1952-12-09

CROWN LIABILITY


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of Justice) 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 the liability of the crown for torts and civil salvage so as to place the crown in substantially the same position as a private person as regards liability for (a) torts committed by servants; (b) torts, arising out of breach of duty attaching to the ownership, occupation, possession or control of property; (c) damages caused by a motor vehicle upon a highway, and (d) civil salvage, and to permit certain actions to be taken against the crown in the provincial courts.
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:
Mr. Gordon Graydon (Peel):: I should like to direct to the Postmaster General a question of which I have given him notice. Is the special pre-Christmas advertising of the Postmaster General's department going to all of the weekly newspapers across Canada? If not, what policy is followed in this respect?
If the Postmaster General answers this question perhaps he might include in his answer what policy is being followed with regard to year-round advertising of the same department.


An hon. Member:: Put it on the order paper.


Hon. Alcide Cote (Postmaster General):: regret that I did not receive any notice of the question, but I shall be glad to take it as notice and will give an answer in due course.


Mr. Speaker:: The first part of the question is in order at this time; the latter part of the question would not be in order at this time.



RADIO BROADCASTING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. J. McCann (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) asked a question which was as follows:
I should like to ask a supplementary question. Can the minister inform the house whether a gentleman of Polish extraction or Polish stock has been engaged for the purpose of starting such a program? If so, what is his name?
He had reference to programs to Poland. The answer is that no one has been engaged to start a Polish program for the international service or to advise on possible Polish progress.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
James Joseph McCann: Mr. Speaker, I should also like to answer a question that was asked by the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell). The question was:
Has Bishop Fulton Sheen or have his sponsors applied to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to have their program telecast? If so. has the application been refused? Would the minister care to make a statement with respect to the application?
The answer is: I am advised that the C.B.C. has made no final decision regarding acceptance of the television program of Bishop Sheen sponsored by an advertiser. The C.B.C. has asked for the opinion of its national religious advisory council on the matter. The council has considered the question, but has not yet given a definite opinion. When it does, which is expected very shortly, the C.B.C. will take a decision.



OLD AGE PENSIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. A. McCusker (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for
458	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry Hamilton West (Mrs. Fairclough) inquired yesterday as to the issue of old age security cheques prior to Christmas.
With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall give the answer now.
It is planned to issue these cheques a day or two before the end of the month, just as is the custom in all other months of the year. There are a number of reasons why the decision was made to stick with the usual practice to issue old age security cheques at the end of the month, even in December.
(1)	To issue them at an earlier date would leave a longer than usual gap between pension payments in December and at the end of January. This would undoubtedly prove confusing to numerous pensioners and would cause considerable correspondence.
(2)	Experience has shown that any marked alteration in the date of issue of cheques is followed by a wave of correspondence the next month and by great pressure of telephone calls where our offices are in principal cities, as in Toronto for example. If cheques were issued on the 20th of December, for instance, thousands of pensioners for some reason or other would expect them to be issued on the 20th of January, and so on.


Mr. Knowles:: Why not?


Emmett Andrew McCusker: (3) The mechanical side of the issue of cheques has also to be considered. In all our offices the issue of old age security cheques is closely tied in with the issue of family allowances cheques. It would be most awkward to have to try to get both family allowances cheques and old age security cheques issued by the 20th or 22nd of the month. Our custom is to prepare all family allowances cheques in the first half of the month and the old age security cheques in the latter part of the month. In an office such as Toronto, where more than 600,000 family allowances cheques are prepared, and where about 250,000 old age security cheques are also issued, it is most important to spread the load evenly throughout the month.
(4) Finally, we have been under considerable pressure from the Post Office Department to keep down the volume of mail going out just before Christmas. The issue of nearly 700,000 old age security cheques just before Christmas would add appreciably to the volume of first-class mail and might well mean the loss, misplacement or delay of pension cheques with resulting hardship to pensioners.
On the whole it is felt that the interests of all, pensioners not the least, would be best served by maintaining the usual date of issue at the end of the month. It is the


intention to get the cheques out so that, if at all possible, they will be received just before New Year's day.


Mrs. Fairclough:: May I ask this supplementary question: Has the department taken into consideration the fact that the pensioners have been in the habit of getting these cheques before Christmas?


Emmett Andrew McCusker: Pensioners have not been in the habit of getting them from the federal government. When the provinces issued cheques, under the means test regulation, three of the provincial governments sent them out prior to Christmas. The other provinces adhered to the procedure we are following.


Gordon Graydon: Are you keeping government circulars out of the mail at Christmas time?



FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr.  W. Chester S. McLure@Queens: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Fisheries. What changes, if any, were made or discussed in the lobster canning regulations at the maritime meeting held on Monday, December 8?


Hon. James Sinclair (Minister of Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, my predecessor in office, Mr. Mayhew, followed the procedure of having very full discussions with the fishing industry and fishermen in the matter of any proposed change in regulations. In line with that policy a meeting was held in the Department of Fisheries on Monday, December 8, 1952, with delegates representing the lobster processing industry for the purpose of discussing proposed amendments to the regulations under the Meat and Canned Foods Act, governing the inspection of canned fish and shellfish, and the operation of canneries.
A brief was submitted to the department, recommending certain changes regarding the compulsory inspection of fresh and frozen lobster meat. These recommendations are at present being considered by the department.
Proposed amendments to the regulations regarding weight designations for canned lobster and fresh and frozen lobster meat were also discussed. The discussion was most harmonious. Any change in regulations will be announced in the usual way.



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask

a question of the minister of immigration. Is the minister in a position to report to the house what steps have been taken in connection with the disclosure of fraudulent conduct which was discussed in the house last session, and in respect of which we were informed inquiries were being conducted, and that action would be taken.


Hon. W. E. Harris (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration):: Yes. The charges against five or six people are now being prepared, in consultation with the Department of Justice. I think-although this is my own opinion-that they will likely be laid in the course of the next month, at the outside.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker. I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Transport. Will the minister take up with his colleagues, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) and the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. McCann), the request of employees of the Canadian National Railways that pension fund refunds, now being received, be taxed not as income in 1952 but on the basis of amended returns for the years in which the payments being refunded were actually made?


Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I received notice of this question just as I came to the house, and I read it as carefully as I could in the time I had at my disposal. It is a novel kind of question, inasmuch as it is not so much a question seeking information as one which asks me to make representations to two of my colleagues about a certain matter.
All I can say to the hon. member is that, so far as I can recall, I have not received representations from the general chairmen's association on the subject. I may have, but I have no recollection. If I have not, and the general chairmen's association will make representations to me, I shall give them the consideration I think they deserve.
Until that time, however, I think this is the kind of question which should be addressed to my colleagues, either of national revenue or of finance, on its merits-and not on the question of representation, as my hon. friend suggests.


Stanley Howard Knowles: My reason for asking the
Minister of Transport was that I thought he would be ready to support the case of the Canadian National employees in connection with this matter.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.



PUBLIC BUILDINGS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr.  W. Chester S. McLure@Queens: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Public Works. Are the plans and specifications for the oft-promised dominion building at Charlottetown being completed? If not, why?


Hon. Alphonse Fournier (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, the way this question is drafted, I believe it deserves a special answer. It asks first: Are the plans and specifications for the oft-promised dominion building at Charlottetown completed? First of all, it is known that the hon. member has promised that building for a long time, and he is having trouble to implement that political promise.
Secondly, the plans are not completed.
Then he asks: If not, why? Well, we are trying to make perfect plans for a perfect building at Charlottetown.


Mr. McLure:: It is strange, is it not, that the plans are not completed, when-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.



FERRY SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr.  W. Chester S. McLure@Queens: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Has the Canadian maritime commission reported to the minister with reference to federal aid for improvements to the ferry service between Wood Island and Caribou, the connecting line between Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia? If not, why not?


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the question is no.



SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, December 8, consideration of the motion of Mr. J. L. Deslieres for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Drew, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Coldwell.
68108-30i
460	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Maclnnis
Mr. Angus Maclnnis (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, as I listened during the past two weeks to hon. members who have participated in this debate I had the feeling that though we represent different political and economic schools of thought and disagree on many subjects there is one thing on which we all agree, that is that we are most fortunate to be living in this favoured land.
We are continually being told of our expanding economy, of our increasing national income and our rising standards of living. To a large extent what is said in that regard is true. Canada is a rich country; there can be no doubt about that. At no time in our history have we been more prosperous than we are today. However, as I see it, there is a fly in the ointment of our prosperity. It may not be a very large fly, but still it is there and it does those things which a fly in the ointment is supposed to do.
Our wealth is not equitably distributed. I have not in mind now a system where everyone gets an even share of the wealth. What I have in mind is the fact that a few of our people have a great deal more than they need, indeed, a great deal more than is good for them. The great mass of our people have enough, as the saying is, to get by on. But a considerable number of our people suffer acutely during a great portion of their lives because of a lack of the very essentials of life.
I do not think that that should be so in a rich country such as this where we have all the means of preventing it. This afternoon I am going to take advantage of the opportunity which this debate offers to draw to the attention of the government and the House of Commons the plight of certain groups among us who are not aware that they are citizens of the richest country on earth. I know that they see the prosperity parade going by but they themselves have no part in it.
The first group I want to mention has been mentioned here many times before. I refer to the recipients of war veterans allowances. In The Legionary for December, a copy of which I presume all hon. members have received, is an article by the editor which ought to be "must" reading for members of the government and indeed for Liberal members generally. It is entitled "The Case for W. V. A. Increases". The writer outlines some of the conditions under which some of those who are in receipt of war veterans allowances exist.
He refers to one Ottawa veteran, a man who enlisted and fought in the first world war, was wounded and gassed, as a result of which he has suffered ill health since

1918. This ill health did not prevent him from working altogether but it did prevent him from holding a job very long. He lost one job after another. His wife is also in poor health. His last job was with the Department of Public Works and he stayed there for quite a long time, for jobs of that kind, nearly ten years.
He and his wife are bringing up a grandson. He applied for and received a war veterans allowance. He is living in what they term a two-room basement suite, but from the conditions described I would call it a cellar, as it is seven feet below the pavement. It was originally used to store coal, which of course was removed before this man and wife and grandchild moved in.
This man is receiving a war veterans allowance of $90 per month and they receive an additional $5 per month as a family allowance for the child. They spend $25 per month on rent, $60 for food, $4 for gas for cooking and $4 for Blue Cross. It will be noted that this man even with his meagre income is making provision for sickness, for doctors' attendance and hospitalization. Then he pays $2.36 for insurance, making a total of $95.36 or 36 cents more than his total income.
The writer in The Legionary points out that this does not leave room for things such as books, a radio, clothing, china, replacement of furniture and the hundred and one things that most of us consider absolute essentials of present-day life.
Perhaps it would not be fair to say that this case is typical, but it is not an isolated case. It indicates quite clearly that the war veterans allowance at the present time is not adequate. The article refers to a survey which the Legion carried out across Canada, and states:
In case after case, food and rent devour three quarters of their budgets. In a dozen cases, they report they are living in shacks, others in cabins or in cottages. They live in single rooms, in homes that frequently need repair, live with relatives and friends. One totally disabled veteran lives with his wife and three children in three basement rooms.
And so on. Over a period of time the Legion has made representations to the government and to the veterans committee that dealt with this matter. I believe that they are asking for $60 a month for single veterans and $120 a month for married veterans. I think any hon. member of this house who will consider the present cost of living is bound to say that the Legion is most modest in the demands that it makes, that no single man could live decently today on $50 a month, nor could any married man and his wife live

4G1

decently on $90 a month. I say it is a disgrace to us who live in Canada, a country as richly endowed as ours, that these things should exist.
There is another still smaller group to which I wish to refer. I have in mind those receiving the blind persons' allowance. I am not going to say very much about them. If my memory serves me right, there are only about 12,000 in Canada altogether, but I believe they are entitled to our particular consideration because of their infirmity. They are entitled to more thought and sympathy than we would perhaps give to less handicapped people. I think I can put the case best as I see it by reading from an article that appeared in the Vancouver Province on April 14 of this year. The author is Mr. D. A. McGregor. I do not know whether he is a columnist or one of the editors of the paper. He has this to say:
If an ordinary individual has an income of $1,000 or less, he is not required to pay any income tax. The assumption is that he isn't financially able to do so. But if a blind person on a pension dares, by his own efforts, to push his income beyond $840 the same compassionate law which awards him the pension will take everything beyond $840 away.
That is the way it is, and put that way it is most striking. Then he goes on to deal with the married blind person as follows:
The Income Tax Act assumes a married couple need $2,000 a year. But if the married blind pensioner, or his wife, adds more than $360 to the pension, and brings the family income over $1,320 he too will have the excess deducted. The money is not taxed away, but it is lifted from the pensioner's purse as effectively as if it were.
So far as those on the blind persons allowance and those on war veterans allowance are concerned, I say that we should remove at once the limit on their outside income. Why in the world should a person on war veterans allowance be restricted to earning not more than $10 a month? You know, that is not only bad for that person but it is bad for everyone. Work is good for a man. It adds to his self-respect and selfesteem. It makes him a better citizen, and I cannot see who would be hurt if we allowed a person receiving the war veterans allowance to earn $50 a month. No one would be hurt and everyone would be better off including, I am sure, the government because the standard of citizenship in this country would be improved.
There is one class comprising quite a number of people, although not very large, with which I wish to deal. I refer to the superannuated federal civil servants who are living on a very small income which they put aside with the assistance of the government at a time when the amount of the pension they now receive meant a great
The Address-Mr. Maclnnis deal more than it does today. I do not believe we should say that we have no responsibility for these people. After all, they are citizens of Canada who gave service to Canada during the years when they were able to give service, and if what they put aside during those years is not sufficient today to provide anything like a decent standard of living that is not their fault. If there is fault then it is our collective fault, and collectively we should remedy it by making further provision for them.
The number of people involved and the amounts they receive have been put on the record so often by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) that perhaps I should not take the time of the house today to repeat this information. However, I will put some figures on the record and those I wish to quote are as of March, 1952. There are 1,106 receiving less than $20 per month. From $20 to $29.99-let us say $30 because it is simpler-there are 1,365. From $30 to $40 there are 1,417. From $50 to $60 there are 1,384 and from $60 to $70 there are 1,017. There are approximately another 4,000 who receive from $80 to $100. All these people, and particularly where there are dependents involved, are not receiving sufficient income-and I say again through no fault of their own-to be able to provide themselves and their dependents with a decent standard of living. During this session of parliament, while our economy is booming, is the time to take action in all the cases I have mentioned, and I hope that those responsible will remedy these defects and enable these people to partake of the prosperity which is a part of the life of most citizens of Canada.
I now wish to say a few words with respect to the amendment to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) which urges that at this session of parliament a measure be introduced to provide for national health insurance. In listening to the speeches and the references to this matter I have found that there is very little opposition in the house to such a program. There has been a little double talk but as far as I have been able to see there is no general opposition. I believe there was one speaker who opposed national health insurance. Today it is something that is accepted in every civilized country as an essential part of their social security legislation. Some members said they were going to vote against the C.C.F. amendment because it proposed state medicine.
Really, I don't know what state medicine is. No one has told me during this debate, but, if they have read that into the amendment, they have read a great deal more into
462	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Maclnnis 'the amendment than is in it. After ail, what does the amendment do? It does not outline any system of health insurance. It asks this government at this session to introduce a measure for national health insurance. What that measure would be would depend on the kind of legislation this government would introduce.
May I just say in passing that I have been in this house for some considerable time and, looking at these matters objectively, I am sure that this group would give its support to any measure-no matter what we considered or thought of it ourselves, and whether we thought it was what we would do or not, but we would support any measure that we considered to be in the interests of the people of Canada. We would consider it on its merits and we would not boggle at whether there was this in it or that in it if we felt it would serve the people of this country. Those who say that they are opposed to the amendment because the C.C.F. wants state medicine are just talking through their hats.
The hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Blair)- and I may say here that there is no man in this house for whom I have greater respect- got himself all balled up over this question, largely, in my opinion, because the hon. gentleman is himself in favour of national health insurance, though he is not quite sure that the party to which he belongs is in favour of national health insurance. In the course of his speech, the written and the oral one, he lias made two or three proposals and concludes by saying that he is opposed to the C.C.F. amendment and is going to vote against it because it is state medicine. I just suggest to him that whether it is his party or the party now in power that brings in a national health insurance measure-as I said before, whether it completely agrees with what we have in mind or not-if it will serve the people of Canada we will support it.
By the way. the member for Vancouver South (Mr. Laing) said that he too was opposed to state medicine and I noticed that when he said that he looked towards this group. I think that what differentiates so-called state medicine from ordinary health insurance, or what my friends would consider satisfactory health insurance, is the question of whether doctors are on salary or on a fee-for-service basis.


James Joseph McCann: Regimentation.


Angus MacInnis: I did not hear what the Minister of National Revenue said.


James Joseph McCann: I said it means regimentation.


Angus MacInnis: It means regimentation? I really do not know what that means in regard to medicine at the present time. If my hon.
IMr. Maclnnis.]

friend has ever had to go to the outpatient clinic at a hospital in one of our big cities and wait around sitting on a bench until someone came to feel his pulse and look at his tongue-


Gordon Graydon: He sits inside.


Angus MacInnis: -he will understand what regimentation is.
I have been reading something on this and I have noticed that where doctors themselves set up an institution for -medical service, let us say such as the Mayo clinic at Rochester, Minnesota, the doctors in the clinic are on a salary basis while the patients are on a fee-for-service basis. I have in my hand a copy of the Atlantic magazine for December and there is a very informative article in it by Dr. James Howard Means, who for twenty-seven years was professor of clinical medicine at Harvard university and chief of medical services at the Massachusetts General Hospital. I will quote just what Dr. Means says in this regard:
Altogether it is my belief that the best method of paying the doctor is by salary-best for him and be~t for his patients, provided at least that some safeguards against overloading are included.
I do not need to go farther in that regard except to mention once again what I have said before. We had, as far as I know, no particular method of health insurance in mind because we did not give it that kind of study.
Before I leave the point, the member for Spadina (Mr. Croll) made an excellent speech on this subject. Really it could not have been better except that although he wants health insurance he does not want it now. We need it "terrible bad"-but not so badly that we should have it now. We should first have a committee. Now, I want to tell the member for Spadina that this group has asked for a committee. As a matter of fact we have not only asked for a committee but we have been promised a committee. We were promised a committee on health insurance by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin) for the first session of 1952. It is because the Minister of National Health and Welfare had another thought and decided not to go ahead with the committee that we have now said that, if they will not give us a committee, the people of Canada are entitled to national health insurance. So there is not much point in saying now that what we need is a committee.
I am not opposed to committees; they do good work. I have been on a number of them and I know they do good work. Suppose a committee is set up now-a joint committee of the House of Commons and the Senate, how would we

proceed? We would ask the Department of National Health and Welfare to get us information from various countries on what has been done in that regard in those countries. Everything that would come before us would come from the Department of National Health and Welfare. The members of the committee would express opinions, favourable or against, but everything that we would discuss would come from the Department of National Health and Welfare-and everything that it could bring to a committee it could use now in preparing a measure to bring before this house.


Stanley Howard Knowles: They have it now.


Angus MacInnis: I would not be surprised. My hon. friend from Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) says they have it now. In certain parts of this country we have gone some little distance in providing health services. In the provinces of Saskatchewan and British Columbia there is fairly complete hospital service-that is about half of the services required in a national health insurance plan.
I am going to read to the house two short items in regard to the British Columbia hospital insurance service. When I got my bill for the year 1953 the other day I found enclosed with it a personal message from the provincial minister of health and welfare, Hon. E. C. F. Martin.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Any relation to Paul Martin?


Angus MacInnis: I do not know, but I do not think it matters. I shall read only a short paragraph from this note. He says:
Your enclosed billing is more than a bill which should be paid.
I believe this statement was thought necessary by the fact that in British Columbia hospital insurance is compulsory. I understand the present government is opposed to compulsory hospital insurance.


Mr. Laing:: Both ways.


Angus MacInnis: Perhaps there is some confusion as to what they favour, and also as to what they are opposed to. I understand it works out something like this. So far as the member for Vancouver South and I are concerned, we may pay our own hospital insurance premiums-as I assume the member for Vancouver South does and I do-but it is not compulsory that we should. We will be sent a bill, but we will not be compelled to pay it.


Arthur Laing: They pray you to pay it.


Angus MacInnis: However, if we happen to be employees in an industry in which there is a payroll deduction plan, then they are going
The Address-Mr. Maclnnis to see that the deductions are made every month or so. However, I was not going to refer to that.


Mr. Low:: The compulsory part was inherited from the old Liberal regime.


Angus MacInnis: The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) says that it was compulsory under the former government. If the present government is not going to make it compulsory, I suggest to them they make it noncompulsory for the employee as well as for the other fellow.
This note says:
Your enclosed billing is more than a bill which should be paid: it is your peace of mind in the event that you may have to go to hospital; it is your protection against high hospital bills which could ruin your finances;
I know some finances which it would not take much to ruin.
It ensures that the best hospital care is available; it provides the best answer to the problem of acute hospital care and accommodation.
In short, when you pay this bill, you are investing, at less than 11 cents a day, in your most precious possessions-good health and freedom from hospital bills.
I do not think that any government should be ashamed to make a thing like that compulsory. I believe a government that does not make it compulsory is delinquent in its duties.
There is another item I want to read, merely to show the general opinion in my province in regard to health insurance of which, as I said before, this is a very essential part. I have here an editorial from the Nelson News, and I regret that I did not put a date on it. I believe it appeared about two days before the provincial election, which would be about June 10, 1952. The editorial reads:
Hospital insurance service is giving hospitalization to those who need it probably as cheaply as it is possible to do so. This is a fact easily recognized by those who have had to foot hospital, X-ray, therapeutic or laboratory services and drug bills in the past. Moreover, because it is supported chiefly by direct payments we know what it is costing, avoiding the necessity of additional hidden taxes.
The service and coverage has its faults. But the introduction of any scheme of its scope is likely to initial hesitancies and errors. There is no need to excuse them, but sensible people who have something good can always correct faults to make it better. In the meantime,-
This is what I want the members of this house to notice.
-during the 3l -year history of the hospital insurance scheme over 740,000 patients have found their hospital bills relatively trifling because of this social legislation.
I was unfortunate enough to be one of those 740,000 patients, but fortunate that I had the benefit of the hospital insurance service. I

The Address-Mr. Maclnnis would hate to tell this house what it cost on my behalf. When we propose, as we have proposed, that a measure be brought in to this house to make this complete, we appreciate it is a matter of dominion-provincial cooperation. When the federal government initiated other social services, we did not always wait until all the provinces were ready. In the case of old age pensions, for instance, some of the provinces were not ready for many years. I believe the only province that was ready when the legislation became law was the province of British Columbia. That province had legislation passed and was ready to take advantage of the federal enactment as soon as it became law. From 1927 until the last province came in about 1936, if my memory serves me correctly, there was a nine-year period before some of the other provinces were ready. But that is no reason why those provinces that are willing to proceed with national health insurance should not be given an opportunity. It is extremely democratic. It is legislation by consent, and no one need be ashamed of proposing it; certainly, we are not.
There was one other matter to which I wished to refer, and I hope I may have time to say a few words about it because I believe that, as the days go by, it will become more and more important. I was interested in the statement made by the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell) when he spoke in this debate on December 1. He was asked the following question by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), as it appears at page 236 of Hansard for that date:


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


Mr. Hansell:: I would like to answer the hon.
gentleman's question if I may. It has always been found that you cannot readily retract or undo something the country has already done;-
I should like to know exactly what the implication is in that.


An hon. Member:: That is the $64 question.


Angus MacInnis: Perhaps for you, but not for me. I continue the quotation:
-but I would say that the greatest welfare that can come to the people is to leave with them their absolute freedom to act according to their own conscience and will, and see that their incomes are such that they can make available to themselves the highest standard of living the resources of the country can give without interfering with that freedom. That to me is the greatest possible welfare state.
If that means anything at all, it means that what our Social Credit friends have in mind is that enough money will be made available to every person to do whatever he wants to do. I am not opposed to that if such a thing could be done. But after all,


that must mean one of two things. It must mean that there is an unlimited pool, trunk or bank of money into which everyone can dip ad lib and take whatever he wants, or it has to be'given out by somebody. If it is the first-well, all they have to do is to dip. But if the second-and I should like to hear some explanation of this-someone has to decide how much each one will get.
Now, while I am on the subject, there is another thing that I have asked on various occasions when I have been on the platform with Social Crediters. A fundamental part of the Social Credit system is the just price and the national dividend. What I want to know first of all is, who is going to set the just price? Can the just price be set without government interference? Somebody has to set it. Who is to say what the size of the dividend will be? These questions are important, because in my opinion, the people are being deluded with certain economic proposals, mixing them up with reference to the "eternal verities", whatever that may be. But some day, if the people are not wise, they will be confronted with a situation they did not foresee, and instead of having a bank of money into which they can dip ad lib, they will have chaos.


Mr. G. A. Cruickshank (Fraser Valley):: am sorry, but I am following an hon. member for whom I have the greatest respect, and I think everybody in the house has. He is one of the oldest members-I mean in years of service-here, and I can assure you that in my province he is highly thought of by all parties. In my own riding he is welcome at any time, and I should be glad to introduce him. That is more than I can say of some. In my riding we respect anybody who is sincere. For sectional hypocrites I have no respect, and I have no desire to have them in my riding.
First of all, I want to congratulate the government, because so far congratulations have been going the other way. I want to congratulate the government on their appointing two cabinet ministers from the province of British Columbia. I do not think anybody disputes the fact that we are the fastest growing province in Canada. I do not, say we are the best province-I will attend to that later-but we are the fastest growing of any province of Canada. We thought long ago that we were entitled to two ministers. Fortunately, at this time, two men were available of such high calibre. I can assure the house that each and every Liberal member in the province of British Columbia is proud of these two cabinet ministers, and will work in perfect harmony with them.
I intend to get right down to health insurance, seeing that my friend has got

into it. I think we had better say what health insurance is. Every member on this side of the house is in favour of health insurance. I can well remember that some years ago, believe it or not, I tried to have adopted some of the legislation that they had in Saskatchewan or perhaps Alberta. I refer to the municipal health insurance plan. I tried to get the municipal act amended in British Columbia so that we could put it in. I ran into my first experience with lobbying at the Empress hotel. Ninety-eight per cent of the doctors of Vancouver were over there to see that I did not get the amendment to the legislation. They did that by lobbying. I have come to the conclusion that probably they were right and I was wrong at that time.
We were criticized outside the house when we brought in family allowances, and particularly by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) who did his utmost to defeat it. I presume he had the entire support of his party. They said that we brought it in at a certain date for political purposes. If you will remember, Mr. Speaker, although the legislation was brought down, it did not go into effect at once. If my memory serves me correctly it did not come into effect until July. They said that it was an election dodge. The reason it was not brought in immediately it was passed was that they had to perfect an organization for administration, and so on. The result was that when family allowances were first paid they were paid without a hitch.
You will remember another piece of legislation we brought in, namely, unemployment insurance. We did not put that into effect the date we passed it in this house, or that month, because we had to perfect an organization to carry unemployment insurance into effect without any hitches. I ask you, I ask any labour man, if it has not been administered in that way? The reason I mentioned that is this: I am sorry to say that in British Columbia we had a government that had some Liberals in it. I will not say they were Liberals, but they thought they were. They brought in a hospital insurance scheme. Ninety-five per cent of the people of the province of British Columbia were and are in favour of hospital insurance; but at least 95 per cent also were not in favour of maternity wards being placed in corridors.
I know very little about maternity wards, but I know something about hospitals. I have not had any experience with maternity wards except to watch expectant fathers gaze through glass partitions, but I know a corridor of a hospital is not the proper place for one. What I am getting at is this. I
The Address-Mr. Cruickshank believe that every hon. member on this side of the house would be just as much in favour of hospital insurance as are our good friends of the C.C.F. party. But we believe it must be brought in in an orderly manner. We brought hospital insurance into effect in the province of British Columbia in a half-baked way through overzeal and high pressure. A clerk from the Public Works Department was put in charge of it to begin with, instead of bringing in somebody qualified, perhaps from one of the big corporations, insurance or otherwise. The result was that our hospital insurance in British Columbia was a farce. The intent was there; the intent was good. Perhaps the premier was not careful enough. I think we had three different assessments in one year. We did not have the system organized. We do know that at Christmas time-I think it was about a year ago- people could not get into the hospital; they could not even get into the corridors of the hospitals in the province of British Columbia.
A new outfit came along. I was going to say a new government came along, but, Mr. Speaker, even I cannot use flattering language when it is not deserved. This temporary organization moved into Victoria and they said: "We are going to make it noncompulsory." We happened to be at Ottawa when they came out with this story. I understand that a few members elected to the federal house to represent their federal ridings were not here in Ottawa, but were out there campaigning. They were going around on the hustings saying that they were going to make it non-compulsory. I ask any hon. member in this house-and I believe that 261 of them have common sense-how you can make a hospital insurance scheme non-compulsory. Is it reasonable to expect Jones to pay when Smith does not? I wonder whether the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. McCann) thinks he will collect his income tax on a voluntary basis? Will the city of Ottawa collect its municipal taxes on a voluntary basis? No. It was a good hoax to get the people to vote; that is all it was. But it did not work. The hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) read the little document that you get with your bill now. They have found it would not work and that it was not common sense. Why should I waste so much of my time talking about a non-existent government in British Columbia? But I do want to make it clear that at least I am, as I think every member on this side of the house is, in favour of health insurance, but we do not believe that we are in a position to put it into effect. In my opinion, what we should do is this-and I shall just quote you one possible scheme about to be put into effect in my own riding.

The Address-Mr. Cruickshank A minimum amount of $800,000 is being secured to construct a new fifty-bed hospital. As I understand it, the federal government gives $1,000 a bed now. I think we should double that, and double it immediately, for the construction of new hospitals and hospital accommodation. I believe we should give scholarships to provide more doctors and more dentists. If we had all the hospital beds we needed today, we have not the doctors and dentists in Canada that would be required to provide a health insurance scheme. I believe this government should double whatever we are giving at the present time to construct new hospitals and to provide scholarships or some other means so that we may have more doctors and dentists and nurses.
Then, I think the government has fallen down, and that we as members of parliament have fallen down in another respect. This year out west we had a serious polio epidemic. There was one in eastern Canada too, but I understand it was worse in the west. To my mind it is a disgrace to know that a country like this found it necessary to improvise in the matter of iron lungs. I am not sure how they operate, but I do know that we had to improvise, and fly them in. I say that at this session, as one of the first steps in health insurance, parliament should provide an iron lung to each hospital in Canada that has the facilities to use it.
There is one point that has not been stressed by my hon. friends in the C.C.F., and that is that there should be no hospital in the country in which the poorest patient should not be permitted to have exactly the same medical treatment as the richest patient. It is a disgrace in a country like Canada that at the time of a polio epidemic we have had to improvise in the matter of iron lungs, and fly them in from other parts of Canada or from the United States. At this session we should arrange to see that each hospital in this country that has the facilities should have as many as it needs. I believe we should double our grants to hospitals for new beds.
I find it difficult to speak about war veterans, because this subject has been so well covered by several other speakers in the debate, both on this side and the other side of the house. Since coming to Ottawa I have had the privilege of serving on the war veterans committee. I hope one will be set up this year and that I may serve on it again. I would hope, too, that it might be made a permanent committee.
I wish to support wholeheartedly what has been said by the Canadian Legion in connection with war veterans. I do not think


that a country as wealthy as this one has done what it should have done for our bumt-out veterans. Newspaper articles have been quoted, and perhaps I might be permitted to quote briefly from the Vancouver Sun. I do so because I fear that too many of my colleagues in the House of Commons, possibly because they are not veterans, lose sight of the fact that the war veterans allowance was first brought in to care for those who, through their service in France in the first great war, were pre-aged. The estimate given at that time was ten years. I am speaking about the veterans of the first war, because I do not know about the second one. I do have knowledge of the first great war because I was there. Anyone who served then in France was pre-aged by at least ten years, and this regulation was brought in to cover that pre-ageing. The editorial to which I am referring, and which is headed "They Deserve Better", states:
But as the Legion puts it, the whole concept of WVA was based on recognition that the nation owes a special debt to men who sacrificed health and years of their lives to their country in overseas service. It's not comparable with similar awards to civilians.
I was one who for many years, even before I came to the House of Commons, worked for old age pensions. I am sure any recipient of that pension will agree that a veteran of similar age is entitled to different recognition. If, in other words, the old age pensioner is to receive his payment at the age of 65, then surely the veteran should receive his at the age of 60. To me that seems reasonable, and I suggest the government should take action at this present session in that matter. I would prefer to see a committee set up; but even if it is not, it would be a simple matter to amend the legislation. And if it were done I do not believe the final cost would be much more than it now costs to have the gestapo floating around the country and prying into the lives of men and women who gave so much for us, and whose ability is impaired. But, even if it is not, they are not allowed to earn any substantial sum of money, owing to the fool regulations now in existence. It would not cost as much to treat those people properly as it does to have the gestapo running around.
I wish now to speak about a matter which concerns particularly my own riding, but I believe also concerns the whole of British Columbia as well. I refer to river bank erosion. One of my colleagues from Quebec has on the order paper a resolution dealing with this subject, and referring particularly to the St. Lawrence river. Nothing is of greater concern to the Fraser valley or to the

economy of British Columbia than river bank erosion. It is serious enough when any municipality in the Fraser valley is flooded out, but it is a much more serious thing if, as happened in 1948, the third largest city in Canada is cut off from the rest of the country for a month or two. Particularly is it important to the rest of Canada that that third city, our Pacific port, the outlet to Korea and other eastern ports, should not be cut off during a time of war.
I wish to point out to the government how serious this matter it. It is not enough to say that this is a matter of local concern. Anyone who knows anything about river bank erosion or flooding knows that local districts cannot afford to pay to avoid it, and that they should not be asked to when they are protecting the economy of the whole country. One of the reasons our floods are more frequent now is that our country has been logged over.
There is a paragraph in the speech from the throne which, through the co-operation of federal, provincial and municipal authorities, would afford some relief. I believe this problem could be handled under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. There is no reason why it should not be effective in every province, and it should not be restricted only to two or three provinces. That act should cover every province in Canada, and I would hope that the government might take this fact into consideration at the present session.
I wish to speak briefly about another subject. I do not want to deal with it at length, because I have been a lone wolf for too long in the matter. I refer to the subject of margarine. Today I am not going to worry about margarine as margarine. I will admit it is here to stay, except in two provinces.


An hon. Member:: Hear, hear.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I hear one of my colleagues say "Hear, hear". I am wondering if he realizes how much the dairy industry means to the Dominion of Canada. I have been surprised in the last few years that this industry has not had more co-operation from some members coming from Quebec and Ontario. In this connection let me read one paragraph which I believe is of importance. The fact is that there is no industry in Canada so vitally important to the welfare of each and every one of us as is that of agriculture; and dairying is probably the most difficult part of agriculture. Do not forget that it is a job which has to be carried out 365 days each year.
This paragraph reads:
Please note that with today's price of butterfat at around 75 cents the dairy farmer is being asked to compete with another product costing between 10 and 15 cents per pound. Please note that our
The Address-Mr. Cruickshank dairy farmer, in competing for labour in one of the world's costliest labour markets, would be asked to face up to competition from a product harvested, in many cases, in areas where the labour standard is the lowest in the world, as low as 25 cents a day even in these times.
Assuming that there could be improved efficiency-and there could be improvements in the dairy industry-it is true to say that there is no margin of economy that would put butterfat on a competitive basis with coconut oil. That just does not make sense. It just does not make sense to me to know that we are allowing the importation of these cheap oils so that, as is stated in this article, they may compete with us in this country. The article points out that these oils are produced at labour rates as low as 25 cents a day. A couple of years ago some hon. members representing fishing ridings opposed me on this margarine matter. I do not intend to read what the Fisheries Association of British Columbia has to say, but for the benefit of the hon. member from a small riding in New Brunswick who questioned the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Sinclair) the other day may I say that we produce as much fish in British Columbia as any other five provinces in Canada and that the Minister of Fisheries himself represents some 5,000 fishermen.
The Fisheries Association of British Columbia is composed of all the large operators in the province. My friend and great admirer of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), H. R. MacMillan, is a member of that association. They are not finding it so easy to sell their herring oil and all this is coming back at them a little bit. Here is what they say:
The herring oil market is neither as stable nor as clearcut as the market for other fish products. In Canada, our biggest buyers are Procter and Gamble and Canada Packers; in the United States, the same type of outlet which manufactures soap, shortening and margarine.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps you have never been in a margarine factory, but if you should visit one you will see a tank over on one side into which they dump this fish oil, coconut oil and all this junk. You see a pipe coming across and out comes a pound of an article which the Social Credit in British Columbia insist on having coloured and which, like the rest of their policies, deceives the public and makes them believe it is butter.
I am not contending that margarine is going to be abolished as I know perfectly well it is here to stay. But surely the dairy farmers of Canada are of sufficient value to Canada to be entitled to a certain amount
4B8	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Cruickshank of protection. I should like to quote just one paragraph from a speech made by a great sponsor of margarine. He said:
If you women of Canada would have just one extra meal of fish per week for your family, the export problem of the industry would be largely solved. You will be helping build a stronger and healthier fishing industry, and more important to you, you will be building stronger and healthier children. There is an old saying that fish makes brains. I don't know whether it has ever been really proved true, but I do know that the converse is true-smart people eat fish, because smart people know it to be a delicious, easily digestible food, rich in food values.
The hon. gentleman who said that now sits in the cabinet and is in a better position to assist the dairy farmers than he was as a private member. That speech was made by the Minister of Fisheries on November 25, 1952. I hope he will do his best on behalf of the dairy farmers.
I am not going to take up my full time, but there is just one other matter I should like to deal with. I believe the radio licence fee should be abolished and the cost of operating this service taken out of the general revenues. I know it is quite easy to argue that when you abolish a tax you may have trouble finding the money with which to get along, but if we are honest about it we will admit that the radio licence fee is something like the Social Credit hospital insurance tax in that half the people are paying it and half are not. You cannot be half free and half slave, unless you want to live under that form of government, which I certainly do not. I strongly urge the government to abolish that fee.
On another thing I want to say I may not be in complete agreement with my party, and I refer to the action that should be taken in connection with television. A week ago I was in Toronto to see the Grey Cup game. I never before had been in a city where they had television. When I first saw these things on the houses I did not know what they were but I was told that these towers were for television. I see no reason why Toronto and Montreal can have television service at the expense of Vancouver, Winnipeg and the rest of Canada. If the C.B.C. cannot provide this service right away then private enterprise should be permitted to do it. I may not be in accord with the C.C.F. on that, but we have given the C.B.C. money enough to play around with it.


An hon. Member:: Too long.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Apparently they cannot put it into effect on the Pacific coast. If private enterprise is not permitted to provide this service, the people will have to be satisfied either with the soap opera television


broadcasts of the C.B.C. or with programs that come from the United States stations.
I urge the government to abolish the radio licence fee and to allow private industry to have a hand in providing television. Above all, I ask the government at this session of parliament to remember one thing. It is a good thing to have surpluses because anyone in private business would rather have a surplus than a deficit. But if there is a surplus I cannot think of a better way to use it than to pay off pur debts, and I do not know of a better way of doing that than to pay the debt we owe to the veterans who have served us so well.


Mr. D. S. Harkness (Calgary East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to congratulate the mover (Mr. Deslieres) and the seconder (Mr. Schneider) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne, with special reference to the remarks by the seconder about the blind. I should like to add my voice to his in urging the government to give greater consideration to these seriously handicapped persons. The blind associations for years pressed to have blind pensions separated from old age pensions and brought under a separate act. They asked also that the description be changed from blind pension to blindness allowance. This was provided for when the Old Age Security Act was passed along with the separate Blind Persons Act.
I am informed that a few blind persons have discovered that they are actually receiving less under the new legislation than they received before. I am sure that when these acts were passed no one envisaged such a situation arising. I understand this is brought about by the provincial grants for which they are eligible. I would hope that the department concerned will take up this matter and if necessary introduce an amendment to the Blind Persons Act so that no blind person will be in the position where he is actually receiving less than he was before the act was passed.
I should like also to urge the government to remove the means test from the blindness allowance. There are far more reasons for doing this than there were for removing the means test in the case of the old age pensions. It is an anachronism that the means test for the blind should be retained when it has been removed at age 70 as far as old age pensioners are concerned. All the arguments we have heard for years for the removal of the means test in the case of the old age pensions apply equally to the blindness allowance. It kills initiative. It discourages many blind people from going out and earning a little

money, and particularly the cost of administration must represent a considerable proportion of any amount which is saved to the taxpayers by the maintenance of the means test.
The total cost of removing the means test would be quite small and I would hope that in the forthcoming budget it will be provided that this means test be done away with. As a matter of fact, some time ago I saw a newspaper account which reported that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) had held out some hope that this action might be taken. I certainly hope that that report is correct.
There is one other matter in connection with the blind. I remember that the late Arthur Smith, my colleague from Calgary West, urged at practically every session he was here that a greater pension should be paid to the blind and particularly that the age limit in connection with the blindness allowance should be lowered. He could never see, and neither could I, why a blind person should only receive the allowance on reaching the age of 21. I would think that the age could very well be lowered to at least 16 when family allowance payments cease. Certainly the parents of a blind child have considerably greater expenses in bringing up that child than do the parents of a sighted child, and it seems to me that, the parents having carried the full burden up to the age of 16, at which time the family allowance ceases, blind persons should then be given the blindness allowance.
I should now like to touch briefly on certain matters which are of great concern to our most important industry in Canada, agriculture. In my own province of Alberta, in spite of the fact that world attention has been focused on that area because of the great discoveries of gas and oil in the past few years, it remains a fact that the great majority of the people are dependent for their living, either directly or indirectly, upon agriculture.
This year in western Canada we had in aggravated form the difficulty experienced for some time past in getting the grain delivered to the elevators and moved to an export position. Shortly before I came down here I talked to a number of farmers who had large amounts of grain on their farms in granaries and in open piles in fields because they were unable to deliver it to the elevators. One man, whose story I shall give as an example, grew a very large crop of oats this year. He happens to be in a coarse grain growing area, and his yield was better than 100 bushels to the acre. He was allowed to deliver 6 bushels to the acre, I believe, which brought him a cash advance
The Address-Mr. Harkness of about $3 per acre. His expenses for harvesting the oats had been $1 an acre for swathing and $4 an acre for combining, or a total of $5 an acre. All the money he got back, and as far as he could see all he was going to get back for some time, was $3 an acre which left him in the position where he was not able to pay his harvesting expenses, his store bills and so on.
The situation is worse this year than ever before because the largest crop on record was harvested this fall. We had good weather for harvesting and the crop was all brought in. None of it had to be left in the fields over the winter. In addition, the situation is bad because at the time that the new crop began to be ready the elevators and the entire handling system were clogged by the poor quality crop harvested last year. The government is responsible for this condition to a very large extent because the policy they followed was one which made it impossible to dispose of the large amount of low quality wheat delivered to the elevators last year and this spring. That wheat was No. 6 and feed wheat which is unfit for milling purposes and must be used for livestock feed and things of that kind.
Feed wheat was held at a price of $1.50 a bushel and at that price no one feeding livestock would buy it who had experimented with it and knew the situation, when at the same time No. 1 feed barley was available at $1.20 to $1.30 a bushel. There is a great deal more feed value in a bushel of No. 1 feed barley than in a bushel of feed wheat. The result was that a large amount of such wheat remained on hand clogging the handling facilities.
The general situation is that the handling method we have now is out of date. It was built up during a period when harvesting was carried on by binders and wheat was delivered from the farms to elevators by teams and wagons during the course of the winter. Therefore the rate of delivery of the grain was spread out and was gradual. Harvesting methods have changed. The crop in a given year is now taken off very rapidly. It is hauled immediately to elevators by means of trucks, and the present handling facilities are not capable of dealing with it.
Unfortunately, however, nothing has been done to improve the situation. The difficulty in delivering grain is going to continue until some remedy is found, and a remedy must be found. It is not a situation that we can let go on indefinitely. The government has done absolutely nothing with respect to the matter and is to be censured for its inaction. Some farm organizations have suggested that a system of storage of grain on the farms

The Address-^Mr. Harkness combined with cash advances for grain so stored should be instituted by the wheat board. This may be the solution. I do not know because I am not sufficiently expert on these things to be able to tell.
However, I am quite certain that there are solutions to the problem, but the government is not going to find them by following its present course. It has shirked its responsibility completely. It has done nothing, and as a result western farmers have been left holding the bag so far as getting a return for their grain is concerned.
I should like to turn now to the livestock industry. Everyone engaged in that industry knows that things have not been good for most of the past year. The foot-and-mouth outbreak cut off our one remaining market for livestock outside Canada. Fortunately it was announced a short time ago that the United States ban on imports to that country will be lifted on March 1 next, and I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that when this announcement was made a great load of anxiety was also lifted from cattle producers right across the country. They are assured of a market in the coming year for the surplus of cattle that has been built up on farms and ranches throughout the past year, and in particular it removes the fear of a yet more serious drop in prices which a large number of these producers anticipated if the ban was not lifted by early spring or by summer at the latest.


An hon. Member:: Are you going to compliment the government on that?


Douglas Scott Harkness: No, I do not compliment the government on it. As a matter of fact I compliment the United States government. Last year when the standing committee on agriculture was investigating the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease the dominion government was busy trying to shush up the matter and was also trying to say that everything that we said with respect to the question was going to prevent the United States government from ever lifting the ban. The fact that the United States government have done what they said they would do, lift the ban as soon as it was shown that the disease had been stamped out, disproves completely the suggestions which were put before the committee and the means which were used to stifle any further inquiry in the committee, and shows them to be complete nonsense. The announcement evidently came as a surprise to the government. Otherwise the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) would have announced it in the house himself. According to newspaper reports it caught him completely by surprise.


An hon. Member:: That was not the way I heard it.


Mr. Brooks:: He had nothing to do with it.


Douglas Scott Harkness: In any event I should like to point out that the extent to which cattle prices have declined in the past year is not realized by most people across Canada except those engaged in that particular industry. I should like to put on the record a comparison of prices at the beginning of December this year and one year ago as found in the Winnipeg Free Press. It makes the picture abundantly clear in spite of some of the speeches that have been made. The hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Decore) is one who tried to maintain in the house a week or ten days ago that the level of cattle prices was still excellent, that it was fine, that nobody was suffering, and so on.
The following comparison will show what has happened in the cattle industry during the past year:
1952	1951
$ ?
Choice steers, per hundredweight	
24 to 24.50	34Good steers	
21 to 23	32 to 33.50
In other words, as far as choice and good steers are concerned the decline has been approximately one-third. When we come to cows the situation is worse.
1952	1951
$	$
Good cows, per hundredweight	
12.50 to 14	23 to 24.50Medium cows	
11 to 12	21.50 to 24.50
When we come to canners and cutters, unfortunately the kind of meat I think I had for dinner last night in the parliamentary restaurant, we have these figures:
1952	1951
$	$
Canners and cutters per hundredweight	7 to 10	16 to 21
Then coming to stocker steers

frequently referred to as stockers and feeders-we find the picture midway between those for cows and steers respectively. I will not bother to put the details on record but the drop in price has been between one-third and one-half. Taking it altogether we find the drop in price since a year ago has ranged from 33J per cent to 50 per cent, or a little more than 50 per cent in some cases. That has seriously reduced the income of farm families throughout this country. Unfortunately that drop in price has not been reflected to anything like the same extent in the retail price of meat to the consumer. The result is that most urban people, city people generally, still think the farmer is getting too much for his

livestock and they would probably like to see any measures taken which would drive the price of livestock down ever farther.
Now, where the difference in this decline has gone I do not know. Certainly it lies between the packers and the retail butchers. I would think that possibly there might be a little investigation by the bureau of statistics people, on the basis of the numerous statistics they require sent in anyhow, which might produce information about the difference. Publication of the information might do something to reduce the spread in prices.
When we had the prices committee three or four years ago we made an investigation which showed then what the spread in prices was and who got what out of the price paid by the consumer for meat. I would hesitate to recommend that such a committee be set up again although possibly the time has arrived when one should be. Certainly when the farmers in this country have to take a reduction of 33J per cent to 50 per cent for the cattle they market, the retail price of meat should go down proportionately; but certainly it has not done so.
When we come to hogs the present situation can only be described as disastrous; and when the drop in floor price of $3 per hundred comes into effect on January 1, as announced by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), the hog situation will be absolutely impossible. A little over a year ago, on January 15, 1951, I put on the record here a breakdown of the cost of raising hogs, showing that the feed cost alone to bring a pig to market in Ontario at that time was $39. Since then the price of grain has gone up and I would estimate that the cost at the present time for feed alone to produce a 200 pound pig is $41. The price paid for the best pigs, A grade, is $26 per hundredweight in Toronto and Montreal. The return to the farmer on a 200 pound pig which dresses 155 pounds-really a little above average-is $40.30. To this must be added the $2 premium which is paid by the dominion government for the production of high quality bacon. So the farmer receives $42.30 for his pig-$1.30 more than the cost of his feed alone. Out of that $1.30 he has to pay the cost of transporting the pig to market. He has to pay condemnation insurance and in many cases he has to pay commission. So you can take it, generally speaking, that for every A grade pig a farmer produces it has cost him for feed alone as much as he receives for the pig-feed which he had to buy or, if he produced it himself, he could have sold for that figure.


An hon. Member:: There are not very many grade A pigs.
The Address-Mr. Harkness


Douglas Scott Harkness: As my hon. friend points out, the number of A grade pigs is relatively small. 1 have forgotten what the percentage is at the present time, but I think it runs something like 10 to 15 per cent. For every lower grade pig that the farmer produces he has an actual loss on the feed alone, to say nothing of his ordinary costs-costs for repairs to fences and buildings, labour and overhead, and all the rest of it.
That is the situation at the present time. But let us look at what the situation will be when the $3 is taken off the support price and it becomes $23 on January 1, 1953. Then the farmers' return on a 200 pound grade A pig will be $35.65. For every such hog the farmer produces after January 1, for feed alone he will be out of pocket $3.35, and in addition he has his labour and other costs. On his lower grade hogs the loss will, of course, be correspondingly greater.
The only people who are still in the hog business, or who are not getting out of it as fast as they can, are those who do not know what their costs are and therefore do not know what they are losing. Another class, those largely in the purebred business, are still holding on. In many cases they have cut down production and are holding on waiting for the day when present conditions will bring about a scarcity and prices will shoot away up-a thing which of course a large number of farmers cannot afford to do.
Now, it would appear to be the deliberate policy of this government to destroy the hog industry in Canada. This appears clearly enough if the support prices which are offered for hogs are compared with the support prices offered for cattle. As of January 1 the support price for each will be $23 per hundred weight, but in the case of hogs this $23 will be for 100 pounds of warm dressed meat. In the case of cattle it is $23 per 100 pounds, live weight. If you work out the support price for cattle on the-same basis as for hogs, that is on a dressed weight basis, it gives you $41 per hundred. Dressed weight is, on the average, 55 per cent of the live weight. You have a differential in the support prices-$23 for hogs as against $41 for cattle.
Now, that is clearly a case of gross discrimination against the hog producer-a deliberate attempt, I would say, to drive the hog producers out of the market. It appears particularly so when you look at the longterm average of the price of hogs as compared with the price of cattle. In this booklet, livestock and meat trade report, put out by the Department of Agriculture, we see the relationship between livestock prices-basis Toronto; Cattle-hogs-long-term average 75-7 per cent. The period is 1914 to 1941. During that time cattle were three-quarters the
472	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Harkness price of hogs. At the present time, November 29, 1952, the ratio is 121-9 per cent. In other words, cattle are now worth 21-9 per cent more than hogs whereas they used to be worth only 75 per cent as much. That I think makes it abundantly clear that the government is attempting to destroy the hog industry.
Now, the reason that they are doing this is not very difficult to guess. For a long time the market for our surplus hogs has been in Great Britain. The hog industry of this country was deliberately built up over many years by means of dominion government subsidies, by importing certain types of boars and by various devices, in order to meet the requirements of this British market. The market has been lost as a result of the policies pursued by this government, and in order to avoid the consequent problems the government is destroying the hog industry without any consideration for the people who have earned their livelihood from it and who are going to suffer serious losses as a result of government policy.
However, more important than the losses suffered by individuals at the present time is the long-term effect of this policy. It will be very serious. In the first place, destruction of the hog industry in this country is going to remove the principal market for coarse grains and low-grade wheat. We come right back to the point with which I started: the large surplus of low-grade wheat which is cluttering up our elevators and our distribution system at the present time. The eventual result, of course, will be the extreme scarcity of hogs, and consequently the consumer will be paying a much higher price than he would otherwise be required to pay.
Another branch of agriculture which is important in Alberta, and upon which I should like to touch very briefly, is the sugar beet industry. The policy which has been followed by the government in regard to this crop is placing it in a precarious situation. Sugar beets are the basis of successful irrigation farming in southern Alberta. The building of the St. Mary dam and the canals leading from it to distribute the water so stored, a project about which we have talked frequently in this house over the past several years, is now more or less completed. In order to make the large expenditure on this project worth while, it is essential to keep the sugar beet industry in a healthy state. The irrigated lands in southern Alberta have been responsible for a very large increase in population. There will be a further increase as a result of this new dry land being brought under irrigation.


An hon. Member:: By what government?


Douglas Scott Harkness: A gentleman asks "by what government?" It has been brought into operation by the joint efforts of the dominion government and the Alberta government.


Mr. Murphy:: Under pressure from the Tories.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Yes, and as a result of a great deal of pressure from bodies of all kinds. Really, I suppose this matter comes under immigration, but the only way in which the farm lands of Alberta can absorb a considerable number of immigrants is by irrigation. In order to keep the irrigated farms going, as I say, sugar beet is an essential crop.
In the event of a war, the importance of a domestic supply of sugar is quite apparent. We all know that rationing of sugar took place during both wars, and actually an assured supply of sugar is just as important a defence requirement as any other, because our outside sources of supply may be cut off. This industry is being threatened by what I believe was a mistake made by the government. I was going to say "a pure mistake", but there cannot be such a thing as a pure mistake. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe), through an understandable desire to increase our external trade, and one with which I thoroughly agree, made an arrangement with Cuba by which it was hoped a certain amount of Canadian goods, particularly dried codfish and potatoes, would be shipped to Cuba in exchange for 75,000 tons of raw sugar per year. I have no objection to that arrangement. The only trouble is that no means was provided to prevent an unrestricted flow of Cuban refined sugar into Canada.
Cuba now has a large surplus of sugar which she is extremely anxious to dispose of. All the sugar beet industry is asking for is that a quota of some sort be imposed on the importation of refined sugar. They are not asking for a tariff or anything of that sort. All they want is an assurance that the Canadian market is not flooded with this great surplus of Cuban sugar, resulting in the destruction of their industry. This industry might be destroyed in the course of a year or two, by which time the surplus sugar would be gone. A short crop in the cane producing areas might leave the world position such that the price would go to great heights. It seems to me reasonable that these people should be given some consideration in this matter. As someone said to me, it is very desirable to increase our foreign trade with Cuba and other countries, but it seems stupid to buy a Cadillac in order to sell a bag of potatoes, and that is essentially what this sort of deal means.

In the few minutes I have left, I should like to turn to defence matters. Evidently defence is a very touchy subject with the Liberal members, because during the course of this debate so many of them have attempted to explain away the instances of extravagance and waste which have been brought to the attention of the house. In his speech on this matter the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) attempted to use some remark that I made in 1949 as an endorsation of the course which the government has been following. It is extremely flattering that the minister should spend so much time in looking up what one said back in 1949, particularly since the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) said that the Minister of National Defence was so busy he did not have time to scrutinize defence contracts. In view of what the minister said about ghost writers, no one would for a moment suggest that he had not looked up these references himself and prepared his speech himself. From his own words, we can only take it that is the situation. It is rather surprising to me that he should have spent so much time looking over these old Hansards to find instances of this sort.
The main thing is, however, that the statement ascribed to me-which of course I made-is not really applicable to what the minister has been doing and what has been done generally by the Department of Defence Production. The quotation the minister used is found on page 135 of Hansard for November 27, and was a reference to what I had said in regard to the difficulty of equipping troops in 1939. I went on to say that there should not be any repetition of that; there is no need for it, particularly with the large amount spent for defence purposes at the present time. I interjected that there was no need to go to extremes, either, and the minister said:
I am glad to see that the hon. member is here and he will no doubt support what he said in 1949.
Certainly I support it, Mr. Speaker, and I support it one hundred per cent. As I say, however, it is not applicable to what the government has been doing so far as our so-called rearmament program is concerned. To begin with, of course, there has to be reason in all things. The provision of a proper quantity of mobilization stores of any sort does not mean the provision of many times the amount that is likely to be required. No one in Canada argues that we should not have adequate supplies of mobilization stores. Actually what has been done has been the buying of large quantities of things which are not essential for mobilization, and at the same time the failure to provide things
The Address-Mr. Harkness which are essential for mobilization. Great quantities of neckties, carpets, teapots, furniture, boudoir lamps and so forth have been secured, but at the same time stocks of rifles, machine guns and artillery pieces have actually been depleted. In other words, during the past two years of heavy expenditures for rearmament the essential mobilization stores have not been stockpiled, and stockpiling is given by the government as the reason expenditures have had to be so great.
For example, we have sent to European countries the arms and equipment for three infantry divisions, plus field pieces for at least one regiment, and I believe practically all the self-propelled anti-tank guns we had. One may well ask the question, then, what has been secured to replace them? Well, if we look at the information supplied to the defence expenditures committee last year, particularly in an exhibit having to do with Canadian defence orders, April 1950 to January 1952, we see at page 16 that we have secured 138 105-millimeter howitzers. These are field pieces to replace the 25-pounder gun-howitzers which were sent to Europe. The number sent to Europe would be 240 25-pounders. Therefore the number we have secured subtracted from that number leaves us with a deficiency of 102 field guns. We are that many field guns worse off than we were before rearmament started.
When we come to rifles I think it is perhaps conservative to say that the equipment for the three divisions included at least 30,000 rifles. To replace them we have ordered, as shown on page 11 of the same exhibit, 12,250 rifles and 7,481 carbines, which apparently take the place of rifles, as it was explained to us. That is 19,000 odd, just under two-thirds as many as were disposed of.
The same story runs through a good deal of the actual fighting equipment which we had at the end of the war and which we have been supposedly ordering since. Some of it we have not only not stockpiled, but we have depleted the stockpiles we had at the end of the war. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that in the excitement that has been engendered by the disclosure of the large number of non-essential items which were secured, the serious deficiencies in essential items of fighting equipment have been lost sight of by the general public, or perhaps have never made a real impact on the consciousness of the country as a whole.
There is, of course, a good reason why this should be so, and that is the fact that security is always invoked as a reason for
474	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Harkness not giving information as to many of our arms purchases. For example, on page 10 of this exhibit having to do with defence orders there is one item which reads: "87A, various suppliers; aircraft; date of orders, various; number of units; classified"; in other words, secret; "estimated value of contracts; $668,962,840." In other words, Mr. Speaker, in that one item you have an amount equal to one-third of all the defence expenditures of this year.
In connection with that item we were not allowed to ask one single question. The parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Defence Production made a great play in his speech about members not having read the minutes of evidence given before the committee. Well, if you will look at page 412 of these minutes of evidence you will see that I attempted to ask questions in regard to this item, and in each instance the answers were that this information was all secret, that nothing could be told us about it whatever. We could not even be told the amounts which went to different companies such as Canadair, A. V. Roe, and so forth. We could get no information on that at all. I would strongly suspect, Mr. Speaker, that the waste of money which has been shown in some of these smaller items of carpets and so forth would pale into insignificance if one were able to go completely into that one item of $688 million odd.
There have been delays in delivery of F-86E Sabres and the CF-100 jet planes, though the announcements made by the ministers concerned would lead us to believe that the Canadian air force would be equipped with the CF-100 before this. They have not got them. By this time they may have three or four sample copies, but that is all. These delays, together with the change in management which took place at the factory making the CF-100, show only too clearly that the program in connection with this airplane production did not go according to plan.
How many planes have actually been delivered? How many have been secured or are to be secured for this very large sum I do not know, and of course we will not be told. But one thing I am absolutely sure of, and that is this. The number is considerably fewer than 600; and if it were 600, the cost would be well over $1 million each. We were told by the minister, as I remember it, that the cost of one of these F-86E's was to be in the neighbourhood of $300,000 to $350,000.
The general position of course in regard to all these defence contracts is that everyone in Canada knows what a necktie or a carpet
nvrr. Harkness.l

is, and when a person learns that a certain number have been bought he is able, from his own experience, to form a judgment as to whether the number ordered was excessive, or if there was likely to be extravagance and waste. However, the number of people in Canada who can form a judgment as to waste or extravagance in connection with a thing like a modern naval vessel, a jet plane or one of the modern artillery pieces, is extremely limited even if the information was given, which it is not. The natural result is that attention has been directed to the smaller non-essential items, and in regard to the important items of rearmament we just do not know what the situation is. What we do know, however, has given rise to very considerable feelings of unease.
The defence expenditures committee is to be set up again this year. A motion providing for it is on the order paper. I would hope that it would be carried on in a very different way from last year. Speaking by and large, last year we were smothered with a great mass of small details, in many cases unessential matters, and as a result we sort of waded around the way a man would in a six-foot snowstorm, and we were not able to see very much light.
I did move on one or two occasions last year to investigate a specific matter, and pointed out that the only way in which we would make progress in the committee was to take some specific matter and investigate it thoroughly.
In his speech the other day the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Shaw) proposed that this year the committee should investigate construction matters at two stations. That is the sort of thing I think the committee should do. Certainly this sort of wandering around with a terrific mass of paper is not going to get us anywhere. I would hope that the efforts of the defence expenditure committee might be directed at this year's sittings particularly to this matter of arms and armament, really essential items so far as rearmament in this country is concerned.


Mr. Darroch:: I did not wish to interrupt the hon. member for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness) in his very interesting speech, but I am wondering if he would permit a question.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Yes.


Arnold Darroch: Would he tell the house what price farmers could expect for hogs if we were shipping them to the British market today?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I have no idea what the answer to that would be. But certainly the question is irrelevant, because we have no market there.

The Address-Mr. Cannon
(Translation):


Mr. Charles Cannon (Iles-de-la-Madeleine):: Mr. Speaker, in beginning my remarks, I wish to conform to a custom of this house and to congratulate the mover (Mr. Deslieres) and seconder (Mr. Schneider) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. I extend my most sincere congratulations to the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi, more particularly, on the substance and form of his speech.
I,	myself, had the opportunity of moving the address in reply to the speech from the throne soon after my arrival in this house. I therefore understand the difficulties which any new member must face in so doing and I am sure that all my colleagues will agree with me that the member for Brome-Missisquoi has discharged with honour the task which had been entrusted to him.
(Text):
I should like also to congratulate the hon. member for Waterloo North (Mr. Schneider) upon the very able manner in which he seconded the address in reply to the speech from the throne. His speech shows the great ability he has brought to the house, and has given assurance to hon. members of that which they already anticipated, that he will make a useful contribution to the debates.
I should like, too, to congratulate the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Sinclair) and the Associate Minister of National Defence (Mr. Campney) upon their elevation to the cabinet. They are both hard-working members of the house. They have contributed usefully to its work and its debates in the past, and they both fully deserve the honours granted them. I may say I am looking forward particularly to working with the Minister of Fisheries in the interests of the Magdalen islands, which I have the honour to represent and which, as every member in the house knows by now, I presume, are very much interested in fisheries.
As one who has often advocated the installation of a loud-speaker system in the house, I wish to congratulate those who were responsible for it. It is a great success, and is giving unqualified satisfaction to all of us.
As this is probably the last session before an election, 1 have been expecting members of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, and members of the other opposition groups, to bring forth their best ammunition; but I have been somewhat disappointed in the result. I find that, in taking part in the debate, to a very great extent the opposition members have indulged in generalizations and platitudes. As an example of the generalizations I shall refer to the observation of the hon. member
for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness), who preceded me in the debate this afternoon. Referring to the market for hogs, he made the unqualified statement that the British market had been lost as a result of the policy of this government.
Well, everyone knows that is not true. It is not half true; it is not even a quarter true. There are very many other factors which have to be considered when one is giving a reason for the loss of the hog market. One of the most important, and one which the hon. member did not mention but which comes immediately to my mind-and I am far from being an expert in the matter-is that unfortunately the British have not the dollars with which to buy our hogs.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Would the hon. member tell me what the hog situation is in Quebec city?


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: You are the expert on that. In reading the speeches made by members of the opposition groups I have paid particular attention to the one made by my good friend the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming), who usually brings some solid contribution to the debate. In his speech, however, I am sorry to say I found one of the best examples of generalizations and platitudes such as I have just mentioned. For instance, at page 111 of Hansard, no doubt after having given great thought to the matter and after having given it deep consideration, the hon. member is reported to have said this;
These past three and a half years will go down in history as the wasted years. And now we are told that this government is to ask for another chance. In the face of a record like that, of wasted years and lost opportunities, Mr. Speaker, I am satisfied tile people of this country will think very carefully before giving another chance-
And so on.


Mr. Fleming:: Finish the sentence.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: What impressed me there was the hon. member's reference to the wasted years. I will ask my hon. friend, who has attended sessions of this parliament assiduously from the beginning, whether he considers the legislation passed in 1949 amending the British North America Act and enabling the federal government to amend the constitution of our country in federal matters, the amendment to the Supreme Court Act to make it the last court of appeal for Canada, the trans-Canada highway agreement, the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act of 1949-I would ask him whether these were "wasted years and lost opportunities".


Donald Methuen Fleming: Do you want an answer?


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: You can give an answer later on, when your time comes.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I would be glad to do it now.

The Address-Mr. Cannon


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: I will ask whether he thinks that at the session in 1950 it was an instance of "wasted years and lost opportunities" when we passed the legislation dealing with the NATO organization, when we decided to send our troops to Korea to support the armed action being undertaken there by the United Nations, when we amended the Old Age Pensions Act, when we passed the Old Age Security Act, when we held our special session to settle the railway strike. I am asking whether the hon. member considers that that legislation was "wasted years and lost opportunities."


Donald Methuen Fleming: Do you want an answer now?


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: You may give your answer when your time comes to speak. If you answered all those items I would have no time to speak. The hon. member can read them in Hansard, and if he wishes he may discuss them later in the debate.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You have the old age legislation in the wrong year.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: No, I beg your pardon; it is in the right year, I checked it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It was passed in 1951.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: But it was originated in 1950, and was in the speech from the throne in that year.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Oh, no, it was not. If that is all you know about it-


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: Let us not argue about details like that. The important thing is not the year, but rather the fact that the legislation was passed, and that the hon. member for Eglinton has referred to the work of this parliament as "wasted years".


Alphonse Fournier: Why not let the hon. member make his speech without interruption? I would like to hear it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I would like him to make it correctly.


Alphonse Fournier: You can speak in Three Rivers next week.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: In 1951 we passed legislation to improve the lot of the veterans by extending their benefits through increased pensions. We passed legislation to send troops to Europe under NATO. We passed the St. Lawrence seaway authority legislation, and legislation dealing with the development of the St. Lawrence power. Were those lost opportunities? Were those wasted years? (Translation):
I ask the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming), is that not so?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, of course, always yes.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: Your reply indicates that you do not attach very much importance to the debates of the house.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I shall reply to that later; you would not allow me to do so now.
(Text):


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: In 1952 we passed legislation ratifying the Japanese peace treaty. We implemented the Colombo plan and entered into tax agreements with nine of the provinces. We amended the British North America Act with regard to the rules of representation; this was the first time it was amended in Canada. We passed important legislation concerning the capital structure of the Canadian National Railways. These are just some of the highlights of what we did in those years. Again I repeat this question to my hon. friend: Were those wasted years? Were those lost opportunities?


Donald Methuen Fleming: When are you going to give me a chance to answer these rhetorical questions?
(Translation):


Mr. Boisvert:: Support prices.


Lionel Chevrier: He will answer later.


Donald Methuen Fleming: He would not allow me to do so now.
(Text):


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: The opposition have been repeating old accusations, have been hurling old charges which have been answered time and again. We heard them referring time after time to waste and extravagance in the Department of National Defence and the Department of Defence Production. Those accusations were brought before the committee that was set up last year and satisfactory evidence was given. I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Dickey) for the speech he made the other day on this subject. He showed that most of these accusations had been answered. He showed that information had been given by officers of the department at the hearings of the committee, and he underlined the fact that I am underlining again, that the opposition were just repeating the same old accusations which had been answered. They seem to have heard and believed in the old saying of Voltaire: mentez, mentez, il en restera toujours quelque chose. They seem to think that if you repeat the same accusation often enough, people will remember only the accusation and forget the answer.
That is not a fair way to deal with the public of Canada. It is not a fair way to deal with the electors of this country. We all know that there are not so many people who read the reports of the committees. Nearly everyone reads what goes on in the house

The Address-Mr. Cannon
because it appears in the newspapers but only a comparative few read what goes on in the committees, so you have accusations being made in the house in a general way and then answered in detail in the committee. If those accusations are repeated often enough there is no doubt that they will be noticed more by the public and will eventually carry more weight than any answers that are given. I do not think that is a fair way to deal with this subject.
On this matter of so-called waste and extravagance, I was amazed to see that the items to which the opposition attached the most importance were things like neckties and shoes. I think we can consider we are lucky in this country when we realize that the government is spending $2,000 million on procurement, on armaments and things required for national defence, and the only criticism by the opposition has been in connection with things like neckties and shoes. We should consider ourselves lucky when we realize the enormous amounts that are spent on other items which are much more expensive and take up much more of the taxpayers' money.


Donald Methuen Fleming: On which the government refuses information.


Mr. Lesage:: The hon. member knows that is not true.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: There is another generaliza-t'm, there is another general statement such as those which are made without any support whatever. When my hon. friend speaks in the house I would like him to support that, to show the house that he was not able to get the information he asked for. I know for a fact that all the information that could be given to members of the opposition in keeping with national security was given.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Apparently my hon. friend has not read the proceedings of the committee on defence expenditures.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: I am not on the committee.


Donald Methuen Fleming: You have not read the proceedings, either. That is obvious.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: One of the accusations levelled most often at the government by the opposition is that the federal government is taking too much of the total tax money in Canada, in other words is taking too large a bite of the tax money available. In his speech at the beginning of the session the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) said that in 1939 the federal government was taking 51 per cent of the tax dollar, the provincial governments 19 per cent, and the municipal governments 30 per cent. He went on to say that in 1951 the federal government was taking 77 per
cent, the provincial governments 12 per cent, and the municipal governments 11 per cent. He apparently concluded that the federal government were encroaching on fields of taxation exploited by the other two bodies, that they were taking so much of the tax money that there was nothing left for the others. But if you consider these percentages carefully you must come to a different conclusion.
Let us consider what are the federal expenditures that have been responsible for the increase in the percentage from 51 per cent in 1939 to 77 per cent in 1951.


Jean Lesage: The figures are not correct.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: My friend says that the figures are not correct, but I am giving the Leader of the Opposition the benefit of the doubt and assuming that they are correct. In examining them I should like to draw the attention of the house to the fact that the two items responsible for this increase in percentage are national defence and social security.
No one has ever suggested that national defence should be handled by either the provincial or municipal authorities. The federal government must take care of national defence whether it wants to or not. It is forced to raise money for national defence by taxation because of the force of circumstances. It has no choice in the matter.
About $1,000 million a year is being spent on social security by the federal government, for family allowances, for old age pensions and things like that. The money paid for old age pensions and pensions for the blind is paid by the federal government as a result of agreements with the provinces. I do not think any agreement was made in connection with family allowances; the federal government just went ahead and granted family allowances and no objection was raised by the provinces except by Ontario, of which province the Leader of the Opposition was then the premier. He declared himself very much against family allowances because he thought they would benefit my province too much at the expense of Ontario. I know my hon. friends do not like to have that brought to the attention of the house or the country. Unfortunately they will probably hear of it several times before the next election comes along.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is not what he said.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: No one wants family allowances administered by the provinces. If my hon. friends wish that, let them say so. I do not think it would be very popular because it might mean different rates of family allowances in the different provinces and different manners of administration. I
478	rfOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Cannon am convinced that the people of Canada do not want family allowances administered by the provinces.
The point I am making is that whether it wants to or not the federal government must raise $3,000 million more today than it had to raise in 1939, $2,000 million for national defence, and $1,000 million for social security. If we work on the figures given by the opposition, which the hon. member for Mont-magny-L'Islet (Mr. Lesage) says are not correct, but giving the benefit of the doubt-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Will my hon. friend permit a question?


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: -they show that 77 per cent-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Will my hon. friend permit a question?


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: Not now.


Donald Methuen Fleming: You only ask them; you do not answer them.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: It is my turn to talk. I am making the speech and it is a little different. Does the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) not realize that there is some difference between a question being asked by the member who has the floor and a question being asked by another member who has not the floor? It seems to me it is elementary.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Has the hon. gentleman overlooked the fact there were defence expenditures in 1939? He has left those out entirely.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: This hurts, but I will ask my hon. friend to keep quiet and listen for a while.


Alphonse Fournier: Curb the urge to speak.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: If we take the figures advanced by the opposition, namely that 77 per cent of the revenue went to the federal government, 12 per cent to the provinces and 11 per cent to the municipalities, and work back from the figure of 77 per cent based on a total federal budget of approximately $4 billion, we find that the total taxes raised by the three taxing powers were about $5,200 million. Taking these figures, the federal government collected $4 billion, the provinces $626 million and the municipalities $574 million. If you deduct the $2 billion that the federal government had to spend for national defence willy-nilly, as I said, then you bring down the total to $3,200 million. Keeping the same amounts for the provinces and the municipalities, we find that the federal government is left with $2 billion, the provincial governments with $626 million and the municipal governments with $574 million.


Let us look at the percentages now. They come down to 62 per cent for the federal government, 19-5 per cent for the provincial governments and 18-5 per cent for the municipal governments. Already we are getting closer to the figures of 1939. If we deduct the $1 billion that the federal government had to spend on social security-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Was there no expenditure on national defence in 1939?


An hon. Member:: Practically nil.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: Very small.


Donald Methuen Fleming: You treat it as if there were none.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: I am surprised that the hon. member for Eglinton, who knows the rules of the house, did not ask my permission to ask a question.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I would not get it. You have made that clear.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: If we take off the amount of $1 billion for social security that brings the total taxes down to $2,200 million. It brings the federal government's share down to $1 billion and the other two shares remain as they were at $626 million for the provinces and $574 million for the municipalities. What are the percentages now? The percentages are 45 per cent for the federal government, 29 per cent for provincial governments and 26 per cent for municipal governments compared with 51 per cent for the federal government, 19 per cent for provincial governments and 30 per cent for municipal governments in 1939.
Therefore if you take into account the fact that the federal government had to necessarily assume-it had no choice in the matter- expenditures of $2 billion for national defence and $1 billion for social security, the part of the taxes that it raised and spent was less percentagewise in 1951 than it was in 1939, 45 per cent as against 51 per cent.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: I do not think so because my time is pretty short. I will listen to my hon. friend's answer later.


Alphonse Fournier: He is nervous today.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: If I allowed my hon. friend to ask all the questions he wants to ask he would be talking all the time and I would not be talking at all.


Lionel Chevrier: He does not like the speech.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: I say that the federal government has been forced into its present position of taking such a large slice of the tax dollar by circumstances so far as national defence is concerned and by the will of the people so far as social security is concerned.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It certainly was not the will of the Liberal party.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: If the provinces and the municipalities took over any great part of the revenues devoted to social security they would have to provide the pensions and allowances, so they would not be any better oil. They would take the money and pay it out to the people, and would not be any better off than they are now. I recognize that it is a very difficult problem. I am not trying to belittle it. I am only pointing out that the federal government is not to blame for the situation as it exists and that the accusation of the opposition is not one that holds water.
I find in the speech of the Leader of the Opposition made on November 24 and recorded at page 25 of Hansard, the following reference to the conference of prime ministers which was then about to take place in London:
There have been repeated reports also that Canada is going to insist upon Britain taking certain steps to improve their position before Canada can make any effective arrangements with them.
Farther down he said:
I am sure that Canadians would be indignant, and I cannot imagine anyone would be more indignant than members of this government, if anyone in Britain presumed to tell the Canadian government how it should mend its ways before they could do business with us. Before we presume to tell the government of Britain how it should conduct its affairs, it would seem appropriate that our own position should be examined.
I was very much interested to find in the Montreal Star of November 27 an extract from the good old London Times, which for once does not agree with the Leader of the Opposition. The article reads as follows:
The Times came out today with an analysis of the commonwealth economic conference that seems in complete accord with the Canadian viewpoint. In its leading editorial, the independent newspaper says the commonwealth ministers must have two main problems to consider: self-help within the sterling area and the fundamental problem of United States predominance.
The danger, says the Times, is that the second problem may be used by the sterling area as an excuse for not putting their own house in order. "Because of the persistent American surplus ... it is contended that the action now demanded to make the economies of the commonwealth countries shipshape ... is beside the mark", the newspaper adds. "In fact, the truth is precisely the opposite."
"The greater the difficulty of making both ends meet in world markets, the greater the need to leave nothing undone to make the most in competitive terms of commonwealth resources. Selfhelp is the first and last item on the agenda." The Times says it is clear, "as it has been all the time to the Canadians at their special vantage point in North America", that there is no solution in perpetual restriction.
Only after the problems of sterling area "good housekeeping" had been solved-by such measures as more scrupulous investment-could the ministers "usefully ask whether the wider goal of convertible
The Address-Mr. Cannon currencies and the free flow of goods and investments in transactions with the dollar world can be brought within reach."
In other words, the London Times is precisely of the same opinion as indicated in the reports cited by the Leader of the Opposition in his speech, namely that Canada was going to insist that Britain take certain steps to improve its own position before Canada could make any effective arrangements with her.
I wish to draw the attention of the house to the fact that just one year ago now, in December 1951, we were all very much worried about the increase in the cost of living. Members of the opposition were all insisting that it was absolutely necessary, if we were going to avoid disastrous inflation and preserve the economy of our country, that controls be reimposed. The government held firm. Don't shake your head. The hon. member may not have advocated it, but there were members of the opposition who did. I remember very well. The government decided that it would not interfere directly with the liberties of the citizen and it would not impose controls, as it considered they were not necessary at the time. It decided to take indirect methods to control inflation. I am very gratified to say, Mr. Speaker, and I draw it to the attention of the opposition if they have not already noticed it, that the cost of living according to the old index has dropped from 191 in January of this year to 185 when last reported. I think the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) and the whole cabinet deserve the congratulations of this house and of all fair-minded Canadians for their very wise attitude which has produced these results.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: On that score and on that subject I wish to draw the attention of Her Majesty's opposition, because I always wish them to be well informed, to an editorial appearing in the New York Times of November 5, 1952, concerning the way Canada has coped with the danger of inflation and has succeeded in bringing down the cost of living. I will spare you the first paragraph because it just repeats figures I have already given. The second paragraph reads:
What makes the Canadian record the more impressive by contrast with the floundering of our own administration in this area is the manner in which it was achieved. The government's policy, in the words of Finance Minister Abbott, was "designed to guide the economy in the right direction without dictating the details of economic activity". In other words, the nation steered clear completely of price-wage controls, and all direct interference with the individual's affairs, relying upon increased taxes (direct and indirect), the stern

The Address-Mr. Cannon regulation of consumer credit, a voluntary credit restriction plan, and an anti-inflationary policy of debt management.
The strictly economic approach to the inflation problem by Canada is typically exemplified in its policy in the field of taxation. In contrast with our own government, it has sought to maintain a good balance between taxes on earnings and taxes on spending.
I think this editorial from the New York Times, a newspaper that is well known and well respected, pays a well deserved tribute to the government of the country which we have today, and which we will continue to have after the next election notwithstanding the prophecies of the hon. gentlemen of the opposition that we will not be given another chance. I think it is not just coincidence that two highly respected newspapers, the London Times and the New York Times, should both, at approximately the same time, find it opportune to praise the Canadian government.
The next item I have on my agenda concerns the speech of the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Balcer). In Hansard of December 2, page 273, he said:
(Translation) :
This is in French, Mr. Speaker, so I will revert to that -language. The hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Balcer) is reported on page 273 of Hansard as having said:
During the war Ottawa got into the habit-
He quotes Le Devoir.
-of taxing as much as it could and it never lost this habit altogether after 1945. It has used the moneys thus collected to set up social services which are within the fields of the provinces.
What I am underlining is: "within the fields of the provinces". Speaking of social services I am reminded of the remarks made recently by the hon. premier of Quebec while receiving a delegation which had, I believe, come to request assistance for home construction in the cities or something like that. He spoke out against what, I believe, he called "state paternalism". I would very much like to know what he means by "state paternalism".
Does the hon. member for Three Rivers approve of the opposition of the hon. premier of Quebec to "state paternalism"? I would like to ask the hon. member for Three Rivers to ask the other member for Three Rivers, the one who sits in Quebec city, if this "state paternalism" includes family allowances, allowances for the blind, pensions for incapacitated or aged people, that is, if by this "state paternalism" he means social security? I would also like him to tell me if when speaking out against state paternalism as practised by the federal government he means that he is opposed to family


allowances, old age pensions or pensions for the blind. That must be his meaning because I cannot see how his expression could be otherwise interpreted and should we decide to follow the suggestion put forward by the hon. member for Three Rivers, we would entrust the provinces with the administration of those social services which are, at present, the federal government's responsibility. But, in that case, these social services might very well be reduced, if not be completely done away with, since the premier of the province of Quebec would include all these benefits under the general heading of "state paternalism" and throw them overboard. That is a consideration to bear in mind when one blames the federal government for administering social security.
I believe-as I said in English a few moments ago-that the people of Canada are satisfied with federal administration of social security and that every Canadian should be on the same footing. For in my province, favoritism has certainly occupied a place of honour in the administration of certain social measures, when the provincial government was responsible for them.
(Text):
Before I finish the first part of my remarks, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say I am convinced the time has come for this government to reduce taxes.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Oh, no. Surely not.


Charles-Arthur Dumoulin Cannon: People realize that taxes are necessary under the circumstances but the people who are willing to pay high taxes are not willing to pay taxes if they have any suspicion that those taxes are too high or that they might be lowered. We have had large surpluses in the last two years and those surpluses have been satisfactorily explained, as far as I am concerned, by the fact that the national product of Canada has increased considerably in both those years beyond the point it was thought it would reach when the calculations were made by the experts who decided what the taxes should be. The very fact that the national income and the national product has increased, while it explains the surpluses, also justifies a reduction in taxation at the present time.
As one of the hon. members of the house said before in this debate, and I am tempted to use a comparison which is often used in the legislative assembly of Quebec, the Minister of Finance is the best minister of finance since confederation. Being the best minister of finance since confederation he

will realize that the time has come to reduce taxes, and that the burden now being borne by the Canadian people should be alleviated in so far as this is possible consistent with the obligations the federal government has to meet.
Now I wish to revert, Mr. Speaker, to the Magdalen islands, my home constituency, and to devote the rest of my speech to their requirements. My county is not very large, but it has more fishermen in it than any other county in the province of Quebec. As such it is certainly deserving of the attention of the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Sinclair). He is not in the house now, but I will not fail to remind him of what I have just said.
I have always taken a particular interest in the fishermen's problems because of the fact that there are so many in my constituency, and I have always attempted to help them as much as possible. I have asked for help for the fishermen, both directly and indirectly. Under the first heading I shall put my request for a change in the regulations governing subsidies for the building of large fishing boats, in order to reduce to 45 feet the minimum length required to qualify for the subsidy. In that request I was successful, and I want to thank the federal government for having passed the necessary order in council.
There were other requests which I made to help the fishermen directly, and in which I was not so successful. I believe it is my duty to bring them again to the attention of the house. Two of these requests concerned help for the fishermen through the fisheries prices support board and unemployment insurance. These two requests come under the heading of direct help. In connection with the request for help under the price support program, I wish to quote to the house from a speech I made in 1951, as found at page 2363 of Hansard.
I have just been handed a note from Mr. Speaker informing me that my time has expired. I shall, therefore, have to cut short my remarks concerning the fishermen's situation. I shall take another opportunity of presenting their requests to the house. Before sitting down I wish to say that I shall look forward to hearing the speech by the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming), when he will have the opportunity of asking me all the questions he wanted to ask this afternoon. The fact that I have had to curtail my remarks shows, I believe, that I was right in not allowing him to ask the questions.
The Address-Mr. Adamson


Mr. Rodney Adamson (York West):: Mr. Speaker, with the house in the happy mood in which it is at the present moment, I am sure you and the house will not be disappointed if I make a speech on the subject of gold and the convertibility of currency. This matter is, and continues to be, one of the most important matters facing all the democratic countries. It is a subject which is under intense and vital discussion at the prime ministers' conference in London at the present time, so I feel that certain things should be said here concerning the problem.
I want to deal briefly with the new emergency gold mining regulations which were announced at the beginning of the session. The new formula continues the old type of assistance under the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act. Although it does increase slightly the payments to be made by the government, actually the new formula, like its predecessors, is of little real help. Many mines have worked out what this assistance will mean, and one of them-Bralome in British Columbia-has estimated that it will mean rather less than 50 cents an ounce. Actually I think it would be safe to say that the increase will not equal the increased cost of steel which has taken place in the past year. Certainly it will not equal the increase in the cost of steel and chemicals at any mine so far as I am aware. Nothing is done, of course, to overcome the problem of the wide labour differential between gold mines and the base metal mines which is causing so much trouble. I have heard it said that the increase will not compensate for the added cost of grinding balls and grinding rods in the grinding circuits of most mines.
I want to put the situation on this act as clearly as I can. The gold mines did not ask for a bonus. I have consistently said in this house that it was not right to ask the Canadian taxpayer to bonus any industry. Gold, like any other metal, should be sold for the price it can command, and any mine which cannot operate at that price should not be in operation. That price, however-this is the important factor-should be the free price and not the present broker-controlled price. There should be no restrictions on owning, storing, selling or exporting gold in any form. Only in this manner can we arrive at a true price. The $14 million we are currently asking from the taxpayer is an unnecessary burden. Furthermore, it is doing the mines no real good. Unfortunately the industry has now come to depend on this assistance, and it will probably be impossible to cut it off until the free market is well
482	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Adamson established. In the meantime the assistance may cost between $20 million and $25 million a year.
Let us look at this business of the free market. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) has repeatedly stated in this house that the United States controls the price of gold. Actually, Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. The United States, because of the restrictions it imposes on the ownership of gold and which are similar to ours, can under no circumstances be considered as being on the gold standard. Unless the treasury or the central bank will sell gold freely to its citizens and give gold in exchange for currency to any citizen requiring it, a country cannot be said to have a fully exchangeable gold standard. As I say, today the United States does not control the price of gold. If the United States stopped buying gold altogether it would not injure the Canadian gold mining industry. Actually, I believe it would help it.
As evidence of this fact, Mr. Speaker, I want to put on record the amount of gold which was purchased by the various central banks and by various governments during the past year. The figures are in millions of dollars, and I shall only quote the larger ones.
Millions
of
Country	Dollars
Argentine	 52
Belgium	 48
Australia	 24
Cuba	 40
Egypt	 78
France	 24
Indonesia	 71
Italy	 77
Peru	 15
Portugal	 72
Sweden	 62
United States	   53
Canada	 262
This gives the national treasury of Canada the largest increase in gold in the past year, something like five times the amount that was added to the United States hoard. I call it "hoard"; they call it reserve. Can any member in this house say that when this country purchases five times the amount of gold the United States purchased last year, the United States controls the price of gold? I think not. The most important thing, however, is this, that of the amount of gold which was sold that year not less than $694 million went into private hands. Can any member of this house say that the private market, or the free market, is not large enough or not competent to absorb any gold that we may be able to produce? To say so, Mr. Speaker, is to make a statement which I think is untenable. These figures are published by the international monetary fund, and while in 	[

the past I have disagreed with the international monetary fund, and still disagree as to their policies, nevertheless we must believe that their statistics are correct.
We now come to the point that gold is what used to be called in my school days the X factor in the simultaneous equation; in other words, that gold is the common denominator upon which all currencies are equated. We have today the principal problem of trade between the commonwealth and the sterling area and ourselves in the dollar bloc. There is the fiction that there is a shortage of dollars. The United Kingdom continues to talk about a shortage of dollars; all the sterling bloc talks about a shortage of dollars. What they mean is that they have a shortage of goods to sell for gold. How are you going to get those United States dollars if the United States will only accept dollars or gold?
The way to do that is to bring gold out in the open so that the owners of any currencies, the owners of any goods, may be paid for in the open in terms of gold, which has a purchasing power all over the world. I do not say this will cure the difficulty, but it is one of the steps which should be taken so that the impasse between the sterling bloc and the dollar bloc can be broken down and have a common denominator in the market places of the world in terms of the one thing that all currencies are equated in, namely gold. It is my opinion, Mr. Speaker, that we have lost the opportunity of our young nationhood in not having gone ahead with this market long before this.
I come now to the United Kingdom problems. Twice in my lifetime has the freedom of the world been saved by the heroic actions of the citizens of that small island. It may well be that the wise counsel prevailing in London will be able to bridge the impasse that now exists in the United Nations. No man who is free today can ever pay his debt to the United Kingdom. But, Mr. Speaker, so long as wrong economics guide the policies, there is nothing very much that can be done. So long as currency control, embargoes and restrictions are imposed by any country, that country cannot go ahead and prosper the way it should, irrespective of the efforts of its people, great as they are.
There is of course the question in this case of the sterling balances to Egypt and the sterling balances to India. I feel that just as the war debts were found impossible of payment after the first world war, so the sterling debts which the United Kingdom accepted so readily to preserve the very freedom of both India and Egypt, and many other countries, should be treated very largely in

The Address-Mr. Adamson
the same way as the debts to the United States of the first world war. To pay them is like borrowing a man's garden hose to put out a fire in his house, and then having him charge you for the water you used to put out the fire.
That, however, is a problem which overhangs the whole question of convertibility, and I shall not go into details in a speech in this house. Convertibility is one thing. Convertibility can be assisted by a free market in the common denominator of all currencies, namely gold. But besides convertibility we must have trade. As a matter of fact the two go hand in hand. Today there is fortunately a very distinct change coming over United States thinking in this regard.
I should like to mention the opinions of Dr. Benjamin Beckhart, who is the economic consultant of the Chase national bank. He is also professor of banking of the Columbia graduate school of business. Dr. Beckhart is an economist of note. But it is not because of his ability as an economist that I am quoting his opinions at the moment. It is because what he says is significant of the new trend in American thought. Dr. Beckhart said that in order to overcome this question of convertibility and trade, certain things had to be done. He suggested that the United States should lend assistance to Great Britain and other European countries who were trying to return to currency convertibility to take steps so that raids on their currencies would be prevented. He suggested that the international monetary fund should grant stand-by drawing accounts.
Another very important proposal was that there should be repeal of the buy-American acts, an extension of the reciprocal trade agreement acts, an effort to delete the peril point clause and the escape clauses. He said also that there should be a rewriting of the customs law so that it might be greatly simplified.
This gentleman is representative of the very highest type of modern American business. He is, if I may say so, representative of the sort of thought that is going into the future Republican administration in the United States. I believe it shows a very significant and hopeful change in the American attitude when we see men of Dr. Beckhart's calibre making these suggestions.
I now come to the subject of inflation. It is still with us; and because in the last year we had a slight falling-off in the cost of living we would be foolish to believe that there has been a reversal of the trend. As a matter of fact if one plots the curve of the cost of living, and other indices such as that of 68108-314
wholesale prices, he will find that the 1951 figure was what is known as a high erratic, in that it was well above the general curve of inflation which has been going on since 1935.
I think it might be desirable to put a list of figures on the record. I have taken wholesale prices as being the index least subject to government control. All indices are of course to some degree subject to government control; but wholesale prices have a very general application and offer the index which probably represents the most sensitive indication of the nation's economy. These figures are from the dominion bureau of statistics, and are set out in the September issue of the bureau publication. They are as follows:
Year
Price
index
figure
1936
1938
1940
1942
1944
1946
1948
1950
94-4
101-2
99-2
116-4
127-9
132-1
163-3
198-3
240-2
In 1952 the index figure dropped back to 232; but the 1952 figure, as of December, was up again to 241-7. Now, what does this all mean? It means that each year the prices of wholesale goods have increased, and they have increased in those 17 years about 135 points or an annual increment of about 8 points. Or, if we take the year 1938 as 100, it represents an annual increase of about 8 per cent. That trend is continuing. Another interesting thing is that this curve is similar to all other indices in Canada, including those of building materials and wage rates. As I have said, the cost of living has certain generalizations in it which dampen it down somewhat, but there again the similarity is striking.
What happens if this goes on? It simply means that the value of the dollar decreases just that much every year. If this trend goes on it means that in respect of things such as old age pensions, a man now in his fifties who is paying for an old age pension will, at the age of seventy, draw in terms of today's dollar, a sum equal to about $19. A man with life insurance who expects to retire with a capital of, let us say, $10,000 will have to save $20,000 in order to have $10,000 in purchasing power 20 years from now. A man with government bonds paying him 3 per
484	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Adamson cent, in the tace ot this constant inflation will stand a net loss of about 4i to 5 per cent in terms of purchasing power every year he holds that bond.
This must be stopped; because if it is not stopped we will destroy the very security we are trying to protect. Someone may say that it is all very well, that a man can invest in common stock equities, that a man can invest in prime real estate or buy a farm or take his money out of the country. That is all very well for the wealthy. But today in Montreal and Toronto only 6 per cent of all wage earners earn more than $4,000 a year. .Recent surveys show that 94 per cent of all the wage earners in Montreal and Toronto receive $4,000 a year or less and must depend upon such things as life insurance, government bonds and bank savings accounts. It is their security that we are destroying by this constant inflation.	.
From time to time I have suggested that the only way to attack inflation, the only way to stop this rot in the currency, is by returning to a fixed gold standard. That is some distance in the future; it is not practical immediately because we do not know what the price of gold is going to be. We do not know where it will stabilize itself. But we do see the rot, we do see this thing going on and we are as yet powerless to stop it.
Because there has been a decrease in the cost of living during the last six or eight months can we say that is the trend, especially with an increased cost for basic steel, and increased cost for coal and undoubtedly an added cost for freight because of higher wage rates for the railway workers? To do so I think would be unwise and wrong in every possible way. We say that we are having a boom. Our trade is at record levels. We are spending $500 million at Kitimat; we are building the St. Lawrence power project and waterway by ourselves. Our dollar is at a premium. Our budget is in balance, with a huge surplus. Those are fine things, of which every Canadian should be proud; but what good are they if the security of the people we are trying to protect is destroyed? This is not happening quickly as was the case with inflation in Germany, but there is a continual eating away of the purchasing power of our currency, and with it goes the savings of our people.
To say that the trend is downward and inflation beaten because a few indices have turned downward, is it not rather like saying that highway fatalities have stopped, that we have cured the highway traffic accident problem because there has been a week end without fatality or a Christmas season practically free from accidents? I think both arguments would be completely fallacious.


I should like to say one word about the price of gold. It is not the function of any government to set the price of gold. Gold is not the plaything of any political party. Gold is the people's security against all political parties. Until the people are allowed to have gold, that security is taken away from them by this inflation I have been talking about.
I do not know what it will be set at. I have no idea where it will adjust itself. But if it follows the general line and if the price before the war was adequate, we must think of gold in terms of the indices which I have quoted and expect a price at least double, or probably more, the pre-war price before it can properly fulfil its function. To place gold at any price and not let it go free would be just as dangerous and wrong as to maintain it at its present price and thus destroy the mining industry. The prime function of gold is to act as a monetary value. To sterilize it even at any price and not allow it to fulfil its historical function of being the safeguard of the savings of the people is wrong and dangerous. Furthermore it is the road to revolution.
Mr. Speaker, I have about five minutes more and there is one further item I should like to deal with. May I call it six o'clock?
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.
Agar Rodney Adamson: Mr. Speaker, before the dinner recess I was trying to make one point, namely that no government has the right or prerogative to say what the price of gold shall be unless that government is prepared to exchange the national currency into gold at that rate without restrictions of any sort whatsoever. I think the incoming administration at Washington understands that. Gold is the citizen's supreme safeguard against dishonest government.
I want to refer briefly now to the possible -I do not say "proposed" although it is proposed-diversion of water from the Atlin lakes in British Columbia and the Yukon and also from lake Laberge over the pass down to Skagway, Alaska, for the development of a very large amount of hydroelectric energy and the creation of an aluminum smelter. There are certain factors to be considered. The Yukon needs power to develop her natural resources and the promise of this abundant electric power is certainly very tempting. However, the water belongs to the province of British Columbia which under

the British North America Act is the owner of her own natural resources, and her interests must certainly be considered. If I were a British Columbian, particularly one from the northern part of the province, I would give the matter most serious thought before I approved of the removal from the province of so much essential primary power.
The next point is that the future of the Yukon lies in the development of her mineral resources. There are two essential requirements involved. One is power and the other is water as distinct from power. The new discoveries of potentially great mineral resources that have been indicated by companies such as Hudson Bay, Ventures and others will certainly require power, but they will also require water. They will require water for their milling and mining and for the use of the communities that may grow up around these developments if they take place. The potential of the Yukon is just being remotely scratched at the present time.
In the last few months the indications have been that there is a storehouse of minerals there equal to or greater than that of old Ontario and Quebec. We speak of "old Ontario" now as being the Timmins and Kirkland Lake area and of "old Quebec" as being the Noranda and Bourlamaque belt.
If the storehouse of the Yukon is to be developed we will require power; but we will also require water, and if the Yukon river is diverted to such a degree that this essential water is taken from us it may seriously hinder the development of these new mining properties. I realize it is more efficient from the point of view of per cubic foot of water to turn it over the pass and get a thousand foot head instead of taking it down the Yukon river. Infinitely more power can be developed in this way than at such sites as Miles canyon and others on the river; but the essential thing is that we must take great care not to lose the water without adequate safeguard.
The question of navigation also is important. The Yukon river is shallow, and the removal of a large percentage of the flow of water from the lakes and headwaters feeding the Yukon river will make navigation that much more difficult. There is some coal development at Carmacks but it is not of a very high quality and the obtaining of power therefrom is certainly a doubtful economic factor. The Yukon river freezes five or six feet deep, but there is still water flowing underneath it at Dawson. If the flow is considerably decreased it is conceivable that the Yukon may freeze solid, as do such rivers as the Hay, and become useless in wintertime as a source of water.
9,	1952
The Address-Mr. Spence I realize that so far as the development at Keno Hill and other places is concerned there is a supply of water available all through the year from deep lakes. These developments of course are not on the Yukon but on a tributary of the river. I mention this matter not for the purpose of saying that the proposal should be damned out of hand but to indicate that most careful consideration should be given before a natural resource is diverted from the Canadian watershed over the international border and the resulting power and water thus pass out of our hands. There may be an agreement, or an agreement may be worked out between the Aluminum Company of America and the other governments-the Yukon government, the government of British Columbia, the federal government and the government of Alaska; nevertheless at the moment I would certainly be opposed to this development until I could be absolutely satisfied that no harm would result to the over-all economy of the Yukon. At present, Mr. Speaker, I consider that the danger of doing irreparable damage to the whole life of the Yukon is too great to proceed without the most careful consideration of this matter.
(Translation):


Mr. P. H. Spence (Roberval):: Mr. Speaker, before proceeding with my remarks, it would be very ungracious on my part if I did not offer my warm congratulations to the mover (Mr. Deslieres) and the seconder (Mr. Schneider) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. It gives me even greater pleasure to do so since I was elected on the same day as those two members. Yet, in spite of all my sympathy for them I must say that I do not share their views.
The electors of Roberval county have entrusted me with a few messages for the government and it gives me great pleasure to speak on their behalf.
The constituency I represent is located some 200 miles north of Quebec city, on the south and west shores of lake St. John. I wish to make its position known because my electors are under the impression that their constituency has been forgotten in the past. I hope that the circumstances surrounding my election have contributed to put it on the map once again.
I will not pretend that my constituency has been totally and completely ignored in the past, because one of my predecessors was

The Address-Mr. Spence named, some years ago, to the board of transport commissioners and my immediate predecessor, your assistant in this house, occupied the chair in which you are now sitting, Mr. Speaker. I must pay a tribute to my immediate predecessor, His Honour Mr. Justice J. Alfred Dion, who owes to his personal qualities his nomination as judge of the superior court.
If my constituency has reason to be proud of its representatives, unfortunately it has no reason to be satisfied with the treatment meted out to it as far as its particular needs are concerned. No doubt, this is one of the reasons why my constituents have decided to withdraw, once and for all, their confidence in the Liberal party-


Mr. Dupuis:: For the last time.


Paul Henri Spence: You said it. We will see about it later. Our district, which includes the constituencies of Chicoutimi, Lapointe, Lake St. John and Roberval, is served by the Canadian National Railways. I belong to a family several members of which have been employees of this railroad at one time. As a matter of fact I myself worked for the Canadian National Railways for a couple of years. I even have a relative who lost his life in an accident.
I moreover belong to one of the pioneer families of that district known for the tastiness and abundance of its blueberries. I heard from my forebears the story of the various changes which have taken place in the structure and the names of the companies which preceded the Canadian National Railways and which eventually led to the government assuming control of them.
Our first railway was built approximately 70 years ago in answer to the needs of the early colonization period. Since its construction, there have been absolutely no changes in its route. As for the road itself it has been improved very slowly, and generally after disastrous derailments or collisions due to the poor organization of the system.
And, Mr. Speaker, you may be sure that these accidents were by no means due to excessive speeds since even today-I mention the fact just for the sake of comparison-the trip from Quebec city to Dolbeau, a distance of 233-4 miles, takes 10 hours and 35 minutes, the average speed being 22 miles per hour. On the other hand, modern trackage and


straight lines between the larger urban centres make it possible, for instance, to cover in six hours the 289-5 miles separating Ottawa from Quebec city.
I recognize the fact that passenger service may not be a source of large revenue in our region. I know, however, that express and freight services make that section of the Canadian National system one of the most profitable to operate. A great many freight trains run on that line each day, carrying farm produce and the output of our six pulp and paper mills, of our two aluminum plants and of our numerous lumber mills.
They also carry all the goods required to satisfy the needs of our industries and our population. The latest census, that of 1951, shows that our district, which is served by one railway only, the Lake St. John railway operated by the Canadian National, has a population of 197,910; that is more than twice the population of Prince Edward Island and 55 per cent of the population of the province of Newfoundland.
For years now we have been asking for the rebuilding of this line or the construction of a new line suited to our needs, but always to no avail. The Canadian National Railways should get such a project under way without delay and should also undertake the building of a railway to serve our Chibougamau mining area where, according to authoritative sources, the capital which is continually being spent will be useless as long as there is no railroad into that district. However I shall have other opportunities of discussing this matter during the present session. Yet, I would like to draw, for the benefit of the house, a comparison between our railways and our highway system. By railroad, the distance between Quebec and Chicoutimi is 227-4 miles and by automobile the distance is only 132 miles or less than two-thirds the distance covered by the railroad. It is easily done in three hours while it takes ten hours to do it by train.
The progress of our highway system has followed and sometimes preceded agricultural, industrial and commercial development in our district, while our railway system has undergone no change whatsoever since the days when our district was first opened to colonization. As a matter of record, I must say that our highway system has been improved through the generosity of the present

premier of Quebec and through the untiring efforts and undisputed ability of the member for Chicoutimi in the provincial legislature, the Hon. Antonio Talbot, minister of highways.
Mr. Speaker, I must say that if you had the opportunity to travel by railroad in my constituency, you would be perfectly convinced that we are not the ones who, in order to improve our railroad, have stolen rails from the Petawawa military camp.
In the course of recent debates, I heard the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) say, and I quote from page 157 of Hansard: (Text):
Mr. Speaker, I had intended to go over what I feel is discrimination in the collection of income taxes from farmers in various parts of Canada. I was going to refer, as I have on previous occasions, to the fact that while approximately $6,725,000 was collected in 1949 from farmers in Saskatchewan, for example, in the same year only $51,000 was collected from all the farmers in Quebec. I had hoped to answer some of the statements made towards the end of the last session by the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. McCann). I can remember him saying that it was difficult to collect farm income taxes in Quebec, but even so in that province the government had only 22 income tax inspectors, whereas in Saskatchewan where according to the minister it was a simple matter to collect income tax from the farmers, he had 60 income tax inspectors.
(Translation):
The authorities in the Department of National Revenue, in my opinion, surely know where to find the money, and if the department keeps 60 inspectors in Saskatchewan and only 22 in the province of Quebec, it may be that more supervision is required in the province of the hon. member. In any event, it is certainly because there are a great deal more income taxes to collect from Saskatchewan farmers than from those of the province of Quebec.
I think, Mr. Speaker, the statement of the hon. member for Assiniboia is misleading and cannot but prejudice the reputation for honesty of the most deserving and respectable social group of the province which I represent.
I do not wish to make an extended eulogy of the farmers of Quebec, but I would like it to be remembered that they are the pioneers in this country and that, if only for that reason, they should have a right to expect to be spared some misleading insinuations.
The Address-Mr. Spence
Nobody should be surprised if the farmers of Quebec do not pay as much taxes as the western farmers. There is no comparison at all between the two types of farming nor between the revenues involved, especially. True they do have a guaranteed support price for their product, but such a support price does not even allow them to break even. In spite of such support prices indeed they are, at present, obliged to sell their products below the supposedly guaranteed level. In most cases their income tax forms show a net loss.
The first time I spoke to this house, on June 26 last, I said, as reported on page 3801 of the English Hansard for that date:
As a result of production costs today and of the closing of foreign markets, our farmers are suffering serious losses in the marketing of their products, ranging from 10 to 25 per cent.
And again, on the same occasion, I said:
-the farmers in my province are under the impression that the Minister of Agriculture denies them the same measure of protection he extends to farmers in other parts of the country. They are not opposed, it is to be noted, to the assistance provided to the wheat producers of our western provinces. They only wish to receive the same consideration from government authorities.
It is my impression that if the farmers of Quebec were better treated, they might also be in a position to pay income tax.
Referring again to the question of farmers' income tax, I should like to point out to the hon. members here present that the professional farm organizations of the province of Quebec provide their members with competent officers to advise them on their income tax problems.
They are advised to file returns, even if they have no profits to show. They are advised to make out returns because they are thus obliged to keep books, which enables them to find out what part of their production is unprofitable. On that score, I do not think it can be said that there is a lack of good faith on the part of anyone.
I also want to point out a downright anomaly in the Income Tax Act as far as our family farming is concerned. Unfortunately, our legislation makes no allowance for this.
Farming, in the province of Quebec, is a family affair, with every member of the family doing his share of the work on the farm. The children start helping as soon as
488	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Spence they reach their tenth or twelfth year. Even the young girls at certain times of the year do their good share of the work, and often the mother must divide her time between housekeeping and farm work. It is the mother, for instance, who looks after the truck garden, and in many parts of our province when the head of the family must go away to the lumber camps in winter in order to be able to go on working his land during the summer, it is the mother who looks after the livestock.
I quote the text relating to the matter of family help, in our Income Tax Act, according to the "Farmers and Fishermen Guide" 1951 edition, as reproduced in the Action Catholique of Nov. 27:
' Salaries earned by children are deductible only inasmuch as:
(a)	those salaries have been paid in cash during the year;
(b)	the services were rendered with a view to producing the income;
(c)	the services would otherwise have required the hiring of help and
(d)	the amount is reasonable, taking into account the child's age and the wages which would otherwise be paid to an outside worker to perform the same task.
One cannot claim as expenses the value of the upkeep of dependent children.
The Action Catholique from which the quotation is drawn goes on saying:
Let us assume that a farmer has three sons and that the work they do on the land is not paid for, for this land will one day be theirs and they shall profit by the improvements to it. Now if. in this case, the father does not pay his children any wages, all the income from the soil will be considered from the point of view of income tax, as having been earned by only one man, that is by the head of the family. This situation is unfair and contrary to common sense, but it nevertheless exists under our present Income Tax Act.
Our legislation only provides for cases where wages were paid during the current year; consequently, wages paid in former years may not be considered in the event of the father's death, for instance, and are only deductible if used to pay for services rendered in order to produce revenue, for which services the farmer would otherwise have been obliged to hire labour.
In practice, this is equivalent to saying that the farmer, who is paying wages to the members of his family, may not put these wages down as expenses, for, in a number of cases, he would not have hired any labour for this work.
I believe that a revision of our Income Tax Act by the Department of National Revenue is urgently needed, in order to correct this anomaly.


I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, that this government should not yet have found markets for our farm products. In the meantime, our farmers see their products piling up in an alarming way in warehouses. All cold storage plants of the country are being filled to capacity with farm products for which we cannot find markets.
In spite of support prices, our farmers are compelled to sell their pork and beef for the low prices that are offered them on account of the glutting of the market. Floor prices being already too low, since they are 15 or 20 per cent lower than they were six years ago-when bacon hogs were selling at 32 cents-and the cost of feed and labour having increased, our livestock breeders are having unjustified deficits this year.
It should be recalled that during the last world war our dairy farmers and other agricultural producers made heavy sacrifices in order to help the cause of free nations. Owing to their generous contribution, they were promised at that time that once the war was over and business got going again in a normal way, they would have markets readily available for their products. Unfortunately those who believed in those promises are now greatly disappointed. For some time following the end of the war, they were able to get fair prices. Then, they incurred considerable expenses in order to improve their production and modernize their farms. And now, year after year since 1946, while the cost of living index, for them as well as for the other social groups, went up from 143 to nearly 185, the marketing possibilities have been dwindling, bringing about a considerable drop in the prices of agricultural products. Our farmers will be struggling against a hopeless situation, unless there is immediate action on the part of the Department of Agriculture.
I would like to deal briefly with the most pressing problems we are facing today, i.e., federal-provincial relations.
The province of Quebec is anxious to see the question of taxation powers as far as direct taxes are concerned-which belong to the provinces but have been taken away from them by the central government-settled once and for all and in a way acceptable to all. This view is shared by other provinces also, and some have already shown how dissatisfied they are with the agreements now in force.

But if there is a general impression abroad that only Quebec is not satisfied, that is because the prime minister of that province has steadfastly refused the federal proposals and shown an unshakable resolve that the provinces will retain the rights which were assured to them when first they united to form the Canadian confederation.
When the central government enters the provincial fields, the constitution is being violated. The federal government is not a superior body which has delegated certain powers to secondary or district administrations and which is in a position to do away with such powers of its own volition, according to the whim and fancy of those who direct it. No, Canada is a union of autonomous provincial states, independent from one another and independent from the central authority in those fields which are their own.
It is quite possible, of course, that our federal system, now 75 years old, may need some readjustment. I am not competent enough in the legal field to answer yes or no. Nevertheless if there were some readjustments involved, it should never be carried out without the unanimous consent of all the contracting parties.


Hector Dupuis: This has been done.


Paul Henri Spence: But as soon as one of the contracting parties impinges upon the jurisdiction of his neighbour, we fall into abuse of power, into disunity. There is also the danger of falling into duplication of services working in the same spheres, thus doubling the charges to be borne by the taxpayers.
To our regret, the speech from the throne makes no mention of the federal government's intention of entering into discussions with the provinces in order to settle this question once and for all.
As long as the present situation exists, conflicts will multiply between the provinces and the federal government, and our municipalities and school boards will have to be content with grossly inadequate budgets. Even if our municipal councils and school boards make every effort and exhaust themselves in their attempts to find solutions to their problems, their efforts will remain futile, because the taxpayers are already substantially overtaxed. It is only by a new redistribution of taxation fields that it will be possible for them to obtain new sources of income.
And such redistribution will only be made possible when taxation rights monopolized by the central government have been returned to the provinces. Arrangements between the municipalities and the provinces will then be possible and advantageous.
The Address-Mr. Spence
I wish to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) on the stand he took in this connection. It met with general approval in Quebec and throughout the country. The press was unanimous in commending his stand.
Le Devoir of November 29, in an editorial entitled: "Power to starve" and signed by its managing editor, Mr. Gerard Filion, stated:
The leader of the Conservative party, Mr. Drew, has set out more strongly than ever the stand of his party on the question of the distribution of taxing powers. He came out flatly against the existing federal-provincial agreements and for an agreement between Ottawa and the provinces that would allow each government to retain the taxation fields necessary for the discharge of its responsibilities.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Hear, hear!


Paul Henri Spence: To go on with the quotation:
Mr. Drew reminded us of the temporary character of these agreements and he chided the federal government for their obvious unfairness; have they not, indeed, extended to peace time, agreements which should have applied only to war years? Mr. Drew has called attention to the recent objections of the premier of Nova Scotia, Mr. Macdonald, as well as to the displeasure expressed by the premier of Ontario, Mr. Frost, at the time the agreement was signed between Ottawa and Toronto. He charged the Liberal government with the responsibility of a policy conducive to the gradual ruin of the provinces, which tend to fall under the financial domination of the central government.
All well considered, Mr. Drew seems to have definitely joined the ranks of those who support fiscal decentralization. He is for the respect, in every detail of the letter, of the confederation pact, which grants to the provinces priority in the field of direct taxation for provincial purposes, as well as the spirit of confederation which gives autonomous powers to Ottawa and to the provinces within the limits of their respective jurisdictions.
I am convinced that the province of Quebec would support any reasonable formula which would safeguard its rights. Mr. Duplessis, the avowed champion of provincial rights in the province of Quebec, has proved with sufficient clarity that his intentions are sincere, for he told the delegates he recently met-and I quote Le Devoir of November 27:
If I knew that my withdrawal could definitely settle the constitutional problem, I would abandon politics because the life of a man is unimportant when the survival of a people is at stake.
Mr. Speaker, if I were a government supporter-


Mr. Langlois (Gaspe):: That is very candid.


Paul Henri Spence: -I think that I would take note of that statement by the premier of the province of Quebec-


Hector Dupuis: Don't worry, he will not go.


Paul Henri Spence: -because that statement
should bring the federal government to undertake immediate negotiations with the provinces.

The Address-Mr. Spence
I also regret that the government makes no mention in the speech from the throne of its intention of putting an- end to the wastage of public funds, of which examples have been given in this house by the hon. Leader of the Opposition.
As my time is limited, I will not deal at any length with the purchase of boots, shoes, ties, teapots, rugs and carpets. Neither will I speak of the raincoat purchases.
However, I wish to point out that in the county of Roberval, which I have the great honour of representing in this house, I know of very few heads of families with enough money to buy for their children and for themselves $15 shoes at the rate of 10 pairs a year, clothing at the rate of $1,400 every second year per person, raincoats at the rate of 16 per person per year, and ties by the dozen-	.


Hector Dupuis: During the depression, they didn't have $10 either.


Paul Henri Spence: You came into my district and nobody would listen to you!
On the other hand, I know of a great many heads of families, whose earnings, acquired by them through their own labour, under difficult conditions, are largely funnelled away, through direct and indirect taxation, to the federal treasury, from where they emerge once more to be squandered with no regard to even the most elementary principles of economy. And yet these men would really need to retain a greater part of their earnings in order that their children may be assured of the benefits of the education to which they are entitled.
The financial advisers of the Department of Finance would be well advised to mingle with the people. They would then be in a position to see how the burden of taxation is giving rise everywhere to discontent. On their return they might well give some judicious advice to their superiors.


J. G. Léopold Langlois: There is Mr. Duples-sis' sales tax too.


Paul Henri Spence: There is no Mr. Duplessis here.


Donald Methuen Fleming: High taxes will make you lose the next election.


Paul Henri Spence: We are in urgent need of housing in Roberval county. We are facing a situation which is getting worse every day, and in an alarming way.
Young people who are founding new homes have no place to live in, unless they are satisfied with one or two rooms, and heads of families with children must rely on the law to keep the accommodations they have. Such

a situation cannot last indefinitely. When rent control is abolished by the Quebec government-and that is bound to happen sooner or later-homeless families will be numerous.


Maurice Boisvert: That is again a provincial responsibility.


Paul Henri Spence: Never mind, you will have your turn also.
The high cost of living, the cost of building materials, the cost of labour are all factors which make it impossible, in practice, to build a house for a family of average income, in the present circumstances. And I suppose that when all these things go down, there will be no more money left for building purposes.
Here and there commendable efforts are attempted to overcome the difficulty. Housing co-operatives may be credited with real achievements but they are not able to fulfil all the demands, owing to the lack of interest for that kind of loan on the part of lending institutions in general or to the fact that the initial amount to be supplied by the would-be owner is too high, or again because our municipalities are not able to service the land for those who want to build, as for instance in my own town of Mistassini.


Maurice Boisvert: Mr. Duplessis is against it.


Paul Henri Spence: We started fifteen years ago at Dolbeau-the most prosperous and interesting industrial centre of my county-a housing co-operative, and it was only after many years of work and research, of studies, of canvassing loan companies, and of devotion on the part of the officers of our co-operative, whose services were-I take pleasure in saying so-voluntary, that it became possible to undertake the building of a score of houses.
May I briefly emphasize that the cost of these housing units is most advantageous, and that the plans used by the co-operatives have enabled them to build very nice homes. Nevertheless, the project could not have been carried out, if the Societe des Artisans C-ana-diens-Frangais had not agreed to grant the necessary loans. It gives me pleasure to pay tribute to this society for its great understanding of social problems and for having, more particularly, made the Dolbeau project possible.
It is urgent that this government bring about the necessary changes in the housing act, so that prospective owners can make use of it.
There is everywhere a serious housing problem, in our small industrial towns, in our rural parishes, as well as in our great urban centres.

The housing co-operatives are the most appropriate organizations to undertake such projects. And the Minister of Resources and Development (Mr. Winters) would certainly be well-advised to get in touch with those co-operatives and ask for their suggestions with a view to launching a really practical and economical program.
They have had practical experience and their advice could only be quite sound.
Since reference was made recently in this house to the Roberval election, you will allow me, in closing my remarks, to address a message to the member who raised that question.
Following a by-election in which a Bloc Populaire candidate had been elected to the house, the hon. member for Portneuf (Mr. Gauthier) made the following declaration, which can be found in Hansard, page 128, volume I, session of 1944:
X note with satisfaction that the Liberal members seem to have fully recuperated from the fatigue of their pilgrimage to Stanstead.
Mr. Speaker, I have personally noticed, since my arrival here, that the 15 or 16 Liberal members, including a minister and a parliamentary assistant, who went to Roberval to launch a crusade last May, have not yet recovered from their disappointment.


J. G. Léopold Langlois: You have not recovered from your own surprise.


Mr. Brisson:: It is hard to do so.


Paul Henri Spence: That was, Mr. Speaker-


Lionel Chevrier: Now is the time for applause!


Paul Henri Spence: That was, Mr. Speaker, a real crusade. The people of Roberval were more than a little surprised to see among the Liberal members who came to pay them a visit on that occasion the former organizer for the Bloc Populaire Canadien, the member for Portneuf, and the former Conservative party organizer in Quebec, the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Arsenault).


J. G. Léopold Langlois: You will agree too that that is the only time you ever won an election.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the hon. member but I must point out that his time was up at eight fifty-three. Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the house to go on?


Some hon. Members:: Let him go on.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Very well, the hon. member has unanimous consent.


Paul Henri Spence: Mr. Speaker, I only have three lines more to say. The hon. member for Portneuf spoke of neckties in his speech.
68108-32J
The Address-Mr. Gillis Will you allow me, Mr. Speaker, to say that that must certainly remind him of a certain story about pants which, some years ago, precipitated quite a sweep in a provincial legislature to which he belonged. Possibly he is afraid that this story of ties may bring about the same consequences next year for the party to which he belongs.


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. The hon. member spoke of my work in his county as organizer for the Bloc Populaire during the provincial campaign of 1944, but he forgot to mention that he was one of our supporters and that I went to his place-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order!


Paul Henri Spence: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order! The hon. member for Portneuf rose on a question of privilege, but I must inform him that the matter he has raised does not justify his speaking on a question of privilege.


Pierre Gauthier: It was his privilege and mine.
(Text):


Mr. Clarence Gillis (Cape Breton South):: Mr. Speaker, I regret having to prevent the taking of a vote at this time, but I wanted to say something directly on the subamendment. Before doing so, may I say that this alignment of gadgets hanging from the ceiling of this chamber has in my opinion given it the appearance of a coal mine washhouse. In a mine washhouse there are a number of ropes hanging down from the ceiling, each with a little basket in which the miner places his clothes when he has changed. My first reaction on looking at the chamber with its present arrangement was that we had turned the House of Commons into a mine washhouse. It may have improved the facilities in the galleries; visitors may be able to hear better up there, but I do not think it has done much for the chamber itself.


Mr. Mclvor:: It sure does.


Clarence Gillis: In my opinion all it does is give our voices a kind of harsh, rasping sound. It does not improve the acoustics in the chamber very much. In fact when Mr. Speaker is deciding a point of order, as you did a few minutes ago during the donnybrook, it is quite hard to hear. I could not hear you, as your voice was muffled and not clear at all. All I got was a sort of hollow sound and your instructions or orders were not very clear. If at times we do not seem to be obeying the rules strictly it will be due

The Address-Mr. Gillis to this gadget arrangement. I think it needs looking over, because it is not very effective.
There is another thing 1 should like to mention before I take up my main topic. I have had one pleasant experience since the house recessed. As the older members of the house will recall, for approximately ten years I was on my feet quite often asking for the construction of a permanent crossing of the strait or Ganso. Many sceptics told me that this was simply a political issue, it was just a dream and nothing would ever come of it. However, I never lost faith because I knew that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier), who had a lot to do with the project, had as much faith in this undertaking as I had.
Ultimately the government made the necessary appropriations and a couple of months ago I had the pleasure of going up to the strait of Canso on the invitation of the construction company handling that contract. The project is well under way at the present time, in fact they are working around the clock and doing an excellent job. It was my pleasure

and I can say most sincerely it was a pleasure-to stand there one very cold and dreary afternoon and watch the Minister of Transport push the lever that fired the first blast knocking a huge portion of cape Porcupine into the strait of Canso. An old gentleman was standing close to me who was about 80 years of age, and who evidently had been a Liberal for at least sixty years. He did not know me at all, but he tapped me on the shoulder and said, "My boy, that is the kind of minister to have. When a mountain gets in his way he blows it up." So it was a very pleasant experience, and because I have been a carping critic for many years it gives me great pleasure to say now what I have said. My faith was justified, and by and large in this world if you have not faith you have not much left.
I should also like to say a few words about a problem that is not Canada's alone but is world-wide. When I sit in the house and listen to members arguing over small political issues, members demanding more social security, less taxation and so on, it is an indication to me that democracy is at work. But the thing we have to keep in mind is that we must be very careful not to select people and give them power merely for the purpose of holding power. Most of our internal problems today are affected by external problems, by affairs outside of Canada that have the whole world tied into an economic knot, and these matters must be given a great deal of attention.
Yesterday I listened to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson). We are all very proud that he has been elevated to the position he holds today. Regardless of


where he sits in this house he is still a Canadian, and to be selected for an international post such as he holds indicates that he is a man of some considerable stature. As I listened to him yesterday afternoon I recalled listening to the same man three or four years ago, and I thought he was not the honest Mike Pearson that he was then. I am not saying that he was not honest, but in his short statement yesterday afternoon he appeared to me to be hesitant, doubtful, uncertain and fearful. These are complexes that are not peculiar today to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. They affect practically everybody in the country, and any member of the house who' travels throughout the country, meets audiences of people and talks to them finds exactly the same complexes in every section of our society- uncertainty, doubt and fear.
In my opinion it adds up to the fact that nobody has measured up to the responsibility of giving leadership fearlessly without regard to politics, religion or anything else. I have read a little bit about the problem. As most of you know I am not an expert. I am just a coal miner, but I try to sift the facts of the problem as it exists. We must stop and think for one moment about what is taking place outside of Canada which has a terrific impact on our internal problems. We must remember that since the major shooting stopped in 1945-because the war has never ended-we have entered into a new war, the cold war, the war of ideas. I believe that in 1945 the countries that now form NATO took a fair and reasonable position. Their intention was to bring about recovery. They intended to devote the economies of the countries that were productive to the rehabilitation of the countries that had been devastated by war. We began immediately to disarm and scrap our merchant service, and the whole emphasis so far as North America and Great Britain were concerned was on recovery. A terrific drain was placed on the economies of Great Britain, Canada and particularly the United States.
Our main emphasis was on recovery; but the other fellows, the Soviet union, who threaten the peace of the world today, took the reverse position. Instead of adhering to the policy of no territorial ambitions which they had followed throughout the years and following up the idea that they were just our allies in a great crusade against fascism, they immediately began a program of imperialist expansion and the utilization of satellite countries in order to further their own ends. That forced our countries into the position we have taken. We had to form

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and there were other measures such as UNRRA, Marshall aid and so on.
In order to prevent war we are forced into a position today where we must drain our economies. We must spend billions of dollars on military equipment for necessary defence purposes in the cold war. We are up against Korea. We are up against all kinds of problems, and as a result the economies of the free nations are being drained in two directions. First of all we are trying to rehabilitate the devastation of war and help backward countries through our production year after year, and on top of that we have to rearm to defend ourselves in the cold war going on at the present time.
The people who have forced us into this type of action are sitting back. They are military countries. They do not have to sell their people the idea of a defence program and taxation. They order it, while we have to sell these things to our people. The whole totalitarian set-up is based on force and action. They have their objective and they are sitting back within their own borders, not using their manpower, conserving their resources and using the manpower, economies and everything else of the satellite countries all around them. That is the problem with which we are faced, and it is one that is not being made clear to the people of Canada.
I do not find many people taking the platform today and selling our people the idea that if we are to preserve the civilization of the world and prevent disaster it is necessary to build up our security, to arm so that we may defend ourselves if and when we are attacked, while at the same time making available to our people what social security we can. I say the press of this country is not doing a good job in that direction. Pick up practically any newspaper from one end of this country to the other and take a look at the editorial pages where the brains of the press are supposed to be spelling out the problems that confront this country. Instead, you will find them quibbling with a lot of nonsense.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Clarence Gillis: Many of the editorials do not mean a thing. I think each newspaper should allocate one man to make a study of this whole international situation, this cold war and defence in the cold war. That is necessary to inform our people and give them an objective to aim at, particularly a time period when this might be over. Someone should be doing that kind of thing. I mention it this evening because, as I go through this
The Address-Mr. Gillis country, I am frightened when I meet people who are confused and fearful and who have no idea where they are going.
I hear people screaming about taxes. All right; the most popular fellow in the world would be one who would stand up and say:
I am against taxes completely, and nobody should pay taxes. Well, that would be fine; but at the moment I am not going to be dishonest enough to advocate that to the group of men on the other side of the house. I would take the same attitude if it were the Conservatives over there, and I would take the same attitude if it were the Social Crediters over there.


An hon. Member:: What about the C.C.F.?


Clarence Gillis: If the C.C.F. were over there I would still take the same attitude. You cannot go out and sell the people the idea of spending $5 billion on arms unless they know it is necessary. About 51-6 per cent of the tax dollar goes for national defence. Approximately 11 per cent goes for social security, and the rest goes toward the administration of government, veterans' allowances and all that sort of thing. If I were going to say that I did not want to pay any more taxes I would have to be honest enough to tell the other fellows that they would have to cut out something, and there is nothing I can see today that you can cut out.
Now I would just like to say a few words on this amendment to the amendment. If the amendment to the amendment is carried, as I expect it will be-


Mr. Coldwell:: Faith again. Great faith.


Clarence Gillis: -it means more expenditure. The amendment to the amendment is very simple. It does not demand anything and does not tell the government that it has to do anything. It is very simple, and I am going to put it on the record again because anything that is worth while is worth repeating. It says:
We regret further that Your Excellency's advisers have failed:
(a)	To recommend legislation establishing a nation-wide health insurance program, with provision for provincial administration;
(b)	To implement their proposals to the dominion-provincial conference of 1945.
There is no regimentation there. That does not take away any provincial jurisdiction. It advocates co-operation with the provinces. It is not unreasonable to ask the government to implement or try to put through proposals they have already made. In 1945 they made these proposals.
494	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Gillis
Now let us have a look at this business of a national health program. Some people here say it is state medicine. Well, nobody has defined state medicine. What is state medicine? I would call it co-operative medicine. I would say it is on all fours with old age security. Nobody objects to the government paying old age pensions. The scheme is on a contributory basis. The taxpayers pay 2 per cent on their taxes. They pay for it and they get it, and there is no stigma attached to it.
Let me give an example of what national health insurance would look like. I have two very good examples. With the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) and the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright)
I was in France in 1944. We visited a big German air force hospital there that was then in allied hands. During our visit I had a talk with a medical doctor, a very competent man who comes from Vancouver; 1 do not want to name him. We had seen him perform operations, and he was just about as fast and as competent as any doctor I have ever seen. We spent 24 hours or so with him and before we left he said: How are you getting along with national health insurance in Canada? I told him that we were still talking about it, that there was not very much being done about it, and that the government was still very reluctant. I told him I thought we were making progress and that we were selling it to the people of Canada at least. Ultimately, I said, when you make a demand popular, enough politicians looking for votes will generally give the people whatever they demand. If there is pressure enough they will. Well, he said,
I am very much concerned about it. He told me that prior to the war he was a young struggling doctor. He said that he was fairly good, and that he specialized in surgery in Vancouver. He said he had a little office with a miracle bottle on one shelf and another miracle bottle on another shelf. He said he was not in a hospital, not on a hospital board, but he was a general practitioner. He told me that when people came to see him he had a fairly good idea of what they required, but they could not afford to pay him and he could not afford to treat them. He said: "I gave them a little shot out of the miracle bottle. It did not do them any harm, but it did not do them very much good; so we were both happy, and it did not cost either of us very much".
Then the war broke out and he got a call from the government. They wanted him in the service. He said he was firmly opposed to national health insurance at that time. He was not opposed to it because of what he knew about it; he was opposed to it


because of what somebody had told him about it. When he came into the service he got a uniform, a good salary, his wife and two children got an allowance and he had economic security. He said he found himself in a hospital with nurses, a laboratory, technicians and equipment that he had never dreamed about before. With all the economic insecurity removed he went to work as a doctor, with others, and they began to develop new techniques. All of a sudden he realized that this was socialized medicine. He said: "I am concerned now about when I leave the service, and take off the uniform. Do I go back to the miracle bottle? What happens to all this equipment-nurses, technicians and all that kind of thing?" I told him that I did not know but that we were doing our best to popularize the idea against the time when those who were looking for votes would have to give it to the people of Canada in order to secure their votes.
That was one example. The second example is more recent. I had occasion just a month ago to visit Camp Hill hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I want to tell the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Gregg), and although he is not here it will be on the record, that in that hospital we have one of the most excellent institutions in North America. I spent two days there and I want to pay tribute to the doctors, nurses, orderlies, and the people whom I met there. I think they are as highly trained, as skilful and as conscientious as any people you will find in that profession in North America. The equipment in these veterans' hospitals-I presume it is the same right across this country- cannot be duplicated in 99 per cent of your private hospitals. They have not the funds.
During the time I was there I talked to one or two doctors on this very subject. In private discussion they were afraid of it, the same as the chap I met in France, because of the things people had said about it. It would mean regimentation and all that sort of thing. I asked one fellow this question. Do you believe you are any more efficient in this institution, working on a salary and with the equipment, the laboratories and technicians that you have here, than you would be back in a rural office somewhere with about 40 per cent of your patients unable to pay you? These veterans' hospitals constitute government health insurance for the veterans of this country. The medical care is provided on a non-contributory basis. We pay for it out of taxation, and the cost is spread over the nation as a whole. This scheme provides national health insurance in so far as the veteran population is concerned. We pay the veterans while they are taking treatment.

In 99 per cent of the hospitals across this country you have not the equipment or the personnel that you find in veterans' hospitals. In my opinion these institutions are second to none in North America. If we can do that for the veteran population of this country on the basis upon which we are doing it, and pay for it out of taxation without any financial contribution by the recipient, why can we not do that for everyone in this country on a contributory basis? It could be paid for through the income tax, just as we did for the old age security pension, by adding another 2 per cent to the tax or whatever percentage the actuaries worked out. It is not a vision or a dream any longer, and it is needed.
Some persons tell me we are not ready for it. When are we going to be ready for it? Let us make the facilities we have today available to all the people of this country. Anyone who listened to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) present his last budget must have realized that half the people of this country cannot pay for medical services at all. Half the salary and wage earners of this country are earning amounts below the income tax level. How can anyone with an income of under $2,000 a year if he is married, or $1,000 a year if he is single, pay hospital or doctors' bills with the present cost of medical services? The result is that these people do not get treatment at all. There is neglect and a lot of casualties because of that neglect. All this is due to the fact that the people cannot afford any more medical attention. We need more hospitals, more doctors, more trained personnel and all that kind of thing. Let us make what we have available to all our people; because there are thousands who cannot afford any medical attention at all.
Let us put the two plans side by side and look at them, the private plan and the national plan. Evidence before the president's commission on health in the United States showed that some private plans take out as much as 94 cents on the dollar, and give only 6 cents in service. Even in Canada, Associated Medical Services takes off 25 cents on the dollar and Blue Cross takes about 18 per cent, 9 per cent for expenses and 9 per cent for reserves. Physicians' plans take 10 to 15 per cent in administrative costs.
On the other hand the province-wide hospital plan in Saskatchewan takes out only 4-6 per cent for expenses, while the Swift Current health plan, a compulsory medical plan, takes out only 5-6 per cent The facts prove that government plans are cheaper to operate and give you more value for your health dollar. Private plans mean rationing
The Address-Mr. Gillis by the purse. They charge the same to the rich and the poor alike. On the other hand, a national health plan would graduate the payments so that low income groups would pay less than the high income groups getting the same service. The private plans reach only a fraction of the population at best. Today not more than half our population is covered by hospital plans, even if you include the government plans in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, and not more than 25 per cent have some kind of medical plan.
A national health program would cover everybody from Vancouver to Newfoundland. The protection afforded by a private plan is limited by all kinds of restrictions about coverage and payments; with a national plan there are very few or no restrictions. It provides all the protection you really need. Private plans cover people far more in urban areas than in rural areas, and the need is greater in rural areas. A national plan would cover rural areas as well as urban areas. Private plans do nothing to provide more doctors, dentists and nurses. A national plan would provide for the training of more professional personnel and build more hospitals; it is all part of the national plan. Private plans are voluntary, which means in effect they do not cover people who are not in a position to subscribe because they cost too much, who do not belong to groups or who just plain forget. Those who do subscribe voluntarily do not always get what they think they paid for. On the other hand a national plan is compulsory, which means in effect that everybody gets covered.
When the government introduces a plan in a democratic way, everyone pays a fair share through general taxation and a graduated social security contribution. Today, under private plans, Canadians are already spending about $450 million on hospitals, medical and other sickness needs. On top of this our governments are spending another $150 million to $200 million, a total of over $600 million. Under a national health plan, in the long run. we would probably spend no more money than we are spending now, but we would spend it more wisely. We would divert our present expenditures into the national plan and get more service for our money.
I see you smiling at me, Mr. Speaker, which indicates that my time has nearly expired. I wanted to make these few remarks about national health insurance tonight, and I think this analysis I have put on the record clearly indicates that national health insurance is no longer a political matter. These statements about regimentation, and all that kind of stuff, are so much nonsense. They
49G	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Drew should have no place on platforms or in the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada.
National health insurance is a must. It is one of the things, in my opinion, that are absolutely essential. I come from a mining district. We have a fairly reasonable medical plan there. Our doctors are paid on a panel. We built our own hospitals. Half our own men are on the boards. We regulate it in that way. In my opinion it is much better than that which is to be found in most parts of the country; but it is far from adequate. In the last ten years all we have done is step the rate up and up, and the hospital is going into debt all the time.
Half the people in the community require specialist service. We have the sad experience every week of the committee going from house to house in the community taking up a collection to send somebody to Montreal or to Halifax to have a major operation, because the local hospitals have not the facilities to do brain surgery and that kind of thing; and the need is becoming greater every day. The local hospitals are no longer able to carry the burden. The costs have become exorbitant. The services are not there. It is impossible to provide the equipment.
I should like to tell the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew), or anyone in this house who takes the view that state medicine is regimentation, to visit some of the veterans' hospitals and take a look at them, take a look at the facilities, and see how simple it is for the doctors to do their work because of the nurses, technicians and so forth that are at their disposal.
I am going to conclude my remarks by saying that the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) made an excellent speech this afternoon. I am sure the applause that greeted him on rising in the house indicated that we were all very glad to see him back on his feet and in here pitching again, doing the kind of job he has been doing for the last 25 years. He mentioned the means test in the war veterans' allowance, and suggested that we take the means test out of the blind pension. I am not going to elaborate on these things. I have spoken on them before. I merely want to say that I associate myself with him in all the demands he made for improvements in legislation that already exists. I trust that the amendment to the amendment that is now before the house will be carried unanimously.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I am going to deal with the amendment to the amendment
IMr. Gillis.]

because I wish to place on record the position we take in connection with it before the vote is taken. Before I do so, however, I propose to deal with certain points that have been raised since I spoke early in this debate, and particularly with some statements that were made after I had spoken, and to which I could not reply until the opportunity arose to speak again, as I now do.
I wish to speak about television, and the statement made yesterday by the minister responsible for that to this house. It was an interesting thing that the minister should choose to make a second statement of policy prior to the time that we actually have before us the legislation which will carry that policy into effect. Probably we shall have another statement of policy before long, because the one we received yesterday was not complete. It did not deal with the question of licence fees, a subject which the members of this house know is a matter of interest to hon. members on the other side as well as on this. I do not think it will be desirable to wait until we get the next statement of policy before dealing with that subject.
At this time I would point out, Mr. Speaker, that it would be desirable that we have an understanding in regard to these speeches which are made by ministers before the orders of the day, as was done by two ministers yesterday. It would help to facilitate the business of this house if we came to a clear understanding in regard to this subject.
I rose yesterday, immediately after the minister had made his statement, and made certain comments. At the time I made those comments it was indicated by some hon. members that they felt that I was out of order in doing so. I would point out, Mr. Speaker, that there is no rule which permits a statement by a minister such as that which was made yesterday, and such as those which it is becoming customary to receive in that way. I do suggest that it should become an accepted practice that if ministers are to make statements in regard to policy, not simply answering questions which have already been asked or are asked in the ordinary manner before the orders of the day, there should be an opportunity to comment on that statement immediately; otherwise it would become necessary to insist upon the rules being observed, and to follow the practice which is adopted so frequently at Westminster, namely to precede a statement of policy of that kind by the introduction of a motion.
I feel sure many hon. members will believe that the business of the house can be facilitated and carried on satisfactorily by permitting a procedure of this kind to be

followed; but I would point out that if it is to be followed, then also it should be understood that there will be an opportunity to reply, and that those who have accorded to the minister the courtesy of permitting the statement to be made by consent should not then be denied the opportunity to make a subsequent statement. I take this occasion to make these remarks because the opportunity did not present itself to do so yesterday at the time the statement was made.
Now, to deal with the statement in regard to television: I believe it is appropriate to deal with this subject at this time, while the statement of the minister is still fresh in the minds of hon. members, and while there is still time for the government to reconsider its position before it places legislation before us, and then seeks the support of the members of the party to which the government belongs for the adoption of the legislation that will be introduced.
The Minister of National Revenue (Mr. McCann) made a statement yesterday which informed us that certain steps are being taken by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with the concurrence of the government, and that hon. members will be called upon to approve further loans to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the purpose of extending their facilities.
One of the great difficulties that all members of the house, outside of the government, must have experienced from time to time, is that, when it is convenient for the government to deny responsibility for the actions of the C.B.C., it does so, and when it is convenient to accept responsibility it also does so. Yesterday we were informed that it was the decision of the government that there should be an extension of publicly-owned television broadcasting to certain areas of Canada. The minister said, as reported at page 409 of yesterday's proceedings:
For some time the government has been giving careful consideration to the development of television broadcasting in Canada. In its consideration it has had in mind the report of the royal commission on national development in the arts, letters, and sciences. The commission recommended that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation proceed with the production of television programs and with plans for national coverage. It spoke of extension of national coverage both through publicly and privately-owned stations. It said that no private station should be licensed until the C.B.C. had available national television programs and that all private stations established should be required to serve as outlets for national programs.
It will be seen that the government purports to rely upon the recommendation of the royal commission on national development in the arts, letters and sciences; and it is
The Address-Mr. Drew stated that it is following the recommendation that no private station should be licensed until the C.B.C. had available national television programs-
-and that all private stations established should be required to serve as outlets for national programs.
We heard a statement on government policy in regard to broadcasting. At the end of his remarks yesterday in which he dealt with broadcasting the minister said, in response to a question of mine about a program which had been put out over the C.B.C. television station in Toronto, that it was not the responsibility of the government to supervise broadcasts of this kind. These were his words:
Under the Canadian Broadcasting Act, the C.B.C. itself has the full responsibility for all programming matters.
Either the government must accept responsibility or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation must accept responsibility, one or the other. The statement I have just quoted related to an abominable television broadcast over the C.B.C. station at Toronto, about which I have received numerous complaints from parents of children who saw it. We are told that this is the responsibility of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and not the responsibility of the government.
At the very time this statement is made, the government is accepting full responsibility for the policy that is to be followed, and of necessity for all the results from that policy. I wonder if the minister believes that a program such as the one entitled "Hilda Morgan", to which he referred in his remarks yesterday, is the kind of thing that was contemplated by the royal commission on national development in the arts, letters and sciences, when it recommended that these media for the communication of ideas, of education and of culture should maintain the highest possible standards.
I hope the minister responsible will show a greater interest in the program than he has yet done, and will outline to the house the details of that program in regard to which he expresses no concern. I would hope the minister would be prepared to do that, because he has taken the responsibility for leaving this matter with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, leaving the inference that it is a matter about which members need not be concerned.
I mention this again because a very real problem is going to be raised in regard to these broadcasts of television programs. One of the things which presents itself even now for consideration by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and by members of the

The Address-Mr. Drew House of Commons, is the extent of supervision which should be exercised in regard to programs. A question has already arisen as to whether programs which are based upon moving picture films would be subject to the same provincial supervision as moving pictures now are. This is not something that can be dismissed with the statement that it has already been found that radio broadcasting is under national jurisdiction. A new element arises in connection with television.
Surely it would be a strange thing if a provincial government agency set up for the purpose of examining the films to be shown in moving picture theatres should have the right to say that a film should not be shown in a theatre, but that it could then be taken across the street to a television station and shown in the homes of all those having television sets, without supervision of any kind.
That would indeed produce an astonishing situation. It would mean that in the case of moving picture theatres, where there is at least some restraint in certain circumstances as to the way in which those theatres can be used, a film that might not be shown to persons of all ages in such theatres could, however, be shown right in the homes where children of any age might be looking at television broadcasts.
I do not need to extend the argument on that point. It is obvious that this presents a great difficulty. Unless there is likely to be an immediate demand for very rigid supervision of television broadcasting, then it would seem that a very high measure of responsibility must be accepted by the C.B.C. for the type of television programs it projects into the homes of the people of this country.
Let me come now to the statement of policy enunciated yesterday in regard to these new stations. The minister said, and I quote from page 409 of Hansard of December 8:
A television station can serve only a comparatively small area. Canada is very large and it will require a good many stations before television can be brought to the people in most parts of our country.
Those are the minister's words. I think everyone will agree that that is a statement which must be borne in mind when considering what is likely to happen in this country in connection with television broadcasting. Having pointed out that television stations can serve only comparatively small areas and that in a large country like this it will require a great many stations to serve the public, the minister then went on to say that as a matter of policy the government had decided that out of the taxpayers' money television

would be provided in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Halifax.
The C.B.C. is to exercise its monopoly control to take over the areas where private investment would have most quickly provided television programs without expense to those receiving the programs and without expense to the taxpayers of Canada. Instead of doing that the government says it has decided that the C.B.C. will occupy these fields, that its monopoly will be absolute for the time being and that no private station will be given a licence in those areas to compete with the C.B.C. stations. In this statement of policy for which the government accepts full responsibility-and must accept full responsibility since it was announced as a statement of policy by the government- there is not one word to suggest why television broadcasting should be on an entirely different basis from radio broadcasting.
Why is it that in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Halifax and Ottawa several radio stations compete with each other, private stations competing with publicly-owned stations and vice versa, yet when we come to television there is to be no competition? The fact is that this is the very field in which there should be competition. Here is the very field where competition is the only thing that will assure a standard of programs such as will attract our people to this new means of communicating ideas, news, entertainment and cultural programs of different kinds.
There is another important factor. The minister informed this house yesterday that because television stations cover such small areas as compared with the enormous areas covered by the powerful radio stations it will require, to use his words, a good many stations before television can be brought to the people in most parts of our country. The policy of the government, as announced to the house yesterday, is that the government has decided -not the C.B.C.-that it is going to occupy the areas where the financial returns would have made it possible to obtain programs from private stations without cost to the public and leave to private investment those distant areas where the financial returns will make it most difficult to establish stations.
As I pointed out yesterday, the basic concept of a publicly-owned system of broadcasting was to make it possible to carry to the people in every part of Canada radio broadcast programs. That was the main reason for exercising certain controls and providing facilities for programs at distant points in Canada. The government is now stating that it accepts the responsibility for

denying to the people in distant points the opportunity to obtain programs from the organization maintained by the taxpayers' money. If the government stands by the policy announced yesterday it means that the taxpayer along the British Columbia coast, throughout northern Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific, along the Atlantic coast-yes, in fact in most parts of Canada, because there is a very limited area within which these six stations mentioned can broadcast programs-is going to be paying out of his tax money for something that gives him no advantage, and is going to be called upon to
The Address-Mr. Drew provide the money which makes it possible for the people in the Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Winnipeg and Vancouver areas to receive this advantage.
Surely that is wholly inconsistent with every basic concept of this publicly-owned system which was set up some years ago by a Conservative government here in this parliament.
On motion of Mr. Drew the debate was adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
At ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
United Nations

[Stage Direction]
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL; KOREAN RESOLUTIONS; RESOLUTIONS ON RACE

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December 5, 1952
Sir,
The general assembly of the United Nations, at its 399th plenary meeting on December 3, 1952, adopted a resolution under item 16 (a) of its agenda-Korea: Reports of the United Nations commission for the unification and rehabilitation of Korea. Under the terms of that resolution, originally sponsored by the government of India, the president of the general assembly is requested "to communicate the following proposals to the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China and to the North Korean authorities as forming a just and reasonable basis for an agreement so that an immediate cease-fire would result and be effected; to invite their acceptance of these proposals and to make a report to the general assembly during its present session and as soon as appropriate". In discharge of the duty placed upon me by the terms of that resolution, I have the honour to transmit to you the text of the resolution and to invite your acceptance of the proposals contained therein.
2.	I send this message to you against the background of the casualties, the sufferings, and the destruction in Korea which are the inevitable consequence of war, and I add my personal appeal that you should give it your most thoughtful and sympathetic consideration. When the first committee of the general assembly, by an unanimous decision, agreed to treat the Korean question as a matter of urgency, its decision reflected the concern of all members of the United Nations, a concern which I am sure is shared by the peoples of the world, over the tragedy of war and devastation in Korea, and their deep desire to bring this war to an end on terms acceptable to both sides. To this end negotiations have been proceeding for some sixteen months at Panmunjom, in the course of which a wide measure of agreement on the terms of an armistice has been reached. The sole remaining issue which has not been settled in the course of these armistice negotiations concerns the principles and procedures by which the repatriation of prisoners of war can be effected.
3.	In itself, the prisoners of war issue is a challenge to the fundamental humanitarian instincts which are shared by all mankind and urgently calls for solution. In camps on both
sides, human beings have been kept for long months under military detention while the lengthy negotiations concerning their fate have been continuing. There is an inescapable moral obligation on both sides in the Korean conflict to make every possible effort to ensure that these prisoners of war shall be free to return to their homelands, and their speedy return facilitated.
4.	The discussion of this matter in the first committee of this assembly has made clear the general agreement in the United Nations that this problem should be dealt with and the repatriation of prisoners of war should be effected under the terms of the Geneva convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war of August 12, 1949, under the well-established principles and practice of international law, and under the relevant provisions of the draft armistice agreement. It was also generally agreed that prisoners of war should be released from the custody of the detaining powers to a repatriation commission so that they can be free to exercise their undoubted right with respect to repatriation, and that it was inconsistent with common humanitarian principles that a detaining power should offer any hindrance to the return to their homelands of any prisoners of war. Finally, there was general agreement that the Geneva convention cannot be construed as authorizing a detaining power to employ force to effect the return of individual prisoners of war to their homelands.
5.	The general assembly resolution clearly states the above principles with respect to the solution of the prisoner of war issue, and, in addition, makes concrete proposals with regard to the machinery of repatriation. It represents ideas put forward by many governments represented in the general assembly whose unanimous desire is to bring peace to Korea. The resolution can make this desire effective because its acceptance will make it possible to achieve an armistice and a complete and immediate cessation of hostilities.
6.	The resolution, in addition, makes reference to the desire of the general assembly to expedite and facilitate, once an armistice is effective, the convening of a political conference provided for in article 60 of the draft armistice agreement already accepted by the military negotiators at Panmunjom.

United. Nations
7.	It is my earnest hope that the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China will accept these proposals of the general assembly as a basis for the solution of the one remaining issue which has prevented the conclusion of an armistice during the negotiations at Panmunjom. Once this issue is solved, it will become possible to bring the fighting to an end and complete the program for a peaceful settlement in Korea leading, we must hope, towards a more general settlement which would contribute to peace in Asia and in the world.
8.	The United Nations is determined to do everything possible to bring the fighting to an end in Korea. This is also the declared aim of the Central People's Government. This common aim can be achieved if the proposals which are now submitted for your consideration are, as I earnestly hope will be the case, accepted in the spirit in which they are put forward. In this hope, as president of the seventh session of the general assembly of the United Nations, I appeal to you to accept these proposals of the United Nations as forming a just and reasonable basis for an agreement which will serve to bring about a constructive and durable peace in Korea.
9.	I shall look forward to receiving as soon as possible your reply to this communication, which I shall report to the general assembly when it is received.
10.	In accordance with the decision of the general assembly, the text of the resolution has also been communicated to the North Korean authorities, to whom I am sending a similar message.
11.	Please acccept, sir, the assurances of my highest consideration^
LESTER B. PEARSON President,
General Assembly.
His Excellency,
Mr. Chou En-lai,
Minister for Foreign Affairs,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China,
PEKING, China.
[Stage Direction]
21-POWER RESOLUTION
(This resolution did not come to the vote)
Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Honduras, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Nicaragua, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay: Draft resolution on Korea

[Stage Direction]
1.	HAVING RECEIVED the special report of the Unified Command of 18 October 1952 on the status of military action and the armistice negotiations in Korea,
2.	NOTING with approval the efforts of the United Nations negotiators to achiewe a just and honourable armistice to bring an end to the fighting in Korea in accordance with United Nations principles,
3.	NOTING FURTHER that disagreement on one remaining issue has prevented the achievement of such an armistice,
4.	REAFFIRMS the earnest intention of the United Nations to reach a just and honourable settlement of the Korean conflict;
5.	NOTES WITH APPROVAL the tentative agreements which the United Nations Command has reached on behalf of the United Nations;
6.	NOTES WITH APPROVAL the principle followed by the United Nations Command with regard to the question of repatriation of prisoners of war, and the numerous proposals which the United Nations Command has made to solve the questions in accordance with this humanitarian principle;
7.	NOTES FURTHER that other suggestions consistent with the basic humanitarian position of the United Nations Command have been made by various Members of the United Nations;
8.	CALLS UPON the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China and upon the North Korean authorities to avert further bloodshed by having their negotiators agree to an armistice which recognizes the rights of all prisoners of war to an unrestricted opportunity to be repatriated and avoids the use of force in their repatriation;
9.	REQUESTS the President of the General Assembly to transmit this resolution to the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China and to the North Korean authorities, and to make a report to the General Assembly as soon as he deems appropriate during the present session on the result of his action.
[Stage Direction]
(This resolution did not come to the vote) Mexico: draft resolution The General Assembly,
WHEREAS it is the purpose of the United Nations to restore peace and, therefore, to achieve the cessation of hostilities in Korea through the conclusion of a just and honourable armistice;
[Stage Direction]
United Nations
WHEREAS from official reports at the disposal of the General Assembly it follows that the only obstacle to the conclusion of the armistice lies in the fact that it has not been possible to reach an agreement in regard to the exchange of prisoners of war;
WHEREAS the United Nations must safeguard the application of the humanitarian principles that underlie the international instruments in force relating to prisoners of war;
[Stage Direction]
REQUESTS the President of the General Assembly to invite, through the channels that he may deem appropriate, the Military Commanders of the North Korean and Chinese forces in Korea to consider the following general bases for the exchange of prisoners of war, with a view to facilitate the early conclusion of the armistice:
1.	Prisoners of war held by either of the parties, who have voluntarily expressed their desire to return to the country of their origin, will be repatriated without delay upon the conclusion of the armistice.
2.	Other prisoners of war held by either of the parties, desirous of establishing temporary residence in other States, would not return to the country of their origin until the coming into force of the decisions that, in order to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Korean question, might be adopted in the Political Conference that will take place after the armistice, in conformity with the agreement reached by the Military Commanders, on point 5 of the Armistice agenda.
3.	Pending the entry into force of the above-mentioned decisions, the situation of the prisoners of war referred to in paragraph 2 shall be governed by the following rules:
(a)	The General Assembly, acting in the manner and through the channel it may deem appropriate, will negotiate with each State agreeing to participate in the plan envisaged in this Resolution, on the number of prisoners which such a State may be prepared to receive in its territory, as well as on the conditions inherent to their admission.
(b)	Once in the country of temporary residence, the authorities of that country shall grant them a migratory status which would enable them to work in order to provide for their needs.
4.	When the situation foreseen for their repatriation arises as described in paragraph 2 above, the authorities of the countries of origin would grant facilities for the return of
of the ex-prisoners of war and would furnish guarantees for the subsequent protection of their freedom and their lives.
5.	In the case of those ex-prisoners of war, who, by virtue of the present Resolution, would be provisionally residing in another country and would express their will to return to their country of origin before the situation foreseen for their repatriation in the terms of paragraph 2 has arisen, the United Nations would provide the means to carry their wishes into effect.
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REQUESTS the President of the General Assembly to report to the Assembly in due course concerning the result of the steps which he is asked to take by this Resolution.
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(This resolution did not come to the vote) Peru: draft resolution The General Assembly,
Expressing the desire of mankind for an immediate, just and honourable peace, and considering that the only issue which has prevented the conclusion of the armistice is that relating to the repatriation of prisoners of war,
Decides:
1.	To set up a five-member Commission on which each of the parties to the conflict shall be represented by one delegate. The General Assembly, for its part, shall appoint two delegates and invite the collaboration of a neutral state, not a Member of the United Nations, to be a member of the Commission and to serve as its Chairman.
2.	The Commission appointed as aforesaid shall immediately take steps to co-operate in the repatriation of prisoners in accordance with their freely expressed wishes.
3.	Prisoners not wishing to be repatriated shall remain under the protection of the Commission in a neutralized zone so long as no provision has been made for their future.
4.	The said Commission shall propose to the United Nations at the earliest possible moment the most suitable measures for the final decision as to the future of the prisoners remaining under its protection, one of the measures to be considered being their transfer to the territory of such Powers as may be prepared to receive them, or their settlement in Trust Territories in agreement with the Administering Power concerned. Prisoners shall, in any event, be free to make a decision later concerning their return to their place of origin.

5.	In the performance of its functions, the Commission shall be guided by the principles of the United Nations Charter and by the Declaration of Human Rights.
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(This resolution was rejected by the General Assembly)
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: revised draft resolution
The General Assembly,
Having considered the report of the Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea,
Considers it necessary:
To establish a Commission for the peaceful setttlement of the Korean question with provision for the participation of the parties directly concerned and of other States, including States which have not taken part in the Korean war. The Commission shall consist of the following members: United States of America, United Kingdom, France, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, People's Republic of China, India, Burma, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, People's Democratic Republic of Korea and South Korea.
To instruct the said Commission to take immediate steps for the settlement of the Korean question on the basis of the unification of Korea-to be effected by the Koreans themselves under the supervision of the above-mentioned Commission, such steps to include comprehensive action to promote the repatriation of all prisoners of war by both sides.

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The Soviet delegation on November 23 submitted the following addendum to be inserted as the first paragraph of the revised Soviet resolution:
"To recommend to the belligerents in Korea an immediate and complete ceasefire, i.e. the cessation of military operations by both sides on land, by sea and in the air, on the basis of the draft armistice agreement already approved by the belligerents, the question of the complete repatriation of prisoners of war to be referred for its solution to the commission for the peaceful settlement of the Korean question provided for in the U.S.S.R. draft resolution, in which commission questions shall be decided by two-thirds majority vote of its members''.
United Nations


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(This resolution is based upon and consists principally of a resolution introduced by the Delegation of India)

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HAVING RECEIVED the Special Report of the United Nations Command of the 18 October 1952 on "the present status of military action and armistice negotiations in Korea" and other relevant reports relating to Korea;
NOTING WITH APPROVAL the considerable progress towards an armistice made by negotiation at Panmunjom and the tentative agreements to end the fighting in Korea and to reach a settlement of the Korean question;
NOTING FURTHER that disagreement between the parties on one remaining issue, alone, prevents the conclusion of an armistice and that a considerable measure of agreement already exists on the principles on which this remaining issue can be resolved;
MINDFUL of the continuing and vast loss of life, devastation and suffering resulting from and accompanying the continuance of the fighting;
DEEPLY CONSCIOUS of the need to bring hostilities to a speedy end and of the need for a peaceful settlement of the Korean question;
ANXIOUS TO EXPEDITE AND FACILITATE the convening of the political conference as provided in Article 60 of the Draft Armistice Agreement;
AFFIRMS that the release and repatriation of Prisoners of War shall be effected in accordance with the "Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of Prisoners of War", dated 12 August 1949, the well-established principles and practice of International Law and the relevant provision of the Draft Armistice Agreement;
AFFIRMS that force shall not be used against Prisoners of War to prevent or effect their return to their homelands, and that they shall at all time be treated humanely in accordance with the specific provisions of the Geneva Convention and with the general spirit of the Convention;
ACCORDINGLY REQUESTS the President of the General Assembly to communicate the following proposals to the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China and to the North Korean Authorities as forming a just and reasonable basis for
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agreement so that an immediate cease fire would result and be effected; to invite their acceptance of these proposals and to make a report to the General Assembly during its present session and as soon as appropriate:

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1.	In order to facilitate the return to their homelands of all Prisoners of War, there shall be established a Repatriation Commission consisting of representatives of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland, that is, the four States agreed to for the constitution of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission and referred to in paragraph 37 of the Draft Armistice Agreement, or constituted, alternatively, of representatives of four States not participating in hostilities, two nominated by each side, but excluding representatives of States that are permanent members of the Security Council.
2.	The release and repatriation of Prisoners of War shall be effected in accordance with the "Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of Prisoners of War", dated 12 August 1949, the well-established principles and practice of International Law and the relevant provisions of the Draft Armistice Agreement.
3.	Force shall not be used against the Prisoners of War to prevent or effect their return to their homelands and no violence to their persons or affront to their dignity or self-respect shall be permitted in any manner or for any purpose whatsoever. This duty is enjoined on and entrusted to the Repatriation Commission and each of its members. Prisoners of War shall at all times be treated humanely in accordance with the specific provisions of the Geneva Convention and with the general spirit of that Convention.
4.	All Prisoners of War shall be released to the Repatriation Commission from military control and from the custody of the detaining side in agreed numbers and at agreed exchange points in agreed demilitarized zones.
5.	Classification of Prisoners of War according to nationality and domicile as proposed in the letter of 16 October from General Kim II Sung, Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, and General Peng Teh-Huai, Commander of the Chinese People's Volunteers, to General Mark W. Clark, Commander-in-Chief, United Nations Command, shall then be carried out immediately.
6.	After classification, Prisoners of War shall be free to return to their homelands, forthwith, and their speedy return shall be facilitated by all parties concerned.
7.	In accordance with arrangements prescribed for the purpose by the Repatriation
Commission, each party to the conflict shall have freedom and facilities to explain to the Prisoners of War "depending upon them" their rights and to inform the Prisoners of War on any matter relating to their return to their homelands and particularly their full freedom to return.
8.	Red Cross teams of both sides shall assist the Repatriation Commission in its work and shall have access, in accordance with the terms of the Draft Armistice Agreement, to Prisoners of War while they are under the temporary jurisdiction of the Repatriation Commission.
9.	Prisoners of War shall have freedom and facilities to make representations and communications to the Repatriation Commission and to bodies and agencies working under the Repatriation Commission, and to inform any or all such bodies of their desires on any matter concerning themselves, in accordance with arrangements made for the purpose by the Commission.
10.	Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 3 above nothing in this Repatriation Agreement shall be construed as derogating from the authority of the Repatriation Commission (or its authorized representatives) to exercise its legitimate functions and responsibilities for the control of the prisoners under its temporary jurisdiction.
11.	The terms of this Repatriation Agreement and the arrangements arising therefrom shall be made known to all Prisoners of War.
12.	The Repatriation Commission is entitled to call upon parties to the conflict, its own member governments, or the Member States of the United Nations for such legitimate assistance as it may require in the carrying out of its duties and tasks and in accordance with the decisions of the Commission in this respect.
13.	When the two sides have made an agreement for repatriation based on these proposals, the interpretation of that agreement shall rest with the Repatriation Commission. In the event of disagreement in the Commission, majority decision shall prevail. When no majority decision is possible, an umpire agreed upon in accordance with the succeeding paragraph and with Article 132 of the Geneva Convention of 1949 shall have the deciding vote.
14.	The Repatriation Commission shall at its first meeting and prior to an armistice proceed to agree upon and appoint the umpire who shall at all times be available to the Commission and shall act as its Chair-

man unless otherwise agreed. If agreement on the appointment of the umpire cannot be reached by the Commission within the period of three weeks after the date of the first meeting this matter should be referred to the General Assembly.
15.	The Repatriation Commission shall also arrange after the armistice for officials to function as umpires with inspecting teams or other bodies to which functions are delegated or assigned by the Commission or under the provisions of the Draft Armistice Agreement, so that the completion of the return of Prisoners of War to their homelands shall be expedited.
16.	When the Repatriation Agreement is acceded to by the parties concerned and when an umpire has been appointed under paragraph 14 above, the Draft Armistice Agreement, unless otherwise altered by agreement between the parties, shall be deemed to have been accepted by them. The provisions of the Draft Armistice Agreement shall apply except in so far as they are modified by the Repatriation Agreement. Arrangements for repatriation under this agreement will begin when the armistice agreement is thus concluded.
17.	At the end of ninety days, after the Armistice Agreement has been signed, the disposition of any Prisoners of War whose return to their homelands may not have been effected in accordance with the procedure set out in these proposals or as otherwise agreed, shall be referred with recommendations for their disposal, including a target date for the termination of their detention to the political conference to be called as provided under Article 60 of the Draft Armistice Agreement. If at the end of a further thirty days there are any Prisoners of War whose return to their homelands has not been effected under the above procedures or whose future has not been provided for by the political conference, the responsibility for their care and maintenance and for their subsequent disposition shall be transferred to the United Nations, which in all matters relating to them shall act strictly in accordance with international law."

[Stage Direction]
on November 20, 1952
The General Assembly,
Having taken note of the communication dated 12 September 1952, addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations by the Delegations of Afghanistan, Burma,
United Nations
Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, regarding the question of race conflict in South Africa resulting from the policies of apartheid of the Government of the Union of South Africa.
Considering that one of the purposes of the United Nations is to achieve international co-operation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedom for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion,
Recalling that the General Assembly declared in its resolution 103 (I) that it is in the higher interests of humanity to put an end to religious and so-called racial persecution and called upon all Governments to conform both to the letter and to the spirit of the Charter and to take the most prompt and energetic steps to that end,
Considering that the General Assembly has held in its resolutions 395 (V) and 511 (VI) that a policy of "racial segregation" (apartheid) is necessarily based on doctrines of racial discrimination,
1.	Establishes a commission consisting of-,
to study the racial situation in the Union of South Africa in the light of the Purposes and Principles of the Charter, with due regard to the provision of Article 2, paragraph 7, as well as the provisions of Article 1, paragraph 2 and paragraph 3, Article 13, paragraph 1 (b), Article 55 (c) and Article 56 of the Charter, and the resolutions of the United Nations on racial persecution and discrimination and to report its conclusions to the General Assembly at its eighth session;
2.	Invites the Government of the Union of South Africa to extend its full co-operation to the Commission;
3.	Requests the Secretary-General to provide the Commission with the necessary staff and facilities:
4.	Decides to retain the question on the agenda of the eighth regular session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.


[Stage Direction]
on November 20, 1952
The General Assembly,
Having taken note of the communication dated 12 September 1952, addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations by the Delegations of Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, regarding the question of race conflict
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United Nations
in South Africa resulting from the policies of apartheid of the Government of the Union of South Africa,
Considering that one of the purposes of the United Nations is to achieve international co-operation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedom for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion,
Recalling that the General Assembly declared in its resolution 103 (I) that it is in the higher interests of humanity to put an end to religious and so-called racial persecution and called upon all Governments to conform both to the letter and to the spirit of the Charter and to take the most prompt and energetic steps to that end,
1.	Declares that in a multi-racial society harmony and respect for human rights and freedoms and the peaceful development of a unified community are best assured when patterns of legislation and practice are directed towards ensuring equality before the law of all persons regardless of race, creed or color, and when economic, social, cultural and political participation of all racial groups is on a basis of equality.
2.	Affirms that governmental policies of Member States which are not directed towards these goals, but which are designed to perpetuate or increase discrimination, are inconsistent with the pledges of the Members under Article 56 of the Charter;
3.	Solemnly calls upon all Member States to bring their policies into conformity with their obligation under the Charter to promote the observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Text of South African Resolution Defeated in Ad Hoc Political Committee, November 20, 1952
Having regard to the provisions of Article 2, paragraph 7, of the Charter of the United Nations,
The Ad Hoc Political Committee finds that it has no competence to consider the item entitled "The Question of Race Conflict in South Africa Resulting from the Policies of Apartheid of the Government of the Union of South Africa".
Text of South African Resolution Defeated in Plenary Session of the General Assembly, December 6, 1952
The General Assembly,
Having regard to the provisions of Article 2, paragraph 7, of the Charter,
Finds that it is unable to adopt the proposals on the item entitled "The Question of Race Conflict in South Africa Resulting from the Policies of Apartheid of the Government of the Union of South Africa" contained in the Rapporteur's Report of the Ad Hoc Political Committee, dated December 2, 1952.
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Wednesday, December 10, 1952