1953-01-15

Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the house that I have received a message from His Excellency the Governor General signed toy his own hand, reading as follows:
Government House, Ottawa 15 January, 1953
Members of the House of Commons:
1 have received with great pleasure the address that you have voted in reply to my speech at the opening of parliament. I thank you sincerely for this address.
Vincent Massey



RAILWAYS, CANALS AND TELEGRAPH LINES FIRST AND SECOND REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEE  CONCURRENCE IN FIRST REPORT

[Stage Direction]
Mr. H. B. McCulloch (Piclou) presented the first and second reports of the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines, and moved that the first report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


Hon. Brooke Claxton (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, the date asked for by the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) yesterday afternoon was June 12, 1952.



P.E.I. CAR FERRY SERVICE WOOD ISLAND-CARIBOU-NEW VESSEL

Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Minister of Transport):: I should like to make an announcement pertaining to the automobile ferry service between Wood island, Prince Edward Island, and Caribou, Nova Scotia. At the present time the service is operated by the Northumberland Ferries Limited, which receives an annual subsidy of $158,000. The operation of this service is most important to the economy of Prince Edward Island, and the use made thereof in recent years has been increasing continuously.
While the economy of Prince Edward Island is well looked after by the Borden-Tormentine service in so far as railway communications are concerned and for highway traffic originating or terminating in the western section of the island, it has become increasingly important for the agricultural products of Prince Edward Island to be provided with an efficient automobile ferry service from the eastern part of the island to Nova Scotia. The present operator of this service finds it impossible to raise the necessary capital to acquire a new and more efficient vessel, in order to cope with the traffic offered.
I am pleased to announce to the house that the government has decided to construct a new automobile ferry vessel, which should be ready for operation in 1955. A decision has not yet been reached as to which agency will operate the service when the new vessel is ready to go into operation.



QUESTIONS


AERO ROLL FILM PRINTER


Mr. Fulton:: 1.	Was a contract for the design and/or production of an automatic aero roll film printer awarded to P.S.C. Applied Research Limited?
2.	If so, when was the contract let?
3.	What was to be the basis of the remuneration to the company?
4.	Has anything been paid under or on account of the contract to date?
5.	If so, how much, and what was the basis of the payments?
6.	Has a satisfactory design been produced yet?
7.	If so, when is production to start?


Mr. Dickey:: 1.	Yes.
2.	August 25, 1949.
3.	As per Canadian Commercial Corporation form 80, cost, plus 10 per cent basis.
4.	Yes.
5.	$70,632.87, by way of progress payments, on design and development.
6.	No. A mock-up for test purposes is due at the R.C.A.F. station, Rockcliffe, about July, 1953.
7.	Production will be started on completion of satisfactory trials.

Orders for Returns QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS



CANNED SALMON-STORAGE VALUE, SALES, ETC.

Mr. Goode:: 1.	In dollars, what is the carry-over inventory of the 1950 canned salmon pack?
2.	What quantities are in storage in Canada of 1950 pack (a) sockeye; (b) cohoe; (c) spring; (d) other varieties?
3.	In dollars, what is the unsold value of 1951 pack of Canadian salmon?
4.	Is Canadian sockeye salmon being undersold on the British market by (a) Russian pack; (b) Norwegian pack? If so, in dollars, how much per case?
5.	In dollars, how much Canadian canned salmon was sold to Britain in (a) 1950; (b) 1051; (c) 1952?


Mr. Bradley:: Return tabled.



DEBERT CAMP AND AIRPORT-PREFABRICATED HUTS OR HOUSES

Mr. Stanfield:: 1.	How many prefabricated huts or houses has the government purchased from the Eastern Wood Workers Limited, New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, and set up at Debert military camp and Debert airport?
2.	What is the total finished cost of each hut or house?
3.	How many such huts or houses did the government agree to purchase from Eastern Wood Workers Limited?
4.	For what purpose does the government intend to use these prefabricated huts or houses?



NATIONAL DEFENCE AND DEFENCE PRODUCTION- STORAGE SPACE

Mr. Fraser:: 1.	Does the Department of National Defence or any agency thereof or the Department of Defence Production or any agency thereof, rent storage space for their own use?
2.	If so, (a) where are the storage spaces located; (b) of what type is each storage space; (c) what is stored in each space; (d) what is the rental of each storage space?
veterans' hospitals


Mr. White (Middlesex East):: 1.	How many veterans' hospitals are there in
Canada?	.
2.	What are the names of these hospitals and the provinces in which they are located?
3. How many beds are available for use of veterans in each of the veterans' hospitals in Canada, by hospitals?
4.	How many veterans are in tubercular sana-toriums in Canada (a) by provinces; (b) by hospitals?
5.	How many veterans are patients in hospitals other than veterans' hospitals or sanatoriums (a) by provinces; (b) by hospitals?
6.	Are any payments made to sanatoriums for the care of veterans suffering from tuberculosis by any department of the federal government? If so, at what rate?
7.	Are any payments made to other hospitals for the care of veterans by any department of the federal government? If so, at what rate?
8.	Are employees of veterans' hospitals who become infected with tuberculosis while employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs hospitalized

at the expense of the federal government? If not, by whom?
9.	How many patients are there in Westminster hospital, London, Ontario, including all branches of the hospital, as of December 31, 1952?



EMERGENCY GOLD MINING ASSISTANCE ACT


Hon. George Prudham (Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act to provide greater assistance to the mining industry by changing the definition of the rate of assistance to one-half the excess of the cost of production per ounce over $18, with a maximum of $13.50, to provide further that the new rate of assistance shall be applicable to the number of ounces of gold produced by a mine in 1953 in excess of one-half of base year production or one-half of 1953 production, whichever is larger.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. Robert H. Winters (Minister of Resources and Development) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to present a measure to revise and consolidate the Yukon Act and inter alia to delete certain provisions in the act which are being brought within the legislative jurisdiction of the territorial council; to increase the amounts of the indemnity and living allowances of members of the council of the Yukon Territory to bring them more in line with those that may be paid to members of the Northwest Territories council; to further define the legislative powers of the commissioner in council; to provide for the administration of justice in the territory in the manner provided for the administration of justice in the Northwest Territory by the Northwest Territories Act; and finally to provide that the beneficial use of certain lands be appropriated to the territory and be subject to the control of the commissioner in council.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. Alcide Cote (Postmaster General) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:

That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Post Office Act to provide that the Postmaster General may, in certain cases, enter into contracts for conveying mail involving an annual expenditure of one thousand dollars or less, and may also, under certain conditions, while a contract is still in force, increase the amount payable thereunder during the unexpired term thereof.
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.


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the National Defence Act to provide that the Governor General may at any time appoint an Associate Minister of National Defence at a salary of ten thousand dollars per annum.
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. David A. Croll (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) of which I have given him notice. Can he enlighten the house on the implications of recent signs of growing anti-semitism in the Soviet union and the satellite countries in eastern Europe?


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. gentleman has said, he was good enough to give me notice of this important question.
The ominous and familiar pattern which seems to be developing within the soviet world is a matter which must be viewed with deepest anxiety-especially, if I may say so, by citizens of Jewish faith in Canada and other countries. Communist action against Jews has been recently highlighted in the purge in Czechoslovakia. There have been indications that similar purges may be in the making in other satellite capitals. The news from Moscow that six Jewish doctors have been arrested in that city, charged with fantastic and obviously trumped-up crimes,
Inquiries of the Ministry fits into the same pattern. There has not yet been time for the Department of External Affairs to receive sufficient information on this latest development to make possible a balanced assessment of its probable implications. That it may prove to be a very serious matter indeed is, I think, obvious to all of us.
Terrible atrocities stemmed from unbridled anti-semitism in nazi Germany. It would be a great tragedy and crime if the rulers of communist Russia were now planning to revive this dark and evil force from the past and to make use of it for their own ends.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. K. Fraser (Peterborough West):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson). Is the government going to follow the example of the United States and pick up the passports of people who have attended the so-called peace conferences behind the iron curtain?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, that is a very important question of policy and I do not think I should be asked to give a reply to it at this time without notice. I can say however, that our policy in regard to the possession of passports by Canadian citizens, -that a passport is merely a certificate of national identity-has not been changed and I do not know that it is about to be changed.


SHIPPING
[Stage Direction]
COLLISION OF VESSELS "PHYLLIS w" AND "GAESTANO S'' OFF NOVA SCOTIA
Mr. T. A. M. Kirk (Digby-Yarmouth):: May
I ask the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Fisheries, with reference to the ramming of the fishing boat Phyllis W off Centre-ville, Nova Scotia, allegedly by the Gaestano S, Gloucester dragger, if he can give the house any information concerning the action the department proposes to take.


Mr. J. Watson MacNaught (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Fisheries):: I wish to thank the hon. member, Mr. Speaker, for having given me notice of his intention to ask this question. In reply to him I can say that the department has asked the Halifax office for a complete report of the alleged incident. When this report is received it will be very carefully considered to see what action, if any, will be taken.

Inquiries of the Ministry CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


ALLEGED INTENTION TO BROADCAST A CHILDBIRTH
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Donald M. Fleming (Eglinlon):: Is the
Minister of National Revenue aware of the fact that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, through its press and information service, is announcing that on January 29 it will broadcast a childbirth? If so, what action is the government proposing to take?


Hon. J. J. McCann (Minister of National Revenue):: I am not aware of the matter, but I shall have it referred to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and give the information later.


POSTAL SERVICE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Will the Postmaster General say, Mr. Speaker, whether or not press reports are correct that two mail deliveries per day will be re-established at an early date?


Alcide Côté: did not see the press reports to which my hon. friend refers, but eventually when the estimates come before the house' I shall make a statement on this matter.


ELIGIBILITY OF PERSONS OVER SIXTY FOR CHRISTMAS EMPLOYMENT
Mr. J. W. Noseworthy (York South):: should like to direct a question to the Postmaster General arising out of an advertisement which appeared in the Toronto papers, a copy of which I sent him yesterday. Were persons over sixty eligible for temporary employment in post offices during Christmas week?


Alcide Côté: want to thank the hon. gentleman for having given me notice of his question. Persons over sixty were eligible for temporary work during Christmas week in post offices, provided of course they were physically and mentally equipped to do the work. No doubt, however, preference would be given to younger men if available.


FINANCE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. Earl Catherwood (Haldimand):: should like to direct a question to the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance 
respecting the recently announced $100 million 3f per cent loan to be offered to the public. My question is this. Because of the prevalent rumours and speculations as to the purposes of the loan, will the minister tell the house the specific purpose or purposes for which the loan is to be used?


Mr. Jean Lesage (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Finance):: The hon. member was good enough to give notice of his question to the Minister of Finance, and the minister asked me to thank him for that. Before leaving, the minister prepared an answer to the question, and he asked me to read it if the hon. member put his question today. The answer reads as follows:
I announced that the government had authorized an issue of $100 million par value 25 years 32 per cent bonds. These bonds will be sold in instalments to Bank of Canada which will in turn make the new issue available to investment dealers and banks for distribution among interested investors.
The new bonds will be dated January 15, 1953, will mature January 15, 1978, and are callable at 100 per cent and accrued interest at any time on or after January 15, 1975 on sixty days' notice.
I referred to the changes in market levels which have occurred in recent years, particularly since the time prior to the invasion of Korea when the last issue of long-term marketable bonds was made. I stated that the government had decided not to undertake at this time a conventional type of offering of the new issue of 25 year bonds. Nevertheless it is felt very desirable that steps should be taken to establish values in the longterm area in order to facilitate in due course a conventional offering of long-term bonds at some later date. Accordingly the new issue has been created and will be distributed by sale in instalments to Bank of Canada and subsequent sales by Bank of Canada in the market from time to time at prevailing prices. The proceeds of the loan will be paid into the consolidated revenue fund and will be disbursed for general purposes of the government.


Mr. Graydon:: Will you be able to get par when you sell them?


CURRIE REPORT
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Lake Centre):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice, and ask him whether or not any information and complaint was sworn out in connection with the incident respecting the first Currie report before the mounted police were called in to investigate. If there was no information under the Criminal Code, then upon what basis are the mounted police used except under the direction of the attorney general of one or other of the provinces? I am just wondering about the basis.


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of Justice):: So far as we know, Mr. Speaker, no information had been laid prior to the action which was taken to investigate the alleged theft of the document in question. I understand that Mr. Currie himself had instructed private detectives to secure some information which indicated the possibility at least of irregularities, and it was to investigate those irregularities that the mounted police were instructed to act.


John George Diefenbaker: That still does not answer the other question. Is it possible for the Attorney General of Canada to use the R.C.M.P. for investigational work in any province without the assistance or co-operation of the attorney general of that province? I thought that was the basis upon which the minister had always worked.


Some hon. Members:: Answer.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Answer, if possible.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lionel Chevrier: On January 12, Mr. Speaker, the member for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness) asked the following question:
Is it correct, as reported in the press, that Mr. Hunter has been appointed to supervise defence expenditures and, if so, what were the reasons that it was felt necessary to make this appointment?
The answer is that Mr. Hunter's appointment as financial adviser to the Department of Defence Production was announced by the Minister of Defence Production on January 5, 1953. Mr. Hunter, who has been successively a member of the departments of munitions and supply, reconstruction and supply, trade and commerce, and the Department of Defence Production since its inception, was named to replace Mr. O. A. Matthews whose appointment to the board of transport commissioners became effective on January 1, 1953.
The ppsition of financial adviser has existed in the Department of Defence Production since its inception and has been held in succession by Messrs. H. G. Hesler, L. D. Hudon, O. A. Matthews and the present incumbent. The terms of reference of this position have remained constant. The position is identical to the one which was created early in world war II, and existed in both the departments of munitions and supply and reconstruction and supply.
Committee on Defence Expenditure DEFENCE EXPENDITURE


APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Tuesday, January 13, consideration of the motion of Mr. St. Laurent for the appointment of a committee to examine defence expenditures and commitments, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Claxton.
Stanley Howard Knowles: I indicated during the course of my remarks on Tuesday evening, Mr. Speaker, that it was my intention at the end of my speech to move an amendment. I should like at this time to indicate the terms of the amendment that I shall move. It will be seconded by my deskmate, the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright). It is, in fact, an amendment to the amendment, and it will read as follows:
That the amendment be amended by adding thereto the following words:
"and to give consideration to the desirability of recommending that Mr. Currie be asked to conduct a further inquiry into any other expenditures and commitments covered by the terms of this resolution."
I shall actually move this subamendment at the conclusion of my remarks. I am taking the liberty of sending copies of it to you now, Mr. Speaker, so that you may have it in your hands and have an opportunity to look it over.
When I was speaking on Tuesday evening I was at the time of adjournment dealing with the government's disregard, in my view, of the privileges of parliament and the established principles respecting the independence and the rights of members of the House of Commons. The evidence I gave of that disregard was to be found in the letter which the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) wrote to my leader, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), in which he threatened him with the use of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police but suggested that before the R.C.M.P. were put on the job my leader might help him out by giving certain information. I contend-


Brooke Claxton: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege may I say that the letter contains no threat or implied threat whatever.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Oh, no? Why was it written?


Brooke Claxton: It states a fact.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I will not argue with that assertion by the Minister of National Defence. The letter is on the record and those who read it may judge for themselves.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It speaks for itself.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I will come back to that aspect of the matter in a few minutes. Before
1016	HOUSE OF
Committee on Defence Expenditure I do so, however, I should like to confront this house with this question. Why is it that the government is trying to make a red herring out of the fact that an earlier copy of the Currie report came into our hands?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. Member:: Absolutely wrong.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I suggest that the raucous interruptions that are now taking place indicate the answer to that question. The answer is that the government and the supporters of the government are smarting under the fact that they were caught in the act-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. Member:: You were caught in the act.


Stanley Howard Knowles: They were caught in the act of seeing in advance a copy of a report that was supposed to be independent, that was supposed to give the minister what he said he wanted, namely the truth. They were caught in the act of seeing that report in advance and of having the opportunity to suggest changes in it.


An hon. Member:: Absolute rubbish.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, the seriousness of what the government has been caught doing is far worse now in view of what the Minister of National Defence said on Tuesday and in view of the correspondence with Mr. Currie that he placed upon Hansard. At the moment I refer to the correspondence that he intended to place on Hansard, not the letter that he placed there inadvertently. When one reads that correspondence and when one takes note of what the Minister of National Defence had to say the other day, it becomes clear that Mr. Currie did not want to submit his first draft to anyone in the department for the purpose of looking it over. I remind the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) that on December 17, when he made his statement on this matter and answered certain questions, he made a definite statement in answer to a question of mine. As reported at page 829 of Hansard, I asked whether it was the general practice, as to reports which are made on any particular department, to refer them to the head of that department before the report is presented. In part of his reply the Prime Minister said:
I was quite surprised to learn that this investigator had felt that it was the proper thing to he done.
I think all of us who were here in the house at the time remember the forthrightness with which the Prime Minister made that statement. I for one shared his surprise that anyone would think that this was the proper


thing to do. But, Mr. Speaker, as a result of what the Minister of National Defence said on Tuesday and as a result of his tabling his correspondence with Mr. Currie, it now comes out that Mr. Currie did not think it was the thing to be done. Mr. Currie was opposed to showing to the department an earlier copy of the report that he eventually made to the minister. Not only was he opposed in the first instance to showing a copy, but Mr. Drury, the deputy minister, agreed with Mr. Currie that that should not be done. But despite the reluctance or the disinclination of Mr. Currie to show an advance copy to the department, despite his contention that it should not be done, despite the agreement that Mr. Drury expressed with that position, the Minister of National Defence suggested to Mr. Drury that he press Mr. Currie on the point; and it was only after the Minister of National Defence got into the picture and put that pressure upon Mr. Currie that he finally, reluctantly and despite his disinclination to do so, let the department see the report on certain conditions which he spells out in his letter.
When I put my question to the Prime Minister on December 17, he said that he was surprised that Mr. Currie thought this was a proper thing to have done. If he was surprised that Mr. Currie thought it was a proper thing to be done, what does he think now? Does he not think that he owes an apology to Mr. Currie for suggesting that Mr. Currie thought this was a proper thing to be done, when it is clear that Mr. Currie had no such view? What does the Prime Minister think now of the Minister of National Defence who was responsible for this course of action at which the Prime Minister was surprised? Not only did the Prime Minister give the answer to my question which I have already read, but in his own prepared statement that he gave us that morning of December 17, 1952, as reported at page 827 of Hansard he said this:
The inquiries also disclosed that Mr, Currie and his representatives discussed this matter with the deputy minister and that the suggestion was made that the deputy minister might go over the draft, when it was ready, and point out any inaccuracies in the facts reported which had been obtained from the department itself. The deputy minister mentioned this suggestion to the minister and the minister authorized him to go over this draft but told him to be extremely careful to make no comment about anything but the facts that had been obtained from the department.
I admit that that statement is capable of different interpretations, if one wants to put different interpretations on it. But the plain and simple interpretation that seems to me to arise from it is that the Prime Minister, when he made his inquiries following my question on December 17, was informed that

the suggestion that the report should be seen in the department first emanated from Mr. Currie, that it went from Mr. Currie to Mr. Drury and then that Mr. Drury reported that to his minister, the Minister of National Defence, and that the Minister of National Defence agreed. But the story that the Minister of National Defence told us on Tuesday of this week puts it in reverse. From the minister's statement as well as from Mr. Currie's letter, it is clear that the idea of this report being "vetted" in the department did not originate with Mr. Currie. It originated in the department. When Mr. Currie refused, the minister himself took the opposite position, and he has to take the full responsibility for being the one to put pressure upon Mr. Currie to do what Mr. Currie did not want to do and (to do what the Prime Minister on December 17 said he was surprised to learn had been done. I therefore submit that this question is a fair one to ask the Prime Minister: Is it not time that he made an apology to Mr. Currie, and what is he going to do about the action of the Minister of National Defence in putting that improper pressure upon Mr. Currie?
Mr. Speaker, I understand why the government is trying to find some red herring, some way in which to becloud this issue; because the plain fact is that they are caught in the act right down the line. The Minister of National Defence stood up here in the house the other day and said that what he wanted, when he asked Mr. Currie to make this investigation, was the truth. Those were his words: "I wanted the truth". It now turns out that he wanted some official of his to see that truth before it was put in final form to be presented to parliament. What kind of truth is that that one is asking for if, when your department is being investigated, you ask for the right to have the so-called truth about your department "vetted" before it is put before parliament?
The Solicitor General (Mr. Campney) referred to this matter when he spoke on December 17 and suggested to us in this house that we should be extremely grateful to the Minister of National Defence for letting us have this report. After all, according to him, it was just a little personal document out of the minister's desire to have the truth about his department, and he was exceedingly generous-he was courageous-in letting us have it; and we should show our appreciation of that courage and of that generosity by not making such open attacks on the Minister of National Defence.
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the more one goes into this whole story the more it is true to say in this very simple language,
Committee on Defence Expenditure the government has been caught in the act of doing things that it had no right to do as the government of a democratic country. I suggest that someone has got to clear up this discrepancy in the reports given to us on December 17 by the Prime Minister, and on Tuesday of this week by the Minister of National Defence, and that in that connection we have got to know just where the cabinet stands on this whole issue of how this question was handled.
Now, Mr. Speaker, not only has the government been caught in the act of making these changes and of pressing Mr. Currie to do something that he did not want to do, but the government has, as I said on Tuesday night, been caught permitting its top military people to take unto themselves authority and a position which it is not correct for them to take in a democratic state. I want to come back to that for just a minute, Mr. Speaker, because I felt on Tuesday night that that was the most important-


Some hon. Members:: Time.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -part of what I had to say at that time, namely, that the most serious issue-


Some hon. Members:: Time.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member's time has expired, and he may continue only with the unanimous consent of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Go ahead.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I thank the house, Mr. Speaker. I shall be just a very few minutes.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Brooke Claxton: Go ahead.


Some hon. Members:: You can't take it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I gathered that there was general consent to the hon. member continuing.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I sincerely thank you, Mr. Speaker, and the house. I shall express that appreciation by being just as brief as I can.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: And I thank the house for their approval of that sentiment, too. Therefore for a minute or two we are on good terms. But I now want to repeat and underline the importance of the issue which I raised on Tuesday night, namely, that we are in a very bad way in a democracy if we allow the military people, the top brass, to assume an attitude of superiority to the civil authority, to the elected government
1018	HOUSE OF
Committee on Defence Expenditure of this country. I need not repeat at this time the five examples that I gave on Tuesday night of ways in which, in my view, the military people, the chief of the general staff, and the officials of the minister's department, have been dictating to the government, yes, dictating to the Prime Minister, in a way that they have no right to do, and I call upon this government to put the military in the place in which it belongs as the servant of the state.
Now, with this I will close. I just wish to give the house three or four quotations from the debate-


Mr. MacDougall:: Give us your amendment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I have already given the amendment to the Speaker, and I shall put it when I sit down. I have already indicated to the house that in my view the Sandys case of 1938-in the United Kingdom parliament-is one that this government should study very closely. Here was a case where, when the attorney general of that government interrogated a member of parliament as to where he got certain information, it became not a question that was referred to the police, not a question for further threats, but a question for an important historical constitutional procedural debate in the mother of parliaments that took place on June 29, 1938. It covers eighty columns or forty pages of the British Hansard, so obviously I cannot read very much of it. But let me give one or two quotations from some of the really important people who took part in that debate. For example, at column 2166 I find the Right Hon. Clement Attlee said this:
If it is once thought that members of this house can be brought up and interrogated and obliged to give up the sources of their information when they speak in this house, on the ground that it was suspected they were using official information improperly got, there would soon come a cutting away of members of this house from the public service, and there would be apprehension among members of the public service when mixing with members of parliament. They might easily say something which a member might use afterwards, and it might be traced to them.
That is part of a lengthy speech in which Mr. Attlee emphasizes the importance of the principle that was at stake, the right of individual members of parliament to receive information and to use that information in whatever way they thought was best for the good of the state without being pilloried by the executive of the day.
Similarly, the Right Hon. Winston Churchill spoke in the same debate, and it is a Chur-chillian masterpiece which I shall not attempt to read in full, in which he said in part:
A member of parliament has a duty to discharge. If he has information he must try his best to make


that information effective upon the government. He must make sure that a minister knows the truth.
He goes on to say that even if it is unpalatable truth he must get it to the minister, even if he has to use it in debate or in question time in the house.
He goes on to tell of his own experience at times when information came into his possession, perhaps a little irregularly, but information which he was able to use to the advantage of the state. While telling of one of these experiences he said:
But I am bound to say that it came to me with a shock of astonishment to learn that he would have been entitled to send the attorney general to me to ask me where I got that information.
Mr. Churchill was referring to the prime minister. His speech is to be found from column 2173 to column 2182 in the British Hansard of June 30, 1938. Later on in the speech he gives five or six examples, some of them involving himself, some of them involving others, where information leaked out which members of parliament were able to bring to the attention of the government, with the result that real good was done to the state.
Then I turn to Sir Archibald Sinclair. Let us bring a Liberal into this as well, and I find that at column 2171 he said:
Certainly, the government have the right to exact strict loyalty, discretion and obedience from their servants, but members of parliament are responsible to the people whom they represent in this house. They are not responsible to the attorney-general or to any minister of the government. It would be deplorable if all sources of information were dried up. There may be some dangers, but there are great safeguards. There is the power of Mr. Speaker to disallow questions. There are great safeguards, and there are still graver dangers in the encroachment of the executive upon the rights of parliament.
That is something that this government should pay some attention to, and they should note the next sentence which fits so well here:
Governments are too apt to confuse danger to themselves with danger to the state.
Then my last quotation, Mr. Speaker, comes from Mr. Arthur Henderson and is found at column 2194 of the same Hansard in which he said in concluding a very effective speech:
Once you destroy parliamentary privilege and make it impossible for members of parliament to listen to anyone who comes to them with information which, rightly or wrongly, is conceived to be in the public interest and which that member of parliament should receive, issues will be raised which will strike at the very foundations of parliament. I hope that it will now be decided beyond a peradventure that the privileges of this house are still to be maintained and will be enforced, in order to protect any hon. member in relation to his parliamentary duties.
It is unnecessary for me to comment, Mr. Speaker. These quotations speak for themselves, and I feel I should respect the

privilege the house has given me to go on for these extra minutes by taking no more time on this occasion. Therefore I will conclude at this time by moving, seconded by my deskmate, the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright):
That the amendment be amended by adding thereto the following words:
"and to give consideration to the desirability of recommending that Mr. Currie be asked to conduct a further inquiry into any other expenditures and commitments covered by the terms of this resolution."


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre mentioned his amendment the other evening, and I have had an opportunity of considering it. It gives me some concern, in several aspects. I think the house has agreed that consideration can be given to directing a committee to do something which it has the power to do, but which it might otherwise not do. This amendment would come within that ruling.
However, there is a limit to what a committee can do. A committee obviously can do what is included in the terms of a motion under which the committee is set up. There are also other incidental things that the committee can do.
Would the recommendation to retain Mr. Currie to continue his inquiry be a recommendation which that committee could make to the house? The committee obviously could not direct Mr. Currie to do that, by itself. The recommendation, if made by the committee, would be to continue an inquiry that Mr. Currie had started, and the report of which is before the committee.
After giving that point careful consideration-and I do not think I shall hear argument on it-I have come to the conclusion that on that ground the amendment should be allowed to stand. But I should point out the reason I am allowing it to stand on that ground is that it would be a recommendation that the person who made the report should continue.
There is also a technical point which I could raise, and that is whether the amendment is an amendment to the amendment or an amendment to the main motion. I think if I were being very technical

for which I hope I have not a reputation-I could consider that as a serious argument.
In allowing the amendment to stand I do not want it to be considered a precedent which must be followed.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, I hope no one will have the impression that because I rise at this moment I intend to question the ruling you have just made. Nothing would be farther from my thoughts than to do that.
Committee on Defence Expenditure
I would not have considered it necessary, or even useful, to enter again into this debate on the Currie report, were it not for two speeches made by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), and particularly for the one he has just concluded. But I feel very strongly about two aspects of those speeches, not so much because of their bearing on the present situation, but because of their possible effect on the thinking in this House of Commons, and among the public, about proper democratic processes, and the proper relationship between the civilian authority and the armed forces on the one hand, and the proper conduct of the executive and of members of parliament in relation to public affairs-and even in relation to party strife between groups of members of parliament in relation to public affairs.
Now, the hon. gentleman is sometimes inclined to set himself up not only as an authority, having made profound studies of parliamentary practices, constitutional traditions and parliamentary rules of procedure, but also as an example of rectitude for the rest of us to follow in our own public conduct. There seems to have been some indication at least on this occasion that members of the official opposition, by their applause, are taking the hon. gentleman at his own valuation.
Because of that I feel that, having a responsibility of leadership in this house, I would be remiss in my duty if, by my silence, I allowed the impression to be created that I agreed with any of the views expressed by the hon. gentleman on those two main branches, namely the proper relationship between the civilian authority and those responsible for the armed forces, and the proper relationship between the executive and members of parliament, and between members of parliament and the general public, and the manner in which it is proper for them to envisage their responsibility, and to shape their conduct accordingly.
Now, I wish to make it quite clear that I cannot agree with the hon. member on those aspects. I wish first of all to deal with the proper relationship between the civilian authority and those responsible for the organization and the training and-yes-the fighting of our armed forces, when they have to fight.
There is no doubt that under our system it is the civilian authority that is supreme; but there is also no doubt that those at the head of our armies do, as they have done ever since we have had armed forces, carry and discharge very heavy responsibilities to the nation to which they belong.


Mr. Harkness:: We all agree with that.

Committee on Defence Expenditure


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Now, the hon. gentleman seems to suggest that, whatever happens or whatever is said about them, they must remain silent, and still be satisfied to carry on and to discharge their heavy responsibilities.
Well, with that I do not agree. Nor do I agree with the suggestion of the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright) that they have to be dumb, so far as everybody else is concerned, and not utter a word, except through the minister.


Mr. Wright:: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Percy Ellis Wright: The Prime Minister has said that I suggested they should be dumb. I did not suggest they should be dumb. I said they should speak through the minister who represents them.


An hon. Member:: The same thing.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I wish first of all to call attention to some of the expressions used by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre on Tuesday. At page 968 of Hansard he is reported to have said this:
The point that we feel is most serious about this whole business is the question as to the proper place of the armed forces in a democracy. Are they the servant of the state, of the people of the country through their elected representatives, or are they in charge? Are the armed forces entitled to dictate to the government and to push other people around? In our view there has been too much evidence of that attitude throughout this whole business, and that is our primary concern at the present time.
Well, Mr. Speaker, I have not had any evidence of dictation to the government or of pushing people around. The hon. gentleman went on to say:
Hon. members will recall that, when he-
The Prime Minister.
-tabled the report, he placed on Hansard at the same time a memorandum from the chief of the general staff. During the course of his remarks at that time he stated that he was giving us that memorandum because the chief of the general staff thought that the views contained in that memorandum should be given publicity at the same time as the revelations contained in the Currie report itself. When the Prime Minister was questioned by my deskmate, the hon. member for Melfort, during the course of debate in the next day or so as to why he had done this, the Prime Minister interjected to say that he was prepared to give the answer right then and there. He said he did it because he was requested to do so by the chief of the general staff. In our view, Mr. Speaker, the chief of the general staff had no right to ask the elected Prime Minister of this country to table that memorandum, and in our view the Prime Minister had no right to accede to that request.
I take full responsibility, Mr. Speaker, for having acceded to that request and I disagree with the hon. gentleman in his statement
[Mr. Harkness.l

that the chief of the general staff had no right to make that request. I submit that he had a perfect right to make that request and that it was a request about which I had to take the responsibility. I did take the responsibility of putting that document before the house at the same time I tabled the report, and I did so because there was a certain part of that report which, though it was a report dealing with only the works branch of the army, might be interpreted as applying to the whole army. If it were interpreted in that way it was in my opinion, as in the opinion of the general staff stated to me, something that would be very damaging to the organization and morale of our army.
What is it that is contained in the memorandum? It is printed at page 640 of Hansard and reads as follows:
Army Headquarters Ottawa, 15 December, 1952
The Minister
I have read the report on the investigation of army works services by Mr. George Currie.
He reaches conclusions and makes recommendations which must be the subject of careful study before I am in a position to advise you as to the extent to which remedial action has already been taken and what other steps I would recommend.
In defining his task Mr. Currie states "I have conducted an investigation into the deficiencies and other irregularities of the engineering detachment of the army works services at Petawawa and elsewhere".
However, included in Mr. Currie's report are statements which may be interpreted by the public as a condemnation of the competence, integrity and efficiency of the army as a whole. I refer particularly to the statements in the last paragraph of part 1 of his report.
This has already been referred to in the house as page 17 of the offset reproduction of the report. I continue:
I understand this report is to be made public and if such statements made by Mr. Currie are interpreted by the public and the serviceman as having reference to the army as a whole the effect will be most damaging.
I, therefore, request that Mr. Currie clarify publicly whether such statements are intended to refer, as his quoted opening remarks would appear to indicate, to the engineering work services only, or whether they are intended to refer to the Canadian army as a whole. If the latter is the intention then I would further request that Mr. Currie provide publicly the facts upon which such opinions and observations are based.
Under the National Defence Act the chief of the general staff has the responsibility for the Canadian army, and if a statement is made and put forward by the government without any qualification, or any hint that it does not agree with it, that is interpreted as reflecting upon the competence, integrity and efficiency of the army as a whole, I think it is the duty of the chief of the general staff to wish to have that cleared up, and if that is the conclusion that is ultimately arrived

at I am sure that anyone worthy of becoming at any time the chief of the general staff would feel that he could do nothing but abandon his position and let somebody else take over the responsibility who is going to discharge it in a more competent and efficient manner.
Here in this country, you know, public service, not only on the civilian side but on the military side as well, is provided by men many of whom do so at personal sacrifice of their own pecuniary interests, and the main and practically the only compensation they get for the sacrifice they make is the personal satisfaction of feeling that they are doing something useful for their nation and their fellow citizens. When it becomes apparent that they can no longer have that feeling, or can have the feeling that it is shared by those with whom they are performing that work, then there is no further reason for them to continue in office. Does anyone imagine, Mr. Speaker, that I would be doing for anyone but the public service what I have been doing for the last four or five years for the pecuniary compensation that I get for it?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Does anyone imagine that the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Pearkes) did what he did during the war years for the pecuniary compensation he got out of it? Fortunately there are many in this country- and I think it would include practically everybody in this house-who feel that when there is a service to be performed for the country and for their fellow citizens it is not the pecuniary compensation that is going to entice them to give that service. It is for the moral satisfaction they get out of it that they are doing their part, as their ancestors before them did their part, to build up the country and to pass it on to future generations as a good country of which to be a citizen and a good country in which to live.
All that was requested by the chief of the general staff was that if this document, which might have that ambiguous implication, were going to be made public, there should be an opportunity for clearing up the ambiguity and saying whether or not it did refer to the competence and integrity of the whole army set-up or whether it referred to the few crooks-and I am paraphrasing the expression used in the report-who had been guilty of irregularities, yes of crimes, for which our courts of justice have meted out to them the sentences they are now serving in our penal institutions.
If, in attempting to clear up that ambiguity, it was cleared up in a way that might reflect upon the competence and integrity of the
Committee on Defence Expenditure whole army, then the chief of the general staff requested that further facts be made public to show on what the condemnation of their competence and efficiency was based. I think that it was not only the right but the responsibility and duty of the chief of the general staff to all the loyal officers and men under his command to take that position and to ask that the ambiguity be cleared up, and if it were maintained that a reflection was meant to be cast upon the efficiency of the whole service, then the facts upon which that assertion was made should be made public so that effective methods could be adopted to have and to maintain in this country the kind of competent and honest military forces upon which we have fortunately had the privilege of relying in two world wars where perhaps our very existence as a nation was at stake.
A second point with which I wish to deal is the statement made by the hon. gentleman that the chief of staff had no right to say- and I think his words were-"to the personnel of the service and the employees of national defence" that they were not to discuss the Currie report. Again, the hon. gentleman knows that the chief of staff never attempted to make such a suggestion to the employees of the Department of National Defence. The hon. gentleman knows that that direction was given on December 15 in the form of a signal which reads as follows:
From: Can Army
To: Wescom, Pracom, Cencom, Quecom, Eascom
For GOC from CGS.
Now, I take it that means: From Canadian army headquarters to western command, prairie command, central command, Quebec command, and eastern command, for general officer commanding from chief of general staff.
Para One The report covering the investigation by Mr. George Currie of the army works services is about to be tabled in the House of Commons.
Para Two It is possible that interested parties may attempt to obtain comments on this report from serving personnel. I would therefore remind you that this report is a privileged document in the hands of the government and it is obviously improper at this time for any serving officer or man to make any comment on it.
"Privileged document" I take it here is not "privileged document" as my hon. friend from Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) and I, in court parlance, would understand it. We would probably not describe that as a privileged document although it was a document which was in the hands of the government and which was about to be tabled in the
1022	HOUSE OF
Committee on Defence Expenditure House of Commons. I think that this was a wise direction to say that possibly-
-interested parties may attempt to obtain comments on this report from serving personnel.
And-
-it is obviously improper at this time for any serving officer or man to make any comment on it.
Now, that is the second incident of the "dictation" referred to by my hon. friend, and to the "pushing around" referred to by him.


John George Diefenbaker: Are they free to discuss it now?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I do not think it would be proper for them to be discussing it. I think that it is proper for them to wait until there has been some opportunity to obtain that clarification of the ambiguous portion to which the chief of staff refers in the memorandum addressed to his minister and with which, because of the absence of his minister, he asked me to deal.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Would the Prime Minister permit a question? Does the Prime Minister know whether there was any order by the chief of the general staff requesting "that no discussion be entered into by employees of the Department of National Defence on the m/n report"-the reference being to the Currie report? If the Prime Minister does not know of any such order, perhaps I can have this little slip investigated.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I think the hon. gentleman had better have that little slip investigated because the information I received was that the only direction given by the chief of staff was the direction that is- included in this signal which went out from headquarters on December 15. That is the information I have and I have information that implies that there was no other attempted instruction given by the chief of staff.
In connection with that matter what the hon. gentleman said was:
Indeed as I have said, I read with interest in the press that the chief of the general staff had issued orders that members of the armed forces and employees of national defence were requested not to discuss the Currie report.
I have seen nothing in the press to that effect and the information I received is that this signal to the general officers commanding the various military commands throughout the country was the only direction given.


Stanley Howard Knowles: When the Prime Minister is through I will come across and show him the slip to which I refer.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The hon. gentleman has already shown me something the source of


which has become a matter of considerable concern not only to me but to a great many of the public.


An hon. Member:: A red herring.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I am not anxious to share any confidences with the hon. gentleman which have been obtained in the way in which it appears that a copy of Mr. Currie's work was obtained.
The hon. gentleman went on to say that- -while the chief of the general staff denies to the people to whom he can issue orders the right to discuss the Currie report, he does not hesitate to discuss it himself.
I assume that the hon. gentleman was referring to the terms of the memorandum I have just read. I submit that that memorandum is no discussion of the Currie report. It is a request that what the chief of staff looked upon as an ambiguity, an unfortunate ambiguity in the report, might be cleared up.
Another point with which I would like to deal quite briefly is the Canadian Army Journal to which the hon. gentleman referred. Now, I have here a copy of the Canadian Army Journal, the December number, and I have been informed that the message to the Canadian army from the chief of the general staff was written and sent in for inclusion in that publication in November before any part of the working papers or of the Currie report had come before the Department of National Defence-and long before there had been any criticism in this house of anything referred to in the Currie report. Now, the hon. gentleman has been very severe in the language he used with respect to this general message from the chief of staff to the Canadian army. It is true that the effect of this message was featured quite prominently in Canadian press dispatches that were published, perhaps before the first one I saw which was in a newspaper dated January 13. But it is not surprising that the press should, even if it had this for weeks, think that it was something of interest to the reading public to be featured in its news columns at that time.
This message was written because of a large number of critical references to incidents occurring in the army, and published over a period of months in some of the Canadian newspapers. The copy of his message to the Canadian army written by the chief of staff has annexed to it a large number of newspaper clippings, none of them subsequent to the date of the first showing of the working paper for the Currie report to the deputy minister of national defence. Now, I think that this message from the chief of the general staff to the Canadian army is quite a proper message for one to

issue to personnel for whose morale he is responsible, as he is for the competence and efficiency of the army of which he is the chief. That is all I wish to say about these relations between the civilian authority and the army. No one will gainsay that under our system the civilian authority is supreme in our constitutional set-up, but no one will gainsay that the armed forces are essential to the subsistence of our constitutional setup, and no one will gainsay that their competence and efficiency depends to a certain degree upon the respect in which those who are at the head are held, and are entitled to be held, by the nation which they serve.
Now, the second matter with which I shall deal is the receipt and use of a stolen working paper, prepared on behalf of a professional man, and which the hon. gentleman thought it was his duty, in the public interest, to use in this house.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) if he is in a position to say categorically that it was a stolen copy?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I think I will be in a, position, within a very short time, not only to say that it is a stolen document but to say who stole it. But just drawing conclusions from obvious facts, I think it is quite obvious that that document was not obtained from the Department of National Defence. There was only one copy delivered to the Department of National Defence on November 27, and it was returned to Mr. Currie's partner on December 8 when the signed report was then delivered to the department.
The information contained in Mr. Currie's letter is to the effect that there were only ten copies of the offset pages stitched together, and his investigation had been such that he was able to account for all ten of them. There had been additional pages, some ninety or more perhaps, which had been prepared at the same time in the printer's office and neither Mr. Currie nor the printer was able to account for every copy of every page that had been offset in the same process and at the same time. At first he did not believe the copy was one of the offset copies, but it turned out to be one of them. He was allowed by the hon. gentleman to inspect the copy, and he and his representatives satisfied themselves that it was one of the same offset copies as had been prepared by this printing firm.
Now, that copy found its way into the hands of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell). At that time it did not appear to be very serious. This was a
15, 1953	1023
Committee on Defence Expenditure document that was going to be tabled, and whether or not one got advance information about it did not seem to be very important. When the hon. gentleman first mentioned it here on December 15 he was quite surprised that there had been, in the report as finalized and signed, any modification from the working paper of which he had a copy. But when he spoke on December 17, and when he spoke yesterday and again today, he knew from the information that I had given to the house that this was not a report nor a copy of the report, but this was a preliminary working paper which had not been completed, which had not been signed and which differed in some respects from the report which was made and which was signed.
There is no other possible suggestion for it being elsewhere than in the printer's office than the suggestion that someone improperly took it out of the printer's office and delivered it to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar.


Gordon Graydon: It might have blown out of the window.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: No, those pages had not been stitched together, and I do not think the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) would seriously suggest that it would so happen that 74 pages would be blown out a window, picked up in the alley and from there brought to the member for Rosetown-Biggar.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That would be an ill wind that blew the Liberals no good.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The experience of the Liberals has not been that Providence treats them in that unkind way.
Now, I am assuming that this copy was taken without Mr. Currie's consent or without the consent of anyone authorized to give consent on Mr. Currie's behalf, and without the printer's consent or the consent of anyone authorized to give consent on the printer's behalf. In common parlance that is usually referred to as stealing. The whole situation has all the earmarks of the copy having been taken away in a manner which is called theft. I would think that possibly under the circumstances there would be such public-spirited citizens that, if they felt they had come in any way into possession of information that was essentially of interest to the security of the state, and that they did not trust the members of the government or any supporter of the government with that information, they might think it was a proper thing to convey it to somebody other than a member of the government or a supporter of the government. But I think that the obvious choice they would make would be

Committee on Defence Expenditure to convey it to the leader of the official opposition whose duty it is to see to it that information of real interest to the public becomes available to the public. This document did not go to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew). It went to my hon. friend's leader who has not yet become the leader of the official opposition.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: And never will.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I do not want to make any prophecies. After all, I am in my own country, and no one is a good prophet in his own country. I therefore leave it to the hon. member for Peterborough West (Mr. Fraser). However that may be, the fact that this document did not go to the leader of the official opposition seems to nullify the suggestion that it might be in the discharge of a patriotic urge to save the country that it was being communicated. I am not saying that this was the case, but if it was being handed to the leader of the C.C.F. group as an implement to be used in party strife, all I can say is that I would deprecate it greatly if our politics sank to the level where, in the conduct of our strife with each other, we had to have agents to steal confidential documents or had to have agents to tap telephone wires.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: It is something of the same nature and something about which-


Mr. Fulton:: The government of which you were a member was the one to have that done.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry but I did not catch that interjection. This amplification system is convenient in some ways but it does not allow you to catch all the interjections which come from the various corners of the house.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Especially those you do not want to hear.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I will tell my hon. friend that, except when he is making a long and repetitious speech, I like to hear what he has to say.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The same thing may be said about others.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I think there are privileges that members of parliament have, and that those privileges are not only sacred to them but are essential to the proper functioning of our democratic institutions. Quite frankly, however, I may say that I do not think those privileges require us to receive stolen property and to make use of it. We are all of us responsible to the public and each one of us is responsible to the electors of his constituency. I do not think that anyone wants

to set himself up as too severe a judge of others; but there are definitely implications-


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I have no brief for anyone but I do not think that the Prime Minister-


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I do not think that the Prime Minister or anyone else in this house has a right to say of a member of parliament that he is a receiver of stolen goods.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to insist upon a technical legal definition.


John George Diefenbaker: I should hope not.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: But I suggest that no one is entitled, because of his privileges as a member of parliament, to have in his possession a thing that has been stolen if he knows it was stolen.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege. Is the Prime Minister suggesting that my leader knew that he was receiving a stolen document?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I am not making any suggestion at all. I am merely commenting upon facts which are already notorious to the Canadian public.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I rise again on a question of privilege. I think that, on mature reflection, the Prime Minister will realize that statements like that should not be made. The other day, Mr. Speaker, you ruled that a suggestion about independence-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


John George Diefenbaker: Oh yes, Mr. Speaker, you ruled that even a suggestion from this side of the house that members were not independent was dangerous to the privileges of parliament. I hold no brief for wrongdoing, and I know nothing about this matter; but surely the Prime Minister dare not make such statements.


Mr.   Si. Laureni@: I am subject to your direction, Mr. Speaker.


Percy Ellis Wright: I rise on a question of privilege. In my opinion-and I think a reading of Hansard will prove that I am right-the Prime Minister has implied that the leader of this group received stolen property knowing that it was stolen.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Percy Ellis Wright: I think a reading of Hansard will indicate that; and I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to ask the Prime Minister to withdraw any such implication.


Mr. Speaker:: I did not understand the Prime Minister to make that statement. I will leave it to him. The Prime Minister knows whether or not he made that statement.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: What I stated was that this was a stolen document, and that, prior to coming into the possession of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), it was in the hands of the hon. member for Rose-town-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell). I do not know how it got there, but it is a stolen document. To anyone who does not know any more than I know about it, it appears to be a stolen document. I think that anyone who has it would feel some concern as to whether or not it was a stolen document.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, on this point of order or question of privilege, may I say that I feel it is a particularly serious matter, especially in view of the unfortunate absence of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. The Prime Minister keeps using language that suggests that the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar knew, when he received this document, that it was stolen, and I object to that language.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker,-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I cannot hear what is being said because there are so many interruptions.


Stanley Howard Knowles: If the Prime Minister did not mean that and will say clearly that he did not mean it, I will not press the point further. May I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that, in addition to this language, a few minutes ago the Prime Minister said he did not think it was necessary for us in parliament, in the pursuit of our privileges, to have agents out getting this kind of property. That is a suggestion that my leader had an agent out trying to get this property, something which is completely false. As a matter of fact-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. That point can be denied later on.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I deny it categorically.


Mr. Speaker:: The question I am concerned with at the moment is whether the Prime Minister has at this time stated that the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar received the report knowing, at the time he received it, that it was stolen. I did not understand him to say so. I should like to clear up that point.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I did not intend to say that he knew it. I intended to suggest that circumstances were such that he might very
Committee on Defence Expenditure well be thought to have known it. I do not know whether he did or not-I hope he did not.


Gordon Graydon: Why don't you clean the whole thing up by withdrawing?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I am not going to clean the whole thing up by withdrawing anything I have said because I cannot, by anything I say, manufacture facts nor alter facts that have taken place.
Now, with respect to the suggestion that the letter printed in Hansard of Tuesday constitutes a threat, I cannot read it as being such. Was it, or was it not, proper that any efforts be made to find out how this confidential document went from the printer's office to somewhere else? I say from the printer's office, though until the matter is cleared up there could be suspicion on every person connected with both the printer's office and Mr. Currie's office.
It is known-and it is nothing to be ashamed of-that both in the printer's office and in Mr. Currie's office there are people who take an active interest in party politics, and who have done so, exercising their proper democratic right. Until this matter is cleared up everyone who could possibly have done this thing of communicating one of Mr. Currie's working papers to somebody unauthorized to have it is equally subject to suspicion. All that was said to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar was to notify him that at Mr. Currie's suggestion the R.C.M.P. were being-


Stanley Howard Knowles: No.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Perhaps there was no suggestion about the R.C.M.P., but Mr. Currie's suggestion that there might be further investigation. The R.C.M.P. were being asked to make that further investigation. Well, what would the hon. gentleman have said about the Minister of National Defence if he had requested that the R.C.M.P. continue that investigation without giving any notice whatsoever to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar? This is merely information that the R.C.M.P. is being asked to follow up the investigation that Mr. Currie has been making, and the suggestion that if he felt it proper to say where the document came from it might facilitate the investigation. There is no veiled threat there, no attempt to coerce, no attempt to put pressure upon anybody, and no attempt to draw any red herrings across the situation that the hon. gentleman qualifies as "having been caught in the act". That is a suggestion made with respect to the
1026	HOUSE OF
Committee on Defence Expenditure changes that appeared between the working paper and the draft that was finally signed by Mr. Currie.
Those changes were made entirely upon the responsibility of Mr. Currie, who was making a report to the Minister of National Defence, not a report to the House of Commons, not a report to the governor in council, but to the head of the Department of National Defence. I was surprised that there had been any prior discussion of the terms in which that report was to be made. But the hon. gentleman and I do know that when the Mainguy report about the navy was published it did contain factual mistakes that were used in an effort to throw some discredit upon it. And I do not think it is strange that the minister should have hoped that this report would be as free from mistakes, factual mistakes, as possible.
The thing that I wonder at is that there were not more comments made to Mr. Currie's representatives about some other things which appear to be factual mistakes in the terms of this report. As I remember it, there was not anything at all said about the horses, and we now have it quite clear that there were no non-existent persons placed on the payroll, and there were no horses placed on the payroll. Perhaps I might take this opportunity of referring to a remark of the hon. member for Nanaimo in his interesting speech, following the Minister of National Defence, that because I had made a qualification about the information I got, we appeared to be more ready to accept the testimony of a man who is now in the penitentiary than the categorical affirmation of Mr. George Currie.
Well, I hope the hon. gentleman understood that when I was making that qualification it referred only to such matters as were not those that would appear in the official documents. The names of all those who were put on the payroll are on the payroll, and they are all names of existing persons. What I was qualifying-


Gordon Graydon: They were playing proxies for the horses.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Well, perhaps the hon.
gentleman has not had the experience I have had of acting sometimes as a teamster. I do not think that the teamster is a proxy for the horses that are pulling the load. What I was making the qualification about was as to the refund that was handed back by the teamsters to Sergeant Young who had provided the horses. That does not appear on the payroll. That information was gathered from written confessions made by Sergeant Young both to the provost corps officials and to the R.C.M.P.


Now, he is a man who has been convicted and who is now in the penitentiary. Like the hon. member for Nanaimo, I would not care to vouch for the absolute accuracy of everything he said. His statement was that the teamsters retained the ordinary 75 cents plus 5 cents and refunded the remainder to him. Now, that cannot be checked from official records. That is an illegal, irregular transaction that took place between these teamsters and Sergeant Young, and that was the part of my statement upon which I was making the qualification.
While I am dealing with them, I should like to refer to one other point. On Tuesday night the Leader of the Opposition made a broadcast on the Canadian network, the text of which had gone out and was distributed for release at 7.45 eastern standard time. I have it on good authority, from persons who listened to the broadcast, that there were some additions in what went over the air that were not in the text. The reference in the text to the Petawawa horses is this:
The thought of horses on the payroll in the name of non-existent men has been a cause of merriment, and understandably.
It certainly has been the cause of merriment, and the subject of some pretty clever cartoons. I have it from the testimony of persons who heard what went over the air that over the air it was in this form:
The thought of horses on the payroll in the name of non-existent men-that was reported by Mr. Currie and hasn't been seriously challenged yet- that has been a cause of merriment, and understandably so.
This went over the air on Tuesday night, but I am convinced that it had been recorded for broadcast before the statement I had made in answer to the question of the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mrs. Fairclough), which I think would be taken as at least quite a serious challenge to the statement that there were horses on the payroll in the name of non-existent men. But I know from my own experience that frequently there are recordings made that go out over the air at the release hour or date.


Gordon Graydon: That was his working paper.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Well, no; the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) suggests that the text was a working paper. It was a paper that was delivered to those who are interested in getting the text for release at the time the broadcast was made, while the working paper we have been discussing here was just about ten days prior to the date that the report was completed and signed, and actually delivered.
Unfortunately, however, many of those who heard the broadcast did not hear that there had been any answer to the question of the
*

Committee on Defence Expenditure
hon. member for Hamilton West as to what were the actual facts about the horse incident that had, understandably, caused such merriment.
Now, with respect to the amendment suggested by the hon. member, Your Honour has said that this is a direction which would be in order. It certainly appears to be a direction to the committee to do something that they would have the right to do without being directed to do it, and therefore something within the ruling you had previously made. But in view of all the facts which surround the Currie report at this time, I feel that the committee should be left to its own good judgment as to what it might or might not do in that connection, after it will have had an opportunity of hearing the witnesses, including Mr. Currie himself. And, though it is in order, I propose to register my vote against the hon. member's amendment, when we reach the appropriate time to do so.


Mr. Ray Thomas (Weiaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, we in this group pressed for many years to have the committee on defence expenditures set up. We spoke in favour of it last year, and we are glad to see it set up again this year. During the last session I think the committee did a great deal of extremely valuable work. But all we did in that committee was to learn something about the organization of the armed forces, and to obtain a background for work to come.
I feel now that the committee is ready to proceed with its investigations into the realm of defence expenditures, to look into the entire field and to come forward with some mighty valuable results. To date we have not actually investigated to any great extent in regard to the actual defence expenditures. But if the committee set up this year works fearlessly and without thought of political affiliation, if it works without thought of endangering the stand of any party, then I think we can make an extremely valuable contribution, and one that will reflect great credit upon the members who comprise the committee.
I am not going to say much about the contents of the Currie report. We put our position quite clearly last fall with respect to it. I would repeat at this time that at no time have we put the blame on the shoulders of the army, but rather we feel that the blame for the entire situation lies with the administration of the Department of National Defence. We do condemn the government for not paying strict enough attention to the spending of the taxpayer's dollar in this regard. We find that today we labour under a tax structure which bears a ratio of five 6810S-65J
to one with that of 1939. The people's savings are beginning to become pretty well depleted. The dollar has devaluated to the point where people are having difficulty in meeting their bills. The least they can expect is full value for the defence dollar.
Canadians are entitled to and are demanding that we have strict honesty, maximum efficiency and maximum economy in the carrying out of our defence program. In this connection I should like to place on record part of an editorial from a recent edition of the Calgary Albertan. This is what it says:
The armed forces are notoriously wasteful and inefficient and apparently not much can be done about it. But unless there is an effort to control it, it can get completely out of hand. That's what happened here. There was no effort to control it. Certain senior officers must take immediate responsibility, but ultimately the defence minister, Mr. Claxton, must answer to the people.
I take it that this editorial refers only to the administration and the accounting in the army, and not to its ability in action. All hon. members know about the reputation and the ability of our army. Last fall the Acting Minister of National Defence said that in their rush to get men to fill these positions they had to take the good, bad and indifferent. I agree with him. They got the good-and all the army, with very few exceptions, is good. They got the bad-yes, they got a few crooks, as is pointed out in the Currie report. They got the indifferent; and in my opinion the indifferent are the entire Department of National Defence.
The acting minister said further that we had a shortage of staff, and the other day the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) reiterated that statement. If that is true, why were they so eager to let out so many civilian employees and so many of the personnel of the armed forces, when they knew that a dangerous condition might arise, and that these people might be needed in the near future?
Then, too, if they want to know where to get some men, perhaps they could borrow them from the Department of National Revenue; because some of the so-called little Hitlers who are running around the country checking up on people for their income tax returns might do a mighty good job digging into what is done in the Department of National Defence. And if they are half as good as some of them think they are, then that is the place for them.
Last fall the acting minister made reference to a bank robbery, and said that if a bank were robbed the president was not held to blame. But if the president left the money out on the sidewalk he would be to blame. And we find a similar situation in this
1028	HOUSE OF
Committee on Defence Expenditure instance, because the goods in question were left in the open, with no security measures being observed. They were just asking to be picked up by these people who are described as crooks.
He said, too, that if there were shortages, or that if there was embezzlement within a bank, the employees involved, and not the bank manager, had to pay the shot. The same reply could be made again, that if, through his lack of management, the bank manager made embezzlement possible, then he would be at fault and would be blamed accordingly. Not only that; if a report were made on that particular bank and those findings were made public, they certainly would not be turned over to the bank manager first for his O.K. and correction before being given out. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) may feel, from the fact that he asked Mr. Currie to make this investigation, that he was justified in asking for the report before it was presented to parliament. I also agree that it would be regrettable if there were any mention in the report of the young chap who was acquitted. I also should not like to see R.C.M.P. records put in such a report; but the fault in that regard lies with the minister because when he turned over the job to Mr. Currie he should have made clear what he wanted and did not want in the report. We do not like getting a watered-down report like this one in the House of Commons.
I noticed that the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) today called the papers in the hands of the leader of the C.C.F. (Mr. Coldwell), working papers. That is the first time that expression has been used in the house. It is a happy thought devised by someone in the government in order to make appear less objectionable the actions of the minister in putting pressure on Mr. Currie to force him to make certain changes in the report before it was signed and delivered.
That brings me to the subamendment. Mr. Currie was appointed to investigate, and made his report. The minister intimated yesterday that the report was of very little value. In the letter of the minister which was accidentally placed on Hansard, and which I understand actually was not sent, the minister told Mr. Currie that. It certainly gives the minister's viewpoint on it.
The fact that Mr. Currie did yield to pressure has caused members of the house to lose a lot of confidence in him. Unlike the Minister of National Defence, we feel the report has been an extremely valuable contribution but we regret that Mr. Currie allowed himself to be intimidated. Therefore

in the opinion of this group Mr. Currie's usefulness is pretty well at an end because, for entirely different reasons, he has lost the confidence of members on both sides of the house. We cannot support the subamendment which asks that Mr. Currie be requested to continue and investigate the entire defence structure. We feel instead that a judicial inquiry should be carried on. We believe that a royal commission should be appointed to dig into the defence set-up, including contracts, buildings and everything else relating to defence and defence construction, and that a report should be made to the house as quickly as possible.
Coming to the amendment moved by the minister, he said yesterday that the loss, which was somewhere in the neighbourhood of $50,000, was practically negligible when compared with the total expenditure. If that is so and he feels that these losses are of little consequence, why does he insist on the defence expenditure committee looking into the matter first before investigating anything else? Mr. Currie pointed out that there were irregularities. They have been investigated and some of his recommendations have been carried out. The losses incurred have been made known. In my opinion the report has served its purpose.
Mr. Speaker, in view of the minister's statement on the report and his reference to Mr. Currie, and the fact that any political damage which could be done by the report has been done, I wonder whether or not this could be a move to keep the committee from digging into further defence expenditures, investigations which might be embarrassing.


Mr. Fournier (Hull):: That would not be according to the facts. Read the reference before the house and you will see that it covers all expenditures.


Mr. Fair:: Then we had better let the committee get at the facts.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, order.


Ray Thomas: Mr. Speaker, I was amazed that the Minister of National Defence would move such an amendment to the motion; first, because it has never been done; second, it would appear to me that it is an indication of lack of faith in the ability of the committee; and third, as I said before, it might be interpreted as a means of bogging down the committee in work which has already been hashed over.
I just want to say one word about the report and the criticisms issued by the chief of the general staff. Many of the points covered by the Prime Minister this afternoon were well taken, but I sometimes

wonder whether or not the request that the members of the armed forces should not talk on this subject might come as the result of a fear that people might learn something that he did not want them to learn. I also wonder just how far the chief of the general staff would go and how long he would last if his statements, severe as they were, were contrary to rather than in favour of government policy. It seems to me rather strange that the chief of the general staff would instruct the men under him to keep silent but at the same time get up and speak himself. It is very much like the socialists; they always believe in socializing everyone but themselves, and it just does not make sense.


Mr. Bryce:: Keep to the Department of National Defence and never mind socialism.


Ray Thomas: I do not intend to take any further time of the house, but I do want to say that in my opinion this whole thing is another indication of the total disregard this government has for parliament, for parliamentary procedure and for the people whom these members represent.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I have been in this house for almost thirteen years, and I must say that in those years nothing has ever happened to equal what took place this afternoon. I cannot understand the attitude of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) in charging a member of this house with one of the most serious criminal offences with which a member can be charged and then finally, having made that charge-unwithdrawn-having recourse to the explanation that he believed that that was a fact.
This is a sorry day for parliament-for the preservation of this institution where, in the discussion of public affairs, however heated we may become on occasion, the maintenance of the proprieties must at all times be upheld and meticulously observed, not only by private members but by the Prime Minister as well, whose rights are no greater than those of any private member in the House of Commons.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: I should add that I hold no brief for those who have done wrong, and if wrong has been done it should be punished.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: I see the Prime Minister coming in now so I am going to repeat what I have said. In all my experience in the House of Commons, having seen him through the
Committee on Defence Expenditure years observing those proprieties without which parliament cannot be preserved, this afternoon was an occasion the memory of which I can only hope the years will erase. The Prime Minister charged a member of the House of Commons with a serious criminal offence, with no more proof to date than an investigation. I say to the Prime Minister that trials do not take place in the House of Commons. They still remain in the courts. I am disturbed by what the Prime Minister did this afternoon. I think he did it in one of those moments of very great annoyance when discretion leaves as annoyance mounts.
1 know nothing of the story connected with the migrations of the document and how it passed from hand to hand. However, my mind goes back, sir, to 1949 when the Prime Minister, speaking in the city of Regina, said there was only one difference between Liberals and C.C.F.-that the C.C.F. were Liberals in a hurry. That might be an explanation of the reason they acquired the document before it came officially to the notice of the house.


Mr. Martin:: That is the best part of your speech so far.


John George Diefenbaker: This afternoon I am not going to be sidetracked into dealing with the army and the responsibilities of the C.C.F. for getting possession of documents before parliament had them, however embarrassing those documents may be to the government. After all, the issue is-and I say this to the Prime Minister-what are you going to do about this? The Canadian people today, taxed as never before, are not asking us to fight sham battles in the House of Commons or to raise smokescreens regarding circumstances under which documents came to the public gaze. What they are asking the government of this country is to see to it that for every dollar spent for defence a dollar in value will be secured, and that waste and extravagance will end.
One of the things the Currie report did was to give proof, and final proof, of many of the allegations made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) and those associated with him, many of them soldiers distinguished in war. Over the years they have stated in this house that waste and extravagance existed in this country. The government intends to do nothing, having appointed Mr. Currie and having placed on his head the halo of all perfections, but set up a committee in parliament with a large and overwhelming majority of Liberal members to determine whether the investigator came to the right conclusion.
That is a strange procedure. I know that on occasions-and I am sure this applies to

Committee on Defence Expenditure the Prime Minister-having had a case tried as Currie tried this case and being dissatisfied, being on the losing side, I would have liked nothing better than to get together with the judge or, in the absence of the judge, friends of the losing litigant to review the findings of the judge in order to make them more palatable. That is exactly what is being done by the motion before the house. I thought that today the Prime Minister would stand up in his place and, instead of giving us a lecture on how parliament should act, do something such as was done during the first world war when there was wrongdoing. The prime minister of that day did not ask that the committee of parliament to be set up should be overwhelmingly Conservative. What he asked was that the public accounts committee be set up, and that it go to work and bring in, unfettered by any consideration, the truth as the truth was revealed.
I have before me the debates of that time. I enjoin the Prime Minister even yet to follow that example in setting up this committee. Committees of parliament heretofore in dealing with controversial matters have never shown that independence of their master's voice that is to be expected in a committee that is to review the review made by Mr. Currie, the appointed representative of the government. In 1915, when the public accounts committee was convened, Right Hon. Sir Robert Borden gave these instructions through a representative to the committee and the committee acted on them. I quote from page 2604 of Hansard for April 15, 1915:
I want to say that if there is any information the committee want, or any wrongdoing, then as far as the government is concerned we want to ferret it right to the bottom; we do not want to shield any person.
Later on he said:
The government is determined to protect fully the interests of the country in this and in all cases and to take such proceedings as may be necessary for that purpose. I want to repeat here again that so far as this government is concerned they want to prosecute their investigation to the very utmost limit.
Again, on another occasion:
As representing the government I have stated that we want to get to the bottom of these matters.
With those instructions from the Prime Minister and his representative, the committee met and brought forth evidence of wrongdoing. It exposed wrongdoing instead of adopting the attitude that is being adopted in this case, of trying to have a committee set up in order to review the findings of the umpire appointed by the government, dissatisfied with those findings.
I was amazed at the statement the Prime Minister made this afternoon. Just as a


matter of information, I asked him when the army would be able to talk about the Currie report, when the ban against free speech in the army would be removed. The answer he gave was in effect that he presumed it would be after the committee had reported on the report. That is a new type of freedom of speech, the right of the men in the armed forces to voice their opinions on the Currie report after the government has taken that report and put it through the whitewash of a committee which is apparently being set up for that purpose. No, Mr. Speaker, you cannot erase the words of that Currie report. I believe it is in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam that it is written:
The moving finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.
The Currie report stands as one of the greatest indictments of a government ever rendered, for its failure to discover waste and extravagance. It supports the stand taken by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew), by the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Pearkes), by the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton) and the hon. member for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness). Every time they brought this matter before parliament they were ridiculed. Now the report tells the story.
A rewrite job cannot remove the findings made in that report. It provides the final proof of what Canadians have suspected and have been speaking about from one end of the country to the other, that there is waste, extravagance and negligence of the government in the administration of expenditures for our defence, not only in Petawawa camp but elsewhere. It is not the army that is responsible, and it is not my hon. friends to the left who have the unexpurgated working papers. The responsibility rests upon the government of this country and upon the Prime Minister. It is not discharged by him by reading a lecture to the house or placing himself, as it were, above these things, as if grandchildren were acting rather naughtily without his knowledge.
Today, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister had an opportunity of making a declaration that where wrongdoing existed-not the petty thievery to which he referred, but where waste and extravagance existed-it would be eradicated. Instead of taking such a stand, a stand which would have won the keen admiration of the members of this house and of the people of this country, he took it upon himself to devote his time to certain things-if they are wrong that has yet to be established-which in no way afford an escape-hatch to the government for its failure to carry out the responsibilities that it must

carry out. When Canadians are being taxed at the highest level in Canadian history, surely they have a right to ask that the attitude of the government will not be that of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) -"What is a million anyhow?"-or the recent attitude of the Prime Minister following a suggestion by one of the members of the opposition-". . . that would be only a $3 million saving". The government may set up a committee, and the committee may act as it would act if it were directed, but it cannot remove these two portions of the report which read as follows:
The conclusion I have come to is that, while there has been a general breakdown in the system of administration, supervision and accounting, it was only at Petawawa that extensive irregularities over a prolonged period of time took place.
Those are the words concerning a general breakdown. Where is there anything of hope for the Canadian people in the message of the Prime Minister today? Calumny of political opponents cannot answer what the Canadian people are asking us in this parliament to do, to end waste and extravagance, realizing that our defence problem will possibly last for generations. Surely the taxpayers of Canada have the right to ask that they be relieved, by the practice of the luxury of denial of waste and extravagance on the part of the government, so they may look forward to reductions in taxation; and by that I do not mean cyclical reductions where the cycle comes around just prior to an election. On the same page of the report, negligence and downright stupidity are revealed in these words:
-it must be said that internal warnings had not been lacking in the Department of National Defence. The chief auditor of the department had performed his functions conscientiously. Time and again he had reported unsatisfactory conditions. This is clear from appendix "B" which summarizes his findings over a period of years.
Carelessness is nothing recent; it has continued over a period of years. The report continues:
The deputy minister in each case had directed the quartermaster general to investigate and report. Lack of adequate action at this point had, however, caused a progressive deterioration in the situation. Aside from reports being delayed for considerable periods of time, the record shows the next audit revealing conditions similar to those previously reported and, in some cases, worse. The process is then again repeated.
If ever there was an indictment of a department, surely that is one. I am glad to note that the minister said he is not looking for any scapegoats. As far as I am concerned we have had enough animals in this matter without a scapegoat. No minister need become a scapegoat. The responsibility is that of the government and of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), and it cannot be
Committee on Defence Expenditure discharged by placing the responsibility or the blame on the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) alone.
Then, at pages 715 and 716 the report continues:
There was in addition a serious collapse in security. There was little to prevent or to detect the organized plundering of military stores on a systematic scale, although apparently comparatively little of it took place. If there is excuse for inefficient accounting, there is none for the failure of security which is, after all, a prime military consideration. I take a serious view of this breakdown. If it is easy to pilfer military stores, then, by the same token, it is easy to sabotage military equipment.
Then again, a little later on:
As mentioned earlier, I consider the security measures in force at Petawawa and elsewhere inadequate.
In other words the condemnation extends to lack of security at Petawawa and other camps. The responsibility for that rests upon the government of this country, and it is a responsibility that is not discharged by the setting up of a committee to ascertain whether or not it will be possible to secure a report that will consist of a varnish or an embroidery of wrongdoing instead of a demand on the part of the Prime Minister and his cabinet that this kind of thing must end.
Yes, we are "spending ourselves to destruction." That is what Lenin said. One of the hopes of communism is that in raising our material defences we shall so continue as to weaken our defences of the soul and of the spirit, that private enterprise will cease. When I look at the Canadian record of expenditure which is revealed again in the Currie report, 1 think it indicates, as we realized after Korea, that for the billions of dollars spent before that date we had little or nothing to show.
I think one of the records that has been established by this government is this. Never before have so many Canadians paid such high taxes for so little defence. That, in effect, sums up the record, Mr. Speaker. The report indicates that waste and extravagance have taken place. It also indicates that the road is one of uncontrolled spending and that, regardless of warnings given by spokesmen in the opposition on defence matters, by the hon. member for Nanaimo and others, the same conditions prevail in even exaggerated form. If some of the information that comes to members of parliament, and which has come to me, is in fact correct, it indicates that in the building of airports in this country waste is not one of those things that is being denied by careful accounting on the part of the government.
What is the government trying to do? They want to set up a committee. They make a microscopic examination with regard to

Committee on Defence Expenditure some of the mistakes that they say exist in the report. No amount of explanation with regard to horses can ever eradicate one thing and it is this. However they were there, there was in fact fraud connected with their being there; and no denial on the part of the government can answer the allegation that at Petawawa there was in fact a situation that has given to Canadians as a whole a horselaugh but at the same time a realization that if such things could exist, there is no limit to the extent to which waste and extravagance could go undetected.
We ask for action. The Canadian people are asking for action. They are asking for a reduction in taxation. Mr. Speaker, the byelections in the last two years have indicated clearly that the Canadian people have not that confidence in the government which the government has in the committee that it intends to set up to examine the report by Mr. Currie.
Rights of parliament? Mr. Speaker, no one wants wrongdoing. But the synthetic rage exhibited by the Prime Minister today will not give an answer to the Canadian people, to the question as to why it is that waste and extravagance exist. The people of Canada are beginning to realize why taxation is at its present high level. I am sure that if it continues much longer the Canadian people will be saying to the government what Cromwell once said: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart,
I say, and let us have done with you."
Mr. Speaker, the by-elections reveal the people's feelings. In 1935 Mr. King-and I have his speeches here-was answered by those then on the government benches in the same way: "We have a majority". His reply was in effect: "It is a phantom majority. It may be able to secure results now but it is no longer representative of the desire and the wishes of the Canadian people." I believe that today Canadians are not asking for smokescreens by the Prime Minister, and not for annoyances built up over the discovery of a document which, according to the Prime Minister, should not have been brought before parliament. What the people want to know of this government is this, and I come back to it because it is the subject in the minds and hearts of Canadians. Are you no longer qualified to meet the challenge to do away with waste and extravagance? Have you become all-powerful? Must a man like Pitt in Winnipeg be dismissed, or rather translated into other spheres because he did not show the respect to the members of the government, or to some of them, that those members believe they are entitled to? Have we come to a position in this country

where, regardless of what is being done, a committee is to be set up the purpose of which is as clear as one's hand in front of him? That purpose is to dissuade Canadians from believing in the integrity and the capacity of Mr. Currie who last March, April and May was pictured by members of the government as a man fitted in every way to discharge his responsibility with honour, with integrity and with responsibility.
What is the committee going to do? It is going to sit; it is going to review the Currie findings. Does anybody in this house suggest that those findings will not finally be diluted by the kind of examination that will take place? Will they not be given a gloss and a polish? Will the rough things not be removed, the elevations removed and the depressions filled in?


Mr. Studer:: Why do you always ask for them?


John George Diefenbaker: Until that is done the Prime Minister says he believes it is fit and proper that the members of the armed forces of this country should not be permitted to discuss the matter. They are frightened; they are afraid to give any information any more. They are afraid to tell a member of parliament anything because if they do they place themselves in jeopardy. I am not speaking about this report now; I am speaking about the fact-and I say it to you, Mr. Speaker- that wherever one's parliamentary rights are interfered with each and every one of us has a responsibility, whatever our party, to oppose it. And if we come to a point where our sources of information are dried up by threat or fear of intimidation, then we are indeed placed in a position where wrong will be concealed, where the things that ought to be revealed will be kept under the kind of lid the Prime Minister and those associated with him believe will result from the setting up of this committee.
Members of parliament have no privileges to do wrong. Their privileges are restricted as they should be restricted. Indeed, our privileges are fewer than those of members of the British parliament. When approaching parliamentary buildings they have the right over approaching traffic, and are thereby preserved from potential injury. We do not have that here.
We can learn from the British parliament, and the quotations already given indicate above everything else that a principle is at stake, whatever the party may be, whoever the individual in parliament may be. The independence of members of parliament must

be maintained inviolate and not subject in any way to challenge unless a criminal offence is committed.
1 am not going to say anything about the answer of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson), but on several occasions when he has been asked "Why are you not doing something in that matter?" I have heard him say, in effect: "We cannot; the Attorney General of Canada dare not use the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Prosecutions under the Criminal Code are a matter for the attorney general of the province." I remember once he read me a lecture on the subject of the use of the police force. I am reminded too of the one he read to the house urging that appeals to the privy council should be abolished in order to remove colonialism from Canada; and he was the first one to appeal when he was dissatisfied with the judgment and secured one there that undermined the constitution.
I say this to him: He had no right to utilize the services of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police unless a charge had been preferred or an information laid, or unless the investigation was in pursuance of the attorney general's direction. I am pointing that out to him because I am quoting in effect the stand he has taken repeatedly.
Whatever happened in so far as that document is concerned, what annoys the government is that it was found out that the report brought before parliament had received treatment, the Lux treatment, in order to remove any stains on the government that may have been there. I sometimes wonder, Mr. Speaker, whether the reports we receive and the answers given in reply to parliamentary questions do not indicate that a similar form of treatment has been accorded them before being tabled in the House of Commons.
Parliament has its rights. Without parliament freedom cannot be maintained. Wrongdoing it will not condone. But parliament dare not allow its national police force to be used in any way that may be considered political, or to have a political purpose in mind. That is the most serious situation, as I see it, in connection with this matter. Using the mounted police-


Mr. Smith (Moose Mountain):: National security.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John George Diefenbaker: National security, Mr. Speaker! I know my hon. friend was speaking jocularly. After all, it was government security that was the consideration. There is nothing in national security that in any way 68108-66
Committee on Defence Expenditure would have been interfered with in that document. The only security the government could possibly find in danger was its own reputation and its own security. I am glad my hon. friend brought that up because it clarifies the atmosphere-


John James Smith: Not to me.


John George Diefenbaker: -he being in need of information of a dependable character in that connection. As a matter of fact not one iota of national security is being undermined, not a suggestion of it, in any line of that entire report. But, Mr. Speaker, it does reveal in lurid colours, not in lurid words, a government spending without sufficient check billions of dollars and boasting about the surplus they have and the number of extra dollars they take out of every Canadian. They boast about their capacity to tax. What Canadians want them to be able to do is boast of their ability to assure that for every dollar spent there will be a dollar in defence, and not waste and extravagance.


Mr. Ferrie:: They can do it, too.


John George Diefenbaker: They are doing it, too? I hope the Prime Minister puts my hon. friend on that committee, because he will be an unprejudiced member. Today I think the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) owed1 a duty to parliament not to endeavour to conceal, not to raise a smokescreen in order to cover up what the report reveals. What he should have done was come before parliament which, after all, is; based upon trust, and apologize to the Canadian people for having permitted conditions like this to exist, and instead of repudiating them when discovered, prosecuting only a few of those small wrongdoers. He should have given the assurance to parliament and the people of Canada that what has happened; is past, but that it will not happen again.
There was no such promise, no such undertaking. Instead of such an undertaking there is a motion for the setting up of a committee for the purpose-and I repeat this-of reviewing the findings of the man who, they said with all the power at their command, was a man that they would trust. Trust! And when he made a return they ordered him, they directed him-and this was without the Prime Minister's knowledge-to bring in the findings, the work sheets, to see whether the work he had done would meet with the approval of those whose responsibility it was to see that things like that did not occur. I say the time has come for parliament not to be setting up such committees.


An hon. Member:: That is news.

Committee on Defence Expenditure


John George Diefenbaker: Someone has said to me, "Well, some of your members have asked for committees of parliament." Yes, and I have asked for them in the past. But from the experience I have had, with the exception of the committee on external affairs, and in a lesser degree the committee on radio, as well as one or two others, the conclusions at which they arrived had all the spontaneity that a directed verdict from the government would demand.
That is not what the Canadian people want. Currie spoke as he saw the evidence revealed. He wrote it down in a report, and he made recommendations; but it was suggested that he remove some of those factual things that would shock the sensibilities of the government. When, the report is finally produced, and the government finds itself in a position of being indicted, it asks for the setting up of a committee, a jury of its own, to determine whether the judge came to the right conclusion.
Is there that degree of responsibility in an attitude of that kind that you, Mr. Speaker, as the custodian of the conscience of parliament, would expect? If Currie was what he was in March and April last, the epitome of propriety, a man of infinite capacity and integrity, why set up a committee in 1953, eight months later, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the conclusions he arrived at were, in fact, the proper ones?
We tried to move an amendment, but we did not succeed. Your Honour found that our amendment was not within the rules. When I heard the Prime Minister close his remarks today by saying that he would vote against having Mr. Currie continue with the investigation, I wondered why.


Paul Joseph James Martin: He did not say that.


Jean Lesage: That is not what he said, and you know it. He said he would vote against the amendment.


John George Diefenbaker: That he would vote against the amendment-and I thank my hon. friend for that interruption, because it indicates that he is in favour of Mr. Currie; but is going to vote against giving Canada an opportunity of using Mr. Currie's services to find wrongdoing where it exists, to reveal waste and extravagance wherever it may be found and, above everything else, to do what the Canadian people sent us here to do-to save them money and end this orgy of waste that is going on across the country, so as to assure Canadians a dollar's return for every dollar spent in defence.


Mr. E. T. Applewhaife (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, it would be very difficult for me, a


new and inexperienced member, to follow the dramatic oratory of the experienced parliamentarian from Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker). But throughout his speech I noted such a similarity to a speech of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew), which I intend to quote in a few moments, that I do not think it necessary to pay further attention to what the hon. member said, any more than to point out that at the beginning and at the close of his most dramatic address he drew analogy between the Currie report and a case in court.
Of course no one is better qualified to draw that analogy, because the hon. member has a reputation well known in the courts. Yet he said that referring the Currie report to a committee was like calling in the judge and talking over the case. Well, I think the hon. member in his career has, on more than one occasion, known of cases referred to a court of appeal on some point. I think, sir, that if I had been sitting where he sits and had been making his speech, and he had been over here, he would have folded his arms and said, "Where, oh where, Mr. Speaker, is the principle of the grand old Tory party that parliament is always the final court of appeal?"
We are debating a resolution which asks- That a select committee be appointed to continue the examination of all expenditure of public moneys for national defence and all commitments for expenditure for national defence since March 31, 1950, and to report from time to time their observations and opinions thereon, and in particular, what, if any, economies consistent with the execution of the policy decided by the government may be effected therein.
And then the powers of the committee are set out. To this resolution an amendment and a subamendment have been moved, both of which tend either to guide or instruct the committee in the carrying out of that resolution.
I was a member of the committee that sat last year, and I presume the duties of this year's committee will be much the same, namely to investigate all expenditures for national defence. But it will be only natural that some priority will be given to those expenditures which have been made the subject of charges or criticisms against the government.
It is earnestly to be hoped that this year the charges and criticisms which will cause the committee a lot of work may be at least reasonably well founded. Last year I permitted myself to be quite impressed by a speech made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) who, I regret, is not in his seat at the moment. It was a good speech, well delivered. It was impressive and I, not

having the experience then that I have now, was quite impressed. He said, as found at page 1797 of Hansard for May 1 last year:
The Petawawa incident is something which does more than merely raise the necessity for charges being laid. It is a great deal more than that. Let us remember that this is not the first time that there have been extensive thefts from camps here in Canada. This is not the first time that there have been warnings to the Department of National Defence that it was necessary that there be careful supervision of the military establishments of this country. There was, for instance-apart from other lootings in other camps-the dramatic episode at Farnham in Quebec where, for all practical purposes, it was discovered in December, 1949, that a whole camp had disappeared. That camp was equipped with plumbing, electrical fixtures, wiring, sinks, showers, refrigerators and all the things that go along with camps . . . That camp disappeared except for a few of the walls and the foundations which could not be conveniently moved. Of more than 100 wooden structures-and very solid wooden structures they were-in that huge camp area, an undisclosed number had been lifted intact from their foundations by a heavy-tracked vehicle and sold for prices ranging from $25 to $50 to farmers and other residents in the eastern townships at that time.
I think perhaps I am to be forgiven for having been quite impressed by that charge, and I decided when I was made a member of the committee that I was going to find out about that one. Eventually we got to it. We did not get to it right at the start but finally we did, and you will find the proceedings with respect to it reported at page 246 of the minutes of proceedings and evidence of last year's committee. The witness before the committee at the time was Mr. E. B. Armstrong, assistant deputy minister for finance, Department of National Defence. I shall have to weary the house with a few of the questions and answers. I was the questioner and Mr. Armstrong was the witness. They are:
Q. What is the total amount of our investment at Farnham when it was an operating camp?
A. The total investment at Farnham was $96,344.40.
Q. And that covered a camp of something over 200 buildings?
A. That covered a camp of something over 200 buildings, plus the services that went into the camp.
Q. And of these 200 buildings, thirty-one were stolen?
A. Of these 200 buildings thirty-one were stolen, yes.
Q. And twenty-six of those stolen were recovered?
A. Twenty-six of the thirty-one were recovered.
Q. The net loss in buildings was five, is that right?
A. That is right.	.
Q. Were any of the stolen buildings latrines?
A. I beg your pardon?
Q. Were any of the stolen buildings latrines?
A. Nearly all of the buildings at the camp had latrines in them.
Q. When the camp was in use what was the nature of the buildings that were stolen?


C8108-6612
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Committee on Defence Expenditure
A. The missing buildings-I will give you a description of them: there were thirteen large latrines, three small latrines, three shower huts, nine kitchens, one orderly room, one quartermaster's stores, and one storage building.
Q. Were there only thirty-one buildings standing at the time of the theft?
A. Oh, no, sir, all of the buildings were standing at that period. There were 214 buildings.
Q. Then the whole camp had not disappeared?
A. No, sir.
Then at page 247 there1 are these questions and answers:
Q. I have never seen the camp. The camp was of such a nature that two men could provide adequate day and night coverage in all parts of the camps at all times?
A. The court of inquiry found that there were insufficient security guards to assure 100 per cent security and in order to have the number of guards the court of inquiry considered necessary it would have involved adding fourteen additional guards, which would have cost something in the neighbourhood of $30,000 a year for salaries.
Q. Mr. Chairman, the witness has just told us that to have complete coverage of the camp would have required fourteen additional security guards at an annual cost of approximately $30,000. What was the value of everything you had at Farnham at the time of the thefts?
A. The total value would be approximately $10,000, about one-tenth of the original investment.
Lower down on the same page there are a few more questions. I read:
Q. -Did the court of inquiry or some investigating body make some recommendations in this connection, and if so what was done about it?
A. There was a court of inquiry. Would you like me to read the findings of the court of inquiry?
Q. Yes.
A. First, that engineers stores, buildings and ordnance stores, had been irregularly removed from the camp and that the original cost of such loss was $27,534.92. Secondly, these stores, etc., were removed during the calendar year 1949. Thirdly, two civilian caretakers had been directly implicated in the unlawful disposal of this material. Fourth, that the provost corps and the R.C.M.P. on investigation had located certain quantities of stores and buildings. Fifth, that the net loss after depreciation and recovery of missing material is $3,551.16 and that this represented the net loss to the crown. Sixth, that absolute security would entail the employment of sixteen men at a salary of $1,500 per annum. This would cost $24,000 per year against the then present cost of $3,000.
So, Mr. Speaker, the Farnham bubble burst. The bombshell delivered so forcibly by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) in the house turned out to be not even a child's firecracker but a very wet and very defunct squib. Surely that justifies the wording of the editorial in the Ottawa Citizen of January 14 in which it is suggested that criticism should "be based on knowledge rather than on gossip and conjecture." If reducing wild statements of this sort to the facts is whitewashing of the government; if reducing the charge that a whole camp has disappeared so there are no buildings left except a few walls,
[Stage Direction]
Committee on Defence Expenditure to the fact that 31 buildings were taken, of which half were privies or latrines, and 183 were left intact; if bringing out the facts with respect to charges of that sort is whitewashing the government, then I am glad to plead guilty.
With respect to the charge that this or apparently any committee would whitewash the government because there would be a Liberal majority on the committee, I wonder if any opposition member who brings that idea forward does so seriously. I would point out to them that the proportion of government to opposition members on the committee as set up last year was far less favourable to the government than was the proportion in the house, and whether we like it or not, whether they like it or not, the proportion in the house is one which was dictated by the electorate of the country. I think they will find that in any parliamentary institution anywhere in Canada, irrespective of the political colour of the government of the day, an effort is made to set up parliamentary committees roughly reflecting the party membership of the house, and in this house if there were not a substantial number of Liberals on every committee I do not know where you would get your committees.
A point which was made in connection with the committee by the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Pearkes), who I regret is not in his seat at the moment, was the complaint that there was difficulty in obtaining information. You will find that he said in his recent speech, as recorded at page 969 of Hansard, that the committee had difficulty in obtaining the information it wanted. I should like to refer to an incident in the last committee to see whether or not there is any real justification for that particular complaint. On page 287 of the committee's proceedings- and at this time the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Pearkes) was present-the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart), who is not a supporter of this government, made this statement after we had visited one of the department's establishments:
Mr. Stewart:: I would like to say this:	I
thought the visit was not as instructive as it might have been for what we were seeing there were principles and principles are very excellent. We have ten principles which are called the Commandments but when they are put into practice they do not always work out the way they should.
What I wanted to see was a lot of detail. I asked one officer down there. "Can I see certain things?" and he said "I am sorry, you will have to ask somebody else; you are on a conducted tour." So, I saw some other person who holds a more responsible position in the system and I said, "Can I be a loose leaf around here?" and he said, "I think you are going to see everything we can present to you and the committee." And all we did see was these principles whereas what I was interested in seeing was how these principles were put into effect, how the record worked,

how the stock gibed up with the actual record of stock kept-those were details in which I was particularly interested. I am quite sure none of us have seen them in the time at our disposal yesterday but I got the impression that we only saw what we were expected to see. I may be quite wrong but I do want to see something else.
Then the chairman speaks.


Louis-René Beaudoin: Well, Mr. Stewart, at your convenience anything you want to see will be made available to you.


Alan Carl Stewart: What I wanted to see was very elementary.


Louis-René Beaudoin: You just say when and it will be arranged for you to go down and ask for whatever you want to see.
Those arrangements were made and on page 313 of the proceedings you will find this-and the member for Greenwood (Mr. Macdonnell) was being active for the Conservative party:


Mr. Macdonnell:: Could I interject one thing, Mr. Chairman? Would it be fair to add that while you say it was all unanimous, the report of the steering committee, it was felt that if any individual member here wished to make special arrangements to carry out some further inquiry that could be done.


Louis-René Beaudoin: I indicated that at the last meeting, Mr. Macdonnell, that if anyone wished to do that, facilities would be made available to them.
That brings me to page 337 of the committee's proceedings. I would like to point out that the hon. member for Winnipeg North did go to the trouble of making his own personal investigation; that exactly the same opportunity was offered by the chairman of the committee to representatives of the Conservative party but they, for reasons which they no doubt saw fit, did not take advantage of it. At this time the hon. member for Winnipeg North was speaking and the member for Nanaimo was not present. As a matter of fact, this was the 3rd of June and someone else had been substituted on the committee for the hon. member for Nanaimo. At that time I understand that there was a provincial election going on in British Columbia. The member for Winnipeg North said:
A week ago, Mr. Chairman, I expressed some dissatisfaction with the conducted tour since I wanted1 to see things that I did not see. I said in committee that I wanted to be foot loose and on my own, but the reporter has me down as saying "Can I be loose leaf around here." If I said that I should be filed away, but I assure the committee that I did not say that. However, Mr. Armstrong made arrangements for me to visit the depot on Friday and I went down there with him and Mr. Kidd and I wish to express my thanks at the moment to Mr. Armstrong and1 to Colonel Denney, to Major Suttie and Lieutenant Colonel Holliday as well as Mr. Kidd for the help they gave me. What we did was to take an indent at random and trace it all the way through till the stores asked for on the indent were issued out. I saw in detail what I had wanted to see previously, and from what I did see I am quite satisfied1 that the system down there is as good as human ingenuity can

make it. Of course we have to take into consideration that weaknesses in the human factor will break down any system, but the various checks on individuals should be adequate to prevent any loss. To have complete security would make the cost so enormous that it would far exceed, I think, the losses that are sustained. I am satisfied with the result of my visit and the only comment I wish to make on it is that the next time was have a witness such as Mr. Armstrong coming before the committee and dealing with a subject such as the one we have been dealing with, that it would save a lot of time in committee if we could see the things that we are discussing before we discuss them.
That was not a statement by a supporter of this government. The hon. member for Nanaimo in his recent speech made some statements with which somebody has to take issue, and I have elected myself that individual. Last year the committee sat in April, May and June. The first arrest following the Petawawa incident was, I understand, on May 13. The hon. member for Nanaimo was hardly fair and hardly correct when he stated on page 964 of Hansard for January 13, 1953:
It was said that we must not go into the matter of Petawawa camp because the Currie commission was investigating it.
That was all the hon. member for Nanaimo said on the subject. His own leader, whose letter he quoted with approval, wrote, as appears on the same page of Hansard:
Members of the opposition who sat on the committee made a determined effort last spring to inquire into the situation at Petawawa. They were denied any opportunity to do so with the explanation that this might prejudice the trials of those already charged with theft and also that Mr. Currie had been appointed to conduct an inquiry . . .
I was at practically every meeting of that committee, and so far as I know everybody agreed that Petawawa was sub judice. Some members of the committee may not have agreed that was sufficient reason for not going there. On the same page of Hansard, 964, again I think the hon. gentleman was far from fair to the committee when he said:
There was some question about making inquiries regarding item No. 87 (a) on a list provided for us, which item dealt with aircraft for the R.C.A.F. and the navy. One would think that a defence expenditures committee would be permitted to investigate the expenditure of a sum which at that time was listed at no less than $668,986,840, of which over $100 million was to be spent in that year. But no; the committee must not investigate any spending in connection with such a large sum of money as $668 million odd1.
It happens that in that particular instance the hon. member for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness) was the active Conservative on the committee following up the expenditures. I would like to say that the member for Calgary East was extremely careful and extremely fair to the committee and to the department in that he made it clear that no
Committee on Defence Expenditure answers to his questions would be expected if they in any way interfered with national security. Why the hon. member for Nanaimo did not see fit to include that in his speech is something for which I cannot account.


Douglas Scott Harkness: May I ask the hon. member a question? Would he not agree that I was never satisfied that the denial of information was justified?


Edward Turney Applewhaite: I would hardly agree with that because the hon. member's questions were usually so very carefully and politely worded. For instance, at the bottom of page 412 of the committee's proceedings this appears:


Douglas Scott Harkness: I did not ask for the numbers or anything of that nature. All I have asked for was a breakdown of the amounts for the four types and I could not quite see how that could affect the security angle.


Mr. Drury:: The breakdown of the four types would enable a reasonable estimate to be made of the size of each-
I still think that the member for Calgary East was extremely fair and reasonable.


Douglas Scott Harkness: But is it not a fact that I never agreed that the information should be denied?


Edward Turney Applewhaite: The hon. member prefaced most of his questions with security reservations.
It seems to me that this is the first time in my short experience here that the official opposition have not been 100 per cent all-out for a committee. It seems to me that I have sat here and heard them ask for committees on almost every possible facet of the nation's business until the Prime Minister put this resolution on the order paper to appoint this committee. Now we hear a great many criticisms against it, the chief one being that it would be in the nature of a whitewash. We hear from certain quarters-I believe a spokesman for the Social Credit brought this up this afternoon-that a royal commission should be appointed to follow up these matters which would normally be referred to this committee. If the members of this house are going to claim that a committee appointed by this government is going to do a whitewashing job, are those same members not going to make the same complaint about a royal commission appointed by this government with the additional complaint, which I think would have merit, that months and perhaps years of delay would result before any sort of finding could be brought down.
The opposition asks for more information for the committee. I have not been here for very long but I am told by people on more than one side of this house, who have been
1038	HOUSE OF
Committee on Defence Expenditure here for many years, that more information was supplied to the defence expenditures committee last year than has been supplied to any committee of this house within the memory of these men. I know from personal experience that the volume of typed returns which came in as a result of the questions, and the detailed answers we got from the witnesses, were quite sufficient, had there been no other parliamentary business going on at the time, to keep the members of that committee fully occupied for ten or fourteen hours a day. Those members of the committee who sat there day in and day out, whether or not the subject under investigation was spectacular, will agree with the truth of what I have said.
I should like to refer to a speech made by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) on the radio program "The Nation's Business". I doubt if there is any member in the house who is accorded more general respect than the hon. member for Vancouver East. In this recent broadcast he made, as he always makes, an excellent speech. One may not always agree with everything he says, but you have to admit that he says it well and makes it sound very reasonable. In dealing with the Currie report he stressed the angle that the Currie report indicates a tendency toward a breakdown in security. I believe he has a point there. He pointed out with perfect justification that there are tremendously dangerous implications if in this country our security breaks down. I should like to say to the hon. member for Vancouver East, and to those of his party, that the security of this country is not likely to be enhanced so long as the mentality exists in Canada that the obtaining by any means or the retaining of unauthorized property is a legitimate or natural proceeding.
In the first half of his address the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) referred at considerable length to Mr. George Currie's discussions with the department. I am neither a member of that department nor very high in its confidence, so I do not know of what these discussions consisted. Undoubtedly the member for Winnipeg North Centre felt that such discussions should not have been held. I suppose the majority of the members of this house are or have been at some time the heads of some sort of organization, perhaps a law office with three or four employees or perhaps a large factory with 300 or 400 employees. I suggest that if any of them suspected that there was pilfering or a leak of some kind in their organization, they would call in a chartered accountant to investigate the matter. This


chartered' accountant would be working for them to find out the answers to the problems that were troubling them.
Are you going to tell me that one of these employers would not have the right to discuss his own problems with the auditor who was called in to assist him in solving those problems? Unless I have this thing all wrong, Mr. Speaker, the impression seems to be held by a great many people that the Currie investigation was a secret investigation of the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) for this house. According to the way I look at it, it was an investigation for the Minister of National Defence. The minister asked for an investigation of his own organization. It seems to me that that auditor and the minister personally could conceivably and justifiably have gotten together every few days as the investigation went along, to find out how the thing was going along and to see if either could give any assistance or information to the other. Why not?
There is another aspect of the Currie report which I should like to mention briefly. May I hsk you to call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker?
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.
Edward Turney Applewhaite: Mr. Speaker, in replying to the comprehensive outline given by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton), in which he quite frankly pointed out the shortage of manpower available when we were hit by the Korean conflict, the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Pearkes) stated that the shortage of forces of any kind was due to this government's policy in approximately 1946 and 1947.
To that statement I do not think anybody can take any exception. But had this country been asked by this government in 1946 or 1947 to maintain a standing army-which is what it would have been-the size of that which we now have, I wonder what we would have heard from the opposition, and what criticisms we would have had as to adopting a military attitude, as to wasting the public funds, and so on and so forth, at a time when, let me remind you, the whole world was war-sick and peace-minded, and when disarmament was practically the keynote of the policies of all the democracies.
Oh, yes, they may say, but what about Russia? This is a fine example of one particular attribute which the opposition has in

unlimited quantities, namely a comprehensive hindsight. Mr. Churchill, Mr. Truman nor any of the other great leaders of that day in the world were able to foresee the situation in which we find ourselves today. However, the hon. member for Nanaimo does not always make statements with which I disagree. In the course of his speech, as reported at page 961 of Hansard, he said:
It is for the government to defend itself and to explain how it has taken care of the $2 billion of the taxpayers' money which this department has been called upon to expend in the cause of national defence.
With that statement I entirely agree. It is for this government to account for those expenditures, and that is exactly what this committee is being set up for. As to the hon. member's criticism of the make-up of the committee, I had already dealt with that matter before the supper recess. But if he is against such a committee, if he is against this government making its defence before a committee appointed by this parliament, where are all these Conservative claims for the supremacy of parliament? Where have they gone? The hon. gentleman's real complaint is not the appointment of this committee. His real complaint is the verdict which was rendered by the electorate in 1949, as a result of which we find ourselves with the set-up we have today. He admitted that plaintively and I quote his own words as reported at page 964 of Hansard:
Therefore if the representatives of the Conservatives and the other groups all voted together they were only able to marshal nine votes against the seventeen of the supporters of the government on the committee.
It is perhaps tragic from the hon. member's point of view, but that is the situation; and it would be a much more exaggerated situation were the defence to be made in detail in this house instead of in a committee appointed by this house.
The hon. gentleman suggests that what is needed now is not more committees but action on the report. In that connection he read into the record a letter written by his own leader which stated in part:
You said that the Currie report would be submitted to the committee on defence expenditures. One of my reasons for writing this letter is to point out that this procedure is neither necessary nor desirable.
And further on:
We need no inquiry into the report of another inquiry. We need action on the report now before us. It makes positive recommendations.
For once the official opposition does not want action by a committee, for the first time in its history. It says it wants action on the report. It has got it. The minister
Committee on Defence Expenditure has already outlined that. It has got action on most of the recommendations, most of which were implemented before they were even made. The hon. member for Nanaimo complains because the department is, to use his own words, "resentful of criticism". As reported at page 964 of Hansard he said:
This department is following the pattern set up by the government. It is resentful of any criticism which may be offered of it.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) seems to agree. It seems to me that these opposition members are resentful of any effort to straighten out the record in the face of the wild charges which have been made by some of the opposition members. They also appear to me to be resentful of anyone's defending himself against any charge which they may see fit to make.
If I may, I should like to turn my attention for a moment to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, who is in his seat and who-it should be said, to be fair-is always in his seat except when he is on his feet. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, who has been the one all through this incident to take the lead in bringing before the house the mysterious unauthorized copy of the Currie report, seems to me to have adopted the attitude of the young man who tosses a coin in the air and confidently expects it to come down both heads and tails. As reported at page 972 of Hansard, he stated:
The report that came into the possession of my leader was not covered by any official secrets act. It was not a government document.
He said on page 968:
Between the first draft and the second draft changes were made.
He complained earlier, on page 655:
I have since had an opportunity, which I had not had at the time I asked my question this morning, to compare some of the pages in the printed report which was tabled this morning with the same pages in another printed copy of the report which has been in our possession for a few days.
Either it is or it is not a report which was the property of the Department of National Defence. How can they justify their criticism of the supposed changes in the report if it was not a government report; and how can they object to, shall we say, conjecture from this side of the house as to how it came into their possession; if it was a copy of a confidential report which was then to be, but had not yet been submitted to the minister, is not there some justification perhaps for our feelings of criticism?
I hope this committee, as the resolution says, continues with its investigation. Even the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Pearkes)
1040	HOUSE OF
Committee on Defence Expenditure admitted in the beginning of his remarks that last year the committee did accomplish some beneficial results. It can accomplish a lot more. It can accomplish those results only after it has been set up and has been put to work. I should like to see that done at the earliest possible moment, and I would express the hope that when it has been constituted the Liberal members appointed thereto will be looking for facts and not for headlines.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, the tabling of the Currie report in this House of Commons on December 15 was a major event in current Canadian political history; and whatever has been said since, as this issue has moved from one climax to another, will never subtract one iota from the importance of that event.
I wish to go back, however, to events that occurred in the week prior to the tabling of the report in this house. This story was unfolded to us by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) in the statement he made several weeks ago. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) was absent on duty in Paris, and the report came into the hands of the Acting Minister of National Defence, the Solicitor General (Mr. Campney), we were told, on December 9, as he was departing for Toronto, catching a train. Now, it is interesting to follow up this important mission upon which the Solicitor General was embarking at the time this report was placed in his possession. Was it an event of great national importance that took him away from the capital at the moment this report was placed in his hands as Acting Minister of National Defence? Actually the mission the Solicitor General was embarking on as he took his train for Toronto on that occasion was to address a certain Liberal group which met the following day, and in the course of his address to that political group-


Mr. Campney:: What is wrong with that?


Donald Methuen Fleming: There is this wrong with it: The tabling of this report in the house was delayed at least a couple of days by reason of the fact that the minister concerned was more involved at the moment in fulfilling some partisan engagement than he was in attending to the nation's business; that is all.
Now, what did the minister have to say on this occasion in addressing this particular meeting?


Ralph Osborne Campney: May I just say that I stated very clearly that the reason the tabling of the report was delayed was in order that it might first be put in the hands of the Prime Minister, and of the Minister of National Defence. The event to which my hon. friend refers had nothing to do with it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The only thing that is wrong with the hon. gentleman's reply is that it does not jibe with the record as we have been told of the events. But let me go on to what was said on the important mission that took the minister away, when there was no time to consider the Currie report. He is reported in the Toronto Daily Star of Tuesday, December 9, as having said to those he was addressing:
But let us, above all, tell the people of this country what we have done.
Further down in the article he speaks of "Canada's fine contribution to collective defence, and the complete freedom from graft or scandal in the national government."


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Donald Methuen Fleming: And, Mr. Speaker, the minister had in his possession at that time the Currie report which exposed the greatest national scandal in this country since the Beauharnois scandal was exposed by Mr. Bennett twenty years ago. Here we have a typical example of Liberal propaganda, the minister leaving this report behind in Ottawa and apparently not having time to read it, and making a statement which is so completely contradicted by the facts that were then available.
Now, sir, it is no wonder that there is so much confusion on the part of hon. members to your right, Mr. Speaker, in connection with this whole matter, because there has been hopeless confusion in the government's approach to it ever since the Currie report was tabled in this house. A variety of contradictions and confusion on their part is nothing new. We who sit in this house see it opposite continually, but on this occasion it was perhaps a little more marked because variety apparently was unlimited.
The first approach by the government members of this house was reflected in a speech made on December 16 by the hon. member for Northumberland, Ont. (Mr. Robertson), who apparently went out of his way to seek to put the blame on the "top brass". Then you remember that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) spoke in the house on the same day. He was met by a chorus of interruptions by hon. members opposite, who sometimes find that about the only way they have to participate in proceedings, in which they kept shouting about the "top brass". That apparently was the way the matter stood at that time. The idea, the strategy of the government-at least of its followers-at that time was to place responsibility on those who are called the top brass.

Then you remember, Mr. Speaker, how significant it was that in the discussion of a matter of such vital national importance the Prime Minister remained silent. There was plenty of opportunity for him to participate but when it came to putting up a minister on Wednesday evening, December 17, to make the first statement on behalf of the government, in the absence of the Minister of National Defence, who was it that should have made that statement? I submit to you, sir, the statement should have been made by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister did not make the statement. He put up instead the junior member of the cabinet-


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: When you are Prime Minister you will decide what minister should speak.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -a man who had no responsibility for events that are referred to in the report. He was not a member of the cabinet at that time. He had been a member of the cabinet for only a few days. I do not think it was fair to the Solicitor General to put him in that position at that time. It was, in my submission, the responsibility of the Prime Minister; but that responsibility was not discharged.
The next stage, Mr. Speaker, was the statement made by the Solicitor General on the evening of December 17, and it was very interesting. What was his approach to the question? It became obvious at once, because the minister had not gone any more than a matter of several minutes before he struck the key note, and it was this: The whole matter of the Currie report was, as he put it, "a relatively small matter". Further on in his remarks he said: "in the aggregate it is not of very great magnitude". Further on he complained about the exaggeration of the opposition, although everything we had said had been drawn directly from the text of the report.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we had an opportunity of gauging the government's approach at that stage. The attempt at that point was to play down the report, to minimize it, to make it appear that after all it was a trifling matter, and it was nothing for anybody in the country or in parliament to get very much excited about.
Well, it was not to be expected that the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) would be silent very long, and he turned up at Kingston the following Saturday night and made a statement there. It is reported in the Toronto Daily Star of December 20-


John Lorne MacDougall: That is all old stuff.
Committee on Defence Expenditure


Donald Methuen Fleming: I think it is high time the hon. member had his memory refreshed on some of these things. I know he does not like being reminded of some of these silly statements the ministers are making as they flit around the country, but he is going to hear one or two more if he stays in the house. Here is what the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) said about the Currie report:
But I also think Mr. Currie, as a professional man, was rather extravagant with some of his statements, when all he was supposed to do was report on facts and suggest improvements.
Apparently Mr. Currie, in the view of the strong man of the cabinet, has committed the cardinal offence of going outside what he was supposed to do. Apparently in passing some words of judgment, for which the Canadian people ought to be grateful to Mr. Currie, he did something he was not supposed to do; and therefore he has come under the censure of the Minister of Trade and Commerce.
Then, of course, come the things which occurred during the Christmas recess. The Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Sinclair), out at the coast, referred to the report as "threshing old straw". The Solicitor General (Mr. Campney), becoming vocal again, talked about exaggeration, and said that the report would "not cut much ice". I think every hon. member will find out that if the report does not cut much ice, it will at least fan the fires of indignation on the part of the Canadian people against this government for its hopeless inefficiency.
Now the Solicitor General has again become vocal, and on this occasion in Toronto. He is reported in the morning press of that city as having said last night in a speech to the Davenport Liberal association:
The Currie report has ballooned out of all proportion to its importance.
And then he said further:
In a business as big as defence is today, there would always be untrustworthy people. They are no more numerous at Petawawa than in any other large business.
And then this significant statement appears:
The Currie report, said Mr. Campney, is an exposure of normal thieving.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Donald Methuen Fleming: And then:
"Nobody is pleased about thieving, but you can't stop people from stealing".
So we have it summed up that what went on at Petawawa was merely normal thieving; and apparently it became normal because it took place under a government which has proven itself so hopelessly inefficient in stopping it. That is the measure of the normalcy.

Committee on Defence Expenditure


John Lorne MacDougall: May I ask the hon. member a question?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I would ask the hon. member to reserve his question until later.
Then we had the statement of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) today. At last the Prime Minister was drawn into this debate-at last. With every indication of reluctance he was drawn into it. He said if it had not been for some statements made by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) he would not have participated in this debate. Well, why not? Is this debate so relatively unimportant that the Prime Minister thinks it is beneath him to participate in it? I say this: More power to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre if he was responsible for, shall we say, drawing or luring the Prime Minister into this debate. And I suppose, Mr. Speaker, that reluctance on the part of the Prime Minister is all part of the government's tactics to play down this report and picture it as something very unimportant, something to be minimized.
There are two major issues which have emerged in the discussions of the Currie report, both of which, in my submission, are of the highest importance to the Canadian parliament. The first has to do with the importance of the report, and the second has to do with responsibility.
As to the importance of the report, the confusion of the government was climaxed when the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) used these words here two days ago in reference to the report: "this important document". At long last we have a minister who says this document is important. This is the report that other members of the government, including the Acting Minister of National Defence, were saying was a relatively unimportant matter. Now finally, the Minister of National Defence has corrected the minister who was acting in his absence, and who had referred to the contents of the report as a relatively small matter.
Again, the Minister of National Defence said, and) very properly, in his speech in the house two days ago that he did not want anybody to consider that he thought what has happened at Petawawa was not serious. Well, that may be a guarded admission; but at any rate we have a minister who seems to say it is serious, and who makes the statement that this Currie report is an important document-and this in the face of statements directly to the contrary by other ministers. In the second place there is an admission on the part of the minister that what happened
{Mr. Fleming.]

at Petawawa is serious-and this after other ministers have been saying that it is a matter of no great magnitude.
That admission by the Minister of National Defence, sir, really was not necessary, because the country well knows how important this matter is. The country has attached a great deal of importance to the Currie report and the shocking scandals which have been exposed by it. And I say that no amount of denial or propaganda or gainsaying or cajolery on the part of ministers or government followers will ever minimize the importance of this report. It has, indeed, revealed the worst scandal in the affairs of government since the Beauharnois scandal was exposed twenty years ago. Make no mistake about it, it has shocked the Canadian people. It has shocked the Canadian conscience.
The other important subject, I said, was that of responsibility. And so I go back to a statement made by the Prime Minister when he spoke in the debate on the address in reply on November 24 when, making reference to the subject of fires and thefts and extravagance in the Department of National Defence, he had this to say:
Much is made of the few regrettable incidents having to do with thefts which have occurred in camps, having to do with fires which have broken out in camps, and incidents of that nature. These are deplorable; but has anyone tried to hold the presidents of the banks responsible because the Boyd gang broke into and robbed the banks? Has anyone attempted to hold a high official of the Bank of Nova Scotia responsible because there is a report that that bank was successfully defrauded of the sum of $250,000 recently?
Mr. Speaker, that of course was uttered before the Currie report had been handed to the government. But it was uttered with reference to a directly comparable matter; and the Prime Minister was taking great care, in public, to wash his hands of personal responsibility, or of governmental responsibility, for anything in the nature of fire, thefts and extravagance within the Department of National Defence.
That has been the tone set throughout the debate; at least it was until two days ago. There has been a denial of responsibility by the Prime Minister, a denial of governmental responsibility, notwithstanding that the institution in which we are meeting this day owes its existence and its dignity to the fact that parliament looks to the government collectively to be responsible for what happens in departments of government entrusted to the charge of ministers.
Well, the Minister of National Defence very properly in his speech two days ago said that he took full responsibility for what happened in his department. That is the

first time any minister or government spokesman has said such a thing since the Currie report was tabled. Other statements have been directed toward a denial of government responsibility.
And, sir, now that the minister has accepted responsibility, under the principle of collective responsibility the whole cabinet bears the responsibility for what has happened. In retaining the minister, the government shares full responsibility with him, and in equal measure. And let me say this to the Liberal majority in the house, that in now retaining in office a government which shares full responsibility for what has happened, that Liberal majority in the house now shares the responsibility of the government for permitting it to continue in office.
The speech made by the Minister of National Defence two days ago was an interesting if not too impressive attempt to explain away the report, its recommendations, its criticisms and its exposures. It was no light paintbrush that he applied. Had one not known the background, and been a complete stranger to the issue before coming into the house, one would have had the feeling that he should have cheered the minister and expressed gratitude to him that things were not very much worse than they were.


An hon. Member:: That's for sure.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I can tell hon. members opposite that the attempts that have been made by ministers and government supporters in this debate this week to deliver attacks on the Currie report-and not always frontal attacks, but rather stealthy attacks-are not going to have the effect of discrediting either Mr. Currie or the report he has written, and in the writing of which he has performed' a service to the Canadian people of the highest magnitude. Yes, any attempt to wash the horses out of the report will only call to mind the fact that that, as we have been told now by the Minister of National Defence, was one of the matters the deputy minister of national defence took up with Mr. Currie and invited him, before his report was submitted to the government, to eliminate from the report. Mr. Currie stood by his statement that horses were placed on the payroll under the names of non-existent labourers.


An hon. Member:: Horselaughs.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Currie stands by that, and I think we will want more than statements obtained by the government from a convict now serving a penitentiary term to convince us that Mr. Currie was wrong in the statements he made and by which he stuck.
Committee on Defence Expenditure


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Now the government is stuck.


An hon. Member:: You are stuck right now.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It will not serve, either, Mr. Speaker, to reduce the long list of reprehensible and scandalous practices that are revealed in the report, quite apart from horses entirely. The shortcomings of the Department of National Defence, as exposed in the report, are summed up by Mr. Currie in the expressions, and I am quoting his own language: "general breakdown in the system of administration", "lax control, poor discipline and presence of dishonest personnel.	The combination proved disastrous"; "a fundamentally loose situation", "the accounting records were in a chaotic condition", "a serious collapse in security". Are these the matters which the government now invites us and the Canadian people to gloss over and consider to be of little or no importance?
No, Mr. Speaker, it will take a great deal more to satisfy the conscience of the Canadian people, in the face of these exposures by an eminently capable investigator, than the kind of statements we have been hearing from the ministers. Let it not be forgotten, sir, that warnings were plentiful. This whole investigation was started, if you please, as the outcome of the receipt of an anonymous letter, but Mr. Currie has been at pains to point out that previous warnings had been numerous. He had this to say, as found at page 712 of Hansard:
-it must be said that internal warnings had not been lacking in the Department of National Defence. The chief auditor of the department had performed his functions conscientiously. Time and again he had reported unsatisfactory conditions. This is clear from Appendix "B" which summarizes his findings over a period of years. The deputy minister in each case had directed the quartermaster general to investigate and report. Lack of adequate action at this point had, however, caused a progressive deterioration in the situation. Aside from reports being delayed for considerable periods of time, the record shows the next audit revealing conditions similar to those previously reported and, in some cases, worse. The process is then again repeated.
What did the deputy minister of national defence do when what he had done in calling these reports of the chief auditor to the attention of the quartermaster general had been ignored? Apparently he did nothing further. What did the minister at the head of that department do? Well, sir, it remains yet to be told to the house whether the minister was aware of these reports of the chief auditor of his department. I hope the minister will tell the house some time before this debate concludes whether he was aware of the reports of the chief auditor of the department to which reference is made in

Committee on Defence Expenditure the paragraph I have just read. If he was not aware of these reports being currently received, then why did he not know? Why, as the responsible head of the department, did he not make it his business to be acquainted with important reports submitted by the chief auditor of the department? If he did know, then why did he not direct that action be taken promptly?
We are hearing now about government willingness to take action promptly when a situation arises. What about these precious months-yes, years-that have gone by when no action whatever was taken? Hon. members will not have forgotten that in the defence expenditure committee last year reference was made, as appears at page 173 of the proceedings, to reports that were being sent in to the department running back, if you please, to June 2, 1949. There were about a dozen of these reports. Was the minister aware of them? If he was not aware of them why was he not? If he was aware of them, why was action not taken to deal with the scandalous conditions they exposed?
Then there is the question of extent. The Solicitor General (Mr. Campney) went to great pains to play down the matter as one of not very great importance in the aggregate. That is not what Mr. Currie says. Mr. Currie puts a very different complexion upon the facts. As found at page 714 of Hansard, he says, after referring to the catalogue or enumeration of some of these scandals and irregularities:
These, then, represent the ascertained cases of irregularity at Petawawa. How many more there may have been will never be known. It was apparent from the beginning of the investigation that the accounting records were in a chaotic condition and would be of little use in determining the nature and extent of irregularities. It is impractical and perhaps impossible, regardless of the time which might be spent on examining records, to try and determine by this means the amount and value of the deficiencies.
He did not stop there, because in the following column he went on to say:
My view would be, however, that the generally lax administrative situation would give rise to waste and inefficiency far more costly in loss than that covered by actual dishonesty.
When the Solicitor General flits about the country making political speeches before partisan audiences and says that it is a small matter in the aggregate, involving not more than $50,000, I confront him with the statement of Mr. Currie that the loss cannot be measured and in any event, even if the loss could be ascertained, it will never begin to compare in cost to the country with the greater loss through waste and inefficiency.
Let us not forget that in his report Mr. Currie put the responsibility where it belongs,
fMr. Fleming.]
at the higher levels, and if he did not carry the words "at or near the top" into the Anal edition of the report at any rate it is quite obvious from the first edition of the report that Mr. Currie had none other in mind than the responsible head of the department, and (perhaps the deputy along with him.
These facts are inescapable. But we now have additional disclosures, Mr. Speaker, since the report of the Auditor General was tabled in the house three days ago. If hon. members will take the trouble to refer to page 24 they will find that esteemed gentleman draws attention to parallel situations existing within the Department of National Defence. He points out that there are at least eight accounting systems, indicating that no sustained effort has been made to achieve uniformity in systems within the services. He catalogues a long list of problems that arise as a consequence of this diversity of accounting systems. He says there is no civilian authority answerable to parliament exercising direct control after procurement and, further on, that general efficiency is not maintained. He draws attention to some specific cases, one of which is where a brigadier received pay for a civilian position in the department for which there had been no competition, while still drawing army pay.
He also draws attention to such a case as we find in item 67, where the department authorized the purchase of a house for an area commandant for $14,000 and authorized expenditures on it of $800. Apparently these limits of authority do not mean very much in a department which is run so loosely, because we find that-
-renovation costs approximated $15,000, and these outlays were made without the consent of the deputy minister being obtained to spend in excess of $800. The result is that the house now represents an outlay of around $29,000, exclusive of materials drawn from army stores.
There, Mr. Speaker, you have proof abundant of the utter looseness of control in this department and the way in which the hard-earned money of the Canadian taxpayer is being thrown around.


An hon. Member:: Who was the brigadier?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Now, sir, I turn to the subject of the course of the debate in this house, because I have to submit to you, sir, that the house has been grossly imposed upon in the course of the debate. There have been-


An hon. Member:: Who was the brigadier?


An hon. Member:: We fired him.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Donald Methuen Fleming: These raucous interruptions sound less like human interruptions than the neighing of many horses.


Some hon. Members:: Whoa!


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is not unusual at all, Mr. Speaker, for discrepancies to exist, but here we find discrepancies as between the statements of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) and the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton). The Minister of National Defence was at great pains in his speech of two days ago to stress the fact that there was no interim report. If you will look back to what was said in this house on December 4, you will recall that the minister was invited by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew), at page 321, to say whether he had-
__received any positive recommendations from Mr. Currie in regard to the subject matter of his inquiry, in writing or orally, and if so is the minister prepared to convey to the house some information as to the nature of the recommendations which have been made?
The Minister of National Defence on that occasion said in reply that he had seen Mr. Currie on one occasion only. That was when he was in the department, and that he had had no other communication of whatever kind with him.
Well, Mr. Speaker, it may be that the minister had not received any formal communication from Mr. Currie, but Mr. Currie has made it abundantly clear in his report that he made a number of interim suggestions. He says:
It should be noted that interim suggestions made by me during my investigations have been already seized on, and important reforms are already being carried out.
Now, Mr. Currie obviously was making recommendations and those recommendations were being carried out in the department. They involved changes in the department. Was the Minister of National Defence so unaware of what was going on in the department that he knew nothing about these recommendations, that he knew nothing about the steps being carried out in the department to give effect to the recommendations? If that was all he knew about what was going on in the department, the minister can be deserving only of censure on the part of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Then, sir, is it not only right and proper that this House of Commons should be entitled to frankness and candour on the part of the minister; that there should not have been any cavilling when there were questions asked . about interim recommendations in communications either oral or written? It is obvious that there were no written communications, but what about all these oral communications? The Leader of the Opposition was not just asking about things
Committee on Defence Expenditure Mr. Currie may have said to some officer down the line, he was asking about recommendations that had gone into the department, and the minister indicated that he knew nothing about them and took it upon himself to say that he had received no such communications.
Then, sir, let us remember this, and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) drew attention to this matter this afternoon. When the Prime Minister was asked about this matter in the house on December 17 he certainly gave the house the impression that the idea of having the draft report submitted to the department before the report was finally signed and submitted originated with Mr. Currie. You cannot read the statement of the Prime Minister in any other way. He said at page 827 of Hansard of December 17:
The inquiries also disclosed that Mr. Currie and his representatives discussed this matter with the deputy minister and that the suggestion was made that the deputy minister might go over the draft, when it was ready, and point out any inaccuracies in the facts reported which had been obtained from the department itself.
Then at page 829 he was asked if it was general practice to refer draft reports to the department in such instances. The Prime Minister expressed disapproval and said:
I have never been an investigator. I was quite surprised to learn that this investigator had felt that it was the proper thing to be done.
Yet, sir, we learn now with the tabling of the correspondence in this house two days ago that it is established beyond all question that the suggestion that that draft report should be submitted to the department emanated not from Mr. Currie but from the department. And it goes further, sir. The idea did not originate with the deputy minister; it originated with the minister himself, on his own admission in this house two days ago. He instructed the deputy minister to communicate with Mr. Currie and Mr. Currie expressed, as we can see by the correspondence, opposition to submitting the draft report, indicating that he had no intention of submitting the draft report for "vetting" in the department. Yet, apparently, pressure was continued and Mr. Currie permitted one of his officials to come up here and discuss the draft report with the deputy minister. Following that changes appear in the report, and the changes are not confined to factual matters. The changes in some cases extend to and include observations of a critical nature.
Now, sir, that leads me to make this observation, that the Prime Minister owes an apology to this house. The house was misled by the words the Prime Minister used on December 17 into thinking that this idea originated not with the deputy minister but

Committee on Defence Expenditure with Mr. Currie. The remark was made this afternoon that the Prime Minister owes an apology to Mr. Currie. I say that he does, but I also say that he owes an apology to this house and the Canadian people.
Sir, the government is trying so hard, in the face of this embarrassment, to find a scapegoat, to find a red herring, to find a way out; and that unquestionably has a good deal to do with the attempt to make capital, as they are attempting, out of the way in which knowledge came to the now absent hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) and how that draft report came into his hands.


An hon. Member:: Which side are you on?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker-


An hon. Member:: It was stolen.


Donald Methuen Fleming: An hon. member says it was stolen. Well, Mr. Speaker, if he has that information I suggest it is his duty to give it to the government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Perhaps the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) will take note of the information that the hon. member indicated he possesses and will, in keeping with the tactics he is practising at the expense of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, send a letter to the hon. gentleman as he did to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, threatening him-very subtly perhaps, but threatening him nonetheless-if he does not give the information to the R.C.M.P., who have been given the distasteful and improper task of conducting this investigation, ignoring the proper law enforcement channels in this country.
Well, sir, I think the whole matter is clearly summed up in the words Sir Archibald Sinclair used in that important, and memorable debate in the British House of Commons on June 30, 1938, when dealing with the Sandys case, a directly comparable situation, he had this to say:
Governments are too apt to confuse danger to themselves with danger to the state.
Here we have a situation where a government, obsessed with its own love of power, having had power far too long for its own good is saying, in effect, that obviously this situation is not good for us. and therefore it cannot be good for the state. The Canadian people are not going to be misled by sophistry of that kind. The independence of this parliament means a great deal more to the Canadian people than to be frittered away by the methods the government is practising at the present time.
I wish to add this, sir. If complaints are made in this house about statements being

made by the chief of the general staff, they are not to be answered in the way the Prime Minister this afternoon sought to answer them. The Prime Minister ought to know, he has been in public life long enough to know, that the chief of the general staff is not precluded from voicing his opinion on matters of this kind, but there is a way to do it. The chief of the general staff or any other person, whether in the armed services or in the civilian service of the government, has a method of complaint open to him, namely to go to the minister at the head of the department. He is the man who makes the statement. The proper course of the chief of the general staff was to give his complaint to the minister, and let the minister make it. That was the proper constitutional course. Any interference with or departure from that course will be fraught with very grave dangers to the whole principle of the supremacy of the civil authority.
I add this, sir, about the way in which the government spokesmen, even the Prime Minister this afternoon, are trying to make it appear that what is involved here is an attack on the army. That is not going to impress anybody. What is involved here is not an attack on the army; it is a criticism of the Department of National Defence and the way it is being run from the top. It has been made clear times without number, it is made clear in Mr. Currie's report, that the army is not to blame. He gives credit to the army for the fact that in the face of the looseness which has prevailed throughout that Department of National Defence, the irregularities were not more grave than they were. Everyone who has spoken in this debate in this house dealing .with these exposures has been at pains to point out that the army comes out of this matter with a clean bill of health, but not the Department of National Defence and not the minister.
That is the issue, and that issue is not going to be obscured by any attempt to draw red herrings across it, because it is perfectly clear in what is being done that the government has encouraged and abetted the chief of the general staff to depart from the proper constitutional course. The chief of the general staff is quite entitled to entertain his opinions and to communicate those opinions; but the proper constitutional course is that he should communicate those opinions to the head of his department.
I am going to conclude by saying this, sir. Apparently the government is now trying to drag the matter out by proposing that the committee on defence expenditures, when it is set up, should investigate the investigator or investigate his investigation. Well, that is

quite unnecessary, sir. It would do them much more good if they were to get on with the job of cleaning up the mess which Mr. Currie has exposed.
I have nothing but the strongest words of condemnation for the adroit manoeuvre of this government in introducing an amendment to this' resolution to set up a defence expenditures committee. The very idea! The Prime Minister introduces a resolution and another minister of the government gets up and moves an amendment to it. Sir, it was a monstrous and devious device to prevent other amendments from being introduced-


Some hon. Members:: Order, order.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -by members of the opposition. The responsibility for-


Some hon. Members:: Order, order.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -preventing Mr. Currie from carrying on and completing an investigation of this department, of which after all he has investigated only one small segment, one branch of the corps of engineers, will rest with the government. If they step in and prevent Mr. Currie from being instructed to do the thing we have urged that Mr. Currie should be instructed to do, the responsibility will rest with the government and those who support them, in denying to the Canadian people the investigation of conditions in this Department of National Defence which ought to be thoroughly investigated.


John Lorne MacDougall: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Some hon. Members:: Whoa, whoa.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Some hon. Members:: Whoa, whoa.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Will hon. members kindly resume their seats. Do I understand that the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. MacDougall) wants to ask a question?


John Lorne MacDougall: The hon. member who has just spoken said he would permit questions.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Certainly.


John Lorne MacDougall: May I ask the hon. member if he was ever in the army?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, I was in the reserve army. I suppose, Mr. Speaker, the idea is to cast some reflection on an hon. member. I think, in view of the matter being-


John Lorne MacDougall: You have answered the question. Sit down.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Was the Prime Minister in the army?
Committee on Defence Expenditure


Donald Methuen Fleming: I do not know whether the hon. member-I would not have thought it of him-had anything back of that question. If he did, and it is a matter of interest to any member, I would be glad to discuss the matter at any time, here or privately, with him. The matter is quite open for me to discuss, and I shall be happy to discuss it with him.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member asked a question-


John Lorne MacDougall: I should like to ask a supplementary question.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I shall be glad to answer the hon. gentleman's question, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member's time has expired, and the question can only be asked with the unanimous consent of the house. The hon. member for Mackenzie.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Mr. Speaker, I believe that not long ago you heard a burst, such as we have just heard, in connection with the case of Brigadier Connelly. I am sure we understand what has happened since. I should like to bring to the attention of this house-


Some hon. Members:: Whoa, whoa.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Some of you cannot ride a horse, but you might holler. The Minister of National Defence has rendered a service to this country of which all of us are proud. During the last few days he has been strongly criticized in this house, but I want to congratulate him upon what he has done since 1951 in cleaning up what happened at Peta-wawa. Even the Currie report does not say anything about irregularities in other parts of the country.


Douglas Scott Harkness: What? It does.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: He does not say anything about irregularities in other parts of the country.


Douglas Scott Harkness: There are 158 of them.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: He puts it all in Petawawa.


An hon. Member:: He speaks of a general breakdown of administration.


Douglas Scott Harkness: You should learn to read.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: That is all right. So should you. Mr. Speaker, you can see just exactly where these gentlemen are going. What are they trying to do? Let us go back a few months, and what do we find? We find that these gentlemen to our left were doing just exactly the same thing as they are doing now in connection with something that was going on in the province of Saskatchewan. They were blasting another minister.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.

Committee on Defence Expenditure


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Yes, they were even blasting the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner).


Some hon. Members:: Oh, no.


An hon. Member:: Shame.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: What happened? They went into committee, and what happened in the committee?


John George Diefenbaker: Whitewash.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Mr. Speaker, there was the same cry: the committee was going to whitewash; it was going to be bridled; it was going to be everything, and we were all going to ruin.


An hon. Member:: They hogtied the committee.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: It is too bad they did not hog-tie you.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. There are far too many interruptions.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: The same thing applies with regard to the hon. gentlemen who went after the committee last year. Now we have the same thing going on this year. They are taking up the time of the house trying to put a blanket-


An hon. Member:: A horse blanket?


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: They are trying to put a blanket over the whole issue.


An hon. Member:: Just keep going.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Some hon. member has said, "Just keep going". May I ask those who are interrupting not to keep on.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: There are no brains behind it, Mr. Speaker. I want to say that the minister has done a really good job.


An hon. Member:: Of what?


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Now I am going to say something-


An hon. Member:: Good.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: -that will hurt every one of you.


An hon. Member:: Oh, no.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Oh, yes. Do you gentlemen to my left ever get any printing done? Do you believe in security? Do you believe in the things that are right in this country?


An hon. Member:: Sure.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: I do not think some of you do.


Gordon Graydon: Be careful.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Let us analyse just exactly what has happened.


Douglas Scott Harkness: We believe so thoroughly in the things that are right that we want this government out.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Let us analyse just what happened. There was a printing job that was done. Where was it done?


An hon. Member:: On the payroll.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: It was done in the office of a gentleman, as he was supposed to be. This gentleman ordered some printing done. But another gentleman, we will say, had these copies distributed some place. We will now leave that point. This printing was done. Do you who are on my left want to say that even when the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) makes a statement in the press that there was a leak, he does not say anything? He says there was a leak, but it was not in the Department of National Defence.


An hon. Member:: Who said that?


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. It is right there in the newspaper, and his photograph is there.


An hon. Member:: What date was that?


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: That was on December 17, 1952, if you want to know.


An hon. Member:: Go on. Get going in high.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Just be quiet. You haven't any brains.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. Member:: Withdraw.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think too many pleasantries are being indulged in. A few interruptions are allowable, but I think there are too many and that hon. members have gone a little to the extreme in their interruptions.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As far as the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar is concerned, he made the statement that there was a leak. I am more concerned about this leak than I am about the Currie report.


An hon. Member:: Why?


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: For the simple reason that I see no reason why that report that was put out prior to the official document should have got out of the hands of Mr. Currie.


An hon. Member:: Who took the bridle off?


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: If hon. gentlemen to my left are going to condone this sort of thing, I would say that there is something radically wrong with their thinking. I was going to make a charge the day we adjourned for the Christmas recess, but the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar was not in his seat. I therefore postponed the idea until we came back. Now I think it is high time we took this matter seriously. In printing firms we

have jobs to do that we do not want the world to know about. I am sure all the people in Canada feel the same way about it. Can you say that you can take a copy belonging to somebody else, give it to a member of parliament and then say that he has a right to keep it, even if it was not stolen? We will give him the benefit of the doubt. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar was a school teacher. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) was a preacher-


An hon. Member:: And printer.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: -and printer. The hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Knight) was also a teacher and is supposed to be a professor.


An hon. Member:: No horse traders?


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Let us analyse these three gentlemen. One of these gentlemen read it. The hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Knight) read it, because he is reported in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix as having said that the member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) was the man who threw the bomb into the Liberal party.


Mr. Knight:: On a question of privilege, may I say that the hon. member has quite misunderstood anything I said on that occasion. It is not the first time he has misunderstood many things, but on this occasion he has certainly misunderstood what I said. I did not make any remark about throwing a bomb into the Liberal party. I think they have thrown one into their own party.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Mr. Speaker, the article says:
Mr. Knight added that "it was one of our men, Mr. Knowles (Stanley Knowles of Winnipeg North Centre) who dropped the bomb".
That is the statement which appeared in the Star-Phoenix sometime during the Christmas recess.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: Is the hon. gentleman asking me to explain that statement?-because I would be very pleased to do it.


Mr. Speaker:: No.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: I want to make this statement. These three gentlemen knew absolutely that this draft copy they had in their possession, and which did not belong to them, should not be kept by them. What did they do? They kept it. Did they do what they should have done?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege-


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: Did they turn around and-
Committee on Defence Expenditure


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order should not what the hon. member is saying be watched very closely so that we do not have any duplication of what happened this afternoon?


Alphonse Fournier: There is no point of order in that. Why do you give instructions to the Speaker?


Mr. Speaker:: I will listen to the debate carefully, as I always do.


Alphonse Fournier: You always do.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: I believe that these three men knew it was wrong to keep that draft report. They should have done one of three things. Did they send that report to the man they believed owned it, Mr. Currie? No, they did not do that. Did they send the report to the Speaker of this house? They did not do that either. They kept it.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: What is the third thing?


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: The third one is, did they table it in the house as a document they did not own? They did not. They cannot tell me that they did not know this thing was wrong, and I am more than surprised that the Tories are backing them up.
Let us analyse this a little bit more, and as a soldier would view it. I was only an ordinary, common soldier, and I view this with some alarm. Soldiers at Petawawa stole certain things. They took those articles out of the camp and sold them to certain persons in the vicinity. These men were picked up by the police, and when they were picked up they admitted buying the stuff from the soldiers. What happened to them? The soldier and the civilian were sent to jail. What is the difference? Is there any difference between stealing plumbing and taking a document? As somebody has said, this document did not belong to the gentleman who kept it. The plumbing did not belong to the civilian who kept it. I maintain, Mr. Speaker, that the intent was exactly the same in both cases.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member is very clever in what he is saying.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: You would not answer my question; sit down.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am not asking a question; it is a point of order. As I say, the hon. member is very clever in what he is doing but he is trying to say-


John James Smith: You don't like it?


Stanley Howard Knowles: He is trying to say-

Committee on Defence Expenditure


Mr. Murray (Cariboo):: And doing it very well.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I cannot hear the point of order if there are so many interruptions.


Stanley Howard Knowles: He is trying to say that our possession of this document-


Paul Joseph James Martin: State your point of order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: He is trying to say that we have a stolen object in our possession-


Paul Joseph James Martin: Don't make a speech.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Your Honour took the view this afternoon that it was not to be expected that a member would say of another that he was the receiver of stolen goods, and I suggest that the hon. member should be very careful.


Mr. Speaker:: I took the attitude this afternoon that one hon. member could not say of another that he had received a stolen article, knowing it to have been stolen. So far as I know there is nothing wrong with having goods in one's possession which have been stolen. The crime is in the knowledge that they were stolen.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The hon. member said the intent was the same.


Mr. Speaker:: I want to be fair about this; I think it is important. The intent of what?


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: He would not let me finish.


Mr. Speaker:: The intent of the thief may have been the same.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The member said that our intent was the same as the intent of the people who stole things, and who are now in the penitentiary.


Mr. Speaker:: No; I think the hon. member misunderstood him or did not hear him correctly. I am sure he did not say that.


George Matheson Murray: They are very jittery.


Mr. Gardiner:: Bad conscience.


Gladstone Mansfield Ferrie: The reason I said the intent was the same is that it is expected that gain will be gotten out of it. That is the reason of the intent. The soldier who took the article and the civilian who bought it expected to get gain out of it. The gentlemen who kept these documents expected to get gain out of them, and that was the reason they kept them. If they did not intend to get gain out of them why did they not send them back to Mr. Currie or to the Speaker, or put them on the table of the house?

There is another thing about which I am very much concerned. In our society we have four classes of people whom we trust with our secrets. One is the doctor. We allow our doctor to consult with another doctor. We have the lawyer, and when we go to him we expect him to keep our secret. Then we have the banker, and when we take our business to him we expect him to keep it secret. Finally, we have the chartered accountant; and when we consider that Mr. Currie heads that big firm of chartered accountants and he allows a leak, allows a document to get out of his possession, I say this is something that should be considered in the house, something that should be taken seriously and should not be called a red herring. We should all think about it.
The people of Canada are wondering whether their business today is going to be taken care of, whether this chartered accountant is taking care of their business, when some of those documents in his care can be taken out and given to a member of parliament.
This is a very serious situation which has now developed. So far as I am concerned it is of more concern to the people of Canada than the Currie report. It should be considered seriously. Why should these men betray society to such an extent that we cannot trust, or feel that we cannot continue to trust those whom we have trusted through the years, in the development of our civilization.
Why has this come about? Because one body of people, one splinter group in the House of Commons, think they have a right to a document that belongs to the people of Canada. They have it in their possession before it is tabled on the floor of the house. I say in all sincerity it is high time this was stopped, so that confidence may be given back to the people, confidence in the form of society in which we have always trusted.
Those who did wrong will be punished, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker). But let me add that in the eyes of the people of Canada these three men knew what they were doing. The one man in Saskatoon, according to his statement, must have read the document. And then we must keep in mind the other two men, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). They should have done the right and proper thing. They should have sent back this draft report to Mr. Currie. If they had done that they would still be worthy of the trust of the people of Canada, which they cannot claim right now.


Mr. Nickle:: Mr. Speaker,-


Stuart Sinclair Garson: 


Mr.   Speaker-Mr. Diefenbaker@: What about some order here?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: May I crave the indulgence of the house, and of the hon. member for Calgary West for just a brief intervention in this debate. I have to be out of town tomorrow, and this evening I should like to answer a question raised this afternoon by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker). I shall be only about ten minutes.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I believe that would meet with the approval of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Thank you. May I thank
especially the hon. member who has taken his seat.
As I said, my only purpose in intervening in the debate tonight is to deal with a point raised by the hon. member for Lake Centre this afternoon when the orders of the day were called. His question, I think, was a fair one; but I am sure that upon reflection my hon. friend will agree that it was hardly one that should be asked on orders of the day for he understands, of course, that an hon. member is not supposed to make a speech when asking such a question, nor should a speech be made when one is replying.
I take this first opportunity to deal with the question he raised. It so happens that the blue copy on which my answer is set out also contains his question. I have had a copy of his question made, and I shall now refer to it. My hon. friend asked me whether-
-any information and complaint was sworn out in connection with the incident respecting the first Currie report before the mounted police were called in to investigate.
As will be recalled my answer was that, so far as we knew, no information had been laid prior to the mounted police being asked to investigate.
Then my hon. friend asked a second question:
If there was no information under the Criminal Code, then upon what basis are the mounted police used except under the direction of the attorney general of one or other of the provinces?
And then, a little later on, taking the position that my reply to that question was not, in his view, adequate, he reframed his question as follows:
Is it possible for the Attorney General of Canada to use the R.C.M.P. for investigational work in any province without the assistance or co-operation of the attorney general of that province?
That question, I suggest, was asked in respect of an attempt which was being made
Committee on Defence Expenditure to find out what disposition had been made of a document prepared by Mr. Currie at the instance of the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton). Mr. Currie himself had already at that time made a diligent effort to determine what this disposition was. He wrote in a letter from himself to the Minister of National Defence which is set out at page 977 of Hansard for January 13:
How it-
And he was referring to the document in question.
-got from the printer's shop into the hands of unauthorized third parties is still a complete mystery.
Everything which I have done by way of inquiry and investigation negatives the possibility that the copy in question could have got out in any stage or step between the printer's shop and my own organization and the department; but I still, of course, welcome any further investigation which the department or any other authority may deem it expedient to make from any angle or direction.
In the light of this suggestion, it did seem desirable to the government that it should make an investigation, and that in this connection it should use the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for that purpose. To investigate the disappearance of a document in mysterious circumstances is to carry on an investigation wholly on a voluntary basis, which really had nothing to do with the administration of justice. The federal government is in the same position in this regard as any other person interested, as a private person in, for example, the loss of property. Mr. Currie himself in this case had hired private detectives. The government utilized the services of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. There is, I suggest, no constitutional issue involved here such as I think my hon. friend's question implied, although he did not so state. The position in fact is no different from the investigation which was conducted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the provost corps into the irregularities at Petawawa camp. The position is that where government property or some other matter of federal government concern is involved, federal authority is ample to authorize investigations such as the one in question here. I think it would seem rather a strange action for the government, confronted with the terms of Mr. Currie's letter and with the need to conduct an investigation, to go out and hire a private detective firm when it already had a very efficient police force for that purpose.
In his long and distinguished career I am sure my hon. friend must have defended a great number of cases of this kind where counsel acting against him were instructed by the federal authorities, because the fact is that the practice followed in this case is
1052	HOUSE OF
Committee on Defence Expenditure not by any means unusual. The usual practice in connection with a prosecution where the federal government has some interest, such as a breach of any statute administered by the federal government or involving fraud against or theft from the government, or even involving a criminal statute which is of national concern such as the Official Secrets Act, is that the investigation into the facts is conducted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or some other executive officer of the federal government, but usually the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
If the facts justify such a course, an information or complaint is laid by the federal officers just as is the case in a private prosecution. If the accused is then committed, the provincial attorney general takes over on the trial by indictment or speedy trial unless, as frequently happens where circumstances warrant it, and as they did in all of the Petawawa cases, arrangements are made by our counsel with the provincial attorney general to carry on the prosecution to completion. I know it is probably carrying coals to Newcastle, but with regard to the question of the right of the federal government- notwithstanding the fact that the administration of justice is one of the subjects assigned exclusively to the provincial government-to enforce federal statutes such as the Excise Act, the narcotics act, the Customs Act and so forth, that is fully covered in a case which I would cite for the special benefit of my hon. friend. I refer to the case of the Proprietary Articles Trade Association and others, appellants, and the Attorney General for Canada and others, respondents, reported in 1931 Appeal Cases, at page 310. I refer particularly to pages 326 and 327, and in order to clear the matter up finally I think I might read a quotation from those pages. It is not very long.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Are you working under the Excise Act in this investigation?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: No, no. I have already covered that point.


John George Diefenbaker: Is this under some drug act?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: No, this was under the Combines Investigation Act.


John George Diefenbaker: Oh, yes, sure.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: One of the arguments raised in this case, which was taken to the privy council, was that the act invaded the field of property and civil rights on the one hand or the administration of justice, each of which is a matter of provincial jurisdiction, and this is how these two arguments are
IMr. Garson.]

disposed of at the conclusion of the judgment. The reason I mention the property and civil rights item is that I am afraid I might be quoting a little out of context unless I did so. The portion of the judgment in question reads this way:
If then the legislation in question is authorized under one or other of the heads specifically enumerated in section 91, it is not to the purpose to say that it affects property and civil rights in the provinces. Most of the specific subjects in section 91 do affect property and civil rights but so far as the legislation of parliament in pith and substance is operating within the enumerated powers there is constitutional authority to interfere with property and civil rights. The same principle would apply to section 92, head 14, "The administration of justice in the province," even if the legislation did, as in the present case it does not, in any way interfere with the administration of justice.
The next sentence is very apt to the point I am making.
Nor is there any ground for suggesting that the dominion may not employ its own executive officers for the purpose of carrying out legislation which is within its constitutional authority, as it does regularly in the case of revenue officials and other matters which need not be enumerated.


John George Diefenbaker: Will the minister allow a question?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Surely.


John George Diefenbaker: What is the legislation with respect to which the mounted police are being used in this particular case? Is it the Official Secrets Act?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I thought I had made it abundantly clear. I thought I was almost repeating myself once or twice when I said that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police could be used quite properly to investigate in those cases in which a federal act was involved or in which a fraud against or theft from the federal government was involved, in the same manner-I would ask my hon. friend to keep his seat until I have at least finished the sentence-


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am not even thinking of getting up.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: -as when an alleged theft takes place in a departmental store, we will say, where the police of the departmental store investigate the facts, lay them before the police and carry on. We have at least as much right as the ordinary citizen in that regard.


Edmund Davie Fulton: What has been stolen from the federal government?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: This is the practice and, as I said a few moments ago, I am certain that my hon. friend from Lake Centre has acted

in scores of such cases in which crown counsel opposing him were instructed by the federal authorities.


Mr. Cruickshank:: A lot of these lawyers have never had a case yet.


Carl Olof Nickle: Mr. Speaker, like most Canadians I was deeply shocked last December 15 with the main findings of the Currie report. Also, like most other Canadians, I was struck by the conclusions reached concerning government spending habits and accounting procedures noted by Canada's Auditor General in his annual report tabled this week. I have been further shocked by the apparent inclination of the government, through certain cabinet ministers and private members, to belittle these findings and also, indeed, to try to discredit the authors of these findings and to prevent a full investigation of other phases of government spending that might reveal further and perhaps far greater losses of the taxpayers' money.
Several of my colleagues have already discussed these matters in some detail. I will not deal further with the Currie report and the Sellar statements except to say that I agree completely with the policies advocated and the comments made by my colleagues. I wish, however, for the balance of my address to discuss another matter related to defence expenditure and the handling of public moneys which is of considerable concern to the house. Members of parliament are elected by the people of Canada to direct the affairs of the nation, and they have a responsibility to Canada greater than that of any other employees in the country, whether they be civil servants or members of the armed forces. A member of parliament should be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. We have a duty to the Canadian public, among others to scrutinize carefully the spending of the moneys levied from the taxpayer, and to the greatest possible extent eliminate waste and inefficiency, careless accounting and dishonesty in that spending. Quite properly the major share of that responsibility rests upon the members of the party forming the government. We of the opposition ranks also quite properly have a duty to the public of scrutinizing the performance of the government and pointing out to the government any action or lack of action on the part of servants of the government or members of the government which indicate failure on their part to discharge their responsibilities to the Canadian public.
In the performance of that clear duty, as a member of Her Majesty's loyal opposition I am required to bring the attention of this
Committee on Defence Expenditure house to a matter of far greater import than the amount of public money involved. It concerns, I regret to say, a member of this house. Through a presentation of the facts as I have gathered them, I trust that the member concerned, and the government of which he is a supporter, will be enabled to give to this house and the Canadian people an explanation that will clearly show this member to be in the category of Caesar's wife. And, if such an explanation cannot be given, then I trust this member and the government will take the only possible corrective action.
This matter concerns the hon. member for Westmorland (Mr. George), who is also officer commanding one of the great regiments now in Canada's reserve army, the 8th Princess Louise's (New Brunswick) Hussars with headquarters at Sussex, New Brunswick. I have not had the pleasure of meeting him during my one year in the House of Commons. The Parliamentary Guide records his noteworthy career during the last world war, his service as an officer with the regiment he now commands, service in Canada, North Africa and Europe, from 1940 to 1946. He was elected to the House of Commons as a Liberal party supporter in June, 1949, representing the constituency of Westmorland.
Before going on with the facts of the matter at issue I wish to say a few words about Canada's reserve army. Like many another member of this house and many thousands of men across our nation, I have enjoyed a long and happy association with this section of our armed forces which I believe can quite properly be called Canada's vital second line of defence. As a boy bugler and signaller in the old Calgary Highlanders for some years prior to the last war, and as an N.C.O. and officer with the same reserve unit during and after the last war, I am proud of the association with so many good Canadians who have given freely of their time and efforts, without regard to monetary considerations, in order to strengthen the defences of our country.
The reserve army of today is at least as vital to Canada's defences as it was during periods of danger in the past, and this nation owes a greater debt than it generally realizes to the young and older men who, in the ranks and as officers, are giving freely of their time and efforts to maintain an effective second line of defence. The current rates of pay and allowances cannot be said to be fair and full compensation for the sacrifices of time and effort made by the great bulk of men in Canada's reserve army.
Within the ranks of the reserve army, and indeed among the great bulk of Canada's armed forces, there is a strong feeling that
1054	HOUSE OF
Committee on Defence Expenditure all who serve should be treated fairly; that special advantages should be given to none; that those who take advantage of special situations for their own personal gain should be ruthlessly weeded out. The armed forces, I might say, are simply a cross-section of Canada's citizenry, made up of men and women of normal honesty, concerned with the welfare and security of their neighbours and their nation, as well as their own welfare and security.
In a minority of humans there is a tendency, when they see some around them taking advantage of circumstances such as inadequate or poor administration, or security of accounting, to climb aboard the gravy train and grab their share of the loot. This was true at Petawawa and certain other defence establishments in Canada about which this house already has some information. It is probably true in many other phases of Canada's $2 billion per year defence effort, where a tendency to free spending without adequate control is unfortunately becoming increasingly evident.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Quit reading it and say what you think yourself. He is reading every word of that.


An hon. Member:: Order.


Carl Olof Nickle: I will deal with you later. With the majority of human beings there is a tendency-


George Alexander Cruickshank: You could not finish if you did not read it.


Carl Olof Nickle: -or a strong desire to speak up.
I might say in explanation, Mr. Speaker, that I am dealing with a very delicate subject this evening and for this reason I have extensive notes.


George Alexander Cruickshank: On a point of order-


An hon. Member:: Oh, oh.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I don't need a lawyer to
assist me. I have many times agreed with the hon. member about oil, which he understands; but when he gets up and reads every word he is saying about a member who is unfortunately not in the house, I say that your duty, sir, is to see that the rules are applied and that he does not read.


Percy Ellis Wright: The hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) knows very well that well over 50 per cent of the members on his side of the house read every word of the speeches they made before Christmas.


George Alexander Cruickshank: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I will ask the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright) if he does not agree with me that I have objected to members on my side of the house reading-


An hon. Member:: They didn't pay any attention to you.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Maybe they didn't pay any attention, but I am trying to bring to Your Honour's attention the fact that the hon. member being condemned is not in the house. The hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Nickle) never notified him that he was going to read this attack-speaking on something he knows nothing about-although he may know something about gas, as I agree.


Carl Olof Nickle: On a question of privilege, sir-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Before the hon. member for Fraser Valley rose on his point of order, I thought the hon. member for Calgary West was going to give some explanation of what he is doing with his notes.


Carl Olof Nickle: Mr. Speaker, as I started to explain before being interrupted, I am dealing tonight with a subject of some delicacy and some importance to the members of this house in total, to the hon. member for Westmorland, and to myself.


Mr. Brown (Essex West):: Did you give him notice?


Carl Olof Nickle: For that reason, sir, because of the delicacy of this discussion and this matter I am using extensive notes, and I hope I will have your permission to use these extensive notes of the matter on which I will now go into in more detail.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Perhaps I should intervene and inform the hon. member that it is not up to the Speaker to give permission to an hon. member to read his speech. As he knows, speeches are often read during the two long debates that take place every session, the debate on the speech from the throne and the debate on the budget. Tolerance is often exercised by the Speaker during those two long debates. When it comes to other matters before this house, especially if hon. members rise to points of order, the Speaker has no alternative but to apply the rules which are that members are supposed to express their opinions and not read speeches.
The hon. member for Fraser Valley has also mentioned the fact that the member speaking is making an attack on a member who is not present in the house. The point would be well taken if the language used by the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Nickle) were offensive or unparliamentary. There is nothing that prevents an hon. member from expressing his views, as long as he does not use unparliamentary language.
I refer the hon. member to citation 302, Beauchesne's second edition, which reads:
The Speaker feels more strongly his duty to interpose and check language which seems unparliamentary with regard to an absent member.

I noticed that the hon. member for Westmorland (Mr. George) was absent. So far I have not heard any words which may be construed to be offensive or unparliamentary as applied by the hon. member for Calgary West to the member for Westmorland. The hon. member may continue.


Carl Olof Nickle: I shall continue, not reading a speech but using my notes as a guide to what I have to say. Dealing again with the question of the hon. member for Westmorland, I may say that in recent months there has come to certain members of this house, including myself, information to the effect that unduly large pay and allowances have been claimed by and paid to this member in his reserve army capacity. That information, from sources I will not name, was sufficient to justify further investigation.
During the last session of this house a series of questions was placed on the order paper by my colleague, the hon. member for Wentworth (Mr. Lennard). The questions were designed to obtain complete information as to pay and allowances of reserve force officers in Canada's four army commands during the calendar year 1951, in all cases where the year's payments exceeded $800. The answers were tabled in this house on Friday, November 21 last, following the opening of the current session. The answers listed by name and rank 260 officers of the reserve force, ranging from brigadiers down to captains, who received in pay and allowances for their services to Canada in the year 1951 amounts exceeding $800. The average amount received was under $1,000.
There was only one payment on that long list exceeding $2,000. This was the amount of $2,495.01 that was paid to Lieutenant Colonel E. W. George, who is the hon. member for Westmorland. The amount of pay and allowances to him was about double the average payment to all other lieutenant colonels on the list, and was about $770 more than the second highest payment to an officer of the same rank. At the rate of pay in effect during 1951, $367 per month for lieutenant colonels, the hon. member received army pay for a total of 204 full days in that year, if it were assumed that the total sum paid did not include some expense allowance.
It may be assumed, of course, that some expense allowance was included, and the number of days of actual army pay would represent less than 204 days.
It is of interest, however, to note that the second highest payment to reserve force officers was to a brigadier, who received $1,884.87 in pay and allowances or $610 less than the hon. member. At the prevailing brigadier's rate of pay, $689 per month, and assuming
Committee on Defence Expenditure that the total payment did not include any expense allowance, the highest paid reserve brigadier claimed pay for service totalling only 82 days. Now, it might be logically assumed that Colonel George claimed army pay for a greater number of days of service than any other reserve officer because he actually devoted many more days and part days to the command of his reserve army regiment than any other reserve army officer in the country. As most, hon. members are doubtless aware, attendance at two parades of a reserve unit entitles a man or officer to one day's pay. In addition, full pay is allowed for service days in annual training camp, and for days devoted to administrative duties. Presumably, Colonel George devoted a sufficient number of part and full days to his duties as officer commanding his regiment to qualify for the pay and allowances claimed and paid. The only question that could be raised was as to why his number of service days should have been so much greater than that of other officers of similar rank and responsibility in the reserve forces.
This week a further question was raised with the tabling of the public accounts of Canada for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1952. A check of the latest public accounts, covering nine months of 1951, the year for which Colonel George's army payments are on record, coupled with a study of the public accounts for the previous year, which included the other three months, makes my statement of today necessary.
During the calendar year 1951 the House of Commons sat for 142 days during the session period January 29 to June 30, and for a further 82 days between October 9 and December 29 of that year. These periods total some 224 days out of 1951.
The public accounts show that the hon. member for Westmorland claimed sessional indemnities and expense allowances in their maximum amounts for attendance in the House of Commons during the calendar year 1951. Allowing the full 15 days of absence, on grounds other than illness, permitted before deduction from indemnities, the hon. member presumably attended in parliament some 209 days in 1951. It therefore appears obvious, sir, that in his dual capacity as a member of this house and as officer commanding a reserve army regiment, the member for Westmorland claimed for and received from public funds payment for more days in 1951 than there are days in a calendar year. It must be assumed that he devoted no time whatsoever in 1951 to his personal affairs or running his farm in New Brunswick.

Committee on Defence Expenditure
The hon. member, sir, and this government of which he is a member, should without delay make a full explanation to this house, and to the public of Canada, as to the rather extraordinary situation disclosed in the answers given my colleague, the hon. member for Wentworth, by the Department of National Defence, coupled with the information contained in the public accounts of Canada. Inasmuch as no public returns are yet available for the calendar year 1952, I would suggest that the answers to be given might also include full information as to the year just concluded.
The situation, sir, is one requiring full explanation because of the unique position of responsibility to Canada occupied by all members of this parliament. It requires full explanation, too, because of the special responsibility placed in all commissioned officers of Canada's armed forces. Full explanation is particularly necessary in this case, sir, because the hon. member for Westmorland is one of the government party members of the committee on defence expenditure, charged with the specific task of analysing and checking the vast expenditures for defence being made by our nation.


Mr. Mcllrailh:: The committee has not yet been set up.


George Alexander Cruickshank: May I move the adjournment of the debate?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Before I recognize any other speaker-it is now ten o'clock in any event-I should like to say a word in connection with the remarks that have been made by the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Nickle). I am only making these remarks at this stage as a caveat because I am not quite sure of the exact status of the accusations which have been made in the course of this debate by the hon. member against the member for Westmorland (Mr. George).

I just want to leave this thought with hon. members. It might well be that this type of accusation-which after all could mean that a breach of privilege has been committed by the hon. member for Westmorland-would be of the type that should be referred to the standing committee on privileges and elections. If that is so, I think it should be done by a distinct motion. As I say, I am not sure of the point. I was merely looking it up. It may be that the matter will be pursued by other hon. members in the course of this debate. This is a motion to set up a committee to examine the expenditures made by the defence department. There is no question that the expenditure referred to has been made and that it appears in the public accounts. But as to the point that this money referred to as paid by the Department of National Defence has been received by a member of this house, that matter may well constitute, as in the opinion of the hon. member it seems to, a breach of privilege and might, I submit, well be of the type that has to be referred to the standing committee on privileges and elections. It therefore might be out of order to discuss it on this motion. I am not making a ruling. I just want to give this point further thought and to consult Mr. Speaker about it. However, I wanted these remarks to be made before the matter is concluded.
On motion of Mr. Cruickshank the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Alphonse Fournier: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we shall continue this debate and, if it is concluded, we shall take up the items which appear on the order paper under the name of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier).


[Stage Direction]
It being five minutes after ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, January 16, 1953