1955-05-17

[Stage Direction]
Second report of standing committee on standing orders.-Mr. Harrison.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 373, respecting the Commercial Travellers' Association of Canada.-Mr. Michener.
Bill No. 374, to incorporate Petroleum Transmission Company.-Mr. Fairey.
Bill No. 375, to incorporate Yukon Pipelines Limited.-Mr. Mcllraith.
Bill No. 376, to authorize Trans-Prairie Pipelines, Ltd., to construct, own and operate an extra-provincial pipe line.-Mr. Weaver.
Bill No. 377, respecting Equitable Fire Insurance Company of Canada.-Mr. Boisvert.
Bill No. 378, to incorporate S & M Pipeline Limited.-Mr. Mcllraith.
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, May 16, consideration of the motion of Mr. Lapointe for committee of supply.

Mr. H. R. Argue (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I rise at this time to express grave concern over the extremely small final payment for wheat announced yesterday and grave concern for the whole future of the wheat-producing area of western Canada. Ever since 1945 the price of wheat has been relatively stable. The wheat board has paid the western wheat producers a final price for each crop year since 1945 of something in excess of $1.80 a bushel, and usually about $1.83 a bushel. But with the final payment announced yesterday, for the first time since 1945 the price of wheat to the producer has fallen far below $1.80 a bushel for No. 1 northern basis Fort William.
With the final payment announced yesterday the total price for wheat amounts to only $1.56 a bushel. This more than 25 cents per bushel drop in the price of wheat to the wheat producer is causing grave hardship 50433-242J
in western Canada, is meaning a tremendous loss in purchasing power by western farmers and, as we all can see, is reflected in widespread unemployment and in a recession in many of the industrial areas of Canada.
Since 1945 the policy of the wheat board and the government in reference to wheat has been approximately as follows. In the beginning of each crop year an initial price of $1.40 per bushel was paid; the following February an interim payment of 20 cents per bushel was made; and in December of the same crop year a final payment was made, usually between 20 cents and 25 cents a bushel. Now not only have the payments fallen off drastically but the payment is made at a later and later date. In the 1953-54 crop year there was a delay in the making of the interim payment from February, the usual time, until December and a delay in the making of the final payment from December until May or June of this year when the farmers are likely to receive their cheques. The interim payment for the 1953 crop was reduced from 20 cents a bushel to 10 cents a bushel and, as I have said, the final payment was reduced from an average of 20 to 25 cents a bushel to an effective final payment of 6-2 cents per bushel.
This same thing can be illustrated in another way. When the 1950-51 wheat pool was wound up and the final payment was made there was a surplus on hand of $106 million. For the 1951 crop there was a surplus of $115 million, and for the 1952 crop there was a surplus of $123 million. This time the surplus, which has always averaged more than $100 million in the period I have referred to, is reduced to just over $25 million. The reduction of $80 to $100 million in the surplus representing money that cannot be made available to farmers as a final payment is not only very serious as far as the prairie provinces are concerned but is very serious indeed as far as the whole Canadian economy is concerned.
The drop in the price of wheat is reflected in a drop in farm net income. I have in my hand the latest figures for farm net income. They show that during the period from 1951 to 1954 there was a drop in farm net income of 48 per cent or from $2,154 million in 1951 to $1,125 million in 1954. A very substantial part of the 48 per cent drop in farm net income is directly attributable to the falling off in the price of wheat and the

Wheat
reduction of wheat board payments. Let no one go away with the impression that I am opposed to or critical of the wheat board method of marketing grain. We continue as always to support the wheat board method of marketing grain, and even though the price of wheat should fall even lower the wheat board method will remain the best possible method because it gives to each producer of wheat in the prairie provinces exactly the same price as his neighbour receives for the one-year period. The wheat board cannot guard against all severe fluctuations in the price of wheat but it can and does give to the farmers within a 12-month period the same price for wheat, and that in itself is a very important and worthwhile accomplishment.
I believe the Canadian government should establish a sound price for wheat based on the principles of parity. I have mentioned in the past how the government is behind other nations of the world in so many fields, and I regret that I am able to point out this afternoon that the farmers of Canada are guaranteed the lowest price for wheat of wheat producers in any wheat producing country in the free world. I hold in my hand a table of guaranteed prices for the various countries taken from the Alberta Wheat Pool Budget of March 25, 1955. Here is how the prices go:
Guaranteed price per bushel of
Country	wheat
Turkey	 $3.21
France	 3.04
Tunisia	 3.03
Germany	 2.83
Spain	 2.81
Argentina	 2.80
Japan	 2.61
Greece	 2.40
Belgium	 2.29
United Kingdom	 2.20
Sweden	 2.10
United States	 2.06
Australia	 1.57
Syria	 1.54
Canada	 1.44
These prices are expressed in terms of United States currency. The Canadian wheat producers get from their government the worst treatment, in the way of a guaranteed floor price, of the wheat producers in any important wheat producing country in the free world. It is for that reason I say our farm organizations are justified in asking for an adequate support price for wheat, and in asking that parity prices be established.
From time to time we have asked the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) what was happening to the Canadian export market for wheat. Time and time again the minister has replied that all was well, that

our markets were holding up well. As recently as last Friday the minister, in reply to a question asked by the hon. member for Humboldt-Melfort (Mr. Bryson) as to the drop in Canadian export sales of wheat, had this to say, as reported at page 3732 of Hansard for May 13, 1955:
We believe that our policy of selling for dollars is the proper policy for Canada. I know of no reason why we should sacrifice wheat which is the property of the producers of western Canada for the sake of the odd few sales we might get if we accepted a different currency.
On March 28 the minister, in reply to a question by the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker), had this to say, as reported at page 2429 of Hansard for that date:
I think it is encouraging to find that, in spite of the offers of wheat made by the United States, Canada is selling more wheat than the United States has succeeded in disposing of by the various methods it has adopted.
Apparently not until yesterday did the minister realize what was happening in the world wheat export picture. What has been happening has been this. Canada's percentage of the sales of export wheat has been dropping every year since 1952-1953, from 43-2 per cent until now when it is running currently at 33-4 per cent. Even though there has been a substantial increase in the world trade in wheat, Canada has obtained practically none of that increase. The United States has obtained an increase of 64 million bushels to date in the current period; the Argentine, 14 million bushels; Australia, 12 million bushels, and Canada the very small increase of 2 million bushels.
It is clear from those figures that our government is going to have to adopt a different technique in the exporting of Canadian wheat if we are to hold our position in the export markets of the world. I suggest that position can be held only if the government moves away from its present position of demanding dollars and cash in return for the sale of every single bushel of wheat. Instead of criticizing the United States government for having made wheat available to countries that are short of cash, and short of hard currency I suggest the Canadian government should be adopting a similar policy which would result in the underdeveloped countries obtaining increased quantities of wheat, and which would obtain for Canada its traditional share of the world market for wheat. The government may not realize the very serious condition of agriculture in Canada, particularly in western Canada at the moment.
The Western Producer, published by the wheat pool organization, came to my desk yesterday. It is dated Thursday, May 12,

and in an editorial entitled, "Are Farmer Organizations on Their Toes?" in speaking about the dominion-provincial conference, I read the following:
In the circumstances, is it not highly significant that the dominion-provincial conference should be seized by the problem of unemployment which, bad though it may be, is no more than a symptom of the real disease, the core of which is the decline in agriculture.
And nothing is being proposed by the government today which will bring agriculture out of the deep depression it is now in, in western Canada, and which in turn would help to bring Canada out of the current recession.
Speaking about the disposal of agricultural surpluses, the Western Producer in the same issue, in an article entitled "The Surplus Problem", has this to say:
Agriculture today in Canada and elsewhere is confronted with many grave problems. Among the most serious, we suggest, is that posed by the inability to distribute surpluses and give farmers the green light to produce to the optimum in the knowledge that they will be assured of ready markets at fair prices. At a time when everybody admits that the food is needed and that a prosperous agriculture is the foundation for general prosperity this is not an unreasonable objective. On the contrary, to permit agriculture to slide into a depression might easily drag the whole economy down and thus gravely imperil the position of the whole non-communist world.
It is time that a concentrated effort by organized agriculture should be made to urge our own government to give top billing to consideration of ways and means for surplus food disposal.
I suggest to the government that instead of criticizing the action taken by the United States to get rid of their surplus agricultural products, the Canadian government should be co-operating with the government of that country, and should have similar policies to get rid of current agricultural surpluses in Canada.
Yesterday in his statement the Minister of Trade and Commerce pointed out how successful the United States has been in its current drive to make wheat available to soft currency countries. He pointed out that the government of the United States under this policy has made available 60 million bushels of wheat at a cost of about $200 million. Then, as reported at page 3782 of Hansard, he went on to say:
The purpose behind the surplus disposal efforts of the United States is to increase consumption in areas that cannot afford to buy wheat. Canada has no quarrel with that principle.
In other words, according to that statement by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, American policy does not affect our commercial markets for wheat but, in the words of the minister, increases consumption in areas that cannot afford to buy wheat.
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That is what the C.C.F. has been advocating for many years, that our surplus agricultural products should be used to feed the hungry of the world, and that the government should not follow a policy of attempting to restrict production by enforcing stop-loss floor prices which ruin the farmers, or a policy of saying, "We will sell for cash, and for cash only, even if we lose a very substantial share of the international market for wheat".
The group of which I am a member believe in the principle of parity prices. We do not believe that parity prices are something that can be described as pie in the sky. We do not think that parity prices are something that is impossible of accomplishment. We think that parity prices, in the interests of all Canada, must be accomplished and must be provided. Until agriculture is assured of reasonable treatment, reasonable prices and a continuing steady share of the national income it will face recurring periods of drops in income. Farm income has dropped. 48 per cent in three years.
In order to overcome this recurring recession in agriculture, with its evil effects on the whole Canadian economy, the C.C.F. stand four-square behind the principle of parity prices. Parity to us is equity and justice. We do not support, as some other parties in this house do, notably the Social Credit party, a certain percentage of parity for any commodity which is less than 100 per cent, no matter by what formula it may be arrived at.


Mr. Low:: Prove that.


Hazen Robert Argue: I shall prove that to you in one moment.


Solon Earl Low: You cannot.


Hazen Robert Argue: I will prove it right now by quoting the hon. member for Acadia who gave the Social Credit position on agriculture in the budget debate, as reported at page 3626 of Hansard, as follows:
In this group we have been advocating a two-price system for a number of years; that is, that the domestic market for farm products should be supported at 100 per cent of parity and that farm exports should be sold at the best prices obtainable in the international market, preferably under international agreement but supported by a reasonable support price.
That is the policy.


Mr. Quelch:: Agreed.


Hazen Robert Argue: The hon. member for Acadia says "agreed"; that the return to agriculture on a given commodity shall be the return which is derived from selling a part of the production on the domestic market at parity prices.

Wheat


Victor Quelch: All the production on the domestic market.


Hazen Robert Argue: Yes, on the domestic market but where the domestic market cannot use all the production, then the remainder is sold on the international market at the market price, and the farmer gets the amount that is obtained at the market price. For example, on wheat today it would mean a fair support price but still not parity. With parity for wheat today at perhaps $2.05, and as the hon. member says, if wheat sold outside Canada at $1.75 today the farmer would take the average and he would get less than a parity price.
Just as we believe that people are entitled to 100 per cent of justice in the courts and should not settle for anything less, therefore we believe that agriculture in Canada is entitled to full equity and full parity prices. We do not support anything less than full equity for agriculture.
I can point out that one of the first organizations that appeared before the cabinet asking for full parity prices and full equity for agriculture was not a farm organization but a labour organization. 1 hold in my hand a program for full employment as outlined by the national U.A.W.-C.I.O.-C.C.L. conference to fight for full employment, dated at Ottawa, February 24, 1954. In this program they have point eight, which is entitled "full equity for working farmers". It reads in part:
The impressive and productive efforts of Canadian farmers to assure Canada abundance of food and fibre should not be rewarded by depressing the living standards of the people who work the land.
We propose the establishment of a federal farm program that will provide full equity to working farmers, help meet their credit problems at low interest rates which only the dominion government can provide, improve markets, and include other measures necessary to permit farm families to enjoy higher living standards, consistent with a program of full employment and full production.
That is not the view of an agriculture organization; it is the view of very large trade union organizations. I know what the press will say. I know what the Sifton press in western Canada will say. It will claim that parity prices make for agricultural surpluses. That is a fallacious contention. As a matter of fact, the way you get agricultural surpluses is to reduce the general level of agricultural prices; and farmers, in an endeavour to protect their income, milk more cows, seed more acres to wheat and attempt to increase the volume of production in order to protect their standard of living. There is not an agricultural economist that I have read who says that the answer to surpluses in Canada or in the United States

is to reduce prices, because If prices are reduced surpluses will be increased.
The United States farmer this year is going to have to make a very difficult choice. He is going to be asked to choose between obtaining a support price for wheat at only 70 per cent of parity, which works out to about $1.70 a bushel, if he agrees to a 30 per cent reduction in wheat acreage; and, if he says no to that, production will be unrestricted and the support price will be $1.19 a bushel. There is a very great danger to the whole international price for wheat that the United States farmer, asked to accept an acreage reduction of 30 per cent in order to obtain 70 per cent of parity, will say, "I will take a gamble with full production, and take whatever the market will bring". That is the kind of policy with lower support prices that does not reduce surpluses; it adds to the surpluses, and that huge surplus then is available to depress the market further. So I say that anyone who claims that parity prices by themselves result in creating surpluses is wrong. Surpluses can be created, and surpluses have to be dealt with; but there is another way to get rid of surpluses than trying to lower prices to the point where you wreck the agricultural economy and by wrecking the economy hope that farmers will decrease their production.
The way to handle surpluses of food products is to increase demand. I am sure that there are many thousands of Canadians who are undernourished and who need more food. I am certain that no old age pensioner in Canada today receiving $40 a month has sufficient to buy the kind of food to give him an adequate diet and a reasonable nutritional standard. The government should adopt a policy which will give more purchasing power to our low income groups and to those on the old age pension. The government should provide a school-lunch program to take care of further agricultural surpluses. In other words, the government should adopt policies to ensure that every Canadian has an adequate diet. If that were done it would take care of a substantial part of any agricultural surplus that may appear. The government also should follow a policy of accepting soft currencies in exchange for wheat. The government should follow a policy of making wheat available for famine prevention and for a school-lunch program in the underdeveloped countries of the world. The government also, I suggest, should make advance payments for farm-stored grain in order that farmers can obtain purchasing power when they produce a crop and are unable to market that crop through congestion.

The government should encourage the storage of any temporary surpluses of wheat on farms as a method of saving storage costs. The minister has told us that the costs of storage have gone up in the past year very substantially-8J cents a bushel higher than the previous year. The farmer pays that 8J cents a bushel. The storage costs that are paid today are paid only to the elevator systems in this country and not paid to farmers, and that encourages the elevator companies, as the Minister of Trade and Commerce well knows, to expand their storage facilities in order to make greater revenues and greater profits. All of the time the farmer is paying the total shot. The farmer knows no reason why he should have to build his own storage on his own farm and then have to pay for the duplication of that storage by elevator companies. So I suggest to the government that, in addition to paying storage to elevator companies, which is part of the cost of marketing grain, they should adopt a policy of making storage payments on temporary surpluses of wheat available to farmers when they store their grain on the farm.
These are the points I suggest the government should now adopt to meet this very grave situation. There should be full parity prices for wheat. The government should immediately announce the interim payment on 1954 wheat and not wait till next December. The government should accept soft currencies and make wheat available for famine prevention and a school-lunch program. The government should make advance payments for farm-stored grain and encourage farmers by paying for storage of any temporary surpluses of wheat on the farm.
If this kind of six-point agricultural program for the wheat producers were put into effect, we would restore the purchasing power to this huge area of Canada. We would restore in a large measure the purchasing power to 200,000 farm families in the three prairie provinces. By so doing we would reduce the amount of unemployment in Canada, and, if we made available, as we should, our surplus food to hungry people and to underdeveloped countries, we would be making a very important contribution to peace far exceeding, I suggest, the contribution that is made even by our present defence program.


Victor Quelch: Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any doubt that the farmers of Canada will be disappointed at the announced price payment, especially when it
Wheat
is realized that the total payment they will have received is $1.56. I will admit right away that the farmers will be better off with that price than they would have been if we had been under the open market system and if there had been no wheat board. If there had been no wheat board in operation in the past four or five years, with the three very large crops we have had, the price of wheat would have gone to a very low level, because whenever there is a large surplus the grain trade always uses that as an excuse to depress prices.
On the other hand, in the light of history and the government's wheat marketing policy since 1945, and in the light of the world situation, I would say that today the farmers are entitled to a higher price than $1.56. It is interesting to note that under the formula that is used under the Agricultural Prices Support Act, section 9(2), using 1943-44-45 as the base year, the parity price of wheat today would be $2.27. I obtained that price from the dominion bureau of statistics; $1.56 is a long way below the parity price as formulated under the Agricultural Prices Support Act as $2.27. But, of course, grain does not come under the Agricultural Prices Support Act.
I should like to review very briefly the history of the government's wheat policy since 1945. Remember that after the war it was government policy to allow our allies to have wheat at a lower price than the actual world market price. The minister of trade and commerce of that day, Mr. MacKinnon, pointed out that it would not be fair to our allies to soak them for every cent we could get in selling our wheat to them. That was the policy of the government when the British wheat agreement was formulated under which we allowed them to have wheat at a price quite a bit less than the price for class II wheat. I know that the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) on different occasions has said that every member of the House of Commons supported the British wheat agreement as being a good agreement for the farmers. I should therefore like to quote what I said at the time when we were discussing that agreement in this house in 1947, when the agreement came before us in the amendment of the wheat board act. I then had this to say as reported at page 745 of Hansard of that year:
If in the next two or three years there is a wheat shortage, if crops are poor, the price of wheat will be maintained at probably a high level and will remain there. Then the guarantee becomes absolutely useless. If that should be the situation over the next two or three years the farmers of this country, as a result of this agreement, are going to lose several hundred million dollars . . .
I believe that the wheat agreement with Britain was fully justified but it does entail in its early


Solon Earl Low: They are opportunists. There is an election on.


Victor Quelch: What is the true purpose of international trade? What is the real justification for insisting that a certain proportion of our production should be sold for the currency of the importing nation? The justification for that insistence is that the true purpose of international trade is the exchange of goods and services between nations on the basis of mutual advantage. Would anybody deny that that is the real principle or the elementary purpose of international trade? If you accept that as the real purpose of international trade, then surely when you sell your goods to another nation, the only currency you need is the currency of that nation, because it is the currency of that nation that you will have to use to buy its goods. You therefore do not need dollars. Yet strangely enough, as I say, every time that question has been raised in the house and a vote has been taken on it, members of other parties have voted against it.
Last year I referred the Minister of Trade and Commerce to what was happening in the United States. I quoted from the U.S. News and World Report, showing that they were going to introduce a policy under which approximately $1 billion of United States produce could be disposed of in foreign nations either in exchange for their currency or in the form of gifts. At that time, as reported at page 5997 of Hansard of June 15, 1954, the Minister of Trade and Commerce interjected these words:
That program was adopted some months ago. So far as I know, India has not taken any wheat for rupees and very few other countries have taken wheat for local currencies.

I then went on to point out that the minister was confusing two programs. I was referring to a program that was going to be brought down. When he said it had been in operation for two or three months, he was referring to another program which was called the mutual security act, under which $250 million worth of United States produce could be exchanged for foreign currency and the foreign currency used mainly for defence purposes. But under the new act, the agricultural adjustment act, over $1 billion of United States farm products can be either exchanged for foreign currency or given in the form of a gift. It was strange to me that at that time the government seemed to show so little concern about the program of the United States in regard to being willing to accept foreign currency in exchange for their produce. Even up until a few days ago the minister seemed to think that a program of that kind could not amount to anything because, as reported at page 3732 of Hansard, he stated:
I know of no reason why we should sacrifice wheat which is the property of the producers of western Canada for the sake of the odd few sales we might get if we accepted a different currency.
I cannot understand why he should use that word "sacrifice". There would be no sacrifice entailed in accepting sterling. The sterling area covers a large percentage of the world. It includes many countries. If we accepted sterling, we would be able to use that sterling for the purchase of goods in any part of the sterling area. Where would be the sacrifice?


Mr. Howe (Pori Arthur):: I have yet to know of a case where that kind of sterling is not frozen sterling. In other words, I know of no case where the United Kingdom has offered sterling that can be used in any part of the sterling area in return for purchases here. I am extremely doubtful if that offer would ever be made.


Victor Quelch: I will give the minister an example pretty soon. What we were advocating was that Canada should do it. We were not suggesting that the United States should do it. They are already doing it to a certain extent, but maybe in a slightly different way from the way we are advocating. We advocate that Canada should be willing to take sterling. The minister suggested some time ago that Britain might be hesitant to pay us sterling for our produce and keep that as blocked sterling. The only reason Britain might hesitate would be if we were to insist that that sterling be made convertible. Of course if you are going to advocate a policy whereby you accept the foreign currency of another nation you certainly would not advocate convertibility of currency because you
Wheat
cannot have convertibility of currency until such time as you introduce a policy under which trade can be balanced. Until such time as we have a policy under which trade between the sterling area and the dollar area can reach a fairly high degree of balance, it is just useless to talk about convertibility of currency. It would break down just as it did in 1947.
We have heard a lot of talk about convertibility being just around the corner, but we are always finding there is another corner when we get to that corner, and I think we will continue to find there are more and more corners until such time as the creditor nations are willing to accept goods in return by way of payment. Just as long as a nation like the United States insists upon maintaining a heavy favourable balance of trade they make it impossible for other nations to make their currency convertible into American dollars because the only way those nations can get American dollars is by selling goods, and just as long as the United States makes it impossible for them to sell their goods or services to America, just so long does the United States make it impossible for there to be convertibility of currency.
As I say, the minister seemed to belittle the effect that acceptance of foreign currency would have upon the Canadian economy, and yet I noticed that in his speech yesterday he blamed the United States policy of trading their goods for foreign currency' or giving their goods away as being the reason why our sales are down. He will not admit it had any effect upon price but he admitted it had had some effect upon our sales. He mentioned that the United States had sold somewhere in the neighbourhood of $200 million of wheat. Of course there were many other commodities they sold as well.
Perhaps I should give a few examples of deals the United States has made, and I just pick these at random. In the most recent issue of Foreign Trade there is a very interesting article, which I shall be using on another occasion, dealing with United States policy. I think it would be better to deal with that question when we are on the estimates of the minister. But I will take the Wall Street Journal of April 21, 1954, which contains an article dealing with certain operations under the mutual security act. It reads:
The foreign operations administration allotted $10 million to Yugoslavia and $235,000 to Norway to buy surplus United States agricultural products under section 550 of the mutual security act. The countries will pay in their own currency, which the United States will use for foreign aid purposes. The United States in turn will supply dollars to exporters.

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Then in the Montreal Gazette of May 11, 1955, I find the following in an editorial:
On May 5 an announcement was made in Washington of a "package agreement". Under this agreement $73-9 million worth of United States surplus agricultural commodities will be sold to the United Kingdom, with payment in sterling being accepted by the United States government agency, the foreign operations administration.
They are accepting that sterling and with the sterling they will probably be able to buy goods in other countries. The minister shakes his head, but even so there is a very large variety of goods we could buy from Britain which we are at the present time buying from the United States. We could just as well buy them from Britain. I agree with the minister that there may be some difficulty in educating the Canadian people with respect to the desirability of buying less from the United States and more from Britain, but I believe that with an educational campaign that could be taken care of if the people realized the effect upon the Canadian economy when we have an unfavourable balance of trade with the United States and a favourable balance of trade with Great Britain.
As I say, last year the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) brushed aside the importance of the acceptance of foreign currency, and I was somewhat surprised that the minister of finance also brushed it aside. I quoted to him from the U.S. News and World Report the forecast of the legislation the United States was going to introduce and the minister of finance said that they were wrong, that the United States was not going to do that. But they have done it. It is being done now, and we are faced with a situation which the Minister of Trade and Commerce himself admits is affecting our sales of wheat.
It seems to me that the great problem we face today is that of getting surpluses to the people who need them. I think the United States has given a great deal of leadership on that question. First of all, they gave it under the Marshall plan. We did not criticize the United States when they brought down the Marshall plan. Why did we not criticize them then? Because at that time the United States was making dollars available and Canada was getting some of those dollars. But today the United States is not making dollars available but goods. In other words, the United States is going to make sure that the program they now have to dispose of surpluses does not enable Canada to make use of it to dispose of its surpluses as the Marshall plan did. The United States has now instituted a plan making it possible for that country to dispose of its surpluses, and

the United States is saying to Canada: You look after your own job; we are not going to do it for you this time.
It is about time we woke up to that fact. If the United States can do it there is absolutely no reason why Canada could not also dispose of a large percentage of her surplus agricultural products in return for sterling. It is time for the government to quit sitting on the surpluses waiting for a policy to hatch. It is interesting to remember that when we were discussing the international commodity clearing house, a subject in which the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) is much interested, a subject in which the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and the international federation of agricultural producers are very much interested, it was turned down. I am going to be very careful in what I say this time. I am not going to blame anybody. In any event, it was turned down.
But the policy of Canada then was that Canada would look after her own surpluses, that we could create a reserve of certain foods which would take care of crop failures. If it is the policy to maintain a reserve of agricultural produce in order to take care of a short crop year and in order that we may play our part in helping to feed the hungry people of the world, undoubtedly that policy is in the interests not only of the people of Canada but also of the people of the world. If that program is being maintained in the interests of the Canadian people and in the interests of the people of the world why should the farmers be the ones to have to pay all the storage charges? Surely the cost of storing these reserves should be borne by the people of Canada as a whole and not by the farmers alone.
The minister pointed out that we had excess storage charges over 1952-53 of 8i cents per bushel of wheat. I say that 8J cents should be paid by the government. If that amount were added to the $1.56 it would mean that the farmers would at least be receiving $1,641 which, while not good, is certainly better than $1.56. I think there is every justification for insisting that the 8i cents for storage charges should be paid from the federal treasury instead of by the farmers.
Last year we moved a motion urging advances against grain on the farms. I realize fully there are certain difficulties involved in that .proposal, but on the other hand it would have been a tremendous blessing to the farmers last fall if they had been able to get advances against grain in the bin in exactly the same way as is done in the United States. Again I say if the United States can do it there is no reason why we cannot do it. Certainly there is a problem

and it is not an easy problem, but surely we are not always going to pick the easy thing to do. Is it not time, in order to solve some of these problems, that we do it even if it has to be done the hard way? We are not trying to solve them in Canada today.
Last week I spoke on support prices. I pointed out that the farmers had paid for every bit of support they are getting today. They paid for it during the latter part of the war when they accepted a ceiling on the prices of their farm products, and when they accepted less than the world market price for wheat at that time. You might say they paid a premium on the insurance that they hoped to get in the future.
Now, it is true that grains are not under the Agricultural Prices Support Act. If grains were included under the Agricultural Prices Support Act, the support price would be in the neighbourhood of $2.27 per bushel if the base year 1943-45 were used. The interprovincial farm union asked that grain be placed under the Agricultural Prices Support Act. The interprovincial farm union council asks for the adoption of the two-price system. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture also asked that the sales of wheat be placed under the two-price system, that is the domestic price should be the maximum price under the international wheat agreement and the export price should be the contract price or whatever price may be reached. We feel that the two-price system would give the farmers a good deal of security. We have supported that idea.
As a matter of fact we were supporting the two-price system for a number of years before the interprovincial farm union ever mentioned it in their brief. Every time representatives of that organization came to Ottawa we asked what they thought of the two-price system. Now, they have it in their program. I believe the idea is absolutely sound. The hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) does not like the idea. He says that his group insists upon 100 per cent parity. If the hon. member for Assiniboia is so insistent that you have to have 100 per cent parity, I cannot understand why he called the brief of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture an excellent brief because the Canadian Federation of Agriculture insisted that parity prices should not be above 85 per cent of parity. They condemned the idea of 100 per cent parity, yet the hon. member says that is an excellent brief. In one breath, therefore, he says we must not have 100 per cent parity, it is a wrong idea, and then in the next breath he says we stand for 100 per cent parity. I should like to know how he reconciles the two statements.
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Hazen Robert Argue: May I answer the hon. member's question now?


Victor Quelch: Yes.


Hazen Robert Argue: As I said, I believe in a policy of full parity prices, and anything that is a step towards that objective is good. It was for that reason I referred to the federation of agriculture brief as being excellent, because it constituted a very long step forward towards the objective of parity.


Victor Quelch: The hon. member certainly did not think that answer out very well. I want to make it clear that the federation of agriculture is not making this suggestion as a step towards what the hon. member advocates. Let me repeat what the brief says, and it is to be found on page 10:
We recommend further that the board-
No, that is not the page.


Mr. Knowles:: The hon. member did not think that one out very well.


Victor Quelch: I find this on page 7 of the brief:
We do not believe it is sound or practical to look to a price support program to guarantee the fanner prices which represent a full fair (or parity) relationship for each individual product. The result of such 100 per cent guarantees, if attempted, would inevitably be a high degree of government direction and control over agriculture. We do not believe-
This is probably the reason the C.C.F. would like to support it.
-farmers wish to submit to such extensive government participation in their business, nor do we believe it is reasonable to ask the government to undertake such a commitment.
I think another reason the federation feel that way is that, after all, whatever program you establish you have to get public support behind it. If you try to get too high prices you will turn the public against you and there will be little chance of success. On the other hand, the two-price support program can be justified whatever way you look at it. The labour unions of this country have already endorsed the idea of agricultural prices in this country being tied to the price of other products. I believe we would have the support of labour behind the idea that the price of farm products be set at parity with the price of other products. Why would labour expect to buy farm products at lower prices than the price of their own labour?
The parity price in the domestic market could be justified without any difficulty at all. When you take into consideration that apart from wheat only about 6 per cent of our agricultural products are exported abroad, then by guaranteeing parity prices for the 94 per cent consumed in Canada you

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would give the farmers a very large percentage of parity. Wheat, of course, is different. I know that it varies, but suppose we take the figure of 20 per cent of our wheat being used in Canada and 80 per cent exported abroad. The 20 per cent consumed in Canada would be sold then at parity, that is $2.27 per bushel. In so far as the 80 per cent exported abroad is concerned, we have stressed the fact that there should be a reasonable support price. What would be a reasonable support price? I believe a reasonable support price for the exported grain would be the average between the floor and the ceiling in the international wheat agreement, which would be approximately $1.70 per bushel. If you sold 80 per cent at $1.70 and 20 per cent at a parity price of $2.27, you would have a support price of $1.81 per bushel. That is certainly what we consider to be fair, and I think it would meet with the approval of the various farm organizations.
We believe that this price policy, coupled with advances to farmers against grain held in farm storage, would not only help the farmers of this country considerably but would also help to maintain the Canadian economy at a high level.


Mr. A. M. Nicholson (Mackenzie):: Yesterday certainly will always be remembered as blue Monday so far as I am concerned, Mr. Speaker. First of all the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) announced the final disposition of the wheat board stocks and the final net payment to farmers ranging from 6-26 cents per bushel for No. 1 northern up to 16-45 cents per bushel for feed wheat. While hon. members from the west were aware that the sales had not been going as well as had been expected, it was not realized that farmers were to receive such a very small payment.
Then, for the first time, the minister admitted the very serious problem that we now have, and which he had ignored for far too long. He mentioned that during this period the United States surplus disposal program had emerged as one of the chief factors in the international wheat position. Canadian export sales have improved but not to the extent that would achieve the rapid movement we hoped for earlier in the crop season. Then the minister mentioned the triple-barrelled surplus disposal program in effect in the United States, and stated that wheat may be bartered for strategic materials; may be distributed to importing countries for local currencies which are usually left in the recipient country for development or other purposes; or may be given away as a relief measure.

I have noticed that in the publication "Agriculture Abroad" this point that the minister made is mentioned. The issue for April, 1955, in the section dealing with the United States, states that the commodity credit corporation in the United States disposed of commodities valued at $1-4 billion in 1954 and that in 1955 it is expected they will dispose of $2-1 billion and in 1956 $2-4 billion. If we have had trouble in 1954 as a result of the United States policy, it is quite obvious that in 1955 and 1956 we really have trouble ahead.
The hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) made reference to the treatment extended to wheat producers in other countries of the world, and pointed out that although Canada is one of the main wheat producers our farmers are receiving the lowest amount paid anywhere in the world. He referred to some figures prepared by the Alberta wheat pool. I have in my hand the United States foreign agricultural circular, F.G. 1355, published on April 8, which sets out figures very similar to those given by the hon. member for Assiniboia. But as these figures are more up to date I should like to take a few moments to give some information concerning the problem with which Canadian farmers are confronted, and to show the prices they receive as compared with those received by farmers in other countries. I shall give, in this table, the name of the country, the price per bushel in United States dollars, and the size of the wheat crop in each country. The information is as follows:
	Equivalent price	1954-1955
	per bushel in	wheat crop,
Country	dollars	in bushelsAlgeria 	
2.64	44,830,000Argentina 	
2.72	275,000,000Australia 	
1.41	166,610,000Austria 	
2.63	16,700,000Belgium 	
2.56	20,800,000Canada 	
1.40	293,909,000Chile 	
4.50	38,270,000Egypt 	
2.18	60,000,000Finland 	
3.95	10,000,000France 	
2.64	386,500,000West Germany ..	
2.72-2.83	105,600,000Greece 	
2.40	45,000,000India 	
1.52	290,900,000Iran 	
0.97	77,000,000Ireland 	
2.39	15,900,000Italy 	
3.05	264,000,000Japan 	
2.61	55,700,000Luxembourg ....	
3.02	1,500,000Mexico 	
1.99	30,300,000Morocco 	
2.64	45,560,000Netherlands 	
1.86	14,590,000New Zealand ...	
1.59	4,600,000Norway 	
3.43	1,480,000Peru 	
1.83	6,100.000Portugal 	
2.85	27,470,000Spain 	
2.73	180,000,000Sweden 	
2.35	37,870,000Switzerland 	
4.19	9,370,000Syria 	
1.54	31,200,000Tunisia 	
2.64	22,410,000
Turkey	
Union of South Africa
United Kingdom	
United States	
Uruguay	
Yugoslavia	
2.49	180,000,000
2.25	19,760,000
2.30	104,160,000
2.24	969,781,000
2.96	26,310,000
2.16	-
It will be noted that while the price for Yugoslavia is indicated as $2.16, there is no figure given for the amount of the wheat crop. The total number of bushels for all these countries I have mentioned is 6,825 million. I would also point out that of all these countries Iran, with a price of 97 cents per bushel, is the only one that pays a price lower than Canada. It produces 77 million
bushels.
This interesting publication points out that 96 per cent of the world's wheat is marketed under some type of government control or government support policy. It outlines these different types as:
1.	Fixed prices;
2.	Government purchase;
3.	Guaranteed minimum prices;
4.	Directional prices;
5.	Deficiency payments;
6.	Guaranteed price ranges;
7.	Indirect price supports;
8.	Pre-contracting prices;
9.	Communist state planning.
I admit frankly that the Canadian government cannot be accused of not doing something. I think the mere fact that we have a wheat board is a factor that all members from wheat producing areas appreciate. If we did not have the wheat board I am convinced all
cereal prices would be a great deal lower than they are. However, I do not think we are unreasonable in asking that Canada should view the problem of wheat production and wheat marketing as have the other countries I have mentioned.
There is an interesting section in the document I have before me concerning the policy in France. That country is now in a position where its imports of wheat from now on are to be eliminated. They are paying a very large amount each year to compensate their home producers in order to increase their production of wheat.
I suggest the Canadian wheat producer should not be held responsible for the fact that in the year immediately following the war, particularly in Europe, there has been a mad race to increase the production of cereals so that, in the event of war, they would not be dependent to any great extent upon shipments from across the Atlantic. It so happens that Canada feels the impact of this policy to an extent greater than any other country.
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In deciding that those who produce wheat should have something like parity price, I think the United States authorities are acting in the best interests of the American people. I have been interested in the argument which has been taking place between the hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch) and the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue). The hon. member for Acadia has just finished saying that parity price for Canada would be something like $2.27. That is, if we take into account the cost of farm machinery, fuel and all other factors entering into production, and balance them with the costs of medical services, legal services and all the other services in Canada, those who produce wheat should be getting something like $2.27. Then he went on to say that the world market at the moment will not stand that sort of price.
I think we must admit frankly that our standard of living in Canada is a good deal higher than that in many other countries to which we have been exporting foodstuffs, and we cannot expect our customers to buy wheat from us at a price higher than that at which they can buy it in other countries, particularly when they are in a position of being able to remind us that our standard of living is a great deal higher than theirs.
They want to buy wheat in other markets; so we will say for the sake of argument that the price in the world market is $1.70. The hon. member for Acadia said the farmer should not be satisfied with $1.70, but that he should have something more, that in fact he should have $1.81. It does not make sense to me to argue that a price of $2.27 is a fair one, and that Canadians should pay that price for wheat used in the local market, but that we should sell the balance in the world market for $1.70, plus 11 cents, and that the farmer should be satisfied with $1.81.
If it cost the farmer $2.27 and he had to sell 80 per cent of his production for $1.81, then inevitably only one result can follow, and that is that he will go bankrupt. Of course he would not go bankrupt as quickly as he would if the price were somewhat less than $1.81. That would drag out the process a little longer. But if you are going to cut the tail off the dog, it does not matter very much whether you cut it off in short pieces, an inch at a time, or whether you do it in one operation.


Mr. Castleden:: It is tougher on the dog.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: This business of deciding that the farmer should have a price less than what would give him a fair share of the national income does not really make any appeal to me. I realize that we cannot fix an arbitrary price and decide that we shall

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produce unlimited quantities of cereals at that particular price regardless of our ability to consume them or to sell them. But that again becomes a national problem. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris), in appointing his commission to review the problems of the Canadian economy, should include such a person as Professor Baker of the University of Saskatchewan, who has recently completed a study in Saskatchewan dealing with some of our fundamental problems. Certainly, there should be someone on this commission who will approach the problem from the point of view of agriculture.
As I said previously, we have opened up large tracts of country in Canada on the assumption that we would be able to sell food in the world's markets. If, through no fault of ours, we are unable to sell the products there, it becomes a national problem, and it is not unreasonable to ask the federal treasury to use funds to see that, as long as we continue in the business of producing cereals, those who produce them will have a parity price or a fair price for wheat, oats, or barley that can be worked out mathematically as a fair price in comparison with the price of fertilizer, gasoline, or implement repairs.
I might say that as long as I can remember we have had as part of our Canadian policy the maintenance of tariff barriers which protected an important sector of our Canadian economy. The last careful study that was made on the impact of the tariffs was made by the late Norman Rogers some years ago. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) will be familiar with the brief which was presented by the government of Saskatchewan to the Rowell-Sirois commission outlining what the tariff policy has meant in terms of revenue and expenditure in the different provinces. For example, Prince Edward Island benefited to the tune of $5.32, but they paid out $23.20 per person per year because of tariffs, so they have a net loss of $17.88. Nova Scotia had a gain of $18.50, but a cost of $30.78, or a net loss of $12.28; New Brunswick benefited to the extent of $19.91, but the cost was $31.58, or a net loss of $11.67; Quebec had a gain of $46.23, a loss of $35.20, or a net gain of $11.03; Ontario had a gain of $64.32, a cost of $49.17, or a net gain of $15.15; Manitoba had a gain of $28.44, a loss of $41.69, or a net loss of $13.25; Saskatchewan had a gain of $3.55, a loss of $31.71, or a net loss of $28.16; Alberta had a gain of $11.22, a loss of $38.15, or a net loss of $26.93; and British Columbia had a gain of $32.03, a loss of $54.36, or a net loss of $22.33. It is pretty obvious that only two provinces of Canada are in a better net financial position because of tariffs. But the

people of the ten provinces have accepted tariffs as the price they pay for the development of Canadian industry with a view to providing employment for the maximum number of Canadian people.
If during the past 50 years it was decided that all the people of the country should support the manufacturing industry by tariff devices, until we decide that there is no future for grain exports in Canada, public funds should be used to see that those who are engaged in this necessary industry have a fair share of the national income.
I should like to remind the house again of the farm net income report, 1954, published by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe), which shows that the net farm income has dropped from $2,154 million in 1951 to $1,125 million in 1954, a drop of $1 billion. This is one major factor that has caused such widespread unemployment in Canada, and when one narrows down the impact of those figures to the province of Saskatchewan, where we had a drop from $566-5 million to $126 million, one finds out what happened before we had the disastrous damage from rust last year. This is the direct result of Canada being unable to sell in the world markets the amount of grain that we would have been selling if the other governments that I have mentioned had not been embarking on policies which paid their wheat producers in some instances two or three times as much as they would have paid for a better sample of wheat shipped from Canada.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, in concluding these remarks I should like to make the following suggestions. First, Canada should embark on a school lunch program with a view to using some of our surplus cereals and milk. I am sure there cannot be any argument about it that a school lunch of bread, butter and milk would result in a few years' time in Canadian children enjoying a good deal better health than they have now. The second proposal is that we must maintain maximum consumption of our foodstuffs in Canada. That is something that the Canadian government can do, apart altogether from the world markets. There is no problem whatsoever in getting into the stomachs of hungry Canadian people the maximum amount of cereals and dairy products that I have mentioned.
We have a very large number of people on old age pensions, on blind pensions, and on mothers' allowances in Canada who cannot possibly, out of the small cheques they receive, buy an ample quantity of many of these foodstuffs. In dealing with the problem

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the government must find ways and means of making available maximum quantities of foodstuffs.
My third point is this. We must also participate in feeding hungry people all over the world. We cannot find fault with the United States, which has large surpluses on hand, making available to hungry people food from this source.
In the fourth place, there must be no reduction in production so long as there are hungry people in our own country apd in other countries. The United States should even carry on a greater campaign in helping to feed the hungry people of the world. I might remind the house that during the first war and the second war the United States sat on the sidelines for a long time, while the people of this country, of Great Britain and of other parts of Europe, used up large quantities of their assets. At the end of both wars, the United States finished in a very strong financial position. I remember that during this war I happened to be returning from the north at one time when some 50 Americans were returning from a construction assignment in northern Canada. The lowest paid man in the party had been drawing $400 a month and his board and heavy winter clothing. They all had been working on a construction project which was completed on a cost-plus basis. Since the war, Canada has taken over all these establishments and we paid our United States friends on the basis of what these establishments cost them. When I consider that those who went north during those years spent very large sums of United States funds, which were recently reimbursed, I think there should be no trouble whatever in seeing that those who are engaged in the production of food, which in wartime or in peacetime is a weapon which should have high priority, receive their fair share. But unfortunately in world war I and in world war II the farmers, whether they lived in the maritimes, in central Canada or in the west, received a great deal less than their fair share. In both wars, controls were imposed as soon as there was a possibility of our running short of food and, before the farmers were able to cash in and take advantage of the fact that now they might be able to pay off their debts, we had controls which made it very difficult for farmers to take their fair share of our country's production. So I suggest that the government of this country must keep step with the other countries I have mentioned which are seeing that those who are producing cereals in those countries have a much better break than their Canadian cousins are getting.


Mr. Daniel Mclvor (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say just a brief word. I know a little about wheat; in fact, I passed my examination on testing wheat. I have worked on a farm in Saskatchewan and have been around there a good deal, and now I am living in a place that is called the bread basket of the world. I was just wondering what good all of these speeches would do towards raising the price of wheat. According to some people on the other side the government is doing nothing-


Mr. Harkness:: That is right.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: -the government is doing nothing and is just sitting indolently by. Yet the Minister of Trade and Commerce has said that the government had its trading agents in a great many places throughout the world and they were on the job trying to sell the wheat. The only reason why I get up is to ask a question. Perhaps the Minister of Agriculture will tell me, is there anything that has been said or will be said that could not be said on the estimates?


Mr. Elmore Philpott (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, I was tempted to enter the debate yesterday when the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Nicholson) was justifying the building of the South Saskatchewan dam on the ground that the Americans were letting off too many atom bombs, and I could not quite see the connection. After I heard some of the weird and wonderful arguments that were advanced today for parity wheat prices, although I am not a wheat farmer, I have the temerity to put in a few words. I have never in my life heard so much undiluted bunk as I have heard about wheat since I came to this house a few years ago, mostly from the so-called wheat experts from Saskatchewan. It seems to me that the great trouble in the world today is that the United States has caused this terrible wheat headache by her foolish parity price policy which has resulted in this vast accumulation of unsold wheat. This is the direct cause of our own Canadian problem. Some of our friends opposite are wanting us to follow in the same footsteps as the United States, so that we can confound the confusion which now exists in the world and double the pain of the headache.
As the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) was talking about his plan for paying the farmers of Canada $2.27 for each and every bushel of wheat that is produced and then selling that wheat on the world market at world prices, he forgot to put in one detail. He forgot to put in the detail of what he was really advocating, that is a subsidy by the treasury of Canada to the wheat farmers of Saskatchewan, a subsidy which, according to

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my calculation, would amount to between $300 million and $400 million a year. I am not so sure that even some of the gentlemen who sit opposite me and who have those large wheat farms in Saskatchewan would be so enthusiastic about paying that subsidy of $300 million or $400 million, because I heard them complaining just a few weeks ago that income taxes were already too high.
I must say that, as between the plans I have heard here today, the one suggested by the hon. member for Assiniboia and the one suggested by the hon. member for Acadia- while I do not very often agree with Social Credit-I certainly think that the one of the hon. member for Acadia at least makes some sense, while the one of the hon. member for Assiniboia makes no sense whatever; it makes complete and utter nonsense. However, when I hear my Social Credit friends chiding some of us for not having voted last year for their want of confidence motion in the government I am a little confused, because only a week or so ago in this house we heard most indignant protests from exactly the same quarter of the house explaining why they had voted against family allowances in 1944. They said they had voted against family allowances because otherwise they would have been voting confidence in the government and according to them that would have been an unforgivable crime.
However, I should like to dwell for a minute on this matter of accepting soft currencies. I believe that to sell our wheat we have to take the price for our wheat that the world is willing and able to pay. The longer we shrink from that basic fact the worse the problem is going to get. The sooner we face it, the better for all concerned. But when I hear some of my hon. friends in the right-hand corner talking about taking soft currencies, in payment for our wheat, I think they had better take a good long look at what they are talking about. I for one have been an advocate for many years of accepting payment for our wheat and other products in sterling and other currencies of our customer countries, but only on one condition: provided that those currencies are not blocked currencies, as they have been up until the recent past in almost all of the countries concerned; and provided also that we do not simply take those soft currencies to have them pile up in the back yard, but rather use those soft currencies to buy goods or properties which the customer countries have for sale.


Victor Quelch: That is what I advocated.


Elmore Philpott: In this connection I cannot refrain from putting in a word for my very good friend the hon. member for Lethbridge

(Mr. Blackmore) who, I know, is the recognized money authority in the party opposite. I studied his plan last year with great care as to how he would provide an unlimited amount of currency so that our customers could buy our wheat. The plan, as I understood it, was that anybody in a foreign country who wanted to buy Canadian wheat would be provided with the proper amount of Canadian currency so that he could buy the Canadian wheat, and the net result of the transaction would be that the foreign customer would have the wheat and Canada would have the currency which she herself had printed in the beginning. According to my way of thinking, even for a Social Credit monetary theory, that is really going a pretty long distance indeed. I have heard also from directly opposite today pleas for feeding the hungry of the world. That is all very well. If my hon. friends are really anxious to help feed the hungry of the world, as they represent a large area of the wheat-growing district of Saskatchewan, let them hop to it. There is a large surplus of wheat there. Let them get busy and give Dr. Lotta Hitschmanova of the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada some of this grain surplus they have on their farms. I am sure she will be glad to see that it is distributed in foreign countries.
Mr. Speaker, I am sometimes sorry that we ever had in this country the government-run wheat board. I sometimes think that it would have been better if this country had not had the government wheat board with its members appointed directly by the government, but had had some kind of wheat marketing system similar to the fruit and vegetable marketing system in British Columbia where the machinery is under the direct control of the farmers themselves. It seems to me that the very fact that we have a government-run wheat board leads to some of the glaring fallacies in the thinking of members sitting in the benches directly opposite me. The members directly opposite me seem to think that there is some unlimited fund of public money and that all we have to do is to dip into this public barrel and dish it out to the wheat farmers of Saskatchewan or anyone else that one can think about. But let us be under no illusion. The government of Canada has no money of its own. The government of Canada has only the money that it takes from the taxpayers of Canada. If we are being honest about this scheme for the total distribution of wheat on a parity price system, let us come right out and say that what we are asking for is a subsidy of some $300 million or $400 million a year taken from all of the taxpayers of Canada for the benefit of some of the taxpayers of Canada.

I think that is all I have to say, Mr. Speaker, except to say that I for one believe that the farmers of Canada are entitled to a fair share of the national income. However,
1 do not believe that the farmers of Canada will ever get very far toward getting a fair share of the national income of Canada if they go on such ridiculous and impossible paths as are pointed out to them by the false prophets from some quarters in Saskatchewan.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I wonder if my hon. friend would permit a question, Mr. Speaker? I wonder if he would recommend that Canadian farmers be permitted to buy all their goods in the cheapest markets? If they are going to be obliged to sell their products in the world market without protection, would he recommend that they be permitted to buy everything they want on the open market?


Elmore Philpott: I shall be extremely glad to answer that question, Mr. Speaker. If you boys ever become really successful missionaries like Billy Graham, and if you ever convert the big manufacturers of Toronto and Montreal to get in on your plan of parity prices, we are going to have parity prices for Ford automobiles, reapers, combines, vacuum cleaners and everything else. You boys have an idea which is 1,000 per cent more false and more offensive protection than the most ultra high-tariff Tory ever thought of in his whole life.


Mr. McCullough (Moose Mouniain):: Mr. Speaker, it is my intention to speak on a different matter, and I should like to know whether there are any other hon. members who want to follow up on this subject.


Solon Earl Low: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say just a word on this whole question today, not for the purpose of launching into a long dissertation but more for the purpose of correcting certain errors into which some people have fallen in their thinking. I am also going to have to make an admission today, Mr. Speaker, but it is an admission that does not pain me at all. Yesterday the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) drew to my attention the fact that when election campaigns are being fought in the provinces, repercussions of them can be felt in this house. I bow in humble acknowledgment of his rightness in that assertion.
It seems that the most political group in the house today are the members immediately to my right. I do not know whether they feel that they are fighting for their lives or that they have their backs to the wall, or what it is, but they seem to feel that they must put on a political scrap here every
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time anything is mentioned. If they would put on their political fights on the basis of fact, then of course we would not mind. But when they stretch the truth in these matters and try to make them appear as something that they are not, we are obliged to take issue with them. I agree with much of what my friend the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker) said yesterday. I could not help realizing that he too was speaking the truth.
In speaking this afternoon my friend the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Nicholson) made certain remarks. I think he did so honestly because I give him credit for being honest and sincere in what he says. I do not believe that he would try to mislead anybody. But this afternoon, in the course of his address, he asked how anyone can justify saying that if $2.27 a bushel represents the internal parity price of wheat, the farmers should be asked to take $1.81 which my colleague the hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch) calculated might be a probable resultant of a two-price system under present circumstances. Perhaps the very best answer to my friend the hon. member for Mackenzie is that the interprovincial farm union council have advocated just that because they feel that it is something reasonable and sound, the kind of reasonableness about which my friend the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Philpott) was just speaking. Certainly in our approach to all of these things we must be reasonable. We must know that the people of Canada are the ones who will have to foot the bills in all these things. We must be prepared to accept pretty much what the farmers themselves are prepared to accept as reasonable and sound.
I point out to my hon. friend that that is exactly what they have done. All he has to do is to refer to the submission to the government of Canada by the interprovincial farm union council of January, 1955, and he will find that two-price system-as my friend the hon. member for Acadia outlined it-is advocated by them; and the resultant would be, under present circumstances, exactly what the hon. member for Acadia has outlined here this afternoon.
Another thing the hon. member for Mackenzie asked is this. He asked how long farmers could stay in business if they were asked to accept $1.81 a bushel for their wheat if it cost them $2.27 to produce it. Maybe that was a slip of the tongue. Certainly no one here has suggested that the cost of production is or has been $2.27 a bushel. I would ask who has said that it cost the farmers $2.27 a bushel to produce wheat.

Wheat


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: The hon. member for Acadia said that is the parity price.


Solon Earl Low: That is the parity selling price. It is not their cost of production. If you consider the heavy crop yields that we have had in western Canada during the past three years, I think that anybody who took the trouble to do a little bit of figuring would see that the cost of production per bushel to the farmers would be considerably below $1.81, which my hon. friend says would be the resultant of a two-price system today. Of course there would be a profit. My hon. friends in the C.C.F. do not like us to call that a profit. They want us to call it income. I do not wish to quibble about it. To me it is a profit. Any time anybody produces something at a certain cost and sells it at something above that cost, he is making a profit. It does not matter what quibbling goes on about it from other people. I merely wanted to point out these things, together with this. The hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue), who has become the ultra politico of his party, takes delight, I think, in going quite a long way, and certainly not in a restrained way, in attacking everybody in the house because they do not agree with him. Evidently he has set himself up as the authority on wheat and farming in the house. At least, that is the impression one gets in listening to him. I was quite disappointed at the intemperate attack he made on the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) yesterday-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Solon Earl Low: -an attack which I think any of us should hesitate to make on the Prime Minister of this country.


An hon. Member:: Uncalled for.


Solon Earl Low: I am afraid the hon. member is getting a wee bit beyond reason in some of the things he is saying. Perhaps he is puffed up with pride over some of his accomplishments. I do not know. At any rate, he has tried to place interpretations on other people's proposals that are unjustified, and I am going to try to set him right on something he has been saying in connection with our proposal of years gone by with respect to acceptance of some soft currencies in payment for surpluses of Canadian foods. Last year we moved an amendment to the speech from the throne which called for the acceptance of sterling in return for surplus food products shipped to Britain. My hon. friend takes the stand that we moved a trick motion and that is the reason why the C.C.F. voted against it.
I know he takes that position. He does not sit very far from me and it is easy to hear

what he says. In fact, he tried to get one of his colleagues to get up and say it this afternoon, but his colleague was not quite prepared for it and of course he did not do so. I am just putting a spoke in his wheel before it is said by some other irresponsible person. The fact is that he has said he believes the only reason the C.C.F. voted against our amendment was that it was a trick motion. I want to read from Hansard what his leader said, not about a trick motion at all but about the acceptance of sterling.


George Hugh Castleden: I know the hon. member wants to be fair. Will he read the amendment in full?


Solon Earl Low: Yes, indeed; certainly. The amendment was quoted at page 594 of Hansard of December, 1953, by the leader of the C.C.F. party, and it reads:
We respectfully represent to Your Excellency that the welfare of Canada is dependent upon private enterprise: and that the prosperity and security of all Canadians will be advanced by government policies which will restore markets for primary products and generally promote a high volume of international trade by the acceptance of sterling in payment therefor.
When the leader of the C.C.F. party spoke and repeated the whole amendment he referred first to private enterprise and indicated he could not vote for the amendment.


Mr. Ellis:: That is the most important part of the amendment.


Solon Earl Low: Perhaps so, but if my hon. friend would just restrain himself for a moment I will make my explanation.


Edward George McCullough: Your explanation.


Solon Earl Low: He explained in the first part of his speech that he could not support our amendment because the phrase "private enterprise" is even more objectionable to the C.C.F. than the phrase "free competition". He went on to say that therefore he could not support the amendment, and at page 595 continued with these words:
The second reason concerns the question of the acceptance of sterling without limitation.
I pause there for a moment. I want the members of the house to note those words- "the acceptance of sterling without limitation." At no time have we suggested acceptance of sterling without limitation. From the very proposal itself it must be obvious to hon. members who think it through that what we were proposing was the acceptance from Britain of their own currency in payment of their unfavourable balance of trade with us.


George Hugh Castleden: That was not in your
amendment.


Solon Earl Low: That is what anybody thinking the matter through or even giving it the most cursory examination would say. In trade with any country you are exchanging a certain amount of goods and services with them on what you hope will be a mutually satisfactory basis. At the end of a cycle or period of time when it comes to settlement one or the other is going to have a balance, and it is the settlement of the balance that is referred to in the acceptance of soft currency or sterling. That was made abundantly clear in the speeches we made supporting the amendment.


Mr. Macdonnell:: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Solon Earl Low: Indeed.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Was it not also in order to stimulate and increase our trade with England? Was that not represented as a means whereby it could be increased?


Solon Earl Low: Yes indeed.


An hon. Member:: The new coalition.


Solon Earl Low: But the settlement would certainly be at the end of a year or cycle, and between the two countries the acceptance of sterling would simply involve the amount of the unbalance of trade. Certainly, as the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Macdonnell) has said, it was proposed to the house as a means to help to stimulate trade with Great Britain and to restore Canada's place as a great natural market of Great Britain. Therefore anybody who tries to interpret what we propose as the acceptance of sterling without limitation simply shows he has not thought the matter through and is trying to place some sort of interpretation on it which might make it possible, in a strained manner, for the C.C.F. to say that the reason we could not accept it was it was proposed without limitation.
Let me set the hon. member straight. If the matter has not been set straight thus far, let me make it clear that what we have proposed with relation to the acceptance of soft currencies in settlement of our balances is not without limitation. In the first place, it is limited to the amount which we would be prepared to accept in return for our surpluses. Second, it would be limited, without our doing anything about it, by the amount of the balance that would be due us from the other country after we had balanced off the exchange of goods and services. That is the story and it should be perfectly clear. So far as some explanation of the reason why they voted against the acceptance of sterling
Wheat
is concerned, the leader of the C.C.F. has made it clear that they did not even accept the second suggestion because, on the occasion to which I have referred, he went on to say:
I quite agree with the Leader of the Opposition when he says he does not think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Great Britain would accept a proposition of this description.
If you read what the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) said, he explained that Great Britain would not be prepared to accept a proposition of that kind because, he said, they had had some experiences in India and other countries that were unfavourable. Shortly after that time I had a chance to have a chat with the private secretary to then Prime Minister Churchill, his own son-in-law, here in the city of Ottawa. He said to me then that he saw no reason whatsoever why that policy could not be adopted if acceptance of sterling was to be limited within the amount of the unfavourable balance that Britain had with Canada. He said he saw no reason why we could not adopt that policy, and that they were interested in it. That was the position he took.
It seems to me we have missed a very valuable chance to stimulate the kind of trade we ought to be having with a number of countries, such as I suggested yesterday, for instance, with Israel, Sweden, Japan and the other countries with whom we have to do business or want to do business. It could be financed internally, without any tremendous expansion of currency, as the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Philpott) suggested. We do not advocate an unlimited or uncontrolled expansion of currency at all. We want it strictly limited to what we can absorb internally. I thought I should make that clear, Mr. Speaker, and I hope I have succeeded.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker, I feel I should say a word about selling wheat abroad for local currencies. It has been assumed by several speakers that we could sell wheat to Britain for sterling and use that sterling to buy goods for Canada or use it to pay our debts in other parts of the sterling area; that is not the situation. If we buy goods for sterling, we buy it under a program that has to be worked out with the chancellor, which limits the use of that sterling. Sterling is not freely interchangeable. It can only be used for certain purposes. If it were true that we could sell for sterling and use that sterling as we liked and anywhere we liked, we would have no objection.


Edward George McCullough: May I ask the minister a question? Could not such credits be used in the sterling areas?

Wheat


Clarence Decatur Howe: No, not under exchange control rules in the United Kingdom.


Mr. Fullon:: Even their use in the United Kingdom is restricted?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, even their use in the United Kingdom.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: If it were accepted in the way the minister says, if it were possible to use that sterling anywhere, then it would not be really acceptance of sterling but would be the acceptance of convertible currency and, in effect, getting our own dollar money.


Clarence Decatur Howe: That is true.
It has been assumed that sterling is convertible anywhere in the sterling area, but that is not the case. When we buy goods in Britain we convert dollars into sterling to pay for those goods. If we had sterling in Britain which we had accepted for wheat which could be used for that purpose, we would be very glad to have that sterling. The United States is selling for foreign currency with this proviso, that they leave the foreign currency in the country and use it for certain programs which are usually give-away programs. That is what the United States means by selling for local currencies.
The United States is a powerful country with tremendous revenues, and it is able to do that. In Canada, we feel we have done a good deal in assisting our customers abroad, since the war ended, but we believe we have gone about as far as we can in that direction.


Victor Quelch: Will the minister permit a
question?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Just a minute; let me explain this. I did not interrupt you. Selling for local currencies means to us the lending of money to the country without interest and without a due date; that is the real effect of accepting soft currency for Canadian dollars. Now, we have made loans to countries to help them restore their equilibrium. We have made loans to Britain, France, Belgium, and a number of European countries. I do not remember all of them. We did that, but we had a due date on the loan, and we had a rate of interest fixed. If Britain came to us and said she required help in that direction, we would certainly sit down with them and look at the problems. Britain has never asked us to send exports over there in exchange for sterling, the purpose being to freeze the sterling and create a liability against Britain with no due date and no interest charged. I doubt if the British chancellor of the exchequer would welcome a transaction of that kind.

It has been suggested that it is Canada's duty to balance her accounts with the United Kingdom. I doubt if any country that is shipping raw materials in great quantities, and is the principal supplier of certain raw materials, can ever hope to balance her account by purchasing manufactured goods. I doubt if that is possible. Nevertheless Britain, by trading with Canada, by trading with the United States and by trading for dollars in various parts of the world, has been able to accumulate dollars. The dollar and gold balances of the United Kingdom have risen very considerably in the last two years; that is world trading. It is a sort of fantastic theory to suggest that Canada balance her accounts with other countries by accepting sterling. I do not believe it would be acceptable either to Canada or the recipient countries, at least not to many of them.
It has been suggested that Canada was sending out a cry of despair when I made my announcement; that is not the case. We are selling our share of wheat, I believe. Hon. members are apt to look at statistics on exports and refer to them as statistics on sales. We never disclose our sales position, but I may tell you that the sales position is considerably better than the sales position of a year ago. Last year was referred to as a very poor year for wheat. In the early days of the wheat agreement we were reluctant to take a commitment to deliver any more than 210 million bushels. Other countries entered into the agreement, and in order to help out we raised our commitment to 233 million bushels. At the time we were very doubtful whether, year in and year out, we could export that much wheat.
How much wheat did we export last year? We exported 255 million bushels, which is 22 million bushels more than the commitment we were willing to take under the international wheat agreement. The export figures for April, May and June will emerge, and by the end of July we will have a fair picture of Canada's position for the year.
I can say it will be a better year than last year. It depends on sales between now and the end of the crop year to determine just how much better the picture will be, but still I am not at all discouraged about the prospects for this year as an export year in wheat.
Of course it has been a good export year for coarse grains. We have been able to dispose of our coarse grains as they have been received, and we do not regard them as a selling problem at the moment.


Edmund Davie Fulton: 
Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, that would be the case if we undertook to accept sterling.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: In the United Kingdom?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: We could not use it in the United Kingdom?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Not if it were a sterling transaction. If we made it a dollar transaction, we could. That is what we do, as a matter of fact. We sell wheat for dollars and we can convert the dollars into sterling and buy what we like.


Edmund Davie Fulton: But if we accept sterling, then it is restricted sterling?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes, it is restricted sterling.


Victor Quelch: Does that not depend upon the agreement? The United States are spending the soft currency they accept in the countries from which they accept that currency.


Clarence Decatur Howe: But for certain agreed purposes. The program must be a relief program, or a program that has been agreed upon as being beneficial to the recipient country. There is no market, except where currencies are convertible, on which the United States can accept local currencies and then buy what they like with those local currencies and ship it where they like. It is not that kind of world.


Victor Quelch: Congress laid down wide
terms under which that currency can be used. They are very wide, far beyond what the minister has said.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Only for relief, or some other purpose previously approved by prior agreement with the recipient country.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to become involved in the argument concerning the acceptance of sterling, nor shall I discuss any of the intricacies of the parity price system about which we have heard so much in the last hour.
On April 28 I made a speech lasting about 30 or 40 minutes during the debate on the budget, and at that time I dealt with the
Wheat
wheat situation. I do not propose today to repeat the argument I offered then in connection with our deplorable wheat marketing situation today.
I believe everyone in the house realizes that the situation of the western farmers is rapidly becoming serious. Their cash returns last year from the sale of grains were down to the extent of $350 or $400 million from what they were the year before, and it is inevitable that they will be down still further in the receipts from the last crop year. The reason is clear. Last year's crop in the western provinces was estimated at only 274 million bushels, and most of the wheat was of low quality. The price is down, and the net result of all this is that the amount of money the farmers will receive from marketing that crop-that is, the money they will receive this year-will be less than they got last year.
Therefore their cash position will be bad indeed. Combined with this is the flood situation in Saskatchewan, as well as the very wet conditions in Alberta and in parts of Manitoba. The result probably will be that a large acreage normally seeded to wheat and coarse grains will not be planted at all.
All these facts are known by the farmers in western Canada, and they are greatly worried. They are not greatly concerned with whether we can exchange wheat for sterling or for anything else. Their concern is with the wheat on hand, the surplus that has been piling up and which must be disposed of. Their concern is that this wheat must be sold so there will be room in the elevators for the crops they will produce in the coming growing season; that is, those who are going to be fortunate enough to produce crops.
They are far from satisfied with the statement by the Minister of Trade and Commerce concerning the disposal of our wheat. I am sure the statement he made yesterday will cause great consternation, particularly with respect to the final payment the farmers will receive and the further point that his statement offered them no hope. He did not indicate that the situation will be any better this year than it was last year.
The minister did say that the sales position is better this year than it was a year ago, but he did not say how much better. Let me point out that it would need to be a great deal better if it is to make any appreciable improvement in the situation now existing. In his statement of yesterday the minister said:
The wheat board and the government expect, and are fully prepared, to deal with competition in world wheat markets. The record shows that we have met this competition most effectively. Canada has retained a high proportion of commercial markets throughout the world.

Wheat
But I submit that statement does not give comfort to the farmers in western Canada. The minister can say as often as he likes that he thinks we have maintained our position in commercial markets; but what the farmer wants is to be able to take the grain to the elevators and get cash for it to pay his ordinary living expenses. He is not going to be able to do that unless a great deal of the grain now in the elevators is cleared out.
I asked the minister this question yesterday: What steps has the government or the wheat board taken to meet this competition in world wheat markets of which he speaks?
The minister replied:
Very aggressive selling in every world market; we have agents in every world market. I believe that considering the fact we are selling our wheat for cash and others are giving it away, our position has been very well maintained.
What does it tell any farmer in western Canada, what does it tell any member in the House of Commons, when the Minister of Trade and Commerce says, "Very aggressive selling in every world market; we have agents in every world market." So long as the wheat is not being moved in sufficient quantities to meet the needs of the farmers in western Canada, then I say the minister's answer is no answer at all. It seems to me that at this time he should go into more detail in telling the house what measures the government is taking or proposes to take to dispose of the wheat we have on hand. The general statement that we are conducting very aggressive selling methods means nothing at all, and it does no good.
It seems to me the minister and the government owe it to the farmers and the people of western Canada generally to take them into their confidence to a greater extent, and give something definite by stating what they are doing and what they think they can do to sell this grain.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Mr. Speaker, before the hon. member for Lethbridge proceeds to speak,
I wonder if I might be permitted to ask the minister a further question. I should like to come back to the question of selling goods for sterling in England. It comes to me as a tremendous surprise to be told that if one sells goods for sterling in England, the use of that sterling in England-that is, in Great Britain-can be restricted. That comes to me as an entire surprise, and I am wondering if I understood the minister correctly.
I can understand that sterling might be restricted so far as its use anywhere else in Europe was concerned. But with sterling received in transactions for goods bought in England, on deposit in English banks, to say the use of that is restricted in purchasing 
goods in England comes as a surprise to me. Did I understand the minister to say that?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes. If a Canadian living in the dollar area wishes to sell goods for sterling, unless there is an arrangement with the exchequer changing the position, he can use that sterling only as the chancellor of the exchequer may from time to time permit.
Perhaps I might be permitted to relate a small example concerning a friend of mine. This person was visiting in England and had a sort of windfall in the form of sterling. He tried to deposit that sterling in a Canadian bank, but the Canadian bank would not have it at all. Finally he gave it to his lawyer, and his lawyer instructed him that he could use it to pay his personal expenses, such as hotel bills and the like. But he was told that if he bought a necktie or a suit of clothes with it he would be subject to heavy penalty.
The use of sterling by people living outside the sterling area is very closely regulated; and to say that we can sell our wheat for sterling and do what we like with the sterling
well, unless there is a prior arrangement to that effect, it just is not workable.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Does the minister mean that if I have an account in an English bank I cannot write a cheque on it here to purchase something in England, and have it cashed?
I cannot believe that, surely.


Clarence Decatur Howe: It all depends upon where the money came from. If you have an account in a Canadian bank that account would be established by a deposit of dollars. If you wish to trade in England and make a profit, and put that in your bank, you cannot spend that as you like, I assure you.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I am talking now about a situation where a Canadian, an individual or a company, has an account in an English bank. How can that be policed?


Clarence Decatur Howe: It will be policed by the bank, for one.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: There again the case the minister has made seems slightly different. This is a case which may have some special aspects. The money may have been received for some special purpose. I am talking of the ordinary business transaction. A sale is made in England; a citizen outside of England acquires sterling in England and has it in an English bank. The minister says he cannot use that because of certain restrictions.
I am not going to pursue the matter further.
I am still surprised.

Wheat


Edward George McCullough: I should like to ask the minister a further question.


Mr. Sinclair:: Are we in committee?


Mr. Weir:: We are not in committee.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I took it for granted that the house was submitting to these questions by unanimous consent.


William Gilbert Weir: The answer is no.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Since there is not unanimous consent we must proceed with the discussion of the motion.


Mr. J. H. Blackmore (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to participate in this discussion. It was my intention to say what I have to say on the agriculture estimates, but it seems to me that some things have been said that merit a certain amount of attention.
It must be recognized, Mr. Speaker, that the farmers, the ordinary rank and file farmers on the western plains of Canada, are in open competition with farmers in the United States and in other areas of the world. While this government puts handicaps upon our farmers, the governments of other countries support their farmers with advantages. Therefore it must be obvious that Canadian farmers are on their way to destruction unless something miraculous occurs.
I have several little excerpts which I think I will read for the benefit of the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Philpott) and the others who think that the farmers are asking for something unusually outrageous, and some seem to think that. I hold in my hand the Wheat Pool Budget for April 29, 1955. I am going to read one or two little passages which will show the people of Canada just what is what in the world today in respect of wheat. I quote:
Wheat Supports
Over 96 per cent of the world's wheat crop is produced and marketed under price supports or other forms of official incentive and planning, according to a survey made by the United States department of agriculture.
We seem to think that when the farmers here ask for any kind of assistance they are out of bounds. I continue:
Such measures are in effect in countries producing 6-5 billion of the world's 6-8 billion bushels of wheat last year, and cover virtually all of the wheat moving into international trade.
That is the wheat with which our wheat must compete, with no assistance at all from our government or from anyone else, with handicaps in every direction in the way of shortage of box cars, marketing quotas and all sorts of things. The farmers in the west,
in my constituency and in other constituencies, are trying to keep alive under all these handicaps in these terrible times, with the prices of everything they buy up, with machinery prices going up and with credit restrictions placed on them. I do not see why the Minister of Trade and Commerce cannot visualize this sort of thing. Would to goodness he could be out there on a farm for 15 years so he could learn something about the realities of farming, instead of sitting idly here and listening to other people's comments. I do not want to be too hard on him, but I do not want him to be too hard on the farmers, either.
Let me give another quotation farther down the page:
In most cases, including France, the United States and Argentina, this involves an export subsidy.
That refers to the assistance. The comment is made:
It should be noted that in Canada no such subsidy is paid on exports.
Let the minister face that set of circumstances as a businessman. He makes beautiful, plausible speeches here that are just as false as falsehood itself when applied to actual reality.
Let me read another quotation from the Alberta Wheat Pool Budget of April 22, 1955:
United States Exports Subsidies
Selling American surpluses is an expensive business, reports the international federation of agricultural producers. A study of the cost to the American government and the price it gets in the world market for wheat indicates a heavy loss is sustained on each deal under the United States surplus disposal program.
In the case of wheat sold to Yugoslavia recently, the United States got a little more than $1.80 a bushel in terms of Yugoslav currency. For that same bushel, the cost to the Commodity Credit Corporation amounted to $3.20. That includes the support price it gave for the wheat and storage costs. Consequently on each bushel of wheat sent to Yugoslavia, the United States lost $1.40. This does not count the cost of ocean transportation paid by Commodity Credit Corporation, or the difference involved in accepting local currency instead of dollars.
I sympathize with the minister when he says we in Canada do not feel that we can go any further in all these supports, but what does he think the farmer is doing? He imagines that the western farmer is performing all sorts of miracles, and at the same time he must pay his income tax, all his bills, raise his family, and do every other thing that needs to be done. I absolutely marvel at the unreality of the attitude adopted by the cabinet ministers.
Before I go on with another subject I want to point out this. I have urged now for two years, Mr. Speaker, that the government adopt a policy under which assistance would

Private Bills
be given to the farmers to enable them to build approved storage on their farms, and that when their wheat was stored in that approved storage the government would pay the farmers, or advance a liberal loan of so much a bushel on such wheat. The government said, "We cannot afford it". Well, what about the farmer? I suppose he can afford everything. They take the most preposterous attitude that you can conceive of, these ministers.
Last year I suggested to the Minister of Trade and Commerce that he might take the money out of the Bank of Canada with which to build the storage for the farmers and pay an advance on the wheat. The minister simply replied that the Bank of Canada, poor little thing, could not stand the strain. But the individual farmer can stand it. How do members of the government get sense out of their position? If they would adopt this method of farm storage-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. It being five o'clock, the house will proceed with the consideration of private and public bills.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on Bill No. 283, to incorporate Westspur Pipe Line Company, -Mr. Mcllraith-Mr. Applewhaite in the chair.
On clause 1-Incorporation.
Mr. Mcllraith:: Mr. Chairman, when this bill was before the house on second reading, and again when it was before the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines, the point was raised as to the propriety of passing an act to incorporate a company with a clause or provision in the act permitting the construction of pipe lines for the transmission of gas outside of Canada. That point was discussed at some length in the committee. I am now instructed by the persons seeking incorporation to consent to a provision going into the bill which would have the effect of limiting the right to construct the main gas pipe lines to Canada. I accordingly propose, when we come to clause 6 of the bill, to ask one of my colleagues to move an amendment that will accomplish this purpose.
Clauses 1 to 5 inclusive agreed to.
On clause 6-Power to construct and operate pipe lines.


George James McIlraith: Mr. Chairman, I think the purpose I outlined when we were dealing with clause 1 can most appropriately be dealt with by an amendment to clause 6(a) of the

bill. The following words appear in line 29 of page 2 of the bill: "gaseous hydrocarbons". The insertion of the following wordsprovided that the main pipe line or main pipe lines for the transmission of gaseous hydrocarbons shall be located entirely within Canada.
-at that point would accomplish the purpose. Perhaps the hon. member for Proven-cher (Mr. Jutras) would move accordingly.


Mr. Jutras:: I so move.


The Deputy Chairman:: The amendment is:
That clause 6(a) of the bill be amended by adding after the words "gaseous hydrocarbons", in line 29 thereof, the following words:
provided that the main pipe line or main pipe lines for the transmission of gaseous hydrocarbons shall be located entirely within Canada.
Shall the amendment carry?


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Mr. Chairman, I should like to support this amendment. We could have saved a good deal of time in the committee last week if the hon. member who is piloting this bill through the house and his colleagues had been as reasonable as they are now. I think the amendment is supporting a well-established principle which certainly should have been taken for granted without any long discussion in the committee. I am very glad to support it at this stage.


George James McIlraith: I think perhaps I ought to explain to the committee that in the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines the proposed amendments were on somewhat wider lines. The amendments proposed did interfere with the pipe lines use for the transportation of oil. That is the significance of the attitude taken in that committee.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Clause as amended agreed to.
Clauses 7 to 10 inclusive agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Friday, May 13, consideration of the motion of Mr. Argue for the second reading of Bill No. 22, to amend the Canada Grain Act.
Mr. F. S. Zaplitny (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, when the house rose at six o'clock last Friday I was discussing the portion of the bill having to do with the principle of giving the farmers the opportunity of delivering to the elevators of their choice. I had drawn attention to the fact that the Minister of Trade and Commerce appeared to have taken the attitude

that because this bill was contrary to what he termed Liberal philosophy, he would ask members on his side of the house to oppose it. I am wondering if that does not indicate the pattern of opposition to the idea of cooperative selling of the farmers' products. I drew attention to the fact that the wheat board itself could be termed a co-operative effort, as opposed to the competitive method of disposing of the farmers' grain.
In this bill, even though, as I said, I personally favour the co-operative method of disposing of farm products, as I am sure a great many other members do, we are not asking that the farmer-owned elevators be given any priority or any advantage. All the bill is asking is that they be given an opportunity to do business with their patrons on an equal basis with other elevator companies. Under the present circumstances there is discrimination against the farmer-owned elevators because of the fact that they are not able to obtain the box cars necessary to accommodate all the farmers who wish to do business with them.
I should like to point out that they should be given that opportunity not only as a matter of equity, but also because the wheat pools have performed a distinct service to the wheat producers of western Canada over the years. Those who are familiar with the wheat pool system will realize that they have actually saved many millions of dollars by the co-operative handling of the grain for the producers.
I am deeply concerned about the attitude which the government from time to time takes in the matter of co-operatives. I should like to draw attention to several statements that were made by Mr. Staples, who is president of the Co-operative Union of Canada, when he spoke at the forty-sixth annual convention in Saskatoon recently. In referring to the attitude of the government to co-operatives generally he termed it as "no more than half-hearted support". Later on he stated that the government has a tendency-
-to minimize the differences between co-operatives and profit-seeking businesses to a point where cooperatives are forced to fit themselves into a mold which they cannot fit and hold to their true pattern.
Furthermore, he pointed out that this indifference and half-hearted support that the government shows-
-could very easily become outright opposition as it has on occasion in the past.
This gentleman speaks on behalf of the Co-operative Union of Canada, which embraces a membership of over three-quarters of a million persons. His words should be 50433-243
Canada Grain Act
given the weight they deserve. If he is concerned that the tendency or the trend of the government towards the co-operative movement generally is one which may become outright opposition, as it has been in the past-


Mr. Sluder:: Don't be ridiculous. If it were not for this government you would have no co-operative movement.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: We have to take into consideration some of the things that have been said by Liberal members in this house on this bill. The hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Studer) has just made the statement that if it were not for this government there would not be any cooperatives. That is the kind of statement, of course, we have come to expect from the hon. member.


Irvin William Studer: It is true.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaile):: Order.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: But the hon. member was not in this house in 1946 or 1947.


Irvin William Studer: They were here long before that.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I beg the hon. member's pardon?


Irvin William Studer: They were here before the socialists were.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I was simply trying to enlighten the hon. member, if he will allow me to do so. In 1946 or 1947-I forget the exact year-the minister of finance of that day introduced an income tax act which, if it had passed in that form, would have been instrumental in practically wiping out the co-operatives in this country. If the hon. member had been here at that time he would have seen that it was the C.C.F. members who fought those provisions and who were successful in having them removed from the act, and he would not be making the statements he is now making.
We had to do that, Mr. Speaker, without any assistance at all from the Liberal members from the province from which the hon. member comes. I would therefore advise him to read the debates of the house and inform himself on these matters before making the kind of statement he has made.
That brings me to the point where the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek, in discussing this bill the other day, challenged the mover of this resolution to state who asked him to introduce it. In fact he tried to make quite a big issue out of it, and implied that

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the hon. member had no right to introduce a bill unless he was specifically asked to do so by some organization.
It we were to accept that philosophy in this house it certainly would mean tying the hands ot parliament completely. All the hon. member needs to do is go through Votes and Proceedings and see the large number ot motions on the order paper in the name of the government. I doubt if 5 per cent of those motions come as a result of the request of any farm organization or of any organization. The government introduce what they believe should be put on the statute books. Whether he be a cabinet minister or a private member, every hon. member of this house has not only the same privilege but the same responsibility, namely that of introducing in this house what he believes is good for the nation and what is just and equitable. Therefore the hon. member for Assiniboia needs make no apology or explanation to anyone, least of all to the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek, for having introduced this bill which has met with the approval of farm organizations.


Irvin William Studer: Have they asked him to present it?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Since the hon. member is so anxious to know whether the wheat pools are in favour of it-


Irvin William Studer: No-


An hon. Member:: Oh, keep quiet.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaile):: Order.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Mr. Speaker, I do not mind interruptions a bit if the hon. member would just make them at a time when I am not speaking, when I am taking a breath. He could get his words in at that time, and then I could hear him. I have no objection to interruptions, but I should like to hear what the hon. member is saying.
I drew attention to the fact that the hon. member wanted to know if farm organizations approved of this bill, and another hon. member across the way-I believe it was the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Jutras)-wanted to know if the farmers in Manitoba are interested in this bill. For the information of these hon. members I should like to put on record some of the letters I have received.


Irvin William Studer: May I ask the hon. member
a question?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Certainly.


Irvin William Studer: What farm organization asked him or the mover of this bill to present this bill to the House of Commons? I do not want to know what farmers are in favour

of it. I want to know what farm organizations did that. They say the farm organizations represent the farmers of this country. If those farm organizations speak for the farmers of this country, then which of them asked the hon. member to present this bill?


Alfred Claude Ellis: Which organization told you to
oppose it?


Irvin William Studer: Let the hon. member answer first; then I will answer.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Who told you to oppose it?


Irvin William Studer: I was not elected to vote for
socialism.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaile):: Order. I think perhaps the time has come when I should mention to hon. members that while these spontaneous interruptions are more or less part of our parliamentary practice, they can be carried to excess. I think the hon. member who has the floor should be allowed to continue.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I want to assure you that I have no objection to questions, provided they are asked in an orderly fashion. The hon. member has repeated his question. I think the interjection made by the hon. member for Regina City (Mr. Ellis) is very much in order.


Irvin William Studer: I shall answer the question.


An hon. Member:: Sit down.


Irvin William Studer: I wish to answer the question.
The Acling Speaker (Mr. Applewhaile):
Order. I do not think it really matters how strong our feeling is; the fact is that neither the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek nor the hon. member for Regina City has the floor and they cannot be permitted, at this stage, to ask and answer questions of each other. I would ask the hon. member for Dauphin to proceed.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am trying extremely hard to oblige the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek, but he does not give me an opportunity to do so. I think the question asked by the hon. member for Regina City is a more important one, namely who asked the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek or the Minister of Trade and Commerce or the hon. member for Provencher to oppose this bill.


Irvin William Studer: May I answer that question, Mr. Speaker?


Alfred Claude Ellis: Sit down.
The Acling Speaker (Mr. Applewhaile):
Order. Let us clarify this matter right now. Let me make it clear that if during the

course of his remarks the hon. member for Dauphin says something which it is considered by the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek or others requires a personal explanation, the Chair will see that an opportunity to make that personal explanation is given at the conclusion of the hon. member's speech. In the meantime the hon. member for Dauphin should be allowed to continue without interruption.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that ruling is very fair. I was going to place on record some of the replies I have received from co-operative associations or wheat pool associations in my constituency in Manitoba who have read the bill. I sent a copy of the bill to them and asked for their opinions on it. I think it would be perfectly fair to all those who are interested in the matter to know what the attitude was.
For example, I have received one letter signed by Mr. F. C. McBurney, manager of the Dauphin co-operative elevator association. May I point out that this is one of the large co-operative associations in Manitoba. As a matter of fact, in our part of Manitoba we have, I believe, the greatest concentration of pool elevators per mile in any other part of the province. Therefore they speak with a certain amount of authority on behalf of the farmers. The letter is in these terms: Dear Sir:
1 have been instructed by the president and directors of the Dauphin co-operative elevator association to reply to your recent letter on Bill 22 re the allocation of box cars.
The directors of the above association are very pleased that you and your colleagues are taking such a stand in introducing this bill before parliament.
I think that is an answer to the question asked by the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek. The letter continues, and I think this part will answer some of the other questions:
The Dauphin co-operative elevator association feel that during the past eight or ten years they have lost many thousands of bushels of grain business due to congestion and lack of a fair share of box cars in proportion to the number of customers they have or could have if elevator space would permit. Also we are quite sure that Bill 22 is a step in the right direction for western farmers as a whole.
May I thank you for interest in this matter on behalf of the board of directors.
That shows the attitude of the Dauphin co-operative elevator association, one of the largest and most successful ones in the province of Manitoba. Then I have another letter. It is from the Grand View co-operative elevator association. It is signed by Alex Morran and reads as follows:
In regards to the distribution of box cars, at a meeting of the board of directors of Grand View 50433-2431
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co-operative elevator association I was instructed to write you that a resolution was passed and the board is in full support of Bill 22.
I have other letters from associations at Oak River, Manitoba; Fork River, Manitoba, and other points in my constituency with which I shall not burden Hansard.
I think that is a perfectly good reply to the question of who wants the bill presented in the house. The wheat pool associations themselves, which after all handle the farmers' grain, which are on the ground floor and know the situation, have stated their full support for the bill. They have stated they have lost a considerable amount of business because they are not able to obtain their fair share of box cars which they need in order to accommodate all the farmers who wish to do business with them. In a situation of that kind I think it is a little impertinent for the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek to jump up half a dozen times and ask the mover of the bill who asked him to present it.
That is not the question. The question is whether this is a proper provision so far as the distribution of box cars is concerned. Is this something which will assist the farmer-owned elevators and others to accommodate customers? Is it fair and just? If it is, there is no reason whatsoever for any member of the house representing a rural constituency to try to wriggle his way out of supporting the bill by bringing up phony issues and making phony excuses such as have been put forward by the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek.
I do not think that kind of thing will do, because we have just about reached the limit in that regard. If it is the South Saskatchewan dam there is one excuse. If it is distribution of box cars there is another excuse. There are always excuses why they cannot vote for these things. I think the time has come when each private member of the house has to take full responsibility for his actions. I believe the farmers and the people of Canada generally are getting a little fed up with the government telling its supporters that they must oppose this or oppose that because it is a matter of a vote of confidence or something of that nature.


Mr. Tucker:: Mr. Speaker-


Alfred Claude Ellis: It hurts, doesn't it?


Walter Adam Tucker: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker-


Alfred Claude Ellis: You cannot take it.


James Sinclair: Keep that foghorn quiet.


Walter Adam Tucker: -the hon. member has suggested that the government has been telling members on this side of the house they have

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to vote in a certain way. That is absolutely untrue. I have been a member of the house for 15 years, and on no occasion has the government ever indicated to me that I was to vote in a certain way. Therefore what the hon. member has said is completely and utterly untrue.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: made a statement from the chair some time last week that a question of personal privilege could not arise because any one group of members felt they had been attacked in a debate. I am still of the opinion that the question is a matter of debate. The hon. member may feel very strongly upon the subject and may feel the statement should be answered, but in my opinion it is not a question of privilege. The hon. member for Dauphin.


Mr. Dickey:: He is used to regimentation in his own party.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: In reply to the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker) may I say that if what he says is true, and of course I accept his statement that he has not been instructed by the government to oppose the bill, he has even less excuse for doing so and therefore should support it.


John Horace Dickey: His excuse is good judgment.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: If he had been instructed to oppose it on the basis of it being against government policy he would at least have that excuse, but now he has not even that excuse.


Walter Adam Tucker: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege, the hon. member is undertaking to represent my position in this matter, and now he has certainly touched on a question of personal privilege with which I surely have a right to deal. He is suggesting that if I have not been instructed by the government the only thing I can do is accept the position he has taken. I suggest there is a difference between my voting confidence in the government according to my judgment and being told that I must do so. I should like to point out to the hon. member that when members on this side of the house, in the exercise of their conscientious judgment, differ with their party, they are not expelled from the party.


Edmund Davie Fulton: How would we know? You have never disagreed.


An hon. Member:: Oh, yes, he did.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I see no reason at all for the hon. member's great agitation. I simply said that if the hon. member was not instructed to oppose the bill-


René Jutras: Why not speak for yourself?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I am doing that at the moment.


An hon. Member:: Let us get down to wheat.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I want to be perfectly fair. I was proceeding to make my point.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I was proceeding to present my argument in a mild way when hon. members began to pop up on questions of privilege and interrupt my speech. They are the ones who started the argument, and if they will bear themselves with patience I think we can finish it. The hon. member for Rosthern objects to the fact that I asked him to take a stand on the bill. He again dragged in the question of a vote of confidence.


Walter Adam Tucker: Again on a question of
privilege-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Walter Adam Tucker: -the hon. member has misrepresented my position. I do not object to his suggesting that I should vote on the bill as I think right. I objected to his suggestion that the government has dictated to members on this side of the house how they should vote. The hon. member should not misrepresent what I said.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Mr. Speaker, after the kind of speech the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) made yesterday on another question-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: Order.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: -I leave it to the judgment of the house who was being instructed to do what. As to the hon. member's attitude with respect to this bill, may I point out that it does not involve a vote of confidence. It is an amendment of the Canada Grain Act, and certainly the government has not stated that it will stand or fall on this bill. Therefore I think on this occasion all members of all parties, including Liberal members from the prairies, are perfectly free to vote as they feel the merits of the bill require. If they are opposed to the distribution of box cars on the basis of the producers' choice, if they are opposed to the co-operative principle in the marketing of grain, then of course they will vote against the bill. Then we shall know where they stand. We shall know they are out for the competitive system which was condemned by the farmers when the wheat board was established. We shall know who are on the side of the grain producers and who are on the side of the grain trade.

The issue will be clear. Let them not make any phony excuses. It is not a vote of confidence, and they say they have not been instructed to oppose the bill, though it sounded so to me when the Minister of Trade and Commerce spoke. Apparently they are not taking instructions from him and are free to vote for the bill or oppose it.
But let the matter be clear. The bill is being supported by the farmer-owned elevators which understand the trade and have a duty toward the producers, who are the actual owners of the handling facilities. If the members who support the government feel the farmers should not receive this consideration, then they will oppose the bill; but of course they will have to answer for their actions when they are asked by the farmers why they felt the bill should not be passed and why they opposed the fair distribution of box cars in order to give the farmer-owned elevator companies an opportunity to provide facilities for their customers.


Irvin William Studer: May I ask the hon. member a question?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Yes.


Irvin William Studer: Which farm organization asked the hon. member for Assiniboia to present this bill on behalf of the farmers of western Canada? I should like to add the statement that of the 25,000 voters in my constituency, not one has ever asked me at any time to vote for a socialist bill.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: In reply to the hon. member may I say the hon. member for Assiniboia is perfectly within his rights and responsibilities as a member of parliament-


Irvin William Studer: Name the farm organization.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: -in introducing a bill which is in the public interest. With respect to the hon. member not being asked to vote for what he calls a socialist bill, I imagine his constituents know by now that there is no use asking him because he would not do it.


Mr. William Bryce (Selkirk):: My job has
been made quite easy, Mr. Speaker, because my colleagues have pretty well expressed my sentiments. However, if I do not get up and say something somebody might say I was not in favour of this bill. I am in favour of this bill and I think some hon. members will recall that a number of years ago I took up this same subject with Mr. Mclvor when he attended the agriculture committee. I feel that I, as a co-operator, should not be compelled to sell my grain to another elevator. I should be able to go to the elevator of my choice, just as the man who is against the
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co-operative movement and wants to sell to a private elevator should have that right.


Irvin William Studer: How many bushels did you sell last year?


William Scottie Bryce: I cannot answer the hon. gentleman just now because I have reached the stage where I can hear only on one side.
I do not want to take up much more time. Everything has been said that can be said. I have had letters from people who expressed views in favour of this bill. There may be little drawbacks to it, but the main thing is that where there are five or six elevators at one point the local train might leave a box car at each elevator. We might have a situation where one of the elevators would be doing 50 per cent of the business. I think it is reasonable to expect that that elevator should get 50 per cent of the box cars, irrespective of what type of elevator it is. Being a Scotsman it goes against the grain for me to sell wheat to a private elevator, because I receive no dividend. I want to sell my grain to an elevator from which I receive dividends.


Mr. A. M. Campbell (The Balilefords):: There are a few figures I want to put on the record. First I want to say that the farmers have built up their own elevator system over the years, and they have put a lot of money and a lot of effort into it. They are seeing the results of those efforts being gradually whittled away.
In order to give the house an idea of the value of this elevator system owned by the farmers I want to put a few figures on the record. These figures relate to the distribution of earnings by the wheat pool in Saskatchewan during the years 1924 to 1954. A total of $61,888,280 in net earnings has been distributed since the organization was formed. Of this, $36,216,719 has been paid out in cash and $6,026,983 has been retained as a loan and credited to members. Then $19,644,578 was used to pay off the 1929-30 pool overpayment liability. In short, in the past 30 years wheat pool members have invested a total of $24,924,010 in their organization, but during the same period they have received back from earnings $36,216,719 in cash. They own assets which have been purchased by the pool at a cost of $51,042,712.
Now, to give the house a little idea of what has been taking place during recent years because pool elevators were not able to get enough box cars, I want to give a few more figures. Before doing so, I want to say that this bill will not harm the line elevator agent who has built up a business over the years, partly because of his popularity and partly

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because of the different methods he has used to get a share of the business.
Here is an illustration of what has happened to deliveries to pool elevators. I am going to take a few points in Saskatchewan. Over the five-year period from 1945 to 1950 the pool elevator at Sedley received 39 per cent of the grain. In 1953-54 it only received 19 per cent. At Hardy, Saskatchewan, in the same period, 1945-50, the pool elevator received 85 per cent of the deliveries. Last year it only received 35 per cent.
I could go on and on giving more illustrations all over our province. I believe the same thing is happening in Manitoba and Alberta. I am supporting this bill because I have received probably hundreds of letters from farmers in my constituency who have asked me to raise this question on the floor of the house.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: No subject has brought as many letters to my office, Mr. Speaker, as the question of the allocation of box cars. I understand that the minister has been obliged to take on additional stenographic help to handle the very large volume of mail he has received on this subject. I shall be very brief. One letter expresses the problem. This letter is from Fred Lowndes, of Kelvington, Saskatchewan. It is dated March 29, and reads as follows:
I wish most vigorously to protest against the present method of car allocation. As a member of the Saskatchewan wheat pool I feel that at present we are definitely being discriminated against. In early fall our elevator fills up within a few days while the line elevators still have lots of room. When they also become full it is back to the one car one elevator system. Economic pressure then forces loyal pool members to deliver to line elevators.
If the line elevators cannot stand on their own feet, they should be honest enough to ask for a federal subsidy, and not be spoon fed under our so-called car distribution system.
I feel that the members of the wheat pool are being quite reasonable when they ask that box cars be allocated in such a manner as to enable producers to deliver grain to the elevator of their choice. As my colleague the hon. member for The Battlefords (Mr. Campbell) pointed out, if over the years a line elevator agent has built up support in a community to the point where he is handling 50 per cent of the grain in that community, then he should have 50 per cent of the box cars. If, however, he has been able to get only 25 per cent of the grain that normally comes into the community, he is not in any position to ask for 50 per cent of the box cars.
The members of the wheat pool are quite reasonable in asking that they should have
[Mr. Campbell.)
the privilege of delivering their own grain to their own elevator so they can receive the dividends which will come to them as a result of that volume of business. I hope the majority of members in all sections of the house will support this motion.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: the hon. member speaks now, he will close the debate.


Walter Adam Tucker: I have been very surprised, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member for Assiniboia, who introduced this bill, has not seen fit to answer the question directed to him by the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek.


Hazen Robert Argue: Would the hon. member like me to answer that question now?


Walter Adam Tucker: You can answer when I get through. You had many opportunities to answer it. The hon. member gave you three or four opportunities to answer it.


Hazen Robert Argue: I will answer it now if you wish me to do so.


Walter Adam Tucker: You will have a chance to answer when I get through. If the hon. member had the support of any farm organization which asked him to introduce the measure, he should have so stated when he spoke.
It is a most astonishing thing, when farm organizations have indicated they are making submissions in this matter, when they have indicated that they intend to make submissions before the committee on agriculture, and when we are expecting to hear those representations, to have the hon. member for Assiniboia rush in with a bill which he admits, in at least one substantial particular, is quite different from what the wheat pools would like to have. He wants the house to vote on the matter before we have a chance to hear from the wheat pools and the other farm organizations.
Well, that may be the way members of the C.C.F. party think business should be done, but it seems to me the proper attitude would be that members should not be expected to vote on this matter until they have had a chance to hear what the various farm organizations think about this bill. The hon. member knows very well that the wheat pools intend to make representations on this matter before the committee on agriculture. Knowing that, why is he so anxious to have a vote on this bill before representatives of the wheat pools have had a chance to make their representations? Why is he so anxious to

have the principle of the bill decided by the house before the farm organizations can be heard?
It seems to me the hon. member is taking a most surprising attitude toward those farm organizations. He admits that his bill differs from what the wheat pools would like to have, but he brushes that aside as a matter of no consequence. Let me read to the house what the hon. member for Assiniboia had to say about the difference between his bill and what the wheat pools would like to have. As reported at page 3410 of Hansard he said:
The only real difference I can see between the bill that is now before the house and the proposition advanced by the western wheat pools is that by my bill the farmers would vote by open ballot, whereas the wheat pools are suggesting that the choice be made by secret ballot.
Here is the hon. member for Assiniboia getting up in the House of Commons and admitting that the wheat pools want to have something different from what is contained in the bill he is offering.


Hazen Robert Argue: Read the next sentence.


Walter Adam Tucker: I have read what you said.


Hazen Robert Argue: Read the next sentence.


Walter Adam Tucker: If the government is prepared to adopt the suggestion of the wheat pool organization, I for one shall be pleased to support it.
What the hon. member is asking the house to do is endorse the principle of his bill, knowing that once the principle had been decided the matter could not be reconsidered at this session.


Hazen Robert Argue: May I ask the hon. member a question?


Walter Adam Tucker: I did not interrupt the hon. member when he was speaking. However, I can understand that he would be very uneasy when it is being made very clear that he is bringing in a bill that is substantially different from what the great pool organizations in western Canada would like to have.


Hazen Robert Argue: The principle is identical.


Walter Adam Tucker: Had he not been so anxious to rush into this matter and pose as the great defender of the farmers in western Canada; had he been content to wait until the farm organizations appeared before the committee on agriculture and indicated the kind of bill they would like to have, it would have been different. But he has the temerity to come into this House of Commons with a bill of his own, which he admits is different from what the wheat pools want. He admits that; but then he says, "Vote for my bill
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anyway; because if later on the government wants something different, then I would be willing to accept that, too."
What sort of way is that to approach parliament? He suggests that hon. members should vote for something the pools do not favour, and adds that later on they may take a different position. Surely that is not the way we in this parliament should be asked to transact our business. Surely the right way to do business is to hear first from the wheat pools, as to whether they think the hon. member's bill offers the proper way to proceed, and whether it is workable. Then it will be time enough to say whether the bill merits support, or whether a measure such as is indicated by the wheat pools and other farm organizations should be introduced.
Personally I would feel much safer supporting a bill brought in by the farm organizations than I would in supporting one brought in by a C.C.F. member, who is content to rush in with a bill so he will be ahead of the pool organizations, who will be appearing before the committee on agriculture. The hon. member rushes in and tries to get his bill before the House of Commons before those representatives have had a chance to be heard by the committee.


Mr. Stewart (Winnipeg North):: You know what the farmers did to you out in Saskatchewan.


Walter Adam Tucker: I know this, that I have been elected a greater number of times, by far, than the hon. member who has just spoken.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: Possibly; but you were also thrown out of the leadership in Saskatchewan.


Walter Adam Tucker: I had no difficulty in being elected to either the federal house or the provincial legislature, in spite of all the misrepresentations bandied around the province of Saskatchewan by members of the C.C.F. party. And let me tell the hon. member that they came so close to being beaten in 1948 that they have been nervous ever since.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: Is that why you left?


Walter Adam Tucker: And I can well appreciate what was said this afternoon by the leader of the Social Credit party, when he referred to members of the C.C.F. posing as the great defenders of the farmers and the great defenders of labour, as indicating that they are uneasy and feel that they are slipping, that they are on their way out as a major political factor in this country.

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Alistair McLeod Stewart: Go back to Saskatchewan and tell them that.


Walter Adam Tucker: 1 was going to deal with this question, which the hon. member for Assini-boia brushes off as having no importance, when he said:
The only real difference I can see between the bill that is now before the house and the proposition advanced by the western wheat pools is that by my bill the farmers would vote by open ballot, whereas the wheat pools are suggesting that the choice be made by secret ballot.
In other words the hon. member is saying, in effect, "Here is my bill; this is the one I want to have adopted". And he says we should vote for it although the wheat pools say they would like to have this matter decided by secret ballot. Under the hon. member's bill they would not have that right of secret ballot at all.
I am not surprised when I see the great leaders of the wheat pools in western Canada taking a democratic attitude, and pointing out that in a question of this kind decisions should be made by secret ballot. Neither am I surprised to see the hon. member for Assiniboia, speaking for the C.C.F. party, brush that suggestion aside as one of no importance whatever. By saying, "By my bill they are not permitted to decide by secret ballot," he asks the House of Commons to endorse the view that the secret ballot should not be used.
So far as I am concerned I would rather stand with the wheat pools, when they say the decision should be made by secret ballot, than with the hon. member for Assiniboia and his C.C.F. colleagues who say the right of secret ballot should not be allowed.


Alexander Maxwell (Max) Campbell: How could you vote secretly?


Walter Adam Tucker: The wheat pools have asked for that, and the hon. member for The Battle-fords now asks how it could be done. I presume when the wheat pools made this request they must have had some idea how it could be done. They are not the kind of people who make suggestions that are not feasible, or that would be considered foolish. I have no doubt in the world that it can be done by secret ballot, perhaps by the farmers sending in their ballots by mail, if necessary, indicating where they want to deliver their grain. That ballot could be secret, just as the votes for delegates to the wheat pools are secret and by mail.


Alexander Maxwell (Max) Campbell: They could not be secret if they went through the mail.


Mr. Pickersgill:: I am wondering whether I should not rise on a question of privilege.


Walter Adam Tucker: I do not know why it could not be secret if it went through the mails. We have what is supposed to be a secret ballot in Saskatchewan, where people vote in provincial elections by sending their ballots through the mails. They insist that it is a secret ballot. I am very interested in the hon. member's suggestion that after all it is not a secret ballot in the province of Saskatchewan because these ballots must go through the mail. If it is all right to conduct voting for members of the legislature by mail ballot, surely it is all right to do as the pool suggests in this matter.


Alexander Maxwell (Max) Campbell: This ballot would have to have a signature on it. It would not be secret.


Walter Adam Tucker: I will explain to the hon. member just how it could be a secret ballot. The ballot could be put in an envelope without any identifying marks on it at all, and that envelope could be placed within another envelope which could be absolutely identified as having been cast by a person entitled to vote. When the outer envelope was opened, it could be checked to see that the person who sent in the vote had a right to vote, and then they could take the inner envelope and without opening it put it in a ballot box.
If it were done in that way it would be entirely secret. In balloting for members of the legislature in Saskatchewan they do not even have that. Still I think it is pretty well a secret ballot. The ballot is contained in an envelope, and scrutineers are there when the envelope is opened. The ballot is then taken out without being looked at and put in the ballot box and counted afterward. In that way it is a secret ballot. When the pools ask for something along that line I presume they think it is the sort of thing that is workable.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Why does the government not bring in a bill along the lines of the recommendation of the wheat pool?


Walter Adam Tucker: On that question my attitude is this, Mr. Speaker. After the matter has been thoroughly threshed out before the agriculture committee the government, the committee and all concerned will have had a chance to thoroughly discuss the matter and decide on any scheme that seems to be satisfactory to everybody and workable. After all, the government is the author of the Canada Grain Act, which is regarded by the farmers of western Canada as a real charter of their liberties in grain marketing matters. At the last agriculture committee meeting representatives of farm organizations said the Canada Grain Act is so satisfactory they did not wish to suggest any

major amendments to it. The government can be relied upon, if some good program that meets the situation can be brought forward, with the assistance of the farm organizations to bring in a better bill than this one, which seeks to rush in ahead of the representatives of the farm organizations.


Alexander Maxwell (Max) Campbell: We shall hold you to that.


An hon. Member:: Just excuses.


Walter Adam Tucker: I am used to the attitude of the C.C.F. party. If I had not been fairly well able to put up with a great deal of misrepresentation and unfair abuse I would not be here today.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Cry-baby tactics.


Walter Adam Tucker: I tell my hon. friends opposite that what they can do here with a little group in this house is nothing compared to what they can do in the legislature with a large majority behind them. I had no difficulty in saying what I thought was right, and upholding what I thought was right, in the legislature, and I think I can do it in this house where they have not a majority and they cannot adopt the attitude that was adopted in that legislature.
The members of the C.C.F. party do not need to think they are bothering me in any way, and they are not going to prevent me from saying what I think is right. I tell them that. I am enjoying the interruptions. I hope they keep it up. If there are any other questions to be asked, let them ask them.


Alexander Maxwell (Max) Campbell: Why did you not stay in Saskatchewan?


Hazen Robert Argue: May I ask my question now?


Walter Adam Tucker: Yes.


Hazen Robert Argue: Is the hon. member for Rosthern prepared to support a bill if it should be suggested by the wheat pool organization?


Walter Adam Tucker: I have already stated my position in that regard. I do not wish to take time to go over it again.


Hazen Robert Argue: No commitment.


Walter Adam Tucker: Let the hon. member read Hansard tomorrow if he did not hear what I said.


Hazen Robert Argue: You did not answer the question.


Walter Adam Tucker: I certainly stated my position.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Face the facts.


Walter Adam Tucker: I am tempted to state it again, but there are certain other points I want to deal with.


Hazen Robert Argue: You are not supporting
anybody.
Canada Grain Act


Walter Adam Tucker: I wonder whether the C.C.F. actually would ask hon. members to go against the representations of the pool, which asked for a secret ballot, and vote for a bill that does not provide one. I wonder whether they are really serious in that attitude.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Stick to the main issue.


Walter Adam Tucker: That is the main issue; it is one of the important parts of the bill.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: Did the pool
ask you to oppose this?


Walter Adam Tucker: So far as I am concerned the pool took the attitude that they intend to make representations before the agriculture committee. My answer was that I would do all I could to see to it that the agriculture committee heard their representations, and that is my position. I should like to see the situation kept in such a position that when they come before the agriculture committee it will still be open to them to make representations and the matter will not already have been decided by a vote in this house.
There is another matter which may be affected by this bill, and on which I should like to have the opinion and advice of the farm organizations before I undertake to vote on it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Six o'clock.


Walter Adam Tucker: I refer to the car order book system. We all know it is something that was fought for by our great pioneers, who farmed in western Canada over the years, to break the control of the elevator companies over the farmers so they could have the right to order cars and ship either through the elevator of their choice or over the platform, if they so wished.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Six o'clock.


Walter Adam Tucker: This particular bill may very well infringe that basic right laid down in the grain act in respect of the car order book, because if you provide that cars must be allotted according to the system laid down in this bill, how then can you obey the act which lays down obligations in regard to the car order book?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Six o'clock.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: On a point of order, six o'clock.
On motion of Mr. Tucker the debate was adjourned.


Mr. Speaker:: At eight o'clock the house will revert to consideration of the business which was interrupted at five o'clock.
At six o'clock the house took recess.

Decision of Mr. Speaker AFTER RECESS
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member for Lethbridge will be kind enough to allow me, I should like to make some observations with respect to a point which was raised last night in the course of this debate when the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch) raised as a grievance the subject matter of the exercise of the prerogative of mercy in the case of Robert Alexander Hoodley.
I indicated at that time that I was not too sure the hon. member could intervene in the debate in this manner, and promised hon. members that I would look into the question further. I left the chair shortly thereafter, and in the few minutes at my disposal before ten o'clock looked up some authorities, which I have indicated at the end of my remarks and which appear in Hansard at page 3825.
These authorities do indicate that the responsibility for the exercise of the prerogative of mercy is that which belongs to the executive when it tenders advice to the representative of the sovereign, but that the sovereign does take part in the deliberations pertaining to such exercise, and indicate also what care one must exercise when it comes to approaching such delicate matters.
This morning I read in Hansard the remarks of the right hon. Prime Minister, who followed the hon. member for Vancouver East. As reported on page 3826 of Hansard the Prime Minister said in his opening remarks:
Mr. Speaker, a discussion of this kind is quite irregular, and has been refused by Mr. Speaker at Westminster on more than one occasion.
The Prime Minister concluded his remarks by saying:
There has never been any occasion when there was an attempt by any house of commons, either here or in the United Kingdom, to go behind the exercise of that terrible responsibility we have to discharge.
That suggested to me that I should travel overseas in order to find out what decisions had been made on this very point by Speakers in the United Kingdom House of Commons. I find a decision of recent date by Mr. Speaker Morrison, which appears in volume 510 of parliamentary debates, fifth series, at column 845. The point is debated at great length and Mr. Speaker gives his ruling, and the discussion on that point of the exercise of the royal prerogative is included in columns 845 to 864. Mr. Silverman, a member of the United Kingdom house, had given notice of a motion to go on the order paper which read as follows:
"That this house respectfully dissents from the opinion of the Home Secretary that there were no sufficient reasons for advising the exercise of the royal clemency in the case of Derek Bentley; and urges him to reconsider the matter so as to give effect to the recommendation of the jury and to the expressed view of the lord chief justice"- who was the trial judge-"that Bentley's guilt was less than that of his co-defendant, Christopher Craig."
Mr. Speaker Morrison did not allow this notice of motion to go on the order paper. Therefore the next day Mr. Silverman raised the matter and questioned the authority of the Speaker in having done so. This matter was fully dealt with by Mr. Speaker Morrison and his action was found to be fully justified, but we will leave aside that particular point. In explaining why he had done that, Mr. Speaker Morrison gave his reason as follows. After having listened to the remarks of Mr. Silverman, who had questioned the authority of the Speaker to have removed his notice of motion bearing on the exercise of the royal prerogative, as I have indicated, Mr. Speaker, as reported in column 849 of the same volume, said:
I have listened to what the hon. member said, and I fully appreciate the deep feeling that exists in many parts of the country on this matter. I should like to state what my conception of my authority was for taking the action I took. The order paper is a document published by the authority of the house, and the Speaker is charged, among other duties, with doing his best to see that nothing out of order or irregular appears upon it.
Frequently the Speaker has had to intervene- I have myself-when motions are offered. I have convinced an hon. member that a motion was out of order or taken some action myself.
In this case, the motion of the hon. member, which I saw late last night, dealt with the case of a capital sentence which is still pending, and there is a long line of authorities of all my predecessors saying that, while a capital sentence is pending, the matter should not be discussed in the house.
The hon. member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) did refer to the general doctrine that any action of a minister, and any responsibility which he exercises departmentally, is one for which he is answerable to the house, but in this particular case of a sentence of a capital character which has not been executed, there is the strongest possible precedent for saying that the house should not discuss it, either by questions, on the motion for the adjournment of the house-
Which here is not debatable; therefore no debate could take place on such a motion here.
-or by any other means whatsoever. On that there is no doubt at all in my mind; it has been upheld by successive Speakers for a great number of years and I have the precedents here, if the house would like me to refer to them.
The most recent one is that of Mr. Speaker Clifton Brown. Many hon. members will remember the case of the executions taking place in the Gold Coast, which was not so very long ago-in 1947-and on which Mr. Speaker Clifton Brown then ruled. He was asked for a definite ruling, and he used these words:

"I would point out that, in my ruling of 10th March, I was dealing with the particular case of persons under sentence of death on the Gold Coast. My remarks were, therefore, directed to the question of the prerogative of mercy in the case of persons under sentence of death. It was the sentence of death that I had in mind when I said, by way of supplement to my ruling, that the Home Secretary could not be challenged on the advice he had given to His Majesty until after the sentence had been executed. This rule is, of course, not applicable to sentences of imprisonment. The practice of the house makes a complete distinction between capital sentences and other forms of punishment, so far as the prerogative of mercy is concerned. Whereas the remission of a sentence of imprisonment, for example, can be urged upon a minister at any time after its imposition, a capital sentence cannot be raised in question or debate while the sentence is pending. After it has been executed the minister responsible may be criticized on a relevant vote in supply or on the adjournment. I have stated that that is the practice of the house, and I cannot alter the practice of the house ..."
Mr. Speaker Morrison was quoting from the official report of 1st May, 1947, volume 436, columns 2180 and 2181. He concludes his ruling as follows:
Neither can I.
He means "alter the practice of the house".
The notice of motion, as it was submitted to me last night, was notice of a debate which would be wholly out of order and a debate which could not take place. It was therefore my view, in the circumstances, and acting under my duty, that this notice should not appear on the order paper because it was one which could not be debated in the House of Commons.
Now I come back to a part of this ruling which I think is very important to bear in mind. It was when Mr. Speaker Morrison said:
. . . but In this particular case of a sentence of a capital character which has not been executed, there is the strongest possible precedent for saying that the house should not discuss it, either by questions on the motion for the adjournment of the house or by any other means whatsoever.
I urge hon. members to read the whole debate which took place on that occasion in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom and which, as I said, appears in this volume 510 of debates on January 27, 1953, at columns 845 to 864. The case involved in this ruling is similar to that which was raised last night by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch). Considering that we do not have any precise rules on the point by our house, by virtue of our standing order 1 we can always refer to rulings which are tendered in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. I am placing this on the record for future guidance in these cases.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I wonder whether Your Honour would permit just one question. It is one that you could perhaps answer outside the house rather than tonight. Has Your
50433-244i
Wheat
Honour found any Canadian decision comparable to the one you have given us from the British house?


Mr. Speaker:: I have found no cases where the matter of the exercise of the royal prerogative was criticized or debated in the house in the manner in which that was done last night by the hon. member for Vancouver East. There were questions addressed to the ministry, and perhaps in certain cases notices of motions for the production of papers, which have always been refused because all correspondence pertaining to these matters are of a privileged and confidential character. There was a notice of motion, including such a case, proposed in 1917 and which is to be found at page 1018, May 2, 1917, debates volume I. Mr. Speaker Rhodes ruled it out of order on the ground suggested by the then minister of justice and also on the ground of anticipation. The debate appears at pages 1018 to 1023 of volume I, debates 1917. See also May's fifteenth edition, page 437.



FINAL PAYMENT, 1953-54

John Horne Blackmore: Mr. Speaker, at five o'clock I was dealing briefly with certain matters which had been mentioned in the debate on wheat this afternoon. I had referred to certain remarks made by the hon. member for Vancouver South, and had indicated that I proposed to deal with what he had said. May I now keep that promise for a few minutes.
The hon. member for Vancouver South had done me the honour of noticing that in previous years I had said that it would be feasible and sound, in certain circumstances, for the Dominion of Canada to advance money to Britain, or to other countries, with which Britain or those other countries might buy Canadian wheat. This appeared to the hon. member for Vancouver South rather extreme use of the credit of Canada.
I will not enter into the matter to any great extent at the present time. I merely choose to refer to the report of the royal commission on banking and currency in Canada, published in 1933, dealing with the work done under the Finance Act of 1914 by Sir Thomas White. I think the hon. member for Vancouver South will find there all the evidence he needs upon which to exercise his mind. From page 22 of that report, paragraph 47, I read as follows:
In the war session of August, 1914, parliament raised the partially covered issue to $50 million.
Now note these words particularly.
Subsequently an issue of $16 million was made against a deposit of railway securities guaranteed by the dominion government, as well as an uncovered issue of $10 million for governmental purposes.

Wheat
And then note these words:
In 1917 an emergency Issue of $50 million of dominion notes was made to finance war purchases in Canada, by the British government. The notes were secured by imperial treasury bills.
If I may, I should like to stop and discuss that matter for a moment. It is quite obvious that, in effect, the treasury of the Dominion of Canada created $50 million of bills and just as good as sent them to Great Britain, with which Great Britain could buy agricultural products in Canada. It was done.
I would now say this. If the Bank of Canada today cannot be used just as effectively, in such a situation, as was the Finance Act of 1914, it is time we re-enacted the Finance Act of 1914. For anyone to tell us that this financial transaction was in any way unsound would be for him to indicate a great deal less understanding of finance than a member of this house ought to have. When we remember that in those days the over-all production of Canada would not be any more than perhaps $4 billion a year, and that the gross national production of Canada this year is expected to be $26 billion -when we bear those facts in mind we shall readily realize that a great amount of money could now be created by Canada and advanced to any country to which she chose to advance it, to be used in purchasing Canadian goods.
People may say that is just the same as though we issued money in Canada and bought the goods ourselves. I will grant that. Why not? If the goods and services in the market in Canada are adequate and would absorb this money, the money can do no possible harm whatsoever.
Let me draw attention to one more aspect of this question. Suppose we were selling $100 million worth of wheat to France and were taking in exchange $100 million worth of French wine, silks and other products of France. Suppose France was not going to be able to deliver those goods to us for, let us say, some two months or three months. Would our people in Canada be obliged to wait those two or three months until the French goods reached Canada before they could receive payment for their wheat or other goods? Obviously not. What would be the technical financial operation under the circumstances? In effect, some financial agency representing the Dominion of Canada or some organization empowered by that body would create the money, buy the wheat or the other goods, and send it over to France. Then when the French goods got to Canada the money would be cancelled and the whole transaction would be completed. This may sound a little strange, but in these dangerous

years I think it is time we recalled this kind of transaction and reflected upon the advisability of using it.
May I now turn to page 85 of the report of the royal commission on banking and currency in Canada, published in 1933, and read a passage from the memorandum of dissent by Sir Thomas White, who was the finance minister of Canada all during world war I and who consequently knew as much about Canadian finance as probably any man who was ever in Canadian public life. I am going to read just a sentence or two. He says:
In respect of these advances to the British government-
He is there referring to advances other than that $50 million advance to which I referred. -aggregating more than twelve hundred million dollars it is to be observed that conversely that government made advances in sterling in London to the Canadian government to meet the expenditures of the latter in maintaining the Canadian forces abroad.
I think no comment is necessary with respect to that statement. It indicates that, during world war I, over $1,200 million was issued by the Canadian government and advanced to Great Britain so that Britain might buy Canadian goods. I see no reason why this kind of procedure cannot now be followed in connection with marketing our wheat where we need to market it, in Britain or in any one of several other nations. I am sorry the hon. member for Vancouver South is not in his seat. I trust that at some future time he will raise this matter again if it is not clear in his mind.


Edward George McCullough: Mr. Speaker, I intend to speak on a different matter from that which has been the topic of discussion so far today. I wish it were within my parliamentary right to answer some of the things the hon. member for Vancouver South said this afternoon. We have been discussing the wheat situation, and I want to refer to another matter of serious concern to the people of western Canada, the flood conditions in that area and particularly in the province of Saskatchewan.


Mr. Speaker:: May I interrupt the hon. member to ask him if he has not already spoken on this question during the budget debate? If not, I apologize for interrupting him, but I know several speeches were made on the flood situation in Saskatchewan during the budget debate. My recollection is that the hon. member took part in that debate and touched upon this subject matter. If that is not so, I apologize for interrupting him.


Edward George McCullough: Mr. Speaker, I mentioned the flood situation in Saskatchewan during the budget debate, but I take it I now have the right to bring up as a grievance the condition now existing in Saskatchewan. On that basis I want to say that Saskatchewan has had a doublebarrelled disaster. First we are faced-


Mr. Byrne:: The first was electing the C.C.F.


Edward George McCullough: -with falling farm prices. In addition, we have been hit by an unprecedented storm which has resulted in widespread chaos in the province of Saskatchewan.


Mr. Harris:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I have looked at the remarks of the hon. member which are to be found at page 3699 of Hansard, of May 12. He spoke at some length on flood conditions in Saskatchewan, the same subject on which he has now indicated it is his intention to speak.


Edward George McCullough: Mr. Speaker, unless you are going to rule me out of order I intend to put certain facts on record regarding this most serious situation. In 1953 and 1954 Saskatchewan was faced with precipitation in the form of snow and rain 150 per cent above normal. I have here a graph indicating the seriousness of the condition. It shows the normal median stream flow in one of the important Saskatchewan rivers, the Assiniboine, and indicates that the river has had a flow 900 per cent above normal. In addition the natural drainage basins in Saskatchewan are full, and the present situation is not normal.
The Saskatchewan government is prepared to take care of normal drainage in the province. In 1949 an act was passed in the province known as the conservation and development act, under which a conservation and development board was established. To date the province has expended through the board $2,424,000. As I stated at the beginning, the situation resulting from the recent storm is one which is unprecedented in any part of Canada.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member again, but I have looked at his remarks which appear at pages 3699 and 3700 of Hansard, and I find that at that time he did explain to the house how in his view the situation now obtaining in Saskatchewan was unprecedented and discussed very fully the condition in Saskatchewan that had resulted from the flood. I do not know how the hon. member can now touch on the question of the floods in Saskatchewan and avoid violating standing order 40, paragraph 2, which says that a member must not repeat himself. I must point out to him that means
Wheat
repeating not only his own arguments but arguments used by others.
Several hon. members spoke on the flood situation in the budget debate. I think the hon. member for Kootenay West was one, though I may be wrong.


Mr. Herridge:: I do not think so.


Mr. Speaker:: If I am, I withdraw. It was the hon. member for Saskatoon I had in mind, and there were also other members from the province of Saskatchewan who spoke on the flood situation. How can the hon. member for Moose Mountain now initiate a debate on the flood situation on the motion to go into supply without repeating himself, and even the arguments used by others with respect to the same situation?
I do not want to enter into a long debate or interfere with the right of the hon. member for Moose Mountain to express himself on a subject to which he has a right to allude at this time, but I ask hon. members if it is not reasonable on the part of the Chair to warn members that they should not do that which the rules prohibit. The hon. member knows what he was about to do with respect to this subject matter, and I am quite confident that if he was about to violate the rule he will not continue his remarks but will remain in his seat.
I am confronted with this problem. While we were discussing the budget, on the motion to go into ways and means, at which time great latitude is allowed, certain specific speeches were made on the flood situation in Saskatchewan. Now the hon. member has raised the subject again as a grievance on the motion to go into supply. If I allow the hon. member to do so when he has already spoken on this matter, how can I restrict other members who have already spoken in the budget debate on the same question, and prevent them from repeating their speeches?
Hon. members know it is very difficult for the Chair to administer standing order 40, paragraph 2, which has to do with repetition. It is so difficult that perhaps too much repetition is taking place in our debates on many subjects. Therefore I insist upon strict adherence to the rule. I invite the hon. member to deal with another subject if he so desires, but if he wishes to deal with this one his remarks will have to be very limited in scope.


Edward George McCullough: Mr. Speaker, I intend to change my subject completely and, if I am permitted, will speak on the announcement which was made yesterday by the Minister of Trade and Commerce with respect to the final payment on wheat. Saskatchewan farmers, as I say, are faced with a double-barrelled disaster.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: The first was electing the C.C.F.

Wheat


Edward George McCullough: 

SITUATION IN WESTERN PROVINCES

George Hugh Castleden: Mr. Speaker, the disaster which struck the province of Saskatchewan and western Manitoba earlier this month-perhaps the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek will allow me to say a few words; he may speak afterwards if he wishes-was reported as being of major proportions, so far as its effect on the farmers of that area is concerned.
It has required about a week and a half or two weeks to make a survey of the situation. The recent survey shows that although the western part of the province is not badly hit, the eastern part is suffering seriously, so seriously in fact that the farmers' union in that area wired most members of the House of Commons as follows:
Many thousands Saskatchewan farmers unable to seed crop this spring. Conditions desperate In widespread areas due to adverse weather and flooding. Saskatchewan fanners union stresses urgent need for program to alleviate distress. Situation demands immediate action. Union pledges full co-operation to implement adequate assistance program.
The constituency I represent in the eastern part of the province is traversed by the Assiniboine river. The farmers, particularly those in the valley of the Assiniboine, and with special reference to the area of Kam-sack, for the last three years have suffered from flooding. The result is that about 10,000 acres in that area will produce

Floods in Western Canada absolutely nothing. But their disaster is small when compared with what is happening in the rest of the province.
I have before me the official report made by government officials, in which they say, in part:
That a most serious situation exists was confirmed by supplementary reports from agricultural representatives, received on Thursday and Friday of last week. Their preliminary reports estimated a total of 4,760,000 acres of cultivated land flooded, and 14,810 farmers seriously affected by flooding.


Mr. Gardiner:: I rise on a point of order, to point out that the hon. member is proceeding to discuss just what Your Honour has said is out of order. You so indicated when the hon. member for Moose Mountain was speaking. I suggest the hon. member for Yorkton is also out of order to discuss the same matter.


George Hugh Castleden: I do not believe I have spoken on this subject.


Mr. Speaker:: When I interrupted the hon. member for Moose Mountain my remarks were based on the provisions of standing order 40 (2), which deals with the subject of repetition either of one's own arguments or of the arguments used by others in a debate.
While at the moment the hon. member for Yorkton may be using some -arguments used during the budget debate by other hon. members, at least he has not spoken on the matter of the flood. I have been looking at his remarks in Hansard for May 5 and, on glancing through them quickly, I can find no place where he discussed the flood. As a matter of fact I do not think it had taken place at that time.
On the other hand the hon. member for Moose Mountain had spoken on the subject of the flood, and when he intimated that he was about to do so again I referred to standing order 40 (2), as a result of which he was good enough not to further pursue his observations on this subject matter. I shall listen very carefully to the hon. member for Yorkton, and if he does cover ground which has already been covered by his colleagues from the same province I shall have to remind him of the same rule.


George Hugh Castleden: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I was speaking on May 5 I was referring to the fact that the explosion of atomic bombs in a desert region in the country to the south of us might have had some effect on the weather. I might add that since the last explosion of bombs in the Nevada desert we have had another three days of rain in eastern Saskatchewan, and some may think there is weight in my contention of that time.

I assure the house the figures I am now going to place on Hansard have not been given before. These are some of the facts and figures required by the government before it can assess properly whether or not it has the right to declare the flooding in western Canada a national disaster.


James Garfield Gardiner: The government has them already. The government has read that statement you are now going to read.


George Hugh Castleden: And thus far it has not made any declaration as to whether it considers the flooding a matter of sufficient importance to declare the area affected a disaster area. However, the government did ask for figures, and for an opportunity to assess the damage.
We are here tonight to present the case before the House of Commons in the hope that it might influence the government to make some decision as to whether the area affected can be declared a disaster area. The type of disaster involved in this instance perhaps is not as spectacular as was the case at Rimouski or the Fraser valley, where smaller areas were affected. This affects a sector as widespread as has ever been affected by disaster in Canada, and I believe it affects as many as if not more than were affected by the Winnipeg flood or the flood in the Fraser valley.
I suggest that in making its decision as to whether or not a disaster area shall be declared, the government should use these facts and figures, and that such figures should be available to members of the House of Commons when they are asked to make up their minds whether they should support the government in the request for assistance that has been made.
The eastern portion of the province is settled to a great extent by farmers who operate on a small scale, in most cases involving half or quarter sections of land. The largest proportion of the thickly settled part of Saskatchewan is in the eastern area. There are over 50,000 farmers in that province whose farmlands consist of one or two quarters. The census returns show that in those areas their net income was less than $2,500 a year per family. This area produced a badly frozen crop in 1952, a good average crop in 1953 with the exception of some parts which experienced flooding, and in 1954 rust and frost and floods and wet weather were involved. In their efforts to relieve the situation the provincial government has spent over $3,225,000.
The provincial department of highways has estimated that $1,208,000 worth of damage

has been done to the provincial highway system alone. The damage done in municipal areas, has not yet been properly estimated. It will take some time to get complete figures from the municipalities. The difficulties of communication have added to the difficulty of getting the estimate together. The main point is that the disaster is of such an unusual character that it is beyond the financial ability of either the province or the municipalities to bear, and they are making their plea for special consideration in the circumstances on the ground that it is an abnormal situation.
For instance, when the municipalities and the government make their surveys of the water flow through valleys and coulees, they construct their bridges on the basis of the engineering figures which show the average flow. They build their bridges a little above the average flow. When a disaster such as this occurs many millions of dollars worth of valuable and expensive construction is wiped out. Under these conditions we suggest that it is at least equal to the disasters which occurred in British Columbia and in Manitoba, and therefore we request that this be declared a disaster area.
The first essential is that some assistance be given toward flood control and the management of the areas where the flooding exists. The importance of the situation can be understood when it is appreciated that unless the flood waters now covering millions of acres of land are removed this year, it will be impossible for those farmers to sow any crop next year. The situation is not only important this year; it is a matter of concern to them even next year. It is on that basis that we think assistance should be given. Surely the federal government can see that it is in the national interest that those areas should be allowed to produce.
The people of the west are celebrating their golden jubilee this year. The people who inhabit the western provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta overcame tremendous difficulties. They went in there 50 years ago as pioneers, not knowing the difficulties and the problems they were to face in breaking new land. They knew nothing of the hard winters and the blizzards they were going to face, and the difficulties of establishing themselves. There were no records of what the country would produce. Any records there were indicated that no one would ever produce wheat in that area, anyway.
However, they went there and they pioneered. They faced difficulties. They are the kind of people who can face difficulties. In fact, I think one of the things that has established the fine character of the people out there is that they learned to work together,
Floods in Western Canada they learned to help one another in adversity. By helping one another they have overcome their difficulties, and they have built the country that is there. It will take more than a flood to defeat those people. They merely ask that, in co-operation with their fellow Canadians, some assistance be given. They believe assistance should be made available to take care of unusual and abnormal expenditures that will be required as a result of this flood.
Reports coming to my desk already indicate that many farmers have been unable to go to town, to the shopping centres. Hundreds of bridges have been wiped out. Many of these people are going to be isolated on their farms unless they can get to town on horseback, or by some other means of transportation. With such a situation existing, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that it is Canada's responsibility to recognize its seriousness not only immediately but also with respect to the crop for next year.
They will find the government of that province willing to co-operate in every way to assist them in assessing the situation. The provincial government has undertaken surveys which will cover most of the areas affected, but it is utterly impossible for the provincial government or the municipal government to stand the costs of flood control and the drainage problems that face them at this time. I think it is only fair and just that assistance should be given. I feel sure the Canadian people would give their support to assistance to their fellow Canadians in a situation such as this.
Reports that have come to me in the last three days indicate that the situation started to ease somewhat in that area, but rains have begun to fall and the situation at this time is particularly grim. I point out to hon. members who are not familiar with the situation that the seeding of the wheat crop in that country in the good years usually starts around April and is completed around the middle of May. In the average seeding area of the province they like to have their crop in around May 15. Good crops have been put in as late as the beginning of June. These are usually coarse grain crops. Some parts of the western provinces have already seeded, but for about 40 per cent of the wheat farmers of that province there will be no wheat crop this year. They will be very fortunate if they are able to seed a coarse grain crop after the first week in June and harvest it this year; but for many thousands-


Clarence Decatur Howe: May I ask a
question? Did I understand the hon. member to say that only 60 per cent of the wheat

Floods in Western Canada crop will be seeded this year? I believe he said 40 per cent of the crop will not be seeded.


George Hugh Castleden: It is estimated that 40 per cent of the wheat acreage in the eastern part of Saskatchewan will not be seeded this year.


Clarence Decatur Howe: What does the hon. member consider to be the eastern part?


George Hugh Castleden: The eastern half of the
province.


Clarence Decatur Howe: That means 20 per cent of the acreage will not be seeded?


George Hugh Castleden: I said that 40 per cent would not be sown to wheat.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Twenty per cent of the whole province?


George Hugh Castleden: Well, that would be approximately it, but there are larger areas in the west.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member is really speaking only of the area north of Moose Mountain.


George Hugh Castleden: If the minister looks at the map which he says he has he will see that the area south of the main line of the C.P.R., even down in the Moose Mountain area, clean through to the Tisdale area and the Hudson Bay area in the north, is affected.


James Garfield Gardiner: The map presented to the government yesterday showed the area as north of Moose Mountain.


George Hugh Castleden: I shall be glad to have the minister's remarks on it, because I think the hon. member for Qu'Appelle will inform him that those large areas south of the Qu'Appelle river are very seriously affected, and certainly the Moose Mountain area as well. I cannot hear what the minister is saying. I shall be pleased to hear more from him on the matter.
I point out to the house that the next two weeks will be the critical period for the people in that area. The problem that exists, and the matter with which they are particularly ^ concerned at the moment, is that of draining the excessive moisture off the land so that with the weather's co-operation next year they will be able to put in a crop. I am pleading with the government at this time to look at the situation in a sympathetic way. I presume they have already had their representatives out to assist the provincial government in a proper assessment of the situation, and that action will be taken equivalent to the needs of the people of that province.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Comox-Alberni.


Mr. Barnett:: Mr. Speaker, I have another subject which I wish to raise. If the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Zaplitny) is continuing with the same subject matter, I have no objection to his proceeding.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the hon. member for Dauphin going to speak about the flood?


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Yes, sir.


Mr. Speaker:: I shall make the same plea to the hon. member, because as I was listening to the hon. member for Yorkton I noticed that, although he did not speak on the Saskatchewan flood at the page I indicated earlier, on other pages, 3504 and 3505, he had spoken about the flood. I realize that his remarks on that occasion were brief, and that today he was enlarging upon them. Now I hope the hon. member for Dauphin will limit himself to the bare necessities in introducing new matters with respect to the conditions existing in Saskatchewan, because we have already had several speeches concerning the disaster which occurred there.


An hon. Member:: The flood of words has been worse than the flood itself.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I wish to take only a brief time, and the matter I wish to raise is a definite grievance so far as the province of Manitoba is concerned. Whilst the situation in Manitoba is not nearly as serious as that in Saskatchewan, nevertheless there are large areas in the northwestern part of the province which have now been subject to flood waters for the third year running. The reason I wish to raise this matter now is that I should like to hear from the Minister of Agriculture as to his plans with regard to extension of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act.


James Garfield Gardiner: Let me get along to my estimates and I shall tell you all about it.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: I should be very glad to wait until then if the minister would indicate at this time that it is his intention to bring in legislation, if necessary, or to extend the regulations so as to make the act applicable to all parts of Manitoba. We have had a very serious flooding condition in our part of the province, as I have said, for three years now. A number of representations have been made, not only by the municipalities, by individuals and organizations in that area but, as a matter of fact, by the provincial government of Manitoba through its minister of agriculture, who has joined forces with the three other ministers of agriculture in recommending to the federal government that the act be extended so as to include all

agricultural areas in the four prairie provinces. Until this time we have had no indication whatever as to the opinion of the government in that respect, and I think a statement at this time-


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, if I may be permitted to answer my hon. friend at once, I may say that I have just answered a letter today from the minister of agriculture of Manitoba on that point, a letter in which he tells me that the question has been referred to the dominion-provincial conference.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Mr. Speaker, I do not know just what the matter was that was referred to the dominion-provincial conference.


James Garfield Gardiner: The very question you have just recited to the house; the question as to whether or not P.F.R.A. should be extended to all parts of the three prairie provinces.


An hon. Member:: And British Columbia.


Frederick Samuel Zaplitny: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear at this time that the question was discussed between the province and the federal government. May I point out that the reason we consider this matter a grievance in Manitoba is that over the period of time the act has been in effect, since 1935 up to 1954, while the total expenditures under the act came to some $89 million, in round figures, only $5,860,000 was spent in the province of Manitoba, which represents a little less than 7 per cent of the total. With respect to Saskatchewan about $40 million was spent, which represents about 47 per cent; in Alberta a little over 46 per cent, for a total of $39 million, and a little over 3 per cent in British Columbia.
At various times when the provincial government of Manitoba has been approached for assistance for these areas that are subject to flooding, such as the constituency which I represent, parts of the constituency of Churchill and parts of Portage-Neepawa, the reply has been that as soon as the federal government makes up its mind whether it is going to extend the provisions of the act in order to include all parts of Manitoba, the province would be in a position to say what they are going to do.
There are several large projects which I have no doubt are beyond the capacity of the province, and which are very necessary. There is the recommendation that a dam or a reservoir be built on the Assiniboine river. There is the question of lowering the levels of lakes such as lake Manitoba, lake Winnipegosis and probably even lake Winnipeg. Projects of that nature are beyond the capacity of the province, quite obviously. Members of the
Floods in Western Canada provincial legislature-and I refer to members who support the government there-have stated in the provincial house that the federal government is discriminating against Manitoba. I am not going to say I agree with them, but that is their opinion.
If the minister would recommend to this government that the operations of that act be made equally applicable in Manitoba along with the other two prairie provinces, a great deal of that dissatisfaction and discontent might disappear. But on the face of it, from the figures I have just quoted, it certainly appears that in Manitoba we are not getting our fair share of the flood control work and other types of work that can be done under the act in order to prevent soil erosion and to hold back flood waters in the areas that have suffered.
I am going to leave it at that, Mr. Speaker. Since the minister has stated that the matter is to be discussed at the dominion-provincial conference, I hope that as soon as that conference is over the minister will come to this house with some legislation, if necessary, or will announce a change in the regulations to extend the act to cover all parts of Manitoba.


James Garfield Gardiner: To get this correctly on the record, what I have said is that I answered a letter today from the minister of agriculture in Manitoba in which he states that the Manitoba government have submitted the question to the dominion-provincial conference.


William Scottie Bryce: Mr. Speaker, I have had a good deal of correspondence in connection with the problem on which the hon. member for Dauphin rose to speak. Before I begin, I wish to assure you that I have not spoken previously on the Saskatchewan flood. I wish to talk about my own constituency and the interlake country. I am the only member from there, so nobody else has talked about it. I was hoping that if I had the opportunity to speak on the motion to go into supply the minister would be able to answer my questions when the estimates come up. I still hope he will. He has now stated that he has had correspondence with the provincial government, and that they are going to bring up the matter and discuss it at the dominion-provincial conference.
I have a resolution from Gypsumville, which I am going to read into the record. There are people there who cannot get on their land to sow their crops or anything now. Some had practically no crops in 1954, and they have nothing in 1955. Those who had a little crop last year were brought under the P.F.A.A., but the man who never sowed a crop received nothing, and we do not have
3868	HOUSE OF
Floods in Western Canada P.F.R.A. in the interlake country yet. I am hoping we will get it. Some of these farms have been cultivated for 40 or 50 years. Yet today people are going across them in motorboats. There is no hope whatever that these fellows will be able to put in any crop. It is not as though it was new land that had just been broken, or anything like that. This land has been in cultivation for a long time.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think that your ruling a while ago rules out me and everybody else. I therefore want to get this matter straight. The hon. member who is speaking and I had a heated discussion over this matter during the debate on the address in this house. The whole matter was up for discussion at that time. As a matter of fact I went over to the hon. member's seat and discussed the matter with him afterward.


Mr. Speaker:: I recall that the hon. member has asked several questions on the orders of the day relating to the problem with regard to which the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Zaplitny) has entertained us, and the discussion of which is now being continued by the hon. member for Selkirk. As the minister recalls, the matter was debated on the address. There is no purpose in having repetition.
The hon. member must keep in mind the fact that when the estimates of the Department of Agriculture are before the committee he can speak as often as he wishes, and he can pursue the matter at that time. I would urge hon. members to realize that at this moment we are debating a motion to go into supply with the Speaker in the chair, and we are supposed to raise genuine grievances, not to repeat points which have been raised time and again since the beginning of the session.


William Scottie Bryce: I am going to try to obey your ruling, Mr. Speaker; but believe me, if ever any man had a grievance, I have one speaking in behalf of these poor people in the interlake country who are being flooded out.
As far as the minister is concerned, I may say that he came over and spoke to me.
I appreciated him doing so. But if he thought he was talking about my problem may I say that I do not think so. We were talking about P.F.A.A. down in the lower part of the interlake country.


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend was talking about P.F.A.A. being paid because the lands were flooded.


William Scottie Bryce: Yes, but we were not flooded in the way we are now. I hope you are


going to let me continue, Mr. Speaker, because I have waited for this opportunity. I have nursed this grievance until I could get this opportunity on the motion to go into supply.
The situation on the east side of lake Manitoba, where we do not have much arable land and not much cultivation goes on, is this. We have there the ranches and the people who raise cattle for a living. What is happening there is that these people have no place to graze their cattle. Some of them have already left. Some of them have sold their chattels and moved to town, thus helping to augment the 600,000 people who are unemployed. That is a bad situation. We want to keep as many people on the farms as we can.
Then let us look at the situation on the west side of lake Winnipeg. I have here letters I could read-but I shall not do so, Mr. Speaker-indicating that the water is taking away some of the land every day. The situation is worse this year than it has ever been. One fellow says that the water is high but the taxes are still higher, and we are paying the same taxes for less land every year.
The problem there is this. When these fellows go to the federal government they are told that they had better see the provincial fellows. Then when they go to the provincial fellows they are told that this is a navigable lake and they must see the federal government. It is a matter of passing the buck. It just keeps people running around trying to get something done. Now we are told that it is going to be taken up at the dominion-provincial conference.


James Garfield Gardiner: No, I did not tell you that.


William Scottie Bryce: You said the minister of agriculture, I think, in the provincial government has it on the agenda. How long are these people going to suffer in that way? I want to cut short these remarks. However,
I want to read this resolution. It was passed at a meeting at Gypsumville at which there were 75 people in attendance, 22 of whom were directly or seriously affected:
Whereas many of us have been totally deprived of the means of making a living at farming and ranching, while others have been very seriously affected by the lake waters flooding our lands-a condition that was prevalent in 1954 and is even more disastrous at the present time-and,
Whereas under the best of circumstances it will be two more years before the waters can recede enough to allow us to use our land again, and
Whereas those of us who have been growing grain on the flooded land have been left with no means to even grow feed for our livestock.
Therefore be it resolved that we urge most strongly on the government responsible that measures be taken to allay the possibility of total

"bankruptcy for some of us and grievous hardship for others-these measures to consist of compensation for the loss of use of the land in the form of cash payments to tide us over the critical period.
I have many more letters I could read, but I know that people are going to be angry with me if I take too long. I think it was the Minister of Agriculture who told me that between the dominion government and provincial governments they are spending $300,000 a year in order to alleviate the conditions brought about by this catastrophe. But it is a matter of "Live, old horse, and you will get corn". Something must be done now. Don't wait until the people are all dead and another generation comes along. I have brought this matter to the attention of the minister previously. I know he has replied that it was receiving attention.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker will not allow me to do so, or I would answer the hon. member now.


William Scottie Bryce: Yes, but your answers are so vague that I no longer have any faith in them. I am sorry to say that. I think the minister should take this matter seriously. It is no laughing matter. There are hundreds of farmers out there. I do not know whether or not they will ever recover from this catastrophe. I hope the federal and provincial governments will get together at the earliest possible opportunity in order to ascertain how the people in these distressed communities can be helped. I want to appeal to the Prime Minister and to the members of the cabinet for immediate action to help these people in their terrible plight at this time.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of pursuing the matter of flooding which has been raised by some of the hon. members who have spoken previously, even though I recognize that it is a most serious topic. The matter I wish to raise is one which quite conceivably could either augment or completely eliminate the flooding problem to which recent reference has been made.
The matter I wish to raise, Mr. Speaker, is that of rain-makers. I think this is a new topic as far as the current session of parliament is concerned. In raising it at this time I feel that I shall not be guilty of any undue repetition. Spotted at various points on Vancouver island are a number of rain-making machines. Some hon. members who know something of Vancouver island may wonder what we are doing with rain-making machines there. I know, for example, that one community in my constituency was recently described in a newspaper headline as having
Floods in Western Canada had 12 feet of rain in 12 months, and that was a fairly accurate statement.


Mr. Speaker:: May I ask the hon. member if he will be kind enough to tell the house how he relates the matter of rain-making machines to the jurisdiction of the federal parliament? The hon. member must speak about matters which relate to our jurisdiction. It must be a matter concerning which we may be able to do something. If we cannot do anything about rain-making machines, the hon. member may not speak about them now. We have already had a speech on the weather this session, and perhaps we could be relieved now.


An hon. Member:: Change the subject.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: In all seriousness I am raising this question, in part at least, because I believe it is one with respect to which the question of jurisdiction, constitutionally or otherwise, may well have to be dealt with. In view of the recent discussion I realize that my remarks may appear to Your Honour to be related to a certain flood situation, but I can assure you that at the time I decided in my own mind I would raise this subject as a grievance I was completely unaware that the other matter which has been discussed was going to be raised. In all seriousness, the situation is that on Vancouver island a number of rain-making machines have been set up. I took the trouble to go and view one of these installations which, if I understand correctly, operates on the principle of having silver iodide crystals released into a mechanism in which they are ignited.


Mr. Speaker:: I must ask the hon. member to tell the house immediately how he relates the jurisdiction of this parliament to the conditions he is about to describe to us.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Speaker, I assume this matter would come within the jurisdiction of the federal department, having to do with meteorological services; or would come within the purview of the activities of the national research council, and it is also a matter which could very well involve interprovincial relations. As I stated somewhat facetiously, I admit, in conversation with some of my colleagues, if this situation were permitted to develop it is conceivable that we in British Columbia would have the power to turn the entire prairie provinces into a desert by taking all the water out of the clouds coming in from the Pacific. Inasmuch as there does not seem to be any governmental jurisdiction at the present time, a serious question arises as to the right of certain private concerns to establish these installations.

Floods in Western Canada


Mr. Speaker:: I want to be very generous toward the hon. member. I know what the situation is. Members have the right to raise grievances on the motion to go into supply, but I think the hon. member is finding it too difficult to relate his rain-making machines to the jurisdiction of this parliament. He has not said very much to establish that point; in reply to the question I felt it was my duty to ask him, he has not been very specific. If the matter the hon. member wishes to raise now is linked at some point or other with one of our federal departments, could the hon. member not wait and raise the matter when the estimates of the proper department are before the house? If he thinks it relates to agriculture he may deal with it on the estimates of that department. If he thinks it concerns the national research council he may discuss it on the estimates of the Department of Trade and Commerce, the minister of that department being responsible for national research council activities.
But not being quite sure at this time how or in what way it is related to the jurisdiction that we have here as the House of Commons, I think he should delay his remarks until he is more positive, and then use the machinery provided for him to raise these points as often as he wishes when the estimates of the respective departments concerned are before the committee of supply. If the hon. member does not feel he is being unfairly treated at this point I would urge him to consider very seriously leaving this matter in abeyance until a further opportunity is afforded to him.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Speaker, it was precisely because of the fact that as far as I am concerned I did not know under which departmental estimates I might raise the matter that I felt this would be the appropriate occasion to raise it as a grievance.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member, in trying to find out to what department the matter belongs, makes a 40 minute speech and then finds out when the estimates are up that he should not have raised it at all because it does not come within the ambit of any department, he will have caused the House of Commons to lose 40 minutes of its time. This is a very serious matter. I think the hon. member should make sure that it lies within the jurisdiction of this parliament to do something about the matter before he proceeds to bring it up. In Beauchesne's third edition, pages 699 to 702, he will find a ruling which might give him comfort, but, with great respect, I am not in agreement with Mr. Speaker Sevigny's ruling on that occasion.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Would I be in order to say that in the first place I had no intention of making a 40 minute speech? My purpose in rising was to put forward a grievance on behalf of some of the people in my district, and request that the government take under consideration the advisability of introducing some form of legislation to cover the situation. As far as I am aware no legislation exists at the present time, and it is on that point I wish to raise my grievance, the necessity for the consideration of the establishment of legislation to cover a situation which I feel to be a matter of general responsibility that can only be looked after properly by the government.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Put it on the agenda for the dominion-provincial conference.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Dr. Gordon Shrum of the University of British Columbia expressed the opinion some little time ago that the question of whether or not legislation should be introduced to control the installation of such machines could very well be taken under advisement. I assume it would come within the jurisdiction of the federal government under the Department of Transport or-


An hon. Member:: External affairs.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: -some other department. As it is a matter of growing concern to the residents of my area I wished to raise it as a grievance on this occasion.


Mr. Speaker:: The point the hon. member has in mind is so hypothetical that before he raises it as a grievance now I believe he should ascertain whether or not it is within the jurisdiction of this parliament to deal with the matter he has in mind. If we were to take his line of argument as being sound there are many things we would be trying to bring up in debate here, asking ourselves whether or not some day they would not fall within the jurisdiction of this parliament. The hon. member is reasonable and I do not think he will be prejudicing himself or the people he represents if this matter is delayed until the estimates of the proper department are before the committee of supply. In the meantime I feel it would be wise on his part not to press the point, and I am asking his co-operation at this time.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: I am quite agreeable to cooperate in the matter, Mr. Speaker. I believe perhaps the purpose I had in drawing the attention of the government and the house to the matter has been served well enough for the moment.


William Gilbert Weir: I do
not know, Mr. Speaker, whether or not you will consider the remarks I am about to make

strictly in order. It is true that they could properly be made during the consideration of the estimates of some department, probably the Department of Agriculture, but my good friend the hon. member for Selkirk has prompted me to say a word or two with respect to the flood condition in Saskatchewan and Manitoba at the present time. If I should not continue with these remarks I shall abide by your ruling.
However, I would say this at the outset. While hon. members from Saskatchewan are complaining bitterly, and properly so, about the catastrophe that has occurred in their province as the result of abnormal rainfall and flooding, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the members of this house, that much of that same water is finding its way down through the province of Manitoba and causing us some very serious problems there. I can imagine that right tonight on the Assini-boine river there are dozens and dozens of men out manning the dikes in an attempt to prevent that river from overflowing its banks. This river is taking much of the overflow that is coming from the province of Saskatchewan.
We cannot do anything about keeping that water out. It is an abnormal flow, it is true, but I assure you that the hon. member for Selkirk did not exaggerate the condition in Manitoba at the present time. I think he will agree with me that if any attack of a fundamental and practical character upon the situation were to be undertaken the cost would shock this house. I may say that lake Manitoba is over three and a half feet above normal, and this is causing considerable damage to the adjacent farmlands and to a very fashionable summer resort on that lake.
This lake flows into a lake in my hon. friend's constituency. The people on my side of the lake would like to open a channel and pour more water into lake Winnipeg, but we are faced with very violent protests at such a plan. I would suggest to this house that any plan of effective control would have to be carried right through to the Nelson river flowing into Hudson bay. I am only making this statement to give you some idea of the magnitude of the problem that is facing Manitoba.
At this time the Assiniboine river is carrying the bulk of this run-off water. It is threatening not only the low lands in the city of Brandon but many farm areas along the way. There has been a recommendation that the Assiniboine river might be dammed in the neighbourhood of Russell, a proposition which the engineers have estimated would cost in the neighbourhood of $6 to $10 million. There has been another suggestion that the Assiniboine river might be diverted into lake Manitoba, the lake which
Floods in Western Canada I have stated is already about three and a half feet above normal. This is another proposition that would cost from $6 to $10 million, to say nothing of the cost of a diversion to run the water from lake Manitoba into lake Winnipeg and then carry the whole thing out to the Nelson river.
We have another side of the problem which is not quite so serious with respect to the Assiniboine river. It is true these conditions are abnormal. We have had too much rainfall and too much snow for the ordinary streams to carry the run-off. In my opinion there is still another problem that has played some part, to a limited degree, in creating this situation. During the last 10 or perhaps 15 years we have had great advances in machinery, particularly bulldozers run by caterpillar tractors. They have been very useful and convenient in clearing scrub land. Much of the land that used to be bush or scrub has been cleared and put into production. In addition, the same machines have been found very satisfactory in making ditches and helping to build drains. The result of this has been to speed up the flow of water, so the ordinary facilities have not been able to take care of this very quick run-off.
I am sure anyone from Manitoba fully recognizes that Manitoba has a problem of considerable magnitude at the present time. If attacked in a practical and effective manner it is going to be extremely costly. It is a problem which I admit is beyond the resources of the municipalities and the province to cope with. At the same time, I do not think there is any disposition on the part of the federal government not to lend some measure of co-operation to Manitoba, just as the government has elsewhere in attacking these problems.
In saying that, I should like to be very specific and say that I do not think anyone is going to suggest at any time or any place that the jurisdiction or responsibility for attacking this problem in our province rests with the federal government alone. I do not think our people in Manitoba would welcome the end result which that sort of policy would mean. I do not believe Manitoba, while welcoming financial support, would say that sole jurisdiction for meeting the situation that has been created in our province should be turned over to the federal government.
I leave that with you. But I point out that we still have the recollection of other floods in our province which have had very serious consequences, and the remedy for which has not as yet been provided or attacked. Because of the particular topography of our province

Public Service-Veterans Preference cost requirements are presented to which no one has yet been prepared to face up.
These people along lakes Manitoba and Winnipeg and in the St. Martin area, and along the Assiniboine river are deeply concerned. Many of them have been seriously affected, and many are suffering heavy losses. Many of them, as in Saskatchewan, will find it difficult to seed a crop.
I might add, too, that we had one other serious misfortune this spring on that same Assiniboine river, something which no one could foresee, which no one could foretell, and against which no protection could be guaranteed. I refer to the ice jam which occurred on the river when it was almost at full flow. It caused considerable damage by flooding the lower reaches and necessitating the moving of several hundred families from Portage la Prairie. This in turn brought the problem of the river overflowing its banks and flooding an extensive area.
So I would not like it to be thought that the problem of flood conditions and excess water applies only to Saskatchewan. It may apply to Saskatchewan in a very serious manner, but it also applies to Manitoba, and at the present time largely because of water coming from Saskatchewan.
I have had discussions with several people including flood control committees, members of the provincial legislature, our own Minister of Agriculture and federal members from Manitoba, in an effort to see what approach would be considered the soundest and most logical to meet these abnormal conditions. The irony is, as the hon. member for Selkirk knows, that it was only a matter of 12 or 15 years ago that the Fairford river, which presents one of the problems in this picture, was dammed up in order to keep up the level in lake Manitoba. I offer this only as an indication of how abnormal conditions develop, and just how difficult they are to cope with.
It is one of those times when we have to sit down with those who are most affected and try to work out a solution that will be of value, whether through the building of dams, the building of further cut-offs, the placing of diversion channels or the buying up of lands of those who are affected. Some approach of that kind must be recognized. I believe it will be faced up to, and I would hope in the not too distant future.



VETERANS PREFERENCE FOR CIVIL SERVICE POSITIONS

Mr. J. W. Noseworthy (York South):: Mr. Speaker, since this is an open field day for complaints I wish to use seven or eight of
[Mr. Welr.l

the remaining ten minutes this evening to register another complaint that has come to me from veterans in my riding. I would hope the complaint or grievance is ill-founded.
I find that as we get further from the war years there is a growing suspicion among veterans' bodies that less and less attention is being paid to that clause in the veterans' charter which gives them some initial preference in the matter of seeking employment in the civil service. Coupled with that is the growing feeling or suspicion that the employment of veterans particularly is gradually passing out of the hands of the civil service commission and being taken over by the heads of government departments.
I have received a number of letters from veterans stressing both these points. Then only a few days ago there came to my desk, as I presume it did to others, a series of resolutions adopted by the dominion civil service war veterans' association. This document contains some 18 resolutions calling attention to the grievances of members of that association, and I find that some of these grievances are in line with those I have received from individual veterans who live in my riding. It is to one or two of those grievances I wish to call the attention of the Secretary of State (Mr. Pinard) and the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Lapointe).
Among these resolutions is one asking that a representative of veterans' organizations be required to sit in as an observer at all civil service examinations. Officers of the Canadian Legion tell me that the practice is fairly generally followed, but I have had instances brought to my attention where veterans have left examinations after being assured by the small group of examiners or interviewers that they were qualified in every respect, only to find perhaps six weeks later that for some reason or another they had failed to pass the test.
Another resolution is to the effect that heads of all departments should be required to adhere to the principle of veterans' preference. The comment made, which is in line with individual grievances I have received, is to the effect that many heads of government departments when making appointments bypass entirely the principle of veterans' preference. Veterans tell me that even where positions are advertised stating that a preference will be given to veterans, upon application for such positions they have found that the positions have been already filled by persons on the government patronage list.

Then here is another resolution and comment. Here is a reputable veterans' organization which claims that veterans with pensionable disabilities lying in hospital are actually informed by letter that unless they maintain better attendance on the job they will be fired. I say that is no way to treat veterans. I suggest that a check-up be made, particularly with this association, to see what evidence there is for this charge.
Here is another charge. It is said that in many instances orders in council are superseded by departmental orders. There is a resolution to the effect that departmental orders be no longer permitted to revoke or change orders in council unless a new order in council has been passed. I say those charges, Mr. Speaker, are very much in line with some of the complaints I have heard and received in letters from veterans in my riding. They show that the further we get away from war the greater the tendency is to forget the debt we owe to veterans, and the greater the tendency to overlook them in favour of those who have not seen service.
I bring this matter to the attention of the government at the request of individual veterans in my riding and in support of the resolutions presented by the dominion civil service war veterans' association.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Applewhaite in the chair.
Supply



DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE PRODUCTION

[Stage Direction]
85. Departmental administration and payments to Canadian Commercial Corporation and other corporate agencies for services provided in connection with defence purchasing and production, $6,391,430.
Walter Edward Harris: Stand.
Item stands.
DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES 128. Departmental administration, $307,840.


Walter Edward Harris: Stand.
Item stands.
DEPARTMENT OF MINES AND TECHNICAL SURVEYS 208. Departmental administration, $487,991.


Walter Edward Harris: Stand.
Item stands.
DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL HEALTH AND WELFARE 245. Departmental administration, $1,246,846.


Walter Edward Harris: Stand.
Item stands.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Walter Edward Harris: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we shall follow the order of business I indicated on Friday night. However, I am not sure whether the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, or someone on his behalf, will be able to take the Yukon quartz mining resolution.
On motion of Mr. St. Laurent the house adjourned at 9.57 p.m.

Wednesday, May 18, 1955