1956-01-12

Mr. H. R. Argue (Assiniboia) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. 2, to amend the Interest Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



SMALL LOANS ACT

[Stage Direction]
amendment to provide for a reduction in

Hazen Robert Argue: for leave to introduce Bill No. 3, to amend the Small Loans Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



RAILWAY ACT


Mr. J. P. Deschalelets (Maisonneuve-Rosemonl) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. 4, to amend the Railway Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



PROVISION FOR GUARANTEE OF BANK LOANS TO PRODUCERS IN PRAIRIE PROVINCES, ETC.

Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide, by way of a guarantee for bank loans made on or after the 15th day of November, 1955, and before the 1st day of June, 1956, for shortterm credit to grain producers in the prairie provinces to meet temporary financial difficulties arising from inability to deliver their grain; to provide also that the governor in council may extend the application of the act to cover loans made before the 1st day of June, 1957; and to provide further that any amount paid to a bank under the act be paid out of the consolidated revenue fund.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Clarence Decatur Howe: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure for the payment of carrying costs of temporary wheat reserves owned by the Canadian wheat board in respect of board stocks of wheat in excess of one hundred and seventy-eight million bushels at the commencement of a crop year, such payment to be made to the board by the Minister of Finance out of the consolidated revenue fund.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. R. O. Campney (Minister of National Defence) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure respecting the Canadian forces to amend the Defence Services Pension Act to provide for uniformity of pension payments to former members of the forces pensioned as warrant officers or equivalent; also to amend the National Defence Act, inter alia, with respect to the code of service discipline and with respect to the payment of duties and tolls for the use of certain facilities.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. W. E. Harris (Minister of Finance) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Canadian Farm Loan Act to provide for a number of administrative changes under the act, inter alia, to reorganize the capital structure of the board by cancelling existing share stock and issuing new stock up to a par value of three million dollars; to allow loans to be made up to sixty-five per cent of the value of the lands with a maximum loan of fifteen thousand dollars; that there be only one reserve fund not exceeding an amount equal to the capital stock of the board;
And to provide further for the repayment of the capital advanced by the government to the

Proposed Legislation
board with respect to its operation under the Canadian Fisherman's Loan Act, less the deficit of the board on its operation under the act and the amount of outstanding loans.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. Milton F. Gregg (Minister of Labour) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide equal pay for female employees as compared with male employees of the same employer, for identical or substantially identical work in federal works, undertakings or businesses; and to provide further under the enforcement procedure for the appointment of referees who may be paid such allowances and expenses as may be approved by the treasury board.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Indian Act to provide for a number of changes in connection with the administration of the act; and to provide further that the Minister of Finance may from time to time advance to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration out of the consolidated revenue fund such sums of money as the minister may require for loans to Indians under section 69 of the act;
The total amount of outstanding advances under the said section not to exceed at any one time one million dollars in lieu of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars as at present.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In view of the continuing representations made by the western farm organizations, is the government giving reconsideration to the decision it previously made not to grant advances on farm-stored wheat?
(Mr. Harris.]


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker, the government's program for wheat is at present on the order paper. If any further measures are decided upon, they will also appear on the order paper.


John George Diefenbaker: So that means there are no advances.



SALES TO COMMUNIST COUNTRIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. G. Hansell (Macleod):: May I direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture? It is supplementary to the questions asked yesterday in respect of the sale of surplus butter. Would the minister care to lay on the table of the house the full text of the agreement or agreements in respect of the sale of that butter to those designated countries?


Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Minister of Agriculture):: There is no objection to that being done, Mr. Speaker.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister? In view of the serious and tragic loss of life in Canada this winter because of fires, mostly in substandard dwellings, will the minister discuss with his colleagues the possibility of a real speed-up in the government's housing program so these tragedies might not continue to occur?


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, we all, of course, have been sorrowfully impressed by the number of casualties that have occurred recently. I do not know whether or not they have occurred in substandard dwellings. I understand that official investigations are being conducted; also that the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation is implementing the provisions of that act just as expeditiously as possible. It is my understanding that 125,000 new dwelling units were completed last year and that the prospects for the coming year are for completion of an even larger number than that.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Has
the Minister of Veterans Affairs received representations from the Canadian Legion concerning arrangements for the provision of hospital insurance coverage in British Columbia for returning defence personnel and their dependents now denied it? If so, is consideration being given by the minister to the representations of the British Columbia command of the Canadian Legion?


Hon. Hugues Lapointe (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: The answer to the first part of the question is no. As to the second part, of course if representations are received they will get the consideration and action they always do, as the record shows.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Miss Margaret Aitken (York-Humber):: should like to address a question to the Prime Minister. Is it the government's intention to appoint a woman to the civil service commission?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: This matter has been under consideration, Mr. Speaker, and a decision had been reached in that connection but the person we desired to appoint felt she was not desirous of accepting the appointment and the matter is still under consideration because we would like to have a competent woman acting on the civil service commission.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Alistair Slewarl (Winnipeg North):: Has
the Secretary of State for External Affairs anything further to add to the answer he gave to my question yesterday concerning the shipment of Canadian aircraft to Egypt?


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: The matter is still under investigation but I should have thought my hon. friend would have been satisfied with the answer to his own question which he gave to the press after the sitting yesterday.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: I should like to address a question now to the Prime Minister. Can the right hon. gentleman inform 67509-3
Inquiries of the Ministry me when the right hand of the government will know what the left hand is doing?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: It is not within my knowledge that there is any right or left hand concerned in this matter at this time.



LIVESTOCK


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. A. Bryson (Humboldt-Melfori):: Can
the Minister of Agriculture assure the house that the present floor price on hogs will be maintained in 1956?


James Garfield Gardiner: The present floor price on hogs was set about two years ago, I think, Mr. Speaker, and when it is discontinued the government will announce the fact.
[Later: ]


Mr. E. G. McCullough (Moose Mountain):: I should like to direct to the Minister of Agriculture a question supplementary to that asked by the hon. member for Humboldt-Melfort. Can the minister state the floor price paid for hogs on the Winnipeg market?


James Garfield Gardiner: The floor price for grade A hogs on the Winnipeg market is $20.


Edward George McCullough: Then, Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a further supplementary question. I have here a receipt-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Edward George McCullough: -dated January 3, which indicates that a price of $18.85-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Will the hon. member be good enough to put his supplementary question?


Edward George McCullough: Yes. I should like to ask the minister whether he is aware that a price of $18.85 is being paid for grade A hogs on the Winnipeg market?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am quite satisfied no such price has been paid.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. R. Pearkes (Esquimalt-Saanich):: May I direct a question to the Minister of Transport? In view of the recent losses at sea on the west coast, will the minister augment the existing air-sea rescue service by the provision of helicopters for that work?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Hon. George C. Marler (Minister of Transport):: I believe that question ought to be directed to my colleague the Minister of National Defence, under whose department search and rescue in British Columbia comes.


George Randolph Pearkes: May I direct the question I asked the Minister of Transport to the Minister of National Defence?


Ralph Osborne Campney: Mr. Speaker, I have already noted the hon. member's question; but the provision of helicopters for any purpose is not as simple as a question and answer.



DISABLED PERSONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. S. Zaplifny (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the right hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare? In view of the fact that there is no reference in the speech from the throne to any proposed amendments to the Disabled Persons Act, would the minister care to indicate whether he is prepared to recommend amendments to that act during this session?


Hon. Paul Marlin (Minisler of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I would be most ungrateful if I did not at once acknowledge the tribute which my hon. friend paid me a few moments ago. I can say to him that I generally think I am right, and I hope I am always honourable, but I am not entitled to the designation involving these two words.
The question that my hon. friend asks is one that will be studied very carefully by a group of administrators of disability allowances from both the federal and provincial governments.



BLIND PERSONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare? What consideration is the government giving to the request of the blind organizations in Canada for a supplementary allowance to blind persons to help them to meet those special expenses which arise because of their blindness?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the right hon. gentleman, I would like tc.


say that the government of course is giving all representations of that character its most careful consideration.



MARITIME PROVINCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Carlyle Marler: Yesterday the hon. member for
Queens asked as to progress being made in re-establishing telegraphic communications in the maritime provinces.
The management of the Canadian National Railways advise that extra men have been assigned to the area and that rehabilitation work is being carried on around the clock. By Friday of this week the Canadian National hope conditions will be close to normal.
So far as any government telegraph lines are concerned, the department has had no reports of any failures in service.
I might add that the department does not receive reports from private telegraph companies.



SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Wednesday, January 11, consideration of the motion of Mrs. Shipley for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session.
Hon. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to extend my compliments to the mover (Mrs. Shipley) and the seconder (Mr. La-flamme) of the motion to adopt the speech from the throne. I do so with more than the customary formality because I have had earlier occasions to listen to the mover; and so far as the seconder is concerned, I very greatly welcome the opportunity to hear a young man in politics making a speech in this house for the first time.
I was particularly interested in the remarks made by the hon. member who moved the motion because at the time when in our earlier association she visited the parliament buildings in Toronto as the reeve of Teck township it seemed to me that we saw eye to eye on a great many things. I am a little inclined to think that today also we see eye to eye on a great many things, and probably on many subjects of importance, particularly in relation to the mining areas with which she has been associated and about which she has spoken so well, though we have a few differences of opinion. Whatever our thoughts

may be in that respect, I welcome the occasion when for the first time a lady member of this house has moved the adoption of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. I trust that in the years to come many opportunities will be presented to other ladies, and perhaps those now in this house, to move similar motions. Even with the assurance that hon. members opposite may have that this is a distant possibility, at any rate may I express the hope that in due course we shall see many more ladies taking their places in this house and contributing to the discussion of those special fields in which their knowledge is of such great value to all of us.
I hope also that the youth of the seconder of the motion (Mr. Laflamme) will offer encouragement to many young people to play their full part in our political affairs without waiting perhaps too long in the hope that with a greater maturity of years they may have more opportunities. As we look around this house we see many hon. members who have spent many years here. Apparently they have not suffered, but on the contrary they seem to have actually gained in health and friendship from their long association with other members in this chamber.
Today we are considering what is the government's statement of parliamentary business which was presented to us last Tuesday in the speech from the throne. My complimentary remarks end there. The speech from the throne, which is of course the speech of the government presented under our constitutional system by Her Majesty's representative, contains no single new statement which has not already been before the public except the announcement that it is the intention of the government to introduce legislation which will assure to those women employed in the government service equal pay for equal work.
Naturally we welcome this legislation and the government will be well aware why we do. We do this, not only because of the value of the legislation itself but because we have sought this legislation for several years. For three sessions the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mrs. Fairclough) had similar bills on the order paper. Granted, they were presented by a member of the opposition-and I suppose for that reason they were tainted to some extent in the minds of the government. But there have been occasions when the government has accepted bills put forward by members of the opposition. I recall one measure of considerable importance put forward by the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton) and later adopted by the government. I recall others which have been
67509-3J
The Address-Mr. Drew adopted. Therefore it is not sufficient simply to say that this was put forward by the opposition.
Three years ago when the bill came forward it did not reach a vote. On April 6, 1954, there was a division on the motion for second reading and we had a most gratifying example of independence, which I hope will be extended and enlarged, when twelve Liberal members supported the motion. All members of the government and the overwhelming majority of Liberal members voted against the motion. The same was true on February 15 last year. On the latter occasion eleven Liberal members voted with us on the bill, and every member of the government and all the other Liberal members against it. I mention this because it is naturally a matter of gratification to us that the government has adopted a measure which has been put forward and supported by the vigorous arguments of the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mrs. Fairclough) and other members; and I hope that in this case members on both sides will feel it is appropriate to congratulate the hon. member for Hamilton West on the adoption of the measure which she has sought to have placed on the statutes.
In addition to that one positive statement -a very gratifying statement-and the repetition of information already made public, there is very little but easy reassurances and uninformative platitudes. Surely, on a careful examination, no hon. member has been able to find any earlier speech from the throne which contained less information than this does.
After a few brief references to legislation which will be introduced to implement earlier public statements, we are told at the close of the speech from the throne that we shall be asked to consider the revision of two acts and the amendment of ten others. Is that the legislative program for this session? Or perhaps I should ask:	Is that as
far as the government has yet gone in deciding the legislative program for this session? If it is, then once again we shall find that it is not the form of the rules that determines the expedition of the business in the house; it is the way in which the business of the government is presented to this house.
Either the government has more information or they have come unprepared; or, on the other hand, they have information and have denied to us information which properly should have been included in the speech from the throne. It is surely appropriate that, no matter how brief the speech from the throne may be, it is intended to state the general legislative program of the government. It seems to me that, if there is

The Address-Mr. Drew further information, then it carries one stage further the disregard for this house which we have had occasion to mention at different times.
What about the Canada Council, which has been mentioned before in the speech from the throne? We have heard a good deal about that. This government has emphasized its belief in the commission report which presented that recommendation. Has the Canada Council been lost along with the Canada Medal? Certainly there is nothing to tell us what is to be done about this council, which many members have hoped might be able to implement in some measure those broad recommendations of the Massey report, in regard to which I think there is common agreement in this house.
What about a revision of our labour legislation? It will be recalled that we have been asking over and over again that effective steps be taken to review our labour legislation. It will be recalled that at a time when this house was brought together to meet a situation, with which the government dealt in a manner of which we did not approve, we emphasized then the need for a review of our labour legislation. We pointed out then and we have pointed out continually since then that as this country rapidly expands and our industrial development creates increased numbers of workers in this country a basis of harmony and of understanding and of the recognition of the rights in clearly defined terms of those who work in our many activities in Canada is an essential part of that good understanding, of that good fellowship which is a priceless part of the development of this Canadian democracy of ours.
We have had general assurances that this subject was being considered, but now when concern may be felt by many about the situation that could arise it is not too much to ask the government to take steps to carry out the recommendation that was made at that time and call together representatives of labour, of management and of the government, so that the greatly cherished rights of organized labour, the relationship of management to labour and the relationship of the public represented by the government may be explored and interpreted in satisfactory and desirable legislative terms. There is no reference to this in the speech from the throne.
Then again, what about the interesting question of the use of television? It is true reference is made to a commission that has been appointed; but, Mr. Speaker, this country must be almost unique on either side of the iron curtain. We have had television

broadcasting for several years in Canada and the Canadian people have yet to see the first political broadcast by any representative of any of the national parties. That same limitation has not been imposed upon provincial parties. In the provincial elections that have taken place the provincial parties have been given the right to use this medium of communication to convey their ideas in the ordinary use of free speech. We alone are denied that privilege. I do not know of any other country with television broadcasting today where political broadcasts are not available to representatives of the political parties.
The right to have those broadcasts has been requested. The right to have such broadcasts has been urged by the party I have the honour to lead and by the other parties on this side of the house. This is no longer something to be left in the hands of any government agency with the bland assurance that the government does not interfere with those agencies. If those agencies are not carrying out the processes of democracy, then it is the duty of the government with the support of parliament to take appropriate steps to assure that they will. The time is overdue for the same privileges that have been extended since the very first days of radio broadcasting to be carried into the field of television broadcasting. That is particularly true when we see that the C.B.C. television news finds so many occasions to report the activities of members of the government. I am not in any way challenging the wisdom of that, and I concede immediately that there are members of the opposition who have had similar opportunities. That, however, is not part of the process of the exchange of political ideas.
My understanding was that the very large sums of money that the parliament of Canada has been called upon to approve for the maintenance of these channels of communication had as their purpose, amongst other things, education. At a time when it is pointed out to us in the speech from the throne that there are other things than arms that count in preserving our democracy, I think we perhaps might suggest that one of the things that will help to preserve democracy is a knowledge of the political processes themselves. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I urge the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) to regard this as a subject of very real importance from the point of view of the continuance of our democratic processes and to take such appropriate steps with the concurrence of parliament as may be necessary to assure that broadcasts of this type will be available.
During the course of this debate, Mr. Speaker, there will be many vigorous criticisms of things that have been done. In recent

years there has been a tendency for some sensitiveness to be displayed when criticism is directed to the government with regard to public affairs. In fact, it is carried so far that it is almost regarded as improper to direct vigorous and strong criticism of action which in the opinion of those expressing their opinions may call for the strongest terms of criticism. I am not suggesting for a moment that the members of the government or hon. members of this house are not quite prepared to take their part in the exchange of ideas, but nevertheless I do recall, as many others will, occasions on which some evidence of dissatisfaction was expressed when criticism was directed to the government.
For that reason it seemed to me that there was a very special significance in the words of Her Majesty the Queen when in her Christmas broadcast she spoke of the great traditions of our democracy. Less than three weeks ago, speaking to the whole world over the radio, Queen Elizabeth used these words:
There are certain spiritual values which inspire all of us. We try to express them in our devotion to freedom, which means respect for the individual and equality before the law. Parliamentary government is also a part of this heritage. We believe in a conception of a government and opposition and the right to criticize and defend. All these things are part of the natural life of our free commonwealth.
When, Mr. Speaker, vigorous criticism may be directed against any action of this government let us remember that we have it on the highest authority that can express it that this in fact is the proper conception of our form of free government. As we direct vigorous criticism against the government-and we shall do so-we do so not merely for the sake of criticism itself but because we have already seen in this house the positive value of criticism. We have seen that criticism, maintained and carried forward with conviction and determination, produces results. May I say at the outset that it is not my intention today to move a detailed amendment. There are too many subjects to discuss for them to be included in one amendment. Moreover, His Honour the Speaker has indicated that if a specific subject is contained in an amendment which is voted down, we cannot later introduce that subject on a motion by way of amendment when we are going into supply nor may we bring it forward in any other manner. We regard the motions on going into supply as extremely important motions and we certainly do not intend to close the door to the introduction of positive motions which will call for an expression of opinion by the members of this house in regard to several of the extremely important
The Address-Mr. Drew issues that are now before us. We hope that hon. members opposite will welcome as much as will our own members the opportunity that will then be available to them to express the opinions that they have been expressing outside this house about some of these subjects.
I make that explanation now because we intend neither to make nor to be involved in detailed amendments which would foreclose the widest measure of debate at a later stage in this session when we are presented with the opportunity that is only then afforded to the opposition to frame its own motion, and to have a decision expressed by the house, in terms that we believe place the matter before the members in a manner clearly expressing the opinion of the members.
This speech from the throne comes before us at a time when we are in the midst of tremendously important events. Yet let us see what we are told about international affairs. This is what we are told in the speech from the throne:
Since you last met there have been significant international developments. Some of them have been welcome as releasing tensions in certain parts of the world while others unfortunately have had the contrary effect.
There we have a clear, explicit and positive statement that will immediately commend itself to the opinion of hon. members. The speech from the throne continues:
My ministers remain convinced of the need to maintain the defences of the free nations as a deterrent to war.
Yes; we have expressed that belief. The speech continues:
A strong North Atlantic Treaty Organization and adequate protection for this continent are in their view fundamental to the preservation of peace and the security of Canada.
Then the speech from the throne or the government's statement, as we might properly call it, says that there are other things than arms that must be considered in maintaining security, and reference is made to the extension of friendship and the part we can play in the extension of that friendship with other nations.
Mr. Speaker, even the most commendable effort at condensation must surely have found difficulty in producing such a meaningless statement in these troubled days. We are living during a period when the history of all mankind is being shaped by events of such compelling importance that the decision of this government, its policies and the attitude we are asked to support must surely be amongst the first considerations to be placed before us. Foreign policy, under our historic tradition, undoubtedly calls for consultation and conditional decisions which must from time to time be made on the spot by the representatives, ministerial and diplomatic,

The Address-Mr. Drew of any government. But in. the end the ultimate responsibility, under our system, is with parliament. In view of the fact that we are told so little in the speech from the throne, it would be difficult for us to know to what phase of foreign policy we should direct any remarks if we were to make those remarks in this debate. For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I ask the Prime Minister to permit a coherent and related debate on external affairs as a separate debate at an early date on an appropriate motion. If that course is followed, we then can hear from the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) a comprehensive review which will bring to us information gathered in an extended and, I hope, fruitful trip. We can also have an opportunity, without separation of the discussion, of discussing some of those statements of policy which have been made not merely in political statements but in fact have appeared in certain magazines and other publications and which perhaps may raise some question in the minds of people in other countries as to whether these are things decided upon by parliament itself.
Now that parliament meets I would hope that we may have a chance of discussing those things here so that not only within our own country but also within the partner nations which are associated with us in that great organization we describe as NATO it may be known what is in fact the expression of the representatives of the people of Canada on some of these subjects. With the shorter period that this debate will take, under the new rules, I hope that facilities may be afforded for such a debate. It need not take long but I am sure it is one that would be welcomed by all hon. members. In such a case it would also make it possible for many of the hon. members of this house to express, in regard to subjects of importance, certain opinions which we would hope might be helpful to the government. No matter how closely related to the speech from the throne -if that is possible-a debate of this kind might be, nevertheless it does not seem to afford the same opportunity to bring into focus the thoughts of the members with regard to these extremely important subjects. I think it would be particularly desired that such a discussion should take place before the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the Secretary of State visit Ottawa in February. I need hardly say that every hon. member in this house welcomes the prospect of seeing Sir Anthony Eden here for the first time in his new capacity. I would hope that it might be helpful to the government at the time of those discussions to have had a review of foreign affairs in this house where new

subjects, which have not as yet been brought forward, might perhaps be presented for consideration.
Then, I turn to the first subject that is dealt with by the speech from the throne after the reference to external affairs and the appointment of certain commissions. Anyone not living in Canada who read this speech from the throne at some distant point would be satisfied that today we are living under conditions so perfect that government intervention is hardly necessary in any case. Let us see what we are told.
Canada has enjoyed, on the whole, a high level of prosperity. Some sectors of the economy have not fully participated in this increased well-being. In particular, although sales of wheat in the past five years have been at record levels, an unprecedented series of bumper harvests has made necessary the storage of abnormal stocks of grain both in elevators and on farms. Lack of space in elevators has limited the ability of producers to deliver grain as early as usual in the marketing year.
Now, Mr. Speaker, that is what we are told about the sectors of the economy which have not fully participated in the general high level of prosperity to which reference is made. There is not a word about potatoes, not a word about apples, and not a word about many other farm products which are of immense concern to the farmers whose daily livelihood depends upon the marketing of those particular farm products. There is not a word, of course, about the problem of marketing butter. The right hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) nods his head. There is no worry so far as he is concerned. One might almost think there was no butter.
But, Mr. Speaker, there are many people who seem to be concerned about these things. They have been making representations to the government. The government is well aware of these problems. It would have helped if we had known what the government proposed to do in regard to the representations that have been made and whether we are or are not going to have some legislation before us to deal with these subjects. Why, Mr. Speaker, even with one ear the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Campney) must have heard some rumblings of discontent. No, Mr. Speaker, the government is not unaware of these representations. It would have been helpful if we had known. Of course, there is particular emphasis on that because the right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) today made it clear that if we are looking for the government's policy the only place we can look is in the speech from the throne. When he was asked today about the wheat policy, his reply was that the government's policy on wheat is at present on the order paper. Therefore, you have the whole policy; this is the whole story.

This certainly brings us to a discussion of a question which is of concern not merely to the wheat growers of western Canada but to every Canadian. It is of great concern to everyone who realizes the plight of the prairie farmers at this time. This is not just a question of a particularly bountiful crop. We are told that is all that has happened; we have had a bountiful crop. If that were all that had happened, we would not need to be greatly worried. But the truth is that we have been affected by other problems as well. Surely, the Minister of Trade and Commerce will not question that there are other problems when he has found it necessary on a number of occasions to complain about what are described as the give-away policies of the United States government.
Of course, it is difficult to tell what the position of the government really is. There is a right and a left. There is a right of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) and a left of the Prime Minister. The right hon. minister on the Prime Minister's right thinks that those sales are wrong, while the right hon. minister on the Prime Minister's left thinks they are right. In fact, he has told the dominion-provincial agricultural conference he is going to do even better when he gets a chance, and he has started to do it.


James Garfield Gardiner: We both agree on all of it.


George Alexander Drew: Perhaps the right hon. minister will define the part in regard to which there is some limitation in the difference of opinion between himself and the Minister of Trade and Commerce.


James Garfield Gardiner: We will do that in due course.


George Alexander Drew: Wheat sales are mentioned, and therefore in discussing the speech from the throne it is essential that we consider this whole question of wheat markets. The United States is not diminishing but is intensifying its drive to get rid of its surplus. This was re-emphasized in the clearest and most explicit terms this week by the President of the United States in his statement to congress.
Now, the Minister of Trade and Commerce has indicated that the government's whole policy is to be found in this limited statement that we have before us. What are we to be asked to do to meet the really serious situation confronting most of the prairie farmers at this time? We are to be asked to authorize the treasury to bear the cost, from August 1, 1955, of storage and interest charges on wheat held by the wheat board, over and above its normal carryover level. Just what does that mean? It is a most ambiguous statement, and I hope it will be clarified at the earliest possible moment. If it means anything worth
The Address-Mr. Drew while to tfie farmers then it should mean that the abnormal carryover and storage should be paid for by the treasury, according to this paragraph-whether the wheat was delivered to the elevator before or after August 1, 1955. Otherwise, the effect of this will be very limited indeed.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The farmers know what it means; don't you worry about that.


George Alexander Drew: No one, Mr. Speaker, will more readily give full credit to the common sense and intelligence of our farmers than I will. But if the farmers of this country are able to understand what this speech from the throne means, then they have a great deal more ability than most members of this house, and certainly than the members of the government who themselves do not understand what it means.
It should be pointed out that we are also being asked to authorize a guarantee in regard to certain farm loans. The guarantee has already been made. The proper course would have been to call this house together and not only to have placed the legislation before the house at that time, but to have offered an opportunity for hon. members to present their arguments to the government before they became committed to an unsatisfactory course, which has not met approval by the farmers. That would have been the wise, the satisfactory and the sensible parliamentary procedure. But no; this government simply regards parliament as a place to get the stamp put on afterwards. They said what they were going to do. They then promised the guarantees and counted on the fact that they would get appropriate support. Well, they will; but Mr. Speaker, I would hope that from within the ranks of the Liberal party would come some suggestion, privately if not publicly-if that is too much to hope for-that the government can go too far in taking for granted subsequent parliamentary support for decisions that should have been made by parliament. On this occasion, after extensive commitments have been made and presented to the public, they are brought to us for approval.
It is not a question whether we approve of this or whether we do not. There was a far better method. There were many things that should have been done.


An hon. Member:: What are they?


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, one of the hon. members opposite asks: What are they? Well, we at least have the admission of one hon. member that he does not know all the answers to this question.
The government has sought to create the impression that the plight of the prairie
40	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Drew farmer is really not so very serious after all. Statistics have been employed which seek to give the impression-and probably it did give the impression in other parts of Canada- that the prairie farmer really is not having too difficult a time. The statistics do not support that statement. The real statistics show a very different situation.
In the past three years there has been a sharp decline in farm income in western Canada which, if it had been repeated in other parts of our economy, would have spelled disaster for the whole of this country. Let us see what the figures are. In 1951 the farm income in western Canada, that is in the prairie provinces, was $1,127 million; in 1952, it was $1,082 million; in 1953, it was $884 million; in 1954, it was $376 million.
It would appear, Mr. Speaker, from the figures now available, that the returns for the current year will be even less. Of course, it is true we do not need to be reminded that the year 1951 was the peak revenue year. It would not be any answer to any industrial worker, if he told you that he had seen a drop in his income to one-third of what it was in 1951, to tell him that that was not really serious because 1951 had been an alltime peak up to that time. The fact is that in this human sphere people do gear their lives to the level of income, with some adjustment to that situation if they are wise and cautious; but surely it is not to be expected that within that length of time revenue would drop as it has in this case.
These figures tell why there should be cash advances to the prairie farmers for field-stored grain, and without further delay. The government never really intended that this system of farm loans should have any broad application to the problem. I think that was made perfectly clear on November 28 by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) in a speech he made in Calgary. These were his words:
It is my hope and belief that comparatively limited use will be made of the lending facilities, that most farmers are either in a position to carry on without borrowing, or are in a position to finance in the ordinary way.
Now, Mr. Speaker, that statement is not borne out by discussions with any representative groups of prairie farmers at this time. The system that has been adopted is open to many objections. These objections were pointed out right away. The banks are not in a position to carry out any system of cash payments. There was a perfectly simple method, and that was to make cash payments as advances on the quota book in the ordinary way in relation to a stated quota of the grain grown last year, and then to have the grain made deliverable upon


demand as soon as space became available in the elevators. No real difficulty presents itself in connection with that. The elevators are strategically situated to absorb the grain; the elevators have the staff to do the job. The elevators could have handled it satisfactorily under a system that would have been simple and that would have involved no serious difficulties of any kind. But in this case the minister responsible for the marketing of the grain says he believes that most farmers are in a position to finance in the ordinary way. Well, that is one reason why it is so necessary to discuss this subject. Surely that statement is adding insult to injury.
When times were good the government, with smug self-satisfaction, announced the cheques it was going to pay out. It did it with a flourish. When it was going to be a really big one, it did it as close to an election as possible. It did it with the proud boast also that this was because of its almost divine omniscience. Now, when things are tough, it washes its hands of the problem and turns it over to the banks. In turning it over to the banks it does not show the same consideration that it proposes to show to those who are interested in certain other types of activity in this country.
Another provision that we are going to be called upon to make calls for interest, I believe, of 3j per cent; but in this case the farmers must pay 5 per cent for the loans that are necessary and are guaranteed, remember, by this government. Surely, that is piling it on the farmer fairly hard. Even if there are any substantial advantages in these proposals that are made, it is just a case of giving with one hand and talking away with the other. The government cannot and must not evade its responsibilities in this situation. I hope that among hon. members of this house on both sides there will be freely expressed views which will indicate the belief that this is not merely of concern to the prairie farmer but is a matter which the members of this house, from coast to coast, recognize as a national problem.
Wheat marketing alone is not what is causing difficulty for the farmers. Deliveries of oats, barley and rye have been cut most severely by quotas, the reductions from last year's figures being 66 per cent of oats, 36 per cent of barley and 77 per cent of rye. Of our total deliverable grain about 15 per cent had been delivered by the end of November as compared with 32 per cent a year ago. Along with the figures I have given already this indicates something of the nature of the broad problem, the difficult and serious problem with which the prairie farmer is confronted at this time.

The problem is not only in regard to grain and wheat alone; nor is it only in regard to the failure of the government to market our products. One of the problems, a problem directly related to the subject under consideration, is the very large quantity of unused elevator space in western Canada at this time. The elevators are not full. That situation is related directly to any provision which is made and which assumes that they are. The figures are clear at this time that there is well over 100 million bushels of storage space empty in the elevators in western Canada, that more than 100 million bushels of elevator space could absorb very substantial quantities of the farm-stored grain, as good grain as we have grown in a great many years.
When there is storage space available for well over 100 million bushels, why is that space not being used? The government has the machinery. If that machinery is inadequate, let them present to this house whatever appropriate legislation is required and I feel sure that they will receive the support of hon. members of this house in regard to that situation.
I heard the question asked: what could be done? I have made certain proposals and I repeat them now. One: Provision should be made for immediate cash advances in the ordinary way on the quota book by the wheat board for farm-stored grain on a quota basis, making an initial payment thereon as if the wheat had been delivered to the elevator. The wheat would then be delivered on demand by the farmer as elevator space became available.
Two: Low-grade wheat now occupying elevator storage space while high-grade wheat cannot be stored should be sold for feed grain in Ontario, Quebec and abroad. This would provide elevator space for a good part of last year's high quality crop.
Three: The government should recruit topflight salesmen from Canadian business concerns who would plan an aggressive selling policy for Canadian wheat and give advice as to long-term selling policies.
Four: The government should refer the whole problem of the handling and sale of Canadian wheat and its relationship to the Canadian economy as a whole to the Gordon commission on Canada's economic prospects and ask for an early interim report as well as a more complete report later on.
Five: The government should take immediate steps to assure the full use of all elevator space.
This is not by any manner of means the first time that we have made proposals that
The Address-Mr. Drew cash should be advanced for farm-stored grain. On December 17, 1952 I had the following to say on behalf of our party:
In view of the fact that farm storage of grain is not normal in Canada under ordinary circumstances when line elevator storage is available, it does not appear desirable that legislation should be designed to encourage farm storage when satisfactory elevator storage is a practical possibility. On the other hand it now seems necessary, and urgently necessary, that something be done to make cash available to the farmers for farm-stored grain, if they are to meet their current debts and make the necessary arrangements for the next year's crop. That is the principle at issue.
That is what I had to say on the subject over three years ago. Then let me quote what is reported on page 27 of Hansard of November 24, 1952, where I had this to say:
The whole system of handling and distribution has broken down. The government, no matter what its explanation may be, has failed to take effective steps to provide for the handling of grain, in spite of the knowledge many months ago, and the warnings many months ago, that this situation was going to arise. In western Canada today there are many farmers, with huge quantities of wheat and other grains worth considerable sums of money, who are unable to get money at this time to cover their harvesting and living expenses because of their inability to deliver that grain to market.
This is a situation with which the government should deal immediately. It is urgent and calls for attention without delay.
The situation did ease off to some extent, but the basic factors were there more than three years ago when we urged immediate action to prepare to deal with this subject. But the government brushed those suggestions aside, as suggestions are being brushed aside now. I hope that hon. members on both sides of the house who come from western Canada and who are living in the middle of this situation will clearly interpret the situation to the house and to the members of the government who have not yet acted as though they recognized what the problem really was.
The situation today is urgent and it calls for attention without delay. The urgency is that much greater because of the failure of the government to act over the long period during which these requests for action have been made.
There is another aspect of the problem which should not be disregarded and I am making this statement now in the hope that we may achieve results. I am making the statement now in the hope that whether they do so publicly or privately-I would prefer publicly-hon. members opposite will indicate to the government how strongly they feel on this subject. Perhaps then we might find some bending on the part of the government. Perhaps even the right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe)

The Address-Mr. Drew would bow to the indicated views of hon. members as he did on an earlier occasion.
There is no hint in the speech from the throne as to what is going to be done in the future. It is not the present, it is what is going to be done in the future. We have the words of the right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce, "If you want to find out our wheat policy look at the speech from the throne."


Clarence Decatur Howe: I did not say
that.


George Alexander Drew: The order paper.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Why not say "the order paper" and then we will be together?


George Alexander Drew: I am assuming everyone is correctly interpreting what those words mean. The fact is that the only thing on the order paper that refers to this subject is the very speech to which reference has been made. Since we have that statement, this is the time not only to ask for action in regard to what has been grown but to point out the urgent need for a statement of policy by the government as to what is going to happen during the current year.
How can the farmers of western Canada plan for this year unless some statement is made? Not only is it necessary from the point of view of the future of the whole Canadian economy; it is vitally necessary for the farmers themselves so that they will not become further involved if nothing is going to be done. Anything less than a clear statement of policy covering the whole of the current year at this time is going to create frustration, confusion, hardship and even, conceivably, disaster.
The proposals now made by the government fall far short of meeting the situation. In fact, they suggest that the government intends to rely on the hope of a crop failure. What else is there, if this represents their whole policy? That is a grim prospect for our prairie farmers. The government seems to hope that a national emergency will be solved by a domestic disaster.
I am not suggesting that this is a simple problem. On the contrary, it has become an extremely difficult problem because of the failure of the government to adopt any positive and coherent policy. It has become more difficult still because of the fact that we live side by side with a great and friendly neighbour which finds it necessary in its own interests to follow a course that makes things still more difficult for us. But the facts are well known. What is needed is that the government grapple with these facts and come forward with some definite statement on what it intends to do.

Whether it agrees or does not agree with what the United States is doing, it knows what the United States is going to do. It would be desirable that we have a similarly clear statement. At least let us hope that the two ministers mainly concerned will reconcile their differences of opinion so that the government in this case may speak with one voice.
The Minister of Trade and Commerce may be the one who interprets the views of the government; the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) may be the one; but at least let us know which voice is the voice of the whole government in this case. Here is a glaring inconsistency in more than mere words. The Minister of Agriculture undoubtedly believes in something of this kind and he has acted on those beliefs. He has made arrangements for the sale of butter to communist governments at a loss of at least 25 cents a pound to the Canadian taxpayer. In doing that, he is doing the very thing the Minister of Trade and Commerce has been criticizing when it was done by the United States. As a result, the very friendly government of New Zealand has criticized this government for what it has done.


James Garfield Gardiner: No one in this government has ever criticized the United States for selling butter.


George Alexander Drew: The Minister of Agriculture wants to slide on butter alone. We were talking about policies in regard to handling farm products, and there is no difference between the way he is handling the sale of butter and some of the arrangements the United States government is making, which have been the subject of criticism by this government. When it comes to the question of farm products, there is no essential difference in principle between any of these products.
As far as this is concerned, we have another difficulty confronting us. At the time when the Minister of Agriculture tells us that we have no real surplus as soon as we dispose of 10 or 12 million pounds, we are told by the National Dairy Council of Canada, an organization which should know something about the facts, that there is a very large surplus. These are their own words:
With milk production running at an all-time high, it is estimated that the butter surplus exceeds domestic needs by some 65 million pounds.
Now, who is telling us the facts?


James Garfield Gardiner: Who is the dairy council?


George Alexander Drew: I hope the Minister of Agriculture will repeat that question to the national dairy council.


James Garfield Gardiner: I have repeated it many times.


George Alexander Drew: I hope he will, because one thing is certain, that in these conflicting statements somewhere or other a policy is emerging, whether it is there or here: "the truth if necessary, but not necessarily the truth." Which is the correct statement? Where are the facts? Surely inconsistencies can go too far. Surely there must be some limit. Of course, in the meantime the communist government of East Germany must remember words that were spoken long ago: "guns or butter". The East German government is in a better position; it has guns and butter. It gets the guns from Russia and the butter from us.
These are things in regard to which we should have clear and explicit statements and there should be a resolution of its own position by the government so that we may know what the facts are. One clear fact is that this government is drifting, is not dealing with problems, and is so self-satisfied under the impression that its large parliamentary majority, unrepresentative of the actual voting strength which supported it is a permanent thing on which it can count forever. It does not seem to be very much bothered with parliament or with the demands of those who are waiting upon it.
Granted that detailed policies may be difficult to state, surely we have a right to expect that, in regard to all these products, the policies will at least be understandable, whether it be with regard to wheat, coarse grains, butter, cheese, apples, potatoes or any other farm product, so that our farmers may not merely know what is going to happen in regard to what they have already produced but may know what plans they should make during this spring for the coming crop season.
There are, of course, difficulties in the way of meeting these demands, but before the end of the debate on the speech from the throne we might hope that the whole issue will be clarified.
The next subject of importance in the speech from the throne is the construction of the gas pipe line across northern Ontario. We are informed that legislation will be placed before us. Because of the time limit in the contract itself, it is to be hoped that that legislation will come before us very quickly after the termination of this debate. That will be the time when we shall know what the legislation is. That being so, I believe that the best time to debate this subject will be when we see the legislation and can relate our arguments to the legislative proposal 67509-4J
The Address-Mr. Drew which is actually before us. However, in the meantime I do wish to place before the Prime Minister a proposal which I hope he will approve and which I think would meet with the approval of members generally. It will be recalled that we made repeated and persistent efforts during the last session to find out what plans were under consideration. We found that impossible. Now we are told some details. We do not know yet what form the legislation will take, what features may be included in that legislation.
There is one very satisfactory way in which all bon. members could be adequately informed with regard to this vitally important subject. I ask the Prime Minister to appoint a select committee of the house representative of all parties which would begin immediately to inquire into the whole question. That committee should be given the power to call witnesses and to call for the production of documents. In that way the relevant evidence in regard to this vitally important subject could be made available in a very short time. We would then be in a position to deal with this tremendously important question with a knowledge that will not be in our possession if any other course is followed. I make this request in all earnestness hoping that the advisability of a committee of that kind under the circumstances will commend itself to the Prime Minister on this occasion.
I wish to deal now, Mr. Speaker, with a subject that is causing great concern throughout Canada and very naturally so because it relates to the whole question of the human structure of our country. There is no mention whatever in the speech from the throne of the extremely important subject of immigration. Certainly the figures of immigration in the last year were startling enough to call for some comment by the government and some indication of the course it proposes to follow. The figures of the last few years tell their story. The number of immigrants arriving annually was as follows:
Number
1951		 194,391
1952		 164,498
1953		 168,868
1954	 154,228
In contrast with that the total number arriving in the first nine months of 1955 was only 86,607. True, the government announced in the middle of December that there would be some assistance to immigrants under special conditions. Another announcement which we certainly welcome is the setting up of an appeal board which we hope will have some opportunity to deal with some of the unexplainable decisions of the officials of the department handling this very important question.

The Address-Mr. Drew
But the uncertainty of our immigration policy is part of the government uncertainty in a larger field. It relates to the whole question of development, of expected population, of the manner in which this country is going to grow. There are undoubtedly some people in Canada living in areas where growth is rapid who are unaware of the fact that there are many parts of Canada where growth has been stagnant for many years. A broad policy of development is something that we have urged in the house time and time again. We need co-operation in the development of our great power resources between the federal and provincial governments. Perhaps one hopeful thing about the announcement made in connection with the pipe line is that the federal government has now enunciated a policy which will surely prevent them at any future time from giving the answers they have to the government of New Brunswick in connection with the Beech-wood power project, to the government of Saskatchewan in connection with the South Saskatchewan dam and irrigation project, or in connection with some of the other projects in respect of which the provinces have sought the co-operation of the federal government. If the government is ready to join in this particular case it is difficult to see how it can withhold similar co-operation between the dominion and provincial governments in other cases where development might seem wise and advisable.
We have been urging the adoption of a development program for many years. At the same time we have urged the development of power and irrigation resources. Today we stand on the threshold of opportunities not dreamed of in the past. With the scientific devices made available under pressure of war and in the years since the war we now have made available to us in this country by discoveries within the past few years mineral and other resources beyond the dream of avarice. Today we can say without any reservation that if we employ the resources that God has placed at our disposal to the best advantage of our own people there are no people in the whole world today, no people anywhere, with greater opportunities for the future than we have here in our own country.
Decisions, however, still must be made. Reference has been made to our rapidly increasing exports. Yes, but much of that is in the form of raw materials which could be processed here. I hope no one will suggest that I have said that all our raw materials should be processed here. Everything of that kind is subject to the reasonable application of common-sense rules and legitimate selfinterest. I do believe it is in the legitimate

self-interest of the people of Canada that we should process our own raw materials here in Canada for the employment of Canadians to the greatest degree that is practical and possible.
To do that we need power. Plan the power as we encourage the development. Do not suggest there are no ways in which that encouragement can be given. One of them has been stated on different occasions, namely, to encourage our own industries in this country by proper tax provisions. At the moment there are many industrial and other developments in Canada that are at a disadvantage in relation to companies from the United States who are coming in here and doing business in competition with them. Certainly the least our people can expect is that they shall at least be dealt with equally in relation to competitors from outside our own country.
There are other devices. The first thing is to declare a policy. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the policy that produced our tremendous development in the forest industry business in this country is a policy that can be applied to our raw materials generally, and that it is then the duty of the government to take appropriate steps consistent with our democratic beliefs and our belief in free enterprise to make that development the best that it can be for the future of Canada.
There is a direct relationship between plans of that kind and immigration. That brings me to another committee. Several years ago the government set up a committee on manpower. It has not been heard of for a long time. It was a good committee. I suggest that along with plans for development and immigration this committee should be revived and that it should examine the whole question of the need of manpower for different fields of development. It can be estimated with reasonable relationship knowing that power produces industrial development, industrial development produces work and in turn industrial work produces payrolls which provide markets for the farmers so that we increase our own domestic markets by that very process. It is all one integrated problem. Let us have a revival of that committee. Let us have real plans for immigration, real plans for development and an examination of what those plans will produce in the way of new population requirements.
Mr. Speaker, we have been told that security does not depend upon arms alone. Certainly we all agree with that statement. One of the things to which it applies, I think, is the efficiency of government. Over and over again we have urged that the government take the appropriate steps to examine our

organization of government just as any big business would examine its own organization from time to time if it expected to remain solvent. The answer has been that this action would be an infringement upon the supremacy of parliament. That contention, of course, is disposed of completely by the way in which this government has been appointing commissions. It has appointed a commission to inquire into the economy of Canada. It is a very good commission and we shall look for fine things from it. But if that commission can be appointed, surely there can be no reason why a commission should not now be appointed to inquire into the organization of government.
There has not been a single report of any inquiry which has not shown some place where there could be an improvement. I therefore repeat my request to the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent)

and it is a request that I have made on many other occasions- that, consistent with the statement in the speech from the throne that there are other things than arms that are involved in the preservation of our security, this basic step will be taken to strengthen the efficiency of government and that he will announce that we may have a royal commission to inquire into the business organization of government and to advise on how this whole system which handles our public affairs can best be administered.
There are many reasons why this matter assumes compelling importance. Let me take one example. It has hardly been realized how fast the government's purchases of goods and services have been increasing in the past few years. When that sort of thing happens the need for examination appears in any business operation. Since 1947 the government's expenditure on goods and services has more than doubled. This fact is an indication of why we need an examination of this kind. Then let us take a look at the total taxation of all governments in Canada. In 1954 it had increased in proportion much more than had the national income. With all the burdens and sacrifices of war, in the peak year of 1944 the amount of our national income taken by all governments was 29 per cent. In 1954 it was 30 per cent. Surely that is a warning. We have often been told in the past that once total taxation collected was over 25 per cent of the national income, we had a real danger mark. The figure of 30 per cent has already been reached. This is the time for governments to examine in every way they can the possibility of economies of one kind and another.
Mr. Speaker, in this house last year we had a debate which showed that discussion and
The Address-Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent exchange of ideas can produce definite results. I am not in any doubt that the satisfactory outcome of that debate represented the efforts not only of the members on this side of the house, of the press and of the people of Canada generally but of many Liberal members opposite who expressed their opinions privately to the government on that occasion. I would hope that on this occasion similar requests will be made. I repeat that I would hope they would be made publicly. But whether they are made publicly or privately, I hope they will be made. I am sure that there are many hon. members opposite who support some of the ideas which I have placed before them. Certainly I am convinced that the representatives of rural constituencies in western Canada are not fully satisfied with what the government is doing on this occasion.
Let us hope for another example oi democracy in action. I do not for a moment suggest that I expect the Liberal members ol this house to vote for the short amendment that I shall present. However, I hope that in the process of democracy they will just the same present their arguments to produce results that would give a great deal of satisfaction to many members of this house and to many people throughout the whole ol Canada.
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) that the following be added to the address:
We respectfully represent that Your Excellency's advisers, by reason of their indifference, inertic and lack of leadership in the face of serious national problems and their disregard of the rights of parliament, are not entitled to the confidence ol this house.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, like the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew), I too at the outset should like to extend my warm congratulations to the mover (Mrs. Shipley) and the seconder (Mr. Laflamme) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. I am sure that both hon. members were somewhat conscious of a special responsibility when they spoke yesterday. The hon. member for Timiskaming (Mrs. Shipley) was making history in being the first woman in this house to move the address and the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Laflamme) was making his first speech in parliament. I am confident that all hon. members will agree that, notwithstanding those circumstances, both hon, members discharged their duty in a manner which gives assurance of further able and conscientious contributions to the conduct to the work of parliament.
Before her election to parliament in 1953 the hon. member for Timiskaming had acquired considerable experience in public life which began in 1939 on her election as
46	HOUSE OF
The Address-Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent a public school trustee. That success led, three years later, to a seat in the council of the township of Teck. During two years as a councillor the hon. member served the electorate so much to their satisfaction that they made her reeve and kept her in that office for nine years. It was not really surprising that her municipal services and her energetic work with the children's aid society, the hospital board, and many other organizations should have led the electors of Timiskaming in 1953 to consider that she would be a worthy representative of their interests in the House of Commons.
Since coming to Ottawa there has been no diminution in the public-spirited endeavours for which the hon. member had become so noted. She has worked diligently on behalf of her constituency, showing, as the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) has said, a special interest in the gold mining community of northern Ontario, of which Timiskaming is such an important part. She has applied intelligently and diligently in the house and in the committees the experience she gained in the municipal and social welfare fields.
(Translation) ;
The hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Laflamme) has made an auspicious debut in this house. He has demonstrated the concern which a young lawyer, born into a family of farmers, feels for the welfare of his constituents most of whom belong to the agricultural class.
In spite of his youth, the new member, who has been practising his profession for a little over three years, has taken an interest in public matters for a great many years. The fact that he now sits among us means that ihe people of Bellechasse have judged that his talents and training were such as to ensure that he would make a fine member of parliament. I do feel confident that the electors of Bellechasse who had been enjoying ;he competence and devotion of his pre-lecessor for the past 15 years, will know, from reading their new member's speech, that ;hey have chosen a worthy member to look ifter their interests.
(Text):
Now, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition told us that there was going to be rigorous criticism directed against the gov-irnment during this session. I can assure lim that we will be prepared to meet that iriticism and that we will hope to continue o find it is intended to be constructive criti-:ism and not merely made for the purpose uggested in one of the newspapers I read 'esterday, that there should be a lot of iron n the debates of this house as well as search-


ing and vigorous inquiry. We are prepared to have as vigorous and searching inquiry as possible directed against any of our activities, because we feel that the more these things are known and publicized the better they will redound to our own credit.
The Leader of the Opposition said that there was not very much new in the speech from the throne, that most of the matters that were dealt with there had become known earlier. I believe we have all been in Ottawa long enough to realize that anything that gets serious consideration anywhere does not remain new very long. The ladies and gentlemen who occupy the press gallery have ways known to them of obtaining information which they do not hesitate to communicate to the readers of their newspapers as soon as they can get the slightest inkling about what is apt to happen. I do not consider it a very serious reproach to have been unable to have in the speech from the throne any "scoops" that had not been already scooped up by these representatives of the fourth estate.
The hon. gentleman made one exception, and that was in respect of the announcement on behalf of the government of the introduction of a bill requiring that equal pay be accorded to women in all industries under federal control if the work were equal to that for which the men were receiving a given pay. He suggested that this had been a subject of discussion in the house for the last three years, and that is quite true. But these matters all progress, and I think that the recognition that is continuously being given to the place women now occupy in the professional, and even industrial life of our community, has been reasonably rapid and rather satisfactory. Now, this is a matter upon which opinions have gradually come to take a shape to which we were able to give expression in the speech from the throne. I would expect my colleague the Minister of Labour (Mr. Gregg) would not have very much difficulty with the principle of his bill when it comes before the house for consideration.
The hon. gentleman has said that the speech is very uninformative about the legislation that is being planned by the government. I can assure the hon. gentleman we have included in that speech all the matters that have been decided upon for presentation to parliament at this time. Of course, we cannot give any assurance that there will not be developments in the course of the session that will require other legislation. I feel it is not realistic to say that we are merely proposing the revision of two acts and the amendment of ten other acts. There is a long list of important legislation described in the speech from the throne before one comes to those two paragraphs which group

The Address-Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent
together the acts to be revised and the acts to be amended.
The hon. gentleman has specifically referred to some of them. One of the most important is, as is always the case in every session of parliament, the provision of the services required to carry on the business of the country and a careful examination of the manner in which the moneys that have been appropriated are disposed of in the fulfilment of the obligations that Canadians put on their elected representatives in this House of Commons.
The hon. gentleman does not find it very illuminating to say there have been some developments in the international field that lessened the tensions in some parts of the world, and that they were warmly welcomed, but that there have been others that have had a contrary effect and which still make it necessary for this nation to do its part with its associates in further extending and maintaining the strength of the free nations as a deterrent to war.
I am not going to dwell upon the almost unimaginable situation that war would now create with those tremendously destructive engines of war that we now know are available and capable of producing perhaps irreparable chaos if used in warfare on this terrestrial globe. I do not think they will be used. I have confidence in the future, and I do not believe that humanity could be so insensible as to resort to the use of those terrible engines of warfare. Nevertheless we have to continue to do our part to maintain that balance which creates a situation where no one could expect that by aggression he would initiate something that would not be as disastrous for himself as for those against whom it was directed.
This means that a very substantial portion of the appropriations made by parliament for the whole of the public services of the Canadian people still has to be devoted to the building up and maintenance of that armed strength. That does put limits upon the part of the income that can be taken by taxation from the Canadian people and that can be devoted to other much more agreeable objectives than to the maintenance of armaments.
The hon. gentleman has noted that there is no reference to the Canada Council in the speech from the throne. The matter was again given careful consideration when the speech from the throne was being prepared, and we came to the conclusion that this was not the opportune time to bring that legislation before parliament. Unless the situation changes somewhat materially between now and the end of the session I do not expect to bring that kind of measure before parliament at this session.
The hon. gentleman has referred to the fact that there is not, in his view, wide enough use being made of television in this country to enlighten the Canadian public upon matters of public policy. Well, personally I am older than the Leader of the Opposition. I am probably more old-fashioned than is the Leader of the Opposition, but I must confess that I have never been too favourably impressed by some of the so-called political television broadcasts that have come from countries where it is used to a very considerable degree. I think it has a place, as have all of these modern inventions, in the dissemination of information; but one of the matters that has to be constantly considered is whether or not it is being used in a manner that is really conducive to a proper and dignified conduct of partisan propaganda.
I think the televising of the opening of parliament has been done without any impairment of the solemnity and dignity of the ceremony, and that it is something that is of interest, and should be of interest, to a very large number of Canadian people who would not have the opportunity of getting the same impression from newspaper reports as they can get from seeing it televised. I can assure the hon. gentleman that there is not going to be any obstacle to the use of television for any legitimate purposes. There may be some question as to how much time provided at public expense should be made available to political parties for those purposes. That is something that will have to be balanced against what its real, educational and informative value can be to the Canadian public.
The matter with which the hon. gentleman dealt at considerable length was the wheat situation as it now exists in this country. The hon. gentleman knows it is part of a situation which is pretty widespread throughout the world. For the last several years there has been more wheat produced and available for export from the four large exporting countries than the importing countries will absorb, and there have been methods adopted in countries which are or were importing countries to foster and promote, at even greater cost, the production of wheat on their own lands. That is a situation that has to be faced as a fact.
The hon. gentleman has said that there is available space in the elevators for 100 million bushels. There is some space available in the elevators at the lakehead; there is some space available in the elevators on the Pacific coast, because there has been serious difficulty in getting box cars to move the grain from point to point. I asked my

The Address-Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent colleague the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) about the hon. gentleman's estimate of the available capacity. His opinion is that it is not half the figure mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition. But even if it is not, that is too much, and there has been pressure put upon the railways to make available all the facilities possible for moving grain into the elevators and moving it from the elevators to the shipping points, and there will continue to be those continuous efforts.
There are some people who believe, as does the hon. gentleman, that it would have been proper for the wheat board to make cash advances against grain on the farm. That proposal was considered and the conclusion we arrived at was that it would not be practicable to ask the wheat board, which had not been created for that purpose, to undertake that additional duty.
The hon. gentleman referred to the proposal for storage charges on the excess over the normal carryover. A resolution dealing with this matter has been placed on the order paper and the matter will be gone into quite fully when the bill is before the house. He has perhaps noticed that it is to be the carrying costs of the reserves owned by the Canadian wheat board in respect of board stocks of wheat in excess of 178 million bushels at the commencement of a crop year. That is the time when the calculation will be made as to the quantity to which the recommendation for payment out of treasury funds would apply.
The hon. gentleman spoke of the advisability of recruiting a staff of top-flight salesmen to promote the disposal of the Canadian crop. There are top-flight salesmen connected with the wheat board, and they have been visiting all the traditional wheat importing countries. It is well known that, with the exception of the United Kingdom, importations are not made by the trade but are made under and through government agencies. In all the countries where there was any possibility of finding markets for Canadian wheat there are trade commissioners who have been playing a very active role.
I am told that since the end of November the sales that have been made are greatly in excess of those made in the previous year. That does not apply to deliveries made within that period, because deliveries have been conditioned upon the transportation facilities, which have been used to the extent of their availability.
The hon. gentleman spoke about the development of power and the use of natural resources. Of course all power resources as well as raw materials that can be taken

from soil which is still public property are the property of the provinces. The question as to whether or not there should be joint undertakings by the federal government and the provincial governments for the development of resources within the provinces is a matter which also is conditioned upon the availability of funds that can be devoted to such purposes.
The past year was an active one in the development of our relations with the provincial governments. We had several major conferences with the leaders of the provincial governments, and have made considerable progress in developing new patterns of cooperation. Hon. members will be familiar with the preliminary conference which we held in April last to consider the scope and the agenda for our main conference in October. At this preliminary conference the federal government placed before the provincial representatives certain suggestions for action in providing assistance to unemployed persons in need. It was agreed that we should have a special conference on that during the summer. Following detailed discussions between the officials on the facts and figures, we had that special conference on unemployment assistance in June, and I reported to the house immediately on the results of this meeting.
In October we had another full conference on the subjects decided upon at the April meeting. It consisted of an opening plenary session at which the head of each government made a prepared statement, followed by a series of committee meetings in camera at which detailed discussion took place upon the various subjects. A statement was then issued at the end of the meetings describing what had been done in committee.
The conference established a committee of ministers to consider in more detail the subject of health insurance, to which preliminary consideration had been given by the conference itself. This committee met during that week and determined the general nature of the approach it would make to the subject. It will be meeting again later this month under the chairmanship of the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin).
The conference decided also to establish a continuing committee of federal and provincial officials which is to meet from time to time to exchange information and examine technical problems in the field of federal-provincial fiscal and economic relations. The deputy minister of finance was designated to represent the federal government on this committee, and the provincial premiers have all designated senior officials of their services to be their members. The committee will not

take collective action, but each of its members will report to his own government on the subjects discussed.
It was agreed also at the conference that a meeting of the ministers concerned with highway matters would be held to consider the steps which should be taken to continue the work of the trans-Canada highway. The Minister of Public Works (Mr. Winters) convened this meeting in November, and the government will be introducing legislation to accelerate the completion of essential links in this highway and to continue general work on it elsewhere up to the agreed standards.
In addition to these conferences we have had several discussions between individual federal and provincial ministers from time to time, and between officials of our various governments. There has also been some correspondence on the matters which have been discussed at our meetings. These have all contributed to the working out of the matters that were of such concern to us all.
Before speaking of these individual matters I should like to indicate my colleagues' and my own appreciation for the friendly and co-operative spirit in which the provincial governments participated in all these discussions this year. Naturally there have been differences of opinion, and indeed differences of philosophy and approach to the various problems, but such differences are only to be expected. What is important is that there was evidently a genuine desire to make our complicated federal system of government work as effectively as possible and to respect the responsibilities of the other governments in our confederation for carrying on with their part of our various Canadian problems.
I think much was gained in understanding both between the federal and provincial governments and among the various provincial governments themselves, in addition to what we gained in the progress made on the substance of our discussions. My colleagues and I fully recognize the magnitude and the importance of the problems which the growth and development of this country have created for the provincial governments, and we bear this in mind in making our recommendations about our relations with those governments. On the other hand I believe that they now have a better appreciation of the magnitude of the social security obligations which the federal government has undertaken, as well as an appreciation of the continuing burdens of defence.
There were four main subjects of discussion with the provinces over this period. The question of fiscal relations is, of course, the key problem upon the solution of which depends the approaches that may be made to many of
The Address-Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent the others. There were also the problems of unemployment insurance, health insurance, public investment and natural resource development.
Speaking on behalf of the federal government I outlined a number of the programs it has followed in the field of public investment since the end of the war. They were tempered, of course, by the overriding needs of defence, by the need for restraint because of the dangers of inflation, and by our desire to postpone what could reasonably be postponed so that it would not compete with the high level of private investment.
I also outlined many of the programs we have undertaken, jointly or in co-operation with the provinces, in various fields, and I shall not endeavour to recapitulate them here, as they may be found in outline in the printed proceedings of the conferences held in October and in April last. However, I think I should report to parliament what I said about our approach to the problems.
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. In general, we did not see any need to share in the normal costs of growth of provinces and municipalities. The financing of this growth presented problems, but they did not seem to us to require a federal solution.
In the vitally important field of fiscal arrangements, we have developed during the past year a new approach. We think this approach can become the basis of durable arrangements appropriate to a period of peacetime growth, as distinct from the wartime period and the immediate post-war period in which our present agreements were developed.
Our central fiscal problem in this period of great development arises fundamentally from the fact that the public now expects both levels of government to do things which require substantial expenditures. As I told the provincial representatives in October:
The people expect and demand-and are willinf In the last analysis to pay lor-some basic minimurr of public services in all parts of Canada. With this added to the cost of war, both levels of government have been forced into more and mor< intensive occupation of the various fields of taxation. We have both had to use the field of direc' taxation, which the fathers of confederatior thought would be so unpopular that we could botl be trusted in it with little risk of friction. W< have also occupied jointly what used to be con sidered parts of the field of indirect taxes, whicl the provinces have learned to cultivate with somi legal and administrative ingenuity. We have no protested this, and indeed indicated in 1950 ou

The Address-Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent
willingness to concur in a constitutional amendment that would regularize-if it needs regularization-and facilitate provincial sales taxes that do not offend against the sensible purpose which the fathers of confederation had in mind.
I went on to say:
Our present problem is twofold; to achieve some method of sharing the revenue available from the direct tax field, and some reasonable degree of equity and stability in the revenue of the various provinces. The latter involves some recognition of the fiscal need of those provinces whose tax potential is less than others, some payment of subsidies in one form or another. There is nothing repugnant to the spirit or the letter of our constitution in this; the original British North America Act provided what were then substantial subsidies and recognized fiscal need. Throughout our history the forces of economics and geography have been tempered by some measure of national consciousness and solidarity. But this process requires judgment and discretion and due regard to the interest of the nation as a whole.
We discussed the tax rental agreements and, for our part, asserted that they had accomplished most of their objectives with a considerable measure of success. By means of them we have achieved a good deal of elimination of duplication of direct taxes and simplification of our tax laws. There is no doubt that the agreements have provided more stability to provincial budgets than they otherwise would have had. They have given an assurance of growth in revenues in proportion to populations and the gross national product. While the need to use these direct taxes as a means of stabilizing employment levels has been less than was thought might be the case, we have had to use them to temper inflation and to meet the urgent needs for funds required for the emergency of Korea and for the NATO defence programs.
I mention these things because they are a part of the legislative program that will have to be considered by this house, and because I tabled in the house yesterday the proposal that has been submitted to the provincial governments.
The payments under the tax rental agreements have included fairly large elements of subsidy to provinces whose tax capacity was not high, and these have enabled such provinces to establish and maintain standards of public services more nearly approaching those of the wealthier provinces than would otherwise have been possible.
Of course it is an understatement to say that the agreements have not found enthusiastic support everywhere, even among all those who signed them. One provincial government felt that they were inconsistent in principle with the spirit of our constitution, and was therefore unwilling to share in whatever benefits they might provide. The premier of another of the largest provinces, in signing the agreement, stated that it was 
at best a stopgap and should be replaced by a more satisfactory distribution of revenue sources. Others thought there should be a more explicit recognition of fiscal need.
As has been stated many times in this house, the government has never contended that these agreements were a final or perfect answer to the problems in our fiscal relationships. We have been prepared to see them modified, improved, or superseded by something better, if it could be found. We think we have found a means of modifying and supplementing the agreements in such a manner as to enable them to accomplish our essential objectives more effectively and avoid some of the dangers and difficulties that were inherent in the plan underlying the existing agreements, supplemented as they are by the abatements provided in our tax laws for taxes in provinces without agreements. It was the essential principles of this new plan which we discussed with the provinces last fall and which are embodied in the proposal made to them at the end of last week in letters, copies of which I tabled in the house yesterday.
We feel that the time has now come when the equalization aspect that was sought in our tax rental agreements can be secured separately and clearly. I am taking some little time to explain the probable effect of this new plan. It provides for an equalization of revenues derived from the three direct tax fields that were involved in the tax rental agreements.
The first fact we have to recognize is that the various provincial governments have at their disposal very different degrees and types of tax potentials. The second fact is that while the costs of providing required provincial services are not the same in every province, these costs do not vary as greatly as the tax potentials. The third fact is that the development of large-scale enterprises operating on a nation-wide basis has meant that the distribution of the higher income brackets and the larger volumes of corporate profits is not even as between provinces but shows a heavy concentration in those provinces containing our large metropolitan centres. This has meant that large amounts of income and profits which are in a sense partly earned in several provinces throughout the country can be effectively taxed only in one province.
Most federal countries are faced with this problem, and a number of systems have been devised to meet it. In examining the question of fiscal need it has seemed to us that a system applying a kind of provincial means test such as is used in some federal countries

would not be acceptable or workable in a country with our history and traditions. We want something more objective than a provincial means test.
After examining many possible plans we came to the conclusion that the most generally acceptable means of bridging this gap in Canada between the costs of essential provincial services and the wide variations in the tax potentials available to the provincial governments would be to develop a pattern of tax equalization payments from the federal to the provincial governments.
What we have proposed is a series of unconditional annual payments to the provincial governments which would supplement the yield of certain standard rates of tax applied to the incomes, profits and inheritances or successions in a province so as to bring this yield up to the yield of such rates in the wealthier provinces.
This matter was discussed and illustrated at our October meeting. We received representations following that meeting and gave them very careful consideration, and we have recently forwarded to all the provincial premiers a definite proposal. We will expect to receive their views with respect to this proposal, and we expect that there will have to be legislation to provide for this plan being implemented.
There will also be legislation dealing with most of the matters referred to by the Leader of the Opposition in his speech. With respect to his suggestion as to the pipe line, for instance, the appropriate time to explain the government's policy in that regard and the reasons for that policy will be when the legislation is brought before the house. The same will be true with respect to the proposed legislation to deal with the wheat situation in the prairie provinces.
I may say that, as set forth in the communique that was issued after the October conference, we stated that we would give careful consideration to any special project for the development of resources that any provincial government might wish to have us consider. The hon. gentleman has suggested that some day there will have to be some general policy of co-operative development of natural resources between the federal and the provincial governments. That is probably inevitable, but there are provinces that are very jealous of their responsibility and right to control in their own way the development of their own resources. The federal government, deriving its funds from taxation of the whole population of the country, has to be careful that any recommendation it brings to parliament for the application of those
The Address-Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent funds raised from general taxation throughout the country is equitable to all the provinces.
There is one thing, I think, that has been developing as rapidly as has our industrial expansion. That is the spirit of national unity in this country. We are becoming a Canadian nation, and we have to be very cautious that we do not attempt to move too rapidly and that all the moves that are made are conducive to the growth and development of that national consciousness and that spirit of solidarity between our people from one ocean to the other. It is against that background that all our proposals that can have any bearing or effect upon the growth of that national consciousness are developed and implemented.
The hon. gentleman referred to other matters that he has suggested at previous times, and that will probably be debated again at other times. 1 know that for many years he has been suggesting that if Mr. Hoover would only come over here and preside over a commission to investigate the effectiveness of our forms of government administration it might be very helpful to the Canadian people.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I know the Prime Minister has made that remark lightly but I would not wish Hansard to carry the recorded statement that I had suggested that Mr. Hoover be brought here. I never have and I never would. I believe we are fully competent to deal with our own affairs.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I used tbait name, Mr. Speaker, because Mr. Hoover did preside over the kind of commission in the United States thart has been suggested here. I did not use it to designate the former president of the United States as an individual but merely as an illustrious example of the kind of chairmanship the Leader of the Opposition had in mind for that kind of commission in our own country. But we now have a commission, which the hon. gentleman has qualified as a very good commission, investigating the economic prospects of the Canadian people. The chairman of that commission has in the past also given us valuable assistance in special examinations into the efficiency of certain branches of the Canadian administration. It may be that when this work he is now on is terminated he will be available for further service to the public. I know of few as public-spirited Canadians in our population willing to devote so much time to the service of their fellow citizens.
In spite of all the problems that face us at the present time I am confident that, as in the past, ways and means will be found to overcome them which will keep this country
52	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Coldwell what many times in the past it has been described to be, and as I hope it will be described many times in the future, one of the bright spots in the world in which to work and to contribute to human progress.


Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Roselown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I want to join with the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) in congratulating the mover and the seconder of the address to His Excellency. I think it was peculiarly fitting that a lady should have been selected to move the address on this occasion, particularly as the one piece of new information in the speech from the throne was that as far as the federal authority was concerned, henceforth women who were doing the same work as men should receive the same remuneration.
I noted that the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister spoke of the efforts that have been made to secure that end in this house over the last three or four years. I think they overlooked this fact. I have been here for 20 years, and all of the ladies who have sat in this house over that period and long before I came-one, for example, was Agnes Macphail-urged on the government of Canada the adoption of this particular policy. On this occasion I do not think the work that was done by other ladies in former years should be overlooked by the house.
As one examines the many areas in which the speech from the throne has failed to deal effectively with issues confronting Canada, there is no conclusion to which one can come, in my opinion, other than that this government should be brought not only before the bar of this house but before the bar of public opinion as being not only bankrupt in ideas in many respects but bankrupt in policy.
I cannot deal with all the matters with which I should like to deal, including, for example, a national health program. I shall therefore have to confine myself to just a few of the matters that I think concern the house and the country.
A moment ago I referred to the government as being bankrupt in policy. Nowhere is this bankruptcy more clearly indicated than by the manner in which the government has failed to bring down a policy which will meet the needs of the farmers, particularly the western farmers, in the desperate cash position in which they find themselves at the present time. In spite of the fact that an abundant crop had been harvested in western Canada-and incidentally it is a crop that is of very fine quality-the virtual breakdown in the distribution of that crop from the producer to the consumer means that the


of 1944, and certainly explains why the average Canadian does not feel as prosperous as the government says he is. Indeed, it portrays an average annual increase in per capita gross national product of only one-tenth of one per cent over 1944. which in view of the increase in productivity year by year by an estimated 2-5 per cent is to say the least an astonishing reflection on federal government policies. Of course there was full employment in 1944 and this year, in spite of buoyant conditions in many industries and the enormous increase in the profits of many great corporations, there were still 230,000 unplaced applicants as at November 17, 1955, the latest estimate. It is true that is substantially lower than last year, but it is still much higher than human needs justify.
Now, year by year it is clear, some years more than others, that we bear the cost of this failure to plan consciously for full employment in the only way in which it can be done over the years, by the consistent application of a program of public investment and public planning, based upon the need for tremendous expenditures on highways, schools, hospitals and other forms of social investment.
This afternoon I paid particular attention to one of the closing paragraphs of the Prime Minister's address. He said the time might come when the federal government and the provinces co-operatively would have to play a bigger part in the development of our resources. I was glad to hear him say that because I believe the time has come when that should be undertaken; when through a public investment board, perhaps with a public investment authority, the savings of our people might be directed into desirable channels, that we might plan and use our resources in a planned way for the benefit of all our people, even if it requires, as I think it will, the extension of public ownership and socialization in this country.
I have referred to farm income and the unemployment situation. Basic to a high level in both these sectors is a solution of the fundamental problems of Canadian trade, which I shall refer to in a moment, and which I think the government has failed miserably to solve. For certainly the government has been content to adopt a wait and see policy, a policy that would have been disastrous in wartime and which I believe might be equally disastrous in peacetime.
With regard to wheat, it is clear that only a crop failure will enable the government to solve the problem if, of course, it maintains its present policies. The C.C.F. on its part, however, attacks that economic concept which

regards abundance as a tragedy and which welcomes scarcity and does nothing to relieve it. Yes, nature was generous last year, and I say that instead of showing concern we should be rejoicing. It is my view and that of my colleagues that abundance should be met with a determination to use it to meet the needs of people wherever they live. Yet even in Canada we read of people starving in Toronto, or at near-starvation level. While wheat is piled high on the western plains and butter stocks are the largest in our history, there are large numbers of our people who are undernourished and underfed. When some scheme should be devised to enable those people to get the butter, we have to sell it at from 25 to 29 cents a pound below the domestic price to countries behind the iron curtain. We do that rather than dispose of it to our own needy citizens.
Also, out on the broad reaches of Asia, Africa and Central and South America, and even in Europe, there are people without enough to eat, while here surpluses pile up. We must remove that tragic contradiction from our national fabric and from the international scene. I say rather than leave these surpluses to pile up as a glut, it is far better for some of this food to be used as part of our defence program to feed the hungry peoples of the world and improve their standard of living as the only way in which the totalitarian doctrines of communism or fascism can be effectively countered or eliminated. Mr. Speaker, this is a federal responsibility, and this at least is a responsibility that cannot be sloughed off on the province of Quebec, the province of Ontario, the province of Saskatchewan or on any province of Canada. Trade and commerce are under the jurisdiction of this parliament of Canada.
I say the government has failed to recognize that failure to sell wheat and a number of other commodities in sufficient volume is not owing to the abundance with which nature provided us, nor the entry of the United States into our normal markets on a large scale, though undoubtedly that was a factor, but is related to the vast and, we are told, ever-widening gulf between the standards of living of the privileged and underprivileged sections of the globe and the chronic shortage of dollars with which to buy those commodities.
The long-term solution requires a vast program of development in the underdeveloped parts of the world, and we ourselves feel the effects of the lack of such a policy in our own trading relationships. I am happy to see that the government is going to increase the amount that is to be allocated to the Colombo plan. But after all, that amount is relatively
The Address-Mr. Coldwell very small indeed, and will not amount to more than the cost to be borne by our government to pay the storage on grain over and above the normal amount of storage that the elevators have to use in a normal year. If we take all the grain in storage in elevators and elsewhere, it is considerably less than that amount. At 10 cents a bushel it will cost the elevator companies and the wheat board together, as the grain marketing organizations, something like $50 million.
There are a number of suggestions in that regard that I intended to make but I must now turn to something else; therefore 1 am going to leave it at that point.
As far as our marketing is concerned, we find the dollar problem arises out of the imbalance as between the amounts the dollar area exports as compared with the amounts it imports. As a matter of fact, as far as Canada is concerned it has meant the loss of the British market for one after another of its products, like cheese and apples. The acceptance of sterling and other currencies in part payment of our exports, as we have suggested from time to time, would not b>
itself solve this problem, and we are not suggesting that we should take full payment in the soft currencies for our exports; but it would mark a necesary first step by acting as a spur to encourage them to buy from us and for Canada to use that newly acquired sterling or other currency to buy in the commonwealth or other areas and thus eliminate to some extent our extraordinarily heavy dependence on imports from the United States. Yet the government, instead of seeking on its part to correct this imbalance, has since 1947 clearly followed a decision to link the Canadian economy inextricably to that of the United States.
For instance, while before the war exports were divided more evenly between the United States and the United Kingdom, today we depend upon the United States for export markets almost four times as much as we do to the United Kingdom. As far as imports are concerned, a similar pattern reveals itself; for while in the 20 years before the war less than two-thirds of our imports were from the United States, today the proportion has risen to almost three-quarters. On the other hand, before the war imports from the United Kingdom were almost one-fifth of our total, and now they are only one-twentieth.
We in this country must also face up to the effect this policy will have not only on our trade but on the whole field of economic and political policy. The government should seriously consider the implications that the concentration of our trade in the United States may have on the very independence of this
56	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Coldwell country. I suggest this not in any narrow spirit but out of the profound conviction that this Canadian experiment on the northern half of the North American continent has something to offer the world at large, something which would be lost if the Canadian voice became merely an echo, which it has been all too frequently, of the larger and louder voice of the United States.
The increasing United States dominance in Canadian industry is a matter of legitimate concern. I am sure this concern is shared by Canadians everywhere. However, I would say immediately that I have the most profound respect and the highest regard for citizens of the United States as citizens, but I do object to and I fear, and believe the vast majority of Canadians will agree with me, the vast power of huge United States corporations in the Canadian economy and hence some time or other perhaps in our political life.
I say this feeling is shared by many Canadians. I have here a report which appeared in the Montreal Gazette of an address given oni December 14 last by Mr. James Stewart, president of the Canadian Bank of Commerce. Mr. Stewart said:
Canadians are increasingly expressing concern about foreign control over their country's industry.
He then went on to elaborate. More significant still, I have here a copy of the script used by the ambassador of Canada at Washington when speaking to the New England export club at Boston, Massachusetts, on October 17, 1955. Anyone who reads Mr. Heeney's forthright speech to that organization can see the same ideas which I am expressing at this moment. I presume that since Mr. Heeney spoke as our ambassador probably the script was vetted before he used it in Boston last October. For example, he points out that in 1952 about a quarter of Canadian manufacturing, mining, smelting, petroleum exploration and development industries, Canadian railways and other utilities, taken together, was owned in the United States. He said:
I have no reason to believe that today's figures would show this situation to have shifted substantially to the Canadian side.
If I have the time I will produce some figures to show that there has been a vast increase since 1952 in this control, and will back up that statement with figures from the official records. I find the same thing in an editorial quoting extracts from an address by Mr. G. Edward Hall, president of the University of Western Ontario, speaking to the Boston conference of distributors. I should

like to quote a good deal of this speech, but I shall quote only one paragraph, which is as follows:
The term Canadian, associated with a company name, should be significant and meaningful. It should imply its stock is available to the Canadian public, that it is listed on Canadian stock exchanges, that its financial statements are made public and reflect only the Canadian operations, that the dividends are payable in Canadian funds, that, as one enlightened American company put it. ''our company is not just an American company doing business in Canada, but rather is a company jointly owned by Canadians and Americans doing business in both countries."
Many of our so-called Canadian companies have become more and more not merely subsidiaries of United States companies and corporations; they have become parts of United States corporations and companies. To the extent that this has happened I think it has become a danger.
I said I would try to give a few figures to show what this actually means. United States direct investment in Canadian companies has more than doubled since 1945, climbing from $2-3 billion to $5-7 billion in 1954, while in addition portfolio investment, other than government and municipal bonds, has climbed to $1-8 billion in 1954.
As a proportion of industries and merchandising-manufacturing, mining, smelting, petroleum exploration and development, steam railways, other utilities and merchandising- United States-owned direct investment has climbed to 24 per cent in 1951 and to 25 per cent in 1952, the latest year for which official figures are available. That is an indication of what is happening. Then if we turn to the manufacturing industry we find that the proportion of United States direct investment has climbed sharply from 33 per cent in 1950 to 36 per cent in 1951 and 38 per cent in 1952. In mining, smelting, and petroleum exploration and development it has climbed from 39 per cent to 53 per cent in the same three-year period.
Even this is not the complete picture, for in addition we must add portfolio investments held by United States individuals and institutions. In 1952 they totalled $1-4 billion. Assuming the same type of distribution as in direct investment we find an additional 10 per cent of capitalization in manufacturing industries must be credited to United States sources, which brings the total up to almost 50 per cent. We might well ask how much larger this figure may grow before we shall have lost effective control of our own destiny. If we lose effective control of our economic destiny how long shall we hope to retain effective control of our political independence?
In the field of trade we find that many significant decisions concerning Canadian

economic life are made outside of Canada, that many Canadian firms which are subsidiaries of United States companies buy in the United States from their parent companies or buy from firms with which their United States parent has also entered into contracts, thus placing obstacles in the way of the diversification of Canadian trade.
Should we then not insist that more of our own resources should be used in this country? Not long ago 1 read in the Montreal Gazette a statement made by John C. Doyle, president of Canadian Javelin, which referred to what he called the most valuable and largest iron ore deposit in the world in Labrador. He referred to talks which were going on between the company and United States steel and iron ore interests, and he seemed to suggest that it would be only a matter of time until the company was taken over lock, stock and barrel, as he put it, by United States concerns.
Of course we know what will happen. This iron ore will go down on the railways which are being built to the sea, it will be put into ships and go to the United States. Then it will come back to us in the form of expensive fabricated steel for use in Canada. Why should not we do what we have done in regard to gas and insist that at least a percentage of the iron ore in this country should be utilized by Canadian foundries giving employment to Canadian workmen? If necessary the government of Canada should undertake, as it did so successfully in connection with the artificial rubber plant, Polymer, the establishment of a steel industry under public ownership and public control. When we notice the extraordinary steps which the federal government, and it appears the Ontario government also, have been prepared to take to avoid having the trans-Canada natural gas pipe line come under public control and ownership from beginning to end, we fear that they will not undertake such a plan even if it were intelligent and feasible as it is.
We believe that great enterprises of this magnitude should have public control and public direction. However, I am not going to deal further with the question of the gas pipe line project because, as the Leader of the Opposition has said already, as well as the Prime Minister, legislation will be brought before the house. I do not know that the government need be precipitate about that, because when I look at the representations which are to be made before the federal power commission of the United States and read the accounts of what is likely to happen there I do not think there need be any hurry as far as this parliament is concerned,
The Address-Mr. Coldwell because we are not likely to see permission given by the federal power commission in the United States for the importation of gas into that country under this project in the next one, two or perhaps three years, if ever.
It is our profound conviction that the development of many great national projects should be participated in by all Canadians so that the wealth that is our heritage may be shared by the community as a whole. To do this the government must initiate a massive program of public development of the vast resources at Canada's disposal.
One other aspect of our national resources I should like to deal with briefly, because I have only a few minutes left to me now; that is, that we have failed to provide educational opportunities for our young people. The Ottawa Citizen of January 5 of this year had this to say:
In the United States, alarm at Russian competition is an increasingly influential factor in the demand for greater aid to education. The most recent voice raised in warning is that of Dr. John R. Dunning, dean of engineering at Columbia, who declares that "no high school anywhere in our country has even one-half the Russian requirements in mathematics, science, physics or chemistry." Dr. Dunning asserts that the Russians are graduating more scientists and engineers than American universities are.
Just last month Lewis L. Strauss, chairman of the atomic energy commission, reported that colleges and universities are providing less than half the scientists and engineers the United States needs. I am told that the situation is no better in Canada and may even be worse, yet again here the government has failed to provide imaginative leadership.
Indeed, the failure again of the throne speech to make any mention of the Canada Council is, I think, sufficient proof of that statement. The refusal to launch a national program of scholarships as part of the Canada Council project means yet another tragic postponement of the development of Canada's human resources.
Even in the United Kingdom, where today no child of ability can be denied a high school and university education because of lack of funds, we learned from the interesting address to the Ottawa Canadian Club yesterday by Mr. Norman Smith-I regret that I was unable to listen to it owing to another engagement, but I read it in the Ottawa Journal last night-the following:
Sir Winston Churchill, in his first major speech since the general election, said last month: "The behaviour of their leaders must not lead us to suppose that Russian power and capacity are not growing in many other directions. Technological education is an all-important subject in which
58	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Hansell Great Britain has allowed herself to fall behind. We are already surpassed by Russia on a scale which is most alarming."
If that is true of Great Britain it is even more true of our own country and, if we can believe the statements I quoted from the United States, true of our great ally in the democratic cause.
I began by saying that I believe that the throne speech indicates clearly that the government has shown itself to be not only bankrupt in ideas but bankrupt in policy. I have been able to deal only with the plight of our farmers, some effects of inflation and of our trade policies, as well as the growing threat to the Canadian economic-and perchance political-independence through the failure of the government to take effective steps to safeguard our own economy. Latterly I have pointed out the failure of the government to take effective steps in the provision of opportunity to young Canadians through educational facilities to equip themselves to meet the growing demands made upon our schools and universities by industry and by our economic and social development.
I have, I believe, shown that the statement I made when I began to speak can be fully substantiated by an examination of government policy or, shall I put it this way, by the failure of the government to formulate policies to meet the needs of the Canadian people in 1956.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.
Ernest George Hansell: Mr. Speaker, I wish also to follow the traditional practice of congratulating the mover (Mrs. Shipley) and the seconder (Mr. Laflamme) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. I congratulate them on the honour which has been bestowed upon them in being selected by the government for this honoured duty. Naturally, of course, I cannot very well lean over backwards and congratulate them on the subject matter of their speeches because almost their entire subject matter consisted of laudatory remarks paying their respects to the government which they naturally believe is doing a tremendous job but which other members of the house, including most of us on this side, would say has not been so well done.
Might I say at the outset that we are all aware of the illness of the national leader of the Social Credit party. For this reason


it is impossible for him to be here today. I believe this is the first opening of a session of parliament which he has missed in his rather long and somewhat distinguished career. It is the first time he will not have the privilege of taking part in the debate on the speech from the throne. He wishes me to express on his behalf his very sincere thanks to many of his colleagues in the house for the kind inquiries that so many have made both personally and by letter and other means of communication, and for the expression of their hopes that he will experience a complete recovery. I may say that he is doing remarkably well and that it is anticipated by his doctors that he will experience a complete recovery. It is expected that he will be back with us in the not too distant future.
The Social Credit party in Canada has always stood on what we believe to be good, sound, basic principles of life. Some of these principles we regard as very precious, very dear. We believe in the dignity of human personality. We believe that man is in fact the greatest of all God's creations. We believe that mankind was created free and should remain free, and that his freedom should be protected at all times. We believe too that the Creator who created us all has also provided for man's every welfare. We believe therefore that the administration of any nation should be done in such a way as to preserve the freedom of man and at the same time give him security to enjoy the good things of life without interfering with his God-given freedom.
We propose what we believe to be a scientifically sound economic policy which, if applied to the problem of distribution, will give to the people of this and other countries an abundant life while at the same time retaining for them their freedom to enjoy peace, prosperity and contentment. We have a phrase that we use quite often and which I am afraid others have to some extent copied from us, that that which is physically possible and desirable can and should be made financially possible.
In spite of the indications in the speech from the throne that Canada is enjoying a measure of prosperity, the fact remains that Canada, and western Canada in particular, is experiencing a situation which is almost comparable to that of the hungry thirties. There exists on the prairie provinces what might be stated to be starvation in the midst of plenty. This is something that no government should be very proud of. In fact when the over-all economic situation is reviewed and we find that such a vast industry as agriculture, not only as it exists in western

Canada but as it exists from one coast to the other, has to go through a period of time which is almost a duplication of the hungry thirties, then we cannot say that the economy of Canada is healthy by any means.
What is the situation, particularly in western Canada? The leader of the opposition party mentioned something about that this afternoon. The leader of the C.C.F. expressed himself along the same line. We have a situation here where those who are responsible for the production of the foodstuffs of this country find themselves, while having a reasonable amount of assets, with no cash. When I say "no cash" I mean just exactly that. Some of them find difficulty in getting the very bare necessities of life.
It has been said over and over again in western Canada that the only reliable income is that received from family allowances, pension cheques and war veterans allowances, and it is said that this money is about the only money that is keeping things going in western Canada at all. Yet we have this situation of a depressed agriculture in the midst of plenty. While having assets and while being responsible for the production of these life-giving products of the country, our farmers have to suffer.
This problem is not only that of the grain that is grown in western Canada. The same problem of what is almost starvation in the midst of abundance exists in the east. There is still the problem of the distribution of the abundance of foodstuffs other than grain. We have surpluses of potatoes in New Brunswick and apples in Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We have heavy stocks of butter throughout all of Canada and of cheese in Ontario and Quebec.
Farmers all over the Dominion of Canada are caught in a sort of cost-price squeeze. The prices of farm products are continuing to decline while the costs of the things which the farmers have to buy continue to go up. Farm cash income reached its peak in Canada in the year 1951, but it has been on the decline ever since that time. The aggregate cash income of all the farmers of Canada last year was $1,200 million less than it was in 1951. That is a serious situation, and one which has been allowed to develop in our country right under the eyes of what should be a responsible government.
In 1954 the farmers made up 20 per cent of Canada's total population, but they received less than 10 per cent of the national income. As I was discussing the matter with him a few hours ago, one of my colleagues stated that he had heard that the figure was about only 8 per cent of the national income.
The Address-Mr. Hansell Considering the great service rendered to Canada and all its citizens by the farmers of this country, we maintain that this is shabby treatment indeed.
Let us remember that agriculture is the basic industry in Canada. Without agriculture people do not eat. Without agriculture people will have nothing to wear. Without a prosperous agriculture we cannot have a prosperous Canada. About 50 per cent of Canada's population lives in the towns and the rural areas. All these towns are contiguous to and are reliant upon agriculture for their very existence. It is in these small places that farmers get their groceries, repairs, clothing, household equipment, machinery, fuel, medical and dental services and such like. When a dollar is received by a farmer for some of his production it starts its way through a circuit which takes it through the service centres on down through the small businessmen in these small communities, right down to the great factories that make the things which the farmers want to buy. Consequently when a dollar starts on its way from the farmer it immediately creates a series of business transactions.
The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low), the leader of the Social Credit party in Canada, has calculated that the dollar turns over about seven times as it circulates on its way back to its point of origin. Mr. Speaker, just put this process in reverse, in other words just short-change the farmer, and you will have just seven times less business being done. If business declines seven times, no wonder we have surpluses; no wonder we have what might be tantamount to starvation in the midst of plenty.
This government, Mr. Speaker, has now been in power for over 20 years, and throughout those 20 years it has sounded praises of its own efficiency and of its policies. I have really never been able to determine what its policies are; they change so often according to the particular political complexion of the country. As I say, the government have been in power in this country for 20 years. They therefore must take the blame for any blunders of the past. Surely the experience of the hungry thirties should have been enough for the government to exercise sufficient foresight to prepare and to adopt such policies-shall I say such financial policies- as would distribute our vast peacetime abundances.
Mr. Speaker, the government has blundered. I am going to take you back a few years and indicate to you where they made perhaps one of the biggest blunders of this century. That was in the signing of the Bretton Woods agreement, which this group opposed from

The Address-Mr. Hansell the very moment it was brought forward in this house. We were a small group. We attempted a sort of small-scale filibuster. I do not know how long that filibuster would have gone on had it not been for the fact that parliament was approaching the Christmas recess, when everything tended to close down parliamentary operations.
We opposed that agreement. We fought it tooth and nail. We were the only group in this house that opposed it. Both our Conservative friends and our C.C.F. friends voted for its adoption. I believe I am correct in saying that perhaps there was one gentleman in the Conservative party in this house who voted with us. I may have to stand corrected, but if my memory serves me rightly it was the venerable Mr. Tommy Church.
What effect has the Bretton Woods agreement had on the fiscal policies of nearly all governments, and what effect has it had on the trading nations of the world that signed that agreement? In this respect I think I should like to quote from a broadcast that was made by the hon. member for Peace River, the national leader of the Social Credit party. This broadcast was given over station CKYL, Peace River, on Tuesday, November 22. This is the part where Mr. Low refers to the Bretton Woods agreement:
. . . our federal government fell for the Bretton Woods plan in 1945. The plan was drafted and proposed at the Bretton Woods conference in New Hampshire by Harry Dexter White, a communist who wormed his way into a high position in the treasury of the United States ... It placed upon debtor nations the obligation of balancing their trade with the creditor nations by payments in the form of gold or United States dollars but it did not place upon the creditor nations any such obligation. Its net effect was to place all the nations who became parties to it under a worldwide gold standard. Bretton Woods came up for ratification by the Canadian parliament during my first session at Ottawa in 1945. After the most careful study of which I was capable I advised the federal government when I spoke on the floor of the house not to become a signer to the agreement, because I was quite sure I saw that it would cause widespread dislocation of trade that would hurt the debtor nations especially, nations like Great Britain. I saw also that the United States was bludgeoning Great Britain into signing the agreement by making that the price of a very large loan to Britain. I fought the proposal with all my might, but in spite of our opposition, the federal government ratified it and immediately came under its terms.
From that day in the late fall of 1945, Canada sat back and demanded gold or United States dollars in payment for our exports. Britain and some other countries who had been our traditional markets for many years did not have gold nor United States dollars, hence they couldn't buy from us. Britain therefore turned to other countries to obtain her foods and . some other necessities. They turned to Russia and China for grains and lumber and soya beans because those countries were ready to exchange those things for goods

which Britain could supply them. Right from 1945 my colleagues and I in the House of Commons pleaded with the federal government to offer to supply Britain and other countries our surplus food products, our lumber and other things in return for what they could send us in goods; or if they could not yet manufacture or produce sufficient goods to pay us with, we should be prepared to accept the only other thing they had-their own currency. Our government was not prepared to do so. Consequently, Canada lost some of the best of the markets we had enjoyed for many years, markets we could very well have today. Our government was not prepared to use the escape clause in the Bretton Woods agreement, and as a result trade was dislocated exactly as we said it would be.
Now, Mr. Speaker, much has been said in the last few months about the fact that the United States of America has been following a sort of give-away program. The fact is that the United States of America accepted and took advantage of that escape clause, and were able to go out in the world and offer their surplus agricultural products to those who would take them. When he was speaking along these lines some few weeks ago the Minister of Trade and Commerce wept some crocodile tears when he said that the United States, with their vast surplus of agricultural products, had not stayed within the Bretton Woods agreement and because they had adopted a sort of give-away program they had upset all the normal channels of trade.
Personally, Mr. Speaker, I find it very difficult to criticize the United States government for the way they have handled their surplus production. They set up the commodity credit corporation to take over all agricultural products which were in surplus. The farmer was paid for them and was reasonably satisfied. They piled up billions of dollars worth of surplus agricultural products. Then they looked around at the world and said, "Do you want these agricultural products?" Is there any harm, I ask, in a nation going out and asking if other nations want to be fed?" That is exactly what they did. The other nations said, "Yes, we will take these agricultural products," and the hungry peoples were fed. I find it very difficult to criticize a government that will take surplus agricultural products from the farmers, reasonably satisfy the farmers by paying for them, and then turn around and see that they are distributed to the peoples of the world who need them. I find it very difficult to criticize a government for that sort of action.
It is obvious that the present government of Canada looks upon the surplus foodstuffs in Canada as a sort of calamity. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if you noticed carefully the

reading of that paragraph in the speech from the throne that deals with this particular matter. It says this:
Canada has enjoyed, on the whole, a high level of prosperity. Some sectors of the economy have not fully participated in this increased well-being.
Now, notice that. This high level of prosperity, which the government calls "increased well-being", was not fully participated in by some sectors of the economy.
In particular, although sales of wheat in the cast five years have been at record levels-
They do not say what they have been for the last year or two.
-an unprecedented series of bumper harvests has made necessary the storage of abnormal stocks of grain both in elevators and on farms.
Let us analyse that paragraph. Putting it another way, you might just as well say this. Canada has enjoyed, on the whole, a high level of prosperity but the farmers of this country who have produced the foodstuffs which make for the well-being of our people have not been able to enjoy the well-being that they have brought about. You might just as well put it in that fashion. The farmers cannot enjoy this well-being because they have produced so much. Now, how can too much be a tragedy? Surely that should not be a tragedy. The tragedy exists in policies that are being pursued by this government which make the distribution of this vast abundance of foodstuffs impossible; that is the tragedy and that is the calamity.
Surely the criterion of the well-being of a nation should be its ability to produce, and surely any policy pursued by the government-and since money is the medium of exchange it must be financial policy-should be applied to the distribution of these foodstuffs. I believe I heard the Minister of Finance, or it may have been his predecessor, state on one occasion, "We believe that which is physically possible can be made financially possible". Well, it was a nice slogan to accept from us, but evidently this government has not succeeded in working it out. We are able to produce the foodstuffs, but because of the financial policies being pursued we are not able to distribute them.
The Social Crediters of this country, this party to which I have the honour to belong for a good many years, are in the position of advocating financial proposals which would be geared to the solution of what some might term the problem of abundance. Social Credit has never regarded abundances as a calamity, because that is the great objective of industry. What is industry here for if it is not to produce goods? What is the farmer working his land for if it is not for the purpose of producing an abundance? Our
The Address-Mr. Hansell philosophy is that an abundance of the good things of the earth makes people happy and contented, and the proper distribution of the abundances of this earth will do away with all the calamities of war upon war upon war. But until the financial policy is changed we will always meet the problem of distribution, and it will be regarded by governments that are on the wrong track financially as a calamity.
I have only a few minutes of my time left. What are we able to do in the physical world? In my imagination I see a conference room. We call in the scientists. We say to them, "We want you to sit around the table. We are going to lock the door on you and after you have had a conference on what you are able to do, just rap on the door and we shall open it and you can give us your verdict." Well, our scientists gather in there and on the basis of physical realities, on the basis of what they know can be done in this physical world, they rap on the door. We let them out and we say, "Gentlemen, what are you able to do for the advancement of civilization?"
Well, what are they able to do? They will tell you that they are able to travel to the moon. Do not think that is something that cannot be accomplished. Physicists are holding conferences almost every day, discussing and perfecting formulae that have already been worked out to travel to the moon. They tell us that they are able to pick up the sea, transport it over wide areas and cause the deserts of the earth to be flooded so that they blossom like the rose and bring forth millions more bushels of grain, if you please. Is that going to be a tragedy? They tell us they are able to transport the atmosphere of the tropics, take it to the north and south poles and make those areas tropical areas.
We are going to discuss pipe lines in a few days. As for power, they say, "Well, you can discuss pipe lines if you like, but just about the time you get them built we shall have atomic energy here, and gas and oil pipe lines could conceivably be obsolete." Then some of the more advanced scientists say, "Well, don't talk like that. The very moment you get atomic energy to run the factories and heat the homes we shall be able to harness the energy of the sun and by a series of-" oh, they use some technical language that I do not understand-"power stations around the globe, pick up the energy of the sun, absorb the heat and energy, radiate it out, and that will last forever and ever, just as long as the sun is in the sky." We say to the scientists, "Can you do all that?" And they

The Address-Mr. Hansell * say to us, "Brother, you imagine it and we shall do it." That is what our modern-day scientists say.
We go to the Minister of Finance and we say, "Mr. Minister, we want you to get your financial brains around this table. We have a simple problem for you to solve. In a nutshell the problem is this. Here are six loaves of bread and here are six hungry men with no money in their pockets. We want you to move these six loaves of bread to these six hungry men." Well, of course, our present problem is this. We have vast supplies of agricultural products. We have people who need them; we have nations who need them, but our farmers who raise the agricultural products, the foodstuffs, have no money in their pockets. "Now, then, you financial wizards of the country, when you are ready with a solution tap on the door, come out and we shall await the solution."
We wait and we wait. Eventually a little faint rap comes on the door. We open the door and they walk out. We look at them. Their hair is all dishevelled and they are bleary-eyed. They look as if they had been on a ten-day toot. We say to them, "Well, what is your verdict; what have the financial brains of this country come up with as a solution to this great problem?" They say, "Yes, we have a solution." We reply, "What is your solution? All Canada awaits it." What is it? They have decided to adopt the Wool-worth plan; that is the five, ten and fifteen plan. They have decided to guarantee the banks against loss if they will only lend to the farmers a little bit of loose change at 5 per cent.
Can you beat that, Mr. Speaker? We are able to do everything under the sun in this physical world; nothing is impossible. But somehow or other the government have not adopted and cannot discover any financial policy that they can apply to the distribution of our abundances. And what makes it worse than ever is this. What do the banks do when they lend the money? Well, all they do by right and by power given to them by the laws of this country is simply write the figures in a book and expand the credit of the country. Nobody will deny that, Mr. Speaker. Why, the expansion of credit every time loans are made is money created out of nothing, by the stroke of a pen, and the farmer has to pay 5 per cent to the banks for writing figures in their books. They have to pay through the nose because of a tragedy for which they are not responsible, a tragedy which we must place at the door of the present government, because they refuse to face the reality of the problem of distribution in the midst of plenty.
[Mr. Hansell.l
I could go on, Mr. Speaker, and I have a good many things in my notes here. Opportunity will be given on the legislation that is to come down in future for us to discuss even the wheat situation and the problem of abundances; but I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that there would not be any great problem in Canada if this government faced the realities which can be faced and only faced as they change their financial policies to apply to the distribution of the good things of the earth; for, in the final analysis, those are the things that give life and security, abundance and contentment, and bring peace and prosperity to the nation. If the government does not wish to pursue the right policies, then all I can say to this parliament and to the people of Canada is that they had better wake up and change the government or this country will go down into absolute economic chaos. This is the choice; it is one thing or the other, and the people of this country had better wake up to that one thing.
They are waking up to it here and there and all over. I know something of that because it is my business to learn it. There are two Social Credit governments in Canada. Just one more and you will not stop this party from sweeping this country from one coast of Canada to the other. Just one more provincial government is all that is needed. That is my belief, and it may not take very long to prove that by actual fact. One more government is all we need and we will sweep this country.


An hon. Member:: Which government, provincial or federal?


Ernest George Hansell: One more provincial
government.


An hon. Member:: Ontario?


An hon. Member:: Prince Edward Island?


Ernest George Hansell: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the attention of the gentlemen of my own group. See how the house is hushed when we tell them of our political progress.


An hon. Member:: We are waiting for you to sprout wings.


Ernest George Hansell: Everyone wants to know which province is going Social Credit next, but I am not going to tell them because I like to keep them on edge. That is part of our strategy.
I appreciate the time that has been given me. We will have more to say about this on another occasion. Those of my group who are to follow me in the days to come during this debate will perhaps amplify what I have said and also bring to your attention and to

the attention of parliament some other salient factors which we believe should be brought to the attention of this country.


Mr. S. R. Balcom (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, may I first congratulate the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mrs. Shipley) upon her most excellent speech in moving the adoption of the address in reply to the speech from the throne, and the hon. member for Belle-chasse (Mr. Laflamme) upon his most thoughtful remarks in seconding that motion. The constituencies of both these hon. members must be proud of them. In particular the women of Canada must be happy at their emancipation which was so ably demonstrated by the hon. member for Timiskaming. What has happened confirms the fact that there are now no doors closed to women in business or in the professional and political world. At last women's suffrage has reached fruition.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity early in this debate of bringing some matters to the attention of the house, but before dealing with them I should like to commend the decision which has been made to expedite our proceedings. The day to day business of government is work, and we should get on with it as quickly as possible.
The generally optimistic tone of the speech from the throne regarding our economic position is most encouraging. It is in line with official statements of cabinet ministers, heads of important private institutions, banks and business houses. However if you read the fine print in most of these statements you will find that it is recognized frankly that there are major problems to be dealt with. These are sometimes overlooked except by the people directly affected. As long as we are aware of this and take steps to meet them, this optimism is healthy.
It is proper that we Canadians should appreciate our own robust stature and good fortune, but there is some danger that a too-glowing picture may create false impressions abroad and obscure our pathway at home. An eminent Canadian, our ambassador to the United States, referred to this possibility in a recent speech to a United States audience when he said:
We Canadians appreciate your good opinion. And we, of course, share American optimism and faith in Canada's future. Nevertheless, the very generosity of the praise sometimes makes me uneasy and I am not infrequently disturbed by the more extravagant reports that I encounter. And I often find myself wishing that some of those who express such high opinions of things Canadian were better informed about our people and our economy.
The Address-Mr. Balcom
After mentioning some of the problems, he said further:
I mention these points simply to indicate that we have in Canada no magic formula and that our streets are not quite paved with gold, or even uranium, as some of the stock promoters would have you beileve. Like other countries, we are not without difficult political, economic and social problems . . .
One of these problems is the dominion-provincial relationship about which we shall hear a great deal in parliament and elsewhere. These relations are never static and the need for flexibility in dealing with common problems was never more apparent.
At the confederation table when arrangements were worked out the vision of a great nation prevailed, but future events were but dimly foreseen. It is not surprising in view of the great developments that have taken place that some changes in our thinking are necessary. Rather it is a matter for wonder that the main principles have held good in spite of the stresses and strains and growing pains.
One very important event which took place in our early history was the purchase by the Dominion of Canada of lands held by the Hudson's Bay Company, now the northern parts of Ontario and Quebec. Like the Louisiana purchase by the United States from Napoleon this was a wise move in the building of a great nation, but in Canada the disposition of the lands in the course of time led to the building up of the two large central provinces of Ontario and Quebec. These provinces benefited directly from the addition of very extensive land areas to their territories. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the other two original partners at confederation, gained indirectly with the growth of the Canadian nation but lost ground in their relative position within confederation.
At the time these arrangements were accepted the lands were considered to be only wilderness. As the frontiers of knowledge and geography have been pushed back the wonderful storehouse of mineral treasures is now being appreciated and exploited. Here is just one example of how the benefits of nationhood have accrued disproportionately to certain provinces.
You may say that this is now history and that we maritimers may as well accept the facts of geography and history. The lands that were parcelled out as of little value have become a storehouse of wealth and the deal perhaps should be considered closed. The fact remains that the acquisition and the later development of these resources were based on the national credit, the national transportation system and in some cases the national market.

The Address-Mr. Balcorn
Are the benefits then to be limited to some provinces? Is it too late for Nova Scotia to benefit or to be considered entitled to land in the far northern reaches of this country which some day may produce great wealth or become strategically important? If any in this house think that is so, I would ask them to study the map of Canada hanging in the railway committee room. I am sure they would be convinced that Nova Scotia with so little has done a great deal, and as an original partner of confederation with New Brunswick, should receive the consideration due it.
In our present distribution of taxable wealth as related to the responsibility of the provinces lies a problem affecting our greatest resources, our young people. It is the question of educational opportunities. The financial resources of Nova Scotia, for example, are not such as to support a modern school system and the necessary variety and quality of higher educational facilities as well. This I believe to be true of some other provinces. With respect to Nova Scotia, we are very proud of the advances made in the last year in education, but our resources are not sufficient to make complete provision for higher education as well.
In Canada we do not have the great number of large corporations and wealthy foundations upon which to draw for financial support that they have in the United States. Even in that great country to the south the privately supported universities are having a very difficult time. Statistics published there show that university professors have suffered losses in real income during the past 15 years, a period when most other groups in society have enjoyed a substantial rise in living standards. Put dramatically in an advertisement drawing attention to this situation, it was said that as to higher education, "we have been living on borrowed time." If this is so in the United States colleges, to which we have been losing teachers for a long time, how much more so is it true of our Canadian universities?
Financial problems hang over our colleges at a time when university graduates are in demand everywhere as teachers, administrators, doctors, executives in business, engineers and scientists. Not long ago a particular aspect of this problem was forcefully emphasized by Dr. O. M. Solandt, the former head of the defence research board. He warned that the shortage of engineers and scientists was a real threat to our defence program. This is not simply a question of continuing material prosperity or higher standards of living; it becomes a question of survival. But along with the scientists, in fact more vital to our well-being as a nation,
(Mr. Balcom ]

is the teaching of languages, law, music and the arts generally. These must be maintained and allowed to flourish if we are to have a society and culture worth preserving.
Our present arrangements for university financing are inadequate. The federal government is already giving substantial aid, but the problem has not been solved by any means. Either the provinces must receive enough money to meet this and other responsibilities under the dominion-provincial fiscal arrangements or more money must be obtained the hard way through direct means by the universities.
Under our constitution, education is a provincial responsibility. That division of power is appropriate today, as it seems to me our school system is best administered by provincial and local authorities. Nevertheless the federal government has for a long time shared the costs of vocational training without interference with the administration of the school system. In the same manner, a larger share of the cost of higher education, of professional training and of the liberal arts courses could be borne by the federal government without interfering with the operation of the private institutions.
Now I come to what hon. members might regard as a theme song, my criticism of the present method of distributing the Massey grants. As I have just stated, geography, not per capita equality, determined the allocation of the Hudson's Bay lands. Why has this population principle become so sacred now? If there were no other standard of measure, it might be acceptable, but on the contrary a perfectly fair and acceptable basis was devised for the post-war training of service personnel.
In the veterans' training program a uniform national rate per student was paid. This worked very well, gave the student freedom of choice as to the college he attended, and imposed no relative advantage on particular institutions. Compare the results of this per capita distribution to those of the Massey grants, and I shall cite only a few instances from the 1954-55 estimates. One province received $105.41 per student; another, $162.96; another, well over $400; while Nova Scotia received only $85.23, the lowest of all the provinces. We would urge that the Massey grants be distributed on the basis of a uniform national rate per student.
The dominion-provincial program providing allowances for disabled persons was a forward step in our social legislation. Yet seldom have we heard so much criticism of a well-intentioned measure. Last year, only a few months after the act came into force, I spoke in this house asking the government to look

into some specific problems. These difficulties came to light very early and had been brought to my attention by interested people. I am sure other hon. members have had a great many complaints too.
Most of the difficulties arise out of the rather rigid regulations and their interpretation-perhaps more with the interpretation than the regulations. I shall refer to only some of them. For example, the disabled applicant who has been rejected should have the right of an appeal from the board's decision, a privilege enjoyed by those turned down for old age assistance and war veterans assistance. Arrested tuberculosis patients, paraplegics and similar cases should certainly have the same consideration.
The nature of the criticism suggests that an early review of the legislation and its application is desirable. It is good to know that a conference of federal and provincial welfare officials will be held in Ottawa soon to review the program. I trust, however, that their deliberations and the government's action will go beyond revisions aimed at improving only the present program of assistance to the totally disabled.
There is an old saying that half a loaf is better than none, but in this case it has not worked out. Speaking politically-which may possibly be poor politics-this has been a poor bet, partly because there are those who are cruel enough to exploit the misunderstanding and false hopes that were built up when the plan was first announced. However, the weakness of the program was foreseen by a group which is generally interested in seeing that the most effective measures to rehabilitate the disabled are incorporated in the act. In its brief on the subject of disability allowances, in May, 1954, the Canadian Welfare Council summed up the situation thus:
While recognizing the need for disability allowances for totally and permanently disabled persons, we are strongly of the view that such allowances must be thought of in terms of their effect upon those who are not eligible as well as upon those who are eligible for benefit from them. When this is done the need for a broader program becomes at once clearly apparent . . .
In its outline of a comprehensive program the council recommended that maintenance for the disabled should be provided through, first, a disability allowance for the hard core of disabled persons who must be regarded as incapable of rehabilitation. This would include the totally disabled provided for in the 1954 act. Second, it recommended a rehabilitation allowance for those people for whom there is any hope of rehabilitation, regardless of how meagre that hope may be, to provide maintenance during the whole process of rehabilitation similar to that now offered during retraining under schedule R of the
The Address-Mr. Balcorn Canadian vocational training act. Third, it recommended maintenance for those partially disabled who are not eligible for either of the above programs through public assistance provided by the province or local authority.
The weakness in the present program arises, I suggest, from the gap, the absence of assistance for the people who are not totally and permanently disabled and for whom there is a chance of rehabilitation. I would urge the minister, who is always thoughtful and co-operative, to consider carefully the need for more flexibility in the regulations and the additional provision for maintenance during rehabilitation for those who may benefit from it.
May I add that some advocates of changes in welfare programs have suggested that when amendments are being made to one particular piece of welfare legislation an across the board survey should be made which would embrace war veterans allowances and assistance and legislation that has been enacted for the benefit of the blind, which in the latter case would cover the appeal now being made by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind whereby a specific allowance free from the means test would be granted to all blind adults to cover the costs of guiding and other essential expenses peculiar to blindness.
With regard to national health insurance, mlJch progress has been made in building up facilities and in the training of personnel. As we have talked at length about this before, I now have only one thing to add. Let us get on with further preparations as quickly as possible, and let us relax our demands on the provinces, for some of them just have not the resources for such a huge undertaking.
Among the major pieces of legislation to come before us this session is the proposed revision of the Dominion Succession Duty Act. Without going into detail, which would be more appropriate when the act is under consideration, I should like to draw attention to certain general provisions which seem to me to be unfair. First, I should like to recommend that in the case of a widow up to $50,000 of her husband's estate be a true exemption and not just an exemption that excludes from taxation estates under $50,000. At present if an estate is $50,000 or under no tax is levied, but if it is even one dollar over that amount the tax is levied on the entire estate.
A second objection to the present law is that when a widow has a survivor's pension or a life interest in an estate full succession duties, assuming normal life span, must be paid within four years in equal instalments.

The Address-Mr. Balcorn This may mean that the widow pays taxes on income she never receives if she dies before her allotted span of years. It amounts to double or triple taxation in any event, income tax on the original earnings, estate tax and then tax on the widow's income if she lives to receive the income.
A lot of these inequities would not be so severe if the wife were viewed as a married partner. It has been recommended that one-haif of a husband's estate should pass on to his widow free of duties. This seems to me a fair proposition provided a reasonable limit be fixed. I realize that there are many who are not so well off financially that they need worry about estate duties. In some cases when a man dies in his active working years some assistance could be given on the basis of unclaimed benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act. I ask the minister if consideration could be given to paying the unemployment benefits, to which a worker would have been entitled had he lived, to the widow and children.
Another matter of a similar nature relates to the payment of war veterans allowance and assistance. Those veterans of the first war who for one reason or another, in many cases not of their own doing, served in England but not in France or another theatre of war should be eligible for benefits under the War Veterans Allowance Act. These men and women, particularly of the early contingents, the first and second contingents, soldiered under great difficulties. They had to contend with mud, slush, cold, disease, veritably the conditions of the trenches. Anyone who was stationed in the early war years at Salisbury Plains, as the hon. member for Royal (Mr. Brooks) probably was, Westenhanger or Moore Plain, came home full of rheumatism, arthritis and allied diseases. They served under physical conditions as bad as if not worse than those which prevailed in England during the second world war and are, I suggest, entitled to the same consideration.
The constituency of Halifax which I have the honour to represent is of more than ordinary importance to the nation. The evidence of this is found in cold cash. Payments by the dominion government in lieu of taxation for 1955 were greatly increased and brought up more in line with the tax paid by the average citizen. Our high tax rate over the years can be attributed to the small share borne by the federal authorities, whose contributions were all out of proportion to the value receivted from the Halifax, Dartmouth and Halifax county [DOT] taxpayers.
I am sure the increase in these payments pleased the citizens of Halifax and the municipalities very much. In addition, the national
[Mr. Balcom.l

harbours board paid $75,000 in taxes to the city of Halifax. However, this payment is anything but in line with the tax they should pay in view of the fact that they control practically all the waterfront in Halifax. It was a great surprise to me that the payment was not at least double this amount, for it seems fantastic and all out of proportion for the national harbours board to be paying merely $75,000- In so doing they are adding to the burden of the individual taxpayer of Halifax, in particular the businessman who is already staggering under his tax load.
In spite of this shortchanging, the national harbours board is deserving of commendation for its endeavours in bringing the port of Halifax to a higher standard of efficiency each year. There is no doubt that this improvement has been a factor in the growth in the volume of business handled by the port. But more remains to be done, and I would urge that docking and handling facilities be maintained and extended to keep ahead of and create demand, as well as to meet any emergency such as war.
To give aid to the national harbours board and to assist in every way possible in promoting trade through our port, the city of Halifax has tried to do its part. About two years ago they organized the port of Halifax commission, the members all working without remuneration and doing a major job well in soliciting and directing traffic through our port and in advising the national harbours board management of the needs of a modern, efficient harbour.
In addition to our commission we also have a group of men, the finest in North America, whose aim is to assist the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marler) in his administration. I refer to the members of the Halifax longshoremen's association and other waterfront workers who efficiently load and unload ships in fair weather and foul, and give service far beyond the call of duty, thus expediting the business of the nation.
On several occasions in the past reference has been made to the volume of Canadian manufactured goods shipped through United States ports. One of the big-volume commodities using these channels is automobiles. As we all know the automobile industry is a highly protected one in Canada. Naturally we in Halifax would like to see this business come our way over Canadian railways.
We realize that there are many factors which determine the choice of a port of shipment and that the competition is very keen. Our facilities must be of a very high order and our * reputation for service must be first rate if . .we are to compete with the big

United States ports. Much depends upon our shipping companies and their employees, but they must have the very best port facilities with which to work. A port without adequate railway and air services is like the proverbial flower, "born to blush unseen".
Now that railway business has increased considerably, it is expected that the Canadian National Railways can afford express accommodation which is advanced beyond the village stage. The old wooden buildings constructed during the war of 1814-18, which serve as express sheds and offices, must be most inefficient for their operations. Certainly they give the appearance of makeshift arrangements, and I am sure they impose unnecessary burdens on the staff working there. They should be replaced by fireproof structures as early as possible. Condemned as a fire menace some years ago, their continued use must constitute a hazard to shippers, not to mention the effect on the morale of those employed.
This is an important year for Canada in the field of tariffs and trade. The GATT conference to take place shortly is of vital Concern to those as dependent on exports as are we in Nova Scotia. It is to be hoped that the tariff gains of the last few years can be held and that our relative position can be improved.
Another conference to which we look with great interest is the British Caribbean conference to be held in London in the near future. Canada has a particular interest in the hoped-for federation of the British West Indies, for here is another embryo organization which is, in a sense, following in our footsteps in its growth toward a firmer political and economic foundation. We have an interest in this matter as it is the evolution within the commonwealth of another group of territories taking steps, by peaceful means, toward the control of their own. affairs.
We have a very direct interest, too, in trade with this area. It is a natural market for some of our goods, and is of particular importance to the Atlantic provinces. Trade has been hampered not by lack of demand but by exchange difficulties in the whole sterling area. With federation, we can look for improvement in the economic position of the group of islands and for the growth of trade, a mutual advantage.
May I conclude by asking that a trade mission, whose specific aim would be to improve our trade in fish, be organized to go to the West Indies and to South America. I. suggest that it might be organized along the lines of that successful mission headed
67509-5i
The Address-Mr. Dupuis by the Minister of Trade and Commerce a year or so ago.
(Translation) :


Mr. Hector Dupuis (St. Mary):: Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of my remarks may I be permitted, not only because it is the custom but because the parties concerned deserve it, to offer my sincere congratulations to the mover (Mrs. Shipley) and the seconder (Mr. Laflamme) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne.
As for the latter, his name will be added to the long list of able public representatives and he has truly shown that he is a very gifted speaker. I know that his future will be a brilliant one and I beg him to accept my best wishes for a most prosperous career.
As for the hon. member for Timiskaming, we had had the opportunity of hearing her previously in the house. We knew she had talent, but she has proven once again that her constituents have reason to be proud of electing her as their representative in this house. However, as has already been said, her part in this debate has been a happy event, because it is the first time that a woman has been called upon to move the address. I want to congratulate the right hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) and the members of his cabinet for their thoughtful move, thereby taking official note of the increasing participation of women in public affairs.
Before making certain requests of particular concern to the district I represent, I would like to draw attention to some of the main features of the speech from the throne which is now under consideration.
Last year a disaster had been forecast, just as it was tonight by the spokesman of the Social predit party; I thought that Canada would again go through that period of great darkness that has left vivid memories in the minds of those who have gone through it or have heard about it. There are very few here tonight who have lived through that dark period.
According to the forecasts of the opposition, our economy was doomed, everything was going to ruin through the government's lack of foresight or because of the political party which, unfortunately for them, has now controlled the fortunes of this country for 20 years.

The Address-Mr. Dupuis
We had then heard the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) foretell, as he did today, these calamities; in spite of our present prosperity he tries again to dictate to us his policy.
We would ask the Leader of the Opposition a simple question. We would like to know what means are available to him to improve conditions further. We have put this same question every year since I have been a member of the house and yet I have never heard from the opposition a single suggestion likely to add, if this should prove possible, to the progress and prosperity achieved under the Liberal administrations which, one after the other for 20 years, have held power in this country.
For example, when it comes to helping the western farmers, as this government wants to, I ask the Leader of the Opposition to tell us by what other means we could help them. He says that there are many, but fails to mention any one in particular.
He also claims that our trade was not given the expansion which could reasonably have been expected and that we are not taking advantage of economic possibilities. I see him going, like former prime minister Mr. Bennett, with a load of t.n.t., to blast his way into commonwealth and other markets. We have already seen, on the other side of the house, some of those gallant champions of social and political economy but they have never pointed to any means likely to further improve present conditions.
Well, I remember that one day a member from the other side of the house told us: "We know of many ways of pulling the country out of its present depression, but we do not tell anybody, because we keep them for the hustings, for our political contests." Well, when people have good methods or know how we could further improve the situation, I think it is high treason against the nation if they do not make it their duty to show these methods to their colleagues in this house. However, we know only too well that the hon. members across the way have no suggestions to offer; they can only look enviously at the achievements of the party to which I have the honour and the advantage to belong and in which Canadians at large put their trust these last 20 years.
We will be asked to come to the assistance of the western farmers. Well, this shows once more that, in spite of what can be said in certain circles-certain circles which, by


the way, are growing ever more restricted- of the people of Quebec and of those who represent them, our fellow citizens will have noticed once more that we are not confined in our thinking to our own immediate surroundings, that there is nothing jingoistic about us, but that we are part of the great Canadian people, and that, as citizens of Quebec, we realize that we must help every part of the country which depends upon us to emerge from a difficult situation. Still, it is the Liberal party which has national unity as its aim. It is to this party, which some people are attempting to condemn, that those farmers who keep complaining, in spite of the very generous treatment they have received, will possibly owe their escape from bankruptcy this year or in years to come.
Last year we also heard the opposition, in plaintive tones and shedding many a crocodile tear-tears to which the hon. representative of the Social Credit party referred to a moment ago-harp regretfully on the theme of unemployment. I represent an electoral riding with a population made up of workers in the proportion of about 85 per cent, and I too was sorry last year that so many people were jobless. I belong to a family of 14 children, and my father was a worker. I therefore have a fellow-feeling for the workingman and I too was saddened by the plight of some families in the city where I live. This year, things took a turn for the better, but the situation is not yet what it should be.
I hope that one day things will settle in such a way that we shall be able in all seasons to guarantee work to those who are able to supply it. However, there again the government, mindful of the welfare of the country and especially of the labouring class, took steps to convince some industries to carry out works in winter rather than in other seasons because it is then that the majority of labourers are out of work. This attempt on the part of the government has had the result of greatly reducing the number of unemployed this year. If we compare the situation as it is today with that of years past, even if there are still a great many jobless, we note that never have workers had so much work. The situation today, even if there are still too many unemployed, is different from what it was 25 years ago, when, in thousands of homes, not a single person had a job, when neither the father nor the older children who were able to work could find employment.

That was real unemployment, when the whole family was out of a job. Today, you may, no doubt, see the father or one of the children out of work but there is always someone to bring home his earnings. Never have there been so many people with jobs. Moreover, there is no more of that anxiety that was felt by the workers during those periods to which I have referred. No longer are they afraid of not having enough to eat. All this is due to the social measures brought about by the Liberal government.
Today, the unemployed man has sons and daughters in gainful occupation. When he himself is unable to work, he can benefit from unemployment insurance, family allowances, and when he reaches a certain age, the old age pension.
Those are social measures which have not always been welcomed by our opponents. As a matter of fact, they have opposed them at all times.
Today, when a member of a family is unable to work, he may draw certain benefits which he did not receive when our friends opposite were handling this nation's business.
I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Gregg) for the special consideration he gave to the case submitted to him by the stevedores of Montreal and elsewhere who wanted to be treated like any other worker. They had been classified as seasonal workers; I note, however, that the government agreed to the humble request of the member for St. Mary. As a matter of fact, I conferred with the Minister of Labour and the administrators of the Unemployment Insurance Act. I am not saying that I alone was responsible for this result; I am pointing out that I am proud to have taken part in this effort. I am happy to thank the Minister of Labour on behalf of those workers who were really counting on these benefits in order to live through a period when they have much difficulty in finding work. For that matter, it is quite legitimate since I do not believe the stevedore's job is more seasonal than that of the construction worker, for instance, who does not work for a greater number of days during a year than a longshoreman in the Montreal harbour or elsewhere.
In any event, the Minister of Labour met the request of that class of workers and I am quite happy to have been in a position to contribute myself to securing the support of the Minister to that point of view. It is a further step taken by the Liberal party for the workers.
The Address-Mr. Dupuis
Now I shall touch on the federal provincial relations in the realm of taxation.
We already took cognizance of the offers made by the federal government. The provinces concerned will be studying them. Is there one member in this house, no matter where he sits, who is not willing to pay tribute to our great statesman, the present Prime Minister, who presided with extraordinary diplomacy over the sittings when the thorny problem of the distribution of revenue among the provinces was debated. Let us congratulate the right hon. the Prime Minister for the manner in which he conducted those talks. I also congratulate all the provincial premiers although I do not know them all-I know one of them-who maintained the atmosphere that should prevail in such circumstances. We can therefore hope that the problem will be settled to the satisfaction of all concerned.
Once again I wish to stress the generosity or the liberality-those terms are synonymous and they go well with the Liberal party -of the federal government's share in the construction of the trans-Canada highway, to which the federal government contributes 90 per cent. I need not analyse the intentions of the government of my province but, as a citizen of that province and as a member of this parliament, I have reason to wonder what prevents my own province-of course, I am not speaking for the government but in my own name-from benefiting from that 90 per cent of the cost of construction of that highway which, as we know, is already built in some Canadian provinces. I therefore express the hope, without trying to dictate a policy to anyone, that my province will accept this generous offer. Very many things have been said in that connection. We have heard about autonomy. Would the province of Ontario have sold its autonomy by accepting this 90 per cent on the construction of the trans-Canada highway? Neither the premier of that province nor any member of the party opposite has uttered the least protest on account of that 90 per cent. None of them has said that this would jeopardize the autonomy of the province. If the autonomy of my province were threatened, I would be the first to rise and state publicly that I disagree with any government who would attempt to interfere with its autonomy. There are perhaps reasons that we do not understand for which the province of Quebec refuses to accept that 90 per cent share of the cost of construction of the trans-Canada highway; I do not want to make any insinuation. If I had to repeat everything that I have heard in this connection, I suppose that some people would be unhappy about it;

The Address-Mr. Dupuis I think that the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Balcer) would not like it very much.
We must also emphasize particularly the amendments which can be made to the housing act with respect to unsanitary dwellings.
Once more, and it is my duty to say so, I must say how sorry I am that the province of Quebec and the city of Montreal have not used the means put at their disposal in order to bring about slum clearance. I hope that they will avail themselves of the opportunity to do so offered them at this time by the extension of the provisions of the act and the increase in the amount of the subsidy. I would like to be allowed to offer a few suggestions along this line.
In my constituency there may be found homes which are really a menace to the health, if not to the morals of those who live there, especially the children. To my mind the problem has not been attacked in the proper way. The point is not so much to clear slums but, first and foremost-I repeat this once more

to find a way to provide, at a reasonable rent, sufficiently large homes for large families.
There is a project under discussion in Montreal at the present time. I do not know if it has been approved definitely. It may have been. I refer to the project bearing the name of a commissioner of the city of Montreal. It is proposed to clear out, in this particular district, a number of slums. On that point there is agreement. However, no solution is brought to the problem of large families, to sanitary and moral conditions, by building seven-storey tenements in a sector as unsanitary as the block bounded by St. Denis, St. Lawrence, De Montigny and Ontario streets. If this is the way to solve the slum problem, then, I do not know anything about it. Apartments will no doubt be cleaner, but will sanitary conditions be improved by crowding adults and children in a rather restricted sector? Just imagine the chore of the mother of the family lodging on the sixth or seventh floor. Just imagine the promiscuousness of all these people in the same building.
To my mind, the solution of the problem of healthy housing lies in a way-and it is possible under the present legislation-which would allow us to put a tenant, if it has to be so, or a home owner in a house of his own where he could breathe fresh air in surroundings where children can grow up properly. The plan is not without merit of course, but I do not favour the carrying out of such a plan for the solution of the slum clearance problem.

I hope once again-and I wonder why more has not been done so far-that the province of Quebec and the city of Montreal will go ahead, will make great strides, and as quickly as possible, to take advantage of that legislation which can materially improve the living conditions which are the lot of some people.
Now we all have noted, more specifically the member for Hamilton West (Mrs. Fair-clough), the fact that the government had decided women will receive equal pay for equal work. For 25 years I have been in public life and I have been advocating such a step, and that is the reason why last year I did not hesitate to support by my words and by my vote as well the motion which was then before the house.
This is what I said last year:
My opinion is that there should be no discrimination in the treatment meted out to women or men. Human rights have already been discussed in this house. This question will be referred to again, and, in my opinion, we should give the women of our country equal pay for equal work.
Well, this measure has been included in the policy of the government, which recognizes that it has to be extended to the fields under its jurisdiction. I have been sponsoring a motion of this kind for the past 25 years, and I do not hesitate to express to the government my most sincere appreciation for its gesture in this instance.
Now, before referring to two questions, of which one at least is of particular interest to me, may I be allowed to add my congratulations to those already conveyed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin) for the leading part he has played recently in the United Nations Organization. It is fortunate that the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson), who cannot be everywhere at once, is able to choose a substitute, and one who fulfils his task very well indeed, probably because both are in such excellent agreement. As a matter of fact the foreign press is forever praising them. While again congratulating the Minister of National Health and Welfare for his recent participation in the United Nations discussions and the success he reaped there, I also indirectly congratulate the Secretary of State for External Affairs, who has been able to build up an enviable reputation in his own sphere at home as well as throughout the world.
I do not know whether the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marler) will scold me-I doubt

he will, though-but once more I want to draw his attention to the question of bridges, and more particularly the Jacques Cartier bridge. I must in the first place congratulate him for widening the carriage roads, and I hope both the city of Montreal and the province of Quebec will make the necessary improvements to the approaches at both ends of the bridge.


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: Are you talking about the Three Rivers bridge?


Hector Dupuis: At Three Rivers, the second bridge is being rebuilt.
The Minister of Transport told me recently in a private conversation that Montreal will have a new bridge. I congratulate him on that. Unmistakably, that is imperative. It will be a toll bridge like certain bridges which were built after the Jacques Cartier bridge.
I must also put several questions on the order paper. I will not labour the point, but some people hold the view that we cannot do away with the toll on that bridge. Maybe we shall discuss the issue later on, but I do not have the time tonight; however, let us take for granted the toll will be maintained. I wonder if it would not be advisable to have standard rates for the whole island of Montreal. I think it would be advisable also to consider having a toll only on cars and not on their passengers. The reason for that suggestion is quite simple when we realize that 38,000 people use the Jacques Cartier bridge to go to work in Montreal, while some 10 or 15 years ago there were perhaps only 8,000 who used it, and that these workers, who cannot make a living in the small communities where they live, come to Montreal, the metropolis, to work and have to pay every day, besides their street car tickets, a toll on the car in which they sometimes ride free, but not always. In addition all the American tourists and many other travellers have to pay the tolls. In my opinion that should be abolished in order to do away as much as possible with the bothersome task of collecting tickets. I believe that the suggestion of collecting only for the automobile deserves special attention from the Minister of Transport and from the government.
Now, needless to say, in my humble opinion there are many reasons why the tolls should be abolished altogether. But on the other hand I do not know whether the province of Quebec, which is a party to the contract, would agree to change the contract, because I have been told that all the replies
The Address-Mr. Dupuis which should have been received from the provincial authorities on this matter of tolls have not yet been received.
There is another matter which I would like to mention but I am somewhat reluctant to do so, Mr. Speaker, not so much on account of the principle involved but because it might be said in certain quarters that I intend, through the following remarks, to raise a racial matter. I wish to draw the attention of this house and of the government -it is my duty to do so-to the fact that, in the matter of bilingualism, although great improvements have been achieved under the Liberal party, there is still much to be done, more particularly in the matter of telephone exchanges.
I believe that the Bell Telephone Company should be able to provide operators who speak English and French equally well in order to avoid trouble to people who do not speak English and who, sometimes, are unable to reach those to whom they want to speak. For long distance calls, one is asked to wait for a French-speaking operator, which adds to the delay in putting the call through. Ottawa, which boasts of being an intelligent city, a practical, intellectual city, all of which is quite true-and it is quite true and I am not speaking of the quality of the administrators because I do not know them.


An hon. Member:: Do you mean Charlotte?


Hector Dupuis: I only know her by name. I have heard various things about her. In any event I have nothing to add. I might leave that to one of my colleagues with whom she has had some differences of opinion on certain occasions.
But Ottawa, which fancies itself to be an intelligent city and which, in fact, is a practical, intellectual and intelligent community, should understand that it is in its interest, in a field like that of telephone communications, to see that its operators should at least speak the two official languages of this country.
I would like to give you a few amusing details. I have personally tried to make myself understood in French by pronouncing the names of certain French members sitting in this house-if I were to name them, you could see how easy it is to pronounce these names-but I was unable to get in touch with the person I wished to call up precisely because it was a French name. That is regrettable. However, I do not blame only the government and we certainly have no lesson to take from the other side of the house as regards bilingualism in official positions. How-

The Address-Mr. Dupuis ever, there is room for considerable improvement in this situation. Thus a person from the country, who is not without intelligence but who cannot speak English, can in no way be put in touch with someone when telephoning to Ottawa because that person speaks only French. It seems to me that there is a gap that should be filled, which would add to the beneficent measures of a government which has reached near-perfection as regards wise administration.
I hope that my remarks will be taken in good part and given effect to by the officers of the Bell Telephone Company, which will enable them to ensure an excellent bilingual service in Ottawa, contributing at the same time to making it a more efficient one.
Since Mr. Speaker is now in the chair, I conclude my remarks by extending to him my best wishes for the new year, as I have not yet had an opportunity of meeting him personally, due to the fact that other occupations are now taking all my time. Some of you know what I mean. At the same time, he will allow me to emphasize his fairmindedness and his vast knowledge, and the way he discharges his duties, which make him one of the greatest of the House of Commons Speakers Canada has ever known.

As to the right hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent)-having no portfolio to ask for myself, although I would not refuse one- he will allow me to extend to him publicly the tribute of the workers' representative of a Montreal constituency. I want to tell him how everybody admires his way of handling public business. First of all, he is one of the greatest Canadians we have ever known and, though I run the risk of repeating myself, I think that the best way to describe him is to say that he certainly is the greatest champion of national unity we have ever known.


Mr. Speaker:: Before moving the adjournment, and as we have read in the papers that the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr. Dupuis) is getting married this coming Saturday, may I extend to him our sincere congratulations and ask him to convey our respects to his future wife. Our best wishes to both of them.
(Text) :
On motion of Mr. Robinson (Bruce) the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Harris the house adjourned at 9.56 p.m.

Friday, January 13, 1956