1956-02-21

REQUEST FOR EARLY ORGANIZATION OF COMMITTEES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Prime Minister if appropriate steps can be taken to see that the committees are constituted. I realize there is a procedure but I also believe that a suggestion from the Prime Minister will be helpful in expediting the process. I would also ask particularly that steps be taken to call the public accounts committee at the earliest possible date.


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: I thank the hon. gentleman. I
assure him that appropriate steps will be taken to get the committees organized as expeditiously as possible.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mrs. Ellen L. Fairclough (Hamilton West):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. Has the minister any comment to make on the statistics which appeared in the papers this morning indicating that the unemployment figure for January is the second highest since the war?


Hon. Milton F. Gregg (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, the figures that appeared in the papers this morning were based upon the report which comes out from month to month. It gives a very complete survey of the situation as reflected over the period from the middle of December to the middle of January. I should like hon. members to recall that of course that is a period when there are a great number of lay-offs for one reason or another over the Christmas holidays and at the beginning of the year.
Up to that period our non-farm labour force in Canada had increased by 300,000, in round figures, since last year; and the total number of applicants for work were, in round figures, 100,000 less than last year. As a midwinter picture, while it is unfortunate there
are so many unemployed, I think we are in a better position this winter than we have been for a number of winters in the past regardless of the figures.
That is true in the main, of course, because of the buoyancy of our whole economy in Canada. To a much lesser degree it is true because of the fact that governments at all levels, industry-particularly the Canadian construction industry-labour unions, communities and municipalities have worked together on a very widespread experiment to see how seasonal unemployment might be attacked this winter. I hope and believe that we are learning many things that will be useful in the future. Finally, the improvement of the unemployment insurance plan, particularly during the seasonal period, is helping where more work cannot be obtained.



UNEMPLOYMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question I should like to direct to the Prime Minister. In view of the seriousness of the unemployment situation, will the government consider calling a conference of labour, management and government to see what can be done to check rising unemployment?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, I am confident that employers at all levels mentioned by the Minister of Labour a moment ago are doing their best to provide additional jobs during this period of seasonal unemployment. I have no reason to believe that their efforts would be intensified as the result of any conference that might be called in that regard.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Ellen Louks Fairclough: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct another question to the Minister of Labour. As some four weeks or so have now elapsed since the announcement the minister made in this house with respect to the reinterpretation

Inquiries of the Ministry ot the new unemployment insurance regulations, can he give any information to this house with respect to the effect that has had on those persons who were previously unable to establish themselves as beneficiaries under this scheme?


Milton Fowler Gregg: Mr. Speaker, I cannot give any information in detail this afternoon but I should like to assure my hon. friend that the matter is being watched very carefully. Just as soon as there is something that can be of value in that way, I shall be glad to present it to the house.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: You had better hurry up.



APPLICATION TO FISHERMEN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. S. Barnett (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Is the minister correctly quoted in the Fishermen's Advocate of February 10 as saying that it is "really only a matter of time" before unemployment insurance is granted to fishermen?


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I have not had the benefit of reading the periodical, and I never like to say anything about things which I have not read.



PUBLIC BUILDINGS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. G. McCullough (Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. Has the minister received any communications from the town council of Estevan, Saskatchewan, urging the need for improved post office and customs office facilities? If so, can the minister inform the house when construction of the federal building to meet this need will be commenced?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. It seems to me that we could use our time at this moment more profitably if we were to avoid asking questions with regard to the reception by ministers of correspondence in connection with public projects.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. John Palleil (Peel):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. Has the policy of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation been changed in the making of loans in any areas so that no loans will be made on dwellings erected on lands which are not provided with sewers?


Hon. Robert H. Winters (Minister of Public Works):: No, Mr. Speaker. There has been no change in policy in that respect. The policy that applies now is the policy that has been in effect for some time.
Mr. Pallet!: I should like to direct a supplementary question to the minister. Will the minister have that policy reiterated down through Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation so that no statements are made by officials contrary to the minister's answer today?


Mr. Fleming:: Answer.


Mr. Macdonnell:: A smile does not get on the record.



PIPE LINES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Alexander Drew: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Has the government received any written undertaking from Trans-Canada Pipe Lines in regard to their methods of public financing, other than the material which was tabled at 2.30 yesterday afternoon?


Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I recall no communication to that effect, Mr. Speaker. The government has not pressed them for a statement of their public financing, it being a matter with which the government is not primarily concerned.

The house resumed, from Monday, February 20, consideration of the motion of Mr. Harris for committee of supply, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Drew.



POWER DEVELOPMENT


Mr. B. R. Leboe (Cariboo):: At the adjournment last night I had been speaking for about a minute and a half on this amendment. At

the outset, I should like to say that I have not too much I want to put on the record. However, I feel we should review some of the things we have in mind in British Columbia in the field of power.
Of course atomic energy is something that is in the experimental stage at this time, and therefore there need not be too much said about it. On the other hand we know some advances have been made in the use of coal and gas for the production of electricity. In Alberta, for instance, the Calgary Light and Power Company is installing a plant at Wabamun that is going to develop about
147,000	horsepower. The information I have is that this plant is adapted to the use of gas but will eventually be converted to the use of coal. It is my understanding that the coal will be used in the form of dust in high pressure water tube boilers generating steam for turbines.
We can see that in this way electrical power is going to reach many people in Canada who otherwise would not have power because they are a long distance from hydroelectric plants. In that connection I should like to bring to the attention of the house a report appearing in the Dawson Creek Star of February 9, 1956. The heading is, "4200 Alberta farms get power in 1955." The article reads:
A total of 4,264 farms were organized into rural electrification associations during 1955, according to figures released today by the Hon. Raymond Reierson, minister of industries and labour. The number of farms electrified has now reached 34.768. In addition there are 5,410 non-farm customers who are receiving power as a result of the construction of farm lines.
There is no question but that the subject of power is important. The thing in which we are interested in Canada is how this power is going to reach the people of this country at the earliest possible moment and bring to them a higher standard of living. A good deal of our power in British Columbia is developed under a crown corporation known as the British Columbia Power Commission. In that province we fmd that under the power commission we have 150,000 kilowatts of hydroelectric power, 26,000 kilowatts of diesel, that is thermal electric, 700 miles of high voltage lines, and 3,300 miles of distribution lines.
I have been given to understand that there is a trend toward the use of direct current motors in industry, which give a great deal more power for the amount of electricity consumed. I also understand that experiments have been successful in the transmission of direct current over much longer distances than they are capable of transmitting alternating current at the present time. Because of these factors we can readily see that hydro 67509-88
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plants in some of the far reaches of our country can be brought, as it were, closer to the places where we have many farms and villages looking for electrical power.
It is expected that in British Columbia, owing to the gas line that is to be built from Fort St. John in the Peace river country to Vancouver, a great deal more thermal electric power will be developed through the use of gas. It is very important to realize that this great national resource is now to come to the people of British Columbia for power and heat. We are grateful for that. Many industries may develop in the interior of British Columbia as a result of the use of gas for both power and heat.
Possibly the position of British Columbia can best be summed up by referring to the federal-provincial co-operation in economic development submission made to this government on December 14, 1953. In the introductory remarks this is what the submission had to say:
The government of British Columbia in this brief proposes federal-provincial co-operation in the further economic development of the province and in the conservation of its natural resources. It submits that financial participation by the government of Canada in projects which will serve these purposes is warranted both by the national interest and by special consideration affecting British Columbia. It further submits that it is warranted by federal financial participation in projects in other parts of Canada. Accordingly, a joint program of public investment is here proposed.
I think that is in line with the amendment moved yesterday by the Leader of the Opposition.
The power potential of British Columbia is great. We have heard considerable mention of the Columbia river as a potential power site, but I should like to point out to the house that the Columbia river basin is by no means the largest and most important power site that we have in British Columbia. To mention a few, there is the Yukon Taku project. The potential there is almost 5 million horsepower as compared to the Columbia river development of 3,300,000 horsepower. The lower Fraser valley potential exceeds that of the Columbia river. The upper Fraser valley potential exceeds that of the Columbia river. These figures of the potential horsepower of British Columbia indicate that while a great deal of interest has been created in the Columbia river development project, a great deal of consideration has to be given to some of the other power sites in Canada.
We recognize, of course, that the fishing industry of British Columbia is an important factor and must receive its due consideration. In the known potential of British Columbia we have 22,913,000 horsepower and the

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potential of 25 per cent of the province is still unknown. That these developments will be of benefit not only to British Columbia but to the people of Canada is a fact I do not think anyone would care to deny.
The St. Lawrence seaway has been mentioned as being located in more or less the central part of Canada, and I believe that is true. I agree that a certain small amount of benefit may be derived in the over-all Canadian economy, and that is also true of such power projects as exist in British Columbia and in other parts of the country.
I would support the plea that the province of New Brunswick be given consideration in its Beechwood project. I think it is important to the economy of Canada that money is being spent in various parts of the nation for the development of power.
While I am on the subject of money I should like to say that it is certainly easy for hon. members of the opposition to be continually pressing the government for the expenditures of great sums of money, and it is perhaps not always possible for the government to meet our demands or requests. I believe I should use the word requests rather than demands; however, when I think back to about November 15 I recall that the Bank of Canada met with the chartered banks of this country. If I read the evidence correctly that meeting was for the purpose of recalling certain funds from specific areas with a view to making it more difficult to obtain credit in the country. In other words it was an indication that the money supply of the country was adequate to meet the demand for the distribution of goods.
If that is so, I would then say that the government had failed to meet its obligations some years ago when the decline in farm prices began. In this case where we are asking for federal money to be spent in various parts of Canada, the over-all money supply in the country must be taken into consideration because if the money supply is increased to the point where we are faced with inflation, we are then going to do more damage than ever to all the recipients of social assistance across the country whose living standard has been cut by the financial policies that have been followed by this government.
Speaking of money, which we know is necessary for the development of this country, I should like right now when the hon. gentleman over there says "real money" to quote an article which appeared in Labour of December 17, 1955, which is published in Washington. This reads:
How "Bankers' Money" Works
Uncle Sam's $205 billion national debt can keep on going up, but it can't come down much or
[Mr. Leboe.J
permanently without causing a depression. That's the surprising picture painted by economists at a Senate-House committee hearing on taxes.
The explanation, however, is this: The less money the government takes in taxes, the more it has to borrow from bankers. They "manufacture'' the money they lend to Uncle Sam when they buy his bonds. The government spends this "new money" and thus stimulates the economic machine.
What would happen if Uncle Sam used tax money to pay off part of the debt owed to bankers? The economists said that surely would cause an economic slump, for these reasons:
First, the people couldn't spend the money because it was taken from them in taxes. Second, the government couldn't spend money it used to pay off debt. Third, the debt payments would wipe out "bankers' money" circulating in the economic system.
It's a fine system for the bankers, because it yields them billions of dollars of profits in interest on the money they "manufacture". But is it the best possible system for the American people and their government?
The hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) suggested to the Social Crediters that we should support the use of the national credit. We do support 100 per cent the use of the national credit for the development of Canada, but we are not unmindful of the fact that the national debt of the United States has risen by billions -from $268 billion to approximately $300 billion. Many of those United States dollars have been reinvested in Canada as permanent capital, and that permanent capital investment in this country has added to the dollars released in the form of salaries, wages and dividends.
Once we have a sufficient money supply in the Dominion of Canada, surely we cannot ask the government to go into debt under the present financial policy, or that they should change it and use the Bank of Canada for the creation of money against the national credit to a point where we would have inflation. That is not a sound policy. Therefore I think we have to go back a good many years to find out exactly what caused the situation that we have today to develop. Having done so I think we will find that had we had a different financial policy in this country a good many years ago, many Canadians who today have not savings to invest would have savings to invest in this country.
Some suggestion was made that outside capital should not be invested in Canada for the development of our country. If that policy were to be followed it should have been followed many years ago. Take the Canadian Pacific Railway. I understand from the latest figure that 88 per cent of the dollar investment in the Canadian Pacific Railway comes from outside Canada. I understand the Aluminum Company of Canada is 75 per cent owned outside of Canada. In British Columbia, as mentioned before, we have the Kitimat project where a town of about 50,000 people

will eventually be built around that industrial development. That project was made possible by the investment of foreign capital together with Canadian capital.
All this business of what is socialism and what is free, responsible enterprise can be answered very quickly. Free, responsible enterprise is just exactly what it says and we can find out what socialism is in the Oxford Press dictionary, where it is very well explained. We do not need to be worrying about that here.
I was amazed to find that the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Philpott) did not rise on a question of privilege today and correct the speech he made yesterday with regard to the remarks he made concerning the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Hahn). I suggest to the hon. member that he read in Hansard what the hon. member for New Westminster said and compare it with what he said he said. The same thing applies to the hon. member for Kootenay West. If he would do the same thing I am sure he would like to rise on a question of privilege and put the record straight.


Mr. Byrne:: What did he say?


Bert Raymond Leboe: You can read it in Hansard.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: I am listening to your speech. I am not reading Hansard.


Bert Raymond Leboe: Well, you have lots of time. Members over there have more time than money.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Only the Social Crediters have money.


Mr. Yuill:: You should know; you are living in a Social Credit province.


Bert Raymond Leboe: In connection with power
development in Canada, I believe that in the past we have lost sight of the responsibility of governments to take the lead in encouraging the processing of our raw materials within our borders. I think there is much that can be done in all the provinces of Canada in that regard. Some of them are much worse off than others in that respect, and we know which ones they are. But surely we must get to the point where we are utilizing our own men and women in this country, who are looking for work, in the processing of our raw materials.
I can see no reason why, for instance, a pulp mill should be exporting pulp to another country. I do not see why we should not be making the paper right in this country instead of shipping the pulp out of the country. We should be shipping out newsprint, not pulp. In that respect I would advocate that due consideration should be
67509-88J
Power Development
given by the government to rendering all the assistance necessary in the development of research, and that the government should encourage the full utilization and processing of our natural resources within our borders.
With respect to federal-provincial co-operation, I should like to refer to the proposal of the provincial government of British Columbia in their submission on December 14, 1953. I will not read the words, but on page 13 of their submission they pointed out that there were already certain precedents in Canada for dominion-provincial co-operation in those fields we have mentioned, and I would urge the government to take a new look at the situation.
If the money supply in Canada has reached the point where the release of further credit is going to cause inflation, then I think it is time the government made a full review of its financial policy and that of the Bank of Canada. I certainly can see no reason why we should not embark now on a policy that would bring about a situation whereby Canadians themselves would have the savings to invest in the development of their own country. Certainly we have not such a policy now, and that is what the hon. member for New Westminster pointed out yesterday. With reference to the provinces of western Canada he said, as found at page 1354 of Hansard:
They are prepared to accept United States investment, British investment, or investment from any other country that we can interest to the extent of coming into this country, provided they come in under our regulations.
In order to call what he said to the attention particularly of the hon. member for Vancouver South and the hon. member for Kootenay West, may I point out that he used these words, "provided they come in under our regulations." Naturally these provinces are looking to the protection of the interests of their people, and to seeing that their rightful share comes back to them from the processing of their natural resources. Therefore I think there is room for federal participation in the development of power if and when the time arrives that the federal government is in a position to do so.


Mr. G. R. Pearkes (Esquimali-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity of rising this afternoon to support quite briefly the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday. The pertinent part of that amendment reads as follows:
. . . consideration should be given to a joint investment program for the development of power resources in any province where the government of such province requests the co-operation of the Canadian government in carrying out such development.

Power Development
The Leader of the Opposition dealt with the problem on the broad national basis and left it to the rest of us to apply the broad principles to our particular provinces. I should like to emphasize two words in the amendment, the one "joint" and the other "co-operation". Joint investment certainly presupposes that there should be intimate and close co-operation.
I think the amendment is very timely, because only last year we had the sorry spectacle of two governments, the government of British Columbia and the federal government, failing lamentably to show the degree of co-operation that is necessary and will be necessary in the future if these joint programs are to work to the benefit of the people of any particular province or, in fact, to the benefit of the people of Canada as a whole. Of course I refer to that striking lack of co-operation which was shown in the early stages during the events that led up to the introduction of the international rivers bill.
I am not going to repeat today the details of that lack of co-operation. They are well known to all members of this house and to the majority of the people resident in British Columbia. It was indeed a sorry spectacle. However, after the bill had been amended we of this party were in support of the act as it was subsequently modified.
It will be recalled that under that act the federal government has the authority to issue a licence for the construction of any project on an international river. If the federal government assumed the authority to issue licences, it must also accept the responsibility which goes with that authority which it has taken. If the federal government merely adopts a negative attitude and says it will not issue licences for this or that project which may be suggested either by the provincial government or by some corporation anxious to develop the industrial resources of any particular international river, there will be a great deal of resentment. In fact, the people will never tolerate such an attitude.
Industry today is straining every nerve to find additional sources of power. The assumption of this authority by the federal government is a challenge to the government which it must accept, namely the challenge to assist Canadians to retain and develop the power resources of Canada in the best interests of the Canadian people. We are today faced with organizations, corporations, businessmen and industrialists in the United States who are only too anxious to come in, build projects on
IMr. Pearkes.l
our rivers and utilize the power which is produced from those projects for the power-hungry industries of the United States, giving to Canada or, in the case of British Columbia, to the province of British Columbia only a portion of the wealth in power which they have taken from our own waters. I therefore feel that it is a definite challenge to this federal government to see that it adopts a positive attitude toward the development of these streams.
Until quite recently coal was the main source of power in British Columbia. However, that day has gone. In British Columbia our coal fields, I regret to say, are not as active as they were. Many of the seams have played out. Today water is providing 44 per cent of the power, petroleum provides 38 per cent and coal has dropped in position until it is providing only 18 per cent. The estimates which have been made indicate that there will be a considerable increase in the proportion of power provided by water. In fact some scientists have estimated that not less than 70 per cent of our power will be derived from water sources in the near future.
The hydroelectric potential in British Columbia, based upon careful surveys carried out by the water comptroller of that province, has been estimated as something over 25 million horsepower. But today in the installed hydro stations we are producing only 2,246,000 horsepower. Those figures show what a tremendous increase there may be, from 2 million horsepower to 25 million horsepower, for all of which sources have been located. There are still large portions of the province, particularly in the northeastern part of British Columbia, where no surveys have yet been made. The availability of the horsepower which has so far been developed has played a major part in the development of our mining and smelting industry. It is therefore quite obvious that if we can develop that enormous potential to 25 million horsepower or more, the growth of British Columbia in population and in industry will be beyond imagination.
Just to give some idea of the various localities where there has been development-and there are still projects which are undeveloped but which have been surveyed-I start out by giving the figures around Vancouver island, which are contrary to the general trend in the rest of the province. On Vancouver island there are 396,000 horsepower developed but undeveloped there remain only 235,000 horsepower. Obviously there is an acute shortage in sight on Vancouver

island. It is for that reason that this year a cable is being laid to bring power from the mainland of British Columbia to Vancouver island.
When we come onto the mainland, in the lower Fraser valley we And that only
986.000	horsepower have been developed. That is in the immediate vicinity of the metropolitan area of Vancouver. Yet the surveys have shown that 3,600,000 horsepower are available. Up the Columbia river only 703,000 horsepower have been developed, while again there are 3,300,000 horsepower which are undeveloped. In what is termed the upper Fraser district there are no developments; no projects have been developed. Yet according to the surveys which have already been made, 3,600,000 horsepower are available. In the Kitimat area only the small quantity of 560,000 horsepower have been developed while the undeveloped sources reach the figure of 2,240,000 horsepower.
Then as we go further north into that immense area of the Yukon Taku district, there are no water power developments there but the estimated undeveloped potential is
4.900.000	horsepower. As I said a moment ago, the northeastern portion of the province has not even been surveyed.
I think those figures give some idea of the future prospects of this great province. The hydroelectric developments which have taken place so far have been of the nature of single and steep developments on individual sites. It is probable that in future developments, particularly the type of development that is expected in the lower Fraser valley, the trend which has been taking place in the United States will be followed. This means the multiple use of the water, so that wherever it is economical to put in irrigation plants as well as power plants, the two will be developed concurrently.
With these great possibilities ahead I must sound a note of caution, or perhaps it may be even a further challenge to the government. No dam or hydro project must be developed on our streams on the west coast without due consideration being given to the effect upon our fisheries. Of course the principal fishery in British Columbia is salmon. The estimated market value of that fishery in a normal year, such as last year, is over 50 million. This industry employs, as fishermen and in allied occupations, well over
15.000	people.
The problem of passing fish over a dam in a river is as old as dam construction itself, but until comparatively recent years dams in most rivers were very low and the engineers and fishermen who gave any
Power Development
consideration to this problem were concerned with the upward movement of the fish. A few ladders enabled the fish to work their way up to the spawning grounds. But as dams were built higher and higher it became noticeable that in spite of the fish ladders which were provided the run of fish in those particular streams was decreasing.
Perhaps I might digress for a moment to give a very brief life history of our Pacific salmon. It is common knowledge that during the summer and fall months the salmon work up from the ocean to the spawning grounds in fresh water, literally hundreds of miles from the seashore. There the salmon spawn and immediately die. During the winter months the eggs lie dormant, but they are hatched early in the spring. By April the small fry are free swimming. Some species, such as the pinks, work their way down to the ocean immediately so you have the problem of little fry, two inches in length, going down and encountering a dam and wondering how to get past that obstruction.
Other types of fish, such as the sockeye and spring, remain in the fresh water for one, two or three years, and reach a length of six to eight inches before they start to work down the streams. If they meet a dam they have to find a way to get around it or over it. The problem presented to the engineers is entirely different according to the species with which they are dealing. Following their natural instincts the fry or fingerlings follow the main stream, and if there is water spilling over the dam they follow that spillway and are hurled hundreds of feet to the lower level. Obviously the casualties from abrasion and from the sudden change in height and pressure is very high. If there is no water running over the top of the dam, no surface spillway, then the fish are either shut in or they must go through some submerged spillway or through the turbines. In both cases the results of course is a very heavy death toll.
It was only when the higher dams were being built that the engineers realized that the greatest damage to the fishing industry was done when the fish were migrating downstream rather than upstream. A few years ago a series of investigations were carried out by Canadian and United States officials under the international pacific salmon fisheries commission at Baker dam in north Washington. The Baker dam is only a comparatively high dam, 250 feet. Dams now built or being built are two to three times that height. As a result of the investigations which were carried out it was found that 64 per cent of the sockeye which went over the spillway were killed, and 34 per cent of the sockeye

Power Development
which went through the turbines were killed. This gives some idea of the problem and indicates that unless this problem of passing fish over, through or under these projects is tackled there will soon be no fishing industry on the west coast, or else the power developments will be limited to the non-fish streams. Neither of these results would be desirable.
If our hydro development is limited to the non-fish stream, then a great deal of that enormous potential to which I referred may not be realized. We cannot, of course, contemplate having hydro plants built on fish-producing streams that otherwise would ruin the fishing industry until some way has been found by which the fish may be passed safely around, through or under these dams. I am pleased to say that experiments are being carried out now which are meeting with a degree of success. I have myself seen fish led around in a tank by electrical methods. It is quite easy to do that in an experimental tank, but there are great difficulties when it comes to the question of guiding millions of small fish in an open stream. However, the project is being examined.
Experiments are being carried out, but I regret to say that the majority of those experiments are being carried out in the United States by the United States corps of engineers. They are spending annually something like $400,000 in just carrying out these experiments. A small grant has been made to the University of British Columbia, and I believe something in the neighbourhood of $60,000 is to be spent this year in my province.
I say that these are the two challenges to this government. If they sit down and do nothing about the development of our rivers, and if they will not examine into and produce some results regarding fish migration so that the streams and rivers of British Columbia can be used both for hydro development and for fish production, then they will have fallen short of the task which they should undertake.
These great projects cannot be undertaken by one government alone. As this amendment points out, these must be joint investments with the co-operation of the provincial governments. Therefore I do urge this government to tackle this job seriously and to enter into the fullest and closest co-operation with the provincial governments in order that Canadians may get the full benefit of their resources and we shall not see them being developed and taken away from us by the United States, or by any foreign concern.


Mr. H. J. Murphy (Westmorland):: Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon, again at the

risk of being styled an expert in the field of engineering by some of the western members. However, I should like to say a word on power as it affects the province of New Brunswick. We do not need hon. members from the west down in New Brunswick to teach us Social Credit doctrine, either.


An hon. Member:: Why did you invite us?


Henry Joseph Murphy: You invited yourselves. When I came to this house I had the honour and privilege of being associated with and having for my office mate Mr. J. G. Boucher, who was for a number of years the chairman of the electric power commission, or the hydro commission, whatever the proper title is, in the province of New Brunswick. Mr. Boucher, while in office in New Brunswick, laid out a policy of thermol units that I believe will be followed some time in the future by the present authorities.
I shall leave the Beech wood project to some of my colleagues from New Brunswick to go into fully. I will say in passing, however, that in the Moncton Transcript of February 18,	1956, Mr. Cleophas Leger,
M.L.A., says this about Beechwood:
Turning to Beechwood, Mr. Leger contended the province could build the project on its own resources, claiming tax rental funds would be sufficient "if this government did not waste it elsewhere."
That is the government of New Brunswick.
He charged that the Flemming administration "had in its hands a good part of the money needed for Beechwood and it came from Ottawa. But the government frittered it away on less important things".
He said first things were not given first consideration. He added that federal help to the province had been steady in the past and more would be available when "we are prepared to use it wisely, without wasting it".
I should now like to compare the potential industrial expansion of the province of New Brunswick with the New England states. During the course of my remarks I shall be using figures that come from a survey called "Power in New England", a report of the power survey committee of New England council, the chairman of which was E. H. Hunter, chairman, New Hampshire public service commission; from Maine, Edward E. Chase, president, Maine Securities Company, Portland; Bryant L. Hopkins, engineer, Kennebec Water Power Company, Waterville. Associated with these men were approximately 20 or 25 men from the states of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts', Rhode Island and Connecticut.
In their report they publish a bibliography which has the following authorities: Published reports of federal power commission; published reports of Edison electric institute; published reports of corps of engineers, U.S.

army; statistical abstracts, United States department of commerce; water supply papers, United States geological survey; congressional reports on St. Lawrence seaway project's; journal of Boston society of civil engineers; publications of national electric light association; reports to public service commission of Vermont on flood control power and storage projects by H. K. Barrows; report to associated industries of Massachusetts of its power investigating committee, 1924; reports of Maine state water power commission; reports of New Hampshire water resources board; reports of Maine public utilities water power and storage commission; report on development of inland waterways of Massachusetts by special commission; water resources of New England, New England regional planning commission; report of the special commission on regional planning commission; report of the special commission on the development of inland waterways, 1947, commonwealth of Massachusetts.
I wanted to have my authorities on the record so the report could not be considered as a trivial one. Because water power was a prime factor in the original development of industrial communities in New England it has become magnified in the minds of many with respect to the present situation. Hydroelectric power is cheap only in the most favourable locations, of which few remain undeveloped; and of all the industries of New England using water power, perhaps the only one in which the cost of power might be a determinant factor in its location is the pulp and paper industry.
During the depression years between 1929 and 1939 a number of industrial-owned power plants were discontinued, and the output fell from 1,800,000 kilowatts to 1,200,000 kilowatts. During the war years this reduction in the production of power ceased and it increased somewhat. Since V-J day 1,144,000 kilowatts of capacity either have been constructed, were under construction or are on order in New England. All this capacity will be in use by 1951; this is the report of 1948.
Ninety-one per cent of this new capacity is owned by utilities, and of the new capacity 91 per cent is steam power. This capacity will build up reserves that were depleted during the war years; and 81 per cent of the new capacity will be located in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. From 65 to 75 per cent of all electrical energy generated in New England in the 1948 period came from steam plants. In the United States as a whole from 60 to 65 per cent of the energy generated is from steam plants. The exact percentage from year to year depends
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upon the rainfall and the extent to which the hydro development plants can be operated.
This predominance of steam generated power will be accentuated in the future because the number of feasible undeveloped water power sources is limited. It is therefore logical that the cost of steam power is the best comparison for determining the economic feasibility of hydro developments. During the last century steam generating plants have increased in size, efficiency and complexity. They are now built in locations where coal and oil are available, and where water for condensation is readily accessible.
I should like to put on record a table with respect to New England. In Massachusetts electricity produced by utilities was 1,254,000 kilowatts; 592,000 kilowatts was produced by industrial corporations, the total being
1.846.000	kilowatts of which 87-8 per cent was generated by steam power.
In Rhode Island utilities produced 319,000 kilowatts; industry produced 78,000 kilowatts, a total of 397,000 kilowatts of which 96 per cent was produced by steam generated plants.
In Connecticut 828,000 kilowatts were produced by utilities; 246,000 kilowatts was produced by industrial producers, a total of
1.074.000	kilowatts. Of this power 90-3 per cent was produced by steam generating plants.
In New England as a whole 2,617,000 kilowatts was produced by utilities and 1,079,000 was produced by industrial corporations, a total of 3,696,000 kilowatts. The over-all percentage for New England power produced by steam generated plants was 74 per cent.
The annual cost of power available from steam plants is made up of two components, the first of which is capacity cost. This is composed of annual fixed charges on the capital investment plus the annual operating and maintenance expense. The second is energy cost, which is the fuel cost expressed in mills per kilowatt hour. The coal which is used in New England averages about 13,500 B.t.u. per pound as received. On this basis the 1947 cost of coal in Boston was about $7-80 per ton.
It appears to me that in the province of New Brunswick, with its limited water power sites that are feasible for harnessing, and perhaps more so in the province of Nova Scotia, we must turn to the thermo method of generating electricity. I believe the normal increase in the use of electricity will take up any hydroelectric power that is generated in the next several years in the province of New Brunswick. As has been pointed out in this

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report, the use to which hydroelectric plants can be fully put depends upon the rainfall. For example, last year in New Brunswick we had a very dry summer. Last year would be a model year for the combining of thermo power and hydroelectric power. In the province of New Brunswick we have the coal fields at Minto, and in addition to that we have vast coal reserves in our neighbouring province of Nova Scotia.
This committee reached some conclusions in their report, and I should like to read a paragraph or two of those conclusions, as follows:
New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut use about 89 per cent of the utility power produced in New England and constitute an integrated system. This area is dependent on steam power for the major part of its power needs because at present about 80 per cent of the generating capacity is steam. Even if all the undeveloped hydro power in this area were built regardless of whether it is economically feasible or not, it would not take care of half the expected increase in load during the next ten years. Therefore it is obvious that a large addition to the steam capacity will be required.
The report has this to say concerning the cost of power in manufacturing:
The importance of the cost of power in manufacturing has been greatly overemphasized. Except in a few industries the cost of power averages less than 2 per cent of the total value of manufactured products in New England industries. It is, therefore, obvious that the question of cheap power is not a determining factor in management decisions regarding location of manufacturing plants except for certain heavy industries. Other factors such as labour, markets, and materials are the principal ones which govern these decisions. A change in power rates which affects such a small part of the value of a product has an extremely minor effect on its total cost, but the importance of having a source available which provides reliable power when it is required cannot be overemphasized.
I believe that in the province of New Brunswick and in the Maritime provinces as a whole we are somewhat in the same situation as the New England states. No one can deny that the New England states, especially the area centred around the state of Massachusetts, are highly industrialized. They have no greater hydroelectric potential in those states than we have in the maritime provinces, but of course they do have a geographic advantage with respect to markets.
I believe that the policies laid down by the late J. G. Boucher of New Brunswick hydro power commission should be dusted off in many offices in New Brunswick, and then I feel that within a short time the province of New Brunswick will come back to a combined system of thermal and hydroelectric power.

Following this report the Electrical World of November 27, 1948, had this to say about it:
New England Must Rely on Fuel,
Not Hydro Power
Fuel-generated electricity must be the backbone of New England's power supply for many years to come. Valuable as economically warranted hydro may be, there simply is not enough of it undeveloped and practicable in the northeast to meet New England's needed 1,100,000-kw generating-plant expansion in the next decade.
And later:
The report points out that the importance of the cost of power in manufacturing has been greatly overemphasized. In textiles, power is but 2-3 per cent of the total cost. For industry as a whole in the area, it is but H per cent.
I realize that the conditions in New England are not on all fours with those in New Brunswick, but I believe the ideas and findings contained in the report of that committee would be of assistance to New Brunswick. As I said previously, I wished only to place the importance of the generation of electricity by coal before this house. My colleagues from New Brunswick will deal with the development of hydroelectric power, but hydroelectric power alone is not enough for the province of New Brunswick; we must have thermo-developed power as well.


Mr. Colin Cameron (Nanaimo):: Mr. Speaker, there have been some very interesting comments made during the course of this debate. In fact the very first speech contained some extremely interesting comments including an invitation to political merger- I said merger, not murder.
I should like to deal with that for a moment. I was most interested in the invitation of the Leader of the Opposition that the two parties sitting in this corner of the house should combine with the Conservative party. It is with the utmost regret and respect that on behalf of this group I must decline the proposal. I do not think I can even give the traditional answer of the coy maiden and say that we shall be a sister to them.
On the other hand there is a field in which I think we could do a little cultivation with some benefit. I would suggest to the hon. gentleman that he follow the example of his former party colleague, the premier of British Columbia, who having discovered that the old gray mare of Conservatism was not what she used to be in British Columbia, very nimbly leaped from her on to the back of the piebald pony, Social Credit, and rode into power.
In case the Leader of the Opposition thinks there is any danger in this manoeuvre I would commend that he follow even more closely

the activities of the premier of British Columbia, for he will find that the Social Credit party is still quite firmly in the grip of two gentlemen, who not so very long ago were members of the Progressive Conservative party. I am not sure that the Leader of the Opposition is as politically agile as is the premier of British Columbia, but I believe the premier of British Columbia would be prepared to give him a course of lessons at a reasonable rate of remuneration.
I am convinced that this is the wisest policy for the Conservative party, even more so after having listened to the speech of the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Hahn) yesterday. Just in case I might be accused of misquoting him, I should like to place some of his words back on Hansard. They will be well worn words by the time Hansard gets through with them. I quote from page 1352 of Hansard of February 20, where the hon. member is reported as follows:
It might be said, why cannot the people of Canada finance that development? I am satisfied that you realize as well as I do, as do most of our socialist-minded friends, that you cannot build a huge dam for nothing; that is just wishful thinking. Some of these dams cost anywhere from $300 million to $750 million. It takes a great deal more capital than the Canadian public can afford to invest within the country for its proper development. We lack the capital for proper development.
Dear, dear, Mr. Speaker; this is from the party which has been enunciating with monotonous regularity, rather like an incantation, throughout the country that what is physically possible is financially possible. It removes the last possible obstacle to fusion between the two parties to the right in Canada. I am quite sure that the rest of us will be only too delighted to come to dance at the wedding.
Nevertheless I welcome this curious, shall I say rather un-Conservative, proposal that has been brought before the house. But like Oliver Twist I ask for more. I do not think it goes quite far enough. It is a very good thing to suggest that the people of Canada through the federal and provincial governments should co-operate in the development and production of power, but I think we have to ask ourselves something else. We have to ask ourselves for what purpose are we producing this power?
Mention has been made in the house of the Kitimat development in British Columbia. As has been quite rightly said, it is a most stupendous engineering project. However, it was accompanied by some rather dismaying results that were not envisaged because there was no over-all planning of that particular scheme. I refer of course to the devastation that occurred in Tweedsmuir park, much of 67509-89
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which could have been avoided had there been a long-term plan prepared well in advance for the logging of that area. That project has earned a rather unenviable reputation with regard to certain aspects of the conditions under which the workers in that area must work.
For a number of years we have had in British Columbia a publicly-owned power commission. I was in the provincial legislature when the power commission was set up. That commission has been engaged in very important development work, particularly on Vancouver island. However, it has been suffering from some severe handicaps imposed upon it by various governments in British Columbia. I think it is true enough to say that it was gone ahead with and developed for one purpose and one purpose only, to provide cheap power for certain large industries which were about to be established on Vancouver island.
Its devotion of power to those purposes makes me think that we should ask some further questions. For instance, we should ask this question. Is it enough to plan to produce power to supply a pulp and paper mill which as parts of its operations is going to produce raw material for the comics which the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton) has been fighting so vigorously for a number of years, simply to add to the flow of trash which comes from the printing presses? Are we to be satisfied with merely providing power and letting those who receive it go on and use it as they will.
No, Mr. Speaker; we have had a lot of warnings lately, and these warnings have come from people to whom I think we should listen very carefully. Quite prominent among the voices have been those of Canada's Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) and Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Sinclair). They have been bringing us some very serious news about which we should be thinking very carefully.
The main warnings they have been bringing us are these. They warn us that it is only at our peril that we underestimate the industrial and economic capacities of the communist world. They warn us also that we shall be running very severe risks if we harbour the comforting illusion that the peoples of the communist world are in a state of incipient revolt, for the evidence they have brought us indicates that the exact contrary is the case and that the people in that area are not only supporting their government but apparently supporting it with considerable enthusiasm in the pursuit of a certain goal.
I should say at this point, Mr. Speaker, that no Liberal, no Conservative, no supporter of

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private enterprise can have experienced one-quarter of the dismay and the disillusion experienced by socialists regarding some of the developments within the Soviet union over the last 30 years. Only a socialist, I suppose, could have had that disillusionment at seeing what began and what might have continued as a noble experiment in human relations and social organization degenerate through the years and develop many aspects of squalid tragedy and repression of human dignity.
Nevertheless, as this rising chorus of warning voices tells us, merely because we have been disillusioned with what has gone on there, merely because we see with all too clear eyes the tremendous gap there is between the socialist ultimate aim and what has been accomplished in the communist world, we would do well not to delude ourselves into thinking that because we do not like some of its aspects'it is not an economically viable and valid regime; a regime, moreover, that is at the present moment offering the greatest threat to people of our type of thinking in the world. It is offering a threat because it has developed that enormous industrial potential, and the reason it has developed that enormous industrial potential in the short space of one generation is perfectly plain and perfectly simple for anyone to read. There has been deliberate, conscious planning of the development of resources and power in that country for a specific purpose.
We may have our doubts about what the ultimate purposes of that planning are, and no one knows; but one of its by-products is that it has developed an industrial machine there that those in this country who should know warn us threatens our supremacy in North America in the industrial world. I think when we are considering the question of developing our power we should be considering that thought, as to what is the purpose of our production in this country. I have been amused sometimes at the comfort that certain people in Canada and the United States have taken from the plainly much lower living standards of the peoples in the communist world. They have deluded themselves into thinking that these lower standards are a sign of the incompetence of the Soviet economic machine, and of course all they are a sign of is the ruthless efficiency of a totalitarian regime that can make economic plans without too much consideration for the happiness or convenience or comfort of the members of its society.


Mr. Hahn:: You would not advocate that, would you?


Colin Cameron: I am not advocating it, but I am suggesting it would be even more foolish to pretend that it does not exist and that it is not an effective method of producing goods of certain qualities, certain varieties and estimated in determined quantities. I also suggest that here in North America we run very serious risks if we think we are going to be able to compete with that sort of danger by the haphazard, unplanned type of production in which we engage today. It is not good enough merely to plan where we are going to get a source of power to operate our industries. We have to plan also as we planned during the last war. We have to plan to do it without unnecessary waste of our resources.
I wonder, Mr. Speaker, just how long the people of North America are going to go on smugly deluding themselves that they can continue to destroy natural resources like a horde of hungry locusts for the most trivial and childish aims. How much longer are we going to make the goal of our industrial and social life bigger and better automobiles to cause more problems in our cities? How much longer are we going to continue to haggle over the appropriation of a few million dollars to improve our admittedly inadequate educational system, while at the same time we observe with complacency the investment of millions upon millions of dollars in the production of useless trash for the debilitation of our population?
Has anybody thought to compare the cost of establishing, shall we say, one of these junior colleges that the province of Ontario has announced it is about to establish with the cost of producing astronomical numbers of bottles of pop to rot our children's teeth? That is the sort of thing we are doing with our resources today, and I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that we cannot very much longer go on doing that sort of thing without heading straight for disaster.
We could do it when North America stood without a peer in the world for industrial capacity and efficiency, but it is doubtful now that we stand in that position. We persist of course in continuing a standard of living, that standard which Thorstein Veblen has called conspicuous waste, and we have developed an elaborate advertising racket to pander to the very lowest, cheapest and silliest desires of our people in order to create a market for the production of trash in great quantities.
I have wondered just how long we are going to blind ourselves to this very difficult position that we are in today, and when we are going to realize that we have a supremely difficult task to perform. It is true enough

that in North America and in Canada we have in our society values which are supremely well worth preserving, values and standards that are perhaps the fine flower of human thinking, alongside this invitation to low standards that goes on under the pressure of modern business. We have to solve the problem of meeting our communist opponents on the field of industrial production while at the same time preserving for ourselves those elements of our society without which we would find life intolerable, and it is not going to be an easy job to do.
But, Mr. Speaker, I have no hesitation in saying that sooner or later our production is going to be planned by someone. Either we are going to undertake it ourselves on a rational basis; either we are going to set ourselves goals as we set them during the war, or someone else is going to do that planning and is going to do it with ruthlessness, in the same way it is being done in other parts of the world. We cannot escape that problem today.
The whole world is moving now toward the field of rational economic planning, and the Conservative amendment that has been produced here is a sign of that trend today. I am not in any way jeering at my Conservative friends when I suggest that only a few years ago their predecessors would have hesitated for a long time before they would have come into the house and advocated public investment. It is a step toward that goal of rational economic planning which we must meet if we are to survive in the world today. While it is true enough that we do not like what we see going on on the other side of the world, and while it is true enough that individual liberties have been trampled on, I sometimes wonder whether we do not embrace too large a territory under the spreading umbrella of liberty and freedom in this part of the world.
Is it really essential, Mr. Speaker, for the preservation of human liberties that individuals and groups of individuals should be left free to decide what they are going to do with our natural resources, at what rate they will consume them and what commodities they will make from them, without any regard whatever to the public welfare and without any regard whatever to a concerted, integrated social aim? That is the question we must answer and, in my opinion, we must answer it quickly. I suspect that sitting in this house are members who will, before many years, sit here and hear proposals which today would be denounced as rank bolshevism, and they will probably come from the most respectable quarters of this house when, 67509-89J
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under the heat of economic reality, fear, prejudice and superstition have been dissolved.
As I say, Mr. Speaker, I welcome the amendment of our Conservative friends. I wish it went further. For my part I expect to see before long not only resolutions in this house but actual undertakings in Canada along the lines of those of which I have spoken. I believe that not even the most purblind of our people will want to run the risk of extinction merely in order to uphold the shibboleth of liberty of man to exploit his fellow man, which is what we lump in under the whole general concept of freedom and liberty today. I believe that our people eventually, and before long, will awake to the fact that their individual liberty and freedom can be found only in a rational society in which the resources-including electric power resources and the other natural and human resources-are devoted to a certain determined and approved social goal.


Mr. G. W. Montgomery (Victoria-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be able to take a short time this afternoon to speak in support of this resolution. It illustrates a line of thinking which is not particularly new to me. I think we should keep in mind what the resolution indicates. There is a tendency to get off on one branch of it and to concentrate too much on one phase of power. That is what rather surprised me about my colleague from New Brunswick, the hon. member for Westmorland (Mr. Murphy) when he was speaking this afternoon. I felt that he was against this suggestion. Maybe that is not so. I could not help wondering whether he is against hydroelectric development. I think this resolution covers the field of power from any source whatsoever. It is a co-operative affair.
We all realize that the development of power is within the jurisdiction of the provinces, and there is no indication, as a result of the suggestion in this resolution, that the situation should be otherwise. But it seems to me that in this federation of ours we are a family of provinces. We have our interprovincial boundaries. We have a long boundary between Canada and the United States of America. Hence we have our international problems.
These problems arise in many ways immediately you commence to consider the development of our resources. As soon as you start to consider industry, one of the first things about which they talk is the matter of power. Regardless of what may have been said here today, the cheaper the power the more inducement there is to industry. It is true that other things must be taken into

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consideration. The fact that we have interprovincial and international problems in this country seems to me to constitute a reason why there should be evolved a national policy whereby, in all these situations, there should be co-operation between the dominion and the provincial authorities.
There may be many situations in which a province does not want the co-operation of the federal government. In such a situation I do not think the federal authority should impose its will upon the province. But I believe there are many situations in which co-operation is required. As was mentioned previously, it is more or less left to members from various provinces to deal with specific areas.
I have reference to the situation in which we find ourselves in my province. We have interprovincial problems and international problems there. We have possibilities of development which involve the crossing of not only provincial but international boundaries. I am not going to spend any time in going into all the details of this matter, because I know the government have those details. Surveys, investigations and recommendations have been made. The point, however, is this. If any province has a sound policy of resources development-and I contend that we in my province come within the bounds of what I am going to say-and if there is a demand for the product of those resources but unfortunately owing to size there is lack of financial backing, it should have a right and should expect to go to the central authority that sits over all the provinces and put forward its proposition. I think it has a right to expect that the central or federal authority will give serious and sympathetic consideration to the development of the type of policy which a province outlines if it comes within those suggestions I have made. There may be others. I refer to a development that is found to be possible and where there is a market for the product.
I contend that we in New Brunswick are practically in that position. For years after confederation our industrial activity declined. If I had the time in which to do so, there are many things I should like to say about that matter. The hon. member for Westmorland when speaking a few days ago-I do not know how many figures he put on the record -gave this house a picture of what happened and gave a picture of how our industrial activity declined.
At the time of confederation or shortly thereafter, of the four provinces that went into confederation, my province had the highest percentage of population employed in industry. It had quite a margin, as a matter of fact. The figure was 6-3 per cent, and the

average in Quebec and Ontario was only 5 * 50 per cent. In the years that have elapsed since then we have gone down to less than 4 per cent. Today we stand second to the lowest, while those other provinces have gone up to more than double.
It does seem to me that the intent of the planners of confederation was that generally speaking, possibly with some minor exceptions here and there, all parts of this country should develop at an even pace. It seems to me the idea was that the federal authority was to act as a levelling force where necessary to help each and every area in order that one area might not become dependent upon another. Within the last few years that is the position in which we have found ourselves. We hear it said that maritimers are always coming with our hands out. Being a maritimer I do not like to hear that, but we cannot say too much about it. I have heard it since I have come to Ottawa. We would like to be in a position in my province where we do not have to do that.
Within the last few years there have been tremendous mineral discoveries in New Brunswick, and with the development of those mineral resources it would appear that we could become not only self-supporting but contributors to the rest of this country. We have a fairly bright future. The one block in our way at the moment is power. The reason I like this resolution is this. We in New Brunswick-I should like to tell this to the hon. member for Westmorland but I think he must know it-are developing thermal power right along with our hydro power. We are not concentrating on hydro at all. There are not sufficient potential hydro sites available that have been surveyed and approved at the moment to meet the demands we know we must meet within the next 10 years. We cannot, therefore, hold up this program in which the federal authority may join with the provincial authority. If the federal and provincial authorities in cooperation feel that they can develop thermal power to better advantage, that is all right. We have no objection to that. What we need is power.
Last evening the hon. member for Inver-ness-Richmond (Mr. MacEachen) referred to the report of the Atlantic provinces economic council. I agree with those who spoke on this subject. I think this is the beginning of an organization which is going to be of great advantage to the Atlantic region. The hon. member referred to certain statements in that report which apply to the region as a whole. I should like to refer, Mr. Speaker, to some of the specific findings in that report which refer to my province of New Brunswick. Last September the council held what

was called an economic seminar at the University of New Brunswick. Apparently it was attended by some of the outstanding men in Canada and the New England states. I will not quote too much, but I should like to quote a few lines showing who these people were. The report says:
In September, 1955, at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, we held an economic seminar which, to say the least produced encouraging results. Information and background on a wide range of economic problems facing the Atlantic region were discussed. An exchange of ideas between leading men in economic, government, business and professional fields were possible. Excellent representation by well informed personnel from the federal government, provincial governments, the universities, the New England council, research associations and business entities participated whole heartedly to make this seminar an outstanding success.
I am not going to read too much of the report, but further down it says:
The seminar discussed at some length the opportunity for secondary manufacturing industries to develop in the region. That is, to provide profitable employment for the people displaced in the development of the primary industries.
Anyone who is interested may read the whole of the report, but I do not want to take that time. However, it says:
In New Brunswick, for example, if large quantities of relatively cheap power are made available, primary mineralogical extraction could be supplemented by processing at points of power generation and large chemical industries established. Few people realize the tremendous opportunities for development that are slowly but surely taking place in northern New Brunswick . . .
I am sure all members will agree, particularly those from the maritimes, that this is a document which is the result of very serious study. These people are looking into the economic situation with the idea of improving it. It is a non-political organization, and they really want to do something. You know what they say about my province; there are tremendous opportunities.
In addition to the development in northern New Brunswick, very near my home they are starting to develop a large body of iron and manganese ores. I know definitely that this development will call for large blocks of power, and I do not care whether it is hydro or thermal power. What we want is power, because we must have power before this development will take place to the fullest extent. The hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Van Horne) may know more about the project in northern New Brunswick than I do, but it is something that if fully developed would put northern New Brunswick in a far better position than it is today. The one in my section of the province, when it gets into development, will certainly create a tremendous lot of activity and will attract secondary industry.
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What we need more than anything else is far more people. We have the space for them and we can grow the food for them to eat. We need markets closer to home. As you know by this time, agriculture in New Brunswick has its drawbacks, and one of the drawbacks is the long haul to markets. As is pointed out in this economic report, what we need is a market closer to home. We need more people and we need more industry.
I know there is no necessity for me to try to sell the idea of developing the Saint John river. Beechwood is only one development on that river. The full development of the river includes storage as well as several other sites. I might tell the hon. member for Westmorland that there is no river in the New England states comparable to the Saint John river; in fact, there is no river comparable until one gets to the Mississippi. The people are obliged, therefore, to use thermal power.
I know also that figures are available, and I am sure the department has them, to show that the cost of developing thermal power over a period is far more than the cost of developing hydro power. In the beginning the cost may not be so high, but over a period of years hydroelectric power, if you can get it, is the cheapest form of power. If I had the time I could go into the last hydro development that went into operation at To-bique. Last year was a dry year. I wish that hon. members from other parts of New Brunswick could have seen the amount of power that came out of the storage at Tobi-que and the water that was held there and used. I am sure that we have far more storage than we get credit for. If the department has not this information already I can say that in the next two years it is to be surveyed.
What we need is a start. That is what the provincial government of New Brunswick have done. They did not start that project until they had had it well surveyed and well recommended. As the hon. member for Royal (Mr. Brooks) said yesterday, it has been recommended by some of the outstanding hydroelectric authorities in Canada. Last year I listened to the outstanding man in North America, our own General McNaughton, who is chairman of the Canadian section of the international joint commission. I know myself that he recommended Beechwood be the first start of that development. I think I can say without successful contradiction the steps that have been taken so far in New Brunswick are steps that have been recommended by the best authorities in Canada. But we cannot stop there. I do not believe we can stop when we get the Saint John river development.

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There is a future for the maritimes. A policy developed in accordance with this amendment would and should take hold of such a proposition as the Chignecto canal. I hope the hon. member for Westmorland (Mr. Murphy) does not think I am quoting him too often today-


Henry Joseph Murphy: So long as you are quoting me you are all right.


Gage Workman Montgomery: Sometimes I quote with approval and sometimes not. The St. Lawrence seaway development will never be complete as a Canadian project until the Chignecto canal is also completed, because it will open a brand new seaway. It will save a lot of mileage and cut down freight rates. We need that canal. In connection with the canal, the federal authority should look into the proposition of power from it. I am satisfied that power could be developed there. I base that opinion on the information we have received. The federal authority should come into the picture and commence to make scientific surveys, looking ahead to the next few years.
Once we have the Saint John river system developed, once we have used all of our other resources-and we shall continue to develop as fast as we can with the thermo-we shall need more power in the maritimes. I believe we can regain our economic position in this country. We have one of the greatest coastlines in Canada. There are harbours for ships; there are opportunities to ship freight from all points in the maritimes to halfway into Canada by water. There is no reason in the world, if we once get started, why we cannot have a good life in that part of Canada. As far as my province is concerned, we are receiving inquiries already. The one block is power, I have no idea what negotiations are going on. The New Brunswick representative in the cabinet knows more about it than I do. I do hope that he and his government will see their way clear to assist in some way that little province to develop power in order to develop industry, increase the population and give work and markets to our own people.
We are a small spot on the map. You look at a map of Canada and you see us down there in the maritimes. I think that is one reason why we have sort of become the forgotten people so far as the rest of Canada is concerned. I know that when I came up to Ottawa I had to get accustomed to the people up here talking about the people in the east. I soon discovered it was not the maritimes they were talking about. When they were talking about the people in the east, they were talking about the people in Quebec

and in parts of Ontario. To my mind there is a big country beyond that; there are a lot of people beyond that, and there is a great chance for industry beyond that. We as a part of the federation of Canada on the fringes deserve to be helped in order that we may help ourselves.
I am not going to take up much more time, but I want to sum it up in this way. The people of New Brunswick believe that a new deal is in the offing. New mines have been discovered, and there is nothing small about them. Manganese is something that North America wants. We need power, but we are small; financially we are poor. There is no question about that.


An hon. Member:: You have had a Liberal government too long.


Gage Workman Montgomery: Something has been the cause of it, but I will not say what. Since the hon. member has brought that up I will say it has been said that the darkest shadow of confederation was the decline of the industrial activities of the maritimes. A lot of it may have been our own fault. I am strong in my belief that confederation was a proper step. I believe it has been a great thing. It has helped develop this country; it has helped to build us into a great nation; but let not the central part of Canada, let not the central government, forget that we are down there. Whether it is right or not, you are not going to convince the people of the maritimes that this government is not helping, indirectly at least, Ontario in its power situation in so far as the St. Lawrence seaway is concerned. I am not saying it is right, but they have that feeling. When you have the public feeling that way it is something to which the government should pay some attention.
Today in the maritimes we have a brighter outlook, especially in my own province. I think that feeling is backed up by the report I have here, which is nonpolitical. The men concerned with it are the best brains in the maritimes and they are working. I am going to wind up by saying I know that this government have the facts. There is no use in our trying to tell the government what the situation is. We are starting to develop something that has been approved. It happens to be hydro at the moment. We need assistance.
I trust and hope that this government can see its way clear to adopt a policy in quite a substantial way. I am all for adopting a policy that will apply to all parts of Canada. Although my remarks have been confined to my province, I am not particularly advocating that New Brunswick be given help that cannot be given to some other province that needs it. I feel that the province should

organize its own plan of development. The province should take a lead, and I believe we are doing that. I do not believe that any province should sit back and wait for the dominion government to come and tell it what to do. I believe that the provinces should take a lead, should organize their policies and be able to put them in black and white before the central authority and be able to show that they are sound policies. And when they do that I think we in the federal house should have a national policy with which we can meet them. If we need enabling legislation to do that, let us then get that enabling legislation. Let us have it so that the dominion government may have the tools at hand in order to carry out the proposition with any province on any sound development plan that may be put before it.
I do not want anyone to think that I am asking for something special for New Brunswick or the maritimes. I want that to come through a national policy which could be used or adapted to any other part of the dominion and I think that is the way we must look at it.


Mr. A. W. Stuart (Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to say immediately that I agree wholeheartedly with nearly everything that has been said by the hon. member who has just taken his seat.
I believe you will find that the members representing constituents in New Brunswick all realize that we have great power there and electrical energy is one thing which we need in abundance. I would also say that the Liberals federally and provincially in the province of New Brunswick have never taken any other stand.
I have expressed my views on two different occasions in this chamber with respect to the Beechwood project and I am going to deal with it again today although at no great length. I have always believed there was power that could be economically developed on the Saint John river and I have never said anything different. However, I have been bitterly opposed to the way the development was started.
Only a few days ago an item appeared in the Saint John Telegraph-Journal concerning a remark made in the provincial legislature of New Brunswick by F. A. McCain, a Progressive Conservative member of the provincial legislature. He quoted my remarks in connection with Beechwood which I had made in this chamber and at that time he stated that my remarks were most unpatriotic. Well, he may consider that they were unpatriotic but I maintain that the way in which the Beechwood development has started is wrong. I maintain that it should never have been
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started until we had storage rights in the state of Maine and in the province of Quebec and if we do not obtain those storage rights what we have done so far is a complete waste.


Mr. Brooks:: Nonsense. That is complete nonsense and you know it.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: That is my opinion. The hon. member for Royal (Mr. Brooks) had a lot to say yesterday and I did not interrupt him. He is entitled to his opinion and I am entitled to mine and our opinions will never agree because he is a Tory and I, of course, am a Liberal. However, I believe that I should have the right to express my views.
At this point I might say that the hon. member for Royal accused the federal government of being asked to take part in the proposed Passamaquoddy power development which it refused to do. This morning I got in touch with the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) and this is the reply he gave me to the question which was raised by the hon. member for Royal:
. . . my understanding is that the joint resolution requesting the Secretary of State to arrange for the international joint commission, (Canada and the United States) to conduct a survey of the proposed Passamaquoddy tidal water project was passed by congress and signed by the president. This resolution became public law on January 31. I further understand, however, that as yet no request for participation in this project has been received by the Canadian government.
I believe that will answer the criticism in so far as this government being unwilling to take part in the Passamaquoddy development is concerned.
The amendment we have before us today is of course a want of confidence vote in the government so every one should readily understand how I would feel when it comes time to vote. The amendment was introduced by the leader of the official opposition and in introducing that amendment he covered the whole area from Newfoundland to British Columbia and we again listened to the same thing we listened to in another debate which is still going on in this house.
It reminded me that this group might be placing the electric power of this country on the auction block to see if they could make some progress between now and the day that a federal election might be called. This same procedure has taken place in this chamber in every period previous to election since I came here. There is always a period when the electric power is put on the auction block to see who can make the best bid for their supporters but I am sure the Canadian people are not too much interested in this type of politics.

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It is also very noticeable to me that the leader of the official opposition has become much more generous since he came to Ottawa as leader of the official opposition than he was as premier of the province of Ontario.


Mr. Rowe:: He did a pretty good job there.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: As premier of Ontario he stated on more than one occasion that revenues obtained from the citizens of the province of Ontario should be used exclusively for the citizens of that province. That is on record in many parts of this country and that statement has been used time and time again. But since he has no responsibility, and he has no great responsibility here, he can make these fantastic remarks without giving them too much consideration; but the people still look back and remember him as the man who was the premier of Ontario and they recall the attitude he took at that time.
I might also add that the hon. member for Royal who interrupted me a few minutes ago was not quite so generous when he was a member of our provincial legislature as he is since he came to Ottawa.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: How about Mackenzie King's policy; not a five cent piece to a Tory province?


Andrew Wesley Stuart: That is correct but I am telling you that you did not give a five cent piece to your own province.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is the hon. member addressing the Speaker?


Andrew Wesley Stuart: I am addressing my remarks to the Speaker; that is correct. The amendment which has been moved by the Leader of the Opposition embraces this great country of ours from Atlantic to Pacific; he now wants to help everyone in the country. It is somewhat like the suggestion of my hon. friend for Royal that if all the policies he had advocated were put into effect the income tax would be more than doubled today in order to take care of them. But you can always be most generous when you have no financial responsibility. You can always be most generous when someone else must bear the responsibility. If you look at the record of the province of New Brunswick when he was a member of that government it does not coincide with the attitude the hon. member for Royal takes at this time because I can assure you his generosity at that time was not nearly as great as it is now that he is a member of the opposition sitting in Ottawa.
Another matter which was most noticeable t'o me in this debate was the great plea that the leader of the official opposition made for the support of the other parties in this house.

Only a few weeks ago a convention was held at the Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa and I very well remember the remarks of the hon. gentleman at that time that there would be no collaboration or coalition with any other political group in Canada, that they would stand on their own feet. Well, I think yesterday was an excellent demonstration that that slogan has already been discarded because if I have ever heard a plea for the support of other parties in the House of Commons I heard it yesterday when the Leader of the Opposition was addressing this chamber.
It is most confusing to the citizens of this country to hear one story one day and a direct contradiction within the next two weeks but that is what we have had to contend with here for quite some time.
My thoughts also go back to the dominion-provincial conference which was held in Ottawa the first year I came here as a member in 1945. The gentleman who is the leader of the opposition today and who was so generous as the premier of Ontario at that time attended the conference. I sat in on quite a number of the discussions that took place whenever I was able to get in. It is a well known fact', and I am sure that he will not contradict it, that as premier of the province of Ontario he took the same attitude at that conference. Hon. members no doubt have heard what occurred at' that conference. It has been stated ever since that the premiers of the two provinces scuttled the conference. I can assure you that at that time he had no idea of any division of wealth belonging to Ontario with any other part of this country; the wealth that was within the province of Ontario was to stay within the province of Ontario. That is the attitude he took at that time and that attitude was maintained until he came here as leader of the Progressive Conservative party.


Mr. Michener:: Not a word of truth in it.


William Earl Rowe: That is your statement.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: That statement was made over the air and in the press. Everybody has heard it. You have read it and everybody else has read it. We all know the attitude he took as premier of Ontario and we know the attitude he is taking now, the generosity he is prepared to show today.


William Earl Rowe: That is not-


Andrew Wesley Stuart: I do not interrupt the hon. member when he speaks. I am sorry I am saying things that he does not like to hear, but these are my opinions.


Daniel Roland Michener: Would the hon. member permit a question? Referring to that conference, does the hon. member remember

that the then premier of Ontario, now the Leader of the Opposition, proposed what were called national adjustment grants which would do the same thing as the equalization fund now proposed by this government?


Andrew Wesley Stuart: I never heard the word "equalization" used. I do not know whoever used that word and I will not argue with you. But I will say this: If he had this spirit of generosity why was he afraid that the people of Quebec might get a little benefit from the province of Ontario? We all know his record. The hon. members of this house know his record as well as I do. The hon. member for Royal had this to say, and I quote from page 1362 of Hansard of February 20:
This has been the attitude of hon. members opposite. It is also the attitude of the opposition in the province of New Brunswick. We need the development of Beechwood in the very worst way, but because they think it will bring some credit to Mr. Flemming, the premier of New Brunswick, they are trying to discredit it in every way they possibly can.
If that was not introducing a political subject into this debate, I do not know what it was. I have told the hon. member for Royal and others exactly where the Liberals in New Brunswick stand on this question. They realize the great need for power in New Brunswick. We all realize that.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: They all voted for Beechwood.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: They all voted for Beechwood with storage rights, but they did not vote for Beechwood without those rights. There is no guarantee that we can get those rights. On many occasions I have spoken to the former member for Temiscouata and I have concluded that we will have a problem on our hands in obtaining storage rights in the province of Quebec. I can assure hon. members of this house that without storage rights the Beechwood project will never be a success.
To substantiate that statement I should like to place a few figures on the record. The flow records at Pokiok, below Beechwood, show that from July 1 to December 31, a six-months period, there was not one day with a sufficient flow of water to run the two proposed 45,000 horsepower turbines. During that same period of 184 days, there were 119 days when the volume of water was not sufficient to operate even one unit at capacity. I know that somebody will say that last year was a dry season, and we will all admit that, but let me say that for the year of record ending September 30, 1954, there were four months when the average monthly flow was below that required to
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operate two units at capacity. That was a year of exceptionally heavy rainfall.
For the year of record ended January 30, 1953, there were nine months during which the average flow of water was insufficient for the capacity operation of the two units.
Surely that should convince any fair-minded person that we cannot produce power without water. We can never expect to have full capacity at Beechwood without storage rights. That is the attitude Liberals have taken on this matter both provincially and federally since it was first mentioned. I still think it was a terrible blunder to have attempted to build Beechwood before we had guaranteed storage rights above it. I hesitate to say, but to me it is doubtful if we will ever be able to get those storage rights.
There is another question in connection with Beechwood which I should like to mention this afternoon; that is, the way in which contracts for Beechwood were awarded. The contract for this project was awarded to Foundation (Maritime) Limited for $7,112,000. A tender was received from another Canadian construction company for $5,900,000. This would have meant a saving to the people of New Brunswick of about a million and a quarter dollars, and they need it. The people of that province want to know why Foundation (Maritime) Limited was given the contract when a tender had been received from a reliable contracting company at a million and a quarter dollars less.
Sub-bids on the complete processing of 360,000 tons of gravel for Beechwood were called. One bid was received from Terminal Construction for $1.27 per ton, another from Armstrong Brothers was for $1.20 per ton, but the contract was awarded by the Foundation company to Terminal and this meant a loss of about $26,000 to the taxpayers of New Brunswick.
From my experience and from the experience of many others down in that area this has been a purely patronage organization since it was established. It is that and nothing else. Even the lumber being used at Beechwood, and there are great quantities being used, is being purchased from one of the companies owned and controlled by the premier. I will not say it is completely owned, but it is partly owned. I say it is utterly wrong for the premier of the province to be benefited financially by the construction of the Beechwood project.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think the hon. member should leave the impression that the premier of a province is benefiting from patronage.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: It is a known fact.

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Mr. Speaker:: Even at that, I think the hon. member should keep in mind that the premier of the province is not sitting in this house and if there is any imputation as to his conduct I do not think it should be voiced in the house.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: I may say that I do not think there is anything wrong under our provincial constitution, but he should have been a little more careful. I do not think anything has been done that a man could be prosecuted for, but I can assure you that the people of the province are wondering why he was placed in such a position. There are six or seven companies with which the gentleman is associated which are doing business directly with the provincial government. It is a well known fact; it is something generally known in New Brunswick. I have heard it discussed many times.
Then in so far as the hiring of workers is concerned, at the Beechwood project, I should like to refer to the interjection a few minutes ago by the hon. member for Royal who said something about 5 cents to a province with a Conservative government. The gentleman who does the hiring and firing at Gagetown was a member of the local legislature of New Brunswick for many years. I know this gentleman very well. A few years ago we had a Tory government down there and he wrote the following letter to the premier of the province:
I see by the paper that your government Is giving the old country about 200 cars of potatoes. I want to say that we do not want to let a Liberal supply one barrel. Want a chance to supply my share when the time comes.
G. W. Perry


Alfred Johnson Brooks: On a question of privilege, the hon. member said that this Mr. Perry was employing people for Gagetown. I know as an actual fact-


Andrew Wesley Stuart: I said Beechwood.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: -that he has nothing to do with Gagetown.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: I said Beechwood.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: You said Gagetown.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: I meant Beechwood. Excuse me. This gentleman is a member of the hydro commission and he has been looking after things at Beechwood, so judge for yourself what chance there would be of a Liberal securing employment at Beechwood under that set-up.


Gage Workman Montgomery: Would the hon. member permit a question? Does he know how many Liberals are employed there?


Andrew Wesley Stuart: At Beechwood? I can only say to my hon. friend that I know
[Mr. Stuart (Charlotte) .1
the manager of an employment office in New Brunswick approached the premier of the province and asked him if it would be possible to place a few unemployed in his town on the Beechwood project and up until last week he had not been able to have one of them placed there. I know from experience that the first thing anyone from my part of the country who has gone up there has been told is: "You have got to have a certificate from a Tory M.L.A. before you can be employed." That is no joke in New Brunswick.
In the building of the trans-Canada highway-and I am sure all Liberals here will support me because they know the story-[DOT] for which the government is providing 50 per cent of the funds, you could not get employment driving a truck or at hand labour or using a pick and shovel or anything else unless you had a certificate from a Tory M.L.A. If the federal government undertook to assist in any way with respect to the Beechwood project we would have exactly the same set-up again. Yet they wonder why federal Liberal members from New Brunswick are just a little bit suspicious when mention is made of assisting the government there. It is a known fact that no Liberal could get a job on the trans-Canada highway.


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: No bread for the Liberals.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: Correct, and in my own county-


Alfred Johnson Brooks: On a question of privilege, I know what is going on in my constituency and I can truthfully say that there are as many Liberals being employed in the county of Queens, which is part of my constituency, as there are Conservatives. I do not intend to let the hon. member get away with any more of this nonsense.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: Let me say now that I cannot take that from the hon. member for Royal (Mr. Brooks). It seems to me that in this parliament Her Majesty's loyal opposition can say anything but the minute a Liberal gets up to say anything he is unpatriotic. There is something wrong.


Mr. Fulton:: That is because of what you say.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: I can assure the hon. member for Royal that I am stating the facts and I can prove every statement.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: They are not facts and you cannot prove them.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: Yes, I can prove them.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: They are like the statements you have been making ever since you have been here. You cannot prove one of them.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: I can prove them by what has happened in my own county. I think it is worse than anywhere else. In Charlotte county if you are a Liberal then you are blacklisted as far as the provincial government is concerned. There is no job for you whatever. The only thing you can do is go hungry, and that has been going on since 1953.
I want to sum up the remarks I have made by stating again that all the Liberal members from New Brunswick, and we get together and talk over the situation, realize the seriousness of the power situation in our province. We all realize it and we are all in support of anything that will improve the situation, but we are all mighty suspicious of the manner in which these projects are being carried on at the present time.
There is plenty of evidence to bear out what I have said. It has been repeated in the provincial legislature within the last few weeks. The story has been told, and the people of New Brunswick know that the story is correct. When the time comes tonight for the vote to be taken I believe there is very little doubt that Liberal members from New Brunswick will support the government on this issue.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: Well, I shall support the government. I have never denied that I support the government and I am not ashamed of the fact because they are always right. Whenever a resolution or an amendment has been brought into the house to try to embarrass me the attempt has never been successful because it is always a pleasure to get up and vote against an amendment or resolution that you know is designed for that purpose. It will be a pleasure for me to do that very thing tonight.
I understand that the submission of the province of New Brunswick is now in the hands of the federal authorities and I hope to be able to see it in a few days. When we get the submission it will be carefully studied by members from New Brunswick, but I can assure other members that so far as I am concerned certain restrictions will have to be imposed before financial assistance is provided. I will want to know where the money is going to be used. I will want to know if it is going to be used for one class of people and not for another. We are all Canadians and one Canadian can get as hungry as another. A Liberal can get as hungry as a Tory. If we are going to go ahead jointly on this
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thing in an effort to try to improve the situation d,own there we have got to know exactly where we stand. We have got to develop power in New Brunswick in a way that will be helpful to each and every citizen in the province. When the time comes and the bell rings I will be supporting the government.


Mr. G. W. McLeod (Okanagan-Revelsloke):: Mr. Speaker, in speaking on the amendment there are two problems I could quite readily discuss that are of great concern to the interior of British Columbia. The first is power development and the second is irrigation, but in the short time at my disposal today I think I shall by-pass irrigation and discuss it on the agricultural estimates. Before getting into my short talk on power, I should like to refer briefly to the humorous remarks of the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Cameron) about horseback riders, weddings and so on that have been taking place in British Columbia. I should like to tell the hon. member and all hon. members that we in the Social Credit party do not enlarge our group by marriage but rather by adoption. I would invite all forwardthinking Canadians to renounce the Conservative, Liberal and socialistic theories they may have had and join our happy family.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Hansell:: The only alternative.


George William McLeod: I come now to the amendment which we support wholeheartedly. However, there is one question that is in my mind, and I am quite sure that if the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Macdonnell) had been in the house he would have asked it long ago. Where is the money coming from? I am going to ask the Conservatives and the C.C.F. where they would get the money for public spending. Would they raise it by taxation, would they borrow from the banks or would they use the Social Credit system and monetize the wealth of the project itself?
In my estimation these are the only three ways in which such things can be financed, and I should have liked to have heard some of the previous speakers outline their policies for financing the projects which they are advocating. These are important questions and the people of Canada should know the answers, for they would have a terrific bearing on the cost of the project and, in the case of power, on the cost of the power that would necessarily be charged after the project was completed.
We in this group have the answer. We have a cost-free means of financing the development of our power and other resources for the use of our people under a plan of public

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investment. We hear a lot about the kind of capital that is used in development projects. I am surprised to hear that our C.C.F. and Conservative friends have become so alarmed about United States dollars. I am not so alarmed as long as our governments, and I emphasize this point, are prepared to safeguard our people from exploitation and unfair practices. It can be done and when this is done I think it is not a matter of great importance from what source the money comes.
I do not believe the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Hahn) placed United States capital at the head of the list as the desired medium for developing Mica creek. However, there are always those looking for political capital who can twist words around to suit their own train of thought. Speaking for myself and this group and, I believe, for every member in the house may I say that I would certainly like to see our natural resources developed by Canadian capital. We have it stated, I understand, that at the end of the past year there was over $6 billion on deposit in savings accounts of the people of Canada. I often wonder why these people are satisfied to leave that money on deposit, drawing a low rate of interest, and I often ask this question: Why not invest in the future of Canada and the welfare of Canada?
I heard someone here last night in this debate say that Canadians were poor gamblers. That may be so. Perhaps we would rather clip our 3 per cent bonds and be sure than invest in these projects to which there may be attached some risk. But then, if that is our attitude, why do we sit back and blame the Americans if they are prepared to come in, take that gamble and provide the money for the development which we are afraid to tackle?
I am not making any plea for the United States investor. In the development of our Canadian resources I am firmly convinced that the first to enter this field should be the private Canadian citizens. Second, if there is not sufficient capital forthcoming from that source, the required balance should be made up by public investment. In the event that either is not sufficient to provide the development necessary for the welfare of our people, the third and last resort is foreign capital. But I say this. We must have development.
At this point I should like to read a short excerpt from the Revelstoke Review and I would ask the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Byrne) and the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge)-who is not in the house-to pay particular attention to it. It is dated Invermere. The Windermere section of the Invermere board of trade at their

February meeting heard an address by Dr. Coy, who is the head of their committee, on the Columbia river development.
Dr. Coy pointed out that the Columbia river is the logical source of power for the interior of British Columbia and said that the increase of population and the continued well-being of the people is contingent upon obtaining an adequate and cheap source of energy.
All investigations have shown, he said, that the building of a high dam at Mica Creek is the first step in the development of this river to obtain the necessary hydroelectric energy.
The undertaking can be done, the speaker said, only by agreement between the government of British Columbia, the government of the Dominion of Canada and the government of the United States.
The meeting unanimously passed a resolution presented by Dr. Coy that provincial and federal governments be urged to confer on the problems and place for construction of the dam without further delay and further that the B.C. government, in the opinion of the Windermere district board of trade, would best serve the interests of the people of B.C. by giving sole rights on this project to the B.C. Power Commission.
For the benefit of those in other parts of Canada I may say that the B.C. Power Commission is a public investment corporation in the province of British Columbia for the development of power projects. We are quite proud of that corporation. They have done a splendid job. They have opened up many resources and have provided power in many parts of British Columbia in which I am sure private capital companies would not have provided it.
This whole field of public investment was one of the first things discussed at the beginning of this session. I think we all recall the words of our own Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) when he was speaking on federal-provincial relations in the light of the recent conference. It was during the throne speech debate. As reported at page 49 of Hansard, these are his words:
I said we felt that parliament should not provide for sharing in the cost of provincial projects except in special circumstances and as a part of a policy which we could justify on national grounds.
I think those words are well spoken. I think this whole problem of public investment, as I said before, should be entered in order to fill the breach where private capital is unable to fill the bill. As I say, I agree with the- words of the Prime Minister 100 per cent. In fact, I also believe that the less the federal government become involved in provincial affairs, the better for all concerned. But we have a peculiar situation in relation to the development of power on the Columbia river. This government has already declared that such a development is in the national interest. I think all who recall the debate in the house last year will

not dispute that statement. Hence the government-and I mean this national government -is committed to the Columbia development program.
Last year we heard much about the building of the proposed Mica creek dam. We in the interior had high hopes that such construction would be under way this year. But for some reason-and I am not going to lay the entire blame at the door of this government-all plans for the development of the Columbia are at a standstill. We hear nothing about Mica creek. Despite what the hon. member for Inverness-Richmond (Mr. Mac-Eachen) had to say last night-and I hate to question the word of such a learned economist-when he was trying to play down the value of cheap hydroelectric power in industry, we in British Columbia want power. The interior of British Columbia wants it. The province needs it. The whole of Canada would benefit by it. All I can say is this, and I have said it on many other occasions. Let us get down to business and lay concrete plans for immediate action. A few hours around the conference table would clear the way for development and for the opening of a new era in the interior of British Columbia. Most of you will recall the words of Sir Anthony Eden when speaking of the great future in store for Canada. These words were uttered in this house a very short time ago:
I have no doubt that you will fashion it-
He was speaking of the future of Canada.
-in a manner worthy of a great people.
Let us accept that challenge and get on with the job of assuring that great future for our people in British Columbia and in Canada.


Mr. R. R. Knighi (Saskatoon):: Mr. Speaker, one could not read the words in the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) without some challenge, coming as I do from the province of Saskatchewan. I refer to the words about a joint investment program. We have there, of course, a proposition of which the house has long been aware and one which has been debated often in this house. May I say, Mr. Speaker, that I have been in my seat religiously this afternoon expecting to speak following the last Conservative member, namely the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton (Mr. Montgomery). A Liberal member and a Social Credit member have come in between us, so I have to make my remarks very short at this time. I realize that the debating time in the evening will be short as it will finish at 8.15.
This project, as I say, is nothing new to this house. It has been the subject of discussion on platforms of all sorts in Saskatchewan,
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and certainly on political platforms. I do not think there is time here to go into the history of the project, into the origin of it nor the stage which it has now reached. This is the only political comment I shall make when I say it has been held out as political bait in all the federal elections in which I have taken part, and some in which I have not taken part, since away back in 1940. There have been promises, definite promises by Liberal speakers and by the Minister of Agriculture himself. At times we have been assured that those were not actual promises. There is one quotation here which I take from page 1747 of Hansard for February 9, 1953. The minister is quoted by the Regina Leader-Post as having said at a meeting:
The dominion government thus did not need the endorsation of the South Saskatchewan river development association to begin work on the South Saskatchewan river. It has already decided to go through with it ... a decision would he reached on where the dam on the South Saskatchewan should be placed. It would be on one of three sites between the Elbow and Saskatoon. As soon as the site had been finally decided upon contracts would be let, and work would proceed immediately.
Now, there was some dispute later about the accuracy of that report. It was one of those reports which the minister finds so often, in which he had not been correctly quoted. I have dozens. I am not going to talk about what the minister said any more. I am finished with that. I merely want to say that we in Saskatchewan are tired of having this thing trotted out before every election, and then when the election is over, we are blandly told that the time is not ripe; that it is not a national project; that the province is not prepared to assume its proper amount of responsibility, and so forth. So much for the speeches, and so much for the disappointments that we have suffered in the matter.
Now our desire, sir, for this project is, I suppose, born of the depression of the thirties. I think I am quoting the minister here again in a previous debate when he said that during that depression direct relief in Canada amounted to about $186 million. I am going to suggest that the $186 million would go a long way towards building this dam which, to a degree, would take the sting out of any subsequent depression in that part of the country. As the minister knows, and as the Saskatchewan members know, we had a world depression. During that depression eastern Canada suffered, western Canada suffered, as did many other countries.
Not only did the people in the prairie provinces suffer the results of a world depression, but they actually suffered hunger caused by drought. At that time we witnessed settlers

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shooting their cattle because they could not feed them. I have seen a farmer go down to the station with a buggy and bring back one bale of hay in order to keep alive his last surviving cow from which he obtained milk for his family. When I talk to eastern people and eastern farmers about that particular event I find a lack of realization as to what the suffering actually was. I have seen, as other members have seen, those clouds of dust and those piles of soil accumulate day by day along the telephone poles. We have seen farmers in the southern part of the country loading their family and their small possessions on a hay rack, with perhaps a cow tied behind, heading north to find green grass and water. It just occurs to me here to mention in passing a thing which we have forgotten now, but fundamentally the power of mankind to survive on this earth depends upon the ability of the earth to produce that common and perhaps despised commodity grass.
However, that is enough of philosophy. It is said, and I do not know whether or not it has been proven but I think it has, that the weather is likely to go in cycles. At the moment, as everyone knows, we have an abundance of rain in Saskatchewan. Under the system in which we live, this has produced some of the economic problems from which we are suffering at the moment. But there is this to be said for the type of thing we have now as compared with what we had then: When there is an abundance of food, when there is an abundance of fodder for all the stock, then that type of depression, a depression without money, can be survived on the farm perhaps better than anywhere else.
But if one of these cycles of dry weather should come again, we want to be as well prepared for it as it is possible to be. Of course, that is one of the main reasons why we believe now is the time to build this dam, not at a time when dry weather is upon us. We want this irrigation. We want it for what it has done for Lethbridge. I was struck by what the irrigation project had done in that particular part of the country. I was struck by the diversification of farming there. I was struck by the fact that people now have smaller farms. I was struck by the fact that even if there were dryness in the surrounding area, there was a fodder belt in there that would supply feed for the surrounding starved-out districts. I was struck by the diversification of interests, like sugar beet farming and the substantial industry that has grown there in the fattening of cattle. We would like to have, in our section of Saskatchewan, some of the things that irrigation has

done for Lethbridge and is in the process of doing for Medicine Hat.
Irrigation should bring about an increase in population as a result of the lessening of the size of the acreage held by individuals. Anyone who goes through these plains knows that the scarcity of population is one of the problems that increases our difficulty. We have a tremendous mileage of roads to keep up, even where there are few people. The few children here and there have to be provided with education. Either these little schools have to be kept open or transportation has to be provided for the pupils, as the case may be. The remedy, of course, is population. The population has been dwindling but it is beginning to pick up again. It did dwindle because of the mechanization of the farms, or automation, whatever you like to call it.
Then there is the question of diversification of farming, which I have just mentioned, the feeding of cattle, the growing of sugar beets. There is another thing that one might mention, namely, the attraction of a certain type of immigrant that we might be able to get into our country. I am not going to argue that the failure of immigration, or the comparative failure, this year is a failure on the part of this government, or what is its cause. But there is a fine class of people in northern Europe who would be attracted to an irrigated country, just as in the earlier days many United States citizens were attracted to southern Alberta because they had been accustomed to irrigation on their own farms at home, and were surprised to find they were able to purchase irrigated land at a much lower price than they had paid in the United States.
To my mind, irrigation which would come from a dam of the type desired would-and I have already suggested this-cause an economic stability of which we are not sure at the moment, because our whole economy has been geared to the production of wheat. Even that has failed us this year in that we have been unable to market wheat in the quantities that are satisfactory.
There is also the question of a feed bank. We talk about a bank for wheat, for cereals, for grain, but there is the other question of a feed bank for forage. I do not want to go into that. Some of my agricultural friends and experts in this particular party are much more familiar with it than I am, but I think it is a thing which should be mentioned. I had the unfortunate experience one winter, which I imagine the minister will remember very well, following the summer of 1919, when cattle were dying out there like flies because

they did not have enough to eat. A lot of people got them through the winter, but when they turned them out in the spring onto the dry grass lacking any nourishment, and with the heat of the sun, they simply wilted and that was that. People lost their herds and lost the money they had invested in them.
At the moment, sir, we have a fair start in industrial production in the province of Saskatchewan. It is a fact that is not generally well enough known in other parts of Canada. Certain factories are going to start operations this very year. For example, a pipe factory is to commence operations in the city of Regina. It is to manufacture pipe through which oil or gas may be conveyed. There is an undertaking to produce cement. These things are all tied in with the question of power and irrigation from the project that I have suggested. It is a common economic fact that power of any kind, and particularly cheap power, attracts industry. We have now, of course, a wider distribution of electric power and that process will go on. The distribution and transportation of natural gas, and oil discoveries which are now taking place, are making us at least a rival, if a small one, of our neighbouring province to the west. These things are going on and all of us are beginning to see a great new era for that province which up to a few years ago at least was regarded simply as a great plain where one grew some grain in the summer time and sat close to the stove in the winter time. That was about the only prospect we had. It was with those ideas and in that spirit that a good many settlers came to the province of Saskatchewan.
I am sure a good many of them came there away back at the time the minister came there-I am not suggesting that he or myself was one of those people-with the idea of making as much money as they could and getting away from there as fast as possible. Perhaps in one respect the fact that they were not too well off did us some good because it prevented them from moving out until they had an opportunity to establish worth-while homes, and now they have decided to stay and watch their sons under the new conditions of power, gas and electricity on the farms, and these things that I have mentioned, increasingly better roads, look upon that province as their home and reconcile them to living there with pleasure and with comfort, and with profit, too, may I say. If this government can get the wheat crisis cleaned up as soon as possible, conditions will be even better. Therefore, we need this dam; we need irrigation and we need the power.
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I said, sir, that I was going to speak briefly, and I did mean that. Some millions of dollars have already been spent on the Saskatchewan river dam in surveying and in engineering, largely through the department under the minister. It is too bad that these moneys should be wasted. The results of their findings are upon the record. Previous to 1949, of course, we were told that the province would not have to spend a cent on this project. In the election promises and in others this was to be purely a federal matter and a federal expenditure, but subsequent to the election of 1949 we came back here to face a minister who smiled at us smugly and said:	Well,
of course, we could go ahead with this program. We have made arrangements. We are going to see what the province will do. I could go into a long story about that. Hansard reports are full of it. I shall refrain from doing that at the moment. In the course of the negotiations that have gone on since that time the province has become pretty heavily committed. I know that in a letter by the premier of the province to the Prime Minister an offer of $72 million was made as the provincial share. At that time the agreed-upon cost, in spite of the Hogg report which preceded it, was to be $135 million in all. Although I have not the figure I believe the province has increased its offer since that time.
In 1954 the minister said there were three main conditions necessary for the starting and the completing of this project. He said that the first one was an interprovincial agreement on the availability of water required for power and irrigation purposes. The first of those conditions was met. The prairie provinces water board agreed that there was plenty of water in the South Saskatchewan and its tributaries to supply water for the project near Outlook.
The second condition was a Saskatchewan commitment toward the cost of the dam. That was the statement at that time. It was to remove any suggestion that Ottawa was subsidizing provincial power production. I have already dealt with that. Letters from the premier of Saskatchewan to the Prime Minister of Canada have continually expressed nothing but co-operation and willingness to be counted in the project so that it could go ahead.
The third stipulation was a realistic estimate of the cost of the project. It is true that we had the Hogg report which was rather unfavourable and which added about $100 million to the cost that I have given, but that report was heavily discounted. It was discounted in this house by the minister himself who said, at least on one occasion, that

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the cabinet had pretty well written off that particular report. We are then told that the negotiating committee set up by the federal government in conjunction with the provincial government had estimated the costs as follows: main reservoir and dam $80 million; irrigation system $35 million; the power plant $20 million, or a total of $135 million.
Someone might say, well, we have heard it said frequently in the house that the people of Saskatchewan are always complaining about something; they are always wanting something. Well, we are and I do not think that it is a bad thing or an unhealthy thing; but no one has ever suggested in this house or elsewhere that we have not done our share to build up this great country whether in public projects or by any other means. I do not care whether it is by means of war contributions, recruiting of men or payment through taxes to other projects in the country; I do not think anyone can say we have been niggardly in that regard.
When we mention projects like the Canso causeway or the St. Lawrence seaway we do it in commendation of these things. We are glad to see the nation prosper and we believe that through public investment the nation can prosper and that it cannot prosper without it.
I have now concluded what I wanted to say and I now move, seconded by the hon. member for The Battlefords (Mr. Campbell):
That the amendment be amended by changing the period at the end thereof to a comma-


Mr. Argue:: The Minister of Agriculture smiles.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: -and by adding thereafter the following words:
"and that consideration should be given to the advisability of proceeding with the immediate construction of projects in connection with which investigations have been carried out, such as the South Saskatchewan river dam and irrigation project."


Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, the sub-amendment which has just been moved represents in reality one of the major questions dealt with by the Leader of the Opposition in introducing the motion yesterday on this question which is of such importance to Canada as a whole.
There is no need of saying what the South Saskatchewan dam and irrigation project will mean and what it will achieve in the days that lie ahead when drought returns once more to Saskatchewan. The arguments have been made over and over again and as far as I am concerned it is unnecessary to prove that goodness is good.
The whole proposition is one that has been pushed about by this government for a period

of years. Postponement has followed postponement in relation to its consideration by subterfuge and excuses but until the last two days I doubt whether the people of Saskatchewan will have realized as finally as they now must realize that this necessary project has been written off by this government.
The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) dealt at some length with this project yesterday as he has dealt with it and supported it on many previous occasions. Indeed, I was rather surprised to hear the hon. member for The Battlefords speak as though he had suddenly made a great discovery that the Conservative party was now supporting this project, a project which this party has supported for many years. Over and over again it has been included in the party platform and over and over again it has received the approbation and firm support of the Leader of the Opposition and the vote of each and every hon. member in this party from the Atlantic to the Pacific.


An hon. Member:: That does not take in very many.


Mr. Dinsdale:: Quality, Jim; real quality.


John George Diefenbaker: Having said that, I want to make reference to the fact that the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) was here yesterday while the Leader of the Opposition was speaking. I realize that the Prime Minister cannot continue to be in the house with all the responsibility that faces him but I do believe that the Prime Minister owed it not only to the people of Saskatchewan but to the people of Canada as a whole to have spoken in this debate and allowed Canadians to learn something of the concept of this government relative to this most important subject contained within the resolution.
As a matter of fact, this has been a campaign of silence on the part of the government in the face of the advancement on the part of the opposition of a policy which is necessary to Canada today and which is not one that advocates the expenditure of money without dividends in the national development.
I think the people as a whole are becoming tax conscious and do not want unnecessary expenditures made. Expenditures for national development are self-liquidating in that they produce a return far above what the actual expenditure amounts to.
. I was rather amazed at the speech of the hon. member for Charlotte (Mr. Stuart). I think Canadians as a whole, and I have found this to be true as long as I have been a member of this house, do not endeavour to look at problems from a parochial angle. Each citizen endeavours to join together in

a common effort to build all parts of Canada.
I should like to have heard the hon. gentleman advance something in the nature of what the maritimes are asking for, with something of the vision of the maritime members who have spoken during this debate. Instead of that he resorted to a discussion of trivial matters that in no way are of interest to Canadians as a whole.
What of the maritimes? Well, I have visited the maritimes on a number of occasions and have tried to understand something of their problems and something of the need of power development in the maritimes in order to equalize those advantages which central Canada has which are natural to the geographic location of Ontario and Quebec.
I was very much taken by the move a year or so ago for the formation of an Atlantic province economic council and also by the report that was made by Dr. A. G. Christie in which he advocated the pooling of all existing electrical generating systems in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick under a joint power authority, something much in the nature of the plan advocated yesterday on a national basis by the Leader of the Opposition. Under this plan, under this merged system plan, the encouragement of new industries by the providing of reliable electrical and power services at favourable rates would be established. Steam plants would be established in the province of Nova Scotia by reason of the coal that is waiting there for a market, and in the province of New Brunswick there would be hydroelectric developments.
I believe that something in the nature of what is described by this resolution must come about because we are not equally endowed with power potentialities in all parts of Canada. I believe that under this resolution consideration could be given to bringing power to industry. As the Leader of the Opposition has said, today industry goes to power; but I believe that in the new atomic age which we are entering at the present time power will be taken to industry. I am one of those who believe that in certain parts of Canada, the maritimes in particular, atomic energy plants for civilian purposes should be a matter of primary consideration, in addition to the production of power through the medium of coal and hydro sources.
In other words, there should be a national vision to equalize opportunity everywhere in Canada and to enable the building of this nation in the face of the challenge referred to today by the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Cameron). The hon. member spoke of the challenge of the U.S.S.R. in the economic
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world and how socialism provided the answer.
I do not want to get into any argument in that connection, but let me tell my hon. friend that that is the same unrealistic attitude we heard in Saskatchewan. For many years we had theoretical socialism, but when it came to the development of our resources the government of that province, after having entered into various industrial activities quite unsuccessfully, having produced for years but without profit-we got neither-finally decided to invite capital into the province to develop northern Saskatchewan.
When my hon. friend speaks of the challenge of the U.S.S.R. let me say that this industrial challenge is going to be a tremendous one for every part of the free world. The reason is the serf-like wages that are paid, the fact that the agriculturist is required to turn his product over to the state at whatever the state determines, the fact that there is tyrannical control over the hearts of men with each man being a robot under the control of the state. Certainly the U.S.S.R. with its resources and the vast developments which are taking place in connection with power, particularly the establishment of nuclear plants, represent a challenge.
For that reason this resolution more than ever before is of first importance. It is one that affects the people of Canada as a whole. There should be a united people in a great national crusade for the development of Canada to the end that to a greater extent than ever before we in Canada will be developing our own resources here rather than shipping our raw materials to the United States and thereby exporting employment from this country.
I believe in this resolution. It is one that deserves more than the attitude of silence taken by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) and his ministers. It is one that deserves the serious attention of parliament. It has been dealt with throughout in an objective manner, with one exception. I think the ministers owe something more to parliament than to adopt the aggressive silence which this resolution has met. I could say much more, but I know the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Simmons) wants to give a message and for that reason I shall discontinue now.


Mr. J. A. Simmons (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, any discussion on the use and conservation of water across Canada would be incomplete without reference to the water resources of the Canadian northwest, particularly those of the Yukon Territory and northern British Columbia. The natural resources of this northwest area, surrounded on the north and

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west by Alaska, are minerals, forest cover and water power; they are linked together in the development of the country. In their beneficial development, these resources are all closely associated because low cost power is an essential agency for the economic development of the mining and forest resources.
Not only will electric power from water power sites in our northwest permit the processing of local ores such as those containing silver, lead, zinc, copper, iron, asbestos, etc., but the potential amount of power is so great that it will attract to power sites in the northwest other ores from various parts of the world, including cobalt, bauxite, nickel and titanium.
As most hon. members of this house know, the Northwest Power Industries Limited, a subsidiary of Ventures-Frobisher-Quebec Metallurgical Industries Companies, has been engaged for three years on engineering investigations and surveys of the power potentials of the upper Yukon river waters in the Yukon and northern British Columbia. Information required for the first million horsepower will be pretty well obtained by the end of this year. It discloses that between 4,300,000 horsepower and 4,900,000 horsepower can be developed from the Yukon watershed in power plants that can be built south of Atlin lake.
Power from these plants can be transmitted without difficulty some 45 miles to industrial sites on the Taku river-and as required 360 miles, without difficulty, to the Canadian port of Alice Arm-and to other industrial sites throughout the northwest.
All the investigations and plans have strictly conformed with the Canadian government policy as announced by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) and the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) from time to time in this house, that water power from Canadian waters must be developed in Canada and is to be used in Canada to the fullest extent possible.
In addition to the Yukon river project there are other power resources in the northwest in the watersheds of such rivers as the Liard, Stikine, Dease and the Nass river. All these permit major development.
In fact preliminary investigations reveal that this particular area might afford 6 million horsepower and the Nass river area another half million. This is in addition to the upper Yukon river watershed.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
IMr. Simmons.]


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.
James Aubrey Simmons: Mr. Speaker, in continuing my remarks, which were interrupted at six o'clock, I should like to say further that there are the power potentials of the Peace river near Finlay Forks and of the Stuart and Babine rivers, these latter being in the vast drainage system of the large lakes of central British Columbia comprising Stuart lake, Trembleur lake, Takla lake and Babine lake. I think it can be stated that the water power resources of our Canadian northwest are greater than the most optimistic estimates made so far. There is every reason to believe that the value of water power and its place in the development of Canada's natural resources will greatly increase over the next 20 years. I am sure that this is one of the things that will be mentioned in the Gordon royal commission report.
The value of waterpower to Canada in dollars and cents will not only be evident in connection with our own resources but the availability of large blocks of power will bring to Canada for processing raw products from all over the world. What an assured future Canada has if she realizes the potential treasures she has in her vast water resources. You can readily see that the northwest has the largest water potential on this continent, so far as I know.
If our resources in the north are to be developed then our resources must be looked upon with more vigour than has been the case heretofore. Canada should, therefore, adopt a policy with regard to the northwest and the rest of Canada's northland which will engender a gradual shift of transportation, population and industrial growth to the northward. Only when this has been recognized and achieved will an adequate development of our resources be realized. If serious consideration is not given to this proposed project it is quite conceivable the result will be that the development of our hydroelectric potential and consequent economic expansion of the whole area through the development of its resources will be retarded for years, if not for generations.
It does not take too active an imagination to appreciate the contribution to the permanent economy of the northwest that a project such as that envisioned by the Frobisher group would make. Neither does one have to indulge in extravagant dreams to visualize what great economic developments would redound to Canada's northwest from future development of this region's natural resources. We need new vision and understanding of what the northwest can mean to our future

as Canadians and to the future of free mankind. We want policies to roll back the frontiers of this country and give Canada depth as well as breadth.
I am informed by Northwest Power Industries Limited that their field work will continue in 1956 to complete the detail surveys necessary for the objective I have outlined in anticipation of commencing actual construction of the first stage of the project in the Taku river area in the not too distant future. Field work planned will include checking of triangulation work, soundings of the Yukon river through Miles canyon and further surveys on the Nakonake river. A large expenditure will be made on diamond drilling on the Miles canyon dam site, at the tunnel entrances, and on the Nakonake river power house site. Sample of borings made will be obtained and studied. It is expected that by the fall of this year the survey period of the Yukon river power project that is necessary to begin construction will be completed.
It is my understanding that a preliminary study by Northwest Power Industries has revealed the Nass river as the most promising interim power area, and surveys will also be undertaken there this coming season. Its power potential is limited but it will be possible to transmit power as required from the Yukon project to the Nass river area. The Nass river project will not in any way prejudice the Yukon project but is insurance that Canada will not lose prospective power customers if there is delay in Yukon power being made available.
There is an important essential in the ordinary development of our water power and that is the rapid obtaining of hydrometric data. The flow of northern streams must be recorded accurately and over as long periods as possible. This means that water readings sufficient for safely estimating power potentials should be under way in adequate scope over all our important streams in the northwest that give promise of water power development. There is no use waiting until interest develops in any particular watershed because it is then too late for any long-term records. This is where I think Canada has been backward and there has been a tendency to wait for a demand for vital information while this should have been available and have been collected over the years.
No one fully familiar with the requirements of power development will question this viewpoint. Personally, I doubt if there are more than two major streams in the northwest out of seven or eight where there is sufficient hydrometric data for a private company or a government owned company to
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actually determine the amount of firm power available in any watershed. The excellent work being done by the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources in the hydrometric field is acknowledged but the data is greatly restricted by insufficient money being voted in this house. I would say that the small amount of funds available for hydrometric work across Canada in the coming year will probably be about one-third of what it should be.
We should have a balanced inventory of our national resources with respect to what we have in the way of minerals and forest products, base metals and chemical resources and construction material, and we should also have comparable information as to where necessary water power or power from thermal units can be obtained. In conclusion I should like to say that I believe the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, which is responsible for the administration of the territories, has vision in carrying out its responsibilities in the development of the northern territories, and I know that the present administration has this forward vision and realizes how important it is for Canada that these northern areas should be developed.
The Frobisher plan will develop the vast known resources of the Yukon territory and northern British Columbia for the benefit of the Dominion of Canada as a whole. Consider the development of timber resources, with ample power to operate pulp and paper mills and the development of mineral deposits in the northwest and from places around the world by the utilization of lost-cost power for smelting and processing ores. Yes, Mr. Speaker, we have a wonderful future in Canada and the northwest.


Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to speak on the question had it not been for the movement of the subamendment. The reason I had not intended to speak was that in the amendment itself there is no mention of the South Saskatchewan river project. Therefore I did not think it necessary to say anything on the main amendment, but in the subamendment moved by the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Knight) and seconded by the hon. member for The Battlefords (Mr. Campbell) the question of the South Saskatchewan is brought before the house. The subamendment reads as follows:
. .	. that consideration should be given to the
advisability of proceeding with the immediate construction of projects in connection with which investigations have been carried out, such as the South Saskatchewan river dam and irrigation project.

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There are only one or two remarks I wish to make. The first one is that in the discussions that have taken place in relation to the South Saskatchewan river project sums have been mentioned running from $135 million to $160 million as being the cost of the project that has been under consideration. I only wish to state with regard to that that the use of these sums in discussing the question would be somewhat of an argument in the minds of many people to the effect that the project should not be proceeded with.
As a matter of fact, the amount of money involved is just about half of the higher figure. It is $82 million, and I do not think anyone discussing this matter should take it for granted that it is going to cost $160 million. The discussions are all on the basis of $82 million. The figure of $82 million has been established as the cost as nearly as any cost can be established, and it is known to the government that there are those who Would undertake to construct the project at that cost. Therefore there is no reason to discuss any higher cost in connection with it.


Mr. Ellis:: All the more reason for starting it now.


James Garfield Gardiner: Well, there is no reason for discussing any higher cost. Discussing a higher cost can only result in there being some opposition where there otherwise would be none. My main reason for rising, however, is to call attention to the fact that the matter has already been considered and also to call attention to the fact that in the estimates which are before this house now there is a vote for the South Saskatchewan river project.


John George Diefenbaker: How much?


William Earl Rowe: After a quarter of a century.


James Garfield Gardiner: I also want to indicate to the members of this house that in my opinion this amendment to the amendment is out of order.


William Earl Rowe: The dam is out of order. It has been out of order for 20 years.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not raising the point of order in order to avoid indicating to the house and to the country how I would vote or how I intend to vote if the amendment to the amendment is placed before the house. It is typical of amendments which are put before the house in the province of Saskatchewan. I have been there myself when they were put before the house and when, as premier of that province, I was obliged to handle them. During the period in which the present premier has been in office he has been obliged to handle them on a number of

occasions because they were brought forward by the party to which I belong in Saskatchewan. On every occasion on which an amendment of this kind has been made on a motion to go into supply, it has always been taken as a vote of want of confidence in the government, whether it was in Saskatchewan or whether it was in this house.


Mr. Nicholson:: Not always.


James Garfield Gardiner: There was one occasion when it was not so, and what did my hon. friends say about it? At the time it was being discussed in this house they said that they were only asking the government to consider it. Then when the government, after considering it, decided not to do it, they went around the country telling people that the house had voted for it and that the government had refused to do it. I have no doubt that is what would be done in connection with this very motion if it were placed before the house now. But I only want to say that if it is placed before the house it is my intention to vote confidence in the government and to vote against the amendment to the amendment. It is not my purpose to avoid indicating to the house and to the country what I think of the amendment to the amendment but I simply wish to say that at page 132 of the estimates there will be found an item indicating what the vote of $7,050,000 has within it for the project. The item reads, "South Saskatchewan river development, $500,000".


John George Diefenbaker: Five hundred thousand dollars!


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend who is probably more concerned with the matter than is any other member of the official opposition looked across the aisle and said, "$500,000". If he will look-


William Earl Rowe: It is a 20-year start anyway.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is a fairly good start.


William Earl Rowe: After 20 years, yes.


James Garfield Gardiner: If the hon. member will look at page 7, he will find item 42, which reads, "Major irrigation and reclamation projects in the prairie provinces, $7,050,000". There is in the estimates an item which indicates that the government has already considered this matter.


William Earl Rowe: Mr. Speaker, it is 8.15 p.m.


James Garfield Gardiner: There is an item in the estimates under which the whole question can be discussed in this house when the estimates are before the house.


William Earl Rowe: Mr. Speaker, it is now 8.15 p.m.


Mr. Speaker:: As it is 8.15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and to put the question to the house.


Mr. Gillis:: May 1 announce that I was paired with the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. MacDougall). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment. I might add that the hon. member had to go into the hospital this evening.


Mr. Speaker:: The question now is on the amendment to the main motion.
Those in favour of the amendment to the main motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those against will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: Would hon. members consider that their members have been called in for the purpose of this division?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.

Power Development


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. MacDougall). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. Speaker:: Just at 8.15 there arose a very peculiar situation. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) in making his speech did indicate to the chair and to all hon. members that the amendment to the amendment which has been voted upon a moment ago might be out of order. Hon. members have noticed that notwithstanding his remarks to that effect, that it being 8.15, as soon as the Clerk announced the time to me I put the motion before the house.
There are hon. members who may feel that, if an amendment is out of order, some action be taken by the chair before the vote is put to the house. Well, I did not do anything this time because I thought that there was no time left for me to make a judgment.
Standing order 56, paragraph (d) says:
If any amendment be under consideration at 8.15-

i

And then further down it says:
Mr. Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and forthwith put the question on any amendment or amendments then before the house.
Now, "if any amendment be under consideration"-is it under consideration from the point of view of its merits or under consideration from the point of view of order? Hon. members must not forget that if at 8.15 a point of order is under discussion no time is left for me to do what is prescribed by standing order 12. I am in a most peculiar position and this is a case which I think will have to be considered by all hon. members, and that is, if a point of order is raised with respect to an amendment and 8.15 arrives and the Clerk announces to me that it is 8.15, if I am to deal with the point of order I will have to comply with the provisions of standing order 12 paragraph (1):
In explaining a point of order or practice, he shall state the standing order or authority applicable to the case.
There is also the provision which is understood by hon. members as being compulsory on my part. As far as I am concerned I do not think I have to listen to hon. members who want to make representations, but I consider that it is better that I do listen to representations. If the representations that are being made to me do not convince me and I rule an amendment out of order, hon. members still have the right to appeal my ruling and therefore a vote might take place on that appeal and then later we come finally to whatever may still have to be done by virtue of standing order 56 (5) for the house to decide.
Now, I want to consider that situation further but it seems to me that any time there is a ruling for the Speaker to decide before 8.15, it would be much better that time be given to him for that purpose.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker-


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I was not going to raise any question of order because I know according to the rules that you were right in what you did. I understand the rule says that if the Clerk declares it to be 8.15 a vote is to be taken but I was looking at the clock in front of me and I would suggest that the clocks be put at the same time the Clerk has, in other words that the clocks be synchronized, because I stopped at 14 minutes past on the clock in front of me, not 15 past.


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps I might remind the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) that the first time we took a vote according to
Superannuated Civil Servants' Pensions the limit provision of these standing orders I did indicate that my clock did not correspond with the clocks around this house but with the clock of the Clerk, because I foresaw that these clocks might go out of order.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is quite all right and I am not complaining at all. You decided it correctly-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, sit down.


James Garfield Gardiner: -I am only saying that I would like to have the clocks right.


Donald Methuen Fleming: See the Minister of Public Works about it.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It is more important that you be right.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Daniel Mclvor (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, before the hon. member speaks I rise on a question of privilege.
I should like to congratulate the official who announced so clearly and without a mistake the names of the hon. members in the house notwithstanding the stares and the homely looks on our faces.



SUPERANNUATED CIVIL SERVANTS


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I rise to take advantage of the privilege afforded by the rules to raise a grievance. Before I do so, Mr. Speaker, perhaps I might be permitted to say that if there had been any discussion on the point of order suggested by the Minister of Agriculture some of us would have taken part in that discussion; indeed I certainly would have raised the question as to how there could be any relationship between the small amount of money in the estimates under the heading of the South Saskatchewan river and the subject matter of the sub-amendment which called for the construction of the project itself.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, the grievance I rise to state is the closed mind and the stubborn attitude of my otherwise genial friend, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris), in relation to the question of pensions of retired civil servants.
The reasons I raise this matter at this time are several. I need not remind hon. members that I have been concerned about the question for a long time. In addition, certain answers have been given to me recently by the Minister of Finance which would suggest that no consideration is being given to this

Superannuated Civil Servants' Pensions House of Commons. This is during the question period too, Mr. Speaker, and this is what I find under question No. 69:
Major Mott-Radclyffe asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when legislation to amend the Pensions (Increase) Act will be introduced.
The chancellor of the exchequer, like the Minister of Finance, answered with one word. But his one word was, "Today". What a difference in what happens over there.


Mr, Harris:: That was not a planted question, was it?


Stanley Howard Knowles: No, it was not. It was as much a surprise to that member as it would be if it took place here. I have been making some reference to what happened in the United Kingdom and I should like hon. members to note this, that the basic principle of providing increases for civil servants because of the increase in the cost of living was established by the wartime coalition government in 1944. I have been particularly interested in the length of time that was spent by the British House of Commons debating the government's bill on that occasion. In this house we all know, because we are reminded of it many times, that debates are handled much more expeditiously in the United Kingdom parliament than they are here. We have been told repeatedly how debates on the address can be handled in a day and a half and so on. I ask hon. members to note this, that in 1944-and members will recall the seriousness of the war situation at that time-the debate on the government's bill to increase pensions occupied 210 columns in the British Hansard over several different days. I give that figure because, as hon. members know, the British Hansard is numbered by columns rather than by pages as is ours. But there are two columns to a page and 210 columns works out to 105 pages.
That is a mark of the seriousness with which members of the parliament of the United Kingdom faced this problem right in the midst of the difficult days of the war in 1944. They occupied 105 pages dealing with the question of increasing the pensions of retired civil servants. Why did they take so long? Because, despite the improvements that the government of the day was proposing in the pensions of retired civil servants, the members were not satisfied. Members of all parties felt that something better should be done and a good deal of the argument turned on such things as means test provisions and other restrictions that were still being imposed on retired civil servants and other pensioners of the United Kingdom.
I feel that not only should I give the house the type of statistics I have listed indicating

the time and attention given to this question in the United Kingdom but I should also like to quote one or two excerpts from speeches made when the 1944 pensions increase bill was introduced. It was, of course, introduced by Sir John Anderson who was then chancellor of the exchequer. In column 1761 of the British Hansard for March 3, 1944, he said this:
The measure which I have to submit to the house carries out a promise made by me on 3rd December last, in the course of the debate on the address.
The amendment which was then under discussion proposed that state and local government pensions should be increased to a level corresponding with the increased cost of living. I said, in the course of the statement which I made on that occasion, that, in the view of the government, the arguments for and against doing something were still fairly evenly and nicely balanced, but, on the whole, the government considered that there was a case for some action. I made it perfectly clear that the government would concentrate attention on cases of what I described as "real, grave hardship".
The chancellor at that point went on to quote from something which he had said earlier but he proceeded to make it clear that, although there were arguments pro and con, particularly in time of war, nevertheless the government accepted the fact that it had a moral obligation to be concerned about the position of those who were suffering real and grave hardship because of the smallness of their pensions. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that everything that was said about real and grave hardships on the part of pensioners in that country and everything that would apply to the situation over there now applies with equal force here, if not more so. I submit that the people to whom I have referred in my statistics as to the numbers who are drawing these small pensions are people who are suffering real and grave hardship and that the government owes to them serious consideration of their position.
I should like hon. members to listen to another few sentences which were spoken during the course of this debate. This time I am free to admit that I am quoting a labour member of the House of Commons but he was a member who was supporting the coalition government of the day and he was actually speaking against some of those independent souls around the house who were trying to persuade the government to do better than was proposed in the house. The labour member whom I am quoting is Mr. Pethick-Lawrence, and he had this to say. It is to be found at column 1777 of the United Kingdom Hansard of March 3, 1944:
I would like now to say a word on the broad facts. I am in agreement with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that-
FEBRUARY 21. 1956	U19
Superannuated Civil Servants' Pensions
I ask both the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) and the Secretary of State (Mr. Pinard) to listen to this.
-Iegalistically interpreted,-
This is their language.
-the public pensioner has no precise right to any increase in his pension. The strict law of his contract has been kept,-
How many times has my hon. friend and Mr. Abbott before him and Mr. Ilsley before him said that?


Mr. Harris:: Not I.


Alfred Claude Ellis: You just say no.


Walter Edward Harris: I just said no.


Stanley Howard Knowles: My hon. friend has not put
all of those words in his own mouth. He has either said no or he has said, "My position is that of my predecessor". In answer to that position let me continue with my quotation:
-but the fact is that underlying all contracts for payment at some future date there is an assumption, unwritten and unspecified, but nevertheless implied. That is the stability of the purchasing power of money. Unless this is substantially maintained all time-contracts are meaningless.
I commend the entire column or two from which I am now quoting to the Minister of Finance, the Secretary of State and all others who have to deal with this matter, for Mr. Pethick-Lawrence goes very fully into this whole question of pensions being based on contracts and lays it out, in my view, very well that one cannot contend that a contract has been kept if the cost of living has been permitted to rise. Further down he says this. I am still quoting Mr. Pethick-Lawrence:
There is this further point when we are dealing with employees of the state. A private employer may argue that he had nothing to do with fixing the value of money, that it is an act of God so far as he is concerned, God being the state or possibly the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
It is too bad that he does not say "the Minister of Finance" so that it would come a little bit closer to home but I am sure the connection is not overlooked. I continue the quotation:
When the state makes a contract, however, it itself has the power of altering the value of money, and, therefore, the state cannot quite get away with that excuse. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion and I think it is the same conclusion to which the Chancellor has come, although he may not have put it quite so bluntly, that in equity the state must review its contracts to meet the situation.
Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what I asked Mr. Ilsley to do many years ago. That is exactly what I asked Mr. Abbott to do every year that he was minister of finance. That is what I am still asking the present Minister of Finance to do, namely to review these contracts, to recognize the principle of equity 67509-90J
and to do something to meet the situation of our retired civil servants.
I know, Mr. Speaker, that there are those who think that this is just that same old speech being made over again but even Your Honour will admit it is a different speech although it is on the same subject. I know there are those who say, "We are going to have to listen to these speeches as long as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is here." There is one way in which the government can put a stop to the making of these speeches on behalf of the retired civil servants and that is by doing justice to them and bringing in a measure or putting in the estimates at this session an item that will provide for an increase in the pensions of these people and put them on a basis whereby they can cope with today's cost of living.
Let us not hear any more the argument that the government must concern itself with what other employers are doing. I know that the government sometimes takes the view that it must not be the best employer in the country. It should not be the worst either. But I am not satisfied even with the idea that the government should be an intermediate kind of employer. In my view the government as an employer should lead the country, should be a model employer and in this matter should give a lead to other employers and other jurisdictions. Let it not be argued that the old age security pension without a means test takes the place of an increase in these pensions. Other people obtained the old age pension without a means test in addition to whatever other income they had or whatever income they may earn. That is no answer at all to this problem. As a matter of fact, so far as the old age pension is concerned, the Minister of Finance knows what I think should be done about it. I believe the amount of that pension should be increased as well. We shall deal with that matter on another occasion. For the moment we are dealing with this specific problem, namely the plight of our retired civil servants. As strongly as I can I put it to the minister that he should not let another session go by just sloughing the matter off by making the same old answer. This session apparently-and I hope it is true-there is going to be an increase in civil servants' salaries. That is fine. One of the reasons for it is the greater productivity of the country. Another reason is the increased cost of living. Those same reasons make possible and make necessary an increase in the pensions of retired civil servants. I call upon the minister and the government to give the lie to my opening words, when I said that the minister has a closed mind or is stubborn.
1420	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Superannuated Civil Servants' Pensions I hope the minister will show that such is not the case. I call upon him to take action upon this important issue at this session of the house.


Walter Edward Harris: Mr. Speaker, at the moment I do not propose to debate the question with my hon. friend but, as he considers it to be a matter of some moment and as this is the time for the mention of so-called grievances, it would be appropriate for me to say that I shall be glad to consider the arguments he has made and to consider the principles which he says were acted upon in the United Kingdom. At the same time, of course, I will not say more than that the situation may well be entirely different. However, that would be only a matter of detail.
I appreciate the opening remarks about myself. It really does not matter whether the hon. member calls me genial, stubborn or one having a closed mind. I shall discharge my duty by considering what he said and will give him an answer on another occasion.


Ernest George Hansell: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to take much time, and I may say that I am speaking entirely extemporaneously.
I am wondering why the hon. member who introduced this subject confined his remarks particularly to the civil servants. I do not think he intended to necessarily. I think we can say that the financial policy of the government over the years has been of such a nature that people now retiring with pensions that were at the time of contributing equal in purchasing power to what they expected would give them a fair living, have depreciated considerably so that today the dollar value of the pension has seriously diminished. Now, that of course applies to all pensions, civil service or otherwise.
I know that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) perhaps is directly responsible for the civil servants of Canada but because of financial policies that have been pursued the minister is responsible to the entire population of Canada and, in respect to the matter under discussion, all people who may be living on pensions resulting from contributory schemes. I have met retired bank managers, particularly in the cities of Victoria and Vancouver, who had been paying into pension schemes inaugurated by the chartered banks years ago which were looked upon as being fairly healthy pension schemes. What has happened? Those men, honoured in their profession, are now having to live on a pittance. Why is that so? It is not because they do not draw the amount of pension that is due to them, but because

of the depreciation in the value of the dollar in terms of purchasing power.
Now, not only does that apply to bankers but it applies to any class of person who has been on a contributory pension scheme. In a previous session of parliament I once illustrated the point. I visualized a person going to the bank years ago and saving his dollars expecting in the years to come to be able to draw, out money which would be worth so much in purchasing power. I visualized this person in his old age going to the bank and drawing from his savings account perhaps all that he had there. On his way out of the bank he is held up by a robber. In the process a little scuffle takes place and the thug gets away with half the man's savings. Supposing that happened today in reality? What would you discover? You would find that the police would be on the track of the thug, attempting to run him down. If he were caught he would be hailed into court and sent to prison.
Well now, what is the difference? Today the same person who put his savings into the bank many years ago goes to the bank and draws out his savings. He finds that in terms of purchasing power his savings are worth only half what they were worth many years ago. What is the difference? The difference is only this, that the robber who held up the man at the bank was a crook and was sentenced to jail. In the case of the depreciation of purchasing power, it is a matter of the government pursuing a wrong policy that actually robbed the man of half his savings. Now, of course, I am not going to accuse the Minister of Finance or the government of being dishonest men. I would say that they are pursuing financial policies which, in themselves, are not honest. Until they can arrive at a policy whereby the purchasing power of our money is retained over the years, then we will always have this very aggravated situation of the depreciation of the value of one's savings, whether it is in the bank or whether it is put into a pension fund. The financial policy being pursued by the government now, in reality, is a steal-not that they have stolen money personally, not that they have been, in themselves, dishonest, because I think they are honourable men trying to pursue what they regard as honourable policies. But in reality the policies are dishonest by reason of the fact they filch from the people their purchasing power.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I need say no more. I do not believe the problem can be remedied merely by the Minister of Finance saying, "Well, we will increase the pensions because the cost of living has increased and of course we will tax the rest of the country

to pay the pensions." Now, that might be all right as a temporary thing but it does not get to the heart of the trouble. It does not get to the disease that is eating away the body. We must correct the financial policy of the country in order to stabilize our dollar so that its value does not fluctuate as it has over the years in terms of purchasing power. I do not believe there will be a solution found until a right financial policy is pursued that will get to the heart of the trouble.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell) has more or less confused the issue by bringing in the question of inflation and the depreciation of the dollar. If any monetary philosophy calculated to depreciate the value of the dollar was ever conceived before, it is certainly the philosophy of social credit. These people would have money printed in a way that would, in the words of Social Credit members, equate the money supply with production. It is that very thing that has caused the depreciation of the dollar in Canada. There is more money in circulation in relation to the amount of production than there was some 30 or 40 years ago or even 10 years ago. This, in itself, has caused the pensioner to be in an adverse position today.
I am not one who wishes on every occasion to support the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). I would think there would be more sincerity in his undertaking if he did not rise on almost every occasion to find some way of reducing the power of the government to raise money. Only recently the hon. member introduced a motion calling for certain reductions in the tax revenue by removing the 3 per cent floor on medical expenses. I am sure that either he has, or some members of his party have, already indicated that the income tax exemptions should be raised. That again would mean a loss to the federal treasury. Someone near me in this section of the house has calculated the additional money that would be required if we had undertaken all of the measures proposed by the C.C.F. party during this session. It runs into something over $1,500 million. The hon. member himself will not feel that I am being unfair when I say that I doubt somewhat the sincerity of his proposals.
The question that the hon. member raises at this time affects almost everyone on a fixed pension. Pensions that are based on contributions made ten, fifteen, twenty, or even thirty years ago are totally inadequate today and no one denies that fact. There is something entirely wrong with our pension
Superannuated Civil Servants' Pensions system that is based on contributions made in an economy such as ours where there is no absolute control such as the socialists would wish to have. It seems to me that if we were to follow the philosophy of the Social Credit party it would also mean almost absolute control of prices, wages and so forth. So long as we allow prices to fluctuate-and they do-pensions will not be satisfactory. When 1 say "fluctuate" it probably does not adequately describe what does take place in our economy because if we go back to 1900 we shall find that wages averaged around $2 a day. Even up to 1925 they were around $3 or $4 a day. When contributions are made on that basis the pensions cannot possibly be adequate. Wages are now running at $2 an hour, $15 and $16 a day, and in many instances up to $18 and $20 a day. Therefore, one can see the inadequacy of pensions provided both by the civil service and by industry on that basis. Pensions should be based on the cost of living at the retirement age. I know of many industries employing large groups that do favour that type of pension plan. The pensions paid are paid on a basis of length of service and on the highest last ten years' earnings or the last five years' earnings, whichever is the greater. That is a reality that should be faced. I am sure it is more important actually than paying $40 a month which hon. members across the way were so insistent was the requirement, $40 a month to people who might be earning $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 a year. They said that $40 a month must be paid to every one of those independent people. It does appear in our budget and creates the impression that a very large sum of money is being paid out. In reality it is returned even before it is paid out, but it does appear as a budgetary expense. For that reason it is very difficult to make an increase based on some millions of pensions.
Let me get back to the people who are living on a very low income; that is, on a pension based on earnings made some thirty or forty years ago. Certainly, it is very difficult to imagine how they sustain themselves. I am fairly well acquainted with two large companies that within the last few months have increased pensions to those who were retired prior to the rapid increase in wages and prices that has taken place since 1950. They have increased their pensions from a low figure of $1 to $50 a month, depending on the length of service of the pensioners and their earnings at that time. Perhaps we should face this question. But when facing it, it would be more appropriate for the members of the opposition to face the realities of the situation, namely, how are we to raise the money for

Superannuated Civil Servants' Pensions that purpose, and not on every occasion be faced with want of confidence motions which supporters of the government have to vote against. I refer to those very popular motions asking for a reduction in taxes here and there. Let us have a little more sincerity over this problem. Let us all face the facts truthfully and I am sure we shall be able to do better for everyone.


Mr. O. C. Trainor (Winnipeg South):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Finance whether the arguments put forward by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) on behalf of the pensioners do not apply with equal force to the holder of federal bonds, and if so whether or not those individuals are entitled to the same measure of relief as the pensioners? We have to be fair about this.


Colin Cameron: Mr. Speaker, I could not endorse more strongly the last words of the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Byrne) who said: Let us have a little honesty and sincerity in debate. I am not going to deal with his attempted slur on the sincerity of my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). I do not think it requires any comment at all. The comment when it does come-and I have no doubt it will come-will come quite strongly from that large body of civil service pensioners who for many years have been looking to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre to present their case to this house.
I speak with some considerable knowledge of the conditions in which many of these people are living today, because many of them live in the constituency that I represent. That is not surprising, since it is of course the most salubrious part of Canada. I hear mutterings from around me about that. Of course, it is an incontestable fact, otherwise retired civil servants would not come there in such large numbers. Seriously, though, many of them are living in very straitened and difficult circumstances. I must say I have been encouraged by the fact that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) gave us a much more encouraging reply and intimated that he was contemplating a study of this problem. Now he shakes his head and dashes all my hopes.


An hon. Member:: Make up your mind one way or another.


Colin Cameron: Well, that shows you on what crumbs of encouragement the opposition has to live and now the crumb has been snatched away from us by a shake of the ministerial head.


Stanley Howard Knowles: But the shake of his head is not on Hansard.
[Mr. Byrne.)


Colin Cameron: Nevertheless I do think, sir, that as the responsible body in Canada for the conduct of our affairs we in this house should very seriously consider the position in which many faithful servants of the Canadian people are left in their latter years. In my constituency I am continually coming across men and women up in years who are now forced to scrape and scrimp and just get by after years of service in the public service at what I think we will all agree are not particularly generous or extravagant salaries.
In fact, I think it is not too much to say that the salary rates of civil servants are to some extent based on the assumption of security of tenure and an adequate pension at retirement age. Owing to the reasons that many hon. members have stressed here tonight those pensions are now totally inadequate.
I remember some years ago in the provincial legislature of British Columbia we faced the same problem with regard to civil servants and to teachers who are not, of course, civil servants strictly speaking. It was decided at that time that, in spite of the actuarial arguments against increasing the pensions, some action had to be taken because many of these people were in desperate straits. At that time the provincial legislature did place in the superannuation funds governing the pensions of these people a large sum of money to increase pensions for those who had been pensioned some years before. In spite of the discouraging shake of the head just now I would urge the minister to consider seriously the plight of these people who have served so well and faithfully for many years.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the house ready for the question?



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Speaker, I am assuming that all those who wish to speak on the particular matter that is under discussion have spoken.
I should like to mention briefly another matter before the house votes on the question as to whether you can leave the chair. My grievance arises out of a subject matter that was discussed actively in the industrial relations committee last session while the Unemployment Insurance Act was under review. I am quite sure that if the Minister of Labour (Mr. Gregg) were in his seat at the moment he would recall this particular discussion quite well.
The subject matter of my grievance arises out of the fact that, in spite of that discussion

and in spite of the assurance that was given to us in committee by the Minister of Labour at that time, employees of hospitals throughout this country are still not able to secure the benefits of unemployment insurance in like manner with others in similar positions employed by other employers.
My understanding is that at the present time the only regulation which brings hospital employees under the coverage of the act is one affecting only casual employees. I have a letter which I received recently from the secretary of the hospital employees union in British Columbia which indicates to me that the non-medical employees of hospitals in British Columbia are covered only in the case of two hospitals where they have succeeded in negotiating with their employers and by consent they have been brought in under coverage of the hospital insurance act.
Last year when the Unemployment Insurance Act was under review I argued quite vigorously but unsuccessfully against the inclusion in the new act of a principle which as far as I can recall affects only hospital employees, employees of charitable institutions with the exception also of employees of the crown in right of the province, and that principle is that they can be brought under coverage only with the consent of the employer.
I objected most strenuously, as I say, to the continuance of that principle within the act and suggested that if the phrase had been changed to read, "on application of the employees," it would have been a much more equitable arrangement and would have been one which would have allowed employees in perhaps certain types of hospitals who did not wish to come in to remain outside the coverage of the act. Nevertheless the act was passed in that form but in the committee the Minister of Labour did state, as recorded on page 255 of the minutes of the committee, that the matter was under active consideration by the cabinet after having received the recommendation of the unemployment insurance commission and the unemployment insurance advisory commission.
This was a recommendation which would have brought in the entire list of employees which the Minister of Labour set forth as recorded on page 253 of the proceedings. This list of employees included:	clerks, stenographers, secretaries, bookkeepers, switchboard operators, laundry workers, stationary engineers, firemen and other power-house workers, carpenters, painters, electricians, plumbers and other building construction workers, porters, elevator operators, chauffeurs, drivers and other transport workers, gardeners and other ground maintenance
Unemployment Insurance-Hospital Workers workers, printers, machine operators and other craftsmen, and all categories of employees who normally come under the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act when employed by other employers.
In spite of what I felt to be the almost certain assurance when the committee rose last year, that long before this these employees would by regulation of the commission have been brought in under the coverage of the act, this has not been done. I rise at this time to express as a grievance the fact that as far as my knowledge goes such employees are still excluded from the benefits of the act.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the house ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it agreed that I do leave the chair?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Applewhaite in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES

[Stage Direction]
135. Departmental administration, $301,000.
Item stands.

[Stage Direction]
166. Departmental administration including annual contribution of $200 to the conference of commissioners on uniformity of legislation in Canada, $513,658.
Item stands.

[Stage Direction]
435. Departmental administration, $1,777,100.
Item stands.
Progress reported.

Stanley Howard Knowles: Better call it ten o'clock.


Walter Edward Harris: Mr. Speaker, I presume there is just time to take the division on the second reading of the bill with respect to shortterm credit but I fancy that that would not meet with the approval of all hon. members.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is an understatement if I have ever heard one.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Someone might move the adjournment of the debate and we would take a vote on that.


Walter Edward Harris: I think therefore we ought to rise now and we can discuss the bill tomorrow. I move that the house do now adjourn.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 9.52 p.m.

Question



ANSWER TO QUESTION

[Stage Direction]
The following answer, deposited with the Clerk of the house, is printed in the official report of debates pursuant to standing order 39:

Mr. Hodgson: 1.	What number of cattle and how much beef were imported into Canada in 1955?
2.	From what countries, and how much from each country?
3.	How much pork and pork products was imported into Canada in 1955?
4.	From what countries, and how much from each country?
Answer by: Mr. Howe (Port Arthur):
1 and 2. Canadian imports by countries, of cattle and beef, period January 1 to November 30, 1955:*
Livestock, n.o.p., cattle, goats, Cattle, pure bred	hogs, sheep and lambs
(mostly cattle)
Country	No. Value	No.	ValueUnited Kingdom ...	
204	$143,758	1	$	202United States	
1,189	656,391	19,901	460,	313Totals ...	
1,393	$800,149	19,902	$460,	515Beef and veal, fresh	Beef, canned	Beef,	pickledCountry	Lb.	Value	Lb.	Value	Lb.	ValueUnited Kingdom . ..	
12,856	$ 4,722	74,189	$ 20,751	-	-Australia	.. .. 55,989	12,245	8,397,798	2,632,747	2,320	311New Zealand 	
2,776,926	530,452	246,000	109,668	-	-Argentina 	. . . . 	-	3,383,256	1,120,123	-	-Denmark	. . . . 	-	10,623	7,474	-	-Netherlands 	. . . . 	-	281	205	-	-Alaska 	
100	59	-	-	-	-Ireland 	
224,000	56,448	360	159	-	-United States 	. .. . 2,354,887	818,441	12,626	8,437	11,009,074	1,872,284Totals ..	. . . . 5,424,758	$1,422,367	12,125,133	$3,899,564	11,011,394	$1,872,595
* Latest available.
3 and 4. Canadian imports by countries of pork and pork products, period January 1 to November 30, 1955:*
Bacon, hams,
Pork, fresh	shoulders and other pork, cured other than canned	Pork, barrelled, in brine	Pork dry saltedCountry	Lb.	Value	Lb.	Value	Lb. Value	Lb. ValueUnited Kingdom ... Australia 	
Alaska 	
United States 	. 3,244 . 66,445	$ 898 22,708	4,908 203 26,044	$ 1,975 128 20,426	Nil	NilTotals...	. 69,689	$23,606	31,155	$22,529	
Statistics on imports of other pork products are not available.
* Latest available.

Wednesday, February 22, 195G