1954-06-04

Mr. Speaker:: This morning there occurs one of those very rare but indeed very happy occasions, when it is my privilege to draw the attention of the house to the presence in our gallery of a most distinguished visitor. I refer to His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia. I take it as a great honour to be able, in your name, to extend to him a most hearty welcome. If ever a man possessed the virtues of courage, perseverance and love of country, it is the Emperor of the ancient Kingdom of Ethiopia. We cannot but admire the statesman who, in the darkest hour, when the league of nations had unfortunately decided to recognize the conquest of Ethiopia, stoutly answered, "Whatever the world will do, my people will fight on until they have forced the invader from the country or are themselves exterminated."
From then on he worked hard and prepared himself for what was to come. He had refused to bow to brute force, and once more in the history of the world faith and honesty were to triumph. I need not recite all the events which took place but a few years ago, events which are well known by all of you. Yet, it may be useful to recall such great deeds for the benefit of those who will come after us.
It was on January 15, 1941, that Haile Selassie arrived in Ethiopia from his Sudan headquarters, and there unfurled his red, green and yellow banner, rallied around him some of his faithful warriors in a secret rendezvous, and inspired his subjects to raise their arms and join a gradually expanding army. A few months later he returned to the throne and in less than a year, with the help of the allies, his beloved country was again completely free and independent.
(Translation):
Having extended a most cordial welcome to His Majesty Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, to this parliament, in Ottawa, and recalled the virtues of faith and courage which have inspired his conduct in life, I would feel remiss in my duty were I not to associate my French-speaking colleagues in the tribute I have paid him on behalf of the members of this house.
(Text):
There is not much more to be said at this time, except perhaps to recall briefly that although geographically our countries may appear far distant, they are very close together in the way of understanding and fraternity. This becomes evident when we stop to think of the numerous Canadians now living in Ethiopia and helping to make of that great country a country greater still, of a deserving nation, a happy and prosperous nation.
To Your Majesty we express our thanks for coming to Canada, and our regret that your visit must be so short. When you leave us, you will carry with you, I assure you, the best wishes of the people of this country for you personally, and the members of your family, your parliament, and your valiant people.



DIVORCE JURISDICTION


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. 470, to provide for the jurisdiction of the Exchequer Court of Canada in matters of divorce.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, this bill, as I indicated a few days ago, might be referred to as an act for the relief of parliament.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Acting Minister of Public Works. As it is based upon a wire I have just received, I have been unable to give notice. Has the acting minister any comment to make on the report today that Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation is serving eviction notices on unemployed tenants and home purchasers in the Windsor area?
5496	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Maurice Bourgei (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, the Acting Minister of Public Works has just handed me a telegram sent to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell). I am not aware of the situation, but I will make inquiry and report later.



IRRIGATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Prime Minister in connection with an order for return passed on May 26 for the production of correspondence passing between the government of Canada and the government of Saskatchewan in connection with the South Saskatchewan river dam and irrigation project. In view of the fact that the government has now replied to a letter of the premier of Saskatchewan, would the Prime Minister consider tabling that letter and making it available?


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: The answer that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) is preparing to a letter of April 28, I believe it is, of the premier of Saskatchewan, is under active consideration, and 1 hope that it will be dispatched within the next couple of days. A copy of it would be filed at the same time as the other correspondence.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Alexander Drew: I should like to ask a question of the Prime Minister. Having informed us of measures coming forward, can he tell us when we may expect to see copies of amendments to the Post Office Act and the Municipal Grants Act, and also when we may expect to proceed with those two pieces of legislation which have been announced?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, I am under the impression that the amendment to the Post Office Act is now before the other house.


Mr. Harris:: That is right.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I think that is so. It will probably come here from the other house either today or very early next week. With respect to the other legislation-


Mr. Abbott:: It is on the order paper, in the resolution stage.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The resolution is on the order paper, and will be called as soon as it can be reached conveniently.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I would point out, on a question of privilege, that I feel it would be desirable to have some indication of when it will come forward, because the presence of that resolution on the order paper has prevented the introduction of other motions relating to this subject. I would like to have an assurance that we are proceeding with it, and some indication of when we may expect to do so.


Douglas Charles Abbott: The resolution stands in my name. I will be happy to bring it before the house just as soon as it suits the convenience of the house. We seem to be making fairly rapid progress now in connection with the estimates, and if we can dispose of a few things, such as contempt of court, and one thing and another, in the next day or two, we may be able to bring it in.


George Alexander Drew: Since this has to do with the proceedings in the house, may I point out that the suggestion that there is any delay in proceedings is not consistent with the practice of this house, and that we have reached a stage in the session when it will be highly desirable that we have information in regard to an act which affects many municipalities in this country, and also is covered by a resolution which has had the effect of preventing our introducing a resolution dealing with this subject in another form-which we have indicated we believe would be a more satisfactory procedure.
I think therefore the time is more than due for this to be dealt with, so that we can have the act before us, study its effectiveness and deal with it more satisfactorily when it comes up.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Robinson (Simcoe East) in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL REVENUE

The Chairman:: We will proceed with item 295. May I inform hon. members that they will find the vote at page 43 of the blue book, and the details at page 360.
Customs and excise divisions-
295. General administration (including the former customs excise seizure expenses and adjustments), $2,822,515.


Mr. Macdonnell:: Mr. Chairman, I understand that we are to deal specifically with the customs and excise divisions this morning, and that general remarks may be postponed. Does the minister propose to make a statement?


Hon. J. J. McCann (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Chairman, by way of a brief explanation, I should like to speak for a moment or two on the estimates which are now before the committee.
These estimates cover the operation of the customs and excise division of the Department of National Revenue, consisting of the headquarters at Ottawa and their operative branches, consisting of some 232 ports and 104 outports situated throughout the country. As the committee is aware, this division is closely associated with the industry and commerce of the country through its control of imported goods and the collection of customs duties, as well as excise and sales taxes, and of the excise duties on alcohol and tobacco products. There is also a more pleasant association, at least from the importers' point of view, through the procedures for the refunds and drawbacks of duties and taxes remitted under certain conditions.
In addition to this relationship with industry and commerce from which, by the way, we derive by far our greatest customs and excise revenue, this division is concerned with a phase of work which is more familiar to the general travelling public, that of examining persons, motor vehicles, aircraft, trains and ships entering Canada.
A third phase of the division's activity is supervision under the Excise Act of those licensed establishments who manufacture or use alcohol or tobacco in the manufacture of their products.
In keeping with the general development of the country, more goods were imported into Canada in the fiscal year ending the 31st of March, 1954, than ever before, there being over 60,000 more import entries than in the fiscal year 1953, which reached an alltime high of 3,365,695 import entries. Again more vehicles than ever before travelled back and forth across our boundaries. In the fiscal year ending 1954, over thirteen and a half million vehicles, carrying returning Canadians and Americans, entered Canada, which was over 900,000 more than the fiscal year ending March 1953. In the calendar year ending 31st December, 1953, there were over one million more vehicles entering Canada than in the previous calendar year.
You will see in the estimates an increase in the number of positions and in the amount for salaries. This is directly related, over and above the general increase in civil service salaries, to the increasing amount of work which this division is called upon to perform. I should like to tell the committee that the staffing of our ports is rigidly controlled on a systematic basis, whereby the department 83276-348
Supply-National Revenue can gauge very accurately the number of staff required at ports in relation to the amount of business which is presented to and processed through the port, the hours of service required for the general and importing public, and the number of points of duty which have to be manned by customs officials at international border points throughout Canada. I think the committee will agree with me that in this division, which is responsible for the collection of revenue, amounting to over $1,518 million in the fiscal year ended March 31, 1954, any arbitrary method of staff restriction which is not realistically geared to the actual facts could result in a loss of revenue, if by physical inability, inadequate customs and excise examination and supervision resulted.
The estimates as tabled before you show an increase of $2,643,131, but 95 per cent of this is accounted for by salaries and wages, the remainder being made up of such things as law and other costs, uniforms, telephone, telegraph, teletype costs, and so forth.
At the same time there is a decrease of $86,400 in vote 298, construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and new equipment over last year's estimates.
I shall be pleased to answer any questions from the committee concerning these estimates.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I have listened with interest to the recital by the minister of the mounting activity, accompanied of course by the mounting work, and I have also listened with interest to his explanation that the additional amount being expended is nearly all salary increases.
I was surprised that the minister said nothing about one aspect of the work which seemed to me important, and which I thought he would refer to because of the legislation which was passed in December last. I refer of course to the amendment of the Customs Act, which proposed to deal with dumping. I should like to recall to the minister one or two of the things which he said in December last. I should like to recall that he and others stressed that this was not a tariff measure, that it was a measure of law enforcement; and I wish that could be said loudly enough so that some people of the baser sort would not insist, as soon as anyone speaks about the enforcement of the tariff law, that he at once becomes a high-as-Haman's-gallows tariff man. It was made very clear in this debate on both sides of the house that what we were attempting was the enforcement of law. I propose to ask the minister to give us something in the nature of a progress report on the act and its effects, on the steps which have been

Supply-National Revenue taken to make it effective, and on the results.
I should like to remind the minister briefly of one or two things which he said in December last, as reported at page 674 of Hansard as follows:
This revision of the law is designed to help meet the difficulties arising from end of season and end of line imports which are dumped into Canada at abnormally low prices.
He also said:
I should make it clear to the house that the proposed amendment is fully consistent with our international obligations.
Everyone will agree that the progress of events since that time, the existence of substantial unemployment, the manifest difficulties which certain industries are finding, and in general the whole trend of business from a seller's to a buyer's market justifies us in asking the minister to explain in more detail what steps have been taken to make the enforcement satisfactory, and just what the results are.
Last autumn the minister explained that calculations of prices relevant to the operation of the act would have to be made over a period of months. At page 977 of Hansard he referred to the training which would have to be given. I understand that certain special procedures were contemplated. I wonder whether the minister would now make a general statement, which I suggest should include first of all whatever changes of method, including staff, have been carried into effect and second, just what results, if any, he feels have been achieved. I might say I understand that general comments which would ordinarily be made on the first item are, in this case, being reserved until later.


Mr. Gillis:: Before the minister makes that statement I should like to say this. I have to go out to a committee, and I wish the minister would include something on this point. The Minister of Finance has a bill on the order paper to amend the customs tariff. In schedule B of that bill it is indicated there is to be a change with respect to goods on which there is a drawback; that the drawback is to be removed. I wish the minister would explain whether that has reference to coal imported from the United States and used for metallurgical purposes? That coal now is subject to a drawback which practically wipes out the 50-cent tariff on it. Will the minister clarify the point as to whether it refers to that particular import?


William Alfred Robinson: I just noticed that the hon. member for Greenwood, after making some remarks which I considered were somewhat general, and which would ordinarily take place in the general discussion on the


first item, indicated that the general discussion might take place on a later item. I have not been informed of any such arrangement. It would of course be in the hands of the committee if such an arrangement were entered into. Might I be informed of the intention in that regard?


Walter Edward Harris: The hon. member for Greenwood has correctly stated the situation. In order to arrange the business of the house it was found convenient to have the debate on this matter take place at a more convenient time later so that the matters which required question and answer could be dealt with now, and then at a later time one could make the general observations that he wished to make.


William Alfred Robinson: Is that agreeable to the committee?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


James Joseph McCann: If I may, I would answer
the question of the hon. member for Cape Breton South having to do with the matter of drawback at this time. That has gone through the resolution stage and of course will be in the bill presented by the Minister of Finance. I suggest it would be better if his question were brought up again when the bill of the Minister of Finance is before the committee. It is really a matter of settling policy.
I should like to draw to the attention of the committee that the Department of National Revenue is an administration department entirely. When the statutes are handed to us we do the best we can to administer them according to law.


Clarence Gillis: Thank you.


James Joseph McCann: With reference to the other matter brought up by the hon. member for Greenwood, this of course has reference to the change that was made in December last, in this session, in the Customs Act whereby the valuation for duty purposes was changed. Subsection 6 was added to section 35 of the act, which attempted to deal with a particular problem that presented itself at that time, and probably to a certain extent continues to come before us and will continue to come before us for some time. The amendment at that time was to this effect:
(6) Notwithstanding anything in this act, where the market price of any manufactured goods in the country of export-
I would draw the committee's attention particularly to that last sentence. It continues:
-has. as the result of the advance of the season or the marketing period, declined to levels that do not reflect in the opinion of the minister their normal price, the value for duty shall be the amount determined and declared by the minister

to be the average price, weighted as to quantity, at which the like or similar goods were sold for consumption in the country of export during a reasonable period, not exceeding six months, immediately preceding the date of shipment of the goods to Canada.
I think I should perhaps read the rest of the instructions which were given to our officers in an attempt to carry out this provision of the act:
To give effect to the purpose of this amendment, collectors, appraisers, and any officer acting as appraiser, are instructed to closely scrutinize the invoice values of all manufactured goods, comparing such values with home market values shown and certified on previous importations of similar goods by the same or other importer. In any case where invoice values indicate price decline, such as is contemplated by the foregoing valuation provision, or the values appear abnormally low, the importer is to be advised that the entry may be subject to amendment in accordance therewith. The invoice is to be forwarded to the department with as full information as possible and the reasons for believing that the value shown is below the normal value, in order that the matter may be inquired into and the value for duty established as provided for by the new subsection of section 35.
This instruction was also issued to our collectors:
For the purpose of administration of section 35(6) of the Customs Act, referred to on page 1-44 of the book of instructions to port officers-
We send out instructions to all port officers as to how they are to carry out the law.
-importers are to be instructed to advise their suppliers that customs invoices covering manufactured goods of the type contemplated by this section will require to show, in addition to the usual fair market value and selling price data, the highest price at which like or similar goods were sold and delivered for home consumption during the six months immediately preceding the date of shipment to Canada. Typical of the goods which might be affected by this section are style fabrics, dresses, textiles, shoes and purses; refrigerators; automobiles. This list is illustrative only and is by no means exhaustive; and officers should use their own judgment in determining whether other goods are affected at their individual ports.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: What was the date of
that report?


James Joseph McCann: These were the instructions given outlining the method by which we attempted to put this section of the act into effect.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: But what was the date?


James Joseph McCann: One was dated February 26, 1954, and the other, issued on December 7, 1953, was issued just after the act was amended.
That will give hon. members some understanding of the action that has been taken by the department to implement this amendment to the act. I am sure we are all interested in the results of that action. While we 83276-3481
Supply-National Revenue can give some definite result, I would suggest to the committee that it is impossible for anyone to determine to what extent importers have been deterred from making importations into Canada of those goods so affected because of the fact that they would not know at that time just what the amount of the invoice would be. Therefore, I cannot say to what extent this has affected importations. I simply do not know, and I suggest it is hard for anyone to make an accurate estimate.
However, the method we have followed is to send appraisers to other countries which were disposed to export end of the line or end of season goods to this country, and appraisals are made of the prices and of the range of prices for six months previous to the time of export.
Our figures in that connection show that the average weighted price over the period has not been far off the initial price at which that type of goods has, in the first instance, been sold to the people in the country where they were manufactured, and that if exported to this country it closely approximated the price in the first instance.
That applies to a variety of goods and we have a wide quantity with reference to printed piece goods; model 82 refrigerators; model L3 refrigerators; model 105 refrigerators; embossed cotton piece goods; again, refrigerators of different types; more cotton piece goods, which include a long list now under investigation. That list includes drapery fabrics, drapes, shirting, denims, corduroy, synthetic piece goods, cotton piece goods, upholstery, floor coverings, plush fabrics, and here I am giving only a partial list to indicate the cases which are still under investigation and have not yet been included.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Could the minister give us the values involved, roughly?


James Joseph McCann: Yes, I could give the values in some of these instances. For example, and going back over the imports, clothing and wearing apparel made from woven fabrics, women's and children's dresses made wholly from cotton, and giving the number of pieces, in the month of January 1953, there were 45,330 pieces valued at $107,000-


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Would the minister permit a question? What I am trying to get at is the amount involved in the report which you have received and which, as I understand it, you are now investigating. I want to know whether we can fully assess the material results of the act.


James Joseph McCann: Do you wish to have the total amount in a definite period?
5500	HOUSE OF
Supply-National Revenue


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Yes, I think that would show-


Mr. Nicholson:: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. I cannot hear too well down here in this corner, but my understanding was that this first item was to be allowed to stand. Could we have an explanation as to whether a decision was made in that regard? I do not see any point in proceeding with this discussion if the item is to be allowed to stand.


William Alfred Robinson: As I understand it, there was an agreement reached to the effect that the items be subject to question and answer and that the general discussion would take place on a later item.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Well, Mr. Chairman, if we are not going to carry the item at this stage, I do not see any point in continuing with this discussion. We hear a good deal about extravagance and waste, and it was announced last night that we would be going ahead at eleven o'clock. The officials who are here today are men who have a very pressing responsibility and I do not think it is fair to have them here over a long discussion. I wonder if that matter could be cleared up.


William Alfred Robinson: My understanding is that the item will be carried when the questioning is completed, but that the general discussion which would ordinarily take place on this item will be deferred. I think perhaps one thing which might conveniently be resolved at this time is the item on which a general discussion will take place. I should think hon. members would wish to know with some certainty when the general discussion will take place.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: As long as there is an understanding that we are not going to spend the whole morning or the day and then have this item stand, and as long as we know whether we are to have the discussion on the first item or not, I will be satisfied. Will the leader of the house indicate what the decision was? Is this item to stand after we have spent some time on it or is it to carry after we are through discussing it?


Walter Edward Harris: My understanding was that we would proceed with the questions and answers so that information could be obtained, and that if hon. members then chose to have an extended general debate on customs, it could be deferred. It does not really matter what item is used for the general discussion. I would give the assurance there could be one. But I took it that rather than having at the moment extended speeches of
[Mr. McCann.1

a general nature with respect to customs matters, an effort would be made to ascertain, with the officials present, information which could perhaps be the basis of a later general discussion.


George Alexander Drew: There is one feature of this situation that I think has been causing a great deal of concern to many of the members of the House of Commons, and not only to those on this side of the chamber. As has already been pointed out by the hon. member for Greenwood, the question of the level of the tariff is not at the moment in any way at issue in this discussion. Unfortunately there are those who seek to confuse the public mind-and I regret to say that they do so deliberately-by the suggestion that any comments about the appropriate application of anti-dumping legislation is an expression of a high-tariff policy.
Let us in the first place recognize the fact that this government has continued the policy of tariffs-and in some cases substantial tariffs-but that the question of tariffs is not the one before us. This party has indicated its belief in Canada's ability to proceed as effectively and as efficiently, with a proper level of taxation, as any people can under comparable conditions. We are dealing now with something quite different from the long-debated question of high or low tariff, a subject which has not been before us for discussion in the present session or in recent sessions.


An hon. Member:: Question.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Chairman, I just heard an impatient interjection of "question" by someone who is not anxious to listen to any discussion of business now before this committee.


Walter Edward Harris: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a point of order. I just finished outlining the understanding between our own members and hon. members of the party of the Leader of the Opposition. The remarks which the Leader of the Opposition is now making are completely out of order with respect to that understanding and I wish to give notice that the understanding is ended.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Chairman, the understanding is ended in a complete misapprehension and in a most unfair manner. What I am dealing with is entirely on all fours with the understanding. I am coming to the suggestion that has been made outside of this chamber-and even by members in it on the other side-that these discussions on antidumping legislation had to do with principles relating to tariffs. I am dealing with the

question of anti-dumping legislation and I understood that was the subject before us. Unless I have misunderstood the situation, it is my purpose to proceed to discuss the effect of the anti-dumping legislation. I resent any suggestion that there has been the slightest breach of any understanding that existed with regard to the transaction of business in this chamber.


Walter Edward Harris: Mr. Chairman, I am sure the Leader of the Opposition heard me say twice that the understanding was that we would have the question-and-answer period and not have the general discussion. Both from what the Leader of the Opposition was saying before I interrupted and from what he has said since then, I gather that he proposes to make general remarks with respect to anti-dumping legislation.


George Alexander Drew: No; that is not correct.


Walter Edward Harris: If that is not correct, I myself am under a misapprehension. However, I am sure that had he proceeded much further I would have had to say, on behalf of hon. members, that they should be at liberty to make the type of statement that he is making; and that would abrogate the understanding.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Where is the understanding now?
An hen. Member: Let us have questions.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Chairman, there can at no time be too great a rigidity in the procedure by which questions or other matters are put before this chamber; otherwise the whole procedure in parliament becomes a farce. I was anticipating what may be said. I now direct a question to the minister as to whether, in view of what I have said, it is not correct that the announcement today by Rhys M. Sale, president of the Ford Motor Company of Canada, with regard to the lay-off of 6,650 men in the Ford plant in Windsor alone is not a question directly related to the application of these anti-dumping provisions and whether also the further lay-off of 2,700 employees at the Ford plant in Oakville-oh, no; I am just reading the dispatch that has been handed to me-the 6,650 employees are at the Windsor and Oakville plants.


James Joseph McCann: Is the Leader of the Opposition suggesting that automobiles are being dumped into this country?


George Alexander Drew: I am asking the question whether any inquiry has been made as to the situation resulting from the possible importation into this country of automobiles of different types, not only from the United States but from other countries, and its possible application to this situation. I do so in view of the fact
Supply-National Revenue that we were led to believe that automobile production was at its highest level and we are now told that there is going to be a cut-back of at least 15 per cent this year, with extremely serious consequences to employment in the automobile industry.


An hon. Member:: Building up British trade.


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, there is no evidence at all that we know of that automobiles are being dumped into this country.
I suggest again that this is neither the place nor the time for the consideration of the policy. Our department is entirely administrative. I must insist that if there are questions with reference to the administration we shall be glad to attempt to answer them. If hon. members want to deal with policy with reference to trade and imports coming into this country, all well and good; that matter can be discussed on the estimates of the Minister of Finance. I am not here to answer his questions.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Not yet.


James Joseph McCann: Not yet; and I hope I may continue to say "not yet". Our department is the administrative arm of the government with respect to customs, excise and taxation.
I am not supposed to be here to answer questions upon the subject of what the policy of the government is. The proper person to address those questions to is the Minister of Finance.
I will attempt to go back to the hon. member for Greenwood and give him the results of the application of the policy and how those compare with a year ago. That is the point at which this other discussion was interjected. I want to say that importations for the first four months, were as follows, with reference to what I said before, of clothing, wearing apparel made from woven fabrics, cotton dresses, women's and children's. Those are the big items. For each month I could give the number of pieces, the value for duty in our country, and the comparative value as between the month of January, 1954, and the month of January, 1953.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: May I ask the minister-


James Joseph McCann: Excuse me a minute. Of that particular type of material 23,514 pieces were imported in 1954 as against 45,380 pieces valued at $107,000. The price in January, 1954 was $2.35 per piece compared with a price of $2.38 when the valuation for duty purposes section went into effect. In February the value per piece is $2.54-this is the invoice for duty purposes-compared with $2.14, for March $2.96 compared with $2.38, for April $3.35 per piece compared with $2.97.
5502	HOUSE OF
Supply-National Revenue You understand the significance of that. It means that in the last instance the value for duty purposes per piece was $3.35 compared with $2.97. These figures indicate to me at least that the value of these invoices per piece went up to $3.35 from $2.97, a difference of 38 cents per piece. When an invoice comes in and, by reason of our investigations, it is changed from X dollars and a different value is put on it up to $3.35 and duty is paid on that, that certainly must be a deterrent to importers to bring end of the season and end of the line goods into this country, and our manufacturers would have the advantage of that increase in price.


George Alexander Drew: I assure the hon. member and the minister that I have no desire whatever to introduce any heat or acrimony into this discussion of the estimates. I was under the impression that the questions that have been asked by the hon. member for Greenwood, and the points that have been put forward were entirely within the understanding that had been discussed, and the hon. member for Greenwood had referred to this question of tariff as a necessary protection to the interpretation that is sometimes placed on the discussion of this matter. I am raising something that has only been brought to my attention within the last few minutes which has to do with what appears to be a very serious situation developing in the automobile industry. I would point out that if there is some other place within these estimates where this should be discussed I am prepared to discuss it then.
I was under the impression, however, that the administration of this act is under the minister, and that if, for instance, there were to be an inquiry into the situation in the automobile industry similar to that which is to be conducted with respect to the textile industry, it would be appropriate to place that suggestion before the minister whose estimates are now before us. If I am incorrect in that, I am prepared to put it forward otherwise, but if the hon. member has had an opportunity to read the announcement that just came over the wire a short time ago he will know that the president of the Ford company has announced that, contrary to earlier expectations, a drop in production-


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: On a point of order, I wonder whether all hon. members will be permitted to take part in a discussion of the very serious unemployment situation that is developing. I am sure a number of members in this group would like to take part in such a discussion if it is in order.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Chairman, this is the house of parliament and it is the duty of parliament at the earliest appropriate moment to deal


with matters of importance. This is something that will very seriously affect not only Windsor and Oakville but all other communities supplying the various parts of these automobiles. It is an entirely unexpected development, and I submit it is the duty of parliament to place the facts before those who have a substantial measure of responsibility in this matter at the first opportunity. I will simply ask the minister if it is not so that it would be within his power to order an inquiry in relation to the application of the anti-dumping measures administered by his department similar to that which is to be conducted with respect to the textile industry.


James Joseph McCann: Of course I think the Leader of the Opposition knows that it is not within my power to instigate any such investigation. To date there is no evidence that this condition of unemployment in Windsor and the releasing of a number of employees there has anything whatever to do with the importation of automobiles into Canada either whole or in parts. I heard the announcement over the radio, and apart from that I know nothing about it. My understanding is that the layoff is for a short period of time and it may be due to changes in design or patterns or some part of the establishment being held up. I think that it is probably due to lack of consumer buying. I have heard that there is a war on between the Ford people and General Motors and that they have large inventories of stocks. Therefore I would not be a bit surprised that probably as the result of increased inventories it has been necessary for them to take this step. But at this time I can assure the hon. member that it has nothing to do with dumping into this country.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Would the minister permit one question? Did he not hear the whole of the radio news item-


James Joseph McCann: No, I did not.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -which was to the effect that only a portion of the lay-off is temporary and a large portion is not.


James Joseph McCann: I did not hear the whole thing.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: The minister's figures of recent prices compared, I understand, with those of last December seem to indicate a rather satisfactory situation, that is to say, that from the point of view of the customs administration the prices for duty purposes are now somewhat higher. But I should like to get at this point. Could we get figures showing comparative prices some months earlier? Furthermore, and this is particularly what I want to get, how many reports have

been received in response to the two directives which were sent out? It seems to me that would give us an indication as to how large a situation there was requiring treatment.


James Joseph McCann: I am unable to give the exact number of reports that have been received but it must have been very considerable because I have given the answer with respect to where action has been taken and I have given information as to the great number of cases that are under investigation at the present time. This does not mean that delivery of these goods is not made to the importer or buyer. We reserve the right to reconsider and reassess the amount of duty that shall be paid. That means that with respect to these items and commodities under investigation the final determination has not been made of the amount that shall be paid on the invoices because the invoices may be reappraised and corrected.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I am not asking the minister for an exact detailed figure but surely he can indicate to me whether they have received scores of reports or hundreds of reports. I merely want a rough figure.


James Joseph McCann: All over the country it would run into hundreds of reports from the different ports.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: So that you have the situation of hundreds of reports coming in indicating a situation which requires the consideration of the department under the terms of the act of last December.


James Joseph McCann: That is right.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: You have these cases under review now.


James Joseph McCann: Yes.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Last December, when the matter was under debate in the house, the minister gave us a good deal of information as to how typical prices in the United States were arrived at. Was I correct in understanding then that the organization for finding those prices was going to be set up?


James Joseph McCann: That is right. It has been.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Would the minister say a bit more about that? While I am on my feet, I have one other question. I think he spoke about four countries being involved. Am I correct? I thought I heard that somewhere in the minister's statement. Well, I abandon that and I would ask the minister to give me further information as to the method of organization to make the situation more shipshape and watertight.
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James Joseph McCann: I might indicate to the hon. member for Greenwood that since December we have taken on 26 additional appraisers. These people are delegated from here to examine into exporters' prices, and are operating from here in the United States.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Are these officials all in the United States?


James Joseph McCann: No, not all in the United States at the one time.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Where else?


James Joseph McCann: Some of them are in the
United Kingdom. We are communicating with some other people with a view to having appraisers accepted in their countries. You just cannot walk in, you know, and send an appraiser into a country that is exporting something into Canada, then have him investigate prices in the country of origin. There has to be negotiation with these countries, and as the need arises we do that. Presently, our people are in the United States and Great Britain principally because they are the biggest exporters to this *country.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The minister indicated that investigations were being made-under the provisions of the statute that has been under discussion-into a number of lines. As I listened to the list, it seemed to consist mainly of textiles and clothing items, but he referred also to refrigerators. Could he say what kind of refrigerators he had in mind? Could he say whether any other items of household equipment, such as stoves, furnaces and so on are under investigation?
When he answers those questions, could he say something as to the effect on Canadian importers which might arise from the knowledge that duties on these imports could be increased several months after the goods have been brought into the country? There are those who suggest that this is having a deterring effect on the importation of such goods as household equipment.


James Joseph McCann: In answer to the hon. member's question, I am informed that the type of refrigerators that have been imported are mostly household refrigerators. There have not been many other articles of household effects.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I mean are they electrical, ice or gas or all three?


James Joseph McCann: It is hard to answer what particular type, whether they have been electric, ice or gas. They would all be subject to the dumping duty if they were end of the line or seasonal stuff that were being shipped into Canada. So far as the type goes, the

Supply-National Revenue list only indicates the different models. There are a lot of different models, and I presume the model means the size.
So far as the application of the dumping duty is concerned, the department administers it with due care and reason. So far we have had no complaints from the importers because of delay or because of the unfair application of this valuation for duty purposes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I suppose, however, the department would not know whether any importers were refraining from trying to import because of the fear of what would happen.


James Joseph McCann: No, I emphasized that at the start. There is no one who can determine how many importers have been deterred from making importations by reason of the application of this section.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I realize that it is a point on which statistics would not be available. There are some of us who fear that that is what is happening. There is another subject, Mr. Chairman, I want to ask questions about, but if the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton has a question in the same field, I shall yield and come back to this later.


Mr. Montgomery:: My question is related to the administration of this amendment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Go ahead.


Gage Workman Montgomery: I am not quite clear, and perhaps the minister could make it more plain, who instigates this action to increase this duty. Is it the department on its own initiative that gives instructions to the customs collectors at points of entry or does the department just act when a request is received from an industry? For instance, you raised the duty on these textile goods, and it went up from month to month. Who instigated that? Was it your customs men at the border who took action as the goods came through or was this done at the request of an industry? I should like that cleared up.


James Joseph McCann: I am sure that if the hon. member is conversant with what has happened within the last few months he will know that public demand and governmental action brought about the amendment. This parliament passed it, and that was the start of it. We, as administrators, through our appraisers put into effect the application of the amendment. We did not instigate it, we applied it. Does that answer your question?


Gage Workman Montgomery: I am afraid I am not making myself clear. I readily understand that the act was amended as the result of the demands of industry generally. The point I have in mind is this. Suppose I go

to the United States and buy some article, such as a refrigerator, a radio or piece of household furniture. I bring it to the border. Is it the duty of the customs inspector, regardless of whether the article is listed on that list, to check the price and raise the invoice? Who is going to decide whether the invoice should be raised at the border?


James Joseph McCann: That is what our appraisers are there for. That is what we are paying our good money to them for, to appraise these goods at the price-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is it good money?


James Joseph McCann: It is the very best; none of this new stuff. Perhaps the hon. member was not here at the time I read the instructions giving effect to this amendment. Collectors, appraisers and any officers acting as appraisers are instructed to closely scrutinize the invoice value of all manufactured goods and compare such values with the home market values shown and certified by previous importations. They have a pattern there to follow. What would a refrigerator like this be invoiced at a month ago? They can look that up. Why would this one be invoiced at $25 less, even if you brought it to the border yourself. We compare it and put up the valuation, and you pay the duty on that increased value.


Gage Workman Montgomery: I want to go a step farther now; that is not the end of it. Then these appraisers that you have are sent to the country of export to investigate and ascertain if this price that has been arbitrarily set at the border is fair and reasonable?


James Joseph McCann: No. The point is this: Is the value at which they are exported the fair and reasonable value, comparable to the price at which they have been selling in their own country, under comparable conditions? But if at the end of a season they want to dump 10,000 manufactured articles into this country, or so many thousand yards of end of the season or end of the line, we say, "No, you cannot do that unless you invoice them at a value based on the weighted index of what you have been selling them for in your own country for the last six months, prior to this export".


Gage Workman Montgomery: How does the collector at the border know that these goods I am bringing in are end of the line goods?


James Joseph McCann: He does not know. But here is the further instruction:
The invoice is to be forwarded to the department with as full information as possible of the reasons for believing that the value shown is below the normal value in order that the matter may be inquired into and the value for duty established, as provided by the new sub-section (6) of section 35.


Gage Workman Montgomery: I thank the minister for being patient with me. But in those instructions I heard him read there is no mention of end of the season.


James Joseph McCann: You have to read the instructions in conjunction with the section of the act.


Mr. Nickle:: The minister has referred to differentials in prices for the various months of 1953 and 1954. Those prices, I presume, are the appraised prices for duty purposes, are they?


James Joseph McCann: These are the declared prices on their invoices, by the importer.


Carl Olof Nickle: These are the invoiced prices, not the appraised prices?


James Joseph McCann: No, not the appraised prices; they are the declared prices.


Carl Olof Nickle: Could the minister give us an indication in respect of the piece goods to which he has referred as to the final appraised price for duty purposes placed on these particular items by his department?


James Joseph McCann: I do not know that we can give that information to the hon. member, because we must always be careful not to disclose the business of individuals or firms to the public.


Carl Olof Nickle: The minister has indicated that the invoiced prices on a particular item is a certain amount. Is he giving away any more information there than he would be giving away if he gave us the price for that same item established by his department for duty purposes? In other words, how big a spread is there between the invoiced price and the appraised price for duty purposes?


James Joseph McCann: It would vary from item to item. But the indication I have given is that in April a year ago, let us say, the price was $2.97 and now it is $3.35. So that you have that invoice jacked up to the extent of 38 cents per piece. And the percentage of that would be about 10 per cent above the price at which similar goods would have been invoiced, and were invoiced, in April a year ago.


Carl Olof Nickle: We have a spread here from $2.97 to $3.35. That $3.35 price which the minister mentioned a minute ago was the invoiced price. In other words, the invoiced price, the actual cost of the goods in the country of origin, has increased in the last year; is that correct?


James Joseph McCann: That is correct.
Supply-National Revenue


Carl Olof Nickle: On this particular item the invoice now is $3.35. What is the appraised price for duty purposes placed on that particular item?


James Joseph McCann: This would be the appraised price, too, in this instance.


Carl Olof Nickle: What would be the invoiced price, the actual cost of these goods in the country of origin?


James Joseph McCann: That would not make much difference to us, because it would be on a percentage basis. We would compare the invoiced price with the actual average price for six months in the home market.


Carl Olof Nickle: From the minister's own statement the cost of these particular items, these piece goods, has gone up in the last year. Yet, presumably, a higher rate of duty is being applied against them through the application of this anti-dumping legislation. I was perhaps under a misapprehension that the price had somehow taken a big slide or slump in the last year, and that the goods were being dumped into Canada at prices considerably below the prices charged for the same items a year ago. Yet, according to the minister's statement, we have the invoiced price substantially increased, and now subject to a still higher rate of duty, through the application of the anti-dumping provision.


James Joseph McCann: The whole point I attempted to make in giving these figures was that the legislation of December has had some effect in bringing the price up to a level that would represent a fair market value of the goods in question, as against the dumping price. So we have a price of $3.35 as against what you might call the dumping price of $2.97.


Carl Olof Nickle: I can come to only one conclusion from that, sir, and that is that the price quoted at $3.35 for this item is not the invoiced price of that item in the country of origin but is, rather, the appraised price which the minister's department has placed upon it. In other words, it is the appraised price for duty purposes, and is not the invoiced price.


James Joseph McCann: It could be the invoiced price accepted by us, and then would be also the appraised price.


Carl Olof Nickle: The minister says it could be. May I ask if we can have submitted or read to us, or placed on the record in some way, a comparative statement covering, let us say, the first four months of 1953 and the first four months of the current year. That would be a comparative statement for all the items

Supply-National Revenue where there has been a difference between the invoiced price of the manufactured article and the appraised price for duty purposes? In other words it would include all items where the anti-dumping ruling has been applied.
In that comparative statement could we have a breakdown of the type of item, the volume brought into Canada, and then the following information: The appraised price, by items and by total value each month for each item; the appraised price for duty purposes per unit and per total value for each item; and, finally, a statement for each item for each month showing the total increase in duty imposed on all those items upon which anti-dumping legislation has been applied?


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, that would be a monumental task. Before I would attempt it I would have to revise these estimates and ask for an extra appropriation to carry out the work-because an enormous amount of work would be involved. If there is any particular item that the hon. member is interested in, about which he wants information, we shall try to get it from the department for him. But such a general request as the hon. member has made, I am afraid, would cost an awful lot of time and money and would need a lot more employees in the department.


Carl Olof Nickle: Mr. Chairman, actually what I am asking for would not involve a great deal of work. There are a very limited number of items, certain textiles, refrigerators and a few other miscellaneous items, against which the anti-dumping legislation has been applied since it was passed a few months ago. Surely, sir, it would be possible to list in very simple form the particular items, refrigerators, textiles and the rest, against which this legislation has been applied. List them by item, volume and prices, and then wind up with a statement of increases dollar-wise in duties which have been applied in an effort to protect the Canadian manufacturers, presumably, against those foreign imports.


James Joseph McCann: We shall take note of the hon. gentleman's question and try to give him some information with reference to the query he has made. Perhaps it might satisfy him if we gave him typical examples rather than all the invoices and all the types of goods. I think what he wants is something to indicate what has been the general increase as a result of the policy which was adopted a few months ago.


Carl Olof Nickle: That is right, sir. Could the minister not give us the information say on one particular type of refrigerator, any one, his choice, from the list he has there showing the duty?


James Joseph McCann: I am afraid I have not that information with me.


Carl Olof Nickle: Is there not another item against which the legislation has been applied on which the minister could give us information as to invoice price, appraised price for duty purposes and the increase in duty that has resulted?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Before the minister answers may I add a word? I myself was going to ask for something of that kind, because it seems to me that the figures we have now do not really carry conviction with them. It is reassuring to a point to take the December figures and the present figures and to infer from them that a lesson has been learned. It seems to me that if the minister could suggest one or two items in which we could have a comparison running back it would help. I should like to see a comparison not merely with the first four months of 1954 and December last, but with the first four months of 1954 perhaps with similar months of 1953. In any event, perhaps the minister and his officials can suggest some way in which this comparison could be made effective without all that work which I am sure none of us wishes to cause.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I should like to ask a few questions about mixed fruit. I am still one of those simple souls who thinks that mixed fruit is mixed fruit and not peaches. That seems to have been the source of considerable argument, and I do not suppose the argument is over yet. I raise the matter because there are still one or two questions that I want to ask directly on the issue as to whether mixed fruit is peaches or not; also I want to question the way in which the Department of National Revenue is dealing with matters that come before the tariff board where the Department of National Revenue is involved. I recognize that the tariff board comes under the Minister of Finance, but my interest is not in the administration of the tariff board, but rather in the nature of the recommendations made to the tariff board by the Department of National Revenue.
Perhaps I might take just a moment to put on the record what has been the issue in respect of this question as to whether

mixed fruit is peaches or not. As I understand it, there are in the Customs Tariff several items which fix the rate of duty on peaches and on one or two other items of fruit. In all cases these are tins of fruit. Then there is the n.o.p. item, "not otherwise provided". It appears-


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, does the hon. gentleman think this matter ought to be discussed now when it is still before the court?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I would be interested to know if it is before the court.


James Joseph McCann: Yes, it is.


Stanley Howard Knowles: In what way?


James Joseph McCann: It is still before the Exchequer Court, in that we have the right to make our appeal. Our appeal, if any, has not been heard at all. As far as the department goes, the importers made an appeal, and there was a judgment of the president of the Exchequer Court; but the department has the right to appeal, and that has not yet been heard.


Stanley Howard Knowles: At the moment I am seeking information; I am not arguing.


James Joseph McCann: That is the position.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Let us get this straight. As I understand it, there was an appeal from the tariff board to the Exchequer Court of Canada. The Exchequer Court issued its decision, in effect confirpning the decision of the tariff board. I do not know that there has yet been an appeal from the Exchequer Court ruling to the Supreme Court.


James Joseph McCann: No, there has not been; there has been an appeal from the decision of the tariff board to the Exchequer Court by the department. Do not forget there are two parties to an action that comes before the tariff board. Here were the Department of National Revenue and the importer, and the tariff board gave a decision. The importers made an appeal to the Exchequer Court. That appeal has been dealt with. The Department of National Revenue has the right to make an appeal to the Exchequer Court.


William Alfred Robinson: Order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I add a word?


William Alfred Robinson: Order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On the point of order; there are several lawyers around, including yourself, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to know what the situation is when a court has made a decision and no further appeal has been made. Is such a matter sub judice?
Supply-National Revenue


William Alfred Robinson: I am not familar with the particular case, but might I point out this. I understand that, in accordance with our rules, a matter is not sub judice if an appeal has not actually been filed. I do not know whether an appeal has been filed in this particular instance. If it has not been filed, I do not think I can rule this subject out as being sub judice. On the other hand, may I draw to the attention of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre the agreement which was apparently entered into earlier this morning, and the point of order raised by the hon. member for Mackenzie. If my understanding is correct, it is the wish of the committee that we confine ourselves to questions and answers at this time and general discussion will take place at a later date. Although I do not think I can rule the remarks of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre out of order on the ground that it is sub judice, I do think that they are perhaps not in accordance with the agreement which the hon. members have apparently arrived at.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am very happy to accept
both of your rulings. Have you been able, sir, to ascertain yet which item it is that has been fixed for the general discussion? I am prepared to defer this discussion to that other item if I can be told which one it is.


William Alfred Robinson: I have not yet been informed of any item, nor has the committee come to any agreement on that point.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I might attempt to assist the situation. My understanding is that general discussion would take place on item No. 299, general administration of the taxation division. I think the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration agrees with that.


Walter Edward Harris: I was under the impression
that the understanding had ended about half an hour ago.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I thought the withdrawal had been withdrawn. That was my hope.


Walter Edward Harris: I am most anxious to accommodate hon. members but when one member breaks that understanding, even if-


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Not consciously or intentionally.


Walter Edward Harris: Well, I cannot be responsible if hon. members are not aware of the understanding and certain things follow from that. But as far as the general discussion is concerned, if hon. members want to make speeches with respect to the customs items on the general item on taxation then I have no objection.

Supply-National Revenue


James Joseph McCann: Oh, no!


Walter Edward Harris: Will the minister excuse me a moment? He, of course, will be in the position that he will understand these are direct statements and will not lead to any answers. The officials are here by arrangement this morning and we have already had one hon. member seeking to make a general statement. As I said, I thought that that had ended the discussion, though I know the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre wishes to say-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Wishes to say a few things and ask a few questions.


Walter Edward Harris: -a few things, and there is no reason why he should not have that right when the Leader of the Opposition exercised it.


Mr. Fleming:: Mr. Chairman, I think it is only fair to mention that the Leader of the Opposition made it quite clear, in the point he raised, that he was asking questions which he thought related to the matter under discussion, namely the application of the December amendment in relation to dumping. He made his statement and said he was asking these questions as they applied to the particular subject which was agreed to be the subject for discussion this morning. I thought that had been made quite clear and the understanding had been respected, and we were carrying on under it. I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that that is the position and we should now so continue.


Walter Edward Harris: I think the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre might proceed with his general remarks. If I interrupt him at about the same point in his remarks that I did in the case of the Leader of the Opposition, we may find that he too intends to observe the understanding.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I am not too sure as to the meaning of that remark, but I am in a very co-operative mood this morning, and the leader of the house can confirm that, because these arrangements have been changed so often this morning that I have forgotten how many times they have been made and upset.
However, Mr. Chairman, I shall not take very many minutes to deal with this matter. I do not intend to debate the issue of whether mixed fruit is peaches. The department ruled one way and that ruling was that mixed fruit should be classified as peaches and the effect of that was to increase the duty. The case was taken to the tariff board and the tariff board ruled against the department. Their ruling was to the effect


%
that mixed fruit was mixed fruit and should be charged the duty provided under n.o.p.- not otherwise provided.
The case went from the tariff board to the Exchequer Court and the Exchequer Court refused leave to appeal against the tariff board decision which had the effect of confirming the tariff board decision that mixed fruit is mixed fruit and not peaches. Where it goes from there we do not yet know.
However, there is a question of administration or policy involved in this on which I wish to say a few words. When the case was heard before the tariff board it turned out that the representations on behalf of the Department of National Revenue were made not by officers of the Department of National Revenue but by a person from the Department of Justice. It also turns out, and I have had the privilege of reading the transcript of the evidence, that in the discussion that took place-if I may put it this way-the ground was shifted two or three times.
The other side to the case appeared before the tariff board prepared to argue against the contention that mixed fruit was peaches. During the discussion the representative of the Department of Justice suggested to the tariff board that perhaps the ruling made by the Department of National Revenue was wrong, that perhaps mixed fruit should be regarded as preserves, and if that was not a satisfactory proposition then perhaps mixed fruit should be put into another basket item in the customs tariff schedule.
The result of that, Mr. Chairman, was that the people on the other side did not know where they stood. The ground was being shifted and arguments were being advanced that were not in the original proposition. It seems to me that that way of dealing with the matter is quite unfair. I recognize the fact that the position I would take was finally taken by the tariff board, when it ruled that mixed fruit should still be n.o.p., and at the moment that is the decision unless an appeal is made to the Supreme Court. But if the decision stands then somewhere along the line it looks as though there will have to be rebates of rather substantial sums.
On one occasion on the orders of the day I asked the Minister of National Revenue whether it was the intention of the Department of National Revenue to continue this practice of having a representative of the Department of Justice represent the Department of National Revenue in these hearings before the tariff board. Indeed, it is on that point that I would like him to comment. On that occasion he gave the short answer "Yes". But it seems to me that this is an unfair way

of dealing with this matter. When the case comes before the tariff board it makes it very difficult for the opposite side when someone comes in from the Department of Justice and shifts the ground considerably, as was done in this case, so that the other party does not know what arguments they will have to answer.
It seems to me, if one can think of this in the sense of court procedure, that that is hardly a fair way to deal with it. I am sure the Minister of National Revenue is familiar with all the facts of the case and I would appreciate it if he would comment on that particular matter, namely the way in which the Department of National Revenue makes its representations to the tariff board when a ruling of the department has been appealed to that board.


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, in answer to the hon. gentleman's question I could give him a little of the background here in connection with the lawyers who appeared before the tariff board. They began appearing early in the life of the present tariff board. As a matter of fact, a lawyer was involved in one of the cases heard on April 25, 1949, and that was appealed, although I need not go into the details. On May 18 there was an appeal before the board, and in 1949 three lawyers represented the appellant in appeal case No. 177. There are numerous other instances I could give which would serve to indicate that lawyers have appeared in all the cases since the very beginning. The first time that the Department of National Revenue used a lawyer there was on June 7, 1950, on appeal No. 214. If the hon. member wishes to know if it is our intention to continue to use lawyers the answer is yes, and the Department of Justice being the legal advisers to every government department we propose to use their services when required.


Stanley Howard Knowles: But, Mr. Chairman, I was not objecting to the use of lawyers. I was raising the point that a person should not be brought in from some other department to take the attitude that it was his job to sort the thing out and to offer suggestions to the tariff board. Rather, I feel that a representative of the Department of National Revenue should conduct its side of the case so that the two opposing parties could know where they stood.


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, I think you will appreciate that it is the duty of the tariff board to bring out all the facts and if our counsel can assist them in that it is his duty to do so.
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Mr. Shaw:: Mr. Chairman, possibly the statistical information which I desire is readily available, possibly not. In any event I should like to make my request with reference to the decisions of the tariff board. I understand it is the right of the Department of National Revenue to appeal against the decisions of the tariff board. In cases where they do not appeal against the decision, they are faced with the problem of making their own decision in the light of that decision. I can mention the specific case, for example. Would the department have readily available statistics showing the number of cases, say over the period of the last twelve months or the fiscal year, where the company or the individual Canadian has appealed against the decision of the national revenue department made under a decision of the tariff board? I realize that that question is a bit involved, but if I could, I should like to have that information as to the outcome of those appeals.


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, I do not think
that information is available. As I understand it, what the hon. member would like to know is in how many cases the department has made the decision with reference to appraisals and classification. We hear the appellants who come to see the department in those cases. We hear their arguments. Then a decision is made. If that decision is not acceptable then the appellant-the importer-has the right to put his case before the tariff board. As a matter of fact, where an acceptable decision is not made, we, on occasion, make this suggestion: Here is our decision-a decision which is not arbitrarily made but made after argument and after reasoning and where the importer does not choose to accept it; if you are not satisfied then your best course to follow is to make an appeal to the tariff board and see what they say about it. If we are not satisfied with that decision we can appeal it in the same manner as we propose to do in this case of fruits.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Are you going to appeal that
case?


James Joseph McCann: We may. I am not saying what we are going to do. We have the right to appeal. Within the limitation of time we will make a decision as to whether or not we may appeal.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The minister is not yet in a position to announce whether an appeal will be made?


James Joseph McCann: I am not making any
announcement as to our future action. As I said in response to the hon. gentleman's

Supply-National Revenue question, they can appeal to the tariff board and the tariff board makes a decision. If we are satisfied with it, we will act on it. If we are not satisfied, we can appeal to the Exchequer Court or to the Supreme Court.


Frederick Davis Shaw: Possibly I might make my point just a little bit clearer. The case I have in mind is one where the tariff board has already rendered a decision. This relates to the sales tax. I may be more specific and say it is in the case of furnaces excluded from the sales tax. To take an individual case, whereas individual manufacturers apply for a refund, the Department of National Revenue say: No; under the tariff board ruling we have decided that you are not covered; there is no refund. I understand he has the right to appeal to the Exchequer Court against that decision of the revenue department. Those are the cases I am concerned about. In some cases did the individual appeal to the Exchequer Court against the decision of the department in the past twelve months? If so, in how many cases did the department win and in how many cases did the individual win? That is the type of information I want.


James Joseph McCann: I am informed by my officials that on that issue they do not know of any appeals.


Frederick Davis Shaw: Then there are going to be some.


Some hon. Members:: Carried.


William Alfred Robinson: Shall the item carry?


Carl Olof Nickle: I do not want to hark back to this matter too often, but I am still a little bit confused, as perhaps was the minister when he answered my earlier question. In order to avoid any further confusion on this matter, I should like to know just what prices he was quoting when he made this reference to $2.97 and now $3.35. Was he referring to the invoiced prices, the actual cost of the goods in the country of origin, or was he referring to the appraised prices for duty purposes?


James Joseph McCann: The reference is made to the value accepted at customs. It may have been the actual value; I mean it may have been the value that they had on their invoice. In any event it was the final value, whether it was the accepted value in the first instance or the appraised value.


Carl Olof Nickle: In other words, it was the price on which duty was paid?


James Joseph McCann: It was the price on which duty was applied; that is right.


Carl Olof Nickle: I asked earlier for a comparative statement. The importance of the question I have just asked, as to whether they were talking about invoiced prices or the appraised prices or appraised values, is to be seen in cases like this, using the assumed example of a refrigerator which may have an invoiced price of say $100. On a duty rate of 20 per cent the duty will be $20 or a total cost landed in Canada of $120. Under the terms of the anti-dumping legislation that particular refrigerator may have been priced by your officials, say at $150 as contrasted with the invoiced price of $100. At the same duty rate, that would put a duty of $30 on that refrigerator or a landed cost in Canada of $130 compared with $120, or an increase in duty of $10.
What I am trying to get at is the actual value to the Canadian manufacturer and the actual cost to the Canadian consumer in the application of this anti-dumping legislation. In other words, what were the invoiced values of the goods which have been reappraised under this anti-dumping legislation? What were the appraised values, what was the total duty levied and what was the difference in duty under the old terms of the anti-dumping legislation as contrasted with the actual duty charged under this new anti-dumping legislation? Would it be possible to obtain from the minister, while we are dealing with these estimates, a statement along that line covering refrigerators, textiles and the other items against which this anti-dumping legislation has been applied?


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, I understand the hon. gentleman's point. We shall try to give him that information in specific cases in order that he may understand what the effect has been of the application of this new valuation for duty purposes.


William Alfred Robinson: Shall the item carry?


Carl Olof Nickle: Mr. Chairman, could we obtain that information today? Could we obtain it during consideration of these estimates?


James Joseph McCann: I am afraid not. It will take a few days to prepare it. We shall try to get it before the end of the session.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I think there ought to be a distinct understanding about the matter. I think the point raised is an extremely important one. Without having this information we really have not an understanding of what has been going on. If the minister cannot let us have it while the estimates are under consideration, can it be understood that it will be produced and, I would hope

by consent, be placed on Hansard later. I think it is highly desirable that this information should be available.


James Joseph McCann: We will do that.


William Alfred Robinson: Shall the item carry?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I have one question. If the decision with regard to mixed fruits stands, can the minister say what amount of money would be required to be rebated?


James Joseph McCann: I have not any idea just what the amount of money would be. I suggest that it is hardly fair to put up hypothetical questions like that until a decision has been made.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It was hardly fair to put up the rate of duty either.


William Alfred Robinson: Shall the item carry?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I want to be quite clear, Mr. Chairman. Are you going to call item 295?


William Alfred Robinson: Item 295 has been called.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs and excise divisions-
296.	Inspection, investigation and audit services, $3,376,797.
James MacKerras Macdonnell: I wish the minister would say something on this item as to the extension of services, ports, outports and preventive stations. Just in general terms I should like to know how great the extension is.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is item 297.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: No.


William Alfred Robinson: Item 296 has reference to inspection, investigation and audit services.


Some hon. Members:: Carried.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: The next line in my book reads: "Ports, outports and preventive stations".


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is the heading for the next item.


James Joseph McCann: I think that is item 297.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Ports, outports and preventive stations-
297.	Operation and maintenance, $22,553,155.
James Joseph McCann: This vote, which covers 337 ports with a total staff of 6,000 persons, shows a net increase over last year of $2,051,554. A breakdown of this amount shows an increase in the following headings. I will just give them roughly. In salaries and wages the increase is $1,909,000. Of this amount $1,490,000 is to cover the general salary revision. The balance is to cover the salaries of 137 additional officers, as well as normal
Supply-National Revenue annual increases and reclassifications. Travelling expenses are up $80,000. The increase is due to the greater volume of business which necessitates increased transfers of staff between ports to handle peak loads. It is also due to the necessary use of a greater number of relieving officers. The higher cost is predicated on the actual expenditures during 1953-54 which amounted to $296,000. Uniforms cost us $30,000 more and the increase is to cover the initial issue of summer weight uniforms. The issue of uniforms is restricted to officers meeting the travelling public at frontier points and other immigration points and takes into consideration varying climatic conditions.
I am sure that the general public is of the opinion that our customs and immigration officers-I will add immigration-are all neatly clad and present a good appearance. We have numerous letters from all over the country with reference both to their appearance and their courtesy. Telephones and telegrams will cost us $25,000 more. This is based upon last year's expenditures and the increase in rates. The balance of the increase is to provide for increased costs for printing and distribution of regulations and memoranda, for cartage, postage, light, power, water and stationery, materials and supplies. Is that the answer?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: There is one other point I want to ask about, and perhaps it can be dealt with in the same way as the minister is going to deal with the request of the hon. member for Calgary South. I should like to know what the story is about smuggling at the moment, and particularly cigarette smuggling. Has the situation improved?


James Joseph McCann: I can give a very satisfactory answer to that. Smuggling has greatly decreased within the last year. That is indicated by the monthly figures of seizures, on which we base our information. In March of 1954 there were 181,693 cigarettes seized compared with 1,300,000 in March of 1953, so you will see that there is a very big drop. The drop has taken place since last July. In July of 1953 there were 1,861,000. The number dropped in August and September, was a little higher in October and from November of last year has ranged from 400,000 down to 181,000 in March of 1954. Seizures are away down and that is very encouraging. As a matter of fact I have the figure for April, 1954, which is still lower. It is 164,000 compared with 2,498,271 in April a year ago.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Does the minister attribute that to the increasing efficiency of his department?

Supply-National Revenue


James Joseph McCann: In part, and I think the big factor was the reduction of the taxation. It was not as profitable to smuggle cigarettes into Canada after the tax and the price had been lowered.


Mr. Herridge:: I wish to bring a matter to the attention of the minister which I have been asked to bring to his attention by responsible organizations in my constituency. We now have a very modern airport at Castlegar. As a matter of fact there were over 15,000 people there on May 30 to see the airport reopened. If our radio reception was as good as the airfield we would be very fortunate. The airport is serviced by Canadian Pacific Air Lines. Recently they have put larger planes in service and there is greatly increased travel between the coast and other parts of Canada to this airport.
I have been asked by responsible organizations to ask the minister if he would consider investigating the question of having this airport made a port of entry. The present arrangements are quite inconvenient for large numbers of travellers. I would ask the minister to have that matter investigated to see if it is possible to have a port of entry there.


James Joseph McCann: I will be very glad to do that.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Ports, outports and preventive stations-
298.	Construction or acquisition o£ buildings, works, land and new equipment, $1,050,000.
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am sorry to delay the committee but I have been sitting here all morning waiting for these one or two small items. I want to bring to the minister's attention the necessity for certain improvements and extensions at one or two ports on the boundary of my constituency. I do so again at the request of chambers of commerce, farmers' institutes and other responsible organizations. The people who make representations to me are always responsible and my representations are always very modest. I want to refer to Nelway first. I am told that there are some extensions being made there for the housing of part-time summer employees who are used in the summer months, and that the buildings that are going to be used as residences by the summer employees are being serviced by chemical toilets although the other buildings are serviced by water. There is water available which is piped to the other buildings. Yet the buildings for the part-time employees are being serviced by chemical toilets although they are only a few feet away from the main buildings. I have been asked to bring that matter to the attention of the minister because the people who make this


recommendation consider chemical toilets obsolete. I also understand that there have been some objections from the American officials on the other side of the line.
I also want to mention the port of entry at Waneta. The department's facilities there are, to say the least, most shabby and inadequate. Owing to the improvement of roads, the improvement of the bridge crossing the Pend-d'Oreille river at that point and the building of the dam at Waneta the traffic has increased greatly. However, the minister's staff and officials are housed under very poor circumstances and I do ask for consideration of the improvement of these quarters because the port is certainly of growing importance and the facilities are inadequate at the present time.


James Joseph McCann: I will do that.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
William Alfred Robinson: Item 299.


James Joseph McCann: No.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Should we not carry the
supplementary item first and leave item 299 until after lunch?


James Joseph McCann: Yes.


William Alfred Robinson: Supplementary item 691.
Shall this item carry? Carried.


James Joseph McCann: Items 587 and 588 in the further supplementaries.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Where are they?


James Joseph McCann: Item 587 is a small item of $27,000 for the inspection, investigation and audit services. The details are on page 20. Item 588 is a further amount of $303,000 required for operation and maintenance. The details are on page 20. These items are in the further supplementary estimates.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I think we passed those before the 31st of March.


James Joseph McCann: Oh yes, that is right.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Did you not spend that
money?


James Joseph McCann: They happened to be on the list I have here, but the only one we are concerned with is item 691.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.
The committee resumed at 2.30 p.m.


The Deputy Chairman:: I understand that the Department of National Revenue was under discussion at adjournment this morning, but this afternoon it is the intention to discuss resolution No. 53, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

International shortwave broadcasting service-
53. Maintenance and operation including authority to credit to the appropriation revenue from the rental of facilities in Radio-Canada building to an amount of $160,000 and to re-expend it for the purposes of the international service, $2,199,150.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Is the minister going to make a statement by way of report on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?


James Joseph McCann: This item No. 53 has to do with the international shortwave broadcasting service. The appropriation asked for this year is $2,199,150, which is an increase over last year of $171,000. The shortwave broadcasting service broadcasts regularly to Europe, Latin America and Australia, as well as providing Canadian news and radio entertainment for the Canadian armed forces establishments in northern Canada and the forces in Korea and Europe.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I do not mean to interrupt the minister, but I assumed that before we went into the details of the international shortwave service the minister would have some statement to make by way of report of a more general nature on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and its operations in the sound and television field, as well as its financial operations.


James Joseph McCann: If that is the case, I think perhaps we ought to turn to item No. 534 on page 70 of the book of estimates, which has to do with loans and investments. I feel that would be the proper item upon which to undertake it. This covers a loan to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation repayable with interest in the amount of $3 million.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I suggest we might follow the practice that has been followed in other years and consider the several items pertaining to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation together so as to facilitate a general discussion at the outset, to be followed later by any specific matters that may arise under the individual items.


James Joseph McCann: We could do that. As you will understand, the first items have been skipped because of the fact they are statutory items. The first item covers $6,250,000 which is the application of the excise tax which goes to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
I have no objection to a discussion of the affairs of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in general. I have two short statements to make, one in connection with the international shortwave service and the other has to do with this loan. Probably if I gave the material with reference to the loan, it
Supply-National Revenue would open up the discussion and that would give a picture of the general position of the broadcasting corporation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Would it not be possible to agree on one of the three or four items that are before us as the item on which we have all the discussion of the C.B.C.?


James Joseph McCann: If that is what the committee wants, I suggest the general discussion take place either on this item covering the loan to the C.B.C. or on the item covering the international shortwave service. I would suggest it would be better on the item covering the loan.


Edward Turney Applewhaite: I would make this suggestion to the committee. I have looked over these items. The first two, taking them in numerical order, refer to the international shortwave broadcasting service, which is a subject of its own, and the third item is a general item referring to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation activities as a whole. Then, the supplementary item is for construction and acquisition of new buildings.
Perhaps the most orderly method would be to take them in that order, and discuss and dispose of the two items dealing with the international broadcasting service, unless there is some general discussion which involves both the international and the domestic service, in which case of course our practice has been to permit a general discussion. Perhaps I may be allowed at this time to say that, in trying to work out an orderly procedure, I have noticed, during the discussions we have had, a great deal has been said about one specific item in the estimates which would be called later. As a result of this, the general discussion has been spotty and far from consecutive; the remarks of one speaker have not followed the other.
I am in the hands of the committee entirely, but it would be my suggestion that we deal with the international shortwave broadcasting first, because it comes first. But if hon. members have remarks to make which cover all the aspects of broadcasting, then we would have to proceed with the item covering the loan.


Donald Methuen Fleming: In view of your statement, Mr. Chairman, I may say that I wish to make some remarks of a general nature in regard to policy, and therefore I would suggest in line with your intimation that we take the more general item first. Since the international shortwave service is a specific matter not lending itself readily as a vehicle for general discussion, it might be well to call item No. 534 first. It would be a more appropriate vehicle for general discussion.

Supply-National Revenue
The Depuly Chaiiman: Is that the general desire of the committee?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Item stands.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation-Loans, investments and advances-
534. Loans to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation repayable with interest at a rate to be fixed by the governor in council on such terms and conditions as the governor in council may determine and to be applied in payment of expenditures to cover capital costs of television installations and to support the development of the service. Such loans, with interest, shall be a charge on the revenues of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation next after the charge imposed under the provisions of section 17 of the Canadian Broadcasting Act, 1936, $3,000,000.


James Joseph McCann: I may say, Mr. Chairman, that that procedure is quite agreeable to me. This particular item has to do with a loan to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for television installation. In this statement I have laid stress on the television side of broadcasting rather than sound broadcasting. However, it does open up the matter for discussion.
This item covers a proposed loan to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for capital expenditures on television installations. The committee will recall that last year parliament approved a loan of $4,750,000 to the corporation towards the cost of building television facilities in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Halifax, together with a transmitter in Montreal. The loan last year, as was explained at the time, represented only part of the cost of the program, with the remainder to be met by a further loan in this fiscal year. The amount proposed this year is $3 million and it will cover the remainder of the cost of the projects that were approved last year.
As hon. members are aware, we are in the midst of a wide development of television broadcasting in Canada. The C.B.C. began operating its production centres and stations at Montreal and Toronto in September, 1952.
I would point out that that is less than two years since our first station was opened. Just over a year ago these stations were linked together by direct network connection. The Ottawa station went on the air at about the same time. The C.B.C. station in Vancouver opened last December. The second transmitter in Montreal began functioning in January of this year. The Winnipeg station will go on the air in a few days and the Halifax station is expected to start before the end of the present year. At the same time the number and variety of television programs has been greatly increased. The growing interest in the country is shown by the fact


that about three-quarters of a million families are reported to have bought television sets in Canada, and it is expected that sales this year will considerably exceed those of last fiscal year when some 400,000 sets were sold.
There are also at the moment four private stations operating, with more expected to be on the air shortly. All are functioning as members of the national system and are being supplied by the C.B.C. with national program service which is amounting to from 20 to 28 hours a week.
During this year there will be further wide expansion in the television system. The C.B.C. is developing program production facilities at the regional points of Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Halifax, and will have some facilities for live output in Ottawa. In addition 16 more private stations are already authorized and will be coming on the air at different times-it is expected most of them before the end of the year. The C.B.C. will be supplying all the private stations in addition to its own with national program service.
The C.B.C. is now supplying service to the private stations at London and Kitchener by direct network connection. It is planned that such direct connections would be established with all stations in southern Ontario and Quebec just as soon as they go on the air. Stations in other parts of the country for the time being will be supplied by means of kinescope recordings. As the number of stations increase this will entail greatly expanded facilities for the making and handling of recordings. The C.B.C. is looking forward to direct network connections across the country from coast to coast, and has already asked for tenders from communication companies for extensions of network service both east and west from central Canada. Such a national direct network system will of course involve commitments for heavy annual payments by the corporation.
Because of the high sales of sets, revenues to the C.B.C. from the 15 per cent excise tax on the wholesale price of receiving sets has been actually higher than was anticipated at the beginning of the last fiscal year. The proceeds of the tax applying to television amounted to approximately $11,700,000 for 1953-54. I am sorry that since its fiscal year has just recently closed, the annual statement of the corporation is not yet available. The corporation estimates that on the television side they will show an operating surplus of some $5 million. This television operating surplus from last year has been all earmarked by the corporation for further capital expenditures, and will to this amount reduce the need for further capital loans in

the future. The funds will be used to provide additional technical and production facilities, which are being made necessary for the development of the system. The present program facilities are being taxed beyond capacity to provide the number of Canadian productions at present being broadcast. With increasing pressure for the carrying of more non-Canadian programs, it has become more and more necessary to add to the facilities for producing Canadian programs. I think all the hon. members will agree that at least a reasonable proportion of our television broadcasting should be provided by Canadians for Canadians.
In this way the surplus which the corporation will show in television for the past fiscal year will be plowed back into facilities for maintaining and improving the national television service right across the country.
It is not very expensive to import television programs in Canada and put them on our television stations; it is extremely expensive to produce television programs ourselves in Canada. And it is also expensive to link the different parts of the country together by television. I think we all realize that television is bound to have a very great effect on our family and national life and particularly on the growing minds of young Canadians. At the same time we have to face the fact that the development of a Canadian system, broadcasting at least a reasonable proportion of Canadian programs, spreading across the country from coast to coast, is going to cost a great deal of money to operate. At the present time in Canada we are developing one of the most extensive television systems in the world. It represents one of the great developments in the history of our country and it is being built under a scheme of sensible co-operation between public and private interest. I believe that in television we in Canada must think in big national terms, not just weighing individual local considerations. And if we continue to think and plan for the national interest, in the interests of Canadians in all parts of the country, we are going to have a television system of which we as a nation can be justly proud.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, the committee is hampered this year in its approach to the consideration of the various items affecting the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by the fact that there has been no committee of the house this year reviewing the operations of the corporation, and also by reason of the fact that the corporation's annual report is not in our hands.
It has been the practice throughout the two last previous parliaments that a special
4, 1954
' Supply-National Revenue committee of the house should be set up in alternate sessions to review the operations of the corporation. The committee did sit in the session of 1953, and I have no doubt one will sit during the next session of parliament. Certainly we in this part of the house will be asking that such a committee be appointed at the next session.
Then, as to the annual report, I would call to the attention of the hon. members the fact that the fiscal year of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation follows the fiscal year of the government, ending on March 31. It is unfortunate that in a year when there has been no special committee reviewing the operations of the corporation, and its policies, we have not before us at this time any report of the operations of the corporation, since the one which closed with the date March 31, 1953. Here we are more than 14 months later and, apart from the somewhat brief review the minister has given to the committee, we know virtually nothing as to the financial operations of the corporation during the past 14 months. As the situation may arise in the future, I think some consideration should be given either to expediting the annual report for occasions such as this, or probably considering the possibility of making the fiscal year of the corporation coincide with the calendar year, rather than with the fiscal year of the government. I am making no further comments as to the feasibility of this suggestion. It is the sort of thing that can be discussed with the officials of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation when a special committee next sits. But we are left in the position today where we are without the benefit of the work done by a committee, and without access to any report since that of March 31, 1953. Therefore our information in approaching the estimates affecting the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is quite inadequate.
Sir, we have a half dozen items before us. As the minister mentioned in his remarks, there are two items on page 8 which are of a statutory nature. The first is $6,250,000 to provide for the requirements of the sound broadcasting service. The second is an item of $15 million to provide for payment to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from the consolidated revenue fund of amounts equal to the taxes collected under the Excise Tax Act in respect of radio and television sets and equipment. Then we have item 534, immediately under debate, to provide the sum of $3 million by way of loans to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to cover capital costs of television installations and to support the development of the service. There are

Supply-National Revenue of course the other items which relate specifically to the international shortwave service, which I shall not deal with in these somewhat general remarks at this stage.
I should like to draw to the attention of the committee at the outset, sir, the fact that the bulk of the money going from the consolidated revenue fund of this country into the coffers of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is going there not by direct vote of this house now but under authority of a statute passed previously. We in this part of the house took issue with the method that was proposed by the government last year, and indeed on previous occasions, in this respect. Provisions of a continuing nature were made at the insistence of the government both in the years 1951 and 1953. In the year 1951, to implement one of the proposals of the Massey royal commission, the government asked the house to make a continuing five-year grant to the corporation of $6,250,000 a year. In 1953, when the licence fee of $2.50 on radio receiving sets was abolished, a nuisance tax which we in this part of the house had attacked vigorously for many years, provision was made for substituting revenue on a much more generous scale by way of allocating to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation the annual proceeds of the excise tax collected on the sale of radio and television receiving sets in Canada. At that time we were told the estimated revenue from that source for a full year would be approximately $12 million. In the case of the 1951 vote, it was set up on a five-year basis. In the case of the 1953 vote, it is set up on an indefinite basis that can go on in perpetuity unless legislation to the contrary is passed in this house.
We in the official opposition took issue with that type of indefinite provision, and we still do. We are prepared to deal on its merits with any provision, any grant or any loan that we are asked to vote in favour of the corporation to assist its work either in the field of sound or television broadcasting; but we do not believe that this matter of providing indefinite grants, continuing year after year without any control or direct vote on the part of parliament, can by any stretch of the imagination be harmonized with a proper appreciation of the importance of parliamentary control over the expenditure of public moneys.
We have been given some indication from the minister this afternoon that the estimate given to the house last year as to the revenue which was expected from the tax on radio and television receiving sets has been exceeded. We have not been given the figures as to the breakdown between the
[Mr. Fleming.1

television and the radio sets. I should think it would not be very difficult to obtain those figures on a breakdown basis.
It will be recalled, sir, that the Massey royal commission recommended that the operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in their financial aspects, should be carefully separated as between sound broadcasting on the one hand and television broadcasting on the other. Last year, when the government's proposal came before the house, it was suggested to us that of the $12 million of expected revenue, the amounts yielded would be approximately equal as between radio broadcasting and television broadcasting. We in the official opposition asked for a clear and definite allocation to be established by legislation so that revenue from tax on the sale of radio receiving sets would be allocated to sound broadcasting and revenue derived from taxes on the sale of television sets would be allocated to the purposes of television. But in the result, the government would not accept this proposal and insisted that the revenue derived from the tax on both sound receiving sets and television sets should be mingled.
I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the first thing we want to know is what is the breakdown of revenue as between the tax on radio receiving sets on the one hand and on the television sets on the other. We will want to know in a way that is just not possible without a detailed operating statement of the corporation for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1954 before us, what have been the revenues received and what have been the expenditures upon sound broadcasting and television broadcasting, both fully separated.
We should have a proper and detailed statement as to the use made by the corporation of the substantial sums of money which were placed at its disposal during the fiscal year ended March 31, 1954. Actually, the revenues at their disposal in both fields of sound and television broadcasting for that fiscal year aggregated some $26,750,000. I gave the detail of that breakdown on May 14, 1953, at page 5418 of Hansard, in reviewing the work of the special committee on radio broadcasting for that year, and the information it had gathered as to the financial operations and plans of the corporation.
I make it quite clear now that I am asking for a detailed breakdown in this committee now of that substantial total of $26,750,000, by far the largest sum ever placed at the disposal of the corporation in any fiscal year, indeed, several times larger than the figures available to it in recent years.

We come again, sir, to the question of loans. This house, over a period of several years, has already placed at the disposal of the corporation a total of $8 million by way of loans for the development of television. One might have thought that with the very largely increased sums available to the corporation from the proceeds of the excise tax on radio receiving sets and television sets there would be no occasion for the corporation to come back to parliament for further loans. After all, with $26,750,000 available for all purposes last year, and with the information now that the estimate of $12 million given to the house at that time as to the expected revenue from the proceeds of the excise tax on receiving sets and television sets is less than the amount actually realized, one would think that there would not be occasion to come back to parliament asking for more loans; yet we are being asked now to provide a loan of an additional $3 million to cover the capital cost of television installations and to support the development of the service.
The house, Mr. Chairman, has been given no adequate explanation of this item, and I call upon the minister for infinitely more information than he has yet imparted to the house to justify this substantial loan, in addition to all the other revenues that are available to the corporation from the various sources which have been allotted to it by parliament.
Let me remind the house, sir, as to what some of those revenues are which are now regularly available to the corporation. We have, first of all, the excise tax and it is to be observed that this year the statutory item with respect to the proceeds of the excise tax stands at $15 million. That, in itself, is an increase of $3 million over the estimate of $12 million upon which the house proceeded at the 1953 session. In addition there is the continuing grant of $6,250,000 under the program approved by parliament in 1951. In addition to these two sources, Mr. Chairman, there are still available to the corporation its revenues from commercial broadcasting. Indeed, we have not been given the figures of revenue from commercial broadcasting for this past fiscal year, but on reference to the annual report of the corporation for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1953, we may see that the revenue from commercial broadcasting in that year exceeded $2,500,000 from sound broadcasting, and even in the very limited operation in the television field I find that for the fiscal year there had been received a total of $518,000 by way of commercial revenue in respect of television broadcasting.
Supply-National Revenue
Now, with the very largely increased program of television operations carried on by the corporation in the fiscal year ended March 31, 1954, it must be apparent that the revenues to the corporation from commercial broadcasting must be very much larger than that and would aggregate something in excess of $3 million. There are some other items of revenue as well.
I draw attention to the fact, Mr. Chairman, that these are very substantial sources of revenue to the corporation, and now, more than ever before in our history, when dealing with the affairs of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and its operations, we are dealing with an organization whose claims upon the public treasury are becoming ever greater and now reach into very substantial amounts which call on the part of parliament for the strictest review and the exercise of the fullest parliamentary control.
Mention has been made, sir, of the way in which the public has been purchasing receiving sets. Indeed, sir, the rate at which the public has been purchasing television sets has been extraordinary. In the year 1954, according to the dominion bureau of statistics' daily bulletin for March 26, we learn that manufacturers' sales of television receivers soared to as high as 366,498 units in the full year 1953 compared with 137,236 in 1952. In other words, sir, the total television receiving sets sold in Canada in 1953 were almost three times the number sold in Canada in 1952. Radio sales rose more moderately to 620,800 in 1953 from 568,844 in the year 1952. The value of the TV sets sold in 1953 was $148,753,000 compared with $60,659,000 in 1952, and radio sales were valued at $52,119,000 compared with $50,125,000 in the year 1952.
The sale of TV sets by areas in Canada in 1953 is also striking. In the Atlantic provinces it was only 869; in Quebec 119,519; in Ontario 225,726; in the prairie provinces 1,270; and in British Columbia 19,114. The extraordinary rate of public purchases of television sets is continuing in 1954, according to the figures issued by the RadioTelevision Manufacturers Association of Canada which reported that the sale of television sets for the first four months of 1954 amounted to 137,267 compared with 94,136 in a like period in 1953. In respect of the sale of sound receiving sets, sales for the first four months of 1954 totalled 142,517 units compared with 198,021 units in the like period of 1953.
It will be observed from these figures, Mr. Chairman, that the tendency now is for the sales of the radio receiving sets to decline.
5518	HOUSE OF
Supply-National Revenue There is a decline indicated in this four-month period of 1954 of 25 per cent as compared with the first four months of 1953. But this extraordinary rate at which the public is purchasing television sets, evident in 1953, is being continued in 1954 at an increased rate, and if this rate of purchase continues up to the end of 1954 then in this year alone there will probably be more than 400,000 sets purchased in Canada.
Now, sir, I turn from the subject of finance, knowing that we have been given only the scratchiest and sketchiest kind of information, quite inadequate for the needs of the house in facing its responsibilities in regard to the substantial amounts that are now under consideration, to the question of policy, which is a matter of high importance.
There have been extensive debates in this house on the subject in relation to both sound broadcasting and television for years past.
I am not going to suggest that there is any occasion now to cover all the ground that has been covered in other years. But I wish to make several facts plain, so far as the policy to which we subscribe is concerned, as well as to make quite clear what I deem to be the inevitable effects of the policy now being pursued by the government in relation to the licensing of stations, and in particular of television stations.
In the first place, sir, we have in the government's policy a point-blank contradiction as between its policy on sound broadcasting on the one hand and television broadcasting on the other.
Bet me take as my illustration the testimony of Mr. Browne, an official of the Department of Transport, before the special committee on broadcasting of the 1953 session. I quoted this in my remarks in the debate on May 14, 1953, as can be found at page 5419 of Hansard. This is the question I put to him:
You say there Is no policy against licensing-
This is for sound broadcasting, Mr. Chairman.
-two or more stations in the same area?
The answer was:
There is no government policy which restricts the number of stations of which I am aware.
That was the testimony of an official in the Department of Transport through whom the function of the licensing of stations is exercised. It is quite clear that there is no government policy against the licensing of more than one station in areas where there are existing stations in the field of sound broadcasting. Mr. Chairman, the result is that, apart from what our views may be with


regard to the regulation of sound broadcasting in general, we at least do not have to attack a policy of local monopoly in favour of existing stations. At any rate, the government's policy, whatever may have been its shortcomings, in the field of sound broadcasting has not been open to that criticism.
We still have our views, Mr. Chairman, with regard to the whole method of control and regulation of radio broadcasting in Canada. We consider it to be unsound in its nature that the system should call for the operation of a national system on the part of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and that at the same time the corporation, clothed with that responsibility, should be charged also with the responsibility of and be given the wide powers of regulation over all other broadcasting in Canada. There are many private stations in Canada. Our view was and continues to be that the proper method of regulating broadcasting in Canada would be through a separate board which would be a public board, fully responsible to parliament, discharging a public responsibility, but clothed with the responsibility and power needed in relation to the regulation of all forms of broadcasting in Canada, whether they are publicly or privately owned stations. We do not think that the best results are obtained by having a corporation which is charged with the duty of operating in the national field also being given these broad regulatory powers. The two functions are separate and distinct and, in our submission, they should be discharged by separate bodies in the same way as the Board of Transport Commissioners for Canada exercises the powers vested in it under the Railway Act over both the privately-owned Canadian Pacific Railway and the publicly-owned Canadian National Railways. It is a system of that kind that we think would be best suited to the needs of Canada in this important field of communications.
I come now to the field of government policy in relation to television broadcasting. Here I think one can best illustrate government policy by placing side by side with the description of policy given by Mr. Browne, in the passage that I have just quoted from his evidence which was given something over a year ago, a question following in the same gentleman's testimony. I asked him this question:
Q. In other words, it is not the policy to foster a local monopoly in sound broadcasting?-A. There is no government policy, as I have said, akin to that which at the present time applies in the case of
television.
Sir, the policy of the government in relation to television is to foster a series of local monopolies in Canada. Along with that

policy has gone the policy of fostering a monopoly for the publicly-owned stations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the large cities-the metropolitan areas- where there has been the greatest demand, actually, for the establishment of more television outlets. The inevitable results of this policy which the government has stubbornly followed have been, first of all, to delay for years the introduction of television in Canada and, now that television has been introduced into Canada, as it was introduced in a rather modified form a year and a half or two years ago and, so far as the publicly-owned system is concerned, is now being extended by rather slow degrees to deny at the same time to other areas that service in the field of television which they desire and which at the same time many organizations are prepared to risk their capital to provide. The reason that many areas in this country are still denied any television and further the reason that areas in this country which have limited television today are denied more opportunities of having alternative television services is that the government has stubbornly followed this policy first of delaying the development of television and now of fostering local monopoly.
We of the Progressive Conservative party do not believe in any policy of local monopoly. We believe that the best results will be achieved not only for those who wish to receive additional programs but in the whole aspect of the relationship between parliament and public authority on the one hand and operations in this field on the other, if competition is not discouraged, as the government is deliberately discouraging it.
We are not alone in holding that view. Others have put that view forward. Indeed, organizations within the Liberal party itself have publicly declared that view before now. I take you back, Mr. Chairman, to November 11, 1951, when the Young Liberal Federation of Canada in its meeting at Vancouver, according to a Canadian Press dispatch of that date from Vancouver, asked the government to establish an independent administration to control radio and television, including the C.B.C. I come forward to October 27, 1952, when a Canadian Press dispatch of that date reports that the advisory council of the Liberal federation, which is described as the high command of the federal party in power, passed this resolution:
"Recognizing that the use of radio has become universal in Canada . . .
And so on. They recommended abolition of the radio licence fee. That recommendation was carried out. That fact leads me to ask
Supply-National Revenue why other similar recommendations of these bodies have not yet been carried out.
I come forward to May 16, 1953, and I have here the reports of two newspapers reporting on the resolution passed by the Ontario Young Liberal Association at its convention in the city of Toronto on that date. The report reads as follows:
The Ontario Young Liberal Association yesterday voted down a suggestion that it endorse the present C.B.C. television monopoly in major markets and in several other resolutions found itself at odds with federal party policy.
Only one delegate to the annual meeting in the King Edward hotel voted in favour of the resolution underlining that private TV stations should be kept out of Toronto and other major Canadian cities until there was enough revenue available to support competing stations. Two of the delegates led a stinging attack on C.B.C.-TV policy.
Let me make this comment on that last remark "on C.B.C.-TV policy". It is not so much C.B.C. policy as it is government policy that this monopolistic system should be encouraged.
Then, sir, we come down to May 29, 1954, which was last week. We have a Canadian Press dispatch dated May 29, reporting on a meeting held in this city of Ottawa of the Young Liberal Federation of Canada. I take two or three paragraphs from the Canadian Press dispatch reporting on that meeting. Mention is made, of course, of the fact that it was announced that no resolutions could be made public at the close of that meeting because they had first to be reviewed by some powers that be in the party. Therefore the text of the resolution has been withheld from the public. Mr. Chairman, I think it may be said that other parties in this country are more democratic in that regard. At any rate, it is evident that some information sifted through the iron curtain that was applied. I read this paragraph from the Canadian Press dispatch of May 29:
It was understood, however, that the convention approved a resolution submitted by the Young Liberal Association of B.C. that a separate body be established to control the licensing and regulate the operation of all radio and television stations in Canada. At present, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation holds this power.
And further:
The Young Liberal Association of British Columbia brought the controversial television resolution to the floor of the convention. B.C. delegates said it was defeated after five votes.
The resolution said "the provision of competitive alternative television service in all areas of Canada would stimulate employment, the development of a great industry and provide that alternative source of information and entertainment essential to a well-informed public."

Supply-National Revenue
It said the government should be urged "to implement at once its announced policy of permitting alternative and competitive television service in all areas of Canada, especially the six major markets of Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto. Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax."


James Joseph McCann: That resolution was defeated.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, it was defeated, we are told, by five votes-


James Joseph McCann: That does not make any difference. It was defeated.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -indicating how close was the division of expressed opinion in that meeting, even in the face of the fact that the delegates who voted for that resolution knew that they were voting to condemn government policy. Where you find this Young Liberal Federation-


Mr. Lesage:: It is a free party.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Isn't that impressive when the powers that be within the Liberal party do not permit the text of these resolutions to go to the public! Remarkably free! How impressive is the freedom of these meetings and their transactions! Let me comment further that when in that meeting you find practically half the delegates, within five of half the number, voting for a resolution which on the face of it was a stinging condemnation of the policy of the Liberal government, I think you have a very good barometer by which to judge the extent of the criticism within the party itself of this arid, negative, backward policy of the government in sterilizing the development of television in Canada and encouraging the baneful development of monopoly.


James Joseph McCann: Would you like to have a parliament elected on that basis?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Liberal? Never.


James Joseph McCann: Any kind. You would want the minority to rule.


Donald Methuen Fleming: No, I have never advocated that the minority should rule. That is one reason I have said repeatedly that this government does not have any right to rule in the way it does because it does not represent a majority of the Canadian people. It was elected with 48 per cent of the votes of the Canadian people.


Jean Lesage: How many did you get?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I have drawn attention to what is an eloquent comment on the feeling within the Liberal party about the Liberal government's policy of monopoly. Now, sir, I turn to remarks which I think are entitled to very great respect. They come from a gentleman for whom I have learned to have a high regard in the frequent contacts I have
TMr. Fleming.]
had with him as a member of the house and as a member of the special committee on radio broadcasting from year to year since I came into the house in 1945. It is Mr. Davidson Dunton, the chairman of the board of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, whom I regard as a very conscientious official of that corporation. In a recent address which Mr. Dunton made in Saskatoon on May 14, 1954, he faced up in a very frank way, it seemed to me, to the problem of trying to reconcile freedom of expression and freedom of communication on the one hand with regulation in the field of sound and television broadcasting on the other. I shall quote a couple of passages from his speech, and I think hon. members will listen to them with interest. After referring to the early origin of the struggle for freedom of speech he says:
But conditions have changed since the early days of the original fights for freedom of expression. Now a relatively small number of great printing presses turn out a large part of the actual reading material of most people. A few transmitting stations put out all the broadcasting heard effectively by the population of a whole region. A handful of men control the making of most moving pictures seen by millions. In effect a small number of men -publishers, broadcasters, film organization heads- can control a large part of the ideas and impressions and opinions that reach the minds of most people.
I think that if we are realistic we have to admit that an inherent danger to a genuinely free and fair interchange of ideas has developed from the concentration of so much power over means of mass communication in the hands of so few. I am very conscious of this myself because I and others of the C.B.C. belong to the few, together with controllers of publishing, film and other broadcasting organizations.
Further down he says:
There is true freedom in mass communication only if ideas which happen to appeal to lesser numbers of people have a reasonable opportunity to be heard. Then people as a whole have a chance to weigh and choose, and perhaps change their minds, for themselves. The essence of freedom lies in freedom to choose from a variety of alternatives; if there are no alternatives-in kinds of ideas and material presented-there can be no freedom of choice.
I think that final sentence from Mr. Dunton's speech is one that deserves to be echoed.
The essence of freedom lies in freedom to choose from a variety of alternatives; if there are no alternatives-in kinds of ideas and material presented-there can be no freedom of choice.
Please do not misunderstand what I am saying on this point, Mr. Chairman. I am not saying that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation does not attempt to provide a variety of ideas or a variety of programs, but I am saying that no one organization can fulfil the specifications of freedom laid down in this penetrating observation of Mr. Dunton

if the ideas are coming from one organization or in local areas from one station or one source. That is why this policy of fostering monopoly is fraught with the utmost dangers. It is a policy that has run too long. It is a policy that, in my submission, must be abandoned. It is true that you cannot force people to listen over the air. Listeners retain the freedom to turn the dials and shut off the machine. But the fact of the matter is that as long as it is government policy to attempt to confine people to one source in this rapidly developing means of communication, television, the effects and influence of which on the minds and lives of people are simply incalculable, we are courting a danger to the very fundamentals of our whole conception of freedom.
I do urge upon the house that the house address itself to the imminent, pressing perils for Canadians of a policy of monopoly which this government has deliberately followed, has deliberately fostered and to which it still unrepentantly adheres. This policy must be put aside. The government must cease to impose monopoly upon the people. Encouragement should be given, with all the safeguards that are available under law, to permitting people to have alternative sources of communication in this important and rapidly expanding field. The time has come, Mr. Chairman, for a drastic change in our policy in relation to regulation in this field.


Mr. Coldwell:: Mr. Chairman, this estimate always provides an occasion to discuss matters concerning the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I may say that usually during the preceding year I have had the opportunity to view and hear a good many of the programs or have been directed to them and have heard them pretty thoroughly discussed by someone who listened constantly. This year I am not quite in that position, but in spite of the criticisms that have just been levelled against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation I want to remind the committee-


Donald Methuen Fleming: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: I thought my criticisms were directed against government policy, and I expressly dissociated the C.B.C. from the policy that was imposed upon them.


Major James William Coldwell: It is very difficult to distinguish between criticism of government policy in this field and criticism of the corporation itself. After all I want to say to my hon. friend that the foundation of this system was laid not by the C.C.F. nor by the Liberals, but by the government of the late R. B. Bennett and the Conservative party. When Mr. Bennett introduced a 83276-349
Supply-National Revenue measure for setting up the radio broadcasting commission in 1932, upon which basis the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was subsequently set up, I recall that the fundamentals of the measure received the support of the party leaders and I believe the unanimous support of this house.
As I said, I am not so familiar personally with the programs this year as I have been in other years, but when I look at the record of what our broadcasting corporation has done throughout the years, particularly during the past year, I find this. Considering the record of television first, I may say that a year ago this week, June 2, 1953, I had the privilege of witnessing that remarkable television account of the coronation. I thought it was handled by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and by the B.B.C. of course, with dignity. It was something of which the B.B.C., the C.B.C., and of course the R.A.F. and the R.C.A.F., who made possible the quick transmissions of the films to Canada, can be proud. As a matter of fact, I noted that program was awarded the Sylvania television award for 1953, which is a presentation by the Sylvania Electric Products Corporation. The judges were a panel of judges headed by that very well known commentator, one whom we used to hear commentating during the philharmonic concerts from New York on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Deems Taylor.
This award was given for outstanding contribution to creative television programming and was presented to the B.B.C., the C.B.C. and the A.B.C. for the wonderful coverage of the coronation. I believe I might read part of the citation. The award was given:
. . . for more than speed. It includes our recognition of the dignity and good taste, in keeping with the solemnity of the subject displayed by ABC, and we tender our thanks to the BBC for its initiation of service and to the CBC for its part in retransmission.
As one of those who witnessed that program, and perhaps because of my own church affiliation, I appreciated the fact that the coronation itself was introduced into what is perhaps the most solemn and beautiful service of the Anglican communion, and I felt very pleased indeed with what was done in that regard.
If we look at the radio broadcasting awards that have been given the C.B.C. during the past year, following as they do similar awards in other years, we find the following summary prepared by my office from the newspapers. The C.B.C. won six first awards in five different programming categories and three honourable mentions for programs in a competition with United States programs at the eighteenth exhibition of
5522	HOUSE OF
Supply-National Revenue educational programs held at Ohio state university this year. It is interesting to note how these great private organizations in the United States fared. The N.B.C. received one special award, one first and one honourable mention. The United Nations radio- of course, that is not a private organization but a public one-received two first and the Mutual Broadcasting Company, a private company, received one honourable mention. I feel it is well to have on the record the C.B.C. programs that won first prizes. They were:	Trans-Canada matinee; Wednesday
night, for the productions of "1984"; "Press Conference"; the presentation of the play, "The Vigil"; the children's program, "Roundabout"; and the program "Cuckoo-Clock House".
I think that is very interesting and is a very effective answer in many respects to the criticisms that are made, both of the policy under which this parliament operates the C.B.C. and of the C.B.C. itself. I feel we have to bear this in mind, that television and radio are monopolies. To the organizations operating these stations, we allocate airways. No one else can use those airways, so once we allocate them they are monopolies. In my opinion, since it is a natural monopoly, it should be under public control. My hon. friend criticizes this monopoly, but I should like to hear him criticize some other monopolies in this country. I should like to hear him criticize the Bell Telephone Company in this part of the world. I should like to hear him criticize the Aluminum Company of Canada. I should like to hear him criticize the International Nickel Company, and a number of monopolies that exist in this country, and which no attempt has been made to curb. If we are going to have criticism of what is a natural monopoly, which I think we must keep under public control, then by the same token surely we should see to it that we curb private monopolies that are not natural monopolies even if they are built up on the natural resources of the country.
I mentioned the coronation program because I believe it made a very deep impression on all the people who witnessed the dignity of the service, and the manner in which the film was presented in contrast with the manner in which it was presented in the United States. One of the great broadcasting organizations there introduced a gorilla or chimpanzee in the middle of the program to advertise a private product. This indicates the extent to which private organizations will sometimes go in order to display advertising.
Another thing that I have in mind is that I noticed the minister said that private television stations-I am not saying that there


should not be private television stations-are being supplied with productions by the C.B.C., and that some of these will have to be supplied with kinescope. I am asking the minister this question. What revenue does the C.B.C. derive when it supplies these private stations with programs that must cost the C.B.C. a great deal of money to produce. To what extent do they pay for the films that are made available by the C.B.C.? It seems to me that if we are thinking of television, we should know something about that. When we have a direct network program across Canada supplying programs to both private and public stations, as the minister intimated that is going to be very costly. I feel we should go into the division of costs very thoroughly indeed.
May I add that I was talking a few days ago to a gentleman for whom I have quite a lot of respect, who operates a station of which I have some knowledge and which is a good private station. He was asked if he was going into television. He said he did not know, because after all it would cost from $250,000 to a half million to set up a television station in the area where he lived. I venture to say that only big money can put stations of that description into operation. And if we are going to rely entirely on big accumulations of money to build our television stations we shall be in the same position as we are in some areas of this country where we have only one outlet in the form of newspapers-areas where there are single newspapers owning broadcasting facilities and moulding public opinion, just as well as attempting to control it in the areas in which they operate.
It seems to me that if we are going to have freedom of the press, freedom of opinion and the like, we must consider this matter very carefully. And then I think that, so far as I have been able to see, both in its television and in its sound broadcasting the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is trying to give to us various types of opinion, however they may differ. And these opinions are expressed over radio and television. As all of us know, from time to time there have been complaints about the freedom of speech that has been exercised on the C.B.C. national broadcasting system.
I listened to the extract from the speech delivered in Saskatoon by Mr. Davidson Dun-ton, and quoted by the hon. member for Eglinton, and my interpretation of that speech was somewhat different from that placed upon it by my hon. friend. I think what the chairman of the broadcasting corporation was pleading for was more tolerance and more free speech on the radio. I venture to ask this question: Would that be obtained

or assured if there were private control of television and radio in this country? I venture to say it would not. Moreover, when the Massey commission reported to the house -upon which the present policy of the house, not the government, is based-it made these very points to which I now refer.
Let me now say something about Canadian talent. This year we have not had a radio committee. I suppose that probably we shall have one next year. I think it is a good thing to have the broadcasting corporation appear before a parliamentary committee. However, because we have not had a committee, we do not know to what extent Canadian talent is being used by private stations. We know that when the committee met in former years we were told that very little encouragement was given to private talent by some-not all-of the private stations in Canada. It was shown that, as a matter of fact, private talent was largely developed through the C.B.C.
There are one or two exceptions to this. I would like to pay my respects again to a private company, Canadian Industries Limited, for its very remarkable program in developing private talent, "Singing Stars of Tomorrow". I have often wished that program had been undertaken by the C.B.C.; but I suppose, owing to the fact that a substantial sum of money is given as awards, it might have been the subject of criticism in the house.


Mrs. Fairclough:: They get a deduction in their income tax.


Major James William Coldwell: My hon. friend says that they get a deduction in their income tax, which the C.B.C. would not get. However, be that as it may, let me pay my respects again to that most excellent and interesting program. It is one program to which I have listened consistently on Sunday evenings all through the years-with the result that I have not been able to listen to "Stage 54" as well. And may I say to the corporation that I wish some means could be found of having those two programs at different times. I used to enjoy the Stage series very much indeed a few years ago.
Then, some of the other programs put on by the C.B.C. are worth mentioning. One should draw attention to the manner in which Canadian talent has been improved and encouraged through C.B.C. opera and C.B.C. drama. I did hear in this past winter the production of "Julius Caesar" over the air, as one of four, I believe, drama broadcasts. It was remarkable. I have seen "Julius Caesar" played on the stage, and only recently I saw the film-and may I say I did not care for the manner of its production.
83276-349J
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I did think however that the manner in which the play was performed by the C.B.C. drama company was beyond expectations, and reflected great credit upon those people who were participating in the program.
After all, such programs are important; because if we are going to build up the kind of Canada in which many of us believe, a Canada which will be prosperous materially, we must have a Canada that will match its material prosperity by its cultural development. I do not believe money is wasted when we spend it to encourage drama or to encourage opera, or when we spend money to buy good pictures for our national gallery, or to build and establish a national library.
All of these are cultural assets; if we are going to build a great nation materially we must build it culturally as well. If we are to be an independent nation, free from control by the ideas of the great nation to the south, then it seems to me most important that we have an organization that will control the kind of programs we get over television and over radio, to see that they are Canadian in background and in outlook.
Because, as we all know, radio and television are potent means of propaganda and education. I was not here when the radio broadcasting commission was set up, but I was here when the present corporation was set up. I believe those who established the commission had the same views as those who set up the corporation. And certainly those who voted for the corporation in 1936 held the view that what we were trying to do was to promote a Canadian system of broadcasting which would be used to build up the national life and culture of this country.
Now, I want to say something about revenues. It is quite true, as the hon. member for Eglinton has said, that the amount collected under the excise from the sale of television and radio sets now going to the C.B.C. has assumed very considerable proportions-larger than was estimated last year. But I have always been a bit troubled about this method of financing the corporation. We have had tremendous developments in television in Canada, and we may have even greater developments in the next few years. So long as people are buying radio and television sets, the C.B.C. will have very considerable revenue. But there will come a saturation point, surely; and when that saturation point comes it seems to me parliament will be faced with a problem.
While we supported the abolition of the licence fee, nevertheless some other more stable form of financial support for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and its television activities will have to be found sooner
5524	HOUSE OF
Supply-National Revenue or later. That is something we should keep in mind when the committee meets next year. We should get some estimates from the broadcasting corporation as to what the outlook in the future may be regarding this revenue.
I do not want to say a great deal more. It is quite true that this house should know what revenue is being received. It should know how that revenue is being spent. I suppose it is very difficult to give breakdowns today because we have not got the final report of the operations of the corporation for the last year. That is the advantage of a radio committee. Across the floor of this house we indulge in debate on various phases of government policy or of government operation. But when we get the corporation or the organization before a parliamentary committee, with the officials there who can speak for themselves, we can go into these matters much more thoroughly.
There are other programs that I have not mentioned this afternoon that are of great value. School broadcasts and the manner in which they are undertaken, for example, are a great aid to the schools of Canada. I hope that they will not only be continued but will be expanded. I want to say that I personally have confidence in the general work that the corporation is doing and for which we are paying. It is true that in various areas the corporation must of necessity have a monopoly in the district because, as I have indicated, television is such an expensive operation, and the cost of producing programs so great that if we are to have the type of program we must have, we cannot have half a dozen trying to produce programs and using available facilities to produce programs that are inferior to what might be done through joint public effort. It seems to me that is one of the great advantages of having the kind of television we have at the present time. The awards to which I referred, given in the United States for our Canadian radio and television programs, are eloquent tribute to what is being done. Of course great improvement is possible. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I hope that a committee will be set up next year, and instead of our talking across the floor, without all the information we should have at our fingertips, we can go into the operations of the corporation much more thoroughly than we can this year.


Mr. Hansell:: We are happy once again to be able to join in this debate in respect to the appropriations now being voted for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, both in the sound radio field and in the television field. Over the years we have voted a tremendous amount of money for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. We are now called upon


once again to vote considerable sums for that organization. We have not vigorously opposed the voting of moneys to this corporation, but one thing we do want to make plain is that when we are voting such moneys for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is a government-owned corporation, it must expect to be open to criticism, perhaps serious criticism, and sometimes harsh criticism. I am quite sure, because of the fact that those in authority in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are human, as we all are, they may, because of human tendencies, resent some criticism; yet on the other hand I am quite sure they are men who would appreciate honest, fair and constructive criticism.
We are not the only ones in parliament of course who are critics of radio and television policy. We have found that the press of this country have also been critics of the present government policy with respect to radio and television. Not so very long ago an article appeared in Maclean's magazine. I do not know whether the minister would care to comment at all on the article, whether it is a correct appraisal of the situation, or whether it is out of line. I do not expect the minister to take account of everything that is written in the press of Canada with respect to government radio policy. If he took time to do that, perhaps he would not be doing very much else. The article did contain an appraisal and an analysis- although of course it was critical-of present radio and television. It applied particularly to television policy in Canada. The criticism appearing in Maclean's magazine, I believe in the early April issue, was written by Mr. Scott Young. It was based on the fundamental principle that government control of television and broadcasting is precisely the same as government control of the press and publications generally; that such control is a well recognized feature of dictatorship, whether communism, fascist, or nazi, and therefore has no place in a free country.
In his analysis Mr. Young pointed out what the government's aims really were in respect to television policy. He lists three or four of them. One is, it is supposed to serve all tastes. Another is to keep television Canadian in belief and ideas with the allied point of subduing United States influence. Quite a lot of discussion has taken place about United States influence. Perhaps it is partly justified, I do not know; but I am not so frightened as some appear to be of the influence that might come to us from our good neighbours to the south, although there are some practices there relating to television and radio that I would not want to see adopted here. I hope parliamentary

committee investigations will not be televised. It lowers the dignity of our parliamentary institutions, and it does no particular good to portray in this dramatic fashion the entire truth of those investigations. I think very largely that in the United States in televising the various congressional committees, such as the Kefauver crime committee of a few years ago, and the recent committee on subversive influences, the intentions of the authorities may have been good, but it has eventually worked out to be rather a dramatic farce. I hope personally the time will never come when such a thing is repeated in this parliament.
However, on the broad principles I am not so worried as some people seem to be with respect to American influence in this country as far as radio and television are concerned. As a matter of fact, we are having it now; we have always had it; and some of the best and most popular programs over our networks, and this will probably be the case over our television networks for years to come, are American productions.
Another thing Mr. Young lists here as government intention as regards TV is to maintain good taste, and in addition to avoid commercial influence while making television pay its way. Mr. Young points out in his article that these objectives have not been reached by any stretch of the imagination.
For example, he analyses a weekend review of television which might be seen on any television station. I will quote from the article I have here in my hand which appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press, and which is more or less a summary of Mr. Young's article. He states:
For instance, if the week were average and they were watching CBLT-Toronto they would see about 65 hours of television. They would see 17 elderly movies, mostly American and some quite good, and in the time not taken up by movies they would see 24 commercial programs produced in the United States and sponsored here by American companies whose products also sell in Canada.
They would see six Canadian commercially sponsored programs, a fraction of the number C.B.C. had hoped to sell. On a time basis, only about 45 per cent of what they saw would originate in Canada, . . .
That shows how far we have fallen short of making our TV really Canadian. On a time basis only 45 per cent of what they saw would originate in Canada.
... 50 per cent or more in the United States, the rest in Britain-a very broad interpretation of the C.B.C.'s feeling that a majority of its programs should be of Canadian content.
Mr. Young also analyses the financial picture as to what might have been expected
Supply-National Revenue according to the announcements made previously by the appropriate authorities, including the minister. He states:
Of the $22 million spent by C.B.C.-TV in its first 19 months of operation, the $11 million for capital outlay must be considered a long term investment. But a return of $1,750,000 in advertising revenue for the remaining $11 million of operating costs is a figure that has only one explanation. No one ever should have expected, let alone promised, that TV under the C.B.C. system could ever pay its own way.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I have listened with interest to the previous speeches made here this afternoon on this item and I quite realize that the speech of the spokesman for the Progressive Conservative party and that of the leader of the C.C.F. ran true to form. I do not blame the leader of the C.C.F. for taking the attitude in his speech that he has always taken over the years, because he thinks of all things in terms of a socialist concept. Nor can I blame him for supporting the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in practically everything it does. He has supported them over the years simply because to a very high degree the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is socialist in concept.
However, Mr. Chairman, I want to comment on one or two things the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar said, and 1 do not want to comment in too harsh a fashion. I think there were some things left out, some things he did not say, that are perhaps as significant as those he did say.
He said he enjoyed most of the programs over the C.B.C. No one can criticize him for that. While I am not a radio fiend, one who sits at his radio day and night, and I do not own a television set, because there is not a television station within about 1,000 miles of my home-and I do not expect there will be for some little time-I must confess that I enjoy many of the programs that come over the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation stations.
But the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar spent considerable time applauding the C.B.C. for its televising of the coronation. I did not see it over television and I suppose they did a good job. I am quite willing to give them credit for that. I saw the coronation in the motion pictures and I too was very much impressed. But the thing my hon. friend did not say was that the televising of the coronation over the Canadian stations was merely a televising of the film. Well, now, there is no trick in televising a film. The trick is in producing the film in the first place. The good job I thought the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation did was the most important one of getting this film over here without any delay.

Supply-National Revenue
I think they are to be commended on that, for it was seen here practically within hours of the actual coronation taking place. It is nice to laud that program, but I would point out that that was not merely a feature of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Any TV station which had a similar film could have done the same job.
There are good programs on the C.B.C., and the work the C.B.C. is doing is commendable. This group has never criticized the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the way in which it is conducting its own affairs in respect to the programs that it puts on. What we have criticized is the government radio policy in Canada of permitting the C.B.C., which is a government institution, to be a monopoly.
The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar said, "Yes, but there are other monopolies," just as though one wrong justifies another. But that is not so. I do not know what control the government may have over commercial monopolies such as that mentioned by my hon. friend, but they certainly do have control over radio and television in Canada and they seem very determined to maintain that control as a monopoly. Just because there are other monopolies does not mean that this one should continue to exist.
We have not even criticized-not too harshly, at least-the method of financing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. We have not vigorously opposed these expenditures. In our speeches we have said that we believe a good deal of the expenditure could be cut down. On numerous occasions we have said that if private radio stations were given the opportunity of carrying on a separate network and were given more latitude in the operation of radio and, in the future, of television, money could be saved. We have advocated and said-I personally have said it from time to time and I still believe it- that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, although government-owned, should be able to function on a commercial basis side by side with independent and private radio, and that if independent and private radio can "make a go of it" financially, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation should be able to do the same thing. But even though we have said that, we have been willing to subsidize them. We have been willing to subsidize them for those sustaining programs that do not bring in any revenue. I do not think that we could be any fairer than that.
We did not vigorously oppose the new policy introduced a little while ago, namely, that of doing away with the licence fees and the collection of the sales tax on radio and television equipment; we did not vigorously
Mr. HanselL]
oppose that policy. That is a nice handsome sum that is coming to the corporation over and above the commercial revenues which they receive and which would not be coming to private radio. Yet private radio could handle the job without that subsidy. As yet we have not vigorously opposed that procedure; we have not vigorously opposed subsidizing of the C.B.C. But what we have opposed-and I repeat it again-is the placing of the control of radio in the hands of the corporation which controls its competitors. That is the position we have taken, and I think that is the most sensible position that anyone could possibly take.
The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar spoke in terms of independent radio control -I think that was the phrase he used-as though those of us who may be critics of the corporation were wanting to put the control of radio into private hands. We have never advocated that course. What we have advocated is that a separate regulatory body be set up. It could be easily set up by nominations coming to the government as to the personnel of such a body. I do not care whether it is called a commission or something else. The government could appoint one member; perhaps they could call upon the independent stations to appoint another; and perhaps those two could even appoint a third. Those are incidental details about which we are not greatly concerned. However, we are not advocating, as the hon. member hinted-I do not think that he perhaps did it intentionally; it may have been a slip of the tongue-that private radio should be the controlling force of radio in Canada. We have recommended that certain phases of radio and television should be controlled but have maintained that they should not be controlled by the government-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
There is one other matter upon which I should like to say a few words. The speech of the chairman of the board of governors of the C.B.C., as it was given at the convocation of Saskatchewan University, has been brought into the picture. I did not hear the speech but I know the gentleman well enough to know that his speech would be carefully given. I would not think for a moment that Mr. Dunton would advocate a tightening up of the control of speech; I do not think he wants that. I can quite understand his advocating, in his speech, the greatest measure possible of freedom of speech; I quite suppose that he did that. But according to what I have read in the papers I believe that he may have made just a little slip. I am quoting from a newspaper article which reports that in the course of his speech he

said this-I might say that the article is from the Winnipeg Tribune and it reads as follows:
The C.B.C. chairman warned that there was a danger to the free and fair interchange of ideas when power over mass communication was "in the hands of so few".
He went on to say: "I am very conscious of this myself because I and others of the C.B.C. belong to the few, together with controllers of publishing, film and other broadcasting organizations".
The point of this newspaper editorial and the point I want to bring out is simply this. We can place the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the same category as that of other mediums of publication, as far as the principle of publication is concerned. I want to make that point clear. In my own mind the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is just as much a medium of publication as is any newspaper or any motion picture theatre. I put them all in the same category. I do not think there can be any denial of that statement. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation puts on plays and feature programs, so do the newspapers and so do the magazines of our country-the only difference is that in the one instance the vehicle is the spoken word and in the other it is the printed word. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation also put on newscasts, and they are to be complimented on the way in which they are given. The newspapers also publish news. That is what they were originally intended for. That is why they are called newspapers. The newspapers advertise in their columns. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation also advertise by reason of their commercially sponsored programs. Comparing them as mediums of publication, one can find no difference.
The one difference is this. The chairman of the board of governors linked himself with the publishers, producers of motion pictures and other radio station operators, and thus indicated that there was an association. Eecently we have heard a great deal about the imposition of guilt by association. I am not going to say that there is any guilt in this case. I think the opposite is the case so far as his speech is concerned. What he has determined is more or less a type of responsibility by reason of association, and that is all right. I am not criticizing that, but where the difference arises is that in the case of radio and television there is a monopoly of control. Anyone in this country who can raise the funds can institute a newspaper or publication house for the printing of literature if he wishes to do so without having to go to some higher national body for a licence. The same thing is true
Supply-National Revenue with respect to motion pictures. Anyone can take motion pictures. I have a motion picture camera myself. Anyone can go into the business if they want to and nobody is going to stop them.
There are many motion picture producing companies in Canada. I have a return in my office which I forgot to bring to the chamber that indicates there are many motion picture producing companies in Canada. I have forgotten how many there are, but anyone can start such a company if they want to do so. You do not have to have a licence unless it is a business licence in a city or community in which the company is established, and that is only a matter of routine.
The fact of the matter is that the difference between the various mediums of publication is that the C.B.C. controls its competitors while the other mediums of publication are free, and that is a very basic difference. In the past we in this party have advocated two things. We have advocated that the radio committee should be made a regular standing committee that would meet every year. I am not going to take any time now on that point. The other thing we have recommended, and I have mentioned it previously, is that there should be a separate regulatory body. We can talk how we like and try to pare down the view that the C.B.C. is not a monopoly, but it still remains a monopoly. It remains a monopoly in three spheres.
In the first place, to a very large extent it is a commercial monopoly. I want to be fair in analysing that particular point because it is not true to say that it has a complete monopoly of commercial broadcasting. The independent radio stations are getting along reasonably well financially, and I do not think that they are complaining too much about that. They are paid a nominal sum for carrying the commercial broadcasts that are sent out over the networks by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. But nevertheless there is a certain degree of monopoly in the commercial field, particularly in national network commercial programs.
I have been referring particularly to sound broadcasting, but we are now entering the field of television. It is still in its infant stage, and I must say that so far as licensing is concerned I think the field should be pretty well wide open so that private television interests can develop television in Canada wherever it is possible to obtain a channel in order that private industry may to a large extent bear the financial responsibility of the expansion that must take place

Supply-National Revenue within the next few years in this field. Otherwise we are going to have a monopoly of commercial television broadcasting in Canada. I am most sincere on that point.
The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar pointed out that in talking to one man he asked him if he expected to go into the television field and the man said that he did not know, that it would cost him a lot of money to get started, anywhere from $150,000 to $500,000. That may be so. I will not doubt that but that is all the more reason for giving the private television interests all the encouragement possible to go into the field. If it costs so much, then it is going to cost equally as much for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to cover the entire area of Canada.
While it may cost a good deal in the initial stages to engage in the operation of a television station, it can be a fairly good paying proposition. I do not know whether it is altogether accurate for me to compare Canadian figures with those of the United States, but I have an article in my hand from a magazine known as Tide to which I should like to refer. It is an old issue of three or four years ago. I am not going to read the article but it does give an account of a television station in a community with a population of 28,000 people. That is a small city. I think the population of the city of Lethbridge would be about 25,000.


Mr. Hahn:: New Westminster has 28,000.


Ernest George Hansell: The hon. member for New Westminster says that New Westminster has 28,000. But of course there is a difference because any television station in New Westminster would reach many more than 28,000 people. It would reach a population of well-nigh a million people in that area. But here is the community of Bloomington, Indiana- I might as well give the name-with a population of 28,000 people, and yet within two years the television station there was operating at a profit. As I say, I do not know whether it is completely fair for me to compare that with Canada, but I do not see why the figures should not be reasonably comparable.
I have been talking about monopoly in the commercial field. I should also like to say a word concerning monopoly in the cultural field. I believe we are going astray in our thinking when we say that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has responsibility for the cultural interests in the nation. In my opinion culture is something that you may aid through radio or TV. You may do that just as well, I suppose, as you can demoralize the life of the people by the same process. I realize that, but a lot of

these things, such as culture and the social complex of many things, originate very largely and are the responsibility of the home and other institutions.
I refer to this because it has been said often that the plowing of money into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is not lost by reason of the artists developed through their activities, the encouragement given to musicians and artists of one kind or another. I maintain this, and I think I am right, that talent is not produced by radio or TV, but talent is something that is inborn. Talent is something that is not trained; it is something that is discovered. I say it is a misconception to lean over backwards in our thinking or to be too much concerned with what the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is doing to develop a certain type of culture in Canada. If they do insist upon that, then I say that is all the more reason why TV and radio should have more opportunity. I do not believe you can discover or develop culture by going through one individual channel.
Who is to decide what type of culture we want in Canada? Culture comes from all directions. In Canada we are in a particularly favourable position in that respect. We are a people of various racial origins bringing our various cultures from various parts of the world. If those cultures could be brought together in some way or other, we could produce a tremendous Canadian culture that would be comparable with any in the world. But it should be free; it should be open. All the airways and the TV channels should be open to the entire country and the material should not be all put through one particular channel.
Then I come to what is most important of all. I have not kept my eye on the clock, and I do not want to go over my time.


William Alfred Robinson: Order. Perhaps I should have advised the hon. member that his time had expired, but I presume the committee has been giving unanimous consent to the hon. member continuing.


Ernest George Hansell: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman; I appreciate that. I shall only be a minute or two, otherwise I would have to rise a litle later. I come now to the very serious principle of thought control. I know there are many officials in radio, particularly in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, who are willing to say, "We do not want to channel the thinking of Canada through only one medium." I believe they are honourable men. Nevertheless, the principle is there, and all the apparatus is there; the organization is there. If you have control of the one

medium in Canada that controls all radio and TV throughout the country, then of necessity you cannot escape being charged with monopoly of thought control. There is only one channel of thought control. That is a monopoly more vicious than any other control to be found anywhere, and much more vicious than the monopolies mentioned by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. Perhaps the International Nickel Company is a monopoly, but what can nickel do? It is only a piece of metal. I do not believe that nickel has any brains.


An hon. Member:: Thought control.


Ernest George Hansell: The hon. member says
"thought control". I cannot see any brains or the ability of nickel to think.


Mr. Pickersgill:: Is that a reflection on an hon. member?


Ernest George Hansell: If he is a nickel-headed member, I suppose it is.


An hon. Member:: What about their ads?


Ernest George Hansell: The hon. member refers to their ads, but that is a different medium altogether. It is the realm of publication again. This thought control is a serious thing because if there is one thing the dictatorships of the earth want, it is thought control. Here is the medium through which that very thing is done. I do not think I could do any better than to quote from a radio broadcast that was given by Chester A. Bloom. The pamphlet copy I have is entitled "The Threat of Thought Control". I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if I might read just one paragraph from it? It is enlightening. I quote:
The real truth is that steady refusal to grant such fair rights can only be motivated by determination to maintain control over the thinking of the people of Canada. The government and the CBC are obviously determined to maintain the same kind of control over the public mind by means of television.
Let me give you just one small example of how this works. The talk I am making to you today will be broadcast from 67 independent radio stations in Canada. If I were giving it over the CBC network, as I often have, it would go out simultaneously and at an immediate hour. But because it is to be given by independent stations served by an independent bureau, it had to be copied on 67 records and mailed out separately to each station. That means a long delay before it can go on the air. Obviously, it also means that no such broadcast can deal with immediate events. This is a subtle handicap on freedom of speech over the radio.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I quote that because I think it is pertinent to the discussion. I shall conclude by amplifying that quotation by saying this: No individual in Canada could broadcast to this nation over a national network unless he received permission or was invited to do so by the small committee of 83276-350
Supply-National Revenue the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It does not make any difference what kind of message he has; it does not make any difference what kind of proposals he has to make; it does not make any difference whether he has a million dollars, he could not do it without first receiving the sanction of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Would you want the man with the million dollars to have the right to buy that time?


Ernest George Hansell: I know what my hon. friend means. He means that only those with money would be able to do it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You would have such persons controlling our thoughts.


Ernest George Hansell: Well, if all the money was in the hands of one person or one corporation, I would say that is so. The same thing applies to the newspaper business, the publication business. It takes millions of dollars for a man to float a daily newspaper; but you can do that anywhere in Canada, if you have the money. Does my hon. friend object to that?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is my hon. friend satisfied with the treatment the press gives to members of parliament?


Ernest George Hansell: Well, I don't know that I am but, believe me, my hon. friend should be.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We thrive on the treatment they give us.


Ernest George Hansell: Yes, you surely do. And even though that may be the case, I would give the press the absolute right to function as they do today, with the privilege given to any person or any organization to be able to float a newspaper and to have a representative here in the press gallery.


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I ask a question?


Mr. Lennard:: Oh, for goodness' sake, he is ten minutes overtime now.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Does the statement by the hon. member for Macleod mean that he is repudiating the policy that the Alberta government followed in the press law a few years ago?


Ernest George Hansell: Now, Mr. Chairman, I don't know if you are going to permit me to answer that or not. I want to answer it. Because, Mr. Chairman, that very question has been asked over and over again.


Mr. Sinclair:: And never answered.


Ernest George Hansell: And answered a good many times. Believe me, I have not been floating around from coast to coast in this country

Supply-National Revenue without having that question popped at me a good many times. I have not read the papers of this country without having that bit of propaganda put to me a good many times-and also misrepresented, as is the intention of my hon. friend's question. Yes, I will answer the question. The press act to which my hon. friend refers was in no sense of the word control of the press, by reason of their being able to criticize or to comment in any way they wanted, editorially, in their newspapers.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Explain.


Ernest George Hansell: Yes, I will explain.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I prefer the view of the supreme court in the matter.


Ernest George Hansell: The supreme court's view
was that it was unconstitutional for that government to put it in; that was their view. What the press act did was this, that when a falsehood was given out in a news report of government activity, then the government had the right to correct that report.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If that is not thought
control, what is?


Stanley Howard Knowles: You were arguing against thought control.


Ernest George Hansell: No.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You were a minute ago.


Ernest George Hansell: What I say is that the government claimed the right to correct that which was false, by a law.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You mean that which the government said was false.


Ernest George Hansell: So that the newspapers would print in equal terms the correct truth. What is wrong with that?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Who determines the truth?


John Whitney Pickersgill: "What is truth?" said
Pontius Pilate.


William Alfred Robinson: We are discussing the estimates of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.


Ernest George Hansell: I am only answering the
question I was asked. The government should know what is the truth concerning its own actions. Let me ask the minister, who is a responsible minister of the crown, this question:	Does he know the truth? When
anything is reported about his department does he know the truth of that report?


Stanley Howard Knowles: If he knew the truth it would make him free from the Liberal party.


James Joseph McCann: My respect for other people prompts me to say that I believe what they tell me, and that they do not tell me anything else but the truth.


Ernest George Hansell: Well, Mr. Chairman, the profundity of the minister's answer leaves me staggered and spellbound.


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, I suggest that the time for levity has passed, and that we had better get back on the rail and discuss the estimates of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.


Ernest George Hansell: Mr. Chairman, I will be glad to accommodate the minister. But let him not accuse me of getting off the track; it was my friend the Secretary of State who initiated it.
Now, I am against thought control.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Ernest George Hansell: And I believe every member in this house is. I believe those who are enjoying a little humour at the moment, if one may judge by their laughter, are also opposed to thought control. And, even to say the worst, even though I did not agree with the Alberta press act, if it is thought control then I would be against it. But I do not believe it is.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with its control over sound radio and television, is the only medium through which there can be freedom of expression over networks in Canada. That is what I am opposed to. I will always oppose it. While I am reasonable in wanting the broadcasting corporation to stay out of the red, and while I am willing to cast my vote for appropriations wherever they are needed, while I commend them on the work they are doing, I must seriously and vigorously criticize government radio and television policy for its monopolistic principles.


Mr. Caron:: Mr. Chairman, I do not intend to attempt to answer the opinions expressed by the hon. member of the opposite side as the hon. minister can ably do it. First of all, I should like to commend the C.B.C. upon the effort it has made in trying to give to the Ottawa area television programs which would satisfy both elements in the community. I believe however that they have not succeeded in this. I may be told that this is neither the time nor the place to discuss this subject, and it may be pointed out to me that permits are issued by the Department of Transport. However, those permits are given out or are refused in accordance with the policy laid down by the Department of National Revenue.

Not knowing exactly where to go I have taken advantage of the opportunity afforded this afternoon to ask the minister if anything can be done to meet the situation I shall describe. As I said before, the broadcasting corporation has made a noteworthy effort. But, under present circumstances, a large proportion of the English-speaking population of this area do not speak French, and it will be kept in mind that a considerable part of the programming is in French. Then, there is a proportion of the French-speaking population who do not speak English, and, again, hon. members will realize that a considerable portion of the television is in English.
As it is, neither the French-speaking nor the English-speaking portions of the population are fully satisfied. While the programs may be satisfactory in both languages, they do not satisfy those elements for which the television system has been established.
I know an attempt was made by station CKCH to establish another channel. This may not have come before the Minister of National Revenue. However I have spoken about it to the Minister of Transport and found that he was not opposed to the idea. But they are governed by the regulations which say that two television systems cannot be installed within a radius of fifty miles or so. I can understand that perfectly if the same broadcasts were coming from Toronto or Montreal over the French or English system; that is, if there were two of those systems in the same vicinity it would be too many. In Montreal they established a French system and also an English system, because there was a large element that was in need of that service. We have the very same situation in Hull and Ottawa. There is a large French-speaking element that would like to have the system that comes from Montreal in French, and there is a very important English population which has to listen to French programs coming from Montreal when they would prefer to receive the programs coming from Toronto. I really believe we shall never be able to satisfy the two elements, even after the trial is made, unless there is a change in the policy, such as has been done in Montreal, to permit another system to be established here. In other words, to have a system which would reproduce the programs coming from the French system in Montreal. I would ask the minister whether he would study the matter and see if there might not be possibilities of giving to CKCH, which is a well-established radio station here, and well-known as the French station of the region, the right to 83276-350i
Supply-National Revenue establish in the near future a station which would connect with Montreal, and thereby give better satisfaction to both the French and English-speaking population.
I know the hon. members for Ottawa East and Russell have been doing some work toward the establishment of a system of that kind. I really believe that the minister is well disposed. He has no intention of not trying to give to the population what it needs. Today I am asking him officially if it will be possible in the near future so to organize matters that CKCH would get permission to establish that system.


Frank Exton Lennard: Mr. Chairman, after all that has been said during the past few days in the house regarding the screening of the civil service, the armed forces and so forth, I have a question that I should like to put to the minister. It deals with Mr. Reuben Ship, who was the author of the C.B.C. program "The Investigator" put over "Stage 54" last Sunday. Did the minister or the officials of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation know that Mr. Ship was deported from the United States during the past year or two?


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, if the general discussion on this matter is finished-


Mr. Richard (Ottawa East):: I have a few remarks to make. They will be brief, because I do not intend to-


Frank Exton Lennard: Mr. Chairman, I merely waited for an answer from the minister.


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, it was decided that the general discussion with reference to the C.B.C. would take place. When the general discussion is finished I shall be glad to attempt to answer any of the questions. There are the questions of the hon. member for Eglinton and some that the hon. member for Macleod put and so on. I shall take occasion to answer all of the questions at that time. I could give an answer to the hon. member's question.


George Alexander Drew: On that point, we had a misunderstanding before, and I do not want a misunderstanding again. The general discussion is not ended. I should like an answer at this point on the understanding that that does not end the general discussion.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I understood we were to proceed with the general discussion. Quite a number of us have waited for some time to say a few words. If the minister starts answering questions now and the rest of us are cut off, it will hardly be carrying out the understanding we had the other day.

Supply-National Revenue


William Alfred Robinson: Has the hon. member for Wentworth completed his remarks?


Frank Exton Lennard: I asked the question; I do not know the answer. If the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation did not know about this man, it is about time that they did, and it is about time they screened the employees of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to see whether they have any employees who should not be there. I do not know what the answer to the question is.


James Joseph McCann: The C.B.C. reports that a play entitled "The Investigator" was broadcast last Sunday evening. The script was submitted by an outside writer and was accepted on the basis of its interest and dramatic entertainment value. The C.B.C. does not hold itself responsible regarding the personal or political connections of outside writers who may submit scripts. The corporation does, of course, take the responsibility for accepting and broadcasting any given script. That relates to Reuben Ship, the gentleman of whom the hon. member spoke.


Mr. Trainor:: I should like to ask a supplementary question. Is there any editing of those scripts?


Jean-Thomas Richard: Mr. Chairman,
I do not want to review at length, as some have done, the activities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, nor of broadcasting in general in Canada, but I do wish to join with others who have commended the officers of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on their excellent work and all the active members of our radio stations throughout Canada, whether they be private broadcasters or broadcasting on behalf of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I am one of those who believes that private radio has its place, and that has been recognized in our system for a number of years.
A few moments ago someone mentioned the worthy efforts of some private radio stations in connection with certain programs. One of the greatest efforts put out by the private radio today is the community service given in the local areas. I think that the committee pretty well agrees that all in all there is general satisfaction today with the administration and the services that our people receive from our radio system. But a new field has come along in the last few years, namely, television. We have recognized from year to year the efforts of private radio stations, and we have established them in almost every part of Canada.
May I speak more familiarly of certain areas in my own part of Ottawa? For example, CBO is the Canadian Broadcasting
fMr. Nicholson.]

Corporation station. Then we have three other private stations, and one additional one has received a permit but it has not yet been established. However, the same does not apply in the field of television. Up to now the policy which has been announced and followed is that in a certain area where the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has an outlet there shall be no private outlet. One understands how that policy was developed in the first place. You cannot proceed at this stage with television as you can with radio stations. There is only one source of revenue. The revenue is not large and it cannot be tapped by everybody in the early beginnings of television as an industry.
On the other hand, there are situations where one must consider the service to be given to the population in a certain area. In Montreal the policy adopted was to give an appropriate service to the French language people by having two outlets, an Englishspeaking outlet and a French-speaking outlet. In this area for some time there has been a great demand for another outlet.


William Alfred Robinson: Order. I am extremely sorry to have to interrupt the hon. gentleman but it being five o'clock we must now proceed to consideration of public and private bills.



CANADA ELECTIONS ACT


Mr. H. R. Argue (Assiniboia) moved: the second reading of Bill No. 390, to amend the Canada Elections Act (age of voters).
He said: Mr. Speaker, I believe that in a democracy we should have the widest possible basis for our franchise. Over the years progress has been made in broadening the basis for eligibility of voters. Gradually property qualifications have been abolished, voting has been extended to women and now every Canadian subject is allowed to vote on reaching the age of 21. But I believe there is just one group remaining in the country that should be given the franchise, and that is the group from 18 years of age to 21. I believe that that group should be given the vote, because if one looks over their education, qualifications, and their knowledge I think it will be seen that that group is the best educated group in Canada. I believe that their knowledge on public affairs is second to that of no other age group in the nation.
Over the years our educational standards have been going up. People have been leaving school at a more advanced age. In 1911 the average 18-year old had a grade VII education. Thirty years later the average 18-year-old had a grade X education. The

1951 census showed once again that the educational standards of the Canadian people are rising, and that the average Canadian had been in school -5 years longer in 1951 than when the previous census was taken in 1941.
At present a person is eligible to vote when he or she becomes 21, provided, of course, there is a general election at that time. We usually have a federal general election every four or five years, so that the average Canadian, in practice, is not able to cast his first ballot until he is 22 or 23 years of age. If we lowered the age of voters to 18 you would not give every person in Canada of 18 years of age a vote in a federal election at 18. That would depend on when the federal general election was called. It would mean that the average citizen would vote for the first time at the average age of 19 or 20, rather than 22 or 23 which is the practical result of having the vote at the age of 21.
I believe that a student coming out of high school should be able to vote as soon thereafter as possible, as far as age qualification is concerned. I do not think it lends itself to young Canadians keeping and maintaining an interest in public affairs to have a long gap of years between the time they graduate from high school and the time they are eligible to vote. I believe young Canadians would take a more active interest in public affairs if the voting age were lowered to 18.
We know that from our own experience in Saskatchewan. You can go out to Saskatchewan and you can campaign in a federal election, and you will find that your audience is older on the average than when you campaign in that province during a provincial election, because in Saskatchewan we have given our citizens the right to vote at the age of 18. Campaigning in a provincial election you find a substantial proportion of your audience are teen-agers, and I can tell you that they do take an active interest in public affairs; they do take their right to vote seriously; and they do attend public meetings. I think if they are encouraged in that way, by reducing the voting age, to attend political meetings at an early age that that interest is more likely to continue in the years ahead.
Saskatchewan is not the only province in Canada which has reduced its voting age. In 1944 Alberta reduced the voting age in the province to 19; in 1953 British Columbia reduced its voting age to 19. Saskatchewan, however, is the first and only province in Canada so far to reduce the voting age to 18. I believe that young Canadians between the ages cf 18 and 21, no matter what other
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hon. members in this house may think and say, are responsible persons, and I think they are sufficiently responsible to be given the right to vote, and to be given the right to have a voice in public affairs.
Whenever the country faces an emergency, whenever the country is engaged in war, then we are quite happy to extend the voting principle to 18-year olds when they are in the armed forces. If we are prepared to do that when we need them to defend democracy in wartime, why should they be denied the right to vote in peacetime, the right to a voice in public affairs, and the right to a voice by the ballot in the decisions that will be made which may result in their having to don a uniform and lay down their lives for their country.
Canada was prepared to spend huge sums of money in giving a very intricate and thorough training to young Canadians during the war. They showed themselves capable of undertaking that training by assimilating knowledge, and they were able to operate very efficiently the most intricate and complicated instruments of war. Of this I am sure: Some day the 18-year-olds in Canada will have the franchise. It is just a matter of time. The trend is already apparent. Three of the ten provinces in Canada have reduced the voting age. Of another thing we can be sure, when the C.C.F. party becomes the government in any other province, the voting age will be reduced to 18. From two precedents I think it also follows that should the Social Credit party be elected in any other province in Canada, the chances are that the voting age in that province will be reduced to 19. Hence the trend is definitely for a reduction in the voting age. I am sure the age will be reduced to 18. It is only a matter of time; and I do not see why the time should not be now.
President Eisenhower of the United States is himself in favour of giving the vote to young Americans 18 years of age. He presented that proposal to congress in his speech on January 7 in these words:
For years our citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 have, in time of peril, been summoned to fight for America. They should participate in the political process that produces this fateful summons. I urge congress to propose to the states a constitutional amendment permitting citizens to vote when they reach the age of 18.
Gerald Waring points out in his column that at least one section of another political party in Canada other than the C.C.F. is in favour of giving the franchise to 18-year-olds. In his column on May 6 he states as follows:
Last month the provincial Liberal convention in Ontario joined the national C.C.F. party in favouring a reduction of the voting age minimum to 18 years.

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Mr. Mcllraith:: They did not join the national C.C.F. party; they merely favoured the granting of the franchise at 18.


Hazen Robert Argue: If the hon. member wants to quarrel with the way in which Gerald Waring wrote his column, that is all right; but to me it is perfectly clear that what he is saying is that the Ontario Liberal convention joined the C.C.F. party in favouring a reduction of the voting age to 18 years.


George James McIlraith: I am sure the hon. member would not wish to mislead anyone by his remarks; I am quite sure of that. I was merely pointing out that what the young Liberals did was to recommend that the franchise be granted at age 18. They did not join the C.C.F. party.


Hazen Robert Argue: I am sure there is no move on foot by the C.C.F. to have the Ontario Liberal party join the national C.C.F. I am sure of that. We do not want the kiss of death now or at any other time.


An hon. Member:: You have had it.


Hazen Robert Argue: After President Eisenhower had called on congress to lower the voting age to 18, the matter was discussed in the United States senate. The proposition that the voting age should be reduced to 18 was passed in the United States senate by a vote of 34 to 24. In other words, the senators in the United States, by a substantial majority, are in favour of a reduction in the voting age to 18. That vote cannot result in the enactment of the necessary constitutional amendment because, in order to have such a constitutional amendment such a proposition must have a two-thirds majority. In this particular vote, the majority came close to but did not quite reach the necessary two-thirds.
I think the President of the United States is proposing something that is reasonable, sensible and progressive and something that the United States will adopt in time. Certainly the vote in the United States senate shows that a substantial part of congress is in favour of reducing the voting age. I hope that our government here will consider a reduction in the voting age and will bring in-if not during this present session, at least before the next general election-the necessary legislation to bring about this result. I naturally hope that the bill I am presenting will get the support of the majority of hon. members. However, if that support should not be forthcoming I am hoping that the government itself, before the next general election, will bring in legislation to provide for a reduction of the voting age to 18.


Mr. Rene N. Jutras (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, I just wish to say a few words on this bill. It is not the first time that this bill or a similar one has come before the house, but I did not avail myself of addressing the house on previous occasions. Before going further I naturally want to state that I agree fully with the first part of what the hon. member had to say. I am sure we all agree that universal suffrage is the goal today, in theory and in practice, of most governments throughout the world at the present time. However, even though that is the situation, we must all recognize the fact that there are certain inhabitants of states that cannot be given the right to vote. In this country and in most other democracies the only ones excluded are the insane and the minors.


George Alexander Drew: And judges.


René Jutras: In considering this bill the questions arise as to who is a minor and when a person ceases to be a minor. I realize that the tendency in this country-and indeed in many others-is to lower the voting age from 21 to 18. The age varies a great deal, even right in Canada. Various provinces have taken various ages, all the way from 18 to 21, but I believe there are several countries in the world where the age is still 25. This great hurry to get the people to vote no doubt flows from what I often think is our great hurry to get our children educated in this country. I sometimes wonder whether we are not nowadays trying to rush our education a little bit too much. In days gone by children would start to school at the age of 7; then they started to go to school at 6. Now they start at the age of 5, and even at the age of 4. There is a tendency to try to rush them through as soon as possible and to get them out into life as soon as possible.
I am quite satisfied that the average young man and the average young woman at the age of 17 in this country is quite responsible enough to exercise, and quite capable of exercising, his or her franchise in this country. However, the point that comes to my mind is this: Are we wise or are we fair in imposing upon them the responsibility of being obliged to cast a vote at that age? It is true that it is a great privilege to exercise the franchise in a country. But something more than a privilege is involved. Great responsibility is entailed in the exercise of this right of the franchise.
For one thing it would seem to me that to lower the age at the federal level would be premature in Canada at this stage. I must say quite frankly that I think the hon. member would have a hard time justifying 18

more than 19 or 19 more than 18 or even 17 more than 18. I admit it is very hard to draw the line, and the line has to be drawn more or less in an arbitrary way. Up until now the line has been drawn at age 21.
I do not think there are any very great reasons to justify lowering that age by even one year. I might at some time agree that there might be some justification for lowering it by one year or two years, but I frankly wonder whether it would be a service, as the hon. member has just said, to this class. Here again I do not know why he classes those from 18 to 21 in a special group. I wonder whether it would really be a favour to them to impose the responsibility on them of casting their vote.
Surely there does not seem to be any very keen desire on their part to exercise their responsibility at the present time. Taking the results of the last election, if they were to follow the example set by their elders, that would seem to be an indication that there is not a very keen desire on the part of any particular group to go to the polls on voting day. According to the results of the last election, even the older people did not go to the polls in the numbers that they should have. There is no doubt that even in the group from 18 to 21 the same attitude probably prevails. That is just incidental, but I thought I would mention it.
Even today when our children go to school at an early age and are rushed through as quickly as possible it is my experience that the average person at age 18, if he is going to take up a profession, is still in the process of getting his professional education, and he has not yet taken over the actual responsibilities of life or become interested in the intricacies and application of government. I think it is also true of the average high school student who, as the hon. member has said, may attend meetings, will still have fresh in his memory the knowledge of what government is and how it is constituted. They have the theory of government fresh in their minds but they have not yet had to deal with the application of the theory.
Mind you, there are a certain number who by the age of 18 are already established in life, but they would be a minority. The greater number of those from 18 to 21 are quite busy at that stage in deciding on their future. They have a very great decision to make. They have to decide how they will grapple with life in the years to come. For the most part their minds are quite preoccupied and they have little time for the actual application of politics in the country.
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I would question whether there is actually a long gap, as the hon. member said, from the time they leave school and become established in life and the time they actually cast their first vote. I would think in most cases the gap might be a year or two or three years at the most.
The point I should like to come back to is that these people will have plenty of opportunity to discharge the responsibility of voting in the years to come. I think it is not a bad principle to give them a chance to establish themselves and to become accustomed to their environment after assuming the full responsibilities of citizenship and all that goes with it. Then they are automatically and, generally speaking, naturally ready to assume the responsibility of the franchise.
Whether there is any great merit in having them break in gradually, so to speak, so far as voting is concerned is a very debatable question and one that could be debated for a long time. Inasmuch as some provinces have a lower voting age it would seem to me that the first step would be to give this group the vote first at the lower levels of government. I do not think it would be logical to have students or young people voting in federal elections when they did not have the right to vote in provincial or municipal elections. It seems to me they should be given the privilege first at the lower level. Once they have been granted the responsibility of the franchise at a lower age at the provincial level generally throughout the country, then in my opinion that would be the time to consider giving them the same responsibility on the federal level.
But it seems to me it would not be quite logical for them to start to vote in federal elections before they could vote at the lower levels. As far as I can ascertain at the moment, there is no great desire on the part of this group to cast their votes at that early age. I remember reading an article a few weeks ago in one of the local papers at home. In passing, I might say that it is a progressive and well illustrated weekly. I refer to the Carillon News. From time to time that paper makes it a practice to take a crosssection of public opinion and question people generally on various questions that arise.
A few weeks ago they questioned a crosssection of the high school students at the college and asked them if they were in favour of voting at the age of 19. I suppose they picked the age of 19 because the last provincial government that dealt with the question set that as the age. However, the response from the high school students was

Canada Elections Act
very much divided. A great many held that they would rather wait a few more years until they were established. Some thought that they were quite qualified and quite ready to assume the responsibility. A week later the newspaper asked the same question of a group of senior citizens, and again opinion was very much divided. No clear-cut pattern was apparent in the minds of these two classes of citizens. Therefore I say that there is no great demand for such a move at the present time. If the age is to be lowered I would, as I say, much prefer to see it done first at the lower levels of government before it is done at the federal level.
I am not questioning whether the young people are responsible or qualified at that age. I am quite convinced that they are fully qualified and capable of casting an intelligent vote at that age. The question that I have in mind is whether these heavy responsibilities should be placed on their shoulders at that early age. Why not give them a little break until the age of 21 when they would have an even better working knowledge of the intricacies of life and the intricacies of the various levels of government.


Mr. G. H. Casileden (Yorklon):: This bill, when it is passed, will make it possible for Canadian voters to exercise their franchise in federal elections when they reach the age of 18 years. At this time I wish to compliment the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) for sponsoring this bill and for the interest he is taking in the youth of this country. I believe that he is an example of what the young people of Canada can do when they get an early start and are interested in public affairs. At the age of 24 he was sitting as a member of this house, and is an example of what can be done by the youth of this country. He became interested in public affairs at an early age in the university parliament in the University of Saskatchewan. His interest in the future citizens of Canada and his faith in the ability of the young people of this country I am sure to a large extent have motivated him in sponsoring this bill and urging the young people to take a greater part in the affairs of Canada.
Some members in this house have opposed this bill on the grounds that young Canadians are too immature; that they are not interested in the affairs of state. If that is so, I feel it is a sad commentary on the educational standards of this country. One of the contributing causes of that lack of interest, if there is that lack, may lie in the very fact that they are not permitted to participate in these activities. They feel excluded. Do

hon. members realize that in spite of the fact the qualifying age of voters is now 21 the young people of Canada who reached their 21st birthday on August 10 last will not exercise their franchise in the ordinary course of events until they are 24 or 25 years of age. If this bill were passed and the minimum age were set at 18, still the average age of a Canadian casting his first vote would be about 20. I maintain that at that age young Canadians are capable of exercising their franchise in a very real way.
If any precedent is necessary I would refer the members of this house to the record of the first provincial government in Canada to grant the right to vote to those who are 18. That province has taken the lead in social legislation, and improving within its own jurisdiction the conditions of the people. It is now one of the most progressive provinces in the whole Dominion of Canada. I can remember sitting in this house when a young man from that province sat here as the member for Weyburn. He was elected when about 31, and at the age of 41 he became the premier of Saskatchewan. He is now making a signal contribution to Canadian history in the form of progressive legislation. That government is really working for the people, in the interests of the people and is in truth governed by the people.
In that province we urge the young people to participate and to feel that they are a part of this Canada. We urge them that part of their responsibilities as citizens of Canada is to take part in the elections of that province. It has been my privilege to live in that province for over 50 years. I have watched the youth grow. I know something about them and their attitude towards public affairs today. They are capable and they are responsible. When Canada finds herself in the position when she must defend her shores and the democratic rights of government, there are no members in this house who say the young people lack ability; that they lack skill or that they are not responsible or mature. The records indicate that the youths of 18, 19 and 20 take on the responsibilities of men much senior to that, and exercise a judgment and skill that has placed Canada high in the records of those who fight for democratic rights.
Surely those rights should be granted in time of peace to these same people when they reach that age. If they are fit to go out and die for their country, surely they are fit to vote for the policies for that country. It is a well established fact that we learn by doing. How could we do better than to encourage the young people at the age when they learn easily to take part in government? This will

urge people to learn more about their government, learn more about the policies of government and learn more about the effect of government upon the history of their own nation. Surely that could be only for the good of any country. Surely the knowledge of the masses is the one thing that democracy needs. Only those who are the enemies of democracy would deny or talk against knowledge for the masses. The passage of this bill will be a move to encourage the youth of Canada to take an active part in the democratic processes by an early exercise of their right to vote. They will be ready to study the problems of the country and the means of solving them. Youth, when it is urged by proper motives, can achieve miracles.
I watched a young man who could not find his place in the classroom of an ordinary high school. He left high school and entered the air force. Suddenly he became imbued with the idea that he wanted to have the wings of the Royal Air Force pinned upon his chest. He could overcome almost any obstacle. He could study and master the necessary sciences. He passed and stood there proudly as the wing commander placed these wings upon his breast. This made a man of him. He did not know what he could do, his parents did not know his abilities, until he became inspired by a desire to achieve something. Let us support this bill as a measure which will inspire the youth of this country to make Canada the greatest contributor to human progress in the world.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I am
going to make a very sort contribution to this debate, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps I may be excused for making it rather personal. I have just been trying, as well as I can, to look back on my own life and try to assess myself as a voter between the years of 18 and 21. The result is not satisfactory.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Has it been any more satisfactory since you were 21?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: There is a very obvious answer to that, I know, and anyone who wishes to make it can make it. I can only speak for myself.
I want to come to another point that has been referred to already, and that is the disappointing sense of responsibility that is shown even by those who have the vote, as judged by the performance at the last election.
The point I want to make is this. I have been reading an interesting book on the progress of civilization. It does not make one feel too happy because the whole purport of it is to show how civilization is becoming more and more a mass affair in which it is
Canada Elections Act
harder and harder to preserve individuality, and those qualities which I think civilization had more obviously fifty years ago than it has today. The same writer points out that on this continent progress toward mass civilization is growing faster than anywhere else. Partly for reasons given by the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Jutras), I find myself with the feeling that what we need is not to add to the mass; what we need to do is to try to give people more time. Just as my hon. friend across the floor said, we should try to give the young people more time to prepare themselves for responsibilities which should be taken seriously, and which are not now taken seriously.
I suggest that to spread the vote out that much more will not produce the results which have been suggested by the hon. member who preceded me. It will not produce those results, except among a very few, and will make the vote something which is cast before people before they have any interest in it, and before they are likely to have any desire to take it seriously. And for that reason I hope this measure will not pass.


George James McIlraith: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry this measure has come up in the way it has. When I say that I am referring particularly to the attitude of the sponsor of the bill when he seeks to make it a party measure, and has introduced for its support a line of provincial politics which has nothing to do with the issue or the subject matter. And he seemed to be supported rather strongly in that by the hon. member for Yorkton (Mr. Castleden).


George Hugh Castleden: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that there was nothing in my address which would lead to that conclusion, at all.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


George Hugh Castleden: I merely pointed out an example of where it was being used.


George James McIlraith: In support of what I have said I would refer to the hon. member's remarks about the premier of one of our provinces, and the government of that province. This is a subject which has been of great interest to me for many years, and I had hoped that it would not be treated as the hon. member has treated it. With due deference, provincial governments have their own responsibilities and tasks and I, for one, object to having them dragged in here, and their merits or demerits constantly talked about. I regret that the hon. member saw fit to take this opportunity to drag it in, in a left-handed way, and then lay on the praise

Canada Elections Act
for their operations. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss their merits or demerits, but it seems to me this is not the proper place to do it. The hon. member for Yorkton, of course, may have his views in the matter.
There is one other point that should be pointed out concerning the hon. member's speech. He made some comments about members of the armed forces that would have the support of all of us, but at no time in his speech did he admit that the armed forces already have the vote. On the other hand the sponsor of the bill was very clear on the point, and did make it clear in his remarks. The hon. member for Yorkton did not.
If one wanted to go into the background of this subject he would find that the party on this side of the house is the one that has carried the historic battle for the extension of the franchise. But, be that as it may, the situation in which we now find ourselves is one which I believe the whole population in Canada has pretty well accepted and agreed to the proposition that we should have the widest possible base among our citizens for eligibility to vote. I believe that is common ground among all parties.
The problem confronting those who concern themselves with the age limit in the elections act is that of deciding when a person has assumed the responsibilities of citizenship. And that is a difficult problem. It is not simply a matter of saying that at this age or at that age they assume those responsibilities. The law in most of its aspects gives them full responsibility at the age of 21. Generally speaking, the armed forces take them in at the age of 18 and, in some branches I believe, at 17J. In some parts of the services it may be younger than that. Where it is clear that citizens as members of the armed forces have assumed the responsibilities of citizenship in the highest way, immediately they are given the vote.
What we have to determine here is at what point a citizen not in the armed forces assumes full responsibility. Where is the line? About all one can do in the elections act is to choose an arbitrary age, and no matter what that age is, whether it be 21, 19, 18, 17 or at some other point, it is going to be possible to argue, and with real weight and authority, that there are some under that age who have assumed a very high degree of responsibility in the community. On the other hand it will also be possible to argue that there are some above the age who have not yet come to the full responsibilities of citizenship.

The hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) has referred to teen-agers attending election meetings. I would tell him that last summer I saw a great number of teenagers under the age of 18 years who attended open-air election meetings. Following the hon. member's argument, those persons should have the right to vote. Let me say seriously that the training the young people have under our school system is indeed extraordinary in this respect. They have good information and a considerable amount of knowledge about public affairs. I mention this only to show that it cannot be argued that simply because a person under 21 years attends an election meeting he should be allowed to vote.
This question has been discussed at parliamentary committees which in the past have studied the elections act. The suggested change has been turned down. I, for one, have felt that while in the circumstances what was done was wholly proper, the treatment given the subject in those committees was scarcely adequate. To treat this subject adequately it seems that one would have to examine the whole question. One would have to look into our legislation which gives added income tax exemption for educational purposes in respect of those over 16 years. Deduction allowances for children for income tax purposes normally stop at the age of 16.
We have what I regard, and I believe is also regarded by members of all parties, as a very fine provision permitting the extension of that exemption beyond the age of 16 when they are continuing their education. I do not want at this late date in the session when there is an attempt to amend the elections act in an arbitrary fashion to do something which would be quoted against me later when we come to extend some of the educational provisions about which I am rather partial. When I refer to that subject I am, of course, also including the subject of scholarships. I am not going to digress into that educational field, but I think we have made good progress in the last few years, and I hope we can go further in developing provisions for the education of the young people.
A nice question arises when one has to decide at just what age a young person who is wholly maintained by his parents should receive the right to vote. Certainly he is not in the same position as his fellow classmate who enlisted in the armed services and is on active service. It is that type of question I would like to see examined and discussed more fully.
As I said in opening my remarks, this is a subject that has absorbed my attention to

a considerable degree in the past. It is something that should be examined into pretty thoroughly, but I should like it to come up in another way so that we could really look at these things. I should like to get some more statistical information on one or two aspects of it. The hon. member who is sponsoring the bill-I am not critical of him-is naturally enthusiastic about it. He said that if we do not get it now we shall get it later. That is not the issue to be determined here. The issue before the house is an amendment to the elections act. Incidentally, I think there is a technical mistake in the bill about the armed forces. Be that as it may, that is the issue before the house. I do not think that issue should be determined in that way at all now.
It may be that the age should be reduced. I am certainly openminded, and rather inclined to think that probably it should be reduced; but I am not prepared to amend the elections act at this time on a few speeches to reduce the age from 21 to 18 without further consideration and without a full examination of what I consider to be the real facets that must be considered before a decision is taken. I realize that that may not be acceptable to the hon. member proposing the bill, but I think it is the right way to go about it. I for one do not wish to see something done here in a rush to amend the elections act that is going to hamper things that I hope we can do in the next few years by way of extending the opportunity for education through scholarships and educational grants. I do not want anything done here rashly that is going to interfere with that. I should like therefore to have this matter considered in what-if I may use the term and not be misunderstood-I believe to be a more mature way. I am in favour of the idea behind the suggestion, but I think this method of dealing with the subject is at least premature.
Hon. George A. Drew (Leader of the
Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I do want to deal with one statement, because sometimes these repeated statements made in a certain recurring confusion of the mind become embedded in the minds of others. In the friendliest way may I refer to the comment of the hon. member who has just spoken in regard to the fact that his party has been the party which has always extended the franchise.


George James McIlraith: I limited that historically;
I was quite careful to limit it.


George Alexander Drew: To what?


George James McIlraith: I was careful to limit that in my reference to the hon. member who sponsored the bill and the other hon. member
Canada Elections Act
of that party. I was very careful to point out that if one was dealing with the historical aspects of it probably the best case could be made out for this party.


Stanley Howard Knowles: How about dealing with the idea?


George Alexander Drew: I do want to deal with this very briefly because we so constantly hear statements about the great achievements of the party opposite in every field-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


George Alexander Drew: -no matter what it may be.


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: Right.


George Alexander Drew: Once in a while it may do some of them good to be reminded of the fact that this has become a habit that leads them to make those statements without any regard to the actual history of the country. The fact is that the voting age and the general principles in regard to voting were established under a Conservative party which had the responsibility of setting up the electoral machinery in this country in the first instance. There were a number of extensions during the life of that continuing Conservative government, and then the next great step in the extension of the franchise came in 1918 when Sir Robert Borden was head of the government. In May 1918, the franchise was extended to all women of the age of 21, and there you had universal franchise subject only to the age limit. With deference to the admiration that the hon. member who has just spoken constantly expresses for the history of his own party, I would suggest that from time to time it might be well to restrain that enthusiasm within the bounds of the actual political history of this country.
There is one aspect of this problem that I do think should be borne in mind by all hon. members. I do not think there is any single member here on either side of the house who is not equally proud of the type of young people of 18 to 21 that we have here in Canada. Our education, the type of life in a country of wide spaces and immense opportunities has given us youth of whom all of us have every reason to be proud. I am certain that neither one side of the house nor the other, nor in any segment of this house, is there any greater appreciation of the high character of our youth which would differentiate any hon. member from another. We all share that pride and we all have reason to share that pride. I do not want to sound offensive, but I do say very often that there are differences, and without being offensive I will say quite frankly that my youngest child, who is now fourteen, gives

Canada Elections Act
evidence of judgment which I would be quite prepared to accept as against the judgment of a number who have spoken here.


Mr. Gauthier (Porineuf):: Chip off the old
block.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Smarter than the old man.


Jean Lesage: The race is improving.


George Alexander Drew: Of course I naturally am
prejudiced on that subject. We are all prejudiced in regard to the estimate of the judgment, character and the ability of our youth to face the future here in Canada.


Mr. Mclvor:: Six o'clock.


George Alexander Drew: If I may finish this sentence, there is just one point that should be given consideration in discussing this subject, namely, that the age of 21 was not chosen as an arbitrary age at which the ability to make a political decision had been reached; but it is the age at which for not only generations but centuries we have imposed upon young people a full legal liability. Until they are 21 we have provided that people up to that age need not be answerable for the contracts that are signed and other things of that kind, under the theory that their judgment may not be developed to the point that the full legal responsibility should be imposed.
The time may have come to change that concept in regard to that matter. The fact remains, however, that the choice of the voting age of 21 was not an arbitrary decision in regard to their political wisdom, but was related to the age of political responsibility. I would be the first to be ready to consider a change of the age, with my admiration of Canadian youth; but let us remember that this was the basis upon which the age was originally fixed, and we have to consider this when we are dealing with an ordinary change in voting age that is before us.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The time for the consideration of public bills has expired.


Mr. Tucker:: I would ask leave of the house, by unanimous consent, to revert to motions, in order that I may present a report.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it agreed that we should revert to motions?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


Walter Adam Tucker: I have the honour to present the third report of the special committee on veterans affairs, in English and in French.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Dispense.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it agreed that the assistant clerk dispense with the reading of the report?


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Agreed.
It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair. At eight o'clock the committee will resume the business which was interrupted at five o'clock.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at eight o'clock.
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Robinson (Simcoe East) in the chair.

William Alfred Robinson: Item 534.


Jean-Thomas Richard: Mr. Chairman, when I adjourned the debate at five o'clock I was speaking about the general policy on television in Canada and more particularly as it relates to the capital area. I mentioned, by way of comparison, that in the case of radio broadcasting there were a number of private stations and one C.B.C. outlet in Ottawa, and that one of those private stations was a French language station. There is also another opening for a French language outlet in Ottawa, a licence for which was recently granted to a group from Eastview. The French language radio station CKCH in Hull carries the C.B.C. French programs originating in Montreal. These programs otherwise would not be available to this area. However, the arrangement has worked very well and I think has relieved the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation of a certain responsibility to this French-speaking audience and also has worked very well for the private station in Hull.
I want the committee to bear in mind that this is the capital of Canada, the one place of all places in this country where the dual culture of this nation should be found and reflected in all its spheres of activity. Ottawa, the capital, should be the mirror of the nation. It is here that the bilingual character of the nation should be most highly exemplified. The history of the Ottawa valley area is a recital of the life and work of the energetic Canadians of French and English origin who have toiled together, since Champlain landed here, to make this capital. The French and the English populations of this area are almost equal in number. Our

schools are bilingual or English-speaking. The people of French origin speak French and most of them, of course, speak English fluently. Many people of English origin, including those of Scots and Irish descent, speak the French language very well. Ottawa has the only bilingual university on the continent. We have our French and English theatres, our French and English press, and the proceedings of our parliament are carried on in both languages.
(Translation):
Mr. Chairman, may I say that it is with some emotion and deep pride that I am very happy to bear witness to the existence of the French element in the capital city of Canada. It is truly with pride and emotion that we find that the French-speaking population of the capital city and of the surrounding district is approximately five times the number of Frenchspeaking settlers who stayed on the American continent following the conquest, some three hundred years ago.
But in spite of all the obstacles that we have met, in spite of all the ups and downs of the first settlers and I would even add in spite of the faults in the constitution that have hindered the progress of French education in every province except Quebec, which has respected the constitution by maintaining the two languages, we are still proud and still satisfied to have progressed and to have co-operated with the English-speaking element of our province in making the city of Ottawa and the surrounding area truly representative of the Canadian nation.
We have tried, in co-operation with our fellow citizens of English origin, to give to the rest of the country an example of what our Canadian fatherland should be.
I take the opportunity, tonight, while I am on the subject of radio broadcasting, to extend my congratulations in particular to our Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier), who is also a native son of Ontario, and who has helped us so much to obtain the satisfaction of our just claims at all times. I know that the Minister of Transport is wholeheartedly in favour of the establishment of French television in the Ottawa district, and that with his help this objective will be achieved in the near future.
(Text):
I mention all this, Mr. Chairman, in order to demonstrate that-not by reason of a legal claim nor by reason of necessity but rather on account of the understanding and respect which we have for the traditions and the claims of this national capital-all cultural activities carried on in this area should bear the character of the two great races.
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When television was introduced into Canada, and particularly into this area, it was quite understandable that the number of the programs would not be great, that they would not be too wonderful in quality and of course that they could not be perfectly bilingual. Like the hon. member for Hull, I am pleased to say that, because of the immediate service given by the C.B.C. with respect to a certain number of French programs, the reaction was very good. In the short time after the station was introduced into Ottawa we had quite a satisfactory number of programs in the French language. As a matter of fact, as hon. members doubtless know from experience now that they have been listening in room 16, it is quite pleasing not only for French-speaking people but also for those who are English-speaking but also speak French to see some of the very good French programs coming from Montreal. There are very good programs in French coming from Montreal. On the other hand, the number is limited because this station in Ottawa serves the English population, a great number of whom, of course, do not speak French.
The programs in English are very attractive. They are not all good but I must say that some of them are very attractive, and they are followed closely by the people of this district. However, I think we have reached the point where we can say that the situation is not satisfactory to everyone. Indeed, it cannot be satisfactory to everyone because the 40 per cent of the programs, say, which are French programs coming from Montreal do not provide a wide selection for the French audience; and on the other hand, the 60 per cent of the programs which are English programs coming from Toronto or Montreal do not provide what you would call a wide selection either for the people who want to listen to English programs.
I am not speaking of the quality of the programs. I said before that some of them are very good. I think the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is doing a very good job in rearing this very young child and we cannot expect it to run before it has started to walk.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Jean-Thomas Richard: Yes.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Would he be a little more specific as to what he means-and I hope this will not be regarded as Toronto patriotism- by saying that he feels that the programs emanating from Ontario are not very satisfactory in the province of Quebec? Could he make that more specific?


Jean-Thomas Richard: I did not say that.
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Supply-National Revenue


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Then I misunderstood the hon. member.


Jean-Thomas Richard: I did not say
anything like that. What I did say was that a proportion of 50 per cent to 60 per cent of English programs in an evening is not sufficient fare for the English-speaking audience and a proportion of 40 per cent to 45 per cent of French programs is not satisfactory for the French-speaking audience. There is not sufficient listening time for either one and there is not a sufficient selection in either language. At this time in this district we have an audience which is in some respects satisfied, because after all this is a new development, but there are a great many who feel that they should not buy sets at all because there are too few programs to watch in any one evening.
In Montreal the problem was tackled from a bilingual point of view. Montreal was given a French station and an English station. But Montreal is not as bilingual as the city of Ottawa and the surrounding area. This is the most bilingual area in any part of Canada. In any event, as I said before, it is more than that. It is the capital of Canada and surely it is here, if anywhere in Canada, that we should find stations providing programs in the French and English languages.
There is another aspect of the question. French programs produced in Montreal are just as costly as programs produced in English, but at the present time they are being used through one outlet only. They could very well be used in Ottawa without in any way increasing the cost of production. There is a relay system between Montreal and Ottawa, and I understand that all that would be required in Ottawa would be a transmitter which would probably use the same antenna. Therefore the matter of cost is not a big factor, and much greater use could be made of the programs already being produced in Montreal if they were not limited to that city and the partial use now being made of them in Ottawa.
My suggestion is that the C.B.C. should announce at an early date, perhaps not immediately but at an early date, whether it is its intention to instal a transmitter to televise the French programs coming from Montreal. We should have a statement of policy from the C.B.C. as to whether it intends to have its own French outlet in Ottawa or whether it does not intend to do so. That is why I have not raised the question of a private station up to this point. I do not think it arises until an answer is given to that question by the C.B.C. I do not know whether the minister will be in a position to make a statement today or on another occasion, but


I say the whole problem is whether or not the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation intends to have a French outlet in Ottawa. If it does not intend to do so then I say it is up to the government to reach a decision as soon as possible to permit whoever applies-if he is a responsible party and undertakes to carry C.B.C. programs emanating from Montreal- to have a station in Ottawa.
But I am confident that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, knowing the situation in this area much better than I do, must have plans, and I regard it as quite possible that in the near future there will be an answer from that source in the form of a statement that a French C.B.C. transmitter is to be built in Ottawa. But I repeat that if that is not to be done the government should reconsider its policy in respect of a French language private station in this particular area where the situation, so far as permitting private stations is concerned, is much unlike that of areas where the population speaks one language.
I think that people's minds should be put at rest. The government should relieve the people of their anxiety in this regard. By so doing they would help to foster good will toward the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and would also help industry which would be able to sell a great number of television sets in this area if there were a French television outlet. Television, Mr. Chairman, can be an active agent in the development of our national culture, and I am confident that on those grounds the house will agree that its extension should be in the finest and best traditions of the people who joined hands at confederation to make this a great and united country.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Chairman, I rise to make a very few remarks. I am not going to deal with policy, administration or programs because this afternoon the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar ably placed before the committee the views of this group in that connection. I will only say that I listen quite frequently to "Stage 54" and I do want to express my appreciation of the magnificent production of "Richard III" some time earlier this year. I have heard a good many people say that it was an excellent piece of work on the part of the C.B.C.
I rise primarily to make my eighth annual plea for improved radio reception in the northern part of my constituency of Kootenay West. There are some 5,000 people residing there who are unable to receive satisfactory radio reception after nightfall and during the greater part of the day. Owing to the weakness of the signals from Nelson and Trail they

have very poor radio reception at times. I want to impress upon the minister that while other people in Canada are getting all the latest in television I have 5,000 people in my constituency who still have to enjoy decent radio reception. I am very glad to know that the corporation is giving serious consideration to the question with a view to ascertaining the possibility of establishing low-power relay transmitters. We are very pleased with that, but I do want to emphasize that these people have been most patient to go on for thirty years without adequate and proper radio reception.


Mr. Stuart (Charlotte):: Hear, hear.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am very pleased to see that I have the support of the hon. member for Charlotte. I think these people are now entitled to some action on the part of the corporation and the government. I want to emphasize that these are very useful people. They are primarily outdoor workers and they have to enjoy their radios largely in the evening hours. They are people who are producing a large quantity of forest, metal and mineral products, and a considerable quantity of agricultural products. I think it is most unfair, Mr. Chairman, that year after year this productive segment of our population should be denied even ordinary radio reception.
In addition to that I am bringing to the minister's attention that the income taxes per capita paid in the constituency of Kootenay West is one of the highest in Canada. Representative organizations in the district have for years been pressing for some action in this respect. I have recently heard from the chamber of commerce, boards of trade, the Canadian Legion, the farmers' organizations and the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire. Everybody is concerned about this. They feel they are entitled by this time to action by way of providing proper radio reception.
I do urge that this question be given every consideration and the needs of these people be met in the very near future. I would suggest that today there is no shortage of funds so far as the C.B.C. is concerned. I do feel that when there are millions being spent for television in other parts of Canada these good people are entitled to adequate radio reception. When the minister replies, I should like to hear his comment on this question that is so important to about 5,000 of my constituents.


Mr. Gour (Russell):: At the outset, Mr. Chairman, I should like to congratulate the C.B.C. for the good work they have done up to now. I have to extend those congratulations to include the Minister of Transport and the Minister of National Revenue, because they
Supply-National Revenue have done splendid work right from the first and I am sure they will continue to do their usual fine job. I wish to speak tonight on behalf of the television viewers in this district, not only the French viewers but the English viewers as well. I am not raising the question of language at this time, because I have received just as many complaints from the English people as I have from the French people when they have been forced to turn off their television sets because they did not understand what was said in French.
In view of the good administration we have received up to now I know it will not be too long before this situation is remedied. I do not want to make this a question of language. I am sure that this government, in view of the good administration we have received from it, will not delay too long in settling the problem. If it is found that the C.B.C. is unable to establish a second station in Ottawa for the benefit of the French-speaking people, then I hope consideration will be given to the private company that has made application. It is a responsible company, and it will do a good job. I am sure that the Minister of National Revenue, the C.B.C. and this good government we have will see that justice is done in that connection in the near future, just as they have given justice from one end of the country to the other.


Mr. Cameron (Nanaimo):: I was interested this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, in listening to the hon. member for Macleod express his fears about thought control by the C.B.C. I suppose it is possible, but if so then all I can say is that they are exercising it in a most inefficient manner. I would commend to the minister that he tighten up his control of C.B.C. because I, myself, on the invitation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, have participated in programs on many occasions. I do not believe the C.B.C. or the minister have ever had any reason to suspect that I was a devout admirer of the present government.
I believe we have to look at this thing a little more reasonably than that. I would suggest that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is, in itself, an example of something new perhaps in our society in its administrative set-up. I do not believe anyone can really level a charge at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that it has been the agent or the propagandist for any particular political or economic group in the country. In fact, one of the things of which we, as Canadians, should be extremely proud is the record of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
This afternoon the hon. member for Macleod spoke of the further danger of
5544	HOUSE OF
Supply-National Revenue imposing a rigid, uniform pattern of culture upon Canadians. I find culture a rather repugnant word, as a matter of fact. However, it is perhaps the only one we can use.
I wonder whether there is not something to be considered here apart merely from the people's uninformed taste. Now, I myself lay no claims whatever to having a particularly sophisticated cultural taste. But I have this, shall I say, degree of development, that I do recognize there are people in our society who have that particularly well informed and well developed cultural taste. We should be wise if we give them every opportunity to present their ideas to us in as effective a manner as possible.
Certainly I think the C.B.C. has been giving that opportunity. My colleague, the hon. member for Kootenay West, just mentioned the performance of "Richard III" by "Stage 54". Now, that was only one of a series. Anyone who has listened to this series will realize that throughout the last considerable period of time the C.B.C. has been presenting all the Shakespearean chronicle plays, and presenting them most effectively in an adapted form from the pen of some of their extremely gifted writers. I often think of an incident that took place in my home two or three years ago when the C.B.C. was presenting Lister Sinclair's adaptation of "Oedipus Rex", probably the most dramatic psychological play in existence. Lister Sinclair's adaptation of it was superb, in my opinion. My opinion in that regard was reinforced by a curious incident that took place. At that time we had a young native coast Indian living with us who was going to the university. He came into the living room when the play "Oedipus Rex" was on. He sat down and stayed there for the whole performance almost motionless beside the radio. It occurred to me at that time, Mr. Chairman, that any artistic power that could bring the beauty of Greek culture across the period of time of about 2,500 years and eons of time culturally to a product of the primitive culture of the B.C. coast Indian and hold that lad glued to the radio, is something we would do well to be very proud of.
The hon. member for Macleod was somewhat sceptical about the development of talent by means of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It may be that he has a different definition of talent from the one to which I am accustomed. But I think most of us would agree that unless talents are given the opportunity to develop, to be refined to their fullest extent, then they are going to be largely useless. Certainly the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation if it has


done nothing else has provided the opportunity of developing the artistic and dramatic talents of Canadian people. This is true to such an extent that there are many of our friends and neighbours across the line who openly envy us the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the opportunities it gives for precisely that talent development.
Not long after the session opened I had occasion to write a short article for a United States periodical. I received quite a lot of correspondence about it from across the line because it dealt with a United States problem. One of the letters I received was from a farmer in the state of New York who said he was writing to me, not merely to commend the article I had written but also as some expression of gratitude toward Canada and Canadians for the continued pleasure he has received from tuning in to the C.B.C. broadcasts every day. It may be that at some future date the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation might establish itself as a monopoly of culture and of thought control. But to speak today as though there were no other broadcasting organization in the field is to present a completely false picture. And it is equally false to suggest that those private radio outlets are even in the same category or class as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, when it comes to intellectual, cultural or artistic standards-because they just are not.
Anyone who has spoken over the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation facilities and also over private radio station facilities need not be told about the vast difference in efficiency and care exercised by the employees of the two types of organizations. On every occasion I have spoken over a C.B.C. outlet I have been afforded every possible help with regard to the organization of my material for the address, advice as to how to present it, advice as to what parts to stress-endless and limitless patience and time taken to make sure that I got the best out of the opportunity afforded to me.
In fact, I might say this-and it bears to some extent on the question of the C.B.C. being an organ of propaganda-that on more than one occasion employees of the C.B.C. in Vancouver have complained to me that the worst offenders from their point of view as radio-technical experts, and the most completely determined not to take advantage of the facilities offered by the C.B.C., have been cabinet ministers who, according to many of the radio technicians in Vancouver, seem to feel that because they are cabinet ministers they have, by some mysterious means, mastered the technique of radio and do not

require advice or help. Many times I have seen employees of the C.B.C. station in Vancouver tearing their hair because some cabinet minister came in and insisted upon pontificating on the radio, thus lowering their general level of technical efficiency. I am not saying that all C.B.C. programs are admirable. They are not; some of them are lousy.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The cabinet minister broadcasts?


Colin Cameron: And the lousiest ones are the ones to which I think the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has resort because this parliament is so niggardly and stingy. I refer to the foul soap operas that they take from the American networks- private enterprise programs which pay very well for the privilege of poisoning the whole well of Canadian culture, with all due deference to my hon. friend from Macleod.
I think that these soap operas are a far greater moral and intellectual danger to the Canadian people than many of those things about which hon. members in this house tear their hair; because they present a foul, sentimental, saccharine picture of life that, at certain points, has sufficient similarity to real life to influence unintelligent, or not very intelligent, unsophisticated people. So that you have, of course, the result of a silly husband or a silly wife getting very fed up with their spouses because they do not behave in the impossibly inane and noble manner of the product of Aunt Lucy's mind.
So what I would like to see is that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation be given a sufficient fund so that they can thumb their noses at every soap manufacturer who wishes to poison the minds of the Canadian people.


Mr. Blackmore:: Mr. Chairman, I wish to ask the minister some questions which will be of a different kind. In spite of the sanguinity of the hon. member for Nanaimo, I still think, with the member for Macleod, that there is considerable cause for anxiety in Canada, lest the minds of Canadian people be controlled by forces that Canadians would never wish to have control their minds. I would like to ask the minister a few questions which he will be able to answer at his leisure. Probably he will not have the material with him tonight, but if we can have the answers to these questions in detail, those answers ought to go a long way to reassure us.
First, who decides policy of the C.B.C.?
Second, what means of screening has the minister, to make sure C.B.C. personnel are all pro-Canadian, and not pinkos in some respects, if not positively pro-Russian?
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Third, Canada beams broadcasts into how many European countries? We have never had a detailed report on that matter. To what countries are those broadcasts beamed?
Fourth, in which languages are these broadcasts beamed into European countries?
Fifth, what is the general purpose of these broadcasts? Indications are, from the estimates, that more and more money is being spent on such broadcasts into, let us say, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia and other countries behind the iron curtain. I would like to know what the purpose of such broadcasts might be. What is the general purpose of doing it, anyway?
Sixth, in the main, is the general purpose to encourage peoples in iron curtain countries to hope for deliverance, or is it to encourage them to be satisfied with their communist rulers? I would like to have that answered pretty thoroughly, and to have it adequately documented.
Seventh, during the year 1953 how many Canadian broadcasts were directed to Czechoslovakia, for example?
Eighth, how many of these could be classified as having political significance?
Ninth, how many have had pro-communist leanings?
Tenth, how many have had anti-communist leanings?
Eleventh, on what grounds would the minister justify the expenditure of Canadian taxpayers' money upon broadcasts into Europe that are neither pro-communist nor anti-communist?
I have had the privilege of reading some of the broadcasts that have been sent into some of those countries. As I recall it, one of them told about Canadian wildlife. What would be the purpose of spending Canadian money on telling Czechoslovakia or Poland about the wildlife of Canada?


An hon. Member:: The wild life?


John Horne Blackmore: The deer and the antelope.
Those questions have a bearing on the matter of foreign broadcasts. I do not listen to every broadcast which comes over the C.B.C. Before I proceed to say any more, let me hasten to express my appreciation of the C.B.C.'s work. Many fine compliments have been paid to the C.B.C. this afternoon in this house. Every single one of them the C.B.C. completely merits and richly deserves. But if it should be found that after all this cultural excellence and technical excellence and artistic excellence and all the other kinds of excellence, we were being subverted unawares, it would be a very very serious thing. I have read through two or three

Supply-National Revenue broadcasts coming from overseas and some from Canada which certainly followed the communist line and which certainly were subtly indoctrinating Canadians with the communist attitude. The correspondence I have from various parts of Canada show that the impression which I have expressed is not an impression which I alone have formed.
What would be evidence of the communist line? Well, all speeches that are designed to show the Canadian people that there just is not any way out of the difficulty in which we find ourselves except the C.C.F. or socialism right on up to communism, including government ownership and centralizing control, and all the rest of it that constitutes the C.C.F. doctrine and socialism; all talks which do this are certainly following the communist line. All talks which seek to glorify Russia, articles like those by the famous Bill Boss, filling our newspapers today all over Canada abundantly, every one of which indicates that Russia has got some glorious form of life over there if we could only just find out about it; all those are following the communist line and are softening the Canadian people up and are certainly giving comfort to the enemy.
All broadcasts which tend to weaken the faith of the Canadian people in God, Christianity, the Bible, the teachings of the Bible, all of those are pro-communist.
I have mentioned once already in an interview with the press which I did not expect to be published, but which was published, that I heard a talk, a beautiful talk on termites. The construction of that talk was just perfect; the language was just perfect; the delivery, well, it was just the answer to a prayer; it was on termites. Well, why in the world should you have a half-hour talk on termites? It was an educational broadcast, we will grant, yes. It came over the air into my home just as my children were sitting around after the supper hour. Do you know what that thing taught in a general way? That the termites with their automatic regimented inevitable way of life were living in the kind of condition that human beings would live under some time in the future. The whole talk was given with that strange, scientific, detached melancholia which characterizes so many of our high-minded professors when they are philosophizing on the inevitability of evolution and all that kind of thing. That talk, just as sure as we are in this house, was a communist talk. It was an evolutionary talk. It was indoctrinating the people on evolution.


I have spoken once before, maybe twice before, about talks that were chosen to indoctrinate the people on evolution.
Now, if those wisecracks were just loud enough so that I could hear them the hon. member who is making them would not make them. He just makes them loud enough for Hansard to get them and so that I cannot get them. That is just about the lowest kind of trick that can be played.


Hazen Robert Argue: I said nothing.


John Horne Blackmore: There are people over there who were saying things that I could not get but Hansard could get. Come right out with them, and be men, and I will take care of them.
I objected to speeches by Brock Chisholm. They were bad speeches, bad through and through. I can see no reason in the world why we should pay good Canadian taxpayers' money to have that kind of thing foisted upon our Canadian people. All power to the C.B.C. for giving us the knowledge and information! The argument will be, and it was regarding Brock Chisholm's talks; Well, we believe in giving the Canadian people a chance to hear every side of the story. But there never was an answer given over the air to Brock Chisholm, and there never was an answer given over the air to the termite speech, and there never will be.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Has the hon. member asked the C.B.C. to give him a chance to answer it?


John Horne Blackmore: I was in no position to ask the C.B.C.; even if I had been, why should I? The C.B.C. did not wait for me to ask them to put Brock Chisholm over the air, nor the termites speech over the air. If they could be moved upon to put those speeches over the air, they should have been moved upon to put the answers to them over the air, by all means whatsoever. They should have had the answers right at the time the talks were given.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Does the hon. member not believe in free speech?


John Horne Blackmore: Surely! I believe in free speech for every side of the story and every side of the case. That is just exactly what we are not getting. All these talks, indoctrinating the people with the communist attitude, the socialistic attitude, are never answered.


Mr. Zaplitny:: Are they the same?


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Will the hon. gentleman permit a question?


John Horne Blackmore: Yes, I will permit a question; any time I am afraid to be asked a question by the hon. gentleman I shall retire.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: The hon. gentleman's party has free time on the C.B.C. Has he ever asked his party to give him a chance to make use of the free time to reply to Brock Chisholm?


John Horne Blackmore: That is just the kind of thing you would expect from a socialist. He would ask the Social Crediters, who have one-half as much time as the socialists, while the socialists are devoting all their time to putting over their ideology, to spend their social credit time answering the false doctrine spread over the air by the C.B.C.! Would that not just be the ideal for the C.C.F. people!


Stanley Howard Knowles: A typical Social Credit
answer.


John Horne Blackmore: I do not wish to go into too much detail on this matter.
I do not think the ordinary Canadian or American begins to realize what is happening to him. The first thing we know this country will be captured by communist influence infiltrating into our hearts and our homes without our even knowing what is happening to us.


Hazen Robert Argue: It must be pretty strong.


John Horne Blackmore: Yes, communist doctrine has all the power of the prince of darkness and all his cunning; for that is just exactly what it is; it is the doctrine of the prince of darkness, that is all. Anyone who heard Brock Chisholm talk, or who heard the "termites" talk would know it was of the evil one. That was easy to see because they were calling in question the sacred teachings of the Bible.
This is a Christian country. When this country wants communism it will vote for communism. As I recall it, 100 candidates offered Canadians the opportunity to send communists to Ottawa to govern Canada and not one of them saved his deposit.


An hon. Member:: Then what are you worried about?


John Horne Blackmore: I am worried lest a government which was sent down here to fight communism should now turn round and abet communism, spread its doctrines through the radio stations of the C.B.C., an organization publicly owned and publicly paid for. Now, would not that be a most astonishing state of affairs? If all I am saying is true, and I am afraid there is a lot more truth in it than many people believe, we require to be very careful.
Supply-National Revenue
Just to show how serious the situation is, and I do not know whether or not the minister's attention has been drawn to this, I have here an article. Though it does not have any particular bearing on radio, yet it certainly does show the kind of thing we are faced with. This article appeared in the Ottawa Journal of June 1, 1954. This article was carried on page 2 under the heading "Congress Studies Document on Red Plans for Revolution". It reports that Senator Knowland put a document into congressional records recently. That document, the senator thought, apparently outlined the plans of Mao Tse-tung for the complete conquest of the world. The article closes with these portentous quoted words:
Twenty years from now world revolution will be an accomplished fact.
Details of the procedure by which this horror is to be brought about are laid down. Now if we go on in the way we have been doing for the last eight years, there is not a thing on earth except our Heavenly Father who can stop this world revolution, because we are doing everything in our power to help this revolution along. That is the reason I am worried so much about what comes through the C.B.C. I cannot see any reason in the world for speeches slanted in favour of the communist line.


Mr. Campbell:: Do you look under the bed every night?


John Horne Blackmore: No, but I say my prayers every night. I wonder if my hon. friend does that. If he did that for a year or two it would straighten out his thinking.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is a nice Christian attitude.


John Horne Blackmore: Mr. Chairman, I am going to leave this question now and ask the minister to give a detailed answer. He cannot do so tonight, I know, but I believe it will do the minister and all of us good to think about these questions.


William Alfred Robinson: Shall the item carry?


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Chairman, there are some aspects to this question on which I do feel some remarks should be made. The subject has been discussed from many angles today, but one of the most interesting aspects of this discussion has been the frequent reference to the cultural aspects of C.B.C. broadcasting, and I was interested to hear just a short time ago a suggestion that the government has in fact been somewhat niggardly in not providing still more money so that culture might be provided to the Canadian people by the C.B.C., presumably both by television and by radio.
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I would like to speak for a while about television which is today recognized, not only as a new medium of entertainment, which is having a profound effect upon the social habits of our people but which also is having a very considerable effect on the thinking of our people and their impressions about public events. I have no intention of expressing my opinion about the rather remarkable television performance that is taking place day by day in the United States. Undoubtedly the people of the United States, and Canadians who live along the border within range of the television broadcasts, are seeing a unique employment of this new vehicle of communication. Without making any remarks about it, and I have very definite opinions on the subject, I would simply wish to say that if anyone is in any uncertainty about the impact of television upon the minds of the people it is only necessary to call on some friends in the United States today and to see the amount of time that is being consumed in watching a particular type of exchange of ideas which is supposed to be part of the processes of democracy.
This new vehicle can have a tremendous effect. This new vehicle was recognized early as being one that was not only a means of communication but also had great cultural possibilities as well. On many occasions reference has been made to the report on the arts, letters and sciences which we commonly know as the Massey report. In that report there are findings in regard to television. I wish to place on the record two short quotations which I take from pages 304 and 305 of that report. First, under the heading of "Programs", I find this statement:
For such television programs it will be essential to ensure the maintenance of good taste and a suitable and adequate use of Canadian materials and Canadian talent.
Then on the next page, under "Recommendations", I find:
We therefore recommend:
h. That the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exercise a strict control over all television stations in Canada in order to avoid excessive commercialism and to encourage Canadian content and the use of Canadian talent.
That recommendation follows the observation on the other page. But, Mr. Chairman, this idea of television being a means by which a distinctly Canadian culture can be conveyed to Canadians has been the reason for the very unusual limitations which have been placed upon television broadcasting in this country.
Speech after speech has impressed upon us the fact that we should be prepared to accept, with regard to ordinary competition


between public and private stations, limitations which would be comparable with the competition between the publicly and privately-owned railways, on the ground that it is so essential that here in Canada we should make sure that we prevent Canadians being called upon to submit to the kind of television broadcasts they have in the United States. That is not my argument. That is the argument that has been put forward over and over again for denying to Canadian owners of television sets the advantages of competition and the advantages of a selection of stations, something which in itself is part of the whole policy of free choice and which would undoubtedly comply with those words of Mr. Dunton, the chairman of the broadcasting corporation, when he put the situation briefly as follows:
The essence of freedom lies in freedom to choose from a variety of alternatives; if there are no alternatives-in kinds of ideas and material presented-there can be no freedom of choice.
By that test, Mr. Chairman, there is no freedom of choice for Canadians today so far as the policy of the government is concerned. There is freedom of choice, however, in certain parts of Canada. There is freedom of choice in that part of Ontario along the north shore of the St. Lawrence, the north shore of lake Ontario and of lake Huron. Throughout the whole of that area within a distance of anywhere from 50 to 100 miles Canadians have a choice of alternatives; and they are making that choice.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Is there any choice in the United Kingdom?


George Alexander Drew: Oh, yes. The hon. member perhaps has not noticed that recently it has been decided to have private broadcasting of television over there just so that there will be a choice. Incidentally I may say also that there is a choice of continental broadcasts *which are very good and which the people are able to receive on the sets in England.
However, in Britain where the government set up the B.B.C., which in many respects we have followed, they have decided that they are going to follow this excellent definition of freedom given by the chairman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:	The
essence of freedom lies in freedom to choose from a variety of alternatives. The administration have decided in Britain to give the people that freedom to choose a variety of alternatives. The people there are going to have it and therefore we in this country might well re-examine our position. Particularly, however, we might re-examine our position for another reason.

When I heard tonight the suggestion made that this government was niggardly in its allowance tor public broadcasting, I wondered just how far anyone was prepared to go. The C.B.C. is now receiving over $30 million. How much more do they need? If $30 million will not do it, then I should like to know at just what price Canadian culture really comes. We are certainly going to be an expensively cultured people if this amount does not provide an adequate start. The fact is that freedom of choice also carries with it freedom to choose whether you will accept culture or will not accept it. Apparently the idea was that by having only a chosen instrument-and a very limited instrument at that- Canadians were to have no alternative but to accept such culture as they receive.
May I at this point repeat something that has been said before so that there may be no misunderstanding about it. This is not a criticism of the administration of the C.B.C. It is the duty of those who administer the C.B.C. to carry out government policy. If they do not carry out government policy in a public organization, they have no right to be there. After all, it is the government that is the executive agency of this parliament which is supposed to interpret policies which will be put into effect by those who are chosen to administer those policies. I hope there will be no suggestion by the minister or by anyone else that if what is happening is not satisfactory, it is something for which they can accept no responsibility but they must after all look to those who operate the C.B.C. No, Mr. Chairman; whether it be the publicly-owned railway, the publicly-owned air lines, the publicly-owned ships, the public-owned television or radio broadcasting, it is the government that decides the policy and it is the duty of those appointed in an executive capacity to carry those policies into effect.
Under those circumstances, Mr. Chairman, we then come to the question as to what actually happens where there is this freedom to choose that we have heard of. The area in which there is the densest concentration of television sets in Canada is in the area around Toronto and from there over to Hamilton and on to Niagara Falls. For that area figures have been compiled, and it has been found that those with television sets in that area tune in on broadcasts from the United States to the extent of at least 70 per cent of the receiving time during which they have their sets turned on. Therefore, with all this expense, where there is freedom of choice these owners of television sets are employing, at the outside, only 30 per cent
Supply-National Revenue of the time to avail themselves of this expensive means of developing Canadian culture.
Then let us examine that 30 per cent. Is that 30 per cent devoted to all-Canadian programs? Is it exclusively designed to avoiding here in Canada all the sins, errors and iniquities of television in the United States to which my hon. friends on the left so constantly refer? No, Mr. Chairman; at least 50 per cent of those broadcasts going over the C.B.C. television have a source in the United States. Hence, of the programs received by those using television sets in that area, 85 per cent at least come from the United States and at this great expense we are providing 15 per cent for Canadians from Canadian sources. If that is the way that we are going to develop Canadian culture, Mr. Chairman, then the sooner we re-examine this situation the better. To borrow the words that have been used by someone else in a context which perhaps might almost suggest some caution in using them, it would seem that if that is the case, this indeed is a time for an agonizing reappraisal of Canadian television broadcasting in Canada.
Mr. Chairman, there is not one of us here who is not anxious to make sure that Canadians-and particularly young Canadians- are given a pride in Canada; an appropriate interpretation of Canadian history; an appreciation of their own language, whether it be English or French; and an appreciation of their own background and their own culture. What we are doing at the present time is spending huge sums of money to make sure that a still larger number of Canadians get their ideas from television broadcasting stations in the United States. That was not the basic concept under which this house was asked to vote the large sums of money that go to the C.B.C.
Then, of course, there are a number of other things. I merely wish to interject at this point an interesting sidelight. It does seem that a little more attention might well be paid by the government to some broad directives which would interpret government policy in the employment of the C.B.C., even within that limited area that it does occupy. For instance, I asked the other day if the minister had received any information about a television broadcast in Vancouver early in the month of May where it was stated that a number of well known communists were able to present themselves by means of television to the audience in that area.
I must admit that the Tribune of Toronto, which is the communist newspaper, is not one

Supply-National Revenue of my regular sources of information, but since this matter was drawn to my attention from Vancouver I was interested to read this item in the Canadian Tribune. The heading is "Good for C.B.C.". The article reads as follows:
We'd like to congratulate C.B.C. T.V. for its enterprise and initiative in televising Vancouver's May day rally at Brockton Point oval. A. A. MacLeod, Harvey Murphy, Bill Stewart and Homer Stevens and the overflow crowd were seen and heard by thousands of T.V. viewers via CBUT.
I think hon. members all know that A. A. MacLeod, Harold Murphy, Bill Stewart and Homer Stevens are well known communists, and that the congratulations being extended on this occasion by the communist Tribune were because of the fact that they had been televised in that way. I am not suggesting for one moment that this represents any designed policy on the part of those responsible for TV broadcasting within the C.B.C. or of those stating the policy for the C.B.C. However, I can think of quite a number of organizations in this country from one side to the other that are intensely loyal to Canada which would welcome the opportunity to have their meetings televised and have not been quite so successful as these gentlemen were in Vancouver at the beginning of May. I merely mention this to suggest that perhaps a little more caution might be exercised in this respect.
Let us again consider the standards of culture, and it is culture for which we are paying this money for television. Let us not forget that, because there are private applicants who have been very ready to provide television to Canadians in every part of Canada. The reason they are not doing it today is that in the name of culture we are making sure that the people get Canadian programs, in the slow process by which these things finally arrive under the present policy. Let us see how the standards of culture are established. I wonder how many hon. members have seen those cultural broadcasts of second-rate wrestlers in the United States which are presented to us here as part of the cultural training for Canadians at public expense. I wonder how many have seen some of those slugging matches by second, third, fourth and fifth-rate boxers. Actually I sometimes wonder whether suggestions, such as that made by such a high authority as the commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that we might relax the gambling practices in this country, might not be related to the fact that about the only excuse for looking at some of them would be if you had a little bet on them. Of course, not knowing who they are in advance it

would make a fair bet because if they are fixed the results would be equally sporting in any event from our point of view.
These are some of the choice cultural developments which are being brought to us at this great expense. No, Mr. Chairman, it may be desirable to get back to what the original concept was. I was very interested today when the leader of the C.C.F. party spoke of the fact that it was the Conservative party that had been responsible for introducing a publicly-owned broadcasting system in Canada. You know, it is almost sacrilege to some of our friends opposite to remind them that the Conservative party has been responsible for introducing a great many of these activities. I was interested, however, in his reference to the fact that when the broad policy was laid down under which public broadcasting would be set up in this country it was done by a Conservative prime minister. The suggestion was that we were in some way departing from that idea.
I have made it clear on earlier occasions that we believe that it is essential that we have a publicly-owned system for particular services. In this enormous country of ours, the third largest in the world and with only fifteen million people, it is obvious that if we are going to carry ordinary radio and television broadcasts to distant points throughout Canada the ordinary competitive demands of commercial broadcasting would not be likely to perform that service in many places. Actually that was the basic reason for having a publicly-owned service, that we would be able to provide broadcasting services for all Canadians, regardless of where they might be.
That same policy should now apply to television. It should be the function of the C.B.C. to provide the communicating services, the relay services, whether by microwave relay or by coaxial cable. By every device the C.B.C. might well make communication available and then we might permit some of these private applicants who want to set up TV broadcasting stations to do so and see what kind of programs they produce. The fact is they could not give us very much less Canadian culture than we are getting at the moment.
The fact is that under the very test of competition we would offer to Canadian talent an opportunity which Canadian talent is being denied today by this government in the name of the improvement of Canadian culture. No wonder the young Liberals, gathered here so short a time ago, presented a very vigorous request that we have in this country the advantages of a competitive system under which private broadcasters would

be able to bring to this new vehicle of communication, entertainment and knowledge the advantages ot competition where private stations side by side with public stations would vie with each other in offering to Canadian talent programs of which we could justly be proud and programs which would offer opportunities to young Canadians here in Canada instead ot forcing them, as they are so often required to do, to go beyond our own borders for the return which their services so genuinely merits.
At a time when we have before us these very large sums, Mr. Chairman, I think it is time for an over-all review. Let us go back to the broad question of television broadcasting. One of the things that seem to be overlooked is that in the name of culture we are going outside of Canada today to get films from the United States, some of them very old films-even Mack Sennett films, and I may say those are better than some I have seen-to entertain our people. These television arrangements are made through contracts with the people in the United States who control these films which have been, in so many cases, stored away. Then again we have talent from the United States being brought to Canada apparently to step up the standards which the C.B.C. believes are required for this kind of thing. I repeat, Mr. Chairman, the way to get talent of our own is to widen the opportunity.
This is no brief for private ownership or public ownership. It was a Conservative government that gave this country publicly-owned radio, and now its partner publicly-owned television. We stand by that policy, but we stand also by the policy of competition. We stand by the policy of encouraging Canadian talent and broadening the opportunity of choice so well defined by the chairman of the broadcasting corporation, and in that way taking advantage of the competition between publicly and privately-owned operations.
On a number of occasions we have had the report of the commission on arts, letters and sciences presented to us as an answer to this demand. The very distinguished gentleman who had so much to do with the preparation of that report and is now the Governor General of Canada, found it necessary to remove some uncertainty as to what had actually been meant by that report. Not enough attention has been paid to the explanatory speech made by Mr. Massey in Montreal on Monday, June 11, 1951. This is what he said in part in that speech:
Although our report is long and involved, on only one point does there appear to be some misunderstanding. May I mention it now? My colleagues and I recommended that private television
Supply-National Revenue broadcasting stations be licensed only when the C.B.C. has available national programs, some of which the private stations would use. This does not mean, however, that there can be no television in say, Vancouver or Halifax, until the C.B.C. has completed a system of national television networks, a long and costly business. We were talking of programs. The national programs would, of course, be in the form of films or of kinescope, which for a long time to come will no doubt form a large part of the program material of television in Canada on all stations, whether private or C.B.C., until the time when television networks in Canada are possible.
In those words, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Massey was pointing the way in which we could widen and increase the opportunity for Canadian talent to have its chance. He was pointing the way in which we could expand Canadian culture. He was suggesting that we have films made in Canada, and that they be distributed to private stations as well as to public stations where the ordinary network facilities are not available. Let us remember that it is not likely within long years to come that network facilities are going to be available except to a limited number of cities in Canada. The range of television broadcasting is so short as compared with radio broadcasting that consequently these expensive microwave relay transmission chains or the relatively costly coaxial cables can serve only a limited number of cities. The broadcasts will carry only a limited distance from these points. There are cities in the northland right across Canada, and not in the distant northland, where we are still a very long way from having those communication services available to us. It is not too late, even now with the mistakes that have been made, to get back to the policy that was so clearly defined by Mr. Massey in that speech in Montreal and made for the purpose of removing the uncertainty as to what the words in his report had really meant.
We have discussed the moneys available to the C.B.C. At what point are we going to end the contribution of public money for this purpose? We do not know where it will go. Can anyone here tonight say what new sales are going to be made of new types of broadcasting sets or new types of television sets when colour becomes common next year, certainly to those who get broadcasts from the United States? We cannot tell how much more will be available than is available today. The method by which we are financing the C.B.C. is not consistent with the measure of supervision that should be demanded by members of this parliament over the expenditures of public moneys by any of the agencies they create. Most certainly that should be subjected to rigid, continuing and exact tests.
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I am not going to deal with the particular subject of the content of radio broadcasting. I have said before, and I repeat, that we get many excellent programs that originate with the C.B.C. We must examine the whole picture objectively on balance. My point is that with whatever excellent programs there may be, some that are very much to the contrary are mixed up with them. What we must do is to examine how far we have gone along the road that was laid down as the reason for giving so much public money to this organization. I submit that on the evidence before us, by the policy the government is laying down, and for that the C.B.C. is not responsible, the government itself would deny the fulfilment of these purposes, and is in fact making these expenditures largely ineffective for the purpose of carrying out the stated intention of those who initiated this plan of heavy public expenditure.
I want to deal briefly with another specialized branch and that is the international service. This international service is operated by the C.B.C. I understand that it is supposed to be an agent of the Department of External Affairs. The estimates for the coming year for the international shortwave broadcasting service amount to $2,394,450. There is one way, one sure easy way, by which we could have some evidence as to what is really being accomplished by the international shortwave broadcasts. We could have placed before us reports from the Canadian embassies in those countries beyond the iron curtain where they have a chance to hear them. Let us have a report from Moscow where we have a Canadian embassy as to how many Russians hear that broadcast. Let us have a report as to how often the members of the Canadian embassy in Moscow listen to this Canadian report. Let us find out how many Russians they have heard of who have heard that report.
I will say this, that I have been informed by someone who has at least had the opportunity of visiting the Canadian embassy in Moscow that on the very rare occasion they ever heard of a Canadian broadcast being put on, it was promptly blocked off by the very simple method available in Russia, or anywhere else.
Let us ask the representative in Czechoslovakia how many Czechs have heard broadcasts; or in Hungary, or in Roumania, or in Poland, or in Bulgaria, or in any other country to which we are beaming those broadcasts at this time. Let us have a full and effective statement from those Canadians who have been actually over there as to what they have found. Mr. Chairman, as it stands at the present time, we have had not one word of


evidence before us which justifies the expenditure of another cent on that particular type of broadcast.


James Joseph McCann: We have not had the opportunity to give it to you.


George Alexander Drew: Oh yes.


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. It was decided-and the Leader of the Opposition I would say to him is the worst offender that we have today of going against an agreement which is made-


George Alexander Drew: What agreement?


James Joseph McCann: That we had this morning as to the discussion of the estimates of the Department of National Revenue.


George Alexander Drew: That statement is untrue.


James Joseph McCann: It is true.


George Alexander Drew: It is untrue.


James Joseph McCann: And again this afternoon it was decided here that the general discussion would take place on the item of the loan. However, he is off on a tangent into the transactions of the international shortwave broadcasting, on which I told him I was prepared to make a statement. And yet he boldly says, "We have not had one word of information with regard to this particular matter." And I say to him that he has not given me the opportunity.


George Alexander Drew: First of all I repeat that the statement made by the minister that any understanding was made is absolutely untrue.


James Joseph McCann: Look at the record of Hansard.


George Alexander Drew: It is absolutely untrue. The fact is that here we are at this time, with this broadcasting debate going on as long as it has, without any evidence before us which would tell us what the service is. If we are going to get evidence from the minister as to the usefulness of that service, then I for one would immediately welcome it, because we have waited for it.
But I want evidence of statements of the men who have been there, and not just generalities by the minister or from anyone else as to the kind of programs which are being sent to those countries. Also I want to hear from the minister, when he explains this, what supervision they have over those who are doing the broadcasting, as well as the supervision over the content of the broadcasts themselves.
We have heard complaints about the content of those broadcasts from people in this country who are able to understand those broadcasts in the languages in which they are

sent. The minister has said that we are going to get a statement. Well, we are waiting tor it. But, Mr. Chairman, let us go back to the statements we have had about Canadian broadcasts. Let me repeat what was said in that respect by the Minister of Transport as reported in Hansard of March 17, 1953 when he said:
What I believe the people of Canada want more than anything else is that in the field of television the programs should be of Canadian origination and of Canadian content and should not be canned programs coming in from the United States.
He also indicated that the general purpose of radio broadcasting is Canadian content. Mr. Chairman, we are getting canned broadcasts from the United States. What has been done is to use public money to increase the number of broadcasts from the United States, instead of diminishing it. I submit that this is a time for re-examination and an assurance from the minister that the money voted on this occasion to the department will in fact be supervised under a clear policy by the government, and will in fact conform to the stated purposes so clearly outlined by the government itself when it initiated this service.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Mr. Chairman, before the item carries I would like to suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that he has moved a long way from the position that the Right Hon. Mr. Bennett took when the radio bill was introduced. While the Leader of the Opposition was speaking I was reading what Mr. Bennett said on May 18, 1932. He said, in setting forth three important points:
First of all, this country must be assured of complete Canadian control of broadcasting from Canadian sources, free from foreign interference or influence. Without such control radio broadcasting can never become a great agency for the communication of matters of national concern and for the diffusion of national thought and ideals, and without such control it can never be the agency by which national consciousness may be fostered and sustained and national unity still further strengthened.
And on the second point:
No other scheme than that of public ownership can ensure to the people of this country, without regard to class or place, equal enjoyment of the benefits and pleasures of radio broadcasting. Private ownership must necessarily discriminate between densely and sparsely populated areas. This is not a correctable fault in private ownership; it is an inescapable and inherent demerit of that system. It does not seem right that in Canada the towns should be preferred to the countryside or the prosperous communities to those less fortunate.
The argument of the Leader of the Opposition is that free enterprise should be able to take the cream of the crop, and that the federal government should wait for a long time for the people on the frontiers to have television.
Supply-National Revenue


George Alexander Drew: I said the very opposite.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: And Mr. Bennett's third point was this:
The use of the air, or the air itself, whatever you may please to call it, that lies over the soil or land of Canada is a natural resource over which we have complete jurisdiction under the recent decision of the privy council. I believe that there is no government in Canada that does not regret today that it has parted with some of these natural resources for considerations wholly inadequate and on terms that do not reflect the principle under which the crown holds the natural resources in trust for all the people. In view of these circumstances and of the further fact that broadcasting is a science that is only yet in its infancy and about which we know little yet, I cannot think that any government would be warranted in leaving the air to private exploitation and not reserving it for development for the use of the people.
I submit that if that argument was sound 22 years ago-and it was-it is equally sound today, when we are considering the future of television. And I am happy to say that the father of the Minister of Veterans Affairs, speaking for the opposition of that day said:
I just wish to endorse the views expressed by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister and to say that I am in full accord with the principle embodied in this bill. I have been supporting this principle from the first more particularly after the work of the Aird commission, but I knew the difficulties in the way and the strength of the propaganda carried on to prevent the work of that commission from having the results which we witness today.
And the leader of this party at that time, the late Mr. Woodsworth, said:
I should just like to associate myself with the last speaker (Mr. Lapointe) in congratulating the Prime Minister on his promptness in bringing down this bill to implement the report which has been unanimously adopted. May I further express my own very great appreciation of the admirable statement which the Prime Minister has made?
As the hon. member for Hamilton West said correctly this afternoon when the leader of this group was speaking, and when he regretted that the C.B.C. was not able to sponsor "Singing Stars" but had to leave that to a private corporation, the private corporation could deduct from income tax the cost of those broadcasts, which meant that in the long run the Canadian taxpayer did pay for the broadcasts.
I hope that the parliament of this country will make adequate funds available to the C.B.C. so that the goal Mr. Bennett had 22 years ago for radio will be realized for television. I represent in parliament over 50,000 people. We have no radio station there and we have no television either. I hope we shall not have to wait until the free enterprisers decide that it is a profitable field in the country for expansion before our people will have the privilege of having television programs.

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An hon. Member:: Does the hon. member think that the government should do it?


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I believe the people of Canada collectively have to provide those services for the people. I see no reason why we cannot, through our publicly-owned C.B.C., carry out the principles Mr. Bennett outlined 22 years ago when he suggested the airwaves belonged to all the people and all the people should have the advantages that those in the cities have.


Edward Turney Applewhaite: Shall the resolution carry?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Before I ask one or two questions of the minister I should like to comment on what has just been said. I would say first that everything that was outlined by Mr. Bennett 22 years ago has been done, but that the world does move. In 22 years new problems and new situations arise, and I feel rather proud of belonging to a party that does not have to be sterilized and remain absolutely as it was 22 years ago. We are prepared to progress, and as a matter of fact I do not understand that there is any considerable body of people in this country today who deny that there is a place for the private broadcasting stations, just as we have proclaimed and affirmed that there is a great place for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
In this connection a good deal has been said about the wise remarks made by the head of the C.B.C. with regard to the allimportant question of freedom and of choice. I should like to contribute a small extract from a speech made by . a man whose name I think is now well known, Malcolm Mugge-ridge of London Punch. It is quoted in Time of August 3 last, and it is very relevant to the question of freedom and of the rights of minorities which we have been discussing, and which I think has become much clearer in the last 22 years than it was at that time. It has become much more-what shall I say -vital to us and much more precarious than it was then, too. These are extracts from a letter that Muggeridge wrote, as I say, appearing in Time:
Badio, you consider, is too potent an influence to be allowed, like printing, to be under private control . . . Private television companies, you argue, because they must look to advertising sponsors for their revenue, would necessarily be guilty of vulgarization and distortion to serve their own base interests. On the other hand, the B.B.C. may be relied on to sustain elevated standards. Let us see how the system has worked in practice.
In those disastrous years prior to September 1939, you will recall, one notable voice was never heard from Broadcasting House; a voice which, in 1940

when it was almost too late, was able to summon up endurance and courage. How wonderful it would have been if this voice, Sir Winston Churchill's, had been heard on the air warning of the wrath to come. The corporation, however, would not have it because of Britain's appeasement policy. I would myself cheerfully have put up with hours of Mr. J. Fred Muggs-
I am not quite sure who Mr. Muggs is. He is evidently a well-known prize bore.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: A termite.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I continue:
I would myself cheerfully have put up with hours of Mr. J. Fred Muggs for such a deliverance as Sir Winston Churchill would have provided from the B.B.C.'s bromides.
Freedom, it seems to me, lies not so much in objectivity, which is largely beyond human realization, as in variety. Those who appear regularly on B.B.C. must be prepared to blow their trumpets or sound their cymbals or scratch their violins in accordance with the corporation's baton. Whether the music is good or bad. there is one orchestra with one conductor, following one score, and this state of affairs is both unhealthy and dangerous.
I suggest to the hon. member for Mackenzie that whatever wisdom there is in this is wisdom that we have learned in the last twenty years by reason of certain dangers that were undreamt of twenty-two years ago.
I continue to read briefly:
Last year, during the Republican convention in Chicago, I sat with my head in a television set for four days. The convention coverage could not have been better done. There was not the smallest sign of partisanship. At intervals a personable young lady appeared to recommend a particular brand of refrigerator, but when her appearance would have interrupted a dramatic development, it was postponed. According to the fatuous mythology of the Left, the sponsors should have been Taftites. If so, there was nothing to give the smallest indication that this was the case.
Most of the British newspapers have put up a particularly hilarious performance. They do not want to lose advertising to commercial television. They have therefore discovered all sorts of high-minded reasons for preserving in the case of the B.B.C. a monopoly which, in any other field, they would denounce. Then there has been the unforgettable spectacle of politicians rising up to explain how their sensitive natures recoil from the vulgarity of commercial radio. It is rather as though Moll Flanders, confronted with the possibility of finding herself alone with a gentleman friend, should have fainted right away from shyness.
Does anyone suppose that if the Elizabethan theatre had been under public control it would have produced Shakespeare? Mr. Justice Shallow in all his many guises would have greatly exerted himself to, as it were, keep Sir John Falstaff off the air.
I have read that, Mr. Chairman, because it seems to me a voice pointing us to realities. I think the reality of the situation is that we should have C.B.C. strong and able to render the service it is rendering, but why

should it be necessary to go back 22 years when the problem was different? The problem then was to be sure that there was a C.B.C., and it was done and it has gone on and we have supported it. But entirely new conditions have arisen which, as I say, I think carry the judgment of the people as to the propriety also of the private stations to give the local services.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The basic principle is there, though.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Having said that I want to ask the minister some questions about the statement of income and expenditures which we have. I have in my hand a report of the corporation to March 31, 1953. I have no doubt the minister has figures available up to March 31, 1954, and if so they might be helpful.


Mr. Nesbitt:: I have just a brief question or two that I should like to ask the minister in regard to the matter of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It has been brought to my attention that a situation occurred, and the type of situation that I will deal with in a moment could occur only in western Ontario, the Toronto area or in Quebec in the thickly populated parts of Quebec. It is my understanding that owing to C.B.C. regulations it is quite impossible for two or three or more privately-owned radio stations to broadcast programs simultaneously. The situation I am referring to arose in connection with a privately-owned retail store, which I believe wished to put on a live program in one of the areas of western Ontario. The city from which it was intended to broadcast was in the centre of quite a large agricultural area. Since a fair number of people came from the outlying areas the idea was conceived that other small cities equipped with radio stations might carry the program at the same time. Naturally, it costs money to employ live talent. This program could have been broadcast simultaneously from two or three other adjoining small cities with radio stations. But apparently the request was turned down as it was considered that this would constitute the setting up of a private network.
Now having had some legal training I realize that statutes have to be put in force to deal with matters such as the setting up of networks in opposition to the ones that have been approved, but it would seem to me that this type of situation was not envisaged by the people who drafted the C.B.C. regulations. When the minister makes his statement I would like to hear some comment on this situation because it does not seem reasonable or exactly fair.
83276-351J
Supply-National Revenue
There have been a number of remarks about programs this afternoon and this evening in regard to the C.B.C. Quite frankly I personally enjoy a very great many of the programs put out by the C.B.C. For example, C.B.C.'s "Wednesday Night" is a particularly fine program, and I think the carrying of the Metropolitan Opera albeit from the United States and financed by the Texaco Company, which comes through on Saturday afternoon, is a fine thing also. But I think the C.B.C.'s "Wednesday Night" is produced by the C.B.C. itself. I think the C.B.C.'s "Wednesday Night" program is a very good example of a very high cultural effort enjoyed by a number of people, but I think the number of people who listen to the C.B.C.'s "Wednesday Night", compared with the number who do not listen, would astound the minister. In fact, only a small percentage of the people actually listen to it.
I am not criticizing this effort for indeed the program is an excellent one, but I am simply pointing out that it is very difficult to foist culture on people if they do not wish to listen to it. It might be argued that the people should listen to it, but they will not listen to it if they do not like it, and I am sure there is very little can be done about it.
Now, regarding the other programs that come through, the C.B.C. did carry at one time on Sunday afternoons a program of the New York philharmonic orchestra. This was one of the so-called cultural programs which did have a very wide audience, and was widely enjoyed by a great many people. I think I can say quite truthfully that if I have had one I have had more than 50 people asking me to find out some time or other why this program was no longer carried over the air on a Sunday afternoon. This program was heard for many years, and indeed it is one of the oldest programs on radio. However, for some reason or other it is no longer carried. It may be it is carried on some of the C.B.C. stations, but I know it is no longer carried over CBL which is the principal station heard in Toronto and western Ontario, an area which is one of the most thickly populated parts of the country.
As regards the programs carried on TV, I would just like to make a few comments on one which was carried last evening over CBOT Ottawa. It was a very interesting production of Richard Strauss's opera "Salome" which represented a very high cultural experience. It is very pleasant indeed to see operas produced over the air,

Supply-National Revenue but I cannot say that I think that particular one was the best that could have been given. Those who are familiar with the biblical story of John the Baptist and Salome, and there have been several operas done on this theme, will know that this one is particularly gruesome. I happened to see it last evening and there were a number of people watching. At the end of the opera the young lady in question, after doing the dance of the seven veils-and it was quite agreeable-takes the head of John the Baptist and proceeds to carry it around by the hair, and she fondled it rather considerably.
I do not intend to bring any levity into this matter. There were a number of people there quite near me who said they had to get up and leave. It was rather unpleasant to many people. I would just like to mention these things. Many of the programs are good but I think the minister might direct the staff to pay a little more attention to some of the programs produced both on TV and on the C.B.C. radio. Sometimes what is considered culture by some rather high-minded people in these offices is sometimes considered by the ordinary person to be rather offensive. I see, Mr. Chairman, it is almost ten o'clock so I will conclude my remarks at this juncture.


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Chairman, this debate this afternoon, as usual, has been very interesting. We have heard words of criticism and words of commendation with reference to the C.B.C. To those who have extended commendation I am grateful, as well as to those who have offered criticism, because we can all learn from criticism. However, some of the criticism and some of the statements made were wrong in terms of fact, and I want to put on the record this statement with reference to the one made by the Leader of the Opposition.
He made the statement that the C.B.C. has a duty to carry out government policy. That statement is not correct. According to statute the C.B.C. is not an instrument of government to carry out government policy, but on the contrary is supposed to carry out independently the will of parliament in accordance with the C.B.C. act. It is to parliament that the C.B.C. is responsible, and that is the reason-oh, yes. The hon. member for Greenwood shakes his head. Let him read over the Canadian Broadcasting Act and he will see to whom they are responsible. They are not responsible to the minister and they are not responsible to the government. They are responsible to parliament and that is the reason we have the biannual meetings of the radio committee.
fMr. Nesbitt.]

The hon. member for Eglinton, in criticizing the government before he left for Toronto -and we might expect of course, that he would give that criticism and then-


James MacKerras Macdonnell: It is a very respectable place to which to go.


James Joseph McCann: The hon. member complained the committee was not held this year. I might point out that the committee concluded its final hearings last year early in May, and brought in its report on the 9th of May. However, in that regard I will go so far as to say that we will welcome the setting up of the committee on radio at the next session of parliament, and that will be one of our very first duties.
The hon. member also complained that we had not the annual statement for the year 1954. But our fiscal year ends on March 31 so that we have had about eight or ten weeks in which to prepare an annual statement, have it audited, and presented to the house. There is no commercial organization of a type similar to the C.B.C. that can have a statement ready within six or eight weeks after the end of the fiscal year, have it audited, and bring it before the shareholders. That statement will be given in due course.
Meantime, I want to make this statement with reference to our finances. Revenues and expenditures for the period ending March 31, 1954, are approximately the following: on sound radio we get a government grant of $6,250,000, and excise tax income amounted to $5,057,000; commercial revenue has been $2,471,000 and miscellaneous about $314,000, so that the receipts on sound radio have been $14,092,000. Our operating expenditures were $12,486,000 and depreciation and obsolescence amounted to $515,000. We therefore have an operating surplus on sound radio for the year ending March 31, 1954, of $1,091,000.
Now, on the television side the excise tax revenue has been $11,700,000, and commercial revenue, which is very good for the time we have been in operation, amounted to $1,334,000. Miscellaneous revenue is about $48,000. Our expenditures, operating, are $7,326,000. That leaves a balance of $5,756,000. As against that we have written off for depreciation and obsolescence $425,000, leaving a net operating revenue of $5,331,000. As I stated this afternoon, that will be used for further capital expenditures along with this amount of money of $3 million if the committee passes it.
The hon. member for Eglinton was critical of our finances and he was critical of

our policy. I should just like to bring to the attention of the committee what the policy is as set out in a statement which I made on Monday, March 30, 1953. I had previously made a statement on December 8, 1952, in which I mentioned six centres in which Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television stations were to be established immediately and indicated that applications would be received for private stations to serve other areas. This will answer the question of the hon. member for Macleod. Any town of 25,000 or 30,000 can make application for a private television station and they are likely to get it because it would not be one of the areas that are what might be called pre-empted by the C.B.C. I pointed out that under the plan the private stations licensed would carry national program service of the C.B.C.-that is one of the stipulations- besides having time for programming of their own. I said also, as reported at page 409 of Hansard of December 8, 1952:
Since the objective will be to extend services as widely throughout Canada as is practicable, no two stations will be licensed at the present to serve the same area. A television station can serve only a comparatively small area. Canada is very large and it will require a good many stations before television can be brought to the people in most parts of our country. It is desirable to have one station in as many areas as possible before there are two in any one area.
I suggest that that is a very simple and practical policy. These words make it clear that it was not the policy of the government to create monopoly in television or to limit any one area indefinitely to one television station. The principle of one station to an area is to apply only until an adequate system is developed.


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.


James Joseph McCann: At the rate that applications for stations are being received, it may not be long-time has shown that there are 16 either in operation or under construction-


Edward Turney Applewhaite: Order. I hear
several hon. members mentioning the fact that it is ten o'clock. Is the consent of the committee given for the minister to complete his statement this evening?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


James Joseph McCann: -it may not be long before there is a sufficient degree of national coverage to justify the government and the C.B.C. giving consideration to permitting two and perhaps in some cases more than two stations in certain areas. It is anticipated that, in due course, private stations will be permitted in areas covered by C.B.C. stations,
Supply-National Revenue and the C.B.C. may establish stations in some areas originally covered by private stations. The ultimate objective of the C.B.C. is to have at least one station in every province of Canada where that is practicable. We understand that private applications have been under development in the five provinces where no C.B.C. station is now under way.
Of course, this was the condition back in 1953, over a year ago. I just want to state to the committee and to the country that the policy of the government with reference to licences is the same today and will continue to be the same for a further period as it was when we initiated it on March 30, 1953.
I think it was the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar who asked-


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Mr. Chairman, I apologize for interrupting the minister but my understanding is that there are still one or two statements to be given. There is one that the Leader of the Opposition asked for. After all it is ten o'clock and I do not see any reason at all why we should be sitting here indefinitely. If it were only a question of two or three minutes, that would be another matter.


James Joseph McCann: That suits me all right. I am not breaking any agreement.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Just a minute. I want to know what the minister means by that. If he is suggesting-


Edward Turney Applewhaite: Order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: This is where we started.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Mr. Chairman, if that remark was directed at me, may I ask that the minister withdraw it?


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.


Edward Turney Applewhaite: Order. I was under the impression that the committee had given unanimous consent to the minister to continue. However it is more than possible that in the chorus of yeas and nays I may not have heard those who were opposed. Therefore if there was any idea that there was unanimous consent, the idea was mine. It being ten o'clock, shall I report the resolution and ask leave to sit again?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Item stands.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Walter Edward Harris: the adjournment of the house.
He said: Mr. Speaker, on Monday we shall take first a resolution which is not yet on the

Business of the House
order paper with respect to the Canadian armed forces. There will be two stages to this resolution, namely the signification of His Excellency's consent and recommendation and then the resolution stage itself. As I understand it, that has been agreed upon in the veterans affairs committee. Then we shall take consideration of the amendment to the bill which came back from the other place with respect to inventions of public servants. I understand this is only a matter of some technical changes in the French version of the bill. Then we shall take the National Harbours Board Act, the Veterans Land Act, the Excise Tax Act, the Excise Act, the Customs Tariff, Income Tax Act and Canadian National Railways. If we complete that business we plan to proceed with disability allowances. We shall take that debate until we reach second reading but not continue with the committee stage. If we still have time we shall take supply beginning with national revenue, followed by fisheries, mines and technical surveys, legislation and privy council.


Mr. Green:: I wish to raise one point. It was my understanding that the Veterans Land
Act would be taken before the National Harbours Board Act.


Walter Edward Harris: I am sorry if I read the items in the wrong order. They will be changed as the hon. member suggests.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.10 p.m.
[The following items were passed in committee of supply]:



DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL REVENUE

[Stage Direction]
Customs and excise divisions-
295.	General administration (including the former customs excise seizure expenses and adjustments) , $2,822,515.
296.	Inspection, investigation and audit services, $3,376,797.
Ports, outports and preventive stations-
297.	Operation and maintenance, $22,553,155.
298.	Construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and new equipment, $1,050,000.
Customs and excise divisions-
Ports, outports and preventive stations-
691. Operation and maintenance-further amount required, $703,710.
55S9
[Stage Direction]
Monday, June 7, 1954