1955-07-08

[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime
Minister): I should like to lay on the table a copy of the order in council with respect to the authorization of an insurance policy for the purchase of wheat by the Polish government. The decision had been made on June 15, 1955.
The hon. member had asked me to ascertain the exact date. The formal order in council was passed only yesterday. There had to be details ascertained; but the decision had been made, and hon. members will know that frequently decisions are made by cabinet with instructions that an order in council be prepared and passed. There is, I would not like to call it a routine committee, but I shall call it a small committee of the cabinet which meets more frequently than the whole committee, and it had a meeting yesterday afternoon and passed the order in council which I am now tabling.
Mr. Donald M. Fleming (Eglinton):: May I
ask the Prime Minister if this is an order in council passed under section 21 of the Export Credits Insurance Act-in other words, one not in the ordinary course of business of the corporation?


Mr. St. Laurent:: It is under section 21 of the act, yes.


Hon. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, while this might be a question that might more properly be asked on the orders of the day, it might be simpler to ask it now. Would the Prime Minister tell us, in view of the fact that there was some time lapse between the decision and the actual order, whether there are any other decisions of a similar nature, of which we have not yet been informed, but which require orders in council under section 21 of the Export Credits Insurance Act.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: No. There were no other decisions made. There had been no other application for a decision. There was a question at the time of there also being the possibility of a sale of wheat being arranged
with Hungary, but it had not reached the stage where it was felt that a decision was necessary.


George Alexander Drew: Would that be under terms
similar to those accorded to Poland?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Yes, the original-


George Alexander Drew: I mean in regard to the advance.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Yes, the original suggestion was that there would be a cash payment of only 10 per cent. We found that was not sufficient, and decided that they would be informed that if there was a cash payment of 15 per cent an insurance policy for the payment of the balance within 12 months could be authorized.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Prime Minister in relation to the matter discussed earlier, namely the order in council passed under section 21 of the Export Credits Insurance Act, whether the government satisfied itself that the government of Poland was not in a position to pay cash for the wheat that was sold?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Well, we satisfied ourselves that whether they were in a position to pay cash or not they would not have made the deal on a cash basis. Their representations were to the effect that they did not have the dollars immediately available but would have them available in the 12 months, and we insisted that there be at least a cash payment on delivery of 15 per cent.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, in relation to the question asked by the hon. member for Eglinton, might I ask the Prime Minister this question? In view of certain press comments on this subject, is an effort being made to outbid the United States in the disposition of wheat and foodstuffs? I have before me as an example the report of the financial editor of the Toronto Telegram of July 6 which points out that this is one of the greatest loss-leader sales in history, referring to the Czechoslovakia transaction, and suggests-I do not want to go further than that-that Mr. Gardiner is conducting a series of loss-leader transactions by way of retaliation for the procedure adopted in the United States. I think if there is anything in that we should know it.



S860 HOUSE OF

[Stage Direction]
Wheat-Negotiations with Poland Mr. Si. Laureni: Mr. Speaker, I think it is of value to the Canadian economy that the Leader of the Opposition should raise this question and allow it to be cleared up here. There is no attempt to create as a retaliation against United States policy loss-leader sales. As a matter of fact there is no loss-leader factor involved in this. The butter was sold at the European world price for butter and the wheat is being sold at the prevailing Canadian price for wheat.
I understand that the reason these purchases were made from Canada was that the United States law does not permit them to make sales to those countries. As the Leader of the Opposition knows, they have been making sales to countries to which the law permits them to do so. I say making sales; they have been making deliveries for the currency of the purchaser and even in other cases for other considerations that do not represent cash available for the producers.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. H. Castleden (Yorkton):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Perhaps in his absence the parliamentary assistant will take it as notice. What arrangements have been made to permit producers to deliver their final quota of grain, as announced yesterday by the minister, to the elevator of their own choice?


Mr. J. H. Dickey (Parliamentary Assistant lo the Minister of Trade and Commerce):: The
question will be taken as notice and drawn to the minister's attention.



ALLEGED DELAY IN BRINGING DOWN RETURNS TO ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, I have had searches made with respect to the remarks yesterday of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) about returns. I must say I was rather surprised at his statement that there was a return due since December of 1953. I have ascertained that after that order was made the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) wrote a letter to the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefen-baker), the mover, explaining to him the, while not absolute objections, reasons suggested by the government of the United States that it would not be desirable to have that correspondence published and available


to the press, and sending copies for the personal information of the hon. member. He acknowledged receipt of the copies sent to him and said that he would discuss it with the Secretary of State for External Affairs; and it just remained in that position. So that is the explanation for that item.
The next is a return ordered on February 9 for the correspondence in connection with the purchase of lumber and building materials required by the department of Indian affairs in Prince Albert and northern Saskatchewan. There were several very voluminous files, and the minister wrote on March 3, 1955, to the hon. member giving him a list of the contracts that had been made, and asking him if he required the correspondence with respect to all the contracts, or if there were one or more in which he was particularly interested. It has remained in that position since that time.
An order was made on March 9, on the motion of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), requesting the correspondence between the federal government and the provincial governments relating to the calling of the federal-provincial conference. The return was prepared. Letters were written to all the provincial premiers concerned on April 1, asking for their acquiescence in the tabling of this correspondence. Answers were received from all but the premier of Ontario. A follow-up letter was written to him on June 17, reminding him that there had been no answer to-the letter of April 1, and that letter of June 17 has not yet been answered. The return has been ready, but we were waiting for the answer.
There was a return ordered on April 25, on motion of the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Zaplitny), concerning court orders obtained by the Department of National Revenue for the payment of income tax. This requires work that was put in hand immediately the order was made, but has not yet been completed.
There was an address on that same day on the motion of the hon. member for Prince Albert requesting correspondence between the government and the Kerr-Gifford and Company concerning an elevator at Ballan-tyne pier, Vancouver. The papers, I understand, were received in the office of the Secretary of State yesterday, and the return will be tabled probably on Monday. There are other orders that were made, and they are now in the office of the privy council where they are being checked. They will be tabled just as soon as the accuracy can be certified.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the Prime Minister tor the information regarding these orders. I simply checked the orders to see what the records showed so far as orders for returns and the compliance with them are concerned. The fact is that there are of course a number still remaining. I naturally accept the assurance that these will be proceeded with. It might be that, out of the very fact that there have been certain explanations in connection with these, in considering the actual application of the rules next year some method might be adopted by which there would go into the records something that would indicate the disposition of any of these orders, where there is any case such as that mentioned in relation to the one standing in the name of the hon. member for Prince Albert.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I want to assure the Leader of the Opposition that I am grateful to him for having raised the question, because this matter should not be left on the record with the appearance of something that has been ordered by the house and has not been done, except if there are very good reasons why it is not being done. I am grateful for having had the opportunity of giving the reason why the return ordered in 1953 has not been laid on the table.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. R. O. Campney (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Leader of the Opposition referred to a question he had asked on Monday last in my absence from the house with respect to aircraft development in Russia as evidenced by the recent fly-past at Moscow.
I may say that these developments are of course the subject of constant study by our intelligence organization and the organizations of Canada's NATO partners, but like so many other intelligence matters it would not be desirable in the public interest to reveal either the method or the results of such studies.
I am sure that the Leader of the Opposition will appreciate also that information obtained from any one air show, or indeed any one source, forms only a part of the total intelligence upon which our reappraisals and planning for future needs are based.
While the number of planes involved in the recent fly-past in Moscow was greater than usual I am advised that no types of military planes were displayed of which we had not previous knowledge.
Inquiries of the Ministry


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, while I would naturally assure the Minister of National Defence that I would not seek to have any information given that might break the barriers of appropriate security, I would point out that there has already been discussion by senior officials in the United States as well as in Europe in connection with the reported disclosure of certain new types of jet engines and things of that kind which it seemed to me might perhaps be appropriate for discussion here. For instance, there is the suggestion of a new process in connection with the burning of fuel in jets which has been discussed. If that is so and these things have been discussed elsewhere I think that perhaps we might have that information before we discuss the estimates. However, if the minister thinks that there is nothing further to add, my question has been answered by what he has said.



BRITISH COMMONWEALTH


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kamloops asked me about the representation of Malta in the parliament at Westminster and I was perhaps too positive in the statement that I made that no messages had been received. Two messages had been received in cipher, but they had not come to the desk of the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) or to me at the time the hon. gentleman asked his question. One message contained the text of the declaration that was to be made in the house at Westminster yesterday afternoon. Perhaps the hon. gentleman has seen the text of that declaration. If hon. members feel that they would like to have it on the record I have it here and could read it into Hansard. It is a declaration that has received publicity in the press, and I think that is perhaps sufficient for the purpose. But I wanted to correct the positive statement that I had made that the messages had not been received. They had been dispatched from the office of the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, London, in cipher, and they had reached Canada, but they had to be put into ordinary language and they had not come to the desk of the Secretary of State for External Affairs or to my notice at the time the hon. gentleman asked this question.


Mr. E. D. Fulton (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the right hon. Prime Minister
5862	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry whether the messages are of a nature which would call for any reply? If so, has a reply been sent?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: They are not of a nature that would call for a reply, but I imagine that there will be a reply made expressing our gratitude for having been kept informed and our appreciation of what has taken place.



PIPE LINES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. W. Noseworthy (York South):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister, notice of which I sent him about half an hour ago, and which he may take as notice if he so desires. Has the Prime Minister received the resolution from the mayors and councils of Fort William and Port Arthur strongly protesting any plan which will delay the construction of an all-Canadian pipe line? If so, will the Prime Minister bring the house up to date on the present prospects for an allCanadian pipe line?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, a telegram was received which came to my attention on Wednesday, 6th of July, and was referred to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, and of which an acknowledgment was sent to the two mayors of Fort William and Port Arthur. Now the hon. gentleman suggests that I bring the house up to date. That would be quite difficult.
There are three alternatives that are being very carefully investigated and about which, of course, the commitments of many different interests are required. There is one that we prefer to the other two. There is a third that we do not like as well even as the second. The officials of the Canadian company are endeavouring to get the commitments that would provide for the implementing of No. 1. They are also ascertaining whether, in the event that is not possible, they could get the commitments that would be necessary for the implementation of No. 2. That is the situation. I hope we shall not have to fall back on No. 3.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of National Revenue if and when copies of the capital
[Mr. Fulton.l

budget of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which he tabled this morning will be available for distribution to hon. members?


Hon. W. E. Harris (Minister of Finance):: It will appear in the Votes and Proceedings. You can get it from that.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I think the Minister of Finance is saying that the entire budget as tabled will appear in the Votes and Proceedings.


Walter Edward Harris: No; I say you can get it from that.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I know one can go and look at it in that office, but this may be a matter of some importance in view of our expectation of a debate on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation when the report of the special committee on broadcasting is dealt with later this session. It was for that reason I was asking if copies can be made available to members who wish to have copies.


Hon. J. J. McCann (Minisier of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is customary to distribute copies of the capital budgets of any of the organizations. We table them. But I think it can be arranged to have some copies of it distributed to those who are particularly interested in it. As the Minister of Finance has said, the reason for tabling it is to make it available to members who wish to see it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is one copy for 265 members.



BRIDGES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. L. Langlois (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Queens asked if the Hillsborough bridge had been closed to traffic, and in the absence of my minister perhaps the hon. member will allow me to answer him. In view of the fact that it had been reported to the department that the Hillsborough bridge was no longer considered to be safe for normal highway traffic, the department requested the Canadian National Railways to close the bridge to highway traffic.
In reply to the supplementary question asked by the hon. member, I may say that the entrustment in respect of management and operation to the Canadian National Railway Company of the Hillsborough bridge was removed by order in council which was tabled in the house on April 25, 1955, as recorded in Votes and Proceedings of that day at page 422.


Mr. J. A. MacLean (Queens):: Can the parliamentary assistant say whether the government of Prince Edward Island was given any advance notice of the proposal to close the bridge?


J. G. Léopold Langlois: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


John Angus MacLean: As a further related question, because I could not hear the answer very well-


J. G. Léopold Langlois: "Yes" was the
answer.


John Angus MacLean: I mean the previous answer. Was the instruction to close the bridge issued by the Department of Transport?


J. G. Léopold Langlois: Yes.


John Angus MacLean: I should like to address a related question to the Minister of Public Works which his parliamentary assistant may take as notice. Can the Minister of Public Works add to the statement he made in committee of supply on July 1 regarding action planned to close impassable gaps in the trans-Canada highway in the light of the fact that a new, impassable gap may be created in the highway between Charlottetown and Southport, Prince Edward Island, if at any time the Hillsborough bridge can no longer be used?


Mr. Maurice Bourgei (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Public Works):: I will take my hon. friend's question as notice.



POSTAL SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. A. M. Kirk (Parliamentary Assistant to the Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Skeena asked me what measures the Post Office Department had taken to supply postal service to isolated communities on the west coast because of the Union Steamships strike, and I gave him the information which was available at the time and promised to give him further details. The situation as of this morning is as follows:
. Arrangements have been made to provide emergency mail service for all classes of mail to post offices south of Prince Rupert. First-class mail and parcels containing perishables for post offices on Queen Charlotte islands will leave Vancouver by boat on Saturday and a call will be made at Prince Rupert en route. Parcel post mail for these post offices is being routed to Prince Rupert by train for onward transmission by packer.
First-class mail and parcels containing perishables for Stewart and Kincolith will be
Customs Tariff
forwarded by air. Parcel post mails will be dispatched by packer as soon as final arrangements can be made.



CUSTOMS TARIFF

Walter Edward Harris: the third reading of Bill No. 506, to amend the Customs Tariff.


Mr. J. M. Macdonnell (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I merely wish to reiterate a request I made when the bill received second reading. The parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance was handling the bill at that time, and I now make the request to the minister. I merely reiterate the request that reconsideration and study be given during the next year to that curious item in the act having to do with the restoration of the coal drawback notwithstanding that there is no longer any duty on coal, and which was done ias an indirect way of authorizing the bounty payable on coke used in the manufacture of steel. In my opinion this is a very indirect and almost grotesque way of achieving the desired result.


Mr. F. S. Zaplitny (Dauphin):: On June 29 when this bill was in committee, I raised the question of the increase in the tariff on ethylene glycol. I am not going to hold the house very long, but I wish to say that any increase in tariff which results in an increase in the cost of production of agricultural products will be opposed by myself and my colleagues. In my opinion, the proposal of the government to increase the customs duty on ethylene glycol, which goes into the manufacture of antifreeze, will result in a higher cost of production on the farms. It will result also, in my opinion, in a higher cost to consumers generally of antifreeze, a commodity which is very widely used in Canada and which is practically an essential commodity.
When this question was being heard by the tariff board, representations were made in favour of the increase by two companies, both of which are interested in the manufacture of this commodity in Canada and both of which are subsidiaries of parent companies in the United States. These two companies are in a very good position to form a virtual monopoly in the sale of that product in Canada. With this added protection, they have that much more opportunity to set up that kind of monopoly. As a matter of fact, it was the opinion of one of the representatives of the processing company that uses the raw material, ethylene glycol, to turn it into antifreeze that the placing of a higher tariff on glycol from the United States would result in the setting up of a

Customs Tariff
monopoly on that product in Canada. It was stated also by a representative of one of the two companies requesting the increase that their objective was the whole Canadian market, and that was their reason for asking for this protection.
The proposal to raise the tariff was opposed by the interprovincial farm union council. It was opposed to the extent that it would increase prices for antifreeze in Canada by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. As I have already mentioned, it was opposed by the representative of one of the processing companies which turns the raw product into antifreeze.
In defence of what I was saying on that occasion, the assistant to the Minister of Finance stated that what was represented in this bill was a rearrangement of certain budget items. Now, to a certain extent that is so. There has been a rearrangement, and I acknowledge that there has been, in another item, a net decrease of 5 per cent on the finished product, the antifreeze, but the fact still remains in spite of any claim of rearrangement and in spite of the fact that this was done by negotiation under GATT, that part of the ethylene glycol which was on the free list, in other words that part which was 97 per cent pure and not a mixture and which had free entry into Canada since about 1939, is now going to be subject to a 10 per cent tariff from the United States and of course a 25 per cent general tariff.
The other defence that was made by the minister's assistant was that the government does not go as far in proposing this increase as the two chemical companies had requested. Now, that also is true. If the two chemical companies asking for this protection had got what they wanted, it would have amounted to approximately 45 per cent or thereabouts, depending on the price of the commodity at the time. In my opinion, that is not an excuse for doing something which is not desirable so far as the Canadian economy is concerned. I have already pointed out that the two companies requesting the increase stated as their objective, and the reason for the increase, the obtaining of the whole Canadian market for ethylene glycol. The only reason that they could want the whole Canadian market would be to command higher prices. If the base product commands a higher price then the finished product, which is antifreeze, will also command a higher price and to that extent will enter into the cost of production of agricultural products particularly and increased prices to the consumers of those products.

In view of all these reasons I should like to move at this time, seconded by the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Bryce):
That Bill No. 506 be not now read a third time, but that it be referred back to the committee of the whole house for the purpose of reconsidering tariff item 207c as set out in schedule B to the said bill.
Perhaps I should make it clear when I refer to the reconsideration of this tariff item I mean that I am in favour of placing this product that goes into the manufacture of antifreeze on the free list. If this motion carries and the bill is referred back to the committee of the whole house, we will be prepared to present further arguments as to why this should be done.


Mr. J. H. Blackmore (Lethbridge):: If there is no one else who desires to speak on this matter at once, I should like to support this measure. There is no reason why we should have a tariff on any commodity coming into Canada to prevent it from competing with Canadian goods. We can subsidize Canadian goods so far as is necessary to enable them to take the Canadian market. We could use a quota to shut out external goods which we do not desire to have come into the Canadian market. By these means, we could effectively exclude all products of any kind whatever from the Canadian market, so long as they are undesirable to us in the Canadian market, without any resulting increase in price. Therefore, I support the hon. member's motion.


Mr. Hahn:: I was	paired with the hon.
member for Burnaby-Richmond (Mr. Goode).


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the amendment lost. Shall the main motion carry?


John Horne Blackmore: Before the motion carries I wish to point out to the people of the country and members of the house that the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys (Mr. Prudham), and the hon. member for Edmonton-Strathcona (Mr. Hanna), who have been out in Alberta doing such valiant service endeavouring to defeat the Social Credit members, have not voted on this occasion in support of this measure.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. This is not relevant to the third reading of this bill. The hon. member is pointing out that some hon. members have not voted on this measure. There are several members who are not here today, and if every hon. member were permitted to point out who are the members who are absent we would be spending considerable time not discussing the third reading of this bill.


John Horne Blackmore: Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention to point out all the members who did not vote on this measure which is interesting to the west. I want to point out that it is possible to manage the economy of Canada in such a way that a subsidy such as I spoke in favour of a few minutes ago-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member cannot refer to what has just been decided in the negative by the house. A decision has been taken. The hon. member spoke before the vote was taken and now he should not reflect in any way upon the decision just made by the house.


John Horne Blackmore: Very well. I will talk
about the measure before the house now. I am leading up to that, anyway.
As matters stand today, an ordinary member of the Liberal party, and an ordinary member of the Conservative party, would say they could not favour the granting of a subsidy on a Canadian product to bring down the price low enough to enable it to compete successfully with goods coming in from outside. They would say they could not support that measure because it would cost the consolidated revenue fund money; it would cost the taxpayers money. That would be money the taxpayers could not afford to pay. I want to point out that it is possible to manage the economy of Canada in such a way that such subsidies could be granted with no cost whatever to the taxpayers.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Horne Blackmore: Of course, there will be superficial laughs from those who do not know. Let me point out this important fact, that in 1933 and 1934 the people of Japan used her national credit in such a way that they were able to subsidize the exports of their goods to such an extent that they were able to compete successfully with similar goods produced in Britain and put the manufacturers of those goods entirely out of business.
Now, if they could do that successfully in exporting goods, they could certainly have subsidized the price of their own goods in Japan to render it impossible for any goods we might send to Japan to compete successfully with their goods. It was the use of the national credit which was made in that respect. Japan increased her external trade, in 1933 and 1934, 53 per cent. She was the only nation in the world that increased her trade during those years. How was she able to do it? Because she used her national credit. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, what I desire to point out is this. The wise use of the national credit of Canada would enable us to avoid the tremendous cost to Canada of

Supply-Justice
goods made in Canada which we force upon our people because we desire to protect our own producers in Canada. Consequently, I rejoice that I voted against this bill, and we intend to vote against the bill now and all similar bills. The time is coming when we in Canada have simply got to learn realities about finance, and not go on trying to finance our affairs in the silly, old, useless, outmoded financial way that intelligent men stopped trying to use 40 years ago.


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


Some hon. Members:: On division.
Motion agreed to on division and bill read the third time and passed.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Applewhaite in the chair.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Royal Canadian Mounted police-
409. Administration, operation and maintenance, $6,992,087.


The Deputy Chairman:: I understand that
this morning we are to deal with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, resolution 409, to be found on page 62 of the main estimates. The details start on page 507.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, earlier this week I asked the government and the Minister of Justice whether they would reconsider the demand which has been made upon the municipalities in British Columbia, which have their police services provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police under contract, for an increase in payment under that contract. This request comes, as I understand it, from four municipalities affected, including the city of Kamloops, which of course is the one from which I have had direct representation.
On June 3 of this year I was asked by the council of the corporation of the city of Kamloops to take up with the government the protest made by that municipal corporation against this increase, in the following terms. This is a resolution of the council of the city of Kamloops, passed on June 1, 1955:
That we register a strong protest against the action taken by the federal government in connection with the renewal of contracts with cities and municipalities for policing services for the following reasons:
1. The decision of the federal government to increase the per capita cost of the R.C.M.P. force came too late to enable municipalities to make provision for the increase in cost in their current budgets.
[Mr. Blackmore.l
2. The decision of the federal government to charge a larger percentage of the per capita cost of the R.C.M.P. force to municipalities having a population of 5000 or more, commencing with the period of June 1, 1957, will result in discrimination against larger centres, and further that we urge the provincial government to protest the action of the federal government on this matter and request that the provisions of the last agreement be continued to January 1, 1956.
It will be appreciated that the resolution indicates objection to the action of the government in this respect on two grounds. I should like to deal at this stage mainly with the first of those grounds, namely that the decision to increase the charge to the municipalities on a per capita basis of the number of men involved came too late for those municipalities to make provision in their current budgets. Yesterday in answer to a question on the orders of the day the minister told us that as he recalled it the decision was made on April 4. I do not know the actual date when that decision was communicated to the city of Kamloops, but I should imagine it was not long before June 3, the date of the letter which I received passing on the resolution which was dated June 1. Therefore I am not in a position to assess the responsibility, if there be any, for not getting this information to the municipalities concerned at an early date. But the fact is, as appears from the record, that they did not get it in time. If someone other than the federal government is responsible I imagine that the minister will make it clear to us just who it is.
These municipalities have their budgets set and approved by the council and have struck their tax rates accordingly. A municipality under our municipal act cannot run around and change the tax rate after it has once been approved. They do not have anything in the way of supplementary estimates such as we have here. Once a city council has approved the budget and set the tax rate accordingly that is the situation for that year.
I am informed that the result of this will be that the cities will either have to borrow this money or else have a debt on their hands of the expected demand from the R.C.M.P. for an increase in the contract rate. Under these circumstances I ask the minister in all reasonableness to accept this suggestion made in the resolution on behalf of the municipality and not change the rate until January 1, 1956. Otherwise I just do not know what the municipalities can do about it because they have no way of raising revenue to pay this demand now being made of them.
The municipalities would rather not pay this at all, but I do not know whether they

have any option if the government decides to make the demand that they pay it. They probably will pay it in future, but I do think that they should be accommodated at least to the extent of continuing the present rate to the first of next year.


Mr. Barnett:: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I could say a few words before the minister replies following up the matter raised by the hon. member for Kamloops. The problem which the hon. member has outlined is of considerable concern to some of the cities on Vancouver island which have their police services supplied by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police under contract. As a matter of fact, according to press reports which have come to my attention, the matter has gone so far that the mayor of Port Alberni has considered withdrawing from the arrangement with the R.C.M.P. and setting up something in the way of a municipal police force. Personally I feel that that would be a regrettable step.
I consider that the co-ordination of police services which is possible on Vancouver island through the present arrangement has many advantages. The minister will recall that this was in effect prior to the absorption of the British Columbia provincial force into the R.C.M.P. I think that that arrangement has proved to have many advantages. While I am not familiar with all the details of the present contract arrangements it does appear to me that a large percentage of the work done by the R.C.M.P. is not concerned primarily with the municipal field. I would say that a good deal of it arises because of laws passed in this chamber and for that reason I do not think it is logical to expect the municipal authorities to raise taxes in order to pay an undue proportion of the costs of police services.
With respect to the other point raised by the hon. member for Kamloops, the date of the coming into force of this increase, may I say that I was not able to catch the exact date given yesterday by the minister but I believe it was in the month of April. That would be long past the closing date of financial arrangements in most of the municipalities. These municipalities enter into their budgeting discussions and financial arrangements for the current year shortly after the first of the year. I know that these matters occupy the attention of city councils in my area shortly after the municipal elections have taken place.
I feel that there is considerable merit in the suggestion put forward by the hon. member for Kamloops in respect to the additional 50133-8711
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problem which is being created by these increased rates and their being put into force without adequate notification to the municipalities concerned.


Mr. Low:: Mr. Chairman, may I say just a word before the minister replies and perhaps draw his attention to another related matter, which he could answer at the same time. I appreciate the problem raised by the hon. member for Kamloops and the hon. member for Comox-Alberni. There are several municipalities in Alberta which find themselves in exactly the same position. They had budgeted for the year's expenses before the notice of the increase in the per capita cost of policing by the R.C.M.P. was received and as a consequence will find it most difficult to carry on this year without borrowing or resorting to some extraordinary means of financing. I think that the suggestion has been made that there could be a delay in giving effect to the increase until the beginning of the next fiscal year. These municipalities might very well entertain that.
In addition to that, there is another problem I should like to bring to the attention of the minister. One of the best things that municipalities and provinces have ever done in the police field was to engage the R.C.M.P. to police the municipalities and provinces. They have been an excellent force. They have done a splendid job. All the municipalities I know about that have had experience with that type of policing over the years have spoken in the highest terms of the efficiency of the service they have had from the R.C.M.P. Now they face the problem of not being able to obtain any further services. I am told that it is because the R.C.M.P. are having trouble getting young men of the kind required for an extension of the force. I do not know whether this is because of the fact that sufficient salaries are not being paid or that young men are not interested in the force. Perhaps the minister might let us have his views with respect to the problem.
I know that in my own constituency there are two or three municipalities that have recently made application for this service by the R.C.M.P. They have been notified that there can be no further extension of the service in the province until such time as more men have been recruited and trained ready for the job. They have also been told it has been very difficult in past months to get the kind of personnel required. I wonder if the minister could let us know what the situation is in that regard, and also let us know if it would be possible to delay putting into effect the increase in the cost of the

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police force to the municipalities until at least the beginning of their next fiscal year.


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I might first deal with the last question which has been asked by the hon. member for Peace River, that is to say, the question which had to do with the difficulty of getting the mounted police to take on new municipal contracts. There is no question about our continuing any of the existing contracts. Municipalities, seeing other municipalities having the advantage of the police contracts and wishing to secure that advantage themselves, apply to us and we have not been able, during an interval now, to take on these new contracts. Among the reasons for this condition is that, to begin with, we maintain an exceedingly high standard in the force, and I do not think there is any member of the house who would wish us to lower that.


Solon Earl Low: We all agree on that.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Yes, we all agree on that.
We select only one out of approximately 13 applicants for admission to the force. That is to say, only one out of 13 measures up to the standard which we think should be maintained if the force is to maintain its very high morale and prestige.
At the beginning of this legislative session there was some discussion with regard to a possible recession in Canada and to some difficulty about unemployment; but our experience is that men of the type that we want in the force have not had the slightest difficulty in the Canadian economy in getting quite attractive positions. Whilst as hon. members know we have made a number of increases in the salaries of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and are now paying good wages, and while we have been able to maintain the membership at quite a high level, what is perhaps not sufficiently appreciated is the conditions in the world which necessitate, for example, our devoting quite a large number of the force to security work. These responsibilities make unavailable for the taking on of municipal contracts members of the force who might otherwise have been used for that purpose. As a result, we have not been able to accede to the requests of all the municipalities which have applied to us recently. But our personnel position is improving, and I am hopeful that in the fairly near future we may be able to re-examine our position in that regard.
With regard to the embarrassment which has arisen in connection with certain municipalities in British Columbia and Alberta, in that they are alleged-and I think quite correctly-not to have received information 
about these increases in their police contract costs before the time that they set their budgets and pass their rate by-laws, I would say that, so far as the federal government is concerned, we must completely disclaim any responsibility for that result. We knew what had to be done in this connection. We ascertained in advance that the information in relation to police costs would have to be in the possession of the municipalities by the 15th day of May.
As a matter of fact, Assistant Commissioner Carnac, the head of the mounted police in the province of British Columbia, was advised on February 8, 1955, by the department of municipal affairs that the municipal act of British Columbia required a municipal council to pass its rate by-law on or before the 15th day of May each year. We proceeded on that basis to reach a decision ourselves here on April 4, 1955, as I find upon examining the facts that I correctly informed my hon. friend from Kamloops the day before yesterday. That decision was immediately communicated to Assistant Commissioner Carnac; but because the attorney general of British Columbia was away at that time, he was not able to pass it on until 18th April to the attorney general of British Columbia, who desired to have that information go through him to the municipalities. But it was communicated on the 18th April. What happened after that date we do not know, but certainly it was through no fault of ours that the information was not in the hands of the municipalities before the 15th day of May. We provided it in plenty of time that it could have been there at that time.
In the case of Alberta, we notified the province of Alberta prior to April 28, and we were advised by the Alberta government that the approval of that government to this arrangement had been made on April 28. I presume the date on which the municipal by-law is to be passed in Alberta is about the same time as in British Columbia. So the information was there. Any arrangements as between the provincial government and the municipalities are peculiarly the responsibility of the provincial government. The municipalities are the creatures of the provincial government and under its direction of provincial statutes in most of the things they do.
When it is suggested that we should just forget about it for this year, I should like to point out that in the two years that have elapsed since our last adjustment of these contracts, at which time the per capita cost of the member of the force was established at $2,000, the cost has crept up from $2,000

to $2,360. With this time lag in our ability to pass on to the municipality the increased cost which we were immediately sustaining, it has meant that during that period of two years we have sustained a fairly substantial increase in cost which we have not been able to pass on. Therefore when the time comes that we can legally do so, and when we have taken the pains to find out and inform the municipalities as to what the amount is, and have taken every step at the appropriate time and passed the information on through the proper channels to the municipalities, I do not think I could possibly justify to my colleague, the Minister of Finance, that we should absorb more costs above our contract on top of those which the terms of the contract have required that we absorb during the past two years.
That is the reason why I said, when the hon. member for Kamloops asked me this question on the orders of the day, that we had gone very carefully into all the factors having to do with this contract and no additional circumstances had been brought forward which seemed to us to warrant our reconsideration of the decision which we had reached.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Under the circumstances outlined by the minister I think it is difficult to suggest that the responsibility for the situation in which the municipalities And themselves falls on him or the officials here, although I suggest, as did the hon. member for Comox-Alberni, that while April 18, which was when the attorney general of British Columbia got the information, is nearly a month in advance of the statutory deadline, it is probably the limit, if not actually the limit, so far as a practical deadline is concerned from the point of view of the date by which the municipalities have in fact set their tax rates. However, I do not suppose it would be profitable in any event to argue back and forth who was responsible for any delay in the information being received.
I accept the facts as the minister has stated them. However, because the situation is obviously not the responsibility of the municipalities and is something about which they can do absolutely nothing, I had hoped that the government would consider deferring the effective date of the increase until January 1, 1956. I will not give up hope that the minister will still see his way clear to do it.
I should like, however, to suggest another alternative, and I want to make it clear that I have no authority to do so. I have not been instructed by the council of the city of Kamloops, nor do I know that there are any
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other city councils which have made this suggestion. However, it occurs to me that the department might say: Well, all right, we will not insist upon payment of that this year, but in 1956 we will expect you to pay what will then be the going rate and what will amount to arrears on the current contract. As I say, I do not know whether or not that would be satisfactory to the municipalities. I imagine it would be a little better than having to scrape it up from somewhere, heaven knows where, this year. In setting their tax rates for next year they would have to make up the arrears for this year.
As I say, I hope the minister will still see his way clear to say that because of the situation, which is none of your responsibility even as it is none of ours, we will forgo it for this year, but if he cannot do that then I think he should ask if it would be helpful to the municipalities to allow the contract for this year to be in arrears by agreement, with the arrears to be made up next year.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: In all these arrangements that we have with the provinces and the municipalities we have to be as co-operative as we can. They will not work unless we keep on a friendly basis with the other parties to the contracts. Therefore in all these contracts we have for policing with provincial governments and with municipalities we try to be as co-operative and as easy to deal with as we possibly can be; for it is only by there being a satisfactory mutual feeling that the full benefits of an arrangement of this sort can be realized. Therefore, while we have not received any such proposal as that made by the hon. member for Kamloops, if we did receive one I would think I would be quite warranted in seeing whether the Department of Finance and the treasury board would be willing to consider it. It would really be for them to consider. We would not actually lose money under such an arrangement. There would just be a delay. I think that is what my hon. friend has in mind.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Yes.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: But I share his doubts whether that would be very satisfactory even from the standpoint of the municipalities because it would mean that next year they would have the two annual police levies to take care of in their tax rates.


Solon Earl Low: Would the minister tell the committee the procedure by which these contracts are entered into with municipalities? Is application made by the municipality through the attorney general's department of the province and is payment made on the

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contract by the municipality through the provincial government or directly to the Department of Justice?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: The answer to my hon. friend's first question is that some of the contracts are made through the provincial government and some of them are made directly. We do not stand on ceremony. If they want to apply directly we will deal with them. On the other hand, if they want to apply the other way we will accommodate them that way. When the contract has been made, however, payments are made directly by the municipality to us.


Frederick George Hahn: I feel the same way about this matter&as the hon. member for Kamloops and the hon. member for Comox-Alberni, especially on the question of replacing the R.C.M.P. by local police forces. I am in an area bordering on the United States, and the minister appreciates the difficulty we have had on the lower mainland of British Columbia so far as narcotics are concerned. We could have a very dangerous condition existing again. We have the mounted policemen at the border looking after that particular problem and the fact that we have them throughout the whole of the riding has assisted a great deal, I am sure, in preventing the carrying on of the narcotic traffic in that region.
With respect to the suggestion made by the hon. member for Kamloops concerning leaving the payment of arrears until next year, I feel very much as the minister does. If a municipality cannot keep up its payments it probably will not be able to catch up on arrears. However, if municipalities are desirous of doing that perhaps the minister could pass on their requests to the Minister of Finance. It would be the responsibility of the particular municipality and it would be up to them to decide what they wanted to do.
There is one other point that should be considered. I refer to the fact that our mounted policemen cost a considerable sum of money to train. I realize their training is of such a nature that they are specialists in their own field. Many municipalities use them as traffic policemen. Practically anyone can be trained to be a traffic policeman. If these municipalities could find other means of looking after the traffic problem in their own areas and free the mounted police to do the work they are trained to do more particularly, I think we would then have an efficient police force. The municipalities might be able to cut down on the number of mounted police they need and yet the same service could be rendered as is being rendered today.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Does the minister wish to answer now, Mr. Chairman?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Yes, I think I might briefly answer the special point which the hon. member who has just taken his seat has raised before we go on to another item. So far as the mounted police are concerned, they agree that it is undesirable to use a man who has had the special training of a mounted policeman in town traffic work and checking parking. We would be quite receptive to any suggestion that such work might be done by some officer of the municipality who is not a member of the mounted police.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I would appreciate it if the minister would give us some information upon the other aspect of this problem which confronts municipalities by way of a demand for an increased payment. As I understand it, there is firstly a demand for an increased per capita payment and secondly, that municipalities over 5,000 population have to pay a bigger proportion of the per capita costs than those with less than 5,000 population. I wonder if the minister would say a word on that, as to why these municipalities of over 5,000 should be discriminated against. I am unable to see why a municipality of say 6,000 would have that much more strictly local work to do than a municipality of say 4,990, to justify their having to pay more for the services of the mounted police than other municipalities.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Well, Mr. Chairman, I think that the most satisfactory and comprehensive way of replying to the point which the hon. member for Kamloops has raised is for me to paraphrase the text of a letter which I sent recently to the editor of the Vancouver Province in response to an editorial which he wrote demanding, as he had a right to do as a representative of a free press, an explanation as to why these costs had been increased. In so doing I am really stating my own views as set out in this letter.
First, I should like to make it clear that there has been no change in the basis for the rate charged, though there has been an increase in the amount. Throughout the years, the charges to the cities and towns per member of the police employed has been roughly 40 per cent of the operating costs per member. The amount represented by this 40 per cent has, I think quite understandably, gone up as operating costs go up. There has been a big rise in the operating costs since 1949, and the pay alone has increased some 40 per cent in that interval. The present pay rate is reasonable, but not extravagant. I think that most of the members would agree with me in this. I believe, for example, that was implicit in the remarks that were made by the hon. member for Peace River, that had the government not made an upward

adjustment in line with the general wage and salary scales we certainly would not have been able to keep the force up to strength with the calibre of men needed. Indeed, the fact we have not sufficient strength in order to take on new contracts is proof, if proof were needed, that that is so.
The present contract rate is based upon 40 per cent of the per capita cost, as it has been throughout. This is the point the hon. member for Kamloops has now raised. It is true that we propose to increase this rate in 1957-not now but in 1957-to 50 per cent in small towns and to 75 per cent in the larger cities and towns employing over five men. Notice to this effect has been given now so that the municipal government may have ample opportunity to consider what is involved. These rates will apply in all provinces as the old ones did. At that time, that is in 1957, cities and towns in British Columbia will have had the services of the force at the rate originally negotiated, that is 40 per cent of the per capita cost, for a period of over six years.
Our 1950 contract with the province of British Columbia was for a period of five years. Bearing all these things in mind, I do not think it could be suggested that when the force has become entrenched in British Columbia we then sought to raise its rates arbitrarily. That was a suggestion that was made in this editorial, that we got our foot in the door, established ourselves and the need for our force, and then we hoisted the rates arbitrarily. In writing this letter, I did not overlook the fact that cities and towns supply certain other services and pay for car mileage over and above the first 3,100 miles, in addition to the basic charges per man. On the other hand, I think that it would be fair to point out that the amount being charged the municipalities by the British Columbia provincial police just prior to the disbandment of that force in 1950 was $2,663.69 per man per annum. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police took over the British Columbia provincial police commitment and collected payment in the same amount, $2,663.69 per man per annum for the last five months of 1950, then entered into new contracts direct with British Columbia municipalities at the same $1,400 rate as then applied in other provinces. With rising costs, this amount per man per annum went up to $2,000, that is from $1,400 to $2,000, in April, 1953, and now is again increased to $2,360, but it is still below the amount charged the British Columbia municipalities for the services of the British Columbia provincial police in the early part of 1950.
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Now, as to the increase in rate planned for 1957, that is this increase in rate to these larger municipalities, this is based simply upon the conclusion that municipalities getting mounted police services should pay a higher proportion of the average operating costs. The percentage of federal work carried out by our men in any small town is relatively small. That is to say, we have contracts with provinces; we have contracts with rural areas and small towns, and we have contracts with larger cities. In the division of the cost per man that we have arrived at in all these cases, we try to reflect the proper share as between federal work on the one hand and provincial or municipal work on the other that the individual member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police does in the work he carries out day by day. We say that the percentage of federal work carried out by our men in a small town is relatively small. But the larger the town the more the men are tied up with routine town duties such as town traffic control, street patrol and desk duty-this was the point raised by the hon. member for New Westminster. In small towns and rural areas, federal, provincial and municipal work can be bulked together in an economic way, but this does not apply to the same extent in larger towns and cities where regular shift duty is called for. Furthermore, the larger the municipal detachment the more supervisors of the N.C.O. rank are needed, and thus the average rate of pay for the detachment becomes noticeably higher. Again, the commissioned officer in command in the area must give more time to larger detachments than to smaller ones. Having these facts in mind, it was decided to offer small towns a rate based upon 50 per cent of operating costs per man, while large towns would be asked to pay 75 per cent of this cost, the new rates to apply in 1957. I think I could quote the odd newspaper editorial-and perhaps I should. I refer particularly to one in the Vancouver Herald of June 2 which bears the heading "Still a Bargain" and says this:
Ottawa is moving to raise from $2,000 a year to $2,300 a year the charge for each R.C.M.P. constable engaged in provincial or municipal police duties.
Even at $2,300 it is a bargain. That is only 40 per cent of what the service costs. The federal government pays the other 60 per cent.
Who in British Columbia would want to go back to the old days when we had a separate provincial police force and communities outside of the big cities maintained their own local constables?
The R.C.M.P. in the B.C. areas which it polices has given the highest standard of service free from political or local influences.
It will always stand to the credit of Gordon Wismer that while he was attorney-general, he brought in the R.C.M.P. to replace the provincial and local forces.

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Edmund Davie Fulton: With what was said as to the standard of service given, we are all in agreement, and we also agree that we are fortunate in being able to have this service from the R.C.M.P. But I think there is a fallacy in the argument which finds its application in a different percentage to be paid as between municipalities of different sizes.
After all, what are these municipalities contracting for? They are all contracting for the same thing, and that is local policing. I do not see how it can be described as other than a fallacious argument-and before I discuss it further, do I understand that the division point is 5,000?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Yes.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I was about to say that I do not see how it could be considered as other than a fallacious argument to say that a municipality of 4,900, which rates identically the same service in the matter of local policing, should pay less for it than a municipality of 5,100. I know that whenever a division has to be made it does become perhaps just a little absurd to take two examples, one of which is just above and the other just below the divisional point.
Nevertheless, while I recognize that weakness, it points up the fallaciousness, or perhaps I should say the unsound basis upon which the whole arrangement is placed. Because both these municipalities, even if there is a difference of 2,000 in population, are contracting for and receiving exactly the same service in the form of a local police service. Why should one municipality pay a different rate for it? I am unable to understand why that should be so. In both cases there are both federal and municipal responsibilities. The R.C.M.P. would have to carry out the federal responsibilities in any event; so all they are contracting for is a local police service, and I cannot see any logic in having it at two different rates.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I infer, and I hope correctly, that my hon. friend himself has admitted the weakness-perhaps weakness is the wrong word-in what he has said. It is really a platitude to say-


Edmund Davie Fulton: It was a reductio ad absurdum, showing the absurdity of the situation.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Yes, that is right; but I suggest it shows only the absurdity of my hon. friend's example.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Oh, no.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: It is true that where one is trying to draw a line between one group and another, if it happens in a concrete case that it is very close to that line on either side, then the fact that the line comes between

the groups that are quite close to each other may perhaps set up an injustice. However, that arises from the fact that the line has to be drawn. And when a line always has to be drawn, that type of injustice sometimes is unavoidably encountered.
I can tell my hon. friend that the line drawn at 5,000, as in this instance, is, as I indicated earlier, that division above which would require over five men. And it is the cost of the men that really forms the basis for the manner in which the line is drawn. When you get above that line, then as I have already indicated you get into the matter of town traffic duty, more non-commissioned officers, and additional overhead of a civic police force in which you must face a number of costs on top of the men who are actually doing the police duties. You do not encounter these in the smaller towns and in the rural communities.
However, we do not pretend to be infallible by any means. If my hon. friend feels strongly that we are wrong, and if he feels he has good reasons he could submit to us, we would be glad to adopt his reasons if we find them better than ours, and apply some other division. But the division we have chosen is that made by those experienced in police work over long terms of years. And until my hon. friend builds up a more plausible case than he has thus far, I would prefer to rely upon their experience.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am not so much concerned with the fact that the line is drawn at 5,000 as with the fact that a line is drawn at all. Because my argument is that both municipalities, namely the one above and the one below the line, contract for and receive exactly the same service. And the fact that in a larger municipality you will have to have more men, not only to do the actual policing but, because of the larger number required, to administer and supervise, is all compensated for by the fact that the municipality will have to pay for that greater number of men.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Would my hon. friend not admit that a police force the duty of which is to do both federal and municipal or provincial work-in this instance we will say it is municipal-in a rural area will find that the policemen will do a far larger percentage of federal work than they will in the larger towns or cities? That is the basis for the division.
In these rural areas we say, "We absorb 60 per cent because, as near as we can figure it, we are using that man's time 60 per cent of the time." I think we do not use him that much, and perhaps we are giving

the benefit of the doubt very distinctly to the municipality. But we say when we get into a different type of municipality, one more urbanized, that our man cannot spend as much of his time doing federal work. Therefore we have to raise the cost to the municipality, which is reflected by the fact that the police officer is spending more of his time doing municipal work.
In all these cases we have to convince the municipalities that they are getting a square deal. I believe we have succeeded in doing so. They are under no obligation to renew, and if they do not wish to carry on they are free to make their own arrangements.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Has the minister had any representations on this subject from the provincial as well as municipal governments in British Columbia, or were the representations confined to municipalities?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: No.


Solon Earl Low: Where there is a detachment already established in a town, taking care of the surrounding district, and the town wishes to enter into a contract for its policing service, would it be possible to do so by using the presently established detachment, despite the fact they are short of manpower?
I have in mind particularly the town of McLennan which recently decided it would like to have a contract. However, they have been told the same story, namely that there is a shortage of manpower. But there is a detachment already there, and the town officials seem to feel it would be quite possible for them to undertake policing the town while they are doing the surrounding districts. I am wondering whether it might be possible for a contract to be arranged under those circumstances?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Chairman, it is very difficult to answer a question of that sort in general terms. As a rule, I think one would find that when he got down to the actual negotiation of the contract, no matter what may have been said before that, no matter what my hon. friend and I might say in the house, the town, if it were going to obligate itself to pay a certain sum of money to us under a police contract, would want to be in a position of having a man there all the time. The question would then arise as to whether, with the work which that detachment is doing at that point now, thev could provide the town with a man all tne time and still do all their other work. That is just a straight question of practical police judgment.


Solon Earl Low: Yes, and perhaps negotiation with the commissioner. I have another question, 50433-372
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Mr. Chairman. I noted in the report of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, for the year ended March 31, 1954, on page 33, there is a table giving the strength recapitulation by divisions and provinces. It is table 17. In Alberta we have a total of 558 of all ranks. British Columbia has 974; Saskatchewan, 852.
I could not help feeling, judging by the number of constables of all ranks of the R.C.M.P., that Alberta must be a pretty law-abiding province. I am not going to say by comparison with other provinces. What I was led to wonder was, how does one account for the difference in the number of officers in each province?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Well, to begin with, the main factors will be the territory that has to be covered and the number of people generally that have to be supervised. But, in addition to these, the factor which will represent a greater difference perhaps than any other is that, for example, in British Columbia there are more large town contracts and, therefore, that tends to push up the number of members in the force shown in this table to which my hon. friend from Peace River is referring. That in turn is owing to the fact that we stepped into this position when we took over from the British Columbia provincial police force which had had those town contracts.


Mr. Herridge:: Mr. Chairman, I followed the discussion with considerable interest, and I was interested when the minister said he thought that the reason for his department bearing a greater share of the cost in unorganized rural territories was that the R.C.M.P. did a greater amount of federal work. Would it not be more correct to say that under those circumstances they do less provincial work than was done by the former provincial police? I remember that the former provincial police used to issue motor vehicle licences, dog licences, hunting licences, fishing licences, register deaths and issue marriage licences and miners' licences, trappers' licences, liquor permits for special occasions, and so on. That of course entailed a considerable amount of work. Under the present circumstances the provincial government has to employ other persons to do those things that were formerly done by the provincial police.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Did my hon. friend say that the federal government has to employ other persons to do those things?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: No, the provincial government has to employ other persons to do those things that were formerly done by their provincial police force.

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Stuart Sinclair Garson: Yes, that is a deduction; I am not stating it as a fact. I presume they do. If they are still done, they would have to be done by somebody. In the mounted police we still do perhaps more of that sort of thing than we would like to.
The point which was raised by the hon. member for New Westminster is a good one. There does not seem to be too much sense in taking a highly-trained police officer and having him issue dog permits, and so on. It is just a waste of talent and training. We try at all times to reduce to a minimum the amount of work of that sort which we do. But I think my hon. friend's logic is quite right. If we did not do it, then the provincial government would have to provide other provincial civil servants to do it. I am sure there is general agreement that even when paying these charges they are still far ahead as compared with having a police force of their own.


Solon Earl Low: Just one more question, and I am going to give the minister a rest so far as I am concerned.
I was interested for a number of years in trying to obtain, or at least supporting a move to get, a better pay schedule for the R.C.M.P. I was very glad to see the increase given in 1953. I am wondering how the new schedule set out on page 34 of the report is working? Does it give promise of attracting into the R.C.M.P. the kind of young men whom you need? Does the minister feel that this schedule is sufficiently competitive to ensure that he will be able to get the men he needs? Right here I want to pay tribute to these young men who come into the R.C.M.P. I think they are amongst the finest of Canadian young men. They have done a remarkably fine job. I want to pay my tribute to them and to the splendid work they are doing, at least in my part of the country. Can the minister say that the salary is sufficiently high to attract the kind of men he requires?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: The answer to my hon.
friend's question is yes, Mr. Chairman; it is having that effect. What one must remember in that connection is this. I mentioned this before. The duties of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have increased very greatly in the last few years because of world conditions. They have increased at a time when the market for human talent of a pretty high order was very short. Notwithstanding the fact that we have had to take on all of these additional duties and these contracts, for example, in the towns and in the provinces, and so on, and have had to expand our force for that purpose, we have managed to do
[Mr. Herridge.j
all of that, and under this most recent wage schedule we are now approaching quite close to our full strength.


Mr. Winch:: There is one phase of law enforcement by the R.C.M.P. that I desire to talk about, but since it is about thirty seconds to one o'clock, I would ask you to call it one o'clock, Mr. Chairman.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.
The committee resumed at 2.30 p.m.


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Chairman, there is one phase of law enforcement which comes under the R.C.M.P. which I should like to discuss at this time. I intend to comment upon the enforcement of the law in Canada in connection with narcotics, ask the Minister of Justice to comment upon this, and make a recommendation before I am through. Under our precedents and procedure an hon. member of this house is not permitted to make derogatory statements about the other place, its members or its committees, but I do not know of anything which would prevent an hon. member of this house making an honest comment upon an official report from the other place.
We have all received from the distribution office copies of the proceedings of the Senate committee on narcotics. I realize fully that the question of treatment could, not be discussed under this item as that would be handled by the Minister of National Health and Welfare; but law enforcement does come under the Minister of Justice and the R.C.M.P. and it is that phase of the matter on which I desire to speak.
I do not know of any report that has ever come to my attention over many years as stupid and contradictory as the report contained in No. 15 of the proceedings of the Senate committee on narcotics. This contains the findings and the recommendations and I assure you that I am going to deal only with the matter of law enforcement. I deprecate very much that in this report a vicious, unjust and unwarranted attack should have been made upon the narcotics division of the police force of the city of Vancouver. This report dealing only with law enforcement is most contradictory in nature.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: On a point of order, I rise most reluctantly because I do not want to interfere with the arguments of the hon. member for Vancouver East. I rise simply to question whether it is proper for us in the House of Commons to discuss a report from the other place in the manner in which my

hon. friend is now doing. I have no personal views at all; it is a question of order for the chairman to decide as to whether it is proper to do that; but I would question that it is.


Harold Edward Winch: That point came to my mind also and I investigated the matter. A report of a committee of the other place does not have to be filed with the House of Commons. I was informed that a report from the other place once made and distributed by the distribution office is officially in the hands of any member of this house. In order to make doubly sure I sent to the distribution office and asked for report No. 15 which was supplied to me direct. Five days later I received, along with other hon. members, another copy in my post office box. I am told that this is now an official document and can be referred to by a member of the House of Commons.


Edmund Davie Fulton: On a point of order, I submit that we can discuss this. I would point out to Your Honour that on Tuesdays and Fridays we have before us and discuss reports of a committee of the Senate dealing with divorce. Some of us do not like it, but those reports are received here and we are at liberty to discuss them, in fact they are the only thing we have to refer to when dealing with the matter before us. I submit that the hon. member is perfectly in order in referring to this report at this stage.


The Chairman:: I think it is quite correct to say that the hon. member may refer to this record. May I draw the attention of hon. members to citation 246 in Beauchesne's third edition, particularly paragraph (b) which reads:
246. Besides the prohibitions contained in standing order 41, it has been sanctioned by usage both in England and in Canada, that a member, while speaking, must not:
(b) refer to any debate in the Senate, but he may refer to the official printed records of the upper house, though they have not been formally communicated to the lower house;
I take it from what the hon. member has said that he is referring to an official printed record.


Harold Edward Winch: That is right, sir.


William Alfred Robinson: At the same time, I have taken note of some of the language which has been used by the hon. member in connection with this official printed record. May I draw his attention to May, fifteenth edition, at page 436, where I read in part as follows:
It is obviously unbecoming to permit offensive expressions against the character and conduct of parliament to be used without rebuke; for they are not only a contempt of that high court, but are calculated to degrade the legislature in the estimation of the people.
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I do not suggest that the hon. member has gone so far as the language of this quotation would indicate, but I think he would agree that his language with regard to this official printed record has been somewhat strong and I would suggest to him that his references to the official printed record should be in parliamentary terms.


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Chairman, I thought I made it clear when I began that I knew the rules and procedure and I would not say anything derogatory to the other place, its members or committees. My only reference is to a printed report. After you have said that this is a printed report officially in our hands, I should like to continue. Criticism has been made against the law enforcement in the province of British Columbia. Sir, this is why I rise. Basically, although they are not mentioned, it is actually a major criticism of the R.C.M.P. and their narcotics division. I do not agree with that indirect criticism. I maintain that the statements in this report No. 15 on the law enforcement are most contradictory. I should like to draw to the attention of the Minister of Justice the admission of the committee that the R.C.M.P. have certain responsibilities. I refer to report No. 15 under date of Monday, June 20, of the proceedings of the special committee of the Senate. On page 657 it is stated very definitely:
The Canadian legislation dealing with narcotic drugs is contained in the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act . . .
This statement was made, and I shall quote from page 657:
By administrative arrangement the R.C.M.P. are responsible for the enforcement on the criminal side of the legislation.
I agree with that statement. They go even further. If you turn to page 660 of the same report No. 15 you find this:
The R.C.M.P. maintains drug squads at those centres where attention is indicated, reinforced as necessary by men from general duty and other specialist details. Most major municipal police forces maintain special narcotic drug squads which work closely with the R.C.M.P. The R.C.M.P. concentrates particularly on the investigation of traffickers.
I believe it is obvious from those two quotations that there was the recognition that in Canada the R.C.M.P. are responsible for the administration of the law as it deals with narcotics. We also have in the quotation I have given from page 660 the admission that any special drug squads of city or municipal police are ancillary to the R.C.M.P. That is why I say I deprecate the vicious and unwarranted attack on the Vancouver police and, in particular, on their narcotics squad.

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William Alfred Robinson: Order. Following the paragraph which I read from May a short time ago, perhaps the hon. member on reflection might wish to reconsider, let us say, the word "vicious".


Harold Edward Winch: I shall withdraw the word "vicious" and say that it was an unwarranted and unjustified attack on the narcotics squad of the Vancouver police which, in line with what I have been saying, means an attack on the narcotics squad of the K.C.M.P. in the province of British Columbia and the city of Vancouver. I say to you, Mr. Chairman, and to you, the Minister of Justice, that I have had a great deal to do with them over a period of years, and I think they are doing an excellent job.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if my hon. friend will just tie up his logic a little. Why does he interpret criticism of the Vancouver narcotics squad as an attack on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?


Harold Edward Winch: If what is outlined on pages 657 and 660 of the Senate report is correct, the enforcement of law is the responsibility of the R.C.M.P. as regards narcotics. I think they are doing a good job. I am trying to help you. Do not interrupt.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I have no objection in the world, Mr. Chairman, to my hon. friend helping me, but surely he will not object if I try to understand how he is helping me. Let us see whether I understand my hon. friend rightly. He says that, because of certain statements in this report to the effect that certain responsibilities attach to the R.C.M.P. and because the Vancouver narcotics squad has been criticized in that report, and because he interprets the first statement about the responsibilities of the mounted police to include those things for which the Vancouver police were criticized, therefore in the result this report is a criticism of the R.C.M.P.
I had understood that this report in fact was quite laudatory of the R.C.M.P. I would say that where the people who prepared the report are specifically laudatory it would be rather straining the meaning of the report to argue, by the process of logic my hon. friend is applying, that they were indirectly criticized.


Harold Edward Winch: I still have not come to page 664 of the report. On page 664 there is the following:
The committee could not help but be disturbed by this large concentration of drug addicts and the apparent freedom with which they are able to congregate in the heart of the city of Vancouver. These people are known to engage in crime, including prostitution, and are without gainful employment of any kind. The committee is not able to understand why the provisions of the Criminal Code dealing with vagrancy, prostitution tMr. Winch.]
and living off the avails of prostitution cannot be more effectively invoked to uproot and break up this concentration.
The committee, in emphasizing this aspect of the situation, points out that the enforcement of the Criminal Code in the city of Vancouver is not a responsibility of the R.C.M.P., but is wholly a responsibility of the city police authorities.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: That is the point.


Harold Edward Winch: But let us look at the next paragraph. It reads:
The R.C.M.P. are concerned with the enforcement of the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act and in this connection concentrate essentially on the apprehension and conviction of drug traffickers.
Sir, you cannot put all these quotations together and make them coincide. That is my point. You just cannot do it. I come now to what may be a primary point but is not the important one. The commissioner of the R.C.M.P. gave evidence before the committee and we find in this report that he says that from their investigations they know, and they must know, that out of the over 2,000 criminal addicts almost 1,700 were criminals before they were addicts. So it is a most important question for the R.C.M.P.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Would my hon. friend permit a question at that point?


Harold Edward Winch: Well, do not take it off my 40 minutes.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: If they were criminals before they were addicts, would they not as criminals fall within the responsibilities of the Vancouver municipal police?


Harold Edward Winch: I am sorry but I could not hear the minister.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: If the 1,700, to whom my hon. friend refers as being drug addicts, were criminals before they became drug addicts, would they not, both as drug addicts and as criminals, fall within the responsibilities of the Vancouver municipal police?


Harold Edward Winch: As addicts and traffickers they come under the R.C.M.P.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Oh, no.


Harold Edward Winch: You can speak when I am through, and I would be glad to answer any questions. Perhaps I am not putting this as clearly as I should. According to my understanding of the law of Canada and these sections of the Senate report, enforcement of the law regarding narcotics is primarily the responsibility of the R.C.M.P. An attack has been made on what I call an ancillary section of the enforcement of the law, the narcotics squad of the city of Vancouver. I think the committee was trying to take the

government off the hook so far as enforcement is concerned, and I think it did a disservice to Canada in doing so.
From my own personal knowledge of British Columbia, and British Columbia is being castigated in this report, the narcotics squad of the Vancouver city police and the narcotics squad of the R.C.M.P. have done and are doing an excellent job in trying to control the situation in the province of British Columbia. That is very definitely my opinion. It is proven by the number of arrests. It is proven by the number of men and women in jail and in the penitentiary in British Columbia and in the women's penitentiary at Kingston. I am not boasting about the fact. I am just saying that the narcotics squads of the Vancouver city police and the R.C.M.P. must be doing a job because half the women in the penitentiary are there for narcotics violations and come from the province of British Columbia.
Irrespective of whose responsibility it is and whether the Vancouver city police have fallen down-and I do not think they have- the major point is this. It was admitted by the Minister of National Health and Welfare when he appeared before the committee, and has been admitted by the committee itself, that we have a serious narcotics problem in the Dominion of Canada. Under the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act the major responsibility, I repeat, is on the R.C.M.P. We would not have a narcotics problem in Canada if drugs were not illegally coming into the country. I think that is axiomatic. Under the act the responsibility of preventing such drugs coming into Canada is that of the R.C.M.P. There is a statement at page 658 of the report of the committee which I was going to term challenging, but I really do not know what to call it. It is a pearl, a jewel.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: What page is that?


Harold Edward Winch: Page 658. It reads:
The evidence indicates that, while Canada maintains excellent domestic control of licit narcotic drugs, international controls have not completely stopped the illicit flow of drugs into Canada.
Isn't that a honey? In Canada we have excellent domestic control of these drugs, which is fine, but international controls have not completely stopped the illicit flow of drugs into Canada. I gather what is meant by that is that it has not been found possible yet to stop the growing in certain countries of whatever it is from which the opiates and the heroin are derived. That is very regrettable, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that these drugs are entering Canada illegally. Our control is here and it is our responsibility, even if they are grown in
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other countries, to stop them coming into Canada. If we stopped them we would not have any drug problem in Canada.
I am not criticizing the Minister of Justice or the R.C.M.P. one iota. With all our thousands of miles of coast line and international border there is a problem. There is no question about that, and I repeat that I think all police forces, the R.C.M.P. in particular, are doing the best they possibly can to prevent the illegal entry of drugs into Canada. I do not think there is any question about that at all. However, in view of this report and the publicity there has been in editorials and otherwise, we now have an admission of the terrific narcotics problem we are facing in Canada. Because I believe, and rightfully so, that the major responsibility is on the R.C.M.P. who, in my estimation, have done a good job, I think we are doing a disservice to Canada when the Minister of Justice does not ask for a great deal more money so as to concentrate on the building up of R.C.M.P. narcotics squads irl order to do an even better job of stopping the illegal flow of opiates into our country.
With the question of treatment I cannot deal at the moment. It is the matter of enforcement with which I am concerned. Mr. Chairman, you are not going to solve the problem of drug addiction by arresting people on a charge of vagrancy as suggested in this report No. 15. I am convinced in my own mind that the police forces of Canada- and I will mention that of the city of Vancouver-and the R.C.M.P. know who are the higher-ups in the drug traffic in Canada. But there is a big difference between knowing certain things and being able to obtain the evidence in order to lay a charge. I appreciate that fact. I think the Minister of Justice knows that I am correct when I say that the R.C.M.P. and the police of Vancouver have a great deal of information but that there is a big difference between knowing something and being able to prove it.
All the evidence is conclusive that the narcotics situation in Canada is costing Canada many millions of dollars a year in money and that is costing a great deal in terms of suffering in lives. In view of the situation existing, and in view of the cost in lives and in dollars, I should like to suggest through you, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister of Justice that an investment that will pay great dividends will be action at this session greatly to increase the amount of money available to the R.C.M.P. so that they may greatly extend their narcotics squads throughout Canada in order to do two things: First, to put a greater pressure on the stoppage of the illegal entry into this

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country of narcotics; and second, to enable the R.C.M.P. to get the evidence they require in order to catch the higher-ups and to catch the traffickers. I maintain that the expenditure	of a	few extra	thousand dollars	oreven	a few hundred	thousand dollars	to
reach this objective is in the interests of the Canadian economy and of the Canadian people.
I should like the minister-and I am going to speak now in conclusion-to recognize that what	I say	is not by	way of criticism.	Ibelieve that	the police	of Canada are doing
a good job, but I believe that they could do a better job if they had more money and more men. I maintain that the investment of more money and more men in an effort to solve the narcotics problem is one of the finest investments that Canada could make at this time.


Mr. Nesbitt:: Mr. Chairman, I think all hon. members of the House of Commons, or at least most of them, have had the opportunity of reading some if not all of the reports from the other place with regard to the narcotic drug traffic in Canada. While I had not exactly reached the same conclusions as those reached by the hon. member for Vancouver East, I should certainly like to put myself on record as thoroughly endorsing the recommendation of the hon. member for Vancouver East.
If they have shown nothing else, I think the reports of the committee of the other place have shown us the seriousness of the drug traffic in Canada, particularly in western Canada. If the minister could do anything to increase the enforcement of the law in relation to the prevention of illicit drugs coming into Canada, I think this action would be of great benefit to this country.
There is only one further remark in this regard that I should like to make and it is this. I think the minister might take under consideration appropriate ways and means of stiffening the penalties against people who sell drugs, particularly those who sell drugs to young people. To my mind, those who sell drugs to young people commit a crime that is worse than murder. I should like the minister to take that matter into consideration.


Mr. Regier:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to speak on one branch of law enforcement in Canada which I think might well be handled by the R.C.M.P. but which is not being handled by them at the present time. Around these parliament buildings here I understand we have a branch of the R.C.M.P. law enforcement officers and I understand

that law enforcement around the buildings of parliament here is being looked after by them.
A year ago I asked the minister, on one occasion, who is responsible for the maintenance of law and order before committees of the two houses of parliament where people take an oath to testify and to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, and where it is thought that people may have perjured themselves. At the time the minister's reply was that this was the responsibility of the attorney general of the province of Ontario. When he was further questioned-I believe it was by the Leader of the Opposition-he followed through and said that anyone who had knowledge that perjury had been committed would logically have the responsibility of supplying that information and seeing to it that adequate action was taken. Then, in the fall of last year, we observed that action was taken in the case of two individuals, that a conviction was obtained, that the conviction was appealed and that the appeal was sustained on the ground that the houses of parliament were not courts of justice.
I am coming to the point in a moment. I feel that the R.C.M.P. has a role to play here under the direction of the Minister of Justice. I feel that the maintenance of the dignity of the parliament of Canada is the direct responsibility of the minister, with the aid of the law enforcement officers at his command. It may well be that there are constitutional difficulties that must be overcome. However, I am sure it is not beyond his ability to propose remedies that will take care of the situation. I know that this year the minister, upon further questioning, has stated that the new Criminal Code-which became effective last April 1, I believe-now looks after that situation. However, I should like to point out to the minister that a great loophole is still left. I agree with him that chapter 51 declares the parliament of Canada to be the equivalent of courts of justice in this respect. However, it still leaves unanswered or at least not answered satisfactorily the question as to who is responsible for seeing that action is taken. I think we agree that it is too much to expect the attorney general's department in the province of Ontario to concern itself overly much with all the evidence being submitted to the various committees of both houses of parliament. I think it is also too much to ask individuals, many of whom may have no personal interest in the matter whatsoever, to assume the initiative and see that action is taken.
When we know full well that there are rings of operators in existence who should be looked into, then I think the least the

minister can do would be to ask for a committee, or to ask for an investigation on the part of the R.C.M.P., so that these rings in what I shall call houses of ill repute can be investigated, and that these men who very brazenly, openly and unashamedly will supply false witness under oath, thereby degrading and making a mockery of the oath as it is administered to them before the houses of parliament, will be looked after.


William Alfred Robinson: Order. I have listened to the hon. member for some time in the hope that he would relate his remarks more particularly to the item under discussion. I feel that what he is saying is more in the nature of general remarks on the criminal law than remarks which could be made properly in a discussion of item 409. I would ask the hon. member to take this into consideration and relate what he has to say to ;he administration of the R.C.M.P.


Erhart Regier: I assure you, Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to become involved in a discussion of the Criminal Code, and it may be that what I was saying did extend somewhat in that direction. However, I did wish to take advantage of the discussion under the item for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to point out to the minister that the situation is not yet in hand, in any way, shape or form, as a result of the new Criminal Code, and that under his direction the R.C.M.P. is the only logical law enforcement organization that might be employed usefully and effectively.
There is another point I would ask the minister to clarify. His Honour the other day, when ruling out a bill that I introduced for a repeal, read a letter from the law clerk of the House of Commons which had in it the statement that this is the highest court in the land, and that-


William Alfred Robinson: Order. The hon. member must realize he is now turning to a subject which has no reference whatever to the , Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He is now referring to a proceeding within the house, and I must ask him to adhere to our rules of relevancy, and confine his remarks to item 409.


Erhart Regier: In that case, Mr. Chairman, I shall have to bow to your ruling and sit down-and note that the minister, as yet, has not satisfied the nation that he is prepared to maintain the dignity of this parliament.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: My hon. friend is quite egotistical when he assumes that, because one has not satisfied him, therefore one has not satisfied the nation. I would say that one has
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satisfied most members in the House of Commons with regard to the position that has been taken.


Erhart Regier: That's what you think.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Because the position is as clear as a pikestaff.


Erhart Regier: That's what you think.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: And one hopes, as my hon.
friend stays longer in the House of Commons, that he will gain some facility in the reading of the statutes, and that he would gather some understanding as a member such as would enable him to understand section 92 of the British North America Act, which reads as follows:
In each province the legislature may exclusively make laws in relation to matters coming within the classes of subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say,-
And in the list of matters which follow we find No. 14 in these words:
The administration of justice in the province, including the constitution, maintenance and organization of provincial courts, both of civil and of criminal jurisdiction, and including procedure of civil matters in those courts.
And I wish to tell my hon. friend-


William Alfred Robinson: Order. Having stopped the hon. member who previously had the floor, I should also point out to the Minister of Justice that he is perhaps continuing a subject which in my opinion has little reference to the R.C.M.P. I am hoping that all hon. members will confine their remarks to a discussion of this item.


Mr. Nicholson:: I think the Minister of Justice should be permitted to finish the very interesting sentence that he was beginning. I suggest also that the R.C.M.P. must take some responsibility in connection with the subject matter raised by the hon. member for Burn-aby-Coquitlam. The minister might finish his sentence.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Chairman, I raise this point of order, that when we move on from the item for the mounted police to discuss some other part of the esf'mates for the Department of Justice, undouotedly we will reach a point where the observations of the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam would be in order. If we must deal with this matter then we might as well clean it up while we are at it, because it is a very simple matter, a very simple matter indeed.
The point, and I think they teach it now in high schools is, as to the distinction between provincial and federal responsibilities. Where the British North America Act says that the administration of justice and the enforcement of law is the responsibility of the provinces,

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it means just that. Even in those cases where we proceed under the Combines Investigation Act to prosecute in any province, under a federal statute, I secure the permission of the provincial attorney general before launching a prosecution.
If there were any disagreement among informed persons about this matter I might see some point in the present instance in my hon. friend's statement. But in the course of his own remarks he cited a case in which a prosecution was launched that went to the Ontario court of apoeal. And it was launched by whom? Was it by the mounted police? Certainly not; it was launched under the authority of the attorney general of Ontario. And in an endeavour to deal with perjury before a committee of parliament the attorney general of Ontario or his representatives in this prosecution recognized his constitutional responsibility. What my hon. friend from Burnaby-Coquitlam wants to do, either because he misreads or does not understand the British North America Act, is to have the whole nation change the procedure which both provincial and federal authorities are agreed is the proper one.
The case which went to the Ontario court of appeal, under a prosecution launched under the authority of the attorney general for Ontario, turned, when it got to that court of appeal, upon the wording of the section of the code under which the prosecutor chose to lay the charge. The Ontario court of appeal held, as a technical point, that within the meaning of that section of the Criminal Code, as it then was, a committee of parliament was not a court. But their judgment was based upon the meaning of that section, and did not hold that parliament was not a court in the larger sense referred to, for example, by the hon. member for Prince Albert. But when you lay a charge under a section of the Criminal Code, then if there is any doubt as to interpretation that doubt is resolved in favour of the accused; for criminal statutes are interpreted strictly as against the crown. In Canada we try not to convict the accused unless we can prove the case completely.
Upon that technicality, and upon the wording of that section of the Criminal Code, as it then was, there was a finding by the court of appeal to the effect that the conviction- and it was a conviction-should not stand.
I explained in the house before, that when the Criminal Code was being consolidated we recast that section in a form that would obviate that kind of result in a similar prosecution hereafter. Therefore, if the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam knows of any case of perjury that is taking place before

a committee of parliament, it is a very simple matter for him to walk down the street to the crown prosecutor and tell him what it is all about so the prosecutor can investigate it in the same way he does any other crime, lay the information and carry on from there. If he lays the information properly under the relevant section of the new code, the result of the case should be different from that which went to the Ontario court of appeal. The fact that this case did go to the court of appeal in itself is proof that what I have said in this house on previous occasions and what I am saying now is quite right, namely that the responsibility for the administration of justice-the responsibility for that prosecution-rests with the provincial authorities. And it is not only a responsibility, it is a provincial right. I may inform the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam that when we met together in dominion-provincial conferences upon constitutional amendments there was not any provincial right under our constitution which is regarded with more jealous care by the provinces than their power over the administration of justice and the enforcement of law.
In this conference to decide as to whether there was any way in which we could amend the constitution in Canada, without having to go to the British parliament, this particular clause, clause 14 of section 92, was regarded by both of the large provinces of Ontario and Quebec as a part of the constitution which should not be changed except with the unanimous consent of every province. What the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam, in his lack of knowledge of this subject matter, is suggesting is that we should go heedlessly ahead in an invasion upon this area which the provinces regard with such great care.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It is not desirable to get this point raised by the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam into too technical a field, but surely the minister will admit that there is room for the suggestion that it would not be an unwarranted invasion of provincial jurisdiction to say, when the offence is committed within the confines of the parliament buildings, as these offences are, where they are peculiarly related, as they are, to proceedings before parliamentary committees, that he, as Attorney General of Canada, has a responsibility. If he as Attorney General of Canada were to see that these proceedings were commenced, to say that that would be an invasion of provincial rights is, I think, far-fetched and fantastic. It is a position that no provincial attorney general would ever take if the proceedings arose out of things that took place in these parliament buildings.

Incidentally, I might point out that the parties concerned in those proceedings come from another province. Why should the attorney general of Ontario be saddled with the responsibility of bringing criminal prosecutions against people from another province? It is true the crime took place here. It seems to me it is being far too technical with respect to this matter of invasion of provincial rights to say that we cannot lift a finger in this matter because it would be resented by the attorney general of Ontario. I should think it would be welcomed by the attorney general of Ontario and by those of us who wish to see that perjury is not committed here.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I do suggest to the hon. member for Kamloops that perjury is no less perjury and is no less a crime, and its prosecution falls no less under subsection 14 of section 92 of the British North America Act, if it is committed in the parliament buildings, any more than if it were committed in some store on Sparks street or in Queen's Park; it is still perjury in every one of these cases. The enforcement of the law and the administration of justice still remain the responsibility of the attorney general of the province. It is still recognized by him as his responsibility The very case that the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam cited was the case in which the attorney general acted. It is not merely a question as to what police force is acting here; it is a question as to who is going to have the carriage of the prosecution, who is going to decide what kind of charge is to be laid, or whether a charge is going to be laid at all.
There is only one way, in my judgment, that the provincial rights under any of these British North America Act headings can be respected, and that is by respecting them. That means that the federal authorities should leave them alone, as a field to be exercised by the provincial authorities. If the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam could come into the house and say, this is a great abuse. The provincial authorities will not do anything about these cases, they will not prosecute. Then we might give thought to what should be done. But the provincial authorities have prosecuted; and because they lost a case in the court of appeal upon the then wording of a section of the old Criminal Code, his argument, if I understand it rightly, is that the Attorney General of Canada should step into the picture. I may point out to him that if I, as Minister of Justice of Canada, had undertaken the responsibility for the prosecution which it is not my constitutional responsibility to do; if I had laid this charge under the same section the result would have
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been just the same, because it was not the identity of the prosecutor, it was the legal point that was involved that produced the result that my hon. friend deprecates.


William Alfred Robinson: Order. May I respectfully suggest to hon. members that my original fears have been realized. We have been embarking on a highly learned discussion of constitutional and criminal law. May I now ask hon. members to return to item 409, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, headquarters administration.


Harold Edward Winch: That is exactly what I should like to do. Because of the seriousness of the narcotics situation in Canada, and because there has been a report, No. 15 of the Senate committee, will the minister, from his knowledge and from his judgment, tell the committee whether in his estimation, as the chief law officer of the Dominion of Canada, the police forces of Canada, including the great responsibilities of the R.C.M.P., are or are not doing their utmost to enforce the law as regards the illegal use of narcotics in Canada? Will the minister also state whether he thinks the R.C.M.P. narcotics squad in Vancouver are doing a good job? In view of the seriousness of the situation, will he also state whether it will improve conditions if the R.C.M.P. had more money so as to increase the membership of the narcotics squad and make a major drive against the illegal entry of drugs into this country?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Rising in response to my hon. friend's suggestion, I first of all would like to thank him for the complimentary references which he made to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police narcotics squad.


Harold Edward Winch: I have worked with them over the years and I believe they are trying to do a good job.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I have worked with them, and therefore I can say the same thing. I believe they are doing a good job. I think they are deserving of the compliments which were paid to them by my hon. friend.
My hon. friend asks me to give the same kind of an endorsement with regard to the Vancouver police narcotics squad. My inability to do so does not arise from any knowledge that I may possess as to what kind of job they are doing, because I do not know what kind of job they are doing. I must confess that I am uninformed upon the subject.
Indeed, in the case of the mounted police my main reason for thinking that they are doing, as the hon. member for Vancouver East suggests, a very good job in narcotics work, is that in my experience for over seven years

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as minister in charge of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, I have found they have done a first-class job in all of their undertakings. It would be quite exceptional if in their narcotics work they did not do their usual good job. I do not profess, even as the minister in charge of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to be an expert in narcotics prevention; therefore I am reluctantly unable to express any opinion with regard to the quality of the work the Vancouver police are doing. I am certainly not implying by that that there is anything wrong about it; I do not know whether it is good and I do not know whether it is bad.
With regard to the suggestion of the hon. member for Vancouver East that we should have more money, may I say that I do not suppose there is a department in any government that did not think it should have more money. The difficulty is always with the finance department. It is true that we are always planning ahead for measures we think may be taken provided we can get more funds, not only in the ease of narcotics but in the case of other activities. The estimates we present to parliament are the result of discussions between our department and the Department of Finance, and constitute a reasonable compromise between their views and our own.
My hon. friend says we should have more money wherewith to increase our narcotics squad, to the end that we might stamp out the importation and wholesale trafficking which is our peculiar responsibility. In general I suppose one might think that if X good men can do a good job, X plus Y number of men could do a better job; but I do not think it is quite as simple as that. This narcotics problem has received a great deal of attention from the Department of Justice, which is mainly responsible for one part of it. The Department of National Health and Welfare is also involved in the problem. I -believe there are views extant to the effect that there are perhaps better ways of stamping out narcotics than to merely add to the number of the narcotics squad, whether it is a municipal or federal force. For example, I believe the views entertained by people who are well informed in this field are that perhaps if the addicts who constitute the market, the only market in which it is profitable for these traffickers to deal, were all institutionalized there might cease to be a market.


Harold Edward Winch: That is fine; I am going to discuss that under health and welfare.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: That might be a more potent method of stamping out the traffic than by

adding to the number of the narcotics squad either in Vancouver or in Canada.


Harold Edward Winch: There are now 4,200 addicts in Canada who are getting all they need daily, and it must come in illegally.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Quite true.


Harold Edward Winch: I am going to discuss this again under health and welfare, but all I am talking about at the moment is enforcement. As I say, there are now 4,200 addicts in Canada who are getting their drugs illegally every day. That would come under the R.C.M.P. I am asking if it would not help to reduce the availability of these drugs if you had a larger narcotics squad in the R.C.M.P.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: As I said a few moments ago, it can be argued that at the present moment the traffickers and smugglers are importing enough to take care of 4,200 addicts, therefore with a larger staff in the narcotics squad to stop importation that would have a salutary effect. I know that is one of the suggested solutions. But in addition to other solutions, there is the one I have just referred to. If these addicts were all institutionalized and were supplied their drugs by other than illegal means and the market thus was dried up completely, there would be no purpose in anyone importing drugs illegally.
The hon. member for Vancouver East knows very well that this whole matter is under investigation at the present time, as to which of these and other alternative methods is the best. In the meantime I appreciate his solicitude with regard to our end of it, and the support he has given for an increase in our appropriation.


John Horne Blackmore: Mr. Chairman, before the item carries I should like to have a little chat with the minister about communists in this country. Surely nearly everybody must be worrying today about communism in this country, yet we seem to be getting nowhere fast in dealing with it. The communist movement seems to be growing, not only in size but in intricacy and effectiveness and, shall I say, audacity. It seems to me that it is getting to the point where it rather defies the authorities to do anything about it. I should like very much to have the minister bring us up to date in respect of this matter.
The minister will remember that last year I suggested it might be wise to set up a royal commission to investigate the whole matter, because I felt that there were many aspects of communism of which the majority of people in Canada had not the slightest concept. Most people have the idea that communists become communists because they think communism is a better way of managing

the country and creates a better economy than the capitalist system we are using. They think that is about all there is to it. As a matter of fact that is just the least of our worries about the thing.
Communism as I have come to see it is the result of a terrible conspiracy of evil men who are setting out definitely to conquer the world and bring it under their own domination. That fact should be made manifest by a public investigation such as a royal commission, and that is why I suggested it last year. At that time the minister thought such a royal commission probably would be more injurious than beneficial, and he so expressed himself. I wonder if he would care to make a comment now after another year of experience in the matter. I am sure it must be troubling him terribly. The minister indicated this, in fact, when he was discussing the matter of the police. He indicated that there were so many security problems to take care of which constituted a sort of first charge on the energies of the mounted police and their members that it was becoming increasingly difficult to spare mounted police for other work.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Chairman, I am sure the hon. member realizes that when the Minister of Justice discusses communists, inasmuch as he is responsible for the operations of the special branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police which has to do with the protection of our country against their illegal acts, he cannot discuss in parliament the methods which are used for these purposes. The hon. member will realize the disability under which I approach the subject.
But I think there are clear evidences that the communist party is not growing in numbers and influence. These are to be found in the vote which the labour progressive party has been able to attract in various municipal elections, and in particular in the last federal election. The figure, as I recall it, in the last federal election for the whole of Canada, which includes the party members in good standing, also all the fellow travellers and also, I think, quite a goodly number of people who are not communists at all but who are angry, disgusted and frustrated and who in consequence voted communist as a protest- adding those all together over the whole of Canada, they amounted to 63,000 votes.
I do not want to say what our view is of the actual party membership, for I think my statement of that would be of some value to the communists themselves. We prefer that they should not know what we thought it was. The same is true with regard to almost every item of information that would be of
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interest to the members of this house. For that reason I hope my hon. friend will excuse me for not particularizing any more than I have done.


John Horne Blackmore: I greatly appreciate the minister's remarks and I think I can fully understand his position, at least as far as anyone who has never been on the inside looking out can appreciate the problems of the minister. Nevertheless there are things going on in our country which, I am sure, are disturbing the very best people. The minister said we had 63,000 votes for communism in the last election. That is true. That indicates quite clearly that all but 63,000 of the voters of Canada do not want communism in any form whatsoever.
What we need explained is why they have communism passed out to them from so many sources in the Dominion of Canada daily, weekly, yearly; in schools, in textbooks and in a variety of ways.
I do not want to bring this matter in because the minister cannot do very much about those things, but I should like to refer to one or two matters about which the minister probably knows but which an ordinary person like myself finds very disturbing.
There came to the desks of at least some of the members of this house a book called "Pawns in the Game" by a man named William Guy Carr, who published his book in 1955. The book seems to be very adequately documented. Mr. Carr appears to have wide knowledge of the subject. I should like to bring to the minister's attention, if that has not already been done, the fact that on page 125 of the book Mr. Carr says that there were 17 schools of communism in Toronto during 1954.
These people were not just teaching communism as government ownership of industry and having all things in common, and all those other things that make people giddy about communism and think it must be the solution to all problems of the world. Those people were training the boys and girls who came under their care in techniques for the overthrow of this nation. That is the information that is given in this book. He says that there were also several such schools in Sudbury. I feel quite confident that there are schools of the kind in other places.
What I should like to know is whether or not the minister knows about such schools. If he does, how is it that he has to let them continue and carry on their nefarious work? Could he give us any information respecting that matter without revealing too much of his knowledge?

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Stuart Sinclair Garson: Well, Mr. Chairman, the
minister does know about these schools. Rightly or wrongly-we think rightly-we have come to a decision and it is not a snap decision but one reached after the most careful consideration, and that is that from a security standpoint alone, apart from any other consideration, we believe the practices we have been following are the ones which are in the best interests of the country. If one leaves out of account as being of no worth at all any question of freedom of speech and such considerations and considers the whole matter from a purely security standpoint, we are better off as we are than in most of the other countries where very rigorous anti-communist programs have been developed, in most cases without as good results as we get in Canada.


John Horne Blackmore: I am pleased to have that comment. I was quite sure the minister knew about the schools, and I quite see that he felt that possibly he could not very well interfere with them. The trouble with us democratic people is that we cannot interfere with communists; but let one of our luckless boys get into communist hands and he is brainwashed or shot without any hesitation. In China if anyone is discovered talking to people about recovering the freedom of China, he is pretty nearly shot at sight. What do you suppose would happen to such a person in Russia or any of the satellite countries? I suppose they would have very short shrift. Yet we tolerate these abominations in our country. In the interests of democracy, which we all love, we are allowing ourselves bit by bit to be destroyed. There are two universities in the Dominion of Canada that have gone almost completely red, judging from what comes out in their university newspapers.


An hon. Member:: Which universities?


John Horne Blackmore: That is my business, to tell that in due time.


Mr. Leonard:: You say two are red. Which are they?


John Horne Blackmore: I think I can effectively establish a case against these universities. I am in the same position as the minister. What is the use of telling all these things?
I have told enough. From the kind of thing that appears in the university newspapers they are so nearly red that all they need is the occasion and they would come right out and destroy the institutions of this nation if they could. That does not mean that all the students within those universities are that way, but it certainly does mean that the

students who are going into those universities are being subjected to an incessant communist influence.


An hon. Member:: Oh, oh.


John Horne Blackmore: The hon. member thinks I am foolish enough to rise to his bait. I was not born yesterday. The important thing is that this kind of thing actually is occurring. What one needs to be afraid of is the influence which is gradually being exerted on our youth, leading them to believe that communism is man's best hope, softening them up to communism, and consequently weakening the warp and woof of our nation and impairing our will to fight. One communist leader has said that the first thing they will do is work on our youth through our schools in such a way as to immobilize our youth as far as fighting is concerned. This means the building up in them of such a prejudice in favour of communism that they could not be expected to fight against communism with determination.
That is the thing we need to worry about. Communist leaders have told us they are going to do it. They are doing it, and we are doing nothing about it. That is a matter for great concern, I am sure. I know there are people in the country who do not care if we do go communist. They would rather welcome it.


An hon. Member:: You do not know one.


John Horne Blackmore: I know there are people who just do not care whether or not they go communist. They think we would be better off if we were a satellite of Russia. There are people who are actually that way. We have had them in this house. You find them on the streets occasionally. Get enough people like that and where will the Canadian nation be?
I have an article here to which I wish to refer; I suppose nearly everyone must have read it. It is the first article in the June, 1955, issue of Reader's Digest. It indicates a condition which I think ought to be dealt with somehow. Certainly Russia would not tolerate it even for an hour. The article is entitled, "Red Pipeline into Uranium". The hon. member for Mackenzie would get a lot of interesting information here. The article reads in part:
At Uranium City, newly rising out of the rock-hill wilderness of northern Saskatchewan, lies the biggest uranium mining and refining operation on our continent. Anyone watching the raw material for atomic weapons come out of the earth there would feel protected against his enemies-until he learns that the workmen who dig it, smelt it and control it are communist-led.
He would be further disquieted as he travels south to Trail, B.C.-site of one of the world's biggest smelting plants for refining zinc, lead,

manganese and other metals vital to defence. Or to the heavy-water plant nearby. For there, too, communists pipe the tune to which the workmen dance.
The writer of this article is Lester Velie. I do not know how authentic he is, but I think he would hesitate to say things like this if they were not pretty well validated, and I do not believe Reader's Digest would publish such an article if it did not have confidence in its validity. I leave out the next paragraph having to do with Bingham Canyon, Utah, which is not in Canada. Thank goodness it is not part of our responsibility to deal with it.
However, referring to conditions in Bingham Canyon, Utah, as well as conditions in Canada, this is what the article goes on to say on page 21:
If the communists were to shut down or sabotage this metal production, they could cripple North American defence. Moreover, such an attempt could conceivably be made through the international union of mine, mill and smelter workers, which is usually referred to as "mine mill". The dominant union in the non-ferrous metals industry, with jurisdiction over metal workers throughout western North America, it has been branded as red-led by the C.I.O. that ousted it, by U.S. Senate probers who condemned it, and by some of its own leaders who admit it.
Harvey Murphy, mine mill's regional director in Canada, has spent a year in Russia. "Everyone knows I'm a communist", he told me at Trail. "I'm the most famous communist in the country. Tell me one thing that's wrong with Russia."
Under communist Murphy's jurisdiction is the local of 500 men who work in the mines and operate the Eldorado Mining and Refining, Limited, plant at Uranium City.
Secretary-treasurer of mine mill is Albert Pezzati, described in congressional testimony as a communist. Pezzati's predecessor was Maurice Travis, who told members via the union's newspaper: "Membership in the communist party meant I could be a better trade unionist."
Hon. members will be quite sobered and enlightened, I am sure, and probably will experience a great deal of anxiety just from reading the rest of that article, because it goes right down to the grass roots. We may say that our police know all about it. Of course we have some people who try to minimize all these things, and who say that our mounted police know where all these people are and would be able to deal with them. Last year I pointed out to the minister that in the December 12, 1953, issue of the Financial Post, I believe it was-I did not check it this time-we were told there were 90,000 communists in British Columbia. I believe there are that number. The evidence I have had indicates that. I will not say they all vote communist, but how many mounted police would it require to take care of that number?
Let us be realistic. How many would it require to take care of this unfortunate sinkhole to which I have just referred? Suppose
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these communists all began to work together at a certain time. It is very easy to pay no attention to these matters until it is too late. That is what the people of Czechoslovakia did. They thought all was well until suddenly down went the country. Who did it? It was done by people in various offices in the Czechoslovakian government, people placed where they could shoot policemen or mayors or do the various other things in the communities and cities that would deprive the people of leadership. That is how they go to work. The whole country was switched over in but a few hours. For anyone to pretend that a condition like that could not develop in Canada is for him to be utterly unrealistic and irresponsible in these terrible times.
We have been told time and again by the communist leaders that this thing will happen. We see what has been happening in the United States and what is now happening. We have seen how United States foreign policy can be perverted by a little knot of communists in high places in the administration of the United States, and was so perverted after world war II until China was lost. Surely we do not need any more objective lessons than we have already had if anyone is disposed to face the facts as they actually are. That matter is more than serious.
I should now like to draw the minister's attention to something which maybe he has not noticed before. I should like to draw his attention to the C.B.C., and I am going to have a little bit more to say about the C.B.C. by and by. The C.B.C. is a lordly, independent, arrogant organization that tells the Canadian people to go straight to blazes. It will run its own show whether we like what it does or whether we do not. It says that in very mild, dulcet, gentle, communist-like tones, but that is what it means.
I asked something about C.B.C. policy last year, as I am going to do again this year, and the C.B.C. paid no attention to the request that was made, only subjected us to a lot more communist speakers. I think the people of Canada have a right to be protected against an absolute drenching of communism in program after program over the C.B.C.


Mr. Coldwell:: May I rise on a point of
order?


John Horne Blackmore: You would be the man; just what I expected.


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Chairman, may I rise on
a point of order? What are we discussing? Are we discussing the R.C.M.P. estimates or are we going to listen to attacks on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, two universities unnamed, various schools, teachers and

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so on in this country for the rest of the afternoon? On a question of privilege, may I say that the hon. member knows there is no person in this house who stands more firmly against communism than I do, but I want to say that I also stand for the British idea of freedom and tolerance which has never let our democracy down and I do not believe ever will if we follow the principles outlined under that democracy and carry on as the Minister of Justice says they are carrying on at the present time. Let us get on with the business and not continue to listen to attacks of all kinds on unnamed persons and institutions in this country.


John Horne Blackmore: The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar will have some names before very long. I may say that we are discussing-


Edward Turney Applewhaite: Order. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar has raised a point of order which I think should be mentioned from the chair. As all members of the committee know, it so happens that the occupancy of the chair changed about half a minute ago, and I did not hear the preceding debate. However, I do not hesitate for a moment to say that charges of communism against members of the House of Commons should not be made in this chamber. Nor do I hesitate to say that we are discussing the administration of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and that there will be a time-not very long away, I hope- for discussing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
In so far as the hon. member wishes to discuss the activities of the C.B.C. in connection with the operations of the R.C.M.P., neither I nor anyone else can object. But the hon. member will agree with me that his remarks must be tied in with the administration and activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.


John Horne Blackmore: I am delighted to tie them in, Mr. Chairman. If we are paying all the money that we are paying to our Royal Canadian Mounted Police to root out communism, and if at the same time we are creating communists twice as fast as they can root them out, will someone tell me where the logic is in our way of proceeding? If we are just literally creating communists in at least a dozen different ways which I can tell about, one of which is through the C.B.C., then certainly reference to the C.B.C. as a communist organization is quite in order.


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: Nonsense.
[Mr. ColdwellJ


John Horne Blackmore: If hon. members do not want me to talk about the C.B.C. I have plenty of other things to talk about. But certainly, Mr. Chairman, I think it is an absolute outrage that the money of people like John Blackmore, who have been so definitely opposed to communism and who are as opposed to communism as the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar protests he is- and for that I accept his word-should be put into an organization that is indoctrinating our children all over the place through C.B.C. programs on communism, and is doing it incessantly. I have the programs here. I have the names of the people who have performed. I do not propose to go into this matter in great detail this afternoon.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: The Minister of National Revenue is not here.


John Horne Blackmore: If the hon. member is implying that I am afraid of the Minister of National Revenue he has three more guesses coming.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: He should be here.


John Horne Blackmore: I cannot tell him just when I will get the opportunity to talk. He can defend himself when he comes back. The hon. member has never yet found me to be unfair in this chamber, has he? All right. If you have anything to say against me in the house I will answer it at any time.


Major James William Coldwell: May I make this suggestion to the hon. member? May I suggest that the place for him to do this is in the radio committee. He should see to it that his party have him appointed as a member of the radio committee, where he can air his views regarding the C.B.C. or related problems.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I agree with that. We have freedom of speech in Canada, including the houses of parliament, and I think the hon. member for Lethbridge has the right to exercise his freedom of speech. The objection I would make to his remarks on the present occasion is that they are not relevant. They have to do with the C.B.C. and they are not relevant to the R.C.M.P. That is the ground upon which I base my objection. If he would raise these points when they are relevant it might be to better purpose.


John Horne Blackmore: I do not wish to offend at all. One of the big difficulties in connection with the radio committee and most of the other committees is this. All that goes on in them goes into their Hansard and people never hear about it. How many people read the Hansard of committees? How many people get to know what goes on in them?


Pierre Gauthier: You should. If you want to know what is going on in the radio committee, why do you not read their proceedings?


John Horne Blackmore: The hon. member can just wait until I am done, until after I have said what I have to say.


Pierre Gauthier: Go ahead.


John Horne Blackmore: If there is anything foolish in what I have to say, the hon. member can find fault with it.


Pierre Gauthier: Go ahead.


John Horne Blackmore: If it is foolish it will reflect on me.
The reason I am connecting it up with the R.C.M.P. is that, as the minister must realize, the problem faced by the R.C.M.P. in dealing with communism today is much worse than it was five years ago, and it is much worse than it was ten years ago. In other words the problem is increasing. No wonder that is the situation when by so many means we are indoctrinating our people with communism. I am objecting to what the C.B.C. is doing because it is indoctrinating people by the hundreds of thousands through speeches by men like Matthew Halton.


Major James William Coldwell: Will the hon. member permit a question?


John Horne Blackmore: Yes.


Major James William Coldwell: Is he advocating that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police should control the schools, the universities, the radio and all the rest? In other words, is he advocating the establishment of a police state in Canada?


John Horne Blackmore: The hon. member asks if he can ask a question. Then he rises and asks a stupid question, when he knows perfectly well I do not advocate that. He asks that question because he knows that a certain press will report what he has to say and will not report what I have to say.


Major James William Coldwell: Oh, no.


John Horne Blackmore: There is that press which is ignorant enough to quote anything the C.C.F. have to say because they are interested in communism and socialism. I think I can refer to a good many reports, now that the hon. gentleman has asked me that question. He knows that in what I have said here I have not even hinted at such a thing. What I am suggesting is that the minister, as a responsible minister of the crown and a member of the cabinet, ought to be able, somehow or another, to exercise some influence over the C.B.C. If the C.B.C. is doing work which is making it hard for him to do his job, certainly he ought to be able
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to exercise some influence on C.B.C. programs. That is all I say. That is simple enough. I think even the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar can see the logic of that, without my advocating a police state or any other monstrosity.
I am now going to pass on from the C.B.C. except just to read a little quotation which indicates that I am not the only one in Canada who has recognized this situation. I am quoting a summary report from the Winnipeg Tribune of Thursday, May 26, 1955. It is headed "I.O.D.E. Ask C.B.C. to Broadcast Fuller Reports on Communism". It reads in part as follows:
Members of the national chapter I.O.D.E., at the final session of the 55th annual meeting, Wednesday afternoon, in the Royal Alexandra hotel, passed two resolutions aimed at counteracting subversive propaganda and the threat of communism. One asked that the I.O.D.E. urge the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to make more extensive use of its facilities to bring to the attention of Canadians the menace of communism;-
I do not think it ever does that. All the programs I have heard indicate what a lovely thing communism is. The article continues: -that programs be provided in which members of ethnic groups recently arrived in Canada may take part, in order that they may relate unhappy experiences suffered in countries behind the iron curtain, thus helping to counteract subversive propaganda and the threat of communism.
You never hear of anything like that; oh, no, not at all. Although I do not think I will do so, I could refer to instances because I have a monitor who keeps very careful tab on the C.B.C. and reports to me most interesting things.


Edward Turney Applewhaite: Order. I do not
like having to interrupt the hon. member, but I feel it is my duty to the committee to do so. The hon. member has just said that he has a monitor who keeps him advised with respect to the C.B.C. I must again advise the hon. member that we are not at the present time discussing the C.B.C. We are discussing whether or not certain money shall be voted for the administration and other expenses of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
As I understand it, the hon. member has developed the argument that certain work of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is not being supported but possibly is being undermined by the activities of some governmental agency. He is perfectly entitled to make that argument, but he is not entitled to use that argument as an excuse for discussing that other agency under this item, particularly when that other agency will be before the committee of supply. I am sure the hon. member will now come back to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

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John Horne Blackmore: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I have said most of what I desired to say. It must be obvious that if a person were to hire a doctor to treat a case and then were to allow the patient to do half a dozen things that aggravated the malady twice as fast as the doctor could heal it, he would be exceedingly foolish to go on paying a high fee to the doctor. That is what it amounts to. I say that unless something is done by this government to prevent the incessant barrage of communism and the indoctrination of communistic ideals that is coming in over the radio waves of Canada, then this country is doomed to go communist in spite of everything we can possibly do. We might not call it communism, but people will go communist. It will manifest itself as communism in some form or other that one would not expect.
Then there are a number of other things I would like to mention. I would point out that this government, before the eyes of all people who really stop to think, stands in a rather questionable light. In 1946-and this still has a bearing on the R.C.M.P.-Igor Gouzenko brought to the government, very much against the government's will, certain revelations respecting communism in Canada. A royal commission was set up to examine those revelations. But just about the time the commission got started, somebody stopped it and left unexplored a great many of the leads they already had. They closed the whole thing up, almost with a bang.
Any ordinary person would ask, what caused that? What happened? What caused the government to close up that investigation? There must have been something. I am not going into any detail, though I have plenty more to say. I think I have said enough up to the present time. I am just warning; and it is my duty to warn, out of the knowledge that has come to my hand. If I fail to do that then I fail to discharge my responsibility, and that I do not intend to do.
Last year Igor Gouzenko came out of hiding. Evidently he was full of anxiety about what was going on, and he tried to warn this country. What happened? This government shut him up. Why was that? Who was it behind the government that shut him up? These are serious questions I am asking. I am not reflecting upon the integrity of the Liberal party, because there are in the Liberal party in the House of Commons some of the best men who ever sat in the house; the majority of them are like that. But that does not mean they cannot be the victims of very, very unhappy circumstances which it may be their united duty and
[The Deputy Chairman.]
responsibility-one which I am sure they will assume as soon as they realize it-to rectify, and without longer delay.
I am raising this question. If I were a member of the Liberal party, that is the first thing I would be asking everybody. Why did they shut off Igor Gouzenko? Why did they make it so hard for those investigators from the United States to gain access to Gouzenko? Why did they circumscribe those investigators in so many different ways?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Chairman, I do not know what my hon. friend is leading up to when he suggests that the government shut off Mr. Gouzenko, because I think if he had been shut off by the government it is likely that I, as Minister of Justice in charge of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, probably would have known something about it. Certainly I have no knowledge whatsoever that he has been shut up in any way. Indeed, far from being shut up he wrote a book, a very excellent book, on his own initiative, a book which received the Governor General's prize for fiction and which proved to be one of the best sellers in this country and the United States. He appeared on a television program and radio programs in the United States and Canada. In the very case to which my hon. friend refers, when the investigating committee of the United States congress wished to ask him questions, we made arrangements for them to do so.
But I am sure my hon. friend, who is always fair in these matters, must realize that we, too, had a responsibility for the safety of Mr. Gouzenko. We had to make sure, in the arrangemnts that were made for his examination, that his security would not be jeopardized, and we were glad to do that. However, I must assure my hon. friend, as one man to another, that there is no foundation at all for the suggestion that we ever in any way shut Mr. Gouzenko up.


John Horne Blackmore: Except, Mr. Chairman, for the fact that we now hear no more about him.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: No more about what?


John Horne Blackmore: No more about his revelations, about these spy rings that work in Canada and the United States.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Well, the examination which took place on Canadian soil by the United States congressional committee was all reported by a Hansard reporter and they covered all that field in great detail. This was sent back with, if I remember correctly, the deletion of some 25 words from the whole

record. It was sent back to the United States government in that way. Is there any shutting up indicated in that?
Then with respect to what the hon. member has to say about spy rings, I would point out that that was so thoroughly investigated and resulted in such a large number of criminal prosecutions, most of which were successful, that even an important matter like that is subject only to a certain maximum amount of discussion, and when it gets beyond that point there is not much more to discuss.


John Horne Blackmore: We will leave the matter just at that, with my suggestion that it would be a most awkward situation if among those words that were deleted, there were names of some pretty high-ranking people in Canada. It would be most awkward, would it not?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Chairman, I know my hon. friend wishes to be fair, but we like to clean up these things as we go along. As I recall it, the words deleted had reference to the nationals of a country other than Canada, and we did not think their names should be brought into a discussion which took place under our auspices. That was the reason we suggested that those words be left out. It had nothing at all to do with Canadians, and it had nothing to do with Americans, because we felt that if the United States committee wanted to take the responsibility for dragging any of their people into it that was their affair. But we did not think we in Canada should be the means of dragging into the discussion of an American congressional inquiry names of citizens other than Canadians.


Major James William Coldwell: And who might not be guilty.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Yes, certainly; who might not be guilty. We did not think we should be in the position of libelling or slandering them, and the precautions we took to that end were, I think, proper ones. And I might say to my hon. friend that you cannot hide many secrets of that kind in 25 words.


John Horne Blackmore: I accept in good faith what the minister says. However, I would urge that he redouble his efforts in respect of communism in Canada. He knows that conditions are very serious, much more serious than the remarks of anyone, except myself, have indicated. And I can bring evidence, and plenty of it; I never have trouble in bringing evidence. I have one book right here which would be enough to make anyone in Canada have nightmares. I refer to this book "Pawns in the Game".


Major James William Coldwell: Some people get them.
Supply-Justice


John Horne Blackmore: Oh, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar comes along with his smart aleck remarks to get the press.


Major James William Coldwell: Oh, no; but I could not resist saying that some people seem to be subject to nightmares, and their monitors must be in mental institutions in Canada.


John Horne Blackmore: That will get the press; that very silly remark has been caught up, just as silly remarks have been made by other people just before their destruction. So I shall close what I have to say for the present. But I will be back again before we are finished with these matters.


Mr. Bryce:: Mr. Chairman, I have one or two questions I would like to ask the minister in connection with the R.C.M.P. My first question has to deal with young men who have joined the force. I do not rise to offer criticism, but to obtain information.
You take them into the force when they are 18 years of age. I think that is the age they have to be to join the force. You train them for a year or more. I think of my own experience in the army. It took longer than a year to be trained as an efficient soldier. I guess it takes longer to train to be an efficient constable. When they join they sign an agreement or give a pledge that they will not get married for seven years. Is that so?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: No, it is not so; it is five years.


William Scottie Bryce: What is the regulation?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Five years, not seven.


William Scottie Bryce: Take a young man who joins when he is 18. He cannot get married until he is 23. Many people get married before they are 23. In the meantime you have trained that man from the time he was 18 until he is 21. He thinks differently at 21. He thinks he would be better off to get married. I understand he has to resign then because he has not carried out the agreement he signed. Is that so?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I am afraid I did not get the point.


William Scottie Bryce: If any of these young chaps should break the agreement they have with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, are they asked to resign?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Well, they are released from their obligations.


William Scottie Bryce: And they are not employed by the force any more?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: That is right.


William Scottie Bryce: You have trained that young man for three or four years and then let him go. I do not know whether or not that
<890

Supply-Justice
is a good policy. How many young men have you lost in the last five years through resigning to get married?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I do not think I can give that information from the material we have here, but I can get that figure for my hon. friend.


William Scottie Bryce: If the minister gets it for me I shall be quite satisfied.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: It is not the type of thing one would want to give inaccurately, and I am sure we cannot produce it from memory.


William Scottie Bryce: The minister does not have the approximate percentage?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: No. I think what we had better do is get the exact figure for my hon. friend. With regard to the policy itself, perhaps I should say this by way of explanation. As I am sure my hon. friend, with his knowledge of the rural parts of our own province, at least, would be the first to realize a great deal of the work of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police throughout Canada is in outlying parts of the country. We have had this rule because we feel we have to maintain a certain percentage of the force in a position where they can be moved about freely. When he enters the force the candidate knows perfectly well what these rules are. He knows he is entering into a contract whereby, in order that we may have a certain part of the force that can be moved around in quite out of the way places where it is quite difficult to find proper accommodation for a wife and family, we expect him in those first five years in the service to remain single. He knows that when he enters the force, and if he falls in love afterwards, well then he has to choose between carrying on with his contract and getting married. It does not take him by surprise. He comes into it with his eyes open from the beginning.


Mr. Harrison:: Mr. Chairman, I was out of the house and in my office for a few minutes. I understand that the hon. member for Lethbridge made some reference in his remarks to communists in my riding, especially in Uranium City.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Over 500 there.


John Hornby Harrison: I should like to make some remarks on that, Mr. Chairman. A communist ran in my riding in the last election, and naturally any communists there would vote for him. I do not like the idea being sent abroad that there are a lot of communists in the riding of Meadow Lake. It is a riding that occupies 40 per cent of the province of Saskatchewan. According to the official report

I hold in my hand, only 177 votes were cast for the communist candidate in the last election.
As regards the area of Uranium City, some remarks were made to the effect that the unions there are communistic, or something of that kind. I do not know whether that remark was made, but I should like to comment on it. I hold in my hand the statement for the 1953 election of the various polls in that area, covering any polls that were put in separate mines where the unions operate. At the Gunnar mine 66 votes were cast, and there was 1 communist vote. At the uranium mine of Nesbitt-LaBine there were 50 votes cast; there was 1 communist vote. At the Eldorado mine 179 votes were cast, and there were 3 communists. At the Rix mine, 38 votes were cast, and there were no communist votes. At the port of Bushell, where freight is unloaded and where some union men are employed in that work, 34 votes were cast and there were no communist votes. Therefore in the total for all the mines and the port of Bushell there were only 5 communist votes.
Then we get down to Uranium City. There were 226 votes cast, and a total of 7 communist votes. Therefore in the whole area of lake Athabasca there were in all 12 communist votes. I would take it that is the sum total of the number of communists in that area.
As I say, there are only 177 communists in the whole riding, according to the votes in the last election. The idea that the unions there are different from people in any other part of the country I reject entirely. I meet these boys from time to time when I go in there to discuss problems with them. I have met them individually and collectively. I do not think you will find that they are any different from any cross-section of workingmen in the country. They are hard-working fellows; they are good fellows, and I have yet to find one who is a communist.
As my hon. friend knows, I have no more love for communists than he has, but I hate anybody to be splashed with that paint if it is not justified. With these remarks, Mr. Chairman, I resume my seat.


John Horne Blackmore: I am sure the hon. member will desire to know that I read a quotation from the first article in the Reader's Digest of June, 1955, and that is all I said about his constituency. I would suggest to the hon. member that he write to the author of that article and tell him the facts. He probably

was misinformed. The Reader's Digest did not think he was, and he did not think so.


William Alfred Robinson: Shall the item carry?


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police-
410. Construction or acquisition o£ buildings, works, land and new equipment, $971,937.
John Angus MacLean: Has the minister any progress report on the matter of providing suitable accommodation for the R.C.M.P. in Charlottetown? Originally it was planned that the offices of the R.C.M.P. were to be in the new federal building. That is not so now. I understand that some progress has been made in this regard.


Mr. Maiheson:: I was talking to the minister at noon on this same point. I intended to ask a question, but I thought it would come under the acquisition of works and lands. My information is to the effect that a site for the new barracks was turned over by the experimental farm in Charlottetown to the Department of Justice last February. I am wondering whether my information is correct. It is to the effect that a start will be made on these barracks next year. Is that correct? Can the minister give me any idea as to what the estimated cost of the building will be when it is finished?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I might say in reply to the inquiries made by the two members for Queens that the remarks of the last speaker as to our discussion during the luncheon intermission are correct. It is a fact that we have in our estimates this year an amount of $10,000 to commence the work in question. The total cost is estimated to be $190,000.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
411. Land and air services-operation and maintenance of divisions, $23,472,207.
Edmund Davie Fulton: Can the minister tell us
whether this amount represents the net cost of the policing service in the way of wages and salaries, and will there be indicated somewhere else the revenue that comes in under the contracts?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: This is the total expenditure, and the other would be shown as a revenue.


Edmund Davie Fulton: As a matter of interest, where is that shown?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: It does not appear in this printed material, but the following is the revenue for 1954-55:
Policing-provinces	 $3,424,416.43
Policing-municipalities	 1,255,943.55
Supply-J ustice


Edmund Davie Fulton: Has the minister any estimate of what the increase in rates will bring about by way of change?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: It will produce roughly
$180,000 in connection with the municipalities.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Marine services-
414.	Construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and new equipment, $487,434.
Thomas Speakman Barnett: I take it that this item would cover the operation of police boats in the coastal areas, and I was wondering whether the minister could state whether it would include anything for a new and larger boat to operate on the west coast of Vancouver island. I understand that the R.C.M.P. boat on the west coast is operated in connection with the sea and air rescue arrangements.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Yes, it does.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Has the minister any information as to the general specifications of the boat?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: It is to be a 92-footer and will carry a crew of 16 men.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
415.	Grant to the chief constables' association of Canada, $500.
Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, the matter I have in mind was discussed previously by the hon. member for Eglinton. I am not sure whether he took up this matter with the Minister of Justice or the Minister of National Revenue. It concerns the importation of Malayan-type throwing daggers. I am informed that the chief constables' association is opposed to the importation of these things. The hon. member for Eglinton asked me to take this up with the minister. He drew to my attention a case which had occurred in North Toronto this year, where one young boy stabbed another with his throwing dagger. I have here a reproduction of an advertisement, and I have seen similar advertisements in the magazines, of Malayan-style throwing daggers. It is priced at $1.50, it is claimed that it is designed by experts and is a beautiful, heavy duty 10-inch knife of fine tempered steel which will split a 1-inch board at 30 feet. There is no blade to this in the sense of something having an edge; there is only a point so it can be used only for this particular purpose.
As is pointed out in this article, the importation and sale of spring knives is illegal, and one is illustrated and compared with this wretched dagger, which appears to be a much more fearsome object. I am wondering if this would not be the appropriate time to
Total



$4,680,359.98 HOUSE OF COMMONS

[Stage Direction]
Supply-J ustice
place the matter before the minister, as it is suggested by the chief constables' association that the sale and importation of this article could be made illegal without doing anybody any harm, while at the same time doing a great deal of good by removing the temptation from young persons to harm others and sometimes themselves.
Stuart Sinclair Garson: I thank my hon. friend for his suggestion, which we will take under consideration. Before we move on to the next item perhaps I might put on the record the information asked for by the hon. member for Selkirk. The discharges on account of marriage are as follows:
1952-	53	
581953-	54	
751954-	55	6s


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
160. Remission service, including $20,000 for grants to recognized prisoners' aid societies, as may be approved by treasury board, $163,888.
Erhart Regier: Can the minister state why this item for $20,000 for grants to recognized prisoners' aid societies should appear in this item and also in item 170?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I have not the details with me at the moment, but I shall get them.


Edward Turney Applewhaite: Is it agreed that this item pass on the understanding that the minister will provide the required information?


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Combines Investigation Act-
200^* Restrictive trade practices commission, $71,-
Frederick George Hahn: I received a letter in today's mail dated July 5, from the automotive retailers' association in Vancouver, signed by J. L. Kinneard, addressed to myself at the House of Commons. I should like to draw the minister's attention to this matter. It states:
As a member from British Columbia, you are aware of course of the charges that have been made against this association and a good many of our individual members by the combines commission.
You are no doubt also familiar with the brief that was presented to the Minister of Justice which did outline the position of the retailer in B.C.
In spite of the information contained in this brief, the department appears to be adamant in their determination to pursue this matter.
Our members, although they do most sincerely believe that they have done no wrong, are now called upon to defend themselves in a major action through the supreme court against charges which, in all fairness, should never have been levied. You can readily understand why this is a matter of very real concern to our members.
For any small businessman to face the almost impossible task of financing an adequate legal 
defence in the court, is in itself a problem and a worry, but added to this has been the humiliating treatment given to these businessmen at the conclusion of the preliminary hearing.
The enclosed bulletin has been sent to each of our 1,200 member firms along with a copy of a letter to Senator McKeen. It was thought they would be of interest to you.
There is more to this matter, Mr. Chairman. There are other bulletins. I am satisfied the minister did receive the brief that was mentioned in the letter. However, reference was made to some particular treatment in respect to these businessmen of which I am not so sure the minister knows.
At the time this investigation was first launched, some 30 businessmen in the retail gasoline business in British Columbia-that is, service stations-were charged with entering into a combine contrary to the act. The magistrate who was in charge of the preliminary hearing suggested, at the time they were notified to appear on the 12th of April before the supreme court, that no bail would be required, since the men are creditable businessmen and would be released on their own recognizance.
On April 12 these men presented themselves to the court. They were lined up in the regular fashion as a group while a formal announcement was made to each one of the group as to the charge. They thought they would merely have to sign a paper indicating who they were and that, as suggested, no bail would be required. Instead of that, they were ushered into one of the cell blocks and kept there for from one to five hours, depending on their particular turn, and removed from the cells three at a time. They were fingerprinted and were then permitted to sign and were sent on their way.
This, of course, was a humiliating experience. They were treated as criminals to begin with. Their only crime was doing something that is being done every day by the major business firms in this country. They are a group of small businessmen who have got together and -are charging a particular price for gasoline, in the same way Loblaw's stores or the Dominion stores in this city get together and sell butter at the same price on one day and may decide to sell pork and beans at the same price on the following day.
It is possibly true that we have ian act that indicates they are a combine because they are not associated in a limited firm under one head, and therefore have not the right to carry on this particular practice. Unfortunately this situation has arisen as the direct result of an act that was in effect at an earlier time. Prior to 1937 in the province of British Columbia conditions were quite

chaotic, as they were in other parts of this country. The Macdonald commission was set up at that time, which made certain definite recommendations to the provincial government of the day, who in turn passed those regulations on to a coal and petroleum control board. That board was set up and established a wholesale and retail-


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, I do not wish to hamper my hon. friend in the free discussion of the point he made at the beginning of his remarks, but when he begins to discuss the merits of the case itself I really think he should not continue for this case is sub judice at the present time. It would be most unfair to the accused that we should go over all the details of the case on the floor of parliament. If my hon. friend makes his statement, then in order to make any sense at all and to give members a proper perspective of the case as a whole, it would be necessary for me to reply, and we would be really debating here the very issue which the court itself has to consider.


Edward Turney Applewhaite: Of course there is no question at all but that if the case under discussion is actually before the courts at the present time, we are debarred from discussing it on the floor of this house. I would point out to the hon. member for New Westminster, however, that that does not in any way interfere with his right to discuss the activities of the commission, its methods of proceeding and so forth. He is only debarred from discussing here the guilt or innocence in a case which is actually before the courts. I think he will appreciate the difference.


Frederick George Hahn: Thank you, Mr. Chairman; I was not aware of it at the time I drew the question to the minister's attention. I shall direct my remarks instead to a case of a different nature in connection with which I would discuss most particularly the merits and the activities of this particular administration.
I am not satisfied in this instance that there is a need for a combines investigation act. I wish to establish that to begin with. There are certain phases of the act itself which might well bear some revision. I am thinking more particularly not about the case I mentioned earlier, but instances where we have small grocers who are in an awkward position when they cannot make agreements with each other or small businessmen who cannot make agreements to sell a product at a particular price. They have no protection under the act. They are guilty of having a combine once they decide to sell
Supply-J ustice
a product at a certain retail price on a specific date and at a specific time.
We have business houses which make it a practice to establish prices in a particular way, and I am thinking at the present moment of such instances-not with any criticism-as the Gillette company of Canada which advertises ten razor blades for 50 cents and five for 25 cents. As a matter of fact I understand that it is not necessary for the people who sell these blades to adhere to these particular prices. However, the suggested retail prices are there. I presume that in establishing them the manufacturer feels that his razor blades are worth that sum, and therefore he suggests the price. The very fact that the price is there is suggestive enough to the public that they are not being discriminated against if they purchase them at that price and that the product should, therefore, be worth that amount.
Often the question arises as to what the retail price should be and who should establish it. I find some instances such as this, where a particular manufacturer advertises a guaranteed product.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Chairman, I am very much embarrassed about interrupting my hon. friend again on a point of order, but earlier this afternoon the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, who has to keep an engagement very shortly, asked me if it would not be possible for him to raise before he left a point he wished to raise under the vote for the combines branch. With the unanimous consent of hon. members, would the hon. member for New Westminster be willing to give the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar the floor for that purpose at the present time?


Frederick George Hahn: I may say to the minister that the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar indicated that situation to me earlier today. At the time I began to speak he was not in the chamber and I had this problem to put forward, but I shall be only too happy to give way to him.


Major James William Coldwell: Thank you very much; I appreciate it. As a matter of fact I had just gone upstairs to sign some mail. The point I am raising is there has been some discussion in the city of Winnipeg regarding what appear to be certain collusive understandings among the sugar refiners as to the price of sugar, particularly in Manitoba and the city of Winnipeg. It looks as though there is a working arrangement among the sugar producers of Canada. Price lists were recently issued by the sugar companies making their sugar price changes effective on the same day, May 18, 1955. The times on this date

Supply-J ustice
when the changes were to go into effect did not vary by more than an hour or two.
I have the price lists here on my desk, but I am not going into them in detail. What happened on May 18 was the same pattern that was followed with respect to their price lists on May 3, 1955, March 31, 1955, and so on. As far as the price lists are concerned, if they are investigated by the combine authorities-and I hope they will be-I am sure they will find some very interesting material upon which they can work. The lists are issued a day or so apart, and the times the changes go into effect are almost the same. Of course it would be possible, if one company had produced a price list, for other companies to produce price lists shortly afterward, but these seem to have been issued simultaneously and without any prior information to the trade. It strongly suggests that there is some working arrangement, and I suggest to the minister that the combines investigation organization might look into sugar prices in Manitoba.
The price lists I have looked at strongly indicate that the Manitoba Sugar Company and the other companies shipping sugar into Manitoba have come to an agreement. Whether it is formal or tacit I do not know, but it certainly is mutually profitable to them. These are the facts as I have them, and I want to be quite quick about the matter because I realize our time is limited.
The Manitoba Sugar Company, producing at its Fort Garry plant, has an annual capacity of 40 million pounds of white granulated sugar. I take that information from the Financial Post report on industrials for 1954, the latest information I have. The Fort Garry plant does not produce enough sugar to meet Manitoba's requirements. Consequently Manitoba must import sugar from the east. The price of this sugar is the laid-down cost of sugar at Montreal plus freight. Because the price of the total supply of any commodity is dictated by the cost of the most expensive portion of the required supply, Manitoba consumers are compelled to pay for all of their sugar the laid-down cost at Montreal plus freight from Montreal to Manitoba. This places the Manitoba Sugar Company in the very advantageous position of charging a higher price for its share of the supply, approximately half of the Manitoba market, than sugar companies charge consumers elsewhere in Canada. In other words, for each pound of sugar the Manitoba Sugar Company produces and sells in the Manitoba market it receives a bonus equal to the cost of shipping from Montreal although, of course, it does not have that expense.

I am not going to give the details of its profits, which are very high indeed. On the 6 per cent cumulative preferred shares of the company the experience has been a profit of $20.76 per $100 share in 1951, $20.42 in 1952, $16.35 in 1953 and $14.91 in 1954; in other words, about 20 per cent. These profits, of course, are very high indeed. It appears quite evident from what I have been able to ascertain that the arrangement, whether it is formal or tacit, is profitable to all the companies because if the Manitoba Sugar Company produces one-half of the amount required in Manitoba, the other half is supplied by the eastern companies, and that gives them an opportunity to dispose of any surpluses they may have.
On the face of it this seems to be a case into which the investigating authority should inquire. I am going to leave the matter there because I have just had a note put on my desk that this is the private bills hour, and I do not want to intrude on the time of the house when it is allocated to other business.
However, while I have been very brief and have only given a very sketchy outline, I am going to say that from the price lists I have on my desk it appears that these companies issue their price lists on approximately the same day, almost at the same hour, and that their prices are the same all the way down except that the Manitoba price is a little higher because of the addition of the freight charge. The contention I am making is that this causes the people of Manitoba to pay a higher price for sugar than is warranted. In my opinion it also tends to restrict the production of sugar in Manitoba if it is deliberately kept at half the Manitoba supply in order to maintain profits. It is also in the interests of the importers of cane sugar in eastern Canada, and it does injury to the Canadian economy. I leave the matter there.


Edward Turney Applewhaite: It being five o'clock, the house will proceed to the consideration of private and public bills.
At five o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair.



PRIVATE BILLS


Mr. John Hunter (Parkdale) moved: the third reading of Bill No. 503, for the relief of Donald John McGillivray.


Mr. H. A. Bryson (Humboldi-Melforl):: Mr. Speaker, when I spoke on this bill last Tuesday my remarks at that time were based on the evidence I had heard in the House of Commons committee on divorce, and I must admit that while I did not hear all the

evidence I heard that portion which was given by the two paid investigators. Of course it was on that evidence that I based my remarks.
While there is no record of that evidence printed, possibly it is just as well. In one respect I suppose it is rather fortunate from the point of view of those who would have this divorce go through without too much trouble. I think possibly the fact that that evidence was not written down is rather fortunate from their point of view. But for those of us who are trying to show that this case does not warrant passage it is rather unfortunate that the House of Commons committee on divorce does not have recorded minutes of their meetings.
After reading and studying the report of the committee of the other place in connection with this particular bill there are a few other aspects about it, in addition to the ones I mentioned the other day, which have prompted me to rise and speak at this time. I do so in spite of the fact that those of us on this House of Commons committee are being quite pointedly criticized by the members of the committee of the other place who question our judgment, and question whether we are competent to question the decision they have made with regard to any case that comes before them.
Before saying anything further I should like to apologize to the house for one remark I made last Friday, when I said I did not realize that we had a side-show going on in this House of Commons. Once again may I say that I was completely amused at the part of the evidence which I heard. But since I have read the verbatim report of the evidence given in this particular case before the committee in the other place I must say that I have uncovered, to my own satisfaction, one or two other aspects which I think are of tremendous importance. It is of those aspects that I wish to direct the attention of this house this afternoon.
I said it was a side-show. But in the sideshows we do not see children being sacrificed. It is because of that aspect that I feel we should give the greatest consideration to this matter. After examining the evidence I cannot help believing that the husband in this case is conniving to place his wife in a somewhat compromising position whereby he would have grounds for divorce. I do not come to that conclusion because the wife has said in her evidence that the husband "propositioned" her as to whether she would be willing to give him a divorce. While she says that in her evidence, I am not so gullible as to believe that she is totally without blame.
Private Bills-Divorce
I am not here this afternoon to make a case for either the husband or the wife as such, but I am here to try to draw to the attention of this chamber the serious situation that can develop if a divorce is granted where children are involved. I am quite willing to give both of them the benefit of the doubt. They have made a bad deal. But regardless of whether or not they have made a bad deal, they have some responsibility to any children that may have resulted from that union. A divorce should not relieve them of that. I believe court proceedings do not and should not relieve any couple of their responsibility to children. It is up to us to see that they accept their responsibility. It is up to us to accept our responsibility to see that they accept their responsibility. That is the one basis on which I have raised this matter this afternoon. I want to see that we are fair and that the child in this case has some protection.
While it is not a nice thing to be confronted with a proposition of this kind, if we are to do it the justice we are asked to do it I believe we must be as fair as we possibly can. Regardless of what the husband thinks of the woman and regardless of what we may think of her-those of us who listened to the case; regardless of all those things- there is one fundamental fact that we must face up to and it is this. This woman is looking after the welfare of the child. We cannot deny that fact. This girl is 12 years of age. I contend that this girl is at an age at which she needs her mother. At possibly no other time in her life does she need a mother as she needs one at this critical age. Regardless of what we may think of the mother, she is better than no mother at all; and that is something.
Just how bad is she? We know that she is getting only $80 a month from her husband. She has two daughters by a former marriage, and they are contributing $10 a month each. One of those girls is married and has a family of her own, but she still thinks enough of her mother to contribute $10 a month, along with her unmarried sister who is 20 years of age. This woman of whom we hear so much has taken a companion for her daughter to this cottage at the lake for the summer. On an income of $100 a month, she is certainly not a very selfish woman when she will take a companion for her daughter. You cannot accuse her of that shortcoming. If she were selfish, she would not do that.
On the other hand, what responsibility does the father feel he should take for his daughter? Let us take a look at the other side of the picture. When he was confronted by the attorney defending the woman involved
589S

Private Bills-Divorce
he was asked if he had any other motive besides trying to find his wife in some compromising position whereby he could get a divorce. He was asked, was there any other motive. He answered, "Absolutely none". He said that was not the motive. He said he did not care anything about getting a divorce. He said that was not his motive for making this investigation. But what was his motive? As to that I should just like to read from the evidence. The question was:
Did you have any other interest in going there?
That was to make a preliminary investigation. His answer was that he was not interested in getting grounds for divorce. He said:
Why should I provide her with a summer camp?
He would throw this woman out, with the daughter; let us not forget that.
Why should I provide her with a summer camp?
But later in the evidence he admits that the woman, his wife, not only paid for a good share of the lot upon which the home was built, and not only paid for a good share of the lumber that went into that home, but that the title is registered in her name. I say that without question he connived to arrange for conditions to be such that he could sue for divorce.
There are a few very queer things about this case that require investigation. I could not help thinking that if I were going to enter an action for divorce there are two questions I would be pretty sure about. First of all, I would be sure of the date I was married, and I would also be sure about the date I obtained the separation from my wife. But how sure was this man? Just note these questions:
Q. When were you married?



A. 1941.

[Stage Direction]
Q. 1941 or 1942?

[Stage Direction]
But when he was confronted with his marriage certificate it was 1942, not 1941 at all. I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it just seemed that long; I do not know. Then he did not know the year in which he obtained his separation. He was asked whether it was 1951 and answered that it could be, but that he thought it was either 1951 or 1952, approximately 1952.
Then when he was questioned by counsel as to when he first went to the cottage to spy on his wife, on July 4, he said that his suspicions before that date had never been aroused. Yet according to the evidence he said that he and his cousin made a tour of the property on July 4. Incidentally, he had not spoken a word to his wife since his separation from her in 1952, and this took place in 1954. He said he had never seen her or

spoken to her, and he was not suspicious of her until July 4. He was accompanied by his cousin, and he said:
We made a tour of the property out of sight behind and took up a position on an elevation. We could overlook the cottage without being seen.
Still he says he was never suspicious of his wife's actions until July 4. Well, he must certainly have been a very timid man, when he would sit for four hours spying on his wife's cottage if he did not have suspicions.
Then on August 13 he came there in the company of two detectives and the same cousin. And here is another strange thing. The cousin was with the husband when they sat for four hours watching the cottage. Under oath the husband swore that he built the cottage. Then, again under oath, when the cousin was being asked why he went along he said he went only as a guide to show the husband and the other two detectives where the house was. This was the man who built the cottage, but he had to take somebody else to show him where it was. Surely there is something suspicious about the whole situation.
Then let us take another look at the further information that was given. I am not going to say too much about the credibility of the two witnesses to whom I referred the other day, because I think that was dealt with rather fully. But from their evidence, together with that of the husband, it is obvious that the story does not stand up very well.
They say there was a party at the house on Friday, the 13th of the month, and that at two o'clock, after the party broke up, the four men-that is the husband, the cousin and the two detectives-went up to the cottage. But this cousin who went as a guide was smart enough not to go into the cottage and to have nothing more to do with it. About two o'clock they broke into the cottage. The husband said under oath that one of the detectives tried to force the door in with his shoulder. He could not do so, so they used a log. The other detective, giving evidence under oath, said it was not the detective but rather the husband who forced the door in. They both agreed they had to use a log to break the door in, but one of the detectives said they used a boulder to break it in.
So the whole evidence is confusing. I think the most confusing of all was when the husband swore that after the door had been broken in, the wife came out of the bedroom followed by the co-respondent. One of the investigators swore under oath that the woman was in the room when they broke in and later called to the co-respondent who

came out of the bedroom. The other fellow could not remember very much about it.
So we have such confusion in evidence that it is very hard to come to any clear decision as to who was telling the truth and who was not. All this evidence is completely denied by the other parties to the case, and so we are asked to make up our minds to what the facts are.
What about this evidence, which is denied so vehemently by the other parties to the case? What about the husband? What about the cousin? And then, what about the two investigators? I would say, after listening to the testimony given by these two gentlemen the other day before the House of Commons committee, that it is very hard for me to give them the benefit of any doubt whatsoever.
At this point may I draw to the attention of the house the evidence submitted before the committee of the other place in connection with the credibility of these witnesses, because I fail to see how anybody could have any faith in their evidence, it having been proven conclusively that the two detectives in question are absolutely untrustworthy. Here we have one of these investigators being asked before the committee of the other place:
Q. How long have you been a private detective?
A. About a year.
Q. Tell us the date.
A. Well, it was some time in the middle of August: I cannot tell you the date.
Q. The beginning of August, in 1954?
A. That is right.
Q. Did you have a licence as a private investigator in the province of Ontario?
A. No sir.
At the time the evidence in the case to which I have referred was given this investigator did not even have a licence to operate in Ontario. The investigator was asked this question:	'Were you charged before the
Ontario courts with fabricating evidence with intent to mislead a court of justice?" Again the answer was yes. So we have a witness giving evidence and admitting that in 1954 he had been convicted before a court of justice because he had fabricated evidence with intent to mislead a court of justice. Here is the remarkable part of all of this evidence. The chairman of the committee on divorce of the other place said:	"We
are not very much interested in that".
I do not see how that affects us. That is a matter between him and the province, or the crown. We have nothing to do with that.
Possibly that ruling was right, but it does not in any way take away the fact that here were men who had been convicted of fabricating evidence, giving the same kind of evidence before the same kind of committee, 50433-373
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and we are asked to listen to them and give them the benefit of the doubt in so far as their action of the past in fabricating evidence is concerned.
I feel we must give this case a great deal more thought than we have done. First of all, let us remember this. Here we have two people. I am not interested in them at all. They made a bad deal. But let us not forget that a 12-year-old girl is involved in this case. She is the victim through no fault of her own. What is to happen to her? Is she to be given any protection? Is she to be cast out into the world at an age when she should be under her mother's care? That is of the greatest importance.
If we have to deal with these cases it is our responsibility to consider them very carefully, to give the best we can in the way of a verdict for all parties concerned. Certainly in this case we should see to it that our decision is made in such a manner that we shall not jeopardize the future of this 12-year-old girl. The mother and the father made a bad deal, and now they are trying to get out from under their responsibility toward their daughter.
Mr. E. G. Hansell (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker,
I am a member of the private bills committee that heard this case. When it was brought before us in the committee I voted against the bill. I do want to say a word or two as to why I voted against it, because I did not have an opportunity at that time, not that I could not have taken the opportunity but it was getting late. It was midnight, and I did not want to hold up the committee that day. But I could not bring myself to believe that the evidence submitted by those who were giving evidence on behalf of Mrs. McGillivray could possibly be discredited.
I listened very carefully. I am not a lawyer. I am not accustomed to having to sit in a courtroom and hear arguments, and I do not know that I would care to portray myself as an expert on the actual way in which evidence is submitted. But I do believe I have an ordinary amount of common sense. I have been in the position throughout life of having to deal with people and with human problems, and perhaps I look at evidence in a slightly different way from what a lawyer might. I look at the way in which it is presented. I try to watch the expression on the faces of those who are presenting the evidence. I try to determine whether or not those who are giving the evidence and testifying in the cases are telling the truth.
I could not help believing and concluding that Mrs. McGillivray and those who were testifying on her behalf were submitting to

Private Bills-Divorce
the committee that which they believed was the truth. On that basis as well as on the evidence, as far as that goes-because as far as I could see the evidence was just as strong on behalf of Mrs. McGillivray, the respondent, as it was on behalf of Mr. McGillivray, the petitioner-I voted against the bill.
I do want to say this in respect to the two investigators who appeared before the committee. I quite realize that sometimes investigators have to be tough. Their work is such that if they are not tough when they start off, after some years they often end up by getting tough. I realize that. But what I was going to say was this. I do not suppose there is very much we can do about it when investigators come before us who have been charged with fabricating evidence and their case is appealed and thrown out on a technicality which has nothing to do with the actual evidence. When that happens I cannot help feeling that their testimony is no longer reliable. I am saying I do not suppose we as a committee can do very much about it. I wish we could. I wish the private bills committee could have more power than it has when it arrives at a conclusion as to whether or not to pass one of these bills.
I know there are legal technicalities that have to be overcome, because we are dealing with matters that in many of the other provinces come under provincial jurisdiction. I believe that either the committee of the other place or ourselves should have a certain right to fix alimony. We should have something to say about the care of the children afterwards. I repeat, there are certain legal technicalities that stand in the way of that. I believe we should have some such powers, because very often there is a tendency, particularly among laymen to judging evidence and reaching a conclusion by taking all these other factors apart from the measure of guilt, to turn down a case not necessarily because we do not believe the case has been proved but because there are other factors in it which would be serious if we passed the bill. I think we should have the power to deal with some of these things.
I realize that we can do nothing about the fact that these investigators may have been charged previously with fabricating evidence, but I believe the attorneys who take these cases and are responsible for placing them in the hands of the investigating agencies should be told, if it is in our power to do so, that if they are going to employ investigators they had better come before us with clean hands or we will turn down their evidence.
I think if we went right to the seat of this trouble and spoke to these attorneys in that 
way and in no uncertain terms, it might help clean up this fabrication of evidence, if it is being fabricated. There is a strong suspicion held by some of us, and it has been held for many years, that it is being fabricated.
I want to put this on the record as my personal feeling in the matter. I have no sympathy with those who stand up in court or before a committee of this house or of the other place and take this oath, "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God" and then barefacedly lie. I have nothing but the utmost contempt for such people, and as far as I am concerned they are not welcome before the committee.
(Translation) :


Mr. H. J. Michaud (Kent, N.B.):: I should like to express my concern about the apparent growing tendency to extend the grounds for divorce in this country. Divorce, by its very nature, is a social evil which should be fought with all the means at our command. It strikes at the family itself, basic element of our society. Take away the mother from her children and you destroy the family. The countries where, so far, divorce has been most prevalent are now facing the acute problem of an ever-increasing number of children without parents and, therefore, without protection. The communists themselves have found it necessary to repeal certain of their divorce laws since, after ten years of such legislation, they were faced with the responsibility for thousands of abandoned children.
In considering possible extensions of the grounds for divorce in this country, let us take heed of the victims of the separation of the parents. Let us think of those poor waifs doomed to become the castaways of life. It is unfortunate that more concern is felt about the plight of divorced parents than about the fate of their children. If we make it increasingly easier to get a divorce, too many married people will no longer think of establishing their home on a solid and permanent foundation. There will be a growing tendency to deprive marriage of children, whose presence in these conditions becomes embarrassing. Are we then to be surprised by the statement that divorce has become a social plague?
It has been said in this house, in the course of a debate on this subject, that if a couple cannot remain on good terms, they had better separate. A very appropriate reply was given to this sophism, which I should like to summarize in the following words: "Surely, it is better not to marry at all, if marriage can only lead to separation." Under a theory which favours the spread of divorce, the time will come when marriage will have lost all

that makes it a permanent institution and when more and more people will look for fancied incompatibilities in their partners in order to justify the perverse designs of a sinful separation.
The trouble with this moot question is that marriage, essentially a sacred institution, has been distorted and diverted from its real purpose ever since people are being led into it without reflection and without preparation.
It would be rash to believe that, by making it easier to sever the bonds of matrimony, society will be better protected. The function of any parliament conscious of its responsibilities cannot consist in aiding and abetting the establishment of a system fraught with such serious consequences and entailing such nefarious results.
Today, we often hear it said that there is need for more and more social security. Are we forgetting to what extent social security is weakened by divorce? We expect the state to be more and more generous towards the family; yet, on the other hand, through measures of this kind and in the name of freedom and civilization, we are weakening the family, the very basis of all social security.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I should like to quote remarks which are quite pertinent to this matter. Those remarks are from Msgr. Fulton Sheen, a religious speaker of international repute. I quote:
The family is the barometer of the nation. America is worth no more than its average family . . . if the ordinary husband or wife does not respect the oath of faithfulness made on their wedding day, America will not insist on respect for the Atlantic charter or the four freedoms. If people deliberately prevent the fruits of love from germinating, then the nation will adopt as its economic policy to plough under its cotton fields, to throw coffee into the sea and to interfere with nature for the sake of ensuring an economic price.
If a man and wife live each for himself and not for each other, if they are blind to the fact that their individual happiness depends on its being mutual, we shall then have a country where capital and labour will quarrel among themselves as husband and wife, both making social life fruitless and economic peace impossible. If husband or wife should let outside attractions estrange him from his spouse, we shall then become a nation where foreign philosophies will permeate, as communism is now sweeping that basic loyalty which used to be called patriotism. If husband and wife live just as if God did not exist, then America will have bureaucrats who will ask that atheism be set up as a dogma throughout the land who will repudiate the Declaration of Independence and who will deny that all our rights and freedoms come from God. Every country has the government it deserves. As goes the home, so goes the nation.


Pierre Gauthier: Hear hear!
Private Bills-Divorce
(Text):


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry I could not follow the hon. member for Kent, N.B. (Mr. Michaud), as my education was neglected in high school. However, I shall look forward with a good deal of interest to reading the translation of his comments.
On Wednesday of this week a question of privilege was raised in the Senate by the hon. senator who is the Conservative leader in that place, and I quote from page 767 of the Senate Hansard as follows:
Yesterday I sat in the gallery of another place during a debate, and I was very much hurt by the attitude shown by certain hon. gentlemen there with regard to a few divorce bills passed by this house. I do not know the details of the evidence adduced in connection with the particular divorce bills that were under discussion.	__
I should like to say, Mr. Speaker, that I have a very high regard for His Honour Senator Haig. He is a distinguished Canadian with a splendid record covering many years. I had no intention of hurting him or his other colleagues in the Senate. However, in Canada we have a House of Commons and a Senate. Just as the Senate reviews legislation passed by the Commons and approves or disapproves of that legislation, so we in turn have the responsibility to examine carefully all legislation originating in the other chamber and brought before us.
However, I should like to endorse what His Honour Senator Haig said on that occasion:
I have some suggestions to make with regard to our divorce proceedings, not in criticism of the operations of the present divorce committee at all, but on the over-all problem of divorce procedure in this house, particularly on the question of how we should handle divorces, in view of the rising criticism in another place.
Later on in the last paragraph he stated:
I thank the house for permission to make these few remarks. I hope that between now and next January, or whenever parliament shall reassemble, honourable senators will consider this whole matter and come here prepared to offer suggestions as to how this very, very vexed question can best be handled.
I should like to endorse what Senator Haig has suggested, and to add that the House of Commons might have a committee of members of all parties to join with Their Honours the senators and see if we cannot be relieved of this responsibility, which Senator Haig points out is a very difficult one.
I might mention that in Votes and Proceedings of the 1st of July there is a report of our miscellaneous private bills committee, of which the hon. member forParkdale (Mr. Hunter) is the chairman. While I do not agree with the hon. member for Parkdale on many issues, he is a very competent and very fair chairman who gets the business done with everyone

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feeling happy. When Bill No. 490 was considered the recommendation by our committee was that it "agreed to report the preamble thereof not proven on the grounds that the committee is not satisfied that the petitioner is worthy of having his petition granted."
I see no reason why Their Honours the members of the Senate should take exception to the fact that a responsible committee of this chamber should be unable to agree with their decision. My roommate, the hon. member for Humboldt-Melfort, pointed out the fundamental question that we should consider in connection with this particular divorce. As he intimated, one could not say that the two sides who came here were perfect, that either of them had a perfect record or that one was all black and one was all white. In all these divorce cases there are always some problems that are not too easy to solve, but I think we should take into account that there is a 12-year-old child who at the moment is getting some assistance due to the fact that the father is committed to paying $80 a month in support of the mother plus $50 a month house rent, a total of $130.
That does not appear quite a fair distribution of the father's income, which seemed to be in the range of $4,000 a year. Certainly this 12-year-old girl should not be placed in the position where the father has no further responsibility in connection with her upkeep and education.
I think the members of this house will have to decide this case on the basis of the evidence which was presented to the Senate committee and our committee by good solid citizens, as described by the hon. member for Macleod. The people who appeared on behalf of Mrs. McGillivray appeared to be a good cross-section of Canadian society who felt that this woman deserved favourable consideration. Their stories compared very well when told in the Senate committee and when told here. On the other hand, we are asked to grant a divorce purely on the evidence presented to the Senate and to our committee by two gentlemen, Pichette and Santerre. Mr. Santerre was questioned before the Senate committee as follows:
Q. Did you have a licence as a private investigator in the province of Ontario?
A. No, sir.
Q. Then at the time of this episode of August 14 or 15-
A. Morning of the 15th.
Q. -you were not a licensed investigator in the province of Ontario; is that correct?
A. No, sir.
Q. Mr. Santerre, were you charged before the Ontario courts with fabricating evidence in divorce matters and with operating as a private investigator without a licence?
A. Charged with fabricating, yes, sir.

Q. Were you found guilty and the sentence
appealed?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And were you liberated on bail?
Here is an interjection which, I think, would not have been made by the hon. member for Parkdale as chairman of our committee. Senator Ross, the chairman, said:
We are not interested very much in that, are we?
The solicitor for Mrs. McGillivray said:
Well, if that is the ruling, sir.


William Alfred Robinson: I don't see how that affects us. That is a matter between him and the province, or the crown. We have nothing to do with that.
I am very sorry that, whilst I have known Senator Ross for many years and I know he is a learned lawyer and a fine citizen, I cannot agree with him when he ruled that this type of questioning was not of interest to those who were going to decide whether or not these particular gentlemen were reliable witnesses. Let me remind the house that these two gentlemen were tried in Ottawa last November by His Worship Magistrate Strike. The charge was that the appellants-
-with intent to mislead a court of justice, did unlawfully attempt to fabricate evidence by means other than perjury or subornation of perjury.
It was argued before our committee that this charge was laid last November and these two men secured the evidence last August. Whilst their behaviour was contemptible in November, we had to decide whether or not the evidence they discovered last August was or was not to be accepted by our committee. I should like to give members of the House of Commons some idea about these gentlemen. Again I do not ask you to take my impression of them, though one of them certainly misled me when I asked about his status. I asked whether or not he had a licence to practise in Ontario, and he admitted he had not. I did not see how he could operate in this province without a licence, and he explained that as long as they were hired by the Montreal office they could work in Ontario or any place else in Canada, as a matter of fact. But later he admitted under cross-examination that he had paid a $200 fine for acting as an investigator in Ontario without a licence.
How do these two men operate? These are the facts as presented to Magistrate Strike and on which he convicted them. They never appealed on the basis of these facts. The facts, as set out in the judgment of the appeal court, are as follows:
The appellants, desiring to obtain evidence for the purpose of enabling a married woman to secure a divorce, planned to trap the husband into a false position from which adultery might be inferred or found if evidence was later given in some proceeding for divorce. This plan was to have

a woman go to a room in an hotel, register under an assumed name and give the room the appearance of the bed having been occupied. She was not required to do anything more. The husband was to be lured by a pretext to the room and, when there, could be found by the two appellants, who would then be in a position to give evidence as to his being found there with the woman. In carrying out this plan, the appellants arranged with woman "A" to obtain the hotel room and perform her part of the plot, which she did. In the meantime, the appellants arranged with woman "B" to call the husband, under an assumed name, which was the name which woman "A" was to use at the hotel, and invite him to come to the room. This was done by woman "B", but the husband was suspicious. Woman "B" claimed to be a friend of the husband's sister, and the husband took the precaution of calling his sister as to the friend whose name he had been given over the telephone. Instead of going to the hotel room as invited the husband went to the police, with the result that the plan at that stage miscarried and it was the police who went to the hotel room, instead of the two appellants who were endeavouring to mislead someone.
Last November Messrs. Pichette and San-terre were tried on this charge. They did not deny it and were found guilty. When the case went to the appeal court of Ontario it was heard by Mr. Justice Pickup, Mr. Justice Roach and Mr. Justice MacKay. The judgment continues:
The first ground of appeal is that the crown failed to prove the intent necessary to constitute the crime charged. It is argued that it was necessary, under the charge as made, to prove an intent to mislead a court of justice, and that the intent proved in this case was not an intent to mislead a court of justice but, at most, an intent to mislead the divorce committee of the Senate, and parliament which might act upon a recommendation of the divorce committee.
In view of that reference I cannot understand how Senator Ross was able to say that they were not very much interested in this sort of problem. I continue:
The residence of the husband is shown by the evidence to be in the province of Quebec, and from that it may be inferred (there being no evidence to the contrary) that the domicile of the husband was in Quebec and that any intent to mislead must have been an intent to mislead the Senate committee of parliament and not a court of justice. This ground of appeal, therefore, turns upon whether or not the Senate committee and parliament are a "court of justice" within the meaning of section 177. In my opinion, they are not. The expression "court of justice", in the sense in which it is used in this statute, in my opinion, should be given the meaning attributed to the word "court" in Murray's English dictionary, vol. II, p. 1091, col. 1, under item 11, from which I quote the following:
"An assembly of judges or other persons legally appointed and acting as a tribunal to hear and determine any cause, civil, ecclesiastical, military or naval."
Underneath this definition, the editors write:
"Justice was in early times administered in assemblies held by the sovereign personally . . . then by judges who followed the king as officers of his court; hence the title the King's Courts. In this sense more fully defined as court of law, law-courts, court of justice, of judicature."
Supply-Justice
This meaning of the words, as they appeared in section 177, is supported by the context in which the section appeared. Under the general heading of "Misleading justice", "perjury" was defined by section 170. That section referred to "a witness in a judicial proceeding"-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: Order. I think there has been quite a little of misleading. I confess that I have been somewhat misled this afternoon. We have had rather lengthy extracts from the proceedings and hearings in certain cases, and at times I think I have permitted hon. members to read into the record quite lengthy excerpts from what I at first thought were the proceedings in connection with the application for a bill for the relief of Donald John McGillivray. I think I have been misled into allowing a large amount of time this afternoon to be taken up with the details of a trial for fabricating evidence, admittedly of two individuals who were witnesses in the McGillivray case.
I think it must be obvious that I am not making any effort to be unduly restrictive, but I do think there must be a limit to the amount of extraneous material that is allowed to be brought into the discussion of these various bills which are before us. I ask quite seriously that hon. members give some consideration to how far they are justified in going in following up the characters of witnesses and other people involved in these cases before us, not as principals but incidentally to the cases.
While I have interrupted the hon. member who has the floor, I think I should perhaps also make another self-protective statement. I confess that through my lack of understanding of one of the official languages of this country I most likely permitted one hon. member this afternoon to make very general remarks on the divorce laws of the country. If I had understood him better I would have felt called upon to interrupt earlier, because it has been decided on more than one occasion that in discussing these bills concerning individuals we are not entitled to discuss generally defects in divorce practice and procedure in this country.
It being six o'clock, the house will resume at eight o'clock consideration of the business which was interrupted at five o'clock. Under those circumstances, perhaps I might have unanimous consent of the house to go into committee of supply at this time.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.

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

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DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

[Stage Direction]
165. Combines Investigation Act-restrictive trade practices commission, $71,200.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.

AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at eight o'clock.
Stuart Sinclair Garson: May I just give some information that I promised the hon member for Burnaby-Coquitlam this afternoon. He asked this question: "Can the minister state why this item for $20,000 for grants to recognized prisoners' aid societies-that is in vote 160- should appear in this item and also in item 170?
The answer is that this item for $20,000 under vote 160 is the amount which is paid to prisoners' aid societies for their work in assisting and counselling prisoners who have been released on ticket of leave after they are outside of prison, whereas the item for $40,000 under vote 170 is compensation for the same kind of work extended to prisoners while they are in prison; that is in visiting them, maintaining liaison with their relatives, finding work for them while they are still in prison and the like.


Frederick George Hahn: 
Mr. Carrick:: May I ask the hon. member a question?


Frederick George Hahn: Certainly.


Donald D. Carrick: Did the hon. member say that Loblaws, Dominion stores and some of the other big retail stores are meeting together to agree upon prices, or that Loblaws, within its own firm, sets its own prices only?


Frederick George Hahn: I would say more directly that Loblaws within its own firm, and Dominion stores within its own firm, and Canada Safeway within its own firm, through its central directors, dictate what shall be the price within a certain community on a particular day. Possibly there is a certain amount of discussion. There is an indirect combine, I might say, in this respect. If Loblaws have a particular price on a commodity, even in this town, Dominion stores send their pricing man around to their various stores on a particular day, possibly once or twice a week or possibly every day, in order to discover whether their prices are in line, as they call it. If they are not in line, they bring their price down to the other mark.
That may be to the advantage of the public as a whole. I am not going to discuss or try to determine whether or not it is, because you find that if a staple item such as pork and beans drops from 15 cents to 14 cents a can, in all likelihood on that same day tomatoes went from 15 to 16 cents a can in order to retain the differentiation. But you have there in effect an indirect combine, if I may call it that. There is no set argument, but it arises by reason of the fact that one can go about and establish for himself what the price is in the other store, then bring his price into line. I see no difference in effect between that and the large store or several large stores getting together and saying, "We are going to charge 15 cents for a particular item and raise the other one to 16 cents" and then sending trouble shooters or price finders around in order to find out what others are charging for staple items and so vary their prices accordingly. The public is gaining nothing. It is being fooled into thinking that because the price of a particular

item is lower one day in one store, it is not going to go down to that same level in another store at another time.
But what about the manufacturer who takes a pride in his product-and I am getting away from groceries now-who not only offers the product but also offers quality and service? I am thinking, for instance, of General Electric tea kettles, where the manufacturer guarantees that if that tea kettle becomes broken in its normal use, let us say within a period of one year, he will replace it with a new one. A certain individual retailer may decide that he wants to make that item into a loss leader, and he uses it for that purpose.
I do not see that there is a case for the person who is going to sell this item as a loss leader, because he is not doing it with the help of the manufacturer but because of the fact that other similar articles are being maintained at respectable prices in other stores and the manufacturer is reaping a benefit from the sale. There may be more sales of that particular item on that particular day for even a short period of time, but in the over-all picture the price establishes itself and levels off.
In order to meet such competition another individual may purchase tea kettles of an inferior quality, bearing no brand label, and palm those off on the public. We often hear the phrase "Let the buyer beware;" no doubt the minister has heard it. The article being offered carries no guarantee, as does the article offered by the manufacturer who is trying to peg the price of his product. The result is that the purchasing public is the loser, because when it makes a purchase no guarantee is given. The manufacturer of the better article wishes to keep the price at what he considers a reasonable level. He knows full well that if he is going to offer that kettle with a guarantee, his merchants must get that price for it if they are to remain in business.
Earlier today the hon. member for Rose-town-Biggar drew to the minister's attention what he described as a combine in the price of sugar. I would say most definitely that from every appearance there would seem to be a combine, and I would strongly urge the minister to examine into the matter.
The minister may ask why it is that on the one hand I seem to want an investigation into combines while on the other I oppose them. Perhaps in that connection I might draw these facts to the minister's attention. Where you have a maximum fine of only $10,000 against some of these giants of industry-
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Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Chairman, I think we should keep the record straight as we go along. There is no maximum fine now. It is unlimited.


Frederick George Hahn: I was thinking more specifically of the fine of $10,000 which, I understood, was the maximum for some time.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: My hon. friend is thinking of the act as it was formerly, not the act as it is now.


Frederick George Hahn: Yes, as it was formerly. Have we ever had a fine of over $10,000?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: The hon. member will realize that in the prosecution of cases a long time is required in the investigational stage, with the result that there is an appreciable time lag. The courts are bound to impose the rate of fine set out in the law at the time the offence was committed. That is the main reason there have been so few heavy fines. In other words, it would not be fair to an individual or a corporation to impose upon them a fine that had not been enacted until after the offence was committed. It would be harsh upon an individual or corporation if it were made to pay a fine greater than that which attached to the offence at the time it was committed.


Frederick George Hahn: I realize the truth of what the minister says. Probably we will have greater fines from now on. I would say that a fine of $10,000 to a giant industry with unlimited credit is the equivalent of the fine of a bag of peanuts to a small operator. There we see evidence of inequality in the act. I have no doubt that if justice is to be done it must depend upon the administration of the act itself.
To make the act workable we should offer to small merchants or to other individuals in a community the same right to fix prices that is offered to the larger organizations, whether those organizations are in the form of giant supermarkets, such as we see today, where within their own organizations they can maintain certain price schedules, or whether it is found in other form. My point is that the same privilege should be given to the small group in a community which must compete against such opposition. If the ten Loblaws stores in the city of Ottawa -I do not know whether that is the correct number-and the same number of Dominion stores decide they are going to sell pork and beans at 15 cents a can, then it is only fair and just that the small merchants should be permitted to get together as a group and decide upon the price they want to charge. They should have the privilege of charging the same price if they so wish.

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In connection with the sugar combine, to which the hon. member referred, it would seem that there is no factor of competition. For that, if for no other reason, it should be investigated very closely. Most certainly if a combine is found to exist, through price maintenance, then it should be held responsible for its actions. My thought is that under British justice we should have equal rights for all. I do not believe the Combines Investigation Act applies equally to the giant merchants-Loblaws, Dominion, Safeway or whatever they may be-and the smaller merchants. These large marketing organizations can establish their own prices and, in effect, constitute a combine within themselves.
Earlier I brought to the attention of the minister a letter from an individual in Vancouver having to do with charges laid against a group of garage men. My purpose in bringing the matter before the committee is to criticize the treatment these men received when they were taken to court to answer the charge. I explained to the minister the sequence of events, and I shall not repeat it. However, he can understand that it is a serious matter for a group of businessmen, respectable citizens who have been in the community a long time, who in effect committed no criminal offence. They were not guilty of any crime such as forgery, robbery, an offence under the narcotics laws, or any major misdemeanour of that kind. But these men most assuredly were humiliated and degraded before the eyes of the public in Vancouver by having to spend from one to five hours in the police cells, among hardened criminals. Then they were subjected to fingerprinting, and all this after they had been told that they would be permitted to go on their own recognizance. This was a stigma on their integrity and honesty.


Mr. Green:: Mr. Chairman, the minister, I suggest, should give some explanation of the manner in which these men were treated in Vancouver. After all, they are responsible citizens engaged in the service station business, and apparently they had been told by the magistrate that they would be released on their own recognizance. I am not blaming the magistrate, because Magistrate Scott is extremely capable and fair, and I do not believe he was involved in any way in what happened.
I would like to know whether the Department of Justice appointed a special prosecutor, because if one was appointed I imagine the fault could be laid at his door. Apparently when these men were committed for trial by a higher court, instead of being let out on their own recognizance in the ordinary way

they were locked in the police cells, some for as long as five hours. That sort of thing should not go on in a case of this kind. These men are only being picked out from dozens of others. They have done nothing different from dozens of other service station operators, and why they should be locked up in the jail in that way is very hard to understand. I believe the committee is entitled to an explanation from the minister.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra was entirely correct in saying there should be an explanation, and the only reason why I did not start to give one was that he got to his feet quicker than I did.
May I say first of all that so far as the Department of Justice and the combines investigation branch of the department are concerned, we deprecate very much indeed what took place on this particular occasion. My hon. friends will appreciate the fact that it is an instance where, as I said earlier on these estimates today, we with the permission of the attorney general of British Columbia, are prosecuting for an offence which is peculiarly under a federal statute. This is a pretty good demonstration of why the administration of justice and the enforcement of the law should be conducted at the provincial level; for I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, that it is very difficult indeed to conduct a prosecution some 4,000 miles away.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Three thousand.


Howard Charles Green: Less than 3,000.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Don't put us farther out than we are.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: The only course that is open to us is that which the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra mentioned just a moment ago, and that is to retain a prosecutor who represents us in the entire prosecution. On this occasion we retained one of the leaders of the Vancouver bar, a man whose name, when I mention it, will indicate his standing, namely Mr. A. E. Branca, Q.C.
I think in fairness to Mr. Branca, since we have had one side of the story, we should put on the record his side of the story which we got from him. Disturbed by these accounts and complaints which had come back to us, we got in touch with him and said, "For goodness sakes, what has happened? This is entirely contrary to our views about matters of this kind, and we would like to know how what took place here has come about."
I am now reading the account he gave us of what did take place, and I want hon.

members to take particular note of the precautions he took as far as it was within his power to avoid the very difficulties which arose. He says:
I was able to contact the responsible parties a couple of days ago and this is what happened. Prior to committal, in conference with Mr. Russell representing the person accused, and Magistrate Scott, nominal bail was agreed upon in order to facilitate the post-committal procedure.
For the benefit of the lay members of the committee, a committal takes place when a man is brought up before the magistrate and the crown produces enough evidence to establish a prima facie case against him and warrant his being put on trial. After he is committed for trial then normally, and certainly in a case of this kind, he is released on bail. In the present instance the special crown prosecutor, whom we had instructed before the committal, had conferred with counsel for the accused and with the magistrate and had arranged for nominal bail; that is just for a nominal amount for all these accused in order to facilitate what was going to happen if the committal took place. The letter continues:
Mr. Bill Edwards, the clerk of the court, had his staff working, he assures me, about two days in order to prepare the recognizances required in each case, in order to avoid any inconvenience or delay following committal.
The bail was arranged before hand; the recognizances were made out. In this case,
I understand, there are some 30-odd accused, so that the mere clerical work involved in making out committal orders, drawing up the bail bonds, and so forth, was quite considerable. In order to avoid any of these difficulties they worked two days in advance.
Committal took place in the courtroom, and the men were then taken to what is known as cell block No. 1 under the custody of Sergeant Mutch. It is true that in cell block No. 1 there were some other persons charged with some other offences, but the sergeant assures me that they were so placed as a matter of convenience in order that they might be handy.


Howard Charles Green: "That they might be handy?"


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Handy for the purpose of
being fingerprinted with the least possible inconvenience to themselves. These were not defendants in this series of charges; they were other defendants.
The officers in charge even provided for a justice of the peace and a fingerprint man to be immediately outside of the cell in order that they might more promptly be released and discharged.
That is not the usual procedure but it was done in this particular case, for the convenience of the accused.
The usual procedure is to lodge them in a cell, advise the fingerprinting department, and they are then taken two floors up and fingerprinted, then held until the justice of the peace and the clerk's
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department has prepared the documentation, and then brought down and released when the recognizance is perfected.
That is the normal procedure in committal on indictable offences.
This, as you will see, did not take place in this case, as the matter was prearranged as I have set forth in this letter. The sergeant assures me that the whole transaction took an hour or shortly more-
-and that is not surprising when you have 30-odd bail bonds to provide for, even if they are prepared beforehand.
In view of the fact that the copy of the letter that you enclosed is written in a critical sense-
We did get a very critical letter and we had sent that letter along to Mr. Branca and said, "What about it?"
-more particularly in so far as the police officers here are concerned, I took the liberty of discussing the matter with Mr. Russell and he tells me that his impression was that the whole procedure took somewhat longer, although he remained an hour or one and a quarter hours and waited with these men as some were released, and then left.
There is the explanation of what took place. I must say, in view of that, I do not really know what the special prosecutor could have done more than he did to expedite the release of these persons. The real difficulty in these cases is that we have a law upon the statute books, the Identification of Criminals Act, not passed with specific reference to combines offences but applying to all indictable offences, which provides that the police, where the accused is committed for an indictable offence, may take his fingerprints.
In the present instance apparently the municipal police, having developed a practice under this law and knowing that these were indictable offences and feeling that they would be taking on a pretty invidious responsibility if they undertook not to apply the law, did arrange for fingerprinting.
That has raised an issue which we are investigating at the present time. This is the first time we have encountered this sort of thing. We are considering in offences under an act of this sort what change should be made in the law or the practice to prevent the law from being applied in cases where, as here, there is no need to take measures for future identification. I can see, however, that if one were in the position of the police or the court officials they may have thought they had no alternative, although we think in fact they did. However, I really do not see how Mr. Branca could have done very much more than he did to expedite the whole proceeding.


Howard Charles Green: I submit that it was highly improper for these men to be locked up in

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order to be fingerprinted. I do not agree with the minister that the special prosecutor did all he could. He probably was not there at all when this happened, and it was his responsibility to see that these men were treated in the way in which they had every reason to believe they would be treated. Arrangements were made that they would get out on their own recognizance, and for the minister's prosecutor to try to get out of any responsibility by saying that this is the regular practice in the Vancouver police court is not a good excuse.
I think the minister should have this matter investigated by one of his own officials here in Ottawa, because this just about amounts to persecution. If you are going to have trouble of this kind with your special appointees this work might just as well be done by the minister's department. They should conduct these prosecutions so they will be conducted in the manner in which we all expect them to be.
What the minister has amounts only to an excuse or alibi from his specially appointed prosecutor, and I do not think that should be taken as full justification for what happened in this case. We know the way in which these prosecutors are appointed, and if this is the sort of treatment to be meted out to Canadians in prosecutions of this kind by these special prosecutors then I suggest to the minister that a different method should be adopted for the carrying out of these prosecutions.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I do not want to labour the point at all, but I think the account we have received makes it clear that counsel for the crown and counsel for the accused made these arrangements in good faith.


Howard Charles Green: That does not say Mr. Branca was there when these men were locked up.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: He was not there, but the arrangements were made beforehand.


Howard Charles Green: He should have been there to see that the men were treated properly.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I suppose he might have been, but he attended with counsel for the prisoners beforehand and made these arrangements. I think in a case like this he did everything he was called upon to do, especially when the accused were represented by counsel.
I assure my hon. friend that we regret that anything like this should have happened, and so far as the department is concerned my hon. friend can be assured that we will take every step possible to avoid a result of this kind happening in the future.


Frederick George Hahn: Did the defence counsel indicate in the letter that it was agreeable to have them locked up in the cell even to go 
through the ordinary channels, or was it not understood beforehand that they would be let out on their own recognizance?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I have laid before the committee all the facts upon which I could form any judgment. I think the members of the committee are just as capable as I am of forming a judgment. My impression is that the lawyers for the crown and for the accused arranged this thing beforehand, and they assumed that everything was going to be all right. To the extent that has been indicated here today it was not all right. I imagine that if a similar case arises on some other occasion the lawyers on both sides and we ourselves will make sure there will be no repetition of this kind.


Frederick George Hahn: I did not get what the minister said earlier in respect to a change. Is the minister investigating a change in the legislation to make sure this will not occur again?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: What I said was that the practice of fingerprinting arises under the Identification of Criminals Act, which has general application to all cases where a prisoner is charged with an indictable offence. The purposes of the Identification of Criminals Act are wholly praiseworthy. They are to obtain a series of fingerprints from all those prisoners who have been involved in indictable offences and whose future identification may be necessary. This fingerprinting system performs a great service to the police in apprehending offenders, particularly those who have records.
The offences here were indictable offences and I suppose the police said "Well, there is the act; what are we going to do about it? We will just follow the act". What we are now considering is whether the Identification of Criminals Act or the practice thereunder should be inapplicable to certain individuals or certain offences which now come under it.


Howard Charles Green: Will the minister have an investigation of this occurrence made by someone in the department in Ottawa?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: We could do that, but I do not know that there is very much to investigate. We have before us a clear account of exactly what happened. It is regrettable, but I certainly do not think there was any motive on the part of anyone concerned in the matter to produce these regrettable results. What benefit was there going to be for anyone to insist upon having these prints made?


Howard Charles Green: I do not think there was any motive, but I think there was sheer carelessness on the part of counsel appointed by the minister's department. As a result these people were treated in a manner in which

they should not have been treated. I suggest that it is the responsibility of the minister's department to make a thorough investigation in order that cases of this kind may not happen again in Canada. Once there has been an investigation the minister can send out instructions when he appoints a person as prosecutor in a case of this kind.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: That is true, but I have already indicated that we are going to have a look at the Identification of Criminals Act in relation to matters of this kind. We are going to take all steps necessary to avoid a repetition of this situation.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: I should like to have it clear in my mind whether the procedure followed in the case under discussion was different from the normal procedure followed when persons are committed for indictable offences.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: The answer is no. The case put by the hon. member for New Westminster and the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra is that the indictable offences involved here were committed by people who in every other respect were most respectable and therefore they should have been handled on a different basis from people who had committed other kinds of indictable offences.


Howard Charles Green: It is not only that; I think if the minister checks up he will find that people are not locked up in the case of indictable offences in order to be fingerprinted.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: My hon. friend knows from his own experience in acting for people who have been locked up that if 36 men were all committed at the same time in respect of what we ordinarily regard as indictable offences, such as armed robbery and so on, it is not likely that the police would allow them out of their custody while they were being admitted to bail. If they did, and as a result the prisoners walked out and caught a taxi and went away, the police would look rather silly.
But I do not think that because that would be so in the ordinary run of indictable offences, there was any similar reason that it would be in the present instance. The only real accusation that can be brought against the police is that they were unimaginative in applying the law and in acting according to its letter, in making arrangements for the control of the accused.


Howard Charles Green: If one man were committed on an indictable offence and it had been arranged that he would be let out on his own recognizance, he would not be locked up in order to be fingerprinted.
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Stuart Sinclair Garson: He might not, but the point is that there were 36 here.


Howard Charles Green: The minister could only justify such an action if the 36 were all trying to escape, and that would be ridiculous.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I am not trying to justify it at all. I am giving a factual statement as to what took place. I am not trying to justify it, nor am I trying to criticize those who had the responsibility. The police had 36 accused and the question was, while they were going through this procedure of signing all these papers, whether or not they would have them behind a locked door as a group. They chose to apply the same procedure to them as they apply in other cases of indictable offences under the Identification of Criminals Act.


Howard Charles Green: That would be only true if there were 36 bank robbers there at one time. That is the parallel case. The minister says they acted in the same way as they would act if they had 36 bank robbers, and that is a thing that would never happen at all. If there were one or two men who were being committed on an indictable offence, they would not be locked up at all in order to be fingerprinted. It appears to me that through the negligence of the crown prosecutor, specially appointed by the minister's department, these 36 individuals were locked up. That is what we are complaining about. I hope nothing like this will happen again.


Donald D. Carrick: May I ask a question of the minister? If there were one or two men, as the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra, mentioned, and they were not locked up, that would be because it would not be necessary to lock them up to ensure their presence. Therefore when there are 36 people they are locked up only to ensure their presence until the preliminary proceedings are completed.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Yes. My hon. friend has put a beautifully phrased leading question, the answer to which is yes, that certainly it is the only reason. My hon. friend is phrasing a question from his own experience as counsel in legal matters generally. I thought I had made it clear that when they are admitting 36 people to bail they are not really free until the bail bond is signed; so they keep them locked up in the meantime, as my hon. friend puts it, to ensure their physical presence.


Frederick George Hahn: From what the minister has said I gather that the 10 bread firms that were convicted some time ago would be locked up and treated in the same fashion, or the management of those firms.

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Stuart Sinclair Garson: The bread companies were corporations which could not be locked up. These were personal accused. You cannot fingerprint a corporation, and you cannot lock it up.


Howard Charles Green: What about some of the officers of big companies that have been charged? Have they been locked up too?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: My hon. friend should not get excited. If my hon. friend will go back through the records he will find that there have not been many occasions when officers of corporations have been prosecuted. In these particular cases most of the accused were individuals operating their own service stations, which were not incorporated at all. It was John Jones, or William Smith, or Peter White and so on. They were the ones who were parties to the alleged combine. It is because they were parties as individuals that this question arose in this particular case. As a rule when the offence has been committed by two or three corporations, there being no personal accused involved a question of this sort does not arise.


Howard Charles Green: Can the minister give us one instance in which the officer of a big corporation was charged and locked up while they fingerprinted him?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I shall attempt to explain this again. If one man is concerned in this particular case and he appears before the magistrate, the crown's evidence is heard and the magistrate says, "Mr. Jones, I hereby commit you for trial". They have the bail bond read. He steps up in the courtroom and signs the bail bond. Having given the bail, he walks out. That might still be true with two or three. It could be done informally in the courtroom, as I have indicated. But if you have 36 there would be some of those 36 who would have to wait 45 or 50 minutes or an hour while the others were being taken care of.


Howard Charles Green: Why lock them up?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Those who were responsible for them, that is the police officials and the officials of the court-not the crown prosecutor, nor the defending lawyer, who would not be present then-but the police used their own judgment as to whether they should do that. Apparently they played it safe and took no chances on not having the physical presence of all the accused when their turn came to be dealt with.


Howard Charles Green: The minister's department
must take the responsibility for the manner in which this prosecution is being conducted. I think the blame comes right back here, and
[Nr. Hahn.]
the minister should have a thorough investigation of what happened in this case. It is obvious it was very unfair to these men.


William Alfred Robinson: Shall the item carry?


Erhart Regier: I notice that items 165 and 166 both deal with the Combines Investigation Act. We approved the principle of this act, involving a total expenditure of almost half a million dollars. I know the act has a deterrent value, and the investigations and the successful prosecutions that are lodged every once in a while also have a deterrent value in protecting the consumers of Canada.
However, after the bread combines were found guilty and made to pay a fine, I sat back and expected the price of bread to come down. The price of bread has not come down at any time since. Can the minister tell the house and the country whether there is any follow-up of the effect of successful prosecutions, or if there has ever been a case where a further prosecution has been launched? Does he know of any case where a successful prosecution has actually helped to reduce the price?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Prices of commodities at any given point of time are the result of a number of factors, only one of which is that measure of competition in the field which it is the purpose of this act to secure. When you are attempting to isolate the effect of a prosecution under this act and say that as a result of that prosecution the price has gone up or has come down, you have to be assured that all the other factors which bear upon that price have either remained constant or have not become less favourable or more favourable to a measurable extent than they previously were.
It is one of John Stuart Mill's rules of logic that if you are seeking to prove that a certain phenomenon is the result of a certain cause you have to make sure that all the other possible causes are accounted for before you can draw such a conclusion. Therefore it is really quite difficult to say positively that a reduced price which follows a successful prosecution is necessarily the result of that prosecution. What we do do after a conviction has been secured is to assure ourselves that there is no conduct upon the part of the accused which constitutes a further or repeated transgression in relation to that for which it has been found guilty.
I think that is about as far as we can go, because the Combines Investigation Act imposes upon the branch the responsibility of seeing to it that there are no combines which interfere with the free operation of competition, but it does not give us any

jurisdiction over the economy or over any of those economic factors which determine prices other than just that one.


Erhart Regier: What method is employed in the follow-up? I am very pleased to hear the minister say there is a follow-up. Is the follow-up a natural one as a matter of duty, or does the branch sit back and wait until somebody in the country launches a complaint that a combine again exists?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I am sure my hon. friend will realize that when we have such a large variety of cases involving different concerns in different industries operating under quite different conditions, it is very difficult for me to generalize as to the steps that are taken. But in each of these instances we take those steps which we think are necessary in relation to the conviction and in relation to any of the facts that seem to be developing in that industry after the conviction.


Harold Edward Winch: Under the powers of the act can you only investigate if you think there is a monopoly or conspiracy? Is it possible under the powers of the act to investigate a discrepancy in prices of goods? I have in mind what is happening in the pharmaceutical industry. Health means a great deal to all our people, and when you have to pay for a prescription the cost is terrific.
I have evidence right here on my desk indicating that you can buy cortisone, one of the antibiotics, for a certain price under certain circumstances, but if you have to have a prescription for cortisone filled the price is 500 to 1,000 per cent higher. Under the legislation we are now discussing is it possible for the department to investigate such a matter and do anything about it, or can these people go ahead and charge what they like for these things that people need for their health?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: In reply to my hon. friend's question, it is one thing to pass an act like the Combines Investigation Act which defines certain offences and in effect makes them crimes, and it is another thing to develop a technique of detection under the act. Where, as in the case my hon. friend speaks of, he finds that the price of some product seems to be extortionately high under certain circumstances, or where in another case the prices of a certain commodity that is being sold by a number of dealers all go up by a fairly substantial amount and by exactly the same amount at the same time, these are facts of which I am sure the Combines Investigation Act administration would take cognizance and investigate. But they would not necessarily prove an offence, because the offence is that
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of different persons or corporations coming together to reach an agreement upon a fixed price.
If this high price about which my hon. friend speaks in the case of cortisone, which is much higher when it is prescribed than on some other occasion, is not due to an illegal agreement, then it is not the proper concern of our department. We are not a wartime prices and trade board that fixes prices. We are not an economic control body of any kind. We are the body which administers the act, and what we are concerned with are those prices which are the result of an agreement between people to fix prices and stifle competition, contrary to the terms of the statute under which we operate.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
B-Penitentiaries-
170. Administration of the office of the commissioner of penitentiaries, including $40,000 for grants to recognized prisoners' aid societies, as may be approved by the treasury board, $398,326.
Mr. Dinsdale:: Under this item last year the minister was kind enough to make a statement concerning the work of reform and rehabilitation that has been taking place in our Canadian prisons during recent years. I am sure all hon. members were quite impressed by the report he made on that occasion.
At the time I expressed my personal pleasure and also the opinion of the group with which I am associated in the house, but I also emphasized that in order to carry out successfully and thoroughly the new emphasis on reform and rehabilitation in our penal institutions it was necessary to give attention to more than the actual internal program that prevails in our institutions. It is becoming increasingly emphasized by those directly interested in the problem that actually you cannot go too far within the institution itself in rehabilitating the lawbreaker and bringing him back to society as a useful citizen. Someone has said that the usual prison program is really designed not to rehabilitate the prisoner but rather to prevent trouble within the prison. It is recognized by authorities that prisons basically are places in which to keep people locked up and removed from society, and that they can do little more than perform that basic function.
I should therefore like to suggest that in considering the new emphasis on reform and rehabilitation, we should give some attention to solutions to the problem other than the actual program conducted within the walls of the reformatory. This problem has been brought into focus in the last year. Since we last discussed these matters in this chamber there have been several outbreaks of

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violence and rioting in some of our penal institutions in Canada. Last August, for example, we had the problem at Kingston penitentiary. Later on in my own province of Manitoba there was some difficulty at Stony Mountain penitentiary and later in our provincial jail at Headingley, and then in the local jail in my own city of Brandon, Manitoba.
An article relating to the rioting last August 15 at Kingston penitentiary appeared shortly thereafter, on October 15, in Maclean's magazine. It is supposed to have been written as a result of information provided by an ex-convict of that institution. There is one section of this article that I should like to put on the record, because I think it indicates the difficulty and the futility of trying to undertake rehabilitation and reform within the walls of the institution itself. Here is the description of a typical day or part of a day within the walls of Kingston penitentiary:
There is a large bell in the centre of the rotunda. A guard whams it with a hammer at 7.30 and you're out of bed. It is the first of a hundred bells you hear throughout the day as you shuffle through the dreary prison timetable of eating, working and playing. After dressing in brown denim pants, shirt, jacket and cap, and pulling on the army-style prison boots, you give your face a dab at the basin. You don't have to shave every morning; you may go a week if you wish. You fold your bed against the wall, pick up your tray and mug, still dirty from last night's supper, and stand at the cell door. Another bell sounds and the hack-
That is the prison vernacular for guard.
-in charge of your range unlocks the master lock for the whole range of cells. This moves a steel I-beam out of position at the top of the cell range, so that the vertical locking bolt on each door may be raised and the cell door opened.
And on and on it goes in that same vein, describing mechanical, routine, monotonous drudgery.
I was very much interested in noticing the use of the word "hack" in the story provided by the ex-convict because words such as "hack," "screw" or "dick" seem to be part of the general parlance of ex-convicts and express the hostility and the bitterness that arise as a result of incarceration within the penal institutions.
I should like to say just a few words on the other aspects of this problem of rehabilitation and reform, and they are aspects that have not been tried to any considerable extent in Canada. They are the programs of probation, parole and after-care. I wish to emphasize at the outset of these remarks that I am not suggesting the mollycoddling of our prisoners. There are many cases of criminality which obviously require severe punishment, and there are many types of
[Mr. Dinsdale.l
criminals; there is the incorrigible, the habitual or the recidivist. But there are large numbers-and they are actually the larger percentage of our so-called criminal population-who commit occasional offences due to special and transient reasons.
The difficulty with our program today is that all these cases-whether they result from recidivism or mental deficiency, or whether it is the case of a first and young offender- are treated very much after the same fashion. Canada has a parole system but, as I have indicated, it has not been used to any large extent; and it would seem to me, as a result of reading the report on the riot at Headingley jail, for example, that many prisoners are retained in our institutions beyond the point where institutional treatment serves any useful purpose either to the individual or to society.
It must always be remembered that there are two sides to this problem, namely the necessity of providing punishment or rehabilitation for the prisoner and at the same time protection for society. The report on the Headingley jail incident indicates that to a large extent there is no useful program of training or employment of any kind within the institution. In fact, in a recently constructed vocational training wing a large part-


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I do not want to object to my hon. friend's remarks, but surely conditions in Headingley jail have nothing to do with the estimates we are considering. If he would offer some criticism of our system and help us out by suggestions I think it would be much more to the point.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: I was going to suggest that perhaps closer co-ordination might be helpful. Would that be pertinent?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Go ahead.


Edward Turney Applewhaite: I would suggest to the hon. member for Brandon-Souris that he would certainly be in order in advocating closer co-ordination. But, as in a case we had this afternoon, just because he is advocating that co-ordination I do not think he should spend too much time describing the actual conditions in an institution for which the Minister of Justice is not responsible. I think he will appreciate the difference.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I understand the problem. I think I can move from the Headingley report without any further comments, other than to indicate that there is no representative of the federal remission service resident in eastern Ontario or in any of the three prairie provinces, although there

are two penitentiaries and a number of provincial jails located in that area. I was using the Headingley report to point out that in my opinion there is a real need for somebody representing the remission service of Canada resident in one of those provinces, preferably the province of Manitoba.
Conditions of crowding in the prison were excessive at the time of the riot. The prison was built to accommodate 275 prisoners, but at the time of the difficulty there were actually '380 prisoners within the institution. So I think there could be very much closer co-operation between the remission branch and the provinces within our institutions, both federal and provincial, where there have been difficulties in the past year, and the past months.
The other possibility of coping with the problem of the increasing criminal population in Canada is that of making use of the probation system. The system of probation is the most hopeful, because actually it keeps persons out of prison. That is the best kind of rehabilitation, that which keeps the offenders of younger years, the first offenders, free from the stigma of a term in prison, and keeps them within the framework of society so they can be assisted by all the community resources available to make a successful adjustment.
Again, in Canada we have not used the probation system to any great extent. It was extended first to juveniles; and then in 1921, as the result of an amendment to the Criminal Code, it became possible to extend the probation principle to adult offenders. As an example of the slow progress made in the last 32 years, I should like to place on record some statistics which indicate that Canada's position in this regard is quite unfavourable when compared with that of, for example, the United Kingdom. To carry on a successful probation system one needs probation officers and supervisory staff of all kinds. At the present time there are just 50 such officers for all Canada, as compared with hundreds of police officers whose task, of course, is essentially the apprehension of lawbreakers.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Where did the hon. member get his figure of 50?


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: From the latest report of the Canadian Penal Association.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I think it is quite wrong.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Is it?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Yes, I think so. I shall be referring to that, but I think the situation is much better than my hon. friend believes it is.
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Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: That is good.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: If I remember correctly, the number is much greater than that for Ontario alone.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: This is the latest report, dated 1953, and is taken from the proceedings of the meeting of the Canadian Penal Association on October 15 and 16, 1953. It is pointed out further in these statistics that 40 per cent of all crimes of violence in this country were committed by young offenders between the ages of 16 and 26. Again, it points out that 60 per cent of all offenders were committed to prison for periods of 90 days or less.
These are the categories that could benefit most from an extended system of probation and thus ease the pressure on our prison population. I feel-and there are many authorities in the field who support this viewpoint-that it would help to prevent the growing problem of recidivism if we were able to keep these younger offenders free entirely from the taint and stigma of prison incarceration. So I would urge very strongly that something be done to implement a more vigorous use of the principle of probation.
The need is growing from year to year. For example, in 1950 there were over 98,000 persons incarcerated in Canadian prisons while in the same year, with three times our population, the United Kingdom had less than 35,000 persons. That is 98,000 as compared with 35,000. In 1950 there were 3,631 adult offenders placed on probation in Canada, of which 2,075 were in Ontario, where there is a fairly advanced program of probation in operation. On the other hand, in the United Kingdom 34,000 adult offenders were placed on probation. That indicates a comparison of 3,000 to 34,000. It seems to me there is a very great opportunity for improvement along these lines.
Then there is the major difficulty which faces every Canadian who, as the result of an infraction of our laws, has been sent to a prison for a longer or shorter period of time, and that is the necessity of returning to society after his sentence has been served. The program I outlined very briefly from the report of the former inmate of Kingston penitentiary indicates that from a routine of that kind an institutional personality would tend to result, a personality that is out of touch with the world and, to a large extent, out of touch with reality.
The suggestion is made by those who have given attention to the problem, particularly in provincial institutions, that adjustments to society might be eased by making provision for home leaves, as is done in the old

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country, and also by reducing maximum care and substituting open-house or custodial care under which the prisoner has a reasonable degree of freedom, and where conditions are not too far removed from those he finds when eventually he returns to society.
The tragedy, in the case of all prisoners, is that punishment really begins following their discharge. The prisoner is stamped with the stigma of the ex-convict. In many cases police tend to hound him. If he has been engaged in professional or commercial positions requiring bonding by a bonding company, he cannot be bonded because of his prison record. In fact the finding of employment is one of the big problems of the exconvict. No private employer is willing to take the risk. Unfortunately the Canadian civil service will not give an opportunity to a discharged prisoner. This opens a wide area of discussion. It might be that the services of the federal employment offices could be utilized in helping prisoners make adjustment in suitable employment.
There is one oversight that has worked special hardship. The prisoner who is eligible for unemployment insurance is not able to obtain his benefits because of the regulation that he must have made contributions immediately prior to his application for the insurance. Of course his removal from society has made the meeting of those terms impossible.
In most cases the only money a discharged prisoner has to assist in his readjustment to society is an infinitesimally small discharge gratuity. It is the gratuity he has earned as the result of a per diem grant. The grant is so small that in most cases where there are no family resources behind the prisoner he returns to society practically insolvent. The suggestion is put forward that the rates of such gratuities should be based on need for survival

that is, maintaining the basic creature needs-rather than on the length of the sentence served.
In a good many cases the discharged prisoner, shunned by so-called respectable society because of the prison stigma, is reduced to the flop-house existence and to cast-off clothing. In too many cases he joins the ranks of our transients and vagrants, who in turn begin to swell the ranks of our habitual recidivist criminals. Unfortunately, too, as I indicated in my opening remarks, any beneficial effect that has resulted from the custodial care is completely lost because of the gap in our program of rehabilitation, which provides very little assistance in the very important problem of returning to society and finding a useful place there once again.
CMr. Dinsdale.]
I must say a word on the work of the voluntary agencies. Actually they are the only group who are trying to fill the tremendous need in this regard. I notice in the estimates that item 170 provides grants of $40,000 to recognized prisoners' aid societies, as may be approved by the treasury board. That is a beginning in the right direction. However, I think it will be agreed that $40,000, when compared with the rather substantial expenditures for custodial care, is hardly adequate to meet the after-care problem.
There is no easy solution to this difficulty. Of course grants could be increased to prisoners' aid associations such as the John Howard society, the Elizabeth Fry society, and the Salvation Army. It is true that many prisoners prefer to work through the private agencies, mainly because those private prisoners' aid societies are in contact with the prisoner throughout the entire period of incarceration and are planning for his reestablishment in society almost from the moment he is sentenced. Then again, if we are going to deal with the growing problem of crime, it is necessary to have a close partnership between government departments and private agencies. The rehabilitation of the lawbreaker requires the resources of all the community if he is to be brought back to a useful place in society.
I urgently request the minister to give some consideration to enlarging the activities provided under probation and parole for the solution of this very difficult problem.


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Chairman, vote 170 is actually a very important one, though it involves only a few thousand dollars. It reads:
Administration of the office of the commissioner of penitentiaries, including $40,000 for grants to recognized prisoners' aid societies, as may be approved by the treasury board.
Actually the vote is therefore a policy vote on the operation of the penitentiaries and on the care after an inmate leaves the institution.
I am not going to hold up the committee this evening for any great length of time on the actual care inside the institution, because on more than one occasion I have spoken on these matters in the house. But I do want to draw the attention of the Minister of Justice to this fact. The minister is interested in penitentiary care and has established by royal commission or by appointment a board on several phases of institutional care and penology. I would appreciate it if the minister would give us some indication as to when he expects the

reports will be received on the various studies that are now being made under his authority.
So far as institutional care is concerned, there is just one aspect that I should like the minister to comment on, not as Minister of Justice but as a man. Since he makes the regulations, he must know something about those whom he is regulating.
Sir, I have been in this House of Commons only some two years, but I have had an interest in penology for some 22 years, not from an office desk but from meeting men and women in provincial and federal jails. I want to make this very clear, Mr. Chairman. We who make the law in parliament and those who enforce the law would be doing a disservice to society if we became sentimental about criminals. We must not at any time become sentimental toward criminals. We who make or enforce the law must not at any time coddle those who have broken the law.
Having expressed that as my opinion, that you must not be sentimental, you must not coddle those who break the law, I do maintain that it is our responsibility to try to rehabilitate those who are anti-social and who are in our institutions. I do not believe it can be done under some of the conditions we find in our provincial jails and federal penitentiaries today.
Perhaps I personally am sentimental. If so I have no apologies to make. A letter from the family means a great deal. A visit from a member of the family means a great deal. I cannot understand why the Minister of Justice, who has the administration of the penitentiaries of Canada, should still insist upon the limitation of three letters a month, which I understand has now been increased by one. I am keeping complete track of the regulations, and I know it has been increased by one.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Yes.


Harold Edward Winch: Would it not be good psychiatry, good psychology, good humanitarianism and benevolence; would it not help to rehabilitate these men who have broken the law and who are paying the penalty if they were allowed contact with their families? While the minister is talking to his deputies would he ask them why it is that a man who has lived with a common-law wife for 12 years, who has had four children by that common-law wife, should not be permitted to have her visit him in the penitentiary? I know we have great respect for marriage, but I hope we have greater respect for love.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.
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Harold Edward Winch: Don't laugh. Unfortunately at times there is a difference between love and marriage. If a man is in love and lives with a common-law wife for 12 years; if he has no right to marry her legally and has children by her; if he breaks the law and is sent to the penitentiary, why should there be so much trouble in getting permission for her to visit him in the penitentiary?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: My hon. friend knows, but the rest of the members of the committee do not know, just what the regulation is. Regulation 16-A-2 reads:
When an inmate has lived in a common law relationship prior to incarceration and satisfactory evidence is produced to the warden that
(i)	the relationship has existed for a period of at least one year and during such period the inmate has supported and publicly represented the person with whom he has been living as his wife
(ii)	there is mutual intent to resume relationship upon release
(iii)	neither party has a legal spouse who has notified the warden that he or she objects to such visits and correspondence being authorized, the warden may grant to such inmate the privilege of visits and correspondence with the common-law partner in accordance with the provisions of these regulations.


Harold Edward Winch: The minister has read the regulation correctly, but he has forgotten something-if they do not have a legal spouse.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: A legal spouse who objects. Surely the legal spouse has some rights in the picture.


Harold Edward Winch: There are some cases where a man and woman have been separated because under our antiquated divorce laws you cannot get a divorce except on the ground of adultery. There are a lot of people in Canada who are living in legal immorality because they cannot be divorced under our antiquated divorce laws. I have in mind this case where a man lived with his common-law wife for 12 years. She is now being allowed to visit her husband in the penitentiary, but why should a person have to go through all these trials and tribulations? Why should she have to get in touch with her member of parliament and carry on correspondence back and forth in order to have the right to visit that man in the penitentiary? I think a new approach is required to this matter. It should not require a board or a royal commission to decide how many letters or how many visits should be granted to an inmate.
The major point I wish to raise under this item is the treatment given to inmates after discharge. I find it just a little bit difficult to speak at times because everybody knows of my interest in this matter. Some may think I am sentimental about it, but I am

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not. I want to try to save lives; I want to try to save people; I want to try to save the taxpayers' money.
I think we are making a big mistake in this country because we have not recognized that after we sentence people to from two years to life in a penitentiary and then release them, the taxpayer has a big investment in them. We have had to pay to get those people into jail. We have had to pay in order to train them. Then they are released at the termination of their sentences, and what do we do with them? Do we help them? Do we rehabilitate them? Do we try to make sure they do not break the law again? After an experience of over 22 years, during which time I have talked to people in the provincial jails and in the penitentiaries, I have come to the conclusion that immediately they get outside the doors of the jail they are on their own; nothing is done for them outside of giving them a new suit of clothes and $10 in their pocket.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I am sure my hon. friend knows perfectly well that they are not on their own if they want any help, and a great many of them do want help. If I have the time tonight I will be glad to put on the record the numbers who have been helped, and they run into the hundreds. The total of those on ticket of leave is in the hundreds at any one time. It is hardly fair for my hon. friend to say what he is saying, that they do not have any help, that they are left to shift on their own resources.


Harold Edward Winch: I did not say they did not have any help.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: They have all the help they want.


Harold Edward Winch: No, they do not.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Harold Edward Winch: No, they do not. Mr. Chairman, through you I say they do not. I am not talking just as one who sits here in the House of Commons opposite the Minister of Justice. I am talking as one who has had to deal with these men day after day and year after year. I say there is no policy provincially or federally-I am going to refer only to the matter from the federal angle-of taking care of men and women once they are released from the penitentiary, and rehabilitating them on a substantial basis. I say most definitely and from personal knowledge that we have no policy in Canada to take care of people once they are out of the penitentiary.
I say it would be a marvellous investment if we gave more attention to that issue. Yes,
I know that in British Columbia a man can be released. But where can he go? To the 
John Howard society. For what? A job? A handout? Yes. Help? Yes. But is there any follow-up care? No, sir. Don't try to kid me, because you cannot do so. We have not a follow-up care in Canada after a man's release from jail. Partially, yes; I agree. I give every thanks for the work that is being done. I give every thanks for the money that is now being expended. But because of the investment of Canada in those whom we keep in jail and train in jail, I say without any hesitation whatsoever that we are not taking advantage of the opportunity to rehabilitate these people. That is what I have been told time after time after time by those with whom I have conferred in the provincial jails and in our penitentiaries. I have asked, "What is your big problem?" They reply, "When they go out of here they say: Where do we go and who is interested in us?"


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I wonder whether my hon. friend is aware, for example, that in 1954- and that is fairly recently-there were 915 tickets of leave, of whom 576 had supervision by trained social workers or representatives of the remission service. Would he not regard that as being of some assistance? What more assistance would he suggest that we provide for them, other than putting them on a pension or something of that sort?


Harold Edward Winch: My hon. friend is not going to put me in that spot, Mr. Chairman. Pension? No. But I say we have not a follow-up service in Canada that we should have, or a rehabilitation service that we should have.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: There were 576 in one year under supervision. Is that not a fairly good record, with 576 under the supervision of a trained social worker or a representative of the remission service?


Harold Edward Winch: Out of how many that were discharged? How many were discharged that year?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: There were 915 discharged that year.


Harold Edward Winch: Where?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: In the whole service and in all penitentiaries. Out of 915, 225 had only police supervision, which I know my hon. friend would regard as unsatisfactory. But 576 had supervision of trained social workers or representatives of the remission service.
I think that is not a bad record at all.


Harold Edward Winch: Where did you put them?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Put whom?


Harold Edward Winch: They were under supervision, but not under allocation.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I am saying that 576 were under supervision by trained social workers. That is not to say they stood there 10 hours a day watching what they did. But you know how these case workers operate. They have a certain number, not more than they can supervise properly. They advise and secure positions for them through the employment service, and help them in every way possible. I would say that 576 out of 915 discharged in that year under ticket of leave-


James MacKerras Macdonnell: How many would be employed?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I could get that figure; I do not have it, but a large number would be employed.


Harold Edward Winch: Those are on ticket of leave.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Yes.


Harold Edward Winch: I know this business of parole and ticket of leave. But, of all those discharged from the penitentiary system of Canada, how many come under that? I maintain that in view of the money we have to spend in keeping these men in jail and training them in jail, the people of Canada might be able to stop a number of those men from going back into crime if we had a better follow-up service on those who are coming out of jail.
Mr. Chairman, I have seen and spoken to so many coming out of jail. I have asked, "What are you going to do?" They answered two things; one, "I am going to get drunk", and two, "I have some other thought in mind." You know what that is-a woman. Then they have to find jobs. They have no unemployment insurance. I am not being sentimental. I am interested in the rehabilitation of these people. I shall say no more, except that I think we need a greater program of follow-through on the people whom we have paid to keep in the penitentiary system of Canada. It will pay good dividends if we do not drop our responsibility when they have served their sentence, but carry it through for a longer time.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Chairman, a year ago we called the minister's attention to a 13-year-old lad in a penitentiary. I must be correct and admit that he was in a training school attached to the penitentiary. In the course of our discussion of that case it was revealed that there were in various parts of Canada a goodly number of lads aged from 13 to 16 in the various penitentiaries. I hope the minister at this time is able to inform the house that this condition no longer exists,
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that some remedy has since been found. I know the difficulties of the minister in connection with this, as he so well pointed out a year ago.
It is rather odd that Canadians as Canadians have a series of duties and responsibilities which they must fulfil, but when it comes to the rights of Canadians as citizens, we have rights as Canadians only in so far as the 10 provincial attorneys general choose to grant us those rights. If the minister is unable to report to the house that this matter is being taken care of-I see the minister nodding his head, so I shall rest for a moment.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Mr. Chairman, I am very happy to announce that I received a report on this young man on June 24. It was to the effect that he has got along very well. His conduct has been good and he has been attending school regularly, and since last November he has been undergoing vocational training in the bricklaying trade, in which he has made good progress. He has now been released under the supervision of a charitable organization where we think he will continue to make good progress.


Erhart Regier: May I follow through and ask the minister whether any progress is being made in persuading local law enforcement officers, or whoever is responsible, to see to it that fewer and fewer of these younger people are sent to the penitentiaries? Is any headway being made? I understand that at most points in Canada this situation could not arise. I hope the day is not far distant when no boy anywhere in Canada can be sentenced to penitentiary. Has any progress been made toward having more areas in Canada meet this desirable condition?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I think it would be fair to say some progress has been made, but a good deal of the difficulty, as in this young lad's case, is that we had facilities with which we could help him and which were not available elsewhere. While I am not advocating for one moment that lads of his age should go to the penitentiary, still I think in his case he is better off for having gone there. It will not be until the same facilities can be provided in provincial institutions that we will not get the odd young lad like that in the penitentiaries. I think it is rather revealing that when they do go to our penitentiaries, pretty good results are usually achieved.


Erhart Regier: I appreciate the report the minister is making and I agree with most of what he says. However, I believe he will agree with me that another type of institution would be more desirable for youngsters

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of that age. Has the minister given consideration at any time to establishing a national institution under his jurisdiction or under the jurisdiction of the chief commissioner of penitentiaries to which all such cases could be assigned, rather than have possibly hundreds of youngsters suffer until the local authorities in some isolated areas of Canada provide the necessary facilities? Is it the case that the numbers are not enough to warrant the establishment of a separate institution?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I think it would be very much more desirable on almost every count that offenders of that age should be taken care of under provincial auspices. Not only do I think that is so, but I think in the long run very much better results would be obtained by their being so taken care of. I do not think we have any reason to despair as to the possibility of that at all.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I visited the penitentiary with the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam when this young lad was there. The minister will recall that the hon. member placed quite a damaging report on Hansard with respect to this young lad, and that I suggested that the minister communicate with his officers because I was sure he would get quite a different picture. I gather the report he has now given is a report from his officers.
I quite agree with the minister that this 13-year-old boy has had in a federal penitentiary, for the first time in his life, the experience of having teachers and friends who were sympathetic and anxious to give the boy a lift in life. I feel sure that the prediction the minister is making now will be realized and that this young lad, as the result of association with well trained personnel in the federal training department connected with St. Vincent de Paul penitentiary, will be a worth-while citizen.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: When the estimates of the Department of Justice were up before I made some remarks with regard to the relative conditions that we find in our own country and in Britain. I have some material here I should like to put on the record, not at any great length but it will take more than two or three minutes and I do not know whether it is sensible to begin now. I think I would want about 10 minutes. I shall begin now, if the committee wishes; otherwise, as it is three minutes to ten-


Edward Turney Applewhaite: May I point out to the committee that there are only three items left in the main estimates of this department and four in the supplementaries. Is it the unanimous view of the committee that we should sit until this department is concluded?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Mr. Chairman, I did not quite get what you said. Are we going to sit until we finish the department?


Edward Turney Applewhaite: Until we finish this department.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I did not agree to that.


Edward Turney Applewhaite: I have no desire-


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I certainly do not want to feel that anything I have to say is keeping people here to their discomfort after ten o'clock. I will not agree with that.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I think I know the figures my hon. friend has because I have looked at the same book, "Canadian Welfare", and actually the figures are not very accurate. I think if the hon. member and I got together I could convince him that was the case.
So far as his general thesis is concerned, I thought when he made his remarks on the last occasion, if he will permit me to say so, he opened up what is probably the most important subject matter in the Department of Justice at the present time. It was touched on again tonight by the hon. member for Brandon-Souris. The subject matter is how we are going to save for society, to put the matter at the beginning on a very low basis, a lot of needless cost in keeping people incarcerated in prisons and penitentiaries when we could avoid doing that, I think, by reform in the practices we have been following in the past. I am entirely in agreement with what I take to be the hon. member's viewpoint in that regard.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: The minister has confirmed me in my feeling that this matter should not be dealt with casually in a few minutes. I think it is of tremendous importance, and he himself has also said so. I think that prima facie it raises a question that every member of the house ought to regard as what shall I say-a challenge. The figures given are so disturbing.
In the last two weeks I have also learned something further about the matter which I perhaps should have known before and which I doubt if everyone in the house knows. If the minister had said that this was a trivial matter and we had better just let it go, I might have doubted my own judgment. I do not like to be disagreeable and disobliging, but I think this is an important matter. I certainly want to have my doubts and discomforts about the matter answered, and I cannot believe that anything that could take place in 10 or 15 minutes would make me feel they had been answered.
We have the recommendation of the Archambault commission with regard to the

question of probation. I have here a statement by Lord Samuel giving the most astounding figures with respect to England. They show that in 30 years convictions in England have gone down from 180,000 to 34,000. It is almost incredible. There may be explanations, but here is a statement by Lord Samuel showing that there has been a reduction in the figures in the period from 1907 to 1937 from 180,000 to 60,000. Then the writer of the article, who is a competent man, has this to say:
Had Lord Samuel been speaking in 1950 he would have been able to state a further reduction of one-half in the number of people committed to prison in England and Wales-34,825.
As I understand it, what almost seems like a miracle has come about largely through the effects of probation. As I understand the situation in Canada, unless something has happened in the last year or two we have made only the first beginnings, and we are faced with the fact, which I could not believe at first but which apparently is true, that we are still having nearly 10 times as many convictions proportionately.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: That is quite wrong.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Here is the last figure.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: My hon. friend is misinterpreting the figures.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: No.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: And in addition, they are
inaccurate.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I have not misinterpreted the figures. These figures go up to 1950. Their population, as the minister knows, is about three times as great, and-


Stuart Sinclair Garson: If we are going to go on and debate the matter, I think it would be desirable, in the interests of a proper understanding on the part of the Canadian people of what are the facts, that all the facts should be accurately stated.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: So do I.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: My suggestion was going to be this. There is nothing new about this problem. We have been conscious of this problem for a long while in the Department of Justice. But as my friend the hon. member for Greenwood is aware-


James MacKerras Macdonnell: May I interrupt the
minister for one moment? I promise not to do it again. I interrupt in order to make it clear that I was not aware of it. I have spoken to other members in the house who were just as ignorant as I was. I therefore think the minister is wrong in saying that this is an old problem and that we are all
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aware of it. I do not think we are aware of it. Certainly that is so unless I have chosen entirely untypical members of this house to speak to. We are not aware of it.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I cannot speak for any person but myself and my officials but we have been aware of it. We have had a system of remission in the Department of Justice under which we have released many hundreds of persons under ticket of leave, and under which we have released all that we thought we could safely release. That is a federal function, a federal responsibility, under our divided system which does not obtain in those jurisdictions of which my friend the hon. member for Greenwood is thinking. In Europe where they have a unitary government'-in Belgium, Holland, England and these other places-they do not have the problem of divided jurisdiction that we have under a federal system. Under our federal system, however, the provision for probation, the thing that is worrying my hon. friend from Greenwood, has to be made by the provinces.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I realize that fact fully.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: That is the important thing. With a view to providing the foundation upon which we could reasonably call the provinces together in a dominion-provincial conference to discuss this matter we-as I think every hon. member of this committee is aware- appointed an advisory committee under Mr. Justice Fauteux of the Supreme Court of Canada and made up of himself, Mr. W. B. Common, Q.C., director of public prosecutions for the province of Ontario; Mr. J. Alex Edmison, Q.C., assistant to the principal at Queen's University and former president of the Canadian Penal Association; and Mr. Joseph McCulley, who is now warden of Hart House at the University of Toronto and for some years was a valued assistant commissioner of penitentiaries at Ottawa. We thought that if we could get a report, which we expect to receive about October of this year, we would then have a mass of data which we could place before the provinces- in a matter which is their business and not ours and in which we have no overriding control over them at all but can only inspire action by persuasion-upon the strength of which we could carry on an intelligent discussion in the dominion-provincial conference with the hope-and so far as I am concerned, the confident hope-that we could get all the provinces at the same time to instal a system of probation across Canada. So far as I can see, that is the only way in which we can get it.

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This is not going to be as difficult as one might expect. The hon. member for Brandon-Souris said that there were 50 probation officers, I believe, in the whole of Canada. The facts are that the province of Ontario already has, I would say, a good probation system in actual operation. At the present time they have 78 full-time probation officers working in that province alone.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Are those probation officers dealing with adult offenders or juvenile offenders?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I think all offenders.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: I meant adult offenders.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: The commissioner of penitentiaries tells me these Ontario probation officers deal with adult offenders.


Harold Edward Winch: This is a most important discussion, and it should not be closed up hurriedly. Would the minister call it ten o'clock?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: The point I am getting at is this. I have no objection to adjourning. I am not anxious for the few remaining justice estimates to be rushed through hurriedly. However we can talk about this matter of probation as much as we like, but the fact of the matter is that there is not much likelihood of action at the provincial level until we can get the report of this advisory committee which was appointed for that express purpose of gathering together suitable material to discuss. Until we have that material to lay before the provinces we are not likely to make much progress with them. In the meanwhile we can debate it here but we shall be talking pro and con without producing too many tangible results.
My suggestion that I thought might reasonably be laid before the committee was that we might pass the estimates of the Department of Justice tonight. Then when we get this report this fall, we would bring it with this matter before the house at the next session. In the meanwhile I would hope that on the basis of that report we could call the attorneys general of the provinces together and discuss the whole problem which, as the hon. member for Greenwood rightly says, is a most important problem indeed. No matter how much we may disagree about statistics, I think that the hon. member for Greenwood and I will be in complete agreement that what they have been able to achieve in Great Britain and in other countries has been the product to a very large degree indeed of a system of probation under which a man who has committed an offence does not go behind prison walls at all. He 
stays out on probation. He does not become a statistic. He does not become a convict. Where we are not dealing with a mere theory but with a practice which has, in fact, in many of these other countries, produced the most excellent results, I cannot see, from my own point of view, why we cannot duplicate those results in Canada if we can get all the provinces to agree to do so. But I do believe, as I pointed out to my hon. friend, that to attempt to do that before we have a complete and comprehensive report from a competent body would be a mistake.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: May I make one comment?


Harold Edward Winch: Let us call it ten o'clock.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I want to make one comment on what the minister has said. I think it is a great pity that this matter has not been discussed before. I certainly blame myself for my ignorance, and there may be others who feel the same way I do. I think the half hour, hour or whatever time is necessary to be spent in discussing this subject would be well worth while, because I may say quite frankly that I am inclined to think that the minister was passing this off too lightly-


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Passing it off too lightly? Why
did we appoint this advisory committee under Mr. Justice Fauteux?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Let me finish. I say he was passing it off too lightly in asking us to rush these things through after ten o'clock on Friday night. I do not consider that should be done.


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.


Harold Edward Winch: There are matters that have not been referred to a royal commission, or points that come under the penitentiaries administration, that I personally should like to discuss and I think they are important. I would therefore ask that we call it ten o'clock.
Resolutions adopted in committee of supply this day reported, read the second time and concurred in.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Lapointe:: On Monday, Mr. Speaker, we shall take the motion to go into supply until one o'clock, and at 2.30 we shall take order No. 8, being the debate on the motion for second reading of Bill No. 256, to amend the Defence Production Act and the motion of the Minister of Finance thereon.


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

[The following items were passed in committee of supply]:

[Stage Direction]
160.	Remission service, including $20,000 for grants to recognized prisoners' aid societies, as may be approved by treasury board, $163,888.
Supreme Court of Canada_____
161.	Administration, $197,421.
Exchequer Court of Canada-
162.	Administration. $103,830.
Yukon territorial court-
163.	Administration, including administration of
justice-Yukon Territory. $71,770.
Other courts-
164.	Payments of gratuities to the widows or other dependents of judges who die while in office, $20,000.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police-
Headquarters administration, national police services and training establishments-
409.	Administration, operation and maintenance, $6,992,087.
410.	Construction	or	acquisition	of	buildings,
works, land and new equipment, $971,937.
Land and air services-
411.	Operation and maintenance of divisions, $23,472,207.
412.	Construction	or	acquisition	of	buildings,
works, land and new equipment, $3,562,287.
Marine services-
413.	Operation and maintenance, $1,342,509.
414.	Construction	or	acquisition	of	buildings,
works, land and new equipment, $487,434.
Supply-Justice
415.	Grant to the chief constables' association of Canada, $500.
416.	Grant to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police veterans' association, $300.
Pensions and other benefits-
417.	Pensions to families of members of the mounted police who have lost their lives while on duty, as detailed in the estimates, $6,439.
418.	Pension to Basil Burke Currie, $685.
419.	Government's contribution to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police pension account, $831,696.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police-
Marine services-
733.	Construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and new equipment-further amount required, $382,983.
Pensions and other benefits-
734.	Government's contribution to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police pension account-further amount required, $18,000.
Combines Investigation Act-
165.	Restrictive trade practices commission, $71,200.
166.	Office of investigation and research, $397,903.
167.	Bankruptcy Act administration, $50,430.
168.	Northwest Territories - administration of justice. $81,150.
General-
169.	Expenses of the royal commissions on the law of insanity as a defence in criminal cases and on the criminal law relating to criminal sexual psychopaths, $15,000.

[Stage Direction]
Monday, July 11, 1955