be in a satisfactory state.
Now we come to the question of equipment which, I believe, is provided by the Department of Defence Production. I do not think it is the responsibility of that department to indicate design or even the number of various types of ships, aircraft or guns required. If my interpretation of the responsibilities of the department is correct, then it is the responsibility of the department to produce the weapons and equipment which the Department of National Defence indicates are necessary for our defence effort. Of course there are bound to be consultations. No doubt the Minister of Defence Production might on occasions point out that certain equipment could not be provided, and that it was not possible for this country to produce certain types. All in all it is the responsibility of the minister to produce the equipment which the defence department requires. I am not going to presume to tell the minister how to do it because I do not think there is a man on the government benches who is better able to carry out these duties than the present minister.
What I want to know is, how is that getting along? Is there a backlog? Has the Department of National Defence asked for any equipment or materials which the minister has not been able to supply? Is he marching side by side in the production of equipment with the department which is responsible for producing the manpower? I think that is the question, in simple terms, which the people of Canada want answered.
I do not think that we can hold the minister responsible for producing this or that type of weapon. Whether the weapon he is asked to produce is obsolete or is a new model is for the Department of National Defence to decide. What I would like to obtain from the minister when he replies is a simple, straightforward statement as to how his department is meeting the demands which have been made upon it by the Department of National Defence.
Has he been able to keep pace with the intake of men, in so far as the navy is concerned? Has he been able to produce a sufficient number of vessels so the personnel which joins the Royal Canadian Navy will be able to take their training and if necessary go to sea in vessels which are now available? Or will they have to wait for another six or twelve months before vessels are available?
As far as the army is concerned, have the active components of the army now serving in

Supply-Defence Production Korea and Europe adequate equipment according to the standards which were laid down by the Department of National Defence? Or is the minister still trying in some respects to obtain equipment in order to come up to the standards required?
In so far as the Royal Canadian Air Force is concerned, we know that the number of personnel to meet the final target are not yet available, but we have had assurances from the Minister of National Defence that they will be available by the target date. Well and good; but will there be aircraft which those personnel will require available when needed?
What we want is just a simple, straightforward statement. I do not think the actual number of guns or the number of suits of clothing mean anything to us. Just tell us whether the department is keeping up to the requests which are made to it, or give us a frank statement that in some respects it is falling down.
Supposing the situation does deteriorate; supposing this period of cold war should deteriorate into active warfare, in what position is this country to speed up vital production in its general armament industry? From the stress laid upon it by commanders of the United Nations forces, by our own Minister of National Defence and by commanders in this country, we know that considerable importance is placed upon our reserve forces. We cannot expect them to be fully equipped at this time. Nobody would expect that, but we would like to know what reasonable chance there is for this reserve force to be fully equipped within a reasonable period after the situation becomes so obvious that we have to start building up the general strategic reserve of the United Nations which we may be called upon to supply.
What is the position regarding the possibility of swinging into full production of war materials? I am not going to ask whether the reserve army is fully equipped, because I know the answer. Of course it is not; you do not expect it to be. What I do want to know is this. Is the machinery there so that on comparatively short notice we can swing into full production? As I say, if the minister can give us a simple, straightforward picture of the general situation I believe it will answer the queries which are in the minds of a great many people who are giving serious thought to this situation at the present time.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Chairman-


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Mr. Chairman, I take it that we are in committee and the minister is answering.
[Mr. PearkesJ


Clarence Decatur Howe: I am awfully tired of listening. My hon. friend has been speaking for most of the evening, and perhaps he will give way. I shall start with the last question and work backward to the questions asked by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra.
The hon. member who has just spoken is well aware of the nature of war production. When you are depending on mass production there is a long tooling process and then tremendous output. We are following that path deliberately so that if the worst comes to the worst and we have to fight a war we will have the productive capacity. We would have far more production than we can use in this country under present circumstances. I remember one occasion during the last war, I think it was in 1944, when there was a shipping delay lasting about six weeks. The U-boats were active and very few boats were loaded. In those six weeks we had the railroad line from Windsor to Montreal, as well as several branch lines, piled high with munitions of war on their way overseas. That is the way production rolls when you really get going.
My hon. friend asked if the manpower of the three services were adequately supported with equipment. I believe the answer is yes, although I will admit at once that part of that equipment is from the last war. But in the case of aircraft, the production of F-86 aircraft, which is the principal plane of aggression, is well ahead of schedule. Apparently the Royal Canadian Air Force are satisfied with the production because they have diverted about sixty planes to our allies. Those planes are now in Korea, planes that we thought were to equip the Canadian air force. We are turning out the F-86 as fast as the R.C.A.F. can use them. If more are needed we can step up production, particularly when the Orenda engine comes into production in increasing quantities.
The CF-100 is intended as a defensive plane for this country. It is a long-range, allweather fighter, particularly adapted to use in Canada. While three squadrons of these planes will eventually go overseas, I do not think any unit is waiting for these particular planes at this time.
Then with regard to ships, all the ships of the last war have been or are being activated. I am quite sure that all naval personnel are able to train on modern ships. The new escort vessel is a very complicated ship. I might say that the weapons of today are about ten times as complicated as the weapons of the last war. However, the escort program is coming along. Unfortunately in the newer equipment one piece is usually not invented and that is holding

up completion of the whole on some occasions; nevertheless I believe the answer to the hon. member for Nanaimo is yes. The program is meeting the requirements of the Canadian services at the present time.
We must keep in mind that the supply lines in Korea are American and the supply lines in Europe are British, so we are not shipping ordinary supplies to the front. Ammunition and supplies of food and clothing are not going from Canada to the front. We would be quite able to supply them if that were the situation, but it happens that the line of supply has been organized differently. I repeat that I think we can say that every member of the armed services, whether in Canada or abroad, is properly equipped with modern weapons.
Perhaps I might say a word about dispersal of industry. Dispersal is an easy thing to talk about and somewhat hard to arrange, and I think there are some rather weird ideas about it. We should remember that we have a three-year program. It may be very fine to set up a substantial industry in a small town remote from industrial areas, equip that factory to produce for three years, and then presumably close it down. My hon. friend mentioned the A. V. Roe plant. He said it would be a wonderful industry for a small city. May I point out that the A. V. Roe plant today employs
10,000	people and shortly will employ 18,000. If you put that plant in a small city, what does the city do? The city must first build houses for 10,000 families. They must build schools to service the houses and they must have water supplies and sewage disposal plants to correspond. That may be a good thing to do to a small town but I would not like to be guilty of perpetrating that sort of thing.
I recall that in the last war experts made a very careful examination, of where to put an explosives plant which was going to involve about $15 million in construction. The report came back that they thought the ideal place for it would be in Port Arthur. I said, "Take another look. It is going somewhere, but it is not going anywhere near Port Arthur." We like to run an economy in Port Arthur that remains fairly stable from year to year. To put a plant of that kind, with the employment it would require, into a city the size of Port Arthur would be a crime against the economics of the whole district. Therefore the explosives plant was put in the vicinity of a much larger city. When the war was over it was dismantled and the several thousand employees who had worked there were absorbed into the general industry of the city. That is somewhat illustrative. I may
Supply-Defence Production say that it went to Winnipeg. My hon. friend will remember that.


Mr. Stewart (Winnipeg North):: I remember that.


Clarence Decatur Howe: You handled it fairly well. I passed it on to my hon. friend. I was generous. That is the story of dispersal. Take the city of Brandon,. I think it would be wrong to put an industry employing 2,000 people in Brandon, operate it for two years and then close it. What in the world would they do with the houses they had built to house these people?


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: For a small industry?


Clarence Decatur Howe: It would have to be in proportion to the area; but in mass production for war, industries are not small. I took a little time after dinner and prepared a statement showing the difficulty of meeting the frequent requests for allocating war production between provinces. A question has been raised as to why we do not publish figures showing the value of projects placed in the various provinces. The simple answer, which I have given on several occasions, is that we see no value in giving such figures inasmuch as they in no way reflect the impact of the defence program on the various sectors of the country. They do not take into account the large proportion of subcontracting which is inherent in this type of work. They make no allowance for the source of raw materials going into the contracts, and in many cases they are misleading because contracts placed at head offices in Ottawa or Montreal are often carried out in company plants which may be located as far away as the east coast or the west coast.
Let me assure hon. members that I am as interested as they are in ensuring that industry in every part of Canada has an opportunity to play its fair share in this over-all program. I fully recognize the arguments that are put forward concerning the desirability of locating our defence potential in such a way as to minimize the dangers of attack. Nevertheless it is one thing to express this pious wish and it is another thing to implement a policy. I think the only proper way of examining the situation is to look at a few of the major programs.
Let us first look at aircraft. There are three major prime contractors in this field, Canadair, A. V. Roe and de Havilland. These three companies will be responsible for about a billion 'dollars worth of defence contracts, and if we allocated contracts we would allocate about half of that to the province of Quebec and half to the province of Ontario. But what are the facts? Ther are nine other

Supply-Defence Production firms with substantial overhaul and modification contracts, one in Halifax, two in Winnipeg, one in Edmonton, and one in Vancouver. Furthermore, the percentage of subcontracts in this field is extremely heavy. A. V. Roe, for example, has 15 major subcontractors and over 600 important suppliers. Many of these subcontractors and suppliers are in part located outside the province of Ontario.
Then let us take shipbuilding. The major contracts have been placed at Halifax, Saint John, Lauzon, Sorel, Montreal, Kingston, Port Arthur, Vancouver and Victoria, whereas smaller contracts have been placed at such centres as Charlottetown, P.E.I. and Trenton, Pictou, Lunenburg and Liverpool, Nova Scotia. There again these shipyards subcontract all across the country. We find factories on the prairies building components to go into these shipyards.
Taking the automotive field, major contracts naturally are located at Windsor and Oshawa. However, several smaller contracts for specialized equipment have been placed in Montreal, St. Claire and Valcourt, P.Q., at St. Catharines and Hamilton in Ontario, and at Winnipeg, Manitoba.
With respect to weapons, major artillery contracts have been placed at Sorel and small arms contracts with Canadian Arsenals, the work being done at their Long Branch plant. Other contracts have been placed with Dominion Bridge. A considerable amount of its work is being done at their Burnaby, B.C., branch, and by Firestone Tire and Rubber, Hamilton, Turnbull Elevator, Toronto, and
H.	and R. Arms, Drummondville. Here again these plants are focal centres for subcontracting. We have no method of segregating the impact of the subcontracting from these plants. I know that Sorel Industries are subcontracting a good deal of their work outside the province of Quebec.
Turning to ammunition, all major contracts have been placed with Canadian Arsenals at Ottawa, but 80 per cent of the work is being done at St. Paul l'Ermite and Quebec city, and 20 per cent at Lindsay, Ontario. Important subcontracts have been placed with Trenton Steel in Nova Scotia, a number of Montreal firms, Sorel Industries, small firms located around Quebec city, and firms in the Toronto area such as Graham Bell Enameling, Streetsville, T. W. Hand, Cooks-ville, United Steel Corporation, Welland, Wallaceburg Brass of Wallaceburg, and Orillia Sheet Metal, Orillia.
The torpedo program will be extensively subcontracted. The torpedo body will probably be built in British Columbia.

In electronics, the main program will be located in the Toronto, Hamilton, Belleville and Montreal areas, where the big four of the industry are located. However, there are important contracts at Cossor Limited, Halifax, and subcontracts in such places as Quebec city, Drummondville, Windsor, London and Brantford, Ontario.
I turn now to clothing and equipage. This is a very complicated program to analyse from the angle of geographical distribution, because of the prevalence of multiple branch plants. For example, Canadian Cottons receives orders which are credited to its Montreal head office, whereas the mills are located in Ontario and New Brunswick.
In fuels and lubricants, the prime contracts have a geographical distribution related to the location of defence installations and their usage of such items as gasoline, etc. However, the flow of supplies creates a considerable indirect effect on producing areas such as Alberta, which is not reflected in the provincial placing of prime contracts.
With regard to food the same principle applies. Food tends to be bought locally, but may have much of its origin in areas such as the prairie region.
From these few remarks you will note that, although there are definite limitations as to the geographical distribution that can be achieved, the program is indeed having an impact on the whole of Canada, from coast to coast. I have mentioned a large number of small towns that are doing defence work as a result of subcontracts, and these examples could be multiplied many times over. This statement shows the impossibility of trying to analyse contracts by geographical boundaries. All we record is the prime contractor, and his address may mean nothing at all so far as the impact of his contract is concerned.
The hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra has regretted that there was no long-term plan for this department, and that it was staffed with officers borrowed from industry who were obviously not permanent officers. It was organized as a temporary department. As I say, the program was the three-year NATO program, joined in by all the free nations. We hope that after the program is completed, and after the production facilities have been established, the maintenance of a separate department will not be necessary. After the last war the department of munitions and supply was merged with the Department of Trade and Commerce. I hope that in due course this department can be merged with an existing department.
The reason we have borrowed men from industry is that you are able to borrow men

you could not possibly hire. We have no compunction about asking an industry to lend us its top executive for a period of time. We go to companies like Bell Telephone, Steel Company of Canada, Ford or General Motors and say we want so and so. Sometimes we have a bit of an argument, but in my experience extending over the last ten years or more no company has definitely refused to lend us the man we said we wanted. These men are paid rather better than civil servants for the main part, and therefore we say to the company that we are sorry we cannot pay the salary but we will pay his living expenses and you pay his salary. In every case, I believe, the company has agreed to that procedure. I may say that no department of government has ever been better served than has the department for which I have been responsible, as a result of borrowing men from industry for temporary jobs.
Then there was the matter of the distribution of defence orders placed outside of Canada, which was mentioned by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra. It was a major policy decision that, in view of the threat of communism, it seemed obvious that if a last ditch stand had to be made it would have to be made in the defence of North America. If the great world struggle between the two different ideologies should actually occur, it seemed to the government it would be the duty of this country to prepare for that last ditch stand. We decided, therefore, to standardize weapons with the United States, our next door neighbour. This policy called for a different type of weapon than we used in the last war. However, the type would have been different whatever the country with whom we standardized.
I think the fact that we have standardized on United States army weapons has in no way handicapped the program. There was a departure in that we adopted the Centurion tank of Great Britain instead of the United States Sherman tank. The reason for that was that both tanks were operating in the same area, and for the type of warfare presently in progress the Centurion tank seemed to be doing at least as well as the Sherman tank. I believe the government of the United States has also purchased Centurion tanks, perhaps for the same reason we did.
Then we have been urged to further expand the steel industry. We did undertake a tremendous expansion three years ago, and then it came somewhat later than I had hoped. I had tried to bring about some expansion two years earlier; however the commencement of the expansion was undertaken about two years ago. The expansion program
Supply-Defence Production when completed will result in adding about one-third to the present productive capacity of our steel industry. This expansion has been carried out with private funds, and will come into production partly in the fourth quarter of this year and the balance early next year. When we have that additional capacity, Canada will be more nearly self-supporting in steel. We never have been entirely self-supporting, and I presume that imports will be required even with the increased expansion.
The hon. member referred to the lack of a steel industry on the west coast.


Howard Charles Green: West of the great lakes.


Clarence Decatur Howe: West of the great lakes there are two or three. There is one at Winnipeg, one at Calgary and one at Vancouver.


Howard Charles Green: But just scrap metal plants.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I know, but the fourth largest steel industry in this country survived on scrap metal from its founding about thirty-five years ago up until one year ago. It never used anything else. It did so because scrap metal was available to meet the requirements of a very large mill, Dominion Foundry and Steel. I see no purpose in the west coast going into the primary steel business, as long as the west coast supplies sufficient scrap to keep the local industry going. To me the logical development would be to expand the production of finished steel, and when the time comes that the supply of scrap is not adequate then to add a blast furnace, which is exactly what Dofasco has done within the last year or two. I have said before that the opening of the steel deposits there is the logical procedure for blast furnaces.


Howard Charles Green: The iron deposits.


Clarence Decatur Howe: If British Columbia is going to miss the few thousand tons of iron ore that will be shipped from there until the blast furnace is built, the deposits are hardly sufficient to warrant a steel industry in any event. All I can say is that the government will be prepared to extend to the steel industry in British Columbia any help that it is extending or has extended to the steel industry in eastern Canada.
I think that covers the questions which were asked.


Howard Charles Green: There were two other points that I raised, Mr. Chairman. One had to do with the extraordinary powers given under the Defence Production Act, particularly the power to seize an industry. The other had to do with the building of modern merchant vessels.
2780	HOUSE OF
Supply-Defence Production Mr. Howe: The powers were taken when the country was much more alarmed than it seems to be at the moment, though I doubt whether the situation was more threatening then than it is today. The powers were taken in view of the possibility that there might be all-out war within a very few months. The important feature is not the powers the government has; it is the powers the government uses. We have used the powers to control prices. We have been keeping a control on materials where the war requirements created shortages that would have an effect on prices. For instance, no steel price can be increased without previous advice to and approval of the government. The domestic price of all metals requires prior approval of the government. The same thing is true with regard to most of the raw materials that are being bought for the defence program. We have not passed laws but the controller, clothed with authority, has instructed the trade that this procedure must be followed; and it has been followed. I see no reason to cancel those powers today.


Howard Charles Green: If I may interrupt the minister, may I point out that I did not refer to those powers particularly. I referred to the power to seize an industry.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The powers to seize an industry are the powers to prevent a contractor of the government from getting into a position in which he cannot carry out his contract. That authority is not an unusual provision in any contract. Every construction contract that is written by the government or by anybody else provides that if the contractor gets into difficulty, the owner can take over his equipment and finish the job at his expense. That is an ordinary provision.


Howard Charles Green: But not take over his business?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes; take over his business, as a rule. His business has got to be good for the completion of the contract.


Howard Charles Green: That is done only through court procedure.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Our provision does not provide for taking over a business if a contractor has a defence contract in one plant and is doing other business in other plants; there is no provision that allows us to take over his entire business. We take over the plant which is carrying out the war contract, and we operate that plant until we obtain our deliveries. We did that several times in the last war.
I accept the point of view that we incur liabilities by so doing. If by putting in a controller we made the situation worse instead of better, we would be responsible to the


owner for damages. I have always felt sure of that. But fortunately all the situations worked out well. The situation never arose where we turned back a plant in worse condition than when we took it over. I see nothing dangerous in the power the government takes to protect the production which is essential to its defence program or its war program. That is the only power for seizing property that the government has under the emergency regulations.


Howard Charles Green: The minister means under the Defence Production Act?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes; under the Defence Production Act.


Howard Charles Green: Since the war has any occasion arisen when it was necessary to seize a business or part of it?


Clarence Decatur Howe: No, not at all; but there must have been ten or fifteen occasions during the second world war.


Howard Charles Green: During the war?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes. As to merchant ships, may I say that the merchant ships seem to be adequate to meet emergency conditions. Shipping is fairly easy at the moment. Ninety-five per cent of the ships afloat that carry bulk cargoes are of the same type as the ships that make up Canada's bulk cargo fleet. In the allocation of naval duties by NATO, Canada was allocated the task of escorting ships on the north Atlantic. We are preparing to do that job. In the program of building escort vessels I see nothing which carries with it the thought that we should have a complementary program of building fast merchant ships. We are guarding the ships of all nations, not simply the ships of the merchant marine.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: The minister has told us that we have tooled up beyond our immediate needs, a wise and reasonable precaution. Can he tell us just what is happening to this extra productive capacity? Is it on a care and maintenance basis, or who is responsible for seeing that it is kept in top condition?


Clarence Decatur Howe: It will mean that as it comes into production the goods actually on order will be produced in a very short time. That has not happened yet. Then the plants will be kept on a care and maintenance basis and returned to other purposes. The productive capacity will be there. For instance, at Canadair we will be turning out aircraft, I suppose, at the rate of 50 a month. My hon. friend knows that after we have in hand our supplies for the current situation, the requirements may be 10 aircraft a month

simply in order to make up wastage. Nevertheless we have the large capacity in case war comes. It is a weapon which I think is more valuable than are aircraft already produced and on the ground.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: There is no chance of this extra productive capacity being sold if the emergency fades away?


Clarence Decatur Howe: No.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I also wish to ask one or two questions of the minister. I have been greatly interested in the statement he has given us and in this report of the defence production department. It is, of course, clear that up to the present time we have no details of any kind which enable us to arrive at any judgment of our own. We merely have the interesting statement from the minister and the interesting report.
As has been pointed out already, actually the estimates of the Department of Defence Production are in one way misleading because of the small amount actually they involve. We have $7 million for ordinary administration, to which I will come back later. One large item is to provide capital assistance for the construction, acquisition, extension or improvement of capital equipment or works. I take it that is pursuant to the duty laid on the department, as set out at page 9 of the report from which I quote:
... to "examine into, organize, mobilize and conserve the resources of Canada contributory to, and the sources of supply of, defence supplies".
What I want to ask the minister is this. I put this forward with an open mind because I do not want to make a request which is unreasonable. On the other hand I feel that we in the opposition ought to have some direct evidence beyond what we have at the moment. What I suggest to the minister, at any rate as a beginning, is that we should be informed of, or be allowed to see, the contracts or at any rate the large ones covering this $85 million investment. That is an investment which is rather different from the others because it is one to provide for construction and so on. It is really an investment which we ourselves make as a nation in production.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I just want to say I would be delighted to furnish that material if we could get to the items. I do not think I can furnish the material on the discussion on general administration.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Do I understand the minister to say that he thinks I am anticipating my questions, and that they should come at a later stage?
Supply-Defence Production


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I will accept that and go on to the other thing I was going to say.
What is the relationship between defence production and national defence in this respect? I realize that it is up to national defence to originate its own orders and to pass them on to defence production; nevertheless defence production has a very considerable staff of able experts in the contract business. My question is this. When a request for material comes from national defence to defence production, is it acted upon automatically? Is any scrutiny given to it? I mention this because one or two cases have arisen, one of which was manifestly ridiculous. There were small amounts involved, but when you touch a soft spot you wonder whether there are others. Does the defence production department accept this automatically, or do they bring their trained common sense to bear on it and if they find anything that looks as if it is out of line will they criticize it?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The duty of the Department of Defence Production is to be the servant of the armed services. It is the duty of the armed services to say what they want, write *the specifications, draw the plans and say how many. If the requisition comes signed by the minister of the department, or in certain cases by his deputy minister, accompanied by a certificate of encumbrance which provides the funds with which to buy it, it is the duty of defence production to provide it. In other words if the army decides they want a gold-plated piano, and they send along a requisition accompanied by a certificate of encumbrance, we buy the gold-plated piano. If it is a nickel-plated piano we can object, because nickel is a scarce commodity. But as to a gold-plated one, we have no reason to object; we would go and buy it. An impossible situation would arise if the Department of Defence Production challenged the right of the armed services to buy what they said they needed, and for which they provide the financial encumbrance.


Mr. McLure:: But they cannot say whom to buy it from.


Clarence Decatur Howe: No, they cannot say that; that is the business of defence production. They can say what they want, but whether it is procured by production within the country, or whether it is bought from without, that is a decision entirely for the Department of Defence Production. However, if there is something peculiar about the order it is reported to me. In a different capacity, as a member of the government of Canada, I can

Supply-Defence Production consult with my colleague, the Minister of National Defence, who is also a member of the government of Canada and draw it to his attention, which I do. If he looks at the matter and says: "No, the order is correct", that ends it.


Howard Charles Green: There are two or three questions I should like to ask the minister. Is it the intention of the government that the Department of Defence Production should go out of existence in 1954?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Oh, no; it will go out of existence when the administration can be carried out in more economical form. The point was that the department of munitions and supply, when maintaining a skeleton of the department which was flung all the way across the country, was a more expensive way of buying, carrying out the requirements of the defence services, than to combine with another department which had offices in various parts of Canada. Of course we cannot foresee these matters, but I would say the present department would be wound up when its work had diminished to the point that the overhead of the department was not warranted.


Howard Charles Green: The minister said that upon the expiration of the three-year program he thought the Department of Defence Production would no longer be required. That would be in the year 1954. I was surprised at that because I had-


Clarence Decatur Howe: We cannot be wound up that fast.


Howard Charles Green: No. I thought that once this three-year program is completed, then the NATO countries would almost of necessity have to carry on with a further program of some type; that they simply would not be able to say; "we have prepared a certain amount of equipment, and we have set up certain manufacturing facilities. Now we can go back to normal times and let the matter stand". I should think the probability is there will be another program following the completion of this three-year program. Is that so?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The present act expires in 1956. The situation will be reviewed. I do not know what is going to follow the present program. We do not plan programs. That is a matter for the services.


Howard Charles Green: Another question had to do with the defence purchasing done by the department for other countries. The minister said nothing about that today. Can he tell us the situation in that regard?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The Canadian Commercial Corporation, associated with the department, acts for other governments. I said today we had placed something over $250 million worth of contracts for the government of the United States. We place certain orders for the United Kingdom and for the other countries, but not on a large scale. Any foreign requirements that are placed in Canada through the government. are placed toy the Canadian Commercial Corporation, through the department, in turn.


Howard Charles Green: Would it be possible to get those figures for "the other countries"?


Clarence Decatur Howe: No, I would not like to give them; I do not think it would be appropriate.


Howard Charles Green: To what extent is the department in the operation of facilities? For example, mines. I know that it is operating, or has some operating agreement in connection with the Emerald mine in southeastern British Columbia.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


Howard Charles Green: Are there any other instances of that kind?


Clarence Decatur Howe: No, I think that is the only mine we own. Of course we are in the mining business in uranium in a big way, but I think the only new mining venture is the mine the hon. member spoke of, Emerald tungsten. It is doing very well, I might say, financially and otherwise.


Howard Charles Green: Yes. I believe it has turned out to be quite profitable. I understand that it is operated under a management contract with a private mining company; in other words, the department is not actually conducting mining operations.


Clarence Decatur Howe: No; we have an engineer on the job, but the actual operating is done by a private company.


Howard Charles Green: One other question on the item. There is an increase in the vote of over $1,300,000. Actually what was spent during the last fiscal year was an estimated sum of $5,158,000. Why is there that increase; what is the main reason?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Larger expenditure, larger staff. The staff has been extended to take on additional responsibility.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: I should like to ask one question on subcontracts. Does the subcontractor come under the defence production management? Does he deal directly with the minister's office as a subcontractor?


Clarence Decatur Howe: No; he reports to the main contractor, but the Department of Defence Production reserves the right to approve the subcontractor. We do not deal directly with him; we deal with him through the main contractor.


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: You approve of him doing the work, though?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, we have that right.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I should like to know a little more about the staff. I did not realize the numbers were so large. There must be a good many hundred people indicated at pages 154 and 155. Would the minister say something about the size of the staff and, in particular, I should like to know what he does with about 20 economists. I did not realize so many were needed to give these orders.


Clarence Decatur Howe: We have about 1,700 people on the staff.


Howard Charles Green: It says there are 1,900.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, 1,900. I believe the book rather than my memory.


Howard Charles Green: So would I.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Then, of course, we have inspectors on every construction job going on across the country, and those in the field staff of the general purchasing branch, which is charged against departmental administration.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: How many of these 1,900 came from previously existing departments?


Clarence Decatur Howe: About 800. Some 650 were absorbed from Canadian Commercial Corporation and 150 from the Department of Trade and Commerce.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Then will the minister tell me about all these economists?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The economists are really statisticians. To keep track of programs of this kind we must have men who are responsible for analysing figures, and keeping the programs in order.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Could the minister say
whether Canadian Arsenals Limited is going into large-scale production of -5 ammunition?


Clarence Decatur Howe: There is a considerable program of -5 aircraft guns, partly for Canadian requirements and partly for NATO requirements. It is a combined order for two or three countries.
Supply-Defence Production


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Is there any information about tender No. G-39-3A-494 for the installation of a water softening plant at Camp Shilo?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I have heard vaguely about that-something about the process. However, I am asking that the information be looked up. I know the order has not been passed yet, but just why I am not sure.


Mr. Browne (Si. John's West):: Has the
minister received any request from the government of Newfoundland for defence orders for any of the government plants down there?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The only one I remember is from the new MIAG plant. It is a machinery plant, and I believe the products to be produced at the plant are being exhibited at the trade fair. The plant is not yet in production.


William Joseph Browne: It is not
yet constructed.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Sample machines are being shown at the fair, and I am sure our manufacturers will be interested in seeing them. After that I should hope that further orders will be placed.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
80. To provide capital assistance for the construction. acquisition, extension or improvement of capital equipment or works by private contractors engaged in defence contracts, or by crown plants operated on a management-fee basis, or by crown companies under direction of the Minister of Defence Production, subject to the approval of treasury board, $85,000,000.
James MacKerras Macdonnell: I take it this is the item to which the minister referred when he asked me to reserve my question until later.


Clarence Decatur Howe: This is the capital assistance item. In 1951-52, out of an appropriation of $100 million, only $46,165,000 was expended,


Howard Charles Green: Is that out of a vote of $100 million?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, out of a vote of $100 million. This year the vote is $85 million, which includes a carry-over of $66 million from last year. That is allocated as follows: Canadian General Electric, $970,000; Canadian Steel Improvements, $1,718,000; Cockshutt Aircraft Limited, $797,000; Dominion Engineering Limited, $1,473,000; John Inglis Company Limited, $5,810,000; Light Alloys Limited, $50,000; Peacock Brothers, $1,188,000; A. V. Roe, the jet engine plant, $16,176,000; Rotax of Canada Limited, $2,496,000; Sperry Gyroscope, $1,618,000; the crown company, Canadian Arsenals Limited, $8,800,000; and to

Supply-Defence Production provide miscellaneous private contractors with government machinery installed in private plants, $43,665,000.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: How does the minister suggest that we should get a further understanding of this? There is no security involved in these contracts, is there? Could they not be filed?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, but I think the proper place to file them is in the committee on defence expenditures. I would not like to lay them on the table of the house, because that would not be the proper procedure. However, my officers would be glad to attend before the committee on defence expenditures and produce any of the contracts in which the hon. member may be interested.
I might add that all the contracts involve complete government ownership. If a building is built, it is built on land owned by the crown, and the buildings belong to the crown. If it is machinery, the machinery is the property of the crown and remains the property of the crown. I might say from the experience of the last war that the salvage was around 40 per cent of the original value of the buildings or machines.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: The minister says there is no objection to the production of these contracts before the committee on defence expenditures. However, he does not wish to file them here. Is there any real difference? In both cases they are made public, are they not?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes; but in one case they are simply dumped on the table, while in the other they are laid on the table by an officer of the department who can answer questions about them. I might say, so far as tabling in the house is concerned, that all these contracts develop out of orders in council tabled in the house. If the hon. member cares to look through the records he will find orders in council covering each of these capital expenditures.


Howard Charles Green: Is it possible to have further details about this $43 million, which is nearly half the amount?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes. The hon. member can have details of every machine that has been bought. It has been machinery installed in private plants. We have complete records, and will be glad to produce those records for every machine installed.


Howard Charles Green: It constitutes over half the total vote. Would it be possible to have a list of the firms?


Clarence Decatur Howe: It would be a large volume, out it is available. We would be very pleased to give it.


Howard Charles Green: How many firms are involved, approximately?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Many plants with defence contracts have government-owned machinery installed in them. There are probably two or three hundred of them.


Howard Charles Green: The government would purchase certain of this machinery outright?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


Howard Charles Green: And this vote is for that
purpose?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


Howard Charles Green: The minister said that last year $46 million was spent. The figures at page 156 show that up to January 31,	1952,
$13,561,757 had been spent, and the figure estimated for the balance of the year is $16,334,356, making an estimated total for the last fiscal year of $29,896,113. How did the figure increase from $29 million to $46 million?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The original procedure was that capital assistance was provided from the vote of the Department of National Defence. There is a combination of two sources of funds, so far as last year's capital assistance is concerned. This year it is all in the Department of Defence Production. The books simply show expenditures from the Department of Defence Production. In addition, certain capital assistance was arranged through the Department of National Defence.


Howard Charles Green: Apparently the estimate last year carried under the Department of Defence Production-


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


Howard Charles Green: -was $100 million?


Clarence Decatur Howe: And also $50 million in the Department of National Defence.


Howard Charles Green: The real situation is that taking the two votes together, the total appropriation for this purpose was $150 million, with the expenditure being $46 million; is that correct?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


Howard Charles Green: This year the vote is to be $85 million, or is there another sum being voted for the Department of National Defence?


Clarence Decatur Howe: No, it is all in this.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: So it will really be $85 million as against $150 million; is that correct?


Clarence Decatur Howe: That is right.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I want to be clear as to what the minister is going to do in the way of filing contracts. I understand the minister is going to make them available to the defence expenditures committee, which by the way will meet again on Tuesday. I think they ought to be available to us before these estimates are finally passed because this is our only chance to ask the minister questions regarding them. Can it be understood that we will get them in time to study them before these estimates are finally passed?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Every order in council providing for an expenditure has been tabled. If my hon. friend will have his assistant go through the records of the house he will find every one. I do not think we should be asked to table them twice.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I am interested in what the minister says. It may be that he is correct in saying the orders in council cover everything, but does he mean that the contracts are embodied in the orders in council or merely that the orders in council authorize the making of the contracts?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Authorize the making of the contracts.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I should like to go back to what the minister said, that he would table these contracts-that is what I think he said, and that is what I want- with the defence expenditures committee. I am asking now whether that can be done on Tuesday, which is their first meeting. I come back to my request that I think we should have these and study them before this item is finally passed. I think the minister will agree that that is reasonable.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I am not a member of the defence expenditures committee. I understand that the chairman of the steering committee has planned a program for next Tuesday. Witnesses are to be there. We have appropriate witnesses. For instance, if we have a witness on guns he will be pleased to file details of capital expenditures for the gun program. I would point out that the orders in council are very complete; they show the entire bases of the contracts. They have been tabled in this house. I cannot read them to my hon. friend personally; nevertheless if he cares to read them, they are all there.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: It seems to me the minister is watering down what-


Clarence Decatur Howe: I am not watering down anything.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: -I understood the undertaking to be. 1 thought we
Supply-Defence Production were going to have these contracts filed with the committee. As I understand it, the minister is now saying that when the appropriate officer is before the committee he will give evidence. That is not what I want at all; I want to see the documents. If the minister says they are in the orders in council I am prepared to study the orders in council. If the full information is there, we can get it there and then we will have it. But we do not have it now and I do not think this item should pass until we get it.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I assure my hon. friend that the Department of Defence Production will file with the committee on defence expenditures every document the committee asks for. I believe my hon. friend is a member of that committee. I am not a member, but my parliamentary assistant is. If the committee will ask for any document it will soon be furnished. I do not think my hon. friend, as a member of that committee, can ask me as a minister, who is not a member of the committee, to file documents at any particular time. The committee may not wish to receive them.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: This undertaking is looking different to me every minute. First of all I thought it was an undertaking to me or to us who are in the opposition that these would be filed. I now find that they are going to be filed if the committee demands them. The majority of the committee are not in the opposition and they may think that this is a silly request on my part.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I think so; nevertheless I am prepared to file them.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I know the minister often thinks I am silly, but I do the best I can. I want to know just what this undertaking is. It seems to me that its own mother would not know it now. Let us see what the undertaking is. As I understand it, all I have is that if the committee decides to ask for them, then we will see them. That is not good enough. I asked the minister to file these contracts. He said this was not a suitable place to file them, but he would file them with the defence expenditures committee. That is not what is happening now. We are now told that if the defence expenditures committee asks for them we will get them.
I want to go back to the beginning. I asked the minister whether these would be available on Tuesday with the defence expenditures committee. I asked the minister to produce them in the defence expenditures committee and the minister agreed. Now he is substituting something for what I asked.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Table them here.

Supply-Defence Production


James MacKerras Macdonnell: That is what I asked.


Clarence Decatur Howe: They are tabled here. How many times do they have to be tabled? This is absolutely repetitious. Every authority to make a contract, with all the details, has been tabled in this house. If my hon. friend will go to the proper sources he will have what he wants. If the committee of which he is a member wishes to review them the department will furnish them for that purpose, but my friend knows as well as I do that you cannot file documents with a committee unless the committee is willing to accept them.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: The minister should not try to get me into trouble by offering to do something that cannot be done; he should not do that just because I am young and innocent.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Those are not the adjectives I would use; just the opposite.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: You cannot insult me half as much as my friends over here do. Let us go back again. If the minister says these orders in council have the contracts fully embodied in them, there is no reason whatever why the contracts should not be filed as well and then we will have them.


Leonard T. Stick: I am a member of that committee and as far as my memory goes no document that has been asked for by any member of that committee has been refused.


Mr. Mcllrailh:: Not one yet.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Whether my friend is right in saying that no documents have been refused may not be important, but certainly a good many requests have been refused.


Leonard T. Stick: That is not the same thing.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I am coming right back to where I was. Will the minister file these with the committee-it was his own suggestion-or will he not? Will he table them here, or will he not?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I will permit the committee to decide what documents they want. If they ask for them, I will give them to the committee. I will not table them in this house again because they have already been tabled.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Then the item does not carry tonight.


Clarence Decatur Howe: It would not carry tonight anyway.
Item stands.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Alphonse Fournier: Mr. Speaker, on Monday we will proceed with the following bills and resolutions: Third reading of Bill No. 242, to amend the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act; Bill No. 194, to amend the Aeronautics Act; Bill No. 289, to amend the Canada-France Income Tax Convention Act, 1951. Then the resolution respecting the Immigration Act and the resolution to amend the Combines Investigation Act. We will then move to go into supply. It has been agreed that we will go into supply without debate, but we would not call any new departments. We would then proceed with the estimates of resources and development and public works.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: No defence production?


Alphonse Fournier: Oh, you will not let it pass.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[The following item was passed in committee of supply]:

[Stage Direction]
A-Department-
79. Departmental administration and payments to Canadian Commercial Corporation and other corporate agencies for services provided in connection with defence purchasing and production, $7,332,492.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, June 2, 1952